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Todays parents are choosing what schools their kids went to based on their own experience. This article details this phenomenon by saying that parents 20 years ago would choose this based on information created by the schools themselves and social networking. This sounds a lot to me like the vaccinating children issue, for better or worse, everyone thinks their experience and their research is correct. Some of the quotes from the article are from parents who say that they went to a private school and had a good experience, so they want their kids to go to private school. The inverse is also true where parents who had a bad experience at X school would look at different options for their own kis. While I think that is a short sighted way of doing it both ways, I get where they are coming from. All parents want their kids to have a good school experience. I think schools need to do a better job of evening out the playing field and just having all schools be good. But like that is not really a hot take, just common sense.

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The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

Faced with a growing number of options for where to enroll their children in school, parents quickly narrow their choices based on their own educational experience as students.

That's what we found for a study published in March 2023 in Social Currents.

Historically, parents have turned to their social networks and materials produced by school districts to help them choose a school for their children.

However, when we analyzed interviews with a diverse sample of 60 parents from the Dallas metropolitan area, we found that about one-third of them used their own experiences in school to narrow their options before they gathered other information about schools.

If parents had a positive educational experience as children, they frequently narrowed their options to the same type of school that they attended, whether that be a private, magnet or traditional public school. Their hope was to replicate this positive experience for their kids. For example, Janice, a Black mother of two, explained, "They're in private school mainly because I went to private school."

Although parents of all backgrounds and income levels used this strategy, it was most common among white parents, who typically enrolled their children in private or suburban public schools, which they attended themselves. We refer to this as "experience-motivated replication."

Virginia, a white mother of two, explained that her husband, John, "just assumed our kids are going to public schools" because the suburban schools he attended were such "wonderful public schools." To replicate John's experience the couple was in the process of leaving the city to buy a home in the suburbs.

Similarly, Rachel, a white mother of three, quickly narrowed her school options to consider only private Catholic schools because of her own positive experience. Rachel's husband told us: "The kids go to the same private Catholic school that she went to."

In contrast, we find that when parents had negative educational experiences, they typically sought to avoid enrolling their children in the type of school they attended, eliminating those schools from consideration. This strategy, which we call "experience-motivated avoidance," was common among Black parents in our sample who felt underserved in city public schools as children.

For instance, Toni, a Black mother of three, shared: "I went to a public school and I don't think that the teachers really care about the kids' education. That's me personally. I didn't get that one on one." Based on this negative experience, she did not consider their zoned Dallas public school. Instead, Toni focused on charter school options for her children. She ultimately enrolled them in a charter school near her home.

Why it matters

Where families decide to enroll their children in school not only influences the educational resources available to their child, but also shapes broader patterns of racial and socioeconomic segregation in America's schools.

The school selection process plays a key role in how educational inequalities span generations, especially when white parents rely on their own experiences to inform the choices they make for their children.

For example, when white families move out of the city to enroll their children in suburban public schools, or consider only private schools like those they attended, these choices replicate historic patterns of white flight. It also helps explain why white families tend to be overrepresented in private schools and suburban public schools.

Conversely, when we examine how parents' negative experiences as students influence which schools they consider for their children, it may help us to better understand why, for instance, Black and Latino families increasingly choose charter schools.

What still isn't known

While this study shines light on one key aspect of how parents choose schools for their children, we believe it is important to understand all of the ways parents choose schools. Examining the choice process for diverse populations of families in districts where school choice is available can reveal the full set of strategies parents rely on to select schools.

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Parents tend to choose their children's schools based on their own educational experience

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The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. Faced with a growing number of options for where to enroll their children in school, parents quickly narrow their choices based on their own educational experience as students. That's what we found for a study published in March 2023 in Social Currents.

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Picking this one just because its hilarious

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Picking this one just because its hilarious

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Okay becuase we had to do 12 of these I decided that I would pick one funny one, I wanted to get a local perspective on one of these so I went to the journal star. This article right away stook out to me becasue, well, duh. High schoolers having sex was at a decade low during the pandemic. I mean, yeah, people didn't go outside, how would you.... ya know what nevermind. Also in the article is discussion about a more important issue that arose during the pandemic. Mental Health. An adolescent sex behavior researcher interstingly links the two which was not what I thought this was going to be about. Basically, she says that because of the mental health decline and social isolation, kids are having less sex and also less intersocial interaction. Which is really bad. They actually argue that kids are having too little sex which, again, I found hilarious. We really just need to find a middle ground where teens interact with one another positiviely without needing to have unsafe sex.

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NEW YORK (AP) - The first years of the pandemic saw a huge decline in high school students having sex, according to a government survey.

Teen sex was already becoming less and less common before COVID-19.

About three decades ago, more than half of teens said they'd had sex, according to a large government survey conducted every two years. By 2019, the share was 38%. In 2021, 30% of teens said they had ever had sex. That drop was the sharpest ever recorded by the survey.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday released reports analyzing the latest findings from the survey that looks into risky youth behaviors, including smoking, drinking, having sex and carrying guns.

More than 17,000 students at 152 public and private high schools responded to the 2021 survey. Participation was voluntary and required parental permission, but responses were anonymous.

The CDC also noted declines in students who said they were currently having sex or who'd had at least four sex partners.

The declines clearly had a lot to do with the pandemic that kept kids isolated at home for long stretches and, often, under extended adult supervision, experts said.

Health officials generally like to see trends that result in fewer teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, but the decline in teen sex coincided with increased reports of social isolation and poor mental health.

"I think these together paint a picture of high school students building fewer strong interpersonal connections that can be protective of good mental health," said Laura Lindberg, a Rutgers University researcher who studies adolescent sexual behavior.

"This is an opportunity to say maybe teens are having too little sex," said Lindberg, who was not involved in the reports.

The CDC's Kathleen Ethier said the decline may be a good thing if it reflects more young people making healthy decisions to delay sex and reduce their number of partners.

"But what concerns me is this is potentially a reflection of social isolation," said Ethier, director of the CDC's division of adolescent and school health.

The 2023 survey, which will show if the decline was temporary, is currently underway.

Another finding: The proportion of high school kids who identify as heterosexual dropped to about 75%, down from about 89% as recently as 2015. Meanwhile, the share who identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual rose to 15%, up from 8% in 2015, when the survey began asking about sexual orientation.

