Dive Brief:
- Some 58% of principals reported using artificial intelligence tools for work during the 2023-24 school year, according to a Rand Corp. survey released Tuesday.
- The five most common ways principals said they used AI tools include drafting and enhancing school communications, supporting school administrator tasks, assisting with teacher hiring, supporting evaluation and professional development, bolstering instruction or demonstrating how teachers can use AI in their lessons, and researching job-related topics.
- Despite a notable number of principals tapping into AI, Rand found that only 18% said their school or district offered some type of guidance on AI use. Low-poverty schools were almost twice as likely to receive AI guidance compared to high-poverty schools — at 25% versus 13%, respectively — principals reported.
Dive Insight:
Among both principals and teachers, there is a gap in implementing AI tools depending on the poverty level of the school they work at, according to Rand.
In fact, those working in low-poverty schools were more likely to use AI compared to teachers and principals at high-poverty schools, the survey said.
“Principals’ lower use of AI tools in higher-poverty schools could discourage teachers in those schools from using AI tools,” the Rand report’s authors wrote. “It could also mean that principals in higher-poverty schools are less equipped to help their teachers use AI tools.”
The authors added that other explanations for the uneven implementation of AI tools could be that staff in higher-poverty schools have less access to broadband, don’t have the capacity to use the technology, or they have more pressing concerns to address instead of adopting AI tools. The Rand report is based on the survey responses of 1,878 teachers and 1,955 principals nationwide.
Rand’s findings on these gaps reflect another report the organization released last year with the Center on Reinventing Public Education, which found that majority-White districts were more likely to train teachers on how to use AI than districts serving mostly students of color.
In the 2023-24 school year, Rand found that 25% of teachers reported using AI tools for instructional planning or teaching. There was higher use, however, among English language arts and science teachers, as well as those teaching at the secondary level.
Student use of the popular AI tool ChatGPT was at a similar rate — 26% — in 2024, according to a separate and recent survey by the Pew Research Center. That amounts to double the percentage of students using the tool from the previous year.
Some schools and districts are likely limited when it comes to taking AI more seriously, because they simply don’t have the capacity, money and time to invest in the technology more even though the interest is there, according to education policy experts.
Additionally, as federal guidance and policies on K-12 AI use remain murky under President Donald Trump’s new administration, it’s expected that implementation and resources on these initiatives will have to come from states and local communities this year.
Rand recommends that all districts and schools create intentional strategies to use AI for improving instructional quality and student learning. The authors added that it takes a group effort to do so, writing, “states, districts, and schools should lean in to help both school leaders and teachers understand which AI tools have the most evidence of supporting good instruction and student learning.”
To bridge AI use disparities among low- and high-poverty schools, Rand also suggests that those involved in the investment, development and decision making of this technology should consider how to make the “most-promising AI developments freely available,” particularly for teachers and students in more disadvantaged and higher-poverty areas.
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