"The videos are all over social media... Go ahead and let A.I. do your homework — with the latest technology, you won’t get caught...."

"Humanizers rewrite A.I.-produced text to make it sound less robotic, formulaic and trite. Autotypers slowly drip words and sentences into documents, making it appear as if papers were typed at a human pace when in fact, they were produced by A.I. They even fabricate typos, deletions and revisions. Both tools can help students evade software designed to detect A.I.... In some cases, the very same companies selling detection tools are also making apps that allow students to cheat...."

From "Student Cheating Is Becoming Impossible to Detect in an A.I. Era/Big tech companies and small start-ups are using social media to hype new tools that allow students to trick teachers and A.I. detectors" (NYT).

"That eyebrow pierce.... You’ll have trouble getting the barbell out and eventually someone will have to use tiny pliers to cut it out of your face."

Said Molly Jong-Fast, speaking at the Bennington graduation and, later, quoting herself in a NYT essay titled "It’s No Wonder Grads Are Booing Their Commencement Speakers."

The booing that's famously happening this year is in response to graduation speakers who attempt to say something encouraging about what A.I. is going to do to the career they may still hope to pull off.

"We have been talking for more than an hour when I feel Paglia’s energy fading. Her answers get briefer; she struggles to focus."

"This brilliant mind has grown old. I feel I’ve stepped behind the Wizard of Oz’s curtain, but I wonder also whether her outspokenness was mainly an act. I mention her vile opinionated remark about Sinéad O’Connor deserving abuse and she says, 'I was doing my Oscar Wilde thing.' Paglia retired after almost 40 years, just before her college closed through lack of enrolment: no one wants an expensive arts degree that won’t lead to a high-paid job. Does she miss teaching? 'Absolutely. But one can’t go on.' Her arthritic knee is hell, but her bones are too brittle for a replacement op. A new generation of Sexual Personae fans write to her, asking her opinion on their work. Paglia thinks they are drawn by her enthusiasm, a rare trait in modern academia. 'It’s a terrible crime to have young people come to your classes and inject them with cynicism for the world.'"

Writes Janice Turner, in "Camille Paglia: 'The feminist establishment tried to dismiss me'/She was the notoriously outspoken academic who outraged feminists and attacked Madonna and Sinéad O’Connor. Now Camille Paglia’s book Sexual Personae is being reissued and she has a new generation of readers" (London Times).

"Everybody started telling her it was wrong and racist to do that. And then she said it was just a joke, and then she took down the doll."

Said one 14-year-old student, quoted in "Fla. teacher allegedly hanged doll of black child by neck to get her students' 'attention': 'It was wrong and racist'" (NY Post).

The teacher — with the fateful name Karen Savage — was fired.

We're told Savage "snatched the [black] doll from a student and, when 'nobody was paying attention,' hanged it from the television."

My question: Why was there a doll in a middle school class? And: Was she hanging it up to put it out of reach or hanging it as symbolic lynching?

"Students’ test scores had been increasing since 1990 — then abruptly stopped in the mid-2010s."

"That coincided with two events: an easing of federal school accountability under No Child Left Behind, which was replaced in 2015, and the rise of smartphones, social media and personalized school laptops. The pandemic then accelerated learning declines.... [No Child Left Behind] set a goal that all students would be proficient in reading and math, and schools that did not show progress could face penalties. It coincided with a period of rising test scores, especially in math, though reading scores improved more modestly. Low-performing students saw the biggest gains. The law, though, was deeply unpopular with many educators and parents. Critics said it put an outsize focus on testing, pushing schools to teach to the test and spend less time on other important subjects, like the arts or social studies. In 2015, Congress replaced it, and many states dialed back on requirements. Like many who have studied the law, Brian A. Jacob, professor of education policy at the University of Michigan, [said] 'It was not a cure-all, but I think it really did improve student achievement.... There’s evidence that school accountability does change behaviors of teachers and administrators and probably parents and students.'"

