Academic Distinctions: A Podcast to Make Sense of American Education
Hosted by Stephanie Melville and Zac Chase, "Academic Distinctions" is a podcast for educators that tackles the reading and research teachers often don't have time for. With experience as classroom teachers, district administrators, and federal policy wonks, the hosts bring a unique perspective to discussions on education's "greatest hits" and current events. The podcast is committed to delivering engaging, informative, and actionable content that is relevant and responsive to the needs of educators.
Academic Distinctions: A Podcast to Make Sense of American Education
001: EOs, AI, and Weaponized Education Funding
Stephanie and Zac dig in to a couple of last week's slew of Executive Orders and examine their potential implications for public educators. They welcome guest Diana Laufenberg, executive director of Inquiry Schools (https://www.inquiryschools.org/) to pull apart recent rulings from around the country on the Trump Administration's attempts to make federal curriculum policy by weaponizing funding allocated for helping students in poverty.
Hi, I'm Zach Chase.
SPEAKER_02:Hi, I'm Stephanie Melville.
SPEAKER_03:And this is Academic Distinctions. A little bit first, a little bit of housekeeping as we get started on why you would even want to listen to the two of us talk about education news, policy, research, and the like.
SPEAKER_02:Most recently, I worked in the US Department of Education, specifically in the National Center for Education Statistics, or NCES, which was housed in the Institute of Education Sciences, or IES. In that space, I dealt with data science in K-12 spaces, helping the department think more more broadly about what data science education might look like for students and why it was necessary to think about. Prior to that, I worked at the district level for my local school district as a high school math coach. And before that, I was a secondary math teacher where I taught classes from seventh grade all the way up to AP calculus and AP stats. I think being an educator is just in my blood.
SPEAKER_03:And I also most recently worked at the federal level. I've also worked in the Obama administration, both times in the Office of Educational Technology, helping to write the National Educational Technology Plan, along with pretty much anything else that fell on my plate at the time. Outside of the federal world, I've worked at the district level as a technology coordinator, curriculum coordinator, library and media services coordinator. I've worked with schools across the country and the world, and I have been also a classroom teacher teaching middle and high school students English language arts. That's the best word of all of that to mess up is English language arts. Either way, we are your hosts for this journey. This episode is one of our Ed in the news episodes. We'll be alternating each week. So this episode, we're going to look at three key stories going on right now in the world of education and try to boil it down, give it some context and help folks understand what they can care about and what they might be able to do about these issues. Next week's episode will be one of our in-depth episodes. We'll be looking at the world of Bloom's taxonomy. I said that like it wasn't going to be exciting, but it is going to be really exciting. Right, Stephanie?
SPEAKER_02:It really is. There's a lot of history behind it that's worth unpacking and figuring out what it is that we've been doing and how we got there.
SPEAKER_03:Speaking of unpacking.
SPEAKER_02:You just get back from vacation.
SPEAKER_03:No, I just got back from executive order land. So in the last 72 hours, we're recording this on Friday. The White House has unveiled at least at our count at this point, seven executive orders. We're going to be talking about one of them, and that is the Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth Order. And Stephanie, you, of course, know the difference between an executive order and executive action No, I
SPEAKER_02:was really, well, I mean, I do, but I was hoping that you could explain it just a little tiny bit for the listeners at home, because those, those words get thrown around, like everybody understands them all the time. And I kind of think that maybe we don't.
SPEAKER_03:Sure. So here's our civics education. Let me start with the executive order. An executive order is pretty much what it says on the tin. In this case, it is the executive branch ordering one of its agencies or different personnel within that branch to take some sort of specific action, usually around a central theme. In this case, artificial intelligence. Executive action is what that action is, what they're directing folks to do or what the administration is doing along a specific timeline. subject area or topic. And then there's the fact sheet. And this is the piece that you see in the public most because it is sort of like a press release listing all of the different things an administration is going to do related to a topic. So it takes that executive order, strips out kind of the legalese and puts it into more plain English so that it is something that is easily communicable across platforms. Yeah, yeah, that's right. In the show notes, we'll put a really helpful explainer from Georgetown's Government Affairs Institute that pulls all that apart. For those of you who are like, oh, I want to read more about this. But let's step in. Stephanie, this executive order hit and it was all over my LinkedIn feed. What did you think about it when you read it?
