Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

Billions in taxpayer dollars now go to religious schools via vouchers

Laura Meckler and Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post

Billions in taxpayer dollars are being used to pay tuition at religious schools throughout the country, as state voucher programs expand dramatically and the line separating public education and religion fades. School vouchers can be used at almost any private school, but the vast majority of the money is being directed to religious schools, according to a Washington Post examination of the nation’s largest voucher programs. Vouchers, government money that covers education costs for families outside the public schools, vary by state but offer up to $16,000 per student per year, and in many cases fully cover the cost of tuition at private schools. In some schools, a large share of the student body is benefiting from a voucher, meaning a significant portion of the school’s funding is coming directly from the government.

Conservative Temecula school board president trails narrowly in ongoing recall vote tally

Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times

Temecula Valley school board President Joseph Komrosky — a religious conservative who pushed through policies to limit discussion on racism, disallow the display of Pride flags and require the disclosure of students’ gender identities to parents — is trailing narrowly in a recall election, based on ballots counted through Wednesday evening.Komrosky was elected as part of a three-member conservative majority in November 2022. Upon taking office near the end of that year, the bloc immediately thrust the Riverside County school system of 28,000 students to the forefront of the nation’s culture wars. Two policies — restricting the teaching of critical race theory and notifying parents of student gender identification — resulted in ongoing litigation.

Why Children Are Missing More School Now

David Wallace-Wells, New York Times

The raw data looks inarguably bad: The share of American children missing at least 10 percent of school days nearly doubled over the course of the pandemic, leaving perhaps more than six million more students “chronically absent” than had been in the 2018-19 school year. And this spring, as we trudged into our fifth year with Covid, the absenteeism crisis succeeded pandemic learning loss and the mental health of teenagers as a new touchstone in what are now yearslong arguments about the wisdom of school closings in 2020 and 2021. Almost everything about school performance and the well-being of children and adolescents now seems to orbit the duration of remote learning in one school year, which lives on years later as the gravitational center of our retrospective universe. But before the link between those closings and absenteeism hardens into a new conventional wisdom, I want to offer a few notes of additional context, which together suggest, I think, that we are doing ourselves a disservice by fashioning every aftereffect of those years into a weapon to be used in an ideological crusade.

Language, Culture, and Power

Immigrant children without parents need our help. California shouldn’t abandon them 

Blanca Rubio, Sacramento Bee

A budget reflects our priorities, and few are higher than supporting our most vulnerable residents. As the California Legislature must soon decide on some deep budget cuts for the coming fiscal year, a modest investment that should be preserved is a program protecting children who arrive in this country by themselves. These unaccompanied children arrive seeking safety and looking for the opportunity for a better life as so many of our own families have. My own personal story is a testament to how far immigrant children can go so long as they are properly cared for and allowed to thrive. That is why I am committed to supporting programs that ensure unaccompanied children have the same opportunities as all other children.

Amid backlash, Eric Adams restores funds for popular education programs

Madina Touré, Politico

Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday announced more than $100 million in investments to protect programs for children — his latest step in reversing unpopular budget decisions that have provided ammunition for his political opponents. Flanked by fellow Democrats, the mayor laid out a plan to spare youth programs from the pending loss of federal stimulus dollars and support schools that have grappled with declining enrollment. Adams announced he would restore $20 million for extended hours under Summer Rising, a popular learning and enrichment initiative. He also announced he’d invest in programs set to lose federal stimulus funds. The mayor is specifically committing $32 million to save initiatives financed with short-term federal Covid-19 money, including teacher recruitment, tutoring restorative justice efforts and computer science programs.

Felix Rosado Shares Inspirational Journey From Incarcerated To College Professor As He Joins CHC To Educate On Restorative Justice

Chestnut Hill College

Felix Rosado joins the Chestnut Hill College community as an inspiring and unconventional adjunct professor. Just two years ago he was serving a sentence of death by incarceration (more commonly known as life without parole), from which he was freed via governor clemency after 27 years. Rosado said that while incarcerated, he rediscovered his Catholic faith, was introduced to the concept of restorative justice, and sought to make amends for his crime by educating and serving others. Rosado finished teaching two courses this spring semester on restorative justice under the Justice Studies Department. Lauren Barrow Ph.D., Chair, Center for Education, Advocacy & Social Justice and Associate Professor of Criminal Justice first met Rosado at a training 10 years ago through Inside-Out. The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program facilitates dialogue and education across profound social differences—through courses held inside prison, involving students from a higher education setting and incarcerated students.

Whole Children and Strong Communities

California spent nearly $1 billion to boost arts education. Are schools misspending it?

Carolyn Jones, CalMatters

Thanks to Proposition 28, California’s K-12 schools are awash in nearly $1 billion in new arts funding. But a coalition of nearly 100 arts groups says that some school districts may be misspending the money, deepening longstanding inequities in arts education. “The intent of Prop. 28 is to have more arts in schools,” said Abe Flores, deputy director of policy and programs at Create CA, which advocates for arts education in California. “We’re concerned that’s not happening everywhere. If people found out one school was offering math, for example, and another school wasn’t, they’d be outraged. That’s what’s happening with the arts.”

