Week in Edtech 8/5/26: Higher Ed Leadership Turnover Accelerates, OpenAI Expands Its Education Push, AI “Slop” Floods Teachers Pay Teachers, Students Propose AI Rules, and More! Feat. Janice Jackson of Aspen Institute

Summary

Edtech Insiders – Week in Edtech 8/5/26: Leadership Turnover, OpenAI’s Education Push, AI Slop on Teachers Pay Teachers, Student AI Rules & More!
Feat. Janice Jackson of Aspen Institute
Released: August 14, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into a tumultuous week in education technology, exploring:

• Accelerating turnover among higher education leaders
• OpenAI’s deepening investments in education
• AI-generated low-quality resources ("slop") on Teachers Pay Teachers
• Surging educator and parent support for classroom technology bans
• A pioneering effort by high school students to draft their own AI governance rules

Hosts Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell are joined by Dr. Janice Jackson, Executive Director of Aspen Institute’s Education and Society Program (and former CEO of Chicago Public Schools), to discuss the rapidly shifting policy and innovation landscape in K-12 and higher education.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Higher Ed Leadership Turnover Accelerates

[05:05–11:00]

• Multiple high-profile resignations this summer, including Brown President Christina Paxson and Penn’s Larry Jamison.
• Politics plays a major role: University leaders are squeezed between national politics, alumni/donor demands, and campus issues (e.g., Middle East campuses, academic freedom).
• Declining enrollments and job outcomes add economic pressure.
• Many presidents at elite institutions face a “revolving door,” while less selective schools confront stark business realities.
• AI is a new pressure point: Concerns about academic integrity and faculty resistance—some professors are retiring, citing AI as “the last straw.”
  Quote (Alex, 07:16): “I wouldn’t want to be a college president over the last few years, especially in the elite selective schools—the Ivy Leagues—because they are just in the spotlight at every turn.”

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2. OpenAI Deepens Its Education Push

[11:00–17:57]

• OpenAI released new plugins for higher ed and K-12 educators but pointedly not for K-12 students.
• New tools move beyond “advanced search” toward workflow integration for students and teachers: study planners, flashcards, project generators.
• OpenAI granted free access to advanced models (e.g. Sol Pro 5.6) for 100,000 academic researchers.
• OpenAI recruits campus ambassadors, aiming for broad buy-in among students and faculty across universities.
• AI in education startups face existential threats as Big Tech distorts competition—parallels drawn to Google’s effect on EdTech with Classroom. Quote (Ben, 17:57): “What’s challenging is you have all these EdTech players… now really getting competed against from an OpenAI who has unlimited resource and doesn’t need to make money off of this…”

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3. The Flood of AI “Slop” on Teachers Pay Teachers

[24:18–29:09]

• Journalists expose a surge of “AI slop”—low-quality and error-ridden worksheet uploads—on the Teachers Pay Teachers marketplace.
• Lower barrier to content creation means more junk, not just new resources.
• Concern that all digital marketplaces (games, Etsy, YouTube) risk becoming cluttered with poorly generated AI content. Quote (Alex, 24:50): “They found a lot of slop. They found a lot of AI generated content, things with errors and missing extra fingers… before AI there was a lot of slop, but yes, it lowers the barrier to entry.”

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4. AI-related Cheating, Tech Bans, and Student Experiences

[26:11–33:09]

• Teachers are fighting back with creative integrity traps (e.g., “Madagascar” hidden in test prompts to detect AI use).
• Supports for classroom technology bans have doubled, with Pew data finding over 3/4 of adults support cell phone bans in middle/high school.
• Concerns abound over conflating phones/social media with all technology, potentially blocking positive use cases.
• Students feel caught in an AI-driven “arms race” of cheating; some professors resort to in-person, analog assessments.

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5. Students Propose Their Own “AI in Schools” Legislation

[32:07–41:13]

• A group of students (with institutional support) drafts the “Students First Act,” a Model UN-like bill to govern classroom AI.
• Guidelines are more restrictive than anticipated:
  • AI is barred on all graded assessments.
  • AI may be used for brainstorming or editing (after 8th grade), never for writing proper.
  • Students may refuse to use AI in class.
  • Students demand appeal rights against false AI-use accusations.
  • AI-generated content for harassment, bullying, or deepfakes is strictly banned.
• The bill foregrounds transparency, privacy, and human oversight at every stage. Quote (Alex, 36:30): “AI use is strictly prohibited on all graded assessments. High school students can refuse to use AI tools… students may not use AI to complete artistic assignments. I don’t agree with that personally, but it’s very interesting.” Quote (Alex, 36:30): “Students should have the right to appeal any convictions of wrongful AI use. They may be subject to AI detectors…but should be guaranteed a thorough examination by two school officials.”

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6. Interview: Dr. Janice Jackson of Aspen Institute

[42:31–56:50]

Dr. Jackson shares critical insights:

• Bridging the Think/Do Gap: Aspen Institute aims to be more than a “think tank” by closely linking research, policy, and practice in schools.

• Lessons from Leading Chicago Public Schools: Early adoption of digital curriculum and innovation came from a “bias toward innovation”—tech is an equity issue, not just an operational one.

• The Techlash Debate:

  • Debate about technology should go beyond blanket bans or “tech solutionism.”
  • Leaders must establish “guardrails,” policies and practices that value educator expertise above vendor claims.
  • Tech access is an equity question: Excessive bans in under-resourced schools may widen skill and opportunity gaps. Quote (Jackson, 46:21): “Anything that says technology will replace humans—dead on arrival, don’t pay attention to that. I also say, trying to remove technology from the classroom entirely—it’s part of the human experience now.”

• Elevating Student Voice:

  • Students often have more nuanced, “common sense” positions about tech than adults assume.
  • Student participation in policies and AI discussions results in smarter, fairer decisions. Quote (Jackson, 49:21): “Most adults still think student voice is just a ‘nice-to-have.’ My argument is that it’s crucial and we should be building policy around that voice.”

• The Trust Deficit:

  • Trust is essential—across generations, between institutions, and especially around privacy/data and AI.
  • Edelman Trust Barometer shows young people are particularly distrustful of institutions.
  • Parents’ top concern with EdTech is data privacy. Quote (Jackson, 52:12): “That is the most important thing that parents want to hear—how is their [children’s] data being collected, used, etc. That, to me, is one of the biggest challenges we must overcome.”

