Two out of three teachers now reach for artificial intelligence at least some of the time, and nearly three-quarters of parents say their own children do the same. Those numbers, from a survey the education technology company Instructure released this week, capture a shift that has already happened while the policy debate over whether it should happen is still going on.
Adoption is running ahead of the rules
Instructure, which owns the Canvas learning platform used across thousands of schools, polled 1,125 people between 12 and 15 June, including K-12 and higher education teachers, current and recent college students, and parents of school-age children. It found that 68 percent of educators use AI at least occasionally and 73 percent of parents report the same about their kids. What people value in the technology splits along predictable lines. Parents were most likely to point to AI’s ability to improve accessibility for students with different learning needs, while teachers were more drawn to the plain fact that it saves them time.
Enthusiasm is not the whole story. Roughly a third of educators and 30 percent of parents said they would prefer to see AI use restricted in schools. Yet even those wary of the tools ranked teaching responsible AI use and building AI literacy as their top priorities, which suggests the fight is less about banning the technology than about learning to live with it.
Where the worry concentrates
Parents are not vaguely uneasy. They are specific. In the same survey, 62 percent flagged academic integrity and plagiarism as a concern, 61 percent worried about a loss of critical thinking and deep learning, and 59 percent feared students would lean on the tools too heavily. Those anxieties shape where people think AI belongs. Both parents and teachers were comfortable with AI explaining a concept, helping brainstorm, or tracking down resources. They pulled back sharply at the idea of software determining final grades or making academic decisions.
The line they are drawing is a sensible one. Use AI as a tutor and a research assistant, not as a judge.
The training gap nobody has closed
The most revealing figure in the report has nothing to do with opinion. Asked about their own preparation, 45 percent of educators said they had received no AI training at all. Another 38 percent had some, and just 8 percent had been through anything comprehensive. Teachers are being asked to guide students through a technology most of them were never taught to use.
“The research makes one thing clear: people are not waiting to use AI,” Instructure said. “They are looking for practical guidance, clearer boundaries and support they can use now.” The company’s recommendation is to teach students, staff and parents to use AI well rather than simply forbidding it, a position that carries obvious commercial interest but also matches what the survey respondents themselves said they wanted.
The backlash building on the other side
Not everyone thinks the answer is more AI, better taught. The same week Instructure published its findings, a national coalition called Schools Beyond Screens, fresh off a campaign to cut screen time in the Los Angeles Unified School District, called for a moratorium on AI across all school districts. The demand landed a day after Common Sense Media’s Youth AI Safety Institute released a risk assessment of Google’s AI Overview and AI Mode, which the group said repeatedly missed signs of children in crisis, gave inappropriate advice, and produced answers that were inaccurate and unreliable for young learners.
Schools Beyond Screens argues that Google’s AI search tools are switched on by default on most district-issued devices nationwide, exposing millions of children to what it calls known and lasting harms, and that no generative AI product has yet demonstrated safe use for children. It is a maximalist position, and it collides directly with a reality in which most classrooms are already using these tools daily.
The through line is a mismatch of speed. Teachers, students and parents adopted AI faster than districts could write policy, faster than states could legislate, and far faster than anyone trained the adults in the room. Watch for that gap to narrow from the policy side over the next year, as more states require districts to adopt formal AI rules and professional development finally starts to catch up with a tool that arrived in classrooms years ahead of the guidance. For more coverage of AI in education, visit Mylistingo.
