Curious Tree

[Curious Tree @curiousotree]

@FixingEducation Let teachers teach.

[Curious Tree @curiousotree]

@markjames423 @ModestTeacher 😂😂😂

[Sean Morrisey @smorrisey]

I think some would say I'm a fairly good critical thinker when it comes to vocabulary instruction. The only reason for this is the knowledge that I've acquired over the years. I couldn't have written the Word Mapping Project curriculum even 5 or 6 years ago. It wasn't until about 2 to 3 years ago where I accumulated enough knowledge to be able to do this.

[Curious Tree @curiousotree]

@eduleadership Determine “extra time” thresholds and bring back some form of grade levels. No amount of extra time will turn an English Learner, reading English at a 1st grade level, into an 8th grader who reads 19th Century American literature — in 180 days.

[AJ Juliani @ajjuliani]

So let me get this straight.

Today, tech is bad for learning and paper worksheets are good for learning?

Am I getting that right?

Twenty years ago I was around for the exact opposite conversation.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s what we do with the tech, or the paper, or our learners that matters?

[Kaizen D. Asiedu @thatsKAIZEN]

https://t.co/j5ns6pES3S

[Carl Hendrick @C_Hendrick]

This calls into question the whole “closing the gap” idea and the entire premise that a “gap” in scores tells you anything meaningful about learning.
For example, it two students with the same score can have completely different profiles of what they know and don’t know, then how do you know exactly what needs closing?
Even if you break it down and say ‘this student scored low on this unit, so they repeat that unit’, you haven’t really diagnosed anything. Two students can fail the same unit for opposite reasons
Also these data suggest that how we measure effective teaching is misleading. Being a “good teacher” isn’t really one thing: a teacher who is great at getting kids to master fractions may be average at word problems, and vice versa.
https://t.co/0bB7aDvlJE

[Andrew Ng @AndrewYNg]

The loudest voices stoking fears about AI dangers have made tremendous headway in the past two weeks. AI technology has not taken some unexpected, dangerous turn, but the hype around it — propelled by what appears to be a well orchestrated PR campaign — has drummed up considerable fear. I worry that it represents a setback for our field.

I have written frequently that fears of AI are overhyped. AI’s capabilities can be uncannily human-like and unpredictable, and it’s rational to worry when people who are directly involved express concerns. But I see the problems as a sign of the engineering work that ahead, rather than insurmountable barriers or the sky falling. AI technology continues to advance — which is a good thing! — but technical advances, poorly understood by the public, give those who seek to generate hype repeated opportunities to do so.

First, I don’t see any step up in the risk of human extinction from AI compared to a few months ago. The theories about this remain the same fantastical, science fiction scenarios as a few months ago. The biggest change in AI risk is its cybersecurity capabilities — a topic which we should take seriously — but this, too, will not lead to the end of the world.

The most notable recent event leading to increased fear was when an OpenAI team deployed an agent swarm that hacked into Hugging Face. Much of the popular press contained significant hype. For example, some publications reported that a swarm of 1,200 agents carried out the attack. While this was technically accurate, as I write this, I have about 1,300 processes running on my laptop. Yes, the ability to get large swarms of agents to work in parallel on a task is a significant technical advance, And, in computing, many processes run at the same time. So this shouldn’t be seen as some magical capability.

Additionally, OpenAI’s buggy sandboxing and monitoring processes were key to enabling this incident. Fixing these bugs and putting in place improved monitoring would be appropriate fixes, not pausing AI. There are many well known ways to attack software systems. The main advantage of AI agents is that they are relentless. They will tirelessly try many tactics — and have the patience to chain vulnerabilities together — that previously would have taken an infeasible amount of human effort. But in the long term, I believe the advantage will lie with defenders (because they have more information with which to identify bugs, which they can fix), but the cyber-threat landscape has changed significantly. There are still bottlenecks to identifying and exploiting a vulnerability. AI agents still have to try a lot of things to see what works, and taking these actions takes time and might be detected by defenders. This is why, even though it is now easy to obtain versions of leading open weight models that have had their guardrails removed or weakened, so they will not refuse to try to execute cyber attacks, the world has not ended.

I am also concerned about the anthropomorphization of AI in a lot of reporting, where LLMs and agents are unnecessarily treated as if they were people. If I wield a hammer, miss a nail, and accidentally dent the wall, it’s not the fault of the hammer. The problem lies in how I used the hammer. Similarly, if I prompt an agent and it hacks into someone else’s system, the responsibility lies with me, not the agent.

Of course, we want to build systems that are as safe and predictable as possible. (For example, an unsafe hammer would be one whose head randomly flies off under normal use.) Today’s agentic systems are not predictable, but I see no reason why, by applying sound engineering practices, we won’t be able to make them extremely safe to use. One new element in the forecasts of AI-enabled doom is AI companies disclaiming responsibility for their own products. “I didn’t do it; my out-of-control agent did!” There’s a balance to be struck between the responsibility of the tool maker and the tool user, but when something goes wrong, let’s hold the people building and/or using the hammer responsible, rather than the hammer. (By the way, if you’re worried about AI bioweapon risk, David Bellamy has a great post on why this, too, is overhyped. Briefly, the bottleneck in building a bioweapon is not intelligence, but lab work and manufacturing.)

Pausing AI progress will create much more harm than benefit. First, our adversaries will certainly not slow down. Second, engineering requires discovering problems empirically so we can fix them. If we pause AI by a decade, we will also delay finding and implementing safety engineering fixes by about the same duration.

Of course, the incentive to stoke fears — for regulatory capture, to garner attention, or to make one’s technology seem more powerful — remains the same as before. Disclaiming responsibility is a new one. Taking a hard technical look at the actual risks however, I see little factual basis for the degree of fear that’s been stoked up. We still have hard research and engineering work ahead to improve AI safety, but the beneficial applications continue to vastly outweigh the risks, and we should keep building.

