"Building an AI-Ready America: Teaching in the AI Age"
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House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education U.S. House of Representatives
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 2
Chronic underfunding of public education and cuts to funding for professional development contribute to widening achievement gaps. Many teachers are turning to AI to lighten their load, to help them, and some use AI to create lesson plans, to translate languages, and to provide personalized instruction, as I mentioned. Those can be beneficial if done properly by educators who have received appropriate knowledge and training. But, unfortunately, that's not what is happening. For example, in a full committee hearing just last month on 01/24/2026, Alexandra Reed Gibbons from the Center for Democracy and Technology testified that one third of students report having personal conversations with AI using school-provided devices or platforms, but only one in 10 teachers had training or information about how to respond if they suspect a student's AI use is detrimental to their well-being.
Miss Reeve Givens also testified that in one study, half of students agreed that using AI in class makes them feel less connected to their teacher, and 7 in 10 teachers worried that AI weakens important skills that students need to learn. I would like to enter the testimony of Miss Reeve Givens into the record.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Many concerns have been raised about the possibility of AI affecting critical thinking, as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, and I share that concern. I understand that today we are discussing K-12 education, but it's important to note that many tech companies are now hiring humanities majors because they can think critically and creatively. For example, Daniela Amade, the president and cofounder of Anthropic, studied literature, and here's what she said. Her company looks for great communicators, high emotional intelligence, kindness, compassion, curiosity, and people who want to help others.
I'd like to enter into the record an article from Business Insider titled "Anthropic cofounder said she doesn't regret her literature major and says AI will make humanities majors more important."
Speaker 2
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I bring that up today because that kind of learning starts early, and it's important to today's conversation. I'm working on a comprehensive human-centered framework to address AI education and workforce readiness. And among other things, my bill will support educator and institutional readiness by promoting professional development, evidence-based practices, shared resources for responsible AI use, and model curricula backed by research on AI's effects on teaching and learning. My framework recognizes educators are essential to a thriving workforce and provides resources for schools to adapt AI thoughtfully and responsibly without federal mandates on curriculum or pedagogy.
The rising use of AI in schools and in society without federal oversight is indicative of a wider problem. Without proper funding and resources, overwhelmed educators may be left with little choice but to use under-resourced and under-researched technologies to try to meet their goals. Unfortunately, instead of using our power in Congress to help teachers and schools, my Republican colleagues appear to support the Trump administration's dismantling of the Department of Education, which I note eliminated the Office of Educational Technology and illegally withheld education funds from states. This issue has serious short-term and long-term consequences. The Department of Education should play a pivotal role in helping to close achievement gaps so all students can have access to high-quality public education, and that includes funding professional development.
Historically, the department has helped provide critical resources to assist states, schools, and districts in navigating technological challenges. And what this administration has done to the department has diminished or even obliterated its capacity to provide these resources. So if we're serious about helping those who choose to leverage AI in classrooms to close achievement gaps. All students and teachers must have access to these tools. I represent a lot of rural communities, and I'll tell you the department uses Title One funds to provide resources to schools that need it the most, including rural and underserved communities.
And according to the National Education Association, at least 16,000,000 students still live without access to the resources necessary for technology education. Without the department's leadership, or without the department, many schools, particularly in less affluent areas, will go without new technologies. This will likely further widen achievement gaps and leave more children behind. And we must also be vigilant that the AI tools teachers use to prepare lessons and instruct students do not reinforce existing biases or discrimination. Bias in AI algorithms could lead to unfair decision-making in how and what students need in the classroom.
If left unchecked, this could have catastrophic effects on millions of students and teachers. Our role in Congress should be straightforward but far from simple. A public school system in which every student has access to high-quality education. So Congress must rise to the occasion, provide responsible guardrails for the use of AI in classrooms, increase federal investment in education, and particularly technology education, and see that teachers are paid a fair salary. So with that in mind, I would like to enter into the record the American Federation of Teachers' common-sense guardrails for using advanced technology in schools.
It's a report into the record.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's often said that education is a calling. House Democrats will continue to fight to give teachers and students the resources and tools they need to fulfill that calling and provide the best education to students today, tomorrow, and for generations to come. I look forward to the testimony, and yield back.
Speaker 1
Pursuant to committee rule 8c, all members who wish to insert written statements into the record may do so by submitting them to the committee electronically in Microsoft Word format by 5PM 14 days after this hearing. And without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 14 days to allow such statements and other extraneous material noted during the hearing to be submitted for the official hearing record. I'll now introduce our witnesses. Our first witness is Miss Michelle Blatt, the state superintendent of schools for the West Virginia Department of Education in Charleston, West Virginia. Our second witness is Mister Anish Sohoni, CEO of Teach For America in New York City.
Our third witness is doctor David Slykeis, representing the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education from Valdosta, Georgia. And our fourth witness is Missus Allison Knox, senior director of education and workforce policy at Microsoft in Washington, DC. We thank the witnesses for being here today, and we look forward to your testimony. Pursuant to committee rules, I would ask you each to limit your oral presentation to a three-minute summary of your written statement. As committee members have many questions for you, the clock will count down from 3 minutes.
However, pursuant to committee rule eight d and committee practice, we will not cut off your testimony until you reach the 5-minute mark. I'd also like to remind the witnesses to be aware of your responsibility to provide accurate information to the subcommittee. With that, I will first recognize Miss Blat for your testimony.
Speaker 4
Chairman Kiley, ranking member Bonamiche and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today as the 34th state superintendent of schools in West Virginia, provide strategic leadership for our public education system to implement our statewide priorities. I am also a member of the board of directors for the Council of the Chief State School Officers. Our teachers are excited about the cost time saving that they have seen with the use of AI, as you mentioned in your opening remarks, to differentiate instruction for our students and develop lesson plans that have engaging activities and are able to meet the needs of our students. West Virginia currently has about, is West, excuse me.
West Virginia currently has more teachers participating in the Microsoft Copilot teach module than any other state, and this is a tool that allows them to insert the grade level, the standards they wish to teach, to get a variety of lesson plans and activities that they are able to implement in their classrooms. While these resources are very beneficial to our teachers, and time saving has already been mentioned, it's important to remember that AI in the classroom will never replace our teachers. It is important that we continue with our teachers to provide that meaningful relationship that is so important in our classroom experience. Our students also rely on our teachers to be guided on the effective use of artificial intelligence. So we encourage our teachers to provide these experiences for students in a safe space, where they can learn.
If you walked into some of our middle school classrooms today, you would see students what appears to be playing Minecraft, when in reality, they are going through a series of lessons from the prodigy learning modules on understanding AI and safe use of AI. Our superintendents association has also spent a great deal of time learning over the past year about the resources to help them more effectively do their job when it comes to data analysis and administrative tasks. And all of these things have been beneficial to allow our administrators and superintendents to get out into the schools and do more engagement with our students. Our guidance that we adopted in West Virginia in 2024 allowed us to begin to put some guardrails and some cautions on the information that our schools were receiving on AI. We chose to do guidance due to the fact that we knew this was a quickly changing world for artificial intelligence, and we did not want to be not able to adjust quickly on the guidance that we needed out in our schools.
We've since adjusted and done some edits twice to our guidance documents, as new things have come up. We also completed a stakeholder survey where we had our school and district staff, along with family and communicator communities, tell us what they want to do with AI. 97% of those respondents wanted to make sure that we were keeping literacy, numeracy, and critical thinking skills in place. However, they were also quick to point out that they did not want to limit too much of the AI technology, because they knew our students would need that to be prepared for jobs in the future. Our experience has shown that this flexibility that we're providing to our states and districts has really worked out for our schools.
