Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

Democratic-led cities and states push back on threats to cut US school funding over DEI

Collin Binkley, AP News

Some Democratic-led states and cities are pushing back on a Trump administration threat to cut education funding over diversity, equity and inclusion programs, creating a standoff that could test how far the White House is willing to go to press its demands on the nation’s schools. State leaders in Minnesota and New York said they will not comply with an Education Department order to gather signatures from local school systems certifying compliance with civil rights laws, including the rejection of what the federal government calls “illegal DEI practices.” Chicago’s mayor promised to sue over any cuts. California and Vermont told schools they don’t need to respond. It amounts to some of the most forceful opposition yet as the Education Department uses federal funding as leverage to enact President Donald Trump’s agenda on issues from DEI to campus antisemitism and transgender athletes.

Students protest Education Department closure in ‘Hands Off Our Schools’ rally

Arthur Jones II, ABC News

Crowds of college and high school students representing student governments from some of the largest schools in the Washington, D.C., area rallied outside the U.S. Department of Education on Friday to oppose the administration’s gutting of the agency. Chanting “hands off our schools” and “give us back our DOE,” demonstrators attended the rally outside department headquarters as education advocates and student organizers discussed the department’s importance to U.S. students. Julia Comino, student body vice president at American University, said shuttering the agency would harm the rights of America’s most vulnerable.

Parents are receiving mixed messages about measles from RFK Jr.

Barbara Rodriguez, The 19th

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is more directly promoting measles vaccinations following the death of a second unvaccinated child. But he continues to highlight remedies that medical experts say do not prevent or treat the virus. As the number of measles cases grows around the country, experts worry that parents and other caregivers are getting mixed messaging about the safety of vaccines. Over the weekend, Kennedy traveled to Texas for the funeral of an 8-year-old who public health officials say died this month of complications from measles. Kennedy met with the child’s family, as well as the family of a 6-year-old in the state who died in February of measles complications. Both children were unvaccinated. (An unvaccinated adult in New Mexico who died recently also had measles, according to public health officials.)

Language, Culture, and Power

A Dakota Cultural Intervention’s Influence on Native Students’ Sense of Belonging: A CBPR Case Study

Heather J. Peters, Teresa R. Peterson, and The Dakota Wicoḣaƞ Community, AERA Open

This community-based participatory research case study demonstrates how Dakota Wicoḣaƞ utilized Indigenous and feminist epistemologies to create, implement, and evaluate a cultural intervention, the Mni Sota Makoce: Dakota Homelands Curriculum, to increase Native 6th- and 10th-grade social studies students’ peoplehood sense of belonging. Findings demonstrate Native students liked the curriculum and reported an increase in support and a decrease in invalidation of their sense of belonging. While the curriculum provided a source of racial-ethnic socialization, some European American students criticized the curriculum, which likely negatively impacted 6th-grade students psychological sense of school membership. Results indicate Indigenous culture, epistemologies, and pedagogies should be infused throughout all curricula, teachers need to be prepared to effectively deal with racist and discriminatory behavior, and Indian education is important to Native students’ belonging.

She Speaks for the Dreamers [Video]

Bonnie Eissner, CUNY Graduate Center

Hyein Lee (Ph.D. ’24, Sociology) has a straightforward message about the reach and relevance of U.S. immigration policy. “It is about all of us,” she said at an immigration policy panel \\discussion at the Graduate Center in February.“Chances are that someone that you know is undocumented, and they haven’t felt safe enough to come forward and identify their own immigration status,” she said. “This happens constantly.” She would know. As the chief operating officer of TheDream.US, a nonprofit that provides college scholarships to undocumented students, Lee has gathered the most comprehensive set of data on Dreamers — undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children — in the country. Her research shows that they are embedded into the nation’s economy. They are excelling in college and working in professional settings, from Fortune 500 companies to hospitals to schools.

As Trump Slams DEI, Racial Justice Leaders Stay Focused on Reparations

Samantha Lim, KQED

President Donald Trump’s executive orders aimed at dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion programs across government, academia and business are nothing new to civil rights advocates in the reparative justice movement. Soon after his inauguration in January, Trump issued directives instructing federal agencies to investigate “illegal DEI” in both the private and public sectors. One of Trump’s executive orders accused educators of pushing anti-American ideologies and threatened to withhold funding from schools that portray the U.S. as fundamentally racist, sexist or discriminatory. In February, the Pentagon paused observances of Juneteenth, Women’s History Month, Pride Month, Holocaust Remembrance Day and others.

