{"id":346104,"date":"2026-09-14T08:04:28","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T08:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/346104\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T08:04:28","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T08:04:28","slug":"silicon-valley-parents-think-nyc-is-crazy-to-ban-ai-in-schools-cant-make-children-live-in-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/346104\/","title":{"rendered":"Silicon Valley parents think NYC is crazy to ban AI in schools: ‘Can\u2019t make children live in the past’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Silicon Valley parents are puzzled by New York City\u2019s landmark ban on schoolkids using Artificial Intelligence<\/a>, because they are all-in on the tech.<\/p>\n

Most Bay Area parents have no problem with their kids using AI from a young age \u2014 as long as they\u2019re using it correctly. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t make children live in the past. Let them live in the present \u2014 or, better still, the future,\u201d tech founder Qinghua Zhao told the Post. \u201cBlocking their path to the future is definitely not a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zhao\u2019s 11-year-old son, Lucas Zhang, already uses Claude Code<\/a>, which he\u2019s set up to reserve library books from his school reading list.<\/p>\n

Lucas Zhang and his mother, Qinghua Zhao Courtesy of Qinghua Zhao<\/p>\n

A fan of physical copies, he made it so AI won\u2019t select eBooks and added a tracking column to mark books already requested, so there are no duplicates.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe wonderful thing about children is they have no fear. They don\u2019t know what\u2019s difficult and what isn\u2019t,\u201d Zhao added.<\/p>\n

She thinks the logic Lucas is learning through AI will matter more than the mechanics of coding, in the long run.<\/p>\n

New York City\u2019s ban prevents kids in preschool through 8th grade using any sort of generative AI and high schoolers are only able to use it in limited supervised contexts.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sharp contrast to Alpha School\u2019s<\/a> K\u20138 campus in Palo Alto. The $75,000-a-year institution has an academic timetable of just two hours a day, all spent interacting with AI. The rest of the day is workshops in leadership, financial literacy and how to be an entrepreneur.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s been a more exciting time to be a 5-year-old than there is right now,\u201d school co-founder MacKenzie Price told the Post in an interview earlier this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

MacKenzie Price (left), co-founder of Alpha School, and U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon are pictured at Alpha School Austin on Tuesday, September 9, 2025, in Austin, Texas. McMahon visited the school on Tuesday. Getty Images for Alpha School<\/p>\n

One parent who considered the school told The Post: \u201cI do not see the principal value as the AI. I see the potential value in giving motivated young people more time to explore different areas of interest, before education and career paths begin forcing them to narrow and specialize.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others remain somewhat skeptical, preferring their kids to have a more traditional education, citing how AI chatbots can make things too easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t prompt your way through many of life\u2019s challenges,\u201d said Leor Melamedov, a tech marketer with two sons in public school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want my children to experience the fulfillment that comes from wrestling with complexity, reaching an insight, and overcoming a hump.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is also a difference between those who can afford the fees of a private school and everyone else.<\/p>\n

At public-schools in California, kids get five hours of instruction a day over 180-days a year by state law. Palo Alto Unified School District\u2019s total spending was about $37,800 per student in the 2022\u201323 year, roughly half Alpha\u2019s tuition.<\/p>\n

Saron Henok, 10, uses Ed, a new district-developed Artificial Intelligence-assisted learning acceleration web-based platform, in Los Angeles. Los Angeles Times via Getty Images<\/p>\n

If public schools were to opt out of AI, a technology gap is sure to open up. Affluent, tech-savvy families will teach their kids the tech at home. Families of lesser means would be locked out.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne group learns how to use AI as a tutor, research partner, creative tool, and productivity enhancer. Another group simply learns that AI is prohibited. Those are very different forms of preparation for the future,\u201d Amy D. Love, a parent and founder of Discovering AI, told the Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt one point, my child was doing extra math work that was not for school and took the shortcut of using AI to help answer the problems,\u201d Love said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe work was completed quickly, and then came the realization essentially nothing had been learned. That was a valuable lesson for my child. Efficiency and learning are not the same thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cA child who has never learned to construct an argument cannot meaningfully evaluate whether AI has constructed a good one,\u201d Love pointed out.<\/p>\n

The other thing that worries parents isn\u2019t the AI itself.<\/p>\n

From left, NYS Gov. Hochul, Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels and NYC Mayor Mamdani attend a press conference to launch 2-K on the first day of school at the Highbridge Recreation Center in Manhattan on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. Robert Miller for NY Post<\/p>\n

Friendships formed at school matter as much as the promise of faster learning, one parent pointed out. They had considered transferring their daughter to self-directed learning, but she wanted to finish middle school with her longtime friends, and realized it wouldn\u2019t be a fit for her to go it alone, even if her test scores rose.<\/p>\n

When passing the New York ban, schools chancellor Kamar Samuels reached for the same words as a big part of their reasoning: \u201cHuman connection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless of the classroom, US children are turning to AI in large numbers. A Common Sense Media survey<\/a> of 1,204 US children ages 9 to 17, taken in March, found that 67% had used AI chatbots. Among kids who use AI for schoolwork every day, 28% said it\u2019s hard to get homework started or finished without it.<\/p>\n

Faith Maeba, a student at Virginia Commonwealth University, shares a poster she made for a class project on how Gen Z use social media and AI for mental health support at her home on Monday, July 20, 2026, in Stafford, Va. AP Photo\/Moriah Ratner<\/p>\n

But where should the line be drawn? One Palo Alto mother recalled her older daughter loved reading. Then she discovered the iPhone.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe never touched the books again,\u201d the mother, who asked not to be named, lamented.<\/p>\n

Love, whose daughter is 13-years-old, tries to strike a balance with how AI is used in her house.<\/p>\n

Amy Love and her 13-year-old daughter have agreed on guidelines for using AI for homework. Courtesy of Amy Love<\/p>\n

Her rule: try it. Try again. Ask for help. If the parent and kid are both still stuck, they can use AI together \u2014 then her daughter starts the next task alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is not to get the answer,\u201d Love said. \u201cThe goal is to get the student back to the point where they can do the thinking themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says there are two aims she hopes to fulfil: \u201cWhat skills should my child develop to have options as the world changes, and what does my child genuinely enjoy?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Silicon Valley parents are puzzled by New York City\u2019s landmark ban on schoolkids using Artificial Intelligence, because they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[66,67,9,56,63,65,64,5271,13881,1601],"class_list":["post-346104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-education","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-schools","tag-silicon-valley","tag-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}