Education

What the company’s $9 billion investment means for the state

Published

2 weeks ago

August 13, 2025

News 9

Google is making a multibillion-dollar commitment to expand its operations in Oklahoma, unveiling plans Wednesday for $9 billion in new investments over the next two years.

>>> Google expands Oklahoma data centers with $9 billion investment: Q&A with Google and Gov. Stitt

Company leaders joined Gov. Kevin Stitt, local officials, and workforce partners at the Google Pryor Data Center to detail the projects, which include infrastructure expansion and workforce training initiatives.

Watch Google’s press conference in Pryor:

Pryor and Stillwater to see major tech growth

Alphabet Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat said the new investment builds on Google’s long-standing presence in Oklahoma, which generated $2.2 billion in economic activity for businesses and industry last year. The plan includes accelerating development at the Pryor facility and building a new data center in Stillwater.

Porat said the projects aim to make Oklahoma “an engine for growth” in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and technology-driven industries.

Image Provided By: Google / Gooden Group

“Google is helping to power a new era of American innovation with our investments in Oklahoma,” said Ruth Porat, President & Chief Investment Officer, Alphabet and Google. “For nearly two decades, Google has proudly called Oklahoma home, starting with our data center in Mayes County, our second largest in the world. With today’s announcement, we’re accelerating that commitment with an additional $9 billion investment over the next two years in AI and cloud infrastructure, workforce development, and education. Our focus on education includes the recent launch of the Google AI for Education Accelerator, an initiative to offer free AI tools and training to every college student in America. The first cohort of participating universities will include both the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University. All of these investments are designed to help ensure the U.S. continues to lead in AI, while unlocking economic opportunity and creating good jobs across Oklahoma.”

Workforce development to address labor shortages

Google also announced a workforce initiative to address a nationwide shortage of electrical workers. Google has partnered with the National Electrical Contractors Association and awarded a grant to the Electrical Training Alliance to increase the number of apprentices in Oklahoma by 135%.

Porat said the effort will help meet the estimated need for 130,000 additional electrical workers in the U.S. by 2030.

Workforce leaders, including Ted Jacobs of the Tulsa Electrical Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee, said the funding will also integrate AI into electrical training programs and address a growing labor shortage as many workers retire or leave the field.

Gov. Stitt - Google Investment Announcement - Aug. 13, 2025 Image Provided By: Google / Gooden Group

AI education programs

Porat says that education is another focus of the investment. Google has partnered with local organizations to train more than 150,000 Oklahomans in digital skills and announced its AI for Education Accelerator will launch first at the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University.

All Oklahoma college students will have free access to Google’s AI Pro Plan, offering a personalized AI collaborator.

State and local leaders praise Google investment

Gov. Stitt called the $9 billion investment a “huge win” for the state, citing Oklahoma’s pro-business climate, energy resources, and education partnerships as key factors.

“Oklahoma is the most business-friendly state in the country,” said Governor Kevin Stitt. “Google’s decision to open another data center here is proof. Google has been a valuable partner in everything from economic development to workforce education. I’m grateful for their investment in our state and I’m looking forward to the great jobs they continue to create as we work to become the best state for AI infrastructure.”

Pryor Mayor Zac Doyle praised Google as a “true community partner” that has provided jobs, STEM support, and funding for local schools since its initial investment in 2007.

“Since Google opened their first data center in 2011, they’ve continued to be great partners with their contribution to the community,” said Pryor Mayor Zac Doyle. “Not only has Google brought hundreds of jobs, economic growth, and billions in investment, they continue to support our schools and nonprofits with much-needed funding and resources, creating a tremendous impact for Pryor. Their expansion announcement today marks a new chapter in our city’s success story.”

Stillwater Mayor Will Joyce said the new data center to be built in Stillwater will mark a major step in the city’s economic growth.

“This significant investment is a game-changer for Stillwater, bringing high-quality jobs, new opportunities for residents, and economic benefits for the entire region,” said Stillwater Mayor Will Joyce. “We are excited to welcome Google and grateful for their commitment to our city, not only through their data center investment, but also as a member of our community.”

Google’s Pryor site has already undergone three expansions since opening in 2007. In 2022, the company announced a $75 million investment at the facility.

