{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/educational-instruction-and-library-workers-all-other/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Educational Instruction and Library Workers, All Other", "soc_code": "25-9099", "category": "Education", "us_employment": 118590, "median_annual_wage": 50890 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 41, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 9, "embodiment": 10, "liability_shield": 3, "trust_premium": 11, "judgment_accountability": 8 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Roughly half the workday — drafting worksheets, adapting texts to reading level, writing resource guides, pulling citations for a student's paper, logging attendance and progress notes — is text-in/text-out work a model does in seconds, while the other half (sitting beside a student who won't start their essay, running a small-group study skills session, setting up a maker space or testing room) doesn't compress, which is why this lands at 9 rather than in the resistant teens.", "embodiment": "You are on a campus or in a library building: shelving and processing materials, moving AV carts and laptops, staffing a tutoring desk, proctoring a testing room, supervising a group during an after-school block — physical but in controlled, climate-conditioned, predictable spaces, which puts it at 10 rather than the 15+ of a field technician or trades instructor.", "liability_shield": "Most of these positions require a bachelor's or less with no state credential, no teaching license, and no professional certification a state board could pull — the certified teacher of record or the head librarian signs off on grades, IEP paperwork, and collection decisions, so the 3 reflects a real absence of statutory gatekeeping, not merely weak protection.", "trust_premium": "An 11 recognises that the student who keeps coming back to your table, or the teacher who routes their toughest reader to you, is choosing you specifically — but the assignment is often term-length, students rotate, and the district can post the role and fill it without the returning cohort collapsing, so the relationship supports the work without being the deliverable.", "judgment_accountability": "You decide which intervention a struggling reader gets next, when to escalate a behaviour or welfare concern, and how to reallocate a session when three students show up needing different things — real discretion inside a curriculum, a district handbook and a mandated-reporting chain that specifies the escalation, which is why it sits at 8 and not in the mid-teens where the final call is yours to own." }, "rationale": "This catch-all bucket holds instructional support staff, learning-center and tutoring coordinators, curriculum and media assistants, and program aides; the modal worker splits time between screen work (building lesson materials, cataloging resources, scheduling, tracking student progress, answering reference and referral questions) and in-person contact with students on a campus or in a library. The screen half is exactly what generative AI does cheaply — worksheet generation, reading-level adaptation, resource summaries, routine research help. The in-person half — sitting with a struggling student, running a study skills group, keeping a program physically operating — holds, but it carries no license and no signature requirement, so the only real moat is presence and relationship.", "outlook": "Headcount likely flattens or drifts down as AI absorbs materials prep and reference lookup, while the staff who remain shift toward hands-on student contact and program operations on site.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: if worksheet generation, reading-level adaptation, cataloging and routine reference are absorbed by district-licensed AI tools (Khanmigo-type deployments, ILS AI discovery layers), the residual day becomes small-group intervention, behavior de-escalation, attendance/truancy follow-up and MTSS/RTI progress monitoring with a live child — work current models cannot do. Watch for job postings that drop 'creates instructional materials' and add 'delivers Tier 2 intervention'.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State or district rules making a named, certified human the required signer on IEP/504 service logs and progress data used in eligibility decisions — i.e., barring AI-generated progress notes from being entered without a credentialed staff attestation. IDEA documentation audits and state paraprofessional certification (ESSA Title I para requirements) are the existing hooks; several states are drafting AI-use rules for special-education documentation.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Mandatory-reporter and child-supervision duties being formalized into the role description with personal legal exposure (state child-abuse reporting statutes already name school employees), plus state student-data-privacy rules (Illinois SOPPA, NY Ed Law 2-d) that require a designated human to approve any AI tool touching student records.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "State legislation requiring a human educator of record and prohibiting AI as the sole provider of instruction or tutoring hours — bills of this shape have appeared in several statehouses and in teacher-union contract bargaining (UTLA, Chicago Teachers Union AI language). If high-dosage tutoring funding is conditioned on human-delivered contact minutes, buyer preference becomes a purchasing rule.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Parent-facing demand: private learning centers and library programs explicitly marketing 'no AI tutor, a person sits with your child', and public library systems adopting ALA-aligned policies that reference questions receive human review. Observable in center advertising and in library AI policy statements.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Being formally seated on MTSS/RTI or threat-assessment teams where the role owns the recommendation to escalate a student — several states now mandate multidisciplinary behavioral threat assessment teams (e.g., Virginia, Texas SB 11, Florida) and support staff are named members. Ownership of an escalation call under ambiguity is a real accountability transfer, not a title change.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 } ], "ceiling_note": "This is a catch-all SOC with no license, no scope-of-practice statute and no protected title, so the liability_shield route is capped: attestation duties can be added, but personal malpractice liability of the kind physicians or engineers carry is not on any visible path. The realistic ceiling is mid-50s, and it depends almost entirely on the job being redefined around in-person intervention and escalation rather than material production — a redefinition that in practice often comes with headcount cuts to the material-production half." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2019, "emp": 129040, "wage": 40310 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 142550, "wage": 41570 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 155950, "wage": 46300 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 129170, "wage": 47650 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 113490, "wage": 49800 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 114640, "wage": 48400 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 118590, "wage": 50890 } ], "from": 2019, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -8.1, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": false }, "pivots": [], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }