Schools Ban AI For Students While Teachers Get It Free

By Dan Fitzpatrick

New York Public Schools and Los Angeles Unified School District remove students' access to AI. What does it all mean?

This week New York City Public Schools announced that it was putting a one-year moratorium on student-facing AI tools It covers children from 2-K, the city’s program for two-year-olds, all the way through eighth grade. That is around 600,000 students, or roughly two-thirds of the district.Later that day, Los Angeles Unified School District confirmed something even broader. Generative AI access was being removed for students on district-issued devices across the district for the school year.In the week leading up to those decisions, OpenAI expanded its free ChatGPT for Teachers offer to another 55 school systems, while Anthropic opened free Claude for Teachers enterprise access to schools and districts across the U.S.So, in the space of a few days, the two largest school districts in America were restricting student access to generative AI, while two of the biggest AI companies in the world were making it easier for teachers to use it.I have been around this question for quite a while now, first as a teacher and assistant principal, and more recently in conversations with ministries, state departments, boards and school leaders trying to decide what sensible AI adoption actually looks like.I cannot remember many weeks where the signals have been this mixed.The pauses are narrower than the headlinesThe New York City decision is not a blanket ban on AI. It applies to student-facing tools. Teachers can still use AI for planning and administrative work, provided the tools meet the district’s safety requirements. There are also exceptions for students with disabilities using assistive technology, multilingual learners and students taking part in career readiness programs, including computer science.Los Angeles had previously allowed students aged 13 and over to access approved AI tools after completing digital citizenship training. That access has now been removed on district-issued devices, at least for the time being.The district has also created a Generative AI Ad...