Because educators should pour their brain-power into teaching, not tallying rubrics.
The Grind We're Solving
Fifth-grade teachers at Navigator average five hours each week hand-scoring "Text Connection" responses.
Students often wait three days or more to see feedback.
Conference time, small-group reteach, even lunch-duty prep gets swallowed by red-pen triage.
"I loved conferencing, but I ended up swapping it for marathon grading." — Navigator teacher
Meet TextConnect AI
Auto-scores every response against our four-point rubric in under thirty seconds.
Surfaces class-wide trends and subgroup gaps (ELP levels, IEP, etc.).
Generates five actionable next moves—mini-lessons, sentence frames, and grouping ideas—written as if a Navigator Language-Development specialist were on call.
Syncs with Google Classroom and Canvas so there's no extra log-in, no CSV purgatory.
Cost to the school? About one dollar per class set of thirty essays.
How the Magic Happens (Plain English)
Students hit "Submit."
Their writing and lesson code travel through a secure API to GPT-4o, which returns criterion-level scores and concise justifications.
A lightning-fast analytics engine crunches the whole set, highlighting strengths and growth areas.
A second GPT-4o call behaves like your Language-Development coach, turning data into classroom-ready instructional moves.
You grab your coffee and open a dashboard that's already waiting for you.
Early Pilot Wins
Teacher time spent scoring sliced from four hours to under ninety minutes per week.
Turnaround dropped from days to same-day feedback for eighty-nine percent of essays.
The share of students who revised at least once more than doubled, climbing from thirty-one to sixty-eight percent.
Teacher confidence in LD scaffolding leapt from 2.8 to 4.2 on a five-point scale.
"Friday finally became a day to teach, not to catch up." — Ms. P., Grade 5
Your Voice Matters — Help Shape the Next Feature
We're deciding how TextConnect AI should deliver feedback:
Voice-generated notes — AI records a quick thirty-second audio clip students can replay.
OCR for handwriting — Snap a photo of student notebooks; AI transcribes and scores them.
In-text annotations — Google-Docs-style comments embedded in the draft.
A blend of everything above.
Vote in the LinkedIn poll beneath this article (or drop a comment if you need more than one option) and tell us why your pick would transform your workflow. Real stories and concerns will shape our next sprint—and we'll quote the best takes in the June issue.
Why This Really Matters
Feedback velocity equals learning velocity. Instant scores turn a one-and-done assignment into a true revision loop.
Equity stays front-and-center. Subgroup analytics spotlight emergent bilingual needs long before state tests whisper bad news.
Teacher efficacy skyrockets. The app handles the clerical; you handle the craft. That's professional power.
What's Next
Module-2 rollout (science-based informative writing) drops in June.
Voice comments with auto-translate are slated for August—if the poll agrees.
Get Involved
District leaders: DM me for a fifteen-minute demo—see your own rubric live in action.
Teachers: Join the early-adopter community for sneak-peek features (and some swag).
Everyone: Smash Subscribe so you never miss a drop of practical AI that puts time back in educators' pockets.