The schools turning to AI to rate students beyond standard grades

• September 21, 2026

Artificial intelligence will soon help teachers rate students’ academic and “soft” skills at schools using nontraditional report cards that skip A-F grading after an AI company purchased the nonprofit Mastery Transcript Consortium in July.

The New York-based company Legend.org is developing AI tools to give teachers and students immediate feedback on papers, exams, recorded presentations and even artwork to the 400 public and private schools in the consortium.

Legend.org co-founder Matt Sornson said the company’s platform lets teachers upload student work — either digital files or even photos of handwritten work. AI will then use state, school, or teacher standards to evaluate the work.

The technology will go even further for mastery schools, which gauge how students improve toward mastering soft skills such as communication, collaboration and critical thinking. The AI tools will help teachers track progress on these more subjective skills using indicators educators and researchers are still developing.

Sornson said that the AI tools he is working on will evaluate communication skills, for example, from recorded verbal presentations.

“There’s some pretty pretty cool models around where you can do tone of voice, you can do body language and posture, you can do eye contact,” he told The 74. “There’s a lot of really really cool things you can do with video.”

Sornson said AI would not judge whether a piece of artwork is “good,” just the technical aspects of it.

For visual art, he said that could include composition, technical execution, use of materials, visual communication, and originality.

For music, Sornson said, AI could judge “rhythm, pitch and intonation….” The technology could also “review recordings, video, written scores…and student reflections,” he said.

He stressed that AI won’t be giving student work the final ratings, just acting as an aide to teachers.

“It does the first pass of assessing (their) rubric and what (they’re) trying to grade,” Sornson said. “(AI) would ingest those assignments, those artifacts, and then do the first pass of assessment. It’s always the teacher choosing the final grade.”

“We are just taking the first version, showing them where they should focus their efforts, and trying to save teachers’ time,” he added.

That middle ground could be an important one, as educators and researchers nationally sort out how AI can be best used to help teachers grade student work and offer meaningful follow-up instruction. Some researchers have found AI feedback to be too lenient to students or to differ from the grades teachers give.

Several colleges and schools are trying to mix AI tools with teacher judgment so it can help teachers and also protect student interests.

Experts have stressed the importance of being transparent with students about how much teachers use AI and of making sure the technology isn’t showing any troublesome biases. Having humans make important decisions also matters, wrote Amanda Hirsch, an assistant director of the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning at Northern Illinois, in a look at the emerging use of a “digital red pen.”

“As we stand at this crossroads of education and emerging technology, the question isn’t whether to use AI in grading, but how to use it ethically and intelligently,” Hirsch wrote.

The Mastery Transcript Consortium is a group of schools that has developed a new report card and transcript model that skips A-F grades in favor of tracking student progress on dozens of academic and soft skills, such as collaboration, communication and critical thinking.

In 2024, it merged with the Educational Testing Service, the company known for running the SAT and GRE college admissions tests, joining the Skills for the Future effort by ETS and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to better assess how well students are learning skills and to prove those skills to colleges and employers.

But ETS decided to focus on creating new assessments and less on report cards. In July, it sold the consortium and its transcript model to the for-profit Legend.org for an undisclosed amount.

Consortium founder Scott Looney, head of the private Hawken School in Cleveland, Ohio, said he is also excited about how AI can help teachers. AI, he said, can reduce the time teachers spend reading and grading student work and can offer immediate feedback to both students and teachers that they can discuss and shift quickly toward improving.

Gauging how well students are doing on soft skills — such as self-direction, generating solutions or synthesizing information — isn’t simple, either, he said. Students build portfolios of work across multiple courses that show their progress on multiple skills. AI, he said, can evaluate progress across many pieces of work and summarize them much faster than teachers — and later college admissions staff — can.

“If we can make this easier for students to pull their portfolios together, easier for teachers to get feedback to the kids about the quality of the work in their portfolios, and then easier for the receivers of our transcripts that are full of portfolios to interpret them, I think this is going to go exponential,” Looney said.

Over time, Looney said, he hopes students could even submit work to the platform on their own for suggestions before turning it in to a teacher.

A key feature of the upcoming tools, Sornson said, is that student work can be measured against any standards a school chooses. That could include public breakdowns of skills and subskills — such as those from ETS and Carnegie, from another partnership called Pathsmith, or from the nonprofit XQ Institute — or any that schools develop themselves.

Looney said colleges or employers might eventually be able to submit their own standards for skills they want from applicants for AI to use to measure student work from all four years of high school.

