Jeffrey Austin
@jaustinedu.bsky.social
Literacy Consultant | Growing Researchers of Environment Equity Network (G.R.E.E.N.) Co-Founder | Former ELA Department Chair, Writing Center Director, Instructional Coach + Humanities Teacher | Views are my own | Pronouns: He/Him
Reposted by Jeffrey Austin
Saying it doesn’t make it so. www.theverge.com/tech/876866/...
February 11, 2026 at 2:23 AM
Saying it doesn’t make it so. www.theverge.com/tech/876866/...
Unfortunately, institutional Democrats' corporate politics extend into literacy classrooms, as they're happy to mandate corporate, scripted curriculum, pay for-profit companies like Lexia tens of millions of dollars for training programs that don't work, and maintain standardized testing regimes.
February 11, 2026 at 12:31 AM
Unfortunately, institutional Democrats' corporate politics extend into literacy classrooms, as they're happy to mandate corporate, scripted curriculum, pay for-profit companies like Lexia tens of millions of dollars for training programs that don't work, and maintain standardized testing regimes.
There's been no better example of this than the dyslexia lobby, which claims to be pushing for equity for marginalized groups, but is mostly a vehicle for legislating white, middle-class grievance politics.
The end result of their efforts is mandated corporate curriculum and pedagogy by fiat.
The end result of their efforts is mandated corporate curriculum and pedagogy by fiat.
it also bothers me that "equity" has been the driver of mandating these kinds of things in schools. we educators should always be suspicious of reforms toward greater standardization and monitoring of anyone but especially children
February 11, 2026 at 12:01 AM
There's been no better example of this than the dyslexia lobby, which claims to be pushing for equity for marginalized groups, but is mostly a vehicle for legislating white, middle-class grievance politics.
The end result of their efforts is mandated corporate curriculum and pedagogy by fiat.
The end result of their efforts is mandated corporate curriculum and pedagogy by fiat.
Educators and librarians asked @michigandems.bsky.social to protect Michiganders' from coordinated efforts at book banning and censorship during their trifecta.
They failed to act.
What's happening in Iowa is a glimpse into the cost of their inaction if the MIGOP wins in November.
They failed to act.
What's happening in Iowa is a glimpse into the cost of their inaction if the MIGOP wins in November.
In response to Iowa's vague & punitive "age appropriate" school materials law in 2023, schools immediately removed over 3,000 books. Of the most-removed:
6 center Black American experiences
7 center experiences of women
2 are dystopian critiques of authoritarianism
1 is antiwar/militarism
6 center Black American experiences
7 center experiences of women
2 are dystopian critiques of authoritarianism
1 is antiwar/militarism
February 10, 2026 at 6:40 PM
Educators and librarians asked @michigandems.bsky.social to protect Michiganders' from coordinated efforts at book banning and censorship during their trifecta.
They failed to act.
What's happening in Iowa is a glimpse into the cost of their inaction if the MIGOP wins in November.
They failed to act.
What's happening in Iowa is a glimpse into the cost of their inaction if the MIGOP wins in November.
Reposted by Jeffrey Austin
The attitude that AI evangelists have towards writing shows that they're not readers.
I have the highest respect (bordering on awe!) for the best authors. What gets me is when people think that anyone can craft a bestselling novel... can "anyone" sing an aria in an opera?! Storytelling is a talent!
I have the highest respect (bordering on awe!) for the best authors. What gets me is when people think that anyone can craft a bestselling novel... can "anyone" sing an aria in an opera?! Storytelling is a talent!
February 8, 2026 at 9:59 PM
The attitude that AI evangelists have towards writing shows that they're not readers.
I have the highest respect (bordering on awe!) for the best authors. What gets me is when people think that anyone can craft a bestselling novel... can "anyone" sing an aria in an opera?! Storytelling is a talent!
I have the highest respect (bordering on awe!) for the best authors. What gets me is when people think that anyone can craft a bestselling novel... can "anyone" sing an aria in an opera?! Storytelling is a talent!
Reposted by Jeffrey Austin
Remember that a large part of the adtech ecosystem is school data. Every school app is full of adtech. Or sells on data.
Same with your car data too
Switching off cookies or using a private browser won’t save us when schools are selling us out
Same with your car data too
Switching off cookies or using a private browser won’t save us when schools are selling us out
The latest evidence that broadcasting people’s movements and intimate data in the Real-Time Bidding online advertising system is truly dangerous.
www.wired.com/story/ice-as...
www.wired.com/story/ice-as...
ICE Asks Companies About ‘Ad Tech and Big Data’ Tools It Could Use in Investigations
A new federal filing from ICE demonstrates how commercial tools are increasingly being considered by the government for law enforcement and surveillance.
www.wired.com
January 25, 2026 at 8:53 AM
Remember that a large part of the adtech ecosystem is school data. Every school app is full of adtech. Or sells on data.
Same with your car data too
Switching off cookies or using a private browser won’t save us when schools are selling us out
Same with your car data too
Switching off cookies or using a private browser won’t save us when schools are selling us out
Reposted by Jeffrey Austin
Call it woke indoctrination or whatever, who cares: the entire point of public education in a pluralistic multicultural democratic nation is to make sure we can live and work together without subjugating and killing each other.
The alternative is what we're living through right now.
The alternative is what we're living through right now.
I actually think one of the most American lessons you could learn in school is that your neighbors come from all races & religions, speak different languages, have families that may look different from yours, and that's what makes us great. I'd make Cultural Studies a requirement over Algebra II.
January 22, 2026 at 2:37 PM
Call it woke indoctrination or whatever, who cares: the entire point of public education in a pluralistic multicultural democratic nation is to make sure we can live and work together without subjugating and killing each other.
The alternative is what we're living through right now.
The alternative is what we're living through right now.
Reposted by Jeffrey Austin
I wanted to avoid the obligatory “buffet of continents & cultures” approach when designing my new World Literature course, so planning has been intense for this semester. It’s a pretty ambitious framing for 11th & 12th graders, but I’m excited to see how it goes this week.
January 20, 2026 at 12:36 AM
I wanted to avoid the obligatory “buffet of continents & cultures” approach when designing my new World Literature course, so planning has been intense for this semester. It’s a pretty ambitious framing for 11th & 12th graders, but I’m excited to see how it goes this week.
This is one of the reasons I'm opposed to so-called "science of reading" legislation: the state is not only telling you what to teach + when to teach it through mandates while also enforcing the way you teach it. The fact that so many on the left celebrate these bills is worrisome to me.
The idea of the state being the primary engine of canon formation should offend anyone who takes books and writing seriously. People do understand that this is about art, right?
January 19, 2026 at 10:40 PM
This is one of the reasons I'm opposed to so-called "science of reading" legislation: the state is not only telling you what to teach + when to teach it through mandates while also enforcing the way you teach it. The fact that so many on the left celebrate these bills is worrisome to me.
Reposted by Jeffrey Austin
Pretty much every article I read about "integrating" AI into the writing classroom brings me back to the conclusion I work through here: We should teach writing, not document production. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...
Writing Classes Are About Writing, Not AI-Aided Production
If we want students to learn to write, AI tools shouldn’t have much of a role. If we don’t think students need to learn to write anymore, I’m not sure what we’re doing here.
www.insidehighered.com
January 19, 2026 at 2:14 PM
Pretty much every article I read about "integrating" AI into the writing classroom brings me back to the conclusion I work through here: We should teach writing, not document production. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...
Reposted by Jeffrey Austin
All the understandably tense chatter about literacy is a waste of time if we don’t cap it with a really rousing explanation of what reading is for
January 17, 2026 at 8:27 PM
All the understandably tense chatter about literacy is a waste of time if we don’t cap it with a really rousing explanation of what reading is for
Reposted by Jeffrey Austin
"If you wanted to create a tool that would enable the destruction of institutions that prop up democratic life, you could not do better than artificial intelligence." papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
How AI Destroys Institutions
Civic institutions—the rule of law, universities, and a free press—are the backbone of democratic life. They are the mechanisms through which complex societies
papers.ssrn.com
January 17, 2026 at 11:12 AM
"If you wanted to create a tool that would enable the destruction of institutions that prop up democratic life, you could not do better than artificial intelligence." papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
GOP candidate for governor: "We need stronger legislation to hold the ed tech industry accountable. I will fight for kids + parents, not Silicon Valley."
Legislative Dems: "LETRS."
Legislative Dems: "LETRS."
