Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

Trump’s next plan for the US education system: Lots and lots of rules

Bianca Quilantan, Politico

President Donald Trump disrupted universities and school districts in 2025 through sheer executive muscle. Now comes the harder part: making sure his policies outlast his presidency. Trump signed a dizzying number of education-related executive orders — spanning from diversity initiatives to college oversight — launched a barrage of civil rights investigations into schools, froze billions in federal research cash and started his long-promised dismantling of the Education Department.

Teachers, if we don’t teach Maduro’s capture in Venezuela, TikTok will. Here’s my plan.

David Cutler, PBS News

After U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife on Saturday, President Donald Trump told reporters the United States will “run” Venezuela “until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition.” If you teach any subject touching on power and law, this is your curriculum. Not next week. Tomorrow. In my high school history, journalism and government classrooms, that means we’ll take up Venezuela tomorrow, even if it makes for a turbulent return to school after winter break. The lesson won’t be about indoctrination. It will be about modeling how informed citizens think when leaders exercise or abuse power.

An American Tragedy

Louis Freedberg, Substack

An American tragedy is playing out in many school districts across the nation. I witnessed it close at hand in the final weeks of 2025 when I covered the teachers’ strike in West Contra Costa Unified, a school district in the San Francisco Bay serving 25,000 students, two thirds of whom live in low-income households. It was the first teachers’ strike in California, and only the second in the U.S., during the current school year. In 2026, expect to see similar conflicts not only in neighboring districts, but in others around California and the nation. Teachers’ unions in some of the largest school districts in California, including Los Angeles Unified, San Francisco and Oakland — have declared an impasse in negotiations, along with threats of possible strikes. In the West Contra Costa district, which includes the city of Richmond, teachers “won” the strike by getting a pay increase of 8 percent over the next two years — 2 percent less than what they were demanding — along with improved health and other benefits. But even with the pay increase, teachers will still earn a salary that will fall far short of what many, if not most, will need to live in the district where they teach, and almost certainly not without the help of another high income earner in their family.

Language, Culture, and Power

Beyond Protection: An Administrator’s Guide to Building Belonging in a Time of Fear 

Adam Strom, Re-Imagining Migration

When schools serve immigrant-origin students well, they serve all students well. This guide helps K-12 administrators move beyond reactive crisis measures toward the proactive, systemic work of building schools where every student can thrive. In December 2025, UCLA IDEA released Fear Is Everywhere, a nationally representative survey of more than 600 high school principals led by researchers John Rogers and Joseph Kahne. The findings were stark: 70% reported students from immigrant families expressing fear about their safety, while 64% reported these students missing school due to immigration policies and rhetoric. Schools are responding heroically—78% of principals created emergency response plans—yet administrators describe feeling overwhelmed and exhausted by constant crisis response. This guide helps administrators move beyond emergency plans to the deeper work: building relational infrastructure, reviewing curriculum, and creating the conditions where belonging doesn’t depend on heroic individual effort but is embedded in how the school operates every day.

A Brief But Spectacular take on questions of belonging [Video]

Tailyr Irvine, PBS Newshour

Tailyr Irvine is a photojournalist from the Flathead Reservation in Montana, whose work focuses on nuanced portrayals of life in Native communities. Her recent project examines the U.S. government–imposed system that defines Native identity through fractional measures of ancestry. She shares her Brief But Spectacular take on questions of belonging.

Heartset Leaders Podcast [Audio]

Stu Semigran, Jose Navarro, and Jeff Austin

Jose Navarro and Jeff Austin discuss the importance of leading with compassion, building strong relationships within schools, and creating a culture of care that extends to students, parents, and the community. This inspiring episode emphasizes the need for kindness, understanding, and a commitment to supporting one another in the educational journey. 

Whole Children and Strong Communities

These California students found lessons of hope in the aftermath of the Palisades Fire [Audio]

Janet Lee, All Things Considered

One year after the Los Angeles wildfires, a group of California elementary schoolers document the impact — including the hope, kindness and community that rose from the ashes.

US Reduces Number of Vaccines It Recommends for All Children

Alex Nguyen, Mother Jones

Federal health officials reduced the number of vaccines recommended for all children from 17 to 11 on Monday. According to the new schedule, some routine vaccines are now only recommended for “high-risk” children, while others, like the flu shot, can be administered through “shared clinical decision-making” that is based on individual discussions between the health care provider and the patient or guardian. An assessment that provided the scientific basis for the decision to revise the immunization schedule states that an “increased emphasis on shared clinical decision-making would help restore trust in public health recommendations made by CDC.”

