Was there AI coverage this week?

 There is ALWAYS AI coverage!

• For those considering AI in education, please be sure you've read this NPR piece speaking with Chanea Bond about her making her high school English classroom analog. I'm familiar with Mrs. Bond from social media (here she is on Bluesky), and I've always appreciated how she approaches her teaching, as well as the relationship she clearly has with her students. 
  And in this case, it's one of her students I'm going to quote: 
  

  "Take a second and think about it. Would you rather really grow from an experience of actually doing some work and critically thinking about the things you're writing or talking about, or just taking nothing away from it and just use a robot?"

• Those quoted in the above piece as being pro-AI (and really in just about every article I have read in which educators are arguing that it must be included in schools!) sound exactly like this video from Mike Daniels "It's the future" where the answer to "what does it do?" is...kind of the point.
  
  
  
• This week, Dartmouth discovered that the pro-AI op-ed submitted by a student for their college paper was something the student had been paid by their administration to write, and the administration reviewed the piece prior to its submission. 
  You're not convincing us here, people. 
  
  
• I am currently working my way through the essay "How AI Destroys Institutions" by Woodrow Hartzog  and Jessica Silbey at BU School of Law. The abstract reads as follows: 
  

  Civic institutions—the rule of law, universities, and a free press—are the backbone of democratic life. They are the mechanisms through which complex societies encourage cooperation and stability, while also adapting to changing circumstances. The real superpower of institutions is their ability to evolve and adapt within a hierarchy of authority and a framework for roles and rules while maintaining legitimacy in the knowledge produced and the actions taken. Purpose-driven institutions built around transparency, cooperation, and accountability empower individuals to take intellectual risks and challenge the status quo. This happens through the machinations of interpersonal relationships within those institutions, which broaden perspectives and strengthen shared commitment to civic goals. 

  Unfortunately, the affordances of AI systems extinguish these institutional features at every turn. In this essay, we make one simple point: AI systems are built to function in ways that degrade and are likely to destroy our crucial civic institutions. The affordances of AI systems have the effect of eroding expertise, short-circuiting decision-making, and isolating people from each other. These systems are anathema to the kind of evolution, transparency, cooperation, and accountability that give vital institutions their purpose and sustainability. In short, current AI systems are a death sentence for civic institutions, and we should treat them as such.

  As education is foundational to these civic systems everywhere, but particularly in a democracy, we should take this quite seriously before inviting AI in.
  
  
• And the good people at McSweeney's this week brought us this gem: 
  
  
  
  You can find that here. 

Statement from the faculty at Teachers' College, Columbia University

 To read, to share: 

While this week’s education news has been dominated by Columbia, previous weeks focused on the K-12 landscape. Developments included the appointment of a Secretary of Education with no education expertise, unable even to correctly identify the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) - one of our nation’s largest pieces of federal education and civil rights legislation, which she is charged by Congress to administer. The administration laid off half of the Department of Education’s workforce. The firings have all but shuttered the more than 150 year old National Center for Education Statistics, on which countless areas of education research, including “The Nation’s Report Card” via the National Assessment of Educational Progress and studies that focus on measuring equity, rely. These are the staffpeople who ensure that Congressionally-approved funds for Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (for children living in poverty), the IDEA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act for disabled students, and federal financial aid to higher education make their way to their intended students, families, and communities. Major staff reductions at the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights intentionally impede this division from ensuring equitable treatment of children in our nation’s schools.

As in higher education, the Trump administration not only seeks to usurp the Congressional power of the purse but does so in the name of false and misleading representations of the state of our educational institutions. Whatever claims to the contrary, American public education is governed chiefly by state constitutions and local school districts. They decide what students learn, how teachers teach, and how student success is measured. When, for example, executive orders seek to disregard that law and tradition, we applaud leaders who, like Maine Governor Janet Mills, respond with “See you in court!”.

