Melania Trump Unveils Presidential AI Challenge for U.S. Classrooms

U.S. First Lady Melania Trump has launched the Presidential AI Challenge, inviting K-12 students and teachers nationwide to design artificial-intelligence solutions to local problems. The White House said the contest is meant to spark early interest in responsible AI use as the country prepares to mark its 250th anniversary. The initiative comes as many schools rethink earlier bans on tools such as ChatGPT. Teachers interviewed by national media outlets say they are shifting from policing AI to instructing students on how to deploy it critically and creatively. Dr. Lily Gates in Dallas, North Carolina, for instance, redesigned her writing classes to foreground student voice while using AI for idea generation, while Atlanta-based technology director Daniel Forrester trains staff to ask students what they used AI for, what data they provided and which portions of the output they kept. District-level experiments are also under way. Bart Swartz, who works with Kansas school systems, says administrators are piloting AI-enabled personalised tutoring, adaptive assessments and student-built review games. Educators involved in these pilots emphasise transparency, bias checks and ethics training to ensure the technology augments rather than replaces human judgement.