An incredible reading list about #AI framed through what TMC calls "data politics" www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/o...

Opinion | Want to Fight Back Against Big Tech? Start Here. (Gift Article)

A.I. is a political theory. And it is gobbling up our democracy.

nytimes.com

Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 2d ago

Anyway, I made a reading list in public. I try to avoid doing that. The Twitter “syllabus” wars scarred me. It’s gonna be a touchy few days.

“‘One of the greatest joys for me as a teacher is the creativity,’ she said. ‘What really bothers me on something like TPT, where people are monetizing, is that they’re asking for your money for something that they didn’t actually create.’”

Education’s version of Etsy may have an AI slop problem

We went on a shopping trip to Teachers Pay Teachers and looked for classroom materials that appear to have been generated by AI. Here are the strange resources we found.

chalkbeat.org

@ilfps.bsky.social has put together some great info and recommendations about AI/ed tech in schools. I spent a long time doing compliance work on human subjects research and you could drive a truck through the FERPA carve out around vendor services. this is far from the only privacy and safety risk

Illinois Families for Public Schools@ilfps.bsky.social · 2d ago

Prioritize kids over computers! We’re calling on Chicago School Board candidates to commit to a "Pledge to Protect Human-Centered Education”—22 have signed on so far. Full Pledge, candidates who have committed, and why we must protect human-centered education in CPS: www.ilfps.org/pledge_prote...

22 Chicago Board of Ed candidates have signed on the @ilfps.bsky.social pledge to protect human-centered education. We're advocating for a 3 year moratorium on generative AI, a Chief Data Privacy Officer, screen time limits, biometric data collection limits in CPS. See more here:

MEDIA RELEASE: Advocates Call on Chicago School Board Candidates to Pledge to Protect Human-Centered Education

Today pro-public school advocacy organization Illinois Families for Public Schools (IL-FPS) announced a Pledge to Protect Human-Centered Education. The organization is asking all Chicago Board of Educ...

ilfps.org

"According to the Guidebook and another document obtained from the district via a FOIA request, “CPS AI Access Overview,” CPS is planning to give access to Google's general-purpose AI assistant Gemini to all high school students at the start of the 2026-2027 school year." are you fucking kidding me

Illinois Families for Public Schools@ilfps.bsky.social · 2d ago

Prioritize kids over computers! We’re calling on Chicago School Board candidates to commit to a "Pledge to Protect Human-Centered Education”—22 have signed on so far. Full Pledge, candidates who have committed, and why we must protect human-centered education in CPS: www.ilfps.org/pledge_prote...

Prioritize kids over computers! We’re calling on Chicago School Board candidates to commit to a "Pledge to Protect Human-Centered Education”—22 have signed on so far. Full Pledge, candidates who have committed, and why we must protect human-centered education in CPS: www.ilfps.org/pledge_prote...

The Trump administration continues to implement harmful policy. "The data collections under the chopping block now also provided districts with impetus to collect information on and be accountable for the treatment of certain student populations, including LGBTQ+ students, experts say."

Education Department stops collecting some LGBTQ+ student data

The department will no longer include information on nonbinary students and has excluded "gender identity" from its definition of rape.

k12dive.com

The good news is that some of the fundamental joys of teaching still hold — the students themselves and the light they throw off when they’re learning.

New data debunks the teacher shortage contrarians. I wrote about new data available on the exodus from K-12 classrooms, teachers like me who left and the professionals we left behind in jobs that have only become more challenging.

Yes, There is a Teacher Shortage

And it is affecting the quality of education American kids are getting

nobody-wants-this.ghost.io

“DHS did not explain why CBP records show DNA submissions involving 492 children under 14. The department also did not address Flores settlement-related counsel’s account that families are often left confused about why DNA was taken or what happened to it.”

WIRED@wired.com · 2d ago

Internal documents show ICE's DNA collection has skyrocketed in the second Trump administration. Now hundreds of thousands of people never convicted of a crime are in an FBI criminal database forever. www.wired.com/story/ice-dn...

"Parents are fiercely debating AI’s potential to transform education while missing that our school district’s vision of education had already been transformed into something a chatbot could plausibly deliver."

Illinois Families for Public Schools@ilfps.bsky.social · 3d ago

"AI tutors for elem kids don’t seem uniquely dangerous. It’s more mundane, another ed-tech tool plugged into a system that already reduces so much of learning to whatever can be gamified & measured, that replaces student-teacher time w/ student-screen time." timrequarth.substack.com/p/nyc-public...

"AI tutors for elem kids don’t seem uniquely dangerous. It’s more mundane, another ed-tech tool plugged into a system that already reduces so much of learning to whatever can be gamified & measured, that replaces student-teacher time w/ student-screen time." timrequarth.substack.com/p/nyc-public...

NYC Public Schools are experimenting on kindergartners with AI chatbots. Should they be?

Or, what the panic over reading bots reveals about parents and schools

timrequarth.substack.com

This is the sort of thing that makes me glad we're finally moving to a fully elected representative school board: Previously, there was *no route* of communication between the community and the board. Now, they've started taking our calls, because they want our votes.