“No Schoolers”: How Illinois’ Hands-Off Approach to Homeschooling Leaves Children at Risk

Molly Parker and Beth Hundsdorfer, ProPublica

It was on L.J.’s 11th birthday, in December 2022, that child welfare workers finally took him away. They arrived at his central Illinois home to investigate an abuse allegation and decided on the spot to remove the boy along with his baby brother and sister — the “Irish twins,” as their parents called them. His mother begged to keep the children while her boyfriend told child welfare workers and the police called to the scene that they could take L.J.: “You wanna take someone? Take that little motherfucker down there or wherever the fuck he is at. I’ve been trying to get him out of here for a long time.”

Are Latinx Youth Getting the Mental Health Services They Need?

NEPC

As rates of anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges continue to increase among young people, a new study suggests that the nation’s fastest-growing youth population is not receiving the care it needs. Roughly one in four youth in the U.S. are estimated to be Latinx. The study was based on a survey, conducted during the 2018-19 school year, of 306 first- and second-generation immigrant Latinx high school students living in Texas and Rhode Island. Even during that pre-pandemic school year, more than half of respondents (57 percent) reported symptoms that met the clinical definition of anxiety. Forty-six percent had symptoms meeting the criteria for PTSD. And 32 percent met the clinical cutoff for depression. 

Access, Assessment, Advancement

Instead of Calling in Law Enforcement to Deal With Protesters, College Presidents Could Have Followed This Example

Eddie Cole, Time

This year, around 2,000 students were arrested on college campuses at the behest of their own institutions’ leaders. And it was not one or two leaders. Presidents and chancellors approved arrests of student protesters at UCLA, Columbia University, Indiana University Bloomington, University of Texas at Austin, Pomona College, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Emory University, City University of New York, Yale University, and Washington University in St. Louis, among dozens of other campuses. At the University of Southern California, there were two police sweeps to remove students’ Gaza solidarity encampments from campus. Arrests during some commencement ceremonies occurred at institutions whose leaders did not cancel graduation exercises altogether. Campuses may be quieting as summer sessions have arrived. But these recent actions should concern all Americans.

Labor for Palestine w/ Academic Workers in CA

Suzi Weissman, Jacobin Radio

Suzi talks to Isabel Kain at UC Santa Cruz, Marie Salem at UCLA, and Anna Weiss at USC — all UAW academic workers — about the unprecedented labor action on their campuses and the violent response from police called in by their administrations. We recorded the interview with Isabel at UCSC as the police in riot gear moved into the campus. Santa Cruz was the first to go on strike and unlike the other UC campuses, the administration was passive and did not call in the police. Until 1am on May 31. At the heart of the action is the war in Gaza, which has inflicted unspeakable suffering and carnage, provoking widespread actions in solidarity with Palestine on campuses. New movements organized in encampments have demanded an immediate ceasefire and university divestment from companies tied to Israel’s war and occupation. The response from the administration at UCLA in particular was brutal. They called in police who assaulted the encampment and stood back when a mob of white nationalists and neo-Nazis joined forces with Zionists to attack the camp, whose residents included a large number of Jewish students. Outraged grad students at UC, organized in UAW Local 4811, have launched a strike, turning the right to protest and freedom of speech into a labor issue. The local represents some 48,000 postdocs, teaching assistants, academic and student researchers across the UC system. At USC, academic workers filed an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) after five grad student members were arrested on campus during the crackdown on the protests. We get the story.

Speech Under the Shadow of Punishment

Jeannie Suk Gersen, New Yorker

The academic year, which had scarcely begun on October 7th, culminated this spring in controversy, disruption, and accusations of hate and repression at universities across the country. April brought a wave of pro-Palestinian encampments to the grounds of more than a hundred and thirty seats of higher education, which resulted in thousands of arrests. As Harvard’s commencement approached, a twenty-day encampment, in which students demanded that the university divest from Israel, ended peacefully, without arrests or forcible removal, when the university promised organizers that it would hold meetings with them to discuss its investments, and also “academic matters related to long-standing conflicts in the Middle East.” But disagreement over a key part of the deal rendered any relief short-lived.

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

Leading Scholars Call for Global Treaty on Free Education

Jo Becker, Human Rights Watch

Seventy eminent scholars, experts, and researchers from 30 countries have called for a new international treaty to recognize children’s rights to free early childhood education and free secondary education. According to the experts, well-established scientific evidence shows “unequivocally” that education is foundational to children’s healthy development and lifelong prospects, but international law has not kept pace with research showing the benefits of education. The 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights and subsequent treaties mandate that primary education be free and compulsory for all but are silent on early childhood education. They also stop short of requiring that secondary education be made available free, calling only on states to make it “available and accessible.”

