Questions you should ask your child’s school about ed tech use & privacy

Oct. 27, 2025

Last week we gave a privacy briefing to parents, co-sponsored by the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy and the Education Council Consortium. Thanks to those of you who attended; the presentation is here. During the briefing, I suggested some questions that parents should be asking their schools about their privacy policies and practices, as well as how much screen time their children are being assigned in school. Some  parents asked me to make a list of these questions, so here is that list. If you get answers from your principal that concern you, or no answers at all, feel free to share that with us as well. You can also try asking your School Leadership Team.

A significant part of our presentation related to the rapid expansion of Artificial Intelligence which poses a serious risk not only to student privacy, but also to the quality of education itself. Three weeks ago on the Talk out of School podcast, I interviewed four NYC teachers who spoke about these issues in some depth.

They, along with other teachers and parents, increasingly oppose the expanded use of AI programs, as these programs have been shown to mine student personal data for product improvement, which violates the NY student privacy law, but also because it tends to weaken the critical connection between teacher and student necessary for a quality education. Several studies show that the use of AI can also undermine student learning in terms of their cognitive growth, creativity and critical thinking – and some AI tools have been shown to feature embedded inherent racial and ethnic biases. Last but not least, the rapid growth of AI has led to the proliferation of data centers, leading to a sharp rise in the use of clean water and fossil fuel-generated electricity, with serious consequences to the local and global environment.

Neither NY state nor NYC has established any guardrails to avoid these considerable risks. Yet Chancellor Ramos seems to be intent on aggressively expanding the use of AI anyway, without any of the necessary precautions.

This Wednesday, the Panel for Educational Policy will be voting on a proposed three-year $2 million contract for an AI chatbot tutor called EPS Reading Assistant. for students in grades K-12. The EPS contract was pushed off the agenda last December because of lack of support, then proposed again in July, where it failed to get the necessary votes to pass.

Please come and speak out against this EPS contract on this Wednesday, October 29, 2025, at 6:00pm at the Food and Finance High School at 525 West 50th Street. If you cannot attend, please offer a written comment here.  Some sample language is below, but  feel free to add your own thoughts or alter the language in any way you like.

thanks Leonie

Dear Panel members:

As a NYC parent [or teacher], I join others in opposing the EPS contract, as well as the expanded use of AI in the classroom in general without any of the necessary guardrails. Though there has not been a lot of research on AI use in schools, several studies have shown that these programs can violate student privacy through mining their personal data, as well as weaken their cognitive growth, creativity and craft. Some AI programs have also been shown to feature discriminatory algorithms, and their rapid increase also poses a real threat to the environment and a livable climate.

I urge you to institute a moratorium on the use of AI until and unless strong guardrails are implemented to prevent these negative consequences, and not until each of these programs have undergone a thorough and independent security audit and privacy impact assessment.

Sincerely yours, [name]