Google released the following press release regarding the announcement:

GOOGLE ANNOUNCES NEW TWO-YEAR $9B INVESTMENT IN OKLAHOMA

PRYOR, Okla. – Today, Google announced it is investing an additional $9 billion in Oklahoma within the next two years. The funds will be focused on cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, as well as expanded workforce development and education programs — meaningfully increasing the pace of investments the company has made since breaking ground on its first data center in the state in 2007.

During a community celebration held today, Google welcomed state and local leaders as well as community members to announce plans for a new data center in Stillwater and expansion of its existing campus in Pryor. In addition, the company detailed how it will help catalyze this next chapter of innovation for Oklahoma by funding an innovative program with the electrical training ALLIANCE (etA) to develop the labor force needed to build new energy infrastructure. Google is also making Google AI tools and training available to all Oklahoma-based college students and launching a partnership with the University of Oklahoma (OU) and Oklahoma State University (OSU) to prepare their students with critical AI and job-readiness skills.

Google’s deep, longstanding investments in American technical infrastructure, as well as research and development, will help the U.S. continue to lead the world in AI. This will unlock substantial economic opportunity for American businesses, advance scientific breakthroughs, fortify cybersecurity for the U.S., and create new career opportunities for millions of Americans.

“Oklahoma is the most business-friendly state in the country,” said Governor Kevin Stitt. “Google’s decision to open another data center here is proof. Google has been a valuable partner in everything from economic development to workforce education. I’m grateful for their investment in our state and I’m looking forward to the great jobs they continue to create as we work to become the best state for AI infrastructure.”

“Since Google opened their first data center in 2011, they’ve continued to be great partners with their contribution to the community,” said Pryor Mayor Zac Doyle. “Not only has Google brought hundreds of jobs, economic growth, and billions in investment, they continue to support our schools and nonprofits with much-needed funding and resources, creating a tremendous impact for Pryor. Their expansion announcement today marks a new chapter in our city’s success story.”

“This significant investment is a game-changer for Stillwater, bringing high-quality jobs, new opportunities for residents, and economic benefits for the entire region,” said Stillwater Mayor Will Joyce. “We are excited to welcome Google and grateful for their commitment to our city, not only through their data center investment, but also as a member of our community.”

“Google is helping to power a new era of American innovation with our investments in Oklahoma,” said Ruth Porat, President & Chief Investment Officer, Alphabet and Google. “For nearly two decades, Google has proudly called Oklahoma home, starting with our data center in Mayes County, our second largest in the world. With today’s announcement, we’re accelerating that commitment with an additional $9 billion investment over the next two years in AI and cloud infrastructure, workforce development, and education. Our focus on education includes the recent launch of the Google AI for Education Accelerator, an initiative to offer free AI tools and training to every college student in America. The first cohort of participating universities will include both the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University. All of these investments are designed to help ensure the U.S. continues to lead in AI, while unlocking economic opportunity and creating good jobs across Oklahoma.”

AI Infrastructure and Energy Capacity: Once the Stillwater data center and expanded Pryor campus are complete, the facilities will be part of Google’s global network of data centers — the backbone of the company’s AI capabilities and digital services. Google operates some of the industry’s most energy-efficient data centers and is committed to responsibly growing its infrastructure.

Earlier this year, Google signed power purchase agreements that will add more than 700 megawatts (MW) of new clean capacity to Oklahoma’s electricity grid to support its data center operations in the state. Google also provided $1.5 million to support a regenerative agriculture program with Indigo Ag that aims to replenish an estimated 200 million gallons of water annually over the next seven years.

Developing Oklahoma’s Workforce : Today, etA, with support from Google.org, announced it is funding to integrate AI tools into training curriculum and boost the number of electrical worker apprentices in Oklahoma. The initiative will train existing electrical workers and more than 160 apprentices in the state by 2030, increasing the projected pipeline of new electricians in Oklahoma by 135% and strengthening Oklahoma’s workforce, economy, and technological infrastructure.

This workforce development program is in addition to the funding Google has provided to local organizations that have trained more than 150,000 Oklahoma residents in digital skills. It also builds on the wide variety of jobs Google continues to create across the state — from computer technicians and engineers to food service and security roles.