SPEAKER_02:At first glance, it's not bad. And, you know, I say this as someone who kind of wants it to be bad just because, you know, I don't have my job at the department anymore. But it talks about equipping teachers with the tools to use it and teaching about it, getting students to learn about it, getting America to be a strong developer of tools and then tech that use it, right? There's even a mention of prioritizing NSF grant funding of research in the Grants for teacher training. Like there's a lot in there. That first read through isn't too far off from the policy memo I wrote with another ed fellow calling for close to the exact same thing.
SPEAKER_03:I will also say not too far off from what was put out by Edsafe AI Alliance a couple of days ago. They put out, and we'll link to it in the show notes, Opportunity at Scale, the Case for Public Infrastructure for AI in Education. So some real crossover there. I would also say... Not too different from the executive order issued by the Biden administration in 2023, saying, you know, AI, we think we think there's something there. We'd like to figure it out. There are some key differences there. But I want to hear what you thought about on second glance.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Second glance is it's really less promising. Like create a task
SPEAKER_03:force. Many people I've tried to date.
SPEAKER_02:Keep going. Right. I know. So they want to create a task force. That's great. You know, but
SPEAKER_03:task force on that task force. Keep
SPEAKER_02:going. On that task force, do you want to put the Secretary of Education?
SPEAKER_03:Deal.
SPEAKER_02:Well, not in my mind. She's kind of established herself as somebody who's not a credible and knowledgeable source for this work, right?
SPEAKER_03:This work being public education?
SPEAKER_02:Or AI in public education. Or A1, maybe.
SPEAKER_03:All right. We get one of those jokes per episode.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Yes, yes. All
SPEAKER_03:right. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Anyway, like, who's creating these resources and trainings that teachers are going to get? Who's enforcing the quality control? Is there even quality control? We know there's significant biases in AI outputs, given the anti-DEI stance of this administration, that doesn't seem to be high on the list of priorities of addressing or even acknowledging. And because of this, I can't help but read this as something that's going to make our workforce a bunch of output producers and clickbait builders focused in on ways to earn corporations extra money rather than using it for meaningful innovations like healthcare for early detection models.
SPEAKER_03:So I would say that's a hard turn between your first and second. My reading of this, a couple of things were really interesting to me. My very first instinct was who is going to do this work? Because as folks have read or heard about across the last few months, very few people who do this work are left at the U.S. Department of Education. As I said earlier, I come out of the Office of Educational Technology. We had a whole team crafting guidance and policy recommendations around this. artificial intelligence in education. Some really, really good stuff. We will link in the show notes specifically for leaders of schools to say, here are some questions that you can ask to help make sure this goes well, as well as some guidance for developers saying, hey, if you're going to be in a school community doing things in a school community, here's some knowledge you should have. And also making sure that humans are the drivers of these pieces and not vendors and not commerce and not saying, all right, how can we get the most money out of this piece? Who's going to do the work is the first piece. And as you said, I'm a little bit worried that because that line of defense is not there in the department and the guardrails are off, that this is just going to get contracted out to folks. And it could get contracted out to great folks and it could get contracted out to not so great folks. But we really don't know because there isn't a civil servant or a civil service piece here that can keep things back. So that was one piece. The other piece and the difference there and the difference... I think if you look at the Edsafe AI Alliance piece and even the Biden administration's work is that there isn't a mention about, as you said, bias. There isn't a mention in there about bias. Safety, data, those kinds of considerations. And that is the piece that really worries me. It kind of feels like we're going to let everybody do the thing and the market decides. And when we're talking about how kids act and how kids learn and the lives of kids and teachers, then I really worry when we say we're just going to let market forces step in. A really great piece that we will also link. The show notes, by the way, for folks, the show notes on our episodes are going to be robust. because we do a lot of nerdery to get to the recording. So there's a great piece that was out this morning from Audrey Waters that we will link in really thinking through this executive order as well. But that was where I came down is like, how are we going to make sure we're keeping people safe? How are we going to know who owns the data? What are the questions folks should be asking? And I just don't think it's there. I will say it was the first piece out of the administration of, hey, we want to do something versus, hey, we want to tear everything down. Because
