philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

The Scandinavian Solution to A.I. in Schools

... a study of over 26,000 Chinese students from grades 7-12 that was published in June by the Center for Economic Policy Research.

The economists David Strömberg, Victor Lei and Yanhui Wu found that while A.I. use raised homework scores among students, it lowered “monthly exam scores by 20 percent within six months. High-stakes entrance-exam scores fall by 18 and 24 percent,” with student performance worsening over time. The students with the greatest negative effects on their exam scores appeared to be rushing through their homework by outsourcing to A.I. ...

Natalia Kucirkova, a professor of early childhood and development at the University of Stavanger in Norway, outlines a sensible methodology for greenlighting screen-based activities in her new book, “The Great EdTech Pivot.” Kucirkova thinks that every piece of ed tech should be measured by a model she calls the five E’s: efficacy, effectiveness, ethics, equity and environment.

In the United States, we tend to assess ed tech only on efficacy — asking whether it raises test scores or other learning benchmarks. ...

But as Kucirkova points out, even good studies (some of which take place in lab settings) cannot account for how teachers will interact with a product, or how students use it in real life. That’s what effectiveness measures: classroom uptake and utility. Ethics is whether a product has been designed to protect a child’s data privacy and whether it has appropriate security features. Equity is whether tools have been created for a diverse student population; environment is whether an ed tech company has sustainability in mind. ...

That is why teachers, children and early childhood experts should be part of the creation of educational technology, because they are its user base, and their goals are not about scaling a start-up. ...

See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/26/opinion/ai-norway-schools.html