Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

Teachers Wrestle With How to Discuss January 6 With Students

Olivia B. Waxman, Time Magazine

Tom Richey, a teacher in Anderson, South Carolina, is hesitant to call the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol an insurrection when he’s in his classroom. “If a teacher were to come into a mostly Republican community talking about the January 6 insurrection, that’s a politically charged term,” Richey says, despite the fact that the 2023 report by the bipartisan House Select Committee charged with investigating the violence refers to it as such. “I don’t approve of anything that happened on January 6, but I think for a teacher to use a term like insurrection in a classroom setting would be unnecessarily partisan and inappropriate.” Richey is far from the only teacher wrestling with how to discuss Jan. 6 with students as the country approaches the third anniversary of the attack.

‘A perfect microcosm’: one town’s lawsuit and the rightwing battle for California schools

Dani Anguiano, The Guardian

Kelly Staley first learned about the lawsuit from a reporter. A parent was suing her, the superintendent of the Chico unified school district, over an alleged “parental secrecy” policy, the reporter said, claiming a school counselor had encouraged her fifth-grader to adopt a new gender and that the school had withheld that information. Staley, who has overseen this northern California school district for nearly two decades, was caught off-guard. The district has never had any such policy, she said, but adhered to the student privacy guidance set by the state department of education that prevents schools from outing students to their parents without permission. The call in January 2023 was just the beginning for Chico. In the following months, the district would face a firestorm.

Public Christian schools? Leonard Leo’s allies advance a new cause

Heidi Przybyla, Politico

Groups aligned with the conservative legal movement and its financial architect, Leonard Leo, are working to promote a publicly funded Christian school in Oklahoma, hoping to create a test case to change the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the First Amendment’s separation of church and state. At issue is the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma’s push to create the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which would be the nation’s first religious school entirely funded by taxpayers. The school received preliminary approval from the state’s charter school board in June. If it survives legal challenges, it would open the door for state legislatures across the country to direct taxpayer funding to the creation of Christian or other sectarian schools.

Language, Culture, and Power

“Something happens when we cross borders. You become someone else.”

Antero Garcia and Dr. Lilia Soto, La Cuenta

Discussing the changes to come for many of the girls she interviewed for her book Girlhood in the Borderlands: Mexican Teens Caught in the Crossroads of Migration, Dr. Lilia Soto offered a three word synopsis: “It was … painful.” Currently an associate professor in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at San Diego State University, Dr. Soto’s scholarly focus on Mexican girlhood (with a focus on communities in Napa, CA, and Michoacán) illuminates the often invisible costs of migration on girls. When we conducted this conversation – in the fall of 2023 – Dr. Soto began by sharing her restlessness with the state of immigration-related perspectives in this country. In this first half of our conversation, she shares the personal connections that drive her pursuit of the untold stories of transnational girls today.

Indigenous Leader Deb Haaland Is Creating a ‘Road to Healing’ for Survivors of Indian Boarding Schools

Carrie N. Baker and Max Fallon-Goodwin, Ms. Magazine

“They stripped me down, they cut my hair off, they poured the liquid in my hair and told me to go to the showers,” testified 72-year-old Dora Brought Plenty about when she first entered the Indian boarding school where she spent her childhood years. Holding back tears, Brought Plenty—of the Lakota Sioux tribe, Turtle Clan and Standing Rock Sioux tribe—stood in front of a group of Indigenous activists in Anadarko, Okla., last July. The group included the U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of New Mexico’s Laguna Pueblo. As the first Indigenous interior secretary, Haaland is taking on the devastating legacy of Indian boarding schools. In June 2021, Secretary Haaland announced the formation of a Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative to recover the history and address the harms of the U.S. government’s policy of taking Indigenous children from their families and communities and relocating them to distant residential facilities where they were subject to neglect and physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual abuse.

What changed after a California school district banned teaching critical race theory? [Audio]

Sandhya Dirks, NPR Morning Edition

It’s been more than a year since the teaching of so-called critical race theory was banned in Temecula Valley Unified School District in Southern California. It was the first big action of a newly elected and deeply conservative majority on the school board. About 4% of the district’s students are Black. Many have spent the last year reckoning with what it means to feel safe in a place that they say is trying to deny the existence of systemic racism. NPR’s Sandhya Dirks spent time with some of these students and brings us this story.

