AFT, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Public School Guinea Pigs

In 2023 the AFL-CIO signed an agreement with Microsoft that both parties hoped would benefit their respective organizations. The sixty unions that comprise AFL-CIO would get a promise of neutrality from Microsoft and its suppliers in the event that workers in any of those companies wanted to join a union. Microsoft also agreed to not interfere with union efforts to organize workers.  

Microsoft and companies where Microsoft has significant stake such as OpenAI would get access to those 60 unions and their members in order to proselytize for AI, create problems for AI to solve, and to train workers to use AI tools to solve them.

The first union to cash in on Microsoft’s new marketing strategy for its chatbot product line turns out to be the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), whose president, Randi Weingarten, has previously embraced Microsoft technologies developed and marketed for schools (see here and here and here and here.  

On July 8 of this year, AFT, Microsoft, and Anthropic announced a deal that will provide AFT with $23 million to open an AI training facility in New York City that will be the hub for a joint project to train 400,000 teachers nationwide:

The $23 million in combined support is structured as follows: Microsoft is contributing $12.5 million over five years, OpenAI is providing $8 million in direct funding plus $2 million in technical resources, and Anthropic is adding $500,000 in first-year support. This collaboration represents a significant commitment from the tech industry to ensure educators are central to the development of AI in education.

Unfortunately for America’s public school students, AFT’s and Microsoft’s deal to get ChatGBT into classrooms comes with unknown costs for the developing brains of students.  The research on the effects of AI on children and adults is sparse, and the full-speed-ahead approach of AFT is not borne out by the research that doesexist. 

We know, in fact, from a recently published study, Microsoft’s own researchers found that . . . "while GenAI can improve worker efficiency, it can inhibit critical engagement with work and can potentially lead to long-term overreliance on the tool and diminished skill for independent problem-solving. Higher confidence in GenAI’s ability to perform a task is related to less critical thinking effort.”

The research was conducted with 319 adult knowledge workers, who we might expect would have a greater capacity to self-regulate than developing children and adolescents. Even so “overreliance on the tool” was noted as a significant concern.

The problem of A.I. mission creep is noted, too, by Yale poet and professor, Meghan O’Rourke, in a recent New York Times guest essay: 

Students often turn to A.I. only for research, outlining and proofreading. The problem is that the moment you use it, the boundary between tool and collaborator, even author, begins to blur. First, students might ask it to summarize a PDF they didn’t read. Then — tentatively — to help them outline, say, an essay on Nietzsche. The bot does this, and asks: “If you’d like, I can help you fill this in with specific passages, transitions, or even draft the opening paragraphs?”

At that point, students or writers have to actively resist the offer of help. You can imagine how, under deadline, they accede, perhaps “just to see.” And there the model is, always ready with more: another version, another suggestion, and often a thoughtful observation about something missing.

Creepiest of all the research and reflections I have cited in this post is the recounting from Meghan O’Rourke’s guest essay for the New York Times.  After a month of experimenting and utilizing A.I. bots, she found herself under a spell cast by her new assistant, which left her soothed, yet uneasy:

A month in, I noticed a strange emotional charge from interacting daily with a system that seemed to be designed to affirm me. When I fed it a prompt in my voice and it returned a sharp version of what I was trying to say, I felt a little thrill, as if I’d been seen. Then I got confused, as if I were somehow now derivative.

In talking to me about poetry, ChatGPT adopted a tone I found oddly soothing. When I asked what was making me feel that way, it explained that it was mirroring me: my syntax, my vocabulary, even the “interior weather” of my poems. (“Interior weather” is a phrase I use a lot.) It was producing a fun-house double of me — a performance of human inquiry. I was soothed because I was talking to myself — only it was a version of myself that experienced no anxiety, pressure or self-doubt. The crisis this produces is hard to name, but it was unnerving.

What’s the likelihood that children could be negatively influenced or actually damaged by these bots? What’s the rush?  Oh, I almost forgot—you never pause or even walk during a gold rush.  Faster, faster, before someone corners the market. 

The difference between the current high tech fix for education and all the failed ones that came before is that this one has the potential to alter what it means to be human. Haven’t children been abused enough by Silicon Valley??

Progressive Eugenics and Liberal Institutions

For a time I was a fan of Jane's Addiction (everyone was doing it), but that "Been Caught Stealin'" song was really one of their least interesting off of their break-out album Ritual de lo Habitual.  I was partial though to the prior album Nothing's Shocking and particularly amazed at the song "Pigs in Zen."

