Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

Back to the Future

Adam Laats, Slate

What will Trump 2.0 mean for education? His supporters have promised to return America’s public schools to the vision of the Founding Fathers. They might succeed, but not in the way they imagine. The results would be disastrous for all of us, including conservative Trump supporters. With Trump’s Tuesday night announcement of Linda McMahon as his pick for secretary of education, we see some continuities with the president-elect’s first term. Just as the first Trump administration talked about merging the Education and Labor departments, so too McMahon brings together the world of work and school. In the first Trump administration, McMahon ran the Small Business Administration, and she has lauded the idea of “apprenticeships” as a key education reform. Her organization, America First Policy Institute, focuses on education as “workforce innovation.” And just as Trump’s first secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, had no experience in the world of public schools, so McMahon’s experience running World Wrestling Entertainment has rendered her, in her words, an “outsider” in the field of education.

Trump wants Linda McMahon to lead the charge in his war on universities

Paul Waldman, MSNBC

When Donald Trump announced his choice of former World Wrestling Entertainment executive Linda McMahon to lead the Department of Education, his statement shouted that with her at the helm, “We will send Education BACK TO THE STATES.” The sentence was a reference to Trump’s previous pledge to shut down the department entirely — a promise Republicans have been making since it was created in 1979. But axing the entire department was always unlikely — not just because it would require congressional action, but because what Trump actually wants is more federal control over education, not less.

Modesto’s revived Youth Commission aims to amplify young people’s voice in city government 

Kathleen Quinn, Modesto Bee

On the second Wednesday of every month, in a small, dimly lighted conference room in Tenth Street Place, 17 local high-schoolers gather in the late afternoon. They talk about what they want Modesto to look like and how they can advocate for a brighter future for youth. The Youth Commission is overseen by Modesto’s Parks, Recreation and Neighborhoods Department, which acts in a mentorship and advisory capacity to youth members. “They’re really motivated. I mean, I cannot imagine myself at their age being so involved in government, wanting to do all these things, just absolutely incredible,” said John Skeel, recreation and neighborhood services manager for the department.

Language, Culture, and Power

L.A. adopts sanctuary city ordinance, LAUSD also affirms protections for immigrants

Andrew Lopez and Alex Medina, Boyle Heights Beat

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday adopted an ordinance to formally declare L.A. a sanctuary city and prohibit the use of city resources to help with federal enforcement of immigration laws. The vote comes a week after the proposed ordinance was released by Mayor Karen Bass and City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, and more than a year since such legislation was proposed by the City Council in June of 2023.

Turning election fear into immigrant power

Itzel Hernandez, American Friends Service Committee

I am a DACA recipient, one of 650,000 people who may be targeted when the Trump administration takes office. As an organizer with AFSC, I also work with young people and immigrant communities in New Jersey every day. I want to give you an idea of the work we are doing for welcoming, dignified, and just immigration policies. I also want to show you how much is possible when communities come together, especially in these difficult times. I came to the United States when I was 10 years old. I have lived in Red Bank, New Jersey for 20 years. Right now, there is no other place I would rather be than the American Friends Service Committee. It is a great privilege to be working in an office to protect my immediate community, just 15 minutes from where I live. It’s beautiful to know that what I do helps make life better for my neighbors, my friends, my loved ones, and the entire state.

Deportations, Why and How to Resist: Lessons from History

Zinn Education Project

If there was ever a time we needed young people to learn from history, it is now — such as about the mass deportation of Mexican Americans during the Great Depression. Historian Mae M. Ngai argues that this 1930s campaign of mass deportation had little to do with law; it was a program of “racial expulsion” rooted in racism. To help her high school students understand the causes of mass deportation in the 1930s and alert them to similar dynamics today, Ursula Wolfe-Rocca wrote a lesson that is free for teachers to download. She explains, “Just as students see that no single actor was responsible for the deportations of the 1930s, they can recognize that President Trump alone does not have the power to terrorize immigrants and their families. For that it takes the collaboration of the corporate media, ICE agents, for-profit detention centers, wall-builders and contractors, and an electorate primed by racism and capitalism to misplace blame for their own low wages or precarious social position.”

