“I really still don’t understand how it’s a political statement,” she said. “I don’t think the classroom is a place for anyone to push a personal agenda or political agenda of any kind, but we are responsible for first making sure that our students are able to learn in our classroom.”
Saturday, April 5, 2025
Maybe It's The Racism
“I really still don’t understand how it’s a political statement,” she said. “I don’t think the classroom is a place for anyone to push a personal agenda or political agenda of any kind, but we are responsible for first making sure that our students are able to learn in our classroom.”
Friday, April 4, 2025
Trump, McMahon, and Gollum's Lie
They couldn't resist. Faced with a choice between either sending education back to the states in the form of unrestricted block grants or using the power of that big pile of money to force states to bend the knee, the administration just could not throw the Ring of Power away. Especially when they can use The Precious to force their most favorite thing in the world-- making someone bow to them and kiss the ring, acknowledging that Dear Leader is their master, and they will do as Dear Leader tells them to.
So the Department of Education will require every school and state to sign a statement certifying that they will absolutely comply with the administration's demand that they never, ever touch that nasty DEI stuff. Otherwise, the administration will withhold the money. Dance, puppets! Dance!
This is yet another probably-illegal Trump move; the federal government is expressly forbidden to dictate to local schools how they are going to do business. But Trump wouldn't be the first President to look at that obstacle and say, "I'll bet we can work around this." No Child Left Behind and Race To The Top wore that obstacle down to barely a speed bump.
So rather than wait for the courts to weigh in and then Trump to ignore them and then for them to weigh in again, I have an idea about how districts can deal with this.
Lie.
Pinky promise that you will never ever touch the dirty DEI. Make the pledge. Sign whatever piece of paper they concoct. And then go back to doing what you know is right.
I mean, lying is the Trump way. Say whatever the hell you want, make whatever claims suit you, and then go back to doing whatever you intended to do. Breaking agreements and welching on contracts is the Trump business way, and given the amount of government contractual obligation being cut off in mid progress, it's apparently the Trump government way as well.
And Trump and McMahon are lying right now with this demand. The administration continues to be coy and vague about what, exactly, about DEI they want stopped. One reason is because having clear rules reduces the dependence on Dear Leader. It's not just that the chilling effect will lead to people over-complying in advance. It's that having a clear rule would mean that people wouldn't have to constantly turn back to Dear Leader for approval. "There are no rules," says the authoritarian ruler. "Not even rules I make. There is only me. Don't ever take your attention away from me."
The DEI rules are also vague because even these guys know that saying out loud, "The nice things must always be only for the white people. You must never give attention, privilege, or support to non-white people that is more than what white people get."
See, they are lying about what this edict requires.
If you are a long-time regular reader, you know that I am not a fan of lying. I hate lies. Lying is a toxic activity, and it always comes with a cost.
They are lying about what they want, about what they are demanding schools to do. What they appear to want is A) for every school and state in the country to acknowledge that Dear Leader is the boss of them and B) stop trying to give nice things to people who aren't white.
I hate lies. But schools are now in a lose-lose, lie-lie situation. Either they accept the lies implicit in the edict, or they lie about what they are going to do. One of those lies allows for mistreatment of students and erosion of the independence and local control of schools. The other lets educators do the work they are supposed to be doing.
Gollum could not willingly give up the ring of power, and he used it for terrible purposes. Would it have been wrong to lie to him? These are the kinds of moral dilemas we face these days.
I was about halfway through my career when I concluded that teaching is a sort of guerilla battle in which one pursues the work and does whatever one must to circumvent obstacles, even if those obstacles are things (and people) that are supposed to be supporting you. How many teachers dealt with requirements to tag every bit of every lesson plan with the specific standards it would address by simply adding whatever tags filled up the space and then went back to work, paperwork requirements met. Schools could do that again.
Difficult times call for difficult choices. I'm just saying.
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
OK: Another First Amendment Lawsuit
Oklahoma's Education Dudebro-in-Chief just loves him some lawsuits, so he's decided to launch another one, this time going after the Freedom From Religion Foundation in a federal lawsuit that pushes back against a challenge to his efforts to inject Christianity into Oklahoma classrooms.
