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Tag: iab-education

  • College Board hits back at Florida’s initial rejection of AP African American Studies course and admits it made mistakes in rollout | CNN

    College Board hits back at Florida’s initial rejection of AP African American Studies course and admits it made mistakes in rollout | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The testing organization behind a new college-level African American studies course for high schoolers is hitting back at Florida officials’ comments about the Advanced Placement class, accusing the state Education Department of “slander” and spreading misinformation about it for political gain.

    The College Board also admitted it “made mistakes in the rollout” of the course framework “that are being exploited,” according to a lengthy statement published Saturday. And it disputed how Florida officials – who have asked that the course be resubmitted for consideration after initially rejecting it – have characterized their dialogue and influence with the testing non-profit.

    “There is always debate about the content of a new AP course. That is good and healthy; these courses matter. But the dialogue surrounding AP African American Studies has moved from healthy debate to misinformation,” the statement said, citing the administration of Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

    “We deeply regret not immediately denouncing the Florida Department of Education’s slander, magnified by the DeSantis administration’s subsequent comments, that African American Studies ‘lacks educational value,’” it said. “Our failure to raise our voice betrayed Black scholars everywhere and those who have long toiled to build this remarkable field.”

    The College Board’s statement comes after the Florida Education Department asserted the AP African American Studies course “lacks educational value” and violates state law amid a national debate over how topics like racism and history are taught in public schools. Under DeSantis, Florida has banned the teaching of critical race theory and passed new legislation barring instruction that suggests anyone is privileged or oppressed based on their race or skin color.

    DeSantis last month said the state was rejecting the course because it imposed a “political agenda,” with a preliminary framework that included the study of “queer theory” and political movements that advocate for “abolishing prisons.”

    “That’s the wrong side of the line for Florida standards,” the governor said at a news conference. “We believe in teaching kids facts and how to think, but we don’t believe they should have an agenda imposed on them when you try to use Black history to shoehorn in queer theory, you are clearly trying to use that for political purposes.”

    DeSantis doubled down Monday in response to a reporter’s question about the College Board’s statement.

    “Our Department of Education looked at that and said: In Florida, we do education not indoctrination, and so that runs afoul of our standards,” he said at a news conference in Naples. “We were just the only ones that had the backbone to stand up and do it – because they call you names and they demagogue you when you do it.

    “But look, I’m so sick of people not doing what’s right because they’re worried that people are going to call them names. We’re doing what’s right here.”

    The state Education Department had concerns about six topics of study in the yearlong course, such as the Movement for Black Lives, Black feminism and reparations, it earlier told CNN. Many of the objections were tied to the inclusion of texts from modern Black thought leaders and history teachers, whose writings the DeSantis administration believes violate state laws, it said.

    The College Board later released the official framework for the course with many of the topics DeSantis objected to removed. Under the official framework, students can study those topics as part of a required research project.

    The Florida Education Department last week said it had met several times and exchanged emails over months with the College Board to discuss the course and was “grateful” to see the changes, according to a letter it wrote to the testing organization. The department asked the board to resubmit the class for consideration and indicated it had not yet decided whether to approve it.

    The College Board, however, denied that characterization of the exchanges, calling it “a false and politically motivated charge,” according to its statement Saturday.

    “In Florida’s effort to engineer a political win, they have claimed credit for the specific changes we made to the official framework,” the College Board said. “In their February 7, 2023, letter to us, which they leaked to the media within hours of sending, Florida expresses gratitude for the removal of 19 topics, none of which they ever asked us to remove, and most of which remain in the official framework.”

    The College Board reached out to Florida officials for details about how the proposed course framework violated state law but didn’t receive any of that information in subsequent phone calls with the department, the testing organization said.

    “These phone calls with FDOE were absent of substance, despite the audacious claims of influence FDOE is now making,” the College Board’s statement reads. “In the discussion, they did not offer feedback but instead asked vague, uninformed questions like, ‘What does the word ‘intersectionality’ mean?’ and ‘Does the course promote Black Panther thinking?’”

    “We had no negotiations about the content of this course with Florida or any other state, nor did we receive any requests, suggestions, or feedback,” the statement said.

    In the wake of the debate, Florida’s relationship with the College Board – which also administers the SAT college admissions test – may change, DeSantis said Monday.

    “I think the legislature is going to look to reevaluate, kind of, how Florida” selects vendors for college-credit courses, he said. “Of course, our universities can or can’t accept College Board courses for credit, and maybe they’ll do others.

    “And then also just whether our universities do the SATs versus the ACT. I think they do both, but we’re gonna evaluate kind of how all that, that process goes. But at the end of the day, we highlighted things that were very problematic.”

    The College Board stressed its commitment to AP African American Studies is “unwavering” and admitted it should have spoken up sooner to counter statements from Florida officials, its statement reads.

    The College Board also should have made clear the course framework is an outline meant to be filled in with scholarly articles and video lectures, it said. “This error triggered a conversation about erasing or eliminating Black thinkers. The vitriol aimed at these scholars is repulsive and must stop,” the non-profit said.

    The statement praised the work of teachers and students involved in piloting the course and noted teachers in some states have more room to maneuver in their studies than others.

    “But we must resist the narrative that teachers in states with restrictions are not doing exceptional work with their students, introducing them to so much and preparing them for so much more,” the statement said.

    “By filling the course with concrete examples of the foundational concepts in this discipline, we have given teachers the flexibility to teach the essential content without putting their livelihoods at risk.”

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  • After recent student fentanyl overdoses in Texas community, court documents reveal drug supplier lived blocks away from schools | CNN

    After recent student fentanyl overdoses in Texas community, court documents reveal drug supplier lived blocks away from schools | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Parents across the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District (CFBISD), located in a Dallas, Texas, suburb, are reeling following a string fentanyl overdoses by nine students who attend schools in the district.

    The students, who range in age from 13 to 17 and are not identified by name in court documents, overdosed between September 18, 2022 and February 1, 2023. Three of the students died, and one of the students, a 14-year-old girl, overdosed twice, according to a statement by the US Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Texas.

    Law enforcement officers traced the drugs the students overdosed on to a house within walking distance from a middle school and a high school, court documents say.

    “First with all the school shootings, now this with drugs,” Lupe Rebadan, who has two children, as well as nieces and nephews, attending schools in the district told CNN. “Our kids are not safe at school… When is this all going to stop?”

    Luis Eduardo Navarette and Magaly Mejia Cano have been charged with conspiracy to distribute fentanyl, according to the US Attorney’s Office.

    “To deal fentanyl is to knowingly imperil lives. To deal fentanyl to minors – naive middle and high school students – is to shatter futures. These defendants’ alleged actions are simply despicable,” US Attorney Leigha Simonton said in the statement.

    The complaint illuminates a network of drug dealers and users, most of them teenagers who attend R.L. Turner High School, Dan Long Middle School and Dewitt Perry Middle School, and traced the proliferation of fentanyl tainted “M30” pills to Navarette and Cano’s residence.

    International drug trafficking organizations often produce M30 pills by mixing highly addictive fentanyl with acetaminophen “and other binder type substances and pressed into various tablets/pills,” says an affidavit by a Drug Enforcement Administration task force officer included in the criminal complaint.

    Many fake pills are made to look like prescription opioids such as oxycodone (Oxycontin, Percocet), hydrocodone (Vicodin), and alprazolam (Xanax); or stimulants like amphetamines (Adderall),” according to the DEA’s “One Pill Can Kill” website.

    Criminal organizations, according to the DEA officer’s affidavit, sell M30 pills for $1 to $2 dollars per pill when the purchasers buy in bulk amounts. Those are later sold to “street level dealers” for $3 to $5 per pill, and later sold to consumers for $10 per pill.

    Law enforcement tracked multiple teenagers engaging in “hand-to-hand transactions” with Navarette and Cano outside of their house, which is approximately five blocks from R.L. Turner High School and two blocks from DeWitt Perry Middle School, the court documents reveal.

    On January 12, a Carrollton Street Crimes Unit detective observed a 16-year-old obtain M30 pills from Navarette and Cano’s residence.

    The teenager appeared to crush and snort a pill on their front porch, “possibly package” the drugs, then walk toward the high school, where he was enrolled, according to the complaint.

    The school was notified by law enforcement, and later that day a school resource officer located the teenager in a bathroom making a “snorting sound” and appearing intoxicated.

    Navarette and Cano made their initial appearances in court on Monday, Erin Dooley of the US Attorney’s Office in Northern Texas told CNN. Naverette waived his right to a detention hearing and was ordered detained pending trial, and Cano had her detention hearing on Friday, she added. Attorneys for Navarette and Cano haven’t responded to CNN’s requests for comment.

    Days after the complaint outlining the 10 overdoses became available to the public, CFBISD released a statement expressing sorrow and concern over “the loss of young lives.”

    The district explained how it has educated the community about the threat from fentanyl over the past several months.

    “We will continue to work cooperatively with local law enforcement agencies to address this issue and to maximize safety on our campuses in every way possible. We believe if we work together as a community, we can avoid these tragedies,” the district said.

    The district said Narcan, or naloxone, an emergency drug used to treat fentanyl overdoses, had been obtained for all district facilities in October and random canine searches were being conducted on secondary campuses.

    Drug awareness presentations for parents will also resume this year, according to the district.

    “The fentanyl crisis is claiming far too many young Texans,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott tweeted Wednesday. Abbott launched the #OnePillKills campaign in October 2022 to “combat the growing national fentanyl crisis plaguing Texas.”

    In the first week of school in 2022, four students died from “fentanyl poisoning, or suspected poisoning” in Hays County Independent School District (HCISD), located in a suburb of Austin. This prompted the district to create “Fighting Fentanyl,” an informational campaign warning students and faculty about the deadly drug.

    Tim Savoy, the chief communication officer at HCISD, noted that the district has spent tens of millions of dollars for preventative measures against school shootings and Covid-19, two issues that have affected schools nationwide. The fentanyl crisis on school campuses deserves the same level of concern and response, he said.

    “This is a threat. We’re losing students, too. And so we made the decision that we have to get this equal attention and resources and do what we can,” Savoy told CNN.

    Despite the district’s awareness-raising campaign, an email from the superintendent on January 9 informed parents of “three more suspected accidental fentanyl poisonings” and one death in which fentanyl may have been to blame.

    “Our students are dying from this, and we have to do what we can,” Savoy said. “This is not just something that you’re seeing elsewhere. This is really happening in our community.”

    According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, median monthly overdose deaths among 10- to 19-year-olds across the United States involving illicitly manufactured fentanyl surged 182% from December 2019 to December 2021.

    Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to fentanyl exposure due to the “proliferation of counterfeit pills resembling prescription drugs containing IMFs (illicitly manufactured fentanyls), and the ease of purchasing pills through social media,” according to the CDC.

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  • Philadelphia high school students disciplined after video shows one using black spray paint on another’s face while saying racist comments | CNN

    Philadelphia high school students disciplined after video shows one using black spray paint on another’s face while saying racist comments | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    At least two Philadelphia high school students are facing disciplinary action after a racist video recorded outside of school surfaced on social media showing one girl spraying black paint on another girl’s face as they made racist comments a week into Black History Month.

    Two of the girls in the video that began circulating online on Tuesday attend Saint Hubert Catholic High School for Girls, according to Kenneth A. Gavin, the chief communications officer for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. A third girl in the video is not a student there, he said.

