Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

Gun Violence at Schools Has Risen Since the Pandemic

Troy Closson, New York Times

Gun violence on school grounds has seen a notable uptick in the last four years, according to a review of data collected by the K-12 School Shooting Database. More than 50 shootings with at least one victim have occurred during school time each year since 2021, according to the database, a research project that tracks all instances in which a gun was fired or brandished on school property. The victims and suspects were not all minors. They include a Memphis teenager who shot another classmate last month during a dispute in his high school parking lot; a teenage girl in Dallas who was grazed by a bullet in September when a fight broke out across the street from her school; and the attack at Apalachee High School in the same month that killed two students and two teachers in Winder, Ga.

A Hegseth DOD comes with a battle against public school education

Juan Perez Jr., Politico

Pete Hegseth has pushed for years to steep American education in patriotic principles and Christian theology — and he could implement that vision for thousands of military families if he’s confirmed to lead the Defense Department. Tucked inside the Pentagon’s nearly $900 billion-per-year bureaucracy is a network of 161 schools in 11 countries, seven states, Guam and Puerto Rico. The Department of Defense Education Activity agency educates some 67,000 children of active-duty military and civilian service members. And unlike public school systems, which are driven largely by state and local policy, the DODEA is a high-profile example of a federally run education program conservatives have longed to restructure.

Racial Justice Cannot Be Opt-In

Danielle Sutherland and Emily Germain, Educational Researcher

Despite a wave of support for anti-racist pedagogy and practices in the spring of 2020, authentic adoption remained limited, signaling an uphill battle during the present era of racial backlash. This brief, which relies on interviews with 55 New York teachers, found that most teachers showed interest in adopting anti-racist approaches but struggled due to limited support from district and local leadership. These findings suggest that large pedagogical shifts, such as anti-racist curriculum and instruction, are unlikely to be achieved without more broad-based and proactive support from administrators at all levels, especially given the ever-increasing politicization of anti-racist teaching.

Language, Culture, and Power

A Working-Class History of Fighting Deportations

David Bacon, Jacobin

The history of working-class organizing in the United States is full of examples of immigrant resistance to mass deportation, sweeps, and other tactics. Time and again, immigrant worker activity has changed the course of society. It has produced unions of workers ranging from copper miners to janitors. It turned the politics of Los Angeles on its head. And it is this tradition of worker resistance that is the real target of immigration enforcement waves, both current and threatened by the incoming administration. Organizers of the past fought deportation threats just as we do today, and their experiences offer valuable insights for our present situation. Not only did they show tremendous perseverance in the face of direct threats to migrants, but these organizers also envisioned a future of greater equality, working-class rights, and social solidarity — and proposed ways to get there. Increased immigration repression has a way of making the bones of the system easier to see and the reasons for changing it abundantly clear. These organizations and coalitions defending immigrant workers, their families, and their communities have often been building blocks for movements for deeper social change.

California leaders propose another measure to keep immigration officers away from schools

Mathew Miranda, Sacramento Bee

California leaders are preparing for the incoming presidential administration by introducing another measure to keep immigration enforcement efforts away from schools. Senate Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez, D-Long Beach, and State Superintendent Tony Thurmond announced the legislation on Monday in response to President-elect Donald Trump’s threats of mass deportations. The bill proposes strengthening provisions already enacted under California law and prohibiting police cooperation between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement within a one-mile radius of a school. Thurmond said the measure is crucial to protecting immigrant families and preserving revenue for California schools. School funding in California is dependent on attendance. “We think anyone would be hard pressed to be against the bill like this,” Thurmond said. “This is about preserving that revenue and keeping our schools from being robbed of needed resources to help California kids.“

UNDER THE LAW: The (mis)education of Indigenous students

Robert Kim, Phi Delta Kappan

Indigenous students in the U.S. — including American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children — have faced a history of serious educational mistreatment. Today, the abusive boarding school program has ended, but Indigenous children still experience formidable challenges. Robert Kim describes laws related to schools funded by the Bureau of Indian Education, studies showing how the federal government has fallen short of its responsibilities, and a recent case attempting to hold the government accountable.

Whole Children and Strong Communities

Indiana high school students offer up ideas to combat climate change [Video]

John Yang, PBS News Weekend

The mission to raise awareness and find solutions to the climate crisis extends to our nation’s schools. That’s where educators are hoping to empower students with knowledge and inspire them to come up with ways to ensure a better climate future. Lee Gaines from member station WFYI Indianapolis visited a classroom in Bloomington, Indiana this past spring where high school students were pitching their ideas to scientists.

