The Network for Public Education publishes an annual ranking of states in relation to their support for their public schools. This year, for the third year in a row, Nebraska topped all other states in the ranking of states. The legislature, led by Republicans, wants school choice, including vouchers. The legislature allocated $10 million for a voucher program. The public voted by 57%-43% in 2024 to repeal the voucher program. The majority of the public wants good public schools.

Carol Burris writes:

Since our state-by-state report card, Public Schooling in America, began, Nebraska has consistently ranked among the top states for its support of public education. This year, it rose from fifth place to first.

Nebraska is one of only two states — the other being Kentucky — with no charter schools and no state voucher program. Both states’ legislatures passed voucher laws, but in Nebraska, voters overturned it by referendum. In Kentucky, the courts struck down both the charter and voucher laws, and voters went on to defeat an attempt to amend the state constitution to allow them.

Beyond the absence of privatization, Nebraska earned high marks for creating a positive climate for teaching and learning. It has fewer underqualified teachers than most states and a high teacher-attractiveness rating. It also has one of the best student-to-counselor ratios in the nation. It bans corporal punishment, and it is one of only two states that place homeschooling restrictions on families under investigation by Child Protective Services. Unlike most states, Nebraska requires families to provide annual notification when they homeschool.

Even at the top, Nebraska has room to improve. On public school funding, it landed in the middle of the pack. The state distributes what it spends equitably, but given its ability to pay, it can afford to invest more.

Nebraska also, unfortunately, opted into the federal voucher program, and it remains to be seen how much funding Scholarship Granting Organizations will direct to the state’s private and/or public schools. For now, however, Nebraskans’ commitment to their public schools has made the state a beacon of hope.

Michael Tomasky, editor of The New Republic, concludes that the U.S. Supreme Court has become too partisan. The public does not trust its judgments. Term limits won’t change it soon enough. He proposes expanding the Court and gives his rationale.

He wrote:

Was Thursday among the darkest days in the history of the Supreme Court? You could make a case. First, a majority cleared the way for a pesticide manufacturer to get thousands of lawsuits off its books from farmers who’d used its product and gotten cancer. Next, it ruled that the administration could turn away asylum-seekers at the border. And then it held that gun owners could now freely carry their weapons into private establishments that serve the public.

Let’s pause over that one for a paragraph. Here’s a good description of the particulars of the gun case and the legal arguments on both sides. But the upshot is this: Everywhere in America, gun owners will presumably be able to take their guns to shops, stores, malls, movie theaters, restaurants, bars, amusement parks, Baby Gaps, you name it. Does any rational person think that the Founders, who simply wanted men to have muskets to protect themselves from invaders, would want someone to be able to take a military-style semiautomatic rifle and 600 rounds of ammo into a Chuck E. Cheese?

But the worst of Thursday’s big four decisions was Mullin v. Doe, which will allow the Trump administration to begin deporting Haitians and Syrians who were granted Temporary Protected Status by the Obama administration in 2010 and 2012, respectively. My colleague Matt Ford shredded the decision in his piece, writing that the court “effectively blessed Trump’s bigotry toward Haitians and dealt potentially catastrophic damage to federal civil rights laws.”

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The cases combine to give the executive branch more power. They turn several lower court decisions on their head (as The New York Timesnotes today, immigration hard-liners had lost case after case on TPS until yesterday). And in the case of Mullin, in particular, the highest legal authority in the land—namely, Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority—pretends that Donald Trump’s blatant racism toward Haitians doesn’t exist; that there was nothing “overtly racial” in Trump’s many disgusting and false comments about the Haitian community of Springfield, Ohio, and beyond.

This conservative court is out of control—blatantly partisan and ideological, the six-member majority scarcely even pretends otherwise anymore.

Some major decisions about executive power—Trump’s power—are yet to be handed down this term, involving the firing of Fed Governor Lisa Cook, the removal of Democratic appointees from independent agencies, and of course the birthright citizenship case. If the court rules predictably on two of these three, or certainly on all three, it will have completed a term—with the aforementioned four decisions already on the books, as well as Callais v. Louisiana, which did away with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act—that might well be the most reactionary in its history. And all this is on top of the earlier reversal of a 49-year-old precedent in 1973’s Roe v. Wade and the handing to Trump of sweeping immunity for all “official” acts.

