Anne Lutz Fernandez
@lutzfernandez.bsky.social
9.3K followers 2.1K following 9.7K posts
Ex-banker, marketer, & English teacher: pick your ad hominem. Co-author of nonfiction books Carjacked & Schooled. Cranky in the AM. Newsletter: https://nobody-wants-this.ghost.io/
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lutzfernandez.bsky.social
I put together a 4-page doc for those wary of the rush to integrate in K-12 schools (though much applies beyond).

Four of the main arguments for teachers using AI tools & introducing kids to AI as early as kindergarten are addressed with rebuttals linked to sources.
Help Sheet: Resisting AI Mania in Schools

K-12 educators are under increasing pressure to use—and have students use—a wide range of AI tools. (The term
“AI” is used loosely here, just as it is by many purveyors and boosters.) Even those who envision benefits to schools
of this fast-evolving category of tech should approach the well-funded AI-in-education campaign with skepticism
and caution. Some of the primary arguments for teachers actively using AI tools and introducing students to AI as
early as kindergarten, however, are questionable or fallacious. What follows are four of the most common
arguments and rebuttals with links to sources. I have not attempted balance, in part because so much pro-AI
messaging is out there and discussion of risks and costs is often minimized in favor of hope or resignation. -ALF

Argument: “Schools need to prepare students for the jobs of the future.”
● The skills employers seek haven’t changed much over the decades—and include a lot of
“soft skills” like initiative, problem-solving, communication, and critical thinking.
● Early research is showing that using generative AI can degrade these key skills:
○ An MIT study showed adults using chatGPT to help write an essay “had the lowest
brain engagement and ‘consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and
behavioral levels.’” Critically, “ChatGPT users got lazier with each subsequent essay,
often resorting to copy-and-paste by the end of the study.”
○ A business school found those who used AI tools often had worse critical thinking
skills “mediated by increased cognitive offloading. Younger participants exhibited
higher dependence on AI tools and lower critical thinking scores.”
○ Another study revealed those using “ChatGPT engaged less in metacognitive
activities...For instance, learners in the AI group frequently looped back to ChatGPT for
feedback rather than reflecting independently. This dependency not only undermines
critical thinking but also risks long-term skill stagnati… Argument: “AI is a tool, just like a calculator.”
● Calculators don’t provide factually wrong answers, but AI tools have. Last year, Google’s AI
search returned, among other falsehoods, that cats have gone to the moon, that Barack
Obama is Muslim, and that glue goes on pizza. Even though AI tools have and are expected to
improve, children in schools shouldn’t be used as tech firms’ guinea pigs for undertested,
unregulated products while AI firms engage elected officials in actively resisting regulation.
● Calculators don’t provide dangerous, even deadly feedback. In one study, a ”chatbot
recommended that a user, who said they were recovering from addiction, take a ‘small hit’ of
methamphetamine” because, it said, it’s “‘what makes you able to do your job to the best of
your ability.’" Users have received threatening messages from chatbots.
● Calculators don’t pose mental health risks because they aren’t potentially addictive or
designed to encourage repeated use. They don’t flatter, direct, or manipulate. Chatbots have
been designed this way—and this has led to dreadful mental health outcomes for some,
including users in a New York Times report. Alleging a chatbot encouraged their teen to die
by suicide, parents in Florida filed a lawsuit against its maker.
● Calculators don’t lie. Chatbots, however, have misled users. Writer Amanda Guinzburg
shared screenshots of interactions with one that she asked to describe several of her essays.
It spewed out invented material, showing the chatbot hadn’t actually accessed and processed
the essays. After much prodding, it “admitted” it had only acted as though it had done that
requested work, spit out mea culpas—and went on to invent or “lie” again.
● Calculators can’t be used to spread propaganda. AI tools, though, including those meant for
schools, should worry us. Law professor Eric Muller’s back-and-forth with SchoolAI’s “Anne
Frank” character showed his “helluva time trying to get her to say a bad word about Nazis.” In
thi… Argument: “AI won’t replace teachers, but it will save them time and improve their
effectiveness.”
● Adding edtech does not necessarily save teachers time. A recent study found that learning
management systems sold to schools over the past decade-plus as time-savers aren’t
delivering on making teaching easier. Instead, they found this tech (e.g. Google Classroom,
Canvas) is often burdensome and contributes to burnout. As one teacher put it, it “just adds
layers to tasks.”
● “Extra time” is rarely returned to teachers. AI proponents argue that if teachers use AI tools
to grade, prepare lessons, or differentiate materials, they’ll have more time to work with
students. But there are always new initiatives, duties, or committee assignments—the unpaid
work districts rely on—to suck up that time. In a culture of austerity and with a USDOE that is
cutting spending, teachers are likely to be assigned more students. When class sizes grow,
students get less attention, and positions can be cut.
● AI can’t replace what teachers do, but that doesn’t mean teachers won’t be replaced.
Schools are already doing it: Arizona approved a charter school in which students spend
mornings working with AI and the role of teacher is reduced to “guide.” Ed tech expert Neil
Selwyn argues those in “industry and policy circles...hostile to the idea of expensively trained
expert professional educators who have [tenure], pension rights and union protection...
[welcome] AI replacement as a way of undermining the status of the professional teacher.”
● Tech firms have been selling schools on untested products for years. Technophilia has led
to students being on screens for hours in school each week even when their phones are
banned. Writer Jess Grose explains, “Companies never had to prove that devices or software,
broadly speaking, helped students learn before those devices had wormed their way into
America’s public schools.” AI products appear to be no different.
● Efficiency is not effectiveness. “… Argument: “Students are already using AI, so we have to teach them ethical use.
● If schools want ethical students, teach ethics. More students are using AI tools to cheat, an
age-old problem they make much easier. This won’t be addressed by showing students how
to use this minute’s AI, an argument implying students don’t know what plagiarism is (solved
by teaching about plagiarism) or understand academic integrity (solved by teaching and
enforcing its bounds)—or that teachers create weak assignments or don’t convey purpose.
The latter aren’t solved by attempting to redirect students motivated and able to cheat.
● Students can be educated on the ethics of AI without encouraging use of AI tools. They can
be taught, as part of media literacy and social media safety programs, about AI’s potential
and applications as well as how it can enable predation, perpetuate bias, and spread
disinformation. They should be taught about the risks of AI and its various social, economic,
and environmental costs. Giving a nod to these issues while integrating AI throughout
schools sends a strong message: the schools don’t really care and neither should students.
● Children can’t be expected to use AI responsibly when adults aren’t. Many pushing schools
to embrace AI don’t know much about it. One example: Education Secretary Linda McMahon,
who said kindergartners should be taught A1 (a steak sauce). The LA Times introduced a
biased and likely politically-motivated AI feature. The Chicago Sun-Times published a
summer reading list including nonexistent books—yet teachers are told to use the same tools
to do similar work. Educators using AI to cut corners can strike students as hypocritical.
● The many costs of AI call into question the possibility of ethical AI use. These include:
○ Energy - AI data centers need huge amounts of water as coolant as well as electricity, pulling
these resources from their communities—which tend to be lower-income—straining the grid,
and raising household cos…
lutzfernandez.bsky.social
We keep insisting the school must be remade to look like or be hardened against the world we are making outside of it instead of asking how we can make a world that is safe for learning.
Reposted by Anne Lutz Fernandez
tom-richmond.com
They're right to be worried about poorer critical thinking, research and problem-solving skills.

