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North Carolina: Democrats Gain Control of House in State Legislature!

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2026 //
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In 2010, the Tea Party movement enabled rightwing Republicans to win both houses of the North Carolina state legislature, called the General Assembly. For a time Republicans held a supermajority and could do whatever they wanted. They used their power to limit the authority of the governor when he was a Democrat. And they did terrible damage to the state’s public schools and teachers.

North Carolina was once considered the most progressive Southern state, but Republicans forfeited that claim. Teachers’ salaries fell behind other states, public school funding stalled, while the legislature approved charter schools (including for-profit charter chains) and vouchers.

In the November 3 election, the blue wave swept North Carolina. Democrats gained control of the House, and Republicans retained a majority of the Senate by only one vote.

The Carolina Public Press reported:

With most of the vote counted by late Tuesday night, it appeared as though Democratic candidates flipped 25 Republican seats. However, some races remain too close to count. Democrats also maintained every one of their incumbent legislative seats. 

Democrats’ state House win will restore power to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s veto. During the 2025-2026 legislative session, House Republicans were one seat shy of a supermajority, but were able to secure enough swing Democrats’ votes to override key governor vetoes on DEI policy, immigration issues, energy legislation and more. 

One of the members of the House who was defeated was Tricia Cotham. She served in the House as a Democrat from 2007-2017. As a Democrat, she supported abortion rights and opposed vouchers. She gained a certain notoriety when she campaigned and won as a Democrat in 2022, but then switched to the Republican Party in 2023, giving it a supermajority and the votes it needed to restrict abortion and enact vouchers, immune to a gubernatorial veto. She was given a safe red district by her new party, but that district went blue on Tuesday.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Industry, Elections, Extremism, For-Profit, North Carolina, Vouchers

Carol Burris: A Big Night for Public Schools

By dianeravitch
November 4, 2026 //
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Last night was a big night, a great night for public schools, writes Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education. Carol was a teacher of Spanish for many years, then a high school principal on Long Island in New York. She was selected as New York State Principal of the Year by her statewide colleagues. As executive director of NPE, she excels as an organizer, a researcher, a writer, and an analyst of statistical data. We are so fortunate to have her leadership in the battle to preserve public schools against privatization and corporate interests. And, at the same time, to advocate for ways to improve our public schools.

She writes:

Last night was an extraordinary night for those who love public education.

For me, the highlight was Gina Hinojosa’s election as governor of Texas. Gina came into politics as a mom. She ran for the Austin school board to keep her son’s school, and other neighborhood schools, from closing. In the Texas House, no one has defended public schools more fiercely, fought vouchers harder, or been more skeptical of charter schools. She has promised to fire Education Commissioner Mike Morath on day one and end state takeovers of school districts, including takeovers like Houston’s, where the failure of a single school was used to seize an entire district. You can hear Gina’s address at the 2025 Network for Public Education Conference here.

James Talarico’s Senate victory drew more of the headlines, but Gina’s win should not be overlooked. She beat a three-term incumbent who had never lost a general election and who outspent her by tens of millions of dollars. Talarico’s opponent was Ken Paxton, a scandal-plagued attorney general. I suspect Gina helped bring Latino voters to Talarico as much as he helped bring a broader electorate to her.

Talarico’s win is also good news for public schools. He is soft on charters, but he is a fierce opponent of vouchers and has publicly opposed the federal tax-credit voucher. His arrival should add momentum to Senator Mark Kelly’s Keep Public Funds in Public Schools Act, which would repeal it.

He will be joined by other strong allies of public education: Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, and Sherrod Brown, who returns to the Senate from Ohio and has always stood with public schools. This matters. Corporate Democrats such as Cory Booker and Michael Bennet have too often sided with Republicans on school choice. The new Senate Democrats can help move good bills forward and block further expansion of the federal Charter Schools Program.

Ohio delivered another big win: Governor-elect Amy Acton, a strong supporter of public schools who earned the endorsement of the Ohio Education Association.

In the House, I don’t yet know where many of the newly elected members stand. But a larger Democratic majority should help us build support for reining in the federal Charter Schools Program and outvote the minority of pro-charter Democrats.

A pro-public education agenda for the new Congress

  1. Repeal the federal tax-credit voucher.
  2. Pass the CHARTER Act to end federal funding for charter schools run by for-profit operators.
  3. Hold the Department of Education accountable:
    • Release the program funds it has frozen.
    • Cut the federal Charter Schools Program.
    • Rescind its anti-DEI policies.

As more results come in, I hope more pro-public education state legislatures will emerge as well.

~Carol Burris

Gina Hinojosa, Diane, and Carol Burris at the Conference of the Network for Public Education in Columbus, Ohio, in 2025
Categories Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Reform, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Politics, Resistance, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Texas Public Schools Are Under Attack: Consider the Case of Austin

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2026 //
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A journalist in Texas wrote the following. He/she lives in Austin and requested anonymity to avoid reprisals. I have double-checked the information shared. It is accurate.

The journalist describes Governor Greg Abbott’s tactic to destroy public education: state takeovers. This allows the state to dismiss the locally elected school board and replace it with people loyal to Governor Abbott and State Superintendent Mike Morath, a non-educator picked by Abbott. After the state takeover, teachers leave, enrollment declines..public schools being to the state, not to the district.

The journalist wrote the following to me:

Texas public schools are under attack. And no Texas district is being attacked on as many fronts as Austin ISD.

 State policies and targeted investigations are taking a toll, pulling time, energy, and funds from the real work of supporting Austin’s students, teachers, and campus communities. The district is facing a long list of challenges, all created or exacerbated by many years of anti-public school policies from state leaders. Students and teachers feel the impact on campuses every day. Families are leaving the district. Budgets are becoming tighter each year. Charters and vouchers are siphoning students from public schools and concentrating need at many campuses. And despite this community’s deep belief in engaging education, teaching is increasingly focused on testing – the near-inevitable result of a punitive high-stakes testing environment.

 Austin is sometimes described as the blueberry in the tomato soup – the brightest blue community in what has long been a deeply red state. That makes the district a favorite target for state leaders, who routinely attack it to score political points.Students, teachers, families, and the city are suffering as those attacks weaken a district in that should be among the strongest urban districts in the country.

 The community shows up for Austin ISD schools, and people across the economic spectrum continue to choose Austin ISD schools, which educate a mix of students who are diverse in every way. About half come from families classified as having economic disadvantage and half do not. About half are Hispanic, almost a third are emergent bilingual, and nearly one in ten are immigrants from all over the world.

 Austin ISD’s school board looks a lot like the city itself – racially and economically diverse, highly educated, and politically progressive. All were elected with strong support from their local union and their local communities. All serve as volunteers in a role that demands many hours and invites public critique along with the joy. All have seen the impact of state policies on Texas public schools. Many are longtime public education advocates. And all have become far too familiar withthe power the Texas Education Agency holds over Texas districts.

 In Texas, state takeovers are becoming a go-to remedy. Houston ISD was the first big district to fall, in 2023. Then, last year, the pace escalated. A single school with five F ratings in a row can trigger a takeover. Four more districts are now under state control, including Fort Worth ISD – another of the state’s largest urban districts. When the 2026-27 school year began, some 250,000 Texas students walked into classrooms that are now under state control.

 It’s an unprecedented experiment, and an aggressive exercise of state power over local communities. Now Austin ISD – rated a B under the state’s narrow accountability system – is the latest Texas district at risk of state takeover. And that is just the biggest threat among many, many others.