    “We will not disclose finite details of individual disciplinary actions but the level of behavior calls for a minimum of suspension and counseling and a maximum of expulsion,” Gavin told CNN in an email Wednesday.

    In a statement released Wednesday, Franklin Towne Charter High School said the former student who participated in the video or any other students who exhibit such conduct “have no place at our school.”

    “The content of this video does not reflect the values and culture of our Towne family,” the school said on it website. It’s unclear whether the former student was enrolled at the time of the video recording.

    A Black parent whose daughter attends the Catholic school told CNN the video was sent directly to his daughter and niece as well as other Black students.

    When asked whether the video was initially sent to Black students at the school, Gavin told CNN, “At this time it is unknown as to the exact distribution. My understanding is that it was posted and shared on social media.”

    Saint Hubert Catholic High School serves roughly 500 students grades 9 through 12 while nearly 1,300 students attend Franklin Towne Charter High School, their respective data shows. Both schools are majority white, the data shows.

    The video began circulating on social media a week into Black History Month.

    In the video, a girl is seen using black spray paint to color the face of another girl as she says, “You’re a Black girl! You know your roots! It’s February! You’re nothing but a slave… and after this she’s doing my laundry.”

    People in the video can be heard laughing as this occurs. One person is seen filming the incident on her phone. The girl who had her face painted black says, “I’m Black and I’m proud.”

    The video was taken outside of school and after school hours, a Wednesday statement provided to CNN by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia said.

    “We recognize and understand that the actions of these students have reopened societal wounds in a deeply painful way. Those allegedly responsible are not present in school and are being disciplined appropriately,” the archdiocese said.

    The archdiocese added the school and the Office of Catholic Education are conducting a review into the incident. “Should that process determine involvement by any other students, they will also face disciplinary action,” the statement said.

    Footage shot by CNN affiliate KYW showed parents and activists protesting outside Saint Hubert Catholic High School for Girls on Wednesday holding signs that read, “No More Racism” and “Hate Hurts.”

    Catherine Hicks, president of the Philadelphia branch of the NAACP, expressed in a statement Wednesday her strong disappointment in the video and called on the school to “ensure action takes place immediately.”

    “It is extremely disheartening to have to address this, especially during the observance of Black History Month, that honors the accomplishments and rich history of black people,” the statement said.

    “The video showing the egregious acts of Philadelphia Archdiocese white female students spray painting a young lady’s face black is totally unacceptable,” the statement continued. To say the act was done in jest “is not only appalling but shows us the continued cycle of racism that we are constantly fighting against.”

    In its statement, the archdiocese said: “We take this opportunity to be abundantly clear that there is no place for hate, racism, or bigotry at Saint Hubert’s or in any Catholic school. It is not acceptable under any circumstances or at any time. The use of any racial epithet is inconsistent with our values to treat all people with charity, decency, and respect.”

    The archdiocese noted that the students’ behavior violates the code of conduct and the policy on technology use, which applies to students inside and outside the school.

    According to the statement, general threats were made Tuesday afternoon against the school community after the video surfaced on social media.

    The threats were reported to law enforcement, and no extracurricular activities will be held at the school for the remainder of the week, according to the statement.

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  • DeSantis says Florida requires African American history. Advocates say the state is failing that mandate | CNN Politics

    DeSantis says Florida requires African American history. Advocates say the state is failing that mandate | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Facing accusations of whitewashing history after his administration blocked a new Black studies course for high-achieving high schoolers, Gov. Ron DeSantis has countered that Florida students already must learn about the triumphs and plight of African Americans.

    “The state of Florida education standards not only don’t prevent, but they require teaching Black history,” DeSantis said last week. “All the important things, that’s part of our core curriculum.”

    Indeed, Florida has required its schools to teach African American history since 1994, long before the recent push in many states to move toward a more complete telling of the country’s story. The stated goal at the time was to introduce the Black experience to a generation of young people. That included DeSantis himself, then a student in Florida’s public school system when the mandate became law.

    But nearly three decades later, advocates say many Florida schools are failing to teach that history. Only 11 of the state’s 67 county school districts meet all of the benchmarks for teaching Black history set by the African American History Task Force, a state board created to help school districts abide by the mandate. Many schools only cover the topic during Black History Month in February, said Bernadette Kelley-Brown, the principal investigator for the task force.

    “The idea that every Florida student learns African American history, it’s not reality,” Kelley-Brown said. “Some districts don’t even realize it’s required instruction.”

    The persistent focus in Florida on instruction of African American topics comes as DeSantis has partially built his Republican stardom by targeting public schools for signs of progressive ideologies. His administration has forced K-12 schools to comb their textbooks and curriculum for any evidence of Critical Race Theory or related topics and he championed a new law that puts guardrails on lessons about racism and oppression. Both measures were cited in the state’s decision last month to block a new Advanced Placement class on African American Studies from Florida high schools. (On Wednesday, the College Board, which oversees AP courses and exams, released an updated framework of African American Studies class that did not include many of the authors and topics DeSantis had objected to. His administration said it was reviewing the changes to see if the course now complies with state law.)

    Black Democratic lawmakers say the state Department of Education under DeSantis has shown far more zeal in enforcing these new restrictions on how race can be taught in schools than the state, in almost 30 years, has ever demonstrated toward ensuring that Black history is taught at all.

    “If we say that the speed limit is 70 and someone goes 80, the Highway Patrol is there with some consequences,” state Sen. Geraldine Thompson said at a recent press conference. “But there have been no consequences for not teaching African American history.”

    The governor’s office and the Florida Department of Education did not respond when asked about the state’s efforts to enforce the mandate to teach Black history. But DeSantis recently elaborated on how he expects the subject to be taught.

    “It’s just cut and dried history,” DeSantis said. “You learn all the basics. You learn about the great figures, and you know, I view it as American history. I don’t view it as separate history.”

    For a state that had to be dragged to desegregate all of its schools well into the 1970s, the move to require African American history in Florida classrooms was notably unceremonious. Lawmakers unanimously approved the mandate in 1994 with little debate. Few newspapers covered then-Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles signing the bill into law.

    After it passed, the state created the African American History Task Force to help school districts with this new directive and to come up with a strategy for implementation. But neither the law nor the Florida Department of Education set a deadline for districts to comply.

    Former state Rep. Rudolph Bradley, the Black lawmaker who sponsored the bill to require African American history back then, now says there was a major flaw in the legislation that kept it from accomplishing what he set out to achieve: Lawmakers didn’t set aside any money for school districts to update their textbooks, buy new instructional materials or train teachers.

    “The mistake on my part, being a freshman, I didn’t understand the importance of attaching appropriations,” Bradley told CNN in a recent interview. “I didn’t understand what an unfunded mandate was and how difficult that would make it for school districts to incorporate it.”

    Even districts that had sought to comply with the law faced hurdles. Among those early adopters in 1994 was Pinellas County, where efforts to incorporate African American history into their lessons were underway prior to the law’s passage – and where a teenage DeSantis was entering sophomore year of high school that fall.

    At Dunedin High School, a predominantly White school within walking distance of Florida’s gulf shores, DeSantis should have been among the first wave of students to be exposed to this more complete telling of history. The school already offered African American history as an elective and the district had tapped the teacher of that class, Randy Lightfoot, to guide Pinellas schools into compliance with the new law. (Lightfoot said DeSantis was not a student in his African American history class.)

    Lightfoot and his team met after school for three hours a day, four times a week for months to forge a plan to incorporate Black history, culture and figures into every grade level, he told CNN in a recent interview. They printed a blueprint called “African American Connections.”

    The accurate teaching of African American studies, the document said, “explains the causes of racial division in society, including prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination” and the “systematic oppression perspective of Africans and African-Americans and their resistance to that oppression.”

    The state heralded Lightfoot’s efforts as a model for adhering to the new law, according to news accounts from the time. The Florida education commissioner liked it so much he handed a copy to every school district, Lightfoot said. DeSantis more recently has called the idea of systemic racism “a bunch of horse manure.”

    By 1996, Lightfoot was warning that his efforts were being stymied by lack of resources. Lightfoot struggled to convince the Pinellas school board to acquire textbooks that included the new lessons on Black history, according to the St. Petersburg Times, which also noted that the district cut his staff.

    The attempts to expand the curriculum to teach African American history also came during a period of racial strife in Pinellas County. In 1996, riots broke out in St. Petersburg, the city 20 minutes south of DeSantis’ suburban home, after the police killed an unarmed Black teenager during a traffic stop, and again when the officers involved were cleared of charges. Meanwhile, graduation rates for Black male students remained stubbornly low in Pinellas, the Times reported, and the county school board had broached the controversial idea of curbing forced busing to desegregate the public schools, leading to a period of distrust between the board and Black residents.

    By the time DeSantis graduated in 1997 – having earned recognition as a decorated Advanced Placement history student, according to his senior yearbook – getting African American history in Pinellas schools was still a work in progress, Lightfoot said.

    Statewide, only a handful of schools had earned “exemplary” status from the African American History Task Force by the end of that decade, meaning they had reached benchmarks for compliance. “Exemplary” school districts must demonstrate their curriculum included African American topics beyond Black History Month, training for teachers in the subject, involvement of parents in the learning and collaboration with a local university for support. In 1999, a bill that would have required public school textbooks to include African American history went nowhere in the state legislature.

    Carlton Owens, a Black classmate of DeSantis’ at Dunedin High, said he only saw people like himself reflected in the curriculum during Black History Month or lessons around slavery and the Civil Rights movement.

    “There’s so much more history that’s inspiring that is interwoven in the American story as a whole,” Owens, now a lawyer and small business owner, said. “And that wasn’t highlighted then, and that needs to be happening now.”

    The state “put the material out there for districts,” said Lightfoot, now a history professor at St. Petersburg College. “But they didn’t put the kind of money in to check and make sure everyone is doing what they’re supposed to be doing.”

    “We were trying to fill in the gaps and the holes in history,” he added. “At the same time, we had Black male students who we thought we could help improve their grades if they saw their stories in history and science and literature. Where it worked, we had pretty good success with it. But we had the support of state leaders to do it. It was a different climate then.”

    In a 2019 press release, the Florida Department of Education announced it would require districts for the first time to report how they were teaching required subjects including “Holocaust education, African American history, Hispanic heritage, women’s history, civics and more.”

    A CNN review of those reports for the 2021-22 school year found wide discrepancies in how districts lesson-plan around the subject of African American history. Some districts provide lengthy plans for weaving the African American experience into social studies from kindergarten through high school graduation; others suggest exploration comes primarily during Black History month. More than a dozen submissions largely parroted the requirements listed in state law without including any details of the instruction.

    Leon County, declared an exemplary school district by the African American History Task Force, included details like its lessons on African American scientists, songwriters and artists during grades K-5. Dixie County, near the Florida Panhandle, submitted 1,600 words on how it teaches African American history to high schoolers. Madison County, a school district near the Florida-Georgia border, simply wrote: “Courses are taught on a daily basis by a Florida certified teacher. The district also stresses Black History Month with daily mini-lessons for all grade levels.”

    The Florida Association of School Superintendents did not respond to a request for comment.

