Fifth graders at Mountain View Elementary in Jefferson, North Carolina, spent Tuesday morning modeling lungs with balloons and a plastic bottle. Then they photographed their models and used an AI app to turn the pictures into a video simulation. The first lady sat with them while they did it. Two years ago, the same building served as a supply depot for families displaced by Hurricane Helene.

Asked about the growing warnings around AI, Melania Trump told reporters students "need to be vigilant," then added: "But this is our future, and we need to guide them and teach them what is available. If not, they will stay behind." She announced a partnership with Nvidia that will put StudyFetch subscriptions in front of 1,500 Ashe County students and 100 Jetson Nano developer kits into district schools.

Last week in New York, Randi Weingarten and Brad Smith announced an agreement between the American Federation of Teachers and Microsoft that will apply to every school Microsoft contracts with starting November 1: no training AI on student or educator data, no selling it or using it for advertising, no features "designed to foster emotional attachment or dependency," third-party audits, and a plain-language explanation to families of how each tool works.

Weingarten called the agreement "the first of its kind" and a step toward an industry standard in the absence of federal or state law. OpenAI and Anthropic say they're negotiating their own versions. Google, the largest edtech provider in American schools, hasn't said whether it will sign. Josh Golin of Fairplay likes the provisions but worries schools will read a privacy framework as permission: if the company is handling data responsibly, the tool must belong in the classroom. Elizabeth Laird at the Center for Democracy and Technology sees the other side. Until now, a district's leverage with a tech company depended on its size.

Erin Mote of InnovateEDU made a related argument in Forbes the same morning: a moratorium doesn't stop students from using AI, it decides which students learn to use it with a teacher in the room.

Jerry Graybeal, the Mountain View principal, described his own policy in one sentence: "We're limiting everything we do, but we understand the value." Emily Freitag of Instruction Partners, whose team spent a year inside 20 AI tools across 16 school systems, put the larger problem this way: "Eventually, the field needs raters and regulators. Right now, the field needs sense-makers." For the moment, the rules are getting written wherever someone is willing to write them.

— Thomas

P.S. Tomorrow at 11 a.m. ET, our own Erica Price Burns hosts Arman Jaffer of Brisk Teaching, Jean-Claude Brizard of Digital Promise, and Sandra Rose of Prince George's County Public Schools for a webinar on this measurement problem: judging AI tools by whether they improve instruction, not by adoption or minutes saved. Register here.

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