By Dr. Janette Camacho | March 25, 2024

Last month I stood in front of 200 educators at FETC 2024 in Orlando and asked a simple question: "How many of you have received formal professional development on AI from your district?" Fewer than a dozen hands went up. That ratio - roughly 5% - mirrors every room I have walked into over the past year. We are living through the most significant technological disruption in the history of education, and the vast majority of teachers are navigating it alone.

The Scope of the Problem

The numbers are sobering. A January 2024 survey by the RAND Corporation found that only 7% of teachers reported receiving any AI-specific training from their districts during the 2023-2024 school year. The EdWeek Research Center painted a similar picture: while 56% of teachers reported using AI tools at least occasionally, only 12% said their district had provided guidance - let alone structured PD - on how to use those tools responsibly.

This is not a technology adoption problem. Teachers are already using ChatGPT, Google Bard (now Gemini), and a growing constellation of AI-powered tools. The problem is that they are doing so without institutional support, without pedagogical frameworks, and without clear expectations from leadership.

After 28 years in K-12 classrooms and years of delivering technology training as a Google for Education Certified Trainer and Coach, I can tell you that this gap is not unprecedented - but its velocity is. When interactive whiteboards arrived, districts had years to develop training programs. When Google Workspace rolled out, there were certification pathways and implementation timelines. AI moved from novelty to necessity in under 18 months, and most district PD pipelines simply were not built for that speed.

Why the Desert Exists

Through conversations with curriculum directors, technology coordinators, and superintendents across multiple states, I have identified four structural reasons why AI professional development remains so scarce.

1. There Is No Agreed-Upon Curriculum

When I train teachers on Google Workspace, there is a clearly defined ecosystem with certifiable competencies. AI in education has no equivalent standard - at least not yet. ISTE began updating its standards to include AI literacy in late 2023, but as of this writing, most states have not adopted AI-specific competency frameworks for educators. Without a target, districts do not know what to train toward.

2. The Expertise Gap Among Trainers

Districts typically rely on instructional coaches and technology integration specialists to deliver PD. But those professionals are themselves learning AI in real time. In a survey I conducted informally among Google Certified Trainers in early 2024, over 60% said they did not feel "fully confident" leading a multi-session AI PD series. If the trainers are not ready, the training does not happen.

3. Budget Priorities Are Elsewhere

Most districts are still spending their ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funds on post-pandemic recovery - tutoring, mental health staffing, infrastructure. AI training competes with urgent, tangible needs, and it often loses. The final ESSER obligation deadline of September 2024 will force a reckoning, but for now, AI PD is a line item that rarely survives budget negotiations.

4. Fear of Getting It Wrong

Several administrators have told me privately that they would rather offer no AI guidance than offer the wrong AI guidance. The legal and ethical landscape is shifting weekly - questions about student data privacy under FERPA and COPPA, intellectual property concerns, algorithmic bias. Districts are waiting for clarity that may never arrive in a neat package.

The Cost of Inaction

The temptation to wait is understandable. It is also dangerous.

When teachers lack AI training, three things happen. First, they default to prohibition. Blanket bans on AI tools - which several large districts enacted in early 2023 - do not prevent student use. They simply drive it underground, where there are no guardrails and no pedagogical scaffolding.

Second, inequity deepens. Students in affluent communities with tech-savvy parents are learning to use AI as a cognitive amplifier. Students in under-resourced schools are told it is cheating. We are creating a two-tier system where AI literacy becomes another privilege of socioeconomic status.

Third, teachers burn out. Educators who are already stretched thin now face a tool that changes their assessment practices, lesson planning workflows, and student interactions - with zero support. The cognitive load is immense, and it is falling disproportionately on the most conscientious teachers who feel obligated to figure it out themselves.

What Effective AI PD Looks Like

I am not arguing that districts need to become AI research labs. What they need is practical, classroom-connected training that meets teachers where they are. Based on my experience training educators as a Google Certified Trainer and FETC presenter, effective AI PD shares several characteristics.

It starts with literacy, not tools. Before teachers learn to use ChatGPT in a lesson plan, they need to understand what a large language model is, what it can and cannot do, and why it sometimes produces confident nonsense. Conceptual grounding prevents both overreliance and reflexive rejection.

It is discipline-specific. A high school English teacher and a middle school math teacher have fundamentally different use cases for AI. Generic workshops that demonstrate ChatGPT prompts without connecting them to content standards waste everyone's time.

It addresses ethics from day one. Every AI training I deliver includes a module on bias, privacy, and academic integrity - not as an afterthought, but as foundational. Teachers need to be able to have these conversations with students, and they cannot do that if they have not grappled with the questions themselves.

It is ongoing, not one-shot. A single 60-minute after-school session will not create AI-literate educators. Districts need sustained learning communities - monthly cohort meetings, coaching cycles, shared resource libraries - that evolve as the technology evolves.

A Call to Action

If you are a district leader reading this, I want to be direct: the window for proactive AI professional development is closing. By the time state mandates arrive - and they will - you will be playing catch-up instead of leading. Start small if you must. Identify your early adopters, give them time and resources to pilot AI integration, and build outward from there.

If you are a teacher reading this, know that you are not alone in feeling unsupported. Seek out communities - ISTE's AI Explorations network, the Google Educator Groups, regional EdTech conferences - where practitioners are sharing what works. And push your leadership, respectfully but persistently, for the training you deserve.

The AI professional development desert is real. But deserts are not permanent. They are conditions that change when we decide to invest in the ecosystem.

Dr. Janette Camacho is a Google for Education Certified Trainer & Coach, Google Certified Educator Level 1 & 2, Adobe Creative Educator, Apple Teacher, and FETC 2024 Featured Presenter with 28+ years of K-12 classroom experience. She is the founder of iTeachAI.