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DESCRIPTION:7/13/26 LF Panel: AI, Labor And Commodification of Education For The Techno 
 Fascists\nJuly 13 @ 5:30 pm pm pst/7:30 pm cst/8:30 pm est\nZoom event 
 (Note: Location change to Zoom)\n\nFor decades, google and other tech 
 companies have been given free reign to introduce their technology into 
 public education. Education programs, testing, tracking and the collection 
 of massive data from students, teachers and staff in education has been 
 institutionalized by politicians both Democrats and Republicans.\n\nThere 
 is now an ongoing drive to use AI in all levels of education to eliminate 
 teachers and staff from K-12, Community Colleges, CSU and the UC system. 
 The education unions have also partnered with these tech companies to train 
 faculty on how to use AI tools. Will this partnership benefit the students, 
 faculty and public is one of the questions that will be addressed by this 
 panel.\n\nInitial Speakers:\n\nJohn Klyczek – Joliet Junior College 
 Lecturer and author of School World Order: The Technocratic Globalization 
 Of Corporatized Education\nAndy Libson – Teacher, STOP AI\nGeorge Wright 
 – Retired Professor Chico State & Skyline College\nKathy Carroll – 
 Fired Lawyer Whistleblower and Lawyer from Commission On Teacher 
 Credentials\n\nhttps://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2754101\n\nExcess 
 Screen Time May Cause Lower White Matter Integrity in Preschool 
 Children’s Brains | The Swaddle\n\nAssociation of screen time with 
 attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms and their development: 
 the mediating role of brain structure - PMC\n\n2,\n\nHow AI quietly 
 undermines the joy and effort of learning: a call for rebalancing education 
 in the digital age - PMC\n\n1\n\nResearch on the Effectiveness of 
 Technology for Learning | Edutopia\n\n\nScreen Usage Linked to Differences 
 in Brain Structure in Young Children - Research Horizons\n\n\nBreaking 
 News: Randi Says AFT Will No Longer Accept Funding from Gates Foundation 
 for Innovation Fund\nBy dianeravitch\nMarch 10, 2014 //\n62\nThis exclusive 
 news appeared this morning on politico.com’s education site. When Randi 
 spoke at the Network for Public Education conference in Austin, she told 
 the audience for the Common Core panel that she would ask the AFT executive 
 board for permission to do exactly what is described here. She understands 
 that many members of the AFT do not trust the Gates Foundation, do not like 
 Bill Gates’ public statements such as encouraging larger class sizes, or 
 his unwavering commitment to measuring teacher quality by student test 
 scores, despite the lack of evidence for its efficacy. I welcome this 
 change and thank Randi and the AFT for severing ties with the Gates 
 Foundation. Gates and Pearson have bought most of American education. Those 
 who represent teachers should be free of their influence.\n\nBy Caitlin 
 Emma\n\nWith help from Stephanie Simon\n\nEXCLUSIVE: AFT SHUNS GATES 
 FUNDING: The American Federation of Teachers ended a five-year relationship 
 with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation after rank-and-file union members 
 expressed deep distrust of the foundation’s approach to education reform. 
 AFT President Randi Weingarten told Morning Education the union will no 
 longer accept Gates money for its Innovation Fund, which was founded in 
 2009 and has received up to $1 million a year in Gates grants ever since. 
 The Innovation Fund has sponsored AFT efforts to help teachers implement 
 the Common Core standards – a Gates priority – among other 
 initiatives.\n\n– Weingarten said she didn’t believe Gates funding 
 influenced the Innovation Fund’s direction, but still had to sever the 
 relationship. “I got convinced by the level of distrust I was seeing – 
 not simply on Twitter, but in listening to members and local leaders – 
 that it was important to find a way to replace Gates funding,” she said. 
