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[1/4] Emergency personnel respond to a shooting at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, U.S., February 13, 2023. Few official details about the gun violence were immediately available, but Chris Rozman, interim deputy chief of the university police, said shots were fired in two locations - at an academic building called Berkey Hall and the Michigan State University (MSU) Union building. He also said the university was not aware of any threats made to the campus before Monday's bloodshed. Four classmates were killed and six students and a teacher were wounded in that attack, the deadliest U.S. school shooting that year. Governor Gretchen Whitmer said on Twitter that she was being briefed on the East Lansing shooting.

The Detroit News reported one confirmed fatality on campus, inside Berkey Hall, citing Michigan State University (MSU) spokesperson Emily Guerrant, but Reuters could not independently verify that information. "There are multiple reported injuries," MSU said on its official police and public safety Twitter feed. Several campus building had been cleared and secured nearly two hours after the gunfire was first reported on campus, MSU police said. MSU is a major public institution of higher education whose flagship East Lansing campus accounts for 50,000 graduate and undergraduate students. Governor Gretchen Whitmer said on Twitter that she was being briefed on the East Lansing shooting.

☆ Michigan State University shooter's motive a mystery
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Dieu-Nalio Chery | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/4] Police officers surround a scene where the suspect was located as they respond to a shooting at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, U.S., February 14, 2023. REUTERS/Dieu-Nalio CheryEAST LANSING, Mich., Feb 14 (Reuters) - A 43-year-old gunman killed three students and wounded five others at Michigan State University before an hours-long manhunt ended with the suspect's death from a self-inflicted gunshot, authorities said on Tuesday. The gunman was identified as Anthony Dwayne McRae, 43, said Chris Rozman, deputy chief of the Michigan State University police force, at the morning briefing. Details about the sequence of events remained sketchy, but Rozman said shots were fired in two locations - an academic building called Berkey Hall and the Michigan State University (MSU) Union building. Students, faculty and residents in the surrounding off-campus neighborhoods of East Lansing had been told by authorities to "shelter in place" during the manhunt.

☆ Texas senator proposes bills to reduce shootings, monument for victims
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Brad Brooks | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

LUBBOCK, Texas, Feb 7 (Reuters) - A Texas state senator on Tuesday proposed a package of legislation aimed at reducing mass shootings, like the one at a Uvalde elementary school that killed 19 kids and two teachers last year. Gutierrez said that next week he would introduce legislation in the Republican-dominated body, bills aimed at curtailing access to guns and ammunition, but did not provide details. He is also proposing moving a Confederate monument located on the grounds of the Texas state capitol and replacing it with one dedicated to the victims and survivors of several mass shootings that have hit the state in recent years. Another bill would improve radio operations in rural communities, as radios failed for officers who responded to the school shooting in Uvalde. It was the deadliest U.S. school shooting in almost a decade.

☆ ChatGPT owner launches 'imperfect' tool to detect AI-generated text
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Krystal Hu | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The AI classifier, a language model trained on the dataset of pairs of human-written and AI-written text on the same topic, aims to distinguish text that is written by AI. In its public beta mode, OpenAI acknowledges the detection tool is very unreliable on texts under 1,000 characters, and AI-written text can be edited to trick the classifier. “We recognize that identifying AI-written text has been an important point of discussion among educators, and equally important is recognizing the limits and impacts of AI generated text classifiers in the classroom." Others have created third-party detection tools including GPTZeroX to help educators detect AI-generated text. OpenAI said it is engaging with educators to discuss ChatGPT's capabilities and limitations, and will continue to work on the detection of AI-generated text.

