As Massachusetts now has the lottery online...

 ...it might be good to remember that more teens are getting hooked on gambling:

A recent national survey from Common Sense Media found that 36% of boys age 11 to 17 in the U.S. have gambled in the past year.

"It's a lot of kids," says Michael Robb, the head of research at Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that promotes digital safety for kids. "A third of kids is a lot of kids."

AI slop: coming to a classroom near you?

Is there bad news on AI in education?
There is ALWAYS bad news on AI in education!

Chalkbeat earlier this month had a look at the AI slop on the Teachers Pay Teachers website: 

The poster depicting famous inventions by Black figures throughout history should show the invention George Crum is widely credited with: the potato chip.

Instead, the picture labeled with Crum’s name shows a firefighter in an ominous gas mask next to a stop light. There are no potato chips to be found.

But there is a typo-ridden description of Crum that reads: “Created the popular crispy snack when a customer is polated thinner fried potatees.”

For $1.99, they could also download an alphabet coloring worksheet missing the letter F. And for just $1.50, they could get a poster of U.S. presidents that uses an asteroid hurtling toward anti-slavery demonstrators to illustrate the idea that Martin Van Buren was resilient.

We're losing kids on free lunch

 Hey, remember how we've noted that as we lose SNAP enrollment, we're going to lose free lunch enrollment?

That has now started to be seen happening, per EdWeek

In addition to Miami-Dade, some schools in nearby Palm Beach County, Fla., Houston, the San Antonio area, and Hardin County, Ky., have also announced the end of universal free meals in recent months because they no longer qualify for CEP.

Hysom anticipates more districts will follow suit.

Don't go spending that $100M yet

 The chair of House Ways and Means weighed in yesterday: 

House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz has “some serious concerns” about the governor’s election-year proposal to spend $100 million on public schools before they’ve even collected the revenue to support it. 

“The ink hasn’t dried yet on the actual fiscal year 2027 budget, so I think we’d like to see that be implemented first,” the House budget chief said. “There’s a lot of concerns related to raising that Chapter 70 number further, may further complicate things for future budgets.”

It has been rightly noted that Healey's proposal doesn't actually raise Chapter 70 aid--while it's general aid for K-12 schools, it is not being distributed via MGL Ch. 70, sec. 1--and it explicitly does not raise the chapter 70-designated aid received by schools this year, which sets the floor for next year.

I will observe again, though, that concerns about "future budgets" are very much appropriate given that this is the final year of the Student Opportunity Act implementation.  

Things I am reading this week

•  Not specific to education, but this lengthy piece on "AI mania" in the workplace is a very "the Emperor has no clothes" description, where no one can say the Emperor has no clothes because no one else in business leadership will.
  

  The reality is thus: the people in charge either have no plan, or see no path forwards other than keeping their heads down. Not at banks, not at hospitals, not in our government institutions. The world’s organisations have been captured by people in the throes of frothing excitement, and saner people who now live in a state of constant commingled fear and frustration.

  I again reiterate: for education to put any eggs in this basket is badly thought-out.
  
  
• My main takeaway from Chad Aldeman's look at K-12 education spending hitting a trillion dollars is what a huge difference single payer health care would make: 
  

   In 2023-24, schools spent $197 billion on employee benefits. As another way to look at it, for every $1,000 that a school spent on salaries, it also paid $438 in benefit costs. These trends may help explain why districts with rising personnel costs are not boosting take-home pay for their workers. 

  Imagine if we had all that money to spend on any aspect of education, because employees all already had health care. 
  
  
• It's worth reading Matt Barnum's interview with Ary Amerikaner, who co-founded Brown's Promise (and I say that not only because it echoes some of what I question about the lawsuit). 
  
  
• Not sure if it's because the seniors involved have graduated or just coincidences of timing, but there are good pieces covering two separate episodes of attempted throttling of student reporting that came out this week. Wired covers Redwood High in California, where a student journalist turned up a connection to the Epstein files to his local community. In that case, the decision making was in the hands of the students, though this quote from their advisor deserves mention: 
  

  “With all due respect,” Schneider remembers Bishop replying, “under California’s student press law, being afraid of a lawsuit or backlash is not a valid reason to call for the takedown of content.”

  Colorado Newsline covers Grand Junction High, where the advisor was reassigned apparently due to a single complaint by another staff member over a student editorial on the Gaza conflict most recently; the student paper itself published a piece about student press freedom being under threat from their administration in June. 
  
  
• One would really like to think something like the national civics competition would be outside of meddling from this federal administration. It appears that is not the case.

It is July and so my daisies are in bloom.

keeping an eye on that $100M

 Regarding the $100M of Fair Share Governor Healey filled a supplemental budget to spend, a smidge of insight yesterday from Colin Young at State House News Service (here being interviewed by NEPM): 

Relatedly, yesterday, both the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education¹ and the Department of Revenue sent out this letter from Healey addressed to "municipal leaders," praising what the letter terms "a total of $200 million" coming to them in Fair Share, of which the $100M which she has requested is half; in other words, there isn't $200M yet. And there is a LOT of credit being taken for how much the executive branch is "partnering" with local communities. 

Does this strike anyone else as an untoward use of departmental communication to municipalities and school districts? While there is not an overt "call your legislator" included in the letter, it's strongly implied. 

We look forward to continuing to work with the Legislature to secure this important investment for schools and to building on our partnership with cities and towns as we continue working together to strengthen communities across the state. 

This, about $100M in non-formula funding requested in the summer of an election year, is all feeling pretty icky. 
And again, this is not funding being distributed in a way that meets the highest needs, nor is it funding we have, nor is it a thoughtful consideration of the needs of districts in the current context.

¹which, despite it continually escaping at least this and the last governor, does not work for them. The Governor appoints the Board, which has, save one member, non-conterminous terms with her, and THEY oversee the Commissioner who runs the Department. She cannot fire them. She does not oversee them. I wish we saw more evidence than anyone knew that legally, this is how this is outlined to work.

Skunk at the garden party time

They're kind of cute, though, aren't they.

Though it is, of course, not the done thing to express anything but enthusiasm for additional funding…It is time again for one of my periodic skunk at the garden party posts.