Artificial intelligence is everywhere these days, including classrooms across the country – much to the dismay of many educators. Now, the nation’s largest school district is cracking down on its use.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday announced a new citywide ban on AI in public schools for kids from preschool through eighth grade — about 600,000 students. The policy will take effect when students go back to school on Sept. 10.
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“Just because technology is everywhere doesn’t mean that it belongs everywhere,” NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani said during a press conference Wednesday morning.
NYC Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels added, “I don’t want technology to do our students’ thinking for them.”
And they’re taking it a step further, keeping students off laptops and tablets altogether for kids in preschool through second grade. Kids in third through eighth grades will have limited access.
It’s not forever
For now, the new rules are set to be in place for one year to give officials a chance to see how well the plan is working and figure out what needs to change, if anything.
It’s also not a total ban on all AI. NYC public schools will employ five “rigorously vetted education AI programs,” Mandani said, but always under the “direct supervision” of a teacher.
Mamdani added that the school system would discontinue or disable the AI components for more than 30 programs already available to students. He also banned chatbots entirely. New York has banned ChatGPT in schools since 2023.
“Kids need to learn to think for themselves. They need to work alongside their peers. They need to learn how to ask better questions,” Mamdani said. “And they need to learn what it feels like to not know the answer.”
Preparing high schoolers for the real world
Fear No Fact.
About 84% of high schoolers say they use generative AI for schoolwork, according to College Board.
High schoolers will have a very different experience.
“Whether we like it or not, our teenagers are growing up in an AI-saturated world,” Mamdani said. “We cannot pretend that that world does not exist. It would be irresponsible not to prepare our children for the fast-evolving technological future that lies ahead.”
All New York public high schoolers must take an AI literacy course twice a year. Those in pilot and career programs will have to take an additional in-depth course.
“Our children are growing up in a world being transformed by AI,” Samuels said. “We need to prepare them to navigate and thrive in that world.”
High schoolers will also only be able to use AI programs under direct teacher supervision and are limited to 45 minutes per week.
Samuels said there will be exceptions for students with disabilities – including those with Individualized Educational Programs (IEPs) or 504 plans – and multilingual students.
Other districts limiting AI
New York may be the biggest public school system to limit or ban AI use, but it’s not the only one.
Like NYC, three of the biggest school districts in South Carolina blocked ChatGPT from all school devices in 2023 when the technology was still new.
In July, the Katy Independent School District in Texas banned the use of generative AI chat tools for students in kindergarten through sixth grade. And starting in seventh grade, the district will introduce the technology slowly, carefully and with several guardrails in place, according to Houston Public Media.
Texas state Senate and House members have also previously introduced bills that would prohibit use of AI in public schools, but none made it to a floor vote.
And ahead of Chicago’s school board elections in November, about half of the 45 candidates signed a pledge to adopt a three-year ban on AI use in public schools if elected.
In January, Denver Public Schools started blocking students’ access to ChatGPT on school-issued devices and the district’s Wi-Fi network, according to ChalkBeat.
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