☆ University of Texas Will Offer Large-Scale Online Master’s Degree in A.I.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Natasha Singer | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The University of Texas at Austin, one of the nation’s leading computer science schools, said on Thursday that it was starting a large-scale, low-cost online Master of Science degree program in artificial intelligence. The first of its kind among elite computing schools, the new program could help swiftly expand the A.I. The university announced the initiative amid a clamor over new technology powered by artificial intelligence that can generate humanlike art and texts. University officials said they planned to train thousands of graduate students in sought-after skills like machine learning, for a tuition of about $10,000, starting in the spring of 2024. By contrast, Johns Hopkins University offers an online M.S.

The Virginia teacher who was shot by her 6-year-old student texted a loved one before she was wounded that the boy was armed and that school officials were failing to act, according to a source close to the situation. "At least one administrator was notified of a possible weapon," Parker said in a video reviewed by NBC News. The principal and vice principal of Richneck did not respond to requests for comment from the Post on the teacher’s account. It is set to reopen on Monday and will be outfitted with a metal detector, school officials have said. The district has secured funding for 90 state-of-the-art metal detectors that will be placed at all district schools, officials said.

NFL Hall of Famer and NBC Sports analyst Tony Dungy is facing renewed criticism for his history of anti-LGBTQ statements after he tweeted an anti-transgender conspiracy theory last week. That’s the criteria for avoiding hell.”In another tweet from 2020, Dungy wrote that being “LGBTQ is a lifestyle,” a sentiment that suggests being queer is a choice. . . things will happen.’’Cyd Zeigler, an LGBTQ advocate and a co-founder of the LGBTQ sports site Outsports.com, has been raising the alarm bells on Dungy’s anti-LGBTQ sentiments for years. “I’ve never called for Tony Dungy to be fired or lose his job or his ability to provide for his family,” Zeigler said. Zeigler said he isn’t convinced that Dungy’s anti-LGBTQ rhetoric would stop anytime soon.

Six Republican members of the North Dakota Legislature introduced a bill Wednesday that would send a clear message to nonhuman-identified students: You’re not wanted in the Roughrider State. This section of the bill appears to be connected to an urban myth about litter boxes in U.S. schools that spread among conservative Republicans ahead of the November election. An NBC News report published in October found this myth — about schools providing accommodations, like litter boxes, for children who identify as cats — to be untrue. While the North Dakota bill does not mention litter boxes, one of the bill's sponsors, state Rep. Lori VanWinkle, told NBC News that her state does indeed have students who don't identify as human. Schools found to be in violation of the policy could be fined up to $500,000 in damages, the bill states.

Bills to block the app on state devices in California, Massachusetts, New York and Vermont have also been proposed. University of IdahoSchool’s policy: TikTok must be removed from university equipment "regardless of funding source," according to the school's help page. South Dakota University SystemSchool’s policy: The South Dakota Board of Regents, which governs six universities including Black Hills State University, University of South Dakota, Northern State University, Dakota State University, South Dakota State University and South Dakota Mines, told employees they could not use, download or access TikTok on university devices. University of Texas — AustinSchool’s policy: On Dec. 16, university officials announced that TikTok would be banned on state-issued devices. Texas Tech UniversitySchool’s policy: University employees are prohibited from using TikTok on school-issued devices and official university TikTok accounts must be deactivated.

☆ Check out the exclusive pitch deck that school-to-student matching startup Schola used to raise $10 million in funding
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Schola is an online guide and marketplace for students to match with different PK-12 schools. Students can learn about and even apply to various public, private, and charter schools on the platform. Schola has launched in all 50 states and just raised $10 million in Series A funding. Schools can simultaneously use the platform as a way to increase their enrollment reach, and can pay for different-tiered recruitment campaigns or data analytic tools. Check out the 12-slide pitch deck that edtech startup Schola used to raise $10 million in Series A funding:

☆ Most U.S. Schools Don’t Feel Fully Prepared for Shootings Despite Adding Security
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( Ben Chapman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Most U.S. public school districts don’t feel well-prepared to respond to active shooters, even after putting new safety measures in place, according to a newly released federal survey. Roughly two-thirds of public schools now control access to school grounds during the school day, up from 51% in the 2017-18 school year, according to the new figures published Thursday by the National Center for Education Statistics. Classroom doors have been fitted with locks by 78%, up from 65% five years ago. And 43% of schools now employ panic buttons or silent alarms that connect directly with law enforcement, up from 29%.

