"Home schooling has become — by a wide margin — America's fastest-growing form of education," according to a new analysis by the Washington Post. (Alternate URL here): The analysis — based on data The Post collected for thousands of school districts across the country — reveals that a dramatic rise in home schooling at the onset of the pandemic has largely sustained itself through the 2022-23 academic year, defying predictions that most families would return to schools that have dispensed with mask mandates and other covid-19 restrictions...

In states with comparable enrollment figures, the number of home-schooled students increased 51% over the past six school years, far outpacing the 7% growth in private school enrollment. Public school enrollment dropped 4% in those states over the same period, a decline partly attributable to home schooling...

In 390 districts included in The Post's analysis, there was at least one home-schooled child for every 10 in public schools during the 2021-2022 academic year, the most recent for which district-level federal enrollment data are available. That's roughly quadruple the number of districts that had rates that high in 2017-2018, signifying a sea change in how many communities educate their children and an urgent challenge for a public education system that faced dwindling enrollment even before the pandemic... The National Center for Education Statistics reported that in 2019 — before home schooling's dramatic expansion — there were 1.5 million kids being home-schooled in the United States, the last official federal estimate. Based on that figure and the growth since then in states that track home schooling, The Post estimates that there are now between 1.9 million and 2.7 million home-schooled children in the United States, depending on the rate of increase in areas without reliable data...

It is a remarkable expansion for a form of instruction that 40 years ago was still considered illegal in much of the country.
Other interesting facts from their analysis:

• "Home schooling's surging popularity crosses every measurable line of politics, geography and demographics."

• "Despite claims that the home-schooling boom is a result of failing public schools, The Post found no correlation between school district quality, as measured by standardized test scores, and home-schooling growth. In fact, high-scoring districts had some of the biggest spikes in home schooling early in the pandemic, though by the fall of 2022 increases were similar regardless of school performance."

• "Many of America's new home-schooled children have entered a world where no government official will ever check on what, or how well, they are being taught."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Later this month, delegations from around the world will head to a conference in Dubai to discuss international treaties involving radio frequencies, satellite coordination and other tricky technical issues. These include the nagging problem of the clocks. For 50 years, the international community has carefully and precariously balanced two different ways of keeping time. One method, based on Earth's rotation, is as old as human timekeeping itself, an ancient and common-sense reliance on the position of the sun and stars. The other, more precise method coaxes a steady, reliable frequency from the changing state of cesium atoms and provides essential regularity for the digital devices that dominate our lives.

The trouble is that the times on these clocks diverge. The astronomical time, called Universal Time, or UT1, has tended to fall a few clicks behind the atomic one, called International Atomic Time, or TAI. So every few years since 1972, the two times have been synced by the insertion of leap seconds — pausing the atomic clocks briefly to let the astronomic one catch up. This creates UTC, Universal Coordinated Time. But it's hard to forecast precisely when the leap second will be required, and this has created an intensifying headache for technology companies, countries and the world's timekeepers.

"Having to deal with leap seconds drives me crazy," said Judah Levine, head of the Network Synchronization Project in the Time and Frequency Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colo., where he is a leading thinker on coordinating the world's clocks. He is constantly badgered for updates and better solutions, he said: "I get a bazillion emails." On the eve of the next international discussion, Dr. Levine has written a paper that proposes a new solution: the leap minute. The idea is to sync the clocks less frequently, perhaps every half-century, essentially letting atomic time diverge from cosmos-based time for 60 seconds or even a tad longer, and basically forgetting about it in the meantime. The proposal from Levine may face opposition from vested interests and strong opinions in the international community -- notably, the Russians and the Vatican. "The head of the IBWM (or BIPM in French) said in November 2022 that Russia opposed the dropping of leap seconds because it wanted to wait until 2040," reports Ars Technica. "The nation's satellite positioning system, GLONASS, was built with leap seconds in mind, and reworking the system would seemingly be taxing."

"There's also the Vatican, which has concerned itself with astronomy since at least the Gregorian Calendar, and may also oppose the removal of leap seconds. The Rev. Paul Gabor, astrophysicist and vice director of the Vatican Observatory Research Group in Tucson, Arizona, has been quoted and cited as opposing the deeper separation of human and planetary time. Keeping proper time, Gabor wrote his 2017 book The Science of Time, is 'one of the oldest missions of astronomy.'"

