LA Unified Faces Criticism After Collapse of Splashy AI tool “Ed” 

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Parents, educators, and advocates criticized Los Angeles Unified’s bumpy rollout and collapse of its splashy artificial intelligence chatbot “Ed” – even as the district moved ahead with more projects powered by the cutting-edge technology,

LAUSD last month shut down the chatbot after the firm hired to build it lost its CEO and furloughed workers. District officials said they would try to salvage the $6 million project.

Undeterred, the Los Angeles Unified school board a few days later on June 18 passed a resolution to build another AI-powered web portal, one where parents can access data on school budgets and student achievement.

But educators and families said the district should focus on academics and social services before taking on any new tech projects — and address lingering issues around the botched rollout as well as ongoing concerns over data security.

Evelyn Aleman, founder of Our Voice, a parents’ group which advocates for LA Unified’s low-income and Spanish-speaking families, said the district would do better to address a literacy crisis and epidemic of homeless students, rather than rush to adopt new technology.

“You have the administration rolling out the latest technology, but the parents that I’m working with have no clue what that’s all about,” said Aleman.

Many families don’t even have internet service to access the new AI-powered tools, Aleman said. “Parents are advocating for very fundamental issues like literacy, school safety, and mental health resources,” she said.

LA Unified in March distinguished itself by announcing the ambitious rollout of its new, AI-powered chatbot, an animated sun named “Ed,” becoming the first school district in the nation to deploy artificial intelligence technology at scale for families.

Superintendent Aberto Carvalho hailed the high-profile effort as a “game changer” that would allow families unprecedented access to student data and school information, and could eventually lead to the automated development of individualized lessons and aid instruction.

But just three months later, AllHere announced that its CEO had left and it had furloughed most of its workers due to financial problems. LAUSD immediately pulled the signature Ed chatbot offline, district officials said, because there was no AllHere staff available to supervise it.

LAUSD officials said the district had already paid the company about $3 million on a five-year, $6 million contract at the time of Ed’s shutdown. The district is trying to bring the pricey chatbot back to life, the officials said, but they would not say when it might be ready.

LAUSD’s inspector general’s office is investigating claims that AllHere violated data privacy rules.

Lester Garcia, an advisor for government relations at Service Employees International Union Local 99, which represents teachers’ assistants and other LAUSD school staff, said school employees and union officials are concerned private data may have been compromised.

“I think there are a lot more questions than there are answers around why LAUSD fast-tracked this AI system to begin with,” Garcia said.

Dan Chang, a math teacher at James Madison Middle School and candidate in LA Unified’s upcoming school board race this fall, said the Ed chatbot was never very useful for schools and students, even when it was up and running.

Chang, whose son attends another LAUSD middle school, said that the Ed chatbot mostly provided parents with generalized information that could be found elsewhere on the district’s web site.

“As a teacher, the use case for what it was initially scoped to do just seemed very marginal,” said Chang.

A better use of AI, Chang said, would be to harness the technology so teachers can use it.

Chang said AI could be used to analyze student assessment data, providing teachers with unprecedented insights into academic progress. The information could be used to inform lessons and be shared with parents at teacher conferences, he said.

But Chang said the spectacular failure of the Ed program could discourage schools from taking on such innovations. “It’s going to create a chilling effect for educators who want to try new technologies,” he said. “And these are things that could really help students.”

Despite problems with LAUSD’s adoption of AI technology for its Ed program, the district will continue to look for ways to use AI, LA Unified officials said.

LA Unified school board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin said the district is already working on an AI-powered budgeting tool that will track income and spending at schools and PTA organizations, and connect spending patterns to student outcomes.

Along with board member Nick Melvoin, Ortiz Franklin last month introduced and passed a resolution for the district to construct the AI-powered budgeting tool for use next year, and to make the budget information assembled by the tool publicly available on a district web page.

Ortiz Franklin said the district’s troubled partnership with AllHere on the Ed chatbot presents a learning opportunity for future AI projects. “We can apply lessons learned from our current interactions with AI vendors to ensure we’re making the best decisions for students,” she said.

University of Southern California education professor Stephen Aguilar, who studies schools’ use of AI at USC’s Center for Generative AI and Society, said that, despite the difficult rollout of Ed, Los Angeles – and other districts across the country – will eventually embrace AI.

“Districts are a little bit too quick to want to incorporate AI into the classroom without even knowing what it can do yet,” said Aguilar “There’s this rush to be innovative that comes with risks, and one of those risks is trying out untested technologies.”

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