My recent report showed that studies have already demonstrated the wide-ranging detrimental impacts that AI tools can have on learning.

www.smf.co.uk/publications...
EducAItion, educAItion, educAItion: Could Generative Artificial Intelligence pose a risk to educational standards? - Social Market Foundation.
Could Generative Artificial Intelligence pose a risk to educational standards? SMF Senior Fellow Tom Richmond explores.
www.smf.co.uk
lutzfernandez.bsky.social
It's fair to say that embracing AI in schools is creating an unnecessary and just unfolding crisis.
The depth and breadth of AI use in the classroom has continued to
expand at a breakneck pace. At the same time, the growing use of AI
is also raising fundamental questions about academic integrity and the
teaching profession. In fact, a pending lawsuit raises legal questions about
disciplining students for alleged inappropriate AI use, and a complaint
(along with a tuition refund request) asserts that a college professor did
not provide a first-rate education due to their use of AI.1
 Education leaders
can expect these questions to grow as the use of AI increases:
• How does the expanded use of AI affect relationships between
students and teachers?
• How has AI impacted the job of a teacher?
• Does students’ use of AI diminish their critical thinking skills?
• What is the impact of students potentially using AI in ways that are
not permitted?
lutzfernandez.bsky.social
"The more that teachers and students report that their school uses AI, the more likely they are to report having heard of a deepfake and/or deepfake non-consensual intimate imagery...that depicts someone associated with their school in the last school year."

61% of students in high-use schools!
lutzfernandez.bsky.social
This important report reveals that increased AI use in schools:

-causes teachers and students to have more concern about AI

-makes students feel less connected to teachers

and that 71% of teachers worry AI weakens critical thinking & research skills.
Hand in Hand: Schools’ Embrace of AI Connected to Increased Risks to Students
Artificial intelligence (AI) has continued to alter the educational experiences of teachers, students, and parents during the 2024-25 school year. The frequency and variety of AI uses continues to gro...
cdt.org
lutzfernandez.bsky.social
Appeals to family first and country first can enable rapists, thieves, killers, and warmongers to get away with their crimes.

