Tag: Education

  • Do Regional Publics Know Their Product? (opinion)

    Do Regional Publics Know Their Product? (opinion)

    While institutions of higher education have in recent months been incessantly targeted from without, it is also important for universities’ long-term health that we consider what has been going on within them. Often, the national conversation disproportionately focuses on Ivy League institutions—what one famous professor recently referred to as “Harvard Derangement Syndrome”—but if we want to understand what the vast majority of American college students experience, we must look at the regional public universities (RPUs) that are “the workhorses of public higher education.”

    According to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, roughly 70 percent of all U.S. undergraduates enrolled at public four-year institutions attend RPUs. Yet declining enrollments and years of austerity measures have left these workhorse universities particularly vulnerable. Writing about the difficult financial decisions many of these campuses have already made, Lee Gardner warns that “if many regional colleges cut at this point, they risk becoming very different institutions.”

    But those who work at regional public universities will tell you that they are already very different institutions. Rarely, however, have these transformations been the subject or result of open campus discussion and debate. Often, they are not even publicly declared by the administrations spearheading these shifts, though it’s not always clear if that is by design or because administrators are unclear about their own priorities. An unsettling likelihood is that we no longer know what these workhorse universities should be working toward.

    My own regional college is part of the State University of New York system, which, as political scientist and SUNY Cortland professor Henry Steck argues, has always struggled to define its mission and purpose. “From its earliest days,” writes Steck, “SUNY’s history has been characterized not simply by the recurrent challenges of growth and financing, but by a more profound disagreement over what higher education means to New Yorkers.”

    As a result, the SUNY system “has yet to discover or resolve its full identity,” which, today, is torn between three “disparate visions” that emerged in the latter half of the 20th century: the civic-minded vision of 1950s university leader Thomas Hamilton, who emphasized the cultivation of intellectual, scientific and artistic excellence through broadly accessible liberal learning; a utilitarian vision that, beginning in the 1980s, stressed the economic importance of graduate research and professional education; and the neoliberal ethos of a 1995 trustees’ report entitled “Rethinking SUNY” that encouraged both greater efficiency and more campus autonomy to boost competition between institutions in the system.

    One can perceive all three visions overlapping in complex ways in my own campus’s mission statement, which emphasizes “outstanding liberal arts and pre-professional programs” designed to prepare students “for their professional and civic futures.” But day-to-day realities reveal a notable imbalance among those aims. Recent years have seen a substantial scaling back of liberal arts programs, particularly in the humanities. In 2022, our philosophy major was deactivated despite overwhelming opposition from the Faculty Senate.

    In 2020, my own department (English) had 14 full-time faculty; this coming fall, it will have just six. Meanwhile, there has been an ever-increasing emphasis on pre-professional majors and a borderline obsession with microcredentials, allegedly designed to excite future employers. Lip service is still paid, on occasion, to the importance of the liberal arts, particularly in recent months as federal overreach has prompted colleges to reaffirm the responsibility they have, as my own president put it in a campuswide email, “to prepare students for meaningful lives as engaged citizens.” But without robustly supported humanistic disciplines—and especially without a philosophy department—how are we to teach students what a “meaningful life” is or what engaged citizenship in a democratic culture truly entails?

    To state the problem more openly in the language of business so familiar to college administrators: It’s not just that we do not have a coherent and compelling vision; it’s that we have no idea what our product is anymore. On my own campus, administrators tend to think the issue is simply a marketing problem. It is our task as a department, we are told, to spread the word about the English major and recruit new students. In many ways, this is right: Universities and the disciplines that constitute them have not been great at telling their story or communicating their value to the public or even to the students on their campuses.

    But the issue goes much deeper. “Remarkable marketing,” writes marketing expert Seth Godin, “is the art of building things worth noticing right into your product or service. Not slapping on marketing as a last-minute add-on, but understanding that if your offering itself isn’t remarkable, it’s invisible.” Godin calls these remarkable products “purple cows” (which are clearly unlike other cows).

    Yet to the extent that conversations on my campus have been oriented toward a product at all, it rarely concerns the nuts-and-bolts dynamic of liberal learning that happens in the humanities classroom—that is, the rigorous intellectual journey faculty should be leading students on, taking them outside themselves (and their comfort zones) and into the broader world of ideas, histories and frameworks for making sense of human experience. Instead, the focus has shifted, not simply to inculcating skills, but more significantly to the immense institutional apparatus comprised of therapists, advisers, technology specialists and other paraprofessional support systems.

    Put another way, because there seems to be massive uncertainty about the nature of the higher education classroom, what we end up marketing to prospective students and their parents, wittingly or unwittingly, is an array of services for “managing” the classroom and helping students transact the business of completing a degree or assembling one’s microcredentials on the way to employment.

    The result is a highly technocratic conception of the university and a fiercely transactional notion of higher education that flattens virtually everyone’s sense of what should transpire in the college classroom and which redistributes professional authority away from faculty and toward various administrators and academic support personnel—a shift that Benjamin Ginsberg has astutely documented.

    Faculty, meanwhile, are constantly implored, often by academic support staff who have never taught a class, to “innovate” in their methods and materials, “as though,” retorts Gayle Green, “we weren’t ‘innovating’ all the time, trying new angles, testing what works, seeing if we can make it better, always starting over, every day, a whole new show.” It’s a world of learning management systems (aptly titled to emphasize “management”), learning centers (as if the classroom were a peripheral element of college life), “student success” dashboards, degree-tracking software and what Jerry Z. Muller calls a “tyrannical” preoccupation with data and metrics, which serve as the simplified benchmarks through which educational progress and value are measured.

    And while, as Greene’s book highlights, this approach to higher education has permeated every university to some extent, what is unique to my campus—and, I suspect, to other cash-strapped RPUs fighting to stay relevant and competitive—is the fervent extent to which we have embraced this technocratic approach and allowed it to dominate our sense of purpose.

    To be clear, I am in no way opposed to robustly supporting student success in the multitudinous ways a university must these days. I routinely invite learning center specialists into my classrooms, I refer students to the advising or counseling centers, and I have worked with our accessibility office to ensure my supplementary course materials meet all students’ needs. What concerns me is the lack of substantive, broad-ranging discussion about what terms like “student success” or “student-centered education” even mean, and the dearth of guidance from administrators about how the various campus constituencies should work together to achieve them. That guidance would require a much clearer and more well-communicated vision of what our ultimate purpose—and product—is.

