recent Axios story on maternal health policy referenced "findings" that a majority of people trusted their doctors and nurses. On the surface, there's nothing unusual about that. What wasn't originally mentioned, however, was that these findings were made up. Clicking through the links revealed (as did a subsequent editor's note and clarification by Axios) that the public opinion poll was a computer simulation run by the artificial intelligence start-up Aaru. No people were involved in the creation of these opinions. The practice Aaru used is called silicon sampling, and it's suddenly everywhere. The idea behind silicon sampling is simple and tantalizing. Because large language models can generate responses that emulate human answers, polling companies see an opportunity to use A.I. agents to simulate survey responses at a small fraction of the cost and time required for traditional polling.

As I’ve said a million times, I’m not particularly against smart uses of AI

This is the stupidest use I’ve seen yet though

My first thought would be "I would be cold in the winter"

Our research center CADRE is hiring a Research Associate. Posting here: jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta.... Please don't hesitate to ask if you have questions, and share widely!

Our research center CADRE is hiring a Research Associate. Posting here: jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta.... Please don't hesitate to ask if you have questions, and share widely!

haha now I'm the idiot. I thought they had their own thing that was not CEEB codes (College Board) but something else. Will dig in!

Random data question. In CO I have data with an ACT high school code. I want to link this to NCES to say something about the high school they attend. ACT won't give us a crosswalk. Anyone have access to something like this? Thoughts?

"Reimagining" the Institute of Education Sciences It didn't have to be this way

My response to the "Reimagining the Institute of Education Sciences" report. It didn't have to be this way: betsyjwolf.substack.com/p/reimaginin...

Yesterday, those who teach Intro to Sociology at Florida colleges (as opposed to universities) received a ready-made curriculum from the state and were ordered to teach it.

Yes, you read that correctly. The *state* is enforcing a curriculum on college profs, complete w/ the following restrictions:

Thanks!

How AI Impacts Skill Formation AI assistance produces significant productivity gains across professional domains, particularly for novice workers. Yet how this assistance affects the development of skills required to effectively su...

ok found one I was looking for: arxiv.org/abs/2601.20245

Random question: can anyone point me to recent high quality articles that show AI use can be detrimental to learning (on any dimension). I'm finding that googling is hard to find them, though I've seen them around.

ICE bypasses El Paso medical examiner for autopsy on migrant ICE bypassed the county medical examiner in favor of a military facility for the autopsy of a Nicaraguan man and won’t release a ruling to the public.

2 weeks ago, the El Paso Medical Examiner ruled the death of a Cuban ICE detainee a homicide.

This time, when a 32-year-old Nicaraguan man died, ICE bypassed the county medical examiner in favor of a military facility. They won’t publicly release a ruling.

www.texastribune.org/2026/02/03/t...

But that DD part is only a small part no? (I only looked for 5 minutes). I think these figures are just logit comparisons across years

Deadline approaching! Apply for a postdoc role studying the politics of education policy at Stanford GSE:
postdocs.stanford.edu/prospective/...

Signs about the history of slavery in the U.S. and the 9 people George Washington enslaved are being removed right now at the President’s House Site in Philadelphia, across from Independence Hall, months after the Trump administration threatend to do so.

How far we have not come in 250 years.

hey, y'all. my name is madi and i'm a reporter for the minnesota reformer. i cover the trump administration's impact on minnesotans, which means i've been out on the streets covering ICE in the twin cities. let me walk you through how we got here:

ICE ended up returning the man, Saly, after realizing he’s a fucking US citizen with no criminal record, per his sister-in-law. These fucking animals.

Like I used stuff like this last semester: www.educationnext.org/wp-content/u... and www.educationnext.org/wp-content/u.... One was on a HW so they had practice, and one was on the final. So asking questions about data, validity, methods, interpretation, etc.

I've started doing again because accusing people of AI cheating sucks and is a huge waste of time in my experience). if they don't take advantage of the opportunity that's on them. But also allows me to ask "harder" questions because it feels more fair to me.

Just another note - in my undergrad stats I often now assign a paper to read way ahead of the final, and then ask them questions about it. So they have time to meet with me to assess their understand (or with each other) but very few of them do. Makes me feel less bad about in-person exams (which...

It's work and I can't say I've done it but I do think the two-step of (1) write stuff down but then (2) talk to me about it - really helps you assess their understanding. The one thing I take for granted that we professors are actually pretty good at is asking good questions within a conversation.

i have been reading Tom Ricks’ “Fighting the Good War” which is a military analysis of the civil rights movement, and one thing that comes abundantly across is that movement leaders and ordinary people made it a practice to refuse to fall into despair and cynicism.

This video shows ICE holding children hostage to bait parents out of their homes.

Just unspeakable levels of cruelty and inhumanity.

Having seen several abductions up close, it is really hard to convey how much the thing they’re doing is roaming in military convoys until they see someone who is alone and isn’t white, and then jumping out in large numbers, pulling them into a van, and screeching off, all in 90 seconds or so.

Censorship Arrives on Campus In her debut column, “Echoes in the Quad,” higher education policy scholar Dominique J. Baker explores how the political oppression of the McCarthy era reverberates in the stifling of academic freedom...

It would appear I am now a columnist at Inside Higher Ed. My first piece focuses on McCarthyism, censorship, and our current moment in higher education. This is an essay I started nearly 6 months ago so I'm glad to finally share it with y'all.

www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

This woman is harder than goddamn steel dealing with these goddamn thugs. I want her to be my neighbor.

Not quite "minor" but when I was on Wheel of Fortune Vanna came backstage and said to the contestants (they film multiple a day) "I'm really rooting for you all to win a bunch of money" and I said sarcastically "Thanks! I hope you get paid well for what you do to" and she shot me a withering look.

I recently read Death of the Author and that was a weird one for me - I liked the ending and felt satisfied having read it but didn't totally enjoy the process of getting there. I liked both Remote Control and (very slightly less so) Who Fears Death. Didn't like Binti but might need to try again.

Curious if you like it. Since kids and Covid (when I had stopped reading basically) I’ve now got back into sf/fantasy novellas, usually using Hugo/nebula lists of finalists as a starting point.

Siren Queen "Lyrical, mesmerizing, and otherworldly. . . stunning p…

I tend to like moody SF novellas so don’t think of this as a hard action book: www.goodreads.com/book/show/54...