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Trump Administration Threatens to Cancel Funding to Public Schools with DEI

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2025 //
13

Michael C. Bender reports in The New York Times that the Trump administration is threatening to cancel funding from schools that refuse to eliminate programs or courses that teach DEI. The administration has turned civil rights enforcement upside down and inside out. For decades, civil rights law meant protection of racial minorities and women, who were often targets of discrimination, exclusion, or unfair treatment. This administration worries most about the rights of white students.

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon clearly doesn’t know that federal law prohibits any federal official from interfering with or trying to influence curriculum.

“20 USC 1232a: Prohibition against Federal control of education. Text contains those laws in effect on April 2, 2025

§1232a. Prohibition against Federal control of education

No provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system, or over the selection of library resources, textbooks, or other printed or published instructional materials by any educational institution or school system, or to require the assignment or transportation of students or teachers in order to overcome racial imbalance.

What Secretary McMahon proposes is illegal.

Bender writes:

The Trump administration threatened on Thursday to withhold federal funding from public schools unless state education officials verified the elimination of all programs that it said unfairly promoted diversity, equity and inclusion.

In a memo sent to top public education officials across the country, the Education Department said that funding for schools with high percentages of low-income students, known as Title I funding, was at risk pending compliance with the administration’s directive.

The memo included a certification letter that state and local school officials must sign and return to the department within 10 days, even as the administration has struggled to define which programs would violate its interpretation of civil rights laws. The move is the latest in a series of Education Department directives aimed at carrying out President Trump’s political agenda in the nation’s schools.

At her confirmation hearing in February, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said schools should be allowed to celebrate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But she was more circumspect when asked whether classes that focused on Black history ran afoul of Mr. Trump’s agenda and should be banned.

“I’m not quite certain,” Ms. McMahon said, “and I’d like to look into it further.”

More recently, the Education Department said that an “assessment of school policies and programs depends on the facts and circumstances of each case.”

Programs aimed at recognizing historical events and contributions and promoting awareness would not violate the law “so long as they do not engage in racial exclusion or discrimination,” the department wrote.

“However, schools must consider whether any school programming discourages members of all races from attending, either by excluding or discouraging students of a particular race or races, or by creating hostile environments based on race for students who do participate,” the Education Department said.

It also noted that the Justice Department could sue for breach of contract if it found that federal funds were spent while violating civil rights laws.

The federal government accounts for about 8 percent of local school funding, but the amounts vary widely. In Mississippi, for example, about 23 percent of school funding comes from federal sources, while just 7 percent of school funding in New York comes from Washington, according to the Pew Research Center.

“Federal financial assistance is a privilege, not a right,” Craig Trainor, the acting assistant education secretary for civil rights, said in a statement. “When state education commissioners accept federal funds, they agree to abide by federal anti-discrimination requirements.”

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Curriculum, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Gender, History, Injustice, Racism, Trump, Tyranny

Chicago: Teachers Union Wins Landmark Agreement with School Board

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2025 //
4

After nearly a year of bargaining, the Chicago Teachers Union reached a landmark agreement with the City of Chicago and the school board. Karen Lewis, the late President of the Chicago Teachers, was a champion for the city’s children, their teachers, and the public schools. She must be smiling in heaven to see what the CTU has accomplished.

The CTU announced:

Chicago Teachers Union

NEWS ADVISORY: 
For Immediate Release

April 2, 2025

CONTACT:312-329-9100
Communications@ctulocal1.org

CTU to Hold Press Conference to Announce Results of Special House of Delegates Meeting

Union to announce results of next step to transform Chicago Public Schools after the 60+ rank and file members of the Big Bargaining Team sent tentative agreement to the House of Delegate members for approval.

What: Press conference announcing results of House of Delegates vote

Where: Chicago Teachers Union, 1901 W Carroll Ave; enter through the East entrance off Wolcott; parking will be available for camera trucks in the South lot (on Fulton)

When: Immediately following House of Delegates meeting (Meeting starts at 4:45pm and we will alert press once the media is adjourned)

Who: CTU officers, big bargaining team members, and elected delegates

In the next step toward ratifying a contract that represents a major leap forward in the process of transforming Chicago Public Schools started by CTU in 2012, the union will hold a special House of Delegates meeting on Wednesday, April 2nd. At the meeting, the elected delegates of the union will vote on whether or not the tentative agreement landed by the 60 rank and file members of the Big Bargaining Team shall be sent to the full membership for a vote as early as next week.

