The End of Another School Year and the Expansion of A.I. Chaos
Teachers regularly use AI detection tools to scan students’ work for authenticity. Sadly, I sympathize with the necessity. But the net effect doesn’t improve learning. Without reading a student’s submission or considering the student’s capabilities, the default assumes guilt via an AI lie detector until innocence is proven.
Within an hour or so of submitting work, students receive an ambiguous email from their teacher like this one sent to my daughter on the last week of school: “Hi A, your Interim Assessment was flagged for AI usage. Please make sure to fix and resubmit.” Fix and resubmit. For a student who hasn’t used AI, what are they supposed to fix?
The message came with no detailed feedback from the teacher provided: no specific pages, paragraphs, language, concepts, logic or formulas, for a 20-page paper that serves as the end of year assessment for an 11th grade IB math class. For my daughter, who produced the highest score on her Algebra Regents exam in 8th grade (pre-AI) and who continues to work hard in all her classes, this vague accusation was devastating and painful. Not least because she was baffled that her personal narrative discussed the relationship between mathematics, geometry and crochet, a hobby she’s practiced since she was 11, described in detail how she varied her stitches in each of the 9 crochet artifacts she physically created.
I’m not naive. Surely many students turn to AI for help, as do teachers. But the rules, if you can call them that, are vague at best. No one know what is allowable, or excusable. If AI can be used to automatically assume the worst, shouldn’t the questionable material at least be reviewed and communicated by the teacher to the student? Especially for a 20-page math paper that serves as an end of year assessment including personal reflections, research questions, data collection and mathematical formulas?
“Educators must critically evaluate all AI-generated output for accuracy, appropriateness, and potential bias. AI responses should never be accepted at face value” NYC Public Schools’ Guidance on Artificial Intelligence (AI) March 2026.
To be clear, technology may offer some benefits. But it must be employed with human judgement. And if it’s a tool to assist in learning, educators and policy makers need to start with concrete problems and goals to clarify when it’s appropriate and how it should be deployed. As evidence of where this can be lacking, I share the following conversation from my 11th grade daughter’s recent experience.
17th June 2026, 1:43 pm
KT (teacher): “Hi A, Your Interim Assessment was flagged for AI usage. Please make sure to fix and resubmit by Sunday at 11:59PM.”
17th June 2026 1:59 pm
AB (student) “What part got flagged? I didn’t use it, so I’m not sure what to even change?”
To be clear, we can’t blame teachers entirely for sloppy use of AI. It’s the decision makers, the ones who make policy and spend public money in support of policies that must be held accountable. The policy makers, elected officials and administrators, must think through the secondary and tertiary harms of AI in education, including indiscriminate usage of “Turnitin” and similar tools for vetting student work. A.I. in education requires clear policies, goals, context, and teacher training that does not ignore students’ humanity.
NYC Public Schools’ Guidance on Artificial Intelligence (AI) released March 2026 states, “AI is not…A replacement for your child’s teacher…a replacement for the trust between families, educators…Always accurate…”
By the next afternoon, she had added photos of her crochet samples and made a few minor edits. In the end, it was accepted and she wasn’t penalized. Has she figured out how to work around AI vetting tools that are notoriously imperfect? Maybe. What is more tragic is the erosion of trust caused by a casual insinuation of dishonesty and laziness. I don’t think the teacher intended that effect. But emotions are intense when the stakes are high. She had worked hard and in the end was hurt by a teacher’s default use of technology that lacked thoughtful deployment.
My daughter is but one example. Teachers have called out students all year for AI usage based on vetting algorithms (without explaining how it's used) leading to resentment when students don’t use it, and when they do, contributing to confusion of what’s acceptable, when and how. We are no clearer at the end of the school year than we were at the beginning. I don’t doubt that AI can provide some benefits. But guidelines, policies, and execution must treat AI usage systemically, not by addressing each part of the education system as independent resources and levers. And not by assuming guilt first, leading to ad-hoc responses that tear down trust and add to perverse feedback loops of unmitigated trust in AI.
100% written by a human.
Originally submitted to NYC Council and Council Member/Education Chair Eric Dinowitz as testimony for the Council hearing on Education and AI. June 25, 2026.