SPEAKER_02:of my work as a coach at the district level, I can tell you, specifically from that lens, a lot of educators are just not prepared to talk about data literacy, let alone AI, like the foundations are not there. The teacher prep programs don't require educators to to learn about data science, data literacy, AI, understanding those models, data safety. It's just not there. And maybe this piece of this executive order is going to help to do that. But I just... Like you said, there's nothing in the fact sheet that talks about social responsibility or acknowledging the potential harm when AI is unrestrained or is being used with an untrained eye. And so it just... Like who gets to say whether or not my data gets sold to the highest bidder to develop some model? And that to me is just, it leaves me wanting more. Like I have the womp womp playing in the back of my head when I read it. Like there's so much that needs to be addressed. The executive order says that AI could be used to improve teacher training, but also evaluation. Like, are you kidding me? NEA is gonna have a field day with that one if they haven't already.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think the other piece here that is incredibly important is the research on any of this and its effectiveness with students and its effectiveness in improving teacher quality is in its infancy. And so there's also this turn to move all of this conversation and all of this training and all of this embedding of these things into these educational systems without any any real robust evidence that specific practices are helpful in improving learning and teaching. Now, where I would like to see this is solving problems, right? And so I think that there is tremendous room to start at a smaller scale and work alongside educators and say, what is the problem that you have? that is keeping you from developing important and deep and effective relationships with students. A lot of the work around AI is around efficiencies, is stopping and saying, all right, what is keeping teachers from having more time in the human aspects of their role?
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:What are the pieces of bureaucracy, of paperwork, of those kinds of things that we could pull and say, all right, the AI can help you with this.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:It raises a ton of questions, right? So there are a lot of examples of teachers planning lesson plans. And so if you were talking about a school that has been working really hard toward a specific pedagogical inquiry or project-based learning or problem-based learning or experiential learning or any of those kinds of models or a really draconian authoritarian model, right? If that's what you think is best for kids. Well, you're wrong, but if that's where you're going. Yes, thank you. And you're inquiring an AI to help you generate or modify a lesson plan. Where is it pulling that? What's the pedagogical stance of the AI? And what's the training that an AI has had? And where does that come from? Because we want to make sure we're adhering to the philosophy and the model that's present within the school. So I think the efficiencies piece is there. I think that This train has left the station. It's going to be moving forward. The question is, how can we do this as safely and thoughtfully as possible so that if and when something implodes or we find out this thing was doing this thing that we didn't understand anyway, that we put some safety nets and some guardrails around these things to keep it from going wrong. Again, a ton of this stuff in OET slash the department's documents. And so we'll make sure we link those in the notes. I do want to say before we move on, what would you say are the key questions for practitioners? So that's classroom teachers, school leaders, district leaders, policymakers. What are some key questions or practices that you would hope you see in the field based on the experience that you've got?
SPEAKER_02:So that's a great question. So for me, as a former educator, I'd really like to know, you know, where does the data come from? How is the data being used? Who owns it? You know, but also, who are we bringing to the table to kind of help make those decisions? Is this a shared decision making process? Are we involving the community for our students? And to what end should this be helpful? What about you?
SPEAKER_03:My questions would be, are we making sure that the adults who are responsible for children's safety and learning have the capacities that they need and have the comfort and have the sense of assurance that they know how to use these tools before we turn them on and turn them over to students? Yeah. isn't always where I've been on technology. And I think that that like, but I think this is a different technology. Right. Right. So I have said in the past. Yeah. And I've said in the past, like, if you want kids to create something and tell a story or create a presentation, and all you know, is PowerPoint or Google Slides. So that's all you ask students to do. Then you are limiting what you can learn about and the ways that students can learn to tell stories. And that is still true. I still stand by that. But this is a wholly different piece, right? Like if the slides go wrong, it is probably because of something I did wrong as a user. And so there's a different level of like validation of like, is that yellow? Is that background yellow? Like I can verify that and I know to verify that. But I want to know as a teacher, do I have good ways and practices for verifying the information I'm getting from an AI of any kind of like a generative AI or an AI that's telling me sort your kids into these groups or any of those pieces? Like, do I have what is what is necessary to do these things rather than just saying like. Somebody saying, no, no, no. Trust it. Trust it. So that that'd be my first piece is like, do all the adults who are responsible for the learning and safety of kids, safety of kids have what they need?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. The risk is greater. The risk is greater. It's not just a PowerPoint. Like it's it's student data. It's teacher data.
