Right now, an active group of Bend-La Pine Schools parents, educators and educational experts are pressing the district to slow its roll on using artificial intelligence tools with students in the classroom. BLPS adopted a policy around AI last year, which outlines a few points on how teachers may use AI with students, but it’s lacking in detail and puts the onus on the teacher to develop rules and communicate expectations to students.
If this notion of having educators be the standard-bearers for a technology that has massive potential for disruption in the classroom seems eerily familiar, it’s because we’ve been here before.
It was not so very long ago that a movement arose to ban cell phone use during the school day in local schools. Many teachers advocated for a statewide policy that would help them enforce the rules and alleviate the issue of rules being enforced in one classroom and not another. Resolution came in the form of a governor’s executive order, banning widespread phone access during the school day.
Chat GPT was released just three years ago, and things moved fast. During the 20204-25 school year, 85% of teachers and 86% of students reported using AI, according to an October report released by the Center for Democracy and Technology.
That report outlines the heightened risks for students, including tech-enabled sexual harassment and bullying, AI systems that don’t work as intended, data breaches and ransomware attacks and “troubling interactions between students and technology.”
Another study published by The Brookings Institution in January found that at this point, “the risks of utilizing generative AI in children’s education overshadow its benefits.” That global study involved review of 400+ studies and consultations with over 500 students, parents, educators and technologists in 50 countries, finding that “AI-enriched learning” can offer benefits when part of an “overall pedagogically sound approach” – but also pointing out that “overreliance on AI tools and platforms can put children and youth’s fundamental learning capacity at risk.” Other studies have shown a potential for cognitive decline in humans due to the use of AI.
Educators meanwhile are finding benefit by using AI for admin tasks, such as grading, student records and lesson planning. In the best-case scenario, this frees them up to spend more time building relationships with students.
But when it comes to the youngest developing brains, a cautious approach should lead.
In the case of BLPS, it seems more cross-communication is also needed. As OPB recently reported, BLPS defended its use of an AI chatbot called Raina on student iPads during a recent school board meeting, even after that chatbot was retired from student use last month by the company that makes the chatbot. At the Feb. 10 meeting, the district’s technology director called its technology approach “intentional,” all while being seemingly unaware of Raina’s removal.
If that’s the “intentional” approach the district is taking, it’s no wonder people are concerned.
As was the case for the cell phone policy, perhaps this is an issue that is best moved up the chain — to the state level, where concentrated effort could be made to assess and recommend tools and processes that help keep kids safe and best equipped to make strides in learning.
If that sounds a bit too much like an abandonment of local control, well, in this case, so be it. As much as some districts may be ready and willing to embrace AI and invest in richer tools for the educational space, other districts simply won’t be able to.
“As schools continue to embrace AI, it’s important that underfunded districts in marginalized communities are not left behind, allowing AI to further drive inequity,” the Brookings Institution study stated.
Uneven rollout of technologies has the potential to exacerbate the urban-rural divide we already see in Oregon schools. That divide, as has been suggested in recent reporting by Oregon Journalism Project, may be one of the reasons for Oregon’s abysmally low graduation rates and reading scores.
“Oregon’s devotion to local control, instead of mandated statewide educational policies, has hindered reading recovery efforts that have worked elsewhere, according to some school leaders, experts, and advocates, and a review of education research,” OJP reported.
The state currently has some guidelines around the use of AI, but they have no real teeth.
As Oregonians begin to understand what’s gone wrong in the past to leave our kids so far behind their peers around the country, it’s clear we need to try something different. As that conversation gets going, it would be wise to incorporate targeted, measurable and meaningful technology policies to go along with it. A statewide consensus would help.
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