Report on Artificial Intelligence in Education Offers Advocacy Framed as Policy Guidance

BOULDER, CO (January 15, 2026) — As AI-powered technologies rapidly proliferate across classrooms, educators and policymakers are grappling with urgent questions about how to assess their impact on teaching and learning. Bellwether’s recent report seeks to guide that effort by promoting logic models as a framework. Logic models, the report argues, will move us beyond superficial metrics and toward more robust, evidence-based educational outcomes.

Bradley Robinson of Texas State University reviewed Measuring Artificial Intelligence in Education. He found it flawed in its overarching bias that AI integration in education is both inevitable and beneficial. Also, the report only rarely uses existing research to support its claims.

The logic models promoted by the report focus on four foundational components: inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes. The report argues that such models can help stakeholders better understand how AI tools may influence instructional practices and student learning.

However, significant limitations of these models are not addressed in the report. By assuming from the outset that AI should be integrated into education, the report positions logic models as a value-neutral mechanism for ensuring that AI achieves its presumed potential. This framing obscures how logic-model approaches can simplify or ignore contextual complexity and overlook the risk of unintended harms. Rather than providing critical guidance for evaluating AI’s role in schools, the report ultimately offers methodological cover for predetermined conclusions about AI’s inevitability and desirability.

At a time when policymakers urgently need rigorous, balanced, evidence-based approaches, Bellwether’s report provides little support. Instead, Professor Robinson asserts, it serves more as a promotional document rather than as a critical examination of AI’s place in education.

Find the review, by Bradley Robinson, at:
https://nepc.colorado.edu/review/measuring-ai

Find Measuring Artificial Intelligence in Education, written by Michelle Croft, Amy Chen Kulesa, Marisa Mission, and Mary K. Wells and published by Bellwether, at:
https://bellwether.org/publications/measuring-ai-in-education/

 

NEPC Reviews (https://nepc.colorado.edu/reviews) provide the public, policymakers, and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected publications. NEPC Reviews are made possible in part by support provided by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice: http://www.greatlakescenter.org

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), a university research center housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, sponsors research, produces policy briefs, and publishes expert third-party reviews of think tank reports. NEPC publications are written in accessible language and are intended for a broad audience that includes academic experts, policymakers, the media, and the general public. Our mission is to provide high-quality information in support of democratic deliberation about education policy. We are guided by the belief that the democratic governance of public education is strengthened when policies are based on sound evidence and support a multiracial society that is inclusive, kind, and just. Visit us at: http://nepc.colorado.edu

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