Alyssa East on ed tech's devastating impact on struggling learners
East, a parent in De La Rosa's district, shares her child's experience with Zurn and IXL, describing how these tools took her struggling learner back to lower levels rather than identifying the problem. She criticizes IXL's 'smart score' as devastating to children's self-esteem, contrasting AI tools with human teachers who can pivot approaches.
And lastly, on Zoom, we have Alyssa East.
You may begin.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilmember Dinowitz and Councilmember De La Rosa.
I'm Alyssa East.
I live in Councilmember De La Rosa's district.
Thank you for representing for Uptown.
And I'm not going to read from anything prepared.
I think you guys have heard a lot of
facts and data and very strong arguments against AI in the classroom.
I'm going to speak more personally about my son's experience with these tools.
Earlier, the deputy chancellor mentioned iReady, IXL, Zurn, and Grammarly.
My child is no longer in New York City public schools.
We're a Carter case.
But when my child was in District 6 schools, he was regularly given Zurn and given IXL, and these were assigned to him because of his learning differences.
And these were devastating to my child, right?
So I want you to understand that something that is built on the same technology that is an AI tool can be very destructive to a child's sense of self.
And that is because these tools, unlike a human teacher, might recognize that a child is failing or struggling.
And instead of identifying why the child is struggling, they take the child back to a lower level of learning.
is utterly ineffective.
And some of these platforms, such as IXL, give the child a smart score.
Now, if the child is struggling, they're getting a low smart score that has no reflection of their abilities or their intelligence.
This is how many of these apps work, and they are utterly devastating to struggling learners.
They are utterly devastating to children, whereas human teachers recognize
They are skilled and trained to see, oh, this is what this child needs.
They don't need to go backwards.
They maybe need a pivot or a slightly different approach.
EdTech does not allow this.
Time expired.
Thank you.
And you can, thank you so much for your testimony.
And as a reminder, you could submit additional written testimony to testimony at council.nyc.gov.
I will now call.
Anita Rao and Joseph Sende for in-person testimony.