(The Center Square) – Louisiana education leaders are embracing artificial intelligence by partnering with platforms that offer a variety of learning assistive technologies, including interactive lessons, automated tasks and tutoring.
Last week, the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education heard from more vendors that serve schools across the country, including StudyFetch and WordPress, as well as education officials from Utah. It is unclear if the vendor presentations function as Requests for Proposals or if they are just meant to be informative, but the state has authorized funding for AI vendors in recent months. In December, the state authorized about $1 million in federal funds for student accounts tied to three AI platforms: Amira, Khanmigo and Writable.
Amira is an AI reading tutor that listens to students read aloud and gives real-time, individualized coaching to build fluency and comprehension; Khanmigo is an AI “tutor/teacher aide” that guides students through problems and supports teachers with planning and classroom tasks; and Writable helps teachers assign and assess student writing with rubric-based feedback tools, including automation to speed grading and comments.
“It lets you get a lot more instant, personalized feedback to kids,” Ashley Townstead said of Amira in an interview. Townstead is Superintendent of Policy and Governmental Affairs for the Louisiana Department of Education. “It was all based on the science of reading and what research tells us about how kids learn.”
“The whole side of how we can use AI to help students learn standard content more effectively is really exciting,” Townstead continued.
There is also a great deal of funding opportunities for schools that were made available. Last year, the University of Louisiana secured $1.4 million in federal grants for the AI-Enhanced Teacher Preparation Pipeline. The program will embed AI literacy, computer science, and custom generative-AI tools throughout its early childhood and elementary teacher preparation programs.
Townstead also credited the state legislature with approving “several million” dollars in computer science and technical assistance funding, which has gone directly to school districts. Townstead said that the districts used the money for “action plans” that emphasize learning in computer science.
The state is also spending more money on helping teachers better understand how to use AI to teach. Towenstead said that the state has been dedicating more money every year specific to computer science and AI at the state’s Teacher Leader Summit. Just two years ago, there were two sessions related to AI and in 2026 there will be 15.
There are plenty of concerns about embracing AI so aggressively.
The state has made tremendous progress in literacy and math over the past couple of years, making national headlines, and Townstead noted the state was being cautious in not letting AI rollback that progress.
“What’s important is that our kids can read and do math and think, and we don’t want anything to compromise that,” Townstead said.
She also made clear that the state was prioritizing the protection of instructional integrity and student data privacy, including encouraging districts to be cautious in procuring AI tools.
Rep. Laurie Schlegel, R-Metarie, echoed very similar concerns. Schlegel seemed to express more reservations about integrating AI into classrooms, and emphasized the need for caution and highlighting recent findings of how technology has impacted learning in recent decades.
“A lot of the research that is already coming up around technology in the classroom hasn’t all been positive,” Schlegel told The Center Square. “And so, especially in our state, where we’re getting back to the basics. I think integrating some of these tools when children don’t have the critical thinking yet developed could be a detriment.
“We need to be very cautious and proceed very slowly.”
She added that a fellow legislator was planning a bill that would adress student access to AI chat bots like ChatGPT, but did not elaborate further.