We're able to add resources quickly. We're able to make changes, and we're able to provide the supports that our teachers need for effective implementation. We strongly believe that the work that we do with our districts is better than what we mandate for our districts. And so we're eager to continue working with our districts to expand the effective use of AI. And I thank you again for the opportunity to be here, to share the great work we're doing, and answer any questions you may have.
Speaker 5
Chairman Kiley, ranking member Badamichi, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on teaching in the age of AI. My name is Anish Sahoni, and I serve as the chief executive officer of Teach for America, a national nonprofit focused on expanding access to an excellent education for all children. I'm a former teacher. I've worked in schools, school systems, and education organizations for my entire career.
And for over 35 years, Teach for America has been recruiting and developing high impact educators, and have fostered a network of more than 72,000 education leaders nationwide serving in 37 states and the District of Columbia. As has been shared already, we are in a moment of rapid change in education. AI is already present in classrooms. Three years ago, we saw how quickly this technology was evolving and began to consider how we'll prepare teachers and students to use this technology thoughtfully and responsibly. Through that work, a few clear lessons have emerged.
First, AI cannot replace teachers. AI is a tool, not the primary driver of learning. The future of learning will require a blending of technology and human expertise, with teachers leading and guiding, and technology supporting. Students learn best when they feel seen, safe, and connected. We know that relationships drive learning.
Second, AI must be used alongside strong teaching methods, rigorous content, high-quality curriculum, assessments, and also direct insights from students. This ensures that AI strengthens, not undermines, critical learning conditions. Third, teachers must have the opportunity to shape AI through hands-on professional development to understand where it adds value, where it might fall short, and how to use it responsibly to drive student outcomes. Finally, AI must improve both efficiency and effectiveness for teachers. It should reduce administrative burdens, strengthen instructional design, and free teachers to spend time on personalized learning and human connections.
Let me share an example. I recently had an opportunity to visit a classroom in Los Angeles. The class was called mechatronics, which meant students were tasked with working in teams to blend math, computer science and engineering to build a product that was of interest to them. I watched as students used AI to support their projects. But what really drove the learning wasn't just AI.
It was the teamwork, critical thinking, and collaboration happening among the students in a class. The teacher guided the experience. AI certainly supported the work, but relationships and human skills drove the learning. Since 2024, more than 4,800 of our teachers have received training on how to use AI responsibly, understanding where it helps, where it doesn't, and how to keep students at the center of their decision-making. We encourage our teachers to experiment with AI, to help them build a deeper understanding of the technology, to build confidence, and to hone their judgment on how to use this technology.
Our teachers use AI to build durable skills like critical thinking and deep content understanding. For example, one teacher used AI to insert an incorrect step into a math problem, requiring students to identify the mistake, using it for deep reasoning and error analysis, not for shortcuts. As I close, I wanna emphasize that AI's impact, whether positive or negative, on education is not a foregone conclusion. The choices we make will ultimately help determine whether this technology helps or harms educators and students. With your partnership, we can ensure that AI expands opportunity while thoughtfully managing its risks.
Thank you again for this opportunity, and I look forward to your questions.
Speaker 6
Thank you, Chairman Kyle and Ranking Member Bonamichi, members of the committee. My name is David Slyke. I'm representing AACTE here today. I'm also the chair of the National Technology Leadership Summit, and it is an honor and a privilege to be able to discuss this topic with you here today. I think it's important that we first recognize that AI is not a future technology.
AI is here, and it is absolutely being used in schools, as people have given examples. Teachers are using it to aid in lesson plan writing and in creating assignments. Students are using it to create content, both written and images, video, and music, and as a tutor. AI is really good at some of these things in helping the teachers. It can create leveled reading assignments so that teachers can get reading passages that are adapted for each person in their classroom.
But there are also some things it's being used for that AI is not good at, including grading essays. Too often, AI systems are both biased and inconsistent when used in that application. And it is clear that there is no consistent use from teacher to teacher within a school, or from school to school, or even from district to district. I think what everyone is really looking for is guidance and guardrails on how AI should be used. Teachers want to use it, but they don't really know how much of it to use.
And it's hard to create that guidance because the technology itself is changing so fast. If a policy had been written in 2023, that policy would have focused almost entirely on how not to use ChatGPT for cheating. If that policy is written today, instead, I think it's gonna be about how AI can help learners and how it can help teachers and not be focused directly on cheating. But this is leaving states and school districts all to scramble to create their own policies. Right now, as ranking member Bonnie Meechee mentioned, there is no office of educational technology that could help with this.
The national education technology plan that they produced could have helped provide a framework for some of this work. In fact, when I read the testimony from Missus Knox here at Microsoft, at the five bullets at the end that she proposes, I thought it would be perfect to hand over directly to the OET for them to carry out. One thing that we can all agree on is the importance of the teacher. AI is not going to replace teachers. We are all here today having this discussion about AI because sometime in the past, engineers, computer scientists, programmers had teachers that inspired them to create this AI technology.
If you really think about it, there is no career that doesn't start in the classroom. But these teachers need help. As we've all mentioned, they need help with professional development. Professional development is not easy. It takes the two most precious resources that are in schools: time and money.
If professional development is done as a one-off where someone comes in, leads a workshop, and then they leave, that technology is not gonna be widely adopted. Instead, it needs to be consistent throughout the year. There needs to be a coach in that school that is going into the classrooms with the teachers, showing them examples of how to use the AI effectively, and then you can get consistent adaption across the building. We need to be very careful and learn from the mistakes we made in the last 10 to 15 years with technology. In that time, schools were in a rush to put phones, tablets, Chromebooks in schools, and get a screen in front of every student.
I think now the data is very clear that it did not work. The students did not learn the content better, and their social and emotional health has suffered greatly. We need to ensure, as we move forward teaching about and with AI, that we do not become overly tech reliant and that critical thinking skills remain imperative. So in conclusion, AI is being used, but there's a lack of consistency and guidance. Teachers are not gonna be replaced.
They are too vital to the student learning process. High quality professional development is needed, and it takes time and money. And we have to learn from our recent past. I urge us to be careful. It may be a great mantra for a tech company to move fast and break things when the thing that gets broken is an app.
If you're a teacher, the thing that gets broken is a student. So instead of moving fast, teachers need to move intentionally with the technology. Instead of breaking things, they need to nurture those students, as those students are gonna become the next generation of doctors, engineers, and politicians that will lead us into an AI rich future. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. And, lastly, I will recognize Mrs. Knox for your testimony.
Speaker 7
Thank you. Thank you, Chair, Ranking Member, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Allison Knox, I'm the senior director of education and workforce policy at Microsoft. And it's my honor to be here today to share ideas about teaching in the age of AI. I have a special role at Microsoft.
I serve as a bridge between the education and workforce communities and the company. I talk with teachers and parents to gain their perspectives on how AI is impacting teaching and learning. I'm just one of many at Microsoft that serves in this capacity to ensure that their insights flow back into our programs, our products, and our policies. Through these conversations, there are three themes that consistently emerge. First, teachers want the skills, knowledge, and support to build AI literacy and critical thinking in their students.
Parents are also asking about how this technology works. Second, teachers and parents want guidance and guardrails. They want to know that their students' data is safe and that an adult is fully in charge of the classroom technologies. Third, teachers want classroom AI tools. They want a seat at the technology table, and they want opportunities to provide feedback that improves these tools.
Of the many recent conversations I've had with educators across the country, here are two that reinforce these themes. First, I spoke with a middle school science teacher at a public charter school in California. 20 percent of her students have disabilities. She uses AI to generate lesson plans that highlight hands-on learning activities to meet all of her students' individualized needs. This frees her up to focus on dynamic classroom discussions, to help deepen her students' critical thinking skills.
