Prufrock-Free Schools

This won't end well.

Imagine a 9th grader at a public high school. Do you see their classroom? Desks and tables for students and their coursework. Books. A gym down the hall and a cafeteria when you enter the school. A science lab somewhere and a computer lab full of computers and a library with books — thousands of books.

Teachers wait outside their rooms during passing time to monitor the hallway, visit with kids, and make their presence known so nothing happens during passing. A stray administrator walks the halls to let the kids know to behave but also that they are safe in their school.

Giggling girls. Boys who haven’t grown into their legs and cannot help but jump and slap every door frame they walk under. Hearing “bruh” and “sigma” and “Skibiddy toilet.”

Don’t get me started on “rizz.” Thanks, TikTok.

It’s almost winter break and teachers have decorated their doors with snowflakes and the Grinch and Charlie Brown. Everything is a little more relaxed, except for the finals which are about to send some kids home because they are exempt from their tests, and some kids over the edge because they need a 70% on the final to pass.

“Elfie Selfie” decorated classroom door by Susan Paradis via Pinterest.

Did you see it in your mind’s eye? Of course you did because we all attended 9th grade and we remember good times, not all the times were good of course, but we all had similar experiences in public school.

It’s a shared experience.

Now imagine this: a living room with no teachers and a curriculum that is curated and taught by AI. Artificial intelligence. An algorithm that “teaches” kids two hours per day. Two hours.

You don’t have to imagine it…it’s already here. It is a charter school that has been given the green light to proceed in Arizona. Remember, charter schools are independently run but publicly funded. The school is called Unbound.

Under the 2hr Learning model, students spend just two hours a day using personalized learning programs from companies like IXL and Khan Academy. “As students work through lessons on subjects like math, reading, and science, the AI system will analyze their responses, time spent on tasks, and even emotional cues to optimize the difficulty and presentation of content,” according to Unbound’s charter school application in Arizona. “This ensures that each student is consistently challenged at their optimal level, preventing boredom or frustration.”

Kids will be “learning” from AI with uncertified adults standing by as “guides.” They will only work on academics for two hours a day. The school says their curriculum is gamified to make sure students are entertained. Entertained.

Oh my god.

We all remember Covid and remote learning. We had to go online and we know it impacted the education of millions of children.

Ask me how I know.

Now it seems the same folks who pitched a fit about online learning to save the lives of teachers and students during a global pandemic, are making excuses not only for remote learning, but remote learning two hours a day in an AI “school” with no teachers.

Convenient.

There are dozens of reasons why in-person teaching with a certified and expert teacher is best for most students, but here is just one: context.

In teaching American Literature, I taught everything from Indigenous oral stories to Colonial Lit to Romanticism to Postmodernism. One of my favorite units was the Harlem Renaissance.

To teach the literature of the Harlem Renaissance, students needed to understand the Great Migration — why did millions of Black folks flee the South and so many settle in Harlem in the first place?

To understand the Great Migration, my students needed to understand failed Reconstruction and that formerly enslaved people were terrorized in the South by groups like the KKK.

To understand Reconstruction and slavery, students need to understand the founding of our country — the free labor we relied on and forced to build this country. Literally on the backs of enslaved people. The horrors of chattel slavery. Before that, the genocide of indigenous people. And so on.

It’s context. It’s also the art of teaching. It’s human.

I have an English degree and a History minor. Every one of my lessons was built on the notion that students can’t deeply understand literature without context and history.

You can read The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and never know that he is talking about industrial modernity and fragmented thoughts and disillusionment. The cat and the fog and Michelangelo.

“I grow old… I grow old… I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”

It’s just weird words mashed together without context.

Can AI show a kid literature and give a multiple-choice quiz? Of course.

Can AI understand that students have no context to learn literature if they have no place in history to refer? Can AI see the puzzled look on a student’s face and back up to explain the literature? Can AI grade an open response and look for student understanding? No.

Now to the why…why send taxpayer money to an AI school? I think you know.

This school is just another in a long line of attempts to siphon taxpayer money to schools that stand to make a few dollars and produce questionable results. These schools are often fly-by-night. They can open for a semester or a few years. They can close without warning and leave kids and parents in a lurch. They are often not required to follow state standards or submit to standardized tests or report results.

It’s a money grab. It’s a scam. This school will be lining the pockets of folks who will not be paying for a building or a teacher or books or a cafeteria or a gym. All on our dime.

These schools also defund public schools by taking money from the kitty. Fewer dollars are left for public schools in actual buildings with certified teachers.

Unbound School also claims to offer real-world experiences for students outside of their two-hour academic schedule. While I am a firm believer in extra-curricular activities, the activities proposed by Unbound look a lot like work.

Weird, huh? If you factor in the rolling back of child labor laws in so many states, it all might seem related.

Listen, friend, we are headed into dark times again and the schools will be one of the first institutions hit. School choice rhetoric will be coming from state houses across the country. The GOP will continue to demonize teachers and unions and administrators. Republicans will continue their all out assault on public education, and schools like Unbound will creep in with little notice.

What can you do? Pay attention to your State House. Write your State Rep and State Senator often in support of not only schools and students and teachers, but in funding those things too. Tell them you know what “school choice” is…a scam to divert taxpayer money to private religious schools. AI schools.

Let them know you are paying attention.

Project 2025 was precise in showing us what a Republican-dominated government will do to public schools.

We have to stand in their way.

~Jess