SPEAKER_03:It's also just being wrong, right?
SPEAKER_02:True. That too.
SPEAKER_03:Like you asked it a question and you got the right, you get the wrong answer, but if nobody in the system knows how to verify that it's the right or the wrong answer, then we're in, then we're in deep trouble. Right. Um, And, and so there's a, there's a level of comfort that I think is necessary and capacity that is necessary and making sure that all the adults have that before we open it up to, to kids. Right. Like you make sure the electric fences are turned on in Jurassic park before you bring Timmy in because, well, actually that's the opposite of how this will work. You get the point. So that
SPEAKER_02:we saw how it turned out.
SPEAKER_03:Not great. Or Skynet, I guess Terminator would have been a better example. We really aren't, mining that one as much as I thought we would when this whole generative AI thing started. So that's my piece. Do the adults have the supports that they need? And then I would go along with you. Are we talking to families and communities to help them understand and build this piece? And then a thing that I will say over and over again is Are we letting the time we talk about AI literacy, or as you said, data literacy, are we letting that eat up the time where we really need to be focusing on the foundations of just literacy? Right? So good digital literacy, good AI literacy, good data literacy come from the skills of critical thinking and evaluating sources and making arguments and those kinds of things. And so oftentimes... that can crowd out that instruction, which is fine if you are a student who has a certain kind of background that means that you've got the cultural knowledge and competency and capital. But if you're a kid whose cognitive load is taken up by a bunch of other stuff, maybe work or home or any of other things, then you need that that literacy understanding. You need that foundation to be secure, or you're going to miss the AI data and digital literacy. And we have historically, as all parties will say, messed up the literacy side of things. Not just like the science of reading stuff, but the like, can you make a good argument?
SPEAKER_01:And
SPEAKER_03:you evaluate sources. So that'd be the other piece is like at a higher level, at like a district leadership level is, are we crowding out literacy skills in favor of these specialized literacies? Because if we are, then not everybody's going to get an invitation to the party. Welcome back. Before we kick off this next segment, we want to welcome our guest executive director of Inquiry Schools and TED Talker, racking up over 2.5 million views. She's a celebrity. Please welcome Diana Leffenberger to the pod. Hi, Diana.
SPEAKER_00:Hello, guys. That was utterly ridiculous. But I am very glad to join you. I'm excited to talk about what's been going on in the news surrounding... education in the last week or so.
SPEAKER_03:It's been a doozy. We're going to wrap up the show today starting with the Department of Education's love letter. I say that only because it was sent and dated February 14th, 2025. to SEAs, LEAs, it's a bit of a mishmash. It's a bit of ridiculousness. Let me give you the high points. Letter was sent to folks saying, hey, if you want to receive your federal funds, Title I dollars, then you need to eliminate DEI programming, curriculum, unclear. And you need to sign this letter saying that you're not doing anything with DEI and then you will be able to get your money. This is kind of a bit of a shakedown. There are oftentimes requirements to receive federal funds, certifications that you have to do, reports that you have to give, tend not to be this way. And so the NEA, the AFT, a couple of other plaintiffs filed suit across the country and said, we think this is wrong. It turns out that a couple of different judges around the country, three so far at the not okay. And they have stopped and put an injunction on this whole thing for two kind of interesting key reasons. The first is that the letter doesn't adequately or even explicitly define what the administration means by DEI initiatives. It is a bit of a banana pants letter. I will read a little bit of it in a second. The second is that they said, and this is what's really interesting, given the administration's kind of motto, as it were, or catchphrase of let's give it back to the states. The judges said that this was an example of federal overreach, that the federal government was overreaching what was allowable in its attempt to control curriculum at the state and district level. Really kind of fascinating, really given the fact that they're saying, hey, we need to give this back to the states. The federal government doesn't have a role in education, except for, of course, everything. So that's what we're going to talk about in this half of the show. Diana, anything you want to talk about with the kind of heart of
SPEAKER_00:this case? So there's a lot of different angles you can look at this particular letter from. I think it would be useful to know that the reason they consider that a federal overreach is because education has always been a 10th Amendment reserved power as it is stated in the Constitution. It's not expressly granted or dealt with in the Constitution. And so it tacitly gets left as a reserve power. And that's where that federal overreach comes. And when you hear about that, even the elimination of the education department, a lot of that comes from this idea that education was a reserve power supposed to be left with the states. So when you get a court saying this is federal overreach, it's interesting to your point, because this is exactly the opposite of what this administration has been telling us they're about. And so, yeah, so that is, yeah, that's, pretty fascinating as a logical leap to be making with this particular administration.
