Are Students Still Thinking? Metacognition & U.S. Education in the Age of A.I.

The U.S. education system has struggled through cyclical reform, in which educators and policymakers have said much about how our nation should educate and very little about why. As artificial intelligence threatens to reshape education once more, I explore arguments for why the U.S. government provides public education to better understand how society can adapt to the dislocations brought on by AI. To do this, I conduct a historical analysis of three leading theories of education: traditionalism, professionalism, and credentialism, and interview three K-12 students on their experience living through reform and technological advancement. I find that students lack sufficient metacognitive skills, creating blind spots in the education system which artificial intelligence can exacerbate. These findings give insight into how policymakers can guide education towards a recommitment to metacognitive skills in the face of ascendant AI technologies.