Schools Lack AI Policies, Students Want Answers

A new RAND American Youth Panel finding shows many students say their schools don’t have a clear, school-wide AI policy, with rules often changing by teacher. The report urges direct conversations with students—and lays out how educators can build fair guardra

When students think about AI at school, the rules don’t always feel like rules. For many of them, they feel like whoever is teaching that day.

New findings released by RAND’s American Youth Panel suggest only about 1 in 3 students say their school has a school-wide policy on the use of AI. Many students also say the policy varies depending on the teacher. And the student response is clear: 67 percent endorsed the statement. “The more students use AI for their schoolwork. the more it will harm their critical thinking skills.”.

The report’s recommendation is not another document to file away. It calls for “direct conversations” with students about AI—starting with the questions educators may be avoiding in staff rooms and classrooms.

Those conversations land in a different reality than one might expect. The Center for Democracy and Technology reports that approximately 85 percent of teachers and students say they are using AI for schoolwork. In other words. students are already experiencing AI in the day-to-day work of school. even where school-wide guidance appears to be missing or inconsistent.

So the first step, educators can’t skip, is getting specific about what the school actually wants AI to do.

Speaking with colleagues—teachers and school leaders—students and adults can begin by asking. “Is it our goal to make things easier for students?. For teachers?” AI can simplify and increase efficiency, and in other ways do the work for us. The question presses the room to decide whether that’s truly the point.

Then come the harder boundaries: when is making things easier acceptable, and when does it cross the line?. In what types of situations might a school want to avoid making things easier?. How can AI and LLM tools be implemented in a way that benefits the learning community—such as increased efficiency. time savings. and the ability to gather and analyze more data?.

But the conversation doesn’t end at logistics. It moves quickly toward the learning experiences schools want to preserve: guardrails that protect productive struggle, complex problem-solving, and the full cycle of devising, testing, and refining solutions.

That leads to the questions schools need for the classroom itself—how students will critically analyze information and “answers” provided by AI tools. The panel of questions extends into something students can feel immediately: can they identify bias?. Will they ask. “What’s the source for this information?” and “What perspective does this source have?” Can they distinguish fact—like the distance between the Earth and the sun—from opinion. like the filibuster as a tool for promoting democracy?.

Behind those questions sits a blunt responsibility for everyone in the building: strengthening skills so students—and adults—remain the drivers of AI innovation.

It’s also a moment for schools to look outward. What skills do other schools or people they trust, admire, and respect bring into their AI policies? What can be learned from them?

And just as important, the conversation has to include student voice. What processes do schools have in place—or can they put into place—to include student voice in determining when and how to use AI in the school?

When the focus shifts to students, the questions are meant to pull AI out of the abstract and into the lived meaning of school. What is valuable about the work students do together? How might AI tools increase that value—and how might they undermine it?

Students can also be asked directly about integrity: what does it mean to them, as individuals and as a school, and how can AI support that integrity rather than erode it?

Even starting from what students already know can set the tone. What do you know about AI? What do you want to know about it? What are some ways you might use AI in school? What are the potential benefits and drawbacks?

All of it points to a central friction: AI policy can’t be treated like something educators bolt on top of existing practice. If it’s simply overlaid and everyone continues business as usual, the disruption AI brings will spill into classrooms in messy, uneven ways.

AI is described as a powerful tool with the power to disrupt—potentially beneficial in ways like disrupting inequitable access to information and learning tools, but harmful too, including fueling complacency and undermining critical thinking and curiosity.

That’s why the push is toward deep alignment between AI use and a school’s values. built through thoughtful. school-wide conversations. During those conversations. the language matters: using the phrase “I don’t know” is encouraged. because educators don’t have all the answers about what AI can or should do. or how it might support—or undermine—critical thinking and curiosity.

In practice, those conversations become a model for how teachers want students to handle uncertainty. They’re an opportunity to show students how to puzzle through complex issues, to build uncertainty tolerance, and to teach problem-solving at its highest level.

And in the end, the work is about more than AI. It’s about whether schools can keep students engaged in the kind of learning that requires thought, struggle, and judgment—just with a new tool sitting on the desk.

AI policy RAND American Youth Panel student voice critical thinking LLMs Center for Democracy and Technology integrity in education