About PACES

PACES (Parents for AI Caution in Educational Spaces) was founded in 2025 by me, Kelly Clancy.

I come at this from quite a pragmatic standpoint: I have three children in elementary and middle school, I serve on our school’s School Leadership Team, as chair of our Title I Parent Advisory Committee, and as an elected member of our Community Education Council (what New York City calls school boards).

I am a lifelong educator. I have a PhD in political science from Rutgers, and I have taught for the past twenty five years, from preschool to high school debate to undergraduate and graduate students. I’ve won awards for my teaching and written extensively about pedagogy.

I am also a professional editor, focusing both on writing in the education space as well as academic scholarship. In this role, I’ve read hundreds of articles and books over the past few years focused on generative AI in education. (I’ve also edited dozens of pieces written or edited “with the help of” AI, and can confidently say that it does neither well).

Over the past few years I’ve moved from curious to deeply skeptical about the “promise” of AI in educational spaces. I am unwilling for my children—or yours—to sacrifice their mental health or intellectual development for an untested and unproven technology.

That said, I envision this as a big tent: critics of AI can, and should, come from a variety of angles: concern over the environment, over ethics, over supporting the work of artists, writers, and other creators. These are overlapping concerns—I hope they create a patchwork of advocacy to keep AI out of classrooms and preserve the role of critical thinking and learning.

So here is a repository of information to help you in your own advocacy. It’s a work in progress, so feel free to share with me your own resources as well.