Dana Goldstein of The New York Times reached out to students and teachers in schools and colleges to find out how they teach writing in the age of AI.
What she learned was that many teachers are expecting students to write in class, not at home, to ensure that they are not turning in essays written by AI.
For today’s high school and college students, the all-night writing session, hunched over a laptop at home or in a library carrel, is on the way out.
In the era of artificial intelligence, take-home writing assignments have become so difficult to police for integrity that many educators have simply stopped assigning them.
Instead, in a rapid shift, teachers are requiring students to write inside the classroom, where they can be observed. Assignments have changed too, with some educators prompting students to reflect on their personal reactions to what they’ve learned and read — the type of writing that A.I. struggles to credibly produce.
This transformation is happening across the educational landscape, from suburban districts and urban charter schools to community colleges and the Ivy League.
The New York Times heard from nearly 400 college and high school educators who responded to a callout about how generative A.I. is changing writing instruction. Almost all described a deep rethinking of how to teach writing — and whether it still matters, since A.I. has become a better writer than most students (and adults), they said.
Teachers are responding to a widespread challenge. Over the past year, A.I. use has become ubiquitous among American students. Between May and December of 2025, the share of American middle school, high school and college students who reported regularly using A.I. for homework increased from 48 to 62 percent, according to polling from RAND — even as two-thirds of students said the technology harmed critical-thinking skills. A third of the students reported using A.I. to draft or revise writing.
The link is a gift article. Feel free to open and read.
A massive revolt against educational technology in the classroom is under way, especially in certain European nations. Education leaders in some countries have concluded that Ed-tech is the primary reason for declining interest in reading and ability to read.
In the U.S., experts blame declining reading scores on the pandemic, on teachers, or on schools that have not yet adopted the “science of reading.” But even here, some parents and educators have concluded that Ed-tech is the driver of declining interest in reading books. Meanwhile the Ed-tech industry continues to promote their products as the answer, not the problem.
Among the nations that are abandoning ed-tech, Norway is a leader of the pack. In 2016, the schools gave every child a laptop. Since then, Norwegians have seen growing aliteracy and illiteracy. Education leaders decided that Ed-tech was the reason that students lost interest in reading.
Norwegian libraries are the hub of a rebirth in literacy. According to a report in the Sunday Times of England, Norwegian libraries have reinvented their activities to bring back children and teens. They offer roller skating, rap workshops, and–most especially—-books.
Children find a nook in Lillehammer’s library as part of the Boklek scheme BARBORA HOLLAN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
There are 1,100 chairs in the main public library in Oslo — rocking chairs, armchairs, chairs on balls which let you spin yourself around. Every one is full.
When the Deichman Bjorvika library opened in 2020, staff quickly realised they needed teenagers’ ideas about how to attract young people. “When we used to arrange free pizza evenings on our own, nobody came,” said Mariann Youmans, head of Deichman Young.
Their ideas? Workshops to clean your trainers and write rap lyrics, chess tournaments and parties where you rollerskate around piles of books.
The theory is that the teenagers, who are paid about 187 Norwegian krone (£14.50) per hour to sit on the council for two hours a week, invite their friends; the library becomes a place that they know and like, and gradually they start borrowing books.
They held 1,000 events last year — and lent a record 2.2 million books across Deichman’s 23 libraries in the Norwegian capital. About 50 per cent were to children. It is books by the back door.
Welcome to the latest chapter in Norway’s attempts to reverse its catastrophic decline in reading. It might have one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds — about £1.5 trillion, and rising by the day — and the highest percentage of electric car sales — 96 per cent — but Norway, temporarily, forgot about the importance of books.
Around 500,000 Norwegians, in a population of only 5.6 million, cannot read a text message or simple instructions. Of the 65 countries measured for children’s enjoyment of reading by Pirls (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study), it comes bottom.
“We are far, far too rich, so we do stupid things with our money,” said Trine Skei Grande, the former education minister, now director of the Norwegian Publishers’ Association.
In 2016, the “stupid thing” was to give an iPad to every child when they started school at the age of five. It had no parental controls on it, and the parents who complained were ignored, dismissed as “dinosaurs”. Books disappeared from classrooms. Children stopped reading.
Norway is below the international average, and far below Britain, in the Pisa reading scores, compiled by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). Before the iPads were introduced, it was significantly above both of them.
Such children were left, Skei Grande said, with what she described as “kitchen language”, a vocabulary for only the ordinary things in life, perhaps 17,000 words, rather than a bookworm’s 55,000-70,000.
But the fightback has truly begun. The prime minister, Jonas Gahr Store, vowed to make Norway into the best country in the world for reading. “Norwegian children used to be among the best readers in the world. But today, 15,000 pupils finish primary school without being able to read properly. That is serious,” he said, at the launch of a national reading initiative last August.
