AI isn't panning out

 From an article in Futurism, Microsoft's (to give the latest example) sales pitch isn't panning out:

Regardless, the dustup suggests that enterprise customers are far from convinced that large AI agents are ready to autonomously complete complex multistep tasks. It’s yet another indication that companies are struggling to convert the enormous hype surrounding generative AI into actual revenue, a concerning trend considering the billions of dollars AI companies are burning through right now with no end — or return on investment — in sight.

This is, of course, because it continues to absolutely not live up to the hype: 

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found earlier this year that even the best-performing AI agent, which was Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro at the time, failed to complete real-world office tasks 70 percent of the time

What I find incredibly alarming is how many people who are in positions of power and authority refuse to look critical at all on this matter. We're continuing to see it pushed across the education sphere, including (particularly of concern to me) in matters of school finance. 

Consider what a 70% failure rate looks like for school budgeting. 

Office of the Inspector General on FY23 in Brockton

 I am just seeing this, but for those who read or follow such things: the Office of the Inspector General has issued a report on Brockton in FY23. You can find it here.
Coverage in MassLive, Boston Globe, and The Enterprise

Two ways the news isn't good today

 Happy Monday back from Thanksgiving! 
Two pieces of not great news today:

• We are just failing all over the place on vaccinations, and that has consequences. Last week, the United Nations warned that 30 million children around the world have missed measles vaccinations, and "...outbreaks continue to rise sharply." To wit:
  

  In 2024, 59 countries experienced large or disruptive outbreaks – almost three times as many as in 2021 – and a quarter of them had previously eliminated measles.

  At the same time, here in the U.S., whooping cough numbers are outpacing those of last year. A third baby in Kentucky died last week. 
  
  

• I will admit the phrasing here made me laugh, but it turns out an "old fashioned web search" is better for learning than using large language models (generative AI). This is from research published in October through the National Academy of Sciences. 
  And at the same time, the argument schools have been hearing on why students need to be 'taught' AI seems to not be panning out: AI use in businesses has flatlined.
  

  Three years into the generative-AI wave, demand for the technology looks surprisingly flimsy.

  That one's from The Economist, by the way, the "we're looking to see if there is money to be made" coverage, so perhaps we can take that to the bank? 

Knew we could count on them

Somerville, Easthampton, and all the rest have indeed updated their lawsuit in light of the moving of powers of the U.S. Department of Education out of that office. From the New York Times coverage:

The education coalition argues in its lawsuit that the annual appropriations law approved by Congress requires the Education Department to carry out its programs and that Ms. McMahon lacks the authority to shift these functions to other federal agencies.

“The information and actions coming out of the Department have been unpredictable, chaotic, and unprofessional,” the education coalition said in the lawsuit. “This experience is unprecedented in administration changes.”

The press release from Democracy Forward can be found here.

Massachusetts, we're going to need to be more accurate in how we discuss this

 Something I want to flag, arising from this article in last week's Boston Globe flagging--rightly!--the drop in immigrant students enrolling in our schools¹is a persistent miscommunication in the piece (from those quoted) about what happens to state aid to a school district if enrollment drops:

STATE AID IS NOT LOST.

Massachusetts has a "hold harmless" provision in the calculation of chapter 70 funding. That provides that every district gets at least as much aid as they got the year before.

If, once the full chapter 70 aid calculation is completed, a districts would get less aid than they would have received the year before, the hold harmless provision kicks in, and the district gets the same amount of aid they got the year before. To this then is added a minimum per pupil increase in aid, which by state law is $30/student but last year was $150/student.

While many of the districts discussed in the article are not districts that are usually in hold harmless--they're districts that not only are growing, but they have growing levels of need, both of which are provided for through the state calculation of school funding--they would nonetheless NOT LOSE state aid if their enrollment fell.

Their aid may well not grow by the levels to which they are accustomed, nor grow at a level to keep up with expenses, but it would not be "lost."

Let's not mess this one up.

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¹And huzzah again to new Boston Globe reporter Marcela Rodrigues who is keeping focused on this. It matters! And she gets the stories across well!

Outsourcing the Department of Education

It was another of those news rounds where if, like me, you were offline for an hour, you missed a major thing and had to play catch-up.

On Tuesday of this week, the U.S. Department of Education signed a series of agreements with other federal departments. Those agreements move functions of U.S. Ed to those other Departments, as EdWeek charts out here. Most of it is going to the Department of Labor—demonstrating truncated view of the function of the public education system—though several go to the Interior, and one to HHS. As yet, there is no move of IDEA which covers special education to HHS, as has been floated a number of times.

