Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

Donald Trump vs. American History

Clint Smith, The Atlantic

This past fall, in a small southern foundry, Robert E. Lee’s face was placed on a furnace that reached a temperature of more than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. As the heat mounted, a haunting orange-red glow appeared across Lee’s severed visage, and the cracks that split his bronze cheeks began to look like streams of dark tears beneath his eyes. Lee’s face was once part of a larger statue of the Confederate general that stood in Charlottesville, Virginia, and was at the center of protests and counterprotests during the infamous “Unite the Right” rally there in 2017. The city had taken the statue down in 2021 and given it to a local Black-history museum. Once melted, the statue’s bronze would be repurposed into a new work of public art. As I contemplated Lee’s metal face glowing like a small sun in the dark universe of the workshop, I thought of the statement issued by former President Donald Trump when the statue had come down. “Robert E. Lee is considered by many Generals to be the greatest strategist of them all,” Trump had written, reaffirming his past praise for the Confederate leader. Trump was implicitly telling his base: They came for Lee, and next they will come for you. It’s not hard to see why the metalworkers who melted down the statue of Lee did so at an undisclosed location; they reportedly feared for their safety.

The (mostly) Republican moms fighting to reclaim their Idaho school district from conservatives

Laura Pappano, Hechinger Report

The moms seated at the conference table on Election Day were worried. They had good reason: Their poll watchers at voting sites — grange halls on dirt roads, community centers hardly larger than a bungalow— suggested things were not going their way. There were no formal exit polls conducted in West Bonner County, where the school district covers 781 square miles over timbered hills and crystalline lakes in the north Idaho panhandle. But Dana Douglas, a fit and forceful blonde sipping on an Americano and a water bottle boosted with electrolytes (she was teaching spin at 6 p.m.) had been poll-watching at Edgemere Grange Hall, and she had her indicator for how voters were casting their ballots: “Anyone who said, ‘Hello, good morning’” was in their camp. “Anyone with a scowl” who would not look her in the eye was in the other.

Cheating Fears Over Chatbots Were Overblown, New Research Suggests

Natasha Singer, New York Times

Last December, as high school and college students began trying out a new A.I. chatbot called ChatGPT to manufacture writing assignments, fears of mass cheating spread across the United States. To hinder bot-enabled plagiarism, some large public schools districts — including those in Los Angeles, Seattle and New York City — quickly blocked ChatGPT on school-issued laptops and school Wi-Fi. But the alarm may have been overblown — at least in high schools. According to new research from Stanford University, the popularization of A.I. chatbots has not boosted overall cheating rates in schools.

Language, Culture, and Power

What Asian American Educators Shared During a National Reckoning With Racism and Pandemic

Diana Lee, EdSurge

In the summer of 2022 as part of the Voices of Change project, EdSurge Research convened 80 Asian American K-12 educators in a series of virtual learning circles to listen to their stories. Our conversations spanned the gamut of topics that are top of mind for educators in all corners of the U.S. these days, including the fallout from COVID-19 and America’s ongoing racial reckoning; teacher burnout, low pay, and systemic teacher shortages; and how best to utilize new tech and curriculum with increasing demands and shrinking professional resources. Overwhelmingly, however, these convenings served as a safe space for Asian American educators to connect with each other about the many subtle and sometimes overt instances of racial oppression they have experienced while working in schools.

Native Student Alleges Freedom of Speech Violation by Burney High School Principal

Michelle Weidman, Shasta Scout

In mid-November Honeygirl McCloud, a senior at Burney Jr. Sr. High School, was doing what many high school seniors across the country were doing, preparing to have her senior photo taken and selecting a quote to be published next to her photo in the 2023/24 yearbook. McCloud, a member of the Karuk Tribe, and a descendent of Pomo and the Atsuge band of Pit River people, says she was surprised when her quote, “MMIW (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women),” was initially rejected by her principal, Ray Guerrero. Shasta Scout was unable to confirm or deny that allegation via Guerrero, who did not respond to two emails and a phone call last week. A review of district policies and the California education code indicates that McCloud and other students’ right to freedom of speech is protected in the choice of their senior quote so long as that quote isn’t “obscene, libelous, or slanderous.”

The racist bullying at school was unbearable, so I decided to speak out

David Malakai Allen, Chalkbeat Newark

In November of my junior year of high school, I watched from outside my body as I spoke before the Newark Board of Education. As someone who had always shied away from being under any kind of spotlight, it was uncharacteristic for me to be delivering this speech. However, when it was time to decide if I was going to speak up or remain silent, I remembered a quote by the incomparable writer Zora Neale Hurston: “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”

Whole Children and Strong Communities

18 California children sue EPA over climate change

Alex Wigglesworth, Los Angeles Times

Eighteen California children are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for allegedly violating their constitutional rights by allowing pollution from burning fossil fuels to continue despite knowing the harm it poses to kids. The lawsuit was filed Sunday in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by Our Children’s Trust, an Oregon-based nonprofit public interest law firm that has filed legal actions over climate change in multiple states. “A lot of times, people talk about the failure of government to act on climate change, but that’s not what this case is about,” said lead attorney Julia Olson, executive director and chief legal counsel for Our Children’s Trust. “This case is about EPA’s affirmative conduct in allowing levels of climate pollution that are causing planetary heating and the increase in wildfires and smoke pollution and heat that’s harming these young people’s health and safety.”

