Most Teachers Receive No Formal Guidance on AI Use
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Education
Most Teachers Receive No Formal Guidance on AI Use
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Although prior research finds that six in 10 teachers use AI for their work, including three in 10 who use it at least weekly, just 18% of teachers report receiving any type of formal guidance from school administrators on how AI tools should be used. Across 10 tasks educators might use AI for, about one-third (34%) receive no guidance at all, while about half of teachers (48%) receive only informal guidance. This lack of clarity is leaving many K-12 teachers to navigate a rapidly changing technology landscape without support.
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These findings are from the Walton Family Foundation and Gallup’s latest study, Teaching for Tomorrow: Closing the Expectations Gap, conducted Feb. 9-March 2, 2026, with 2,069 U.S. teachers working in public K-12 schools. Teachers were recruited from a nationally representative, probability-based panel of U.S. public school teachers.
Formal AI guidance includes written policies or official guidance, while informal guidance includes verbal conversations or shared norms. Informal guidance on AI use varies across the 10 work tasks Gallup measured, but formal guidance is rare on all of them, with fewer than one in 10 teachers receiving formal guidance on any specific activity. For some tasks, most teachers receive no guidance at all: 69% say this is true about one-on-one instruction or tutoring, and 58% say the same for how they should use AI for grading and providing student feedback.
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Teachers in higher-income schools are somewhat more likely than those in higher-need schools to receive some type of guidance — mostly informal — on how to use AI, especially when it comes to preparing to teach and modifying or creating student materials. With few exceptions, guidance does not differ much across other characteristics, such as grade level or the main subject taught.
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Most Guidance Neither Encourages nor Discourages Use
Even when teachers say they receive some kind of guidance on using AI for work tasks, it may stop short of giving clear direction. Among teachers who receive either formal or informal guidance on a given task, most say it neither encourages nor discourages AI use, leaving this practical decision in the teacher’s hands. Few say the guidance expressly discourages AI use.
Encouragement to use AI is most common for instructional preparation, including using AI to modify student materials to meet individual needs (58%), making worksheets or assignments (54%), and preparing to teach (53%). Encouragement is less common (and ambiguity more common) for tasks involving direct interaction with students, such as one-on-one instruction or tutoring (35%). Three in 10 teachers say guidance for using AI to get feedback or coaching on their teaching is encouraged.
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Discouragement is uncommon across most AI use cases. Still, one in 10 teachers (10%) who receive guidance on using AI to grade student work say they are discouraged from doing so — the highest discouragement rate of any task measured. The majority of teachers receiving guidance on the use of AI for grading say they are neither encouraged nor discouraged from doing so (54%), and 36% say they are encouraged.
Formal Policies Are More Likely to Encourage AI Use
Teachers who receive formal guidance on using AI are more likely than those who receive informal guidance to say that the guidance encourages its use. For example, 69% of teachers who receive formal guidance on using AI to make student materials say it encourages them to use AI, compared with 51% of teachers who receive informal guidance. The same pattern is generally true for other work tasks asked about.
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Bottom Line
AI tools are becoming a routine part of teachers’ professional lives, but the institutional guidance that might help teachers use them thoughtfully and effectively has not kept pace. For most teachers, there is no formal policy, leaving individuals to make consequential decisions in a policy vacuum.
This finding extends a pattern Gallup has documented in the Teaching for Tomorrow: Closing the Expectations Gap study: When teachers lack guidance from their school or district, the burden of navigating ambiguity falls on individual educators. This ambiguity has a lasting impact on educators, as unrealistic and unclear expectations are strongly linked to higher burnout and lower engagement at work.
Schools and districts willing to invest in clear AI guidance could both reduce ambiguity for teachers and promote more confident, effective adoption. For now, most are not providing that direction — leaving most teachers to navigate the AI landscape on their...