Republican Assault on Public Education

[MT15]

This probably needs its own thread. It ties in with a lot of different R culture wars: Attacks on universities, attacks on CRT and “woke”. Classifying teachers and librarians as “groomers”. Pushing vouchers to send tax money to private, often religious, schools. Betsy DeVos was an advocate for all these policies that will weaken public education, and there are several billionaires who also want to dismantle public education. Public education may have its faults, but it is responsible for an amazing amount of upward mobility. Kids from poor areas can still get a college prep education in a public school.

Vouchers (sometimes disguised as “school choice”) are a particular peeve of mine. Public money is diverted from poor schools to wealthy private schools, which aren’t required to offer accommodations for special needs or challenged students. Families with special needs kids are left out. Rural areas often suffer disproportionately because there are no private schools to attend, but their public schools still see the reduction in funding. Often the families who take advantage of the voucher money are upper class and the private schools simply raise tuition knowing the families are getting taxpayer money now.

Greg Abbot is being particularly vile in this area. No surprise. Voters will have to make a statement about public education. If we want to halt the growing divide in this country between the “haves” and “have-nots”, we need to pay attention to public education.

 

[Optimus Prime]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration’s effort to overturn decades-old school desegregation orders is facing pushback from a federal judge in Louisiana.

After the judge refused to close the books on a desegregation case dating back to the 1960s, the Concordia Parish school system in central Louisiana and the state on Tuesday filed an appeal. The case offers the first major test of the government’s attempt to quickly end some of the long-running cases.

The school system has become a focal point in the administration’s attempt to end legal cases that reach back to the Civil Rights era. Louisiana state officials say the cases are outdated and no longer needed. In a remarkable turn, they’ve recently gained support from the U.S. Justice Department, which spent decades fighting for such cases.

The campaign encountered its first major obstacle this month when U.S. District Judge Dee Drell rejected a court filing from Louisiana and the Justice Department aiming to free Concordia from a 1965 lawsuit. That case was brought by Black families who demanded access to the town’s all-white schools.

A number of legal requirements from the case remain in place today, and some families say the court orders are still needed to improve education at the area’s mostly Black schools……..

Trump administration's effort to end 1960s school desegregation cases faces a hurdle

The Trump administration’s effort to overturn decades-old school desegregation orders is facing pushback from a federal judge in Louisiana.

apnews.com

 

[zztop]

PBS Is Shutting Down Service In an Entire State After Losing Federal Funding | Cord Cutters News

In a landmark decision for public broadcasting, the Arkansas Educational Television Commission voted on December 11, 2025, to end its partnership with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), effective July 1, 2026. This move positions Arkansas as the first state to fully sever ties with the...

cordcuttersnews.com

the Arkansas Educational Television Commission voted on December 11, 2025, to end its partnership with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), effective July 1, 2026. This move positions Arkansas as the first state to fully sever ties with the national network

After NPR and PBS defunding, FCC receives call to take away station licenses

NPR and PBS stations targeted by group involved in Carr's news-distortion probes.

arstechnica.com

A conservative group yesterday urged the Federal Communications Commission to take licenses away from NPR and PBS stations and let other entities use the spectrum. The request came from the Center for American Rights (CAR), a nonprofit law firm that has played a prominent role in the news-distortion investigations spearheaded by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.

“In the wake of the wind-down of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the end of federal funding for NPR and PBS, the Center respectfully suggests that the Commission open an inquiry that looks at the future of ‘public’ broadcasting in that new environment,” a Center for American Rights filing said.

The CPB is set to shut down after Congress approved President Trump’s request to rescind its funding. The Center for American Rights said the CPB shutdown should be used as an opportunity to reassign spectrum used by NPR and PBS stations to other entities.

 

[Broncos 1996]

It's not an assault on public ed.
There should be school choice.

Homeschooling, etc. should be an option.

Not everyone has to go to public school.