Second, a group of West Virginia educators recently met with our product designers and discussed several technical ideas based on actual classroom use. Now engineers are working to integrate their suggestions back into our products for that stage. Through these and ongoing feedback loops and other real-time insights and best practices, here are three policy recommendations for you to consider. First, support professional development for teachers that is co-designed by them and focuses on how to teach about and with AI. Second, provide guidance on how to operate AI systems in school districts in a safe and protected way.
Third, promote AI literacy across the United States. Embed AI literacy throughout the curriculum at all grade levels and in all subjects. At the end of the day, our efforts around AI and education are grounded in listening and learning with teachers and parents to ensure greater student success through the safe and responsible use of AI. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. Under committee rule nine, we will now question witnesses under the five-minute rule. I'll first recognize the chair of the full committee, Mr. Wahlberg, for five minutes.
Speaker 3
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the panel for being here. I think if you look at our hearing schedules, you'll realize that we're taking AI seriously. Whether we understand it or not, we need to know about it and need to know best practices. Superintendent Blat, welcome here. We hear consistently that teachers feel overworked and stressed, and we know that is true in many cases.
While AI can save teachers time, getting trained can also take time, and in certain cases, cause stress additionally. You touched on this in your testimony, but how do you ensure that AI training equips teachers rather than becoming just another in their to-do list? Your microphone, please.
Speaker 4
Thank you. We have a lot of information available and professional learning resources on our professional learning management system that our teachers can access at any time. But from experience in talking with our teachers, many of the tools they are currently using in the classroom have not taken a lot of time to learn how to use. Even when we speak about the Minecraft education and the programs that we're doing with the students, the training is maybe a 90-minute virtual session, and then they walk through that with their students. And so our experience has been that while the professional learning and the effective use of this technology is important, it's not taking the level of training that we've seen with other things that we've rolled out in the state.
Speaker 3
you. Mister Sahoni, you mentioned that some teachers are using AI to customize the instruction for their students. In your written testimony, you mentioned one teacher in Houston who achieved a 20% increase in test scores. I wish that person had been my teacher at certain points. That kind of improvement is remarkable.
So, how did AI enable such massive improvement? And do you think that other teachers could replicate those same results?
Speaker 5
Thank you for the question. So in that example, the teacher in Houston took text for a classroom who had students that were speaking over 52 different languages. And so they were able to use AI to ensure the text was able to be translated into the languages that met the students where they were, without reducing the complexity of the text at the same time. Right? It's important to make sure we keep a high standard.
Something else that teacher was able to do was also then be able to spend more time with the students, motivating the students to be able to access that technology. I think this example speaks to a broader idea that AI has the potential to help support the personalization of learning opportunities for students, while at the same time freeing up the teacher. It would have taken that teacher way too long to try to replicate the different languages on their own, to then spend that time building relationships with the students, to motivate those students to strive to achieve their goals as well. So I think the combination of technology and the relationships the teacher is able to build can really support achieving the student outcomes we care about.
Speaker 3
Interesting. That could bring up another hearing on how we can take a multiplicity of ethnic groups, languages that are here in America, but still turn that AI training into bringing people back to English as well. Something that I think most of our American citizens would say is integral in bringing the nation together. And, that'll be another subject, mister chairman, that we could look at in the future as well. Missus Knox, you mentioned in your written testimony that one of the teachers' biggest fears around AI use is student privacy.
What advice would you give to teachers who want to use AI responsibly and without compromising student data?
Speaker 7
Yes. Thank you for the question. And safety, I think, is gonna be probably a big theme of today's hearing. There is no question that student data privacy is on everybody's minds when it comes to AI. And I'm speaking to our products when it comes to the purview of a school district.
I can say for sure that the company does not leverage the students' data to inform any of our AI models, nor do we provide it to any third party providers. But in addition to that, we make sure that the district is fully in charge of the technology. So, in other words, they can monitor what is happening for inappropriate use potentially. They can also filter out information that may not be appropriate for the district. And then also, they enter into an agreement with us that they will not allow a child under the age of 13 to use the chatbot.
So that all combined, including asking teachers to always be trained very consistently, that when they use any sort of chatbot, they are never inputting any personally identifiable information into that chatbot of a teacher or a student. So those five elements combined create this very safe environment when using Microsoft technologies.
Speaker 1
And I recognize the ranking member of the full committee, Mister Scott, for five minutes.
Speaker 8
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mister Blatt, could you be the state superintendent. Could you tell me the advantages or disadvantages of statewide versus local guidance on the use of AI?
Speaker 4
Well, we have so many regular or so many rural districts in our state. One of the things that we do for a lot of our state districts is really to focus on providing a service and some things that they don't have the expertise in. And so by putting out this guidance, we enabled them to be able to adapt it to their own confines and figure out what worked for their individual teachers. And so we try at the state level to always provide the resources, the tools, and the guidance to our districts, but allow them to locally design what works best for them.
Speaker 8
And does that guidance include guidance used by students as well as by teachers?
Speaker 8
Thank you. Mister Sahoni, you essentially said that you want to use AI when it helps and not use it when it doesn't help. How do teachers and students figure out the difference?
Speaker 5
Yeah. We train our educators starting before they enter the classroom, to understand what responsible and ethical use of AI looks like. So in my testimony, I shared the example of one of our educators who inserted an incorrect step in a math problem to support students to do the deep reasoning and critical thinking necessary to understand how to solve the problem. That emerged because we were able to train our teachers in understanding why that would enable critical thinking. We were able to also hedge against or guard against the risk that a student then enters the math problem into a chatbot and gets the answer back to them.
So while there are no guarantees, our bet is that if we train and support teachers and educators in understanding how the technology works, how the technology can drive critical thinking, they can also support their students to do the same.
Speaker 5
Yeah. So I run an organization called Teach For America, and we support and train novice teachers as well as first- and second-year teachers through coaching and development. And so we take the foundations of what we know of effective teaching practices and teaching pedagogy, what we know about how students learn, and implement that training.
Speaker 8
Doctor. Sackhaus, you mentioned things like keeping critical thinking skills and things like that. Again, who can provide the professional development so that people can learn? I mean, people that guidance doesn't just drop out of the air. Where do you get it?
Speaker 6
There are a variety of people who have moved into that space. There are companies that have moved into the professional development space and offering that. I think you can also look to colleges of teacher education as experts in that to come and provide that training for school districts, as well as they are learning and teaching pre-service teachers on how to use the technology.
Speaker 8
Miss Knox, can you answer the same question where someone wants to get guidance on AI school system, where they would get the appropriate guidance?
Speaker 7
Yeah. It definitely is a great question, and I think most of us agree that although we love engaging with online learning, sometimes being in person for training can really make a huge difference. And that's what we've learned through our partnership with the American Federation of Teachers. We have launched with OpenAI and Anthropic a new, NUFT, the National Academy for AI Instruction. The goal is to train in person and someone online.
It's a combination. 400,000 teachers over the next five years. And what we've learned through that is they want to understand the guardrails document that Congresswoman Bonamichi put into the record that AFT has put out. That's where they start the training. Then they think through ethical use in their school district, and then they actually get hands-on experience with taking a look at what AI can do for them in their classroom.
So it's three parts. But we are trying to reach out as much as possible in person to the teachers across the country.
Speaker 8
If a local school board was interested in guidance, where would they look?
Speaker 7
Well, there are a couple of organizations that I'd recommend. One is TeachAI, and they can go right up to the local school AI guidance. There's a toolkit and a policy guide, both of which I think are phenomenal and endorsed by many educational associations, and are being leveraged in about 34 states.
Speaker 1
I'll now recognize myself for five minutes. Mister so, Honey, you have kind of a unique vantage point into the landscape of education in America, with Teach For America, which places recent college graduates at schools all across the country. So your students or your teachers arrive at their schools well trained with how to use AI, but I'm sure they confront a variety of conditions in schools all across the country as far as how AI is being utilized. Could you give us some sense as to what that landscape looks like? How much variation is there, in terms of the use of AI in classrooms?
