NYC teachers and community protest at chancellor's town hall, demand AI moratorium in schools
New York, NY – On March 14, outside the Martin Luther King Educational Campus in Lincoln Square, unionized teachers, parents, students and community members, led by the Movement of Rank and File Educators/United Federation of Teachers Caucus (MORE Caucus) in collaboration with the organization Climate Families, held a protest against the NYC Department of Education’s push for AI in public school curriculum.
Inside, Kamar Samuels, the new chancellor of NYC Public Schools who is part of the push for more AI, was holding a community town hall meeting with parents, students and teachers.
Outside, teachers, students and community members led a speakout, and were met by a gathering of NYPD cops who outnumbered them. Department of Education (DoE) officials, representing the teachers’ employer, came out and instructed the police to make the protesters move across the street, and to put them behind barricades.
The protesters fought back. Brooklyn elementary school teacher and leading MORE caucus member Martina Meijer stood up to the cops, saying “We won’t be putting kids in cages.” The police then allowed them to remain in their original location, outside the entrance.
The DoE appeared to be attempting to pre-emptively enforce a proposed bill that would create “no-protest buffer zones” outside of places of worship and schools.
Inside the town hall, a middle-school student who participated in the protest presented a petition signed by over 1300 people calling for a pause on the implementation of AI in NYC public schools. The chancellor responded by saying that he agreed with the contents of the petition, but teachers and community members expressed that “actions speak louder than words,” and that his feet need to be held to the fire.
Outside, the protesters passed out flyers educating people on the harms of the unchecked use of AI on education and on students, as well as on its threat to the occupation of teaching. They also sang songs set to well-known themes that replaced the words of the song to criticize the use of AI in schools. Their signs read, “Less AI, more teachers” and “Pause AI in NYC schools now!”
The MORE Caucus, the United Federation of Teachers main reform caucus, is leading the charge fighting against the unchecked push for AI in schools. They view it as a de-skilling of teachers’ labor. DoE mandates the use of scripted curricula that relies on AI; it is a threat to the education of their students (in particular because of the racism inherent in AI), as well as a threat to the environment.
Martina Meijer said, “We need to resist AI. It impacts our professional work, and AI can’t unionize. We need to preserve education as a human profession…and the DoE isn’t fighting this.” She also said, “This money should be put toward lowering class sizes, and hiring counselors” and “I’m also deeply concerned about the racism embedded within AI.”
Meijer also mentioned the financial interest of big ed tech companies, which “turn DoE officials into lobbyists for these companies, and then push it on teachers and students.”
Meijer concluded, “These officials are feeling very tenuous in their positions, they feel how little impact they are making, so they rely on pushing these ed tech interests so they can secure a position for themselves.”