Soon after the introduction of ChatGPT in November 2022, students figured out how to use the chatbot as an answer machine, getting it to do their school work for them. Not surprisingly, that shortcut harmed student learning and led to lower test scores.
AI enthusiasts sought a solution. The chatbots could easily be instructed to act more like a human tutor, withholding answers, providing hints and guiding students with questions. Khan Academy created one of these “Socratic-method” chatbots, christened it “Khanmigo,” and released it in 2023.
But a new study that came out last month suggests that creating an AI tutor is only one hurdle among many in helping children improve their math skills. Students have to actually want to use it.
Researchers from the University of Toronto followed students in 18 Tennessee middle schools for two years, from 2024 to 2026. Almost all the students tried Khanmigo at first. And many tried to get the AI assistant to spit out the answer. But when Khanmigo refused and instead asked questions or offered hints, students largely stopped using it.
“We observe how students actually used the AI tutor, and the answer is: not much,” Philip Oreopoulos and Nina Low, the researchers, wrote in their draft paper, circulated by the National Bureau of Economic Research in August. “Seeking help with one’s own confusion remained a choice, and most students declined it most of the time.”
The researchers were testing whether Khanmigo could improve the performance of low-achieving students who were at least one grade level behind their peers. These students had an extra remedial math period built into their school day. Some were randomly assigned to use Khan Academy, with Khanmigo available as an AI assistant. The others received their usual remedial math work, which often included online tools such as Waggle, IXL, Zearn and DeltaMath.
The students who received the Khan Academy intervention did better in math than those in the regular remediation classes. But the gains were modest, and no greater than what previous studies had found from Khan Academy practice sessions without an AI assistant.
In other words, Khan Academy appeared to help. But the Khanmigo tutor didn’t add anything.
Sal Khan, the founder and CEO of Khan Academy, praised the study and wrote a detailed blog post about it, explaining the randomized controlled trial (RCT) just the way he explains a math problem in his videos. In an interview, Khan said the findings confirmed what Khan Academy was seeing internally: Students weren’t engaging much with Khanmigo.
Khan said he doesn’t regret releasing the AI tutor before knowing whether it would be effective. He is confident the early release did “no harm” to students, saying his organization went to great lengths to protect student data, make chatbot conversations safe, prevent cheating and minimize the risk of the bot hallucinating and giving students incorrect instruction. “It’s allowed us to learn and hopefully make the new version even more helpful,” he said.
The version of Khanmigo tested in Tennessee was released in 2023. Since then, Khan said, the company has changed how the AI assistant works. Khanmigo is now integrated directly into Khan Academy rather than sitting in a separate tab that students have to click on. If students ask for help before trying a problem, Khanmigo is deliberately taciturn, offering little more than a hint and a pep talk. But after a student gets a problem wrong, the AI assistant automatically pops up to offer help and work through the problem together with the student. Schools can also choose to turn the AI assistant off completely.
Khan Academy is experimenting with more ways to encourage students to use the AI tutor. Khan said he plans to give students “credit” for using Khanmigo after a mistake, allowing a bot-assisted redo to count toward one of the five correct answers in a row that students need before moving on to the next skill.
It will be interesting to see whether these changes get students to use Khanmigo more. But use and engagement are only one piece of the puzzle. We still need evidence that when students regularly use an AI tutor, they actually learn more. I’ll be watching.
Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or barshay@hechingerreport.org.
Each spring, Patrick Kelly hears the same complaint from teachers in his state of South Carolina: Too many students, particularly in high school, stop doing any schoolwork.
Students know they can pass their classes anyway because of school policies known as “grade floors.” Schools adopted grade floors — which require teachers to give students minimum grades, commonly a 40 or 50, instead of zeroes — to keep GPAs from being dragged down by a few missed assignments. But in practice, they’ve allowed students to scrape by all year and still end up with a passing grade, said Kelly, director of governmental affairs with the Palmetto State Teachers Association and a high school government and politics teacher.
“At any high school graduation, I promise you, there will be a child who walks across the stage where every teacher in the room is going to go, ‘Wait, how did they graduate? They didn’t do anything,’” said Kelly.
In May, the South Carolina legislature passed a law banning minimum grades in K-12 schools in an attempt to crack down on grade inflation. The law comes at a time when many people are wondering what an A actually represents. The infiltration of artificial intelligence into school work and lenient grading policies that are a holdover from the pandemic have added to the concern, experts say. South Carolina is now attempting to tackle the problem through legislation, following a similar law passed by Texas in 2009.
Studies show that although classroom grades and GPAs have been rising for decades, scores on standardized tests have stagnated or fallen. The average high school GPA in 2021 was 3.36, up from 3.17 in 2010, according to a study by ACT, the company behind the eponymous college admissions test. While GPAs were rising, test scores on the ACT actually fell.
Grade floors are just one piece of the grade inflation trend that is “diminishing the value of a high school diploma,” Kelly said.
It’s a problem that colleges are increasingly wrestling with, too.
