{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/kindergarten-teachers-except-special-education/",
  "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": "Kindergarten Teachers, Except Special Education",
    "soc_code": "25-2012",
    "category": "Education",
    "us_employment": 108870,
    "median_annual_wage": 62680
  },
  "verdict": "SAFE",
  "risk_resistance": 75,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 15,
    "embodiment": 17,
    "liability_shield": 14,
    "trust_premium": 17,
    "judgment_accountability": 12
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Teaching a five-year-old to hold a pencil, sit on a carpet square, take turns, and sound out CVC words happens through physical modeling, hand-over-hand correction, and 180 days of repetition with a body in the room — the 15 rather than 19 reflects that lesson planning, worksheet differentiation, DIBELS/running-record scoring, and report-card comment generation are genuinely being handed to software.",
    "embodiment": "You are on your knees at child height most of the day, walking a line of twenty to the cafeteria and back, managing recess in the cold, cleaning up vomit and bathroom accidents, and physically separating children who are biting — a classroom of five-year-olds is an uncontrolled environment even inside four walls, which is what puts this at 17.",
    "liability_shield": "A state teaching license with early-childhood endorsement is a hard condition of public-school employment, and you are the named mandated reporter under state child-abuse statutes and the responsible adult for headcount during fire drills and dismissal — the 14 rather than 18 is because the district and principal absorb most negligence exposure rather than you personally carrying malpractice risk like a physician.",
    "trust_premium": "For most families this is the first adult outside the home they hand their child to, and the daily pickup conversation, the note home about a rough morning, and the parent's read on whether their kid is happy determine whether the year works — kindergarten is where school attachment is formed, and no district can substitute that relationship with a product.",
    "judgment_accountability": "You decide daily whether a child's behavior is developmental or a referral for evaluation, whether a bruise gets reported, and whether to hold a child at the reading level or push them — real discretion, but a 12 rather than 16 because state standards, district pacing guides, and IEP/RTI teams constrain and share the biggest calls."
  },
  "rationale": "The core job is physically supervising and socializing twenty-plus five-year-olds — toileting accidents, tying shoes, breaking up shoving matches, reading body language for a child who is hungry or scared — and none of that is screen work. AI already writes lesson plans, generates differentiated worksheets, drafts parent newsletters, and scores early-literacy assessments, which trims prep hours but not contact hours. Public-school employment requires a state teaching license and the teacher is legally the responsible adult for child safety, so the role can't be unbundled to software.",
  "outlook": "Kindergarten teaching survives largely intact through 2035; AI eats the paperwork and planning load while districts still need a licensed adult in the room, with the real pressure coming from enrollment decline and school budgets, not software.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State child-care/education codes tightening adult-to-child ratio and 'responsible licensed adult' requirements for K classrooms, plus mandated-reporter duties expanding to require a named licensed teacher to review and sign any AI-flagged behavioral or developmental concern before it enters a student record; several states already legislate K class-size caps and some (e.g., Tennessee, Texas) have moved on AI-use disclosure rules in schools",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Formal codification of the kindergarten teacher as the accountable decision-maker in early-intervention referrals — IDEA Child Find and MTSS/RTI processes increasingly require a named general-education teacher to own the referral call and defend it in an eligibility meeting; if districts adopt AI screening tools, board policy that a licensed teacher must override or ratify the algorithm's retention/referral recommendation puts the consequential call formally on the teacher",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Growth in parent demand for explicitly screen-free early education (Waldorf, Montessori, and the 'phone-free/screen-free childhood' movement) plus district policies banning screen time in K classrooms — this converts human-only instruction into a marketed, paid-for feature rather than a default",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift as AI absorbs lesson planning, differentiation, assessment scoring and parent communication, leaving the residual job almost entirely as supervision, socialization, and behavioral triage — the tier machines cannot reach. This raises resistance without any new law, though it may also shift hours-per-pupil and thus headcount",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Already 75/100; the realistic ceiling is high-80s. The binding risk for this occupation is not capability but budget and enrollment — declining K enrollment, universal-pre-K reshuffling, and ratio deregulation cut headcount without any AI doing the job. A high score here does not mean a stable number of positions."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 140660,
        "wage": 54230
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 131160,
        "wage": 55470
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 124290,
        "wage": 56850
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 120080,
        "wage": 57860
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 120730,
        "wage": 60900
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 119250,
        "wage": 60490
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 118580,
        "wage": 62690
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 114410,
        "wage": 61430
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 108870,
        "wage": 62680
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -22.6,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}