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At “AI in Education and Beyond,” a joint AFT-Microsoft conference in Chicago Aug. 11-13, participants voiced joy and fear in the same breath: Excitement at the learning options artificial intelligence opens versus concern for student safety. Interest in how much mindless administrative work AI can save versus fear it will replace vital human expertise. Preparing kids for an AI-infused workplace versus alarm at the ever-widening digital gap.
But from early adapters to skeptics, agreement was clear on one thing: An educator-labor voice in AI is essential—and the AFT’s unlikely collaboration with Microsoft may help us get there.
‘Everything is on the table’
Participants were welcomed by Rob Weil, the AFT’s educational issues director for policy, research and field programs, and Nisaini Rexach, Microsoft’s community engagement manager in Chicago. “Everything is on the table right now with AI,” Weil said. “But with challenge comes opportunity.” Rexach added, “Microsoft will make sure educators have a seat at the table,” and she thanked conference co-sponsors TeachAI, Khan Academy and NewsGuard.
The first morning’s plenary session featured Jason Roberts, president of the Kansas City (Mo.) Federation of Teachers and School-Related Personnel; Jeff Freitas, an AFT vice president and president of the CFT, the AFT’s California affiliate; Pat Yongpradit, chief academic officer for the nonprofit Code.org; and Greg Bianchi, Microsoft Philanthropies’ director for AI and sustainability, digital inclusion.
Yongpradit said AI’s Wild West is changing: 22 state departments of education now have AI guidance. “One year ago, there were none. AI is not happening to us, we are happening to it.”
Freitas observed that the pace of AI development is speeding up, compared with past technologies such as cellphones. He said, “Why this partnership? … [Because] if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”
Roberts cautioned that the crucial role of paraprofessionals and school-related personnel should never be sacrificed to technology, an area “where I feel we might see this start to slip.”
Bianchi praised the AFT’s new report on classroom guardrails for AI, and reported Microsoft’s finding that 52 percent of students are concerned about being accused of plagiarism or cheating because of AI. He advocated “lifting the hood” for students on the use of AI, using resources from TeachAI, Code.org and Microsoft’s toolkits.
‘Another bite at the apple’
The afternoon’s “Guidance and Guardrails for the Use of AI in Education” was led by Washington Teachers’ Union President Jacqueline Pogue-Lyons and featured Cass Matthews, assistant general counsel for Microsoft’s Office of Responsible AI; Marty Creel, content development lead for Code.org’s TeachAI team; Noelle Ellerson Ng, associate executive director of advocacy and governance for AASA/The School Superintendents Association; and the AFT’s Weil.
Pogue-Lyons raised the issue of the deep digital divide, which was spotlighted by the pandemic. Ellerson Ng urged advocating at the federal level for expanding affordability and access.
Creel expressed regret that early on, educator groups lacked involvement in AI development and policy. “We’re hoping that groups like AFT say, let’s have another bite at the apple.”
Matthews said, “The pace is phenomenal. … [There is a] need for thoughtful conversation.” And Weil summed up, “The AFT must be at the table, and we must push our way to more tables.”
An “Opportunities and Challenges” panel, led by Patrick O’Steen, director of teacher skills for Microsoft Philanthropies, featured WTU member and District of Columbia middle school Spanish teacher Michael Donaldson, Butte (Mont.) Teachers Union member and high school English teacher Hannah Telling, and United Federation of Teachers member and New York City high school history teacher Sari Beth Rosenberg. Panelists described how they use AI in the classroom—Rosenberg, for debate questions; Telling, for working on the sentence level with students; and Donaldson, for helping classes stage fashion shows in Spanish.
Telling noted, “The opportunities are immense—and the challenges, we need to be clear-eyed about.” For example, she said, “students know who’s using AI to cheat,” which “fuels disengagement in the classroom.”
University of California, Santa Cruz, professor and author Nolan Higdon questioned corporate data collection through “free” AI resources: “These tools are taking our data, our privacy. Any concern that these companies put profits over people?” Donaldson responded that student data should “not [be] used to give more profits to companies.”
A conversation between AFT President Randi Weingarten and Microsoft Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Amy Pannoni followed. Weingarten praised Microsoft as one of the few tech companies willing to engage with educators. Pannoni said, “How can we listen and learn? That’s the journey we’ve signed up for.”
