By Michael Horn and Daniel Curtis

By inviting ChatGPT into the classroom instead of locking it out, schools can push students toward independent thinking in a way that doesn’t signal mistrust.

For all the speculation about ChatGPT’s potential to upend K–12 writing instruction, there has been little investigation into the underlying assumption that the AI chatbot can produce writing that makes the grade.

We put OpenAI’s ChatGPT to the test by asking it to write essays in response to real school curriculum prompts. We then submitted those essays for evaluation. The results show that ChatGPT produces responses that meet or exceed standards across grade levels. This has big implications for schools, which should move with urgency to adjust their practices and learning models to keep pace with the shifting technological landscape.