    As much as I admire Godin’s mindful emphasis on “building things worth noticing right into your product or service,” I wonder if some core element of the liberal learning that resides at the heart of higher education is a product that can’t be endlessly innovated. What if higher education is a product similar to, say, the process of drawing heat or energy from a natural resource such as firewood or sunlight? Yes, we can refine these processes to a great extent by building energy-efficient woodstoves to capture more heat from each log or solar panels and storage devices to wrest more energy from every beam of light. But eventually there will be diminishing returns for our efforts, and some so-called improvements may simply be cosmetic changes that really have nothing to do with—or may even detract from—the process of heat or energy extraction, which, at its foundation, simply entails intimate contact with these distinctly unchanging natural elements.

    Etymologically, this is precisely what “education” means—to educe or draw forth something hidden or latent. And as silly as the above analogy may sound, it is precisely the metaphor that philosophers and writers have used since the classical era to conceptualize the very nature of education. In The Republic, Plato likens “the natural power to learn” to the process of “turning the soul” away from reflections projected on a cave wall (mere representations of reality) and leading oneself out from the cave and into the sunlight of truth.

    Closer to our own time and place, Ralph Waldo Emerson professed in “The American Scholar” that colleges “can only highly serve us, when they aim not to drill, but to create; when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and, by the concentrated fires, set the hearts of their youth on flame.”

    “Forget this,” he warned, “and our American colleges will recede in their public importance, whilst they grow richer every year.”

    But it was W. E. B. Du Bois who, arguing for racial equality roughly six decades later, brought these ideas together in one of their most radical forms, forever giving all American universities something to aspire to. In The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois, drawing on the education-as-heat-extraction metaphor to evoke the immense powers of learning, posited that “to stimulate wildly weak and untrained minds is to play with mighty fires.” And his paean to the college classroom is remarkable for its emphasis on the university’s spartan but enduring methods:

    “In a half-dozen class-rooms they gather then … Nothing new, no time-saving devices,—simply old time-glorified methods of delving for Truth, and searching out the hidden beauties of life, and learning the good of living … The riddle of existence is the college curriculum that was laid before the Pharaohs, that was taught in the groves by Plato, that formed the trivium and quadrivium, and is today laid before the freedmen’s sons by Atlanta University. And this course of study will not change; its methods will grow more deft and effectual, its content richer by toil of scholar and sight of seer; but the true college will ever have one goal,—not to earn meat, but to know the end and aim of that life which meat nourishes.”

    This is a vision of education almost perfectly designed to baffle today’s educational reformers or RPU administrators, not simply for its attitude toward innovative “time-saving devices,” but for the fact that Du Bois was advocating this approach—one more akin to those found at wealthy liberal arts schools these days—for Black individuals in the Jim Crow South in contrast to the more trade-focused vision of his contemporary, Booker T. Washington.

    Washington’s vision has clearly triumphed in RPUs, where the humanistic learning that Du Bois writes so passionately about has been dying out and, in the years ahead, will likely be relegated to the spiritless distributional requirements of the general education curriculum. As Eric Adler has admirably written, such an approach further shifts responsibility for meaningful curricula away from faculty judgment and toward student fancy and choice.

    So, too, does it marginalize—that is, reduce to a check-box icon in a degree-tracking tool—the emphasis on “soul-crafting” that takes place, as Du Bois well knew, when students persistently grapple with life’s biggest questions. “By denying to all but privileged undergraduates the opportunity to shape their souls,” Adler argues, “vocationalists implicitly broadcast their elitism.”

    That very elitism was broadcast at my own university when an administrator suggested in a conversation with me that our students often work full-time and thus are not as focused on exploring big questions or reading difficult texts. When I pushed back, asserting that my classroom experience had demonstrated that our students were indeed hungry to read the serious literary and philosophical texts that can help them explore questions of meaning and value, the administrator immediately apologized for being presumptuous. Nevertheless, the elitism was broadcast.

    If RPUs are serious about the civic ideals they have once again begun to champion in response to potential government overreach, then they need to re-evaluate the overall educational product they are offering and redirect autonomy and respect back toward the faculty—particularly the humanistic faculty—who are best poised to educate students in the kinds of “soul-crafting” that are essential to a well-lived life in a thriving democratic society.

    There have been many calls to revive civics education in the United States, but no civics education will be complete without cultivating the broader humanistic knowledge and imaginative capabilities that are essential to daily life in a liberal democracy. Literature, philosophy, history, art—all are vital for helping us understand not only ourselves but also the ideas, beliefs and experiences of other individuals with whom we must share a political world and with whom we often disagree. Such an endeavor may seem rather basic and perhaps old-fashioned. But anyone who has taught at the college level knows it is an immensely complex undertaking. It is already a purple cow.

    Scott M. Reznick is an assistant professor of English at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, where he has taught for the past five years, and associate professor of literature at the University of Austin, where he will begin teaching this fall. He is the author of Political Liberalism and the Rise of American Romanticism (Oxford, 2024).

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  • Howard Students Crowdsource to Cover Unpaid Balances

    Howard Students Crowdsource to Cover Unpaid Balances

    Howard University students have taken to social media to crowdsource funds after some found out they owe thousands of dollars to the institution following its transition to a new student financial platform, NBC News reported.

    The social media campaigns began after about 1,000 students received notice that the university put their accounts on hold because of unpaid balances. Some students received emails on June 4 saying that if the balances weren’t paid off by the end of the month, their bills would be sent to an external collections agency, according to The Root. Students in “pre-collection” have until the end of August to pay their bills. As long as a hold remains on their account, they can’t register for classes or student housing.

    Half of the cases have been resolved, according to a statement from Howard on Friday.

    “We are taking active steps to assist students experiencing challenges related to financial aid and account balances,” the statement read. “The University reaffirms its unwavering commitment to student success and to helping ensure that students are financially equipped to begin the academic year.”

    Howard officials also promised to offer virtual and in-person office hours, financial counseling, flexible payment plans, and, when possible, emergency support to affected students.

    On social media, students said they were blindsided by the news of how much they owed.

    “Myself included, many of us that have these balances on our account were not notified prior … which is why we’re struggling to pay them, because we had no idea,” said sophomore Makiah Goodman in one of multiple TikTok videos she made about the issue. She also said she discovered that a scholarship she earned couldn’t be applied to her debt. In another video, she noted that transferring out of Howard is “on the table” if she can’t pay.

    Alissa Jones, also a student, told NBC4 she was a few classes short of graduating when she found out she owed more than $57,000, despite only paying $15,000 per year for the last four years because of scholarship money.

