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    Consent decrees force schools to desegregate. The Trump administration is striking them down

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    In late April, the Department of Justice announced that it was ending a decades-long consent decree in Plaquemines parish, Louisiana, in a school district that has been under a desegregation order since the Johnson administration in the 1960s.The Plaquemines parish desegregation order, one of more than 130 such orders nationwide, was in place to ensure that the school district, which initially refused to integrate, followed the law. Many consent decrees of the era are still in existence because school districts are not in compliance with the law.Some experts, including former justice department employees, say the change in direction for the department could be worrying.These orders “provide students with really important protections against discrimination”, said Shaheena Simons, who was the chief of the educational opportunities section of the civil rights division at the justice department for nearly a decade. “They require school districts to continue to actively work to eliminate all the remaining vestiges of the state-mandated segregation system. That means that students have protections in terms of what schools they’re assigned to, in terms of the facilities and equipment in the schools that they attend. They have protection from discrimination in terms of barriers to accessing advanced programs, gifted programs. And it means that a court is there to protect them and to enforce their rights when they’re violated and to ensure that school districts are continuing to actively desegregate.”The justice department ended the Plaquemines parish desegregation order in an unusual process, one that some fear will be replicated elsewhere. The case was dismissed through a “joint stipulated dismissal”. Previously, courts have followed a specific process for ending similar cases, one in which school districts prove that they are complying with the court orders. That did not happen this time. Instead, the Louisiana state attorney general’s office worked with the justice department in reaching the dismissal.“I’m not aware of anyone, any case, that has [ended] that way before,” said Deuel Ross, the deputy director of litigation of the Legal Defense Fund (LDF); the LDF was not specifically involved with the Plaquemines parish case. “The government as a plaintiff who represents the American people, the people of that parish, has an obligation to make sure that the district has done everything that it’s supposed to have done to comply with the federal court order in the case before it gets released, and the court itself has its own independent obligation to confirm that there’s no vestiges of discrimination left in the school district that are traceable to either present or past discrimination.”Despite the district not proving that it is compliant with the order, the justice department has celebrated the end of the consent decree.“No longer will the Plaquemines Parish School Board have to devote precious local resources over an integration issue that ended two generations ago,” Harmeet K Dhillon, assistant attorney general of the justice department’s civil rights division, said in a statement announcing the decision. “This is a prime example of neglect by past administrations, and we’re now getting America refocused on our bright future.”But focusing on the age of the case implies that it was obsolete, according to Simons, who is now the senior adviser of programs and strategist at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “The administration is trying to paint these cases as ancient history and no longer relevant.”In 1966, the Johnson administration sued school districts across the country, particularly in the south, that refused to comply with desegregation demands. At the time, Plaquemines parish was led by Leander Perez, a staunch segregationist and white supremacist.Perez had played a large role in trying to keep nearby New Orleans from desegregating, and once that effort failed, he invited 1,000 white students from the Ninth Ward to enroll in Plaquemines parish schools. By 1960, nearly 600 had accepted the offer. Perez was excommunicated by Archbishop Joseph Francis Rummel for ignoring his warning to stop trying to prevent schools run by the archdiocese of New Orleans from integrating.Perez attempted to close the public schools in Plaquemines parish, and instead open all-white private academies, or, segregation academies, which became a feature of the post-integration south. An estimated 300 segregation academies, which, as private schools, are not governed by the same rules and regulations as public schools, are still in operation and majority white.Students and teachers working in school districts today might be decades removed from the people who led the push for desegregation in their districts, but they still benefit from the protections that were long ago put in place. Without court oversight, school districts that were already begrudgingly complying might have no incentive to continue to do so.According to the Century Foundation, as of 2020, 185 districts and charters consider race and/or socioeconomic status in their student assignment or admissions policies, while 722 districts and charters are subject to a legal desegregation order or voluntary agreement. The justice department currently has about 135 desegregation cases on its docket, the majority of which are in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Separate but equal doesn’t work,” said Johnathan Smith, former deputy assistant attorney general in the civil rights division at the justice department. “The reality is that students of color do better when they are in integrated classrooms … We know that the amount of resources that are devoted to schools are greater when there are a higher number of white students. So to have students attend majority-minority school districts means that they’re going to be shut out, whether that’s from AP classes, whether that’s from extracurricular activities. All the activities that make it possible for students to fully achieve occur when you have more integrated classrooms.”“Public education isn’t just about education for the sake of education,” he added. “It’s about preparing people to be citizens of our democracy and to be fully engaged in our democratic institutions. When you have students that are being shut out from quality public education, the impact is not just on those communities. It’s on our democracy writ large.”Smith, the current chief of staff and general counsel for the National Center for Youth Law, said that the decision “signals utter contempt for communities of color by the administration, and a lack of awareness of the history of segregation that has plagued our nation’s schools”.“Even though we are 71 years after the Brown v Board [of Education] decision, schools of this country remain more segregated today than they were back in 1954,” he said. “The fact that the administration is kind of wholeheartedly ending these types of consent decrees is troubling, particularly when they’re not doing the research and investigation to determine whether or not these decrees really should be ended at this point.”Smith said that the decision in the Plaquemines parish case may be a “slippery slope” in which other school districts begin reaching out to the Trump administration.“The impact they can have across the country and particularly across the south is pretty huge,” he said. “I worry that we’re going to see more and more of these decrees falling and more and more of these districts remaining segregated without any real opportunity to address that.” More

