Forget cheating. The pressing AI debate in education now is about how this pervasive technology will affect developing brains
By Lorna Garey
For most parents, the explosion of artificial intelligence is a source of anxiety: Will my child be tempted to take shortcuts? Can I effectively control their use of AI given its pervasiveness? These valid concerns barely scratch the surface of the debate raging in school districts across the state, and here in Malden. Very few districts have formal policies or standard guidelines, leaving educators racing to keep up with technology that’s not standing still.
“This is an evolving, dynamic field,” said Malden Public Schools superintendent Timothy Sippel of generative AI. “Most districts in Massachusetts are really grappling with the implications of it, the potential opportunities, but also the potential concerns and risks.”
MPS leadership is working to make recommendations to the School Committee, aided by state guidance and community input. A recent forum drew intense public debate that has continued online, with a vocal segment of the community calling for an outright ban on GenAI in schools.
Generative AI differs from previous machine learning technologies by making the leap from an explainable “analyze and predict” model to generating entirely new content. Many of us have used systems that examine past data to make a prediction, such as a recommendation engine on Netflix or a credit card company flagging a transaction as suspect. Generative AI, in contrast, is a system of creation that can write a full essay or generate a video from a simple, three or four word prompt.
And that worries parents and educators.
In Malden, the conversation isn’t about catching cheaters. It’s about whether tools framed as able to help students learn might instead keep them from learning how to think while potentially exposing private information. The concerns over “cognitive offloading” and the impact of GenAI technology on critical thinking are supported by recent studies.
In response, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, or DESE, offers a variety of materials to help parents and districts wrap their arms around what is not fundamentally a technology problem, but a discussion about the future of education.
The takeaways from Malden’s forum can be framed as five pillars defining the conversation about AI in schools.
Takeaway 1: AI is already in your child’s classroom. You just may not see it
“AI is becoming embedded, and often it’s an invisible component of educational tools,” said Stippel. “More and more, it’s not presented as a standalone product, but as a built-in feature or enhancement shaping how platforms function.”
He used the graphics program Canva as an example, and children may also be interacting with various types of AI through:
• Personalized recommendations on learning platforms that advise on what to study next.
• Automated writing feedback in word processors that go beyond spelling and grammar checking to suggest alternate phrasing.
• Adaptive assessments that adjust question difficulty in real-time based on a student’s answers.
• Design features within creative tools, including Canva, that generate realistic images or videos from text prompts.
While these under-the-hood, or ambient, capabilities can be helpful, their invisible nature is precisely what worries many parents and educators. A student making a conscious choice to get some help from ChatGPT is one thing. But, as several parents pointed out, when everyday tools make cognitive shortcuts the default, we risk quietly but pervasively eroding critical thinking skills.
Takeaway 2: Not all AI is the same
The “AI” term is used as a catchall, but schools are dealing with at least three distinct types of the technology. At the forum, Stippel outlined a framework coming from DESE that sorts AI into three categories:
• Predictive AI: These tools, like recommendation engines, analyze past data to forecast what might happen next and are often based on machine learning technologies that have been around for decades. In schools, an example is an algorithm that analyzes grades and attendance records to predict if a student is on track to graduate.
• Generative AI: This is the category that’s garnering attention and concern. Tools like Google Gemini or OpenAI ChatGPT produce new content in response to prompts. A common example is a teacher using GenAI to generate a lesson plan or a student using it to brainstorm ideas for a paper.
• Agentic AI: This is an emerging category of tools that act on a human’s behalf, within preset parameters. An example would be a proactive AI tutor agent that takes a student’s goal, creates and executes a learning plan, adjusts automatically based on progress, even calls on other AI systems for help, all without parent or teacher input. Most agents can be configured for “human in the loop” operation.
Understanding these distinctions is critical for a nuanced policy discussion.
Takeaway 3: The most pressing fear isn’t about cheating—it’s about rewiring children’s brains
While academic integrity is a concern, Stippel framed the greatest risk as the “short circuiting of thinking and opportunity for students to really think for themselves.” The worry is that even moderate use of AI will, over time, prevent students from developing fundamental cognitive skills.
This concern was powerfully articulated at the forum by a parent of a Malden kindergartener. The parent, who also teaches composition at Boston University, noted “extremely concerning” changes she’s already seeing in her college students, who have had access to generative AI since high school. What might be the effect on the youngest learners?