Speaker 5
Yeah. Thank you for the question. Educate, I mean, AI technology in education and classrooms is here, as we've all covered. And given that we work in 37 states and DC, in rural America, urban America, we have a vast landscape of where we have experience. And what we find is there's great variance in terms of the technology tools that have been adopted by these school systems.
And so our focus is on ensuring we help our educators learn how to work with and use those tools, no matter what the tool is. Again, responsibly and ethically, and also to drive personalized learning so that they can focus on things that motivate them, like relationship building.
Speaker 1
Yeah. The heart of TFA's mission is to close the achievement gap that exists in American education. Do you see AI as a sort of a tool for doing that?
Speaker 5
I think there's huge promise, and there's huge risk at the same time. I think the promise, which is what I wanna anchor in because, you know, AI is here, students and educators are using it, is that it can really deliver a personalized learning opportunity for students. It can ensure that all students get exactly what they need to drive forward their outcomes. I think it can also ensure that students and teachers are able to build the kind of very real human relationships that only educators are able to build. At the same time, I think it is not a foregone conclusion that we will have that future in large part because if this technology goes into schools and into classrooms without support for students or without training for teachers, it could also be used in ways that diminish critical thinking that students are doing or could be used as a shortcut to drive, seemingly drive forward student outcomes but ultimately do not.
Speaker 1
Yeah. I think that's really key. The point raised by Missus Knox about supporting professional development across the country, I think, is really vital because I think that this technology does have extraordinary power to close achievement gaps. But, if it's adopted in, you know, ways where it benefits some areas but not others, it could also serve to exacerbate that gap. So, it's really important that we get it right.
You know, finally, we've been talking a lot today about how AI for teachers can optimize kind of the back end of teaching, if you will, in terms of administrative tasks, and so forth. But, you know, there's also, I believe, especially as models get more advanced, the opportunity to open up whole new kinds of pedagogical, you know, experiences. And maybe I'll open this up to Missus Knox as well, and as well as you, Mister Sahoni, if you've seen this in classrooms. I mean, you can readily imagine, you know, once we get to the point where 3D worlds can just be generated on command, you combine that with augmented reality, and, you know, you can literally bring history alive for students. You can travel to the bottom of the ocean.
You can go toe to toe with a Tyrannosaurus Rex, whatever the case may be. Have you seen that in classrooms at all yet? And Mrs. Knox, are you guys working on that sort of thing?
Speaker 7
Well, I have not gone toe to toe with a Tyson or that. But, yeah, I mean, I think also what you're kind of getting at is, you know, is AI ultimately, through all of these new experiences that we're bringing to the classroom, is it impacting student achievement? Because I think at the end of the day, we all want student achievement to go, you know, absolutely up. And one of the policy recommendations, thank you for saying that they were helpful, that we make is there needs to be more research on how AI is impacting student achievement. And I just want to share a quick story with you.
I spoke with a high school teacher in Colfax, one of your high schools. And, I asked him if he felt that his students were learning more because he's using AI tools. And he emphatically said, yes. And so I asked him to break it down a little bit for me, and he said, basically, my big issue is that I have to engage students for them to actually want to learn. And the best way to do that is to take whatever lesson or concept I'm trying to teach and really focus it on something that they're very interested in.
And in the past, I might find out what that is, but it would take me an entire year to shift my curriculum. Now it takes me potentially a day. I can get the presentation built, the rubrics built. I can get the research done to prove that all this information is there, and I can verify it. But what that lets me then do is, and now he's using the Socratic teaching method.
So now he's got the content. Now he's got the Socratic teaching method. He's asking the harder questions, and he's convinced because of all of this, his teacher, his students are learning a lot more.
Speaker 1
Fascinating. Well, thank you very much. I'm out of time. If you have examples in Missus Blatt as well that you'd like to share, as the hearing goes on, those would be great to hear. I'll now recognize the ranking member, Miss Thank.
Speaker 2
You, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses. According to a report from the Center for Democracy and Technology, 86 percent of students and teachers used AI in the last school year, but less than half of teachers and students received either professional development on AI or guidance for its use in schools. And we know many educators and students are rapidly embracing AI for its promise to improve productivity. Thank you, Miss Knox, for that story.
But without clear instruction and support and safeguards, they risk diminished learning outcomes, tech-enabled harassment, or bias in a more disconnected classroom. So it is really about how we do this in the right way, in a positive way. Doctor Slykeis, its 2025 report found that less than one third of teachers received guidance on how to use AI tools, what AI is, and how it works, and how to monitor AI systems. So what resources could the federal government provide to close these professional development gaps? And could these resources adequately inform educators about AI-related bias, which you mentioned in your testimony, privacy risks, and responsible use?
You know, beyond just us optimizing tasks, which is important. There's a lot more to it.
Speaker 6
Yeah. Thank you for the question. So I, as we've talked about here, I think the overall goal is, right, is getting AI to improve student achievement. Right? And, you know, mister Sohani here has access to a huge database of teachers, but we need to study that.
Right? And we need the incentive. We need the grants and the research to be able to go out and see, are these things that they're implementing, are they getting the gains that they want? Because they want to know that too. Everyone wants to know, is this being effective?
And so we need to be able to have that ability to run some of these large scale research studies to make sure that how AI is being implemented, you know, which ways are effective, which ways aren't, which ways are yet leading to student achievement, which ways might be leading to, you know, social and emotional impact that is detrimental, you know, how we can distinguish all of that. But it's gonna take you, can't figure that out overnight. It's gonna take a little time, and it's gonna take a little research.
Speaker 2
I've always been a strong supporter of the IES Institute for Educational Sciences and, of course, the office of technology at what's left of the Department of Education. I hope that we can fund those and bring them back. I think they play a really critical role. And several of you have mentioned both student achievement and critical thinking. I'm someone who doesn't just look at test scores.
To me, student achievement doesn't just mean a good test score. It means a creative, critical thinker. And we know that AI literacy means more than learning to write props, which is, as you said, doctors like a couple years ago, that might have been it. But there's so much more. People need to know how to critically evaluate AI through ethical, linguistic, and human-based lenses.
So I want to ask you, Miss Knox. I've heard, as I mentioned in my testimony, many tech workers and executives recently talking about the importance of critical thinking, which I note all of you mentioned in your testimony, and expressing a decline about really the human factor, the humanities. Do you agree? And what are your thoughts on why it's necessary for students and educators to use and evaluate AI in the context of its historical, ethical, and social implications? Yeah.
Speaker 7
I think, again, there needs to be more research on this. I, too, am a literature major. I work at a tech company. I've been there a long time. And so I think critical thinking and the humanities are wonderful places to, you know, engage in exercises where you're thinking deeply about subjects, and then you can transport that thinking capability to other contexts, which many companies like Microsoft definitely value.
We also really value someone who understands the way that you learn and that you wanna keep learning and love learning no matter what's coming down the pike. I do want you to know that I spoke to many teachers who believe that because of the tools, they are going deeper with their students on critical thinking. And just I can throw out one example really quickly. State of New York, there's a teacher who is a writing teacher, and she said that most students really do not like revising writing, which is in some ways thinking about your thinking. Right?
I'll just say that most adults don't always like doing that either. So she has found a way for them to describe a scene that sometimes she uses the prompt herself, and sometimes it's the student. Doesn't really matter. And then what comes back to the student is a visualization through AI of what they wrote. Well, this gets them very engaged.
And guess what? A lot of times, what comes back isn't what they thought they wrote.
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's more sort of hands-on project-based problem-solving learning. Right?
Speaker 2
That’s great. We had a great hearing in this subcommittee on screen time, which is something you mentioned, doctor Slyke Heiss. And I'm almost out of time, I really quickly want to ask you, mister Sohani. You said you encourage teachers to experiment with AI, and I wonder what you learned from that. And what if the experiment doesn't work?
