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IBL News | New York

President Donald Trump signed seven executive orders on April 23 impacting elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education, addressing AI, school discipline, workforce development, apprenticeships, HBCUs, and accreditation, among other issues.

Leaders from labor, commerce, and education departments, including Secretary Linda McMahon, joined the president in the Oval Office. She released a statement about the orders.

Trump’s executive order on AI stated that it will ensure that “schoolchildren, young Americans, are adequately trained in AI tools so that they can be competitive in the economy years from now into the future as AI becomes a bigger and bigger deal.”

The order broadly seeks to improve K-12 education through AI and enhance teacher training on AI:

• Establishes the White House Task Force on AI Education;
• Establishes a Presidential AI Challenge, which will encourage and highlight student and educator achievements in AI, promote wide geographic adoption of technological advancement, and foster collaboration between government, academia, philanthropy, and industry to address national challenges with AI solutions.
• Seek to increase participation in AI-related Registered Apprenticeships;
• Establishes public-private partnerships to provide resources for K-12 AI education; and
• Prioritizes the use of AI in discretionary grant programs for teacher training and prioritizes research on the use of AI in education.

Another executive order, “Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future,” focused on modernizing American workforce programs. It seeks “to align with our country’s reindustrialization needs and equip American workers to fill the growing demand for skilled trades and other occupations.”

“My Administration will further protect and strengthen Registered Apprenticeships and build on their successes to seize new opportunities and unlock the limitless potential of the American worker.”

The order plans to reach and surpass 1 million new active apprentices.

In her statement, McMahon said, “Not every student needs to attend a four-year university to enter a family-sustaining career. The Trump Administration will support communities across the country offering career-aligned programs like apprenticeships and dual enrollment to meet the needs of their workforce best.” 

Trump signed an executive order titled “White House Initiative to Promote Excellence and Innovation at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs),” accompanied by this additional information.

The order stated that the administration’s policy is to support HBCUs. It established the White House Initiative on HBCUs and the President’s Board of Advisors on HBCUs.

Trump signed an executive order titled “Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education,” which was accompanied by this additional information.

“Many third-party accreditors have relied on a sort of woke ideology to accredit universities instead of accrediting based on merit and performance,” said a Trump administration representative.

“The Department of Education will create a competitive marketplace of higher education accreditors, which will give colleges and universities incentives and support to focus on lowering college costs, fostering innovation, and delivering a high-quality postsecondary education,” said Linda McMahon.

IBL News | New York

Dr. Katrina Armstrong, president of Columbia University, left her post this Friday after her leadership threatened $400 million in federal funding. She was Columbia’s third leader since August 2024, when the university became a hub of a campus protest movement against the war in Gaza and the Israelis.

Claire Shipman, a journalist with two degrees from Columbia and co-chair of the university’s board of trustees, was named the acting president and replaced Dr. Katrina Armstrong.

One week before this abrupt replacement, Columbia University bowed to a series of White House demands, and no resignations seemed involved.

However, a leaked revelation pointed to comments from Dr. Armstrong at a faculty meeting last weekend saying privately that the school would not stick to some of its agreements with the Trump administration.

Following this punitive approach at Columbia, the Trump Administration is now threatening to end the funding of billions of dollars to several universities across the country. Many colleges are facing inquiries from agencies that range from the Justice Department to the Department of Health and Human Services.

DEI Scrutiny

• Two days before Columbia announced its decision, the government said it would withhold about $175 million in funding to the University of Pennsylvania because the school allowed a transgender woman to be a member of its women’s swim team in 2022.

• Last week, the University of Michigan announced it will close its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) office due to recent executive orders from President Trump and funding uncertainty. The institution had spent $250 million on DEI efforts through last fall and had 163 DEI personnel.

This DEI closure announcement comes as federal funding for schools has been under scrutiny by Trump.

Antisemitic Scrutiny

Another focus from the Trump Administration is what is considered antisemitic activity on campus following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. On March 10, the White House warned 60 institutions that they risk losing federal government funding.

IBL News | New York

President Trump signed a long-awaited executive order on Thursday that begins the process of dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, fulfilling a longstanding campaign promise to conservatives.

The order is designed to leave school policy almost entirely in the hands of states and local boards, a prospect that alarms liberal education advocates.

Surrounded by schoolchildren seated at desks in the East Room of the White House, President Trump cited poor test scores as a key justification for the move.

He instructed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin shutting down her agency. According to Article I of the Constitution, this task cannot be completed without congressional approval.

However, Trump also said Thursday that the department would continue to provide critical functions required by law, such as administering federal student aid, including loans and grants, funding special education and districts with high levels of student poverty, and continuing civil rights enforcement.