SPEAKER_03:If you look at the letter, I don't recommend that you do. There are a lot of logical leaps, rhetorical gymnastics that are required here, and The limited injunction is really interesting as well. We should also say that Diana is not a legal scholar. She's not an attorney, but she's a real good social studies teacher, which if you can get one of those, you're set for life. So that's where we stand on this DEI love letter to schools. It is interesting also to note that the letter kind of throws K-12 in with higher education. It's not really clear what it is they're against, as the judges bore out in their rulings. So really interesting. So that's it. We're done, right, Stephanie?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. No. You know, the issue that I have with this whole thing and the definition of DEI, it's like... Realistically, it's refusing to look at the larger arguments about DEI in schools against them. Broadly speaking, there's an argument that everyone should be able to succeed. They're making this argument that everybody should be able to succeed if they try hard enough, but that's not what we're seeing. The data exists. P-values exist.
SPEAKER_03:What do? I'm sorry?
SPEAKER_02:P-values.
SPEAKER_03:That's... I'm 12 right now.
SPEAKER_02:You should be. You should be. So p-values are basically, and don't hate me stats friends, p-values show the likelihood that something would happen purely by chance. And the research indicates that inequities happen frequently enough in education that they aren't probably just a chance, but more likely by design, whether intentional or accidental. So systems do what they were designed to do, intentionally or not. And sometimes we have to change them to have better outcomes for certain groups of people to not start from a disadvantaged point from the get-go.
SPEAKER_03:So, Diana, is this EO saying that's not what's happening?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. It is using the word race very frequently throughout this particular EO to invoke the idea that if any... kid of color, person of color is afforded something that a white person is not, it is inherently discrimination and therefore not allowed under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
SPEAKER_03:Even though the thing that they are affording them is something that is meant to make up for where the system has limited them in the past.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. You would have to erase an enormous part of your understanding of American history to believe that our country has not historically used race as a proxy to hold people back, to knock people down, to remove opportunity, to remove access. I mean, you've got to do a lot of forgetting and be quite blind not to see that in our historical record.
SPEAKER_03:would you, would you say we have any evidence of that?
SPEAKER_02:There's a huge pool of data that showed disparate outcomes from inherently inequitable and damaging practices. They're still deeply entrenched. You know, we're not that far removed from the historical practices like Diana was talking about, you know, how like Jenny from Jenny from the block, if you will, who maybe did not handle her, her, her, her, Mental health very well and got locked away in an institution for the rest of her life. You know, like there's there's a whole lot of examples historically and and massive funds of data that show that we're not really out of the mess that we were in.
SPEAKER_00:I was going to say, we've made strides and we have been moving in a direction. It is very incremental. It is no big swings, I would say, have been made, but it was incremental in our improvement for some of these outcomes. However, we're not there yet. And we're not going to get there through an EO that basically says, we're all good now. There is nothing holding anyone back from being their full potential and regardless of race, national origin. Everything is equal. Everybody's fine. Game on.
SPEAKER_03:We have this outside of education. And you mentioned the Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. But let's start at the Constitution, right? The Constitution has racism baked into it.
SPEAKER_01:What? Written in.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:No.
SPEAKER_03:Enslaved people count as three-fifths of a person, right? To kind of...
SPEAKER_00:For electoral population count. Yep.
