This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
Jason Collar quieted his social science classroom so he could play the official announcement for the Presidential AI Challenge. In the video, First Lady Melania Trump speaks to camera over soaring piano music, inviting every K-12 student in America to “unleash their imagination and showcase the spirit of American innovation.”
Collar’s ninth graders stared up at the screen blankly. “Yeah… so?” is how Collar described the response.
The challenge, created by an executive order in April, is part of the Trump administration’s push to accelerate artificial intelligence education and prepare students for an “AI-driven economy.” While a handful of districts, including Anaheim Union High School District where Collar teaches, mobilized quickly to encourage participation, California’s two largest school systems, Los Angeles Unified and San Diego Unified, had no plans to take part. Some others haven’t even heard of the challenge.
The uneven rollout threatens to deepen existing inequities in AI education. As well-resourced districts like Anaheim Union add another AI opportunity to their already robust programs, students in districts without funding, partnerships or awareness risk falling further behind in the AI skills the Trump administration says are essential for future jobs. With the government offering no additional resources to districts, a challenge meant to prepare all students may mainly serve the already advantaged.
Collar said the challenge fits naturally with his Minecraft education class, where students design solutions for community problems inside a virtual replica of their schools. In previous classes they’ve built bike lanes, wind farms and community gardens on their digital campus.
Six Katella High freshmen who spoke with a reporter said they already use AI regularly to draft outlines, help their parents plan trips, or identify half-remembered songs and TV shows. They thought the challenge was a good idea, but said it lacked clarity.
“I think they should add more details on the project in general,” said Julissa Lopez Mendez, one of Collar’s students. “There were some parts of it that I didn’t really understand well.”
The challenge guidebook lays out some specifics. Students can work in teams of up to four on an AI project that addresses a community issue, with national winners receiving $10,000 per participant and invitations to the White House. But what those projects should actually look like remains unclear. The guidebook outlines two tracks — one where students design a poster proposing how AI could solve a local problem, and another where they build a working prototype such as an app or website — without much detail on the scope or expectations for either.
Another student, Joshua Thomas Clifford, said the challenge could use more promotion — “More publication so that more people know.” Even in Anaheim Union, which prides itself on being a leader in AI education, students were only finding out about the challenge in late October, two months after the initial announcement and three months before the Jan. 20 submission deadline.
That Anaheim Union is participating at all reflects the district’s unusually long history of developing AI programming for both teachers and students. In 2020, the district created an AI pathways program to help students explore skills related to the emerging field. The district has worked closely with AI education nonprofits aiEDU and Digital Promise, and for the last two years has hosted the AI K–12 Deeper Learning Summit, where educators, students and researchers discussed practical ways to bring AI into the classroom.
“We have a lot of outside partnerships that influence our professional learning and our access to resources,” said Jecenia Vera, the district’s newly appointed lead on AI.
2 Silicon Valley districts pass on AI challenge
Anaheim’s enthusiasm is an exception. Across much of the state, news of the contest hasn’t reached classrooms, even in communities where artificial intelligence companies are headquartered.
“We hadn’t heard of the challenge until your inquiry,” said Jennifer Dericco, a spokesperson for the Santa Clara Unified School District, which sits in the center of Silicon Valley.
Milpitas Unified, another district in Silicon Valley, has opted not to pursue the challenge. The high school has an AI club, but the late August announcement — just as teachers had returned from summer break — made it difficult to fold the contest into lesson plans.
Chris Norwood, Milpitas Unified school board president, sees his district as a leader in the AI conversation. The district launched an AI task force in 2024.
“We are the gateway into Silicon Valley to a certain extent. We just have to move forward with it, unlike some other school districts that may not have the resources,” he said.
Norwood wondered if the government was offering incentives to districts that, unlike Milpitas, don’t have the resources to compete in the contest.
“It would be super interesting if the Presidential AI Challenge included funding for underserved school districts,” Norwood said. “But that’s not traditionally the way that government works.”
That absence of funding sits at the heart of many districts’ hesitation. Christian Pinedo, who leads external affairs for aiEDU, a nonprofit focused on AI education equity, said the Trump administration has pledged to fast-track AI education while it is simultaneously cutting federal funding for STEM education, relying instead on private-sector partners to fill the gap.
‘It’s for sure a marketing move’
Soon after the rollout of the Presidential AI Challenge, the Trump administration released a list of more than 100 companies that had pledged to support K–12 AI education, including Meta, OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. Many of those commitments were tied to the challenge: Microsoft announced $1.25 million in grants for participating educators, while Amazon, with education nonprofit PlayLab, pledged to provide school districts with coaching and classroom tools.
At a Dec. 11 AI Education Task Force Meeting, Director Michael Kratsios said that over 5,000 students across 50 states have signed up for the challenge.
The challenge itself, Pinedo said, serves more as a showcase of student innovation than as serious education policy.
“You don’t see a lot of participation from students that are a little bit more disenfranchised,” Pinedo said. “It’s for sure a marketing move from the White House. And it’s for sure an inequitable marketing move.”
Pinedo said aiEDU is building support packages to help Title I and rural districts take part in the challenge. Those efforts include training teachers and recruiting volunteer coaches to work with students.
For students in districts sitting out the challenge, extracurricular programs may offer the only path in. Integem, a Silicon Valley-based tech-education company, is running online Presidential AI Challenge classes for students this fall. But the coaching sessions, which cost $25 an hour for group classes or $70 an hour for private lessons, come at a price that may be out of reach for many.
Mission Bit, a San Francisco nonprofit that provides tech education to students from underserved communities, typically hears about federal and state STEM contests early. This year its students participated in the Congressional App Challenge. But Chief Operating Officer Cynthia Chin said the Presidential AI Challenge never crossed her desk. Despite the challenge aligning with the organization’s curriculum goals for AI education, Chin was hesitant about whether this is something her organization would pursue.
“If this landed in my inbox as an opportunity, I would have to think pretty hard about it.” Chin said, adding that she’d have to consider whether it was politicizing AI education.
For now, the challenge feels more like a concept than a fully realized program, but educators say its reach and impact could grow as the rules, funding and partnerships solidify.
Back in Anaheim, when asked what would make more kids want to participate, Wyatt Philleo, a ninth grader, had a suggestion: “Instead of just money, they could also add opportunities,” he said. “Many young people want a set up for life, like a job offer.”
This story is part of “The Stakes,” a UC Berkeley Journalism project on executive orders and actions affecting Californians and their communities.
BART board OKs contingency plan to solve $367M deficit if sales tax measure failsMarch 2, 2026 6:45 am