Rules Are Not the Same as Guidance

Schools are writing more AI rules, but students and teachers still report that they do not know how to use the tools well. A rule can define what is allowed without teaching anyone how to make a good decision.

What Happened This Week

On Tuesday, the Mountain Times republished a letter from a high school junior in central Vermont accusing her teachers of using AI to write the worksheets, draft the test items, and generate the lesson plans.¹²

On Monday, Common Sense Media released the first national Census of AI use by American tweens and teens.³⁴

On Monday, the Hechinger Report described a survey done by a University of Chicago undergraduate of 338 of her classmates.⁵⁶

On June 1, Maryland's AI Ready Schools Act took effect, the most comprehensive state law yet written about artificial intelligence in K-12 classrooms.⁷⁸

Last week, NBC News reported from inside Google's Mountain View campus, where the company had flown in seventy K-12 teachers and technology directors for a two-day training on Gemini and NotebookLM.⁹¹⁰

This week, Common Sense Media released the first AI census it intends to repeat each year.³¹¹

On June 9, a coalition of New York City parents, teachers, and elected officials delivered a letter to the chancellor of the country's largest school system.¹²¹³

What These Stories Have in Common

Students need more than a list of prohibited uses. They need practice deciding when AI can help them understand an idea and when it would take away the work they need to do themselves.

Koan starts from a simple premise. The final answer is no longer a reliable measure of learning. Schools need to understand how students reached that answer and whether the work made them more capable.

What Schools Can Do

Schools should teach AI judgment through real assignments. Teachers should explain why a use is appropriate, ask students to document important interactions, and assess whether the student can still explain and defend the final work.

The goal of AI literacy is not compliance. It is the ability to use a powerful tool without giving up responsibility for thinking.