SPEAKER_03:Right, exactly. And voting rights for landowners, they were for white men. These things are baked into not just the Constitution, but laws outside of the Constitution, local laws, state laws, these things were baked in. But similarly, we have as a country worked to... remediate some of those pieces, right? So we have the 14th Amendment, the 15th Amendment, the 19th Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, IDEA, like all of these pieces were built in. But the premise here is I think, and again, it is muddled and confusing. I would read it, but it would make this podcast very confusing. The premise here is that because we have those laws, I think this is the premise, because we have those laws, we've done it. That legislation... This is on the face of the argument that legislation has taken care of things, and so they are fixed, as though we hadn't created ripples through time, generational systems and inequities that affect folks in poverty, that affect folks with special needs, that affect people of color, that affect women, any of these folks that have historically been kept out of of these things. The premise there is that it isn't there and it's not true. But we do know how to make it better. It just takes time. And I think there's an argument that's attempting to be made, although I do not think in good faith, that we're done. That we have the laws and so that is done. So the other piece of this, so that's the DEI piece, right? That's the argument that's being made for why DEI needs to go away. The other piece that's in there, and I think it's incredibly important that we talk a little bit about it, is the weaponizing or threatening to remove funding from schools by suggesting that the problems are solved, like we just said. We're a long way. And then we also have, and Stephanie, you worked for NCES, Institute for Educational Sciences, right? You worked. We are seeing a ton of data being dumped, erased, scraped, defunded, because those are the data that we use. to tell the stories of the inequities between these groups. And no matter where you stand on standardized tests, no matter what, that is a common measure that we have that shows that these gaps still exist, right? It doesn't matter if you think they are good for academic, but this is a common measure. It's one of our very few common measures that shows this. And now we're destroying the data that show that.
SPEAKER_02:And that's not metaphorical. They are literally taking it down from the websites. They are not renewing contracts. If
SPEAKER_03:you follow it on LinkedIn, you see scientists saying, hey, this is going to go dark. I can't access the data that I need to do my work. The researchers, it's gone. So that is going away because it's harder to say, things are unequal when you don't have the data that you need to show that they are unequal.
SPEAKER_00:And even if they collect the data going forward, I think it's fair to assume that they will not be disaggregating that data based on race. So while the data may exist going forward, it will not be able to be analyzed at that level to be looking for disparate outcomes and the inequality that exists.
SPEAKER_03:So then my question becomes, As they say, well, the states have it. So let's say we turn this all, like, Diana, you're in Wisconsin. Let's say we turn this, we'll return equity back over to the states. Is Wisconsin ready? Is Wisconsin prepared?
SPEAKER_00:So we're getting all of the responsibility for federal programming, but potentially not the money or the infrastructure to do it. Is that our assumption? Yeah. I mean, no. No, we're not ready for that. I would say that most states have ceded their responsibility and control over to the federal government as the laws have required for the past several decades around most of this data and most of these responsibilities. Therefore, not cultivating that level of experience or capacity within their own systems. To do that, again, I've said this with many of these things, like if this is the outcome that they want and I don't think it's a great idea and I think it's flawed and what have you, okay, there is a manner in which you could do this where you do least harm. And that is a phased approach. That is slow. That is deliberate. that is building people up as you take something down at the federal government. And as we are learning with this administration, that is not their motto. I mean, they're of the engineering, move fast and break things. And what's particularly- People, people. Yeah. But what's particularly horrendous is that many of these things that they're breaking have wildly negative outcomes for children, specifically in our systems. And it goes past education into more general impacts on the child. This is going to be messy at best, catastrophic at worst. And the people most vulnerable in the system are the children. And that's who's going to be impacted most greatly.
SPEAKER_03:It's kind of like if you went to your local grocery store and they were like, you know what, we're not doing that anymore. We know you've got a yard problem. Um, so why don't you go ahead and, and grow your own food? Um, and you'd be like, Oh, could I just, I don't have, I'm not prepared for my garden. No, actually we're just shut down. Um, we're done. And then the expectation is that you can survive. Yeah. Right. Um, yeah, you should have planned better.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, that's exactly, that's exactly what it is, Zach. It's, it's wanting you to all this doesn't have capacity to do something you have never, you have not been asked to do for potentially 25 years.
SPEAKER_03:The other piece that's here, I think, in kind of setting aside the lack of capacity, money, people, experience, all of those kinds of things. The other piece here that is at play that I think is really important to pay attention to is that you're requiring states to adhere to the ideological non-statutory whims of the leaders rather than the law of the land, right? That this is like... There is law. Elementary and Secondary Education Act says this money goes here for this based on this formula. That law has not been changed, has not been amended, has not been thrown out. None of that has happened. Right. So that letter came and Congress has passed a law and it was signed into the ratification was right in 2015. Right. That law is the law of the land. And so asking people to say, you have to, you have to do this and agree to this. If you want to get this money that we are legally required to send to you is a, is a whole new way of playing. Like we've said, do this so you can get your money before as a federal government, but this is a different way of playing the game that is incredibly dangerous and disrupts systems that take care of our most vulnerable populations.