"In the current Leap Second Debate, there are rational arguments, focused on practical considerations, and there is a certain unspoken unease, emerging from the symbolic substrata of the issues involved," Gabor writes.

LinkedIn, the business-focused social network owned by Microsoft, on Wednesday said it now has more than 1 billion members and is adding more AI features for paying users. From a report: Crossing the billion-users mark puts LinkedIn -- where members maintain a resume-like profile of their education, work experience and professional skills -- in the top-tier of social media networks that include rivals such as Meta Platforms. About 80% of recent members are signing up from outside of the United States, the company has said.

LinkedIn has a free tier of membership but also offers subscriptions. Members of its $39.99-a-month tier will get new AI features that can tell a user, who may be plowing through dozens of job postings, whether they're a good candidate based on the information in their profile. The system can also recommend profile changes to make the user more competitive for a job.

theodp writes: The BBC reports that Pope Francis has endorsed a global project aimed at getting more children into computer programming. The Code with Pope initiative, championed by Cosmose AI founder Miron Mironiuk, aims to bridge "the glaring disparities in education" across the globe by providing access to Python coding education through the free online learning platform Codeforia for students aged 11-15 across Europe, Africa and Latin America. Mironiuk will meet the Pope at the Vatican, but he admits he's not anticipating the pontiff to emulate his students in acquiring new skills. "I don't expect him to know Python very well," he said.

This is not the first time the Pope has encouraged young people to get into coding, having helped write a line of code together with tech-backed nonprofit Code.org in 2019. Pope Francis has also blessed AI's potential for good, meeting with Microsoft President Brad Smith (a Code.org Board member) to sign the Rome Call for AI Ethics early this year just ahead of Microsoft's $10B OpenAI investment and announcing "Artificial Intelligence and Peace" as the theme for World Day of Peace 2024 in August.

Japan's contribution to world-class research continues to decline, despite having one of the world's largest research communities, according to a report by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), released in English on 25 October. From a report: Masatsura Igami, the director of the Center for S&T Foresight and Indicators at the National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP) in Tokyo, and one of the authors of the 2023 edition of the Japanese Science and Technology Indicators report, says that the findings highlight several areas that Japan could explore to improve its global standing. "Japan's current research environment is far from ideal and is unsustainable. The research environment must shape up," he says.

The report shows that Japan ranks third globally in the total number of researchers, following China and the United States. However, this workforce is not producing the same level of high-impact research as it was two decades ago. Japan's global share of research papers in the top 10% of most-cited articles has slipped from 6% to 2%, intensifying concerns in Japan about its dwindling international standing. Igami explains that the rest of the world has overtaken Japan in terms of quality research output. Some of the decline might be attributable to funding, Igami says. The 2023 report shows that research spending in the university sector has grown by roughly 80% in the United States and Germany, and 40% in France, has quadrupled in South Korea and has increased more than tenfold in China over the past two decades. By contrast, Japan's spending has increased by 10%.

However, even if researchers receive more funding, producing high-impact research might still be challenging, because Japanese scientists have less time for actual research, Igami says. According to a 2020 analysis by MEXT, the proportion of time that university researchers dedicated to science decreased from 47% to 33% between 2002 and 2018. [...] The report's findings confirm those of a previous survey of early-career researchers that pointed to a lack of time for research as a notable factor in job dissatisfaction.

The hangover from the bursting of the startup bubble is weighing on big U.S. university endowments, with write-downs in their growth and venture-capital investments driving a second straight year of weak returns. From a report: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported a loss of 2.9% and Duke University, a loss of 1% for the fiscal year ending June 30, while endowments at Yale and Stanford gained 1.8% and 4.4%, respectively. The median return for endowments and foundations of more than $1 billion was 5.6%, according to a preliminary estimate from Cambridge Associates.

That was well behind the overall stock market. The MSCI All Country World Index and the S&P 500 gained 17.1% and 19.6% for the period, including dividends, respectively. They were boosted by the rally in tech giants including Microsoft and Nvidia that have benefited from developments in artificial intelligence. Small endowments of less than $500 million, which typically have less exposure to private investments and more to public equities, had a median return of 8.8%, according to Cambridge. "You were at the mercy of portfolio construction," said Matt Bank of Charlotte, N.C.-based Global Endowment Management, an outsourced investment firm. "Those decisions drove your short-term results, and the specific decisions you made within categories mattered less." Exposure to China also had a negative impact on returns, several endowment chiefs said.