Listen, Democrats in statehouses and governor's mansions have not been friends to public education. In many cases, they're often more closely aligned to right-wing groups + causes than to those on the left. "Back-to-basics" for thee, but not for me, as they enroll their kid in private school.
January 17, 2026 at 1:37 PM
GOP candidate for governor: "We need stronger legislation to hold the ed tech industry accountable. I will fight for kids + parents, not Silicon Valley."
Legislative Dems: "LETRS."
Legislative Dems: "LETRS."
The "reading wars" are just rebranded "culture wars."
👉 Book-banning.
👉 Dogmatic instructional practices enforced through state legislatures.
👉 Narrowing of curricular resources to an approved few by favored corporate vendors.
👉 Attempts to teacherproof + studentproof learning due to distrust.
👉 Book-banning.
👉 Dogmatic instructional practices enforced through state legislatures.
👉 Narrowing of curricular resources to an approved few by favored corporate vendors.
👉 Attempts to teacherproof + studentproof learning due to distrust.
That the conservative ed reform people have so readily adopted right wing culture warriors confirms, at least to me, that they’ve been waging culture war themselves all along
January 15, 2026 at 11:35 PM
The "reading wars" are just rebranded "culture wars."
👉 Book-banning.
👉 Dogmatic instructional practices enforced through state legislatures.
👉 Narrowing of curricular resources to an approved few by favored corporate vendors.
👉 Attempts to teacherproof + studentproof learning due to distrust.
👉 Book-banning.
👉 Dogmatic instructional practices enforced through state legislatures.
👉 Narrowing of curricular resources to an approved few by favored corporate vendors.
👉 Attempts to teacherproof + studentproof learning due to distrust.
Me looking for all of the Open Schoolers from 2020-2021 holding protests because St. Paul's Schools will be closed because of a federal occupation.
a man in a suit and tie is standing in a room holding his jacket
Alt: a man in a suit and tie is standing in a room holding his jacket
media.tenor.com
January 15, 2026 at 2:48 AM
Me looking for all of the Open Schoolers from 2020-2021 holding protests because St. Paul's Schools will be closed because of a federal occupation.
Is it bad when you can't fully tell the difference between a Democratic state senator + Tiffany Justice talking about literacy education? #PairedTexts
January 12, 2026 at 12:17 AM
Is it bad when you can't fully tell the difference between a Democratic state senator + Tiffany Justice talking about literacy education? #PairedTexts
Reposted by Jeffrey Austin
Chatgpt! Is! Not! Confidential! Do! Not! Do! This! For! Fuck's! Sake!
OpenAI launches ChatGPT Health, encouraging users to connect their medical records
OpenAI launches ChatGPT Health, encouraging users to connect their medical records
But it’s “not intended for diagnosis or treatment.”
buff.ly
January 7, 2026 at 10:47 PM
Chatgpt! Is! Not! Confidential! Do! Not! Do! This! For! Fuck's! Sake!
When I say that Democrats in "blue states" have helped create the literacy circus, this post from a Michigan Democratic Senator is my Exhibit A.
Once you cut through the revisionist history lesson, her big solution is to give corporate giant Lexia another $50 million handout for LETRS.
Once you cut through the revisionist history lesson, her big solution is to give corporate giant Lexia another $50 million handout for LETRS.
![In Michigan, since the *1980s, under either legislative Republican control or divided government, Whole Language Reading Instruction (or its offshoot Balanced Literacy Reading Instruction) was allowed to flourish in our elementary schools. Based on the (incorrect) assumption that reading, like speaking, can be adequately acquired through immersion, these models focused mainly on teaching young readers to guess word meanings from context while they attempt to read.
Correspondingly, since **2003 (with the exception of a four-year period during the Governor Snyder Republican trifectas when Michigan’s 4th graders dipped to “Significantly lower than [the] National Public” reading score), Michigan’s 4th grade reading scores on the NAEP test (“The Nation’s Report Card”) have consistently ranked as “Not significantly different from [the] National Public” score, staying that way through 2022.
Not content with stagnating in the middle of the pack, when Democrats took full control of state government in 2023, we consulted educators and educational research and formally concluded that reading is a science that has to be explicitly taught using letter sounds (phonics). As a result, the Michigan legislature passed landmark “Science of Reading” legislation, which was signed into law in 2024.