A reading commission was set up by the government in January. There are 13 experts on it, including two authors, who will report later this year. Skei Grande said there is political consensus across Norway’s parliament to resolve the problem. “We have no representative of Donald Trump saying: ‘I love the uneducated’. I’m happy with that,” she said.
Money is being poured into new strategies to get children reading again — and adults, constantly staring at their phones, are being targeted too.
An initiative, from Foundation Read, will encourage workplaces to set up book clubs for their staff, or at least to have a shelf of books that staff can exchange with each other. Nearly 30 companies have signed up.
Silje Brathen, from Foundation Read, said: “We need children to see their parents reading because why should they be forced to read if their parents are never doing that?” IPads have been removed for the first three years of school, and mobile phones banned for all ages.IPads have now been removed for younger schoolchildren.
There are summer reading competitions during the eight to nine-week holiday which begins in the middle of June, just as the sun barely sets in Norway.
Every child is encouraged to log their reading — cartoons and newspapers, as well as novels — and then to go to the library to pick up a prize to reward a milestone, such as getting to page 50. The shark tooth that children were given proved particularly popular one summer.
Helene Voldner, from the Norwegian Library Association, said: “Last summer, a library in Haugesund [a coastal town in the southwest of Norway] completely ran out of children’s books because so many wanted to take part.”
In Lillehammer, about two hours by train north of Oslo, an initiative, called Boklek, which translates as “book play”, was born, the brainchild of Marit Borkenhagen, festival director of the Norwegian Festival of Literature.
In the months before they start school in August at the age of five or six, every kindergarten class is invited to visit the local library.
Each year, one book is chosen, and the author, or a storyteller, comes to the library to read the story to the children, but also to play games linked to it. This year’s book is Det Runde Problemet by Vegard Markhus about a boy called Robert who loses his head.
At 10am in the library on Wednesday, there were 47 children listening to the story, with their 12 teachers, all sitting in socks, not shoes, in the children’s section. At midday, there were another 59 children from other kindergartens.
They do not listen silently. They were encouraged, by the storyteller, Kristine Haugland, to get involved — patting their head to check it is still there, and counting the number of socks on Robert’s messy bathroom floor. Kristine Haugland of Boklek keeps children enthralled at the library in Lillehammer BARBORA HOLLAN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
It is reading, but not the quiet, dull type that puts off so many children. The aim is to show the children, and their teachers, how reading can be fun.
The same book is read to all children that year, and a copy given both to their kindergarten and their new class at primary school. It is designed to make them feel comfortable when they make the move to big school.
Mia Granum, a Boklek co-ordinator, said: “When I was a child, we all watched the same TV. We had a lot more in common with each other. It’s important to have something comfortable that is familiar to everyone. The Boklek book gives them this.”
For Sarah Willand, director of one of Norway’s oldest and biggest publishers, Cappelen Damm, the decline in reading — but the newfound determination to reverse the problem — means she describes herself as a “concerned optimist”.
She said: “We are concerned that both people — children and adults — are reading less … It is not enough that books exist. They must be read or heard.
Next month, Norway will be the guest of honour at the annual Children’s Book Fair in Bologna, Italy, with dozens of events organised by Norla (Norwegian Literature Abroad).
Back in Oslo, Deichman Bjorvika — all 19,600 square metres of it — has five 3D printers, six sewing machines, and a scheme to hand out seeds to visitors. The architect designed the five-storey building — or ten if you include the five mezzanines — to look like a forest. If you look up, you see light coming in through the glass roof. Oslo’s central library, Deichman Bjorvika. The five-storey building opened in 2020.
To open the library, streets were closed, royalty invited, and little children — with rucksacks of books on their backs — walked from the old library to the new building. “We wanted the first inhabitants of the new library to be children. We wanted to show them the way,” said Youmans.
One essential aspect of the so-called “science of reading” is the policy of “retaining” (flunking) students in third grade who do not pass the mandatory third-grade test to enter fourth grade.
Retaining low-scoring students boosts fourth grade scores. The students who are held back to repeat third grade may see a rise in their reading scores, but there are likely to experience harmful long-term consequences.
He writes about a study by an economist at the University of Miami:
The study’s author, Jiee Zhong, found that academic gains from retention fade over time, and the practice “increases absenteeism, violent behavior, and juvenile crime, and reduces the likelihood of high school graduation.” Analyzing data on Texas students, Zhong found that being retained was tied to a 19% reduction in earnings at age 26.
Other studies have reached the same conclusion.
Teacher-blogger Nancy Bailey has suggested alternatives to retention that help children and don’t hurt them, like tutoring, smaller class size, summer school, small group instruction, looping two classes with the same teacher, a mixed-grade class, and assistance with resource classes. Bailey cited Melissa Roderick of the University of Chicago, who wrote in 1995: “The permanency of retention and the message it sends students may have long-term effects on self-esteem and school attachment that may override even short-term academic benefits.”
