Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

Why I’m Resigning from Positions at the National Science Foundation and Library of Congress

Alondra Nelson, Time

Today, I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council. Even as the White House threatens the foundational tenets of constitutional democracy and continues to slash funding for essential social services, it is tempting to hope that the public institutions charged with promoting and protecting knowledge will, nevertheless, soldier on with their mission. I did.  Since January 2025, scientists and librarians, program officers and policy analysts at the National Science Foundation, the Library of Congress, and other federal offices and agencies have focused on their work, despite an increasingly hostile political environment. We’ve also seen civil servants fired and accused of not making the mark, vendors’s contracts ignored, and grants and fellowships cancelled.

An Agency Tasked With Protecting Immigrant Children Is Becoming an Enforcement Arm, Current and Former Staffers Say

Lomi Kriel and Mica Rosenberg, ProPublica

It started with a call. A man identifying himself as a federal immigration agent contacted a Venezuelan father in San Antonio, interrogating him about his teenage son. The agent said officials planned to visit the family’s apartment to assess the boy’s living conditions. Later that day, federal agents descended on his complex and covered the door’s peephole with black tape, the father recalled. Agents repeatedly yelled the father’s and son’s names, demanded they open the door and waited hours before leaving, according to the family. Terrified, the father, 37, texted an immigration attorney, who warned that the visit could be a pretext for deportation. The agents returned the next two days, causing the father such alarm that he skipped work at a mechanic shop. His son stayed home from school.

“The Children Are Being Used as Bait”

Julia Lurie, Mother Jones

In early March, a 7-year-old boy in immigration custody received good news: He would finally be released to his mother’s care. Months earlier, he had been apprehended as an unaccompanied minor while crossing the US-Mexico border. Since then, he had been staying in a facility run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, waiting for his mother, who was already in the United States, to be approved as his sponsor. She had painstakingly jumped through the necessary hoops, submitting the required documents and undergoing a home study to show that she was a safe caregiver. But soon after the boy learned of his imminent release, a new federal policy abruptly made his mother ineligible as a sponsor.

Language, Culture, and Power

A.I. Will Destroy Critical Thinking in K-12

Jessica Grose, New York Times

A few weeks ago, my ears perked up when a gaggle of middle school volleyball players in my car were talking about the teachers they don’t like; I have an unfortunate appetite for tweenage gossip, and sometimes it yields relevant information. Most of it was petty: One has a resting angry face. Another is too strict at lunch. But then somebody said, dismissively, “And I bet she uses A.I. to grade our papers.” I don’t think this is true, but that it could be true is already corrosive. Even seventh graders can see artificial intelligence is a lesser form of care and attention.

Black Students Are Being Watched Under AI — and They Know It

Quintessa Williams, Word in Black

In the classic sci-fi movie “Minority Report,” Tom Cruise plays a cop whose “Precrime” unit uses surveillance and behavior patterns to arrest murderers before they kill. Set in the future, the movie raised tough questions about privacy, due process, and how predicting criminal behavior can destroy innocent lives. But what once seemed like an action fantasy is now creeping into American classrooms. Today, across the country, public schools are adopting artificial intelligence tools — including facial recognition cameras, vape detectors, and predictive analytics software — designed to flag students considered “high risk” — all in the name of safety. But civil rights advocates warn that these technologies are being disproportionately deployed in Black and low-income schools, without public oversight or legal accountability.

NEPC Talks Education: An Interview With Elena Aydarova About Reading Instruction [Audio]

Christopher Saldaña and Elena Aydarova. NEPC

In this month’s episode of NEPC Talks Education, Christopher Saldaña discusses the evolving landscape of reading instruction, the science of reading movement, and its policy implications with University of Wisconsin-Madison Education Policy professor Elena Aydarova. Her scholarship focuses on the interactions between educational policy, advocacy, and social inequality. Aydarova’s research has identified concerning trends associated with the “Science of Reading” (SOR) movement. She distinguishes between the lowercase “science of reading,” which refers to scientific studies conducted by cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists, and the uppercase “Science of Reading” (SOR), which she describes as a movement often driven by businesses, corporations, and EdTech companies primarily seeking to bolster profits.

Whole Children and Strong Communities

The “Crisis” of Male Adolescence Is Nothing New

Katha Pollit, The Nation

What about the boys? That’s the big question these days. They’re behind girls in school, and they’re less likely to go to college and to graduate. Too many spend all day playing video games, watching porn, getting stoned, and getting into trouble. As industrial jobs vanish, young men face a disappearing advantage in the new economy, where jobs require education and social skills. Some commentators, most famously Richard V. Reeves, the president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, have diagnosed a new “crisis” of masculinity.

