The with-and-without line

Since 2022 I’ve run over 50 AI workshops for districts. The question I get most is where the tool fits in a unit. Almost no one has asked me which standards it shouldn’t touch. Most of what’s on offer for AI in the curriculum answers the first question: integration guides for literacy units, math units, science labs. Take the lesson you have, and here is where AI fits.

That’s a fair way to get teachers comfortable. But it skips a decision that only curriculum leaders can make. When nobody decides what students must do without the tool, the grade stops telling you what a student can do.

The decision integration skips

Districts drew a version of this line for calculators. Now it runs through almost every priority standard, and each one needs an answer:

• Without: what must a student be able to do with no tool in the room?
• With: what should a student be able to do well using the tool?
• Retire: what are we teaching that no longer earns its time?

Here’s one standard run through all three. Take 8th-grade argument writing. Without: the student can build a claim and defend it out loud against a counterargument they didn’t see coming. With: the student uses the tool to find the strongest opposing view, then decides what to concede. Retire: maybe the week spent on the five-paragraph template, which the tool now produces on demand. A department could reasonably argue about that last one, and that argument is the point. That argument is where teachers and the curriculum office settle what the skill actually is.

Integration guides assume the answer is “with” and move on to how. That’s partly because they’re built unit by unit, not standard by standard. But the answer differs by standard, by grade, and by course, and it’s a curriculum judgment. An ELA curriculum that gives three weeks to summarizing sources may be spending time on something the tool now drafts in seconds. For some standards, if the tool does the work and the student doesn’t own the skill they will be unprepared to react to the gap. For instance in a 6th-grade math, a student who can’t estimate a reasonable answer can’t catch the tool when it’s wrong.

Nobody downstream can make that call. If the curriculum office doesn’t draw the line, every teacher draws their own, and the district ends up with as many answers to the same question as it has classrooms.

Integration answers “how do we use it here?” The line answers “should we?” and it has to come first.

Where integration hides the problem

Ruben Puentedura’s SAMR model, a reflection lens rather than a validated measure, is useful here as a mirror. Integration guides work unit by unit, so start there and trace back to the standard. Take any unit that’s been “integrated” and look at where the student task sits:

• If the tool only makes the same task faster (Substitution, Augmentation), the standard didn’t change. Ask whether it’s a “without” standard, and whether the tool is now doing the part you meant to assess.
• If the task was redesigned (Modification), someone probably made a with-or-without decision, even if they didn’t write it down.
• If students are doing something new (Redefinition), the standard itself may need rewriting.

The pattern to watch for is integration that sits at Substitution on a standard that should have been “without.” That’s where the grade stops meaning what it says.

Leading the change

Drawing the line takes leadership. A memo won’t do it. Teachers will disagree, and they should. A department that argues about whether persuasive writing is a “without” skill in 10th grade is doing the kind of curriculum work integration-first rollouts skipped.

It also changes behavior in a way tool training doesn’t. When teachers draw the line themselves, they own it. When it arrives as guidance, teachers who have seen enough initiatives come and go reasonably wait to see if it lasts.

Hall and Hord’s Concerns-Based Adoption Model explains why. “Will this last?” is a self concern, one of the early Stages of Concern, and a directive can’t answer it. A line the department drew itself does, and it moves the conversation to consequence concerns: what this means for their students.

The keep or cut problem was one I dealt with extensively when implementing the Next Generation Science Standards. When incorporating the Science and Engineering Practices we were forced to identify activities that no longer warranted the time and effort they would cost.

The line will move. What’s “without” in 2026 may be “with” in 2029. So treat the line as a living document: dated, owned by a department, and revisited on a cycle.

Where to start

Pick one course and its five priority standards. Add three columns to the curriculum map: without, with, retire. Give a department one meeting to fill it in, and don’t try to settle the disagreements in the room. Write them down. Name who owns that list, and set the date the department comes back to it for accountability. The places they disagree are your curriculum agenda for the year.