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      ‘Chipping away at democracy’: authors fear outcome of US supreme court’s LGBTQ+ book ruling

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      Sarah Brannen, an illustrator and children’s book author, was riding in the car with her sister when she received an alert on her phone in late June. She was in a group chat with other authors whose books were being debated in a US supreme court case, and the messages soon poured in. Her book, Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, which highlights a same-sex marriage, was at the center of a contentious case that had widespread implications for public school education throughout the nation.As per the 27 June ruling, a group of Maryland parents now have the option to remove their public elementary school students from classes where Uncle Bobby’s Wedding and other storybooks with LGBTQ+ themes are read. The justices decided through a 6-3 vote that the Montgomery county school board violated parents’ right to freely exercise their religion by forbidding kids from opting out of instruction. The parents argued that the board impeded them from teaching their kids about gender and sexuality in a way that aligned with their belief system.“I’m terribly concerned that one of the implications of this is that LGBTQ children and children with LGBTQ families will see some children having to leave the classroom because they’re reading a book about their families,” Brannen said. “I think it is just a terrible thing to tell young children that there’s something wrong with them so that some children can’t even hear about their family.”Brannen and other authors whose books are at the center of the case fear that the ruling could lead to parents taking their children out of any lessons that they disagree with in the future, including inclusive tellings of history. Additionally, they contend that it’s important that public school education reflects the world, which consists of diverse family structures, gender and sexual identities. Teaching kids about LGBTQ+ people and diverse families can make them more empathetic and socially competent, studies have found. Along with Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, which was illustrated by Lucia Soto, the parents’ complaint included six other books, including Born Ready by Jodie Patterson, My Rainbow by US representative DeShanna Neal and Trinity Neal, and Pride Puppy! by Robin Stevenson.View image in fullscreen“When you start to chip away at what public education was created to do,” said Neal, “you are chipping away at the very foundation of what democracy, and liberty and freedom are supposed to be.”‘Critical thinkers that can move America forward’Research has shown that it is never too young to expose children to diversity, said Rachel H Farr, a University of Kentucky professor and associate chair of psychology. Her work focuses on LGBTQ+ parents and families. She has found that kids with LGBTQ+ parents report having higher social competence than their peers because they have learned to accept that it is OK for people to be different. Exposure to diverse family structures through books, she said, could also help kids with heterosexual parents better understand the world around them.“When children learn about people who may be different than they are, that can help with things like understanding … that people can have a different point of view,” Farr said. “That can help with things like perspective-taking, kindness, empathy, a sense of belonging: things that I think many of us would argue are experiences and skills that we want children and people around us to have.”In Born Ready, a transgender boy expresses his frustration with being misgendered, until he comes to a place where he feels affirmed in his gender identity. For Patterson, the recent ruling symbolizes a shift in education from a place where preconceived beliefs are challenged and individual thoughts are formed, to a space where students are taught from a narrow perspective. It is likely that students will encounter LGBTQ+ people throughout their lives, she said, and it is important that they be prepared.“It is imperative to have experiences that are beyond the belief you might hold at that moment, so that we can be a talented country with critical thinkers that can move America forward,” Patterson said. “And I do believe that all the progress that we’ve seen in America has been through collaboration through thought, through bringing opposing opinions together and finding a space that is not necessarily one or the other but a combination.”If parents can choose to opt their children out of subjects that they don’t believe in, she said, “does that also allow for people like Native Americans to opt out of a story about Christopher Columbus or Black families to opt out of what we call American history, which is often unjustly told through the eyes of white men?” Patterson sees it as dangerous for people to not be exposed to ideas that they disagree with, because it makes them singularly informed.In the dissenting opinion of the ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that the decision “threatens the very essence of a public education”, adding that it “strikes at the core premise of public schools: that children may come together to learn not the teachings of a particular faith, but a range of concepts and views that reflect our entire society”.View image in fullscreenAccording to Farr’s research, schools are an important platform for children to learn how to form their opinions. Exposure to diversity, she said, has been shown to instill children with values of respect and kindness.“The flip side of not exposing kids to diversity, unfortunately, is that the opposite can happen. It might inadvertently increase bias, suggesting that there is only one right way to think or to be in the world,” Farr said, “as opposed to developing an appreciation that there’s a lot of different ways to be in the world, and to express oneself.”Stevenson, the author of Pride Puppy!, a story about a queer family attending a Pride parade, thinks that allowing students to leave the classroom will also make queer families invisible. The ruling “segregates books about queer people, books about families like mine, and treats these books differently from other books, and in so doing, it sends a terribly harmful message to all kids, but particularly to kids who are LGBTQ+ themselves, and kids from LGBTQ+ families”, Stevenson said. “It also has the potential to accelerate this epidemic of book bans that we are already in the midst of.”As the US supreme court deliberated on the case, DeShanna Neal, a Delaware representative and co-author of My Rainbow, worked with their legislative colleagues on a bill to protect book bans in the state of Delaware. In My Rainbow, Neal makes a rainbow-colored wig for their trans daughter, Trinity, to help her express her gender identity. The Freedom to Read Act passed on 30 June, which Neal sees as a sign that they and their colleagues are working to keep the state safe. After it passed, Neal received a text message from a colleague that read: “You will never have to worry about My Rainbow being banned in Delaware.” More