As experts on teaching and learning, we know that the most profound moments of learning are usually uncomfortable, as they may lead people to question taken-for-granted assumptions about themselves and the society they inhabit. The goal of good teaching is not to eliminate that discomfort, but to give it a productive use. The barrage of Executive Orders, threats to the Department of Education, and mandates such as the March 13 letter are aimed at restricting discourse and generating fear in teachers and students, especially those most vulnerable: non-US citizens, racially or ethnically minoritized populations, gender and sexually diverse and expansive people, and disabled people. Teaching and learning are much more difficult when one is afraid, and pedagogy can easily turn to rote memorization and repetition in order to avoid controversy.

While the White House accuses elementary and secondary schools as well as higher education of indoctrinating students, against the evidence, what we see is an attack on the capacity for criticism — paving the way for authoritarianism and fascism. The idea that directing criticism at the US or its geopolitical allies is un-American runs counter to much of the history of this nation. As James Baldwin once stated, “I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” It is extremely hard, if not impossible, for people of any age to do the difficult work of learning, of understanding multiple perspectives on an issue, of offering counterpoints to commonly assumed views, when people are scared of losing their livelihoods and/or their visas, being arrested or deported, or being deemed enemies of the state by the highest office in the land.

As educators and researchers concerned with justice and equity, we cannot stay silent. 

urgency needed

Last Tuesday, U.S. Border control conducted immigration raids in Kern County, California: 

 “It was profiling, it was purely field workers,” said Sara Fuentes, store manager of the local gas station. Fuentes said that at 9 a.m., when the store typically gets a rush of workers on their way to pick oranges, two men in civilian clothes and unmarked Suburbans started detaining people outside the store. “They didn’t stop people with FedEx uniforms, they were stopping people who looked like they worked in the fields.” Fuentes says one customer pulled in just to pump gas and agents approached him and detained him.

As a result:

 “We’re in the middle of our citrus harvesting. This sent shockwaves through the entire community,” said Casey Creamer, president of the industry group California Citrus Mutual, on Thursday. “People aren’t going to work and kids aren’t going to school. Yesterday about 25% of the workforce, today 75% didn’t show up.”

Emphasis added

This week, of course, Joe Biden is still president. That isn't true next week, when Donald Trump, who has made attacking immigrants a centerpiece, is.  

Those also serve who drive the bus*

Among the cemeteries my family visits each Memorial Day is one which holds the following gravestone:

A granite rectangular gravestone with a curved top bears the name “Lowe” and the image of a school bus.
Visible on the side of the school bus is “R. F. LOWE”**

In the small K-8 district in which I grew up, Mr. Lowe ran the school buses. By “ran” here, I mean he owned, operated, and drove the small fleet of buses that were contracted to the town district. And when he drove as a substitute, however you may have behaved on the bus usually, you behaved yourself. 

Two notes on the Supreme Court

•  I've been enjoying Kevin Kruse's new Substack "Campaign Trails" and his latest one is on Engel v. Vitale, a case decided in 1962 on school prayer. As Kruse notes:
  

  After explaining the details of the case, Black paused to collect himself and clutched his papers tightly. There could be “no doubt,” he read, that “the daily invocation of God’s blessings [was] a religious activity” and, as a result, no doubt that New York “adopted a practice wholly inconsistent with the Establishment clause.” Black asserted that the First Amendment embodied the founders’ belief that faith was “too personal, too sacred, too holy to permit its ‘unhallowed perversion’ by a civil magistrate.” (Here, an observer noted, “his voice trembled with emotion as he paused over ‘too personal, too sacred, too holy.’”)
  In Black’s view, religion certainly deserved a place of prominence in American life, but the state could not dictate it. “It is no part of the business of government,” he read, “to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by the government.” Departing from his text, Black added an impromptu plea. “The prayer of each man from his soul must be his and his alone,” he said. “If there is anything clear in the First Amendment, it is that the right of the people to pray in their own way is not to be controlled by the election returns.” 