    Democrats and advocates contend the state has done little with this information. They also say the administration has not yet indicated how it will ensure schools are complying with a new state law signed by DeSantis that requires annual instruction of the 1920 Ocoee massacre, when dozens of Black Floridians were murdered in a horrific Election Day racial cleansing.

    Democratic lawmakers say they intend to introduce legislation that would require the state to enforce whether school districts are teaching African American history as the law intends, though its supporters acknowledge any bill is unlikely to gain traction in a statehouse controlled by Republicans.

    “It won’t go anywhere,” said state Sen. Shevrin Jones, a member of the legislature’s Black caucus. “But it’ll be a helluva message that we’re getting behind true and accurate Black history being taught in the state of Florida.”

    Early in his first term, there was some hope from the state’s Black community that DeSantis would forge a different path than some of his Republican predecessors. In one of his first acts as governor, DeSantis voted to pardon the Groveland Four – two Black men who were lynched and two who received lengthy sentences for allegedly raping a White woman in 1949 – widely considered one of the darkest episodes in Florida’s violent past. Former Gov. Rick Scott, who served two terms prior to DeSantis taking office, had refused to pardon the four men despite overwhelming evidence of their innocence.

    But DeSantis’ posture changed following the 2020 killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. DeSantis responded to the national unrest by mobilizing the state’s national guard and pushing through what he called an “anti-riot” law that included harsh new penalties for protesters if a demonstration turns violent.

    DeSantis then turned his attention to schools. In June 2021, he urged the state Board of Education to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory, an academic framework based around the idea that systemic racism is embedded in many American institutions and society. His administration then rejected math textbooks on the grounds that they included Critical Race Theory and other forbidden topics. Last year, lawmakers approved one of DeSantis’ top legislative priorities: the so-called “Stop WOKE Act,” which said schools cannot teach that anyone is inherently racist or responsible for past atrocities because of their skin color. The bill, which DeSantis signed into law, also said schools could teach that oppression of races has existed throughout US history but not persuade students to a particular point of view.

    The controversies around these actions have catapulted DeSantis into the national conversation on teaching race and helped fuel his rise as a potential presidential contender. Throughout these episodes, DeSantis has often maintained that African American history is built into Florida’s education framework.

    “Florida statutes require teaching all of American history including slavery, civil rights, segregation,” DeSantis contended during his debate against his Democratic opponent last year, Charlie Crist. “It’s important that that’s taught. But what I think is not good is to scapegoat students based on skin color.”

    Reginald Ellis, a professor of History and African-American Studies at Florida A&M University, said if students were adequately learning Black history, he would see it first hand in his classroom.

    “What I find, even at a historically Black college, the vast majority of students have not really been exposed to much African American history and experience,” Ellis said. “It is a law on the books. There is a task force. But, for the most part, it clearly isn’t a curriculum that is being enforced. School districts effectively have the option to opt-in or opt-out.”

    Bradley, the original bill sponsor, said the law’s shortcomings fall on those who have held power in Tallahassee and in school districts for the past three decades, and not DeSantis. Bradley, who changed his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican later in his political career, said he was supportive of DeSantis’ education agenda and accused activists of using schools to “drive a wedge between Blacks and Whites.”

    “The law is still a work in progress, but if we want to use it as a tool to divide then that is a total violation of the spirit of the law,” Bradley said. “When I passed that bill, it was designed to bring people together, not divide.”

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  • Republicans elevate ‘parental rights’ as top issue while looking to outflank each other heading into 2024 | CNN Politics

    Republicans elevate ‘parental rights’ as top issue while looking to outflank each other heading into 2024 | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Republican presidential hopefuls have begun casting themselves as impassioned defenders of “parental rights,” turning schoolbooks and curricula, doctors’ offices, and sports leagues into a new political battleground as they work to distinguish themselves ahead of the 2024 GOP primary.

    The issue had already emerged as a major vein in the GOP bloodstream, emanating partly from the coronavirus pandemic, when school closures and vaccine mandates upended family routines and rankled vaccine-hesitant parents. But it took off after Republicans watched Glenn Youngkin defeat Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia’s 2021 gubernatorial election following a campaign that placed “parents’ rights” at its center.

    While critics have denounced the theme of parents’ rights as oppressive, 2024 Republicans have nevertheless plowed ahead, seeking to one-up each other with provocative campaign pledges and legislative actions – the most obvious moves in recent weeks coming from former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

    Several Republican governors – many with presidential ambitions – responded to Youngkin’s success by championing parental rights in their states, enacting bills that give parents and guardians unfettered access to school curricula, books and learning materials, and, in some instances, requiring school principals to review parental complaints about textbooks and lesson plans before they can proceed with using the material in classrooms. In some states, such as Texas, Florida and Iowa, parental permission is now needed to discuss certain topics with students. Other states, such as Georgia, have put parents and school communities in charge of vetting books their children could encounter at school for signs of race-related or sexual themes, appealing to conservatives who have voiced concerns about “radical” literature.

    But Republicans have also since turned parents’ rights into an umbrella term for a host of cultural issues. Declaring that parents deserve a say in what their children are taught, some GOP power players have pushed to end diversity and equity programs in public schools. Others have sought to restrict lessons about sexual orientation or gender identity. And some have looked to prevent schools from using a child’s preferred pronouns without parental permission.

    “We saw it with Youngkin’s race, and [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis has been playing it up for the last year. The issue has been building from Covid and extended to where we are now,” said Jennifer Williams, who in 2016 became the first openly transgender delegate to the Republican National Convention. Both DeSantis and Youngkin are said to be eyeing 2024 presidential campaigns.

    The sprint to get ahead on the issue is likely to play out over a combative presidential primary, while allies and advisers see it as an opportunity to appeal to a broader electorate if their candidate becomes the next GOP presidential nominee.

    “There are more parents than teachers, so it’s an easy equation. If you’re on the side of parents, that’s going to win you at the local level, and it’s going to win you at the national level,” said Keith Naughton, a longtime Republican consultant. Still, he also cautioned Republicans against “moving too far away from the consensus.”

    But public opinion around parental rights remains murky.

    A Quinnipiac poll released in February 2022 found that nearly 8 in 10 Americans considered efforts to ban books in schools and libraries purely political, versus 15 percent who said the efforts stemmed from content concerns. And as Republicans confront sensitive issues such as transgender rights while championing what they describe as parental empowerment, they could face similar political peril. A separate November poll by Marquette University Law School found that while a majority of Republicans (82%-18%) believed transgender athletes should be prohibited from participating in sports competitions – a topic the GOP has devoted much attention to in recent years – independent voters were nearly evenly split on the matter. The same survey showed that Republicans favored the 2020 Supreme Court decision that the 1964 Civil Rights Act bars employers from discriminating against gay and transgender workers by a 47-point margin, underscoring the political risks 2024 GOP hopefuls could encounter as they link LGBTQ rights to their parental rights push.

    Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD, said Republicans are using the guise of parental rights “to eliminate people, history books and marginalized communities.”

    “This is not about parents. It’s a tactic that DeSantis found really whipped up his base in Florida and so [Republicans] are taking it out for a run to see how it does. Their goal, it seems, is that these politicians are trying to turn parents against each other and make classrooms a battleground so they can further their political ambitions,” Ellis said.

    GLAAD is expected to launch a messaging campaign in March that Ellis said will “fill the knowledge gap” that Republicans have “exploited.”

    “They tap into the worst anxieties of any parent,” said Ellis, a parent herself.

    Trump, currently the only declared candidate in the GOP presidential field, is one of several 2024 hopefuls who have elevated “parents’ rights” to new prominence as they work to curry favor with the party’s base.

    Trump pushed to create a “patriotic education” commission and ordered the federal government to end diversity trainings during his term in office, though much of his focus over the past two years has been on relitigating the 2020 election. Recently, though, he has refocused his attention on the kinds of cultural battles that have enabled some of his likeliest rivals – most notably DeSantis – to gain considerable popularity among Republican voters.

    In two straight-to-camera videos this week, Trump suggested that parents should select school principals through a “direct election” process and threatened to end federal funding for schools that teach “a child that they could be trapped in the wrong body” if he were to win another term.

    Even those who agreed with Trump’s proposals suggested he was playing catch-up with his fellow culture warriors – especially as he also went on the attack against DeSantis recently, calling the Florida governor “disloyal” and a “globalist RINO” in separate broadsides.

    “Obviously, DeSantis taking on Disney has shown a lot of leadership on this issue and frankly, I think it’s why Trump came out with his statements this week because in a lot of ways he sees himself running against DeSantis,” said Bob Vander Plaats, a social conservative activist who runs the Iowa-based Family Leader coalition. Vander Plaats was referring to the Florida governor’s push to strip the Walt Disney Company of its special governing powers after the company criticized his legislative efforts to restrict lessons on LGBTQ rights and gender identity in Florida classrooms.

    “Trump is saying, ‘How do I get to the right of DeSantis on this issue?’” Vander Plaats added.

    Allies of the former president rebuffed suggestions that he is taking cues from rivals rather than setting the agenda. They pointed to actions Trump took during his term in office to develop a counter-curriculum to the 1619 Project, an initiative launched by The New York Times to teach American students about slavery but which conservatives have decried as “propaganda.” And they cite the many instances in which Trump has condemned the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports, a topic he first weaved into his stump speech at the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference and one that tends to draw some of the biggest applause lines at his campaign rallies.

    “This isn’t anything new,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said. “On the school education stuff and critical race theory, he’s been talking about it since 2019 and 2020. And when he talks about gender ideology, he’s been mentioning that in his rallies, too.”

    “He’s a candidate now, and he’s focused on forward-looking policy proposals,” Cheung added.

    Some conservative activists who are still waiting to see how the 2024 primary field takes shape said Trump appears to be taking steps to ensure he isn’t outflanked by opponents on the issues that currently animate Republican base voters. Terry Schilling, executive director of the socially conservative American Principles Project, said Trump is “trying to play catch-up, but it’s good.”

    Referring specifically to Trump’s recently unveiled plan to curtail transgender rights, including ending medical treatments for transgender teens, Schilling suggested the former president was “making sure he’s the most conservative candidate on this issue.”

    “I think he’s just trying to ensure he doesn’t lose any ground or get outflanked. … It’s tough because DeSantis and Youngkin have actually been changing the policies on it, which is why I think he is going above and beyond … to kind of get a leg up,” Schilling said.

    A spokesman for DeSantis’ political operation declined to comment, but the Republican governor’s actions suggest he will not cede the issue by any stretch as he marches toward a potential campaign for president. This week, DeSantis released a 2023 budget framework that repeatedly emphasized the importance of “protecting parents’ fundamental rights,” nearly a year after he signed a “Parents Bill of Rights” into law that banned instructions on sexual orientation and gender identity to K-3 grade students.

    During the 2022 midterms, DeSantis took the unprecedented step of vetting, endorsing and campaigning for school board candidates, generating a wave of like-minded conservatives to carry out his agenda in districts across the state. Meanwhile, at DeSantis’ urging, a state medical board stacked with his appointees has effectively banned medication and surgeries for minors seeking gender transitions. DeSantis has decried such interventions as “chemical castration.”

