Chalkbeat

Vaping, bathrooms, stress: What 357,000 NYC students revealed in revamped school survey

2026-08-17T22:28:45+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

How often do students at your school vape? Are school bathrooms aligned with your gender identity? Is your school connecting your learning to the real world?

These are among the new questions that New York City’s annual school survey now asks students.

Middle and high school students are asked every spring, along with parents and teachers, to fill out the annual school survey. But the questions for students were too wordy and confusing, and there were too many of them, Education Department officials acknowledged.

So, education officials decided to make substantial changes, shortening the number of questions to 61 from 79 the year prior and making the language more direct. The goal, officials said, is to give educators more insight into particular problems. The changes are already bearing some fruit in terms of participation: More than 357,000 of the city’s students in grades 6-12 participated in the 2026 school survey, up 3 points from last year’s student participation rate, officials said this week.

To redesign the survey, the city sent a ballot of questions to school leaders and survey coordinators, garnering more than 300 responses. They held listening sessions with more than 50 school leaders, and convened more than 20 students — some of whom served on the Chancellor’s Student Advisory Committee and some who were part of a Brooklyn Summer Rising site.

While some of the questions tweak language from the previous year’s survey, others are new. Because of the survey’s changes, the 2026 results can’t be compared to prior years, but will serve as a new baseline moving forward.

“You may notice lower favorability scores on some items compared to prior years,” stated an explainer about the redesign. “This does not necessarily mean things got worse. It often reflects students answering more directly and precisely under the new language — not a change in classroom reality.”

Here are some highlights from the survey’s new questions.

How often do students in this school vape?

Many students, parents, and educators will tell you: Vaping is a big problem in schools. Some schools have been figuring out ways to cut down on vaping in bathrooms, but many have been struggling with how to respond.

Now the city’s survey is catching up with these concerns, adding a question about vaping. More than a third of students said vaping is common, with 19% of students saying students vape “very often,” and 16% reporting that students vape “often.” About 39% of female students reported their peers vape often or very often, compared to 32% of males.

The responses varied by grade, with fewer sixth graders (19%) reporting vaping as an issue compared to the ninth graders (45%), who reported seeing the most vaping use.

Curious and concerned parents can check out the responses for all questions at individual schools. For example, nearly three-quarters of the students at LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and the Performing Arts reported that students vape very often or often, compared with just 11% of students at University Neighborhood High School reporting that.

How often can you use a bathroom that matches your gender identity in your school?

A few years ago, the city began allowing families to list their child’s gender as “X” instead of “M” or “F” to accommodate nonbinary or gender-expansive youth.

The school survey data is catching up, now asking about whether students can use school bathrooms aligning with their gender identity. Under city guidance, students are entitled to use bathrooms that match their gender identity — a policy that has come under fire from the Trump administration.

At first glance, most students reported favorably to this question, with 86% saying they can use a bathroom matching their gender identity “always” or “most of the time. But drilling down into the data, for those students identified as neither male or female, 65% said they had access to a bathroom matching their gender identity.

How many of your teachers connect what you are learning to life outside the classroom?

Many students often complain that what they’re learning in school feels irrelevant to their lives and careers. In response, the city has ramped up its focus on career education.

Students see room for improvement. Less than half — 49%— said most or all of their teachers connect what they’re learning to life outside the classroom. The answers vary by grade, with the fewest favorable responses in ninth grade (45%). But by senior year, more students — 59% — responded favorably to this question.

How often do you use strategies you learned at school to stay focused when something frustrating happens?

Schools across the city have been trying to incorporate more mindfulness practices, with former Mayor Eric Adams bringing daily breathing exercises to students. But when it comes to learning coping mechanisms, students say schools still have work to do. Just 45% said they use strategies learned at school to stay focused in the face of frustration. Asian American girls had fewer favorable responses (37%) compared to their Black male counterparts (51%).

How often do you feel included in school activities like clubs, sports, recess, field trips, and school events?

While the 2025 survey asked students whether they felt like they belonged at their school, the redesigned survey took things a step further, asking students specifically about their experiences in school activities outside the classroom.

About 10% of students surveyed reported they “never” feel included in these activities, and another 30% reported feeling included “sometimes.” Girls reported feeling excluded more often than boys, with 43% reporting they sometimes or never felt included compared to 38% of boys. Broken down by grade, ninth graders (45%) reported feeling excluded most often , while sixth graders (35%) felt excluded least frequently.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Education Department limits civil rights investigations into racial disparities in schools

2026-07-23T21:19:12+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

Schools that discipline students of color at higher rates than white students won’t be in violation of federal civil rights law for that disparity alone, the U.S. Department of Education announced Thursday.

The Education Department’s regulatory changes prohibit the agency’s civil rights investigators from using broad demographic statistics — such as data about discipline, Advanced Placement class enrollment, and school admissions — to demonstrate discrimination.

“A child is so much more than a number in a data set,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey wrote in a press release. “The left’s notion of ‘equity’ should never prevent teachers from keeping their classrooms and students safe.”

The change is part of a wider effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to eliminate what’s called disparate impact regulations across federal agencies. The Trump administration says President Barack Obama’s administration wielded such data improperly in discrimination investigations.

Experts and civil rights advocates decried the agency’s decision to abandon what they described as an important tool in civil rights investigations, one that they said can help illustrate more subtle and even unintentional systemic discrimination on the basis of race or national origin. Critics of the move also said the department’s announcement exaggerated the impact of data on such investigations.

“This kind of severs the guardrails that protect from those scenarios in which unjust, unnecessary burdens literally cause kids to face discrimination at school,” said Michael Pillera of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and a former civil rights attorney for the Education Department.

Civil rights advocates also rebuked the Education Department’s lack of process in making the regulatory change. The agency bypassed some rulemaking procedures, which let the public weigh in before adopting a rule, said Shiwali Patel, senior director of education justice at the National Women’s Law Center.

The department’s Office for Civil Rights, which investigates civil rights complaints about federally funded schools, has been at the center of a lot of upheaval. The office has been decimated by layoffs — some of which were then rescinded — and the agency announced earlier this summer that the Justice Department would play a role in some aspects of civil rights enforcement in schools.

Experts said civil rights investigations have often looked for unlawful discrimination through two lenses, either differential treatment or disparate impact. Differential treatment occurs if a student is intentionally subject to different treatment based on their race. Disparate impact applies to policies that may seem neutral, but impacts certain groups disproportionately.

“It helps us kind of shine a light on what are the hidden inequities in our systems that our public policy or our practices writ large might have inadvertently perpetuated,” said Amy Loyd, CEO at All4Ed, a nonprofit education advocacy group.

Discipline has often been central to arguments around disparate impact. In a 2014 letter to schools, the Obama administration laid out guidance that called statistical analysis of disciplinary data “an important indicator of potential violations.” The first Trump administration rescinded that letter in 2018.

Conservatives have argued the practice of linking disparate impact to civil rights violations or discrimination is flawed. In 2018, Michael Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute said that in addition to legal questions, the approach outlined in the 2014 letter “will tie the hands of teachers and school administrators when it comes to maintaining discipline, possibly leading to greater disorder and even violence.”

Jonathan Butcher of the Heritage Foundation said just because statistics may show a certain policy disproportionately affects one group doesn’t make the policy wrong.

“I don’t think the answer to that is adjusting policies so that we get the numbers we want,” he said.

But civil rights investigations don’t solely hinge on data, said Robert Kim, an attorney and the executive director of the Education Law Center. The numbers often represented a starting point in an investigation, and schools had the opportunity to explain statistical differences.

“You would never lurch to a conclusion of discrimination subject to government-imposed remedy without looking further at all,” he said.

Discipline isn’t the only area where officials have used statistics to look for possible discrimination in education. The Office for Civil Rights, in previous administrations, had also cited disparate impact in the following investigations:

Advanced class access: In 2016, the Education Department cited a significant disparity between the proportion of white students and Black and Hispanic students identified as advanced learners in the Madison Metropolitan School District in Madison, Wisconsin. Nearly 40% of white middle school students were considered advanced, compared with 9% of Hispanic and 6% of Black middle schoolers. The district agreed to a settlement to review its advanced programs, among other changes.
Special education placement: A 2013 investigation letter noted that Black students were overrepresented in special education in the Iowa City Community School District. About 29% of students in special education programs were Black, even though they made up 17% of the district’s overall population in the 2012-13 school year. The district agreed to review its screening processes and get assistance from experts.
Admissions policies: A 2014 letter noted that some schools in a Texas charter school network enrolled a significantly lower proportion of English learners than local public schools. The charter school network, Harmony Public Schools, agreed to review and modify its enrollment processes.

Lily Altavena is a national reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Lily at laltavena@chalkbeat.org. Lily is on Instagram, Tik Tok, and Facebook.

Just 1 Black student gets into Staten Island Tech as racial gaps at specialized high schools persist

2026-07-10T21:52:19+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

Of Staten Island Technical High School’s nearly 300 offers, just one went to a Black student.

At Stuyvesant, that number was three — the lowest number since at least 2014, which is as far back as the city’s public data goes. And at the High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering, there were six Black students who received offers, according to Education Department admissions data released Friday.

The dearth of offers to Black students to the city’s eight schools that require the Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT, as the sole basis for admissions is nothing new.

And Mayor Zohran Mamdani, himself a specialized high school alum — he attended Bronx Science — plans to look more closely at the results, his spokesperson said.

“The mayor believes we must root out the deep racial and economic inequities that persist in our public school system, and our administration will be reviewing these results carefully,” Jenna Lyle, a spokesperson for the mayor, said.

About 3.5% of the roughly 4,000 offers in total went to Black students, edging up slightly from last year’s 3%. About 6.5% of offers went to Latino students, down slightly from 6.9% the year before.

Overall, Black students made up 19.3% of students this year; Latino students made up 42.3% of the nation’s largest school system. About 17% of the students who took the SHSAT last year are Black, while 25% are Latino.

The number of offers to Asian American students at specialized high schools ticked up to 56.5% from 54% the year before. Offers to white students fell slightly to 23.5% from about 26%. Asian American students make up 18.7% of students citywide; white students make up 16.1%.

The city’s specialized high schools enroll about 5% of the city’s public high school students, yet they draw an outsized amount of attention because they are often considered among the best in the country. For years, integration advocates have called to change the testing admissions system to these prestigious schools.

Mamdani said on the campaign trail that he would keep the SHSAT in place. (He did, however, say he would like to push back the start of gifted and talented programs from kindergarten.) Earlier in the mayor’s race, he indicated that he would order a study of racial and gender bias in the admissions exam. In a 2022 questionnaire before he ran for mayor, Mamdani said the test should be abolished.

Another 800 students were invited to participate in the Discovery program, which offers disadvantaged students who scored just below the test-score cutoff a chance to enroll in a specialized high school. The program faces ongoing legal challenges from families who say it discriminates against Asian American applicants. Of this year’s 800 Discovery participants, 11% are Black, 16% are Latino, 62% are Asian American, and 7% are white.

Roughly 26,100 students took the SHSAT, which was offered online for the first time. This coming year, the digital test will be computer adaptive, meaning that students’ responses will affect the level of difficulty of their subsequent questions.

Beyond the specialized high schools, about 58% of rising ninth graders got their first choice in high schools, and 82% received one of their top three choices. For middle school, 77% of rising sixth graders got their top choice, and 94% got into their top three schools. Those numbers were on par with the previous year, officials said.

A focus on 3-K expansion shows results

Mamdani, who didn’t make K-12 education a major focus of his campaign or his first six months in office, has devoted significant attention to expanding access to the city’s free childcare programs.

He launched a free program for 2-year-olds for the first time this year in five school districts for roughly 2,000 kids. Families who applied to that program will get their offers Aug. 4.

Despite an energetic effort to publicize the city’s free 3-K and prekindergarten programs, Mamdani’s administration did not see an uptick in those applications, which stayed flat compared to last year.

But officials did succeed in placing more 3-K applicants in programs closer to their homes in response to complaints from some families in previous years about having to make significant commutes with toddlers in tow. City officials added roughly 2,000 new 3-K seats in areas of high demand to address the issue.

This year, 70% of 3-K applicants got their first choice program, up from 65% last year, according to the Education Department data. Of the roughly 5,100 families who didn’t get into any of the 3-K programs they chose and had to be placed in a program by the Education Department, 63% were put in a program within a mile of their home — up from 39% last year.

Looking ahead, here are some key dates to know:

High school admissions will run from Oct. 6 to Dec. 4, with SHSAT registration closing on Oct. 30. Offers will be sent March 4, 2027.
Middle schools admissions will run from Oct. 14 to Dec. 11. Offers will be sent April 7, 2027.
Kindergarten admissions will run from Dec. 9 to Jan. 22, 2027. Offers will be sent March 30, 2027.
3-K and pre-K admissions will run from Jan. 13 to Feb. 26, 2027. Pre-K offers will be sent May 11, 2027, and 3-K offers will be sent May 18, 2027.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael atmelsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

P.S. Weekly live: Student reporters reflect on covering NYC Schools

2026-07-01T15:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

It’s a wrap on P.S. Weekly’s third season, and to cap it off, we have a special live-recorded episode from Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Branch.

This season, P.S. Weekly student reporters investigated some of the biggest issues shaping New York City schools, from school mergers to sports access, teacher diversity to equity in admissions, and more. In this episode, the students behind those stories take the mic to reflect on what they learned, what surprised them, and how their reporting affected their own schools and communities.

Hosted by assistant producers Zana Halili and Katelyn Melville, the conversation features P.S. Weekly reporters Jeremiah Dickerson, Rayleen Laloi, Jasper Mallorca, Zoe George, Ermione Aleah Raymond, Mateo Tang-O’Reilly, and Noa Salas Adam, with reflections from Roberto Bailey.

Together, they discuss what it means to report on schools they know personally, how young journalists can push adults to listen more closely, and why student voices belong at the center of conversations about education.

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell. It’s available on major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Reach us at PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org. New episodes drop on Thursdays.

P.S. Weekly is made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation.

Transcript

P.S. Weekly Live Episode

Maria: Hi, P.S. Weekly listeners. My name is Maria Robins-Sommerville, and this season, I had the delight of serving as the senior producer for P.S. Weekly I helped our student producers take their ideas from topic to story, to set up their interviews, and transform the issues they cared about into episodes for all of you.

Maria: The students did an amazing job this season, and I am so proud of them. So if you haven’t listened to all of our episodes yet, I highly encourage you to go back and check them out. Recently, we celebrated their work with a live recorded episode of P.S. Weekly at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Branch.

Maria: The event featured a student-led conversation about pressing issues in the New York City school system, and highlighted original reporting from the high school student journalists behind the P.S. Weekly podcast. It was a chance to listen to our students reflect on their own experiences and share the impact their reporting has had on their own schools and communities.

Maria: So in this episode, we’re bringing you inside P.S. Weekly Live. We hope you enjoy.

Sabrina: Good evening, everyone. Um, thank you so much for being here tonight for P.S. Weekly Live. My name is Sabrina DuQuesnay, and I am the student program manager here at The Bell. So before we get into it tonight, did anybody watch the game last night?

Sabrina: Yeah. Guys, guys,

Sabrina: My word, my blood pressure was through the roof.

Sabrina: I feel like we were down 29, right? And at that point, I’m not gonna lie, I, I was ready to throw in the towel, right? And then Brunson, Brunson came in. Brunson threw it up. And then, like, it was about to miss, but you know what? OG Anunoby swooP.S. in. Knicks won by a point.

Sabrina: The crowd went wild, and it was a great game. It was legendary. And tonight is our finals game, right? Tonight is our championship. Um, and no sports involved, but we are so excited to show you guys what we got planned. So, um, for those of you who are new to our work, The Bell is a nonprofit organization that is building the next generation of journalists and civic leaders.

Sabrina: And we do that through our audio journalism internship programs for New York City public high school students, and through the Youth Journalism Coalition, which brings together students, educators, journalists, and advocates working to expand access to journalism education across the city. And we’re so excited to be here tonight celebrating the work of our P.S. Weekly student reporters.

Sabrina: Tonight is a chance to hear directly from them about their standout reporting and the impact of their work.

Sabrina: And now, I’m gonna pass the mic to our amazing emcees for the evening, Zana and Kaitlyn. Please come up.

Zana: All right. Can y’all hear me? Yes. Amazing. Hello, everyone. My name is Zana. I am currently a senior at NYU, but I’m a proud graduate of Baruch College Campus High School

Katelyn: And I’m Katelyn. I am a rising sophomore at the City College of New York and a proud alum of the Brooklyn Institute for Liberal Arts

Zana: And we were the assistant producers for this season of P.S. Weekly.

Katelyn: All right, guys. So we wanna get to know the audience a little bit, okay? So I’m hoping we have all five boroughs in here, but don’t worry, we’re gonna find out. So if you guys hear your borough, I want you guys to cheer, okay? Okay. All right, let’s start with Manhattan.

Katelyn: All right, all right. Okay, okay. How about the Bronx? All right,

Katelyn: Okay. Okay. All right. Staten Island?

Katelyn: Okay, okay, okay. Brooklyn?

Katelyn: And I’m biased because, you know, it’s where I’m from. We got any Queens in here? There we go. There we go. All right. All right.

Zana: Right. So glad to get to know all of you. But now it’s time for you guys to get to know us a little bit better. So Kaitlyn, how did you get involved with The Bell?

Katelyn: So it was the summer of my junior year, and I started the Summer Youth Podcast Academy.

Katelyn: And after that, it’s been a long journey, and I’m still here. So I did Miseducation, and then I did P.S. Weekly last spring. I reported on teacher turnover, chronic absenteeism, all sorts of things. What about you, Zara?

Zana: Yeah, so I got started with The Bell also in the Summer Youth Podcast Academy the summer before my senior year of high school, which was all the way back in 2022.

Zana: I know, I’m chopped, I’m unk, it’s okay. Um, my episode was about Citibikes.

Zana: Um, and then the summer after I was an assistant on the next cohort of SYPA, and obviously now I’ve been back assistant producing. Um, so we’ve been student journalists. We’ve been mentors for the student journalists. So what has been your favorite part of working with P.S. Weekly, and what’s been the most unique part about it for you?

Katelyn: I think my most favorite part about P.S. Weekly, the program as a whole, is that it gives students the opportunity to be a part of every single process in the journalism industry. You know, we’ve had students who’ve done audio engineering, um, writing, reporting, interviewing. Like, these students, who you guys are gonna hear from, they’ve done it all.

Katelyn: They’ve ... Like, I will not be surprised if we have some future podcast producers, audio engineers, journalists. Like, we got everything here. So that’s me. But what about you, Zana?

Zana: Yeah, I’ve just ... It’s so inspiring getting to work with these students, not to play as you guys too much. But, like, they really are so much more passionate and of the things going on around them than I was when I was their age.

Zana: And getting to be a part of that process and helping them report on the stories that they are passionate about, it’s just ... It’s been very fun, and it’s been very rewarding for me. Yeah.

Katelyn: All right, guys. So now we’re gonna have a little overview of the evening. So here. All right. So first off, we’re gonna have Zana hosting a conversation with half of our student reporters, and then we’re gonna pause for a little trivia.

Katelyn: Then I’ll lead a panel with the other half of our student reporters. Then we’ll have more trivia, and then we’ll open the floor to audience shout-outs, and then our own Q&A. So you guys should see index cards and pens nearby. I want you guys to use those index cards to write down shout-outs for our student reporters, and we’ll get to share them at the end of the session.

Katelyn: Um, after the program, I hope you’ll join us for the reception in the lobby with some light refreshments. It’ll be a chance to congratulate the students, connect with one another, and learn more about The Bell’s work. And if you wanna stay connected, check out the postcard. Please sign up for our newsletter, follow up, share our work, and help us continue creating opportunities for New York City students to tell stories that matter to them. All right. Over to you, Zana.

Zana: All right. Amazing. I’m gonna ask our first four student reporters to come to the stage: Jeremiah, Rayleen, Jasper, and Zoe.

Zana: All right. So before we get into the nitty-gritty of your episodes, I’d love for all of you to just first introduce yourselves. So please state your name, your school, your grade, and as a fun icebreaker, your bodega order. You can learn a lot about a person from their bodega order.

Jeremiah: Okay, so I’ll start. Hi. Hi, everyone. Um, my name is Jeremiah Dickerson. I’m a senior attending Williamsburg Charter High School in Brooklyn, and my favorite bodega order is, like, cream cheese bacon. It’s very affordable. It hits the spot. It keeps you fulfilled. And yeah, that’s my favorite bodega order. I’m super happy to be here today.

Rayleen: Hello, my name is Rayleen Laloi. I go to the Brooklyn Institute for Liberal Arts, and my bodega order, I’d say honey turkey on a roll, lettuce, cheese, yeah.

Jasper: I’m Jasper Mallorca. I go to the High School of Art and Design. My bodega order is probably something simple like chopped cheese, you know.

Zoe: Um, my name is Zoe George. I go to Bard High School Early College Manhattan. I’m a senior, and my bodega order is a chicken cutlet on a roll, um, lettuce, ketchup, cheese.

Zana: Now I’m hungry. Okay. Um, so before we dig a bit deeper into the reporting, I do just wanna say as a little note, please refrain from applause for the duration of the panel. We’ll have a moment at the end for you all to applaud all of them, but just to keep things moving along. If you wanna, like, give a little snap or something when you hear something that you really love, go for it.

Zana: But just generally, please keep the applause to the end. Thank you. Um, so let’s start off with Jeremiah over here. Hey. Um, your episode sheds light on Success Academy, which is the largest charter network in the city, and was a school that you had previously attended. Um, and for your episode, you talked to your friend Sasha, who was also a fellow student, fellow former student at Success.

Zana: So let’s hear a little clip from that episode.

Jeremiah (Clip): And even though Sasha and I both left Success Academy and are happier in our new school, Sasha felt conflicted like me.

Sasha: In certain aspects, I’m grateful for, like, how they’ve made me who I am as a person, but sometimes I be taking a step back and I’m like, “Oof. Babe, that, that, ooh, I’m, I’m a little damaged,” like, um, like sometimes I would talk to my parents and, like, obviously every conversation with your parents, it’s not gonna be a great one, so you know, we’re dis- we had a disagreement, and I kinda just shut down.

Sasha: Like, I stopped talking. I was just looking at them, and it was like, “You’re not gonna say anything?” ‘Cause obviously, like, you know how we’re talking right now. I’m a very verbal person. If something’s wrong with me, I’m gonna tell you. So I’m just sitting there, and I’m just, like, not saying anything, and they’re like, “Are you okay?”

Sasha: Like, “You’re not gonna say anything? You don’t agree, disagree?” I’m just like, “I don’t know. That’s...” And I was just shutting down. And looking back on it, it definitely is like I, I had to deal with that from Success. When you got in trouble at Success or you’re trying to talk to a teacher to change a grade or why you were late to class, it’s never a conversation.

Sasha: It’s a monologue. They’re talking at you. They’re not talking with you. So I feel like that aspect of it, it definitely affected me. I feel like there’s obviously certain aspects of Success Academy where their intensity of certain things, it helps, but also it definitely did take away from my childhood and actually, like, becoming my own person naturally.

Zana: Tough to hear.

Zana: Um, obviously Success Academy has a very large presence in our city. People have very strong opinions about them, whether they are pro or against. And I know as a former student, you definitely had your own, um, strong opinions on the network, so-

Jeremiah: Absolutely.

Zana: Yeah. Um, what did you learn from speaking in depth with someone who had their own success story that was maybe a little different to your own?

Jeremiah: Um, I felt like I didn’t just learn from it, I also felt like it was very inspiring to me, because for a long time as a prior Success Academy student, I felt like kind of like ashamed of my past at Success Academy because even though Success Academy is popular in the education world, it’s not really the same when you’re speaking to your peers.

Jeremiah: Like, when you speak to your peers like, “Hey, I went to Success Academy,” it’s kind of like you’re coming from a horror story, you know? So, um, I kind of learned that my experience at Success isn’t just like something that I experienced alone, that other people, regardless of what campus they’ve gone to, have experienced similar things to me.

Jeremiah: And it also like allowed me to feel more comfortable speaking to my friends about it openly, because it’s something that other people have went through besides myself.

Zana: Yeah. And so what has the response been towards your episode?

Jeremiah: The response I can say has been like very interactive, like especially with the Chalkbeat post. There’s so much debates. Like, I feel like that’s the most inspiring thing, because I feel like especially as a journalist, your job is to get the news to people, and then also for people to make decisions about the news that you’re giving them. So like just seeing people have debates about, “Hey, like I’m a Success parent. I didn’t quite have this experience, but you know, this person did, this person didn’t,” I feel like it’s just like it’s reached a broader audience that really allowed them to think more deeper about their children’s connection as long- along with their own as well. But also I’ll say as Success Academy is expanding in Florida, it’s also served as a basis for people to really like taste what Success Academy can be like for students.

Jeremiah: So it hasn’t been something groundbreaking, but it’s also helping on that front as well outside of the city.

Zana: Yeah, it’s definitely more relevant than it has been in a really long time. Yeah. Yeah. Um, amazing. So now we’re gonna move over onto Rayleen.

Zana: Now, your episode talked about school mergers and your own experience with mergers when your school, the Brooklyn Institute for Liberal Arts, merged with the School of Human Rights.

Zana: And you talked to Osei Alfred, a student who had attended the School of, um, Human Rights before it became a part of BILA. So let’s hear a clip from that episode.

Rayleen (clip): What do you think was lost in the merging of SHR and BILA?

Osei: Honestly, that feeling of like, oh, this is my family. That feeling’s gone. I feel like a lot of teachers do try, especially now, to kind of be a lot more human or show that they are kind of a lot more human. But a lot of kids don’t really see it as that. Like, even if you were a quiet student back in SHR, you would still feel like family ‘cause, like, I knew a kid there. They said, like maybe what? Six words the entire semester, and I knew more about them than I know about half the students in BILA. Like, they said about six words, but Ms. Babb and the rest of the teachers, I can’t remember their name for the life of me for some reason, but they all made sure to interact with that student.

Osei: I know I’ve seen it. They all made sure to interact. “Good morning. How are you? How’s your mom?” You know, stuff like that. I don’t see that at BILA. I don’t see, “Hey, how’s your family?” But I always got asked, “How is your mom doing? How’s your sister doing?” at SHR.

Zana: Yeah. So our current schools chancellor, Samuels, has been a strong supporter of school mergers, and he has been for a very long time. And you actually had the opportunity to interview him earlier this semester on the topic, and he emphasized that importance of minimizing the feeling of loss when schools are merged.

Zana: And obviously, you asked Osei in this clip about what he felt like was lost from SHR, but I wanna throw that question back to you. Do you feel like BILA lost anything when SHR merged with them? And how have students adapted to this change?

Rayleen: Personally, for me, I don’t feel like I lost much in the merging of BILA. Honestly, I feel like I gained more in a way. I feel like when SHR and BILA merged, at first, honestly my whole sophomore year, I barely got to know any SHR students, so it never felt like we were really combined, or it never really felt like we merged.

Rayleen: But now that I’m in my junior year and I’ve gotten to know more of them, they’re in my classes and things like that, I feel like BILA has shifted away from some of its strictness and has tried to incorporate more of the culture and just tried to incorporate more liveliness into the school that wasn’t there before SHR.

Zana: Yeah. And so how has your school rep- responded to the episode? I heard there was some ninth and 10th graders that might have learned something by listening to your episode.

Rayleen: Yeah, so in my school they’re doing some lessons on podcasting in ninth grade. My teacher, my 10th, my ninth grade teacher, Ms. Nahar, they’re doing a podcasting unit and she played my episode for them. Yeah. Oh. And my 10th grade teacher, Ms. Hudson, she also played my episode for them, and they were confused about SHR because they weren’t there for the merging of SHR and BILA, so they were like, “What’s SHR? What happened? What is the situation that we’re talking about?” So I thought that was interesting because I never really saw it that way as like, “Oh, I’m keeping track of, like, history.”

Rayleen: But I think it’s interesting how I’m just giving them a perspective on something they didn’t even know happened.

Zana: Yeah, it’s almost like you’re keeping SHR alive somehow- Yeah ... through your episode, and that’s exactly what we’re all setting out to do, isn’t it? Um, awesome. Okay, so moving on down to Jasper.

Zana: Uh, your episode talked about the Public Schools Athletic League, which coordinates sports for public schools in the city. Your episode specifically focused on the Access program, which allows students at schools that lack sports teams to play for teams at nearby schools. Um, both you and your interviewee, Noa Moore, who is also a senior at Art and Design, have played on teams for other schools, and you talked about your experiences, so let’s hear a clip.

Jasper (clip): I have fun doing my sport, but like that-- I also wanna like have fun with the, the team. Like- Yeah ... how important do you think it is to like be able to go to practice and be like smiling to see everyone? You know what I mean? ‘Cause don’t you think that makes the sport more fun too? It definitely makes the sport more fun, and especially if you’re-- if everybody’s having fun, it unites people.

Noah: So then you start building those bonds ‘cause you’re sitting there, you’re smiling, you’re laughing with other people, you’re joking with other people, and you really start to form a bond between teammates. ‘Cause once the fun aspect is gone, you really don’t wanna be there anymore. And so then you stop trying ‘cause you’re just like, “I wanna get through practice to go home.”

Zana: So your episode focused a lot on Noah and his experience playing sports at other schools, but I wanna hear a little bit more about your experience as a student athlete, both at Art and Design and at the other school that you played for. So why is having access to sports important to you?

Jasper: I think it’s, like, important just, like, with anything. Like, the idea of having more opportunities for students because, like, when you’re a teen you just wanna try out a lot of things. So I know a lot of kids that wanted to do cross country and, like, they- they’re just getting into it now, and I’m telling them, like, “Maybe you could’ve joined the team.”

Jasper: And they’re like, “Oh, I, I never even, like, knew I could do it.” So it’s kinda just that thing, like, you could really explore new things, like, during your teenage years only if you really have access to it. So with, like, the All Access program, like, for me at least, like, I mean, I... It was kind of the same sport I’d been playing.

Jasper: But there’s a lot of people that at least I know and, like, a lot of teens are just adventurous and, like, they wanna, like, do new things. So, like, if they know about these programs, like, they would do them, and they could just get better at sports and things like that, so.

Zana: Yeah. And I know you and Noa are both very grateful for the program to have access to the sports that you didn’t previously have. But what changes would you like to see within the program or within the PSAL in general?

Jasper: I mean, definitely just, like, promotion because I feel like if they promote this All Access program more, or the Access program, you can get more people from the same school that can come, and, and it wouldn’t feel like you’re going to a new school and having to, like, meet new people and all that stuff.

Jasper: Which, I mean, for me, like, it was kind of fun at first ‘cause it’s like a new, like, a whole new world and stuff. But, like, it’s also fun to have, like, that personal connection to your school. Like, like, if I was running for Art and Design it would probably be better ‘cause, like, I have that personal connection to my school and I’m, like, trying to, like, run the best for all the people there.

Jasper: So if there’s, like, more promotion, like, you know, more people would kinda be, like, on each other’s side. And that’s not to say, like, like, no one’s on each other’s side if you’re going to a new school, but there’s a lot more of a... You see it, like, when you’re going to a new school, like, all of them are running for, like, for me, they’re all running for Lab.

Jasper: And, like, if, if it was at Art and Design, we’re running for Art and Design. But you’re in this, like, weird middle ground where it’s, like, a whole new thing, so it’s just like-

Zana: Yeah. And I think your episode is definitely acting as a sort of promotion the more l- people listen to it. So I think you’re the first step, hopefully, in getting more people into the program.

Zana: Um, now we’re gonna move on, last but not least, to Zoe, whose episode actually came out today, this morning actually. Um, your episode talks about your school’s diversity initiative, and you talked to Jasmine Coombs, who is a Bard alum, who now actually also works at the school as the Director of Equity and Inclusion Programming, whose job it is to create safe spaces for historically underrepresented students on campus.

So let’s listen in

Zoe (Clip): I think it’s pretty selfless that you let 204 be more of a student lounge.

Jasmine: Well, I know how important it is to have a space, again, as a past student, to go and, and, and have your person be there or have a person who you really connect with, your trusted adult on campus, just from experience. So I would never-- Like, I know, I, I say sometimes, like, “It’s too loud,” or like-

Jasmine: “Quiet down,” ‘cause it is my office and I have to get work done. But I, I really do believe in offering a space on, specifically at Basic Manhattan, for my students, my Smart Scholar students, to come to and to really decompress. Um, because I know how stressful it is in those classes. I know how stressful it is to, like, be cold called on a day where you’re just not feeling it, or to not come to class prepared, or to, like, have just finished a test where you thought that you were gonna do well, and then you finish and you were like, “Mm, that didn’t go too well.”

Jasmine: So I know how, how it feels to, like, need a space. I think that the safety, in my eyes, has a person connected to it, and I’m happy to hear that that’s me for you. Like, it can’t just be a space without someone kind of making it intentional, if that makes sense.

Zana: Yeah, so I absolutely love this episode. You and Jasmine just have such a great rapport. Yeah. Um, you guys talk about the importance of safe spaces. What does a safe space look like to you, and what do you think teachers and admin need to know or need to do in order to create one?

Zoe: Um, yeah, I think I got into that in the episode a little bit, um, that a safe space is a place that somebody can go, or multiple people can go that, um, are not only seen but heard.

Zoe: I think seen is the first step, but being heard is the second. And not only just being heard as well, but also being understood and knowing that people can relate to you. Um, I think that it doesn’t necessarily have to be a location, but having a space, like a physical space helps, and having a person attached to it helps a lot more to have someone guide you through that situation or the, um, system in which that you don’t feel safe and need a safe space is, is helpful.

Zoe: I do personally believe that, um, we should be working towards making all safe s- all spaces safe, um, and not needing necessarily a safe space if all of them feel like you can be heard and understood. But that is a very long process that, like, this help, episode helped me understand. So I do think that maybe schools and administrators, um, can kinda like...

Zoe: I hope that this episode resonates with them and can, um, recognize the importance of safe spaces in their schools and know that that’s the first step to making our students feel not only physically safe, but also emotionally and mentally and even intellectually safe as well.

Zana: Yeah. And I also know that you’re very passionate about the idea of third spaces, um, first of all, I would love for you to talk a little bit about what third spaces are and why you think that they’re necessary for young people.

Zoe: Um, yeah, so the saying goes your first space is your home, um, then your second space is your work or your school or whatever, like, um, institution you have to be in, and then your third space is a space that you can go to kinda be authentically you and be yourself or relax or kinda take a load off or just work through whatever you need to.

Zoe: And think the conversation that me and some of the people in this program were having was, sorry, that many times teens are banned or barred from these safe spaces. Like, we referenced, um, like things like the mall and like closing out teens or like after COVID cafes shutting down and there being like spaces for two to six-year-olds and then there being a gap.

Zoe: There’s elementary school spaces, um, but there’s a gap in like s- for students who are teens and how I think that we need to have a reemergence of that in the city. We have a lot... We have a big student population in the city. We have a big teen population in the city, and I think that there’s certain institutions being, d- doing the work to open them again.

Zoe: But again, we constantly face kind of, we are one of the biggest groups that constantly face getting barred when you talk about age, like getting banned from places ‘cause we’re seen as rowdy or rebellious, and I think that many take a certain group of teens and kind of make them the Um, figurehead for the entire population, which shouldn’t be done. Just my personal opinion.

Zana: Yeah. And I mean, it’s a great - conversation to have in a place like this, as we are currently in a library, which is in fact a third space. Um, so now I’m gonna go into just one big question for all of you. You can answer however you’d like. Um, all of your episodes focused on, on an issue within your school or within a school that you had previously attended.

Zana: What message would you like to leave for the teachers or the administrators in the audience tonight about your experiences?

Jeremiah: Um, I’ll keep it short. Like, honestly, just to say, like, administrators and teachers, you should just, like, value the opinions of students more, you know? Because I feel like even with my experience reporting with The Bell on countless other stories, there’s been times where teachers just haven’t been receptive to me, like, saying, “Here, I’m here to report,” or, “I’m here to interview you.”

Jeremiah: But just, like, regardless of, like, what age someone is that they’re interviewing you, it honestly takes a lot of courage and dedication to do so. So all I’m saying is just, like, give the child or whoever’s interviewing you that amount of respect regardless of their age

Zoe: Um, similarly that’s, similar to that I’ll say, like, check your bias at the door. Um, I think that whether that’s your age, your, your race, your gender, your ideas, I think that many kinda shut off towards that type of, um, environment or just that space. And make sure, like talking about my episode, that students feel more safe to communicate and, um, express their ideas

Jasper: Um, I think like the teacher’s goal shouldn’t be like fully to make the students like the best student. I feel like they should kinda go in like, “Oh, I want the student to know like they could really do anything.” And I mean, for me personally, like I think again, the idea like promote these sports teams, like make like the, the teens like feel like they want act- like they could actually do what they want in a way.

Jasper: Like don’t shut them out of certain things and really make sure like the teens could do what they want and have like all these different opportunities. But like even beyond that, like I mean, some episodes are about like AP calc. Like make it like beyond like the math. Like really like, I don’t know, like talk about like real life.

Jasper: Like make the teen feel like connected to the subject and interested and realize it’s like beyond school. It’s like, it’s about making connections, like trying to build out your future and like trying to really just be happy. And I think it’s beyond just academics.

Rayleen: I’d say teachers shouldn’t be afraid to push students out of their boundaries when it comes to being inclusive and diversive, diverse, you know what, yeah, in school. I feel like too many times teachers just allow students to sometimes be too, to themselves and not push them to do things and meet people and interact with people that they maybe wouldn’t before or do things that they wouldn’t before.

Rayleen: I know that, you know, last year, I don’t think I would have ever done this, and my advisor, Ms. Nahar, she just let me know about this program through, you know, texting the Google Classroom and things like that with opportunities. So I feel like teachers just shouldn’t be afraid to try and push students out of the bounds of what they think they can do or what they should do.

Zana: I hope all you teachers in the audience were taking notes. All right, so that is it for our first panel. Can we please get a round of applause?

Zana: We are going to transition into the first trivia moment, whoo., of the night. Um, so this is how it’s going to work. Um, I’m going to pose a question to the audience, and whatever student, student in the audience thinks that they know the answer can stand up. And if you are the first p- person that I see to stand up, I will call on you, and you will have the opportunity to answer the question.

Zana: Um, if you get it right, um, our lovely manager over here, Sabrina... Stand up, Sabrina, so everyone knows you. She- Come find her at the end of the night. This is an opportunity to win fun merch and other prizes for the night. So, all right, are we all ready for the first trivia question? Okay. Early in the season, our students interviewed a really important figure.

Zana: What is the first and last name of the current New York City Schools chancellor?

Katelyn: Yes, you know it.

Zana: Yes, that is correct. For those of you who may not have heard, it is Kamar Samuels. Uh, our second question, New York City’s largest charter school network, Success Academy, recently announced that it is expanding to which state?

Zana: Yes. Okay. All right, so you two please find Sabrina at the end of the event. Awesome. So now we are going to be transitioning into the second panel of the night, so come up, Katelyn.

Katelyn: All right, guys, how are we feeling? Nice to hear it. All right, so now we’re gonna hear from the other half of our student reporters. So Ermione, Mateo, and Noa, can you please come up?

Katelyn: All right, guys. So I want you guys to just go on rapid fire. I want your name, your grade, your school, and then for our little icebreaker question, can you guys tell me your favorite train line?

Ermione: Hi, my name’s Ermione Aleah Raymond. I go to Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice. And this is a hard question, you know, ‘cause numbers, letters. Um, I would say the 2 5 simply because I’ve lived in the Bronx and I now live in Brooklyn, and it’s a easy, direct route.

Mateo: My name is Mateo Tang-O’Reilly. I’m a junior at Central Park East High School. And I would say the A because, like, I take it every day, and then also the 7 ‘cause the views are nice.

Noa: I’m Noa salas Adam. I’m a junior at Stuyvesant High School, and probably the B. I take it the most often.

Katelyn: All right, perfect. Thanks, guys. Well, those are better answers than I would give, ‘cause I’d say the Long Island Railroad, but, you know, whatever. All right, but let’s get to these clips.. So, Ermione, your episode sheds light on the importance of teacher diversity in schools.

Katelyn: You interviewed a college student named Isaiah, who’s part of New York City Men Teach, an initiative that supports men of color on their journey to becoming New York City public school teachers. Let’s listen to a clip.

Ermione (clip): You’re in your first year of college. Yes. You’re in this Men Teach program. Can you walk me through a typical day-to-day in the program?

Isaiah: Yeah. So basically under Men Teach, I have schooling in the morning, of course, and then 1:00 I will go to the school that I’m assigned to for the last hour and a half of, you know, the school day. Then I will transition to the after-school program with, you know, with the school, and I’ll help teach the kids there as well.

Ermione (clip): Hmm. So in a way, you’re both getting the educational background of teaching, but you’re also getting the hands-on experience. What mission do you feel like you’re contributing to by being a part of this Men Teach program?

Isaiah: Paying it forward. You know, they can see a face that looks like them. You know, I would say just giving them like a, a good image, a good positive role model. You know, that’s important to me for them to see that, okay, this guy looks like me. He, he works in the same way that I can work. I could become him in the future. Just to pay it forward so they can see that, oh, they can become me, or they can do something similar to pay it forward.

Katelyn: All right. Perfect. Thank you. So Ermione, a theme I noticed in this clip is the importance of students feeling seen and supported. Through your reporting, did you come away with a different understanding of why having teachers who reflect the background and experiences of their students is so important?

Ermione: No, I didn’t come away with a different understanding. I felt like it reinforced, like, interviewing Isaiah reinforced the same idea in a sense, simply because his program is very similar to what I was trying to find or seek out through my podcast.

Ermione: I was looking for something to help alleviate the, the gap of teacher diversity. And I think that hearing his passion and hearing his story to teaching reinforced the idea that teacher diversity is important, and it reaffirmed my, I guess, desire to continue fighting for this passion.

Katelyn: All right. Perfect. Thank you. And just a quick little follow-up, did you have, like, a personal experience that drove you to report on this story?

Ermione: Yes. Um, so my favorite teacher, love him to death, but he would call me a grade grubber. And I thought, like, grade grubber, negative connotation, and a lot of high-achieving students get that kind of joke o- oftentimes.

Ermione: And it really center- it kind of centered my learning ‘cause senior year you care about your grades, colleges, this, that. Like, it’s a very important time, and you shouldn’t be looked down upon for caring about your grades. But I felt like oftentimes high-achieving students, instead of getting the support they need, they tend to get brushed aside, which is understandable.

Ermione: Our education system, teachers are overworked, but where do we make room for students who actually do care about their learning and wanna further it? So his kind of joke kind of spiraled into, like, the podcast, and me think about how he wa- he is a white teacher, and my school is majority white teachers, and how that differing understanding contributed to me.

Ermione: I’m a Caribbean student. Um, I’m ... I was raised by a single mom, lower income. I meet all the kind of brackets for not succeeding in higher education or education in general, so just understanding how my background and his are different, different, and how that contributes to our different understanding of what learning means to me.

Katelyn: All right. Thank you, Ermione. All right. So Mateo, you interviewed Dash, an AP Calculus teacher from Young Women’s Leadership School of Brooklyn, and a member of Math for America. Your episode talked about the usefulness of AP Calculus and its usefulness beyond standardized testing. Let’s hear a clip.

Mateo (clip): So for students who have no plans to become engineers or any profession that uses advanced math, what do you think the benefits of a calculus class are?

Dash: It’s true that once you get beyond, like, eighth grade Algebra 1 level math, you’re not learning a lot that’s gonna come up in your everyday life, but that’s okay.

Dash: That’s the case for your other classes, too, right? You’re not necessarily doing literary analysis or explaining mitosis or the Seven Years War or whatever. A lot of what we learn in school is not directly applicable to our lives, but it’s still valuable. It’s still part of our shared knowledge. It’s a way of discovering what you want to pursue, right?

Dash: You’re not gonna know what you wanna do as a career until you’ve seen it at least a little bit, and that’s part of why we want to introduce students to all these things. So I think there’s value there. And as I was saying, I think with a lot of this more advanced math, even if you’re not using it in your life, somebody is.

Dash: Like, there are jobs out there that are relying on these things that do affect you in different ways. Whether it’s, yeah, the space program or disease control or finance or whatever else, there are ways that these things get used, and if it does affect you, then I do think it’s worth understanding

Katelyn: Thank you. All right. So I will say I’m a little bit biased being a student who kind of pivoted into, like, STEM because of really great, um, really great teaching from, you know, my teachers and everything like that. So I wanted to explore what Dash was talking about, how most subjects’ curriculums are not also directly real-world applicable. Did speaking to him change your perspective on the way that other subjects are taught as well?

Mateo: Honestly, I would say no. It kind of confirmed what I was already thinking, just because, like, obviously a literary analysis or, like, cellular respiration is not as applicable to our lives than, like, learning how to do your taxes.

Mateo: But I feel like it’s easy, I guess, for me at least, to see, like, how that unfolds in the real world. Like, you can see that it affects our day-to-day. I think for calculus, it was a bit harder, and what he said kind of made me realize how important it is that we know, like, where calculus is applied. Like, in the episode, he talked about, like, calculating income inequalities across countries.

Mateo: Like, I had no idea that was happening with calculus, and it just feels comforting to know that, like, something like calculus doesn’t really seem like you can apply it to your life, does have a use outside of, like, boosting your GPA or, like, appealing to colleges, you know? So I feel like it’s, like, a sense of comfort for me, and I hope other students in the audience or who listen to the episode also share that sense of comfort.

Katelyn: All right, thank you. And a little follow-up because I know your episode received a lot of positive response. I know I showed it to a lot of people. So can you talk about the response that you received from your episode?

Mateo: I feel like it was both expected and unexpected, like the response I got. It was expected because the goal of the episode was to kind of like appeal to other calculus students who may feel like what they’re learning is not really applicable to their lives if they’re not going down like a STEM route, and that was kind of the response I got from students.

Mateo: I think the unexpected part was like how many people came up to me, like students I’d never talked to, like DM’d me or talked to me like in my calc class. And then my history teacher came up to me and she was talking about how like one of her teacher friends from Long Island sent it to her on WhatsApp, and I was like, wow, like Long Island, like that’s like- you know? But yeah.

Katelyn: All right. Thank you, Matteo. All right, so now on to you, Noa. So you spoke to Lucas and Paulette, a mother-son duo who experienced the issue of inadequate school busing and how much it impacts students with disabilities firsthand. Listen to a clip

Noa (clip): Yeah, Lucas, could you tell me about that feeling of being left out when your friends are at school, but you couldn’t be there because of the unreliable busing?

Lucas: Well, let’s just say I just, I didn’t like it when I was left out, and because of that, I felt, well, lonely because I wasn’t there, and it’s, it’s definitely not fair.

Lucas: It’s literally, like, not fair to be left out. I mean, what the heck?

Paullette: It still hurts you now.

Lucas: Mm-hmm.

Paullette: And you’re, you’re 18. It was 10 years ago. So it’s like these are, these are the kind of scars that nobody sees on the outside, and, you know, sometimes I don’t even realize, like, how raw it still is for him, you know, until I hear the anger in his voice, just like I did just now, and hearing him say, “I felt lonely.”

Paullette: Like, no mom ever wants to hear that, you know, from their kid, and- Mm ... and not being able to fix it, so.

Lucas: Yeah. That’s what’s going on with my life with busing, busing problems and stuff. I just really wish I was there back then.

Paullette: Yeah. And I know, I know that also makes you more empathetic to your friends, too.

Paullette: Like, when, when you’re, you, you come home and you tell me that one of your other friends wasn’t able to get to school ‘cause the bus didn’t show up, like, I know that you know how that feels, and you worry about them, and you worry about how they’re feeling. And yeah, it hurts, no matter how old you are.

Paullette: Whether you’re in third grade, in middle school, in high school, it just sucks not being able to, to be part of, you know, everything that’s going on, especially this being your last year of school, too.

Lucas: Yeah.

Katelyn: All right, Noa. So for you, and just like a little anecdote, I got to see like Noa firsthand put this episode together, and I will say that she practiced so much intentionality in the message that she wanted to put through to our listeners. So when you were putting the episode together, what did you hope listeners would understand about disability and accessibility that they might not have understood before hearing Paula and Lucas’s story?

Noa: I think that a lot of the time issues like this where you’re talking about a big system, you know, the school bus not coming, being late, a lot of it is in, like, numbers, which that’s important, right? Even the fact that 43% of the 145,000, um, New York City public school kids who rely on the bus each day, um, have disabilities, that’s important.

Noa: That’s a big number. But I think with this episode, the power was really in hearing a specific story, and so I was so grateful to be able to talk to Paulette and Lucas together, how they kind of build off of each other, and getting both of those perspectives because it really helps you realize, like, these are, this is an issue that impacts someone, so many people every single day.

Noa: I mean, it makes me, like, sad hearing now even, again, Lucas saying that it made him feel lonely to miss the bus, you know, or the bus missed him. But, um, yeah, it just, it really humanizes something that can seem so large. And to think he, in third grade, he missed 56 days of school, I think. And so when you hear that, you’re like, it’s just inc- credible.

Noa: Um, so instead of maybe thinking about a big system and the problems, when you can hear very specifically, like, he’s 18 now, and it still really affects him. I think I just wanted listeners to be able to hear some- something like that ‘cause I didn’t really realize how big of an issue that unreliable busing was for students with disabilities until I worked on this episode.

Katelyn: Yeah. And I just want to follow up, kind of like talking about how, you know, you weren’t aware of this issue. You know, very briefly, if you can kind of like take me through how you settled on this, um, issue for your episode and that kind of light bulb moment that you had.

Noa: Yeah. It was kind of a, it was an interesting process because I met a group of parents of students with disabilities who are also advocates at an event, and then I realized, like, this is what I wanna report on.

Noa: But I wasn’t sure. I knew it can so easily just be like a topic, so I knew that I needed an angle. Um, and I was originally thinking maybe, you know, getting into, um, more advanced classes maybe with an IEP, um, which is in, which, you know, would have been a great topic as well. But then I spoke to one, I did so many pre-interviews, and, um, I learned about busing and how that was a big issue that nobody really seems to talk about.

Noa: And so I interviewed many different angles and then was connected with, um, Paulette and Lucas. And being able to talk to them as a mother and son, I think that was probably the most powerful thing, and realizing that I needed something really specific to really show how important the issue was. Perfect.

Noa: Thank you, Noa.

Katelyn: All right, guys. So as you can see, we do have an empty chair right here. So unfortunately Roberto couldn’t make it here today, but his clip comes from his interviewee, Kassidy Khuu, a junior at Hunter College High School and an organizer of Hunter College High School for Equity, a student-run group created in order to address the equity issues in admissions at Hunter.

Katelyn: Roberto’s episode takes on a unique perspective, being that he himself is a student at Hunter and also a part of Hunter High School College for Equity. Um, he has been since his elementary education, and yet still finds the equity issues glaringly obvious among the school culture. Let’s hear a clip

Roberto (clip): So if you could leave listeners with one message about equitable admissions processes, like what you want them to kind of take away from this, what would that be?

Kassidy: I think my message would be an action, and I think the action should just be talk to people in your life about this issue. Talk to how, especially if you’re invested in equity in other ways in your adult life, if you’re an adult listener, talk to people about how education is such an instrumental part of that.

Kassidy: And if you’re a high schooler, talk to the people in your school about what they think about the structure of your school and the structure of how they got to that school, what the system is in New York City as they’ve moved through it, because I feel like it can definitely open exciting conversations on how we can change the situation we have right now and how everyone is connected to this movement.

Katelyn: And just to speak a little bit about his episode and things that, you know, I’ve heard just from, you know, seeing him work and just, you know, being his friend as well, um, I think it’s very brave of him to kind of explore this issue at a school that he already goes to. You know, he had spoke to me about how administration definitely pushed back on him.

Katelyn: Even his own friends and classmates pushed back on him, you know, and he felt a lot... He felt like very, like stigmatized, you know, for speaking out about this, you know. Being a very high-- like being a student in such a prestigious and high achieving high school, you know, he was talking about how students are expected to kind of just like fall in line and go along with everything that’s happening and kind of see themselves as being the elites.

Katelyn: But he was like, “That’s not necessarily true.” You know, you can’t be a New York City high, high school. You know, when New York City is the melting pot of the United States, you can’t be an equitable and responsible high school, you know, and preach that you have the best students in the entire, in the entire city when you don’t have an equitable amount of Black and Brown students and students with disabilities and, you know, minorities.

Katelyn: So he also shared with me a quick reflection. So he says, “I think my biggest reflection is about using journalism to make an impact. A ton of people in the school community listened and talked about it. Students came up to me saying they never knew this about Hunter High School, and overall, I think it mean- meaningfully drove conversations about equity at Hunter.”

Katelyn: All right, guys. So just to wrap up, I’m going to pose a question for all of you, and I’d love to hear your responses. So across all three of your episodes, I noticed a very common thread. Students learn best when they feel supported, whether that’s through representation, meaningful learning experiences, or accessible systems.

Katelyn: Did reporting on these stories change your understanding of what schools owe students beyond academics?

Noa: I can start. I think that, you know, the care and education that kids get at school is so important, but also making sure that kids can get to school is even, you know, is really important. And something that I learned is that, um, former Comptroller B- Brad Lander released an audit last year, um, basically assessing the situation of, um, busing and the Office of Pupil Transportation, and he found that many issues aren’t resolved.

Noa: So I think that ... Well, he called for the new position of a bus czar, which is some- a position that still has not been filled. And so I think that that is something that the Department of Education owes to its students to make sure that, um, the busing system is kept accountable. Thank you.

Mateo: I can go. Um, I think for me it would be, I think the school system also owes us students... Actually, I don’t know how to phrase this. I’m so sorry. Like, the why behind the learning. Like, I think we shouldn’t just be learning, like, the facts and being able to, like, cram for these tests. Like, I think there should be a clear line of reasoning of why we are learning what we’re learning, because I think it just makes it, like, mean a lot more to us.

Mateo: Like, it- I feel like it makes the classroom feel like a completely different place, and I’ve felt the difference between, like, a class where I see where what I’m learning, like, how it applies to the real world. And, like, before, you know, I did this episode, like, on the other hand, calculus, where I felt like it didn’t apply at all.

Mateo: And I think, like, also just after the episode came out, like, I’ve felt that difference, you know? So I feel like they also owe us that

Ermione: Um, I feel like education owes us two things. One, more teachers of color, a more diverse teaching staff, but also beyond that, I know that there is a huge deficit in teachers of color in the United States. I think that we need to, as, as teachers, um, I think teachers need to respect the backgrounds of their students and where they come from.

Ermione: Oftentimes, our backgrounds are what shapes us, and our experiences are what shapes us. And if you’re not a teacher who comes from my background, the least you could do is, like, respect my culture and my background, like my why for why I’m in the classroom. We each have our own whys. But I think also, like, with my interview guest, like, his passion was so clear in, like, why he wanted to become a teacher.

Ermione: I think investing in more people who have that passion, who have that desire, because at the end of the day, you can’t just put someone in a classroom who doesn’t have the desire or doesn’t have the care. Ultimately, that results in students of color feeling less supported. So honestly, more teachers of color, but if we can’t, or if that goal is more so for the future, inc- having workshops where teachers could learn about different teachers’ backgrounds and gain that deeper personal connection to better the teaching field.

Katelyn: All right, guys. Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure speaking with you guys. You guys can stand up. Can we get a round of applause?

Katelyn: All right, guys. So now we’re gonna move on to the second segment of our trivia. So just to reinforce what Zana said, we are only taking answers from students, so you guys get ready.

Katelyn: So for this question, the first three students to stand up will have a chance at answering this, okay? So, New York City public school enrollment has dropped sharply since the pandemic. Approximately how many students has the system lost?

Trivia speaker 1: I’m gonna say 45?

Katelyn: Okay, 45,000. Got it. Perfect. 45. All right. Anybody else? If you get closer, you’ll win it.

Trivia speaker 2: 30,000.

Katelyn: Okay.

Trivia speaker 3: I’ll say 55,000.

Katelyn: Okay. All right, guys. Well, the actual answer is more than 123,000 students. So, all right, and then for this question, we’re gonna be taking one. So school mergers and other big decisions that affect New York City schools must be approved by a body known as the PEP.

Katelyn: What does the PEP stand for? I know these are, these are hard ones. Well, here, let’s hear it from a teacher. Not for a prize, but if you have a say, you know?

Trivia speaker 4: Panel for Education Policy

Katelyn: Yes. Thank you. All right. So what is the largest New York City high school?

Katelyn: You are correct. It is Brooklyn Tech. Okay. And I’ll give you guys one more. Jay-Z, the Notorious B.I.G., Busta Rhymes, and DMX all attended which Brooklyn high school?

Trivia speaker 5: George Westinghouse high school

Katelyn: It is, yeah. Okay. All right, guys. So I’m gonna have Zana come up here, and then we’re gonna start doing a little Q&A and shout-outs.

Zana: So we have a bag full of questions. When you guys RSVP’d to this event, you should’ve been able to submit a question. So we have a bag full of all of those questions that you all submitted, and so we’re gonna pull some out at random and have our students up here answer. So. Okay, okay.

Katelyn: Cheers whoever said this.

Zana: Yeah. If you could change one thing about how traditional journalism has been done in the past to set it on a different course for the future, what would it be?

Jeremiah: All right. I would say just, like, watching a lot of news, especially with, like, the thing with a lot of female reporters and anchors going up against Donald Trump when they’re interviewing him. I just wish, like, journalists were more, like, able to express themselves freely when they’re disrespected. I wish they had more outlets to really, like, protect themselves.

Jeremiah: I wish they didn’t have to sit there and take disrespect from political officials, people on the street, sit there, be targeted, just like all the ICE protests and certain things like that. I’ve seen so many videos of journalists being the ones getting attacked, caught in the crossfire when they’re just there to show the world what’s happening.

Jeremiah: There’s been so many situations where journalists have been getting killed in certain countries covering wars and certain things. So I just wish journalists had more tools and more, you know, just leeway to sit there and act and fight back in a way that actually will help us and protect us in the future

Zoe: Um, I guess I would say more diversity in journalism. I think that when journalism first started, it was a very, like, male, white male-predominated field, and I think that we are getting a little bit better, and there’s obviously still work that could be improved on. But I think that if we would’ve started with it, we wouldn’t, like, face stigmas, or we’d have more stories on more diverse cultures and communities being shared, and a lot more problems would be shared as well.

Speaker 7: All right, our next question is: What do you think is an aspect of the school system or the city in general that is under-reported on or needs more coverage?

Noa: Well, this is, um, this wasn’t what I ended up doing my episode on, but there’s an initiative called Green Healthy Schools, um, whose mission, thanks Jeremiah, is to, um, basically renovate school buildings because many of them have, you know, broken ACs or even sometimes like asbestos, um, basically conditions that are not conducive to learning, and I think that’s definitely under-reported on.

Noa: Um, I didn’t end up going with it for the episode, but I think that definitely not many people know about the plans or even the issues in many of these old buildings. Um, I’m pretty sure the average school building i- in New York City is 75 years old, and they’re dealing with a lot of these issues.

Ermione: Um, with schools in specific, I would say college preparatory staff at schools. I think oftentimes we rely on guidance counselors to be the ones to guide kids in college and guide kids into career paths. But, like, I know my school in specific, we have a college and career office, and that’s very rare, and we have

Ermione: And a nonprofit funds it. But oftentimes the nonprofits, they’re seeking money from outside sources that don’t nec- that can’t always provide consistent money. So I would say, like, requiring a college and prep- preparatory office in all schools and having distinct funding, funding for that, because I was a part of different programs that guide me towards that, but what about students who don’t have that drive to seek out a specific person or a specific program?

Ermione: How can we help those students? And those students are also the ones who are most vulnerable of not going to college or not knowing the resources they have .

Jeremiah: Um, I’ll add on because something that Zoe said really stuck out to me earlier. We were talking about this before. Um, what Zoe mentioned was just the lack of third spaces in New York City in general.

Jeremiah: Like, for example, can my friends who go to my school raise their hands? Yes. Okay. Right. There you guys are. All right. Um, so, like, in Williamsburg, we go to school in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and commonly we go to, like, fast food spots like McDonald’s, Taco Bell, you know, just... We all eat there. So but I’ve seen...

Jeremiah: I’ve noticed a trend since, like, there’s been fights and certain things, but every time you look at something that’s happening, it all leads down to the fact that teens have nowhere to go. So when they do have somewhere to go, they act out because it’s just like they don’t know what to do, you know? So that leads to them, I feel like, overpolicing in our communities because how is it fair that I walk into a McDonald’s or a Taco Bell and I’m being asked for my ID and verification, and then I’m telling them that I’m 18 years old, and they’re saying that, “You don’t believe me.”

Jeremiah: How are you gonna tell me how old I am, you know? So then it’s just like, it’s crazy that I have to pull out my ID and basically be, like, policed and screened just to spend my money. When you go in whiter, richer neighborhoods in Manhattan and certain things like that, and it’s the exact same group. I travel with the same people every time.

Jeremiah: We never have a problem. But then in our neighborhoods, it’s always a problem. But then you look back and it’s like, look at the neighborhoods that they’re overpolicing. It’s for a reason, right? So I just, like, feel like there’s not a lot of stories that really talk about this age verification thing because I feel like the main starter of it all was Target, where they banned, um, a lot of kids from going into Atlantic Terminal Mall.

Jeremiah: Like, I remember one time for a senior sleepover, I had ordered, like, a air mattress or something, and I went to pick it up, and they’re like, “Hold up. Are you 18?” Mind you, I was two months away from turning 18, so yeah, I had to lie. But it, it’s unfortunate ‘cause you should never have to do that. So I definitely think there should be more reporting on that.

Zana: Okay, this will be our last question for our group here. By stepping into your own power as a journalist, what is one surprisingly positive thing that you learned about yourself? Give one example of when you thought you might fail but didn’t, for example.

Mateo: I think for me, this actually happened last year when I did P.S. Weekly for the first time. I think last year, like, I wasn’t, like, as confident as I am now, and, like, when the episode came out, I honestly wasn’t really expecting, like, anybody to care about it, like, even people at school. But I got, like, a lot of, like, positive feedback on my episode, and a lot of people were like, “Oh, I listened to it and I felt represented,” and like, “You’re doing really great work.”

Mateo: And, like, it just felt really moving, and I think this year I kind of, like, leaned into that a little bit more, and I think that surprised me, and it helped me become, like, more confident. Like, there are people out there who, like, will care what you’re doing and, like, see the impact you’re making.

Ermione: So my, my journey to getting an interview guest was kind of filled with turbulence, and I kinda was dismotivated in a sense. I knew I cared a lot about my topic ‘cause I have been dealing with the same teacher and the same issues for years, but I kinda... Halfway through, I kinda lost sight of what I wanted to talk about and whether or not it was important.

Ermione: So it kinda showed me that, like, I have perseverance in other fields and other ways in a sense, ‘cause usually I think of, like, academics having perseverance and resilience to academics and life. But it’s in journalism. I don’t intend to major in journalism, but I did it as a way to push me outside my box, and I definitely saw a different side of myself and the desire to get an interview guest and push myself.

Ermione: So just seeing that side of me, even though I’m not quite passionate about journalism, but I am passionate about the topic itself, and letting that take over and seeing that side of myself was something that was very different.

Rayleen: Um, I’d like to agree with Ermione. I just feel like in doing P.S. Weekly and SYPA, I’ve learned that, like, I can kind of turn off my introvertedness and, like, nervousness when it comes to talking to people and just expressing myself. Because when I’m passionate about something, I can speak up about it. When I like something, I will speak up about it.

Rayleen: So I feel like being here has just helped me really learn how to do that for myself.

Jasper: Um, I’d say just like embrace being a journalist, ‘cause I don’t know, like at first I was kind of afraid to show that I was a journalist and whatever, like in school and stuff. But like, I was helping Mateo with his episode and I was doing like those Vox interviews in like AP Calc, and then like everyone was actually like interested and I was like, damn.

Jasper: I’m like, we’re going in the hallway. I’m like, talk. Yeah, and like, you know, people actually like being behind the mic and I realized that. And also like, I don’t know, eventually like I got more comfortable. Like I started posting more about The Bell, like actually collaborating with them. And then, I don’t know, those reels, like the share counts are kind of scary, but you know.

Jasper: Like it was just like, it’s just really fun and it’s like I’m actually pretty proud of it now. I used to be emba- a little embarrassed, but now it’s like something I could see myself doing in the future, and I realize people like it.

Jeremiah: um, I’ll just say quickly, I di- like, I discovered that I have a great passion for storytelling and interviewing. Um, because before P.S. Weekly, I actually did The Bell’s flagship podcast, Miseducation, on its eighth season, where I talked about, like, credit recovery systems in high schools, which we’ll learn about another time.

Jeremiah: Go check it out. Um, but honestly, when I first, like, started, when it came to, like, interviews and stuff, I was very nervous. I just felt like I wasn’t educated enough about the subject that I was talking about. I felt like that I was gonna mess up, or even sometimes still, I still get nervous. But now I feel like I’ve developed the confidence to actually know that I’m capable of interviewing someone, like Sasha, I see you back there.

Jeremiah: Um, interviewing someone successfully and actually getting their story across. Um, as well as just, like, storytelling, because I feel like my main passion behind journalism is I don’t see it as a hobby, I see it as an essential service. I see it as something where you’re not only telling a story, you’re bringing, you’re bringing underrepresented issue to the forefront, and I kinda see P.S. Weekly and Miseducation, whichever one it is, as a platform that brings those stories to the forefront.

Jeremiah: So I’m just, I’m so grateful to have been a part of it. Yeah

Katelyn: All right, guys. Can we give it up for our student journalists?

Katelyn: Okay. So we have this kind of tradition that we do at the end of every single session and we call it “Shout Outs”, where at the end of the day we give shout-outs. We have the students, staff, everybody just gives shout-outs to someone, somebody that they feel like shined, you know, that day. You know, maybe if their episode came out, just to, you know, put them under the spotlight because, I mean, they do such amazing work.

Katelyn: So we’re gonna bring it out to the audience, and I wanna hear some shout-outs for our student reporters. So I think here’s what we’ll do. Um-

Taylor: Raise your hand.

Katelyn: Yeah. And then Taylor will come over to you with the mic and give it to you

Audience member shoutout 1: . Um, I have two people I wanna shout out. I firstly wanna start off with Zoe. I am so proud of you, and I’m glad I got to know you at the Apollo Theater and to see you grow and be amazing. And we need more Black women esp- um, in journalism, especially during this time.

Audience member shoutout 1: And to start at such a young age, I’m truly amazed, and I cannot wait to see what else you do as well. And then as for Jeremiah, like I’m gonna try not to cry, but I think I first met you, like, in 2023, um, through CUNY. And so to see you grow, um, from I think when you were a 10th grader all the way up to senior year, now you’re going to Pace University, it, it makes me so happy to see you follow your dreams and achieve your dreams and be in these spaces.

Audience member shoutout 1: Because sometimes, um, society systemi- um, systemically try to keep us out of those spaces, and you continue to push through. And you do not let your hardships define you, and I’m very proud of you for that. And I also cannot wait to see what else you do, especially at Pace. And I, I always make sure to show up for you because I want you to know that I also aspire to have such amazing confidence in what you do and changing the world as well, so thank you.

Audience member shoutout 2: Oh, am I supposed to carry on? Hi. Um, I just, I’m gonna try to be brief. I just wanna say, um, I’m so impressed at how you’ve done more with your high school life than I think I did with the first half of mine, at least. And, and I also just feel like what impresses me so much about how you tackle the things you see in your life is when you see something that’s wrong, an injustice, something that’s not right in the world, you don’t just sit with it.

Audience member shoutout 2: You don’t just let it happen to you or let it happen to those around you. You actually decide to tackle it, and it’s such an inspiring thing to see, especially in somebody so young. Can’t wait to see where you go next. It’s gonna be amazing. Thank you so much.

Audience member shoutout 3: Hi, um, my name is Masnur. Ooh, sorry, I’m not in school. My name is Jui. Um, and, uh, my shout-out is for Rayleen. Uh, your episode was just so insightful. I was so excited to share it with everyone, and I just loved that you have been pushing yourself so much this year, um, actually ever since I met you.

Audience member shoutout 3: And I really appreciate how you were able to preserve a piece of history that, like, it, that school no longer exists, and you really helped, um, preserve Jose’s voice and other students’ voices. So I’m so proud of you.

Audience member shoutout 4: Okay. Hi, my name’s been thrown around a little bit tonight, but my name is Sasha. Um, I’m obviously giving a big shout-out to my friend Jeremiah. I am extremely proud of him and proud of our podcast. Um, I... When he first asked me, I was a little bit like, “Ooh, you’re asking me about what?” So I was a little nervous, and especially going into it when, you know, we first started asking each other questions.

Audience member shoutout 4: I was very nervous at first. But being able to actually, like, talk to him and get different inputs from him, and also, like, share my own stories and about the stories about people around me, it was very inspiring. And seeing what he’s able to do and the impact that he’s able to have on his, not only us, like, as his friends, but, like, again, the people that are here tonight, his friends that are also up there, which I’m also very proud of y’all, too, though.

Audience member shoutout 4: Y’all are all amazing. But it’s so inspiring, like, you know, watching who you’re gonna become, and I’m so proud of you, and I’m very glad to be your friend. Um, I also do wanna give a shout-out to Noa, because you were also on my podcast that I didn’t know about, and then I listened to your podcast, and your podcast was actually, like, amazing.

Audience member shoutout 4: Um, I think that your story was something that I never would’ve, like, looked into before, you know, hearing your podcast. So getting to hear about it and actually hearing, you know, from a mother and a son, I thought that that was very impactful and very important.

Audience member shoutout 5: Oh. Um, I’m Kelsi . I wanna shout out all of the lovely podcasters that are on stage. You guys did absolutely amazing. And shout out to The Bell for giving you guys this medium for you guys to ask the questions that you want to ask, to have a stage to showcase the issues that you’ve seen in your schools, and actually, like, be able to, like, as, um, I think it was Mateo, like, you said, like, your podcast got so much traction because people care.

Audience member shoutout 5: And had it not been for your care, had it not been for, like, The Bell to give you guys this medium, there... Like, more people wouldn’t know that you guys actually care. So again, shout out to you guys. You guys did absolutely amazing work. You are all so incredibly intelligent and passionate, and you all will forever have a supporter in me and from The Bell.

Audience member shoutout 6: Hi, everyone. My name is Catherine. Um, uh, I think you all were just so lovely today in hearing from all of you, and I’m not gonna shout out anyone specific. But, um, I think what’s just coming up for me, not that I’m that much older than you all, I’m 25, um, is you feel like a manifestation of just, like, how much progress we’ve made.

Audience member shoutout 6: Because to think about there was a time where truly, like, young people, kids were meant to be seen and not heard, and now you have entire platforms where you are making yourselves known and your opinions known, um, and that the youth are fully fledged people, even we were all kids once. Um, and it is so beautiful to hear and to hear the call for not only seeing children, but then hearing us and then understanding us.

Audience member shoutout 6: Um, because just to think, like, even my own parents, like, you know, they were-- you went, you went to school. You did what you were told by your parents. You didn’t ask any questions. You didn’t make any concerns. And to see you all come into your own, it just really makes me feel so inspired to see that in the midst of all of the other terrible things that we could complain about in the world, like, we have young people like you who are really showing up, um, and are so eloquent and are so impassioned by these things that we are all impacted by at the end of the day.

Audience member shoutout 6: So thank you all so much.

Audience member shoutout 7: Hi, I’m Gwen. Um, I work in the central office at New York City Public Schools, and I’m really just incredibly impressed by all of you, and I want you to know that your voices really do matter and that I have been in team meetings where we listen to these episodes, and we use them to anchor discussions.

Audience member shoutout 7: So definitely keep doing what you’re doing, and your voices do matter. Um, and tell your peers that their voices matter as well

Audience member shoutout 8: Um, hi, my name’s Clark. Um, I wanted to give a shout-out to Zoe specifically, and also to The Bell. Um, Zoe, I know that we always joke that the Black girls at Bard always do the same exact programs for journalism, but it really is so important to have those experiences and to have those programs, and to have that community.

Audience member shoutout 8: Um, I haven’t gotten a chance to listen to the episode yet, but trust on the bus home, you got me. Um, and just n- even from hearing the clip, just hearing about the experiences that we’ve all had, um, not only as students at Bard, but as students at high school, just really, like, I don’t... It, like, it was really impactful to me, and I really appreciate, um, like, everyone here for being here.

Audience member shoutout 8: Um, Kelsey, you didn’t tell me you were gonna be here. Um, but yeah, I just, I’m so appreciative of you, um, and everyone here. Yeah

Audience member shoutout 9: Well, hello. My name is Venice, and actually, um, recently I was accepted into SYPA program. So being here, very happy experience, but moreover, I just wanted to highlight how well-articulated you guys all are, and how inspiring just being here has been. It’s really made me think about how I want to go into my own podcast journey. And yeah, I just really wanted to highlight, you guys did such a great job, and I feel very inspired and impressed.

Audience member shoutout 10: Um, hi, my name is Anya, and I wanna give a shout-out to Noa, of course. I’m really, really proud of you, and I just know you take on so much, and you do it all with, like, so much grace and so much intentionality, and I’m really, really proud of you and everything that you’ve done. Um, and I also wanna give a shout-out to Mateo because, um, I just signed up to take Calc BC next year, and I’m, I’m really scared, but you made me w- more excited about it

Audience member shoutout 11: Hi, my name is Safiya. I wanna give a shout-out to Jeremiah. I love him s- I love you by the way, Jeremiah. Ever since, like, ninth grade, I’d say, I’ve been able to see him flourish, and just seeing him, like, ex- like, do so well during the Success Academy podcast, which I showed my parents, and they freaking loved it.

Audience member shoutout 11: And hearing more people, like, speak more about it, it made me, like, wonder, like, how does he have the confidence to go up there? But then I realized you’re a very bubbly, very bright individual, and I’m glad to have you as a friend, so I love you.

Audience member shoutout 12: Hey, y’all. Um, uh, sorry. Despite my height, I’m, like, the same age as him, but, like, um, not to glaze, but I’m gonna glaze you. I’m so proud of you, Jeremiah. I’m, like, so proud, and all of y’all as a collective, like, you guys are so brave speaking about things that are, you know, not really spoken about. Um, speaking of, like, everything that everybody’s, you know, fearful of speaking about really is, like, brave.

Audience member shoutout 12: Um, and I feel like keep doing what you’re doing because, you know, this is really rare in this generation in particular because, you know... Anyway, besides that, uh, I’m just proud of y’all. I’m just want, I just wanna say that I’m proud of y’all.

Taylor: All right, we got time for maybe two more. So we got one here, one here, and Sabrina, why don’t you find one more on your side?

Audience member shoutout 13: Uh, yeah, my name is Spencer Malorca. I’m the younger brother of Jasper up there. Uh, I just want you to know I’m really proud of you, and I’m glad you’re doing this ‘cause you have a really strong voice that you don’t use a lot.

Audience member shoutout 13: I see you at home, you know, you’re making music, you know, you’re doing a lot at home, but you’re not using that voice, and I know that you have a really strong voice, and doing this, uh, journalism thing is, like, really important for you. You know, I don’t gotta say too much ‘cause you know how I feel about you, but yeah.

Audience member shoutout 14: Hi, um, I’m Annika. I’m also here to shout out Noa, because I think that we all see you put 110% of your effort and energy into every single thing you do. Oh, sorry. Um, you go, you go. You go. Sorry. I come back.

Audience member shoutout 15: I just, I think you’re one of the most motivated and, like, put together people any of us know at all, and it’s such a pleasure to know you. That’s why we’re all here. Oh, my God. We’re all really excited to see you succeed, and excited to see you go into this next chapter of your life as well, I guess.

Audience member shoutout 15: And it’s also been so wonderful to hear everybody else’s opinions about everything. Everybody here seems so excited to learn new things, and talk about new things, and spread information about things that I never would’ve heard about. And this has been such a pleasant experience to listen to all of you guys and all of the hard work you guys have done

Audience member shoutout 16: I’m Emma. I’m also, I also wanna shout out Noa, and I think ev- like, two days a week after school, she’s like, “I’m going to The Bell,” and I’m like, “Okay, have fun.” Um, and I, I feel so lucky to be here and get to celebrate all this hard work and care and dedication that she’s put into this to make such a touching… I think we were all so moved when we heard that, um, interview clip. So, you guys.

Audience member group: Three, two, one. We’re so proud of you, Noa!

Audience member shoutout 17: Hi, everybody. I’m Alexander. I’m over here. I just wanted to shout out the lovely MCs. You did such an amazing job. So professional. So, like, amazing. I, like, wish I had, like, the courage and the eloquence that, like, I... Like, at your age, you, you all did, like, an amazing job. I also just wanted to shout out the audience.

Audience member shoutout 17: It’s really hot in here, and you still showed up for everybody, and you’re supporting amazing student journalism. So I just wanted to say, like, thank you for participating in this community, and, like, a shout-out to everybody that’s on the stage. Everyone should be incredibly proud of your- yourselves. And just, like, power to you guys.

Katelyn: Okay. All right, guys. Well, thank you so, so much for that. It, it means the world to all of us that you guys would come out here and shout out these amazing student journalists.

Maria: PS Weekly is a collaboration between The Bell and Chalkbeat, made possible by generous support from the Pinkerton Foundation. A special thank you to Robin Lester Kenton, Kelly Thornwell, Jennifer Thompson, Greg Richards, Karen Keys, and the entire team at the Brooklyn Public Library for hosting us in their beautiful Central Branch space.

Maria: The senior producer for this show is me, Maria Robins-Somerville, and our technical director is Jake Lummus. Our executive editors are Amy Zimmer and Taylor McGraw. Additional production and reporting support was provided by Mira Gordon, Sabrina DuQuesnay, Zana Halili, Katelyn Melville, and our partners at Chalkbeat.

Maria: Music is from Blue Dot Sessions, and the jingle you heard at the beginning of this episode was created by the one and only Erica Huang. Thanks for tuning in and see you next season.

We make transcripts available for our episodes as soon as possible. They are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.

Inside the diversity program at a selective NYC high school

2026-06-11T09:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

A decade after NYC launched its Diversity in Admissions program, demographics have shifted at competitive campuses such as Bard High School Early College Manhattan.

Bard now sets aside half of its seats for students from low-income households. But changing admissions is only the first step toward true integration. The larger question: What is being done to support these students once they’re enrolled?

P.S. Weekly producers Zoe George, a senior at Bard, and Rayleen Laloi, a junior at the Brooklyn Institute for Liberal Arts, explore how the school’s rigorous, accelerated program can be jarring for some. They look at how the state-funded Smart Scholars program provides crucial support for students from underrepresented backgrounds in early college programs.

Bard’s Smart Scholars Program is overseen by Jasmine Coombs, herself a graduate of the sought-after school. She’s now Bard’s director of equity and inclusion programs.

During her senior year in 2014-15, students of color made up 55% of the population. Now, it’s 66%.

Coombs discusses her firsthand experience of needing a space where students are not just seen but also heard. That’s what Coombs has built in Room 204 for her students.

P.S. Weekly is made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation.

Transcript

Jasmine: I’m actually just trying to, trying to look at my grade right now and see, like, who’s who, you know? I haven’t looked at this- We haven’t looked at this in a minute ...

Jasmine: pictures still look the same.

Zoe: I know. Let me find mine.

Jasmine: Aw, everybody was so young here. I know. It was so cute.

Zoe: This is PS Weekly. The Sound of the New York City School System

Jasmine: I’m Rayleen Laloi, A junior at the brooklyn institute for liberal arts, or, BILA.

Zoe: I’m Zoe, a senior at Bard High School Early College, and you just heard us looking at my school’s yearbook from 2015. I’m speaking to Jasmine Coombs She’s now the director of the Diversity and Equity Initiative at Bard and when she went to Bard from 2011-2015, the school looked pretty different.

Jasmine: Thinking about race and identity- Mm-hmm ... back to, like, large space, like, large gatherings. So, like, we had a town hall. I’m gonna show you a page of it. We had a community day teach-in. Oh. So this was in response to the Trayvon Martin, um, killing, ‘cause that happened, I think, at the beginning of my senior year.

Jasmine: My class, it was very not Black at all. But the students, the, my peers who I, like, made friends with, who did not come from the same upbringings as me, still cared about mine and I still cared about theirs.

Jasmine: Um, and I, that made me have, like, a really diverse friend group at Bard that made me learn about, like, different, you know, ways of walking in New York City.

Music

Zoe: This week, I wanted to talk about a change that’s happened at my school over the past 10 years. My school, Bard, is an early college high school, which means students do college coursework, and most students graduate from the high school with an associate’s degree.

It’s small, about 500 students total, and pretty competitive to get into. You have to sit for a special exam and also do an interview and before I was a student, it looked pretty different demographically than it does now. It was a PWI or primarily white institution.

That started to shift a bit when the citywide Diversity and Admissions Program began in 2015

Rayleen: What’s the Diversity in Admissions program?

Zoe: Diversity in admissions is a citywide policy that started with just seven schools, and now over 100 schools are a part of it

The program allowed for schools like Bard to set aside a certain percentage of their seats each year for students who are underrepresented.

For example, this might include students who are English language learners or qualify for free or reduced lunch. The aim of the program is to create more socioeconomic and racial diversity at the school.

At Bard, this means 50% of the seats in the admissions process are held for students who are eligible for free or reduced lunch.

Rayleen: So what did Bard look like back then, racially?

Zoe: In the 2014 to 2015 school year, there was no majority, but the school was 45% white. The next largest population was Hispanic students, but they only made up 19%.

And the school was about 17% Asian and 17% Black.

Rayleen: What do the demographics of the school look like?

Zoe: Now the demographics have shifted a little. The white population has decreased to 34%, and the Hispanic population increased to 24%. Asian students now make up 20%, while Black students make up 16%, and other, which makes up 6%.

Zoe: But the more interesting question to me is what is being done to support these students once they’re admitted to the school? As a student from what Bard calls a diverse background, it can be hard to excel in this intense college prep environment without the right kind of support.

I see students suffer from failing classes, transferring out, or battling serious imposter syndrome

Rayleen: I can imagine. I’m curious what’s being done to support these diversity efforts once the students are enrolled.

Zoe: Well, this is where the Smart Scholars Program comes in.

Rayleen: What’s the Smart Scholars Program?

Zoe: The Smart Scholars program at Bard began in September 2010. It automatically enrolls students who come from what Bard calls, quote, “diverse cultures and backgrounds,” end quote, and focuses on, quote, “increasing the access to our early college experience for qualified, deserving, and often underrepresented students from across New York City,” end quote.

I was enrolled in this program along with about a third of my grade and have found it to be a significant pillar of emotional support in my journey as a Bard student.

Rayleen: What do you think has made it so impactful?

Zoe: Well, in some ways, I think it is as much of a who as it is a what. Jasmine Coombs -who you just heard me talking about the yearbook with at the top of this episode – -she was a smart scholar student like myself back when she was a Bard student from 2011 to 2015. She’s a Black woman like me, who has seen this school through these changes, and she has made it her mission to make sure students like me feel supported and heard in an environment where they may not always feel like they belong.

Jasmine, is really committed to making these safe spaces at Bard, or BHSEC as you’ll hear us call it, in her office, room 204, which has become a lounge and meeting space for students in the Smart Scholars program.

I wanted to speak to her about how Bard has changed since she was a student and what supporting students from diverse backgrounds really looks like on the day-to-day.

Music

Zoe: So before you were a guidance counselor, you were once a student at Bard like me.

Jasmine: Mm-hmm.

Jasmine: I started BHSEC in September of 2011.

Zoe: What was Bard like when you went

Jasmine: Oh, man, that’s a loaded question, girl.

Jasmine: when I came into BHSEC, um, I was, of course, faced with the club fair, as we all are, in ninth grade. That’s like one of the first, like, BHSEC-specific, like, events of the year. And I remember seeing like the Blacks and the Lions, and I remember seeing... I was part of the club called, um, Glamour Girls where we like went to nursing homes and like painted, uh, the ladies’nails. That was a club. That was cute. I saw like the cheer team. Like I saw all these things that I wanted to join. Um, and I felt welcome to join all of them. Like, like don’t get me wrong, it was definitely a welcoming community, but it was very apparent from the very first event of the school year that like, okay, this school is not majority me

compared to where I came from.

My middle school was was basically all Black and Latino in Bushwick back when Bushwick was not the place to be.. But like I said, I felt welcomed. So I didn’t feel like it was something that was gonna like make me feel uncomfortable or make me not wanna go to the school.

Like I definitely was like, “I’m in the school. I feel good,” from day one.

Zoe: just to clarify, the diversity initiative or like Smart Scholars started when for you?

Jasmine: Scholars started in, in general at BSIC Manhattan in 2011. That’s when the programming-

Zoe: that was your what?

Jasmine: grade? That was my first, that’s my ninth grade year. But I didn’t join it. So, you know, it starts with the summer program. Right. I didn’t do that. I don’t, I don’t think I was invited.

Unclear. Can’t really remember that far back, but I definitely joined unofficially in 10th grade, so that’s a big thing, a big difference between then and now. You can’t really do that. You can’t join. You have to be invited to the program.

Zoe: Um, so like talking along the lines of like Bard’s goals and like the goal of that program, what is the goal of like Smart

Jasmine: Scholars? Smart Scholars is a state program that connects... It only connects with public schools in the state of New York that offer students a chance to earn college credits. So when the program began, Bard hopped on it- Mm ... because one, they were already doing that, and two, they were thinking about ways to increase the access and the equitable,, access to the program for Black and brown students, low-income students, first-gen students, students with disabilities, anything of a demographic of students that is and has historically been underrepresented within higher education.

