Is School Funding Fair?  A National Report Card (website)

Teaching Tolerance (website) curriculum

Louis Chandler, et.al., Forced Busing: A Pittsburgh and National Failure. Allegheny Institute, May 1997.

Susanna Loeb, Miguel Socias, Federal Contributions to High-Income School Districts: The Use of Tax Deductions for Funding K-12 Education. Economics of Education Review, May 15, 2002.

Richard Rothstein and Rebecca Jacobsen, The Goals of Education. Phi Delta Kappan, Dec 2006.  gives a succinct history of political leaders and their hopes for public schooling

Gary Orfield & Chungmei Lee, Historic Reversals, Accelerating Resegregation, and the Need for New Integration Strategies. Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, UCLA, Aug 2007.

Joel Spring, Deculturalization and the Struggle for Equality: A Brief History of the Education of Dominated Cultures in the United States. McGraw-Hill | Amazon page, Feb 2009.

Gary Orfield, St Louis, School Desegregation and Housing Policy. HTH Video, Jun 11, 2009.

Karin Chenoweth, Many Schools Find Ways to Close the Achievement Gap. US News, Dec 17, 2009.

Joe Williams and Pedro Noguera, Poor Schools or Poor Kids? Education Next, Winter 2010.  also tackling poverty and health care

Andrea Canning and Leezel Tanglao, Ohio Mom Kelley Williams-Bolar Jailed for Sending Kids to Better School District.  ABC News, Jan 25, 2011.  “But it wasn't her Akron district of residence, so her children were ineligible to attend school there, even though her father lived within the district's boundaries… Williams-Bolar said she did it to keep her children safe and that she lived part-time with her dad.  "When my home got broken into, I felt it was my duty to do something else," Williams-Bolar said.  While her children are no longer attending schools in the Copley-Fairlawn District, school officials said she was cheating because her daughters received a quality education without paying taxes to fund it.  "Those dollars need to stay home with our students," school district officials said… The school officials asked her to pay $30,000 in back tuition.  Williams-Bolar refused and was indicted and convicted of falsifying her residency records.  She was sentenced last week to 10 days in county jail and put on three years of probation.

LynNell Hancock, Why Are Finland's Schools Successful? Smithsonian Magazine, Sep 2011.

Kevin J. Burke and Avner Segall, Christianity and Its Legacy in Education. Journal of Curriculum Studies, Sep 2011.

Raj Chetty, John N. Friedman, Jonah E. Rockoff, The Long Term Impacts of Teachers: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood. NBER, Dec 2011.

Joanne Barkan, Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools. Dissent, Winter 2011.

Harvard Magazine, Raj Chetty and Colleagues Release Controversial Education Study. Harvard Magazine, Jan 18, 2012.

Waiting for Superman Washington DC Town Hall, The Future of Education in America. video, May 11, 2012.

Valerie Strauss, John Jackson, Pedro Noguera, Why Education Inequality Persists - and How to Fix It. Washington Post, May 16, 2012.

Sean F. Reardon, The Widening Achievement Gap Between Rich and Poor. Community Investments, Summer 2012.

Ary Spatig-Amerikaner, Unequal Education Federal Loophole Enables Lower Spending on Students of Color. American Progress, Aug 2012.

Joe Nocera, How to Fix the Schools. New York Times, Sep 17, 2012.

John Tierney, AP Classes Are a Scam. The Atlantic, Oct 13, 2012.

Rucker Johnson, The Impact Desegregation Had on Schools. TEDx Talks, Oct 22, 2012.  integration had no effect on white students' HS graduation rate, educational attainment, likelihood of incarceration, and career options/earnings; dramatic increase in black students'; and argues that resource levels of those schools, not a better set of peers, was the key

Daniel S. Levine, Schools Resegregate After Being Freed from Judicial Oversight, Stanford Study Shows. Stanford News, Dec 5, 2012.

Derek Black, Education Law: Equality, Fairness, and Reform (Aspen Casebook). Aspen Publishers | Amazon page, 2013.  concerns the application of the 14th Amendment to public school (literacy, etc.) as a public good vital to democracy

Valerie Strauss, Why Schools Aren't Businesses: The Blueberry Story. Washington Post, Jul 9, 2013.  what a businessman learned

Retro Report, The Battle for Busing. New York Times video, Sep 9, 2013. A story of America's school integration and what happened when the buses stopped rolling

Aboubacar Ndiaye, Black Boys Have an Easier Time Fitting In at Suburban Schools Than Black Girls. The Atlantic, Oct 21, 2013.

Eduardo Porter, A Tax Subsidy for Richer Schools? New York Times, Nov 7, 2013.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, The Missionary. NPR, This American Life radio, Nov 22, 2013.  about George Romney's attempt to reverse housing discrimination as Secretary of HUD

Amanda Machado, Why Teachers of Color Quit. The Atlantic, Dec 23, 2013.

Raj Chetty, John N. Friedman, Jonah E. Rockoff, Measuring the Impacts of Teachers II: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood. NBER, Sep 2013.

Tanner Colby, The Massive Liberal Failure on Race, Part 1: How the Left's Embrace of Busing Hurt the Cause of Integration. Slate, Feb 3, 2014.

Tanner Colby, The Massive Liberal Failure on Race, Part 2: Affirmative Action Doesn't Work; It Never Did; It's Time for Another Solution. Slate, Feb 10, 2014.

Joy Resmovits, American Schools Are STILL Racist, Government Report Finds. Huffington Post, Mar 21, 2014.

Matthew Yglesias, Teachers Get an Appreciation Week, Lawyers Take Home $70,000 More Per Year. Vox, May 6, 2014.

Richard Fry, Young Adults, Student Debt, and Economic Well-Being. Pew Research, May 14, 2014.

Jim Saksa, "You Can Do Anything With a Law Degree". Slate, May 14, 2014.

Liz Dwyer, 6 Shocking Facts About Public School Segregation. TakePart, May 17, 2014.

Dale Russakoff, Schooled: Cory Booker, Chris Christie, and Mark Zuckerberg Had a Plan to Reform Newark’s Schools. They Got an Education. The New Yorker, May 19, 2014.

William Dereisiewicz, Spirit Guides: Students Crave Emotional Mentorship from Their Teachers that Their Parents Can't Give Them. Slate, Aug 14, 2014.

David Kirp, Teaching is Not a Business. New York Times, Aug 16, 2014.

Robert Reich, Back to School, and to Widening Inequality. Huffington Post, Aug 25, 2014.

Matt Bruenig, Michelle Rhee’s Real Legacy: Here’s What’s Most Shameful About Her Reign. AlterNet, Aug 30, 2014.

