SF faculties chief takes controversial tech push to Dreamforce

Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce conference in San Francisco at all times attracts outstanding tech CEOs like Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, plus a handful of celebrities like Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon. But this 12 months it additionally included a distinct form of a speaker who got here to speak about synthetic intelligence in public faculties.

On Wednesday, Maria Su, superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District, spoke about deploying AI merchandise not in software program improvement, however within the classroom. She argued that San Francisco faculty academics want AI instruments to achieve success.

“We want to ensure we perceive the instruments that we put in entrance of our college students, ensure that we practice our educators to make use of the instruments proper,” she mentioned.  

Salesforce, after all, makes AI instruments, and Su’s look at Dreamforce comes after Salesforce’s Sept. 14 news that the corporate introduced $18 million in new grants supporting SFUSD and different faculty districts. SFUSD additionally signed a contract with OpenAI earlier this 12 months, deploying its ChatGPT Edu product to 12,000 academics and workers. It’s additionally at the moment creating a complete tech and AI coverage, on which the school board is scheduled to vote on March 9, 2027.

But as public opinion sours on the AI and tech trade and a “Stop the AI Race” march disrupted Dreamforce on Thursday, Su’s AI advocacy is a step into contentious territory, and a few academics and fogeys are cautious of AI’s advance into the classroom. Su’s no stranger to controversy, dealing with criticism from San Francisco academics throughout their four-day strike earlier this 12 months, and from Republicans over her help for transgender scholar protections, and now she’s drawing criticism for her AI push. More than 1,000 mother and father and academics signed a petition that requires limiting AI instruments and limiting display time.

Su was effusive in her reward for SFUSD’s ongoing, practically 14-year partnership with Salesforce. “It’s not a one-and-done state of affairs.” she mentioned. “If you decide to us, we’ll decide to you.”

Given that Salesforce is a software program firm that sells AI merchandise, like Agentforce, it has a vested curiosity in selling AI merchandise in new financial hubs, which may embody schooling. Since 2023, Salesforce has made AI a precedence with its donations to SFUSD, encouraging coaching academics to incorporate AI of their lesson plans, for instance. And its philanthropy isn’t new: Salesforce’s newest spherical of grants follows a earlier donation of $13 million final October to San Francisco and Oakland public faculties, and its whole largesse provides as much as greater than $156 million since 2013. 

Seemingly conscious of the backlash against AI within the Bay Area, Su by no means used the phrase “AI” in her remarks — in distinction to her fellow speaker, Sheryl Lee Ralph, an Emmy-winning actor who portrays a kindergarten trainer within the mockumentary TV present “Abbott Elementary,” and the moderator, Salesforce Senior Vice President of Impact Sunya Norman. Instead, Su spoke generally phrases of “instruments.” Throughout the occasion, although emphasizing the significance of the “human relationship” within the classroom, she appeared sure that such instruments can be utilized by academics and college students. She didn’t communicate of listening to academics or mother and father about whether or not they may need them in any respect.

In a follow-up interview with SFGATE, Norman mentioned Salesforce has no expectations as to how or whether or not tech merchandise shall be used within the faculties. 

“It’s not a unrest of curiosity,” she instructed SFGATE. “It’s not about getting know-how within the palms of center faculty college students.” 

In an announcement, the college district didn’t reply SFGATE’s questions on potential impacts of AI merchandise on college students’ crucial considering and psychological well being. Instead, it included a reply from Su that mentioned, “SFUSD acknowledges the urgency of building clear, considerate steering round scholar display use and synthetic intelligence as these applied sciences proceed to evolve.” 

The assertion additionally pointed to the district’s webpage on Generative and Agent AI in SFUSD, which outlines common suggestions for classroom use of AI merchandise like ChatGPT, equivalent to for lesson plans and scholar artwork, whereas noting issues about AI inaccuracies and scholar privateness.

Similar to a debate over AI use that’s at the moment surrounding the California State University system, reception to the rollout of tech and AI merchandise in faculties from San Francisco mother and father and academics has been blended. On insurance policies from AI in school rooms to cellphone use by college students, mother and father need extra transparency, mentioned Emily de Ayora, communications director at nonprofit San Francisco Parents Coalition. 

“We’re not against tech instruments,” she mentioned. “We simply need the district thoughtfully listening to oldsters, listening to their issues, and together with these within the strategy of constructing out insurance policies.”

Adlah Chisti, one other member of the group and a former trainer, went additional, telling SFGATE that the college district has not supplied information on the prices of the AI applied sciences or whether or not the AI merchandise have any profit for scholar success charges. She additionally laments the shortage of rules from metropolis officers up to now. “We shouldn’t be utilizing SFUSD as labs to determine these things,” she mentioned.

Cassondra Curiel, the president of the United Educators of San Francisco union, who beforehand confronted off in opposition to Su throughout the academics strike — which was partly over limitations on the district’s use of AI — expressed an analogous sentiment. “After making college students and academics lab mice, there has not been any information to point out these instruments advance the training of scholars,” she mentioned.

Both Chisti and Curiel, an English trainer, cite Amira for instance. The district launched the AI studying tutoring software final 12 months, with out consulting the union, Curiel mentioned. (In an announcement, SFUSD spokesperson Katrina Kincade didn’t reply to SFGATE’s query about speaking with the union, as a substitute saying that the California Department of Education authorized Amira in December 2024. “In our faculties, we make the most of Amira to apply studying fluency as an non-compulsory supplemental software to the curriculum,” she mentioned.)

Curiel argues that utilizing Amira will increase academics’ workload, somewhat than lowering it, and limits much-needed student-teacher interactions as college students attempt to meet up with their friends’ studying abilities, at a time when a majority of Americans learn under a sixth-grade level, in line with a Gallup evaluation. In addition, Amira doesn’t carry out properly with college students who communicate with accents or speech impediments, she mentioned.

In addition to studying, the AI instruments may additionally change how math is taught. At the Dreamforce occasion, Su in contrast new tech instruments to calculators, arguing that calculators didn’t hurt college students’ potential to be taught math, regardless of some fears after they had been first launched. Yet the newest analysis on AI in math isn’t promising: A new study by researchers at UC Irvine and the academic writer McGraw Hill that’s in peer assessment finds that top faculty college students spend 30% much less time on math homework issues that they will copy and paste in AI chatbots, and their efficiency drops 25% on assessments.

Chisti notably worries about potential results on psychological well being if college students ceaselessly work together with chatbots. 

“Why ought to mother and father must be those elevating this situation?” she requested. “There needs to be a halt on this, till we work out what the impacts are.”

Both mother and father and academics emphasize that they’re not against tech instruments per se in San Francisco faculties. 

“We’re not anti-technology,” Curiel mentioned. “We’re in opposition to the businesses and house owners that wish to exploit us.”