Trading The Metagame

My take on Austin Vernon's post on AI and education

1 min read·March 22, 2023

My take on Austin Vernon's post on AI and education

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Austin's post:

AI Tutors and Education Reform

Despite many lamenting the state of K-12 education in America, almost three-quarters of parents are satisfied with their oldest child's education. Unfortunately, we don't know why the remaining quarter is unhappy. Is it due to a lack of friends, a specific teacher, or their child's poor performance on NAEP tests?

https://austinvernon.site

While I generally agree that AI will help the most ambitious ("Average is Over"), Vernon seems to suggest that AI marks the end of the cheating era of early childhood education:

The number two pencil is one of the most critical tools for our iron triangle. Grade books need adjustments at the end of semesters to pass on underperforming students or raise a grade for an unhappy student (or parent). Sometimes state-mandated standardized tests need altering as well. Teachers can make these changes using an eraser or the keyboard on an unconnected spreadsheet without being charged with fraud.
Many education reformers dream of systems where students use personalized software. There are some schools where it works wonderfully. One of my high school mentors joined a non-profit education organization to assist rural schools wanting to adopt these systems. 5-10 districts adopted the program, but many encountered issues. Teachers, parents, and students revolted at one of the most successful implementations, forcing the district to revert to the old ways. Another became a crime scene because teachers didn't realize that a central database tracked the changes they made to student grades at the end of the semester.

Insofar as these AI programs -- and programs in general -- are black boxes to the vast majority of the world, what's to stop these questionable actions from transitioning to a digital environment?

And it appears that the incentive is likely there as disparities will continue to increase and administrators attempting to keep that gap as small as possible.