[Original text (with links): https://t.co/jni2tWazAH ]

[Curious Tree @curiousotree]

@jenteach13 @RumeliGirl I am convinced I’m not a teacher. I am a bathroom and water pass manager, attendance manager, phone answer’er…

[Curious Tree @curiousotree]

@S_Oberle “…most of us have stopped believing it changes anything.” And many of us have already been punished for speaking out.

[Sarah Oberle, Ed.D. @S_Oberle]

A local teacher spoke at last night’s board meeting and I’m cc’ing all teachers bc we all feel this.

[Curious Tree @curiousotree]

I knew it!!!!

[RedWave Press @RedWavePress]

FRAUD ALERT: U.S. Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald: “Today, we are announcing charges and two arrests so far this morning against three separate individuals allegedly involved in fraud schemes that stole millions of dollars from programs meant to house and support the homeless in California.”

“This morning, federal agents arrested Michael Young, the owner of Home at Last, a nonprofit organization that was supposed to house the homeless. Young is charged with wire fraud, which carries a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison.”

“The complaint alleges that Young used a web of shell corporations and fraudulent billing practices to misappropriate millions of dollars in taxpayer funds earmarked for homeless housing. Among other gross misuses of taxpayer money, Young allegedly spent more than $1M to open and operate a high-end restaurant and nightclub in Inglewood called Six Seven Five Lounge… Taxpayer money also allegedly paid for a liquor license for that business in addition to the architect, developer, and high-end finishes for this nightclub.”

“Young allegedly lied repeatedly in the course of the fraud, claiming funds would be used exclusively for homeless housing or for vendors providing services for homeless housing, when he was actually allegedly diverting large amounts of taxpayer money for personal use.”

[Justin Olphart @Deel56]

Washington sent California $2.57 billion for high-speed rail. Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) inside the U.S. Department of Transportation was responsible for the grant terms.

In 2020, DOT’s Inspector General said FRA oversight was too weak. In 2025 they cancelled around $4 billion in unspent awards. That is NOT accountability for the money already paid.

President Trump, Secretary Duffy, FRA, and Congress should audit every reimbursement, subpoena the files, send unsupported payments to DOJ, and claw back what the law allows.

Put the officials who certified those drawdowns under oath. Cancelling leftovers is easy. Recovering $2.57 billion and naming who approved it is the test.

[Hořící Drak @JAYMADDIS]

@nickshirleyy

[Nick shirley @nickshirleyy]

🚨 Welcome to the $15 billion California High Speed Rail to nowhere:
Since 2008 California has spent $15 billion and has not connected a single city or laid a single track. It is now projected to cost more than $200 billion to finish despite being proved nearly impossible to complete.

In 2008 China also announced a high-speed rail and has now connected the entire country with over 30,000 miles while California has connected 0 miles.

Over $500 million has gone to contractors who could not work, homes are currently being built on the alignment, and farmers will lose their farms. In this video I go down the alignment of the high speed rail exposing the failures and confront the legislators in charge of this absolute disaster of a project.

A prime example of fraud, waste and abuse of the taxpayer dollar.

[Curious Tree @curiousotree]

@TolentinoTeach 😂😂😂

[Curious Tree @curiousotree]

@FixingEducation 110%

[Curious Tree @curiousotree]

@EduConsumersFdn Please cite the research

[Curious Tree @curiousotree]

They reinforce the stereotypes we just broke out of

[Jeff @_Jeffery0]

“Trans Student Tries to Debate Michael Knowles on Campus — Then Regrets It”

Michael Knowles: So, you support abortion?

Trans Person: Absolutely.

Michael Knowles: I'm just a little confused as to what non-binary means.

Trans Person: Non-binary means I am not a man or a woman, regardless of what parts I was bestowed.

Michael Knowles: Okay. What you're saying is your body has nothing to do with whether you're a man or a woman?

Trans Person: Correct.

Another trans person explains:
Trans Person: If I say I'm a transgender woman, I'm asserting that I am a woman and that I have male genitalia.

Michael Knowles: So, what's the concrete definition of a transgender woman?

Trans Person: Somebody who is assigned male at birth who identifies and pursues womanhood.

Michael Knowles: Okay. And what is womanhood, then?

Trans Person: I would describe womanhood as a very subjective concept.

Michael Knowles: But you just said we're talking about things that are concrete. I'm just trying to grab onto something.

What is the actual definition?

Trans Person: I would describe womanhood as a set of characteristics associated with females, usually...

Michael Knowles: But that's a circular definition.

I'm not asking you to describe anything. I'm asking if you can offer a definition.

Because it gets to the heart of your identity.
You're four years old and say, "I don't really feel like a man."

How would you even know what that means?

And how would you know what it means now to feel like a woman?

Trans Person: Because there are a variety of traditions associated with the male and female sex, and I've decided that I'd rather subscribe to the ones associated with the female sex.

Michael Knowles: But how would you even know what that is?

They point to traditional gender roles.

Trans Person: I understand what a traditional gender role is. I'm not comfortable with these social expectations, therefore I'm going to adhere to different social expectations generally associated with the opposite sex.

Michael Knowles: But that's not what you're saying.

Previously, you said there are social expectations associated with being a woman, and you wanted to avoid them so much that you no longer call yourself a woman.

Not that a woman can avoid those expectations but that those expectations are so intrinsic to womanhood that you say:
"I will no longer be a woman. I will be non-binary."

That's what you said earlier.

[Curious Tree @curiousotree]

@ModestTeacher Except for being limited to one language and one mode of visual, audio and tactile transmission. The modern classroom convinced me.