Educating Oklahoma’s Next-Generation Workforce: Technology creates opportunity, and preparing Oklahomans with critical AI and job-ready skills sets them up for success and creates a skilled talent pipeline of workers in the state. OU and OSU are among the universities in the country that are part of the Google AI for Education Accelerator that launched last week, giving Sooners and Cowboys — students, faculty, and staff — no-cost access to Google Career Certificates and AI training courses. As part of the broader $1 billion commitment to American education and competitiveness that was also announced last week, all Oklahoma-based college students now have access to free Google AI Pro plan for 12 months and free AI training and job search support.

Driving Economic Opportunity: Google’s investments and technologies helped provide more than $2.2 billion of activity for tens of thousands of Oklahoma businesses, publishers, nonprofits, creators, and developers in 2024 alone. Technologies like Search, YouTube, Google Cloud, and Workspace are enabling growth for businesses and public sector organizations across the state, from the State of Oklahoma, which is leveraging Google Cloud AI to accelerate digital transformation across its agencies, to small businesses like Family Vision Care of Ponca City, which is using Gemini for Google Workspace help their patients make more informed optometric care decisions.

Learn more about Google in Oklahoma at g.co/economicimpact/ok.

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Education

Parents in England to pay more for school lunches as caterers blame rising costs | School meals

Published

4 hours ago

August 30, 2025

Sarah Marsh Consumer affairs correspondent

Parents across England are facing higher prices for school lunches as the new school year begins, with caterers blaming the government’s national insurance increase alongside rising food and energy costs.

Lunch providers say increases in staffing costs, including employer national insurance contributions announced by the chancellor last year, have added “significant extra pressure” to their budgets.

Food price inflation is also driving costs higher, pushing consumer prices above forecasts this summer. Prices for food and non-alcoholic drinks rose 4.9% in the year to July and are now 37% higher than five years ago, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.

Letters sent to parents informing them of price rises acknowledged the strain on families but said changes were unavoidable if catering services were to remain viable.

At Coleham primary in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, meals will rise by 10p a day to £2.60 from September 2025 because of “rising operational costs”. Bridge Hall primary in Stockport, Greater Manchester, said charges would rise by 8p to £2.73 – a 3.1% increase “in line with UK inflation”. Fernhurst Junior in Portsmouth confirmed a new daily rate of £2.86, and West Vale Academy in Halifax £2.60. Kingskerswell Church of England primary school in Newton Abbott raised costs to £2.75, up by 30p.

Ministers have promised to widen eligibility for free meals from 2026 but schools have said they cannot wait that long.

About a quarter of pupils in Englandcurrently qualify for free school meals, but campaigners say the government’s £2.61-a-meal funding is no longer sufficient, leaving schools to plug the gap.

“All schools will be navigating the impact of rapidly rising food costs,” said Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the school leaders’ union the National Association of Head Teachers. “Sometimes school dinners are the only reliable nutritious meal a child will get that day, so for this to be of worse quality or more expensive is extremely concerning.”

Judith Gregory, chair of LACA, which represents public and private sector caterers in schools, said they were “doing everything possible to shield families by streamlining menus, adapting recipes and finding efficiencies”.

But Gregory said caterers’ efforts were not enough, and schools were having to raise costs for others to cover the funding shortfall.

“Food inflation has driven up the cost of school meals by more than 20% since 2020,” she said. “Without urgent action to raise funding to at least £3.45 per meal, schools will be forced to reduce options or introduce less costly ingredients, while families just above the free school meal threshold face higher charges.”

Gregory said the recent increase in employer’s national insurance as well as annual pay increases for workers were adding “significant extra pressure” on top of already steep rises in food costs.

Barbara Crowther, the children’s food campaign manager at Sustain, a group advocating for food and agriculture policies and practices that enhance health and welfare, said the “true cost of a healthy, sustainable school meal” was now closer to £3-£3.20, depending on the size of schools and catering operations.

Campaigners argue that the higher charges will disproportionately affect low-income families, with many falling just below the threshold for free school meals.

“School leaders are deeply worried,” said Whiteman. “They are seeing more families struggling and more children living in poverty – child hunger is a real concern. There is only so long schools can keep swallowing the increases. For many, putting up the cost of meals is now the only option.”

The Department for Education said the government has taken “a historic step to tackle the stain of child poverty, offering free school meals to every child from a household that claims universal credit from the start of the 2026 school year”.

A spokesperson added: “The new entitlement will be fully funded and lift 100,000 children entirely out of poverty. To make sure meals are high-quality and nutritious, the government is working with experts to revise the school food standards, and we will continue to work closely with the sector to keep meal rates under review.”

The Guardian was unable to reach schools for comment.

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Education

Meet the three-year-olds helping anxious teens spend more time in school

Published

9 hours ago

August 30, 2025

Yasmin Rufo

BBC A teenage girl and a toddler smiling and talking to each other — Research shows that a disengaged teenager having a responsibility for a younger child in a controlled setting can have a positive impact on attendance levels

Siena never thought she’d be taking lessons in communication and confidence from a three-year-old.

She is part of a scheme that pairs teenagers with toddlers from a local nursery in a bid to help increase school attendance and engagement.

The 13-year-old says she had a “lot of anxiety” so would never be in school, but “coming here has taught me more about how to communicate and be more confident and it’s funny a toddler is teaching us things.”

While she didn’t think the project would help increase her attendance, it has actually more than doubled.

“It’s really helped me,” she says. “The toddler I’m paired with has grown so much and it makes me so happy to see,” she tells the BBC’s Morning Live.

Morning Live returns on Monday at 0930am. Watch this and more here.

As the summer holiday ends and the new school year begins, many parents will be worrying about their child’s attendance and engagement.

The issue of school avoidance is a big one and one charity has created this mentoring programme with its research suggesting that a disengaged teenager having responsibility for a younger child in a controlled setting can have a positive impact on their engagement with school and learning.

How can you help your child with attendance?

This scheme is one small programme aiming to help with the very complex issue of school advoidance.

The Department for Education provides guidance on what to do if your child is struggling to attend school.

Dr Weisberg, a consultant clinical psychologist who works with young people who feel disconnected from their education, says often children find it hard to engage with education because “there are lots of rules at school and none of them are under the kid’s control”.

In contrast, this programme “gives them a responsibility and empowerment to learn from what works and what doesn’t and they feel like they are making a real difference”.

He gives three tips on how parents can work with their child to improve their attendance:

Raise it with the school – “Make sure the school are on the same page and there are lots of charities and support available to make things better.”

Give the child agency – “Be available. I recommend parents spend at least 10 minutes a day with each child without distractions like screens or phones.”

Follow their lead – With younger children, it’s important for parents to play with them and follow their lead which can “foster healthy relationships and confidence”.

Sue Armstrong, a clinical service manager at relationship support charity Relate, says other ways to support your child through school anxiety and avoidance include:

Avoid blaming yourself and your child – “It’s important to try not to feel guilty or that this is somehow your fault”.

Look forward to positive things – “Continuing ‘normal’ family events will help all of you. Finding time, when you can, for your own interests, as a couple and individually, is vital”.

Accept there will be ups and downs – “You may feel you’re being pulled in every direction, having to keep a job going and support your child when they may be feeling very anxious and confused, that there’s no space left for you”.

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Education

AI Has Broken High School and College

Published

15 hours ago

August 29, 2025

Damon Beres

This is Atlantic Intelligence, a newsletter in which our writers help you wrap your mind around artificial intelligence and a new machine age. Sign up here.

Another school year is beginning—which means another year of AI-written essays, AI-completed problem sets, and, for teachers, AI-generated curricula. For the first time, seniors in high school have had their entire high-school careers defined to some extent by chatbots. The same applies for seniors in college: ChatGPT released in November 2022, meaning unlike last year’s graduating class, this year’s crop has had generative AI at its fingertips the whole time.

My colleagues Ian Bogost and Lila Shroff both recently wrote articles about these students and the state of AI in education. (Ian, a university professor himself, wrote about college, while Lila wrote about high school.) Their articles were striking: It is clear that AI has been widely adopted, by students and faculty alike, yet the technology has also turned school into a kind of free-for-all.

I asked Lila and Ian to have a brief conversation about their work—and about where AI in education goes from here.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Lila Shroff: We’re a few years into AI in schools. Is the conversation maturing or changing in some way at universities?