• Looking Ahead:

  • Optimistic about youth: “The kids are going to be all right… they will figure it out just like we did.”
  • Most concerned about workforce disruption, especially AI’s impact on equity and access to future jobs.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Alex (10:41): “There was a really interesting article… about professors retiring specifically because of AI coming in. They call it the last straw.”
• Ben (17:57): “Big tech coming in distorts the market… like when Google launched Google Classroom.”
• Alex (21:10): “AI is evolving so quickly… it’s like a jetpack on human innovation.”
• Ben (36:30): “It does speak to the fact that students actually want clearer rules of engagement here and that they’re willing to live with restrictions.”
• Janice Jackson (46:21): “I believe educators should be leading the conversation around EdTech. So far, it’s been led by vendors.”
• Janice Jackson (49:21): “Student voice… is crucial and we should be building policy and program around that voice.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Higher Ed Leadership Turnover: [05:05–11:00]
• OpenAI’s Education Strategy: [11:00–17:57]
• AI “Slop” on Teachers Pay Teachers: [24:18–29:09]
• Cheating, Tech Bans & the Cell Phone Debate: [26:11–33:09]
• Students Craft AI Policy: [32:07–41:13]
• Interview: Dr. Janice Jackson (Aspen Institute): [42:31–56:50]
  • Aspen Institute’s approach and vision: [42:46–46:21]
  • Techlash & leadership advice: [46:21–48:46]
  • Elevating student voice: [48:46–51:37]
  • The importance of trust: [52:12–54:52]
  • What gives her optimism/pause: [55:12–56:50]

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Final Takeaways

This episode underscores:

• The rapid complexity and velocity of change in EdTech, driven by both AI’s potential and the societal backlash around tech and academic integrity.
• The value in ground-level perspectives—especially students’—for crafting sensible, balanced, and future-oriented AI and tech policy.
• The ongoing need for trust, transparency, and collaboration among all education stakeholders as the sector faces disruption, ambiguity, and opportunity.

For more, follow Edtech Insiders’ newsletter and look out for upcoming events and interviews with major education innovators.

Transcript

[Alex]

Innovation in pre K to grade learning is powered by exceptional people. For over 15 years EdTech companies of all sizes and stages have trusted higher education to find the talent that drives impact. When specific skills and experiences are mission critical, higher education is a partner that delivers offering permanent, fractional and executive recruitment. Higher education knows the go to market talent you need. Learn [e-mail] that's H I R E

[Ben]

edu.com what's challenging then is you have all these ad tech players like a quizlet. Let's take for example who built an entire business off of creating flashcards, who are now really getting competed against from an OpenAI, who has unlimited resource and doesn't need to make money off of this to have it be a successful product. And so I think what we in the edtech space are experiencing is a little bit of what we experienced when Google launched Google Classroom, which is just like distorting the market field a little bit because big tech coming in.

[Alex]

They also announced, just to put a fine point on IT, access to 100,000 academic researchers. This week they're giving free advanced models, free GPT. I don't know what model. The Sol Pro, the 5.6 Sol Pro to 100,000 academic researchers. So you can see this sort of multi tiered approach. They're sort of coming at universities from all sides saying, look, this is the future of how thinking is going to get done. In our opinion. You really need to get on board and put it together and have this be accessible to your researchers, to your students, to your faculty and you can see how it would go from there. It's an interesting strategy and they're hitting it on lots of fronts, which means it's obviously some kind of a priority internally. Welcome to EdTech Insight, the top podcast covering the education technology industry. From funding rounds to impact to AI developments across early childhood, K12, higher ed and work, you'll find it all here at EdTech Insiders.

[Ben]

Remember to subscribe to the pod, check out our newsletter and also our event calendar. And to go deeper, check out EdTech Insiders plus, where you can get premium content, access to our WhatsApp channel, early access to events and backchannel insights from Alex and Ben. Hope you enjoy today's pod. Hello EdTech Insider listeners. It's another week in EdTech. Ben and Alex coming to you first week of August. Back to Schools in the Air. We're also back to school here at EdTech Insiders. Alex, what's the latest on the POD and newsletter, et cetera?

[Alex]

We have all sorts of interesting things coming out. We're near the end of our really amazing series about the Scale initiative and some of the AI research that's been coming out over the last couple of years. We've been writing it up in all sorts of ways. There's one coming out this week all about teachers, especially K12 teachers, but to some extent college professors as well, and how their attitudes towards AI have changed and how they're actually evaluating AI tools as well as what support they're getting or not getting from their institutions. That was really, really interesting in terms of the podcast coming up very soon, we have Joy Osborne from Student Achievement Partners. We're talking to Tony Wan and Betsy Corcoran. Surge. That was a great interview about the history of ed surge. Anish Sahoney from Teach for America. We spoke to nir Zickerman from OBO. OBOE is like a B2C platform that does incredibly fast and really engaging AI generation. They've gotten actually money from Andreessen Horowitz, Scola AI. I mean, it just goes on and on. We even talked to Michael Feldstein. Michael Feldstein is an actual like a total legend in the edtech journalism space and he is now working, doing strategy with one. EdTech has all sorts of amazing plans for that organization. So it's been a whirlwind. Even though summer is quiet. We've been talking to so many amazing people. There's also one coming up in a few weeks with Lionel Mora from Marble. This is somebody. If you don't follow him on LinkedIn, he's doing this incredibly immersive like Minecraft styles crafting system for educational game world. Also has some really amazing investors. Really interesting things happening in the direct to consumer space with AI education. So lots and lots and lots, as always.

[Ben]

Yeah. On the newsletter, we also have our special higher ed series coming up later this month and that's gonna kick off with a webinar on August 28th from noon to 1 Eastern, where we're gonna have some like huge, huge leaders in the transformation of higher education. We've got Matthew Raskoff, we've got David Rogier from Masterclass, and we've got the presidents of Oklahoma University and Southern New Hampshire University. We really are excited about that. More information coming out, but we hope to see you there, register online and come with great questions because we really are in unprecedented territory in terms of higher education and where it's headed. Yeah.

[Alex]

Do you want to start there in the news? I think there's been a slate of interesting departures in the higher education space. And I know that caught your eye this week. Should we talk about it a bit?