It’s now unavoidable: This has to be a front-and-center issue in 2028. Democratic presidential contenders will have to answer the question: What do you plan to do about the Supreme Court?

Many of them will be afraid to dip a foot into these waters. They shouldn’t be. Poll after poll shows us that majorities disapprove of the court and think of its decisions as being more political than jurisprudential. According to Gallup, disapproval of the court topped 50 percent five years ago and has stayed there ever since (in contrast, that number was just 29 percent as recently as 2010). So the public—not just the progressive base of the party—is ready to hear ideas.

Terms limits, the most common idea bruited, are fine. But imposing term limits won’t really change the makeup of the court for years; maybe decades. How many more rights will they strip away before then? How much more power will they give to the uber-rich to buy political campaigns and candidates? How much more immunity will they grant to corporations? How many new ways will they find to weaken protections for workers and litigants against corporate power? And perhaps most of all, how will they figure out how to allow the executive branch to undermine the laws passed by Congress and refuse to write regulations and enforce the laws Congress has passed?

No—terms limits are no longer enough. It’s time to talk seriously about court expansion. And I think there’s a smart and totally constitutionally defensible way to do it.

The United States has 13 federal circuit courts. That number, naturally, grew over the course of the country’s history, as the number of states grew and as the population expanded. This is relevant here because each Supreme Court justice is responsible for overseeing a certain number of circuits. Historically, Congress has expanded the number of justices as it simultaneously increased the number of circuits.

Admittedly, all this happened a very long time ago. But still, it’s precedent. The court was established in 1789 at six justices. In 1807, Congress expanded the number of federal circuits to seven, and added a justice to match. In 1837, Congress created nine circuits and nine justices. In 1863—even while the United States of America had lost the 11 states of the Confederacy—Congress created 10 circuits and 10 justices. The current nine-justice format was set in 1869.

Later expansions in the number of circuits did not simultaneously add justices. But why not revive that thought? The country has had today’s 13 circuits since 1982. The population of the country in 1982 was 230 million. Today, it’s around 345 million. That’s a lot more people. And the courts are horribly backlogged.

That could be solved by just adding judges. But it’s also a justification for increasing the number of circuits. From there, a case can clearly be made that increasing the number of circuits requires increasing the number of high court justices. Or at the very least, Democrats can pursue a hybrid solution that would keep the number of circuits at 13 and add a large number of judges within those circuits—while increasing the size of the Supreme Court to 13. Democratic Congressman Hank Johnson of Georgia, a leader on these issues, introduced such a bill in 2023, and it had around 60 co-sponsors.

It would all be completely constitutional and completely legal. Which is more than can be said for a lot of the things Trump and the Republicans are getting up to, as they try to find new and blatantly illegal ways to stop mail-in voting and otherwise take the franchise away from citizens.

But the big door-opener here by Trump and the GOP is their rancidly unconstitutional mid-decade redistricting move. The Constitution clearly and plainly states that districts will be redrawn every 10 years, after the decennial census. What Trump and his party are doing with this redistricting is completely lawless.

Once they’ve done that, all bets are off. Democrats should do whatever they need to do to rebalance power. But—they should stay within the law. What I’m talking about here, what Johnson’s bill would accomplish, would be entirely within the law. Congress can set the size of the Supreme Court. And I believe that a smart Democrat, framing the argument the right way, can take that case to the American people and win it. He or she can convince the voters that far from destroying the court, such an action would constitute saving it from its own extremism—and saving the rights we cherish that these ideologues are stripping away.

Trump has a new line of malarkey to peddle. He has decided that Democrats are not only “Dumbocrats,” they are Communists.

Trump does not know anything about bipartisanship. He knows nothing about the tradition of treating the other party with respect. He knows only how to dish out insults and ridicule.

He always has to stir up his base by having someone to hate. Communists are a good target.