    “Right now, it says I owe $57,540-something, like, I owe the whole thing,” Jones said. “If you have any type of hold, you cannot register for class, but with these, obsessive amounts of money that they’re saying we owe, it’s almost like, that’s not one semester’s worth of tuition, at all.”

    The breakdown in communication seems to have come as Howard transitioned from its old student financial platform, BisonWeb, to a new version, BisonHub. During the process, some student account updates were delayed between January and June of this year, according to Howard’s statement on Friday. (An earlier update from the university said between May and June.)

    Howard officials wrote in the statement that students were informed last October and November that their data would be transferred over to the new platform and that could come with “potential impacts.”

    Protests and Fundraisers

    A group of students has since launched a protest via an Instagram account called @whosehowardisit.

    The group came out with a set of demands, including an immediate in-person meeting with the Board of Trustees, more investment in financial aid and scholarships, and the resignations of some Howard administrators. They also called for student representatives to be added to hiring committees for various administrative positions going forward, particularly directors of student-facing departments. The group provided email templates for students, parents and other stakeholders to amplify their discontent.

    “For too long, students have raised concerns about communication failures, inaccessible leadership, and a lack of transparency around critical issues,” the group wrote in a “Get Involved Guide” shared on social media. “This movement is bigger than past due balances; it’s about how Howard University’s actions, or lack thereof, mirror the patterns of white supremacy, classism, and exclusion that oppress lower-income Black and brown students.”

    In their recent statement, Howard officials acknowledged students’ outspokenness about the issue.

    “While we are addressing the challenges related to the timing of the transition of students’ account data, we are also seeing an increase in the number of students who are publicly expressing frustration and concerns over rising financial pressures and the ability to continue their education,” they said, noting that Howard disproportionately serves low-income students.

    They added, “Recent federal cuts to research grants, education programs, and fellowships have compounded financial pressures on both students and faculty.”

    Students also shared to the @whosehowardisit Instagram account a central hub for the GoFundMe campaigns. Currently, about 70 students’ crowdsourcing campaigns are listed. (The site notes that the campaigns haven’t been “personally verified.”) Run by broadcast journalism student Ssanyu Lukoma, the site also features a GoFundMe submission form and a directory for possible scholarships and other financial resources.

    Some of the fundraising efforts have already paid off. Goodman’s GoFundMe campaign, for example, has so far raised more than $4,000 toward her $6,000 goal. Another campaign for Brandon Hawkins, a rising sophomore, hit $13,000, which is approaching his goal of $16,000. He said in a July 23 update that he’s now met his outstanding balance to Howard and any additional funds will go toward his tuition next year.

    “I hold a very personal and powerful mission: to be the first Black man in my family to graduate from college and create a new legacy for future generations,” Hawkins wrote on his GoFundMe page. “However, despite my academic achievements and unwavering passion, I face serious financial barriers that are threatening my ability to return to Howard and continue pursuing my degree.”



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  • Why Grad Students Can’t Afford to Ignore AI  (opinion)

    Why Grad Students Can’t Afford to Ignore AI  (opinion)

    I recently found myself staring at my computer screen, overwhelmed by the sheer pace of AI developments flooding my inbox. Contending with the flow of new tools, updated models and breakthrough announcements felt like trying to drink from a fire hose. As someone who coaches graduate students navigating their academic and professional journeys, I realized I was experiencing the same anxiety many of my students express: How do we keep up with something that’s evolving faster than we can learn?

    But here’s what I’ve come to understand through my own experimentation and reflection: The question isn’t whether we can keep up, but whether we can afford not to engage. As graduate students, you’re training to become the critical thinkers, researchers and leaders our world desperately needs. If you step back from advances in AI, you’re not just missing professional opportunities; you’re abdicating your responsibility to help shape how these powerful tools impact society.

    The Stakes Are Higher Than You Think

    The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence isn’t just a tech trend but a fundamental shift that will reshape every field, from humanities research to scientific discovery. As graduate students, you have a unique opportunity and responsibility. You’re positioned at the intersection of deep subject matter expertise and flexible thinking. You can approach AI tools with both the technical sophistication to use them effectively and the critical perspective to identify their limitations and potential harms.

    When I reflect on my own journey with AI tools, I’m reminded of my early days learning to navigate complex organizational systems. Just as I had to develop strategic thinking skills to thrive in bureaucratic environments, we now need to develop AI literacy to thrive in an AI-augmented world. The difference is the timeline: We don’t have years to adapt gradually. We have months, maybe weeks, before these tools become so embedded in professional workflows that not knowing how to use them thoughtfully becomes a significant disadvantage.

    My Personal AI Tool Kit: Tools Worth Exploring

    Rather than feeling paralyzed by the abundance of options, I’ve taken a systematic approach to exploring AI tools. I chose the tools in my current tool kit not because they’re perfect, but because they represent different ways AI can enhance rather than replace human thinking.

    • Large Language Models: Beyond ChatGPT

    Yes, ChatGPT was the breakthrough that captured everyone’s attention, but limiting yourself to one LLM is like using only one search engine. I regularly experiment with Claude for its nuanced reasoning capabilities, Gemini for its integration with Google’s ecosystem and DeepSeek for being an open-source model. Each has distinct strengths, and understanding these differences helps me choose the right tool for specific tasks.

    The key insight I’ve gained is that these aren’t just fancy search engines or writing assistants. They’re thinking partners that can help you explore ideas, challenge assumptions and approach problems from multiple angles, if you know how to prompt them effectively.

    • Executive Function Support: Goblin Tools

    One discovery that surprised me was Goblin Tools, an AI-powered suite of tools designed to support executive function. As someone who juggles multiple projects and deadlines and is navigating an invisible disability, I’ve found the task breakdown and time estimation features invaluable. For graduate students managing research, coursework and teaching responsibilities, tools like this can provide scaffolding for the cognitive load that often overwhelms even the most organized among us.

    • Research Acceleration: Elicit and Consensus

    Perhaps the most transformative tools in my workflow are Elicit and Consensus. These platforms don’t just help you find research papers, but also help you understand research landscapes, identify gaps in literature and synthesize findings across multiple studies.

    What excites me most about these tools is how they augment rather than replace critical thinking. They can surface connections you might miss and highlight contradictions in the literature, but you still need the domain expertise to evaluate the quality of sources and the analytical skills to synthesize findings meaningfully.