Hinnefeld writes:
Indiana started giving its third-grade standardized reading test in 2012 as part of a wave of “reforms” that also included private-school vouchers and expansion of charter schools. Initially, schools were told to retain students who didn’t pass the test; for a few years, they did. But they gradually returned to the previous approach: Teachers and families consulted to decide if it was in a student’s best interest to be promoted.
From 2017 to 2024, few third-graders were retained, even if they didn’t pass IREAD-3. Then state officials decided once again to get tough. The legislature voted in 2024 to require students to pass the test to be promoted, with “good cause” exceptions for some special education students and English learners. Indiana became one of 26 states to tie retention to tests, according to the Education Commission of the States.
The good news: Hoosier third-graders did better than anticipated. In 2025, the first year of mandatory retention, 87.3% passed IREAD-3, up from 82.5% the previous year. Statewide, just over 3,000 students had to repeat third grade.
State education officials took credit for the improvement, attributing it to Indiana’s emphasis on the “science of reading,” along with increased state and foundation funding. Students also have more opportunities to pass the test: They take it at the end of second grade, at the end of third grade, and, if they don’t pass, during the following summer. (There are no penalties for second-graders who don’t pass).
It’s also likely that teachers are more focused on ensuring that students pass IREAD-3, knowing there will be serious consequences if they don’t. They also would have worked to ensure students receive good-cause exceptions if they qualified. The number of Indiana students with exceptions increased by almost half between 2024 and 2025.
Teachers and families, for the most part, understand that holding kids back should be a last resort. Zhong’s study puts data behind what they know intuitively.
Indiana, like the other 25 states that follow this testcentric, anti-child policy must decide what matters most: test scores or the well-being of students.
Paul L. Thomas of Furman University has been a persistent critic of the narrative about the “Mississippi Miracle.” The story gained great traction when New York Times‘ columnist Nicholas Kristof took it national on September 1, 2023, in an article titled: “America Has a Reading Problem. Mississippi Has a Solution.” The “miracle” supposedly was accomplished without doing anything to improve the lives of children and their families, without even raising teachers’ salaries. The “science of reading” did the trick; that, plus holding back third graders who didn’t pass the final reading test.
Many articles have been written since then recycling the claim that the “science of reading” was largely responsible for the impressive growth in Mississippi’s fourth grade reading scores on NAEP (the National Assessment of Educational Progress), which is administered every two years. If only states forced teachers to teach the “science of reading,” there would be no failure in reading (except, of course, for the students who were retained in third grade and not participants in the fourth grade testing.)
The “Mississippi Miracle” allegedly occurred within the context of a “Southern Surge,” where low-spending, non-union states like Alabama and Louisiana also participated in a miraculous increase in reading scores. These professors complexified that claim recently.
“No story has caught the imagination of education reformers this decade quite like the ‘Mississippi miracle,’” Rachel Canter asserts in The Atlantic, adding:
Other states are now trying to emulate what Mississippi did. Those efforts largely revolve around adopting what’s known as the “science of reading”— a set of principles and teaching techniques, including phonics, that are grounded in decades of empirical research.
Canter, the Director of Education Policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, released as well a report on Mississippi reading and education reform, noting:
I personally spent 17 years helping state leaders run that race. As the head of Mississippi First, a nonprofit I founded in 2008, I played a hand in, and sometimes led, many of the state’s key education policy conversations with the legislature while also working with the Mississippi Department of Education to implement the reform agenda. This is my insider’s view of what policymakers, philanthropists, and pundits should know about what really happened.
Both Canter’s article and her report are lessons themselves in how education reform in the US works, specifically during this cycle driven by the “science of reading” and “science of learning.”
Notably, Canter mentions “empirical research,” yet neither a magazine article nor a think tank report meet the standards of “scientific” championed by “science of” reformers—experimental/quasi-experimental research published in peer-reviewed journals [1].
Also, Canter’s article introduces on a larger scale one of the many multiverses of the “science of reading” existing currently.
The article and report express what Mississippi officials have been arguing for a while: Mississippi reform is not a miracle; it is many years of hard and complex work.
Canter, in fact, seems to double-down on Mississippi reform is effective due to high-stakes accountability (the core of education reform since Reagan, reform that has never worked but perpetuated a permanent cycle of crisis and reform in the US).
I will return to Canter’s argument about Mississippi’s reform success, but I think the criticism of overly simplistic stories about the Mississippi “miracle” are valid and many are beginning to acknowledge that news articles and podcasts have driven reductive and misguided reading reform, policy, and classroom practice [2].
In short, a lesson we should learn, finally, is to reject “miracle” narratives in education.
Lessons Ignored (And Questions Unanswered)
The problem with Canter’s article and report (beyond that they lack experimental rigor) is that her claims are just as misleading and often just as incomplete as the media stories being sold.
