Teaching, Leading, and Social Justice

Trump Wants to Shut Down the Department of Education? Is That Possible?

Dana Goldstein, New York Times

On the campaign trail, Donald J. Trump has depicted the nation’s public schools as purveyors of an extreme ideology on gender and race. One of his proposed remedies is to revive a Reagan-era call to shut down the federal Department of Education, founded in 1979. “We will move everything back to the states, where it belongs” he said in one speech. “They can individualize education and do it with the love for their children.” On the Democratic side, vows to resist that effort have become a frequent applause-line in speeches. “We are not going to let him eliminate the Department of Education that funds our public schools,” Vice President Kamala Harris said at the Democratic National Convention.

Students and parents remain the best advocates in the fight to defeat extremists and false narratives about America’s public schools

Carl Cohn, School Administrator

Last summer, I attended a raucous school board meeting in Orange County, Calif., where a conservative school board majority had fired a popular superintendent, started removing books from libraries, banning LGBTQ+ symbols and considering a new parental notification policy that would, in effect, restrict the protected rights of certain students under both state and federal law. After sitting in a crowded room with adult culture warriors going back and forth for several hours with heated exchanges, I was struck by the bravery of a young transgender high school student who had the courage to go to the podium to address her elected school board with the following request: “I just want to feel safe at school. Please make that happen!” Fast forward to the March 5 Super Tuesday primary elections here in California, one that was characterized by historically low turnout, which usually gives prominence to the voting habits of older, whiter and more conservative voters.

US consumer watchdog finds that school lunch fees are taking a toll on parents

Cora Lewis, AP News

Single mother Rebecca Wood, 45, was already dealing with high medical bills in 2020 when she noticed she was being charged a $2.49 “program fee” each time she loaded money onto her daughter’s school lunch account. As more schools turn to cashless payment systems, more districts have contracted with processing companies that charge as much as $3.25 or 4% to 5% per transaction, according to a new report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The report found that though legally schools must offer a fee-free option to pay by cash or check, there’s rarely transparency around it. “It wouldn’t have been a big deal if I had hundreds of dollars to dump into her account at the beginning of the year,” Wood said. “I didn’t. I was paying as I went, which meant I was paying a fee every time. The $2.50 transaction fee was the price of a lunch. So I’d pay for six lunches, but only get five.”

Language, Culture, and Power

Days After Georgia Shooting, No Mention of Safety or Schools in Trump-Harris Debate

Evie Blad, Education Week

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump did not discuss education or school safety in the first debate between the two presidential candidates Tuesday, which happened less than a week after a mass shooting at a Georgia high school. Moderators did not ask the candidates about a Sept. 4 attack at Apalachee High School in Winder, Ga., in which a 14-year-old student has been charged with killing two students and two teachers with an AR-15-style rifle, an act that has stirred up perennial debates over school safety and gun laws.

The Georgia shooting has also raised questions about how law enforcement and educators can more effectively intervene when youth are in crisis. 

School district with highest student arrest rate in the nation agrees to reform how it disciplines disabled students

Jennifer Smith Richards and Jodi S. Cohen, ProPublica

An Illinois school district that had the nation’s highest student arrest rate has agreed to change its disciplinary practices and provide help to those who missed class time while being punished. The agreement with the U.S. Department of Education will end a federal civil rights investigation into the Four Rivers Special Education District that was launched following a 2022 ProPublica and Chicago Tribune investigation that found the district turned to police with stunning frequency to discipline students with disabilities. Under the deal, students who were referred to police or sent to a “crisis room” multiple times during the past three academic years could be eligible for services including tutoring, counseling or remedial education.

New York seeks to add Indigenous language classes amid ‘historic year’ for bilingual education [Audio]

Noelle E. C. Evans, WXXI News 

State education leaders want more students learning multiple languages. That push includes Indigenous languages, too. “Our ancestors weren’t allowed to speak their language,” said Timothy Williams, a recent graduate of the Silver Creek Central School District. In Silver Creek — located 40 miles south of Buffalo along Lake Erie — about 12% of students are Native American. Williams is one of them. His diploma came with a “seal of biliteracy.” That distinction is awarded to students who can communicate at a high level in at least one other language than English. His second language? Seneca. “Now that I have the opportunity to try and grow and foster the learning, and be a part of this process,” he said, “it’s just a small piece to the puzzle.”

Whole Children and Strong Communities

Fewer college students indicate they are nonbinary amid backlash

Genny Beemyn, The Conversation

The national backlash against trans and nonbinary young people may have led fewer nonbinary students to disclose their gender identity in their applications to college for this fall. That is according to my analysis of how students who applied to college through the Common App identified their gender. The Common App is a good barometer because more than 1 million students use it annually to apply to more than 1,000 U.S. schools. For the most recent admissions cycle, 1.88% of students, or 23,620 individuals, chose a nonbinary gender term to describe themselves, down from 2.2%, or 25,959 individuals, in the last cycle.

