Nonprofit Launches Studies to Assess AI’s Role in K-12

The nonprofit American Institutes for Research (AIR) is conducting half a dozen coordinated studies on how K-12 schools are using AI for the purposes of influencing instruction, assessment, professional learning and data-driven decision-making.

The AI in Education Network arrives at a time when districts are grappling with both the promise and risks of emerging technologies. A news release from the nonprofit today said the network is intended to help generate fresh evidence about which tools and strategies genuinely improve teaching and learning, and which may pose unintended challenges.

“As AI becomes part of everyday use in education, schools need more than marketing — they need evidence,” AIR President and CEO Jessica Heppen said in a public statement. “Our goal is to provide clear, credible insights that help educators, school and district leaders, and policymakers make sound decisions about which types of AI-enabled tools to adopt, and which to avoid.”

According to the news release, the network was created as part of AIR’s broader mission to study trends in workforce development, health and education. An internal review process selected projects emphasizing “innovative, timely work capable of generating practical insights for the field,” with a focus on applied research that examines both the benefits and risks of AI use in schools.

The six studies span topics from classroom instruction to district-level data use, including:

• How professional learning can help teachers integrate AI tools responsibly and effectively to enhance instruction.
  
• Whether human-AI collaboration in science assessments can improve student engagement and performance.
  
• Controlled environments to evaluate AI tools in real-world school settings, helping districts make data-informed technology decisions.
  
• Tests to determine how AI can transform district finance and human resources data into actionable insights for staffing, budgeting and strategic planning.
  
• Whether AI-generated data can assess the quality of survey and test items as well as human responses.
  
• The evaluation of AI-enabled tools that personalize learning and support student and teacher well-being in rural schools.

Rachel Garrett, a managing researcher who leads the AI in Education Network, said the projects are designed to address urgent questions about AI’s role in classrooms.

“The network projects will provide early answers to the questions many educators are asking,” Garrett said in a public statement. “What can AI do well in education, where does it fall short, and how can we make sure it serves students and teachers? By linking these projects through a shared learning network, we can move faster, collaborate more effectively, and share insights that help schools and systems make informed decisions.”