There were also increases in the proportion who said "other" or that they were questioning or uncertain, the CDC found. The changes may be at least partly related to social changes that have reduced the stigma about identifying as not heterosexual, Lindberg said.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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Pandemic sent high school sex to new low, survey finds

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NEW YORK (AP) - The first years of the pandemic saw a huge decline in high school students having sex, according to a government survey. Teen sex was already becoming less and less common before COVID-19. About three decades ago, more than half of teens said they'd had sex, according to a large government survey conducted every two years.

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I learned about this report through another article https://theeducatorsroom.com/education-funding-fair-funding-education-law-center-report/ in which a teacher from Minnesota spoke about her districts faillures and malnurished amount of funding. Her state actually grades fairly well, however in her article, she talks about how her school is having to take out loans in order to pay teacher salaries. How her school spends about $300 on each student while other schools and districts spend upwards of $2000 per student. Even someone who has lived under a rock their whole life and only knows the value of numbers can see that these two situations are inequal. Looking at the nationwide report we can see a very sad state of affairs all over the country, by my count, only 23 of the 51 states (they include DC) do NOT include an F in one of the grading scales (Funding Level, Funding Distribution, and Funding Effort). From a selfish standpoint I was happy to see Nebraska score pretty well, with two C's and one A. Thats like a B- average, we will take that!

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We define fair school funding as the funding needed in each state to provide qualified teachers, support staff, programs, services, and other resources essential for all students to have a meaningful opportunity to achieve a state's academic standards and graduate from high school prepared for citizenship, postsecondary education, and the workforce. A fair funding system is the basic foundational building block for high-performing, effective, PK-12 public school systems. Fair funding has two basic components: a sufficient level of funding for all students and increased funding for high-poverty districts to address the additional cost of educating students in those districts. These two components are dependent on a third factor: the effort made by state lawmakers to raise sufficient revenue to support the public schools to meet state-established curriculum content and performance objectives.

Unlike other countries, the United States has no national education system. Instead, states, under their respective constitutions, have the obligation to support and maintain a system of free public schools for all resident children. The states, and not local school districts or the U.S. Congress, are the unit of government legally responsible for operating the nation's public schools and providing the funding necessary to support and maintain those schools.

All states fund their schools through a statewide method or formula enacted by the state legislature. These school funding formulas, or school finance systems, determine the amount of revenue school districts are permitted to raise from local property and other taxes and the amount of funding or aid the state is expected to contribute from state taxes. In annual or biannual state budgets, legislatures also determine the actual amount of funding districts will receive to operate their schools. Several states, including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, fail to provide in their budgets the amount of state aid required by the state's own funding formula, a condition called formula underfunding.

State and local revenues account for, on average, approximately 92% of total funding for public education. The federal government, primarily through programs targeted for low-income students and students with disabilities, contributes the remaining 8%.

Why Does Fair School Funding Matter?

A fair, equitable, and adequate school funding formula is the basic building block of a well-resourced and academically successful school system for all students. A strong funding foundation is even more critical for low-income students, students of color, English learners, students with disabilities, and students facing homelessness, trauma, and other challenges. These students, and the schools that serve them, need additional staff, programs, and supports to put them on the same footing as their peers. Research on the needs of vulnerable student populations for extra academic and academically-related programs and services is compelling, as is growing evidence that increased investments in these students improves academic achievement and other outcomes.

The Fairness Measures

A state's funding level is measured by analyzing the combined state and local revenues provided through the state school finance formula, adjusted to account for regional variations in labor market costs.

A state's funding level grade is determined by ranking its position relative to other states; the grade does not measure whether a state meets any particular threshold of funding adequacy based on the actual cost of education resources necessary to achieve state or national academic standards.

shows the extreme divergence in school funding levels across states, even after adjusting for regional cost differences, with the top states providing upwards of 50% more and the bottom states providing 30% less than the national average funding level of $15,446 per pupil. shows a clear geographic pattern, with states in the Northeast and Midwest generally having higher funding levels than those in the South and West.

shows the change in each state's funding level rank between 2008 and 2020. While the majority of states remain relatively stable, moving five or fewer rankings up or down, some states stand out. On the positive side, Illinois, Washington, and California all climbed double-digits in their rankings between 2008 and 2020. In Illinois, that meant moving from a D to an A rating, while Washington and California went from Fs to a C and D, respectively. On the opposite spectrum, six states fell in ranking by ten or more spots. The largest declines were in Montana (B to C) and Florida (C to F) which both fell by 14 spots.

The change in relative rank illustrates whether states followed or bucked national trends in funding over this period, but the rankings can mask gains or losses in per-pupil funding within states. For example, when comparing inflation-adjusted funding levels between 2008 and 2020, we find that some states had large percentage gains in per-pupil funding levels, even if their rank did not significantly change (). States such as New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania all saw well above average increases in per-pupil funding, but because they were already ranked relatively high, they did not see much movement relative to other states. On the other hand, states such as North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada, already bottom-ranked, decreased funding when compared with 2008, after adjusting for inflation. For example, North Carolina's funding levels are down 10% from 2008, though its rank only fell from 46th to 48th overall. See Appendix Table A1 for funding level changes in all states.

The hallmark of a fair and equitable school finance system is that it delivers more funding to educate students in high-poverty districts. This means states providing equal or less funding to high-poverty districts are shortchanging the students most in need of additional resources for academic success. A central feature of fair school funding is providing higher levels of funding to districts serving large concentrations of students from households with incomes below the federal poverty line.

Figure 2a depicts funding distribution in each state as measured by the funding allocated to high-poverty districts relative to low-poverty districts. States allocating more per-pupil funds to high-poverty districts have a "progressive" distribution system, resulting in a higher grade on the funding distribution measure. States that do the opposite have a "regressive" distribution system and earn a lower grade. States with similar funding levels in high- and low-poverty districts have "flat" distribution systems, clustered in the C grade range.

As with funding level, states are highly divergent in terms of the progressivity of their funding distribution. Three states - Utah, Wyoming, and Alaska - provide more than 50% more funding to high-poverty districts, while New Hampshire and Nevada provide 27% less.

Only 19 states have even modestly progressive school funding systems with at least 5% more funding, on average, in high-poverty districts. School funding is flat (+/-5%) in 12 states, meaning there is no appreciable increase in funding to address the need for additional resources in high-poverty districts. The remaining 17 states have regressive funding systems, i.e., they provide less funding to their poorest districts ( Fig. 2b ).

Funding Distribution Over Time

The number of progressive, flat, and regressive states fluctuates slightly from year to year. Typically, about one-quarter to one-third of states are classified as progressive, though that increased slightly in 2019 and 2020 ( Fig. 2c ). Within these national trends, there has been some significant movement, both positive and negative, among individual states.

