AI in Education AI Minute Newsroom 2026-08-03

98 teenagers wrote the AI school rules Washington hasn't

Over a weekend in late July, 98 high-school juniors and seniors — a delegation from every US state — met in a replica of the Senate chamber at Boston's Edward M. Kennedy Institute and passed their own bill on AI in schools, the 'Students First Act', by a lopsided margin. It would require AI literacy teaching wherever schools hand pupils a device, ban AI outright on graded tests, permit it for brainstorming, editing and studying after eighth grade but not for writing assignments, oblige teachers to post their AI rules each semester, and require more than one member of staff to agree before a student is disciplined for suspected AI misuse. The event was hosted with AASA, the school superintendents' association, and Day of AI, a nonprofit from MIT's RAISE initiative.

Why it mattersThere is still no US national policy for AI in schools, so 13,000 districts are each writing their own — and AASA now plans to circulate this text to 10,000 school leaders as a starting draft. What the students produced is stricter than most adult drafts in one place (no AI on any graded test) and looser in another (studying and editing are fine), and it insists on a second opinion before anyone is accused. That is a useful signal of which rules students will actually accept rather than route around.

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98 teenagers wrote the AI school rules Washington hasn't

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