    • Real-Time Research: Perplexity

    Another tool that has become indispensable in my research workflow is Perplexity. What sets Perplexity apart is its ability to provide real-time, cited responses by searching the internet and academic sources simultaneously. I’ve found this particularly valuable for staying current with rapidly evolving research areas and for fact-checking information. When I’m exploring a new topic or need to verify recent developments in a field, Perplexity serves as an intelligent research assistant that not only finds relevant information but also helps me understand how different sources relate to each other. The key is using it as a starting point for deeper investigation, not as the final word on any topic.

    • Visual Communication: Beautiful.ai, Gamma and Napkin

    Presentation and visual communication tools represent another frontier where AI is making significant impact. Beautiful.ai and Gamma can transform rough ideas into polished presentations, while Napkin excels at creating diagrams and visual representations of complex concepts.

    I’ve found these tools particularly valuable not just for final presentations, but for thinking through ideas visually during the research process. Sometimes seeing your argument laid out in a diagram reveals logical gaps that weren’t apparent in text form.

    • Staying Informed: The Pivot 5 Newsletter

    With so much happening so quickly, staying informed without becoming overwhelmed is crucial. I subscribe to the Pivot 5 newsletter, which provides curated insights into AI developments without the breathless hype that characterizes much AI coverage. Finding reliable, thoughtful sources for AI news is as important as learning to use the tools themselves.

    Beyond the Chat Bots: Developing Critical AI Literacy

    Here’s where I want to challenge you to think more deeply. Most discussions about AI in academia focus on policies about chat bot use in assignments—important, but insufficient. The real opportunity lies in developing what I call critical AI literacy: understanding not just how to use these tools, but when to use them, how to evaluate their outputs and how to maintain your own analytical capabilities.

    This means approaching AI tools with the same rigor you’d apply to any research methodology. What are the assumptions built into these systems? What biases might they perpetuate? How do you verify AI-generated insights? These aren’t just philosophical questions; they’re practical skills that will differentiate thoughtful AI users from passive consumers.

    A Strategic Approach to AI Engagement

    Drawing from the strategic thinking framework I’ve advocated for in the past, here’s how I suggest you approach AI engagement:

    • Start with purpose: Before adopting any AI tool, clearly identify what problem you’re trying to solve. Are you looking to accelerate research, improve writing, manage complex projects or enhance presentations? Different tools serve different purposes.
    • Experiment systematically: Don’t try to learn everything at once. Choose one or two tools that align with your immediate needs and spend time understanding their capabilities and limitations before moving on to others.
    • Maintain critical distance: Use these tools as thinking partners, not thinking replacements. Always maintain the ability to evaluate and verify AI outputs against your own expertise and judgment.
    • Share and learn: Engage with peers about your experiences. What works? What doesn’t? What ethical considerations have you encountered? This collective learning is crucial for developing best practices.

    The Cost of Standing Still

    I want to be clear about what’s at stake. This isn’t about keeping up with the latest tech trends or optimizing productivity, even though those are benefits. It’s about ensuring that the most important conversations about AI’s role in society include the voices of critically trained, ethically minded scholars.

    If graduate students, future professors, researchers, policymakers and industry leaders retreat from AI engagement, we leave these powerful tools to be shaped entirely by technologists and venture capitalists. The nuanced understanding of human behavior, ethical frameworks and social systems that you’re developing in your graduate programs is exactly what’s needed to guide AI development responsibly.

    The pace of change isn’t slowing down. In fact, it’s accelerating. But that’s precisely why your engagement matters more, not less. The world needs people who can think critically about these tools, who understand both their potential and their perils, and who can help ensure they’re developed and deployed in ways that benefit rather than harm society.

    Moving Forward With Intention

    As you consider how to engage with AI tools, remember that this isn’t about becoming a tech expert overnight. It’s about maintaining the curiosity and critical thinking that brought you to graduate school in the first place. Start small, experiment thoughtfully and always keep your analytical mind engaged.

    The future we’re building with AI won’t be determined by the tools themselves, but by the people who choose to engage with them thoughtfully and critically. As graduate students, you have the opportunity—and, I’d argue, the responsibility—to be part of that conversation.

    The question isn’t whether AI will transform your field. It’s whether you’ll help shape that transformation or let it happen to you. The choice, as always, is yours to make.

    Dinuka Gunaratne (he/him) has worked across several postsecondary institutions in Canada and the U.S. and is a member of several organizational boards, including Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning Canada, CERIC—Advancing Career Development in Canada, and the leadership team of the Administrators in Graduate and Professional Student Services knowledge community with NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education.

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  • Ky. Prof. Calling for War Against Israel Pulled From Teaching

    Ky. Prof. Calling for War Against Israel Pulled From Teaching

    Since Oct. 7, 2023, scholars and members of the broader public have debated whether Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza actually constitutes a genocide of Palestinians. Fights have erupted over scholarly association resolutions, course descriptions and assignments calling it such.

    Ramsi Woodcock, a University of Kentucky law professor, says it’s a genocide. On his website, antizionist.net, he says that the ongoing genocide—combined with his expectation that Israel would violate any future ceasefire and continue killing—creates a “moral duty” for the world’s nations.

    That duty, he writes in the “Petition for Military Action Against Israel,” is to wage war on Israel until it “has submitted permanently and unconditionally to the government of Palestine everywhere from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.” He asks fellow law scholars to sign the petition, adding that Israel is a colony and war is needed to decolonize.

    This month—just after Woodcock says he was promoted to full professor—the university removed him from teaching. In a July 18 message to campus that doesn’t specifically name Woodcock, UK president Eli Capilouto wrote that legal counsel was investigating whether an employee’s “conduct may violate federal and state guidance as well as university policies.”

    “We have been made aware of allegations of disturbing conduct, including an online petition calling for the destruction of a people based on national origin,” Capilouto wrote. Woodcock told Inside Higher Ed that characterization of his petition is “obviously defamatory, creates a hostile environment for me and makes me potentially physically unsafe.” He said he’s considering suing Capilouto and the university for defamation.

    Capilouto further wrote that the petition, which the unnamed university employee seemed to be “broadly” circulating online, “can be interpreted as antisemitic in accordance with state and federal guidance.” Woodcock responded that “what Palestinians resist, and what those who advocate for them resist, is colonization, apartheid and a currently unfolding genocide—they are not opposed to any particular religion or any particular people.”

    But Shlomo Litvin, chairman of the Kentucky Jewish Council and rabbi for the Chabad at UK Jewish Student Center, told Inside Higher Ed that “calling for the establishment of a state that is free of Jews in a land that currently has seven million Jews is calling for the death of seven million Jews,” including “families and relatives of [Woodcock’s] students.”