Stephen Pinker, The Trouble With Harvard. The New Republic, Sep 4, 2014.

Amy S. Choi, What the Best Education Systems Are Doing Right. TED Ideas, Sep 4, 2014.

Pamela Engel, These Maps Show How Segregated Schools Are in Your County. Business Insider, Sep 5, 2014.

Dana Goldstein, As if Teachers' Jobs Aren't Hard Enough, They're Asked to Fix Poverty, Too. Vox video, Sep 6, 2014.

Danielle Kurtzleben, White High School Dropouts Are Wealthier Than Black or Latino College Graduates. Vox, Sep 24, 2014.

Julian Castro, A Victory for a Fairer Housing Market. Huffington Post, Oct 9, 2014.

Noam Chomsky, Corporate Business Models Are Hurting American Universities. Salon, Oct 10, 2014.

WBEZ, Is This Working? This American Life, Oct 17, 2014.  about no general agreement about how teachers should discipline kids

Matt O'Brien, Poor Kids Who Do Everything Right Don’t Do Better Than Rich Kids Who Do Everything Wrong. Washington Post, Oct 18, 2014.

Chris Maisano, Friendly Fire: Social Impact Bonds Offer Private Interests Yet Another Opportunity to Enrich Themselves at Public Expense. Jacobin, Oct 2014.

Derek Thompson, Why Cliques Form at Some High Schools and Not Others. The Atlantic, Nov 10, 2014.

Valerie Strauss, Teacher to Parents: About THAT Kid. The One Who Hits, Disrupts, and Influences YOUR Kid). Washington Post, Nov 14, 2014.

Mike Rose, School Reform Fails the Test - How Can Our Schools Get Better When We’ve Made Our Teachers the Problem and Not the Solution? The American Scholar, Dec 10, 2014.

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Unlocking Opportunity for African-American Girls. NAACP, 2014.

Valerie Strauss, Teacher: I See the Difference in Educational Privilege Every Day. I Live It. I Am Disgusted By It. Washington Post, Jan 29, 2015.

Economist, America’s New Aristocracy: As the Importance of Intellectual Capital Grows, Privilege Has Become Increasingly Heritable. Economist, Jan 24, 2015.

Sharon Lerner, A School District That Was Never Desegregated. The Atlantic, Feb 5, 2015.

Laura Shin, The Racial Wealth Gap: Why A Typical White Household Has 16 Times The Wealth Of A Black One. Forbes, Mar 26, 2015.  homeownership #1; education #2; labor markets #3

Allison Eck, Stress from Poverty Decreases Child Brain Sizes - Even at Birth. PBS, Mar 31, 2015.

Alana Semuels, The City That Believed in Desegregation. The Atlantic, Apr 3, 2015.  on Louisville, KY compared with other cities

Elise Hu, The All-Work, No-Play Culture of South Korean Schools. NPR, Apr 15, 2015.

Robby Berman, A New Kind of Kindergarten Design Encourages Kids to Be Their Silly Selves. Upworthy, Apr 2015.

John Oliver, Standardized Tests. Last Week Tonight, May 3, 2015.

Casey Quinlan, Here’s What Would Actually Happen If Rand Paul Eliminated The Department Of Education. Think Progress, May 13, 2015.

Matthew Yglesias, Want a Good Public Education for Your Kids? Better Be Rich First. Vox, Jul 21, 2015.

Joe Pinsker, America Is Even Less Socially Mobile Than Most Economists Thought. The Atlantic, Jul 23, 2015.

Katherine Reynolds Lewis, Why Schools Over-Discipline Children With Disabilities. The Atlantic, Jul 24, 2015.  "Despite the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act 25 years ago, students with disabilities are still punished at disproportionate rates" including when race is factored in

NPR, The Problem We All Live With. NPR This American Life, Jul 31, 2015.  On desegregation.

Nikole Hannah-Jones, The Continuing Reality of Segregated Schools. New York Times Magazine, Jul 31, 2015.

Katherine Reynolds Lewis, What If Everything You Knew About Disciplining Kids Was Wrong? Mother Jones, Jul/Aug 2015.

Cara Fitzpatrick, Lisa Gartner, Michael LaForgia, Failure Factories. Tampa Bay Times, Aug 14, 2015.  first in a three part series

Alex Kotlowitz, ‘The Prize,’ by Dale Russakoff. New York Times, Aug 19, 2015.  about Mark Zuckerberg's attempt to help NJ schools

Madeleine Cummings, Do American Indian Students Perform Better When They Have American Indian Teachers? Slate, Aug 19, 2015.

Jessica Huseman, The Frightening Power of the Home-Schooling Lobby. Slate, Aug 27, 2015.

Valerie Strauss, The Decline of Play in Preschoolers and the Rise in Sensory Issues. Washington Post, Sep 1, 2015.

Anya Kamenetz, The Evidence That White Children Benefit From Integrated Schools. NPR, Oct 19, 2015.

George Theoharis, 'Forced Busing' Didn't Fail. Desegregation Is the Best Way to Improve Our Schools. Washington Post, Oct 23, 2015.

Rebecca Klein, Latino School Segregation: The Big Education Problem That No One is Talking About. Huffington Post, Oct 26, 2015.

David Brooks, A Sensible Version of Donald Trump. New York Times, Oct 27, 2015.  cites Raj Chetty's study on the impact of neighborhoods and peer groups

Eduardo Porter, School vs. Society in America's Failing Students. New York Times, Nov 3, 2015.

Robbie Berman, His Students Were Struggling, So He Flipped the Classroom. Then Everything Changed. Upworthy, Nov 4, 2015.

Valerie Strauss, How 'Twisted' Early Childhood Education Has Become - From a Child Development Expert. Washington Post, Nov 24, 2015.

Emma Brown, This Superintendent Has Figured Out How to Make School Work for Poor Kids. Washington Post, Dec 20, 2015.  re: Tiffany Anderson in Jennings, Missouri

R. Shep Melnick, Civil Wrongs. Education Next, Winter 2015.

Erika Christakis, The New Preschool is Crushing Kids. The Atlantic, Jan-Feb 2016.

Vicki Abeles, Is the Drive for Success Making Our Children Sick? New York Times, Jan 2, 2016.

NPR Staff, The Superintendent Who Turned Around a School District. NPR, Jan 3, 2016.  re: Tiffany Anderson in Jennings, Missouri

Abby Jackson, An Alarming New Study Says Charter Schools Are America's New Subprime Mortgages. Business Insider, Jan 6, 2016.