 

[camdudetenger2018]

PBS Is Shutting Down Service In an Entire State After Losing Federal Funding | Cord Cutters News

In a landmark decision for public broadcasting, the Arkansas Educational Television Commission voted on December 11, 2025, to end its partnership with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), effective July 1, 2026. This move positions Arkansas as the first state to fully sever ties with the...

cordcuttersnews.com

the Arkansas Educational Television Commission voted on December 11, 2025, to end its partnership with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), effective July 1, 2026. This move positions Arkansas as the first state to fully sever ties with the national network

After NPR and PBS defunding, FCC receives call to take away station licenses

NPR and PBS stations targeted by group involved in Carr's news-distortion probes.

arstechnica.com

A conservative group yesterday urged the Federal Communications Commission to take licenses away from NPR and PBS stations and let other entities use the spectrum. The request came from the Center for American Rights (CAR), a nonprofit law firm that has played a prominent role in the news-distortion investigations spearheaded by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.

“In the wake of the wind-down of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the end of federal funding for NPR and PBS, the Center respectfully suggests that the Commission open an inquiry that looks at the future of ‘public’ broadcasting in that new environment,” a Center for American Rights filing said.

The CPB is set to shut down after Congress approved President Trump’s request to rescind its funding. The Center for American Rights said the CPB shutdown should be used as an opportunity to reassign spectrum used by NPR and PBS stations to other entities.

well at least the trump family or there pod people the trumpers did not buy both pbs and npr

 

[Optimus Prime]

WASHINGTON – A top official at the U.S. Department of Education has been keeping a controversial flag linked to Christian nationalism and the Jan. 6 insurrection hung outside his office, according to the agency's union and a department employee who has observed it.

It's the latest in a series of instances in which the flag – which depicts a pine tree and the words "An Appeal to Heaven" – has been associated with agencies and figures at the highest levels of the federal government.

Though long tied to the American Revolution, the banner in more recent years "has been adopted primarily by evangelical Christian nationalist groups," as well as the Proud Boys and certain neo-Nazi groups, according to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, an independent nonprofit organization.

It was flown in 2021 by rioters at the U.S. Capitol as they tried to prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election results.

The symbol's emergence at the agency responsible for overseeing billions of dollars in federal funding for the nation's schools is already raising concerns about the separation of church and state.

Rachel Gittleman, the president of the union for Education Department workers nationwide, said in a statement that the agency "has no place for symbols that were carried by insurrectionists."

“Since January, hardworking public servants at the U.S. Department of Education have been subjected to threats, harassment, and sustained demoralization," she said.

"Now, they are being asked to work in an environment where a senior leader is prominently displaying an offensive flag – one that, regardless of its origins in the American Revolution, has come to represent intolerance, hatred, and extremism."……..

Flag linked to Christian nationalism, Jan. 6 hung at Education Dept.

The flag, which depicts a pine tree and the words "An Appeal to Heaven," was seen hanging outside the office of a top Education Department official.

www.usatoday.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

The 10-year-old was dragged down a school hallway by two school staffers. A camera captured him being forced into a small, empty room with a single paper-covered window.

The staffers shut the door in his face. Alone, the boy curled into a ball on the floor. When school employees returned more than 10 minutes later, blood from his face smeared the floor.

Maryland state lawmakers were shown this video in 2017 by Leslie Seid Margolis, a lawyer with the advocacy group Disability Rights Maryland.

She had spent 15 years advocating for a ban on the practice known as seclusion, in which children, typically those with disabilities, are involuntarily isolated and confined, often after emotional outbursts.

Even after seeing the video, no legislators were willing to go as far as a ban. Nor were they when Margolis tried again a few years later.

In 2021, however, the federal justice department concluded an investigation into a Maryland school district and found more than 7,000 cases of unnecessary restraint and seclusion in a two-and-a-half-year period.

Four months later, Maryland lawmakers passed a bill prohibiting seclusion in the state’s public schools, with nearly unanimous support.

“I can’t really overstate the impact that [the] justice [department] can have,” said Margolis. “They have this authority that is really helpful to those of us who are on the ground doing this work.”

