Code Integrity Crisis: NYC's AI Policy Lacks Clarity

A Comprehensive Analysis of the New York City Department of Education's Artificial Intelligence and Screen Time Policy

In a move that has sparked widespread debate, Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday released the outlines of New York City's approach to dealing with artificial intelligence (AI) and screen time in schools next year. The policy, which aims to ban student-facing generative AI tools in preschool- through eighth-grade classrooms, raises numerous questions regarding its implementation, enforcement, and potential impact on educational practices.

To begin with, the city will prohibit the use of student-facing AI tools in grades 2-K through 8, while allowing limited AI use in high school. This decision is rooted in concerns about the potential negative effects of excessive screen time on young students' cognitive development and overall well-being. However, the lack of clear guidelines on what constitutes "student-facing" AI tools and how they will be enforced has sparked concern among educators.

Another area of uncertainty lies in the city's plan to limit screen time for younger kids. While there is some evidence to suggest that excessive screen time can have negative effects on children's development, it remains unclear exactly how this policy will be implemented or what specific measures will be taken to ensure compliance.

Furthermore, officials have admitted that they have little hard data on how much AI is currently in use across the 1,600 schools. This lack of transparency and data-driven decision-making raises questions about the efficacy of the policy and its potential impact on educational outcomes.

The new policy has already drawn a mix of reactions from educators, with some viewing it as a step in the right direction while others have expressed concerns about pilot programs that will allow tens of thousands of high school students to use tools involving generative AI. The fact that officials are allowing AI use in career and technical education programs and five AI pilot programs involving generative tools has raised questions about the potential for AI to exacerbate existing educational inequalities.

Moreover, there is concern about how city officials will determine whether AI has been sufficiently scrubbed from a product or what measures will be taken to ensure compliance with the policy. The fact that officials have not provided a list of companies whose products will be affected by the ban raises questions about transparency and accountability.

The policy also leaves many questions unanswered regarding enforcement mechanisms, teacher training, and support for students who may struggle with AI-assisted learning. The lack of clear guidelines on how to respond to students using AI outside of school, including to cheat on writing assignments, has raised concerns among educators.

In conclusion, while the new policy aims to address concerns about AI and screen time in New York City schools, it remains unclear whether this approach will be effective in achieving its goals. To ensure that this policy is implemented successfully, city officials must provide clear guidelines, data-driven decision-making, and sufficient support for educators and students.

Additional Analysis:

The prohibition on student-facing AI tools from preschool through eighth grade will run for at least this coming school year. City officials vowed to convene a coalition of educators, students, parents, union officials, and experts to help assess the policy and whether to change it in the future.

New York City principals can buy education technology in two basic ways: For smaller purchases, they can contract directly with a vendor. For larger ones, they generally have to use a vendor that already has a citywide contract with the Education Department.

Mamdani said Wednesday that the Education Department is "disabling" AI features in 38 existing citywide ed tech contracts. Officials haven't provided a list of those companies. But Mamdani's education adviser Ailish Brady said that the widely used digital tutor Amira and the digital version of the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt reading curriculum – the most popular of the three mandated NYC Reads literacy programs – will both "turn off" their AI components.

A spokesperson for HMH said "there is no student-facing AI in Into Reading,” the company's elementary school reading curriculum.

An Amira spokesperson said the product is currently used in 222 schools, and that the company has reached out to the Education Department for clarity on what the new AI policy will mean for the product.

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Brady didn't directly respond to a question about whether Google's AI chatbot Gemini, which comes pre-loaded on many students' Chromebook laptops, would be disabled. But advocates who met with city officials said they were told that Gemini would be shut off.

In cases where a company can't simply turn off the AI features of a product, the city will no longer use that product, Brady added.

How city officials will determine whether AI has been sufficiently scrubbed from a product isn't clear.

After freezing all new education purchases for nearly two months, officials gave principals the green light Wednesday to resume buying software, with a big caveat. Any new request for ed tech under $25,000 will now undergo an extra layer of review from the Education Department's IT, legal, and contracts teams, Deputy Chancellor Lindsey Oates told principals in a Monday webinar. Oates warned the reviews will "take some time," potentially creating an additional bottleneck in a contracting process that can already be slow.

Technology that supports students with disabilities and English language learners with specific educational needs will be exempt, officials said. Brady offered examples: an eye-tracking technology that helps students with cerebral palsy type and an Education Department-created program called Hello App that helps students learning English communicate with teachers.

There will also be exceptions for required reading and math that students take on computers to track their progress throughout the year.

High schools have the most leeway with AI tools and are allowed to use them in career and technical education programs. There are also five AI pilot programs involving generative tools that city officials have already approved, ranging from platforms that help students conduct close analysis of texts to a math program that prompts students to explain their thinking. The five programs are: Quill, Edia, Brisk Teaching, Playlab, and Intel AI-Ready Schools.

Officials said a maximum of 50,000 high school students would participate in those pilot programs, or roughly 17% of all high school students.

All high school students across the city will be required to complete two 45-minute AI literacy modules every year that cover the basics of AI, as well as issues related to bias and misinformation.

The city's youngest students – from preschool to second grade – are not supposed to use individual laptops and other devices under the new policy. In grades 3-5, students are allowed to use individual devices but for no more than 30 minutes a day, officials recommend. In middle school, the recommended limit is 45 minutes. There are no screen time guidelines for high school.

As school districts across the nation are moving to limit screens, one reason some are allowing devices beginning in third grade: It's the year state testing begins, and exams are increasingly administered digitally, including in New York.

Teachers are allowed to use AI tools to help plan lessons, translate materials, or draft communications, according to an Education Department summary of the policy. They may not use AI tools to grade student work, monitor behavior, develop special education plans, or assist with student mental health challenges.

Officials didn't spell out any clear enforcement mechanism for ensuring schools adhere to the AI policy.

Mamdani conceded much of the enforcement will have to happen at the classroom and school level. "Whenever there's been a shift, teachers have had to be at the forefront," he said during the press conference. "And so we trust that teachers, principals, superintendents will be there."

He added that central Education Department officials will subject all new ed tech purchase requests to a "rigorous" review process.

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew, who has recently clashed with Mamdani on several major policy priorities, expressed concern that it will largely fall on "school communities or individual educators to figure out after the fact if what their school uses fits the new policy."

One of the big critiques of the Education Department's first draft of the AI guidance from March was that it completely dodged the biggest question on many teachers' minds: how to respond to students using AI outside of school, including to cheat on writing assignments.

So far, the new guidance doesn't seem to offer any more specifics on that front. Samuels noted that teachers have been dealing with the AI cheating issue for years (many schools developed their own AI policies while waiting for citywide guidance) and emphasized that schools will need to enlist parents for support.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

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