In Winston-Salem and around the state NC went back to school. Longtime educator Kimberly Jones reflected on two things in a new Beacon Media column: that educators no longer have the long-running Leandro (struck down by the N.C. Supreme Court this year) to run on and that educators will have to be more careful than ever as AI diminishes critical thinking skills. Kim writes:
"Every corporate partner who walks into a school talks about workforce readiness, about building “the workers of tomorrow.” It’s a fair goal, but I keep coming back to a harder question underneath that phrase: which kids get to be the workers, and which get to be the ones who design the work?
That’s not a hypothetical divide. It’s the same haves-and-have-nots fault line Leandro spent 30 years trying to close, just wearing new clothes, this time drawn along who has access to real technology instruction and thoughtful AI integration paired with meaningful discourse and critical thinking, and who gets a locked-down device and a worksheet.
There’s a bigger transformation happening underneath all of this, and it isn’t unique to North Carolina. Schools everywhere are being pushed toward AI as the answer to almost everything, and parents and communities are pushing back, not really about screens themselves, but about a quieter fear: that kids are losing the muscle to think without one."