When he spoke at Mount Rushmore on July 3, he warned about a “communist menace,” a threat posed by the election of two Democratic Socialists in New York City and one in Denver, Colorado.

• He said, “There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land.”  
• He added, “You can be a communist, or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.”  
• He described communism as “a mortal threat to American liberty,” and argued that Americans must defend the country’s founding principles against it.  

Again, at his late-night speech on July 4, he warned about the danger of the Communist threat.

Among his statements were:

• “Our warriors did not fight communism on battlefields across the world, only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America.”  
• He added, “It’s like a cancer, you got to cut it out.”  
• He also declared that America “will never be a communist country“.

Democrats are not Communists.

Democratic Socialists are not Communists. They are Democratic Socialists like Senator Bernie Sanders and like the parties in Northern European nations such as Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. These are nations that spend generously for the health, education, and welfare of their citizens.

Does Trump know the distinction between Democratic Socialists and Communists? It’s hard to know since his knowledge is not expansive.

But he has his target. He will use smear tactics. He will fulminate about the “communist menace,” and about others who “don’t love America” as he allegedly does.

After all these years, we know who he is and we know he will lie without hesitation.

Be prepared. He is desperate.

A new report was released over the weekend lambasting the Smithsonian Institution for political bias. In its desire to have federal museums teach “patriotic history,” the Trump administration is intent on gaining control of the Smithsonian, cutting its budget, and firing leaders who insist on telling both the good and the bad parts of the nation’s story.

The New York Times tells the story in this gift article, free to you.

In a broadside posted to its website just as Fourth of July fireworks were lighting up skies around the country on Saturday, the White House faulted the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History for what it said was a failure to properly celebrate the nation’s heritage, arguing that it had become a tool of political activism intent on denigrating the American story.

The 162-page report, by the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, represents a sweeping attack on the museum’s presentation of American history. It is the latest step in the Trump administration’s campaign to pressure the Smithsonian into conforming to what President Trump has described as “patriotic” history.

While the report concludes that the Smithsonian Institution — which oversees 21 museums and the National Zoo — “has not met its obligations to the American people,” it places particular blame on the National Museum of American History.

That museum has been the subject of “ideological capture,” the report says, accusing it of an anti-white bias and, in particular, of minimizing and distorting the nation’s founding. Those actions, the report asserts, have “moved the museum’s mission away from straightforward historical education and scholarship toward an extreme political activism that seeks to transform our country.”

The report, titled “Saving America’s Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage,” says the museum does not recount U.S. history “clearly and fairly.”

“Our central finding is not that the museum has simply added overlooked stories, corrected perceived errors or broadened its historical scope,” it says. “Rather, it is that museum leadership has explicitly adopted an ideological framework that no longer treats the American story as a shared national inheritance to be taught or celebrated but as a political instrument to divide, dispirit and discourage our citizens.”

This short film was shown to me and my classmates in 1950 to encourage racial and religious tolerance. This is the Library of Congress version.

There is a slightly longer version that begins with Sinatra rehearsing a song in a sound studio. He takes a break, steps outside, and finds a bunch of kids picking on a Jewish boy. He stops the fight and sings this song.

The song was written by Abel Meeropol, who also wrote “Strange Fruit,” a powerful song about lynching, recorded by Billie Holiday.

A teacher at DeWitt Clinton High School in New York City, Meeropol and his wife had a strong sense of outrage about racism. They were blacklisted because of their membership in the Communist Party. They eventually quit the party. When Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were arrested, convicted and executed, the Meeropols adopted their two young sons.

Appalled by low scores in math, California is thinking of testing kindergartners to see what they know about math and to help them learn it. Many kindergartners don’t know how to hold a pencil. Most are likely unfamiliar with math. If the state doesn’t have the funding for smaller classes and extra support for students, testing won’t solve the problem.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Confronted with math test scores showing that 68% of California public school third-graders do not meet grade-level standards, state lawmakers are considering one way to potentially reverse the trend: Give kindergartners a math test to find out if they are ready for the rigors of first grade.
Do they have a sense of what numbers mean? Can they group items? Can they compare quantities? Do they know the difference between a square and a circle?

