A Teacher’s Guide to Confident Conversations About AI Grading

As AI feedback tools become more common, many educators feel a sense of hesitation. The thought of explaining your use of AI to a skeptical principal, a worried parent, or a critical colleague can be daunting. But you shouldn’t have to feel that way.

The truth is, your professional integrity is your greatest asset. Despite what it may feel like, year after year, polls confirm that teachers are among the most trusted professionals in society. An NEA poll, for instance, found that an overwhelming 84% of voters trust teachers’ opinions on what should be taught in schools. People trust you because they know you are guided by a commitment to your students.

This article is designed to help you leverage that trust. It’s a guide to navigating conversations about AI with confidence and transparency, grounded in the ethical principles that make teachers trustworthy. Using AI to grade and provide feedback is a professional decision that ultimately benefits your students the most! 

Stand by it and share it, as long as you are guided by your core values.

Guiding Principles for Every Conversation

It’s scary to feel called out in front of your boss. I’ve been called out by the deputy superintendent and school board members publicly for using AI to grade and give feedback on student writing. What I found was that administrators, students, and parents trusted me because I was transparent about how I was using Ai feedback. Before addressing specific objections, ground your conversation in these non-negotiable principles of ethical AI use. Whenever I explained how you use AI for grading and feedback, I made it clear that my professional judgment is always in charge, and that’s guided by these commitments to my students. 

• “I Read Every Word.” Reassure stakeholders that AI is a tool to assist, not replace, your connection to student work. You still read what your students write to understand their thinking, identify their needs, and catch those deeply personal moments that require a human response.
• “I Revise the AI’s Feedback.” Emphasize that AI provides a first draft of feedback, not the final word. You are the expert who refines, personalizes, and ensures every comment is accurate, constructive, and appropriate for each student. The AI is your assistant; you are the editor-in-chief.
• “I Assign the Final Grade.” Make it clear that you, the teacher, have ultimate authority. The AI can suggest scores based on a rubric, but you review and make the final decision on every grade, ensuring fairness and accuracy.

This framework shows that you use AI not to detach, but to be faster and more effective at helping your students grow.

4 Common Objections and How to Respond with Confidence

Here are some of the most common concerns I’ve heard from other educators, parents, students, and administrators, along with some ways to respond that reinforce your professional integrity.

1. “AI will replace teachers and dehumanize education.”

This criticism comes from a fear that technology will create a cold, mechanical learning environment and eventually make educators obsolete. 

• Response A: Reframe the Tool’s Purpose. “I see it differently. This tool is designed to augment my professional judgment, not replace it. It handles the most repetitive parts of grading, which frees me up for the most human parts of teaching: one-on-one student conferences, more creative lesson planning, and building stronger relationships in the classroom.”
• Response B: Share the Time-Saving Benefits. “Research shows that tools like this can save teachers hours every week. For me, that’s not time off; that’s time I can now dedicate to giving more personalized support to students who need it. It helps me focus less on the paperwork and more on the people.”

2. “AI feedback lacks the personal touch students need.”

The concern here is that AI-generated feedback is generic, impersonal, and fails to understand the individual context of each student. The deeper concern is that teachers using AI for feedback care less about their students. 

• Response A: Emphasize the Hybrid Approach. “I completely agree that students need a personal touch, which is why I never just pass along what the AI says. My process is a hybrid one: the AI provides consistent, immediate feedback based on the rubric, and then I add my own personal insights, encouragement, and specific guidance. The student gets the best of both worlds, and I’m always in the loop to guide what’s best for my students.”
• Response B: Highlight the Quality and Consistency. “One of the challenges with grading dozens of essays is that feedback can become less detailed by the end. This can lead to ‘reader fatigue,’ where students whose names are at the end of the alphabet may receive consistently lower-quality feedback and less accurate grades. Using AI as a partner actually helps me provide more detailed and consistent comments for every single student, from the first paper to the last. They get better quality feedback, and I can deliver it faster.”

3. “AI grading is biased against certain student groups.”

