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"Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day…" - 5 new articles
A Look Back: We Need To Talk More About Schools As Mediating InstitutionsFor the next several months, each week I’ll be republishing posts from the past that I think readers might still find useful. This post first appeared in 2018. Be sure to read the more recent addendum at the bottom of this post. I also elaborated on this topic at an Education Week piece I wrote in light of Trump’s election. Many schools have certainly found their voice as mediating institutions in the past year as they’ve responded to ICE attacks on their communities, schools, and families. During my nineteen year career as a community organizer, we spent a lot of time talking about religious congregations, labor unions, neighborhood organizations and schools as “mediating institutions” (page 699). These are groups that “mediate” between individuals with little power and government and other larger entities. They perform this function by bringing together these individuals to organize for their needs and beliefs. Edmund Burke called them “little platoons”; Alexis de Tocqueville described them as “associations”; and Richard John Neuhaus coined the term “mediating structures” (read more here). In our organizing, we would help build “organizations of organizations” composed of these mediating institutions to advocate for their goals and to help develop leadership. It’s disappointing to me that there doesn’t seem to be much talk about this important role of schools these days and, as one result, you get people talking about a need to punish students who walk out to protest gun violence. We’re missing public discussion of the historical role of schools as engines for social change. However, Alexander Russo recently shared a good article in The New Republic that begins to touch on these ideas: How Public Schools Became a Battleground in the Trump Era. Here’s how it ends:
It doesn’t really fit, but I’m adding this to The Best Articles Providing An “Overall” Perspective On Education Policy. ADDENDUM: Schools are the ‘hubs and hearts’ of neighborhoods – here’s how they can strengthen the communities around them is from The Conversation. I’m also adding it to The Best Posts & Articles On Building Influence & Creating Change.
     This Week’s Free & Useful Artificial Intelligence Tools For The Classroom geralt / Pixabay
At least, for now, I’m going to make this a weekly feature which will highlight additions to THE BEST NEW – & FREE – ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TOOLS THAT COULD BE USED IN THE CLASSROOM: Tale Forge uses AI to create stories, as does GordieKid. SchoolAI has lots of teacher tools. I’m adding it to The Best Free AI-Powered Multi-Use Tools For Teachers. The AI Mapper and the AI Map Doctor is from Google Maps Mania. Mento uses AI to create mindmaps from any document. Metabooks is yet another AI-powered book recommendation tool. I’m adding it to The Best Places To Get Blog, Website, , Book, Movie, & Music Recommendations. Reducing Speaking Anxiety among College ESL Students through Artificial Intelligence
Research Review: AI+Human Tutors Match Quality of Human-Only Tutors? is by Dan Meyer. An artful answer to the AI crisis in education is from The Seattle Times. I’m adding it to The “Best” Strategies For Creating AI-Resistant Assignments.
 This Week’s “Round-Up” Of Useful Posts & Articles On Ed Policy Issues
Here are some recent useful posts and articles on educational policy issues (You might also be interested in seeing all my “Best” lists related to education policy here):
The A.I. Boom Boosted Teacher Pay in a Rural County. Can It Last? is from The NY Times.  Schools Must Make Social Capital an Essential Part of Students’ Education is from The 74. I’m adding it to The Best Resources On Social Capital In Schools. As ICE Activity Rises, Schools Focus on Family Support is from Ed Week. I’m adding it to The Best Resources To Support Schools, Teachers, Students & Families In The Face Of Trump’s Deportation Threats. 100 Years Ago, Students Across the U.S. Took the First SAT. Today, Relatively Few Colleges Require the Test. Where Is It Headed? is from Smithsonian Magazine.
Windows Are Open and Shoes Are Off, but Class Is Still On in Extreme Heat is from The NY Times.
Democrats Move to Impeach Linda McMahon Over ‘Willful Intent’ to Close Ed Dept. is from The 74.
I’m adding this tweet to The Best Resources For Understanding How To Interpret Education Research:
The Problems With Educational Research is by David Deubelbeiss. I’m adding it to the same list.
