Submission Statement: With the growing power of AI and the dwindling math and reading competency of students in the US, people have been turning eyes to new fancy "Alpha" schools that blend efficient AI use to tailor make students' experiences as optimally as possible. This is relevant for American education policy, which is at a loss for what to do with the rising utilization of AI in the classroom, as well as falling competencies in high school and higher-level education.
This article expresses skepticism of these AI schools but also takes into consideration what these schools argue it can do for student learning and test scores. But the article will correctly point out that rising test scores does not mean rising competency and tries to critically assess how Alpha schools would actually affect the growing dillema in US schooling. This issue is also relevant economically as more Alpha scools and Alpha-knock offs are being given charters from state-level governments, and some people think there should be a bigger push in this direction.
Posted by I_Pay_in_Cash_Only
5 Comments
!ping ED-POLICY
Because the last wave of technology in the classroom did so much to improve educational outcomes. I’m a licensed history teacher; if you want kids to build better skills we need less technology in the classroom not more.
The former mayor of my hometown, who pulled his kids out of the public school system because they’re “communist”, and who believes that boys shouldn’t be in any form of education anyway until they’re 10 or 11, uses Grok to homeschool his children. I would not recommend mixing AI and education. AI just has a tendency to get things wrong and make stuff up, and it’s not critical in a way that a teacher could be. AI will coddle you and try to be as agreeable as possible, even if you’re wrong.
If test scores are the the be-all and end-all for college admissions, and AI in classrooms improves that, then it is only logical that teachers should widely adopt it. If you want education to be something more, something more humanistic, then we need to de-emphasize test scores for college admissions. We cannot have both, and it would be very unfair to many students at schools with inadequate teaching personnel to not make full use of these new benefits.
i read the last article on this Alpha and assumed it was a pure grift charging crazy tuition for lesson-by-Grok. Reading this, I am intrigued there seems to be a genuine academic theory and program behind Alpha, and at least some evidence that it is effective in some regards.
i recall in the first of the JJ Abrams Star Treks, we see Spok as a youth learning from some sort of AI tutor with personalized instruction. At the time I don’t think anyone would have found that objectionable or concerning. AI has obviously become politicized and (in most western countries) public school teachers are a big constituency for liberal/progressive parties. So i’m not surprised there’s lefty hostility to this, but i guess i’m intrigued to read further on how it plays out.