Figure 2d shows the ten states with the most improved funding distribution between 2008 and 2020:

Four progressive states became substantially more progressive: Wyoming, Utah, Nebraska, and South Dakota.

Three flat states became at least mildly progressive: Colorado, Maryland, and New Mexico.

Three regressive states became mildly progressive: New York, North Dakota, and North Carolina.

Among the ten states with the least improved funding distribution between 2008 and 2020:

Four progressive states became flat: Massachusetts, New Jersey, Montana, and Tennessee.

Five flat states became regressive: Nevada, Connecticut, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Kentucky.

Alaska became less progressive.

See Appendix Table A2 for funding distribution changes in all states.

The fairness of a state's school funding system is contingent on both adequate funding levels and a progressive distribution of funds. Some seemingly well-resourced states, such as Illinois, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, do a poor job of targeting those funds where they are most needed, leaving large disparities in average funding levels of the highest and lowest poverty districts. Likewise, some states with a progressive distribution, such as South Dakota, California, and Colorado, have low overall funding levels that leave even their highest poverty districts with funding that just barely reaches the national average ( Fig. 2e ).

ranks states on effort as measured by the percentage of the state's economic activity, or gross domestic product (GDP), allocated to support the PK-12 school system. It is important to consider a state's effort index in the broader context of their overall economic wealth. Consider New Hampshire and Mississippi: both states receive a C with slightly above average effort, but they have vastly different per capita GDPs. Though they are making a similar effort to fund schools, New Hampshire is doing so in the context of an average size economy, where per capita GDP is at the national average, while Mississippi is doing so in a small economy, where per capita GDP is 39% below the national average. With the same effort, New Hampshire receives an A for funding level, and Mississippi receives an F. also juxtaposes a state's relative effort compared to the national average with its per capita GDP to contextualize how the effort index interacts with the state's relative wealth to produce high or low funding levels.

It is also important to recognize that the effort index reflects both state and local funding as a percentage of GDP at the state level. A high effort index does not mean funding is distributed equitably across districts within the state. In fact, many of the highest effort states receive an A on funding level and an F on funding distribution (Illinois, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maine). In these states, the high funding levels, driven by local property taxes, are disproportionately concentrated in the state's lowest poverty districts, while the highest poverty districts are left with less.

Due to state disinvestment in education after the 2008 Great Recession, the national average effort index hovered around 3.4-3.5% from 2011 to 2019, down from 3.76% in 2008 (). Even as the economy rebounded, most states did not increase PK-12 education spending in proportion to gains in GDP, keeping the effort index low. The effort index increased to 3.60% in 2020, though this is due to diverging trends in the initial phase of the pandemic, where education spending, which usually lags behind overall economic trends, increased at the same time as GDP fell.

In states that saw the largest increase in the effort index, education funding outpaced growth in GDP. States with the greatest losses saw the opposite - education funding increased at a slower pace than GDP. Notably, several states with the highest gains in effort had above average increases in education funding even though their overall economy grew at a slower pace than the national average. Illinois, Hawaii, and Delaware prioritized school funding, even through a slow economic recovery. On the other hand, some states with the largest declines in effort had below average increases in education funding, despite average or above average growth in GDP (Idaho, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Florida). These states disinvested in education even while experiencing a healthy economic recovery (). See Appendix Table A3 for funding effort changes in all states.

To illustrate the impact of states' declining effort to fund their public school systems, shows the difference in per-pupil funding if states had maintained their pre-Recession level of effort. Thirty-two states would have generated more funding for their schools if they had maintained their fiscal effort from 2008. Thirteen states would have increased funding levels by more than $2,000 per-pupil over current levels, including five states with funding well below the national average (Georgia, Florida, Arizona, Alabama, and North Carolina). In total, reduced state effort on education funding resulted in a loss of $752 billion in state and local funding between 2009 and 2020 ().

The 2022 Midterms:

Momentum for Reform?

State lawmakers are legally obligated to maintain and support - i.e., fund - their public school systems. This means that school finance reform can only be achieved through political campaigns focused on legislators and governors in statehouses across the country. We know from our research on successful school funding reforms that these state-based campaigns must utilize multiple strategies, from research to grassroots organizing, communications, and, where feasible, litigation.

There is growing evidence that the fight to preserve and strengthen public education is gaining steam in the states - where it matters most. Recent results from the 2022 midterm elections offer some striking examples of how grassroots advocacy and sustained political campaigns can secure meaningful wins to improve funding, resources, and opportunity for the nation's public school students.

In Massachusetts, voters approved a ballot measure, the Fair Share Amendment, that creates a surcharge on incomes over $1 million. This "millionaire's tax" is expected to generate over $2 billion a year, and the revenue raised is earmarked for education and transportation. The Fair Share for Massachusetts campaign secured this win through research, advocacy and statewide organizing that focused on building more equitable schools and communities.

In New Mexico, voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to guarantee the right to early childhood education in the state's constitution. The amendment obligates an additional 1.25%, on top of the existing 5%, to be withdrawn annually from the Land Grant Permanent Fund, a trust fund that will provide approximately $150 million for early childhood education and another $100 million for K-12. This victory was the culmination of more than a decade of advocacy grounded in research on the educational and social-emotional benefits of early education and, more recently, a political campaign to elect more "champions of equity" in the state legislature.

According to the Education Commission of the States, the 2022 elections included a total of seven education-related ballot measures. Five of the seven were related to PK-12 funding, and all five passed. In addition to the measures mentioned above, California voted to increase arts and music education funding by $1 billion annually; Colorado voted for universal free school meals; and New Mexico voted in favor of authorizing bonds for school facilities projects.

In other states, the elections have shifted political power in the direction that will likely yield increased state investment in public education. In Michigan, Democrats now hold majorities in both the House and the Senate, paving the way for the governor's progressive education agenda in her second term. Maryland, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania elected governors who pledged to support and expand school finance reforms that have stalled under previous administrations. Kansas re-elected a staunchly pro-public school governor who has championed the cause of school funding reform in that state.

Public education remains the "ultimate states right" in the United States. This means that school finance reform will be won or lost politically in the statehouse, not with local school boards or in Congress. The recipe for political success is clear: a combination of research, grassroots organizing, and communications all working together toward a common goal. With this combination of tools, it is possible to secure from state lawmakers the reforms necessary to provide every student in every school with the educational opportunities they deserve and are constitutionally entitled to.

