If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. That’s the common view among US educators as they head into the first full school year in which ChatGPT will be available to students.

Though many of the largest school districts in the country initially banned the chatbot after “As an AI, I…” started showing up in students’ essays, about three-quarters of K-12 educators now believe it’s at least “fairly important” to teach students how to properly use AI tools, according to an EdWeek Research Center survey.

Plus, teachers realized that banning ChatGPT at school disadvantages kids who don’t have a computer or smartphone at home, so New York City schools revoked their restrictions in May, and Los Angeles schools are now working to loosen their anti-ChatGPT policy, per the New York Times.

Training wheels: On

Some educators want ChatGPT to be used like a calculator to cut down tedious work and let students (and teachers) reserve more brainpower for the higher-level thinking that only humans can do.

A few possible classroom applications:

• Students using ChatGPT as a debate partner that points out weaknesses in their arguments, or as a brainstorming buddy for essay topics.
• Teachers determining whether assignments are too easy by how well ChatGPT performs. They can take it a step further by having students critique the bot’s answer.
• Personalized tutoring through programs like Khanmigo, Khan Academy’s beta-mode AI tool. Thousands of teachers and students are enlisting Khanmigo for help with math problems and lesson plans, or to chat with an artificial version of Albert Einstein and other famous people.

Back-to-school jitters: Chatbot-enabled cheating and plagiarism remain a concern, especially since OpenAI announced that AI-generated content detectors are largely unreliable. Educators will likely rely on live proctoring or monitoring software. And some already conduct in-person baseline assessments at the beginning of the year, so it stands out if a student who struggles with vocabulary suddenly whips out the word “antidisestablishmentarianism.”—ML

No, we aren’t reading from your elementary school report card. That’s what Onfolio’s preferred shareholder dividends have been like every quarter since January 2021.

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The only bad news is, investors have already reserved $2m of those shares in the last week. If you’re interested in participating, you can learn more here.

Picture a school: It’s probably a large brick building that smells like chalk and is full of students. But a new kind of school with way fewer pupils is becoming increasingly popular.

They’re called microschools, and they serve between five and 25 kids following home-schooling curriculums and are supervised by an adult who may not be a teacher. There are at least 125,000 microschools in the US with ~1.5 million students, the head of the National Microschooling Center, Don Soifer, told EducationWeek.

Why are tiny schools getting bigger? Many parents turned to home schooling during the pandemic, and now there’s money flowing into these smaller learning environments.

• As states adopt voucher systems for private schools, roughly a dozen of them allow that cash to be used for home schooling and, therefore, at microschools.
• And venture capitalists have plowed tens of millions of dollars into companies that serve this market, per the Washington Post. That includes businesses like Prenda and KaiPod that help parents to set up their own microschools.

Microschool advocates say that their size allows for more individualized, student-focused environments. But critics note that, although it varies by state, they’re usually required to follow many fewer standards and rules than public and private schools, leading to the possibility of poor quality education or even abuse.

Looking ahead…Soifer acknowledges that microschools are still in the “early adoption stage.” And since policy decisions have sped their growth, different ones could slow it down.—AR

There is now such a thing as free lunch—at least for anyone who attends a public school in Massachusetts.

Students in the state will be offered complimentary food fight ammo breakfast and lunch permanently even as pandemic-era school meal programs have expired, with expenses covered by the newly implemented millionaires tax.

• Bay Staters voted to impose a 4% levy on any income of state residents over $1 million last November.
• The tax is expected to help Massachusetts to raise $1 billion for its 2024 budget, over half of which is earmarked for education (including free school meals).

Why is free lunch worth it?

Advocates say that on-the-schoolhouse meals help ensure that kids aren’t learning on an empty stomach, since charging students for lunch makes it more difficult for those from lower-income households to get sufficient calories.

Free lunch does appear to increase the number of students who eat at school. A federal pandemic-era free school meals program is thought to be the reason why schools served 80 million more meals in 2022 than in the year before the pandemic.

Zoom out: Massachusetts joins seven other states that also offer free school lunches funded by measures like a 3-cent property tax rate increase and reduced income tax deductions.—SK

Just in time for the new school year, e-cig manufacturers have realized that the only thing more appealing to high-school students than a creamsicle-flavored vape is a creamsicle-flavored vape that looks like a neon highlighter.

