Sunday, September 7, 2025

ICYMI: Little Things Edition (9/7)

This week I brought home a new keyboard, this time with keys that are lit up. It's delightful. The office desk lighting situation here at the Curmudgucation Institute has never been particularly awesome, and sometimes I have felt as if I were typing in the dark on faceless keys; this just makes life so much easier. I bet I'm even slightly more accurate now. So we all win.

Cross country season has started, and the board of directors had their first meet yesterday. They would happily join the Olympic tag team or anything else that allowed them to run full out for long periods of time. They had a respectable time for their first outing and had fun, too. It was almost worth waking up at 5:30 AM. 

I will also take this moment to exhort you to contact your elected representative, because lord knows there's a wide assortment of things that Congress could be doing to make itself more useful during the current regime. They need to hear about it, from the crazy-pants death cult running Health and Human Services to the attempt to slash the ed department into oblivion to the use of armed forces against our own citizens to--well, you know, it's a lot, and they need to be hearing about it all day every day. 

Now the week's list.

These federal programs help low-income students get to and through college. Trump wants to pull the funding

You might not even know what TRIO is, but for a very long time it has been helping many folks get a degree who might otherwise not have made it. But it helps a lot of people who aren't white, so Dear Leader says it has to go. Michael Vasquez reports at Hechinger.

New Goals for a New School Year

In the face of encouragement to work AI into his practice, Marcus Luther of The Broken Copier doubles down on doing what works for humans in a human classroom.

My Kid Hates AI And I'm Proud

Anya Kamenetz has a child who knows better, which is certainly encouraging for the rest of us.

I’m a High Schooler. AI Is Demolishing My Education.

Oh, look! At the Atlantic, a real live student explains why AI is bad news in education. 

How Chatbots and AI Are Already Transforming Kids' Classrooms

This piece at Vauhini Vara is not so encouraging, though it does contain further details about the Alpha school grift that is drawing so much glowing press elsewhere.

Governor Ayotte Wants to Keep Schools Substandard and Property Taxes High

Andru Volinsky calls out the governor of New Hampshire for her bad education policy ideas.

After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans fired thousands of Black teachers. Twenty years later, these groups are bringing them back

The Guardian joins the Katrina anniversary party with this piece from Melissa Hellmann about one the huge impacts of that disaster.

Selling New Orleans

Jennifer Berkshire looks at a great antidote to the balonified happy talk about New Orleans post-Katrina-- a new book from New Orleans parent and activist Ashana Bigard.

From Public Good to Personal Gain: How Florida’s ESAs Invite Abuse

Well, I'm not sure everyone considers it "abuse" as much as "a fair chance for the right people to line their pockets with taxpayer dollars." But Sue Kingery Woltanski goes into some detail on how Florida's vouchers are designed for abuse of taxpayer dollars. 

What I Still Believe about Public Education

Nancy Flanagan writes about threats to public education, and why she still thinks it is one of America's best ideas.

Acknowledging the existence of transgender students isn’t “goofy stuff”

Steve Nuzum disagrees with the governor of South Carolina on what qualifies as "goofy stuff" that needs to be removed from sex ed.

Trump Admin. Says Public Schools Can Stop Protecting Students’ Right to Learn the English Language

Jan Resseger looks at the Trump administration's steps to end ELL teaching for students. Make 'em speak 'murican or else!"

Uniform Policy

Jennifer Berkshire again, this time in The Baffler. She's always an excellent tracker of political currents, like the mysterious right wing turn against corporate influence in education.

NOLA’s Carver High School Legacy: “What We Stand to Lose” by Kristen Buras

The indispensable Mercedes Schneider looks at important slice of New Orleans history (and offers a book recommendation)

We are the song death takes it own time singing

Ben Riley offers a moving meditation on death and life and humanity and AI.

Humans are being hired to make AI slop look less sloppy

Not for the first time, we learn that the magic behind AI is actual human beings.

AI Is Failing at an Overwhelming Majority of Companies Using It, MIT Study Finds

A study finds that AI is wasting a lot of corporate money. 

At Forbes.com, I offer yet more evidence that Pennsylvania's cyber charters are taking in way more taxpayer money than is appropriate.

Can't believe I haven't used this clip yet, which should be viewed pretty much every day.



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