[Ben]

Yeah, I mean, I think the reason why we're covering it in part is because Brown University President Christina Paxton stepped down. It follows a wave of departures over this summer. Larry Jamison at Penn Furman University president stepping down. Our beloved friend of the pod, Dan Schwartz, is also stepping down as Dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education. We just announced the new dean, which is Tamiko Brown Nagin, who was the dean at Harvard Radcliffe. So very, very interesting to see so much change going on in higher education. Now. Some of this is, is the natural attrition over time as senior leaders make way for the next generation of leaders or move from administrative leadership position. And in Dean Schwartz's case, he still will be part of Stanford faculty and still driving forward his own research. But it is fair to say that some of these higher profile departures are happening faster and faster and that has to do with the politics of the role. Whether it's national politics and some of the things we've seen out of the White House with higher ed and universities alumni politics. We've seen Gaza as a huge wedge in terms of alumni groups and creating real tension between like student body politics and alumni politics. And very hard to navigate for university presidents. And then also the dawn of the era of AI. Faculty members have deep concerns around academic integrity, around intellectual property. And yet universities also are trying to lean in as this is a budding field of research innovation and ultimately preparing their students to be successful. So fair to say that with all of the pressures that we've been talking about over the last couple years of the pod, we're now seeing a more rapid cycle of turnover in these roles. You're our higher ed expert here. Like what's your take on all of this and how do you see it playing out?

[Alex]

Yeah, I mean, it's funny because with higher ed it's such an enormous space and I think there's many different subsectors within it. And when we talk about people like Brown President Christina Pax, Larry Jamison at Penn, these are not only obviously hyper selective elite universities, they're also, as you said, universities that have been specifically targeted by the national administration. They've been specifically the source of a lot of tension politically for quite a long time. They're the Ivy plus schools and they've been in the spotlight for a long time. But now recently the spotlight has become quite intense and negative and all of the political pressures build up when you're in that space. I mean one thing that I found interesting about the elite higher ed departures is that there was a moment a few years ago where you had student protests breaking out in huge numbers and you had university presidents really caught between their student bodies, their student councils, the freedom of expression on campus and then these very non tolerant administrative, administrative government officials basically saying, oh, we're going to target you, we're going to dangle money out for you. In this terms of this compact which was not taken, we're going to start to really threaten your research funding, like really, really putting them in a spotlight. Recently, even with the Gaza issue, which has been now a few years, we don't hear nearly as much about the student protests. Right. I'm sure it's still happening at some level, but the national eye has moved on from the concept of students are rising up and sort of insurgencies within the campus coming after the faculty, trying to make them do political statements. So I think it's interesting that the presidents are still caught up in this whirlwind, but it makes sense because they're still being asked to take or leave. All sorts of different things coming from, as you say, alumni have very specific perspectives on what should happen, donors of all kinds. And the administration itself is still declaring both monetary and political war on elite higher ed. For a place like Furman, it's a liberal arts institution that's somebody who's been, been in the job for like 20 years. This is a local university, one of the top liberal arts schools that's right down the block from us down here. So I definitely, we keep our eye on that. But I think I saw the president of Williams College speaking recently about AI and what it means for the liberal arts world and that's a very different world. And then of course you have this huge, much bigger tier of schools that are less selective of all different places all over the country. And their pressures I think are much more on the business side. Right. Declining enrollments, tuition pressures, just lack of desire to go to college by lots more people and sort of a backlash in a lot of communities. And you're not hearing as much about presidents resigning there because I think people are very desperate for people to come hang on and solve their problems. It's a very different outlook than the sort of revolving door that we're starting to see at the elite higher ed. That's my initial take, but I mean the higher ed world has been very tricky for a long time. And there was a really interesting article this week from the Chronicle of Higher Education about a whole suite of professors who are retiring specifically because of AI coming in. They're feeling like this is. They call it the last straw, this article, in terms that it's going to come in, change integrity, change student behavior, threaten their autonomy, and it's causing yet another suite of resignation. So it's been a tough time for higher ed for a number of years, but I wouldn't want to be a college president over the last few years, especially in the elite selective schools, the Ivy Leagues, because they are just in the spotlight at every turn.

[Ben]

Yeah. And on top of it, we're seeing that their graduates aren't getting employed at the same rates in the past too. So we've many times said higher ed's at this burning platform, they need to leap forward and innovate. Maybe this is showing that all of that is finally coming to pass. That's certainly what it feels like.

[Alex]

Yeah. I mean, there are schools starting to lean into AI, computer science, starting to change. We saw something Culver Stockton professor this week launched an AI course in California, Colorado. People are starting to do a lot of computer science, AI. There's like this piece is coming out around the country where they're definitely trying, but it's just a wacky moment. And we're going to talk a little bit later about the high school students who are thinking about AI policy. And I think what they're doing is actually pretty relevant to college as well. But before we do that, one other interesting higher ed release this week was from OpenAI. We covered this a little live on LinkedIn, but basically OpenAI put out three plugins this week. Two of them are designed for higher education. They're for higher education for college students and professors, and one is for K12 instructors for teachers. Let's talk about that because we saw Claude a few weeks ago doing this and this is big news from OpenAI.

[Ben]

Yeah, I mean one, we just covered the launch of the anthropic Claude for teachers last week. So it always kind of comes in pairs anyways. So we were expecting something to come from OpenAI. I think what was surprising is that there's actually a focus on one of the connectors on K12 teacher use cases. Generally speaking, OpenAI has stayed in higher ed, but keeping on the theme of higher ed, I found it really reflective that the use cases for 18 to 24 year olds for ChatGPT, OpenAI found that there was a capability overhang, meaning that students could be using so much more, but they weren't and there was Something around the workflows in ChatGPT that wasn't really resonating. And if you think about where is the highest use case in workflows for AI models right now it's encoding. And so the OpenAI Codex work, that's really an area of big growth for that company. You can see Claude code is also the big growth area for Claude. So this idea of integrating and creating connectors with the academic work for both college students and for K12 teachers, that's a real unlock to try to go from basically an advanced search bar, which is how most according to the data from ChatGPT, most people are just using as a search tool just to find out more information they're not really using as a workflow tool. These connectors are that first step towards workflows and ultimately, as we talked about yesterday when we did our emergency pod, it feels like one step in the direction of getting to agentic workflows for students. I will caveat that with it continues to say 18 to 24 over 18s over 18s over 18s. And so this seems like a very targeted move towards educator use cases in the K12 space, whereas the college use case includes students as well. What's your read as you saw what was announced and where you think this innovation will diffuse through the system?