Available from the internet, the black market, or your friend’s older cousin Todd, many vapes being sneaked into schools this year look like school supplies—not just highlighters, but also USB drives, ballpoint pens, and more.

Authorities are warning parents about these masters of disguise. Government officials around the country are worried that the undetectable nature of these e-cigs will threaten efforts to curb teen nicotine usage. While the FDA has tried to regulate the vaping industry, e-cig manufacturers keep getting around it.

• The FDA banned flavors for cartridge-based e-cigs, like Juuls, in 2020…but that doesn’t apply to disposable vapes, which are used by more than half of the high-school and middle-school students who partake.
• Since 2020, the number of different vape devices in the US has tripled to nearly 9,000, according to the Associated Press, caused by an influx of unauthorized vapes from China.

Big picture: As the industry continues to innovate faster than the FDA can regulate, some state governments are trying to stop vaping. Yesterday, a Texas law took effect that sends students caught with a vape to an alternative school disciplinary program.—CC

Not all books assigned in English class deserve the SparkNotes treatment. Some, in fact, are worth reading all the way through.

Below, the Brew writers share the books we read in our school days that we can’t stop thinking about.

Cassandra: Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo. When my professor assigned this to my comparative literature class in college, I expected it to be lame. It was anything but. The book is more an ode to the city of Paris than the story of one hunchback, so don’t let the Disney movie dissuade you. All in all, it’s a tale about beauty, belonging, and redemption, with an ending that gutted me in a way no other book ever has. Thanks, Dr. Stapleton.

Molly: Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. This novel about a talking gorilla was one of my first introductions to critical self-reflection. Ishmael is a philosophical excavation of the relationship between humankind and nature, the cultural narratives that prop up our civilization, and the places humanity may be headed if we don’t adjust course. Shoutout to my favorite high school teacher, Noreen McGoldrick, for always pushing me to challenge what I thought I knew.

Sam: The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. Hats off to Ms. Westbrook from sophomore-year English for what was a surprising page turner when assigned reading wasn’t always high on my to-do list. The Booker Prize-winning novel felt like a gripping excursion through contemporary India, with biting social commentary. Some of the dynamics reminded me of my native Russia—plus, it was hard not to fall under the charms of the antihero narrator whose social circumstances and personal ambition led him to commit a violent act similar to that of the protagonist in Crime and Punishment.

Abby: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston created a “strong female lead” way before it was cool. Add to that a juicy love story and witty, evocative writing in a unique style meant to evoke 1900s Southern Black dialect, and high-school me was hooked on the Harlem Renaissance novel. Props to Mr. Williams for including it on the syllabus.

Neal: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. As a baseball-loving boy who grew up in a small New England town, my brain got wrecked (in a good way) by this novel about two Little Leaguers growing up in a small New England town. Of course, Owen Meany is about far more than baseball, diving deep into themes like faith, friendship, and fate. I know every other Brew writer gave a shoutout to the teacher who assigned their favorite read, but I honestly don’t remember. Whoops.

Watch: An explanation for why you have an accent when you speak a foreign language.

Explore: All the fast cars at the world’s most exclusive auto show.

Debate: This state-by-state map of the best style of pizza is sure to spark arguments in your group chat.

Tech tip: Try these tricks in Google’s search box.

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Brew crossword: If you know Mary, you know she loves to create on-theme crossword puzzles. Play today’s crossword, named “Higher Education.”

Open House

Welcome to Open House, the only newsletter section that wants a good view for the Iowa caucuses. We’ll give you a few facts about a listing and you try to guess the price.

Today’s gorgeous home is in Des Moines, Iowa, where GOP presidential candidates and reporters hoping to interview anyone sitting in a diner will soon descend in droves. The 4,164-square-foot home was built in 1898 and has a plethora of decks and patios. Amenities include:

• 6 beds, 4 baths
• Outdoor brick pizza oven
• Big indoor horse to greet you

How much to get an up-close view of democracy?

$1.19 million

Word of the day

Today’s Word of the Day is: “antidisestablishmentarianism.” It means opposition to the separation of church and state, usually in reference to a political movement from 19th-century England…or does it? Merriam-Webster says the word is not in the dictionary because it hasn’t actually had any sustained, meaningful usage over the years. Thanks to Bob Zwaska from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, and the many others who suggested it.

Submit another Word of the Day here.