Since taking office, Trump has slashed the department’s workforce by more than half and eliminated $600 million in grants.

“This is political theater, not serious public policy,” said Ted Mitchell, the president of the American Council on Education, an association that includes many colleges and universities in its membership. “To dismantle any cabinet-level federal agency requires congressional approval, and we urge lawmakers to reject misleading rhetoric in favor of what is in the best interests of students and their families.”

Lawyers for supporters of the Education Department anticipated they would challenge Mr. Trump’s order by arguing that the administration had violated the Constitution’s separation of powers clause and the clause requiring the president to take care that federal laws are faithfully executed.

Senator Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican who chairs the chamber’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said he would submit legislation to eliminate the Education Department.

“I agree with President Trump that the Department of Education has failed its mission,” Cassidy said.

“Since the department can only be shut down with congressional approval, I will support the president’s goals by submitting legislation to accomplish this as soon as possible.”

Under the Biden administration, the department was criticized as being deferential to teachers’ unions and overreaching on specific issues, such as student loan forgiveness and its interpretations of civil rights laws on behalf of transgender students.

IBL News | New York

Researchers at the South China Normal University in Guangzhou, highly focused on teacher education and training, explored how AI-driven visual reports can transform assessment in K12. A 13-week study analyzed the performance of half of the students who received personalized reports with clear visuals, personalized feedback, and actionable insights versus the other half who received oral feedback from instructors.

The “AI reports” group demonstrated a 12.8% improvement in test scores over those only receiving oral.

In addition, the vast majority expressed interest in using the report for other classes.

Experts highlighted that AI tools get learners more efficient and faster personalized feedback and actionable feedback.

Students can see their learning journey in these reports and act on it. They review areas of strength, identify learning gaps, and plan where to focus their effort.

IBL News | New York

OpenAI announced yesterday the launch of its video model Sora, an AI tool for creating realistic clips from text. It lets users generate videos up to 20 seconds long. It includes dropping images in as prompts and a timeline editor that allows users to add new prompts at specific moments in a video.

“We don’t want the world just to be text,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a live-streamed announcement Monday. “Video is important to our culture,” Altman added.

The San Francisco-based research lab, backed by Microsoft, said that this current version of Sora, named Sora Turbo, is faster than the model showed in February.

Sora has been released as a standalone product at Sora.com to ChatGPT Plus and Pro users.

ChatGPT Plus offers up to 50 videos at up to 480p resolution, up to 20 seconds long, or fewer videos at 720p monthly. These videos are in widescreen, vertical, or square aspect ratios at no additional cost. Users bring their assets to extend, remix, and blend or generate entirely new content from text.

Meanwhile, ChatGPT Pro offers up to 500 monthly videos at up to 1080p resolution and longer duration.

OpenAI developed new interfaces to make it easier to prompt Sora with text, images, and videos. Its storyboard tool lets users precisely specify inputs for each frame.

OpenAI acknowledged that “the version of Sora we are deploying has many limitations, and it often generates unrealistic physics and struggles with complex actions over long durations.” “Although Sora Turbo is much faster than the February preview, we’re still working to make the technology affordable for everyone.”

The Sora model is blocking particularly damaging forms of abuse, such as child sexual abuse materials and sexual deepfakes.

Sora could also violate many creators’ rights, experts said.

• Sora features
• Video

IBL News | New York

Linda McMahon, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for education secretary, will work on “sending Education back to the states” while reducing or eliminating the federal Department of Education. This was one of Trump’s key education campaign pledges.

With a slimmer educational résumé than typical of candidates for the Secretary of Education position, she served 16 years on the board of trustees for Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, where a student center is named for her.

She also spent just over a year on the Connecticut State Board of Education, where she was one of fifteen members overseeing all public education in the state, including its technical high school system. Later, in 2010, she would resign to run as a Republican for a Senate seat.

Linda McMahon, a leader of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team, is known for her many years in wrestling as the former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

According to President Trump’s statement, her approach to education is based on advocating for parents’ and families’ rights and universal school choice. This means that money typically flowing to public schools will instead go to families so they can spend it on private education.

“As Secretary of Education, Linda will fight tirelessly to expand ‘Choice’ to every State in America and empower parents to make the best Education decisions for their families,” Mr. Trump said.

On Tuesday, Ms. McMahon posted a message on social media praising “apprenticeship programs” and highlighting their examples in Switzerland, which is often cited as a high-performing country whose model the United States should follow.

She also has backed a House bill to make federal Pell Grants available for those pursuing skills training programs and technical education, not just traditional college degrees.