 Here’s a short list of challenges Austin ISD is facing right now:

 

• Investigation of student walkouts

State leaders have targeted Austin ISD for a special investigation after students at many campuses walked out to protest ICE. In a community as diverse as Austin, issues involving immigration are felt deeply and personally. Their protests were part of a student movement across the state and the country in late January. Yet Governor Greg Abbot and Attorney General Ken Paxton have focused special attention on Austin ISD, with an investigation that still has not been completed. The Texas Education Agency has warned that walkouts could lead to a state takeover.

 

• Investigation of which bathroom a single student has used

Attorney General Paxton has also targeted Austin ISD for alleged violations of the state’s “bathroom bill,” which requires people at sites including public schools to use the bathroom that matches their sex at birth. The bill depends on people reporting districts for alleged violations – something that happened two times when someone complained about the bathroom a single transgender student was using at an Austin ISD high school, which was followed by a complaint at the district’s performing arts center. The law holds the district accountable, allowing fines of up to $5000 a day for documented violations. But the law also allows the full weight of the state to be weaponized against individual students – children in public schools.

 

• Funding crisis

For years, public education funding has failed to keep up with inflation or a long and growing list of mandates from the state. Texas consistently ranks in the bottom ten states in per-student funding. Yet schools must also pay for expensive security mandates, serve students who are emergent bilingual or who receive special education services despite funding that leaves immense gaps, and follow many other state demands that are neither optional nor funded. Across the state, dozens of schools have closed, class sizes are growing, programs and student supports are being cut, and teachers are quitting or taking second jobs. Texas offers no funding for many things it simply does not require, including school nurses and school librarians. Transportation is funded at a fraction of the actual cost to districts. In Austin ISD, the 2026-27 budget included about $205 million in deeply painful cuts. The district closed eleven campuses. They are selling property to help plug the holes. And still funding is not keeping up with costs. That crisis has been deepened by the passage of a $1 billion statewide voucher after many years of successful resistance by the Texas Legislature. Passage was only possible after the sitting governor primaried legislators who voted against vouchers, then had President Trump call lawmakers the morning of the vote. The cost is expected to double this year.

 

• State comptroller audit

At a campaign stop in El Paso in August, Governor Greg Abbott asked the Texas Comptroller to investigate the use of taxpayer money at up to four Texas school districts. The goal, according to the Governor, was to prevent funds from “being absorbed by central office growth, administrative bloat, consultants, and the web of noninstructional bureaucracy.” News reports say districts are being asked for data far beyond what an audit focused on the use of funds would require. The list includes lists of library books, demands for documents related to DEI, scrutiny of foreign workers, and information about Social Security numbers that advocates fear is an attempt to understand how many students may be undocumented.

 

• Investigation of Pride Week celebration

Austin ISD has a long history of celebrating Pride Week. Since 2014, that meant supporting activities that included flying Pride flags at district facilities, participating as a district in the community’s Pride Parade, offering age-appropriate activities focused on respect for other people, and supporting campuses that chose to host their own after-school events for families. Staff and families have often said that they have chosen the district because of AISD’s welcoming climate. And the district continued to celebrate Pride Week – along with Juneteenth, Cesar Chavez Day, and other important community celebrations – even after trustees received a death threat targeting the parade. Since 2024, AISD’s Pride Week celebrations have grown smaller and smaller, and less and less visible. In 2026, the district chose not to participate in the community’s parade, inviting PTA leaders to step into the district’s place. As a result, the parade shrank from dozens of people with district support to just a handful. And still, in April, the Texas Education Agency began an investigation into Austin ISD for Pride Week. That investigation was launched in response to a complaint not from within the community, but from a conservative member of the State Board of Education who represents a district in Fort Worth, about 200 miles away. On social media, he called for defunding the district and for a criminal investigation of the superintendent. He also shared concerns that if the practice is not stopped in Austin ISD, it will expand to other communities in the state.

 This is not normal, even in Texas, except for Austin ISD. Each investigation or audit takes precious resources that no Texas district has to spare. Time and funds are diverted from the work that matters most – of educating students, supporting teachers, and inspiring a lifelong love of learning that prepares Austin’s students for the futures they deserve. 

 It does not have to be this way. And it’s both painful and promising to imagine what might be if the State of Texas would offer support rather than sanctions, and if they would also simply get out of the district’s way.

 Austin ISD has a strong board with a broad mix of highly relevant experience. All nine members were endorsed by the district’s union, Education Austin, and all serve by working long hours without pay. Six members are former K-12 educators in Texas public schools – including five who taught in the district, one who worked as the district’s head of multilingual education, and several who are current or former professors in programs that teach future teachers. Another is an educational anthropologist who teaches at UT and ran programs for students in the district. Another is a journalist with a law degree and a long background in advocacy and family engagement. And another is a former foster child who was in the first graduating class of Austin ISD’s Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders, ranked as one of the top public high schools in the country. Another worked as an accountant after a career as a teacher. Together, the board holds five masters’ degrees, one law degree, and two Ph.Ds. Another trustee is earning a doctorate now. They have hired a superintendent who is a graduate of the district and the son of a longtime teacher. He’s an unconventional choice – with an MBA, an engineering degree, and a career in construction and district operations – but he has also brought stability after a series of rapid superintendent turnovers. And he has worked with the board and community to navigate immensely challenging times.

 As they have tackled issue after issue, district leaders have also managed to do important and thoughtful work in many areas. The community approved a $2.4 billion bond and a crucial increase in the tax rate for operations with powerful support from district voters. The district has created systems to focus resources where they are needed most – essential but also not easy in a district with such a broad range of economic opportunity and economic need. They cleared a large backlog of special education evaluations that grew during the pandemic. They have sharply reduced the number of F-rated campuses and steadily grown the number of highly rated campuses – a measure that must be a focus no matter how flawed and opaque the state’s metrics are. And they are seeing impressive results from a grant-funded investment in early literacy.

 And still, Austin ISD risks being taken over by the state.

 The community’s worry about a takeover goes far beyond the loss of elected control. Their fears are also based in facts about what has happened since the state took control of Houston ISD. State leaders routinely call the takeover an unparalleled success, citing a higher rating for the district and near zero F rated schools. But the costs have been immense – of lost opportunity, financial cost, and damage to community and careers.

 Reports document practices that serve scores but sacrifice student learning – limiting access to 8th grade Algebra by systematically holding some students back, gaming college readiness measures in ways that are legal but offer little benefit, removing both libraries and librarians, and reducing teaching to timed and scripted lessons. Campuses have closed, enrollment has plummeted by more than 20,000 students, and teachers are fleeing. Hundreds of their replacements are uncertified. And the state-appointed leaders have eaten into the district’s fund balance by pulling hundreds of millions from reserves in ways that will be impossible to sustain.

 Good reporting and strategic advocacy are helping the whole story from Houston ISD reach more people. Our state owes deep thanks to Community Voices for Public Education for its advocacy from the beginning, the Commission on the Takeover of HISD for its new in-depth report, state and local education union leaders for advocating and organizing, elected trustees for becoming the resistance, and doctoral student Dan Dawer for work to examine the takeover through an academic lens.

 In Austin, a group called Keep Austin Schools Independent has formed to inform and organize our community. We are also lucky to have strong trustee candidates who are stepping up, not knowing what their role will be but knowing their voices will matter.

 Takeovers are looming for more Texas districts. 

 Education is on the ballot in Texas in a way it has never been before. And the results of the election could make things far better or far worse, not just here in Austin, but also for public schools across our state. Voters in the Democratic primaries chose proven public education supporters up and down the ballot. And for people who know that change is needed for Texas public schools, Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic nominee for Texas Governor, is carrying a whole state’s hopes. She’s the mom of children who chose Austin ISD schools, a former AISD school board president, and a Texas House member who served her community and fought for Texas students on the public education committee. Her office became a place of pilgrimage for public education advocates, who would visit their own representatives, then stop by her office, too.

