A Stunning Image of the Australian Desert Illuminates the Growing Problem of Satellite Pollution — from thisiscolossal.com by Grace Ebert and Joshua Rozells
On 04/23/2025,
in dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, legislatures / government / legal, policy, political science, society, United States,
by Daniel Christian
Fight the Trump Administration’s Defiance of the Constitution and Courts — from 5calls.org
On April 14th, the Trump administration openly defied a unanimous order from the Supreme Court by refusing to bring back a person they knowingly sent to a torture prison in El Salvador by mistake.
…
Since Day 1, the Trump administration has been consistently eroding the constitutional separation of powers and system of checks and balances. They have…
- Repeatedly stonewalled federal district judges in court proceedings, defied orders, and threatened to impeach them
- Attempted to revoke birthright citizenship
- Usurped Congress’s constitutional “power of the purse” to block mandated federal funding to essential programs
- Violated the First Amendment and due process rights of students and activists
- + many other items listed here…
From DSC:
Be more like Harvard.
Harvard sues the Trump administration in escalating confrontation — from washingtonpost.com by Susan Svrluga and Danielle Douglas-Gabriel
Lawsuit argues that government actions, including freezing $2.2 billion in federal funding, violated the First Amendment and didn’t follow legal procedures.
Harvard University sued the Trump administration in federal court Monday, the latest move in the escalating feud between the nation’s wealthiest school and the White House.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts against multiple federal agencies, seeks to block the Trump administration from withholding federal funding “as leverage to gain control of academic decision making at Harvard.”
Alan M. Garber, the president of Harvard, said in a message to the university community Monday that the Trump administration’s actions are unlawful and beyond the government’s authority.
From DSC:
Trump has WAAAAY overstepped his jurisdiction and has crossed boundaries left and right. He has single-handedly wreaked havoc across the world — especially with the trade wars and by undermining the Federal Reserve. But he has also trampled on the rights of people living in America. Perhaps we need to write or revisit the job description of a President of the USA. But that’s not really going to help. He wouldn’t listen to it or read it anyway.
On 04/21/2025,
in Alternatives, change, changing business models, education, education reform, homeschooling/homeschoolers, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, legislatures / government / legal, new business models, parents/guardians, policy, United States, youth,
by Daniel Christian
Outdated Microschool Laws Turn Parents into Criminals — from educationnext.org by Erica Smith Ewing
By over-regulating the pandemic-era schooling alternative, states ignore families’ constitutional rights
Public schools do not work for everyone. But options have increased since 1922, when Oregon tried to ban private education. The Supreme Court shut down that scheme fast. But now, after more than 100 years, political insiders are rallying again to stop a new source of choice.
The target this time is microschooling, a Covid-era alternative that has outlasted the pandemic. Key players in the movement will gather May 8–9, 2025, at the International Microschools Conference in Washington, D.C. I will join them.
Most likely, I will meet educators running all kinds of programs in all kinds of community spaces. Microschools blur the lines between home, public, and private schooling—combining elements from all three models.
The result is a fourth category of schooling that hinges on flexibility. Some parents pool their resources and hire outside instructors. Other groups rotate teaching duties among themselves, gathering daily or perhaps only once or twice per week. These are the do-it-yourselfers. Professionals also get involved with standalone enterprises and national networks.
On 04/21/2025,
in funding / grants, higher education, legislatures / government / legal, research, United States, universities,
by Daniel Christian
What are colleges’ legal options when threatened with federal funding cuts? — from highereddive.com/ by Lilah Burke
Higher education experts said colleges could work together or lean on their associations if they take up a legal fight against the Trump administration.
Understand your allies
In fact, colleges may struggle to fight the administration on their own.
“I don’t think that institutions should necessarily fight it by themselves,” said Jeffrey Sun, a higher education and law professor at the University of Louisville. “I don’t think they’ll win.”
What will have more power is several institutions, or even many, working together to fight the attacks on higher education.
“I don’t think we have an option unless we work in collective action,” Sun said.
Harvard University won’t yield to Trump administration’s demands— from highereddive.com by Natalie Schwartz
Alan Garber, the Ivy League institution’s president, said the university wouldn’t forfeit its “independence or its constitutional rights.”
Harvard University President Alan Garber said Monday that officials there would not yield to the Trump administration’s litany of demands to maintain access to federal funding, arguing the federal government had overstepped its authority by issuing the ultimatum.