Why Quincy Jones should be prominently featured in US music education − his absence reflects how racial segregation still shapes American classrooms

Philip Ewell, The Conversation

Quincy Jones, who died on Nov. 3, 2024, at the age of 91, was one of the most influential musicians in U.S. history. You might think such a notable figure would factor prominently in American music classrooms. Yet my research shows that Jones, who was Black, is rarely mentioned in mainstream U.S. music curricula. As a Black music professor, I believe his absence reflects the fact that music education in the U.S. is still segregated along racial lines, just like the country was for much of its history. In 2020, music theorist Megan Lyons and I analyzed the seven most common undergraduate music theory textbooks used in the U.S. We found that only 49 of the nearly 3,000 musical examples they cited were written by composers who were not White.

Gaza schools targeted in series of airstrikes as death toll passes 45,000

Victoria Beaule and Kiara Alfonseca, ABC News

A Sunday night airstrike on a school inside a humanitarian area designated by Israel in southern Gaza has killed 15 people, including children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Civil Defense.

Video captured the chaos as flames engulfed Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz school. People can be seen pouring out from a stairwell, including a woman carrying a child in the video. The person filming then approaches a body on the ground near the school walls as ambulances rush toward the scene. Bodies are carried from the building, as men are heard wailing in mourning.

Footage verified by ABC News from Monday morning shows Gazans painstakingly sifting through fabric and rubble for human flesh and shrapnel on the second floor of the school. The Israeli Defense Forces has not yet commented on the strike and have not responded to ABC News request for comment.

Access, Assessment, Advancement

‘Time is running out.’ University unions rush to organize before the Trump White House

Jaweed Kaleem, Los Angeles Times

Two years after 48,000 University of California academic workers won big pay gains in a historic six-week strike, labor experts and organizers predicted that their success, along with a labor-friendly Biden administration, would spur broad union activism within higher education institutions. A flurry of recent university union activity coupled with fears of a more pro-business, anti-labor Trump White House is providing the answer. At campuses across the country — including top California universities, New York University and Harvard — unions representing graduate student workers, part-time and non-tenure track faculty and others are rapidly and aggressively moving to organize workers.

Steep decline in Black, Hispanic enrollment at Harvard Law after Supreme Court ruling

Deena Zaru, ABC News

The first Harvard Law class admitted into the university since the Supreme Court effectively ended affirmative action at U.S. colleges last year is significantly less diverse, with a steep decline in Black and Hispanic student enrollment, according to data reported by The Harvard Crimson. According to the data, which was reported to the American Bar Association, Harvard Law’s J.D. Class of 2027 includes 19 Black students, as opposed to 43 students the previous year – with enrollment dropping by more than half. Enrollment of Hispanic students also steeply declined, with 32 students admitted into the class of 2027, compared with 63 the previous year.

He has prison in his past. Now he hopes law school is in his future

Denise Amos, Cal Matters

Austin O’Campo went from prison to graduating from UC Berkeley, while living in his car. Now  the 29-year-old San Jose resident is studying for law school while completing a fellowship designed to help young people like him find careers. The fellowship is through a nonprofit called CURYJ. Pronounced “courage,” the acronym stands for Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice. Among other things, it administers internships and fellowships for young people who have been involved in the legal system — either criminally, as a foster kid, via immigration or because of school discipline issues, said George Galvis, its executive director. O’Campo was homeless during his childhood and his grandmother took him in when he was 17. By then he’d spent time in juvenile facilities, abused drugs and alcohol — he is sober now — and later served time in prison for receiving stolen property, parole violations and dissuading a witness, he said.

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

‘Please Admit’: Rampant donor preferences alleged in college financial aid lawsuit

Zachary Schermele, USA TODAY

A new court filing in a high-profile lawsuit shows how much of a leg up the children of donors may have in the college admissions process. Emails and internal records from some of the nation’s most selective universities paint a picture of a system fraught with inequities and looser standards for applicants with rich parents. The evidence submitted Monday marks a new phase in a legal battle over allegations that, for years, 17 of the country’s top schools violated antitrust laws by conspiring to reduce financial aid for less affluent students. A group of students first sued the schools in 2022. Their lawyers are now arguing that they and their peers were overcharged more than $685 million in an alleged conspiracy. Lawyers for the schools have called those calculations “junk science.”

How D.C. tackled a child care crunch through a tax hike on the rich [Audio]

Andrea Hsu, NPR

When Boniece Gillis first heard rumblings that child care workers across the city might be getting some kind of significant pay bump, she tried to keep her excitement in check. “I was like, I’ll believe it when it comes,” says Gillis, an assistant teacher with Educare DC who was making about $18 an hour at the time, a couple of dollars more than D.C.’s minimum wage. In the fall of 2022, the raises did come. Two years on, the money has proved transformational. Gillis is one of roughly 4,000 child care workers in the nation’s capital who have benefited from a fund established through a tax hike on city residents earning more than $250,000 a year.