By discovering what the state’s youngest students know about early, foundational math concepts, teachers can better target weaknesses before their skills sink, said supporters of the early tests.

Senate Bill 1067, authored by Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson (D-La Mesa), would require every public school to assess students in kindergarten through second grade for early math difficulties and provide additional support to those who are struggling.

The law aims to address sobering data. California ranks 43rd in the country in fourth-grade math achievement. Only about 38% of public school students test at or above grade level when testing begins in third grade. And early scores are the start of a steady decline in standardized math assessments through high school.

The bill passed the California Senate unanimously in May and is slated to be heard by the Assembly on Wednesday.

Recent amendments to be considered include assessing a kindergartner’s math knowledge rather than screening for math deficiencies, something that would help identify students who need additional support. Parents would be notified of the results and schools would be required to report the results to the California Department of Education.

The proposed law shares similar goals with California’s early literacy screening program — signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023 and rolled out this school year — which assesses kindergartners, first- and second-graders for reading difficulties.

The math bill calls for the State Board of Education to establish criteria for selecting assessments and then the education department would develop a recommended list of tests that meet those standards for schools. Assessments would be required by the 2028-29 school year.

Researchers say the assessments focus on what’s known as early number sense: a child’s ability to count sets of objects, and grasp basic addition and subtraction. In kindergarten, that means manipulating objects rather than written numerals.

Beginning in kindergarten, children’s knowledge of numbers becomes more formal and symbol-based, according to Alice Klein, a developmental psychologist who studies early math screening and intervention. This means a child should be able to count a set of 10 or 15 tokens or blocks, recognize numerals up to 10 and match a set of objects with the correct numeral.

In the Compton Unified School District, for example, educators show kindergartners a photo of 10 cows and ask students to count them. It looks simple, but if a child miscounts, counts one cow twice or skips one, it reveals they need to work on their number sense.

“Early number sense is the single best predictor of academic success in elementary school,” Klein said. By first and second grade, problems become more symbolic, are presented verbally and use numerals.

The bill proposes for around $106 million over four years after approval to cover the work of the expert panel, district preparation and teacher training before the 2028-29 test mandate would take effect.

Some point out that there is no dedicated funding for what is most needed: Intervention plans for a child if the assessment reveals students aren’t on track.

Los Angeles Unified school board member Nick Melvoin said he supports the spirit of early math identification, but has reservations about whether a statewide assessment mandate is the right mechanism.

“When you’re a kindergartner, especially depending on where you went to preschool, or because kindergarten is not mandatory in California, you can come to first grade and never have had any formal math,” Melvoin said.

L.A. Unified schools and teachers, at their discretion, already use math assessment tools.
California Teacher Assn. President David Goldberg agrees that simply mandating a new test is not enough and a clear pathway to address challenges identified by the assessment is needed.

“In California, funding for math instruction, assessment and educator professional development is far below what is spent on literacy,” Goldberg said. “SB 1067 does not address that disparity or provide more support for students and educators to overcome ongoing learning challenges in math.”

One education expert said the bill targets early math intervention incorrectly, putting the burden on districts without giving teachers the tools to act on what the assessment finds.

“It basically just says: Test kids, figure out which ones are having difficulty — and in many school districts that’s going to be over 50% — and then fix it,” said Deborah Stipek, a professor emeritus at Stanford University specializing in early childhood and elementary education. “Among teachers it’s going to get you a lot of anger and anxiety, because their kids keep testing poorly and they don’t know what to do differently.”

Stipek says a assessment won’t capture what learning math looks like in its entirety — and some teachers tend to agree.

“Math, so much of it, especially in the primary grades is hands-on,” said Nicole Estrada, a first-grade teacher at Lucille J. Smith Elementary in Lawndale. “It’s them touching things, counting them, drawing things. I think a screener would be really difficult for kids like that.”

Administering the one-on-one assessment is also time-consuming, pulling teachers away from instructional time.

But Pierson said there is a real sense of urgency, warning that delaying intervention has lasting costs.

“When we wait and see, we are losing more students,” Pierson said. “We’ll look up and 10 years have gone by, we’ve lost a whole other generation of students.”