Now I won't share those lyrics here, but I will tell you that I think they're very appropriate to our national (and by that I mean everyone) somnolence.  The song has a break in the lyrics where Perry Farrell (peripheral!), the vocalist, talks some "wisdom." Part of this goes,

Some people should die
That's just unconscious knowledge
Because, because the bigger you get
The wider you're spread
You gotta depend on me
Now your vision is dead
The more your dream is dead

Now, interpretations of words are multiple and infinite (random) but I had always seen this as something of the "progressive" "spread" of culture and its dominating technological perspectives.  (Of course, likely this is a self-pitying lyric based on the "spread" of the band's popularity and the pressures to "sell out.")

I'll be honest that every time a politician opens their mouths I'm more than a little afraid.  When our talking heads and national "leaders" can speak about fully half of our population as parasites then I think we ought to brace ourselves for the coming horrors.  I don't believe we can "take back" public education; it was "sold" 30 years ago (as my friend Lawrence Baines makes clear in his books time and again).  Let's just say that as an institution it has been "spread" wide and has really done the work that has lead us to this point.  We have sacrificed all vitality for obedience and passivity in the face of the robotic future.  That future is not utopia for the lowly animals whose only "value" is as labor.  That includes teachers (at long last they have come for you, teachers--you must have known it was coming).

Below I'll offer something I posted much earlier in the year at the Errant as it seems the drive to a progressive acceptance of a eugenics philosophy seems to be bringing our oligarchical tribes to a commonality.  What follows was a reading and response to a post by Walmart Scholar Jay P. Greene--a  Freidmaniac and Market Proselytizer who is "endowed" to spread Ed Reform in our bastions os Higher Learning--his is U of Arkansas Bentonvil...er, Fayetteville.

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"Jay Greene and Roland Fryer–Clearing a Path for “Liberal” Eugenics"


First, Jay Greene makes 150k per annum from WalMart graft through his assignment as the Chief for Change in the Educational Propaganda Department at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville; likely he gets “scholarships” and speaking fees and free vacations from any number of ALEC-related,  Jeb Bush “emceed” events; but, because this is not enough, his blog is now subsidized by advertising.   Of course, that’s not a surprise, a shill is a shill is a shill and, truth be told, any master is the right master–the master of the moment with their 30 shekels--and as long as their is an "aegis" to be under.

Okay, I’ve expressed my utter disdain enough for now, besides what can one do against one of the many James Harthouses (Dickens character in Hard Times)that scum up the drain?  I can’t hate him out of a job or out of the national character for, be assured, his is a very national character.

All I can do is say, look!, listen!, and hope you see how I see, hear how I hear.

I hate to do it, but I have to excerpt what he has written today as it probably offers the most clear example of barely disguised motivation that Harthouses ever show.  It comes very near to being honest about the intentions of the sycophants and their masters.

So, let’s be off.  Be warned I will reproduce most of the post because I find it so revealing.

My comments below are interspersed between quoted sections.

Let’s begin with the beginning: the title of the piece, “Are Charter Schools Models of Reform for Traditional Public Schools?“  Of course Jay will answer yes through some mouthpiece “study results” but think about the question as an honest one.  Do public schools do a good or bad job at their core mission?  Of course, “core mission” is often a contentious thing and I would argue that schools do a very good job at the task for which they were designed: housing children for 13+ years and instilling the “way” of society as it functions “in the moment.”  This means simply replicating all of our social structures–respect for authority (especially gunslingers and business owners–as they own the property the police protect), continuing prejudices against the poor and minorities, indoctrination in “competitive” success, the veracity (as backed by scripture) of Western morality and “progress,” and so on.

Jay though is asking if there are charter schools out there who know how to create good test takers and if so, what model do they use.  But under this, always under this, is the real point: If we can make “test taking” the only measure of success we do not need to value teachers in the least and we do not need to value the very idea of education, especially the idea that public education purports to be a kind of egalitarian, socialist institution.  Two birds with one stone–1. No idea of commonwealth at the level of, well, the commons (Jay makes this explicit though in a condescending aside) and 2. No more labor costs by reducing teaching to “labor” on a par with “tutor.”  As an example an Indiana school district has recently used a budget referendum bait and switch to hire myriad “interventionists” and “preventionists” (or, tutors and aides--warm bodies, poorly paid).

In other words, Sal Khan’s “Khan Academy” (whose glorious wonderful amazing online tutorials are being used in my kids’ school via our lovely shiny iPads) will simply replace teachers.  Come on, you know it’s going to happen.  Kahn will be Time’s “Man of the Year” soon, mark my words (ed. "most influential person"), he of the true entrepreneurial spirit!  Don’t believe me?  Check out the love for him at the NewSchools Venture Fund’s “Summit.”  That’s the horrible Joel Klein on stage with him.  Spend some time reviewing the sponsors of this gathering why don’t you?