How do you, what do you do with that? And then what if it does work, how do you share that with other educators?
Speaker 5
The reason we encourage it is AI is not a tool or a technology that you could just slap into a classroom. It's something an educator has to have experience with and actually really try. What we found is our educators have increased level of confidence and understanding in the technology when they are able to use it, and they're able to have stronger levels of judgment on how to effectively use it in the business of taking what we've learned and sharing that knowledge across the sector and across the field. And so it's important to us to make sure that the learnings also spread beyond.
Speaker 2
I have so many more questions, but my time has expired. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Speaker 9
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to all of you on the panel today for your input and testimonies. Miss Blatt, I want to ask you a couple of questions here. I noticed that the West Virginia Department of Education issued a public stakeholder survey where they found that approximately 4 out of 5 respondents expressed some degree of concern or worry surrounding the uses of the adoption of AI. And yet your state has been able to implement statewide guidance on AI.
And since then, I would just be curious what has been the responses that you've heard from teachers, from parents, and from students themselves?
Speaker 4
Well, I think from our teachers, we've learned a lot and continue to learn a lot as they work through the different programs and different resources that they have. Our students, especially the ones that we have engaged with some of our statewide pilots, feel very engaged in their learning. An example would be with our Minecraft education, they've been able to engage in a game that they were familiar with while learning the different parts of AI and understanding that. We've had a lot of feedback, especially from parents, around our use. We talk about social media and the use of screen time and different things, and we've limited that in our schools here in the last year, especially with the use of cell phones.
And so our parents are seeing that when they engage with this technology and some of these AI programs, they're more engaged with that, because they're not spending so much time on their cell phones. And they've seen a difference in how they're responding and interacting with each other as well.
Speaker 9
Okay. That's awesome. Do you believe that the teachers in your state feel more equipped to handle issues pertaining to academic integrity and AI in the classroom because of the guidance you guys were able to provide?
Speaker 4
I do believe so. An example would be that, with our guidance, we train our teachers in, like, really how to use the AI as opposed to maybe telling a child that I need you to write the definition for your 10 vocabulary words to give me 10 sentences, which a child could do in ChatGPT in literally ten seconds.
Speaker 4
We encourage our teachers to put in the platform themselves. How can I engage students to help them understand how to learn these vocabulary words and how to use them in sentences? And then what we get back is a list of activities that are differentiated, that we can provide to our students. So it increases some of the creativity that our teachers are able to use to engage the students.
Speaker 9
Awesome. Okay. Mister Sahoni, I know from reading your testimony and hearing you today, you believe AI can be a valuable tool in the classroom with possible proper guardrails. And studies have shown that teachers using AI can save up to 6 hours per week on prep time, allowing them to focus on their students more directly. So let me ask you, where do you believe the line is between teachers using AI efficiently versus becoming self-reliant on it?
Speaker 5
I think one of the opportunities we have with AI in education is actually to make the teaching profession itself much more attractive and interesting. I know historically we've had a challenge, interest in the teaching profession is at a 50 year low. What we found is educators are excited about this idea that if I can become a teacher, I can be a leader in my classroom, I can work with AI and technology to support what I do, and I can focus on what makes me very excited to be a teacher, which is to build relationships with students, to motivate them to accomplish their goals, then it might be a much more interesting profession. So I start there to say, I think there is always a fine line between when AI technology can be used and when the teacher, at the end of the day, is really central to the learning. What we have found is it requires both working together, and I think there's an opportunity to get even more people interested in the teaching profession with what is available to us.
Speaker 9
Well, as the CEO of Teach For America, you interact with teachers all the time. And so I'll just give you the last minute. What do you think are teachers' biggest concerns, and what can principals and superintendents do to help in this matter?
Speaker 5
When we talk to teachers, they're worried that they're not going to get the professional development support they need to be able to effectively utilize the tools that their students are using, and the tools that they themselves now have access to. So I think the key here, which we've been talking about, is making sure educators are supported with understanding how to use this technology. I'll also add, I think there's a huge opportunity. One of the things that we're very early on, given how emergent this technology is, but I think there's great potential for, is the concept of something like a teaching simulator. Oftentimes, novice teachers want to be able to practice and have at-bats at doing things like IEP meetings or to practice parent-teacher conferences.
I think the technology is gonna evolve to a place where they'll get that kind of support. So I think we also hear from educators, let us know how we can take advantage of the technology that's available to us as it evolves, so we can strengthen our practice.
Speaker 10
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Doctor Slykeis, thank you for joining us today. All of you, thank you for joining us today to discuss the future of the American classroom. In my district, in Arizona, CD seven, Pima Community College serves as a vital workforce pipeline, partnering with our K-12 districts and regional employers who provide job-aligned training. This is especially critical for our significant population of first-generation students.
To build a strong school-to-career pipeline, we cannot have our K-12 students graduating as mere passive users of technology. They must enter post-secondary education with critical AI literacy, human-centered skills that translate directly into career success. Right now, most students can navigate AI with ease, while their teachers need support and training, so this conversation is very timely. It's imperative that teachers understand the capabilities, limitations, and the potential impact AI has on teacher-student learning. We must ensure that the tools being used to close the achievement gaps do not inadvertently compromise the privacy or future of the very students we're trying to uplift.
As part of guardrail discussions, I have to include protections of intellectual property and potential copyright infringement. Furthermore, I say this is a member who also sits on the natural resources committee. We must be mindful of the environmental footprint of this growth in our desert communities anywhere. But specifically in our desert communities, the ones that I represent, we must be mindful, we must understand that water is a resource not to be wasted. We have to consider the immense energy and water these systems consume, and must demand sustainable alternatives that protect our environment just as we protect our classrooms.
So with that, I would like to ask, Doctor Slaikais. As an expert who helped develop the teacher educator technology competencies, you understand that literacy is the foundation of career mobility. Beyond simply knowing how to operate a chat box like Chat GPT or Claude, what does true AI literacy mean for a K-12 teacher in a classroom?
Speaker 6
Thank you very much for the question. So the teacher educator technology competencies that you referenced are a series of essentially 12 statements with additional bullets on how teacher educators need to model and demonstrate the use of technology for pre-service teachers so that they can then in turn be prepared to implement that technology in an effective way in their classroom. A couple of those TETs, sorry. I refer to them as the TETsies instead of saying that out. The teacher educator technology competencies.
Speaker 6
A couple of them, you know, that I just want to highlight in particular. One, number nine is, you know, teacher educators will address the legal, ethical, and socially responsible use of technology in education. So I think that, you know, speaks directly to what you were talking about. Teachers need to know and be taught, you know, in colleges of teacher education about some of the back end of this technology, what it is doing, how it is working, and what, you know, many of the issues that you spoke of.
Speaker 10
Yeah. And so who was currently defining these standards? Is it tech vendors, district administration, policymakers, or the educators themselves? And how can Congress ensure these standards align with industry-recognized credentials that institutions like Pima Community College require for the workforce?
Speaker 6
So I would say it's kind of a little bit of a wild west on who's defining the standards right now. I think you have states like West Virginia who are taking the lead. They're defining what it's meaning for them. I think there's a great organization, IST, the International Society for Technology and Education, IST plus AACD. They have a series of standards.
They are defining. They're pretty widely adapted as well. But in a lot of cases, you don't have state guidance. You don't have, you know, a professional organization like that. Mhmm.
And there isn't any federal guidance coming right now. Again, the National Educational Technology Plan, which was put out by the OET, would have provided kind of a base framework, you know, for a lot of that work.
Speaker 10
Yeah. Thank you. As we push for integration, we know AI systems often train on student inputs, creating significant data privacy risks. What specific guardrails are needed to prevent the misuse of sensitive student data, and how are you seeing teachers navigate these privacy concerns in practice to protect their students?
