AI In The Classroom: Promise Or Peril?

The beginning of a new K-12 year across the United States means the continuation of a learning-loss problem that predates COVID’s disruption of America’s educational system, as well as a new concern in more recent times: artificial intelligence interfering with students’ intellectual curiosity and development and teachers’ ability to do their job. Eric Hanushek, the Hoover Institution’s Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow and an education policy expert, revisits a paper he recently co-authored on AI’s promise and perils. Also discussed: lessons learned from Texas’ decade-long experiment with teacher merit and unions’ reluctance to go along with said reform, plus how to close a learning gap that ultimately will compromise future workers’ earning potential.

Recorded on September 17, 2026.

SOURCES:

• Eric Hanushek.  “Artificial Intelligence: Students, Jobs, and the Future.”  Freedom Frequency, September 4, 2026.
• Eric Hanushek et. al. “Age and Cognitive Skills: Use It or Lose It.” Sciences Advances. March 5, 2025.
• Eric Hanushek et al. “The Power of Performance Pay: Smarter teacher retention and accelerated student achievement in Dallas.” Education Next. Spring 2025