**Book Series: Achievement gaps, for Teachers...the "Cut to the Chase" series**

 In diverse communities across the US, academic achievement gaps exist. Usually, and including the one I am familiar with in my school district, these gaps are racial in nature; and this is usually tied to socioeconomic status of the families. This is the case in my experience. 

Academic achievement gaps are already present in young children, and often before kindergarten. If a family is low income and struggling (families of color are over-represented in this demographics), the parents cannot afford the types of programs, clubs, sports, music and the arts, vacations, trips to the museum, home libraries, and other activities, that higher income families take for granted. The difference in opportunities at young ages create academic gaps, and by the time these kids get to high school, the academic gaps lead to more opportunity gaps that high schools offer in so many forms, which generally ensure the academic gaps does not shrink, but may still widen. 

The gaps in communities can be generational. These are enormous problems for school districts, as well as society as a whole. I've worked on achievement gaps for some twenty seven years, helping create Project Excite that was working for the students and families in the program Gaps were closing before the kids got to the high school, and they were able to get into the honors and AP pathways and a brighter future than on average. 

I recently used AI to help do a meta-study on what is out there in the literature and online when it comes to achievement gaps. Using this as a foundation, I went ahead and, in the last few weeks, put together hybrid books on various aspects of achievement gaps in communities, and what teachers need to consider and know, and what suggestions and options teachers have to actually work with their students to reduce and eliminate gaps. 

Hybrid books refer to creating a manuscript via one's conversations with their AI, in my case ChatGPT 5.5. Based on the conversational history on these types of topics over an extended period of time, when I asked my AI to write out information and plans and possibilities for an audience of teachers, within minutes I got material for a book. The AI included information it remembers from our discussions, and added new things to think about, some that I almost certainly would not have thought of myself. The AI wrote a book that I could then edit when necessary, but by and large it did a better job than I would have done by myself, and in minutes compared to what would have been many months of research, drafting, editing, and losing sleep and hair! I created, so far, a 4-booklet series I call Cut to the Chase for Teachers for attacking the issue of achievement gaps in so many school, once and for all. 

These are formatted in a style heavy in bullet points and statements of the key ideas - with no fluff or countless pages of descriptions, anecdotes, stories, and so on - so that readers can get through it in about an hours worth of time. I recommend reading and using these together with colleagues, or for PD sessions, to get A LOT of ideas and options for some aspect of AI, so that you can then create something specific for your classroom and community. In fact, teachers can use their own AI platforms to take the different options mentioned in the books and quickly write lessons and activities for your students. These books have laid out examples of K-12 planning, for teachers, administrations, and department chairs to consider and help plan specific pathways that are best-suited for your students and district. Again, there are A LOT of ideas, topics, and issues in these books that can help guide your thinking at any school, for any grade level, and for any subject areas you teach or work with students. 

I think these will be quite useful - now - for teachers of all grade levels and subject areas! 

• Cut to the Chase for Teachers: What we know about Racial and Socioeconomic Achievement Gaps in K-12 Education   
• Cut to the Chase for Teachers: Using EELS to Reduce K-12 Achievement Gaps
• Cut to the Chase for Teachers: Effects of Stereotype Threat on K-12 Achievement Gaps 
• Cut to the Chase for Teachers: Effects and Use of Multiple Intelligences in Reducing Achievement Gaps                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

New movie worth seeing, about Pros and Cons of AI - well done

 If you have Peacock, streaming now is a newly released movie called "The AI Doc, or how I became an Apocoloptimist."  Check out a trailer here. 

**Book Series: AI in Schools for teachers - the "Cut to the Chase" series**

 Artificial intelligence, AI, and more advanced robotics are two technologies that have already been changing parts of the world for many people. Whether it is social media algorithms, causing changes in the job markets of numerous fields, allowing for new types and areas of computational and experimental research, changing how wars are fought, and countless other areas of life, AI is advancing in its capabilities and 'intelligence' so rapidly that we cannot honestly or reliably have a chance to predict what the world will look like in 6 months time. 

