Schools are racing to write AI policies, but what if the policy is not the first step? This week, we hear from Aleta Margolis, founder and president of the Center for Inspired Teaching, who argues that real progress starts with a conversation, not a rule. Then EdSurge editor-in-chief Sarah McKibben brings it home with what AI actually looks like at her kitchen table, with two middle schoolers navigating it in real time.What You'll LearnA new RAND American Youth Panel survey found that only about one in three students say their school has a school-wide AI policy, and Aleta Margolis of the Center for Inspired Teaching explains why co-creating guidelines with students leads to better outcomes than top-down rule-making.A recent NPR and Ipsos poll found that 54 percent of teachers say AI is making it harder for students to learn critical thinking skills, and nearly three in four believe its impact on education will exceed that of the internet or computers.Sarah McKibben describes the mix of productive and concerning AI use she sees with her own children, including a student using an AI humanizer app to avoid plagiarism detection when submitting AI-written essays.Both guests converge on the idea of productive struggle: the concern is not AI itself but whether students are learning to think with it rather than bypassing the thinking entirely.Stories Mentioned in This EpisodeWhat to Do About AI: Begin by Talking About It by Aleta MargolisNPR / Ipsos Poll: Teachers on AI and Critical ThinkingRAND American Youth Panel: Select FindingsUpcoming EventISTE+ASCD Live '26 in Orlando, FloridaStay ConnectedSubscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.comLatest education news at edsurge.com/newsFollow EdSurge:LinkedInXFacebookTikTokInstagramYouTubeHost & ContributorsHosted by Ira Apfel, Editorial Director, EdSurgeFeaturingAleta Margolis, Founder and President, Center for Inspired TeachingSarah McKibben, Editor-in-Chief, EdSurgeStay informed, stay curious.

Schools have been quietly chipping away at recess for nearly a decade, and a sweeping new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics says it is time to stop. Meanwhile, the federal government has issued a formal advisory on screen time and children, raising urgent questions about how schools, parents, and tech companies should respond. This week, EdSurge reporters Lauren Coffey and Nadia Tamez-Robledo bring both stories together around a single urgent question: what does it look like when kids get less real-world experience and more pressure?What You'll LearnThe American Academy of Pediatrics updated its recess guidelines for the first time since 2013, expanding its recommendations to include middle and high school students.One Massachusetts high school cut chronic absenteeism from 35 percent to 23 percent in a single year after introducing movement breaks, suggesting that belonging and physical activity can drive school attendance in meaningful ways.The screen time advisory issued by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy calls for bell-to-bell phone bans, warning labels on apps, and the elimination of recommendation algorithms for children, but researchers caution that the evidence linking screen time to negative outcomes is correlation, not proven cause and effect.Experts warn that broad phone and screen restrictions could inadvertently affect students with IEPs and disabilities who rely on assistive devices, a tension the advisory acknowledges but does not fully resolve.Stories Mentioned in This EpisodeRecess Took a Break in Some Schools. A Push Is On to Bring It Back by Lauren CoffeySurgeon General Advisory Wants Kids to Live Beyond the Confines of Screens by Nadia Tamez-RobledoStay ConnectedSubscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.comLatest education news at edsurge.com/newsFollow EdSurge:LinkedInXFacebookTikTokInstagramHost & ContributorsHosted byIra Apfel, Editorial Director, EdSurgeFeaturingLauren Coffey, Reporter, EdSurgeNadia Tamez-Robledo, Reporter, EdSurgeStay informed, stay curious.

