Rachel Fish
@rachelefish.bsky.social
2.7K followers 2.3K following 110 posts
Sociologist studying schools, disability, race, gender. Associate Prof at Smith College. Former elem teacher. Parent. Cycling enthusiast. She/her/hers.
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Reposted by Rachel Fish
biblioracle.bsky.social
I strongly urge everyone to not just read this warning from @marcwatkins.bsky.social, but heed it, and be vocal and forceful pushing back against using AI to grade student writing. This must be anathema if we're going to have a world where learning means something. substack.com/inbox/post/1...
The Dangers of using AI to Grade
Nobody Learns, Nobody Gains
substack.com
Reposted by Rachel Fish
larryglickman.bsky.social
Most of this laundry list of "overwhelming evidence" is tendentious. Let's go through them.
1) A big driver of high costs at public universities has been a decrease in state appropriations. Many public schools have been forced to act on a public/private model as a result..../1
The evidence is overwhelming: outrageous costs and prolonged indebtedness for students; poor outcomes, with too many students left unable to find meaningful work after graduating; some talented domestic students and scholars have been crowded out of enrollment and employment opportunities by international students; and a high degree of uniformity of thought among faculty members and administrators, which can result in a hostile environment for students with different ideas.
Reposted by Rachel Fish
hebagowayed.bsky.social
Friends @emanabdelhadi.bsky.social is doing well— she’s at home, released last night. I’ll let her speak on the ordeal when she’s ready but for now wanted to share this update.
Reposted by Rachel Fish
eric-reinhart.com
ICE just blatantly violated the law and arrested sitting Chicago Alderperson Jessie Fuentes while seeking to illegally arrest a patient in a hospital. Fuck these fascists.
Reposted by Rachel Fish
mskellymhayes.bsky.social
State police assisted ICE in the performative brutalization and arrest of protesters today. @govpritzker.illinois.gov must answer for this.
mskellymhayes.bsky.social
A protester tackled and arrested by state police for trying to block an ICE vehicle.
A protester tackled and arrested for trying to block an ICE vehicle. A protester arrested at Broadview.
Reposted by Rachel Fish
hebagowayed.bsky.social
This is who @emanabdelhadi.bsky.social is. Brilliant. Fearless. I fucking hate typing this shit out: Free Eman.

Amplify amplify amplify please.
Reposted by Rachel Fish
luckytran.com
Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers has issued an executive order to ensure COVID vaccines are accessible to everyone and insurers continue to cover them.
Press Release: Gov. Evers Signs Executive Order to Ensure Access to Vaccines in Wisconsin
content.govdelivery.com
Reposted by Rachel Fish
donmoyn.bsky.social
The professor has been fired and senior administrators removed from their post. No mention of this in the New York Times, The Free Press, The Atlantic or other outlets who drove the campus speech moral panic.
houstonchronicle.com
Texas A&M University System orders audit of all courses after gender identity lesson goes viral

Details: bit.ly/42jauQZ
rachelefish.bsky.social
I gave my students an anti-AI spiel on the first day of our class today, and a student asked if all of us had been to a training, because all of her professors spent about 15 minutes doing the same thing this year. I told her no, but it seems like maybe the tide is turning!
Reposted by Rachel Fish
jenjennings.bsky.social
We expanded who reaches 12th grade. That’s the educational miracle of the last 35 years. Today’s 12th graders aren’t 1992’s 12th graders. Beyond cohort change, this is not only a school story; adult PIAAC scores in the bottom half of the distribution have tanked, too, and that’s not about schools.
Reading Skills of 12th Graders Hit a New Low
www.nytimes.com
rachelefish.bsky.social
Anyone have teaching tips for a *very* small undergrad class? My junior/senior seminar may just have 4-5 students in it. Last year I had 12 students and ran it like a grad seminar, and that worked well. But this is going to be so small!
Reposted by Rachel Fish
wearehighered.bsky.social
"This guide is for anyone studying or working in universities, or in research environments within healthcare, local government, NGOs, charities, or other health and social care organisations.

It is designed to help you calm, focus, connect in order to prioritise your safety, rights and wellbeing."
Supporting each other through difficult and challenging times - The Research Companion
Science, healthcare and education are threatened worldwide. Here are some starter ideas for ways to work together to share and save vital information. And to care for one another.
theresearchcompanion.com
Reposted by Rachel Fish
annenberginstitute.bsky.social
📢 #EdWorkingPapers: Are Black students under-referred to special education?

@rachelefish.bsky.social, Kenneth Shores & @jmsoutomaior.bsky.social challenge recent claims of under-representation.

📄 Full paper here: edworkingpapers.com/ai25-1227
Reposted by Rachel Fish
ketanjoshi.co
Yet another 100% fossil-fuelled data centre site popping up - 1.4 gigawatts.

This was definitely all very predictable!!!

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
The site Oracle plans to power entirely with gas generation is located in Shackleford County, Texas, near another Oracle server farm in Abilene. It is being developed by DigitalBridge Group Inc.’s Vantage Data Centers and will have an compute capacity of 1.4 gigawatts, making it among the largest known sites.
Reposted by Rachel Fish
carlquintanilla.bsky.social
WARZEL: What if Gen AI is “just good enough, useful to many without being revolutionary? ..

“.. Good enough .. would likely mean that not enough people recognize what’s really being built—and what’s being sacrificed—until it’s too late.”

@cwarzel.bsky.social
www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
rachelefish.bsky.social
“the productivity gains following the introduction of LLMs in the workplace were quite small: they found only a 2.8% increase in time-savings. On the flip side, the introduction of AI tools created new work for 8.4% of these workers, including people who do not use the tools directly”
justinhendrix.bsky.social
The Trump AI Action Plan’s language on empowering workers is congruent with much of what counts as mainstream US political discourse on AI and labor, say DAIR’s Alex Hanna, Tina Park, and Sophie Song. That means it's disconnected from what’s actually happening with AI in the workplace, they say.
Don't Be Fooled By Trump's Plan To 'Upskill' Workers To Prepare For AI | TechPolicy.Press
The future of work does not require an unquestioning acceptance and embrace of AI, write DAIR's Alex Hanna, Tina Park, and Sophie Song.
www.techpolicy.press
Reposted by Rachel Fish
esqueer.net
The Trump administration effectively created a de facto bathroom ban at Brown University and none of the major media is covering it, and if they do, they character it as about sports. This is how the trans visa ban was enacted and characterized.

www.advocate.com/news/transge...
Brown University is ‘functionally inaccessible’ to transgender students after Trump settlement
“Everyone I talked to thought it only applied to sports. But it applies to everything," one transgender student told The Advocate.
www.advocate.com
Reposted by Rachel Fish
Reposted by Rachel Fish
jessicacalarco.com
I wish this piece was on the front page and not the opinion section, because it's more fact-based than the majority of the reporting I've seen on the state of boys and men.
jessicacalarco.com
"The ["boy crisis"] myth persists because there’s always a market for anti-feminist backlash, and now that we’re in the middle of an anti-education backlash as well, a mostly female teaching force is sadly an easy target."-- @jessgrose.bsky.social

A-fricking-men.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/o...
Opinion | The ‘Boy Crisis’ Is Overblown
www.nytimes.com
rachelefish.bsky.social
We urge policymakers, researchers, and education leaders to be more cautious and develop better research methods for understanding racial disproportionality in special education. The stakes are high for kids who are struggling in school - with and without disabilities.