  My Best Posts That Appeared In June
I regularly highlight my picks for the most useful posts for each month — not including “The Best…” lists. I also use some of them in a more extensive monthly newsletter I send-out. You can see older Best Posts of the Month at Websites Of The Month (more recent lists can be found here). You can also see my all-time favorites here. I’ve also been doing “A Look Back” series reviewing old favorites, too. Here are some of the posts I personally think are the best, and most helpful, ones I’ve written during this past month (not in any order of preference) – also note that I group many updates on the Trump administration’s current attack on education and democracy in weekly posts you can find here): Jalen Brunson On The Role Of Failure In Achieving Success Useful Lessons For Teaching About Native American Boarding Schools Yet Another Study Finds That “Controlling Teachers” Are Not The Best Ones Four Interactive Maps Highlighting Books With Authors Or Plots From Each Country The “Situation-Behavior-Impact” Feedback Model Could Be Useful In The Classroom Here’s What A Recent Meta-Analysis On Reading Instruction Found “Kids Tales” Looks Like A Good Free Site For Beginning Readers Video: Official World Cup Song Would Be Great For ELLs – & All Other Students, Too! This Short Piece On Student Engagement Is Worth Reading & Would Be Worth A Faculty Discussion No, Virginia, Banning Student Cellphones Is Not A Magical Solution, But It Can’t Hurt Google Is Getting Closer & Closer To Star Trek’s Universal Translator & It Upped Its Game Today I Like These Strategies For Dealing With AI When Students Are Writing Essays Does History “Rhyme” For Student Test Scores As It Does For Many Other Events District Superintendents, Principals & Teachers Might Want To Consider Emulating Coach Mike Brown Wemby’s Post-Game Interview Is Made-To-Order For An SEL Lesson I Had Thought My Wearing Ties Everyday Helped Students; Research Says It Helped Me, Too Our Next Book, “The Better Teacher’s Toolbox,” Will Be Out Next Month! “Cool History Games” Is A Nice Collection Of … History Games “My AI Toolkit: Studio” Is An Exceptional Resource For ELL Teachers “Students Don’t Want to Read? Try Graphic Novels, Teachers Advise” “Immigrant Student Enrollment Is Falling. How Should Schools Respond?” “Student Agency Inspires Learning. Here Are 8 Ways to Foster It”  Sentences Of The Week geralt / Pixabay
I thought readers might, or might not, find this new regular post useful. Each week, I highlight several sentences, with links to their sources, that I find interesting/concerning/useful. And they may, or may not, be directly connected to education. I may also include my own comments or related links. This regular post will join my other regular ones on teaching ELLs, education policy, Artificial Intelligence, infographics, and Pinterest highlights, not to mention sharing of my regular Education Week posts. Here are this week’s sentences: To be Black and fight for America is to know that America may not fight for you. “The real Luddites are anti-technology being used to exploit people. A Luddite asks: ‘What are the implications of this technology? How is it going to impact society?'” Anytime someone tries to tell you that “we just can’t afford” to do something in education – make tuition free or make classes smaller or put more teachers in special education classrooms or provide real, material resources for families – you are welcome to point to this whole “AI” tomfoolery and ask why we think we can afford that. You cannot accountability-pressure your way to better educational outcomes when chronic absenteeism has skyrocketed, misbehavior is common, students are disengaged and skeptical that school prepares them for the lives they want to lead, and teachers feel not just tired but stripped of the professional trust that makes the work meaningful. California’s public schools have been shrinking for nearly a decade, and new research suggests the decline is in large part fueled by a drop in the number of multilingual students in the state’s schools One of the most important interruptions you can make in someone’s day is to catch them doing something well and then tell them. How likely is it that students can skip a four-year degree and make a good living or achieve “economic mobility?” The short answer is it’s certainly possible, but the odds are stacked against workers without degrees. See The Best Resources For Showing Students Why They Should Continue Their Academic Career The AI didn’t break our pedagogy; it merely revealed that the pedagogy was already broken. In the first nine months of 2025, ICE operations led to at least 668,000 lost jobs across 86 US metropolitan areas. According to George Orwell, there’s a simple reason authoritarian cultural campaigns can’t last: They assume that history can be “created rather than learned,” he wrote in a 1947 Atlantic essay, and this produces superficial literature, unstable and fleeting. See THE BEST – & MOST INTERESTING – RESOURCES FOR STUDYING HISTORY Gallup polling shows that most Americans now feel the signers of the Declaration of Independence would be disappointed with how the U.S. has turned out, a substantial increase from 25 years ago. See The Best Resources For Helping Teach About The 250th Anniversary Of The American Revolution According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the total hours worked by U.S. teachers each year is approximately 1,900—more than teachers in any other country except Chile, where the average is 1,971. The core intellectual work of teaching is noticing why a child’s understanding breaks down and then knowing what to do. For a generation, the reform coalition took its validation from economists and accountability metrics, while treating parents, students and communities as mere functionaries rather than partners in a shared civic enterprise.
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