☆ Virginia school official knew 6-year-old who shot teacher may have had gun
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( Brad Brooks | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Once alerted, school officials searched the boy's backpack, but did not find the gun. The shooting took place about 2-1/2 hours after the boy's backpack was searched. Abigail Zwerner, a 25-year-old teacher, was shot a week ago by the young student. The boy who shot Zwerner was in the custody of the Newport News Department of Human Services, police said. The Newport News school board on Thursday announced that metal detectors would be installed in every school in the city following the shooting.

Criminal hackers have posted an enormous trove of sensitive files to the internet from a San Francisco Bay Area transit system’s police department, including specific allegations of child abuse. BART’s chief communications officer, Alicia Trost, said in an email officials were investigating the posted files and that the hackers had not impacted BART services. The perpetrators are an established group of ransomware hackers, one of the many who attack specific organizations and either encrypt sensitive files or threaten to post them on the dark web. Ransomware hackers often demand a payment to not share files. More than 100 networks associated with local government agencies were successfully attacked by ransomware hackers last year, according to an Emsisoft survey.

Jan 10 (Reuters) - A lawsuit filed Tuesday accuses six state-run medical schools in Texas of violating federal anti-discrimination laws by giving preferences to female and non-Asian minority applicants. The University of Texas and Texas Tech University, which operate the schools named in the new lawsuit, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. According to the lawsuit, Stewart in 2021 obtained enrollment data for the six schools after he was denied admission. Stewart said in the complaint that the data showed that the schools gave preferences to female and non-Asian minority applicants. Stewart accused the schools of violating federal laws prohibiting race and sex discrimination in federally funded educational programs.

☆ Teacher shot by 6-year-old hailed as a hero for evacuating kids
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( Daniel Trotta | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Jan 9 (Reuters) - Police on Monday hailed a 25-year-old Virginia teacher as a hero for evacuating students from her classroom even after she was shot by a 6-year-old student. Meanwhile the 6-year-old boy was in temporary custody at a medical facility, and a judge had until Tuesday to determine whether to extend a temporary order keeping him in custody, Drew said. "She made sure that every one of those kids were out of that room, that she was the last one to leave. And she took it upon herself in that situation, after suffering a gunshot wound, to make sure that her students ... were safe," Drew said. Zwerner, who took a defensive posture, was shot through the hand and into the chest.

Alicia Victoria Lozano / NBC NewsAmong her must-have accessories this semester is a heavy flashlight with a strobe function that doubles as a baton. Brandon Moore, a freshman at Washington State University in Pullman. “It definitely makes you more aware of everyone around you.”Koryn Damiano, a sophomore at Washington State University in Pullman. Alicia Victoria Lozano / NBC NewsDamiano said she shares a sense of relief that the suspect has been caught. At the University of Idaho, students will have the option to take classes in self-defense, vigilance and stalking awareness.

☆ UK PM Rishi Sunak to propose compulsory math for students up to 18
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Elliot Smith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Britain's new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks outside Number 10 Downing Street, in London, Britain, October 25, 2022. Henry Nicholls | Reuterswatch nowSunak's education proposals would only affect pupils in England. Education is a devolved issue, with Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish authorities managing their own systems. The prime minister is expected to say in his Wednesday speech that the issue of mandatory math is "personal" for him. This would leave the future of the policy uncertain, if Sunak's Conservative Party loses the next general election slated for 2024.

☆ The Year in Pictures 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( The New York Times | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +57 min

Every year, starting in early fall, photo editors at The New York Times begin sifting through the year’s work in an effort to pick out the most startling, most moving, most memorable pictures. But 2022 undoubtedly belongs to the war in Ukraine, a conflict now settling into a worryingly predictable rhythm. Erin Schaff/The New York Times “When you’re standing on the ground, you can’t visualize the scope of the destruction. Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 25. We see the same images over and over, and it’s really hard to make anything different.” Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb 26.