Within the justice department’s civil rights division is a small office devoted to educational issues, including seclusion, as well as desegregation and racial harassment.

The division intentionally chooses cases with potential for high impact and actively monitors places it has investigated to ensure they are following through with changes. When the educational opportunities section acts, educators and policymakers take notice.

Now, however, the Trump administration is wielding the power of the justice department in new and, some say, extreme ways. Hundreds of career staffers, including most of those who worked on education cases, have resigned.

The Department of Education’s office for civil rights also has been decimated, largely through layoffs. The two offices traditionally have worked closely together to enforce civil rights protections for students.

The result is a potentially lasting shift in how the nation’s top law enforcement agency handles issues that affect public school students, including millions who have disabilities.

“There are those who would say that this is an aberration, and that when it’s over, things will go back to the way they were,” said Frederick Lawrence, a lecturer at Georgetown Law and former assistant US attorney under President Ronald Reagan. “My experience is that the river only flows in one direction, and things never go back to the way they were.”

The justice department’s lawyers historically have worked on a few dozen education cases at once, concentrating on combating sexual harassment, racial discrimination against Black and Latino students, restraint and seclusion, and failure to provide adequate services to English learners.

In the last 11 months, however, the agency has sued over and opened investigations into concerns about antisemitism, transgender policies and bias against white people at schools.

It sued at least six states for offering discounted tuition to undocumented immigrants and pressed the president of the University of Virginia to resign as part of an investigation into the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

And it joined other federal departments to form a special Title IX investigations team to protect students from what the administration called the “pernicious effects of gender ideology in school programs and activities”.

As the educational opportunity section’s mission shifted, it shrunk in size. In January, before Donald Trump took office for the second time, about 40 lawyers tackled education issues.

In the spring, the US Senate confirmed Harmeet Dhillon as leader of the civil rights division. Dhillon founded the conservative Center for American Liberty, which describes itself as “defending civil liberties of Americans left behind by civil rights legacy organizations”.

After her confirmation, staff who were not political appointees began resigning en masse, concerned Dhillon would promote only the administration’s agenda.

By June, no more than five of the 40 lawyers were left, according to former employees. Some new staff have been hired or reassigned to the section, but the head count remains well below usual.

It’s far from enough to sustain the typical workload, said Shaheena Simons, who was chief of the educational opportunities section until she resigned in April. “There’s just no way the division can function with that level of staffing. It’s just impossible,” said Simons, who took over the section in 2016. “The investigations aren’t going to happen. Remedies aren’t going to be sought.”…….

‘A shifting system’: concerns over students’ civil rights rise as DoJ changes priorities

Under Trump, the department that once rooted out race- and disability-based discrimination has begun opening investigations over antisemitism and transgender policies

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

SHELBYVILLE, Ky. (AP) — When the funding for Shannon Johnson’s job as a school mental health counselor came to an abrupt end, two years into a five-year grant, she thought about the work left to be done.

Johnson taught elementary and middle-school students in rural Kentucky how to navigate conflict, build resilience and manage stress and anxiety before a crisis happens. Few districts, especially rural ones, can dedicate a full-time role to early intervention amid a national shortage of mental health staff.

But the Trump administration discontinued her grant, giving her a sudden end date. So when another job opened in Shelby County Public Schools — this one not reliant on federal grants — she took it.

The district 30 miles east of Louisville does not plan to fill her former position. Without the federal money, it cannot.

Federal dollars make up roughly 10% of education spending nationally, but the percentage is significantly higher in rural districts, which are not able to raise as much money on property taxes.

When the funding is reduced, many districts have no way to make up the lost money.

Since President Donald Trump’s administration began its sweeping examination of federal grants to schools and universities, millions of dollars for programs supporting mental health, academic enrichment and teacher development have been withheld or discontinued.

The Republican administration says the grants do not focus on academics and they prop up diversity or inclusion efforts that run counter to White House priorities……..