[Alex]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's worth calling out on the K12 side. Yes, definitely. It's conspicuously absent, and I think rightfully absent that there's no K12 student plugin tools announced here. They're obviously being very careful there for a lot of different reasons. OpenAI has been in the spotlight for a number of different reasons in that particular space. But one thing that was really exciting about the K12 educator plugin is that it's built on top of the same type of infrastructure that we saw with CLAUDE for teaching, which is these learning commons designed learning progressions, learning components, which they have all the standards from all 50 states, but also broken down into even smaller units of learning so that you can actually, if you're asking to generate something for a certain grade, for a certain topic, for a certain learning standard, it actually knows all of it inside and can work really intelligently to put together instructional materials or lesson plans or projects or all sorts of things. And that was exciting to see. We are fans of Learning Commons on EdTech Insiders. We've talked to that group a lot and they've been thinking really hard about how to create shared infrastructure. Seeing Both Claude and OpenAI use the same shared infrastructure that's like exactly the dream they've been having. So it's really exciting for that whole team. The other thing you mentioned, the 18 to 24 is, I mean, part of this release, ChatGPT, they have 200 million young adults, 18 to 24 year olds using ChatGPT. And as you said, the use cases, when they start breaking down, a lot of them are educational, whether that's formal or informal educational, a lot of them are educational. So I think they feel like a little bit of a moral, not burden, but like a moral mission to take all of these college students using it all over the world and actually design tools to support them. So some of the things they show as examples for the student side and it's worth looking at because it's not always that much. They do study plans, it's easy to plug in to do study plans with your university. They do flashcards and other kinds of study tools, create projects, create interactive learning sites that are shareable. It's interesting to see them sort of look at both sides of that marketplace. It also, you zoom out a little bit and you also see other pieces of their strategy. We mentioned, I think, a week or two ago, Ben, about the student collectives that they're working at. OpenAI is recruiting campus ambassadors to be able to teach and support other people using OpenAI in their colleges. They can actually use that through handshake as a skill set for getting jobs. But they're definitely pushing hard into universities in a lot of different ways. And I think in some ways they're doing it a little bit upstream. So because of all the things we just said, there's so much distrust and confusion and complexity in the higher ed landscape when it comes to AI. A lot of faculty especially just are really trying to figure out how to integrate it. The policies are not fully there yet, so they're doing all sorts of things. They also announced, just to put a fine point on IT, access to 100,000 academic researchers. This week they're giving free advanced models, free GPT. I don't know what model. The Sol Pro, the 5.6 Sol Pro, to 100,000 academic researchers. So you can see this sort of multi tiered approach. They're sort of coming at universities from all sides saying, look, this is the future of how thinking is going to get done in our opinion. You really need to get on board and put it together and have this be accessible to your researchers, to your students, to your faculty. And you can see how it would go from there. It's an interesting strategy and they're hitting it on lots of fronts, which means it's obviously some kind of a priority internally. We'll be right back. This season of EdTech Insiders is brought to you by Cooley LLP. Cooley is the go to law firm for education and ed tech innovators offering industry informed counsel across the pre K to gray spectrum. With a multidisciplinary approach and a powerful edtech ecosystem, Cooley helps shape the future of education.

[Ben]

Yeah, on the OpenAI front, they've never really done B2B very well. They've always done B2C. And I think that that's led to use cases that are much more like a B2C motion of search and consumer play. And one of the ways that you get people to use your product more in Depth is a B2B workflow where it's embedded in a kind of need to have workflow for your studies and for universities. And the strategy that generally OpenAI has done is partnering with American Federation for Teachers, partnering with universities to make ChatGPT accessible to everyone. So that price is not a barrier. The second thing, once people have access to account, is to actually help them find the right user workflows. And I think this is part of a broader shift that OpenAI is going through as they become more of a B2B player and they're doing this with adult users as well. And I think this is where OpenAI has a disadvantage to anthropic, which origin of anthropic was very B2B oriented. And so I think that that's playing out. The last thing I would say is, are these business drivers or are these really about long term in the big scheme of things for AI companies delivering to students, is this about actually earning revenue from it or is it about getting a user base to become accustomed to your tools and imprint on your products? Much in the way that the Google email and Calendar and that whole suite, the Office suite, helped Google capture a bunch of users. I think it's more of that. What's challenging then is you have all these ad tech players like a quizlet. Let's take for example, who built an entire business off of creating flashcards, who are now really getting competed against from an OpenAI who has unlimited resource and doesn't need to make money off of this to have it be a successful product. And so I think what we in the edtech space are experiencing is a little bit of what we experienced when Google launched Google Classroom, which is just like distorting the market field a little bit, because big tech coming in, the last thing I'll say is the work of Claude, a little bit more so than OpenAI, but I think this is a step in that direction. Shows that the companies are listening and understanding that in education, integration into the work context or the pedagogical context is important. And this idea of connectors and learning commons is, is across both of these announcements, a singular player in these open education resources. I think one of the big critiques of the big tech players is they're launching ChatGPT for teachers in 2025 with no deep understanding of the unique needs of the learning context. And I think this is a move in the direction in a positive way that shows that they're understanding that and they're finding ways to work within that context. But again, like, if it's free or if it's vastly subsidized, you are the product. The product is not the product.

[Alex]

Yes. I will say one other thing though, because I hear how we're both talking about this, but especially I'm hearing myself talk about this and think about it as like, what is their business strategy, how are they trying to enter universities? But like, here's the thing, I mean, AI and we talk about this sometimes, but maybe not enough. Like, AI is evolving so quickly that I think everybody inside these companies, Inside anthropic, inside OpenAI, inside Google, inside the Chinese versions, are saying, wait a second, this is literally like a jetpack on human innovation. Like it is. I mean, we saw this week they announced that OpenAI's Astra model, one of the really cutting edge frontier models, had solved like 10 math problems that humans have been struggling with for like centuries. 10 this week. And I'm like, I think when you see OpenAI going into university settings, Yes, I mean, as you say, it's definitely a long term play. It's definitely trying to embed understanding for college students and faculty. It's definitely trying to build in workflows to sort of become so sticky and so much part of everybody's life that it works for them as a business. At the same time, I think there's a very viable case to be made that much of the research that's going to happen in this country is going to happen at least assisted by, if not completely run by AI. I mean, we saw Jeff Dean, like legendary Google, one of the first 30, I think 30 employees at Google, legendary Google Engineer, it's often considered the best engineer in the world, leave Google this week to start a recursive AI platform that's all about AI being able to make itself smarter and smarter and smarter. We are literally talking about people are building the singularity, they're building superintelligence, like, in all corners. If they really believe they're doing that, and I think they do. I mean, forget AGI, just building super intelligence, then of course they want it to be in MIT and Harvard and the California state systems and in Estonia. And, like, there is a way to look at this where it's not just a business play, it's a wait. We just, like, discovered electricity. Let's get it into the places where the people who need to do incredible things can use it all the time. And when you start to talk about giving it to 100,000 researchers, that's what that feels like to me. And that's probably the naive, you know, the Pollyanna ish version. But I think the truth is somewhere in between. I think these companies really do believe that they have sort of Promethean fire and they're like, how do we get people to use this to do drug discovery, to do patents, to do, like, everything that happens. And the universities are front.

