{
  "id": 176883,
  "title": "Teachers need help with AI. A union is offering training – with $23m in funding from big tech",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/05/teachers-need-help-with-ai-a-union-is-offering-training-with-23m-in",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-08-05T12:00:19.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Guardian Technology",
    "slug": "guardian-technology",
    "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/05/teachers-unions-ai-training"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), a major labor union in the US, has teamed up with artificial intelligence companies to provide training for educators. This partnership, with a $23 million budget sourced entirely from Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic, aims to train 400,000 teachers over five years. Teachers like Darius Saczuk, who teaches English as a new language at Long Island City high school in Queens, view AI as a threat to their jobs and society, emphasizing the need to understand and navigate this new technology to retain their positions.\n\nDespite the lack of official guidance on AI in education, AI has become widely used by students, with over half of polled teens using AI for schoolwork and nearly six in 10 believing its misuse is prevalent in their schools. However, only about four in 10 teachers report their schools offer AI-related professional development. The AFT's initiative, one of the few structured programs for educators, seeks to empower teachers to make informed decisions about AI use in instruction. For Microsoft, the largest contributor ($12.5 million), this partnership aims to allow educators a voice in shaping AI usage, believing it will provide valuable insights into what teachers need and want.\n\nCritics, however, argue that this collaboration steers educators towards potentially harmful tools by partnering with big tech, which they believe undermines students' learning and shifts political power to these companies. Audrey Watters, an author, warns that such partnerships \"hand more political power over\" to big tech and are \"dangerous\" for educators. Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, counters this by asserting that AI training is a \"moral imperative\", providing teachers with the knowledge to decide on AI integration responsibly.\n\nTech companies, including Microsoft and the AI firms, maintain that AI can enhance education through personalized learning and administrative efficiency. However, experts, like Justin Reich from MIT, point out that there's still insufficient research to prove AI's effectiveness in improving learning outcomes. Despite this, AI companies are already making inroads into classrooms, with Google's Gemini chatbot and free versions of OpenAI and Anthropic's chatbots being used in schools. While Microsoft believes AI can reduce teachers' administrative burdens, it emphasizes that \"there is no substitute for the role of a teacher.\"",
  "summary": "Partnership between American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest labor unions in the US, and AI firms has stirred controversy Darius Saczuk, a high school teacher, views artificial intelligence as his enemy. Earlier this year, he and several dozen New York City teachers spent the day inside a windowless conference room in downtown Manhattan to learn how to use AI and prevent students from…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}