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Lawmakers hear calls for 'guide rails' as Pennsylvania wrestles with classroom AI policy
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Summary
Committee members and witnesses urged the state to develop shared frameworks and data privacy rules — citing New York/Arizona models and EU guidance — to prevent 500 districts from adopting wildly different AI practices and to protect students' data.
Lawmakers at the House Education Committee hearing pressed witnesses on how Pennsylvania should regulate classroom uses of artificial intelligence and whether the school code must be rewritten to reflect 21st‑century technology.
Chair Cerisi framed the problem bluntly: much of Pennsylvania's school code predates modern computing and the committee must decide how to write standards so the state's 500 districts do not "all go different ways." He asked witnesses what a statutory approach should include and when state guidance is appropriate versus leaving implementation to districts.
National witnesses described limited state legislative activity so far but urged evidence and evaluative components for any policy. Molly Gold of the National Conference of State Legislatures said only a few states have proposed teacher‑preparation legislation on AI and mentioned CAPE and ISTE guidance as existing resources. Jonathan Butcher of the Heritage Foundation argued policy should prioritize child development and parental authority and avoid broad, mandatory embedding of AI until risks are better understood.
Multiple members and witnesses referenced an operational "green/yellow/red" framework used in other states to determine safe, conditional and prohibited classroom AI uses; Dr. Lori Bailey said New York's guidance disallows a "green" student category (students never fully unsupervised with AI) and favors teacher‑mediated uses. Members also raised data privacy: presenters described anonymization practices and international regulation (the EU AI Act) as examples to study.
Committee leadership ended the hearing by promising to translate the testimony into potential guide rails and legislative proposals, and by noting written testimony received from the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators, the Pennsylvania Association of School Boards and a Temple University scholar.
No vote or rule change occurred at the hearing; members signaled they would use the record to craft bills in coming weeks.