Local partnerships fuel organizing, collaboration
The next morning, Weingarten moderated a Zoom conversation with San Antonio’s Northside AFT President Melina Espiritu-Azocar and United Teachers of Wichita (Kan.) President Katie Warren, whose AFT-Microsoft partnerships have energized their members and districts. (The AFT is devoting hundreds of thousands in grants to locals across the country to fund solutions to understanding, incorporating and regulating AI.)
Warren enthused about using AI to lessen heavy paperwork. “It’s been a great partnership, and we’re excited to see what happens next. … It feels really good to say to our members, this is one way to take things off your plate, so you have more time to connect with kids.” The UTW’s May 2023 professional development event “was packed with teachers. … The district tech guy was in our office within 20 minutes.”
Espiritu-Azocar’s local and Microsoft co-sponsored a standing-room-only professional development session on AI in June. The potential for collaborating with the district on AI has fostered good labor-management feeling, which is especially important in a “right to work” state. AI is also a great organizing issue: The local signed up three members at its professional development session.
‘First you have to turn it on’
In a table-work session, “Equity and Ethics in AI Education,” participants’ priorities included:
- Addressing bias in the programming/software community. (One participant observed, “Big Tech is disproportionately run by white men”—as she noted Bloomberg Technology’s Emily Chang might say, it’s a “Brotopia.”)
- Teaching critical thinking and fact-checking.
- Broadening access. (Anderson [Ind.] Federation of Teachers’ building representative Rissi Scott urged, “Equity is the access. First you have to turn it on.”)
- Welcoming input from students about the use of AI.
A panel discussion on the broader implications of AI in education followed, moderated by Ohio Federation of Teachers President Melissa Cropper and featuring Emma Gray, product manager on the Microsoft Education team; Fred Oswald, professor of psychological sciences and chair in social sciences at Rice University; and Sarah Brandt, executive vice president of partnerships for NewsGuard Technologies.
Cropper began, “How do we make sure our children can discern which information is accurate?”
Brandt noted that NewsGuard (a journalist-run AFT partner that rates news sources’ trustworthiness) studied the ease of launching heavily biased AI sites masquerading as news. “[You can] build an AI-powered, self-running propaganda machine for $105.”
Oswald asked, “How do you distinguish fact from non-fact? How do we engage students and faculty in that process? … That’s critical.”
On plagiarism concerns, Gray said, “Building trust is paramount. … Make it a conversation with the student about when we use this [technology] and when we don’t.” Cropper asked whether schools should block non-credible resources. Brandt responded: “Help them know how to spot the garbage; don’t block the garbage.”
Winning ‘a just transition’
In an intensive Q&A session, Weingarten pledged that AI will have a prominent place on next summer’s AFT TEACH conference agenda, and envisioned expanding member input to help the union quickly produce an updated version of its “Commonsense Guardrails for Using Advanced Technology in Schools” report and optimize Microsoft’s ongoing work to create educator-informed resources.
Audience-raised topics included age-appropriateness, AI’s global environmental impact and protecting the vulnerable. Weingarten called for government to get involved on these issues. “It can’t simply be you at a bargaining table trying to get it all done.” She said social media advocacy is a good model for curbing potential risks, mentioning New York’s new first-in-the-nation laws protecting children from addictive algorithm-driven feeds and advertiser-driven data collection.
She added, “The labor movement is looking at this [the implications of AI] in a way that is not only skeptical but strategic,” as with the SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America strikes. “It’s about just transitions. … Maybe we can write a different story about this industrial revolution than every other one.”
In the closing session, the AFT’s Weil was joined by AFT Educational Issues Director for Professional Learning and Member Engagement Lisa Dickinson; AFT Educational Issues Assistant Director for e-Learning Platforms and Share My Lesson, Digital Content, Ami Turner DelAguila; and Microsoft’s Bianchi. DelAguila described the wealth of AI resources offered by the AFT’s Share My Lesson educator community. Dickinson urged participants to share AI-related proposals for Share My Lesson’s Virtual Conference coming up in March 2025.
Bianchi vowed, “Count on us to continue to stay engaged.”
AFT Executive Vice President Evelyn DeJesus gave the send-off: “Go back and be excited about this, because this is the future for our children and our world.”
[All photos by Faith Frye]