Submission + - LA Schools Chief Resigns Amid FBI Probe Into Failed K-12 AI Chatbot Company
theodp writes: "Four years after leaving Miami-Dade County Public Schools for one of the nation’s most prominent education jobs, Alberto Carvalho has resigned as superintendent of Los Angeles schools amid an FBI investigation," reports the Miami Herald. "The FBI has conducted raids on Carvalho’s Los Angeles home and office as part of a probe into a multimillion-dollar contract awarded to a failed AI-focused education company [AllHere Education]. Investigators also raided the Broward County home of a lobbyist connected to the deal. Carvalho led Miami-Dade public schools for 14 years before joining Los Angeles Unified School District in Feb. 2022. The lobbyist, Debra Kerr, had previously sold hundreds of thousands worth of textbooks to the Miami-Dade County school district and was retained as a salesperson for the startup chatbot company when it dealt with the Los Angeles district."
In What Will It Take to Get A.I. Out of Schools?, The New Yorker's Jessica Winter points out that "Carvalho, who has denied any wrongdoing, is also on the board of [tech-backed nonprofit] Code.org [recently rebranded to CodeAI], purveyors of Mix & Move with AI," Code.org's signature tutorial for its 2025 Hour of AI, which was built on the Carvalho-endorsed Music Lab, Code.org's signature tutorial for its 2024 Hour of Code that was developed with Amazon ("Code.org has mastered the art of bringing joy and curiosity into the classroom," Carvalho gushed in a press release, "while preparing students with essential computer science skills, and Music Lab is the perfect example.”). Winter is not as big a fan of the nonprofit's edtech software as Carvalho, writing that the "Certificate of Completion," her 3rd grader brought home from school for "demonstrating an understanding of the basic concepts of Artificial Intelligence" was for "playing a computer game produced by the nonprofit Code.org in partnership with Amazon Future Engineer, called Mix & Move with AI, in which the student 'designs' a cartoon dancer and 'remixes' a popular song—available, needless to say, on Amazon Music. The game is an inane drag-and-drop affair that has little to do with A.I.; the certificate, it turned out, was merely a memento of a pointless and deceptive branding exercise [Amazon is a $30+ million Code.org Lifetime Supporter]."
Carvalho has been scrubbed from the Code.org Board of Directors page — archive.org webpage captures suggest a change was made on Wednesday, three days after his Sunday resignation and on the same day that Carvalho's replacement was named by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Curiously, the Miami Herald earlier reported a firm registered to current Code.org Board Member and former Broward County (FL) Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie is listed as a creditor in bankruptcy files for AllHere Education, the provider of LAUSD's failed "Ed" AI chatbot that's at the center of the FBI investigation.
And on Tuesday — two days after Carvalho's resignation — LAUSD banned screen time before the second grade and enacted limited use for older students, among the strictest policies in the nation, reflecting growing backlash from parents and educators concerned about an over-reliance on computers and technology in K-12 learning.
In What Will It Take to Get A.I. Out of Schools?, The New Yorker's Jessica Winter points out that "Carvalho, who has denied any wrongdoing, is also on the board of [tech-backed nonprofit] Code.org [recently rebranded to CodeAI], purveyors of Mix & Move with AI," Code.org's signature tutorial for its 2025 Hour of AI, which was built on the Carvalho-endorsed Music Lab, Code.org's signature tutorial for its 2024 Hour of Code that was developed with Amazon ("Code.org has mastered the art of bringing joy and curiosity into the classroom," Carvalho gushed in a press release, "while preparing students with essential computer science skills, and Music Lab is the perfect example.”). Winter is not as big a fan of the nonprofit's edtech software as Carvalho, writing that the "Certificate of Completion," her 3rd grader brought home from school for "demonstrating an understanding of the basic concepts of Artificial Intelligence" was for "playing a computer game produced by the nonprofit Code.org in partnership with Amazon Future Engineer, called Mix & Move with AI, in which the student 'designs' a cartoon dancer and 'remixes' a popular song—available, needless to say, on Amazon Music. The game is an inane drag-and-drop affair that has little to do with A.I.; the certificate, it turned out, was merely a memento of a pointless and deceptive branding exercise [Amazon is a $30+ million Code.org Lifetime Supporter]."
Carvalho has been scrubbed from the Code.org Board of Directors page — archive.org webpage captures suggest a change was made on Wednesday, three days after his Sunday resignation and on the same day that Carvalho's replacement was named by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Curiously, the Miami Herald earlier reported a firm registered to current Code.org Board Member and former Broward County (FL) Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie is listed as a creditor in bankruptcy files for AllHere Education, the provider of LAUSD's failed "Ed" AI chatbot that's at the center of the FBI investigation.
And on Tuesday — two days after Carvalho's resignation — LAUSD banned screen time before the second grade and enacted limited use for older students, among the strictest policies in the nation, reflecting growing backlash from parents and educators concerned about an over-reliance on computers and technology in K-12 learning.