Juan Gonzalez & Amy Goodman, Emergency for Democracy: Unelected Manager Who Caused Flint Water Crisis Now Runs Detroit Schools. Democracy Now, Jan 15, 2016.

Dylan Hock, Detroit’s Teachers Want You to See These Disturbing Photos of Their Toxic Schools. U.S. Uncut, Jan 17, 2016.

Michio Kaku, The US Has the Worst Educational System Known to Science. Cosmology Today, Jan 18, 2016.

Jason A. Grissom and Christopher Reddings, Discretion and Disproportionality: Explaining the Underrepresentation of High-Achieving Students of Color in Gifted Programs. AERA Open, Jan 19, 2016.  find that black teachers refer black students to gifted programs at an equivalent rate as white students, but non-black teachers refer black students at one-third the rate. For summary, see Thandisizwe Chimurenga, Black Kids Are Being Kept Out of Gifted Programs: Why Having More Black Teachers Could Help. Daily Kos, Jan 21, 2016.  and Anya Kamenetz, To Be Young, 'Gifted' And Black, It Helps To Have A Black Teacher. NPR, Jan 21, 2016.  “Only one factor erased this disparity between students: the race of their teachers. Nonblack teachers identify black students as gifted in reading 2.1 percent of the time. Black teachers are three times more likely to identify black students as gifted in reading: 6.2 percent of the time. That's the same rate as for white students, no matter the race of their teacher.”

Lisa Heffernan and Jennifer Wallace, To Get Into College, Harvard Report Advocates for Kindness Instead of Overachieving. Washington Post, Jan 20, 2016.

David Gonzalez, A Beloved Bronx Teacher Retires After a Conflict With His Principal. New York Times, Jan 24, 2016.

Zenobia Jeffries, Court Rules Michigan Has No Responsibility to Provide Quality Public Education. Chicago Defender, Jan 26, 2016.

Ann P. Cronin, The Tide is Turning: High School Is Coming Back. Real Learning CT blog, Feb 9, 2016.

Marc Tucker, Asian Countries Take the U.S. to School. The Atlantic, Feb 29, 2016.

William Doyle, This is Why Finland Has the Best Schools. Sydney Morning Herald, Mar 26, 2016.

Kenya Downs, What 'White Folks Who Teach in the Hood' Get Wrong About Education. PBS News Hour, Mar 28, 2016.  critique of short-lived teacher careers

Robert D. Putnam, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. Simon & Schuster | Amazon page, Mar 29, 2016.

Wes Williams, Obama Just Threatened to Take Billions from North Carolina Over Anti-Gay Law. Winning Democrats, Apr 2, 2016.  primarily education funding

Patti Neymond, Kids' Grades Can Suffer When Mom or Dad Is Depressed. NPR, Apr 4, 2016.

Erin Einhorn, The Extreme Sacrifice Detroit Parents Make to Access Better Schools. The Atlantic, Apr 11, 2016.

Annie Holmquist, Study: Vocational Classes Keep High School Students Interested. Intellectual Takeout, Apr 14, 2016.

Cory Turner, et.al., Why America's Schools Have a Money Problem. NPR, Apr 18, 2016.

Emily Deruy, When School Districts Get Deliberate About Desegregation. The Atlantic, Apr 20, 2016.

Thomas B. Edsall, How the Other Fifth Lives. New York Times, Apr 27, 2016.  about the self-segregation of the wealthy

Motoko Rich, Amanda Cox, and Matthew Bloch, Money, Race, and Success:  How Your School District Compares. New York Times, Apr 29, 2016.  6th graders in the richest school districts are 4 grade levels ahead of children in the poorest districts

Emily Badger, The One Thing Rich Parents Do for Their Kids that Makes All the Difference. Washington Post, May 10, 2016.  is residential segregation

Paul Krugman, It Takes a Policy. New York Times, May 16, 2016.  on policy priorities and spending (of all sorts) for children

Camila Domonoske, After 50-Year Legal Struggle, Mississippi School District Ordered To Desegregate. NPR, May 17, 2016.

Paul Tough, To Help Kids Thrive, Coach Their Parents. New York Times, May 21, 2016.

Peter Greene, Erie, Pennsylvania and the Death of Public Education. Huffington Post, May 24, 2016.

K.J. Dell'Antonia, The Families That Can't Afford Summer. New York Times, Jun 4, 2016.

Sarah Carr, Tomorrow's Test. Slate, Jun 5, 2016.  there are now more students of color than white students in public schools; implications

Alvin Chang, Living in a Poor Neighborhood Changes Everything About You. Vox, Jun 6, 2016.  very helpful narrative and graphical presentation

Liz Sablich, 7 Findings That Illustrate Racial Disparities in Education. Brookings, Jun 6, 2016.

Greg Toppo, Black Students Nearly 4x As Likely to Be Suspended. USA Today Jun 7, 2016.

Jay Mathews, Don't Like Our Public Schools? Blame Martin Luther's 500 Years of Influence. Washington Post, Jun 26, 2016.

Scott Kurashige, The Fifty Year Rebellion: How the U.S. Political Crisis Began in Detroit. University of California Press | Amazon page, Jul 4, 2017.

Chloe Pfeiffer, Vietnam's Students Perform Mysteriously Well on Tests, and Researchers Have Figured Out Why. Business Insider, Jul 15, 2016.

Paul Barnwell, Students' Broken Moral Compasses. (The Atlantic, Jul 25, 2016.

David H. Freedman, The War on Stupid People: American Society Increasingly Mistakes Intelligence for Human Worth. The Atlantic, Jul/Aug 2016.

Richard Stutman, Homelessness Takes Toll on Schools. Boston Herald, Aug 6, 2016.

Valerie Strauss, Think Teachers Aren't Paid Enough? It's Worse Than You Think. Washington Post, Aug 16, 2016.

Daniel Lombroso, Alia Wong, Can School Integration Make a Comeback? The Atlantic video, Sep 7, 2016.

Elizabeth A. Harris, Judge, Citing Inequality, Orders Connecticut to Overhaul Its School System. New York Times, Sep 7, 2016.

Rebecca Klein, Obama Administration To Schools: Stop Using Police To Enforce Rules. Huffington Post, Sep 8, 2016.  about the school-to-prison pipeline

Michael Moore, Why Finland Has the Best Education System in the World. Visions of Helsinki, Sep 15, 2016.  well-rounded education, little to no homework, stimulating curiosity, no standardized tests, public school equality

Kristina Rizga, Black Teachers Matter. Mother Jones, Sep/Oct 2016.  why are black teachers leaving the profession?