 A huge amount is at stake – not only for Austin, but for public education statewide. Dozens of Texas districts are just one or two years away from potential takeover. Schools are struggling after years of underfunding. And increasingly, the state’s vision of education is focused on the narrow measure of standardized tests – despite clear evidence that families and educators want and need something more for the 5 million students of Texas

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Censorship, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corruption, Cruelty, Curriculum, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Evil, Extremism, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Funding, Gender, Injustice, Lies, Parents, Privatization, State Takeover, Texas

Julian Vasquez-Heilig: A Win by Gina Hinojosa Would Dramatically Change Education in Texas

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2026 //
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Julian Vasquez-Heilig is a scholar and activist who has been a leader in studying and promoting equal access to educational opportunity for all students.

He writes here about the consequences for Texas students, teachers, and communities if Gina Hinojosa manages to get elected Governor of Texas next week. She is heavily outspent by Governor Greg Abbott, who is seeking his fourth term, yet the polls show that the race is virtually tied. The latest reports show that Abbott has a campaign chest of nearly $100 million, while Hinojosa has raised $7-8 million.

Abbott has been a forceful advocate for privatization of public schools, pushing the Republican-controlled legislature to authorize charter schools and vouchers. Rural Republicans opposed vouchers, so Abbott got $12 million from Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff Yass to defeat the anti-voucher Republicans.

If Abbott wins, expect a doubling of the voucher budget from $1 billion a year to $2 billion a year. That increase was recently proposed by Don Huffines, the state’s chief financial officer. Expect an increase in funding for privately-managed charter schools and less oversight. Expect a steady erosion of public schools and low pay for teachers.

Vasquez-Heilig describes what to expect if Hinojosa wins:

The midterm vote in the United States could do more than change who holds political power; it could determine the future of education.

First, congrats to Lula for his big victory this week in the national Brazilian elections! Incidentally, a Brazilian university recruited me for a Fulbright project that past year examining how Brazil was recovering and reinventing its education system after Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency. After the invitation, I applied and Fulbright faculty peer reviewers scored and approved the proposal. Unfortunately, the U.S. State Department then rejected it. I was not given an explanation establishing why they rejected the invited and reviewer approved Fulbright, although I couldn’t help wondering whether examining the innovation of the education system after Bolsonaro was an uncomfortable subject for the Trump Administration.

The experience left me thinking about questions much closer to home. What would it take to reimagine and rebuild education in the United States after the midterms? More specifically, what might be possible in Texas after more than a decade under Governor Greg Abbott as a case study? 

I spent eight years as a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, studying educational equity, civil rights, school accountability, and privatization. During my time in Texas, I witnessed how nakedly political decisions shaped educational opportunities for millions of students and the educators who served them. With State Representative Gina Hinojosa now challenging Abbott for governor, I have examined her official education platform and considering what could change if Texas takes a different political direction. 

The possibilities extend well beyond one state, considering that the Republican’s ideas for education are all over the place (charter schools, vouchers, banning curriculum etc). Texas offers a compelling case study of how shifts in political leadership after the midterms could reshape educational policy, governance, and public investment in states transitioning from Republican to Democratic control. What happens in Texas could offer important lessons for the future of public education across the country.

For my case study, I examine ten possibilities. Some of the ideas below are commitments Hinojosa has publicly made. Others are reforms I believe deserve consideration, particularly in higher education and financial accountability.

1. The Texas Education Agency Would Get an Educator as Commissioner

Hinojosa has explicitly promised to remove Texas Education Agency non-educator Commissioner Mike Morath and appoint an educator. This could fundamentally change the agency’s relationship with schools. The next commissioner would bring direct experience with teaching and learning to an organization responsible for overseeing millions of students, school accountability, state interventions, and billions in education spending.

The consequential question would be whether that professional background will actually translate into different institutional priorities. Texas educators have spent years operating under accountability pressures, staffing shortages, and extensive state requirements. A commissioner with educator experience could approach those challenges with a different understanding of what teachers and students need, although successful administration would also require considerable policy and management expertise.

Earlier I provide some persepctives on California’s newly implemented commissioner position here.

2. Houston and Other State-Controlled Districts Could Return to Their Communities

Hinojosa promises to end state takeovers and restore local governance. Houston ISD offers the most consequential example, with state-appointed leaders making major decisions about instruction, staffing, and campus operations after the 2023 state takeover ostensibly due to single test score in a single high school. For the Republican in Texas, local control has meant controlling people locally.

The educational record deserves careful examination. State officials and takeover supporters cite improved academic ratings at historically struggling campuses in Houston, while critics have raised concerns about teacher turnover (about 12,000 have left the district), instructional restrictions and canned curriculum, elimination of an elected school board, and the manipulation of student populations to show fake results. A transition back to community governance would produce actual improvements while restoring democratic accountability.

Fort Worth, Austin, and other districts facing or experiencing state takeover present similar questions about who makes decisions and how communities regain authority over their schools.

3. Testing and Accountability System Would Be Revised

Hinojosa has proposed ending STAAR, pausing A through F accountability ratings, and developing a new system. Her campaign reports that TEA has awarded more than $1.7 billion to testing vendors during Abbott’s governorship.

During my years at UT Austin, I studied how high-stakes accountability affected schools serving historically marginalized communities in Texas. That research shaped my advocacy for community-based accountabilityand multiple measures of school success. This revised system could place greater emphasis on academic growth, graduation, student engagement, access to advanced coursework, and the opportunity to learn. Such changes would require legislation and a credible replacement system that gives families actually useful information about school performance.

4. Voucher Spending Could Face a Comprehensive Audit

Texas has committed $1 billion to its new private school voucher program, which Hinojosa proposes to end. A comprehensive financial review could examine who received funds, what providers charged, whether expenses met legal requirements, and whether safeguards adequately protected taxpayers.

Other states offer reasons to investigate. In Arizona, the media has reviewed records showing that education savings account money had been spent on travel-related expenses across 44 states and 13 countries. More than 100 accounts were associated with at least $21,000 in spending at Disney parks, Disney stores, and Disney’s streaming service. Some expenditures may have been approved under existing program rules, which makes the distinction between legal spending and appropriate public spending particularly important.

Texas investigators could carefully examine whether its own program permits comparable purchases, whether vendors are properly screened, and whether families and providers comply with spending restrictions. Arizona’s experience is a warning about oversight. I recently heard at the Network for Public Education conference that Florida has a $1 billion state budget deficit due to unlimited vouchers; that’s another warning.

5. Charter School Financial Misconduct Could Face Stronger Enforcement

Texas already has a documented history of serious charter school spending controversies. Consider IDEA Public Schools, one of the nation’s largest charter networks. Its leadership faced scrutiny over plans involving private aircraft and expenditures of approximately $400,000 on premium San Antonio Spurs tickets and luxury seating. Reports also described a proposed private jet lease, executive travel expenses, related-party business arrangements, and the acquisition of a boutique hotel. Former CEO Tom Torkelson departed with a reported $900,000 severance package. In 2024, TEA placed IDEA under conservatorship following a years-long investigation into financial and operational misconduct.

Texas could strengthen financial disclosure requirements, investigate conflicts of interest, recover improperly spent funds where legally possible, and refer substantiated fraud to law enforcement. Prosecutions should follow evidence of criminal violations rather than assumptions about an institution’s charter status.

6. Abbott’s University Regents Could Be Replaced

Texas governors exercise substantial influence over higher education through appointments to university governing boards. At the University of Texas System, nine regents serve staggered six-year terms and require Senate confirmation. A new governor would inherit those existing terms. However, three UT regent terms are scheduled to expire in February 2027, creating an early opportunity for appointments if successors are confirmed. 