‘Psychological first aid’: How volunteers helped students recover after LA fires

Mallika Seshadri, EdSource

In a classroom that smelled like a campfire, a student at Pasadena Unified’s Sierra Madre Elementary School broke down when he saw a student-made stuffed rabbit that had X’s for eyes. 

His art teacher called for help from Tanya Ward, a project director for the mental health and school counseling unit at the Los Angeles County Office of Education. Ward arrived immediately and pulled the student aside. “That’s a dead bunny. That’s a dead bunny,” the student repeated, sobbing.  “What does that make you feel?” Ward asked him. “What do you think about that bunny with X eyes? Could it be something else?” The student began to breathe and seemed less agitated. He started talking haltingly about how the stuffed rabbit — in reality, a sock wrapped around a rice-filled balloon — made him feel. Sad. And scared.

New York Commits to Universal School Meals in 2025 Budget: A Transformative Step for Educational and Health Equity

Alexina Cather, NY City Food Policy Center

In a landmark move, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that New York’s 2025 state budget will include funding to provide free breakfast and lunch for all public school students, making New York one of the nation’s leaders in ensuring that no student goes hungry at school. This initiative marks a major step toward combating childhood food insecurity, supporting student achievement, and promoting long-term public health and equity. “The research is clear: good food in the lunchroom creates good grades in the classroom,” Governor Hochul said. “I’m proposing free school meals for every student in New York – giving kids the sustenance they need and putting more money back in parents’ pockets.”

Access, Assessment, Advancement

College costs would soar for some low-income students under Republican bill

Sarah Butrymowicz and Meredith Kolodner, Hechinger Report

Nearly 4.5 million low-income college students would lose some or all of their federal financial aid if Republicans in the House get their way. That’s according to an analysis from the left-leaning Center for American Progress, shared exclusively with The Hechinger Report. The report looks at the ways a GOP House budget bill would affect Pell Grants, the federal financial aid program that covers college expenses for students from low-income families. 

The Best Protection For Students Is a Mass Movement

Nidaa Lafi and Momodou Taal, In These Times

On March 20, the Palestinian Youth Movement hosted a conversation with Cornell University student and pro-Palestinian activist Momodou Taal. Less than a week prior, Taal had filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging the new executive orders that sought to target international noncitizen students for speaking out against the genocide in Gaza.

The day after this conversation, Taal was told to surrender into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. On March 31, he self-deported. In this conversation, in which Taal is interviewed by Nidaa Lafi, an organizer with PYM’s Dallas chapter, Taal shares his first-hand experience with being targeted for peacefully protesting, discusses the true function of universities today and offers wisdom on why the increasing repression against students is a sign of empire’s weakness, not its strength.

Campus protests flare on a smaller scale than last spring, but with higher stakes

Colin Binkley, AP News

Campus activism has flared as the academic year winds down, with pro-Palestinian demonstrations leading to arrests at several colleges. Compared with last spring, when more than 2,100 people were arrested in campus protests nationwide, the demonstrations have been smaller and more scattered. But the stakes are also much higher. President Donald Trump’s administration has been investigating dozens of colleges over their handling of protests, including allegations of antisemitism, and frozen federal grant money as leverage to press demands for new rules on activism. Colleges, in turn, have been taking a harder line on discipline and enforcement, following new policies adopted to prevent tent encampments of the kind that stayed up for weeks last year on many campuses.

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

As conservatives push for more babies, Congress proposes cuts that could hurt families, toddlers and infants

Jackie Mader, Hechinger Report

Megan Newsome was 27 weeks pregnant when she was diagnosed with a rare form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer of the blood. After her son was born four weeks early, Newsome underwent intensive chemotherapy treatments while her newborn gained strength in the neonatal intensive care unit. Newsome, who lives in Maine, suddenly found herself navigating a complex and expensive web of her own health challenges, as well as her son’s.

Luckily for Newsome, there was some relief, thanks to America’s federally funded safety net programs. During her pregnancy and treatment, Newsome relied on Medicaid. She enrolled in a food benefits program. And her son enrolled in Early Head Start, where he had access to education, developmental screenings and socialization.

Making Sense of Segregation: Asian American Youth Perspectives

Elise Castillo, AERA Open

This qualitative study examines how 64 Asian American high school students and recent alumni in New York City make sense of racial and socioeconomic segregation across selective and nonselective public high schools; and what their sensemaking reveals about their understandings of race, class, and power. Nearly all interviewees believed that the underrepresentation of Black and Latine students at selective high schools is problematic, but they employed distinct frames to describe the nature of the problem and how to remedy it. Most students employed abstract liberalism and culture of poverty frames, lacking a critical analysis of race and power. Some students employed a conscious compromise frame, critiquing segregation as undermining the individual benefits of diversity. Fewer students employed a power analysis frame, pointing to the systemic factors shaping the racialized structure of educational opportunity. Findings reveal students’ uneven experience with, and analytic tools for, discussing race and Asian American identity.

