Greeneville, Tennessee
Assistant Director of Schools. Data scientist. Writing on AI, education data, and the tools I build to do the job. 68 posts and counting.
“Proficient” on a state test is a college-ready bar, not a passing line. What the scariest headline of testing season actually counts.
"Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died." - George R.R. Martin from A Storm of Swords That quote has been rattling…
WritingA couple of weeks ago, I walked through one of our elementary schools during math block. Half the kids had pencils in hand, working through problems on paper. The other…
Introduction Whenever you write something, you’re always supposed to have audience in mind. I do not have one in mind for this blog. It can be for educators or laypeople.…
Part 2Summary I analyzed the statewide school letter grade data and found that poverty and race significantly impact the letter grades schools receive. The disregard for…
Part 3This blog continues the series on TN School Letter Grade data. You can find the first post here . The same dataset applies. Having looked at some of the preliminary…
Part 4One of the more interesting ways to look at data is to use machine learning to sort your data into clusters. The particular tool I used for this is called K-Means…
Part 5The impact of school letter grades on schools, school leaders, teachers, and students has largely unfolded as anticipated. It's not just a coincidence that letter grade…
Part 6In my previous blog, I provided a detailed breakdown of the TN Letter Grades. In this post, I want to shift focus and highlight the schools that stand out as outliers,…
Part 7In early 2024, I published a blog post exploring how machine learning could predict Tennessee school letter grades based on demographic data. That analysis provided…
Part 8The Tennessee Department of Education released the 2024-25 school letter grades on December 18, 2024. This is the third year of letter grades under the revamped formula…
Part 9Can student demographics alone predict a school's letter grade? Using machine learning algorithms like Gradient Boosting and K-means clustering, this analysis explores the…
Every March, I fill out a bracket with the same strategy: gut feeling, a vague memory of who looked good in February, and the unshakeable belief that this is finally the…
Part 2I built a stacked ensemble to fill out my NCAA bracket. It crushed the chalk and missed every upset. Here’s the scorecard.
Part 3The model went 33 for 48 through two rounds. Five Round of 32 upsets blew up half the bracket. Here’s what the stacked ensemble says about all eight Sweet 16 games.
Part 4The machine learning bracket model went 5-for-8 in the Sweet 16 and 2-for-4 in the Elite Eight. Then Duke’s championship prediction died on Braylon Mullins’ three-pointer…
Part 5The bracket model that picked Duke now picks Michigan. The full stacked ensemble says Michigan 66.9%. A late-round specialist model trained only on Elite Eight, Final…
Admittedly, I’m not going to use ChatGPT to write this. One reason is that I need as many writing samples of my own writing that I can get in order to train it to write…
Part 2Generally, I teach two different classes: MEDA 3570 - Educational Technology for Pre-Service Teachers, and ELPA 5400/6400 - Developing Learners and Instructional Leaders…
Part 3Of all the uses that ChatGPT has, how it has helped me learn things is my favorite. Currently, I’m working on a second master’s degree in Data Science, and it has proved…
When researching fantasy football strategies, you’ll notice that they almost all say the same thing: draft Ja’Marr Chase or Justin Jefferson in the first round. Beyond…
Part 2I built a Claude Code skill that replaces a messy multi-AI fantasy football workflow — draft prep, live drafting, weekly matchups, and trade analysis — all from a single…
A vendor wanted $14,994 for six translation devices. We built the same thing as a free webpage in a day. The math, the build, and the question to ask before signing any AI…
WritingI used to be a baseball purist, but I really love the innovations the game has added in the past few years. The pitch clock has made baseball much more enjoyable to watch.…
Writing"Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died." - George R.R. Martin from A Storm of Swords That quote has been rattling…
WritingA couple of weeks ago, I walked through one of our elementary schools during math block. Half the kids had pencils in hand, working through problems on paper. The other…
AI in EducationAI slop is showing up in school newsletters, company emails, and public communications everywhere. Learn how to recognize it and five best practices for using AI as a tool…