Canty Passes Measure Protecting Teachers from AI-Based Evaluations

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – State Rep. Mary Beth Canty, D-Arlington Heights, advanced a measure Wednesday to promote fair and thorough education by restricting the use of AI during teacher evaluations.

This measure will go to the governor’s desk for consideration.

“Teachers deserve fair evaluations and by outsourcing that process to AI, we are doing a disservice to both the dedicated men and women working in our education system and the children that are there to learn,” Canty said. “I’m committed to creating the best possible classroom environment for Illinois kids, and forcing our teachers to conform to a generic and even inhuman standard is not the right approach to that goal.”

Senate Bill 2909 would prevent school administrators from using AI to write teacher evaluations, a formal process used to measure an educator’s effectiveness, instructional skills and classroom performance. These tools are only as good as the data they are trained on, which is difficult to vet, and teachers have also expressed concerns about transparency and privacy. The bill further prohibits teachers from using AI to generate evidence of their performance for the purposes of the evaluation.

The measure does recognize that AI might become an integral part of the teacher evaluation process one day, however the technology is not there yet. Senate Bill 2909 would not stop evaluators from using AI for basic administrative tasks. If the evaluator chooses to use AI- assisted tools, they must name and specify the purpose of the tool used in the evaluation and share that information with the teacher being evaluated.

“I’m in favor of exploring AI as a tool for basic organization and streamlining simple aspects of modern work, but this technology is not capable of effectively carrying out judgement-based tasks this complex,” Canty said. “The advent of new technologies like this needs to be met with a careful evaluation of their limitations. When we task them with responsibilities they can’t carry out, we’re inviting unintended consequences.”