News Briefs | FYI
September 30, 2024
ACSA presses for block grant flexibility at SBE meeting
At the September State Board of Education meeting, ACSA advocated that local educational agencies should have flexibility when incorporating the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant funding in their Local Control Accountability Plans.
The board met to discuss two options that revise LCAP template instructions per Senate Bill 153, the 2024 enacted state budget bill. These changes resulted from the Cayla J. et al. v. State of California settlement. The State Board will finalize the changes at its November meeting.
Of the two options presented to the board by the California Department of Education, ACSA supports Option 2, which allows LEAs flexibility to include the LREBG funds into their LCAPs as they see fit. ACSA emphasized the importance of this flexibility, noting the revisions will occur during the middle of the three-year LCAP cycle.
The board heard from ACSA and a coalition of education management groups, which ACSA helped lead. Together, they argued that a flexible approach to block grant incorporation into LCAPs would respect the diverse needs and unique contexts of all LEAs, and that Option 2 would align with the principles of local control and autonomy.
ACSA also supported two other items, Item 5 and 6, on the State Board agenda. Item 5 would allow the CDE to expand the California Spanish Assessment (CSA) to eventually allow high school graduates to take the assessment to achieve the State Seal of Biliteracy. As part of this item, the speaking domain for third through 8th grades would also be removed to relieve the burden on educators. The CSA would not lead to the State of Seal of Biliteracy in these grades.
Item 6 would finalize regulations that require the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress scores to be publicly released by Oct. 15. ACSA had supported Senate Bill 293 (2023), the successful legislation that created the regulation.
Experiment finds students who stuy with AI do worse on test
Students who used generative AI performed worse on math tests than students who did not, according to a draft research paper published this summer by SSRN.
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the Budapest British International School wanted to know how generative AI affects humans learning.
“This process of skill acquisition is referred to as human capital development, and is critical for safeguarding productivity in the long term,” the authors write. “When technology automates a task, humans can miss out on valuable experience performing that task.”
The authors created an experiment using 1,000 math students at a large high school in Turkey. They used OpenAI’s GPT-4 with two variants:
- A prompt containing the practice problem and instructions to help the student solve the problem (GPT Base).
- A prompt containing the problem and the correct answer, as well as teacher input on common mistakes and instructions to guide the student step-by-step in solving the problem (GPT Tutor).
Researchers found that although GPT Base improved solving practice problems by 48 percent over the control group, when these students completed a closed book, closed laptop exam, they performed worse than the control group by 17 percent. They also found that this GPT variant was unreliable, providing the correct answer only 51 percent of the time on average.
Students with the GPT prompt that was designed to be more like a teacher (GPT Tutor) outperformed control group students on practice problems by 127 percent and performed better than GBT Base students on tests, however the authors did not observe a positive effect.
The authors believe GPT became a “crutch” that “prevents them from fully engaging with or understanding the material prior to attempting the unassisted problems.”
“These results suggest that while access to generative AI can improve performance, it can substantially inhibit learning,” they write. “Our results have significant implications for tools based on generative AI — while such tools have the potential to improve human performance, they must be deployed with appropriate guardrails when learning is important.”
Read the full paper titled “Generative AI Can Harm Learning.”
FYI
Build your network at ACSA networking groups
Ready to expand your network? ACSA is rolling out new networking groups where California school administrators can connect and share resources with one another. The following networking groups are available to members: Arab American Network, Equity Administrators Network, LGBTQ+ Network, Pacific Islander Network, and Visible & Invisible Disabilities Network. To join, fill out an interest form at acsa.org/equity.
New guidance available on arts, music block grant
The California Department of Education has recently revised its Arts, Music, and Instructional Materials (AMIM) Block Grant main web page and frequently asked questions web page. This update includes new guidance regarding the reporting requirement added by Section 100 of Chapter 38 of the Statutes of 2024 (Senate Bill 153). Visit the AMIM web page at www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/artsmusicimblockgrant.asp.
Magazine seeks Ethnic Studies articles
Leadership magazine is seeking submissions for its March/April 2025 issue with the theme “Ethnic Studies.” Subtopics include: ethnic studies content and pedagogy, professional development for teachers and administrators, developing an ethnic studies curriculum, successful and principled ethnic studies implementation, student and community voices and more. Articles should be no more than 2,500 words and include practical information written in an informal style. Email your article to Leadership Editor Michelle Carl. Find Leadership online at leadership.acsa.org. The submission deadline is Nov. 18, 2024.