Dinowitz reviews the new AI and screen time policy and remaining questions
Dinowitz describes the policy banning individual device use for 2K through grade 2, recommending limits for grades 3-8, and a moratorium on student-facing AI through grade 8. He questions the DOE's assumption that screens are good and necessary.
Earlier this year, after mounting pressure from this committee, along with Chair De La Rosa from the Committee on Technology, along with parents and advocates,
Mayor Mamdani and Chancellor Samuels paused their original AI policy and announced a new AI and screen time policy for New York City schools.
This policy bans individual device use for children's 2K through second grade.
Recommends limited individual device use for students.
Grades three through five, 30 minutes a day, recommended time limits.
Individual device use for students grades 6 through 8, 45 minutes a day.
And of course, these recommended limits exempt screeners and other assessment tools.
To some degree, the release of the policy does demonstrate that the DOE is being responsive to the concerns of families and the elected officials, banning screens in the earliest grades and banning AI, a generative student-facing AI, through grade 8.
Yet while the new policy provides some guidance around screen time in schools, it leaves many questions unanswered.
Undergirding the guidance from the DOE lies an assumption, an assumption that the DOE has yet to defend with robust evidence, that screens are good and necessary.
I disagree.
The DOE has an obligation to provide evidentiary support for the use of individual screens related to specific tools or products, not just a nebulous 30 minutes or 45 minutes.
Every tool, every product, and what is on those screens.