Aurelia Butler

When it comes to education, I consider myself a normie parent. What I want is for my children to have a strong foundation in the core subjects: reading, math, science and history. I want my kids to be challenged to the best of their abilities and be prepared for the future. I want to be guaranteed that they will be physically safe. I don’t want monthslong school board fights over book bans or school renaming. I just want my children to read books and go to school.People disagree about how best to meet these goals (roughly, liberals think the worst public schools should be made better, conservatives think parents should be given more choices outside the public system, though there are some heterodox advocates). But the depressing fact is that neither party has delivered on the basics. As I argued last month, neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris had a plan for increasing test scores, fixing Covid learning loss, working on the student absentee crisis or addressing the fact that the teacher pipeline is drying up.Though education is not a top -five issue for voters, I don’t think Democrats on the city and state levels have done a good job as leaders on K-12 schools under President Biden. And on the federal level, he also has struggled. To name one, there’s the ongoing FAFSA debacle — the federal student aid application form was delayed for a second year in a row after last year’s disastrous rollout of a new form.A lot of students are still suffering from the prolonged school closings of 2020-2021, and schools in blue cities and suburbs were closed the longest. While the Biden-Harris administration isn’t responsible for these decisions made on the local level, I don’t think they did enough to push back on the districts that were completely closed for in-person learning after adults could be vaccinated. The federal government pumped a lot of money into Covid education relief, but that funding expired in September. As a public school parent, I can feel it: My third grader’s class has 30 kids in it, more than we’ve ever experienced since my older child entered the system in 2017.In Trump’s first term, he proposed billions of dollars of cuts to the Department of Education that did not get through Congress. His secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, was a huge proponent of school choice. “But for all her efforts, DeVos has little to show for it,” NPR’s Cory Turner said in 2020.Despite Trump’s lackluster record, his ability to gain voters in urban areas might have had to do with how much voters were fed up with Democratic leadership on things like education. As Politico’s Charlie Mahtesian explained, he was able to win in part because “In big, diverse urban places — like Houston’s Harris County or Chicago’s Cook County — he pared down traditionally large Democratic margins.” Trump also increased support in blue places like New York, San Francisco and the densely populated Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. And a lot of city-dwelling Democrats stayed home.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

A reader smells hypocrisy in his co-workers’ proclamations of mourning and wants no part of it. Is he obligated to attend her funeral if his heart isn’t in it?A high-ranking colleague at work died recently. It was unexpected; she was in her 50s. Dozens of people in the organization, including the C.E.O., are heaping praise on her and saying how badly she will be missed. We’ve all been asked to contribute to a sympathy gift for her family and to attend her funeral. The problem? She was a dreadful colleague: an arrogant, narcissistic bully who belittled everyone in the organization, including me. Nobody wanted to work on her projects. I can’t understand the outpouring of love for her now that she’s gone, and I refuse to be a part of it. Must I contribute to her memorial gift and attend her funeral?CO-WORKERI suspect that in your haste to call out what you see as the hypocrisy of valorizing an unpleasant colleague, you’ve made two big errors in judgment. The lesser of them is assuming that your opinions about this woman are objective fact. You are entitled to hold her in low esteem, of course, but I am virtually certain that not “everyone” found her bullying or that “nobody” wanted to work with her. That’s simply not how life — or opinion — operates.More concerning, though, is your inability to sympathize with the grief of your colleague’s family and friends. I get that she hurt your feelings, but you must be able to see that she was also a human being and that her death will be heartbreaking for those who cared about her. My hunch is that you didn’t give this enough thought before landing on your harsh judgment, and I’m hoping you will consider it further now.This does not require that you become a member of her admiration society. Nor do you have to attend her funeral or donate to a memorial gift. Those are personal decisions, and there is no reason to give in to peer pressure. My only request is that you try to open your heart and take a more generous view of your colleague’s life and her untimely death.Miguel PorlanHost the Thanksgiving You WantMy husband and I want to invite my cousin and his wife to a small Thanksgiving dinner at our house. But I feel obligated to include my brother and his family, too. His teenage son is intolerable, and his wife is a bump on a log. There are other children, too, so when they come, it’s a big group. We’ve had them over many times before, and they lack common courtesy. My brother tries to moderate their behavior to little effect. Still, he would be hurt not to be invited. Last year, we felt so bad about excluding them that we didn’t celebrate at home. Is it possible not to invite them without hurt feelings?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Melania Trump, the former and incoming first lady, will not accompany President-elect Donald J. Trump to the White House on Wednesday, a person briefed on the plans said.Mrs. Trump had been invited by the current first lady, Jill Biden, for a traditional meeting between the incoming and outgoing presidential spouses as President Biden hosts Mr. Trump at the White House.But Mrs. Trump is declining the invitation, the person said, rebuffing a tradition that’s part of the transition of power.An aide to Mrs. Trump did not respond to a message about her plans.Mrs. Trump sometimes eschewed tradition in her first stint in the White House. She has not yet outlined how she plans to go about the role in the next administration.She has frequently been in New York as the president-elect’s youngest son, Barron, attends college there. In 2017, she didn’t move to Washington for several months while his school year was going on. More

