Truthout: AI pitched to cash-strapped schools as teacher stand-in

The pushback described in the reporting is not only about whether AI works in classrooms. It is also about how the technology arrives there. Journalist Natasha Singer's reporting, cited in the piece, traces a decades-long effort by tech companies to embed themselves in U.S. schools — Google's push to hook students early on services like Gmail and Chrome, with ad revenue from amassed data coming later. Schools have spent tens of billions of dollars on Chromebooks and other ed tech since that wave began, and adoption accelerated during the pandemic.

What has changed is the staffing context. Chicago librarian Tara Donnelly said her school's after-school tutoring was hit hard by "Operation Midway Blitz," President Donald Trump's anti-immigration raids in the city last year, leaving little after-school life. Boston senior Yeisbel Peña described classrooms with one teacher for 10 or 20 students. Against that backdrop, AI Moratorium Coalition's Kaliris Salas-Ramirez described the bind: if a district cannot invest in human capital quickly, some ask whether AI is "the next best thing."

The Trump administration has encouraged broader AI adoption, including a 2025 executive order promoting AI education and integration for youth and teachers. Organizer Alisha Maynoush Mernick of Schools Beyond Screens LAUSD frames the result as a funding story: when public schools are underfunded, companies can swoop in, which she calls "privatization in a nutshell."