The triggering event for Walters appears to have been a cease and desist letter sent to Achilles Public School on behalf of a parent who objected to a beginning the day with a mandatory prayer and teachers reading Bible verses to students. Walters says this is about more than a single school, but does not name other schools in the suit. FFRF surmises that these may be references to other complaints against Oklahoma schools that were peacefully settled in previous years.Walters statement about the suit boils down to "We won't let these out-of-state atheists try to erase faith from public life." FFRF is based in Wisconsin.
The sequence of event laid out by the complaint puts the letter in the context of his drive to address the “dismantling of faith and family values in public schools.” It notes that he made his Bibles-in-classrooms directive, then opened the Office of Religious Liberty and Patriotism, and so, in line with that, an APS teacher started using Bible verses in lessons, and the school started including prayers in morning announcements. Shortly after that, the superintendent received the letter regarding “unconstitutional school-sponsored prayer and bible readings.” FFRF requested that the school knock it off.
The actual argument cites the "trendy disdain for deep religious convictions" line from Espinoza. It argues that Oklahoma is super-religious (therefor, I guess, they want religion injected in schools). OSDE and Walters are doing their job of determining what Oklahoma students should learn, and FFRF
has interfered with and continues to interfere with Superintendent Walters’s and OSDE’s statutory duty to oversee Oklahoma’s public schools and their duty to implement curricular standards, investigate any complaints levied against an Oklahoma school, and advocate for its students and parents.
There is the usual dismissal of the wall between church and state:
FFRF claims as its basis for such interference as its desire to “promote the constitutional principle of separation of church and state.” Curiously, neither the word “separation” nor the word “church” appears anywhere in the text of the United States Constitution. By contrast, the Declaration of Independence makes reference to God, a “Creator,” a “Supreme Judge,” and “Divine Providence,” thereby solidifying the notion that a complete “separation of church and state” was never the intention of the Nation’s founders.
The complaint also paints FFRF as just annoying busybodies, going all the way back to their response to the 1996 Oklahoma bombing. The audacity.
In reality, their actions are nothing more than the very prejudice, hatred, and bigotry they pretend to despise hidden behind a thinly woven cloak of constitutional championship.
Finally, Achille is a small town and FFRF has 40,000 members. So FFRF, argues the complaint in "an analogy sure to draw FFRF's ire, is Goliath picking on a David.
And while the plaintiffs face "irreparable injury," not so the FFRF
as the Defendant has no interest in how the State of Oklahoma chooses to govern its citizens, how the duly elected Superintendent of Public Instruction performs the duties of his office, or how Oklahoma’s public schools implement curriculum and standards set forth by the OSDE and the State Board of Education. Granting an injunction weighs in favor of public interest. If the citizens of Oklahoma are unhappy with their elected officials, the solution is at the ballot box, and not in the hands of an out-of-state organization with little else to do but issue non-stop cease and desist letters to rural and independent school districts in states that are half a country away from them.
I include all these quotes just to give a sense of how angry the lawsuit is. Walters, like many MAGA christianists, just seems so angry and unhappy.
The lawsuit can't quite make up its mind about what's going on here. This Bible reading shouldn't be a big deal because the Supreme Court has long recognized "the secular value of religious texts, including the Bible, in school settings" but also the court should enjoin FFRF from interfering with the school faculty, staff or students "exercising their rights under the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment." So, there are no religious practices going on here, and also, how dare you interfere with these religious practices. But they're correct in mentioning the First Amendment, because if Walters' various Religion (But Only My Religion) In The Classroom policies aren't a violation of the Establishment Clause, I don't know what is.
So here we go-- one more case to pry apart the First Amendment and batter the separation of church and state. Who knows how this will turn out, other than resulting in one more Ryan Walters media blitz. But in the meantime, if you'd like to join or contribute to the Freedom From Religion Foundation, you can do that here.
Where Does AI Fit In The Writing Process
Sunday, March 30, 2025
Ready For An AI Dean?
