When it comes to technology in the classroom, we are living in two unfolding realities. Twenty-five states have enacted laws or policies regarding cellphone use in schools. Studies are published weekly regarding the impact of screens on various aspects of child development. Yet some school districts have sought to increase the use of technology. Last year, the third-largest school district in the nation, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, ushered in artificial intelligence complete with teacher training and the rollout of Google chatbots.
This contradiction is troubling. As a middle school teacher, it is frustrating when school districts ignore research and embrace another untested attempt to raise student achievement. We need to take a serious look at the future of AI in the classroom and its impact on student success. In my experience, educational software and apps often promise the moon but deliver little. There is scant evidence students are gaining more knowledge or strengthening their critical thinking skills. According to Securly, a program I use to monitor student internet use in real time, many of my students, especially boys, struggle to stay on task, toggling between their assignments and games or videos. The introduction of AI in the classroom is based on the assumption that students stay on task while completing work. I can spend the entire class period monitoring or teaching — I cannot do both.
When I discuss the arrival of AI with my colleagues, I often hear a response of capitulation. New programs and approaches are tossed our way each year, one more haphazardly chosen than the one before. Still, the introduction of AI is on a different level. School district leaders are rolling out the welcome mat for our gilded replacement.
Ed tech companies offering AI suggest it is a supplemental device for teachers. The AI reading tutor, Amira, claims it is “every teacher’s instructional assistant.” At what point will an understaffed school district decide that Amira should become the reading teacher? If we do not create guardrails now, I worry our specialists will be replaced and our classroom teachers will serve only as proctors and security guards. School districts, before you make another sweeping move toward an unproven technology and additional screen time, talk to your teachers. More importantly, listen to them. And to my fellow teachers, you do not have to give in. We know what works and what is the false prophet of progress.
Melissa Hostetter, Springfield
Most American have immigrant roots
We all came to the U.S. from somewhere — whether your ancestors arrived on the Mayflower or later during the age of mass migration of the late 19th and early 20th centuries when over 20 million people arrived from Eastern and Southern Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and elsewhere. Maybe your parents arrived after the doors were opened through the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, or you are a recent immigrant. Unless you’re a Native American, we all came from somewhere. What’s surprising to me is how people have forgotten their family stories of struggles and how once they were the oppressed.
My late father, Salem Akhras, studied in the U.S. in the 1960s as a civil engineer and went back to Syria hoping to build his career as an engineer. For a while, life was still promising for a young professional with a young family. But in1970, through a coup, Syria became a Soviet-style dictatorship, and life became difficult and oppressive. My parents decided to move to the U.S. in 1982, and that began my immigrant story.
Syria’s youth took to the streets in 2011, protesting the lack of freedoms and opportunities, which turned into 14 years of war, torture and the worst refugee crisis in our lifetime. I founded a nonprofit in 2015, Syrian Community Network, to help newly arrived refugees and immigrants get a fresh start at life in Chicago.
Our politicians weaponized the legal immigration and refugee pathways as a means to create fear and win elections, and sadly, it worked. They have failed to address border security and pass immigration reform. I want to ask people who oppose legal immigration: Didn’t your ancestors immigrate to the U.S. too; didn’t they escape oppression, war, Communist-era tyranny?
The answer I often receive is, “My ancestors came here the legal way!” Just a reminder: In the 19th century, people bought a ticket on a big boat and sailed into New York and were registered on Ellis Island.
As Ronald Reagan once told us, immigration keeps our country young, innovative and boosts our economy — not to mention how our food and our palates have been enriched by hummus, couscous, sushi, tacos, pho, sesame chicken, pizza, hamburgers and bubble tea. Otherwise, it would just be plain old mashed potatoes and bland roast beef without spices. Just saying!
Suzanne Akhras, founder and former executive director, Syrian Community Network, Burr Ridge
Don’t leave flag hanging upside down
As I drove around the south suburbs on America’s birthday, I saw many flags proudly displayed. Unfortunately, I saw one flag that was flying upside down, which is the universal sign of distress, particularly in instances of extreme danger to life or property as outlined in the U.S. Flag Code.
While I understand these are deeply emotional times for many, it made me think about all of the soldiers, police, firefighters and many others who risk their lives every day. Our flag represents all of those heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice for our safety, well-being and freedom. If you are not happy with America’s current government, policies or politics, get involved with the local, state or federal governments and make your voice heard.
It makes no sense to show disrespect to all the families who had flags presented to them because of the death of a loved one. That flag represents their sacrifice, and it is an insult to those heroes and their families when it is flown upside down. Please consider the broader impact of this particular symbol and treat it with respect and care, even in times of political dissatisfaction.