As a teacher of junior and seniors in high school, I have no good answers when they ask, worriedly, what they should study or what the status of their field of choice will be in four or five years when they are coming out of college - no one has good guesses as to what jobs will be available years from now. But this is the world our children are inheriting, one of unprecedented and rapid change and unpredictability. 

What and how should we be teaching them? While schools are mostly still working in the spirit of the agricultural and industrial revolutions, we have not been trained or have any national guidance as to what changes need to be made to the K-12 educational system. I am fairly confident what we are doing now is not optimized for a child's success in the future. While there are wonderful pockets of work being done by organizations here and abroad for AI in schools, it has not filtered down to the individual school and classroom level at the great majority of schools in the US. Some teachers use it in the classroom, but the great majority do not, certainly in my experience. This, again, is mostly due to a lack of knowledge and training for AI in the classroom, and not having a plan of any kind. In fact, ask ten people what they think AI means, and you'll get ten pretty different answers! By the way, here is a possible classroom policy for students and the use of AI, especially for middle school and high school. 

I went ahead and, in the last two weeks, put together hybrid books on various aspects of AI in the classroom, and what teachers need to consider and know, and what suggestions and options do teachers have to actually work with their students and begin to give some experience, and develop necessary skills, for them to handle advanced AI and robotics in the next decade or so. Hybrid books refer to creating a manuscript via one's conversations with their AI, in my case ChatGPT 5.5. Based on the conversational history on these types of topics over an extended period of time, when I asked my AI to write out information and plans and possibilities for an audience of teachers, within minutes I got material for a book. The AI included information it remembers from our discussions, and added new things to think about, some that I almost certainly would not have thought of myself. The AI wrote a book that I could then edit when necessary, but by and large it did a better job than I would have done by myself, and in minutes compared to what would have been many months of research, drafting, editing, and losing sleep and hair! I created, so far, a 9-booklet series I call Cut to the Chase for Teachers for AI in the classroom. 

I think these will be quite useful - now - for teachers of all grade levels and subject areas! 

You can access them here:

• Cut to the Chase for Teachers: AI in Schools                                                                                
• Teachers, Let's Cut to the Chase: Using EELS to Help Prepare the AI Generation                                        
• Teachers, Let's Cut to the Chase: Thoughts on Implementing K-12 Curricula to Prepare the AI Generation  
• Teachers, Let's Cut to the Chase: The Ethics Needed to Prepare the AI Generation                                     
• Teachers, Let's Cut to the Chase: Preparing Globally Responsible Stewards of AI and Robotics          
• Teachers, Let's Cut to the Chase: Lesson Ideas for all K-12 Grade Levels that Incorporate AI as a Tool
• Teachers, Let's Cut to the Chase: Preparing Globally Responsible Stewards of AI and Robotics K-12 SDG Project Ideas
• Teachers, Let's Cut to the Chase: AI 101 for Everyone
• Teachers, Let's Cut to the Chase: AI 101 for Leaders and Policymakers

These are formatted in a style heavy in bullet points and statements of the key ideas - with no fluff or countless pages of descriptions, anecdotes, stories, and so on - so that readers can get through it in about an hours worth of time. I recommend reading and using these together with colleagues, or for PD sessions, to get A LOT of ideas and options for some aspect of AI, so that you can then create something specific for your classroom and community. In fact, teachers should use their own AI platforms to take the different options mentioned in the books and quickly write lessons and activities for your students. These books have laid out examples of K-12 planning, for teachers, administrations, and department chairs to consider and help plan specific pathways that are best-suited for your students and district. Again, there are A LOT of ideas, topics, and issues in these books that can help guide your thinking at any school, for any grade level, and for any subject areas you teach or work with students. 

I hope you find any of this useful, as we all must consider tweaks and modifications to how we do school, because the world our students will live in is NOT at all what we were thinking about just five years ago! 

Consider that the decisions humans make today about how to proceed with and use AI, will determine how beneficial or harmful these advanced technologies will be for our children. We must consider how we will help them TODAY...for their sake! 