Todd Gross reviews the state of things.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesWEDNESDAY PUZZLE — When Todd Gross constructed today’s puzzle, he was unaware that it would be published the day I formally decided to switch to decaf. I know that it’s cliché to blame anything on either coffee or on the lack thereof, but I really could have used the strong stuff ahead of solving this labyrinthine grid.None of this is intended as a criticism of Mr. Gross — who, incidentally, plays something of a critic in his own puzzle — as I genuinely enjoyed myself once I got going. I’d love to hear how you all fared, too. Give me your takes, caffeinated or otherwise, in the comments.Today’s ThemeI love a theme that begins at 1-Across. It just thrills me to hit that obstacle right away. In this case, 1A reads [RATING: ★ A big ditch in a big desert. Big deal]. Something’s getting panned, but what could it be? The star ratings continue at 24-, 35-, 51- and 67-Across, with increasingly positive impressions in each entry.35A receives three stars with [RATING: ★★★ Graceland and the Great Smoky Mountains. I volunteer to visit again!], while at 67A top marks are awarded: [RATING: ★★★★★★★★★★★★★ Peaches, peanuts and pecan pie. You’ll always be on my mind!].Americans may have had an easier time than others detecting that these ratings are for U.S. states. Peaches, peanuts and pecan pie, for instance, are emblems of GEORGIA (67A). That “ditch in a big desert” is ARIZONA (1A). Graceland and the Great Smoky Mountains are in TENNESSEE (35A). These ratings weren’t delivered at random, though. We learn at 66A that the sources of these STARS (31D) were STATE FLAGS (8A/66A). ARIZONA’s state flag features only one star, while GEORGIA’s has 13. I have, incredibly, been to none of the states named in this puzzle, so now I have a nice road (or several-flight) trip to plan for the future.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Representative Yadira Caraveo, Democrat of Colorado, lost her first re-election battle to her Republican challenger, Gabe Evans, a state representative, former Army captain and police officer with ties to the far right, The Associated Press declared on Tuesday, handing the G.O.P. a key pickup as it closes in on retaining its House majority.Mr. Evans’s win puts Republicans just two seats shy of the majority, with about a dozen races left to be called.A moderate Democrat, Ms. Caraveo kept a relatively low profile after winning her seat two years ago in a new swing district north of Denver. Her campaign heavily emphasized Ms. Caraveo’s background as a pediatrician and the daughter of Mexican immigrants, highlighting how her stances on reproductive rights and access to health care contrasted starkly with her opponent’s.She was Colorado’s first Latina elected to federal office.Mr. Evans, who has refused to say that former President Donald J. Trump lost the 2020 election and also downplayed the severity of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, was one of several election deniers and skeptics who sought to flip tossup districts.He also backpedaled his stance on abortion, saying in a recent debate that he would no longer support a national ban after endorsing one in 2022. As a state representative, he voted against a ban on corporal punishment in Colorado public schools, and refused to say during a debate with Ms. Caraveo when he believed it would be appropriate for a teacher to strike a child. More

How do you slash, cut, restructure and even dismantle parts of the federal government?If you’re President-elect Donald J. Trump, you turn to two wealthy entrepreneurs: the spaceship-inventing, electric-car-building owner of a social media platform and a moneymaking former pharmaceutical executive who was once one of your presidential rivals.Mr. Trump said on Tuesday that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead what he called the Department of Government Efficiency. It will be, he said, “the Manhattan Project” of this era, driving “drastic change” throughout the government with major cuts and new efficiencies in bloated agencies in the federal bureaucracy by July 4, 2026.“A smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy, will be the perfect gift to America on the 250th Anniversary of The Declaration of Independence,” Mr. Trump wrote in a statement. “I am confident they will succeed!”The statement left unanswered all kinds of major questions about an initiative that is uncertain in seriousness but potentially vast in scope. For starters, the president-elect did not address the fact that no such department exists. And he did not elaborate on whether his two rich supporters would hire a staff for the new department, which he said is aimed in part at reducing the federal work force.Mr. Musk, who became one of Mr. Trump’s biggest campaign contributors, said before the election that he would help the president-elect cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. But he did not explain in any detail how that would be accomplished or what parts of the government would be slashed.“This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!” Mr. Musk said in the statement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

