NYC officials ban AI in the classroom until high school

Artificial intelligence will be banned in New York City public schools until students reach high school.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels made the announcement Wednesday, establishing a one-year moratorium on generative AI for children in 2-K through eighth grade. 

Nearly 600,000 students, or two-thirds of the system's total enrollment, will be affected. This includes all software that uses student-facing generative AI, including companion chatbots, according to education officials. 

"Children need teachers and human connection in order to learn and grow. They need to develop skills alongside their peers, build relationships with educators and wrestle with tough problems on their own," Mamdani said. "The tech industry wants us to believe that AI-powered early education is not only inevitable, but necessary. We do not see it that way.

"Just because technology is everywhere doesn't mean it belongs everywhere," the mayor added. "We are finally creating a policy for the entirety of our public school system."

"The technology and what we know about it changes rapidly, and we hear that from our families," Samuels said.

There will also be twice-yearly AI critical thinking modules implemented for high schoolers and limited AI pilots for a small number of high school classrooms. There will be limits on how much time all students will be able to spend on screens, depending on the grade level.

Educators will also face restrictions, as teachers will not be able to use AI to grade assignments. Teachers can still use it for instructional planning and operational tasks, officials said.

The United Federation of Teachers released a statement in favor of the screen time limitation, but added the policy "leaves many questions unanswered," adding, "Missing are details about how the Department of Education will be more aggressive in demanding the products it purchases have AI safeguards."

The mayor said 38 current DOE programs are being cut or altered from curriculums due to their AI usage, but City Hall and education officials may not know of all the programs being used by students.

"Schools often purchase products that are not through a citywide contract. They're school-level, individual, smaller purchases," said Michael Elsen-Rooney, of Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization that covers education.

Over the next school year, a coalition of students, parents, educators, elected officials and others will meet to assess the impact of the moratorium.

For some educators, like former long-time teacher and founder and CEO of Diversified Education Services Aron Boxer, AI does have a place in the classroom as long as it's done the right way.

"Going back to the fundamentals of what teaching was like without AI, but then using the strategies and the benefits of what AI offers, I think we can pair both worlds together," Boxer said.

He added, "We need to have them to be able to read, write and do math in order to function in the world. And can you put a time limit on that? I'm not sure."

The right way can vary from school to school, says the CEO of United Charter High Schools, Dr. Curtis Palmore, who oversees the technology in his schools across the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, and says it elevates learning.

"It's probably a little bit easier to do that work in an organization of our size," Palmore said.

But not everyone is on board with the AI assimilation in classrooms, and many support at least another year without it.

"We need an opportunity to evaluate the efficacy of certain tools before they're implemented in classrooms and not the other way around," said Kyle DeAngelis, a New York City schools third-grade teacher.

DeAngelis is a part of The AIM Coalition, a grassroots alliance between parents, teachers and students calling for restrictions on AI in the classroom. He says AI can be a powerful tool, but we're not at a place where we can guarantee its effectiveness in the classroom just yet.

"We do not accept that some of our most vulnerable students should be guinea pigs for tech companies," he said.

The plan comes as a reversal from what City Hall and education officials were saying about AI less than six months ago.

"The announcement that was made in the spring was intended to be the beginning of a conversation," Mamdani said.

Many parents voiced their concerns about the use of AI in schools in May, when the Department of Education was finalizing its plan to develop a formal AI policy. 

Some parents feared the damage was already done, while others were concerned about the tools that many of them don't yet understand. 

Wednesday's announcement comes just days before the Sept. 10 start of the new school year in the city.