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We define fair school funding as the funding needed in each state to provide qualified teachers, support staff, programs, services, and other resources essential for all students to have a meaningful opportunity to achieve a state's academic standards and graduate from high school prepared for citizenship, postsecondary education, and the workforce.

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A title as predictable as the sun rising

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A title as predictable as the sun rising

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Throughout the course of education history we have heard this topic with every new introduction of instructional technology. The chalk board, the projector, the calculator, the list goes on and on. We have this argument every single time and every single time the industry figures it out in one way or another. In a few years some teacher will figure out how to use Chat GPT and other AI bots to their advantage and this whole argument will be squashed. It is so predictable to see these things coming from a mile away. Also I think this one has an interesting dynamic in the sense that a student doesn't have to use it. I am writing this right now without the help of AI and I think I am doing just fine. When the calculator was invented, its not like we stopped doing math by hand, it was just an aide.

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It may feel as though the world is changing faster than ever, and that is because it is.

"An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential. So, we will not experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century - it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today's rate)." - Ray Kurzweil, "The Law of Accelerating Returns"

An increasing number of companies and organizations are adopting artificial intelligence (AI) for various purposes, including customer service chatbots and personalized shopping recommendations. These systems provide a quick and effortless way for individuals to get information by using natural language processing to comprehend and respond to human input in a conversational manner.

The creative arts are also being significantly impacted by AI, with some AI-generated works even taking home prizes in digital art competitions. For instance, " Théâtre D'opéra Spatial," an AI-generated piece of art, took first place in the digital category at the Colorado State Fair in 2022. The work's "amazing amount of detail and intricacy" and capacity to "question our ideas about the nature of creativity and the creative process" were both complimented by the judges.

As AI continues to evolve, it is likely that it will also be incorporated into education. ChatGPT, a chat-based AI with access to the entire internet (up to 2021), gained over a million users within a week of its launch. Since then, there have been reports of pupils' homework surpassing teachers' expectations. Now some teachers worry students are using AI to complete homework and are recording information without truly understanding it. As AI becomes more prevalent in daily life, students will increasingly turn to it for help with their homework, just as they have adapted to using online tools like Google Classroom to aid in their learning during the pandemic.

The days of homework being an extended learning tool could be over, with students able to ask; "Alexa, what's ⅛ multiplied by 2/9?", "Chat GPT, can you draft a 500-word essay explaining Why the Six Day War of 1967 was a turning point in the situation in the Middle East?"

Does this mean that chat-based AI has rendered homework pointless? To an extent, yes, students can achieve a correct answer without possessing any understanding or even reading into the topic. And if schools were to use AI to generate homework tasks, we run the risks of AI setting homework and AI completing homework with no learning taking place in between.

"We are at a pivotal moment in technological advancement and education. Can we take this opportunity to rethink the education system and create a system in which pupils and teachers want to participate?" Could AI Finally Kill Homework? Click To Tweet

This issue highlights a flaw in the education system (even before pupils became aware of how they could use AI). When homework tasks are designed or communicated effectively, learners do not see the relevance or value of homework tasks. They may start to view them as pointless and look for shortcuts to avoid wasting time. When used effectively, homework enables the application and reinforcement of what has been learned in class, with the goal of achieving success in exams.

However, there is also a widespread belief among parents, educators, and learners that the current examination system primarily assesses students' memory rather than their true potential. Students are faced with a task that feels pointless to better prepare them for a system that does not correctly measure their skills. For too long, homework has been rote and meaningless. If AI finally puts an end to that, both educators and students stand to benefit.

AI can be used to "cheat" and complete tasks with little effort and even less absorption of knowledge, but that does not mean it should be completely separated from education. In fact, chat-based AI can be a valuable educational tool. It can retrieve information more quickly than a search engine and provide personalized feedback and guidance to learners as they work on assignments. Chat-based AI can also help students set goals, stay on track, and manage their time effectively, which can improve their self-regulation skills and increase productivity. This leaves students with more time to focus on developing their skills rather than just completing tasks.

Think about Duolingo, for example. The app uses AI to personalize language lessons (with the ability to adjust difficulty based on users' strengths and weaknesses), provide immediate feedback, and create interactive conversation simulations.

Right now, we are at a pivotal moment in technological advancement and education. Can we take this opportunity to rethink the education system and create a system in which pupils and teachers want to participate?

There are several ways the education system could be redesigned to create a more engaging and meaningful experience for pupils and teachers. One approach is to focus on fostering a culture of inquiry, where questions are valued more highly than answers. To do this, educators can make an effort to connect the material being taught to students' interests and goals, which can make learning more relevant and engaging. Additionally, giving students a say in what they learn and how they learn can increase their motivation and engagement. Experiential learning, where students are provided with hands-on, real-world experiences, can make learning more engaging and meaningful. Encouraging students to think creatively and critically about the material they are learning can also help them develop important skills that will serve them well in their future endeavors.

There is a risk, however, that schools will fear AI interfering with learning (pupils cheating) and will turn to supervised pen-and-paper assignments. This could further decrease learner engagement and steer learners further away from the skills they will need in the future.

If schools act and focus on learner engagement and attainment, the argument for scrapping homework altogether becomes stronger. Research suggests that the relationship between homework and academic achievement is weak. Eliminating homework can reduce stress and improve mental health for students. It also levels the playing field for disadvantaged students who may not have the same resources. Students will have more time to pursue other interests and hobbies.

If homework is here to stay, reform is necessary. One way to achieve this is to incorporate open-ended questions that require students to formulate and defend their own opinions or tasks that require students to think critically and apply their knowledge to new situations. Assigning tasks that require students to develop higher-order thinking skills, such as analyzing a case study, synthesizing information from multiple sources, or developing a solution to a complex problem, can help students better reflect on the skills valued in the modern world. Additionally, incorporating AI into homework tasks can help to personalize instruction and provide immediate feedback, allowing students to learn and improve more efficiently. AI can be used to teach higher-order thinking skills through tasks like analyzing case studies, synthesizing information, and working on group projects. Tools like AI-powered research and project management tools can facilitate these tasks.