One in two children malnourished in parts of Sudan’s Darfur, UN says

Lyndal Rowlands, Al Jazeera

The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF has warned of an “unprecedented level” of child malnutrition in the war-torn region of North Darfur and called for immediate access to children and families trapped by the conflict. The warning on Monday came amid intensified fighting between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces, as the paramilitary force continues to push east after seizing the city of el-Fasher in Darfur in late October.

Access, Assessment, Advancement

Trump freezes over $10 billion in childcare, family assistance funds to 5 US states

Kanishka Singh, Reuters

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is freezing more than $10 billion in federal childcare and family assistance funds to California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York, the Department of Health and Human Services said, citing what it called concerns about fraud and misuse. The Trump administration has threatened federal funding cuts to organizations and states over a number of issues since taking office – ranging from alleged fraud in programs in states governed by Democrats to diversity initiatives and pro-Palestinian university protests against U.S. ally Israel’s assault on Gaza. On Tuesday, HHS said it notified the five states, all with Democratic governors, that its freeze applied to the “Child Care and Development Fund” worth $2.4 billion, the “Temporary Assistance for Needy Families” worth $7.35 billion, and the “Social Services Block Grant” worth $869 million. In a statement, the department said the states’ access to those funds would be restricted pending further review. Democrats condemned the plan. “Our kids should not be political pawns in a fight that Donald Trump seems to have with blue state (Democratic states) governors,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said, adding the step was “vindictive” and “cruel.” Illinois Governor JB Pritzker also called the step “wrong and cruel.”

A growing number of child care providers can’t afford food for themselves

Emily Tate Sullivan, The 19th

Hunger is on the rise for the early care and education workforce, according to recent research from the Stanford Center on Early Childhood, and signs suggest the challenge is unlikely to improve in the short term. In June, 58 percent of early care and education providers surveyed by the RAPID Survey Project at Stanford said they were experiencing hunger, which researchers measured using six questions about food insecurity developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. These providers, who span a variety of roles and settings, are not just dealing with sticker shock at the grocery store; they are skipping meals, eating smaller portions to stretch food supplies further, and going hungry because they’ve run out of money to purchase food.

How a living classroom teaches 4-year-olds how to combat climate change, preserve Chickasaw culture [Audio]

Sarah Liese (Twilla), KOSU

On a crisp fall morning, more than a dozen four-year-olds hopped off a bright yellow school bus and started exploring the Oka’Yanahi Preserve in Tishomingo inside the boundaries of the Chickasaw Nation reservation. Among the group of curious children who were part of the Chickasaw Nation Head Start was Mavis June Wilson, with her mom, Julie, close by. They were there to help plant 25 trees, an effort funded by a US Forest Service grant under the Inflation Reduction Act. “We used to live off the land, whether it was going and gathering or hunting or whatever,” Julie Wilson, who is Seminole, said. “You know, the land always provides.” Julie said she was glad to support Mavis’s relationship with her homeland, strengthening a land-based bond — something her Chickasaw and Seminole ancestors once had.

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

School closures have rocked this LA-area district – are they destroying it, or saving it?

Victoria Clayton, The Guardian

Inglewood, California – a few miles east of Los Angeles international airport – is known as the city of champions. The NBA champion Lakers once called Inglewood’s Forum – famously dubbed “the fabulous Forum” by announcer Chick Hearn – home. By the mid-2000s, with the Lakers gone and another local landmark – nearby Hollywood Park racetrack – closed, the city was close to bankruptcy. Then came a series of deals – often attributed to the leadership of the mayor James Butts – that reinvigorated the city, as a new epicenter of sports and entertainment such as the new spaceship-like SoFi Stadium and the Intuit Dome. When the 2028 Olympics roll around, Inglewood is slated to host many of the events as the world watches. Some longtime residents say the glitz masks a grimmer reality: a public school system in freefall. 

