Will California schools meet President Trump’s AI challenge?

Jason Kolar quieted his social studies classroom so he could make the official announcement of the President’s AI Challenge. c the videoFirst lady Melania Trump spoke to the camera to soaring piano music, urging every K-12 student in America to “stretch their imaginations and demonstrate the spirit of American innovation.”

Kolar’s ninth graders stared blankly at the screen. “Yeah… right?” is how Collar describes the reaction.

The challenge created by an executive order in April, is part of the Trump administration a drive to accelerate AI education and prepare students for an “AI-driven economy.” While a handful of districts, including the Anaheim Union High School District where Kolar teaches, mobilized quickly to encourage participation, California’s two largest school systems, Los Angeles Unified and San Diego Unified, had no plans to participate. Some others haven’t even heard of the challenge.

Uneven implementation threatens to exacerbate 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. Because the government does not offer additional resources to districts, a challenge designed to prepare all students can mainly serve the already advantaged.

Kolar said the challenge fit naturally into his Minecraft education class, where students design solutions to community problems in a virtual replica of their schools. In previous classes, they have built bike lanes, wind farms and community gardens on their digital campus.

Six Katella High freshmen who spoke to a reporter said they already use AI regularly to make plans, 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 need to add more details about the project as a whole,” said Julisa Lopez Mendez, one of Kolar’s students. “There were some parts of it that I really didn’t quite understand.”

The challenge guide lays out some specifics. Students can work in teams of up to four on an AI project that addresses a community problem, with national winners receiving $10,000 per participant and invitations to the White House. But what these projects should actually look like remains unclear. The guide outlines two strands—one in which students design a poster proposing how AI can solve a local problem, and the other in which they build a working prototype such as an app or website—without much detail about the scope or expectations of either.

Another student, Joshua Thomas Clifford, said the challenge may need more publicity – “More posts so more people know.” Even at Anaheim Union, which prides itself on being a leader in AI education, students didn’t learn about the challenge until late October, two months after it was originally announced and three months before the Jan. 20 submission deadline.

That Anaheim Union is involved 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 works closely with AI education nonprofits aiEDU and Digital Promise, and for the past 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 many external partnerships that impact our professional learning and our access to resources,” said Jessenia Vera, the district’s newly appointed head of AI.

2 Silicon Valley districts passed the AI ​​challenge

Anaheim’s enthusiasm is an exception. In much of the state, news of the race has not reached classrooms, even in communities where artificial intelligence companies are based.

“We hadn’t heard about the challenge until your inquiry,” said Jennifer Derrico, a spokeswoman for the Santa Clara Unified School District, which is located in downtown Silicon Valley.

Milpitas Unified, another district in Silicon Valley, chose not to pursue the challenge. The high school has an artificial intelligence club, but the announcement in late August — just as teachers had returned from summer vacation — made it difficult to incorporate the competition 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’re the gateway to Silicon Valley to some degree. We just have to move forward with it, unlike some other school districts that might not have the resources,” he said.

Norwood wondered if the government is offering incentives to districts that, unlike Milpitas, don’t have the resources to compete in the race.

“It would be extremely interesting if the President’s AI Challenge included funding for underserved school districts,” Norwood said. “But that’s not the traditional way government works.”

This lack of funding is at the root of many areas’ hesitancy. Cristian Pinedo, who leads external affairs for aiEDU, a nonprofit focused on AI education capital, said the Trump administration has promised to accelerate AI education while reducing federal funding for STEM education, instead relying on private sector partners to fill the gap.

“It’s definitely a marketing ploy”

Soon after the launch of the Presidential AI Challenge, the Trump administration released a list of more than 100 companies that have pledged to support K–12 AI education, including Meta, OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. Many of those commitments were related to the challenge: Microsoft announced $1.25 million in grants for participating educators, while Amazon, with the education nonprofit PlayLab, pledged to provide school districts with instructional and classroom tools.

At the Dec. 11 meeting of the AI ​​Education Task Force, director Michael Kratsios said more than 5,000 students from 50 states had signed up for the challenge.

The challenge itself, Pinedo said, serves more as a showcase of student innovation than serious educational policy.

“You don’t see a lot of participation from students who are a little more disadvantaged,” Pinedo said. “It’s certainly a marketing move by the White House. And it’s certainly an unfair marketing move.”

Pinedo said aiEDU is building support packages to help Title I and rural districts participate in the challenge. These efforts include training teachers and recruiting volunteer coaches to work with students.

For students in struggling districts, after-school programs may offer the only avenue. Integem, a Silicon Valley-based tech education company, is running online Presidential AI Challenge courses 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 technical education to students from underserved communities, typically finds out about federal and state STEM competitions early. This year, his students participated in the Congressional App Challenge. But COO Cynthia Chin said the President’s AI Challenge had never crossed her desk. Despite the challenge being tied to the organization’s AI training curriculum goals, Chin was hesitant if it was something her organization would pursue.

“If this lands in my inbox as an opportunity, I’ll have to think pretty hard about it.” Chin said, adding that he would have to consider whether this was politicizing AI training.

For now, the challenge looks more like a concept than a fully realized program, but educators say its scope and impact could grow as rules, funding and partnerships strengthen.

Back in Anaheim, when asked what would make more kids want to participate, ninth-grader Wyatt Philleo had a suggestion: “Instead of just money, they could add opportunities,” he said. “A lot of young people want a lifetime setting, like a job offer.”

This story is part of “The Bets”, a UC Berkeley journalism project on executive orders and actions affecting Californians and their communities.