{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/preschool-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": "Preschool Teachers, Except Special Education", "soc_code": "25-2011", "category": "Education", "us_employment": 478780, "median_annual_wage": 38140 }, "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 73, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 16, "embodiment": 19, "liability_shield": 9, "trust_premium": 17, "judgment_accountability": 12 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Zipping coats, wiping noses, breaking up a block-tower dispute, and reading a picture book to twelve kids who are all touching each other are the actual hours of the day; what AI can take is the lesson-plan template, the weekly parent email, and the typing-up of anecdotal records — maybe 4-6 hours a week out of a 40-hour job, which is why this sits at 16 and not 20.", "embodiment": "Diapering and toilet-accident cleanup, lifting a thrashing 35-pound child away from a hazard, outdoor playground supervision in weather, floor-level circle time, and knowing by touch that a forehead is too warm — all in a room where the environment is defined by unpredictable small humans, which is as uncontrolled as workplaces get short of disaster response.", "liability_shield": "State child-care licensing requires a credential (CDA, associate, or in some states bachelor's), a background check, and mandated-reporter training, and you can be personally named in a licensing violation — but it is a facility license and a director's license on the line, not an individually revocable practice license like an RN or attorney, which caps this at 9.", "trust_premium": "Parents choose and stay at a center because of the specific teacher who knows their kid falls apart before nap and greets them by name at drop-off; attachment research and the fact that a beloved teacher's departure triggers withdrawals make the individual relationship the enrollment, not a nicety around it.", "judgment_accountability": "You decide in real time whether a bruise pattern triggers a CPS call, whether a bite is developmental or a pattern to document, and whether to flag a speech delay to parents who don't want to hear it — genuinely consequential calls, but framed by state licensing rules, curriculum frameworks, and a director you can escalate to, which keeps it at 12 rather than the high teens." }, "rationale": "The core of this job is physically supervising, calming, feeding, toileting, and redirecting a room of three- and four-year-olds — none of which is screen work and none of which current robotics touches. AI can draft lesson plans, generate activity ideas, write parent newsletters, and organize developmental observation notes, which trims paperwork hours but not staffing. State child-care licensing sets adult-to-child ratios and minimum credentials (CDA or associate/bachelor's depending on state), so a warm body with a background check is legally mandatory regardless of software.", "outlook": "Employment holds or grows with public pre-K expansion; AI removes paperwork hours and never removes the adult required in the room, though pay stays the field's real problem rather than automation.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State licensing rules that tighten ratio and credential floors — e.g. states adopting NAEYC-aligned 1:8 ratios for four-year-olds, or moving from CDA-acceptable to mandatory associate degree for lead teachers (as DC's 2016 rule did) — plus universal pre-K statutes (NY, CA TK, NM) that write certified-lead-teacher-per-classroom into funded program rules. Also mandatory-reporter status for suspected abuse, which attaches personal duty to a named adult.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Formal assignment of developmental screening and referral duty to the lead teacher under IDEA Part B/C Child Find — where the classroom teacher signs the screening instrument (ASQ-3, DIAL-4) that triggers evaluation, and owns suspension/expulsion decisions under state early-childhood expulsion-ban laws that require documented behavioral intervention before removal.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift as AI absorbs the paperwork tier (lesson plans, observation write-ups, portfolio assembly, parent communications, state QRIS documentation), leaving a day that is almost entirely in-body supervision, conflict mediation, and family relationship work. The residual job is the tier machines do not touch.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Parent demand shifting further toward low-screen, high-adult-contact models — Waldorf/Montessori/forest-school enrollment growth and state rules capping screen time in licensed care (several states limit screen media for under-2s and cap it for preschoolers) make human presence the explicit product being purchased.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Already 73 with embodiment at 19 and trust at 17; those are near max. The binding constraint on this occupation is wages and turnover, not displacement — the register does not score that, so a high score here should not be read as a good job." }, "adjudication": { "method": "two independent runs agreed on the verdict", "outcome": "corroborated", "run_totals": [ 73, 70 ], "run_verdicts": [ "SAFE", "SAFE" ] }, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 409740, "wage": 28990 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 424520, "wage": 29780 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 431350, "wage": 30520 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 370940, "wage": 31930 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 391670, "wage": 30210 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 415360, "wage": 35330 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 430240, "wage": 37130 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 445080, "wage": 37120 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 478780, "wage": 38140 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 16.8, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }