Artificial Intelligence

UC Berkeley Prof Used AI in Op-Ed on Student Math Gaps

Is this piece a sign of deep academic rot or a valid warning about declining standards?

Published AUG 20

UC Berkeley Prof Used AI in Op-Ed on Student Math Gaps

Story

Above: Sather Tower on the University of California, Berkeley campus in Berkeley, California, on June 4, 2021. Image credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The Facts

UC Berkeley math professor Zvezdelina Stankova acknowledged using AI to help edit a roughly 2,000-word op-ed she wrote for the San Francisco Standard, in which she argued that some of her students are five to eight years behind in mathematics.
New York Post
The Guardian
Student journalists at the Daily Californian ran the op-ed through the AI detection tool Pangram, which flagged approximately 33% of the text as AI-generated or AI-assisted. Stankova said the piece reflected "several hundred person-hours of intensive human work," about 80 of which were her own.
TNW
The Daily Californian
New York Post
Stankova attributed declining student preparedness to UC's test-blind admissions policy, noting that before 2020, 71% of around 2,200 Calculus I students tested as ready or nearly ready for the course. By 2023, that figure had dropped to 26%.
New York Post
The San Francisco Standard
The UC Board of Regents voted in 2020 to phase out standardized test requirements, a move later reinforced by a court ruling requiring the system to remain test-blind through 2025. Harvard, MIT, Stanford and Yale similarly suspended testing during the pandemic but have since reinstated it.
The San Francisco Standard
ТСН.ua
The UC Academic Senate announced in late July that it would begin a review of standardized testing in admissions, though any resulting policy change could not take effect before the fall 2028 admissions cycle.
TNW
The Guardian
A June open letter signed by more than 3,000 UC faculty members, including five Nobel laureates, urged the system to reinstate SAT and ACT requirements. California Gov. Gavin Newsom called the debate "important" but stated that he wanted to see more evidence.
ТСН.ua
The Daily Californian
FOX News

Sources Split

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RIGHT

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CRIT

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ESTAB

The Spin

Narrative A

While the irony of a professor complaining about declining standards in academia using AI is rich, this just goes to show how deep the rot in academia has spread. The students arrive without basic skills a cohort a generation ago would have, and the professors use the same cheating tools they try, and fail, to prohibit students from using. Higher education is in dire straits.

Intelligencer

The New York Times

Narrative B

Stankova had no qualms about admitting to AI use, and her broader point still stands: without standardized testing, colleges and universities will not select the best and brightest applicants. In fact, the declining standards we see in education mean that AI will remain a crutch, not a tool, for students. This easy gotcha changes nothing.