Summer unemployment benefits could increase K–12 support staff incomes by $1.2 billion nationwide

Dave Kamper, Sebastian Martinez Hickey, and Daniel Perez, Economic Policy Institute

The Economic Policy Institute has long documented the expanding pay penalty faced by teachers in our K–12 system thanks to decades of underinvestment in public education (Allegretto 2023). But teachers are not the only ones who have been undervalued: Many other school staff—who are essential for providing high-quality, safe, and nurturing learning environments—face considerable financial challenges as a result of their decision to serve in public schools. This report outlines the working conditions of K–12 school support staff across the country. Typically, paraprofessionals, classroom assistants, administrative assistants, custodians, food service workers, bus drivers, and other nonlicensed staff in schools already receive low pay and inadequate hours during the school year. These jobs are disproportionately held by women, Black and brown workers, and older workers.

Detroit public schools adds another tool to combat chronic absenteeism: laundry machines

Robyn Vincent, Chalkbeat

When Janine Scott taught middle school, she had a student who often showed up smelling bad. She sent him to talk to a male teacher, thinking it was a hygiene issue.

It wasn’t. “It’s not him, it’s his hoodie,” the teacher told Scott. Scott, who now teaches mathematics at Davis Aerospace Technical High School and is a member of Chalkbeat’s reader advisory board, said she still sees at least a handful of students come to class in dirty clothes. But the problem is often more visible among younger kids, she said. That’s because older students know better how to conceal the problem, “or they just don’t come to school,” she said.

Access, Assessment, Advancement

‘Time poverty’ can keep college students from graduating − especially if they have jobs or children to care for

Claire Wladis, The Conversation

Many college students don’t have enough time for their studies. This “time poverty,” as we call it, is often due to inadequate child care access or the need to work to pay for college and living expenses. In an effort to understand how much time poverty affects student outcomes, we surveyed more than 41,000 U.S. college students. We found that the more time poverty, the greater the chances of a student earning fewer credits or dropping out. This is especially true for Black and Hispanic students and for women, who have significantly less time for college compared with their peers, largely due to time spent on their jobs and caring for children.

Why the ACLU is suing UC Santa Cruz for banning students who participated in spring protests

Michael Burke, Ed Source

Civil rights groups representing two students and one professor are suing the University of California Santa Cruz, alleging that the campus unlawfully banned students and faculty from campus last spring after they participated in pro-Palestinian protests. By filing the lawsuit, the civil rights groups, including the ACLU of Northern California, are seeking an injunction to prevent the university from banning students again, if there are additional protests in the upcoming fall term, which begins later this month. The complaint, filed in Santa Cruz County Superior Court on Monday, says that more than 110 students and faculty were banned from campus for up to 14 days after being arrested at a pro-Palestinian encampment on May 31. Campus officials at the time invoked section 626.4 of California’s penal code, which allows campus chancellors to ban individuals from campus for up to two weeks if they disrupt the orderly operation of the campus.

The real cost of the student debt crisis

Michael Roth, Washington Post

The scale of the problem boggles the mind. Some 45 million Americans have debt from student loans totaling more than $1.7 trillion. People have now borrowed more for education than for anything else except houses. Ryann Liebenthal is one of those borrowers, and she is very angry. Indeed, the author’s outrage is palpable throughout “Burdened: Student Debt and the Making of an American Crisis,” and she declares that she will be making her argument “with something more than pure journalistic objectivity.” This is one of the rare understatements in “Burdened,” though the author might have better said “less than objectivity.” Hers is an important story, one that provides insight into the crisis facing our educational ecosystem. But her assumption that readers will share her view that a college education is a right of citizenship gets in the way of her core message: that the federal government has made American higher education less effective and more unfair each time it has tried to make it more accessible. By treating students as consumers, and then as products in the banking system, the government has degraded college education and exacerbated inequality.

Inequality, Poverty, Segregation

Facing Entrenched School Segregation, New Jersey Tries Something New

Tracey Tully, New York Times

In 2018, Latino and Black families in New Jersey filed a lawsuit that landed like a gut punch to the state’s progressive reputation. Public schools in New Jersey were alarmingly segregated, the plaintiffs argued, in violation of the state Constitution. The case kicked around in the courts for years before a judge released a decision in October that made neither side happy. The next step might have been a march toward trial and years of legal wrangling that would have been likely to push the problem to New Jersey’s next governor. But late last year the state’s attorney general, Matthew J. Platkin, opened the door to compromise. He suggested that the parties enlist a mediator and begin settlement talks, thrusting New Jersey into an inadvertent starring national role.