Speaker 6
Sure. So, you know, as missus Knock shared, I think when AI is designed specifically for schools, there is an absolute effort to close the box so that information is not going out and not being used to train the system. Magic school AI, I think, is another good example of this. I don't love that name because it implies the AI is magic. It it's not.
There's a real technology and a system behind it. But that aside, they also advertise that it is a very closed system that data is not being used. The real danger lies in teachers who don't have the professional development, school districts that can't afford the Microsoft tools, the Magic AI tools, who are just using the freely available AI tools on the internet. And when they're inputting things, that's when it really gets dangerous.
Speaker 11
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This hearing is really important, and, of course, we know we want our students to have AI to be prepared for the future. At the same time, we're trying to figure out what guardrails do we put in to make sure it's safe. And then we don't wanna make it so safe, or we do wanna make it safe, but we wanna make sure the student is still having their, they got their, we're not replacing their fundamental knowledge, you know, and learning it on their own. But at least it for sure, it's really helpful for our teachers so they can really focus back on the students.
So the question is for Miss Knox. You know, there was that situation in a chat box back in 2016 called Tay, which became infamous for its offensive and harmful tweets. And Microsoft quickly took down the chatbox and issued their apology, but Tay's introduction showed some of the limitations of AI and how it could be harmful. So what are the lessons that Microsoft learned from Tay, and how should the guardrails be implemented when it comes to AIs in schools?
Speaker 7
Absolutely. And thank you for the question. There's no question for us that adults need to always be involved when students are engaging with these technologies, a teacher or a parent. So that's number one. And then number two, when we're talking about a school district, so in school time, when they're using a, as I would thank you for saying, closed system, it is a closed system when you're working with Microsoft.
The student under the age of 13 cannot use a chatbot. And then the older students, they're only interacting with information that the school district deems appropriate for that school. Plus, if the older students if there's an appropriate use when they're in the chatbot, there's a quick monitoring system for the district, so they can flag it to the parent or to the teacher. Furthermore, we really train teachers and parents and students never to put any personalized, identifiable information into the chatbot so it can never come back up. So there's a lot more training on that.
And we make sure that no matter what, all the students' data cannot be leveraged to train our models. It cannot be leveraged to be given to third parties. So, again, it's this ecosystem of safety when it comes to the school environment.
Speaker 11
Thank you. And, Miss Blake, we know that AI has been used to generate inappropriate content. Recently, there were incidents on Twitter where people were manipulating images of women in a bad way, and we also know that AI can be used for cyberbullying. So what can be done about this, please?
Speaker 4
This is a very timely question, sir, for West Virginia. Unfortunately, in this past school year, we've lost a student to a cyberbullying attack. And we've sat down with the parents of that student, and we've talked to them extensively along with our legislators. And what we have discovered is that while we're doing all of these things to educate our teachers and our students, it's sometimes the parents that have been left out of the education piece. And so, Mister Tate has asked us, as we work through this and we think about continuing to adapt our guidance, that we ensure that we have guidance out there for parents.
Things that provide them the information on what are the tools, what are the things that are being used. How are they using these in a negative way to, you know, to get to our students and to get to our younger students that, you know, in our school system?
Speaker 11
Thank you. I'm glad they're really focused on that. That was a sad situation, but it's being addressed. Thank you very much. Mister Shohutni, one of your lessons learned was that AI can be deepened thinking and personalized learning.
We've heard similar testimonies from several previous witnesses on the same. However, I assume that this is most true for older students. Is it hard to imagine that any of us want kindergartens to interact extensively with chatbots?
Speaker 5
Certainly, AI has to be responsive to what we know is true of students who learn at various age levels. There's an example I can share of visiting a school where it was an early elementary class, and the teacher was teaching phonics instruction. And when you teach phonics, if you're a teacher, you have to be able to see how the student is sounding out the word. And it's very hard to track 30 students sounding out letters. So this teacher was able to use an AI tool that tracked sort of how the student was pronouncing the word, and how each individual student was pronouncing the word, and was able to use that information, that data to group students based on where they most needed small group instruction.
I offer this to say there is no one-size-fits-all answer. You have to be able to differentiate based on the age of your students, but I think there is potential at all age levels if used appropriately.
Speaker 12
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Teachers in my district, they have a variety of opinions on AI. Some of them don't feel comfortable enough to incorporate it. Others of them are investing their own money, effort, and time into it because they're worried about their students' AI literacy. And then there are others who, you know, they wanna learn more about it, but they just don't have the bandwidth.
Teachers, their different levels of comfort and familiarity are exactly why they need resources and support from the Department of Education. One of the things I hear the most from teachers in my district is a fear and outrage over the department being dismantled right now. My Republican colleagues have mentioned the need to support teachers with AI, but we don't hear any calls from them to restore the Department of Education's eliminated Office of Education Technology, an office that has and was explicitly designed to provide the support teachers are calling for. Doctor Sykes, in your testimony, you mentioned that without guidance from OET, the void is being filled in part by private tech firms with their own agendas. Why would you say it is important for there to be guidance on AI in the classroom from an office like OET at the Department of Education?
Speaker 6
Thank you for the question. So I do think that that guidance is extraordinarily important. I think when I mentioned there are private companies coming in and filling that void, those companies have good intentions. However, at the end of the day, there are many of these are for profit. So, at the end of the day, they are still looking to find a way to make money.
To find a way to make money is usually to get someone to use your product. You get someone to use your product by making your product essentially more addictive, like the social media examples that we are well aware of at this point. So if without some federal guidance and some top level guidance to sort of prevent that kind of thing, it just enters into a very dangerous space regardless of how well intentioned people are.
Speaker 12
Thank you. Understood. And concerns about private tech agendas, they're not hypothetical. Like, the FTC has acted against several ad tech companies that misrepresented their products or improperly handled sensitive student data. The Department of Education should be working to ensure schools are equipped to prevent the harmful use of AI in the first place.
We shouldn't have AI weapon detectors mistaking bags of chips, you know, for guns or for their musical instruments for weapons, leading to armed police handcuffing children. And data from AI school surveillance tech shouldn't be used or shared with ICE, an agency with complete disregard for constitutional rights and civil liberties. Mister chairman, I request unanimous consent to enter an article from the 74 in The Guardian titled, ICE taps into school security cameras to aid Trump's immigration crackdown into the record.
Speaker 12
Thank you. ICE is using data from AI-based school surveillance to aid and abet their mass deportation efforts. This raises serious concerns about what private edtech companies are doing with the data they've collected. Missus Knox, while Microsoft has said that they don't think ICE is using its tools for mass surveillance, there are reports that ICE substantially increased its reliance on Microsoft's cloud platform and AI tools. When you've spoken with teachers, have any of them expressed any concern about trusting Microsoft's AI tools, given the company's connections to ICE?
Speaker 7
This is a really important issue. It's beyond the purview of my current position.
Speaker 12
Thank you. We do hope, and I appreciate that response, and I hope that, if you all get the opportunity that you were able to dig into that one because it is really important, that we understand where this data is going and how it is being used and that as teachers are expressing concern that it is being addressed. So instead of taking the word, we wanna make sure, however, at the end of the day that the OET, the Department of Education, is there to be able to assist us with this type of oversight. We also need a functional office of civil rights once safety is breached. We know that AI algorithms reflect the data that they have been trained on.
And as we've already seen with things like AI-generated student behavior plans, racism is embedded in the algorithms. In the past, students who experience discrimination could reach out to the OCR, but this administration has closed seven of its regional offices, including the one in Pennsylvania. And 90% of the discrimination cases OCR resolved in 2025 were simply dismissed. So we can't encourage schools to procure AI tech before there are real policies and safeguards, and guardrails in place to ensure that it's used responsibly. And we can start bypassing the AI civil rights act and eliminate bias acts.