Color Magazine, Two Languages, One Community. Color Magazine, Oct 20, 2016.  with link to video; about a Spanish-English dual language school in Boston

Collier Meyerson, One of America's 'Best' School Districts is Actually Kind of Racist, Report Says. Business Insider, Oct 26, 2016.  Long Beach, CA

Sean Coughlan, Why Do Finnish Pupils Succeed With Less Homework? BBC News, Oct 27, 2016.

John Oliver, School Segregation. Last Week Tonight, Oct 30, 2016.

Janie T. Carnock, How New York State Is Lifting the Torch for its Dual Language Learners. New America, Nov 3, 2016.

Kandice Sumner, How America's Public Schools Keep Kids in Poverty. TED Talks, Nov 28, 2016.  about the disparities in schooling resources due to segregation, the Supreme Court cases which undid Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Radiolab, Inner Voices. Radiolab, Nov 2016.  about student performance when gender or race trigger words are used or not

The Economist, Learning from the World's Swottiest Countries. Economist, Dec 3, 2016.  a review of Lucy Crehan, Cleverlands: The Secrets Behind the Success of the World's Education Superpowers. Unbound | Amazon page, Jan 15, 2017.

Amanda Ripley, The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way. Simon & Schuster | Amazon page, Jul 29, 2014.  See summary by Amanda Ripley, What America Can Learn About Smart Schools in Other Countries. New York Times, Dec 6, 2016.  

Nancy Hanover, Betsy DeVos: Religion and Profit in the War on Public Education. World Socialist Web Site, Dec 13, 2016.  curious mention of her Dutch Reformed heritage

Taryn Finley, The Racial Achievement Gap Can’t Close Without Prison Reform, Report Shows. Huffington Post, Dec 19, 2016.

Ann Owens, How the Rich Wanting the Best for Their Kids is Segregating Our Neighborhood. London School of Economics, Dec 22, 2016.

Chelsea Bailey, You're Fired: Buffalo School Board Moves to Oust Trump Ally Carl Paladino Following Racist Comments About Obamas. NBC, Dec 29, 2016.

Louis Serino, What International Test Scores Reveal About American Education. Brookings Institute, Apr 7, 2017.

Emma Brown, Judge: Mostly White Southern City May Secede from School District Despite Racial Motive. Washington Post, Apr 27, 2017.

Valerie Strauss, Why Should the Federal Government Support High-Quality Early Education. Washington Post, Jun 5, 2017.

Jennifer Berkshire, The Privatization Prophets. Jacobin Magazine, May 15, 2017.  like Betsy DeVos

Sprouts, Early Childhood Education: The Research. Sprouts, Jun 9, 2017.  reviews the most recent findings on the success of early preschool education, citing also studies of parents’ use of words, etc.

Ryan V. Reeves, Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About It. Brookings Institution Press | Amazon page, Jun 13, 2017.

Rebecca J. Rosen, ‘We Have to Have a Massive Revolution in Public Education in the United States’. The Atlantic, Jun 26, 2017.  re: Henry Louis Gates and black America

Alana Semuels, Japan Might Be What Equality in Education Looks Like. The Atlantic, Aug 2, 2017.

Erick Trickey, How Julián Castro Bet on 4-Year-Olds to Transform San Antonio. Politico, Aug 17, 2017.

Alana Semuels, Trump Administration Puts on Hold an Obama-Era Desegregation Effort. The Atlantic, Aug 30, 2017.  rule helped poor Americans move to more expensive neighborhoods with better schools

Sean Illing, "Schools Are Segregated Because White People Want Them That Way". Vox, Oct 26, 2017.  an interview with Nikole Hannah-Jones

Deepa Bharath, Think Race Isn't a Problem in California? Think Otherwise. San Jose Mercury News, Dec 3, 2017.  income, incarceration rates, education, health outcomes.

Dianna Douglas, Are Private Schools Immoral? The Atlantic, Dec 14, 2017.  a conversation with Nikole Hannah-Jones

Jeneen Interlandi, Why Are Our Most Important Teachers Paid the Least? New York Times Magazine, Jan 9, 2018.  preschool teachers

Julie Halpert, What if America Didn't Have Any Public Schools? The Atlantic, Mar 4, 2018.

Valerie Strauss, Betsy DeVos Used Shutterstock Picture to Attack U.S. Schools. Teachers Aren't Having It. Washington Post, Mar 8, 2018.

Erica L. Green, Why Are Black Students Punished So Often? Minnesota Confronts a National Quandary. New York Times, Mar 18, 2018.

Erica L. Green, As DeVos Faces Congress, Officials Say She Hid Plans to Overhaul Department. New York Times, Mar 20, 2018.

James Vaznis, Modest State Aid Increase Leaves Many School Systems Strapped. Boston Globe, Apr 1, 2018.

Alex Samuels, Teachers in Other States Are Striking; Texas Teachers Can't Do That. WFAA, Apr 5, 2018.

German Lopez, Black Kids Are Way More Likely to Be Punished in School Than White Kids, Study Shows. Vox, Apr 5, 2018.

Isabel Angell and Todd Zwillich, State Education Budgets Across the Country Are in Crisis. Here's Why. The Takeaway WNYC Studios, Apr 6, 2018.

Craig Harris, This Arizona Teacher Doubled His Salary by Getting a Teaching Job in California. WFAA, Apr 7, 2018.

Caitlin Emma, Teachers Are Going on Strike in Trump's America. Politico, Apr 12, 2018.

Kristina Rizga, A Witness to the Desegregation—and Resegregation—of America's Schools. The Atlantic, May 1, 2018.

Steven Greenhouse, Making Teachers' Strikes Illegal Won't Stop Them. New York Times, May 9, 2018.

Zaid Jilani, West Virginia Republican Said Teachers Won't Have Any Significant Effect on Elections. Then They Voted Him Out. The Intercept, May 11, 2018.

Valerie Strauss, Bill Gates Spent Hundreds of Millions of Dollars to Improve Education. New Report Says It Was a Bust. Washington Post, Jun 29, 2018.

Joel Warner, ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It!’: Can Trump Country Withstand the Grassroots Teachers Movement Sweeping the Nation? Newsweek, Jul 12, 2018.

Susan Dynarski, Evidence on New York City and Boston Exam Schools. Brookings Institute, Jul 19, 2018.  re: two econometric studies which show that going to an exam school has zero effect on the students' college attendance, college selectivity, and college graduation rates

Adam Harris, Can Richard Carranza Integrate the Most Segregated School System in the Country? The Atlantic, Jul 23, 2018.  re: NYC public schools

Moriah Balingit, Do Children Have a Right to Literacy? Washington Post, Aug 13, 2018.  re: lawyers for Detroit Public Schools and their families

Alice Gomstyn, How Schools Are Failing Working Parents - and How Some Are Helping. Washington Post, Aug 31, 2018.