    In leading these cultural clashes, DeSantis has become a superstar among highly engaged conservatives. He and his wife, Casey, were treated like rock stars at last year’s Tampa summit of Moms for Liberty, a group that mobilizes conservative matriarchs across the country, where he was heralded onstage as an “American hero” and a “shining light” for parents across the country who wish that “Ron would be their governor.” The Florida Republican was reelected to a second term in November by a 19-point margin, a victory he touted at a news conference earlier this week following a fresh round of attacks from Trump.

    Tiffany Justice, a co-founder of Moms for Liberty, said parental rights weren’t on the forefront of minds during Trump’s first campaign in 2016 or when DeSantis first ran for governor in 2018. But DeSantis was among the first to recognize during the pandemic the parental angst around closed schools, mask mandates and an apprehension to ideological creep into the classroom, she said, and it has him well positioned when parental rights becomes “a litmus test for all candidates in 2024.”

    “He’s being rewarded already by having his colleagues and peers watching what he is doing and emulating him across the country,” Justice said. “Ron DeSantis stood up for parents when no one else was. I think he’s a leader that way, and parents across the country have recognized him for that.”

    Indeed, DeSantis’ actions have spawned copycat bills in statehouses across the country this year. The National Center for Transgender Equality is tracking 231 bills in state legislatures across the country that seek to curb transgender rights – 86 of which would restrict access to transgender care. In a sign of how swiftly Republicans have pivoted to this issue, as recently as 2019, not a single state legislature in the country was debating cutting off access to gender affirmation treatment or surgeries, said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of the center.

    “If you rewind to 2018, this was not a political matter. There were no bills in statehouses. There were no presidential candidates talking about it. Transgender people were getting health care without a problem, and it was universally recognized as essential care by leading medical institutions,” Heng-Lehtinen said. “It was almost literally overnight we saw these bills pop up.”

    “And the places where we’ve seen the most aggressive actions against transgender people,” he added, “are in states where there’s a governor with all points suggesting they are seeking higher office.”

    Among those governors is Texas Republican Greg Abbott, whose administration has investigated parents of transgender teens for child abuse. In Iowa, where GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds already signed a bill to give parents and guardians more access to their children’s educational lives, lawmakers are now considering whether to ban instruction of sexual orientation or gender identity through eighth grade. Another potential 2024 Republican candidate, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, authored and signed a bill in 2022 that banned transgender women and girls from female scholastic sports, and in December her administration canceled a transgender advocacy group’s contract with the state’s Department of Health. There is also Youngkin, the term-limited Virginia governor who held a donor summit last fall to explore a possible presidential campaign and who recently rolled out a series of policy changes aimed at transgender students, one of which seeks to require parental sign-off for students who wish to use names or pronouns that diverge from what is listed on their official record.

    But not every Republican agrees with the policy fights being waged by the party’s potential presidential contenders as they aim to give parents more control over their childrens’ education.

    “When Youngkin and DeSantis do things like this, they aren’t taking into account the discrimination that can result,” said Williams, the former RNC delegate. “If parental rights are constantly about gender identity and critical race theory, it doesn’t seem to be about education. It seems to me it’s about making sure I can shield my kid from anything other than what I want them to know.”

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  • ChatGPT creator rolls out ‘imperfect’ tool to help teachers spot potential cheating | CNN Business

    ChatGPT creator rolls out ‘imperfect’ tool to help teachers spot potential cheating | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Two months after OpenAI unnerved some educators with the public release of ChatGPT, an AI chatbot that can help students and professionals generate shockingly convincing essays, the company is unveiling a new tool to help teachers adapt.

    OpenAI on Tuesday announced a new feature, called an “AI text classifier,” that allows users to check if an essay was written by a human or AI. But even OpenAI admits it’s “imperfect.”

    The tool, which works on English AI-generated text, is powered by a machine learning system that takes an input and assigns it to several categories. In this case, after pasting a body of text such as a school essay into the new tool, it will give one of five possible outcomes, ranging from “likely generated by AI” to “very unlikely.”

    Lama Ahmad, policy research director at OpenAI, told CNN that educators have been asking for a ChatGPT feature like this, but warns it should be “taken with a grain of salt.”

    “We really don’t recommend taking this tool in isolation because we know that it can be wrong and will be wrong at times – much like using AI for any kind of assessment purposes,” Ahmad said. “We are emphasizing how important it is to keep a human in the loop … and that it’s just one data point among many others.”

    Ahmad notes that some teachers have referenced past examples of student work and writing style to gauge whether it was written by the student. While the new tool might provide another reference point, Ahmad said “teachers need to be really careful in how they include it in academic dishonesty decisions.”

    Since it was made available in late November, ChatGPT has been used to generate original essays, stories and song lyrics in response to user prompts. It has drafted research paper abstracts that fooled some scientists. It even recently passed law exams in four courses at the University of Minnesota, another exam at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and a US medical licensing exam.

    In the process, it has raised alarms among some educators. Public schools in New York City and Seattle have already banned students and teachers from using ChatGPT on the district’s networks and devices. Some educators are now moving with remarkable speed to rethink their assignments in response to ChatGPT, even as it remains unclear how widespread use is of the tool among students and how harmful it could really be to learning.

    OpenAI now joins a small but growing list of efforts to help educators detect when a written work is generated by ChatGPT. Some companies such as Turnitin are actively working on ChatGPT plagiarism detection tools that could help teachers identify when assignments are written by the tool. Meanwhile, Princeton student Edward Tuan told CNN more than 95,000 people have already tried the beta version of his own ChatGPT detection feature, called ZeroGPT, noting there has been “incredible demand among teachers” so far.

    Jan Leike – a lead on the OpenAI alignment team, which works to make sure the AI tool is aligned with human values – listed several reasons for why detecting plagiarism via ChatGPT may be a challenge. People can edit text to avoid being identified by the tool, for example. It will also “be best at identifying text that is very similar to the kind of text that we’ve trained it on.”

    In addition, the company said it’s impossible to determine if predictable text – such as a list of the first 1,000 prime numbers – was written by AI or a human because the correct answer is always the same, according to a company blog post. The classifier is also “very unreliable” on short texts below 1,000 characters.

    During a demo with CNN ahead of Tuesday’s launch, ChatGPT successfully labeled several bodies of work. An excerpt from the book “Peter Pan,” for example, was deemed “unlikely” to be AI generated. In the company blog post, however, OpenAI said it incorrectly labeled human-written text as AI-written 5% of the time.

    Despite the possibility of false positives, Leike said the company aims to use the tool to spark conversations around AI literacy and possibly deter people from claiming that AI-written text was created by a human. He said the decision to release the new feature also stems from the debate around whether humans have a right to know if they’re interacting with AI.

    “This question is much bigger than what we are doing here; society as a whole has to grapple with that question,” he said.

    OpenAI said it encourages the general public to share their feedback on the AI check feature. Ahmad said the company continues to talk with K-12 educators and those at the collegiate level and beyond, such as Harvard University and the Stanford Design School.

    The company sees its role as “an educator to the educators,” according to Ahmad, in the sense that OpenAI wants to make them more “aware about the technologies and what they can be used for and what they should not be used for.”

    “We’re not educators ourselves – we’re very aware of that – and so our goals are really to help equip teachers to deploy these models effectively in and out of the classroom,” Ahmad said. “That means giving them the language to speak about it, help them understand the capabilities and the limitations, and then secondarily through them, equip students to navigate the complexities that AI is already introducing in the world.”

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  • She used hidden cameras to help students cheat exams. Now she’s wanted by Interpol | CNN

    She used hidden cameras to help students cheat exams. Now she’s wanted by Interpol | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Think “international manhunt” and the image that likely springs to mind is that of a hardened criminal like a murderer, bank robber or billion-dollar fraudster – not the middle-aged boss of a high school tuition center.

    But that’s who’s at the center of a Red Notice issued this week by the International Criminal Police Organization, or Interpol, which facilitates police cooperation between 194 countries.

    Poh Yuan Nie, 57, is thought to have fled Singapore after masterminding an elaborate cheating scam during the Southeast Asian country’s annual GCE O Level examinations, which students take during their final year of high school.

    Poh failed to surrender to police after a court sentenced her to four years in prison for running the scam, in which she and three of her tutors fed answers to students using a system of bodycams, earphones and bluetooth devices.

    Private tuition centers are big business in the wealthy city-state where the pressure for students to perform well can be overwhelming and it is not unusual for monthly fees at established private tuition centers to cost up to 2,000 Singapore dollars ($1,500).

    According to early court documents, Poh, 57, and her three accomplices – her niece Fiona Poh Min, ex-girlfriend Tan Jia Yan and a Chinese national named Feng Riwen – were each paid 8,000 Singapore dollars ($6,100) by a man from China to help six students aged between 17 and 20 – also from China – pass the GCE exams in 2016 so they could enter local colleges.

    The payment would have been fully refunded if the students did not pass the exams.

    Under Poh’s instructions, the six students wore skin-colored earphones and taped mobile phones and bluetooth devices to their bodies so that they could be fed answers by Tan who posed as a private student sitting the same test papers.

    With the help of a hidden camera phone taped to her chest, Tan livestreamed the questions to Poh and the two other tutors back at the tuition center, who then worked out the answers and fed them to the students.

    They were rumbled when an exam invigilator heard unusual noises coming from one of the students, who came clean when questioned.

    After a year-long trial that ended in 2020, Poh was convicted on 27 counts of cheating and sentenced to four years’ jail. Her Red Notice on Interpol included a mugshot and listed her charges of “abetment to commit cheating.”

    Singapore police, who requested the notice from Interpol, said Poh had been due to begin her jail term in September, but failed to surrender herself. Her three accomplices are all currently serving their respective prison terms, police said.

    “Poh was convicted for a series of cheating offenses, having conspired with students to cheat in the 2016 GCE O Level examinations,” the Singapore Police Force said in a statement, adding that local warrants had also been issued for her arrest.

    “She was ordered in September 2022 to surrender herself to serve her imprisonment term but she did not do so.”

    According to Interpol, global law enforcement units are requested to locate and arrest people under Red Notices – pending extradition, surrender or other legal actions.

    The case has put the spotlight on a school system that is ranked among the world’s best and is known for its competitiveness.

    Singapore’s government has implemented a raft of reforms in recent years aimed at easing the mental burden on students who can face immense pressure to achieve good grades.

    The GCE O Level exams can be a particularly stressful time, as they define a student’s entire high school performance and determine which local college or vocational institute they can go to. The exams, known in full as General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level, are national tests in mathematics, science, languages and humanities.

    They are conducted jointly by the Cambridge Assessment International Examination and Singapore’s Ministry of Education. They are not the same as the annual British GCSE examinations.

    GCE exams are usually taken by students aged 16 and 17 and are also open to private candidates. Every year around 30,000 students sit the exams, according to MOE estimates.

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  • Jim Jordan issues first subpoenas targeting Biden administration’s response to school board threats | CNN Politics

    Jim Jordan issues first subpoenas targeting Biden administration’s response to school board threats | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan on Friday subpoenaed the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Department of Education for documents as part of its investigation into whether a Justice Department strategy to address threats against teachers and school officials was abused to target conservative parents.

    The flurry of subpoenas are the first from the Judiciary’s subcommittee dedicated to investigating the alleged weaponization of the federal government and are an early indication that the newly minted chairman intends to aggressively pursue its probe into the Biden administration’s response to rising tensions and threats of violence surrounding school board meetings.