Educators can use strategies like teaching time management and organization techniques, and incorporating open-book exams, to help improve learners' meta-skills. These strategies help students develop higher-order thinking skills and become more independent, self-directed learners.
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In conclusion, the education system should strive to create a balance between traditional and experiential learning, personalized instruction, and the appropriate integration of technology. If AI is used to make learning and class work more efficient, there may no longer be a need for homework. Homework teaches time management, prioritizing, independence, and responsibility, but AI tools can fulfill these roles with personalized learning plans, real-time progress tracking, and instant feedback. These factors make it possible for students to learn and retain knowledge effectively without the need for homework. Students will have the tools and curiosity to further their own educational pursuits outside the classroom. As we move forward into the age of AI, let us embrace the opportunity to reimagine education and create a system that develops the skills of the future.

@KieraMoran_ is an artist, writer, and PGCE student from South Wales with a passion for incorporating technology into the classroom. Diagnosed at university with dyslexia, Kiera used tools such as text-to-speech to keep up with the demands of the course. Now, she uses her firsthand experience with the challenges of learning to help students succeed and thrive in a rapidly changing world.

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Could AI Finally Kill Homework? - The Educators Room

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Have you signed up for The Educator's Room Daily Newsletter? Click and support independent journalism! It may feel as though the world is changing faster than ever, and that is because it is. "An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential.

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This article is about the story of a woman who followed in her mothers footsteps in the teaching industry and how thankful she is of the opportunities she was afforded due to nepotism. She talks about how she feels additional pressure to be the best teacher she can be becasue her mom set such a high standard. My response to this, especially to people who would potentially be upset by the nepotism involved and the opportunities given to this women that otherwise would not have without the nepotism is. Who cares. Her school has been rewarded with a fantastic teacher, who actively tries harder at her job to follow in her moms steps. Nationwide we have experienced a shortage of teachers, much less good ones. Anyone who would complain about there being a good teacher becuase of how she got there doesn't see the greater picture. In education, nepotism is a good thing.

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Nepotism Has Benefits for Teachers, Students, and Families
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I'm in my 18th year of teaching. But I don't know if I would be here without nepotism. It's given me advantages in my educational career that I am so thankful for. I have spent my entire teaching career in the same district that hired me right out of college, and I am proud to work in the district that employed my mother for all 25 years of her teaching career. However, she set some very high expectations and standards within that district, and I feel obligated to work hard to live up to those expectations.

In 2022, nepotism took on a new label, "nepo babies," which New York Magazine then popularized in their December 19, 2022, cover story. The article "She Has Her Mother's Eyes. And Agent." discussed the "love-hate obsession" with actors and actresses who have had successful Hollywood careers like their parents. This article went viral and got Americans buzzing about nepotism not just in Hollywood but in all industries - including education.

Can Nepotism Benefit Education?

Being a nepo baby myself, I have a pretty strong opinion on the pros and cons of nepotism in education. Does it exist? Absolutely. Can districts and teachers use it to their advantage? 100% yes.

In my experience, the pros outweigh the cons. I have been afforded the opportunity to work in one of the most sought-after school districts in Mississippi. Our district currently ranks #2 in the entire state, and teachers continually move here to vie for a job. My mother, who worked for the same district all twenty-five years of her teaching career, paved the way for me to work here. She did the same thing for my younger brother; we have been teaching in the same district for almost 20 years. My brother and I were hired by principals our mother was "friends" with and a superintendent who knew my entire family very well. Do I look at this as a "pro" of nepotism? Yes, I do.

Pros of Nepo Babies in Education

In the education industry, we seek out the best of the best. The future of our students is crucial, and we want their education to be top-notch. An ideal teacher would be hard-working, compassionate, and intelligent. As the children of a successful teacher, my mother passed down all of these traits to my brother and me. We learned from her how to apply these traits in the teaching careers we both hold today.

It also helped that we live in a tiny town with a population of only about 20,000 people and that we attended school grades K-12 here ourselves. Today, we both hold positions at the upper elementary and high schools we attended as kids. Because we grew up with such close ties to the schools we teach at, we work hard to make sure our schools and students are successful; the well-being of the district holds a special place in our hearts. Because of this, the district we work for gained two loyal, dedicated educators when they hired us.

Because our mother was a teacher, we both learned the ins and outs of the district before we even began working there, making us ideal candidates. We also knew prior what life would be like with a career in teaching, and we are now better at balancing work/family life and avoiding burnout. Oddly enough, our spouses are both teachers - in the same school district we work in. That is nepotism at its finest.

Additionally, districts hiring teachers whose parents taught for them are more likely to retain those teachers due to their close familial ties to the district. A certain level of loyalty goes hand-in-hand with teachers born and raised in the district they work for, and school districts can use this to their advantage. In this case, the pros of nepotism can benefit both parties. Teachers are proud to follow their parent's steps, and districts have an employee who is less likely to transfer out of the district. This can be extremely helpful, or even necessary, in districts that struggle to retain or recruit teachers.

Cons of Nepo Babies in Education

One of the biggest cons of nepotism in school districts is the complex feelings and unfairness employees can feel when nepotism is prevalent within a district. Signs of nepotism may be a turnoff to potential new teacher hires. Districts may also lose strong, capable teaching candidates by hiring friends or family members instead. Nepotism can also drive away current teachers who may feel there is no hope for advancement or growth within their current district. School districts are definitely not free of workplace gossip, and talk of nepotism can be a huge turnoff for some employees; they leave the district looking for a more peaceful workplace.

Another con is the lack of diversity nepotism can bring to a district's teaching pool. Continually hiring with a nepotistic approach can limit diversity not only racially and culturally but academically as well. Districts can push away highly qualified teachers in certain subject areas in favor of hiring a friend or family member who is less qualified or may even need to obtain an endorsement to be able to teach a particular subject. Nepotism does not strengthen racial or gender diversity within a district, which can cause problems in communication for current employees and look distasteful to new hires.

In spite of these drawbacks, I believe nepotism can be a benefit to both districts and employees, especially in smaller cities. When districts hire people the city is familiar with in a positive light, parents trust their judgment. Teachers reap the benefits of positive relationships with parents, and districts get the advantage of hiring familiar faces.
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Nepotism will always be a topic that turns heads, and New York Magazine's December article is a prime example. The article went viral in just a few days, with people validly supporting both sides of the argument. However, due to the infamous article, the two words "nepo baby" have become a term that has sparked much controversy. Whether you think nepotism has positive benefits or not, the education industry has its fair share of nepo babies holding important, worthy teaching positions. We are a hard-working, loyal group of educators who are proud to represent our school districts. Even though hiring a "nepo baby" can be viewed as controversial, we bring a lot to the table and are here to stay in the education industry.