From the very first sentence, it's clear that this recent Inside Higher Ed post suffers from one more bad case of AI fabulism.
In the era of artificial intelligence, one in which algorithms are rapidly guiding decisions from stock trading to medical diagnoses, it is time to entertain the possibility that one of the last bastions of human leadership—academic deanship—could be next for a digital overhaul.
AI fabulism and some precious notions about the place of deans in the universe of human leadership.
The author is Birce Tanriguden, a music education professor at the Hartt School at the University of Hartford, and this inquiry into what "AI could bring to the table that a human dean can't" is not her only foray into this topic. This month she also published in Women in Higher Education a piece entitled "The Artificially Intelligent Dean: Empowering Women and Dismantling Academic Sexism-- One Byte at a Time."
The WHE piece is academic-ish, complete with footnotes (though mostly about the sexism part). In that piece, Tanriguden sets out her possible solution
AI holds the potential to be a transformative ally in promoting women into academic leadership roles. By analyzing career trajectories and institutional biases, our AI dean could become the ultimate career counselor, spotting those invisible banana peels of bias that often trip up women's progress, effectively countering the "accumulation of advantage" that so generously favors men.
Tanriguden notes the need to balance efficiency with empathy:
Despite the promise of AI, it's crucial to remember that an AI dean might excel in compiling tenure-track spreadsheets but could hardly inspire a faculty member with a heartfelt, "I believe in you." Academic leadership demands more than algorithmic precision; it requires a human touch that AI, with all its efficiency, simply cannot emulate.
I commend the author's turns of phrase, but I'm not sure about her grasp of AI. In fact, I'm not sure that current Large Language Models aren't actually better at faking a human touch than they are at arriving at efficient, trustworthy, data-based decisions.
Back to the IHE piece, in which she lays out what she thinks AI brings to the deanship. Deaning, she argues, involves balancing all sorts of competing priorities while "mediating, apologizing and navigating red tape and political minefields."
The problem is that human deans are, well, human. As much as they may strive for balance, the delicate act of satisfying all parties often results in missteps. So why not replace them with an entity capable of making precise decisions, an entity unfazed by the endless barrage of emails, faculty complaints and budget crises?
The promise of AI lies in its ability to process vast amounts of data and reach quick conclusions based on evidence.
Well, no. First, nothing being described here sounds like AI; this is just plain old programming, a "Dean In A Box" app. Which means it will process vast amounts of data and reach conclusions based on whatever the program tells it to do with that data, and that will be based on whatever the programmer wrote. Suppose the programmer writes the program so that complaints from male faculty members are weighted twice as much as those from female faculty. So much for AI dean's "lack of personal bias."
But suppose she really means AI in the sense of software that uses a form of machine learning to analyze and pull out patterns in its training data. AI "learns: to trade stocks by being trained with a gazillion previous stock trades and situations, thereby allowing it to suss out patterns for when to buy or sell. Medical diagnostic AI is training with a gazillion examples of medical histories of patients, allowing it to recognize how a new entry from a new patient fits in all that the patterns. Chatbots like ChatGPT do words by "learning" from vast (stolen) samples of word use that lead to a mountain of word patter "rules" that allow it to determine what words are likely next.
All of these AI are trained on huge data sets of examples from the past.
What would you use to train AI Dean? What giant database would you use to train it, what collection of info about the behavior of various faculty and students and administrators and colleges and universities in the past? More importantly, who would label the data sets as "successful" or "failed"? Medical data sets come with simple metrics like "patient died from this" or "the patient lived fifty more years with no issues." Stock markets come with their own built in measure of success. Who is going to determine which parts of the Dean Training Dataset are successful or not.
This is one of the problems with chatbots. They have a whole lot of data about how language has been used, but no meta-data to cover things like "This is horrifying racist nazi stuff and is not a desirable use of language" and so we get the multiple examples of chatbots going off the rails.
Tanriguden tries to address some of this. Under the heading of how AI Dean would evaluate faculty.