Two days after South Carolina’s grade floor law was signed, faculty at Harvard University passed a policy capping the number of students who can receive A’s to 20 percent of an instructor’s class plus four students. The move was a response to perceived grade inflation in the aftermath of the pandemic: A report from the college showed A’s made up two-thirds of the grades given to undergraduates at Harvard in the spring of 2025.
Some education experts blame grade inflation in K-12 classrooms for contributing to the problem at the college level.
“It’s hard to hold the line at the higher ed level if you have kids coming into higher ed who are less prepared than they used to be,” said David Griffith, national research director at the Fordham Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank.
This spring, testimony from educators and advocates on grade floor policies alarmed South Carolina legislators. The state is “hurting these kids” by having grade floors in schools, Rep. James Teeple, R-Charleston, said during a committee meeting.
In 2025, South Carolina’s on-time high school graduation rate was nearly 87 percent, a 10-year high point for the state. At the same time, only 33 percent of seniors were considered college ready by graduation — a metric on the state’s report card based on college admissions test scores and advanced classes. More than 1 in 5 students in the state were chronically absent from school — nearly double the rate of chronic absenteeism in the state prior to the pandemic.
At least 22 districts across the state had official policies preventing students from getting zeros, according to an analysis by Palmetto Promise Institute, a conservative think tank. But other schools also had informal grade floor policies, many of which prevented students from receiving below a 40 or 50, Kelly said.
One high school teacher in the state, who was granted anonymity because they feared reprisal from their district, said half a dozen seniors passed their class despite not doing any school work this spring because of such a policy. “It’s our fault. It’s not the kids’ fault for figuring out how to beat the system,” the teacher said.
Giving younger students minimum grades could mislead parents into thinking their children aren’t struggling when they are — studies have shown that parents are more likely to trust their children’s report card grades than test scores. Grade floors are also likely to leave students less prepared for schoolwork as they age, said Dena Crews, president of the South Carolina Education Association, which represents teachers.
“If you’re giving them the minimum of a 60, by the time they’re getting to middle and high school, they’re taking those gaps and deficits with them when they could have gotten the extra help and extra support in the early childhood and elementary grades,” Crews said.
The new law, which went into effect this school year, threatens districts that don’t comply with the minimum grade ban with the loss of 10 percent of their state funding. It also requires that students turn in any missing assignments before they become eligible for credit and content recovery programs — courses that allow students to make up sections of a class or to pass a class they initially failed. Critics of these programs say they enable students to do no work during class and still pass.
A section of the law also instructs schools not to count most benchmark tests — standardized tests given throughout the year to track student progress — toward a student’s final grade, except under specific circumstances. Eric Duncan, director of P-12 policy for the national nonprofit EdTrust, applauded the legislation for separating benchmark tests from the grading process and encouraging schools to be more transparent with parents.
“It’s very thoughtful about how important it is for teachers and schools to guide the instruction,” Duncan said. “It’s all part of honesty about where students are and what they need to do to get to grade level.”
Teachers in the state have broadly supported the legislation, according to Kelly.
“South Carolina teachers would tell you that policies like grade floors, credit recovery and content recovery — in the way that they’ve been implemented — are leading to students getting diplomas that have no value beyond the paper they’re printed on,” he said.
Greenville County Schools, the largest district in South Carolina, first instituted its grade floor policy more than a decade ago. It prevented elementary and high school students from getting below a 50 on each of their quarterly report cards. For middle schoolers, the district later banned grades below 50 on all assignments, too.
Proponents of these policies say the 100-point scale unfairly gives students a bigger opportunity to fail than succeed, since just one zero can depress even a strong student’s average to a failing grade. Grade floors are also meant to prevent “in-school dropouts” — students who do so poorly at the start of the year that they are left mathematically unable to pass even if they aced the rest of the course.
Cinnamon Stetler, a parent of two children in middle and high school in Greenville County Schools, can understand why schools might introduce a grade floor policy for younger students.
“Students should still be allowed to make mistakes and figure things out and develop an understanding of how to do school and how to learn, without it being so much an emphasis on what number you have in a subject,” Stetler said.
But for high schoolers, GPAs matter — to college admissions, for example — and inflated grades have “ripple effects,” Stetler said. And there should be consistency in grading across schools within the same district and state, she said.
“If you go to a different school where the inherent value of that same mark reflects something different, that’s not a reliable measure,” Stetler said. “It’s problematic for the students; it’s problematic for the parents.”
Susan Stevens, assistant superintendent for school leadership in Greenville, said the district had already planned to eliminate its policy on middle school assignments this year before the state passed its grade floor ban. The district had not planned on getting rid of the grade floor on report cards, Stevens said, though the district will abide by the new law. But she is concerned about other changes in the bill, such as the rule about students completing coursework before they are eligible for content recovery classes. That could result in more students failing altogether and dropping out, she said.
“We will have to look at how we can support students who are at risk or students who have additional challenges to help them avoid failure,” Stevens said.
