Last Wednesday, President Trump issued a new Executive Order directing federal agencies to encourage artificial intelligence literacy in America’s K-12 school system. The administration rightly noticed that AI is changing how teachers teach and how students learn while also contributing to the widespread debate on what role AI should play in education. It should play a large one.
Research finds that proper use of AI under effective teacher supervision can supercharge learning—not inhibit it—opening doors to undo pandemic-induced learning loss while also helping teachers save time and deliver more personal instruction.
The current education situation is daunting. Research finds “the average U.S. student remained nearly half a grade level behind pre-pandemic achievement in both math and reading.” This lag was made possible in part by the long-standing teacher shortage that predated the pandemic and has worsened since. The National Education Association finds that the gap between teacher hires to job openings has been widening drastically between 2020 and 2022. Quitting accounts for most of the gap, highlighting retention problems as the largest factor behind the shortage, reportedly costing school districts an average of $25,000 per departing teacher.
Teachers could use a lifeline—and AI can provide it.
In 2024, the NEA reported 83 percent of K-12 teachers were using AI to speed up administrative work, enabling them to “redirect time toward meaningful instruction.” AIPRM (an AI prompt response management company) reports that AI reduces time spent grading by 70 percent.
Paperwork is one of the largest sources of teacher burnout—but it does not need to be this way. Teachers can use AI to complete their behind-the-scenes tasks much more quickly, freeing up time for them to unplug from work and spend more time with their families. Not bogged down by busy administrative work, teachers can spend more time on actual classroom instruction and management, fully engaging in what drew them to their profession in the first place—teaching. It is the students who benefit most.
As reports in Texas found, AI tutors, with human teacher supervision, can be a big help, rocketing students’ test scores into the top 2 percent in the country. The World Bank found similarly astonishing results globally during a six-week study in Nigeria. Students who received teacher supervision in their AI-powered learning experienced large boosts equivalent to 2 years of typical learning gains in English, AI literacy, and digital skills. Teachers still have an important role to play. As they use AI to improve regular lessons, they can also help catch and correct any inaccuracies in students’ AI tutors.
The reality is that students are going to use AI whether teachers are involved or not. Data from 2024 shows that 86 percent of students already use AI in their schoolwork. Policymakers should not try to overcome inertia by banning AI—that would be a self-defeating proposition—but they should be looking for ways to proactively help teachers plug into those increasingly technical interactions to ensure accurate, accelerated learning.
Effective teachers really do make the difference—and AI makes their role even more important. Economic research shows that better teachers increase students’ chances of going to college, earning higher salaries, and could increase a student’s lifetime income by about $250,000. By helping teachers incorporate AI into their classrooms, policymakers can give teachers the tools and freedom they need to ramp up their effectiveness and significantly impact their students’ futures.
The potential gains for both teachers and students are clear—and states are beginning to learn more. Utah, for example, is considering a task force to facilitate AI rollout into its classrooms, then getting out of the way and disbanding the task force in 2028. California passed a law in September 2024, requiring its Instructional Quality Commission to consider incorporating AI literacy content into school curricula. These proposals rightly focus on training and resources for teachers to develop their AI literacy. This is the way forward.
Texas, on the other hand, got it backward when it called for an outright ban on artificial intelligence in the classroom. Such a drastic restriction jeopardizes students’ learning and career futures as the job market becomes increasingly reliant on good AI and digital literacy skills. Stubborn adherence to the status quo is not the correct response to AI. Policymakers should prioritize agility and dynamism instead.
The pandemic—and the response to it—set learning back and exacerbated the existing teacher shortage drastically. Teachers can find a lifeline in artificial intelligence and help catch their students back up by directing responsible AI use in the classroom. With the new executive order, decisionmakers should consider these key takeaways as they seek ways to provide training and resources for teachers to better guide AI use in their classrooms.
Nate Karren is a policy analyst with the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. For more information about the Institute, follow us on X @ConsumerPal.