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      California school district must halt ban on critical race theory, court rules

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      A small southern California school district must immediately pause its ban on critical race theory (CRT), a California appeals court ruled on Thursday morning .The 4th district court of appeals ruling put a halt to the Temecula Valley unified school district ban until its litigation is settled in the California legal system. The decision is the latest in a long-running legal battle over the CRT ban, which was first adopted as a resolution by the Temecula Valley Board of Education in December 2022 as they attempted to purge elementary school textbooks that reference gay rights icon Harvey Milk.The recent decision, authored by Judge Kathleen O’Leary, and concurred by the panel’s other two judges, said that the vague nature and lack of legal or academic terminology in the resolution jeopardized its constitutionality.“The Resolution defined CRT as ‘a divisive ideology that assigns moral fault to individuals solely on the basis of an individual’s race’ and, therefore, is itself a racist ideology,” O’Leary’s ruling said. “The Resolution operates as if this definition is universally accepted, but the text does not indicate where this definition is derived, or whether it is shared with anyone else besides the Board.”The ruling pointed to the resolution’s lack of examples of CRT, and lack of guidance for teachers looking to modify their curriculum.O’Leary’s other primary concern revolved around “confusion and fear” from educators due to the policy, and negative impacts on education provided. One fourth grade teacher submitted a letter of evidence stating that under the doctrine, “she did not know what a permissible response was when her students asked her how and why slavery happened.”“Teachers are left to self-censor and potentially overcorrect, depriving the students of a fully informed education and further exacerbating the teachers’ discomfort in the classroom,” O’Leary wrote. “Rather than lead the classroom and moderate healthy discussion, the teachers are forced to leave children’s questions unanswered.”The conflict over CRT in education has been divisive in Temecula, a historically conservative southern California city of just more than 100,000 people. The battle has followed familiar lines, with three conservative school board members elected in 2022 after running in opposition to mask and vaccine mandates, as well as “sexualized” material in school curriculums. The school board president also famously labeled Milk as a “pedophile” and originally rejected a state-issued social studies textbook including the assassinated gay rights activist. Gavin Newsom, the California governor, threatened a $1.5m fine in response.While the school district may have run into opposition in their community and at the appeals court, headwinds at the federal level are in their favor. In late January, Donald Trump signed executive orders to promote school choice, or the use of public dollars for private education, and to remove funding from schools accused of “radical indoctrination”. Trump also revived a “1776 commission” to “promote patriotic education”. More

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      Oklahoma high schools to teach 2020 election conspiracy theories as fact

