Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

Tracking Trump: His actions on education 

Hechinger Report 

Since taking office Jan. 20, President Donald Trump has unleashed a flurry of orders and actions designed to reshape the federal government’s role in education. He has called the Education Department a “con job” and said he wants to close it “immediately.” That would take an act of Congress; but in the meantime, the administration has taken steps to transform the agency, overseeing hundreds of millions in cuts to education research, teacher training programs and other projects. The agency has also begun laying off employees, including in its Office for Civil Rights. At the same time, the Trump administration is attempting to redefine what the federal government considers discrimination in schools and on college campuses. In letters and orders, the administration has tried to eliminate policies it describes as “woke” and to punish academic institutions it says discriminate against white and Asian people and others by taking into account race in hiring, housing, admissions and other practices. The Department of Education under Trump has also issued orders to ban transgender athletes from sports competitions and root out practices inclusive of transgender students.

Education Dept. Gives Schools Two Weeks to Eliminate Race-Based Programs

Zach Montague, New York Times

The Education Department warned schools in a letter on Friday that they risked losing federal funding if they continued to take race into account when making scholarship or hiring decisions, or so much as nodded to race in “all other aspects of student, academic and campus life.” The announcement gave institutions 14 days to comply. It built on a major Supreme Court ruling in 2023 that found that the use of race-conscious admissions practices at colleges and universities was unlawful. But it went far beyond the scope of that decision by informing schools that considering race at all when making staffing decisions or offering services to subsets of students would be grounds for punishment. 

‘A step backwards’: How federal threats to DEI are impacting California schools 

Mallika Seshadri and Lasherica Thornton, Ed Source

Tough decisions lie ahead for schools across California as the federal government cracks down on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.  The latest measure came in the form of a letter issued Friday by the U.S. Department of Education, giving K-12 schools across the country two options: to eliminate programs focused on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) within two weeks, or face unspecified cuts in federal funding.  “I fully anticipate that it will have a chilling effect on school districts, but also colleges and universities,” said Royel Johnson, who leads the University of Southern California Race and Equity Center’s National Assessment of Collegiate Campus Climates. The Department of Education’s letter isn’t law — nor is it legal, Johnson said.

Language, Culture, and Power

Reshaping Schooling: How the History of Black and Native Education Can Inform Our Future [Audio]

Jill Anderson and Eve Ewing, The Harvard EdCast

Writer and scholar Eve Ewing, Ed.M.’13, Ed.D.’16, wants people to talk, not just about how American schools started, but also how that can inform the future of schools, especially for Black and Native children. She argues that Black and Native children’s schooling experience is more than just a footnote, but a central narrative in history. “From the very first classes that I taught, I always began by telling my students, you cannot understand the history of schools in this country if you don’t understand schools for Black people and schools for Native people,” she says. “Those are foundational to understanding the history of American public schooling.” Those historical foundations of American public schooling are the focus of her new book, Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism. Ewing explains that her book was born from a need to unify discussions on these histories, structured around three themes: discipline and punishment, intellectual inferiority, and economic subjugation.

Schools around the US confront anxiety over Trump’s actions on immigration

Moriah Balingit, Bianca Vázquez Toness, and Jocelyn Gecker, AP News

In Fresno, California, social media rumors about impending immigration raids at the city’s schools left some parents panicking — even though the raids were all hoaxes. In Denver, a real immigration raid at an apartment complex led to scores of students staying home from school, according to a lawsuit. And in Alice, Texas, a school official incorrectly told parents that Border Patrol agents might board school buses to check immigration papers. President Donald Trump’s immigration policies already are affecting schools across the country, as officials find themselves responding to rising anxiety among parents and their children, including those who are here legally. Trump’s executive actions vastly expanded who is eligible for deportation and lifted a ban on immigration enforcement in schools.

