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AI products are part of District 14’s mandated curricula and assessments, which means teachers and students are required to use them. But we don’t have a complete picture of AI’s role in our schools, because the NYC Department of Education is unable to provide families with a list of digital platforms and apps used in a specific school. So here are some other resources you might find useful.

LATEST NEWS
+ Gothamist: “Make Classrooms analog again? A new bill aims to limit tech in schools.”
+ New York Times: “Silicon Valley executives are tech fans. Just not for their own kids.”
+ Daily News: “Black and Brown Kids Need an AI Moratorium”
+ New York Times: ”Google Enables Gemini AI for Students Using Its Classroom App”
+ Gothamist: “Education Tech Purchases on Pause as NYC Schools Wrestle with AI”
+ Center for Digital Democracy: “AI and Platform Companies Are Building an Unaccountable Persuasion Pipeline, and They Are Pointing It at Children”
+ The Atlantic: “AI Is Like Ultra-Processed Food for Developing Brains”
+ Common Sense Media: “Google Search AI Overview & AI Mode: Unacceptable Risk”
+ The Hechinger Report: “Teachers Save Time with AI. Their Students May Pay the Price”
+ Common Sense Media: “Teens Told Us They're Not Just Seeing AI Nudes — They're Making Them”

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOLS DIGITAL-TECHNOLOGY POLICIES
+ NYC Public Schools Guidance on AI (draft policy released in March)
+ NYCPS Digital Learning & Innovation

DISTRICT 14’s ED-TECH VENDORS AND A.I. PARTNERS
+ Amira (an AI “learning agent” used in all District 14 schools)
+ HMH (an ed-tech company that supplies District 14’s mandated literacy curriculum, including Amira)
+ i-Ready (an AI math & reading app used in all District 14 schools)
+ aiEDU (an industry group that helps place AI ed tech in K–12 schools)

PUBLIC SCHOOL FAMILIES & TEACHERS RESISTING ED TECH
+ “Second Breakfast” newsletter by Audrey Watters
+ “Resisting AI Mania” resource sheet by Anne Lutz Fernandez
+ NYC Public School Parents blog
+ District 14 Families for Intentional Technology Use (NYC)
+ AI Moratorium Coalition (NYC)
+ Parents for AI Caution in Educational Spaces (NYC)
+ Alliance for Quality Education (NYC)
+ Racially Just Public Schools (NYC)
+ NYC Kids PAC
+ Distraction-Free Schools (USA)
+ Schools Beyond Screens (USA)
+ Parent Coalition for Student Privacy (USA)
+ Fairplay (USA)
+ Human-Centered Chicago Public Schools
+ PACES Vancouver

EDUCATION & CHILD-DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONS
+ Center for Educational Progress: “We're Suing the Makers of i-Ready”
+ UNICEF: “Guidance on AI and Children”
+ American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry: “Is AI Dangerous for Children?”
+ Center for Democracy & Technology: “Schools’ Embrace of Technology Connected to Increased Risk for Students”
+ National Education Policy Center: “Time for a Pause: Without Effective Public Oversight, AI in Schools Will Do More Harm than Good”
+ Brookings Institution: “A New Direction for Students in an AI World: Prosper, Prepare, Protect”
+ National Education Policy Center: “Fit for Purpose? How Today’s Commercial Digital Platforms Subvert Key Goals of Public Education”
+ Center for Law and Social Policy: “What Communities Should Know about Artificial Intelligence, the School-to-Prison Pipeline, and School Surveillance”
+ NEPC podcast: “Faith Boninger and Andrew Liddell on the Unintended Consequences of Digital Technology in Schools”
+ Harvard University: “A Product Safety Playbook for the Digital Age”
+ University of Poitiers: “Training for Obsolescence: The AI-Driven Education”
+ University of Chicago: “Social Pressure Drives Parents to Adopt AI That May Harm Students”
+ EdTech Law Center

PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS AND THEIR UNION
+ teacher’s union announces its $23m deal with OpenAI, Microsoft, and Anthropic to create a National Academy for AI Instruction
+ open letter from NYC teachers criticizing the deal
+ more criticism from NYC teachers: “UFT’s $23m Sellout”
+ NYC teachers on the pitfalls of commercial curricula (including HMH)
+ podcast: “NYC Teachers Speak out about AI in the Classroom”
+ “Resisting AI Mania in Schools”
+ “My Case for Nuance with the Term ‘Efficiency’ in Education”

MEDIA COVERAGE
+ amNY: “NYC Parents Demand 2-Year Moratorium on AI in Public Schools”
+ Greenpointers: “Greenpoint and Williamsburg Parents Call for Increased Tech Guidelines and Transparency in the Classroom”
+ Hyperallergic: ”Hundreds of Artists Ask NYC Mayor to Ban AI in Schools”
+ New York Times: “Majority of City Council Members Urge Mamdani to Pause AI in Schools”
+ Indypendent: “Parents, Teachers Push Pause on AI Rollout in Schools”
+ Chalkbeat: “NYC Chancellor Kamar Samuels pledges stronger AI guardrails: ‘We missed the mark’”
+ Jacobin: “The EdTech Backlash Is Here, and It’s Just Getting Started”
+ New York Times: “What Schools Are Forgetting in Their Race to Embrace AI”
+ New York Magazine: “Parents aren’t happy as NYC kindergartens go all in on AI.”
+ CBS News New York: “NYC Public Schools Finalizing Policy on AI”
+ Chalkbeat: “The AI rebellion grows in NYC: New Yorkers demand moratorium on AI in schools at marathon board meeting”
+ New York Times: “In backlash against tech in schools, parents are winning rollbacks”
+ The New Yorker: “What will it take to get AI out of schools?”
+ NBC News: “LA becomes the first major school district to require screen time limits”
+ New York Times: “You can’t game your way to a real education”
+ Remapping Debate: “NYC DOE thinks its deal with the devil will be a good one”
+ New York Times: “US schools are betting big on AI. Will NYC by next?”
+ The Economist: “Ed tech is profitable. It's also mostly useless”
+ New York Times: “The Screen That Ate Your Child’s Education”
+ Bloomberg: “AI and Chatbots Are Already Reshaping the US Classroom”
+ New York Times: “Even Basic AI Use Is Bad For Students”
+ Have You Heard (podcast): “Don’t Buy the AI Hype”
+ New York Times: “Every Tech Tool in the Classroom Should Be Ruthlessly Evaluated”
+ The Conversation: “Technology and Teacher Burnout”
+ The Opinions (NYT podcast): “AI Is Fueling a Poverty of Imagination.”
+ Critical Studies of Education & Technology: “We Need to talk about AI in Terms of Values, Not Vibes”
+ New York Times: “What OpenAI Did When ChatGPT Users Lost Touch With Reality”
+ Education Futures: “Misplaced Responsibility: How Big Tech is Silently Colonizing Education”
+ University of California Law Journal: “How AI Destroys Institutions”
+ Educational Innovation: “The Hidden AI in Your School: What Principals Need to Know About Shadow AI”
+ The Verge: “The AI Boom Is Based on a Fundamental Mistake”
+ The Conversation: “Technology Is Supposed to Decrease Teacher Burnout But Can Make It Worse”