Election Special

It's a double election, municipal and provincial! We try to keep these newsletters relatively infrequent to not fill up your inbox too much. But here's some AI in schools information to think about.

Municipal elections

Over the last few weeks we have been asking candidates standing for school board trustee what they plan to do about AI in schools, if they are elected.

In Vancouver school district 39 COPE, Vancouver Greens and TEAM have all promised to support pausing AI in classrooms.

In Greater Victoria school district 61, James Le and Ken Waldron both support a pause on AI in classrooms.

In North Vancouver school district 44, Peggy Hung supports a pause on AI in classrooms.

For other districts check our website.

Provincial elections

On the provincial level, where do parties stand?

NDP

The NDP Ministry of Education and Child Care rejected the 2,000-signature petition to pause AI in classrooms, shifting responsibility to school boards.

This is at the same time as the BC attorney general launched a lawsuit against OpenAI for its alleged role in the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting.

We have emailed the NDP multiple times asking them to clarify what they would do if they stay in power, but have not had a response.

Green Party

The BC Greens support a two-year moratorium on AI in K-12 classrooms.

The plan includes:

Develop clear, province-wide direction on the safe and ethical use of AI with students, placing a moratorium on AI use in K–12 classrooms until that plan is in place.

in detail:

Enact a moratorium on the use of AI in classrooms from K-12 in order to develop a comprehensive response to AI in the classroom, and direction on safe, ethical use of AI with students. This includes protecting privacy, enforceable safeguards, digital literacy support for all educators, and working with the federal government to hold tech companies accountable for ensuring that systems are safe before they reach the classroom.

BC Conservatives

They have yet to reply to our emails. 🤷

Articles!

There's been so much amazing stuff released recently:

• The Canadian Teachers' Federation released an article that succinctly points out that the federal government's AI for All K-12 curriculum puts adoption before safety.
• The release of AI chatbots has harmed teens' learning and Canada needs to act in The Conversation
• Using AI for just 10 minutes erodes your ability to persist at hard things - Berkeley News

The Future

No matter how these elections turn out, we have plans to continue to fight for the education that young people deserve.

Some of our plans for the coming year:

• Creating a Resisting AI booklet for students, giving them the tools to stay independent thinkers when chatbots are being pushed into schools. We're looking for anyone who wants to help out in writing it!
• Strengthening connections with teacher unions, working with them to present a united front against big tech.
• Updating our new site with more info, writing new articles, spreading the word.

If you are interested in any of these reply to this email or get in contact.