From "Your School District Is Probably Scoring Worse Than 10 Years Ago/The drops in U.S. scores go beyond the pandemic and cut across income, geographic and racial divides, new data shows" (NYT).

It was the screens and the pandemic — that's all they need to say to fend off the return of No Child Left Behind.

"The worst part about AI is that it is giving the experience of competence to people who are stupid."

"These people who now are firing off 30-page Claude AI slop documents and they think they're smart and brilliant. They're following up with you, asking you to read them, and you check them out. None of it makes sense! These are people who, before AI, they were incompetent people. They couldn't even make a document, they couldn't write a good 2-page document, they couldn't organize their thoughts. Because they couldn't do that, they actually couldn't produce any output. And now they can produce output. They produce extremely long outputs that are terrible. It's because they, for the first time in their lives, have the experience of competence. It's making the rest of us miserable."

Says Jake Abrams, on TikTok. I prefer to read his comment as text, but you might want to observe him and see if it affects your reaction to what he's saying. I saw this first as video and decided to blog it but took the trouble to make a transcript because I find the video distracting. He drops the microphone at the end.

Clearly, he thinks he is one of the smart people. He doesn't like the stupid people horning in on the space that belonged to him and his people — you know, the ones who were always producing documents that gave off the impression of competence. Have those documents been making much sense? Were they concise? 

Now that everyone can produce long documents that look good superficially, what's going to happen? If people continue to read documents, will they separate out the search for what was written by A.I. or will they judge everything skeptically? It's more likely that they will use A.I. to read the documents and to assess them critically. In the end, who's going to feel that they are "smart and brilliant"? Is Abrams afraid that those he wants to view as stupid, perhaps because they didn't go to a good college, are going to play the game of using A.I. better than those who thought they had it made because they did go to a good college?

We'll see who picks up the tools and uses them best. 

"Reinforce the academic core of the university; don’t allow classes to be dominated by open laptops or other devices; do more to ensure that people do not self-censor; respect the ideals of free speech and academic freedom; 'be human.'"

Those are among the "smart and sensible recommendations" to be found in Yale's "Report of the Committee on Trust in Higher Education" according to "Yale Has Come Up With a Surefire Way to Make a Terrible Situation Worse" (NYT). That's written by the president of Wesleyan University, Michael S. Roth.

Sorry, I'm having a Marx Brothers flashback: "The Dean is furious! He's waxing wroth!"/"Is Roth out there, too? Tell Roth to wax the Dean for a while."

So what is Roth waxing wroth about with this anodyne committee report? 

The committee claims that in 2016, “departing from its traditional emphasis on the creation and dissemination of knowledge, Yale expanded its mission statement to include ‘improving the world today,’ educating ‘aspiring leaders worldwide,’ and fostering ‘an ethical, interdependent and diverse community.’”

It's weird to make a show of retreating from something so mild and vague. But Roth paraphrases the rejected mission as a matter of "independent thought, a commitment to truth even when it’s inconvenient and a focus on the creation of truly democratic citizens." Is that what the Trump administration has been "punishing" and what Yale is trying to be self-defensive about? 

"It takes most college students at least four years to earn a bachelor’s degree. Christie Williams finished in three months."

"The North Carolina human resources executive spent two months racking up credits through web tutorials after work in 2024, then raced through 11 online classes at the University of Maine at Presque Isle in four weeks. Later that year, she went back to earn her master’s — in just five weeks. The two degrees cost a total of just over $4,000. Since then, she has coached a thousand other students on how to speed through the state college, shaving off years and thousands of dollars from the usual cost of a degree. 'Why wouldn’t you do that?' Williams asked. 'It’s kind of a no-brainer if you know about it.'"

From "Students are speeding through their online degrees in weeks, alarming educators/Some online colleges allow students to take unlimited courses on their own time, leading to quick degrees and worries about devaluing credentials" (WaPo).

