The future is now when it comes to A.I.

or artificial intelligence and all the ways it can improve or complicate our lives were major topics of discussion among lawmakers from statehouses across the country.

Last week, the National Conference of State Legislatures convened for three days last week at the Kentucky International Convention Center in downtown Louisville for the annual summit that drills down on scores of public policy issues that legislators nationwide are facing.

The chairman of Kentucky's House Education Committee spoke with me last week about the pros and cons of AI use and the classroom.

As kids head back to school, more in tonight's Education Matters segment.

Chairman Representative James Tipton, you're chair of the Kentucky House Education Committee.

We appreciate you spending a little bit of time with us.

Well, thank you, Renee.

It's always a pleasure to talk about education in Kentucky.

Yes, the good things and the things that we need to work on to improve.

When we talk about them often dealt with, we're sure that this space of being at the National Conference of State Legislatures, we know that education is a major topic.

What is it that you're really hearing resonate over and over again about some major issues of concern?

Well, I think one of the main topics that has come up in the last year or so is artificial intelligence.

It's here.

It's not going away.

And quite frankly, we're behind and it's changing at such a rapid pace.

It's going to be very difficult to get ahead of it.

But I do think it's important that we understand it, that we have policies around air and put up appropriate guardrails.

Or the most important things is the ethical use of air.

But air can be such a valuable tool not only to our students, but also to our teachers in how they teach and how students learn.

So it's a changing dynamic that we need to get her arms wrapped around.

And it's not just all bad, right?

I think oftentimes the discussion is framed around the concerns and the negative aspects of it, but as you just alluded to, it could be used as a tool for educators in a positive way.

Absolutely.

I know there's concerns about cheating and things like that.

But as far as the general, yeah, I'm learning some of the terms of goodness.

Yes, DNA is coming along.

They're actually able to help teachers identify students using a. Oh, wow.

So, yeah, they can't get.

Away with it right now.

Not as easily.

But, you know, we just have to better understand it.

And we probably have students in the classroom and know more, but add in the teachers in the classroom.

Well, this is Jane.

We're going to have to provide to professional development for them to understand the appropriate use of air and how it can benefit them in the classroom.

Numeracy and literacy.

Two other big juggernaut issues that I know that you're very passionate about and have been behind legislation to help boost reading and math proficiency.

You're hearing a lot of conversation about that in this space.

Yes, there's been quite a bit of conversation.

I was actually on a panel earlier this week and those were the questions I got asked about as what we've done in Kentucky on early literacy and early numeracy.

And those are foundational skills that all students have to have in the early years.

And if they can, if they can be proficient in sufficiently and then what they need to know that they can build on that the rest of their educational careers.

Of course, in 2022 we passed Senate Bill nine, the right to succeed bill and and this last session, 24 session, we passed House Bill 162 the numeracy counts bill.

So it's a those are fundamental issues and we've got a lot of we've got a long way to go there.

But I think these pieces of legislation are going to help us move the needle on those issues.

Is there still conversation, Mr. Chairman, around learning loss from COVID or have we mitigated that or enough where there's always been some gaps in academic achievement and COVID didn't help for many populations, but is there still conversation on mitigating learning loss from COVID?

Yes, I think it's still evident that there is learning loss.

I just left a session and that was one of the topics of conversation, especially since the pandemic.

Yeah.

What has happened to education and where are we?

I recently was reviewing our K a Kentucky summative assessment scores.

I looked at Jefferson County, I looked at 1819 in the years 22 and 23, and between 2019 2022 we were seeing 8 to 12 point drops in proficiency on reading and math in the gaps.

The gaps were there before they're even more prevalent now.

I did see some improvement in 23.

I understand that the 2024 KSA scores will come out on October 3rd.

They're being made public.

So I'll be very interesting in looking at that and see if we've made some improvement.

But there are a lot of other things that not just test scores, discipline issues in the classroom.

Chronic absenteeism is a major concern.

And those type of direct disruptions in students, not in school, I think are contributing to the test scores being where they are.

Right.

And even trauma, right.

We know that there's a lot of conversation around that kids are dealing with mental health issues that are right that previous generations had not experienced.

Is that been a conversation piece here?

You know, absolutely.

I mean, we have grandparents and great grandparents raising raising these children now and sometimes know we have children in foster homes and we don't know what these children deal with at home and the trauma that they bring to school and deal with.

Some of them may be hungry.

They may not have warm clothes.

They may have their parents may have been fighting.

We don't know what they're dealing with.

So I think it's very important that we provide the appropriate wraparound services.

Mental health is a major issue.

I think a couple of the issues that we're going to look at in the 25 session we had Bill in 24, but there'll be another bill coming that would ban direct school boards to ban cell phones in school.

That is a major disruption to learning a distraction, learning data has also shown the contribution it's made to mental health issues.

Another issue I'm concerned about is the influence of social media on especially young children.

We're going to see another bill in 25 that would put strict age verification on these social media accounts.

Yeah, well, we'll certainly keep our eye on that legislative session that is approaching faster and faster.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for being with us.

Representative James Tipton from the 53rd District of Kentucky.

Appreciate your time.

Thank you, Renee.

You can see more of our interviews and feature stories about the Knoxville Summit onlin