Whole Children and Strong Communities

Minnesota kids love outdoor learning. Lawmakers are paying attention [Audio]

Elizabeth Shockman, Minnesota Public Radio

“Red squirrel tracks! And poop!” It’s a discovery that easily gets a band of fifth graders running at Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center. On a recent sunny winter afternoon in Minnesota’s North Woods near Lake Superior, hundreds of students swarmed the center’s 2,000-acre grounds seeking similar treasures. When a Prior Lake kid found tracks and scat on his class hike, he couldn’t help but call out to his classmates, who came running and then needed to know more, setting off a cascade of questions that instructor Nellie Goepel was happy to answer. Those moments are golden to Goepel and other advocates of outdoor learning in Minnesota. It’s an excitement to learn that can be hard to recreate in an ordinary classroom. Thousands of kids each year come to Wolf Ridge and the state’s four other outdoor learning centers.

California banned sales of flavored e-cigarettes in 2022 − but a new study finds online stores are still selling them, even to kids

Jon-Patrick Allem, The Conversation

Californians – including minors – are still able to buy flavored electronic cigarettes online, even after the state’s much-publicized ban went into effect. That’s the key finding of my team’s new study, published in JAMA Network Open. On Dec. 21, 2022, California enacted Senate Bill 793, which prohibited the sale of most flavored tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, to people of all ages. Hookahs, premium cigars and loose-leaf tobacco were exempted from the legislation.

The ban was motivated, in large part, by a desire to reduce to reduce consumption of tobacco among young people – who are particularly attracted to the flavors in e-cigarettes, such as mango and creme.

Defend, Don’t Defund, NYC’s Community Schools

Quamid Francis, City Limits

In less than a decade, the 421 community schools in New York City have become a testament to innovation and a commitment to holistic education—a vision that has delivered results for New York City Public Schools. These schools stand as vibrant hubs that extend learning beyond the classroom, offering after-hours programming for students, families and neighbors, as well as summer activities and crucial health services directly in the school environment. The evidence speaks volumes: Community schools have achieved nearly 5 percentage points higher in graduation rates compared to their counterparts. Student engagement has soared and behavioral issues have markedly decreased.

Access, Assessment, Advancement

What to know about changes to this year’s FAFSA application for college students

Adriana Morga, AP News

A new version of the federal student aid application known as the FAFSA is available for the 2024-2025 school year, but only on a limited basis as the U.S. Department of Education works on a redesign meant to make it easier to apply. That means the Free Application for Federal Student Aid students can usually fill out starting in October isn’t yet available to everyone. A soft launch period opened last week and the Department of Education said it will continue to make the new form available for short periods of time. Students who want to submit their applications now will need to monitor the studentaid.gov website since it’s available at different times during the day. Since the soft launch was announced, there has been limited availability and some students and their families have experienced glitches.

Bill targeting DEI offices in public universities has a chilling impact on students

Hector E. Chaidez Ruacho, The Hechinger Report

When I made the challenging, life-altering decision in April 2023 of where to pursue my Ph.D., the University of Texas at Austin seemed like the best fit. As an underrepresented student, I felt assured by the school’s diverse faculty and student population, along with their embrace of a robust diversity, equity and inclusion mission, and looked forward to continuing my research on improving the quality of mental health care for all families. Then came Texas Senate Bill 17, which became law on January 1, making it illegal to have DEI offices and programming in public universities. This bill also outlaws mandatory diversity training and does not allow departments to ask prospective faculty about their commitment to building diverse campuses.Texas is not the only state to pass such a bill.

Even Elite Institutions Like Harvard Aren’t Free From the Culture War

Chris Lehmann, The Nation

The GOP Congress is distinctly talent-challenged in many respects, but it can claim one niche skill: toppling high-powered leaders. First, of course, the Republican conference practiced on itself, kneecapping Speaker Kevin McCarthy in an historic motion-to-vacate vote, and then taking three weeks to alight on Mike Johnson as McCarthy’s more fire-breathing spiritual successor. Then, after a ballyhooed and demagogic hearing before North Carolina Representative Virginia Fox’s Education and Workforce Committee on the alleged scourge of antisemitism in elite American colleges, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill stepped down, as one of the school’s premier donors threatened to withdraw a $100 million gift. Now, Harvard University President Claudine Gay, who appeared alongside Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth, has tendered her resignation amid a growing plagiarism scandal.

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

Neoliberalism and Education

Robert Kuttner and Cathie Martin, The American Prospect

Why do some societies try to turn education into a commodity, while others recognize it as a necessary social good? In this interview, Bob Kuttner speaks with Cathie Martin, professor of political science at Boston University and one of the leading U.S. students of Danish social democracy. In her latest book, Education for All?, Martin compares the long history and cultural roots of the Danish and the Anglo-Saxon approaches to education. An edited transcript of their conversation follows.