    The subpoenas set a document deadline of March 1. The panel sent the subpoenas after initially sending letters to the agencies for voluntary cooperation on January 17.

    The allegations being investigated date to 2021, when protests and some violence erupted at school board meetings across the country. Most of the anger came from conservative parents who wanted to repeal mask mandates, opposed anti-racism courses and had concerns about LGBTQ policies.

    With that backdrop, the National School Boards Association wrote to President Joe Biden asking for federal help to address the violence and threats against school administrators. The group said that “these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism” and encouraged the Justice Department to explore which laws, possibly including the Patriot Act, could be applied.

    The group soon apologized for “some of the language” in its letter. But it quickly drew backlash, particularly among conservatives.

    Attorney General Merrick Garland had issued a memo in response – which didn’t cite the letter, compare parents to “terrorists” nor invoke the Patriot Act. It merely told the FBI and federal prosecutors to step up collaboration with state and local law enforcement on the issue.

    According to a report Jordan released last year, emails show that the Biden White House consulted with the NSBA on the letter before the group made its letter public. An independent review by NSBA concluded, however, that there was no “direct or indirect evidence suggesting the Administration requested the Letter” or reviewed the contents before the letter was sent.

    Other emails also show that the Justice Department sent an advance copy of Garland’s memo to the NSBA.

    The FBI later established a “threat tag” to internally track cases about school board threats under the same categorization. Republicans have seized on the “threat tag” to accuse the FBI of carrying out Biden’s desire to stomp out conservative speech at school boards. But the creation of an internal database does not mean the FBI initiated any sort of crackdown against parents.

    Judiciary Republicans are requesting Garland provide a paper trail of the DOJ’s communications with the White House, intelligence agencies and members of the National School Boards Association about alleged violence at school board meetings.

    The subpoena also calls for a number of documents relating to Garland’s directive for FBI and US attorneys’ offices to meet with federal, state and local law enforcement partners to discuss strategies for addressing the issue, focusing specifically on what meetings took place and what recommendations were made.

    A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. Three days after Jordan’s voluntary request to DOJ, a department official responded to the Ohio Republican that “we share your belief that congressional oversight is vital to our functioning democracy” and encouraged the committee to prioritize its document requests to elicit efficient responses, according to a letter obtained by CNN.

    The FBI subpoena specifically demands that Director Chris Wray produce a variety of documents, including communications related to meeting with US attorneys’ offices and “establishment of the Department of Justice’s task force.”

    Wray is also told to hand over all documents related to formal and informal recommendations created or relied upon by FBI employees in accordance with Garland’s October 2021 memo.

    The FBI said in a statement that the bureau “has never been in the business of investigating speech or policing speech at school board meetings or anywhere else, and we never will be,” adding that “attempts to further any political narrative will not change those facts.”

    “The FBI recognizes the importance of congressional oversight and remains fully committed to cooperating with Congress’s oversight requests consistent with its constitutional and statutory responsibilities. The FBI is actively working to respond to congressional requests for information – including voluntary production of documents,” the FBI statement read.

    Jordan’s subpoena to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona called on the Education Department to hand over any documents or communications related to a letter the National School Boards Association sent in September 2021.

    Jordan’s subpoena also called for any files related to Viola Garcia’s appointment to the National Assessment Government Board. Garcia was the president of the National School Boards Association and was one of two individuals who signed the September 2021 letter to Biden.

    An Education Department spokesperson told CNN that “the Department responded to Chairman Jordan’s letter earlier this week. The Department remains committed to responding to the House Judiciary Committee’s requests in a manner consistent with longstanding Executive Branch policy.”

    CNN has reached out to Garcia for comment.

    On Thursday, a day before the subpoena, the Education Department told Jordan’s team that the department played no role in crafting the letter from the National School Boards Association.

    “I would also like to reiterate – as the Department has repeatedly made clear – that the Secretary did not request, direct any action, or play any role in the development of the September 29, 2021, letter from the NSBA to President Biden,” Gwen Graham, assistant secretary for legislation and congressional affairs at the Education Department wrote in a letter obtained by CNN. Graham added that an independent review for counsel retained by the NSBA did not find any connection between the letter and Garcia’s appointment.

    Republicans gave Democrats on the committee a heads up that these subpoenas were coming, a source familiar told CNN. Democratic Del. Stacey Plaskett of the US Virgin Islands, the highest-ranking Democrat on the subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government, said the subpoenas were underpinned by “conspiracy theories” and said she is confident that what the Republicans have asked for “will once again disprove this tired right-wing theory.”

    White House spokesperson for Congressional Oversight Ian Sams said in a statement to CNN, “Chairman Jordan is rushing to fire off subpoenas only two days after the Judiciary Committee organized, even though agencies already responded in good faith seeking to accommodate requests he made. These subpoenas make crystal clear that extreme House Republicans have no interest in working together with the Biden Administration on behalf of the American people and every interest in staging political stunts.”

    Since the uproar at school boards became a major political issue in late 2021, Republicans have pushed the baseless narrative that Biden, Garland and Wray have weaponized federal law enforcement to attack innocent parents who care about education.

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy falsely claimed that “Biden used the FBI to target parents as domestic terrorists.” Jordan has said Garland tried “to use federal law enforcement tools to silence parents.” This claim even came up in the GOP response to last year’s State of the Union. These claims have been repeatedly debunked by fact-checkers from CNN and other outlets.

    For his part, Garland has aggressively pushed back against Republicans’ accusations. He previously testified to Congress that the Justice Department isn’t using counterterrorism resources against parents and said it was ridiculous to equate “angry” parents to “terrorists.”

    When GOP senators grilled Wray about the “threat tag” matter at an August hearing, he defended the FBI.

    “The FBI is not going to be in the business of investigating speech or policing speech at school board meetings,” Wray said. “We’re not about to start now. Threats of violence, that’s a different matter altogether. And there, we will work with our state local partners, as we always have.”

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  • Britain hit by biggest day of strikes in a decade as pay disputes escalate | CNN Business

    Britain hit by biggest day of strikes in a decade as pay disputes escalate | CNN Business

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    As many as half a million workers are striking across Britain on Wednesday, closing schools, canceling university lectures and bringing most of the rail network to a standstill in what unions say is the biggest single day of walkouts in more than a decade.

    Teachers, university staff, train drivers and civil servants — including staff checking passports at airports — are striking in large numbers over pay and working conditions as living standards continue to plunge after years of below-inflation raises.

    At the same time, the Trades Union Congress, which represents 48 unions, is holding over 75 rallies across the United Kingdom to protest a government bill that it argues is an “attack” on the right to strike. The bill would require basic service levels to be maintained in the fire, ambulance and rail sectors in the event of walkouts.

    Escalating strike action comes just weeks after the government tried to resolve pay disputes to bring an end to the worst wave of industrial unrest the country has seen in decades. Many public sector workers have been offered raises of 4% or 5% for the current financial year, with the annual rate of inflation running at 10.5%

    Up to 300,000 teachers are expected to strike on Wednesday, marking the first of seven days of strike action through February and March by the National Education Union, the largest union in the sector. Strikes will affect around 23,400 schools, about 85%, in England and Wales, with many closed fully or partially.

    Wednesday also marks the beginning of strikes by 70,000 members of the University and College Union (UCU), which will hit 150 UK universities on 18 days in February and March, affecting 2.5 million students.

    Meanwhile, more than 100,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents civil servants, will strike over pay, pensions and job security at 123 government departments and agencies.

    And only around 30% of train services are expected to run on Wednesday, according to Britain’s railway company Rail Delivery Group, which warned in a statement on its website that the disruption could drag on into the rest of the week because many trains won’t be in the right depots.

    A train stopped at a platform in Waterloo Station, London, during Britain's biggest day of strikes in more than a decade on February 1, 2023.

    The strikes will take a toll on already slowing economic growth. The United Kingdom is likely to be the only major economy to fall into recession this year, after recording one of the strongest growth rates among advanced economies last year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

    The IMF has marginally upgraded its forecast for global growth, on the back of China’s reopening and an improvement in financial conditions as inflation starts to ease.

    On Britain, however, the fund has turned gloomier.

    Research director Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas said this was because of higher energy prices, lower productivity as a result of employment not recovering to its pre-pandemic level and elevated inflation leading to higher interest rates and mortgage costs.

    The IMF expects inflation to remain above 8% in the United Kingdom this year, compared to a rate of 4.6% across advanced economies and 6.6% globally. It sees the UK economy contracting by 0.6% in 2023, a 0.9 percentage point downgrade from its forecast in October.

    Union members and supporters march towards Westminster, London on February 1, 2023.

    An economic slowdown and persistent inflation will worsen a cost-of-living crisis that is afflicting thousands of workers, as wages fail to keep pace with rising prices.

    The average 5% pay increase for teachers this year is inadequate, particularly as it follows a decade of “wage erosion” that is leading to a “recruitment and retention crisis,” NEU deputy general secretary Niamh Sweeny told CNN.

    According to the union, pay for experienced teachers has declined by 23% since 2010 once inflation is taken into account. Support staff such as teaching assistants have seen salaries fall by 27% in real terms over that period, and some can earn more working in their local supermarket than in education, according to Sweeny.

    A spokesperson for the Department of Education responded: “Strike action is highly damaging to children’s education, particularly following the disruption that children have experienced over the past two years.”

    Sian Elliott, a senior policy officer at the Trades Union Congress told CNN that the solution to the wave of strikes was simple: “All that is needed in order to resolve the current disputes is just to offer an improved pay deal.”

    Yet rather than resolve pay disputes, the government has “rushed” an anti-strike bill through parliament without adequate scrutiny or an impact assessment, she added.

    In a sign that industrial unrest could escalate further, UK firefighters have voted to strike for the first time since 2003. The Fire Brigades Union has given the government until February 9 to make an improved pay offer.

    Nurses and ambulance drivers will begin a new wave of walkouts next week.

    — Olesya Dmitracova contributed reporting.

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  • DeSantis proposes banning diversity and inclusion initiatives at Florida universities | CNN Politics

    DeSantis proposes banning diversity and inclusion initiatives at Florida universities | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that he intends to ban state universities from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in hopes that they will “wither on the vine” without funding.

    “It really serves as an ideological filter, a political filter,” the Republican said while speaking in Bradenton, Florida.

    The proposal is a top priority for DeSantis’ higher education agenda this year, which also includes giving politically appointed presidents and university boards of trustees more power over hiring and firing at universities and urging schools to focus their missions on Florida’s future workforce needs. DeSantis, who is said to be weighing a potential 2024 presidential bid, has seen his standing among conservatives soar nationwide following his public stances on hot-button cultural and education issues.

    In a press release about the announced legislation, the governor’s office called diversity, equity and inclusion programs “discriminatory” and vowed to prohibit universities from funding them, even if the source of the money isn’t coming from the state.

    Diversity, equity and inclusion programs are intended to promote multiculturalism and encourage students of all races and backgrounds to feel comfortable in a campus setting, especially those from traditionally underrepresented communities. The state’s flagship school, the University of Florida, has a “Chief Diversity Officer,” a “Center for Inclusion and Multicultural Engagement” and an “Office for Accessibility and Gender Equity.”

    Tuesday’s announcement was foreshadowed in December when the governor’s office asked all state universities to account for all of their spending on programs and initiatives related to diversity, equity and inclusion or critical race theory.