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      As part of the latest Republican push in red states to promote ideologies sympathetic to Donald Trump, Oklahoma’s new social studies curriculum will ask high school students to identify “discrepancies” in the 2020 election results.The previous standard for studying the 2020 election merely said: “Examine issues related to the election of 2020 and its outcome.” The new version is more expansive: “Identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information, including the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of ‘bellwether county’ trends.”The revised curriculum standard comes at the behest of Ryan Walters, the state school superintendent, who has publicly voiced his support for Trump. In October, Walters lauded Trump in an interview, saying that “Trump’s won the argument on education”.Walters, who has also advocated for ending “wokeness” in public schools, went on to say: “We have education bureaucrats that are left-wing, elitist, that think they know best for families, and they have become so radicalized that our families are going: ‘What is going on here?’”Oklahoma’s new social studies standards for K-12 public school students, already infused with references to the Bible and national pride, were revised at Walters’ direction. The Republican official has spent much of his first term in office not only lauding Trump but also feuding with teachers’ unions and local school superintendents.“The left has been pushing left-wing indoctrination in the classroom,” Walters said. “We’re moving it back to actually understanding history … and I’m unapologetic about that.”As part of his revisions, Walters also proposed removing education about Black Lives Matter and George Floyd’s murder, Tulsa’s NBC affiliate KJRH reports.The outlet further reported that the revisions were expected to cost the state’s taxpayers $33m in new textbooks and related material.Other efforts by Walters includepromoting Trump-endorsed Bibles across classrooms, as well as supporting an attempt to establish the US’s first public religious charter school – a case the conservative-majority supreme court seems open to siding with.The new standard raised red flags even among Walters’ fellow Republicans, including the governor and legislative leaders. They were concerned that several last-minute changes, including the language about the 2020 election and a provision stating the source of the Covid-19 virus was a Chinese lab, were added just hours before the state school board voted on them.A group of parents and educators have filed a lawsuit asking a judge to reject the standards, arguing they were not reviewed properly and that they “represent a distorted view of social studies that intentionally favors an outdated and blatantly biased perspective”.While many Oklahoma teachers have expressed outrage at the change in the standards, others say they leave plenty of room for an effective teacher to instruct students about the results of the 2020 election without misinforming them.Aaron Baker, who has taught US government in high schools in Oklahoma City for more than a decade, said he’s most concerned about teachers in rural, conservative parts of the state who might feel encouraged to impose their own beliefs on students.“If someone is welcoming the influence of these far-right organizations in our standards and is interested in inserting more of Christianity into our practices as teachers, then they’ve become emboldened,” Baker said. “For me, that is the major concern.”Leaders in the Republican-led Oklahoma legislature introduced a resolution to reject the standards, but there wasn’t enough GOP support to pass it.Part of that hesitation likely stemmed from a flurry of last-minute opposition organized by pro-Trump conservative groups such as Moms for Liberty, which has a large presence in Oklahoma and threatened lawmakers who reject the standards with a primary opponent.“In the last few election cycles, grassroots conservative organizations have flipped seats across Oklahoma by holding weak Republicans accountable,” the group wrote in a letter signed by several other conservative groups and GOP activists. “If you choose to side with the liberal media and make backroom deals with Democrats to block conservative reform, you will be next.”After a group of parents, educators and other Oklahoma school officials worked to develop the new social studies standards, Walters assembled an executive committee consisting mostly of out-of-state pundits from conservative thinktanks to revise them. He said he wanted to focus more on American exceptionalism and incorporate the Bible as an instructional resource.Among those Walters appointed to the review committee were Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation and a key figure in its Project 2025 blueprint for a conservative presidential administration, and Dennis Prager, a radio talkshow host who founded Prager U, a conservative non-profit that offers “pro-American” educational materials for children that some critics say are not accurate or objective.In a statement to the Associated Press, Walters defended teaching students about “unprecedented and historically significant” elements of the 2020 presidential election.Recounts, reviews and audits in the battleground states where Trump contested his loss all confirmed Democrat Joe Biden’s victory, and Trump lost dozens of court cases challenging the results.In addition to the curriculum revisions, a proposed rule approved by the state board of education in January mandates that parents enrolling their children in the state’s public schools show proof of immigration status.Describing the rule, which has been met with widespread outrage among parents, students and immigration advocates, Walters said: “Our rule around illegal immigration accounting is simply that … It is to account for how many students of illegal immigrants are in our schools.” More

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      North Carolina helps kids earn college degrees in high school. It’s a lifeline for immigrant families

