Are high school grades becoming meaningless in the age of AI and endless screen time?

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2:00Folks, there's a new nationally representative survey of high school students and recent graduates about what they are seeing in schools around AI, great inflation, elicit ed tech use, and more. And one of the authors of this report, Dr. Brian Fitzpatrick, with Fordham's National Research, he's the manager there, joins us to talk about these findings. Doc, welcome to the show. So the theme is our high school grades becoming meaningless in the age of AI and endless screen time. So if you would, share with us what this study reveals, and why this study is different from other studies that I found very interesting in some of the particulars that you outlined. Well, happy to summarize things. So we have a couple different things we asked students. So these are students across the United States, and students who are currently in high school and just graduating the past couple of years.

3:03So the first thing we found is that kids are using tech. What we call it illicitly or secretly, however you want to say it. They're using tech at rates that are pretty shocking. About half of kids say they're using Instagram, TikTok, other social media, in class on a daily basis. A third of kids play video games in class. A third of kids put watch YouTube videos. There's a little bit of online gambling and online shopping, but they're also using AI. So I'm sure all of your listeners know AI is everywhere. It's free. You can access it if you can access the internet. And it's of course, really good at cheating. And one in five of students who took our survey admitted to using AI in the middle of tests. So we're not exactly sure if they're doing that because they're taking a test on a laptop, or they are sneaking out their phone while their teachers aren't looking.

4:05But that's a pretty disturbing number. And it all kind of leads into this issue of what you mentioned grade inflation. Now what that means is essentially the average grade has gone up, you know, decade after decade for the past 50 years to the point where D's and F's barely exist anymore and C's are an endangered species. To the point where we can't even tell which students are doing well and which aren't, which we think is undermining really the value of high school, but also our ability to tell which kids are doing well and which kids aren't. I guess, you know, most recently, and I'm sure you are aware of it, I think it was one of the heads of the University of California, higher university systems said that some of the kids coming in an extraordinary number of kids are eight years behind the curve as freshmen. I guess we shouldn't be surprised by that then.

5:08Unfortunately, no, I'm familiar with that particular incident. And I think it's particularly bad in California because they dropped the use of standardized tests like BACT and the SAT for the past. I think it's about eight years. Thankfully, they're bringing it back. But that definitely compounds the problem if you're not even going to look at the one objective measure we got for these kids. So when we look at technology, this technology, you know, everybody thought that this was going to be the new way of the new way to educate kids, utilization of this. There is a role for that in school, but not it seems to be not necessarily nest, you know, has to be provided in order to accomplish what they should be trying to accomplish in both high school and grammar school. I think that's exactly right. Kids do need to know how to use a computer. They need to know how to type. And they need to be, you know, tech savvy. But first of all, they're pretty good at figuring out

6:14technology without our help. Second, I don't think there was anything wrong with the computer lab model, right? That's what they had when I was in school. You had computer labs that were kind of cordoned off areas where we used tech as a kind of specific tool for learning about the technology itself, not as a general educational aid where it's, you know, you're in front of a computer in a history class and English class because I think we're seeing here is that that mostly doesn't enable better learning and it enables distraction. Heading back to campus, time to upgrade your entire tech setup. Switch to Verizon, buy or bring a qualifying smartphone and get a smart watch and a tablet on us. That's all your essential gear for zero extra dollars. Ace your classes, track your fitness and stream your favorite shows. Visit Verizon.com or your local store today. Bring an eligible phone or purchase a new phone with device payment on post-paid service plan required. Up to $649.99 watching tablet device payment purchase with new line on $20 per month tablet plan and $15 per month watch plan for 36 months required. Less up to $650 per

7:16month credit applied over 36 months per device. Additional taxes fees in terms of apply. Hey, our rides almost here. Are you ready? Just grabbing my shoes. That's what you said 10 minutes ago. I just wrapped a video call, uploading this giant file on my tablet, looking at my watch group and Nana's with the group chat, and of course still lining up tonight's playlist on my phone. All at once? Yep, story of my life. That's why I switched to D-Mobile. They have the fastest 5G network. Okay, multitasker. I see you. Honestly, I never imagined I could do all this at once. It's awesome. Say no more. I'm totally switching. My post is taking way too long to upload. That's a sign you've got to get D-Mobile. So many reasons to join D-Mobile. Find yours at T-Mobile.com. Fastest based on analysis by Uclav Speed Test Intelligence data of National Speed Incorporating 5G Download and Upload Speed for the first half of 2026.

8:19Here's something you may not know. Only 14% of cancers in the US are caught through routine screenings. Prenovos' whole body MRI may help close that gap. Screening for over 500 conditions, including most solid tumors, all in under an hour. Prenovos' body panels also test over 80 biomarkers for a deeper understanding of your health. No radiation, no contrast. Book your scan at prenovo.com. That's P-R-E-N-U-V-O.com. We're visiting with Dr. Brian Fitzpatrick, Fordham's National Research Manager and author of this report that we're talking about. So obviously, the distracted nature of this technology seems to lead to a lot of things. In the utilization of AI even to more, what most studies are showing, and I know that Fordham has done some extensive research on this as well, is that critical thinking skills are like kind of out the window now.