[Ben]

There's no doubt in my mind that we do not have clarity because of all of these things that are in motion. The companies themselves don't have clarity. And so you're kind of like, even looking backwards. You don't have 2020 vision because you don't know what matters the most for the go forward. But if we are in an age of recursive AI and a singularity where every university president is hopping in and out of jobs, there's no doubt that these large models will have a major role in learning. And I think the only reasonable take on these announcements this week is that they're taking honest steps forward to integrate with teaching and learning. And that, I think, should be applauded.

[Alex]

I agree. So question for you, Ben. We have a positive AI story and a negative AI story. Where would you rather go from this moment?

[Ben]

Let's start with the bad news first. By the way, I'm laughing at some of it because, you know, one of the examples we have is teachers, pay teachers and AI slop. You know, there's a way in which, like, some of our negative AI stories are actually amplifications of stories that have been in play for a while. It's just AI is exacerbating, like, prior issues. So why don't you give our listeners so.

[Alex]

Long story short here, and I actually saw this originally courtesy of Dan Meyer, who is, you know, our frenemy, you Know, AI skeptic, you've debated him. But basically some chalk beat investigative reporters basically said, wait a second, Teachers Pay Teachers has this huge curriculum marketplace. I bet people are starting to just upload things directly out of GPT, directly out of Claude. And they put stuff up there. And remember, Teachers Pay Teachers is used by 85% of educators in the US because you know, there's a reason for that. That's a whole complex thing. But people feel like they need all sorts of supplemental material they don't have access to. And they went in and boy, they found a lot of slop. They found a lot of AI generated content, things with all sorts of errors and missing extra fingers. Probably because it was generated by early models, misspellings, all sorts of mess in there. Obviously Teachers Pay Teachers, which is now owned by ixl, is saying some of that in there. We're trying to curb it. It's not that much of it. But like I agree with you, Ben. I mean this is something. There was a lot of slop in Teachers teachers anyway, before it was there, there was a lot of slop. But yes, it lowers the barrier to entry and it means that a single teacher could create a thousand worksheets in an hour. And yes, you're going to see some horrible stuff in there, but it's sort of an expose. And I think it's fair to point out, and I hope that the IXL people are like, okay, okay, okay, let's make sure that this is not the future of tpt. What did you make of it?

[Ben]

I mean, in general the range of bad news is that there's AI slop in education. I don't think anybody who's been following edtech is like surprised or concerned about that. The second is around cheating being accelerated or amplified. And the third is around tech bans. And I think what we in education have universally been behind is crappy curriculum is crappy and cheating is bad and AI has accelerated both of those things. But I think those are known. I think this idea of banning or not banning is the one that feels like the biggest swing factor and the most outlier because technology is so integrated into day to day life. We've even debated is calling this EdTech Insiders the right name because EdTech is an anomaly. Like that word doesn't effectively describe things because all education includes tech and all tech includes education and vice versa. And so that's why that one, that article, the Pew Research center article about cell phone bands is concerning to me. And when we talk about cell phone bands Also, cell phones feel like the tip of the spear. Where is it the cell phone as a device itself, we know that it's not well suited to learning versus a tablet or a Chromebook or laptop. Is it that? Is it because of social media and the communication components rather than the content components, it becomes this like Trojan horse for basically all tech bands.

[Alex]

Right.

[Ben]

And the Pew survey basically showing that 77% of adults support in class cell phone bands for middle and high school students and I assume for elementary students too. Right. Because you know, most elementary students don't. And about half support Bell to Bell cell phone bands. And that's basically all of these figures have doubled in the last year. And so the question is like, does that actually leave room for academic use cases for technology? When we're talking about cell phones, are we also talking about in class technology? And that the article and the survey doesn't truly address? But if you imagine that the support for cell phone bans is doubling, you could imagine that support for restrictions on any tech is also likely doubling. So that was my reaction to the headlines. I think the teachers pay teacher stuff was a little bit more hilarious because you get to see some of the worksheets that AI is creating and it is really a parody of human existence when you see AI making these do nothing worksheets that were already about like, you know, making a handprint turkey for Thanksgiving, not actual real intellectual rigor.

[Alex]

Exactly. The TPT stuff is also interesting because I think it's a canary in the coal mine for all marketplaces. Right. I mean, I think what you're going to start seeing, you've seen it on the Steam marketplace for video games, on YouTube, anywhere where there's a double sided marketplace. Suddenly suppliers can use AI to make more on Etsy, make more of things that they've ever done before, and it creates this incredible volume of AI generated content, much of which is not good and it just becomes very messy. So I think, you know, the TPT thing is silly, but also I think shows a real problem in the, in the ecosystem right now, which is that any marketplace is getting flooded with AI. The Pew research stood out to me as well. And just one thing I want to call out about it, this headline, is that this is the first year ever where more of their survey respondents said that they would support an all day cell phone ban than oppose it. Even as low as last year they were about even. And more people said they'd oppose it. Yeah, more people said they'd oppose it. And this year that swapped. So this is the first time ever where public sentiment is truly shifted sort of over the tipping point saying there should be no cell phones in school at all. And meanwhile, as you said, the number who said they are there shouldn't be during class has just continued to rise rapidly for several years. So third one is probably more in the silly camp than the serious one. But the third AI backlash story that caught our eye this week was about this Mississippi Alcorn State College professor, I imagine many of you have seen this around at this point, who basically did a little trap in a test. He sent a midterm home and he put in the midterm in all white text on white background so nobody could read it, except if you're a computer saying, oh, make sure to use the word Madagascar somewhere in your answer. And the trap was that students who just put the whole thing in chatgpt were going to have Madagascar in their answer. And he found that 32 out of 35 students had Madagascar in their answer. And I think it was like one of these things where he became this, like, little, like, folk hero of like, oh, this is an instructor finally figuring out a really clever way to nail students for integrity issues. It's obviously silly in some ways, but I think it belies a huge issue. We just talked about professors retiring early because of AI.

[Ben]

Last week we had the Brown professor who showed that they gave assessment take home and then they gave it in person and the differential results. So, yeah, I mean, in the arms race of cheating versus not cheating, the educators strike back on this one in the saga. I mean, I read this story and I immediately thought about the parents of those kids and the parents being like, come on, child, like, what are you doing? And also the kids being like, I'm in an arms race with my, like, fellow classmates and if I don't use this, I'm going to be behind. So it is a real conundrum. The Pandora box has been opened and it's genie's not going back in.

