Overview
- The American Federation of Teachers has secured $23 million in funding—$12.5 million from Microsoft, $10 million from OpenAI (including $2 million in technical resources) and $500,000 from Anthropic—to back the National Academy for AI Instruction.
- Hands-on workshops begin this fall at the United Federation of Teachers’ Manhattan headquarters alongside an online curriculum designed to train over 400,000 K-12 educators across five years.
- Training content emphasizes responsible integration of AI by teaching ethical use, student data privacy protections and bias mitigation strategies.
- The academy responds to recent White House calls and UNESCO guidance by targeting disparities in AI training access, especially in high-poverty school districts.
- Union leaders view the program as a model for public-private collaboration that puts teachers at the center of AI adoption through ongoing dialogue with technology developers.