The for-profit college sector applauded Ms. McMahon’s selection.

“Under her leadership, we are confident that the new Department of Education will take a more reasoned and thoughtful approach in addressing many of the overreaching and punitive regulations put forth by the Biden administration, especially those targeting career schools,” Jason Altmire, president of Career Education Colleges and Universities, a trade group that represents the for-profit sector, said in a statement.

• NYT: How Linda McMahon Might Approach the Dept. of Education — Comments of the audience

IBL News | New York

Apple announced yesterday that its Generative AI suite, Apple Intelligence, will start rolling out in beta in October 2024 in the U.S. with iO 18.1, iPad 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1.

In addition, Apple introduced the new iPhone 16 lineup (iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max), built for Apple Intelligence and features more advanced A18 and A18 Pro chips.

This AI suite, available as a free software update, will include improved Siri, which will have a brand-new design and a glowing light that wraps around the edge of the screen when active on an iPhone, iPad, or CarPlay.

It will also include Writing Tools for rewriting, proofreading, and summarizing text nearly everywhere they write, including Mail, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps.

In Photos, the Memories feature now enables users to create movies by simply typing a description. In addition, natural language can be used to search for specific photos and videos.

The new Clean Up tool can identify and remove distracting objects in a photo’s background without accidentally altering the subject.

IBL News | New York

Cognition AI, which builds AI teammates, introduced this week an autonomous AI software engineer called Devin.

This AI agent can independently write entire software projects from scratch based on simple text prompts.

Devin can plan and execute complex coding tasks with hundreds of steps.

The autonomous agent can code while learning, recall relevant context at every step, fix errors, and collaborate with users in real time.

“With our advances in long-term reasoning and planning, Devin can plan and execute complex engineering tasks requiring thousands of decisions,” said the company.

IBL News | New York

The final form for ChatGPT is not a bot.

Figure AI, a startup working to build humanoid robots that can perform dangerous and undesirable jobs, got support from OpenAI and other large names in AI, such as NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Jeff Bezos’ venture fund.

The Sunnyvale, California-based company announced on Thursday that it raised $675 million in Series B funding at a $2.6 billion valuation with investments from Microsoft, OpenAI Startup Fund, NVIDIA, Jeff Bezos (through Bezos Expeditions), Parkway Venture Capital, Intel Capital, Align Ventures, and ARK Invest.

Focused on deploying humanoid robots to assist people with real-world applications addressing labor shortages, Figure recently announced its first commercial agreement with BMW Manufacturing to bring humanoids into automotive production.

The Figure team, made up of top AI robotics experts from Boston Dynamics, Tesla, Google DeepMind, and Archer Aviation, has made remarkable progress in the past few months in the key areas of AI, robot development, robot testing, and commercialization. Founded 21 months ago, Figure currently has a team of 80 employees and is led by serial entrepreneur Brett Adcock.

The new capital will be used to accelerate the timeline for humanoid commercial deployment as AI training, robot manufacturing, and expanding engineering headcount will be scaled up.

The collaboration with OpenAI will help to accelerate “Figure’s commercial timeline by enhancing the capabilities of humanoid robots to process and reason from language,” stated the company.

Peter Welinder, VP of Product and Partnerships at OpenAI, said: “We’ve always planned to come back to robotics and we see a path with Figure to explore what humanoid robots can achieve when powered by highly capable multimodal models. We’re blown away by Figure’s progress to date and we look forward to working together to open up new possibilities for how robots can help in everyday life.”

Figure will use Microsoft Azure for AI infrastructure, training, and storage.

To date, Figure AI has developed a general-purpose robot, called Figure 01, that looks and moves like a human. The company sees its robots being put to use in manufacturing, shipping and logistics, warehousing, and retail, where labor shortages are the most severe.

Earlier this week, the company released a video showing Figure 01 in action (see below). The robot, attached to a tether, walks on two legs, and uses its five-fingered hands to pick up a plastic crate, then walks several more steps before placing the box on a conveyor belt.

Figure’s ultimate aim is for Figure 01 to be able to perform “everyday tasks autonomously.” The company says getting there will require it to develop more robust AI systems.

There is a crowded field of companies vying to make humanoid robots a reality, although the market is nascent. Amazon-backed Agility Robotics plans to open a factory that can produce up to 10,000 of its bipedal Digit robots per year.

Tesla also trying to build a humanoid robot, called Optimus, while robotics company Boston Dynamics has developed several models. Norwegian humanoid robot startup 1X Technologies recently raised $100 million with backing from OpenAI.
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