‘She’ll fall through the cracks’: Parents of kids with disabilities brace for new reality

Barbara Rodriguez and Nadra Nittle, The 19th

Jolene Baxter’s daughter, Marlee, has overcome immense challenges in her first eight years of life. Marlee, who was born with a heart defect, has undergone four open-heart surgeries — suffering a stroke after the third. The stroke affected Marlee’s cognitive abilities — she’s in the second grade, but she cannot read yet. A mainstream class with neurotypical students felt overwhelming, so Marlee mostly attends classes with kids who also have disabilities. Her care includes physical, occupational and speech therapies.

Democracy and the Public Interest

This Supreme Court Decision Could Determine the Future of Charter Schools

Carol Burris, The Progressive

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools never met a charter school it did not like—until it met St. Isidore of Seville in Oklahoma City. St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School is the proposed Oklahoma charter school whose fate is currently being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, which is expected to issue its decision before summer’s end. The Alliance’s objection to St. Isidore being allowed to open what would be the nation’s first religious charter is not because the school would be religious—an argument the Alliance’s CEO Starlee Coleman characterizes as an “ivory tower” question—but because, should the Court rule in favor of the religious charter, the decision could jeopardize charter schools having access to public funding, something all charter schools currently depend on. According to the Alliance, every state with charter school laws mandates that charter schools operate as public schools, and the federal Charter School Program, which finances charter expansion, can only fund public charter schools by law. But St. Isidore argues that it should be allowed to open a religious charter because it is a private organization.

Oklahoma education standards say students must identify 2020 election ‘discrepancies’

Beth Wallis, KGOU

New academic standards in Oklahoma call for the teaching of “discrepancies” in the 2020 election results, continuing the spread of a false narrative years after it was first pushed by President Trump and his allies. The standards were enacted last month after the Republican-controlled Legislature declined to block them. And while the process to advance the standards has drawn ire from members of Oklahoma’s majority party, the question of the standards’ content has gotten little pushback. The social studies standard for high school U.S. history references baseless claims about the ballot counting process and the security of mail voting. It says students must “Identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information, including the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities and in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of ‘bellwether county’ trends.”

Didactics in Social Studies for Global Citizenship Education: dimensions and technological contexts

Pedro C. Mellado-Moreno andCarmen Burgos, Frontiers

The present work presents a conceptual organization scheme based on the latest research in the field of Citizenship Education for Social Studies. In a globalized world, educational systems must equip students with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to engage proactively in societal issues. Political and social disengagement, particularly among youth experiencing family violence and discrimination, can lead to exclusion and radicalization. School segregation limits the learning of democratic values and harms migrant family participation. Youth tend to favor forms of digital and personal participation over traditional politics. In the digital age, it is crucial to review and adapt civic education, promoting media literacy and the conscious consumption of information. Democratic education should connect knowledge with action to foster active, responsible citizenship, despite the challenge of an academically results-focused environment.

Other News of Note

From a Tin-Roof Shack, Pepe Mujica Removed the Pomp From Politics

Jack Nicas, New York Times

José “Pepe” Mujica did not have much use for Uruguay’s three-story presidential residence, with its chandeliers, elevator, marble staircase and Louis XV furniture. “It’s crap,” he told me last year. “They should make it a high school.” So when he became president of his small South American nation in 2010, Mr. Mujica decided he would commute from his home: a cluttered, three-room shack the size of a studio apartment, crammed with a wood stove, overstuffed bookcases and jars of pickling vegetables.

Ruth Beaglehole, early childhood pioneer in LAUSD, dies

Libby Rainey, LAist

Ruth Beaglehole, who spent more than a half a century as an advocate for children and parents in Los Angeles, died last month at 81. An immigrant from New Zealand who made her life in Los Angeles, Beaglehole jumped into community advocacy and took on the city as her own. Over the decades, Beaglehole founded a child care center for working families, taught parenting classes to LAUSD students who were pregnant or parents, and spread the gospel of nonviolent parenting, a philosophy that underpinned her advocacy and her way of living, according to her loved ones and fellow organizers. Since her passing, tributes and remembrances have continued to celebrate her legacy, including Tuesday at an LAUSD school board meeting that adjourned in her honor.