Whole Children and Strong Communities

Gaza’s children struggle with life-changing injuries from ongoing Israel-Hamas war [Video]

Scott Pelley, 60 Minutes, CBS News

Dr. Samer Attar is an orthopedic surgeon in Chicago, a professor of surgery at Northwestern, and recently, among the brave volunteers fighting for life in the war in Gaza. Gaza is 25 miles long and home to two million Palestinians, descendants of those displaced in the 1948 creation of Israel. Gaza is ruled by a terrorist group called Hamas. And in 2023, Hamas attacked Israel — an atrocity—that, Israel says, killed 1,200 civilians, including 40 children, and captured 251. Israel’s war to free its hostages and defeat Hamas has killed an estimated 50,000 Palestinians, 15,000 of them children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. The U.N. says 92% of Gaza housing has been damaged. Last week on 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl reported on the trauma and torture suffered by Israeli hostages. Tonight, we have the story of the desperate fight to save Gaza’s civilians through the charity of nations and the mercy of volunteers like Samer Attar.

What makes middle school even worse? Climate anxiety.

Kate Yoder, The Grist

When the Marshall Fire swept through the grassy plains and foothills outside Boulder, Colorado, in late December 2021, it burned down more than 1,000 homes — and left many young people shaken. “It can just be pure anxiety — you’re literally watching a fire march its way across, and it’s really, really close,” said David Thesenga, an 8th grade science teacher. Some of his students at Alexander Dawson School in the small town of Lafayette lost their homes to the fire. As more students come to school traumatized by living through fires, floods, and other extreme weather, teachers are being asked to do more than educate — they’re also acting as untrained therapists.

This YouTube show explains climate change to the kids who have to live with it [Audio]

Chloe Veltman, All Things Considered

In the new YouTube video series Suzie Hicks the Climate Chick and Sprout, the climate activist and educator Suzie Hicks shares the screen with a fluffy green puppet. “I’m Sprout,” the puppet says in the inaugural episode of the series. “I’m a sunflower. I’m just too little to bloom yet.” Together, the pair share information about human-caused climate change — the science, why it’s a problem, what can be done about it — in a way that’s tailored to suit children ages 4 to 8.

Access, Assessment, Advancement

The Pentagon Wants Your High Schoolers

Scott Harding and Seth Kershner, Jacobin

For the past three years, the US military has suffered through its worst recruiting crisis since the end of the draft in 1973. The Army Reserve has not met its annual quota of new recruits for nearly ten years. In fiscal year 2023, the Navy and Air Force failed to meet their recruiting goals — the first time this happened in twenty-four years for the Air Force, despite being traditionally viewed as the most desirable branch of service. And since 2013, male enlistments in the Navy have dropped more than one-third. With a shared sense of alarm, current and former military officials, members of Congress, think tanks, and others warn that these personnel shortages undermine US military readiness and its ability to fight future wars across the globe. In response to declining enlistment, the three largest military branches have increased marketing, revised recruitment practices, and loosened key eligibility requirements. 

Where Are the Boards?

Raquel M. Rall and Demetri L. Morgan, Inside HigherEd

The academy is facing a crisis of confidence. Where shared governance once nurtured robust debate and institutional progress, a climate of fear is taking hold, stifling dialogue and endangering the very mission of higher education. Decision-makers, ensnared in an atmosphere marked by uncertainty, are both terrified to act and paralyzed by inaction. They are troubled by a well-orchestrated effort that seeks to fundamentally alter higher education, forcing the sector into a state of existential terror for the foreseeable future. Consequently, we are witnessing a shift from shared governance to scared governance, and the consequences are profound.

Why Universities Must Start Litigating—and How

David Pozen, Ryan Doerfler, and Samuel Bagenstos, The Nation

The Trump administration’s assault on higher education continues to escalate. The White House has pressured universities into shutting down diversity and equity programs of all sorts, terminated hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants inconsistent with its political agenda, and moved to slash reimbursements for the grants that remain. The Department of Education has opened investigations into more than 60 colleges and universities. Most alarming, the Department of Homeland Security has started sending agents onto campuses across the country to arrest and deport noncitizen students and faculty who have engaged in pro-Palestinian advocacy.

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

The Kids Who Got Bused—And Became Democrats

Jerusalem Demsas, The Atlantic

The school-busing policies of the 20th century weren’t just unpopular; the ensuing fallout to school integration was so great that many Americans have written it off as a total failure. White flight, political backlash, and continuing segregation: This is the legacy of court-ordered desegregation. And on quite a few metrics, the pessimism is warranted. Schools across the nation remain segregated; one academic measure of the nation’s 100 largest districts finds that segregation between white and Black students has increased 64 percent since 1988.

