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No matter one’s orientation toward new technology (love it or hate it), the speed at which AI is entering our society can be disconcerting for everyone. Nowhere is this more true than in our schools.
It goes without saying that we should not treat our children as lab rats, experimenting on them with new technologies without oversight. But not safely implementing AI in the classroom is potentially even worse, representing a failure to prepare the next generation to live in a world where AI tools are prevalent. Without guidance from trusted adults, we will send kids to a proverbial Wild West of technology, not unlike what happened with social media in earlier decades.
Safe and productive uses of AI in schools are in fact already happening. For starters, in the early education setting in particular, we are seeing that AI’s potential has less to do with students using the tech, and more to do with AI helping educators do their jobs more effectively. For example, through a five-year partnership between the American Federation of Teachers, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Anthropic, educators are being trained to use AI to support lesson planning, draft instructional materials, and remove administrative burdens to free up more time for direct engagement with students. When used this way, AI is not replacing teaching. It is creating more space for it.
The City’s FutureReadyNYC career readiness initiative, supported by Tech:NYC, offers another example of how AI can be used to support student learning, this time for those closer to entering the workforce. Through a microinternship at one of New York’s tech companies, a group of students recently worked through a real-world business problem, where they were asked to make sense of a complex set of data with no obvious answer. Using city-approved AI tools such as Gemini and NotebookLM, they explored different explanations, evaluated evidence, proposed solutions, and refined their thinking as new information emerged.
The goal was not to have AI save time or give an easy answer. Instead, students used it to help organize information, test ideas, and communicate their reasoning. The exercise required them to think critically about the evidence in front of them, challenge initial assumptions, and explain how they reached their conclusions. As AI becomes an ever more common tool across industries, the ability to use it thoughtfully while exercising sound judgment, critical thinking, and effective communication will be increasingly important in the modern workforce.
Many parents hear about AI in schools and they assume the worst about their children being presented AI-generated lessons riddled with errors or their high schoolers using a chatbot to write essays. The small ways AI helps teachers spend more face time with kids, and help high schoolers learn skills they can put on their resumes, are not as front and center — and that’s what we lose if we reflexively say no to AI.
New York City Public Schools’ red-light, yellow-light, and green-light framework is a strong starting point. The structure recognizes that some uses are appropriate for classrooms, others require supervision, and still others are not appropriate for students at all. Crucially, the policy had a 45 day public review period, and NYCPS promises continual review to ensure that we are getting it right. We hope future iterations clearly define how these tools should be used at different ages.
Parents are not thinking in policy categories. They are asking when AI is used, whether it supports instruction, how it is supervised, and how expectations change as children get older.
In practice, AI policy should be developmental, not uniform. For this to earn family confidence, consistency is key. Families should not have to interpret technical frameworks; they need plain-language explanations of when AI is used, what role it plays, and how schools ensure learning remains the priority. The city’s successful approach to smartphones in schools, which relies on clear rules and consistent enforcement demonstrates that acceptance of new technology depends on policy, not the technology itself.
Make no mistake, AI will be deployed in schools in some fashion in the years ahead. The challenge we have now is not whether or not to use AI, it is ensuring its use will be consistently understood and predictably applied across classrooms and communities.
As the nation’s largest public school system and one of the world’s leading technology hubs, New York has an opportunity to set the standard for how AI is integrated into education responsibly. We are encouraged by the City’s early steps here.
Julie Samuels is the President and CEO of Tech:NYC.
All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. Schneps Media does not endorse the views shared by readers in our comment sections.
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