The note that saved a boy’s life wasn’t flagged by a safety algorithm. It wasn’t caught by a keyword filter. It was scribbled in faint, erasable pencil on the back of a pop quiz, invisible to a scanner, right next to a wrong answer about The Great Gatsby.
If I had done what the district wanted—if I had used the “auto-grade” feature on the new tablets—that quiz would have been processed in three seconds. The boy, a quiet sophomore named Leo who wore the same gray hoodie every day, would have received a 60%. The system would have recommended remedial reading modules.
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