Suddenly Diverse: How School Districts Manage Race and Inequality [Audio]

Joao Souto-Maior and Erica Turner, New Books Network

For the past five years, American public schools have enrolled more students identified as Black, Latinx, American Indian, and Asian than white. At the same time, more than half of US school children now qualify for federally subsidized meals, a marker of poverty. The makeup of schools is rapidly changing, and many districts and school boards are at a loss as to how they can effectively and equitably handle these shifts. Suddenly Diverse: How School Districts Manage Race and Inequality [by Erica Turner] is an ethnographic account of two school districts in the Midwest responding to rapidly changing demographics at their schools. It is based on observations and in-depth interviews with school board members and superintendents, as well as staff, community members, and other stakeholders in each district: one serving “Lakeside,” a predominantly working class, conservative community and the other serving “Fairview,” a more affluent, liberal community.

What Arkansas’ LEARNS Act has to do with race [Audio]

B.A. Parker, Gene Demby, Lori Lizarraga, Christina Cala, Leah Donnella, Xavier Lopez, Dalia Mortada, NPR’s Code Switch

Classrooms in Arkansas were at the center of school desegregation in the 1950s. Now, with the LEARNS Act, Arkansas schools are in the spotlight again. In this week’s episode, Code Switch comes to you live from Little Rock, Arkansas to unpack the latest education bill and how it echoes themes from decades past.

Democracy and the Public Interest

How a conservative group’s videos gained a foothold in classrooms with help from Republican officials [Video]

Tyler Kingkade and Antonia Hylton, NBC News

The promotional videos all start the same: Each begins with Marissa Streit, chief executive of PragerU, the conservative nonprofit primarily known for producing web videos featuring right-wing pundits and short documentaries criticizing progressive policies. Streit introduces a top state education official, who then raves about the new partnership between PragerU and their state’s public schools. In one clip, Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters says he “could not be more excited to get this content into our classrooms,” adding that he used PragerU videos himself as a history teacher.

Hobbs calls for new rules on private schools using vouchers

Howard Fischer, Tucson.com

Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs wants the Republican lawmakers who approved universal vouchers to impose new restrictions on the private and parochial schools that accept them.

Her list of proposals announced Tuesday includes everything from background checks and minimum education requirements for teachers, to making vouchers off limits unless a student first attends a public school for at least 100 days. It also has what Hobbs calls a measure to preclude “price gouging” — when private schools raise their rates once the vouchers became available to all, regardless of special circumstances or financial needs. The bottom line, Hobbs said, is that private schools using taxpayer dollars to educate children should have to conform to many of the same standards now imposed on public schools. But House Speaker Ben Toma, who was the moving force behind creating the universal vouchers, formally known as empowerment scholarship accounts or ESAs, pronounced Hobbs’ proposals dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

Democratic Socialists Are Running for School Board — and Winning

Liza Featherstone, Jacobin

Whenever the far-right gains political traction in America, it’s usually at least partly due to an unglamorous, relatively inexpensive tactic: running for school board. Throwing their energy into local school politics has often allowed conservatives to stoke panic on hot-button wedge issues — most recently, “critical race theory” and trans acceptance — which can have tremendous emotional power. But socialists have been fighting the Right on this terrain — and winning.

Last summer at its annual convention, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) passed a resolution encouraging local chapters to run candidates for school boards.

Other News of Note

‘He was unflappable.’ Sidney A. Thompson, first Black LAUSD superintendent, dies at 92

Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times

Sidney A. Thompson grappled with crisis after crisis as Los Angeles Unified schools chief: racial tensions, labor strife, the Northridge earthquake, financial shortfalls that brought the district to the brink of insolvency. The first Black superintendent of the nation’s second-largest school system also oversaw the district’s most aggressive academic reform attempt — which ultimately failed, but not because of him. Along the way he maintained the respect of allies and adversaries alike. “He was unflappable. And I can’t tell you how valuable that is,” said former school board member Mark Slavkin. “It was never about Sid. It was about what needed to happen.”

8 of the loudest calls to action from youth activists in 2023

Chase DiBenedetto, Mashable

For nearly every incendiary piece of legislation, attempt to restrict access to resources, or rollback of digital protections and safe spaces proffered in 2023, a multiplied wave of activism has followed in its wake. The year proved to be a test of will between those in power and the communities they represent, a show of force that pits institutional might against the force of human compassion. Communities virtually linked arms in solidarity amid debates on the rights afforded to Americans, with an intertwining of mutual aid efforts to fund abortion networks, transgender healthcare, and Indigenous-led climate change solutions among the many calls to pool resources to generate action. Social movements had their wins, like the union efforts of creatives and performers nationwide, while many still continue the fight for basic protections.

And on the ground, youth voices once again rang through, leading calls for action.