Fewer California high school seniors are applying for financial aid. Some blame Trump’s immigration policies

Mikhail Zinshteyn, Cal Matters

Fewer California high school seniors are completing federal financial aid applications than in past years, which some analysts say is a sign that students may fear the Trump administration will use their sensitive data for immigration enforcement.The number of seniors completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, has dropped by about 48,000 students, or 25%, as of last week, compared to this point last year. In both years, the California deadline for state financial aid — such as waivers to fully cover tuition at public universities plus other awards — is early March. Also down dramatically is the share of students applying who have at least one parent who’s undocumented: That number has plunged 44% so far this year compared to this point last year — from about 30,000 students then to 17,000 now.

Whole Children and Strong Communities

The “Teenage Dream” in an Era of Isolation

Aina Marzia, The Nation

What is the teenage dream? Something sold to us by movies and TV shows, pop stars and bands, and even our own parents. We’re told to expect robust social lives and plenty of freedom during our teenage years. But images of after-school bonfires and strolls around bustling malls couldn’t be further from the reality of teen life today. It’s certainly how I feel as an 18-year-old from Texas—as do many of my peers. “Where are we going to go?” asks Bethania, a 17-year-old from Washington, DC, describing the “constant struggle” to find a place to hang out. According to The Conversation, 51 percent of 12th graders in the 1980s and ’90s were hanging out with friends daily. A 2023 poll showed that only 14 percent of Americans now do the same.

Education Belongs on the Climate Agenda

Adenike Oladosu, Project Syndicate

In my country, Nigeria, the climate crisis is driving people from their homes, fueling conflict, claiming lives, and causing economic instability. And Nigeria is hardly alone: climate change is a global challenge, and one of the most powerful tools we have to achieve the systemic change required to meet it is education, particularly in conflict- and crisis-affected countries.

Unfortunately, education in emergencies has been sidelined in climate debates. At last year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, I attended panels and events about adaptation and mitigation, early-warning systems, disaster-risk reduction, and gender equity. But education was mentioned only in passing, and in the context of teaching climate change in the classroom.

LGBTQ history videos find new home after PBS pulls content due to Trump executive orders

Alex Zimmerman, Chalkbeat

In response to a blizzard of executive orders from President Donald Trump, the Public Broadcasting Service recently erased a series of videos made in partnership with New York City Public Schools focused on LGBTQ history. This week, the city’s Education Department found a new home for them: its own website. The short films draw on material from the city’s LGBTQ-focused curriculum, part of a series called “Hidden Voices” that seeks to elevate a broad range of underrepresented groups students learn about in their social studies classrooms. The videos profile prominent LGBTQ people such as the feminist thinker Audre Lorde and civil rights leader Bayard Rustin.

Access, Assessment, Advancement

As Fed Ed Data Disappears, Users Scramble to Preserve It

NEPC Newsletter

Since 1867, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has collected data on American schools. That stream of information informs everything from funding services for students with disabilities to municipal planning to legal actions. But this information and other data and analyses from the Department of Education, which houses NCES, are now in danger of being cut off at the source. Soon after President Trump’s inauguration, the administration removed access to more than 8,000 web pages related to the federal government, many of which touch upon or impact education.

This college president isn’t afraid of Donald Trump

Perry Bacon Jr., Washington Post

Many college presidents and deans are issuing mealymouthed statements, ending long-standing programs, removing content from websites and otherwise cowering in the face of the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education. Then there’s Michael S. Roth. The president of Connecticut’s Wesleyan University wrote a piece in Slate that described some of the Trump’s administration rhetoric as authoritarian. He consistently reposts articles criticizing Trump’s decisions. He speaks and blogs firmly in defense of diversity, equity and inclusion, transgender rights and immigration.

After Sweeping Anti-DEI Guidance, What Should Colleges Do?

Liam Knox, Inside HigherEd

Late Friday night, long after most people had settled in for a long Presidents’ Day weekend, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights declared in a four-page letter that any race-based policies or programming in K-12 schools and colleges were unlawful. The letter targeted “every facet of academia,” from scholarships and academic prizes to campus cultural centers and even graduation ceremonies. If institutions fail to comply in 14 days, they risk losing federal funding.