My mind always goes back to Alex Kelly, the CT rich kid whose parents shipped him off to Europe so he could escape accountability for rape.
3fecta.bsky.social
She is as bad as we think she is. Genuinely believe that killing people in mass quantities with quackery is less important than sticking together as a family.
On another personal front, Hines took a swipe at the Kennedy family’s disavowal of RFK Jr. for his widely condemned health views.


“I thought one of their virtues was that family came first and I admired that,” she began. “So when some of his family decided to ― there’s no other way to say it than attack him publicly ― it was disappointing.”
Reposted by Anne Lutz Fernandez
wrigleyfield.bsky.social
New podcast episode where I talk about what's going on with mortality in the US

A wide-ranging discussion of what happened before the pandemic & what's happened since then; racial disparities and how to get our heads around their scope; why things might be going so badly for Millennials & Gen Zers
Prof. Elizabeth Wrigley-Field Discusses Excess Deaths
Because the US death rate has exceeded that of 21 other high income countries for over four decades, an estimated 14.7 million US lives have been lost since1980.
www.thehealthcarepolicypodcast.com
Reposted by Anne Lutz Fernandez
Reposted by Anne Lutz Fernandez
cwebbonline.com
THE CHICKENS ARE FINALLY COMING HOME TO ROOST

Ryan Walters is out & the investigation floodgates just opened. The Oklahoma AG launched a full audit of Walters’ entire tenure as Superintendent, and it’s about damn time.

Also the education dept website’s being scrubbed of his culture-war nonsense.
🧵
Reposted by Anne Lutz Fernandez
dprzygoda.bsky.social
ICE agents are reportedly creeping around high schools in Chicago. And because they are wearing masks, often not wearing uniforms and using unmarked vehicles this means that ANYONE could show up dressed like this and disappear kids off the streets. This is especially dangerous
lutzfernandez.bsky.social
This is why districts, administrators, and teachers need to resist self-censorship.
lutzfernandez.bsky.social
erininthemorning.com
1. 4 months ago, The Supreme Court gave families a right to opt out of LGBTQ+ education in schools.

Now, in Montgomery County, Maryland, where the case originated, the results are in.

Only 43 families out of 160,000 students have exercised that new right.

Subscribe to support our journalism.
Only 0.03% Opt Out Of LGBTQ+ Education In Maryland After SCOTUS Gives Them A Right To
After SCOTUS gave families a right to opt out of LGBTQ+ education, Montgomery County, Maryland is reporting only 43 families took them up on it.
www.erininthemorning.com
Reposted by Anne Lutz Fernandez
espiers.bsky.social
We are so screwed if people keep relying on mainstream outlets to protect democracy. @davidchasecohen.bsky.social and I make a case here for why we need independent media and people with resources need to step up and fund it thebarbedwire.com/2025/10/03/b...
Bari Weiss Doesn’t Want You to Read This
Bari Weiss’s reported hiring at CBS News is the latest example of corporate media capitulating to Trump.
thebarbedwire.com
lutzfernandez.bsky.social
The wave of censorship in schools over the past 5 years has been driven by dark money far-right groups fronted by a tiny, tiny percent of parents.
tusk81.bsky.social
“… the data out of Montgomery County, Maryland makes one thing unmistakably clear: this crusade is not a mass movement. It’s the obsession of a vanishingly small minority …”
erininthemorning.com
1. 4 months ago, The Supreme Court gave families a right to opt out of LGBTQ+ education in schools.

Now, in Montgomery County, Maryland, where the case originated, the results are in.

Only 43 families out of 160,000 students have exercised that new right.

Subscribe to support our journalism.
Reposted by Anne Lutz Fernandez
ryanlcooper.com
sentence him to community service [continuing to serve as superintendent]
Reposted by Anne Lutz Fernandez
kjephd.bsky.social
AI's monstrous share of capital investment looks to me like an industry that is, inter alia, making itself too big to fail. If it returns commensurate with investment don't materialize, at this point the choice is btwn the Mother of All Bailouts or annihilating a nontrivial share of national wealth
michaeldemoor.bsky.social
We blundered into a lot of problems because we were so impressed by the potential upsides of something that we didn't pay enough attention to the perils.

But that's not the case here. The perils are so obvious and the upsides so minuscule.

We are doing this because it feels inevitable. That's it.
drewharwell.com
The Sora AI disinfo nightmare is here

For more like this:
tiktok.com/@drewharwell
instagram.com/bydrewharwell