Though Looney said one of his campuses that uses the mastery report cards will try the AI tools out as Legend offers them, other schools in the consortium are still learning about the sale and haven’t said yet what they plan to do.

“I would be surprised if schools decide to forsake the AI tools as they will be highly accurate and save students and teachers time,” Looney said.

Looney said he was concerned at first that the transcript model he created with other schools would turn into a for-profit product. But he said the partnership relied on grants to operate that are not sustainable. The computerized system that creates the transcripts also needed improvements Legend is already doing, making it easier for new schools to join.

The split from ETS and Carnegie is friendly. Both Looney and Laura Slover, who heads the Skills for the Future effort of ETS and Carnegie, will be on an advisory board to the new company.

This story was produced by The 74 and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.

​ Orange County Register 

Tanker hit by projectile as it enters the Strait of Hormuz, and other Mideast developments

• September 21, 2026

By The Associated Press

The British military said an “unknown projectile” struck a tanker as it entered the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, injuring two crew members. The vessel continued toward port under its own power.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military remains on alert as much of the country shuts down for Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism.

Fighting across Yemen killed or injured 680 people last week, the World Health Organization said.

Here is the latest news from the Middle East on Monday. Full coverage is available here.

Projectile strikes tanker passing through Strait of Hormuz, British military says

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center (UKMTO) said a tanker was struck by an “unknown projectile” as it headed into the Strait of Hormuz. Two crew members sustained minor injuries.

The UKMTO said Monday the vessel is reportedly continuing to its next port of call under its own power. No reports indicated any environmental impact at this time.

Tehran has asserted control over much of the Strait of Hormuz since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28. In peacetime, about 20 million barrels — roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply — passed through Hormuz each day.

Some tankers are again traversing the strait, but traffic is well below what it once was.

WHO reports 680 new casualties in a week in Yemen

The World Health Organization says 680 people were killed or injured across Yemen over the course of a week as fighting between Iran-backed Houthi rebels and Saudi-backed government forces continues.

WHO said on Monday in a post on X that 164 people were killed and 516 injured between Sept. 13 and Sept. 18. This brings the total number of casualties since Aug. 6 to 3,672, including 674 deaths and 2,998 injuries.

Lahj province in southwestern Yemen is currently an active front line where 58 deaths and 226 injuries were reported within six days, according to the U.N. agency.

An estimated 125,000 people have fled their homes as the Houthi rebels have advanced down the Red Sea coast to a key maritime chokepoint.

Pakistan’s interior minister visits Tehran

Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni received his Pakistani counterpart Mohsin Naqvi in Tehran on Monday, Pakistan’s Interior Ministry said.

Naqvi’s visit comes as Pakistan seeks to facilitate dialogue between the United States and Iran, with the help of other regional countries.

Israeli military on guard on Jewish faith’s holiest day

Israel’s military remained on alert even as the country woke up to the silence and empty streets of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, considered the holiest day for the Jewish faith.

Streetlights blinked yellow Monday as the faithful walked to the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City.

“For the next 25 hours, Israel is offline,” the foreign ministry said on X after sundown Sunday. But the military said it bolstered its frontline forces following the killing of an Israeli settler Sunday in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian suspect was detained after a search.

France denounces shutting down of French language center in Tehran

France says it will summon Iran’s ambassador to protest over the closure of a French language center affiliated with the French Embassy in Tehran.

The French Foreign Ministry said in a statement late Sunday that Paris would “take appropriate measures in response” but didn’t specify. It’s also unclear when the Iranian ambassador would be summoned.

The ministry called the “unjustifiable and unacceptable” closure of the language center a new attack on France’s cultural presence in Iran and linked it to an assault on two French Embassy staff members in July.

Red Sea International Film Festival postponed

Organizers of the Red Sea International Film Festival say they’ve rescheduled this year’s event for late 2027.

The announcement comes as Saudi Arabia faces heightened regional tensions, including missile and drone attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

The foundation did not link the postponement to the security situation. Instead, it cited the timing and logistical requirements of staging an international event of its scale in an Instagram post Monday.

The festival is one of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent international cultural events and draws filmmakers, actors and other industry figures from around the world to Jeddah.

This report will be updated throughout the day as new developments emerge.

​ Orange County Register 

Converse apologizes and pulls sneaker ad that critics said included racist imagery

• September 21, 2026

By DAVE COLLINS

The sneaker company Converse has removed a social media ad that sparked outrage among critics who viewed it as evoking the Ku Klux Klan and lynching.