But, back to Greene’s blog post and his question “Are charter schools models of reform for traditional public schools?”

Yes, answers Roland Fryer in an amazing study released this month [pdf].  Based on earlier work [pdf], he identified 5 features of charter schools that helped them produce strong results: “increased time, better human capital, more student-level differentiation, frequent use of data to inform instruction, and a culture of high expectations.”  Fryer then somehow convinced the superintendent and school board in Houston to pursue these five reforms in a serious way in 9 struggling traditional public schools.  

Fryer is an economist who directs Harvard's EdLabs...I doubt he had much trouble convincing anyone of anything when it was likely paid for by the Gates Foundation, or the Broad Foundation, or the Ford Foundation, or the Stearns Foundation--need I go on?  Further here are the "stakeholders" of EdLabs that Roland Fryer shills for and upon whose orders he experiments with children's lives: Condoleeza Rice, Eli and Edythe Broad, Joel Klein (that nasty man is everywhere implicated in these hate-crimes), and, ta da, Michelle Rhee.  You've got to be kidding, right?

Here, in brief, is what they did: 

To increase time on task, the school day was lengthened one hour and the school year was lengthened ten days. This amounts to 21 percent more school than students in these schools obtained in the year pre-treatment and roughly the same as successful charter schools in New York City. In addition, students were strongly encouraged and even incentivized to attend classes on Saturday. In an effort to significantly alter the human capital in the nine schools, 100 percent of principals, 30 percent of other administrators, and 52 percent of teachers were removed and replaced with individuals who possessed the values and beliefs consistent with an achievement-driven mantra and, wherever possible, a demonstrated record of achievement.

Out with the OLD in with the Indoctrinated Foot Soldiers of Reform--I love that though, "values and beliefs (yikes) consistent with an achievement-driven mantra..."  Oh to be young again!

To enhance student-level differentiation, we supplied all sixth and ninth graders with a math tutor in a two-on-one setting and provided an extra dose of reading or math instruction to students in other grades who had previously performed below grade level.

Spoiler Alert: THIS, this right here, is the only thing that matters in teaching and learning in this whole pile of horse manure.  Two-on-one instruction.  First Lesson-more attention, oddly for these robot-loving minds, it's human attention, is a key to learning retention.  I'd hazard a guess it has something to do with working with a supportive person to achieve a stated common goal.  Hmm...strange how that works.

This model was adapted from the MATCH school in Boston – a charter school that largely adheres to the methods described in Dobbie and Fryer (2011b). In order to help teachers use interim data on student performance to guide and inform instructional practice, we required schools to administer interim assessments every three to four weeks and provided schools with three cumulative benchmarks assessments, as well as assistance in analyzing and presenting student performance on these assessments. Finally, to instill a culture of high expectations and college access for all students, we started by setting clear expectations for school leadership.

Finally, to be sure these soon-to-be job-seekers wouldn't go out and seek a job as these are non-existent we propagandized the non-value that is 4 more years in a system designed to keep you off the streets and keep money flowing to itself and its masters.  "Learning" you see, is not cheap, and the more we can keep you in prison, er, school, the more we continue to get paid!

Schools were provided with a rubric for the school and classroom environment and were expected to implement school-parent-student contracts. Specific student performance goals were set for each school and the principal was held accountable for these goals.

Sign 'em over, mom and dad, they're in this for the state and corporate gain, or rather for the good of society.  Unless you can tell me my name I'll keep the child!  (psst, Rumpel...oh do kids even know fairy tales anymore?)

And the result:

First, never play the "stats" game with these guys--it's totally useless as the whole of this venture is to manipulate the results so that the programs move forward.  What works in the pharmaceutical industry will work in education too, right Mitch Eli Lilly Daniels?

In the grade/subject areas in which we implemented all five policies described in Dobbie and Fryer (2011b) – sixth and ninth grade math – the increase in student achievement is dramatic. Relative to students who attended comparison schools, sixth grade math scores increased 0.484σ (.097) in one year. In seventh and eighth grades, the treatment effect in math is 0.125σ (.065) and is statistically significant. A very similar pattern emerges in high school math: large effects in ninth grade and a more modest but statistically significant effect in tenth and eleventh grade, which suggest that two-on-one tutoring is particularly effective.

Oh my lands!, as my Great Grandma Ollie might have exclaimed.

The results in reading exhibit a different pattern. If anything, the reading scores demonstrate a slight decrease in middle school, though not statistically significant, and a modest increase in high school. Impacts on attendance – which are positive and statistically insignificant – are difficult to interpret given the longer school day and longer school year.

