Just News from Center X – October 2, 2026

10.2.26

Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

Conservative moms are fed up over Texas schools. For Gina Hinojosa, it’s an opening.

Mel Leonor Barclay, The 19th

Vanessa Ovalle has a “frontline view” of Texas schools as a single mom and a speech pathologist at a local school in McAllen, a city in the Rio Grande Valley bordering Mexico. Ovalle described the state’s education system as “completely disappointing.” In nearby Welasco, Catalina Ozuna said her daughter is working in an understaffed kindergarten classroom for little pay while being weighed down by the cost of daycare for her own child. Meredith Keller, who for over a decade presided over a local school board south of Austin, calls a new voucher program that allows parents to use public dollars for private school “a slap in the face to everyone who went to public school.”

Mayor Mamdani answers a question from his high school teacher [Video]

Brigid Birgin and Zohran Mamdani, Youtube

Schools are experimenting with AI with little evidence or policy to guide them

Lee V. Gaines, NPR

For a few weeks last school year, a small group of students in Dayton, Ohio, regularly sat in front of laptops in conversation with a social-emotional learning chatbot named Jordan. Unlike AI chatbots that are designed to be agreeable — and even sycophantic — Jordan presents as angsty: On the day NPR visited, the chatbot told students, “Lately, I’ve been feeling like what’s the point of any of this? I’m not failing. I just don’t care. You ever feel like that?” “Jordan’s a little whiner, but I always help him out,” said K, a sophomore at the Alternative School at Jackson Center, which is part of Dayton Public Schools.

Language, Culture, and Power

How Trump’s immigration crackdown is harming children — including U.S. citizens

Amanda Becker, The 19th

President Donald Trump has revived a policy change from his first term that gives immigration agents broad authority to deny green cards and visas to applicants who have received public benefits — or whose families have. The change to what’s known as the public charge rule took effect on September 18. The Republican president’s first-term attempt to change the public charge rule was blocked by federal courts. President Joe Biden entirely reversed the change. Trump’s efforts this time serve two of his administration’s top priorities: significantly restricting immigration, even if it’s legal, and reducing enrollment in government assistance programs. Some of the people facing the most harm when these priorities intersect are children.

The Racist Beginnings of Book Bans

Brenda Alvarez, NEA Today

Why books? It’s a deceptively simple question. But when asked why books have become the latest political battleground, Hawai’i middle school social studies teacher Aaron Kubo says: “Books are where we keep knowledge. When students realize this, … they begin to understand what they can do with it: Gain power, … change the world.” That understanding is precisely why books have so often been targeted throughout history. While book censorship stretches back centuries, book bans throughout U.S. history have a distinctly racist and homophobic nar­rative. Long before school boards debated The Bluest Eye or The Hate U Give, some lawmakers banned something even more fundamental: The ability of Black Americans to read at all.

From kindergarten to disciplinary school: Texas sends kids as young as 6 to harsh alternative campuses 

Sarah Butrymowicz, Hechinger Report

The most notable thing about Melissa’s son’s 6th birthday should have been the vacation the family took. Instead, it was the letter waiting for them when they returned home. Her child was assigned to the disciplinary campus in their school district in McKinney, Texas, for 30 days, the April 2024 letter told them, over allegations that the kindergartner had assaulted a teacher about a week prior. Melissa, whose last name is being withheld to protect her son’s privacy, said the incident occurred when the boy had struggled against a restraint, kicking a teacher. State law requires school districts in Texas to have a disciplinary alternative education program, or DAEP, to send misbehaving students. Students 5 and younger are not allowed to be placed in these programs.

Whole Children and Strong Communities

Social Networks From the Margins: Race, Social Capital, and Educational Access Among Youth Experiencing Homelessness

Earl J. Edwards, AERA Open

More than 1.5 million U.S. students are identified as experiencing homelessness each year, yet many remain disconnected from school-based protections. This study offers a race-conscious analysis of how Black and Latine youth experiencing homelessness access institutional and alternative forms of capital across fragmented systems of support. Drawing on interviews with 23 youth in Los Angeles County, the study uses Lin’s social capital theory and Stanton-Salazar’s concept of empowerment agents. Findings show that housing and antipoverty systems were often disconnected from McKinney-Vento protections. Institutional mistrust and concerns about racialized surveillance discouraged some youth from disclosing housing instability. Trusted educators served as relational brokers who combined institutional authority with cultural credibility and care. Familial and community-based networks provided material assistance, emotional support, and day-to-day stability through relational logics of care, but did not consistently connect youth to formal educational protections. Findings demonstrate that support and access are complementary, not synonymous.