Shira Schoenberg, Massachusetts Senate Passes Bill Overhauling Education Funding. Mass Live, May 10, 2018.  about a formula adjustment resulting in a $1 billion increase in budget

Lena V. Groeger, Annie Waldman and David Eads, Miseducation: Is There Racial Inequality at Your School? ProPublica, Oct 16, 2018.  interactive map showing relative likelihood of white and black students being in an AP class

Paul Bowers, Glenn Smith, Seanna Adcox, Jennifer Berry Hawes, and Thad Moore, Minimally Adequate. The Post and Courier, Nov 14, 2018.  subtitled "How South Carolina’s ‘minimally adequate’ education system fails too many students" on how white supremacy has played out

Camille Phillips, Texas Students Will Soon Learn Slavery Played A Central Role In The Civil War. NPR, Nov 16, 2018.

Thomas Ultican, Destroy Public Education Forces Retooling for 2019. Tultican blog, Dec 26, 2018.  names names, foundations, organizations

Erica L. Green and Annie Waldman, ‘I Feel Invisible’: Native Students Languish in Public Schools. New York Times, Dec 28, 2018.  "At Wolf Point High School in rural Montana, Native American students face the same neglect Native students across the U.S. do as they navigate a school system that has failed American Indians"

Walter G. Moss, Why Conservatives Are Right to Stress Moral Education. History News Network, Dec 30, 2018.  

Lois Weiner, Why the LA Teachers Strike Matters. Jacobin Magazine, Jan 9, 2019.  "This week's Los Angeles teachers strike starkly poses the question: will the public or privatizers control public education?"

Alia Wong, America's Teachers Are Furious. The Atlantic, Jan 22, 2019.

Rahm Emanuel, I Used to Preach the Gospel of Education Reform. Then I Became the Mayor. The Atlantic, Feb 5, 2019.

Nazia Parveen, Birmingham School Stops LGBT Lessons After Parents Protest. The Guardian, Mar 4, 2019.  re: Muslim parents

Nick Hanauer, Better Schools Won’t Fix America. The Atlantic, Jul 2019.  “Like many rich Americans, I used to think educational investment could heal the country’s ills—but I was wrong. Fighting inequality must come first.”

Em Steck and Andrew Kaczynski, Elizabeth Warren’s First Law Review Article Blasted an Anti-Busing Court Ruling. CNN, Jul 6, 2019.  re: Milliken v. Bradley (1974) in Michigan, which defanged Brown v. Board by allowing States to escape responsibility for white flight across, and into new, school districts. Brown v. Board only addressed racial disparities within a school district.

George Packer, When the Culture War Comes for the Kids. The Atlantic, Oct 2019.  “Caught between a brutal meritocracy and a radical new progressivism, a parent tries to do right by his children while navigating New York City’s schools.” An insightful personal narrative of an educated white family and the decisions about schooling and parenting.

Dana Goldstein, Two States. Eight Textbooks. Two American Stories. New York Times, Jan 12, 2020.  “The books have the same publisher. They credit the same authors. But they are customized for students in different states, and their contents sometimes diverge in ways that reflect the nation’s deepest partisan divides.”

Nick Sibilla, The Court Case That Could Finally Take Down Antiquated Anti-Catholic Laws. The Atlantic, Jan 12, 2020.  “Thirty-seven states still have Blaine Amendments on the books. The Supreme Court now has a chance to get rid of them for good.” “Blaine Amendments weren’t truly devoted to the separation of Church and state. Instead, they were mainly focused on separating the Catholic Church and state. Although public schools are largely secular today, that wasn’t the case in the 19th century. Public or “common” schools typically instilled in their students a nondenominational form of Protestantism, requiring them to sing hymns, pray, and read from the King James Bible—in direct conflict with Catholic dogma.” 

Krystal Ball, Forget The Masks, Statues The Real Culture War Has Just Begun. Rising | The Hill, Jul 14, 2020.  defunding public education; DeVos wants to push school privatization

Josh Mound, Neoliberal Education Reformers Have Found a New Way to Scapegoat Teachers. Jacobin Magazine, Oct 2020.  “Liberal writers sympathetic to the corporate education reform movement are beating the drum about reopening schools, claiming to stand up for low-income students. But attacking teachers and their unions does nothing for poor and working-class students — it simply scapegoats the people who have dedicated their lives to actually helping those students.”

John Iadarola, Full-Scale Assault On Public Education Threatens US Democracy. The Damage Report, Oct 3, 2020.  the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, exemplified by Betsy DeVos, wants to defund, discredit, and dismantle the public school system

Peter Greene, Sounding The Alarm For The Wolf At The Schoolhouse Door. Forbes, Nov 28, 2020.  “What was once a fringe notion of privatizing public education is now a mainstream policy goal. A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door shows how that change occurred. Berkshire is a freelance journalist whose byline has appeared in numerous outlets. Schneider is an education scholar whose previous works include Beyond Test Scores, a book that lays out his work on an alternative to current test-centric accountability policies. Together they host the popular Have You Heard podcast that examines current issues in education. Both are gifted, deft interviewers with a talent for eliciting honest answers from folks on all sides of education policy debates.”

Mass Central, Teacher Forced To Quit After Being At Jan. 6 Protest Elected To Seat On District’s School Board. Mass Central, Nov 4, 2021.  “Matthew Lynch, who was forced to resign from his job as a teacher in Braintree, Massachusetts after photos showed him at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 has gained his revenge, winning a seat on the district’s school board”

Ryan Grim, Killer Mike: Failing To Teach Real American History Deprives Everybody Of Their Full Humanity. Rising | The Hill, Nov 16, 2021.  weighs in on the curriculum debate. Ryan Grim details why the stories of American heroes like Robert Smalls should be taught in schools.

Crescencio Rodriguez-Delgado, Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Gabrielle Hays, and Roby Chavez, Schools Across the Country Are Struggling to Find Staff. Here’s Why. PBS Newshour, Nov 23, 2021.

John Oliver, School Police.  Last Week Tonight, Jun 6, 2022.

Molly Olmstead, Where the Right-Wing Attacks Against Education Finally Went Too Far—for Republicans. Slate, Jul 27, 2022. “Tennessee has found the line it won’t cross.” The line was Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale College, attacking public school teachers and their training as “dumb” in an effort to promote a “Christian reconstructionist” and revisionist history of the U.S. to K-12 education in Tennessee.