Grade floor policies started gaining traction in the 2010s alongside a movement known as “equitable grading.” The idea was to remove educator bias from grading and give students chances to recover from low scores. Equitable grading policies, such as grade floors, began to spread more rapidly when schools went remote during the pandemic, as students faced barriers in learning from home, said Griffith of Fordham.
“The pandemic supercharged it. Frankly, teachers didn’t have much choice. What were they going to do, flunk every kid in America?” said Griffith. “Some level of standards lowering was basically inevitable under the circumstances.”
But even after schools returned to in-person learning, many schools kept the lenient grading policies adopted during the pandemic. A national survey of teachers conducted by RAND and published last fall by the Fordham Institute estimates more than one-quarter of teachers work in a school with a “no zeros” grading policy. A separate study of Washington state’s school policies found that 70 of the state’s 295 school districts had “no zero” policies in 2024-25, up from 30 districts in 2015-16.
“Once you’ve lowered the bar, it’s hard to raise it again,” Griffith said, noting that the use of artificial intelligence by students has made it more difficult to determine the accuracy of class grades.
Minimum grades are just one piece of the larger grade inflation problem. Educators said they also feel pressure from both school leadership and parents to give students grades that are higher than what they earn. Tough graders can expect pushback from everyone, Griffith said, because parents, students and principals are incentivized by higher grades.
There are a lot of incentives for schools to perform well on their state report cards, too, said Derek Lewis, a former school board member of Greenville County Schools and father of a high school student in the district.
“If the number of students failing hurts your school, every school is going to look at how we address that issue, even if maybe the solutions don’t necessarily equate to better learning,” Lewis said. “We focus on what we measure.”
Banning minimum grade policies won’t completely solve the problem of grade inflation, but it gives educators more autonomy to honestly grade students’ work, Kelly said.
The high school teacher who did not want to be named criticizing their district said they didn’t know a single teacher unsupportive of the law.
“No child wants to fail, but if we keep saving them, why should they try?” the teacher said.
Contact staff writer Ariel Gilreath on Signal at arielgilreath.46 or at gilreath@hechingerreport.org.
There are many good reasons to scream. Rent, AI. Your disaster of a love life, getting laid off. Not one, but two of your violins getting stolen, or your parents constantly discussing your hypothetical future husband they invented in their minds and named Raymond, because it sounds like your brother’s wife’s name (Rachel). Or perhaps you just turned 30.
And screaming is more fun with friends! This observation, simple yet powerful, is what inspired me to once again roll up my sleeves and spend over 10 minutes thinking of other stupid things we could do within this theme, then creating flyers to broadcast it.
The Guttural Scream at the Sea. Photo credits to Sam Sliman.
subscribe if you have at least one, if not many, good reasons to scream
We obviously needed screaming warm-ups, so as to not strain our screaming muscles. And it’s important to stretch afterwards as well, so we needed screaming cool-downs. We should have a screaming contest to find the best screamer, and they should win a big special prize. And we should have practice screams to ramp up for the one really big one.
I of course anticipated all the questions people would have, and then I wrote different ones that I found funny instead.
The Guttural Scream at the Sea party invite
It’s been awhile since I hosted an event, over a year has passed since the first (and last) Sit Club (run club without the bad parts), the “Death Duel” (to fix the gender ratio in SF), and Strippers for Charity (self-explanatory).
After all, I’ve been really busy tricking 3 million people into believing in an evil fake polycule, commandeering 1.5% of San Franciscans to do my bidding, starting a youtube channel, running my startup Outernet, moving to a new neighborhood, dealing with a broken refrigerator and fighting Home Depot, an ant infestation, and needing to buy lots of new plants to fill my new home. My autoimmune condition has also been flaring, so I’ve had to cook all my meals from scratch on a specialized diet. But what are these inconveniences but the tension that holds together the woven thread of life? What are these but reasons to scream?1
I didn’t put that much effort into promoting this event, because I didn’t feel like it. I usually just put up some stupid flyers, people take pictures and send them to their friends or post them online, and they go viral.
obligatory flyer pics
I often joke I have this duel blessing/curse, the type mischievous, fae-like creatures dole out, where my schemes always go viral, but only from someone else posting them. This time, that person was Greg Dewar, a guy who uses Instagram the old-fashioned way, just casually posting things that spark delight. He snapped a photo and shared it, and that got 18k likes.2 Serendipitously, he shared it on his birthday, and called its virality “a weird birthday present thanks to a bunch of people I don’t know.” So cute! So true also.3
so cute he gave me credit, his substack article is linked here
I actually did finally get a shred of Twitter clout from this event, as I shared that when I was hanging up flyers, a man ironically started screaming at me to take them down and following me. And I was like, hey man, maybe you should direct your anger issues toward the sea, not at random strangers (I said this in my head not out loud, as I was too busy moving fast to escape him). I highkey turned lemons (being chased) into lemonade (Twitter clout) with that chasing. Sadly, I have already written about the three times I have been physically chased, and I will unfortunately now have to up that tally to four.