One lesson ignored in the Mississippi story is that it suffers from “the moment” syndrome. I have been asking since the start of the “miracle” narrative: Why haven’t we looked at the historical increase in grade 4 NAEP reading scores, including an ignored spike well before the 2019 christening of “miracle”?:
A bigger lesson, however, is taking greater care when deciding if reforms work as well as what causes that success. Related, as well, is assuring that the data used to decide success or failure represents learning.
Here the Mississippi story is much different that the media “miracle” or Cantor’s argument that high-stakes accountability has worked in the state.
Several questions must be answered.
If Mississippi’s reform has worked, why does the state have the same wealth and race gaps as in 1998?
If Mississippi’s reform has worked, why does the state continue to retain about 9000 K-3 students per year?
And most significantly, if Mississippi reform has worked, do the test score increases in grade 4 represent greater student learning?
There is little scientific evidence on this important question, but the evidence is suggesting a principle by Gerald Bracey: “Rising test scores do not necessarily mean rising achievement.”
When grade 8 data are compared to grade 4, those analyses seem accurate since states behind Mississippi in grade 4 catch and pass by grade 8 (include the subgroup of Black students):
The irony here is that in 2019 when Hanford declared Mississippi reading reform a “miracle,” many uncritically jumped on that bandwagon.
The Atlantic article is receiving the same uncritical and effusive response—although it is no more credible.
Canter offers just a different compelling but ultimately misleading story.
As of 2026, there simply is no empirical evidence Mississippi’s reading reform has worked.
There remains no “science” in the multiverse of “science of reading” stories.
[1] One frustrating aspect of the “science of reading” movement has been the demand for “science” while advocates tend to use anecdotes, cherry pick evidence, and ignore research counter to their stories. Note the expectations, often ignored, for “scientific” by The Reading League:
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P.L. Thomas, Professor of Education (Furman University, Greenville SC), is the poetry editor for English Journal. NCTE named Thomas the 2013 George Orwell Award winner. Follow his work @plthomasEdD.
On CNN’s State Of The Union, host Dana Bash interviewed Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin. The House Judiciary Committee ranking member was in attendance at the WHCD along with Bash and talked about his firsthand experience.
BASH: And you have, and as many of your fellow Democrats have used some heated rhetoric against the president. And do you think twice about that when something like this happens?
Raskin was diplomatic in his answer, while being perplexed at the idiotic implication.
RASKIN: What rhetoric do you have in mind? I …
Bash then quickly clarified that she was insinuating a correlation by doubling down.
BASH: Well, just talking about some of the fact that he is terrible for this country and so on and so forth. I understand that that’s your democratic right. But, overall…
RASKIN: Right.
BASH: … do you have a responsibility?
Raskin went on to calmly explain the First Amendment and his valid criticisms of Trump.
We, however, are not members of Congress nor beholden to niceties. So with no due respect to Dana Bash, she can f—- off with this bullshit. In fact, if anything, many Democrats are too restrained with their commentary against Trump, too scared of calling a fascist a fascist.
Here are some things Donald Trump has called the Democratic Party and/or just generally people who oppose him, in no particular order:
The Enemy Within
The Enemy of the People
Scum
Terrorists
Vermin
Radical
Lunatics
Demonic
Evil
Fascists
Marxists
Communists
Garbage
Treasonous
Animals
Degenerates
Jew haters
Lowlifes
These kinds of moments expose the insane double standard “liberal media” places on Dems. Trump’s constant, daily violent rhetoric against his enemies is normalized — sanewashed — while Democrats are taken to task for incivility for daring to oppose the king.
The best source of news about politics these days is the Meidas Nerwork. The three Meiselas brothers have created print, video, podcast and every other form of media. With their editor-in-chief Ron Filipowski, they are in the know. This is part of their weekend roundup.
… Trump and Republicans have predictably seized upon the shooting incident at last night’s WHCA dinner to push for suppression of free speech and dismissal of the court case that is temporarily halting some of his beloved ballroom construction.
… AP: “Video showed the suspect running past security barricades as Secret Service agents ran toward him. One officer was shot in a bullet-resistant vest but was recovering. The gunman was tackled to the ground and was not injured, but was being evaluated at a hospital.”
… CBS reporter Jennifer Jacobs: “The shooting happened on the level above the ballroom where the dinner was. I don’t think people hearing about this – or even those of us in the room – realized how far from the president, VP and other guests this incident was. It was on another floor, up some stairs and several sets of security away.”
… Reese Gorman with NOTUS: “I was talking with a GOP lawmaker at the WHCD last night right after the shooting who was appalled at the lack of security entering the Washington Hilton. There were 0 magnetometer or security checkpoints prior to entering the Washington Hilton. All you needed to do to get in was flash a ticket or a screenshot of an email, there was no actual inspection of what you showed anyone.”
… “In my case they didn’t even check my phone or ticket they let me through because I was with someone who had already flashed their ticket. You didn’t reach your first and only security checkpoint until you went down the escalator and were right outside the ballroom. No ID’s were checked. There’s significantly more security at some Trump rallies I’ve been to. And this dinner had the President, VP and Speaker in attendance.”