New appointments could change the governing boards’ approach to presidential selection, academic freedom, institutional performance, and faculty governance. They could also prompt closer examination of whether political relationships have been given undue weight in university leadership appointments.

Hinojosa has not announced a comprehensive regent replacement agenda, and current regents cannot simply be dismissed for their political associations in theory. Nevertheless, governing board appointments would be an important part of any change in Texas higher education policy.

7. University Presidents, Provosts, and Deans Could Face New Evaluations

Changes to governing boards could eventually produce changes in university leadership. Presidents are selected and evaluated through governing structures, while presidents exercise substantial authority over the appointment and dismissal of provosts, deans, and other academic administrators. The University of Texas System’s rules generally delegate responsibility for appointing and dismissing institutional administrative officers to university presidents. 

A new governing board could examine whether presidents were selected through credible processes, whether administrative appointments emphasized academic qualifications, and whether leaders delivered results in enrollment, research, student success, and institutional governance. Where community-wide evaluations establish serious leadership failures, governing boards and presidents could make personnel changes consistent with applicable rules and contracts. 

8. Black, Latino, Indigenous, and Gender Studies Could Regain Support

Texas universities have faced substantial political and legislative pressure concerning diversity initiatives, academic programs, and the teaching of race and gender. A change in state leadership could reopen discussions about the important place of Black Studies, Latino Studies, Indigenous Studies, Gender Studies, and related fields within public universities in our democracy.

These disciplines contribute to historical understanding, scholarship, public policy, and students’ ability to examine complex social questions. Decisions about their academic standing should involve faculty expertise, scholarly standards, student demand, and institutional missions.

Restoring programs affected by state policies could require legislative changes, governing board action, institutional funding, and faculty recruitment. Hinojosa has not explicitly promised these restorations, but her administration’s approach to higher education appointments and governance could influence their future.

9. Teachers Could Receive Higher Pay and Greater Professional Influence

Hinojosa’s education platform calls for raising teacher salaries and reviewing vendor contracts that her campaign considers wasteful or improper. She proposes using recovered resources to support educators.

Texas would need to determine how much money contract reviews could actually recover and whether those savings would support recurring compensation increases. Significant statewide salary changes would likely require legislative appropriations.

10. We Can Reconsider the Relationship Between Education and Political Power

For too long, political leaders, including the governors, education commissioners, and state legislatures, have used the power of government to exert oppressive pressure on public schools, educators, universities, and the communities they serve. Through state takeovers, punitive accountability systems, restrictions on academic freedom, increasingly centralized decision-making, and privatizing our schools, communities have too often been treated as problems to be managed rather than partners capable of developing solutions. Political authority has been used to impose decisions while diminishing the voices of parents, teachers, students, and locally elected representatives.

A different approach in Texas and elsewhere after the midterms would begin by recognizing that communities are the solution, not the problem. That principle should apply equally to red and blue communities, rural towns and major cities, and neighborhoods across every region. Families and educators understand their local schools, their children’s needs, and the challenges facing their communities. Their knowledge deserves meaningful influence over educational decisions. Restoring public trust requires moving away from political coercion and toward shared responsibility, meaningful local governance, transparent accountability, and genuine community participation.

After the midterms we will have an opportunity to reconsider how political power is exercised in education. Governors, commissioners, and legislators should use their authority to support communities, expand educational opportunity, and provide the resources schools need to succeed. The ultimate measure of leadership should be whether public institutions strengthen the capacity of people to shape their own futures. Regardless of whether a community votes red or blue, its children deserve excellent public schools, its educators deserve professional respect, and its residents deserve a meaningful voice in the decisions affecting their lives. A stronger education system can emerge when state leaders begin trusting communities as essential partners in educational improvement.

Years from now, our children may not remember who won the midterms. But they will live with what the winners chose to build, whose voices they listened to, and whose futures they believed were worth investing in.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Censorship, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Class size, Corruption, Cruelty, Curriculum, Democracy, Education Industry, Education Reform, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, For-Profit, Funding, Higher Education, Houston, Privatization, Separation of church and state, Standardized Testing, Texas, Vouchers

Why Reading Fiction Matters

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2026 //
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Did you know that reading fiction is inportant for your social and emotional development? Did you know the the widely adopted Common Core state Standards actually diminish the reading of fiction in school? The standards describe the percentage of time that should be devoted to “informational text” and fiction. As students grow older, teachers are supposed to reduce fiction and favor informational text. Studies have shown that fiction-reading has declined, which was the intended effect of the Common Core.

This article explains why the reduction of fiction reading harms students.

Richard Sima wrote the following column for The Washington Post.

Curling up with a good book isn’t just enjoyable. It’s also good for your brain.
Reading in general — newspapers, magazines, nonfiction books — has been linked to slower rates of cognitive decline in older adults and even longer lives.

But reading fiction may have unique benefits. For example, the amount of fiction people read seems to be a better predictor of language ability than nonfiction, research finds. And, perhaps even more importantly, research has found that fiction is linked to better social cognition — our ability to think about and interact with other people — and an increased understanding of the world as a complex place.
Why? Fiction forces you to imagine a story’s world and characters. It makes you grapple with different perspectives, mentally inhabiting distinct points of view, according to Nick Buttrick, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

This can help us find “better insight into our own experiences, insight into the experiences of others who are very different from us,” said Raymond Mar, a professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, who recently wrote a review on the benefits of reading narrative fiction. “It just tends to evoke a form of reflection and contemplation, which can only be good for us.”
Why reading is actually social
Social health is important for overall health. And it turns out that reading, though often thought of as a solitary activity, can boost our social abilities.
To understand why, it helps to look at how reading shapes us as we grow.
Between ages 4 and 6, children develop a theory of mind — the ability to understand that others have different beliefs, perspectives and feelings. Studies find that children exposed to more storybooks are further along this developmental milestone than those exposed to fewer ones, Mar said.

A 2025 meta-analysis of 21 studies found that children who read more storybooks had more empathy. And there is evidence that empathy and reading go both ways. Better reading comprehension was a predictor of empathy later in life, while empathy also was a predictor of better reading ability, according to a 2024 study of more than 900 children. And adolescents who read more for fun became more social adults, a 2023 study found.
Reading fiction “presents to us a complex cognitive and emotional simulation of the social world,” which is useful in the real world, Mar said.
The power of storytelling
These benefits may be due, in part, to the power of storytelling.
Neuroimaging studies find that brain networks involved in understanding stories overlap with brain networks needed for theory of mind. This suggests that “while engaging with stories, we’re also pulling online the same kinds of brain networks that we use to understand other people,” said Mar, who wrote a review about these studies.

Other forms of storytelling, such as television and movies, may provide similar benefits, but “one of the things that you do when you read is you have to construct the world” in your head, Buttrick said. “The world is not given to you. You have to do the work of imagining.”
This extra work may amplify the benefits of engaging in a story.
Spending time with our favorite story characters may also help us feel connected. “Even if our friends aren’t around and can’t get together, we can always open up a book,” Mar said.
Reading can be a social activity, too, one that reinforces the joys and benefits of reading. Book clubs, shared reading organizations and social media communities like BookTok can connect us with other readers and add yet another layer to building our social cognitive abilities.
Talking to others about the books you read means you’re not only imagining the characters in a story, but also gaining an understanding of how other people respond to those characters, Buttrick said.

Exposure to difference
Beyond helping our social cognition, reading fiction can expand our world and our understanding of its complexities. Good authors are master observers of the human condition and can expose us to experiences outside our comfort zone.

