The GSV Big 10: Ed Tech Shifts To Tech Ed
Klein’s Takedown of Mamdani, Dropout Your Way to Success, Teach for America...
Chart of the Week:
The Big 10:
How California community colleges are using AI to battle financial aid fraud | EdSource
Given AI has proven to be more accurate identifying cancer in patients than doctors, it makes sense it would be better than an administrator at detecting financial aid fraud. Over 30% of applications to California Community Colleges are fraudulent costing $18 million in the past couple years. AI won't replace administrators, just like it won't replace doctors but it will make the process better.
To Tackle the Teacher Shortage, Start the Path to the Profession in High School | The 74 Million
It's not about better schools, it's about what needs to be better within them. The teaching profession needs a makeover, with everything from pathways to teaching, how teachers are recruited, how they are developed, how they are compensated to how they are retained being reimagined. Given the national disaster in academic performance for students, the persistent shortage of teachers and the fact 30% of teachers churn within their first five years, urgency is fast enough.
Head Start Funding Is on Track for Approval. It Still May Not Be Enough. | EdSurge
The Trump Administration has catalyzed panic amongst the education ecosystem with the fear of programs being reduced or dismantled. Human nature in uncertainty often fears the worst and with the sixty year old Head Start program, helping young children in low income families, it appears the $12 billion program will remain intact. Most everybody understands that if you can't solve the K-12 problem until you solve the 0-5 problem.
LAUSD settles suit to help students with pandemic learning setbacks — 5 years after disruption | Los Angeles Times
While this could easily be categorized as too little too late, trying to makeup for the catastrophe that happened to students during the Pandemic is a start. "High Dose Tutoring" of 45 hours a year is probably better than micro dosing or not doing anything but the wrong headed policies enacted will have consequences for decades to come.
Generation Dropout | The Free Press
Silicon Valley was ahead of the curve with being a college dropout as badge of honor. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison…all billionaire alumni of the dropout club. Peter Thiel even provided "Thiel Scholarships" for the best and the brightest to leave school without a degree. Now, it's going mainstream which isn't surprising given the increasingly tough ROI in terms of time, money and opportunity cost.
Katrina destroyed New Orleans’ early childhood education. 20 years later, it’s a model for success. | 19th News
Adversity creates opportunity. The devastation that came with Hurricane Katrina could have resulted making the Big Easy a wasteland. Instead, NOLA rolled up its sleeves and reimagined how to create early childhood services that could better support the community.
Designing AI-responsive universities and graduates | The TechEd Revolution
Flipping EdTech to TechEd is a conceptual shift that takes AI from the classroom into the outside environment we are going to mainly learn from in the future. Not a surprise that our friend Lev Gonick, who is the CIO at Arizona State is out in front with this new way of thinking. Instead of point skill solutions, the New World is about systems and applying those to the rapidly evolving World. AI isn't about replacing humans it's about elevating them.
How much is AI actually affecting the workforce? | The Indicator by Planet Money
Ford CEO Jim Farley made statement that AI will replace 50% of white collar jobs. What's clear is AI is dramatically impacting entry level knowledge worker jobs. We are optimistic about how a white collar workforce evolves but its also likely that the "labor share of income" will fall…at the same time, while the slices of the pie might become smaller, the pie will become bigger.
McMahon rejects ‘misconception’ of federal funding losses if Education Department heads back to states | The Hill
See above. The fear of what the Trump Administration will do to existing education programs due to his modus operandi and desire to eliminate the Department of Education is different than reality. Title 1 is appropriated by Congress and IDEA that funds children with special needs is something that is pretty much universally supported. The question will be, is there a better, more effective and more efficient way to accomplish critical objectives, not whether these programs are paramount.
How Zohran Mamdani Could Kill New York’s Schools | The Free Press
Former Chancellor of New York City Public Schools Joel Klein performs a surgical evisceration of leading mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's education plan. Klein, as the masterful former Federal Prosecutor that he was, step by step lays out how Mamdani's articulated ending of charter schools and gifted schools are indefensible…especially for minority kids. The data is crystal clear, students in charter schools perform approximately 50% higher than traditional public schools.
BONUS: In Defense of Inequality | The Free Press
University of Austin's President Carlos Carvalho delivers a protective welcome speech to the incoming UATX class. Making note that 250 years, King George III separated ties with America sparking Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, in which said "all men are created equal", President Carvalho makes the point that people have their own unique talents, and excellence is earned not given.