Transcript: Mayor Mamdani Holds Press Conference To Make Education Announcement With Chancellor Samuels
Zohran Mamdani on NYC Mayor's Office transcripts.
Passages
Good morning, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here at the Navy Yard's Brooklyn STEAM Center alongside parents, students and partners who are helping us build the future of public education in our city. I want to acknowledge we have a number of leaders both inside and outside of City government here with us. We have our New York City Public Schools Chancellor, Kamar Samuels. We have a number of his leadership team that are here with us, both standing alongside us while seated here in the crowd. We also have our Assembly Member Bobby Carroll, the chair of the Education Technology Committee, who is here with us. Our Council Member Rita Joseph, the chair of the Higher Education Committee. We have our Council Member Lincoln Restler. We are here in Council Member Restler's district. We are also here in State Sen. Jabari Brisport's district. And we are also here in Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon's district. And we have alongside us our senior adviser for education, Ailish Brady, as well as our Brooklyn STEAM Center Founding Principal, Dr. Kayon Pryce, and Superintendent Michael Prayor, who's also here with us. Thank you all, to all of you. Now, as parents and kids across New York City know, back-to-school season is a time of change and a time of challenge. It means the return of 6 a.m. wake-ups, the excitement of seeing friends again after a summer apart, and the perennial question for parents: How do we strike the right balance between screen time, extracurriculars, homework and time to just be a kid? But in recent years, a new question has risen in the lives of students, parents and educators alike: how to navigate the advent of artificial intelligence in our society, and by extension, in our schools. In just a few years, AI has gone from the pages of a sci-fi novel into something present in nearly every aspect of our lives. It is embedded in our maps and emails, in toasters and washing machines. It is present when we visit the doctor, when we cash a check, and when we settle down on the couch to watch a movie. But just because technology is everywhere doesn't mean that it belongs everywhere. After all, each day when our children come to school, we teach them to ask questions, to challenge assumptions, to interrogate the premise, to ask, "Why?" When it comes to AI in our schools, we hold an obligation to do the same. We must ask, what helps our children learn? How can we protect their developing minds? And how do we prepare them for a world in which new technologies will be increasingly built into it? Today, I am proud to announce New York City's first-ever comprehensive AI policy for our public schools, City Hall's answer to those questions. It is the most comprehensive of its kind anywhere in the country, and it begins with a simple principle: Children need their teachers and human connection in order to learn and in order to grow. And they need to develop skills alongside their peers, build relationships with their teachers, and wrestle with tough problems on their own. The tech industry wants us to believe that AI in early education is not only inevitable but that it is necessary. We do not see it that way. I have yet to see a study showing that AI is beneficial for students in elementary and middle school, with the exception, of course, of research sponsored by the very corporations that stand to profit. So, beginning this school year, we will implement a one-year moratorium on generative AI for students in 2-K through eighth grade. I want to thank Gov. Hochul for helping pave the way with her efforts to ban cellphones and social media platforms in our schools. This moratorium is a commitment to getting the future right. A 6-year-old child is too young to slice an onion, to fry an egg or to use a stove safely. But once that child is 16, that knowledge becomes something they are mature enough to learn. That same principle applies to AI. Whether we like it or not, our teenagers are growing up in an AI-saturated world. We cannot pretend that that world does not exist. It would be irresponsible not to prepare our children for the fast-evolving technological future that lies ahead. So, in high school, we will teach our students about AI, its opportunities and its pitfalls, its building blocks and its biases. And we will pilot five rigorously vetted educational AI programs that teachers have vouched for, like the programs that I just had the pleasure of trying alongside students here at Brooklyn STEAM. But I want to be very clear. In no way, shape or form will AI replace student-teacher interaction. It is the foundation of our students' educational experience. That will not change. These pilots will have defined learning goals. Their use will be limited to a maximum of 45 minutes per week under direct teacher supervision. And none of these programs are chatbots. This pilot is not introducing ChatGPT, Claude or anything similar into our curricula. At the same time, we know that AI has already found its way into many educational products that are being used in our classroom, sometimes without meaningful guardrails or oversight. That