Humanizing History by Teaching with Primary Sources [Audio]

Kara Newhouse, KQED

To an outside observer, there’s nothing particularly special about the beige rug at the front of Miranda Lyle’s fourth grade classroom. But for Lyle, it’s the best spot in the room. It’s where students gather for morning meetings, read-alouds, and when Lyle wants to facilitate an intimate learning conversation instead of a lecture. Lyle compared the feeling on the rug to that of gathering around a campfire. “They’re all kind of sitting in a relaxed, comfortable place, there’s proximity, but there’s also, you know, just like a shared comfort level of having the rug,” she said. That makes it easier for her students to test new ideas, express emotions and disagree civilly. “It’s been a very intentional place for us every year to see each other as equals and see each other as people,” Lyle said. The teenagers in the photo were students at R.R. Moton High School – a segregated school in Farmville, Virginia, just over two hours southeast of where the fourth graders attended school. In 1951, the Moton students went on strike to demand better school conditions, which the white school board denied them. Their activism led to them becoming the only student plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education – the Supreme Court case that found school segregation unconstitutional 70 years ago.

How education fails young women in Mexico and what we can do about it

Magdalena Rodríguez Romero, Brookings

Although the educational attainment gender gap has improved significantly in recent years with only a 4.8% gap left globally, women’s access to economic, social, and cultural rights continues to lag behind that of men. Structural barriers, such as harmful social norms and gender stereotypes, unpaid care work, and the lack of support networks, prevent many women from participating equally in the economy. These inequalities translate into reduced autonomy, affecting in general women’s agency and ability to exercise other human rights. Moreover, these issues disproportionally affect women with other intersectional inequalities, such as age, poverty, disability, ethnicity, or race, among others. Mexico provides a clear example of the ways in which gender inequality can persist despite women’s advancement in education.

Democracy and the Public Interest

Inspiring California’s Youth through Civic Education

Tani Cantil-Sakauye, PPIC

With Election Day just a few short weeks away, we are all reminded of the critical power of the vote—how our individual ballots will add up to meaningful outcomes for our neighborhoods, our state, and our country as a whole. Because of the wide-ranging consequences of our elections, this is a time when the importance of civic education is clearer than ever. But as we know, civics is much broader and deeper than election season alone. Put simply, it is woven through the fabric of our daily lives—from access to clean water, to the availability of school lunches, to our ability to connect to the internet. To some extent, it is the everyday nature of civics that makes its significance so hard to see—especially for our youth. This is why I am passionate about civic education. It is an essential tool for helping our young people understand not only how government works, but also their own power and potential in society. This includes learning how our public systems operate, how to engage in the political process, and what their rights and responsibilities are as members of a democratic society. But, to me, this type of knowledge is just the beginning.

Kenya’s youth adopt new style of anti‑Ruto activism

Victor Abuso, The Africa Report

In a campaign initially targeting social media platforms like X and Tik Tok to provide civic education, young people in Kenya have now taken their fight to communities in the rural areas.

They are informing rural folk — most of whom are not on social media — about alleged corruption and lack of accountability in the William Ruto government. The new approach, where young activists meet Kenyans in their homes, markets, inside public transport vehicles and social gatherings, is quickly gaining momentum. The funds for the civic education tours are drawn from citizens who are supporting the fight against a ‘broken system’ they say has been enabled by the Ruto administration.

All-charter no more: New Orleans opens its first traditional public school in nearly 2 decades

Ariel Gilreath, The Hechinger Report

More than 300 students started the school year in the first traditional school run directly by the New Orleans school district since 2019. This August was the first time the district has opened its own school since Hurricane Katrina swept through the city nearly two decades ago. The pre-K-8 school, named after New Orleans cultural and civil rights icon Leah Chase, came together in just a handful of months. Its opening ends the city’s five-year run as the only all-charter school district in the nation. Charter schools receive public funding but are independently run. For some, the opening of the Leah Chase School is a symbol of stability. In a district that’s been out of the business of directly managing schools for five years, it is a tentative step toward a new era in the city where permanent, traditional neighborhood schools are more commonplace. NOLA Public Schools, the district’s official name, has about 41,600 students, 75% of whom are Black.

Other News of Note

September 13 Birthdays:  Antonia Pantoja, Organizer and Activist for New York’s Puerto Rican Community

Monxo López, Museum of the City of New York

Antonia Pantoja was a formidable figure in the historical development of Puerto Rican and Latinx life in New York, Puerto Rico, California, and beyond during the second half of the 20th century. A black, queer, Puerto Rican educator, social worker, and foundational figure in the Puerto Rican community in postwar New York City, Pantoja established several groundbreaking institutions in New York and in Puerto Rico. Her goal was to enhance civil rights and educational opportunities and to promote positive imagery and self-love for Puerto Ricans in New York and beyond. She is best known for establishing the organization ASPIRA in 1961, an important organization that promoted education and advancement for Puerto Rican youth in New York City by providing clubs within schools, career and college counseling, advocacy for bilingual education, and other services. Pantoja was born on September 13, 1922 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to an impoverished family of laundry and tobacco workers.

Dr. Antonia Pantoja: The Puerto-Rican who gave Students Back their Bilingual Voice [Video]

Untold History