Jessica Lyons Hardcastle reports via The Register: Japanese electronics giant Casio said miscreants broke into its ClassPad server and stole a database with personal information belonging to customers in 149 countries. ClassPad is Casio's education web app, and in a Wednesday statement on its website, the firm said an intruder breached a ClassPad server and swiped hundreds of thousands of "items" belonging to individuals and organizations around the globe. As of October 18, the crooks accessed 91,921 items belonging to Japanese customers, including individuals and 1,108 educational institution customers, as well as 35,049 items belonging to customers from 148 other countries. If Casio finds additional customers were compromised, it promises to update this count.

The data included customers' names, email addresses, country of residence, purchasing info including order details, payment method and license code, and service usage info including log data and nicknames. Casio noted that it doesn't not retain customers' credit card information, so presumably people's banking info wasn't compromised in the hack. An employee discovered the incident on October 11 while attempting to work in the corporate dev environment and spotted the database failure. "At this time, it has been confirmed that some of the network security settings in the development environment were disabled due to an operational error of the system by the department in charge and insufficient operational management," the official notice said. "Casio believes these were the causes of the situation that allowed an external party to gain unauthorized access." The intruder didn't access the ClassPad.net app, according to Casio, so that is still available for use.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VICE News: Canada will legalize medically assisted dying for people who are addicted to drugs next spring, in a move some drug users and activists are calling "eugenics." The country's medical assistance in dying (MAID) law, which first came into effect in 2016, will be expanded next March to give access to people whose sole medical condition is mental illness, which can include substance use disorders. Before the changes take place, however, a special parliamentary committee on MAID will regroup to scrutinize the rollout of the new regulations, according to the Toronto Star.

Currently, people are eligible for MAID if they have a "grievous and irremediable medical condition", such as a serious illness or disability, that has put them in an advanced state of irreversible decline and caused enduring physical or psychological suffering -- excluding mental illness. Anyone who receives MAID must also go through two assessments from independent health care providers, among meeting other criteria. [...] As Canada prepares to legalize MAID for people with mental disorders, each province will have to develop its own protocol for how to assess people. Dr. Simon Colgan, lead physician for the Community Allied Mobile Palliative Partnership which provides palliative care to homeless people, said MAID requests "must be understood within the context of a person's lived experience and this takes time and relationship." He said any MAID protocols for people with substance use disorders should be made with the input of people with lived experiences. "I don't think it's fair, and the government doesn't think it's fair, to exclude people from eligibility because their medical disorder or their suffering is related to a mental illness," said Dr. David Martell, physician lead for Addictions Medicine at Nova Scotia Health. "As a subset of that, it's not fair to exclude people from eligibility purely because their mental disorder might either partly or in full be a substance use disorder. It has to do with treating people equally."

On the flip side, some drug users and harm reduction advocates say they're upset drug users are being given access to MAID, as they feel other public health measures are lacking. "I just think that MAID when it has entered the area around mental health and substance use is really rooted in eugenics. And there are people who are really struggling around substance use and people do not actually get the kind of support and help they need," said Zoe Dodd, a Toronto-based harm reduction advocate.

Karen Ward, a drug user activist in Vancouver, said she considers the expansion of MAID to include people with substance use disorders a "statement in federal law that some people aren't really human." "The government has made death accessible while a better life remains impossible," she said. "Homes for all, guaranteed dignified incomes, access to healthcare, education and employment: these aren't radical demands."

theodp writes: In July, Seattle-based and tech-backed nonprofit Code.org announced its 10th policy recommendation for all states "to require all students to take computer science (CS) to earn a high school diploma." In August, Washington State Senator Lisa Wellman phoned-in her plans to introduce a bill to make computer science a Washington high school graduation requirement to the state's Board of Education, indicating that the ChatGPT-sparked AI craze and Code.org had helped convince her of the need. Wellman, a former teacher who worked as a Programmer/System Analyst in the 80's before becoming an Apple VP (Publishing) in the '90s, also indicated that exposure to CS given to students in fifth grade could be sufficient to satisfy a HS CS requirement. In 2019, Wellman sponsored Microsoft-supported SB 5088 (Bill details), which required all Washington state public high schools to offer a CS class. Wellman also sponsored SB 5299 in 2021, which allows high school students to take a computer science elective in place of a third year math or science course (that may be required for college admission) to count towards graduation requirements.