    “What he’s calling for is a second Holocaust,” Litvin said, adding that “this idea that there is a possibility of the Jews coming to some imaginary country and being safe there is a fantasy that not even he believes.”

    Woodcock countered, “Rabbi Litvin is trying to distract us from an actual second Holocaust that Israel is committing right now in Gaza and which only immediate military intervention will stop.”

    Woodcock has become another example of pro-Palestine faculty across the country being investigated for their writing or speech about the conflict while they aren’t teaching. During the Biden era, investigations at other universities led to discipline and terminations. The current Trump administration has stripped universities of federal funding and punished them in other ways for allegedly failing to address campus antisemitism. And Woodcock’s case continues the debate about when denunciations of Israel or Zionism are or aren’t antisemitic.

    But why UK began investigating Woodcock now remains unclear.

    ‘Not Academic Discourse’

    In a July 18 email obtained by Inside Higher Ed, UK’s general counsel, William E. Thro, wrote to Woodcock that “recently, the university became aware of your writings on certain websites, your conduct at academic conferences, and your postings on American Association of Law Schools [sic] list serves [sic], and other actions.”

    “These activities may create a hostile environment for Jewish members of the university community or otherwise constitute harassment as defined by the Supreme Court,” Thro wrote. “The university has concerns that your actions may violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the equivalent state laws, and various university policies.”

    Title VI prohibits discrimination based on shared ancestry, including antisemitism.

    But the letter didn’t provide further details, such as what conference conduct or writings the university was concerned about, or how university officials became aware of this expression. A UK spokesperson said, “At this time, we are not going to comment beyond [Capilouto’s] statement, as there is an active investigation.”

    Woodcock said he made a statement about “Israel’s genocide of Palestinians” at a conference over a year ago. He later shared a link to his antizionist.net site on Association of American Law Schools online discussion forums, triggering “really lively debate about whether Israel has a right to exist.”

    “Nobody wants to talk about that question, and as soon as you bring it up, you see how hungry people are to debate it,” Woodcock said.

    He says he created the antizionist.net website late last year but didn’t share it broadly until the start of this month. It’s a site for what he dubs the Antizionist legal studies movement.

    “Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,” Woodcock wrote on the site in December. “No genocide in the 20th century ended without armed intervention. For more than a year now, the international community has been in denial about the implication of these two facts.”

    He listed various failed international efforts to stop the genocide, ending with “Even the most outspoken international lawyers dare not speak the name of the only thing that history suggests might actually stop Israel. That is, of course, war—by the international community against Israel.”

    Woodcock says he wants Israel defeated and replaced with a Palestinian state, and he doesn’t insist the vast majority of Jews be automatically allowed to remain. He says Palestinians should get to decide. His definition of “antizionist legal scholars” includes that they oppose “any right of self-determination for Jewish people as such in Palestine.” He does say that “the tiny minority of Jewish people whose ancestors lived in Palestine immediately prior to the arrival of the first Zionist colonizers in Palestine in 1882 … share in the right of Palestinians to self determination.”

    “Palestinian people alone should decide how Palestine should be governed after independence, including the legal status of the colonizer population,” he says.

    The Kentucky Jewish Council and State Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, a co-chair of the state General Assembly’s Kentucky-Israel Caucus, praised the decision to remove Woodcock from the classroom. In a statement, Tichenor wrote that the “reports coming out of our taxpayer-funded flagship university are incredibly disturbing. A law professor calling for the destruction of Israel and against the right for the Jewish people to have self-determination is not a policy disagreement, but a call to violence.”

    “That is not academic discourse. It’s antisemitism and racism and abuse of his power, plain and simple,” Tichenor wrote. She thanked Capilouto “for his strong and unequivocal condemnation of this hateful message” and for reinforcing “the importance of moral clarity and swift institutional accountability.”

    But Capilouto’s message also hinted at the academic freedom concerns at play. He wrote that the situation “compels us to address questions other campuses are grappling with as well—chiefly, where and when does conduct and the freedom to express views in a community compromise the safety and well-being of people in that community?”

    In a statement to Inside Higher Ed, Connor Murnane, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s campus advocacy chief of staff, said, “FIRE is actively investigating this case, and we’re concerned that Professor Woodcock may have been punished for protected activities.”

    Jennifer Cramer, president of UK’s American Association of University Professors chapter, said that “assuming he did not pose a threat in any meaningful way to our campus, I think that the treatment of this case seems outside of the bounds of the norm.” She said that “whether we agree with what he says or not shouldn’t matter, because that’s the point of academic freedom.”

    Woodcock hasn’t stopped calling for war on Israel, posting on X, “Zionists are frustrated that their intimidation campaign hasn’t shut me up.”

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  • What should the higher education sector do about AI fatigue?

    What should the higher education sector do about AI fatigue?

    Raise the topic of AI in education for discussion these days and you can feel the collective groan in the room.

    Sometimes I even hear it. We’re tired, I get it. Many students are too. But if we don’t keep working creatively to address the disruption to education posed by AI – if we just wait and see how it plays out – it will be too late.

    AI fatigue is many things

    There are a few factors at play, from an AI literacy divide, to simply talking past each other.

    AI literacy is nearly unmanageable. The complexity of AI in education, exacerbated by the pace of technological change, makes AI “literacy” very difficult to define, let alone attain. Educators represent a wide range of experience levels and conceptual frames, as well as differing opinions on the power, quality, opportunity, and risk of generative AI.

    One person will see AI as a radical first step in an intelligence revolution; the next will dismiss it as “mostly rubbish” and minimise the value discussing it at all. And, as far as I have found, there is no leading definition of AI literacy to date. Some people don’t even like the term literacy.

    Our different conceptual frames compete with each other. Many disciplines and conceptual orientations are trying to talk together, each with their own assumptions and incentives. In any given space, we have the collision of expert with novice, entrepreneur with critic, sceptic with optimist, reductionist with holist… and the list goes on.

    We tend to silo and specialise. Because it is difficult to become comprehensively literate in generative AI (and its related issues), many adopt a narrow focus and stick with that: assessment design, academic integrity, authorship, cognitive offloading, energy consumption, bias, labour ethics, and others. Meetings take on the character of debates. At the very least, discussions of AI are time-consuming, as each focus seems to need airing every day.

    We feel grief for what we may be losing: human authorship, agency, status, and a whole range of normative relational behaviours. A colleague recently told me how sad she feels marking student work. Authorship, for example, is losing coherence as a category or shared value, which can be surreal and dispiriting for both writers and readers. AI’s disruption brings a deeply challenging emotional experience that’s rarely discussed.

