NYC’s public schools are flunking the AI test

The town hall primary was a matter of accessibility: for New Yorkers from almost all levels of income faced with parallel crises and, for the winning candidate. But sometimes, which is not a race, says just as much on the state of the city: the largest public school system in the country fails and no one spoke about it.

It’s objectively weird – and it’s about to be completely untenable, given the massive moral crossroads that look at us: AI. Will New York will allow optimized lucrative algorithms to reshape the way our children learn and live-or are we going to build a public alternative that protects childhood, empowers teachers and prepares each student for a democratic future?

Currently, New York schools fail our children – and fail in our future. One of three public schools is chronically absent. Less than 15% of black and Latinos students are competent in mathematics. Despite its expenses of nearly $ 38,000 per student – more than any other big city in the country – we are 37th in reading and 46th in mathematics among urban school districts. Meanwhile, teachers are exhausted. Students are late. Parents are desperate for the help they cannot afford.

Artificial intelligence already infiltrates the lives of our children. One in four teenagers now use the Chatppt to do school work. Less than 20% of schools provide official advice on the use of AI. This difference between reality and regulations are dangerous – and growing. Worse still, the Ministry of Education has proven again and again that it is not prepared to manage technological change. He blew $ 95 million on a faulty student data system that few people ever used.

All over the world, governments act urgently. Half of the Finnish schools already use tutoring platforms powered by AI which have improved mathematical scores of 25%. The “IA Leap” of Estonia gives 20,000 students access to smart tutors. Singapore has passed from pilot programs to complete integration throughout its school system. Even Chicago began to implement AI in classrooms – with real deadlines and teacher training. New York? We are still talking.

The only question is whether we are exploiting the advantages – educational and fiscally – or if we repeat the social media disaster in the 2000s. While we have debated screen time and cyberbullying, Silicon Valley has recable our children’s brains for lucrative purposes. While we have dragged our feet by prohibiting phones in classrooms, social media colonized the social life of our children, leaving an anxious, depressed and unable to maintain real relationships.

However, some will say that it is too complicated. Too risky. Too expensive. But this is what skeptics said in South Korea – until the government invests $ 740 million in teacher training. This is what they said in Barcelona – until civic technology groups build open source IA tools to which parents trust. This is what they said in Nigeria – until the students acquired two years of learning in just six weeks.

Getting this here resembles a tutoring powered by AI to increase results and inscriptions – sometimes almost half a level, assuring parents that their children can get high -quality education here in New York. This also means to integrate effective and manageable systems to keep students at school at school and reduce chronic absenteeism.

And the AI tools can even help the 140,000 students and more confronted with homelessness by linking schools to the city services in real time, allowing rapid interventions to minimize damage to housing disturbances and help schools identify and contact more homeless students who can go through the meshes of the net.

It is not only a question of fixing politics. It is a question of proving that democratic governance works. While Donald Trump tries to dismantle public education, we will show that cities can better reconstruct it. While Washington is wading, local leaders can get up. We will unite cities – New York, Chicago, Los Angeles – around a common goal: to protect children and prepare them for the future. This is how Democrats win. Not with rhetoric, but with real results. Not with slogans, but with schools that work.

It is also the best defensive game: the best way to stop Trump’s plans to privatize education and put it back in the highest tenders AI Bro? Beat them – and build a public alternative which serves each child, in all districts, regardless of the postal code or the immigration status.

The question is not whether the AI will change education – it has already done so. The question is whether we will let this change be led by profit or by goal. Are we going to allow a handful of private companies to rewrite how 1 million children in New York learn? Or are we going to act – to build public tools that serve the public good?

Tiwathia, a policy of politics and campaign, is an adviser to the board of directors of the Artificial Intelligence Policy Institute (AIPI) focused on urban innovation and AI interventions in the public sphere.