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      Daniel is a high school senior in rural North Carolina. Soon, he will graduate with a high school diploma, an associate degree and a paralegal certification from a local community college. He’s just 17, but he’ll be able to apply for positions at law firms and begin earning an almost $50,000 salary straight out of high school.“The early college program really set me up for success because even though I’m young, I’ll be able to help financially support my family,” said Daniel, a first-generation Salvadorian American who is only using his first name to protect undocumented family members. “I’ve done all of this because of support from my mother and family. I owe everything I’ve accomplished to them and I want to give back.”It’s been a long road for Daniel, who was accepted into a competitive Cooperative Innovative high school while still in middle school. These small, public high schools are located on North Carolina community college campuses, and they enable teens to simultaneously work toward completion of a high school diploma and an associate degree. It’s one of three paths that eligible North Carolina high school students can take as part of Career and College Promise (CCP): a free, statewide dual enrollment program established by the North Carolina state legislature in 2011, and that also facilitates college transfer or further technical education. The program helped Daniel get ahead of the curve, and so far it’s paid off. The teenager was just accepted into Vanderbilt University.According to North Carolina educators who spoke to the Guardian, dual enrollment is one of the state’s best kept secrets – especially for first-generation Latino students like Daniel.And because CCP is open to all qualified high school students, the program offers an extraordinary benefit to undocumented young people. As college students, undocumented immigrants are ineligible for most financial aid and otherwise considered “non-residents”, requiring them to pay out-of-state tuition at more than double the cost to residents. However, undocumented high school students participating in dual enrollment can attend up to four years of community college free of charge.But thanks to Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant vision for the US, students from immigrant families are now afraid – and so too are North Carolina community college educators and administrators, who fear their schools will be targeted for their efforts to extend educational opportunities to Latino communities. For safety reasons, most of the students, educators and administrators who spoke to the Guardian chose to remain anonymous.Engines of equity and accessLatinos have been the fastest growing demographic in North Carolina since the 1990s, with young Latino citizens in particular accounting for much of the growth. Many of these young people are the US citizen children of immigrants or come from mixed-status families where only some family members have authorization to be in the US.But even with 30 years to adjust to shifting demographics, the education system in North Carolina was largely ill-equipped to serve Latino students – especially in rural communities where a large percentage of the state’s Latino population resides.One rural community college staff administrator responsible for Latino engagement has worked tirelessly over the last few years to reach students like Daniel, whom they helped usher through College and Career Promise. They see it as part of their job to spearhead efforts to bring bilingual programs and classes to their community college, hire members of the immigrant community to teach, and perform outreach at local Latino community events. They also work closely to problem-solve with individual students, whether that means referring an undocumented student to scholarship opportunities or walking a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) recipient through the process of obtaining employer-sponsored in-state tuition. Just a few short months ago, these were efforts the staff administrator would have trumpeted – but times have changed.“I am afraid it might call attention to us in a negative way,” they said. “I saw how parents were too scared to drive to schools in [North Carolina] … and how people knew which roads not to take due to the police presence. I don’t want to widely call attention to us as being immigrant-friendly when the goal of this administration is to quash that.”There are valid reasons to be fearful. The Trump administration’s targeting and defunding of institutions with DEI policies have led many to preemptively comply out of fear of losing federal funding, and now that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) rescinded a previous policy warning against carrying out immigration enforcement in “sensitive locations”, schools are fair game for immigration raids. In recent weeks, hundreds of foreign college students have also had their visas revoked by the Trump administration, though it changed course and restored some students’ status after widespread media attention and court challenges.It was because of “serious concerns for the safety of students and the entire campus community” that officials from another North Carolina community college located in a mid-sized city initially spoke on the record, but later decided to remain anonymous. An administrator responsible for Latino student engagement there told the Guardian that when community colleges are forced to hide their efforts to make education more accessible, it also means hiding services from students and community members who need them the most.Alice Dolbow, a senior adviser at the North Carolina non-profit LatinxEd, issued an important reminder to schools now afraid to make these efforts public: helping immigrant and first generation students access higher education is “not against the law”. Her organization focuses on developing Latino education leaders in higher education.“I think many districts found themselves unexpectedly transformed by the increase in immigration,” Dolbow said. “Interestingly, community colleges are catching up at a much faster rate than our K-12 schools and our four-year universities. Programs like CCP are great for all students; they are engines of equity and access for all North Carolinians, including undocumented students. I want to be clear that any programs that happen to also help undocumented students access higher education are not ‘loopholes’. We are not ‘taking advantage of the system’. We are operating within the system and under the laws we have, and we are doing what the laws and system allow.”Latino students in the state – many of whom come from mixed-status families – are also a lifeline for North Carolina community colleges. Before 2020, community college enrollment in the state was on a slow decline. Then, 69,000 CCP students participated in dual enrollment during the pandemic. While community colleges don’t track the immigration status of students in the CCP program, it’s clear that more targeted outreach to the state’s young, growing Latino population can transform community college enrollment and the trajectory of Latino and immigrant families in the state.In many ways, community colleges are primed to serve immigrant communities. They offer flexible schedules; English classes for adults; continuing education; and curriculum programs that can lead to certificates, diplomas and degrees. In recent years, North Carolina has made considerable leeway to recruit Latino students of all kinds, in part, by hiring Latino educators to oversee Latino student engagement and outreach.“It is our job as community colleges to respond to the economic needs of the region, and it’s our job to educate the workforce that responds to those local economic needs,” explained the administrator from the mid-sized city. “If you have this growing population, it’s your job to serve them and by doing that, you are better serving your state.”There’s data to support the assertion. In 2018, the statewide network of 58 public community colleges that make up the North Carolina community college system partnered with population scientists to examine demographic shifts in the state. Latino student outreach was identified as a primary tool to increase community college enrollment and thus, help North Carolina remain competitive in the changing economy.The state has only three “Hispanic-serving Institutions” (HSI), defined in federal legislation as accredited, degree-granting public or private nonprofit institutions of higher education with 25% or more total undergraduate Hispanic full-time equivalent student enrollment. But that’s enough to rank North Carolina among the top 10 states in emerging HSIs, and each of North Carolina’s three existing HSIs are community colleges.‘College is … starting to feel impossible’Still, gaps in community colleges’ outreach, engagement and investment in Latino students become starkly visible when considering the experiences of undocumented students.Olivia, who is also using a pseudonym, is a North Carolina 18-year-old who benefited from dual enrollment as a high school student. After graduation, she’s struggled to pay the exorbitant cost of community college tuition as an undocumented student. Well-meaning community college administrators instructed her to apply for federal student aid, not understanding that her immigration status bars her from receiving it. Others referred her to scholarships she spent hours applying for, only to later learn the scholarships were only available to US citizens.“I feel like every year, I’ve learned about something different that I can’t do,” said Olivia, who came to the US when she was six months old. “I can’t legally work. I can’t get a driver’s license. I can’t leave the country. College is starting to feel like another thing that’s impossible. I’m starting to really worry that I have to give up on school.”Olivia’s dream is to be a pediatrician, but currently she can only afford one community college class a semester. To her parents, it appears as if she’s not working hard enough on her education.“But I’m working myself to the bone,” Olivia insisted. “I just feel like I’m not getting anywhere, and there’s a lot of pain in wanting to be something greater than you’re allowed to be.”Gabriela (also using a pseudonym) understands how hard it is to plan for the future when options are limited. When she was 14, she moved from El Salvador to North Carolina, where she became the first in her family to graduate from high school.CCP would have gone a long way to help the now 21-year-old toward her ultimate goal of becoming an elementary school teacher, but no one ever informed her of the program.Community college administrators who spoke to the Guardian said there are many challenges to getting the word on CCP out. Many high schools don’t have bilingual staff to inform parents of these opportunities. High school counselors tend to focus on advanced learning and programs for students who are headed to traditional four-year colleges instead of CCP.“As an adult, I’ve heard about all of these opportunities that would have made such a difference in my life. I’m 21 and starting from scratch,” said Gabriela. She is legally able to work in the US and has a job as a teacher’s assistant at an elementary school. Like Olivia, Gabriela has encountered administrators who were confused about why she didn’t qualify for in-state tuition. She told another administrator she was undocumented and that person later asked for her social security number.Working at a school only reinforces exactly what she wants to do professionally – and how that career path seems increasingly out of reach. Gabriela works at a school with many undocumented and mixed-status families. Under the Trump administration, many parents are afraid of participating in school life, fearful that something as innocuous as going on a field trip will require government-issued identification that they can’t provide and thus, potentially getting them on Ice’s radar.“I want to comfort them, but at any moment I know that I can be the one who is deported,” Gabriela said. “My work permit can be taken away at any moment, and what happens if I’ve enrolled in school? There are no good options. I want to remain hopeful, but I also feel like: do I really want to go back to school now? Putting myself through school will be such a sacrifice. What if I can’t do anything with my education?”North Carolina organizations such as UndocuCarolina and Pupusas for Education work to fill information and financial gaps in the state for undocumented students, Daca recipients and young people with Temporary Protected Status (TPS). But according to Glenda Polanco, too many North Carolina students are forced to make “decisions about their future out of desperation”.Polanco is the program director of Pupusas for Education, which started in 2016 to provide scholarships to undocumented students through food sales and has since turned into a non-profit organization to support Latino students. Polanco, now 32, was able to take advantage of early college as a North Carolina high school student, but she didn’t understand at the time that college classes would no longer be free after she graduated high school. If not for an extraordinary act of kindness in the form of a North Carolina couple who paid Polanco’s way through university, college would have been out of the realm of possibility.Polanco acknowledges that she was “lucky”. but says she can still remember moments of sheer panic about the cost of school and her future as an immigrant with a temporary status.“With the young people we work with … there is this daunting, insanity-provoking question: why does it have to be this hard?” Polanco said. “I don’t really have a good answer for them, and the anxiety and depression that comes with that uncertainty takes a toll. There is a psychological impact on the immigrant community – including on our parents. They want to give us the world, but none of us can really say what’s going to happen tomorrow.” More

