Government
The rules that will decide how AI shows up in classrooms are being written right now, in statehouses and school boards across the country. Most of that work is happening without the students it will affect, and that absence is the thing we care about most.
Where we stand
Most of the policy being written either tries to shut AI out of the classroom or lets it in without asking what it does to how a student learns. Those decisions get made for students with almost no input from them, and they skip past the question that matters most: when does AI genuinely help a student learn, and when does it quietly do the learning for them?
Our own position takes more than a sentence, but the core of it is straightforward. AI belongs in education when it helps a student think, and it should be kept away from the work where it would end up thinking for them. Transparency is what holds that line. When you can see how a student worked and where AI came into the process, learning stays out in the open and good policy has something real to stand on. We want that idea written into the rules, the same way we already try to build it into what we make.
What we're asking for
If we were in the rooms where these rules get written, these are the things we would argue for, and none of them depend on a school using Deskpad or anything we make.
Don't lead with a ban
The most common response we see is an outright ban, and we understand why a school reaches for one, even though we do not believe it works. When AI is prohibited, students rarely stop using it; they mostly stop admitting that they do, and that hidden use is where the real damage to their learning happens, since there is no teacher there to see it or steer it. A rule that pushes AI out of sight tends to make the problem worse rather than better, which is why we would rather see policy that brings it into the open, where a teacher can guide how it gets used.
Require a visible process and don't become a detective
A lot of policy leans on AI detectors to do the enforcing, and we think that is a mistake. They are not reliable, and they tend to flag some students, often the ones writing in a second language, far more than others, so a school that builds its rules on them risks punishing honest students while overlooking the ones who are quietly letting AI do their work. What we would ask for instead is that a student's process stay visible, the way the work moved from a first draft to a finished one and where AI came into it, so a teacher can see how the student got there. When that path is open to see, the difference between learning and quietly offloading the work is usually clear on its own, without anyone being wrongly accused.
Judge how AI changes the learning
Most rules try to settle the question in one direction, either letting AI into the classroom or shutting it out, when the more honest line runs through the middle of almost any tool. AI belongs in the parts of learning where it helps a student think more carefully, and it should stay out of the work where it would quietly take the thinking over. What a good rule should care about is what the work did to a student's understanding, whether they came away knowing more or leaning harder on the tool, and that is what we would want shaping the law in place of a list of approved and forbidden apps.
Take the real costs seriously
There are real costs to AI that deserve to be taken seriously rather than either waved away or turned into a reason to forbid it. Its energy and water use is real, and student data privacy matters a great deal, especially when the students are minors. What we would ask is that a school weigh these costs the way it weighs the cost of anything else it brings into the building, honestly and in proportion, rather than holding AI to a level of suspicion that no other technology there has to meet. A policy that does that, and that leans toward the simpler tool when a simpler tool will do the job, is one we could stand behind.
What we're doing about it
I want to be straight about where this stands today. Deskpad Policy has not testified on a bill or written a line of law yet, and I would rather say that plainly.
What stands behind the position is real, even this early. I have had more than a hundred conversations with educators about what AI has done to their classrooms, and the platform we built grew directly out of them, shaped around the same transparency we are arguing for here. What we are looking for now are the rooms where these decisions get made, so that we can bring students into them.
Get involved
If you work in government, sit on a school board, or have any hand in writing these rules, I would genuinely like to talk. And if you are a student who wants a say in decisions that will shape your own education, that seat is exactly the one we are trying to keep open for you.