Pierson said she expects the bill to reach the governor’s desk before the legislative session ends in late August. But some districts aren’t waiting for a law to act.

Compton Unified has been screening students for math difficulties three times a year for students in kindergarten through eighth grade, according to Jennifer Moon, Compton Unified’s executive director of educational services for K-8. If a student scores below 80%, they are placed in an intervention group.

During the Presidential campaign of 2024, Trump claimed that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating the cats and dogs of the local white people. He heard this from J.D. Vance, who was then a Senator from Ohio. It was such a stupid claim that it became a huge joke and the source of many memes and parodies.

What remained was Trump’s enmity towards Haitians, whom he wanted to deport.

Bill Kristol of The Bulwark posted this article by Jim Swift about the reaction in Springfield, Ohio, to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to revoke their Temporary Protected Status.

As Swift notes, the Haitian immigrants to Springfield had revitalized the city. The local white people wanted them to stay, not to be deported.

SPRINGFIELD, OHIO—What organizers had hoped would be an evening of celebration was instead an interfaith prayer service. Ministers, immigration lawyers, community organizers, Haitian families, and hundreds of their neighbors gathered in front of Springfield City Hall beneath the city’s motto, “Forward Together,” alternating between English and Creole as they decried the Supreme Court’s decision and prepared for what many fear could become mass deportations.

Thursday morning, after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to end temporary protected status for Haitians, the people who helped revive Springfield, Ohio, were trying to figure out how long they could keep their jobs and their driver’s licenses, and whether they should start preparing for deportation. Pastor Carl Ruby captured the mood: “We had hoped this would become a time of celebration . . . but it has become a time of lament.”

Fleeing gang violence and what has become a de facto civil war, thousands of Haitians have helped reverse decades of decline in Springfield since 2010. They filled factory jobs, opened businesses, started churches, and helped stabilize the city’s population after years of shrinkage. But that growth stopped after JD Vance amplified a pernicious lie about Haitians in Springfield eating dogs and cats.

Now the Trump administration is set on removing many of the very people who helped bring Springfield back.

Yesterday’s 6–3 ruling by the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to end TPS, meaning that although litigation may continue, many Haitians here in Ohio and all across America under TPS are subject to deportation immediately.

On a live zoom press conference earlier yesterday held by Springfield G92, a volunteer-led group of churches and faith advocates that focus on immigrant rights and mutual aid, Geoff Pipoly, a lead attorney on the TPS case, Mullin v. Doe, explained that while they’re reviewing what’s left of the case to determine whether any further legal appeals from his plaintiffs were tenable, the situation for Haitians here varies by their status.

Haitians here under TPS could consider filing asylum claims—if they can find an immigration lawyer to help them. The immigration court system is, to put it mildly, a shitshow right now. Donald Trump is purging judges who don’t deport a lot of people, the New York Times reported this week.

The data say the purge is having its desired effect: In Fiscal Year 2025, the denial rate for asylum claims more than doubled—from 14.3 percent to 30.8 percent—while the grant rate fell from 12.0 percent to 9.9 percent, its lowest level since 2017.

Those here under TPS alone are facing a lot: Their state-issued driver’s licenses are set to expire on July 6, as Ohio provided them with temporary extensions due to the uncertainty of their TPS status. Before the stay, Haitians were unable to renew their driver’s licenses because DHS made it clear that Trump wanted to end their protected status. Their expiry in ten days will make driving illegal, not that many are going to be venturing out due to the chance that ICE could stop them and deport them. And, unless they have another legal basis to remain, they won’t have jobs to drive to: the end of TPS will mean the end of their work authorization.

Biassou Pierre, a community organizer from Haiti, told the crowd: assembled in front of city hall, “Today many people call me asking, ‘How will I feed my children if I lose my job? What will happen to my family if I get detained by ICE?’ Unfortunately, we don’t have a good answer.”

But even if one had the money and could find an immigration lawyer with availability to take up their case, that doesn’t mean a quick return to work. “People who have pending asylum applications may be eligible to apply for a work permit after their application has been pending for 180 days,” Katie Kersh, a senior attorney with Advocates for Basic Legal Equality in Dayton, told reporters. “But the administration is trying to extend the required waiting period to one year.”