☆ Opposition to U.S. school vaccine mandates rose during pandemic -survey
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Shawana Alleyne-Morris | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

That was up from 16% in a 2019 Pew Research Center poll conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic, KFF researchers said. Most were either unvaccinated or had received just one of two recommended doses of MMR vaccine, according to City of Columbus Public Health. Opposition to required childhood inoculations was strongest among those who identified as Republican in the survey, with 44% now opposed to childhood school vaccine mandates, up from 20% before the pandemic. Among those identifying as Democrats, 88% still support school vaccine mandates. Although childhood vaccine recommendations are made by the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, school immunization requirements are set by individual states.

☆ Taunted for being Black, a student fought back, civil rights complaint says. The 30-second fight derailed her life.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms | Mike Hixenbaugh | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +18 min

The threat didn’t seem to dissuade the boy who told Autumn he runs her block, she said. A moment later, Autumn said, one of the boys said the first syllable of the N-word, and the other student said the rest. “She is a breath of fresh air,” JaQuatta told them. Autumn told Medley it was becoming harder to keep up the facade. Mary Pegues, a former Slaton school board member and longtime teacher’s aide in a neighboring district, was furious when she saw the clip.

☆ Electric school buses are giving kids a cleaner, but costlier, ride to class
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-10 | by ( John Rosevear | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Right now, only a tiny fraction of the roughly 480,000 school buses in America are battery-powered. Greener pasturesEnvironmental activists have been working for years to try to replace diesel and gasoline school buses with new electric models. Gander leads the World Resources Institute's Electric School Bus Initiative, a project funded in part by the Bezos Earth Fund established by Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos. The initiative works with school officials, utility companies and ESB manufacturers to try to accelerate the adoption of zero-emission school buses. A Thomas Built electric school bus in Beverly, Massachusetts.

☆ China eases some of its Covid restrictions, in significant step toward reopening
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Jessie Yeung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

CNS/AFP/Getty ImagesSince early in the pandemic, China has used health codes on mobile phones to track individuals’ health statuses. Residents line up for Covid tests in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China on December 1. Schools with Covid cases can continue “normal teaching and living,” as long as they designate certain “risk areas” with control measures. Since early in the pandemic, China has required a prescription and negative Covid test to buy these. Some experts have warned that a broader reopening inevitably brings health risks, especially to those vulnerable groups.

☆ Deion Sanders is showing that upward mobility isn't just for white coaches
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Cecil Harris | Cecil Harris Is A Veteran Sports Journalist Whose Work Has Appeared In The New York Times | Usa Today | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

Many are upset that the Black former superstar is leaving a Historically Black University where his leadership could continue to provide a solid foundation for young Black athletes. Sanders proved his ability in his first coaching job by making the Jackson State Tigers the best team among HBCUs. In his final game at Jackson State, Sanders will lead the Tigers against North Carolina Central University in the Cricket Celebration Bowl on Dec. 17 in Atlanta. At each previous stop in Saban’s head coaching journey (University of Toledo, Michigan State University, Louisiana State University and the NFL’s Miami Dolphins), he may well have disappointed some players who signed on hoping he would stay. His son, Jackson State star quarterback Shedeur Sanders, is expected to do just that and follow his father.

☆ America’s School Districts Are Too Big
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Andy Smarick | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Some U.S. school districts have become so large and unwieldy that parents and taxpayers feel they have no ability to influence them. To restore local, democratic control, it’s time to break up those big districts. Consolidation may have accomplished some of its goals, but America’s largest districts today tend to be among the lowest-performing. For the most part, they are located in big cities and their ring suburbs. The nation’s three largest districts serve the nation’s three largest cities: New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago.

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