Sujood from Sudan: An Open Learner’s Story [Video]

Sujood Khalid Eldouma, Emmanuel Kasigazi, Michael Jordan Pilgreen, MIT OpenCourseWare

Sujood Eldouma always knew she loved math; she just didn’t know how to use it for good in the world.  But after a personal and educational journey that took her from Sudan to Cairo to London, all while leveraging MIT Open Learning’s online educational resources, she finally knows the answer: data science.

Democracy and the Public Interest

Why income and tense politics are limiting access to civics classes in California

Carolyn Jones, Cal Matters

At some high schools in California, civics is everywhere. It’s part of science and history classes. It’s after school at student council and newspaper meetings. It even happens outside of school, on field trips to the capitol and volunteer projects in the community. And after four years, it’s recognized with a gold seal on students’ diplomas. But most California high school students don’t have those opportunities. Lower-income students and those in politically mixed – or “purple” – areas where parent pushback is more common often miss out on a comprehensive education on how government works and why it matters. Voter turnout among adults nationwide might reflect that disparity in civic engagement, although there are many factors that influence people’s decision to vote and be civically engaged. The stakes are high, as misinformation and mistrust in government are on the rise, and the country reflects on a particularly divisive election season.

As book bans reach historic levels, more educators should get involved in school governance

John Pascarella, Hechinger Report

In 2021-22, 43 percent of book challenges targeted titles with LGBTQ+ characters, and 36 percent focused on books featuring characters of color or addressed themes of race and racism. The number of book bans in schools and libraries nearly tripled during the 2023-24 school year to more than 10,000, across red and blue states, according to a recent PEN America report. But that alarming statistic does not necessarily reflect how most voters feel about this growing form of censorship. As President-elect Donald Trump promises to withhold federal funding from schools that do not comply with executive orders restricting curriculum content, state and local officials must take steps to protect school governance decisions that reflect the will of the people in their communities. To accomplish this aim, more pre-K-12 educators should participate in local school board meetings and run for open school board seats.

Toward a decolonial shift in citizenship education: Empirical insights into German classrooms

Malte Kleinschmidt, Journal of Social Science Education

Lara is one of the 44 9th-grade students at grammar schools and secondary modern schools who are interviewed as part of the study on decolonial perspectives in citizenship  education.  These  semi-structured  interviews form the starting point for the conception of the subject-oriented decolonial citizenship education developed in the study. Here, Lara points to the crucial point of the persistence of the colonial past in the presence. In this sense, I do not understand coloniality as a ‘remnant’ of the past, of the bygone era of colonialism,  which  will  disappear  quasi-automatically,  possibly  through  transgenerational  transformations. From the perspective of decoloniality approaches, coloniality appears to be constitutive of the project of modernity itself. From a decolonial perspective, an examination of the past of slavery and colonialism is particularly necessary to understand the inequality and power structures of the present. Accordingly, decoloniality–as it is so often misunderstood, especially in Germany–does not primarily mean dealing with colonial pasts as completed but rather as questioning, undermining, or transforming colonial structures of the present.

Other News of Note

We’re Not Doomed Just Yet – A Gen Z Solution To Climate Anxiety in Youth

Kalyahn Varanasi, 11th Grade, About Boulder

When I was a young kid, climate change scared me. I remember being around 7 when my dad was talking about it with my mom. I don’t remember exactly what he was saying but it was about the destruction global warming could cause, and I honestly felt like the world was going to end before I turned 30. I was crying at that point, and then I asked him to stop talking about it, and he did, but he started whispering so I couldn’t hear him, but when I came back in the room I heard him and started crying again, and whined: “you said you would stop talking about it.” Another time when I was around 9 or 10 my swim coach was talking about it. He was talking with another coach or maybe an older swimmer, and he said something along the lines of Yeah if we don’t fully shift to electric cars in the next ten years the world is going to end (which is not true). I was older, so I didn’t cry, but I was hot with anxiety and I again felt like the world was going to end before I turned 30. My climate anxiety did not stop until I learned that society can reverse it, and how possible it was to reverse it.

For enslaved people, the holiday season was a time for revelry – and a brief window to fight back

Ana Lucia Araujo, The Conversation

During the era of slavery in the Americas, enslaved men, women and children also enjoyed the holidays. Slave owners usually gave them bigger portions of food, gifted them alcohol and provided extra days of rest. Those gestures, however, were not made out of generosity. As abolitionist, orator and diplomat Frederick Douglass explained, slave owners were trying to keep enslaved people under control by plying them with better meals and more downtime, in the hopes of preventing escapes and rebellions. Most of the time, it worked. But as I discuss in my recent book, “Humans in Shackles: An Atlantic History of Slavery,” many enslaved people were onto their owners and used this brief period of respite to plan escapes and start revolts.