Just News 5.29.26

Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

Teachers union president calls for limits on AI and screen time in schools

Tyler Kingkade, NBC News

The head of one of the country’s largest teachers unions called for limits on technology in schools in a speech Wednesday, including blocking most students from using computers in class until they reach third grade, prohibiting student-facing AI in elementary schools and banning “social companion” chatbots until age 16. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, declared that students “are drowning in tech.” She proposed an independent research consortium to study the effects of AI and screens on student learning. “Students need their teachers — real human beings, not robots and not chatbots,” she said in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington. 

Main Takeaways From Pope Leo’s Encyclical on A.I.

Ruth Graham and Elizabeth Dias, New York Times

Pope Leo XIV’s major new teaching on safeguarding humanity in the age of artificial intelligence is a forward-looking document, arriving at the precipice of what many see as a new technological age that will profoundly reshape human life. “Magnifica Humanitas,” or “Magnificent Humanity,” is the American pope’s first encyclical, a document that is considered one of the most significant papal teachings. Leo signed “Magnifica Humanitas” on the 135th anniversary of “Rerum Novarum,” known in English as “Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor.” That encyclical, on labor in the context of the Industrial Revolution, was written by Pope Leo XIII, who was the inspiration for Leo XIV’s papal name. Like his 19th-century predecessor, the current pope is consciously tackling what is expected to be one of the most pressing issues facing humanity over the course of his papacy.

Governing GenAI through Redefinition, Regulation, and Innovation: Policy Responses in the Largest US School Districts

Sarah Liang, Yiran Hu,Xiaonan Ren, and Jose Eos Trinidad, Educational Policy

Generative artificial intelligence has forced school systems to rapidly pivot from reactive bans to proactive management. Yet, research on local policy responses remains scarce. This study analyzes how the twelve largest US school districts have responded to the introduction of GenAI. Through document and policy analyses, we identify three interrelated policy moves: redefinition of foundational concepts like academic integrity; regulation by creating standards for both users and vendors; and innovation through intentional experimentation. We offer a typology for district-level AI governance, highlight domains of regulatory changes, and suggest a baseline for future causal, evaluative, and implementation research.

Language, Culture, and Power

An Excellent Example of Public Library Leadership Advocating for School Libraries

Kelly Jensen, Book Riot

Last week’s Literary Activism post spoke at length about the importance of speaking up and out about legislation that directly impacts libraries–whether or not your library will be the target. Specifically, it was surprising that, despite hours of research and outreach to dozens of library professionals nationwide, there were no examples of public library boards, friends of the library, or library foundation groups writing letters to the editor and/or informing their communities about the impact of House Resolution 7661. The bill, which would impose a nationwide book ban in public schools, has advanced to the House for consideration.

How a father’s detention shaped his son’s educational career [Audio]

Betty Márquez Rosales and Jair Solis, EdSource

Jair Solis became his family’s first-ever college graduate last weekend. It’s a milestone that had long felt out of reach because of the long-lasting fallout from his dad’s detention in an immigration facility. With the return of the federal administration that once detained Jair’s father, more than 100,000 children — most of them U.S. citizens — have had parents detained or deported, according to a recent analysis by the Brookings Institute. In this episode we interview Jair about how his family’s experiences with the immigration system shaped his life and education.

The Indigenous exhibit that Trump failed to stop

Felicia Mello, AP News

A group of local Indigenous leaders and Lawrence Hall of Science researchers strolled through the lobby of the discovery-based UC Berkeley museum last week as workers put the finishing touches on its latest exhibit, “Yuutka” (The Place of the Acorn). Replicas of black oak trees towered overhead, while California poppies, wild roses, yarrow, and black sage plants were projected on the floor and a creek and bridge were under construction nearby. A cartoon version of East Bay Ohlone matriarch Dolores Lameira smiled encouragingly from one wall as she coached visitors to the mixed reality experience on how to gather virtual acorns using baskets equipped with 3D sensors. “It really looks like her,” commented Vincent Medina, her great-nephew and one of the project’s creators.

Whole Children and Strong Communities

Over 700,000 Poor Kids Across 12 States Have Lost Food Aid Under Trump-GOP Budget Law

Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

The budget package that US President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans rammed through last summer has already spurred large-scale loss of nutrition assistance among low-income children, with an analysis released Wednesday estimating that more than 700,000 kids across a dozen states have lost federal food aid since the GOP law took effect. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, found that the “sharp participation declines” among children likely stem from provisions of the Republican law that—for the first time in the program’s history—shift large Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit costs onto states. The law also expands punitive SNAP work requirements.