So that’s the like main goal of Smart Scholars is to make sure that students have access to earning college credits, for free and are doing that,ahead of applying for, for colleges, so basically in high school.

the point of the program is to make sure that students who come from backgrounds that are underrepresented are just given a little extra support to make sure that they’re getting it, they’re...

to make sure that they’re, overcoming any of the obstacles that are in their way f- by chance or, or, you know, for whatever reason. Um, so what that looks like is making sure that our incoming students, even before they, become like actually enrolled students, that we’re going out to different areas of New York City and doing the recruitment and going to fairs and making sure that families know about our assessment and making sure that we are doing little things like translating documents into different languages and, and sending email blasts and just making sure that we are recruiting who we need to recruit first so that students have a chance to, , just take the test in general, give themselves a chance there.

And then once students are actually enrolled,they’re placed in the program, and then what BHSEC Manhattan does, i.e. me,

Zoe: Is make

Jasmine: Is make sure that those students are comfortable and that they’re seen and that they’re heard. ‘Cause in terms of where I stand as both an alumna and also just someone who really believes in Bard and believes in what the early colleges do for students, um, you can’t do anything in high school if you don’t feel like you belong.

we all have our moments where we, you know, we’re not earning a grade that we like, or we’re not, you know, following the trajectory that we were hoping for, and that’s kind of where the program would step in and just make sure that the student has what they need to feel adequate enough to get that associate’s degree.

Zoe: Were there any forms of support you wish you had access to as a Bard student that didn’t exist?

Jasmine: Um, but talking about like that type of support, were there any forms of support you wish you had access to as a Bard student that didn’t exist? Hmm. I think... Okay, so I definitely had a me when I was a student. His name is Jeff. Jeff was the second Smart Scholars director, but back then, that’s not what the title, what the title was.

Um, but he was definitely my safe space on campus. I actually, I need to speak about him more because he is another reason, um, why I am the way I am with my, with my current programming students because he really showed care in a way that I hadn’t experienced, I don’t think really in any school that I had been in prior to, to BHSEC on a non-academic level.

he saw things in me, like my mentorship skills and my ability to listen and my ability to like care for people in ways that I hadn’t...

Like, no one had ever highlighted for me before in a capacity where he kind of some days made it worth coming to school.

We had like a committee in the Diversity Initiative, and he elected me to be the organizational director because I had those skills of like putting things together and like, and I... Like, no one had ever told me that. I, like, I’d never, I had no idea.

So he was like one of the f- first people on campus that I felt really safe with, and I just kinda stuck with him as my like person, quote, unquote. He actually worked in the same office, the 204. He was my 204 person.But I wish that I had more people like him when I was in high school, and I wish that I had gotten connected to him earlier Because there were, like I said before, there were definitely moments in ninth grade where, like, you feel inadequate, or I felt inadequate.

I felt like, you know, this is a hard school. I’m not used to this. I’m not used to the workload. There were definitely moments where I, like, got grades that I didn’t love and had to deal with that with my family, who didn’t like it.

Zoe: Very true.

Jasmine: So I,

I think that’s, like, one of the biggest things we put a lot of effort admissions-wise into making sure that the student body reflects New York City. I don’t think that we do the same for the staff and the faculty. Mm. I think that there’s definitely a lacking in diversity amongst the faculty.

Not even racial diversity, I think just diversity in experience- Oh ... of like a cultural diversity. Um, for example, yesterday I was ha-handling a student who, um, you know, started crying with a teacher because the teacher was just, like, not really reading the room and, like, wanted to talk when the student didn’t.

Um, and the guidance counselor called me actually and said, “Hey, I, I know you know the student. Can you come up and can you talk with us? ‘Cause I think that you’ll make her feel more comfortable.” Mm. I’m always gonna say yes, so I came right up. Um, and the student is a Black student, so the [00:13:00] student basically expressed, you

know- w-voicing that she wanted some space, and the teacher wasn’t really respecting that.

And she made a comment and she said, “People always think that I’m, I’m mad or I’m mean or something.” And in my mind, initially, I was like, I deal with that all the time. As a Black woman, people always think that I’m mad or they always think that I have an attitude or they... And I’m just straight face. I’m just thinking.

Mm-hmm. Right? But the guidance counselor didn’t really pick up on that, and it’s like little things like that that I, I know could be addressed- Yeah ... if you just put more effort into making the staff more culturally aware- Yeah ... of things that certain students go through versus other

Zoe: Yeah, ‘cause at the end of the day, the guidance department is not diverse. At the end of the day- Yeah ... the Bard faculty is

Jasmine: It’s not representative of New York City the way that our student body

Zoe: or even our students is, and we just started getting diverse. It’s so funny that- Yeah ... we’re in the most diversity in the, like, country and Our, the school system or our districts are the most segregated- Yeah

I’ve ever

Jasmine: Yep. Yeah, the diversity in BHSEC is definitely a recent, uh,

Zoe: Yeah.

Jasmine:I wanna say I can think of 10 to 15 students off the top of my head from my graduating class that were Black or Latino.

Zoe: Mm.

Jasmine: Um,

the h- the grades below me, I wanna say, started getting better

Zoe: Yeah ... because,

Jasmine: the, you know, they just made some shifts in admissions. But I wanna say the most recent graduating class,

Zoe: Oh, last year

Jasmine: was like the most diverse that we’ve ever had. I do think it is better more recently. When I was a student, definitely was not. Definitely was not, but it was just something that we just kinda dealt with. Um, we stuck together. We made sure that we understood from, uh, like in our friend group, like this is what we’re doing. We’re, we’re gonna go to class.

We’re gonna study together in this free period. We’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do that, and not even make it a big deal. Um, but definitely as I graduated and like went into college and finished college, um, I would always think back to my BHSEC time, um, and think about the lack of diversity and just kinda channel that into my now, into my why now.

Like, why I do everything, making sure that my students are served and pursuing this program to the best of their ability because it does make the difference. It does break that cycle for them

Zoe: PS Weekly will be back after a quick break

Speaking in First Draft Trailer

Zoe: Yeah. Um, so adding on to that,transitional period of like the diversity shifting.did wanna know, um, has there been any like challenges or kinda like growing pains about that program and kinda like what those are

Jasmine: The inequities in, in public school education definitely don’t start in high school. I work with a lot of eighth graders during the fall.

Like, I go to open houses, I go to fairs, I go and do off-site tests, and my biggest heartbreak is when I go and I say, “Bard offers free college credits.” Like, we do this, we do that, and as soon as I say assessment, they’re turned

Zoe: They get scared?

Jasmine: done. They’re done with me.

Zoe: also, yeah.

Jasmine: I think it’s, I think it’s a mixture.

I don’t think it’s scared. I

Zoe: No, I think they just don’t wanna

Jasmine: they just don’t wanna do it ... they don’t wanna do it, and I think that that’s a response to the education that they’ve been receiving up until that point. Like, if, if you’re a, middle schooler who doesn’t like school, there’s no way you’re gonna like having to take a test to get in.

Like, there’s, there’s no way. Those two things are not gonna connect. And it really does break my heart because there’s nothing that I can do about that. I can’t go back three, four, four years in the past and change the way that they’re learning.

I can’t go back and change... Like, maybe they had a really tough year in, in fifth grade or sixth grade. It starts early. It starts early. It doesn’t start in high school. So I think that admissions processes across high schools in New York City, like we just deal with so much that we, that are out of, that’s out of our control. Um, and I, like I work with, uh, a really amazing admissions director, shout out to Sylvie,We think very similarly about the ways that we’re, we can try and adjust the way that eighth graders think about admissions and just like working around, around that, that roadblock sometimes. And we always come back to the same point. Like, it, like if-

Zoe: can only do so

Jasmine: can only do so much. So we just kinda shift and make sure that we’re staying really connected with middle schools in certain areas

Zoe: Yeah.

Jasmine I think another thing that’s very BHSEC specific to me is accepting, like, a student who’s super excited, who, like, really is excited about high school, excited about being a BHSEC student, and then they have their first semester and they completely bomb it and it ruins them, and I think that’s another heartbreak that I have because BHSEC has its ways of moving really fast- Yeah

Jasmine: and leaving behind students who can’t, can’t get it that fast.

and that turns that bright-eyed student into someone who is almost lights are off inside. You know what I mean? And that’s something that, like, that’s the opposite of what we wanna do, and I don’t think that we do enough to kind of slow down and, and get those students back on track.

That’s another thing that I did within the Smart Scholars program I think a lot of people, especially in the Smart Scholars program, very zero in on themselves and it’s like, ah, nobody else looks like they’re struggling. Nobody else is asking for help, so I’m the failure because I have to do it.We have students who come in who are top of their class in middle school, and then they get their first D and they’re like, “Oh, my God.

Zoe: do this."

Jasmine: I can’t do this." And then no one really slows it down and, like, talks to them. it kinda falls through the cracks of having that conversation with them where it’s like, “Okay, like, this is not a school where It’s gonna come easy to everybody.” Right. Like, you really have to just, like, figure out what’s gonna work best for you. Chalk that D up to, “I had a moment,” and

Zoe: Then move on ... move forward. Like, yeah. You can’t, like, carry the stress from that. it’s a, it’s a common experience. Mm-hmm. So I think more talking and more communicating about it and more open spaces to be like, “Yeah, this is gonna happen.

Like, you’re gonna get a bad grade in Bard." Get a bad grade. “It’s gonna be okay.” ~~...~~ I’m a big believer in what the early colleges can do. I’m a product of it. Like, love it hands down. But I do think that there are so many different moving parts that it’s so easy for little things like this that we’re talking about right now to fall through the cracks.

Zoe: where do you hope to see the program go in the future?

Jasmine: It’s very hard to function in a school like BSAC where everything is academic when you weren’t raised in that kind of environment or household, right?

So I just hope that the program continues to support students in their own mindsets towards literally embodying an early college mindset, right? Understanding that once you get into a school like Bard, one, you should be very proud, ‘cause it’s very hard to get into a Bard High School nowadays. Very accomplishing.

But two, stick with that. Hold onto it. And I, I’m hoping that that even ex- extends outside of the Smart Scholars Program, that it’s just true for any student coming into our school is that once you’re in, you’re in, and you’re d accomplishing amazing things, and you should be very proud of yourself no matter what you’re, you know, ending up with.

Zoe: I think the shift for me was just kinda like you’re as deserving as- Yeah ... and this as anybody else, and you’re gonna need something, and that’s natural, so you need to know to ask things when you need them. I did wanna also ask,I see s- the Smart Scholars program as a safe space, and I see 204 as a safe space. Yeah. So I was wondering if, how would you define a safe space and what that kinda looks like?.

Jasmine: I think a safe space is a space where someone can be 100% their truest self without turning off anything or hiding anything about themselves, where they can, like, fully enter, like they belong, like they’re part of something.

‘Cause we have like the library, we have the fourth floor hallway, we have the caf. None of those spaces operate in the way that 204

Zoe: Fair.

Jasmine: The

Smart Scholars program needs a space on campus because if we’re trying to support students who are underserved in any way, they therefore need a space to feel comfortable going to and feel comfortable existing in when by any chance there is another space on campus where they don’t feel comfortable.

Like, that’s the whole point of the program, is to make sure that we are creating space, in a larger space, where they might have a chance where they’re not feeling 100%, where they can then go to and kinda bridge that for themselves

Zoe: and I think that’s pretty selfless ‘cause 204 is technically your

Jasmine: It is. I

Zoe: to me how it could be a classroom earlier.

Jasmine: to me how it could be classroom or it could be- It could.

Zoe: be one. And so I think it’s pretty selfless that you let 204 be more of a student

let it become one, it could definitely be So I think it’s pretty selfless that you let 204 be more of a student lounge.

Jasmine : Well, I know how important it is to have a space, a- again, as a past student, to go and, and, and have your person be there or have a person who you really connect with, your trusted adult on campus, um, just from experience.

So I would never...

Zoe: quiet now"-

“because it is my

office

Jasmine: I say sometimes, like, “It’s too loud,” or like, “Quiet down”- ... ‘cause it is my office and I have to get work done, but I, I really do believe in offering a space on, specific at BHSEC Manhattan, for my students, my Smart Scholar students to come to and to really decompress. Um, because I know how stressful it is in those classes.

I know how stressful it is to like be cold called on a day where you’re just not feeling it or, to not come to class prepared or to like have just finished a test where you thought that you were gonna do well and then you finish and you were like, “Mm, that didn’t go too well.” So I know how, how it feels to like need a space.

I think that the safety in my eyes has a person connected to it, and I’m happy to hear that that’s me for you. Like it can’t just be a space without someone kind of making it intentional, if that makes sense.

Zoe: Do you think that the DOE has a duty or a role enforcing, like, these types of spaces?

Or, like-

Jasmine: I think, um, I mean, you made a point earlier about, um, being one of the most diverse cities, but then being the most, uh, one of the most segregated in public school education. And I think students need to feel comfortable to go to school. Yeah. Period. Like, that just has to be. If someone isn’t comfortable going to school for any reason, they’re not going to go.

That’s human nature. Yeah. Right? We’re gonna shy away from things that we are not feeling welcome to, and I think one of the easiest ways to kind of level that playing field is to take the academics out of it and just make a safe space. Make a space for students who, for students who can go to that space with their group and feel comfortable.

So I do think the d- the DOE should, um, kinda put a little bit more, focus on providing safe spaces that are not connected to academia in Like, we don’t really have this problem at BC Manhattan of, like, absenteeism or students just, like, not showing up, but I definitely know that that’s a problem in the New York City public school system.

And I think that that could be a nice or maybe an effective way to get more kids in the door for, for, , people who are dealing with things behind the scenes that are not allowing them to kind of get themselves into schools’

Zoe: Yeah. And not to put anybody on blast,

Jasmine: we necessarily we

Zoe: I don’t think it’d necessarily be a problem with absenteeism, but I think we have a problem with if students don’t like a class or they don’t feel comfortable in a class, they won’t go to that

Jasmine: Oh,

I know, girl. Yeah. I was a student once

Zoe: to,

Jasmine: know exactly how

Zoe: they will not go.

Um-

Jasmine: Yeah, I had, I have my own experiences with that.I had a teacher year one. Uh, in that class I was the only Black girl, It was,I think we were reading Soul, The Souls of Black Folk, and that was tough. Wow. I think. It was m- I think it was year one

Zoe: That sounds like year two.

Jasmine: Maybe it was year two. It was definitely the

Zoe: a summer program.

Jasmine: Um, and I felt uncomfortable, and I didn’t know how to voice it, and I stopped going for a certain period of time. I think it was like first period, and I would just,

like come

Zoe: late.

Ooh. Yeah, it was

Jasmine: tough. So I definitely... Like, I, I,

Zoe: year one ...

Jasmine: I understand what that like feels

Zoe: Yeah.

Jasmine: If someone is uncomfortable with something, our natural response is to shy away from it. Um, and it’s true. It’s true in BHSEC. That’s definitely true.

If you’re not connecting with the person who’s teaching you, if you’re not con- connected with the topic, if you’re not connected with any part of it, your natural response is gonna be to shy away from it. Um, and my response to that whenever I have a... If I’m working with a scholar who’s dealing with that, is one, this is the same thing that you might experience in college, so let’s just try and overcome this now.

And then two, the teacher’s job is to help you become more connected with it or help you become more, uh, interested in it, and if you’re not giving them a chance to teach you how to do that or to, like, maybe give them feedback on how to do that, then they can’t read your mind.

Zoe: I was gonna ask, is there anything we haven’t touched on that you wanted to add?

Jasmine: wanted to add? Um, I think I’m so happy to just, like, to offer the safe space on campus, and that it’s, that it is serving the community that I want it to serve.

Because being a BHSEC student is hard. Not impossible, but it definitely is hard, and I’m happy to just be someone on campus to, to kind of bridge that for a lot of my

Zoe: Yeah.

Well, I always sing your praises, Miss BSA leader. Thank you. Miss Smart Scholars leader.

Jasmine: my best.

Zoe: Scholars

Jasmine: I gotta give it back to the community, you

Zoe: Um, Miss BHSEC alum. Um, Miss NYU graduate. Yes. Finally. Miss Bilingual speaker. And yeah, so thank you so much for joining me today.

Jasmine: me. This me. This is so fun.

Zoe: That interview gave me a lot to think about. Issues like this about safe spaces in schools are complex, and there’s multiple levels of barriers you have to break to get the progress you want.

Rayleen: Yeah, I agree. Safe spaces aren’t just about the literal space itself.

Proud. You got this, girl. Room 204 is nothing without a Jasmine in it.

Rayleeen: For me, a safe space is somewhere where you can just be yourself. Like, you don’t have to be a version of yourself or put on a mask. You can just be who you are and feel comfortable doing that, not feeling like you’re, different or that you’re being someone that you’re not, basically

Zoe: I would agree. After listening to this interview, I definitely co-sign the not having to pretend to be someone else. I think there’s also an element of, like I you don’t have to reduce yourself to be easier to take or palatable. This is especially coming from a student of color lens.

Like, you don’t have to reduce yourself to be palatable, or your ideas or your beliefs to be, um, easier to handle towards other students or just other people in general. And I also think that, yeah, you don’t have to put on a mask, but you can also know that not just you don’t have to put on a mask and you can be yourself, but know that you can be at least understood on some sort of level. There’s like a collective kinda like bond there in a safe space, and just knowing that you’re not just being seen, you’re also being heard.

MUSIC

Rayleen: This is our last episode of PS Weekly for the season, and as a fun little treat, we’re bringing you an end of the school year Easter egg, produced by PS Weekly reporter Roberto Bailey.

Roberto: What was your favorite moment of the school year?

Ermione: my favorite moment from the school year was the first week of December when I found out that I was both a Quest Bridge finalist and a Posse finalist, because I never thought, like, I could achieve getting two national scholarships.

Jasper: My favorite memory, I think there’s, like, one game where, like, the game was so close, so, like, everyone in the stadium, ‘cause our team isn’t that great, but everyone in the stadium was all standing up ‘cause they actually went to overtime, and it was versus a good team, and I’ve seen my friends hit some crazy shots.

Rayleen: My favorite memory from the school year, it’s gonna sound kinda crazy, but like when it was snowing and the buses were like not coming, so we had to walk from like basically the Brooklyn Navy Yard all the way to Grand Army Plaza with my friends ‘cause it was just nice.

Like, I feel like we shared our pain, and it was just a really good time.

Roberto: What is summer in New York to you?

Katelyn: To me, summer in New York, but I’m from Queens. You know, Queens got the culture. Queens got the money, as they say., it’s like smelling all the different, foods and, the fruit vendors and like, you know, the guy like doing like jerk chicken on the street, but then like you have empanadas on the next street. You know, like all the different like food smells like filling your nose,

Ermione: Okay, so you know how they pop the caps off the fire hydrants- Mm-hmm ... and the water just gushing? The sound of like gushing water.

Ermione: Um, I would also say like the softie, the ice cream truck and mind you, you could hear it from a mile away,

Jasper: Definitely free Wednesdays at the Bronx Zoo. Like if you know, you know. Just the exhibits just they shine a little, a lot brighter that day. The community there and everyone just coming out to enjoy the summer, it’s a great experience

Ermione: I would say just hearing, like, the cars bumping their music as they go by. Like, I just love hearing all the different music that people play, you know, like the Caribbean music.

Vybz Kartel. You just know it’s summer when Vybz Kartel starts playing. That’s what New York City summer is to me,

Zoe: : PS Weekly is a collaboration between The Bell and Chalkbeat, made possible by generous support from the Pinkerton Foundation. Producers this episode were me, Zoe George. And me, Rayleen Laloi

Zoe Our senior producer for this show is Maria Robins-Somerville and our technical director is Jake Loomis.

Rayleen: Our executive editors are Amy Zimmer and Taylor McGraw.

Zoe: Additional production and reporting support was provided by Mira Gordon, Sabrina Duquesnay , Zana Halili, Katelyn Melville, and our friends at Chalkbeat.

Rayleen: Music is from APM, and the jingle you heard at the beginning of the episode was created by the one and only Erica Huang. Thanks so much for listening, and see you next time.

We make transcripts available for our episodes as soon as possible. They are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.

Inside one push to diversify NYC’s teacher workforce

2026-05-29T10:00:01+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

New York City’s teachers don’t reflect the students they serve, but one recent public school grad is trying to do his part to shrink that gap.

Students of color make up the vast majority of the nation’s largest school system, yet white educators are more than half of the teaching workforce. Better representation at the front of the classroom can affect student outcomes. Studies have shown students who have teachers of color tend to have better test scores, attendance, and graduation rates.

P.S. Weekly producers Ermione Aleah Raymond, from the Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice, and Mateo Tang O’Reilly, from Central Park East High School, compare teaching diversity within their own schools and examine how the lack of it affects their experiences as students of color.

Ermione interviews Isaiah Nicholson, a college freshman who was once in their shoes and now wants to make a dent in the data. Isaiah is a fellow in NYC Men Teach, a 10-year-old program based out of the City University of New York that aims to bring more men of color into the city’s teacher pipeline. Over the past decade, the program contributed roughly 3,200 new male teachers of color to the city’s public schools, a new report said.

P.S. Weekly is made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation.

Transcript

Ermione: I know I’ve already defied a lot of stereotypes people have placed on me about me. I’m black and grew up with an immigrant single mom.I spent time in foster care. I’m a first generation college student who’s headed to a prestigious university on a full ride next year. This causes me to feel a lot of pressure. And sometimes, when trying to succeed in school I’ve felt brushed off or misunderstood. And sometimes, I wonder if it’s because my teachers don’t really look like me.

Ermione: This is P.S. Weekly, the sound of the New York City School System. I’m Ermione Aleah Raymond and I’m a senior at Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice high school.

Mateo: And I’m Mateo Tang O’Reilly.

Ermione: This week we’re talking about racial diversity, or rather, the lack of racial diversity, among NYC teachers…So Mateo have you felt represented by your teachers in school?

Mateo: Honestly, not really. Most of my teachers are white and I’m not but I feel like when I look inward to their personality or character I do feel somewhat represented, but as far as race and appearance, not really.

Ermione: I felt more represented at my middle school, but at my high school, which is, mostly Black and Brown students, the teacher population doesn’t really reflect us.

Mateo: Is this specific to your school or is it more of a citywide pattern?

Ermione: Well I did a little research and found that this is a major trend across NYC schools. White teachers make up more than half of the New York City teaching force despite the fact that only about 16% of NYC public school students are white.

Mateo: Beyond the statistics, what does this mean for students. Is it just about being and feeling seen or does it go deeper?

Ermione: This ultimately does go deeper. Studies have shown that students who have teachers of color or teachers that represent them tend to have better test scores, better attendance, better college placement, and graduation outcomes. As humans, we often gravitate towards people who look like us in spaces in which we feel uncomfortable in, and imagine education. The education system is one that is tends to be daunting for most students. Once you see teachers who look like you and people that look like you, they’re often able to grasp your culture and understand you to a deeper level, and that connection ultimately provides you with the comfortability to learn.

Mateo: And what about the teachers themselves? How does this affect them

Ermione: Oftentimes there are some black teachers in schools, but according to a study from New York University, Black teachers leave their jobs at much higher rate than teachers of other races

From 2019 to 2024, so over that five year span, New York Schools have lost 36% of their white teachers and 50% teachers of color. That’s a pretty big difference.

But teacher’s of color are more likely to stay if they have a black principal or majority black teachers at the school.

Mateo: That makes a lot of sense to me. What’s being done about this? Are the efforts being made to train more black teachers and teachers of color in general?

Ermione: There are a few different initiatives but I found out about one in particular — an organization called Men Teach NYC. Men Teach NYC is a program between the Department of Education, The Mayor’s Office and the CUNY schools. And the program just celebrated it’s 10 year anniversary!

Men teach offers career mentorship and resources to connect young men of color into the teaching field. This includes giving them metrocards, book vouchers, academic advisors and support in their teacher certification exams. Additionally, participants receive stipends for their student teaching work.

They recruit college students at the 16 CUNY campuses and even reach out to high school students interested in teaching,

And that need for more male teachers of color is so real. While 45% of students in the city are young men of color, only 7% of their teachers are.

I talked to Isaiah Nicholson.

Isaiah is 19 and a first year college student.

He’s a part of Men Teach NYC. In the morning, he attends his college classes, and then at one he heads to his school placement where he works as an assistant teacher for first graders for the rest of the school day. During the afterschool program, he helps out with fifth graders.

I spoke with him about how he is doing his part to build a teaching workforce that looks more like the students it serves and what inspired him to get involved.

Ermione: Hi. Hi. Um, as you know, my name’s Ermione. Thank you for being a part of my interview

Isaiah: Of course.

Ermione: what is your name and occupation?

Isaiah: Well, um, I am Isaiah Nicholson. I’ll call myself a future educator. Like, I’m not fully a teacher yet, but I’m working my way on to becoming a teacher.

Ermione: I am doing this story because I was interested how teacher diversity affects students and what is being done to train future teachers. I’m curious, when did you first have a black teacher, or specifically your first black male teacher?

Isaiah: But the first teacher that I saw that was a, that, that was a Black man and he was of color, was in sixth grade. So when I saw that, I was like, “Yo, I can actually become a teacher if I really wanted to.”

Ermione: Hmm. Tell me what really drew you into the program. Or who?

Isaiah: Yeah, so basically when I was like nine years old, they were trying to get me in summer camp. I was like, “I don’t wanna do no sim- sum- no summer camp.” I hated summer camp. I didn’t want to do it. You know, I always thought it would be like, uh, boring to me. I don’t know why I thought that, but I hated the idea of going to a building. You gotta call someone Mr. and Mrs. Like, the idea that just didn’t feel right with me. So I was like upset about trying to go, go to summer camp, day camp. Until my cousins two of my cousins, you know, decided to, you know, become a mentor at that place, and that kind of opened my eyes up to wanting to do it, you know? And yeah, like he definitely helped me. He inspired a lot of my passions, too. We still talk to this day, you know. And yeah, that’s pretty much

Ermione: Can you describe your path to becoming a teacher?

Isaiah: Yeah. So this all started in sophomore year. You know, I had the opportunity to join a program, and at the time I was like, “I don’t wanna join.I don’t, I don’t wanna teach anything. I don’t, I don’t know how to teach people things,” you know? I feel like that’s not really my thing. But you know, after I saw my cousin, um, he was my mentor at at a, at the school program, you know, um, during the summertime. And I saw how passionate he was for, you know, for teaching kids, working with kids in general.

And because of that I was like, “Yo, I can actually do this.” So I decided to apply for it, and yeah, I got the opportunity to join

In 2024, in the summertime, I was with Men Teach and went to, to a school, and we, you know, we were like more of a more of a co-teacher.

You know, throughout the whole year when I w- was working with the, with the program, with the, you know, secondary program. So I didn’t really get, you know, the full benefits, but I got the full teaching experience during the summer mostly.

Like, the s- the, like, the year-round thing was to build experience with children, but the summertime was for me to understand, like, how to make a lesson plan, how to teach the kids the right way, and to be able to answer their questions, you know. Pretty much that. And I had a lot of confidence when I did it too, so I was happy that I went up there.

I didn’t stutter, ‘cause I have a stuttering problem sometimes. So, I was glad that I was able to teach the kids, you know, in the best way possible. Without any problems.

Ermione: Throughout your teaching path, do you see yourself having any challenges? as a student trying to get into this career field.

Isaiah: Early on I had to understand how children operated. You know, I, I didn’t really understand too much about children besides that they can be loud, they can be distracted. So over time, I realized, hey, I can actually learn how to incorporate a new style of teaching with the old style and able to have the students, you know, say, “Okay, I can look up to this guy.

He can help me. He can, you know, guide me."

Ermione: Tell me about how that moment you mentioned earlier impacted your decision to become a teacher. The memory of first seeing a teacher of color.

Isaiah: I didn’t see myself becoming a firefighter, a police officer. I didn’t see myself doing those kind of jobs. Being a teacher, you know, was still wasn’t part, you know, of my plan either, but it’s something that I could do with ease, ‘cause I like talking to people about anything. I could talk to someone all day about s- one thing, and it can go, you know, anywhere. So that definitely helped me to, like, understand, okay, I can do ELA.I can, you know, do some social studies, help them out with that, you know. So yeah, opened my eyes up more to it..

Ermione : You’re in your first year of college. You’re in this Men Teach program. Can you walk me through a typical day-to-day in the program?

Isaiah: Yeah. So basically under Men Teach, I’d have s- schooling in the morning, of course, and then 1:00 I would go to the school that I’m assigned to For the last hour and a half of, you know, the school day. Then I would transition w- to the after-school program with, you know, with the school, and I’ll help teach the kids there as well.

Ermione : Hmm.

So in a way, you’re both getting the educational background of teaching, but you’re also getting the hands-on experience.

Ermione: What mission do you feel like you’re contributing to by being a part of this Men Teach program?

Isaiah: Paying it forward. You know, they can see a face that looks like them, you know, doing something that, oh, you, I would say just giving them, like a good image, a good positive role model. You know, that’s important to me, you know, for them to see that, okay, this guy looks like me. He, he works in the same way that I can work. I could become him in the future. Just to pay it forward so they can see that, oh, they could become me, or they can do something similar to pay it forward.

Ermione: How do you plan to take what you learn from the Men Teach program and apply it to real-life education?

Isaiah: Yeah, I’ll say just the way that I learned how to deal with children, you know, mostly how they overreact, how they do things wrong.

Like, I can... Like, I learn from that. And when I become a teacher in the future, I can, you know, take that experience and bring it forward

Ermione: Okay. Here’s a fun little question to- Okay ... break it up. Um, what grades do you wanna teach in the future and why?

Isaiah: Anything but middle school.

Ermione: Oh.

Isaiah: Well, I, I’ll say like either, like, first grade or fifth grade. You know, it, it depends on the subject mostly.

Ermione: Okay. What subject do you wanna do?

Isaiah: I would say I’ll do ELA, English, you know, that’s my specialty. I, I love writing.

You know, when I was seven, I had so many, I’ll, I’ll say fake books, you know, of, of my, um, my, my kitty cat at home. You know, I made little fake stories, you know. Like let’s say this, um, cat in, in the beanstalk, you know, just little...my imagination going far. That’s all I would say. So yeah, I’ll... And I love doing English work.

Ermione: Yeah, then I think sixth, and you not choosing sixth through eight is a good decision ‘cause it’s quite hard in those years.

Isaiah: Yeah, especially math.

Ermione: Ugh. Yeah. You don’t gotta say nothing. You don’t gotta say nothing more. I feel that.

Isaiah: Yeah. I can’t stand math.

Ermione: I can do one plus one, subtraction, addition, but you lost me when you started doing division. Yeah,

Isaiah: It’s, it’s letters, it’s letters as you get older, because letters.

Ermione: Why, why do we have to- A

Isaiah: No. A plus

Ermione: A plus B equals C, and you could C me out. Thank you. How do you expect this program to uniquely position you for success in the future?

Isaiah: I can see myself, you know, doing a good job. I have more confidence now. When I first started, I had no confidence. I didn’t think I could hold down a lesson by myself. I didn’t think I could, I could control a class by myself.

But some- b- but there have been times where I have, you know, dealt with kids. the teacher steps out for a minute, and then I have to, you know, change my role.So, you know, I definitely learned how to, you know, deal with all that. So I’ll be able to bring that forward with me.

Ermione: What do you and your fellow program participants think of the role of diversity in New York City schools?

Isaiah: It’s very important, you know. It’s very important. Because people can see that, okay, I can do this, too, and that’s what’s mostly important. it’s very important to see different faces, different people, do different things.

Ermione: What do you think needs to be done to increase this diversity in schools?

Isaiah: I would say, more interest in teaching, you know? Right now,is not, like, people’s first choice, you know, after high school. They wanna, you know, do psychology. They wanna do- You know, business management, different things, but education is not like, Okay, wanna teach kids." No. No one’s not thinking about that. They always think about the, the downsides to it. They don’t think about, “Oh, I can, I can impact this kid. He can go home and say, ‘Oh, Mr. Isaiah did this today.he helped me with my math work.’” You know? So definitely it’s very important to get people interested in the, in the field, but that’s hard to do because it’s not many benefits that they see automatically.

Ermione: Yeah, the pay, the long hours

Ermione: What do you hope to make students feel in the classroom?

Isaiah: want them to feel safe, that they can look up to me, they can see, “Okay, I can get my work done from him. I can get some help from him if I need it.” You know, they, they can always see that, okay, I’m right there. That’s what’s important to me, that they, that they know that I’m right there for them.

Ermione: What do you hope your students say about you 20 years from now?

Isaiah: I would hope they’d be like, “Oh,” like they recognize me, you know? I, I hope they recognize me, you know? And see, okay, yeah, even though when I was younger I didn’t understand, but now I understand Like you did before, you know? So I want them to, you know, get, uh, uh, I say get older and see, you know, how much I did for them. That’s all pretty much.

Ermione: As someone who’s a up-and-coming teacher, what do you think teachers need to feel supported in the workforce?

Isaiah: I would say just to know that people are supporting them.

People, that they know that someone’s there and they understand the impact. Because teachers don’t see the impact right away. Like, they teach the kid and then 20 years later someone come to see them, you know, they ha- they all grown up. They’re not kindergarten no more. They have a wife and kids.

They have a a great job. They don’t understand the impact until years later. So it’d be nice if some- for them to see the impact right away from the students. But then again, that’s, you know, a part- It’s kinda hard to, you know, kinda hard to see because students, you know, at the time they would despise the teachers, you know. Butasthey get older, they reflect. “Okay, kindergarten, thaat was a good teacher,” you know. But teachers don’t see the im- don’t see the impact right away. So I, I wa- so it would be nice for t- for stu- for students to, you know, give feedback and even, you know, the principals show them that they’re doing good’ cause some principals can be strict, and they don’t show too much emotion. Like, “Oh, you did good.” But they don’t understand how good they did. I’ll say that.

Ermione: So last question. Is there anything you wish I asked you but I didn’t?

Isaiah: I would say shout out to Chimere Stevens. You know, he’s the one who t- is the director of Men Teach. So, you know, to him, of course, you know. Thank you for, you know, taking me under your wing. You know, you helped me a lot, you know. And to the, you know, kids out there who wanna become teachers in the future, just have the passion for it. Like, don’t, you know, don’t join it if you don’t want to for the money. Just do it for the kids. You know, do it for the kids.

Ermione: Say you were taught by more teachers of color and more teachers that looked like you, how do you think this would’ve affected your education journey?

Mateo: I would say it would make me more comfortable around them because I feel like oftentimes with like my white teachers, there’s like a line that gets really, not blurry, but thick that like I know I can’t cross. It feels like it’s not my place to do certain things. So I feel like if there were more teachers that looked like me, it would be kind of like automatic in a way that like, oh, I know I can do this and say this, and automatically relate and connect to them on A, B, and C. What about you?

Ermione: Well, one, it would make my education journey more smoother. I feel like oftentimes I get in little, not fights, but I have to stand up for myself. Or say there’s a relationship between a white teacher and a white student, then they wouldn’t have to stand up for themselves as much as I do. And it feels like a constant battle or a constant fight just to be seen from my perspective, opposed to just being a student who’s trying to do the best they can.

There are a lot of other efforts that have the goal of making the teacher workforce look like the community it serves. For example, at least 24 public high schools in NYC now offer teacher training programs. Even my school has one now. But it takes time to see the impacts of this Like Isaiah pointed out, as a young teacher, you don’t see the impact right away It makes sense to me that making NYC’s teacher population more diverse starts when future teachers are still kids in the classroom themselves.

Ermione: That’s all for today on P.S. Weekly.

Mateo: P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between The Bell and Chalkbeat, made possible by generous support from the Pinkerton Foundation.

Ermione: Producers for this episode were me, Ermione Aleah Raymond

Mateo: And me, Mateo Tang O’Reilly

Ermione: Our senior producer for the show is Maria Robins-Somerville and our technical director is Jake Lummus.

Mateo: Executive editors are Amy Zimmer and Taylor McGraw. Additional production and reporting support was provided by Mira Gordon, Sabrina Duquesnay, Zana Halili and Katelyn Melville, and our friends at Chalkbeat.

Ermione: Music is from APM, and the jingle you just heard at the beginning of the episode was created by the one and only Erica Huang.

Ermione: Thanks so much for tuning in, and see you next time.

We make transcripts available for our episodes as soon as possible. They are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.

In the AI era, NYC schools need a computer science reboot, this expert says

2026-05-26T16:51:36+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

A decade ago, New York City officials promised that all schools would have access to “meaningful” computer science education by this school year.

Computer Science for All, known as CS4All, also had particular equity goals of reaching girls and students of color.

The share of students enrolled in computer science classes has quadrupled from roughly 5.5%, or 54,000, in 2016, to 20%, or more than 193,000, in 2024. And CS4All made gains in growing the number of underrepresented students. Still, just 1 in 5 schools citywide are meeting CS4All’s goals for girls, Latinos, and Black students, according to a data brief released Tuesday from the Center for an Urban Future, a New York City-based think tank.

Though the initiative “still has unfinished business,” the timing is also ripe for CS4All 2.0, said Eli Dvorkin, the center’s editorial and policy director, who believes that the city’s education system needs to rethink its approach to computer science in the age of artificial intelligence.

“Just because entry-level coding work is in serious decline, it doesn’t mean that demand for computational thinking is going away,” Dvorkin said. Instead, “every teacher should be able to prepare young people to think critically and solve problems and use judgement on whether and when to use AI tools and how they work and why.”

He acknowledged the “understandable concerns” many parents have about how much screen time their children are spending in school. But he believes that “evidence-based” computer science education is an antidote to passive screen time.

“I think there’s a very real chance that Mayor [Zohran] Mamdani’s legacy will be shaped in part by how our public school system adapts to the AI era,” Dvorkin said, “and that means a strategy to a retool computational-thinking education for the world we inhabit right now.”

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

There’s been some progress in the number of computer science classes offered in the city, but did the program meet the goals outlined 10 years ago?

New York City has done something genuinely impressive. More than 90% of schools now offer computer science, up from a tiny handful a decade ago, but access is not the same thing as participation. Our data shows that just 20% of student students were actually enrolled in computer science classes.

The data also shows that the city is still pretty far from the original promise of computer science for all: Just about 19% of schools are meeting CS4all equity and participation goals. So that’s why now is the time for the Mamdani administration to launch a CS4all 2.0 that should focus on closing the gaps that remain in participation, equity, and teacher preparation, and move toward integrating computational thinking across the curriculum.

Now that we’re at the 10-year mark, is the program over?

At the school-level and even centrally, there’s still an effort underway to continue to build on the work of CS4all, but in terms of a unifying centralized effort to advance this work, learning from the successes in the challenges of the first decade, and charting a path forward for the next one, we’re not there yet.

And this is a risky moment for the country ‘s largest public school system to be without an organizing effort around computing education.

The school system did put out some preliminary guidance around the use of AI in schools. It’s important work. But this is, I think, the even bigger challenge: What should the New York City public school system’s computing education strategy look like in the AI-era?

The goal can’t simply be to teach some students to code in 11th through 12th grade. In fact, that kind of technical knowledge may be in rapid freefall right now with the rise of generative AI.

But AI also raises the bar for embedding computational thinking across the whole curriculum so that every young person learns how to think critically and ask hard questions and solve problems with computers. That’s the only way to ensure that our young people are able to graduate from high school capable of fully understanding these powerful systems that are shaping our lives. Computer science education can’t just mean a coding elective for some.

As you say, the city’s AI framework is one piece. But how we educate kids should be an urgent part of this conversation, too, especially as we see the world changing and the job force changing.

It feels like a lot of the conversation is focused on being for or against technology.

At a time when AI tools are flooding into students’ lives both at school and at home, the answer isn’t simply more devices or more apps. I think most parents and teachers would agree, it’s certainly not more screen time. But it is deeper computational fluency — the ability to understand, question, and shape technology rather than just consume it. That’s computing education done right.

I think there’s a misperception that advocating for evidence-based, age-appropriate, and even joyful computing education is simply synonymous with more screen time. That couldn’t be further from the truth. But we need a teaching workforce in New York City that is equipped to integrate computational thinking — the building blocks of computing education— into every young person’s classroom experience.

I think a lot of people — perhaps even teachers — would be surprised that you can teach computational thinking without screens.

There’s a growing body of evidence that shows the dangers of exposing young children to too much screen time. But that doesn’t mean deferring computing education until later. That means we have to be much more creative about how we can integrate a computing education into classroom settings without screens.

There is a program at CUNY’s colleges of education called CITE — computing integrated teacher education. And what CITE does is equip CUNY professors that are teaching our future K-12 teachers to integrate computational thinking and learning into their pedagogy. The power of this model is pretty profound because about a third of all new public school teachers in New York City every year are hired out of CUNY.

We’re now at a point where the first participants in CITE programs have actually been entering the classroom as student teachers or they’re beginning their first full-time teaching assignments.

With the screen time and AI backlash, do you think there will be an appetite to push for CS4all 2.0?

I think the backlash against screen time actually strengthens the case for CS4all 2.0. Parents are right to worry about passive, addictive, and poorly governed technology use in our classrooms. But the answer is not to leave students less prepared to understand technology, it’s to teach them how technology really works, how to question it, think critically about it, and how to use it responsibly and creatively.

So one key question is: Are New York City public school students going to be the people of the future who will shape how that technology is created and deployed?

I think the argument is strong that our future economy will only become more bifurcated between roles that require sophisticated computational thinking skills — including the critical thinking and judgment skills that should be an essential part of a CS4all 2.0 — and low wage work that does not pay enough to enable New Yorkers to afford life in the most expensive city in America.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

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

2026-05-26T12:59:58+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

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.

Many of those challenged at-large elections — which allow everyone in a community to vote for every seat on a board. This setup can make it difficult for communities of color to elect their preferred candidates, especially in places where a white majority votes in a bloc.

Some 3.6 million children currently attend school in a district shaped by one of those challenges, a Chalkbeat analysis found. But at-large elections remain the most common school board structure in the United States.

Legal experts agree that it will be more difficult now to claim that a particular electoral system violates the rights of minority voters. In the aftermath of Callais, conservative legal groups are gearing up to challenge state voting rights laws that have provided additional tools to reshape school boards. Some even see an opening to challenge past settlements — especially in cases where school districts voluntarily made changes to improve racial representation.

The Supreme Court’s weakening of the Voting Rights Act will likely lead to “a decrease in minority representation, and school boards will not be exempt,” Seaman said. Most public school students are children of color, while most school board members are white. While the Voting Rights Act does not guarantee the election of candidates of color, it has given minority communities the opportunity to elect candidates responsive to their concerns. Limited research has shown school board members of color make a difference in student discipline, superintendent hiring, and academic outcomes.

But unfair student discipline or low test scores don’t create Voting Rights Act violations, said J. Christian Adams, a conservative election lawyer and former Justice Department official who served on President Donald Trump’s failed 2017 voter-fraud commission.

There’s nothing fundamentally better or worse about single-member or at-large school board districts, said Adams, now president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. But under the Callais ruling, “if a school district says we’re going to single-member districts to elect minority representatives, that would violate the constitution. That’s over. That’s done.”

Callais focused on partisan redistricting in legislative races. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority said party considerations — wanting Republicans or Democrats to win more seats — could justify drawing maps that dilute minority voters’ voice.

That could mean the decision has less impact in nonpartisan school board races. It will take time and more lawsuits to fully understand the effects.

“To the extent that the Voting Rights Act has any vitality left after Callais, I think it’s likely to be in these local races like school boards,” said Justin Levitt, an election law expert and professor at Loyola Marymount University.

How racism fueled at-large school board elections

At-large school board elections are a legacy of Progressive-era reforms that sought to reduce the power of machine politics and cronyism over education governance.

In northern cities, these changes reduced the political power of immigrant enclaves. In the Jim Crow South, they prevented Black communities from electing their own school board representatives, when those residents could vote at all.

As Memphis schools takeover looms, city faces further voting power struggle

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, first passed in 1965 and repeatedly amended, provided grounds to challenge at-large elections for local government offices that potentially dilute the votes of minority groups.

A handful of attorneys in Texas and Alabama filed dozens of challenges to at-large school board elections in the 1980s and 1990s, accounting for the majority of cases. Often, school districts agreed to settle when faced with just the threat of a lawsuit.

These challenges changed who decided to run for office, who won seats on school boards, and how resources were allocated in districts across the country.

“There are really important decisions that impact students of color that benefit from the perspective of school board members of color,” said Carrie Sampson, an associate professor of educational leadership at Arizona State University who studies school boards.

And these challenges continue in the modern era.

Just last year, Wicomico County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore agreed to replace its hybrid system, which included at-large and single-member districts for both county council and school board, with seven single-member districts, two of which are majority Black. The changes occurred in response to a 2023 lawsuit by Black voters supported by the Maryland branches of the ACLU and the NAACP.

The lawsuit described a long history of discrimination and racially polarized voting that blocked Black candidates from winning at-large seats. When the governor appointed members, the Wicomico school board often had two Black members. After switching to an elected board in 2016, the board has only had one Black member at a time — always elected in the single majority-Black district.

“They kept claiming that we didn’t need to sue them, that they would have done it if we just asked nicely,” said Deborah Jeon, legal director of the Maryland ACLU. “But we had been asking nicely for two decades. It was only once we sued that they came to the table.”

School boards might defend at-large seats creatively

Whether school districts will continue to come to the table or instead fight to maintain at-large elections is an open question.

Even in communities with hard-fought, racially polarized school board elections, those divisions may not fall neatly along party lines. That means advocates can still make arguments about vote dilution and other unfair practices.

But Levitt, who advised the Biden administration on voting issues, said he expects more school districts to find other race-neutral justifications for their electoral systems, for example that at-large elections produce candidates who will look out for the interests of all students.

“I think you’ll see a lot of creativity,” he said.

Callais also requires “a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred” in setting up a particular voting system, and not just a discriminatory effect or outcome.

Colorado lawmakers reject attempt to move away from at-large school board elections

Adams said school boards that might have settled in the past could now open themselves up to counterchallenges that they drew districts designed to advantage one racial group. He reads Callais as allowing such a remedy only when a court finds recent evidence of discrimination in voting.

“A school district would be very foolish to think that a settlement will bring them peace, because the next people they’ll hear from will be suing over an illegal racial gerrymander,” he said.

Even school districts that discuss racial balancing during regular redistricting processes, as Denver did in 2024, could open themselves to a lawsuit, he said. The meeting minutes would be “gold” in proving racial motives.

Challenges to school board elections confront new standard

Two decades ago, Hazleton, Pennsylvania, made national headlines for adopting sweeping anti-immigrant legislation as new arrivals transformed the demographics of the coal country city. Those laws were found to be unconstitutional, but Hispanic residents say they continue to face discrimination, including in school.

In 2024, Aleida Aquino and Brendalis Lopez filed a lawsuit challenging the Hazleton Area School District’s at-large election system with support from the University of California Los Angeles Voting Project.

Hispanic voters account for some 40% of registered voters in the district, according to the lawsuit. Two-thirds of students are Hispanic. At least six Hispanic candidates have run for school board since 2019, yet no Hispanic candidate has won a seat on the nine-member board.

The Supreme Court’s voting rights decision could reshape local government across Texas

Moving to single-member districts could allow the Hispanic community concentrated in the city of Hazleton to elect a representative who might be more responsive to their concerns about unfair discipline practices, limited translation services for parents, and other disparities, the lawsuit says.

But unlike many school districts in this situation, Hazleton hasn’t settled and is fighting to maintain its at-large elections. Now the lawsuit will be heard under the higher standard created by Callais.

Neither Superintendent Brian Uplinger nor the school board president responded to a request for comment from Chalkbeat. In a statement issued when the lawsuit was filed, Uplinger defended the district’s record of serving Latino students.

Bernadette Reyes, senior counsel with the UCLA Voting Project, said Callais runs counter to the history of the Voting Rights Act and congressional action. The ruling has made the road ahead more difficult for lawsuits like the one in Hazleton.

“But it’s important that these challenges continue,” Reyes said. “Those folks challenging it need to adapt to the higher standard.”

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Beyond the SHSAT: The invite-only public school admissions test nobody talks about

2026-04-16T12:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

With an acceptance rate below 10%, Hunter College High School is one of the most competitive public high schools in New York City. It’s also one of the least diverse.

Hunter’s 15.3% student poverty rate was the lowest of any public high school in the city, according to public data from the 2024-25 school year. By comparison, Bronx Science and Stuyvesant, two of the city’s specialized high schools, each had about 50% of students from low-income households.

The lack of socioeconomic as well as racial diversity at Hunter — which is run by CUNY’s Hunter College — doesn’t get as much attention as the demographics at Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and other specialized high schools in the five boroughs. Like those coveted institutions, Hunter also bases admissions on a test. Except to even qualify for Hunter’s test, you have to be invited, based on state test scores.

Now, with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his administration backing efforts to bolster integration in public schools, some Hunter students are fighting for change from the inside.

Producers Roberto Bailey, a senior at Hunter, and Zoe George, a senior at Bard High School Early College Manhattan, know the landscape of competitive high school admissions well: They’ve experienced it.

We also hear from Hunter student and activist Kassidy Khuu about the admissions process at the Upper East Side institution, what she and others are doing to try and change it, and the underlying question of who gets access to a “gifted” education.

P.S. Weekly is made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation

Transcript

Roberto Bailey: Picture this, a line of hundreds of students long stretches from the Hunter College entrance down 68th Street. At CUNY campuses across the city similar lines start to form. For these 11 and 12-year-old children today is test day and the pressure of their next six years weighs on their shoulders. They’re about to take a three hour no breaks entrance exam longer than the SAT.

Some have spent months preparing, others spent years.

Welcome back to PS Weekly, the sound of the New York City school system. I’m this week’s host, Roberto Bailey, a senior at Hunter College High School,

Zoe George: And I’m this week’s co-host, Zoe George, a senior at Bard High School, Early College Manhattan.

Roberto Bailey: I’ve been pretty closely following the new Mayor Mamdani’s administration and their education priorities.

In March, we were at one of the newly appointed Chancellors listening sessions where we talked at length about the need for integration in NYC schools. Mamdani has also voiced support to integrate New York City schools, but my school, Hunter, doesn’t actually fall under his control. It’s run by the City University of New York or CUNY, not the Education Department.

And just like NYC specialized high schools, it relies on a test for admissions. It’s also been criticized for lacking racial and economic diversity compared to the broader demographics of New York. But there’s a group of students called HCHS for Equity inside the school. I’m one of them, and we are trying to change things.

Zoe George: For all the diversity that New York City has, we are one of the most segregated school systems in the country.

Roberto Bailey: Yeah. I mean, Hunter is almost like a microcosm of this larger issue that’s playing out across the city.

Zoe George: Can you explain how the Hunter admissions process works? I’ve heard that it’s really complicated and mysterious.

Roberto Bailey: So there’s two paths to entry.

One, which is the way that I was admitted to the school, is for elementary school. So when kids are four years old, they take an IQ test and then after hitting a certain threshold score, some are invited for, like, interviews and observation at a second round. And from those, they choose just 50 students.

Zoe George: An IQ test for a 4-year-old is really crazy.

Roberto Bailey: Yeah, it is a pretty weird system. Um, especially, because kids are so young and for high school, around 200 more students are able to join the school in seventh grade, and that’s also entirely based on an admissions test, and not everyone can even take that test. You have to be invited based on your state test scores typically, and then top scores on the actual Hunter test, which includes reading and writing, math, and an essay are invited to the school.

So again, it’s kind of crazy.

Zoe George: Yeah, that prep process is crazy. I see a lot of parents preparing themselves more nowadays for those types of things. To get into Bard, there’s a three step process.

One, you sign up and take a test specific to our school. If you do well on the test, you get invited back for an interview. If you do well on the interview, you get invited to Bard and it’s up to you whether you accept that or not. But yeah, there’s no way to prepare for the test. Often parents will ask me, how can their child prepare for the test, and my answer is always.

As long as you prepare for the SHSAT or something of that like rigor or stature, then you should be fine. There’s not much that people should stress about being prepared for.

Roberto Bailey: Yeah, I feel like that’s so different from Hunter just because you know the tests in seventh grade, like companies will have a specific program like “Prepare for the Hunter test”.

There’s one that’s pretty popular, more 63 students out of the like 200 or so that are admitted did that prep program that is I think like $3,000 to $4,000. Just the culture of preparing for the test is kind of crazy. Like almost everyone I know did some kind of prep, just because the essay is such a unique part of the Hunter test, most other high schools don’t have a timed essay as part of their admissions process. And then also most students aren’t doing this kind of higher level math or english, like maybe typically in their curriculum, so it’s a lot to prepare for the test.

Zoe George: I’m curious, as a Hunter student who’s been there since you were a little kid and is now about to graduate, what makes the Hunter program so special?

Roberto Bailey: Yeah, I mean. I definitely understand why so many students are kind of drawn to Hunter. Like it has this crazy reputation for preparing students, especially pre-professionally and for college and everything. But I think just like the experience of being at the school has been really special. Faculty build their own curriculums, like they don’t follow a specific like Regents curriculum.

So in the Humanities Department especially, like there’s so much more freedom and you feel that as a student. The teacher wants to teach what you’re learning about and it’s very, like, project based and hands on. So it’s like, I feel like it makes it easier to learn and I get more excited about learning.

Everyone kind of pushes each other and does like a ton outside of school. One of my best friends, like, commutes to Mount Sinai to work at a lab during their lunch break. And yeah, like people are really able to follow their passion in their specific direction. There’s a ton of autonomy and independence.

Zoe George: I feel that way about Bard. Bard is very rigorous and our curriculum is unique. We get to build our own schedules and take classes that we’re really interested in. I’m curious as to what diversity or equity problems look like at your school specifically, and what are people doing to try and change those?

Roberto Bailey: So the student group kind of advocating for change within the school is called Hunter College High School for Equity, or HCHS for Equity for short. And what we do mainly is conversations or open letters to the administration spreading the word so that more students know about these issues. And also organizing more like, like, bandaid solutions.

Things like free test prep to try and get more students to be able to attend Hunter and have the opportunity to take the test. The main thing we kind of advocate for is for Hunter to consider socioeconomic status in the admissions process. A ton of schools in New York City do this, Millennium, Townsend Harris, and they give priority to applicants that are eligible for free or reduced lunch for a percentage of their seats.

And for Bard, it’s like 50 seats or 50% of seats that are reserved.

Zoe George: Yeah. So since Bard has been taking socioeconomic status into their ambitions process, it’s no longer a PWI or a primarily white institution. It definitely is more diverse racially than it used to be, and I think that you can see it in not only the student population, but in the curriculum as well.

So for a school that does face those types of problems, what does student advocacy look like?

Roberto Bailey: So we talked to Kassidy Khuu, a junior at Hunter, and another organizer of HCHS for Equity to learn more about what the on the ground efforts actually look like.

Okay. So to start, could you state your name, your grade, and where you go to school?

Kassidy Khuu: So I’m Kassidy Khuu. I’m a junior in high school and I go to Hunter College High School.

Roberto Bailey: And how long have you been at Hunter specifically?

Kassidy Khuu: So I’ve been at Hunters since seventh grade, so I believe that’s five years, or this is my fifth year.

Roberto Bailey: Could you elaborate on kind of what the test day looked like for you, how you felt, what your experience was? Maybe start with how you prepared.

Kassidy Khuu: Yeah, so I personally went to a test prep center, it’s called Kweller Prep. So, I went to Kweller Prep and I did this like, I think it was, um, for two weeks intensive, where basically they grinded out like a lot of practice tests for us. And they gave us instructions on different math and reading problems and gave us some sample essays to really help us prepare for the test in the last two weeks, like leading up to it.

So that was the extent of the prep I did. And I also had a test prep book, I think when I was in, I wanna say that it was just in my house in fourth grade, like my dad

Roberto Bailey: Fourth grade?

Kassidy Khuu: My dad was really manifesting me to get into Hunter College High School. I feel like it was a very nervous vibe overall. Not only are you going to take a test for like two to three hours when you’re 10 years old, that sometimes, like, it can feel like it’s gonna determine your future ‘cause you’re going there for the next six years.

If you get in.

Roberto Bailey: And could you tell me more about what test day was like, specifically kind of take me through that day?

Kassidy Khuu: So since I was living in Brooklyn, I went to a college, I believe it was Medgar Evers. So my dad drove me there. He dropped me off and then it was really intense. I remember that I went through the math and English section and I definitely didn’t know what was going on in the math section. The English section, I think, I found a little more interesting because I generally like to read more than do math, which I feel like a lot of people can relate to.

And then the writing section, it was honestly really weird for me because I was very tired from taking the math and English section. And so I thought I wrote like a very scuffed essay.

And then when I left the test, like, I was a little stressed out and I kind of got in the car and I was like, okay, I didn’t get in. And that was kind of the atmosphere surrounding that. I feel, like, a lot of pressure, a lot of intensity, and honestly like exhaustion from just sitting in that room for a really long time.

Roberto Bailey: Yeah. So how did you feel when you found out you got in? Like who were you with? What was it like?

Kassidy Khuu: Yeah, so I found out that I got in when my father got the email from Hunter College High School that said that I got in. And so he came into my room and he was like, wow, like you got into Hunter. And I remember us being very cheery about it.

I hugged my father. I’m not gonna lie, me and my father don’t hug that often, which is all right. But yeah, we hugged and we were celebrating together and it was good vibes. And I remember playing Brawl Stars for the rest of the day with my brother because I was like, okay, like I just got into Hunter College High School.

I’m gonna be chilling there for the next six years of my life.

Roberto Bailey: And kind of shifting to talk more about Hunter as a whole, what do you think makes it different from other high schools, both in New York and also kind of on a national scale?

Kassidy Khuu: Yeah, I think you kind of hear this a lot about Hunter, like whoever you’re talking to, whether it’s Hunter students or parents who want their kids to get into Hunter.

But the general atmosphere surrounding Hunter and discourse is that it’s this really high level rigorous school where the course load is like maybe more than other schools, but also it’s giving you a better education, assumptively. And just more choices for what you’re going to study, more intensity in what you’re doing.

Roberto Bailey: So what would you say is like a classic hunter student? How would you kind of describe them?

Kassidy Khuu: If I’m stereotyping here, I would say that it’s kind of like a person who talks very well, and when you’re having a conversation with them they seem quite self-assured and self-actualized in like what they wanna do with their life and how they want to present themselves.

I feel like Hunter students tend to be very good public speakers, which kind of makes sense why they’re, I guess, involved in so many things.

Roberto Bailey: What issues at Hunter would you say kind of made our organizing and made HCHS4Equity necessary in the first place?

Kassidy Khuu: I think when you just go to Hunter for a little bit and you look around, something that you will definitely notice is that there isn’t really a diversity of students.

Roberto Bailey: Interjecting quickly to give a few facts and figures about Hunter’s diversity. It’s actually less than 5% black, less than 12% Latina, and less than 17% low income. So very different from the New York City that we experience and live in.

Kassidy Khuu: So you can most visibly see when you go to Hunter, obviously the lack of Black students and Latino students who are at the school.

You will kind of like, once you start to notice that you will kind of unravel the fact that there are also, like, wealth differences. And once you see that, you automatically connect it to equity, which is what we’re focused on at HCHS4E. And just start thinking about, like, how did this disparity happen?

Uh, where does it root back to? Which does go back to the high stakes admissions test and the admissions process for elementary schoolers, I would say.

Roberto Bailey: Yeah. So that’s a word we’ve been throwing around a lot. Equity. And I guess I wanna ask, how would you personally define equity and how do you define that in the context of these ideas of education, justice and like in Hunter specifically?

Kassidy Khuu: Equity for me looks like a world where everyone, especially in the context of education justice, where everyone has access to the education that they deserve and has access to the future that they want through that education, no matter what that future might look like or what their aspirations are. I think equity is mostly rooted in making sure everyone has opportunity and access, and in the context of HCHS4Equity, our entire mission statement, I would say, is analyzing how the high stakes admissions test doesn’t necessarily display those values because of the fact that there’s inherent differences in who has access and who has opportunity.

Roberto Bailey: Mm-hmm. And. Could you talk a little bit more about kind of who or what HCHS4E is, and really briefly, what actions you’ve been a part of with HCHS4Equity,

Kassidy Khuu: HCHS4Equity as an organization itself was founded in 2020, which is important to know I think, because it was sort of through the height of the Black Lives Matter movement where we were thinking about these ideas of, you know, DEI and how we ensure equity in our world.

Like in general and how we fight for those who are oppressed or underrepresented typically. And obviously that applies to education justice. And so HCHS4Equity was founded upon that, and their first demand, I believe, was to suspend the admissions test for 2021, which a lot of schools around New York City were doing so that we could analyze how it might be reformed to be more equitable.

And so we’ve been continuing that work over the past few years. They had a lot more direct actions around, like, the 2021 era, which allowed them to have a lot of wins, such as they held protests, rallies, they did a lot of open letters and convened a lot of elected officials to build pressure.

Which resulted in the administration at Hunter College High School and at Hunter College, kind of acknowledging this as an issue and allowing the work moving forward to be much easier.

Roberto Bailey: Hmm. And so with all that in mind, what is the long-term kind of major goal or milestone that HCHS4Equity is trying to achieve? And are there different, more tangible, kinds of shorter term goals that might look a little bit different than those like broader long-term initiatives?

Kassidy Khuu: I think it’s to ensure that every child has equal opportunity and access to Hunter and also other specialized high school programs in the city. Even if we were to keep those rigorous high schools, we wanna make sure that all students can get that level of education should they deserve it, which all students do deserve it.

And I would say in terms of our short-term goals, the main one that we’ve been championing for many years is the implementation of socioeconomic status weighing in the admissions reform of the Hunter test. Because as we know, socioeconomic factors are really instrumental in making sure that certain students get into the test and are prepped well for the test when they sit down to take it, when they’re 10 to 11 years old.

That would be a reform that I personally would like to see audited fully and possibly implemented at Hunter. But in terms of our very, very short term goals, I would say it’s mostly researching what has worked for other schools in the past. Convening integration experts and having the school themselves hire integration experts so that we can start moving the needle in a meaningful way and moving progress in a forward direction.

Roberto Bailey: So I know that something like doing away with an admissions test doesn’t really happen overnight, but I was hoping you could touch on what student leaders are doing to make them feel well prepared for the test, like, less of an obstacle.

Kassidy Khuu: What we can do as student organizers and as student leaders in general is start up.

Test prep organizations, more test prep initiatives that make sure that students who have structural obstacles, usually to get test prep can more easily be prepped for the test and therefore have a higher chance of getting in and really stimulate their academic ability in a way that reflects their true potential, which structural differences don’t really solve for.

In the summer of 2026, I think we’re hoping to have something at Hunter and we’re convening a lot of our new recruits who might be interested in that, as well as people who might be interested in just running the test prep and not necessarily being part of HCHS4E formally in that initiative.

Roberto Bailey: Yeah, thanks so much. I wanted to ask you about challenges kind of broadly, like what have you faced as a student advocating for equity? What kind of pushback have you encountered and what has that looked like?

Kassidy Khuu: Yeah, so I think this issue of equity at Hunter, even though I feel like a lot of people are willing to acknowledge that there’s a lack of diversity at Hunter, that doesn’t really reflect what we have in New York City, it’s still a very politicized issue because of the fact that there’s this whole notion that Hunter is extremely rigorous, and the reason for that and the reason for our supposedly better education is that we have this high stakes test that makes sure that only students who can handle the rigorous course load can get in.

And I think that’s challenging for especially a lot of parents to conceive of, especially if they’ve invested a lot of time and resources into making sure that their kid gets into a good school and gets into Hunter.

And I think the other issue with it that is separate from the politicization is the fact that this process of organizing around admissions reform is generally been very slow at Hunter because every time we try something new, the administration especially doesn’t really want to do anything drastic because we don’t know if it’s gonna work.

So we go for, like, smaller reforms every year, which we kind of have to wait for the data for each set of students to see if it works and to see if we continue it or if we make it stronger in some way. Which I think is something that organizers are always dealing with in terms of people not really wanting things to change too quickly, or even if changing too quickly may be bad for figuring out and diagnosing what’s really wrong with the system.

Roberto Bailey: So how do you respond when people disagree with you, whether it’s parents or other students?

Kassidy Khuu: Everyone who goes to Hunter, I feel, can pretty visibly see that there’s a lack of diversity. So every time someone is maybe skeptical at the idea of changing the test, I mostly try to focus on the problem rather than what thoughts they might have about the solution.

Because I think it’s a lot easier for people to see that there’s a problem with hunter’s diversity and that that correlates to a problem with hunter’s equity, than necessarily sign on to what we as student organizers have proposed in the past and are advocating for actively. Because I think that once people see that there’s a problem, that it’s just like a half step away from saying, we need to do something about that problem, right, no matter what it was.

Roberto Bailey: Before we start to kind of wrap up, I wanted to ask, in the years moving forward, in maybe say five years, what do you want Hunter to look like? What’s your ideal vision?

Kassidy Khuu: So I think in an ideal world, I would like to look at Hunter and see and say that it really reflects who we have in New York City, and I think that’s the end goal.

But obviously we’re always fighting for an improved world, even education that’s better and more equitable at the elementary school level. And making sure that every kid has the individualized attention that they deserve.

Roberto Bailey: So if you could leave listeners with. One message about equitable admissions processes, like what you want them to kind of take away from this, what would that be?

Kassidy Khuu: I think my message would be an action, and I think the action should just be, talk to people in your life about this issue. Talk to how, especially if you’re invested in equity in other ways in your adult life, if you’re an adult listener, talk to people about how education is such an instrumental part of that.

And if you’re a high schooler, talk to the people in your school about what they think about the structure of your school and the structure of how they got to that school, what the system is in New York City as they’ve moved through it. Because I feel like it can definitely open exciting conversations on how we can change the situation we have right now and how everyone is connected to this movement.

Roberto Bailey: Thank you so much for coming in today, Kassidy. It was great speaking with you.

Kassidy Khuu: Thank you so much for speaking with me.

Zoe George: I think the work that you guys are doing at your school is something to be celebrated.

Roberto Bailey: And at the same time it’s a school that has meant a lot to me. You know, I’ve been here for 13 years, I really, like, don’t know where I would be without my education at Hunter. I’ve met some of the most important people in my life here.

I’ve gotten so many unique opportunities. Like who knows if I would even be on my second season of P.S. Weekly without Hunter? Um, but those opportunities and those resources, they should be accessible for everyone, not just those lucky enough or in the right circumstances to be handed Hunter’s golden ticket.

After recording this interview with Kassidy, a couple of things happened. First, I attended a meeting concluding Hunter’s three-year plan on equity. So Hunter actually said that for the first time, they included some kind of, like, socioeconomic metric in the test. Which is the economic needs index, which is basically just a measure of the number of low income students at a school, among other variables. They use it for a very small part of the process, which is as a tiebreaker for students in the second highest score band of essays.

So if a student was like, not in the like definitely admit category, but in the, maybe admit, maybe don’t admit, like their essay was read, they did well on the reading and writing sections and so the tiebreaker there was this economic needs index score.

In their comments to P.S. Weekly, hunter officials pointed to their mission statement, which says, “Our schools strive to reflect the city they serve by admitting and educating a population of students who are culturally, socioeconomically, and ethnically diverse.”

They said they were committed to broadening access to admissions, and as they discussed in the meeting for the past three years. The school’s been examining its admissions policies, though it’s, quote, “Too soon to determine future plans or specific implementation.”

That’s all for today on P.S. Weekly.

Zoe George: P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between The Bell and Chalkbeat made possible by generous support from the Pinkerton Foundation.

Roberto Bailey: Producers for this episode were me, Roberto Bailey.

Zoe George: And me, Zoe George.

Roberto Bailey: Our senior producer for the show is Maria Robins-Somerville, and our technical director is Jake Lummus.

The executive editors are Amy Zimmer and Taylor McGraw.

Zoe George: Additional production and reporting support was provided by Mira Gordon, Sabrina DuQuesnay, Zana Halili, and Katelyn Melville, and our friends at Chalkbeat. Music is from APM and the jingle you heard at the beginning of this episode was created by the one and only Erica Huang.

Roberto Bailey: Thanks so much for tuning in and see you next time.

We make transcripts available for our episodes as soon as possible. They are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.

How to make NYC’s high school process fairer? Add support and simplify, advocates argue.

2026-04-14T15:57:34+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

Debates over how to make New York City’s high school admissions system fairer have often focused on the criteria schools use to select students.

But a new report released Tuesday urges the city to take a closer look at the application process itself, arguing that it favors families with time and resources.

Each year, tens of thousands of eighth graders choose 12 or more options from a list of over 700 programs spread across roughly 400 high schools, with varying admissions rules. Some families spend hours poring through information online, visiting schools in person or virtually, submitting supplementary application materials, or even hiring paid admissions consultants.

Many other families lack the time, money, language, computer access, or support to decipher the complex application system, leaving their kids with a more limited set of high school choices.

“That process is going to be complex no matter what,” said Nyah Berg, executive director of New York Appleseed and one of the report’s co-authors. “The more that we can do to recognize that and simplify it so that everyone has equal access to a public high school, the better off we’ll be.”

But simplifying the admissions process can only go so far, the authors said: The city must also do more to support families at the biggest disadvantage in navigating the admissions process, including those whose first language is not English and those living in temporary housing.

Middle schools should have counselors and curriculum dedicated to helping students prepare for the high school admissions process — similar to the way high schools have staff and classes dedicated to helping students transition to college and careers, the report by Appleseed and Fordham Law School’s Feerick Center for Social Justice contends. The report is the third in a series of admissions reform recommendations from a committee that includes academics, parents, and service providers. (Education Department staffers attend meetings, but don’t play a role in issuing recommendations.)

The authors identified some ways to streamline the process for families.

In many cases, a single high school offers multiple programs that require separate applications but in practice operate similarly, according to the authors. Some of those programs could be consolidated in order to cut down on the number of options applicants have to consider, the report argues. Bayside High School in Queens, for example, has eight programs that are all separate for admissions purposes.

The multiple program options within a single school was one of the things that caught Brooklyn parent Elysha Louison off guard when she began looking at high schools with her eighth grade son last fall.

“You click on a school, and then there could be 5-10 different schools within that school,” she said. “There’s no way you would have the time … to research all these schools.”

Education Department officials have taken steps toward making the application process more centralized and transparent, including standardizing the admissions criteria at most selective high schools, adding a tool that allows families to estimate their chances of admission, and listing information about schools on a central website, the authors said.

“We remain steadfast in our commitment to support every student and family in successfully navigating the high school admissions process,” said Education Department spokesperson Chyann Tull. She added that the city offers in-person admissions help at family welcome centers and has a call center with support in multiple languages.

For Louison, better preparation starting in seventh grade, when students’ grades in core classes count for admissions at selective high schools, would have made a big difference.

“They tell you in seventh grade, ‘You’re going to apply [for] high school, get ready’… but they don’t really tell you what the process is like,” said Louison, who got additional support with the application process through the youth development organization Boy’s Club of New York.

Helping middle schools to better support families through the high school application process will require additional funding and staff, the authors said. Guidance counselors are already stretched thin and have little extra capacity to serve as admissions counselors. As of this year, there was one guidance counselor for every 259 students on average across city schools, according to Education Department data.

The authors point to a model the city could emulate: Several nonprofits run “middle school success centers” devoted to supporting students in underresourced communities with the high school application process.

Berg hopes that by providing more and better information to families, the city can also start to chip away at another feature of the application process that adds to the stress: the “scarcity mindset” that drives a disproportionate number of applications to a small number of well-known, often selective, schools.

The Education Department’s “past and present policy decisions have fueled a false notion that only a handful of ‘good’ schools can meet a student’s academic needs,” Berg said in a statement. “That narrative must change.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Is Memphis pulling too many students with disabilities from taking state standardized tests?

2026-03-30T12:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Tennessee education leaders say too many Memphis-Shelby County students with disabilities are being opted out of taking state standardized tests each year, stripping them of the ability to earn traditional high school diplomas.

Disability advocates caution that the increasing number of alternate test-takers is lowering expectations and future opportunities for students with disabilities. It also jeopardizes federal funding to Tennessee, which can trickle down to local districts.

Only students with “the most significant cognitive disabilities” are meant to take alternate versions of the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP, according to the state department of education. The federal government sets a cap for alternate tests at 1% of students in each state.

But MSCS leaders say the federal cap ignores difficult realities faced by the district.

In Memphis-Shelby County Schools, the figure of alternate test-takers is close to 2.4% – meaning just over 2,500 students take the modified test each year. That’s 1,500 more students than it should be, according to the federal cap.

MSCS Superintendent Roderick Richmond said the district is being “scrutinized” by the state for that discrepancy.

“People feel like disproportionately we have too many students being identified as having special needs,” he said in a district budget meeting earlier this month.

Tennessee education leaders can’t require local school districts to hit the 1% threshold. But when the state average exceeds that, the U.S. Department of Education can reject a state waiver and put conditions on Title I funding as it has for Tennessee in the past three years. The state’s percentage of alternate test-takers has hovered around 1.4% since 2017.

If Tennessee’s waiver keeps getting denied, there could be harsher funding consequences that would impact local districts, the Tennessee Department of Education said.

Plus, taking alternate state tests comes with significant consequences for students. They are taught a more limited curriculum, and can’t earn a traditional high school diploma, which stifles future job opportunities.

Karen Harrison, executive director of disability nonprofit TNSTEP, said over-identifying alternate test-takers sets up a “parallel system with lower expectations and fewer opportunities” for an already vulnerable population of students.

“What may begin as an attempt to support a student can, if misapplied, unintentionally restrict that student’s academic growth and future pathways,” Harrison said in an emailed statement.

That’s why districts need to be extra vigilant in following the qualification criteria, said Alison Gauld, manager of disabilities for the Tennessee Department of Education. Students who take alternate tests must have support needs that are “dramatically different” from their peers, she said in a 2024 presentation.

Richmond and other local officials argue that they are following state standards for identifying alternative test-takers. As the largest urban school district in the state, MSCS has high levels of students living in poverty and Black students, who are disproportionately diagnosed with disabilities.

“We’re being penalized for something that we can’t help,” said Shaunta Broadway, the district’s director of student support services, in the early March meeting. “If [students] are coming to us and they have to take the alternative assessment where they are, it’s going to be hard for us to get down to just 1% when they’re coming in at a rate faster than that.”

In an emailed statement, MSCS said its disability education staff meet with TDOE representatives every month to review progress in reducing the alternate test-taking numbers.

The district’s Department of Exceptional Education has also expanded training for all special education teachers and relevant administrators, who make the yearly assessments for who takes the alternative tests.

“Our goal is to increase students participating in the general education curriculum more than 80% of the school day and working toward a general education diploma,” the statement said.

The percentage of MSCS students taking the modified state tests increased from 1.9% in 2020 to 2.4% in the 2023-24 school year. It stayed steady in 2024-25, MSCS said in a statement. The district did not answer questions about what caused that increase.

But Angela Whitelaw, the district’s chief academic officer, said in the March meeting that she expects the percentage to increase this year.

“While our numbers aren’t extremely high, they’re much higher than the federal and state want them to be,” she said.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Denver promised to expand and diversify its elite public arts school. It hasn’t happened yet.

2026-02-11T23:05:42+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

Tenth graders in tights, cravats, and lacy breeches performed Moliére on a recent weeknight, reciting long soliloquies full of words like “repast,” “jest,” and “impertinent wretch.” An audience of their parents and peers roared with laughter at the play from 1668. If any of the teenage actors forgot a line or missed a mark, it was impossible to tell.

The actors were students at Denver School of the Arts, one of the most prestigious public conservatory arts schools in the country. The school, which serves grades 6 through 12, has a stellar reputation, sky-high test scores, and hundreds of applicants each year. It also has a problem that it’s been trying to solve since its founding 35 years ago: DSA is not very diverse.

A bold move in 2021 was supposed to change that storyline: The $30 million purchase of neighboring property that would allow DSA to grow from 1,100 students to 1,700.

Expanding access for low-income students and students of color was core to the vision. That meant deemphasizing auditions that favor students who can afford costly private lessons and creating a separate admissions track for talented students without formal training. A skeptical school board insisted on detailed plans and annual progress reports.

Almost five years later, the expansion has been scaled back and key initiatives to diversify the classrooms and stages of DSA haven’t come to fruition. All of the sophomores starring in the centuries-old French comedy had to audition for their spots at the school. So did students in DSA’s 10 other majors, including dance, orchestra, and visual arts.

The school has grown a bit more diverse in recent years: 38% of DSA students are students of color this year, up from 31% in 2020, and the share of students who qualify for subsidized school meals, a poverty indicator, increased from 11% to 14% in that period, state data shows.

Orchestra director Enrique Lasansky conducts a class on Denver School of the Arts’ south campus.

But DSA’s enrollment has been shrinking, not growing. And in a school district that prizes equity, its demographics are still wildly out of proportion to Denver Public Schools as a whole, where most students are students of color and the majority come from low-income families.

District leaders say they’re still committed to the original vision of a bigger, more diverse DSA and are partnering with a rapper and record producer on a program that would be housed on the newer property. But a lack of funding for renovations that ballooned in cost paired with turnover on the school board, in the superintendent’s office, and at DSA itself have contributed to a retreat from a grander plan that some thought was too ambitious from the start.

“I wish we had paused on such a large purchase,” former board member Scott Baldermann said in a recent interview. “We put the cart before the horse at the time.”

Denver’s version of New York City’s ‘Fame’ school

Students and parents have described DSA as the best school in the city, a private-school-caliber education in a public setting, a welcoming safe haven, and “like a family.”

“This place has altered the course of my life in ways I could have never predicted,” student Camilo Ayadi told the Denver school board in 2024. “A place that accepted a little Arab Latino fifth grader from the southwest part of Denver who just liked to sing and turned him into a national singing champion.”

DSA opened in 1991 as a 200-student magnet program inside Cole Middle School. It was modeled after the New York City performing arts school popularized by the 1980 movie “Fame.”

Concerns about demographics were always part of DSA. That very first year, so few Hispanic students auditioned that DSA held two extra tryouts just for them, news stories said.

“Part of the problem may have been that the initial application process was a little scary to some young Hispanics,” painter and sculptor Emanuel Martinez told The Denver Post at the time. “They may not have had the track record that some of the other kids had.”

In 1998, the district bought a former fine arts center in South Park Hill to be DSA’s new home. But questions remained about the school’s diversity. School board member James Mejía called for a task force in 2002 to examine why DSA’s student body was nearly three-quarters white when three-quarters of DPS students were students of color, according to news reports.

“It’s not that they don’t get in,” the principal at the time said. “It’s that they don’t apply.”

In 2007, three 13-year-old students practiced their lines in a hallway at DSA for a play they produced based on the theme "triumph and tragedy."

DSA’s new, bigger campus — with the black-box theater where the students performed Moliére — opened in 2003 after a $30 million investment by DPS. To satisfy the school board’s diversity concerns, DSA had its students perform at elementary schools to drum up interest, offered school tours, and spent $12,000 to bus students from poorer neighborhoods to auditions. It worked: More than half of the incoming sixth graders that year were students of color.

The diversity gains didn’t last. And for that reason, the school board said no to repeated proposals to expand DSA over the years. But a new opportunity arose in 2021.

A big property for Denver School of the Arts, and grand promises

That year, DSA Executive Principal Anthony McWright noticed the property across the street was for sale. The district set its sights on four buildings on the former Johnson & Wales University campus: three academic spaces and a 1960s-era chapel with stained glass windows.

McWright’s ideas included remodeling the chapel as a performance space, transforming offices into science labs, and turning lecture halls into band and orchestra rooms. An outdoor amphitheater would be perfect for performing Shakespeare in the park, McWright said.

At $30 million, the deal was a steal, district officials said. Denver voters had recently passed a $795 million bond — and while it didn’t include $30 million for DSA, the district proposed paying for the property with bond premium dollars, or extra cash generated from the bond sales.

Students were excited.

“It was a big thing for us to go to a whole new campus,” said Ashley Olson, now a junior at DSA.

Tamara Acevedo, then the deputy superintendent of academics, told the school board in 2021 that the project had two goals: to increase access to DSA for all students “with a particular focus on our low-income students and our students of color,” and to build a year-round community arts hub that could host city-wide band concerts and summer art camps.

To increase access, DSA would adopt an audition-free acceptance model for talented middle school students who hadn’t had specialized training. The plan called for expanding enrollment by 600 students: 175 at the middle school and 425 at the high school.

Junior Ari Cohen, 17, lifts a "flat," a scenic piece used in stage productions, during a stagecraft and design class earlier this month.

The board was both excited and skeptical. Some members asked for “more teeth” to the district’s promises and tangible diversity targets. A resolution the board passed in May cited the audition-free pathway, directed the superintendent to create “a detailed implementation plan,” and required the district to produce an annual report on its progress for the board.

District officials seemed eager to comply.

“You’re absolutely, 100% right,” Acevedo said at the time. “This will afford a great opportunity. That opportunity will only be great if it actually realizes those goals.”

Nearly five years later, the promises made in the resolution haven’t been kept.

Acevedo no longer works for DPS and declined to comment because she left shortly after the purchase. Other former top officials who were involved in the plan also declined to comment.

McWright left DSA at the end of last school year after students and parents publicly complained that his administration was absent and unresponsive. He did not respond to requests for comment. McWright is now principal at Responsive Arts and STEAM Academy, a DPS elementary school. District officials said they asked McWright to take the new position.

Three other administrators left DSA, too. None of them agreed to be interviewed.

The superintendent in 2021 was an interim leader who left when current Superintendent Alex Marrero started two months later. The entire school board has turned over, too. And a change in the board’s governance structure means that old resolutions are essentially null and void.

In 2022, when the district asked for more money for the renovations, some board members said they felt like they had to say yes. Scott Esserman, who was elected after DPS bought the property, called the purchase a short-sighted investment that would “feel like an albatross around our neck” if the district didn’t move forward.

Baldermann said he was disappointed that DPS wasn’t making the arts more of a priority districtwide. Auon’tai Anderson said he worried that the vision for diversifying DSA depended too heavily on McWright — and that if he were to leave DSA, the vision would be gone too.

Freshman Rachel Tang, 14, practices piano while wearing headphones in a high school piano class on Denver School of the Arts’ south campus.

Help Denver School of the Arts or the rest of the district?

DPS broke ground on the renovations in March 2023. Although officials once described the four buildings as “turnkey,” unforeseen problems and pandemic-era price increases meant it cost $22.5 million to bring just one of them up to the stricter safety code for K-12 schools, according to a district spokesperson. That’s as much as quadruple the $5 million to $10 million that district officials initially estimated it could cost to fund the entire project.

In 2024, the district proposed asking Denver voters for $18.2 million more for “phase 2.” But a community advisory board that makes recommendations on spending bond dollars said no.

Alejandra “Ale” Spray, the CEO and president of the Hispanic Contractors of Colorado, was among those who considered DSA’s request. She said by email that the rejection was partly due to DSA’s low “equity index” score, which is based on demographics and need. She also noted that while the bond is funded by Denver taxpayers, many DSA students are from outside Denver.

“The choice we had was to give them that money to add seats … or to spread that money across” other schools, Spray wrote. “I guess long and short, there was only so much money so we wanted to make sure the money got spent to benefit more kids.”

In early 2025, the district sent a letter to DSA families declaring that the construction on the expansion, dubbed DSA South, was complete. The letter listed improvements to just one of the four buildings, including a new art gallery, the creation or modernization of 23 classrooms, and updates to electrical and safety systems.

DSA parents had questions.

“Without additional budget and a clear commitment, the goals of the original expansion plan remain unmet, leaving the DSA community with buildings that are not fully usable and enrollment that has not yet expanded to increase access for low-income students and improve diversity,” Kara Penn and Lisa Davis, co-chairs of a parent-teacher committee at DSA, wrote to district officials.

Penn and Davis told Chalkbeat that they wrote that email because they were at a loss. DSA had laid off staff because enrollment was declining. When parents asked why, DSA administrators didn’t have answers, Penn and Davis said.

“They’d say, ‘We don’t know why. Go ask the district,’” said Davis, whose child is now in eighth grade at DSA. The answer from the district? A lack of money for the physical expansion.

Deronn Turner, who had three children graduate from DSA and is still involved in the school, said DSA’s elite reputation likely played a role in the decision not to fund it.

“The district, they want to help,” Turner said, “but at the same time … they get caught up in thinking that the only kids that go there are rich, white, elite kids.

“Granted, there is some of that,” she said. “But I also know that there are some incredibly talented kids that do incredibly well — and they don’t have the means to have a house here in Denver and a house up in the mountains somewhere.”

Senior Kayla Cudennec, 17, center, discusses a journal entry with dance co-directors Chloé-Grant Abel, left, and Terrell Davis, right, at the beginning of a class.

A new path for diversifying Denver School of the Arts

Without more voter-approved bond money to finish the renovations, DSA had to pivot.

The hopes to expand and diversify the school now rest largely on a new program called the Iovine and Young Center for Innovation that was co-founded by Andre “Dr. Dre” Young and record executive Jimmy Iovine. Starting next fall, students at DSA and Manual High School will be able to take classes that blend design, technology, business, and the arts.

But the district doesn’t yet have all the money to pay for that program, either. The Denver Public Schools Foundation, which raises money for the entire district, is helping fundraise for it. Spokesperson Ashley Muramoto said the foundation is “in the early stages of this initiative, working closely with the district to assess specific needs” and doesn’t have an estimated cost.

A student plays piano at Denver School of the Arts.

Andy Mountain, a DSA parent leader, said the idea to bring the Iovine and Young programming to DSA came from the school community itself. The district’s response was “tremendous and refreshing,” he said, and reinvigorated DSA’s stalled progress.

“The opportunity presented by Iovine and Young as a springboard for additional fundraising and funding for DSA South really is a jolt of energy for the school,” said Mountain, who chairs the DSA Friends Foundation, which raises as much as $500,000 each year to pay for visiting artists and private lessons but won’t be helping with the Iovine and Young program

The district hopes to house the new programming in one of the three empty buildings, officials said. The other two buildings won’t primarily be used by DSA. One will be a satellite location for a district-run technical college and the other will once again become a church.

