Weekend To-Do List
5/19-5/21
1. AI Campus Arms Race
Read: Ian Bogost argues in The Atlantic that professors are losing the battle with AI:
This is college life at the close of ChatGPT’s first academic year: a moil of incrimination and confusion. In the past few weeks, I’ve talked with dozens of educators and students who are now confronting, for the very first time, a spate of AI "cheating." Their stories left me reeling. Reports from on campus hint that legitimate uses of AI in education may be indistinguishable from unscrupulous ones, and that identifying cheaters—let alone holding them to account—is more or less impossible.
Read more here.
2. GPTZero Extension
Download: GPTZero Released Origin, a Chrome browser extension that claims to allow you to detect AI-generated content as you browse the web. Download it here.
3. Teens + Uber
Read: Teens can now create Uber accounts. Read more in Axios here.
4. Free College for Teachers
Read: Moriah Balingit took to the pages of the Washington Post to advocate for an apprenticeship model for teachers:
Horton is part of a grand experiment to see what happens when the apprenticeship model — used to train generations of plumbers, electricians and carpenters — is applied to teaching, allowing trainees to earn money while they learn their craft and earn their credentials. In exchange, many of the programs require graduates commit a certain numbers of years of service in high-needs schools.
Apprenticeships have also been hailed as a way to alleviate a persistent teacher shortage that has threatened student achievement, diversifying and broadening the teacher ranks, especially as interest in teaching plummets among undergraduates. And they give people like Horton, promising educators who can’t afford to return to college, a path to a higher-paying career.
Read more here.
5. Does School Funding Matter?
Listen: On the most recent episode of Lost Debate, Rikki and I debated and discussed the link between school funding and performance — and unpacked recent reporting from Matt Barnum and Adam Harris on the subject. Listen here.
6. Jail Time for “Inappropriate Books”
Read: Isiah Holmes wrote in The 74 about a proposal in the Wisconsin legislature to prosecute staff who run afoul of book bans:
Republican lawmakers are proposing to remove certain books from schools and prosecute school staff who allow students to access materials deemed inappropriate. A co-sponsorship memo entitled "Protect Childhood Innocence" authored by Rep. Scott Allen (R-Waukesha) and Sen. Andre Jacque (R-DePere) began circulating Tuesday. One proposed bill removes protections of schools and their staff against prosecution for "obscene materials violation." The other bill prohibits a school district from using school library aid funds to purchase "any item that would be considered obscene material.”
Read more here.
7. Are We Exaggerating Book Bans?
Tweet: Jay Greene from Heritage tweeted some interesting data about claims of book bans:
Read the full thread here.
8. Gifted, Talented, Lucky?
Read: Alina Adams over at The 74 reported about how Mayor Adams has essentially eliminated Gifted and Talented programs in New York City:
For 2024, all students who earned 4’s or 3’s ("meets expectations") are eligible for the G&T lottery, which now extends to fourth grade to accommodate seats created by the "Top Performers" program. Under this system, about two-thirds of all students — roughly 45,000 per grade level — are eligible, with no distinction made between those who earned all 4’s across the three core subjects of reading, writing and mathematics and those who scored all 3’s.
This turns the process into a glorified lottery. As I tell NYC parents, "Don’t worry if your kids are smart. All kids are smart. Worry if your kids are lucky." Because that’s what determines whether they receive an adequate education.
Read more here.
9. Adams Starving Pre-K
Read: Speaking of Mayor Adams, Fola Akinnibi at Bloomberg wrote about the dire state of Pre-K funding in NYC:
Across New York City, larger programs have been forced to tap credit lines, borrow from umbrella organizations and press donors for funds to keep things afloat. Smaller outfits are taking out personal loans, laying off teachers and staff or opting out of the system altogether. So far the CPC has managed to float the early childhood programs’ expenses without taking out loans, but Cheng says her team can’t do this forever. "Staff are getting burnt out," she says. "For smaller agencies that aren’t paying their staff, I don’t know how they’re surviving."
Read more here.
10. Let Teachers Teach?
TWEET: Corey DeAngelis unearthed a provocative email a state legislator in New Hampshire sent a parent:
See the tweet here.
11. Gen Z = Democratic Over-performance?
Read: Steve Shepard at Politico unpacks some new data that suggests younger voters were responsible for Democrats’ surprising midterm results:
Americans under 30 made up one-in-10 voters, down slightly from 12 percent in 2018. But branching out to the Millennial and Gen Z generations, they made up 26 percent of the electorate, up from 23 percent four years earlier.
What’s also notable about young voters is that — despite the historical penalty typically paid by the party in power — Democrats actually increased their vote share among those under 30, winning 65 percent of them, up from 62 percent in 2020, according to Catalist modeling of voter-file data.
Combined with 2018, it’s the first time Democrats have exceeded 60 percent among young voters in two consecutive midterms. The Catalist report suggests that young voters may be uniquely turned off by Trump’s version of the Republican Party, in an inverse of how voters who came of age during Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan’s administrations tended to remain Democrats and Republicans, respectively, throughout their lives.
Read more here.
12. Oakland Fallout
Read: Mike Antonucci penned a piece in The 74 about the fallout from the teacher strike in Oakland:
The union went on an unfair labor practice strike despite having three teacher union activists on the school board. It claimed to be bargaining for the common good even though the common people were woefully underrepresented in negotiations. Lakisha Young, founder of the parent advocacy group The Oakland REACH, wrote in a recent newsletter that her organization "has organized and mobilized hundreds of district parents and none of us have been a part of the process.”
She added, "OEA is replaying tactics Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) parents and students just experienced: say on repeat that the district is bargaining in ‘bad faith,’ avoid fact-finding, mediation, impasse and then strike!”
He detailed the cozy relationship between the current school board and the union:
It’s true that all three of the named board members received union campaign contributions, but that’s just a standard public policy issue. These three have unique relationships with teachers unions.
Bachelor is employed as a lead organizer for the California Federation of Teachers.
Brouhard is the former secretary of the Oakland Education Associationand sat on its executive board at least through the 2021 school year.
Williams was elected to the California Teachers Association board of directors in October, after serving as treasurer of United Educators San Francisco and a member of the National Education Association board of directors.
Read more here.