There is a lesson to be learned in terms of hastily going all in on the “next new thing” in education. In this case Michigan abandoned phonics for whole reading, only to find decades later that it didn’t work, especially for dyslexic and other struggling readers. This mistake was, in my opinion, a massive failure for generations of Michiganders, and it can’t happen again.
I hope that in 2026 anyone interested in improving early literacy in Michigan will commit to being part of the SOLUTION, and not dwell in the problem.
We can start by committing to allocating roughly $45 - $50 million in next year’s budget to train the remaining K-6 educators in LETRS.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u5wq7wyoy54iddk2otjdcujq/bafkreicv7lmhk2k77zthr6lczclkgsiaq32elk4ko5ysn7xviofxwbtudy@jpeg)
December 29, 2025 at 1:11 PM
When I say that Democrats in "blue states" have helped create the literacy circus, this post from a Michigan Democratic Senator is my Exhibit A.
Once you cut through the revisionist history lesson, her big solution is to give corporate giant Lexia another $50 million handout for LETRS.
Once you cut through the revisionist history lesson, her big solution is to give corporate giant Lexia another $50 million handout for LETRS.
You can't monetize nuance or market complexity, so the easiest solutions, most often backed by corporations, get the most run with decision makers.
This is especially true in areas where there's minimal expertise at the policy level, like adolescent literacy.
This is especially true in areas where there's minimal expertise at the policy level, like adolescent literacy.
Education policy seems immune to the complexity education demands, reinforcing the need to fight on normative & democratic fronts:
"...policy tends to fall for the promise of easy answers to complex problems rather than taking the complexity of education sufficiently seriously."
"...policy tends to fall for the promise of easy answers to complex problems rather than taking the complexity of education sufficiently seriously."
December 27, 2025 at 3:48 PM
You can't monetize nuance or market complexity, so the easiest solutions, most often backed by corporations, get the most run with decision makers.
This is especially true in areas where there's minimal expertise at the policy level, like adolescent literacy.
This is especially true in areas where there's minimal expertise at the policy level, like adolescent literacy.
Reposted by Jeffrey Austin
Thanks for sharing this document, @rweingarten.bsky.social.
I read it, and I believe it's inexcusably inadequate and will not prepare teachers or schools to confront the very real dangers of the "A.i." products pushed by your partners, including OpenAI.
A few thoughts for your consideration...
I read it, and I believe it's inexcusably inadequate and will not prepare teachers or schools to confront the very real dangers of the "A.i." products pushed by your partners, including OpenAI.
A few thoughts for your consideration...
Read about Commonsense Guardrails for Using Advanced Technology in Schools aiinstruction.org/sites/defaul...
aiinstruction.org
December 24, 2025 at 3:43 AM
Thanks for sharing this document, @rweingarten.bsky.social.
I read it, and I believe it's inexcusably inadequate and will not prepare teachers or schools to confront the very real dangers of the "A.i." products pushed by your partners, including OpenAI.
A few thoughts for your consideration...
I read it, and I believe it's inexcusably inadequate and will not prepare teachers or schools to confront the very real dangers of the "A.i." products pushed by your partners, including OpenAI.
A few thoughts for your consideration...
Reposted by Jeffrey Austin
Very excited to share this! The new special issue of @jitp.bsky.social is on Minimalist DH Pedagogy. Co-edited by @danicasavonick.bsky.social @palermog.bsky.social @veritas44.bsky.social Patricia Belen and me. LOTS of great stuff in here.
cuny.manifoldapp.org/projects/jit...
cuny.manifoldapp.org/projects/jit...
Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy, no. 27 | Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy | Manifold @CUNY
<h3>Edited by Patricia Belen, Stefano Morello, Gregory J. Palermo, Danica Savonick, and Brandon Walsh</h3>
<p>“More students in a single classroom; fewer instructors to engage them. Extravagant AI co...
cuny.manifoldapp.org
December 23, 2025 at 1:07 AM
Very excited to share this! The new special issue of @jitp.bsky.social is on Minimalist DH Pedagogy. Co-edited by @danicasavonick.bsky.social @palermog.bsky.social @veritas44.bsky.social Patricia Belen and me. LOTS of great stuff in here.
cuny.manifoldapp.org/projects/jit...
cuny.manifoldapp.org/projects/jit...