Things to read this Sunday

Some weeks, I find I have time to write, and some weeks, I have this build up of things I want to say something about and can't find time.

Please enjoy the harborside fall planting 

Here are some things I read this week that I recommend:

• Audrey Watters writing on technology and schools is one of my recommended "always reads," and with that I pass along "Companion Specious" from this week:
  

  just as importantly, as Robinson and Leander found in their research, the outsourcing of these so-called bureaucratic tasks to automation might diminish relationships. Those who push for the automation of work – "AI" builders, promoters, and importantly, school administrators – do not recognize this because they do not understand (or value) what constitutes care work. The tasks that "AI" says it can do are actually important work, not "bullshit jobs" – affective labor to be sure, but also pedagogical work; and these tasks – carefully crafting messages to send home, for example – shape how teachers develop a learning community in and beyond the classroom walls.

  While I have not seen former Commissioner Riley's presentation on AI, I flinched, both as a former educator and as a parent, at one of his slides I have seen, which did indeed put drafting letters home on the list of tasks teachers could outsource. Is this the "two-way, culturally competent communication" we expect of educators? Is this how we build relationships with families? 
  
  

• The student reporters in so many places are amazing; among my constant checks is The Harvard Crimson, which this week published "Can privilege be taught? Beacon Academy thinks so," looking at something I hadn't earlier been aware of: Beacon Academy in Boston, which runs a gap year (between 8th and 9th grade) program to prepare students from "historically under-resourced and/or underrepresented communities" for prep school.
  

  In the hallowed halls of New England’s oldest academies, whose oak walls and oil paintings often predate the nation itself, students follow in the footsteps of titans and presidents. They are bombarded with resources, from top-notch college counseling, to small classes taught by faculty with advanced graduate degrees, to state-of-the-art gymnasiums and libraries. And hanging over students’ heads are the expectations that they’ll one day be great.

But Laba knew that dropping students into entirely unfamiliar territory wouldn’t be enough for them to walk the halls with the same confidence as their peers. Her school wouldn’t just have flashcards and essays; it would also have to expose its students to the affluent culture of their future classmates. If Beacon truly wanted its students to integrate into their new schools, they would need to eliminate as many reasons as possible that low-income or minority students could be ostracized for.

“We always believe that competence is going to give you confidence,” Laba says. By introducing students to new, uncomfortable experiences, Beacon would teach them academic and social fluency. Students would be able to relate to their peers — to say, “I’ve also summered at Martha’s Vineyard” or “I’ve skied before.”

•  Ryan Walter has LEFT THE BUILDING at the Oklahoma Department of Education, and the staff there wasted no time in making some changes: 
  

  Portraits and plaques honoring members of the Oklahoma Educators Hall of Fame once again line a key hallway inside the building that houses the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

  The staff did that the very next day.
  
  The Attorney General of Oklahoma that same day requested an investigation into the Department of Education under Walters: 
  

  In a press release, Attorney General Gentner Drummond said he formally requested a financial audit of the department, from Walter’s first day as superintendent to his last. State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd would be responsible for combing through department finances.

“Given the former Superintendent's well-established history of mishandling tax dollars, combined with new and ongoing allegations of misspending, I am now ordering an investigative audit of the Oklahoma State Department of Education," Drummond said in the press release.

Last year, a grand jury assembled by Drummond called Walters’ handling of pandemic relief funds “indefensible,” saying he blew past fiscal guardrails to advance his political agenda as then-Secretary of Education.

• I was darkly amused by the news that Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School, now required to have a transportation program, has discovered that organizing transportation for students is complicated. I mean, who knew? 
  

  Bagley said this is a time-consuming process. “There’s quite a bit of complexity on this,” Bagley said.

• And this just out: Robert Reich on our national trauma