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Inside Google’s AI training for teachers

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 11:13:15 +0000

Sitting in an atrium on Google’s campus, a group of K-12 educators imagined the worst response they could receive when they tried to persuade their colleagues to use artificial intelligence.

They pictured a veteran English teacher who was still upset that cursive is no longer taught. Perhaps she would yell that AI is “just another shiny tech fad.” What’s next, she might ask — robots teaching kids how to read?

The educators asked Gemini, Google’s AI assistant, for advice and soon had a role-playing plan. They would win over this skeptical English teacher by explaining what generative AI could do for her: create classroom materials for phonics lessons, reducing what would normally be hours of work to just two minutes. The key, the educators agreed, was to avoid getting into an argument or letting this AI critic unload all her fears uninterrupted.

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Conservative parents and teachers unions become unlikely allies fighting tech in schools

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 14:45:12 +0000

Since Moms for Liberty launched in 2021, the conservative activist group has demonized teachers unions as an “education mafia” that parents “cannot trust,” blaming them for school closures in the pandemic and calling educators who offer children LGBTQ-themed books “groomers.”

Moms for Liberty has said the unions are “radical,” “don’t care about kids” and “prioritize power over students.”

But this year, Moms for Liberty is teaming up with some of its former adversaries after identifying a common cause: fighting back against education technology, or ed tech, in public schools. Across the country, Moms for Liberty chapters and other conservative parent groups are uniting with local teachers unions and liberal-leaning parents to push school districts and state lawmakers to limit the time children spend on screens in schools.

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Parents say school-issued iPads are causing chaos with their kids

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 13:34:12 +0000

Lila Byock’s son had always been good at math. But when he started sixth grade last year, he began to bring home D’s and F’s. It crushed his self-esteem. His teachers told Byock that he clearly understood the material, she said, but he just couldn’t stay on task on his school-issued Apple iPad.

Her son’s school, like many in the Los Angeles Unified School District and across the country, provided an iPad to each student for use throughout the school day, even during band and gym class. The iPad program, which ramped up during the Covid pandemic, was meant to give kids a technological leg up and help track students who are falling behind. But Byock said her son revealed that he used the iPad during school to watch YouTube and participate in Fortnite video game battles.

“It makes no sense to me,” Byock said. “We’ve banned the cellphones, but it doesn’t matter, because the kids are using the school-issued devices in exactly the same way.” In February, the district’s ban on use of personal devices, including smartphones and smartwatches, went into effect.

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Senators demand Linda McMahon ask DHS to stop immigration enforcement near schools

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 13:13:27 +0000

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and at least a half a dozen other senators are calling on the U.S. Department of Education to pressure immigration authorities to refrain from carrying out immigration enforcement within 1,000 feet of any school property, citing recent classroom disruptions in the Chicago area.

On Friday, they sent the letter, first provided to NBC News, to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, demanding that she step in and ask the Department of Homeland Security to curb its operations around schools.

“Federal agents continue to use unwarranted, excessive levels of force around Chicago, demonstrating an alarming lack of care or regard for the health and wellbeing of children, particularly by conducting unfocused, inflammatory operations within close proximity of school grounds,” the senators wrote in the letter. “We demand you pressure your colleague, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, to reinstate restrictions on Federal immigration enforcement operations in and around places of education.”

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Chicago teachers say immigration enforcement near schools is scaring kids and disrupting class

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 15:16:15 +0000

A teacher said tear gas drifted toward a school playground, forcing students and recess indoors. A viral video recorded near another school showed law enforcement dragging a woman out of her van and onto the ground. And students say they have seen ICE vehicles in their neighborhoods, leading them to feel frightened, according to one instructor.

Educators say those incidents and others that have taken place as federal immigration agents increase arrests in Chicago are disrupting their jobs, upending their communities and traumatizing their students.

“Everyone’s very anxious,” said Sheena Shukla, a school social worker for Chicago Public Schools. “Can you imagine telling a 12-year-old that people are out there who might want to take their family? We can’t shield our children from these realities, so we provide them with a level of support that they can understand.”

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Shutdown cancels sports games and dances for students at military-base schools

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 12:18:43 +0000

Students who attend Pentagon-operated schools on or near military bases are among those feeling the effects of the government shutdown, which started just after midnight Wednesday and will leave some federal employees without paychecks and national parks partially closed.

The Department of Defense Education Activity, or DoDEA, which operates 161 schools on or near military bases worldwide, has halted all extracurricular activities, including sports, for more than 67,000 students.

Dylan McDonald, a 17-year-old senior and co-captain of his soccer team at Kentucky’s Fort Campbell Army base, fears he may have played the last game of his high school career after the government shutdown halted all extracurriculars. He and his mother worry that missing next week’s district tournament, could hurt his chances of being recruited to play in college.

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Oklahoma state superintendent who ordered schools to teach the Bible resigns to lead anti-teachers union group

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 15:31:36 +0000

Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters announced that he would step down from his role overseeing the state’s schools to lead the conservative group Teacher Freedom Alliance, saying, “We’re going to destroy the teachers unions.”

The announcement from Walters, a conservative Republican who pushed to incorporate teaching about the Bible into public school classrooms, caps off a contentious tenure marked by a willingness to embrace culture war issues.

“We have seen the teachers unions use money and power to corrupt our schools, to undermine our schools,” Walters said on the show “Fox News @ Night” on Wednesday. “We are one of the biggest grassroots organizations in the country. We will build an army of teachers to defeat the teachers union once and for all.”

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Schools spend millions on pouches to keep phones out of students’ hands

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 14:16:58 +0000

Many schools are making an effort to go phone-free after multiple studies found kids learn better, face less bullying and interact more with other students when they’re not distracted by the devices during class time.

The idea is getting traction. A recent NBC News poll found 79% of adults either strongly or somewhat support states’ adopting smartphone restrictions in schools.

But it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. Some schools turned to Yondr, a company that sells fabric pouches that need to be unlocked with a special device at the end of the school day.

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Supreme Court allows transgender student to use boys’ restrooms at S.C. school

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 13:51:50 +0000

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a request by South Carolina officials to bar a transgender boy from using the boys’ restrooms at his school.

The court denied an emergency request filed by the state, which has recently enacted measures aimed at forcing schools to bar transgender students from using restrooms that correspond with their gender identity.

The brief order stressed that the decision “is not a ruling on the merits of the legal issues presented in the litigation.”

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Education Department has a backlog of 27,000 complaints about student loans

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 12:32:27 +0000

A key office in the Department of Education responsible for fielding grievances about student loans has a backlog of more than 27,000 complaints after losing nearly two-thirds of its staff.

The department revealed the pileup in a July 21 letter to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., according to a copy provided to NBC News. The Federal Student Aid ombudsman office receives hundreds of complaints a week, related to problems with student loan processing, repayments and financial aid scams.

The office closed just over 1,100 complaints in May, the most recent month with available data, and Warren wrote in a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Wednesday that this pace made her concerned that the backlog will continue to grow.

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