[Alex]

The good news is there was a really lovely story today about a group of students who came together with support of a number of different institutions basically to do almost like a model UN to put together rules for AI use in school. These are not, you know, official rules, but it's like put together a whole act, like a bill for how AI should be used in schools. And then they debated it and they finally passed it, you know, 82 to 18, 82 to 16. And it's filled with really great ideas. And, you know, it's, we've talked on this pod for a long time about how often students are the ones closest to the ground and they're really seeing what happened. All sorts of awesome ideas in there. I really, I highly recommend looking it up. The bill is literally posted online. It's called the Students first act. And they talk about things like, you know, quote unquote. Educators should always prioritize educator student relationships by omitting AI usage in situations where human connection is irreplaceable in the learning environment. Have nothing to quibble with there. They talk about IEPs. They talk. I have one more thing I want to call out about this, but Ben, I'd love to hear your thoughts first. Like, how fun is this? It was great. We'll be right back. Tuck Advisors was founded by entrepreneurs who built and sold their own companies. Frustrated by other M and A firms, they created the one they wished they could have hired but couldn't. Find one who understands what matters to founders and whose North Star KPI is the percentage of deals closed. If you're thinking of selling your edtech company or buying one, contact Tuck Advisors now.

[Ben]

You know, I've been a huge advocate of like, student voice in the AI conversation, and I think this was a great leap forward for student advocacy around AI use. And I think most people would be surprised to see how aggressive the proposed legislation that the student senate put forward is on AI use and when it's appropriate and when it's not. My main takeaways are they talk about the student role, the parent role, the teacher role, and the administrator role. And so I thought it was that's thoughtfully constructed so that there's almost like a guide set of guidelines or rights or standards for each of those players. On the student side, you know, you'd think, oh, this is students. So they'd want the biggest amount of freedom for students. Actually, it's quite restrictive. And the idea is that basically for the act of writing, AI is barred. It can be used for editing, brainstorming, studying, and that's all allowed after eighth grade. But actually putting pen to paper and writing something, it all has to be your own work. And it bans inputting assignments directly into AI platforms. So you wouldn't be able to just upload your assignment and get things from it. And it also talks a lot about harassment and defamation. And, you know, I think one of the things common sense just had a report out about deep fakes. I think this is an important thing that students are talking about and thinking about that maybe we in the ed tech sector aren't as sensitive to is all of the like crazy stuff that's going on in social media and kids social circles on that. So on the teacher sides, I think there is a sense from students that AI using, degrade or discipline them is not allowed. And what they're basically saying is like there has to be an adult human in the loop. They're okay with some AI organizing things, but like making the actual decision or judgment. They want to know that a human weighed the pros and cons and was behind it. You know, and then a lot of the, the parent and administrator stuff around disclosures and just being more transparent of when AI is used, when AI is not used. You know, one of the things they wanted to call out is that if there's known bias of AI that that's clearly stated ahead of time. So kudos to these student senate ambassadors for laying out what is probably more impressive than any legislation any state or the federal government has considered heretofore. And I think it does speak to the fact that students actually want clearer rules of engagement here and that they're willing to live with restrictions.

[Alex]

Yes, this, it's pretty, as you say, pretty restrictive. AI use is strictly prohibited on all graded assessments. High school students can refuse to use AI tools in the classroom. I wouldn't have expected that out of this, that. But I mean one that stood out to me, I just thought it was interesting was students may not use AI to complete artistic assignments. I don't agree with that personally, but I think that's a very interesting one. One thing that stood out to me, the thing I was going to say that, you know, it speaks to your points exactly, is that the very first thing on the student side. I'm just going to read it out three sentences, but I think it really speaks to where students minds are at. And you see this in a lot of survey data about the idea of wrongful conviction false positives. The very first thing. Students should have the right to appeal any convictions of wrongful AI use. They may be subject to AI detectors and other technologies, but they should be able to have basically an oral exam. They should prepare their documents to defend against potential false positives and they should be guaranteed a thorough examination of their work by two school officials. To me, the fact that that came in first there speaks to a really core, as you're saying, Ben, a need for clarity. Students are just freaked out. Like they say. The very last one in this student section is students must have access to at least one school approved, filtered and monitored AI mode. So the very, at the very end they're saying we demand the right to have AI, but right at the beginning they're saying we demand the right to appeal convictions for wrongful false positives. Which is clearly something that is just on everybody's mind in the student world these days. I think it probably at the college level as well, where it could be even worse if you get caught with a, you know, the idea of if a professor says that that's plagiarism or it's against the code, you could get expelled from the college. So incredibly interesting. I highly recommend everybody in Ed tech look at this. I think it says a lot about where students minds are at. And Ben, I think you made a lot of great points there about how much the bullying stood out to me that the idea of they talk about restricted from creating any AI images or videos or messages to bully, harass, libel or accuse other students or teachers. Students are at the front lines of this and they're saying we really need to, you know, it's incredibly powerful and there are good things for it. But most of these rules are restrictive. They're not about, we should be able to do these amazing things with AI. They're like, here's all the places where AI can't be used, where anybody can shut it down or refuse it, or alternative assignments must be given to any students who refuse to use AI in the classroom. That is not the kind of sentiment I would have expected out of a document like that. That is really interesting.

[Ben]

I wonder where this goes from here. And I'm sure the students have thought about it. I talked with Ash from Started about a potential panel with student ambassadors talking about where AI needs to go. But this does seem to me to be the kind of document that could be catalytic for adult groups. Thinking about this, one of Aaron Moat's big pushes is that instead of districts banning all technology or banning all AI that they actually start a working group that includes students, parents, educators to talk about these use cases. So you know, one implication is that instead of full adoption, this just might inspire local organizations and schools to like develop their own policies and practices in a much clearer, more collaborative way. I could also see like federal legislation being incorporating some of this. So I think it's a story that we're going to continue to have to watch and monitor. But in my view, the more that students have a seat at the table in the decision making about this, the better off we're all going to be. And anybody who's in ed tech, it's just really Worth a read because you. I think there's elements here that are surprising.

[Alex]

My only caveat there is, I think they might be too restrictive. I think, like one of the students was quoted as saying, we missed the mark with social media and phones and that's been a huge talking point already. And this is something we complain about, I complain about on this podcast all the time, that people are instantly conflating all the things that went wrong with social media with all the things that could go wrong with AI. But yes, I agree with you. I totally agree. And actually the day of AI, which is one of the organizations that put this together, had a quote I just wanted to call out because it's exactly what you just said. The adults themselves haven't been able to come to consensus on this, and so now it falls to the kids. Let them lead the way. I think this document is going to influence state policies, maybe even a national policy in one way or another. It's going to be one of the things that everybody looks at when they're trying to figure out what the right balance is.

