On 2 September New York City told 600,000 students in 2-K through eighth grade that generative AI is off the table for a year. The same day, Washington DC's Office of the State Superintendent published a model policy that puts IEP decisions off-limits to AI and keeps grading under a teacher's final call. Two of the most watched school systems in the country drew the same line in the same week, and it runs straight through the teacher's laptop: plan with AI, translate with AI, draft the parent letter with AI, but keep students and their records out of it.
That is the line this post is written for. It is for the US teacher who wants to keep using AI on their own side of the desk and needs to know which tools can truthfully say "FERPA compliant", what that phrase does and does not cover, and which ones never need a student account at all. UK readers can read FERPA as the rough equivalent of UK GDPR and the ICO's Children's Code, and I say where each tool stands on that too. If you are looking for a student-facing tutor, this is not the list for you; nothing here puts a chatbot in front of a child.
How This List Was Built
The pool was the whole aieducator.tools directory, 126 tools, because FERPA cuts across every category. I filtered for four things: the vendor documents FERPA compliance (on the directory record or on its own trust page, which I read and cite), the teacher can do the whole job without creating a student account, the free tier is real rather than a demo, and the tool leaves the judgement with the teacher. Nobody pays to appear in the directory or on this blog, and vendors cannot buy a place on this list.
Two groups were left out on purpose. I excluded every AI grading tool, because grading is the workflow most likely to send a child's work to a vendor and because NYC and DC both put it off-limits this month; you will find those tools, with their data records, in the assessment and grading category. I also excluded consumer chatbots used on a personal account (ChatGPT, Gemini in a personal Gmail, Claude), because a personal account has no agreement with your district and FERPA compliance is an agreement, not a feature. Pricing and privacy pages verified 6 September 2026.
What the Directory Data Says About FERPA
Of the 126 tools listed in the directory, 33 declare FERPA compliance, 43 mark it as not applicable, and 45 leave the field blank. A blank means the vendor has not filled in the record, not that the tool is non-compliant, which is why I checked the trust pages of the four best-known tools below myself. Two numbers matter more than the headline count. Only 14 of the 33 FERPA-declaring tools also declare that they collect no student data. And of the 25 tools that set an 18-and-over minimum age, meaning they are built for staff only, 10 still say they collect student data. Teacher-only does not mean student-data-free. What you paste into the box is the data.
FERPA compliance is a promise about what the vendor does with student records. It says nothing about what you put in the prompt.
What can teachers still use AI for under the new NYC and DC rules?
Under both sets of rules teachers can still use AI to plan lessons, create and adapt materials, translate, and draft communications home, and neither city can stop that: it is the student-facing side that has been paused. NYC's guidance names the staff uses it permits (instructional planning and operational tasks) and the ones it does not (grading, behaviour monitoring, developing special education plans, and anything touching student mental health). DC's model policy is similar and adds discipline decisions and teacher evaluations to the red zone, with AI-assisted grading in a "use with caution, human decides" yellow zone. Assistive technology for students with disabilities and multilingual learners is exempt in NYC. Five high school pilots (Quill, Edia, Brisk Teaching, Playlab and Intel AI-Ready Schools) continue with time caps. If your district is not New York or DC, expect your board to read both documents this month; the Gallup and Walton Family Foundation survey published in May 2026 found 82 percent of teachers had received no formal guidance on applying AI across their work tasks, and that gap is what these policies are rushing to fill.
The Comparison Table
| Tool | Best for | Pricing (verified 6 Sep 2026) | Student account needed? | FERPA / COPPA | Data hosted | Independent security assessment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brisk Teaching | Feedback and levelling in Docs | Free tier with daily caps; Educator Pro and district plans quote-based | No | Vendor FAQ: FERPA and COPPA compliant, SOC 2 (Oct 2025) | Not stated | Yes (9ine) |
| MagicSchool | Widest staff toolset | Free; Plus $8.33/mo billed annually or $12.99/mo | No (free plan has no student tools) | Vendor: FERPA, COPPA, SOC 2, Ed Law 2-D | Not stated | Yes (9ine) |
| Diffit | Levelled reading passages | Free (90-day content access); teacher and school licences quote-based | No | Vendor: FERPA, COPPA, "no student data" | Not stated | No |
| Canva for Education | Slides, posters, visuals | Free for verified K-12 teachers | No | Vendor: FERPA and COPPA certified, National Data Privacy Agreement | Not stated | Yes (9ine) |
| SlidesAI | Text to slide deck | Free (12 decks/yr); Pro $10/mo; Premium $250/yr | No | Declared: FERPA, COPPA, GDPR; collects no student data | US | No |
| AILitKit | AI literacy without student AI use | 3 free guides then 1/month; teacher £59/yr (about $74) | No, ever | Declared: FERPA, COPPA, GDPR; collects no student data | EU | No |
| Glint | Visual supports and social stories | Free tier; about $18/mo or $150/yr (Capterra listing) | No | Declared: FERPA, COPPA, GDPR; collects no student data | US | No |
The "FERPA / COPPA" column is the vendor's declaration, on our directory record or its own trust page, and not an audit. The last column is the independent one: the 9ine security assessment is carried out by a third party, and 36 of the 126 tools in the directory hold one.
