Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's (HMH) announced in a press release that SBE approved its "Into Math California" training, reports the Daily Caller. In addition to teaching students who do not understand English mathematics, the bots will also include "language-building routines" and more to help them become bilingual.
The training comes after new data from the University of California San Diego showing that 18% of students entering college place below Algebra 1, which is designated as a middle school-level course. This is more than double the percentage found in 2020.
Jonathan Butcher is a Will Skillman senior research fellow in education policy at The Heritage Foundation.
"This may be something that gives students a head start, but we have to remember that education is about a deep immersion in the material,” states Butcher. “And you become an expert in something — you become proficient in a subject after spending a long time with the subject matter."
He said that he thinks this kind of AI-generated tool, to help students get a basic knowledge of how to interact in the classroom and in the community, could be helpful for them.
"I would caution, though, about trying to use it as a tool that will replace an actual immersion in a complex material — such as history, mathematics, science — especially over the course of the student's career," warns Butcher.
How did California came to have a problem with many students being unable to understand English? Butcher explained that a previous Supreme Court ruling says that public schools in the U.S. are required to enroll children in school, regardless of whether or not they are legal citizens.
"Until there is a very thoughtful and careful revisions to immigration law — if we're going to require schools to do this — then I think that we're going to need ways, at a large scale, to help students get very basic tools to communicate in English, to be able to fill out paperwork in English, and to be able to complete their coursework in English," concludes Butcher.
