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.

 

[MT15]

Florida continues to be the Hungary of the US. Just awful, led by horrible people.

Texas says, hold my beer, they have excluded Muslim religious schools from their voucher programs. Seems extremely bigoted and unconstitutional to me.

 

[fooferdoggie]

Texas says, hold my beer, they have excluded Muslim religious schools from their voucher programs. Seems extremely bigoted and unconstitutional to me.

Religious freedom GOP style.

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

Religious freedom GOP style.

Yeah. The Republicans want the freedom for the country to be only Christian, not true religious freedom.

 

[Optimus Prime]

 

[Optimus Prime]

 

[zztop]

This is more about propaganda, but

https://www.npr.org/2026/04/01/nx-s1-5770077/president-trump-national-mall-jeffrey-epstein-stephen-miller-pam-bondi

There's a propaganda war playing out on the National Mall between the Trump administration and its critics. The administration has hung giant banners bearing President Trump's face from several federal buildings. His name now adorns both the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the United States Institute of Peace.

Meanwhile, an anonymous group called the Secret Handshake has put up satirical statues of Trump and artworks that emphasize everything from the president's friendship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to Trump's taste for marble and gold leaf.

Another group, the Save America Movement, has plastered posters on fences and walls mocking members of Trump's Cabinet. One shows a photo of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and says, "Fascism Ain't Pretty." Another shows Attorney General Pam Bondi and reads, "Epstein Queen."

 

[Optimus Prime]

Guess this can go here
============
A new college entrance exam focused on ancient Western civilization is gaining ground across the United States, with backing from the Trump administration and Republican-led states as a challenger to the long-dominant SAT and ACT.

The Classic Learning Test, founded in 2015, has recently picked up a string of high-profile endorsements, The Washington Post reported.

The Pentagon has authorized the exam for use in U.S. military service academies and associated scholarships. State legislatures in Indiana and Arkansas have enacted laws requiring public universities to consider CLT scores, and the North Carolina university system has agreed to accept the test at its campuses, including its flagship in Chapel Hill.

Jeremy Tate, the founder of the test and the Maryland-based company behind it, Classic Learning Initiatives, told the newspaper that the organization has “had some big wins.”………

Conservative-pushed Classic Learning Test is replacing the SAT and ACT in some states

Unlike its competitors, the Classic Learning Test draws two-thirds of its verbal content from a bank of more than 160 foundational writers, ranging from ancient philosophers like Plato to more modern thinkers like Martin Luther King Jr

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

 

[TampaJoe]

Public education is crushing it right?

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

Public education is crushing it right?

Public education has been getting crushed by Republicans since the Nixon administration. This is another example of Republicans sabotaging a government service that was working really well so they could say "public education sucks" and have people believe their dishonesty, deceptiveness, betrayal and underhandedness.

Your comment sadly shows that it worked on some people.

 

[TampaJoe]

Public education has been getting crushed by Republicans since the Nixon administration. This is another example of Republicans sabotaging a government service that was working really well so they could say "public education sucks" and have people believe their dishonesty, deceptiveness, betrayal and underhandedness.

Your comment sadly shows that it worked on some people.

I spent over 35 years in Memphis TN. Republicans don’t run that town or that school board nor do they run many school boards in other failing districts.

You are just repeating a talking point. If you want dishonest. Check the mirror.

 

[LA 2 L.A.]

I spent over 35 years in Memphis TN.

Living there all that time didn't do anything to help you understand how things work.

Republicans don’t run that town or that school board nor do they run many school boards in other failing districts.

You're mistakenly short sighted about that. Federal and Tennessee state Republican controlled governments set the funding and standards. Since the Nixon administration, the Republicans have attacked public education through funding and standards every time they are in power to do so.

You are just repeating a talking point. If you want dishonest. Check the mirror.

You always resort to personal insults like this when someone effectively challenges something you said.

 

[Optimus Prime]

The conservative-majority Texas State Board of Education is considering adding at least 15 passages from the Bible to a required reading list as part of English lessons in public schools – the latest push from conservatives to implement Christianity into school curriculums.

Beginning in middle school, Texas students could be forced to read stories from the Bible including Jonah and the Whale, David and Goliath, and Lamentations 3 in addition to passages such as The Definition of Love from the New Testament, according to the list reported by the New York Times.

The list also includes well-known literary works such as The Diary of Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, “The Odyssey,” various plays by William Shakespeare, poems by Edgar Allan Poe and more.

In addition to the new Biblical readings, the Texas State Board of Education has also proposed making more of an emphasis on U.S. and Texas history into studies of chronological history for nearly every grade.

The new proposed changes have raised concerns from advocacy groups and academics who believe the changes will teach children a one-sided history lesson and “indoctrinate” students.

“Texas public schools exist to educate, not indoctrinate,” Chris Line, the legal counsel for the Freedom from Religion Foundaiton said last year after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recommended schools infuse Christianity into education.

