A push to reshape US schools — early career tracking, AI tutors, and less federal money — is being framed as bad news for ordinary families and good news for the tech donors selling the tools.

• The Education Department wants students steered toward college or trade tracks as early as elementary school.
• Critics say sorting kids that young locks in their futures before they know what they want.
• The same plan leans on AI in classrooms, with kids in headphones in front of screens for hours while teachers monitor.
• There are no long-term studies showing AI teaching works, and the companies selling it are also major political donors — Musk, the OpenAI founders, and other tech billionaires sit near the top of the donor list.
• Pulling money out of schools while pushing untested tech means kids become the test subjects.

Outlook: Expect more federal education funding to be handed back to the states and more AI contracts to flow to donor-connected tech companies.