“Reading is an encounter with difference, with a different kind of mind, a different place, a different approach to the world,” Buttrick said. “And so a lot of the places where I think reading is most interesting are in places where it smashes this up with difference as strongly as it can.”
In a 2022 study of more than 5,000 people published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Buttrick and his colleagues found that those who grew up reading more literary fiction were more likely to become adults with more complex worldviews — with more nuance, more psychological richness and intellectual humility.

“I think if we want to live in a world in which everyone’s treated as something like an individual, knowing that the world is complex, especially socially complex, is probably really good,” he said.
But there are inherent difficulties with studying the effects of reading because “reading is a part of a person’s life,” Buttrick said. “And when people have more time, more space to read, more inclination to read, they’re not doing that at random.”
Benefits probably take time to accrue, and socioeconomic status is a strong predictor of reading behavior and ability, though a 2025 study of more than 14,000 students found that leisure reading had the largest benefits for children whose parents had less education.
“Successful art resonates with a great number of people because it captures something about being human that appeals to us and maybe that we don’t fully understand,” Mar said.

How to read more
Start slow. Mar recommends getting off your phone before going to bed and spending that time reading instead. “Maybe you have to build up to an hour,” he said. “But you can start with 15 minutes and then work to 30 minutes, then 45 in an hour before you go to sleep. It’s probably a good thing.”
Cultivate a habit. Consistency is key. “I don’t think that any one book will change a person’s life,” Buttrick said. “I think it’s the accretion of lots of books, you know, reading again and again and again, that really has an effect on how people think about the world more broadly.”
Dive into the vast diversity of reading. Different forms of reading — short stories, graphic novels and fan fiction, for example — also count. Given his busy work schedule and reading of academic journals, Mar prefers to read short stories. “It’s hard for me to commit to a book,” said Mar, who has most recently read the works of Irish writer Claire Keegan.

(Buttrick is currently reading Spencer Ackerman’s “Reign of Terror” and gearing up to read William Vollmann’s 3,000-plus-page novel, “A Table for Fortune.” And I’ve been reading through my collection of Terry Pratchett, who is a hilarious satirical writer, including “Small Gods,” which tackles religion, and “The Truth,” which is about journalism.)
Audiobooks can be beneficial, too. Buttrick said audiobooks still count as reading. In fact, the format may make certain books easier to grasp. Listening to James Joyce’s “Ulysses” not only makes it easier to understand and funnier, but also makes “you realize how much of it is just a song,” Buttrick said.
Remember that reading should be enjoyable. “I don’t think of reading as a monastic experience that you have to do alone at night in order to grow as a person,” Buttrick said. Lean into what you enjoy.

Make it social. Book clubs are excellent and flourishing. It’s nice to have an accountability partner and others with whom to share perspectives, Buttrick said.
Read unselfconsciously. Reading is for enjoyment. “A lot of times people seem embarrassed about the things that they’ve been reading,” Mar said. But “there’s nothing to be embarrassed about whatever you’re reading.”
Do you have a question about human behavior or neuroscience? Email BrainMatters@washpost.com and we may answer it in a future column.

Richard Sima is a neuroscientist turned award-winning science journalist who writes the “Brain Matters” column about mental health and why we do, think and feel the things we do.

Categories Cerf, Chris, Character, Charter Schools, Education Reform

Bruce Baker Evaluates the Sorry Condition of Education in Florida

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2026 //
0

Bruce Baker’s evaluation of education policy in Florida demonstrates that the state operates on the crazy theory that cutting funding is good, diverting funding from district schools to charters and vouchers is good, and underpaying teachers makes them better.

All of this makes no sense.

Read his report.

Here are his conclusions:

Several themes emerge from the analyses presented in this report.

First, regarding long term trends in Florida school funding, adequacy and efficiency:

• Florida schools have been squeezed by declining state aid since the early 2000s as the state has pursued its race to the bottom on taxpayer financing of public elementary and secondary schools.

• That squeeze has resulted in declining competitiveness of teacher wages over time and even more so, declining staffing ratios in schools increasing the workload on those that remain.

• Adjusted for labor costs over time, school spending per pupil in Florida and in Miami-Dade specifically, is less than it was 30 years ago.

• Florida school districts have responded by producing achievement levels beyond expectations given the resources they’ve been provided. Florida school districts are efficient when compared to school districts nationally, accounting for differences in costs.

• Still, because of the long slow reduction in effort, spending, staffing ratios and competitive wages, student outcomes in Florida have continued to decline, dropping among states and dropping in recent, post-COVID years as other states and the nation, on average, have begun to rebound.

• As the state has reduced its share of funding for public schooling, local districts have been forced to make up the difference with increased property taxes, to mitigate further damage to student outcomes by slowing the declining of competitive wages for teachers.

Second, regarding providing equal educational opportunity to all children in Florida:

Financing Florida’s Schools

• The state school finance system provides no discernable support to schools serving students with greater educational needs, outside of additional support for children with disabilities.

• The state’s charter school sector exacerbates inequality across student populations by operating within low-income neighborhoods, but serving far fewer children from low-income families, fewer children who are English learners and fewer children with disabilities.

• The state’s charter school sector also yields poor educational outcomes on state assessments when compared to traditional district schools or district magnet schools serving similar populations within the same district.

Finally, regarding spending for the greatest return on investment:

• The state has currently budgeted $3.8 billion dollars to be spent on students attending private schools, approximately 70% of which will likely be spent on children from higher income families who had not previously attended public district schools. That 70% of $3.8 billion would likely yield far greater return on investment and greater public benefit, based on existing research, if invested in public district schools in high poverty settings.

These findings lead to a clear set of policy recommendations. As shown in this report, the state has the economic capacity to pursue these recommendations. Even at the state’s own prior (2000s) education effort, funding for public schools would be 28% higher than it is presently. Add to that, more efficient allocation of funds currently being diverted to the school voucher program, and much of the state’s public education adequacy gap could be eliminated. As such, we propose the following recommendations:

Recommendation #1 – Phase 1: Engage in the work of setting a manageable standard of “high quality” public schooling for Florida’s children by engaging in analyses of the costs associated with providing each and every child in Florida with equal educational opportunity to achieve high education outcomes.

d. Establish a statewide commission on school funding.

e. Engage stakeholders in setting standards of excellence for Florida children.

f. Engage experts to estimate the costs associated with meeting those standards, applying appropriately rigorous methods.

Recommendation #1 – Phase 2: Guided by those estimates, reform the school finance formula and increase state aid to schools so as to provide them with the necessary resources for all children to have equal educational opportunity to achieve high education outcomes. That is, meet the constitutional standard ratified by Florida voters in 1998 and 2002. This should include estimates of commensurate funding for charter schools, based on needs and costs.

b. Take eliminating or reducing property taxes off the table. The most effective form of property tax relief is increased state aid, as would occur under implementation of this recommendation.

Recommendation 2 – Part 1: Impose a moratorium on charter school expansion, including the Schools of Hope Program. The existing charter school sector in Florida is compromising equity, eroding efficiency and producing poor educational outcomes for those it serves. New York’s Success Academies have no proven track record of serving children like those they’d be called upon to serve in Miami-Dade, having served very few English learners and underserving Latino communities in New York. Like Miami-Dade’s current charter sector, they have also underserved low-income populations and children with disabilities. Introduction of Success Academies in Miami-Dade will most likely exacerbate equity concerns that are already significant.

Recommendation 2 – Part 2: Establish new regulations for evaluating existing charter operators and vetting new charter operators to ensure improved equity in the distribution of students by their needs across schools. Adopt and enforce stricter regulations pertaining to student outcomes.