    We are under-resourced. Institutions have been slow to roll out policy, form working groups, provide training, or fund staff time to research, prepare, plan, and design responses. It’s a daunting task to just keep up with, let alone get ahead of, Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, the burden is largely borne by individuals.

    The AI elephant in the room

    Much of the sector suffers from the wishful thinking that AI is “mostly rubbish”, not likely to change things much, or simply an annoyance. Many educators haven’t thought through how AI technologies may lead our societies and our education systems to change radically and quickly, and that these changes may impact the psychology of learning and teaching, not to mention the entire infrastructure of education. We talk past each other.

    Silicon Valley is openly pursuing artificial general intelligence (AGI), or something like that. Imagine a ChatGPT that can do your job, my job, and a big piece of the knowledge-work jobs recent graduates may hope to enter. Some insiders think this could arrive by 2027.

    A few weeks ago, Dario Amodai, CEO of AI company Anthropic, wrote his prediction that 50 per cent of entry-level office jobs could vanish within the next couple of years, and that unemployment overall could hit 20 per cent. This could be mostly hype or confirmation bias among the tech elite. But IBM, Klarna, and Duolingo have already cited AI-linked efficiencies in recent layoffs.

    Whether these changes take two years, or five, or even ten, it’s on the radar. So, let’s pause and imagine it. What happens to a generation of young people who perceive increasing job scarcity, and options and social purpose?

    Set aside, for now, what this means for cities, mental health, or the social fabric. What does it mean for higher education – especially if a university degree no longer holds the value it once promised? How should HE respond?

    Responding humanely

    I propose we respond with compassion, humanity… and something like a plan. What does this look like? Let me suggest a few possibilities.

    The sector works together. Imagine this: a consortium of institutions gathers together a resource base and discussion space (not social media) for AI in education. It respects diversity of positions and conceptual frames but also aims for a coherent and pragmatic working ethos that helps institutions and individuals make decisions. It drafts a change management plan for the sector, embracing adaptive management to create frameworks to support institutions to respond quickly, intelligently, flexibly, and humanely to the instability. It won’t resolve all the mess into a coherent solution, but it could provide a more stable framework for change. And lift the burden on thousands of us who feel we are reinventing the wheel every day.

    Institutions take action. Leading institutions embrace big discussions around the future of society, work, and education. They show a staunch willingness to face the risks and opportunities ahead, they devote resources to the project, and they take actions that support both staff and students to navigate change thoughtfully.

    Individuals and small groups are empowered to respond creatively. Supported by the sector and their HEIs, they collaborate to keep each other motivated, check each other on the hype, and find creative new avenues for teaching and learning. We solve problems for today while holding space for the messy discussions, speculate on future developments, and experiment with education in a changing world.

    So sector leaders, please help us find some degree of convergence or coherence; institutions, please take action to resource and support your staff and students; and individuals, let’s work together to do something good.

    With leadership, action, and creative collaboration, we may just find the time and energy to build new language and vision for the strange landscape we have entered, to experiment safely with new models of knowledge creation and authorship, and to discover new capacities for self-knowledge and human value.

    So groan, yes – I groan with you. And breathe – I’ll go along with that too. And then, let’s see what we can build.

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  • Education Dept. Lifts Freeze on Remaining Federal Funds – The 74

    Education Dept. Lifts Freeze on Remaining Federal Funds – The 74


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    A freeze on federal education funding that prompted two lawsuits has been lifted, and states will be able to access the money next week, the U.S. Department of Education announced Friday.

    The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which argued that districts were spending the money to advance a “radical left-wing agenda,” has completed its review of five different programs totaling $5.5 billion, said Madison Beidermann, spokeswoman for the department. 

    The funds support education for English learners and migrant students and pay for staff training and extra instructional positions. The news came a week after the administration released over $1.3 billion for summer and afterschool programs, which was also held up for review.

    The department alerted states June 30, one day before they expected to receive the money, that the review was in process, forcing programs to cut staff and end summer programs early. Congress appropriated the funds for this coming school year, and President Donald Trump signed the budget in March. 

    The release of the funds, announced just hours before Education Secretary Linda McMahon was scheduled to meet with the nation’s governors in Colorado Springs, Colorado, comes as superintendents nationwide were preparing to eliminate services like literacy and math coaches, according to a survey conducted by AASA, the School Superintendents Association. Half of the 628 chiefs who responded from 43 states said they would have to lay off staff who work with special education students if the funds weren’t released. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten brought the message to attendees at the union’s annual TEACH conference in Washington, D.C. 

    “The administration backed down and we are getting the money,” she said to a cheering audience. “Those of you who lobbied yesterday, thank you. Those of you who brought the lawsuit, thank you.”

    Attorney generals from 24 blue states and the District of Columbia sued on July 14 over the freeze, arguing that the administration’s actions were harming schools. School districts, parents, unions and nonprofits filed a second challenge on July 21, saying that OMB has never stood in the way of the department’s practice of releasing the funds in two steps, first on July 1 and the rest on Oct. 1. Republican senators joined their Democratic colleagues in pressuring the administration to free up the money.

    Friday’s announcement doesn’t mean the legal fight is over. In a statement, Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which is handling the second case, said the legal team would “continue to monitor the situation and work in court to ensure the administration fully complies with the law and that these resources reach the schools and students who need them most.” 

    Districts can now start the school year without the shortfall, but that doesn’t mean advocates’ worries are over about future disruptions to funding. The July 1 distribution date is a longstanding practice, not something written into the law. 

    Tara Thomas, government affairs manager for AASA, said her organization wants to “have additional conversations” with Congress or the administration to “ensure that this type of uncertainty at the last minute doesn’t happen again. Districts need to continue to rely on stable, timely, reliable federal funding.”

    Another fight over education funds could also be ahead. The White House is reportedly preparing another recissions package that would target education funding. Thomas said she didn’t know what might be included, but it could be cuts that the Department of Government Efficiency made to grant programs. 

    On Friday, Trump signed a recissions package, pulling back $9 billion in funds from public television and foreign aid.


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  • Lawsuit Over NIH Grant Funding Heads to Supreme Court

    Lawsuit Over NIH Grant Funding Heads to Supreme Court

    The NIH has cut hundreds of millions of dollars in grant funding that it says is used to conduct illegal DEI and gender identity-related research.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Adam Bartosik and Jacob Wackerhausen/iStock/Getty Images

    The Trump administration has taken its fight over grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health to the Supreme Court, requesting permission Thursday to finalize millions of dollars in award cuts, CBS News reported.