So, perhaps everyone's degree is devalued, because it becomes too easy to see that what the degree represents is not such a big deal. But another thing that's devalued is the experience of in-person education. Why wouldn't everyone switch to the cheaper, more efficient method? The purveyors of in-person education need to prove what they have on offer is better. We assume it's better, but is it? And is it that much better?

"Pittsburghers take pride in their practical solutions, especially the quirky ones, such as the 'Pittsburgh chair'..."

"... that we use to save the parking space we shoveled out after a snowstorm. There are folding chairs, barstools, even an occasional upholstered chair — whatever your choice. The chairs are sacrosanct, and they help avoid neighborhood disputes. Or the 'Pittsburgh toilet' that stands alone and unobstructed in the basement of many older working-class homes — porcelain artifacts of when the mills were booming. It made practical sense when the men returned from the mills to wash off the grime in the laundry tubs and finish their business in the basement before going upstairs for their meal. But there has been no easy solution for keeping schools open when an expected 500,000 to 700,000 visitors attend events...."

Writes Duquesne lawprof Joseph Sabino Mistick, in "Schools are closing for the NFL draft. What does this teach students? Pittsburgh prides itself on showing up and working hard. Students should, too" (WaPo).

"[Eighth-grade algebra] was removed from middle schools under the rationale that many students — especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds — would benefit from having more time to master foundational math before tackling algebra in high school."

"But the plan didn’t work. The number of students enrolled in advanced high school math declined, and wide racial gaps remained. Meanwhile, many parents enrolled their children in summer and after-school math courses to keep them accelerated, often paying out of pocket. For years, San Francisco 'tried to achieve equity not by raising the floor, but by lowering the ceiling,' said Thomas S. Dee, a Stanford University economist who studied the policy with colleagues.... [Under the new plan] [a]ny eighth grader would be able to enroll in algebra, but high-achieving students would be automatically placed in the course with the ability to opt out — a policy meant to increase access for underrepresented demographic groups."

From "San Francisco Killed 8th-Grade Algebra. Now It’s Set to Come Back. The San Francisco school board approved a plan to restore algebra as an option at all middle schools, more than a decade after it was removed over equity concerns" (NYT).

Goodbye to Frederick Wiseman.

"Frederick Wiseman, 96, Penetrating Documentarian of Institutions, Dies/He exposed abuses in films like 'Titicut Follies,' a once-banned portrait of a mental hospital, but ranged widely in subject matter, from a Queens neighborhood to a French restaurant" (NYT)(gift link).

And though he denied that his movies had any political agenda, he was no stranger to controversy. His directorial debut, “Titicut Follies” (1967), a harrowing portrait of the Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane in Massachusetts, remains the only film ever banned in the United States for reasons other than obscenity, immorality or national security.... 

"Benjamin Robinson, an Indiana University professor, is one of those under the new microscope. In his class on the history of German thought..."

"... he touches on Kant, Hegel, Arendt and Nietzsche, connecting the thinkers’ big insights — 'the aha moments' — to real-life experiences and contemporary politics. In late 2024, a student anonymously complained, saying that Dr. Robinson — who has been vocal about his pro-Palestinian views — had spoken negatively about Israel, mentioned personal experiences like being arrested at a protest at the Israeli consulate in Chicago and 'repeatedly spoke against Indiana University' during his classes. The university found in favor of the student and reprimanded the professor, citing a recent state law meant to improve 'intellectual diversity' and prevent students from being subjected to political views unrelated to the course...."

From "Professors Are Being Watched: 'We’ve Never Seen This Much Surveillance'/Scrutiny of university classrooms is being formalized, with new laws requiring professors to post syllabuses and tip lines for students to complain" (NYT).

"Dr. Robinson, who is Jewish, acknowledged that he referred to Israel’s conduct as a genocide in class but he insisted that he never asked students to agree with him. He said he brought up his personal experiences of activism during a discussion of Kant and the philosopher’s distinction between private and public stances. 'If I can’t appeal to people’s intuitions, what it’s like to publicly use reason versus to have a private feeling of conscience,' he said, 'if I can’t evoke what that feels like, I can’t possibly teach Kant.'"

