Zhao argues AI is forcing education to rethink its core assumptions

By AI, Created 5:21 PM UTC, May 18, 2026, /AGP/ – A new summary of Zhao’s work in ECNU Review of Education says AI, pandemic disruption and assessment pressures are exposing the limits of borrowed reforms and standardized schooling. The argument points to a shift away from technical fixes and toward a more human-centered model of learning.

Why it matters: - Zhao’s central argument is that education systems can no longer rely on borrowed policy fixes, narrow tests or add-on technology. - The critique matters because student disengagement, teacher burnout, inequity and weak alignment between school and real-world needs persist despite years of reform. - The work frames AI as a catalyst for redesigning education around human growth, creativity and responsibility.

What happened: - Zhao published a series of articles over the past seven years in ECNU Review of Education that challenge the foundations of modern schooling. - The latest related work was published online on Aug. 19, 2025, in ECNU Review of Education. - The article argues that AI does not just change classroom tools. It challenges the structure of schooling itself.

The details: - Zhao’s 2018 article, Shifting the education paradigm, argues that international policy borrowing has reached its limits, especially in China. - The paper says education policies that work in one cultural, economic or historical context often fail in another because schooling cannot be copied wholesale like a modular technology. - Zhao’s 2019 work on measurement describes large-scale assessment as a “wicked problem” because tests capture only part of what education values. - The articles argue that creativity, agency, ethical judgment and collaboration are often left out when test scores become the main proxy for quality. - Zhao and coauthors say assessment can reshape schooling by narrowing curricula and redefining success in measurable terms. - In Tofu is not cheese, Zhao uses the pandemic to show that moving school online without redesigning it is imitation, not transformation. - The COVID-19 period exposed how much schooling depends on rigid schedules, physical co-presence and standardized pacing. - In Time to rethink: Educating for a technology-transformed world, Zhao and a coauthor argue that technology is not an add-on to schooling but a defining condition of modern life. - The papers say abundant information, distributed expertise and learning beyond school walls are blurring the roles of teacher and learner, and of school and society. - In recent articles, Zhao and collaborators argue that AI undermines the “grammar” of modern education. - The work calls for an ecological perspective in which learning is embedded in systems of time, space and social relationships. - The article says education should shift from producing individual competitors to cultivating human interdependence. - Zhao and colleagues also examine how AI could reshape educational research, warning that algorithmic tools can trivialize inquiry and reinforce bias. - The same research says AI can also support more human-centered, problem-driven and ethically grounded scholarship. - Readers can find more about Zhao’s work at Zhao Learning.

Between the lines: - The argument is not a rejection of technology or testing. It is a rejection of reductionism. - Zhao is saying the core problem is not a lack of reform ideas, but the assumptions that define what counts as learning and success. - The repeated pattern across the work is that modern schooling keeps trying to optimize the system without questioning the system’s purpose.

What’s next: - The article points toward deeper redesign rather than another reform cycle. - Future education policy, in this view, will need to address how schools define learning, how they measure it and how they relate to AI-enabled environments. - Zhao’s broader claim is that education must help learners navigate, shape and sustain the worlds they inhabit.