And in October, Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi appeared before the Washington State Board of Education, driving home points Senator Wellman made in August with a deck containing slides calling for Washington to "require that all students take computer science to earn a high school diploma" and to "require computer science within all teacher certifications." Like Wellman, Partovi suggested the CS high school requirement might be satisfied by middle school work (he alternatively suggested one year of foreign language could be dropped to accommodate a HS CS course). Partovi noted that Washington contained some of the biggest promoters of K-12 CS in Microsoft Philanthropies' TEALS (TEALS founder Kevin Wang is a member of the Washington State Board of Education) and Code.org, as well some of the biggest funders of K-12 CS in Amazon and Microsoft -- both which are $3,000,000+ Platinum Supporters of Code.org and have top execs on Code.org's Board of Directors.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from U.Today:
The country was reimagined by Joseon King Andrew Lee as a digital nation without territory or borders. In this status, it was recognized by Antigua and Barbuda: the two countries inked a treaty that supports education, economic investment and other developmental initiatives and provides the basis for long-standing friendly relations.

Speaking to U.Today, representatives of the country stressed its unique legal design and state management model:

"Joseon is a crypto safe haven in this world where you can legally engage in crypto without any risk of any kind because sovereignty is the absolute authority in this world and another sovereignty doesn't have authority over another sovereignty"

Per their official statement, cryptocurrencies represent legal tender in Joseon and can be used for investments, daily payments and cross-border transactions.
Another report from Bitcoinist details several companies launching in Joseon, including First Day Out Collective which represents a song from Rundown Spaz and Kanye West:
Let's talk about the banger that's making this all come alive: "First Day Out,: a fire track by Rundown Spaz featuring none other than Kanye West, now owned by a DAO and legally recognized corporation in the progressive cybernation of Joseon, which itself is a legally recognized nation-state.

Javier Milei, the current front runner for president of Argentina, pledged to eliminate government spending on research and shut down the country's main science agency, the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), which provides funding for about 12,000 researchers at 300 institutions across the country. The libertarian candidate has said that shutting down CONICET, with its $400 million budget, could help to end Argentina's fiscal crisis. Martin De Ambrosio and Fermin Koop report via the scientific journal Nature: Milei is a relative newcomer to Argentine politics, having become a lawmaker in the lower chamber of the country's Congress only in 2021. Previously, he was an economic adviser to firms including Aeropuertos Argentina 2000, which manages airports in the country. He has also won notoriety as a guest on talk shows discussing economics and his services as a tantric sex coach. His rise was precipitated by eight years of economic turmoil in Argentina: the country owes billions to creditors such as the International Monetary Fund; annual inflation has reached more than 120%; and 40% of the population is living in poverty.

To tame the crisis, Milei has proposed not only privatizing science, but also closing the environment and health ministries, and abolishing the current public-health and education systems. The anti-establishment politician has even floated the idea of allowing people to sell their own organs for profit. On environmental issues, he is equally provocative, calling climate change "a socialist hoax," and saying that a company should be able to pollute a river as it sees fit. "From his perspective, any regulatory intervention by the state represents an attack against market freedom and, therefore, against individual freedom," says Maristella Svampa, a sociologist at the CONICET-funded Center for Documentation and Research of Left-Wing Culture in Buenos Aires.

Milei has tapped into the public's angst. He is currently leading the polls, although electoral experts don't necessarily trust the figures, and his competitors still hope to win the upper hand. [...] If Milei becomes president, say sources who spoke to Nature, researchers will leave the country to seek jobs. They will be able to make a living elsewhere because they are talented, [says Jorge Aliaga, a physicist at Hurlingham National University in Buenos Aires]. But "losing scientists is a problem for the country." Because of economic crises that have long dogged Argentina, brain drain is a regular threat. Hyperinflation in the late 1980s and a banking crisis in 2001 drove thousands of scientists to seek work in Europe and the United States. Even so, Argentina still has one of the best ratios of researchers to inhabitants in Latin America, Aliaga says. In 2014, for instance, it had about 1,200 researchers for every one million inhabitants. By contrast, Brazil had about 890 for every one million people. "In that sense, Argentina has better numbers than Brazil and Mexico," Aliaga adds.