9:23Yeah, I mean our report can't speak to that, but it's certainly the case that there's in these perennial concerns that, you know, I mean some people will bring this back to the calculator, but I'll just stick to computers for our discussion. Giving students tools that help them think faster or better, it's a very fine line between that and giving them tools that do the thinking for them, which of course is likely to undermine their ability to think critically. A lot of what they're seeing and a lot of what they're absorbing on computers and obviously smartphones and everything else, a very short in nature, right? They look like little tidbits. I was reading and I'm sure you saw the most recent report that was provided in the reporting on the piece, the program for International Student

10:26Assessment. And the one thing that was an observation made about that is that America, they said American schools, and this was Washington Post article, American schools having increasingly assigned short passages instead of full books due to pressure to prepare students for standardized testing, budget cuts and time constraints. But it also went on to say that students are having real difficult times with longer questions, with reading a book, because that's kind of what their mind is trained for by utilizing all of these technologies, your thoughts. I think all of those things kind of work together. It's hard to pin the blame on one particular thing, right? You have on the one hand, you have TikTok showing kids 30 second videos and that's the kind of extent to which they're engaging with any topic, whether it's serious

11:28or frivolous. You do have standardized tests, which the SAT, and I know the SAT has changed over the past couple decades where they've shortened passages. And some people point to that as a response to modern technology or maybe as driving educators to then themselves assign shorter pieces. I think all of these things are pushing in the same direction of lower attention spans and worse ability to read, sit down and read a whole book or a whole novel. And it's hard to control for things for which schools have no control. One thing we want to push on is the thing that schools can control. They can't control smartphones or they have a hard time doing it. They can't control the SAT. They can switch to books and start giving students books and testing them on the content

12:28and essentially forcing them to read the whole book because you only learn how to do that if you have to. Yeah, I mean, and the more you do it, the better you get at it, right? For the first part. I mean, to this day, I don't know about you and your generation, but my generation, I'm still working off a hard copy. I print everything out. I highlight it. I'm in the margins, with my synopsis and everything. It's just the way I learned and it's still the way that I do it because I seem to be able to do it better when I do it that way. I wasn't raised on the technology. And I find, you know, just like with dealing with my kids and grandkids, their attention span is so much shorter than not able to really stay focused and stay on task like we were taught to do

13:28and how we learned, which I think is incredibly important. It seems to be, and I don't know, you look at this data from all over the not only the country but the world, but we seem to be falling behind other industrialized nations. Yeah, you're right. Well, so that I'll push back there because the PISA results, this international testing that you're pointing to, we've seen, they're showing a decline in the past decade across the world. And it's pretty consistent. It's showing up in Europe. It is showing up in Asia. So that makes me think that on the one hand, you know, I want the US to kind of beat the trends here and we certainly aren't doing that. But whatever's going on here is really an international story. Sure, absolutely. I mean, it's, well, we know the technology is everywhere, right? And I guess the lore and the temptation in how to best utilize that technology hasn't been,

14:36I don't know, fully vetted maybe, maybe, you know, when you look at studies like yours, where you are not only looking at the illicit use, but the approved use, you know, the issued Chromebooks by schools, how that works, whether or not there's a discipline or the structure there to keep them on task and keep the illicit use down. Obviously, that requires resources and a lot of these schools are resource starved. So that's an interesting point. I would say one of the things that comes out of this is that technology costs quite a bit of money. And so I worry that technology is being spent or all this money is being spent on tech to the detriment about other things we might be spending money on. So that's another key worry that came out of this research. Doc, you would agree, I guess, that tech has become really like kind of a marketing tool.

15:38You know, when you look at universities and what they're doing with pools that repress, that, you know, a swimming pool that looks like an insignia, the letters of the university and this, that and comfort centers and massage, you know, places on campus and this and that and everything is like, what are we doing? We're spending a lot of money on other things, you know, other things other than reading, writing, arithmetic, critical thinking, you know, the classics, you know, all of the cornerstones of educational success in the 30s, 40s and 50s. I think that's exactly right. I think tying it to say, you know, those famous Levy rivers they have down in the essay in the SEC is exactly right. Oftentimes it's a shiny new toy that kind of shows off what might look like a fun part of education, whereas the important piece of education

16:41are can you read, can you do math? And the basics kind of are far more important than any fancy new toys you learn about in school. And will you graduate? I'm going to drop a job. I mean, it's this, the traditional hallmarks, hallmarks is success, I guess. Dr. Brian Fitzpatrick really enjoyed reading the, the, the study, excuse me and thank you so much for joining us, Fordham's National Research Manager and author of this report. Have a great week. Thank you, you too. Thanks for having me. Thank you, sir. We'll be right back, 504-260-1870 on the Ocoharn, Oakwyn Heart Jewelers Talk and Tex Lines. Stay with us. New Shoes, new clothes, brand new grade, switched a Verizon to make sure their tech keeps up. This back to school season, buy or bring any Android phone and get a Samsung Galaxy tablet on us. Get your kids ready for the school year without breaking the bank. Visit Verizon.com or your local store

17:45today. Bring an Android phone or purchase a new phone with device payment on post-paid service plan required, $3.9999 tablet device payment purchase with new mine on $20 per month tablet plan for 36 months required, less $330 tablet per remote credit applied over 36 months additional taxes fees in terms of apply. Hey, all rides almost here. Are you ready? Just grabbing my shoes. That's what you said 10 minutes ago. I just wrapped the video call, uploading this giant file on my tablet, looking at my watch group and Nana's with the group chat, and of course, still lining up tonight's playlist on my phone. All at once? Yep, story of my life. That's why I switched to T-Mobile. They have the fastest 5G network. Okay, multi-tasker. I see you. Honestly, I never imagined I could do all this at once. It's awesome. Say no more, I'm totally switching. My post is taking way too long to upload. That's a sign you've got to get T-Mobile. So many reasons to join T-Mobile. Find yours at T-Mobile.com.

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