The district has lowered its expansion ambitions, too. The new plan calls for DSA to grow to 1,400 students by 2030 instead of 1,700, said Melissa Boyd, DPS’ executive director of secondary schools. And auditions are staying for now.

“Auditions in itself aren’t necessarily a bad thing,” Deputy Superintendent Tony Smith said.

Smith said eliminating or reducing the emphasis on auditions wouldn’t necessarily improve diversity, noting that practice requirements and additional costs to families also are barriers.

“There’s a milieu of things that you could go through that really open the door,” Smith said, “and what we’re really challenging [the new principal] to explore is, ‘What does equity look like?’ Because the outcome is going to be a more diverse DSA. The inputs could be varied.”

The new principal, Brian Cochran, was hired permanently in December. He said he believes in the vision. But his ideas are more modest. In addition to the Iovine and Young program, he’s looking at reworking the school’s schedule to allow for more classes, better advertising, and advocating for additional bus transportation for students. Some DSA buses were cut in 2023, in part because the school had few low-income students.

Parents have been receptive — and relieved at what feels like momentum.

“All those puzzle pieces … have started to really fall into place to say, ‘Yes, we are moving forward with this goal of expansion,’” Davis said. “It may not look the same that it did when the board adopted it in ‘21. The vision is still there, but the details of it do look a little different.”

Davis and Penn, whose daughter is in 10th grade, are helping organize a meeting Thursday to offer tours of DSA South and update families on the expansion plan, which some said is overdue.

“To us, this is a culmination of effort and a show of faith,” Penn said. “It’s not perfect right now, but it is definitely in the right direction.”

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Appeals court: Philadelphia magnet school admissions policies may be discriminatory

2026-02-03T21:35:38+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the Philadelphia school district’s admissions policy for selective high schools could have had the “purpose and effect of discriminating on the basis of race.”

The ruling revives Sargent v. School District of Philadelphia, a lawsuit that alleges the district’s controversial selective admissions policy is unconstitutional because it favored some races over others. A district court judge had previously dismissed the case. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision cites the Students for Fair Admissions Supreme Court case that ended the use of race-based preferences in college admissions to send the case back to the district court for a trial.

The decision reopens questions about what methods, if any, Philadelphia school leaders can use to create more diversity in the district’s elite high schools, which historically have been disproportionately white and Asian American.

It also bolsters a long-running campaign by conservative legal activists to end the use of race-neutral factors in K-12 admissions policies. School districts have been barred from using race as a factor in school admissions and enrollment decisions for nearly two decades, but courts have generally held that using race-neutral factors, such as geography or income, to promote diversity are allowed. The Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to take up cases that could upset that status quo, but conservative legal groups continue to bring challenges, such as the Philadelphia lawsuit.

In 2021, the Philadelphia school district overhauled its admissions process for magnet high schools, which are widely considered to be the city’s most desirable public high schools. Unlike neighborhood high schools, students must apply to magnet schools and not all are accepted. Before the admissions process changed, principals of magnet schools had discretion over which students they admitted.

The new policy created a lottery system that prioritized students from certain ZIP codes and also required students to meet higher academic and attendance standards. School leaders at the time said the changes were part of an effort to make the school district an “antiracist institution.”

In its ruling, the federal appeals court said the new policy increased Black and Hispanic students’ chances of admission to some of the city’s top magnet schools, including Palumbo, Carver, Central, and Masterman, while decreasing Asian American and white students’ chances.

A school district spokesperson said Tuesday that the district does not comment on pending litigation.

Before the change, white students had long been overrepresented at Central and Masterman high schools, two of the city’s top schools. More recently, so had Asian American students. In 2020, some Black students at Central urged the district to overhaul its admissions policies to address the declining percentage of Black students admitted to the school.

Some parents and students immediately pushed back against the new system, which they said prevented some high-achieving students from accessing top schools.

Three parents whose children did not get into their top-choice school under the new policy sued with support from America First Legal Foundation, a conservative nonprofit law firm. The parents have children who are Black, white, and biracial. They alleged that because students from predominantly Black and Hispanic ZIP codes who met admissions criteria had an automatic in, the policy had a discriminatory effect.

In sending the case back to the lower court, the appeals court justices noted that top district officials, including then-Superintendent William Hite, had openly discussed wanting to address racial disparities, especially in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd. That did not necessarily mean the policy was discriminatory, but it requires the lower court to more fully consider those arguments, the justices wrote.

America First Legal was founded by Stephen Miller, a top advisor to President Donald Trump. Trump has used executive orders to ban analyses that examine disproportionate impacts in considering whether policies violate civil rights, and his Education Department has used a similar legal theory to pressure school districts to end diversity policies that rely on race-neutral factors.

Since Sargent was originally filed, the district has made some changes to the admissions process, including allowing students to rank multiple choices and giving students who attended middle schools attached to selective high schools priority access to those schools as well. It has kept priority ZIP codes, but has made some changes to which ones are included.

Magnet school admissions policies contested across the country

Many school districts don’t have a network of selective admissions high schools like Philadelphia or New York do. However, the districts that do have garnered legal scrutiny. As school districts have tried different tactics to diversify these schools, conservative legal groups, often working with Asian American parents, have challenged changes to admissions policies they see as proxies for race in Boston, New York, and Fairfax County, Virginia.

Justin Driver, a professor of constitutional law with Yale Law School, said the Supreme Court may not necessarily get involved in this case, with the “ball in the Philadelphia School District’s court.” The district could change its policies rather than appeal an unfavorable ruling, and even if it did, the Supreme Court might not agree to take the case.

“They could decline to do so because of what lawyers refer to as percolation,” he said. “We want to see how other courts are going to wrestle with these issues. But I do think that from a preliminary view, the facts of this case are similar to other cases.”

As in the case of other admissions policies challenged, “George Floyd’s death was sort of the cataclysmic event that made them rethink the policy here,” Driver said.

Erin Wilcox, a senior attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, has represented plaintiffs in similar cases, including Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board. In that case, Pacific Legal argued against an admissions process that awarded additional points to students from underrepresented schools or from low-income families.

The Supreme Court declined to hear that case in 2024. But Wilcox said she believes that “eventually the court will grapple with this issue,” now with a split of opinion between circuit courts on this issue.

Wilcox said Supreme Court justices dissenting on these cases have written some “pretty fiery” dissenting opinions.

For example, Justice Samuel Alito wrote of the Fairfax case: “The Court’s willingness to swallow the aberrant decision below is hard to understand. We should wipe the decision off the books.”

“Maybe ... some justices putting that out there so forcefully, which is not something they do all that often, might be having an impact on some of the appellate court judges across the country,” Wilcox said.

Wilcox said the plaintiffs she’s represented have fought to get into magnet schools in pursuit of a rigorous education.

“In a lot of cases, students have been preparing or trying to go to these schools for years,” she said.

Derek Black, a constitutional law expert with the University of South Carolina, said he believes just because administrators may have had a goal of increasing racial parity in enrollment doesn’t mean the resulting admissions policy is discriminatory. Nor, he said, should that goal alone trigger the heightened judicial standard that’s applied to policies that consider race.

“As I read the facts, no, not a single student was admitted based upon his or her race,” he said. “That means it’s race-neutral.”

Rebecca Redelmeier is a reporter at Chalkbeat Philadelphia. She writes about public schools, early childhood education, and issues that affect students, families, and educators across Philadelphia. Contact Rebecca at rredelmeier@chalkbeat.org.

Lily Altavena is a national reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Lily at laltavena@chalkbeat.org.

Illinois quietly changes scholarship for teachers of color amid lawsuit, threats from federal government

2025-12-17T23:42:38+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the latest news on Chicago Public Schools.

For 33 years, the Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship’s mission has been to steer more people of color into the state’s teacher workforce, which is largely white. But in October, state lawmakers quietly stripped race and ethnicity requirements and made the program open to students of any race.

The changes are a response to a lawsuit by a conservative group that challenged the scholarship in 2024 and the Trump administration’s push against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at K-12 schools and higher education. A spokesperson for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission confirmed that the lawsuit was dismissed in court earlier this month. The motion to dismiss cited changes in Illinois’ law.

Illinois lawmakers passed House Bill 3065, which replaces the Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship with the Teachers of Illinois Scholarship, during the General Assembly’s veto session by a vote of 96-0 in the House and 59-0 in the Senate. It was signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker in November.

Under the new law, students are eligible for the scholarship if they went to an Illinois K-12 school with 70% of students receiving free or reduced lunch and a 3-year average teacher vacancy rate or vacancy number at or above the state level. Students who receive the scholarship will be expected to teach at public schools where the rate or number of teacher vacancies is at or above the statewide average to fulfill their teacher requirement.

The changes make Illinois one of several states that have amended initiatives meant to help people of color and other underserved groups to avoid being targeted by the Trump administration’s anti-DEI — or diversity, equity, and inclusion — push.

The Pacific Legal Foundation, the conservative group that brought the lawsuit against the scholarship program on behalf of the American Alliance for Equal Rights, sees the changes as “positive.”

“Our whole goal was to eliminate these kinds of racial qualifications for grants from the government,” said Samantha Romero-Drew, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation. “We’re pleased to see that Illinois changed this law so that it’s open to everyone.”

Despite rolling back the scholarship for aspiring teachers of color, Illinois lawmakers say they want to continue efforts to diversify the teacher workforce, which is 78.9% white, according to the Illinois State Board of Education’s 2025 report card. But they also want to protect the state from lawsuits from the federal government.

“It’s not us conceding. It is ensuring that the resources that are going to those who need it the most does not stop,” said House Rep. Maurice West, a Democrat representing Rockford and chief sponsor of HB 3065.

He added that he was worried that fighting the lawsuit would prevent students from accessing scholarship funds. The state paused the program in August 2025 as a result of the lawsuit.

A spokesperson from the governor’s office said he remains “fully committed in our efforts to build a teacher pool that better reflects the varied backgrounds and experiences of the people of our great state as well as our work to uplift historically marginalized communities throughout Illinois.”

Teaching scholarship now open to all

The Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship was created in 1992 to support students of color who want to become educators in Illinois schools. In recent years, the scholarship program offered up to $7,500 a year to help students pay for tuition, room and board, and other fees. Upon graduation, students were expected to work full-time at an Illinois school with at least 30% of students of color.

The scholarship was originally meant to help place teachers of color in classrooms with students of color. According to the Illinois 2025 Report Card, about 78% of Illinois teachers are white, while 6.3% are Black, 8.9% are Latino, and 2.1% are Asian American.

By contrast, white students make up 44% of students enrolled in public schools, while 16.3% are Black, 28.6% are Latino, and 5.7% are Asian American.

Research shows that having a teacher of color improves outcomes for all students regardless of race. Students, regardless of race, who had a teacher of color had an increase in reading and math scores and were less likely to be chronically absent, according to a working paper in 2021 from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University.

Rep. Laura Faver Dias, a Democrat who represents communities in Northern Illinois and was a co-sponsor of HB 3065, believes changing the language and eligibility requirements for the Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship was “practical and necessary” because of attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at schools from conservative groups and the federal government.

The scholarship is a “real casualty of the current atmosphere that we’re in,” Faver Dias said.

“It is a lack of acknowledgement of the role that systemic racism and inequity has had that has led to a teacher of color shortage,” said Faver Dias. “When we change how people are eligible for it, we change what we’re acknowledging and what we’re willing to tell the truth about our history.”

Under the new law, scholarship recipients must be enrolled in a teacher preparation program in Illinois. The Illinois Student Assistance Commission said in an email to Chalkbeat that it will publish a list of districts and schools that meet the requirements for students interested in the program and for students who have to complete their teaching requirement.

The commission noted that students who have received the scholarship in the past and are trying to renew their grants will have to apply to the new Teachers of Illinois Scholarship. A spokesperson said they could roll out an application by the end of this year or early next year.

Illinois joins other states in changing diversity scholarships

Illinois joins other states, such as Missouri and Wisconsin, that have made changes to state-funded higher education scholarships in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University and University of North Carolina, which struck down race-conscious language in admissions policies.

In 2023, the University of Missouri system said it would no longer offer scholarships that consider race and ethnicity, a month after the state’s former Attorney General Andrew Bailey wrote a letter calling on colleges and universities to adopt criteria for scholarship excluding race and ethnicity.

Wisconsin’s Supreme Court is set to hear a case about that state’s Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant Program, a scholarship program created to serve Black, Latino, Native American, and Southeast Asian students from Laos, Cambodia, or Vietnam who immigrated to the U.S. after 1975, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. This comes after an appellate court ruled earlier this year that the scholarship program violated the constitution because it discriminated on the basis of race.

Wisconsin’s state-funded scholarship had been challenged in court by a family in 2021 as reported by Wisconsin Public Radio, prior to the Students for Fair Admissions Supreme Court ruling and Trump’s second term.

Cedric Merlin Powell, associate dean for academic affairs and professor of law at the Howard University School of Law, says states and institutions have taken the Supreme Court’s decision as a sign to erase anything that mentions race and argues that it is an overreaction.

While he understands that states and institutions are trying to be proactive, he said, “they’re actually neutralizing and limiting a broader way of approaches that they can look at that still considers the whole person.”

Samantha Smylie is the state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago covering school districts across the state, legislation, special education and the state board of education. Contact Samantha at ssmylie@chalkbeat.org.

Former middle school dean who objected to book removals sues Elizabeth School District

2025-12-01T22:55:46+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

A former middle school administrator in the Elizabeth School District filed a lawsuit Sunday against the rural Colorado district, alleging that she was fired after she objected to the removal of 19 titles from school libraries last year.

LeEllen Condry, who served as dean of students at Elizabeth Middle School, said she was terminated after three months because she’s “a Black woman who dared to speak out against the discriminatory book ban,” according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed in federal district court, alleges that the school district violated Condry’s free speech rights and discriminated against her based on race and sex.

Elizabeth Superintendent Dan Snowberger said in an emailed statement Monday, “The district intends to defend itself in court, and the facts will show that the individual’s employment ended because she failed to take the steps to secure the necessary licensure for the position, and because the position was one of several eliminated for cost-saving reasons during a fiscal exigency.”

Condry’s lawsuit is the second filed against the 2,700-student district southeast of Denver relating to the removal of books from school libraries in 2024. Two students, a chapter of the NAACP, and an authors group, all represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, sued the district over the removals a year ago. That lawsuit prompted the district to place pop-up ads on its website inviting visitors to donate to help cover the district’s legal fees.

The controversy over the books, which are back on school library shelves while the ACLU case is pending, began in the fall of 2024 when the district in conservative-leaning Elbert County decided to pull 19 titles from school libraries because of content school board members deemed inappropriate, overly graphic, or highly sensitive.

The removed books are primarily by or about LGBTQ people, people of color, or both. They include “The Bluest Eye” and “Beloved,” both by Toni Morrison, “The Hate U Give,” by Angie Thomas, and “You Should See Me in a Crown,” by Leah Johnson. All three authors are Black and their books feature Black characters.

In August 2024, the Elizabeth district asked staff to provide “solutions-focused” feedback to the school board about the potential book removals. Condry wrote to the board, saying the removals would be unethical and racist, according to the lawsuit.

On Aug. 27, Snowberger, one of the defendants named in Condry’s suit, wrote in a letter to district employees, “[s]adly, some staff members did seem to misunderstand the request [for feedback] and somehow felt the request was an opening for harsh feedback to the Board on their decision,” according to the lawsuit.

He said feedback that called the actions of the Board “racist” “crossed the lines of professional and ethical behavior,” according to the suit.

Condry was terminated on Oct. 1, 2024, three months into her 12-month contract with the district.

In response to previous questions from Chalkbeat, Snowberger said by email in February that Condry’s termination was part of a “Reduction in Force involving several staff members and which was compelled by a Fiscal Exigency” — a term for financial problems. At that time, he didn’t mention that Condry failed to take steps to secure the required licensure for her position.

The district’s financial problems, which led to about $500,000 in overspending, were caused by a well failure, a water tower repair, fire alarm fixes, and a large legal settlement, among other things, district officials said at a September 2024 board meeting. The board president said the legal settlement was related to a three-year-old case at Elizabeth High School, but didn’t provide additional details.

To help avert a deficit, the school board cut Condry and several other employees. They included a technology employee, a courier, a maintenance employee, a health tech, and transportation employees, Snowberger said at an October 2024 meeting.

Condry’s lawsuit alleges that the district hired a middle school employee in November 2024 who informally performed the duties that Condry had performed as dean. That employee was officially promoted to the dean position in July 2025, according to the lawsuit

The fact that the school district hired the employee “into the same role that had been occupied by Ms. Condry demonstrates the falsity of its asserted budgetary reasons as a legitimate justification for having fired Ms. Condry,” the lawsuit states.

In January, Condry filed a civil rights complaint over her firing with both the state and federal government. Her lawyer Andy McNulty said the complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Colorado Civil Rights Division were the first step before filing a lawsuit. He said by email on Monday that the Colorado Civil Rights Division had issued a “right to sue” notice in Condry’s case.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Memphis parents say district is leaving deaf students behind

2025-11-12T19:46:01+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Some Memphis parents say the local school district is failing to provide adequate resources including full-time sign language interpreters for deaf and hard of hearing students.

Four Memphis-Shelby County schools — Sea Isle Elementary and White Station Elementary, Middle, and High — have classrooms specifically designed to teach deaf and hard of hearing students. Around 100 MSCS students attend those schools for targeted support, representing close to 60% of the district’s deaf and hard of hearing population.

But at an Oct. 28 board meeting, a handful of Sea Isle parents and community members said the school has no full-time interpreters or teachers fluent in American Sign Language on staff, which hinders student learning. The group also said MSCS’ deaf education programs lack sufficient funding and district oversight on classroom outcomes and academic materials.

“They don’t have functional, equally equipped facilities for visual queues and closed captions, and they’re not training the staff,” Kiera McGhee Ross, an MSCS parent who is deaf and volunteers at Sea Isle, signed in an interview after the meeting with Chalkbeat Tennessee.

“It’s destroying the children the most,” she said. “They can’t write; they don’t know sign.”

MSCS leaders said in an emailed statement that there are five ASL interpreters in the district, but a lack of national and local certification opportunities makes it difficult to hire more. Barriers to certification and issues like low pay and burnout have contributed to a nationwide shortage of ASL interpreters in health care and education.

“The standard of teaching, curriculum, engagement, inclusivity, and care for students in our deaf program has not changed,” the statement said.

MSCS doesn’t track how much it spends on deaf education at individual schools. But in an emailed statement, MSCS leaders said the district invests around $1.6 million each year in deaf education services, an amount that has “remained stable” over the past decade.

Nationwide, students who are deaf or hard of hearing graduate from high school at a lower rate than their hearing peers and are less likely to pursue postsecondary education. The most effective teaching practices for deaf students are still widely unknown. But recent studies show that ASL fluency is a key predictor of academic and social emotional success.

MSCS declined to answer questions about the number of deaf and hard of hearing teachers on staff or how hearing teachers effectively communicate with students who are deaf. It’s unclear how often the five ASL interpreters are present in each school building.

McGhee Ross said that means students are also missing out on learning about deaf culture.

“The most important thing is to have language,” she said.

MSCS leaders are hosting a community meeting at 5 p.m. Monday, Nov. 17 in White Station High School to “seek growth opportunities” for students in the deaf and hard of hearing program. McGhee Ross said she and other Sea Isle parents plan to push for more answers there.

Correction: A previous version of this story stated that McGhee Ross is a parent of a student at Sea Isle.

Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis Public Schools changes Office of Racial Equity amid national backlash to DEI

2025-10-29T21:15:20+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news.

Indianapolis Public Schools has changed its Office of Racial Equity into the Office of Strategic Excellence amid increasing pressure on schools to abandon diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

The racial equity office, which opened in 2015, guided the district as it has tried to solve longstanding inequities in urban districts nationwide. Those include the disproportionate suspension of students of color and gaps in academic performance. Those challenges are amplified in a highly diverse district where over one-third of students are Black and over one-third are Hispanic, according to state enrollment records.

The transition was meant to ensure “that every student has what they need to be successful, regardless of their identity,” the district said in a statement Wednesday.

Although equity has been a cornerstone of Superintendent Aleesia Johnson’s tenure, the under-the-radar change comes amid a backlash to equity initiatives locally and nationwide. President Donald Trump in January threatened to withhold federal education funds from schools that teach what the administration called “discriminatory equity ideology,” a directive Indiana complied with. Gov. Mike Braun also signed an executive order this year targeting initiatives and spending related to DEI.

Patricia Payne, who led the Office of Racial Equity as a longstanding IPS employee and advocate for educational equity, now leads the Office of Strategic Excellence with the support of two other employees, the district said. At least one previously worked in the Office of Racial Equity. The district has also removed references to the Office of Racial Equity from its website.

“This office continues to organize longstanding events like the Spirit of Freedom and the MLK Celebration in addition to providing support to our schools and staff in creating excellent learning environments for all students,” the district said.

The racial equity office held annual racial equity summits and staff training sessions — including a two-day intensive equity school workshop led by the Racial Equity Institute, according to presentations given to the school board. But due to a lack of funding, the district said the partnership with the institute has ended and those racial equity trainings are no longer offered.

After the murder of George Floyd prompted a nationwide racial reckoning in 2020, the office also helped present a board policy acknowledging the impact that the city’s historical racism and segregation has on students today. The policy, which is still listed as a board policy online, also commits the district to eliminating opportunity gaps between subgroups of students while disrupting “institutionally racist” structures and policies in IPS.

But Indiana Republicans have recently embraced Trump’s vigorous opposition to DEI. In addition to Braun’s executive order, Attorney General Todd Rokita launched the Eyes on Education portal in 2024 that encourages residents to report divisive ideology in schools. Districts highlighted in the portal said at the time that it contained outdated, inaccurate, or incomplete information.

IPS is listed in the portal with an accompanying screenshot of an email from the Office of Racial Equity inviting employees to join affinity groups based on shared identity such as race, religion, or gender.

The district did not respond to questions about these documents in the portal.

Equity is a guiding principle in the district’s Rebuilding Stronger plan, which seeks to stabilize IPS enrollment and finances while also providing more educational opportunities to students of color.

Racial equity was also a component of the district’s 2025 Strategic Plan, which sought to lower suspension rates for Black students with disabilities and eliminate the gap in test scores between Black and Hispanic students in IPS and those students across the state.

Regina Turner, co-chair of the education committee for the greater Indianapolis branch of the NAACP, said the district is in the best position to determine the work it does and who should do it.

But she said the NAACP’s goal of advocating for the best education for all children all of the time — including children of color — will not change no matter who is in charge.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani’s opponents want to grow NYC’s gifted programs. Attracting students isn’t easy.

2025-10-17T16:54:51+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

When mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani reiterated his intention in Thursday night’s debate to eliminate gifted programs for the city’s youngest students, his opponents quickly shot back with promises to move in the opposite direction.

Curtis Sliwa and Andrew Cuomo pledged to open up more gifted classes.

“We don’t have enough slots,” said Sliwa, the Republican nominee, who pledged to double the size of the kindergarten program.

Cuomo, the former New York governor running as an independent, touted his plan to expand gifted and talented programs.

Meanwhile, a group of state and city lawmakers are hoping to go even further, introducing legislation last week that would force the Education Department to scale up gifted classrooms across the city.

But funneling more students into gifted classrooms, which disproportionately enroll white and Asian American students, might be easier said than done.

Three years ago, Mayor Eric Adams made a similar pledge to expand accelerated learning opportunities. The city opened dozens of gifted programs in underserved areas, with 38 schools hosting new gifted programs for rising third graders and eight more programs for kindergarteners, which has historically been the main entry point, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of Education Department data.

Supporters of gifted programs argue these classes help keep families in the public school system. Yet the overall number of students formally admitted to gifted programs citywide fell by more than 1,000 between 2019 and 2023, the Chalkbeat analysis found.

To fill empty seats, schools have moved students to gifted classrooms even if their families didn’t apply, more than offsetting the decline. With those students included in the total, nearly 18,000 students, about 5% of elementary students, were enrolled in gifted classes last year, an increase of about 2,000 children since 2019, department officials said.

New programs are slow to gain traction with families

According to city data, 44 of the schools offering the program — around a third of the citywide total — had fewer than 18 students enrolled in at least one of their gifted classes last year. Over half those schools were newer programs, Chalkbeat’s analysis found.

Experts and educators point to several factors that have made it difficult to grow the program through the formal admissions process. Many families don’t know gifted tracks are available. Another major reason: The third grade entry point adds logistical hurdles for families.

“It’s harder for parents to make a decision to change schools in third grade because of friendships, because of siblings, because of convenience and location reasons,” said Allison Roda, an associate professor at Molloy College who has studied the city’s gifted program.

An Education Department spokesperson said the agency has tried to make it easier for families to learn about and apply to gifted programs by making it part of the regular kindergarten application process.

Adams argued it is fairer to assess students for gifted programs after they’ve had a few years of formal schooling, and experts have criticized the city’s practice of tracking students at age 4, which few other school districts do. Mamdani has indicated he plans to keep the program starting for third graders.

It can take time for schools with new gifted offerings to establish enough of a reputation to attract applicants from other communities, Roda said, noting that some white families have expressed reluctance to accept a gifted seat if it means switching to a school that is predominantly Black and Latino.

About 62% of students in gifted classrooms are white or Asian American, even as they represent just 35% of the public school system as a whole. And while more Black and Latino students are now enrolling in gifted programs, they continue to be vastly underrepresented.

P.S. 279 in Crown Heights opened a gifted program starting in third grade in recent years, but had only admitted nine students as of 2023, according to city data. Outside the school on a recent weekday, several parents said they had no idea the program existed.

Caesar Ashley, a parent at the school, said his daughter was placed in the program last year even though the family never applied.

“If you do good on your work,” his fourth grader said, “they’ll put you in the class.”

Typically, second graders in the top 10% of their school based on report card grades are eligible for gifted programs that begin in third grade. In the wake of the pandemic, city officials eliminated an admissions test for kindergarten gifted programs and now rely on nominations from prekindergarten teachers.

Schools are allowed to move students into gifted classrooms without an application as long as they use “academic criteria,” a department spokesperson said.

Some principals may be reluctant to encourage their students to enroll in gifted programs elsewhere, because school budgets are directly tied to student enrollment. If a student leaves and isn’t replaced, that means fewer dollars for art, music, and afterschool programs.

Underenrolled gifted programs end up costing the city more. Schools usually cover the costs of gifted classes from their own budgets, which are based on student headcount. But for schools without enough students enrolled in gifted classes to cover the cost of a full-time teacher, the city chips in to make up the difference, paying out roughly $2.9 million to 44 schools last year.

Research on whether gifted programs benefit students who attend is limited, though one study focused on New York City found the programs can meaningfully boost reading and math scores, particularly among Black and Latino children. The Education Department’s own research on that question is less conclusive.

Families may not see clear benefits to sending their students to gifted programs, which sometimes move at a faster pace but often use the same curriculum as traditional classrooms, said Roda, who has interviewed numerous families about gifted programming.

“There’s skepticism among parents about what is actually different,” she said.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

This Colorado district was sued after removing library books. It’s fundraising for legal fees.

2025-10-15T23:02:02+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

The first thing visitors to the Elizabeth School District website see is a pop-up window with an unusual message: an invitation to help cover legal fees incurred in a lawsuit over library book removals.

The appeal by the 2,700-student district southeast of Denver is part of a broader effort supported by at least three conservative groups, including one led by former Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl, to raise money to defend the district against the lawsuit.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado filed suit against the district in December alleging that the Elizabeth school board’s vote to remove 19 books from school libraries violates federal and state free speech protections. The books, which are now back on shelves because of a court order, are primarily by or about LGBTQ people, people of color, or both.

While school district fundraisers for things like classroom supplies or field trips are common, asking parents and the public for money to pay lawyers is not. The heading on the donation page hosted by Ganahl’s group reads “Save Elizabeth School District,” with buttons underneath suggesting donations ranging from $250 to $10,000.

A conservative news outlet, Rocky Mountain Voice, is running a fundraising page for the district's legal costs.

It isn’t clear from publicly posted district financial records how much the Elizabeth School District has spent on the library book lawsuit. District officials declined to answer that question.

The plaintiffs in the case include two district students, a chapter of the NAACP, and the Authors Guild, a professional organization for writers. Their lawyers argue that the removal of the books violates federal and state free speech protections. Among the titles removed were “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, and “It’s Your World — If You Don’t Like It, Change It” by Mikki Halpin.

Lawyers for the district argue that the books were removed because of concerns they weren’t age-appropriate, lacked educational value, and included sensitive content such as graphic violence, explicit sexual references, extreme drug or alcohol use, and self harm ideation.

Elizabeth Superintendent Dan Snowberger declined a telephone interview with Chalkbeat, but wrote in a text that the district’s finances are sound and that the lawsuit’s genesis is what’s unusual about the situation.

“It’s unusual for a behemoth organization like the ACLU with a major financial war chest to come after a small rural district,” he wrote. “We will not allow them to impact the educational opportunities for our children in the district, and will do everything necessary to mobilize outside forces to protect our children.”

The Elizabeth School District has portrayed its legal fight against the ACLU as a David and Goliath story. On social media and in board meetings, some community members have supported the district’s decision to remove the books and its fight against the lawsuit. A common objection to the books is that some passages are too graphic for students, such as those that describe sexual assaults.

A pop-up window tells visitors to the Elizabeth district website how they can donate to cover legal fees.

Other community members oppose both the book removals and the fundraising campaign.

Jessica Capsel, an Elizabeth resident whose son attended school in the district until she switched him out last year, said she believes the time and money district officials are spending on the lawsuit are distracting them from educating kids.

“That pop up [window] begging for money pops up every time you change a page” on the district’s website, said Capsel, who won a lawsuit against the district over open meeting violations last spring but is not directly involved in the library book lawsuit. “So clearly that’s where their priority has been.”

Tim Macdonald, legal director of the ACLU of Colorado, said by email that the organization didn’t “come after” Elizabeth. Instead, he said, district students and families wanted the district to comply with the Constitution and stop banning books that have content or viewpoints with which board members disagree.

“Fighting for the constitutional rights of students in Colorado is how we protect children; violating their constitutional rights is not protecting children,” he wrote.

Elizabeth’s legal costs and fundraiser totals are opaque

It’s unclear how much money the Elizabeth district has spent fighting the book removal lawsuit in the 10 months since it was filed.

Financial records on the district’s website suggest modest spending on the two primary law firms representing the district. Only about $6,500 was paid to First and Fourteenth, which has a location in Colorado Springs, and nothing was paid to Mitchell Law, located in Austin, Texas, during the first six months of 2025.

The district spent about $57,000 in that same period on a third firm, Miller, Farmer, Carlson Law. That firm typically handles routine matters for the district but is also listed in court documents as representing the district in the book removal case.

It’s also unclear much money has been raised to cover legal fees for the district’s lawsuit and where that money is going.

Ganahl, whose conservative news outlet Rocky Mountain Voice is running the online donation page titled “Save Elizabeth School District,” didn’t respond to Chalkbeat questions about how much her group has raised and whether the money is being sent to the school district.

She sent a statement that said in part, “Our fundraising assistance supports the board in exercising its authority to curate age-appropriate library content, responding to parental concerns about sensitive themes like explicit content or divisive topics.”

Julian Ellis, one of the district’s lawyers from First and Fourteenth Law, also didn’t respond to emailed questions about how much money he’s collected. The district’s website lists Ellis as the person designated to receive paper checks — payable to an Alexandria, Virginia, group called the Article III Foundation — to help cover the district’s legal costs.

Lori Gimelshteyn, executive director of the parents rights group Parents United America, which hosts an online donation page for Elizabeth’s legal costs, didn’t respond to Chalkbeat questions about how much her group raised and where the money is going.

A fourth partner in the Elizabeth district’s legal fee fundraising effort is Citizens Defending Freedom, based in Mulberry, Florida. The group last Thursday held a “Protect Our Children” fundraiser for Elizabeth at a Colorado Springs church, with the ticket proceeds going to Ganahl’s group. A flyer circulating on Facebook said the cost ranged from $100 for a single ticket to $2,000 for the “platinum” package, which included 10 tickets, VIP seating, and a private reception with the four speakers.

A spokesperson for Citizens Defending Freedom referred a question from Chalkbeat about fundraising totals to Bonnie Wallace, one of the event speakers. Wallace, a legislative liaison for Recovering America, an organization that promotes Biblical values in public policy, did not respond to multiple emails from Chalkbeat.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

The fall of affirmative action still fuels debates over race and education. Here’s why.

2025-09-16T16:55:46+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

Two years after the Supreme Court ended affirmative action as America knew it, the decision has become the cornerstone of the Trump administration’s legal argument against nearly any effort to promote diversity in education.

In a new book, legal scholar Justin Driver tries to set the record straight about what Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard does and does not mean.

Checking off a box to indicate your race? No. Looking at an applicant’s name or photo to guess their race? Also no.

But giving admissions preferences to the descendants of slaves, immigrants, enrolled tribal members, or kids who come from disadvantaged schools and neighborhoods? That’s all fair game in Driver’s book, “The Fall of Affirmative Action.”

“A major reason that uncertainty engulfs the SFFA decision is the Trump administration’s efforts to distort what the decision actually means,” said Driver, a professor at Yale Law School. “The Trump administration has contended that universities are prohibited from taking steps to improve racial diversity on campus, even when they do not use express racial classifications of individual students. That’s not something that SFFA v. Harvard forbids.”

Trump administration officials have said the ruling applies to K-12 schools, not just colleges, and that it extends beyond admissions to hiring, scholarships, prizes, support for students, discipline, graduation ceremonies, and “all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life.”

A federal judge blocked the administration from applying that interpretation. But the head of the Justice Department recently issued similar guidance stating that racially neutral strategies, such as considering a child’s ZIP code, are unlawful proxies if they’re used to boost racial diversity. (Even before SFFA, K-12 schools could not consider the race of an individual child for the purposes of school desegregation, but courts have permitted that kind of geographic targeting.)

Education Secretary Linda McMahon told colleges last month they now have to report the race of all applicants and admitted students, along with grades and test scores, to prove they aren’t using racial preferences. The administration has also sought to bar universities from using any “identity-based preferences” and opened an investigation into a selective Virginia high school over its admissions policies, even after the Supreme Court let them stand.

All of that has the very real effect of confusing kids of color who aspire to attend highly selective colleges, Driver writes. He points to the experience of Demar Goodman, a Black student from Atlanta who set his sights on attending Harvard. After the Students for Fair Admissions decision, the teen decided it wasn’t worth applying. And he changed the topic of his personal essay from how he overcame the challenges of attending an underfunded school to why he collects flag pins.

Since the ruling, Black and Hispanic enrollment has fallen at many top colleges, as has the share who are admitted.

“Universities, in my view, should investigate every constitutionally permissible means that they can use to make sure that they do not have a paucity of Black and brown students,” Driver said. “This nation is confronting grave problems today. Too many Black students at fancy colleges is not among them.”

Chalkbeat spoke with Driver about how the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia would view today’s affirmative action debates, the parallels between the Students for Fair Admissions decision and a major ruling on K-12 desegregation efforts, and why colleges shouldn’t give up on diversifying their student bodies.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

You draw attention to how jurists like Antonin Scalia have explicitly said that if a program just happens to benefit Black students, but its goal is actually to lift up low-income or disadvantaged kids, they don’t have a problem with that. Why do you think those arguments have gotten lost in the conversations we’re having now about what constitutes an ‘illegal proxy’ for race?

Justice Scalia is not my favorite justice of all time, but he is, in my estimation, the most influential justice of the last five decades. President Trump has said he wishes to appoint justices in the mold of Scalia. One of the things that I’m attempting to do is to remind people of this passage from this major figure in American constitutional thought [that] has been overlooked from his days as a law professor.

He can be understood to be fleshing out what Chief Justice Roberts’ SFFA opinion says: What’s forbidden is race qua race, race for the sake of race. Justice Scalia says, when he’s writing decades earlier: If universities are attempting to court students from, say, low-income backgrounds, if those students who benefit end up all being Black, that is constitutionally permissible, because it’s not treating people with race qua race.

The Trump administration says if universities decide to get rid of, say, standardized testing with an eye toward increasing racial diversity, that’s forbidden. Justice Scalia has written things that vehemently disagree with that.

What do you think the legacy of SFFA is so far for the K-12 level?

I found it quite noteworthy that in the wake of SFFA, the Supreme Court declined to hear a lawsuit involving Thomas Jefferson High School in northern Virginia. It seems to me that was an indication that the Supreme Court did not want to get further enmeshed in this business of race and admissions anytime soon.

I do think that one way to understand SFFA is that it brings the court’s jurisprudence involving higher education and what we might call lower education into harmony. The Parents Involved case from 2007 can be understood as also now applying to higher education.

The Parents Involved opinion was really a fight about the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education. Louisville and Seattle did, in some instances, take account of the race of individual students with an eye toward promoting racial integration. Because if you simply assign students to the local schools, the persistence of residential segregation would prevent the schools from reflecting the diversity of the areas. The Supreme Court invalidated that measure.

But Justice Kennedy, writing the controlling opinion, says that while racially classifying individual students is forbidden, nothing prohibits school districts from drawing district boundaries with an eye toward promoting integration, nothing prohibits them from deciding where to build a school within a city with an eye toward promoting racial integration. Justice Kennedy expressly says color blindness is not required in all instances.

And that’s where we are with respect to SFFA v. Harvard, which says that students can write essays about their encounters with racial discrimination. And there are other approaches that would court students from low-income backgrounds that would not violate the Constitution of the United States. That’s an underappreciated aspect of this decision.

Some think, in this political moment, colleges should just keep their heads down, not draw attention to themselves with new policies that aim to diversify their student bodies. You say you think that that’s a mistake. Why is that?

I get that college administrators are in a very difficult position. The Trump administration is being difficult.

However, these institutions have a responsibility to stand up for their core principles and should not permit a misinterpretation of a Supreme Court opinion to mandate the composition of their student bodies. That is fundamentally a matter of university autonomy and academic freedom.

Just because the Trump administration wishes that the SFFA decision went further than it did, that does not succeed in making the Trump administration’s vision the law of the land.

We are in the midst of seeing — or perhaps more accurately, not seeing — a lost generation of Black students on elite college campuses. The consequences of that decline are going to be felt throughout American society for generations to come. What starts on college campuses doesn’t remain there.

Universities have an entire panoply of options that are open to them that do not violate the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. At universities that have suffered these staggering declines in Black enrollment, we should understand those declines for what they are: a choice.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Plenty of schools have no-zeroes policies. And most teachers hate it, a new survey finds

2025-08-20T04:01:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

About one in four teachers say their schools don’t give students zeroes. And nearly all of them hate it.

The collection of practices known as equitable grading, which includes not giving students zeroes, not taking off points for lateness, and letting students retake tests, has spread in the aftermath of the pandemic. But it wasn’t known how widespread the practices were.

A new nationally representative survey released Wednesday finds equitable grading practices are fairly common, though nowhere near universal. More than half of K-12 teachers said their school or district used at least one equitable grading practice.

The most common practice — and the one that drew the most heated opposition in the fall 2024 survey — is not giving students zeroes for missing assignments or failed tests. Just over a quarter of teachers said their school or district has a no-zeroes policy.

Around 3 in 10 teachers said their school or district allowed students to retake tests without penalty, and a similar share said they did not deduct points when students turned in work late. About 1 in 10 teachers said they were not permitted to factor class participation or homework into students’ final grades.

Only 6% of teachers said their school used four or more equitable grading practices.

That was surprising to Adam Tyner, who co-authored the new report for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank, in partnership with the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization. He expected more schools would be following a “whole package” of grading reforms supported by advocates like former teacher and education consultant Joe Feldman, who wrote the influential book “Grading for Equity.”

“It’s not like this has swept the country,” said Tyner, who has studied grading practices. He argues that some policies meant to create equity lead to grade inflation and don’t benefit students.

The findings come as many schools are rethinking what students should have to do to get a high school diploma, and how much emphasis should be put on grades. At the same time, many schools continue to struggle with student disengagement and historically high rates of absenteeism following the pandemic. As a result, they’re trying to hold students accountable for their work without making it impossible to catch up on missed assignments.

Though ideas about how to grade students more fairly predate the pandemic, several large districts started rethinking their grading practices following that disruption, as more students struggled to meet strict deadlines or do their homework.

Proponents of equitable grading say it’s important for students to be able to show what they know over time, and that just a few zeroes averaged into a grade can make it difficult for students to ever catch up. When students don’t see a path to passing a class, it can make them less motivated or stop trying altogether.

Still, some teachers have pushed back, arguing that no-zeroes policies can hurt student motivation, too.

That showed up in the recent survey.

Eight in 10 teachers said giving students partial credit for assignments they didn’t turn in was harmful to student engagement. Opposition to no-zeroes policies came from teachers of various racial backgrounds, experience levels, and who worked with different demographics of students.

No-zeroes policies can take various forms but often mean that the lowest possible grade is a 50 on a 100-point scale. Some schools use software that will automatically convert lower grades to a 50, one teacher wrote on the survey.

Schools that enrolled mostly students of color were more likely to have no-zeroes policies, the survey found. And middle schools were more likely than high schools and elementary schools to have no-zeroes policies, no-late-penalty policies, and retake policies.

Researchers weren’t sure why those policies popped up more in middle schools.

But Katherine Holden, a former middle school principal in Oregon’s Ashland School District who trains school districts on equitable grading practices, has some guesses.

High schools may be more worried that changing their grading practices will make it harder for students to get into college, Holden said — a misconception in her eyes. And districts may see middle schoolers as especially likely to benefit from things like clear grading rubrics and multiple chances to show what they know, as they are still developing their organization and time-management skills.

In the open-ended section of the survey, several teachers expressed concerns that no-zeroes policies were unfair and contributed to low student motivation.

“Students are now doing below-average work or no work at all and are walking out with a C or B,” one teacher told researchers.

“Most teachers can’t stand the ‘gifty fifty,’” said another.

More than half of teachers said letting students turn in work late without any penalty was harmful to student engagement.

“[The policy] removes the incentive for students to ever turn work in on time, and then it becomes difficult to pass back graded work because of cheating,” one teacher said.

But teachers were more evenly divided on whether allowing students to retake tests was harmful or not.

“Allowing retakes without penalty encourages a growth mindset, but it also promotes avoidance and procrastination,” one teacher said.

Another said teachers end up grading almost every assignment more than once because students have no reason to give their best effort the first time.

The report’s authors recommend getting rid of blanket policies in favor of letting individual teachers make those calls. Research has shown that other grading reforms, such as grading written assignments anonymously or using grading rubrics, can reduce bias.

Still, teachers don’t agree on the best approach to grading. In the survey, 58% of teachers said it was more important to have clear schoolwide policies to ensure fair student grading — though the question didn’t indicate what that policy should look like — while the rest preferred using their professional judgment.

“There are ways to combat bias, there are ways to make grading more fair, and we’re not against any of that,” Tyner said. “What we’re really concerned about is when we’re lowering standards, or lowering expectations. … Accountability is always a balancing act.”

Nicole Paxton, the principal of Mountain Vista Community School, a K-8 school in Colorado’s Harrison School District 2, has seen that balancing act in action.

Her district adopted a policy a few years ago that requires teachers to grade students on a 50-100 scale. Students get at least a 50% if they turn in work, but they get a “missing” grade if they don’t do the assignment. Middle and high schoolers are allowed to make up missing or incomplete assignments. But it has to be done within the same quarter, and teachers can deduct up to 10% for late assignments.

Paxton thinks the policy was the right move for her district. She says she’s seen it motivate kids who are struggling to keep trying, when before they stopped doing their work because they didn’t think they could ever bounce back from a few zeroes.

“As adults, in the real world, we get to show what we know and learn in our careers,” Paxton said. “And I think that kids are able to do that in our building, too.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Rural Colorado district takes aim at LGBTQ policy protections, seeks to join trans athlete lawsuit

2025-07-17T23:40:21+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

A rural school district in southwest Colorado on Tuesday removed nondiscrimination policy protections for LGBTQ people, following a Trump administration push to eliminate such safeguards.

The school board in the conservative-leaning Montezuma-Cortez district unanimously approved changes removing references to “sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression” from the policy. Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the board introduced a policy that would ban transgender students from joining school sports that match their gender identity — one that could permanently replace an emergency version adopted by the board in June.

Such moves are growing more common in school districts around the country, spurred by new federal policies and a charged political environment that’s elevating culture war issues to the top of the agenda in some communities. Montezuma-Cortez, along with two other Colorado districts, three charter schools, and a Board of Cooperative Educational Services are now seeking to join a lawsuit over the issue of transgender student athletes.

District 49 in the Colorado Springs area spearheaded the lawsuit in May, suing the state and the Colorado High School Activities Association over policies that allow transgender youth to play on school sports teams that match their gender identity.

Court documents filed Tuesday indicate that the Montezuma-Cortez, Academy 20, and Colorado Springs 11 districts, along with Monument Academy, The Classical Academy, James Irwin Charter Schools, and Education ReEnvisioned BOCES, have asked to join as plaintiffs.

Sherri Wright, who represents western and southern Colorado on the State Board of Education and previously worked as a teacher in Cortez, weighed in against transgender girls on girls sports teams at the Montezuma-Cortez board meeting Tuesday.

“We do not need to endanger our girls,” she said, citing the possibility of injury if cisgender girls and transgender girls play sports together.

There’s no nationwide data showing the number of transgender girls who compete on girls teams at school or the number of injuries that occur in such situations.

Trump has targeted transgender rights since his first day in office, but many legal experts say his administration cannot, on its own, exclude transgender people from federal anti-discrimination law and that Colorado law, which includes protections for LGBTQ people, supersedes school district policy anyway.

Still, they say efforts to remove LGBTQ protections at the local level send harmful messages about who is valued and deserves protection from discrimination.

At a May school board meeting in Montezuma-Cortez, board member Mike Lynch said the policy change was needed because of Trump’s threats to withhold funding from schools that “support certain previously protected classes like sexual orientation, gender expression, or gender identity.” He later clarified that Trump has not threatened to withhold funding over protections based on sexual orientation. Still, the term wasn’t restored to the policy.

Lynch, who chairs the district committee that drafted the new nondiscrimination policy, said not every group must be explicitly named in the policy to have protection from discrimination.

Noting that the policy talks about unlawful discrimination, he said, “If it is unlawful to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, then the policy covers it.”

The policy adopted Tuesday now cites 10 instead of 13 protected characteristics in a section prohibiting harassment. The 10 include disability, race, creed, color, sex, marital status, national origin, religion, ancestry, or need for special education services.

Some community members objected to the nondiscrimination policy changes.

Emily Christenson, a parent in the 2,400-student district, said even though Colorado law contains protections based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, including the terms in school district policy is important.

“You may feel … that it’s redundant to list them there, but to remove only some of the protected classes from your policy clearly states that you condone harassment inflicted upon these groups of our community,” she said.

Cayce Hamerschlag, who spoke about both the nondiscrimination policy and the transgender student athlete policy, said the board is choosing to deny rights to some students with no legal requirement to do so.

“In the spirit of transparency,” she told the board, “perhaps you should change your slogan from ‘Every Student. Every Day.’ to ‘Certain Students. Some Days.’”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Money for Indiana after-school programs, professional development in limbo after Trump freeze

2025-07-03T17:43:01+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news.

An estimated $107 million in federal funds to support after-school programs, academic enrichment, English language learners, and more in Indiana are in limbo following a decision by the Trump administration to withhold the funding as it completes a program review.

States expected to receive more than $7 billion in federal K-12 education funding on July 1, but were told on Monday that the applications were still under review. The pause is part of an ongoing push by the Trump administration to ensure that no federal funds are flowing to programs that support what it describes as illegal diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

On Thursday, Indiana education officials said in a weekly newsletter that additional information “will be shared with schools as we know more about these allocations.” The department reiterated the statement in response to questions from Chalkbeat.

In a statement announcing the pause to states, the U.S. Department of Education said “decisions have not yet been made concerning submissions and awards for this upcoming academic year.”

Funding could have an impact this school year

Indiana has already taken steps to verify that the state’s schools do not engage in diversity, equity and inclusion practices in order to preserve federal funding.

It’s not clear yet how the latest decision by the administration will affect Indiana, where students return to schools as early as July 24.

The allocations for the affected programs in the 2025-26 school year, as approved by Congress in March, were expected to stay the same as in the previous year. Here’s what they totaled in 2024-25:

$41.2 million for Title II-A, which supports professional development for teachers and administrators;
$20.7 million for Title IV-A, which supports academic enrichment and can include STEM, music, and arts education, technology access, as well as programs to prevent bullying and abuse;
$19.9 million for Title IV-B, which is for before- and after-school care programs known as 21st Century Community Learning Centers;
$12.8 million for adult basic and literacy education;
$10.1 million for Title III-A, which supports English learner programs; and
$2.5 million for migrant education

The announcement blindsided out-of-school care providers, which were counting on the funds being released in order to hire staff and prepare for the upcoming school year, said Brent Wake, senior vice president of engagement for the Indiana Afterschool Network.

The 21st Century Community Learning Centers serve 20,000 students in 200 communities in Indiana, Wake said. Many offer free or low-cost care, which includes academic enrichment, homework help, and social emotional learning.

“We’re taking programs that work and removing necessary funding and saying ‘good luck,’” Wake said.

If the funds are not released quickly, some providers may face decisions about cutting staff or hours, or eliminating programs for the upcoming school year, Wake said. Others may need to close their doors.

The Title IV-B grant is the largest source of dedicated funding for before- and after-school programs, Wake said. The centers may be supplemented by private donations, tuition charged to families, or the state’s two childcare assistance programs — the Child Care and Development Fund and On My Way Pre-K. Both state programs currently have waitlists.

Wake said providers had been preparing to advocate to preserve a dedicated funding stream for 21st Century Community Learning Centers in the 2026-27 budget, which sought to consolidate many federal grant programs into block funding for states.

Indiana agreed to strip DEI, racial and ethnic studies to save funding

This is not the first time this year that federal education funding has been at risk over concerns that programs it funds do not align with the new administration’s goals.

In April, the Department of Education told states that in order to receive federal funding, they must certify that their schools do not engage in diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Indiana education officials said they would comply.

During this year’s legislative session, lawmakers also stripped state requirements related to racial and ethnic studies electives, citing a request by the Indiana Department of Education amid concerns that the state could risk losing its federal funding.

The state previously required high schools to offer one semester of a racial or ethnic studies class each school year, but did not require students to take it.

Republican lawmakers said during the session that $1 billion in federal funding was at risk if lawmakers did not remove the course requirement. Democrats pushed back on the change.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Amid Trump’s funding threats, a rural school district looks to remove LGBTQ policy protections

2025-06-09T20:58:46+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

Citing President Trump’s threat to cut off federal education funding for school districts that provide protections for LGBTQ people, school board members in the Montezuma-Cortez district in southwestern Colorado are poised to remove sexual orientation and gender identity from the district’s nondiscrimination policy.

“Our district uses federal grant monies and Trump has indicated those grants are at risk if any district continues to support certain previously protected classes like sexual orientation, gender expression, or gender identity,” Mike Lynch, a school board member and the policy committee chair, said at a board meeting late last month.

The proposed policy changes in Montezuma-Cortez represent just one example of how some Colorado school districts are rushing to comply — or over-comply — with federal ultimatums based on questionable legal foundations. Many legal experts say the Trump administration cannot, on its own, exclude transgender people from federal anti-discrimination law and that Colorado law, which includes protections for LGBTQ people, supersedes school district policy anyway.

But efforts to remove protections at the local level send harmful messages about who is valued and who isn’t, they say.

“I think it does damage to queer students because it signals that this school district … doesn’t believe that these students are worthy of protection,” Scott Skinner-Thompson, associate professor of law at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Montezuma-Cortez, a conservative-leaning district with about 2,400 students, has taken other steps to curtail LGBTQ symbols and school activities in recent years. The school board is scheduled to take a final vote on the proposed nondiscrimination policy on June 24.

MB McAfee, a retired social worker and district resident, said she doesn’t know of any case where federal funds were withheld by the Trump administration, but worries about that possibility, particularly when it comes to money for students with disabilities.

But she’s also angry about the proposed policy changes, calling them “another step toward exclusion.”

“If we do that,” she asked, “then what’s going to be next?”

School districts react to funding threats

Trump has targeted transgender rights since his first day in office. In January and February, he issued several executive orders on the topic, including one that describes sex as determined at conception and unchangeable and another that threatens to withhold federal funds from schools that allow transgender girls to play girls sports.

The Trump administration has moved to strip federal funding from Maine because that state allows transgender girls to compete on girls’ teams. A judge blocked the federal government from withholding school lunch money while the case continues.

So far, no school district has lost money because of policies protecting transgender students. But Lynch emphasized that risk when he explained the proposed policy revision to the school board in May.

Asked by Chalkbeat what executive order or federal guidance required the removal of “sexual orientation” from the policy, Lynch later said by email that he’d mistakenly cited the term when he spoke to the board about federal dollars being in jeopardy.

For now though, “sexual orientation” isn’t being restored to the policy, he said.

Montezuma-Cortez isn’t alone in making changes spurred by the Trump administration. Officials from several Colorado districts, including Woodland Park and District 49 near Colorado Springs, have cited Trump’s executive orders in pushing policy changes or other efforts aimed at revoking protections for transgender students.

In May, District 49 sued the state and the Colorado High School Activities Association arguing that Colorado law and the association’s policy violate students’ constitutional rights by allowing transgender youth to play on school sports teams that match their gender identity.

Montezuma-Cortez school board members had little to say about the implications of the proposed nondiscrimination policy changes.

Asked about the legal or practical implications, Lynch said he’s not an attorney and doesn’t know. School board President Sheri Noyes did not respond to Chalkbeat’s request for comment. Vice President Ed Rice declined to respond to specific questions from Chalkbeat, saying by email that the policy’s opening sentence “answers everything.”

As proposed, that sentence says, “The Board is committed to providing a learning and work environment where all members of the school community are treated with dignity and respect.” The current version of the policy says “safe learning and work environment” but the revision takes out the word “safe.”

Lynch said the district’s policy committee wrote the revised policy, but he declined to reveal who else is on the committee, except to say it includes two district staff members, two community members, and one teacher.

The proposed policy change also adopts language directly from a February Dear Colleague letter in which the U.S. Department of Education said many common practices under the umbrella of diversity, equity, and inclusion are actually discriminatory. Federal judges have temporarily blocked implementation of the guidance laid out in the letter.

The new district policy bars the consideration of race in all aspects of student, academic, and campus life, including scholarships. However, Lynch said that programs for Indigenous students are not subject to the ban on race-based programs.

A fraught history on LGBTQ protections

In recent years, the Montezuma-Cortez district has taken aim at a variety of LGBTQ-friendly policies and practices.

In February 2021, school board member Lance McDaniel was recalled after an uproar over his weekly donation of pizza to a middle school “Rainbow Club,” a lunchtime gathering for LGBTQ students and allies. Prior to the community vote, social media blew up with accusations that McDaniel was a “groomer” and “pedophile,” according to a story from Rocky Mountain PBS.

A month before McDaniel was recalled, LGBTQ pride flags were removed from the middle school classroom of a staff member who sponsored the Rainbow Club. The building principal said such “inflammatory icons” couldn’t be displayed in common spaces.

By the fall of 2021, the school board had passed a policy restricting clubs not officially sponsored by the school, including the Rainbow Club, from meeting during lunchtime — effectively ending the group’s run.

This April, four district officials were among more than 60 education officials from across the state to sign onto a letter demanding that the Colorado High School Activities Association adopt rules “to ensure that boys are not permitted to compete as girls in girls’ sports.” The Montezuma-Cortez signers were Lynch, Noyes, Superintendent Tom Burris, and Assistant Superintendent Eddie Ramirez.

McDaniel said he’s not surprised by the board’s move to change the nondiscrimination policy given its recent history

As for the rationale that the district could lose federal funding if it doesn’t change its policies, he said, “I think it’s a bunch of crap.”

“You can’t really say anything definitive about what Trump or his administration will do,” he said. “I see a lot of people in a lot of organizations bending their knee to acquiesce to his desires.”

McDaniel knows a portion of the community supports the board’s decisions, but said there’s growing opposition, both because of issues like the nondiscrimination policy and a spate of controversial teacher reassignments and departures, among other things.

Why executive orders aren’t the final word

Legal experts say Trump’s pledge to pull federal funding from districts that don’t comply with his executive orders or other policy demands is overblown.

“They’re doing a lot of saber rattling,” but the administration’s power to cut funding to school districts is limited, said Skinner-Thompson, of University of Colorado Boulder.

“Funding termination is a remedy of last resort,” he said. “To bring an enforcement action, the federal authorities are supposed to engage in negotiations, conciliation, and then, and only then, terminate funding.”

In addition, Skinner-Thompson said the administration’s interpretation of Title IX — its legal rationale for some executive orders threatening to withhold education funding — is flawed.

Title IX is a 1972 civil rights law that banned discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs and activities. The law does not define sex and the courts generally have interpreted it to also ban discrimination based on sex stereotypes and extended protections to LGBTQ people.

“Title IX prohibits sex discrimination, and several federal courts … have concluded that the federal statutory prohibitions on sex discrimination include protections for sexual minorities,” he said.

He acknowledged some disagreement in the courts about transgender rights, but said it will ultimately be judges, not the president, who decide how to interpret the law.

“People have been reacting to the executive orders like it’s the final word, but that’s not the case,” he said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Virginia high school admissions policies target of Trump Education Department probe

2025-05-22T22:12:06+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

The federal departments of Education and Justice are investigating whether changes to the admissions policy at a prestigious Virginia high school violated the civil rights of Asian American students, even though the U.S. Supreme Court already let the updated admissions policy stand.

The investigation comes after the Virginia Attorney General’s Office said its own investigation found “reasonable cause” to believe bias against Asian American students motivated the changes at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, and referred the case to federal authorities.

Under President Donald Trump, the Education Department has warned school districts that even race-neutral policies that aim to diversify magnet schools and honors programs could amount to illegal discrimination, despite court rulings that have repeatedly upheld such policies.

Many school systems with selective high schools are in the midst of ongoing debate about how students should qualify for those schools.

This is the first civil rights investigation during the second Trump administration to look specifically at high school admissions. Other cases have targeted mentorship programs for students of color and antiracist teacher training that federal officials say invoked racial stereotypes as the Trump administration tries to root out common practices associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Fairfax County Public Schools changed the admissions criteria for the school, commonly known as TJ, in 2020 with the goal of creating a more diverse student body.

The 1,800-student school draws from five area school districts and often sends students on to elite colleges and successful careers. In the years before the change, the student body typically was more than two-thirds Asian American. Most students came from just a few middle schools. Very few Black and Latino students attended the school.

The district dropped the use of standardized test scores, incorporated “experience factors” into the admissions process, and reserved seats for students from each middle school in the area. Parents, many of whom were Asian American, organized as the Coalition for TJ and sued the district over the changes, but the Supreme Court declined to take the case in early 2024. That seemed to be the end of the matter.

But this week Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican, said a two-year investigation had found evidence that anti-Asian American bias had motivated the policy change. Miyares said school board members in private communications described the policies as having “an anti asian feel” and that the changes would “kick out Asians.”

After the policy change, Asian American students went from 73% of admitted students to 54%, the attorney general’s office said. The share of white, Black, and Latino students all increased. The study body is currently about 60% Asian American, 20% white, 7% Latino, and 5.5% Black.

The attorney general’s office did not release a full report that would provide more context for board member comments and told Chalkbeat to obtain it from the school district. The school district said it would consider the request but did not immediately share the report. Coalition for TJ also alleged in its lawsuit that the school district was biased against Asian American students, but the court did not find that the policy change violated equal protection requirements.

Miyares referred the case to the federal Justice and Education departments, which announced they would open Title VI investigations into the district. Title VI protects students from discrimination on the basis of race or shared ancestry.

“Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax County has long had a reputation for producing some of our nation’s brightest minds, due in no small part to its rigorous admissions process,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement announcing the investigation. “The Fairfax County School Board’s alleged decision to weigh race in TJ’s admissions decisions appears to be both contrary to the law and to the fundamental principle that students should be evaluated on their merit, not the color of their skin.”

A spokesperson for Fairfax County Public Schools said the district was reviewing documents related to the investigation and would have a more detailed response in a few days.

“This matter has already been fully litigated,” the district said. “A federal appellate court determined there was no merit to arguments that the admissions policy for Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology discriminates against any group of students.”

Admissions policy changes are contested ground

Yuyan Chou, a member of Coalition for TJ, told local TV station WUSA9 that the federal investigation gives parents new hope.

“The Supreme Court decided basically not to hear our case and at that point, I thought the American dream died,” she said. “There’s no path forward, there’s nothing going to happen again until today. I believe there is a chance we can revive that dream.”

Chris Kieser, a senior attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented Coalition for TJ and regularly brings lawsuits opposing affirmative action, said he was pleased to see the federal government take another look at the case.

“We certainly think there are grounds to investigate,” he said. Just because the Supreme Court didn’t take up the case “doesn’t mean there were no issues.”

Kieser said the Pacific Legal Foundation continues to hope that the Supreme Court will take up a high school admissions case. Policies that aim to diversify selective high schools often end up discriminating against Asian American students, Kieser said, and the fact that those student continue to gain admittance at high rates under revised policies doesn’t mean they don’t discriminate against individual students.

Derek Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, said civil rights investigations can apply a different standard in seeking to protect students than the Supreme Court did in declining to hear the case. But the Education Department’s interpretation of the law appears to be in direct violation of court rulings.

“They have no legal authority to enforce Title VI in a way that is inconsistent with the law,” he said. “If TJ is willing to stand up for itself, it will have to challenge the administration in court. And this is what has been going on all over the country.”

Civil rights investigations often result in negotiated settlements in which school districts agree to make certain changes. The federal government also has the power to withhold federal funds to penalize school districts. Historically that hasn’t happened. But under Trump, the federal government has used its civil rights enforcement powers more aggressively in an effort to get states and school districts to comply with its interpretations of the law.

Black said the department appears to be applying disparate impact theory — a type of legal analysis that looks at whether certain policies affect certain groups in disproportionate ways — to a high school admissions policy just weeks after Trump signed an executive order barring the use of disparate impact theory.

The administration would need a “smoking gun” that showed bias against Asian American students to conclude that the district violated those students’ civil rights, Black said.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica atemeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

The gender gap in math is back. The pandemic isn’t the only reason.

2025-05-13T06:51:06+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

Girls had closed long-standing gender gaps in math test scores and were doing about as well as boys on standardized tests in the years leading up to the pandemic.

But the gender gap in math has come roaring back. And according to a new analysis from the testing and research organization NWEA, girls seem to have fallen further behind since students returned to in-person school.

NWEA also found that fewer girls were enrolling in algebra in eighth grade than before the pandemic. Because taking algebra in eighth grade sets students up to take calculus by the end of high school, it’s an important indicator of whether students will be able to pursue STEM fields in college and beyond.

The finding comes as most American students still have not recovered from the effects of disrupted pandemic learning and as the federal government is pulling back its support for research, particularly research that focuses on disparities.

The analysis draws from eighth grade scores on major international and national tests coupled with data from two million students who took NWEA’s MAP Growth Assessment.

The gender gap returned on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, or TIMSS, a test given every four years in 64 countries, and on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, a test often referred to as the nation’s report card.

Among eighth graders who took NWEA’s assessments, boys did better than girls in math.

“All these indicators that we’re seeing across these different tests, they’re giving flashing warning signs that there’s something big happening here,” said Megan Kuhfield, director of growth modeling and analytics at NWEA and lead author of the report.

A Wall Street Journal analysis of state test scores found similar trends.

NWEA’s analysis can’t explain why this is happening. Researchers and educators have tended to focus on the ways the pandemic affected girls differently than boys. Girls’ mental health suffered more, and older girls especially took on more responsibility at home, doing housework or caring for siblings when schools were closed.

“When I first started looking at this, I thought, ‘Well, COVID changed everything,’” Kuhfeld said. “When we started digging into it, the fact that the gaps really started to widen from 2022 to 2024 more so than from 2019 to 2022, made that theory less strong to me.”

By 2022, most students were back in school. And girls continue to outperform boys in reading.

“Maybe it’s less about these global impacts on girls’ mental health and more about the classroom dynamics with students and teachers,” Kuhfeld said.

NWEA found that the math gender gap was more pronounced for higher performing students, with boys scoring much higher than girls on average. Among the lowest performing students, girls did better than boys in both reading and math.

“There needs to be a focus in middle school on making sure girls who are potentially interested in science and math get support to stay on those trajectories,” she said. “At the same time, we can’t lose sight of the boys at the bottom who are struggling.”

Research has found that teachers tend to judge math mistakes more harshly among girls and students of color and are more likely to attribute those students’ errors to lack of innate ability. Teachers who believed that gender inequality was no longer a problem were especially likely to penalize female students’ work.

“What we are finding over and over again is that when there is a mistake, when the answer is not fully correct, teachers assume that girls don’t have the math ability, or they are less capable than boys,” said Yasemin Copur-Gencturk, an associate professor of teacher education at the University of Southern California who has studied bias in teacher perceptions. “So girls could be receiving more implicit messages about not belonging in math classrooms, or they don’t have the capacity to do the work.”

Copur-Gencturk, who was not involved in the NWEA study, said it’s frustrating to see the gender gap return, but she’s glad to see data highlighting the issue. “That could be the problem and the solution, to raise awareness that it is not a done deal,” she said.

At the same time, she’s concerned that deep cuts to federal education research, and in particular to studies that touch on issues such as implicit bias and gender, mean there will be less information about what works going forward.

Algebra enrollment could be a warning sign

Kuhfeld worries that today’s gaps will grow over time. NWEA also found that fewer girls are taking eighth grade algebra than before the pandemic, which could mean fewer girls pursuing STEM majors in college. Last year, 24% of eighth grade boys and girls enrolled in algebra in the schools NWEA surveyed, but before the pandemic, 26% of girls took algebra in middle school. Boys’ participation has stayed steady.

Last year’s eighth graders were in fourth grade when schools closed in spring 2020. The years when they should have mastered foundational skills like fractions — critical to understanding algebra — were deeply disrupted.

“Eighth grade achievement is a lagging indicator for elementary school math,” Kuhfeld said. “It might mean that they’re not as prepared academically. Absent of COVID and these big changes, there’s a whole class of girls who might have been academically prepared who were routed out of these things.”

Enrollment in eighth grade algebra has been declining for years, said Elizabeth Huffaker, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education and author of a brief on algebra access and placement. Curriculum changes saw more algebra content incorporated into middle school integrated math courses, making it harder to move some students ahead earlier. And “algebra for all” policies have not had the results advocates hoped for.

Girls’ absolute decline in algebra enrollment is small, and other surveys find slightly higher enrollment. But Huffaker said the decline should serve as a warning sign, especially when coupled with test score declines that defy easy explanation.

States such as Texas and North Carolina have statewide initiatives to use test scores to place students in eighth grade algebra, she said. Historically such policies have helped more girls take algebra early, but if girls now are doing worse on tests, they could have the opposite effect.

Huffaker said she would not have predicted that the pandemic would have led to widening gaps between girls and boys, and the trend deserves more investigation.

Schools should consider multiple ways of determining whether students are ready for algebra, not just test scores, she said. Tutoring and summer programs could help some students who are close to qualifying be more prepared for algebra.

But ultimately, Huffaker said, the best way to improve test scores and algebra readiness for all students, including girls, would be to make sure they learn math well in elementary and early middle school.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Books banned in Elizabeth school district are back on library shelves — for now

2025-05-02T21:33:44+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

Nine months after being removed, 18 banned books were returned to library shelves in Colorado’s Elizabeth school district this week, following a federal judge’s order.

While the lawsuit over the books’ removal by the school board has yet to be resolved, the books will be available to students for the time being.

The return of the books, which include titles like “Beloved” and “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison and “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, came after months of resistance from district officials, who were originally ordered to return the books to school libraries by March 25.

They staved off the order twice, but on Monday the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals endorsed Judge Charlotte Sweeney’s earlier order to return the books. On Thursday, Sweeney ordered the district to confirm by Friday at noon that the books had been returned. The district did so by filing a court document certifying its compliance.

The saga of the banned books, which are primarily by or about LGBTQ people, people of color, or both, began last summer when the district in conservative-leaning Elbert County decided to pull 19 books from library shelves because of content school board members deemed “disgusting” or otherwise inappropriate.

One of the books, “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson, was part of the library collection, but had been checked out and never returned. The title wasn’t among the books returned to library shelves this week, according to the district’s Friday legal filing.

In December, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the district, arguing the book removals violated federal and state free speech protections. The plaintiffs in the case include two district students, a chapter of the NAACP, and the Authors Guild, a professional organization for writers.

Since the lawsuit was filed, much legal energy has been spent on the question of whether the books should be available to students while the lawsuit proceeds. District officials have argued against that, and, in fact, threw out the books after removing them.

Elizabeth officials did eventually bring the books back to the district after a local donor provided paperback copies of the removed titles. That donor, Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Lopez, stipulated that only plaintiffs in the case, not the general student body, could have access to the books. That donation appeared to be part of a legal strategy that allowed the district to argue that it wasn’t violating the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights as the lawsuit claimed, since the books were available to them.

A law firm affiliated with the ACLU case also donated a set of the removed books to the district, but the school board rejected all but one book. They agreed to keep “#Pride: Championing LGBTQ Rights,” but decided it would remain in Superintendent Dan Snowberger’s possession, rather than go on library shelves.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

States sue Trump Education Department to defend school diversity efforts

2025-04-25T22:51:21+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

A coalition of Democrat-led states is suing the U.S. Department of Education to block its demand that states certify compliance with the Trump administration’s position that many common diversity practices represent illegal discrimination.

The Education Department had given states until Thursday to sign a document certifying they comply with federal anti-discrimination requirements and with the administration’s interpretation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. The decision barred the use of race in college admissions, and under President Donald Trump, the Education Department has said that means that a range of common practices associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, could be illegal.

States that don’t comply could lose their federal funding.

The lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts asks the federal courts to declare the certification requirement null and void and find that states have no duty to comply or investigate whether school districts have complied.

Led by New York Attorney General Letitia James and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, the lawsuit calls the administration’s interpretation of the law “new, vague, confusing, and incorrect.” The states, which include California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, and others, further allege that the Education Department has not clearly described what actions or practices it wants to stop and that the department is pressuring schools to end practices that are actually necessary to protect students’ civil rights. Meanwhile, billions of dollars are at stake.

The lawsuit describes the certification requirement as “subjective and illegal punishment for not acceding to an agenda to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion of any kind in schools — even though federal funding and civil rights statutes require public education to be open and welcoming to all regardless of protected characteristics, and inclusive and equitable, especially for those students who have disabilities and need accommodations.”

“The president does not have the authority to rewrite Congress’ allocation of these funds, any more than he can rewrite the clear directives of the Civil Rights Act,” Raoul told reporters on Friday. “This administration has consistently declined to define which diversity, equity, and inclusion practices it finds objectionable, or what the basis of its legal objections are. That’s because it can’t.”

The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment Friday afternoon.

The certification requirement is already on hold after judges issued injunctions in response to earlier lawsuits filed by national teachers unions and civil rights groups. Two of those lawsuits initially were brought to block enforcement of a February Dear Colleague letter in which the Education Department first laid out its new interpretation of civil rights law.

The judges in those cases each reached slightly different conclusions, blocking either the Dear Colleague letter or the certification requirement on different legal grounds, creating a legal patchwork that could be overturned on appeal.

California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, said the states’ lawsuit differed from others challenging the DEI certifications in a few key ways. The lawsuit spans a broader range of executive actions than those at issue in the other lawsuits. The lawsuit spans multiple jurisdictions. And the states’ legal claims, which involve spending, separation of powers, and appropriations, could end up being stronger, he said.

“We have different claims, that we think are very strong claims, and could be the winning claims,” Bonta said. “We also, as states, have a separate, strong, and unique interest in ensuring that these billions of dollars in Congressionally mandated education funds continue to flow.”

None of the attorneys general from California, Illinois, New York, nor Minnesota said they’d heard anything from the Department of Education since the deadline passed Thursday without their states filing certifications.

“This silence speaks for itself,” James said.

The lawsuit is just one of several that the states have filed seeking to block the Trump administration from pursuing its education agenda. Trump has signed executive orders aiming to dismantle the federal Education Department, expand school choice, and remove “woke” influences from schools. He has repeatedly threatened schools with the loss of federal funding.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon oversaw layoffs and buyouts that reduced the size of the Education Department by half, and she abruptly stopped distribution of remaining COVID relief dollars that states and school districts had been granted permission to spend.

During a Friday court hearing in a separate case contesting mass layoffs at the Education Department, U.S. District Judge Myong J. Joun peppered the government’s lawyer with questions about the administration’s position that the staff reductions should not be subject to a legal challenge.

The states challenging the layoffs say that the Education Department is so diminished it cannot provide basic services, enforce civil rights protections, and distribute funding to school districts — functions that are required by law and can only be undone by Congress.

After the government’s lawyer argued that the plaintiffs were seeking to act “as chief human resources officer for the Department of Education” by forcing the administration to rehire workers, Joun offered an analogy. Imagine walking into a Dunkin’ Donuts and there’s no one behind the counter, the Massachusetts judge said.

“I don’t think the plaintiffs are saying that Dunkin’ Donuts should hire these […] employees back,” said Joun, who has not yet issued a decision. “I think what they’re saying is they want their cup of coffee.”

Chalkbeat reporter Alex Zimmerman contributed reporting.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Trump Education Department efforts to get DEI out of schools hit roadblock

2025-04-24T23:28:36+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

The Trump administration’s efforts to use its civil rights authority to root out practices associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion from American schools are on hold after judges issued temporary injunctions in response to three lawsuits.

The injunctions come the same day that the U.S. Department of Education had set as a deadline for states to certify compliance with the Trump administration’s contested interpretation of civil rights law — or risk their federal funding.

Taken together, the injunctions block the Trump administration from penalizing states that don’t sign the certification document and from enforcing civil rights guidance from a February Dear Colleague letter in which the Education Department first laid out its new interpretation.

The injunctions also delay what had been a looming standoff between the Education Department and more than a dozen states that had refused to sign the certification. Leaders in those states said they already comply with civil rights law and that the administration’s demands were too vague and may not even be legal.

The Education Department did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Typically the Trump administration has appealed preliminary injunctions, with occasional success. The administration has also pushed back against nationwide injunctions, such as judges issued in two of the three lawsuits, and asked the courts to grant more limited relief just to the groups that sued.

“Today’s decision affirms what we have always known: this administration’s attempts to censor schools, teachers, educators, colleges, and universities is unlawful,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, an advocacy group that represented the American Federation of Teachers in one of the lawsuits, said in a statement. “The nationwide injunction will pause at least part of the chaos the Trump administration is unleashing in classrooms and learning communities throughout the country.”

Trump escalates attacks on DEI in schools

President Donald Trump came into office pledging to remove “woke” from American classrooms. He signed an executive order banning schools from teaching DEI, while defining it as “discriminatory equity ideology.” What that meant became clearer when the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights issued a Dear Colleague letter in February that described how officials intended to interpret and enforce federal anti-discrimination requirements.

The letter pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard, which banned the use of race in college admissions. That decision, the letter said, means practices such as trying to recruit more teachers of color or diversify magnet school enrollment could also represent illegal discrimination.

The letter also warned schools about the use of race-neutral criteria that were adopted with the aim to increase racial diversity. Classroom instruction or training programs that asked participants to consider how race shaped their perspective or that suggested some groups might carry a greater moral burden could also be a problem, if they created a hostile environment for some participants.

Many legal experts say the administration’s interpretation goes well beyond established law.

On April 3, the U.S. Department of Education told state education agencies that they must certify they are in compliance with the administration’s interpretation of federal civil rights law.

States that don’t sign will lose their federal funding, including Title I dollars that provide critical resources for high-poverty schools, the department said.

The Trump administration has signaled that states should take its threats to withhold funding seriously. In an unprecedented move, the Education Department is moving to strip K-12 aid from Maine following an investigation under Title IX — the federal law banning sex discrimination in education — into the state’s policy for transgender athletes.

Nonetheless, at least 16 states, most of them led by Democrats, already have said they do not intend to sign. Another 16 states and the territory of Puerto Rico have signed the letter, according to a tracker maintained by Education Week. Some school districts are changing their practices in response. For example, one Indiana school district ended a program giving contracting preferences to minority-owned and local businesses.

In two lawsuits by national teachers unions originally filed against the Dear Colleague letter, educators said the new guidance was so vague that it was nearly impossible to tell what was and wasn’t allowed. They also said the guidance goes against established law and decades of civil rights precedent. Those lawsuits were later expanded to ask courts to block the certification requirement.

In a third lawsuit representing parents and students, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund said the Dear Colleague letter and certification requirement put pressure on schools to back away from obligations to better serve Black students that they had never fully met in the first place. They pointed to an Iowa school district that had withdrawn students from an African American reading event as just one example.

U.S. District Court Judge Landya McCafferty issued the first preliminary injunction Thursday in response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the National Education Association, its New Hampshire chapter, and the Center for Black Educator Development.

McCafferty declined to block the Trump administration’s enforcement efforts nationwide. Rather, the injunction blocks the Education Department from withholding federal funds from any school district or other government entity that employs teachers represented by the NEA or associated with the Center for Black Educator Development, a training and advocacy organization. The NEA says it has about 3 million members.

“Today’s ruling allows educators and schools to continue to be guided by what’s best for students, not by the threat of illegal restrictions and punishment,” NEA President Becky Pringle said in a statement.

Shortly afterward, U.S. District Court Judge Stephanie Gallagher issued a separate order in a lawsuit brought on behalf of the American Federation of Teachers, the other national teachers union, its Maryland chapter, and an Oregon school district. Gallagher said the Education Department did not follow proper procedures in developing new civil rights rules.

The February Dear Colleague letter about civil rights enforcement represented a substantial enough change, Gallagher wrote, that it should have gone through a more formal process that allowed for public feedback.

In the third case, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich issued a nationwide injunction against the certification requirement but declined to issue an injunction against the Dear Colleague letter. Friedrich did not think issuing the letter violated any procedural requirements, and she said the federal courts couldn’t prevent school districts from changing their policies in response to the new administration.

But she did find that the new guidance was so vague and the consequences for violating it so significant as to be potentially unconstitutional.

The differing decisions and reasoning are representative of the confusing legal landscape that has developed since Trump took office.

Nonetheless, Allison Scharfstein, an attorney with the Legal Defense Fund, said she felt confident that the “patchwork of relief” would block the Education Department from pursuing its new approach to enforcement while the lawsuits continue.

This story has been updated throughout with an additional judicial decision and more background information.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Trump signs orders to promote stricter school discipline, end analysis of racial disparities

2025-04-24T00:10:54+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

President Donald Trump signed executive orders Wednesday that aim to promote stricter school discipline and discourage schools from considering whether discipline policies have a greater impact on students of color.

The executive orders target civil rights guidance from the Obama administration that Trump revoked during his first administration and Biden never formally restored. Some school leaders, teachers, and conservative education advocates blamed the Obama-era guidance for deteriorating safety conditions in schools, alleging that administrators let bad behavior slide rather than risk additional scrutiny.

The most recent federal data, from the 2021-22 school year, shows students report fewer assaults and less harassment and bullying than they did a decade ago. Still, a rise in school shootings along with viral videos of vicious assaults have fueled fears about school safety. Two-thirds of schools reported at least one violent incident on campus in the 2021-22 school year.

Under former President Barack Obama, the Education Department warned schools that policies that led to students of certain racial groups being suspended or expelled at much higher rates could be discriminatory. In particular, Black students tend to be suspended at higher rates than other students.

This approach to civil rights enforcement is an example of disparate impact analysis, which considers whether ostensibly race-neutral policies affect certain racial or ethnic groups differently.

The executive orders ban the use of disparate impact analysis in civil rights enforcement and threaten schools with consequences if they use “racial discrimination and preferencing” in school discipline.

They were two of seven education-related executive orders that Trump signed Wednesday afternoon. Other orders encourage schools to train students to use artificial intelligence, pledge to expand apprenticeships, promote historically Black colleges and universities, and target the university accreditation process.

During the ceremony, Trump said the school discipline executive order was especially important to Education Secretary Linda McMahon and handed her the signed copy to hold.

“Under the Biden-Harris Administration, schools were forced to consider equity and inclusion when imposing discipline,” McMahon said in a statement. “Their policies placed racial equity quotas over student safety — encouraging schools to turn a blind eye to poor or violent behavior in the name of inclusion.”

“Disciplinary decisions,” she wrote, “should be based solely on students’ behavior and actions.”

The school discipline order requires federal officials to issue new guidance to state education agencies and school districts. It also calls for federal officials to author a report analyzing “DEI-based school discipline and its consequences” with strategies for how the federal government can ensure its dollars do not support “racially preferential policies” such as model school discipline policies.

The report should include information about the status of “discriminatory-equity-ideology-based school discipline and behavior modification techniques in American public education,” the order says, as well as information about nonprofits promoting such approaches with support from federal grants.

The order does not call out particular practices, such as restorative justice, by name, and it is not clear what discipline practices federal officials might consider discriminatory.

Trump’s first education secretary, Betsy DeVos, rescinded the Obama-era guidance after much public debate and attempts to link less harsh school discipline to school shootings.

That guidance led students to be “disciplined differently depending on their race, and some students who should have been suspended or expelled for dangerous behavior remained in the classroom,” the Trump administration said in a fact sheet.

President Joe Biden promised to reinstate the Obama-era school discipline guidance on the campaign trail, but that never came to fruition. In 2022, his education secretary, Miguel Cardona, did call for reduced suspensions and expulsions for students with disabilities — and there is some overlap as Black children with disabilities are more likely to face harsher discipline at school — but his focus was less on race.

Still, the Trump administration said the Biden administration used Title VI, a civil rights law that prohibits racial discrimination in schools and other federally funded activities, “to promote a DEI approach to school discipline, which makes schools less safe.”

Trump was joined at the signing ceremony by Annette Albright, a North Carolina educator who suffered a concussion and other injuries in 2016 after she was assaulted by students who had recently returned to her school from an alternative school.

In the aftermath of the assault, Albright campaigned for stricter penalties and alternative educational settings for students with a record of behavioral problems. She said administrators sometimes cover up violent incidents to avoid making tough decisions or drawing scrutiny.

“This is very important and critical legislation that we have to keep our educators safe,” she said. “We have to keep our students safe, and public schools have to be safe environments.”

School discipline wasn’t a big issue for Trump on the campaign trail, though some Republican state lawmakers have pushed for stricter school discipline following the pandemic, sometimes with Democratic lawmakers’ support.

Many states and schools saw a dramatic drop in suspensions and expulsions when lots of students learned remotely or maintained physical distance from one another during the pandemic. But as students returned to in-person learning, often lacking social skills or with new trauma, some places saw an increase in students acting out.

The executive order banning disparate impact considerations would require U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to repeal or amend all civil rights regulations that take into account disparate impact. Where the law requires the consideration of disparate impact, agency heads should deprioritize enforcement.

A White House fact sheet says that looking at different impacts on different racial groups — rather than discriminatory intent — “violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment for all by requiring race-oriented policies and practices to rebalance outcomes along racial lines.”

This has been a major point of disagreement between progressives and conservatives when it comes to civil rights enforcement.

These orders come as the Trump administration is also pressuring schools to abandon policies related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The administration has demanded that states sign new certifications that they are complying with an interpretation of civil rights law that sees initiatives, such as trying to hire more teachers of color or offering mentorship to students of color as potentially discriminatory. Those that don’t sign risk their federal funding, administration officials have said.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Supreme Court to rule on right of religious parents to opt kids out of LGBTQ material

2025-04-18T01:05:20+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

When the devout Muslim parents of a second grader learned their son would be reading a story at school about a prince who falls in love with a knight, they asked to opt him out.

The story about a man who marries another man after they team up to vanquish a dragon went against their religious teachings, the parents said. They wanted an alternative assignment.

The book in question, “Prince & Knight,” was one of several books that Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools added to its English curriculum in 2022 as part of a district initiative to put more books featuring LGBTQ characters in elementary school classrooms.

At first, the second grader was allowed to sit outside the classroom during discussions of the book. But a few days later, the district’s school board decided parents could no longer opt their kids out, later citing the volume of opt-out requests. Teachers would also stop informing families when they used one of the LGBTQ-themed books in class.

Many parents spoke out against that decision. The second grader’s parents and other families sued Montgomery County Public Schools to reinstate the opt-out option. Two federal courts let the no opt-out policy stand. Now, the Supreme Court — with a conservative majority that’s likely to be sympathetic to the burgeoning parental rights movement — is set to weigh in. Oral arguments in the case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, are scheduled for Tuesday. A decision is expected by June.

At the heart of the case is a longstanding tension between the power of parents to direct their children’s education and the authority of public schools to set their own curriculum. The high court’s ruling could decide whether parents have the right to opt their children out of any content that they see as at odds with their faith — and how far schools must go to accommodate them.

The case comes as Democrat-led states such as New Jersey, Illinois, and California have adopted curriculum that’s more inclusive, especially on topics of gender and sexuality. Meanwhile, Republican-led states like Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana have passed new laws that give parents more insight into what their kids are learning and the ability to opt out of certain lessons.

If the Supreme Court sides with the school district and decides parents don’t have the religious right to opt out, some say that could open the door to schools adopting curriculum without much regard for parent or community feedback. The views of minority parents, especially, could be ignored.

If the parents prevail, some worry schools would remove certain content altogether to lessen the chances of opt-out requests. That would be a set-back for schools and families that support efforts like those in the Montgomery County district to make curriculum more inclusive.

A ruling for the parents also could upend school operations, some legal and education experts say. It could force already stressed teachers and principals to send notifications, devise alternative assignments, and catch kids up if they miss other content during an opt-out.