President-elect Donald J. Trump selected Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota on Tuesday to run the Homeland Security Department, a critical position in charge of the nation’s immigration system.Mr. Trump has made an immigration crackdown a central element of his administration’s promises, with pledges to not only more aggressively police the border but to also carry out a wide-scale deportation operation throughout the country.Ms. Noem will play a crucial role in helping Mr. Trump deliver on those promises as she will be in charge of agencies that enforce immigration laws, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.In a statement on social media, Mr. Trump called Ms. Noem “very strong on Border Security,” noting that she sent National Guard troops to the Texas-Mexico border as governor. Ms. Noem, in her own social media statement, pledged to “secure the border and restore safety to American communities so families will again have the opportunity to pursue the American Dream.”If she is confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Noem will lead an agency that oversees entities including the Coast Guard and the Secret Service, which has weathered criticism over two attempts on Mr. Trump’s life during the presidential campaign.History suggests it will be challenging to keep Mr. Trump satisfied: During his first term, Mr. Trump cycled through six homeland security leaders.During her time as governor, Ms. Noem has made immigration a key talking point. She has been a fierce critic of the Biden administration’s immigration policies.“Biden’s open border policies are facilitating illegal border crossings,” she said in a post on X earlier this year. “This invasion must end. The federal government has to stop violating federal law. And we need to go back to President Trump’s successful immigration policies immediately.”Ms. Noem has taken action on immigration enforcement as well: In line with other Republican state leaders, she sent National Guard troops in 2023 to help Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas police the border.“The border crisis is growing worse under President Biden’s willful inaction,” she said in a statement in 2023. “Across the country, crime rates, drug overdoses, and human trafficking have all skyrocketed because our border remains a warzone.” In 2021, as the Biden administration struggled to deal with an influx of migrants at the border, Ms. Noem said repeatedly that she would refuse entry to anyone who was not authorized to be in the country.“My message to illegal immigrants is — Call me when you’re an American. In the meantime, South Dakota will not be accepting any relocation of illegal immigrants from President Biden,” she said on Facebook in April 2021.Ms. Noem became a subject of controversy when she revealed in a memoir that she shot and killed a family dog she was training because it was “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with.” More

Jumping from the high school ranks to lead one of the most storied programs in college football, he lost games but rarely lost hope.Gerry Faust, who saw his childhood dream to play quarterback for the University of Notre Dame dashed, only to live out another one by rising from high school football coach in Ohio to leader of the storied Fighting Irish, died on Monday. He was 89.The university confirmed his death in a statement. It did not cite a cause or say where he died.Before Faust first strode onto the football field amid a sea of gold Notre Dame helmets in 1981, he was not unheralded. Over nearly two decades, starting in 1962, he guided Archbishop Moeller High School, in the suburbs of Cincinnati, to a jaw-dropping 174-17-2 record.Even so, he was considered an extreme outlier in taking over a marquee college program without ever having coached beyond the high school level. His hiring became known as the Bold Experiment.Faust’s five-year tenure with the Irish was checkered, with the team, a perennial powerhouse, tallying an uncharacteristically mediocre 30-26-1 record under him, with just one bowl victory, a 19-18 win over Boston College in the 1983 Liberty Bowl.But while his run was underwhelming, his underdog tale became the stuff of Notre Dame lore.“The story is one of the great stories you’ve ever heard,” the television host and Notre Dame alumnus Regis Philbin recalled in a 2007 ESPN documentary about Faust. “Guy praying for something all his life, and one day he got it.”This was not just any university, after all, but a football bastion in South Bend, Ind., where hallowed coaches like Knute Rockne and Ara Parseghian once strode the sidelines, Parseghian in the shadow of a giant “Word of Life” mural portraying Christ holding his arms aloft toward the heavens and that fans came to christen “Touchdown Jesus.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More