A new book by Nobel prize-winning economist Angus Deaton"feels like an existential crisis," writes Fast Company, "as he questions his own legacy — and wonders whether policies prescribed by economists over the years have unintentionally contributed to inequality" in America. Angus Deaton: People who have a four-year college degree are doing pretty well. But if you go to the people who don't have a college degree, horrible things are happening to them... The opportunities are getting bigger and bigger, but the safety net's falling further and further away. . . I think of it as much broader than income inequality: People without a BA are like an underclass. They're dispensable...

Fast Company: Why has Europe been able to avoid so many of these rises in inequality and "deaths of despair" and the U.S. hasn't?

Deaton: Anne [Case, my wife] and I wrestled with that in our book Deaths of Despair. One reason is that we don't have any safety net here... The other story is we've got this hideous healthcare system... we're spending [almost] 20% of GDP. There's no other country that spends anything like that. That money comes out of other things we could have, like a safety net and a better education system. And it's not delivering much, except the healthcare providers are doing really quite well: the hospitals, the doctors, the pharma companies, the device manufacturers. Not only does it cost a lot, but we fund it in this really bizarre way, which is that for most people who are not old enough to qualify for Medicare, they get their health insurance through their employer...

Fast Company : The theme of your new book seems to be something of an existential crisis for you as an economist. How much are economists to blame for some of these issues?

Deaton: [...] I think there are some broad things that we didn't do very well. We bent the knee a little too much to the Chicago libertarian view, that markets could do everything. I'm not trying to say that I was right and everybody else was wrong. I was with the mob. I think we thought that financial markets were much safer than they'd been in the past, and we didn't have to worry about them as much. That was dead wrong. I think we were way overenthusiastic about hyperglobalization. We had this belief that people would lose their jobs but they'd find other, better jobs, and that really didn't happen. So there are a lot of things that I think are going to be seriously reconsidered over the next years.
But he admits economists are short on solutions for economic inequality. "When they say, 'Well, what would work'" there's this uncomfortable silence where you feel foolish. Everybody's quoting [former Italian philosopher and politician Antonio] Gramsci [saying that] the old system is broken but the new system is struggling to be born. No one really knows what it's going to look like."

The book is titled Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality. But in the interview Deaton still remains hopeful about America, calling it "a very inventive place," and noting that in the field of economics "there's always hope and there's always change; economics is a very open profession, and it changes very quickly."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: High school students' scores on the ACT college admissions test have dropped to their lowest in more than three decades, showing a lack of student preparedness for college-level coursework, according to the nonprofit organization that administers the test. Scores have been falling for six consecutive years, but the trend accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Students in the class of 2023 whose scores were reported Wednesday were in their first year of high school when the virus reached the U.S.

The average ACT composite score for U.S. students was 19.5 out of 36. Last year, the average score was 19.8. The average scores in reading, science and math all were below benchmarks the ACT says students must reach to have a high probability of success in first-year college courses. The average score in English was just above the benchmark but still declined compared to last year.

About 1.4 million students in the U.S. took the ACT this year, an increase from last year. However, the numbers have not returned to pre-pandemic levels. [Janet Godwin, chief executive officer for the nonprofit ACT] said she doesn't believe those numbers will ever fully recover, partly because of test-optional admission policies. Of students who were tested, only 21% met benchmarks for success in college-level classes in all subjects. Research from the nonprofit shows students who meet those benchmarks have a 50% chance of earning a B or better and nearly a 75% chance of earning a C or better in corresponding courses. Further reading: Accounting Graduates Drop By Highest Percentage in Years

Schools for children of military members achieve results rarely seen in public education. From a report: Amy Dilmar, a middle-school principal in Georgia, is well aware of the many crises threatening American education. The lost learning that piled up during the coronavirus pandemic. The gaping inequalities by race and family income that have only gotten worse. A widening achievement gap between the highest- and lowest-performing students. But she sees little of that at her school in Fort Moore, Ga. The students who solve algebra equations and hone essays at Faith Middle School attend one of the highest-performing school systems in the country. It is run not by a local school board or charter network, but by the Defense Department. With about 66,000 students -- more than the public school enrollment in Boston or Seattle -- the Pentagon's schools for children of military members and civilian employees quietly achieve results most educators can only dream of.