Three-quarters of school districts now have AI guidelines, up sharply from just a year ago, yet 82 percent of teachers say they have never received formal guidance on how to use AI in their work. EdSurge reporter Lauren Coffey breaks down the 2026 CoSN State of Ed Tech report and what it reveals about AI adoption, cybersecurity gaps, and edtech vetting inside K-12 districts. Then host Ira Apfel talks with Joseph South, chief innovation officer at ISTE+ASCD, about why teachers say they feel unprepared to bring AI into their classrooms and what it would take to change that.What You'll LearnWhy AI adoption in K-12 districts jumped from 54 percent in 2025 to 75 percent this year, and why most prefer local flexibility over state or federal mandates.Why cybersecurity remains many districts' top concern even as two-thirds lack the staff and budget to address it, and what the Canvas ransomware attack reveals about the real cost of that gap.What the Gallup and Walton Family Foundation data actually shows about the teacher guidance crisis: 82 percent of teachers have received no formal AI guidance, 34 percent have received no guidance at all, and 69 percent have received no guidance specifically on using AI for one-on-one instruction or tutoring.How districts in Long Beach, Gwinnett County, and Fairfax County are building transparency-first AI frameworks, and what the Lighthouse Schools model offers as a replicable path for districts that want to move without waiting for policy from above.Stories Mentioned in This EpisodeCoSN U.S. State of EdTech 2026 Report with coverage by Lauren CoffeyTeachers Say Lack of AI Guidance Is a Major Problem from Education Week featuring Joseph South, Chief Innovation Officer, ISTE+ASCDStay ConnectedSubscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.com/newslettersGet the latest education news at edsurge.com/newsFollow EdSurgeLinkedInXFacebookTikTokInstagramYouTubeHost and ContributorsHosted by Ira Apfel: Editorial Director, JournalismFeaturingLauren Coffey: Reporter, EdSurge (public policy, early childhood education, K-12 technology)Joseph South: Chief Innovation Officer, ISTE+ASCDStay informed, stay curious.

When the only school in Donora, Pennsylvania, closed a few years ago, it hit the town’s residents hard. Now the building may be the town’s best hope, as a community college considers setting up in the former school. A University of Pittsburgh professor spent three years documenting life in this fading town for an unusual podcast series that ran late last year. Education was a key theme. On this week's EdSurge Podcast, we talk to the professor about her takeaways for the role of education in the many forgotten small towns around the U.S.

One long-time expert on preventing student cheating argues that understanding why students cheat is key to making adjustments in teaching to prevent cheating with AI. It's the argument of Tricia Bertram Gallant, a longtime expert in academic integrity who is director of the Academic Integrity Office at the University of California San Diego who co-wrote a new book, “The Opposite of Cheating: Teaching for Integrity in the Age of AI. See show notes at EdSurge.com: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2025-01-07-ai-has-changed-student-cheating-but-strategies-to-stop-it-remain-consistent

There’s a growing push to add AI literacy as a subject in schools and colleges. But what exactly is AI literacy, and can educators promote curiosity about the subject amid their own concerns, and in some cases fear, around ChatGPT and other generative AI? This episode originally ran in January 2024, and was the most-listened-to episode of the year.

We found the theme song for the EdSurge Podcast on a free music library years ago, after spending hours clicking around searching for the right sound. The music turns out to have an unusual origin story, as we learned when we tracked down the artist this week for a conversation about the intersection of music, creativity and teaching.

When students transfer from community colleges to four-year universities, there’s often culture shock. But those transfers are often more motivated and engaged in the classroom than students who arrive straight from high school, experts say. Hear firsthand from a student in his 30s who recently transferred from a two-year college to the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

A new documentary project about Sacagawea, the young woman from the Shoshone tribe who helped guide the Lewis and Clark Expedition back in 1804, lets students chat with an animated chatbot of her. Some educators worry about how faithfully such chatbots can represent history, or whether they might keep students from digging into documents to form their own analysis.

Should kids wear smartwatches? Companies market the wearable devices to kids as young as 4 years old, while digital media experts and educators worry about potential downsides of what some see as an “electronic umbilical cord.” On the EdSurge Podcast this week, we talk with our reporter who spent months researching the issue, Emily Tate Sullivan, and hear her read the full story.