Best for feedback and levelling inside Google Docs: Brisk Teaching
Brisk Teaching is the best fit for a teacher who lives in Google Docs and Classroom and wants feedback, levelled texts and quizzes generated where the work already sits, because it runs as a Chrome extension on the teacher's account and its FAQ states plainly that it is FERPA and COPPA compliant and SOC 2 compliant as of October 2025. Directory rating: 4.77 from 35 reviews, one of the four most reviewed tools in the listing.
The workflow is the point. You open a student's Doc, click Brisk, choose a feedback style (glow and grow, rubric-based, next steps) and it drafts comments you then edit. Level a text to three reading levels, turn a YouTube video into a lesson, build a quiz from an article. Brisk says it does not store the underlying student work it processes, though it does retain your inputs and its outputs, so a student name typed into a prompt is retained too. That is the honest version of "no student data" and it is worth reading twice.
What sets it apart from MagicSchool is that Brisk works inside the document rather than in a separate tab you copy to and from. What NYC's decision adds is a live example: Brisk is one of five tools the city is piloting in high schools this year, with teacher-set guardrails and a cap of ten to twenty minutes of student use a week. That says something about how the district's vetting went; it does not mean the student-facing features are cleared for your K-8 classroom.
Watch out for: feedback on student work is the grey zone this year. DC calls AI-assisted feedback a yellow-zone task with the teacher making the final call, and NYC says no AI grading at all, so in those cities use Brisk for levelling, planning and quizzes and treat the feedback tools as a district decision. The free tier also has daily caps that a heavy user will hit by Wednesday, and the AI writing detection feature should be switched off and left off. I explain why in Do AI Detectors Work?.
Best for a Google Workspace school that wants AI in the flow of existing work. Not for a teacher who wants a standalone platform or who works mainly in PDFs.
Pricing: free tier with daily usage caps; Educator Pro exists but Brisk does not publish the price; schools and districts are quote-based (verified 6 September 2026).
Safety: FERPA and COPPA compliant per the vendor FAQ, SOC 2 since October 2025, independent 9ine assessment held; hosting location and minimum age not stated on the directory record. GDPR not stated; UK schools should ask.
Best for the widest staff-only toolset: MagicSchool
MagicSchool is the best fit for a school that wants one FERPA-documented platform for every staff job from lesson plans to parent newsletters, because its free plan is, by design, teacher-only: the 80-plus teacher tools are included and the 50-plus student tools and Student Rooms are not. Directory rating 4.74 from 19 reviews, with an independent 9ine assessment.
That free-plan detail is the most useful thing I can tell a teacher in New York this week. MagicSchool's pricing page lists compliance with FERPA, COPPA, SOC 2, GDPR and New York's Ed Law 2-D, and a free account cannot put a student in front of the model even if you wanted it to. The tools themselves are prompts with a form on the front: text leveller, rubric generator, behaviour intervention suggestions, report card comments, IEP generator. The IEP generator is the one to leave alone in NYC and DC, where developing special education plans with AI is now explicitly out.
Compared with TeachAid, which builds whole standards-aligned units and holds a 9ine assessment of its own, MagicSchool is broader and shallower: more tools, less depth in any one of them. Compared with Brisk, it is a destination rather than a layer over your documents. I wrote up seven alternatives in MagicSchool Alternatives for Teachers if breadth is not what you need.
Watch out for: the outputs are fluent and generic in equal measure, and a levelled text will sooner or later drop the very sentence your lesson depended on. Read every one before it goes near a class. The thinking stays yours.
Best for a school standardising on one platform with admin controls. Not for a teacher who wants the model inside Docs, or anyone tempted by the IEP tool this year.
Pricing: free plan (limited generations, no student tools); Plus $8.33 per user per month billed annually or $12.99 monthly; enterprise pricing on request (verified 6 September 2026).
Safety: FERPA, COPPA, SOC 2 and Ed Law 2-D per the vendor's pricing page, Common Sense Privacy certified, independent 9ine assessment held; hosting and minimum age not stated on the directory record. GDPR declared by the vendor.
Best for levelled reading passages without a student login: Diffit
Diffit is the best fit for a teacher who needs one text at three reading levels by tomorrow, because the whole job happens on the teacher's screen, the output goes out as a PDF or a Google Doc, and Diffit's pricing page states that it is FERPA and COPPA compliant and does not collect any student data.
