Just News from Center X – August 21, 2026

8.21.26

Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

Book bans, LGBTQ+ outing policy under scrutiny in state candidate Sonja Shaw’s Chino Valley district

Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times

Legal challenges flared this week over an Inland Empire school district’s alleged removal of library books and, separately, on its efforts to require parental notification on student gender identity — policies strongly supported by the school board president, Sonja Shaw, a leading contender to become the next state schools superintendent. One policy of Chino Valley Unified allows parents and others to force the removal of school library books to which they object, resulting in books with sexual content or with LGBTQ+ themes being pulled off shelves, according to a complaint filed this week by a leading public-interest law firm and local parents.

Bullied, Threatened, and Exhausted: Florida School Board Members’ Struggle to Defend Public Education

Danfeng Koon, J, Elizabeth Grubb, Huriya Jabbar, Kiah Combs, Center for Evaluation and Education Policy

Florida has led the country in passing aggressive and restrictive laws that outlaw inclusive curriculum, limit teaching and learning, erode welcoming school environments, and increase privatization. Florida was the birthplace of the controversial Moms for Liberty organization, becoming the face of parental rights debates as well as contentious, sometimes violent school board meetings. Florida State officials have continued to foster an atmosphere of fear by publicly shaming, chastising, and threatening school board members and superintendents who express their own political opinions or take contrary policy stances. Through in-depth interviews with 17 school board members in 11 Florida counties, we examine: What are the new bullying tactics and how do they work? What are the personal, professional, and public impacts of these new bullying tactics? How are school board members responding? And what threat do these tactics pose to public education and democracy?

Higher grades and belonging: Trans students thrive when their teachers support them

Brooke Migdon, The 19th

Supportive teachers can make a world of difference for transgender students, influencing their sense of safety and academic engagement — often in the face of discrimination and bullying — according to new research from two national LGBTQ+ advocacy groups. Students whose identities are affirmed at school report a greater sense of belonging and higher grades, and are more likely to participate fully in class, according to a report released Tuesday by GLISTEN and the Trevor Project. Students report similar outcomes when they are able to connect with LGBTQ+ peers at school, see positive representations of LGBTQ+ people in their classrooms and attend schools with inclusive policies, such as those that allow them to compete on sports teams or use facilities that best align with their gender identities.

Language, Culture, and Power

A Young Immigrant’s Deportation Nightmare

Samantha Michaels, Mother Jones

The plane was stuck on the tarmac of a Louisiana airport, but Yurin Quiroa Ralda, 21, was not particularly eager to take off. He was being deported, based in part on misinterpreted records. And not to his birthplace, Guatemala, but to Ecuador, where he’d never even been. That alone was a nightmare, but Yurin’s situation was even more frustrating: After he’d crossed the US-Mexico border alone at age 16, the US government told him that if he waited patiently, he could apply for a green card because he had Special Immigrant Juvenile status, a classification reserved for kids who were abused, abandoned, or neglected by a parent. Congress created SIJ status in 1990, to give these kids a pathway to legal permanent residency so they wouldn’t have to go back to families that harmed them. Yurin, whose dad had abandoned him before he was born, had followed the rules and waited—and he’d recently became eligible to apply for a green card. Yet here he was on a plane bound for Ecuador.

Gov. Abbott proposes ban on H-1B visa use for Texas public schools during campaign stop

Megan Menchaca, Texas Tribune

Texas public schools couldn’t sponsor H-1B visas to hire foreign workers under a ban Gov. Greg Abbott proposed Tuesday. As part of an effort to target foreign influence in the state’s education systems, Abbott said he wants legislation to ensure “exactly zero” Texas public school employees are in the state on the federal visas. The governor said he would propose legislation to prohibit public schools from accepting gifts or entering into financial agreements with a foreign source, similar to what’s in place for Texas universities. Universities and related health institutions typically employ the majority of H-1B visa holders in the state’s education sector, but several school districts use the visas to fill critical teacher shortages in roles such as bilingual education.

15 states have laws that allow corporal punishment in schools. Here’s where, and why [Audio]

Kadin Mills, All Things Considered

One day, about eight years ago, when Tessa Davis’ son was in kindergarten, she got a call from his school outside Little Rock, Ark. She said the school told her he had grabbed a girl’s jacket in the cafeteria and twisted it – they thought he was trying to choke her. Given his past misbehavior, Davis said, the school gave her two options: He could either be suspended for three days or a school administrator could paddle him. NPR is only identifying her son by his first initial, C, because this story details his behavioral struggles and how he’s been disciplined in school. Davis said she couldn’t afford to miss three days of work to stay home with C.

Whole Children and Strong Communities

Protect All Kids—Not Just Athletes—From the Heat

Michelle A. Kirwan Bythwood, The Progressive

As summer vacation ends and children return to school, record-breaking heat continues across much of the country. Fortunately, many states and athletic governing bodies have adopted measures to protect their student athletes from extreme heat. But when those athletes step off the field and into the classroom, the protections disappear. Few states have comprehensive heat safety standards to protect children from heat exposure during the school day. Extreme heat does not distinguish between a football player, a third-grade student at recess, or a sophomore sitting in a hot classroom. Why should we? As a pediatrician, I know that children are uniquely vulnerable to heat. I’ve seen firsthand the physical and mental health consequences when heat illness is not recognized early. As the earth’s average temperature continues to rise, children’s risk of heat-related harm continues to increase with it.