"The reaction from the student body points to a larger issue: many people my age don’t want to take the easiest path but..."

"... if it’s being offered to hundreds of your peers, giving them the chance to earn higher grades or better job opportunities, that’s what you do. Otherwise, you feel like a sucker.... "

Writes Elsa Johnson, in "I exposed Stanford’s disability racket. I was stunned by the reaction on campus After my revelation that elite students are claiming to be disabled to get cushy perks, I expected blowback — but what happened next surprised me" (London Times).

"Many of my peers and I wouldn’t mind — and might even prefer — our teachers and administrators being tougher on us. After all, the accommodations we’re gaming today won’t help us in the real world. In the workplace you won’t have sympathetic OAE advisers giving you extra time to perform a surgery if you’re a doctor. No one is going to excuse you from a tricky business presentation because you claim 'anxiety.'..."

Here's my post from a few days ago about Johnson's original essay.

"And some 'disabilities' are just downright silly. Students claim 'night terrors'; others say they 'get easily distracted' or they 'can’t live with others.'"

"I know a guy who was granted a single room because he needs to wear contacts at night. I’ve heard of a girl who got a single because she was gluten intolerant. That’s why I felt justified in claiming endometriosis as a disability.... The application process was very easy.... The system is staffed largely by empathetic women who want to help students.... In addition to a single housing assignment, I was granted extra absences from class, some late days on assignments and a 15-minute tardiness allowance for all of my classes.... Had I been pushier, I am sure I could have received almost any accommodation I asked for. While I feel entitled to my single room, I would feel guilty about some of the perks I have — except that so many of my fellow students have gamed the system...."

Writes Elsa Johnson, a Stanford student, quoted in "Nearly 40% of Stanford undergraduates claim they’re disabled. I’m one of them/One of the most prestigious universities in the US offers perks to those who say they have ADHD, night terrors, even gluten intolerance. You’d be stupid not to game the system" (London Times).

"School called and asked why one of my children have not logged on. I explained that me and my wife both work and suggested that maybe Mayor Mandummy could come by the house to help the kids get connected."

From the comments section to the NY Post article "Remote learning is not for the weak — here’s how a day of it went thanks to Mamdani’s no-snow day verdict."

And here's the most popular comment:

I looked at my grandkids this morning and said - "OK, here is the deal. Get dressed for the snow, as we are hitting the park, and NO computers today or Tue. We go back to school on WED.......but today and tomorrow is fun, french fries, milk shakes, pancakes - with lots of nutella"

They screamed, and we had a blast.

They ran and ran and ran around in the snow and they were so adorable.

"Learning cursive will provide New Jersey students with 'the skills they need to read our nation’s founding documents'...."

Said New Jersey governor Phil Murphy, quoted in "Cursive Makes a Comeback in New Jersey Schools/In one of his final acts in office, Gov. Philip D. Murphy signed a bill on Monday requiring third, fourth and fifth graders to learn cursive" (NYT).

Proponents of cursive cite studies that link handwriting to better information retention and writing speed, and say — as Mr. Murphy did in a statement released as he signed the bill — that knowing script can help people read the original U.S. Constitution....

On Tuesday, Gabrielle and Kurt McCann, of Lebanon, N.J., were waiting to break the news to their 9-year-old son, Atlas McCann, when he got home from school. “I think it is important that kids are able to use that refined motor skill,” Ms. McCann said in an interview shortly after a meeting where she said she had taken all her notes in longhand.

But Atlas, she said, was thinking, “What’s the point of having to sit here and torture myself?”