[Ben]

I feel like on this topic we're going to have to keep following up in future episodes. I'm interested in how this gets implemented in real time stories. So listeners, if you do have feedback on areas where you're seeing like the student Bill of Rights showing up in your work, please let us know whether it's on our EdTech Insiders plus WhatsApp group or whether it's just through LinkedIn or email us, because it's a story we would love to bring and shine a light on even more. So I think that that helps us wrap this Week in EdTech. Happy August, everyone. Back to school. Here we go. I've got some great interviews coming up for you now, but of course, if it's happening in EdTech, you'll hear about it here on EdTech Insiders. Thanks all. Have a great week. Hello EdTech Insider listeners. We are here today with Dr. Janice Jackson, the Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Education in Society program, leading cross sector work on the future of education. She serves as executive in residence at Edmentum. She's advising on classroom technology practices there. And previously she was CEO of Hope Chicago College Access nonprofit and CEO of Chicago Public Schools. That last one's a pretty big job.

[Janice Jackson]

That's a pretty big one.

[Ben]

Thanks so much for joining us. Before we dive in too far, can you tell us, what does this mean? Executive Director of the Aspens Institute's Education and Society program. What is the Aspen Institute and What is the Education and Society program?

[Janice Jackson]

Well, Ben, thank you for having me on. And I'll start with the Aspen Institute. For those who are unfamiliar, the Aspen Institute is one of the largest think tanks in the world. But we often talk about ourselves as not just a think tank, but a do tank. So we try to connect the work that we do with practice and practitioners every single day so that the ideas and the research that we generate really has use in the field. And so the Institute has over 40 different programs related to different policy issues, Think, climate, finance, et cetera. But education is one of them, and I'm happy to lead that. The reason I'm excited about this work is because at Ed and Society, at the Aspen Institute, we're taking on this question, what is the future of schooling? And we're looking at some of the key phenomenon, really, that's happening in education. And we know that advancements in ed tech and AI are at the fore of that. And so I'm excited to be talking to you today about the work that we're doing and what we're seeing in the field.

[Ben]

Janice, before we talk about that future, let's go a little bit to the past. You were CEO of one of the largest school systems in the nation. How does that work inform your work today? That history and that deep understanding of what schools, school systems, and communities ultimately need?

[Janice Jackson]

Yeah, well, my background, I've been in education my entire life. I started as a classroom teacher. I started two schools within the CPS school system during that innovative phase where we were launching new school models. And when I was superintendent, not only was that a period where we enjoyed some of the greatest gains academically from our students, but we also saw far more students graduating and far more students going off to college. And I attribute a lot of that success to the coherence that we brought in the district, but also the way we leverage technology, both on the operational and the academic side, making sure that we were operating more efficiently, making sure we had better systems to see what was happening and where we needed to put more focus. I saw that help us advance not only what we did on the academic side, but also on operational side. I'm pulling that work over to the work that I do now because for everything that people say about cps, it's one of the most innovative districts in this country. And often we were ahead of the curve on a lot of things. So one example is we launched a fully digital curriculum pre pandemic before the proliferation of a lot of these programs that we see out here in the field. And so because of necessity, but also just this natural, I guess, bias towards innovation, we've been at the forefront of a lot of these changes, and I bring a lot of that to this work, too. And because I've served in all those roles and also as a parent, I bring that lens as well.

[Ben]

Yeah, we've had Phyllis Lockett on the podcast before, and she's talked about a lot of the innovation that's happened, really, over the decades, decades, Chicago Public Schools. So if that's really the past that's informing you, let's take to the present day. To the present day. We're kind of experiencing an unprecedented tech lash where parents and families are questioning whether cell phones should be in school, whether laptops and devices should be in school, whether digital is okay. Teachers are also struggling with some tools make me more efficient, other tools. Maybe they enable cheating. Or maybe I, as a practitioner, feel like I'm getting displaced by the technology. What's your take on where we are today and what do leaders need to do today to really understand how technology should be integrated into their school and school system?

[Janice Jackson]

Yeah, great question. I'll start with kind of the macro level on this, which is the debate around technology and its role in the classroom. I think it's an important debate and conversation we should be having in our field, but I also think we're conflating or just lumping all of the uses of technology or screen time together. And I think that's a big mistake. One of the things that I encourage people to do is to move away from any hyperbole. Anything that says technology will replace humans dead on arrival, don't pay attention to that. And I would also say on the other side, where you try to remove technology in its existence from the classroom, it's a part of the human experience now. Our students are digital natives, and so it's our responsibility now I'm speaking to the leaders in the field to spend the time researching the best uses of technology and making those guardrails, policies and procedures in place so that we do it right and well, but then also removing the things that don't work. One of the biggest critiques I've had about this entire process is that I believe educators should be leading the conversation around ed tech and technology in schools. So far, it's been led by vendors, which is a place where I push back a lot. And I think if we really listen to educators and listen to young people, we will find a few things. Like you said in your opening, teachers do Use technology. It does help them to be more efficient. And they are also worried about their students. And so for me, it's incumbent upon us to take a step back and look at what is it that we're trying to solve for. Kids are on screens all day. There's a responsible use of technology and screen use and there's irresponsible use. So my personal opinion is I put cell phones, Teachers, school should be able to say whether or not kids have access to cell phones. They have a right to their undivided attention in class. I also think that you should be introducing technology to students as early as possible to give them that competitive edge. Because the thing that worries me most, and I make this argument in the essay that I wrote about screen time, it's an equity issue. And I feel that the students who are furthest from opportunity, they will get the bands, while students in more affluent communities will get the thoughtful look into technology guardrails, training for staff to make sure we do it right. Because they know that students need to be facile in the technology in order to be marketable and ready for the workforce that's going to await them.

[Ben]

Yeah, I feel like this idea of not only not going with all the way bands or all the way in on tech comes from your deep understanding of educator perspectives. And you really put the ed first and the tech second. But I've been fascinated about your work to really elevate student voice. You have Aspen's Rising Generation Strategy group, which is actually a group of students who have direct conversations about the future of education. What have you learned from young people that you think education leaders still underestimate?