Wynne Davis, The Bible Is Among Dozens of Books Removed from This Texas School District.  NPR, Aug 18, 2022.  Keller Independent School District outside Fort Worth, Texas instructed “school staff to pull all copies of a list of more than 40 books from classrooms and school libraries.  The books that were pulled include the graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank's diary, all versions of the Bible and numerous books with LGBTQ+ themes or characters. The School Board did not say why the Bible and the Anne Frank book were removed, but parents had objected to them, according to the list.”

Some More News, The GOP Simply Wants To Abolish Public Education.  Some More News, Sep 7, 2022.  

03:16 - Parents' Rights Groups Are Desperate To Protect Their...White Children

15:32 - Conservatives Have Always Used Schools As A Battleground

22:32 - Real, Actual Problems With Schools

34:27 - What Do Conservatives Really Want From Schools?

46:42 – The Reason Why They Want This Is Painfully Obvious

58:11 – The End Goal Is To Dismantle Public Schools

1:09:09 – They Don't Actually Care About Children

Eliza Shapiro and Brian M. Rosenthal, In Hasidic Enclaves, Failing Private Schools Flush With Public Money.  New York Times, Sep 11, 2022.  “New York’s Hasidic Jewish religious schools have benefited from $1 billion in government funding in the last four years but are unaccountable to outside oversight.

Diana Butler Bass, Virginia, There is Such a Thing as History.  The Cottage | Substack, Nov 17, 2022.  On Virginia’s educational curriculum.  “It is clearly an attempt to “whitewash” history to support Youngkin’s main election promise — to eliminate “critical race theory” from Virginia schools… But it isn’t just about fun history. Teaching second graders about ancient Egypt is their first lesson in social structure — how communities should be shaped, who has power and who doesn’t, where wealth resides and who has status.”

Andrew Lapin, A Philadelphia High School Librarian Was Ordered to Remove a Poster with an Elie Wiesel Quote.  Cleveland Jewish News, Jan 27, 2023. 

Christine Amanpour and Hari Sreenivasan, Why Are Teachers Quitting? Inside America's “Most Vulnerable Profession”. Amanpour and Company, Apr 10, 2023. “Staffing shortages, burnout, funding cuts, and debates over the curriculum are adding to the pressures on America's educators. In her new book, bestselling author Alexandra Robbins followed three teachers to see how these issues are changing the way they work. Robbins joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the state of teaching.”

Keri Leigh Merritt, Censorship & Education in the Antebellum South. The Institute for Common Power, May 18, 2023. An excellent 20 minute video. The antebellum South made lack of education an institution. The Freedman’s Bureau brought public education to the South. Elite white leaders opposed education and literacy, opposing both schools and churches and civil rights organizations like SNCC.

Becca Savransky, Sarah A. Miller, Collapsing Roofs, Broken Toilets, Flooded Classrooms: Inside the Worst-Funded Schools in the Nation.  ProPublica, Apr 13, 2023.  “Idaho spends less on schools per student than any other state. Kids are sweating, freezing and struggling to learn.”

More Perfect Union, Why School Lunch Debt Exists — And How These Kids Are Wiping It Out.  More Perfect Union, May 17, 2023.  “Kids across the U.S. have been organizing to win universal school meals and wipe out student lunch debt. So far this year, Minnesota and New Mexico have passed universal school meals laws, joining California and Colorado. That’s just the start.”

James Li, Does School Choice Harm Or Help US Education? Breaking Points, Jul 16, 2023. Points out data on “school choice” programs vs. standard public schools. Milton Friedman emerged as the loudest voice against Brown v. Board.

Lori Rozsa, Florida Approves Black History Standards Decried as ‘Step Backward’. Washington Post, Jul 19, 2023.

“The Florida State Board of Education approved new rules Wednesday for how Black history will be taught in public schools that critics are decrying as a “step backward.” The updated standards say students should learn that enslaved people “developed skills” that “could be applied for their personal benefit,” and that in teaching about mob violence against Black residents instructors should note “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.””

Heather Cox Richardson, July 22, 2023. Letters from an American | Substack, Jul 23, 2023. On Florida’s educational standards regarding slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.

Christopher Wiggins, Moms for Liberty Defends Hitler Quote in Newsletter Before Removing It.  The Advocate, Jun 23, 2023. “In the newsletter’s first edition, Hitler was quoted saying, “He who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future.” The quote appears to have originated from one of Hitler’s 1935 rally speeches, but that is uncertain.”  MfL later apologized.

Matt Bruenig, Race-Conscious Admissions Are On Stronger Footing Than Ever.  People’s Policy Project, Jun 29, 2023.  “The new rules for race-conscious admissions are better than the old ones” because they can be used to explicitly consider race-based hardships rather than mere tokenism.

Kyle Kulinski, Kyle Reacts To Vile Prager U Propaganda Indoctrinating Florida Kids.| The Kyle Kulinski Show, Aug 9, 2023.  Kyle shows a PragerU video that they took down, defending Robert E. Lee.  

Alex Wagner, Far-Right Christian Dominionists Infiltrate Schools, Civic Offices in Texas.  Alex Wagner Tonight | MSNBC, Oct 5, 2023.  Alex Wagner, Students Fight to Defend School Against Takeover by Fringe Religious Ideology.  Alex Wagner Tonight | MSNBC, Oct 5, 2023.  Antonia Hylton and Mike Hixenbaugh, NBC News reporters and co-hosts of the "Grapevine" podcast, talk with Alex Wagner about the fringe evangelical movement trying to seize power and impose religious values on civic institutions from town government to school boards, and the pushback by students who feel let down by the adults they had hoped would protect their school and their education.  Cell phone company Patriot Mobile works with Christian nationalist school board candidates.

Andy Spears, It’s Time to Make School Meals Free for All Kids.  The Education Report | Substack, Oct 6, 2023.  

Christopher Wiggins, Moms for Liberty Candidates Rejected by Voters in Key School Board Elections.  The Advocate, Nov 8, 2023. 

Christopher Wiggins, Watch Florida Moms for Liberty Members Try to Report Librarians to the Police Over a YA Novel.  The Advocate, Nov 10, 2023. The book that ignited this controversy, Storm and Fury by Jennifer L. Armentrout, is a young adult novel that contains some make-out scenes and some sexually-themed content within a fantastical context, according to Popular Information. Despite the objections raised by Moms for Liberty, the book has been endorsed by educational bodies and the author.

Kristin Roorbach, Opportunity Gap: Poverty, Trauma, and Learning in American Public Education. Cognella Academic Publishing | Amazon page, Dec 19, 2023.

David Doel, Nikki Haley Makes International Headlines After Stepping In Deep Doo-Doo During Town Hall.  The Rational National, Dec 28, 2023.  She omitted “slavery” as the cause of the Civil War.  