Paste a URL, a PDF or a topic, pick a grade band, and Diffit returns an adapted passage with vocabulary, summary and comprehension questions, in 70-plus languages if you need the Spanish version for a newcomer. Students receive paper or a Doc. They never log in, which is why Diffit is the cleanest answer I have for a district that has paused student-facing AI but still expects differentiated instruction (differentiation, or adaptive teaching for UK readers) to carry on.
What sets it apart from MagicSchool's text leveller is the quality of the scaffolds around the passage, not the levelling itself. The gap the other way is that Diffit does one thing.
Watch out for: the free tier only lets you get back at content you made in the last 90 days, so the September materials vanish from your library by December unless you export them, and Diffit does not publish the price of an individual teacher licence.
Best for reading-heavy subjects and English learner support. Not for a teacher who wants quizzes, feedback and slides from one tool.
Pricing: free tier (90-day access to your content); individual teacher licences and flat-rate school subscriptions tiered by enrolment, both quote-based (verified 6 September 2026). Third-party reviews have quoted $14.99 a month; I could not confirm that figure on Diffit's own site.
Safety: FERPA and COPPA compliant and no student data collected, per the vendor's pricing page; hosting and minimum age not stated on the directory record; no independent 9ine assessment. GDPR not stated.
Best for slides, posters and classroom visuals: Canva for Education
Canva for Education is the best fit for a teacher making slides, anchor charts, newsletters and printables, because the full product is free for verified K-12 teachers and Canva's education trust page says it is FERPA and COPPA certified and a signatory to the National Data Privacy Agreement with state addenda. Directory rating 4.62 from 39 reviews, the most reviewed design tool listed, with an independent 9ine assessment.
The AI sits inside Magic Studio: Magic Write drafts text, Magic Design turns a prompt into a layout, and the presentation tools build a deck from an outline. None of it needs a student in the room. Verification is the friction: Canva asks for a teaching licence or employment proof, and in the US, UK, Canada and Australia it wants the licence specifically.
What sets it apart from SlidesAI is everything that is not slides. Where SlidesAI wins is speed from text to deck.
Watch out for: the moment you invite students into a class, you are in student-facing territory, and Canva itself says parental consent is on you for under-13s. Keep it on your side of the desk this year if your district has paused student AI, and use the exports.
Best for visual-heavy teaching and family communication. Not for text-level differentiation or feedback.
Pricing: free for verified K-12 teachers, with premium features and 1TB of storage included (verified 6 September 2026).
Safety: FERPA and COPPA certified per Canva's education trust page, National Data Privacy Agreement signed, independent 9ine assessment held; hosting not stated on the directory record. GDPR declared by Canva for its wider product.
Best for turning a text into a deck in a minute: SlidesAI
SlidesAI is the best fit for a teacher who already has the notes and wants them as Google Slides or PowerPoint without the layout work, because it is one of only 14 tools in the directory that declares FERPA compliance and declares that it collects no student data, and it is hosted in the US.
You paste up to a thousand characters (on the free plan), pick a template, and it builds the deck inside Google Slides. That is the whole product, which is its strength: there is nowhere for a student's data to go.
What sets it apart from Canva is that it starts from your text rather than from a template. Where it loses is design range.
Watch out for: the free plan is 12 presentations a year with a 1,000-character input, which is one unit's worth of decks. The minimum age is 13-plus, but this is a teacher tool in practice.
Best for lecture-style lessons and PD sessions. Not for interactive lessons or anyone who needs images generated.
Pricing: free (12 presentations a year, 120 AI credits); Pro $10 a month or $120 a year; Premium $20.83 a month billed annually, $250 a year (verified 6 September 2026).
Safety: FERPA, COPPA and GDPR declared on the directory record, collects no student data, US hosted, deletion on request, minimum age 13-plus; no independent 9ine assessment.
Best for teaching AI literacy when students cannot use AI: AILitKit
AILitKit is the best fit for a school that has paused student-facing AI and still has to teach children what AI is, because the platform is teacher-only by construction (students never touch it), it generates AI literacy activities for any existing lesson, and most of them are unplugged. It declares FERPA, COPPA and GDPR compliance and no student data collection, with hosting in the EU.
This is the tool I would put in front of a New York principal this month, because the moratorium removes the tool from the child's hands and leaves the curriculum obligation exactly where it was. You upload a lesson, any subject, and get four activities with coaching notes written for non-specialists, differentiation built in, and alignment to eleven frameworks including the US Department of Labor's AI literacy framework, UNESCO and the DfE's guidance. Three of the four activities need no device. That is how I would teach AI literacy anyway.
What sets it apart from MagicSchool is that it does not try to be a general assistant; it does one curriculum job that no other tool on this list does. It launched in 2026, so evidence of use is thin and it has no directory reviews yet, which I say plainly.
