I knew I really wanted to talk with the New York Times’ Jessica Grose when I read her recent story, America’s First A.I. High School Is Great. But Not Because of A.I., but I didn’t know that Grose, who writes for the Opinion section, would share so many other interesting thoughts and observations about other topics. As you’ll see, she doesn’t blame schools for marketing themselves to AI-interested parents. But she’s thoroughly skeptical about the use of AI in elementary and middle school especially. And she thinks current backlash has been so strong and fast-moving because of the overuse of edtech during and since the pandemic — and the current rush to bring AI into schools. “I think most parents feel like it has happened completely without their consent or understanding.” She also shares some of her favorite journalists, including some who aren’t traditional, her favorite places to get education ideas, including Reddit, and what she likes and loathes about being a journalist in the current era. Watch the interview or read the transcript above (or on YouTube). Listen to the conversation on Spotify or Apple. Check out Friday’s Secret Bonus Section for free: Techlash Week 26 Selected quotes “I think public schools are understandably feeling under a lot of pressure, a lot of criticism from families, a lot of competition from charter schools, from private schools, from homeschools. and so they need to differentiate themselves in some way.” “Every time I write about this topic, I get a broader, more politically diverse, economically diverse, religiously diverse group of people who are upset about screens in schools… I mean, you see the backlash towards AI data centers, that is certainly not among the elite.” “What I saw there were really great schools that I would be happy to send my children to [But] there did not seem to be as much AI as I was led to believe by their glossy marketing brochures.” “My feeling about AI and its use in K through 12 is that I think it has basically no place in elementary school. I don’t think it should be anywhere in elementary school. Maybe you can talk about its existence in elementary school and how to possibly think critically about images that you may see that are not real and deepfakes and all of that. You can start learning that maybe later in elementary school, the technology itself should not be in elementary school.” “I think in middle school, maybe [AI could be] limited to a tech class. but maybe only in later middle school. I don’t really think that there’s any reason for middle school kids to use it. I think in high school it should be used with serious guardrails. There should be a really well-defined use case for why you’re using it, why it is the best method of getting the information or research or outcome that you want, and that there should be really clear guidelines at the school district level about appropriate use.” “It should be really clear to teachers, students, parents, what is appropriate use. Are kids still gonna cheat using AI? Absolutely. The horse is out of the barn on that. But I think it’s just if you wanted a shorthand: very intentional usage, basically only in high school. “I don’t really worry so much about the tech companies more than I worry about the schools and the and the perverse and pretty much terrible incentives created by the tech companies. I really don’t blame public schools for doing what they kind of perceive that they need to do to stay relevant.” “In terms of the tech backlash that parents are feeling, all we you know, my kids were three and seven in 2020. And having every child have to learn virtually was a disaster. I just don’t think that anyone can look at what happened in 2020 and 2021 and be like, ‘That was great. Let’s have more of that.’ And so I think that really set the stage for a much deeper skepticism towards the ubiquity of screens in schools.” “Anyone who’s paying attention, not just to their own kids, but to the trends and test scores and attention spans — all of that — has every right to be worried, not just about, you know, ‘Is my kid gonna have a decent future with AI maybe taking a quarter of all, you know, entry-level jobs?’ but what’s it doing to their brains and their relationships?” “I think just living through the events of the past decade as a parent, I think you’d really have to be pretty out to lunch to not be concerned about the presence of screens in your children’s live lives. And you know, I think there’s a range of attitudes about what to do about that and how to react to that. And then there’s social media. There’s just so many sort of different aspects of this. AI is just the newest one to contend with.” “I think the AI backlash is more profound than previous backlashes because it has happened so fast. And I think most parents feel like it has happened completely without their consent or understanding. So you recently saw there was an AI high school planned for New York City and it got delayed or possibly canceled because of parent protests. And I think you’re just gonna see more of that happening because people are just skeptical. They’re they’re understandably skeptical because we were all told, you know, ‘Everybody needs a laptop. They’re gonna fall behind if they don’t all get a laptop.’ And I don’t think that you can say that that was an effort that was really successful. And so now we’re we’re sort of getting the same message again. And I think people are appropriately looking a little sideways at that.” “People understand the Pandora’s box of the internet. And yes, they want their kids to be prepared for the future. I think everybody wants that. Everyone wants their kids to be able to get jobs after they graduate from school…I don’t think that that is the province of only working-class people or upper-class people. I think that this is a pretty wide concern.” “I don’t have to go to the makers of AI and the people who make ed tech products with AI and give them a fair shake and say, ‘Tell me, what your aims are.’ I don’t have to have that sort of both sides have been given an equal say. I certainly consider the other side and I air those arguments in order to dismantle them because I think if you’re not considering the other side’s arguments, your argument is going to be weak.” “I don’t think that the newsroom would ever let me report on AI because I have a pretty clear skepticism towards the technology in general, especially when it comes to education. So I don’t think that I am coming to the topic with no bias. There is a bias… But that doesn’t mean that I [don’t] go into this as an honest broker.” “I read actually a lot of Reddit because that’s where teachers are… That’s kind of where issues are bubbling like might bubble up that I wouldn’t see otherwise if I’m not on the ground in schools all the time… I think hearing teachers talk in their own sort of communities is is always important. And so I think anywhere on social media where teachers are congregating, I’m always lurking there.” “[Non-traditional journalists] have no incentive to join traditional journalism the way that they did 15 years ago because there’s hiring, right? There’s more of ability to monetize your own Substack, your own TikTok, your own whatever… We have more to learn from them in terms of presentation, then they necessarily… I mean, I’m sure many of them would want a a steady, well-paid job, but how many of those are left in journalism? “I can’t tell you how many school boards I’ve sort of looked into and then been like, ‘Well, you know, this has to have national significance for me to write about it.’ I never want to sort of like put a small district on blast, unless me it’s telling a bigger story… I get so sort of tired of just like ‘And here’s another culture war story.’ Like,who cares at this point? Like not who cares, they really mean a lot, but like in terms of you know, my writing and where I think I can actually be helpful just writing yet another story about the culture war, about X is tearing this community apart. Like I just don’t think that that’s helpful anymore.” “I would love it if there were a bajillion jobs in education journalism. I think it is one of the most under-covered topics, considering how many students are in this country and how different every state is, and how different the experiences of rural Americans, of urban American. I mean, I actually think it’s a tragedy that there is not more traditional education journalists and journalism being funded.” '“Doing short-form video truly make me wanna die. I keep trying to learn how and I just feel so stiff and weird and I don’t like doing it. But I think that to reach more people it is really important to do. So I’m personally torn about that. I think my time on this mortal coil is limited and I unfortunately wish that I wanted to spend it making short-form video, but at least right now I don’t. So I think that you should do that. But like I don’t like to give advice that I myself am not taking.” “I don’t think that mainstream journalists should necessarily adopt this, but I do appreciate the willingness to sort of do a story piece by piece. It’s much harder to do when you’re someplace with so many eyeballs on you all the time and so many clear standards of what we can do and what we can’t do. But just being able to sort of follow a story piecemeal as it develops rather than having to wait until you’ve done all your reporting, you’ve gotten all your ducks in a row, and then you’re, you know, you’re making the finished product — I think the ability to sort of do it sort in shorter, quicker pieces and follow a story as it’s developing in real time is is really great.”
