FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
April 16, 2026
CONTACT:
Ashwin Verghese, [email protected], 508-263-0289
Pause GenAI in PreK-12 Schools for 5 Years, Orgs and Experts Say
Over 260 organizations and experts are calling for a five-year pause on generative AI products for students in preK-12 schools, saying those products pose “significant harm to children.”
A position statement calling for the five-year pause was released today by Fairplay, the leading US nonprofit fighting to protect kids from Big Tech, and signed by 120 organizations and 142 experts from the US and Canada.
The signers include Meta whistleblower Kelly Stonelake, Fordham Law Professor Zephyr Teachout, neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath, author Emily Cherkin, National Center on Sexual Exploitation, and Smartphone-Free Childhood US. The effort to get GenAI out of schools is being led by Fairplay and the Screens in Schools work group of Fairplay’s Screen Time Action Networks.
Advocates are planning to deliver the position statement to officials at the state, provincial, and local levels to urge education leaders to put a GenAI pause in place.
“The rapid expansion of generative AI products into schools without oversight, community input, or evaluation of implications is not inevitable,” the position statement says. “A five-year pause on all products using generative AI that impact children in preK-12 schools would allow time for school communities, including students, educators, administrators, and parents, to learn about the implications and uses of generative AI products in education, to ask questions, and to provide feedback.”
During this pause, school officials should ensure that GenAI products meet five requirements. If they don’t, those products “should not be used in preK-12 schools,” the statement says.
The five requirements are:
- Improve learning outcomes without causing cognitive offloading or impeding human relationships.
- Demonstrate absolute safety for students. That means addressing issues like addiction, data and privacy risks, exposure to harmful content, mental health, and more.
- Not be used for cheating, academic dishonesty, plagiarism, or other unauthorized purposes.
- Sufficiently consider and prioritize privacy, civil rights, ethics, justice, and climate impacts.
- Never be used in place of teachers, especially for vulnerable populations like neurodivergent students, at-risk students, and students of low socio-economic status.
The call for a five-year pause comes as GenAI products are proliferating in preK-12 schools. This is despite the fact that AI technology has already proven deadly for young people, including teens who have died by suicide after AI chatbots encouraged them to take their own lives.
The position statement says that GenAI products “threaten the integrity of children’s education.” They impede student learning, degrade relationships between students and teachers, and corrupt curricula with misinformation. At the same time, these products undermine the role of teachers and deepen inequities in education.
While many dangers of GenAI have already been discovered, it’s not clear whether these products offer any actual benefits to education, the statement says. It’s also unclear how GenAI will impact students over the long run, as well as who will be accountable for any harm caused, and how student data will be used.
Despite these concerns, tech industry marketing and lobbying continues to push GenAI products on schools, the statement says.
David Monahan, Campaign Director at Fairplay, said: “GenAI is threatening so many things vital to education: the accuracy of learning materials, the special role of teachers, and, worst of all, the ability to spark engagement and intellectual curiosity in young people.
“PreK-12 schools should be hallowed ground, but to AI companies, they are just another market to infiltrate. They claim their technology is inevitable, but together, we have the power to say, ‘Stop.’ It’s time for a five-year pause on GenAI in schools.”
Jean Rogers, Director of Fairplay’s Screen Time Action Network, said: “Current AI tools being introduced into educational curricula are not proven either safe or developmentally appropriate for children’s learning. We are asking for this pause to study the ethics, integrity, cognitive and social implications, as well as the potential learning outcomes — before children become guinea pigs for another tech experiment.”
Emily Cherkin, teacher, speaker, and author, said: “We would never allow a children’s hospital to prescribe a drug that has ‘the potential’ to save lives, but has not been vetted, validated, or tested. Why would we allow our children’s experience in a school to be any different? Until it is proven that generative AI products are safe, effective, legal, and better than a human, we cannot hand them to children.”
Jared Cooney Horvath, neuroscientist and author, said: “Imagine I invent a new pharmaceutical drug. When you ask what it does, my reply is, ‘I don’t know — let’s give it to children and find out.’ That sounds insane — yet that is exactly what has happened with AI. The people who built these tools did so out of scientific curiosity. By their own admission, they had no idea what these systems would ultimately be useful for. So they released them to the public and asked us (and our children) to report back on what they’re good for. Well, the data is starting to come in, and it ain’t good. Nearly every study looking at the impact of AI within K-12 settings reports something bad: decreased learning, decreased creativity, decreased critical thinking, decreased confidence and self-efficacy. Are you willing to allow your own child to be the next guinea pig while AI companies try to figure out what their tool actually does? If your answer is no, then we should not be asking anyone else’s child to serve that role either.”
Andrew Cantarutti, Ontario-based teacher and the author of “The Walled Garden Education” newsletter, said: “K-12 education should be a Walled Garden: a protected sanctuary where intellectual curiosity and human connection are allowed to bloom without the interference of unvetted commercial interest. By rushing generative AI into the classroom, we invite an under-researched technology to breach the boundaries that safeguard children’s developmental journeys. A pause of this kind allows time for a responsible professional consensus to emerge based on evidence rather than hype. It’s time to protect the integrity of learning and reclaim the Walled Garden of the classroom.”
Faith Boninger, research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder’s National Education Policy Center, said: “It’s inconceivable to me that any school would expose children to AI products without clear evidence of their efficacy and safety. Families deserve real assurance — in action, not words — that their children’s schools are taking their education and their safety seriously, and not capitulating to unrealized hype about the ‘potential’ for generative AI in education.”
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About Fairplay
Fairplay is the leading nonprofit committed to helping children thrive in an increasingly commercialized, screen-obsessed culture, and the only organization dedicated to ending marketing to children. Fairplay works to enhance children’s well-being by eliminating the exploitative and harmful business practices of marketers and Big Tech. Learn more at www.fairplayforkids.org.