School is back in session, and that means teachers are once again confronting some familiar challenges. Cell phones tucked into backpacks. Homework that sounds suspiciously like Claude or ChatGPT.
Melissa Kay Diliberti, an associate policy researcher at RAND, has a unique insight into issues like these. It comes from conducting surveys with thousands of teachers, students, parents, and school leaders who participate in RAND survey panels. Through them, Diliberti and other researchers at RAND are able to see what's really happening in the nation's schools.
“Schools are facing a lot of challenges,” Diliberti said. “We see our role as putting numbers to the trends, so education leaders can navigate these challenges with confidence.”
What are some recent findings from RAND that can help parents and policymakers better understand what schools are up against?
Two issues really stand out.
The first is AI. More and more kids in our surveys report that they use AI for school work. A majority of them don't think it's cheating to use AI to look up facts or to get better explanations of their assignments. And it might not be, according to their school rules. But a lot of students are feeling up in the air, asking, “What are the rules here?” Schools have an opportunity—and an obligation—to develop guidance.
The other big one, of course, is cell phones. We asked teens, “How many times are you checking your cell phone in class?” I was surprised, but not shocked, that around 20 percent said they check their phones five or more times a day in class. Another 40 percent said it's one to four times. That's a lot of kids checking their phones during the school day—even in schools that have banned them.
Let's dig into your AI findings first. What do we know about how students are using AI?
The share of students who are using AI is increasing—at the middle school level, the high school level, and the postsecondary level. I don't think that will surprise anyone. But two-thirds of students tell us they have at least some concern that using AI is harming their critical thinking. So even as they're using it, they're thinking about the negative implications of outsourcing too much of their thinking to AI.
How are schools responding to student AI use, and where could they improve?
Schools are starting to get some policies into place. But the technology is moving so fast, it's hard to stay on top of it, and the guidance is lagging and not widely known. We asked kids in December whether their school has any rules on AI use. Only about a third said there were schoolwide rules. A lot of kids said they didn't know. That just underscores the need for very clear guidance from schools on when students can use these tools.
Schools have had more experience with cell phones. How effective have they been at setting boundaries there?
That's one of the biggest questions in education right now. Pretty much all schools have policies restricting cell phone use at this point. But there's very little evidence about how effective these policies have been. We've found that more-restrictive policies may correspond to fewer students checking their phones in class, but this is just based on student self-reports. Maybe not surprisingly, students tell us they're also less likely to check their phones when they know their teachers are strict about enforcing those policies.
Even as they're using it, students are thinking about the negative implications of outsourcing too much of their thinking to AI.
Do students do better at school when they can't check their cell phones?
There's some emerging evidence linking cell phone bans to reduced use of cell phones in schools, and maybe some positive effects on student well-being, at least in the longer term. It's a little unclear if there are any links with student achievement—but again, some evidence that there might be some benefit.
But there are also some real trade-offs. Teachers don't want to spend all day being the phone police. Parents often are skeptical of full phone bans because they want to be able to contact their kids in an emergency. So while there is some evidence that these policies can be good for students, they're not cost-free.
How do you hope your research helps schools navigate these challenges?
Our goal at RAND is to put some real numbers to these nationwide trends, to make sure we understand what's really happening in the school environment. We see a lot of anecdotal evidence in the media about kids using AI to cheat or getting too addicted to their cell phones. But there's not always a lot of data to say how widespread these issues are, how students, parents, or teachers perceive them, or how they're changing.
This is a period of real transition for schools. And it's not just about technology. We see high rates of student absenteeism, high rates of teacher stress. Our goal at RAND, really, is to track these issues and measure them clearly, so policymakers have the information they need to act on them.