Now my first challenge was identifying a good spot for so many people to scream. I asked my outdoorsy friends for the longitude and latitude of good vantage points. We could do a beach, but a cliff overlooking the sea just felt more powerful. I ventured throughout the Presidio, hunting for a good spot, and discovered4 Vista del Mar. It was perfect: dramatic, castle-like ruins with a gorgeous ocean view.
I took pictures then asked people to vote where we should scream even though they were the same place, different angles. Photo credits to ME.
My second challenge was creating stickers for fun. I had so many ideas that I decided to engage in democracy and let the people decide.
My third challenge was there were so many reporters up my ass to cover this event, and honestly I was like - slow news day, huh? And I told them such. One day all other news will become obsolete in the face of the 𝓇𝒶𝓌 & 𝒻𝑒𝓇𝒶𝓁 media empire anyways, so. Enjoy riding on my coattails while it lasts, buddy.
My fourth challenge was I felt inspired to create a scream zine, but was just so busy and honestly lacked zine-making expertise, so it’d be a big lift to self-learn and then create one. I put out a Call for Artists to two of my incredibly talented friends, Connie and Aileen, and they were both down. I am so, so incredibly grateful to have such talented friends down to clown with my stupid shenanigans, and they absolutely killed it.
folding zines on a coffee break in Japantown
Aileen even went rogue and created another mini zine, The Screamer’s Pocket Companion.
My fifth challenge was how to get people to actually show up, and show up on time. Here’s the sitch:
There’s severe partifulation (partiful RSVP inflation), where people think an event is funny, so they RSVP yes, then flake or were not even in the state to begin with.
People often think my events are jokes, and not actually happening, so I have to prove that they’re serious! Or at least “seriously” happening.
Attendees often show up late. You don’t want to start on-time and have half the crowd miss out, but you also don’t want to incentivize people to arrive late by delaying the start.
So to contend with these variables, after scouting out a location:
I shared the schedule so people knew the event itself would be fun and interesting, and not just a one-note joke of screaming once then going home.
I sent a pic of the event location to affirm the event was, in fact, not a joke.
I also set a very narrow event duration of 1.5 hours (so if you arrive an hour late, you’ll miss the bulk of the event) and laid out a specific schedule (so people would know what they’d miss if they arrived late).
I also broadcasted that the first 100 people to arrive would receive a scream zine and stickers5. This last strategy was extremely effective, many people arrived early, even before me.
Finally, with my five great challenges conquered, it was time to Scream.6
Actually - one more challenge before we get into the event - I was concerned about park rangers showing up and shutting us down. But there was nothing I could do to prevent this, so I knocked on wood and prayed for the best.
To ensure no one pulled a scream muscle, we started with scream warm-ups. I had tasked my friend Greta with this, and had no idea what she prepared. And Greta did an incredible job, she actually really got on a power trip with it, which was beautiful to behold. I felt so proud.
Scream warm-ups included fixing your posture, releasing your shame, isolating different parts of the mouth and warming each separately, and performing animal noises. The last one she admitted was just because she wanted to see us do that, not particularly for warming-up.
Greta’s in a tree because she’s just like that. Video credits to Saniya Godil.
After our vocal chords were nice and warm, we held the screaming contest, to find the best screamer. Everyone formed a line, then we drew two lines in the sand, one for the contestants to toe, and one for us to stand behind, to ensure a constant distance for measuring decibel. The scoring was based on volume, duration, and style, and the calculation is proprietary information.
Sam measured sound in decibels, Connie recorded duration, and Sam, Aileen, and I awarded style points. Fun fact: Sam bought a referee outfit to help with the Death Duel to Fix The Ratio, and he’s now used it for four different events (including our friends setting a LEGO world record and a cutting-things-perfectly-in-half competition). Turns out a silly little outfit is often a really valuable investment.
Scream before the panel of judges and they will decide your fate…. Photo credits to Greg Dewar.
A scream contestant. Video credits to Greg Dewar.
People had real style to their screams, some high pitched, some low pitched, some from the gut, some from the chest, some a long groan, others a short yelp.
Another scream contestant. Video credits to Henna Chou.
Kyana (the runner-up) and a guy whose name I don’t remember! Video credits to Rhea Joseph.
A couple brought their cute lil baby up, who ostensibly screams all the time, but had performance anxiety when it was time to compete. Everyone encouraged the little babe to scream, he opened his mouth, we waited eagerly in anticipation, and a long string of drool came out and slowly dripped to the ground, and the crowd died laughing.
Simba….everything your drool touches is our kingdom. Photo credits to Christine August.
We had to learn the hard way that 39 contenders screaming straight into your face as loud as they can makes your ears hurt a bit.
At long last, I climbed up on a picnic bench and talked people through our practice screams. Starting at just 1% of our power, then ramping up to 10%, then 50%, and finally the one really big one at 100% of our power.
The climactic scream just went on and on, a choir of collective exhalation. Like overlapping waves, each individual’s scream ebbed and flowed, but melded in a cacophony of release, the people clearly needed this a lot.