    DeSantis announced his higher education agenda in Bradenton, a 15-minute drive from New College of Florida, a public liberal arts college where DeSantis has installed a controversial new board with a mandate to remake the school into his conservative vision for higher education. DeSantis said his budget will include $15 million to restructure New College and hire faculty.

    The new board met on Tuesday, leading to protests on the campus.

    One of DeSantis’ new board members, Eddie Speir, wrote in an online post that he planned to propose in that meeting “terminating all contracts for faculty, staff and administration” of the school, “and immediately rehiring those faculty, staff and administration who fit in the new financial and business model.”

    DeSantis’ announcement follows a commitment earlier this month from the presidents of the state’s two-year community colleges to not teach critical race theory in a vacuum and to “not fund or support any institutional practice, policy, or academic requirement that compels belief in critical race theory or related concepts such as intersectionality, or the idea that systems of oppression should be the primary lens through which teaching and learning are analyzed and/or improved upon.”

    The state’s education department characterized the move as a rejection of “‘woke’ diversity, equity and inclusion [and] critical race theory ideologies.”

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  • Ransomware attack closes schools in Nantucket | CNN Politics

    Ransomware attack closes schools in Nantucket | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    A ransomware attack forced the closure Tuesday of four public schools serving 1,700 students on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, the school district’s superintendent said in an email to parents.

    The hacking incident shut down all student and staff devices, as well as safety and security systems at Nantucket Public Schools, forcing an early dismissal at noon on Tuesday, Superintendent Elizabeth Hallett said in the email, which she shared with CNN.

    The news came as Tucson Unified School District (TUSD), which calls itself the largest pre-K-12 school district in southern Arizona, also suffered a ransomware attack in recent days, according to local news reports. Representatives of TUSD did not respond to emails seeking comment. There was no evidence that the two incidents were related.

    Ransomware – malicious software that locks computers and holds them for ransom – has for years plagued US schools and other organizations that can be short on money and personnel to defend themselves from hacks.

    The hacks often force schools to temporarily close, further disrupting learning during the coronavirus pandemic. The lack of cybersecurity budgeting at primary schools is a “major constraint to implementing effective cybersecurity programs across all K–12 entities,” the federal US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned in a report this month.

    Nantucket Public Schools includes an elementary, middle and high school, and serves Nantucket, which is about 30 miles south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

    Athletic events at the school were still scheduled to proceed. “No school issued devices should be used at home until further notice, as it could compromise home networks,” Hallett said in her email to parents.

    “We do not have any updates yet on when we will return,” Hallett told CNN in a separate email.

    There have already been five ransomware attacks on US school districts in January, according to a tally from Brett Callow, threat analysts at cybersecurity firm Emsisoft. Forty-five US school districts operating 1,981 schools were hit by ransomware in 2022, according to Emsisoft.

    A year ago, New Mexico’s largest public school district had to close temporarily after a cyberattack hit computer systems that could affect learning and student safety.

    “The ransomware attacks on school districts across the country are a stark reminder that as a country we need to ensure our citizens are cyber literate,” Kevin Nolten, vice president of Cyber Innovation Center, a not-for-profit supported by federal grant money that promotes cybersecurity curricula in K-12 schools, told CNN.

    “Cybersecurity education is a national security issue and we must educate our country on protecting our most critical infrastructure from malicious attacks,” Nolten said in an email pointing to the high demand for cybersecurity skills in the workforce.

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  • Virginia school announces new safety protocols as students return to class nearly a month after a 6-year-old allegedly shot a teacher | CNN

    Virginia school announces new safety protocols as students return to class nearly a month after a 6-year-old allegedly shot a teacher | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Richneck Elementary School has announced new safety protocols as students return to classes on Monday, nearly a month after a 6-year-old student allegedly shot his teacher inside a classroom.

    In an email to families, newly appointed school administrator Karen Lynch said the school in Newport News, Virginia, will have police on campus to “assist with the transition.”

    Children should arrive without a backpack because the school plans to provide them with clear ones on Monday, Lynch said. If students bring lunch items to school, they will be run through a metal detector and are subject to search, the email says.

    The school district told CNN it has installed two metal detectors on campus.

    The school will be limiting visitors during this first week of instruction to allow staff “the opportunity to establish routines and procedures with students,” the email states. Parents will not be allowed to enter classrooms and those who choose to walk their children to class must show identification and are also subject to search, it said.

    The school closed after first grade teacher Abby Zwerner was critically injured on January 6 when a bullet was shot through her hand and into her chest, according to police. The 25-year-old was later stabilized and released from the hospital.

    The incident has resulted in the ousting of the Newport News Public Schools superintendent and the reassignment of the school’s principal to another school. Since the shooting, the school board has held several meetings as it grapples with how to handle the incident amidst backlash from frustrated parents.

    See school board meeting where decision to cut ties with superintendent was made

    The father of a student who was in the same class as the 6-year-old said Monday he has “no misgivings” about sending his son back to school.

    “I think with new administration, this administration that listens to teachers, listens to concerns and acts on those concerns … this is probably going to be the safest school in the area for a good long while,” Thomas Britton told CNN’s Brian Todd.

    Last week, a lawyer representing the injured teacher alleged that school administrators were warned multiple times by staff who expressed concerns that the student had a gun and was making threats to people the day of the shooting. The lawyer, Diane Toscano, alleged Zwerner was shot about an hour after an employee was denied permission to search the student.

    CNN has reached out to the school district for comment on Toscano’s claims.

    While police have not publicly identified the student, his family has released statements saying the boy suffers from “an acute disability.”

    The family has said the gun the child allegedly brought to school in his backpack was secured by a trigger lock and kept on the top shelf of a closet. As part of his disability care plan, a family member usually went to class with him, but he was not accompanied the day of the incident, they said.

    “We will regret our absence on this day for the rest of our lives,” the family statement said.

    As students return to school, the district says support services made available to them since the incident will continue on site.

    The school has compiled an Amazon wish list of items teachers have requested “to support students’ social-emotional needs post-tragedy,” a post on the school’s Facebook account said.

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  • Brandon Tsay, the hero who disarmed the Monterey Park shooting suspect, honored with medal of courage | CNN

    Brandon Tsay, the hero who disarmed the Monterey Park shooting suspect, honored with medal of courage | CNN

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    Alhambra
    CNN
     — 

    The City of Alhambra honored the man who has been hailed a hero for disarming the Monterey Park shooting suspect at a second dance studio during Lunar New Year celebrations last weekend.

    Brandon Tsay, 26, was awarded a medal of courage from the Alhambra Police Department during a ceremony Sunday.

    Tsay can be seen in surveillance video wrestling a firearm from the shooting suspect, Huu Can Tran, at a dance studio in Alhambra. Authorities say Tran had opened fire earlier at a Lunar New Year celebration at another dance studio in nearby Monterey Park, killing 11 people and injuring 10 others.

    “The carnage would have been so much worse had it not been for Brandon Tsay,” California Representative Judy Chu said during the award ceremony. There was a visible law enforcement presence at Sunday’s event, held during the city’s own Lunar New Year Festival.

    Tsay was surrounded by police officers when he came on stage to accept his award, where he was joined by his family. He received a standing ovation and some attendees had posters and signs bearing his name. One sign at the community event read: “Brandon Tsay is our hero.”

    Tsay was working the ticket office at the Alhambra dance studio when the armed man entered and pointed a firearm at him, Tsay told CNN last week. He lunged at Tran and struggled with him for about 40 seconds, he said. Tran hit him several times on the face, the back of his head and on his back and hands, Tsay said, before he was able to wrench the gun away from Tran.

    During the struggle, Tsay said he thought to himself, “If I let go of this gun, what would happen to me, the people around me, my friends, my family?”

    Chu, who presented Tsay with a certificate of congressional recognition, said Tsay’s story “was so amazing” that she called him to be her guest at President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on February 7. But just one hour after Chu spoke with him, Biden called Tsay to personally invite him to be his guest, Chu said.

    Biden called Tsay last week to thank him for his act of bravery.

    “I wanted to call to see how you’re doing and thank you for taking such incredible action in the face of danger,” Biden told Tsay. “I don’t think you understand just how much you’ve done for so many people who are never going to even know you. But I want them to know more about you.

    “You have my respect,” the President said. “You are America, pal. You are who we are – no, no, you are who we are. America’s never backed down, we’ve always stepped up, because of people like you.”

    Chu called the President’s invitation a tremendous honor. “All the eyes of the nation will be on that address,” Chu said.

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  • After tragedy struck Monterey Park’s vibrant dance community, residents insist they will return to their beloved ballroom | CNN

    After tragedy struck Monterey Park’s vibrant dance community, residents insist they will return to their beloved ballroom | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    For years, dancers in high heels and glitzy dresses have hurried into Phillip Sam’s beauty supply store in Monterey Park ahead of big events, searching the maze of products for a finishing touch – strong hold hairspray, a swipe of glittery eyeshadow, a bejeweled claw clip. 

    It’s often their final stop before hitting the polished floors of Star Ballroom Dance Studio just across the street. But Sam thinks it will be quite some time before another dancer walks through his front door.  

    Two of his longtime customers, Mymy Nhan and Ming Wei Ma, were killed last weekend when a gunman opened fire inside the mirrored ballroom, leaving 11 dead and nine others wounded as the Asian-majority city ushered in the Lunar New Year. 

    “We went from celebrating – I have pictures of me with my family, happy, having dinner – and then that night, we’re texting, ‘Are you guys okay? Did you hear about this?,’” said Elizabeth Yang, an attorney who took ballroom classes at the studio every Monday.  

    A view overlooking Monterey Park.

    The tragedy has dealt a devastating blow to the city’s vibrant ballroom dance community. Star Ballroom has long served as an essential gathering spot, particularly for senior residents. Each day, rows of well-dressed dancers would glide across the brightly lit ballroom as a roster of competitive dance coaches guided them through the elegant steps of a waltz, tango, salsa or traditional Chinese dance. On weekend nights, dance parties would often fill the floor with over 100 people.

    “At the dance studio, at age 40, I’m probably the youngest member there,” Yang said, later adding, “There’s not too many active things for older people to do. … For those people who want to stay fit and get some form of exercise, they go ballroom dancing.”

    Many of the venue’s party attendees the night of the shooting were older, gathered there to relish in the final hours of Lunar New Year’s Eve. All but one of the shooter’s victims were in their 60s or 70s. The youngest, Xiujuan Yu, was 57.

    Now, the dance hall has been closed indefinitely, leaving its community without a crucial place of connection even as they mourn the losses of friends and beloved studio members.

    Attorney Elizabeth Yang, who took weekly classes at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, works in her office.

    Star Ballroom is at the epicenter of Monterey Park’s robust business district, a street lined with decades-old family businesses, mostly Asian-owned.

    When authorities announced the tragedy had struck along Garvey Avenue, many in the community could picture it immediately. It’s where residents crowd into Chinese cafes, stroll with their friends to tea shops and bakeries, and stop in markets to pick up fresh vegetables and herbs. Visitors could find the dance hall tucked next to a noodle shop and Chinese grocery and health store, its front door guarded by a pair of arched metal gates and strings of twinkling lights.

    The attack sent shock waves through the community, stunning even those who had never stepped foot in the studio. Many could call to mind a cousin, friend, uncle or aunt who has taken classes there.

