Mercante: Will AI transform Delaware education?

PHOTO COURTESY OF MICHELLE PARSONS

Delaware should embrace what (artificial intelligence) can do, while demanding evidence that it actually helps students learn.”

Nancy Mercante is the director of the Center for Education Policy at the Caesar Rodney Institute.

Artificial intelligence tools are making their way into Delaware classrooms. A 2026 Stanford University review of AI research in K-12 education warns that AI is no replacement for the acquisition of the knowledge, skills, critical thinking and productive struggles that form the building blocks students need to do the intellectual work themselves. The biggest danger is if AI performs the cognitive work that students first need to learn how to do on their own.

In 2024, the Delaware Council on Educational Technology, through the Delaware Department of Education, issued generative AI guidance and has since added classroom management, acceptable use and media literacy resources. But the foundational guidance remains voluntary: District and charter leaders “may use this guidance” to shape local policies, and Delaware has not established binding statewide rules governing when students may directly use generative AI.

The question is not whether to use AI in the classroom but how best to ensure that AI strengthens long-term learning rather than replacing it. Its potential and limitations must be integrated into a clear set of statewide guardrails for Delaware school districts to follow.

What we know and don't know

AI can improve productivity, provide immediate feedback, personalize instruction and help teachers manage their workloads. But better performance on a task does not necessarily mean better learning.

A peer-reviewed study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involving nearly 1,000 high school math students, found that AI could make students look more successful, while reducing what they learned. Students using unrestricted ChatGPT-4 performed 48% better when the AI was available — but 17% worse when they had to work independently. A version designed with guardrails reduced that decline.

Students need to learn to think before AI thinks for them

Learning requires mental effort. Students need foundational knowledge stored in long-term memory to reason effectively, evaluate information and recognize errors — including errors produced by AI.

This is why Delaware should adopt a brains-first principle: AI should not perform cognitive tasks that students are expected to learn to perform independently. DDOE’s K-5 media literacy guidance already moves in this direction. But these are recommendations, not statewide requirements governing when students should begin using AI or requiring evidence that AI actually improves learning.

Guardrails for AI in Delaware classrooms

1. Establish evidence of learning before adoption: DDOE should require evidence of sustainable educational effectiveness before schools purchase or widely deploy AI tools. Evaluation should consider whether a product improves durable learning, not simply task completion. Vendor claims alone do not constitute sufficient evidence.
2. Brains before bots: AI should support learning, not replace the cognitive work through which learning occurs. Students should do the thinking before AI intervenes.
3. Assess student learning, not AI-enhanced performance: Because AI makes traditional homework and take-home assignments harder to authenticate, schools will need to place greater emphasis on process-based assessment. Oral explanations, in-class writing, rough drafts, demonstrations and other forms of human assessment can help teachers determine what students understand.
4. Teach AI literacy before — and alongside — AI use: Teachers and students should learn how AI works, ethics, where it fails and how to challenge its answers.
5. Keep teachers in control: Teachers must retain instructional control within a statewide framework that establishes strong protections for human-centered student learning.
6. Student data privacy and protection: Schools should minimize the collection of student data, require transparency to parents about how data is used and retained, and prohibit the use of student information for unrelated commercial purposes. Delaware’s student data privacy law may not protect students using general purpose AI tools. Delaware’s Student Data Privacy Protection Act protects student data handled by covered operators but expressly excludes general audience services.

AI classroom debate has already begun

In 2026, House Substitute 1 for House Bill 404 proposed a three-year AI and extended-reality pilot in up to 12 Delaware public schools. The Delaware House of Representatives passed it June 30, but the bill did not advance in the Senate before adjournment.

AI should strengthen learning, not replace it

Delaware does not have to choose between embracing AI and protecting students. It can do both. The test is simple: Does AI help students learn to think or does it think for them?

AI will transform education. But transformation is not the same as improvement. Delaware should embrace what AI can do, while demanding evidence that it actually helps students learn.

The goal should be better learning — and AI should earn its place by delivering it.

Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.