“The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” Garber wrote in a community message.
The move tees up a battle between the Ivy League institution and the Trump administration, which threatened the university with the loss of $9 billion in federal funding over what it claimed was a failure to protect Jewish students from antisemitism.
Harvard Professors Sue the Trump Administration While Other Universities Are Targeted — from iblnews.org
Two groups representing Harvard University professors (the American Association of University Professors and the Harvard faculty chapter) filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration on Friday, saying that the threat to cut billions in federal funding for the institution violates free speech and other First Amendment rights.
The Trump Administration announced two weeks ago that it reviewed about $9 billion in federal funding that Harvard receives and would send a list of demands to unfreeze the money.
In a statement, Andrew Manuel Crespo, a law professor at Harvard and general counsel of the AAUP-Harvard Faculty Chapter, said the “Trump administration’s policies are a pretext to chill universities and their faculties from engaging in speech, teaching, and research that don’t align with President Trump’s views.”
OPINION: For our republic to survive, education leaders must remain firm in the face of authoritarianism — from hechingerreport.org by Jason E. Glass
We face direct threats to the values around access, opportunity and truth our schools are meant to uphold
Across the country, education leaders are being forced to make some tough decisions — to choose between defending core values, such as equity and historical truth, or yielding to political coercion in hopes of avoiding conflict. There is no strategy that does not involve conflict and trade-offs. Every education leader operates in their own political context with unique legal and cultural constraints.
But make no mistake: Inaction is not neutral. Even the decision to do nothing is a choice, one that has consequences.
Northwestern to self-fund federally threatened research — from highereddive.com by Laura Spitalniak
Leaders at the well-known institution said the support would sustain “vital research” until they had a “better understanding of the funding landscape.”
Northwestern University will pull from its coffers to continue funding “vital research” that has been threatened by the Trump administration, the private institution announced Thursday.
Trump is bullying, blackmailing and threatening colleges, and they are just beginning to fight back — from hechingerreport.org by Liz Willen
After Harvard rejected the president’s demands, more university leaders have started to speak out — but many say a bigger response is needed
Many hope it is the beginning of a new resistance in higher education. “Harvard’s move gives others permission to come out on the ice a little,” McGuire said. “This is an answer to the tepid and vacillating presidents who said they don’t want to draw attention to themselves.”
Harvard paved the way for other institutions to stand up to the administration’s demands, Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, noted in an interview with NPR this week.
Stanford University President Jonathan Levin immediately backed Harvard, noting that “the way to bring about constructive change is not by destroying the nation’s capacity for scientific research, or through the government taking command of a private institution.”
“I tell them, you will never regret doing what is right, but if you allow yourself to be co-opted, you will have regret that you caved to a dictator who doesn’t care about you or your institution.”
A whistleblower’s disclosure details how DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data — from npr.org by Jenna McLaughlin; emphasis DSC
But according to an official whistleblower disclosure shared with Congress and other federal overseers that was obtained by NPR, subsequent interviews with the whistleblower and records of internal communications, technical staff members were alarmed about what DOGE engineers did when they were granted access, particularly when those staffers noticed a spike in data leaving the agency. It’s possible that the data included sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets — data that four labor law experts tell NPR should almost never leave the NLRB and that has nothing to do with making the government more efficient or cutting spending.
Meanwhile, according to the disclosure and records of internal communications, members of the DOGE team asked that their activities not be logged on the system and then appeared to try to cover their tracks behind them, turning off monitoring tools and manually deleting records of their access — evasive behavior that several cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR compared to what criminal or state-sponsored hackers might do.
The employees grew concerned that the NLRB’s confidential data could be exposed, particularly after they started detecting suspicious log-in attempts from an IP address in Russia, according to the disclosure.
Meanwhile, his attempts to raise concerns internally within the NLRB preceded someone “physically taping a threatening note” to his door that included sensitive personal information and overhead photos of him walking his dog that appeared to be taken with a drone…
On 04/17/2025,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, corporate / business world, creativity, education, emerging technologies, learning, learning agents, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, relationships, research, society, the downsides of how people use tech, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
How People Are Really Using Gen AI in 2025 — from hbr.org by Marc Zao-Sanders
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Here’s why you shouldn’t let AI run your company… — from theneurondaily.com by Grant Harvey; emphasis DSC
When “vibe-coding” goes wrong… or, a parable in why you shouldn’t “vibe” your entire company.
