Iowa expands AI reading tutor, but some parents share concerns

• But parents are concerned the program isn't accurately hearing their kids and is jeopardizing their digital privacy.

State of play: Carlise Car says her daughter enjoyed reading at home before attending kindergarten at Jordan Creek Elementary in West Des Moines this August.

• When her daughter, Chloe, returned home from school, she wasn't interested in reading, Car said.
• She noticed Amira on her daughter's weekly school internet report and researched it.
• Car says the program wasn't accurately hearing her daughter, who is soft-spoken and had recently lost a tooth, and frequently asked Chloe to repeat herself.

Zoom in: Car says she opted her daughter out of the program after speaking to the principal. But she's concerned about the privacy of her daughter's voice and about parents' lack of information about the program. She says the school's technology waiver did not specify use of AI.

• "We were pretty blindsided," Car says.

What they're saying: Data provided to Amira is West Des Moines district property that cannot be used to train public AI models, spokesperson Bryan Geelan tells Axios.

• He says the district's guidelines match other nationally set standards.

The big picture: The Iowa Department of Education also provides Amira to school districts across the state, separate from West Des Moines' usage.

• In 2024, the department recommended 41 elementary schools that received literacy grants from the state to use Amira.
• At the time, Iowa used $3 million in federal COVID relief to fund Amira.

Since then, Amira has expanded statewide to more than 96,000 students, who read "over 7 million minutes and completed 1.3 million stories" last school year, Iowa Department of Education spokesperson Heather Doe tells Axios. Gov. Kim Reynolds approved $2.5 million for the program last year.

By the numbers: Students who used the program for at least 20 minutes a week during the 2025-26 school year gained half a school year's worth of progress compared with students who did not use the program, according to Amira's progress evaluation, Doe says.

• A teacher-administered oral assessment of first through fifth graders showed the students correctly said 12.4 words per minute beyond typical expectations, Doe says.
• The program was offered alongside other literacy improvement tools passed and funded by the state in 2024.

Zoom out: The program is used differently across the metro.

• At Des Moines Public Schools, elementary students use it during reading rotations when they're not in a small group.
• In Johnston last year, the district focused on first through third grade classrooms in three elementary buildings. Staff saw progress, but the district also used other literacy tools, making it hard to tell if Amira caused improvements, says Michelle Crannell, Johnston's director of Elementary Teaching and Learning. The district is using Amira again this fall and is determining broader use across the district.
• Urbandale has used it since 2024.
• At Ankeny, a small share of students whose first language is not English are using Amira.
• Waukee is not considering using it due to the state's new screen time law, spokesperson Kayla Choate tells Axios.

Plus: Most districts rely on Clever, which is used with Infinite Campus, to help protect students' privacy.

Reality check: Research on programs such as Amira isn't conclusive, according to EdWeek.

• While some research has shown that 25- to 30-minute sessions with the program can show positive results, it's difficult to compare it with the results when a human tutor is present, Matt Burns, a professor at the University of Florida, tells EdWeek.

What's next: The state will provide Amira at no cost for the first 110,000 elementary students who enroll through July 31, 2028, Doe says.