Video credits to Saniya Godil
Video credits to Sam Sliman.
After our big one, it was time to announce the winner of the screaming contest, Olivia. She performed an encore for the crowd, to teach us what a really great scream sounds like.
Olivia, the #1 Screamer, performing a screaming encore. Video credits to Henna Chou.
Her trophy was a mini microphone labeled “#1 Screamer, a guttural scream at the sea 2026” so that everyone going forth could hear her beautiful scream even louder and more clearly.
I was kinda terrified the whole time that park rangers would show up and shut down the party, considering we did have over 100 people intermittently screaming in public, but luckily it was super chill.8
However, what did show up was a clown on stilts. I thought they might’ve been here for something else, but they leered that they did, in fact, come to scream. More-so I felt they came to help inspire screams in others.
Terrifying! Video credits to Henna Chou.
Once the scheduled screams concluded, screamers mingled, ostensibly using the zine’s icebreakers I had so painstakingly prepared, and ate freshly cut fruit. The crowd would intermittently just be pierced with guttural screaming, a call which others would then join in on.
All in all, it was a great scream. I honestly cannot remember the last time I had such a freeing scream, let alone a community-driven scream, surrounded by my closest friends and people I just met.
All this to say: a guttural scream at the sea healed me.
scream really hard and then type your email in here and press the little button
One of the screaming stickers at the scene of the crime. Photo credits to Taylor Tabb.
Appendix:
Here’s the video KQED put together, super cute! And here’s the article from SF Gate.
The Canadian Broadcasting Channel also reached out for some reason, and a bunch of random sites recycled content to patch together their own articles. But the funniest one has got to be the following, which took a picture of my friend Myko from the event and then just AI-generated shit around him. Like, okay.
It was also kinda funny that no one called this event by its formal name, a guttural scream at the sea. They called it a “scream event,” “screamfest,” “scream off,” etc. Like respect its formal title guys.
Greg ended up coming to the event and was so sweet. I love the serendipity of a random stranger finding one of my flyers on the street, sharing it, and unintentionally going viral (as was the case for Sit Club, the fake evil polycule, SF Personals, the Alextravaganza, etc). Especially if they haven’t really gone viral before. He was the right person to find it.
Discovered in the same sense that Columbus “discovered” America. I’ve always wanted to say that. More diverse people should just claim to have discovered things.
This was also helpful because I had no idea how many people of the 600 yes RSVPs would actually come, so we could just make 100 zines and say, if ya snooze ya lose! Early bird gets the zine.
For years, Microsoft and OpenAI have fought to keep certain information out of the public eye in their fight with news organizations that have accused the AI firms of teaming up to violate copyright laws by stealing tons of news content to train AI.
However, now the details that should never have been marked confidential are starting to leak. In a motion for summary judgment that was unsealed Thursday from news plaintiffs led by The New York Times, internal documents are exposed that news groups alleged show exactly how Microsoft and OpenAI viewed the threat to news before unleashing new AI products like ChatGPT and Copilot.
Perhaps most explosively, Microsoft Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht repeatedly warned in documents that scraping news for AI training was “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” calling it perhaps the “largest theft of labor in human history,” news orgs said. In another document, Hecht contradicted Microsoft and OpenAI’s argument that training AI on news content is fair use, suggesting that the plan to widely scrape news made “a complete mockery of the idea of ‘fair use.’”
Image Source: TechtoSchool. Chromebook described as “a durable, rough-and-tumble device…[with] access to Google Classrooms and G suite for Education. Great for other interactive learning apps for students and teachers…”
Screens for School
One of the biggest challenges facing parents (and schools) today is that the 1:1 devices (usually Chromebooks or iPads) given out by the district are entirely reliant on the internet to operate. A Chromebook is an internet browser, not a digital tool— if it cannot connect to the internet, it is virtually useless. Many parents have spent years limiting their child’s access to the internet before they enter traditional school— only to find out that their kindergartener now has the ability to access numerous websites and apps that parents never would have approved at home.
A parent recently reached out to me to share her own struggle with her district. She told me that in spite of selecting the district’s option that stated she as a parent “withholds consent for Internet use at school” on their own “Information Release” and “Student Acceptable Use Policy,” the district was refusing to comply. She found it odd that while the district had already denied her intention to opt out of the Chromebook entirely, they still provided an “internet opt out” option during their registration process. This was confusing— the Chromebook wouldn’t function without the internet, so why was there an option to refuse the internet, but not the Chromebook?
I actually experienced this myself in Seattle Public Schools. When I first prepared to refuse the 1:1 Chromebook for my daughter several years ago, I found a form on the district website titled “Internet Opt Out.” At first I thought, “Great! This makes it super easy!” and filled it out, though I did notice that the form had not been updated since 2011.1 However, it was still available on the district website. But as soon as I submitted the form, I was told by the district that “this option is no longer available” and the form disappeared from the website.