Watch out for: pricing is in pounds, the company is UK-based, and a US procurement office will need to be comfortable with EU hosting. The free allowance is three guides at sign-up and then one a month.
Best for AI literacy across subjects without student devices. Not for lesson planning in general.
Pricing: three free guides, then one free guide a month; teacher £59 a year (about $74); subject lead £149; school £999 for up to 50 teachers (verified 6 September 2026).
Safety: FERPA, COPPA and GDPR declared, collects no student data, EU hosted, deletion on request, minimum age 18-plus; no independent 9ine assessment.
Best for visual supports and social stories: Glint
Glint is the best fit for special education teachers, speech-language pathologists and paraprofessionals who make visual schedules, communication boards and social stories by hand, because it produces them from a prompt on the adult's account, declares FERPA and COPPA compliance and no student data collection, and is hosted in the US.
Under the NYC and DC rules, developing an IEP with AI is out; making the visual schedule that the IEP already calls for is teaching, and Glint does that job without a student record ever entering the tool if you describe the routine rather than the child. It lists a screen reader mode, dyslexia-friendly mode, high contrast and offline mode on its accessibility record, which is more than any other tool on this list.
What sets it apart from MagicSchool's social story generator is that Glint produces the visuals, not just the text, and it was built for this one job.
Watch out for: the temptation to type the child's name, diagnosis and behaviour plan into the prompt. Do not. Describe the routine. And the pricing on Glint's own site is behind a link I could not read, so the figures below come from its Capterra listing.
Best for special education and speech teams building supports weekly. Not for general classroom planning.
Pricing: free tier; about $18 a month or $150 a year according to the Capterra listing (checked 6 September 2026; not confirmed on the vendor site).
Safety: FERPA, COPPA and GDPR declared, collects no student data, US hosted, deletion on request, minimum age 18-plus; no independent 9ine assessment.
What About ChatGPT, Gemini, Khanmigo, Quizlet and NotebookLM?
ChatGPT on a personal account is not FERPA compliant in any sense your district would recognise, because there is no agreement; ChatGPT Edu, bought by the institution, is a different product with a contract, and the independent 9ine assessment on ChatGPT's directory record should be read as covering that institutional product, not your personal login. Google Gemini is the tool NYC named when it paused student-facing AI, but Gemini inside a district's Google Workspace for Education sits under Google's Workspace terms and remains a staff tool where the admin has switched it on; a personal Gmail does not count. Khanmigo is student-facing by design, so it is the wrong tool for this list even where a district agreement makes it FERPA-covered. Quizlet is a consumer study app with a 13-plus minimum age and no district agreement in the typical case, and it is not listed in the directory. NotebookLM, like Gemini, depends entirely on whether it is on a Workspace for Education account; as a teacher-side research tool with your own documents it is fine, and the Gemini Notebook record is the most reviewed entry in the directory.
How to Actually Choose
Start from the job, then ask two questions of every tool: does a student ever log in, and what am I about to type into it. The first question decides whether you are inside or outside your district's student-facing rules. The second is the one FERPA compliance cannot answer for you. A vendor's FERPA statement covers what the company does with education records it receives; it does not stop you creating a record by pasting a child's name, grade and behaviour notes into a prompt. Outsource the doing, not the thinking, and never outsource the child.
Three rules a department head could adopt this week. If a tool needs a student account, it is a student-facing tool, whatever the vendor calls it, and it waits for the district's decision. If the job is planning, materials, translation or communication, pick from this list and paste nothing identifiable. If the job is grading, IEPs, discipline or a student's mental health, the answer this month in New York and DC is no, and everywhere else it is "not until the board has read those two documents".
Use the directory's filters to check the rest: the lesson planning and resource creation category holds 50 tools, of which 13 declare FERPA compliance and 17 declare that they collect no student data.
What I'd Do This Week
Pick Diffit or Brisk, one class, one text you were going to level by hand anyway. Do it with the tool, paste nothing but the text, and give students the paper. Measure one thing: did the lower-level version keep the sentence your question depended on. If it did not, you have learned the single most important thing about levelling tools, and you learned it without a student going anywhere near a chatbot.
The Bottom Line
For a teacher who wants to keep using AI while students cannot, Brisk and MagicSchool are the FERPA-documented platforms with independent assessments, Diffit is the cleanest no-login answer for differentiation, Canva and SlidesAI cover visuals and decks, AILitKit teaches AI literacy without a device, and Glint makes the visual supports special education teams need. Compare the rest, with their declared FERPA status and student-data records side by side, in the aieducator.tools directory. The rules changed this week. The job did not.
Dan Fitzpatrick is a Forbes contributor, three-time bestselling author, and founder of The AI Educator, and has trained more than 150,000 educators across 30-plus countries. Read more from Dan.
