Anita Rao on special education, GoGuardian, and AI guardrails
Rao, a Citywide Council on Special Education member, testifies about the lack of adherence to federal special education law and the long-standing use of AI in assistive tech without guardrails. She asks why DOE doesn't mandate GoGuardian across all schools with a central budget rather than leaving it to individual school choice.
Hello?
Hi, it's amazing to see all of you in person.
I spent all day with all of you, virtually.
And thank you for hearing my testimony today.
It was an impromptu decision.
I flew over here real quickly, so if it's a little shoddy, forgive me.
Yeah, so...
You have an important, crucial role, and it's a big one, and we value your time.
We all do as a community.
I'm Anita Rao.
I'm the former president of a PTA, now a member of the Citywide Council on Special Education, appointed by the Public Advocate Office.
I'm really excited to take on this role.
And I see a lot of, oh, okay.
So I'm here this evening in my personal capacity and my opinions.
Today we heard from City Council members, members of the DOE Central, from DIAL, and consultants.
There are a lot of different angles and approaches we heard today.
The bottom line is there's a lack of, but the bottom line is currently there's still a lack of adherence to federal law around special education.
There's negligence of education around special education rights and service management, et cetera.
Many hearings could be avoided entirely if we simply through, if each and every school
consistently be aware of providing education, special needs, empowerment, evaluations, and more collaborative resolution practices to avoid gaps in academic and social-emotional learning.
It has been discovered that many
I'm going to stop right here.
I'll submit this written testimony.
But what I want to tell you is that AI has been long time used through the assistive tech devices in special needs.
These ed tech software have been backed by AI.
And there's been no guardrails whatsoever.
For example, GoGuardian is a vendor that exists already with the DOE.
However, it's not being utilized.
It's the choice of the school.
And the budget.
Why isn't the DOE Central providing a budget across the board mandating for GoGuardian to be utilized in the schools by the teachers and parents having access?
There are certain independent schools and some charter schools that are already offering this.
Why can't we do this?
Why can't we put this in place?
While we're implementing a moratorium, which I hope happens.
Thank you for your testimony.
Yeah.
Okay.
The writer closes out.