More recently, in a similar scenario, parents in Lower Merion County in Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit alleging that when parents attempted to decline student devices via a district policy that permitted device opt-outs, the District contrived to repeal and replace the policy to prevent parents from doing so.
It’s The Internet, Not Just the Devices
In many ways, the issue around EdTech is not just the platforms, apps, digital curricula, or mandated screentime (though those are indeed still problematic). More broadly, the bigger issue is the fact that all these products rely on the internet to function. This is in part why I provided public comment urging the FCC to reevaluate eRate funding for schools— not because I want to restrict schools from having internet access, but because the high-speed and premium levels that are required to run EdTech products and apps is costly and puts money in the pockets of EdTech executives, while exposing children to harms.2
I actually wrote about this in an essay a over a year ago:
The same is true for internet-connected 1:1 school-issued devices. If there is an academic benefit to providing children computers in school (and that is a debate for a different essay), then is that not possible to provide without internet access? A Chromebook isn’t a computer; it’s an internet browser. None of its features work without internet connectivity or a child having a Google account.
If (and again, a lot of heavy lifting on the “if”) there is a pedagogical benefit to providing a child a computer in or for school, why have schools only contracted with companies whose curricula or software functions only when these devices are internet-connected? Why can’t a curriculum be downloaded onto a device or tools [placed on an “allow-list”] (meaning any digital platforms or tools used go through a vigorous vetting process first vs. the digital whac-a-mole approach taken today to attempt to block sites) and built into the hardware?
(And for those who wonder about updating materials, the internet can be accessible to the adults whose job it is to update or improve the materials; the children themselves do not need access.) If you noticed in my Four Norms of EdTech, I differentiate between “internet-connected devices” and computers for these reasons explicitly (remember, EdTech is not the same thing as Tech Ed.)
Remove the ability for children to access the internet on school-issued devices and you return the computer as a tool that children do need to learn about in this highly digital world.
There are now many excellent resourcesavailable to parents about how to refuse 1:1 devices and EdTech products (including my Unplug EdTech Toolkit, which has seen thousands of downloads), which is an excellent sign that momentum is only building. The tide is turning.
The parent who reached out to me said I was welcome to share both the letter she sent to her school district (Midland Public Schools in Michigan) and their response (personal information has been redacted).
For parents interested in opting out of EdTech products and platforms or district-issued devices, it is helpful to see a great example of a parent declaring their intent to refuse (subtly different from asking permission to opt out). Similarly, it’s also helpful to see how districts reply, even in conflict with some of their own policies and values.
This parent wanted me to note that in drafting her letter, she drew heavily from sample letter language in my resources and those from Distraction-Free Schools. Other parents are welcome to do the same. I’ve highlighted key points in the letters.
Letter to Midland Public Schools from Parent
August 15, 2026
Hello teachers & admin team,
We’re excited and looking forward to a great 8th grade year! Thank you for all the work that’s already been happening in classrooms and behind the scenes! As a public school teacher myself, I know there’s a lot that happens in these last August weeks!
I’m writing to alert everyone to a change we’re making for ——’s 8th grade year - we’re opting-out of Chromebooks this year, and we’d like to have a conversation with involved parties about how that will look for the academic calendar and for specific classes. We’ve been discouraged by the overuse, distractive nature, and lack of evidence for EdTech products and digital curriculums over the last 4 years as part of MPS, and decided a change is necessary. While we applaud the district for identifying current problems with technology use within MPS, the new technology use guidelines (August 2026) do not provide enough meaningful changes at the middle or high school level, thus this notice.
Screens are too frequently being put before skills. We’ve heard the tired argument “kids need tech to be future ready”; however, we know that other critical skills are far more valuable and needed first, including executive function, critical thinking, in-person communication among others. Declining test scores domestically and globally over the past 20+ years have been directly linked to school technology use, and research is very clear in showing that children learn better when they write on paper and read from physical books/printed text.
Our concerns include, but not limited to:
1. Cognitive impact. 1:1 devices do not improve learning outcomes, rather they hinder learning. Distracting, and poorly structured screen time poses documented harms to children’s development, capacity to pay attention, and well-being.
2. Efficacy: EdTech products do not improve learning outcomes. We’ve yet to find any independent, peer-reviewed evidence that the EdTech products currently in use show improved learning outcomes relative to non-digital instruction, while at the same time there is ample evidence that reading and writing on paper improve retention and comprehension.
3. Distraction. A report in Science Direct found that when students use a device in class, 38 minutes of every 60 minutes are spent off task. Expecting children to stay “on task” when provided an internet-connected device with access to YouTube and video games is absurd from a brain development perspective.
4. Skill Displacement. In short, time spent on screens is time not spent doing other more worthwhile learning endeavors. Too much screen time is damaging to cognitive health, mental health and physical health.
5. Engagement mistaken for learning. Many EdTech games and apps are embedded with manipulative design techniques, “persuasive design,” which sole goal is to keep users engaged as long as possible which is fundamentally at odds with best healthy learning and development. Engagement becomes confused for learning within gamified apps, again with no evidence for learning outcomes, drowning students in dopamine and crippling attention spans.