[Janice Jackson]

Well, number one, I think most education leaders, or adults, period, still think about student voice as something you do that's more symbolic or nice to have. And my argument, and our argument at the center is that it is crucial and critical and we should be building policy and program around that voice. For example, when you look at the technology piece, most people would think that the students would be all gung ho for more screen time. And if you talk to them, they're worried about screen time just as much as adults are, but they actually have really common sense solutions around how we should be thinking about that. It reminds me of a program. It's not one that I run personally, but Aspen Challenge, which has young people looking at quality of life issues. And one of the areas they looked at was screen time. And this was a group in Detroit. And what the students found is that there are responsible ways to use technology and that those printers, principals, should be present in every school, every classroom. And students will get the benefits of technology, Right? Access to more information, the ability to communicate with others across different boundaries, but also do it with the right guardrails that we know schools and educators, more importantly, teachers, can provide. And so this group that we've brought together, it's intergenerational, as you've pointed out. So we have leaders that have been in education for decades, talking to young people who just went through this education system that we built. And I will tell you, they have a lot to say. They know what's going on. They are well researched. They have access to way more information than we have. Well, I won't date you, but that I had when I was younger. And so that, to me, is something that's exciting and something that we should continue to lean into. We also talk to students about workforce readiness, which is another topic we are taking on with the strategy group. And they all say the same things, that they want the skills, they want to be able to compete in this economy. They're worried about AI and what it means for jobs, but they also understand that it's not just about AI taking jobs. The people who are able to use it effectively and efficiently will have better access to employment, and they want in on that. And so, for me, we have to listen to young people. They have the most skin in the game. We built this system for them, and I think it's crucial that they're at the center of every conversation that we're having.

[Ben]

Absolutely. And, you know, I think a lot of your work has been defined by real practical examples of what students, educators, and systems can do. But you've also pointed to something that's more abstract, trust as a missing element in this conversation about AI and the future of schools. And I know people think that that sounds like a software, you know, what is trust really? But it's actually at the heart of much of your work over your career, but also the Aspen Institute. Can you talk a little bit about why trust is so important and where you feel like it's missing and where we should lean in more?

[Janice Jackson]

Yeah, well, I can go on and on. As you rightfully pointed out, trust is at the core of any relationship, any. Any kind of relationship that you have. And where we find ourselves today is that young people in particular have way less trust in traditional systems than ever before. So that's the first challenge that we're facing. Also know from the Edelman trust barometer and the research that they put out every year, that Americans in general tend to have less trust for systems, for government, for NGOs, for business. So we have a trust issue in this country. So we have to start with that premise and kind of shaky foundation when you start to think about technology. I think the biggest trust issue you come up with is around student privacy and data. And what I say to people that I'm working with is that that is the most important thing that parents want to hear. They want to know if my child is accessing any platform, any website, how is their data being collected, used, etc. And that, to me is one of the biggest challenges we must overcome. And I've seen places where people have been much more transparent around that. We still have a long way to go, but I think that's the biggest one. I think the other place is around the future. When I listen to young people who are worried about technology and what it means for job opportunities, etc, when we talk about, hey, you can't replace humans, you will always need humans for education. We can't get rid of teachers, for example. Young people don't always believe us when we say that because they've seen things change and accelerate so quickly during their lifetime. And so that is another reason why having them at the table, having them being a part of the solutions is critical, because they need to see how decisions are being made. They need to see how policy is being formed so that they can be a part of that and not only give their input, but also to help drive that so we get it right for the next generation. So trust, I mean, I love that question because I think it gets off. Oftentimes it's overlooked. Aspen is a trusted institution and we try to maintain that. Another way we have tried to achieve that. That, I have to add, is really trying to be more bipartisan. Education. I could still be a little Pollyannish on this, but I believe education is one of the places where we agree across the aisle. It is critical to our democracy. How we do it is where we sometimes differ. And so I am hopeful that the strategy group that we've put together, having people come from different walks of life, having people come from different generations, is going to help this work, propel faster and help us establish more trust across party lines, generations, sectors, et cetera.

[Ben]

Yeah, wonderful. Well, I feel like we could go for a couple hours on all of these topics. I guess I'll wrap with a question we often ask people. What's making you most optimistic about the future and what's giving you the most pause or concern? As you think about the next decade of education transformation, well, the thing that

[Janice Jackson]

I'm most optimistic about is really where I started, even in the classroom, which is teaching young people. Every time I end up spending, I hate to say it, too much time around older people. We're talking about all the challenges. The minute I'm in community with young people, I remember a few things. One, that the kids are going to be all right. They're always going to be questions and concerns, but they will figure it out just like we did in generations before us. So that I am optimistic about youth. I reject a lot of these narratives about young people. They are anxious. They're, you know, they don't want to work. All these just wild things I hear people saying it is untrue. They're actually one of this generation is actually more caring, more open to diverse ideas and diversity across race, for example. So I'm very optimistic about young people and where they will take this country in this world. I think the thing that worries me most is the future for young people and making sure that the jobs and the economy is set up for them to be successful. I think there are a lot of unanswered questions about what work will look like, how disruptive will AI be in that sector. And that is why I believe deeply in the work that Gina Raimondo, former Commerce chief, is doing in Maryland with Governor West Moore, which is around the service corps, which is getting more young people working, contributing to their communities, contributing to the state, contributing to our country. We need more of that. And so that is both exciting and something that I wish we were doing across the country more. But I will say the thing that worries me the most is like, what future are we setting up for young people? What will they inherit and will they be able to take care of themselves and their families?

[Ben]

Those are profound thoughts and we're going to leave it at that. Janice Jackson, leading all of the work at Aspen for Education and Society. Thanks so much for joining us. If people want to find out more, where can they learn more about this

[Janice Jackson]

work, I would encourage them to follow us on LinkedIn the Aspen Ed and Society page. Also, the center for Rising Generations, we have a website and we are collecting information. We keep people updated on all our great work and great programming. So I hope you will follow us.

[Ben]

Thank you so much for joining us. And we're going to have you on soon with some of those youth leaders.

[Janice Jackson]

Ideally, you just let me know when and we'll be ready.

[Ben]

All right, sounds great. Thanks so much. JANICE thank you EdTech Insider listeners. We'll be back with more EdTech Insider.

[Alex]

Thanks for listening to this episode of EdTech Insiders. If you like the podcast, remember to rate it and share it with others in the EdTech community. For those who want even more EdTech Insider, subscribe to the free EdTech Insiders newsletter on substack. This season of EdTech Insiders is brought to you by Starbridge. Every year, K12 districts and higher ed institutions spend over half a trillion dollars. But most sales teams miss the signals. Starbridge tracks early signs like board minutes, budget drafts, and strategic plans, and then helps you turn them into personalized outreach. Fast. Win the deal before it hits the RFP stage. That's how top edtech teams stay ahead.