The GSV Big 10: Have You VotED?

Choose Choice, Trading Places, and Done with DOE?...

Chart of the Week

It will take a skilled worker in Hong Kong over two decades of work to buy a 650-square-foot condo near the city center

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The Big 10:

1. Why We Need The Department of Education | EdTrust

   The federal government provides only 14% of the $857 billion K-12 budget or $2,000 of the $18K the United States spends on average per student. There are some, like Project 2025 out of the Heritage Foundation, that want to eliminate the Department of Education, philosophically believing that states and local governments should be in charge of their schools to reflect the unique needs of those communities. It would seem to me that with education being so core to our nation’s future, we need to ramp up the impact of the DOE. Ensuring accountability within the department is crucial to making U.S. students the top in the world.

2. AI Tutors are Already Changing Higher Ed | Axios

   Not exactly a ground-breaking article, but nice quotes from our friend Leah Belsky who is now the General Manager for Education at OpenAI. I also learned a new term – “Rubberducking” – which is debugging code by explaining each line to an inanimate object like a rubber duck. The piece references two Harvard lecturers who showed students using an AI tutor learned twice as much in less time.    

3. What’s on state ballots for education in the 2024 elections | K-12 Dive

   It seems to happen every four years…you get to the voting booth, and you get overwhelmed with all the different things you get a chance to vote but know nothing about. 14 States have major education initiatives on the ballot, mainly around school choice, funding, and governance. In Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska, it’s all about school choice…in Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, and Washington, they will be selecting the State Education Superintendent.   

4. Buyer Beware: Fees Skyrocket Cost Of Higher Education | Forbes

   While Higher Education costs are up 179% in the past 20 years, there is a growing pushback on the price of college and questioning whether it’s worth it. As a bit of razzle-dazzle, universities are putting in place “tuition freezes” but also inserting various fees to offset. Application fees, athletic fees, technology fees, and student fees are just a few ways students are being hit up. Honesty is always the best policy, and these “student inconvenience fees” seem a bit underhanded.

5. How education and religion have redrawn America’s political map | The Washington Post

   It used to be that the Republican Party was made up of the educated and affluent, and the Democratic Party was comprised of workers and minorities. Over the past 20 years, a shift has taken place with the Democratic Party, which is now made up of wealthy, educated elites, and the Republican Party has a dominant position amongst workers. Another gigantic shift is around the number of churchgoers in America, which has dropped materially, with secularists being a part of the Democratic base.   

6. Democrats Used to Run on Education. What Happened? | New York Magazine

   When Bill Clinton and Barack Obama ran for President, improving education was a core part of their platforms. When Hilary Clinton was the Democratic Party’s candidate for President in 2016, schools were barely mentioned, and when it came to Joe Biden in 2020 it was covered even less. The easy explanation for what happened was the teachers union (ironically!) is a big Democratic funder so you can’t upset them – but I think that’s more of a symptom than the cause.   

7. School Choice is Usually a Conservative Issue. Not in Kentucky. | The Free Press

   Roughly 75% of U.S. adults support school choice even though it’s thought of as a “Republican issue”. But some of the fiercest advocates for school choice are from the poorest neighborhoods because parents realize that having an option for a better school is the ticket out of poverty. Equal access to quality education is the civil rights issue of our time.  

8. Why AI is the key to unlocking leadership opportunities for women | Financial Times

   This is an interesting essay in the FT about how AI will help reduce the leadership gender gap. One of the big benefits AI provides is the “Time Dividend,” enabling often time-starved female workers more time to bolster their skills. Additionally, “Multiplication by Division” can help women (anybody) focus on where they have the potential to have the greatest impact, allowing the AI to do the rest.   Moreover, AI can help in creating a gender-agnostic performance grid.   

9. Funding Education Opportunity: Grading states’ K-12 open enrollment laws | Reason Foundation

   Reason ranked all 50 states for Open Enrollment Policy based on seven best practices. Five states got “A’s” led by Oklahoma with Arizona, Idaho, West Virginia, and Utah rounding out the top of the class. Education is on the ballot in 14 states on Tuesday, with school choice as a winning issue. 

10. Autism diagnoses are skyrocketing in the US — here’s why | New York Post

    Autism is up 175% in the past 10 years. There are now 12.2 million Americans who are diagnosed to be “on the spectrum.” While boys are 4X more likely to be identified as Autistic, the gap is narrowing.

ICYMI: 🎙️ Ep 29 · GSV Founder & CEO Michael Moe: AI Completely Transforms Education | Ed on the Edge | Dash Media

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This Week’s People Moves

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• Nitin Madnani: ETS ➡️ Duolingo, Staff AI Research Scientist

• Arpan Chattopadhyay: Healthify ➡️ Coursera, Software Development Engineer 2

• Antoinette Salcedo: Coursera ➡️ Everlaw, Senior Strategy & Ops Business Partner, CX

• Vijaytha Ail: Nailbiter ➡️ TeamLease Edtech, Head - Finance & Strategy

• Nicole Pulido: Logos ➡️ Packback, VP, DTP Partnerships