Students Are Often Told Success Means Leaving Their Neighborhood. It Doesn’t

Sharif El-Mekki,  Education Week

When I first became a principal in my beloved west Philadelphia neighborhood, one of the more alarming things I noticed was the number of colleagues I would hear tell kids to get their education and “get out”—to get out of their communities, to move away from their parents and grandparents and friends. These well-intentioned but misinformed educators may have been trying to see our students “do better” for themselves, but the effect was painting the place and community that our students called home as a sort of vortex where personal and professional success was impossible. The only way to be successful, these students were told, was to put distance between them and their people, to erase their connections, their history. Yet, a recent book argues that to be truly successful, to fully thrive, our students need to often hear the exact opposite. In Stay and Prevail: Students of Color Don’t Need to Leave Their Communities to Succeed, Nancy Gutiérrez, the president and CEO of The Leadership Academy, and Roberto Padilla, a superintendent in the Bronx borough of New York City, make the case that we need our community members to lean in, weigh in, and lead in our schools and beloved communities.

Reducing harm for the LGBTQ+ community

Ferial Pearson and Steven Gill, Phi Delta Kappan

For years, LGBTQ+ issues in schools have been a hot-button topic. As out queer educators, we have faced invalidating and even frightening obstacles, and we have seen our queer and trans students suffer, also. A survey of the literature validates these experiences. What we’ve learned from our experiences, observations, and the literature leads us to recommend best practices to reduce harm and create positive change for the LGBTQ+ community in schools.

We must begin by understanding the harms members of the LGBTQ+ community are facing. LGBTQ+ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning, with the + referring to the myriad other identities related to gender and sexuality. The past two decades have seen greater visibility for these communities and more research focusing on how to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ children.

Access, Assessment, Advancement

Michigan is spending $107M more on pre-K − here’s what the money will buy

Christina J. Weiland and Ajay Chaudry, The Conversation

Michigan’s Great Start Readiness Program is a voluntary public pre-K program for 4-year-olds operating in all but one of Michigan’s 83 counties. Classrooms are offered in both public schools and in community-based partner organizations. The majority of children who attend qualify based on their family’s income. Kids whose parents earn up to 300% of the federal poverty line, or $90,000 for a family of 4, are eligible. Children can also gain access to the program if they have a disability, at least one of their parents has not graduated from high school or is illiterate, or English is not the primary language in their home. In the 2021-22 school year, the program operated in 2,524 classrooms and enrolled 30,872 children across Michigan. By our team’s estimates, enrollment increased to 33,200 in 2022-23.

Why Fewer International Students Are Coming to the US

Madeline Armstrong, The Nation

Mir Sultan dreamed of studying in the United States. As a student in India, he was ecstatic when he had the chance to attend the University of Richmond in Virginia. But five years later, the dream came to an abrupt end when he was forced to leave the country. “After my visa expired, I didn’t get the opportunity to stay in the States,” said Sultan. “I ended up having to go back to India.” International students in the US have few opportunities to remain in the country after graduation. Most are allowed one year to work in their field—STEM majors are allowed three—then, it becomes increasingly difficult to stay. Work visas are incredibly difficult to come by, and many have to apply for the H1B lottery, with only an 18 percent chance of being selected. The lottery happens once a year, and all noncitizens interested in working in the United States enter. International students are not offered any other pathway to a visa; they must enter the lottery competing with every person attempting to get a work visa in the US.

College Access in California

Iwunze Ugo, PPIC

About three in five Californians enroll in college just after high school.Recent data show that just over 62% of the 435,000 students who graduated from high school in spring 2020 enrolled in college within 12 months, down from a recent peak of 67% in 2017–18. Enrollment rates are below average for low-income (54%) and English Learner students (42%). Just over half (55%) of Black and Latino graduates enrolled in college, compared to 68% of white students and 86% of Asian students. Women (nearly 68%) are significantly more likely to enroll than men (57%). College enrollment rates were highest among graduates from the Bay Area (72%), and lowest in the Inland Empire and San Joaquin Valley (53%). Southern California (67%), the Central Coast (also 67%), and the far north (59%) were close to the statewide average.

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

Labor Leader Ai-jen Poo Confronts ‘the Biggest Driver of Economic Inequality That Nobody Talks About.’

Jessica Goodheart, The American Prospect

Ai-jen Poo, a labor organizer and president of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, has been shining the spotlight on the crisis of care in the United States for almost three decades. She advocates for some of the nation’s lowest paid workers—those who tend to our children, the elderly and the disabled. Last year, her efforts to shore up the country’s fragmented and underfunded care infrastructure nearly resulted in a multibillion-dollar federal investment. The infrastructure proposal President Joe Biden presented to Congress included universal pre-kindergarten, home health care for seniors and child care tax credits. But the Build Back Better Act did not make it through a closely divided Senate after having passed the House of Representatives.