The Instagram ad photo showed K-pop singer Karina wearing a skirt and holding a pair of Chuck 70 X sneakers. Critics lashed out online, saying that a white triangular image created by lighting on the skirt resembled a KKK hood and that the way she held the sneakers made them look like the dangling feet of a lynching victim.

Converse, owned by Nike, issued a statement apologizing and saying it removed the ad.

“We’re sorry,” said the statement, first released on Friday. “We understand why this image is deeply upsetting and recognize that we got this wrong. We removed it from our channels and are working to remove it everywhere it appeared. This should not have happened and we will do better.”

Converse, based in Boston, declined on Sunday to answer questions seeking additional information, including how the company screens ads before they are posted and how the ad was approved.

Karina and her management company, SM Entertainment Group, did not immediately respond to messages through their Instagram accounts.

Retailers and top fashion brands have issued a string of apologies over the years for products criticized as being racially insensitive.

Last month, retailer Target pulled a children’s Halloween costume from its shelves after widespread social media backlash, apologizing for selling a garment that critics said evoked racist minstrel caricatures.

The Converse photo sparked swift criticism, including calls for staff involved in the ad to be fired and for a boycott of the company. In a slew of comments on social media, posters questioned how the ad could have cleared the company’s advertising vetting process. Other commenters defended Converse, saying they didn’t believe it was intentional.

Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney based in Texas, posted on Instagram that Converse’s apology “doesn’t undo what got past legal, marketing and leadership at every step.”

“We keep having this conversation because corporations keep failing the same test,” he wrote. “Do better means catching this before it airs — not after we’re offended.”

Converse, founded in Malden, Massachusetts, in 1908, makes the iconic Chuck Taylor All Star sneaker. It was first released in 1917 as a non-skid basketball shoe, adding the signature of Taylor — a basketball player who promoted the sneaker — in 1934, according to the company’s website.

​ Orange County Register 

With veto of AB 1383, Newsom saves California from the next pension crisis

• September 21, 2026

You know what? Maybe Gavin Newsom isn’t so bad after all.

On Sunday, the governor vetoed Assembly Bill 1383, which would’ve boosted pension benefits for police officers and firefighters, unwinding critical reforms enacted by Gov. Jerry Brown under the California Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act (PEPRA). More precisely, as the Reason Foundation explained, “it would lower the retirement age for police and firefighters from 57 to 55 and loosen the cost-saving salary caps used to calculate pension benefits.”

In vetoing AB 1383, Newsom reflected back on the crises that led to PEPRA and that it’s best to avoid repeating history.

“PEPRA was a necessary reform born of a crisis exacerbated by past policy decisions,” he wrote. “I still recall — before PEPRA’s passage in 2012 — the alarming forecasts, the fierce criticism of public employees, and the growing pressure to eliminate defined benefit plans altogether. This is an era of California history I do not want to repeat. I fear that undoing PEPRA’s reforms, even partially, risks us doing exactly that.”

Newsom no doubt also remembers that because of the runaway pension benefits doled out by governments in California, cities were literally going bankrupt. Many more local governments — and this is an ongoing problem — have had to raise taxes and slash services just to pay for rising pension costs.

As the League of California Cities warned earlier this year, “Increased pension obligations would crowd out funding for core services such as police and fire, parks and recreation, libraries, road maintenance, and housing and homelessness.”

To quantify that, as Govern for California noted, “In the 2024-25 fiscal year alone, state and local governments in California were forced to divert $36.4 billion from essential services to pension contributions, 162% more than just ten years earlier.”

And for what? As Reason’s Mariana Trujillo explained, under AB 1383, “an estimated 86% of taxpayers’ costs will go toward providing additional pension benefits to the state’s highest-paid public safety employees earning more than $160,000.”

It’s against that backdrop that AB 1383 would’ve just reignited pension problems across the state to help highly paid public employees retire sooner. It would have undone the sacrifices local governments made to stabilize their pension debts. And as an unintended consequence, as part of its crowd-out on other public spending, it would’ve also tightened public safety budgets further and made it harder to hire more cops and firefighters. The irony is terrific.

In addition to these direct consequences of AB 1383 is the unavoidable reality that had AB 1383 become law, other public employee unions would immediately demand similar boosts. That’s how California ended up with the pension mess it had leading up to PEPRA and that’s a political headache Newsom fortunately spared the state from with his veto of AB 1383.