 Weingarten plans to ask members to vote this summer on a dues hike of 5 
 cents per month, which she said would raise $500,000 a year for the 
 Innovation Fund.\n\n– The Innovation Fund isn’t the only AFT initiative 
 funded by the Gates Foundation. Since 2010, the union has received more 
 than $10 million. The AFT’s executive council hasn’t formally voted to 
 reject Gates funding for other projects, but Weingarten said she would be 
 very cautious about taking such grants. “I don’t want to say ‘never 
 never ever ever,'” she said, but “this is a matter of making common 
 bond with our members and really listening to the level of distrust they 
 have in the philanthropies and the people on high who are not listening to 
 them.”\n\n– Vicki Phillips, who runs the Gates Foundation’s education 
 division, said her team is “disappointed by Randi’s decision.” She 
 called the AFT “an important thought partner” for the foundation. “We 
 continue to applaud the work of the Innovation Fund grantees to engage 
 teachers in improving teaching and learning in their local communities,” 
 Phillips said.\n\nSupporting Techno Fascist Union Busters For $23 
 Million\nAFT Pres Weingarten Meets With Techno Fascist & Union Buster Sam 
 Altman To Push AI\n\nMicrosoft Pledges $4 Billion Toward A.I. 
 Education\nMicrosoft said it would provide cash, artificial intelligence 
 tools and computing services to schools, colleges and nonprofit 
 groups.\n\nTrevor Griffey, a lecturer in labor studies at the University of 
 California, Los Angeles, also warned that tech firms could use A.I. deals 
 with schools and the teachers’ union as marketing opportunities to make 
 students lifetime chatbot 
 customers.\n\nhttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/technology/chatgpt-teachers-openai-microsoft.html?searchResultPosition=1\n\nBy 
 Natasha Singer\nNatasha Singer covers tech in schools.\nPublished July 8, 
 2025\nUpdated July 9, 2025\nThe tech industry’s campaign to embed 
 artificial intelligence chatbots in classrooms is accelerating.\n\nThe 
 American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest U.S. teachers’ union, 
 said on Tuesday that it would start an A.I. training hub for educators with 
 $23 million in funding from three leading chatbot makers: Microsoft, OpenAI 
 and Anthropic.\n\nThe union said it planned to open the National Academy 
 for A.I. Instruction in New York City, starting with hands-on workshops for 
 teachers this fall on how to use A.I. tools for tasks like generating 
 lesson plans.\n\nRandi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of 
 Teachers, said the A.I. academy was inspired by other unions, like the 
 United Brotherhood of Carpenters, that have worked with industry partners 
 to set up high-tech training centers.\n\nThe New York hub will be “an 
 innovative new training space where school staff and teachers will learn 
 not just about how A.I. works, but how to use it wisely, safely and 
 ethically,” Ms. Weingarten said in an interview. “It will be a place 
 where tech developers and educators can talk with each other, not past each 
 other.”\n\nThe industry funding is part of a drive by U.S. tech companies 
 to reshape education with generative A.I. chatbots. These tools, like 
 OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot, can produce humanlike essays, 
 research summaries and class quizzes.\nImageAn overhead view of a round 
 table ringed with open laptops used by active hands. \nThe A.I. workshop 
 with Microsoft, for about 200 New York City teachers, provided a taste of 
 what the national training center might offer. Credit...Ahmed Gaber for The 
 New York Times\nIn February, California State University, the largest U.S. 
 university system, said it would provide ChatGPT for some 460,000 students. 
 This spring, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the third-largest U.S. 
 school district, began rolling out Google’s Gemini A.I. for more than 
 100,000 high schoolers.\n\nThe Trump administration, which recently froze 
 nearly $7 billion in funding for schools, has called on industry to pony up 
 for A.I. education. Last week, the White House urged American companies and 
 nonprofit groups to provide A.I. grants, technology and training materials 
 for schools, teachers and students. Since then, dozens of companies have 
 signed on, including Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and 
 OpenAI.\n\nSome tech executives hope A.I. will become the fourth 
 R.\n\n“Reading and writing and arithmetic and learning how to use 
 A.I.,” said Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer. 
