Texas has implemented a new way of scoring its annual school test, the STAAR. Humans are now accompanied by AI to evaluate students!
Generative AI like ChatGPT quickly attracted concern at the school level for their ability to carry out students’ work for them. But artificial intelligence can also move to the other side of the table, and be used by the education system. This is what is happening in Texas, where the authorities have implemented a new grading system for the so-called STAAR exam, an exam which annually evaluates the level of students from CE2 to high school in mathematics and science. , social sciences, as well as reading and writing. New system that integrates AI!
Work shared between AI and humans
Texas thinks it can bring something new thanks to artificial intelligence. This state in the south of the United States has in fact profoundly modified its STAAR exam, to reduce its MCQ aspect by integrating many more open questions.
A choice which, unfortunately, would require much more human work, and would increase costs. This pushed the administration to turn to AI to set up a hybrid rating system. In the future, all open questions will be corrected by AIs, then, in the second session, a quarter of these questions will be reviewed by human teachers. In addition, any copy that the AI does not understand, or whose correction displays a “low confidence” level, will also be redirected to the teachers.
With this new feature, the Texas Education Agency claims to have reduced the number of markers for this test, going from 6,000 last year to only 2,000 this year. The state hopes to save $15 to $20 million each year this way.
A machine with limits?
However, some local education officials believe that there are limits to this system. “ Writing is a special skill » thus reminds the Hood County News Grandbury School Principal Jeremy Glenn. Which still makes him doubt the ability of AI “ to interpret and note a student’s creative literary work. »
He also notes significant disparities between the scores given by human beings and those given by AI. “ Based on what we’ve seen so far in a limited sample, students fail significantly more often when graded by AI than by a human grader » explains the teacher.
Same story with the director of the Round Rock school, Hafedh Azaiez, questioned by the Texas Tribune. He fears that “ machine misses some things that a human being cannot miss. » Doubtful students or parents can in any case always request a re-examination, whether of the human correction or that carried out by the AI, for the payment of 50 dollars. A sum which is reimbursed if the rating is ultimately revised upwards.
Source : France Info, The Verge, Texas Tribune, Hood County News
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