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Artificial Intelligence In School: Virtually Chatting With George Washington And Your Personal Gpt-4 Tutor

ChatGPT both awed and alarmed the computer savvy and the computer-phobic public when the encyclopedic chatbot debuted in November. Teachers worried about cheating, and parents feared the unknown. The artificial intelligence software, which analyzes mammoth amounts of information from the internet, spits out impressive essays and logical answers to seemingly any question — even, on occasion, with undue confidence, as it miscalculated a math problem or made up an answer.

Published

2 years ago

March 28, 2023

Oakland Post

Khan Academy offers free personalized learning where students can work at their own pace, a comprehensive set of pre-K through early college courses and programs on life skills. Its videos and prompts guide students through content that's available in 50 languages. Tens of millions of students have used Khan Academy.

By John Fensterwald
EdSource

ChatGPT both awed and alarmed the computer savvy and the computer-phobic public when the encyclopedic chatbot debuted in November. Teachers worried about cheating, and parents feared the unknown.

The artificial intelligence software, which analyzes mammoth amounts of information from the internet, spits out impressive essays and logical answers to seemingly any question — even, on occasion, with undue confidence, as it miscalculated a math problem or made up an answer.

Sal Khan, founder and chief executive of the Mountain View-based nonprofit global classroom Khan Academy, envisions artificial intelligence as a powerful tool for learning and teaching. On the same day last week that the research lab OpenAI released GPT-4, which is an even more advanced version of ChatGPT, Khan introduced Khanmigo. It’s an application of GPT-4 that will be integrated into Khan Academy’s lessons and videos.

The timing wasn’t coincidental. Khan had been working for six months with OpenAI on the application, getting a sense of GPT-4’s possibilities, he said.

“We view it as our responsibility to start deeply working with artificial intelligence, but threading the needle so that we can maximize the benefits and mitigate the risks,” he said. “We think artificial intelligence needs to be a tool for real learning and not for cheating.”

Khan Academy offers free personalized learning where students can work at their own pace, a comprehensive set of pre-K through early college courses and programs on life skills. Its videos and prompts guide students through content that’s available in 50 languages. Tens of millions of students have used Khan Academy.

Khan said Khanmigo will act like a “virtual Socrates,” asking questions and coaxing answers, not giving them, suggesting how to create students’ essays, not writing them — just as a good tutor would, he said.

Studies point to “high-dosage tutoring” — face-to-face, in school, several times each week with the same tutor — as the most effective form of tutoring. But those tutors are hard to find and often expensive. Instead, many districts are relying on tutoring in after-school programs and through companies that offer tutoring by text or phone, more like homework help.

Khanmigo will work in real time in the classroom with students who are struggling, Khan said. Teachers who integrate Khan Academy will have a record of Khanmigo’s “conversations” with individual students and monitor their progress, Khan said. Parents will have full access to what students are working on at home, too.

Khanmigo will engage and captivate students in ways that haven’t been possible until developments in artificial intelligence in the last few years, Khan said. What’s available already hints at the potential, he said. Students can have conversations with presidents they’re studying in history class. Khanmigo will take the other side in debate exercises.

Over time, there will be a lot to offer teachers, from correcting papers to creating handouts and prompts for discussions. Khan Academy has been consulting with experienced teachers and content experts on an activity to develop lesson plans, “and it’s quite good,” Khan said.

The assistance will save teachers time so that they can spend more of the day focusing on their students.

To be clear, he said in announcing Khanmigo, this will be a “learning journey,” and “there is a long way to go. AI makes mistakes. Even the newest generation of AI can still make errors in math.”

That is why Khanmigo is rolling out slowly, as Khan and his team troubleshoot and build safeguards into the system, defining areas that are inappropriate and off-limits.

The first users have been a select group of students, teachers and funders. Soon Khanmigo will be open to the 500 school districts nationwide that have partnered with Khan Academy. In California, they include Atwater Elementary School District, Long Beach Unified and Compton Unified.

Khan is inviting individuals to join a waiting list and will let in several thousand in the coming weeks. Khan is charging them $20 per month to cover development expenses and OpenAI’s fees. The cost should come down substantially in coming months, and there’ll be no charge for low-income schools, he said.

Compton Superintendent Darin Brawley said Friday that high school grades hadn’t used Khan Academy since the start of the pandemic but the district is interested in learning more about its use of artificial intelligence in the classroom.

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Gov. Newsom Approves $170 Million to Fast Track Wildfire Resilience

AB 100 approves major investments in regional conservancies across the state, including over $30 million each for the Sierra Nevada, Santa Monica Mountains, State Coastal, and San Gabriel/Lower LA Rivers and Mountains conservancies. An additional $10 million will support wildfire response and resilience efforts.

Published

2 days ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Courtesy of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Facebook page.

By Bo Tefu
California Black Media

With wildfire season approaching, last week Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 100, unlocking $170 million to fast-track wildfire prevention and forest management projects — many of which directly protect communities of color, who are often hardest hit by climate-driven disasters.

“With this latest round of funding, we’re continuing to increase the speed and size of forest and vegetation management essential to protecting communities,” said Newsom when he announced the funding on April 14.

“We are leaving no stone unturned — including cutting red tape — in our mission to ensure our neighborhoods are protected from destructive wildfires,” he said.

Newsom also signed an executive order suspending certain regulations to allow urgent work to move forward faster.

This funding builds on California’s broader Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, a $2.7 billion effort to reduce fuel loads, increase prescribed burning, and harden communities. The state has also launched new dashboards to keep the public informed and hold agencies accountable.