 “You’re going to have to learn those skills over time, and I do think 
 our education system is the best place to be able to do that.”\n\nBut 
 some researchers have warned that generative A.I. tools are so new in 
 schools that there is little evidence of concrete educational benefit — 
 and significant concern about risk.\n\nChatbots can produce 
 plausible-sounding misinformation, which could mislead students. A recent 
 study by law school professors found that three popular A.I. tools made 
 “significant” errors summarizing a law casebook and posed an 
 “unacceptable risk of harm” to learning.\n\nOutsourcing tasks like 
 research and writing to A.I. chatbots may also hinder critical thinking, a 
 recent study from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University found.\n\n“I 
 do think that there is a risk,” said Brad Smith, the president of 
 Microsoft, noting that he frequently cited the critical thinking study to 
 employees. He added that more rigorous academic research on the effects of 
 generative A.I. was needed. “The lesson of social media is don’t 
 dismiss problems or concerns.”\nImage\nA large room of people working at 
 computers around tables. In the center, an adult stands next to a seated 
 participant as they confer. \nThe session was held by the United Federation 
 of Teachers, whose Manhattan headquarters will be the site of the new 
 national hub. Credit...Ahmed Gaber for The New York Times\nUnion experts 
 have also raised alarms about the industry’s practices. Some tech 
 companies have trained their A.I. models on swaths of texts scraped from 
 the internet, without compensating writers and other creators, or 
 outsourced the labeling of training data to low-paid workers.\n\n(The New 
 York Times has sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, over copyright 
 infringement of news content. Both companies have denied 
 wrongdoing.)\n\nTrevor Griffey, a lecturer in labor studies at the 
 University of California, Los Angeles, also warned that tech firms could 
 use A.I. deals with schools and the teachers’ union as marketing 
 opportunities to make students lifetime chatbot customers.\n\n“It’s a 
 long-game investment by companies to turn young people into consumers who 
 identify with a particular brand,” said Dr. Griffey, a vice president of 
 University Council-A.F.T. Local 1474, a union representing University of 
 California librarians and lecturers.\n\n\nMs. Weingarten said that she was 
 aware of the concerns and that her union, which represents 1.8 million 
 members, had developed A.I. school use guidelines to address some of 
 them.\n\nOne of her main goals is to ensure that teachers have some input 
 on how A.I. tools are developed for educational use, she said. In 2023, she 
 began discussing the idea with Microsoft’s Mr. Smith.\n\nThe union’s 
 partnership with Microsoft formally began last summer with an A.I. 
 symposium in Chicago where teachers learned chatbot basics and gave the 
 company feedback on potential classroom uses. After Ms. Weingarten met last 
 year with Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, the union also began 
 working with OpenAI.\n\nSide-by-side photos of Sam Altman and Randi 
 Weingarten. He is standing with this hands folded in front of him. She is 
 standing while holding and speaking into a microphone.\nSam Altman, chief 
 executive of OpenAI, and Randi Weingarten, president of the American 
 Federation of Teachers, met with each other last year.Credit...Jason Henry 
 for The New York Times, Eric Lee/The New York Times\nThe union’s new 
 training hub will be in the downtown Manhattan headquarters of the United 
 Federation of Teachers, which represents nearly 200,000 New York City 
 teachers and other school employees.\n\n\nMicrosoft will provide $12.5 
 million for the A.I. training effort over the next five years, and OpenAI 
 will contribute $8 million in funding and $2 million in technical 
 resources. Anthropic will add $500,000 for the first year of the 
 effort.\n\nOn Monday, some 200 New York City teachers taking an A.I. 
 workshop at their union headquarters got a glimpse of what the new national 
 effort might look like. A presenter from Microsoft opened by showing an 
 A.I. explainer video featuring Minecraft, the popular game owned by 
 Microsoft.\nImage\nAn illuminated screen with a bar labeled “Khan 
 Academy.”\nKhanmigo, an A.I. tool for schools, helped the teachers at the 
 workshop generate emails and lesson plans. Credit...Ahmed Gaber for The New 
 York Times\nNext, the teachers tried generating emails and lesson plans 
 using Khanmigo, an A.I. tool for schools for which Microsoft has provided 
 support. Then they experimented with Copilot for similar tasks.\n\nDuring 
 the workshop, Peter Bass, a first-grade teacher in Manhattan who is an A.I. 
