I wonder if at some point we will look back on stuff like this as back in the 1990s schools banning internet research and search engines. Obviously that seems ridiculous now, but the internet was big and scary back then too.
Those bans were implemented without evidence. We have evidence AI exposure reduces learning and cognition. There are probably situations where it enhances it. But we haven’t delineated those yet, and so shouldn’t be rolling out a half-baked system more likely to hurt than to help.
The default mode of humans is to be served and not bear any expense in doing so - aka using llm’s to get answers - and not going through the process of reasoning for oneself. Which reinforces understanding.
Very few kids have enough maturity to realise this. So the only solution is controlled exposure.
Were schools banning search engines? I remember teachers recommending Dogpile (because it would combine search engines), and we did some computer lab stuff in the 00s, but there was no one saying that we should ignore search or the internet altogether.
In middle school I remember being assigned a book report that would include the author's biography. I'd just finished a book (The Gammage Cup) and of course my local library did not have any information about the author. So in that situation it was assumed that you would learn traditional research methods, but also that you would just pick a classic book where the information was readily available.
Few schools allow unrestricted internet access these days.
The general question here is risks vs rewards and with any new technology both are unknown making caution perfectly reasonable be that internet searches or anything else.
So sure in 30 years the policy will look different, but that doesn’t mean they are making the wrong decision.