On Leadership is a column by MSA Superintendent-in-Residence Dr. Baron R. Davis
Artificial intelligence is already changing education. The question is whether we are designing that change or simply reacting to it.
Across the country, school systems are wrestling with difficult decisions about AI. Some are restricting student access. Others are embracing new tools. Many are somewhere in between, trying to determine what responsible use should actually look like.
But I believe we may be asking the wrong first question.
The question should not simply be, “Should students use AI?”
It should be: “What do we want students to be able to do, think, create, and understand in a world where AI exists?”
That is a fundamentally different leadership conversation.
Recent evidence suggests why it matters. A 2026 Gallup survey found that only 18% of public K-12 teachers reported receiving formal guidance from administrators about how AI should be used in their work. Research from the National Bureau of Economic Research also found that AI adoption is moving faster than teacher training, student guidance, and school policies, and that schools serving more disadvantaged students are experiencing lower levels of institutional AI integration.
In other words, we are at risk of creating another opportunity gap.
This is where magnet schools can help illuminate a different path.
Magnet schools have long demonstrated that innovation is most powerful when it is organized around a clear educational purpose. Technology is not the innovation. A STEM theme is not the innovation. A specialized program is not the innovation.
The design is the innovation.
AI should be approached the same way.
Imagine a health sciences magnet where students use AI to analyze patterns while learning to question algorithmic bias. An engineering magnet where AI accelerates prototyping but students must still defend their reasoning. An arts magnet where students explore generative tools while wrestling with authorship, creativity, and intellectual property.
In each case, AI serves the learning design rather than becoming the design. That distinction matters.
If we simply introduce powerful tools into conventional structures, we may make existing practices faster without making learning better. Worse, if access to thoughtful AI instruction depends on a student’s ZIP code, school, or teacher, we risk allowing innovation itself to become inequitable.
The leadership challenge, therefore, is bigger than choosing platforms or writing acceptable-use policies.
We must decide what human capabilities become more important because AI exists, and intentionally design schools to develop them.
Critical thinking. Creativity. Judgment. Curiosity. Collaboration. Ethical reasoning. The ability to ask better questions.
The future of education will not be determined by whether schools adopt artificial intelligence.
It will be determined by whether we have the courage to design what remains distinctly human.
Gallup & Walton Family Foundation. Most Teachers Receive No Formal Guidance on AI Use. May 26, 2026. Gallup report
Campos, Christopher, and John D. Singleton. AI Diffusion Gaps: Unequal Integration of AI Across K–12 Schools. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 35347, June 2026. NBER paper
U.S. Department of Education. U.S. Department of Education Releases Guidance on Responsible Use of Education Technology in the Classroom. August 20, 2026. Department of Education guidance
Baron Davis, PhD, is founder and CEO of The Noegenesis Group and the former superintendent of Richland School District Two in Columbia, South Carolina, where he helped design magnet programs spanning research and design, the arts, and computer science. His work centers on the conviction that connection precedes curriculum.
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