New York City, NY — Following a New York City Council committee joint hearing on tech in New York City Public Schools (NYCPS), during which Council Member Eric Dinowitz introduced two separate measures to require annual reporting on AI tools approved for use in schools and quarterly reporting on data breaches, the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement:

“Decades of forcing Silicon Valley snake oil into classrooms has profited a handful of tech companies without making students any more likely to succeed. AI will be the same,” said Pat Garofalo, Director of State and Local Policy at American Economic Liberties Project. “New York City Public Schools should resist Big Tech’s agenda of turning public school kids into lab rats for untested products that threaten harm to development, mental health, and data security — and which Silicon Valley parents don’t let their own kids near. Mayor Mamdani and Chancellor Samuels should heed the call of parents, teachers, 29 councilmembers, Community Education Councils, and child safety advocates nationwide and immediately suspend any and all AI usage in New York City’s public schools.”

Last month, NYCPS Chancellor Kamar Samuels delayed the planned June release of an AI guidance after the NYCPS received 6,000 comments in response to draft guidance that didn’t evaluate “algorithmic bias, equity impact, or instructional effectiveness.” At the joint hearing, NYCPS failed to provide an updated timeline. 

In April, NYCPS’s AI policy faced state-level scrutiny after a New York State Comptroller audit found its data privacy and security policy “does not fully align” with the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework. The Comptroller also found it did not cover “certain fundamental areas related to data privacy and security.”

These developments follow a national letter from Fairplay — a nonprofit dedicated to shielding children from Big Tech abuses — that was signed by more than 200 organizations, experts, and medical professionals calling for a 5-year moratorium on student-facing generative AI products in PreK-12 schools.

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