With the ability to assess everything from research output to student evaluations in real time, AI could determine promotions, tenure decisions and budget allocations with a cold, calculated rationality. AI could evaluate a faculty member’s publication record by considering the quantity of peer-reviewed articles and the impact factor of the journals in which they are published.
Followed by some more details about those measures. Which raises another question. A human could do this-- if they wanted to. But if they don't want to, why would they want a computer program to do it?
The other point here is that once again, the person deciding what the algorithm is going to measure is the person whose biases are embedded in the system.
Tanriguden also presents "constant availability, zero fatigue" as a selling point. She says deans have to do a lot of meetings, but (her real example) when, at 2 AM, the department chair needs a decision on a new course offering, AI Dean can provide an answer "devoid of any influence of sleep deprivation or emotional exhaustion."
First, is that really a thing that happens? Because I'm just a K-12 guy, so maybe I just don't know. But that seems to me like something that would happen in an organization that has way bigger problems than any AI can solve. But second, once again, who decided what AI Dean's answer will be based upon? And if it's such a clear criterion that it can be codified in software, why can't even a sleepy human dean apply it?
Finally, she goes with "fairness and impartiality," dreaming of how AI Dean would apply rules "without regard to the political dynamics of a faculty meeting." Impartial? Sure (though we could argue about how desirable that is, really). Fair? Only as fair as it was written to be, which starts with the programmer's definition of "fair."
Tanriguden wraps up the IHE piece once again acknowledging that leadership needs more than data as well as "the issue of the academic heart."
It is about understanding faculty’s nuanced human experiences, recognizing the emotional labor involved in teaching and responding to the unspoken concerns that shape institutional culture. Can an AI ever understand the deep-seated anxieties of a faculty member facing the pressure of publishing or perishing? Can it recognize when a colleague is silently struggling with mental health challenges that data points will never reveal?
In her conclusion she arrives at Hybrid Dean as an answer:
While the advantages of AI—efficiency, impartiality and data-driven decision-making—are tantalizing, they cannot fully replace the empathy, strategic insight and mentorship that human deans provide. The true challenge may lie not in replacing human deans but in reimagining their roles so that they can coexist with AI systems. Perhaps the future of academia involves a hybrid approach: an AI dean that handles (or at least guides) the operational decisions, leaving human deans to focus on the art of leadership and faculty development.
We're seeing lots of this sort of resigned knuckling under in lots of education folks who seem resigned to the predicted inevitability of AI (as always in ed tech, predicted by people who have a stake in the biz). But the important part here is that I don't believe that AI can hold up its half of the bargain. In a job that involves management of humans and education and interpersonal stuff in an ever-changing environment, I don't believe AI can bring any of the contributions that she expects from it.
ICYMI: One Week To Go Edition (3/30)
Banned Books, School Walkouts, Child Care Shortages: Military Families Confront Pentagon's Shifting Rules
Friday, March 28, 2025
And Now, Thought Crime
Oh, Bill. Hush.
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Losing The Federal Education Mission
AR: Attempting To Make Non-conforming Haircuts Illegal
Arkansas state legislature is deeply worried about trans persons. Rep. Mary Bentley (R- 73rd Dist) has been trying to make trans kids go away for years as with her 2021 bill to protect teachers who used students dead names or misgender them (that's the same year she pushed a bill to require the teaching of creationism in schools).
In 2023, Bentley successfully sponsored a bill that authorizes malpractice lawsuits against doctors who provide gender-affirming care for transgender youth. Now Bentley has proposed HB 1668, "The Vulnerable Youth Protection Act" which takes things a step or two further.
The bill authorizes lawsuits, and the language around the actual suing and collecting money part is long and complex-- complex enough to suspect that Bentley, whose work experience is running rableware manufacturer Bentley Plastics, might have had some help "writing" the bill. The part where it lists the forbidden activities is short, but raises the eyebrows.
The bill holds anyone who "knowingly causes or contributes to the social transitioning of a minor or the castration, sterilization, or mutilation of a minor" liable to the minor or their parents. The surgical part is no shocker-- I'm not sure you could find many doctors who would perform that surgery without parental consent, and certainly not in Arkansas (see 2023 law). But social transitioning? How does the bill define that?
