A Massachusetts couple claims that their son's high school attempted to derail his future by giving him detention and a bad grade on an assignment he wrote using generative AI.

A Massachusetts couple claims that their son’s high school attempted to derail his future by giving him detention and a bad grade on an assignment he wrote using generative AI.

An old and powerful force has entered the fraught debate over generative AI in schools: litigious parents angry that their child may not be accepted into a prestigious university.

In what appears to be the first case of its kind, at least in Massachusetts, a couple has sued their local school district after it disciplined their son for using generative AI tools on a history project. Dale and Jennifer Harris allege that the Hingham High School student handbook did not explicitly prohibit the use of AI to complete assignments and that the punishment visited upon their son for using an AI tool—he received Saturday detention and a grade of 65 out of 100 on the assignment—has harmed his chances of getting into Stanford University and other elite schools.

Yeah, I’m 100% with the school on this one.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    6 hours ago

    Everyone in an area, barring diagnosed disability requiring special education, should go to the same PUBLIC schools to develop empathy with other Americans, to have similar academic starting points if even a partial “meritocracy” is something we’d like to try to actually aspire to, and to reverse rich parents having no skin in the game and forcing them to advocate FOR public schools with their power rather than lobby to further destroy them for tax cuts because being greedy sociopaths is kind of their thing.

    In theory, I’m right there with you. Everyone should go to the “Good School”. But then I’m sitting here in HISD, watching Mike Miles tear the fucking wiring out of the walls specifically to Own The Libs in Harris County for daring to elect a few municipal democrats. And I can’t help think, “Maybe forcing people to go to these child warehouses and low-grade torture facilities is bad aktuly”.

    In a country where intelligent and hard working children are lost to schools we starved to cut wealthy sociopath’s taxes, while dynasty entitled nitwits like George W Bush and Donald Trump literally cannot fail despite barely being able to walk without tripping on their own shoes, trying just makes one a sucker.

    I feel this in my bones. But I also recognize this as a consequence of social networks that are built up over generations. It isn’t as though Bush and Trump (or Obama or Clinton) just appeared at the top of the administrative hierarchy by accident. They climbed (or were carried) through vast webs of political advocacy groups and donors and religious organizations.

    Trying doesn’t make you a sucker. But understanding what you’re trying to accomplish (and who will assist/oppose your efforts) is important when you’re trying to gauge what will be successful or worthwhile.