writing in @misterbullbull @mastersreview @penn_review @oysterriverpgs @storySouth @smokelong // https://xitter.cf/t.co/CpWnDxpNVg // same @ on bsky
Joined August 2016
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babadook ellington retweeted
the angry replies to a neutral analysis like this reveal the central problem at play for trans people in the party: they can attack us as much as they want to appeal to swing voters, but us not voting for them in response is illegitimate. we are not allowed to do politics.
This is a very risky ad IMO.
Turek cannot afford to have any significant number of Democratic base voters leave the Senate line blank. #IASen
babadook ellington retweeted
“The current K-12 instructional model doesn't work very well and may be even worse in the future preparing kids for a world with AI.” There’s no evidence for this statement. The U.S. does great when adjusting for our higher child poverty.
Alpha School is following the Gartman Hype Cycle. Expectations peaked early 2026. Today, there is increasing skepticism. The important question is not where they are today but where they will be in a few years when they reach the Plateau of Productivity.
I've been critical of @Alphaschool in the past for making bold claims but not offering transparency or allowing third-party evaluation. That opens them up to the criticism they're receiving now, like in today's NYT (some of which was unfair). I also think it's unclear how much internal motivation a student needs to succeed there.
That said, I greatly applaud them and @jliemandt for experimenting with a radically new model. The current K-12 instructional model doesn't work very well and may be even worse in the future preparing kids for a world with AI.
While the promise of ed tech has been a huge disappointment for 20+ years, that doesn't mean it always will be. AI probably isn't good enough to overcome the challenge of engagement with even the median student today. That very well might change in a few years.
If so, we need education entrepreneurs building the products, tools, and school models to translate that technology into better student outcomes. Alpha is an important org in that effort. It's important we don't judge that effort prematurely, but they also need to be careful of the claims they make, particularly as they inch into public education.
babadook ellington retweeted
Always strange — and telling — to see conservatives who support “school choice” and charters simultaneously claim that traditional public schools need more top-down constraints.
babadook ellington retweeted
Are Yglesias and Hanford right that direct instruction has disappeared from American schools? I argue they're wrong.
pershmail.substack.com/p/dir…
babadook ellington retweeted
Gabrielle Lutz and Joy Williams.
babadook ellington retweeted
I'm prejudiced (from Western Pennsylvania), but Fallingwater actually is the highest expression of human genius and the single most Lives Up To and Then Exceeds Expectations tourist attraction on the planet earth.
babadook ellington retweeted
I just discovered that the US has a dialect called AAVE, and that they write the word "Chile"—the name of MY COUNTRY—as part of that. It’s so racist, disrespectful, and imperialistic, especially considering that the US intervened in my country for nearly 2 decades.I have no words
babadook ellington retweeted
All Cooper does is win. Six red state wins so far. How many wins those other guys have? Roy Cooper wins every single election he runs in. Nobody active is close to him. No politician in the entire sixth party system is equal to him. Not Manchin. Not Brown. Not Tester. Not Peltola. Not Beshear. Not Edwards. Sure, Clayton’s a genius, but she’s not out there getting her uniform dirty. They take Cooper’s gubernatorial authority from him, Cooper never says a negative word. He just puts that schmutz in his hair and leads his team out of the boat and onto the beach. He’s got the NRSC triaging North Carolina and you can’t name a single major donor he’s got. He’s winning elections on tickets with guys named Cal, and that’s why they call him the Golden Boy. You got an election to win for your life? Come on. You’re picking Roy Cooper.
NEW: The Official 2026 Democratic Campaigns Tier List. Who has run the best Democratic campaign this cycle? Who has run the worst? ettingermentum.news/p/the-of…
babadook ellington retweeted
Taking away language as the sacred flame of humanity and giving it to machines thus making all future engagement with text shaded by an aura of ontological instability is an act of civilizational vandalism up there with the worst crimes against humanity.
babadook ellington retweeted
don’t tell me if people have beaten me to this but this has been social media for a few days now:
babadook ellington retweeted
AI-written stories winning literary prizes is a symptom. The disease is that literary culture has become so shallow it cannot recognize what is literally soulless.
Exclusive: Another prestigious award has gone to a writer who seems to have used AI as the crisis of trust in the literary world intensifies, @vauhinivara reports: theatlantic.com/books/2026/1…
babadook ellington retweeted
As a dual citizen of the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Nation and the U.S., today I’m reminded of our resistance and our resilience, and that the fight against colonialism is not done.
We have survived even in the face of genocide, displacement, and assimilationist policies meant to erase our cultures, languages, and histories. For generations, the federal government has ignored its treaties and obligations, threatened our sacred sites, and polluted our water and ancestral homelands.
But we’re still here — over 180,000 Native Americans call New York City home. We honor Lenapehoking, the homeland of the Lenape people, and the people of many Native Nations from across North America who live here today.
With courage and persistence we continue our fight: for justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women and Two-Spirit people, for housing and a livable planet, for our land back, for the sovereignty Indian Country deserves.
And we carry that struggle across the world: for Puerto Rican self-determination, for a free Palestine, for land defenders in the Amazon, and for the freedom of Indigenous and working class people everywhere.
But today we celebrate: not only our fight, but our culture and our crafts, our languages and our land, our ancestors and our elders. Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
babadook ellington retweeted
Kuwiinguneewul! Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day to the Indigenous New Yorkers who continue to shape our city, sustain ancestral traditions, and carry forward generations of resilience.
babadook ellington retweeted
When presented with a class of students who are far behind, the two options are: 1) reduce the material’s difficulty to below their “frustration level,” which is below grade level, or 2) teach at grade level and let these students fail. Teachers get criticized for either choice.
A few years ago, district observers (they always look so serious) spent seven minutes watching me teach a seventh-grade class. About 50% of the class read below a third grade level.
I was told I should be further along in the textbook by that time and that my lesson was not “rigorous” enough.
Bruh, I’m a teacher, not Jesus. I can’t turn water into wine, and I can’t turn a third-grade reader into a competent essay writer by moving faster through a textbook.
These people just don’t get it.
