Tools and Tradeoffs: Can AI Rebuild the Middle Class?
My takeaways from ASU+GSV, new research, and emerging school use cases
I’ve just returned from San Diego after spending several days at the ASU+GSV Summit, where more than 6,000 people gathered for all things ed tech and AI. Two main themes struck me this year. One: Tech companies have developed an overwhelming array of AI-driven tools with little apparent connection to what we know works to accelerate student learning. Two: At the same time, many others are having thoughtful discussions and making investments to shift the market toward quality and evidence-based practices to better align supply with demand from end users. Here are the bits I gathered from panels and conversations:
There is a lot of consensus around the need for targeted R&D, especially in light of the current state of federal research investments. We’ve been writing about this as well. In my view, a solid R&D agenda would also include qualitative implementation research, as we know quality often depends on staying true to research findings and pivoting when necessary.
I heard a lot about ensuring there are high-quality “inputs” in AI tools. CZI announced a platform that will connect tool developers to the science of learning best practices.
Funders seem increasingly inclined to put outcome measures in their grant agreements (thankfully), and there is a lot of discussion and new guidance about outcome-based contracting.
There was much discussion, too, about helping school districts (the primary purchasers of edtech) become smarter consumers of tech tools. ISTE will now give preferential conference showcasing space to vendors with demonstrated validation and is providing tips for questions buyers should ask vendors.
I heard some pushes (and made some myself) for the edtech community to better understand the problems educators, families, and school districts face and prioritize solving those problems.
I heard far too little about how AI is likely to affect the economy, access to living wage jobs, and society—and how these effects may impact education.
I think we will see consolidation in the market soon, and I sure hope it’s around quality. The sector urgently needs solutions, and investors and buyers will be the ones to determine whether or not AI lives up to its promise in education.
New Research
The big takeaways here:
Gen Z feels ill-equipped for the AI world,
Districts, especially those serving high-poverty students, need more help with AI teacher training, and
A creative study of AI-enabled team productivity in business has potential implications for education.
Gen Z feels unprepared for AI
A new survey of Gen Z by Gallup, Walton Family Foundation, and GSV finds:
Four in 10 (41%) Gen Zers feel anxious about AI, pointing to a growing disconnect between their AI exposure and the guidance they receive from schools and employers.
Young people who do have clear guidance feel more confident in their abilities. Students who say their schools allow AI use are 25% more likely to feel prepared to use the technology after graduation than those whose schools do not allow AI (57% versus. 32%).
Over four in 10 (44%) believe they will need to know how to use AI in their future careers, and over half (52%) say schools should be required to teach them how to use it.
Despite this, only 28% report that their school explicitly allows AI use, and nearly half (49%) say their school has no policy or they are unsure if one exists.
Nearly half (47%) of students say they have avoided using AI in schoolwork because they were not sure if it was allowed.
“This survey data is a wake-up call. Gen Z is already living in an AI-powered world, but the systems meant to prepare them—schools and employers—have work to do to catch up,” said Jason Horne, Partner and Co-President at GSV. “We have a responsibility to turn their anxiety into agency, with real training, clear policies, and opportunities to lead in this new era.”
Districts need more help with AI teacher training
CRPE and RAND have a new research note out this week on how districts are training teachers to use AI. Some of the headlines:
In the fall of 2024, roughly half of the districts reported that they had provided training for their teachers about AI-powered tools, such as ChatGPT. This is double the proportion of districts who reported they had done so the previous fall.
Another quarter of districts reported plans to provide such training for the first time during the 2024–2025 school year.
According to district reports, low-poverty districts continue to outpace their higher-poverty counterparts in training teachers on AI use.
In interviews, district leaders said that they focused initial training on addressing teacher fear and discomfort with AI rather than jumping right into instructional tools.
Many district leaders with whom we spoke had adopted a do-it-yourself approach after struggling to find external partners to provide appropriate training.
The report calls for more attention from training and support organizations to help reduce educators’ initial fear and reluctance to use AI. It also calls for additional support for districts that serve students in high-poverty schools (read: urban and rural districts).
AI can be a strong teammate
This fascinating study by Ethan Mollick and colleagues shows that working with AI (using structured prompts) can boost business productivity, lead to less siloed solutions, and even provide emotional support. I can’t stop thinking about how such an experiment might be replicated in education, a remarkably siloed and isolated profession. Imagine how it might apply to strategic staffing initiatives or special education, for example.