On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal exam that is considered the gold standard for comparing states and large districts, the Defense Department's schools outscored every jurisdiction in math and reading last year and managed to avoid widespread pandemic losses. Their schools had the highest outcomes in the country for Black and Hispanic students, whose eighth-grade reading scores outpaced national averages for white students. Eighth graders whose parents only graduated from high school -- suggesting lower family incomes, on average -- performed as well in reading as students nationally whose parents were college graduates. The schools reopened relatively quickly during the pandemic, but last year's results were no fluke. While the achievement of U.S. students overall has stagnated over the last decade, the military's schools have made gains on the national test since 2013. And even as the country's lowest-performing students -- in the bottom 25th percentile -- have slipped further behind, the Defense Department's lowest-performing students have improved in fourth-grade math and eighth-grade reading.

China aims to grow the country's computing power by more than a third in less than three years, a move set to benefit local suppliers and boost technology self-reliance as US sanctions pressure domestic industry. From a report: The world's second-largest economy is targeting more than 300 exaflops of computing capacity across its tech sector by 2025 from 220 this year, according to a joint statement from several agencies including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The goal marks Beijing's latest attempt to construct digital infrastructure to spur a sluggish economy. China also plans to build an additional 20 smart computing centers in two years. Bigger optical networks and more advanced data storage will be installed in the years until 2025, the regulators said. The additional computational power will support manufacturing, education, finance, transportation, healthcare and energy, they added.

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: "42 states to go!" exclaimed Code.org to its 1+ million Twitter followers as it celebrated victorious efforts to pass legislation making North Carolina the 8th state to pass a high school computer science graduation requirement, bringing the tech-backed nonprofit a step closer to its goal of making CS a requirement for a HS diploma in all 50 states. But as states make good on pledges made to tech CEOs to make their schoolchildren CS savvy, Education Week cautions that K-12 CS has a big certified teacher shortage problem.
From the article: When trying to ensure all students get access to the knowledge they need for college and careers, sometimes policy can get ahead of teacher capacity. Computer science is a case in point. As of 2022, every state in the nation has passed at least one law or policy intended to promote K-12 computer science education, and 53 percent of high schools offered basic computer science courses that year, according to the nonprofit advocacy group Code.org."

"'There's big money behind making [course offerings] go up higher and faster,' thanks to federal and state grants as well as private foundations, said Paul Bruno, an assistant professor of education policy, organization, and leadership at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. "But then that raises the question, well, who are we getting to teach these courses...?"

Bruno's work in states such as California and North Carolina suggests that few of those new computer science classes are staffed with teachers who are certified in that subject."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Within the past year, there have been approximately five times more school shooting hoaxes called in to police than actual school shootings reported in 2023. Where data from Everytown showed "at least 103 incidents of gunfire on school grounds" in 2023, The Washington Post recently uncovered what seems to be a coordinated campaign of active shooter hoaxes causing "swattings" -- where police respond with extreme force to fake crimes -- at more than 500 schools nationwide over the past year. In just one day in February, "more than 30 schools were targeted," The Post reported.

The Post "examined police reports, emergency call recordings, body-camera footage, or call logs in connection with incidents in 24 states," which seemed to reveal a "distinct pattern" potentially linking swatting hoaxes nationwide. A man who "speaks with a heavy accent" -- and possibly uses a device or app to alter his voice in real time -- relies on a virtual private network (VPN) to mask his IP address, then places the hoax calls on non-emergency lines using free Internet-calling services. He frequently pretends to be a teacher hiding from the fake shooter on campus and sometimes falsely reports student shootings. To some law enforcement officials, the voice sounds too similar from call to call to be chalked up to coincidence. The Post stitched together audio that shows why many authorities believe these hoax calls might be coming from the same caller, whose motivations are currently unknown. It's possible the hoax calls are being orchestrated by one person with a hostile compulsion or by one or several perpetrators advertising swatting services available for hire online. [...]