“When you use your official position to instruct children to pray ‘as taught by Jesus Christ,’ you send a message to Texas students and families that the state favors Christianity over all other religions and over nonreligion. This is precisely what the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment forbids,” Line added.

“If adopted as written, these recommendations would essentially leave our children able to recite disconnected Texas facts, but it would really undermine their ability to understand a global economy and the role that Texas plays outside of the state,” Rocio Fierro-Perez, the political director for the Texas Freedom Network, a watchdog organization, told KFOX14................

Texas students could soon be forced to read from the Bible in public schools

Required readings would include passages from Old and New Testament for students in middle school

www.the-independent.com

 

[fooferdoggie]

The conservative-majority Texas State Board of Education is considering adding at least 15 passages from the Bible to a required reading list as part of English lessons in public schools – the latest push from conservatives to implement Christianity into school curriculums.

they just keep pushing and pushing to see what thy can get away with. they cant even follow the bible they are pushing on the kids.

 

[Optimus Prime]

……..That money has brought Prager’s master plan to life. Despite its name, it is not in fact a university, but rather a prolific content generator that has often been accused of spreading misleading information.

PragerU’s goal is to attract young people to its ideology, and it is increasingly making inroads in America’s educational systems.

Teachers tap PragerU’s library of free lesson plans and videos, some of which have become approved classroom materials in a dozen states, including Texas, Florida and Arizona. Middle and high schoolers flip through its books about the perils of socialism and “the human cost of reducing emissions”. College students at Southeastern University in Florida can earn credit by taking a PragerU history course.

And though the non-profit originally focused on reaching students and the general public, it has expanded its target audience to small children with cartoons and picture books, such as The ABC’s of America, which it says is designed “for babies and toddlers”.

Similar to other rightwing groups with a vested interest in young Americans’ education, such as Moms for Liberty and Turning Point USA, PragerU has also found an ally in the White House. In June, the Trump administration unveiled a partnership with PragerU centering on the founding fathers and the US’s 250th anniversary – an announcement that immediately raised its profile.

“Our vision has always been to undo the damage of America’s education system and to provide a wholesome, patriotic education to Americans who seek to understand our country and seek to defend her from within,” PragerU’s CEO, Marissa Streit, said in a video call……..

PragerU’s ascent comes as traditional educational institutions are disintegrating, and not by accident, as Republican officials work to dismantle what they have described as vectors of “woke” ideologies. PBS faces huge budget cuts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting ceased operating in January and the Department of Education is slashing its staff.

“I really do worry that PragerU material might potentially be used even more,” said Jonathan Jarry, a science communicator at McGill University’s office for science and society who has written about the group. “It’s almost like they’re filling the void.”

That certainly seems to be the goal. Thanks to its deep reserves, PragerU can afford to give away its digital materials for free, unlike most curriculum providers.

Last year, PragerU’s videos were viewed more than 2bn times, said Streit, and nearly 4 million parents and educators have expressed interest in its materials for children, such as by signing up for kids’ newsletters. (The Guardiancould not independently verify these figures.)

With newfound momentum, it is arguably angling to become a conservative replacement for PBS, Time for Kids and Sesame Street simultaneously, helping shape young minds from infancy.………

Another example, geared toward elementary students, is a cheerful animated short from 2022 about a pair of time-traveling children who meet Christopher Columbus.

In the video, Columbus shrugs off the degree to which Native Americans were subjugated by European colonizers.

“Slavery is as old as time and has taken place in every corner of the world,” he tells the kids. “Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no? I don’t see the problem.”

Columbus goes on to tell the children that it is “estupido” to judge his actions based on modern conceptions of morality.……..

‘Masquerading as a university’: inside the brazen rightwing plan to conquer American schools

As teachers eagerly adopt its free lesson plans and the White House boosts its videos, PragerU is intent on one goal: attracting young people to conservatism

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

Liberal candidates largely swept school board elections on April 7, 2026, in politically contentious districts in Wisconsin, Missouri, Alaska and Oklahoma, where book bans, gender identity and prayer during school events were on the table.

Amy Lieberman, the education editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke with Carrie Sampson, a scholar of educational leadership and policy with an emphasis on school boards, to understand what school board members do and why these local elections carry weight for many parents, teachers and students.……

Liberal candidates sweep school board elections as Moms for Liberty loses ground

By Carrie Sampson, Assistant Professor in the Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation, Arizona State University,The Conversation, Michigan AdvanceElection races for local school boards have become hotly contested in many states as they have become forums for debates over...

www.rawstory.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

Stephen Miller has a new plan to advance the Trump administration’s immigration agenda.

The president’s Homeland Security adviser is encouraging state lawmakers to pass legislation that would fund public education only for children who are U.S citizens or otherwise lawfully present in the country. Undocumented children would, in effect, be excluded from public schools. Miller’s idea is that such a measure passed at the state level would be a good test case to take to the Supreme Court.