Rural schools hit by Trump's grant cuts have few options for making up for the lost money

Many rural school districts around the United States are having a hard time making up for federal grant money that's been cut by the Trump administration.

apnews.com

 

[Broncos 1996]

School choice is the best alternative.

Not everyone has to go to a public school.

All types of educations should be available for all people.

Some people need to be homeschooled and that is okay.

Do not restrict homeschooling.

A lot of people are bullied.

 

[MT15]

School choice is the best alternative.

Not everyone has to go to a public school.

All types of educations should be available for all people.

Some people need to be homeschooled and that is okay.

Do not restrict homeschooling.

A lot of people are bullied.

Nobody is restricting home schooling. Nobody. What people are objecting to is the movement of public funds from public schools to private and home schooling. The radicals of the Heritage Society want to end public education thereby ensuring that only people with money will be able to afford a decent education for their kids. They want to create a permanent underclass of poorly educated folks who will take the grunt jobs that immigrants do now. Because it’s not their kids that are going to be roofers, or work in the meat packing plants or clean hotel rooms.

 

[Broncos 1996]

Nobody is restricting home schooling. Nobody. What people are objecting to is the movement of public funds from public schools to private and home schooling. The radicals of the Heritage Society want to end public education thereby ensuring that only people with money will be able to afford a decent education for their kids. They want to create a permanent underclass of poorly educated folks who will take the grunt jobs that immigrants do now. Because it’s not their kids that are going to be roofers, or work in the meat packing plants or clean hotel rooms.

True, I agree that taxpayer funds should not go to that.

Billionaires can fund charters, they have the money for it.

 

[bird]

School choice is the best alternative.

Not everyone has to go to a public school.

All types of educations should be available for all people.

Some people need to be homeschooled and that is okay.

Do not restrict homeschooling.

A lot of people are bullied.

There already is school choice.

All types of education are already available to all people.

All kids already can go to any school they want (actually, what their parents want).

Homeschooling isn’t restricted.

Yes, a lot of people are bullied which is irrelevant.

The state should never, ever, pay for private schools including charter schools, for-profit schools, e-schools or religious schools.

The Radicalized Reactionary Party has wanted to destroy the public school system. Their method is the terrorist organization called the Heritage Foundation.

 

[longtime lurker]

Sorry if this was previously posted. This would hurt kids like my two disabled children. Republican, Independent, whatever you are….how could this be ok? Disabled children?

https://www.npr.org/2025/12/11/nx-s1-5640757/head-start-hhs-funding-dei

 

[Dragon]

Sorry if this was previously posted. This would hurt kids like my two disabled children. Republican, Independent, whatever you are….how could this be ok? Disabled children?

https://www.npr.org/2025/12/11/nx-s1-5640757/head-start-hhs-funding-dei

Free speech much? When words are getting weaponized and censurship rules - democracy falters.

Are their white male grievances so strong that they will try to abolish any mentioning of people who is not cis-gender males? Notice the words "male" or "white" are not on the list!

 

[bird]

Free speech much? When words are getting weaponized and censurship rules - democracy falters.

Are their white male grievances so strong that they will try to abolish any mentioning of people who is not cis-gender males? Notice the words "male" or "white" are not on the list!

Well, yes. Beyond that it is simply shoving things they don’t like or want to see back in the closet or under the rug. Those things hurt their fee-feeies.

 

[zztop]

Sorry if this was previously posted. This would hurt kids like my two disabled children. Republican, Independent, whatever you are….how could this be ok? Disabled children?

Because in trumpMAGA world, the only people that matter are white straight males

 

[camdudetenger2018]

Because in trumpMAGA world, the only people that matter are white straight males

lol what about black conservative trumpers

 

[bird]

lol what about black conservative trumpers

They actually don’t matter either. The percentage is likely small and should the coup end up being successful they will find themselves outside looking in.

 

[zztop]

lol what about black conservative trumpers

They're in denial that they are different than the other folk that white republicans are hateful and racist towards.