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Educators should seriously consider a pause on AI in classrooms

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by Pedro Noguera, opinion contributor - 04/09/26 8:30 AM ET

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by Pedro Noguera, opinion contributor - 04/09/26 8:30 AM ET

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Teacher Adam Gravenor hands out lesson sheets he created with the help of AI technology to accompany the class textbook at Coronado High School in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Nov. 17, 2025. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

The recent court rulings holding Meta and YouTube liable for the harmful effects of social media addiction on children should serve as a wake-up call to the nation, especially the education sector.

Instead of racing to adopt and implement the latest in artificial intelligence, it would be wise to ask for evidence on how these tools will affect the academic and developmental needs of students before they are widely implemented.

The courts have now confirmed what researchers and parents have long suspected: Widespread use of social media may harm the mental health of users, particularly those under the age of 18. Several nations have passed laws making it illegal for children under 16 to access social media platforms. Unfortunately, court rulings and regulations are only now being enacted, long after evidence of harm to young people has become clear. 

Education has been down this road before. Even before the 2024 publication of Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation,” several school districts saw the need to enact a ban on cell phones.  Without rigorous research to reference, district leaders trusted their own observations. Cell phones were contributing to distractions in the classroom, physical altercations and new forms of online bullying. 

It is important for educators and parents to trust their observations once again as AI is being adopted by schools and colleges throughout the nation. Without the benefit of research guiding decisions about appropriate use, the possibility that AI tools will have harmful effects on the academic preparation of students is a risk that should not be dismissed. 

We don’t have answers to a number of questions about the ethical use of AI, particularly as it pertains to plagiarism, copyright infringements and what constitutes “original work” when AI tools are used. We have little evidence about when AI tutors or teachers should be used to replace humans. And we know very little about what must be done to ensure that vital content knowledge and problem-solving skills won’t get lost as students become more reliant on technology. 

In health care, AI companies have worked closely with medical professionals and researchers to develop new tools for diagnosis and groundbreaking new remedies to address chronic illnesses. This hasn’t happened in education. Rather than working with educators to design new products and subjecting them to rigorous evaluation and controlled studies before they are widely introduced, the tech companies have treated the education sector as an uninformed market to be exploited.        

Policymakers have been slow in putting reasonable guardrails in place, and it is likely to take years before the courts step in to address evidence of harm. Educators must use their power as consumers to slow things down and ask basic questions about how technology will be used before widespread adoption.  

This is not an argument against the use of education technology. During the pandemic, millions of students relied heavily on virtual learning platforms to facilitate access to education while schools and colleges were closed. This is just one of many positive examples of how technology can be used well. 

However, in its aftermath, some schools rely upon screens for most aspects of learning, even for children as young as five. One-to-one screen availability has been heralded as an achievement, but we have no awareness of how student learning and socialization may be affected by prolonged screen time.  

Schools and colleges are rapidly embracing AI as though they are in a race, with little understanding of how it will impact the quality of learning experiences. Many students are already using many of these tools and are often more adept with them than their teachers, who are also using them. Meanwhile, tech companies actively market their services and tools, and sometimes even give their products away for free, in the hope that such investments will lead to further penetration of the education market in the future. 

Economists have warned that AI will eliminate many jobs. One does not need a crystal ball to imagine that AI may soon be used to replace teacher