By the following morning, the letter had spread fear and indignation throughout the American education system.

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

“We’ve Been Essentially Muzzled”: Department of Education Halts Thousands of Civil Rights Investigations Under Trump

Jennifer Smith Richards and Jodi S. Cohen, ProPublica

In the three-and-a-half weeks since Donald Trump returned to the presidency, investigations by the agency that handles allegations of civil rights violations in the nation’s schools and colleges have ground to a halt. At the same time, there’s been a dramatic drop in the number of new cases opened by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights — and the few that attorneys have been directed to investigate reflect some of Trump’s priorities: getting rid of gender-neutral bathrooms, banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports and alleged antisemitism or discrimination against white students.

Education system in ruins: UN says 95% of school buildings damaged [Video]

Hani Mahmoud, Al Jazeera English

Palestine is known for having one of the world’s highest literacy rates, but Israel’s the total decimation of Gaza is threatening the future of children and youths. The UN and rights groups say more than 92 percent of all school buildings have been damaged or destroyed. And more than three quarters of students have no access to formal education.

Denying Pathology While Implying It? Avoiding Person-Centered Pathology Traps in Counter-Deficit Research

Antar A. Tichavakunda and Suneal Kolluri, Educational Researcher

Pathological thinking surrounding disenfranchised and marginalized communities remains a problem in education policy, popular discourse, and research on marginalized communities. Scholars employ a host of frameworks to challenge such pathological thinking, often through the language of deficits. We argue that in an effort to refute pathological thinking about marginalized communities, counter-deficit frameworks potentially rely on a different logic of pathology through an overreliance on person-centered rationales for educational success and educational inequity. Specifically, this essay demonstrates how scholars, if they are not careful, can fall into two different pathology traps: (a) the “high achievers trap” and (b) the “blaming teachers trap.” We offer guidance of how to avoid such traps through careful attention to structural forces of oppression.

Democracy and the Public Interest

The Real Origins of Public Education [Video]

The Atlantic

Why do governments educate their citizens? More than 200 years ago, Western regimes shifted the responsibility of education from the family to the state. The political scientist Agustina Paglayan argues that this transition happened not in pursuit of democratic ideals, but in the interest of social control.

All Politics is Local [Audio]

Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider, Have you Heard?

Organizing in defense of public education at the local level has never been more vital. And yet in an era when even the most local elections are now nationalized, electing pro-public education candidates can be a heavy lift. In this episode, we hear from a group of parents in Souderton, Pennsylvania who have been slowly ‘moving the needle,’ making incremental gains in each election cycle. They’re hoping that 2025 will finally be the charm when it comes to convincing local voters to make the school board nonpartisan again.

Conservatives Have Big Plans for D.C. Public Schools

Hassan Ali Kanu, The American Prospect

The push to replace existing public school systems with government-subsidized private and religious schools suffered a major blow on Election Day 2024, as voters rejected ballot measures to implement universal voucher schemes in Kentucky, Nebraska, and Colorado. Those votes offered more data that universal voucher proposals lack popular support, even among the same populations and demographics that voted for a Republican president and for a right-wing Republican majority in both chambers of Congress. Still, the “school choice,” or voucher, movement, which has been steered for several decades by a handful of ultraconservative billionaires, is in the midst of a watershed moment, buoyed by the aftereffects of a global pandemic and the so-called culture wars attendant to the rise of Trumpism.

Other News of Note

Q&A With Casey Nichols

Brock Schnoke and Casey Nichols, UNC Press Blog

What led you to write Poverty Rebels: Black and Brown Protest in Post-Civil Rights America?  Poverty Rebels is inspired by the community and local political debates about Black-Brown relations I witnessed growing up in Long Beach, California. Questions about how to share space, how to meet the needs of both African American and Latinx students, and who should lead multiracial neighborhoods in government were commonplace. I first researched this topic during my undergraduate studies at California State University, Long Beach, where I completed original research as a Ronald E. McNair Scholar. Attending Stanford for my PhD in history, which has a reputation for research in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, allowed me to continue this work.