Climate risks through the lens of Dhaka’s schools

UNESCO

A waterlogged schoolyard. Classrooms becoming less comfortable in extreme heat. Heavy rainfall disrupting movement and attendance. Across three schools in Dhaka, Bangladesh, climate-related pressures take different forms. Yet they converge on the same question: can students reach class safely, learn in suitable conditions and continue their education when the weather becomes more extreme? At Amtali Staff Welfare Govt. Primary School in Tejgaon, Gulshan Ara Khanum, Head Teacher, looked across the schoolyard and described what happens when heavy rain arrives. “When heavy rain falls, the water stands here for days,” she said. “The children cannot reach school. And when they do come, their uniforms are wet, their books are soaked and their day is already disrupted before it begins.”

Californians voted to spend $1 billion on K-12 arts. Why are schools returning the money?

Carolyn Jones, CalMatters

Three years after voters passed an ambitious arts education funding measure, California’s K-12 schools were supposed to be awash in dance, music, theater and fine arts. But some schools are returning their arts money to the state, saying the rules on how to spend it are too vague and they can’t find enough arts teachers. “The sad thing is, this means that thousands of kids aren’t getting art,” said Austin Beutner, the former superintendent of Los Angeles Unified who wrote Proposition 28. “We thought Prop. 28 was clear.” Prop. 28, which voters overwhelmingly approved in 2022, sets aside about $1 billion a year for the arts in California public schools. Schools with more low-income students get more money, but otherwise funding is based on enrollment. Los Angeles Unified, with about 400,000 students, got about $72 million last year, while Death Valley Unified, with 21 students, got about $2,000.

Access, Assessment, Advancement

Why Tenant Unions Are Spreading Across College Campuses

Lily Seltz, In These Times

Alva Yanowitz spent much of her freshman year sick with a mysterious illness. She was tired all the time, with a sore throat and cough that wouldn’t go away. In late spring, Yanowitz ran a mold test in her dorm room at the University of Vermont, which she says came back positive. She figured it was too late to report the problem to the university, but as soon as she moved out of the room, she says, ​“my symptoms went away.” Spooked by the experience, Yanowitz later joined the UVM Student Tenant Union, a group spotlighting poor housing conditions on campus. Last fall, the group solicited student housing horror stories through a ​“Fucked Up Dorm Contest” on their Instagram. After hundreds of students cast votes for four contenders, the ​“winner” was a pile of rags and towels on a bathroom floor, soaked through with backed-up sewage. A large, perfectly intact mushroom growing from a mold-covered slab of wood came in a close second.

Once Globally Preeminent, U.S. Universities Are Sliding Into Decline

Jon Marcus, Washington Monthly

The nation was distracted by other things when a quiet warning sounded: Support was diminishing for American academic research that had led to breakthroughs and innovation. That familiar-sounding worry came not this year, but near the end of World War II, in a pivotal government study by the wartime Office of Scientific Research and Development. The response then: Infusions of government cash that would propel the U.S. higher education system into international preeminence over the subsequent decades. American colleges and universities rose to the ranks of the best in the world. They attracted top scholars who won a disproportionate number of Nobel Prizes. They helped drive the innovation economy. As trade deficits beset other industries, education became the sixth-largest U.S. services export. At their peak enrollment, international students brought in more than $40 billion a year.

Pentagon threatens to cut federal funding to 30 universities over foreign academic partnerships

Joseph Gedeon, The Guardian

Thirty US universities could lose federal funding unless they review and cut foreign academic partnerships the Pentagon considers a national security risk within the next two weeks, under a Pentagon directive aimed largely at ties to Chinese institutions. Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown and Cornell are among the institutions ordered to conduct and report the reviews – and end partnerships deemed problematic – by 31 August, according to a US official who provided the full list to the Guardian. “The Department of War has zero tolerance for academic partnerships that compromise our national security,” Emil Michael, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer, said in a news release from Monday.

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

The most advantaged students attend the best-funded colleges. Does it have to be this way?

Matt Barnum, Chalkbeat

The prevailing philosophy of American higher education is simple enough: The best-funded universities ought to be reserved for the best-qualified students, who are largely from advantaged backgrounds. Such is the reality described in a new study set to be released through the National Bureau of Economic Research in the coming weeks. The paper documents the all-encompassing stratification of American higher education. It is not simply that top students go to more selective colleges; it’s that those colleges spend far more on their students’ education. This is not just true of elite private universities; it applies to public colleges as well. In practice, higher education’s pyramid-like structure means that the rich — both academically and financially — get richer through a well-funded college education. At the moment, higher education is under fire for what critics describe as equity and DEI efforts run amok. Yet its intensely unequal structure remains solidly in place.