Recommendation 2 – Part 3: Adopt updated charter school legislation to ensure that charter schools are sufficiently “public,” required to operate as if “state actors,” protecting children’s constitutional rights and abiding by all relevant federal statutes.

Recommendation 3: Freeze expansion of the voucher program to free up state resources to support a fully funded, overhauled public school finance formula, to provide a uniform system of schools.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Extremism, Florida

Note to Elite Media: Stop Promoting Rahm Emanuel!

By dianeravitch
October 13, 2026 //
14

Paul Waldman was a reporter for The Washington Post . He now writes a Substack blog. As this article shows, he is a journalist with insight and a long memory. A certain sector of the Democratic elite likes him.

Paul does not. Neither do I.

Back when Rahm was President Obama’s chief of staff, I was invited to meet with the top officials of the Obama administration at the Old Execurive Office Building (next door to the White House). Rahm was there (but strangely, not Arne Duncan), along with Melody Barnes, the chief of the President’s Domestic Policy Council, and Roberto Rodriguez, the President’s education advisor.

I answered a series of questions:

*What did I think of merit pay? It never works.

*What did I think of Common Core? Try it out in 3-5 states and see what happens, said I.

*What did I think of Race to the Top? Not much, said I.

Needless to say, they disregarded all my warnings.

Rahm jumped in to ask, “Why are Catholic schools so much better than public schools?”

I explained that Catholic schools do not have to accept students they do not want and they are free to expel students who persistently misbehave. Even if they never use that power, they have it.

I asked Rahm if he had met my son, who had worked on business deals with his brother Ari, who ran a major talent agency.. Rahm said, “Never heard of him.”

He might have said something polite, like “no, but I will ask my brother.” But Rahm is rude, always.

With that, he stormed out of the room.

I understood why people think he is obnoxious.

Then, when he closed 50 Chicago public schools in a single day, I wrote him off as a dunce about education and children.

Waldman writes:

To a certain kind of political reporter, Rahm Emanuel is a compelling figure, a politician of deep wisdom and experience, just the kind of person who ought to be given serious consideration as a candidate for president. And if the voters themselves aren’t all that interested? Well that can change, with a sufficient volume of lengthy profiles and interviews.

And so a campaign has begun to make Rahm happen, engineered by the man himself but with the active assistance of a good portion of the elite news media. The good news is that Rahm is not going to happen, because he represents everything that Democratic voters are eager to reject at this moment.

Rahm is everywhere, whether you asked for him or not

Here’s Rahm being interviewed by CNBC. Here’s Rahm being interviewed by Fox News. Here’s Rahm being interviewed by CBS News. Here’s Rahm being interviewed by Politico. Here’s a big profile of Rahm in the New York Times, which says “he has emerged as a behind-the-scenes force in his party’s push to flip the House this fall.” And going back a few months, here’s Politico saying “His pugilism and his critique of the party’s leftward lurch will create a gauntlet his would-be rivals will have to navigate.” Everyone will have to deal with Rahm, so powerful a presence is he!

Readers under 30 or so might not have a deep familiarity with Emanuel, so the short version is this: He’s had a long list of jobs (campaign operative, fundraiser, White House staffer, congressman, White House chief of staff, mayor of Chicago, Wall Street rainmaker, ambassador to Japan), in which he earned a reputation as, to put it plainly, an asshole. Reporters profiling him will describe incidents of him shouting and swearing at people, or mention that sometimes he has been referred to as “Rahmbo,” but what it comes down to is that he’s an asshole.

That isn’t necessarily disqualifying, even if it should be; lots of politicians are abusive to people around them, as are bosses in a million workplaces. But unlike some of them, Emanuel isn’t a silver-tongued charmer whose charisma will hypnotize voters on the campaign trail.

What is disqualifying, however, is that Rahm’s inclinations run toward caution and centrism, and that is the opposite of what Democratic voters want at this moment. It’s not just about ideology, it’s about a style of politics those voters are absolutely fed up with, one driven by the belief that the way to succeed is to constantly look over your right shoulder, not do anything that might make Republicans too angry, and not just spend your time chasing independent voters but do so by trimming back your ambitions until they’re a shapeless lump of timidity and compromise.

To me, the emblematic Rahm Emanuel moment came in early 2010, when Democrats were struggling to pass the Affordable Care Act. For a brief time they had a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate (though some of those were very conservative Democrats), and as they approached the finish line, needing only to get the two chambers to agree on a single bill, Ted Kennedy died and a Republican, Scott Brown, won a surprise victory to replace him. At that point, Emanuel counseled retreat: throw the big bill in the trash, then try to pass a bill to expand coverage for low-income kids, something far less ambitious but likelier to get bipartisan support. In addition to misreading what Republicans would accept (absolutely nothing, then as now) it amounted to abject surrender. As Molly Ball reported in Time magazine, Nancy Pelosi wasn’t having it:

Pelosi told the White House to rein in Emanuel and get him to stop pestering her members about his “eensy weensy bill.” At a meeting in the Oval Office, Pelosi confronted the subject directly. “Mr. President, I know there are some on your staff who want to take the namby-pamby approach,” she said. “That’s unacceptable.” Obama took her side. They were going to go for it.

She was right, and the ACA passed. If Emanuel had had his way, it wouldn’t have happened.

The problem is not that he believes in nothing, it’s what he does believe in

One might look at where Emanuel is now and say he’s changed, at least a little. In July he went to Israel and gave a speech excoriating Benjamin Netanyahu, and now says the Israeli government should no longer get support from the U.S. taxpayer (though he says they should be free to buy American weapons with their own money if they want, just like other countries). He’s still advocating small-bore policy changes, but ones that are updated for the present moment, like a ban on lawmakers betting on prediction markets and a mandatory retirement age of 75 across the federal government.

I’m sure there will be more to come, as Emanuel tries to present himself as a man for this moment. But while he may evolve a little bit here or there, he’s still the same guy he always was, and that’s the problem. He’s the avatar of a certain kind of Democratic centrist politics, one that yearns to win the votes of Republicans but views progressives with little but contempt. Like many others, he believes that the way to win votes across the center is to engage in some vigorous hippie-punching (Rahm is eager to talk about how awful the DSA is), then present some ideologically denuded, tiny policy ideas under the guise of “pragmatism.”

If he really believed in those policy ideas, that would be one thing. But it’s never been clear that Rahm believes in much of anything. He wants power, but he has never seemed animated by doing much with power; he has never presented a vision of how he’d like government and society to work that goes much beyond “What we have now, but a little better.”

Back in 2020, Democrats had no greater goal than getting rid of Donald Trump, which is the biggest reason Joe Biden got their nomination; he was widely seen as the safest and most electable choice. But this is a very different moment. Yes, they’re desperate to win, and still will be in 2028. But even more, they’ll be drawn to candidates who can sell them on a vision of something deeper, more fundamental, and more lasting.

That’s not who Rahm is, and to his credit (I guess) he’s not trying to pretend it is. Which is why I’m fairly sure that as the primary process goes on, we’re likely to see him coming in 10th or so in all the polls, even as he gets inordinate attention in the news media.

There have been times when his brand of corporate-approved, right-leaning centrism was attractive to voters; in many ways that what his old boss Bill Clinton offered in 1992. But this is not 1992, and Rahm Emanuel is no Bill Clinton. Fortunately.

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Closing schools, Democrats, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm

Julian Vasquez Heilig: Nikole Hannah-Jones and Her Daughter

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2026 //
4

Recently, superstar journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones wrote a long essay for The New York Times Magazine regretting her decision a decade earlier to put her daughter into a local public school in New York City. Not only was the school segregated, it had a disengaged principal, indifferent teachers, and low-quality academics. She came to realize that she was imposing her ideas on her daughter at the cost of her education. Now that her daughter is in high school, she is attending a highly desirable high school with high standards. Hannah-Jones told her daughter to make her own choice within the public school system. She chose an excellent public school.

