AFT President Randi Weingarten wants stricter limits on AI, screens for younger students
AFT President Randi Weingarten wants stricter limits on AI, screens for younger students
Publish Date: 2026-05-27 11:58:00
Source Domain: www.chalkbeat.org
- Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, has called for a nationwide strategy to limit technology use in schools, including banning student-facing AI in elementary education and imposing screen time limits.
- Weingarten labeled technology as a main reason young people are struggling, citing it as a “major reason” for the issues they are facing, and expressed concern over the Trump administration’s neglect of education responsibilities.
- In her call to harness technology’s benefits while mitigating harms, Weingarten emphasized the need for a balanced approach to technology in education.
- Weingarten’s 10-point plan includes elements like banning screens in classrooms for prekindergarten to second grade, imposing a tax on big tech companies, and ensuring educators understand and have a role in AI’s use in education.
- She expressed her wariness of AI’s dangers but acknowledged its inevitability, advocating for enforceable guardrails and accountability systems to measure its impacts.
- Weingarten’s speech warned against cognitive offloading where students might rely on AI for tasks they would otherwise manage without it, highlighting the need for essential human teaching.
- Although the Newark Public Schools had recently tested an AI-powered chatbot, Khanmigo, and found it favorable with students, Weingarten maintained a more critical stance towards its use in classrooms the next day in her speech.
- Additionally, she proposed a “new gold standard for safety and privacy” in AI use, the creation of an independent research consortium to study AI’s effect on education, and the redesign of schooling to prioritize active and career-oriented learning.
