Considerations for Worcester's fall election

Because we have our preliminary election approaching, I offer the following considerations I am using in making my decisions over whom I vote for.

As always, these are my thoughts as an individual Worcester voter.

1. No fascists.
   As with many other terms of specific historical "bad guys," this is one that has become an insult flung at those with whom one disagrees. That isn't what I mean when I use it. I'm using here the definition shared by the American Library Association in their "Making Sense of Current Events" presentation.
   

“Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints, goals of internal cleansing and external expansion” (Paxton, 2004, p. 218)

While I've seen this less markedly in the campaign materials I've seen, the "preoccupation with community decline" certainly is something that comes through with some.

2. If they've been in office either this past term or before, and they didn't actually do the job--didn't review the agenda for meetings, didn't pay attention in meetings, didn't schedule or attend subcommittee meetings--no, thank you.

3.Whether or not they've served in the role for which they're running, if they make it apparent that they haven't the faintest idea what, by state law and municipal charter, their job actually is, I'm not interested.

This rather narrows the field. 

____
PS: If you leave a flyer on my mailbox that says "Sorry we missed you!" and I have been home all day, you really, really don't get a vote from me. 

What Meta AI is allowing in their rules of operation

The examples on this one are frankly so gross that I don't want them on my blog, but I also realize that not everyone clicks through, and so, AFTER the jump, I'm providing the screenshots from this Reuters piece written from the actual internal Meta rules. 

Public school districts having to provide transportation for other schools hurts public school students

Obligatory school bus photo, from my recent vacation in Canada,
because, yes, I take photos of school buses even on vacation.

Making the rounds right now is this report in The Guardian from Ohio, which, like Massachusetts, requires that public school districts provide transportation to students within their bounds to private and charter school students in their bounds.¹

A shortage of drivers and buses combined with the threat of fines, means that public school districts in Dayton and around Ohio find themselves relegating their own students to the back of the transportation line.

On Gene Haas and his "donation"

 

Well, look at that: it appears that the bidding on the ongoing effort by Gene Haas to improve his Google results is now up to $500K!

As the T&G is linking to a paywalled New York Times report on Haas' 2008 conviction of felony conspiracy to commit tax evasion, for which he served two years in federal prison and paid a $5M fine on top of paying $70M in restitution, let me help you out with a gift link. The T&G itself wrote about this at the time of the initial grant. You can also read about that initial discussion, in which the students played a big role, here. 

Back to school discussions on use of AI

 Two to read: 

That's a woodland aster. 
That means you should start your school shopping, New England.

It's still inflation

...still

 Big h/t to Superintendent Bill Runey of Dighton-Rehoboth, quoted in the Enterprise coverage of "what's up with these overrides":

The “root cause” of all the overrides is that the state has not been increasing education funding to counteract rising costs, said Superintendent of the Dighton-Rehoboth Regional School District Bill Runey.

And how has this interacted with the end of federal pandemic aid?

 The end of federal money meant to help students recover from the pandemic disruptions is leading to overstretched budgets, Runey said. Districts knew they shouldn’t have used the money for costs that recur each year — like teacher’s salaries — but they didn’t really have a choice, he said.

“We had students who were struggling with learning loss. We had students who were struggling with emotional issues,” he said.

Those effects are lingering beyond the three years schools had access to the extra money, he said, and students still need services from psychologists and adjustment counselors.

“Those services don’t come from a laptop and they don’t come from new cafeteria tables, or a new basketball hoop. They come from people,” he said.

I will also note again: the only reason you're not seeing this in the cities yet is because they've been receiving Student Opportunity Act increases, which, rather than going to the additional teachers, additional services, additional supplies and so forth that were actually why we all pushed so hard for the change are going to cover inflationary changes.
We've got one more year and then that's gone, too. 
Action is urgently needed on INFLATION.  

Is there bad news on AI in education? Edition whatever

 Yes, friends, there is ALWAYS bad news in AI education!

First up, Benjamin Riley is as frustrated as I am about AI in education and this nonsense "moonshot" notion, in a post that I urge you to read from first to last.

Some schools have been using AI surveillance software, and it not only is triggering false alarms; it has resulted in not only student discipline, but also students being arrested.

And yesterday, we had another release of research which tells us the same things we find every time we ask: 

Asked to generate intervention plans for struggling students, AI teacher assistants recommended more-punitive measures for hypothetical students with Black-coded names and more supportive approaches for students the platforms perceived as white, a new study shows...

Common Sense Media found that while these tools could help teachers save time and streamline routine paperwork, AI-generated content could also promote bias in lesson planning and classroom management recommendations.

Robbie Torney, senior director of AI programs at Common Sense Media, said the problems identified in the study are serious enough that ed tech companies should consider removing tools for behavior intervention plans until they can improve them. That’s significant because writing intervention plans of various sorts is a relatively common way teachers use AI.

The report from Common Sense Media can be found here. 

I will echo Riley's post then, here: 

Add to that all of the generative AI systems.