“Do you have all the parents list out all the things that they believe at the start of the year, so you know and can tailor what you teach?” said Morgan Polikoff, an education professor at the University of Southern California who’s studied Americans’ views on opt-out policies. “It’s not hard to see how it could spiral out of control really quickly and really undermine the ability of public schools to perform their basic core function: teaching kids.”

Case centers on religious rights, LGBTQ inclusion

Several Montgomery County parents said in court filings that exposing their kids to the new books at school violated their right to free exercise of religion, which is guaranteed by the First Amendment.

“Our son loves his teachers and implicitly trusts them,” wrote one second grader’s parents who follow Roman Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox teachings. “Having them teach principles about sexuality or gender identity that conflict with our religious beliefs significantly interferes with our ability to form his religious faith.”

Lawyers for the parents say the books’ positive portrayals of LGBTQ characters and themes indirectly pressure kids to adopt that thinking. But they say what their parents want is different than laws like Florida’s that bar teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation in certain grades.

“Our parents aren’t asking for an LGBTQ-free classroom,” said Colten Stanberry, one of the attorneys at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty who is representing the parents in the Supreme Court case. “They are not saying the books can’t be on the shelves. They are specifically challenging instruction,” such as reading the books in class and talking about them with teachers.

In a 2-1 ruling, a federal appeals court sided with the school district. Making kids read books that don’t align with their religious teachings is not a violation of families’ rights, they wrote, because they weren’t forced to change their beliefs or actions. Parents were still free to talk about the picture books with their children and teach them what they wanted, the judges wrote.

That interpretation follows how federal courts have ruled in other similar cases.

Montgomery County Public Schools officials have said they adopted the set of LGTBQ-inclusive books as part of a broader effort to make the district’s curriculum more culturally responsive with texts told from multiple viewpoints. The district is known for its racial, ethnic, and religious diversity, although that diversity hasn’t always equaled harmony.

Similar efforts, according to court documents, included the addition of books about the Black civil rights icon John Lewis and a novel about a Chinese-American immigrant family.

Teachers were expected to use the books as they would any other part of the curriculum. That could mean reading them aloud or putting them in classroom libraries, the district said in court filings.

The books were meant to teach critical reading skills and not for instruction explicitly about sexual orientation or gender identity, the district said.

In addition to “Prince & Knight,” the stories included “Pride Puppy!” an alphabet book for preschoolers and kindergartners about a dog that encounters various scenes at a Pride parade, and “My Rainbow,” in which a Black mother sews a colorful wig for her transgender daughter. And in “Love, Violet” a young girl worries about whether her same-sex crush will like the valentine she made her.

The children's book "Pride Puppy!" by Robin Stevenson follows a playful puppy through a Pride parade and the alphabet. Montgomery County Public Schools removed the book from classrooms after deciding it required instruction that went beyond a reading lesson.

The district also gave teachers guidance about how they could respond to potential questions or comments from students. If a student said being gay is wrong and not permitted in their religion, teachers could respond: “I understand that is what you believe, but not everyone believes that. We don’t have to understand or support a person’s identity to treat them with respect and kindness.”

In another instance, if a child asked about what it meant to be transgender, a teacher could say: “When we’re born, people make a guess about our gender and label us ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ based on our body parts. Sometimes they’re right and sometimes they’re wrong.”

Still, some parents and school leaders worried the books used unfamiliar words without defining them. Others questioned whether it was appropriate to show kids in romantic relationships, regardless of their sexual orientation. The district eventually pulled “Pride Puppy!” and “My Rainbow” from classrooms, the Washington Post reported, because kids may not have understood the texts without explicit instruction on vocabulary outside the bounds of the lesson.

“There’s reasonable discussions to be had about what’s age appropriate in curriculum,” Polikoff said. But, Polikoff, who is gay, said this case is more about: “Does acknowledging that gay people exist burden other people’s religious views? Where is the line here?”

How a ruling for the parents could affect schools

If the justices side with the parents in this case, it could give families “broad authority to request opt-outs along a wide array of different issues,” said Justin Driver, a constitutional law scholar and professor at Yale Law School.

If the teacher wants to give a pop quiz about a book most kids have read, they’d have to write a completely different test for kids who opted out, Driver said. Teachers could end up refereeing “dueling free exercise claims” from parents with opposing religious beliefs. Teachers would have to avoid stigmatizing children who’ve opted out, as well as children who see themselves in the content other kids are skipping.

Given past court decisions, it’s unlikely the justices would confine opt-outs to certain topics or student grade levels, Driver added.

“Just because some people may be uneasy with this sort of material today, it doesn’t mean that the federal judiciary should be commandeering local control over public schools,” said Driver, who co-authored a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Montgomery County Public Schools.

"Prince & Knight" by Daniel Haack tells the story of two men who battle a dragon and fall in love. Some Montgomery County parents objected to their kids reading about a gay relationship and marriage on religious grounds.

Glenn Branch, the deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, has seen how this can play out.

Sometimes it’s easy for teachers to come up with alternative assignments. When parents object to their kids dissecting animals, Branch said, teachers can swap in a plastic or virtual model.

But when religious parents object to their kids learning about evolution, there really isn’t a substitute, Branch said. Evolution comes up so many times in biology class — from learning about the structure of a cell to taxonomy to genetics — that teachers would need “revolving doors” for kids to cycle in and out. That would be disruptive for their classmates, too.

“It would be kind of like saying: ‘Well, we’re not going to do fractions,’ in a math course,” Branch said.

Lawsuit’s supporters: Opt-out right isn’t burden on schools

Lawyers and scholars in the parents’ camp, meanwhile, say giving parents the right to opt out of certain content on religious grounds wouldn’t dramatically change public education.

Nearly all states permit opt-outs for sex ed or lessons on human sexuality, they note. Texas permits parents to opt their kids out of lessons on any topic for religious or moral reasons.

“A lot of school districts are, in fact, already doing what the parents are asking for here,” said Stanberry, the parents’ attorney.

Douglas Laycock, a constitutional law scholar and law professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and the University of Texas, said he did not expect schools to be flooded with opt-out requests. Laycock, who co-authored a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the parents, added that the topics parents will likely object to are predictable: sex and evolution.

If students skip broad swaths of the curriculum, that shouldn’t come without consequences, he said. For example, a student could opt out of evolution lessons, he said, but then “you can’t get credit for biology.”

Still, he can imagine a scenario in which schools get overloaded with parents’ opt-out requests.

“If you have large numbers of people demanding alternative assignments for lots of different parts of the curriculum, at some point it’s going to become unworkable,” he said. But if parents’ requests are limited to a smaller piece of the curriculum, as he believes they were in Montgomery County, schools should be able to make that work.

The reason the school district got so many opt-out requests, he added, is because the curriculum was age-inappropriate and lacked broad community support.

Stanberry, too, could imagine another case in which the school district’s responsibility to educate children — especially in core subjects like reading and math — could trump a parent’s religious right to skip that content.

“When it comes to matters that are particularly sensitive to religion, especially matters of human sexuality, gender identity,” he said, “that’s a place where parents should get to decide.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

New Jersey says no to Trump anti-DEI push, questions feds’ power to withhold school funding

2025-04-18T00:23:56+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Newark’s free newsletter to get the latest news about the city’s public school system delivered to your inbox.

New Jersey’s education chief is standing firm against the Trump administration’s pressure to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion practices from K-12 schools.

In a Thursday letter to the administration, Education Commissioner Kevin Dehmer said the state would not certify to the U.S. Department of Education that it has ended DEI programs the federal government considers illegal under civil rights laws. Dehmer said that the state already complies with those laws.

Dehmer’s letter was a response to an April 3 request from the Trump administration for states to certify that they’ve removed such DEI programs. The federal Education Department said that states that didn’t sign the certification would lose federal education funding.

Cutting off federal funding, specifically Title I funds, would disproportionately impact high-poverty districts — including Newark — that rely heavily on those funds to fill gaps in their budgets. Roughly $1.2 billion in federal funding is at stake for New Jersey schools, including $77 million that goes to Newark Public Schools.

In his letter, Dehmer also aimed to cast doubt on the administration’s authority to withhold federal funds on the basis of refusing to submit the certification it requested.

New Jersey Education Commissioner Kevin Dehmer said in a letter to the federal Education Department on Thursday that the state wouldn't give into the Trump administration's anti-DEI push.

Dehmer also wrote that while the administration’s request “references ‘certain DEI practices’ or ‘illegal DEI,’ it does not define those terms, and there are no known federal or New Jersey state laws prohibiting diversity, equity, or inclusion.”

New Jersey and its school districts already “fully comply with all state and federal laws and to provide protections that empower all students to realize their full potential,” Dehmer said in a statement that followed release of the letter.

Dehmer’s letter echoed what many other Democratic-led states like Pennsylvania, Illinois, and New York have said in their responses to the administration — that they’re already in compliance with civil rights laws without bowing to the Trump administration’s push against DEI. States have also questioned the legal basis for the certification request.

The administration initially gave a 10-day deadline for states to respond but then extended that deadline to April 24.

The state education department, Dehmer noted in his letter, already certified that it’s in compliance with Title VI — the section of federal law that bans discrimination on the basis of race or shared ancestry — as part of its Every Student Succeeds Act Consolidated State Plan, which outlines how a state implements federal education laws.

Additionally, Dehmer stated, local school districts certify that they’re in compliance with Title VI on an annual basis as part of the state’s grant administration process.

The state education department “is unaware of any changes in federal law or regulations that would necessitate the provision of additional certifications beyond those that it or New Jersey LEAs [local education agencies] have already provided,” Dehmer wrote in the letter.

He added, “The NJDOE questions USDE’s authority to condition continued receipt of federal funds on the submission of additional certifications.”

As of Thursday, at least 15 other states have already declined to sign the certification, according to Education Week.

Locally, teachers and students have held protests against the threats of federal cuts.

Catherine Carrera is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Newark. Contact Catherine at ccarrera@chalkbeat.org.

‘An absolute disgrace’: Bed-Stuy community protests sudden removal of superintendent

2025-04-15T22:10:39+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

The abrupt dismissal of a Brooklyn superintendent is spurring fierce backlash in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where dozens of community members showed up to a town hall meeting Monday night to express their outrage.

Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos removed District 16 Superintendent Brendan Mims on Monday, according to state Assembly member Stefani Zinerman, who spoke with Aviles-Ramos and organized Monday’s town hall. The exact reasons for the removal are unclear. But in a Monday letter to Aviles-Ramos recapping their recent discussions about Mims, Zinerman attributed the problems to a “breakdown in the relationship” between Mims and the local Community Education Council, an elected parent advisory board, according to a copy of the letter shared with Chalkbeat.

Mims’ interim replacement, former Deputy Superintendent Fabayo McIntosh, took over Tuesday, according to an email to principals obtained by Chalkbeat.

The removal of Mims is one of the first major personnel moves for Aviles-Ramos, who assumed her role in October and has largely emphasized her desire to maintain the policies of her predecessor, David Banks. The move could now embroil Aviles-Ramos in a public battle at a delicate moment in her tenure, as she rolls out her own first policy efforts and as her future remains uncertain with Mayor Eric Adams facing a steep climb to win reelection in this year’s mayoral race.

The chancellor’s decision — and its timing over spring break — came as a shock to Zinerman and the dozens of educators, parents, and community leaders who showed up to the hastily arranged Monday meeting in the basement of the Restoration Plaza community center. Speakers heaped praise onto Mims, a 22-year veteran of the city Education Department, for his community engagement and strong academic track record.

“I’ve been a principal for over 26 years, long enough to see the changes that have happened in District 16,” said Lena Gates, the veteran leader of P.S. 5, an elementary school in the district, and one of several principals who showed up at the town hall to support Mims. “When Brendan Mims came to District 16, I said, ‘We finally got it right…’ I’m really so upset to hear what’s happening.”

Attendees said the timing of the move also seemed like an effort to sneak it through without notice.

“That is an absolute disgrace, and it’s disrespectful,” said Zinerman, whose assembly district largely overlaps with District 16. “I’ve been elected since 2010, and I have not had the opportunity to chain myself to a door yet. This is the door that I’m going to chain myself to.”

Zinerman added that making the decision toward the end of the school year as students prepare to take state exams and at a moment of profound uncertainty for city schools because of federal threats to education could destabilize the district.

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said the “superintendency is an appointed position and an at-will hire” who serves at the pleasure of the chancellor. She said the agency will follow the chancellor’s regulations governing the appointment of a new permanent superintendent, which include consulting with the CEC and educators unions.

In the email to principals announcing the change, Deputy Chancellor of School Leadership Danika Rux praised McIntosh as a “seasoned educator” and “proud product of District 16.”

“We extend thanks to Brendan for his service to District 16,” Rux added.

Mims couldn’t be reached for comment. NeQuan McLean, the long-time president of CEC 16, who recently appeared on stage with Aviles-Ramos to announce a new program for parent volunteers, declined to comment, and other members of the CEC didn’t respond to emails.

Banks hired Mims in 2022 as part of a sweeping shakeup of the city’s 45 superintendent positions. The effort was intended to vest the role of superintendent with additional responsibility, especially in carrying out Banks’ literacy curriculum overhaul, and to give communities more input in the selection of their district leaders.

That community input is especially important in District 16 — the neighborhood that helped birth the community control movement in the 1960s where Black and Puerto Rican community members established the Ocean Hill-Brownsville district that eventually sparked the 1968 teacher strike.

That history echoed through Monday night’s meeting.

“This is our community, and we make the decisions with regards to who is leading, specifically with our children,” said Marlon Rice, the events director at Restoration Plaza.

Mims took over a district confronting challenges

Despite its storied history, District 16 has faced steep challenges in recent decades, including enrollment losses stemming from population declines, particularly among Black families, in central Brooklyn and the proliferation of charter schools.

Earlier this year, Mims, a Brooklyn native, successfully shepherded a plan to shutter P.S. 25, the city’s smallest elementary school with just 53 students — an idea district officials first tried seven years ago but did not get approved.

People who attended Monday’s meeting pointed to Mims’ leadership as a bright spot amid those challenges, pushing the district forward academically while bringing the community on board.

The district’s proficiency rates on state English exams for grades 3-8 rose from 37% in 2022 to 44% last year, and from 25% to 44% in math for the same grades — larger than the city’s overall growth in both cases.

Mims also played a big role in bringing a new Black Studies curriculum to the district, where roughly 64% of students are Black, educators said.

Leaders of nonprofits and local businesses said Mims was unusually active in getting them involved, and one district father spoke glowingly about an informal group of dads Mims led.

“I never met a superintendent before, never had no one come out and say let’s meet and greet, we’re doing something special for the dads,” said Jason Smith, a parent in the district. “He was always concerned with how can we improve… this is something that’s hitting hard.”

Tensions emerge with local parent council

Zinerman said she started getting wind last year of tension between Mims and the local CEC — and said there has been a pattern over more than a decade of superintendents only lasting a few years in the district because of “political or interpersonal conflict.”

“What began as enthusiastic support — heralding Mr. Mims as ‘exactly the man we need’ — has devolved into mistrust,” Zinerman wrote in her Monday letter to Aviles-Ramos.

Zinerman said she met with Aviles-Ramos and several of her top deputies last Wednesday to discuss the situation and urged the city to appoint an independent mediator to resolve the dispute between Mims and the CEC.

Zinerman said she thought department officials were on the same page and was shocked to get a call around noon on Monday from Aviles-Ramos telling her that Mims was out and his replacement would start the next day.

Zinerman told attendees at Monday’s meeting that Mims was reassigned to the Education Department’s suspension hearing office, drawing jeers from the crowd. (An Education Department spokesperson did not confirm Mims’ new assignment). Research has shown that Black male educators are more likely to be shunted into disciplinary roles, and Black students in the five boroughs are disproportionately suspended.

“What they want to do is send this Black man to the suspension center, where all the Black boys go,” said Barry Cooper, a community leader who runs a program supporting boys of color. “This is educational negligence.”

Cooper pledged to continue organizing protests throughout this week, with town hall attendees committing to calling Mayor Adams, showing up at the local district office, and rallying at the Education Department headquarters in Manhattan.

“This is a precipice for us to take control of our community and be a beacon like Bed-Stuy has always been,” Cooper said.

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.or

Trump’s anti-DEI funding threat hit like an earthquake. This is what’s happened since.

2025-04-14T18:46:20+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

President Donald Trump’s assault on what he’s called “discriminatory equity ideology” is underway, and it’s been virtually impossible to miss.

The president broadcast his intent very early to strip away practices and beliefs in education that he believes are not just against the law, but contrary to American values. Since then, his administration has translated that desire into aggressive actions to get schools on board.

Perhaps the most forceful of these involves Trump’s attempt to banish from schools what federal officials call illegal emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI.

Supporters say it’s a justified countermeasure to the left wing’s attacks on merit and unlawful obsession with racial and other disparities and differences. Critics allege that by threatening to withhold funding from schools that don’t comply, it’s the Trump administration that’s breaking the law, not schools, and that Trump is maliciously misrepresenting what educators are doing.

Below are details of what the federal government has done, the response from state and local officials, and what might come next.

How has Trump’s anti-DEI push taken shape?

On April 3, the U.S. Department of Education told state education agencies that they must certify they are in compliance with the administration’s contested interpretation of federal civil rights law. Those that don’t sign will lose their federal funding, including Title I dollars that provide critical resources for high-poverty schools, the message said.

State schools chiefs are being asked to certify they are in compliance with Title VI, which bans discrimination on the basis of race or shared ancestry. States and school districts already regularly certify Title VI compliance. But the document goes further by also asking them to certify compliance with Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, a 2023 Supreme Court decision that barred the use of racial considerations in college admissions.

The Trump administration argues that many common practices under the umbrella of diversity, equity, and inclusion are now illegal in light of the Students for Fair Admissions case. Many legal experts disagree.

The department originally gave states 10 days to comply, with state agencies responsible for guaranteeing school districts were also in compliance. That deadline has since been extended to April 24, and the department has agreed not to enforce the certification process in the interim.

The certification requirement follows a February Dear Colleague letter in which the Education Department told school leaders that the department’s Office for Civil Rights would be enforcing federal anti-discrimination requirements through the lens of the Students for Fair Admissions case.

The Trump administration is signaling that states should take its threats to withhold funding seriously. In an unprecedented move, the U.S. Department of Education said Friday it was moving to strip K-12 aid from Maine following an investigation under Title IX — the federal law banning sex discrimination in education — into the state’s policy for transgender athletes.

What has Secretary Linda McMahon said about DEI?

Administration officials say they want to root out illegal discrimination and the certification request should not be controversial. But questions about an exact definition of DEI, and inappropriate uses of it, can produce a blizzard of confusing responses.

The Education Department put out guidance earlier this year that clarified that schools, for example, could teach African American history and celebrate Black History Month. But programming that “acts to shame” students based on their race or “accuse them of being oppressors” could create a hostile environment.

The department also said efforts to diversify honors or magnet programs using non-racial criteria, such as ending the use of test scores in admissions, could be illegal. The same goes for things like scholarships for teachers of color, and separate graduation ceremonies to celebrate students of color.

Asked about the department’s DEI crackdown April 8 at the ASU+GSV Summit in San Diego, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said “discrimination is the bad thing.”

“We shouldn’t have discrimination anywhere, whether it’s religious, whether it’s race, whether it’s sex, there should be no discrimination,” she said. “Everyone should be treated equally, educated equally.”

How Democrat-led states responded to the DEI demand

National teachers unions have sought to block enforcement of the certification requirement. But many Democratic-led states are also signaling that they will not change their practices and are asserting that they already comply with federal civil rights requirements, regardless of what the federal government is demanding.

New York came out first and most forcefully against the Trump administration. The day after the federal Education Department sent its demand, state education officials said they would not sign any additional certifications. They indicated the federal department lacks the power either to change the terms of federal grants absent a formal process, or to compel agreement with its interpretation of the 2023 Supreme Court ruling.

“We understand that the current administration seeks to censor anything it deems ‘diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI).’ ... But there are no federal or State laws prohibiting the principles of DEI,” Daniel Morton-Bentley, New York State Education Department counsel and deputy commissioner, wrote in a letter. “And USDOE has yet to define what practices it believes violate Title VI.”

Asked about New York state’s response, an Education Department spokesperson told Chalkbeat in an email: “The Department is simply asking school districts to certify they are following the law and not using race preferences or pernicious race stereotypes in schools.”

Minnesota took a similarly forceful approach, as did Washington state. Other states, including Pennsylvania and Illinois, also told federal officials they are already in compliance with federal requirements while questioning the legal basis for the new certification. Michigan’s state superintendent signaled his state won’t comply, as did top education officials in California.

Colorado Commissioner of Education Susana Córdova said April 10 she would not sign the certification and that the Trump administration’s demand runs afoul of another law, the federal Paperwork Reduction Act. But she did say she would sign an assurance that the state is in compliance with Title VI.

In Vermont, Education Secretary Zoie Saunders initially asked school districts to certify compliance while also downplaying any need to change their practices. Facing pushback from local leaders, she backtracked and said the state would send its own compliance letter.

“The political rhetoric around this federal directive is designed to create outrage in our communities, confusion in our schools, and self-censorship in our policy making,” Saunders said in a statement. “But we are not going to allow the chaos to control how we feel, or how we respond.”

As of Friday, 11 states said they were declining to sign the certification sought by the Trump administration, according to Education Week.

States risk significant financial penalties — including the potential for private parties to bring claims of fraud — if they agree to the certification and are later found to have maintained a practice the administration disagrees with.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, meanwhile, has threatened to sue the Trump administration if it cuts off funding over DEI-related practices.

Conservatives take different approach to Trump DEI demand

At least a few places where Republicans hold power are taking a different approach.

On April 7, Puerto Rico became the first state or territory to sign, the conservative news site Breitbart reported. U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon applauded the move.

Indiana followed, with state education officials saying they intended to sign the certification after collecting certifications from school districts. They noted that Republican Gov. Mike Braun also signed a state executive order replacing “DEI in government with MEI,” or merit, excellence, and innovation, and that schools need to comply with both federal and state requirements to end DEI practices.

New Hampshire, where the local chapter of the NEA has filed a lawsuit with the national teachers union and the American Civil Liberties Union to block enforcement of the administration’s DEI crackdown, has posted a public tracker of which school districts have already signed in compliance.

Like Indiana, New Hampshire and Puerto Rico have Republican governors.

The onus is on state and local officials to respond to the federal Education Department’s pressure over certification. But others are on notice as well: The first investigations opened under the Trump administration’s controversial interpretation of Title VI focused on universities’ support for a conference for Ph.D. candidates of color because it was not open to white graduate students.

The PhD Project, the nonprofit that organized the conference, has since opened its membership to people from all backgrounds.

Legal experts told Chalkbeat that programs and groups that exclude students or teachers of any racial background may not be legal. The Biden administration also warned schools against creating race-exclusive affinity groups.

Meanwhile, a conservative parent group has filed a complaint against Chicago’s Black Student Success Plan. The program aims to address longstanding disparities in how Chicago Public Schools educates Black students, but the parent group noted that students of all races struggle academically.

Chicago Public Schools has defended its approach and says it has no intention of changing its practices.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado won’t comply with Trump anti-DEI demand, state schools chief says

2025-04-10T19:03:34+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

Colorado will refuse a demand from the Trump administration to certify that its schools have eliminated what the federal government says are illegal diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, state Commissioner of Education Susana Córdova said Thursday.

“I am not signing that,” Córdova said. “I am not asking our districts to sign that.”

However, Córdova told the State Board of Education she will sign a new assurance that the state is in compliance with Title VI, which bans discrimination on the basis of race, “so that my name, in addition to the department’s previous commissioner who signed our previous assurance, is on file and on record to be able to indicate that we are fully enforcing Title VI.”

The U.S. Department of Education told state education agencies on April 3 that they must certify they are in compliance with the Trump administration’s contested interpretation of federal civil rights law when it comes to such programs. States that don’t sign will lose their federal funding, including Title I dollars for high-poverty schools, the federal department said.

Colorado received about $800 million in federal funding this school year, a spokesman for the Colorado Department of Education said. That included about $168 million in Title I funds.

The deadline for states to sign the certification is April 24. States’ reactions have been mixed.

New York officials have said they won’t comply. Illinois’ school chief is also pushing back. Pennsylvania officials are signaling they will not order schools to eliminate DEI initiatives. But the Indiana Department of Education said it “fully intends to sign the certification.”

Córdova said the Trump administration’s request runs afoul of a federal law called the Paperwork Reduction Act. The law says that when federal agencies want to collect information, they must follow a process that includes posting a public notice and holding two public comment periods — one for 60 days and one for 30 days — to gather feedback on the request.

When a collection request has gone through that process, it’s assigned a number from the federal Office of Management and Budget, Córdova said. The April 3 request has no such number, she said, “and so it would be unlawful to restrict federal funding because somebody declines to sign a document that we’re not legally obligated to sign.

“And frankly I would be uncomfortable signing a certification that binds us to federal guidance that doesn’t have the force of law,” Córdova added. “I would be uncomfortable signing a certification that lacks definitions and clarity around what is and is not prohibited.”

There is significant confusion about what the Trump administration considers discriminatory DEI practices. The Education Department put out guidance earlier this year that clarified that schools could, for example, teach African American History and celebrate Black History Month. But programming that “acts to shame” students based on their race or “accuse them of being oppressors” could create a hostile environment, the department said.

In addition to discussing the matter with the State Board of Education, Córdova sent a letter to school district leaders outlining the state’s position in which she recognized “how critical federal funding is for the conditions every child needs to learn, grow, and thrive.”

State Board members did not vote Thursday on whether to support Córdova’s stance. A state attorney said it’s up to Córdova how to respond to the Trump administration’s request.

Republican and Democratic members of the State Board said they agreed with Colorado’s interpretation of the Paperwork Reduction Act.

“We should not consider who’s in charge and who’s running the administration, but whether or not under any administration we believe the system should be followed,” said Kristi Burton Brown, a Republican who represents the 4th Congressional District.

Burton Brown said it’s important that Córdova will sign a separate certification that Colorado is complying with Title VI, which includes an assurance that Colorado will follow “all regulations, guidelines, and standards” issued by the federal education department.

Republican Steve Durham, who represents the 5th Congressional District, said he too believes the Paperwork Reduction Act should be followed. But, he added, “the real reason, I think, behind not signing this is political rather than legal.

“There can be significant debate or disagreement about what DEI actually is,” Durham said. “But there is plenty of evidence of its misuse.”

He said the real issue is whether Colorado is complying with Title VI — and if it is in compliance, “there’s no reason not to make the certification.”

Democrat Karla Esser from 7th Congressional District said the state should not sign the certification and agreed that DEI is hard to define. “If you ask 15 people to define DEI, all 15 would define it differently,” she said. “So because we have no definition, I wouldn’t sign it to begin with, even if it did have an OMB number.”

Democrat Kathy Plomer, an at-large board member who represents the entire state, emphasized that the stakes are high and that Colorado risks losing its federal funding if it signs the certification and is then found to be in violation of Title VI.

“If you mistakenly sign and then somebody says, ‘Oh, I think they violated it,’ and somehow we’re in a position where we’re in a different legal status, that really scares me,” Plomer said.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Pennsylvania says schools already comply with civil rights laws and are not ordered to scrap DEI

2025-04-09T23:11:12+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free newsletter to keep up with news on the city’s public school system.

Pennsylvania’s deputy education chief said Wednesday the state is already in compliance with civil rights laws and is signaling the state will not order schools to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, as President Trump’s administration has demanded.

U.S. Department of Education officials last week directed state education commissioners to certify they have eliminated DEI programs, which the administration considers illegal. Without that certification, states would lose federal funding — specifically Title I funds designated for high-poverty districts including Philadelphia.

Pennsylvania’s Executive Deputy Secretary of Education Angela Fitterer wrote in a letter Wednesday that the state Department of Education “certifies that it has and will continue to comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” which bars discrimination based on race, national origin, or shared ancestry in programs that receive federal funding. Fitterer also wrote that the department has “confirmed that it adheres to all applicable laws providing for equal access and participation to all persons.”

The letter “affirms” that all of Pennsylvania’s school districts “have previously certified, on multiple occasions, that they comply and will continue to comply with Title VI.”

Fitterer’s letter is not as forceful a refusal to comply as neighboring New York issued last Friday, but it does signal that Pennsylvania will not be instructing schools and districts to end DEI programs as the Trump administration required.

Meanwhile, the Indiana Department of Education said Wednesday it will abide by the Trump administration directive and intends to collect signed forms from schools and districts certifying that they do not use or promote DEI.

The U.S. DOE’s order has drawn a line in the sand for local education agencies: Bow to the Trump administration’s efforts to strike all programs concerning racism and inequity in schools, or risk losing a massive chunk of federal funding. When he took office, Trump signed an executive order threatening to withhold federal funding from schools that he said were promoting “discriminatory equity ideology.”

In an accompanying letter to school districts on Wednesday, Pennsylvania’s Acting Secretary of Education Carrie Rowe told district leaders “no further action is required” by them at this time because the Trump administration did not define what would be considered “illegal DEI.”

Rowe wrote, “there are no federal or state laws generally prohibiting efforts relating to diversity, equity, or inclusion” and the U.S. Department of Education lacks sufficient authority to change grant terms without a formal administrative process.

“As an agency with delegated authority,” Rowe said that the Education Department “cannot make improvisatory changes to legal assurances and impose new requirements on recipients without adhering to rulemaking procedures, nor can it alter substantive federal law by administrative fiat.”

Illinois’ school chief similarly pushed back against the order on the same grounds Wednesday, challenging the Trump administration to outline which programs and activities violate federal civil rights law.

Federal education aid accounts for about 10% of the Philly school district’s budget of more than $4.5 billion. Diversity, equity, and antiracism are cornerstone issues for the district — they are woven throughout Superintendent Tony Watlington’s five-year strategic plan and are embedded in the district’s curriculum and professional development strategies.

A decade ago, Philadelphia became the first major city in the country to mandate that all students take an African American history course to fulfill graduation requirements. Nearly half of the district’s enrolled students (49%) are Black.

Spokespeople for the School District of Philadelphia and the Board of Education did not immediately respond Wednesday to requests for comment about the state’s letter.

“At PDE, we are focused on supporting Pennsylvania schools and ensuring that all Pennsylvania learners have the freedom to chart their own course and the opportunity to succeed,” said Erin James, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Education in a statement Wednesday. “Regardless of changes taking place at the federal level, the [Gov. Josh] Shapiro Administration will continue to do everything in our power to support Pennsylvania learners, educators, and schools.”

Dan Urevick-Ackelsberg, senior attorney at the Public Interest Law Center, said Wednesday “the right to an education free from discrimination does not owe its power to an election, but rather to legislation and the state and federal constitutions.”

He added “tomorrow, like yesterday, Pennsylvania schools will open their doors to serve, nurture, and challenge every child from every background. What PDE is relaying, in understated terms, is that no fiat can change that profound responsibility and opportunity.”

Update: This story has been updated to include information from a letter sent to Pennsylvania school districts and a similar letter issued by the Illinois state superintendent.

Carly Sitrin is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Philadelphia. Contact Carly at csitrin@chalkbeat.org.

Where is Chicago’s Black Student Achievement Committee?

2025-04-09T20:15:44+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the latest news on Chicago Public Schools.

Months after the new Chicago Board of Education was sworn in, some advocates are pushing the board to launch a state-mandated Black Student Achievement Committee.

The committee in question is required under the state law that defines Chicago’s new elected school board. But Chicago Public Schools came under federal scrutiny in February after releasing its long-awaited Black Student Success Plan.

Multiple board members said Wednesday they’re working to establish the committee, but did not mention the federal complaint. Board member Jitu Brown said he’s one of the people pushing “to make sure it happens.”

“Please hold us accountable for the Black Student Success Committee, and just know that we are moving diligently to make sure that we have our committee up and running,” Brown said. “We’ll be reaching out to people in the community to serve on the committee.”

State law requires the committee to focus on closing academic disparities and improving the school experience for the district’s Black students, who historically have been less likely to pass standardized reading and math tests compared to their peers and have also been disproportionately subject to disciplinary action.

The requirement to create the committee looms as the district is under federal scrutiny for more than just the Black Student Success Plan. Chicago is one of multiple school systems across the country that the Trump administration has targeted as it attempts to crack down on diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, efforts, with the threat of holding back federal funding. CPS, the state of Illinois, and a suburban district are also facing a Title IX investigation into policies around supporting transgender and nonbinary students. Last week, Mayor Brandon Johnson said his administration would sue the federal government if it started to withhold federal education funding over DEI.

During a board meeting on Wednesday, some advocates pointed to that pressure as a reason to swiftly establish the committee.

“We need action to establish the Black Student Achievement Committee now, especially in the national climate where out-of-state threats and executive orders are attacking DEI work and threatening federal funding,” Nakasha Barlow, a senior organizer with the Chicago branch of Educators For Excellence, a teacher advocacy group, told board members. “It is even more critical that CPS double down on protecting black student success.”

The Black Student Success Plan, which the district launched in February, promises to make a slew of changes, including increasing the number of Black teachers, curbing suspensions for Black students, and creating a more culturally responsive curriculum to “combat anti-Blackness.” The day after the plan was launched, the conservative advocacy group Parents Defending Education, which has challenged other race-based initiatives, filed a federal complaint alleging that the initiative violated the U.S. Constitution and cited a federal letter that warned districts to halt race-based initiatives.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Hundreds of millions of federal dollars for Colorado schools at risk amid Trump DEI threats

2025-04-04T22:45:02+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

About $800 million dollars in federal funding, or roughly 10% of Colorado’s K-12 education budget this year, could be at risk related to the latest demand from the Trump administration.

The U.S. Department of Education on Thursday gave state education agencies 10 days to certify that their schools do not engage in practices that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. Those that don’t, the department said, will not receive any federal funding.

At issue is Title VI, a provision of federal civil rights law that bars discrimination on the basis of race or shared ancestry. The Trump administration’s interpretation is controversial. Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement that “too many schools” use “DEI programs to discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another based on identity characteristics in clear violation of Title VI.”

Schools must also certify that they comply with the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which banned the use of race in college admissions decisions but which the Trump administration has interpreted more broadly.

Colorado Department of Education Commissioner Susana Córdova sent a brief letter to the state’s school district superintendents Thursday that said the department is “conferring with our legal counsel” to understand the new federal requirement.

“We will let you know the next steps; please do not take any actions until we provide you with further guidance,” Córdova wrote in the letter, which the state education department provided to Chalkbeat. “We understand that you may be receiving questions about the impact of this; as soon as we have more information, we will reach out to you all.”

All federal funding appears to be at risk if states don’t comply, though the Trump administration’s letter specifically names Title I funding that supports high-poverty schools.

Colorado received about $168 million in federal Title I funding this year that it then distributed to school districts, according to the state education department.

One other Democrat-controlled state has already responded to the Trump administration’s demands. On Friday, the New York State Education Department said it will not comply.

Denver Public Schools, Colorado’s largest school district, received the most Title I funding in the state: about $35 million, according to state data. In total, Denver Public Schools expects to receive $96 million in federal funding this school year, according to district budget documents. Federal funding makes up about 6.7% of the Denver district’s budget.

Denver Public Schools has already found itself in the crosshairs of the Trump administration. In January, the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights announced it was investigating DPS for converting a girls’ restroom at East High School into an all-gender restroom.

In February, Denver Public Schools sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in an effort to keep immigration enforcement away from schools. A federal judge sided with the Trump administration in March, rejecting the district’s attempt to reinstate a federal policy that treated schools as “sensitive locations” for the purposes of immigration enforcement.

Denver Public Schools is a diverse district. About three-quarters of its 90,000 students are students of color. About 38% of Denver students are English language learners, and 63% qualify for subsidized lunches, a measure of poverty. Nearly 15% are students with disabilities.

Equity is one of the Denver district’s core values, and its school board and superintendent have passed policies and created internal departments that aim to close academic gaps between white students and Black and Latino students.

Other efforts include advisory groups for families and community members, such as a Latine Education Advisory Committee and a Black Family Advisory Committee. The webpage for the Black Family Advisory Committee says, “You do not need to be Black to participate, just need to be focused on the needs of Black students and their families in DPS.”

It’s unclear whether the education department’s edict would affect such programs.

Denver Public Schools spokesperson Scott Pribble said in a statement that, “We are assessing the situation, but DPS is already in compliance with Title VI.”

“It is too early to determine the exact impacts this could have on Denver Public Schools,” Pribble said. But he noted that the $96 million in federal funding that the district expects to receive this school year “are funds that support students and teachers.”

“Without these funds, we would need to reduce services or look for other local funding sources,” he said.

Reporter Jason Gonzales contributed to this story.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Trump gave states 10 days to sign an anti-DEI policy. NY Education Department is refusing.

2025-04-04T22:27:20+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

New York will not comply with an order from President Donald Trump’s administration to certify that school districts are eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, state Education Department officials said in a Friday letter obtained by Chalkbeat.

The letter represents some of the earliest and most forceful pushback to Thursday’s threat that gave state education agencies 10 days to guarantee that no public schools in their states have DEI programs the Trump administration deems illegal — or lose billions of dollars in federal education funding.

Federal officials cited the 2023 Supreme Court decision banning race-based affirmative action in college admissions in arguing that any school DEI program used to “advantage one’s race over another” violates federal Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

But New York officials countered that the state has already certified on multiple occasions that it follows federal anti-discrimination law, and that the U.S. Education Department has no legal right to threaten to withhold federal funding over its own interpretation of the law.

The state Education Department “is unaware of any authority that USDOE has to demand that a State Education Agency … agree to its interpretation of a judicial decision or change the terms and conditions of [New York State Education Department]’s award without formal administrative process,” wrote Counsel and Deputy Commissioner Daniel Morton-Bentley.

“We understand that the current administration seeks to censor anything it deems ‘diversity, equity & inclusion. ... But there are no federal or State laws prohibiting the principles of DEI,” Morton-Bentley continued. “And USDOE has yet to define what practices it believes violate Title VI.”

The state will not send any “further certification” of compliance with federal law, the letter concluded.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Thursday’s DEI directive from the U.S. Department of Education is the latest escalation in a series of moves intended to stamp out efforts to address racism and inequity in schools.

Trump previously signed an executive order threatening to withhold federal funding from schools over “radical indoctrination” in classrooms. The Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Education Department told districts they could be subject to investigation for any policies that consider race or proxies for race.

Earlier on Friday, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said the city was planning to sue the federal government if it withheld funds because of the order, calling it an “unconstitutional” attack on free speech.

New York officials questioned whether the Supreme Court decision in the college affirmative action case applies to DEI programs in K-12 schools — arguing the case “does not have the totemic significance that you have assigned to it.”

“USDOE is entitled to make whatever policy pronouncements it wants — but cannot conflate policy with law,” Morton-Bentley wrote.

The letter further points out that the Trump administration’s current stance toward DEI is “an abrupt shift” from its position during Trump’s first term, when former education secretary Betsy DeVos told staff that “[d]iversity and inclusion are the cornerstones of high organizational performance.”

Federal money accounts for roughly 10% of education funding nationwide. In New York City, the country’s largest school system, roughly $2 billion a year — or 5% of its total budget — flows from the federal government, including nearly $700 million in Title I funds that support schools with high poverty rates.

Amy Zimmer contributed.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

NYC students, educators emphasize importance of diverse curricula amid Trump’s attacks on DEI

2025-04-04T18:30:09+00:00

This story is part of the P.S. Weekly podcast, a collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell. Listen for new episodes Thursdays this spring.

It started as a class project, then turned into a class itself.

Tasked with an assignment to help amplify the voices of people of color during her sophomore year, Marame Diop pitched an African American studies course. It was 2020, and the work felt especially important as Diop saw communities across the nation grapple with protests over systemic racism after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

For the next two years, she worked with her teacher and other students at Manhattan’s Beacon High School to turn that vision into reality.

“This divide and this tension is because we are not taught what racism really is, and how it started,” Diop said. “All these common misconceptions need to be reconstructed, and it all starts with education.”

Today, students at Beacon continue to take an ethnic studies course designed by Diop and others in the school community. Their effort coincided with several larger city initiatives in recent years to increase access to diverse and inclusive curriculums — an expansion under threat from President Donald Trump.

In the latest of a series of attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion, the Trump administration on Thursday threatened to withhold federal funding from public schools if state education officials don’t return a memo within 10 days saying they’ll eliminate programs that promote DEI efforts the administration deems unlawful.

New York City schools have made an effort in recent years to expand instruction that celebrates diversity, including this year’s systemwide rollout of a prekindergarten-12th grade Black studies curriculum developed by a group of educators, nonprofits, and government leaders, while a growing number of schools around the city have looked to offer an Advanced Placement African American Studies course.

The Education Department is continuing to add Hidden Voices curriculums, highlighting stories about individuals from diverse backgrounds who often aren’t part of history books and whose stories risk being overlooked. Hidden Voices curriculums have offered students a glimpse into narratives from the Global African Diaspora, Asian American and Pacific Islander history, LGBTQ history, and more.

But some students and educators fear that an escalated push by Trump to restrict how topics of race, gender, and sexuality are discussed in the classroom could make it more difficult for students to access such curriculums in the future. Trump had also issued a flurry of executive orders aimed at schools in recent months, with some explicitly seeking to restrict instruction that addresses issues of race and racism.

Legal experts have questioned whether the orders are lawful, and states, local districts, and teachers retain significant control over how topics are addressed in classrooms.

New York City’s attorney general, Letitia James, led a coalition of attorneys general last month issuing guidance to K-12 schools and higher education institutions countering the Trump administration’s push to eliminate education policies promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. Officials from the city’s Education Department recently told parents they were not changing any programs or practices, and Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos this week responded to the Trump administration’s directive, saying, “Diversity is a superpower here in New York City, we are always going to honor that.”

Diop urged local students to keep advocating for courses like ethnic studies.

“It’s a step, and it’s not like it’s all going to change in one day,” Diop said. “But classes like these are what is going to keep the spark alive and not let us lose hope.”

A student-led course 2 years in the making

For two years, Diop, now a sophomore at Yale University, worked with her teacher and other school students to design the course. In some ways, Beacon’s status as a consortium school, where students are exempted from most Regents exams made it easier to create such a class.

“It was really all hands on deck,” she said. “After-school meetings literally almost every single day for hours on end.”

The course’s first unit centers on community-building, with students discussing their own cultural and racial identities, culminating in pairs of students making an hour-long podcast about their identities. The second unit focuses on the history of racial injustice and the movements that led to the creation of ethnic studies, with a particular emphasis on youth activism. For their final project, students write an advocacy letter or op-ed they send to media outlets for possible publication.

Diop said the course resonates with many students, who “appreciate their histories being taught in the class rather than just sitting through a boring, 50-minute lecture on some old, white, dead guy.”

With more severe restrictions in other states about how certain topics are taught, Diop is worried about the national picture.

“It’s looking so bleak,” she said. “To think that what we’re doing in New York is far-fetched and a fantasy to kids in Florida is just really insane.”

Executive orders spark fears over self-censorship in schools

Even before Thursday’s threat from the Trump administration, many worried that educators might “self-censor” out of fear of drawing backlash for embracing diverse and inclusive practices in their classrooms — or that classes like Diop’s might become even more difficult to develop.

Last month, a local affiliate of the Public Broadcasting Service erased a series of videos on LGBTQ history that had been developed in partnership with the city’s Education Department. Though the Education Department quickly reposted the videos to its own site, some concerns lingered over whether the move might diminish the reach of the videos, as well as whether other organizations might opt to take similar action.

Monica Carter, director of the Lambda Literary Writers in Schools, a program that brings LGBTQ authors to classrooms to discuss their work with students, said she’s noticed “an uptick in self-censorship” in schools this year.

“We’ve had to maintain a low profile in order to keep the program going,” she added.

Still, in spite of concerns, Carter said demand for the program had only grown this year — operating in roughly 200 schools across the city. The organization sought to help educators prepare for potential backlash, developing inclusivity guides for teachers with advice for navigating challenges they might face, while seeking new strategies to protect authors and affirm support for LGBTQ students as their rights face attacks from conservatives.

“We want to be part of the resistance, and I think that the educators and librarians and principals that participate understand that,” she said.

“There’s just a general atmosphere of fear, and students are trying to figure out how they can exist in a world where their very lives are threatened,” Carter added. “That’s a difficult thing to deal with and it’s also a difficult thing for them to talk about. We hopefully provide critical safe spaces where they meet an LGBTQ+ author, where they can discuss these things, and see that you can still thrive and survive as an LGBTQ+ person.”

Sonya Douglass, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College and director of the Black Education Research Collective who helped develop the city’s pre-K-12 Black studies curriculum, said recent threats from the federal government only heightened the importance of courses like Black studies.

“For those of us who have been working to ensure that we’re teaching the truth about American history, the current moment speaks to why,” she said. “Educating young people about history is really critical to ensuring that our democracy functions properly, and that includes learning about all of the different experiences of individuals and groups that have made the country what it is.”

Douglass noted the city’s Black studies curriculum is a “corrective,” offering students an education that has historically been denied to them. She urged school communities not to “obey in advance” with the executive order and to continue advocating for these curricula and others.

“Yes, there is a chilling effect, which is the intent of these executive orders and policies, but we can’t be dissuaded by that,” she said. “We actually have tremendous power as a community of educators, and so it really is up to us to make those decisions in the classroom.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed.

Bernie Carmona is a high school senior at Beacon High School in Manhattan and an intern at The Bell.

Isabella Mason is a high school senior at Midwood High School in Brooklyn and an intern at The Bell.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Elizabeth school district ordered to return banned books to library shelves — again

2025-04-04T01:39:57+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Elizabeth school district to return 19 banned books to the shelves of its school libraries by 5 p.m. on Saturday.

The order represents the second time U.S. District Court Judge Charlotte Sweeney has ordered the books returned to school library shelves. She originally ordered their return by March 25, but paused that deadline after the district filed a motion objecting to the books’ return. Her latest order represents the decision she made after reconsidering the issue.

It’s not yet clear if the district will have to comply.

A spokesperson for the Elizabeth district said by email Thursday evening that the district is renewing its emergency motion to halt legal enforcement of the books’ return and would file it with the court by midnight.

Sweeney’s order and the district’s plan for an emergency motion are the latest developments in a lawsuit focused on 19 books that are primarily by or about LGBTQ people, people of color, or both. They touch on topics ranging from same-sex relationships to racism and police violence. The books include titles such as “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, and “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas.

The case began in December, when the American Civil Liberties Union sued the 2,600-student district after the school board voted to remove the 19 books from school libraries last fall. The plaintiffs in the case include two students, a chapter of the NAACP, and the Authors Guild, a professional organization for writers.

In January, a middle school administrator who was fired by the Elizabeth district after calling the plan to remove school library books racist filed a civil rights complaint against the district.

In her latest order requiring the return of the 19 books, Sweeney dismissed several of the district’s arguments for not returning the books, including that it would face “irreparable harm” if it was forced to do so.

Instead, she holds that the plaintiffs face harm if the books are not put back on school library shelves, writing, “As the Court previously held, ‘[t]he loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.‘”

Sweeney also cast doubt on the district’s arguments that school members didn’t vote to remove the books because of partisan or political motives. In fact, she cited examples where board members explicitly mentioned their conservative politics in discussing the book removals.

For example, she noted that Heather Booth, who resigned from the board in January, said in an email last year to Superintendent Dan Snowberger: “It’s equally important to remember that our commitment to conservative values was a key aspect of our campaign.”

If the district’s emergency motion for a stay is unsuccessful and the books must be returned on Saturday, it’s not clear how that will happen. That’s because the district discarded the original copies of the books last fall after the school district vote.

The district has since received two separate donations of the removed books. The first from Greg Lopez, a former Republican member of Congress, came with conditions that limit access to plaintiffs in the case. That donation appeared to be part of a legal strategy that allowed the district to argue that it wasn’t violating the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights as the lawsuit claimed, since the books were available to them.

The second book donation came last week from a law firm — Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell — that’s working with the ACLU on the lawsuit. In a meeting on March 28, the school board rejected the gift, with one exception.

The board voted to keep the book “#Pride: Championing LGBTQ Rights,” but not to return it to library shelves. Instead, they said it would remain in Snowberger’s possession.

In her ruling, Sweeney critiqued the district for not stating in earlier court filings that it had destroyed the original set of banned books or that it had received a donated set of books that could only be read by a small group of people.

She also called out the district for rejecting the second donation from the law firm.

“The District’s decision to reject the donation and thus manufacture an injury is its own doing and will not create an irreparable harm,” she wrote.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

States must promise their schools don’t use DEI or lose federal money, Trump administration says

2025-04-03T23:02:24+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

The U.S. Department of Education is giving state education agencies 10 days to certify that their schools do not engage in any practices that the administration believes illegally promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Those that do not sign a certification that they are in compliance with the administration’s controversial interpretations of civil rights law will not receive any federal funding, officials said. Federal funding represents about 10% of all K-12 funding nationwide but makes up a larger share of local budgets in high-poverty districts.

The Trump administration has pledged to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and return education oversight to the states. At the same time, the Education Department has made aggressive and unusual use of its civil rights authority to extract concessions from elite universities and pressure states to change their policies.

Some experts questioned the basis for the demand and said the administration could not legally withhold money from states that don’t sign. The threat comes as many school districts are preparing their budgets for the next school year amid significant economic uncertainty.

“Federal financial assistance is a privilege, not a right,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement. “When state education commissioners accept federal funds, they agree to abide by federal antidiscrimination requirements.

“Unfortunately, we have seen too many schools flout or outright violate these obligations, including by using DEI programs to discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another based on identity characteristics in clear violation of Title VI.”

Title VI is a provision of federal civil rights law that bars discrimination on the basis of race or shared ancestry. States regularly certify that they are in compliance with Title VI in order to receive federal funds.

Thursday’s demand goes further by requiring states to say they also are in compliance with the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. The case banned the use of race in college admissions decisions. The Trump administration interprets the ruling to mean many common diversity practices are illegal.

Seth Galanter, an attorney who served as principal deputy assistant secretary in the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in the Biden administration, called the new certification “a baffling document that appears only to be trying to bully states and school districts.”

In signing, state education officials would be promising that all of their school districts are in compliance and acknowledging that they could be liable for fraud under the False Claims Act if they request federal funds and are later found to be in violation of the law.

The False Claims Act, a federal law, also allows private parties to sue for damages, Galanter said, and win higher penalties than in civil rights cases. By invoking the False Claims Act, Galanter said the administration appears to be threatening states and school districts with more serious financial risks if they want to defend their diversity policies.

Trump gave states 10 days to sign an anti-DEI policy. NY Education Department is refusing.

But states shouldn’t need to sign the new certification, Galanter said, when they have already certified compliance with civil rights law. The new certification also doesn’t appear to have followed federal laws related to creating new paperwork, he said, meaning states can’t be penalized for refusing to sign.

Nor is it reasonable to give state education agencies 10 days to make legally binding promises about the practices of the nation’s thousands of school districts, he said.

“That is not serious governance,” Galanter said. “It’s stagecraft.”

Demand based on new interpretation of Supreme Court case

Education Department officials said in a February Dear Colleague letter that the Students for Fair Admissions decision meant any consideration of race or of proxies for race in educational settings would violate civil rights law.

The Trump administration has said the ruling extends to considering race as a factor in school admissions, hiring or promoting staff, awarding students scholarships or prizes, providing students with administrative support, and deciding how students should be sanctioned or disciplined.

For example, dropping the use of test scores as an admissions criterion for a selective program with the hopes of increasing racial diversity, or holding a separate graduation ceremony to recognize students of a particular ethnic group, could violate the law.

The first investigation opened by the administration under this new interpretation began last month. It targeted colleges and universities that partnered with an organization that provided mentorship for graduate students of color.

Many legal experts believe the administration’s interpretation goes much further than the Supreme Court did and is not supported by the law.

The Dear Colleague letter generated significant confusion among school and district leaders and is being challenged in court. Conservative groups have adopted its argument to challenge initiatives that aim to address long-standing disparities, such as Chicago’s recently unveiled Black student success plan.

Eric Duncan, director of P-12 policy at EdTrust, an advocacy group, said the certification demand appears to be an effort to put states on notice that they could be investigated, similar to the way the administration has targeted Maine over transgender athletes.

States do have an obligation to ensure their programs don’t discriminate based on race, he said, but they also have an obligation to work to fix racial inequities. Federal law hasn’t changed, he said, and states could choose to defend their diversity programs based on their own understanding of the law.

“It’s really in states’ hands right now,” he said.

‘Diversity is a superpower’ says NYC chancellor

Several state education agencies told Chalkbeat they are reviewing the letter and consulting with their attorneys.

“Diversity is a superpower here in New York City, we are always going to honor that,” New York City Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said in response to questions at an unrelated event Thursday. “We are always going to make sure that we are serving every child and family in New York City.”

At a policy committee meeting, Philadelphia Board of Education member Joan Stern, reflecting on the likelihood that any funding threats will be challenged in court, said, “Anything that appears to be final is usually not final.”

‘We’re gonna sue’: Chicago mayor says Trump threat to cut funding over DEI is ‘unconstitutional’

Every presidential administration attempts to use its influence to shape local policy, Galanter said. The Trump administration is using that influence differently, though. Trump’s Office for Civil Rights has publicly opened investigations based on media reports rather than formal complaints, and has reached conclusions relatively quickly.

Historically, even when the federal Education Department found school districts to be in violation of civil rights law, the federal government has worked with them on resolution agreements rather than actually withhold funding.

But any school district or state education agency considering its options now will have to look at the example of Columbia University, where the Trump administration abruptly canceled $400 million in grants and contracts after finding that pro-Palestinian protests had created a hostile environment for Jewish students.

The Education Department presented the university with a list of demands that included ceding control of one academic department, and the university complied.

“There’s lots of ways to influence behavior that are perfectly legitimate, and they may put schools on the spot, but the schools still have real choices,” Galanter said. “What this administration is doing is trying to rule by edict. They say, ‘do it our way, or something bad may happen.’ And they tried to make it so that the threat seems credible.”

This story has been updated throughout with reaction and additional background information.

Carly Sitrin, Amy Zimmer, and Alex Zimmerman contributed reporting.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

As Trump dismantles gender-affirming policies, Chicago LGBTQ+ students and staff mobilize

2025-04-03T22:40:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the latest news on Chicago Public Schools.

In the last few months, Milo can’t help but notice how the mood among his fellow students at Chicago’s Jones College Prep has shifted.

What’s led to the change isn’t a development at the school itself, which is relatively friendly to queer and transgender students and where Milo, a senior, leads the Gay-Straight Alliance, or GSA. Instead, it’s how President Donald Trump’s administration and others have moved to restrict the rights of the LGBTQ+ community and transgender people in particular, including students.

In response, GSA clubs in Chicago Public Schools are mobilizing to support students as well as staff during a difficult and volatile period. The groups are emphasizing self-care and helping people understand the political and policy changes taking place. Students in them are also organizing public events and speaking out about curriculum, student behavior, and ensuring policy that affirms LGBTQ+ students is actually used in schools.

CPS currently has a robust set of guidelines for supporting trans and gender nonconforming students and staff. But ultimately, schools and other systems that serve students “need to make it clear that queer and trans kids are a priority to them and their support goes beyond just words” and don’t just treat them like “talking points,” said Milo. (Chalkbeat is using first names for Milo and other students in this story to protect their privacy and safety.)

“When members of our community are being targeted, that ripple is felt throughout the entire community,” Milo said. Chalkbeat is only using students’ first names for safety and privacy reasons.

In his first day in office, Trump signed a flurry of executive orders, including one declaring that the federal government would only recognize two sexes, male and female. The U.S. Department of Education has also tossed out protections for gender identity in schools adopted by the Biden administration and told educators they must share information about students’ gender identity with parents.

Before too long, Chicago and the state felt the effects of these dramatic policy shifts. In early March, two conservative groups filed a federal civil rights complaint against the Illinois State Board of Education and Chicago Public Schools, targeting the extension of Title IX policies to include gender identity. The federal Education Department promptly opened an investigation.

On Thursday, the department told states that in 10 days, they must certify that their schools aren’t engaging in what the Trump administration believes are illegal efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. States that don’t comply will lose their federal education funding, the administration said.

There is movement afoot to bolster current policies focused on supporting students like Milo.

A tentative contract agreement between the Chicago Teachers Union and the district announced earlier this week includes a commitment to having one staff person in each of the district’s 18 geographic networks provide support to GSAs and LGBTQ+ students, staff, and families. It also allows for schools to have a staff member volunteer to serve as a “Gender Support Coordinator.”

Corey Lascano, a CPS teacher and GSA advisor, said she expected conservative groups to leverage the Trump administration’s revisions to Title IX policies to target LGBTQ+-affirming policies in districts like CPS, which is why these new provisions are important.

Lascano said a lot of her conversations with students have focused on protecting themselves, both now and in the future.

“I had a conversation just today with a student regarding where they are going to college and what safety looks like for them in a state like Florida or Texas,” Lascano said. “To some degree, they can’t fully be themselves without getting pushback.”

That kind of support and counseling from teachers means a lot to students like Maggie, a Kenwood Academy student and GSA member.

In the wake of the 2024 election, Maggie said more teachers began being vocal about their support for LGBTQ+ students and posting signs with slogans such as “Trans Rights Are Human Rights.”

“Sometimes it can be really hard as a queer student to know what teachers to trust,” they said, “so being able to have teachers who are very vocal is important.”

School staff play important role for LGBTQ+ students

Some state and local education leaders have made it clear that Trump administration policy does not match theirs.

In February, Illinois Superintendent Tony Sanders publicly reaffirmed the state’s commitment to teaching the contributions of LGBTQ+ Americans throughout history in accordance with the state’s Inclusive Curriculum Law.

Sanders’ letter came in response to a letter from the federal Education Department advising educators that their schools were at risk of losing federal funding if they continued with diversity initiatives.

But that’s not necessarily enough for teachers like Lascano. She said CPS needs to stand firm in its stance to stand with LGBTQ+ educators and communities by enforcing the state law about inclusive curricula, not just highlighting it.

“You can have the most inclusive curriculum in the world, but [it doesn’t mean anything] if your principal is telling staff members they don’t need to teach any of the lessons with a trans character in it because it would violate their right to believe in only two genders,” Lascano said.

Milo said he’s taking a course called Gender and Sexuality in History, but wants to see LGBTQ+ histories and experiences integrated more into standard courses.

“Students shouldn’t have to choose an elective to learn their own history,” he said.

There’s a similar dynamic about how students and staff act and the resources available to them.

Julio Flores, program director for the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, an organization that advocates families with LGBTQ+ youth experiencing challenges at schools, said he has received several requests from schools seeking professional development to be proactively supportive.

“Some young people are not wanting to use they/them pronouns for a nonbinary person because they think the executive order says they don’t have to,” said Flores, referring to Trump’s directive.

There’s been a rise in students’ casual use of homophobic, transphobic, and ableist language, said Julie Merrell, Kenwood’s GSA adviser. They noted that the increase they have observed has been incremental.

“It’s not like one day it was amazing and now it’s bad,” they said. “Students have dealt with being misgendered and deadnamed and made to feel like they can’t be themselves my entire teaching career.”

As an out nonbinary educator, Merrell said they are misgendered constantly by colleagues, including support staff members.

“I think that cis allies really need to show up by calling each other in and educating each other, so the work isn’t always on trans students and staff who are feeling increased anxiety at this moment,” Merrell said.

In addition to districtwide resources for reporting Title IX violations, Kenwood has an anonymous reporting system where students can report incidents — including allegations of homophobia or transphobia — to the principal.

“I don’t know how seriously the staff take it, but students don’t seem to take it seriously or trust it,” Maggie said.

There are other issues that official policy doesn’t always capture. Merrell said there are challenges to implementing student gender support plans when staff or administrative capacity is an issue. And community resources are not always equally accessible, Lascano noted.

“The North Side has very strong support and coalitions and organizing, but on the South Side and the West Side, community resources are more limited,” she said. “We need parents who are actively supporting queer and trans teachers, actively supporting their schools’ GSAs.”

Still, Lascano hopes that official moves like the language focused on LGBTQ+ students in the preliminary CTU contract — which she helped to write as part of a committee — represents progress.

“It ensures another layer of safety not just for queer and trans staff but for students as well,” she said.

In March, the CPS Office of Student Health and Wellness hosted an event called the Galaxy Summit that was a gathering “to learn about and celebrate the galaxies of gender, sexuality, and love” open to all students in 5th through 12th grade across the city, which teacher and GSA advisor Lindsey Williston brought students from her school to attend.

“They know it’s a bigger world, but to see it all in one room gives them comfort,” Williston said.

That’s the kind of community building that gives Milo hope.

“In a big city like Chicago, these connections are all around us and send a really strong message of support to people who might not be able to find that themselves,” Milo said.

Students say what they need from the adults in their school communities is quite simple: believe them.

“We know who we are,” said Maggie from Kenwood. “If we say ‘I think I’m trans’ or ‘I think I’m gay’ or ‘I think I’m bi,’ we mean it, and we deserve to be heard.”

$2 billion in federal funding for NYC schools at risk amid Trump administration’s DEI threats

2025-04-03T22:29:26+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

New York’s state and city education officials aren’t planning to shy away from diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in schools despite Thursday’s threats from the Trump administration to strip away billions in federal funding.

In the latest of a series of attacks on DEI, the U.S. Department of Education is giving state education agencies 10 days to prove their schools are eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts the Trump administration deems unlawful.

States must certify their schools comply with the administration’s controversial interpretation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and with the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, according to a letter federal Education Department officials sent Thursday.

Those failing to comply appear to risk losing all federal funding, though the letter specifically calls out Title I funds that support high poverty schools.

“We are reviewing the letter now and will respond in due course,” New York State Education Department spokesperson JP O’Hare said in a statement. “The Board of Regents and State Education Department continue to work with New York’s schools to increase equity, access, and opportunities in education for all New York State students.”

At stake in New York City: more than $2 billion, or roughly 5% of the Education Department’s overall budget, which covers a range of programs targeting students from low-income households, those living in shelters, or students with disabilities, for example. The largest pot of federal funding goes to schools serving low income families through the Title I program. The federal government sends roughly $679 million in Title I funds each year to New York City, where nearly 1,300 of 1,600 schools qualify for the program.

Many legal experts believe the administration’s interpretation of the Supreme Court decision is incorrect and would not hold up in court.

Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos on Thursday defended the diversity of the nation’s largest school system in response to questions about the Trump administration directive.

“Diversity is a superpower here in New York City, we are always going to honor that,” she said at an unrelated event. “We are always going to make sure that we are serving every child and family in New York City.”

The chancellor emphasized that her agency receives far more money from sources outside the federal government. About 57% of local school funding comes from the city and 37% comes from the state.

Aviles-Ramos has been pushing Albany lawmakers to increase the amount of money the city would receive under the state’s Foundation Aid funding formula. Under a proposal to tweak the formula from Gov. Kathy Hochul, the city stands to receive $350 million less than it would have otherwise gotten.

“That’s where we’re putting our focus,” Aviles-Ramos said of her Albany visits.

At a City Council hearing last month, Education Department officials acknowledged that they have not made detailed contingency plans in the event of significant federal funding cuts.

“We’re having internal conversations around all the possibilities, but we cannot enact on a plan with certainty when there are so many moving pieces,” Aviles-Ramos said.

New York City education leaders said cuts to federal dollars, including Title I money, could force cuts from special education to career and technical programs.

Lorenzo Chambers, the principal of P.S. 279 in Brooklyn, said cutting funding for high-need public schools “has long-term potential to set the country back.”

The school uses federal funding to pay for after-school programs, hygiene products and uniforms for students living in temporary housing, books, and other supplies. Most of the school’s students are Black or Caribbean-American and come from low-income families.

The money does not represent a substantial proportion of the school’s budget, though it would be challenging to replace, Chambers said. Cutting those dollars in an effort to stamp out diversity and equity efforts “is steeped in white supremacy,” he added. “Those are the undertones.”

David Adams, the CEO of Urban Assembly, which directly supports a network of 22 New York City public schools, said about 8-10% of funding for schools in the network comes from the federal government.

“Title I funding is the difference between an extra counselor or not,” Adams said. “Title I funding is the difference between enrichment activities like dance, art, and music.”

“We’re gonna pay for this one way or another,” Adams added. “We can pay for it in developing young people who are already able to contribute to our society, or we can pay for it incarcerating people.”

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

LISTEN: The battle over ethnic studies in NYC schools

2025-04-03T09:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

Welcome back to Season 2 of P.S. Weekly! Episode 1 dives into the state of ethnic studies in New York City schools and how the Trump administration could threaten the recent expansion of Black studies, LGBTQ history, and other diverse curriculums in schools across the five boroughs.

Producers Bernie Carmona Pereda, of Beacon High School, and Isabella Mason, from Midwood High School, discuss the critical role of ethnic studies courses — and their uncertain future.

Hear from Marame Diop, a sophomore at Yale who created an ethnic studies course while a student at Beacon High School, which gave her peers an alternative to typical history classes that focus too much “on some old, white, dead guy.”

And Chalkbeat reporter Julian Shen-Berro explains how federal pressures could lead to potential self-censorship in the classroom, raising concerns about the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in the nation’s largest school system.

P.S. Weekly is available on major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Reach us at PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org.

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell, made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation.

Listen for new P.S. Weekly episodes Thursdays this spring.

Read the transcript below

Bernie: Welcome back to P.S. weekly, the sound of the New York City school system.

Bernie: I’m Bernie Carmona.

Isabella: I’m Isabella Mason.

Bernie: New York City is home to about 1 million public school students, making it the largest student population in the country.

Isabella: But, New York City is also among the most segregated school systems in the nation, and that’s in a city filled with students from every corner of the world.

Bernie: And then there’s a current political climate. Today, Isabella and I will discuss the state of ethnic studies in New York City schools, and how recent political debates are shaping those conversations. So Isabella, you’ve had some experience with ethnic studies yourself. Can you tell me what that’s like?

Isabella: It’s been a really great experience taking this class now in my senior year of high school. So not only does AP African American studies allow me to see different parts of American history that haven’t been taught in your regular US history class, but it also teaches the contributions and impact African Americans have had on American art, literature and music and activism. An example being the Black Panther Party and their contributions in the black campus movement and actually establishing the first ethnic studies college in America.

Bernie: Right! That’s so interesting. The first ethnic studies college in the United States, that’s actually something we learned a lot about in our ethnic studies class.

Isabella: Yeah, it’s really important to know where these classes come from, because without the Black Panther Party and the black campus movement, we wouldn’t have ethnic studies today.

Isabella: This actually makes me wonder, what other voices and histories we aren’t hearing recently, ethnic studies programs have faced significant opposition in states like Florida, Arizona and California, even right here in New York, where ethnic studies has seen some growth, there are concerns about how political pressure could impact future progress.

Bernie: Well, let’s backtrack to before the political pressures on DEI curriculums were even as intense as they are now. Back in 2020, Marame Diop was at Beacon High School.

Marame: It was sophomore year, and I was in Miss Rubin’s. I think it was world history, right? That’s what you take sophomore year. It was during COVID, and the assignment was something about like, if you had to create your own class, what would it be?

Bernie: Marame’s answer was an ethnic studies class. Her teacher loved the idea, and got their principal on board.

Marame: She was like, oh, like, she really was inspired by what I wrote in my project. Because she was like, you know, in high-in college, I studied ethnic studies, and like, what you said and how, like, you want to teach history, kind of models that same pedagogies of like, CRT, critical race theory. And so she was like, you know, I could really help you, you know, create your vision, you know, make it come to life.

Marame: And I was just so excited, because I feel like, when you create a project or you submit something in a history class, it’s like, it’s like, oh, it’s just like a dream. It’s like a fantasy. It’s like, it never really comes to consideration. But having a teacher that actually, like, believed in you and, like, believed in your project and wanted to see it through was, like, really inspiring. Because obviously it’s a big project, and it took my full junior year. It was just really all hands on deck, and just, you know, after school meetings, meetings, literally almost every single day. And also just have so many other students who resonate with the class and actually, like, appreciate their histories being taught in the class rather than just sitting through a boring, 50 minute lecture on some old white, dead guy, if you know what I mean.

Bernie: Marame is now a sophomore at Yale University, connecting her interest in sociology to the foundation of Ethnic Studies. And actually, I now co-facilitate the same class she originally created at Beacon high school, but I wanted to understand how her interest in ethnic studies began.

Bernie: Can you just describe what a typical history class that beacon looked like for you?

Marame: yeah,

Bernie: So what classes were available, and what would you describe that as?

Marame: Freshmen and sophomore year, I think we just took, like, the regular core curriculum classes. So it was like world history, I think, and then US history, I know, was 11th grade. Yeah, I feel like past history classes that beacon, it was like, cool, but I feel like ethnic studies did more than what the core like, the common curriculum like offered.

Isabella: Wait Bernie, what is this course?

Berni: So the course at Beacon High School is basically centered around the impacts of racial injustices. And at Beacon High School, specifically, the class is made up of two units. In the first unit, we mainly center around community building, in the sense that we have discussions about our cultural and or racial identities. We usually start the class off in a circle and end in a circle, and at the end of that unit, students do a podcasting project where their paired up with a random student of the class, and they’re required to create an hour long podcast about their cultural identities.

Isabella: That’s super cool. Wait, that’s actually really cool.

Bernie: And then we have unit two, which is mostly centered around learning about those actual racial injustices. Units who consist of mostly learning about case studies. Case studies, watching documentaries about the history of racial injustice and the creation of Ethnic Studies, and basically learning about student activism, where we can eventually create a final project, which is an advocacy letter or an op ed newspaper, to any news source that you would like to send it to.

Isabella: That is so cool. I wish my school had that.

Bernie: Yeah, it’s really fun. We have a lot of students come back the next year saying we missed this class and we want to be back.

Bernie: Do you think that the course should be mandatory for all students in New York City?

Marame: Absolutely, absolutely, I think it should replace one of our history courses. Definitely because, because I just know so many students are just lacking in education, and they’re just carrying on these biases throughout the world. And when they get into positions of power, what do they do? They abuse it. They don’t understand why BI is necessary. They don’t understand that the structures that racism isn’t just a social contract, it’s, it’s in systems that perpetuate such harmful inequalities and negativities. And if they don’t understand how these, how these structures are still in place today, what can they do in their position of power to change the world? Look at our administration right now. Trump went through the entire catalog. He recalled it documents that had the word gay in it because of DEI like because he wants to get rid of DEI. I think that is absolutely insane when we let people like that who don’t understand the structures and the true history of this country, and it’s just so heartbreaking.

Bernie: That was Marame Diop, a former student at Beacon High School and a current sophomore at Yale. What started as an idea turned into a course that reshaped how students learn about US history, but also how we learn about ourselves. Her story reminds co facilitators like me to do more than just check boxes and read slides off a screen, but actually discuss the voices of students that built and continue carrying its legacy forward.

Isabella: But it’s exactly courses like these that are at risk across the country. Nearly 800 high schools across 40 states teach AP, African American Studies, another ethnic studies course created by the College Board, and those are the courses the Trump administration considers divisive.

News Reporter: Well, the topics in question, according to the president, are race, sex, gender and politics. He’s ordered the Secretary of Education to create a strategy within 90 days to stop these teachings in the classroom.

Isabella: Coming up, we’ll talk with Trump B reporter Julian Shen Barrow about the broader political challenges facing ethnic studies. That’s after the break.

Amy: Hey listeners, it’s Amy Zimmer with Chalkbeat New York. We hope you’re enjoying this season’s first episode of PS weekly, and we’ve got an assignment for you. Follow us on Instagram @ BellVoices. Please tell your friends about us. Share it with your teachers. We’d love for social studies, civics and advisory teachers across the city to bring PS weekly into your classrooms. And we want to hear from you. Email us at PSweekly@chalkbeat.org,

Bernie: Welcome back to P.S. weekly. Isabella and I are discussing the ethnic studies curriculums.

Isablella: Yeah! Bernie and I were discussing how important ethnic studies was to us, and I mean, we would like to see ethnic studies be a mandatory part of curriculum in New York City high schools, but it’s those classes that the federal administration is trying to get rid of. So we spoke with Chalkbeat reporter, Julian Shen-Berro, about how likely it is that the classes we value will be taken away.

Julian: Yeah, I’m a reporter at Chalkbeat, so I cover New York City News, New York City schools, K through 12 education, and mostly the public school system.

Isabella: Okay so, before this current administration, how would you characterize the state of ethnic studies within the New York City School System?

Julian: Yeah, I think there are a lot of different efforts, kind of ongoing to try to improve that, from educators, from elected officials. We’ve seen there’s a Black Studies curriculum K through 12 that rolled out in New York City in recent years. I believe it’s in about 200 schools now. And you know, there is the hidden voices curriculum that the city’s education department developed to try to uplift stories from marginalized communities that you know might be overlooked in other curriculums.

Julian: I think there are, you know, elements of this that don’t always reach every student. You know, something like hidden voices was designed so that teachers could, you know, choose to bring parts of it into the classroom. It’s not like a course itself, but it’s offering materials to educators to try to bring them in. So obviously, that requires the teacher to go out, you know, seek it out, and to bring it into their classroom. The Black Studies curriculum, you know, is optional for schools they don’t have to teach it. And so again, not every school is going to have access to that. And so I have encountered students who feel like they haven’t seen themselves represented in the curriculum. And that does continue to be an issue, you know, here and everywhere, but there are strides that are being taken, and there’s, there’s a clear goal of trying to improve that issue here.

Bernie: So I’ve known you’ve covered the DEI policies in New York City recently. So how has that knowledge really guided you throughout this process and writing the story?

Julian: Yeah, I think obviously the kind of the use of the term DEI and diversity, equity and inclusion, has sort of been, become very politicized. But I think, you know, we’ve seen from you know, various people here in New York City that they’ve been kind of affirming their commitment to diversity in classrooms and in other spaces. You know, the Attorney General put out guidance recently, sort of pushing back on what the federal government has been, you know, vocally saying about, you know, possible action they’ll take if schools or other institutions are changing their you know, are continuing to use policies that they see as sort of DEI. You know, my understanding there has been traditionally that, that term has more been about kind of hiring practices. Has been about, you know, thinking about like teacher workforce in the schools, and less about the curriculums. But it does seem to be kind of expanding and broadening to encompass more and more.

Isabella: Okay, to go off of that question I read in your article, Trump can’t ban DEI in schools. ‘New York Attorney General affirms in new guidance that the Attorney General stands ready to enforce their state’s robust civil rights protections and in which, which, in many cases, exceed federal civil rights protections wherever discrimination may be found’. So can you speak a little bit more on this and what, and how New York City public schools are protected from the whims of the presidential politics.

Julian: Right, I think some of the concern there was that they were going to go after schools that might have, for example, a program that you know is focused on college and career readiness for students of color, or something like that, where, you know, particularly highlighting certain student groups that might have faced historical challenges, and like trying to, you know, better, their outcomes in the education system. That’s something that the Trump administration has maybe would see as kind of DEI and go after. And so what the Attorney General was saying is, you know, those practices remain legal, and you know, Schools shouldn’t shy away from continuing to do them. So that’s, that’s kind of one part of answering that question.

Julian: And I think the other element of this is that, you know, the federal government doesn’t have authority to dictate what is taught in the classroom. States do decide sort of the learning standards for their states, the requirements for what’s taught in the schools. And so that isn’t an authority that the federal government has directly, but what they do have is a lot of funding that goes to New York City schools and other schools here in the state. And so I believe it’s about $2.2 billion in the education department budget, which is coming from the federal government. It’s about 5% so it’s not, you know, the main source of funding by any means. Again, there are debates there. If he has that power, you know, Congress is supposed to be the one with, with power over the purse, but we have to kind of see how all this is going to play out in the court system. So there are some unknowns there.

Isabella: Okay, how much of this concern do you think is realistic or warranted?

Julian: I mean, these kinds of things are not new, right? These, you know, we’ve seen attacks on like the LGBTQ community. We’ve seen efforts to restrict how, you know, racism is taught in history classes and in other spaces, you know, going back years now. And so I think the concerns I’ve heard from people who work in these spaces is sort of twofold, one that people who are already sort of have been making these attacks on certain populations are going to feel emboldened to continue to do that. I think the other element that I’ve heard some concern about is whether we could see some kind of self censorship if people are kind of going to comply in advance with some of these things out of fear of facing some kind of backlash.

Isabella: Have you seen any real life impacts of Trump’s initiatives against DEI as a journalist?

Julian: Yeah, I think we’re seeing definitely changes in the way that people are willing to, like publicly talk about some of these things. For example, we saw in the city council they postponed a hearing that they had planned to talk to the city’s Education Department about its efforts to reduce segregation in the school system. They postponed that hearing out of concerns about whether it could open the school system up to some kind of targeting by the Trump administration. I think we’ve also seen organizations make smaller changes sort of publicly. You know, I’ve heard of organizations that have changed their name to remove kind of references to, you know, certain communities or groups that the Trump administration has targeted with these executive orders out of fear, again, of like drawing that kind of public eye and then drawing backlash. I think, from what I’ve been hearing so far, people are still trying to make sure that the work they’re doing internally stays the same, that they’re still giving kids the same access to these kind of resources that they’ve been providing in communities. But we have to see just, you know, just how far the administration is willing to go in terms of trying to enforce some of these executive orders here in New York City, and we’ll see if there’s kind of any continued fallout.

Bernie: Yeah, that’s really scary, like the fact that they postponed that simply just to not put a spotlight on it. I think it’s really insane. So in the end, what do you think the future holds?

Julian: I think it’s worth noting. You know, even before Trump’s election, and you know, even before any of these recent executive orders, there have been pushes, you know, at Beacon and other places to increase the amount of access students have to ethnic studies. I know at the state level, there’s been an effort to create a curriculum for Asian, American Pacific Islander history. There have been various efforts ongoing for years to try to increase access to diverse curriculums in schools, and those have borne out some benefits and some kind of concrete changes as a result. But in other ways, it’s still kind of a work in progress. And so I think that regardless of what happens with the Trump administration, you know, students are going to continue advocating for these curriculums because they’re things that they’ve expressed they want in the classroom. And you know, lawmakers or education officials who care about these issues are probably going to continue to advocate for them as well. So we might see, you know, more divisive rhetoric around this. We might see the Trump administration trying to tamp down on some of these efforts, but you know, I would be surprised if New York City students and educators didn’t continue to advocate for them, just based on the conversations I’ve had, and you know what I’ve seen from students and educators here.

Bernie: Thank you, Julian,

Julian: Yeah, yeah, of course

Isabella: That was Julian chan Barrow, a chalk beat reporter, and you’ve been listening to the first episode of season two of P.S. Weekly.

Bernie: P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between the Bell and Chalkbeat made possible by generous support from the Pinkerton Foundation, the Summerfield foundation and FJC.

Isabella: Producers for this episode were me Isabella Mason,

Bernie: And me Bernie Carmona, with reporting help from Chalkbeat reporter, Julian Shen-Berro.

Isabella: Our executive producer for the show is Ave Carillo, and executive editors are Amy Zimmer and Taylor McGraw.

Bernie: Additional production and reporting support was provided by Mira Gordon, Sabrina DuQuesnay [DU-Kenny] and our friends at Chalkbeat. Our engagement editor is Carolina Hidalgo.

Isabella: This episode was made using Hindenburg Pro. Music is from Blue Dot sessions, and the jingle you heard at the beginning of this episode was created by the one and only Erica Huang.

Bernie: Thanks for tuning in! See you next time.

P.S. Weekly at SXSW EDU: Teen journalists on NYC admissions, resources, and real change

2025-03-26T14:55:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

We recorded this bonus episode live at the annual SXSW EDU conference, hosted earlier this month in Austin, Texas. P.S. Weekly’s student reporters spoke on a panel at the event, diving into the pressing inequities of New York City’s school system.

Listen to what it’s really like to navigate the largest school system in the country, from the admission process to stark resource disparities within schools — and what students would change if they were in charge.

Featuring: P.S. Weekly reporters Marcellino Melika, Bernie Carmona, and Salma Baksh, along with Chalkbeat New York reporter Alex Zimmerman.

P.S. Weekly is available on major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Be sure to drop a review in your app or shoot an email to PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org.

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell, made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation. P.S. Weekly’s SXSW EDU panel was made possible by generous support from the Siegel Family Endowment.

Listen for new P.S. Weekly episodes Thursdays this spring.

Read the full episode transcript below

Bernie: Hey everyone, it’s Bernie Carmona, and welcome back to P.S. Weekly… the sound of the New York City school system!

I was a reporter during Season One, back when I was a junior at Beacon High School, and now, I’m a senior!

Senior year has been a lot! But I’m so excited to be back on the show! We’re kicking off Season Two with our very first episode. If you’ve been with us since Season One, thank you for sticking around.

P.S. Weekly is a podcast where student reporters dive into the biggest issues facing New York City public schools, but we tell these stories from our point of view.

This season,we’re taking it even further.

But before we get into those stories, we have a special episode for you to kick off the season. Because I and some of my fellow P.S. Weekly reporters from season one were invited to this year’s South by Southwest EDU – for a panel discussion about inequities in New York City’s high school system.

So today, we’re sharing that live recorded panel discussion where you’ll hear from me, Salma Baksh, and Marcellino Melika, — along with Alex Zimmerman, a reporter from Chalkbeat New York.

And we really tackle everything from the complicated high school admissions process to the disparities in resources and opportunities between schools. We’ll share what it’s really like to navigate the largest school system in the country, and what we’d change if we were in charge. Plus, we’ll discuss why student voices need to be part of the conversation when decisions about our education are made.

And this is just the beginning! This season, we’ve got in-depth investigations and conversations about the challenges students, teachers and administrators are facing in this new political climate told by students who know what it’s really like.

So, make sure to subscribe to P.S. Weekly wherever you get your podcasts.

Alright, let’s dive in — here’s our live panel from SXSW EDU!

Salma: Welcome to P.S Weekly. The sound of the New York City school System. My name is Salma Backes and I’m a student reporter with the Bell. We’re super excited to be with you here today for our live recorded episode of P.S. Weekly. P.S. Weekly is a podcast where student reporters explore pressing issues in the New York City school system. It’s a collaboration between the Bell and Chalkbeat New York. The Bell is a nonprofit that is training the next generation of journalists by offering paid reporting, internships and advocating for equitable access to youth journalism opportunities along with P.S Weekly. We also produce the Miseducation podcast and release episodes from our Summer Youth Podcast Academy. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization that covers efforts to improve schools for all students, especially those who have historically lacked access to a quality education. I’m joined today by my fellow student reporters Marcelino Maleka and Berti Carmona, as well as Chalkbeat reporter Alex Zimmerman. Can you guys introduce yourselves as well as the first story you ever reported?

Marcellino: Hi guys. Thank you for joining us. My name is Marcel Maleka. I’m a senior at Francis Lewis High School in Queens, New York. I first joined about the summer after my sophomore year. I’ve also worked for organizations like WNYC through their Radio’s Rookies program. And, of course, my school’s newspaper. Um, my first story was on the imbalance between the boy and girl sports teams at my school.

Bernie: Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for making it. My name is Bernie Carmona. I’m from the Bronx, New York, but I go to high school as a senior at Beacon High School in midtown Manhattan. I’ve been a student reporter with the bill since my sophomore year of high school. But since my junior year, I have also been a student photographer at the Bronx Documentary Center. And the first story I ever reported was about funding inequities in arts education across New York City public schools.

Alex: Hey, everyone. My name is Alex Zimmerman. I’m a reporter at Chalkbeat New York, where I’ve been covering New York City public schools for almost a decade. Before that, I was a reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh City Paper, which is the city’s all weekly. I wish I could say that the first story I reported was like an awesome, hard hitting investigation into inequities in public education. But it was actually about. It was actually a profile of a horse breeder in suburban Pittsburgh.

Salma: And back to me. Hi, I’m Salma. I’m a current first year student at Smith College, hoping to study government and sociology. But I recently graduated from Forest Hills High School in Queens, New York. I’ve joined the Bell in my senior year, though I wish I joined earlier. I’ve also reported for city limits through their Clarify internship, and I played a role in restarting my school paper, The Beacon, which is actually what my first story is about. That process of restarting and why the paper left my school in the first place. To start, I would like to engage you guys and poll you on a question. I want you to guess. How many students do you think right now attend New York City public schools? And we have a multiple choice so its easy! This is by a show of hands. I’ll go ABC and D I want you to raise your hand if you think A) 1 million students attend New York City public schools. Whoa. Okay. That’s a lot of you guys. It makes me guys know something. Okay, B) 500,000. No one. Okay. C) 100,000. Also, no one. You guys are really confident on a million or D) 10,000. Okay. Also, no one. So the answer is A, you guys are really smart and I’m thinking you guys are already invested in New York City education, which excites me. 1 million students attend New York City public schools. It is the largest school system in the nation. And if you do the math, that means about one in 340 Americans attend New York City public schools, which is kind of crazy.

Salma: The New York City public school system operates 1,800 schools across all five boroughs the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island. And this includes traditional public schools, as well as charter schools. For the 2023 to 2024 school year, 42% of New York City students identified as Hispanic or Latinx, which makes it the largest proportion. This is followed by 20% of students identifying as black, 19% as Asian, and 16% as white. Attending New York City public schools has been a special experience. Taking the subway. Grabbing a bacon, egg and cheese before school. Running to an internship on Wall Street after class. But this hasn’t come without its challenges. For this live recorded episode of P.S. Weekly. We’ll be diving into the inequities that we see in our New York City high schools. We’ll explain the New York City high school– admissions process and how that feeds into a number of other disparities. And then we’ll present solutions. What we would do if we were in positions of power and change things. We’ll follow this up with a bonus segment where will share our school related hot takes and then we’ll have some time for audience Q&A at the end.

Salma: So in order to understand the inequities in New York City high schools, it’s really important to understand how the admissions process works because this is how students are sorted into high schools. To start off, can you tell us about your high school application process Marcel?

