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Union-Powered AI: PD Meets Big Tech
This solo news-and-research roundup unpacks a blockbuster fortnight for AI in education, highlighting a landmark partnership between U.S. teacher unions and tech companies that could rewrite professional development.
Headlines
- AFT × UFT × Microsoft/OpenAI/Anthropic – launch the National Academy for AI Instruction (US $23 M) to train 400,000 educators as AI-savvy professionals
Announcement: https://www.aft.org/press-release/aft-launch-national-academy-ai-instruction-microsoft-openai-anthropic-and-united
AI Instruction website: https://aiinstruction.org/ - Google “Gemini for Education” – 30 generative tools for lesson design, rubrics & more (ISTE 2025 reveal).
Blog post: https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/gemini-iste-2025/
21 page announcement PDF: https://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/gfe_launch_guide_iste2025.pdf - White House “EDAI” pledge – 67 “AI Education & Workforce Champions” commit resources for schools
https://www.whitehouse.gov/edai/
And a questioning post from James O'Hagan - Microsoft Elevate & AI Economy Institute – New Microsoft philanthropy arm plus research fellowships on AI, work & learning.
Microsoft Announcement: https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2025/07/09/elevate/
Microsoft Elevate: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/elevate
AI for Good Lab: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/group/ai-for-good-research-lab/ai-economy-institute/
Research spotlights
- Teaching for Tomorrow (Walton Foundation × Gallup): 60% of U.S. teachers using AI save 5.9 hrs/week, yet only 19% of schools have policies.
https://www.gallup.com/analytics/659819/k-12-teacher-research.aspx - Simple Techniques to Bypass Gen-AI Detectors (Perkins et al., 2024): popular text detectors flag 50% of genuine student work as AI.
https://educationaltechnologyjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41239-024-00487-w - Jisc briefing: even 1% false-positive rates could falsely accuse 4,800 papers/year at a 20 k-student university.
https://nationalcentreforai.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2025/06/24/ai-detection-assessment-and-learning-to-use-electricity/ - Riding the Tiger of AI Feedback (Aus. multi-uni, 2025): 50% of students already use AI for feedback; teachers still ranked “more helpful.”
https://aiinhe.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2025-hedx-feedback-survey-insights.pdf
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