Ashley Chennault is currently a freelance writer and 4th-grade teacher in the small coastal town of Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Ashley is in her 18th year of teaching and holds a master of arts degree in elementary education. In addition, she became Nationally Board Certified in 2020. In her free time, she enjoys her second job as a contract grant writer for philanthropy corporations, boating, beaching, cooking, watching her teenage sons play sports, and spending time with her three adopted wiener dogs, Georgie, Henry, and Tripp.

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I'm an Education "Nepo Baby" - The Educators Room

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Have you signed up for The Educator's Room Daily Newsletter? Click and support independent journalism! I'm in my 18th year of teaching. But I don't know if I would be here without nepotism. It's given me advantages in my educational career that I am so thankful for.

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This article briefly talks about the statistics of men in the education system as teachers and when we link this information to the information we learned in the book about upper management being largely white men. This article talks about a steady decline in men being teachers since the 1960s. I think that a lot of this comes from the pay. I add the caveat that I disagree with this as an acceptable thing, but also the data shows that it is largely true. Men tend to gravitate towards high risk and high reward professions, and teaching is a low reward profession monetarily. Men are incentivized by the patriarchy to become a big shot and bring home the big bucks to support the family. In most states and cases that is not possible to do on a teachers salary. Again, I do not agree that this is an acceptable thing, but it is the reality. The article says that 35% of secondary education teachers are male and I cannot wait to join that statistic.

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Source:

"Status of the American Public School Teacher 2000-2001," National Education Association.

Credit: Edutopia

Percentage of the nation's three million teachers who are men. The proportion of male elementary school teachers (9 percent) and male secondary school teachers (35 percent) has fallen gradually since 1961. Also, states with higher salaries tend to have the most male teachers: Michigan ranks first (37 percent of teachers there are male) and is in the top five nationally in teacher pay, while Mississippi ranks last (male teachers comprise 18 percent of the state's total) and is next to last in pay.

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"Status of the American Public School Teacher 2000-2001," National Education Association. Credit: Edutopia Percentage of the nation's three million teachers who are men. The proportion of male elementary school teachers (9 percent) and male secondary school teachers (35 percent) has fallen gradually since 1961.

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This article was very intruiging to me becasue as a very competitive person I find it hard to excell in some things based on the fact that I have nothing to compete against. Maybe this is a bad thing to say but, why would I work harder if I get nothing extra for it? Well this school in California has created someone of an answer to that problem when it comes to teachers. The system works basically exactly how it sounds, the better your students become at understanding your lessons, the more you will get paid. The details are a little bit fuzzy in this article as the exact implementation but the numbers and the headline make sense. "At Vaughn, Principal Yvonne Chan has instituted a system in which teachers can earn an additional $17,000 a year in performance-based bonuses." That bonus buys a car. I want to work at that school immediately.

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Merit pay can sometimes seem like the third rail of educational policy: It's politically dangerous, potentially explosive, and liable to burn anyone who touches it. But now, this powerful controversy is proving to be hard to ignore as salary bonuses and peer review resurface as hot reform topics in 2008.

Pay Points

Below are ten recommendations by principals and other educators on how to implement reform and avoid catching fire:

Make sure teachers are competing against mediocrity rather than one another. "A merit system has to incorporate a belief in teacher mentorship and teamwork," explains Hillary Miller, a former public elementary school teacher in Austin, Texas.

Ensure that there's enough project funding in the bank to last at least five years, because a great merit-pay system a school can afford to offer for only a short time leads to disillusionment rather than hope.

Make sure the size of the committee involved in creating the system and maintaining it is reasonable; too many voices delay decisions. (One teacher says five to seven people is a good rule of thumb.)

"Teacher buy-in is a must," reports the Center for American Progress, in Washington, DC. In Chicago, for example, 75 percent of the teachers in a school must vote yes on a pay-structure change before the system can be instituted there.

Judge a teacher's effectiveness using agreed-on evaluation tools, not based on how students perform on one test.

Engage teachers in the development of an objective, rubrics-based evaluation tool. Try out the tool, and then refine and revise it.

Offer at least 15-20 percent of base pay as a potential annual bonus. A teacher's added pay "has to be transformative," says Nínive Clements Calegari, coauthor of Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers. "You can't offer her $500, $2,000. You have to make it worth it."

Start with volunteers for the alternate-pay program -- especially new teachers and those with five years of experience or less -- before extending the plan to veteran educators.

Continually offer training to new and experienced peer reviewers.

Listen to the advice administrators and peer reviewers provide, and solicit ways to improve the program.

Where It Works
Photo courtesy of Yvonne Chan
Vaughn, a low-scoring public elementary school in its pre-charter school incarnation, implemented many of the reform tips and went on to win numerous accolades, among them a National Blue Ribbon Schools Award. The school won the award, which recognizes outstanding public and private schools nationwide, due in no small part to changes in its teacher-pay structure.

At Vaughn, Principal Yvonne Chan has instituted a system in which teachers can earn an additional $17,000 a year in performance-based bonuses. When you consider that the average elementary school teacher makes about $45,000 a year, it's obvious that that kind of money is a big incentive. "Leaving the district was a no-brainer," says Andy Carbonell of his switch to teaching sixth-grade math at Vaughn after eleven years as an elementary school teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

"My base pay at Vaughn is virtually identical to the district's," Carbonell points out. "But when you include all the possible bonuses and incentives, my salary is substantially larger."

Chan offers one last tip: "Principals and administrators must opt in first."

Laura McClure is a freelance writer and editor in San Francisco.

What's in a Name?: A Phrase's Controversial Past

"'Merit pay' is a phrase that makes a lot of teachers' skin crawl," says Nínive Clements Calegari, coauthor of the book Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers. Calegari, now a strong supporter of merit pay, admits that as a public school teacher herself ten years ago, she was heartily against the idea. "What happened historically is that it was instituted atrociously -- and there was only enough money to give a couple of superstar teachers extra pay," she says. "Well, no one likes that."

Past experiences aside, Calegari believes that if merit pay is done correctly, it's a crucial means to raise teachers' salaries. "It's the only thing that will make the profession prestigious, competitive, and sustainable," she notes. "And you need that to really reform schools." But the Reagan-era failures of merit pay have led many supporters of the concept to distance themselves from its traditional name. The nom du jour for linking teachers' salaries to how well they and their students do: pay for performance. -- LM

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Merit pay can sometimes seem like the third rail of educational policy: It's politically dangerous, potentially explosive, and liable to burn anyone who touches it. But now, this powerful controversy is proving to be hard to ignore as salary bonuses and peer review resurface as hot reform topics in 2008.