The relationship between the city and the schools is an evolving one for sure and I think it could be beautiful to see the city as a fiscal and social service partner to the schools now that they're not as entangled on governance. But instead everyone will probably just fight about money.

It's absolutely insane we've somehow let the Covid recriminations debate become like "why didn't we reopen in person schools before there was a vaccine" and not "why did none of the trump guys go to jail for stealing PPE from New York hospitals in March 2020"

I wonder if students today would be less likely to lean on AI for writing assignments if schools had made sure they could touch-type (at least 60wpm) before having them submit all their assignments online. 1/🧵

“…the kind of books he sells are specialized and are usually bought by schools and libraries. Purchases from these organizations have been trending downward because of reduced funding…” www.404media.co/ai-companies...

AI Companies Are Buying Tons of Old Books Because They're Free of AI Slop

ISBNdb, a company that sources printed books for AI companies to turn into training data, tells clients “the optics problem is real.”

404media.co

Illinois Families for Public Schools@ilfps.bsky.social · 3d ago

Schools’ and libraries’ book purchases are declining & instead AI companies are buying up used books as the raw arterial for AI slop machines www.404media.co/ai-companies...

Schools’ and libraries’ book purchases are declining & instead AI companies are buying up used books as the raw arterial for AI slop machines www.404media.co/ai-companies...

Rep Will Davis doesn't represent Chicago! His district covers South Suburban communities many w/ schools even more underresourced than CPS: “There are things that we can do. The question is are we willing to sit down & have the tough conversations to make it happen?” said Davis, a Chicago Democrat."

Illinois Families for Public Schools@ilfps.bsky.social · 4d ago

😭 "The law requires the state to add a min of $350M in new funding to the formula each year—but that isn’t adjusted for inflation. To keep pace with rising costs 'we’d really need to bump up that amount to at least $500M or $600M/year,' said Ralph Martire" www.chicagotribune.com/2026/08/01/c...

😭 "The law requires the state to add a min of $350M in new funding to the formula each year—but that isn’t adjusted for inflation. To keep pace with rising costs 'we’d really need to bump up that amount to at least $500M or $600M/year,' said Ralph Martire" www.chicagotribune.com/2026/08/01/c...

CPS is counting on $150 million more from Springfield. Will it deliver?

While the Chicago Board of Education agrees that schools need more funding, there’s far less consensus over how to get it.

chicagotribune.com

This type of analysis and presentation will in fact fuel state legislative inaction to actually solve equal opportunity problems, and adequacy problems that still persist.

But this misses two major points: 1. having similar spending isn't helpful if high and low poverty districts have similarly inadequate spending (as is true in many states). 2. Having marginally higher spending in high poverty settings may be insufficient for providing equal opportunity.

Yes - it seems generally true that when comparing nominal spending per pupil within states (averaged across states) higher poverty districts now have similar spending to lower poverty districts - on average - and especially during COVID ESSER funding period. (drawn from my own analysis)

I wrote a whole essay in some poor person’s replies again. This 🧵’s for teachers who deal with group projects and creative fields in the age of the capitalist plagiarism hagfish slime machines.

Captain Awkward@captainawkward.bsky.social · 5d ago

As a prof this is how I dealt with the person in the group project who everyone else complained privately about because they did no work come presentation time: “Nice work, everyone! For the Q& A, why don’t you start us off [Obvious Fuckup Name]! Can you tell us a little about [creative choice]?”

Google Earth, a tool often used as a source of satellite imagery to verify photos and videos, has added a feature that allows you to alter satellite imagery with AI, for reasons. blog.google/products-and...

Oh boy things are about to get interesting #ChicagoPublicSchools

Dear Parents letter from Chicago Public Schools just now: school may not start on time because the district isn't sure it will make payroll.

"The budget amendment, approved in an 11-7 vote, calls for an additional $100 million through the state’s Evidence-Based Funding formula and another $50 million from mandated grants that support programs such as transportation and special education." www.chicagotribune.com/2026/07/30/c...

After divisive debate, Chicago school board passed $9.96 billion budget banking on uncertain state funding

The Chicago Board of Education approved the district’s $9.96 billion budget that anticipates an additional $150 million in state funding.

chicagotribune.com

"Initially, state lawmakers set a goal of fully funding schools under the new formula by 2027. But at the rate the state is going, experts now say it will take another decade for that to happen."

Illinois Families for Public Schools@ilfps.bsky.social · 6d ago

"Under that, CPS gets about 73% of what it needs from the state to provide an adequate education. To reach the adequacy bar, the state would have to increase CPS funding by about $1.6 billion a year, according to the state’s own formula."

"Under that, CPS gets about 73% of what it needs from the state to provide an adequate education. To reach the adequacy bar, the state would have to increase CPS funding by about $1.6 billion a year, according to the state’s own formula."

Illinois Families for Public Schools@ilfps.bsky.social · 6d ago

"Everyone, from King to board members to union leaders, agreed the long-term solution to CPS financial problems is more state funding. Time & again, speakers pointed to the 2017 law that established how much districts need to offer an adequate education." chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-scho...