82% of Teachers Navigate AI in Education Without Formal Guidance as Schools Struggle to Keep Pace

Most Teachers Receive No Formal Guidance on AI Use

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Although prior research finds that six in 10 teachers use AI for their work, including three in 10 who use it at least weekly, just 18% of teachers report receiving any type of formal guidance from school administrators on how AI tools should be used. Across 10 tasks educators might use AI for, about one-third (34%) receive no guidance at all, while about half of teachers (48%) receive only informal guidance. This lack of clarity is leaving many K-12 teachers to navigate a rapidly changing technology landscape without support. These findings are from the Walton Family Foundation and Gallup's latest study, Teaching for Tomorrow: Closing the Expectations Gap, conducted Feb. 9-March 2, 2026, with 2,069 U.S. teachers working in public K-12 schools. Teachers were recruited from a nationally representative, probability-based panel of U.S. public school teachers. Formal AI guidance includes written policies or official guidance, while informal guidance includes verbal conversations or shared norms. Informal guidance on AI use varies across the 10 work tasks Gallup measured, but formal guidance is rare on all of them, with fewer than one in 10 teachers receiving formal guidance on any specific activity. For some tasks, most teachers receive no guidance at all: 69% say this is true about one-on-one instruction or tutoring, and 58% say the same for how they should use AI for grading and providing student feedback. Teachers in higher-income schools are somewhat more likely than those in higher-need schools to receive some type of guidance -- mostly informal -- on how to use AI, especially when it comes to preparing to teach and modifying or creating student materials. With few exceptions, guidance does not differ much across other characteristics, such as grade level or the main subject taught. Even when teachers say they receive some kind of guidance on using AI for work tasks, it may stop short of giving clear direction. Among teachers who receive either formal or informal guidance on a given task, most say it neither encourages nor discourages AI use, leaving this practical decision in the teacher's hands. Few say the guidance expressly discourages AI use. Encouragement to use AI is most common for instructional preparation, including using AI to modify student materials to meet individual needs (58%), making worksheets or assignments (54%), and preparing to teach (53%). Encouragement is less common (and ambiguity more common) for tasks involving direct interaction with students, such as one-on-one instruction or tutoring (35%). Three in 10 teachers say guidance for using AI to get feedback or coaching on their teaching is encouraged. Discouragement is uncommon across most AI use cases. Still, one in 10 teachers (10%) who receive guidance on using AI to grade student work say they are discouraged from doing so -- the highest discouragement rate of any task measured. The majority of teachers receiving guidance on the use of AI for grading say they are neither encouraged nor discouraged from doing so (54%), and 36% say they are encouraged. Teachers who receive formal guidance on using AI are more likely than those who receive informal guidance to say that the guidance encourages its use. For example, 69% of teachers who receive formal guidance on using AI to make student materials say it encourages them to use AI, compared with 51% of teachers who receive informal guidance. The same pattern is generally true for other work tasks asked about. AI tools are becoming a routine part of teachers' professional lives, but the institutional guidance that might help teachers use them thoughtfully and effectively has not kept pace. For most teachers, there is no formal policy, leaving individuals to make consequential decisions in a policy vacuum. This finding extends a pattern Gallup has documented in the Teaching for Tomorrow: Closing the Expectations Gap study: When teachers lack guidance from their school or district, the burden of navigating ambiguity falls on individual educators. This ambiguity has a lasting impact on educators, as unrealistic and unclear expectations are strongly linked to higher burnout and lower engagement at work. Schools and districts willing to invest in clear AI guidance could both reduce ambiguity for teachers and promote more confident, effective adoption. For now, most are not providing that direction -- leaving most teachers to navigate the AI landscape on their own or with patchwork support.

Study: Majority of Teachers Receive No Formal Guidance on AI Use

As artificial intelligence increasingly becomes part of daily life, policies regarding its use lag behind. A majority of teachers say they do not receive any formal guidance on using AI in school, according to the newest segment of Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation's "Teaching for Tomorrow" study, called "Closing the Expectations Gap." Teachers are not only unclear on their schools' AI guidelines but also on the expectations for excellent teaching in general. The "expectations gap" - as referred to by Gallup - impacts teachers' sense of satisfaction with their job, level of burnout and willingness to continue teaching, with those factors improving as expectations become more clear and realistic. From February 9 to March 2, Gallup surveyed more than 2,000 K-12 teachers in American public schools, recruited from the RAND American Teacher Panel - a representative, probability-based sample group. Teachers today are expected to do "one-and-a-half jobs" and must be selective with their priorities as time and resources are short, says Andrea Malek Ash, Gallup senior researcher for this study. When their job expectations are unclear and unrealistic, teachers become even more strained. It is difficult for school policies to keep up with the speed at which AI is becoming part of education. This leaves teachers with little guidance on using teachers using AI in school - 82% say they receive no formal guidance at all. The majority of those that do receive guidance get it from informal sources. "The fact that those formal policies are so uncommon does make me think there's a hurdle to getting them started," says Malek Ash. Nearly 7 in 10 teachers (69%) say they receive no guidance on how to deploy AI in one-on-one instruction or tutoring. Nearly 6 in 10 (58%) are not advised on using AI for grading and feedback, and almost half (47%) are not advised on using AI to create assignments and other class materials. The numbers are even starker for teachers at higher-need schools, as they are even less likely to receive guidance on using AI: 49% of teachers at lower-income schools are advised on using AI to create worksheets and assignments compared to 59% of teachers at wealthier schools. Teachers and students at schools with AI policies are more likely to use the tool, says Malek Ash. In a previous Gallup study, 74% of Gen Zers reported that their schools have policies for using AI but just 25% of teachers say the same. "We believe that students are probably getting ad-hoc guidance from teachers, while teachers are reporting the incidence of an actual, formal policy that comes from the school or district," says Malek Ash. Though AI-use is a hot topic in education, the survey explored other challenges facing educators. Teachers are somewhat split on whether they believe the expectations for excellent teaching at their school are realistic. Slightly more than half of teachers (55%) think the expectations for excellent teaching are somewhat, not very or not at all realistic. Teachers who feel the expectations are very realistic are more likely to be engaged at work and be satisfied with their job, while they are less likely to experience burnout. More than three-quarters of teachers who reported unrealistic expectations at school show frequent burnout. The same goes for clarity from administration regarding school policies: Teachers with clear communication from their school leaders are more likely to be satisfied with their job and be engaged at work, and less likely to experience frequent burnout. Clear communication is a tangible point of improvement for schools and it doesn't cost money, says Malek Ash. The benefits for teacher well-being can be "enormous." The data also shows a positive association between teachers' clarity on their job expectations and their retention rates - 94% of those who say the expectations for excellent teaching are extremely realistic (the highest on Gallup's scale) plan to continue teaching the next school year, compared to 74% of teachers who say expectations are "not too realistic or not realistic at all." Malek Ash says the study's message is for schools to be transparent in their communication with teachers, which in turn will improve teachers' satisfaction, engagement, well-being and retention.