David Brooks Opens the Door to Human Intelligence Questions as Elizabeth Janice Updates Us on Where Artificial Intelligence is Going
Meanwhile, this week’s Shortstack is listing with news, events, and opinions from a suit against the NCAA to a new Latino chancellor at UCLA.
PURPOSE
More Brooks Brilliance and a Plethora of Top Ten story ideas
Last week David Brooks took on the apparent (if unrecognized) predicament of elite schools as training grounds for progressive ideologies (see here). This week Brooks tackles the “gifted students” challenge (in the K-12 arena, which, according to the National Association of Gifted Children (NAGC), constitutes six percent of public school students, some three million children). “What happens to the extremely intelligent?” asks Brooks. “Do they go from success to success, powered by their natural brilliance? Or do they struggle in a world where they don’t fit in?” Brooks approaches the question with his usual brilliance and critical thought, offering fascinating insights into this marginal but fascinating and important part of education—as much a barometer of system health as any other. And for that reason it needs to be read for what it reveals about higher ed at the low and middle levels of the brilliance scale—not to mention the current tsunami growing over artificial intelligence, which Elizabeth Janice updates below.
Yes, “intelligence matters,” says Brooks, but “other things also matter a lot.” That well-documented fact, however, leads Brooks into the briar patch that has bedeviled much of late 20th century American education: the “industrial model school system that sometimes treats children as interchangeable widgets.” He doesn’t question that model, but instead cites Vanderbilt researchers who, Brooks says, believe that “we should do more to personalize education so it’s tailored to the abilities of each child.” Unfortunately, however, he doesn’t mention that, beginning with the Reagan Administration’s 1983 Nation at Risk task force report and continues up to and including David Steiner’s recent A Nation at Thought, the research about such personalized education suggests that it is not only not possible as a practical matter (who exactly is going to do the tailoring at ground level?), but is wrong as a pedagogical proposition (how do you design a curriculum that depends on individual needs?). Much more relevant and true, as study after study reveals, is E.D. Hirsch’s argument in his 1987 surprise bestseller Cultural Literacy, with its controversial subtitle, “what every American needs to know.” That offers a level playing field, for kids with IQs of 80 and 120, black and white, for sanity, with goal posts that don’t shift.
Finally, our favorite new challenge: What are the most important higher education stories of 2023-24? Will AI be on the list? DEI? Will the Congressional grilling of four Ivy League presidents last fall be there? Standardized tests? Send in your suggestions via the Comment button below.
Source
What Happens to Gifted Children? (New York Times)
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PURPOSE / GOVERNANCE
AI & Higher Ed: Learning to Play by New Rules
There will be “more victims than winners” as artificial intelligence makes inroads into education, according to Paul LeBlanc, the departing president of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), who transformed SNHU from a small regional institution into one that teaches 225,000 people around the world online. To survive, institutions must be “brave” and learn to “play by different rules,” LeBlanc said at a University of London event. Tech giants see education as the next big market. OpenAI just unveiled ChatGPT Edu, a new version of ChatGPT designed specifically for the academic world. As AI tools continue to be introduced at a fast and furious pace, some experts are advising educators to take a pause and “slow walk” the use of AI in classrooms. D’Youville University in upstate New York, which has already fully embraced AI, capped off the academic year by having a human-like robot named Sophia as the spring commencement speaker. More than 2,500 students signed a petition to have Sophia replaced by a real human, but the university went ahead with the AI version. Not everyone was impressed. Faculty members (who have been without a contract for nearly three years) said the money could have been better spent on other things.
---Elizabeth Janice
Sources
‘More victims than winners’ in AI’s upheaval of universities (Times Higher Education)
Latest AI Announcements Mean Another Big Adjustment for Educators (EdSurge)
This University Had an AI Robot as Commencement Speaker. Yes, It Was Weird. (Chronicle of Higher Education)
Further Reading
AI: a rising force in higher education (The Daily)
Report: Experts predict major AI impact on education (Inside Higher Ed)
‘Definitely different’:AI robot speaks at D’Youville University commencement ceremony (WIVB)
What OpenAI did (One Useful Thing)
Colleges Bootstrap Their Way to AI Literacy (Chronicle of Higher Education)
Charting a Bipartisan Course: The Senate’s Roadmap for AI Policy (AEI)
OpenAI builds ChatGPT system for colleges and universities (EDSCOOP)
https://edscoop.com/openai-chatgpt-edu-colleges-universities-artificial-intelligence/
AI and the Death of Student Writing (Chronicle of Higher Education)
AI tools come with risks. This Wharton professor is teaching ‘accountable AI.’ (Philadelphia Inquirer)
How A.I. Is Revolutionizing Drug Development (New York Times)
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PURPOSE / GOVERNANCE / PUBLIC TRUST / EMERGING ORDERS
Shortstack… with butter, maple syrup, and a bit of bitters
1983 NC State title team members sue NCAA over NIL compensation: Ten players… have sued… seeking compensation for unauthorized use of their name, image and likeness. (ESPN)
Surgeon General Calls for Warning Labels on Social Media Platforms: Dr. Vivek Murthy said he would urge Congress to require a warning that social media use can harm teenagers’ mental health. (New York Times)
U of Michigan, CUNY mishandled shared ancestry complaints, Education Department finds: The two institutions each misstepped as campus tensions — and reports of harassment — rose in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. (Higher Ed Dive)
Biden Administration’s New Title IX Rules Are Blocked in Six More States: Conservative groups and Republican attorneys general have argued that the protections for transgender students come at the expense of others’ privacy and conflicts with a number of state laws. (New York Times)
DePaul University dismisses biology professor after assignment tied to Israel-Hamas war: Anne d’Aquino told students in May that they could write about the impact of “genocide in Gaza on human health and biology.” The theme of the spring class at the Chicago school was how microorganisms cause disease. (AP)
“Grow PA” Offers a Higher-Ed Reform Model for the Nation: Pending Pennsylvania legislation would address college affordability, labor shortages, and university accountability in one package. (The Martin Center)
Can Harvard Win Back America's Respect? Harvard has had a very bad year. It began last summer with the Supreme Court’s verdict in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, then continued when Hamas attacked Israel, and Harvard, along with many elite universities, issued public statements that revealed, to put it delicately, an absence of moral clarity. Then came the disaster of Claudine Gay’s testimony in Congress, followed by the humiliating exposé of her history of plagiarism, followed by her grudging resignation. (Law & Liberty)
We Should Worry about What Columbia Is Teaching Teachers, Too: A review of courses offered exposes an obsession with the same radical politics as those of the campus protesters. (National Review)
Should financial aid be based on family wealth, rather than income alone?: Family wealth affects education savings and how likely students are to go to college (The Hechinger Report)
‘The Indispensable Right’ Review: Why We Need Free Speech American democracy cannot function without the protections of the First Amendment. Our faith in free expression is a faith in our fellow citizens. (Wall Street Journal)
Harvard Goes Only Halfway Toward Institutional Neutrality It won’t make public statements, but reserves the right to do so with its investment decisions.
UCLA names first Latino chancellor as antiwar protests, arrests continue: University of Miami’s president, Julio Frenk, will be the first Latino to lead UCLA in the school’s 105-year history. (Washington Post)
‘Very unpredictable’: Colleges fear FAFSA fiasco will hurt enrollment (Washington Post)