"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Thursday, July 24, 2025

Call to Action on Impeachment

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    The Fascist War on Diversity Now in Accreditation Business. Call to Action!!

    From the Academe Blog:

    BY MATTHEW BOEDY

    Every AAUP member should be concerned about the new accreditation group recently birthed in Florida. This week Louisiana became the seventh state to say it was joining.

    While only for now targeting states in the South the group’s business plan shows its strategy is to take on as clients public schools in any state. Its political strategy has been named by Governor Ron DeSantis as eliminating “woke” from schools. The governor of Louisiana said its goal was the ending of DEI-driven mandates. Its academic goals are to “streamline” accreditation so that institutions can innovate more quickly.

    Whatever the words by its supporters, it would be the state controlling higher education to such a degree as to merit comparison to the era when the AAUP was founded. Whatever the faults of the accreditation system and any specific outlet, the system has stood in the way of those who want to move fast and break things such as academic freedom and shared governance. 

    The Florida university system was the first to join the new group. I can only assume that as boards begin to meet for the academic year, other states that initially expressed interest like mine in Georgia will officially join. And soon thereafter comes a director and board members. From there the business plan suggests six schools in those states as its first clients. 

    The only obstacle may be the price tag. That business plan says each founding state will give $4 million or equal labor to get the effort off the ground and into a future where it can rely on accreditation fees. It may take up to two years for the new group to get federal recognition and the prize of federal funding for its accredited schools. But the pieces will be put in place this fall. The time for faculty to act is now.

    This is why I am calling on all faculty senates in public colleges across the South (and beyond) to pass resolutions disapproving of the new group and urging its administration and overseers at all levels not to join.

    This kind of effort must be networked and done with speed. Fortunately for traditionally slow moving senates we have a model of a quickly developing process in the Mutual Defense Compact that flew through this spring in mainly Big Ten schools. There must be SEC and ACC and Big Twelve versions.

    I took the liberty of revising that initial resolution for this new use. Feel free to revise and use as you see fit:  

    Faculty Statement Against Political Power Grab of Accreditation  

    WHEREAS recent and escalating politically motivated actions by governmental bodies pose a significant threat to the foundational principles of American higher education, including the autonomy of university governance, the integrity of scientific research, and the protection of free speech;

    WHEREAS state governments across the South and aligned political actors at the federal level have targeted the independence of institutional accreditation with legal, financial, and political incursion designed to undermine the accrediation process and exert improper control over academic administration;

    WHEREAS these state governments have routinely undermined faculty governance and academic freedom with state laws and policies;

    WHEREAS these same state governments will choose the board members of the Commission for Public Higher Education and that board will chose a director, offices that will direct the commission; 

    WHEREAS these same state governments will financially invest in the commission up to $4 million;

    WHEREAS that money and influence will corrupt the independent accreditation process and allow states to steer colleges and universities toward policies, curriculum, hiring standards, and institutional benchmarks that will undermine higher education’s role in our democracy;

    THEREFORE, be it RESOLVED that this faculty senate urges the administration of this school and its state higher education system leaders to formally declare it won’t become a client of the commission as long as it is overseen by state governments.  

    Matthew Boedy is president of the Georgia AAUP. He can be reached on X/Twitter and Bluesky. 

     

    Monday, July 21, 2025

    Twenty Years Ago Today

    On July 21, 2005 I started a blog called Schools Matter. And just a few days ago, we crossed the 20 million views threshold. 

    Twenty years later we are still plagued by high stakes tests and the corporate ed reform agenda. Added to these challenges, education as an idea and an institution is under attack as fascists attempt to dismantle all democratic institution and values, including facts, truth, science, art, speech, and intellectual and body freedom. 

    My thanks to all the writers, scholars, and bloggers who, too, thought schools mattered during the past two decades: Susan Ohanian, Judith Ann Rabinowitz, Peter Campbell, Kenneth Libby, Paul Thomas, Stephen Krashen, Doug Martin, Ken Derstine, and someone I know I’ve forgotten (please remind me).  Thank you.