• There was some surprise in the online education universe this morning that the Supreme Court declined to take up Charter Day School. v. Peltier, which is a case on dress codes that hinges on if the charter school in North Carolina is a public school. The charter school in question barred girls from wearing pants to school; parents sued, saying this was sex discrimination, which public schools cannot do under Title IX. The lower court decision that will now stand agreed with the plaintiffs. As Matt Barnum wrote in Chalkbeat: 
  

  The case turned on whether Charter Day School is a private entity or a public “state actor.” This issue is also crucial for the brewing legal dispute over religious charter schools. If charter schools are state actors then they likely cannot be religious. If they are private, though, religious entities would have a stronger case for running charter schools. These debates will likely be tested in Oklahoma, which recently approved what could be the country’s first religious charter school. Ultimately, this may end up being sorted out via years of litigation — which could end up back at the Supreme Court.

  So...stay tuned. 

Students learn what they live about civics

...and that means that how schools operate and how schools treat them as the next generation of leaders matters:

In the midst of debates over what students should learn in civics and how to deliver those lessons, civics education advocates risk missing the larger context: Compulsory K-12 schooling itself makes up the most intensive interaction the average American will have with a civic institution—far outpacing the time spent filling in a ballot, sitting in a jury box, or waiting in line at the DMV...
All but absent from the growing civics education conversation is the recognition that everyday interactions in schools also inform students' civic development, and that often those interactions tell a totally different story about individuals' rights from the government textbooks used in class.

Excellent piece--and crucial point!--in EdWeek.

And Worcester, please note the extensive section on the Boston Student Advisory Council.

NSBA '19: Political officials and social media

This presentation is by Linda M. Trujillo of Walsh Gallegos Treviño Russo & Kyle P.C. and Kate I. Noble, Sante Fe Public Schools Board president. This is something I've been watching as there have been rulings in other parts of the country around the rights of the public to public officials' social media postings and to being able to interact with them thereon.

"three cases that will give you no sense of stability"
"I may even be able to confuse you even more"

John Adams wrote more than he knew

A constitutional wonk post
I'm doing a class later this week on equity in education funding in Massachusetts and starting, as I always do, with the Massachusetts state constitution. I always comment that our constitution has the guarantee to public education in the original document, which is unusual, but I wasn't sure how unusual, or how other states handled it, so I did a bit of poking around.
Well, look what I found: a document of all the state constitutional language on education! It's one of the backups for the consideration of public education that was part of the Pennsylvania Bar Association's Constitutional Review Commission, back in 2010.

And, as they say, good writers borrow; great writers steal*, and John Adams wrote some good stuff! The Massachusetts Constitution was adopted in 1780, with the language Adams wrote:

Wisdom, and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislatures and magistrates, in all future periods of this commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them; especially the university at Cambridge, public schools and grammar schools in the towns...

Not entirely a surprise that it would influence Maine, adopted 1820, as Maine was first part of Massachusetts:

A general diffusion of the advantages of education being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people; to promote this important object, the Legislature are authorized, and it shall be their duty to require, the several towns to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the support and maintenance of public schools...

And New Hampshire probably copied directly (1784):

Knowledge and learning, generally diffused through a community, being essential to the preservation of a free government; and spreading the opportunities and advantages of education through the various parts of the country, being highly conducive to promote this end; it shall be the duty of the legislators and magistrates, in all future periods of this government, to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries and public schools... 

Here's Indiana, though (adopted 1850):

Knowledge and learning, general diffused throughout a community, being essential to the preservation of a free government; it should be the duty of the General Assembly to encourage, by all suitable means, moral, intellectual scientific, and agricultural improvement; and provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall without charge, and equally open to all. 

Or Texas (1876):

A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.

 Minnesota adds "intelligence" (1858):

The stability of a republican form of government depending mainly upon the intelligence of the people, it is the duty of the legislature to establish a general and uniform system of public schools. The legislature shall make such provisions by taxation or otherwise as will secure a thorough and efficient system of public schools throughout the state.

As does Missouri (1874):

A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the general assembly shall establish and maintain free public schools for the gratuitous instruction of all persons in this state within ages not in excess of twenty-one years as prescribed by law. 