… Karoline Leavitt on Fox right before the event started: “This speech tonight will be classic Donald J. Trump. There will be some shots fired tonight in the room, so everyone should tune in.”
… Minutes after the shooting, Dep. WH Chief of Staff and former Trump golf caddie Dan Scavinogot up and tried to lead attendees in a “USA! USA!” chant by screaming it out several times. Not one person joined him and he walked out.
… Trump then held a press conference at the event:
“When you’re impactful, they go after you. When you’re not impactful, they leave you alone.”
“This is not a particularly secure building. And I didn’t want to say this, but this is why we have to have all the attributes of what we have planned at the WH. It’s a much larger room and much more secure, it’s got bulletproof glass. That’s why we need the ballroom.
“I lead a pretty normal life, considering, you know, it’s a dangerous life. I think I’m, I think I handle it as well – as well as it can be handled. To be honest with you, I’m not a basket case.”
“We’re not going to cancel things because we can’t do that. We wanted to stay tonight, I will tell you, I, I fought like hell to stay, but it was protocol—they said, please, sir.”
He said he wants the event to be rescheduled because he has a great speech ready: “I was all set to really rip it. I’ll have to save it. I don’t know if I can ever be as rough as I was going to be tonight. I think I’m going to be probably very nice. I’ll be very boring the next time, but we’re going to have a great event.”
… Kash Patel then praised Trump: “Mr. President, you inspire them 24/7, 365 You give them the resources that they need and you know, they know that you have their back, and that is a changing dynamic in this country and that’s why you saw a brave Secret Service agents respond immediately, swiftly, subdue and take down the suspect and safeguard the lives of thousands of individuals at that hotel.”
… Monica Crowley, Chief of Protocol at the WH: “Once again, you witnessed the Hand of God tonight.”
… Franklin Graham posted: “After three assassination attempts, some people say that President Trump is one lucky man. I don’t think luck has anything to do with it – I believe it is the hand of God. What do you think?”
… I think Franklin Graham is a nepo-baby charlatan who weaponizes the Bible to advance his political agenda.
… Immediately after the incident, MAGA supporters received their marching orders and blasted out coordinated propaganda posts on X trying to use it as justification for Trump’s ballroom monstrosity.
… Which also includes Sen. John Fettermanthese days: “We were there front and center. That venue wasn’t built to accommodate an event with the line of succession for the US govt. After witnessing last night, drop the TDS and build the WH ballroom for events exactly like these.”
… Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) took it a step further and said taxpayers should pay for it: “Any consideration of DHS reconciliation instructions this week and beyond should provide for construction of a secure ballroom on WH grounds.”
… Dep. AG Todd Blanche then sent a letter to the National Trust for Historic Preservationdemanding they dismiss their lawsuit against the ballroom: “You lawsuit puts the lives of the president, his family, and his staff at grave risk. I hope yesterday’s narrow miss will help you finally realize the folly of your lawsuit.”
… Former MAGA influencer and Elon Musk baby-mama Ashley St. Claire: “All of MAGA is paid and they coordinate their messaging in lockstep via groupchats. All of these people came to the conclusion that after what they saw at the WHCD, their first thought was ‘Trump needs his ballroom’? One of the main groupchats in which they coordinate this messaging is literally called ‘Fight, Fight, Fight!’ after the ‘attempt’ on Trump’s life in Butler”
… Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) received quite a bit of ridicule after she suggested that actor Ben Stiller may be involved or complicit when he made this 3-word post: “Got it done.” Mace responded: Got what done?” Her reply was hit with this Community Note: “He was rooting for the Knicks to win their game against the Atlanta Hawks. And they did.”
… Journalist David Shuster: “Last night, CNN, TMZ, CBS and others reported the dinner gunman was ‘confirmed dead.’ In fact, he was alive and had not been shot. (Just shot at). At a dinner honoring WH reporting, the rush to be first instead of being accurate was on full display. Speaks volumes.”
… Daily Mail on the shooter: “On LinkedIn, he describes himself as: ‘A mechanical engineer and computer scientist by degree, independent game developer by experience, teacher by birth.’ Allen earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the CA Institute of Tech and later a M.S. in Computer Science from a CA State Univ. During his time at Caltech, Allen listed his involvement in the Caltech Christian Fellowship.”
… CA-based elections analyst Rob Pyers on shooter: “Registered as a No Party Preference voter in LA County. FEC records show a single $25 contribution via ActBlue to the Kamala Harrispresidential campaign.”
… From the shooter’s manifesto, which he sent to his family minutes before the incident:
“I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes. (Well, to be completely honest, I was no longer willing a long time ago, but this is the first real opportunity I’ve had to do something about it.)”