There’s hardly a commentator who has not passed judgment on the essay. Right-wingers praised it as an endorsement of school choice or a condemnation of public schools. Former NYC Chancellor wrote in The Wall Street Journal that the persistence of bad public schools was the fault of Randi Weingarten and the teachers’ unions. His article was titled “Nikole Hannah-Jones Vs. Randi Weingarten.” He maintained that it was the unions that preserved bad schools. The solution, he argued, was non-union charter schools.

But his argument dodged the responsibility of school leaders like himself to weed out incompetent principals and replace them with good principals who set high expectations for staff and students. And, of course, he neglected the failure of thousands of charter schools, due to academic failure, misappropriation of funds, or low enrollment.

In the following essay posted on his blog, Cloaking Inequity, scholar Julian Vasquez Heilig presents a different argument. In addition to his professorship at Western Michigan University, he is a founding member of the Network for Public Education.

He writes:

Nikole Hannah-Jones’s essay about her daughter’s education is heartbreaking because it poses a question almost every parent understands: Did I make the right choice for my child?

Hannah-Jones made the choice more publicly and politically than most. A decade ago, she and her husband sent their daughter, Najya, to a predominantly Black, high-poverty public school in Brooklyn. They could afford other options. Instead, they wanted their own choices to reflect their belief that privileged families help reproduce educational inequality when they abandon schools serving poor Black children. Then their daughter grew old enough to judge that decision for herself.

“Did you know my school was bad like this when you decided to put me here?” Najya asked her mother after discovering how her middle school compared with New York City’s most prestigious public schools. Later, she put the question even more painfully: If her parents had the resources to get her a better education, why hadn’t they? That is not really a question about school choice. It is a question about parenthood.

Every parent makes these tradeoffs, although few of us have to explain them in The New York Times. Families choose schools because of academics, income, housing, sports, religion, culture, race, language, safety, disability services, discipline, transportation, friendships, family traditions and often simply what they can afford. Rarely does one school maximize everything a family values.

A parent might choose a Seventh-Day Adventist school with fewer Advanced Placement courses because faith formation matters deeply. Another might choose a suburban school for its academics but watch a Black child struggle culturally. A family might remain in a less prestigious district because grandparents live nearby. An athlete may choose a school because of a coach or a starting opportunity. A parent of a child with disabilities may value services more than test scores. Another family may choose a culturally affirming school where their child feels known. None of those choices can be reduced to a ranking on GreatSchools.

That is partly what makes Hannah-Jones’s conclusion so complicated. Najya did experience serious academic failures. Her elementary school sometimes failed to assess her properly, return graded work or even recognize substantial gaps in her mathematics preparation. Her mother eventually discovered assignments riddled with mistakes that had never been corrected. Those are not imaginary problems created by standardized tests or middle-class expectations. Children deserve competent teachers, rigorous instruction and honest feedback.

My own research has found that teacher preparation and teacher quality matter (Darling-Hammond et al., 2005). Defending public education should never require pretending otherwise. But an educator responding to Hannah-Jones’s essay on Facebook raised the concern that has stayed with me: the article can leave readers “to blame structural problems on the usual scapegoats who never had the power to create them.” That is where I think we need to be careful.

Hannah-Jones herself provides the evidence for a more structural conclusion. Najya’s middle-school principal explains that her school enrolled everyone, including children arriving years behind academically, while selective schools concentrated students already prepared to succeed. More than one-third of students at Najya’s middle school had identified learning disabilities, compared with 17 percent at her selective high school. The school was simultaneously expected to remediate years of lost learning, teach grade-level material, manage social and behavioral needs and prepare its strongest students for elite high schools.

That is not simply a teacher-quality problem. It is institutional sorting. My research has documented versions of this dynamic for two decades. Jennifer Holme and I found persistent racial, economic and linguistic segregation long after Jim Crow formally ended (Vasquez Heilig & Holme, 2013). My colleagues and I later found intense racial segregation in charter schools as well, reminding us that giving families more choices does not automatically dismantle inequality (Vasquez Heilig et al., 2019). Research on accountability similarly showed how schools serving marginalized students can be punished for outcomes produced partly by unequal opportunities to learn (Vasquez Heilig & Darling-Hammond, 2008; Vasquez Heilig et al., 2018).

School finance matters too. Davíd Martínez and I have argued that educational opportunity is fundamentally a civil-rights question because children cannot be held equally accountable when they have not been provided comparable opportunities to learn (Martínez & Vasquez Heilig, 2022). This does not absolve the adults who failed Najya. It changes the scale of the indictment. So Hannah-Jones’s story ultimately demonstrates why the parental decision is harder than “choose the better school.”

Najya eventually chose one of New York City’s highly selective public high schools. Academically, she initially struggled because her previous schooling had left gaps. But there was another cost. She had gone from Black schools where, as Hannah-Jones writes, nobody questioned whether Black children could be smart to an environment where classmates used racial slurs and questioned her intelligence. She briefly wanted to leave.

By the end of the essay, Najya herself recognizes the tradeoff. She tells her mother she is glad she did not spend her early childhood in predominantly white schools because her Black schools helped give her a strong racial identity and the confidence to challenge racism. She had also discovered something important about her more privileged classmates: They were not necessarily smarter or better behaved. “They just had more.” That may be the most important sentence in the essay.

Parents make choices. Systems distribute what there is to choose from. Honestly, I personally understand Hannah-Jones’s regret. When your child says, “I never really got the education I wanted,” intellectual arguments about the common good become painfully inadequate. I have heard that same argument from my children. Parents have a special obligation to their own children, and there is no shame in acknowledging that. But we must resist those who are turning this deeply personal story into another argument that the solution to educational inequality is for parents to make better individual choices via vouchers and charter schools. That road leads exactly where we already are.

Families with money purchase tutoring. Families with information navigate admissions systems. Families with mobility purchase homes near preferred schools. Families with social capital advocate successfully. Families without those advantages receive whatever the system leaves behind. The problem is not that parents love their own children too much. The problem is that we have constructed a competitive education system where high-quality education is rationed and doing the best for one’s own child can require leaving other children behind.

The goal should therefore not be to tell parents which sacrifice to make. Choose academics over culture. Choose integration over belonging. Choose religion over coursework. Choose athletics over proximity. Choose the collective over your child. Those are family decisions, and reasonable parents can weigh them differently. Our public responsibility is different. It is to make the consequences of those choices less brutal.

Conclusion

I should also say that I have long admired Nikole Hannah-Jones and her work. I first met her in Oakland in 2017 at the Network for Public Education conference, and I have been a fan of her scholarship and journalism (see photo). That is part of why her essay stayed with me. I read it not as an argument to defeat, but as an extraordinarily difficult question posed by a parent whose choices illuminate the choices millions of families are forced to make.

A Black child should not have to choose between cultural affirmation and rigorous academics. A poor child should not have to attend school with less because her parents earn less. A student should not need admission to a selective school to encounter advanced mathematics. And teachers in high-poverty schools should not be expected to repair years of accumulated inequality while working with fewer resources and then be blamed when they cannot perform miracles.

Hannah-Jones asks whether fighting for every Black child meant betraying her own. I think her essay points to this conclusion: There was never a perfect choice available. That is the real indictment. And it is not an accident. For generations, American education policy has created and maintained systems in which access to rigorous coursework, experienced teachers, enrichment, safety, social capital, and opportunity too often follows race, wealth, and geography. Parents are then asked to make intensely personal choices inside inequalities they did not create.