"Social transitioning" means any act by which a minor adopts or espouses a gender identity that differs from the minor’s biological sex as determined by the sex organs, chromosomes, and endogenous profiles of the minor, including without limitation changes in clothing, pronouns, hairstyle, and name.
So a girl who wears "boy" jeans? A boy who wears his hair long? Is there an article of clothing that is so "male" that it's notably unusual to see a girl wearing it? I suppose that matters less because trans panic is more heavily weighted against male-to-female transition. But boy would I love to see a school's rules on what hair styles qualify as male or female.
Also, parental consent doesn't make any difference. Rep. Nicole Clowney keyed on that, as reported by the Arkansas Times:
“Is there anything in the bill that addresses the parental consent piece?” Clowney asked. “Even if a parent says, ‘Please call my child by this pronoun or this name,’ it appears to me that anybody who follows the wishes of that parent … that they would be subject to the civil liability you propose here. Is that correct?”
“That is correct,” Bentley said. “I think that we’re just stating that social transitioning is excessively harmful to children and we want to change that in our state. We want to make sure that our children are no longer exposed to that danger.”
In other words, this is not a "parental rights" issue, but a "let's not have any Trans Stuff in our state" issue.
In hearing, an attorney from the Arkansas Attorney General's office observed that this was pretty much an indefensible violation of student's First Amendment rights, and the AF office wouldn't be able to defend it. According to the Times, Bentley agreed to tweak the bill a bit, but we can already see where she wants to go with this.
The person filing the suit against a teacher who used the wrong pronoun or congratulated the student on their haircut could be liable for $10 million or more, and they've got 20 years to file a suit.
I'm never going to pretend that these issues are simple or easy, that it's not tricky for a school to look out for the interests and rights of both parents and students when those parents and students are in conflict. But I would suggest remembering two things-- trans persons are human beings and they are not disappearing. They have always existed, they will always exist, and, to repeat, they are actual human persons.
I was in school with trans persons in the early seventies. I have had trans students in my classroom. They are human beings, deserving of the same decency and humanity as any other human. I know there are folks among us who insist on arguing from the premise that some people aren't really people and decency and humanity are not for everyone (and empathy is a weakness). I don't get why some people on the right, particularly many who call themselves Christians, are so desperately frightened/angry about trans persons, but I do know that no human problems are solved by treating some human beings as less-than-human. And when your fear leads to policing children's haircuts to fit your meager, narrow, brittle, fragile view of how humans should be, you are a menace to everyone around you. You have lost the plot. Arkansas, be better.
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
FL: Replacing Immigrant Workers With Children
“Why do we say we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally, when you know, teenagers used to work at these resorts, college students should be able to do this stuff,” DeSantis said last week at a panel discussion with border czar Tom Homan, as first reported by the Tampa Bay Times.
Yep. Time to bring back child labor.
It has been a trend for a few years now. Many states that have been busy whacking away at public education have also been getting rid of child labor laws. Some, like Arkansas, teamed up the gutting of child labor protections with laws set to kneecap public schools. Iowa removed protections that kept young workers out of more physically dangerous jobs while expanding the hours they could be asked to work. Missouri similarly shot for increasing working hours for teens. Minnesota said yes to teens working in heavy construction.
In fact, some states are so excited about bringing back child labor, they are willing to bypass parents to do it. You remember how many states require teens to get a permit signed by parents and/or school? Now Arkansas doesn't care to give parents a voice in this particular decision. Ohio's Senator Bill Reineke expressed a similar concern over child labor, arguing that kids who really want to work shouldn't be hampered because "they can't get their parents to cooperate with them." Parents--they only matter sometimes.
Some of the arguments for child labor are spectacular. In Iowa, Jessica Dunker, president of the Iowa Restaurant Association and the Iowa Hotel and Lodging Association testified.