Difficulty to interpret, not enough binary code, not enough equating and summing...Hey, folks, reading well requires agility of mind and an openness to ambiguity and interpretations often at cross-purposes.  In other words, reading, language, is what makes us the beings we are.  This is the very real and very hard work of thinking.  But is also the very real and very important work of the Imagination (the Fancy, Mr. Gradgrind; Love, Mr. Harthouse); the quality of mind that one uses in empathy, a word little known and a faculty little exercised and a quality little prized in the world of Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, ma'am.

Using data from the National Student Clearinghouse, we investigate treatment effects on two college outcomes: whether a student enrolled in any college (extensive margin) and whether they chose a four-year college, conditional on enrolling in any college (intensive margin). Calculated at the mean, students are 6.2 percentage points less likely to attend college, though the effect is not statistically significant. Conditional on attending college, however, treatment students are 17.7 percentage points more likely to enroll in a four-year institution, relative to a mean of 46% in comparison schools – a 40% increase.

Did you totally zone out there?  Me too.  But I wanted to show the level of pure "statistical" hogwash that passes for "research" and "results."

Traditional public schools can get results like a KIPP school without having to actually become KIPP schools.  They just have to imitate a few of the key features employed by KIPP and other successful charter schools.  This is incredibly encouraging news.  It means that traditional public schools are really capable of making significant progress if only they become more open to learning from successful charter schools.  They can make that progress without having to cure poverty and all other social ills (although I’m sure that would be nice too).

What was the one item of testable success detailed above?  Math scores in the two grades wherein the students were given extra instruction with tutors.

Unleash the dogs of revolution!  Traditional schools, can you handle that alteration?  Well, no, actually, because Jay and his buddies (like Mitch and Tony in Indiana) have cut all your budgets in order to instigate a testing program that will create massive failures.  BUT the good news is, after you fail, Traditional Schools, and the state has fired all of your “human capital” and replaced them with Teach for American drones they will pay nothing, you will succeed at tutoring the children in math!

But once the dust settles–we will have begun down the path that is the logic of eugenics…oh my friends, it is upon us again.  All paeans to progress lead us to one fact–some folks just aren’t good for much.  Absolutely nothing…well, except War, ‘cuz somebody needs to die in war right?  If you don’t believe me, just take a glance at some recent work in academia.  Here’s a book that actually defends the concept of eugenics–but the good kind.  One assumes if an academic philosopher is staking out territory against “state” eugenics then we are already well down the rabbit hole (note this title was published 8 years ago).  I am not exaggerating in the least.  What does rigid adherence to “measurable standards” ultimately lead?

All the talk of Finland’s success comes down to this–low poverty and all the same kind of people.  Well, I know a good way to start making that happen.  Did you know, incidentally, that the state leading the way in Education Reform, Indiana, was the first state to pass Sterilization Laws in 1907?  Fun fact.

It stuns me to think these people exist and that they really put such "programmatic" planning on paper, in public, on a pretty website, with their names on it, and their holy institutions of hierarchy in boldface.  Hurray, Harvard, leader in legitimizing Eugenics!

College Board Introduces New Test to Sort Human Capital in 8th Grade

No one remembers that the SAT was designed to predict the success of college applicants. It is now simply an "objective instrument" used to justify the expansion of privilege and status for those who can afford it. Most have even forgotten that NCLB was billed as a tool to give extra help to struggling schools, while everyone can see that it now functions as a "scientifically-based" tool to shutter the public schools and segregate the poor in prison-style testing camps run by zealots with tons of tax-deductible corporate cash.

Now the College Board is rolling out a new product to do for the 8th grade what the SAT did for the senior year: turn the final year of middle school into a testing hell camp for the pushy parents who can afford the tutoring needed to prepare their Caitlins and Seths to ReadiStep their way up the backs of less financially-endowed classmates whose high school expectations will be mailed to them in a College Board envelope before they ever enroll in a high school. Thus we become able to separate even earlier the human capital from the human liabilities, which was the point of the old school eugenics movement as well.

From the NYTimes:

Amid growing challenges to its role as the pre-eminent force in college admissions, the College Board on Wednesday unveiled a new test that it said would help prepare eighth graders for rigorous high school courses and college.

The test, which will be available to schools next fall, is intended only for assessment and instructional purposes and has nothing to do with college admissions, College Board officials said.

“This is not at all a pre-pre-pre SAT,” Lee Jones, a College Board vice president, said at a news conference. “It’s a diagnostic tool to provide information about students’ strengths and weaknesses.”

The College Board, which owns the SAT and PSAT, made its announcement when an increasing percentage of high school students are taking the rival ACT and amid mounting concern over what critics call the misuses of the SAT and ACT and other standardized tests in college admissions.

Those critics dismissed the new test for eighth graders as just what Dr. Jones said it was not: “a pre-pre-pre SAT.” . . .