    The gates outside the Star Ballroom Dance Studio have become surrounded by a makeshift memorial.

    A scene along the city's downtown Garvey Avenue near where the shooting took place.

    The victims included a caring father with plans to retire to his native Philippines, a longtime dance student, and the widely adored Ming Wei Ma, or “Mr. Ma,” who ran the studio with his significant other, Maria Liang, according to Yang and others close to them.

    Lian Zhang, who grew up in neighboring San Gabriel, arrived at Monterey Park’s city hall Monday night, clutching a packet of tea lights as she waited to meet friends for an evening vigil.

    “The most hurtful part is how close it was to home,” Zhang said. “We would have never thought that this was going to happen here. And I’m sure people say that everywhere. But it’s shocking … And of course, I’m going to think about my mom and think about my family, my aunts, my uncles. It could have been them,” she said.

    Ma taught dance classes at the elderly daycare where Zhang’s mother works, she said. Her mother remembered Ma as “very kind, very loving. Really sweet to all of the staff and to the elders that he teaches,” she said.

    Ma and Liang have cultivated a welcoming studio for dancers of all levels, often keeping members connected through WeChat groups where they would share updates, event photos and remind people of upcoming classes. The couple would be at the studio morning to night, encouraging new students to stand at the front of the class or watching dancers from one of the café tables lining the ballroom wall.

    Maria Liang, right, prays at the entrance of the dance studio during a ceremony led by Buddhist monks honoring the victims.

    “They’re like the cool aunt and uncle,” said Kevin Leung, a nurse who also rented space in the studio several days a week to teach traditional lion dancing and Kung Fu classes. When they heard Leung needed a space to teach his classes, they “welcomed us with open arms,” he said. “They’re like family.”

    It may take some time before dancers – many of whom are mourning the loss of multiple studio members – are ready to return to the venue again, Leung said, but he believes it’s what the community needs.

    “I was an ER nurse for 10 years. I’m used to seeing traumas. I’ve seen everything under the sun. It’s different when it happens to you. And then it’s like, wow, this is on your front doorstep. So we’ve got to push forward,” Leung said. One of his close family friends, 70-year-old Diana Man Ling Tom, was also killed in the shooting.

    “It’ll take time for (Liang) to get back on her feet, for the community to trust this place again. But I think it has to be here,” he said. He said he has already told Liang, “As soon as you’re back on your feet, we’ll be here.”

    Pictures of some of the shooting victims overlook a growing memorial outside the dance hall.

    Kevin Leung stands outside of the dance studio where he rented space for years to teach Kung Fu and traditional lion dancing. He knew two of those killed in the shooting.

    “I will not have any qualms about bringing my daughter back after they reopen,” Yang said. “We’ll still go back and we’ll still ballroom dance. We’re not going to be scared.”

    Several dancers close to Liang have assured her they will flood back into the studio as soon as she is ready, Yang said, and in the meantime they will continue to support her as she has always done for them.

    “It shows how resilient the community is,” she said. “Whenever there’s a challenge … the community can come back stronger than before.”

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  • 29-year-old woman faces charges for posing as teen at New Jersey high school, police say | CNN

    29-year-old woman faces charges for posing as teen at New Jersey high school, police say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A 29-year-old New Jersey woman is facing charges over claims she used false government documents in a ploy to pose as a teenager at a high school, according to police.

    Hyejeong Shin was charged with one count of providing a false government document after she allegedly submitted a fake birth certificate to the New Brunswick Board of Education, the New Brunswick Police Department said in a news release Wednesday.

    The police department said that Shin provided a fake birth certificate with the intention of enrolling “as a juvenile high-school student.”

    Shin does not have an attorney at this time, according to New Jersey Courts spokeswoman MaryAnn Spoto.

    Police have not said why Shin allegedly wanted to enroll in the school. CNN affiliate News12 New Jersey reported that students at the school said Shin attended class for four days alongside other students.

    Both the police and school district said that state law prohibits a student being prevented from attending school based on lack of documentation or immigration status.

    Shin “gained provisional admittance” to the school last week, New Brunswick Public Schools Superintendent Aubrey Johnson said in a statement to CNN.

    New Brunswick Public Schools staff members discovered the deception while completing the established vetting protocols and “promptly barred her from entering any district property,” according to the statement.

    “Once our staff determined it was dealing with fraudulent information, they immediately notified the appropriate authorities,” said Johnson. “The wellbeing of our students, staff, and community are of utmost importance to us, and we will continue working with the police department and our other partners in addressing this matter.”

    Shin is expected to appear in Middlesex County Superior Court for a hearing on February 16, according to court spokeswoman Meghan Carney-Vilela.

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  • Video: How Elon Musk’s Twitter drama impacts Tesla and how ChatGPT can be useful to students on CNN Nightcap | CNN Business

    Video: How Elon Musk’s Twitter drama impacts Tesla and how ChatGPT can be useful to students on CNN Nightcap | CNN Business

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    CNN’s Allison Morrow tells “Nightcap’s” Jon Sarlin that Elon Musk’s Twitter antics are damaging Tesla’s brand. Plus, high school teacher Cherie Shields argues that ChatGPT is an excellent teaching tool and schools are making a mistake if they ban the AI technology. To get the day’s business headlines sent directly to your inbox, sign up for the Nightcap newsletter.

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  • ChatGPT passes exams from law and business schools | CNN Business

    ChatGPT passes exams from law and business schools | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    ChatGPT is smart enough to pass prestigious graduate-level exams – though not with particularly high marks.

    The powerful new AI chatbot tool recently passed law exams in four courses at the University of Minnesota and another exam at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, according to professors at the schools.

    To test how well ChatGPT could generate answers on exams for the four courses, professors at the University of Minnesota Law School recently graded the tests blindly. After completing 95 multiple choice questions and 12 essay questions, the bot performed on average at the level of a C+ student, achieving a low but passing grade in all four courses.

    ChatGPT fared better during a business management course exam at Wharton, where it earned a B to B- grade. In a paper detailing the performance, Christian Terwiesch, a Wharton business professor, said ChatGPT did “an amazing job” at answering basic operations management and process-analysis questions but struggled with more advanced prompts and made “surprising mistakes” with basic math.

    “These mistakes can be massive in magnitude,” he wrote.

    The test results come as a growing number of schools and teachers express concerns about the immediate impact of ChatGPT on students and their ability to cheat on assignments. Some educators are now moving with remarkable speed to rethink their assignments in response to ChatGPT, even as it remains unclear how widespread use is of the tool among students and how harmful it could really be to learning.

    Since it was made available in late November, ChatGPT has been used to generate original essays, stories and song lyrics in response to user prompts. It has drafted research paper abstracts that fooled some scientists. Some CEOs have even used it to write emails or do accounting work.

    ChatGPT is trained on vast amounts of online data in order to generate responses to user prompts. While it has gained traction among users, it has also raised some concerns, including about inaccuracies and its potential to perpetuate biases and spread misinformation.

    Jon Choi, one of the University of Minnesota law professors, told CNN the goal of the tests was to explore ChatGPT’s potential to assist lawyers in their practice and to help students in exams, whether or not it’s permitted by their professors, because the questions often mimic the writing lawyers do in real life.

    “ChatGPT struggled with the most classic components of law school exams, such as spotting potential legal issues and deep analysis applying legal rules to the facts of a case,” Choi said. “But ChatGPT could be very helpful at producing a first draft that a student could then refine.”

    He argues human-AI collaboration is the most promising use case for ChatGPT and similar technology.

    “My strong hunch is that AI assistants will become standard tools for lawyers in the near future, and law schools should prepare their students for that eventuality,” he said. “Of course, if law professors want to continue to test simple recall of legal rules and doctrines, they’ll need to put restrictions in place like banning the internet during exams to enforce that.”

    Likewise, Wharton’s Terwiesch found the chatbot was “remarkably good” at modifying its answers in response to human hints, such as reworking answers after pointing out an error, suggesting the potential for people to work together with AI.

    In the short-term, however, discomfort remains with whether and how students should use ChatGPT. Public schools in New York City and Seattle, for example, have already banned students and teachers from using ChatGPT on the district’s networks and devices.

    Considering ChatGPT performed above average on his exam, Terwiesch told CNN he agrees restrictions should be put in place for students while they’re taking tests.

    “Bans are needed,” he said. “After all, when you give a medical doctor a degree, you want them to know medicine, not how to use a bot. The same holds for other skill certification, including law and business.”

    But Terwiesch believes this technology still ultimately has a place in the classroom. “If all we end up with is the same educational system as before, we have wasted an amazing opportunity that comes with ChatGPT,” he said.

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  • A new partisan era of American education | CNN Politics

    A new partisan era of American education | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says he’s protecting kids from indoctrination and political agendas, but the zeal with which he has pushed expansive efforts to remake the Florida education system also represents an effort to influence young minds.

    However you view DeSantis’ motivations, he is getting results.

    The College Board, the nonprofit organization that oversees the Advanced Placement program offered across high schools, said it would change a new AP African American studies course that DeSantis said violated a state law to restrict certain lessons about race in schools.

    His state’s Department of Education complained the college-level course mentioned Black queer theory and the idea of intersectionality. Read more about why Florida rejected the course.

    “Governor DeSantis, are you really trying to lead us into an era akin to communism that provides censorship of free thoughts?” the civil rights lawyer Ben Crump said at a press conference on Wednesday in Florida, where he announced he would sue DeSantis on behalf of three high school students if DeSantis would not negotiate with the College Board about the AP course.

    DeSantis recently demanded a list of names of staff and programs related to diversity at public colleges and universities, part of a crackdown on “trendy ideology.”

    Separately, he wants details on students who sought gender dysphoria treatment at state universities.

    DeSantis also wants to remake the New College of Florida, a small, public liberal arts school, as a sort of “Hillsdale of the South,” according to Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz.

    Hillsdale, as USA Today points out, is a private, conservative Christian college in Michigan.

    A new DeSantis appointee to the New College of Florida board of trustees has clashed with board officials over his request to open every meeting with a prayer.

    Republicans across the country are focused on education. They want to guard against anything perceived as pushing equity rather than merit.

    Virginia’s governor sees a conspiracy in how school districts recognize distinction in a scholarship program based on scores on the PSAT.

    The state attorney general has launched a discrimination investigation into whether the Fairfax County Public Schools system – including Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a nationally recognized Virginia magnet school – discriminated against students by not informing them of recognition under the National Merit Scholarship program.

    The students qualified for recognition but did not advance in the competition for a scholarship.

    Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, according to CNN’s report, claimed these revelations were a result of the “maniacal focus on equal outcomes for all students at all costs.”

    “The failure of numerous Fairfax County schools to inform students of their national merit awards could serve as a Virginia human rights violation,” the governor’s office said in a previous statement provided to CNN.

    Fairfax County Public Schools superintendent Michelle Reid told CNN the recognitions should have come earlier, but cited a lack of a “division-wide protocol” rather than any kind of mania about equity. Read more about the controversy.

    Texas officials also have their eyes on the state’s colleges and universities, according to CNN’s Eric Bradner.

    “Our public professors are accountable to the taxpayer because you pay their salary,” said Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in an inauguration speech. Bradner notes Patrick has pushed to end tenure at Texas public colleges and universities.