Irene Loewenson, West Point and the Naval Academy Can Keep Affirmative Action - For Now.  Military Times, Jan 8, 2024. “The lawsuits against the academies came a few months after the Supreme Court declared it was unconstitutional for civilian universities to provide a boost to applicants on the basis of their race. In that landmark decision, the court stopped short of banning affirmative action in the service academies, citing their “potentially distinct interests.””

Peter Greene, Privatization Costs. Curmudgucation, Feb 2, 2024. That trick of passing on costs is a common feature of privatization. The book was my first encounter with the forces working to keep taxpayer-funded weather information away from the public. Instead of a weather service app for free, with have a variety of weather "services," all using the weather service data, but "giving" it to us via a commercial enterprise. The added value for users is zero, but the companies have to generate some income somehow. It's a model similar to the rules forbidding the IRS from letting us file income tax without working through some pricey "service" like TurboTax. Privatization is never cheaper. Municipalities that have sold off their parking systems have screwed the public. Chicago sold off its parking for a $1.7 billion contract for 75 years; the buyers realized a $500 million profit in just 11 years. Imagine just how much cheaper parking could have been in Chicago. 

Michael Popok, Supreme Court Makes Important Ruling, Horrifying Dissents. Meidas Touch, Feb 26, 2024. SCOTUS believes that racial diversity is acceptable at the high school level, even though it ruled against affirmative action at the college level, though not military academies. The case is about the Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology in Alexandria, VA where the Asian-American student body was reduced from 73% to 54% of the student body over the course of a few years.

Kavitha Cardoza and Rebecca Griesbach, An Alabama Superintendent Made Big Gains. He Was Shown the Door. Hetchinger Report | Alabama.com, Aug 6, 2024. A touching story involving funding of English learners programs for mostly Latino immigrants. Superintendent Heath Grimes said, “Jesus loved the people that everybody else didn’t. And that was part of his message — you love your enemies, you love your neighbors, you love the foreigners, you love the sinner,” he said. “I see God in those children.”

Andy Spears, Christian Nationalism and the School Privatization Agenda. The Education Report | Substack, Aug 31, 2024. Free-market ideologues capitalize on culture wars to win access to public funds. In their new book The Education Wars, Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider argue that privatizing profiteers are using culture wars as a proxy to win concessions that threaten the existence of public education. In a recent interview, the pair explains:

Right now, though, the culture war has inflamed the passions of many who would otherwise be perfectly content to send their children to public schools. They aren’t market ideologues who get into bed at night and read Milton Friedman. And most of them aren’t actually culture warriors. Yes, they’re receptive to religiously and culturally conservative ideas about education. But at the end of the day, they want to send their children to taxpayer-supported, open-enrollment, democratically controlled schools. They like public education, or at least thought they did.

Jennifer C. Berkshire and Jack Schneider, The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual. The New Press | Amazon page, July 2, 2024. “The Education Wars explains the sudden obsession with race and gender in schools, as well as the ascendancy of book-banning efforts. It offers a clear analysis of school vouchers and the impact they’ll have on school finances. It deciphers the movement for “parents’ rights,” explaining the rights that students and taxpayers also have. And it reveals how the ostensible pursuit of “religious freedom” opens the door to discrimination against vulnerable children.
Berkshire and Schneider outline the core issues driving the education wars, offering essential information about issues, actors, and potential outcomes. In so doing, they lay out what is at stake for parents, teachers, and students and provide a road map for ensuring that public education survives this present assault.”

Emily Judem and Stephanie Leydon, 50 Years Later, Sisters Confront the Pain of Boston’s Busing Crisis. GBH, Sep 10, 2024.

Michael Reneau and Karen Swallow Prior, Supporting Public Schools Is an Opportunity for Christian Charity. The Dispatch, Sep 15, 2024.

Heather Cox Richardson, November 16, 2024. Letters from an American | Substack, Nov 16, 2024. On the Department of Education, its history, accomplishments, and what will be lost under Trump.

Tim Miller, Sarah Longwell, and Jonathan V. Last, MAGA in Chaos Before 2025 Even Begins. Bulwark Podcast, Dec 31, 2024. They comment on Laura Loomer’s critique of Elon and Vivek when she was on Steve Bannon’s podcast. At 15:40, J.V. Last agrees with Loomer.

“There's a difference in Silicon Valley between the founder class and the working class.  Elon and Vivek are founder class (Vivek isn't really; Vivek didn’t do anything to make his money; he did the scam about Alzheimer’s).  The worker class, though, are just drones.  They rely on a worker class of network engineers and coders and developers.  And those people are always kept in the back of the house and they're disposable.  What this is really about is the founder class wanting access to cheap labor.  That's all it is.  So you get to pay H1B visa type workers something like $0.70 on the dollar and they can't leave.  Once they're with you they're basically indentured servants.  And so it is no surprise that the Elon Musks of the world want more of these people.  They want to lower their labor costs and not have to worry about guys who are going to go and pick up a better job someplace else because they’re tethered there because of their visa status.  And that’s bad. 

What I want most in the world is:  I want Elon Musk to have to hire for SpaceX and Tesla and Twitter entirely from the audience of the Madison Square Garden MAGA event.  I mean look:  There's 30,000 people there.  Surely he can find some really top notch devs and engineering talent there who are just true American patriots.  Is he saying that these mouth breathing cletus types are idiots?  Is that what he’s saying? 

[Tim Miller:  Yes!  He saying, “They’re retarded.”  He agreed with autism capital who tweeted that MAGA Americans are too retarded to do these jobs.  Elon said, “Spot on.”  That's what Elon thinks.  I think he would argue that he isn't looking for cheap labor, it's just that he can't find the Americans that he needs to do the job.] 

Here's the thing:  This is a big country.  There's 330 million people in this country.  The H1B numbers I think are [85,000] in the low 6 figures or high 5 figures a year.  You can find them.  And if you can't, do you know what businesses are supposed to do?  They're supposed to pay taxes.  The government can use the taxes to create a skilled labor force.  Skilled labor forces don't just appear; they're not sui generis; you have to spend money on infrastructure; you have to spend money on education; you have to have a social support network to go into disadvantaged communities and find bright people and build pathways to have them elevated and realize their potential.  But of course these guys don't want to do any of that.  They want no part of paying for the infrastructure of a government that actually runs a society that creates human capital.  They just want the human capital so that they can make money.  And for them, the H1B visa program is a way of short circuiting all obligations to the society in which they luxuriate and operate and make so much money.  F*** that.  Pay your taxes.

