Ohio has become the first state to require K-12 public schools to adopt policies on artificial intelligence, according to the education publication EdWeek. Like the ban on cell phones in classrooms that schools are implementing this year, it’s part of the budget that was signed into law last month.
The idea came from a coalition of businesses, nonprofits and educators in a report last November, said Chris Woolard, the Chief Integration Officer at the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce
“You have to have some guard rails in place. At the same time you want to encourage innovation, but there's so many different considerations, so having some sort of policies are gonna be critical," Woolard said in an interview.
Those guardrails include things like standards for privacy and data quality, ethical uses, fair use and academic honesty, said Woolard. He said these policies have can cover a lot of questions about AI that can come up for teachers, and for students.
"How are they using it and how do you cite it, and what are some of the the ground rules for using it in assignments?" Woolard said. "What are the critical thinking skills that are needed for students? And we're also trying to think through that in terms of the content area. So if you're teaching math or teaching science, how do you sort of prepare students for how can AI impact those kinds of things? And so we are integrating that network into our content standards."
DEW will put together a model policy by the end of the year, and districts have until July 1 to adopt their own. But schools won't be required to teach AI courses. Woolard said AI isn't just a concept, but is now definitely a workforce issue for students.
"When they go out into the workforce, they're gonna have to step into that. And that's what we're hearing from our business partners—this is the reality of how quickly things are changing," Woolard said. "So it's not just learning about AI; it's about how to use it and how to integrate it."
Many states have put together guidance for AI usage, but Ohio is reportedly the first to require policies for its public school districts.