Wally Gannon, Tinley Park
Trump’s actions are breach of social contract
Congressional Republicans just forced through the single largest cut to health care and food assistance in American history. Trump’s “Billionaire Bailout Bill” will kick over half a million Illinoisans off Medicaid, strip food assistance from over 400,000 people in the state and force the closure of already at-risk hospitals statewide. Cutting protection and support for vulnerable communities is not a bold policy move; it is a quiet betrayal of an intrinsic governmental responsibility that erodes the social contract. When the government chooses to place the burden of higher costs on seniors, children, working families and those unable to afford it for the benefit of the ultra-rich, it is failing to uphold its promise to Americans.
Our democracy rests on the basic promise of the social contract: In exchange for our trust and participation, the government will protect and support its people. Breaking that promise unravels the legitimacy of our institutions. Medicaid is one of the most basic ways our country cares for its own and a key democratic right of American citizens.
The massive federal Medicaid cuts over the next decade will have devastating real-world consequences, especially in Illinois, where 1 in 4 residents rely on Medicaid. These cuts would strip essential care from working families, seniors and residents with disabilities who depend on Medicaid for everything from checkups and emergency services to home care and daily support. As pandemic-era protections end, thousands are already losing coverage due to administrative hurdles. Additional funding reductions will exacerbate health disparities, burden hospitals and jeopardize the health and dignity of millions. These numbers are not abstract; they represent lives at stake.
We should not accept this system. The strength of a nation is not measured by how it treats the powerful, but by how it cares for its vulnerable and working families. The social contract may not be written in law, but it is woven into our expectations of democracy. To abandon that is to invite a society where trust erodes, inequalities widen and legitimacy in our government fades.
We still have a choice. We can reject divisive politics and promote the values that build trust between people and our government. We must protect Medicaid not only because it safeguards society, but because it embodies the strong nation we are. We can reform the social contract with intention, action and a moral commitment to care for each other, especially in times of need.
Jason Friedman, candidate, 17th Illinois Congressional District
Renewing the call to close underenrolled schools
To plug a $734 million budget gap, Chicago Public Schools is laying off 161 people and eliminating 209 positions. But unless each of those positions pays $2 million a year, the cost-cutting move will bridge almost nothing. If each position paid $100,000, that’s $37 million, which reduces the budget gap a whooping 5%.
Of course, because a single penny was cut from the budget, the Chicago Teachers Union now protests the cuts. Of course, they do so because “it’s all about the kids.” If CTU was honest, it would add one word: “it’s all about using the kids.”
If anyone was honest — and cared about the kids and budgets — scores of schools would be closed. Immediately.
As I’ve mentioned in a letter to the editor before, Douglass Academy High School on the West Side had very few students — 28 this year. The high school has the capacity for 900 kids, meaning it is 97% empty. Even worse, not one of its students last year tested as proficient in math or reading. Money is not the problem at Douglass, as funding is $93,000 per student. Heck, each kid could have a full time, one-on-one tutor for that price.
Though it’s a sad poster child, Douglass is not some outlier. CPS has about 600 schools, and more than one-third of them are more than half empty.
And in the face of these incontrovertible numbers, the union says, keep ’em all open for three more years?
The massive underutilization is hardly surprising when you consider the district has shrunk by almost 25% since 2000. Most of the families that left are Black families, who have wisely fled for better schools and communities. Guess what? They’re not coming back.
Yet despite an enrollment that has plummeted, one thing is not down: spending. Since 2012, the CPS budget has about doubled. Teacher and staff ranks have increased, not been cut.
With all this spending on fewer kids you’d think kids’ performance would improve, right?
But students’ scores have actually gotten worse since 2012 — much worse — with reading and math proficiency down significantly. As the Illinois Policy Institute summarizes the data: “The more Chicago Public Schools spends, the worse students perform on academic testing.”
Yet only in Chicago, when kids’ performance goes down, do teachers — averaging $114,000 — get paid more. But remember, it’s “all about the kids.”
William Choslovsky, Sheffield Neighbors
Cold — and cruel — ICE
They travel in unmarked cars. They display no badges or any form of identification. They cover their faces and mostly wear sunglasses. There is no accountability to local police or courts. No one knows who they really are, what their qualifications are, nor what training they have had. The criteria used to choose their targets is a mystery. And the “big, beautiful bill” has an extra $75 billion in funding for ICE.
It surely seems that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is becoming Donald Trump’s secret police. Make your own comparison to the 1930s and 1940s. The question then becomes, after immigrants, “What group do they go after next?”
Tom Smoucha, Arlington Heights