 newbie, asked a chatbot to generate “an effective letter to parents on 
 attendance.” He read the polite but firm email that resulted aloud — to 
 laughter from teachers in the room.\n\n\nPeter Bass, a Manhattan teacher, 
 reads a chatbot’s response to a request for “an effective letter to 
 parents on attendance.”\n“I’m very old school,” Mr. Bass said, 
 noting that he typically drafted his own letters to “students 
 individually, based on who they are.” Now, though, he said he was 
 intrigued to see if he could streamline his process with A.I.\n\n“If I 
 could find a way of microwaving it a little,” Mr. Bass said, “it could 
 be useful.”\n\nA room full of people are seated at tables while someone 
 presents from a podium.\nMicrosoft helped lead an artificial intelligence 
 training workshop, featuring the company’s Copilot chatbot, for teachers 
 in Manhattan on Monday.Credit...Ahmed Gaber for The New York Times\nBy 
 Natasha Singer\nNatasha Singer covers tech in schools.\nJuly 9, 
 2025\nMicrosoft said on Wednesday that it planned to give more than $4 
 billion in cash and technology services to train millions of people to use 
 artificial intelligence, amid an intensifying Silicon Valley crusade to 
 embed chatbots into classrooms.\n\nMicrosoft, the maker of the Copilot 
 chatbot, said the resources would go to schools, community colleges, 
 technical colleges and nonprofits. The company is also starting a new 
 training program, Microsoft Elevate Academy, to “deliver A.I. education 
 and skilling at scale” and help 20 million people earn certificates in 
 A.I.\n\n“Microsoft will serve as an advocate to ensure that students in 
 every school across the country have access to A.I. education,” Brad 
 Smith, the president of Microsoft, said in an interview on Sunday.\n\nBrad 
 Smith wearing a blue suit and red tie standing next to a chair.\nBrad 
 Smith, the president of Microsoft, said the company wanted to make sure 
 students had access to A.I. education.Credit...Eric Lee/The New York 
 Times\nMicrosoft did not immediately specify how much of the more than $4 
 billion the company planned to dispense as grants and how much of it would 
 be in the form of Microsoft A.I. services and cloud computing 
 credits.\n\nThe announcement comes as tech companies are racing to train 
 millions of teachers and students on their new A.I. tools. Even so, 
 researchers say it is too soon to tell whether the classroom chatbots will 
 end up improving educational outcomes or eroding important skills like 
 critical thinking.\n\nOn Tuesday, the American Federation of Teachers, a 
 union representing 1.8 million members, said it was setting up a national 
 A.I. training center for educators, with $23 million in funding from 
 Microsoft and two other chatbot makers, OpenAI and Anthropic.\n\nLast week, 
 several dozen companies — including Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, 
 Microsoft, Nvidia and OpenAI — signed a White House pledge promising to 
 provide schools with funding, technology and training materials for A.I. 
 education. In 2023, Amazon announced a new company program, “A.I. 
 Ready,” to provide free online Amazon A.I. skills courses for two million 
 people.\n\nBefore Microsoft’s new A.I. training campaign, the tech giant 
 worked for over a decade to boost computer science education in schools, 
 including lobbying for new state education laws. Microsoft also funded 
 nonprofit education groups like Code.org; its “Hour of Code” lessons 
 have been used by tens of millions of schoolchildren around the 
 globe.\n\nNow that A.I. tools can generate computer code, tech companies 
 that were once big coding boosters are pivoting to chatbots. As part of 
 Microsoft’s announcement on Wednesday, the company said it was backing a 
 new Code.org program called “Hour of A.I.”\n\n“Coding changed the 
 work of software developers, but it didn’t change every occupation and 
 profession, or the work of every professional, the way A.I. probably 
 will,” Mr. Smith said. “So we need to move faster for A.I. than we did 
 for computer science.”\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2026/07/13/18887391.php
SUMMARY:LF Panel: AI, Labor And Commodification of Education For The Techno Fascists
LOCATION:This will be a zoom event. You can join the event 
 at\nhttps://laborfest.net/2026/event/education-ai-commodification-labor/
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2026/07/13/18887391.php
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