The poor boy has the weight of the world on his shoulders. And now, this additional burden — handwriting! What for? Who reads the Constitution in the original handwriting? It's not even cut-and-paste-able. It's not searchable in handwritten form. Atlas will grope forward, if the time ever comes, asking AI what constitutional clause goes with whatever is the issue of the day. What constitutional clause deals with transgender women in girls sports? What constitutional clause gives cis gender girls the right to undress at public school in a single-sex locker room? The ancient handwriting will not say. AI will.

Let's consult not a politician but an expert:

“Oh, God,” Morgan Polikoff, an education professor at the University of Southern California, said when he learned of the New Jersey law.... He attributed the renewed affection for the style’s curlicues and squiggles to “boomerish nostalgia,” and said he was struck by cursive’s bipartisan appeal, with states as different politically as Arkansas and California requiring its instruction. Conservatives, the professor said, promote its utility for reading old documents; liberals like it for its beauty as an art form....

Fight the decline lest the day come when we cannot read the documents. Then what?

"Philosophy professor Martin Peterson was ordered to remove excerpts from Plato’s 'Symposium' that seemed to violate the new guidelines..."

"... passages about Diotima’s Ladder of Love and Aristophanes’ speech regarding split humans. Peterson was told the course would be reassigned to someone else if he didn’t delete the readings from his introductory philosophy syllabus. Peterson says his course does not 'advocate' for any ideology but teaches students how to structure and evaluate moral arguments."

From "Plato falls victim to campus culture wars/Jettisoning the Greek philosopher hurts students who yearn to learn how to reason, argue and think" by the Editorial Board of The Washington Post.

What's really going on here? Wasn't this some sort of "malicious compliance" move by opponents of restrictions on left-wing gender ideology?

"Everyone will have access to medical care that is better than what the President receives right now."

Elon Musk wants you to know what it will be like 5 years from now.

Elon Musk's jaw-dropping prediction (Jan 2026):

“Don’t go into medical school.”
Elon Musk: “Yes. Pointless.”

In 3 years (2029), Optimus robots will be better surgeons than any human on Earth — at scale.
By 4–5 years? Not even close. The best medicine in the world will be free… pic.twitter.com/q7KTMpICk8

— Camus (@newstart_2024) January 10, 2026

And don't bother with higher education... except for "social reasons."

"When [Justin] McDaniel began teaching Existential Despair a decade ago, he came up with a set of ground rules...."

"Students would read only literature — no biographies or self-help books. He forbade them from taking notes so as not to distract from the act of reading.... He feels that great novels can be read as religious texts, too. Part of the point of most religious stories, he believes, is that other people have endured ordeal after ordeal — and somehow carried on. McDaniel gravitates toward books that deal with bleak subjects: torture, genocide, hopelessness, pain and sickness, guilt and shame.... As one student at the reading group... described him to me as the 'least human and the most human person I know,' meaning that his affect alternates between empathetic and robotic. He keeps a 'crying chair' in his office and allows students to sit in it and cry for 15 minutes at a time, no questions asked (he leaves the room). But now and then, he told me, some students 'needed a little smackdown.' During one reading session last spring, he lost his temper. The class was reading The Sheltering Sky, by Paul Bowles. About halfway through, a few students finished and started chatting. 'It was five or six people who could not stop their self-satisfaction, how clever and interesting they were. Finally, I had to unleash on them. I was actually cruel to them, but they deserved it.' He shouted 'Shut the fuck up!' over and over until the room fell silent...."

From "Gluttons for Punishment Justin McDaniel has developed a cult following for getting his students to read — as long as they follow his rules" (NY Magazine).

The Washington Post Editorial Board lists "25 Good Things That Happened in 2025" and not one thing is attributed to Trump.

The name Trump doesn't even appear — see for yourself here (gift link) — though "capitalism gets a favorable mention* and two of the items are educational policies associated with the conservatives.**

_____________

* "Bolivian voters elected centrist Rodrigo Paz as president, ending two decades of socialist misrule. The economist campaigned on the slogan 'capitalism for all.'"

** School choice and phonics (though phonics is associated not with conservatives but with "advocates of the science of reading").