A growing American crisis is affecting more than 1 million students

Christopher Cann, USA TODAY

After T’Roya Jackson discovered the paint in her apartment gave her daughter lead poisoning, she and her children moved out. They couch-surfed for a while before moving into a homeless shelter over the summer. The hair stylist began looking for a rental that would accept her hard-won housing voucher – all while caring for her five children, including a newborn. “It’s been extremely difficult,” she told USA TODAY, recounting how she has tried to keep her oldest children – ages 14, 9 and 8 – in school, paying for taxis to take them to class and ensuring they have some quiet study time, a challenge in their cramped one-bedroom unit.

The ancient word that explains 2025 [Video]

Richard J. Murphy, YouTube

As Christmas approaches, I reflect on my word of the year: pleonexia — an ancient Greek term describing the insatiable desire to take more than your fair share, even when it harms others. Once you understand pleonexia, you start to see it everywhere: in big tech, in bond markets, in tax avoidance, and in government policy that treats human suffering as an accounting inconvenience. This video argues that much of what we excuse or defend in modern economics is, in fact, a moral failure hiding in plain sight. If we want an economy based on care rather than cruelty, contribution rather than entitlement, we first have to name the problem. That is where political economy begins.

Democracy and the Public Interest

Why America Must Rewrite Charter School Laws Now

Carol Burris, The Progressive

More than thirty years have passed since nineteen states first embraced charter schools as laboratories of innovation, and the evidence is clear: The model has broken down. Public trust has sharply eroded. School closures are routine, leaving students stranded and families frustrated. And nearly every day brings yet another charter school scandal. The second installment of “Charter School Reckoning: Disillusionment,” a three-part report by the National Center for Charter School Accountability, reveals that the very structure of this sector—rather than merely isolated bad actors—is what enables mismanagement, profiteering, and instability at high cost to students and taxpayers. The need to rewrite charter laws is no longer a matter of debate; it is a matter of protecting students, taxpayers, and the public trust. 

Finnish children learn media literacy at 3 years old. It’s protection against Russian propaganda

James Brooks, AP News

The battle against fake news in Finland starts in preschool classrooms. For decades, the Nordic nation has woven media literacy, including the ability to analyze different kinds of media and recognize disinformation, into its national curriculum for students as young as 3 years old. The coursework is part of a robust anti-misinformation program to make Finns more resistant to propaganda and false claims, especially those crossing over the 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border with neighboring Russia. Now, teachers are tasked with adding artificial intelligence literacy to their curriculum, especially after Russia stepped up its disinformation campaign across Europe following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago. Finland’s ascension into NATO in 2023 also provoked Moscow’s ire, though Russia has repeatedly denied it interferes in the internal affairs of other countries.

Top union accuses Texas of targeting teachers over Charlie Kirk posts

Joseph Gedeon, The Guardian

A major Texas teachers’ union filed a federal lawsuit against the state on Tuesday challenging what it describes as unconstitutional investigations into hundreds of educators who posted comments on social media following the September killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The Texas American Federation of Teachers, which represents approximately 66,000 public school employees, is asking a federal court to block the Texas Education Agency and its commissioner, Mike Morath, from continuing investigations that the union argues violate teachers’ free speech protections.

“Clever as Serpents”: How a Legal Group’s Anti-LGBTQ Policies Took Root in School Districts Across a State

Kathryn Joyce, In These Times

The West Shore school board policy committee meeting came to a halt almost as soon as it began. As a board member started going over the agenda on July 17, 2025, local parent Danielle Gross rose to object to a last-minute addition she said hadn’t been on the district’s website the day before. By posting notice of the proposal so close to the meeting, charged Gross, who is also a partner at a communications and advocacy firm that works on state education policy, the board had violated Pennsylvania’s open meetings law, failing to provide the public at least 24 hours’ notice about a topic ​“this board knows is of great concern for many community members interested in the rights of our LGBTQ students.”

Other News of Note

Honoring the Progressives Fighting for Our Democracy

John Nichols and Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation

A year that began with the second inauguration of Donald Trump was always going to be suspect. But 2025 became overwhelming. The president’s cruelty and lawlessness, along with his aggressive determination to deconstruct both government and civil society, shocked Americans, whom polls now suggest are deeply dissatisfied with his reckless tenure. This year’s Nation Honor Roll recognizes activists and artists, pastors, and political leaders who have spoken truth to Trump’s destructive power and forged a resistance that is evident in mass demonstrations and election results—and in an emerging hope, as Patti Smith once counseled, “That the people have the power / To redeem the work of fools.”