Teens aren’t as disengaged as you may think: What adults get wrong about adolescents’ civic contributions

Kimia Shirzad and Jen Agans, The Conversation

A teenager scrolls through their phone at the dinner table, barely looks up and answers questions with one-word replies. For many adults, that image has come to stand for a larger fear: that today’s young people are disconnected from others and may be uninterested in the world around them. Concerns about declining civic participation often deepen that worry. As researchers who study adolescent development, we believe this picture is incomplete. Adults help shape the environments in which young people learn to contribute, or learn not to. In worrying that young people are disengaged from participating in civic society, adults may overlook both their own role in fostering engagement and the many ways young people are already contributing.

A Youth-Led Campaign Claims a Win For Climate Justice

Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News

A climate justice seed planted by young Pacific Island students in 2019, as mass participation in climate demonstrations peaked in the millions, is starting to reshape international law around the realities of a rapidly warming planet. At the United Nations General Assembly this week, 141 countries passed a resolution welcoming an advisory opinion on climate change from the world’s top court, voting to “translate the Court’s findings into enhanced multilateral cooperation and accelerated climate action at all levels, consistent with international law.” The nonbinding advisory opinion was issued last year by the International Court of Justice after the General Assembly requested it in 2022 with a unanimous vote, marking a rare recent moment of global solidarity on climate policy questions.

Access, Assessment, Advancement

She was her parents’ translator. As valedictorian, she thanked them in their language.

Ellie Silverman, The Baltimore Banner

This was as much their day as it was hers. Sure, Khatira Rustami put in those late nights studying for Advanced Placement courses. She figured out how to fill out college financial aid forms. She became the vice president of the Student Government Association and the Muslim Student Association. She earned straight A’s. But her parents had given up their language, their culture and their extended families to bring her here. If they’d stayed in Afghanistan, she wouldn’t have received an education. She wouldn’t be going to George Washington University this fall on a full scholarship. She couldn’t dream of becoming a diplomat. And she certainly would not be valedictorian. So on this May afternoon, as she walked the graduation stage, she wanted her parents to truly understand what they had made possible.

Trump Makes a Bad Student Loan Program Worse

Robert Kuttner, American Prospect

Cory Doctorow has coined a terrific word and concept: enshittification. Doctorow used it primarily to describe how platform monopolies like Amazon, Google, and Apple begin by being useful to both consumers and advertisers and business partners, then start screwing consumers, then advertisers and business partners. Blinding complexity and nontransparency is part of the enshittification. But the concept describes more and more of the large systems that Americans have to deal with, such as health care and retirement accounts. Today’s example is student loans. The program is thoroughly enshittified, byzantine in its complexity, and a source of punitive debt for the young. According to the Department of Education, less than 40 percent of borrowers are currently in active repayment and nearly 25 percent are in default. 

‘I felt like I wasn’t learning’: Community college students struggle with online education

Adam Echelman, Cal Matters

California’s community colleges represent the largest higher education system in the country — more than 2 million students, or 60 times the undergraduate population of UC Berkeley. But walking around a community college campus, it’s often hard to tell. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, cafeterias and local coffee shops are quieter, fewer students are sitting on the quad and, with less foot traffic, the grass is lush. Even after campuses returned to in-person classes, many students are still working from their dining room table: About 40% of all community college classes are online, according to Melissa Villarin, a spokesperson for the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. The state’s community colleges are funded based largely on the number of students they enroll, and since students prefer online courses, there’s an incentive for schools to expand them.

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

We need to understand economic inequality from children’s perspectives

Eddie Brummelman, Richard E. Ahl, Elisabetta Aurino, Sahba N. Besharati, Benjamin W. Domingue, Catherine Lebel, Julia A. Leonard, Dana C. McCoy, Luca M. Pesando, Samuel S. Urlacher, David S. Yeager, Jason Yip & Katherine McAuliffe, Communications Psychology

Today’s children are growing up in an age of economic inequality. If people sat on their wealth stacked in $100 bills, most of the world would be sitting on the floor, a middle-class person would sit at chair height, and the richest people would be in outer space. Children will be confronted with this type of inequality as they grow up, and so will their children and their children’s children. Yet we lack an understanding of how children perceive and respond to it.

Economic inequality is not the same as socioeconomic status. A vast body of research shows that children from low-SES backgrounds often have poorer mental health, physical health, and academic achievement than children from high-SES backgrounds. However, this work does not address economic inequality—that is, the unequal distribution of valuable goods and opportunities within children’s classrooms, schools, neighborhoods, states, or countries.

Child Poverty Is a Choice, and So Is Ending It

Bruce Lesley, Kids Can’t Wait

Our nation’s children deserve a national campaign to cut child poverty, as it negatively impacts every aspect of the lives of children. A resolution just introduced by Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Sara Jacobs (D-CA) makes several important things clear: Child poverty negatively impacts all aspects of child well-being. Investments in our children have been declining. Child poverty is not inevitable, as the U.S. successfully cut child poverty in 2021. Child poverty – and the act of ending it – is a policy choice. The Ending Child Poverty Resolution (H.Res. 1319), which First Focus Campaign for Children endorses, calls on Congress to establish a national child poverty reduction target and to invest in children on the scale proven to work. It is a moral statement. We must not accept children living in poverty and all the consequences it brings to children in their lives.