This is a legitimate and critical concern, as research has documented instances of algorithmic bias. Don’t dismiss it; address it head-on.

• Response A: Acknowledge the Concern and Emphasize Your Role. “That is a real and important concern. It’s also true that all human graders have implicit biases that can factor into their grading. The status quo often relies on a single human’s bias. This is exactly why it’s so important to use products that keep the human in the loop. By starting with an AI’s assessment, a professional teacher trained to recognize bias can critique the output, which helps minimize both the AI’s and their own personal biases. It provides a valuable ‘second opinion’ that serves as a reliability check on my own judgment, ensuring a fairer assessment before it ever reaches a student.”
• Response B: Discuss Mitigation Strategies. “To minimize bias, I am very careful about designing clear, objective rubrics. Because I review and edit all feedback, I can ensure that the evaluation is fair for all my students, including English language learners or students with different writing styles. My oversight is the most important mitigation strategy.”
• Response C: Focus on the Feedback Students Receive. “The place I use AI for feedback the heaviest is before there’s a high stakes grade involved. By using these tools, I can give feedback throughout the process so that every student, whether or not they’re able to schedule an individual conference with me, can know how they’re doing, what they need to do to improve, and actually have a chance for that feedback to impact their grade. Using AI throughout the writing process actually leads to students becoming better writers, and higher grades. 

4. “Students’ privacy and data are at risk.”

Parents and administrators are rightly concerned about how student data is collected, stored, and used by third-party companies. This is a very legitimate concern in today’s world, and does deserve your careful thought.

• Response A: Be Transparent and Follow District Protocol. “Protecting student privacy is my top priority. Any tool I use has been vetted for compliance with FERPA and other student privacy laws to make sure my students are protected.”
• Response B: Explain the Security Measures. “The platforms we use are required to have security standards like data encryption and access controls. For any particularly sensitive assignments, we also have the option to use the tools in ways that don’t require storing student data, such as working with anonymized text. The key is that we have a secure and approved process.”
• Response C: Share how you decide which tools to use. (If your district doesn’t have a list of approved tools or vets AI tools). “I’m committed to protecting students’ data privacy, and only use tools that comply with the same protections for student privacy that we already uphold. When I decide to use a tool, I check that it meets data-privacy laws, and seek guidance from trusted sources, my colleagues, and district experts. I give the tools the absolute minimum required amount of information, and make sure that students’ work is not going into anything that’s training AI. 

Your Voice Matters

It’s vital that we are transparent with the people we serve and serve with. You don’t need to hide the fact that you’re using modern tools to be a more effective teacher. Your professional judgment, your ethical framework, and your commitment to your students are what matter most.

The goal isn’t to win an argument or avoid reasonable hesitancy, but to build understanding and trust. So, take the confidence you have in your own integrity and be proactive. Talk to your principal about the ways AI is helping you provide better feedback. Share this guide with colleagues who are feeling hesitant. Reassure parents that you are still the one guiding their child’s learning.

You are the most trusted messenger for what happens in your classroom, and you deserve to lead the conversation.

About the Author: Andrew, Founding Teacher at CoGrader

Andrew is a leading voice in educational technology, AI, and writing instruction in Colorado. With over a decade of classroom experience teaching everything from AP Literature to Literacy Skills, he brings deep pedagogical expertise to his role. As an instructional leader, he has led district-wide redesigns of feedback and assessment practices in Jefferson County, CO, authored best-practice guides, and earned multiple educator fellowships from CEA and Teach Plus, and graded the Texas STAAR test, as well as the edTPA.

He is a Google Certified Champion who has presented to organizations like the Colorado Department of Education and the Colorado Education Initiative, has advised state and local school boards, and has worked on state-level policy to support educators. As CoGrader’s founding Teacher Lead, Andrew ensures our technology is grounded in sound pedagogy and authentically serves the needs of teachers and students. When he’s not thinking about the future of AI and writing feedback, Andrew enjoys playing disc golf and spending time with his family.