Whole Children and Strong Communities

Raising the Next Generation

Eleanor J. Bader, The Progressive

Child-rearing, whether by birth parents or other caregivers, is an exercise in optimism, rooted in the belief that babies will turn into children and children will turn into adults who will contribute to the flourishing of life on Earth. Progressive parents, of course, try to teach their offspring the values of fairness, equity, and peace. These values typically include feminism, racial justice, respect for the environment, and carceral abolition, and are woven into bedtime stories and daily conversations. Needless to say, striking the right balance can be tricky, necessitating a blend of whimsy and hard facts delivered with kindness, love, and patience. There are neither roadmaps nor formulas for these discussions. We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition, an anthology of twenty-nine essays edited by Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson, brings an intriguing mix of personal and political essays to activist parents and caregivers, with entries ranging from the theoretical to the intimate.

Oakland Unified wrestles with lead in water. Most California schools are in the dark

Monica Velez, Ed Source

Oakland student Hannah Lau said she only discovered there were elevated lead levels in her school’s drinking water this year through her teacher. There wasn’t an announcement from the principal, nor was there an assembly to notify students. “I was really shocked and scared,” the 13-year-old said. “How long have we been drinking this water? Is it really bad? Is it in my body? How poisoned am I?” The Oakland Unified School District is one of the few districts in California that has continued to test lead levels in drinking water years after it was no longer required by state law. In 2017, an extension to the existing law (AB-746), also known as the California Safe Drinking Water Act, required districts to sample water from at least five faucets in every school and report the findings to the state by July 1, 2019. State funding for lead testing ended after the deadline.

I grew up visiting my mom in prison. Here’s what schools should know about students like me.

Anna Tovchigrechko, Chalkbeat

One in 14 children and young teens in the United States have experienced the incarceration of a parent. I know firsthand the challenges that come with this painful situation. While in middle school, I spent many weekends in the car, making the eight-hour journey from Maryland to rural upstate New York to visit my mom in prison. These visits always felt bittersweet: I looked forward to spending time with her, but I also felt nervous about seeing her in such an unwelcoming environment. I remember forcing myself to put on a brave face so as not to let my mom see me sad.

Access, Assessment, Advancement

Pending uOttawa strike is about much more than money

Joel Westheimer, Ottawa Citizen

At the University of Ottawa, faculty have just voted overwhelmingly to go on strike if progress at the negotiating table around key issues remains stalled. This is not an isolated action. Across Canada and the United States, university faculty are raising alarms, not just over wages and working conditions, but over a deeper and more troubling trend: the gradual drift away from the core mission of higher education. When universities prioritize financial interests over educational ideals, when the pursuit of teaching, research and democratic governance is undermined by market-driven agendas, strikes and protests serve as one tool in efforts to urge a realignment.

After Cornell Cracked Down on Pro-Palestinian Activism, its Graduate Student Union Fought Back

Maximillian Alvarez, In These Times

Earlier this year, college students across the U.S. made headlines by establishing protest encampments in support of Palestinian liberation, many of which were met with public disdain and police repression. Now, as the new school year begins, student protesters remain resolute in their struggle to maintain the right to speak out against Israel’s ethnic cleansing as university administrations try new strategies to silence ​“controversial” speech. As Aaron Fernando recently reported in The Nation, ​“Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, has taken disciplinary action against an international student that will likely force him to leave the country, and could have a chilling effect on other international students participating in political protests.

Thousands of University of California workers go on 2-day strike over wages, staff shortages

Olga Rodriguez, AP News

Thousands of University of California workers on Wednesday began a two-day strike to protest what they say are unfair bargaining tactics by the university system and staff shortages. The university denies the allegations. The strike by 37,000 service and patient care workers represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 comes a month after the union filed a complaint with the state’s Public Employment Relations Board alleging that the university has engaged in illegal bad faith bargaining.

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

Segregation Academies Across the South Are Getting Millions in Taxpayer Dollars

Jennifer Berry Hawes and Mollie Simon, ProPublica

Private schools across the South that were established for white children during desegregation are now benefiting from tens of millions in taxpayer dollars flowing from rapidly expanding voucher-style programs, a ProPublica analysis found. In North Carolina alone, we identified 39 of these likely “segregation academies” that are still operating and that have received voucher money. Of these, 20 schools reported student bodies that were at least 85% white in a 2021-22 federal survey of private schools, the most recent data available.