It's worth noting that this isn't the first of such moves: career and technical education grants were moved to the Department of Labor earlier this year. Those who have been paying attention say it has not gone well.

Secretary McMahon was quick to say that funding would continue to flow to states and from there to schools. As Matt Barnum wrote in Chalkbeat, it's quite possible that schools will see little change, so long as those other departments actually pick up the ball. The AP, though, captured the concern that I've had all week: 

Instead of being housed in a single agency, much of the Education Department’s work now will be spread across four other federal departments...The plan increases bureaucracy fivefold, Washington state’s education chief said, “undoubtedly creating confusion and duplicity” for educators and families. His counterpart in California said the plan is “clearly less efficient” and invites disruption. Maryland’s superintendent raised concerns about “the challenges of coordinating efforts with multiple federal agencies.”

It is state education agencies that coordinate with the federal level, and it is those state agencies that now have to chase funding down across multiple federal departments--departments not set up to interface on those programs--in order to get the funding to states and then to districts. Those state agencies, if they're anything like our own (and I'll bet they are) are understaffed already.

It's also worth noting that objections have not all fallen along party lines, as covered in the same article:

Yet some conservatives pushed back against the dismantling. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, said on social media that moving programs to agencies without policy expertise could hurt young people. And Margaret Spellings, a former education secretary to Republican President George W. Bush, called it a distraction to a national education crisis.

“Moving programs from one department to another does not actually eliminate the federal bureaucracy, and it may make the system harder for students, teachers and families to navigate and get the support they need,” Spellings said in a statement.

Those who work in the Department have also noted that this makes no sense.
This is doing it for the sake of doing it. As I noted elsewhere earlier in the week, this feels a lot like the phase some kids go through where they have to push every rule and will come back with "TECHNICALLY..." when they are called on it.

TECHNICALLY, they haven't closed the Department of Education. I suspect that isn't going to be good enough for the judges that have already told them to knock it off.  

and it isn't even 'everybody wants to be a school committee member' season

 Some of us have often referred to Worcester's election year as "everybody wants to be a school committee member" season, as very frequently in past years, city councilors show a sudden interest in creating policy1 for the Worcester Public Schools in a fashion that is WAY out of their purview.

They seem to have been late with their rounds this year, as observed by Mike Benedetti in his write up of tonight's City Council meeting:

Schools: There are a few items, both from the Public Works Committee and Councilor Ojeda, having to do with school cafeterias, food waste, and students providing meals to poll workers, possibly all of which are outside the purview of the City Council. I note these here because a few years back the Council frequently had items on the agenda that only the School Committee had authority over, but it’s been awhile since that’s happened.

If you check the agenda², these items include: 

FROM THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC WORKS - Request

City Manager request Chief Sustainability Officer work with

the School Department to facilitate a food waste study in the

schools cafeterias. Said study should quantify the

percentage of food waste created compared to the amount

of food distributed from the cafeterias.

14b. Request City Manager provide City Council with an outline

of a two (2) year plan to appropriate funding to work with

the Worcester Public Schools (WPS), supermarkets, and

local organizations to utilize food waste to help combat food

insecurity. (Ojeda)

14c. Request City Clerk work with the Superintendent of Public

Schools to determine the feasibility of Worcester Public

Schools students providing poll workers with meals during

each Election Day. (Ojeda)

While the inquiry--and let's be clear that it is no more than that--of the last item is under Council purview, as elections are (to a certain extent), now that the schools are closed for students on election days in Worcester, this seems a rather expensive (to put it mildly) undertaking. As most polling places are not in schools, I don't know why this would be the schools' problem to solve. 

But food waste studies of the Worcester Public Schools cafeterias and a two year plan on food waste in school cafeterias? Those are both totally not under the Council purview (nor on their committee on Public Works).

Further, the school nutrition program of the Worcester Public Schools is entirely funded through federal USDA funding. There isn't even any budgetary interest possible here. 

I'd suggest the City Council interest itself in things that are actually under its purview, and leave the oversight of the public schools' nutrition programs to the district. 

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¹Somehow this never seems to extend to the very much under their purview matter of funding the schools below the legal requirement. That would require their requiring something of their actual employee, the city manager, as opposed to making speeches about children on matters over which they have no control. Yet here we are.

²And cheers to whomever started posting it as a PDF that actually just OPENS on the city site, so we don't have to DOWNLOAD it to open it!