Sunday, January 5, 2025

ICYMI: Back To It Edition (1/5)

So much for the holidays. Now we all get back to it, whatever your personal "it" might be. Personally, I'm trying to pick up the banjo more often. Not my primary or even tertiary instrument, and as a banjo player, I'm a pretty good trombonist, but there's great value in stretching. 

My other "it" of course is reading and writing, and this week we're back to a big list of stuff (including some catch-up reading). Here we go--

"Back in my day, teachers used to grade the essays..."

Marcus Luther looks at the human dynamics of grading essays. As a bonus, he also breaks down the standard outline for AI-in-education articles.

Federal judge declares sections of Arkansas’ library obscenity law unconstitutional

That would be the part that threatens to throw librarians in jail for dealing in Naughty Books.

Why Standardized Tests Fail.

Brad Johnson on LinkedIn with a good and brief explanation of why the Big Standardized Test is not such a great thing.

College for some

Comrade Chris (yes, really) on the uneven application of the "college isn't for everyone" advice.

Blaming Low Wages on Bad Schooling Is a Neoliberal Myth

Nora De La Cour reminds us how that classic neo-liberal baloney works, and why it is, in fact, baloney. At Jacobin.

Are Charter Schools Singing "Kumbaya" With A Knife In Their Hands?

Carl Petersen has his doubts about the new warm, friendly charter advocates in the Los Angeles school district. For one thing, they seem to lie a bunch...

A North Texas high school locked up cellphones. Here’s what happened

Talla Richman does some deep diving for the Dallas News looking at how one district has made out with its cell phone ban.

If We Can't Blame Teachers Unions For Terrorism (Yes, Really!), Then The Terrorists Will Win

Robyn Pennacchia at Wonkette adds some context and biting analysis to education dudebro and all-around tool Ryan Walters' latest insult of the public schools he's supposed to be leading.

I asked dozens of teachers why they're quitting. Their answers are heartbreaking.

Annie Reneau does some interviewing for Upworthy, and what these departing teachers have to say will not surprise you, but it's still a bummer.

TIASL Best Blogs of 2024

Nancy Flanagan recaps some of her favorites from last year (she also says some nice things about me) and every one of them is worth a reread.

School Choice Is Not What It Sounds Like

Carol Burris explains for The Progressive audience what privatization is really about-- privatizing the responsibility for education.

Right-wing Oligarchs and Education

David Pepper looks at the complaints by our billionaire overlords about the quality of US workers and asks just what they've done to education that might explain their troubles.

Mark All as Read

Audrey Watters questions the AI support that comes from the cult of efficiency-- why read a book when AI can summarize it so much faster.


Jose Luis Vilson has always been a stellar example of what someone can accomplish if they stop thinking of themselves as "just a teacher" and instead drives forward with all the talent and commitment at their command. Here's his reflection on the most recent parts of his journey. 


Paul Thomas delivers a refresher course on how fostering a constant sense of crisis helps fuel some of the worst folks in ed reform, and how journalists have been complicit.

Newspaper Opinion Page Prints Online Charter School Propaganda

Jan Resseger catches the Cleveland Plain Dealer publishing cyber charter advertising as an op-ed.

Blatherskites

Greg Sampson has some thoughts about the folks who insist that teachers have seized education and taken it away from parents.

The role of knowledge in the age of AI

Benjamin Riley has a conversation with Bror Saxberg, and it's worth it just for this paragraph.
As you’ve often argued, the point is that if knowledge is not in your head, then it is not usable to you. What’s more, with complex interconnected content that is new to your brain, it's going to take real work to "move it in" to working memory for creative thought. We do not have Matrix-like download capacities (yet)!
Educators worry as Tennessee's new voucher plan could divert funds from public schools

The privatization push is on in Tennessee.

Large Language Models (misnamed AI) are Not Intelligent

Akil Bello has been playing with LLMs, and he's not yet impressed with their Taco Bell-like effects.

A Scarcity Perspective

Andru Volinsky asks whether your state is budgeting from a frame of scarcity or enough.

Meta scrambles to delete its own AI accounts after backlash intensifies

If you missed the story-- Meta unleashed some LLM faux humans on Instagram, chaos and hilarity ensued, and they sort of backed off a little. There's a lot out there about the flap, but this CNN piece gives a pretty good summary,

Wall Street declares war on the Associated Press

Matt Pearce explains how Gannett and Reuters are coming after the last great journalistic source that isn't organized around profit.

It’s Christmas for the elephants as unsold trees are fed to the animals at Berlin Zoo

Well, it was a good week for the Berlin elephants. 

At Forbes.com, I looked at a new paper that looks at how states could defend their charter sector from discriminatory factors (and privatizers can protect their operation from the Constitution). 

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