This Week with EdSurge

Two Voices of Change Fellows had the same kind of moment this year, when a student comment that could have been brushed off as attitude turned out to be a warning sign. On This Week with EdSurge, Melinda Medina explains what happened when a student answered a literature question with "I use ChatGPT, how am I supposed to know that?" and what it revealed about students quietly outsourcing their own thinking. Then Beth Yirga describes the eighth grader who asked her, "If AI will do everything, then what's the point of learning?" and how that question sent her looking for answers outside of education entirely.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
Melinda Medina cites a Brown University economics class where students averaged nearly 96% on a take-home midterm, then under 49% once the professor switched to an in-person proctored exam, a trend she now sees echoed in her own classroom.
When Melinda's 11th graders were asked how author Kate Chopin uses irony, one replied that she'd used ChatGPT instead of working through the text, a moment Melinda says worried her less as cheating and more as a sign students no longer wanted to engage with productive struggle.
Beth Yirga's question came from an eighth grader during a planning meeting for a new career exploration program at Freire Charter School Wilmington, and it sent her to the Women Who Code Summit in New York, where she was the only K-12 educator in a room of more than 500 people.
Beth is building an "identity year" for students, pairing AI literacy with outdoor hikes, a trip to the opera, and a visit to the state capitol, on the belief that students need to know who they are before they can direct any tool toward a future worth having.

STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Protecting Student Cognition in the Age of AI by Melinda Medina
The K-12 Silo Won't Survive AI, But Our Relationships Might by Beth Yirga
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HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS
Host: Ira Apfel
Featuring:
Melinda Medina, English and Special Education Teacher, Brooklyn, NY
Beth Yirga, Assistant Head of School, Freire Charter School Wilmington, DE

New guidance was supposed to help teachers make sense of screen time. New laws were supposed to keep phones out of the way. On This Week with EdSurge we look at what happens when teachers are left to make sense of rules that were never built with their classrooms in mind. Adam Stone talks with pre-K and kindergarten teachers about the guidance that excludes them, and civics teacher Dan Clark explains why he thinks Missouri got its phone ban wrong.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
The American Academy of Pediatrics updated its screen time guidance for the first time in a decade, but the update is scoped around children and adolescents and offers little direction for pre-K classrooms.
Pre-K and kindergarten teachers are relying on tactile, low-tech strategies, such as forming letters out of Play-Doh, to reinforce face-to-face interaction instead of defaulting to screens.
Missouri's new law bans any portable communication device on a student's person from the first bell to the last, which cut off students working on a community advocacy project from the platform they knew best how to use.
We explore if blanket phone bans skip the harder work of teaching digital citizenship, comparing the debate to longstanding arguments over whether schools should still teach cursive.

STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Early Childhood Education Teachers Grapple with Screen Time by Adam Stone
The Case Against the Classroom Cellphone Crackdown by Dan Clark
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HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS
Host: Ira Apfel
Featuring:
Adam Stone, Education and Technology Journalist
Dan Clark, Eighth Grade Civics Teacher, Missouri

The Department of Education just issued its first major classroom technology guidance in years, urging schools to judge tools by outcomes rather than screen time. Digital Promise president and CEO Jean-Claude Brizard and outcomes-based contracting expert Brittany Miller join This Week with EdSurge to break down what the new Dear Colleague Letter gets right, what it leaves out, and what happens now that Washington has handed implementation to the states. They agree the letter marks real progress, but they do not agree on how much it accomplishes.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
The Dear Colleague Letter draws a clear line between recreational and instructional technology use, giving school leaders new language to push back against blanket bans, but it also leans on randomized controlled trials as a measure of evidence, a standard Brittany Miller says moves too slowly for how quickly edtech itself changes.
Ten states already run statewide outcomes based contracting efforts, including a new Michigan law tying fifty million dollars in tutoring funding to results, which Miller points to as proof the model is working even without a federal mandate behind it.
Jean-Claude Brizard argues schools should demand third party certification rather than commission their own research, compares scattered anti-technology sentiment to the anti-vaccine movement, and calls on school and district leaders to reclaim the public narrative around edtech.
Both guests agree the guidance leaves out direct support for the teachers, principals, and superintendents actually implementing it, and both point to procurement, not classroom policy, as the real lever for turning the letter into practice.

STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Department of Education Issues Long-Awaited Edtech Guidance for States and Districts
by EdSurge Staff
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HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS
Host: Ira Apfel
Featuring:
Jean-Claude Brizard, President and CEO, Digital Promise
Brittany Miller, Center for Outcomes-Based Contracting

This week, two guests trace the true cost of AI, one in the classroom and one behind the scenes. Michael Hernandez explains how he taught himself to code so he could build a free tool that flags weak assignments before students ever think about cheating. Mi Aniefuna follows the electricity powering that same technology, tracing the invoice that lands on a district's desk long after the contract is signed. Together, their stories ask what schools are really paying for when they bring AI into the building.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
Michael Hernandez used vibe coding, describing an idea in plain language and letting AI write the code, to build the Cheat Vulnerability Index, a free tool that scans an assignment and flags where it is exposed to cheating.
Michael identifies three traits, originality, personal connection, and purpose, that he believes make an assignment resistant to cheating.
Mi Aniefuna reports that United States data centers used about 176 terawatt hours of electricity in 2023, roughly 4.4% of the countrys total electricity consumption.
Mi points to a Stanford review of more than 800 studies on AI in K-12 education, only 20 of which met the bar for rigorous, causal-impact research, even as adoption keeps outpacing the evidence.

STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Story 1 I Used AI to Build AI-Resistant Assignments by Michael Hernandez
Story 2 Can Schools Afford an AI-First Future? by Mi Aniefuna

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HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS
Host: Ira Apfel
Featuring:
Michael Hernandez, Educator and Author
Mi Aniefuna, Public Health and Behavioral Sciences Researcher, EdSurge

What does it actually take to support the adults who shape our youngest learners? Nicol Russell, chief academic officer at Teaching Strategies, argues that early educators deserve the same intentional investment as engineers, not treatment as replaceable hires. Dr. Nneka McGee, founder of Muon Global, brings that same philosophy to how five year olds encounter AI, starting with conversation instead of screens. Both guests land on the same idea from different angles: good tools fail without good follow-through.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
Nicol Russell points to a study out of NIEER at Rutgers that found teacher retention increased 23 percentage points when curriculum, assessment, and coaching functioned as one connected system rather than separate tools.
Russell draws a line between teacher exhaustion and burnout, and she recommends that program leaders protect a set block of time each week where teachers have complete control over how it is used.
Dr. Nneka McGee led a session at ISTELive that pairs Play-Doh with generative AI, using the activity to teach young learners about anthropomorphism while building creative thinking and questioning skills.
McGee recommends introducing AI to young children through conversation rather than devices, citing both her own research on early learner readiness and guardrails like COPPA that already limit generative AI use for this age group.

STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Story 1
We Talk About Whole Children. What About Whole Educators? by Nicol Russell
Story 2
AI for Young Learners (Jump Start Guide) by Nneka McGee
STAY CONNECTED
Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.com.
Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news.
Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.

HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS
Host: Ira Apfel
Featuring:
Nicol Russell, Chief Academic Officer, Teaching Strategies
Dr. Nneka McGee, Founder, Muon Global