changes today. As part of this policy, we will fully discontinue or disable the AI components of more than 38 previously allowed programs that do not meet our new safety and oversight standards. We will embrace new technology, but only when it serves our students. And at every step of the way, we will ensure that the challenge and struggle that are so critical for learning remain at the heart of our educational system. Kids need to learn to think for themselves. They need to work alongside their peers. They need to learn how to ask better questions. And they need to learn what it feels like to not know the answer. This is what learning is all about. And it is what city government is determined to protect. This policy is not one that is set in stone. It is by design a finite one-year policy. Over the course of the coming school year, we will carefully monitor each of these programs and evaluate their impact and evaluate their success. And when the school year ends, we will sit down with teachers, parents, students and partners inside and outside our school system to determine what is working, what isn't working and what needs to change. We know the purpose of AI companies. Whether they are making sports betting models or an education tool, it is to produce a profit. Here in our New York City Public Schools, our purpose is our students. It does not matter how profitable a product is. If it doesn't help our students learn and grow, we will not use that product. New Yorkers deserve to know that their kids will receive a high-quality education. They deserve to know that their children's data won't be mined by big tech. And they deserve to know that their children's growth won't be compromised for a corporation's bottom line. Our job is to give every student the knowledge, the independence and the confidence they need to build a future of their own choosing. That means safeguarding the teacher-student relationship, refusing to surrender our classrooms to profit motives, and above all, it means protecting childhood. I want to say thank you again to all of the New York City Public School staff, all of the New York City Public School leaders who are here today as well as beyond this room who helped us to develop this policy. It is a pleasure to stand here alongside so many leaders in this very conversation to institute a new policy to protect our students. Thank you.And with that being said, I want to pass it over to our chancellor, Kamar Samuels.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceThank you so much. And now the prince of outdoor dining, Council Member Lincoln Restler.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceThank you. And now I would like to call up a former middle school math teacher, State Senator Jabari Brisport.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceWell, that is time for our final speaker. We do that at every presser, just to let everyone know. Our final speaker is going to be our Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI think at the core of your question is our priorities. It is all too easy to inherit contracts, to inherit approaches and to say it's simply what it is now. And we wanted to take a step back to actually evaluate our responsibility to the nation's largest public school system, to the students who come every single day, to the teachers who make it possible and to the families who entrust us with that responsibility. And one of those responsibilities is the privacy of these students. Another responsibility is to ensure that we're actually teaching these students to learn, to grow and to ask questions. So yes, we did disable more than 30 of these products that were previously in use. I'll just call up Ailish, our senior policy adviser, to give some more additional details to that, she can provide that.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceJust one additional point before we go to the next question, which is that we have a rigorous set of standards that we are going to apply for any educational tool. And we do not care how big that company is, how profitable it is, how long we have been working with them. They need to meet the same level of standards. And if they do not today, that doesn't mean that we won't work with them to get there, but it does mean that those standards have to be followed.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI want to credit Chancellor Kamar Samuels for leading this process [and] his team, for ensuring that we did not confuse speed with progress. And the announcement that was made earlier in the spring was intended to be the beginning of a conversation. As we heard from Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon, even today is not the end of that conversation; this conversation will continue. However, the intent of it is to deliver for our students, and we cannot do so without also hearing the reflections from parents, from students, from educators, in the time that followed that announcement, where we intentionally looked to carve out time, forums, platforms for us to engage with that. Today is a reflection of that, and it's a reflection of Chancellor Kamar Samuels' leadership.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceOn the first question, do you want to add anything [about that]?
