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The Startling Evidence on Learning Loss Is In
In the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress sent $190 billion in aid to schools, stipulating that 20% of the funds had to be used for reversing learning setbacks. At the time, educators knew that the impact on how children learn would be significant, but the extent was not yet known.
The evidence is now in, and it is startling. The school closures that took 50 million children out of classrooms at the start of the pandemic may prove to be the most damaging disruption in the history of American education. It also set student progress in math and reading back by two decades and widened the achievement gap that separates poor and wealthy children.
These learning losses will remain unaddressed when the federal money runs out in 2024. Economists are predicting that this generation, with such a significant educational gap, will experience diminished lifetime earnings and become a significant drag on the economy. But education administrators and elected officials who should be mobilizing the country against this threat are not.
It will take a multidisciplinary approach, and at this point, all the solutions that will be needed long-term can’t be known; the work of getting kids back on solid ground is just beginning. But that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be immediate action.
The U.S. Army Is Having a Hard Time Recruiting. Now It’s Asking Soldiers Dismissed for Refusing the COVID Vaccine to Come Back.
The U.S. Army is having such a difficult time recruiting that it’s sending soldiers who were kicked out for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19 instructions on how to rejoin.
The Army sent the letters to about 1,900 active-duty soldiers who were separated for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the military blog Task and Purpose. Bryce Dubee, an Army spokesperson, told the blog that the letters were sent “specifically as part of the COVID mandate recession process.”
The letter, which has been circulated on social media, says former soldiers who were separated for refusing to take the vaccine can request a correction of their military record and instructs those who wish to rejoin to contact a recruiter.
The new outreach to these soldiers comes amid a recruiting crisis for the U.S. military. In 2022, the Army fell short of its recruiting goal by about 15,000 soldiers, or 25%, Army Times reported.
In Rare Show of Force, Senators Enlist U.S. Marshals to Subpoena Tech CEOs
A Senate panel announced Monday it subpoenaed the CEOs of Elon Musk’s X, Discord and Snap to testify at a hearing on children’s online safety next month after “repeated refusals” by the tech companies to cooperate with its investigation into the matter.
In a rare show of force, the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee are seeking to force X’s Linda Yaccarino, Discord’s Jason Citron and Snap’s Evan Spiegel to appear at the Dec. 6 session, which the panel said in a press release would “allow Committee members to press CEOs from some of the world’s largest social media companies on their failures to protect children online.”
The committee announced that it also expects Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to appear voluntarily. Spokespeople for Snap, Discord and TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Meta declined to comment.
The rare move marks a major escalation by lawmakers probing how social media platforms may harm children’s mental health, an area of broad bipartisan interest on Capitol Hill.
U.S. Consumer Watchdog Hands Wall Street Rare Win With Big Tech Crackdown
The U.S. consumer watchdog, not usually known to side with Wall Street lenders, has handed them a rare win by cracking down on Big Tech companies that are increasingly encroaching on banking turf.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) last week proposed regulating payments and smartphone wallets provided by tech leaders like Apple (AAPL.O) and Google (GOOGL.O), arguing they now rival traditional bank services in scale and scope and should be subject to the same consumer safeguards.
The long-anticipated move by CFPB Director Rohit Chopra, who built his career targeting Big Tech over privacy and competition issues, gives a competitive boost to lenders grappling with an onslaught of new rules from capital hikes and caps on debit and credit card fees to tougher fair lending standards.
The CFPB rule would toughen up supervision, requiring Big Tech to comply with its rules on privacy protections, executives’ conduct and unfair and deceptive practices.
Seventeen companies would be affected including Apple, Google, PayPal (PYPL.O) and Block’s (SQ.N) CashApp, which together facilitated roughly $1.7 trillion worth of payments in 2021, the CFPB said. The value of all non-cash payments — excluding wire transfers primarily used for large transfers — was $128.51 trillion in 2021, Federal Reserve data shows.
TSA, Border Agents and Airlines Are Asking for Your Photo. Here’s What to Know.
Grappling with children and luggage, the hours of travel sometimes weighing heavier than the bags, flyers are inching closer to their destination when the government or an airline asks for just a bit more data before they continue on their way: a photo.
The use of such biometric data — unique physical characteristics, such as fingerprints or, in this case, a facial image — is becoming ever more prevalent at airports and has taken off at stops like the Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
But are you required to surrender this personal data? And what happens to it? Who is using facial recognition at the airport? The government, for starters.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Transportation Security Administration use biometric facial matching technology, and Delta Air Lines and Spirit Airlines are also in the game at DTW, Wayne County Airport Authority spokesman Randy Wimbley confirmed.
There is also CLEAR, the technology company known for its biometric screening process at airports. DTW has the technology at eight international gates in the Evans Terminal and at concourses in the McNamara Terminal, according to the airport website. And that’s just at DTW. Across the world, others are also using this technology at airports.
What Your Car Knows About You and Could Be Telling the World
You probably know that your smartphone and laptop store a lot of your personal data, such as your photos, messages, passwords and browsing history. But did you know that your car does the same thing?
Your car can collect and share a lot of information about you, such as where you go, what you say and how you feel. According to Mozilla research, most cars sold in the U.S. today are “privacy nightmares on wheels” that collect huge amounts of personal information.
This data is gathered by sensors, microphones, cameras and the phones and devices you connect to your car, as well as by car apps, company websites, dealerships and vehicle telematics. And if you don’t wipe your car’s data before selling or trading it in, you could be putting your privacy and security at risk.
Microsoft Emerges as the Winner in OpenAI Chaos
Just after 2 a.m. Pacific time on Monday morning, several OpenAI staffers — including its chief technology officer, Mira Murati — posted in unison on X: “OpenAI is nothing without its people.” Sam Altman, who was dramatically removed as the company’s chief executive on Friday, reposted many of them.
By then, Altman already had a new job. Satya Nadella — CEO of Microsoft, a major investor and partner of OpenAI — announced late on Sunday night that Altman and his cofounder Greg Brockman would be joining the tech giant to head a new “advanced AI research team.”
Nadella’s statement seemed to suggest that others from the startup would be joining Microsoft.
By hiring Altman and Brockman amid the chaos at the top of OpenAI, Microsoft has managed to acquire one of the most successful management teams in artificial intelligence without having to buy the company — whose pre-chaos valuation was $86 billion.
NHS England Gives Key Role in Handling Patient Data to U.S. Spy Tech Firm Palantir
The NHS is to hand a key role in handling patient data and share of a £480m contract to the U.S. spy technology firm Palantir this week, the Guardian can reveal.
It is preparing to make an announcement on Tuesday that is likely to spark fierce debate about the safety of patient data, public trust in the NHS and Palantir’s suitability to be involved in the FDP. The construction of the platform is the biggest IT contract the NHS has ever awarded.
Palantir is best known for its work with intelligence and military agencies in the U.S., U.K. and elsewhere, such as the CIA. The firm gained a foothold in the NHS in March 2020 when, at the government’s invitation, it began analyzing huge amounts of health service data to help with the official response to the unfolding COVID pandemic.