This line of thinking is misguided and just plain cruel. Taking aim at undocumented children flies in the face of legal precedent, existing law and common sense. It would be bad policy as well as bad politics for any state to target kids based on their immigration status.

Any effort by states to keep undocumented children out of schools would run up against the 1982 Supreme Court ruling in Plyler v. Doe. In that case, the court found that undocumented students have a constitutional right to public education based on the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

“By denying these children a basic education” Justice William Brennan wrote in the majority opinion, “we deny them the ability to live within the structure of our civic institutions and foreclose any realistic possibility that they will contribute in even the smallest way to the progress of our nation.” Even the dissenting justices agreed that that denying education to undocumented children was bad policy.

The Plyler decision was later incorporated into a 1996 federal statute. So no matter what legal arguments the opponents of Plyler might put forward, there is no getting around this law passed by Congress.

Although some conservatives have long hoped to overturn Plyler, the practical impact of doing so would be immense. While the federal government does not collect immigration data about children, the American Immigration Council estimates there were about 1 million undocumented children (ages 5-18) in the U.S. in 2023.

States would have to begin verifying the immigration status of all students to identify undocumented pupils, which means school officials would need to be trained in the evaluation of documents. In Tennessee, where lawmakers have weighed legislation restricting access to education for immigrant children, the Immigration Research Initiative projects that the resulting administrative costs would be $55 million. And that’s just for the first year — these costs would continue each successive year as new students enroll in school.

Now consider the human costs of closing school doors to children lacking legal status. What exactly are these children, then, supposed to be doing? It would hardly be a desirable outcome to have a growing caste of uneducated young people within our borders. It would not be good for children, their communities or our social fabric — especially since children have no control over their immigration status.

Although the passage of laws keeping undocumented children out of schools might seem implausible, at least six states weighed such measures in 2025. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a candidate for Texas attorney general this year, said in March, “It’s time we meet the moment to overturn Plyler v. Doe.”

Conservative lawmakers and the Heritage Foundation believe that overturning the Plyler decision is a good idea. They say that states should not have to subsidize the costs of educating “illegal alien students,” because it takes resources away from Americans. But their approach only considers the costs of teaching undocumented children, not the benefits...............

https://thehill.com/opinion/education/5830913-stephen-miller-public-education-immigrants/

 

[MT15]

Stephen Miller has a new plan to advance the Trump administration’s immigration agenda.

The president’s Homeland Security adviser is encouraging state lawmakers to pass legislation that would fund public education only for children who are U.S citizens or otherwise lawfully present in the country. Undocumented children would, in effect, be excluded from public schools. Miller’s idea is that such a measure passed at the state level would be a good test case to take to the Supreme Court.

This line of thinking is misguided and just plain cruel. Taking aim at undocumented children flies in the face of legal precedent, existing law and common sense. It would be bad policy as well as bad politics for any state to target kids based on their immigration status.

Any effort by states to keep undocumented children out of schools would run up against the 1982 Supreme Court ruling in Plyler v. Doe. In that case, the court found that undocumented students have a constitutional right to public education based on the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

“By denying these children a basic education” Justice William Brennan wrote in the majority opinion, “we deny them the ability to live within the structure of our civic institutions and foreclose any realistic possibility that they will contribute in even the smallest way to the progress of our nation.” Even the dissenting justices agreed that that denying education to undocumented children was bad policy.

The Plyler decision was later incorporated into a 1996 federal statute. So no matter what legal arguments the opponents of Plyler might put forward, there is no getting around this law passed by Congress.

Although some conservatives have long hoped to overturn Plyler, the practical impact of doing so would be immense. While the federal government does not collect immigration data about children, the American Immigration Council estimates there were about 1 million undocumented children (ages 5-18) in the U.S. in 2023.

States would have to begin verifying the immigration status of all students to identify undocumented pupils, which means school officials would need to be trained in the evaluation of documents. In Tennessee, where lawmakers have weighed legislation restricting access to education for immigrant children, the Immigration Research Initiative projects that the resulting administrative costs would be $55 million. And that’s just for the first year — these costs would continue each successive year as new students enroll in school.

Now consider the human costs of closing school doors to children lacking legal status. What exactly are these children, then, supposed to be doing? It would hardly be a desirable outcome to have a growing caste of uneducated young people within our borders. It would not be good for children, their communities or our social fabric — especially since children have no control over their immigration status.

Although the passage of laws keeping undocumented children out of schools might seem implausible, at least six states weighed such measures in 2025. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a candidate for Texas attorney general this year, said in March, “It’s time we meet the moment to overturn Plyler v. Doe.”

Conservative lawmakers and the Heritage Foundation believe that overturning the Plyler decision is a good idea. They say that states should not have to subsidize the costs of educating “illegal alien students,” because it takes resources away from Americans. But their approach only considers the costs of teaching undocumented children, not the benefits...............

https://thehill.com/opinion/education/5830913-stephen-miller-public-education-immigrants/

How about we strip his citizenship and send him to El Salvador?