Aw, shit.

Fuck.

Well? Very well?

I am in no way condoning Google’s behavior, nor am I trying to normalize it. With that out of the way: maybe running Android Studio with an AVD might be a decent workaround. For now…

Salting the earth

You just wait until I get seated upright properly, and then catch my breath. I’m gonna curse at you sooooo hard

I walk away without looking so that I’ll seem really cool if it explodes

There are lots of areas like that throughout Texas, unfortunately. In a disappointing number of the campuses in San Antonio, some of the lowest performing schools are the only place where many students get to eat, get new clothes that fit, enjoy HVAC, and not get assaulted by family or neighbors. Many of those schools have unofficial metrics that they prioritize: were the kids safe, did they eat, did they talk to someone if they needed help? What is considered a monumental success in those schools is if the teacher says something that low-performing students find engaging enough to write down.

These are the schools that the state is shutting down. Many of the students are left in a lurch without a safe way to get to their new school. These are generally in areas with high minority representation. It’s almost like Texas’s goal is to fail specific groups of kids.

I guess it’s an effective defense to throw salt in the eyes of the people who are upset that you’re salting the earth…

We mine as well live in different countries tbh

I absolutely agree. My nephews went to pre-K in Connecticut, and the opportunities available to them absolutely blew my mind. I genuinely believe that there was a measurable dip in their academic progress when my sibling moved back to Texas.

From the metrics side of things, I work with one of the larger districts in Texas, build a lot of reports for the district, and work very closely with the district directors of communication and other leadership. From this perspective, I can tell you that there are a lot of potentially messy scenarios that were addressed before the public ever heard about them. But after these cell phone laws, the amount of resources that went into “crisis response” have plummeted, and moved instead into marketing. Primarily because it’s harder to report and verify incidents without concrete evidence.

Part of these new cell phone laws, and what got a lot of buy-in from districts, was that kids were recording fights in the bathrooms, and that preventing kids from recording the fights would remove the incentive to fight because there wouldn’t be video to upload to social media. But, we haven’t seen a decrease in the number of kids getting written up for fighting; we’ve only had a decrease of community outcry, because they don’t see the fights anymore.

I argue that these cell phone laws were never intended to modify the quality of education or increase the safety of the students, but that they were always intended to merely take away the kids’ ability to verifiably report incidents, or expose issues to the public. Outta sight, outta mind, right? If this were really about getting students to disconnect while they were in school, we wouldn’t give every kid a Chromebook, on which they can look up ridiculous shit, send stupid messages, and leverage LLMs to do all their work for them.

I don’t think that the communities in Texas nor in Connecticut support these laws with the intent to silence their children, and to have blinders put on them. And even if the educational boards and lawmakers in Connecticut aren’t as malicious as the ones here in Texas, they’ll still unintentionally muzzle the students as a side effect.

Oh okay, my bad. I guess I’ll just change what I see and hear.

Texan here, working for a school district where these types of laws have already been implemented: I’m pretty sure it’s about controlling narratives, not improving education.

Kids use their phones to fact-check teachers, record teachers improperly addressing students, record fights, and verifiably report on very real issues within the school. I haven’t seen any educational benefits from banning cell phones, only that it’s been easier to sweep stories under the rug and to refute concerning complaints from children in need.

Did God have mercy on it?

Ring that fucking bell and smash the shit out of that like button. May God have mercy on your mouse.

Well shit, here’s a thou- wait. To not hit me? I dunno, I’ll give you, like, 50 bucks.

sorry. I thought I was being friendly. Perhaps you’d prefer periods as my punctuation. I hope you’re happy.

You think this sounds angry???

You seem like a dynamic person

You didn’t mention if you work in the medical field at the top of your comment, which invalidates everything else you’ve claimed about science. I should know, I do my own research by reading Google AI summaries.