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I really love this article because of the implications it can have on a nationwide scale. We have learned all year about how low retention rates are for teachers and how hard it is for schools to recurit new teachers when a massive percentage of them come in for a year or two and then leave the profession. Any silicon valley company worth there salt has figured out a way to keep employees happy and working with them despite low pay, perks. I know that if you work at Snapchat in california, they will pay 100% of the cost it takes for you to commute and have an entire cafeteria in house that is free for all employees as much as you want. They even have little sleeping areas for you to get a nap in during a long day. In theory these things just seem like a forward thinking company being nice to their employees, but in reality they are a way to keep the low paid workers, working. As bad as this is going to sound, the same thing can be done for teachers, subsidizing housing that is nearby the school. Having lowcost in house meals, the list is endless, but those sort of perks will make it harder for teachers to leave the profession, especially young teachers.

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Credit: Courtesy of Thompson/Dorfman
Central Florida's Osceola County School District has sprung a leak, and it's threatening to worsen. In 2005, 59 of the district's 600 new teachers left within four months of the start of the year.

A primary reason: They couldn't afford to live there. Others still commute 30 or 40 miles each way from the more urban but less expensive Orange County. Next year, school board member Tom Greer predicts, "they'll be teaching there."

Across the country, districts in high-priced real estate markets are suffering a similar drain, and increasingly they're seeking creative ways to entice teachers with housing perks. Though some, such as New York City's, offer housing stipends, others are pursuing a bolder tactic -- they're building houses.

The Santa Clara Unified School District, in California's largely upscale Silicon Valley, took this leap in 2002 when it opened Casa del Maestro, a forty-unit apartment complex built on district-owned land for just $6 million; a Bay Area developer did the work at cost. Teachers who have worked in the district for less than three years and remain employed in it can rent a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment for up to five years for $1,200 a month -- about half the market rate.

"We were having a hard time attracting and retaining teachers," says Superintendent Rod Adams. "It's been definitely worth the investment." Actually, not a dime has come from the district's general fund; rent covers building maintenance (a separate foundation manages the property) and loan payments for the construction. The project has handily paid off; only 7 percent of teachers who live in the complex have left the district, compared to 37 percent of new teachers hired during the same years who live elsewhere. So pleased is the school board that it plans to start building a thirty-unit addition to Casa del Maestro in March.

Districts across Florida may soon consider such options. A state bill passed last spring allows districts to partner in building workforce housing (for public safety and health workers, as well as teachers) by donating land to a city or county government for that purpose. Osceola County is jumping at the chance. Over the past five years, home prices there have ballooned more than 50 percent, says Mike Horner, president of the local chamber of commerce. Low interest rates, a soft stock market, and a seemingly endless stream of new residents from chillier states have prompted investors to buy apartments and convert them to condos, selling for upward of $200,000 -- a daunting sum on a starting teacher's salary of $36,200.

Credit: Courtesy Thompson | Dorfman

The district and its partners want to build 120 two-bedroom apartments with a market value of about $1,200 a month, which essential workers could rent for $840. Teacher recruitment is especially urgent in Florida, given its growing population and a state law that requires schools to shrink class size by 2010 to eighteen for primary grades, twenty-two for grades 4-8, and twenty-five for high school. The year before the law took effect in 2003, average class size was twenty-four at all levels.

The pool of new educators is low. State universities graduate only a fraction of the 20,000-30,000 teachers the state needs to hire each year.

"If we don't come up with some unique ways to recruit teachers to Florida," Greer says, "they're not going to come, and they're not going to stay."

Grace Rubenstein is a senior producer at Edutopia.

How Teacher Pay Compares

Profession | Average Salary
Professor | $94,606
Attorney | $89,989
Engineer | $78,023
Computer-systems analyst | $73,269
Accountant | $56,102
Teacher | $46,597

Sources: National Survey of Professional, Administrative, Technical, and Clerical Pay, U.S. Department of Labor; National Compensation Survey, U.S. Department of Labor; American Association of University Professors, Acadamie; American Federation of Teachers, annual survey of state departments of education, various years.

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Home Room: Making It Comfortable for Teachers to Stay

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Credit: Courtesy of Thompson/Dorfman Central Florida's Osceola County School District has sprung a leak, and it's threatening to worsen. In 2005, 59 of the district's 600 new teachers left within four months of the start of the year. A primary reason: They couldn't afford to live there.

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Students appreciate their teachers hard work, for the most part.

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Students appreciate their teachers hard work, for the most part.

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One of the things that has stood out to me this entire semester is that week after week, lesson after lesson, we hear about the horror stories of being a teacher. Why getting support from other teachers and faculty is so hard. Why parents suck, why motivating and keeping students interested is becoming harder and harder. The more we read and the more we learn, the more hopeless it seems. But then, like a pheonix rising from the ashes stuff like this pops up. Being a teacher is worth it becasue it is our calling. Teaching is worth it becasue you are a catalyst that can change a kids life. One of your students may be president some day. It all goes back to the first week of class when we learned about the internal and external validation that comes with teaching and this article is one of those external ones. Students really being honest with themselves about what they see from their teachers day to day is largely positive, and this survey was mostly done with teenagers who are notoriously... lets just say weird. Being recognized for hard work makes the work less hard.

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It’s Been a Tough Time for Teachers. But Students See Their Dedication, Survey Finds

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More than four in five teens surveyed by the EdWeek Research Center said they believe their teachers are motivated to help them learn.

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Can Teachers Block Parents and Students as well?

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Can Teachers Block Parents and Students as well?

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This article describes a court case that started in 2014 in which two school board memebers blocked a husband and wife on social media becasue they were constatnly harrassing them on facebook and twitter. I will not get too much into the nitty gritty of the actual case becasue you can just read the article for yourself, however, it brings up an interesting case into the future of free speech online and also potentially the freedom of privacy for teachers. The court basically said that because the accounts of the board members were being used as governmental information sites, they would post about school board meetings and snow days and etc., that blocking citizens from governmental things is against the rules. I know as a teacher we would have different rights, but what if in the future we are required to use social media as a communication method with students and we get harrassed. Very interesting to see how this will play out.

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear the appeal of two local school board members who blocked two parents from their personal Facebook and Twitter accounts for allegedly spamming them with repetitious comments.

The parents sued under the First Amendment, and two lower courts ruled that even though the board members' social media pages were not official government outlets, they focused on school board business. Thus, the blocking of some constituents from the pages amounted to government action.