Marcellino: For sure. So I attended P.S. 118, which was a middle school in Queens, New York. I want to attend Hunter College High School, but my family couldn’t really afford the fee for their special admissions test. So I was set up to take the specialized high school admissions test, or the SHSAT.

Salma: For members who don’t know what that is. Can you explain the SHSAT?

Marcellino: Definitely. So the SHSAT. is the admissions test to gain entry into these top specialized public schools in New York City. Some of the best public schools in the city and even nationwide. We think about names like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech, and some kids spent a year preparing for this test. So then it was my turn to take that test and the only really research I had to prepare was this program called Dream? It was a study, a city run unfunded program to help give prep SHSAT. And in hindsight, that program didn’t adequately prepare me for the test. Like we never even took a full practice test to that program, which is, which is crazy. So then it was my time to take the SHSAT. I took it and bombed it. I didn’t make the cut off for any of the specialized schools. And on top of that, I only made my seventh choice high school out of my non specialized choices, Francis Lewis High, which was seven miles away. I’m glad with how things ended up. I love the school. It’s a really big school with a lot of programs and opportunities, so I’m really glad of how things went later on. But in the moment, I was not very happy with how things ended up.

Salma: You say seven miles. Can you tell us how long does that take?

Marcellino: Yeah. So New York City public transit is pretty nice, but um even then I still have to take three buses. It takes me about an hour and a half. I wake up at 4:30 a.m to have like, more than enough time to get ready. So yeah.

Salma: Yeah. I had a similar experience where I also got into my seventh choice of high school and I freaked out. I remember distinctly I was on face time with my best friend and I was crying because I thought I got into a quote on quote bad school. But I also just like you, I found a lot of opportunities at my high school and it turned out okay. Bernie, do you have any thoughts?

Bernie: Well, I–I think I got pretty lucky throughout the process. I ended up getting into my first choice. But I, I specifically remember the stress it took to apply to high schools in seventh grade. Like that’s the year where your grades are the most important. And if you don’t academically excel, then you won’t quote on quote get into a bad school.

Salma: Well, Alex, as a Chalkbeat reporter, you report on the New York City school system every day. Can you tell us a little bit about how the admissions process works?

Alex: Yeah, for sure. I mean, you all probably have just gotten a little bit of a flavor of this, right? Like they’re talking about ranking choices. They’re talking about having to travel long distances in some cases. It is a really, really complex process. So I’m going to do my best to give you just a very high level rundown of how it works. So in most places like where you go to high school is pretty simple. It’s based on where you live, you’re zoned for a school and you go to that school. In New York City, there’s a really unusual degree of school choice. So in theory, students can apply to any high school in the city and there are more than 400 of them. And the way that they get matched to a school is they list in order of preference which high school you want to go to. You used to only be able to list 12 choices. Now you can theoretically list all 400. So again, just really enormous amounts of research that some people put into figuring out which schools to rank. And then once you’ve listed those schools on your application, there’s a really fancy algorithm that someone actually won the Nobel Prize for that matches you with one of those choices. So each student, once that algorithm is rung, gets spit out with one choice that they got matched with. And generally speaking, that’s where students go. The system is really designed to like, open up possibilities for students. So a lot of different schools have like different themes. Some are sort of arts schools, some have more sort of like science offerings, Like there’s just a really diverse set of programs that students can choose from. So if the school that happens to be closest to where you live doesn’t offer that kind of programs you want or you think it just isn’t up to par, like isn’t offering like academics that feel like solid to you. You’re not stuck at that school, like you can apply somewhere else. So the sort of theory behind it is that it opens up, the- creates like a lot of promise for students. But I think as we’re going to talk about in a moment, that system also helps cement inequities. And, and, in some ways it’s a false promise. And we’re going to get into that a little bit. But yeah, that’s sort of like the theory behind the choice system in New York City.

Salma: Right. And to give some context to those inequities, the UCLA Civil Rights Project did a report that found that New York City schools are among the most segregated in the nation. Almost half of New York City public schools are intensely segregated, meaning that 90% or more of their population is black and Hispanic. Meanwhile, half of all white students in the city are concentrated into just 8% of schools. Alex, can you explain the connection between our current admissions process and this segregation?

Alex: Yeah. So one really important piece of that to understand is that there are sort of two main buckets of types of school in New York City. High schools, there are screens, schools that take sort of your prior academic record into account. So these are schools that can look at, you know, your GPA. In some cases, they might require an audition for a smaller subset of screen schools. They can even um like ask you to do supplemental essays or can even ask you to do an interview. And then there’s another group of schools that are predominantly unscreened, which means they’re not taking your prior academic background into account.

For the screen schools, the most important thing by far is your seventh grade GPA and core subjects. So these are students who are like in some cases 12, 13 years old. And, you know, I’d like to throw this back to you all in terms of like what it was like when you were in seventh grade, knowing that if you wanted a shot at a screen school like that was the year that that really mattered for you.

Marcellino: Yeah, for sure. I remember, like, being told back then my teacher is like, oh, like your seventh grade gpa is going to matter. Like, you have to, like, really focus in your classes this year. And I guess I didn’t really, like, internalize that. I felt like those sort of things just told me to just, like, get you to, like, get in shape. Like, sorry about, like, teachers were like, oh, next year, like, the teachers, will be, like, way more strict, like, this behavior isn’t going to fly. And then it’s like the exact opposite. I felt like it was that type of thing where, like, it wasn’t really the truth and um it definitely was. And I think it’s a lot of like pressure to put on like middle school students. You shouldn’t expect them to plan that far ahead, even like planning that far ahead for a thing like college and high school was already like a lot of pressure for a lot of people.

Bernie: Yeah, I agree. I remember specifically internalizing the idea of, of there being good and bad schools. So I began the school I applied to my first choice. There was an essay requirement, and writing that essay was really hard for an eighth grader. Me. But I think at the time I had a lot of teachers telling me that if I didn’t academically excel or didn’t do good during my seventh grade year, that I would end up at the zoned school down the street instead of a good school or a screen school that would offer me these all of these opportunities, you know.

Salma: So we’ve talked about GPA, but I’d like to throw it back to you, Alex, to talk about some other factors that are contributing to segregation.

Alex: Yeah, If you kind of think about seventh grade GPA being kind of the most important thing for getting into screen school is like if you just had like if you just had a regular, like random distribution of students across the spectrum of GPA is then you might expect the screen schools to look pretty similar to the onscreen schools. But of course, that isn’t a random distribution, right? So if you’re looking at like other factors that kind of correlate with a student’s GPA, if you look at like sort of the top echelon of GPAs in New York City public schools and on seventh graders, that is a group of students that is way less likely to be black or Latino, way less likely to be a student with a disability, way less likely to be a student who’s learning English, way less likely to be a student who’s living in temporary housing. So the sort of the way this works in practice is that the screen schools end up draining off a really high percentage of kids who are on grade level and have high GPAs and have are considered proficient in reading and math on the state tests and are end up being schools that are not at all representative of New York City public schools as a whole. And sort of, you know, some of the students here have talked a little bit about like other groups of screen schools in York City. So one of the most famous examples of that are the specialized schools. And they actually don’t really participate in this other kind of like seventh grade GPA process. The admissions to those schools is determined by a single test, which Marcel mentioned a second ago the SHSAT. It truly doesn’t matter how well or poorly you did in seventh grade. For those schools, all that matters is your score on this one exam, and that’s actually like enshrined in state law. And so those schools are even less representative than the other group of screened schools. So you have kind of in New York City, like a few different tiers of screening happening. But in general, what this looks like is the screen schools tend to be much whiter, tend to be much more Asian-American, tend to have more middle class families, and the unscreened schools tend to have more black and Latino kids, more students of disabilities, and just are generally serving like higher need populations.

Salma: I’m wondering, you know, now that we’ve described what screen schools look like, what do onscreen schools look like?

Alex: Yeah. And I think, like, up to this point, we’ve been- I’ve been talking a little bit about kind of like the demographic differences between those schools and sort of like a traditional like racial segregation, economic segregation kind of way. But I think another dimension of that that’s really important to think about is like academic segregation, right? So you’re not just concentrating students of different demographic groups. You’re also concentrating students of different academic abilities at different schools. And so that also has like, like there are screening schools in New York City that are predominantly students of color. And, you know, so it doesn’t totally neatly map on to demographics, but there- in general, like the screen schools are draining off like a lot of the students who are stronger performers academically. And so that also just has like a really profound effect on like what kind of academic programs schools are offering and like what school culture is like. And I want you to just keep a kernel of that idea in your head as we move forward that like we’re when we’re talking about segregation, we’re not just talking about like racial demographics and socioeconomic status. We’re also talking about like what students academic backgrounds look like.

Salma: I’m wondering, have you guys felt the impacts of academic or racial segregation in your high schools?

Bernie: I went to a middle school in the South Bronx, and that school was predominantly Hispanic and black students. And then transitioning from that school to Beacon High School, Beacon High School, 35% white. And when I went into that school, I remember getting the biggest culture shock ever. It was like a shot of imposter syndrome that I had never had before because I was just bombarded with a lot of extracurriculars and a lot of, you know, a lot of options, I’d say options to explore music options, food, sports, film, dance, theater. We had an arts rotation in freshman year that let us explore all of the arts at Beacon High School throughout our freshman year. So I think not having that in middle school really was a stressful move, but I think it introduced me to a lot more opportunities and allowed me to hone in on journalism because that was an issue that I pretty much noticed throughout all my four years.

Marcellino: Yeah, for sure. I remember like in my middle school there was like two Asian people in my like, entire class and then going to my high school. Francis Lewis it’s about 50% Asian. So it was a big demographic difference. And alongside like similar to Bernie’’s story as well, my middle school had no opportunities to be a no extracurriculars or whatever it was just straight up classes. Transition to high school there was always different programs, opportunities and it really like allowed me to like shine as a person. And so I like to go to my, like intellectual curiosity, like, even like within like my personal life as well. Like I joined the Science Research Academy. I’m a public scientist now. I’m doing a lot of different research. I joined the, the string orchestra, and now I play the cello. That’s an instrument I want to keep playing through like college and the rest of my life, and most importantly, I also joined my school’s journalism academy. And that’s like what started all of this for me. So I feel like it was it was a massive contrast, both academically and racially, from middle school to high school.

Salma: So the experiences you guys are talking about reminds me of some reporting that Bernie did actually. And we have a clip of it.

Bernie: Yeah!, During my first year with the Miseducation podcast, I created an episode called The Price of Creativity. And in this short clip, I’m interviewing my friend Kaydee, she’s basically describing what her transition from middle school to high school was like and the differences she noticed in her creative interests.

Kaydee: I did play basketball since that was literally the only sport that my school had, since they didn’t have like much funding and the extracurriculars at my middle school you had to pay to do them. And my family does not have enough money to, like, continuously keep paying for me to do something after school.

Bernie: Those barriers don’t exist at Beacon. Beacon High School program provides access to 96 clubs and 20 PSL sports teams. Beacon’s implementation of a freshman arts rotation allows students to explore multiple electives in a single semester. This gave Kaydee the chance to choose her main elective in 10th grade, which was filmmaking.

Kaydee: It does have like places and teachers that let you, like, dabble into it. You know, like if I wanted to do film as, like my career for my whole lives, Beacon gives me the access to by having, like, film classes, by having like advanced film classes, by having like, teachers who could, like, help me go to, like, good colleges that are, like, made for filmmaking.

Bernie: Yeah. So I definitely feel like Katie’s experience was a shared one. I specifically remember, like during the tour of Beacon High School, we went to the Cellar where our music department is located, and I was just looking at all the ten studios in a row. It’s like they’re ten huge studios and they just have a bunch of audio equipment, Logic Pro X garage band and pianos and guitars. And I was just so invested in, you know, pursuing music and eventually I like started taking the lessons. But I would have never done that if I hadn’t even done the research to apply to Beacon High School. I think going back to Katie’s experience talking to her was, was just so rejuvenating because she had that experience of not going to a school with a lot of opportunities. And despite there being funding for her school, her school, I think, had to use that money to, to support the students in other factors like giving them resources of food and shelter, because Katie’s school was located in an underfunded community and those funds don’t always go towards creative endeavors.

Salma: Hmm. I definitely have noticed something similar with high school journalism opportunities. As ironic as it is for us to be here today, I believe the statistics go that among the 50 highest, 50 high schools with the highest percentage of white students, 76% have a student newspaper. And if you look at the counterpart of the 50 high schools with the highest concentration of black students, that number is only 8%. And it’s a huge, huge gap that advocacy groups have been trying to disrupt. But I think it speaks to the fact that if you go to a wider school, you are getting better opportunities. I can acknowledge the fact that I went to a bigger school and my school newspaper restarted when I got there, but we had thousands of students and that’s what we had the funding to do. Bigger schools, often like Marcel School has what, 5000 students right around that amount, a huge school with a lot of money. And it creates experiences between high schools that are completely different.

Marcellino: Yeah, definitely. Like I remember like my friends who ended up at our zone school, Grover Cleveland, its majority Hispanic. And I remember like talking to them about like our different experiences, like their experiences. And it’s a school that I would have rather not ended up at because of the different opportunities they have compared to Francis Lewis. There, there a lot more lacking and sort of like starting to think about how like different my high school journey would have been if I ended up at my zone school and I didn’t like apply to like literally randomly apply to high schools. Like I remember in middle school, I was so clueless as to what high schools to apply to.

She pulled up the US news site and sorted by high schools, which is crazy because people do that for like colleges, which is very not according to pick. But doing that for high schools is like it’s a bit early to be pulling out. U.S. News. Definitely. But I did that and then she picked schools about like the vibe of their name. So I was like, oh, I’m be a student at Francis Lewis High School. That sounded decent, or I’m be a student at the I.C.E school that sounded like a weird school. I don’t know. So that’s essentially how I picked my high school and sort of like starting to think how, like, I’m sure other people have like, maybe not the same experience, but like similar experiences where, like they were absolutely clueless when picking the high schools. And it really has an impact. You know, like the demographics are there, the opportunities are there, like all the stats show that its a fundamentally different experience if you go to a different school so.

Salma: Alex, you explain a bit more about why these resource disparities exist?

Alex: Yeah, for sure. So there are, as you can imagine, like a lot of different kind of interrelated reasons for this, and I can’t cover all of them, but I’m going to try to do my best to give you sort of the main ones. One is that, you know, if you imagine that there is a group of schools that are basically selecting for families that tend to have more time and resources, like those are families that are also going to be able to exert political pressure in their communities to make sure that their schools have like a wide range of programs and extracurricular activities and sports offerings.

These are also schools that tend to be able to, like, raise more money themselves, right? So they have parent organizations that are raising more money. There are really enormous disparities in PTA fundraising, in some cases between screened and unscreened schools.

If we think about funding more broadly, like how does like city funding go to screen schools compared to unscreened schools? One sort of interesting quirk in New York City’s funding formula is actually that there’s a group of screened schools that get slightly more money, like they get a little bit of a funding boost under the logic that basically they need a little bit of extra money to, to like, well serve accelerated learners and to have kind of programs that will serve students who had been like high performers in middle school is also true that New York City’s funding formula in general is progressive, which means that schools that enroll more high need students generally get more money per student. So if you enroll more students who did not score proficient on state tests, you get a little bit of a funding boost. If you enroll more students with disabilities, you get a funding boost. If you enroll more English language learners, you get a funding boost. But if you consider that, like there are a lot of unscreened schools where there’s really concentrated need, right? Like we had we heard a little bit about this already, but like if you have a school where like a substantial percentage of your population lives in temporary housing, like that school might be funneling more of their resources toward like running a food pantry and partnering with a community organization to provide like laundry services on campus for students who don’t have access to laundry facilities at home. They’re probably devoting more of their resources toward smaller class sizes for students with disabilities. They might be devoting more of their resources to like tutoring to help catch students up. And those are all valuable and like things that I think a lot of principals of unscreened schools are really proud of. But there’s been like a long running debate in New York City about whether that kind of incremental boost that those schools get for their high need populations is actually enough. I’m given the concentrated need at those schools. So even though, like if you just looked on paper like, oh, like, like a lot of the unscreened schools are actually getting more money on a person basis on screen schools, there are big questions about like whether that boost actually accounts for the like deep need that exists on a lot of those campuses.

Another kind of wonky detail that, I that I think is important is New York City, like lots of school districts across the country, saw pretty steep enrollment declines during the pandemic that haven’t rebounded in New York City. The picture is like a little bit complicated because there’s been this large influx of migrant students, but that hasn’t been enough to make up for those enrollment declines. And if you look at like where a lot of those enrollment declines are concentrated, you’ll notice that like unscreened schools tend to be some of the city’s smallest schools too. And because funding is distributed on a per student basis. Right. Like the more students you enroll, the more money you get on. That is also a huge reason why you have like unscreened schools that just like, don’t have enough students at them to justify hiring extra staff or justify having like a full array of sports teams or can pay for afterschool programs. So that’s another sort of dimension of the kind of funding inequity.

Salma: Well, I know you just spoke, but I’m actually going to hand the mic back to you for our next segment. Alex.

Alex: Yeah, so I know we’ve been talking a lot about how the admissions process sort of helps produce some of these inequities in New York City. We have mayoral control of the schools, so we basically have one person right now, Mayor Eric Adams, who really gets to set like education policy. And so I want the three of you to imagine that you are the mayor of New York City. Try to imagine that you’re not under indictment for corruption, but imagine you’re the mayor of New York City. I want, I want you each to sort of talk a little bit about kind of like what your vision would be and and like, what are some things that you think the city could be doing to alleviate some of these inequities? And they don’t just have to be about like the admissions process sort of thinking more broadly about like what changes you would want to see.

Marcellino: Yeah, for sure. So if I was the mayor obviously without the corruption charges, hopefully.

Salma: Hopefully

Marcellino: I would start phasing out screened admissions in New York City hiigh schools. I think the school admissions process right now is sort of incentivize grouping this like collection of like highly funded and like extremely like prestigious programs in a small set of schools rather than focusing on creating quality programs at every school. So every student has what they need to succeed. Obviously, I think phasing out screened admissions is like the, the end to be our solution for the issues that New York City faces. But I think it’s a step in the right direction to make sure that no student is limited from opportunity due to their circumstances.

Bernie: Yeah

Alex: Yeah, yeah. And I’d be really curious too, for, you know, all three of you to kind of weigh in on what it would mean for screening to be like less emphasized. Like what would it have felt like to be in seventh or eighth grade and sort of figuring out like where you would go to high school in a world where, like you weren’t kind of trying to like each of you have kind of described this experience of like trying to vie for what you perceive to be like the schools that would have that would set you up best for college or sort of like have the widest array of programs that you would want in a high school experience. Like, what would it mean for, for like your ability to get that to not be sort of dependent on this kind of sorting mechanism that we’ve been describing?

Bernie: Yeah, I mean, for me, I’m going to keep it 100. I didn’t, I was never taught what a screen or on screen in school was in seventh grade. I, I think it wasn’t until I joined The Bell where I was finally learning about the education system in New York City, and I was learning about the history of Beacon, which was once an unscreened school and had turned screened over the course of five years. And after all of the investments and money that Beacon had, that Beacon had made, they created a brand new building of a $1.5 million dollar school, which was once a simple floor in, at Lincoln Center. And immediately the, the predominantly black and Hispanic student population turned into 35% white. So I think, I think Beacon committed to being a screen school in order to be good. But at the cost of a lot of students losing those opportunities simply for not having access to them. So I think, removing the kind of negative connotation and demonizing what bad and good schools are, are worth exploring. And if I were to go on and say that I were the mayor of New York City, I would, I would specifically integrate programs that are that support those in marginalized communities, specifically student led classes like ethnic studies. Um, my experience with this is that the administration in New York City is very on board with it, but unfortunately it is something that’s optional in some schools and my school was able to happen. But I know that in other schools teachers might not, teachers might recline from teaching that course or there might not be enough students on board with that decision. But where I go to school, the ethnic studies course was brought by student led protests and student activism, which ended up on Chalkbeat News and other news articles on. And as a result of that, a group of students decided to, to commit 4 hours every day, every week to stay after school and develop the course and learn how to approach the topic of race in an ethnically diverse community like Beacon, which is 35% white. But there is that other percentage that has never been taught the concept of race or probably doesn’t know what it is in the context of a school that is predominantly white. So I think having those courses there is really necessary and now that we have tools, my schools, these are digital tools that lets us explore what on the most recent programs that schools are implementing and I think this is a really necessary topic because it’s contributed a lot to my educational experience. I remember being in junior year and having taken US history and ethnic studies at the same time and taking those two courses simultaneously allowed me to become a co facilitator in my senior year. And now I’m teaching my fellow seniors what it’s like to, to explore your racial identity and your cultural identity and how to take action against how to take action against rhetoric that very much exists in our world. I think something the city is doing is implementing those policies. But I think we need a reform that is very concrete.

Alex: Yeah. And one thing I just wanted to kind of add to Bernie’s experience that for those of you who aren’t super with New York City public schools might like fly over your head a little bit is just in terms of curriculum. It has historically been like a little bit of a Wild West where schools just have like a enormous amount of individual autonomy to sort of pick curriculums and sort of see how that plays out. So even though there are sort of some citywide curriculums that are meant to kind of elevate experiences from underrepresented groups, there’s like LGBTQ studies curriculum, there’s like a black studies curriculum, but like what Bernie is talking about at his school is like they actually had to sort of in a grassroots way, kind of like advocate for a class that would like cover some of those topics. And so I just want to like, help help you see sort of like how like the policy suggestion Bernie is making is to sort of like do more to make sure that there’s more consistency across schools in that respect. And he’s kind of working to do that in his individual school.

Marcellino: Yeah, and then to add on as well, my school has usually been a pretty big like proponents of like all of those like good things, all those different types of classes. But even within those classes, they’re not very accessible. It’s like take, even if you do have them, like for example, school offers, AP African-American studies, and the only opportunity to take it is either junior or senior year. In junior year, you have to take U.S. history unless you have that credit from middle school. So you’ll have senior year between AP African-American studies or AP US government and politics. And almost every student is going to choose AP U.S. government. I mean, and it’s very unfortunate because you’re really like asking students to choose between like this, like really essential course that like a lot of people take. It’s only like the core AP classes people take. That’s like almost like critical. It’s like understanding like a civil, your civic duties as like a citizen of this country and like how like everything works over this integral class that teaches things you’ve probably like never like even talked before throughout like much of your educational journey. So I feel like I’m not only like offering the class, but also making it accessible for like more students to take is a big issue as well.

Salma: Yeah, I’ll, I’ll jump in a little. We should be teaching our students about race. I think it’s something that’s coming to light even more with our current administration. And I just hope that New York City makes a commitment to teaching our students about the things that are relevant to them. And speaking of, in high school, I would say one of the things I benefited from was having a very diverse selection of books to read from. I am very fortunate to have gone to a high school that had a robust school library and two wonderful school librarians, Ms.. Clements and Mr. Headgo shout out because, you know, they were my favorite people in high school above my teachers. I would go to Ms.Clements to talk to her about my day, and it’s because I had a school library space that was welcoming, that was inclusive, that had resources that I genuinely needed. And my school library essentially became my safe space, my third space. I make the joke that my school library and my librarians are the reason that I got through junior year because it was extremely stressful. And it’s not even that much of a joke because when I was in that space, I genuinely felt that it was for me and it was a space where I could reset and I could like stop for a minute from all of the seven classes. I wake up at 7 a.m., go to school. Bam, bam, a bunch of classes, more extracurriculars, and this is a spot where I could just go to be myself. And I think it’s a shame that not every student has that opportunity, even though they’re supposed to. I’ll let you know in a little secret that according to New York State law, every single New York City school, with some bureaucratic exceptions, is supposed to have a school library and a school librarian. But this is not the case. There have been Chalkbeat estimates that this is around like 40% of schools have a library and as low as 16% have a librarian. These are shameful numbers, so it’s a shame. I feel that my school library was integral to my high school experience and just middle school and elementary school. And I think every student should have that opportunity. And clearly this is something I’m super invested in. So I have had the opportunity to work with the education chair for New York City Council, shout out Rita Joseph and her chief of staff to work on this issue. But my hope is that everyone recognizes that every student should have a school library and a librarian and hopefully you leave this room knowing that it does have an impact on students, even if they don’t tell you directly. If they come out of that room smiling, it does have an impact on them. Yeah.

Alex: So we’re going to deliver on the last thing that our panel description said we would deliver on, which is a debate. So in New York State and in lots of states and school districts around the country, cellphone bans have been a particularly hot topic in New York. The governor has proposed a ban that would sort of allow school districts to come up with their own kind of policies for forbidding Internet enabled devices during the school day. But I wanted to pose it to the three of you as people who have, like really like recent experiences, you know, being in classes and your schools are kind of have varying policies around this, like give us your hot takes on whether like cellphone bans are a good idea.

Salma: I’m going to start off strong and bold and say that I think I would like to see some form of a cellphone ban in our schools. Granted, this policy is flexible and takes into account the needs of the school. When I think about some of the classes I took in high school, I remember a room where half of the kids are looking down on their phones and, you know, I was that kid. Sometimes I’m not going to lie. If I think that class is boring, I’m going on to my phone. But I think when I think in retrospect of the educational experience that forms for me, it meant that I didn’t feel as engaged in class. When I saw that other students were on their phone, I didn’t feel as interested to learn. I didn’t feel group work was very hard with a bunch of people who were just on their phones. Can I just say that? And I could see the struggle on my teacher’s faces whenever they would ask us to put our phones away and students would still have them. And so I don’t think for the most part that when a student takes out their phone in class, it’s for a reason that’s going to positively impact them. And so for that reason and others, I do believe that we should see some implementation of a phone ban.

Marcellino: Yeah, I definitely disagree. A lot. There’s actually a little bit of bias there, but explain why. So I actually have a very unique perspective on this as my school has not only a cellphone but a total technology ban that isn’t really working out. It’s not really enforced. But anyway, you can’t use your phone in the cafeteria at the library and. You can even have it out in the hallways between classes. If it is seen, it will be confiscated. And on top of that, you can’t use an iPad or a tablet or like a laptop for notes. Like it can’t even be seen or that will also be confiscated, which is insane because it’s really impeded like the the educational workflow for a lot of teachers. I think a lot of people are pushing back heavily on it, especially like a lot of our classes that have like a significant issue with cellphone users and sort of like the big reason why like I have like I’m so strongly against like banning cellphones, completely having this sort of pass because like, it opens the door to more invasive policies, like I mentioned before, like banning like things that are almost like entirely being used for like educational purposes, like, I know barely anyone is actually like using their iPad, like other things, like, besides notes and like, honestly, if you have the time to pull out like Block Blast on your iPad while the teacher is teaching, then it’s probably the teacher’s fault for not teaching enough content. I don’t know. I feel like personally, like there isn’t really like the opportunity to like, use these devices. Especially things like iPads or laptops for like non educational uses and a lot classes cause you actually want to do well in these classes as well. And yeah, this opens the door to more things for, for more things to be taken away if you ban cellphones. On the next thing a lot of those kids that don’t care at all will turn to is their starting to scroll through TikTok, on like their laptop instead for example, and then that’s gonna get banned next, which is taking away a very useful tool for a lot of people. And it’s, it’s a lot of people are pushing back against it. And, you know, in most cases, regardless if a phone is being used, you could just take it away. And I guess that is a form of like a cellphone ban policy but I feel like instituting it like school wide or even like citywide is very like misrepresentative of each individual classroom’s needs and the teacher’s autonomy.

Bernie: I think the experiences are really different from a school that has a cellphone ban compared to one that doesn’t. Beacon has never had a cellphone ban. And I think that’s made our environment a community where, we we’ve learned to, you know, take control of ourselves and, you know, take initiative when we’re using our phones too much, for example. But I think when it gets to the extent that everybody’s using their phone in a class, that’s when I think that a, you know, a restriction should be applied like the cellphone pouches in the entrance of the classroom where students just put their phones there for the period, but they have it for lunch, for example, or free periods. But I’m I think that has made me into a person that’s just relied on my cellphone a lot. I text my friends during lunch saying, Where are you like are you on floor seven or the cafeteria? Like it’s such a convenience for me and it’s become a liability for me. But I was having conversation with Salma, I think over a year ago where we’ve pretty much disagreed on this topic of of having cellphones because I I’ve considered, you know, my school and some students and some of my friends and myself as being, you know, those screenagers that are always on their phones and for social media, for research, for anything, I think technology is something that’s become so, so important to us. It allows us to communicate. It allows us to, you know, advocate. The Bell has an Instagram. We use it for promotions, but we also use it to bring change to our community. So I think it can be used in a lot of good ways, but that’s my hot take on it.

Salma: Well, there’s been no yelling or screaming or name calling in this civil debate. We’re going to have to end it here, unfortunately. But I just want to pause and reflect a little bit and just point out to you guys that when you ask students for their opinions on the policies that are affecting them, they will give you an opinion, They will tell you a lot of things. And that’s something that we have recorded on our podcast is how our students are reacting to the different things that are going on in their school building.

And I think student journalism has been a huge part of all of our lives and has informed the way that we think about our lived experiences. So speaking of that, I want to encourage you all to take your phones out and look up P.S weekly wherever you get your podcasts so that you can keep listening to student voices, because I think that they have a role in educational policy.

CREDITS:

PS Weekly is a collaboration between The Bell and Chalkbeat, made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation, The Summerfield Foundation, FJC, and Hindenburg Systems.

Special thanks to the Siegel Family Endowment and our friends at South by Southwest EDU.

On this live recorded panel, you heard Salma Baksh, and Marcellino Meilka, Bernie Carmona— along with Alex Zimmerman, a reporter from Chalkbeat New York.

Our executive producer for the show is Ave Carrillo.

Executive editors are Amy Zimmer and Taylor McGraw.

Our engagement editor is Carolina Hidalgo.

Additional production and reporting support was provided by Sabrina DuQuesnay, Mira Gordon, and our friends at Chalkbeat.

Music from Blue Dot Sessions and the jingle you heard at the beginning of this episode was created by the one and only: Erica Huang.

Thanks for tuning in! See you next time!

Almost 10 years later, NYC remains in ‘flagrant’ violation of school menstrual products law: lawsuit

2025-03-17T23:32:57+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

In the nine years since New York City passed a groundbreaking law requiring public schools to provide free menstrual products in bathrooms, the Education Department has consistently “failed to deliver” on its legal obligation, a lawsuit filed last week in Manhattan alleges.

The 2016 legislation was the first in the country to require middle and high schools to provide free tampons and sanitary pads in bathrooms.

But in the ensuing years, city Education Department officials violated that law “at every turn,” failing to adequately communicate the new legal obligation to schools or ensure they were complying, according to the suit filed on behalf of the nonprofit Period Law and an unnamed teenage student. As a result, students across the city still routinely miss class time because they don’t have access to menstrual products — and when they are available, students often don’t know about them or don’t want to use them because they’re so low-quality, the suit said.

“The Department [of Education]’s failure to protect the needs of its menstruating students — despite a near-decade-long legal mandate — is both unlawful and willful,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed by the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Last November, after City Council intervention and threats of legal action, the city Education Department published long-awaited compliance data. But the city’s report “falsely claimed that the Department had achieved 100% compliance,” the suit claims.

The suit asked the judge to order the Education Department to set aside a designated budget to comply with the law, hire an independent adviser to monitor its progress, and re-do its data reporting on school-by-school compliance.

Neither the city Education nor Law Department replied to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

At a 2023 City Council hearing, Education Department school facilities chief John Shea called reports of unstocked dispensers “unacceptable” and said schools should escalate complaints to his office. The Education Department has provided a “Know Your Period” student guide to every school, which walks students through how to respond to their periods, according to the city’s data.

NYC’s menstrual equity law breaks new ground

A 2019 national survey found the majority of girls across the country didn’t have access to free menstrual products in their high schools and missed school more frequently as a result.

Many girls don’t know when their periods will start and don’t bring supplies from home, and the cost of menstrual products can put them out of reach for others — a particularly acute problem in a system where more than 70% of students live in poverty. Estimates of the average cost of a month’s supply of menstrual products range from about $9 to $15.

The city’s 2016 law “was intended to put menstrual products on par with bathroom products needed by all students regardless of sex, such as toilet paper and soap,” according to the suit.

But from the outset, implementation was spotty, advocates and lawyers said.

The Education Department’s only communication with schools about the law in 2016 was a short blurb in the weekly Principal’s Digest that failed to mention the legal requirement, according to a public records request filed by Period Law.

Department officials largely placed responsibility for complying with the law in the hands of custodian engineers, who were supposed to receive the menstrual products and dispensers and replenish them when they ran low, according to the suit.

But officials did little to ensure schools were complying, and it often fell to students to ask for refills, according to the suit. Efforts to spread the word about the initiative through flyers were woefully insufficient, the suit added.

In the meantime, several enterprising student groups took oversight into their own hands. A Brooklyn Girl Scout troop visited schools in 2018 and found fewer than 1 in 5 had adequate supplies and disposal bins. An award-winning Bronx middle school podcast reported that students still had to visit the office and use a code word to get pads.

NYC Council steps up the pressure

Long-simmering complaints about the city’s lack of compliance came to the fore during a 2023 City Council hearing. Multiple lawmakers said they’d personally visited multiple schools and found no menstrual products in the bathrooms. Period Law revealed that in a recent survey of city high school students, 85% said they still lacked access to menstrual products at school.

Students said that contributed to an ongoing sense of stigma and shame about periods.

“My school didn’t provide menstrual products, and my classroom didn’t make it a comfortable place to discuss what any of us were experiencing,” said Gabriela Lopez Castillo, a recent college graduate and youth advocate for the group PERIOD, who testified at the 2023 hearing.

The suit also cites 18 examples from 2024 and 2025 of New York City educators creating crowdfunding campaigns to buy menstrual products for students who otherwise wouldn’t have access to them at school.

In December 2023, the council passed a package of new bills meant to shore up the law, expanding the mandate to cover elementary schools, and requiring the Education Department to publicly report on compliance by July 5, 2024. The Education Department blew past that deadline and only published the data in November after Period Law threatened legal action, according to the suit.

The city’s data said 100% of schools complied with the law for the 2023-2024 school year — a contention lawyers say is “obviously and demonstrably false” given the extensive testimony about lack of access to menstrual products in the September 2023 council hearing.

The suit suggests a number of possible remedies, including forcing the Education Department to work with Period Law to improve its data collection and creating a working group of advocates and officials to oversee compliance.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Nearly 1 in 5 NYC students are Asian American. Just 8% of teachers are.

2025-02-27T22:06:49+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

For her first few years in New York City’s public school system, Kai Kraft thought she was “the only Asian kid in the Bronx.”

Through elementary and middle school, she had teachers from diverse backgrounds — but none who identified as Asian American or Pacific Islander.

And as a result, Kraft, who is Filipino American, often didn’t feel comfortable confiding in her teachers when she experienced discrimination from her peers.

“I let a lot of casual racism slide, even until middle school, because I didn’t have anyone to look up to or tell me that it was wrong,” she said. “I just had to endure it.”

Today, Kraft is a high school senior at the Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics. Since transitioning to high school in Manhattan and joining the Asian American Student Advocacy Project, a program run by the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families, she has found other Filipino and Asian American students among her peers.

But Kraft has encountered relatively few Asian American or Pacific Islander teachers — and none who identify as Filipino American.

“I still struggle to find teachers that I can relate to,” she said.

There’s evidence that employing teachers of color can result in improved test scores and graduation rates among students of color, while also being associated with lower rates of chronic absenteeism and suspension, according to a 2019 report from the state’s Education Department. Staffers who share the specific racial or ethnic background of their students may be better able to forge connections that benefit kids academically and emotionally, educators, researchers, and students said.

But as the Asian American share of New York City’s student population has continued to grow, the percentage of Asian American educators has lagged far behind. (City data does not provide specific numbers for students who identify as Pacific Islander.)

Nearly 1 in 5 students in New York City identified as Asian American during the last school year, while roughly 8% of the city’s teachers did. The gap is even wider for school administrators: Just 5% of principals in New York City are Asian American. Those numbers are up modestly from a decade ago, when 6% of city teachers and 3% of principals identified as Asian American, according to the Education Department.

Fewer than 1% of teachers identified as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander last school year, Education Department officials said.

Just a quarter of the city’s nearly 1,600 public schools had five or more Asian American teachers during the 2022-2023 school year — by far the lowest percentage for any of the four largest racial groups. Fifty-five percent of schools had at least five Black teachers, 60% had at least five Hispanic teachers, and 91% had five or more white teachers, a Chalkbeat analysis found.

New York City’s gulf reflects national trends, with about 5% of the country’s students and 2% of its teachers identifying as Asian American or Pacific Islander in the 2020-21 school year.

May Hara, a professor of teacher education at Framingham State University in Massachusetts and former New York City teacher who taught in the South Bronx, said the demographic gap can hold “serious implications for students.”

“The research is very clear,” she said. “There are a wide range of benefits to having a racially and ethnically diverse teaching staff.”

Those benefits extend to both students and teachers, Hara added.

The city Education Department is pushing to give all students “access to teachers who reflect their background and community experiences” and “equip our schools with resources that support inclusive recruitment and hiring practices,” said spokesperson Onika Richards.

She pointed to several programs including NYC Men Teach and NYC Teaching Fellows that offer alternative pathways into the teaching profession and additional support, and have been successful at recruiting teachers of color.

The city’s ongoing efforts come at a moment when teacher diversity initiatives are under attack at the federal level. President Donald Trump’s administration has warned districts that efforts to recruit teachers of specific racial backgrounds could face civil rights investigations, though experts have challenged the legality of the guidance.

In high school, Kraft said she’s been able to connect with Asian American educators for the first time. She noted her health teacher, who is Chinese, sometimes speaks Tagalog with her at school, helping to make her feel more welcome.

“Even though they aren’t Filipino … I just feel more comfortable,” she said. “I don’t feel as alone as before.”

Asian American educators bust, and confront, harmful stereotypes

Asian American educators can play a critical role in breaking through harmful stereotypes and relating to Asian American families and students in ways other adults may not, teachers and students said.

Jakoub Chen, an 11th grader at Curtis High School in Staten Island, still has yet to have an Asian American teacher in the public school system.

Chen, who is Chinese and Taiwanese American, said he’s at times felt impacted by the “model minority myth” — a harmful stereotype that depicts Asian Americans as inherently successful, often in comparison to other minority groups.

Over the years, Chen said he’s encountered peers who assume they can turn to him to get answers on their assignments in math or science classes.

“I didn’t really have someone that I can talk to about what I’ve been going through and what I’ve been affected by,” he said. “I don’t have a teacher or an adult I can share my experiences with.”

Bobson Wong, a math teacher at Bayside High School in Queens, said he has encountered harmful assumptions based on the model minority myth during his time as an educator. Some people, for example, have assumed that when Asian American students struggle in class, it stems from laziness.

“When you say that an Asian kid is lazy, the subtext is they know it, they just choose not to do it,” he said. “Maybe they just don’t know how to do it because no one taught them.”

Wong, who is Chinese American, noted his school has a significant number of Asian American students, with nearly half of the student body identifying as Asian American. Still, in his time as a public school teacher, he’s seen relatively few other Asian American teachers.

“I do find that they are able to identify with me more easily,” he said.

Students attend a weekly meeting for the Asian American Student Advocacy Project, a program run by the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families.

Yeou-Jey Vasconcelos, a long-time former teacher and administrator in the city Education Department who now leads a charter school, began her career as a teacher and assistant principal at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Manhattan — where she worked on new ways to engage the school’s many Chinese-speaking families.

Vasconcelos found that many of her colleagues assumed that Asian families were not getting involved with school because they were too busy, uninterested, or only wanted to hear about academic issues rather than behavioral or emotional ones.

But as Vasconcelos, whose family is from Taiwan and Japan, began communicating with families in Chinese and building relationships, she discovered that they were eager to get more involved in all aspects of their kids’ school experiences.

“The Chinese-speaking families would just say, ‘I want what’s best for my kid, and I just want them to be happy. I don’t need them to get the perfect grade,’” Vasconcelos recalled. It was “a very different outcome than what was culturally expected.”

That special connection persisted when Vasconcelos became principal of Manhattan’s LaGuardia High School, the city’s highest-profile performing arts school, where 21% of students are Asian American.

On her first day in the school, a line of Asian American students formed outside her office, eager to meet her, talk about their family backgrounds, and discover commonalities, she said.

Despite her efforts to break through stereotypes about her Asian American students and families, Vasconcelos herself faced some of those same stereotypes from colleagues and families — particularly as a principal.

There were “all different layers of microaggression,” ranging from people assuming that she was not the person in charge or didn’t speak fluent English, to colleagues who attempted to compliment her by calling her “Tiger principal,” a reference to the strict version of parenting popularized in a 2014 book by an Asian American law professor, Vasconcelos said.

Pipeline challenges contribute to representation gaps

When it comes to recruiting and retaining more Asian American and Pacific Islander teachers, Hara noted, it’s critically important to consider the “huge heterogeneity in Asian American populations” and tailor efforts to recruit and retain Asian American educators to those specific backgrounds.

“That, I think, is something that is often overlooked in conversations about this,” she said. “In popular culture, there is not a lot that points to the socioeconomic, educational, and wealth gaps that exist within Asian American groups in this country.”

“The unsatisfying answer” to recruiting and keeping more Asian American educators “is that we really need to begin by asking people about their experiences and not assuming that we know, or that they all share the same experiences,” Hara said.

Several Asian American educators in New York City said the challenge often begins with not seeing or hearing about education as a viable career path growing up.

“No one that I grew up with who were Filipino or any other type of Asian went into the field,” said Nico Victorino, a former New York City teacher and current principal of P.S. 150 in Manhattan, who is the son of Filipino immigrants. “The expectations at home at the time were you were going to go into a field that was going to make money, because you have to support your family back in the Philippines and care for your parents when they get older.”

The pipeline narrowed even further when Victorino began considering the switch from classroom teacher to administrator. He had “no role models” of other Asian American school administrators, “no one to support you in that way.”

When he eventually landed his job as principal, Victorino developed a close relationship with the other Asian American administrators in his district, and they still share a group text thread. He even went on to write his doctoral dissertation at New York University about the lack of Asian American school administrators.

For Wong, it’s been a challenge at times to work in a field with so few Asian American colleagues. He said he’s found community by connecting with Asian American educators online and through Math for America, a fellowship for math and science teachers.

“When you look at why teachers are leaving, they feel overwhelmed or they feel unsupported — it all boils down to a lack of community,” he said. “To not just to attract more Asian American teachers, but also to retain them, we need better communities to support them.”

To Hara, developing systems and policies that allow more Asian American and Pacific Islander teachers to flourish can also have compounding benefits for the teacher pipeline — with students who see themselves reflected in their educators potentially being more inclined to enter the field in the future.

“That’s just a hypothesis,” Hara said. “But it’s not as though Asian American teachers appear out of nowhere. They were once Asian American students.”

Thomas Wilburn contributed.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Educators sue to block enforcement of anti-diversity civil rights guidance

2025-02-26T01:10:22+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

Three educator groups are suing to block the U.S. Department of Education from enforcing new civil rights guidance that targets a wide range of practices related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The guidance came in the form of a Dear Colleague letter to school leaders on Feb. 14. The letter cited the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which banned race-conscious admissions policies in higher education, and warned schools against giving any consideration to race in hiring, training, discipline, student supports, graduation ceremonies, and other aspects of academic life.

The letter, from acting Assistant Secretary for the Office for Civil Rights Craig Trainor, gave schools ranging from preschools to universities until the end of the month to end all practices related to DEI or risk losing federal funding.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court by the American Federation of Teachers and the union’s Maryland affiliate, as well as by the American Sociological Association, asked a federal judge to block enforcement of the letter on the grounds that it misstates the law, doesn’t explain the legal basis for arriving at its interpretation of the law, and is so vague that it could ban nearly any activity in schools, including discussing other civil rights guidance that mentions race.

“This Letter radically upends and re-writes otherwise well established jurisprudence,” the lawsuit states. “No federal law prevents teaching about race and race-related topics, and the Supreme Court has not banned efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in education. The Department of Education is attempting to establish a new legal regime when it has neither the lawmaking power of Congress nor the interpretative power of the courts.”

The lawsuit alleges the letter is written so broadly that it’s impossible for schools to know what they need to do to comply. The letter says schools may not use proxies for race to achieve diversity, raising questions about programs for low-income students, who are disproportionately students of color. It also warns schools against teaching about structural racism or taking race into consideration in any form.

Among the activities the letter appears to ban: “a school hosting a panel discussion by alumni on the challenges Black students might have navigating the university; a training for teachers on combatting anti-semitism; or a workshop on why use of racial slurs are harmful,” the lawsuit states.

The plaintiffs are represented by Democracy Forward Foundation, which is involved in a number of other cases against the Trump administration.

The lawsuit names Trainor, acting Education Secretary Denise Carter, and the U.S. Department of Education.

The Education Department declined to comment on the lawsuit. The department typically does not comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit alleges that the Dear Colleague letter infringes on the free speech and free association rights of students and teachers and violates existing civil rights law. The lawsuit also alleges that the Education Department violated the Administrative Procedures Act by failing to go through the steps required when a federal agency makes a big change to how it interprets the law.

“This vague and clearly unconstitutional memo is a grave attack on students, our profession and knowledge itself,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a statement. “Federal statute already prohibits any president from telling schools and colleges what to teach. And students have the right to learn without the threat of culture wars waged by extremist politicians hanging over their heads.”

Some conservatives cheered the Dear Colleague letter as taking a stand against practices they believe undermine unity and common purpose in schools or teach overly negative perspectives on American history. But the letter also sparked fear and confusion in some blue states. New York City postponed a hearing on school segregation so as not to draw unwelcome attention. Colorado State University plans to remove references to DEI from its website and reassign some employees, but promised protesting students that campus cultural centers are safe.

Some officials in Democratic-led states have pushed back.

Illinois State Superintendent Tony Sanders told school districts they should keep teaching Black, Asian American, and LGBTQ history as required by state law. Chicago went ahead with the rollout of a much anticipated plan to promote Black student success in school, but kept the launch event closed to the public. A conservative parent group almost immediately filed a complaint about the plan.

“Federal laws regarding public education remain unchanged, as executive orders and memos cannot modify or override statutory requirements or regulations or unilaterally impose new terms on existing agreements,” the California Department of Education and the California State Board of Education said in a joint statement.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

NYC council postpones school segregation hearing amid fears of Trump administration scrutiny

2025-02-24T22:51:26+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

The latest aftershock from President Donald Trump’s recent federal guidance threatening to investigate schools advancing diversity efforts: a long-awaited New York City Council oversight hearing on racial segregation in the nation’s largest school system has been postponed indefinitely.

The hearing aimed to give city lawmakers a chance to publicly question Education Department officials on their efforts to integrate city schools 70 years after Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended legal segregation in public schools. Originally scheduled for Wednesday, the hearing was postponed due to concerns that it could expose the city to interference from the Trump administration, multiple sources familiar with the situation said.

The council has not yet set a new date, according to its website.

The decision followed a Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter from the Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education advising schools and districts that admissions policies seeking to boost racial diversity, even if they’re not explicitly race based, are illegal and subject to federal investigation.

Dozens of schools across New York City set aside a portion of their seats for students who are learning English, live in temporary housing, or come from low-income families as part of a Diversity in Admissions program.

Lawyers from both the city Education Department and the council urged lawmakers to postpone the hearing to give the city more time to understand the legal implications of the letter and to avoid drawing unwanted scrutiny or an investigation, according to three sources familiar with the situation.

“What we don’t want is to have the [New York City Department of Education] being subpoenaed in D.C., and having all the equity issues aired so Elon Musk can tweet it out … and they come for us,” said one of the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to share internal conversations. Musk, the billionaire and chief executive officer of Tesla, heads up the Department of Government Efficiency, a cost-cutting team that has enacted sweeping cuts across the federal government, including the cancellation of hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts through the U.S. Department of Education.

Trump administration’s chilling effect

The postponement is an early tangible consequence of the federal letter, which is part of a larger effort by the Trump administration to purge equity-focused policies from public schools. Trump has also issued executive orders threatening to withhold federal funding from schools that support gender-nonconforming students and teach about the prevalence of racism in American life.

Experts have said the latest federal guidance on school diversity efforts clearly misstates existing legal precedent that gives K-12 schools flexibility to use non-racial admissions criteria to boost diversity, but have warned that it could nonetheless create a chilling effect.

Brooklyn Council member Rita Joseph, chair of the council education committee, and Queens Council member Nantasha Williams, the chair of the council committee on human and civil rights, who were jointly running the hearing, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Council spokesperson Rendy Desamours said the council plans to hold the hearing in the future, but didn’t provide a specific date or comment on the reasons for the postponement. An Education Department spokesperson declined to comment on the postponement of the council hearing but noted the Dear Colleague letter “doesn’t create any new legal obligations” for the city school system, and that no policies have changed.

School integration had already garnered less focus lately

New York City’s schools remain among the most segregated in the nation, but the issue has largely faded from the spotlight under Mayor Eric Adams, whose administration has not prioritized aggressive citywide integration efforts and reversed some reforms meant to open access to selective schools during the pandemic.

The City Council hearing, which was first announced last May, would have been a rare public opportunity to hear Education Department officials speak at length about the state of the city’s school diversity efforts.

The Dear Colleague letter warns that “relying on non-racial information as a proxy for race” for admissions purposes is illegal and explicitly cautions schools against eliminating standardized testing from admissions requirements as a means of achieving racial balance in schools.

Both of those policies are at the center of long-running conversations about how to diversify schools in New York City, which often select students based on academic results and other criteria.

A growing number of city schools have opted into the Diversity in Admissions program in recent years, in many cases significantly boosting their racial diversity along the way. Several districts have implemented middle school diversity plans that have made significant progress in racially integrating schools.

The city has also moved away from using test results in admissions, removing state test results as admissions criteria for many selective high schools and scrapping the entrance exam for kindergarten gifted and talented programs. Eight specialized high schools, including Stuyvesant and Bronx Science, still use an admissions exam, which is codified in state law.

Officials from both the City Council and Education Department worried that discussing those initiatives in a public hearing could bring unwanted attention and put them in the crosshairs of a federal administration that has targeted education programs after they were highlighted on right-wing social media accounts, according to the sources.

“We’re just trying to protect what we have,” said one of the sources. “It doesn’t go nearly far enough, but [we’re] just trying to protect it.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Parents Defending Education challenges Chicago district’s Black Student Success Plan as discriminatory

2025-02-21T22:10:07+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the latest news on Chicago Public Schools.

An out-of-state advocacy group filed a federal antidiscrimination complaint challenging Chicago Public Schools’ Black Student Success Plan the day after the district released its long-awaited blueprint.

Parents Defending Education, which has challenged race-based initiatives and the teaching of topics involving race and gender in schools, submitted a complaint to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, asking it to block the five-year plan’s implementation. It invoked the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision banning the use of race as a factor in college admissions, and a “Dear Colleague” letter from the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights late last week warning school districts to halt any race-based initiatives or risk losing federal funding.

District leaders in Chicago said they would review and respond to the complaint. A Chalkbeat reporter was turned away from a kickoff event celebrating the new plan Friday afternoon by an official who said it was not open to the public. CPS officials have previously said the plan is essential in addressing longstanding disparities in achievement, graduation, discipline, and other outcomes for its Black students.

The plan sets goals to increase the number of Black teachers, reduce Black student suspensions, provide more professional development for all educators, and ensure that Black history is taught in more classrooms, among other steps.

The plan’s release collides with an aggressive push by the Trump administration to root out diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. The administration argued in its Dear Colleague letter that even using income and other non-racial factors in education initiatives runs afoul of the Supreme Court’s admissions decision — a claim some legal experts deem a major stretch.

In a letter to families Friday, district CEO Pedro Martinez did not specifically refer to the Black student plan but said that CPS will stay the course amid Trump administration changes and threats of withholding funding, including when it comes to teaching students’ cultures and history in the classroom.

“We will stay true to our values and our mission — to provide all students with a rigorous, joyful, and equitable daily learning experience that affirms and celebrates their identities,” Martinez wrote.

Last year, Parents Defending Education filed a similar complaint against a Los Angeles Unified School District program to improve outcomes for its Black students. At the Biden administration’s urging following the complaint, that district overhauled its program to open it to all students at schools that qualified for it. That’s a development the group also touted in its complaint against CPS.

“Parents Defending Education hopes that this complaint will spur quick action to remedy unlawful practices and end discrimination on the basis of race, and political indoctrination in America’s schools,” a spokeswoman for the group said in a statement to Chalkbeat Friday.

In its complaint, the group argued that CPS students of other races also struggle academically, pointing to a district chart about results on a reading assessment in the early grades that showed a slightly smaller portion of Latino students read on grade level compared with Black students. Overall, though, Black students in CPS have faced some of the district’s widest disparities in academic outcomes — a longstanding issue that sparked a CPS equity push under former CEO Janice Jackson that laid the groundwork for the new plan.

The group also noted a reference to “present-day harm” to Black students in plan materials, urging the Office of Civil Rights to not only investigate the initiative but to also audit the district to find out if it is violating the rights of any students.

CPS has noted that a state law passed last spring requires the board to have a Black student achievement committee, suggesting that it is complying with Illinois mandates in crafting the plan.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Black history: Colorado lawmakers want to create standards to ensure it’s taught amid attacks on DEI

2025-02-21T02:41:52+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

Colorado lawmakers are seeking to ensure that Black history is taught in the state’s public schools at a time of escalating efforts by the Trump administration to squash diversity and inclusion in America’s classrooms.

A bill under consideration in the Colorado legislature would require the State Board of Education to adopt academic standards related to Black historical and cultural studies. Academic standards play a key role in what Colorado students learn in school.

The bill, HB25-1149, passed the House Education Committee Thursday in an 8-5 vote along party lines, with Democrats voting yes and Republicans voting no. The bill now moves to the House Appropriations Committee.

Bill sponsor Rep. Regina English, a Colorado Springs Democrat, said it is not only an educational need but a moral imperative to teach Black history.

“It is our obligation to make sure we are teaching not only our students, but all students, true history and what that looks like for Black Americans,” English said at a press conference before the bill hearing Thursday. “There is more to Black people than slavery and oppression. We are inventors, we are entrepreneurs, we are creators, we are educators, we are doctors, we are attorneys, we are judges, and the list goes on and on.”

President Donald Trump has issued several executive orders aimed at remaking K-12 education in a conservative image, including by ending federal programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion and seeking to root out “radical indoctrination” in classrooms.

English said the Black history bill is important at a time when “Black voices are threatened with being silenced through executive orders that are coming down from the national level.”

“Colorado can set the example that we will not tolerate that foolishness here in Colorado, and we will not allow people to divide us and divide our students,” she said.

Colorado’s social studies standards were last updated by the State Board of Education in 2022. The standards say social studies lessons must include the experiences and contributions of several diverse groups, including African Americans, Latinos, Indigenous people, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, religious minorities, and LGBTQ+ people.

Opponents of the bill said the state doesn’t need specific Black history standards because the current social studies standards already include it.

Priscilla Rahn, a Denver Public Schools teacher who testified against the bill, called the proposed Black history standards “redundant.” Rep. Lori Garcia Sander, an Eaton Republican, held up a printed copy of the state’s social studies standards and said, “All of the things I heard people say, ‘This is what we want, this is what we wish for,’ it is in here.”

Rep. Jarvis Caldwell, a Colorado Springs Republican, said his two children came home from elementary school during the week of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and shared what they learned about Jim Crow laws and the civil rights movement.

“The important aspects are being taught,” Caldwell said, adding that teaching more than that would be “a capacity and time and resource issue.”

Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat, pushed back against that argument. There are other instances of “overlaps” — or topics that are covered more than once — in the state’s academic standards, she said. She wondered what it would hurt for Black history to be among them.

“I don’t necessarily disagree that Black history has been a part of our curriculum,” Bacon said. “But the things I consistently hear — I only hear about two time periods: slavery and the civil rights movement. The point of this was to talk about comprehensive Black history. … We are a part of the Revolutionary War history. We are a part of the Civil War history.”

The bill, which is also sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Tony Exum, would create an advisory committee of teachers, librarians, historians, Black history experts, and others to recommend standards. It says the standards should feature “factual accounts of the struggles and contributions of Black Americans in all fields of endeavor” and reflect “Black agency and resistance against oppression.”

Parents, educators, and community members testified at Thursday’s hearing about the importance of teaching students about the contributions of Black Americans.

Anette Bowser, president of the Urban League Young Professionals of Metro Denver, listed several inventions by Black Americans, including the clothes dryer, caller ID, “and even the Super Soaker we love during the summer time.”

Cathy Lees, a Douglas County resident who described herself as a longtime education advocate, referenced a recent debate in the Douglas County School District over an Advanced Placement African American studies course. The school board eventually approved the course after delaying a vote on it because of community concerns.

“Some might call this a victory for educational equity,” Lees said. “I say the damage was done. What message did this send to the white students in Douglas County? The message was clear — Black history, the Black experience, is up for debate in Douglas County.”

Lees said the bill would help ensure Black history is taught, even though Colorado school districts retain control over the specifics such as what curriculum and textbooks to use. Supporters and opponents of the bill both noted that there is little accountability for whether school districts follow the standards, especially in subjects like social studies.

The State Board of Education reviews each set of academic standards every six years, and it’s scheduled to revisit the social studies standards in 2028. If the bill passes, the State Board would review the Black history standards at the same time.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

In legal move, Elizabeth district returns banned books to libraries, but few will have access

2025-02-13T01:17:58+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

Elizabeth school district officials say they have returned to school libraries 19 books they removed last fall. But most students won’t be able to read or check out the books, which include “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison and “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini.

That’s because the district decided to make the returned books available only to a small number of people: Specifically, plaintiffs in a recent lawsuit against the district over the book removals. Those allowed access to the books include two district students, members of the NAACP, and children of members of the NAACP.

A legal brief filed by the district did not say how students or members of the NAACP would find the 19 books or prove they are allowed to read them. A district spokesperson said the books are not on the shelves of the school libraries, but declined to say where they are.

Bringing back the books for a limited audience is part of the latest legal volley in the case, which began in December when the American Civil Liberties Union sued the 2,600-student district in federal court. The lawsuit argues the book removals violate federal and state free speech protections. The plaintiffs in the case include two students, a chapter of the NAACP, and the Authors Guild, a professional organization for writers.

The lawsuit is among a string of recent controversies that have erupted in the conservative Elbert County community over issues ranging from book bans to LGBTQ rights to allegations that schools are teaching critical race theory — an academic framework that examines how policies and the law perpetuate systemic racism.

Elizabeth district officials revealed the return of the 19 books on Jan. 27 in a legal filing the same day. The brief argued that the district isn’t violating the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights as the lawsuit claimed since the books are now available to them.

Laura Moraff, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, said the return of the 19 books to school libraries doesn’t remedy the original problem, and makes it worse, by adding new barriers, such as having to ask library staff to get the books, acknowledge participation in the lawsuit, or provide information about a parent’s NAACP membership.

“This is really not a solution and it does not address the harm,” she said. “On so many levels it’s not feasible.”

She said the American Civil Liberties Union wants a preliminary injunction that would require the district to do two things while the lawsuit unfolds: Restore the 19 books to library shelves for all students to read and refrain from removing additional books.

The district’s legal filing argues that the preliminary injunction should be denied and says granting it would cause the district considerable harm, including forcing the district “to purchase, catalog, and re-shelve the removed titles.” It’s not clear why the books would have to be repurchased if they are currently in district libraries. The brief also argues that if the preliminary injunction is granted, the district would be “unable to make decisions regarding the curation of its school libraries until the end of this litigation.”

No hearing date on the preliminary injunction has been set.

The 19 books at the center of the lawsuit are primarily by or about LGBTQ people, people of color, or both. They touch on topics ranging from same-sex relationships to racism and police violence. Titles include “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas, “Thirteen Reasons Why,” by Jay Asher, and “You Should See Me in a Crown,” by Leah Johnson. The Elizabeth district’s legal filing notes that “It’s Your World – If You Don’t Like It, Change It” by Mikki Halpin was only removed from the middle school library, not the high school library.

The push to review the district’s library collections and ultimately remove the 19 books came about after an Elizabeth school board member’s sixth grade daughter checked out a book from the district’s middle school library in 2023. The book, “The Sun is Also a Star,” by Nicola Yoon, contained “profanity and explicit sexual content,” according to a legal filing from the district. The district removed the book, which is not among the 19 titles at issue in the lawsuit, from the middle school library, but kept it in the high school library, the filing said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

One way to retain more Black teachers in NYC schools? Black principals, new research finds.

2025-02-10T22:28:27+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

Malik Lewis was one of few Black educators at Brooklyn’s Automotive High School when he started his teaching career there in 2005 — a fact that made him feel “absolutely out of place.”

Though almost all of his students were Black and Latino, many of his colleagues and his school leaders were white, and Lewis struggled to make connections with his coworkers, he recalled.

He left after just a year. For his next job, he tried to find the “Blackest school possible.”

He landed at Boys and Girls High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where his principal, most other administrators, and many of his colleagues were Black. Lewis flourished there, making lasting connections and launching a long career in New York City’s public schools.

New research suggests that Lewis’ experiences are not isolated.

Researchers from New York University who examined nearly a decade of teacher turnover data from New York City public schools found that, while Black teachers left their jobs at higher rates overall than other groups, having a Black principal and a critical mass of Black colleagues made them significantly more likely to stay.

Two decades later, Lewis is a principal, and he finds Black teachers actively seeking out his school — and staying. His teaching staff at West Brooklyn Community High School, where the student body is largely Latino, is almost half Black, far higher than the 17% of teachers citywide who are Black.

“We don’t have to question how our Blackness shows up in work,” he said of West Brooklyn. “We are Black, and we are comfortable with that, we are proud of that, and we leverage that to teach children.”

Working at a school with a Black principal reduced turnover by about 14% for Black teachers over the period of 2011 to 2020, according to the study published last month in the journal “Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.” Working at a school where at least 20% of other teachers were Black had a similar effect for Black teachers, the researchers found.

The findings are significant because there’s strong evidence that teachers of color bring a range of educational benefits, said Luis Rodriguez, a professor at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, and a lead author of the study.

The benefits for students of color are well documented, and include lower rates of discipline, more placement in gifted programs, and better graduation and college outcomes. Some researchers also argue that white students can gain greater cross-cultural understanding from having teachers of color, and in a national survey, white students reported more favorable impressions of teachers of color, according to research cited in the study. But teachers of color remain underrepresented and have higher rates of turnover, both locally and nationally, than their white peers, said Rodriguez.

The study comes as efforts to diversify teaching may face new threats nationally, with President Donald Trump seeking to curtail Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives through a barrage of executive orders.

New York City has made progress in recent years diversifying its teaching force, but white educators still make up more than half of the teaching force and more than half of school administrators. About 16% of city public school students are white.

As of the 2022-2023 school year, about 24% of principals and assistant principals were Black, but the Education Department didn’t immediately provide a breakdown of just principals.

‘Similarity attraction’ a key driver of findings

The study’s central findings are likely explained by what social psychologists call “similarity attraction,” or a tendency to surround ourselves with people with shared characteristics, Rodriguez said.

Shamella Jeffers, an English and special education teacher at West Brooklyn who is Black, has gravitated toward Black teachers since she was a student. One of those former teachers is Lewis, who taught Jeffers U.S. History in high school and is now her principal at West Brooklyn.

“I’m trying to stay here for as long as humanly possible,” Jeffers said. “Because I don’t think that when I come to work, it feels like it’s work.” She also credited Assistant Principal Ingrid Roberts-Haynes, who is also Black, for “beautifying” the school and hanging African kente cloth in classrooms.

“It’s just a vibe from the beginning of the day until the end,” she said.

Sasha Fletcher, a Black English teacher at West Brooklyn, came to her current job after working at three schools with white principals — and often feeling like she didn’t get the support she needed.

Finding a Black principal who “has an understanding of what teachers of color need in their corner” was a “deciding factor” in her job search, she said.

Fletcher credited her current principal, Lewis, for spending time in classrooms and connecting directly with students, which in turn gives him a better sense of what teachers need.

Some of the reasons it’s appealing for Black teachers to work with Black supervisors and colleagues might apply in other workplaces. But others are specific to education — particularly in school systems where the vast majority of students are not white, Lewis said.

“Education is probably one of the most politically charged fields you can work in,” Lewis said. “We’re talking about issues of equity and justice. We’re making selective decisions about what is and isn’t canonical books and … what things you should teach.

“So when you have administration and teachers that are on the same page about making sure their experience is reflected in the curriculum and the way they teach, I think that helps.”

Findings apply beyond Black teachers

It’s not just Black teachers who are more likely to stay in schools where they have a principal of the same race, the study found. Turnover also decreased for white teachers who have white principals, though not by the same degree as it did for Black teachers, the NYU research found.

Notably, the finding did not apply for Hispanic teachers, Rodriguez said.

He suggested that might be in part because the category of “Hispanic” encompasses a “broader, more diverse array of backgrounds” than other racial and ethnic categories, which may mean there’s less “racial and ethnic cohesion.”

Roberts-Haynes, the West Brooklyn assistant principal, cautioned that the Black experience is also “wide-ranging.” Black educators in the city hail from a variety of national and cultural backgrounds, and it would be a mistake to assume Black school leaders can just automatically understand those experiences, she said.

The sample size for Asian American educators, who are the most underrepresented group of teachers in New York City vis-a-vis the share of students of that group, was too small to include in the study, Rodriguez said.

But Nico Victorino, the principal of P.S. 150 in Manhattan, who is Filipino-American, said a disproportionate share of his hires have been teachers of color, many of whom have explicitly expressed interest in working for a principal who’s not white, he said.

“Teachers would say that I would ‘get it’ more than a white principal would,” he recalled.

Rodriguez said districts could use some of the same approaches they’ve tried for boosting teacher diversity to diversify the ranks of school principals. Those include scholarship mentorship programs for aspiring school leaders of color, and ensuring the people above principals in superintendents’ and central offices also come from diverse backgrounds.

Lewis said something as simple as building more time into mandatory principals’ meetings to recognize and celebrate school leaders’ identities could help. That would help Black principals feel like “they belong in those places,” he said. “Not that they have to put their Blackness aside to participate in the meeting, but it’s essential to the meeting.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Changing the conversation: Disability pride clubs foster inclusion at Stuyvesant and beyond

2025-02-07T18:31:07+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

In Stuyvesant High School’s sixth-floor library, about a dozen students brainstormed how to raise money to buy equipment or assistive technology for students with disabilities.

They talked about whether artificial intelligence should be used in diagnosing cognitive differences (they decided against that). They discussed their ongoing project to examine language used in special education. They even delved into the debate between nature versus nurture.

In some ways, it was just another Thursday at Stuyvesant High School, where after-school clubs were abuzz with activity before the winter break.

But this was the first club of its kind at Stuy — and the largest such club in city schools focused on fostering an inclusive environment for students of all abilities.

StuySPICE is one of about 90 disability affinity, disability pride, and inclusion clubs in a network formed this school year through the Education Department’s new Division of Inclusive and Accessible Learning in partnership with the Neurodiversity Alliance, a nonprofit founded for and by students with learning differences. Another five are in the pipeline following the Education Department’s “inclusive learning” training sessions, officials said.

Two public school alumni serving on the Special Education Advisory Council, Victor Edwards and Joshua Stern, pushed for the citywide rollout of pride clubs, which are open to all students at a school, as a way to raise more awareness around ableism and exclusion of students with disabilities in school communities. Modeled on gender and sexuality alliances, these new student clubs aim to bolster a sense of belonging and community for students with disabilities, whether or not they have diagnoses or receive special education support through individualized education programs, or IEPs, or have accommodations through 504 plans.

StuySPICE — which stands for students promoting inclusivity and civic engagement — is the largest such club in the network, Education Department officials said. Its meetings average about 30 kids each week, with a high of 96 students coming to its early December gathering, Dheenah Whaqid, the club’s founder and Stuy junior said, emphasizing that all students were welcome.

“We don’t believe that you need to be diagnosed with an IEP or a 504 to believe that you have a cognitive-like difference,” she said.

The club’s seed was planted when Whaqid was in eighth grade, and she participated in the Education Department’s disability pride month art contest. She began learning more about the Americans with Disabilities Act, watching a video about 1990’s “Capitol Crawl” when more than 1,000 people marched to the capitol building, some of them ditching their wheelchairs to crawl up the steps in their push for the ADA.

“I made it a mission that as soon as I went to high school, I was going to start something to help people with disabilities,” Whaqid said.

In her sophomore year, Whaquid emailed Christina Foti, deputy chancellor for the inclusive learning division, about starting a club at Stuy, and got connected to Education Department staffers. They provided support to help get it off the ground last year, making it one of the original “pioneers” in the newly formed inclusive schools clubs network, Whaqid said.

Number of students with disabilities increasing at Stuyvesant

In some ways, the club’s popularity at Stuyvesant might not be surprising. The school is famous for its plethora of clubs and incredibly engaged student body.

But Stuyvesant isn’t a school known for having a robust special education program. In fact, the school, like the seven other specialized high schools that require a test as the sole means of entry, has among the city’s lowest percentage of students classified with disabilities.

Things, however, are beginning to change.

In the 2019-20 school year, just 15 students at the school were classified as having disabilities and receiving special education services, according to public data. This year, there are 61 such students, Education Department officials said. Another 96 students receive accommodations through 504 plans.

Last year, Stuyvesant brought on Gina Paulson as assistant principal overseeing student support services, including those receiving mandated special education services through IEPs or other accommodations through 504 plans.

Paulson, who previously worked as an assistant principal at Brooklyn Tech, has made herself accessible to families and discloses her own background as someone with dyslexia to her students. She is also the faculty advisor for StuySPICE.

Under her guidance, the school has been ramping up services. This year, she brought a speech therapist on staff for the first time. (Previously, Stuy students who needed speech services had to get vouchers from the Education Department and find their own providers outside of school. Students still have to do that for other related services.) The school, which serves nearly 3,300 students, has three special education teachers, according to budget documents. Five years ago, the school had no special education teachers, budget documents show.

Stuyvesant has been identifying more students who did not enter the school with an IEP or 504 and starting the process to identify support they might need, Paulson said.

Students might need support related to executive functioning, attention, or social-emotional skills, for example, that may not have been evident until they arrived at the school, she said. The school might need historical information about a student’s prior performance and might require supplemental diagnostic testing, such as speech or assistive technology evaluations.

“Identifying students’ learning needs in high school can be very difficult and requires a great deal of parent involvement and support,” she said.

Students don’t need to have or disclose disability to be in club

Two students who showed up to the club on Thursday for the first time — one with an IEP and another with a 504 plan — explained why they hadn’t come before: They were often taking tests on which they were allowed extra time.

“I feel like we’re in a very supportive environment where people are very understanding,” said a student who came late to the club because of a test that afternoon. “I’ll tell people like that I have to take tests after school because I have a 504, and they’re like, ‘Oh OK, cool.’ My biggest complaint is the scheduling thing.”

The student with the IEP also felt that the club created an inclusive environment, but he had general concerns that the language the school system uses around special education made it hard to understand by students who don’t receive services — and even those that do.

“It’s the use of very long words or just these acronyms,” he said listing IEPs, 504, and SETSS, for example. “Do you know what SETSS stands for, or how it’s even spelled?” he asked the group. (Special education teacher support services involve targeted support a special education teacher provides in a small group or one-on-one setting either by pushing into a classroom or pulling students out of class.)

When he first said that he had SETSS, Whaqid thought he was doing something related to constructing theater sets, she said.

Though students in StuySPICE are not asked to disclose whether they have a disability they are welcome to share so if they choose.

One student talked about her mother’s experience as a paraprofessional working with students with disabilities. Another talked about her grandfather, who is deaf.

Whaqid discussed how she views neurodiversity as an expansive concept, saying that many people might feel like they’re different but not have a diagnosis, or they might have a diagnosis but not want to share.

“We’re trying to create an inclusive community,” she said, “and help everybody feel included while getting ideas on how to improve the community.”

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Lawmakers advance bills on DEI, sex ed, chaplains in schools

2025-02-05T22:59:36+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news.

Indiana senators discussed and passed controversial bills on Wednesday about social studies curriculum, sex education materials, and chaplains in public schools.

One would require schools to seek school board approval for and publicize information about their sex ed curriculum. Another would allow chaplains to work as counselors in public schools. Lawmakers also discussed legislation to restrict how teachers can approach issues like race, class, and privilege in history and social studies lessons, as well as a bill that takes aim at diversity, equity, and inclusion curriculum and training

Most of the bills echo proposals that failed in past sessions and have sharply divided Democrats and Republicans. But the bills are now moving forward in a vastly different national political landscape, one where some of these ideas have support from President Donald Trump and his administration.

Lawmakers have until Feb. 20 to approve bills in their respective chambers. That means committees have a few more weeks to complete their work and advance bills to second and third readings to the full chamber.

Notably, the House Education Committee was poised to consider a bill Wednesday expanding Indiana’s law banning transgender girls from girls’ sports at the collegiate level. But lawmakers removed the bill from the agenda.

Here’s more on what the Senate Education Committee discussed and did Wednesday.

‘Teachers shouldn’t be encouraging those pessimistic views’

Senate Bill 257 would require teachers to base history or social studies instruction on the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution of the United States. It also prohibits teachers from teaching that the U.S. national identity or culture has been established by racial identity or racial discrimination, gender identity or gender discrimination, victimization, class struggle, a hierarchy of privileges, or systemic exclusion. It would apply to all schools that teach these subjects.

It was authored by GOP Sen. Spencer Deery, who said he was concerned about statistics showing that young people have adopted a grim view of U.S. history, including one survey finding that more than half of young people are in favor of writing a new constitution.

“Teachers shouldn’t be encouraging those pessimistic views,” Deery said.

Deery argued that these views are “trendy, but short-sighted” and prevalent in school curriculum throughout Indiana and the United States. He denied that the bill would affect teachers’ ability to teach historical events like the Holocaust.

“Those things can be examples of ways we fell short of our ideals, or how we progressed from those shortcomings,” he said. Deery also authored last year’s controversial law on “intellectual diversity” and tenure at colleges and universities.

But Sen. J.D. Ford, a Democrat, asked whether teachers would feel uncomfortable teaching the Constitution, if they could not mention that the Constitution permitted enslavement and included the Three-Fifths Compromise, which were both forms of discrimination.

Deery said that the bill does not prohibit teaching that racial discrimination occurred, but does prohibit teaching that the country’s identity is rooted in racial discrimination.

In response to a request from Sen. Shelli Yoder, a Bloomington Democrat, to see the Indiana-specific data of these surveys, Deery said he believed most teachers were already in compliance with the provisions of his bill.

Public testimony was largely opposed to the bill. Education committee chair Sen. Jeff Raatz, a Republican, eventually decided to postpone a vote on the bill until next week to make technical corrections.

Chaplains as school counselors bill returns

Meanwhile, Senate Bill 523 revives a proposal from last year that would allow school chaplains to work as counselors in public schools on a paid or volunteer basis.

But this year’s version seeks to address past criticisms by requiring that the chaplains have some counseling experience.

Communication between students and chaplains would be confidential, with a few exceptions. Chaplains would provide secular “advice, guidance and support,” but could provide nonsecular support to students if a student and the student’s parents allowed it.

Bill author Sen. Stacey Donato, a Republican, said chaplains already work in public schools for sporting and other special events and could help students in crisis.

“Chaplains are not a new concept. The idea of a chaplain is not to convert people to a different religion. They are there to support people, regardless of their faith,” Donato said.

But Indianapolis Democratic Sen. Fady Qaddoura said in most other contexts, chaplains work with adults, rather than children. He asked what kind of secular support a chaplain could provide, to which Donato suggested tying shoes, zipping coats, and opening ketchup packets.

During testimony, Christopher Lagoni, executive director of the Indiana Small and Rural Schools Association, said church leaders already volunteer in schools and sometimes eat lunch with students, for example. He did not know of any working as counselors.

Both the Indiana School Boards Association and the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents also expressed support for the bill, saying it allowed for local control.

But ACLU of Indiana Executive Director Chris Daley expressed concern that the bill would violate the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause. Other speakers during public testimony — including religious leaders — questioned whether chaplains had the right training to work with students.

The bill passed out of the education committee on party lines.

Schools must publicize sex ed curriculum

Senate Bill 442 would require a public school that teaches sex education to obtain school board approval for the curriculum by submitting information about topics that will be taught, whether a male or female teacher will lead the course, and whether male and female students will take the course together.

The district must also publicize this information on its website.

Track Indiana education bills moving through the Statehouse

Indiana law currently does not require schools to teach sex education other than providing information about HIV, but those that do must emphasize abstinence. In 2023, lawmakers prohibited any human sexuality instruction before third grade.

Before the vote, senators approved an amendment to remove private schools from the requirements. They voted down an amendment that would require any sex ed curriculum to include instruction about contraceptives, consent, and healthy relationships.

The bill passed on party lines Wednesday. Qaddoura expressed concerns that the bill would lead to political fights at school board meetings.

“It will really rile up people against our school boards in different communities,” Qaddoura said.

Senators poised to pass anti-DEI bill

The Senate as a whole has already taken a major step toward restricting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in schools.

On Tuesday, Senate Bill 289 advanced through second reading of the Senate, with an amendment to incorporate some of the language of Senate Bill 235.

The bill would restrict mandatory diversity training in public K-12 schools and ban the hiring of DEI trainers and consultants at state universities. SB 289 also requires schools to post instructional and curricular materials online that relate to DEI, race, ethnicity, sex, or bias.

The combined bill does not include a long list of concepts initially included in SB 235 — like bias, allyship, cultural appropriation, microaggressions, social justice, heteronormativity, and gender theory. Bill author Sen. Tyler Johnson, a Republican, saying he felt “like we couldn’t define some of the terms in there.”

But the bill does define DEI as any effort to manipulate the composition of employees with respect to race or sex, to provide differential treatment on the basis of those characteristics, or other training or policies not expressly required to comply with federal law.

The bill could pass the full Senate as early as Thursday.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org

How are Trump’s education actions affecting your school?

2025-02-04T23:55:27+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

President Donald Trump has taken a series of executive actions in his first two weeks in office that aim to change how schools deal with politically and socially sensitive topics.

Trump wants to end practices associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion and root out what he considers “radical indoctrination” in schools. He has cleared the way for immigration enforcement near schools. He also has declared that there are only two genders, male and female, that cannot be changed, and his administration has said it will enforce Title IX through that lens.

Executive actions first and foremost direct federal agencies to make plans and interpret the law in certain ways. But they also send a message about the administration’s intentions, and in some cases, they include threats to withhold funds from states and school systems that don’t comply. Many of these executive orders are being challenged in court.

We want to better understand what teachers and parents think about Trump’s approach and whether any changes are happening at the school-level in response to executive orders. Has your school adopted a new policy or scaled back a practice that might run afoul of these executive orders? Or is everything business as usual?

Please take our short survey below — feel free to skip questions that don’t speak to you. If you prefer to communicate directly with us, you can send a regular text message to (908) 827-1448 or use the Signal app to send an encrypted message.

Loading…

If you are having trouble viewing this form, go here.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Trump executive orders on DEI and schools big on drama, but impact will take time to emerge

2025-02-03T23:57:09+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

With a series of sweeping executive actions, President Donald Trump is seeking to remake K-12 education in a conservative image. In the process, he’s pushing legal and political boundaries on how far the federal government can reach into American classrooms.

But the executive orders on their own have little power to radically and rapidly change an American school system in which states, school districts, and even individual schools have traditionally called the shots on everything from what kids learn to which restroom transgender students use.

Some conservatives are cheering the new approach — one they believe better reflects the views of most Americans. Many left-leaning education advocates and those who champion traditional public schools say the executive orders have little legal power.

It will likely take months for the full impact of the executive orders to be clear.

In the first two weeks of his second term, Trump said the federal government would only recognize two sexes, male and female, which could have big implications for transgender students’ rights. He wants to root out “radical indoctrination” in American classrooms and send more federal funding to private school vouchers.

He also cleared the way for immigration arrests at schools, and sought to freeze certain federal funds for schools and early childhood programs. The administration continues to selectively block payments to programs it deems not aligned with its values or policy priorities in the face of numerous legal challenges.

Taken together, these actions show the Trump administration is ready to lean on various levers of power — from the bully pulpit to federal investigations to threats of withholding funding — to convince or coerce schools to comply with its worldview, whether or not the federal government has the legal authority to do so. Disappointing national test scores and state-level wins for Republicans could also be fueling Trump’s ambitions to stake a greater political claim on K-12 education.

“The president is responding to what he feels like the voters who put him in office feel strongly about,” said Jonathan Butcher, a senior research fellow in education policy at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank whose policy proposals are often embraced by Trump. “It sort of changed the mission statement on these issues of gender, race, down to school choice, and beyond. That’s an important starting point.”

Trump likes Indiana schools. Are they winning the war on ‘woke’ he wants to fight?

Some effects were swift. The U.S. Department of Education removed hundreds of documents from its website related to diversity and equity initiatives and suspended at least 50 staffers. Civil rights staffers are now enforcing 2020 Title IX rules, which don’t offer explicit protections for trans students as did now-defunct rules issued under President Joe Biden. And some schools have seen attendance dip among immigrant students whose families worry they could be detained by immigration agents during school dropoff.

Some of the high-profile orders have had little or no tangible effect on schools so far. They direct federal agencies, not states or districts, to develop plans over the next several months. At the same time, some observers worry schools will preemptively make changes to their teaching or programs — even if they aren’t legally required to.

The executive orders “have a lot of power to create chaos and fear and confusion, and that’s real, immediately,” said Ary Amerikaner, a former Education Department official and the executive director of Brown’s Promise, which conducts research and advocacy on school desegregation and school funding. Yet she also said Trump’s actions were “mostly bluster” that lacked “a lot of power to actually affect what’s happening on the ground, because they can’t change existing law.”

The orders leave a lot of room for interpretation, several education policy experts said. Forthcoming guidance and federal grant notices could help fill in blanks.

“I want details,” said Noelle Ellerson Ng, who oversees advocacy and governance for The School Superintendents Association. “How do these proposals continue to roll out?”

The executive actions also highlight an ongoing tension in the Trump administration’s approach to K-12 education.

Trump and his allies have said they want to shrink the size and role of the federal Education Department, if not abolish it entirely. Trump is reportedly preparing an executive order to diminish the department’s size. But his orders so far indicate a certain desire to wrest power from local schools by dictating what they can and cannot teach about topics such as systemic racism, white privilege, and gender identity. Numerous laws prohibit federal officials from deciding what program of instruction or curriculum a school uses, which some state officials have been keen to point out.

The incoming education secretary has been tasked with issuing several reports on how various executive orders could be carried out. Yet attempts by Trump officials to directly control daily school decisions could quickly trigger lengthy court battles.

“They’re not the nation’s school board,” Ellerson Ng said.

Trump order has potential effects on classroom instruction

Some worry Trump’s executive order seeking to withhold federal funds from schools that teach “discriminatory equity ideology” or “gender ideology” has the potential to alter classroom instruction and cut support for trans students.

The order defines “discriminatory equity ideology” as any classroom instruction that treats people “as members of preferred or disfavored groups, rather than as individuals, and minimizes agency, merit, and capability.” It has the same acronym — DEI — as the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” efforts Trump is seeking to eliminate throughout the federal government.

“Gender ideology,” meanwhile, includes any instance in which a school recognizes that a child can be a gender other than the male or female sex they were assigned at birth. It targets classroom instruction, as well as counseling for students and school policies, such as those asking teachers to use the name and pronouns that correspond with a child’s gender identity.

The order seeks to stop schools from teaching that people can be inherently racist, sexist, privileged, or oppressed based on their race, sex, or other characteristics — taking direct aim at concepts such as white privilege and unconscious bias. It also seeks to bar teaching that the U.S. is fundamentally racist, a concept that about 1 in 3 students says comes up often at their school, a recent nationally representative survey of high schoolers found.

Students displaced by the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles read in their new classroom at Nora Sterry Elementary School. Disaster recovery assistance is just one way federal funds support K-12 schools. The Trump administration has pledged to use federal money as a lever to get compliance with its policy priorities.

The language mirrors the text of several state laws that target critical race theory, an academic concept that says racism is embedded in the U.S. legal system and government policies.

Eighteen states already have laws or official policies that prohibit similar lessons. But there is reason to believe some teachers will self-censor or face new pressures from their district or school leaders. It’s happened before.

A 2022 national survey, for example, found that 1 in 5 teachers in states without official limits on teaching about racism and sexism were asked to curtail discussion of hot-button social and political topics.

“This administration is clearly thriving in a culture of creating fear,” said Amerikaner, of Brown’s Promise. “The thing that I think is most important for educators and administrators on the ground is to not take the bait.”

Similarly, advocates for LGBTQ students are advising schools they don’t need to change their policies because of the president’s order.

“School districts need to be aware that LGBTQ students’ rights have not changed,” said Brian Dittmeier, the director of public policy at GLSEN, an organization that works to create safe school environments for LGBTQ youth.

Are Trump’s executive actions about DEI and immigration changing your school? Take our survey.

Trans kids and other LGBTQ students still have various protections under the U.S. Constitution and federal civil rights laws. And state laws that protect LGBTQ students remain in effect in those states.

Executive orders don’t reverse case law, Dittmeier said. Regardless of shifting Title IX regulations, court cases such as Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board held that transgender students have a right to use the restroom that aligns with their gender identity. And the U.S. Supreme Court found in Bostock v. Clayton County that discrimination against gay or transgender people is a form of sex discrimination, although pending cases have the potential to change the legal landscape.

In a Jan. 31 letter to education officials, a Trump official said the reinstated 2020 Title IX rules do not protect students from discrimination based on sex stereotypes.