According to The Post, the FBI has been investigating this string of school shooting hoaxes, but it's unclear how far that investigation has gotten -- mostly because tracing the hoax calls has perplexed many law enforcement agencies nationwide. Tracing calls is difficult partly because many VPN providers outside the US don't always cooperate with law enforcement, and some of the most popular free Internet-calling services only require an email address to sign up. However, The Post reported that it has increasingly become clear to law enforcement that one particular Internet-calling service appears to be the most popular choice for hoax callers reporting school shootings: TextNow. One police captain in Lousiana, Shannon Mack -- who is described as specializing in "cases involving Internet-based phone services -- told The Post that "nine times out of 10," hoax calls she has investigated have come from a TextNow number.

theodp writes: With Microsoft President Satya Nadella testifying in the Google antitrust trial that the tech titans are engaged in a Generative AI Gold Rush, it's no surprise to learn that tech giant-backed and advised nonprofit Code.org has chosen "Creativity with AI" as the theme for this December's Hour of Code, the annual global event that aims to whet K-12 schoolchildren's appetite for rigorous computer science.

"We're taking Hour of Code to new heights with 'Hour of Code: Creativity with AI'," explained Code.org. "Whether it's coding new apps and algorithms, generating unique art, or crafting choreography to get us dancing, AI is opening up fresh opportunities for digital expression that expand our understanding of creativity. What's new? Did you catch that reference to 'dancing'? That's right: Code.org's Dance Party [a 'CS lesson' developed in partnership with the 'childhood to career' Amazon Future Engineer program] will be better than ever this year! Coming soon, this Hour of Code activity will use generative AI to help students add awesome backgrounds and visuals to the dance parties they build with code."

Major fossil fuel companies have committed tens of millions of pounds in funding to UK universities since 2022, it can be revealed, despite many of these institutions having actively pledged to divest from oil and gas. From a report: According to freedom of information requests submitted by the climate journalism site DeSmog, more than $50m in research agreements, tuition fees, scholarships, grants and consultancy fees have been pledged to 44 UK universities by 32 oil, coal and gas companies since 2022. The largest contributors were Shell, the Malaysian state-owned oil company Petronas, and BP. These three companies account for more than 76% of the total figure awarded, having given $25.5m, $6.30m and $5.94m respectively.

A further 10 companies made up nearly 21% of the remaining contributions during this period: Sinopec, Equinor, BHP Group, Total Energies, Eni SPA, Saudi Aramco, ExxonMobil, Scottish Power, Kellas Midstream and Ithaca Energy. Previous reporting from openDemocracy and the Guardian found that between 2017 and December 2021, $108.1m in funding was given to UK universities by some of the world's biggest fossil fuel companies. These partnerships have shown no sign of abating, and DeSmog's research shows an additional $50m has been pledged since 2022, even after 102 higher education institutions promised to stop taking funding from the fossil fuel industry.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: New York state banned the use of facial recognition technology in schools Wednesday, following a report that concluded the risks to student privacy and civil rights outweigh potential security benefits. Education Commissioner Betty Rosa's order leaves decisions on digital fingerprinting and other biometric technology up to local districts. The state has had a moratorium on facial recognition since parents filed a court challenge to its adoption by an upstate district.

[A]n analysis by the Office of Information Technology Services issued last month "acknowledges that the risks of the use of (facial recognition technology) in an educational setting may outweigh the benefits." The report, sought by the Legislature, noted "the potentially higher rate of false positives for people of color, non-binary and transgender people, women, the elderly, and children." It also cited research from the nonprofit Violence Project that found that 70% of school shooters from 1980 to 2019 were current students. The technology, the report said, "may only offer the appearance of safer schools."

Biotechnology would not stop a student from entering a school "unless an administrator or staff member first noticed that the student was in crisis, had made some sort of threat, or indicated in some other way that they could be a threat to school security," the report said. The state report found that the use of digital fingerprinting was less risky and could be beneficial for school lunch payments and accessing electronic tablets and other devices. Schools may use that technology after seeking parental input, Rosa said. "Schools should be safe places to learn and grow, not spaces where they are constantly scanned and monitored, with their most sensitive information at risk," said Stefanie Coyle, deputy director of the NYCLU's Education Policy Center.