Sunday, December 14, 2025

ICYMI: Graduation Edition (12/14)

The CMO has finished another degree because she is both beautiful and smart, as well as exceptionally determined and hard working. The Board of Directors procured a most excellent and very chocolatey graduation cake, which we enjoyed yesterday in honor of the occasion.  

Hope people at your Institute are also accomplishing fine things. In the meantime, here's the reading list for the week.

The REAL Elephant in the Room

Sue Kingery Woltanski continues to provide chapters in the ongoing story of Florida's attempt to pretend that they are not hammering taxpayers by giving away the real estate they paid for (but still making them pay for the upkeep).

Florida's Wild West Voucher Scheme Loses Students, Runs $400 Million Over Budget

Some more details from the disaster that is Florida's taxpayer-funded voucher scheme.

Florida student holding clarinet ‘as if it were a weapon’ sends school into lockdown: report

Mind you, a clarinet in the wrong hands can create some terrible disasters, but this Florida school's super-duper security AI may have gone a bit overboard.

In Wisconsin, health care costs are overwhelming teacher salaries

Wisconsin Public Radio has this report that is just one more different way to illustrate how underpaid teachers are.

Ohio School Boards Association conference reveals growing reaction against vouchers and lawmakers

Just maybe some folks in Ohio have had enough. Denis Smith reports.

As New Hampshire education freedom accounts double, percentage of low-income recipients drops

New Hampshire is one more state where it turns out that taxpayer-funded vouchers aren't really saving poor students "trapped in failing schools."

Are Schools the Problem?

Nancy Flanagan saw the New York Times op-ed about the terrible troubles in the public school system, and she wanted to address some of the conclusions in that piece (which is not on this list because her response is way more read-worthy than the original column).


Thomas Ultican looks at some of the history and data from charterized New Orleans.

Accomplishing Project 2025: K-12 Edition

Not for the faint of heart. Anne Lutz Fernandez runs down the Project 2025 checklist for the year, including education.

High Expectations and High Standards: The Chatter is Nothing New!

Nancy Bailey looks at the same old chicken littling that's making a comeback these days. Low expectations! Low standards! Oh nooooos!

Uncertainty and Arrogant Reformers

Larry Cuban talks about the things we know, sort of know, and don't know for sure, and why ignoring those categories makes for bad ed reform ideas.

Billionaires Are Undermining Public Education in America

Jan Resseger looks at a report about the conquest of Americas by billionaires, and what that means for education.

Randolph commissioners dismiss entire library board after book controversy

In North Carolina, local government nukes the whole library board because they don't like a trans character in one book.

Sure, Leonie Haimson is writing about New York City, but it's not like that's the only place kids need some protection from AI.

Groups made up of OU professors, college Republicans reject student's religious discrimination claim

A quick news report following up the flap. Spoiler alert: the college Republicans say her paper is terrible and she's wasting everyone's time that could be better spent on substantive issues.

Permission Structures

Matt Dinan on how AI-skeptic professors can still help students write papers.

ChatGPT’s Self-Serving Optimism

Every time soneone takes a closer look at ChatGPT, they find baloney. Here's Vauhini Vara at The Atlantic asking, among other things, what the chatbot thinks "objectivity" means.

Right-Wingers Are Winning The War On Vaccines

Nathalie Baptiste at HuffPost looks at how the culture panic playbook is being used to make schools less safe for children (but super for diseases).

AI is breakin' the law

The judge told him, "Using AI to bolster your self-lawyering is a really bad idea." He did it anyway. It did not end well. Ben Riley has the story.

I grew up watching these guys. They were the first album I ever bought with my own money. And yes, they were manufactured cheese, but they had their moments.


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