Still, schools that fail to protect LGBTQ students’ rights in an effort to comply with Trump’s executive order could be subject to lawsuits and civil rights complaints, including in the 26 states that have their own civil rights processes, Dittmeier said.

Landscape for education civil rights complaints could change

To Butcher, of the Heritage Foundation, the executive order about “discriminatory equity ideology” is asking schools to follow existing anti-discrimination laws.

He envisions, for example, that there could be a federal civil rights investigation if a school grouped students into affinity groups by race or limited discipline for Black and Hispanic students as a way to meet internal “ratios” and avoid suspending too many students of color. That could have prompted a civil rights probe under now-rescinded Obama administration guidance.

How exactly the Trump administration will monitor whether schools are violating the executive order remains to be seen.

Conservative parent groups file frequent federal civil rights complaints objecting to teacher diversity programs and student affinity groups. Under Trump, these complaints could get a friendlier reception.

Even under the Biden administration, the Los Angeles school system was forced to overhaul a program to promote Black student achievement in response to such a complaint.

The Trump Education Department has already taken a step on a related issue: It has dismissed 11 civil rights complaints related to alleged book bans, which the agency labeled a “hoax.”

Some states with similar prohibitions set up a reporting process so parents, school staff, and others can flag materials or lessons that may not comply with state law.

But creating a national reporting tool would be logistically challenging and time-consuming, said Butcher, who wants to see the Department of Justice take the lead on investigating with help from state education officials and state attorneys general.

“Not every report or accusation is accurate,” Butcher said. “There is a lot of follow up that has to be done. That, I think, is beyond the scope of what Washington should be doing right now, especially at the Department of Education, if the goal is to be winding it down.”

School districts may also decide to be extra cautious with their budgets to avoid the risk of losing federal funds if they somehow violate a presidential order.

Sarah Abernathy, the executive director of the Committee for Education Funding, which tracks federal investments in education on behalf of several groups, said she’ll be listening for school district discussions about laying off staff or ending programs to comply with a federal order — or get ahead of one.

She also worries schools will be afraid to talk about it publicly for fear of drawing any attention to themselves. On a recent call with members of her organization, Abernathy asked for examples of how the presidential orders could affect K-12 schools financially and all she heard was “crickets.”

“I don’t think anyone in the education world wants the administration using them as an example of something that is wrong,” she said.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Civil rights complaint filed against Elizabeth district by former dean who objected to book ban

2025-01-29T21:30:30+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

A middle school administrator who was fired by the Elizabeth School District after calling a plan to remove school library books racist has filed a civil rights complaint with both the state and federal government.

LeEllen Condry, a former dean of students at Elizabeth Middle School, alleged discrimination and retaliation by the district in complaints filed Wednesday by her lawyer with the Colorado Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Condry, who is Black, said she wrote a letter to the school board last August protesting the district’s plan to remove a number of books from the school libraries in the district.

“I basically said that it was unethical, it was racist,” she said in an interview Wednesday.

She was terminated on Oct. 1, 2024.

Condry’s civil rights complaint is the latest fallout from the Elizabeth district’s decision to remove 19 books from school libraries this school year because of what the school board deemed highly sensitive content. In December, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the district on behalf of two students and two groups, arguing that the book removals violate federal and state free speech protections.

Under the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Education announced this month it would end investigations of schools that removed books from their libraries.

Condry’s lawyer, Andy McNulty, said the complaints are the first step before a lawsuit can be filed. He estimated it will take six months for the Colorado Civil Rights Division, the lead agency in the investigation, to issue a decision. At that point, he plans to file a lawsuit on Condry’s behalf that will include discrimination and violation of free speech claims.

McNulty said he doesn’t have a copy of Condry’s letter to the school board, but has been working to get one from the school district for months. He said the letter was on Condry’s work computer, but she had to turn that in when she was terminated.

Jeff Maher, a spokesperson for the Elizabeth School District, said by email on Wednesday morning that district officials have not yet seen a copy of Condry’s complaint. He also said they would not comment on personnel matters.

Elizabeth is a 2,700-student district about 30 miles southeast of Denver.

The 19 books removed from school libraries in the district are primarily by or about people of color, LGBTQ people, or both. They include “The Bluest Eye” and “Beloved,” both by Toni Morrison, “The Hate U Give,” by Angie Thomas, and “You Should See Me in a Crown,” by Leah Johnson. All three authors are Black and their books feature Black characters.

The ACLU lawsuit notes that the removed books include discussions of same sex relationships, LGBTQ characters, racism, police violence, or other content Elizabeth school board members considered “disgusting.”

Dozens of other school library books weren’t removed but ended up on a “sensitive” list compiled by a curriculum review committee. Parents can prohibit their children from checking out books on the list, which include titles such as “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “The Hunger Games” and “Muslim Festivals Throughout the Year,” according to the lawsuit.

Condry’s civil rights complaint alleges that after she wrote the letter to the school board objecting to the proposed book removals, Superintendent Dan Snowberger sent an email to her and all other district staff.

According to the complaint, he wrote, “[s]adly, some staff members did seem to misunderstand the request [for feedback] and somehow felt the request was an opening for harsh feedback to the Board on their decision.”

The complaint goes on to say that Snowberger cited Condry’s feedback, saying that calling the board’s actions racist “crossed the lines of professional and ethical behavior.” He also said in the email that the feedback would lead to “further disciplinary action.”

Condry was called to meet with Snowberger, the district’s human resources director, and the Elizabeth Middle School principal on Oct. 1. She was told she was being terminated for budget reasons, according to the complaint.

Condry, who has not yet secured a replacement job, said many teachers and administrators were scared to share their objections about the book removals.

“It’s important that individuals such as myself, who is of Haitian American descent, speak out against what is happening in the district, especially with the book ban,” she said.

She said she did it for Black, Latino, LGBTQ, and immigrant students in the district.

“They need to be able to have books that they can self identify with,” she said. “I just feel that when those specific books are being removed, it removes our heritage, who we are as people, and I don’t want to see that happen.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Should NYC’s specialized high school test come in other languages? Manhattan parent council says no.

2025-01-28T00:17:01+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

A Manhattan parent council debated — and rejected — a resolution earlier this month urging New York City’s Education Department to translate the admissions test for the city’s eight coveted specialized high schools into languages other than English.

The resolution, which failed by a vote of 5-3 in the Community Education Council for Manhattan’s District 2, was only advisory and would not have shifted the city’s existing policy.

But it sparked a public discussion about an aspect of the exam that’s gotten comparatively little attention, and it raised broader questions about the dearth of English language learners in the specialized high schools, which include Stuyvesant and Bronx Science.

“There’s definitely underrepresentation of [English learners] in these schools,” said Gavin Healy, a council member who co-sponsored the resolution following a story from Chalkbeat highlighting the barriers for newly arrived immigrants seeking admission to specialized high schools. “This has been an ongoing problem.”

Last school year, just four of the nearly 16,000 students enrolled in the eight specialized high schools, or 0.03%, were classified as English learners, according to city data. That’s in a school system where roughly 148,000 students, or 16.3% of the population, are learning English — a share that’s been growing as the city absorbs tens of thousands of migrant families.

The exam, which is enshrined in state law as the sole entry criterion for the specialized high schools, is currently offered only in English, though students still learning the language can get glossaries with translations of key terms and extra time on the test.

The city Education Department didn’t respond to a question about the CEC 2 resolution, but previously told Chalkbeat they believe that translating the test into other languages would violate state law mandating the use of a single, standard exam for admissions to the specialized schools.

Translating the exam would “risk making test questions either easier or more difficult, which would compromise the validity of comparable scores across exams,” a department spokesperson said.

Last year, roughly 900 English learners took the specialized high school test, and fewer than six got in. (The Education Department suppresses data for groups that small, so the precise number isn’t shared.)

It wasn’t immediately clear how many current specialized high school students were considered English Learners at one point in their school career and have now tested out of that designation. About 47% of specialized high school students last year spoke English as a home language, compared to about 52% of all city public high school students, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of city data.

Healy pointed out that the test the city previously used for admissions to elementary gifted and talented programs was offered in multiple languages. Several of the Regents exams required for high school graduation, including Algebra I, Global History, and Living Environment, are offered in multiple languages, though the English Language Arts test is not.

But Leonard Silverman, the vice president of CEC 2, who voted against the resolution, argued that while students entering the gifted program have years to improve their English, students entering the specialized high schools need to have a strong command of the language right away.

“The schools we’re talking about … are some of the most rigorous in the city. And their curriculums are administered in English,” he said.

Manpreet Bopari, another council member who opposed the resolution, added that “if students take the SHSAT in their native languages, even if they pass they’re likely to struggle with the day-to-day realities of English-only curriculum, so this sets them up for frustration and failure rather than success.”

Bopari said she was an English learner in middle school and didn’t take the SHSAT in part because of language barriers but “succeeded in other ways.” She urged the city to focus “not on lowering barriers but in equipping our [English learner] students with the tools they need to overcome them.”

Schools are required under federal law to provide accommodations for students learning English, including by hiring specialized teachers. But the extra funding schools rely on to hire those additional teachers comes from enrolling English learners, making it difficult to build up support without first enrolling the students who need that support.

That dilemma is familiar to students with disabilities, who are also significantly underrepresented at the specialized high schools and have often struggled to access the services to which they’re entitled.

Healy countered that while it might be challenging at first for students still learning English, they should have the option to make that choice themselves.

“It felt to me there’s a lot of kids who are capable of doing this work,” he said, “who probably aren’t getting a chance to do it.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

To meet Trump DEI order, U.S. Department of Education scrubs website, suspends staff

2025-01-24T02:56:29+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

The U.S. Department of Education has removed hundreds of documents from its website, placed staff on paid leave, and halted active contracts to comply with President Donald Trump’s order to end any programs that promote diversity, inclusion, or equity.

“These actions are in line with President Trump’s ongoing commitment to end illegal discrimination and wasteful spending across the federal government,” a department spokesperson said in a press release Thursday announcing the changes. “They are the first step in reorienting the agency toward prioritizing meaningful learning ahead of divisive ideology in our schools.”

Among the dozens of executive orders Trump signed on his first day in office was one titled, “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.” It calls for the end of all diversity-related programs, firing of all staff associated with such programs, and the termination of all contracts connected to that work. It also calls for investigations into the costs of past diversity programs, and for the development of new civil rights policies to address what the administration sees as the harms of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

At certain points, the order also refers to ending DEIA, with the A referring to accessibility for people with disabilities.

The stated purpose of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs is to encourage fair treatment for all people and reduce barriers that people from certain groups face due to historic disadvantages and ongoing prejudice. Critics of DEI programs have said they too often promote stereotypes and encourage institutions to overlook individual qualities and virtues. In its executive order, the Trump administration describes DEI programs as encouraging “illegal and immoral discrimination.”

Like critical race theory, or CRT, DEI has become an umbrella term to encompass more progressive approaches and perspectives on addressing racial inequality. The term DEI has even been deployed as a slur to disparage people of color and women in leadership positions.

The imprecision around what DEI means makes it hard to know what eliminating DEI will ultimately look like in terms of federal policy. In its press release, the department said it was continuing to look for programs using “coded or imprecise language to disguise their activity.” Federal employees have been given 10 days to report on DEI activities in their departments, and could face consequences if they are found to have kept quiet about such work.

How to be a source, including through our secure Signal app

The Education Department said it has dissolved its Diversity & Inclusion Council, as well as the Employee Engagement Diversity Equity Inclusion Accessibility Council within the Office for Civil Rights. It also said it has canceled ongoing contracts worth $2.6 million, placed an unknown number of career staff on paid administrative leave pending investigations into their work, and removed or archived more than 200 pages from its website.

The department also withdrew its Equity Action Plan. Former President Joe Biden had ordered every federal agency to develop these plans to improve how they support traditionally underserved communities.

The department did not respond Thursday afternoon to a request for additional information on the programs and guidance that have been withdrawn.

The website for the Equity Action Plan now reads “Page Not Found - 404.” Chalkbeat used the Wayback Machine, an internet archive, to access the version of the page that existed last week.

The equity action plan described efforts to improve college-going, pandemic learning recovery, and career and technical education for underserved students. The plan also described efforts to collect data on educational outcomes for LGBTQ students, who often face bullying and harassment at school.

A page on supporting Hispanic-serving colleges and universities shows as “archived or suspended,” while a similar page on Historically Black Colleges and Universities remains active. Pages providing guidance on how colleges could enroll diverse students in the aftermath of a U.S. Supreme Court decision banning race-conscious admissions have disappeared, as have press releases on reducing racial disparities in student discipline and promoting events on teacher diversity

Pages dealing with civil rights enforcement, supporting Black teacher candidates, and diversity-focused grant programs remain active as of Thursday evening.

The department said its review is ongoing.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado’s student enrollment declines again, but more metro area districts saw growth

2025-01-15T16:00:32+00:00

Enrollment in Colorado public schools declined more slowly than in past years, while several districts in the Denver metro area saw gains.

The October 2024 enrollment count, which the state uses to determine how much money each school district receives, showed Colorado public schools with 881,065 students, down 0.1% from 881,464 a year earlier, according to data released Wednesday by the Colorado Department of Education.

In a sign of longer-term trends, early grades have far smaller numbers of students than the high school grades, the data showed. For example, Colorado has 74,727 students in 12th grade preparing to graduate this spring, and 69,455 students in the class behind them. Meanwhile, this year’s kindergarten class has just 58,604 students.

Preschools run by school districts have 31,861 students this year, down almost 200 students from last year.

The state demographer expects the statewide decline to continue through about 2028, due partly to declines in both birth rates and migration to the state.

Some metro area districts that had been experiencing declining enrollment recorded an increase. Of 15 districts in the Denver metro area, seven had an increase in enrollment, compared with just three that did last year. The new gainers were Cherry Creek, Mapleton, Westminster, and Englewood.

Even so, only one metro area district — the 27J school district based in Brighton — now has more students than it did in 2019, before the start of the pandemic.

Statewide, of 186 districts and BOCES, just 63 had an increase in enrollment from the previous year, while 119 had a decrease, and four had flat enrollment. In 2023-24, 67 districts had an increase over their previous year’s enrollment.

Under the state’s education funding system, fewer students means fewer dollars, but to give districts more predictability and avoid big changes from year to year, Colorado uses averages of districts’ four most recent years of enrollment.

Gov. Jared Polis is proposing to end that averaging and use the single year’s October count instead to calculate funding levels, a change that many district leaders oppose.

Last year, some districts complained that the October numbers deciding their funding didn’t reflect the many new migrant students with higher needs who enrolled in their districts later in the year. Colorado lawmakers made a one-time adjustment to give some districts additional funding for those new students.

This year, districts aren’t seeing the same midyear influx of migrant students.

Chuck Carpenter, chief financial officer for Denver Public Schools, told the school board at a recent meeting that last year’s influx after October was unusual but that keeping those new migrant students this school year allowed DPS to surpass its enrollment projections.

“We are not seeing continued inflows of students,” Carpenter said. “And we think we are in a normal trend with enrollment right now and going into next year.”

Official October enrollment numbers from the state don’t track how many of the students are new to the country.

But overall, the state saw a rise in the number of students who are labeled as English learners, or “multilingual learners” as the state now calls them. These are students who are learning English as a new language, and not all are migrants.

The enrollment data shows the state’s student population becoming more racially diverse, with the number of students identified as Hispanic growing the most.

Other groups of students that saw an increase in counts this year include students who are identified as homeless. This year, there are 14,498 students identified as homeless, 366 more than last year. These students are spread across the state. Last year, four districts each had more than 1,000 students identified as homeless, which was new, whereas this year, it’s back to only one: Adams 12.

Also, more students enrolled in online or homeschooling programs compared with last year.

Statewide, the number of students eligible for free or reduced-price meals under federal guidelines decreased by more than 2%, or 8,000 students, to 394,765.

In some districts, officials saw large declines in at-risk student populations this year, largely based on that free and reduced-price measure, as a result of changes to Medicaid. Qualifying for Medicaid allows students to be automatically counted as at-risk, but many students have now lost that eligibility.

In Colorado, currently all students receive a free school meal regardless of family income, but families are still encouraged to fill out forms to determine their eligibility under federal guidelines, because it helps the state get more federal money to pay for those free meals, and because it’s used as a measure of poverty.

District leaders have said they’ve seen families continue to fill out the forms, though some school leaders have had to do more than before to prompt families.

Look up enrollment changes at your district in the table below:

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Elizabeth School District sued over book bans

2024-12-20T04:55:48+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

Two students and two groups have sued the Elizabeth School District over its decision to remove 19 books from school libraries this year because they contained what the school board deemed highly sensitive content.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court by lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado on Thursday, argues the book removals violate federal and state free speech protections. In addition to a high school student and preschooler in the 2,600-student district, the plaintiffs include a chapter of the NAACP and the Authors Guild, a professional organization for writers.

The removed books include titles like “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas; “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison; “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini; and “It’s Your World – If You Don’t Like It, Change It” by Mikki Halpin.

The lawsuit is the latest volley in an ongoing battle in the Elbert County community over issues ranging from book bans to LGBTQ rights to allegations that schools are teaching critical race theory. Even some self-described conservative residents have expressed surprise at the school board’s recent actions.

Last spring, the district decided to switch from its longtime book fair provider, Scholastic, to Sky Tree Books Fairs, which is affiliated with the Christian publishing company Brave Books. The new book fair vendor promised there would be no LGBTQ, critical race theory, dark magic, foul language, or explicit content.

The 19 books at the center of the lawsuit are primarily by or about LGBTQ people, people of color, or both. They include discussions of same sex relationships, LGBTQ characters, racism, police violence, or other content Elizabeth school board members considered “disgusting,” according to the lawsuit.

“The federal and state constitutions prohibit this kind of politically motivated censorship,” said Tim Macdonald, legal director for the ACLU of Colorado, in a written statement.

The lawsuit acknowledges that the school district has control over “certain curricular matters” but argues that it “cannot block students’ access to information in their school libraries based on the Board’s political preferences, nor can it remove authors’ books from school libraries based on views that authors express.”

Elizabeth Superintendent Dan Snowberger said in a statement district officials were notified of the lawsuit late Thursday afternoon.

“We are disappointed that the district is being tied up in a political attack,” he said. “It intends to vigorously defend itself and decisions made in the best interest of our children.”

Last August, the 19 books were “temporarily suspended” and put on display for a month so parents could review them and make suggestions about their fate.

In September, the board ultimately decided to remove the books permanently. But one of the books, “Speak” by Laurie Anderson, had been checked out of the Elizabeth High School library the previous year and was never returned.

Parents had wildly variable opinions about the 19 books at issue, according to the lawsuit.

One parent wrote that the book “13 Reasons Why” by Jay Asher was “just porn.” Yet another wrote that it was “a prime example of a book that could be a conversation starter + open lines of communication between parents + their children.” The book is about a high school student who dies by suicide and leaves casette tapes behind that describe the reasons for her despair.

Parents and plaintiffs who opposed removing the books permanently from the library said they want students to have access to books they can relate to and that offer a variety of perspectives.

“By banning these books, the District is sending the message that it is not okay to learn about LGBTQ+ identities and same sex relationships or race and racism,” the lawsuit states.

Dozens of other school library books weren’t removed but ended up on a “sensitive” list compiled by a curriculum review committee. Parents can prohibit their children from checking out books on the list, which include titles like “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “The Hunger Games” and “Muslim Festivals Throughout the Year,” according to the lawsuit.

Note: This story was updated with a statement from the Elizabeth School District superintendent.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

NYC reformed high school admissions 20 years ago. Did it make things better?

2024-12-16T19:25:48+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

In most places in the country, enrolling in high school is a simple matter: You graduate middle school and move on to your local high school.

That’s not how it works in New York City.

In the nation’s largest school system, 12- and 13-year-olds go through a process that many say is as stressful — or more so — than applying to college. Students must rank preferences from a list of more than 400 schools citywide with widely varying specialties and admissions requirements, including essays, auditions, and interviews. Then, they wait months for an algorithm to spit out a match.

Many of those features are a result of big reforms that came two decades ago with the intention of making the system more fair and efficient. Twenty years later, some of those changes have paid off, but segregation and inequality remain baked into the system, a recent convening found.

The Nov. 18 conference, organized by Fordham Law School’s Feerick Center for Social Justice and the nonprofit New York Appleseed, which advocates for school integration, brought together policymakers, academics, admissions professionals, parents, and students to reflect on how the city’s current admissions system came to be and how it’s working.

Measuring how the reforms of two decades ago have worked is complicated and depends on how you define success, panelists said.

As a “technical solution, these reforms were very successful,” said Sean Corcoran, associate professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University who has studied city high school admissions for decades. Far fewer students ended up without a match and were assigned to a school they didn’t choose than before the reforms, Corcoran said, and the changes made it far more difficult for schools and families to game the system.

But as the number of high school options exploded and information became more accessible through the internet, the system has become more and more complex for families, posing equity concerns in a city where the time, resources, and savvy to navigate all that information aren’t evenly distributed.

And despite efforts over the years to make the system more fair, it remains sharply divided along lines of race, class, language and disability status.

Here are some of the big takeaways and lingering questions from the convening.

Reforms were a bid to bring order to an unwieldy system

Most immediately, the reforms introduced by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and schools Chancellor Joel Klein were an effort to rationalize a system officials said was rife with inequity and inefficiency.

Before the reforms, students had the option of attending a zoned school but could also apply to up to five options across the city. Students could get into multiple schools or none at all. Some 30,000 students a year didn’t get into any of their choices and were assigned a school by the city, according to reports from the time.

There were also more ways for schools and families to game the system, experts said. Principals could withhold a portion of their seats until late in the process, giving them more discretion over whom to admit.

By requiring all students to participate in the choice system and running their rankings through an algorithm that spit out a single match per applicant, officials tried to maximize the number of students getting into a school of their choice. The number of unmatched students dropped from 30,000 to 3,000.

Under the old system, families could win an advantage at some schools by ranking them first, incentivizing families to be strategic with their rankings. Under the current system, ranking a school lower down on their list no longer puts students at an admissions disadvantage.

Last year, 77% of eighth graders citywide got into one of their top three choices, according to Education Department data.

“That is an important criteria, but by itself is not a sufficient measure of success,” said Corcoran.

The promise and perils of more information

Many of the tweaks Education Department officials have made over the years were efforts to make information more accessible to more families, from creating a new online application and school search tool, to compiling school open house dates in a central calendar, to introducing a new tool this year that helps families gauge their chances of getting into a given school.

“We still have a very complex system we’re operating in,” said Lianna Wright, the executive director of Enrollment Research and Policy at the Education Department’s Office of Student Enrollment. But “we’ve made a lot of changes to the process to make it more transparent and to try to advance equity.”

And there’s some evidence that increasing access to better information about schools for disadvantaged families can make a difference. A research team led by Corcoran found that offering middle school students simple tools to help them compare the quality of high schools in their neighborhoods helped them attend schools with higher graduation rates.

But there are also dangers to continuing to flood families with more information and relying on that approach to increase equity, some panelists warned.

“It seems like there’s more and more information … and that is good for transparency, but it may actually increase racial and class disparities in admissions,” said Christopher Bonastia, a professor of sociology at Lehman College who has written about school segregation in New York City.

Selective admissions continue to be a defining and dividing feature

It’s impossible to understand the city’s high school admissions system without grappling with the prevalence of screened schools that select students based on prior academic performance, essays, audition, neighborhood of residence, and more.

Debates over the effects of screening stretch back decades before the 2004 admissions reforms. State legislators enshrined the test that determines entry to the city’s specialized high schools in 1971. A 1986 New York Times letter to the editor from future Mayor David Dinkins lamented the growth of selective “theme” schools that created “two school systems, one rich and one poor, one a success and the other a failure.”

But the landscape of screened high schools has changed dramatically over the past two decades as the city shuttered dozens of large high schools and opened hundreds of new ones. Manhattan gained roughly 1,000 screened seats since 2004 while the Bronx lost more than 2,000, according to an analysis from Jen Jennings, a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University. The city’s most selective schools continue to admit freshman classes far out of step with the demographics of the school system, despite tweaks over the years to screened admissions and the growth of programs that give underrepresented students priority.

City officials and supporters of the screened schools argue they’re immensely popular, ensure high achievers are challenged academically, and keep families who might otherwise leave in the system.

But the existence of those schools also concentrates more low-achieving and disadvantaged students in unscreened schools, and students at those schools are “acutely aware of the status of their school,” said Bonastia, the Lehman College professor.

“It made for a really sad experience to watch all my friends go to these ‘good’ high schools, and where I went it wasn’t really looked at as a great high school,” said Katelyn Melville, a senior at the Brooklyn Institute for Liberal Arts, an unscreened school in Flatbush. “It made me feel really less than.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Top NYC students get automatic SUNY admission, but fine print excludes many Black and Latino kids

2024-12-10T20:09:18+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.

High school teacher Steve Lazar was ecstatic when he learned of SUNY’s new plan to automatically admit seniors who are in the top 10% of their class to a slew of campuses.

Lazar, who spent much of his career working at non-selective New York City high schools that predominantly serve low-income students of color, thought the new policy would give his students a leg up in an admissions process that often favors families with time and resources.

But the fine print worried Lazar. The new policy, called SUNY’s “Top 10% Promise,” requires students meet criteria beyond having a top GPA, such as posting SAT or ACT scores above certain thresholds, passing two Advanced Placement exams, or being on track to earn advanced diplomas that require additional tests.

The result: Black and Latino students in New York City are far less likely to receive an automatic admissions offer than their white and Asian American peers, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of city data.

Black or Latino students represented 51% of the top students in each school’s graduating class last year — but they made up just 36% of students who were in the top 10% of their class and met SUNY’s additional criteria for automatic admission. Meanwhile, white and Asian American students represented 47% of students at the top of their high school class, yet accounted for 61% of students who would have received a direct admissions offer.

Lazar said he was “unbelievably dismayed” by the expected impact of the extra rules. “My question is why have they put in these arbitrary criteria that are going to disproportionately exclude a Black and brown population?”

Chalkbeat evaluated the impact of the SUNY direct admissions policy on New York City public school students by requesting Education Department data for last year’s graduating class. The direct admissions policy is set to take effect for current high school seniors, so the figures may shift but still offer a close approximation of which students are likely to receive direct admissions offers.

The additional test score requirements would have excluded about 2,400 New York City students in last year’s class from receiving an automatic offer — meaning only about 6% of city seniors would qualify for the SUNY program.

Several states, including California and Texas, have rolled out direct admissions programs, a model that has grown in popularity across the country. The SUNY program includes automatic admission to nine campuses, including Purchase College, University at Albany, and Stony Brook University. Binghamton University, one of the state’s top public colleges, is not included.

Students in dozens of public school districts across the state are eligible for the program in its first year, including New York City. Officials plan to eventually expand it to all districts. A major goal is to keep top-performing students in New York for college and reduce hurdles for students from low-income households who may struggle to navigate the admissions process.

“It removes the barrier of doing the application,” SUNY Chancellor John King told the Daily News. “It removes the barrier of students maybe questioning if they’re going to be able to get into a top college.”

Asked why SUNY added additional criteria beyond ranking in the top of a high school class, SUNY spokesperson Holly Liapis said the purpose is “to ensure that students are academically prepared to succeed in college.”

Liapis stressed that students who aren’t offered automatic admission may still apply to SUNY campuses. She also pointed to the Educational Opportunity Program, a separate initiative that offers spots to low-income students who fell below traditional admissions criteria and comes with extra support.

Researchers: SUNY criteria exclude students who could thrive

Multiple experts who have studied automatic admissions policies in other states, including Texas and California, said there are some promising elements of SUNY’s approach, including directly admitting students rather than requiring students to apply even if they automatically qualify.

Still, they said it’s difficult to predict whether the program would shift students’ college enrollment decisions or increase campus diversity, noting any changes would likely be modest.

Zachary Bleemer, an economics professor at Princeton University who has studied direct admissions elsewhere, said SUNY’s additional criteria beyond course grades seemed more restrictive than in some other states — and could lock out students who would benefit from a SUNY education.

Bleemer’s research on a direct enrollment program in California found that students with high GPAs but relatively low test scores benefited from attending a selective University of California school, notching significantly higher college graduation rates and earnings compared with students who just missed the admissions cutoff and went to less selective schools.

“I think it’s very easy for state administrators to believe that top high school students with low test scores would not be able to take advantage of the educational resources provided by large public universities,” he said. “And that’s often wrong.”

Some New York City educators said they support the direct admissions program. Nitzan Ziv, a college and career counselor at Harvest Collegiate High School in Manhattan, said the handful of students who qualified for the program were thrilled to learn a few weeks ago that they automatically had a spot at SUNY school.

“It’s a great morale boost,” Nitzan said, noting that a handful of the school’s students got into all nine SUNY campuses participating in the direct admissions program.

But she’s unsure it will change their enrollment decisions, as the school’s top students are already plugged into the college admissions process and often attend more selective schools.

She also echoed concerns that some of the school’s strongest students are being excluded by the additional test score requirements.

“It just seems like it’s cutting out students who are excellent candidates for no reason,” she said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Few English learners get into NYC’s specialized high schools. This student came achingly close.

2024-12-05T10:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

Derek Sandoval seemed like a good candidate for Discovery, a program created to boost the numbers of disadvantaged kids in New York City’s elite public high schools.

Derek and his parents arrived from Venezuela in the summer of 2022 with little English and no housing. They moved into a homeless shelter in midtown Manhattan, and the city assigned Derek, then a seventh grader, to a public middle school in Greenwich Village while his parents found work as a cleaner and in a car repair shop.

In his eighth grade year, Derek, then 13, set his sights on the city’s coveted specialized high schools, which admit students on the basis of a single test offered only in English. With dreams of becoming a doctor one day, he decided those schools could help secure his future.

“I saw if you were in the specialized high schools, you would have more readiness … to go to college and get a scholarship,” said Derek, who’s now 14.

Derek Sandoval poses for a portrait at Project Rousseau in June, 2024 in New York.

With weeks to prepare and no access to paid tutors, Derek took the test. His score, a 457, was below that year’s threshold of 491 for an automatic offer but high enough to qualify for Discovery, which provides spots in specialized high schools for disadvantaged students who score close enough to the cutoff and complete summer coursework. The city determines whether kids are disadvantaged in three different ways, and Derek met all three criteria: He lived in a homeless shelter, was learning English, and his family was economically disadvantaged.

But a change made to the program six years ago rendered Derek ineligible for Discovery. Under the 2018 eligibility change, students must attend a school where at least 60% of their classmates are economically disadvantaged.

At Derek’s school, 59% of students fell into that category last year.

The change – part of a broader effort under former Mayor Bill de Blasio to boost the notoriously tiny share of Black and Latino students at the specialized high schools – was designed to ensure Discovery offers go to the “most disadvantaged” applicants, city officials have said. But cases like Derek’s raise questions about whether, in some instances, the eligibility rules may be excluding those very students.

Fewer than 55 of the nearly 16,000 students enrolled across the eight specialized high schools, or under 0.3%, lived in a homeless shelter in 2022-23, according to city data.

Just four students attending specialized high schools last year were English learners.

Derek, who learned about the Discovery program and school criteria only after he received his test results, felt frustrated and confused.

“They should qualify the conditions of the kid who’s applying for the program, not the zone where he lives, or the school where he studies,” Derek said.

Discovery changes have drawn controversy

The city’s eight specialized high schools, including Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech, and Bronx Science, enroll about 16,000 students, or 5% of the city’s high school population. But they command outsize attention because of their long track record of vaulting students into elite colleges and careers, their powerful alumni bases, and their considerable resources.

The same 1971 state law that mandated the schools admit students based on their score on a single exam also established the Discovery program. Each specialized school administers its own Discovery program and has a different test score cutoff. Students who qualify must complete a summer academy before enrolling.

For years, city officials left Discovery open to any student citywide who qualified as economically disadvantaged and scored high enough on the Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT. But that system led to a Discovery program with racial demographics similar to the specialized high schools overall, which are a combined 84% white and Asian American. In 2017, Discovery reached about 200 students, and fewer than 20% of offers went to Black and Latino students, though those students make up more than 60% of the school system.

In 2018, as part of a broader effort to diversify the specialized high schools, de Blasio and schools Chancellor Richard Carranza significantly expanded the size of Discovery and added the school-level poverty criteria. The program now serves nearly 800 students.

While the school poverty criteria measure has excluded some students like Derek, it has significantly increased the overall share of Discovery offers going to Black and Latino students, who are more likely than white and Asian American students to attend higher-poverty schools in the city’s segregated system. Since city officials added the school-level criteria, the share of Discovery offers to Black and Latino students rose from under 20% to 33% last year, according to city data. In addition to improving racial diversity, the changes to Discovery were designed to boost geographic and socioeconomic diversity, officials said.

Students applying to specialized schools from private and parochial middle schools, which don’t use the same school-level poverty measurements as public schools, must live in a neighborhood where at least 60% of families are below the poverty line in order to qualify for Discovery.

City officials say the school-level poverty criteria helps ensure Discovery reaches the “most disadvantaged” students. And there’s evidence that attending a high-poverty school is indeed a disadvantage in its own right, independent of a student’s individual circumstances. A 2022 Independent Budget Office analysis found that city students attending the highest-poverty schools performed worse on math and English tests than those in wealthier schools, even when they came from neighborhoods with similar poverty levels.

But the school-level poverty criteria has also drawn significant pushback, particularly from Asian American families.

Some of those families worked with the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative legal group, to file a lawsuit in 2019 arguing that the school-level poverty rule discriminates against Asian American students from low-income households.

A judge initially dismissed the suit, ruling that the plaintiffs had failed to show that the Discovery policy led to an overall decrease in Asian American enrollment at the specialized high schools. But last month, an appeals court reversed that decision, allowing the case to proceed.

The city isn’t currently considering any changes to the Discovery program criteria, said Jenna Lyle, a spokesperson for the Education Department. Lyle said there are hundreds of schools throughout the city “with dedicated educators and enriching programming.”

Under Mayor Eric Adams, the city hasn’t made any major efforts to reform admissions requirements at the city’s selective public schools, instead adding more screened schools in neighborhoods that historically lacked them.

Bethany Thorne, the chief of staff at Project Rousseau, an organization that supports immigrant students applying to high school, said she understands the rationale for using school poverty as a criteria for Discovery.

But Thorne argued there should be exceptions for students from groups that are severely underrepresented in the specialized high schools — including homeless students, those in foster care, and English learners — who attend schools that don’t meet the poverty criteria. She believes that the number of such students has likely grown in recent years due to an influx of migrant students placed in homeless shelters in neighborhoods like midtown Manhattan and assigned to nearby schools.

“Discovery has been game changing in so many ways,” Thorne said. “However there will always be some exceptions of students with extreme situations, whether it’s students in temporary housing or foster care who, through no choice of their own, may end up in a different environment.”

A determined student faces long odds

Derek knew nothing about the specialized high schools or the admissions test when he began school in New York City in seventh grade. In early conversations about his high school options, he said school staffers steered him toward international schools, which specialize in supporting older students still learning English.

Instead, Derek found out about the specialized schools in the fall of his eighth grade year after he overheard classmates talking about their test prep.

He was immediately captivated. But he knew he faced long odds.

Some of his classmates had been preparing for the test for years, often with the aid of private tutors, a system Derek described as “pay to win.”

But Derek’s biggest disadvantage was that he was still learning English.

The SHSAT, unlike many of the state-mandated Regents exams that students must pass to graduate high school, is offered only in English, though English learners get glossaries with translations of key terms and extra time on the test.

A city Education Department spokesperson said translating the SHSAT to other languages would likely put the city out of compliance with the state law governing admission to the specialized high schools.

With weeks to prepare, Derek threw himself into studying, asking his school librarian for past copies of the SHSAT and looking up tutorials on YouTube. He also asked for help from Project Rousseau, which was helping his mom with pro bono legal support on her immigration case.

When his score arrived in March, he was disappointed he didn’t make the cut but proud of his effort. Thorne said it was the highest score she’d ever seen from such a recently arrived immigrant student.

“I didn’t pass, but I tried my best,” Derek said. “I was happy at the end also because I had like one week, and I wasn’t too low in score.”

Derek got into the Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics in East Harlem, but when his parents saw a chance to move into stable housing in New Jersey over the summer, they jumped on it. Derek started his school year in New Jersey.

And while Derek understands his family’s decision, he thinks they might have made another choice if things had turned out differently in his high school application process.

“I think if I got into a specialized high school, we would have stayed in New York,” Derek said. “My mom, she cares more about my education, my future.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado high school test scores dropped across the board, but students learning English as a new language had bigger declines

2024-11-15T22:32:03+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

English learners in Colorado saw the largest drops in PSAT and SAT scores this past spring, bigger even than the score declines experienced by all high school students in the state.

The overall declines have led to discussions among state officials about adjusting high school graduation requirements and whether last spring’s scores can be compared to scores from previous years. Now, one Colorado superintendent is raising concerns about whether the PSAT and SAT scores in school districts that serve large numbers of English learners should even be used to rate a district’s academic performance.

“The rate of lost points in the scores is not equitable and it is not comparable,” said Karla Loría, superintendent of Adams 14 schools. “It hurts multilingual students and students with disabilities at a greater rate than any other student groups.”

One of the largest gaps statewide, for instance: 10th graders who aren’t identified to receive English language services had an average 5-point drop in their PSAT scores, while 10th graders who are learning English as a new language had an average drop of 83 points, which is 11.6%, or more than 16 times that of their counterparts.

When looking at just math scores, 10th grade English learners had a 13.6% drop in scores compared to a 1.3% drop among 10th graders who aren’t English learners.

Students with disabilities also saw large drops, though not as large as English learners.

In previous discussions about the overall declines of 2024, state officials said it’s difficult to know how much they represent a drop in performance and how much is due to the changes in the test format.

The digital PSAT and SAT students took in the spring of 2024 was adaptive, meaning that the questions students saw were dependent on how they were answering questions.

State officials also told the State Board of Education that it’s possible these lower results are a more accurate representation of learning for students who already performed at the lower range of the possible points.

That’s because, they say, students used to get advice to guess at questions they didn’t know or when they ran out of time. And some of those guesses were bound to be correct, earning them some extra points. But the new digital PSAT and SAT test online is designed to know when students are likely to be guessing, and so even if the guess is correct, the test won’t give students those points.

“Students were earning credit for content they didn’t know,” said Christina Wirth-Hawkins, chief assessment officer for the Colorado Department of Education.

Still, she said, the department isn’t telling schools to change how they do test prep with students, but rather telling them that the important thing is to help students learn content.

Drops in scores for English learners follows concerns raised last year

In Colorado Springs District 11, where about 6% of the district’s 22,700 students are identified as having limited or no English proficiency, 10th graders who aren’t yet English proficient had a 127-point drop in their scores, compared to a 27-point drop for other students.

In Westminster, where more than 24% of the district’s 7,600 students are learning English as a new language, 10th graders learning English had their average score drop by 121 points, compared to a 28-point drop for those who aren’t receiving English support.

In both the Harrison and Fort Morgan school districts, 10th graders learning English experienced drops of 120 points in their average score.

Because of the large gaps, Loria asked the board last month to consider the PSAT and SAT tests students took in the spring as a new test and not to use them against districts or schools in evaluations for at least one year.

She worried that the ratings for the districts serving large numbers of students in those subgroups would be significantly lower than for other districts.

“The impact is too serious to take it lightly,” Loría said.

This fall, preliminary ratings have already been calculated for schools and districts. The state is reviewing appeals before the ratings are finalized. The state Department of Education had first run an analysis to ensure the scores were still comparable to the previous year and fair to use in the ratings. Based on the analysis, the state tweaked the cut scores for the PSAT and SAT math sections of the test, but said it was still appropriate to use them as a factor for evaluating school and district performance.

On Wednesday, having received some additional data, the State Board voted again to tweak the cut scores for ratings next year, in particular for districts that use a three-year average of the scores. But the State Board did not opt to follow Loria’s suggestion of taking the scores out of consideration.

A spokesperson for College Board, the makers of the PSAT and SAT tests, said they’ve found in general “SAT scores from spring and fall 2024 are generally comparable to previous years.” According to data reports from the College Board website, students whose first language was something other than English had large drops in 10th grade PSAT scores, but not in 11th grade SAT scores.

At that national level, according to College Board data, students whose language was something other than English had a 57-point drop in their average scores compared to last year, while 10th graders whose first language was English had a 44-point drop.

The State Board’s vote is meant to adjust the expectations so that Colorado schools aren’t penalized for some of the score drops, since some could be due to the change in the test format, but Loría didn’t think it went far enough to account for the subgroup disparities.

Other districts did not raise the same concerns.

Test scores say COVID was especially rough on English learners. Not all school districts agree.

A spokesperson for the District 11 schools said the district is “addressing complex and contributing factors at the heart of our scores. We do not share the same concerns as Adams 14 at this time.”

Last year, when state officials first raised an alarm that data showed English learners might have been more impacted by the pandemic losses and having a harder time recovering compared to other student groups, many district leaders in Colorado did not identify the issue, even when their data also matched state concerns. Some said they weren’t doing anything different to help these students.

Adams 14 may have a bigger motivation than other districts to ask the state to change its rating system for schools and districts. It has been the only district to continue to receive low ratings for more than 10 years and face state sanctions for it, including a loss of accreditation at one point. State Board members more recently have backed off and put more trust in the district’s own improvement efforts, but so far, they have not yet produced a higher rating for the district.

Adams 14 leaders earlier this fall also asked the state board to consider environmental polluiton’s impact on school performance when they rate schools and districts.

The 2024 drops mean some gaps have doubled

Gaps already existed among English learners and those who don’t need English services, but they’ve grown with the 2024 results released a few months ago. In some districts, including Adams 14, they’ve doubled.

In Adams 14, English learners in 10th grade had a drop of 108 points, compared to a drop of 30 points for other students. For Adams 14, compared to 2023, the gap in the performance of English learners and students who already speak English in 10th grade grew from 70 points to 148. That’s a 111% increase in the gap.

The gap between the average score for English learners and students not identified for English services in District 11 are some of the largest in the state – larger than statewide gaps and growing fast.

The largest gap in that district, for instance, is among 11th graders who took the SAT. English learners in 11th grade had an average score of 625, compared to an average score of 910 for students not learning English as a new language. That’s a 285-point gap, up from a gap of 225 last year.

Of 25 districts that had data that didn’t have to be suppressed for privacy in both 2023 and 2024, only the Boulder Valley school district had 10th graders who are not yet English proficient improve their average scores.

When looking at scores without disaggregating, many districts had other students do well enough to average out a more moderate drop for their total populations. On average, combining all students, 10th graders in District 11 only had an average score drop of 31. In Westminster, the overall drop for 10th grade was 49 points.

Jorge Garcia, an advocate for multilingual students through the Colorado Association of Bilingual Education, said that although he hasn’t looked at the 2024 data closely, the issues aren’t new.

And if the state is confident that this new test format is accurately testing all students’ learning, he said there should be a plan to help students who are not yet proficient in English.

“If the educational system and the state is doing worse than we thought, then what are they doing about it?” Garcia said. “It would not surprise me that perhaps we have some leaders in charge, some, who don’t know what to do. They should begin to take a long hard look at how they’re failing these students so they can start to turn that around. If they continue to ignore it, it’s not going to get better.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee governor backs Trump plan to abolish U.S. Department of Education

2024-11-14T01:44:47+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Gov. Bill Lee said Wednesday that he’d welcome closing the U.S. Department of Education under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, adding that states can do a better job of deciding how to spend federal dollars on students.

“I believe that Tennessee would be more capable than the federal government of designing a strategy for spending federal dollars in Tennessee,” Lee told reporters when asked about the prospect.

“We know Tennessee. We know our children. We know the needs here much better than a bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. does,” Lee said.

The Republican governor’s comments come as Trump assembles his cabinet after soundly defeating Vice President Kamala Harris last week to win a second term in office. As of Wednesday, he had not named his choice to be U.S. secretary of education.

During his campaign, Trump said one of his first acts as president would be to “close the Department of Education, move education back to the states.” The Republican Party’s platform also calls for shuttering the federal agency, as does the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.

Tennessee’s governor called it “a great idea” to dismantle the agency, which was created under a 1979 federal law during President Jimmy Carter’s administration.

“I think the federal bureaucracy that was built into the Department of Education starting in 1979 has created just that: a bureaucracy,” Lee said.

Tennessee has a template for spending federal funds

Trump has not provided a detailed plan for what would happen to federal funding or particular programs if the U.S. Department of Education were shuttered — a move that would require an act of Congress.

Lee suggested that education funding could be distributed to states similar to how Tennessee negotiated a Medicaid block grant waiver program with the first Trump administration, giving the state government more control over how it spent the money.

“We saved Tennesseans a billion dollars in taxpayer money over four years,” Lee said, “and we split the savings with the federal government.”

Federal funds typically make up about a tenth of a state’s K-12 budget. For Tennessee, that amounts to about $1.8 billion distributed to local districts for its public schools, most of which supports students from low-income families, English language learners, and with disabilities.

Lee said Tennessee would continue to spend that money to support its neediest students.

“I think that Tennessee is incredibly capable of determining how dollars should be spent to take care of kids with disabilities, to take care of kids that live in sparse populations, or with English as a second language,” he said.

Asked about the federal agency’s enforcement of civil rights protections — which some have suggested could pivot to the U.S. Department of Justice — Lee said the state would have a role in that work, too.

“The complaint process could and would still exist,” Lee said. “We would make sure that it happens in this state.”

Critics question the state’s commitment to special student groups

Tennessee doesn’t have a very good track record of educating and caring for its students who need significant additional support.

It was one of many states, for instance, that once had laws excluding children with disabilities from public schools. The premise was that those kids would not benefit from a public school education. Before the passage of a 1975 federal law establishing the right to a public education for kids with disabilities, only 1 in 5 of those children were educated in public schools.

Recently, the Tennessee Disability Coalition gave the state a “D” grade on its annual performance scorecard that includes education services.

Students with disabilities comprise a significant part of Tennessee’s public education system.

About a tenth of the state’s public school students use an individualized education plan, or IEP, that’s intended to ensure that the student receives specialized instruction and related services for their disability.

Federal laws protecting students with disabilities would remain on the books even if the education department went away, but it’s not clear how enforcement would work or what would happen to funding. The authors of Project 2025 suggested that funding be turned into something resembling a voucher and given to families.

Federal education funding has been hotly debated in Tennessee

Tennessee has gone further than any other state in recent history in exploring its relationship with the federal government.

A year ago, after House Speaker Cameron Sexton suggested that Tennessee should look into the idea, a legislative task force spent months studying the feasibility of saying no to federal dollars.

Citing testing mandates, Sexton had complained of federal strings attached to those dollars. And the governor voiced support for the panel’s work and complained of “excessive overreach” by the federal government.

But some critics said the bigger issue was the U.S. education department’s role in enforcing constitutionally guaranteed civil rights protections for students.

Ultimately, the panel’s Senate and House members disagreed about their findings and issued separate recommendations. The Senate report highlighted the risks of taking the unprecedented step of rejecting federal funding, while the House report recommended taking incremental actions to further explore the idea. Nothing specific happened in the ensuing months.

Sen. Raumesh Akbari, a Memphis Democrat who served on the panel, said the Senate’s conclusions should give the governor pause.

“There are reasons why we have the U.S. Department of Education — to make sure that all kids have the opportunity to receive a public education and to have their civil rights protected,” Akbari said.

She noted that segregated schools existed less than 75 years ago across the nation.

“It’s unthinkable that we would move away from these very sacred and important protections, not just regarding race but gender, children with special needs, the handicapped community,” Akbari said.

Alexza Barajas Clark, who heads the EdTrust advocacy group in Tennessee, said the federal role in education is “to level the playing field for all students,” especially those from rural communities and low-income families or who have a disability.

“Let’s not lose focus about what is at stake,” Clark said. “At the center of every education policy decision is a student.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

A crisis over special education at NYC’s Beacon High School erupts in calls for new leadership

2024-11-13T23:46:21+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

Four days after this story published, Beacon’s interim principal announced he would not seek a permanent role at the school.

Parent after parent took the mic at a public meeting in Manhattan last month, painting a dire picture of the state of special education at Beacon High School.

One parent said teachers at the Hell’s Kitchen school are “sentencing my child to fail, and no one is able to fix the problem.” Another said, “We are watching Beacon’s demise, and we feel trapped.”

Dan Bright, the father of a ninth grader with a disability, said Beacon was so ill-equipped to support students with disabilities that he transferred his son to a new school within two months.

How the school fell so short in accommodating students in special education — and who is to blame — is at the heart of a crisis that has been roiling the Manhattan high school for months. The turmoil threatens to upend the school’s leadership and is forcing Beacon to confront longstanding questions about its mission and identity.

Long considered one of New York City’s most coveted public high schools, Beacon had some 4,400 applicants last year for 360 spots, according to city data. It’s nationally recognized for its progressive approach to education, which emphasizes student inquiry and projects over tests.

In recent years, Beacon’s student population shifted, accelerated by pandemic-era admissions reforms that increased numbers of students with disabilities, from low-income families, and testing below grade level in math and English. The changes brought new challenges, according to families and educators.

The school has struggled to provide students with disabilities with routine accommodations, such as extra time on exams, and many such students have received failing grades at a higher rate than their peers in general education, according to interviews with more than a dozen parents, educators, and students, and a review of academic records.

Some parents and educators blame the crisis on a variety of missteps made by interim Principal Johnny Ventura, who took the helm in 2023, and Assistant Principal Naisha Baidy, who started in 2021 and oversees special education. Nineteen parents and teachers submitted testimony, much of it anonymous, to the city’s Panel for Educational Policy last month criticizing the leadership of Ventura and Baidy and calling for their removal, according to a copy obtained by Chalkbeat.

The conflict between faculty — some of whom have been at the school for decades — and the administration has many teachers eyeing the exit, several staffers said.

“I’ve never seen more people dissatisfied and looking for the door,” said one veteran teacher, who, like other current Beacon educators, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

But others say Ventura came in facing significant headwinds and is being blamed for problems that predate him.

The student population changed “at a pace that the school wasn’t ready for, the teachers weren’t ready for,” said Alberta Conteh, the parent of a Beacon senior and president of the Parent Teacher Association. Ventura is “inheriting a lot of things that are not innately his fault, and then obviously he gets the blame,” she added.

The conflict at Beacon, and how the school accommodates its changing population, could have implications for other selective schools. Of the city’s 27 most sought-after screened schools, 22 saw an increase in their percentage of students with disabilities between 2019 and last school year, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of city data.

Ventura, reached by phone Wednesday, said a number of the criticisms from parents and staff were “not true” but declined to elaborate, referring a request for comment to the Education Department’s press office. Baidy couldn’t be reached by email or phone.

Education Department spokesperson Chyann Tull said Beacon has “a long history of serving students with disabilities,” including a partnership with a District 75 school, which serves students with significant disabilities, located in the same building. The Education Department has provided coaching and training on best practices in special education, and Superintendent Alan Cheng is actively working with the school to decide on next steps “that best serve all” students, Tull added.

Debates over Beacon’s mission stretch back decades

Launched in 1993, Beacon began as a small school with a diverse student body and educational philosophy opposed to standardized tests. Beacon is also an original member of the city’s consortium network of schools, where students complete “performance-based assessments,” like projects and portfolios to graduate, rather than the Regents exams used in the rest of the state.

But as the school grew in size and prestige, some faculty members say it drifted from its original ethos.

Beacon began screening applicants based on academic outcomes in the mid-2000s, leading to dwindling numbers of Black, Latino, and low-income students. And many of the new teachers and students were less committed to the consortium approach, some educators said.

“Beacon is the rare example of a pretty big school where they’ve managed to make this kind of assessment system work at a very high level,” said Harry Feder, a former history teacher and parent at Beacon who now serves as executive director at FairTest, a New York-based organization that advocates against using standardized testing in college admissions. “But over the years … there’s cracks in the facade.”

The debates over admissions resurfaced during the pandemic — amid a citywide reckoning over the effect of school admissions policies on diversity at selective high schools — and as Beacon’s founding principal, Ruth Lacey, retired. The school continued to screen students, but it adopted admissions reforms that decreased emphasis on grades and set aside two-thirds of seats for students from low-income families.

Beacon High School students protest former President Donald Trump's immigration policies in 2016.

The shift was significant.

The school’s proportion of students with disabilities, which had been steadily rising even before the pandemic, jumped from 13% in 2019 to 20% last year. The share of economically disadvantaged kids rose from 33% to 50%, according to city data. In 2019, just 17% of Beacon freshmen who took state math exams in eighth grade entered the school having scored below “proficient.” By 2022, the last year for which data was available, that number was 37%.

A new principal takes the helm

Many in Beacon’s community greeted Ventura’s appointment in the summer of 2023 with excitement. The school’s first principal of color, Ventura, who identifies as a Black Latino, openly shared his story of dropping out of high school and earning a GED diploma.

Ventura, a former school counselor, came to Beacon from Brooklyn Technical High School, the city’s largest and one of its most selective high schools, where he served as an assistant principal overseeing special education. Some families and educators thought that would be a boon at a time when Beacon was seeing enormous growth in its special education population.

“I was optimistic that he, as an Afro-Latino, as someone with a background in social work and special education, could really find ways to bring the community together,” said Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a parent leader and former member of the Panel for Educational Policy who advised Ventura early in his tenure at the school.

But staffers and parents soon grew concerned over missteps. When the school discovered racist and antisemitic graffiti in March, which included a school shooting threat, Ventura initially left out the racist remarks and threat in a communication to parents. The oversight spurred one student to create an online petition calling for Ventura’s removal. Ventura later apologized for the omission.

Teachers bristled at Ventura’s attempts to direct classroom instruction, given his lack of experience as a classroom teacher and in consortium schools. Some said he showed little interest in, or understanding of, the school’s consortium approach.

According to an internal union survey of more than 60 teachers in October, only about 20% said the principal valued their instructional expertise and looked out for their welfare, according to results shared with Chalkbeat.

A contentious meeting of the teachers union chapter earlier this year also revealed divisions along racial lines. Several Black staff members spoke up in support of Ventura and said they’ve personally felt marginalized at the school, according to multiple staff members present.

Conteh, the PTA president, said she suspects Ventura’s race has played a role in the criticism he’s received.

“Are there things that he’s being held to because of his color?” said Conteh, who identifies as a woman of color. “It’s just a fact. … People have a lower threshold for failure if you’re a person of color.”

Special education complaints boil over

As the internal fighting among faculty continued, families felt increased urgency to address the situation of students in special education.

Roughly 54% of students in special education received failing grades in 10th-grade Geometry during the third marking period last year, compared to 18% of students in general education, according to data obtained by Chalkbeat. More than 40% of students with disabilities in Algebra 1 and ninth-grade biology got failing marks in the same quarter, compared with 16% and 14%, respectively, for general education students, the data showed. (Final course grades were not included in the data.)

In last year’s school survey, just 48% of Beacon parents of students with disabilities said they were satisfied with how the school was meeting their student’s individualized education program, or IEP — the lowest percentage of any high school in the city where more than six parents responded.

Multiple parents told Chalkbeat that the school failed to place students in classes with dedicated special education teachers, a violation of their IEPs. Parents also said that teachers routinely denied relatively common accommodations, such as extra time on tests and homework, the option to retake exams, and graphic organizers and study aids — even when they’re outlined on students’ IEPs.

There have been improvements: This fall, 95% of students entitled to a dedicated special education teacher were placed in a class with one, up from 84% last fall, according to special education reports reviewed by Chalkbeat.

But there’s still some disagreement over where to point the finger for the school’s problems in special education.

Some parents said some teachers’ attitudes are a big part of the problem.

“A lot of teachers have never taught to any kids with learning differences, and they’re totally out of their depth,” said one parent of a student in special education, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear their child could face reprisal. “There’s tremendous resistance among some staff.”

During one meeting of the School Leadership Team last year, a math teacher said students with disabilities couldn’t be expected to keep up in higher-level math courses, according to a parent present.

Several veteran teachers countered that, with some exceptions, teachers want to learn to better support students with disabilities but haven’t gotten the necessary help from the school’s leadership. Some educators blame Ventura and Baidy for mismanaging staffing assignments and ignoring teachers’ and parents’ requests for help.

“We are working every which way possible to fight against the same system that [parents] are fighting against,” said one teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We’re just hitting the same brick wall.”

Ventura has made efforts to improve the situation, but parents and educators say some have backfired.

This fall, he unveiled a new grading policy meant to address concerns from parents that rules varied widely between classes, and some courses relied too heavily on tests. The policy, a copy of which was reviewed by Chalkbeat, mandated that tests count for no more than 70% of a course grade and required teachers to offer two assessments a quarter.

Several educators said they supported the idea of bringing more coherence to a school where teachers have long had wide latitude to set classroom policies, but they objected to the fact that it was done with little consultation of teachers.

“All of a sudden, we have these, hammer, top-down policies without any meaningful discussion,” said a veteran teacher who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Some parents said they ultimately blame Ventura, as the school’s leader.

“A school like that needs a really strong principal who can make the case to educators” to change their practices, said one parent, but Ventura is “basically alienating all the teachers.”

Beacon’s crisis could have ripple effects

How Beacon weathers its current challenges may well reverberate beyond the school.

The consortium model has attracted increasing attention as the state embarks on a multiyear effort to remove the Regents graduation requirements — and Beacon is its crown jewel.

The school has also been at the center of some of the city’s most fiery debates over school admissions and equity. How it adjusts to its changing student population could have an impact on future efforts to diversify the city’s screened schools. Some teachers who have pushed for the school to open its admissions worry that its current struggles could undermine those efforts.

“We’ve created this change … and haven’t created structures to support those kids,” said a veteran teacher who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “That leaves a space open for people to say, ‘See, these kids can’t make it here.’”

At stake in all the debates over the school’s leadership and direction is whether Beacon can live up to its founding ideal of providing a top-notch progressive education to a wide swath of city kids, educators said — something at which the school once excelled.

This story was updated to clarify that many Beacon ninth-graders don’t take the state math exam in eighth grade.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Under Tennessee’s stricter school library law, some books quietly disappear

2024-09-17T22:09:26+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Jennifer Edwards was a teenager in Arizona when she first read “Beloved,” Toni Morrison’s haunting novel about sexual violence and the brutal realities of American slavery.

“It had a profound effect on me,” she said, citing the empathy, historical understanding, and critical thinking skills the book imparted.

Now a mother of two sons and living in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Edwards wants teens in her community to have access to her all-time favorite book.

But under a recently revised state law broadening the definition of what school library materials are prohibited, her local board of education is set to vote Thursday on whether to pull the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and six other books with mature themes from the shelves of Rutherford County Schools.

“Banning books is not OK,” Edwards told the board last month as it began reviewing the materials. “Just because you don’t like what the mirror shows you doesn’t mean you put the mirror down.”

This week’s vote comes after the district, south of Nashville, already removed 29 books from its libraries this year under a previous policy, part of a wave of purges on campuses across Tennessee and other states.

How the ‘age-appropriate’ debate is altering curriculum

In Tennessee, that wave started under Gov. Bill Lee’s 2022 school library law requiring periodic reviews of catalogs to ensure materials are appropriate for the ages and maturity levels of the students who can access them. Librarians and teachers had to publish their inventories of book collections online for parents to view. Early removals included books about marginalized groups, including people who identify as LGBTQ+, and descriptions of slavery and racial discrimination throughout U.S. history.

This spring, scrutiny escalated. Republican lawmakers added a definition of what’s “suitable” and, based on the state’s obscenity law, prohibited any material that “in whole or in part contains descriptions or depictions of sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence, or sadomasochistic abuse.”

In the absence of state guidance on how to interpret the changes — What constitutes excess violence, for instance? Are photographs of nude statues allowed? What about Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet”? — some school boards like Rutherford County’s are putting questionable material to a vote. Educators in many other districts are quietly culling their shelves of certain books.

“Yes, there is some subjectiveness to it, but there’s also a line. We need to determine what the line is, and then hold it.”
Caleb Tidwell, board member, Rutherford County Schools

A recent survey of members of the Tennessee Association of School Librarians found that more than 1,100 titles have been removed under the changes, with more under review. One librarian anonymously reported pulling 300 titles at a single school since the start of the academic year. Only a sixth of the organization’s members responded to the survey.

“We may never truly know the level to which books have been removed from school libraries in Tennessee,” the organization said in a statement, noting that large-scale removals may cause some libraries to fall under the state’s minimum standards for collection counts.

“A literal interpretation of this law may have the unintended consequences of gutting resources that support curriculum standards for fine arts, biology, health, history, and world religions, to name a few, especially in high schools, where AP curriculum and dual enrollment courses require more critical texts,” the group said.

Lindsey Kimery, one of the organization’s leaders, said the law’s rollout has created “chaos and confusion” for school librarians.

“Some librarians have received guidance from their central office; some have not,” she said. “Some boards are updating their policies for handling book challenges to align with the law’s changes. Some districts have interpreted the law to mean they should preemptively go through their collections and pull anything they think has one of the prohibited topics in it.

“It’s all over the map,” Kimery added.

‘Phantom book banning’: Censorship in the shadows

The quiet censorship is being noticed by First Amendment advocates, from the ACLU of Tennessee to Julia Garnett, who graduated last spring from Hendersonville High School in Sumner County, north of Nashville.

Garnett started a free speech club at her high school during her senior year. Now a freshman at Smith College in Massachusetts, she is the youth spokesperson for the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week, Sept. 22-28.

Last week, she searched her alma mater’s online library catalog to look for books by Sarah J. Maas and Ellen Hopkins, whose popular young adult novels are frequently challenged or banned due to their mature themes and sexual content.

None were listed.

“They used to be there, but they’ve disappeared,” said Garnett. “I call it phantom book banning, where libraries are being censored, but not in a public way. I think that’s what scares me the most.”

The law is vulnerable to a federal challenge on First Amendment grounds, said Kathy Sinback, executive director of the ACLU of Tennessee. The statute’s vagueness, a lack of compliance guidance from the state, and the uneven way the law is being applied across Tennessee are among issues that open the door to a lawsuit.

“But we’d love to see the legislature fix the problems next year without having to pursue litigation,” Sinback said. “We’d like to see it made constitutional in a way that will ensure our children have access to the literature they deserve.”

Legal precedents support students’ First Amendment rights

The House sponsor of the law’s recent revisions, Rep. Susan Lynn of Mt. Juliet, did not respond to emails asking if she’d be open to revisiting the law. Some of her critics worry the goal is ultimately to take a legal challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court, where conservatives hold a majority.

The Senate sponsor, Joey Hensley of Hohenwald, said he believes the law is constitutional.

“I’m always open to making laws better,” he said, “but I don’t think this interferes with people’s First Amendment rights, and I’m personally not hearing about problems with it. The law’s intent is simply to ensure public schools do not give children access to materials that are not appropriate for their ages.”

Sen. Joey Hensley, of Hohenwald, co-sponsored 2024 legislation to identify what school library materials are prohibited, and to require local school boards to act on book complaints within 60 days.

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, said higher courts have consistently sided with First Amendment advocates on challenges to content in school libraries, even as efforts to ban books in public schools and libraries reached an all-time high in 2023.

The school library is supposed to be a place of voluntary inquiry — a safe space for students to explore ideas under the supervision of adults instead of alone on their cellphones.

“This gets to the core of the First Amendment,” she said, “the idea that libraries are a marketplace of ideas, and elected officials should not be able to dictate their contents.”

“Students are not just students; they are citizens.”
Ken Paulson, director, Free Speech Center, Middle Tennessee State University

But it’s also possible that another school library case could someday reach the U.S. Supreme Court. Two book ban cases from Iowa and Texas are already making their way through the federal courts.

Current legal precedent stems from the high court’s 1982 ruling involving a school board in New York state that wanted certain books removed from its middle and high school libraries. In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled against the board and held that “the right to receive ideas is a necessary predicate to the recipient’s meaningful exercise of his own rights of speech, press, and political freedom.”

Justice William Brennan wrote that while “local school boards have a substantial legitimate role to play in the determination of school library content,” the First Amendment doesn’t give government officials the power to ditch books because they don’t like them or disagree with their viewpoints.

Ken Paulson, director of the Tennessee-based Free Speech Center and a former editor-in-chief of USA Today, also cites the importance of a 1969 Supreme Court ruling establishing that students have constitutional rights, too.

The case involved students in Des Moines, Iowa, who wore black armbands to their public school in silent protest of the Vietnam War. The court sided with the students.

“Because someone is 12 or 14, we sometimes think they don’t have constitutional rights,” Paulson said. “But they do, and they’re surprisingly robust. Students are not just students; they are citizens.”

Middle Tennessee district is a book ban hotspot

In Murfreesboro, a college town that is home to about 50,000 students in Tennessee’s largest suburban K-12 district, most titles removed so far were in high school libraries. They generally were contemporary young adult novels containing sexual content and other mature themes, from child abuse and suicide to substance abuse and LGBTQ+ issues.

The books were flagged as “sexually explicit” material by school board member Caleb Tidwell and removed this spring without going through the district’s library review committee that includes a principal, teachers, librarians, and a parent.

Rutherford County Board of Education is scheduled to decide Sept. 19 whether to remove seven more books from local school libraries.

Xan Lasko, who recently retired as a high school librarian in Rutherford County, said the directives she received from Superintendent James Sullivan bypassed the district’s usual review process for handling complaints. Instead, Tidwell cited a provision of board policy requiring the immediate removal of sexually explicit material. Sullivan concurred, according to their email exchange obtained from the district through a public records request from Nashville TV station WSMV.

Tidwell, a Republican who was reelected to the school board in August, said he made the requests on behalf of individuals who have expressed concerns but who feared retaliation from the media and individuals in the district.

In his opinion, all of the materials in question violate both the state’s obscenity law and local board policy. Most, he said, have “education value near zero, or very low.” For those that provide historical context, other books that go into those topics — but without sexually explicit language — are available.

“It’s a very contentious topic,” said Tidwell, who has three school-age children. “But if we focus on the content, most of this stuff is pretty clear. Yes, there is some subjectiveness to it, but there’s also a line. We need to determine what the line is, and then hold it.”

Lasko, the former librarian, said that’s what librarians and educators do.

“My biggest issue is that a small number of people were making the judgment to curtail what students are able to read using a vague law,” said Lasko, who now chairs the intellectual freedom committee of the Tennessee Association of School Librarians.

“We have master’s degrees in library science. We know what we’re doing,” she said. “But a lot of times, we weren’t being consulted.”

New library policy diminishes the role of librarians

In advance of this week’s vote on Tidwell’s latest request to remove more books, the board revamped its library materials policy to add language from the revised state law. It also eliminated the 11-member review committee appointed annually by the board to consider book complaints.

Instead, materials that district leaders deem to be in violation of the state’s obscenity law are to be immediately removed from all school libraries and then reviewed for a final decision by the board.

A second avenue for removal — through complaints filed by a student, parent, or school employee — also requires a board vote after receiving recommendations from the principal and superintendent and a review by an ad hoc committee.

“Before,” said the ACLU’s Sinback, “there was a thorough process where every person on the review committee had expertise and would read the book. They’d look at the questionable content but also the overall quality of the material and how it could impact kids exposed to it in both a positive and negative way.”

Now, she said, the decision rests completely with board members.

The changes concern school librarians like Brian Seadorf, who oversees the collection at Blackman High School in Murfreesboro. He asked board members and parents to “just talk to us” if they have concerns about certain books.

“We are educators, we are parents, we are grandparents. … We are good people,” Seadorf told the board on Aug. 22.

Angela Frederick, a Rutherford County resident and school librarian in a neighboring district, added: “The titles you’re considering removing are for older students approaching adulthood. It is developmentally appropriate for teenagers to mentally wrestle with difficult topics. It is also excellent preparation for higher education. Shielding them from books like these does not prepare them for anything but ignorance.”

For Edwards, the Rutherford County parent who also spoke to the board, she’s most upset that “Beloved” is on the chopping block, even though she knows it’s a deeply sad and painful book to read. (Morrison, who died in 2019, said she was inspired to write the novel based on the true story of an enslaved woman, Margaret Garner, who killed her own daughter in 1856 to spare her from slavery.)

“Just because you don’t like what the mirror shows you doesn’t mean you put the mirror down.”
Jennifer Edwards, parent

“I remember it took me several weeks to finish ‘Beloved’ when I was 15, because I had to put it down every few days,” recalls Edwards, now 42. “I had to have time to process what I was reading.”

“But to restrict literary genius,” she continued, “it just doesn’t make sense to me.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: A previous version of this story attributed a quote from Rutherford County resident Angela Frederick to librarian Brian Seadorf. This version corrects the misattribution.

How the Durango, Colorado, district supported newcomer students to practice English this year

2024-09-06T20:07:35+00:00

Leer en español.

Sandra Hernandez knows what a struggle it can be for students to learn English while in high school.

She’s been raising four multilingual children, including a 17-year-old niece who just returned from Mexico to live with her in Durango in southwest Colorado.

So every time Hernandez was asked to fill out a survey from school, she suggested the same thing: more support for students learning English.

Finally, after hearing many similar requests, a family liaison at Durango High School pitched the idea to host a summer program focused on helping newly arrived migrant students who need more practice with their English before the school year begins.

This summer, the Durango district enrolled about 10 students in the program for four weeks before the school year started, including Hernandez’s niece, Abril Esmeralda.

Hernandez praised the program, and her district for listening to her request.

“I can already see how she’s developing,” Hernandez said of her niece.

Abril Esmeralda Cigarroa Hernandez working on her art project during a summer program.

Such programs fill a critical need for families and educators across the state. Colorado districts enrolled thousands of newly arrived immigrant students throughout the last school year. Teachers in places like Denver, Aurora, and Jeffco have described feeling overwhelmed at times by the arrival of so many new students, and the experience has prompted changes across schools.

The same has happened in rural Durango, a district of about 5,200 students where about 4% of students identify as English learners. The district received 36 new-to-English students last school year, compared with six in 2021.

Last year, the district welcomed new-to-the-country families enrolling for school with a printed guide containing information about school start times, supply lists, and free lunches, plus pictures of all the key people to know and how to get in contact with them.

But this year’s summer program was the big hit with families and students who participated.

The program went beyond practicing English. Students also worked on art projects about what it means to be home. The idea came from a former Colorado Teacher of the Year, who’s been sharing it for years as a way to get students and their communities to connect.

The students’ projects were presented to families first, then to teachers who were able to use the works to get to know the students they might encounter in their classes. Next week, the projects will be on display at the community library.

Leaders say the work has already helped students feel like they belong.

Kira Cunningham, the Durango district’s newcomer specialist, said she watched students from the summer program walking into their first day of the school year last month. One student, who had arrived in the U.S. just before the last school year ended, caught her attention.

“He was strutting into the building, fist-bumping all the staff members out front,” Cunningham said. “It was just such a delight to see. The confidence was just kind of coming out of their pores.”

The district spent just $3,219 on the program. The goal was to help students practice their English skills in a comfortable environment before the start of the school year, giving them confidence to participate more during the school year.

“Truly, I feel that because of the classes, I have a lot more confidence to be able to explain things,” said 17-year-old Brandon Chame, one of the participants. “I’m less afraid of making a mistake.”

Conquering fear was the idea behind the art project, said Leticia Guzman Ingram, the 2016 Colorado Teacher of the Year, an educator in the Roaring Fork School District, and now also a professor at Colorado Mountain College.

Guzman Ingram said she first thought of the idea of an art project about home when she saw fear between her newcomer students and local community members. Students told her they were afraid that one of her white male friends they encountered was going to call immigration on them. The man told her he was afraid the students were troublemakers.

“Everybody is afraid of each other,” Guzman Ingram said. “But then you realize you’re so much more alike than you think. It doesn’t matter what color skin you have. Mothers all want their kids to be happy and to succeed. Sometimes we forget.”

She thought of an art project, she said, because “art’s easy. It’s something everyone can share.”

The project also incorporates writing. In Durango, students wrote a narrative about their project and themselves. Then they practice speaking English when they get to present it to others.

After doing the project in various ways with different classes of students, Guzman Ingram said she sees how art and having students speak about their life experiences can inspire educators, give students confidence, and change the community’s perspectives.

She also likes to take newcomer students on field trips to put their new English skills to use asking for directions at the airport, or for help at the grocery store. She gets the workers at those places involved ahead of time, so they know that they’re helping her students who want to be fluent in English, and it breaks the fear, she said.

“I’ve seen it as a teacher that when these students feel safe and they feel like their voice is heard, they try harder and work harder,” Guzman Ingram said. “When they feel accepted they flourish. That happens with all of us.”

Abril Esmeralda Cigarroa Hernandez's art project.

For her project, Hernandez’s niece, Abril, drew a river because home made her think of peaceful surroundings.

For Brandon, who was also born in Durango but raised in Mexico, home reminded him of a warrior — a representation of the historical Mexican culture he liked to learn about in his former home. It’s something he carries with him wherever he goes.

Brandon has been back in Durango with his parents for just over a year now. He’s attending school, and working at a local hotel kitchen. He loves his job, and the fact that the money he earns doesn’t feel as crucial to his family’s survival as it did when he was in Mexico.

Brandon Chame next to his art project.

In Mexico, he had to give up school recently to work full time. It’s part of what drove his family to decide they needed to come back to the U.S. Now he’s able to work and study. And he’s thinking ahead to college, and a possible career in culinary arts or criminology.

At his high school in Durango, he said he’s encountered supportive teachers, so when Cunningham asked if Brandon would help present the art projects to teachers, he was nervous, but he agreed.

Now Brandon brags about how he was able to present, mostly in English and unscripted — speaking mostly from his heart, he said.

He hopes other immigrant students get to experience programs like Durango’s. And he has been able to offer advice to teachers encountering more immigrant students.

“I told them the majority of Latino students who arrive here tend to be nervous about speaking,” Brandon said. “We know we’re not very familiar with the language, like to be able to explain things fully. It’s not that we don’t want to participate, it’s that embarrassment, and nerves stop us. Just get close to them and ask them questions. Little by little, it gets better.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

In a town full of segregation academies, one Black family grapples with the best school choice for their daughter

2024-08-22T09:05:00+00:00

This story was originally published by ProPublica and is republished here with permission.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

The spry 76-year-old woman finds her spot at the dining room table, prepared to discuss a problem her family has confronted, in one form or another, for half a century. Back when Samaria “Cookie” Mitcham Bailey was a teenager in 1964, she was among the first Black students to desegregate public schools here in Macon, Georgia. She endured the snubs and sacrifices with hope that future generations would know an equality that she had not.

All these years later, that equality remains elusive. Cookie’s hope now centers on the child across the table.

Her 13-year-old great-granddaughter, Zo’e Johnson, doesn’t say much at first. Last year, when she was in sixth grade, Zo’e struggled at the public middle school, which she felt was “chaotic.” Her family canvassed their options for another school in Macon, most of them still largely segregated by race. They chose First Presbyterian Day School, known for its rigorous academics and Christian worldview. It also has a strong tennis program, a draw for a family of tennis standouts.

But FPD isn’t just any private school. It was among the hundreds that opened during desegregation as white children fled the arrival of Black students. Black students like Cookie.

Researchers call these private schools “segregation academies.” Macon was — and is — especially saturated with them. Using archival research and an analysis of federal data, ProPublica identified five that still operate in the city. They include the three largest private schools in town. For generations, they have siphoned off swaths of white families who invested their more plentiful resources in college-sized tuition, fees, and fundraisers. Today, most of Macon’s public schools are nearly all Black — and, because of the city’s persistent wealth gap, they grapple with concentrations of poverty.

At the dining room table on this March day, Zo’e’s family is torn over whether to keep her at FPD for another school year — whether they can afford it and whether the cost makes sense.

All of the schools founded as segregation academies in Macon, a majority-Black city, remain vastly white. FPD, with 11% Black enrollment as of the 2021-22 school year, has the highest proportion of Black students among them. Tuition at these schools can be insurmountable to many Black families. In Macon, the estimated median income of Black households is about half that of white ones.

Zo’e’s family makes it work largely because FPD helped them apply to get almost half of the roughly $17,000 seventh-grade tuition paid through a state voucher-style program — and because Cookie has been able to pay the difference. That’s about $900 a month.

But she isn’t sure she can keep paying. She recently cut her work hours as a medical laboratory supervisor with hopes of retiring in the next few years. At the table, her tone unusually subdued, she notes she’s had COVID-19 twice. Her memory sometimes falters.

“I’m older,” she says. “I’m getting old.”

Zo’e’s mother, Ashley Alexander, is a single parent who works part time and cannot foot the extra bill. She and Zo’e live with Cookie and her husband, a retiree who once worked as an attorney.

Ashley takes a seat between Zo’e and Cookie. “I feel like you get the better opportunity at the Caucasian school. The education is better,” Ashley says. “It’s just so expensive. We’ve been looking for some alternatives.”

But Zo’e doesn’t want to leave FPD. She likes the Christian emphasis. And she appreciates the structure and the calm, both important to a family that’s deeply protective of her.

Zo’e and her great-grandmother, Samaria “Cookie” Mitcham Bailey, after a game of tennis. A love of the sport runs deep in the family.

Zo’e in her bedroom. Among the things that she likes about FPD is its tennis team. Her old school doesn’t have one.

When Zo’e was 6, her father was shot and killed a mile away from this house. A mural of his face stretches across a nearby building, where she sometimes goes to take pictures and to pray. Her father had supported sending his now-adult son, who plays in the NFL, to another private school in town. It’s one reason Zo’e thinks he would be proud of her succeeding at FPD.

She also has made good friends — Black and white. She likes the challenging academics, the orderly classes, and, especially, its tennis team. Her old school doesn’t have one.

At the table, Zo’e speaks up: “I love FPD.”

***

Once sleepy, depressed even, downtown Macon is enjoying a rebirth in this city that is home to almost 157,000 people. Mercer University, Cookie’s alma mater, brings collegiate vibrance. Several grand churches, Catholic schools, and a hospital add to the bustle, along with the gleaming Tubman African American Museum. In a first-floor exhibit, Cookie’s high school graduation photograph hangs on a long wall that pays tribute to students’ work desegregating Macon’s public schools.

Just beyond the downtown streets lined with coffee shops and restaurants, and the circles of poverty that surround them, Cookie’s brick home sits in a mostly white middle-class neighborhood. She has lived in this house for three decades, trodding its handsome wood floors and adorning it with family photographs.

A few weeks before the dining table discussion, she arrives home wearing a green tracksuit from Florida A&M University, where one of her three daughters played tennis. Cookie just left a tennis tournament. In a tight match, Zo’e beat a fellow FPD player who had bested her several times before. The other player smacked her racket on the court, then kicked it. Cookie was thrilled. She and her husband met playing tennis, and they have multiple collegiate tennis players in their family.

Ashley and Zo’e walk in later with diminished enthusiasm. Zo’e lost her final match, and she’s exhausted and grumpy. She heads to her bedroom where a brown teddy bear awaits along with a poster labeled “Vision Board.” She decorated it with words like “Forgive” and “College” and “God Only.”

“She did good!” Cookie calls down the hall.

Zo’e first dabbled in tennis when she was 6, around the time of her father’s murder. On the court, she could live in the moment, thinking only of the match at hand. It provided relief and focus, especially when anxiety crept in.

She keeps with her a newspaper clipping about her father’s death at 39. To some who read news coverage of his killing, he was a gang leader who spent time in prison. But she and many in the community knew the man who wanted his children and others in the neighborhood to dodge the traps of life — traps she’d begun to encounter at the public middle school.

After Zo’e enrolled at FPD, Ashley began driving her each morning in the opposite direction of the public middle school, which sits a mile away past a strip mall anchored by a Family Dollar.

Instead, they cruised for 15 minutes toward the leafy neighborhoods to the city’s north. At a stretch of white ranch fencing, they turned and drove over gentle hills and then veered onto the main drive into FPD’s campus. Red flags emblazoned with its crest hang on street lamps that line the road as it passes brick buildings, an athletic center, expansive ball fields and a tennis complex along its 248-acre campus.

Although she felt strange there at first, Zo’e made good friends and came to like FPD.

Zo’e isn’t the first in her family to attend private school. Her older half-brother on her father’s side who plays football went to Stratford, a similarly elite school in town that also was founded as a segregation academy. And a cousin who coaches her in tennis and is now playing on a scholarship at Tuskegee University went to FPD his junior and senior years. He had a mostly good experience, a big reason Cookie took a chance on the school.

Even so, Zo’e felt strange arriving on campus. At her old school, almost 90% of her classmates were Black. Classes were in one building, all near one another. FPD looked like a small college bustling with white students. She worried about what they would think of her.

Yet, she felt welcomed. Most of the kids seemed nice. And they weren’t all white. About 1 in 10 was Black.

She didn’t know it, but after George Floyd was killed in 2020, the head of school had issued a letter warning: “I will not allow racism or a lack of respect of any kind towards anyone.”

As Zo’e settled in with a diverse new group of friends, academics proved her toughest adjustment. So she focused on learning study skills and discipline — and set out to prove herself on the tennis court, which only made Cookie prouder.

Zo’e has lived with Cookie most of her life. She calls her great-grandmother sweet nicknames like Precious. “You are the cookie to my monster!” Zo’e wrote in Cookie’s birthday card.

Much as she respects Cookie, the history of school segregation wasn’t at the forefront of her daily concerns as she assimilated at FPD. But she did notice that she hadn’t seen a single Black teacher at the school. The only Black staff members she saw worked as janitors or in the cafeteria.

***

Cookie’s own journey into the world of white education began in 1964 with an announcement over the loudspeaker at her all-Black high school. The voice sought volunteers to transfer to a school for white girls. Cookie raised her hand.

Her mother, Annie Mae Mitcham, had grown up in a rural outpost called Cat Ridge. As a child in the 1930s and 1940s, Annie Mae walked from her segregated all-Black school with its hand-me-down books to go clean the white kids’ classrooms. She and her husband, who had a third-grade education, raised their 10 children to focus on school achievement.

Cookie holds a photograph of her nine siblings and parents. Scholastic achievement was at the heart of their upbringing.

By volunteering to enroll at the white school, Cookie wanted to see if she was as smart as everyone said she was. She also wanted to know what advantages the white kids were getting — and that Black students ought to have, too. She enrolled her senior year.

When she arrived at the white high school, Cookie didn’t suffer the violence that many Black children who desegregated schools across the South did. But there was one day in English class that still, 60 years later, hurts.

A white girl turned to ask: “Do you have a tail?”

At her old high school, Cookie was an A student. She’d been in the marching band and the concert band. She’d played piano and was a stellar singer. Yet this white girl was comparing her to a monkey? It cut deeply enough to scar.

Something similar happened to Zo’e a semester into her own experience at a mostly white school. She came home from school one day upset. She told Cookie and her mother that she had found a friend, who is Black, crying in a hallway saying that a white boy had just called her a “monkey.”

A month later at the dining room table, the family revisits the monkey comment. Zo’e says she has since heard the boy who said it was suspended. Her mother points out that one student’s comment doesn’t define a school.

Cookie looks through her 1966-67 yearbook from Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. She was among the first Black students to graduate from the private university.

“Let’s not make too big an issue of it,” Ashley says. But for Cookie, it rips open the old wound from English class. She grows furious. “They’re still calling Black folks monkeys!”

At the white high school, Cookie’s teachers and most students had treated her well enough. The headmistress did not. The guidance counselor was the worst, with her pursed lips, pearls, and horn-rimmed glasses. When Cookie told the counselor she wanted to apply at Mercer University, the woman replied with a sneer and an insult.

“Go to your own school,” the woman said. In other words, a college for Black students. Cookie stormed from the office and marched to Mercer with a friend. She enrolled on her own and ultimately graduated, among the first Black students to do so from the private university. Yet, even by then, only a smattering of Black students had been admitted to Macon’s white public schools. White Maconites were battling full integration at every turn, especially in the courts.

More quietly, they were also busy forging another kind of resistance: They were organizing new private schools for their white children.

***

Macon sits 90 miles south of Atlanta in Georgia’s stretch of the Black Belt, a sickle-shaped swath of rich soil across the Southeast that once fueled cotton plantation riches. To preserve their control after emancipation, Georgia’s white leaders segregated every facet of life, including the classroom. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court upended that when the justices ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that state-mandated public school segregation is unconstitutional.

White residents responded with staunch resistance.

“Klan Urges State-Wide Private School System,” a Macon Telegraph headline announced in January 1960. Two months later, the newspaper reported that a local attorney was leading the charge to create an alternative to the county school system that served Macon. He planned a closed-door meeting with dozens of “persons interested in establishing a private school in case the public schools of Bibb County are closed by the desegregation crisis.”

That fall, Stratford Academy opened. Its leaders chose the name “because of the association of the name with Robert E. Lee and Shakespeare,” officials said at the time. The school — still among the city’s largest and most prestigious academies — was “besieged with applications.”

As white residents fought integration, Sylvia McGee was growing up in the segregated city. She had started her education at an all-Black public elementary school in Macon just a few years after the Brown ruling. She was about to start middle school in 1963 when Black parents sued the local school board in what became Bibb County’s key desegregation lawsuit. The case slogged on for almost seven years.

Finally, in February 1970, an appeals court forced local schools to desegregate — within days. McGee was a high school senior. Whites had fought integration for so long after the Brown decision that she had gone through her entire public school education during that resistance.

That fall, five private schools, including FPD, opened in Macon, doubling the number in town.

Their leaders rarely said publicly that the schools opened to preserve all-white education. Instead, they nodded to “quality” and “Christian” education.

Yet in fall 1970, leaders of the Southern network of the Presbyterian Church urged members to keep their children in public schools. In a statement, they called enforced racial segregation “contrary to the will of God” and warned against undermining public education by establishing and supporting private academies “whose deliberate purpose or practical effect is to maintain racial isolation.”

And even back then, some Southern newspapers called the new private schools “segregation academies.”

An article from The Macon Telegraph in January 1960. Two months later, the newspaper reported that a local attorney was leading the charge to create an alternative to the county school system that served Macon.

“Only the very gullible could deny that race was a factor,” Andrew Manis, a local resident and history professor, wrote in his book “Macon Black and White.”