The question, then, is not whether Hannah-Jones made the right choice for her daughter, or whether another family would have been more virtuous for choosing differently. The harder question is why we continue to tolerate the American education system that makes families choose among things every child should receive together.

Please share.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Curriculum, Democracy, Equity, Ethics, Failure, New York City, Racism, Research

Do You Agree with the Education Experts?

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2026 //
67

The New York Times asked 37 education experts to rank the best ideas for reforming schools. This is a gift article. Many of you are current or retired teachers. Please read it and share your thoughts.

The experts were asked to rank the “best ideas” by their effectiveness and their cost.

Among the five “most effective ideas” were:

  1. Small-group tutoring.
  2. Science of reading.
  3. Universal pre-K.
  4. Increase per-student funding.
  5. Increase teacher pay for high-poverty schools.

The authors–Sarah Mervosh, Francesca Paris, and Claire Cain Miller–begin:

U.S. schools are facing a daunting problem. Students simply can’t read or do math as well as they used to.

Student test scores have declined over the last decade, in an academic slump that started before the pandemic and has continued since. Compared with 2015, reading scores are down in 83 percent of districts, and math declines are nearly as pervasive.

But improving student achievement is notoriously difficult. Do schools need more money? Better teachers? More standardized testing? Less?

What could actually help turn things around?

We asked 37 top academics and researchers who study education to rate a range of ideas for both effectiveness and cost, on a scale of 1 to 7.

*****£*******

Overall, no single idea was enough on its own, experts said. And no idea would be successful unless it was executed well. But the results showed there are a number of ideas that can work.

We asked experts to evaluate each idea for its impact on academic achievement, which is generally measured by standardized test scores.

Lots of other things matter, too, including enrichment activities like the arts, teacher work satisfaction, and student excitementabout learning. Children also have other needs beyond academics, including mental health and well-being.

But given the results of the last decade, we were interested in what could lift student achievement, which is tied to many later life outcomes, for students, society and the economy.

Interestingly, the least effective idea was “private school vouchers.” Second, reduced class size. Third, increase all teacher pay.

Among the comments, the most frequent complaint was: “Why didn’t you ask the real experts–the teachers?”

My biggest complaint about the survey and the responses is that it omits the most powerful influences on student performance in the classroom: the effects of poverty, family stability and support, health, and other factors outside the teacher’s control. According to the American Statistical Association, about 1-14% of variation in test scores is under the teachers’ control. This is not to say that teachers don’t make a difference, but that you can’t change a child’s academic performance if he or she is persistently sick, absent, has vision or dental problems, doesn’t get fed regularly, and lives in substandard housing.

I didn’t see any mention of community schools, which address some of these problems, making sure that children have medical check-ups, dental and vision screening, have a food pantry and clothing supply, offer job counseling for parents, etc. That is, the school recognizes that the children’s well-being is a necessary precondition to school performance.

I don’t have all the answers. Some of the ideas in the survey are good; some don’t go far enough. But if this I feel sure: children are at their best when they are healthy, when they are well-nourished, when they don’t worry about the physical safety of themselves or their family, when they have a stable home.

Maybe that is too much to hope for in our highly individualistic society, where everyone is on their own and expected to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, even if they don’t have any bootstraps.

Recommended reading:

Richard Rothstein, Class and Schools.

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Class size, Closing schools, Community Schools, Curriculum, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Innovation, Literacy, School Choice, Standardized Testing, State Takeover, Teacher Pay, Teaching, Vouchers

Network for Public Education Urges States Not to Opt in to Federal Voucher Program!

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2026 //
6

The Network for Public Education is dedicated to the preservation and improvement of public schools. Public schools are a foundation stone of our democracy. Nearly 90% of American students are enrolled in public schools.

We urge concerned citizens to write to their Governor and tell them NOT to participate in the federal voucher program!

Every community needs high-quality public schools but diverting public money to private alternatives weakens public schools.

Public money should be spent in public schools.

The Trump administration does not like public schools. It encourages public funding for religious schools, vouchers, charter schools, for-profit schools, and home schools. Research and experience teach that these alternatives choose their students and they discriminate. And they get worse academic results than public schools.

Voucher schools are free to reject students with disabilities. Unlike public schools, students in special education have no rights.

Do not fall for the machinations of the Trump regime against public schools. Their intentions are not good. They loathe public schools, the schools that educated 90% of all Americans and created the greatest nation in the world.

From NPE executive director Carol Burris:

October 2, 2026

The Network for Public Education Urges Governors Not to Opt-in to the Federal Voucher Program

On October 1, the U.S. Treasury Department released regulations for the federal tax creditvoucher program that was slipped into the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and pushed through reconciliation.

The rules confirm that this program will advantage sending public dollars to private and religious schools, including schools that freely discriminate. Governors must decide whether to opt-in by January 1.

We make our recommendation that states not opt-in based on the following:

Opting in allows federal tax dollars to fund discrimination against children.

When a state opts in, federal tax dollars can flow to private and religious schools and other providers that discriminate against students based on disability, academic challenges, LGBTQ status, or religion. States are expressly forbidden from adding protections of their own.

Opting in pushes cash-strapped public schools toward “pay to play.”

The regulations allow scholarships for public school students to cover services such as tutoring or extra special education services. However, nothing in the regulations stops public schools from turning programs they now fund into paid services that would require families to scramble to cover with scholarships.

A struggling district could convert elementary band, middle school art, or high school SAT prep into programs paid for with these vouchers. Here is the catch: to do that, the district must first charge parents. Some students will get a voucher. Others will not. Children whose parents cannot pay will be shut out.

This moves us one step closer to libertarian Milton Friedman’s vision, in which parents pay to educate their children and public education disappears. Make no mistake. This has been the far right’s goal for decades.

Opting in now creates a blind commitment to a program designed by those who actively undermine public schools.

At this point, the regulations are not final nor has Treasury released its Guidance regarding what expenses will be eligible under the program. That Guidance is expected “by the end of the year,”according to Kevin Salinger at Treasury. Without the Department’s Guidance for what qualifies as an eligible expense, a governor may opt-in, only to find out that virtually any spending that makes its way to public schools or districts has been disallowed. And then they’re stuck, because it’s clear that once in, states cannot back out until the following year.

Opting in fuels the growth of schools without rules.

As privatization has expanded, NPE has documented the fraud, abuse, and chaos that charter and voucher programs have produced. Dangling more tax dollars with few restrictions will draw more bad actors into education, opening low-cost, experimental schools that mislead parents and shortchange children.

States cannot block money from flowing to schools with poor fiscal or academic records. They cannot require public reporting on how funds are used or which students are served. They cannot add safeguards against waste and fraud.

Opting in adds to an unsustainable federal deficit.

Treasury projects that by 2030 the program could cost $26 billion a year in lost federal revenue.

That is more than Title I or IDEA, the largest federal programs supporting public schools.

Opting in will drain donations from charities American families depend on.

Large, respected charities like St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and smaller ones that fund suicide prevention centers and domestic violence shelters, will now compete with a program that offers a dollar-for-dollar tax credit instead of a deduction. In an affordability crisis, donors will be drawn to giving that returns their entire contribution.

We encourage friends of public education to act today. Write your governor with a simple message: Do not opt our state into the federal voucher program. Then urge your members of Congress to repeal it. Join the millions of Americans who treasure public education and recognize this voucher program for what it is—a stealth attempt to destroy our beloved public schools.

Categories Bigotry, Charter Schools, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Equity, For-Profit, Funding, Home Schooling, Network for Public Education, Privatization, Research, Resistance, School Choice, Separation of church and state, Support for public schools, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers
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