Why school referrals to the juvenile justice system are often unfair and harmful

Lucy Sorensen, Stephen Holt, and Andrea M. Headley, Brookings

As students and teachers returned to classrooms in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, a raft of surveys and media reporting suggested an uptick in student behavioral disruptions. In response to these concerns, while some schools have adopted restorative justice frameworks, many others have reached for harsher school discipline measures to address student misbehavior. Policymakers in several states have even begun reinstituting zero-tolerance policies and/or requiring police officer presence in every school. Following a similar wave of school hardening measures adopted in the 1990s, advocates coined the term “school-to-prison pipeline” to describe how certain school environments and practices increase the likelihood that youth, particularly youth of color, become entangled in the criminal justice system.

Leveling Up: An Academic Acceleration Policy to Increase Equity in Advanced High School Course Taking

Megan Austin, Ben Backes, and Francie Streich, American Educational Research Journal

Taking advanced courses in high school predicts many positive outcomes, yet low-income students and students who identify as Black and Hispanic are underrepresented. Policies such as “algebra for all” that accelerate middle school students into advanced courses are well-studied, but little is known about newer academic acceleration policies that target older students. Between 2014–2015 and 2016–2017, 72 districts in Washington implemented Academic Acceleration policies, which identified proficient 11th- and 12th-grade students for automatic acceleration into AP, IB, and other dual credit courses. We used difference-in-differences models to examine changes in advanced course enrollments, GPAs, and high school graduation between districts that began implementing the policy at different times. We found advanced course enrollment increased and became more equitable postpolicy.

Democracy and the Public Interest

Texas Education Board Backs Curriculum With Lessons Drawn From Bible

Troy Closson, New York Times

Texas education officials backed on Tuesday a new elementary school curriculum that infuses material drawn from the Bible into reading and language arts lessons, a contentious move that would test the limits of religion’s presence in public education. The curriculum, which will be optional, has already drawn protests in Texas, which has emerged as a leader in the ascendant but highly contested push to expand the role of religion in public schools. The new curriculum could become a model for other states.

Founder of AI education chatbot charged with defrauding investors of $10 million

Greta Cross, USA TODAY

The founder of an artificial intelligence startup, promoted to strengthen communication between school districts and families, has been arrested on charges of defrauding investors. Joanna Smith-Griffin, the founder and CEO of AllHere Education, Inc., was arrested in North Carolina on Tuesday on charges of securities fraud, wire fraud and identity theft, according to a news release from the Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney’s Office. An indictment unsealed on Tuesday alleges that Smith-Griffin lied to potential investors about the revenue that AllHere Education generated and the number of school districts the startup had contracts with over the last few years.

Trump eyes ‘school choice’ tax break, a longstanding conservative goal

Andy Sullivan, Reuters

“The consequence would be the biggest school choice victory ever in Washington,” said Frederick Hess, an education expert at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute.

Conservatives say the government should help parents pay for private school if they are unsatisfied with their public schools, while teachers’ unions and many Democrats say school choice undermines the public system that educates 50 million U.S. children. More than one million U.S. students now participate in school choice programs, double the level before the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered public schools, according to EdChoice, an advocacy group. Proponents say federal action could boost participation by hundreds of thousands.

Trump said expanding school choice would be a top priority when he tapped former pro-wrestling magnate Linda McMahon to serve as his education secretary this week.

Other News of Note

Access to climate education is a matter of justice

Alexia Leclercq, Aljazeera

In his poem The Right to Dream (1995), Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano imagines “how the world will be in 2025”. He dreams of a better future where there is respect for nature, equality and peace. Unfortunately, 2025 is coming up and we are nowhere near fulfilling Galeano’s dream. In fact, we increasingly find ourselves in a situation where the survival of human civilisation is at stake. This year alone, millions of people worldwide experienced extreme climate events, groundbreaking temperatures, genocide, and deadly exposure to toxic chemicals and pollution leading to mass death, injury, displacement, poverty, and trauma.