We have to ensure that technological progress doesn't come at the cost of the communities that this administration is working really hard to not leave behind. So while we can all talk about the exciting prospects that come from AI, it's irresponsible for us to not also think about the harms, think about how it could exacerbate already existing biases or problems. And as a congress, we have a responsibility to address those things.
Speaker 13
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The use of AI say increases throughout the country. There are different ways of doing so, from schools to work to recreation to creative purposes. In any case, imperative AI is being used responsibly and for the maximum potential of good. I'm glad that we addressed this and how our teachers and schools can safely adapt and unleash the full potential of this developing technology.
I thank all my witnesses for being here to do this today. Miss Knox, we often hear about how AI streamlines the teachers' administrative work such as writing emails. But you also pointed out that AI is increasingly used for lesson planning and curriculum development. How good are these platforms at doing the work? Also, to what extent can AI generate plans that match the state's academic standards?
Speaker 7
I thank you for the question. I think that they are more and more. I can't speak for all the products and tools that are out there, but I know that the tools that we provide in our, again, closed system, especially specific tools like Reading Coach right now, they all align based on teachers' input to state standards.
Speaker 13
Okay. And you also mentioned in your testimony that AI has been used especially helpful for literacy teachers, which we're following very much behind. To what extent do you or your partners been able to measure real learning gains? Are these potentials hypothetical and maybe subjective?
Speaker 7
Right. First off, again, I really believe in the testimony or the written testimony, there needs to be more research done. We're willing to be a participant and engage and lean in to make sure that research is neutral and productive as possible. I do think that we're seeing some great use cases where teachers are seeing the gains, sort of like my colleague here from Teach for America. But I have one in particular, a special education teacher who's in Wichita, Kansas.
He has found to use AI tools in a way to connect his special education students' classroom more with the parents. So they have what's called the words of the week. At the beginning of the school year, only six of his students were only speaking about or reading four words per minute. Today, they're reading 40 words a minute, and he believes it's because of this new partnership with the parents so they can continue the reading at home. And it's more real time, like, which words are they getting better at?
So he is seeing the games. He's quantifying the games. But, again, that's like a use case in Wichita, Kansas. We gotta do more of that.
Speaker 13
Oh, and, also, thanks for bringing those teeth, the parents, into the mix. It's so important that we do that, as mentioned before. Superintendent Black, we all believe that AI has potential, great potential in education, but sometimes it is difficult to tell how well the potential has been realized. On average, do you think teachers in your state are taking full advantage of AI? Or if not, what are the areas of growth?
Speaker 4
I think we definitely still have a lot to learn about AI as these tools develop. We've spent a lot of our time with our teachers on our various resources and platforms that we have with our Microsoft contract. As we think about our lesson plans, I think that's the area where the majority of our teachers have seen the benefit of that. We recently adopted the science of reading and passed some legislation on the third grade success act. And one of the things we found out was that the adopted curriculums many of our counties had did not have good phonics lessons.
That was a piece missing. And so our teachers were able to use AI to quickly develop a multiple list of activities and things to embed those phonics lessons into their instruction.
Speaker 13
Very good. Thank you so much. Mister Sahani, we both agree that AI cannot replace our teachers. They actually need to be a tool to help our students develop their thinking. Is there any additional example of how teachers are currently employing AI to improve the student's learning process without simply giving them the correct answers?
Speaker 5
Absolutely. So, one, you know, one example I'll point to, I think, a question that often comes up is around special education. How do we support all students with using AI tools to help their learning? And what we found is educators have the opportunity, if used correctly, to scaffold lesson plans and scaffold their lessons and the actual materials that students are engaging with in a way that all students can engage with. So there's several examples, whether it's use in math, use in phonics, as I mentioned earlier, or in special education.
I think there's immense potential and opportunity. Again, if educators are supported, trained to understand when to use it to drive critical thinking, to make sure students are doing the heavy lifting with their learning, and when not to use it so that students aren't taking shortcuts in their learning journey.
Speaker 13
Thank you. I just have excited I am to see you guys on a leading edge with this, not only for our students, for the teachers and parents. And that's the combination that makes it work. So thank you guys for what you're doing. Really appreciate it.
I'll go back.
Speaker 14
Thank you, mister chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today. Mister Sahoni, you mentioned that teacher voices are often missing ingredients in AI policy and product design. How do you think teachers can help shape AI development and policy?
Speaker 5
So at Teach For America, we have something called the EdTech Fellowship, where we have some of our teachers who work with technology companies to actually shape how the technology is used in the classroom. Our teachers share they're able to go deeper and better understand what the technology is to help inform and influence how that technology gets used in the classroom. And we also hear from the technology companies that they are able to strengthen their tools as well. So it's our belief that educators, especially this next generation coming into the teaching profession, many of whom are digital natives with AI technology, have a lot to offer in terms of how the technology can be used, and also how it shouldn't be used in the classroom.
Speaker 14
What issues might get overlooked without the perspective of the teachers?
Speaker 5
There are several issues that can be overlooked. First is the idea of what a strong teaching pedagogy would look like. How is the AI tool actually supporting what we know makes for an effective teacher in the classroom? We also know how students learn, and a big part of how students learn is by engaging in building relationships with their teachers. And so making sure that the technology is used to actually personalize learning, and also creating space and room for teachers to be able to continue to build those relationships.
There's risk we'd lose that, and the technology replaces, in theory, what a teacher is supposed to do. I think screen time has come up here. We don't actually, again, believe that AI will replace teachers, but too often, students spend too much time in front of screens or technology. I think the real opportunity here is alongside what the technology can offer, also making sure students are developing the durable skills like critical thinking, teamwork, and collaboration that many employers are going to be looking for in the future as part of how they learn.
Speaker 14
Thank you. Missus Knox, you mentioned in your written testimony that 1 in 3 teachers lacks confidence in using AI safely and effectively. You mentioned Microsoft does teacher professional development through Microsoft Elevate for Educators.
Speaker 14
What do these resources look like, and how can they help teachers feel more comfortable?
Speaker 7
There's no question there's a relationship between feeling confident and then wanting to use the tools more, and then using the tools even more creatively. So, we have found through Elevate the best way to go about ensuring this sort of great flywheel of learning for teachers is to broker partnerships with huge organizations like the American Federation of Teachers, but also with other groups like the American Association of Community Colleges, even rural groups, you know, that touch teachers in different ways, like future farmers of America, and then parent groups, which is like 4-H. And we developed these partnerships so that we're making sure that our programs and certifications are real and grounded in what students face today. And so our Microsoft Elevate program really does work alongside our teachers and puts teachers' voice first.
Speaker 14
Okay. I thank you for your questions, and I yield back the remainder of my time.
Speaker 15
Chairman, thank you so much. Thanks to all the witnesses for the information that you brought on this important topic. Missus Knox, can you explain how Microsoft is helping special education teachers to better utilize AI to better support students who are learning with disabilities?
Speaker 7
Absolutely. And thanks for the question. I there's just no question in my mind that the students with disabilities, their needs are better met because of certain AI products, in part because the company is committed to AI and accessibility in any product we develop from ground level up. So in addition to what we do in the school district sort of closed system, I think all of us might realize that individual products like even Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, you can go in, just to give you an example, and I've talked to teachers about how much they love this particular aspect of our tools, you can go to something called immersive reader. So if you can't see well, you can make the font bigger.
If you have a hard time breaking down a lot of text, it can simplify the concepts. If you wanna interact with the text of a document, it allows you to do that as well. So divergent thinkers, students who have, you know, challenges with attention, all of these things that they bring to the tool, they can redesign the tool and redesign the text so that they can learn more. And let me just tell you that it does two things. One, yes, of course, we believe that students are learning more, the students with disabilities, but it's also asking the student to think about how do I learn?
