The House passed the most draconian social media ban in the country

From State House News Service this evening:  

 The House on Wednesday put Massachusetts on track to join a handful of other states in placing restrictions on children’s social media use – an issue that is playing out in courts across the country. The House passed legislation on a 129-25 vote, largely along party lines, prohibiting social media use for children under 14 and requiring that social media platforms obtain parental consent for users aged 14 and 15. Representatives said the legislation closely follows a similar law in Florida, which is still being challenged in court two years after it was passed. The legislation leaves many of the regulatory decisions surrounding how to enforce the policy amid an ever-evolving online landscape up to Attorney General Andrea Campbell. Reps added language to the bill that limits some parental monitoring of social media usage "to protect certain vulnerable populations," Rep. Peisch said on the floor, and adds further protections for 14- and 15-year-olds related to the "addictive nature" of some platforms. The bill also bans students from using their cellphones throughout the school day. The House dispensed with almost all of the 29 amendments filed on the legislation through two consolidated amendments. 

"on party lines" means it was Democrats who voted to violate young people's privacy, Democrats who voted to make them less safe in school, Democrats who voted to require that we all turn our information over to social media companies.  

I cannot even.

Update: here’s the vote:

" risk eroding the very human capabilities they are meant to support"

Is there bad AI news this week?
Friends, there is ALWAYS bad AI news!

Two things to review: 

• A paper released by Cornell University looking at the "consequences of AI assistance" using mathematic reasoning and reading comprehension (that is, two of the core competencies of education!). They found: 
  

  AI assistance reduces persistence and impairs independent performance: After brief AI-assisted sessions (~10 minutes), participants were significantly more likely to give up on problems and performed significantly worse once the AI was removed, compared to participants who never had AI assistance.
  Effects are concentrated among users who seek direct solutions: Persistence costs were concentrated among participants who prompted AI to solve tasks for them directly. Using AI for hints or clarifications did not produce significant impairments.
  Effects generalize across domains: Effects replicated across fraction arithmetic and reading comprehension, suggesting it is a general consequence of AI-assisted problem solving, not specific to any particular task.

  Their conclusion?
  

  These findings raise urgent questions about the cumulative effects of daily AI use on human persistence and reasoning. We caution that if such effects accumulate with sustained AI use, current AI systems — optimized only for short-term helpfulness — risk eroding the very human capabilities they are meant to support.

  I found this page which gives visuals for their findings very accessible; I include one below. 

  
  

• Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, is the subject of an in-depth profile in The New Yorker . It reads almost as a parable of hubris: you can trace the loss over time within the company of values expressed early on.
  That he has as much power as he does is horrifying.

Visual from "AI Assistance Reduces Persistence and Hurts Independent Performance"

paying attention to dual language in Worcester

 I've only occasionally been paying attention to what's going on with the Worcester Public Schools¹, but a sequence over the past week has me paying attention. 

Samuel Adams in the U.S. Capitol
Because I am feeling a lot like that about this.

One of the things that is very close to my heart, both personally and professionally, is Worcester's dual language program. Over my transom last week came the following message that had gone to parents in the dual language program: 

on the cell phone and social media bill before the Mass House

 Tomorrow, the Mass House is voting on a bill on social media and cell phones for youth that includes, as the post from WBUR puts it: 

...prohibiting social media use for children under 14, requiring platforms to obtain parental consent for users ages 14 and 15, and banning students from using cellphones in schools.

The Boston Globe adds that it also would share information posted with the parents of young people between the ages of 14 and 15. 

This is terrible in so many ways!

I sent the following email off to my state rep John Mahoney yesterday:

 John,

I am writing to urge you to vote against the proposed bill regarding social media and cell phones that will be before you this week.

Young people in marginalized communities very frequently find support on social media platforms, in many cases, support that they cannot find in their own families and communities. Barring them from those platforms, and, at under age 15, pushing anything they submit to their parents is not only an inappropriate violation of their privacy (which, yes, they have); it may well endanger young people. The rates of rejection and abuse of young people who are gay and trans is high, even in Massachusetts. 

Doing age checks requires ALL of us to submit OUR data to social media companies; this is not something I wish to do, and it is wildly irresponsible for the legislature to expect that of us.