Black Children, White Schools [Audio]

Claire Potter and Noliwe Rooks, Public Seminar

On November 14, 1960, 6-year-old Tessie Prevost woke up and put on one of her prettiest dresses. Like Leona Tate, Gail Etienne, and Ruby Bridges, Tessie was a very special little girl. Along with hundreds of other Black children, the New Orleans Four, as they would forever be known, had taken a test. The test was devised by the Louisiana Pupil Placement Board after Brown v. Board of Education had declared separate but equal schools unconstitutional. A federal court was now insisting, eight years later, that Orleans Parish integrate its schools, and testing Black children’s academic skills was part of that process. \I don’t think we know how many children passed that test, one that White children never had to take just to enroll in their neighborhood public school. But we do know how few of these Black children were seen as worthy. We know that Black boys were generally not seen as desirable candidates for what school boards, parents, and politicians in Jim Crow states viewed as an unwelcome social experiment.

Defying the Narrative

Tyrone Howard and Jaleel Howard, ASCD

School experiences and outcomes for Black students have chronically lagged behind their peers from other ethnic and racial groups for decades. There is a long history and established body of literature that details the myriad ways that schools have fallen short in addressing the education needs of Black students. Issues such as legally sanctioned segregated schools, inadequate funding, low teacher expectations, anti-Black racism, and non-responsive curriculum have all contributed to disparate outcomes for Black students. The COVID-19 pandemic had a disproportionate impact on Black learners, largely due to a lack of resources at home and within schools. Additionally, over the past several years, there have been growing efforts to exclude Black history and perspectives in schools via book banning and erroneous anti-Critical Race Theory campaigns.

Democracy and the Public Interest

The Purposes of Education: A Citizen Perspective Beyond Political Elites

Ebba Henrekson, Fredrik O. Andersson, and Jurgen Willems, Educational Researcher

Education has long been an area of political debate in the United States, with politicians and policymakers advocating for distinct societal and/or individual purposes of K–12 education. In this article, we examine the public opinion on the purpose of education, and we explore whether this political divide on the purpose of education is also represented in the broad public opinion. For a sample 19,032 U.S. respondents, we test whether citizens’ partisanship corresponds with their opinions on seven educational purposes. We observe that the public opinion represents a multifunctional view on education and that some but rather small differences relate to partisanship. We frame these findings in the existing literature and postulate avenues for further research.

How does Gen Z really feel about democracy?

Deborah Apau and Sara Suzuki, Protect Democracy

Young Americans represent both the present and future of political leadership and participation in the United States. Understanding the nuanced views and perspectives of this demographic, including their unique political attitudes and behaviors, is critical to bolstering democratic institutions and safeguarding against the risks of democratic decline. In a new report in partnership with CIRCLE (the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement), Protect Democracy published findings from a national survey of young Americans that challenge common assumptions about how they perceive democracy, engage with civic life, and see their role in shaping the future. The findings challenge the notion that young Americans think and behave as a monolith by offering clearer insights into youth’s perceptions of, and relationships to, democratic principles and practices. In doing so, we pinpoint key strengths and challenges that can inform interventions that will help all young people value, support, and strengthen democracy.

Alabama Choose Act applications close; most applicants come from nonpublic schools

Anna Barrett, Alabama Reflector

Rep. Danny Garrett, R-Trussville, speaks to a colleague on the floor of the Alabama House of Almost 37,000 students have applied for the Choose Act, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey announced Tuesday morning, with two-thirds of the applicants not attending the state’s public schools.

Funds from the voucher-like program can be used for education-related expenses, including private school tuition. A family can receive up to $7,000 in state income tax credits per eligible student in a participating school and up to $2,000 for a student that is homeschooled. The money for the program comes out of the Education Trust Fund, where nearly all state income tax goes.

CHOOSE Act applications close; most applicants come from nonpublic schools

Other News of Note

We Must Burst Our Algorithmic Bubbles and Build Together Across Difference [Audio]

Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba, Movement Memos

Welcome to “Movement Memos,” a Truthout podcast about organizing, solidarity and the work of making change. I’m your host, writer and organizer Kelly Hayes. Back in 2023, my friend Mariame Kaba and I published a book about organizing called Let This Radicalize You. In writing the book, Mariame and I set out to create a resource that we wish had existed back when we began our own journeys with activism and organizing. Since then, we have been honored to hear that the book has been of great use, not only to new organizers, but also to people who have been doing this work for many years. Let This Radicalize You has received renewed attention since the reelection of Donald Trump in November of last year, as new waves of activists have struggled to find their footing in an era of rising autocracy. Today, I will be chatting with Mariame about what Let This Radicalize You brings to this moment.