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NYC Public Schools are Cracking Down on AI in The Classroom
Mayor Mamdani announced an expansive ban of AI tools for all NYC public school students through the eighth grade this year
If for some reason your little ones were already a bit too reliant on AI tools in their academic lives, it may be best to brace them for the sobering experience waiting for them on the other side of this weekend. According to Mayor Mamdani, the bulk of New York City public school students will return next week to classrooms mostly scrubbed of generative AI support.
Mamdani, at a news conference on Wednesday morning, unveiled a plan for a long-stewing moratorium on artificial intelligence technologies for the city’s “youngest learners,” disabling AI functions in 38 student-facing apps for students (including tutors and chatbots) from pre-K to eighth grade. The new guidance, posted on Wednesday night by the Department of Education, also places limits on screen time for all pre-K, elementary, and middle school students. High schoolers, under the new policy, will have their screen time and AI use approved by their teachers on a case-by-case basis, according to what their courses require of them. This year, they’ll also have to complete two 45-minute “AI literacy” courses on “how AI works, data privacy and bias, and appropriate uses of AI in school.”
The ban, per Mamdani, is part of a broader initiative to slow down the integration of these technologies in classrooms and study their impacts on students, not only in the nation’s largest school system but also across the state of New York, where Governor Hochul has recently placed a similar moratorium on the development of data centers. “Each day when children come to school, we teach them to ask questions, to challenge assumptions, to interrogate the premise, to ask why. When it comes to AI in our schools, we hold an obligation to the same,” Mamdani said at the press conference.
Of course, the ban will also raise all kinds of complicated new questions, specifically regarding how the policy will be enforced and by whom. It also offers no clear guidance on the use of AI outside of school or who determines how much of the technology is necessary for the completion of schoolwork. Whatever comes, the mayor seems convinced it will be worth the turbulence. “This moratorium is a commitment to getting our future right,” he said.
You can watch the whole conference below.