Young people who are currently endangered by the federal government also should not have their communication devices (which also include cameras) [taken] from them at the schoolhouse door. That is the opposite of supportive.

This is, top to bottom, a bad bill, John. Please oppose it.

Thank you,

Tracy Novick 

_______________________________
Do I need to remind you again that my blog posts are just from me as me? Here's that reminder. 

Remember: on the federal budget, this is just the opening round

 You might be concerned or confused by headlines that came through over the weekend like this: 

Did we just DO a federal budget?
We did, but that one was overdue (thus the shutdown) and was the current federal fiscal year budget, 'though it funds next school year.

Now we're starting NEXT fiscal year, FY27, which for the federal government starts in October, which will funding school year 2027-28.

With me?

Now to the alarming headlines: you might remember that we also had alarming news from the initial proposal from the Trump administration for the current fiscal year, too. The House proposal was also alarming, and then the Senate put their feet down and we got a largely level funded federal budget.

So pay attention, but don't panic. 

Yay, SCIENCE!

 Artemis II is off to the moon!

And then a discussion about school committee authority broke out

 Something happened at last Tuesday's Board of Ed which doesn't happen at 99.9% of Massachusetts Board of Education meetings¹: someone not only mentioned school committees, but there was even a smidge of a discussion about them.

This came in response to a (properly posted) update from the Commissioner on Fall River. You may have seen that the Fall River School Committee recently moved to fire their superintendent without cause; she resigned. At the request of the Mayor, the Department is completing a targeted review of district governance.

Fall River Public Schools had their last comprehensive district review in 2025, as required by MGL Ch. 15, sec. 55A, under state regulations 603 CMR 2.03. Those regulations, passed by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, require that the review include: Leadership and Governance, alongside Curriculum and Instruction; Assessment; Human Resources and Professional Development; Student Support; and Financial and Asset Management. Those are always the areas reviewed for every district.²

Within that last report for Fall River, released in November 2024, within the Governance analysis, DESE reported the following: 

According to focus groups, working relationships between district leaders and school committee members are still in early stages and are sometimes tense. As mentioned above, the superintendent is new to her role and began leading the district in July 2024 and, as such, a formal evaluation has not yet been completed. According to interviews, the superintendent is still working through her formal entry plan into the district and trying to “build a little bit more of a network and relationships with the school committee.” However, district leaders also reported that the current superintendent faced opposition from several members of the school committee upon her promotion to superintendent from her previous role as assistant superintendent and chief academic officer. Currently, there are still reported tensions between the school committee and the district superintendent, and both agreed that there was occasionally “strain” in the relationship regarding the best way to collaboratively fulfill their responsibilities and benefit the district. Despite this, in interviews and focus groups, both parties reiterated their commitment to Fall River and their desire to collaborate effectively to improve the district and outcomes for all students. Building rapport between both parties is an area for growth in Fall River.

As they were doing a report early on in a new superintendent administration, this is a measured, but early warning, view of what the Department saw then. Then the Fall River School Committee underwent an election last fall in which three of the six seats changed (the seventh member, the mayor, stayed the same), with the above being the outfall.

What I found most odd about the above bit of discussion in the meeting, beyond it happening at all, was the common concern of Chair Katherine Craven and Vice-chair Matt Hills: they were very concerned about the Department's relationship with the "democratically-elected school committee."

While I agree that the lines of authority are always³worth keeping an eye on, it's very odd to hear this from the Board leadership, which in its tenure, has not expressed all that much concern about the very removal of school committee authority that state receivership is. The school committees in receivership districts are also democratically-elected, and yet it has been from the successor of Commissioners after Jeff Riley that the impetus has come to return them to local authority. That could have come from this chair and vice chair at any time in their tenure. Instead, it took Russell Johnston as acting receiver to finally move. That, mercifully, has continued forward. 

The Commissioner is appointed by and evaluated by the Board. If "democratically-elected" school committees having authority was this much of a concern, Craven and Hills had ample opportunity and reason to speak earlier. They did not. 

Interesting time to speak up. 

¹I have been to almost every one for fifteen years. Take it from me.
²You can find the list of district review reports on the Department's website here. They are not always right (in my view) but they are always worth reviewing.
³not just in the 0.1% of the time they deign to remember that school committees exist, let's say.