“Administration officials (not including Mr. Patel): they are targets, prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest. In order to minimize casualties I will also be using buckshot rather than slugs (less penetration through walls)”
“I would still go through most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary (on the basis that most people *chose* to attend a speech by a pedophile, rapist, and traitor, and are thus complicit) but I really hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“Turning the other cheek is for when you yourself are oppressed. I’m not the person raped in a detention camp. I’m not the fisherman executed without trial. I’m not a schoolkid blown up or a child starved or a teenage girl abused by the many criminals in this admin. Turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior; it is complicity in the oppressor’s crimes.”
… Seems a bit odd that he would exclude Patel from his hit list. Wonder what the reason is for that?
… CBS: “Allen’s brother had notified New London PD (CT) of the alleged manifesto he had sent to his family members prior to the incident. Family members told investigators Allen would regularly go to the shooting range to train with his firearms. The official said Allen was part of a group called ‘The Wide Awakes’ and attended a ‘No Kings’ protest in CA.”
… Trump then posted Sunday morning: “What happened last night is exactly the reason that our great Military, Secret Service, Law Enforcement and, for different reasons, every President for the last 150 years, have been DEMANDING that a large, safe, and secure Ballroom be built ON THE GROUNDS OF THE WHITE HOUSE. This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the WH!”
… Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) was on CNN. Dana Bash: “You and your fellow Democrats have used some heated rhetoric against the president. Do you think twice about that when something like that happens? Raskin: What rhetoric do you have in mind? Bash: That he’s terrible for this country and so on and so forth.”
… Todd Blanche on CBS: Q – “The alleged shooter had multiple weapons. In DC, open carry is not permitted. You just said he traveled from CA across the country by train. How did he do that? Blanche: This isn’t about in my mind changing the law, or making the laws more restrictive around firearms. Host: I’m asking about crossing state lines with firearms. Blanche: I don’t think that’s something we should be focused on.”
… Mehdi Hasan: “They want to use the alleged assassination attempt to build a ballroom (!) and crack down on the left but not touch gun laws, oh no, never that.”
…Peter Doocy on Fox: “We should expect in the coming days to hear about major security improvements – that could include Trump having to wear a bullet-proof vest when he is out in public.”
… When the announcement was made that the dinner was canceled, that started a run on people grabbling bottles of wine and champagne off the tables. Some for takeout later, others decided not to wait.
We make the entire Weekend Bulletin available to everyone who are also able to participate in the comments section below. About the first third of the daily Bulletins during the week are available to free subscribers. If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can find it here.
Gaige Davila of the Texas Observer tells the shocking story of the arrest and detention by ICE of Meena Batru, who worked as a court interpreter for more than 20 years in Texas and other states. She interprets in Hindu, Punjabi, and Urdu. She immigrated from India to the U.S. some thirty-five years ago. She was under the impression that her court-approved work permit assures her legal status. ICE said she is wrong and plans to deport her.
Meena Batra is not a murderer, a rapist, or a burden on society. She is not among “the worst of the worst.” Why is she being deported?
Last month, Meenu Batra, 53, who has lived in the South Texas border colonia of Laguna Heights since 2002, was on her way to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to work another case. She’s been a court interpreter for over 20 years, the only one licensed in Texas for Hindi, Punjabi, or Urdu. Her language skills are requested nationwide, where she’s contracted to help people making their way through the immigration court system, just as she did for herself 35 years ago when she immigrated from India to New Jersey before settling in Texas.
She planned to meet with her adult children in Austin after the Wisconsin trip, the only difference she foresaw in an otherwise typical trip. Her routine for years included flying from either Harlingen or Brownsville to far-flung parts of the country where South Asian immigrants needed language access. For this trip, the flight was out of Harlingen.
But, around 5 p.m. on March 17, Batra was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents after passing through security at Harlingen International Airport. In a sworn deposition that was filed as part of a petition for habeas corpus—a legal request to be released on the grounds that the detention is unlawful—Batra said the people who arrested her did not have visible badges nor were they wearing uniforms. One of those agents had asked Batra if she knew she was in the country illegally and that she had a deportation order. She replied that her work authorization status, which she applied for regularly after being granted a legal status called withholding of removal by a New Jersey immigration judge decades ago, was good for another four years.
“That doesn’t mean you can be here forever,” the agent replied. Two more plainclothes agents would join the two that detained her, bringing her down the escalator and to the front of the airport.
“Having watched and read enough news, I know that the moment you say something, they accuse you of evading arrest or whatever other things,” Batra told the Texas Observer. “So, being mindful of all that, mindful of the whole line and being embarrassed in front of everybody, I just complied.”
Batra’s attorneys say the agents were targeting her. “This is someone who maybe had one speeding ticket in the last 30 years and [is] being treated like a notorious criminal,” Deepak Ahluwalia, a California and Texas-based immigration attorney representing Batra, told the Observer.