This captures the core of the debate. If a tool can instantly generate essay ideas, organize an outline, write a draft, and refine it sentence by sentence, will a child ever build the mental muscles needed for creative struggle, deep analysis, and finding their own voice?
Takeaway 4: The district’s goal isn’t to ban AI, it’s to build ethical guardrails
In response to these challenges, DESE isn’t suggesting a ban, but a rulebook. Districts including Malden are encouraged to build local policies around five core ethical principles that DESE says are designed to help with thoughtful and safe integration of AI tools:
- Student data privacy and security
- Transparency and accountability
- Bias awareness and mitigation
- Human oversight and educator judgment
- Academic integrity
In practice, this means taking concrete steps, like refusing to approve tools from companies that aren’t members of The Education Cooperative’s Student Data Privacy Alliance—a standard, Stippel noted, that the popular ChatGPT currently fails to meet, while Google’s Gemini does. It also means shifting the conversation on academic integrity from punishment to education, teaching students how to recognize AI tools, use them responsibly, and cite them properly, just like any other research source.
The MPS Technology Subcommittee is already engaged in discussing the implications of AI on the school IT system and how to start developing a policy, he said.
Takeaway 5: Most school districts are moving slowly on AI, and that’s a point of contention
The fact that most school districts don’t yet have formal AI policies is not a sign of neglect, said Stippel. It’s deliberate caution. Instead of a top-down mandate, Malden is forming an AI & Learning Working Group of parents, educators, and students who will be tasked with developing a policy that works for the city. This collaborative approach is designed to ensure the final policy reflects shared values, he said.
This deliberate pace, however, was met with some skepticism at the forum, with parents questioning whether the district was moving forward with plans for AI adoption before having answers to their most fundamental questions about safety and cognitive impact. As one parent pointedly asked, “It feels very much like you’re speaking about this as a present term … yet you have a plan to move forward with AI in our school district. Is that correct?”
This highlights the challenge for school leaders: How to prepare students and teachers for what’s likely an inevitable future while respecting the community’s valid concerns about the present.
Parents Outspoken About Risks
Many parents are skeptical that AI can be used without harm. An open letter circulating in the community, available here, urges Malden leaders to ban AI tools from classrooms and avoid contracts with major providers, among other steps, saying “AI is remarkably like the moment when we were introduced to asbestos.”
The letter states: “It’s not about students, it’s not about teachers, and it’s certainly not about learning. It’s about billionaire-owned tech companies – some of the most extractive and oppressive companies in modern history – making a cynical push to keep their bubble of hype and over-valuation inflated. These companies are currently trying to sign contracts across the country that will inject their unproven, unnecessary and demonstratively damaging products into our schools and institutions – places from which it will be remarkably hard to remove them once they’re integrated into curriculum – in order to create the illusion of usefulness and wide adoption.”
The calls to action from the more than 100 people who have signed on to the open letter to MPS:
1. Ban AI tools into the classroom, protect students and teachers from de-skilling, and allow them the space and time to engage in assignments themselves.
2. Resist not only direct financial relationships or contracts with AI providers, but any training they might offer.
3. Provide a digital literacy curriculum to help students navigate the current digital landscape and promote critical engagement with technology.
4. Guarantee that anywhere generative AI has already entered our classrooms or curriculum, an opt-out will allow students and teachers to refuse the use of these products at no risk to their grades, progress, or employment.
A New Conversation
The GenAI reckoning, as communities like Malden are discovering, is complex. It involves understanding the technology already in classrooms, addressing deeper questions about how it will shape children’s minds, and building community consensus around guardrails.
To that end, Stippel reiterated that the district will demand that AI tools are explainable and understandable and said educators, students, and families deserve to know when AI is involved in learning, grading, decision-making, or access to services. That might mean informing parents when AI tools are used in classrooms through various structures as well as technology-use consent forms and maintaining a public list of digital tools that describes what each one does and how it’s used.
For community members interested in joining the AI & Learning Working Group, sessions are scheduled to take place on Monday evenings from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m., beginning Nov. 24 and running through May 11, with locations to be announced. Those who would like to learn more about the AI & Learning Working Group or potentially apply should reach out to the Superintendent at superintendent@maldenps.org for more information.
Learn More
See the complete MPS presentation
MPS Technology Department Page
DESE Guide on AI in K12 Schools
MIT RAISE (Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education) Resources for K12 Leaders
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