Which then raises another issue — the absurdity of the California Legislature even putting AB 1383 on Newsom’s desk.

If California had a remotely serious legislative body, AB 1383 would’ve been killed off long ago purely on fiscal grounds. But instead California has a state legislature beholden to public employee unions. That’s the only explanation for why AB 1383 cleared the Senate unanimously and near-unanimously in the Assembly.

Republican Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, who built his reputation long ago as a pension reformer in San Diego, was the only consistent “No” vote on the bill. Most Republicans turned in their “fiscal conservative” card and folded to the unions, either by abstaining or voting for AB 1383.

Once upon a time the Republican bloc in the Legislature consisted of at least some fiscal conservatives who cared about taxpayer interests and were willing to stand up to public employee unions. Alas, those days are long gone.

Luckily, there was an adult in the room to stop the Legislature from blowing things up.

Gov. Gavin Newsom saved the day with his veto of AB 1383. By standing up to the unions, he demonstrated also that he’s one of the only people in Sacramento with a spine. It might just be the temporary high of a rare fiscal win in California speaking, but moments like this almost make you wonder: maybe he should run for president?

Sal Rodriguez can be reached at salrodriguez@scng.com

​ Orange County Register 

Orange County high school football schedule for Week 5, Sept. 24-26

• September 21, 2026

HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL SCHEDULE

Please send updates or changes to preps@ocregister.com.

Games start at 7 p.m. unless noted.

THURSDAY’S GAMES

Tango League

Century at Santiago

Savanna at Bolsa Grande

Nonleague

Lakewood vs. Villa Park at El Modena HS

FRIDAY’S GAMES

Nonleague

Trabuco Hills at El Modena

Troy vs. El Dorado at Valencia HS

Laguna Hills at St. Margaret’s

Summit vs. Edison at Huntington Beach HS

Rancho Alamitos at La Quinta

Anaheim at Buena Park

Eisenhower vs. Los Amigos at Garden Grove HS

Servite at Damien

San Clemente at Murrieta Valley

Laguna Beach at San Pedro

Estancia at Brentwood

Santa Ana at Ganesha

Calvary Chapel at Carpinteria

Tango League

Loara at Magnolia

Santa Ana Valley vs. Godinez at Segerstrom HS

8-MAN

Tri-Valley League

Chadwick at Sage Hill, 6 p.m.

​ Orange County Register 

Angel City FC rolls past Utah Royals after 2 early ejections

• September 21, 2026

Utah (13-9-3) was left severely short-handed against Angel City after defender Paige Cronin and midfielder Ana Tejada were ejected by the 24th minute.

Two minutes later, Ally Sentnor converted the resulting penalty kick past goalkeeper Mandy McGlynn to put Angel City (11-8-6) ahead in Sandy, Utah.

Just two minutes after coming off the bench for the second half, Taylor Suarez made it 2-0 with a one-touch finish off a pass from Gisele Thompson.

Sveindís Jónsdóttir capped the scoring in the 67th minute, dispossessing Tatumn Milazzo deep in Utah territory before rolling a shot past McGlynn’s right side.

​ Orange County Register 

Kazushi Kimura, Peter Miller take Los Alamitos racetrack titles again

• September 21, 2026

Jockey Kazushi Kimura and trainer Peter Miller defended their Los Alamitos Race Course championships as the Orange County track completed a two-week thoroughbred meet Sunday.

Kimura did it in an unusual way, riding all seven of his winners in the first three days before sitting out all but one race in the last three days with a suspension. He finished two wins clear of Armando Aguilar and Edgar Payeras, each of whom rode one winner on closing day. It’s the fifth straight time Kimura has led outright or tied for the jockey title at Los Al’s short meets.

Miller finished with four wins, one more than Jesus Uranga, Bob Hess Jr., Genaro Vallejo and Ryan Hanson. Miller stood alone atop the trainers’ standings at Los Al for the 10th time, having tied for the title at the meets in July of this year and July 2025. Hess, Vallejo and Hanson each won once Sunday.

Thoroughbred racing moves to Santa Anita, which opens a six-week meet Friday with an eight-race card starting at 1 p.m.

​ Orange County Register 

Sparks celebrate Lisa Leslie statue with rout of Fire

• September 21, 2026

LOS ANGELES — The First Lady of the Los Angeles Sparks, legend Lisa Leslie, was honored with a statue outside Crypto.com Arena ahead of Sunday’s game against the Portland Fire.