The study examines how artificial intelligence transforms the core pillars of collaboration—performance, expertise sharing, and social engagement.
Working on real product innovation challenges, professionals were randomly assigned to work either with or without AI, and either individually or with another professional in new product development teams.
AI significantly enhanced performance: individuals with AI matched the performance of teams without AI, demonstrating that AI can effectively replicate certain benefits of human collaboration.
Moreover, AI breaks down functional silos. Professionals using AI produced balanced solutions, regardless of their professional background.
Finally, AI’s language-based interface prompted more positive self-reported emotional responses among participants, suggesting it can fulfill part of the social and motivational role traditionally offered by human teammates.
The results suggest that AI adoption at scale in knowledge work reshapes not only performance but also how expertise and social connectivity manifest within teams, compelling organizations to rethink the very structure of collaborative work.
You can read Mollick’s post about it here.
Other Notable New Reports and Analyses
AI is changing the job market… and it has implications for education schools, education standards, and more.
From a really interesting new survey and report by Jobs for the Future (JFF):
“Survey findings indicate that while interest in and use of AI are growing in learning, at work, and for career advancement—especially among people of color—notable gaps, barriers to access, and challenges remain. Both education and workforce systems must address these disparities to ensure that AI’s potential for improving people’s quality of work and quality of life reaches everyone.”
At ASU+GSV, I had the pleasure of being part of a panel with Alex Swartzel (JFF), Jeff Livingston, and Rachael Janfaza. We discussed the skills future jobs will require and the implications for what we teach students. We talked about the ways AI could improve opportunities for middle-class job creation or harm it. One big takeaway: we all saw the need for much more intentional design to match AI tools with strategies to accelerate opportunities for youth, especially those from marginalized populations.
CRPE analyst Steven Weiner and yours truly also published this commentary presenting findings from our recent studies of professional development for educators around AI and urging schools of education to adapt to the new realities of teaching and learning:
“The rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence is exposing a glaring disconnect in teacher preparation. While forward-thinking superintendents are rolling up their sleeves to build AI literacy among teachers, college programs tasked with preparing the next generation of educators are largely absent from the conversation. This isn’t just a missed opportunity; it is an existential crisis for teacher prep programs.”
Emerging Classroom and School Use Cases
Lynwood USD in California, one of our AI Early Adopter districts, has developed a hub for chatbots created by teachers in the district. Many of the bots were made using Playlab, and the hub site also gives resources for teachers who want to create bots of their own. Lynwood teachers presented this at the ASU+GSV AI Show this year. Cool stuff!
Last month, the CRPE team also attended the Silicon Schools Fund Demo Day (an event marking the culmination of a cohort organized by Silicon Schools Fund, where teachers and school teams experimented with how AI tools could help them solve a problem of practice). Here are some promising emerging classroom uses:
At Westlake Charter, Sally Hubbard used an AI tool, OKO Labs, to boost middle school student engagement in math through collaborative small-group learning and saw an increase in winter MAP scores.
A team at East Bay Innovation Academy reported that their AI capstone planning tool saved teachers a significant amount of time, allowing an interdisciplinary team to accomplish a week’s worth of collaborative work in just one eight-hour professional development session.
Kevin Groh, a high school English teacher at Design Tech High School, remade his curriculum after sensing that AI would make his previous one less relevant. Now, students work on long-form narrative fiction, up to 100 pages, during the course of the class. They plan, write, and edit their pieces with the help of an AI writing coach Groh developed.
AI Advancements from Other Sectors
Check out this recent article from the BBC: “A complex problem that took microbiologists a decade to get to the bottom of has been solved in just two days by a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool.”
New funding initiative
The Schultz Family Foundation is investing over $3 million to support AI-powered career navigation tools aimed at boosting economic mobility for young adults. Anchoring the initiative is CareerNet, developed by Renaissance Philanthropy, which will create AI benchmarks to spur innovation in career guidance tools.
Final Words
“There are people that are claiming to have the best practices and are making money hand over fist. A lot of the [AI] workshops that I’ve attended, I’ve just come out of feeling like, “Okay, that was a waste of time and money.” I just want to tell everybody that if they claim to be telling you best practices, they don’t have them yet. They don’t exist yet.”
A district leader quoted in “More Districts Are Training Teachers on Artificial Intelligence: Findings from the American School District Panel”