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      Trump administration to cancel $1bn in Biden-era school mental health grants

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      The Trump administration is moving to cancel $1bn in school mental health grants, saying they reflect the priorities of the previous administration.Grant recipients were notified on Tuesday that the funding will not be continued after this year. A gun violence bill signed by Joe Biden in 2022 sent $1bn to the grant programs to help schools hire more psychologists, counselors and other mental health workers.A new notice said an education department review of the programs found they violated the purpose of civil rights law, conflicted with the department’s policy of prioritizing merit and fairness, and amounted to an inappropriate use of federal money.The cuts were made public in a social media post from the conservative strategist Christopher Rufo, who claimed the money was used to advance “left-wing racialism and discrimination”. He posted excerpts from several grant documents setting goals to hire certain numbers of nonwhite counselors or pursue other diversity, equity and inclusion policies.“No more slush fund for activists under the guise of mental health,” Rufo wrote.The education department confirmed the cuts. In an update to members of Congress that was obtained by the Associated Press, department officials said the Republican administration would find other ways to support mental health.“The Department plans to re-envision and re-compete its mental health program funds to more effectively support students’ behavioral health needs,” according to the notice.Donald Trump’s administration has cut billions of dollars in federal grants deemed to be related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and has threatened to cut billions more from schools and colleges over diversity practices. The administration says any policy that treats people differently because of their race amounts to discrimination, and it argues that DEI has often been used to discriminate against white and Asian American students. More