But FPD’s current spokesperson denied the school was founded as a segregation academy. She told ProPublica it “was established based on the desire of Macon families to provide their children with a strong education, grounded in biblical principles.” The school has a tuition assistance program and a nondiscrimination policy, she added. She did not answer additional questions.

Indeed, in 1975, several years after it opened, FPD’s headmaster likewise told a newspaper reporter that the school had a nondiscrimination policy. FPD was willing to admit a Black student, he said, “but we’ve never had one to apply.”

To Black residents like McGee, that felt disingenuous. “The climate and the culture of the time said you don’t apply to FPD,” she said. Black parents would have feared for their children’s safety at the academies. Private schools also had to adopt such policies or risk losing their tax-exempt status.

McGee graduated in 1970 with the final class before full desegregation. Because so many white students had fled to private schools, by fall 1973, the Bibb County public school system was predominantly Black for the first time.

McGee, who became a social worker and ultimately acting superintendent until 2011, watched the district’s infrastructure crumble. Gone were many of the white parents who had money to pour into PTA fundraisers and time to fill volunteer needs.

In the early 2000s, decades after they opened, FPD, Stratford, and most of the other academies in Macon reported that about 1% to 2% of their students were Black each year.

Even in recent years, Black children have made up only about 6% of most academies’ students — in a county that is 57% Black.

“It holds everybody back,” McGee said. “I think people miss that point.”

***

One morning in May, with the end of seventh grade approaching, Zo’e arrives on FPD’s campus and heads to a hallway of art classrooms. It stretches quiet, the walls lined with impressive student artwork, classes not yet starting for the day. Several students sit on the hall floor, backs against the wall, engrossed in the papers or cellphones in front of them.

For weeks, Zo’e had been living in a tortuous state of uncertainty about whether she would return to FPD in the fall. She tried hard not to complain. She didn’t want to put extra financial pressure on Cookie, who is about to turn 77, or her mom, who has enough on her plate.

Ashley was doing her best to try to make things work for Zo’e. She was in the running for a full-time job at the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office that would give them more of a financial cushion — and enable her to pay FPD’s tuition.

Now, this morning, Zo’e is about to burst with joy. She spots a friend in the hallway and hurries over, stifling her smile. When they get close enough, she whispers, “You know how I told you if my mom doesn’t get the job, I’m not going to be able to stay?”

Her friend looks pensive. Zo’e wrings her hands in front of her.

“She got the job!”

Zo’e with classmates during lunchtime at FPD. She isn’t the first in her family to attend private school. Her older half-brother on her father’s side went to one in town and a cousin went to FPD his junior and senior years.

Her friend lets out a high-pitched squeal of joy, then glances down the hall.

Zo’e adds, “So I’m gonna be able to stay.”

But as the next few weeks pass, her hope fades. Delays creep in. Ashley’s starting date gets pushed back.

***

The multiple generations of women in Cookie’s family are quick to debate the bigger reasons why public schools struggle, including Miller Fine Arts Magnet Middle School, the one Zo’e went to.

“There’s a reason why the teachers at Miller are stressed out,” Cookie’s youngest daughter, Alyse Bailey, said after joining her family at the dining room table back in March. “There’s a reason why the kids are not acting how they’re supposed to act. What are those reasons? What are the root causes?”

“They’re a product of the environment,” Ashley responded.

“Right, but then, why?” Alyse asked. “It’s like you got to constantly be asking, why?”

Black children lack resources, Alyse argued, because of the wealth gap stemming from slavery and Jim Crow. “The more you go back, the more you see where it is rooted in systemic injustice.”

To many local families, Miller is the best option among public middle schools. While it functions as a regular neighborhood school, Miller also draws students from across the district who attend its fine arts magnet component. It often tops the district’s six middle schools on the state’s standardized tests. Almost three-quarters of its eighth graders read on grade level or above compared with the district average of 62%. (Private schools don’t have to release such data.)

Schools like Miller will soon find it even harder to retain top students, particularly those with more resources.

Starting next year, private schools will skim another layer of students from the public schools. In April, as part of a nationwide Republican push, Georgia adopted a new program that, similar to the existing one, uses taxpayer dollars to fund private school tuition. At least 21,000 more students could receive up to $6,500 each. Last year, almost 22,000 students tapped into the current program. The average tuition grant was about $4,600.

While it functions as a regular neighborhood school, Miller also draws students from across the district who attend its fine arts magnet component.

Supporters often tout these programs as means for students to escape low-performing public schools. But the reality is, the tuition grants don’t often cover even half of private school tuition bills, especially for college prep-style schools like FPD.

Families like Cookie’s must come up with the difference — and, if they can, decide if the financial hardship is worth it.

As they wrestle with this question, Zo’e’s family puts her on a waiting list for a charter school that performs well and, like many of the private schools, draws large numbers of white children. But 40 students are ahead of her.

By the time summer break arrives, Zo’e faces reality. Her mom almost certainly won’t start the new job in time to pay looming tuition bills. Zo’e will return to the public school her family felt had fallen short of her needs. And FPD will have one fewer Black student.

In late June, Cookie’s birthday approaches. When her oldest daughter arrives from Florida for a visit, they lay in bed watching tennis together. In dispirited tones, Cookie mentions that she cannot afford Zo’e’s tuition anymore.

But her daughter presses her to think beyond FPD’s benefits to what public school can provide, if Zo’e works hard and stays focused: “It’s nothing she can’t get somewhere else.”

Cookie concedes, “She can get it somewhere else.” Including Miller. She decides that the family must focus on reinforcing the academic and social self-discipline that Zo’e will need to succeed at Miller. They can help train her in tennis.

Zo’e will return to Miller for eighth grade to give her mother time to save money for tuition. After that, when Zo’e begins high school, her family plans to send her back to private school.

In the next room, Zo’e watches Disney Channel cartoons in her bedroom while making a poster for her mom, who shares a birthday with Cookie. She glues photographs onto it along with a message of love in sparkly lime green letters. Then she writes her mother a birthday note. “You’re not only a life-giver but you are a hard worker,” she writes. She thanks Ashley for so much love. “You were the one to step in when my father had to step out. You have been my best friend, a laughing buddy and a role model.”

Zo’e works on the floor below her vision board. It includes a cutout of a tiger’s eyes, intent and fixed. They remind her of focus. As she accepts the likelihood of returning to Miller, she becomes determined to take the discipline she learned at FPD with her. She also remembers that, at this time last year, she had wanted to stay at Miller.

A few weeks later, in mid-July, Ashley gets the formal job offer. She will become a sheriff’s deputy with a start date of July 29. She is overjoyed and relieved.

It comes too late to send Zo’e back to FPD. Public schools are about to begin the new year. So, the family firms up their plan for her. Zo’e will return to Miller for eighth grade to give Ashley time to save money for tuition. After that, when Zo’e begins high school, they plan to send her back to private school.

Zo’e will return to Miller for eighth grade to give her mother time to save money for tuition. After that, when Zo’e begins high school, her family plans to send her back to private school.

Mollie Simon contributed research.

Lo que los padres deben saber sobre la educación para dotados y talentosos

2024-08-16T16:21:07+00:00

Read in English.

Algunos distritos escolares en Colorado están probando nuevos métodos para identificar a niños dotados entre estudiantes de color y otros grupos subrepresentados. A los niños a quienes identifican como dotados les pueden dar atención adicional en la escuela para desarrollar más sus habilidades.

Pero alrededor del estado y en el país, continúan existiendo grandes brechas, ya que los estudiantes blancos tienen mayor probabilidad de que los identifiquen como dotados.

Estos son algunos datos básicos para ayudar a los padres a informarse sobre lo que significa ser un estudiante dotado.

¿Qué significa si a un niño lo identifican como dotado o talentoso?

A un estudiante que es dotado o talentoso usualmente lo identifican como que tiene una inteligencia o capacidad entre el 5 por ciento más alto de los estudiantes de su edad. El ser dotado tiene que ver más con las capacidades de un estudiante que con su trabajo actual. Las pruebas de coeficiente intelectual cognitivo son una forma de identificar a estudiantes dotados, pero los distritos también pueden identificar a estudiantes que sobresalen de otras maneras. Los estudiantes dotados quizás no sobresalgan necesariamente en sus clases—a veces son dotados en solo una área o habilidad.

A algunos estudiantes dotados les faltan habilidades sociales y quizás necesiten apoyo adicional, el cual pueden recibir después de que los identifiquen.

¿Reciben una enseñanza diferente los estudiantes dotados?

Los estudiantes a quienes identifican como dotados o talentosos deben tener un plan anual de aprendizaje avanzado con metas relacionadas con el área en la que sean dotados. Usualmente los estudiantes permanecen en sus salones regulares, pero los maestros pueden adaptar sus lecciones o ponerlos en diferentes grupos de estudiantes durante el día para abordar sus necesidades.

Algunos distritos escolares más grandes como el de Denver cuentan con programas especializados para estudiantes muy dotados y talentosos. Para identificarlos como muy dotados y talentosos, representantes del distrito en Denver dicen que los estudiantes deben tener una alta calificación en una prueba cognitiva como parte de la evidencia usada para identificarlos.

Algunos distritos ofrecen oportunidades como programas de verano para estudiantes dotados o es más probable que animen a esos estudiantes para que tomen cursos avanzados.

¿Qué pruebas u otras medidas usan los distritos para identificar a estudiantes dotados?

Cada distrito tiene diferentes formas de identificar a estudiantes dotados. Los distritos ofrecen pruebas cognitivas para la evaluación universal por lo menos en un nivel de grado, usualmente en la escuela primaria, aunque algunos distritos también hacen pruebas en la escuela media. Pero más allá de eso, algunos distritos están empezando a examinar tendencias sobre qué tan rápido estudiantes multilingües aprenden inglés, por ejemplo.

Los distritos pueden usar cualquier dato de las pruebas que sea normalizado, pero la evidencia debe incluir las calificaciones de más de una prueba, y con frecuencia incluye observaciones de los padres y maestros y otros trabajos del estudiante. De forma similar, una calificación mala en una prueba no significa que a un estudiante no lo puedan identificar como dotado.

Distritos escolares prueban nuevas formas de encontrar estudiantes dotados de diversos orígenes

La escuela de mi hijo me pidió que completara un formulario de observación para la evaluación. ¿Y ahora qué sucederá?

Algunos distritos les piden a las familias que completen un formulario sobre ciertos comportamientos que observan en sus hijos. Solo es una parte de la evidencia que la escuela usará para determinar si tu hijo es dotado o talentoso.

“Siempre quiero animar a los padres porque ellos conocen a su hijo mejor que nadie”, dijo Meryl Faulkner, gerenta principal del programa para estudiantes dotados y talentosos en las Escuelas Públicas de Denver. “Su opinión es igual de válida” que las de otros adultos que pueden observar al niño.

Sé honesta/o cuando completes los formularios, y pídele a la escuela que te mantenga informada/o sobre los siguientes pasos. En algunos casos, los distritos quizás observen a un estudiante y reúnan datos durante más de un año antes de tomar una decisión.

¿Qué características tienen los niños dotados?

Los estudiantes dotados tienen un desarrollo avanzado en comparación con sus pares, pero expertos dicen que algunas características pueden demostrarse de diferentes formas en estudiantes de diferentes culturas.

Un estudiante joven que puede traducir cosas como los estados de cuentas bancarias para un adulto quizás sea dotado. Los niños que aprenden instintos básicos de supervivencia y saben que tienen que decir ciertas cosas para obtener comida, o para que sus padres no se metan en problemas, quizás también sean dotados.

En general, los estudiantes que son dotados pueden tener una buena memoria, hacer muchas preguntas, ser muy expresivos o ser buenos con los patrones.

Creo que mi hija podría ser dotada. ¿Qué debo hacer?

Habla con el maestro de tu hija. Algunas escuelas tienen coordinadores dedicados especialmente a los estudiantes dotados, o quizás haya alguien a nivel distrito que esté a cargo de hacer pruebas e identificar a los estudiantes dotados.

Faulkner les dice a los padres que, sin importar cuál sea la reacción del maestro de tu hija, los padres tienen el derecho de pedir que se evalúe a su estudiante. Por ley, los distritos tienen 30 días para responderles a los padres con los siguientes pasos planeados después de que se derive la evaluación.

Si no estás logrando que el distrito evalúe a tu hija, comunícate con el Departamento de Educación de Colorado.

A mi hijo lo identificaron como dotado. ¿Cómo lo apoyo?

Los padres deben conocer a otros padres con niños dotados para aprender más y compartir experiencias y desafíos.

Algunos distritos escolares tienen grupos de apoyo, pero también hay grupos que existen afuera de los distritos escolares. La Asociación de Colorado para Dotados y Talentosos, por ejemplo, proporciona muchos recursos en español e inglés.

Expertos dicen que es importante mantenerse involucrado. Las escuelas deben comunicarse contigo cada año cuando estén trabajando en el plan de aprendizaje avanzado de tu niño, pero si no lo hacen, comunícate tú con la escuela. Saber qué metas establece la escuela para tu hijo te puede dar más ideas sobre cómo apoyarlo.

¿Pueden ser dotados los estudiantes y también tener una discapacidad?

Sí. Las escuelas se refieren a estos estudiantes como dos veces excepcionales. Los estudiantes con discapacidades también pueden ser dotados y talentosos. Están subrepresentados en los programas para estudiantes dotados porque muchos educadores y escuelas tienen dificultades para identificar a estudiantes dotados con discapacidades.

Traducido por Alejandra X. Castañeda

Yesenia Robles es una reportera para Chalkbeat Colorado, cubriendo distritos escolares de kindergarten a 12º grado y la educación multilingüe. Comunícate con Yesenia por correo electrónico a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

What parents need to know about gifted and talented education

2024-08-16T16:20:51+00:00

Leer en español.

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

Some Colorado school districts are trying new approaches to identifying gifted children among students of color and other underrepresented groups. Children identified as gifted can get extra attention at school to further develop their skills.

But across the state and the country, big gaps remain, with white students most likely to be identified as gifted.

Here are some basics to help parents navigate what being gifted means.

What does it mean if a child is labeled as gifted or talented?

A student who is gifted or talented is usually identified as being in the top 5% of intelligence and capability of students their age. Giftedness refers more to a student’s capabilities than just their current work. Cognitive IQ tests are one way of identifying gifted students, but districts can also identify students who stand out in other ways. Gifted students may not necessarily excel in their classes — sometimes they are gifted in just one area or skill.

Some gifted students lack social skills and might need additional support, which they can get after being identified.

Do gifted students receive a different education?

Students who are identified as gifted or talented must have an annual advanced learning plan with goals related to their gifted area. Usually the students will stay in their regular classrooms, but teachers may adjust their lessons or pair them with different groups of students throughout the day to address their needs.

Some larger districts such as Denver have magnet programs specifically for highly gifted and talented students. To be identified as highly gifted and talented, Denver officials say students must have a high score on a cognitive test as part of the evidence used to identify them.

Some districts offer opportunities such as summer programming for gifted students or may be more likely to encourage those students to take advanced courses.

What tests or other measures do districts use to identify gifted students?

Every district will have different ways to identify gifted students. Districts offer cognitive tests for universal screening at least at one grade level, usually in elementary school, though some districts also test a middle school grade level. But beyond that, some districts are starting to look at trends in how fast multilingual students learn English, for example.

Districts can use any test data that is normed but the evidence must include more than one test score, and it will often include parent and teacher observations and other student work. Similarly, one bad test score doesn’t mean a student can’t be identified as gifted.

Colorado school districts are working on new ways to find gifted students from all backgrounds

My child’s school asked me to fill out an observation form for the evaluation. What should I expect?

Some districts will ask families to fill out a form about certain behaviors you observe from your child. It is only one piece of evidence the school will use to determine whether your child is gifted or talented.

“I always want to encourage parents that they know their child best,” said Meryl Faulkner, senior manager of gifted and talented for Denver Public Schools. “Their opinion is just as valid” as that of other adults who could observe the child.

Be honest when filling out forms, and ask the school to keep you informed about next steps. In some cases, districts may observe a student and gather data for more than a year before making a determination.

What characteristics do gifted children have?

Students who are gifted are developmentally advanced compared to their peers, but experts say that some characteristics might show up in different ways in students from different cultures.

A young student who is able to translate things like bank statements for an adult might be gifted. Children who learn basic survival instincts and know that they have to say certain things to get food, or to keep their parents from getting in trouble, could also be gifted.

In general, students who are gifted might have a good memory, ask a lot of questions, be very expressive, or be good with patterns.

I think my child might be gifted. What should I do?

Definitely talk to your child’s teacher. Some schools have dedicated gifted coordinators, or there might be someone at the district level who is in charge of testing and identifying gifted students.

Faulkner tells parents that regardless of your teacher’s reaction, it is a parent’s right to have their child evaluated. By law, districts have 30 days to respond to parents once a referral to be evaluated is made with the intended next steps.

If you aren’t having success getting your district to evaluate your child, contact the Colorado Department of Education.

My child has been identified as gifted. How do I support them?

Parents should meet other parents of gifted children to learn more and share experiences and challenges.

Some school districts have support groups, but there are also groups that exist outside of the school districts. The Colorado Association for Gifted and Talented, for example, provides lots of resources in English and Spanish.

Experts say it’s important to stay involved. Schools are supposed to contact you every year when they’re working on your child’s advanced learning plan, but if they don’t reach out, you should reach out to the school. Knowing what goals the school sets for your child can give you more ideas about how to support them.

Can students be gifted and also have a disability?

Yes. Schools refer to these students as twice exceptional. Students with disabilities can also be gifted or talented. They are underrepresented in gifted programs because many educators and schools struggle to identify gifted students who have disabilities.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

NYC girls outperform boys in academics. But they’re unhappier in school.

2024-08-12T21:43:55+00:00

By nearly every academic measure, girls in New York City’s public schools are outperforming boys.

Their four-year graduation rate is 10 points higher. After graduating, they attend college at a rate 11 percentage points higher. They far outpaced boys on 3-8 grade English state tests, while performing similarly to them in math.

Yet despite their academic success, girls report far less satisfaction with their school experiences. A Chalkbeat analysis of responses to the 2023 New York City school survey, a massive annual questionnaire in which more than 350,000 middle and high school students participated last year, found girls report significantly lower levels of satisfaction across a range of questions about students’ classroom experiences and their interactions with peers and adults.

Four in five girls reported feeling stressed during learning in the past year, compared to around three in five boys. And girls were 10 percentage points less likely than boys to report that their teachers noticed when they have trouble learning something, or support them when they’re upset.

While there has been a growing awareness of the school achievement crisis among boys, girls’ struggles at school can be less obvious – and more likely to go unaddressed.

For girls, there’s an “unsaid pressure” to perform well in school, said Camila Sosa, a 17-year-old rising senior at Uncommon Collegiate Charter High School in Brooklyn. For boys, she believes, the message is often, “Thank you for doing us this favor.’”

It’s not just in an academic context that girls report being unhappier in school: They were also seven percentage points more likely than boys to say students at their school harassed, bullied, and intimidated each other, both online and in person.

The problem is particularly acute for Black girls, who reported the lowest level of satisfaction of any race and gender group in 55% of survey questions. Black girls were most likely to say students at their school bullied each other.

By contrast, Asian American girls reported feeling the most academic stress and pressure, and were the least likely to say a teacher would notice when they had struggled in class.

Meanwhile, students who are neither male nor female, a category the Education Department only recently began tracking, reported worse outcomes than male or female students across nearly every question, though only 41 respondents identified themselves to the district as nonbinary.

Experts say the New York City school survey data speaks to broader national trends showing girls suffering disproportionately from the ongoing youth mental health crisis in the wake of the COVID pandemic.

“Girls tend to have higher levels of anxiety and depression,” said Tamar Mendelson, a professor of American health and director of the Center for Adolescent Health at Johns Hopkins University. “And these levels have been increasing.”

A survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 60% of teenage girls reported feeling persistent sadness or hopelessness in 2021, compared to 30% of boys – disparities that inevitably show up in school too, according to educators.

“We can’t feel surprised girls are feeling less safe, less seen, less heard, less treated fairly in school because we live in a society where that’s true,” said Emily Paige, the principal of Urban Assembly Unison middle school in Brooklyn.

Some other students and educators questioned whether some of the divergence in the school survey results could stem from the different ways boys and girls approach questions about mental health and happiness in school.

“Men, a lot of the time, they don’t want to be perceived as weak,” said Mia Gabriella-Bedoya, a 17-year-old rising senior at the Brooklyn High School for Law and Technology. “So they just say like, everything is fine.”

But, whatever the cause, students said the results should serve as a wakeup call for schools to do more to support their female students – and to remember that success in the classroom is no guarantee girls are doing okay.

“You have to acknowledge just the overall biases … in school,” said Sosa. “The normal expectations towards women about how they should dress and how they should act. It needs to be addressed as a whole.”

The Education Department has guidelines for schools on gender inclusion, a citywide gender equity coordinator, and a newly formed Gender Equity Team that will provide schools with professional development on “gender-related access and equity,” according to a spokesperson.

“Ensuring that every student of every gender, [sic] is heard, affirmed, and supported in their educational journey is a priority for New York City Public Schools,” wrote spokesperson Jenna Lyle in an email.

More success in school, but less support

In many cases, girls learn from a young age how to be compliant students — a skill that can bring academic success, but doesn’t ensure their needs are being met, said Chris Emdin, a professor of science education and Maxine Greene chair for distinguished contributions to education at Columbia University Teachers College.

“What we’re finding is that girls, Black girls in particular, learn by the time they get to middle school and high school that their role, in order to be seen as a good student… is actually to enact certain behaviors that are a detriment to [their] mental health, their emotional health,” said Emdin, who is currently conducting research on gender and classroom experiences in New York City schools.

“Even if you‘re getting good grades, you’re still not having your needs met. [You’re] still being ignored. [You’re] still not being paid attention to,” he said.

Boys, by contrast, can soak up a disproportionate share of classroom attention, educators and students said — even if that attention is negative.

“We definitely see that we have boys in our school who make their presence known, make connections with staff and make their needs known really, really well,” said Paige, the Brooklyn middle school principal. “Then we have students who are girls who are much quieter, much less likely to volunteer that kind of information.”

There can be downsides to the disproportionate attention. Boys were twice as likely as girls to be suspended from school during the 2022-23 school year. They were also twice as likely to be classified as having a learning disability, a designation that can sometimes carry a stigma but also brings extra support, including smaller classes and additional teachers.

By contrast, female students craving more attention and understanding from school staff often feel like they have to fight for it, said Sosa, the rising senior at the Brooklyn charter school.

“Most of the time they [girls] have to speak out for themselves,” she said.

Girls bear the brunt of ongoing youth mental health crisis

Girls’ negative experiences in school often begin with the pressures and expectations they face outside of it.

Derry Oliver, a 17-year-old who graduated last spring from Cobble Hill School for American Studies in Brooklyn, said her female friends deal with the “pressures that come with being a woman, such as safety, or what they are wearing, who they can be around, and because of that, it’s harder for them to be in the classroom and focus.”

Derry Oliver, 17, poses for a portrait in Brooklyn in February, 2024.

Those social pressures can be particularly intense and damaging for Black girls, who deal with a combination of racism and sexism in many facets of their lives, said Krystal Folk, a former school social worker in the Bronx.

“What is the idea of beauty? It’s not Black girls,” Folk said. “If you’re not meeting that standard, there’s a lot of internalization happening.”

Girls, particularly Black girls, have also reported feeling disproportionately targeted by school dress code policies.

The rapid growth of social media and the lingering effects of the pandemic have likely worsened the mental health crisis facing girls, educators and experts said.

Some schools reported an uptick in incidents of sexual harassment when students returned to school following COVID-19 school closures, a trend one staffer attributed to kids spending more time online.

But educators said it can also be hard to tell how much of the gender disparities in the school survey data comes from boys and girls experiencing different things in school, and how much comes from the two groups interpreting and talking about those experiences differently.

Anna Nelson, an assistant principal at Bronx Latin, a 6-12 public school, said in her experience there are differences in how male and female students approach the survey. “Girls are more thoughtful and take their time with the [school] survey,” she said. “Sometimes the guys will go through and answer things just like whatever.”

The results also raise questions about whether boys and girls have different definitions of bullying and harassment. Girls and boys who attended the same schools often had very different perceptions about how much bullying takes place in their schools, potentially indicating that they either witness different behaviors, or perceive the same behaviors differently.

Some schools look for solutions

Education Department officials said they began breaking down school survey data by demographics in 2021 to give schools a more granular look at disparities – and allow them to take action.

At Urban Assembly Unison Middle School in Brooklyn, educators, with the help of survey data, noticed that female students were less likely to speak up when teachers simply threw out a question to the entire class, said Paige, the principal.

“The mental health crisis hit particularly with adolescent girls,” Paige said. “If you’re in a group of 25 and are allowing impulse to rule who speaks, those who have more social anxiety might be less likely to speak.”

To address those gender disparities, the school revamped how teachers solicit student participation in class, building in time for students to think about an answer and to share with classmates in smaller groups before opening the discussion to the full class.

Some educators pointed to single-gender settings as another promising approach. New York City has a range of public schools designated for just girls and just boys. The city’s high schools across the board are unusually gender-segregated compared to other large districts. And even within schools, clubs like My Brother’s Keeper or female empowerment groups that provide single-gender spaces can also help, educators and students said.

There are also new efforts to create schools that are affirming for LGBTQ+ and gender nonconforming students, though one such proposal to open a charter school was not greenlit this year.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Liza Greenberg is a senior at the Bronx High School of Science and a student journalist for The Science Survey.

Kae Petrin is data and graphics reporter for Chalkbeat. Contact Kae at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado school districts are working on new ways to find gifted students from all backgrounds

2024-08-08T01:13:03+00:00

Leer en español.

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

About a decade after schools in Colorado started using universal testing to identify students who are gifted, white students and those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds still make up the vast majority of students in gifted programs.

So educators are taking new steps to make sure students who have long been underrepresented in gifted programs across the country, including students of color, English language learners, and those from lower income families, are better represented.

Districts and organizations are now focusing on new data analysis, looking at multiple tests, and training teachers to identify behaviors that might signal high abilities among students of different cultures.

Some districts are closing gaps and are identifying more students, although statewide the gaps remain.

White students and those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds make up 50% and 54% of the population respectively, but white students make up more than 69% of students in gifted programs and those from higher economic backgrounds make up 80% of students in gifted programs in Colorado.

Statewide, Black students make up 4.6% of all public school students, but only 2.1% of students identified as gifted. Hispanic students make up 35.5% of all students, but only 16% of students identified as gifted.

By other measures, gaps are more significant. Students who qualify for subsidized meals, a measure of poverty, make up 45.7% of all students in the state, but only account for 19.9% of students who are identified as gifted. And students who are identified as multilingual learners, learning English as a new language, make up 13% of all students in the state, but only account for 2.3% of gifted students.

In the past, identification depended on a teacher or parent advocating for a child to be tested. Now, barriers include biases in tests themselves or in observations from educators, who are also still largely white. Staffing limitations in some districts also limit how much work gifted teams can do.

Closing the gap and identifying students matters, leaders say, because students need to be challenged and so educators can provide better resources. But also for self-knowledge.

Nisia Patalan, the gifted coordinator for the districts of the San Juan BOCES in southwest Colorado, said student identification matters in part so students can understand themselves better.

“Understanding who they are and how they see the world differently and then just being accepted,” Patalan said. “I just think about how isolating it is to be a gifted student. I think those kids aren’t getting what they need if they aren’t struggling if they aren’t struggling enough to get noticed. They’re masking because of their giftedness.”

Educators use data to find more students

Identifying students who are multilingual is a recent area of focus for many districts in the state. About five years ago, the Colorado Department of Education started creating guidance that now allows districts to use the scores of the ACCESS test — an English fluency exam that students identified as English learners already take every year — as a way to identify gifted students.

Students who gain proficiency in English much more rapidly than average can be flagged for identification.

Brad Russell, assistant director of teaching and learning and gifted and talented programming in Mapleton, participated in a group with the state to help create the guidance for districts to use that test.

So in his district, just north of Denver, where 80% of students are Hispanic and about 40% are English learners, leaders who were working with an outside partner on making sure teachers were teaching to grade level standards, also started to think about how few students were being identified as gifted.

Four years ago, just 2.5% of the district’s students were identified as gifted, so they set a goal to get to 5% within one year. Now, 8% of the district’s students are identified as gifted. Of those gifted students, 70% are Hispanic, which Russell said is close to the 80% of Hispanic students in the district.

To get there, every year, Russell creates a spreadsheet with every student and the scores for all tests they may take. He pulls out all the students who have scores in the 80th percentile and starts looking for trends over time. This means he looks for longer term patterns instead of how a student performs on one test at one point in time.

“Having that formal data review annually, that is step one for everyone,” but he added, “we want to make sure we’re going beyond that.”

Next, he reaches out to the student’s school teachers and has them use a formal rating scale to make observations about the student’s behavior. Sometimes families will also be asked to fill out an observation form about their child, and other student work might be used as well to create enough evidence to formally identify the student.

What parents need to know about gifted and talented education

Traditionally, students were identified as gifted based on a high score on a cognitive ability test.

Those are the tests used for universal screening. In Mapleton, all second and sixth graders are tested. But if those tests don’t flag a student as gifted or if students somehow miss that test, Russell’s data review and other teacher observations can also be used to identify a student who is advanced.

Denver Public Schools started a similar data review last year.

In the first year of reviewing about five years worth of student scores on the ACCESS language test, Denver leaders identified more than 300 students who could be gifted based on their accelerated ability to learn a language.

About 26% of the district’s students are learning English as a new language, but only about 3% of gifted students were multilingual learners. After that first year of data review, it inched up to 4% of the approximately 6,900 identified gifted students. More students are in a group being evaluated and observed to possibly be identified within the next year or two.

“It’s really exciting, our gifted teachers are so thrilled about this,” said Meryl Faulkner, senior manager of gifted and talented for the Denver school district.

The district is in the process of reviewing data again this year.

DPS also piloted last year a new cognitive test, the NGAT, for its universal screening at some schools, which Faulkner believes made a difference in identifying more Black and multilingual students, she said.

This fall, all second graders in the district will take the new cognitive test.

And when teachers fill out observational ratings to identify students, Faulkner said, the district tries to have a teacher of the same cultural background as the student fill it out. “Cultural mismatches can occur, misunderstanding, or misinterpreting what their behaviors actually are,” she said.

Shalelia Dillard, founder of SCD Enrichment Program, a nonprofit organization trying to help schools diversify their gifted populations, is also in the process of getting a new teacher observation tool nationally recognized.

For example, she noted that “questioning authority is an across the board characteristic of many gifted students,” but stereotypes of black women being argumentative might allow an educator to think, “This is just a little black girl trying to have an attitude with me.”

Another example she likes to use for thinking about the different ways gifted abilities show up is when young students have to translate for adults.

“Students that had to read their parents bank statements at six years old and having to navigate that and translate that into respectful children language, it takes a high level cognitive profile,” Dillard said. “You’re using both hemispheres of your brain. That’s a huge one.”

State officials also pointed to San Juan BOCES as one area seeing positive improvements in closing gaps in who is identified as gifted. BOCES, which stands for boards of cooperative educational services, are groups of small districts that share resources.

Across the eight districts in the BOCES group, more than half of students qualify for free or reduced price lunches, a measure of poverty. In 2020-21, just 26.5% of gifted students did, but that number has jumped to 32% in 2023-24.

The BOCES districts with large populations of indigenous students have also seen improvements in their representation. For example, in the Mancos School District, 6.5% of enrolled students are identified at Native American, and among gifted students 6.7% are.

Many of the BOCES districts are using an alternative cognitive test, the same one DPS is moving to. And Patalan, the gifted coordinator, trains teachers every year, sharing different observational tools every month, including some geared specifically to look at how traditional behaviors might be expressed differently among different groups of students.

Among Native American students, for example, many of their traits are nonverbal, while an English learner who is trying to be expressive might use “inventive language” combining languages.

Districts want identification to be more than a label

Once students are in the process of being identified, teachers can start to differentiate how they help them in class. A teacher might purposefully pair two possibly gifted students together for assignments, for example.

And once they’re identified, state law requires students to have an advanced learning plan with goals specific to their gifted abilities which are reviewed every year.

In the handful of schools where Dillard’s organization works, she hosts a class with mostly students of color who might be gifted. Some students are already identified, and some are not. In the class, they receive college prep skills, advanced supplemental learning in core content areas, and talk about how being gifted might impact their social and emotional abilities.

“This is what it means to be gifted,” Dillard said. “It is a neurodiversity. With this particular neurodivergence, here’s how you can advocate for yourself, how you can connect with other students.”

Her program also hosts a weeklong summer program for students from across the metro area. The Mapleton district has also been hosting a summer program for students who are identified as gifted.

Last year, the online sign-up for Mapleton’s summer camp filled up in less than an hour. The district had planned for 90 students, and expanded to accommodate 122. Even more tried to enroll, leaders said, but had to be turned away.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Milliken v. Bradley: 50 years later, teachers across the country reflect on the historic case

2024-07-29T15:00:00+00:00

Most of Alisha Washington-Hutton’s history students are familiar with Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1954 that ended state-sanctioned racial segregation in schools.

But few of them know about another decision by the court in a case closer to home that has affected integration efforts in metro Detroit for years.

That’s why she attended a two week institute, Democracy in Education: A View from Detroit, at the Walter P. Reuther Library. The program is giving her tools to teach her students in Royal Oak Schools about Milliken v. Bradley, a case 20 years later that ended plans for cross-district busing to integrate Detroit and suburban schools.

“I’m going to consider the long history of education and Black people’s fight for education. So we often think about Brown v. Board as the end of desegregation, but instead bringing to my kids these slightly more complicated stories I think will be to everybody’s benefit,” said Washington-Hutton, a teacher at Royal Oak Middle School.

She’s among 22 teachers from across the country who gathered at the Reuther library for the two-week program funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Discussions on Tuesday centered on the events leading up to Milliken v. Bradley and its long-term implications for school segregation. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision.

The historic case began when the NAACP filed a lawsuit against the state of Michigan on behalf of then-elementary school student Ronald Bradley. In 1972, U.S. District Judge Stephen Roth ordered 53 school districts, including Detroit, to create a cross-district plan to bus thousands of Black children to suburban schools, and thousands of white children to Detroit schools.

In 1974, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against the plan. Detroit then had to implement its own districtwide desegregation plan.

Thurgood Marshall, the only Black justice on the court at the time, said Detroit could not integrate its schools without working with the suburbs, as white residents fled the city and its demographics shifted to predominantly Black.

Washington-Hutton wanted to better understand the historical context behind the demographic differences between her district, which is largely white, and the Detroit Public Schools Community District, which is predominantly Black.

People often assume segregated schools or neighborhoods “happened organically,” she said. But people often make choices to segregate or integrate.

“Oftentimes when we can kind of just assume that it’s a natural thing, people just decide where to live, just based on, you know, they like the area, it hides a little bit of the structural racism that can go into the makeup of our schools,” Washington-Hutton said.

Inspired by the 50th anniversary of the case, Matthew Kautz, a professor at Eastern Michigan University, worked with his colleagues to form the institute. They wanted to engage educators from across the country in rigorous study of the legal history of school segregation, systemic oppression, and resistance.

Attendants first listened to Rev. Dan Aldridge, a veteran activist, discuss his experiences organizing for community control of Black schools in Detroit and New York. Kautz then walked educators through the history of desegregation efforts in Detroit and across the country that led up to Milliken v. Bradley.

Attendants then watched a documentary-in-progress by Donovan McCarty, a filmmaker and attorney at the Detroit Justice Center. They wrapped up the day with a discussion about the legacy of white flight and failed efforts to integrate city and suburban schools in metro Detroit.

“We wanted folks to be able to think within this institute and then take back to their students how to think about the complicated dynamics of schooling, education, race, and democracy,” Kautz said. “How do we work with students to make sense of that, given these are the places where they learn, and this is the world that we’re asking them to inherit and make sense of.”

Michele Smiley, who teaches U.S. history and African American History and Culture at Plymouth-Canton Educational Park, hopes to apply what she has learned to the curriculum. She already teaches Brown v. Board, but she said she felt there was a missing piece in her curriculum, a gap she hoped this institute would fill.

Lisa Landrum-May, who teaches high school English 10 and Advanced Placement African American Studies in Maryland, connected what she learned with her own experiences being bused to a predominantly white school as a Black kid in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the 1970s.

She remembers people telling her it was a great opportunity for her, but the experience harmed her. She did not feel like white parents and teachers wanted her there.

“This impacted my life for 50 years,” Landrum-May said.

At her old school, where all the faculty was Black, she recalls the teachers treating the children like their own. But things changed when she was bused a lengthy distance out of her neighborhood to a white school.

The new school had more resources, but her first teacher there tried to segregate Black and white students in the classroom and made her feel like she did not have the skills necessary to do well.

“They were thinking about holding me back, then they were saying maybe special ed” – where most of the Black students ended up, she said. “It affected me so deeply. I’m 58 years old, and I’m an English teacher. I’m very literate, I’m very articulate. I was afraid to read out loud up until like seven years ago.”

After hearing the impact busing had on students, Smiley already has ideas on how she will incorporate Milliken v. Bradley into her teaching. She hopes to give students a greater idea of the different opinions about solutions to the inequities caused by school segregation, particularly the push from some in the Black community for community control and equal funding instead of integration.

Tyrek Laing from Burbank, California found the opportunity to look at the connections between education and democracy appealing.

“I’m learning that even though we’re in different locations, there’s some fundamental challenges that we all face,” said Laing, a dean of student inclusion in grades 6-12 at an international private school. “Detroit has such a rich history of protest, of advocacy, and so learning the stories of people who are here and have been on the ground here throughout the years, was something that I felt like would be motivational and giving me strategy as well.”

Washington-Hutton and Smiley agreed that their favorite part of the institute has been connecting with educators from around the country and hearing their experiences. As a co-director, Kautz has appreciated the participants willingness to learn, be vulnerable, and engage with each other.

At one point, there was a moment where school integration seemed like a very real possibility,” Washington-Hutton said. “While learning all this information is great, I think part of it is really important because you learn with the Bradley case why it stops. Why we have all of this progress, progress, progress, and then we kind of just hit against the wall.”

Alex Klaus is a summer intern at Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at aklaus@chalkbeat.org.

School desegregation is hard to tackle at the federal level. Advocates say states can still do a lot.

2024-07-25T04:01:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

Fifty years ago, the landmark Supreme Court decision Milliken v. Bradley made it exceedingly difficult to desegregate schools across district lines through the federal court system.

Subsequent court rulings and recent backlash to racial equity initiatives have only made the landscape more challenging.

But a report issued Thursday by Brown’s Promise, a group that advocates for school integration, says states can still do a lot to address segregation and school funding inequities — and offers a roadmap for officials and advocates to roll up their sleeves and get to work.

“We are, across the country, too comfortable right now with the idea that segregation in our schools is just a fact of life and there’s nothing we can do about it,” said Ary Amerikaner, the co-founder and executive director of Brown’s Promise, a year-old initiative that’s housed at the Southern Education Foundation. “There’s a lot of other pathways to make forward progress.”

That call comes on the heels of the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruling that held segregated schools are unconstitutional. Schools are less segregated today than they were 60 years ago. But over the last three decades, many have resegregated, especially as courts have released districts from desegregation orders and school choice policies have given parents more control over where they send their kids.

The share of intensely segregated schools — where 90% to 100% of students are kids of color — has nearly tripled to 20% over the last 30 years, according to recent research released by UCLA’s Civil Rights Project. Hyper-segregated schools also have higher poverty levels — a kind of “double segregation” that translates to worse educational outcomes for kids.

To address that, Brown’s Promise is advocating a two-pronged approach: Filing lawsuits in state court — especially in places where the state constitution guarantees children certain educational rights — and changing state policy.

School segregation lawsuits are working their way through the courts in both Minnesota and New Jersey. And while Brown’s Promise is not involved in those cases, the group is watching for lessons from the litigation that could apply to other states.

The group’s state policy agenda includes what it describes as “inspiring yet imperfect” examples of recent and historic desegregation efforts:

In 2015, Mississippi combined a racially segregated and under-resourced district with a neighboring district that was more affluent and diverse. Most school segregation exists across district lines rather than within school districts, research has found, and what happened in Mississippi worked because the merger saved money and helped improve the quality of education for kids across the consolidated district.
Nebraska lawmakers created a regional structure that allowed 11 school districts in the Omaha area to share their tax dollars to provide more funding to disadvantaged kids. The effort ended in 2016 after around seven years in operation, but Brown’s Promise says it can serve as a model for others.
State grants, such as those offered in New York, can help school districts plan and carry out integration efforts.

Other ideas are lighter lifts designed to spur more conversation and awareness, such as publishing data related to school segregation and per-student spending on state report cards.

The report also lays out ways that states can avoid some of the mistakes of past school integration efforts. In recent years, there’s been a greater focus on the ways school desegregation plans often put higher burdens on Black families and other families of color.

To Amerikaner, those mistakes include the layoffs and firing of many talented Black teachers when schools merged, and the use of academic-tracking policies that tend to create classrooms starkly divided by race, even when a school is supposed to be integrated.

Part of the work now, she said, is paying attention to the “actual student experience in a school and the ability of a student to feel like a real part of their school community.” That could mean making sure kids feel comfortable participating in extracurricular activities or that families feel welcome to attend school events.

The group acknowledges how challenging and politically polarizing this work can be.

But its leaders point to the results of a poll they commissioned earlier this year that found most Americans are supportive of school integration — especially if it’s paired with providing more resources to districts that serve higher-need students.

That sentiment has been echoed as the group has met with families and advocates across the country, including in Massachusetts, Colorado, and Georgia.

“That feels like what is most important to us,” Amerikaner said. “This is long-term, multi-generational work.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

To help migrant students, Westminster created a summer program for English language learners

2024-06-28T23:38:53+00:00

Leer en español.

During the last week of summer school in Westminster, about 19 kids practiced forming English sentences that described pictures displayed on a smartboard at the front of the class.

“I see kids playing fútbol,” one child, Mathias, said about a photo of a group of older kids playing soccer in the rain.

But teacher Sydney Pollock wanted the class of third through fifth graders to practice starting sentences with the words “This” or “That,” and to use a singular verb in the sentence. She reminded Mathias that “kids” is plural. Writing the word on the board, she asked the class how to make it singular. Drop the “S”, kids said.

Mathias, a student in the mixed grade summer classroom for Westminster Public Schools, works to practice speaking English during class on June 26, 2024.

Mathias tried again. “This kid playing…”

Don’t forget your verb, Pollock reminded him, pointing to examples on the whiteboard.

“This kid is playing fútbol,” Mathias said, excited to get it right.

Westminster Public Schools was one of many districts in Colorado to receive a surge of new immigrant students after the start of the school year. In the four months between October and February alone, the district reported it had enrolled 216 newcomer students. Westminster received $877,000 in one-time state funding to help cover the expenses of educating students who were not counted for this year’s state funding because they started after October.

Students in the summer program get a short recess during their four-hour school day.

With that help, Westminster budgeted $10,000 to create a new summer school program to help Spanish-speaking students keep practicing English, particularly hoping to enroll many of the new immigrant students who had just started to learn.

The summer program enrolled 135 students in kindergarten through 11th grade. Kate Herter, who served this summer as the program’s principal, said she estimated about 85% of the students enrolled were new to the country this year.

Leaders said one of the goals was to ensure new immigrant students feel more comfortable and ready to learn come this fall.

Herter said the goal is for students to have a space where they can feel more comfortable practicing their English skills, so that they might feel more confident participating in their learning next school year.

When kids began the summer program, they started learning how to talk about food. Another week was spent learning about money and how to count U.S. dollars. Next door to Pollock’s class, another group of students was learning how to form sentences in English to describe the different seasons, making observations about the cold, the rain, and the leaves.

“We’re really trying to target language that they can use immediately inside the community,” Herter said.

Susana Zubia López, left, and Kate Herter, pose for a portrait on Wed., June 26, 2024 at Josephine Hodgkins Leadership Academy in Denver, Colorado.

Susana Zubia López was one of the family liaisons who helped the district call all newcomer families to invite them to enroll their children.

She said most families were excited about the opportunity to have their children keep learning English.

Zubia López said that of the new immigrant families she was in touch with, the only ones who didn’t enroll their children were families who were moving or who said they were taking a trip.

The district provided free transportation to the four-hour daily program, as well as breakfast and lunch just before students went home at noon. The students in the program were also able to get vaccinations to be ready for school enrollment this fall.

“We didn’t want a gap,” Zubia López said. “Our goal was to not have that big a gap.”

In 2018, Westminster had signed an agreement with the federal government to make changes to how it identified and served students who were learning English as a new language after the Department of Justice found that the district may have been under-identifying students and not providing them with enough resources. The district started making changes as the pandemic began.

In the summer of 2021, Westminster also used COVID relief funds to extend the school year an extra 12 days to give students more opportunities to learn. But this is the first year, district leaders said, that the district had a targeted summer program for students learning English.

Herter said teachers are regularly collecting data and will be evaluating if students demonstrate improvement in their English development next year.

Students in Westminster's summer program watched an animated video about the seasons and sang and danced along.

For now, teachers also worked on making students feel more comfortable. In Pollock’s class, one girl spelled out a sentence about the picture she observed, but initially pleaded with the teacher who had come around to her table not to make her try to say it out loud.

Next door, when students were learning about the seasons, teacher SanJuanita Carbajal had the students watch an animated video with a catchy song about the seasons. At first, the students were not singing along. But after a few minutes, they joined in.

Sara Gonzalez, who teaches first and second graders in the program, said that students know she speaks Spanish and started the program trying speaking to her mostly in Spanish.

She often tells them she doesn’t understand in an effort to have them practice their English. Now, she said, she is seeing them try to speak more in English.

“We know they’ll feel more confident in their learning later,” Herter said.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

High school computer science classes might expand in Michigan. Will that address equity issues?

2024-06-21T19:22:19+00:00

In her two years of high school at Dearborn Public Schools’ Virtual K-12 school, rising junior Weaam AlAliyi has already learned about computer programming, understanding algorithms, and data analysis in three computer science courses.

Weaam believes computer science courses in high school are critical in preparing students for higher education and the modern workforce.

Gaining computer science skills is “increasingly important in today’s digital world,” Weaam said.

High schoolers across the state could have similar access to computer science courses if Michigan lawmakers pass a bill requiring all public high schools to offer a computer science course by the start of the 2027-28 school year. Michigan would become the 31st state to have such a requirement, according to 2023 data.

The bill passed the state House on Tuesday and is on its way to the Senate. The bill received bipartisan support, but all 22 no votes came from Republicans.

The bill garnered support from the Michigan Department of Education, among others. Cheryl Wilson, computer science consultant at the MDE, said the department recognizes a need to prepare students for computer science positions in the state and beyond.

The classes would have to be aligned with Michigan’s computer science standards. Rep. Carol Glavnille, a Democrat from Walker and a former educator who sponsored the bill, hopes the courses will cover subjects like AI functions, app development, data analysis, and internet security. These courses, she argues, will prepare students for the large number of available computing jobs with higher than average salaries.

Michigan had an average of 14,328 open computing jobs each month in 2023, with an average salary of $96,702.

Technology access remains an obstacle

A legislative fiscal analysis estimates the requirement would not create extra costs for the state, but high schools without existing computer science classes might struggle. Robert McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance, a group that advocates for public schools, says the state needs to ensure that each school has appropriate teachers and equipment available to students.

“It is still a reality that some students don’t have access to the same technology that other students have at home,” said McCann.

Still, McCann thinks that grants to improve technology access in homes during the pandemic will give more students the resources they need to study computer science and make it easier for schools to implement the new courses.

Schools that can’t offer the course can provide an online option through online schools such as Michigan Virtual.

Glanville suggested that existing online computer science programs like Code.org can offset access issues. Code.org testified in support of the bill when Glanville introduced it to the House in May.

But Aman Yadav, a professor of computing education at Michigan State University, worries that under-resourced schools will still struggle to offer quality computer science courses due to a lack of certified staff. He warns that affluent students are more likely to succeed in online courses.

“The bill is a step in the right direction to make sure that all students within Michigan have access to computer science at the high school level,” Yadav said. “However, there are significant challenges for schools who are under-resourced, both in our rural communities and urban communities, because of lack of requirement for teachers to have sufficient knowledge to teach computer science.”

In 2017, the Michigan Department of Education announced it will remove requirements for computer science teacher endorsements by 2026. Wilson said the department did that to open pathways for more educators to teach computer science, especially in districts that lacked enough qualified teachers.

But Yadav worries that a lack of quality computer science teachers will discourage students from continuing computer science education after their first course.

Racial and gender disparities are wide

Research suggests that disparities in enrollment heavily affect women and Black students. Only 29% of Michigan students who took an AP computer science exam in 2022 were women, and Black students were less likely to take AP computer science exams than their white and Asian peers.

Yadav said existing research on disparities in computer science education focuses too much on access and not enough on success rates. For example, 2022 data indicates that Black students in Michigan were less likely to pass their AP computer science exams than other students, with scores of 3 or higher: Only 29% of the Black students who took an AP computer science exam in 2022 passed, while 70.8% of all students passed.

Kady Robinson-Larsosa, a rising junior at Detroit’s School at Marygrove, has learned computer science skills in several classes, and may even have a chance to earn college credit as a junior. She said she sees value in computer science courses as a Black DPSCD student because of the increased career opportunities for students.

“Usually we’re not seeing engineering as a way to pursue a career in the future,” she said. As course access expands, she thinks it could increase well-paying career opportunities. She sees the skills she has learned helping her aspirations to enter the business and marketing field after graduation.

Kady said she notices more women in her Marygrove classes than men. But in a STEM-focused career readiness summer program at the University of Michigan, she said, there were more men enrolled.

How can the state address equity issues?

Yadav said he hopes that the legislature adds language requiring educators to be certified in computer science to teach the class and suggests the state invest in teacher certification.

“Computer science is hard to learn,” Yadav said. “A focus on increasing access without a focus on quality of that access is problematic for Michigan students.”

Wilson said the MDE doesn’t have plans to implement such a program now, but might consider it in the future.

Yadav also thinks schools should offer classes at a younger age. By high school, students have already formed views on who is successful in computer science or STEM.

Eva Burch, who recently graduated from Detroit Prep, doesn’t plan on taking computer science courses when she starts her freshman year at Cass Technical High School, but she said having earlier access to learning computer science courses might have encouraged her to take them now.

Kady said the courses will be helpful in high school nonetheless. “I think it’s a great opportunity for all high schoolers to be able to take advantage of, even if some don’t,” she said.

Glanville hopes that over time, the state can identify which schools teach computer science and figure out how to increase the availability of these courses across Michigan.

Alex Klaus is a summer intern for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at aklaus@chalkbeat.org.

Correction: June 24, 2024: A previous version of this story said Eva Burch was already a DPSCD student. She was a student at Detroit Prep and will become a DPSCD student in the fall.

Chicago’s Opportunity Index takes center stage in school budget drama

2024-06-17T10:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the latest education news.

Cheryl Connor, the mother of three students at Sabin Dual Language Magnet School, first heard of Chicago Public Schools’ Opportunity Index this spring when she learned her Northwest Side campus faced a tighter budget for the coming school year.

The district overhauled its approach to budgeting this year, aiming to downplay enrollment size as a factor, provide all schools with certain base positions – and steer more dollars to schools serving the city’s most vulnerable students. The index, which factors student demographics, neighborhood metrics, and historical funding data into a single score, is the tool officials used to quantify each school’s level of need.

Giving more to schools that need more is a worthy goal, some experts said. But it comes at a complicated time, as the district faces enrollment instability and a deficit brought on by the end of federal COVID recovery money, meaning officials are taking from some campuses to give others a boost.

The budget shift is especially challenging to pull off in a district with both large campuses and a growing number of very small schools, experts said.

First designed in 2021, Chicago’s Opportunity Index came under newly intense scrutiny this spring after it took center stage in setting student-to-teacher ratios and discretionary funding in school budgets. District leaders and some principals have hailed the index as an innovative tool that is allowing Chicago to rectify long-standing campus funding inequities.

But some parents and school leaders have questioned whether their schools’ scores fairly reflect their needs — and argued district officials haven’t done enough to demystify the formula for families and even principals.

At Sabin, Connor applauded the district’s equity goal. But, she wondered, didn’t her own school have higher needs than its middle-of-the-pack Opportunity Index number would suggest? It’s in well-off Wicker Park, but it draws largely low-income students of color from outside the neighborhood, including a recent influx of migrant students.

“To figure out which schools have more needy families and need more support — that’s a great idea,” Connor said. “I don’t think it worked out for Sabin.”

Chicago Public Schools officials said this week the district, which faces an almost $400 million deficit, will delay the release of its full budget until after the start of the fiscal year in July. That will allow more time to “do further diligence since the budget model is new and being implemented for the first time.”

How was the Opportunity Index created?

Under former CPS CEO Janice Jackson, the district’s then-new Office of Equity set out to develop a way to capture gaps in access to opportunities for students. On the eve of the pandemic, the district used a neighborhood “hardship index” developed by researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago to allocate so-called “equity grants” at campuses grappling with major enrollment declines.

But the district still wanted to come up with its own metric reflecting school demographics and needs.

So officials approached the University of Illinois Chicago for help. Timothy Imeokparia, the associate director of research and planning at UIC’s Great Cities Institute, said he and others did extensive research to weigh in on a list of metrics the district was considering. CPS officials incorporated some of that feedback into the new index, such as including a metric that gives extra points to racially segregated schools, where research shows students tend to do worse.

But officials didn’t take other suggestions. For instance, researchers didn’t think community life expectancy is particularly relevant to the experience of children, and they recommended considering other key factors such as parents’ education level, Imeokparia said.

In the end, CPS settled on 12 indicators. Schools get between one and five points for each indicator. Added together, each campus is given an index score between 12 and 60. Explore Opportunity Index data for all schools here.

The district unveiled the Opportunity Index in 2021 as part of its pandemic recovery plan dubbed “Moving Forward Together,” which spelled out how CPS would distribute $500 million of the $2.8 billion it got in federal COVID relief money.

When the district rolled out its new way of calculating school budgets this spring, it was clear the Opportunity Index would play a much higher-stakes role. For example, elementary schools with high scores would get one teacher for every 22 students while those with lower ones get an educator for every 26 students. A higher index also means more discretionary money principals can spend as they see fit and better odds of receiving an instructional coach, a restorative justice coordinator, and an additional counselor, among other support positions.

Is the Opportunity Index capturing all of a school’s needs?

Connor, the local school council head at Sabin Dual Language Magnet, says she feels the index didn’t adequately capture her campus’s needs.

Take the portion of students who qualify for Medicaid but are not enrolled in the program — the higher the number, the more points a school gets for its index. Connor said in recent years, parents and staff at the school went all-out in a bid to ensure eligible families enroll in the health coverage program. Now, Connor said it feels as though the district is penalizing the school for these efforts — and creating a disincentive to encourage more district families to enroll.

Or take the portion of students who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch. Connor says the district used a percentage captured before the school’s deadline for collecting income forms from families, when staffers were still scrambling to gather that information.

More generally, experts have said that the metric is becoming a less reliable measure of poverty, amid a growing number of universal lunch programs such as Chicago’s and immigrant concerns about providing income information.

All in all, Sabin’s index of 30 places the school in the same group as elementaries with much smaller portions of students of color, low-income, and homeless students, Connor said. Drummond, a nearby magnet school, has an only slightly lower index. With a student body that’s roughly half white, Drummond serves 14% low-income students compared to Sabin’s almost 90%, and 8% English learners compared to Sabin’s almost 30%.

Under the calculation, Connor said, Sabin was slated to receive six fewer teachers this year. The district provided another three educators after school leaders appealed to the budget office. That’s something the district did for dozens of other schools: The formula didn’t work for some campuses, sometimes failing to provide enough educators to staff all classrooms. Still, Sabin has to use all but $20,000 of its discretionary funds to save the other three positions. That means it might need to charge students to play sports, among other changes.

A Chalkbeat analysis of Opportunity Index and staffing allocations in the 2024-25 school budgets the district released in late May shows that for the schools with the highest and lowest indexes, the metric seemed predictive of staffing changes: Campuses with the highest indexes tended to get extra staff in next year’s budgets compared with staffing levels last summer, and those with the lowest indexes tended to gain fewer staff, or even lose positions.

When looking at schools in the middle of the pack, however, the relationship between a school’s Opportunity Index and staffing becomes less clear, especially at the high school level.

Across the board, there are numerous examples of high-index schools that will lose positions, and schools with lower indexes that will gain some, as enrollment continues to play a role in budgets.

One elementary principal said he felt the district was responsive to school leader concerns and generally rounded up staffing numbers when campuses were near the cutoff based on their opportunity indexes. His school got a second interventionist — an educator who works closely with struggling students — thanks to the formula.

“I’ve been on the negative side of budgets for a long time,” he said. “To me, it feels like a relief.”

Overall, at least 150 of Chicago’s more than 500 district-run public schools will see staffing cuts in the fall, according to a recent Chalkbeat analysis.

A CPS spokesperson said comparing staffing levels to the previous year “does not properly reflect resources allocated to our schools,” because principals used to have much more discretion over staffing, and now schools get a set number of staff positions. The district has vowed that overall staff in schools and funding in school budgets won’t go down.

Has the district done enough to explain its index?

CPS CEO Pedro Martinez has said concerns about school budgets have come from a relatively small number of “outlier” campuses, often selective enrollment schools with a wide range of elective courses.

One principal said it doesn’t make sense that metrics shaping a school’s experience in a profound way, such as student poverty, are given the same weight in the Opportunity Index as other factors that seem a step removed, such as community life expectancy.

In a district with both tiny and packed schools, low-income students might represent a relatively small portion of all students on some large campuses but still be a fairly sizable group: “Poor students in a large richer school can end up with too few resources.”

Some say the district needs to do more communication and engagement around the index.

One school leader said they traveled to a national education conference in San Diego with roughly a dozen principals in April and attended a session with the district’s chief education officer, Bogdana Chkoumbova. She presented on Chicago’s equity efforts in a conversation with Nick Freeman, a former Chicago Public Schools data strategist who had gone on to co-found Innovare, a company the district enlisted to design an Opportunity Index dashboard.

Some of the principals were taken aback because they had never gotten the detailed look at how the index was calculated that the San Diego presentation offered.

“Principals had been asking these questions for a while,” the principal who spoke with Chalkbeat on a condition of anonymity because they were not authorized by the district to talk with the press said. “It makes no sense that we are presenting this work to people outside the district when people within the district directly affected by it have never seen it.”

Kia Banks, the chief of staff of the Chicago Principals & Administrators Association and the principal at Vanderpoel Humanities Academy, a magnet on Chicago’s South Side, said she wishes school leaders had gotten training on the index and a chance to review the metrics with district officials.

She feels her school’s index reflects the school’s wealthier Beverly neighborhood, even as it draws students from across the South Side. The school received points for serving an almost entirely Black student body, but it has no English learners and relatively small number of students with disabilities, which lowered its score.

Overall, the district’s budget shift left Banks with much less flexibility than in previous years and a tight discretionary pot after she dipped into it to preserve a dean of students position.

Those are concerns the association — the district’s school leader union — heard from its members more broadly, said Troy LaRaviere, the president of CPAA: “As we talk about which schools are getting more, we are missing the big picture that none of these schools are getting enough.”

District said it plans to continue using the index to improve funding equity.

“This strategic allocation helps create more equitable school budgets, ultimately fostering stronger and healthier school communities for all students,” the district said in a statement.

A number of other large urban districts, such as Boston and Los Angeles, have introduced their own indexes for capturing schools’ needs in recent years, though often used more narrowly, said Qubilah Huddleston, an expert on equitable school funding at the think tank Education Trust.

The nonprofit published a 2022 study showing that more often than not, districts across the country still budget in a way that doesn’t fully take into account diverging student needs, leaving high-need schools at a disadvantage.

But Huddleston said the shift can be challenging in this moment of financial instability. In Washington, D.C.,the district also tried out a budget model that provided a base number of staff for each school. But in a district that, like Chicago, has both severely underenrolled and large schools, the shift was rocky, and eventually, D.C. embraced a more hybrid budgeting formula.

“Districts are really hamstrung in pursuing multiple goals,” said Huddleston. “These formulas are designed to improve equity. The challenge is when you don’t have enough kids in the building.”

Huddleston said she also has concerns about private fundraising playing a larger part in closing budget gaps — traditionally, a symbol of funding inequities nationally. Chicago district officials have said campuses can lean on their “Friends of” groups and other fundraising to supplement budgets.

Imeokparia, the UIC professor who consulted on the index, said a flurry of efforts in some districts to push more resources to high-needs schools in the 1980s and ‘90s often fizzled out. They generated political backlash as better-off schools saw tighter budgets and as districts often struggled to show payoff, such as higher high school graduation rates, for campuses that got a boost.

Sticking with these efforts requires political will to weather pushback to taking from some schools to give more to others — and ideally an influx in funding to avoid doing that altogether, Imeokparia said.

“I think it’s a useful tool,” he said. “But the index is just a number. It’s up to the political system to come up with solutions to problems.”

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Estudiantes hispanos en Denver tienen mayor probabilidad de asistir a escuelas con menos estudiantes en riesgo de cerrarse

2024-06-14T22:55:04+00:00

Read in English.

Los estudiantes hispanos en Denver tienen mayor probabilidad de asistir a escuelas con menos estudiantes inscritos—y, por lo tanto, es más probable que se vean afectados por el cierre de sus escuelas—que los estudiantes blancos y negros.

Los estudiantes que reúnen requisitos para obtener comidas escolares subsidiadas, un indicador de pobreza, también tienen mayor probabilidad de asistir a escuelas en Denver con menos estudiantes inscritos comparado con estudiantes de familias más adineradas.

Esos son algunos de los hallazgos en un nuevo informe de las Escuelas Públicas de Denver (DPS, por sus siglas en inglés). Tres días después de la publicación del informe, el consejo escolar de Denver aprobó una nueva norma el jueves sobre cómo cerrar o consolidar escuelas debido a una disminución en la cantidad de estudiantes inscritos.

El informe dice que el distrito debe dar “pasos específicos” para abordar la disminución de estudiantes inscritos “mediante una perspectiva de equidad dada la desproporción significativa de sectores demográficos de estudiantes en escuelas a las que asisten”. El informe analiza una baja cantidad de estudiantes inscritos dentro del contexto de la subutilización del edificio, es decir, escuelas con más capacidad que estudiantes.

La cantidad de estudiantes que se inscriben a DPS ha estado disminuyendo desde 2019, y a pesar de un aumento temporal este año debido a la llegada de muchos estudiantes de América del Sur, el distrito pronostica que la disminución continuará y tendrá que cerrar más escuelas.

Los cierres de escuelas no son políticamente populares y alteran a las familias. Pero que los cierres sean buenos o malos para los estudiantes depende de tu perspectiva.

Los integrantes del consejo escolar de Denver han dicho que los cierres son necesarios porque las escuelas pequeñas tienen menos dólares y recursos por estudiante. Por lo tanto, combinar escuelas asegura que los estudiantes tengan acceso a cosas como clases de arte y música y suficiente personal dedicado a la salud mental.

Los resultados de estudios de investigación a nivel nacional son variados en relación con si los estudiantes de escuelas cerradas mejoran académicamente en escuelas nuevas. Pero es obvio que las comunidades con frecuencia sienten dolor cuando sus escuelas cierran.

Los hallazgos de que los estudiantes hispanos y aquellos de familias con bajos ingresos tienen mayor probabilidad de asistir a escuelas en riesgo de cerrarse son especialmente impactantes ya que esos dos grupos, aunque siguen siendo la mayoría en DPS, están disminuyendo. En DPS, los estudiantes blancos y con más ingresos están aumentando.

Hace diez años, el 71 por ciento de los estudiantes en DPS reunían requisitos para obtener comidas escolares subsidiadas. Este año, ese porcentaje se redujo a 63. Los estudiantes blancos constituían el 22 por ciento de la población estudiantil de DPS hace una década, comparado con el 25 por ciento en la actualidad.

Estas son algunas de las cifras incluidas en el informe, un esfuerzo anual conocido como el Análisis Estratégico Regional que examina la cantidad en general de estudiantes inscritos en DPS y también dividida en seis regiones. El informe muestra tres de las seis regiones—sudoeste, noroeste y Denver central—con tasas de utilización de edificios por debajo del promedio, lo cual significa que tienen la mayor cantidad de asientos vacantes.

88,258: La cantidad de estudiantes de preescolar a 12º grado inscritos en DPS en octubre de 2023

6,338: La cantidad de estudiantes que DPS pronostica perder para 2028

74 %: El porcentaje de estudiantes en escuelas donde la tasa de utilización del edificio es más baja que la media en el distrito—es decir, escuelas con menos estudiantes inscritos—que reúnen requisitos para obtener comidas subsidiadas

63 %: El porcentaje de estudiantes que son hispanos en escuelas con menos estudiantes inscritos

17 %: El porcentaje de estudiantes que son blancos en escuelas con menos estudiantes inscritos

13 %: El porcentaje de estudiantes que son negros en escuelas con menos estudiantes inscritos

Los líderes del distrito han reconocido repetidamente que los cierres de escuelas afectan desproporcionadamente a las comunidades de color con bajos ingresos, y varios integrantes del consejo escolar han pasado personalmente por cierres escolares como padres o educadores.

Pero las escuelas que atienden a estos grupos demográficos siguen cerrándose en Denver y alrededor del país. El año pasado, el consejo escolar de Denver votó para cerrar tres escuelas pequeñas: la Escuela Primaria Fairview, donde el 93 por ciento de los estudiantes eran estudiantes de color y el 84 por ciento reunía requisitos para recibir comidas subsidiadas; la Academia de Liderazgo en Matemáticas y Ciencias, donde el 97 por ciento de los estudiantes eran estudiantes de color y el 94 por ciento reunía requisitos para recibir comidas subsidiadas; y, la Escuela Denver Discovery, donde el 94 por ciento de los estudiantes eran estudiantes de color y el 88 por ciento reunía requisitos para recibir comidas subsidiadas.

Melanie Asmar es la corresponsal jefa de Chalkbeat Colorado. Comunícate con Melanie por correo electrónico a masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Traducido por Alejandra X. Castañeda

Denver Public Schools hires its first director of Latinx Student Success

2024-05-22T23:50:09+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

Following the release of a report that revealed “serious barriers” for Latino students in Denver Public Schools, the district has hired its first director of Latinx Student Success.

Patricia Hurrieta, currently principal of Grant Ranch Elementary School in southwest Denver, will begin her new role in the next few weeks, the district said. Hurrieta will lead a team tasked with carrying out the recommendations in the recently released 266-page La Raza Report commissioned by DPS.

“I am thrilled to collaborate with the community to address the recommendations outlined in the La Raza Report,” Hurrieta said in a press release. “Together, we will strive to create an environment that fosters the success and well-being of our Latinx/Hispanic students.”

More than half of the 88,000 students in DPS identify as Hispanic or Latino. About a third of DPS students, many of them native Spanish speakers, are learning English as a second language.

The La Raza Report noted the “indomitable cultural resilience … that is a part of the ethos of the various Latino groups in the Denver Public Schools.”

But the report authors wrote that their findings, which were based on historical research as well as 51 focus group interviews and thousands of survey responses, “surfaced some serious barriers that need to be addressed, including unequal resources across schools, … the serious mismatch between the Latino student population and the number of teachers and leaders in the system, and the perpetual undervaluing of the Latino cultures.”

“There are no cultural events for Latinos at most schools, according to the focus groups,” the report said. “Spanish-language classes are electives, and none of the students in the focus groups are taking them, even though many of the students are fluently bilingual.

“Many students also said that they had never read a book written by or about Latinos.”

Spurred in part by a similar report about the barriers encountered by Black students and staff, the district created a Black Student Success team earlier this school year, also led by a former DPS principal. That team is working with university researchers who are studying the teaching methods of DPS teachers whose Black students made stellar academic progress. The goal is to spread those methods throughout the district, starting with a cohort of six elementary schools.

Each team — the Black Student Success team and the Latinx Student Success team — will have a budget of $750,000 next school year, said Joe Amundsen, the district’s executive director of school transformation, whose department works with both teams.

DPS has commissioned many reports and task forces over the years to make recommendations that community members have perceived as going nowhere — a frustration that’s clear in the La Raza Report. But Amundsen said hiring someone like Hurrieta to do the work, and allocating funding to complete it, signals a different level of commitment from DPS.

“There’s a difference in that commitment, which is translating to more than committees and recommendations, but let’s take those recommendations and really do something that is going to impact outcomes for kids,” he said. “It’s got more teeth to it.”

An advisory committee of Latino leaders and community members is helping the district prioritize which of the 35 La Raza Report recommendations the new Latinx Student Success team should tackle first, Amundsen said.

The recommendations include:

Establish student tutoring programs funded by Denver employers.
Develop a transportation system with the city and RTD for students and families “even in those areas where providing such a service may not be cost-effective but is socially just.”
Increase the number of students participating in the Seal of Biliteracy, which allows students to demonstrate proficiency in English and another language.
Develop a districtwide bilingual parent leadership institute focused on understanding the DPS educational system and the roles parents can play in their children’s education.
Expand the pool of Spanish-speaking teachers, as well as establish a pipeline for Latino school and district leaders and a Latino leadership mentorship program.
Consider redrawing the boundaries for West High School and periodically review all school boundaries to account for gentrification and other population shifts.
Have central office employees undergo cultural sensitivity and competence training.

Although the Latinx Student Success team will take the lead on many of the recommendations, Amundsen stressed that “this is the responsibility of the entire district.”

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Antisemitism, Israel-Hamas war expose fractures in proudly diverse school district

2024-05-20T12:13:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

Residents of Montgomery County are grappling with the frequency and vulgarity of antisemitism in their reputedly welcoming public schools.

Kobie Talmoud has been the target of taunts from fellow students who have said things like “Shut up, you Jewish f---” and “Heil Hitler” since he started public school in seventh grade.

Jewish parents also report uncomfortable interactions, which Mara Greengrass prefers to describe as “misunderstandings.”

Greengrass raised concerns after a teacher handed out an anti-Jewish flier from Nazi Germany with no additional context during a lesson on propaganda. But school leaders didn’t seem to understand how a Jewish student might feel if they came across the flier on the school bus, for example. In fact, they seemed defensive rather than apologetic, Greengrass said.

Montgomery County, Maryland, is a diverse, overwhelmingly Democratic and liberal community bordering Washington, D.C. The Jewish population in the region is four times the national average. The county has many Jewish leaders, including the county executive. Synagogues, Jewish day schools, and kosher groceries dot the area.

Yet even before Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel, the school district had been wrestling with a disturbing rise in antisemitic incidents that Jewish residents say is unprecedented. And the latest Israel-Gaza conflict has acted like fuel to a fire, with even some elementary-age children reporting that friends won’t play with them because they are Jewish. The challenges the district faces, and its response to them, reflect the difficulties confronting schools nationwide that have grown since the start of the war.

Kobie Talmoud, an 11th grader in Montgomery County, Maryland, says he tries to respond to antisemitism by educating other students. But some days the taunts get to him.

“I’ve never seen a more disturbing time for American Jews than the time we are living in right now,” said Guila Franklin Siegel, associate director at the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, a local advocacy organization that works with the school district.

Echoing Greengrass’ sentiments, Siegel says the district initially reacted defensively when approached years ago about the rise in antisemitism. However, today Siegel acknowledges that the district has become more proactive in its response to such incidents.

With the district’s support, Siegel’s group and the Anti-Defamation League, another national Jewish advocacy organization, have entered schools and trained about 1,500 county educators on Jewish identity, antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and recognizing and correctly responding to implicit and explicit bias against Jews.

The district has also revised the elementary and middle school social studies curriculums to expose students to the Jewish experience, the Holocaust, and antisemitism earlier. It has introduced clearer reporting processes and disciplinary responses, leading to consequences such as suspensions for students committing antisemitic acts. And this summer, officials say they plan to run hate-bias trainings for all staff.

But in the process of addressing the concerns of Jewish constituents, the school district has drawn criticism from other groups within the community. Teachers who were initially placed on leave by the district for allegedly expressing antisemitism in 2023 have been reinstated. Three of them are suing the district for ethnicity, religion and viewpoint discrimination, claiming they shared pro-Palestinian and pro-peace messages that were not antisemitic.

Even the Jewish community is split. Some Jewish parents are uncomfortable with the district’s approach, calling for a clear distinction between antisemitism and legitimate criticism of Israel, and rejecting any move toward censorship. Meanwhile, other parents say the district’s measures against antisemitism have not adequately protected their children.

And it’s not just parents and teachers confronting school district officials. Earlier this month, alongside school leaders from New York and California, Montgomery County Board of Education President Karla Silvestre faced hours of questioning from congressional Republicans regarding the district’s response to antisemitism. The focus of many questions was on the district’s decision not to fire teachers who made pro-Palestinian statements perceived by some as antisemitic.

After she finished testifying, Silvestre was confronted with more questions from Kobie, who was present during the hearing. He and other Jewish residents from the school district met with lawmakers to share their experiences with antisemitism and to press district officials on safety concerns.

Some Democrats criticized the premise of the hearing, accusing Republican lawmakers of attempting to score political points and overlooking antisemitic actions within their own party.

Still, the hearing concluded with a prevailing sense that district officials have lots of work to do.

Antisemitic hate at school rises in diverse county

Jews make up about 2.4% of the U.S. population, but they make up roughly 10% of Montgomery County. Despite their substantial presence — or perhaps because of it — the number of antisemitic incidents in the community has risen recently.

In 2022 and 2023, before the most recent war, police reports describe several school-related antisemitic incidents. Someone spray-painted the phrase “Jews Not Welcome” onto a sign outside Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland. There were also multiple incidents involving swastikas drawn on school property.

Rabbi Noah Diamondstein speaks to students who walked out of class at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland, in 2022 in response to antisemitic graffiti. Advocates say the school district has made progress in its response to antisemitism but more needs to be done.

Data from the county police department shows that reports of hate incidents for all groups in schools spiked over the last two years, but most of the growth was driven by anti-Jewish and anti-Black incidents. Montgomery County Public Schools experienced a 383% increase in school-based hate incidents from 2021 to 2022. And that only increased again in 2023, with anti-Jewish and anti-Black incidents occurring most frequently.

This trend aligns with recent national data from the FBI showing that antisemitism “drove 63% of reported religiously motivated hate crimes.”

Siegel from the JCRC said the Jewish students her organization is in contact with feel ostracized, exhausted from trying to navigate the war with friends, and fearful for their futures. And she finds herself working with younger and younger students each year.

“Before the last two years, we had not really engaged with elementary school principals and teachers,” Siegel said. “But now we have.”

Student refuses to be his community’s ‘quiet Jew’

Kobie is engaged on his own mission to educate people in the district.

An 11th grader, Kobie describes himself as an “openly Jewish” and Orthodox. With tzitzit visible at his waist, a yarmulke on his head, and his grandfather’s military dog tags identifying him as Jewish always in his pocket, he has chosen to assert his identity in school.

He’s been greeted in the hallways with shouts of “Jew boy” and the Nazi salute. He’s been called a “Jewish f---” so casually it sounds like a mere descriptor to his classmates. He refers to his peers as “kids” who may be brainwashed by TikTok.

“I feel like you don’t know what you’re saying or doing. They just seemed like idiots,” he said, shaking his head like a disappointed father.

He sees himself as a source of information about Jewish culture and identity for his peers. He volunteers to give presentations on the Holocaust in class, with permission from instructors. He says classmates respond with positive curiosity, asking clarifying questions. He hopes these efforts will help reduce the antisemitism he and other Jewish kids experience.

However, he also has days where antisemitism in his high school makes him want to punch a hole in the wall. And the lack of response from teachers is the salt in the wound, leaving him isolated and disappointed.

What’s taken on additional importance since Oct. 7 is that Kobie is a strong supporter of Israel who thinks criticism of the country often stems from antisemitism.

A military dog tag that once belonged to Kobie Talmoud's grandfather and identifies him as Jewish.

He speaks up when he thinks teachers are taking sides in the conflict, including reporting a teacher for wearing a keffiyeh, the checkered scarf is considered a symbol of Palestinian identity and resistance.

Kobie associates it with terrorism.

Kobie said that when he challenged the teacher about wearing the scarf, the teacher said: “‘I am representing peace.” Kobie said he responded: “No, you are not.”

“Why should I be the quiet Jew? … If not for me, who? If not now, when?” he said, paraphrasing Hillel, a Jewish scholar from two millennia ago.

Pro-Palestinian messages spur punishments for teachers

Kobie isn’t the only person in the district who refuses to be quiet.

Montgomery County educators frequently take clear political and social stances — openly supporting movements like Black Lives Matter or LGBTQIA+ rights. And alongside the rise in antisemitism, teachers and students who support the Palestinian cause have become more vocal about their views as the civilian death toll in Gaza rises.

However, the district cracked down on this particular wave of educator activism.

Last year, four teachers were placed on leave, then reinstated and assigned to different schools, after sharing pro-Palestinian messages that some interpreted as antisemitic.

One teacher wore homemade pins and buttons that included slogans like “Free Palestine.” She also updated her email signature to include the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

Many Jews interpret this expression as a call for the destruction of Israel and the expulsion or murder of Jews. The teachers said it stands for freedom for all people living in Israel and Palestine, an interpretation shared by many Muslims, according to polling.

“Our teachers did not say anything that was harmful. They did not say anything that was hateful,” said Rawda Fawaz, an attorney representing three of the teachers, who sued the district for monetary damages and to stop them from enforcing policies on the basis of viewpoint, subject matter, ethnicity, and religion, in addition to other requests. “They expressed support for the Palestinian people and they expressed criticism and disappointment in both the Israeli and U.S. government in how they were approaching the situation in Gaza.”

Related: Meet the students who support — and oppose — the pro-Palestinian encampment on Denver’s Auraria campus

Fawaz calls what the district has done “content discrimination,” saying other teachers have made politically charged posts on other topics without repercussions. She also says one of her clients was targeted because she is a Muslim, Arab woman.

A fourth teacher, who is not involved in the lawsuit, was accused of sharing conspiracy theories on social media and denying that atrocities took place on Oct. 7.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights recently issued updated guidance to schools about protecting Jewish, Israeli, Arab, and Muslim students from harassment and discrimination based on nationality or shared ancestry.

The guidance provides examples of when political speech could contribute to a hostile environment at school, such as screaming “terrorist” at pro-Palestinian protesters or yelling slurs at Jewish students during a protest of the screening of an Israeli film. But criticism of Israel or its policies would be protected under the First Amendment — unless it was accompanied by discriminatory comments or harassing behavior, the guidance said.

Explaining the district’s justification for disciplining but ultimately not firing the teachers, Silvestre told lawmakers during the congressional hearing the teachers in question know that if they engage in such conduct again, “there will be deeper consequences, up to and including termination.”

Silvestre also said district officials would be the first to admit they haven’t “gotten it right every time” when it comes to responding to antisemitism, or making Jewish students feel safe at school. But she also said they have made significant changes and intend to continue working with parents and other interest groups to do more.

Balancing support for Israel with backing free speech

But some Jewish parents are wary about the pressures the district is under with respect to antisemitism.

Greengrass, the parent of a recent graduate and a high school freshman, was one of more than 150 former students, parents, teachers, and staff who signed a letter urging the Montgomery County school district to recognize that some Jews welcome criticism of Israel and Zionism, while also fighting antisemitism.

“All Jewish students, no matter their views on Jewishness and the question of Palestine, are entitled to inclusion and respect. Indeed, all students are entitled to such inclusion and respect. This includes Muslim and Palestinian students,” the people said in the letter, which they released before Silvestre’s appearance on Capitol Hill. “We must reject the notion that the safety or comfort of any particular set of students can come at the expense of that of other groups.”

Greengrass knows her views puts her at odds with many members of her community — even sometimes her own husband.

Mara Greengrass, the Jewish mother of a recent graduate and a freshman in Montgomery County Public Schools, worries about conflating criticisms of Israel and antisemitism.

Greengrass has a Black Lives Matter sign in her yard and celebrates Shabbat every Friday night. She does not consider herself religious. She considers herself culturally Jewish and progressive.

She has a strong emotional attachment to Israel and sees it as a refuge for Jews. But she balks at the idea that criticizing Israel or questioning Zionism is antisemitic.

“The problem is that it conflates Jews and Israel, which is exactly what we have been saying everybody shouldn’t do,” Greengrass said.

She also does not believe that expressions of support for Palestinians, like what some teachers have expressed in Montgomery County schools, are inherently antisemitic.

“Statements like ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,’ can mean different things to different people,” she said.

Falling out with friends over the Israel-Hamas war

With discussions, walkouts, and passionate expressions about the war, both Jewish and Muslim students across the country say they are exhausted but hope their schools can still be safe places for them to learn.

That aspiration doesn’t mean all their relationships have survived unscathed.

Kobie, like nearly half of all young adult Jews, says he has cut ties with friends over comments he deems antisemitic about the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Referring to one friend he fell out with, Kobie said: “I blocked her on everything I had with her. … She’s graduating early so, um, bye.” He then dismissively swatted away the thought of his former friend with his hand.

But even with all his resolve, Kobie is also planning to take a break. After graduation, he plans to take a gap year and live in Israel. He then wants to go to college and major in political science.

After the protests at Ivy League institutions like Columbia University, he is not even considering applying to those schools.

Greengrass, meanwhile, remains unsettled about the district’s direction. Two of the teachers placed on leave over allegations of antisemitism taught her son a few years back. She chose not to tell him to spare him from being upset.

She doesn’t feel students, teachers, and the district should approach the issue of the Oct. 7 attacks, Palestinians, and antisemitism with the same reticence.

“You need to be able to say, ‘I disagree with this, but I understand why you feel that way,’” Greengrass said. “That’s how I feel about the teachers.”

A court order forced Fayette County schools to integrate. Will progress continue without it?

2024-05-17T21:17:49+00:00

Read more of Chalkbeat's coverage of the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

As in many school districts across the South, where segregation was once the law, it took protests and a court order to desegregate public schools in Fayette County, Tennessee.

That order came nearly a dozen years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which declared legally mandated racial segregation in schools unconstitutional.

Fayette County, a place where new homes are sprouting like spring grass in towns on its outskirts, is still operating under the 1965 order. The order has led to racially integrated schools, with Black and white students proportionally represented in most of the four elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school. Growing numbers of Hispanic students are also enrolling, and the current superintendent, Versie Ray Hamlett, is Black.

That’s a vast change from what 78-year-old Myles Wilson, a former Fayette County school superintendent and now a school board member, faced in 1963, when he was reading hand-me-down books at all-Black Fayette County Training School.

“The textbooks were terrible,” Wilson recalled. “Sometimes, entire pages would be destroyed. I guess they were tearing pages out because they knew they would be passed down to us.”

But, Wilson added, “We’ve made some great strides. We’ve had seven Black superintendents since 1984.”

Yet Wilson said he and other members of the community are worried that progress, so hard won, could erode once a new consent decree that the Justice Department issued in 2023 is satisfied – and the 1965 court order is lifted.

“A lot of Blacks feel like we shouldn’t be released from the consent decree, because they’ll go back to the old way, because that’s what’s happened in the rest of the country,” he said.

Many school districts across the country still have racially segregated schools, and school segregation has increased in the last three decades.

Sean Reardon, a professor of poverty and inequality in education at Stanford University and Ann Owens, a University of Southern California sociologist, released a study this month showing how an increase in school segregation has been driven by two factors: school districts being released from court oversight and an expansion in school choice policies, particularly the spread of charter schools.

That follows what Reardon and researchers at Stanford found in a 2012 study. According to their analysis, school districts released from desegregation orders in the two decades after 1990 began to resegregate. Ones that continued to be under judicial oversight did not.

“These results suggest that court-ordered desegregation plans are effective in reducing racial school segregation, but that their effects fade over time in the absence of continued court oversight,” the abstract said.

Fayette County’s long fight for civil rights

In Fayette County, the original court order to desegregate the schools was part of a protracted battle for civil rights, one that the New York Times described in 1969 as the “longest sustained civil rights protest in the nation.”

It began in 1959, when John McFerren and Harpman Jameson, both farmers and World War II veterans, attended the trial of Burton Dodson, a Black man who was accused of murder and had escaped a lynch mob.

McFerren and Jameson learned that because few Blacks were registered to vote, it would be impossible for Dodson to get a jury that wasn’t all-white. At the urging of Dodson’s lawyer, James Estes, McFerren and Jameson began to register Black sharecroppers to vote – a move that resulted in many of them being evicted by their white landlords.

Evicted families pitched tents on the outskirts of Somerville, the Fayette County seat, and activists from around the nation joined them.

The tent city disbanded in 1962 after the Justice Department sued the landowners, and the courts ordered them to stop interfering in the rights of Black people to vote or run for office. But the fight for racial justice was far from over – as Wilson would learn.

Myles Wilson poses for a portrait outside the Somerville Elementary School on Thurs., May 16, 2024 in Fayette County, Tennessee.

After graduating from Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, in 1967, Wilson was hired as a teacher at Fayette County Training School, arriving two years after the court order. He later sued the school system when he and all the single, Black male teachers were fired to prevent them from teaching white girls, he said.

The teachers were reinstated, and Wilson would file other lawsuits over the years to fight racial injustice in the system.

With his own battles for racial justice and desegregation behind him, Wilson fears that without the court order, Fayette County could backslide.

While the school district has satisfied many of the requirements of the court order, the new consent decree requires, among other things, that school officials work with the Justice Department and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to “develop an effective and sustainable student assignment policy to further desegregation in its schools.”

More white families are moving from Memphis to Oakland, a town in Fayette County, and demands are growing for a new high school there – even though the county’s only high school, Fayette-Ware High School, is under capacity, he said.