How 9 Leaders Think About Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Their Schools

Caitlynn Peetz & Ileana Najarro, Education Week

The role of diversity, equity, and inclusion in K-12 education remains under national debate as DEI more broadly faces political attacks that have focused largely on higher education and the business world. Some district and school leaders have taken to a rebranding of DEI to focus less on explicit references to racial disparities and more on the general concepts of inclusion and belonging for all students. Experts have pointed to the continued need for specific policies and practices addressing the needs of underserved students. For instance, this frame of mind acknowledges that disparities can exist even within racially homogenous school districts. To better understand where school and district leaders stand on what DEI offers K-12 education and what belonging and inclusion for all means, Education Week reached out to school and district leaders who are members of AASA, The School Superintendents Association.

The State of the American Middle Class

Rakesh Kochhart, Pew Research

The share of Americans who are in the middle class is smaller than it used to be. In 1971, 61% of Americans lived in middle-class households. By 2023, the share had fallen to 51%, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data. As a result, Americans are more apart than before financially. From 1971 to 2023, the share of Americans who live in lower-income households increased from 27% to 30%, and the share in upper-income households increased from 11% to 19%.

Democracy and the Public Interest

Democracy Was a Decolonial Project

Aziz Rana, Boston Review

The word “decolonization,” in much mainstream American commentary, is treated as an unproductive and blunt slogan: a way of reducing a nuanced history—be it in the United States or in Israel/Palestine—to a zero-sum and violent fight over who has power. “To talk of dismantling an American settler state of 330 million people is to take a rhetorical flight of fancy,” writes Michael Powell in the Atlantic. The colonial frame, he continues, generates “a morality tale stripped of subtleties” and “makes it all too easy to brush aside the practicalities of coexistence.” The implication of Powell’s argument is clear: decolonization suggests forced removal and separation. As New York Times columnist Bret Stephens writes, “real atonement” is for all non-Indigenous populations—white, Black, immigrant—to return to where they came: “If you’re an American citizen of non-Native American descent, leave.”

Louisiana could become first state to require display of Ten Commandments in classrooms

Diane Gallagher, CNN

Schools in Louisiana could soon be required by law to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. The state House of Representatives gave final passage to House Bill 71 on Tuesday in a 79-16 vote, sending it to Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s desk. Only Democrats voted against the legislation. If the governor signs it into law, every Louisiana classroom — from kindergarten through university level — at schools that receive state funding would be required to display “on a poster or framed document that is at least eleven inches by fourteen inches. The text of the Ten Commandments shall be the central focus of the poster or framed document and shall be printed in a large, easily readable font,” according to the text of the bill.

‘Manufacturing Backlash’

Isaac Kamola, Inside HigherEd

Even prior to the highly visible encampments erected by students protesting the excessive violence in Gaza, many colleges and universities already faced considerable turmoil. Starting in 2021, Republicans in state legislatures around the country began mounting a political response to the Black Lives Matter movement. This political backlash, which right-wing provocateur Christopher Rufo called a counterrevolution, focused its ire on educators. K-12 teachers and public librarians faced book bans, gag orders, and accusations of being “groomers,” and Moms for Liberty groups hijacked school board meetings across the country. In this context, legislators also targeted higher education in an effort to ensure that political partisans could play a greater role determining the conversations taking place on campuses.

Other News of Note

How do teens get into activism? New book shows they can take many paths to fight for change

Kalyn Belsha, Chalkbeat

Sonali Kohli has always liked young adult novels. They’re fun to read. They don’t shy away from serious, or even traumatic, subjects. And they are deeply rooted in hope. So when the California-based journalist set out to write “Don’t Wait,” her new nonfiction book out this week, she sought to capture that same sense of “realistic hope” as she shared the true stories of three young women of color fighting for change in America. Each activist takes on an issue important to her life. Nalleli Cobo protests the urban oil fields that sicken her and other kids in the Los Angeles neighborhood she grew up in. The campaign she launches with her mother, People Not Pozos, eventually helps shut down the oil well across from her childhood home.

Black High School Students And The Overthrow of Apartheid

Noor Nieftagodien, Black Perspectives

Soweto welcome sign outside of Johannesburg, South Africa (Shutterstock/Kelly Ermis)

Black students at universities and schools were pivotal actors in the anti-apartheid movement and, at crucial moments, changed the course and character of the liberation struggle in South Africa. Their spirit of dissent and refusal to be beaten into submission by continuous and violent state repression were instrumental in dismantling white minority rule. From the mid-1970s, they repeatedly embarked on various forms of protest and built their own organizations to challenge apartheid education. The Soweto uprising of 1976 was undoubtedly the high point of Black student’s rebellion, but it was preceded by smaller experiments of creating student movements and inspired future generations of students to commit to the struggle for freedom.