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      US supreme court seems open to religious public charter schools

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      The US supreme court’s conservative majority seemed open to establishing the country’s first public religious charter school as they weighed a case Wednesday that could have significant ramifications on the separation of church and state.The Oklahoma state charter school board approved the application for St Isidore, a Catholic virtual charter school. The ACLU and other groups filed suit, as did Republican attorney general Gentner Drummond. The state supreme court sided with Drummond, ruling that the US and Oklahoma constitutions “prohibit the state from using public money for the establishment of a religious institution”.The case is part of a broader push to erode the separation of church and state, a concept established through the US constitution via the “free exercise” clause of the first amendment. Oklahoma is at the forefront of this debate.The eventual ruling is seen as a test of the role of religion in the government and in schools. It comes as school choice programs like vouchers that allow students to use public monies to attend private schools grow nationwide and amid a sustained campaign against public schools.Charter schools are taxpayer-funded and free for students, but operate independently and with more autonomy than traditional public schools. Drummond’s attorney warned the case could upend charter school systems throughout the states, said Gregory Garre, who is representing Drummond in the case. Some states may respond by ramping up religious charter schools and others could halt their charter programs to avoid approving religious schools, he said.“This is going to create uncertainty, confusion and disruption for potentially millions of school children and families across the country,” Garre told the high court.The school’s proponents argue the school is not a government entity, so the state is not endorsing or funding a single religion. They also contend that denying the school from becoming a public charter effectively discriminates against religious organizations and people of faith, and that blocking the school would deprive Oklahoma students of an educational option.Jim Campbell, an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the state charter board, said there are hundreds of families signed up for the school already, despite it not being open. “They’re part of Oklahoma’s community too. They should not be treated as second class,” he said.The conservatives on the court asked questions along similar lines, contending that the school simply wanted to be treated as non-religious entities. Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the school was asking not to be excluded on the basis of religion. He also questioned whether religious-affiliated programs for foster care or food banks could be negatively affected by a ruling against the charter school.“Our cases have made very clear, and I think those are some of the most important cases we’ve had, of saying you can’t treat religious people and religious institutions and religious speech as second class in the United States,” he said on Wednesday. “And when you have a program that’s open to all comers, except religion … that seems like rank discrimination against religion.”Siding with the school would fit with recent court rulings that have eroded the separation between church and state. Rulings in 2022 determined that state governments were in some cases required to fund private religious education and that a Christian football coach at a public school could lead his athletes in prayer.The liberal justices asked how the school intended to include religious beliefs and practices in its curriculum and whether creating a religious charter school crossed the line into the state endorsing a religion.At one point, the liberal Justice Elena Kagan questioned whether other religious communities might teach different curriculum based on their faith, and a lawyer for St Isidore pushed back, saying these hypotheticals shouldn’t justify religious discrimination.“Religious communities are really different in this country, and are often extremely different from secular communities in terms of the education that they think is important for their young people and is critically important to their faith,” Kagan said.The Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, has supported St Isidore, calling the lawsuit “the biggest religious and education freedom case in our nation’s history”. Ryan Walters, the Republican superintendent of public schools in Oklahoma, has frequently spoken in favor of St Isidore and has claimed there should be no separation of church and state. He wrote in a Fox News op-ed this week that denying the school would be “religious bigotry”.“Instead of fighting against parents and telling them that government officials know what is best for their children, we should instead listen to them,” Walters wrote. “There is hope that the supreme court will give us this chance, a chance to take power away from government bureaucrats and give it back to the people.”The Trump administration supported St Isidore in an amicus brief and solicitor general D John Sauer argued in court on Wednesday that denying the school to be a public charter would violate the free exercise of religion.Justice Amy Coney Barrett has recused herself from the case, so it is possible the court could split evenly, which would keep the Oklahoma supreme court’s ruling in place and prevent the school from being a public charter. Barrett has not given a reason why she recused herself, but she is close friends with Nicole Stelle Garnett, who is a faculty fellow at the Notre Dame religious liberty clinic that has represented the school. Barrett also taught at Notre Dame’s law school before joining the court.A decision in the case is likely later this summer. More

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      Immigration agents turned away after trying to enter LA elementary schools