    President Trump began slashing research funding shortly after he took office in January, targeting projects that allegedly defied his executive orders against issues such as gender identity and DEI. By early April, 16 states and multiple academic associations and advocacy groups had sued, arguing the funding cuts were an unjustified executive overreach and bypassed statutory procedures.

    Since then, a federal district court ordered a preliminary injunction requiring all grants to be reinstated, and a court of appeals denied the Trump administration’s request to halt the decision. Now, executive branch legal officials are taking the case to the highest court.

    In an emergency appeal, Solicitor General John Sauer wrote that the NIH is attempting to “stop errant district courts from continuing to disregard” presidential orders.

    The solicitor also pointed to an April ruling from the Supreme Court allowing the Department of Education to terminate some of its own grants for similar reasons. In that case, the justices said the Trump administration would likely be able to prove that the lower court lacked jurisdiction to mandate the payment of a federal award.

    The court system does not allow a “lower-court free-for-all where individual district judges feel free to elevate their own policy judgments over those of the Executive Branch, and their own legal judgments over those of this Court,” Sauer wrote.

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  • Why should we care about cuts to funding for science education?

    Why should we care about cuts to funding for science education?

    Key points:

    The Trump administration is slashing the funding for new projects focused on STEM education and has terminated hundreds of grants focused on equitable STEM education. This will have enormous effects on education and science for decades to come.

    Meaningful science education is crucial for improving all of our lives, including the lives of children and youth. Who doesn’t want their child or grandchild or neighbor to experience curiosity and the joy of learning about the world around them? Who wouldn’t enjoy seeing their child making careful observations of the plants, animals, landforms, and water in their neighborhood or community? Who wouldn’t want a class of kindergartners to understand germ transmission and that washing their hands will help them keep their baby siblings and grandparents healthy? Who doesn’t want their daughters to believe that science is “for them,” just as it is for the boys in their classroom?

    Or, if those goals aren’t compelling for you, then who doesn’t want their child or grandchild or neighbor to be able to get a well-paying job in a STEM field when they grow up? Who doesn’t want science itself to advance in more creative and expansive ways?

    More equitable science teaching allows us to work toward all these goals and more.

    And yet, the Department of Government Efficiency has terminated hundreds of grants from the National Science Foundation that focused squarely on equity in STEM education. My team’s project was one of them.  

    At the same time, NSF’s funding of new projects and the budget for NSF’s Education directorate are also being slashed.

    These terminations and drastic reductions in new funding are decimating the work of science education.

    Why should you care?

    You might care because the termination of these projects wastes taxpayers’ hard-earned money. My project, for example, was 20 months into what was intended to be a 4-year project, following elementary teachers from their teacher education program into their third year of teaching in classrooms in my state of Michigan and across the country. With the termination, we barely got into the teachers’ first year–making it impossible to develop a model of what development looks like over time as teachers learn to engage in equitable science teaching.

    You might care because not funding new projects means we’ll be less able to improve education moving forward. We’re losing the evidence on which we can make sound educational decisions–what works, for whom, and under what circumstances. Earlier NSF-funded projects that I’ve been involved with have, for example, informed the design of curriculum materials and helped district leaders. Educators of future teachers like me build on findings of research to teach evidence-based approaches to facilitating science investigations and leading sense-making discussions. I help teachers learn how they can help children be change-makers who use science to work toward a more just and sustainable world.  Benefits like these will be eliminated.

    Finally, you might care because many of the terminated and unfunded projects are what’s called NSF Early Career Awards, and CAREER program funding is completely eliminated in the current proposed budget. CAREER grants provide crucial funding and mentoring for new researchers. A few of the terminated CAREER projects focus on Black girls and STEM identity, mathematics education in rural communities, and the experiences of LGBTQ+ STEM majors. Without these and other NSF CAREER grants, education within these fields–science, engineering, mathematics, data science, artificial intelligence, and more, from preschool through graduate school–will regress to what works best for white boys and men.

    To be sure, universities have some funds to support research internally. For the most part, though, those funds are minimal. And, it’s true that terminating existing projects like mine and not funding new ones will “save” the government some money. But toward what end? We’re losing crucial evidence and expertise.

    To support all children in experiencing the wonder and joy of understanding the natural world–or to help youth move into high-paying STEM jobs–we need to fight hard to reinstate federal funding for science and science education. We need to use every lever available to us–including contacting our representatives in Washington, D.C.–to make this happen. If we aren’t successful, we lose more than children’s enjoyment of and engagement with science. Ultimately we lose scientific advancement itself.

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  • Elite Power, Higher Education, and Political Ambition

    Elite Power, Higher Education, and Political Ambition

              [JB and Penny Pritzker] 

    The Pritzker family stands as a symbol of wealth, influence, and access in American public life. From the luxury of Hyatt Hotels to the boardrooms of private equity and the highest ranks of government, their reach extends across economic sectors and institutional spheres. But beneath the carefully managed public image lies a troubling contradiction—one that implicates higher education, for-profit exploitation, and national politics.

    Penny Pritzger

    Penny Pritzker, a former U.S. Secretary of Commerce and current trustee of Harvard University, has been a key figure in shaping education policy from elite perches. She also had a working relationship with Vistria Group, a private equity firm that now owns the University of Phoenix and Risepoint. These two entities have been central to the subprime college industry—profiting from the hopes of working-class students while delivering poor outcomes and burdensome debt.

    Pritzker’s relationship with Vistria runs deeper than simple association. In the late 1990s, she partnered with Vistria co-founder Marty Nesbitt to launch The Parking Spot, a national airport parking venture that brought them both business success and public recognition. When Nesbitt founded Vistria in 2013, he brought with him the experience and elite networks formed during that earlier partnership. Penny Pritzker’s family foundation—Pritzker Traubert—was among the early funders of Vistria, helping to establish its brand as a more “socially conscious” private equity firm. Although she stepped away from any formal role when she joined the Obama administration, her involvement in Vistria’s formation and funding set the stage for the firm’s expansion into sectors like for-profit education and healthcare.

    Vistria’s acquisition of the University of Phoenix, and later Risepoint, positioned it as a major player in the privatization of American higher education. The firm continues to profit from schools that promise economic mobility but often deliver student debt and limited job prospects. This is not just a critique of business practices, but a systemic indictment of how elite networks shape education policy, finance, and outcomes.

    Penny’s role as a trustee on the Harvard Corporation only sharpens this contradiction. Harvard, a university that markets itself as a global champion of meritocracy and inclusion, remains silent about one of its trustees helping to finance and support a firm that monetizes educational inequality. The governing body has not publicly addressed any potential conflict of interest between her Harvard role and her involvement with Vistria.