This is also the Obama critique.  Remember:  “You didn't build that”?  Which is right.  You have a business selling widgets.  Well, your business depends on the fact that there's a police force to enforce the rule of law and a government which isn't going to govern by fiat.  Your business depends on the entire society functioning and that's why you pay taxes.  And instead these guys wanna pay fewer taxes or no taxes at all.  And they want their labor to just magically appear and even better if that magically appearing labor will be cut rate and can't leave.”

For a Twitter debate among MAGA adherents revealing the importance of schools as public investment and Musk’s billionaire proclivities to not pay taxes, see Ben Meiselas and Michael Popok, Trump Derails his Entire Term before New Year. Meidas Touch, Jan 1, 2025 at the 5:08 mark because the relevant tweets have been deleted. One person said, “Open a school. We have brains.” Musk replied, “If you need a school, you’ve lost already.” A third person said, “Incredible. At this rate, you’re going to make me side with the leftists…”

Alexander Sidorkin, The Myth of AI Replacing Teachers: Why Human Connection Matters More Than Ever. AI in Society, Jan 13, 2025.

Jessica Grose, What the Trump Era Looks Like for Disabled Students in K-12. New York Times, Feb 12, 2025. Important because of right-wing appeals to tough discipline, even physical punishment, as a way to control students with learning disabilities and behavioral challenges.

“This kind of sentiment is not just coming from the tech bro wing of the MAGAverse. Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, while questioning Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said, “We have an attention deficit problem in this country. You know, attention deficit when you and I were growing up, our parents didn’t use a drug, they used a belt and whipped our butt, you know, and told us to sit down.” We can certainly have a debate about the best way to treat attention deficit issues, but suggesting in the year 2025 that beating children should be part of the repertoire is sick. Behind both Tuberville’s and Andreessen’s statements I’m hearing a similar argument: Learning differences are exaggerated, and by providing support to students who have received what critics consider nonsense diagnoses, we’re coddling America’s children and bilking taxpayers.”

Drew DeSilver, What the Data Says About the Department of Education. Pew Research Trust, Mar 18, 2025.

Rebecca Watson, Study: Conservatives Hate Science (All Of It). Rebecca Watson (Skepchick), Apr 23, 2025.

Judd Legum, Rebecca Crosby, and Noel Sims, New Oklahoma Curriculum Includes Pro-Trump Conspiracy Theories. Popular, May 1, 2025. Beginning in the 2025-26 school year, thousands of high school students in Oklahoma will be required to learn about President Trump's debunked claims that the 2020 election was tainted by fraud. The lesson will not be part of a course on conspiracy theories, but an official component of the new social studies curriculum created by Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters (R). The new curriculum includes a section that requires students to "analyze contemporary turning points of 21st-century American society." That requirement includes the following: Identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information, including the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities 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. In March, Walters said the purpose of this section was to teach "students to think for themselves" and "not be spoon-fed left-wing propaganda." According to Walters, there are "legitimate concerns" about the integrity of the 2020 election that were "raised by millions of Americans in 2020." Walters is wrong. There are no "discrepancies" in the 2020 election results that validate the claims of Trump and his allies that the results were fraudulent. The new curriculum is simply an amalgamation of unsupported claims.”

Michelle H. Davis, Maga's Very Bad Night In Texas. Lone Star Left | Substack, May 4, 2025. Texas Voters to Far-Right: Bless your heart, now pack it up. It was a tough night for MAGA-aligned candidates in Texas. In the May 3, 2025, local elections, voters across the state decisively rejected far-right candidates, particularly in school board and city council races. From Tarrant County to Collin County, and from San Antonio to Dallas, communities chose leaders who prioritize public education, inclusivity, and pragmatic governance over culture wars and partisan agendas. This widespread shift signals a growing resistance to extremist politics at the local level.”

Andy Spears, The Incredible Shrinking Kentucky Teacher Pension. The Education Report | Substack, Jun 19, 2025. “The Bluegrass State is struggling to keep up with teacher pay, too”

Andy Spears, A $1.3 Billion School Funding Shortfall in Kentucky. The Education Report | Substack, Jun 25, 2025. It's time to reinvest in the Commonwealth's schools.

Sarah Mervosh and Michael C. Bender, Trump Withholds Nearly $7 Billion for Schools, With Little Explanation. New York Times, Jul 1, 2025. “The money, which was allocated by Congress, helps pay for after-school programs, support for students learning English and other services.”

Kenneal Patterson, American Teachers in Red States Are Walking Away for Good. The New Republic, Jul 9, 2025. “The predictable consequences of the right wing’s war on public schools are being felt as educators leave their communities—and their profession.”

“In an increasingly conservative America, more teachers are finding themselves in similar situations. And more school systems are discovering that there are fewer people who want to subject themselves to the capricious nature of right-wing abuse. In the last school year, schools opened with an estimated 55,000 teaching vacancies, up from 36,000 in the year prior. More than 270,000 classrooms were staffed by individuals without full credentials. States like Utah, Nevada, Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida were the hardest hit, with Arizona leading at less than 44 teachers per 1,000 students.

Gone are the days of eager new recruits, ready to leap into the classroom. Nationwide, 79 percent of public schools reported difficulty hiring teachers last year.

Texas has also borne the brunt of this trend. Between fall 2021 and fall 2022, the state saw a record 13.4 percent attrition rate, and the proportion of newly hired teachers without a state-sanctioned certification or permit in the following school year rose to nearly 30 percent. In May, Governor Greg Abbott signed a law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in all classrooms.”

France 24, Back to Textbooks: Denmark Rolls Back Digital Learning. FRANCE 24 English, Jan 6, 2026.

Jared Cooney Horvath, Doctor on How Screen Time Hurts Kids' Cognitive Development. C-SPAN, Jan 15, 2026. “Even in schools, it doesn't matter what the size of the screen is... and it doesn't matter who bought it... All of these things are also going to hurt learning, which in turn are going to hurt our kids' cognitive development."

Rachel Cantor, States Are Learning the Wrong Lesson From the ‘Mississippi Miracle’. The Atlantic, Apr 9, 2026. “A phonics-based curriculum is only one part of how Mississippi went from worst to first in education. The other part is much harder to pull off.” On leadership, incentives, and accountability for teachers and principals.

Claire Cain Miller, Francesca Paris, and Sarah Mervosh, Why U.S. Test Scores Are in a ‘Generation-Long Decline’. New York Times, May 13, 2026. “The drops go beyond the pandemic and cut across income, geographic and racial divides, new data shows.” It seems to be the screens. Kids learn best in face to face interactions with teachers, and especially to read without distraction, and struggle to write, as typing is not thinking.