UC Berkeley Professor Used AI to Edit Her Op-Ed Blasting Students' Maths Skills
Zvezdelina Stankova wrote that some of her students were years behind on basic maths. Then came the awkward disclosure.
Key points
- UC Berkeley maths professor Zvezdelina Stankova admitted to using AI to help edit a roughly 2,000-word opinion piece published in the San Francisco Standard.
- The op-ed claimed some of her students arrived at Berkeley up to eight years behind in maths, lacking middle-school knowledge of fractions and algebra.
- Stankova blamed UC-system test-blind admissions, which dropped standardised benchmarks like the SAT, for letting underprepared students into the programme.
- The disclosure drew attention because the piece criticised educational standards while relying on an AI tool to polish the argument.
A University of California, Berkeley maths professor published a sharp critique of her students' maths ability last week. Then she admitted she used AI to help edit it.
Zvezdelina Stankova's piece ran in the San Francisco Standard, first flagged by The Guardian. It was about 2,000 words long and made a stark claim: some students in her programme were "five to eight years" behind, missing foundational maths that most people cover in middle school, including fractions and algebra.
What exactly did she say?
Stankova pointed the finger squarely at test-blind admissions, a policy where universities stop using standardised test scores as part of the entry decision. The UC system adopted this approach in recent years. Her argument was that without a benchmark like the SAT, students who weren't ready for Berkeley-level maths were still being admitted, and that everyone, students included, was paying a price.
It's a legitimate debate. Plenty of educators and researchers disagree about whether the SAT is a fair or useful measure of readiness. But the conversation shifted quickly when Stankova disclosed she'd used an AI tool to help edit the piece.
Why does the AI editing disclosure matter?
On its own, using AI to tighten up a draft isn't scandalous. Lots of people do it, the same way they'd ask a colleague to read something before sending it. The catch here is context. A professor arguing that students lack rigorous skills, in a piece itself polished by an AI tool, is an irony that's hard to ignore.
It also raises something worth thinking about for anyone writing opinion pieces or academic commentary: at what point does AI editing shift from light tidying to something more substantial? There's no clear line yet, and most publications don't have formal rules about it. We covered a directly comparable case on 17 August, when Australian government researchers admitted using ChatGPT to edit a $3.48 million report that later turned out to contain citations to articles that don't appear to exist.
For students and academics, the lesson is straightforward. Disclose AI involvement early, not after the fact. Readers and editors are increasingly expecting it.
What should ordinary readers take from this?
Two things. First, the underlying maths-skills debate is real. If students are arriving at top universities underprepared, that affects the quality of degrees and, downstream, the workforce. Second, AI editing tools are now woven into everyday writing, and using them on anything public without saying so is starting to look careless rather than merely controversial.
One privacy point worth knowing: if you paste your writing into an AI tool, that text is typically used to improve the model unless you opt out in settings. Check before you edit anything sensitive.
My read on this whole thing: the AI editing isn't the real story, it's the symptom. The harder, slower debate about what standardised tests actually measure, and who gets hurt when they disappear, is the one that'll matter long after this particular irony fades.
Common questions
Is it wrong to use AI to edit something you wrote?
Not inherently. Many writers use AI tools the way they'd use a spell-checker or a trusted reader. The issue is transparency, particularly in journalism or academia, where the expectation is that the voice and reasoning are genuinely yours.
What are test-blind admissions?
Test-blind admissions means a university ignores standardised test scores entirely when deciding who gets in. The idea is to reduce barriers for students who don't test well but are otherwise capable. Opponents say it removes a useful academic signal.
