A new decree signed by President Donald Trump calls for infusing artificial intelligence throughout the education of kindergarten in the 12th year. A major objective of this plan is to train teachers on how to integrate AI into their instruction and workflows.
It was one of the seven executive decrees that Trump signed on April 23 focus on education, including one on “Ensure common sense school discipline policies” and a handful focused on higher education institutions.
Some educators and education organizations have praised the order, saying that Itaph For educators and students, is important and essential.
“I am very excited about this,” said Pam Amendola, English school teacher at Dawson County School in Dawsonville, Georgia. “AI is not the future. AI is right now, and we need federal government directive.”
Although his district has not yet provided training on AI, Amendola has undergone AI training at its own pace and started teaching its students what AI is, how it works and how to use tools fueled by AI in a responsible manner.
But other experts and educators are skeptical that the federal government will be able to update the political objectives of the order, given that so much funding and expertise have been cut off from the departments responsible for carrying out this work.
If you talk about how to successfully establish these federal level connections to the field, I think that a large part of this expertise has now disappeared.
Bernadette Adams, former senior policy advisor, bureau of educational technologies of the Department of Education
THE executive decree Calls to the Secretaries of Education and Agriculture, as well as the Director of the National Science Foundation, to prioritize discretional grant funds and existing programs for teacher training. The Department of Education is responsible for supporting professional development both for IT teachers and AI -focused courses, as well as for all educators to integrate the fundamental principles of AI in all subjects.
The order also orders the Secretary of Agriculture and the Director of the NSF to take advantage of existing programs to create teacher training opportunities to help teachers “effectively integrate AI -based tools into their classrooms.
“While artificial intelligence (AI) re -entertains each industrial sector, it is of vital importance that the next generation of students is ready to take advantage of this technology in all aspects of their professional life,” said Linda McMahon, Secretary of Education, in a statement. “The Trump administration will open the way to the training of our educators to promote early education and responsible for AI in our classrooms to maintain American leadership in the global economy.”
But this is a major challenge since most teachers have not yet received professional development on AI, as noted by the Edweek Research Center in teachers. In a October 2025 investigation Edweek Research Center58% of teachers said they had not received any professional development on the use of generative AI in class, and 68% said they are currently using IA tools in their classrooms.
School districts need help cross the flow of AI products
Schools desperately need support to train teachers on rapidly evolving technology that apparently arises everywhere, Dusty Strickland, deputy director of North Murray High School at Chatsworth, GA.
“My teachers who do everything they can to make sure our children know the standards they have to know, they don't have time to dig fair (IA),” he said. “It's a very fast train, so how can we make sure that our teachers can access it?”
Currently, Murray High School teachers can volunteer to participate in the training of district technology specialists in the use of AI technology already integrated into the tools and programs used by the district, Strickland said. And then teachers who participate in voluntary training often share what they learn with peers.
Strickland said he would like to see the federal government provide schools with more money for AI training For teachers, as well as resources to help administrators like him to determine which professional development programs and AI tools are of high quality.
“Many people arise by saying:” Hi, I'm an expert “, but I don't know how (having them) prove that (they are) an expert in a new field,” he said.
While Amendola, the teacher in Georgia, is optimistic about the decree, she is wary of the quantity of influence of Ed-Tech technology companies on the Federal Working Group of AI to be established by the decree and its responsibilities.
Nationally, the districts were Slow to adopt guidelines And provide training around AI because technology is evolving so quickly and due to a lack of expertise. Consequently, the exhibition of educators at AI came mainly from ED-TECH companies which “push their products for districts,” said AMENDOLA.
This is why she points out that the federal working group should rely on organizations whose main objective is not to sell AI products and services.
Randi Weingarten, the president of the American teachers' federation, made the decree in a declarationSaying that it opens schools to “inexplicable technological companies” and “unproven software”.
“Although AI can be a useful and important tool for educators and students in classrooms, we have rather seen systems that produce disinformation, encroach on privacy and tell inaccurate accounts of history,” said Weingarten.
Instead, said Weingarten, the administration should “invest in classrooms and instructions designed by educators who work directly with students and who have knowledge and expertise to meet their needs”.
The decree does not deal with confidentiality or data in the AI
The objectives of the executive decree are largely bipartite in nature. There is a large support to give schools more resources to use this powerful technology.
But there are also important omissions in the directive and potential obstacles to convert policy into reality, say certain experts.
One concern is that the money that could have been diverted to the support of the decree's objectives – as well as many people with expertise in the subject – are cut off from the federal government, said Bernadette Adams, the former main political advisor at the Office of Educational Technologies of the United States Ministry of Education and IA expert. All OET staff, including Adams, have been rejected as part of the recent staff cuts in the Department of Education. The Department of Education now has about half of the number of staff members as it did when Trump has taken office.
Researchers from the National Center for Education Research to specialists in the external industries who played a temporary role in the government, “these people were also pushed and dismissed,” said Adams. “So, if you talk about how to successfully establish these federal level connections to the field, I think that a large part of this expertise has now disappeared.”
It is not only the elimination of the educational technology office and other people who previously provided IA expertise that will affect efforts. There are also important shortcomings in the directive, said Adams. Confidentiality or the data of life students in life UN INCUITY AND EFFICIAL.
Finally, said Adams, the decree focuses on AI as a work and labor problem: the training of students today for future jobs. Democratic and republican administrations tend to see AI in this way, and it is a missed opportunity, she said.
“I have the impression that the executive decree is written, and perhaps the work advances people will consider it, but it is the touch, in my opinion, to teaching and learning, which is at the heart of education,” she said. “I think there are real educational opportunities that are not used when AI is designed only as a content field or a career path.”