People who are granted withholding of removal are typically immigrants who face persecution in their home countries, like those who receive asylum. Batra, who is Sikh, left India after her parents were murdered during a state pogrom against Sikhs in the 1980s. Batra did apply for asylum but instead received withholding, which, unlike asylum, does not come with a path to a green card.
Though people with Batra’s protection still have deportation orders, they cannot be removed to where they came from. If they are deported, the United States must send them to a “third country” that will accept them. The United States has agreements with at least 27 nations, a list the Trump administration has grown, that it’s paid up to $1 million a person to accept deportees. Many of these deportation flights leave from the Harlingen airport where Batra was detained.
ICE has not said where it plans to send Batra, according to her habeas filing.
After placing her in handcuffs, she said, two of those four agents at the airport drove Batra to ICE’s field office in Harlingen in an unmarked van. She had been there many times over the years to renew her work permit and to help attorneys with translation. Office staff recognized her as she was being processed. Agents posed for photos with her handcuffed, which they said was for “social media,” according to the habeas filing.
Batra was moved through various holding cells for 24 hours without food or water, first in Harlingen then in the El Valle Detention Center outside of Raymondville, in neighboring Willacy County. As of mid-April, she remains there without access to the consistent medical care she needs following surgeries she had in December. Within days of being in the facility, she caught a respiratory illness and lost her voice. She was supposed to see her doctor, in Harlingen, the week she was detained.
“I think it’s a real example of what the administration is doing in terms of its mass deportation plan and who it’s targeting,” Edna Yang, the co-executive director of American Gateways, an Austin-based legal services nonprofit, told the Observer. “It’s not targeting criminals, it’s not targeting dangerous people, it’s targeting individuals who are members of our community, who have a lot to offer and continue to offer a lot of positive things for our entire country and our society.”
Batra’s habeas petition included dozens of letters from people in her community and beyond asking for her to be released from detention. Cameron County Precinct 1 Constable Norman Esquivel, a Republican elected official and fixture in Laguna Madre-area politics, and several judges across the country are among those who authored a letter.
Batra’s attorneys argue that in the decades she’s had her legal protection the U.S. government never told her that it was planning to deport her, and that her detention violated her right to due process. One of Batra’s children recently enlisted in the military and filed a parole application for her. If granted, Batra could remain in the country in one-year increments. Her attorneys have also filed a temporary restraining order seeking to prevent ICE from moving her to another detention center.
In response to an Observer request for comment, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson noted that Batra had “a final order of removal from an immigration judge in 2000” and said “She will remain in ICE custody pending removal and will receive full due process.”
The spokesperson continued: “Employment authorization does NOT confer any type of legal status in the United States,” adding that the department is encouraging all “illegal aliens” to “self-deport.”
Nationwide, Texas is leading in habeas petitions from people detained by ICE. Most federal judges are siding with detained people, ordering them to be released or to receive a bond hearing before an immigration judge.
Batra, who has spent nearly half her life working in immigration courts, stopped working for the government’s side in immigration proceedings—instead helping only the immigrants seeking status—after seeing the conditions in detention facilities and how detained people were treated. Now, on the other side herself, she’s seeing people at the Raymondville facility who don’t speak English or Spanish, who are without the same knowledge and connections she has after so many years of helping people like them through the same system.
“I am grateful also, because something bad has to happen in life for you to truly appreciate what you have,” Batra said. “But I am getting this experience, and I’m watching the other women and just realizing how much help they need. At least I have awareness. I know my rights.”
DHS has until April 21 to respond to Batra’s habeas petition, according to court filings.
Peter Greene wrote in Forbes about a Democrat-led effort to eliminate the federal voucher program from Trump’s “One Big Ugly Bill,” the one that takes from the poor and gives to the richest. Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona led the opposition to this program. Kelly knows how vouchers have harmed the state budget and public schools in Arizona.
One portion of the President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” was a federal school voucher program that any state could join. But before that plan can go into effect, a new Senate bill has been proposed that would undo the vouchers entirely.
Senators Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and an additional 28 senators have introduced the Keep Public Funds in Public Schools Act. The act would strike IRS Code Section 25, the portion of the IRS code that was inserted to create the federal school voucher program, eliminating that program.
The new voucher program was sold as a tax credit program. It would allow taxpayers to claim a $1,700 tax credit by diverting that payment from the IRS to a scholarship granting organization that would then award at least $1,530 of that donation to a student (the rules governing the program allow SGOs to keep 10% of the donated funds).
Kelly cites his home state of Arizona as a cautionary tale, where taxpayer-funded school vouchers have become costly: “Since 2022, our state’s universal voucher program has diverted and drained money from public schools; last year alone cost Arizona taxpayers nearly $1 billion. Instead of investing in classrooms, special education services, or school safety, lawmakers pushed massive tax giveaways and created a parallel education system that lacks transparency and accountability.”