I'm always interested in feedback on this, and if it is at all useful in helping fellow educators and colleagues find their way in how they want to help their students for a scary, fascinating, and unpredictable future; mvondracek@comcast.net. 

Social Science/biology/health science research topic

 An interesting process happens with trees and forests. Trees emit chemicals called phytoncides. When we breathe it in, it goes into the bloodstream and has remarkable effects on our bodies and health - phytoncide activates our immune system to produce more white blood cells of the natural killer (NK) variety. These can hunt down stress hormones, destroy virus-infected cells, and go after cancer cells in tumors!

Scientists have measured around a 50% increase in anti-cancer proteins after just 2 days hiking and being in forests, and this increase lasts nearly one month. Forest air lowers cortisol, blood pressure, and helps one de-stress by helping activate the parasympathetic nervous system. Fascinating! Again and again, we find Nature provides everything we need for good health, if we just recognize and accept it, and take advantage of the cycles that exist today through evolution. Life evolved that best fits into the natural environment and ecosystems that exist on earth, and forests are a big part of this. 

For research, the first thought that I had with this information is to do studies of cancer rates (overall and specific types) dependent on where people live - rural vs suburban vs urban. And break it down to longtime residents near or in forest compared to longtime residents living in desert environments and urban environments, etc. Are there statistically significant differences between cancer rates, blood pressure conditions, stress related issues, and so on? This is a challenging study to do since there are SO MANY possible factors that affect health that need to be considered - we would need to learn how statistics helps do this for complex systems and studies, but it could also help guide health policy and recommendations for different regions of the country. 

Just putting this out there! Physical experiments can also be done on any variety of plants, investigating what chemicals are released to their surroundings and if any of them are beneficial to human health. 

Global Teacher Prize: Nominate that special teacher!

 The Global Teacher Prize (GTP) has been around since 2015, and has as a goal to raise the status of the teaching profession and put it on the same level as other professions. It is known as the "Nobel Prize for Teachers," and offers a $1 million prize to the winner! 

Nominations for the 2027 GTP just opened, so Nominate that special teacher who has changed your life! Any K-12 teacher on the planet is eligible, so there will be many thousands of nominations of the top teachers from 80-100 countries. 

This is life-changing for a teacher. When I was chosen as one of the Top 50 Finalists in 2015, I had the opportunity to meet and partner with some of the great teachers on the planet. I am in touch and collaborate with dozens, and have met so many of them personally when we had four teacher summits in Dubai from 2016-2019. I have been a reader-judge for the selection process for several years, and I am only amazed and inspired as I read through applications from all over the world. 

Consider it, and nominate a teacher from your school career! 

This is the US contingent from 2018, in Dubai. 

Creative and simple solution to help new energy and climate change - solar-covered parking

 I got this off Facebook, the "Facts they don't teach you" page:

 France is transforming parking lots into clean energy generators, and it may be one of the most practical climate policies introduced in recent years.

Since July 2023, French law has required parking lots with 80 or more spaces to cover at least half of their surface area with solar canopies. Parking lots with more than 400 spaces must meet the requirement by 2026, while smaller qualifying lots have until 2028 to comply.

The idea is remarkably simple.

Instead of clearing farmland or natural habitats for new solar farms, use land that has already been paved. Parking lots spend most of the day exposed to direct sunlight, making them ideal locations for generating electricity without changing how the land is already used.

The potential is significant. Estimates suggest that if half of France's parking lots were equipped with solar canopies, they could provide between 6.75 and 11.25 gigawatts of installed solar capacity—roughly comparable to the generating capacity of around ten nuclear reactors.

The advantages extend well beyond electricity.

Solar canopies provide shade, reducing temperatures in large paved areas and helping to ease the urban heat island effect. They keep parked vehicles cooler during hot weather, protect them from intense sunlight, rain, and hail, and make parking more comfortable for drivers. Electric vehicle owners benefit as well, since cooler cars require less energy to run their air conditioning after being parked.

