Memorial Day is a complicated holiday and has been since citizens started trying to figure out who, exactly, should be memorialized. And so many folks just threw up their hands and said, "Never mind. It's just to celebrate the start of summer." There's a bit more to it than that, but we all have our own ways of handling the holiday, so a Happy Memeorial Day to you, however you mark the day.
Here's the reading for the week.
Moms for Liberty calls for APLS board to help get librarians firedFrom Jacob Holmes at the Alabama Political Reporter. Turns out (again) that the Moms are more than happy to co-parent with the government if it will just take its orders from them.
Julian Vasquez Heilig has been on an absolute writing tear lately. This time he's talking about May 22, the day that a whole bunch of Trumpian education stories all broke at once.
Something rotten in AI research
Benjamin Riley looks at some of the craptastic crap masquerading as serious AI research.
Damon Beres and Charlie Warzel at the Atlantic explain how some major newspaper ended up running book recommendations for non-existent books and citing fake sources. Also, hats off to the editor who picked the sub-heading "Slop the presses."
Watch where your AI fluffery is coming from, warns Audrey Watters. Also, this paragraph:
Mostly, people know technology sucks. The phone sucks. The laptop sucks. The WiFi sucks. The apps suck. The Web sucks. Not in a "yikes, this sure seems like techno-fascism" sort of way, but in "this goddamn thing does not work" but "my boss/my doctor/my principal/my bank/the IRS makes me use it anyway." In a "this is fucking ridiculous" sort of way. AI? AI?! R U SRS?!Reddit Unknowingly Becomes Guinea Pig for AI Research
The indispensable Mercedes Schneider digs into the story of unauthorized AI experiments on Reddit users. Prett gross.
How the right to education is undermined by AIHelen Beetham gives us an awful lot to chew on here, but it's a deep and thoughtful look at the threats of AI, written in response to a UNESCO call for think pieces.
Buyer's Remorse
Declining Dems for Education Reform (DFER) Seeks Salvation in MAGA Regime
Buyer's Remorse
Jennifer Berkshire is going to keep reminding us that conservatives actually like their public schools, and vouchers are not popular among the non-rich.
DFER has fallen on some hard times. Dark money expert Maurice Cunningham tracks how the group founded to be faux Dems is tweaking its pretend political style.
I told you Julian Vasquez Heilig was on a tear. This is a fine piece about Maya Angelou and courage in education.
Andru Volinsky, attorney in a landmark New Hampshire school funding case, provides a concise collection of the reasons school vouchers are a bad policy idea.
Sue Kingery Woltanski has the latest on how Florida's voucher program is making a mess out of the state's finances.
Paul Thomas follows up on one of the less-noticed news items of the last week-- Science of Reading folks won't get to drag their favorite opponents into court after all.
Nancy Bailey tries to sort out the various pieces of advice that students are getting. College? CTE? Why? And who wants them to go?
Jan Resseger takes a look at Ohio's new anti-diversity bill for schools, and explains that actual students do not want this.
This was a busy week in the ed world, and consequently I ended up writing three pieces for Forbes.com.
* John Warner has a new book about writing in the era of AI. Get a copy.
* The program that has funneled taxpayer dollars into fraud and waste in the charter industry is getting a boost under Trump.
* The Supreme Court ended Oklahoma's hope to launch the first religious charter school.
Here's one of my musical heroes--the amazing Gunhild Carling, teamed up with Scott Bradlee's inimitable Postmodern Jukebox. She's just amazing.
Sign up for my newsletter and get my stuff, free and in your email inbox.
Wow! Gunhild really is amazing!
ReplyDeleteRebecca deCoca