As AI begins to permeate many aspects of daily life, how it’s used in schools has become a major debate.
To that end, WAMC’s David Guistina spoke with Robert Schneider, executive director of the New York State School Boards Association, about who they think should control its use.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Editor's note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Schneider: From our perspective in the public education sector, we feel that with AI there are positives and negatives, and we feel there are a lot of positives with the AI technology.
But we are in, right now, in a process of making sure we know what we have here to impact the learning improvements for all of our students, and how this can assist our school districts, both in the classroom and administratively in the back offices and things like that.
But we're in the process of figuring this all out. It's only been around since roughly what 2022. I think ChatGPT was launched. This is a fairly new technology. It's a very powerful technology, and we know it can help our students, our teachers, and our districts. But we have to frame up the right plan. So we're in that process right now, if you will, understanding it and how it can help our students.
Guistina: I should mention that in public broadcasting, for example, in radio and media, we want humans to be in charge. So, in other words, this AI could be a tool, and many are using it as a tool. But we don't want to cross the Rubicon, right?
Schneider: Absolutely, we do not see this as the main teacher. It is a complement to what the teachers are doing in the classroom every day, every week, every month, every year, it can help them assist them in a variety of ways.
One of the big things is having personalized, customized experiences for the students when they go and work, say, on an AI-supported software system, say in math, and a student can work on that, and the AI can determine probably quickly where the student might have weaknesses and areas of strength, and where they can focus in on that and level that student up, and that can assist a teacher in a classroom of 25 to 30, people.
That's really one of the better areas where it can help all students learn. But again, we're not there in totality yet, based on the things that we need to see from both the state and the federal government as far as creating belts and suspenders, and for school districts understanding how to use it optimally and also engage their communities before they make these decisions to start putting this into school districts.
Guistina: We've seen New York Gov. Hochul when it comes to data centers, which is part of the growth of AI, putting a pause on that in New York. Does the state need to do something like that with schools now? That kind of would go against the local level part, but it's sort of got to be a combination, doesn't it? From the national to the state to the local, and then beyond that, maybe you could just spend a minute on the worry over brain drain and critical thinking, and if the AI is going to answer all the questions, are our students really learning?
Schneider: We expect there will be legislation proposed coming forward on how we can create regulating it, controlling it, and trying to leaning into the benefits of it. Because yes, I mean any student that has access to do a paper, not any but many, they can they can get easy access and can generate homework assignments, papers, and things like that quickly. So there has to be that recognition that there might be a desire for some students do that. But if we have the right regulations, we put it in the local district's hands to determine what AI programs they can use to learn. The oversight has to be there, so a student can not only lean into leveraging the technology, but also have those important critical analytical thinking skills. The New York Inspires initiative is moving in that direction, and that's one of the attributes we want from our students when they graduate, they have strong analytical and critical thinking. Now we need to recognize this is a strong tool, but we have to make sure students aren't looking at it as the path of least resistance, if you will, to get things done.