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceI think what we've heard time and again, no matter who we're speaking to, is the importance of the teacher-student interaction. We are seeing artificial intelligence become more and more a fact of life, and there are conversations across the country where people have put forward ideas that this could perhaps replace that interaction. We want it to be very clear that it is not going to replace that interaction here in New York City Public Schools. And what we have also heard is the importance of protecting childhood, and what I mean by that is allowing students the opportunity to ask questions, allowing them to engage, allowing them to fail in whatever it is that they might be doing so that they can learn from that. I even think back on the advice that my father gave me when I was going to college. He didn't instruct me to go after one particular subject. He told me, anywhere that I felt excited by learning, those were the kinds of courses to take, because my job was to learn how to learn. And I think in many ways, that's what our job is also, to ensure that students still have that possibility in front of them.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceAnd Matthew, just before you ask also, I'm just saying to any of the electeds who'd like to step forward and respond to any of these questions, please also feel free.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceWhat parents should expect is that we will make our decisions not with the profit motive in mind, but instead with the fulfillment of our purpose, which is to teach our students, to ensure that they can grow, they can learn, that they can question and that we are making evidence-based decisions. One of the things that I mentioned earlier in my remarks is studies. So often the studies that are put in front of you that showcase the beneficial aspects of generative AI for our youngest students happen to be sponsored by the companies that you would then contract with to provide those same students those kinds of tools. We want to ensure that we are actually providing tools to our students that we know to be beneficial, as opposed to tools that we know to be profitable.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceAs with any of our policies, our implementation is going to begin with those who know our schools best, our principals, our superintendents [and] our teachers. And as you've heard, whether from Assembly Member Simon or from State Senator Brisport, while we are speaking about the technology of today, we are also speaking about transitions that teachers have faced in years past. Whenever there's been a shift, teachers have had to be at the forefront. And I remember when I was in school, it was Google Books and Turnitin.com. These were at the forefront of those conversations. And so, we trust that teachers, principals [and] superintendents will be there. And what we also trust is that if there is any conversation about the procurement of education technology, it will go through our new New York City Public Schools procurement systems. And that comes with an adherence to a rigorous set of criteria that is looking at the privacy, that is looking at the efficacy, that is looking at ensuring that these tools are actually beneficial for our students.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceNo, I think this is a policy that has a broad coalition behind it. We've seen, I think, just this morning that the head of the National Union, Randi Weingarten, issued a statement of support as well.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceYes, there is a very clear set of specific guidelines for our entire public school system. And as we said earlier, we are discontinuing the use of close to 40 different products that were in use in prior years that did have AI at the heart of those products. And the point of that is also that in putting forward a comprehensive policy like the one that we are putting forward today, we are finally creating a policy for the entirety of our public school system, whereas prior to that, it was operating in the absence of central guidance around that. So, we are putting these forward. And when it comes to the question of enforcement, we trust that our teachers, our principals [and] our superintendents will be abiding by this. And the reason we have been so specific is because this is where we have our confidence for what is beneficial for our students. When we're talking about these core five pilots, we're talking about pilots that at a maximum a student could engage with for 45 minutes in a week. And when we're talking about the close to 40 educational tools that were previously in use, we're talking about ones that did not meet our standards. But the specifics of those tools will be sent out.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceWe have cataloged a list of those that will both be discontinued and the five that are allowed to be used.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceSo, one, I'll just underline that some of these exemptions are also to adhere to state law around what we have to provide to a number of specific sets of students. I'll just bring up our senior adviser, Ailish, to speak to that.
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the sourceSo, with the first question, we wanted to make sure that we are putting forward a policy that both is fulfilling our responsibility to students, to parents, to teachers and giving us a time period to evaluate the results of this policy. If we find over the course of this year that this policy needs to be extended, then we will extend it. If we find over the course of this year that there are amendments that need to be made, we will amend it. All of it will be driven by the results that we are seeing, the feedback we are receiving from principals, from teachers [and] from students. And again, too often, many of these larger-scale policy decisions are not being driven by those kinds of factors. They are being driven by questions of profit. They are being driven by an attempt to be as quick as possible. And yet we know that the responsibility we hold is an immense one to our students. And we have to ensure that we are confident in whatever policy we're putting forward. This is a policy that we are confident about. We will revisit it at the end of this one year. And then to your other question, we also know that New Yorkers get their news in a wide variety of ways. And it is our responsibility to ensure that we communicate information from City government directly to the people of this city, whether that means to all of you, to TV, to radio, to social media, to content creators and so on and so forth. And my administration will always strive to fully comply with all legal requirements, including those that relate to the preservation of city records. And if there are any departures from what is legally required, my administration will look into it immediately and take corrective action. Thank you. ###
Zohran MamdaniCheck at the source
Every passage above is taken from this recording: NYC Mayor's Office transcripts, Transcript: Mayor Mamdani Holds Press Conference To Make Education Announcement With Chancellor Samuels.