“I am beyond happy with how beautiful The First Lady looks because they really listened to me,” Leslie told the Southern California News Group, adding that she is interested in rejoining the Sparks’ ownership group.

The Sparks, who had five players reach double figures in the scoring column, celebrated Leslie’s bronzed likeness with a 105-84 win over Portland.

That’s history,” said Sparks forward Nneka Ogwumike when asked why the players made a point to attend the nearly two-hour-long ceremony before the game. “I’m very adamant about players coming in and knowing their history. That’s something that we can’t let go of.”

The Sparks improved to 16-26 overall, moving up to ninth in the league standings with two games left in the regular season. Ogwumike led the way with 20 points, 12 rebounds and five assists. Rae Burrell scored 20 points. Ariel Atkins scored 14 points. Rookie Chance Gray scored a career-high 11 points. Emma Cannon scored 10 points in the first half.

“Always stay ready so I don’t have to get ready,” Cannon said. “This is something I’m used to.

“She’s been tremendous for two years,” added Sparks coach Lynne Roberts when asked about Cannon’s performance. “Just the ultimate professional. All about the team.”

Ogwumike reached 8,000 points in her WNBA career on a putback layup, which gave the home team a 38-31 lead with 5:59 left in the second quarter. Ogwumike is the fourth player in league history to reach that milestone.

Forwards Cameron Brink (ankle), Dearica Hamby (knee), and guard Aaliyah Nye (ankle) all missed the game with injuries. Cannon replaced Hamby in the starting lineup.

Cannon’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer put the Sparks up 60-41 at halftime. Burrell scored 13 points in the first half.

Portland (16-27, 10th) was led by second-year guard Carla Leite with a game-high 23 points. Former UCLA guard Charisman Osborne scored 13 points. Megan DiLeo scored 11 points. Emily Engstler added 10 points.

The Sparks swept the season series 3-0 against the Fire. However, both teams were eliminated from playoff contention last month.

Lisa Leslie told me she’s is beyond happy with how her Los Angeles Sparks statue, dubbed “The First Lady” turned out in front of https://t.co/hXoGl5e01d Arena, known as Staples Center when she led the franchise to consecutive WNBA championships in 2001 and 2002. pic.twitter.com/2AFhhsx77J

— John W. Davis (@johnwdavis) September 20, 2026

Meanwhile, Leslie’s 11-foot-tall bronze statue with a granite base, adorned with her signature lipstick, ribbons, and polished nails, commemorates her as the first player in WNBA history to dunk in 2002.

“LA is everything to me because it’s the root of who I am,” Leslie explained.

The Compton native and former Inglewood Morningside High and USC star is the first player in team history to have a statue outside of Crypto.com Arena.

“I wanted to make sure that this statue was a perfect blend of fearlessness and the competitor that I was, I am and will always be,” Leslie said after her statue was unveiled.

“Being able to witness not just her ceremony,” Ogwumike said, “but all of the people that were there for her I think is incredibly important because it may be an introduction to some players when it comes to the legacy that one person has created and it creates an intersection of people and experiences and stories that will not remain untold.”

Sparks owner Magic Johnson said Leslie was known for leaving everything she had on the court, especially when she led the franchise to consecutive league titles in 2001 and 2002.

“To be able to get a statue here at Crypto, you have to dominate on the court,” Sparks owner Magic Johnson said. “You have to make history on the court and, last but not least, you definitely have to win championships, and when we think about Lisa, back-to-back championships she brought to the Sparks and to Los Angeles, but Lisa, the history-making is what I’m really impressed with.”

Johnson’s Showtime Lakers teammate and former Sparks coach Michael Cooper said he was glad to be there to celebrate his star player.

“I’m proud of you,” former Sparks coach Michael Cooper said. “I’m proud to have coached you, and I’m proud that Los Angeles gets to celebrate you in a way that will last forever.”

Rookie guard Ndjakalenga Mwenentanda scored her first career points via two free throws in the first quarter. Mwenentanda, who finished with six points, is currently on a developmental player contract and was signed in late August, after previously playing for the Golden State Valkyries.

The Sparks will play their final road game of the season against the Las Vegas Aces on Tuesday. They will host Golden State in a season finale on Thursday.

Lisa Leslie’s new statue outside https://t.co/St97l2sPKI arena features her dunking with lipstick and nail polish.

She said she was proud of those details. pic.twitter.com/Z9aSXj2xzk

— John W. Davis (@johnwdavis) September 20, 2026

​ Orange County Register