Abortion pills to be offered at California community college health centers under new law

Noelle Doblado and Skylar Stock, Cal Matters

Community colleges in California will be required to offer abortion medication through campus health centers starting in 2029, under a law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday. Through the Community College Student Right to Access Act, California will extend the reproductive health service already required for public universities in the state. No specific dollar amount is mentioned in the new law, only that the implementation of abortion medication at community colleges will rely on the Legislature appropriating funding. Community colleges were left out of Senate Bill 24, a law that was signed in 2019 and took effect in 2023, requiring University of California and California State University campuses to provide on-campus abortion medication at their health centers. The new law, authored by Assemblymember Catherine Stefani, a Democrat from San Francisco, will require abortion pill access at community college campuses with existing health centers.

New Policies Pose Risks to Health of Lawfully Present Immigrant Families and Children, Including U.S. Citizen Children

Steven Lopez, Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University

Several policy changes taking effect this fall will negatively impact immigrants and mixed-status families. As my colleague Leo Cuello has pointed out, undocumented immigrants are not eligible to enroll in Medicaid coverage, therefore, this blog explains changes that apply to lawfully present immigrant families and children (many of whom are U.S. citizens). It’s also worth noting that immigrants use less health care and have lower health care costs than U.S.-born citizens. This blog focuses on two significant developments: Changes to the public charge policy; and

H.R. 1 provisions affecting Medicaid, CHIP, and Emergency Medicaid.

Access, Assessment, Advancement

Head Start preschools serve parents, too. Under Trump, advocates fear that will change

Moriah Balingit, AP News

Cassie Reed and her two young children had just moved from a domestic violence shelter into a third-floor apartment in Spokane, Washington, when she spotted a soon-to-open Head Start preschool on the building’s ground floor. Much of Reed’s first three decades of life had been shaped by abuse and neglect: first, she says, at the hands of her biological mother, then in foster care and, when she became an adult, in a series of romantic relationships. She had lost custody of three older children a decade earlier, in part because she lacked stable housing. By March 2022, when she had finally landed an apartment in a transitional housing program, she had lost all faith in herself.

Decades of fossil fuel influence paved way for Trump’s assault on university research, study says

Sara Sneath, The Guardian

Recent attacks on US universities by the Trump administration have built on decades of efforts by libertarian donor networks, fossil fuel companies and conservative thinktanks to reshape university governance and increase outside influence, according to a new study. The authors of the new perspective study argue that the erosion of university autonomy has left colleges more vulnerable to corporate interests, especially within climate and energy research. In 2025, the Trump administration froze billions of dollars in research funding, launched investigations into 75 institutions and pushed colleges to sign agreements supporting administration policies in exchange for federal funding. The federal government canceled $4m in climate research grants at Princeton University alone and accused scientists of fueling “climate anxiety”.

Union Busting Comes to Campus

David Dayen, American Prospect

Weeks before a midterm that is shaping up as a major Democratic blowout, Senate Republicans decided to spend their final days in session focused not on affordability, the main concern of voters, but on eliminating labor rights for a subset of workers who are disproportionately young Black men. And the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), thinks this could win the GOP the elections. Delusion isn’t a strong enough word for it. The Protect College Sports Act, which passed the Senate 77-22 on Monday, has been the subject of nonstop advertising campaigns during college football and basketball games for the last several years, and even more lobbying inside the Capitol. We did an Organized Money podcast about it last December. It has a lot of facets, but essentially, the people who made untold riches by turning college athletics into a sharecropper system appealed to Congress to effectively reinstate it.

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

From Gaza to Sudan to Nepal, more than 500 million children are in desperate need of education

Edith Lederer, AP News

In a stifling sixth grade classroom in war-torn Sudan, a very motivated teacher was giving a lesson to 120 very committed children. Among them: an 18-year-old girl uprooted three years ago by fighting, forced into marriage and motherhood too soon, but determined to finish her education. That wasn’t all, Maysa Jalbout, the director of Education Can’t Wait, recounted of her visit to the school a few weeks ago. Even with a classroom temperature of 44 degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit) and no water or electricity, “She pleaded with me to make sure that her siblings and her cousins and her orphan friends are also able to attend school.”

