Who Gets to Decide How AI Enters Our Schools? With Data & Society

Explore how AI's role in classrooms is being shaped in New York City and beyond with Coding Kids author Natasha Singer and other panelists at this discussion presented by the research and policy institute Data & Society.

This event will take place in person and online at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library on the 7th Floor.

This is a pivotal year for shaping the role AI will play in American classrooms. Around the country, states have already begun distributing AI products across school districts, and this school year, New York City’s Department of Education has barred student AI use in elementary and middle schools. This event will explore what's at stake for the city's more than 1,700 schools and the millions of students and families they serve.

Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools, the new book by New York Times reporter and Data & Society alum Natasha Singer, explores how tech companies are using schools to mainstream their AI tools. Singer will discuss her reporting and the broader issues at stake in a discussion with Amanda Lenhart and Scott Kern, with moderator Meredith Broussard, Data & Society advisor and professor at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, and author of More Than a Glitch. The event will be introduced by Data & Society Executive Director Janet Haven.

To join the event in person | Doors will open 30 minutes before the program begins. For free events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. All registered seats are released shortly before start time, and seats may become available at that time. A standby line will form 30 minutes before the program.

To view the livestream | Whether you're attending in person or online, you must register with your email address. You will need a device with audio and/or video and an internet/cellular connection to view the livestream.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Data journalist Meredith Broussard (Moderator) is a professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University and research director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology. She is the author of several award-winning books, including More Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech, and is an advisor at Data & Society.

Natasha Singer has covered technology in schools, and tech industry influence in schools, for The New York Times for more than a decade. Her early school tech reporting helped prompt California to pass a landmark law, the Student Online Personal Information Protection Act of 2014. Natasha was 2015-2016 Data & Society Fellow.

Amanda Lenhart is a senior fellow at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at the Sesame Workshop and a long-time mixed methods researcher who has spent the bulk of her career studying how children and families use and think about networked technologies. She also serves as a Technology Policy Fellow at Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy, and is an affiliate of Data & Society Research Institute. Previously, Amanda served as the Head of Research at Common Sense Media, where she led research on youth mental health and social media, and smartphones and generative AI in the lives of adolescents. She started her career at the Pew Research Center helping to found the Internet team where she pioneered and led their research on teens and families for 16 years.

Scott Kern has been teaching for 20 years at North Star Academy in Newark, NJ. He is also the AI Innovation Lead for Uncommon Schools, where he directs AI strategy, policy, and professional development. Last year he piloted a semester-long AI Literacy class for seniors, which has been featured in the New York Times and on The Daily podcast and is being expanded in the 2026-2027 school year.

Janet Haven is the executive director of Data & Society. She has worked at the intersection of technology policy, governance, and accountability for more than twenty years, both domestically and internationally. From 2022 to 2025, Janet served on the National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee (NAIAC), which advises the National AI Initiative Office and the executive branch on a range of issues related to artificial intelligence, and chaired the Rights, Trust, and Safety working group. 

ACCESSIBILITY NOTES

In-Person

• Assistive listening devices and/or hearing loops are available at the venue.


• ASL interpretation and real-time captioning (CART) are available upon request. Please submit your request via this form or contact SNFL at least two weeks in advance.


• This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs.

Livestream

• ASL interpretation and real-time captioning (CART) also available (see previous).


• Captions and a transcript will be provided.

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With special thanks to our program partners at Data & Society, an independent nonprofit research and policy institute. Data & Society studies the social, political, and economic implications of data-centric technologies, automation, and AI, and uses that knowledge to inform and shape policy from the ground up. Learn more at datasociety.net.

All programs are subject to change or cancellation. All programs are subject to recording and photography. The 7 Stories Up Series at SNFL is made possible by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).