    JB Pritzger

    These contradictions are not limited to Penny. Her brother, J.B. Pritzker, is currently the governor of Illinois and one of the wealthiest elected officials in the country. Though he has no documented personal financial stake in Vistria, his administration has significant ties to the firm. Jesse Ruiz, J.B. Pritzker’s Deputy Governor for Education during his first term, left state government in 2022 to take a top leadership position at Vistria as General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer.

    This revolving-door dynamic—where a senior education policymaker transitions directly from a progressive administration to a private equity firm profiting from for-profit colleges—underscores the ideological alignment and operational synergy between the Pritzker political machine and firms like Vistria. While the governor publicly champions equity and expanded public education access, his administration’s former top education official is now helping manage legal and compliance operations for a firm that extracts value from struggling students and public loan programs.

    J.B. Pritzker has announced plans to run for a third term as governor in 2026, but many observers believe he is positioning himself for a 2028 presidential campaign. His high-profile public appearances, pointed critiques of Donald Trump, and increased visibility in early primary states all suggest a national campaign is being tested. With his vast personal wealth, Pritzker could self-fund a serious run while drawing on elite networks built over decades—networks that include both his sister’s role at Harvard and their shared business and political allies.

    Elites in US Higher Education, A Familiar Theme 

    What emerges is a deeply American story—one in which the same elite networks shape both the problems and the proposed solutions. The Pritzkers are not alone in this dynamic, but their dual influence in higher education and politics makes them a case study in elite capture. They are architects and beneficiaries of a system in which public office, private equity, and nonprofit institutions converge to consolidate power.

    The for-profit education sector continues to exploit regulatory gaps, marketing expensive credentials to desperate individuals while avoiding the scrutiny that traditional nonprofit colleges face. When private equity firms like Vistria acquire troubled institutions, they repackage them, restructure their branding, and keep extracting value from public loan dollars. The government lends, students borrow, and investors profit. The people left behind are those without political clout—low-income students, veterans, working parents—who believed the marketing and now face debt with little return.

    Harvard’s silence, University of Phoenix’s reinvention, the rebranding of Academic Partnerships/Risepoint, and J.B. Pritzker’s ambitions all signal a troubling direction for American democracy. As more billionaires enter politics and public institutions become more dependent on private capital, the line between public service and private gain continues to erode.

    The Higher Education Inquirer believes this moment demands not only scrutiny, but structural change. Until elite universities hold their trustees accountable, until political candidates reject the influence of exploitative industries, and until the public reclaims its voice in higher education policy, the Pritzker paradox will continue to define the American experience—where access to opportunity is sold to the highest bidder, and democracy is reshaped by those who can afford to buy it.

    Sources

    – U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard

    – University of Phoenix outcome data (IPEDS, 2024)

    – Harvard University governance and trustee records

    – Vistria Group investor reports and public filings

    – Wall Street Journal, “America’s Second-Richest Elected Official Is Acting Like He Wants to Be President” (2025)

    – Associated Press, “Governor J.B. Pritzker positions himself as national Democratic leader” (2025)

    – Vistria.com, “Marty Nesbitt on his friendship with Obama and what he learned from the Pritzkers”

    – Politico, “Former Obama Insiders Seek Administration’s Blessing of For-Profit College Takeover” (2016)

    – Vistria Group announcement, “Jesse Ruiz Joins Vistria as General Counsel and CCO” (2022)

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  • Education Department issues AI priorities. But what if the agency closes?

    Education Department issues AI priorities. But what if the agency closes?

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    Dive Brief:

    • The U.S. Department of Education sent a “Dear Colleague” letter on Tuesday to district and state leaders encouraging and guiding them on how to integrate artificial intelligence in schools through existing federal grants. 
    • The letter signed by U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said that grantees may use federal funds to use AI to enhance high-quality curriculum tools, high-impact tutoring, and college and career pathway advising.
    • The department briefly also outlined its principles for responsible AI use in schools. Those principles affirmed that AI K-12 initiatives should be educator-led, ethical, accessible for those with disabilities, transparent in the way new tools are rolled out, and in compliance with federal data privacy laws.

    Dive Insight:

    The department’s new AI guidance comes at a time when the future of federal oversight of ed tech and K-12 cybersecurity policies remains unclear, given that the Trump administration shuttered the Education Department’s Office of Educational Technology in March and has continued to move toward its plan to dismantle the agency.

    On Monday, the Education Department also published a proposed rule in the Federal Register regarding its priorities for using discretionary grant programs to support AI use in schools. The public comment period on the regulatory proposal is open until Aug. 20. 

    Under the proposal, those seeking federal grant funding for AI projects in schools would need to include a focus on at least one of the following goals:

    • Embed AI literacy skills into classroom lessons to ultimately improve students’ educational outcomes.
    • Provide educators with professional development in foundational skills for computer science and AI with instruction on how to responsibly use new technologies.
    • Partner with states or school districts to offer high school students dual enrollment credentialing opportunities for postsecondary or industry-recognized credentials in AI. 
    • Support and develop evidence for appropriate ways to integrate AI into education.
    • Use AI to support services for students with disabilities.
    • Tap into AI to improve teacher training and evaluation
    • Use AI tools to reduce time-intensive administrative tasks

    Meanwhile, over 400 school district leaders sent a letter to Congress last week asking for lawmakers to restore federal leadership for K-12 cybersecurity and ed tech.

    The letter, led by the Consortium for School Networking, pointed to funding cuts at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency that led to the discontinuation of K-12 cybersecurity programs offered through the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center. The move, they wrote, consequently took away “critical threat intelligence, incident response, and coordination services that many school systems depend on to protect against ransomware and other attacks.”

    OET’s closure also left a major hole in guidance for states and districts on key issues such as responsible AI use, digital design, digital access and cybersecurity strategy, the letter said. The district leaders also called for Congress to reinstate staffing for the office. 

    CoSN CEO Keith Krueger said district technology leaders are increasingly worried that AI will be used for cyberattacks against schools. He added that the demand for more K-12 resources to protect schools from cybersecurity threats is “incredible.”

    For instance, the Federal Communications Commission in November 2024 received $3.7 billion in requests for federal funds to help protect district networks. The applications were for a $200 million FCC cybersecurity pilot program.

    But the bottom line, Krueger said, is that if the Trump administration fulfills its promise to close the Education Department, “who exactly is going to help school districts with cybersecurity, for instance, or AI?”

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