This week’s four publications raise a fundamental question for independent schools:
When AI does more of the work at school, what must remain human?
#1: Educating Minds with Generative AI, Communications Psychology | September 14, 2026
Researchers at the University of Sussex argue that schools should be understood as environments in which students’ thinking is shaped by the tools and practices educators choose, and the relationships students make.
Takeaway: “Offloading” cognitive work to AI is an educational decision. Because AI changes what students and teachers actually do, school leaders and teachers need to learn which practices that “delegate” thinking to AI actually improve learning results, and which undermine the purpose of school. Critical intellectual work needs to stay the student’s, so they build understanding, judgment, and agency.
#2. Education Ministers Call for Education to Remain a Common Good in the Age of AI, UNESCO | September 9, 2026
Twenty-five (25) ministers and designated representatives responsible for education from around the worldmadopted a joint statement calling for education to be sustained as a human right and a common good in the age of artificial intelligence (AI).
Takeaway: AI adoption should protect teacher agency and support students’ cognitive development. Because considerable uncertainty remains about AI’s future in schools, institutions must preserve their capacity to change direction. Prudent leadership means experimenting and adapting without locking in commitments that become hard to reverse.
#3. Artificial Intelligence Integration in Higher Education: A Global Systematic Thematic Synthesis of Opportunities, Risks, and Emerging Frontiers, Discover Education | September 17, 2026
This synthesis of 53 publications identifies recurring challenges involving academic integrity, critical thinking, equity, faculty preparation, and governance as AI becomes more capable.
Takeaway: Policy and practice are lagging AI’s adoption. Higher ed research shows AI is being integrated into student and faculty use faster than institutions can govern it, and that AI detection fails to safeguard traditional academic integrity. Schools need to learn to redesign what they ask students to do and how they assess it.
#4. Artificial Intelligence and the Teaching Workforce: Evidence From National Survey Data in the United States, Educational Policy | July 30, 2026
Using U.S. data from a 2024 international survey, this study examines relationships among AI and teacher professional development, teacher beliefs, and occupational well-being.
Takeaway: AI’s impact on teaching can’t be measured by the efficiencies it creates for teachers. Research on the teaching workforce shows a more complicated relationship among AI adoption, satisfaction, stress, and professional development. Saving time isn’t the same as strengthening the profession.
What This Means for School Leaders:
Research and policy is telling us that the prevalence of AI already requires our practices at school to shift. The job of school leaders is to decide what we still want our schools to be for, and then to evaluate any and every AI decision against that.
AI adoption is both a governance and leadership topic. Schools need good evidence of the benefits before investing in any AI tool, while protecting teachers’ professional judgment. A smart move would be to invest as much in people as in technology so your expert faculty have a real voice in decisions about AI’s impact on students and their classrooms.
How I wrote this:
I develop the ideas for my posts on my own, with my human brain, and I craft a thesis and key points for every post all by myself. I use various Al tools to review and revise some of my prose and to test certain ideas, much like a human editor might, yet the content of each post comes from my brain. Like I’m recommending schools ask of their students, I use a writing process that preserves my thinking, my agency, while using AI to improve the output.
Mike Gwaltney is Vice President of Consulting and Learning, and a Senior Consultant at Independent School Management (ISM). He is a long-time independent school educator and former Head of School. He has been at the forefront of academic technology since the early 2000s and is widely considered the “OG” of blended and online learning in independent schools. He holds a Masters in Educational Technology, and writes about student agency, teaching and learning, and leadership and governance of AI in independent schools.
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