New findings from online academic integrity and text-matching service provider, Turnitin, highlight the growing leadership role of teachers integrating artificial intelligence into the classroom, the demand for education-specific AI solutions, and the importance of guiding students toward using AI as a tool for learning rather than a substitute for thinking.
Based on data gathered during the first half of 2026 and an analysis of how students use the Turnitin Clarity AI writing transparency tool, the ‘Learning Integrity Insights Report Q2’ revealed 48 percent of respondents reported that teachers and administrators take primary responsibility for AI implementation at their schools and districts, far more than do technology leaders (17 percent) and cross-functional committees (16 percent).
Educators say they found parallels from the data with their schools’ and districts’ initiatives and results to date. “We are always having to respond to determine, when new technologies come out, what are we going to implement, what are we not going to implement, and how and what will work well,” says Matt Moyer, principal at Rupert Elementary School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania.
“Schools are in different places. How do we respond? How do we best position ourselves? How do we work with our staff to get them up to speed?”
The findings were “heartening” to Antero Garcia, president of the National Council of Teachers of English, which earlier this year released an “ELA AI Framework and Feedback Form” to provide guidance on integrating AI into the classroom and when and how to opt out.
“Some [teachers] are excited and want to explore the possibilities. Some are not and rightfully have concerns. Students get the best learning opportunities when teachers are in control of what’s happening in their classrooms,” he said.
Technology integration specialist at Smithtown (New York) Central School District, Tim Needles said he observed that administrators were more cautious with AI due to the social and political pitfalls, whereas teachers and department heads understand the need in a more direct way. As an adjunct professor at a couple of colleges, he wasn’t surprised at the finding that usage is more disparate in higher education because “the higher ed world, with AI, is a little bit like the Wild West now. The policy is never the same anywhere.”
Moyer cautions that while teachers taking leadership is not a bad thing in and of itself, if school leadership is completely hands-off, that could lead to “disjointed implementation for a district,” he says. “You’d better get on top of this and have a plan as to what you’re doing and not doing with this. That’s an important point for people in my position as principals to understand.”
The Turnitin report also revealed that educators don’t see AI as worth the investment unless it has the flexibility to meet teaching needs, reflects how they design assignments by providing customisation, provides transparency into how students are using it, and either saves them time or provides concrete benefits such as the ability to scaffold various types of assignments in a way that supports student learning.
Needles said AI tools have come a long way but still have a great distance to travel, and he takes new training nearly every year to understand their evolution and be able to lead his district in implementing the tools. He predicted that in two or three years there would be a bit of a more consistent usage.
“We haven’t even reached the tipping point with AI yet. It’s interesting to see the really high usage in secondary. The big through line is that teachers need education-specific AI,” Needles said.
Head of the Social Science Department at the Prepa Anahuac private high school network in Mexico City, Perla Lujan said her school uses Turnitin’s products, integrated into Schoology. But it’s challenging to keep up with the content of curriculum and preparing students for end-of-semester testing while also keeping up with AI tools and technology.
“We do have these tools. As was mentioned in the report — and I totally agree — all of us are worried about the use of AI, and how we can accurately detect that in our students,” she noted.
Bellwether Education Partners has heard similar testimony about the need for education-specific tools in conversations with principals, says senior analyst Marisa Mission, noting that her organization has published research on how AI is changing learning and AI use in schools.
“They typically produce better outputs,” Mission said of education-specific AI tools. “They align with better teaching practices that are simpler for educators to use. Not everyone has the time, capacity and training to take advantage of the most advanced AI models and frontier platforms, meeting educators where they’re at matters,” it advised.
US Students Offloading More Brainpower
The Turnitin data showed that higher education students in the U.S. were turning over their writing to AI — with 19 percent of submissions measured as more than 80 percent AI-generated — at roughly double the rate of peers in the United Kingdom (10 percent) and Australia (10 percent). But at the K-12 level, only five percent to six percent of papers reached that threshold in all three countries.
Director of Teaching and Learning at Lytton High School in Gisborne, New Zealand, Michael Harvey finds the international comparisons useful, although he notes that New Zealand’s results are likely very different from Australia’s given that the latter makes decisions at the state level, like the US while New Zealand has a national education ministry.
“I quite like the idea that the report has moved on to when and why students are using [AI], not whether. It seems like a lot of students are using it for feedback,” Harvey observed.
The Turnitin data also reveal that students are most likely to ask for AI feedback during the drafting stage of an assignment (43 percent) vs. other points along the way such as proofreading (18 percent), getting started (11 percent) or researching (six percent). Nearly three-quarters of those asking for drafting help (72 percent) wanted feedback like, “Am I aligned with the rubric?” or “How can I improve my paper?”
Moyer is concerned about whether students fully understand how to ask for feedback. “Prompts like, ‘Is my paper good?,’ aren’t going to help anyone,” he says, because they don’t produce specific enough answers. “Students don’t really know how to use this tool, even though they think they do.”
Meanwhile, Needles wonders whether the best and brightest students are the most afraid to use AI because they’re afraid of appearing like they cheated — and yet they will need to know how to use it to participate in the workforce of the future. “There are responsible ways to use it, especially in organising your structure, in the early stages of writing,” he says.
