ICYMI: Pride Edition (6/22)
This weekend my little under-50K county hosted its second annual Pride in the Park event, and it was a lovely day for it. Plenty of friends, many fun booths, some good food, live music--everything necessary for a fun park festival. A really nice way to get the summer under way.
The Institute's mobile office (aka my aging laptop) self-obliterated about a week ago, so purchasing and setting up the replacement has been sucking up time here. You really forget just how many apps and passwords and bits and pieces you have loaded into a machine until you have to replace them all. Meanwhile, I am really trying to keep my resolve to prioritize writing the book over posting and other ancillary activities, but sometimes the world makes it really hard.
A reminder that if you are reading on the original mother ship, there's a whole list of links to excellent writing about education. Now here's the list for the week.
Broad network of anti-student-inclusion groups impacts public education
The Southern Poverty Law Center takes a look at the groups and tactics working against diversity and inclusion in education. Not encouraging, but informative.
Can AI identify safety threats in schools? One district wants to try.
Karina Elwood at the Washington Post reports on one more leap forward in the super-creepy surveillance state. Omnipresent cameras plus only-kind-of-reliable AI. What could possibly go wrong?
Abstinence, patriotism and monogamy all required curriculum under new Ohio bill
Ohio's legislature is working hard to become one of the worst in the nation, what with mandating their own social ideology for students. Report from Katie Milard at NBC4.
One of the big brains at the U of Arkansas's department of dismantling public ed has some thoughts about DEI. Nancy Flanagan explains just how full of it he is.
Bizarre WAPO Opinion Piece by Hanushek and Raymond
A reality-impaired op-ed from two old-school reformsters sends Thomas Ultican on a trip down memory lane, with pity stops to look at some of the bunkum that has appeared along the way. When folks use Michelle Rhee as an example of awesomeness, you know you're in Bizarro World.
AI Is Not the Inevitable Answer to What Ails Us: We've Seen Artificial Solutions Before
John Robinson reminds that we've seen this movie before, and the latest miracle cure is not inevitable.
It's Compassion That Gets Stuff Done
Teacher Tom explains that reason and logic aren't necessarily the tools that students need all the time.
Oak Ridge Schools Bows to Book Banning Legislation by the Tennessee Taliban
James Horn provides yet one more example of a gutless school district making absurd choices for books to ban from its libraries-- like medical texts and books about important artists like Donatello and Edward Hopper.
Audrey Watters offers a ton of great links this week, plus solid arguments against AI in education. You really should subscribe.
Jan Resseger points out that maybe it's not great for schools to be repeatedly raided by the ICE thuggery patrol.
Code Red: How AI Is Set to Supercharge Racism, Rewrite History, and Hijack Learning
Apparently I'm reading a lot about AI these days. Here's a take from Julian Vasquez-Heilig to remind us that AI is not remotely objective.
Have You Heard, the podcast from Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire, hits its 200th episode with a stacked line up of Audrey Watters, Ben Riley, and John Warner discussing AI hype (there's a transcript here, too, if you're one of those).
Benhamin Riley addresses the argument that opposition to AI is just like when Plato opposed writing, and we know he was wrong about that, so...
AI in the Classroom with Brett Vogelsinger
Of all the AI non-skeptics out there, Brett Vogelsinger seems to have the most thoughtful views on how to incorporate it in the classroom. This interview with Marcus Luther gives you a sense of what he's talking about (again, transcript for those who'd rather read than listen).
School Choice without equity is cover for inequality in our public schools
Jesse Turner talks to Robert Cotto (Trinity College) about the equity issues of school choice.
I Tried To Make Something In America (The Smarter Scrubber Experiment)
Not directly related to education, but I found this video fascinating. The guy at Smarter Every Day sets out to make a grill scrubber in America. The process shows some of the barriers, but it particularly illustrates the loss of tool and die workers and what that means to US industry.
Is there a more extraordinary friendship than that between Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett in the end stretch of his career. Those final concerts, with 95 year old Bennett in the grip of Alzheimers, becoming himself again through the music, and Gaga supporting him through it-- I mean, damn. Somietimes we humans can be beautiful, and it's important to remember that. Here's a Cole Porter song from their last album together.
Thank you for these resources. With several CTA members, we’ve set a goal to read up on AI this summer and how it affects student learning, copyright infringement, the ways in which it hurts our teacher workforce, and its impacts on the environment. This past year of teaching I felt its impact enormously on student engagement. I do not assign very much on the computer, and now I will do so even less. Teachers of students learning English in mainstream classes were encouraged in writing by an Associate Superintendent that they could use AI to create versions of texts at lower lexile levels. In PD sessions, we were trained on using Raina, the Magic School Bus chatbot, to help us create lessons and vocabulary lists in multiple languages. While this became a powerful tool for me as a teacher, I knew how to use it “wisely,” so to speak, and edited content profusely, students who knew very little English were using ChatGPT to translate and answer questions for them in history, English, and likely more classes. Our teachers were not able to grasp or respond to these changes in student “work” adequately over this past year. I do not foresee our district taking on the negative learning outcomes for quite some time as their only interest is graduation rates, meaning passing students whether real benchmarks or learning occurs. The PD on AI seems heavily focused on using it as a “time saver” for teacher planning instead. This upcoming school year portends significant upheavals as several teachers I know are quietly quitting assigning long form essays, and will now only have students produce writing in class and on paper.