Earlier this month, the Illinois State Board of Education released guidance on artificial intelligence for Illinois schools. The guidelines are needlessly complicated, repetitive and lacking substance. In a bit of self-parody, ISBE readily admitted to using AI to construct the 409-page word salad.
The phrase, “teaching and learning are shaped by human relationships and by the experiences, interests, and assets each child brings into school,” can be found eight times throughout the document. If this is the case, then the nexus of our instruction should reside with dedicated teachers and students. However, once you begin to dig in, this guiding light seems little more than lip service.
Many of the report’s recommendations suggest that AI will make teaching easier. For a Read-Aloud/Picture/Text Evidence lesson, the guide suggests that in order to help students recall which words they hear during a read-aloud, the teacher could use ChatGPT to “generate 5–8 target words with kid-friendly definitions + gestures; create picture + word cards and word-only cards for differentiation.”
This is a great idea. Teaching vocabulary is an important part of literacy. However, what is the teacher’s role in this scenario? Anyone can read a book out loud. The teacher’s job is to read the book in advance, consider their specific students and their vocabulary needs, and then create a lesson to match. ChatGPT cannot take individual student needs into consideration. Only an educator can do that.
As the document moves into suggestions for high school lessons, it frequently suggests that students complete part of the lesson with AI and then finish on their own.
“AI may brainstorm counterclaims and improve structure. Students must write in their own voice, cite sources, and disclose AI assistance,” the guidance recommends.
This suggests we offer our students what is essentially a “homework machine” to complete part of an assignment and then tell them to close the laptop and compose the remainder on their own. If left to their own devices, most high school students (and most adults) would not be able to resist the one-click pull of automatic assignment completion.
Additionally, the guidelines suggest that students can turn over brainstorming and planning to AI so students can “enter tasks faster and spend more time revising and refining work.” Brainstorming and planning are part of the writing process. In fact, I spent a fair amount of time doing both to construct this piece. How does it help students to offload cognitive tasks to a machine? Why do we want a machine to work for us? To create for us? Thinking is part of the learning journey.
While perusing this document, I wondered why the Illinois State Board of Education is supporting and promoting a technology that works to replace teachers and degrade learning and thinking? It may be hard to imagine, but this future has arrived in some cities. “Sally,” the first humanoid robot, will debut as a teaching assistant in a New York school this fall.
Alpha School is an “AI-powered school wherekids crush academics in two hours, build life skills through workshops, and thrive beyond the classroom.” Sounds pretty great on the surface. Instead of teachers, Alpha School employs “guides.” These people are often hired from the tech world and are paid six-figure salaries (tuition starts at $40,000 a year). It is hard to imagine two hours of instruction from an AI tutor would be adequate for most students.
What school districts do need is more guidance and support around building stronger foundational skills. A major area of concern in Illinois is math. The Illinois Report Card indicates that only 38% of students in grades 3-8 scored ‘proficient’ on the 2025 IAR assessment. Our students are missing foundational skills such as number sense, automatic recall of math facts and the ability to read and understand word problems. The easiest way to address these issues is through hands-on activities involving manipulatives, flashcards, illustrations and real-life examples, such as telling time and playing “store” in the classroom. No devices needed.
The common sentiment around artificial intelligence is not positive. Tangential issues, such as data center construction and predicted job losses, do not bring joy or hope to our society. There seems to be an ongoing disconnect between those in the corporate suites and those of us who do the work, day in and day out. Did ISBE seek parent, student, or teacher opinions? Did it hold a public hearing or listening tour as is typical for recommendations of this magnitude?
ISBE, please revise these guidelines. You have an opportunity to choose a human-centered education system for our children over a simulacrum. You can choose to turn away from the not-so-subtle corporate influence. Technology companies seek lifelong customers. Our commitment as educators is to our students, not the success of the next start-up. We can break the spell of inevitability. ο
Melissa Hostetter is a middle school teacher in Springfield. She is a member of the Screens and Schools Working Group, a committee organized by Fairplay and its Screen Time Action Network. Fairplay is calling for a five-year pause on generative AI products in PreK-12 schools.
This article appears in Parent Fall 2026.