What civil rights enforcement cuts mean for students with disabilities – fewer staff, closed offices, longer waits

The Conversation

Felicita Piñón weighed just 1 pound at birth. She was later diagnosed with cerebral palsy that requires her to use a power wheelchair, and she also has learning and emotional challenges. Yet despite these obstacles, Felicita, now an eighth grade student, is just like any other happy, active teenager who hasn’t let her disability limit her. She also did something remarkable that’s not typical of most teens – in 2025, she testified against a school voucher bill at the Texas Capitol.

But in 2024, when Felicita wanted to join a cheerleading team at her Crowley, Texas, middle school, her mother, Liz Piñón, said the school was not willing to make accommodations for her, as she felt federal disabilities laws required. She believed the school was discriminating against her daughter on the basis of her disability, as well as her race. 

Racial Status Threat and Anti-DEI Efforts in Local School Districts

Melissa Arnold Lyon, Carolina Snaider, Ariell Bertrand, Juli Bak, and Rebecca Jacobsen, Educational Researcher 

This study draws on political science theory to analyze how perceived status threats to White social dominance influence local educational politics. We examine the relationship between racial status threat (RST) and the rise of anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideas (contentious school board elections and book challenges) and policies (policy enactments and book bans) in U.S. school districts. RST triggers—demographic changes and Black Lives Matter protests in surrounding communities—increase the likelihood of anti-DEI policy adoption, particularly in large districts. However, these triggers are unrelated to the circulation of anti-DEI ideas. Findings suggest that anti-DEI policies reflect community-level cultural conflicts rather than school-district-specific policies or conditions, underscoring the enduring role of public schools in America’s broader cultural changes and conflicts.

Democracy and the Public Interest

Spell Freedom: Citizenship and Democracy 

Hasan Kwame Jeffries and Elaine Weiss, Southern Poverty Law Center

This video and discussion toolkit features a conversation between historian Hasan Kwame Jeffries and journalist and author Elaine Weiss, recorded in June 2026 at the Learning for Justice Social Justice Track during the Children’s Defense Fund’s Ella Baker Child Policy Training Institute in Knoxville, Tennessee. The conversation emphasizes the idea that democracy is not something we can take for granted, but rather it must be built, practiced and protected. 

First-Time Voters, Youth-Led Drives: Youth Voices on Democracy [Audio]

Almetria Vaba, KQED

What does democracy look like through young people’s eyes? The Next 250: Youth Voices on Democracy is a three-part KQED radio special featuring stories high school students created for the KQED Youth Media Challenge. Each segment explores how young people are engaging with issues that matter to them.

Teachers in red states are terrified to stand up for LGBTQ+ students

Greg Owen, LGBTQ Nation

A new study from the Human Rights Campaign reveals the corrosive effects of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation – and the local school-level policies reinforcing it – on mental health, academic performance, and the overall well-being of LGBTQ+ students. LGBTQ+ students are much more likely than non-LGBTQ+ students to report having experienced harassment and bullying in the 17 states identified as “negative” in the survey, when it comes to laws and school policy related to LGBTQ+ students, HRC found. “The report finds that harassment, bullying, and other barriers to LGBTQ+ inclusion are more prevalent in states with limiting policies, where educators report widespread restrictions on LGBTQ+ resources, visible expressions of support, and assistance for transgender students,” a statement released with the report says.

Other News of Note

What’s behind French student protests that turned violent?

Caolán Magee, Al Jazeera

Protests over crowded classrooms, teacher shortages and lengthy school days have spread across France, with police detaining more than 400 people, many of them minors, on Tuesday. The movement began at high schools in the Paris area last week before expanding nationwide. Some school blockades turned violent as protesters burned rubbish bins and hurled bottles at officers, who responded with batons and tear gas. Authorities said 48 law enforcement officers were injured. The unrest coincided with a public sector strike over the government’s budget plans, adding to political tensions and a headache for Emmanuel Macron ahead of next year’s presidential election. Here is what we know.