Why Banning AI in Classrooms Will Not Restore Reading Skills

Summary

This essay argues that banning student-facing generative AI in schools may protect space for young children to learn, but it will not by itself reverse declining reading performance. The argument responds to recent concern over falling PISA reading scores and to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s policy barring student-facing generative AI from public schools from preschool through eighth grade, alongside high-school critical-thinking modules, limited pilots and screen-time restrictions. The author considers the policy well intentioned and potentially useful as a safeguard against commercial technologies competing for children’s attention. However, the essay says it treats symptoms rather than the deeper transformation of learning habits. Drawing on Eric Havelock and Walter J. Ong, it describes a long shift from a literary culture that valued solitary reflection and stable text toward an oral and digital culture emphasizing dialogue, immediacy and interaction. It also presents the “Gutenberg Parenthesis” as the roughly 500-year period in which print held unusually authoritative status. AI, in this account, accelerates the demystification and abundance of text: chatbot-generated writing can appear responsive while requiring facts and claims to be checked. The author therefore questions whether PISA measures abilities that society still rewards, rather than simply showing that teenagers are becoming less capable. The conclusion is that schools need regulation attentive to the technological environment outside the classroom, and that students should have a larger role in explaining how that environment has changed.