6. Data privacy. MPS does not provide a list of specific EdTech apps that are being used by students, nor have we seen any clear documentation of what student data is collected by these platforms, how it’s stored, whether it’s shared and/or sold with third parties, or how long it’s retained. Under the 1974 federal law FERPA (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act) schools are required to provide this information to parents.
7. Lack of safeguards. Neither GoGuardian, nor any content filter, is failsafe. MPS does not currently use a whitelist model, and therefore any student internet-connected device is not safe for student use - which I can confirm as my child’s Chromebook was tested to this end and disastrous findings were shared with BoE in May 2026.
8. Student use of generative AI products. We have particular concerns about AI student use on school-issued devices which research increasingly shows significant risk to children’s cognitive development.
9. Digital curriculua. While digital curriculua may be a cheaper alternative to books, there is no data to support these curriculums outperform analog courses.
In lieu of a Chromebook, we ask that —— receive meaningful and reasonable analog alternatives for assignments, assessments, homework and classroom work throughout the 2026-2027 year. As a teacher myself, I want to be immensely sensitive to the potential burden our request may place on ——’s individual teachers and wish this were not ultimately their responsibility. I wish there were better alternatives already in place for the many students who struggle with online learning products.
We look forward to partnering with the academic teams in finding solutions to providing —— with necessary materials he’ll need to participate in his learning experiences without a device. We’re happy to purchase textbooks, workbooks, additional paper, and other analog materials teachers may require. I’d welcome the opportunity to volunteer in classrooms, and provide support in any way that would be most helpful.
Nothing in this email should be interpreted as declining our child’s responsibility to comply with all school rules, academic integrity standards, respectful conduct expectations, or other district policies.—— will continue to abide by all behavioral expectations while participating in school.
Other considerations:
School culture: We know that the district desires to promote school culture that is inclusive, kind, respectful, curious, helpful, grateful, responsible and safe. To that end, we’re instructing —— to respond with “I learn better without screens” to inevitable student inquiries about the absence of his device. It is our hope that teachers and staff can continue building classroom cultures where all learning needs can be honored without stigma, bullying, or unkindness just as other students learn better with glasses, hearing devices, certain seating, or other learning tools.
Standardized Testing: Whenever possible, we request —— participate in mandated testing in paper/pencil format rather than digital testing formats. We request —— take the spring 2027 MSTEP assessments in paper/pencil format which needs to be requested to the state before November 6, 2026. As I understand, there is no paper/pencil format for NWEA nor PSAT in which case we are open to having —— take the assessment 1 or 2 times maximum per academic year in digital format until a paper/pencil version becomes available.
We greatly appreciate the understanding and flexibility of MPS staff to support ——’s learning in the way that will best support his growth. If you can please,
1. confirm a time that is best to meet in person and discuss, and
2. place this letter in ——’s educational file, and
3. provide written confirmation describing how MPS intends to accommodate these requests.
If additional forms or procedures are required, please provide instructions.
Many thanks,
Parents of ——
This letter is clear, communicates goals and values, emphasizes collaboration, seeks to reduce impact on teachers, and expresses gratitude.
Unfortunately, the district’s response left much to be desired, including opening by using the wrong name for the student in question.
Letter from Midland Public Schools to Parents
August 20, 2026
Dear Parents,
Thank you for your message regarding your request to opt——[note: they used the wrong student name] out of school-provided digital devices and online learning platforms for the upcoming school year. I apologize for the delay in the district’s response. It has been a busy week preparing for the kids next week.
After careful review by our administrative team, we cannot approve this request. Our district aligns its curriculum with state educational standards that utilize digital literacy and technology integration (MITEC) across core subjects. In addition, MPS teachers integrate online platforms and devices into daily instruction, assignments, and assessments. Last, we are unable to provide an entirely non-digital alternative curriculum that meets these learning objectives. Therefore, individual opt-outs from general technology are not available.
As you know from your participation in our committee, the district is addressing some of your concerns by implementing our new technology guidelines and wireless communication device policy. Both of these district initiatives actively pursue reducing overall screen time across our schools, ensuring devices complement hands-on learning rather than replace it. This is especially true at the K-5 level, where we value research showing that younger students benefit from increased engagement through human-to-human interaction and from fine motor development through handwriting. While neither guideline may be completely to your liking, I would remind you that these guidelines are a first step in our journey as we address this complex topic.
Regarding artificial intelligence, our only student-facing AI product for grades 6-12 is SchoolAI. While teachers may use other AI software for their own personal use, MPS educators are not to use these products with K-12 students. Use of SchoolAI is optional for teachers and students. In addition, the district has instructed teachers to send a note home to parents informing them that the teacher has elected to use SchoolAI. At that point, parents can contact the teacher to inform them that they would like to opt out of using SchoolAI. The teacher will then work around this limitation by producing paper versions of what is being accomplished within SchoolAI with no negative consequences.