    Sunday, July 20, 2025

    The Epstein Cover-Up at the FBI by Allison Gill

     

    The Epstein Cover-Up at the FBI by Allison Gill

    Inside the chaotic review process of the Epstein and Maxwell files at the Bureau

    Read on Substack

    Tuesday, July 15, 2025

    MIT Research on Student Use of AI Exposes Serious Cognitive and Behavioral Concerns

    Slate published an important article today that explores what it's like for college students who resist the short-cuts to learning that artificial intelligence provides. It’s well worth reading and should give pause to the race to embrace these flawed robots that are erasing humans from a growing list of occupational fields, while debasing the cognitive growth of students of all ages who are allowed or encouraged to use these little-understood technologies. 

    Among the many links provided in the piece, I followed this one to an MIT study published last month that scientifically compared neural and behavioral functioning among groups of students who engaged in essay writing with and without computer assistance.  Here is the abstract (my bolds):

    This study explores the neural and behavioral consequences of LLM-assisted essay writing. [LLM refers to Large Language Models, i.e., AI tools]. Participants were divided into three groups: LLM, Search Engine, and Brain-only (no tools). Each completed three sessions under the same condition. In a fourth session, LLM users were reassigned to Brain-only group (LLM-to-Brain), and Brain-only users were reassigned to LLM condition (Brain-to-LLM). A total of 54 participants took part in Sessions 1-3, with 18 completing session 4. We used electroencephalography (EEG) to assess cognitive load during essay writing, and analyzed essays using NLP, as well as scoring essays with the help from human teachers and an AI judge. Across groups, NERs, n-gram patterns, and topic ontology showed within-group homogeneity. EEG revealed significant differences in brain connectivity: Brain-only participants exhibited the strongest, most distributed networks; Search Engine users showed moderate engagement; and LLM users displayed the weakest connectivity. Cognitive activity scaled down in relation to external tool use. In session 4, LLM-to-Brain participants showed reduced alpha and beta connectivity, indicating under-engagement. Brain-to-LLM users exhibited higher memory recall and activation of occipito-parietal and prefrontal areas, similar to Search Engine users. Self-reported ownership of essays was the lowest in the LLM group and the highest in the Brain-only group. LLM users also struggled to accurately quote their own work. While LLMs offer immediate convenience, our findings highlight potential cognitive costs. Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels. These results raise concerns about the long-term educational implications of LLM reliance and underscore the need for deeper inquiry into AI's role in learning.

    And here are the researchers' conclusions:

    As we stand at this technological crossroads, it becomes crucial to understand the full spectrum of cognitive consequences associated with LLM integration in educational and informational contexts. While these tools offer unprecedented opportunities for enhancing learning and information access, their potential impact on cognitive development, critical thinking, and intellectual independence demands a very careful consideration and continued research.


    The LLM undeniably reduced the friction involved in answering participants' questions compared to the Search Engine. However, this convenience came at a cognitive cost, diminishing users’ inclination to critically evaluate the LLM's output or ”opinions (probabilistic answers based on the training datasets). This highlights a concerning evolution of the 'echo chamber' effect: rather than disappearing, it has adapted to shape user exposure through algorithmically curated content. What is ranked as “top” is ultimately influenced by the priorities of the LLM’s shareholders [123, 125].


    Only a few participants in the interviews mentioned that they did not follow the “thinking” [124] aspect of the LLMs and pursued their line of ideation and thinking.

    Regarding ethical considerations, participants who were in the Brain-only group reported higher satisfaction and demonstrated higher brain connectivity, compared to   other groups. Essays written with the help of LLM carried a lesser significance or value to the participants (impaired ownership, Figure 8), as they spent less time on writing (Figure 33), and mostly failed to provide a quote from their essays (Session 1, Figure 6, Figure 7).


    Human teachers “closed the loop” by detecting the LLM-generated essays, as they recognized the conventional structure and homogeneity of the delivered points for each essay within the topic and group.


    We believe that the longitudinal studies are needed in order to understand the long-term impact of the LLMs on the human brain, before LLMs are recognized as something that is net positive for the humans.

    The Privatization/Censorship/Indoctrination Agenda Is in Full Bloom

    Thursday, July 10, 2025

    Public Assistance for the Privileged

    Indiana Vouchers: Private School Coupons for Wealthy Families by Andy Spears

    Program costs nearly $500 million, funds private school discounts for the rich

    Read on Substack

    Thursday, July 03, 2025

    Trump Sycophant, Andy Ogles, Still Under Investigation

    Investigative reporter, Phil Williams, has been digging into the sordid story of the “George Santos of the South” for a long time, now.