    “I don’t want teachers in our colleges saying, ‘America is evil and capitalism is bad and socialism is better,’” he said. “And if that means some of those professors that want to teach that don’t come to Texas, I’m OK with that.” Read Bradner’s full report.

    Meanwhile, in South Dakota, lawmakers are looking to develop a social studies curriculum based on “American exceptionalism,” propelled by the governor’s desire to put more patriotism in the classroom.

    The focus by Republican politicians on issues of race in colleges and the classroom is mirrored by the potential for a court-mandated turnaround in how American students are viewed for admissions.

    The Supreme Court heard arguments in October in two separate cases regarding affirmative action and seems poised to say colleges and universities cannot consider race in admissions.

    Nine states have already outlawed affirmative action for public universities. Voters in California were the first to do so, and the end result was falling enrollment, in particular among Black students at top public schools in the University of California system and at the University of Michigan. Those states both encouraged the Supreme Court not to outlaw affirmative action.

    Florida, which also ended the practice, encouraged the court to throw affirmative action out.


    Education was a major focus for Republicans in the recent election. While it clearly worked for DeSantis in Florida and a year earlier for Youngkin in Virginia, the mixed results for Republicans writ large may call the strategy into question as the 2024 election looms.

    I read on the education news website Chalkbeat about a new study that predicts more politics in the classroom as Americans increasingly sort themselves by political ideology.

    In the working paper, David Houston, an education policy professor at George Mason University, argues that previous debates over desegregation, prayer and sex education in public schools were divisive but not inherently partisan.

    He points to the moderate positions of previous presidents as proof. Then-President George W. Bush worked with then-Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy on education reform in 2001. Former President Barack Obama was praised by Republicans in 2012 for his work on education.

    Those stories feel like they’re from a different universe when today’s Republican governors are looking to root out liberal extremism in schools.

    Houston argues in his study, which is based on survey data, that the US may be on the cusp of a new and divisive era with “heightened partisan animosity across all aspects of education politics.”

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  • Suspect arrested in Des Moines shooting that left 2 students dead, founder of education program in serious condition, police say | CNN

    Suspect arrested in Des Moines shooting that left 2 students dead, founder of education program in serious condition, police say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A man was arrested and charged with murder after a shooting at an educational program for at-risk youth in Des Moines, Iowa, left two students dead and the program’s founder seriously injured, authorities said in a press release.

    At 12:53 p.m. Monday, police and fire personnel responded to a report of a shooting at 455 SW 5th Street, which houses the non-profit, called Starts Right Here, Des Moines police said in a news release.

    They found the shooting victims, who were taken to hospitals. The names of the slain were not released.

    Preston Walls, 18, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder, attempted murder and criminal gang participation, police said in an updated statement.

    “Walls, and both deceased victims, are known gang members, belonging to opposing gangs, and evidence indicates that that these crimes were committed as a result of an ongoing gang dispute,” the updated news release said. Des Moines Police provided no further details outlining these claims.

    Police said Walls cut off a court-ordered GPS ankle monitor approximately 16 minutes prior to the shooting.

    CNN has been unable to determine if Walls has retained legal counsel at this time.

    Police didn’t identify the injured person but Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie said it was Starts Right Here program president and R&B hip hop artist Will Holmes, also known as “Will Keeps.” Police said he was in serious condition.

    The shooting occurred after the suspect, who had a 9mm handgun with an extended ammunition magazine, “entered into a common area where all three victims were located,” the police statement said.

    Holmes “attempted to escort Walls from the area. Walls pulled away from Holmes, pulled the handgun and began to shoot both teenage victims. Holmes was standing nearby and was also shot. Walls then fled the scene on foot,” according to the news release.

    Police got a description of a vehicle related to the shooting and made a traffic stop about 20 minutes after the shooting, two miles away, Police Sgt. Paul Parizek said at a news conference.

    Two people stayed in the vehicle and one got out and ran, Parizek said. Police found the suspect with a tracking dog, he said.

    Police say they found a 9mm handgun nearby. “The ammunition magazine in the handgun has a capacity of 31 rounds, and contained three,” according to the news release.

    Two additional people remain in custody as police investigate the incident.

    Des Moines, Iowa. police converged on the scene of a shooting on Jan. 23, 2034.

    According to Starts Right Here’s website, “Starts Right Here (SRH) is busy inspiring at-risk youth in the Des Moines Public Schools and motivating youth through speaking events. Will Keeps, SRH President, performs empowering songs to inspire and speak the truth.”

    Keeps is a rapper who grew up in Chicago and moved to Des Moines.

    “I want to take a moment and address the horrific shooting this afternoon at Starts Right Here, the school program on Southwest 5th St. and it is run by a friend of the city, Will Keeps, who is recovering tonight in the hospital,” Cownie said in a video statement.

    The mayor called the shooting a “story that repeats itself—the tragic story of young lives taken far too soon by gun violence.”

    The Des Moines Public Schools website says SRH partners with the school district to help students in the district’s Options Academy credit recovery program and to support students who are no longer in a school building. SRH serves 40-50 DMPS students at any given time, the school district said.

    Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who is listed on the website’s advisory board, said she is “shocked and saddened” about the shooting.

    “I am shocked and saddened to hear about the shooting at Starts Right Here. I’ve seen first-hand how hard Will Keeps and his staff works to help at-risk kids through this alternative education program. My heart breaks for them, these kids and their families. Kevin and I are praying for their safe recovery,” Reynolds said in a statement.

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  • Police are investigating motive after Monterey Park massacre leaves 10 dead and a city reeling during Lunar New Year celebrations | CNN

    Police are investigating motive after Monterey Park massacre leaves 10 dead and a city reeling during Lunar New Year celebrations | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Investigators in Monterey Park, California, are still searching for the motive of a gunman who killed 10 people and injured 10 others during a shooting inside a ballroom dance studio Saturday night, devastating the majority-Asian community on the eve of its Lunar New Year celebration.

    Terror continued overnight and into Sunday as the gunman had still not been caught and some had not been reunited with their loved ones. Ultimately, the city canceled the second day of its Lunar New Year festival, typically one of its most joyous holidays.

    Eventually, a suspect identified as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran was located in the nearby city of Torrance, where he died after shooting himself as police approached his vehicle, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said Sunday.

    Hours earlier, a gunman had walked into Star Ballroom Dance Studio shortly before 10:30 p.m. Saturday night, not long after the city’s streets had been crowded by thousands of festival-goers, the sheriff said.

    After releasing a barrage of gunfire on the people inside, the gunman drove to a second dance hall in neighboring Alhambra where he entered with a firearm but fled after being disarmed by two patrons, Luna said.

    When police arrived at the dance studio in Monterey Park less than three minutes after the first call for help, “they came across a scene that none of them had been prepared for,” city police chief Scott Wiese said. The shooter had inflicted “extensive” carnage, leaving behind chaos as people fled the building with those dead and injured still inside, he said.

    The suspected gunman had once been a regular patron of the dance hall, where he gave informal dance lessons and met his ex-wife, three people who knew him told CNN.

    The mass shooting is one of the deadliest in California’s history and was at least the 33rd in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which like CNN, defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are shot, excluding the shooter. The violence came as a shock to many who felt Monterey Park was a safe enclave for the robust Asian community that has built a home there.

    “I’ve lived here for 37 years, and I could never have imagined such a terrible thing happening,” Rep. Judy Chu, who represents Monterey Park in Congress, told CNN Sunday, adding, “This is a tight-knit community and it has been very peaceful all these years, so that’s why it is even more shattering to have this happen.”

    Authorities have not named any of those killed or injured. The coroner’s office is still working to identify the deceased so police can notify their families, Luna said, adding that the victims are generally older than 50. Seven of the injured victims were still hospitalized Sunday, he said.

    Here’s what we know so far:

    • Suspect found in nearby city: At around 10:20 a.m. Sunday, police in the city of Torrance – about 30 miles southwest of Monterey Park – spotted a white cargo van matching the description of one seen leaving the scene of the Alhambra dance studio, Luna said. Officers followed the van into a shopping center parking lot and began getting out of their patrol car to approach the driver – later identified as Tran – but retreated when they heard a gunshot from inside the van, he said. Armored vehicles and SWAT teams arrived and eventually cleared the van, discovering Tran dead inside.
    • Evidence links suspect to shooting: Inside the van, investigators found “several pieces of evidence” linking Tran to both the Monterey Park and Alhambra dance studios, the sheriff said, not providing further details. They also found a handgun, Luna said. Police previously said a gun was wrestled from the armed man at the Alhambra dance studio.
    • Suspect was carrying semi-automatic weapon: Luna described the firearm taken from the man in Alhambra as a “magazine-fed semi-automatic assault pistol” with an extended, large-capacity magazine. A law enforcement official told CNN it was a Cobray M11 9mm semi-automatic weapon.
    • Motive still unknown: Investigators have yet to determine a motive, Luna said, but will be considering any available criminal or mental health history and issue a search warrant to find more details. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has obtained a search warrant for Tran’s home in Hemet, California, about 80 miles east of Monterey Park, a Hemet Police spokesperson confirmed.

    As details of the shooting unfolded Sunday, many state governors and national leaders voiced their support for the community and called for action to curb gun violence. President Joe Biden called the shooting a “senseless act.”

    “Even as we continue searching for answers about this attack, we know how deeply this attack has impacted the (Asian American Pacific Islander) community. Monterey Park is home to one of the largest AAPI communities in America, many of whom were celebrating the Lunar New Year along with loved ones and friends this weekend,” Biden said.

    Tran had once been a familiar face at Star Ballroom Dance Studio, three people who knew him told CNN, though it is unclear how often he visited the venue, if at all, in recent years.

    He even met his ex-wife there about two decades ago, she said in an interview. Tran saw her at a dance, introduced himself and offered her free lessons, she said.

    The two married soon after they met, according to the ex-wife, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the case. While Tran was never violent to her, she said he could be quick to anger. For example, she said, if she missed a step dancing, he would become upset because he felt it made him look bad. She said that after several years together, she got the impression that he had lost interest in her. Her sister, who also asked not to be named, confirmed her account.

    Tran filed for divorce in late 2005, and a judge approved the divorce the following year, Los Angeles court records show.

    Another long-time acquaintance of Tran’s also remembered him as a regular patron of the dance studio. The friend, who also asked not to be named, was close to Tran in the late 2000s and early 2010s, when he said Tran would come to the dance studio “almost every night” from his home in nearby San Gabriel.

    Tran often complained at the time that the instructors at the dance hall didn’t like him and said “evil things about him,” the friend remembered, adding that Tran was “hostile to a lot of people there.”

    More generally, Tran was easily irritated, complained a lot, and didn’t seem to trust people, the friend said.

    Tran’s friend said he hadn’t seen Tran in several years and was “totally shocked” when he heard about the shooting.

    “I know lots of people, and if they go to Star studio, they frequent there,” the friend said, adding that he was “worried maybe I know some of” the shooting victims.

    Tran worked as a truck driver at times, his ex-wife said. He was an immigrant from China, according to a copy of his marriage license she showed to CNN.

    In 2013, Tran sold his San Gabriel home, which he had owned for more than two decades, property records show. Seven years later, records show, he bought a mobile home in a senior citizens community in Hemet. A spokesperson for Hemet Police confirmed the location of his home to CNN Sunday.

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