The school can accommodate 1,300 students, Wilson said, but currently enrolls about 833. Of those, 61% are Black, and 30% are white. He fears that the addition of a new high school could drive segregation.

Wilson also fears that the recent push for universal vouchers by Republican lawmakers – a battle that Gov. Bill Lee has vowed to revive next year – could also erode desegregation progress in Fayette County by giving families public dollars to enroll children in private schools.

One private school in the county, Fayette Academy, was established as an all-white school in 1965, as the desegregation order was handed down. In 1971, U.S. District Judge Robert McRae, whose orders led to school desegregation in Memphis and later upheld busing, called the school “a beautiful building sitting on top of a hill as a monument against the black people.”

The private Christian school remains predominantly white.

Daphene McFerren, daughter of John McFerren and whose brother John McFerren Jr. was one of the original plaintiffs in the desegregation lawsuit, said that if the order is lifted, it doesn’t have to mean the end of progress.

“I don’t want to speculate on where this can end up, because who knows?” said McFerren, who is the executive director of the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis.

But, McFerren said, the fact that the school district is abiding by the consent decree means they are cooperating.

“That should be acknowledged,” she said. “But we should be vigilant in that the goal of this is to eradicate any form of discrimination where it exists in the education of our children.”

McFerren, however, described it as a “Catch-22″ situation. Satisfying the consent decree should mean that the district has met its desegregation goals. But will the district continue to maintain those goals once the mechanism forcing it to do so is gone?

“Well, as I always say, a case can always be reopened,” McFerren said.

Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s education coverage. Reach her at tweathersbee@chalkbeat.org.

Seven decades after Brown v. Board, inequities challenge Michigan’s most vulnerable students

2024-05-15T13:51:35+00:00

Read more of Chalkbeat's coverage of the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

Sign up for Chalkbeat Detroit’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and Michigan education policy

Seven decades after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled racial segregation unconstitutional, students of color in Michigan continue to attend schools rife with inequities.

The Education Trust-Midwest released a new report Wednesday that draws attention to these “devastating inequities” and renewed calls for a more equitable school funding system in Michigan to address them. It launched a new data tool that lets viewers see how much their schools would be funded if inequities were addressed.

The group also launched a new campaign involving a coalition of leaders across the state to call attention to “decades of neglect to Black, Latino/a students, and students from low-income backgrounds,” the resources and support their public schools need, and also the “urgent need to address profound pandemic learning losses” that hit underserved students especially hard.

“The urgency is to save another generation of students, so they can compete in a global economy and achieve the American dream of a good quality of life,” said Alice Thompson, chair of the education committee of the Detroit NAACP and one of the chairpersons of the statewide coalition.

Among the dire findings highlighted in the report:

Nearly half of Michigan students of color and two-thirds of all Black students attended schools in districts with high concentrations of poverty, where 73% or more of the students come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. That compares with 13% of white students.
Michigan students in districts with the highest concentrations of poverty are much less likely to have highly experienced teachers who are, on average, more likely to be effective.
School-age children across the state have lost roughly half of a grade or more of learning in math and reading since the pandemic started. In school districts that serve predominantly Black and Latino students and students from low-income backgrounds, such as Kalamazoo and Lansing, learning losses were dramatically worse.
At the current pace of educational recovery, most students would need an additional five years to catch up in math. In reading, most Michigan students would need decades — well beyond their time in school — to be able to read at their grade level, according to research from the Education Recovery Scorecard.
School funding disparities between wealthy and less-resourced schools make it harder for high-poverty districts to support their students’ educational recovery from the pandemic.

“Segregation in education is not only happening based on race, but also based on socioeconomic status, and very frequently at the intersection of both of those factors,” said Jen DeNeal, director of policy and research at the Education Trust-Midwest. “And we know that concentrated poverty in particular is a real challenge in Michigan.”

Schools with high concentrations of poverty, she said, tend to have fewer resources, less experienced teachers, higher teacher turnover, and increased exposure to environmental hazards and safety concerns.

Last year, the organization and others urged state lawmakers to adopt what they called an “opportunity index” that would provide additional money to districts serving communities with higher concentrations of poverty. The budget for this current year adopted that proposal, which has provided an additional $1 billion in funding to districts to serve at-risk students. But the opportunity index that went into effect doesn’t go as far as advocates wanted.

The Education Trust-Midwest’s new data tool will give families information that hasn’t been readily available. It shows them how much their districts are receiving now in per-pupil funding, including the additional amount they are receiving for at-risk students. A second column shows how much they would receive if the opportunity index was fully funded. And a third column shows how much districts would receive per student if they adopted a funding system similar to what Massachusetts adopted many years ago that has made it a leader in addressing funding inequities.

Here’s what the data tool shows for Detroit Public Schools Community District, the state’s largest district: DPSCD currently receives $10,862, including its basic per-pupil amount and its funding for at-risk students. If the opportunity index was fully funded, the district would receive $13,448 for each student. And if the Massachusetts funding model was used, the district would receive $17,881.

Lori Higgins is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at lhiggins@chalkbeat.org.

The 12 Black women behind Brown v. Board often go unrecognized. A new exhibit aims to change that.

2024-05-13T22:38:21+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

To unearth the forgotten history of the Kansas women who served as plaintiffs in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, Donna Rae Pearson had to dig.

Without published scholarship to go on, Pearson and two other researchers hunted down the women’s obituaries, cross-referenced their details against Census records and city directories, and pored over newspaper clippings, oral histories, and court transcripts.

It was no easy feat: Some women’s names had changed, and some had moved as far away as Oregon.

The result of their work is “The Women of Brown,” which recognizes the lives and contributions of the 12 Black mothers who signed their names, alongside Oliver Brown, to the lawsuit that reached the Supreme Court.

Twelve Black women participated in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, but they often get overlooked. A new exhibit aims to shine a light on their lives and contributions.

A pop-up exhibit showcasing their findings is traveling across Kansas to mark the 70-year anniversary of the landmark decision. That includes a stop at Topeka Public Schools’ commemorative event this week.

Pearson hopes that students and others who see the exhibit will leave curious to find out more about the Black women who committed acts of “everyday activism” to further their children’s education.

Read more of Chalkbeat's coverage of the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

“I don’t think Black women — I don’t think women — get the credit that they are supposed to have when it comes to these kinds of activities,” said Pearson, a museum curator at the Kansas Historical Society and a former local history librarian at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library. “I think that’s becoming more and more of a conversation that we have today: How did they contribute to these movements?”

The documents Pearson and her team collected will be housed at the Kansas Historical Society State Archives and Topeka’s local library, so future researchers won’t have to do as much legwork. Pearson is also starting to hear from relatives and others who knew the women, which she hopes will contribute to the scholarship, too.

“We just needed to bring them out of the dark,” she said. “We needed to say their names out loud again.”

Chalkbeat spoke with Pearson about why the 12 women joined the lawsuit and the challenges of researching Black women’s history. She also has thoughts on how students and teachers can keep the conversation going (see sidebar).

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How did the 12 Black women who became plaintiffs in the Brown case come to be part of the lawsuit?

We don’t know exactly how all of them came to be part of it. Lucinda Todd, one of the plaintiffs, and actually the first plaintiff to sign up, was heavily involved in the NAACP. She was on a special committee when talk of this lawsuit started happening, and she helped recruit parents.

We also identified different locations throughout the city [of Topeka] where these women could have possibly met. They were all involved in formal religious activities. Some of them went to church together. Some of them were involved in social clubs together. So we believe there was this network where they could have been simply having coffee or tea and saying: ‘Hey, I decided to sign up. How about you?’

Why have they historically gotten less attention than Oliver Brown?

In our legal system, ‘et al’ can hide a lot of things. That means ‘and more.’ Et al really covers up, initially, the fact that these women were part of the case.

But then you go into a little bit deeper reasons. These are Black women. And our history is not recorded as well as the majority’s history.

The case, initially, was not necessarily as well-received, for different reasons. Why this case happened does not fit our prevailing narrative [in Kansas] of being a ‘free state,’ a state about civil rights. We were actually one of three northern states that allowed permissive segregation, which means, by law, they could segregate.

What were the ways in which the women saw that their children were not getting equal opportunities as white children at school?

When you read the transcript from the local court trial, you’ll find that there were problems with the busing system and being able to pick up their children in a timely manner. The Brown children had to walk almost a mile by railroad tracks just to get to their bus stop. These long commutes would have interfered with their schooling. You’re going to get up earlier than a person who’s going to walk two minutes. That’s eating time before school and after school.

[Students who lived far from their schools] couldn’t go home for lunch. They had to bring lunch, and supposedly the lunch wasn’t going to be as nutritious as a hot, home-cooked meal.

There were other things, in terms of activities that were not available. What sparked some of this was Lucinda Todd was super mad about the fact that her daughter, Nancy, could not participate in the district-wide [music] program. There were 18 schools, but only 14 of them were participating. What schools did they leave out? The four Black schools. It was because of Lucinda Todd’s complaints that they were finally able to get [music programs].

There were sports available at the upper levels in Topeka, but the [activities were] segregated. So there was a Black basketball team and a white basketball team. There was a Black prom and a white prom. Even though they all went to school together, all those activities were actually segregated. [Kansas law at the time permitted segregated elementary schools, but high schools were supposed to be integrated.]

Initially, the women were featured in some news coverage, but then their voices just kind of dropped out. What were you able to glean from what they did share over the years?

As the secretary of the NAACP, Lucinda Todd sent out this very long press release that explains the case to the community. But over time, you see the male figures that were involved with the case, they continue to be elevated. But the women, you don’t see them asked as many questions later on, or any questions.

Toward the ‘80s and ‘90s, when the historic site was being lobbied for and built here, they brought them back again. Locally, the one disarming piece that I found was an article that was talking about them, and it tried to give a status update. It kept saying: ‘No information known.’ And we discovered that some of these women were actually still alive, living in the city.

But I also have to remember … the challenge with doing women’s history — not just Black women, but women in general — is we are [often] forced to change our names. In some cases, especially then, they were not referred to by their first and last name. They’re referred to as ‘Mrs. Brown.’ And it’s like: ‘Well, Mrs. Brown surely has a first name!’ So that made it a little bit challenging.

How do the women who participated in this lawsuit fit within the larger tradition of African American women participating in advocacy and organizing in their communities?

It’s kind of a culmination of all the experiences they were able to have. Colored women’s clubs were here as early as the 1890s. Black women are the backbone of those [church] organizations. When you decide to have an event at church, and you’re the one in charge, you start organizing. You start getting people on board, you start raising money.

Among "The Women of Brown" is Lucinda Todd, whose letter to the national NAACP sparked the lawsuit that reached the Supreme Court.

We had Black women who were involved in entrepreneurship. There were women who owned their own businesses. They were not used to necessarily sitting on the sidelines here. I think as organizers, they were in a community where it was acceptable for them to sign up and do things like this.

What lessons can we draw from ‘The Women of Brown’ about the significance of everyday activism?

I think we need to broaden our definition of what activism is. It is not always Martin Luther King, standing at a pulpit. Everyday activism is really the little things that you can do in your own community to make a difference. It’s when we take a stand for something that we believe in.

Some would say what I’m doing right now is being an activist. I’m bringing up a story; I’m posing challenging questions.

Did you make any personal connections to what you learned about the women of Brown?

As a historian, I very intentionally did not talk about the decision [in the past]. Part of the reason was because of the way it is portrayed in the media. Yes, it is a celebration of sorts. But y’all have to remember, the reason why this case happened is because there was blatant segregation in this state for an extended period of time, within our lives.

My class, when I entered elementary school in the ‘70s, was considered the first truly integrated class. My older brothers, my older sisters, in particular, went to segregated Black schools. And this was post the [Brown] decision. These are things we are still wrestling with.

I didn’t think we were looking at [the Brown decision] from a very truthful perspective. I don’t think we were looking at all the nuances, and the impact that it created on different communities.

During this time period, you had a couple of things happen to the Black community. Redlining forced us into one community. With desegregation of schools, you were breaking up that school network, that bonding of a community. Then the next step was urban renewal — that totally wiped out some of these communities.

I needed to look closer at the decision from another perspective, so I could understand it.

What would you like for students who are going to see the exhibit to take away from it?

I hope it’s a conversation-starter for them. I hope that they can relate to the women.

They were ignored. Hopefully, this will again bring them to the forefront and shine some light on them. Hopefully, it makes you curious enough to want to learn a little bit more about them.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Teachers can challenge Tennessee law limiting instruction on race, gender, and bias, judge rules

2024-05-09T21:45:13+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Tennessee’s free daily newsletter to keep up with statewide education policy and Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

Tennessee teachers can move forward with their lawsuit challenging a 3-year-old state law restricting what they can teach about race, gender, and bias.

U.S. District Court Judge Aleta Trauger denied the state’s motion to dismiss the case.

The Nashville judge also sided with educators over questions of whether they have legal grounds to sue the state, plus whether the federal court is the appropriate jurisdiction to take up complaints about the 2021 state law.

And in a 50-page memorandum to explain her single-page order, Trauger was frequently critical of the statute, which restricts teachers from discussing 14 concepts that the Republican-controlled legislature deemed cynical or divisive. She also cited shortcomings of related rules, developed by the state education department, to outline the processes for filing and investigating complaints, appealing decisions, and levying punishment that could strip teachers of their licenses and school districts of state funding.

“The Act simply invites a vast array of potentially dissatisfied individuals to lodge complaints based on their understanding of those concepts and then calls on the Commissioner [of Education], as a sort of state philosopher, to think deeply about what equality, impartiality, and other abstract concepts really mean and enforce the Act accordingly,” Trauger wrote in her May 2 memorandum.

Meanwhile, educators are at the mercy of the personal biases of authorities, which is “exactly what the doctrine of unconstitutional vagueness is intended to guard against,” she said.

The so-called prohibited concepts law was among the first of its kind in the nation that passed amid a conservative backlash to the racial-justice movement and protests prompted by the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis.

Among its prohibitions are classroom discussions about whether “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously.”

The law’s defenders note that it permits an “impartial discussion of controversial aspects of history,” or as Rep. John Ragan, the House sponsor, described it: “facts-based” instruction.

But teachers say they don’t know how to be impartial when teaching about the theories of racial superiority that led to slavery and Jim Crow laws. The resulting confusion has influenced the small but pivotal decisions they make every day about how to prepare for a lesson, what materials to use, and how to answer a student’s question, ultimately stifling classroom discussion, many critics of the law assert.

Last July, lawyers for five public school educators and the Tennessee Education Association, the state’s largest teacher organization, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Nashville.

The suit says the language of the law is unconstitutionally vague and that the state’s enforcement plan is subjective. The complaint also says the statute interferes with instruction on difficult but important topics included in state-approved academic standards, which dictate other decisions around curriculum and testing.

Trauger, who taught school for three years before entering law school, suggested that the ambiguity could lead to a lack of due process for educators under the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

“That does not mean that a law has to be wise or perfect or crystal clear, but it must mean something concrete and specific that a well-informed person can understand by reading its text,” she wrote in her memorandum.

Kathryn Vaughn, a Tipton County teacher who is among the plaintiffs, called the judge’s decision an important early step in the legal challenge.

“I’m thrilled that the judge listened to our concerns as educators and seemed to understand that this law puts teachers in an impossible position,” she told Chalkbeat on Thursday.

A spokesperson for the state attorney general’s office, which filed a motion for dismissal last September, declined to comment on the new development.

The judge set a June 17 scheduling meeting with attorneys in the case to discuss how to manage the litigation going forward.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to show the state attorney general’s office declined to comment.

Not just oppression: Lessons from one state on how schools can get Asian American history right

2024-05-09T11:01:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

A former California park ranger traced his fingers over the Chinese characters carved onto a wall. It was as if ghosts were there, sharing their stories, he said.

The ranger was standing in the immigration station on Angel Island, the lesser-known West Coast counterpart to Ellis Island. Tens of thousands of immigrants, mostly from China and Japan, were detained there in the early 1900s. Many left behind poems or messages.

Poems written in Chinese can be seen etched into the walls at the Angel Island Immigration Station in California.

Dozens of Illinois teachers watched the ranger in a recorded video. They had gathered over Zoom to learn about how they could incorporate Angel Island and other key elements of Asian American history into their lessons. It was part of a university-led training meant to help Illinois teachers comply with a three-year-old, first-in-the-nation law that requires schools statewide to teach at least one unit of Asian American history.

Laura Ouk, one of the trainers that April evening, pulled up two poems from Angel Island and asked the teachers to read them aloud. Then she offered some sample questions the teachers could use with their students to examine tone and themes, as well as how they might connect the poetry to the works of poets like Langston Hughes and Joy Harjo.

“They really appreciate being able to see it in action,” Ouk said, “rather than just being like: ‘Here’s a resource, now good luck!’”

Across the country, advocates are pushing for American history to include more perspectives and stories. Eleven states now require public schools to teach Asian American history in some capacity, and several others are considering similar proposals. But as states and school districts adopt new curriculum requirements, educators can struggle with their own lack of knowledge, where to find quality resources — and how to fit it all into an already crowded syllabus.

Laura Ouk demonstrates how teachers can use poems from Angel Island in their lessons as part of an April 2024 training about teaching Asian American history.

The work happening in Illinois offers insight into what can help. It’s common for teachers to feel overwhelmed and think: “I need to teach this, I don’t even fully know this yet,” said Ouk, the visiting inclusive education director at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s College of Education and Illinois State Board of Education.

To address that, teacher trainers say they’re modeling lessons, showing teachers where Asian American voices and experiences naturally fit within existing curriculum, and sharing strategies that are useful for teaching the history of many marginalized groups.

“We don’t want teachers to blow up their curriculums,” Ouk said.

Why states are requiring Asian American history lessons

When Illinois’ governor signed the Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History Act in 2021, it became the first state with a standalone law requiring public schools to teach Asian American history. Since then, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Florida have enacted similar laws.

Half a dozen other states — California, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon and Utah — require schools to teach Asian American history as part of a broader curriculum, according to a 2023 report by the Committee of 100, a nonprofit tracking these efforts.

Proponents of these laws say they’re necessary because students typically don’t learn much Asian American history at school.

Eighteen states are silent on what students should learn in their history classes, according to research conducted by Sohyun An, a professor of social studies education at Kennesaw State University.

Other states focus on just a handful of events in Asian American history, An found, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act, the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Often, that instruction presents Asian Americans as powerless victims, An said, without showing acts of resistance, such as how Chinese immigrants who built the railroad protested their working conditions and pay. And it tends to be simplistic, glossing over, for instance, how U.S. and European imperialism created economic hardships that forced many Chinese to leave their home country.

“When we teach about power and oppression, we need to highlight people’s agency, resistance, and solidarity,” An said. “That’s, I think, what good history education is about.”

Collaboration is key to Asian American history training

As happens in many states, Illinois did not offer additional funding to help schools fulfill the new Asian American history requirement. So nonprofits, universities, and foundations have stepped in to offer training and support.

Ouk is part of the University of Illinois’ efforts to offer teachers both live and go-at-your-own-pace sessions. Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Chicago, a nonprofit that works on racial equity issues, launched a free training for teachers in 2022 and put together written examples of how teachers can include Asian American experiences in their reading and social studies lessons.

The organization also maintains a giant database of lesson ideas.

“We’re trying to sift through all the garbage,” said Esther Hurh, an education consultant who helped develop the training and now leads sessions for educators. “Teachers want to do this, they just need people to support them.”

Together, the university and the nonprofit trained 1,700 teachers across Illinois last school year, the first year the new requirement was in effect. It’s a good start, advocates say, but a lot more teachers still need training. Without a better understanding of the Asian American experience, experts say, it’s harder for teachers to try out sample lessons, even if they’re good ones.

During the training that Hurh leads, teachers read reflections from Asian American teachers about how it felt not to see themselves in their own schools’ curriculum. Many felt ashamed or excluded.

Esther Hurh helped develop a teacher training for Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Chicago.

In one essay, a Japanese American teacher recalls that as her high school history class approached its unit on Japanese American incarceration, she readied herself to share what happened to her own family.

But the teacher sped through the lesson, and there was no time for sharing.

“When you’re negated in curriculum, that plays a huge role in how you feel and understand your connection to schooling,” Hurh said. “For a lot of teachers, that’s a very compelling argument for them to do this work. Because, in the end, they’re doing it for their students.”

The training breaks down the many nationalities and ethnic groups that fit within the Asian American umbrella. Teachers also learn about two major Asian American stereotypes — the racist “yellow peril” and the “model minority” — and how those ideas repeat throughout history.

With that groundwork laid, teachers watch several model lessons, including how they can include the story of Mamie Tape, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, in lessons about efforts to desegregate U.S. schools; how Larry Itliong, a Filipino American, contributed to the famous Delano grape strike; and how the children’s book “A Different Pond” can support teaching about the resettlement of Vietnamese refugees.

Trainers want to show teachers how they can choose literature and primary sources that not only center the voices of Asian Americans, but diversify the voices they include. Stories about Pacific Islanders and South and Southeast Asians tend to be even less represented than those from East Asia, Hurh noted.

How teachers have put their training into action

Tom McManamen, who heads the social studies department at Neuqua Valley High School in west suburban Chicago, walked away from his session with 24 pages of typed notes that he still consults.

He now looks for additional visuals as he teaches about what it means to be American. For example, he plays a video in his human geography class about a Sikh farmer in California. When his students see a man in cowboy boots wearing a turban, they often exclaim: “Oh, wow!”

High school teachers across McManamen’s school district and county are getting trained, too. One colleague used what he learned to incorporate the murder of Vincent Chin into lessons about immigration and the auto industry. Another used political cartoons to teach about Asian American stereotypes. The training helped teachers know what to look for as they searched for resources that weren’t shown during the training, too.

“What I love is when I hear them brainstorming over it,” McManamen said, “What used to be a difficult conversation, like: ‘How do we do this?’ It’s now: ‘Oh, you could do this, we could do this! I ran across this when I was watching TV that was totally a great example!’”

Still, even with this kind of training, experts in the field admit it can be difficult for teachers to cover as much ground as they might like, especially if their state also has requirements around teaching Black, Latino, and Indigenous histories.

An, of Kennesaw State University, noted that teaching students skills so they can conduct historical inquiries on their own helps them keep learning. That could include showing students how to find stories that challenge the dominant narrative, read between the lines of primary sources, or look for examples of resistance whenever there is oppression.

“We don’t have to teach every single topic,” An said. “One lesson can do so many things actually, if it’s well-done.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

NYC to restore a controversial admissions boost for Manhattan students, Banks says

2024-05-03T19:04:48+00:00

Schools Chancellor David Banks intends to bring back a controversial admissions bump for Manhattan eighth-graders at some of New York City’s most sought-after high schools, he told parents this week.

The rule, which was scrapped by former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2020, gave students from Manhattan’s District 2 first crack at a half dozen selective schools in the district, including Eleanor Roosevelt, NYC Lab School for Collaborative Studies, and Millennium High School. The district spans much of lower and midtown Manhattan along with the Upper East Side and is one of the city’s most affluent.

School integration advocates lauded de Blasio’s move. They argue that, in conjunction with other reforms, removing the district priority has significantly increased the share of Black, Latino, and low-income students at several of those schools.

But other parents have been forcefully pushing to restore the priority, saying that without it, district students have less of a chance of getting into coveted local schools and that some frustrated families are pulling out of the public school system altogether.

Banks, who has final say over school and district admissions policies, said at a raucous District 2 town hall Thursday night that he met with a group of those parents, including members of the local Community Education Council and the pro-screening group Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, known as PLACE, on Wednesday.

“They shared the effects of removing the priority to District 2 families,” he said. “And we are committed to granting D2 some kind of priority. I’m looking at various models as we speak,” he said. Details will be finalized before the start of the next admissions cycle this fall, he said. Applications are typically due in early December.

The announcement drew immediate plaudits from supportive council members at Thursday’s raucous town hall meeting, as well as boos from some members of the audience.

“I think that’s a huge win,” said Craig Slutzkin, a parent on District 2′s Community Education Council and PLACE member who met with Banks earlier this week. “It shows he understands the needs of District 2 families.”

The announcement set off alarm bells for school integration advocates, who worry reinstating the admissions priority could roll back significant progress diversifying some competitive high schools.

“It’s extremely frustrating and concerning and sad to hear that he meets with this really small group of constituents and then decides to reverse a policy that was extremely effective at opening access and opportunity for some of our most marginalized student groups in the city,” said Nyah Berg, the executive director of Appleseed NY, a group that advocates for school integration.

“For me, it’s fundamentally just not sound policy.”

Banks rolls back pandemic admissions reforms

The reinstatement of District 2 priority would represent another reversal of a de Blasio pandemic-era admissions reform meant to chip away at racial and economic segregation in the city’s stratified public middle and high schools.

Banks halted a de Blasio plan to phase out separate elementary school gifted and talented classes, and he allowed local superintendents to bring back selective screens at middle schools, which were banned during the pandemic.

Banks’s announcement about District 2 priority came the same day that New York’s appellate division ruled a lawsuit filed by student integration advocates could proceed. The suit claims that the city’s segregated school system denies Black and Latino students their constitutional right to a sound, basic education.

The District 2 admissions priority, which school officials introduced in the 1990s as an effort to keep middle class families from fleeing public schools, has long attracted intense criticism from integration advocates.

In general, the city’s system of high school choice aims to give students from across the city equal access to high schools. There are some schools that grant borough preferences and others that prioritize students from the surrounding neighborhoods, but the District 2 priority was unique in giving a district-wide bump at some of the city’s most-sought after schools.

In practice, the rule virtually guaranteed that students outside of the district would not have a shot at getting into a handful of coveted high schools, no matter how stellar their academic records.

Eleanor Roosevelt offered 100% of its seats to District 2 students in 2017, while Baruch College Campus High School was 98% District 2 students, Chalkbeat reported in 2018.

In the months leading up to de Blasio’s 2020 decision to scrap the District 2 priority, several principals of schools included in the policy spoke out against the practice.

“The lack of diversity among students, faculty and staff is a disservice to our community as a whole,” Eleanor Roosevelt principal Dimitri Saliani wrote in a 2020 email to parents, according to the New York Times.

Removing District 2 priority, in conjunction with broader changes to the admissions system for selective high schools and initiatives from individual schools to set aside more seats for underrepresented students, has made a significant impact at several schools.

In the span of a single year, Eleanor Roosevelt went from sending 1% of its offers to students outside District 2, to 62% after the district priority was removed. The share of offers going to low-income students jumped from 16% to 50%.

Over time, the changes have profoundly shifted the demographics of schools like Roosevelt, which is now 27% Black and Latino and 37% low-income students. The school was 12% Black and Latino and 19% low-income students in 2019.

The NYC Lab School for Collaborative Studies jumped from 14% Black and Latino and 28% low-income students in 2019 to 20% Black and Latino and 43% low-income students in 2022. A similar change happened at Baruch College Campus High School.

At Millennium High School in lower Manhattan (which gave priority to students living or attending school south of East Houston or West Houston Street) and School of the Future in Gramercy, the numbers of Black and Latino and low-income students have stayed relatively flat. And at the NYC Museum School in Chelsea, the share of Black and Latino and low-income students decreased.

District families have mixed reactions

Slutzkin cited intense demand from district parents to bring back the rule, saying he heard from roughly 1,000 people in support of a petition to reinstate it.

He also pointed to the fact that only 55% of District 2 students got an admissions offer at one of their top three high school choices last year, the lowest rate of any district in the city, according to Education Department data.

“No families should be forced to have excessive commutes to go to schools that meet their needs,” he said.

But Gavin Healy, another parent on the local education council, said the relatively low rate of top choice matches for District 2 students likely has to do with families disproportionately selecting a small number of highly-competitive schools on their application.

“Manhattan has room, it’s just not at the schools that some of the families in the district want,” he said.

Slutzkin argued that schools with open seats in Manhattan may have low graduation rates and would not meet the needs of high-achieving students, saying it’s “incumbent upon the Education Department to work on those schools and get them to be schools that are desired.”

Proponents of the D2 admissions priority have also argued that some district families are pulling out of the public school system and enrolling in private school because they’re not getting into their top choice public schools.

One Manhattan principal of a school that formerly offered District 2 priority wasn’t surprised that officials plan to reinstate the policy.

“I get the sense that the battle to keep students in the public schools for financial reasons is a big one,” said the principal, who spoke anonymously because they weren’t authorized to talk to the press. “They need to put up dams, and this is one way.”

Healy said he was “not worried about the threat of people leaving,” adding that the district is also seeing an influx of new students, including asylum seekers.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

‘Ruthless in our pursuit of equity:’ How Denver is approaching its Black Student Success work

2024-04-29T15:57:39+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

Giant easel-sized sticky notes hung on the walls of Nicole Saab’s classroom. On each, Saab had written a student’s name and a simple prompt: Ask me about banning books! Ask me about cyberbullying! Ask me about children and video games!

The topics had been chosen by her eighth grade literacy students at Denver Green School Southeast. The activity was a group brainstorming session to help guide students’ research. As Bob Marley played through the classroom speakers, Saab directed her students, pencils in hand, to move from poster to poster, writing questions about their classmates’ research topics.

“Write something you would want to know,” Saab told her students. “Be curious. Challenge that person. Like, really challenge them.”

The activity was typical of Saab’s approach to teaching: Students were up out of their seats, moving around, making noise, and engaging with each other. “No opt outs” is one of Saab’s classroom rules, although she makes exceptions for students who are tired or hungry, giving them short breaks or one of the snacks she keeps stashed in a corner.

Saab is one of 10 Denver Public Schools teachers who’ve helped their Black students achieve stellar academic progress and whose teaching methods are being studied by university researchers as part of the district’s Black Student Success work.

Saab’s syllabus includes literature ranging from George Orwell’s classic novel “Animal Farm” to rapper Tupac Shakur’s poem “The Rose That Grew From Concrete.” Saab also opens up to her students, sharing her heritage — she’s Lebanese — and her own experiences as a Denver Public Schools student whose father was a longtime principal.

“I am the warm demander,” Saab said in an interview. “I will love up on you, but I have super high expectations and this will be a rigorous class.”

Once the researchers have finished their study of Saab and the other teachers, the idea is to spread whatever effective teaching methods they find throughout the district, starting next year with six elementary schools.

“We want to be strategic,” said Michael Atkins, the district’s new director of Black Student Success. “These six schools are a learning lab so our babies can inform us of what we’re doing well or what we’re not before we full-scale do things we think will work.”

DPS has for the past five years put an emphasis on improving education for Black students, ever since the school board passed a Black Excellence Resolution in 2019. The Black Student Success team, led by Atkins, was created this school year and is the latest phase of that work. The district has budgeted $750,000 for the team’s work next year, a district spokesperson said.

About 14% of Denver’s 88,000 students are Black, and data shows the district is not serving them well. Black students are more likely to be harshly disciplined than white students, and they are less likely to score at grade level on state literacy and math tests.

The mandate of the 2019 resolution, and the idea behind the new Black Student Success work, is to change that. It’s a mission that’s personal to Atkins, who attended DPS during the era of busing to integrate Denver schools and faced discrimination and low expectations. Before he took this position, Atkins was principal of Stedman Elementary, one of Denver’s most integrated schools.

“My whole goal in education is to make sure that babies that look like me don’t have the same experience I did walking the halls of DPS,” he said.

Eighth graders Rishon Harvey, left, and Shahed Eissa work together in Nicole Saab's literacy class at Denver Green School Southeast.

Some principals see chance to ‘break the system’

Chris Fleming is principal of Joe Shoemaker School, an elementary school about five miles southeast of Denver Green School. Shoemaker is one the six schools in the inaugural Black Student Success cohort, all of which serve a significant population of Black students — and all of which have principals who want to do better by those students.

About a quarter of students at Shoemaker are Black, higher than the district average. Just 9% of Black students at Shoemaker met expectations on the state literacy test last spring, according to state data. That’s compared to 35% of white students who did.

The test score gap between Black students and white students — a persistent and pervasive problem at schools across the country — is the biggest issue Fleming hopes Denver’s new Black Student Success team can address districtwide.

“We want to be a place that has a lab site that’s like, ‘We’ve figured this out. We have a cadre of schools that, in my most aspirational dream, have eliminated the achievement gap,’” Fleming said. “That’s a big goal. But why not shoot for it?”

Shoemaker has had a taste of success already. For the past two years, the school has experimented with what it calls “equity cohorts.”

Each teacher picks four to seven students of color, with an emphasis on Black students, who are reading significantly below grade level, Fleming said. The teachers focus on building relationships with those students, nurturing them socially and academically. Out of about 450 students last school year, Fleming counted 187 who were getting extra attention.

When Fleming and other school leaders would go into teachers’ classrooms to observe, they zeroed in on the students in the equity cohorts. Whereas a teacher’s unconscious bias may have caused them to not call on those students as much or discipline them more, Fleming said, “when teachers knew we were watching those students, that changed.”

Test scores also improved. Although most Shoemaker students were still reading below grade level, students of color made higher-than-average gains, resulting in a splash of green on the school’s color-coded report card in a sea of yellow and red.

“That was the validation,” Fleming said. “We knew it was the right thing.”

But the equity cohorts have been harder to maintain this year, Fleming said. There are multiple reasons, including teacher turnover and a host of new district and school initiatives. That’s the reason Fleming wanted to participate in the Black Student Success work.

“Like with anything else, when you take on too many initiatives, it’s too much,” Fleming said. “Anytime you can narrow a focus, you have more success.”

Principals at other participating schools echoed Fleming.

“There are so many different competing priorities in a school district,” said Corey Jenks, principal at Columbine Elementary, located in a historically Black northeast Denver neighborhood where gentrification has caused Columbine’s Black student population to dwindle to about 21%. “I’m most excited to have a very clear, very specific and really relevant focus that I know will stay true.”

Gabriela Quiroga-Beck, principal at far northeast Denver’s Oakland Elementary, where about 20% of the student population is Black, said she was hesitant to join the cohort of six schools. She worried the initiative would be like others that gained steam but then petered out.

“But in this case, the six of us, we wanted to do something, we wanted to change the system,” Quiroga-Beck said of herself and the other principals. “So I said yes.”

“This is a great opportunity,” she added, “to kind of break the system in favor of our Black students.”

Nicole Saab is one of 10 Denver Public Schools teachers whose Black students have made stellar academic progress. University researchers have spent time in her classroom studying her teaching methods.

‘We have to be ruthless in our pursuit of equity’

The work is still in the beginning stages. The researchers, including Erin Anderson, an associate professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Denver, are finishing their study of Saab and the other highly effective teachers.

Anderson said her hope is to pull out “actionable change ideas” that teachers at the six schools in the cohort could try in their own classrooms next school year.

“We are really trying to take research and put it back into practice,” Anderson said. “From practice to research to practice is sort of the model here.”

Meanwhile, the principals of the six schools will attend leadership training this summer through the University of Virginia, a program widely used by DPS and other districts around the country.

But first, on a Friday afternoon in March, the principals gathered in a conference room at DPS headquarters to strategize. Atkins opened the session with a metaphor.

Students, he said, are like plants. Educators are like rain. And you know those little stickers, Atkins said, that come with plants? The ones that tell you, based on the number of raindrop icons, exactly how much rain the plants need? Every student has one of those stickers.

“What is that raindrop icon for our Black students?” Atkins said.

On sticky notes, the principals wrote problems they’re trying to solve. Students being bored and unengaged in class. Too many absences. Generational trauma from bad experiences in school. The principals asked big, brainstorming-type questions about possible solutions.

“How are you getting every single kid to soak up everything you say and collaborate in small groups without you having to monitor them because they are so excited about their own success?” said Jenks, the principal at Columbine Elementary.

Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero stopped by the session. He thanked the principals for agreeing to take part in something innovative — “Is it a bit of an exploration? Yes, it is.” — and pointed to where the word “equity,” one of the district’s core values, was written on the wall.

“We have to be ruthless in our pursuit of equity beyond just the fancy words we have plastered,” he said. “I’m excited for this work — we’re putting a lot into it — and I’m excited that it’s you all.”

It’s work that, if successful, could impact how the district serves other student groups. Marrero has talked about starting a Latinx Student Success team.

Improving classroom instruction by studying teachers like Saab will likely be just one prong of the district’s plan. Saab, who spends half her time teaching and half her time coaching other teachers at her school, said she felt proud to be chosen for the study.

She conceded it’s not possible to coach personality; some teachers are naturals at connecting with students, she said, while others are not. But she said it is possible to coach best practices: “How does a classroom look more collaborative? How do you engage with a student who looks like they’re opting out? Is it punitive or do you get to know them?

“You can do the work,” Saab said of teachers. “I think that’s what’s important.”

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Don’t scale back sports access, advocates and students tell NYC

2024-04-17T21:43:47+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

In late 2022, New York City’s Public Schools Athletic League made a bold promise: By the following spring, every public high school student would have access to all 25 sports the league offers.

To reach that goal, officials proposed expanding a program called “individual access” that allows students without a particular sports team at their school to try out for that team at a nearby campus.

The expansion was a game-changer for schools like the Urban Assembly Bronx Academy of Letters that don’t have enough students to reliably field a wide variety of sports teams, said David Garcia-Rosen, the dean and athletic director of the 470-student school.

“In spring of 2023, every single kid in New York City, no matter where they went to school, had the opportunity to play whatever sport they wanted to play,” Garcia-Rosen said.

But Garcia-Rosen, a veteran advocate for sports equity in city schools, is worried that the Education Department is quietly laying the groundwork to scale back the initiative. And he’s gearing up for a fight. The dispute over individual access is the latest chapter in a long-running fight over sports equity in New York City schools.

Despite previously pledging to open individual access to “all” students, the PSAL updated its website in February to describe the individual access program as a “pilot” for students at schools with fewer than six teams in “targeted districts.”

That language is in line with the stipulations in a 2022 legal settlement about sports equity. But it excludes the vast majority of city students.

An Education Department spokesperson said the PSAL is now prioritizing individual access requests from kids in schools with the least access to sports. The spokesperson said roughly 1,500 students participated in individual access this year, but didn’t share how many kids participated last year.

Officials concluded that guaranteeing individual access beyond what was required by the legal settlement “moved us away” from the goal of increasing sports access for entire schools, the spokesperson said.

To better achieve that goal, officials have expanded the number of new teams by 222 over the last three years and created 20 shared-access programs between schools.

“There has been no scaling back of our commitment to providing equitable access to PSAL sports, and students and families have told us that they want access to teams at or close to their home school,” said spokesperson Nathaniel Styer.

But Garcia-Rosen said that approach demonstrates a “complete lack of understanding of how to solve the problem,” because equity isn’t achieved by simply expanding the number of teams. He noted that small schools often can’t sustain the teams because of their low student numbers.

Garcia-Rosen filed a complaint Wednesday with the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights alleging that curtailing individual access disproportionately harms Black and Hispanic students.

A long-running fight for sports equity

Black and Hispanic students are disproportionately clustered in small schools like Bronx Letters, meaning they’ve historically had far less access on average to a wide variety of sports.

Just 38% of Black and Hispanic students go to a school with 20 or more teams, compared to 61% of students who are white, Asian, multiracial, or belong to other groups, according to research compiled by Garcia-Rosen.

A major milestone came in 2022, when the city agreed in a legal settlement to add 200 new teams in future years and expand a “shared access” program that allowed small schools in the same geographic area to combine sports programs.

The city also committed to offering individual access to students in schools with under six teams and couldn’t participate in shared sports programs because of their location.

But Garcia-Rosen argues that those steps alone won’t erase the equity issues.

That’s why universal individual access — what Garcia-Rosen calls the “holy grail of equity” — is so transformative.

“It’s really simple, and it’s done all over the country,” he said. “If you go to a school that doesn’t have the team you want to play, you could try out [at] another school in the district.”

Students, educators report positive results

Students at Bronx Letters, a public school for students in grades 6-12, are accustomed to not knowing year to year whether there will be enough interested students to field a given team.

This school year, Bronx Letters didn’t have enough kids for a girls basketball team.

But 15-year-old sophomore Jayla Jerez, an avid player, was able to join the team at South Bronx Prep, just a five-minute walk from her school, through the individual access program.

“It was just a great experience,” she said. “I felt good to be able to play and get more used to being on the court and being more open to socializing with people.”

Bronx Academy of Letters student Jayla Jerez, wearing number 20, playing on the South Bronx Prep basketball team through the city's individual access program.

Jerez values basketball and wants to keep playing. If she can’t participate through individual access, she might have to consider transferring schools, she said — an option she is not relishing.

Losing a guarantee to individual access for all students could also change how schools communicate with families about sports options, he said. Last year, Garcia-Rosen could promise prospective families that their kid would have access to every PSAL sport at Bronx Letters. He even printed a banner advertising that option.

Without that same assurance for next year, he said, “when a family comes to pick a high school, I can’t guarantee them that they come to this school and have access to every sport.”

Setting up the individual access program requires clearing some administrative and logistical hurdles, but administrators have largely reported positive results, Garcia-Rosen found.

He said he reached out to athletic directors and principals across the city, and 49 of the 51 who responded said they supported maintaining universal individual access.

One athletic director from Manhattan, who asked to speak on the condition of anonymity, told him “it has definitely taken a lot of work to get this program off the ground but it is working and students are playing. It will only get better as we invest in it more!”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Students of color more likely to attend schools with dress code policies in Chicago Public Schools

2024-03-26T19:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the latest education news.

When Nastassia Tyler attended Lincoln Park High School in 2018, she noticed that her school had an “unofficial” dress code that seemed to be enforced disproportionately on Black and Hispanic girls.

For example, Lincoln Park made students whose shorts were deemed to be too high-cut wear gym clothes for the rest of the day, and security guards responsible for enforcing the policy tended to target “fuller-bodied” Black and Hispanic girls as opposed to their white peers, said Tyler, who is Black.

Tyler graduated from Florida Atlantic University in 2022 and currently works as a firefighter in Georgia, but she still thinks about what she believes were unfair conditions in her high school.

“It was hard to dress sometimes in the summer because it was so hot and the school didn’t have AC, but if you happen[ed] to show too much of your legs or something you’d get in trouble,” she said. “I remember thinking it was ridiculous to control what someone wears in a hot classroom.”

Across Chicago Public Schools, low-income Black students and other students of color are more likely to attend a high school with a dress code, according to data for the 2023-24 school year.

Schools that maintain strict dress codes are more likely to enforce punitive discipline, such as suspensions and expulsions, said Jacqueline Nowicki, a director at the U.S. Government Accountability Office who has published research regarding inequalities in public schools.

Numerous studies show that dress codes are not equally enforced across the country, with students of color being punished for infractions even though they do not commit them at a higher rate. This unequal enforcement of dress codes and other punishments can lead to students of color dropping out of school or having to repeat a grade.

A Northwestern/Chalkbeat analysis of CPS data on the Chicago Data Portal found that 94 of Chicago’s 169 high schools, or 55.6%, currently have dress codes. Of those high schools, 93 have a black or Hispanic plurality of students, while nearly three-quarters of their 104,357 students are listed in the city’s data as “low-income.” CPS defines low-income or “economically disadvantaged students” as students who “come from families whose income is within 185 percent of the federal poverty line,” according to a budgeting presentation for fiscal year 2023.

At all but eight of Chicago’s public high schools, a majority of students are listed as “low-income” in CPS data. Six of the eight schools with low-income populations below 50% do not enforce official dress codes. All eight schools have white populations exceeding 20%, more than double the average white population of 8.78% across Chicago public high schools. Four of the eight schools have a plurality of white students.

Demographic information was not available for two of the high schools.

The rise of dress codes in Chicago

Many schools across Chicago’s South Side instituted dress codes around the early 2000s to prevent students from wearing gang-affiliated clothing, said Lionel Allen, a clinical assistant professor of educational policy studies at the University of Illinois Chicago.

“They no longer had to police what students were wearing or worry if what they were wearing had any sort of gang significance because everyone was in uniforms,” he said.

Current CPS policy bans “overt display of gang affiliation,” but does not specify what gang signs are banned or what constitutes a gang sign.

Allen has over a decade of experience as a teacher, principal, and administrator in CPS. From 2010 to 2018, he was the chief academic officer at Urban Prep Charter Academy for Young Men, a system of three all-male schools with locations in the Loop, Englewood, and Bronzeville.

Allen said Urban Prep maintained a strict dress code while he was there, requiring students to wear dress shoes, khaki pants, long-sleeve dress shirts, red ties, and black blazers adorned with the school logo. Allen said the policy was designed to prevent students from wearing gang-affiliated clothing and to cut costs for families on tight budgets – at the time, Urban Prep’s students paid a $150 annual charge for one blazer, one tie, field trips, and curriculum materials.

Urban Prep’s policies were designed to create an air of prestige, and some students who were initially resistant to wearing uniforms came to view them as a source of pride, Allen said. “When people in the street would see the young men walking around with their blazers and ties on, they were applauded.”

But since then, Allen has noticed that some schools in low-income areas of the city have started to use dress codes primarily as a tool for compliance.

Schools can get so preoccupied with enforcing dress codes that they get distracted from teaching students, and the language of some dress codes allows policies to be unevenly enforced, he said in a recent interview.

“Students who attend schools on the South and West sides of Chicago oftentimes aren’t able to come to school as their full, authentic selves,” he said. “They are victims of policies that are more concerned about how they act and their behaviors and less concerned about their intellectual academic development.”

Urban Prep Charter Academy for Young Men did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

CPS last updated its dress code policy in 2022 to prevent schools from banning head coverings historically tied to race or ethnicity, but charter schools such as Urban Prep are exempt and can set their own codes of conduct.

“Chicago Public Schools (CPS) aims to ensure that our District policies are consistently applied for all students and schools,” said Chicago Public Schools spokesperson Evan Moore in a written statement responding to a request for comment. “District and school team members will work together to improve our school dress code and uniform policies to support a safe, inclusive and welcoming learning environment for all students.”

Chicago mirrors national trend

Dress codes and other forms of school discipline have come under scrutiny across the country as recent data has revealed that the policies disproportionately target girls and students of color.

Of public school districts nationwide, 90% prohibit at least one clothing item worn by girls, compared to 69% for boys, according to a 2022 study by Nowicki for the US Government Accountability Office.

A 2018 study by National Women’s Law Center found that Black girls in Washington, D.C. were more likely to be targeted for dress code violations than white girls, and 20.8 times more likely to be suspended from school.

Dress codes often include adults taking measurements of students’ bodies or clothing, which can create uncomfortable conditions for girls in particular, said Nowicki.

“That can introduce some concern around safety when you have adults touching students,” she said.

Public schools tend to disproportionately punish students of color for a variety of reasons, including dress code violations, according to another one of Nowicki’s reports. The report found that 15.5% of public school students were Black, yet accounted for 39% of students suspended from school for all causes between 2013 and 2014.

Allen, the former Urban Prep official, said he also regrets maintaining other restrictive policies while he was principal, such as “silent hallways,” where students were not allowed to speak as they passed between classes.

“Nobody questioned me – as a matter of fact I was celebrated … because it showed I could control African American and Latino students,” he said. “But my job is to educate, not to be a prison ward.”

New report lays out roadmap for improving how Hispanic students in Denver are educated

2024-03-19T19:43:31+00:00

Leer en español.

Unequal resources across schools, a lack of Latino teachers and leaders, and a “perpetual undervaluing” of Latino culture are among the barriers facing Hispanic students, families, and staff in Denver Public Schools, a new report found.

Called the La Raza Report and released publicly Tuesday, the report was commissioned by the district to identify barriers and opportunities in the community, and to understand their impact.

The Denver school district, the largest in the state, has more than 45,000 students who identify as Hispanic or Latino — 51.8% of all students. The population had been increasing but started declining at the start of the pandemic. The report also highlights that gentrification has shifted the population within the city and contributed to resegregation.

Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero said at a press conference Tuesday that nothing in the report was surprising. Data on student outcomes over the years has been heavily reported. He said the report gives the district a roadmap to help students feel like their voices are heard.

“It was painful to hear or read, I should say, the lived experience of some of our Latino students who, even amongst their Latino groups, really expressed a lack of sense of belonging,” Marrero said. “That was painful, that was painful, because it’s something that is a reality.”

The Denver-area company that wrote the report, the Multicultural Leadership Center, LLC, spent months conducting focus groups, research, surveys, and other analysis.

Research on the district spanned a 15-year period, from 2008 to 2022. The research group put together 51 focus groups with over 600 participants to capture student, family, and teacher perspectives. It also conducted a survey with over 3,000 participants.

The work does not include perspective on the recent influx of migrant students into the school system because the research predated it.

In one of the more pointed sections, the report authors identified “the brown ceiling” as a barrier the district should better understand.

“Included in the brown ceiling is the finding that employees feel that the district, rather than capitalizing on its human capital to ensure equity and excellence for Latino students, frequently requires that Latinos ‘act white,’ ignore their Latino cultures and suppress the cultural assets they bring to the district,” the report states.

The report also identified cultural resilience and the persistence of various community groups as a strength that has led to positive changes in the district. Some of those changes, like curriculum and programs for culturally and linguistically responsive teaching and more opportunities for students to become bilingual, will help new Spanish speaking migrant students arriving recently, the report said. Previous generations had to fight for such opportunities, it notes.

The report concludes with 35 recommendations for the school district and the city. The recommendations range from systemic, including asking the city to help plan for a continued influx of immigrant families and students, to specifics that call for reviewing transportation options for West and Lincoln high schools.

The recommendations also note the district must find a better way to ensure that resources to schools in the district are being equitably distributed.

“We really hope that this is a chance for DPS and the City and County of Denver to be able to say we now know where we’re going,” said Steve DelCastillo, the Multicultural Leadership Center’s principal investigator. “We’re at a crossroads, we’re going to make the right decisions, and years from now people are going to look back and say that was a differentiating point for DPS and most importantly, for the Latino community.”

Marrero said he expects to take up the recommendations that relate to the district.

First steps will be to hire someone within the next week or two to lead the district’s newly launched Latinx success team, he said. The position will help the district dig deeper into the recommendations.

Among the recommendations:

For the district: To coordinate with local foundations, non-profit organizations, and higher education institutions to establish student tutoring programs funded by Denver employers.
For the district: To work with the city and the Regional Transportation District, or RTD, to develop a transportation system for students and families who need it, “even in those areas where providing such a service may not be cost-effective but is socially just.”
For students: To develop a strategy for increasing recruitment and participation in the Seal of Biliteracy program, which allows students to learn and demonstrate proficiency in English and another language. The seal is awarded at graduation and is meant to show colleges and employers that the student has demonstrated proficiency in two languages. Given that many DPS students already speak more than one language, the report says this program should be promoted more.
For parents: To develop a districtwide bilingual parent leadership institute focused on understanding the DPS educational system and the roles parents can play in the children’s education, including working with teachers and administrators. The institute must also include a multicultural component, including parents of color who “can use this venue to work on the issues related to cultural conflicts within groups and among the various cultural groups.”
For teachers: To expand the pool of Spanish-speaking teachers from various subject matter areas and to increase opportunities for concurrent enrollment, which allows students to simultaneously earn high school and college credit.
For school leaders: To establish a Latino Leadership Pipeline and a Latino Leadership Mentorship Program. Another recommendation is to consider redrawing the boundaries for West High School and to periodically review all boundaries to account for gentrification and other population shifts.
For the central office: Cultural sensitivity and cultural competence training for all central office employees. “Staff have reported overt and covert racist remarks,” the report states.

Read the report below:

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the last name of Steve DelCastillo.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

Apps are helping teachers communicate with families that don’t speak English

2024-03-13T22:36:31+00:00

Leer en español

Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox.

Emma Gonzalez Gutierrez has struggled to communicate with the teachers of her five children for years.

She’s tried to stay engaged. She’s attended meetings, gravitated toward Spanish-speaking staff, and relied on translators, including her kids, over the years.

Now, thanks to an app that McElwain Elementary, her Adams 12 school, started using this year, she’s found opportunities to engage in new ways with her youngest child’s education.

Recently, the kindergarten teacher texted her on the app, ReachWell, which allows the teacher to text in English and parents to receive the messages in their own language. The teacher told Gonzalez Gutierrez that her daughter had won a student of the month-type award and invited her to come to the school to surprise her daughter when the award was presented. The small gesture that meant so much to Gonzalez Gutierrez.

“For me it was very exciting,” Gonzalez Gutierrez said. “It was so valuable that she was able to let me know.”

ReachWell and similar translation apps have become more common, and for some teachers, they’ve become crucial as educators work to communicate with the rising number of families that don’t speak English. The apps often allow the communications between parents and teachers to feel personal. Some teachers say it has helped parents open up about issues their child or family is having, which then helps teachers better engage with students.

In addition to seeing text from teachers in their native language on ReachWell, parents can respond in their native language and teachers see the replies in English.

Kayli Brooks, a teacher at Tollgate Elementary in Aurora, uses the app Talking Points, which also allows her to text parents. It also translates texts between parents and educators but does not require families to download an app.

“Families will share that they’re struggling with transportation, or here’s why maybe they’re acting out, or they might text me and say ‘hey this thing happened at home and I think my child is going to be really sad at school today,’” Brooks said. “It’s a huge deal. Families want to be involved in their child’s education no matter where they’re from, no matter what language they speak.”

Brooks said that since her Aurora school began using the app in 2020, she is much more successful at collecting permission forms, for example.

With migrant families who are new to the country and are “kind of overwhelmed,” she said, texting them through the app has also helped them better understand basic information they need to get their children started in school.

Communication that feels personal, through a text, is often more manageable for families than directing parents to online forms and resources, she said.

Sara Olson, principal of McElwain Elementary, said the ReachWell translation app is “a tool that provides equitable access.”

“It’s almost mind boggling to me that some of these folks have maneuvered schools for years not having access,” Olson said. “As a parent I can’t imagine not having access to the information, to the teachers. Every child and family member has a right to have that access.”

Olson said she did not have trouble having all families at her school download the app.

Zuben Bastani created the app ReachWell after he said he saw that some families at his child’s Denver school weren’t getting all the communications. He said he saw children excluded from field trips after arriving at school, unknowingly unprepared — wearing sneakers on the day of a snowshoeing trip, for example — because their families hadn’t understood the school communications.

“It became real apparent, real fast, which families were aware and showed up and which weren’t,” Bastani said.

The app is in use in many schools and districts in the metro area and across the country in places like Pittsburgh. In addition to schools, the company is also partnering with some emergency service agencies to provide emergency notifications — such as shelter-in-place or evacuation orders during natural disasters — that non-English speaking populations can receive in their home language.

Jean Boylan, a community liaison at McMeen Elementary in Denver, also uses ReachWell at her school, but said she also has used Google’s translation app on her phone to greet parents face to face as they pick up students from school. She said staff are all looking for as many ways as possible to communicate.

In her school, concerns about whether new immigrant families have access to the internet, have led staff to start printing materials too. McMeen is one of a couple dozen Denver schools that have enrolled a significant number of new students from Venezuela and elsewhere this year.

But anytime they can communicate with the ReachWell app, it saves time and energy, Boylan said.

The app helps because there are so many languages spoken by families. She said there’s a map in her office with at least 27 countries highlighted, reflecting where the school’s current families come from.

Bastani said ReachWell has found that because parents have to download the app and self-select from more than 130 languages what their preferred language is, many schools find that they’ve been undercounting how many languages their families speak.

On average, they discover 25% more languages after a few months, ReachWell leaders said.

Boylan is now working with Bastani to build out a resource page that ReachWell offers in the app for families. It may include ways for families to access help such as for food or housing.

For parents like Gonzalez Gutierrez, the personal communications they have with teachers are the most critical.

Gonzalez Gutierrez said earlier this year, she realized her kindergartener had become frustrated with an online program the school used for kids to learn math. It was causing the child stress and fear and Gonzalez Gutierrez said she didn’t know how to talk to the teacher about it — until she realized that she could text her.

Letting the teacher know what the problem was allowed them to work together to solve it.

“It’s worth it,” Gonzalez Gutierrez said. “It’s been such a gift for me.”

This story has been updated to reflect that users do not have to download the ReachWell app to get messages through ReachWell, though the downloading the app is an option.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Florida settlement’s limits on ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law may give teachers and students breathing room

2024-03-13T20:50:30+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

Florida teachers can place a photo of their spouse on their desk. School libraries can stock books featuring LGBTQ characters. And anti-bullying efforts can protect LGBTQ students. But restrictions on classroom instruction related to sexuality and gender identity remain.

Those are the terms of a settlement agreement that puts an end to a lawsuit challenging what’s commonly known as Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. Advocates are hailing the lifting of a “shadow” that had fallen over the state’s schools. Gov. Ron DeSantis, who made challenging “woke” ideas in schools a cornerstone of his political brand, also declared victory.

The resolution calls attention to the enormous gray areas created by laws restricting how teachers talk about gender, sexuality, race, and history. These laws simultaneously touch on issues of personal identity where federal law protects students and teachers, and issues of curriculum and instruction where states have broad authority.

Fearful of lawsuits and state investigations, teachers have emptied out classroom libraries, taken down Pride flags, and quit their jobs. A high school class president was told he couldn’t mention being gay in his graduation speech. State officials have blamed local leaders for going beyond the requirements of the law, but never formally clarified what was and wasn’t covered — until the settlement agreement was signed Monday.

Essentially, the agreement means that the law won’t force teachers back into the closet or prevent students from talking about who they are.

Under the agreement, the Florida Department of Education will also disseminate guidance about the law to all 67 school districts.

“The vagueness of this law was intentional,” said Joe Saunders, senior political director at Equality Florida, a statewide LGBTQ rights group and one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. “At any point, [state officials] could have offered deeper guidance and didn’t. The only reason they’ve done it now is because we sued them in federal court and forced them to end the most harmful aspects of this law.”

Laws restricting teaching have wide-ranging impacts

As classroom restrictions proliferate, a survey by the research group RAND found that two-thirds of teachers reported self-censoring how they talk about certain social and political issues in the classroom, whether they lived in a state with formal restrictions or not. RAND also found — in a study released this week — that a majority of teachers thought these restrictions harmed learning and made students feel less welcome and less empathetic.

Teachers in Florida were the most likely to be aware of their state’s restrictions, and the most likely to report having changed instruction in response, RAND found. Florida also had more laws restricting instruction than other states.

A recent Washington Post analysis of FBI data found that school-based hate crimes against LGBTQ students quadrupled in states that passed restrictive laws, which include laws governing teaching as well as which bathrooms and sports teams transgender children have access to.

The relationship between state policies and bullying has been in the national spotlight after the death of Nex Benedict, a nonbinary student who died in February after a fight in their Oklahoma high school.

Related: ‘Am I not allowed to mention myself?’ Schools grapple with new restrictions on teaching about gender and sexuality

Some state laws ban discussion of certain topics or require that lessons be “age appropriate” or avoid “divisive” framings, while others require parental notification and the opportunity for parents to opt students out of lessons. Many states leave enforcement to school districts and provide little guidance.

Advocates of these laws say parents have a right to know what their children are being taught, especially on issues that might conflict with their own values, and that schools should focus on core academic subjects.

Students and teachers in states with teaching restrictions told Chalkbeat about LGTBQ student clubs receiving less support, and lessons in literature and history being scaled back to avoid talking about queer references in literature or the movement for gay civil rights.

Legal challenges to these laws are underway in a number of states, but how courts will rule could depend on specifics in individual states. Arizona’s teaching restrictions were struck down, for example, because lawmakers had wedged them into the state budget.

Keira McNett, staff counsel for the National Education Association, said the settlement is important in Florida and “for the national tenor.”

“Many states modeled their law after Florida’s and many are facing lawsuits of their own,” she said. “In many cases, they are overly broad. And when the state is required to actually explain what these vague laws mean, they explain it in a way that is a lot more narrow.”

Settlement provides clarity for classrooms, activities

Roberta Kaplan, the lead attorney for the lawsuit, said the settlement provides immediate relief to Florida students, parents, and teachers who were living under a cloud of uncertainty.

“Every kid should be able to go to public school and have their dignity respected and their family respected,” Kaplan said.

The settlement lays out examples of what’s allowed under Florida law, known formally as the Parental Rights in Education Act:

Teachers can respond to students who choose to discuss their own families or identities and can grade essays that include LGBTQ topics.
Teachers can make reference to LGBTQ people in literature or history.
Student-to-student speech and classroom debates can touch on LGBTQ issues.
Schools can explicitly protect LGBTQ students in anti-bullying efforts, and teachers can have “safe space” stickers in their classroom.
Students of the same gender can dance together at school dances and wear clothing considered inconsistent with their gender assigned at birth.

The settlement clarifies that restrictions on classroom instruction apply “regardless of viewpoint.” In other words, teachers can’t teach a lesson on modern gender theory to elementary students, nor can they teach those students that gender identity is immutable and determined by biological traits.

Kaplan said states have significant authority over curriculum, and that the part of the law specifying such restrictions was unlikely to be overturned on further appeal.

DeSantis’ office in a press release emphasized that the law as written remains intact and “children will be protected from radical gender and sexual ideology in the classroom.”

“We fought hard to ensure this law couldn’t be maligned in court, as it was in the public arena by the media and large corporate actors,” Florida General Counsel Ryan Newman said in the press release. “We are victorious, and Florida’s classrooms will remain a safe place under the Parental Rights in Education Act.”

Settlement ‘allows for a reasonable conversation’ on instruction

Suzanne Eckes, a professor of educational law and policy at the University of Wisconsin, said Florida’s law and others that are vague and broad potentially violate federal laws and protections.

As employees, teachers have limited free speech rights in the classroom, but states cannot discriminate against them on the basis of sex, which forms the basis of many legal protections for LGBTQ people. For example, they can’t penalize a teacher for having a picture of a same-sex spouse on their desk while allowing a colleague to have a picture of her husband. The federal Equal Access Act says that schools can’t limit extracurricular clubs based on their content. Bible study groups, future homemakers, and gay-straight alliance clubs all have the right to meet in school, Eckes said.

Eckes said the settlement suggests the challengers had viable claims on equal protection grounds, even as the state maintains the right to regulate curriculum and prevent teachers from offering personal opinions to a captive audience.

While the settlement creates no legal precedent, it could encourage some school district lawyers, even in other states, to reach less restrictive interpretations of their states’ laws. At the same time, even in Florida, there may be disagreements about what exactly constitutes instruction.

“If a teacher does give an opinion in class, there is this overall idea that teacher speech can be curtailed,” she said. “That is a grayer area than banning the gay-straight alliance or pulling all the books off the shelves due to your own ideology.”

Derek Black, a professor of constitutional law at the University of South Carolina, said the settlement could change the political and cultural calculus around sweeping prohibitions, even though it doesn’t set a precedent for other lawsuits.

“If DeSantis is willing to settle, maybe it’s OK for the governor of Oklahoma to settle,” Black said. “Maybe it denies cultural conservatives the ability to say that some governor or AG in another state is weak.”

The settlement also offers teachers important clarity, Black said: “This type of settlement rebalances things so you don’t have to be so afraid and that allows for a reasonable conversation about what’s instruction and what’s not.”

Michael Woods, a high school teacher in Palm Beach County who leads the Florida Education Association’s LGBTQ caucus, said he’s thrilled with the settlement even as he fears it will take decades to get back to the level of inclusion teachers and students experienced just a few years ago.

His school district’s guide for supporting LGBTQ students shrunk from 140 pages to 14 under Florida’s law, he said. And he stopped leading his school’s GSA club because he would have needed to send permission slips home, which led him to worry about outing students. He’s not sure that’s changed.

Woods also worries about colleagues in smaller, more conservative communities, and about trans educators who often face even more hostility than gay and lesbian teachers.

Still, he hopes teachers in other states feel inspired.

“One of the most hateful states in the nation for LGBTQ rights reached a settlement,” he said. “You have to fight, but it can happen.”

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Indianapolis Public Schools plans new approach to teaching English learners

2024-03-08T12:00:00+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news.

At Lew Wallace School 107, principal Arthur Hinton sees students come from all over the world.

The sounds of Spanish, Swahili, Kinyarwanda, and Arabic can fill the halls of the K-6 school on the west side of Indianapolis, near the “international marketplace” neighborhood. In recent years, the school has attracted more students whose families hail from Haiti, speaking French or Creole.

Roughly 70% of the 509 students are classified as English language learners, a population that has only increased since Hinton arrived in 2020.

“Don’t blink again,” he joked. It might grow even more.

Lew Wallace is one of the most racially and ethnically diverse schools in the district. But its growing share of English language learners is emblematic of a trend that’s appearing across Indianapolis Public Schools.

More than a quarter of the district’s students are now classified as English language learners — over 6,700 as of late February, an increase of over 2,000 students since 2017-18. As in many other districts, staffing up for those levels has been a challenge. At the end of February, the district had eight vacancies for English as a New Language teachers, out of 110 positions total. Bilingual assistants can be even harder to come by: The district had 24 vacancies as of that date for its 76 positions.

Amid a larger push for equity in its Rebuilding Stronger reorganization, the district now plans to reimagine how it serves English language learners. Officials say instruction for these students should be more consistent across school buildings, and allow students to learn alongside their native English-speaking peers. Students learning English, they say, should not be restricted from classes such as music or art because they are pulled away for separate English language learner instruction.

The plan includes assigning each school at least one leading English as a New Language “teacher of record,” responsible for overseeing the school’s English language learner program. It also involves more incentives for staff — including a $2,000 stipend for lead teachers and reimbursement for some English as a New Language teachers who also train to become certified to teach English language arts.

The plan is one of the district’s budget priorities for the 2024-25 school year.

“It’s going to be hard, without a doubt,” said Arturo Rodriguez, the district’s director for English as a New Language. “We’re up to the challenge.”

IPS plan encourages more co-teaching, less separation

In a sixth grade classroom at Lew Wallace, Ana Gonzalez sits with a small group of six students, alternating between Spanish and English as she teaches the concept of claims, evidence, and reasoning in language arts.

Just a few feet away, the main classroom teacher is reviewing the same topics with the other students. At Gonzalez’s table, though, the focus is on the English learners.

“You guys in class have been working on claims — finding a claim and finding evidence,” Gonzalez tells her students. “Tener, como, un reclamo y evidencia.”

The school uses a form of co-teaching, where English language learners are in the same classroom as their native-speaking peers, and learning the same things at the same time.

Ana Gonzalez, who teaches English as a new language, sits with sixth-graders in a small group to review the classroom lesson for the day. Gonzalez switches between English and Spanish while teaching amid the larger class of native English speakers.

This is the type of model that the district hopes all schools will embrace.

Right now, instruction for English language learners varies from school to school. Only some IPS elementary schools offer co-teaching, while others don’t have enough staff. Sometimes teachers are used as interventionists — staff who pull students away from class to work directly with them on their specific needs — rather than as co-teachers.

At the middle and high school levels, some English language learners do not have access to electives, because their English as a new language instruction is held during those times.

The district’s plans would mean less separation, and more exposure to the mainstream classroom as students learn English.

The philosophy: Everyone is an English as a New Language teacher.

An English as a New Language teacher “is supposed to help support language development, not necessarily spending their whole day doing intervention,” Rodriguez said. “There are some places where more than 80% of the day, that’s all they’re doing.”

At each school, a lead teacher of record will be responsible for the battery of tests that English language learner students must take to ensure that they pass the language proficiency test known as WIDA ACCESS.

That will free up the school’s other English as a New Language teachers to teach more throughout the day, Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez is also hoping those lead teachers will monitor proficiency on state exams for English learners, which dropped after the pandemic, as it did for other student subgroups.

Last year, 47.9% of these students passed the third-grade IREAD exam, while 3.2% reached proficiency on both English and math sections on the ILEARN in grades 3-8, according to state data. (The figures do not include charter schools in the district’s autonomous Innovation Network.)

The district hopes to train English as a New Language teachers and main classroom teachers on the new changes.

Staffing poses a challenge

At Lew Wallace, Hinton acknowledges that he’s blessed to have five English as a New Language teachers. The school also has four bilingual assistants speaking Spanish and Arabic.

But at other schools in the district, filling those roles may be more challenging.

As of early March, the district anticipated the need to fill about one dozen English as a New Language teaching positions for the next school year.

Bilingual assistants, Rodriguez said, are particularly difficult to find amid stiff competition among districts. The district urgently needs candidates who speak Swahili, Kinyarwanda, French, and Haitian Creole, he said.

IPS hopes a few initiatives can help with the staffing needs.

The district is beginning to reach out to local universities to build a pipeline of bilingual assistants who can eventually transition into certified teaching positions, Rodriguez said.

The latest contract with the teacher’s union approved in November also offers base-pay increases for English as a New Language teachers and other in-demand positions.

And IPS also plans to offer English as a New Language teachers in middle and high school incentives to become dually certified to teach English language arts. That could reduce the number of staff needed to teach both topics.

The district would reimburse teachers for the cost of taking the Praxis certification exam for English language arts, which is over $100.

Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

Should kids learn about LGBTQ issues at school? Many teachers and teens say no, new surveys find.

2024-02-23T21:21:25+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

Should elementary schoolers learn that people of the same gender can love each other? Do teens want to learn about how slavery’s legacy matters today? Should parents be able to opt their kids out of lessons they disagree with?

As Republican-dominated state legislatures limit how teachers talk about race and restrict transgender children’s access to bathrooms and sports, and as school board elections turn on book bans and parents’ rights, three new national studies from the Pew Research Center, the research corporation RAND, and the University of Southern California’s Center for Applied Research in Education shed light on how teachers, parents, and students themselves think about these questions.

For all the attention LGBTQ issues receive in national politics, teachers said topics related to gender identity and sexual orientation rarely come up. And many said they don’t believe these topics should be taught in school.

In fact, large swaths of the public also don’t think gender and sexuality should be discussed in school, the studies found. However, there were wide partisan divides, as well as differences along racial and ethnic lines.

Adults and teens felt more comfortable with teachers teaching about racism than LGBTQ issues. They were also more comfortable with teachers talking about past injustices than present-day inequality, and more comfortable with gay rights than trans rights. And they were more comfortable with any of these topics coming up at the high school level — though many teens reported their own discomfort.

So it is perhaps unsurprising that two-thirds of teachers in one study said they decided on their own to limit how they talked about potentially contentious issues. One reason: They feared confrontations with upset parents.

“The topics of race and LGBTQ issues are often lumped together in discussions about these so-called ‘culture wars’ and how that’s playing out in K-12 education,” said Luona Lin, a research associate at Pew. But teachers and students actually “feel very different about these two topics.”

Here are some of the major takeaways of the three new reports:

Many teachers are censoring themselves

More than a third of American teachers work in states with laws restricting how teachers talk about issues that are considered divisive or controversial. But a study released this month by the research organization RAND found local restrictions and teachers’ own fears are having an effect as well.

In a survey of 1,500 teachers taken last year, two-thirds reported deciding on their own to limit how they talked about social and political issues in the classroom. Meanwhile, about half of teachers told RAND they were subject to either a state or local restriction. These limits could be formal, such as a school board policy, or informal, such as a principal’s comments.

More than 80% of those who were subject to a local restriction said they had made changes to their teaching, regardless of state law. That should not be surprising, said Ashley Woo, an assistant policy researcher at RAND.

“If your principal is telling you to do something, that is the person who is there with you at the school and can see what is happening in your classroom,” she said.

At the same time, more than half of teachers who were not subject to any restrictions said they had limited how they talked about certain topics, with self-censoring more common in conservative communities but still widespread in liberal ones.

A major reason teachers cited for limiting instruction, especially in communities with local restrictions, was a fear of confrontation with upset parents and that their administration would not support them if they faced a challenge.

LGBTQ issues raised less often than racism in classrooms

Though LGBTQ issues are prominent in local and national politics, a report released this week reveals a striking finding: Most teachers say gender identity and sexual orientation hardly get discussed in class — and many teachers say they shouldn’t be.

According to a nationally representative survey conducted last fall by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, more than two-thirds of K-12 public school teachers said topics related to sexual orientation and gender identity rarely or never came up in their classroom last school year. Around 3 in 10 said the topics came up sometimes or often.

Half of teachers, meanwhile, said they thought students shouldn’t learn about gender identity at school, with an even higher share of elementary school teachers agreeing with that view.

The findings come as anti-trans legislation creates a more hostile environment for gender non-conforming youth in many states.

In contrast, more than half of teachers said they discussed topics related to racism or racial inequality at least sometimes. Around 4 in 10 teachers said the issues rarely or never came up.

Nearly two-thirds of teachers said students should learn about slavery and how it affects the lives of Black Americans today, while just under a quarter said slavery should be taught only as a component of history — without any bearing on the present.

Lin, the Pew report’s lead author, says it’s likely that school board policies, local politics, and state laws are influencing what teachers discuss, though the survey doesn’t measure those factors.

What should young kids learn about gender and sexuality?

In Searching for Common Ground, a study released this week by a team at the University of Southern California, researchers surveyed a representative sample of 3,900 adults, about half of them parents of school-aged children, and asked them about dozens of scenarios related to race, sexuality, and gender.

Democrats were more comfortable than Republicans with almost every scenario, with independents and others roughly in the middle. But even Democrats were less supportive of discussing gender identity or asking students’ pronouns in elementary school than discussing racism or different family structures.

Nearly half of all respondents thought it was appropriate for an elementary teacher to have a picture of their same-sex spouse on their desk. And almost as many were OK with elementary students reading a book about two male penguins adopting a baby penguin.

But just 30% of respondents and only half of Democrats thought it was appropriate for an elementary classroom to display LGBTQ-friendly decorations, such as a Pride flag.

Democrats were far more likely to want gay or trans children to see themselves reflected at school, while Republicans were far more likely to fear discussing these topics would change children, leading to them thinking they are gay or trans.

“The largest partisan examples seem to have to do with LGBTQ and family issues in elementary school,” said Morgan Polikoff, a USC education professor and one of the study’s lead authors. “Democrats think that kids can handle that and Republicans do not.”

The rollout of Advanced Placement African American Studies reflects widespread interest among some students and teachers in learning more diverse history, but some conservatives have targeted the course.

More students feel comfortable discussing racism than LGBTQ issues

Students in grades 8-12 also tend to feel less comfortable discussing LGBTQ issues than issues of race and racism at school, and are more likely to say they shouldn’t be learning about them, the Pew report found.

In a nationally representative survey of 13- to 17-year-olds conducted last fall, around 4 in 10 teens said they felt comfortable when topics related to racism or racial inequality came up in class.

But only around 3 in 10 said the same about topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity. And just under half of teens said they shouldn’t learn about gender identity at school. That rate was somewhat higher for teens who identified as Republicans than Democrats.

Only 11% of teens, meanwhile, said they shouldn’t learn about slavery. Around half said they should learn about slavery and how it affects the lives of Black Americans today, while 40% said they should learn about slavery only in a historical context.

Black teens and teens who identify as Democrats were much more likely than white, Hispanic, or Republican teens to say they want to learn about how the legacy of slavery affects Black people today — a finding echoed among Black parents and Black teachers in other surveys.

Bridging these divides is tricky

The University of Southern California study found strong support for public education across the political spectrum.

But there’s a gap of nearly 39 percentage points between Democrats and Republicans on whether public schools should teach children to embrace differences. Nearly three-quarters of Democrats said yes, compared with just over a third of Republicans.

This underlying belief was a strong predictor of responses to specific scenarios. Those who said kids shouldn’t be taught to embrace differences also expressed more discomfort with race, gender, and sexuality being discussed in the classroom.

“Democrats on average think schools are exactly the place to do this — it’s one of the last places where everyone comes together regardless of their differences,” Polikoff said. “And Republicans don’t think that is an appropriate role for schools. And they think that because they perceive, in part correctly, that schools are a liberalizing force.”

There was broad support for parents having the right to opt their child out of certain lessons, but when researchers prompted respondents to consider downsides, such as their child missing out on the opportunity to learn critical thinking skills, support fell.

Understanding the values that drive differences and building on common ground, such as agreement that children should read books by authors of color and learn about historic injustices, could lead to a healthier conversation than what’s happening now.

“We need to have this conversation,” he said. “Instead we have Ron DeSantis saying we’ll ban everything, and Democrats sticking their fingers in their ears and saying you’re all bigots.”

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Supreme Court will not hear case involving racial diversity at selective high school

2024-02-20T21:56:42+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.

The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will not hear a case challenging the constitutionality of a highly selective Virginia high school’s admissions policy on the grounds that it discriminates against Asian American students.

The high court’s decision not to take the case means that last year’s ruling by an appeals court upholding the admissions policy will stand. The case, known as Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board, looked at whether the school board was legally allowed to change the entrance criteria for a prestigious magnet high school in Alexandria, Virginia, with the intent of enrolling a more diverse class.

The Supreme Court has long held that school districts can consider race-neutral factors to create more diverse schools. But the plaintiffs in this case alleged the school board used certain criteria as “proxies” for race, with the intent of reducing the share of Asian American students who were admitted to the school.

The case was closely watched because many school districts use similar methods to create diverse student bodies. If the Supreme Court had taken the case, it could have had sweeping consequences for magnet schools and other selective K-12 programs, legal experts say.

Still, observers say it likely won’t be the end of legal challenges to selective K-12 admissions. The same law firm that brought this case, for example, has challenged similar admissions policies for selective schools in Boston, New York City, and New York state.

“I do think given the number of cases that are percolating through different districts and courts of appeals, that it’s probably true that there will be additional attempts to revisit this issue before the Supreme Court,” said Cara McClellan, a practice associate professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, who has written about legal challenges to race-conscious admissions. “It continues to be a hotly contested issue.”

In a Tuesday statement, the chair of the Fairfax County School Board said the decision put to rest a three-year legal battle over the fairness of the admissions policy change.

“We have long believed that the new admissions process is both constitutional and in the best interest of all of our students,” Karl Frisch said. “It guarantees that all qualified students from all neighborhoods in Fairfax County have a fair shot at attending this exceptional high school.”

In a statement, the Pacific Legal Foundation, the libertarian law firm representing the plaintiffs, said by choosing not to hear the case, “the Supreme Court missed an important opportunity to end race-based discrimination in K-12 admissions.”

Admissions policy changed to include student ‘experience factors’

While the Supreme Court has shown a willingness to overturn years of legal precedent in other cases — notably by prohibiting colleges and universities from considering race as a factor in higher education admissions last year — it was apparently not willing to revisit its earlier decisions here. Notably, the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that school districts can take certain steps to racially diversify their student bodies, so long as they do not explicitly consider the race of individual students.

In this case, the Coalition for TJ alleged that the Fairfax County School Board violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution in 2020 when it changed its policy to get into Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a top high school that draws from five Virginia school districts.

Known as TJ, the high school offers advanced math and science classes that put its graduates on the path for elite colleges and careers. Historically, to get in, applicants needed to do well on a series of standardized tests and essays, and obtain high grades and teacher recommendations. Typically, students from just a few middle schools won most of the slots.

In 2020, shortly after the murder of George Floyd prompted a racial reckoning at many schools, school leaders sought to change the enrollment policy, pointing out that very few Black and Hispanic students gained entrance. During the 2019-20 school year, the school of around 1,800 students was 71% Asian American, 19% white, 5% multiracial, 3% Hispanic, and 2% Black, state data shows.

After months of debate, the Fairfax County School Board approved a new enrollment policy that set aside a certain share of seats at TJ from each middle school in the attendance area.

Students eligible for those seats were evaluated based on their grades, an essay, a description of their skills, and a set of “experience factors,” including whether they came from a low-income family, were an English learner, had a special education plan, or attended a middle school that had historically sent few students to TJ.

In 2021, the Coalition for TJ, which includes parents of students who had applied to TJ or planned to, sued the school board. The group argued that the middle school seat set-aside and experience factors were being used as “proxies” to “racially balance” the school, with the goal of reducing the share of Asian American students.

The appeals court disagreed, and said the school board had used enrollment methods permissible under prior Supreme Court rulings.

According to Fairfax County Public Schools, in the most recent freshman class, which started last fall, Asian American students received 62% of offers to attend TJ, while white students received 19%, Black students received 7% and Hispanic students received 6%. Students from low-income families made up 12% of the incoming class, up from 2% in recent years.

In a dissent issued Tuesday, Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, said that the Supreme Court should have heard the Coalition for TJ’s case. Letting the appeals court decision stand, he wrote, was akin to agreeing that “intentional racial discrimination is constitutional so long as it is not too severe.”

“This reasoning is indefensible, and it cries out for correction,” Alito wrote.

Figuring out ‘the goals of public education’

Colleges and universities are still trying to respond to last year’s Supreme Court ruling banning affirmative action in higher education admissions. And K-12 schools are evaluating what they can and should do to address high levels of racial and socioeconomic segregation — on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board decision.

“K-12 and higher ed is trying to figure out what to do,” said Erica Frankenberg, a Penn State education professor who studies school segregation. “There’s all of these things for us to really think about: What are the goals of public education in our society, and what [do] we want to allow school districts to take into account?”

Several other school districts with selective schools have come under scrutiny for admitting few students from low-income families or few Black and Hispanic students in recent years. Some of them changed admissions policies — only to face pushback from some parents and others who say those changes are unfair.

Chicago, for example, considers the demographics of the area where a student lives as part of the city’s selective high school admissions process, and takes steps to ensure high-performing students from both affluent and low-income areas have access. The city has taken steps to revamp that process to make it more fair for low-income students — and has signaled a desire to move away from the current selective schools system.

Philadelphia, similarly, overhauled its selective high school process to provide greater access to the city’s most coveted magnet schools, and moved to a lottery system that boosted the share of Black and Latino students who gained admission.

New York City, meanwhile, has come under fire from integration advocates for its selective high school admissions, particularly for eight prestigious high schools where a test is the sole basis for admissions. Some advocates have long criticized the test as a barrier for Black and Latino students. But other families have fought to keep the status quo, and parents in areas that are more affluent and have higher numbers of Asian American students have mobilized around the issue.

The University of Pennsylvania’s McClellan said the Supreme Court’s decision should encourage school districts that use methods like Fairfax County’s to create diverse schools to stay the course, regardless of future court challenges.

“School districts that are committed to diversity and inclusion shouldn’t become overly cautious,” McClellan said, pointing to examples of how colleges have rolled back diversity efforts that go beyond the text of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling. “Part of the effect of having ongoing challenges to existing precedent is that there feels like there is a lot of uncertainty — even when the law is clear.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado lawmakers to consider bill that may curb book bans in school libraries and public libraries

2024-02-13T01:48:22+00:00

Some Colorado lawmakers want to make it harder to pull books from the shelves of public libraries and school libraries, especially when the challenges come from people who live outside the community.

Sen. Bill 24-49 would create a standard process through which books or other library materials could be challenged and outlines the makeup of school district committees that would have the authority to remove books from school libraries. The bill also spells out who can submit a book challenge. At a school library, challengers could be an enrolled student or the parent of a student. At a public library, a resident of the local library district could challenge a book.

The bill, which will be heard by the Senate Education Committee on Feb. 22, comes at a time when book bans and challenges are more prevalent than they’ve been in decades. Often, those challenging books raise objections about how subjects like race, racism, or LGBTQ issues are handled. In some cases, dozens of challenges originate with one person.

During a press conference Monday in the State Capitol building, Sen. Lisa Cutter, a Jefferson County Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill, framed the measure as a way to ensure young people in Colorado have the freedom to read, including books that “might challenge preconceived notions or present uncomfortable truths.”

While Cutter and others spoke, supporters of the bill, including from the state teachers union, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the LGBTQ advocacy group One Colorado, held up books that have been banned in the past — titles like, “Where the Wild Things Are,” “Hunger Games,” “The Hate U Give,” and “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.”

Lily Williams, a Colorado teacher and illustrator, also spoke at the press conference, recounting how her graphic novel, “Go With the Flow” was banned in Keller, Texas, in 2022. The book is about “growing up, best friends and getting your first period,” she said.

Williams, who teaches art at Carlson Elementary in Idaho Springs, talked about meeting a middle school girl during the book tour who confessed that she didn’t have anyone to talk to about puberty.

“When adults censor and ban books, important conversations and questions don’t suddenly stop,” she said. “Those conversations and questions and simply move to a less safe space.”

Williams said after the press conference that she hopes the bill will provide checks and balances so that book challenges aren’t quite so “free-form.”

The bill specifies that a committee appointed by the school district superintendent would consider challenges to school library books. The committee would include a district administrator, three teachers, three principals, a parent on the District Accountability Committee, and a student or recent graduate. It also would include three parents whose children are students of color or part of the LGBTQ community. The bill says a book could be removed only if the committee unanimously approves.

Cutter’s bill is a response to the book bans debated recently in Douglas County and nationally.

In August, conservative activist Aaron Wood requested the removal of four books that featured LGBTQ content. The Douglas County library board rejected the appeals by Wood.

Nationally, there’s been a surge in book bans, according to the American Libraries Association. From January to August 2023, Colorado libraries heard eight challenges of 136 titles. And across the nation, there were 531 attempts to ban books with over 3,900 book titles challenged from January to August 2023.

The most sweeping challenges have come from a handful of conservative organizations, including Moms for Liberty, according to the Associated Press. Cutter said she doesn’t want that to happen in Colorado, and the bill outlines the criteria for a challenge.

“You can’t just come from out of state,” she said.

Some Colorado education groups want to see the bill amended.

“Obviously, as school administrators, we support access to materials in school. That’s terrific,” said Bret Miles, executive director of the Colorado Association of School Executives.

But he said the bill should be pared down to allow more flexibility because it’s too prescriptive about how school districts make decisions about library books.

“These are the kinds of decisions that are best left to a local community,” he said.

Michelle Murphy, executive director of the Colorado Rural Schools Alliance, said the bill essentially excludes local school boards from developing their own book challenge policies or deciding the makeup of committees in charge of book removal decisions.

She said the alliance is still hoping to work with the bill’s sponsors to come up with amendments that would make it more palatable.

After the press conference, Cutter said she and other lawmakers are working on amendments to the bill.

“We’re trying to relax the committee structure and the process so that it’s not onerous for school districts and rural schools,” she said. “We started out probably too prescriptive.”

Reporter Jason Gonzales contributed to this report.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.