“Nine o’clock for a 15 year old sophomore in high school, you know, I’m sure they’re doing something already and probably it’s a school opportunity,” she said, “but if it isn’t, having kids get the opportunity to work is important.A 2016 piece by Jeffrey Tucker at the Foundation for Economic Education argued that work would be so much better for children's inner lives than school, and some jobs might be dangerous, but kids love danger, and more...
If kids were allowed to work and compulsory school attendance was abolished, the jobs of choice would be at Chick-Fil-A and WalMart. And they would be fantastic jobs too, instilling in young people a work ethic, which is the inner drive to succeed, and an awareness of attitudes that make enterprise work for all. It would give them skills and discipline that build character, and help them become part of a professional network.A century ago, children were "civic soldiers." We should be ashamed that we ever took the opportunity to work away from kids, suggests Tucker. That piece spawned another at the Acton Institute entitled "Work is a gift our kids can handle" by Joseph Sunde, which offers more of the same. Considering the question of household allowances:
What if we were to be more intentional about creating opportunities for work for our kids, or simply to more closely disciple our children toward a full understanding of the role of their work in honoring God and serving neighbor? In our schools and educational systems, what if we stopped prioritizing “intellectual” work to the detriment of practical knowledge and physical labor, paving new paths to a more holistic approach to character formation?
Florida has been catching up. According to the US Department of Labor Statistics, the number of child labor violations has tripled, even though just last year the legislature decided that 16 and 17-year-olds being home schooled could work any old hours.
The new bill, SB 918, would amends the applicable Florida statutes and would end pretty much any restrictions on 16 or 17-year-old employment-- number of hours, when those hours would fall, working on school nights--all night--those restrictions are all crossed out in the bill. Those teens would also lose any guaranteed meal break. Now 14 and 15-year-olds can get into the fun world of employment with barely any restrictions (and if they are homeschooled or cyber-schooled, none at all).
The bill was passed by Commerce and Tourism and goes up before the legislature next.
Teens putting in 20 hours a week (or more) are less likely to finish school. But teenagers also make for a compliant, cheap work force. At some point in the debate, someone is going to argue that some children are destined to be meat widgets anyway, so they might as well get to it. At the end of the day, some folks would much rather have access to cheap labor than foot the bill for an education that will just make the Lessers all uppity anyway. We'll see how this bill does and if Florida can catch up to other states in the child labor exploitation game.
ID: Doubling Down On Unwelcomeness
Sunday, March 23, 2025
ICYMI: Eye On The Ball Edition (3/22)
White House says test scores haven’t improved since 1979. That’s not true.
Sarah Mervosh at the New York Times provides the answers for when your MAGA uncle starts talking about how Dear Leader said that US schools just keep getting worse/
Is Academic Achievement Improving or Deteriorating?
McTeaching: Online Instruction
Larry Cuban explains what there is to not love about online instruction, for both teachers and students.
Saturday, March 22, 2025
IL: The Sequel To The Dyett Story
Bronzeville is poor, but they had worked hard for their school (back in 2011, just before the district dropped the hammer, they won a grant from ESPN to rebuild their athletic facilities with big fancy upgrades like working handles for doors). They were improving and growing stronger. There's no question they needed some help, but a search doesn't turn up stories suggesting that Dyett was some sort of notorious hellhole in freefall.
In fact, Washington Park seems to have been in the crosshairs for many years. Back in 2008, when Chicago was feeling the Olympic love, Washington Park was called one of the hottest neighborhoods, a diamond in the rough, and there is still talk about turning it into a community that could attract and support business, arts, and all the trappings of gentrification. And gentrification is a concern in Bronzeville, just as many see it as a hallmark of Rahm Emanuel's tenure as mayor.
Dyett is the worst of the reformster movement in a microcosm-- residents will be stripped of their local school, given no voice in what will replace it, because their Betters have decided what they need, what they deserve. And because small politicos want to make sure that local voices are shut out, that power is not allowed into the hands of ordinary citizens.
Dyett is all of us, sooner or later (and in some places, already)-- privatizers and profiteers shutting down democracy so that they can get their hands on those sweet sweet piles of tax money and keep their hands on the wheels of power.