SPEAKER_02:And we're back full circle, you know, like we're just right back at to the top. of where we started. Executive orders, baby. Yeah, executive orders.
SPEAKER_03:Find the cracks. All right, last question here. What are we wondering? As we watch this, as we go through the podcast, what are the questions, what are we wondering watching how all of these things unfold?
SPEAKER_00:I think one of my top questions is how will the courts continue to respond to this level of Norm smashing that the administration seems to be doing with regard to legislated in place laws and statutes and trying to executively order them away. How the courts continue to respond and try to protect the rule of law, I think, is something it's really interesting to watch.
SPEAKER_03:Stephanie,
SPEAKER_02:I'm wondering how states are going to react. You know who who's going to bend the knee. Right. Will they demand access to federal funds if they're being, I'm sorry, if they're taking over that federal work? What's the voter response going to be in all of this?
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, we'll take over your work. Now give us all the money that we sent back or the money that we would have been promised.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, come on. What am I paying you for if you're not going to do it?
SPEAKER_03:I have a pretty big concern around and question around recruitment and retention efforts for new teachers. Teaching wasn't the sexiest job, wasn't the sexiest profession yet. And we are not making it look stable or better at this particular point. And Diana, I think you were saying something about the fact that all of those EOs came out at the same time.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. That was a lot of... That was a lot going on in seven EOs all at once. And I really... I haven't seen it yet. It may exist. By all means, somebody throw us a comment if it does. But I... I'm starting to, you know, I mean, there's some definite through lines that you're going to see in all of this. And I keep wanting to think about what are the threads that they're pulling through all of these EOs that we can start to surface as the more complex but not complicated pieces of this for folks to understand what they're doing versus every single time he does one of these EOs, we have to sit down and take it apart and parse it and what's the fact sheet say, but rather, Oh, this is another example of, you know, they're, desire to take away civil rights protections. Oh, that's just another one that's going against civil rights. Oh, that's just another one that's going against states' rights and ignoring reserve powers. Oh, that's another one. I think we need to start asking ourselves, what's the through line in these? What's the bigger theme so that when we talk about them, we can group them together?
SPEAKER_03:I would also say I am very curious about what the administration's If these are all connected, if there's a through line, what is the administration's end game with AI and education? Is this connected? This one, again, seems like it was written in a different way with a different language and tone than the other EOs. But how is this all connected? What's the end game there? Yeah. I want to finish off before we close with what we promise in the core values, if you listen to the trailer. What can folks do? Because there's a lot of, if we're listening to this, and as we say these things, I think desperation and worry in those pieces. And we know that the good work in classrooms and schools is happening across the country. But there's a question of what can we do if our funds are being weaponized against us if we don't take care of the kids who need it, which is all kids. And I think the answer and the advice that makes the most sense to me is if you are running a district or you are running a school, work to make as simple and transparent as possible how these federal funds impact the children in your care. Point two is These are the number of teachers we have because of Title I. These are the staff development coaches that we are helping our teachers improve their practice because of Title II. This is why our school is safer because of Title IV. Making very transparent and clear how those funds work is incredibly important. We'll put in the show notes also the folks over at InnovateEDU put together a Google folder that lists each state in the country and what they would lose if there was an elimination of EdR&D research funding, as well as contact information for your senators to let them know what you think. We'll drop that link to the folder in the show notes.
SPEAKER_00:And then the last little bit I'd put on there and is at the teacher level, just never stop sharing the wonderful stories of what's happening in your classrooms with your students and what's going right with the kids that you get to work with every day. You can never have too much of that to help communicate the reason why all of this is so important is because of that good work that's happening in your classroom.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you so much, Diana, for joining us today. It's been a real pleasure. I especially love that bright spot. Find the bright spot at the end It's so easy to get down in the dark places. Remembering to find the bright spot is a good one.
SPEAKER_00:It was great to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
SPEAKER_03:And thanks to everybody who listened. Join us next week when Stephanie and I try to tackle the pyramid of Bloom's taxonomy question mark. It should be pretty interesting.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, it's going to be great. So until next time, like, follow, subscribe. We are Academic Distinctions.