As does California (adopted 1880):

A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the Legislature shall encourage by all suitable means the promotion of intellectual, scientific, moral, and agricultural improvement.

 I could go on--North Carolina adds "religion, morality" and North Dakota adds "patriotism, integrity" for example--but there is a very clear purpose for public education in quite a number of the state constitutions. And it isn't for economic development or college and career readiness or any number of other things.
It's, as Adams said, for "the preservation of their rights and liberties."

*You may know it from Aaron Sorkin by way of Sam Seaborn; it gets ascribed to Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde, but the closest anyone can find is in fact T.S. Eliot, with a precursor by W.H. Davenport Adams. Which either proves or disproves the point. 

For the preservation of their rights and liberties...

I was invited in August to do an Ed talk at the MTA Summer Conference. Here's my talk on educating the whole student with the "Gloomy Pedagogue."



And thanks to the MTA for the invitation! I had a great time.

Rest in Peace, Pete Seeger

And because Mr. Seeger acted as a conscience of a nation, and this is an education blog:

Northside Independent School District : new challenges

You might remember that Northside Independent School District has implemented a policy of having students at two of their high schools wear a card containing an RFID chip--a tracking chip--so they might track student attendance (which is tied to funding).
A student who refused, citing religious objections, to wear the card was expelled; she is now suing the district. This brought the issue to the attention of the online cyber group Anonymous, who, over the weekend, hacked the school website. The district commented that the site was attacked, but was never shut down.
A judge has ruled in the student's favor and blocked the expulsion.

Safe schools without heavy policing (now with link)

Interesting report sent along to me (thanks, Brendan) from New York City, looking at the results in schools that have a heavy police presence with those that do not:

The report is based on a one-year quantitative and qualitative study of six high schools: Progress High School for Professional Careers (Brooklyn), Urban Assembly for Careers in Sports (Bronx), Humanities Preparatory Academy (Manhattan), Urban Academy and Vanguard High School – both located in the Julia Richman Education Complex (Manhattan), and Lehman High School (Bronx).

None of these schools currently has metal detectors, although some used the devices in the past. Each employs alternative strategies to intervene with troubled students, and they generally enjoy long-term, positive relationships with school safety agents, NYPD civilian personnel assigned to patrol the schools.

What I found most troubling was what is going on in the schools not participating in the alternative:

Since 1998, when Mayor Rudolph Giuliani transferred school security responsibilities to the NYPD, the number of police personnel in the schools soared by 62 percent, from 3,200 to 5,200. The police force in New York City schools is now the fifth largest police force in the country—there are more police in New York City schools than there are on the streets of cities such as Baltimore, Las Vegas, Boston and Washington D.C.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg imported Giuliani’s “broken windows” policing strategy into the schools—cracking down heavily on minor disciplinary violations. Students, some as young as five, have been handcuffed, taken to jail, and ordered to appear in court for infractions such as tardiness, talking back, truancy, refusing to show identification, and refusing to turn over cell phones.

Bloomberg has also introduced such controversial practices as the “Impact Schools” initiative—which doubles the number of police personnel permanently assigned to certain schools and has police agents enforce a zero tolerance policy for rule infractions—and the “roving” metal detector program, which often subjects youth to bag searches and body pat downs on their way to class. The Department of Education now spends 65 percent more per year—an additional $88 million this year alone—than it did in 2002 on school safety, despite the fact that student enrollment has decreased over the same period.

The escalation of police activity in the schools has created a de facto zero tolerance policy in schools that serve the city’s poorest neighborhoods. In these schools, which often have permanent metal detectors, students can be suspended, expelled or arrested for any number of disciplinary infractions.

These punitive measures contribute to the school to prison pipeline, a system of local, state and federal education and public safety policies that pushes students out of school and into the criminal justice system. The pipeline disproportionately affects youth of color and youth with disabilities.

More police in the NYC public schools than in all of Boston? Roving metal detectors?
I wish our federal secretary of education would pay attention to reforming things like this!