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      Immigration officials attempted to enter two Los Angeles elementary schools this week, but were turned away by school administrators. The incident appears to be the Trump administration’s first attempt to enter the city’s public schools since amending regulations to allow immigration agents to enter “sensitive areas” such as schools.At a Thursday press conference, the Los Angeles unified school district superintendent, Alberto Carvalho, confirmed that agents from the Department of Homeland Security were seeking five students in first through sixth grades.Officials attempted to enter two south Los Angeles schools, Lillian Street elementary and Russell elementary, but were turned away after the schools’ principals asked to see their identification. Los Angeles Unified is a sanctuary district and does not cooperate with federal immigration agencies.The news comes as the Trump administration has escalated its attacks against international students and ramped up efforts to deport undocumented and documented immigrants alike. In January, homeland security rescinded Biden administration guidelines preventing its agents from entering “sensitive areas” including schools and churches.“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” former acting homeland security secretary Benjamine Huffman said in a statement announcing the new policy. “The Trump administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”In response, LA Unified began distributing “Know Your Rights” cards to students and the school police department issued a statement saying it would not “assist or engage in immigration compliance checks, immigration enforcement activity, or ICE-related task force operations”.“I’m still mystified as to how a first-, second-, third-, fourth- or sixth-grader would pose any type of risk to the national security of our nation,” Carvalho said. “Schools are places for learning. Schools are places for understanding. Schools are places for instruction. Schools are not places of fear.”The superintendent told reporters that the immigration agents who arrived at the Los Angeles elementary schools said they wanted to see the “students to determine their well-being” as unaccompanied minors, and that they had received authorization to speak with students from their caretakers. He added that the district later spoke with the students’ caretakers and learned that was untrue.“DHS is leading efforts to conduct welfare checks on these children to ensure that they are safe and not being exploited, abused, and sex trafficked,” the homeland security department said in a statement to Fox 11 Los Angeles.“Unlike the previous administration, President Trump and Secretary Noem take the responsibility to protect children seriously and will continue to work with federal law enforcement to reunite children with their families. In less than 70 days, Secretary Noem and Secretary Kennedy have already reunited nearly 5,000 unaccompanied children with a relative or safe guardian.”Carvalho contested that, and said as an educator who entered the United States without authorization at the age of 17 himself, he felt “beyond my professional responsibility, a moral responsibility to protect these students”.The incident has drawn attention from congressional lawmakers, including Pasadena Democrat Judy Chu.“I’m absolutely incensed that DHS agents would try to enter elementary schools this week, and I’m so grateful to the brave LAUSD administrators who denied them entry. These are children who should be learning to read and write, not cowering in fear of being ripped away from their homes,” she said.“I’m concerned parents may keep their children home rather than risk sending them to school. As Angelenos, we must lock arms together in moments like these to protect kids from deportation squads and protect schools from Trump’s campaign of terror.” More

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      US supreme court allows Trump administration to freeze teacher-training grants

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      The US supreme court is letting the Trump administration temporarily freeze $65m in teacher-training grants that would promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in a 5-4 decision.The decision came down on Friday afternoon, with five of the court’s conservatives – Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh – in the majority. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson all dissented.In the unsigned opinion, the court said that the states made it clear “that they have the financial wherewithal to keep their programs running”, but the Trump administration had a strong case that it would not be able to reclaim any of the funds spent while the lower court’s order remained in place.The cuts to more than 100 programs had been temporarily blocked by a federal judge in Boston, who found that they were already affecting training programs aimed at addressing a nationwide teacher shortage. The federal appeals court in Boston turned away an appeal from the administration to allow them to resume.The emergency appeal is among several the high court is considering in which the justice department argues that lower-court judges have improperly obstructed Donald Trump’s agenda.Friday’s order was the first time in three attempts that the nation’s highest court gave the administration what it wanted on an emergency basis.US district judge Myong Joun issued a temporary restraining order sought by eight Democratic-led states that argued the cuts were probably driven by efforts from Trump’s administration to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs.The Republican president also has signed an executive order calling for the dismantling of the education department, and his administration has already started overhauling much of its work, including cutting dozens of contracts it dismissed as “woke” and wasteful.The two programs at issue – the Teacher Quality Partnership and Supporting Effective Educator Development – provide more than $600m in grants for teacher preparation programs, often in subject areas such as math, science and special education, the states have argued. They said data has shown the programs had led to increased teacher retention rates and ensured that educators remain in the profession beyond five years.Despite Joun’s finding that the programs already were being affected, the high court’s conservative majority wrote that the states can keep the programs running with their own money for now. By contrast, the majority said in an unsigned opinion, the federal government probably wouldn’t be able to recover the cash if it ultimately wins the lawsuit.
      Kagan wrote in dissent that there was no reason for the court’s emergency intervention.“Nowhere in its papers does the Government defend the legality of canceling the education grants at issue here,” Kagan wrote.In a separate opinion, Brown Jackson wrote: “It is beyond puzzling that a majority of Justices conceive of the government’s application as an emergency.”
      The administration halted the programs without notice in February. Joun, an appointee of Democratic president Joe Biden, found that the cancellations probably violated a federal law that requires a clear explanation.The appellate panel that rejected the administration’s request for a stay also was made up of judges appointed by Democrats.California is leading the ongoing lawsuit, joined by Massachusetts, New Jersey, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, New York and Wisconsin.Boston public schools have already had to fire several full-time employees due to the loss of grant funding, and the College of New Jersey has also canceled the rest of its teacher-residency program. California State University has ended support for two dozen students in a similar program, and eliminated financial assistance for 50 incoming students. More