Ian Bogost: Professors are less surprised that it exists, but there is maybe a bit of a blind spot to the state of adoption among students. I saw a panic in 2022, 2023—like, Oh my God, this can do anything. Or at least there were questions. Can this do everything? How much is my class at risk? Now I think there’s more of a sense of, Well, this thing still exists, but we have time. We don’t have to worry about it right away. And that might actually be a worse reaction than the original.

Lila: The blind-spot language rings true to the high-school environment too. I spoke to some high schoolers—granted this was quite a small sample—but basically it sounds like everybody is using this all the time for everything.

Ian: Not just for school, right? Anything they want to do, they’re asking ChatGPT now.

Lila: I was a sophomore in college when ChatGPT came out, so I witnessed some of this firsthand. There was much more anxiety—it felt like the rules were unclear. And I think both of our stories touched on the fact that for this incoming class of high-school and college seniors, they’ve barely had any of those four years without ChatGPT. Whatever sort of stigma or confusion that might have been there in earlier years is fading, and it’s becoming very much default and normalized.

Ian: Normalization is the thing that struck me the most. That is not a concept that I think the teachers have wrapped their heads around. Teachers and faculty also have been adopting AI carefully or casually—or maybe even in a more professional way, to write articles or letters of recommendation, which I’ve written about. There’s still this sense that it’s not really a part of their habit.

Lila: I looked into teachers at the K–12 level for the article I wrote. Three in 10 teachers are using AI weekly in some way.

Ian: Some kind of redesign of educational practice might be required, which is easy for me to say in an article. Instead of an answer, I have an approach to thinking about the answer that has been bouncing around in my brain. Are you familiar with the concept in software development called technical debt? In the software world, you make the decision about how to design or implement a system that feels good and right at the time. And maybe you know it’s going to be a bad idea in the long run, but for now, it makes sense and it is convenient. But you never get around to really making it better later on, and so you have all these nonoptimal aspects of your infrastructure.

That’s the state I feel like we’re in, at least in the university. It’s a little different in high school, especially in public high school, with these different regulatory regimes at work. But we accrued all this pedagogical debt, and not just since AI—there are aspects of teaching that we ought to be paying more attention to or doing better, like, this class needs to be smaller, or these kinds of assignments don’t work unless you have a lot of hands-on iterative feedback. We’ve been able to survive under the weight of pedagogical debt, and now something snapped. AI entered the scene and all of those bad or questionable—but understandable—decisions about how to design learning experiences are coming home to roost.

Lila: I agree that AI is a breaking point in education. One answer that seems to be emerging at the high-school level is a more practical, skills-based education. The College Board, for instance, has announced two new AP courses—AP Business and AP Cybersecurity. But there’s another group of people who are really concerned about how overreliance on these tools erodes critical-thinking skills, and maybe that means everyone should go read the classics and write their essays in cursive handwriting.

Ian: My young daughter has been going to this set of classes outside of school where she learned how to wire an outlet. We used to have shop class and metal class, and you could learn a trade, or at least begin to, in high school. A lot of that stuff has been disinvested. We used to touch more things. Now we move symbols around, and that’s kind of it.

I wonder if this all-or-nothing nature of AI use has something to do with that. If you had a place in your day as a high-school or college student where you just got to paint, or got to do on-the-ground work in the community, or apply the work you did in statistics class to solve a real-world problem—maybe that urge to just finish everything as rapidly as possible so you can get onto the next thing in your life would be less acute. The AI problem is a symptom of a bigger cultural illness, in a way.

Lila: Students are using AI exactly as it has been designed, right? They’re just making themselves more productive. If they were doing the same thing in an office, they might be getting a bonus.

Ian: Some of the students I talked to said, Your boss isn’t going to care how you get things done, just that they get done as effectively as possible. And they’re not wrong about that.

Lila: One student I talked to said she felt there was really too much to be done, and it was hard to stay on top of it all. Her message was, maybe slow down the pace of the work and give students more time to do things more richly.

Ian: The college students I talk to, if you slow it all down, they’re more likely to start a new club or practice lacrosse one more day a week. But I do love the idea of a slow-school movement to sort of counteract AI. That doesn’t necessarily mean excluding AI—it just means not filling every moment of every day with quite so much demand.

But you know, this doesn’t feel like the time for a victory of deliberateness and meaning in America. Instead, it just feels like you’re always going to be fighting against the drive to perform even more.

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