12News and reporter Craig Harris have run a series of reports showing much of that money has gone to questionable and disallowed purposes, including dirt bikes, custom tires and luxury hotel stays. Choice advocates such as EdChoice have pushed back, but have had difficulty debunking Harris’s results.
“In Arizona, we’ve already seen how universal vouchers are leading to rampant fraud and benefiting people who already had the means to send their kids to private school, while decimating public education for everyone else,” said Kelly.
On X, Secretary of Education Lindas McMahon noted that Kelly surely knows “the Education Freedom Tax Credit does not take a single dollar away from public schools — it brings new, private money into education.”
When Kentucky’s similarly-structured tax credit scholarship program was challenged in court, the state made a similar argument that the program did not use any public taxpayer funds. But when the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled against the program, they rejected that argument. “The money at issue cannot be characterized as simply private funds,” they wrote, “rather it represents the tax liability that the taxpayer would otherwise owe.”
When it comes to granting tax credits, the federal government has one power that states do not. Most states require a balanced budget; the state needs to find a way to cover the money it lost by offering credits rather than collecting on the tax liability. The federal government can just add the uncollected taxes to its deficit tab.
Kelly noted in an interview, “It is a deficit bomb, this federal program.”
The Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan entity that assists Congress on tax legislation, estimated that the credit could cost $25.9 billion between 2025 and 2034 or around $3 billion to $4 billion a year. That would mean potential income of $300-$400 million for SGOs; several organizations are preparing to launch national SGOs to work with the federal voucher program.
In addition to Kelly and Hirono, the Keep Public Funds in Public Schools Act is cosponsored by Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Chris Coons (D-DE), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Dick Durbin (D-IL), John Fetterman (D-PA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Angus King (I-ME), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Peter Welch (D-VT), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
It’s against the law for the federal government to interfere in curriculum and instruction, but in recent years that has not stopped federal officials from trying. Many people harbor the illusion that there is a way of teaching that is the best, better than any other way. As soon as they think that panacea has been identified, they want to mandate it for everyone.
The Obama administration pressed states to adopt the Common Core curriculum, even when there was no evidence–none at all–that it was better than any other curriculum.
Today’s panacea is called “the science of reading.” The evidence? Reading scores in Mississippi went up after the state adopted SOR. The counter-evidence? Congress funded a $6 billion demonstration project called Reading First, based on the same ideas, as part of No Child Left Behind in 2001. The results: students learned the skills taught, but their comprehension did not improve.
Peter Greene reports that Congressional legislators are so impressed by SOR that they have written federal legislation to ensure that its methods are universally taught. Members of Congress know nothing about teaching reading, but they want to mandate the one best way on everyone.
Check out HR 7890, brought to us by Rep. Erin Houchin of Indiana, along with Rep. John Manion of New York and Rep. Kevin Kiley of California. The bill– The Science of Reading Act– wants to federally mandate Science of Reading stuff. It has the effect of creating a federal definition of SoR that captures the general vagueness of the term:
The term ‘science of reading’ means an interdisciplinary body of evidence-based research about reading and issues related to reading and writing that—
(A) identifies instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and writing as essential components to skilled reading;
(B) demonstrates the importance of background knowledge, oral language, the connection between reading and writing, and strong writing instruction;
(C) explains why some students have difficulty with reading and writing; and
(D) does not use a three-cueing model.
Hope that clears it right up for you. If you’re fuzzy on three-cueing, we get a federal definition for that, too. It has to do with A) using context, pictures, or syntax as primary basis for teaching word recognition and B) “teaches visual memory as the primary basis for word recognition.” So, sight words? Sight words are bad now?
Anyway, under the bill, only programs that are aligned with SoR get grant money under the grants to “entities in support of kindergarten through grade 12 literacy,” The bill would add to the directions that states are given for distributing the grants. Which makes me wonder if these GOP Representatives missed the meeting where the regime explained that these kinds of grants were going to be toast anyway.
That’s pretty much the whole bill, other than it’s not allowed to limit any of the protections of students under IDEA or the ADA. The best part is at the very bottom of the page where the bill explicitly says that the bill absolutely does not
authorize any officer or employee of the Federal Government to mandate, direct, or control a State, local educational agency, or school’s specific instructional content, academic standards and assessments, curricula, or program of instruction.
Somebody was wrapping up the bill and remembered that the feds are not allowed to dictate curriculum or instructional programs. Conservatives remembered that really well back when President Obama and Arne Duncan were extorting state compliance with promoting Common Core, but seem to have kind of forgotten now.
So that’s the bill. It directs states to push a particular ill-defined un-supported possibly-nonexistent instructional methodology, and then promises that this bill does not authorize the feds to push a particular instructional methodology. It went to the House Committee on Education and Workforce, where the committee voted 33-0 to report the bill. Should this bill escape its well-deserved death, I expect its major effect will be to influence education grant paperwork, but let’s hope it just sits on the steps up on Capitol Hill and quietly fades away.
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