British schools are often pretty clear that kids are not there to socialise - they will say it in so many words.

It also depends what you by socialisation. in terms of school people usually mean two distinct things: have opportunities to spend time in social interactions, and learning social skills.

My experience of taking kids out of school is that the first reduces (because they spend less time with other kids each day) but the second increases (because they meet a greater variety of people in a grater variety of places).

That takes me to my greatest concern with AI. That kids will socialise (in both senses) with AI rather than people. What will that do to their social skills? There are plenty of examples of adults doing that (visible in places like /r/MyBoyfriendIsAI ), but at least they grew up developing some social skills. If AI is a big part of your interactions, what will the effects of that be?

I agree but unfortunately the US education budget is driven by test scores.

Unless theres strong evidence that test scores will increase, Karen from the PTA insists that her child be given access to their phone

Socialization goes out of fashion at a rapid pace. If I were to guess, technology deprived kids will quickly catch up with the trend when they age out of the ban.

Also use of technology anti-correlated with alcohol and drug use so there might be unwelcome side effects.