The ongoing debate over AI usage in school has only gotten even more intense over the past couple of months. One part of it that feels especially frustrating to students across America is that teachers are warning their students not to use AI for assignments, yet many of those same teachers who enforce these rules rely on AI tools to grade, comment on assignments and essays with it or even use it to design their own classwork. The contradiction hasn’t just gotten annoying for many students but has become unfair in their eyes.
Students are told that when using AI, it “shortcuts learning, undermines their integrity or doesn’t show real understanding.” However, when teachers are using AI to speed through grading stacks of essays or generate feedback in seconds, the message shifts. Suddenly, the definition of AI has become efficient, helpful and necessary. This same tool that has supposedly become harmful for all of these students becomes a green flag when members of authority are using it.
The double standard absolutely does matter. If students are expected to demonstrate authentic work, then the evaluation of that work should also be just as authentic. When AI-generated comments replace thoughtful feedback, students are losing the chance to understand what is classified as a mistake or gain the ability to grow as a writer.
English 12 teacher at LOHS, Mr.Mcneal, offered his opinion on the discussion. He acknowledged the tension from the side of his students and explained that the workload that teachers face just makes AI feel like less of a shortcut and more like a survival tool. As he put it, “The teacher component of it, there is just no way we can read every essay and give it tons of feedback and then read it again once it was revised.” He also pointed out that peer review is often not useful, saying, “A lot of the feedback from peers is not useful. So, for me to use AI as a middle thing, it gives really good feedback.” From his perspective, AI isn’t about cutting corners but about increasing the amount of meaningful guidance students receive: ‘The positive is that, what I think, is way more, good feedback. I want to look at it in that positive way.”
The issue isn’t whether AI is inherently good or bad for our society. The issue is consistency. If AI is treated as a tool, students deserve the chance to use it responsibly. Whether students will actually go to the length of using it responsibly is another debate, but whether they get the decency of an opportunity is one that can be answered.
Until schools can start to address the imbalance, the conversation about AI will not feel like a fair debate. Until teachers can admit that they are using it unfairly, as students don’t get to use it, it won’t feel like a genuinely respected topic within our school’s standards. So, Lakers, what do you think, should teachers get AI usage if students don’t?
