The TROUBLING Teacher Union Connection to Open AI, Microsoft, and Anthropic

The AFT and UFT have signed an agreement with Open AI, Microsoft, and Anthropic to fund AI teacher training, stating that this will put teachers in the driving seat. Why worry? Here’s a list of concerns.

Tech companies have made billions for years from public education, with little accountability, and students have not become better learners.

One might argue that AI is more than online programs, but the uncertainty surrounding it, and the fact that corporations have profited for decades from subpar technology for students while blaming teachers and public schools for their failures, is suspect.

A 2021 EdSurge report indicated that we already don’t know how much they’ve made when it comes to public schools. They state:

The U.S. edtech industry is massive. By our estimate, startups and companies raised upward of $2.2 billion in 2020 alone. Yet, curiously, the amount districts, states and the federal government spend on these products each year is something of an unknown variable.

They referred to an analysis by the Edtech Evidence Exchange, a nonprofit organization based out of the University of Virginia, which states: the total figure is also in the billions—perhaps between $26 and $41 billion a year. But that range is merely an estimate—and a conservative one at that.

All that money, yet who’s questioning the effects of technology in public schools? When students don’t excel on tests, teachers, not technology, are blamed.

Thus far, technology in schools hasn’t improved the lives of teachers, public schools, or students. If it had, Americans wouldn’t be complaining about NAEP scores and criticizing teachers. Students would be thriving. With this backdrop, why trust AI in education?

The claim that AI can’t replace teachers is untrustworthy.

Repeatedly, we’re told AI can’t replace teachers; we need humans. However, AI can reduce the teacher’s importance. Notice the increase in tutor and coach talk in education reports. These won’t be the qualified teachers that parents have come to expect. They might also be computers.

Open AI’s CEO, Sam Altman, stated in 2024:

 …our children will have virtual tutors who can provide personalized instruction in any subject, in any language, and at whatever pace they need.

They can claim that teachers won’t lose their jobs, but one doesn’t have to look far to see that with AI, teachers can indeed lose their jobs. Instead of teachers, they’ll need adults to keep the children focused on the computer, to keep them in line.

The timing raises questions.

It’s critical to distinguish AI from broader developments that threaten public education. The unions are joining forces with corporations and the Trump administration’s national pledge (< don’t miss this revealing link) for AI. Notably, the tech-heavy Nasdaq stock market index has reached record highs, perhaps buoyed by Trump’s pledge.

Donald Trump pushes for increased investment in AI for schools with his tech bros (remember the inauguration?), when we also have a seriously unqualified person (Linda McMahon) at the education helm, who confuses AI with A1!

This is happening as we watch school districts struggle, and as we face the closure of the U.S. Department of Education, with the focus on voucher and educational savings account funding shifting to private schools.

Is this the time for unions to partner with big corporations pushing AI? One can argue that it’s impossible to stop AI in schools. Still, educational experts can certainly develop the backbone to determine how it will be implemented in and out of the classroom, and reliance on tech companies isn’t needed for that.

Teachers are the experts, and many are knowledgeable in education technology.

Many educators study technology, are experts in their field, and understand its impact on students. Why can’t teachers, coming together across the nation with their expertise, write their plans?

Why must teachers sign on and be forced to work on the objectives of the tech companies? Or, worse, be used by them to push their agenda?

This new training will include curriculum preparation. Tech experts often lack knowledge about children, their development, and how they learn. We have seen this with the implementation of the problematic Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in the classroom and the current proliferation of online programs that highlight CCSS, often without proper vetting.

The teacher unions also adopted CCSS, standards typically found in online programs, but it hasn’t improved learning outcomes either.

Those corporations have never been friends with teachers, nor have they supported public education. They’ve worked to hinder it for years, seeding powerful positions in the U.S. Department of Education and micromanaging how and what teachers teach.

Technology for workforce development and the global economy.

AI aligns with the idea of class disruption, which is detrimental to students; we saw it firsthand during the COVID-19 pandemic, and most real teachers understand this.

Children need comfortable transitions into new situations. Disruption is a business term that has no place being used in schools.

AI also appears to be more about selecting workers and collecting student data to sort children for the workforce. Republicans and Democrats have both been complicit in this issue.

Teacher union leaders seem starstruck by tech corporations. Remember the 2015 report, A Transformational Vision for Education in the U.S., which overlooks the role of high-quality teachers in the future classroom? Union leaders from the AFT and the NEA signed on, along with the CEO of Knowledgeworks, 50Can, and a few other corporate school reform groups that would put teachers at risk (See page 12).

The tech takeover of public education has been bubbling throughout school hallways for years, starting with those from big business, who, with little understanding of how children learn, have taken over schools and disrupted them.

It’s All About the Data!

Those conducting the training and spending the money have always had other motives for schools, such as collecting personal student data, and it’s unclear how teachers will fit into their plans, if at all.

What assurances can union leaders give teachers and parents? Do they think tech companies will suddenly be generous to teachers, or do they know this is the likely final gasp of teaching as we know it?

Technology has been in classes for years, and it hasn’t improved standardized test scores. It hasn’t made schools better, and certainly hasn’t improved the lot of teachers. Technology has generated significant revenue at the expense of public education, with online programs that school districts purchase for exorbitant prices, promising miracles yet rarely demonstrating any accountability.

Suppose Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic had been supportive of teachers and public schools over the years, lifting public education to new heights of respectability in this country. In that case, this might seem like a good thing, a natural progression towards progress.

Sadly, throughout the years, these companies have not been kind to teachers, and they have tried to steal their expertise. That’s why it’s hard to trust their current motives.