A Shortage of Special Educators Is Becoming a Crisis of Trust

Alexis L. Hamlor, The Progressive

Families with children who have been deemed legally eligible for special education services should not have to wonder whether their child’s school will follow through on providing those services. In public schools across the country, however, families are increasingly concerned that schools may not be able to meet their special education obligations because of inadequate staffing. A 2025 national scan from the Learning Policy Institute reported that at least 411,549 teaching positions were either unfilled or filled by teachers not fully certified for their assignments, representing about one in eight teaching positions nationwide. Special education staffing positions are disappearing into stopgap arrangements that make support inconsistent, if not vanishing altogether. When that happens, the adults closest to the children—including teachers, school specialists, and school administrators—are often left trying to explain gaps they did not create.

Democracy and the Public Interest

Can Oklahoma make public education ‘normal’ again?

Laura Pappano, Hechinger Report (and Slate)

The most exciting thing about Lindel Fields, Oklahoma’s superintendent of public instruction, is how boring he is. Sitting in a state education office conference room recently while his office was under renovation, Fields described his work as “building a foundation” for a strong public education system. “And the foundation of a house isn’t sexy, right?” He hopes that, once students’ literacy scores improve and school districts adequately support and retain teachers, people “will forget who built the foundation.” It’s a sharp contrast to Ryan Walters, who stepped down as state superintendent last September after 33 months.

Researching the Far Right in Education Policy

Huriya Jabbar and Danfeng Soto-Vigil Koon, Educational Researcher

In recent years, the far-right movement in education, characterized by anti-critical race theory, anti-LGBTQ+, and anti-woke campaigns and policies, has gathered steam, threatening to roll back hard-won advances in educational justice, including diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; detracking efforts; student success initiatives for Black and Latinx students; culturally responsive curriculum; ethnic studies; and social-emotional learning programs. The research available on these most recent far-right movements is understandably limited. That said, many education scholars are attempting to study the current wave of far-right activity. To take stock of what these scholars have learned, we conducted a systematic search of the literature, which yielded 80 empirical studies. We review the empirical literature we found and propose a broader, multidimensional research agenda.

The Voting Rights Act reshaped school boards. What will happen after the Supreme Court weakened it?

Erica Meltzer, Chalkbeat

The Voting Rights Act has for decades given parents and others a pathway to change the institutions that have the most day-to-day control over American schools: their local school boards. But the Supreme Court’s April decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which has kicked off a rush of partisan redistricting that threatens Black representation in Congress, could make it harder to demand changes in how school boards are organized going forward. The impact of that law has been sweeping. More than 320 Voting Rights Act complaints between 1982 and 2024 dealt with school board elections, according to a database created by Chris Seaman, a law professor at Washington and Lee University. School boards accounted for more than a fifth of all Section 2 voting rights cases during that time period, Seaman found.

Other News of Note

Teaching the Tulsa Massacre

Zinn Education Project

May 31 marks the anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre, when deputized white rioters murdered hundreds of Black residents and destroyed their homes, businesses, schools, and community centers. This took place from May 31 to June 1, 1921, in the thriving African American community of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This is one of countless massacres in U.S. history designed to maintain white supremacy. They receive little attention in corporate curricula. 

Commemorating the Tulsa Massacre: A Search for Identity and Historical Complexity

Alaina Roberts, National Council on Public History

When HBO’s Watchmen aired on October 20th last year, it introduced millions of Americans to the explosive episode of racial terror that gripped the black residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma from May 30th to June 1st, 1921. The TV show dramatizes how white Americans used guns and even makeshift bombs to destroy millions of dollars in property and murdered an estimated 100 to 300 African Americans over the course of three days (the “aftermath” of which is pictured here). Given my personal connection to this region— and as a historian—I was pleased that this historical milestone, however tragic, was getting the attention it warranted, including in mainstream press. But I was all too aware that, despite this surge of renewed interest, public audiences might not have an opportunity to learn about the broader historical context behind this violence. Many people might never know about the Native American and black people who immigrated to and shaped this place almost 100 years before 1921. This history has been the topic of my research for more than ten years, and it began as a search for my identity.

Remembering Tulsa 

National Museum of African American History and Culture

A century after the Tulsa Race Massacre, people continue to learn about, struggle with, and work to repair the horrific damage done. The voices of survivors and their descendants are central to this work of fighting for social justice. They are pushing the city and the nation to face a more truthful understanding of the past. Their acts of bearing witness are indispensable.