Arizona's Getting an Online Charter School Taught Entirely By AI (techcrunch.com) 38
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The newest online-only school greenlighted (PDF) by the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools comes with a twist: The academic curriculum will be taught entirely by AI. Charter schools -- independently operated but publicly funded -- typically get greater autonomy compared to traditional public schools when it comes to how subjects are taught. But Unbound Academy's application, which proposes an "AI-driven adaptive learning technology" that "condenses academic instruction into a two-hour window," is a first for the model. (Unbound's founders have been running a similar program at a "high-end private school" in Texas, which appears to be in-person.)
Unbound's approach leans on edtech platforms like IXL and Khan Academy, and students engage with "interactive, AI-powered platforms that continuously adjust to their individual learning pace and style." There will be humans, just fewer of them, and maybe not actual accredited teachers: It will adopt a "human-in-the-loop" approach with "skilled guides" monitoring progress who can provide "targeted interventions" and coaching for each student. Academic instruction is whittled down to just two hours. The remainder of the students' day will include "life-skills workshops" covering areas such as critical thinking, creative problem-solving, financial literacy, public speaking, goal setting, and entrepreneurship. The online-only school targets students from fourth to eighth grades.
Unbound's approach leans on edtech platforms like IXL and Khan Academy, and students engage with "interactive, AI-powered platforms that continuously adjust to their individual learning pace and style." There will be humans, just fewer of them, and maybe not actual accredited teachers: It will adopt a "human-in-the-loop" approach with "skilled guides" monitoring progress who can provide "targeted interventions" and coaching for each student. Academic instruction is whittled down to just two hours. The remainder of the students' day will include "life-skills workshops" covering areas such as critical thinking, creative problem-solving, financial literacy, public speaking, goal setting, and entrepreneurship. The online-only school targets students from fourth to eighth grades.
weirdos (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Most likely you'll end up with a bunch of super-verbose, overly polite kids routinely lying and making shit up when they don't know what to say.
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Most likely you'll end up with a bunch of super-verbose, overly polite kids routinely lying and making shit up when they don't know what to say.
So... other than the "overly polite" part, no change. :-)
At least they'll all be ready for careers in politics.
Re: weirdos (Score:1)
Re: weirdos (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
feral /ferl,firl/
adjective
(especially of an animal) in a wild state, especially after escape from captivity or domestication.
"a feral cat"
resembling a wild animal.
"a feral snarl"
Re: (Score:1)
What is the end result for someone taught by AI if they don't have any classroom contact with peers?
Fewer bullet holes.
Re: weirdos (Score:2)
They will have to run their classes out of your head, where they don't have to pay rent.
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Online Charter (Score:2)
I thought Charter had changed their name to Spectrum.
Our education system continues to devolve (Score:3)
Our education system continues to devolve into a dystopian nightmare. It's going to get worse in the next few years before it ever gets better. :(
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
President Elon has steadily been winning the propaganda wars on Xitter with Grok. Do you think anyone can compete with his holy narcissism?
Own it, America. You voted to become North Korea.
Re: (Score:1)
President Elon has steadily been winning the propaganda wars on Xitter with Grok. Do you think anyone can compete with his holy narcissism?
Own it, America. You voted to become North Korea.
Ouch! Truth hurts.
k-12 student loans coming in the next X years (Score:3)
k-12 student loans coming in the next X years
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Well here's the thing: an over-educated population is just as economically problematic as an under-educated one.
No need to draw your weapons, I am not saying that education is bad. But the economy doesn't moralize. There are only so many jobs available for educated people, and when there are way more educated people than education-requiring jobs, it causes serious problems. Salaries crash. People refuse to take jobs that they now think are beneath them, even though the need for those jobs is now very hi
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Insightful comment.
This is our "lesser evil," I suppose.
Personally, I preferred it when the myth of meritocracy was at least believable. It'll be impossible to believe when a gifted child is too poor to receive a proper education. Isn't this precisely what we've been trying, as a society, to rectify and avoid for hundreds of years?
This sounds like a scam (Score:5, Interesting)
There appears to be very little oversight over how public money is spent on private schooling in Arizona at the moment. It's so bad that they have a huge budget deficit. This is very much by design. From what I can tell the previous Republican governor Left this as a time bomb for the incoming Democrat governor.
Right now 95% of the public money going to private schools is going to wealthy students who were already going to private schools. It's basically just free money and a subsidy to the richest people in the state.
Eventually the hole in the budget combined with how obviously corrupt it is will catch up and the voters will shut it down but in the meantime it looks like several billion dollars is going to get handed to a bunch of rich people. And a bunch of public schools are going to get closed down for lack of funding.
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What's what most of the active home schooling lobbyists want. This push by lobbyists was NEVER about better education, instead it's about subsidizing expensive private schools and dismantling accessible public schools. You think the politicians and lobbyists care about the kids? If the poor kids lose out then that's their fault for being poor.
There's a Nice bit of racism mixed in there too (Score:2)
It's not as pervasive as it used to be but it's still there especially if you go further enough down south. I think what happens with
Re: This sounds like a scam (Score:1)
Re: This sounds like a scam (Score:1)
Child Abuse (Score:2)
If it works... (Score:2)
The main concern I have is for the children who'll be let down by this highly risky & premature experiment, with curricula, methodologies, & classroom management based on what evide
Re: (Score:2)
[...] based on what evidence?
Evidence based decision making is passé.
Re:If it works... (Score:4, Insightful)
Decisions are never based on evidence. Evidence and reason can inform a decision, but it isn't the basis for it. Decisions are based on the values that give weight to any evidence available. They are fundamentally irrational acts of faith. Which is why presented with the same evidence people will make different decisions. Its also the danger of the whole AI idea which assumes a logical machine can replace human judgment. Or should.
AI isn't going to train people to make judgements based on their own values. Instead AI will fill them up with the "right" answers to its limited ability and they will never learn to make a decision of their own, entirely dependent on AI instead. A true dystopia.
Re: (Score:2)
If it works... (Score:2) ...it works
Right, but we can already suspect it won't work, even removing AI from the equation. The curriculum they propose has 2 hours of academic studies. The rest include things some would call bullshit (such as "goal setting"). Not that it's bad to teach entrepreneurship, but I can't find the value of teaching entrepreneurship to kids without fundamentals. In two hours a day you won't teach them abstract reasoning (mathematics), history of your country, some idea of the world, and a modicum of arts. You end up wit
Regulatory capture, US style (Score:2)
The government is paying a lot of money for this education, and the private school can choose the best students, so attendees should be getting an above-average education: An education that will make them leaders. The problem is, the lack of a vetted syllabus and examination process means there is no path to the stated objective, and in-truth, this is government helping corporations capture another economic sector.
ffs (Score:1)
And for lunch (Score:2)
AI = manipulative woke teacher (Score:1)
Criminal parental neglect (Score:2)
When you met someone in America, you used to be able to assume that they shared a similar background as you, of having talked and interacted and, honestly, learned how to deal with actual living people. You knew this person, as an adult, had been exposed to the concept of differing ideas enough times that they, as an adult, can interact with other people without throwing a tantrum. Those days are vanishing. How do you know now that this person doesn't live 99% of their life online? Believing very niche thin