Minnesota Supreme Court OKs de facto public school segregation

Andy Monserud, Courthouse News Service

The Minnesota Supreme Court found Wednesday that massive racial imbalances in Twin Cities schools do not violate the state constitution’s guarantee of a “general and uniform system of public schools,” but that parents who object to what they called de facto segregation may still show a violation if they can demonstrate that segregation harmed their children’s education. In an opinion written by Justice Margaret Chutich, the court ruled segregation in school districts in Minnesota’s two largest cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul, did not necessarily represent a failure by the Legislature to follow a constitutional mandate to establish a “general and uniform,” and “thorough and efficient” system of public schools throughout the state. Parents of students in those schools, however, could still show that major racial disparities led those schools to provide inadequate education.

Emergency Support, with a Human Touch

Liz Franczyk, American Educator

What’s unique about FAST Funds—and about your Local 212/MATC FAST Fund? The premise is that faculty are on the frontlines. I teach at MATC; my colleagues and I see our students not being able to complete their work because they are hungry, don’t have a stable roof over their head, or don’t have transportation—whatever it may be. The need is immense, and our fund is growing every year at a rate that I don’t think is sustainable. Frankly, we need legislation to make college free; short of that, we need to increase higher education funding and student aid. At MATC, the FAST Fund brings faculty and students together and bypasses all the bureaucracy that comes with big institutions. We purposefully don’t have many requirements for assistance. In contrast, MATC has several forms of assistance, including scholarships and an emergency fund, but they have requirements like completing a certain number of semesters or maintaining a 2.0 GPA (some of those requirements are the result of federal financial aid rules or other federal mandates). We don’t put up those barriers, and we help with books, fees, rent, groceries, gas—whatever is threatening to throw the student off track.

Democracy and the Public Interest

To Educate and Mobilize Voters: Digital Teacher Activism during the 2020 Elections

Chris Gilbert, Radical Teacher

This article explores the use of digital technologies by North Carolina teacher activists during the 2020 elections.  Online research revealed these activists utilized digital technologies largely for two purposes: 1.) to perform public pedagogy to educate voters, and 2.) to mobilize voters to support pro-public education candidates.  This article describes and analyzes several highly visible and/or innovative practices within these two categories.  Teacher activists’ use of digital media to adapt to COVID-19 is also discussed.

Judge rules Kentucky’s charter school law unconstitutional

McKenna Horsley, Kentucky Lantern

A Franklin Circuit Court judge on Monday struck down a law allowing charter schools in Kentucky, ahead of an expected effort in next year’s legislature to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot that would allow public money to be spent on private schools. Judge Phillip Shepherd declared 2022’s House Bill 9 unconstitutional in a lawsuit filed by the Council for Better Education, which represents 168 Kentucky school districts. Shepherd wrote that charter schools are “private entities” that do not meet the Kentucky Constitution’s definition of  “public schools” or “common schools.”  The “policy goals of the legislation are not at issue in this case,” wrote Shepherd. “Here, the only issue is whether the legislation runs afoul of the very specific mandates of the Kentucky Constitution governing public education and the expenditure of tax dollars.”

Chicago Public Schools leaders want to move away from school choice

Reema Amin & Becky Vevea, Chalkbeat Chicago

Chicago school leaders want to move away from the district’s system of school choice — in which families apply to a myriad of charter, magnet, test-in, or other district-run programs — according to a resolution the Board of Education will vote on this week. The move puts in motion Mayor Brandon  Johnson’s campaign promise to reinvigorate Chicago Public Schools’ neighborhood schools. On the campaign trail, Johnson likened the city’s school choice system to a “Hunger Games scenario” that forces competition for resources and ultimately harms schools, particularly those where students are zoned based on their address.

Other News of Note

Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place to be a child: UNICEF [Video]

ABC News

As the death toll continues to climb, UNICEF called the Gaza Strip the most dangerous place in the world for children.

UN General Assembly votes overwhelmingly to demand a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza

Edith Lederer, AP News

The U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to demand a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza in a strong demonstration of global support for ending the Israel-Hamas war. The vote also showed the growing isolation of the United States and Israel. The vote in the 193-member world body was 153 in favor, 10 against and 23 abstentions, and ambassadors and other diplomats burst into applause as the final numbers were displayed. The United States and Israel were joined in opposing the resolution by eight countries — Austria, Czechia, Guatemala, Liberia, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay. The support was much higher than for an Oct. 27 Arab-sponsored resolution that called for a “humanitarian truce” leading to a cessation of hostilities, where the vote was 120-14 with 45 abstentions. “Today was a historic day in terms of the powerful message that was sent from the General Assembly,” Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, said after the vote. “And it is our collective duty to continue in this path until we see an end to this aggression against our people, to see this war stopping against our people. It is our duty to save lives.”