Linda McMahon at ASU+GSV 2025: "I'm Very Interested in New Learning Technologies"

"I'm very interested in new technologies that stimulate kids and not in bureaucracy in Washington, D.C.; in fact, our goal is to eliminate bureaucracy," said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon yesterday in San Diego, during the ASU+GSV 2025 ed-tech conference. Addressing a packed auditorium at the event, Linda McMahon acknowledged, "I don't have the blueprint for the best technology." "I know we will fail if we don't have the best educated workforce in the world." In a 30-minute interview conducted by education entrepreneur Phyllis Lockett, the U.S. Secretary of Education McMahon defended the Trump administration's large-scale cuts to federal education staff, including the intended elimination of the Department of Education, as steps to remedy a system that fails students. "We’ve just gotten to a point that we just can’t keep going along doing what we’re doing," she said. "Let’s shake it up. Let’s do something different." This shakeup involves distributing financial aid to the state level. The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that 90 percent of public school budgets already come from state and local sources. The U.S. Secretary of Education promised attendees at ASU+GSV that her department would consider ways to revamp the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) following a 90 percent reduction in staff last month, dropping from 170 to 20. McMahon deflected anti-DEI questions, saying, "There shouldn't be any discrimination." She offered few specifics on the Trump Administration's measures related to funding cuts if diversity programs are not eliminated. The 16th annual ASU+GSV Summit was held from April 6 to 9 in San Diego. This education technology summit brought together global leaders, educators, and entrepreneurs to explore trends, encourage collaboration, and address the biggest challenges in education. Around 8,000 people joined us in person, with another 10,000 following online. • All Videos of the ASU+GSV 2025 Conference  

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Harvard's $255.6M in Contracts and $8.7B in Multi-Year Grants Under the Federal Microscope

The Trump Administration announced yesterday it will undertake a "comprehensive review of federal contracts and grants" at Harvard University and its affiliates to combat anti-semitism and purge pro-Palestinian voices. Harvard is the latest Ivy League institution to be targeted by President Trump after Columbia University agreed to comply with demands. The Departments of Education (ED), Health and Human Services (HHS), and the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) will review, through the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, the more than $255.6 million in contracts between Harvard University, its affiliates, and the Federal Government. The review will also include the more than $8.7 billion in multi-year grant commitments to Harvard University and its affiliates "to ensure the university's compliance with federal regulations, including its civil rights responsibilities." "Today’s actions by the Task Force follow a similar ongoing review of Columbia University," said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. That review led to Columbia's agreement to comply with nine preconditions for further negotiations regarding the return of canceled federal funds. Ivy League universities — and Columbia in particular — were an epicentre of pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the U.S., after Israel launched a war against Gaza in October 2023. Similar protests around the country followed by student encampments on Columbia’s lawn in April and May 2024, as campus activists criticized school ties to Israel and called for an end of the war in Gaza.

OpenAI Valued at $300 Billion after Closing $40 Billion In Funding

OpenAI announced on Monday that it closed a $40 billion funding round, the largest private amount raised by a private tech company. The $40 billion financing valued the ChatGPT owner at $300 billion. This valuation puts OpenAI only behind SpaceX at $350 billion and TikTok. The financing round included $30 billion from SoftBank and $10 billion from a syndicate of investors, including core investor Microsoft and Coatue, Altimeter, and Thrive. According to a blog post, OpenAI plans to use the fresh capital to “push the frontiers of AI research even further” and scale its compute infrastructure. About $18 billion of the funding is expected to be used for OpenAI’s commitment to Stargate, the joint venture between SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle, which President Trump announced in January. The initial funding will be $10 billion, followed by the remaining $30 billion by the end of 2025. However, in an updated disclosure on Monday, SoftBank said that its total investment could be slashed to as low as $20 billion if OpenAI doesn’t restructure into a for-profit entity by Dec. 31. The pulling into a for-profit conversion will need the approval of Microsoft and the California Attorney General. Elon Musk, who was one of the co-founders of OpenAI in 2015, when it was started as a non-profit research lab, challenged in court this effort of OpenAI. On the other hand, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced yesterday that the company is planning to release its first open-weight language model with reasoning capabilities since GPT-2 in the coming months. The generative AI market is poised to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade. Companies from Google and Amazon to Anthropic and Perplexity are racing to announce new products and features, especially as the race to build “AI agents” intensifies.

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Columbia University Replaced Its President as the White House Threatened Funding

Dr. Katrina Armstrong, president of Columbia University, left her post this Friday after her leadership threatened $400 million in federal funding. She was Columbia’s third leader since August 2024, when the university became a hub of a campus protest movement against the war in Gaza and the Israelis. Claire Shipman, a journalist with two degrees from Columbia and co-chair of the university’s board of trustees, was named the acting president and replaced Dr. Katrina Armstrong. One week before this abrupt replacement, Columbia University bowed to a series of White House demands, and no resignations seemed involved. However, a leaked revelation pointed to comments from Dr. Armstrong at a faculty meeting last weekend saying privately that the school would not stick to some of its agreements with the Trump administration. Following this punitive approach at Columbia, the Trump Administration is now threatening to end the funding of billions of dollars to several universities across the country. Many colleges are facing inquiries from agencies that range from the Justice Department to the Department of Health and Human Services. DEI Scrutiny • Two days before Columbia announced its decision, the government said it would withhold about $175 million in funding to the University of Pennsylvania because the school allowed a transgender woman to be a member of its women’s swim team in 2022. • Last week, the University of Michigan announced it will close its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) office due to recent executive orders from President Trump and funding uncertainty. The institution had spent $250 million on DEI efforts through last fall and had 163 DEI personnel. This DEI closure announcement comes as federal funding for schools has been under scrutiny by Trump. Antisemitic Scrutiny Another focus from the Trump Administration is what is considered antisemitic activity on campus following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. On March 10, the White House warned 60 institutions that they risk losing federal government funding. Moreover, nineteen of those academic institutions are under investigation for antisemitism by the Trump administration, according to Reuters. "Universities are experiencing distress because they don't even know the nature and extent of the allegations against them," said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the advocacy group American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU). Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said Jewish students at "elite U.S. campuses" are in fear for their safety. "American colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by U.S. taxpayers. That support is a privilege contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal antidiscrimination laws."

OpenAI’s Studio Ghibli Style Generated Images Flood Social Media with Memes

AI-generated memes in the style of Studio Ghibli—the cult-favorite Japanese animation studio behind films such as "My Neighbor Totoro" and "Spirited Away"—are flooding social media, forcing OpenAI to put a rate limit on image generation requests, according to CEO Sam Altman. "It’s super fun seeing people love images in ChatGPT, but our GPUs are melting," he posted on X today. The newly improved image generation of GPT-4o, released this week, is resulting in creations that are more realistic than before, and even users can take them in any number of directions. Usually, users upload existing images and pictures into ChatGPT and ask the chatbot to recreate them in new styles. OpenAI’s and Google’s latest tools make it easier than ever to re-create the styles of copyrighted works — simply by typing a text prompt. pic.twitter.com/M8B7eqfNzR — Moon Parameter (@ParamMoon) March 26, 2025 studio ghibli is out, dr seuss is in pic.twitter.com/4ECxwLLkoj — Jordi Hays (@jordihays) March 26, 2025

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Today's Summary

Sunday, November 23, 2025

Education technology today is marked by rising AI adoption among educators and innovative personalized learning approaches.

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Today in AI & EdTech

Sunday, November 23, 2025

AI is transforming the education technology landscape as more teachers adopt intelligent tools, driving forward and adaptive learning experiences.

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OpenAI Launches Educational GPT Model

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