Welcome to the Freedom to Learn podcast.

I'm your host, Ginny Gentles.

This season, we're diving into what it means to return education to states, communities, and families.

And we're exploring what becomes possible when education is freed from union dominance and federal control.

American education, for whatever reason, is prone to falling fast for fads that we eventually

regret.

In an op-ed calling for a two-year AI moratorium in both K-12 and higher education, Andy Smirik,

senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, wrote those words and echoed something I regularly

rant about at education policy events in D.C.

As Andy pointed out, whether it's whole language, open classrooms, learning styles, screens

in classrooms, or now AI, the education community gets seduced by an innovation's big promises,

and students end up paying the price. When I read Andy's piece last week, I immediately invited

him on the podcast

to address the threats AI poses to teaching and learning and to share his proposed solutions.

Andy Smarick is the author or editor of four books and a member of the University of Maryland

Systems Board of Regents. He served as the president of the Maryland State Board of Education

and held various roles at the White House, Congress, the U.S. Department of Education, and the New Jersey Department of Education.

Andy Smarick, welcome to Freedom to Learn.

It's a pleasure to be with you. Nice seeing you again. Thanks for having me.

You've written recently that the rush to allow AI in the classroom will harm students and schools for decades. State leaders should require their educational institutions to suspend today's unconsidered rush into AI use for two years. In calling for this AI to your moratorium, are you responding to something in

particular that you've observed or just a general sense of growing concern? Okay, both. So let me take

them in order. The first is just the data. I kept reading articles about how quickly this was spreading among young people. And

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