A new survey of parents shows that 8 in 10 parents want more guardrails on artificial intelligence for their children.
Echelon Insights, a digital polling organization, conducted the survey on behalf of the National Parents Union, a nonprofit parent advocacy organization that seeks to raise the influence of parents’ voices in K-12 decisionmaking. A total of 1,511 K-12 public school parents participated in the survey from February 12-18.
The results show that a majority of parents (56%) believe their children are using generative AI chatbots, but want firmer restrictions in place. Parents want AI chatbots to provide pop-up warnings before displaying sensitive topics related to violence, self-harm, or abuse (86%), alert a minor’s parents if their child is discussing anything harmful or illegal (85%), and need permission from a parent before a minor can use the tool (79%).
The survey comes as the federal government continues to push for the expansion of AI with minimal regulation. In the last year, President Donald Trump signed two executive orders on AI: one calling for more infusion of the technology into education and another blocking states from creating regulations for the tool.
Most recently, the House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced three bills that would protect minors’ data privacy, flag harmful online activity, and require online platforms to implement safeguards.
“Empowering parents to better protect their children—especially amid the near-constant barrage of digital threats—remains one of our most solemn and important responsibilities,” committee member Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fl, said in the press release.
But parents are asking Congress to reject one of the bills, H.R. 7757, or the Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act, which requires online platforms to provide parental tools and limit addictive design features. Critics of the bill argue that it has loopholes —as tech companies have no legal obligation to understand if their users are minors, nor any clearly defined requirements to protect young users.
“Parents know exactly what’s at stake,” said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, according to a press release. “And what H.R. 7757 actually does is let tech companies write their own rules, strip states of the power to hold them accountable, and call it child safety.”
Nearly half of parents say their school has not provided information on AI policy
According to the survey, 47% of parents said their child’s school had not provided information about their AI policy, while 37% have received information on those policies. In addition, 57% of parents had not been asked for input or feedback on AI use in schools, according to the Echelon Insights survey.
Many parents, across the political spectrum, have nuanced views about AI’s role in schools, the survey suggests. The respondents identified as very/somewhat conservative (31%), very/somewhat liberal (24%), or moderate (40%). The majority of them feel there are equal benefits and downsides to AI tools used in K-12 (52%).
Forty percent of parents surveyed said they know enough about AI and want to be involved in the decision process on the school’s AI policy, while 39% of parents want to be involved but need more information about the technology overall.
Some schools are trying to involve parents in the process of understanding their AI policy, according to previous Education Week reporting. In one Massachusetts high school, a principal hosted a parents’ night to inform them about the school’s AI policy. The event helped lay the groundwork for the rollout, which became a district-wide policy.
When it comes to data collected by ed-tech products, the majority of parents surveyed feel more needs to be done to protect student privacy, inform guardians of what is being collected by generative AI, and how that data is being used by these ed-tech companies.
The desire for more transparency may be due to the lack of parental knowledge of data collection methodologies and uses, EdWeek previously reported.
Separately, a survey by Count on Mothers titled AI and Child Safety: Mothers’ Views on a Rising Influence in Kids’ Lives surveyed 2,290 U.S. mothers with at least one child under 21 living at home. Thirty-nine percent of those mothers said they either didn’t know their children’s data was collected by technology tools or didn’t understand how data collection worked. Forty-one percent said they try to stay informed about data collection, but have knowledge gaps. One in 5—20%—said they understood the privacy risks of AI tools and knew how to protect their child’s data.
“This bill [Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act] does not protect our kids,” said Rodrigues. “It protects the companies that are hurting them. It guts the state laws that are actually working. It kills the lawsuits that parents have filed.”
