VISION: The CLEAR AI Initiative exists to center equity and justice in AI education and be a voice for our California communities who have little or no voice in the future of AI.
MISSION: CAI works to expand and amplify the voices, and increase the participation, of underserved California communities across the AI ecosystem. We work to empower educational justice that serves a diverse society today and creates a just future for everyone.
OUR APPROACH: CAI is working statewide, focused locally in the Central Valley, California, to build just models of AI to enable and empower educational justice. We work to build AI models for justice that can scale so that inequities, institutional racism, sexism, and systemic oppression do not become encoded in the AI identity of the future. We do this through praxis, research, and policy: a) POLICY: raising awareness and support for aligned efforts centering equity and the needs of marginalized students and school communities when developing AI policy, guidance, and practice; co-designing equitable policy-development processes, intentional about who is included and reflecting the communities they intend to serve; b) RESEARCH: informing AI ethical considerations and the need for critical AI literacy among educators, education leaders, educational partners, students, families, and school communities grounded in literature and best/next practices and action research; c) PRAXIS: co-creating meaningful praxis projects directly with involved education ecosystems that reflect the specific needs of underserved communities, broadly sharing findings from our action research praxis, and co-developing grant proposals for professional development for administrators, teachers, and support staff to build capacity for effective integration of AI in education.
OUR HISTORY: The Center for Leadership, Equity, and Research (CLEAR) has a twenty-year history of work that centers social justice and equity leadership. To ensure CLEAR’s work continues to be relevant and impactful, CLEAR Executive Director Ken Magdaleno, recognizing the profound impacts that artificial intelligence will have on the core CLEAR mission of social justice and equity, initiated the CLEAR AI Initiative (CAI) in 2023.
Digitally Mediated Learning: Equity-centered professional learning for education leaders, cultivating critical AI literacy, ethics, justice, community and civic engagement
Civic Engagement: “Voices of the Valley” lead; focused on training students and teachers in the art of civic dialogue and relevant civic service-learning projects
Elemen, J. E. & Zapien, R. (2025, February). Critical AI literacy: Empowering youth for education justice [Conference presentation]. CISC Leadership Symposium, Anaheim, CA.
Elemen, J. E. & Lang, M. (2024, December). Cultivating critical GenAI literacy, ethics, equity and justice [Conference presentation]. Quantum Ten International Educational Conference, Riverside, CA.
Elemen, J. E., Crouse, L., & Gomez, M. (2024, August). Critical media literacy #MisinfoDay with youth and community [Conference presentation]. Civics of Technology Conference, Virtual.
CLEAR AI Initiative
What is the CLEAR AI Initiative (CAI)?
VISION: The CLEAR AI Initiative exists to center equity and justice in AI education and be a voice for our California communities who have little or no voice in the future of AI.
MISSION: CAI works to expand and amplify the voices, and increase the participation, of underserved California communities across the AI ecosystem. We work to empower educational justice that serves a diverse society today and creates a just future for everyone.
OUR APPROACH: CAI is working statewide, focused locally in the Central Valley, California, to build just models of AI to enable and empower educational justice. We work to build AI models for justice that can scale so that inequities, institutional racism, sexism, and systemic oppression do not become encoded in the AI identity of the future. We do this through praxis, research, and policy: a) POLICY: raising awareness and support for aligned efforts centering equity and the needs of marginalized students and school communities when developing AI policy, guidance, and practice; co-designing equitable policy-development processes, intentional about who is included and reflecting the communities they intend to serve; b) RESEARCH: informing AI ethical considerations and the need for critical AI literacy among educators, education leaders, educational partners, students, families, and school communities grounded in literature and best/next practices and action research; c) PRAXIS: co-creating meaningful praxis projects directly with involved education ecosystems that reflect the specific needs of underserved communities, broadly sharing findings from our action research praxis, and co-developing grant proposals for professional development for administrators, teachers, and support staff to build capacity for effective integration of AI in education.
OUR HISTORY: The Center for Leadership, Equity, and Research (CLEAR) has a twenty-year history of work that centers social justice and equity leadership. To ensure CLEAR’s work continues to be relevant and impactful, CLEAR Executive Director Ken Magdaleno, recognizing the profound impacts that artificial intelligence will have on the core CLEAR mission of social justice and equity, initiated the CLEAR AI Initiative (CAI) in 2023.
CAI Team
Mary Lang, CLEAR’s first Chief Education Justice Officer, is directing the CLEAR AI Initiative. The CAI steering committee, a cross-functional group of area experts, provides guidance for the CAI.
CAI Blog
CAI Blog
December 2024
Webinar and Podcast
AI Literacy: What is it and why does it matter? [Webinar]. (2025, March). California Department of Education.
Elemen, J. E. & Gonzalez, E. (2025, January). Critical AI literacy and the future of education [Podcast episode 33]. California Educators Together Podcast.
Articles
Elemen, J. E. (2024, October-November-December). Teaching critical GenAI literacy: Empowering students for a digital democracy. Literacy Today. International Literacy Association.
Lang, M. (2024). Digital epistemology: the third digital spool of educational justice. Data Reframed.
Upcoming and Recent Events
Join us at the following events, presented by CAI team members, and/or click on the links for archived resources.
2025
2024
Refer to our flyer and request professional learning services, providing support for:
● Culture & Climate
● Deeper Learning: Critical Generative AI Literacy
● Community & Civic Engagement
We are collaborating on efforts with the California Department of Education’s Artificial Intelligence in Education Workgroup.