California has also committed to continue investing $200 million annually through 2028 to expand this effort, ensuring long-term resilience, particularly in vulnerable communities.

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California Rideshare Drivers and Supporters Step Up Push to Unionize

Today in California, over 600,000 rideshare drivers want the ability to form or join unions for the sole purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection. It’s a right, and recently at the State Capitol, a large number of people, including some rideshare drivers and others working in the gig economy, reaffirmed that they want to exercise it.

Published

2 days ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

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By Antonio‌ ‌Ray‌ ‌Harvey‌
California‌ ‌Black‌ ‌Media‌

On July 5, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into federal law the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Also known as the “Wagner Act,” the law paved the way for employees to have “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations,” and “to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, according to the legislation’s language.

On April 8, the rideshare drivers held a rally with lawmakers to garner support for Assembly Bill (AB) 1340, the “Transportation Network Company Drivers (TNC) Labor Relations Act.”

Authored by Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) and Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), AB 1340 would allow drivers to create a union and negotiate contracts with industry leaders like Uber and Lyft.

“All work has dignity, and every worker deserves a voice — especially in these uncertain times,” Wicks said at the rally. “AB 1340 empowers drivers with the choice to join a union and negotiate for better wages, benefits, and protections. When workers stand together, they are one of the most powerful forces for justice in California.”

Wicks and Berman were joined by three members of the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC): Assemblymembers Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood), Sade Elhawary (D-Los Angeles), and Isaac Bryan (D-Ladera Heights).

Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor; April Verrett, President of Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Tia Orr, Executive Director of SEIU; and a host of others participated in the demonstration on the grounds of the state capitol.

“This is not a gig. This is your life. This is your job,” Bryan said at the rally. “When we organize and fight for our collective needs, it pulls from the people who have so much that they don’t know what to do with it and puts it in the hands of people who are struggling every single day.”

Existing law, the “Protect App-Based Drivers and Services Act,” created by Proposition (Prop) 22, a ballot initiative, categorizes app-based drivers for companies such as Uber and Lyft as independent contractors.

Prop 22 was approved by voters in the November 2020 statewide general election. Since then, Prop 22 has been in court facing challenges from groups trying to overturn it.

However, last July, Prop 22 was upheld by the California Supreme Court last July.

In a 2024, statement after the ruling, Lyft stated that 80% of the rideshare drivers they surveyed acknowledged that Prop 22 “was good for them” and “median hourly earnings of drivers on the Lyft platform in California were 22% higher in 2023 than in 2019.”

Wicks and Berman crafted AB 1340 to circumvent Prop 22.

“With AB 1340, we are putting power in the hands of hundreds of thousands of workers to raise the bar in their industry and create a model for an equitable and innovative partnership in the tech sector,” Berman said.

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California Holds the Line on DEI as Trump Administration Threatens School Funding

The conflict began on Feb. 14, when Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), issued a “Dear Colleague” letter warning that DEI-related programs in public schools could violate federal civil rights law. The letter, which cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended race-conscious admissions, ordered schools to eliminate race-based considerations in areas such as admissions, scholarships, hiring, discipline, and student programming.

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2 days ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

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By Joe W. Bowers Jr
California Black Media

California education leaders are pushing back against the Trump administration’s directive to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in its K-12 public schools — despite threats to take away billions in federal funding.

The conflict began on Feb. 14, when Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), issued a “Dear Colleague” letter warning that DEI-related programs in public schools could violate federal civil rights law. The letter, which cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended race-conscious admissions, ordered schools to eliminate race-based considerations in areas such as admissions, scholarships, hiring, discipline, and student programming.

According to Trainor, “DEI programs discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another.”

On April 3, the DOE escalated the pressure, sending a follow-up letter to states demanding that every local educational agency (LEA) certify — within 10 business days — that they were not using federal funds to support “illegal DEI.” The certification requirement, tied to continued federal aid, raised the stakes for California, which receives more than $16 billion annually in federal education funding.

So far, California has refused to comply with the DOE order.

“There is nothing in state or federal law that outlaws the broad concepts of ‘diversity,’ ‘equity,’ or ‘inclusion,’” wrote David Schapira, California’s Chief Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction, in an April 4 letter to superintendents and charter school administrators. Schapira noted that all of California’s more than 1,000 traditional public school districts submit Title VI compliance assurances annually and are subject to regular oversight by the state and the federal government.

In a formal response to the DOE on April 11, the California Department of Education, the State Board of Education, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond collectively rejected the certification demand, calling it vague, legally unsupported, and procedurally improper.

“California and its nearly 2,000 LEAs (including traditional public schools and charter schools) have already provided the requisite guarantee that its programs and services are, and will be, in compliance with Title VI and its implementing regulation,” the letter says.

Thurmond added in a statement, “Today, California affirmed existing and continued compliance with federal laws while we stay the course to move the needle for all students. As our responses to the United States Department of Education state and as the plain text of state and federal laws affirm, there is nothing unlawful about broad core values such as diversity, equity and inclusion. I am proud of our students, educators and school communities who continue to focus on teaching and learning, despite federal actions intended to distract and disrupt.”

California officials say that the federal government cannot change existing civil rights enforcement standards without going through formal rule-making procedures, which require public notice and comment.

Other states are taking a similar approach. In a letter to the DOE, Daniel Morton-Bentley, deputy commissioner and counsel for the New York State Education Department, wrote, “We understand that the current administration seeks to censor anything it deems ‘diversity, equity & inclusion.’ But there are no federal or State laws prohibiting the principles of DEI.”