Keeping AI out of classrooms does not necessarily protect children from the AI they encounter elsewhere.

Just 90 minutes of AI instruction leaves out critical lessons on judgment, safety, privacy, and relationships.

Children need to learn how to question AI, verify its answers, protect privacy, and know when not to use it.

On Sept. 2, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels announced a one-year moratorium on student-facing generative AI for every child from 2-K through eighth grade. That’s nearly 600,000 students, roughly two-thirds of the district. Companion chatbots will be prohibited across all grades, including high school. The city is also placing new limits on screen time, with recommended caps of 30 minutes per day for students in grades 3-5 and 45 minutes for students in grades 6-8.

Developmentally, this makes sense. Children need foundational skills before they can use a powerful tool like AI safely and wisely. They need opportunities to wrestle with a question, sit with not knowing, make mistakes, work through frustration, and build an argument before a machine builds it for them.

Those capacities are developed through effort and struggle. When a tool consistently removes that while these skills are still forming, it's a hindrance.

But the announcement leaves two big questions unanswered:

What happens when students go home?

How are we preparing them for a world in which AI will be everywhere?

Removing AI From School Does Not Remove It From a Child’s Life

According to Common Sense Media’s 2026 census of 1,204 American children ages 9 to 17, 86% already use or interact with AI, and 24% do so every day. Among 9- to 12-year-olds—the very students New York’s moratorium is designed to protect—81% use AI, and 17% use it daily.

Most are not encountering AI at school, either. More than three-quarters use AI on their own phone, computer, or tablet. Only 44% report using it on a school device.

Even if schools decide that students are not ready to use generative AI, that does not mean they........

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