The court granted review of O'Connor-Ratliff v. Garnier, as well as a companion case, Lindke v. Freed, which involves a city manager whose blocking of one resident from his Facebook page was upheld by a lower court. The cases, which will be heard in the court's next term, could lead to an important decision on the rules for government officials' engagement with citizens on social media, especially in an age when both in-person and online interactions are frayed by sharp disagreements over hot-button issues.

'Civic-minded constituents' or annoying serial responders?

The school board members' case stems from 2014, when Michelle O'Connor-Ratcliff and T.J. Zane were first elected to the board of the 35,000-student Poway Unified School District in California. Both converted their campaign Facebook accounts into sites for information about their board service and the school district. O'Connor-Ratcliff did the same with her Twitter account.

On those personal sites, O'Connor-Ratcliff and Zane identified themselves as board members and posted about Poway district matters, such as upcoming board meetings, status reports about an interim superintendent search, and video clips of student musical performances.

Christopher and Kimberly Garnier, parents of three students who were attending district schools at the time, began posting responses to the board members' social media posts. The Garniers believed the board members were not responding adequately to their emails, court papers say.

The board members eventually blocked the Garniers from Facebook, as well as from O'Connor-Ratcliff's Twitter account.

The Garniers acknowledged that some of their posts were repetitious, but said in trial testimony they would sometimes post the same or similar comments on separate posts so more audience members would see the comments. Their lawyers describe the couple as "civic-minded constituents" who regularly attended board meetings and helped bring mismanagement in the district to light.

The Garniers sued O'Connor-Ratcliff and Zane, arguing that the decision to block their comments violated their First Amendment rights to free speech and to petition the government. A federal district court ruled for the parents, holding initially that the board members' personal social media pages were "tools of governance" and that the interactive commenting features constituted a public forum.

After a trial on certain issues, the district court went on to rule that the board members "have leveraged technology to provide new ways for their constituents to gain awareness of their activities and initiatives as elected officials" and thus have helped "facilitate transparency in government."

But while the initial blocking of the Garniers' "unreasonable" postings was permissible, its continuation for some three years regulated the parents' speech more broadly than necessary, the judge said.

Ruling for critics may mean less speech, board members argue

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, upheld the district court last year. The three-judge panel ruled unanimously that the board members created a public forum because "they clothed their pages in the authority of their offices and used their pages to communicate about their official duties."

The board members identified themselves as government officials, listed their official titles in prominent places, and included an official district email address in the contact information on at least one of the pages, the court said.

"Both through appearance and content, the [board members] held their social media pages out to be official channels of communication with the public about the work of the" Poway district, the appeals court said.

Zane is no longer on the board, but O'Connor-Ratcliff was re-elected last year to a new four-year term, and she continues to block the Garniers on her Facebook and Twitter accounts.

In their appeal to the Supreme Court, the board members argue that the 9th Circuit's ruling "will have the unintended consequence of creating less speech if the social-media pages of public officials are overrun with harassment, trolling, and hate speech, which officials will be powerless to filter."

They also point out that the federal courts of appeals are divided in their approaches to government officials blocking constituents on personal social media pages. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in Cincinnati, last year upheld actions by the city manager of Port Huron, Mich., to block a citizen who had left comments on the manager's Facebook page critical of the city's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The 6th Circuit held that no city resources were used for the manager's Facebook account and he was under no obligation to maintain his personal page, and thus there was not government action.

The Supreme Court granted a review of the blocked citizen's appeal of that decision and indicated it would hear it alongside the school board members' case next fall, with separate arguments devoted to each.

High court weighed Trump blocking case until it became moot

The issue of officials blocking people on social media accounts has arisen at every level of government, including a handful of other school cases, although some of those involved official school district accounts.

When Donald Trump was in the White House, he was sued over blocking seven people from his personal Twitter account in 2017. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, in New York City, held that Trump's use of his personal Twitter account while in office was "governmental" rather than "personal" and that his effort to block individuals was government action.

The Supreme Court was weighing whether to grant review of that decision when Trump lost re-election in 2020. The court in early 2021 dismissed his case as moot and ordered the 2nd Circuit decision to be thrown out. By then, Twitter had removed Trump himself from its platform in the wake of the attack by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol.

Justice Clarence Thomas, in a solo opinion in that case, Trump v. Knight First Amendment Institute, expressed concern about the power of social media.

"Today's digital platforms provide avenues for historically unprecedented amounts of speech, including speech by government actors," Thomas said. "Also unprecedented, however, is the concentrated control of so much speech in the hands of a few private parties. We will soon have no choice but to address how our legal doctrines apply to highly concentrated, privately owned information infrastructure such as digital platforms."

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Can School Board Members Block Parents on Social Media? Supreme Court to Decide

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear the appeal of two local school board members who blocked two parents from their personal Facebook and Twitter accounts for allegedly spamming them with repetitious comments.

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How to Know Wether or Not Chat GPT has good information or not

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How to Know Wether or Not Chat GPT has good information or not

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I am of course not advocating for the use of AI programs when completing homework assignments, nor am I condoning any other type of behavior like that. However the reality and future teachers is that we are still a few years away from the classroom and from having to grade research papers and essays that could have been using Chat GPT or whatever other AI tool gets created in the next few years. During my time in high school, the most sophisticated thing you could do to cheat on a written assignment was to go to one of those paper writng websites and pay some random human somewhere around the world to just write one for you. I never did that so I have no idea how reliable they were in terms of getting caught for cheating, however the facilities to do that now are so much more robust that, this link and article will be a vital resourse for teachers and students alike moving forward.

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Teaching Students How to Identify Credible Sources

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Teachers can guide students toward a clear understanding of the factors that make a particular source of information reliable or not.

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Motivation is hard for me. Everytime I have started a new job or hobby or anything for most of my life, it did not take long before I didn't like it or wanted to move on. This article is a valuable take on staying motivated as a teacher. We are in an era of mass exodus in this industry and this article reflects some of the reasonings for that happening. Putting myself into a teachers shoes right now in this moment. You just went a month off from your job for the winter break. Your motivation from august has slowed drastically, the weather sucks, you have some seasonal allergies going on and now you have to put on a brave face in school for another 5 months before the summer. That would be draining and difficult. These 6 things to consider are valuable to keep in mind for my own teachers now, as well as for myself in the future.

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6 Things to Consider Before Leaving Teaching

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The demands of teaching can definitely take a toll—to the point that you might feel like you need a change. But before you make that decision, it’s important to make a clear assessment.