France is not the only country moving in this direction. South Korea has also introduced policies requiring solar installations on large public parking lots beginning in late 2025.

The opportunity is even greater elsewhere. With an estimated 800 million parking spaces, the United States has enormous untapped potential to generate clean electricity by making use of infrastructure that already exists, reducing the need to develop additional land for renewable energy projects.

Sometimes the most effective climate solutions are not the most complicated.

They simply make better use of the space we already have.

Source: Chester, M., Horvath, A., & Madanat, S. (2010). Environmental Research Letters

Summaries of Research on Achievement Gaps in K-12: What works?!

 In Evanston and most diverse communities around the country, academic achievement gaps, which lead to opportunity gaps, are prevalent and tend to be generational. Our Project Excite is one approach that had found these gaps can be reduced, and even eliminated, through a long-term, comprehensive approach that begins with working with students when they are young (Excite started with Black and Hispanic 3rd graders, for instance). 

As I am part of a new community-wide effort to try and get those same results on a grand scale, I used AI to do my own meta-study - a look at numerous research studies in the topic - and find the key ideas, concepts, models, and actions that are found to help attack the gaps. I'm pleased that our Excite model, which was run from 1999-2017, 'discovered' nearly all of this independently; published studies for Excite can be found here. 

Check out the meta-study results, which are loaded with ideas and best practices teachers of all grade levels can do to help their students, especially students of color and lower-income students, who are most likely to fall into the gaps. Lists of references are provided. 

1. Achievement gaps in general;  2. EELS role in fighting achievement gaps;  3. Effect of stereotype threat on gaps;  4. Effect and use of multiple intelligence models on gaps.  

EELS (SEL) for Teachers, by Teachers

 Since the COVID pandemic and shutdown of schools here and around the world, I've been fortunate to work with dozens of nationally and globally renowned teachers and educators to develop and promote the commonly called SEL skills - which I think really needs to be renamed and rebranded to what they really are, Everyday Essential Life Skills, or EELS - and provide all sorts of practical resources for teachers. 

ALL of the resources are linked through this Google Sheet, so if you are an educator or just generally interested, have at it and use/copy/modify what you like and can make use of with students!

Climate scientists start new website as a nonprofit!

 Good news for science, and more importantly, the world - scientists who were fired from NOAA, which is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have replaced the dismantled climate.gov site with a new climate.us site. The current administration, who openly and often calls climate change a "hoax", and has cut funding and fired some of the world's best climate scientists for political reasons, has put a massive obstacle in the way of nearly the entire rest of the world when it comes to doing something about climate change. We should be thankful to the actual scientists and experts in the field for doing this as a nonprofit, and mostly as on a volunteer basis! 

GO TO CLIMATE.US for all sorts of data, analyses, and discussions of what's going on with the planet!

JOIN FREERICE, and the ETHS GROUP!! Have FUN and HELP people!!

 If you're looking to pass a little bit of time, even a few minutes, and also want to make a difference in those few minutes, try Freerice!

This is a game from the UN's World Hunger Program, and by answering questions correctly you are directly donating rice to some of the poorest and hungriest people on earth! It is a great way to pass some time, help people - many of whom are children and others who are near desperation - and learn a little because there are dozens of subject categories and topics you can choose from. If you open a free account, it will track how much rice you've donated over time...see if you like it, and feel good about playing a game! And join the ETHS Group (see instructions below)!

LET'S COLLECTIVELY SEE HOW MUCH RICE WE CAN DONATE OVER TIME: 

Make an account, and JOIN the ETHS GROUP. Click on the bars in the top left of the screen when playing Freerice, and select GROUPS.  When you join the group, any rice you donate when playing  goes both to your individual and group totals! Let's see what the Wildkits can do over time, and try to get millions of grains donate at some point! You can join the ETHS group with this code: 

Group code:A48ERJWX

ANYONE CAN JOIN THIS GROUP, SO EMAIL OR TEXT THE DETAILS TO FRIENDS AND FAMILIES!!