Anusha Thotakura

A well-constructed K-12 science education is the key to students becoming thoughtful, engaged adults. When I taught middle school math, I saw how much more students learned when they could work through a problem themselves instead of simply being told the answer. Science education can work much in the same way: students must have opportunities to experiment, to understand how evidence supports a conclusion, and to question conventional wisdom through rigorous analysis.

All of this requires qualified teachers, functioning labs, sufficient classroom supplies, and enough instructional time for both teachers and students to actually do the work. I support protecting those resources in school budgets and prioritizing schools that have historically had less access to them. Given CPS’s financial constraints, we also need to pursue outside funding for equipment and teacher training, including from the State of Illinois.

On the Board, I was the chief sponsor of the Healthy Green Schools resolution, which passed unanimously in 2025. It calls for clean-energy projects at 12 neighborhood schools, with career and technical education built into the work. I want students to have as many opportunities as we can give them to learn about energy, engineering, and environmental science through projects they can see come to life in their own schools.

AI can be useful in a science classroom, but it can also produce an answer that sounds convincing and is completely wrong, and can never entirely replace the benefits of in-person instruction by a qualified educator. That’s exactly why students need a strong foundation in science before relying on these tools. A student should be able to explain what happened in an experiment, where their data came from, and whether a conclusion is actually supported by the evidence.

I support CPS’s existing requirements around approved, age-appropriate tools in certain contexts, while accounting for student privacy and teacher preferences. Beyond that, I support a flat prohibition on using AI tools outside of tightly defined parameters set at the district level. Teachers also need practical training on checking AI-generated lessons and deciding when a tool adds something useful to instruction. Students should learn how AI works, where it makes mistakes, and how to verify its claims.

Fundamentally, I would be concerned about any approach that uses AI to replace experiments, independent reasoning, or a teacher’s judgment. With limited funding, I’d rather invest in giving teachers the training and support to use these tools well than spend money on technology without a clear, demonstrable educational benefit.