In addition, I would like to update you on Securly, our new classroom management software that helps teachers manage student devices. Teachers can see, monitor, and direct students’ online activities on their district devices, all from the teacher’s computer. With these capabilities, teachers can minimize distractions and keep students on task during class. Securly will also be used as the district’s network filter. Our testing has shown that this product yields better results for filtering and monitoring student use of district devices than the previously used GoGuardian software. In addition, Securly has a parent portal that allows parents to monitor student device use and limit student device interactions during after-school hours. This feature will be introduced to parents as soon as it is configured, which should be within a few weeks.
We take student privacy and device management very seriously. All school-issued technology complies with federal guidelines, including the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), Children’s Online Privacy Protection (COPPA), and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). If you have specific concerns regarding screen time, digital citizenship, or security settings on your child’s device, our IT team is available to discuss how we manage these safeguards.
As for required state testing, the Office of Educational Assessment and Accountability made it clear that schools are expected to administer the assessment online. They also stated that we can request a limited number of students to be opted out of the digital form of the M-STEP assessment. Due to a low number of requests at this time, we will be able to accommodate your request for —— to be tested with a paper-and-pencil version of the M-STEP assessment. However, the state requires all 8th-grade students to take the College Board PSAT in ELA and math. As stated in your email, you are correct that there are no paper-and-pencil versions of the PSAT. In addition, the district requires students in grades K-8 to be screened using NWEA, and there is no paper-and-pencil version of the NWEA test. These required assessments must be given digitally.
While we value our partnership with parents and welcome their input, we are unable to accommodate your request. As such, BOBS will be assigned a device to use with the MPS curriculum. School administrators and teachers remain committed to working directly with families to address specific concerns and ensure every student is supported.
Sincerely,
Associate Superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
MPS District Vision: Lead with respect, trust and courage. Ensure an equitable, collaborative and inclusive culture. Enable all to achieve success.
MPS Mission: Midland Public Schools is committed to creating a safe, innovative, and student-centered learning community where every learner is challenged, supported, and inspired to reach their full potential.
MPS Vision: Our Graduates are prepared with the essential knowledge, skills, and character to achieve personal success and positively impact their communities.
The district says they “cannot approve the request” to opt out—it is not a request, it is a declaration;
The only AI use is for a platform called SchoolAI, which is “optional” for use by students and teachers, but which students are allowed to opt out of and and can do paper versions of with “no negative consequences” (so they are able to provide paper-based options for certain things);
Like many districts, MPS relies on problematic “secondary EdTech” or “surveillance” tech products to “monitor” student usage, which yet again burdens teachers to manage how students spend time on devices (not their job);
The district intends to force this child to accept a device, in spite of what the parents expressed: “While we value our partnership with parents and welcome their input, we are unable to accommodate your request. As such, —— will be assigned a device to use with the MPS curriculum.” Appalling. Will the district shoulder the responsibility when students encounter unsafe content through their ability to access the internet?
The MPS “Mission” under the administrator’s signature states the district is committed to creating a “…student-centered” learning community where students are “…supported…” in reaching their full potential— but apparently this is only true if children use an internet-connected device.
I don’t know how a district can quite literally force a Chromebook on a child, but it appears they are willing to try. Because this parent already opted out of the internet per the district’s own policy, however, it would seem that a non-internet connected Chromebook would be quite useless. I applaud this parent for her continuing persistence to do right by children.
Fish friends, we are making progress, but we have a long way to swim in turning this school in a different direction. Courageous parents like this gives me so much hope. Keep asking curious, non-judgmental questions. Continue to be clear about your values and unwillingness to compromise children’s safety. Be persistent in your quest— do not accept “We cannot accommodate” as an ending; rather, it is an opening salvo.
Ironically, one comment on my post about receiving death threats for resisting EdTech stated: “A disappointing take. Attacking broadband access for schools and libraries is not the way.” Cool— just so I am clear, you’re okay the death threat part?
I’m not a fan of improv. I’ve even walked out of a class before—being told to pretend to give birth just wasn’t for me. But its popularity was once never in doubt: people were all too willing to shell out hard‑earned cash to watch performers fumble through impromptu sketches. Nowadays, the form has lost its shine, and Dennis M. Hogan traces whether it still has a place in today’s culture. The inspired title alone means this is a read you should say “yes” to.
During the boom years of the late 2000s and 2010s, improv persuaded many people that it was not just a wacky gimmick but, as I believed, an art in itself. The rise of stars like the improv-trained Steve Carell, Tina Fey, and Amy Poehler convinced casting directors and network executives that improvisers had graduated from sideshows to being bankable talents in their own rights. Performances were packed with newbies and aficionados alike. Major theaters added classes and facilities to meet growing demand, allowing many improvisers who never made it big to eke out livings as teachers and theater staff. The gospel of improv spread to those far outside the comedy world, from self-improvement seekers hoping to level up their interpersonal abilities to corporate suits eager to take advantage of the latest team-building and soft skill-optimization fad.
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