This school teaches Senegal’s brightest girls to push back against patriarchal norms

Monika Pronczuk, AP News

As a child, Ndeye Awa Diop was so shy she couldn’t look people in the eye. Raised in rural Senegal, she learned to embrace what was traditionally expected of girls across the predominately Muslim West African nation. They should be seen but not heard. They should obey their elders. But her life turned upside down when as a 12-year-old she was accepted into the country’s first elite boarding school for girls, on Goree Island off Dakar, the capital. “So, here I am, coming here completely shy. I didn’t even dare raise my hand in class,” said Diop. She was homesick, crying. Over the years, the sisterhood of classmates helped. Now she is 19 and president of the student council, and about to graduate. “I learned to be a leader,” she said.

Tikia Hamilton *15 Recommends Books on the Equal Education Movement

Elisabeth H. Daugherty, Princeton Alumni Weekly

Tikia K. Hamilton *15 is a professor of history at Loyola University Chicago, where her courses focus on race and African American experiences. While growing up in Chicago, she looked to education as a way to expand her opportunities, particularly after grappling with some of the racial inequities that many of the nation’s public schools still face. She writes that, in many ways, her new book, Nothing Less Than Equality: The Battle Over Segregated Education in the Nation’s Capital, is a direct reflection of her life’s experiences as both a student and an educator. It considers the development of Black education in Washington, D.C., against the backdrop of slavery and focuses on African Americans’ demands for equitable resources under the federal city’s segregated school system. She reveals how not all African Americans were of one accord when it came to questions about whether integration was the securest path to achieving educational equity. 

Democracy and the Public Interest

At “Quasi-Public” Private Schools, 100% of Students Get Tuition Vouchers. There’s Almost No Accountability.

Megan O’Matz, ProPublica

At some point, my reporting colleagues and I began referring to them as the “100% schools.” We were following the money that flows from states’ public coffers into private schools through vouchers when we noticed a subset of educational facilities where tax dollars cover all or a big part of the tuition for every student. In essence, these were schools that were funded like public schools but didn’t operate with the same oversight or transparency. Our reporting found that these types of private schools exist throughout the country and that in Wisconsin — where I’m based — there were 39 that fell into that category during the most recent school year. Together, they were educating 7,923 children and taking in roughly $87 million from vouchers offered by the state.

Arizona court kills voucher ballot measure, leaving a national school choice debate unresolved

Lily Altavena, Chalkbeat

The Arizona Supreme Court effectively killed a ballot measure that would have brought significant oversight and an income cap to the state’s school voucher-like program in a ruling Tuesday. The battle over the measure brought high drama to the desert — and exposed cracks forming between conservatives over oversight of the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, which families can use like vouchers on homeschooling, private school, and other expenses. Those divisions are still in play: In the state superintendent’s race, Arizona voters will choose between two candidates who disagree sharply about whether the ESAs need more regulations. Yet the ballot measure’s failure demonstrates that enacting new rules for longstanding universal school choice programs can be a difficult task in the current climate — even if some voucher supporters express qualified support for those limits.

What Does the Trump Administration Have Against the 26th Amendment?

Jonathan Becker, New York Times

When America lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, the move had broad bipartisan support, starting with college students and civil rights groups and running right up through Congress and state legislatures. At the 26th Amendment’s signing ceremony, 55 years ago last month, President Richard Nixon declared that “America’s new voters, America’s young generation,” would bring “moral courage” and “a spirit of high idealism” to the country. Today, however, America’s current “young generation” — and in particular, college students — stand at the intersection of two of the Trump administration’s favorite targets: voting rights and higher education. Through a range of measures, the administration has sought to make it more difficult for students to vote and for colleges and universities to assist student voters.

Other News of Note

What happened after 13 young people in Hawaii sued over climate change

Bridgett Ennis, Yale Climate Connections

Young people in Hawaii now meet regularly with the state’s Department of Transportation to offer input on public transit, bike lanes, and other strategies to help the department transition away from fossil fuels. Establishing the Hawai‘i Youth Transportation Council was just one of the outcomes of the landmark 2024 settlement of the Navahine v. Hawai‘i DOT lawsuit, which was brought by 13 young plaintiffs. Their lawsuit alleged that the DOT wasn’t making progress toward the climate goals set by the state, violating the plaintiffs’ constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment. They settled the lawsuit in 2024 before it went to trial, and the DOT is now required to decarbonize transportation by 2045 and, through the youth council, to listen and incorporate the priorities of young Hawaiians. Yale Climate Connections spoke with Charlotte Madin, one of the plaintiffs, and with Joanna Zeigler, a staff attorney at Our Children’s Trust who led the case.

California launches environmental youth council after EPA program lapses under Trump

Hayley Smith, Los Angeles Times

The Trump administration has quietly let lapse a program for young leaders at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, The Times has learned. In its place, California will launch its own council for young people looking to get involved with environmental issues at the state level. The California EPA’s Environmental Youth Advisory Council is doing a callout for people ages 14 to 20 years old who want to build leadership skills, learn from environmental decision-makers and make recommendations on state environmental policy, officials said. The move comes after a similar group within the federal EPA, the Biden-era National Environmental Youth Advisory Council, appears to have expired under the Trump administration.