At the rally last night, Kersh put this avoidable tragedy in these terms: “These individuals followed the law. They followed the law and applied for TPS, and often asylum. The law abandoned them.”

There is some hope in Congress in the form of H.R. 1689, which would extend TPS until the end of the Trump administration. By some small miracle, it passed the House in April on a bipartisan basis, with ten Republicans, including Ohio’s Mike Carey and Mike Turner (who represents Springfield), supporting it. But Haitians here now have to depend on the Senate, and Ohio’s senators are notably silent.

Sens. Moreno, an immigrant himself, and Jon Husted, who is up for election this fall, having been appointed to fill Vance’s seat, do not have a position on the bill. Outgoing Gov. Mike DeWine, who grew up in the area and has done charitable work in Haiti with his wife, has supported extending TPS and called Thursday’s ruling a mistake that was “not in the best interest of the United States nor Ohio.”

This has the potential to become a big campaign issue for both Husted and Vivek Ramaswamy, the controversial Republican candidate for governor. As Jonathan Cohn reported in these pages earlier this week, Haitian immigrants are a bedrock in multiple industries around the country, most notably healthcare.

Former Sen. Sherrod Brown, running against Husted, has been vocal in his support for the Haitian community, calling on both Husted and Moreno to support an extension of TPS for Haiti. Amy Acton, the Democratic nominee for governor, has been more careful in her wording, saying: “Law enforcement should be keeping people safe by going after dangerous criminals, not terrorizing communities.”

Viles Dorsainvil is a Haitian pastor and co-founder of the Haitian Support Center, which has been helping with utility bills, rent assistance, legal services, and transportation for Haitians who have been looking over their shoulder since Trump and Vance propagated heinous lies about them.

“Everything has changed in the community” Dorsainvil told reporters early Thursday, “And the worst thing now is that the employers will terminate workers immediately. . . . It was predictable that our community will be in trouble and that the decision will amplify the humanitarian crisis that we’ve already had here. That’s the reality. So as a center, we’ll continue to do our best, but we don’t know how long we’ll be able to survive.”

Viles Dorsainvil (L) and Carl Ruby (R) talk to the press after the rally. (Photo by Jim Swift)

What awaits these Haitians in Springfield? Pastor Ruby, who welcomed me into Springfield Central Christian in February to talk and show me the preparations they had made to provide this community sanctuary, said, “We have had to think about issues of civil disobedience. We’ve had to think about the issue of providing sanctuary, and when there’s a conflict between man’s laws and God’s laws, we have an obligation to side with God’s laws.”

The situation in Haiti remains bleak. The State Department doesn’t advise Americans to travel there, as it’s one of the “most dangerous places on earth right now” Ruby says. He recounts a conversation with a young boy, about his life before coming to America:

I was talking with a 12-year-old boy . . . we were talking about farm animals. And he started talking about seeing huge pigs. . . . I said, “What were the huge pigs doing?” And he said, “The huge hog was eating bodies.”

He added:

So that’s what Haitian children have observed. They’ve all been traumatized. This is gonna re-traumatize them. I can’t imagine the fear that they’re experiencing right now.  There’s another person in our church . . . the decapitated body of a friend was left in front of his house. That’s what Haiti is like right now, and our justices knew that.

Springfield residents console each other. (Photo by Jim Swift)

Dorsainvil, for his part, is appreciative of the support his center has gotten from around the country. “We are grateful for people who’ve been standing in solidarity with us . . . because you understand our struggle . . . We will continue to count on you to stand in solidarity with our community here in Springfield.”

“I am no different from other folks.” he told reporters, “I just have a pending asylum. . . . Everything is in limbo now. I don’t know how that will be.”

Pierre, speaking to an audience beyond those assembled in front of him, pleaded: “We are not just immigration cases or statistics. We are your neighbors, your coworkers, and members of your church.”

“Please don’t forget us.”

You can donate to the Haitian Support Center here and other local charities here.