How do I think? And that skill is a skill they're going to need for the rest of their lives. Just to close out on special education, there's no question it's helping with building more effective IEPs. There's no question that, again, AI is helping more special education students connect better with their teachers and parents. And then finally, we do have a new certification that's being offered to special education teachers so they can get trained and certified and get a badge, and we did that in partnership with teachers in Wichita, Kansas.
Speaker 15
Very good. The evolution of this technology is perfect timing given the fact that we are way overdue for reauthorizing Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. So, Mrs. Knox, you mentioned how Microsoft worked with FFA and agriculture science teachers to develop FarmBeats for students using AI to bring precision agriculture and ag education directly into the classroom. Can you share early outcomes or success stories from the classrooms using FarmBeats for students?
Speaker 7
Yes. And I'm really excited that you asked the question because there's a group of students in Mecklenburg High School, in rural Virginia, who are watching this, hearing, and I wanted to make sure that they and their teachers, Brittany Perkins, are shouted out because this group of students and this teacher is indicative of how we've deployed something called FarmBeats for students. And there's at least one in every single state of the country. But let me just tell you about what they're doing in this classroom, and it's just indicative of the whole process, which is, one, all students in agriculture science, they have to learn about plants and how well plants are doing. And so usually what they used to do is use an old fashioned thermometer and put it in the plant soil, and then process the data that way.
Well, now we give them through these kits, and it was developed with the teachers. These are sensors, and the sensors go into a microbit, the microbit generates data, and then they manipulate the data. But in addition to that, the students are also creating AI models. And when they create the AI model, they can actually take pictures of the plants and determine their deficiencies. And the model that this individual student has created can predict and recommend fertilizers.
What this does is allow the students and the teacher to understand what precision agriculture is, how it is coming into our community, and it also asks them to ask, you know, ask questions about AI so they become AI literate. When I asked this teacher to talk to me, she has shared openly and talked to students in her classroom, if she believed in her town or in her county, those students would have a chance to become more AI literate. Without this kind of experience, she said absolutely no.
Speaker 15
Yeah. Well, you can let them know that the chairman of the US House Committee on Agriculture is very proud of them. They're
Speaker 15
They're plowing new ground here, and I love it. Another resource I just want to throw out, I mean, I gotta brag a little bit about my alma mater. They is a something called Tilva, t I l v a. It's a Penn State Extension AI assistant for science-based ag questions. It is Pennsylvania specific, but Penn State has made a commitment to work with any other state or District of Columbia, whomever, you know, to help those entities develop this same product.
So thank you so much.
Speaker 1
Well, to miss Perkins, I think you said it was. The teachers who the class. To Miss Perkins and her students, keep up the fantastic work, and thanks for
Speaker 1
For some cozies. Okay. And now I yield to the ranking member for a closing statement.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the witnesses. It truly has been an informative hearing. I speak with teachers a lot, as a member of this committee, and there's a lot on their plate right now. They're dealing with, you know, their own juggling lesson plans, but also an increase in social media addiction.
And, now, we're seeing what's happening with devices and taking them out of the classroom. And the responsibilities they have with an increase in behavioral health needs for students, there's just a lot on their plate. But I know that they're working to do what they can to provide a high-quality education for the next generation of students. And oftentimes, they're trying to do all this with inadequate resources and insufficient pay. So at the same time, we know, as we talked about today, AI is being used in more schools in the country.
And as we discussed, this technology can provide teachers with new options to manage those responsibilities. But it also adds a monumental task of teaching students how to responsibly use AI in an increasingly technology-driven world. And educators should not have to do this alone. Congress must continue to support the resources, the training, and professional development necessary for teachers to do this work. And I just wanna mention that title two of the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act is about funding professional development.
I know many of us are former state legislators, and they don't always have enough resources to fill the gaps. It's an important investment we should be supporting. And, of course, my comprehensive framework that I mentioned, this is going to provide evidence-based professional development resources to help educators understand and navigate the opportunities and risks. I hope we can work on this on a bipartisan basis. And right now, again, the Trump administration's attempt to dismantle the Department of Education isn't helping.
Eliminating the office of educational technology doesn't help. It leaves schools and teachers without resources and guidance that would help them do their jobs. So we cannot repeat history by allowing AI to widen existing inequities, and I hope, mister chairman, that we can work together on policies and investments that do result in every student having access to well-rounded education that will lead to their success in classrooms today and careers in the future. I really appreciate the FFA story, Miss Knox. You told me that earlier, and it's very inspirational.
But we want every teacher to be able to have the support and professional development they need to happen. And finally, mister chairman, I just wanna add into the record, there were some voices that were not included here today. And I mentioned the current cover story on Time Magazine that just came out a couple of days ago called the people versus AI. And just a couple excerpts, and I'll enter this into the record. Not much unites Americans these days, but a growing cross-section of the public.
From mega loyalists to democratic socialists, pastors to policymakers, nurses to filmmakers agree that at least on at least one thing, AI is moving too fast. A 2025 Pew poll found that five times as many Americans are concerned, as excited about the increased use of AI in daily life. The public thinks the AI will weaken our ability to think creatively, form meaningful relationships, and make difficult decisions. Other surveys show that Americans believe AI will spread misinformation, erode our sense of purpose and meaning, and harm our social and emotional intelligence. So I wanna enter that into the record, Mr. Chairman, because I know we all have constituents.
We believe that, and I think it's important to have that as part of the consideration as we talk about the challenges and opportunities going forward. And I thank you again for your testimony. I yield back the balance of my time.
Speaker 1
Well, thank you very much to all of our witnesses. Truly, very useful insights. I think this was a truly excellent panel, and a really important hearing. You know, I am an optimist when it comes to AI and education. I think there's an extraordinary opportunity and potential.
But I also recognize that in order to unlock that potential, we need to address the very legitimate concerns and risks when it comes to privacy, the use of data, when it comes to the effect on critical thinking, when it comes to the effect that interacting with human-seeming but nonhuman entities has on developing minds. And, ultimately, it requires, you know, building trust among parents and students and teachers and school leaders and everyone that's affected. And so I think this professional development piece of it is extremely important. And I think there's probably more of a role that we can play here in trying to expand access to high-quality, up-to-date professional development. Of course, that's very challenging because, you know, you could take the world's leading expert in AI right now, and they could give a presentation today, and it would be outdated by next week.
Things are just moving at such a dizzying pace. And, you know, just for example, in the last couple months, agentic AI has suddenly gotten kind of good and useful where, you know, it's probably not that far beyond today's technology where a teacher could say, okay. One shot prompt. I want you to grade all these papers with individualized feedback for students, design tomorrow's lesson plans that incorporate all of these standards, produce all of the accompanying worksheets, collateral, and assessments in a way that's tailored and scaffolded to the academic history of each student, then go away for an hour, come back, and it's all done. I mean, we're really not that far off from that, and it's gonna continue to change and improve.
But what is constant, as has been emphasized by all of our witnesses, is the foundational importance of the human element of that teacher-student interaction. And so, I think that, you know, we need to think about how we can continue to steer the use of these ever more powerful tools towards enhancing that and supporting that. And then, you know, finally, I think that we discussed this issue of screen time. I think that you're also likely to see, the way that most people interact inside a classroom or out with the AI change in the coming years where the chatbot interface will no longer be dominant, where screens might not even be the dominant modality or interface. And I think that's gonna open up some really exciting opportunities as well.
But also, there'll be challenges that come with that. So there's gonna be a lot to navigate, and, I think that, we're gonna continue to do everything we can on this subcommittee, to try to stay up to speed and support the teachers and school leaders and everyone that's managing this across the country in the months and years to come. So thank you again to all our witnesses. There being no other business, this subcommittee stands adjourned.
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