Alex Spurrier

Associate Partner @bellwetherorg | Past: National Voices Fellow @FiftyCAN, @HarvardSDP Data Fellow, @KyDeptofEd, @kystats | Views = my own.

[Alex Spurrier @alspur]

@oliviakrauth @CourierNewsroom Congrats!

[Andrew Rotherham @arotherham]

Want to hear some diverging ideas on AI even from people who work on the same team? New Wonkyfolk with Mary Wells and Marissa Mission from @bellwetherorg

https://t.co/03VtEkEnV4

[Alex Spurrier @alspur]

@arotherham Similar strategy as the anti-Common Core coalition from 14 years ago!

I'd bet that we'll see more of this re: AI policy, another issue space without clear right/left coding...

[Andrew Rotherham @arotherham]

We should be increasing swimming not decreasing it, basic life survival skill and a lot of avoidable drownings each year.

https://t.co/s8fBj7Ke49

[Alex Spurrier @alspur]

There is nothing in high school sports like the MN state hockey tournament.

[Dylan Loucks @DylanLoucks4]

The Class AA State Championship at Grand Casino Arena on Saturday between Minnetonka and Moorhead had more attendance than 11 NHL games. #Stateofhockey

Here is Saturday's attendance report.

[Marc Porter Magee 🎓 @marcportermagee]

“Republican lawmakers in Kentucky last week passed a bill to opt the state into the federal tax credit scholarship program—the only school choice opportunity for Bluegrass State children. Now Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear has a political choice to make.”

[John Bailey @John_Bailey]

Even if you believe Anthropic is wrong on the merits, this response makes America weaker, not stronger.

The Administration's own AI Action Plan calls for "aggressively adopting AI within the Armed Forces." Instead, with potential military action against Iran on the near horizon, we're ripping out the only frontier AI model on classified systems because of a contract dispute over terms that Pentagon officials admit were never actually triggered.

The AI Action Plan frames everything as a race against China. Blacklisting Anthropic hands China a strategic gift.

The Admin's foundation EO is literally titled "Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence." A supply chain risk designation against a leading American AI company isn't removing barriers, it's erecting a wall that goes well beyond anything California or Colorado ever contemplated.

The December EO states: "It is the policy of the United States to sustain and enhance the US's global AI dominance through a minimally burdensome national policy framework for AI." The admin just imposed the single most burdensome regulatory action ever taken against a domestic AI company.

The supply chain designation cascades far beyond defense: every company with Pentagon contracts must now certify they don't use Anthropic, sending ripple effects through pharma, health systems, and research institutions. It could set back cancer research: for example Flatiron Health, a Roche affiliate, uses Claude to extract cancer progression data across 14 tumor types. It could slow fundamental science: Claude is deployed at Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, where thousands of scientists do foundational work in biomedical research, genomics, and computational biology.

But perhaps the most revealing lesson is that the AI Action Plan was never binding. It was a set of stated principles that could be, and just were, discarded the moment they became inconvenient.

[Ross Douthat @DouthatNYT]

There is absolutely a case that the US government needs to exert more political control over A.I. as a technology given what its own architects say about where it's going and how world-altering it might become. But the best case for that kind of political exertion is fundamentally about safety and caution and restraint. The administration is putting itself in a position where it's perceived to be the incautious party, the one removing moral and technical guardrails, exerting extreme power over Anthropic for being too safety-conscious and too restrained. Just as a matter of politics that seems like an inherently self-undermining way to impose political control over A.I.

[Alex Spurrier @alspur]

“Many large purchases had been made at the discretion of former Superintendent Pollio, w/o sufficient oversight from the finances department or the Board of Ed”

“The district used temporary or nonrecurring funds, such as COVID relief money, to expand programs and staffing”

[Courier Journal @courierjournal]

JCPS draft audit finds lack of financial oversight from board, CFO https://t.co/QH0oEtvbof

[Dana Goldstein @DanaGoldstein]

I'm launching a new project on how A.I. is changing writing instruction. Professors and high school teachers -- we need your help! Please fill out this brief survey: https://t.co/ks2DcGcFX8

[Alex Spurrier @alspur]

Please pray for those involved, their families, and the first responders in Louisville.

[OSINTdefender @sentdefender]

Muhammad Ali International Airport in Louisville, Kentucky is currently closed to arriving and departing flights, following the crash of (UPS2976), a McDonnell Douglas MD-11 being operated as a cargo plane by UPS Airlines that had just taken-off from the UPS Worldport in Louisville. A massive fire is currently burning near the airport — engulfing several nearby buildings — with a shelter-in-place order having been issued for a five-mile radius around Muhammad Ali.

[Marc Porter Magee 🎓 @marcportermagee]

You shouldn’t need little fireworks graphics every time you turn the page of Moby Dick to keep going.

[Alex Spurrier @alspur]

Maye to Boutte bombs are my new favorite Sunday tradition #gopats

[New England Patriots @Patriots]

Want to see a perfectly thrown football?!?!?

@DrakeMaye2 | #NEPats

📺 FOX

[Andrew Rotherham @arotherham]

Amazing how much education, and political, world still talks of school choice in terms of "if" when real questions are increasingly about when and how. @rpondiscio gets at that here @educationgadfly.

(And we're so polarized people don't get how much is self-inflicted.)

[Marc Porter Magee 🎓 @marcportermagee]

"We've replaced your teen's desire to read a book with this infinity slop"

[Alex Spurrier @alspur]

I don't think this is the *best* school finance proposal, but it's certainly the *most Wisconsin* idea I've heard...

[Vanessa Kjeldsen @VanessaKjeldsen]

Beer vendor and Democratic candidate for Wisconsin governor Ryan Strnad says the state's schools need money.

His solution?

"How about selling alcohol at high school sporting events," Strnad said. "I know it's a bold decision to make, but hey, that's revenue."

[Andrew Rotherham @arotherham]

Per Times article below, some of Arabella's work is political, but some is just helping new non-profits launch, which is important to dynamism. @bellwetherorg we are non partisan but do help non- and for-profits launch through fiscal sponsorships and other support for that exact reason - we really need new ideas and entrants in the education sector.

https://t.co/CXKQtbGzuR

[Alex Spurrier @alspur]

@arotherham @ChadAldeman @CEDR_US @MatthewAKraft @MichaelPetrilli

[Alex Spurrier @alspur]

English teacher + gym teacher is going to be the edu-ween couples costume of the year – that's a given.

The bigger question: who will be the first to set up an RDD study of the Swift-Kelce engagement's impact on teacher prep pipelines?

[Alex Spurrier @alspur]

NAEP scores started declining in 2015, but it’s not the only concerning trend among younger cohorts…

[John Burn-Murdoch @jburnmurdoch]

NEW: Is the internet changing our personalities for the worse?

Conscientiousness and extroversion are down, neuroticism up, with young adults leading the charge.

This is a really consequential shift, and there’s a lot going on here, so let’s get into the weeds 🧵