Arlington Parents for Education

Read our position here: arlingtonparentsforeducation.org/ape-device-ed-…

Watch the School Board Work Session happening now- apsva.us/arlington-scho…

Watch the Work Session happening now on Ed Tech - apsva.us/arlington-scho…

From an APS Teacher: Tech-filled classrooms are failing our kids Click below to read more ⬇️

From the Classroom: Ed Tech, Homework & Learning Tradeoffs + APS Budget & ACTL Updates & More - mailchi.mp/4853655aef1b/a…

@ArlingtonVA @ARLnowDOTcom

APS funding matters for students, families, and @ArlingtonVA long-term economic vitality. We’re urging the County Board to maintain the traditional revenue share and uphold our long-standing partnership with APS. Read the letter here: arlingtonparentsforeducation.org/advocacy-in-ac…

A beautifully written case for why physical textbooks are so much better for learning than the online distractions that have replaced them. From Sophie Winkleman and @drdavidajames spectator.com/article/textbo…

If your head is spinning from all the studies about problems facing young people, here's a list of 30 of them in one place. Thanks to @tedgioia for giving us permission to reprint from his excellent substack, The Honest Broker afterbabel.com/p/30-facts-abo…

The American education system is fixated on finding the latest method or system to get students reading and writing. Unfortunately, no hack exists. Reading is sometimes dull. Writing is often hard. You can’t entertain yourself to an education.

"Reading is sometimes dull. Writing is often hard. You can’t entertain yourself to an education." 💯

Professors are sounding the alarm as students increasingly offload complex cognitive processing to language models. The Guardian published a piece. Literature professors are now hiding invisible trap words inside digital assignments just to catch students who blindly feed prompts into. While science departments welcome these tools, literature teachers realize students are bypassing independent thought entirely. The widespread adoption of prompt-based text generation in universities is causing a measurable collapse in students' ability to synthesize raw information. Surveys show 92% of students use generative software for assignments. --- theguardian .com/technology/ng-interactive/2026/mar/10/ai-impact-professors-students-learning

Teachers and parents: if you know anyone on a curriculum selection committee, please send them this tweet, ask them to choose book-and-paper oriented curricula. Thank you @karenvaites

Last week, I raised the 🚩🚩🚩 for district curriculum selection committees in a piece that noted @JonHaidt's earlier call. District leaders are choosing curricula now for use in the next 5-7 years. They can choose tech-enabled curricula or book-and-paper-oriented curricula. I know which one fits better with this trend. curriculuminsightproject.substack.com/p/to-future-pr…

Sharing this community petition looking for signatures on APS’ Ed tech policies: arlnow.com/announcements/…

“Roughly one in five student interactions with generative artificial intelligence on school technology involved cheating, self-harm, bullying and other problematic behaviors, according to data collected and analyzed by Securly, a company offering internet filtering and other safety services.”

I just gave a closed-book, pen-and-paper midterm exam in my 300-level course at UBC with 100 students. All exams were graded by an experienced graduate-level TA according to a rubric. *** The average was 64/100.*** My class averages at UBC are usually 80-85. Context: • This was the first midterm, covering ONLY 4 weeks of material. • Students had a list of possible questions in advance: no surprise questions. • Questions included (a) 3 concept definitions, (b) 3 paragraph-long questions, and (c) a 1.5-page essay. • I have taught this class multiple times. Nothing in my teaching style changed this semester. • We read entire paragraphs of text in class, so students don't have to do something on their own that wasn't covered during the lecture. • Students take a 10-question multiple-choice quiz at the end of every class (30% of the final grade). • Attendance is 95-99% every class. Attention during lectures and participation in pair-work activities are very high → anticipating the end-of-class quiz. *** But unfortunately, I suspect many students are not reading the material on the syllabus. They are asking LLMs to summarize it instead.*** After the midterm, students reported: • They thought they knew concept definitions but couldn't produce them on paper. • They thought they understood the arguments but struggled to connect them or identify points of agreement and disagreement. My view: It might be “cool” or “innovative” to teach students to summarize readings with ChatGPT or write essays with Claude. But we may be doing them a disservice: reducing their ability to retain material, think creatively, and reason from what they know. If you only read what AI has summarized for you, you don’t truly "know" the material. Moving forward: We have a second midterm coming up. I don't know how to convey to students that the best way to do better on the exam is to rely on and improve their own reading skills.