Cursor, an AI-powered coding tool that many developers love-to-hate, face-planted spectacularly yesterday when its own AI support bot went off-script and fabricated a company policy, leading to a complete user revolt.
Here’s the short version:
- A bug locked Cursor users out when switching devices.
- Instead of human help, Cursor’s AI support bot confidently told users this was a new policy (it wasn’t).
- No human checked the replies—big mistake.
- The fake news spread, and devs canceled subscriptions en masse.
- A Reddit thread about it got mysteriously nuked, fueling suspicion.
The reality? Just a bug, plus a bot hallucination… doing maximum damage.
…
Why it matters: This is what we’d call “vibe-companying”—blindly trusting AI with critical functions without human oversight.
Think about it like this: this was JUST a startup. If more big corporations continue to lay off entire departments, replaced by AI, these already byzantine companies will become increasingly more opaque, unaccountable systems where no one, human or AI, fully understands what’s happening or who’s responsible.
Our take? Kafka dude has it right. We need to pay attention to WHAT we’re actually automating. Because automating more bureaucracy at scale, with agents we increasingly don’t understand or don’t double check, can potentially make companies less intelligent—and harder to fix when things inevitably go wrong.
On 04/17/2025,
in Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), funding / grants, legislatures / government / legal, neurodivergent/special needs, parents/guardians, society, United States,
by Daniel Christian
What’s Happening at the Social Security Administration? Here’s What People With Disabilities Need to Know. — from thearc.org by Jackie Dilworth
Millions of people with disabilities rely on Social Security benefits to survive. Recent changes at the Social Security Administration (SSA) may make accessing these benefits harder than ever. Long wait times, office closures and staff cuts, and policy rollbacks are already raising concerns and exacerbating customer service issues. Here’s what you need to know.
Staffing Cuts and Office Closures
In 2025, SSA has announced a dramatic reduction in staff and offices, including:
- Plans to cut 7,000 employees (over 12% of the agency’s workforce).
- Closure of 60% of SSA’s 10 regional offices, reducing key staff that help resolve problems with peoples’ benefits.
- Closure of SSA’s Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity, which handled reasonable accommodation requests and managed the agency’s civil rights complaints, including public complaints of discrimination on the basis of disability. This office’s statutory responsibilities have reportedly been divided and moved to other divisions within SSA.
Why does this matter? SSA workers process disability applications, answer calls, and help people navigate complex benefit rules. With fewer staff and the consolidations of regional offices, wait times could get even worse. The loss of key staff also raises concerns about SSA’s ability to modernize, maintain, and improve essential services, further limiting accessibility for beneficiaries. Modernizing SSA’s operations requires long-term investments in systems and processes that are being undercut by these changes.
On 04/17/2025,
in competency-based learning/education, education, education reform, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, podcasting, teachers, United States,
by Daniel Christian
FOOD FOR THOUGHT + DISCUSSION
Translating CBE Vision into Learning Design
What if your Portrait of a Graduate could shape every unit, lesson, and conversation you’re building? Check out one of our most requested resources, The Teacher’s First Steps Guide, created in partnership with schools in South Carolina.
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Unpack the vision.
Start with small-group conversations about your graduate profile – where are you aligned? What feels fuzzy?
Connect to practice.
Use Future9 or your own framework to translate vision into observable skills.
Prototype with purpose.
Invite teachers to refine a task or lesson using one of the guide’s steps
Addendum on 4/21/25:
A Close Look at Competency-Based Learning — from cultofpedagogy.com by Jennifer Gonzalez
And despite not getting that original question answered, the search did lead me to something called competency-based learning. Although I was vaguely familiar with it — I believed it was in the same ballpark as standards-based learning and mastery learning, which we’ve seen in the Modern Classrooms approach — I had never looked closely at it. So I’m doing that now. I invited three people onto the podcast who have a lot of experience and success with this approach:
- Susie Bell, Executive Director of Programs at the Mastery Transcript Consortium (MTC), an organization that supports schools in implementing competency-based learning.
- Heather Messer, a teacher and advisor at a Wisconsin school where competency-based learning is a school-wide practice.
- Beth Blankenship, an English teacher who has figured out how to use competency-based learning at her Virginia high school, a school that still uses traditional grading.