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Hi, from Lily with the national desk! Our big story this week comes with a glimpse into a school district superintendent’s inbox and all the messages they get in a day from ed tech companies trying to sell them on tools that “streamline,” “innovate,” and “scaffold.” The buzzwords, like the emails, are endless.
Stick around for the scoop on New York’s decision to pull plans for an AI-focused high school, and to find out which program senators came back to again and again Tuesday while grilling Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
The Big Story
(Graphic by Thomas Wilburn)
If you have an email address, you’re no stranger to getting unsolicited emails. My friends and I laugh about how creepy it can feel to have a conversation about buying something like a fitness tracker and — POP! — hours later, there’s an ad for one in your inbox.
But when a source told me awhile ago that they’d heard of school administrators creating secret email addresses to dodge sales pitches from ed tech companies, I thought, “That seems a little extreme.” When I asked school superintendents, they didn’t have secret email addresses — that they shared with me, at least — but they did say the sales tactics created something of an inbox nightmare for them.
Heidi Sipe, a superintendent in eastern Oregon, said marketers had even begun to put time on her Google calendar unsolicited.
I asked five superintendents to forward me all the ed tech sales pitches they received in a day. My inbox wasn’t ready.
Here’s a sampling of headlines. Can you guess what these companies are selling? We’ll put the answers at the bottom of the newsletter.
“Are New Graduation Pathways Putting Your Student-Athlete Eligibility at Risk?”
“The easiest way to ID students”
“Is anything falling through the cracks?”
There's more subject lines to stump you in the interactive quiz included in our story.
Overloaded inboxes don’t just take up superintendents’ time. All the messages make it harder for them to make good decisions about ed tech as they navigate competing pressures to innovate and limit classroom screen time
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Local Stories to Watch
New York City is pulling plans for a controversial AI-focused high school. The school pitched itself as preparing students for jobs in cyber security, computer science, robotics, and math. But people criticized it over admissions policies and other issues. Tabling the proposal while the city works on its AI policy avoids a high-profile confrontation as Mayor Zohran Mamdani makes the case for retaining mayoral control after campaigning on governing more democratically.
Local leaders in Memphis are weighing whether and how to challenge a GOP-led state takeover. The school district’s legal options are limited, and public resistance has been muted. Still, some community members are worried that an oversight board appointed by white Republican lawmakers won’t be responsive to the needs of Memphis’ majority-Black student population.
Low turnout in Newark’s school board election could be sending the wrong message. We’re talking really low: Just 3% of eligible Newark voters returned a slate of mayoral-backed school board members to office. Political scientists say such low turnout tells elected officials they aren’t really accountable to the public. The trend of low turnout in off-cycle school board elections leads some critics to argue that elected school boards aren’t particularly democratic.
Philadelphia’s school closure plan has opened a rift between the district and other local leaders. Members of the City Council and state lawmakers have threatened not to advocate for increased schools funding if they don't get more say in which schools close. The district, meanwhile, says it used careful criteria to develop its facilities plan. A vote on the closure plan is set for Thursday.
Spotlight on …
A group of high school students take a tour of Occidental College. The Trump administration is trying to revamp the mission of a federal program that encourages high school students to pursue higher education. (Photo by Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
The future of TRIO
Education Secretary Linda McMahon made an appearance before U.S. senators on Tuesday to review the Trump administration’s education budget proposal.
Senators spent much of the two-hour hearing grilling McMahon about Office for Civil Rights investigations grinding to a near-halt, management of student loan programs, the administration’s controversial effort to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, and more.
But the program that senators brought up most frequently? TRIO, a $1.2 billion set of federal programs that McMahon seems keen on dramatically changing.
Last week, we wrote about proposed changes to one TRIO program, Talent Search, and what those changes could mean for seven other TRIO programs. Talent Search grants typically go to hundreds of colleges and community organizations focused on college access for students from low-income backgrounds.
But the most recent Talent Search grant applications posted by the Department of Labor, on behalf of the Department of Education, prioritize programs that focus on workforce development, including those that promote apprenticeships and job credential programs, over college access.
A bipartisan group of senators asked McMahon in a letter to back down and keep Talent Search focused on college aspirations. On Wednesday, a group of House Democrats — led by Reps. Ritchie Torres and Adriano Espaillat, both Democrats from New York — also called for McMahon to rescind the Talent Search applications.
Education Department data they cited from 2022 shows 68% of Talent Search participants enrolled in postsecondary education immediately after graduation, compared to 56% of students from families in the lowest income quartile.
“In the Bronx, where college attainment rates remain among the lowest in New York State, that gap is the difference between a student going to college and not,” the congressmen wrote.
In Tuesday’s hearing, McMahon did not seem to be receptive to the calls by lawmakers to pump the brakes on remaking Talent Search. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine told McMahon that the new Talent Search applications would “redirect funds from the core purpose” of the program, which should be designed to promote college awareness.
“This latest kind of, if you will, experiment with TRIO is to look at it to see if it has different results,” McMahon said. “It was worth taking an opportunity of reform to show that there might be alternatives to higher education other than college, given that we do have a lack of our skilled workforce in the country.”
Did You Know?
$74,495
That was the average salary of a public school teacher in the United States last year, according to data collected by the National Education Association. That’s up 3.5% from the previous year, National Public Radio reports, but less than teachers earned in 2017 when adjusted for inflation, according to the union’s analysis.
Quote of the Week
“Something that I just want to shout from the rooftops, is, ‘We really don’t know what is about to happen.’”
That’s Alex Kotran, CEO of the AI Education Project, addressing the anxiety a lot of folks have about which career paths will be dramatically altered by artificial intelligence — in this case, whether software engineering might take a hit. So far, Kotran told The 74 that job postings for software engineers are actually up by 11%.
And finally … Here’s what those email subject lines were selling.
Subject: “Are New Graduation Pathways Putting Your Student-Athlete Eligibility at Risk?”
⚽️ Answer: Software that helps ensure schools are complying with NCAA requirements.
Subject: “The easiest way to ID students”
🍕 Answer: Software that enables students to pay for food in the cafeteria with their fingerprint. (The email boasts: “Nobody has forgotten their finger!”)
Subject: “Is anything falling through the cracks?”
👾Answer: An AI customer service hub to field questions from district families.
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