The union will hold a press conference immediately following the meeting to announce whether the tentative agreement that creates smaller class sizes, a historic investment in sports, grants recess students were being denied, and enshrines protections for Black history and academic freedom – among more than 150 other items – is going to a full membership vote or back to the bargaining table for improvements.

BACKGROUND

After more than eleven months of bargaining, working without a contract throughout the entire school year, and for the first time in more than 15 years of doing so without a strike or strike vote, the Chicago Teachers Union announced their big bargaining team made up of rank and file members approved a tentative agreement with Chicago Public Schools.

The tentative agreement will go to CTU’s House of Delegates Wednesday which will decide whether or not to advance it to CTU’s 30,000 members for a ratification vote. If accepted, it will represent a major leap forward in the transformation of a district that is still recovering from the gutting and financial irresponsibility carried out by Trump’s Project 2025 style efforts under Rahm Emanuel, Arne Duncan, Paul Vallas, and other privatization forces that closed over 200 public schools between 2002 and 2018.

Despite the efforts of right wing actors like Paul Vallas, The Liberty Justice Center, and Illinois Policy Institute, and the MAGA forces that seek to deny the investments Chicago’s students deserve, this proposed contract builds upon the past several contracts won by CTU in 2012, 2016, and 2019. It charts a new direction of investment, expansion of sustainable community and dual language schools, increased staffing, and a focus on reparatory equity to provide the educational experience Chicago students deserve no matter what neighborhood they live in.

The 2012 strike won the air conditioning that kept CPS open during the back-to-school heatwave at the beginning of the school year. 2016 established the model of 20 sustainable community schools, a program that helped to stabilize and resource schools like Dyett High School whose boy’s basketball team won the state championship this year. 2019 won social workers and nurses in every school and established the sanctuary status that protected CPS students from Trump’s federal agents earlier this year.

In 2025, some highlights of the Chicago Teachers Union contract include:

  • Doubles the number of libraries and librarians for our schools
  • Enforceable and smaller class sizes for all grade levels
  • Ensuring social workers and nurses serve students in every school, every instructional day
  • Doubles the bilingual education staffing supports for students 
  • Additional staffing, curricular and enrollment supports for Early Childhood education students and programs. 
  • Creates 215 more case manager positions district-wide to support students with disabilities. 
  • A cost of living adjustment of 17-20% compounded (tied to inflation) over the four years of the contract
  • Provide new steps that compensate veteran educators for their experience
  • Increases in prep time for clinicians, elementary and special education teachers so students arrive to classrooms ready for them
  • Expanded benefits for dental, vision, infertility and abortion care, gender-affirming care, hearing aids, speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, chiropractic services
  • A more than tripling of the number of Sustainable Community Schools, from 20 to 70, over the course of the agreement. 
  • Provides CTU, CPS, City and sister agency coordination for the first time to provide housing support, section 8 vouchers, rental assistance and affordable units to CPS families in need. 
  • Enshrines 12 weeks paid parental leave, equal parental, personal illness, and supplemental leave rights for PSRPs to teachers
  • A Green Schools initiation of additional resources and collaboration to remediate lead, asbestos and mold in aging school buildings while upgrading to green energy with environmentally sustainable technology, materials and practices. 
  • Protections for academic freedom, Black history, and culturally relevant curriculum for the first time in the contract. 
  • An additional $10 million annual investment in sports programming
  • Protections for academic freedom that enshrine educators’ ability to teach Black, indigenous, and other history
  • Continuation of Sanctuary School procedures
  • A new article that creates LGBTQIA+ safe schools

See the full list of tentative agreements at https://www.ctulocal1.org/movement/contract-2024.

“Our union is bargaining for what every parent wants for their child in our school communities. It shouldn’t be a fight for children to get access to arts, sports, wrap around supports, and libraries. It’s what should already exist,” explains CTU Local 1 President Stacy Davis Gates. “We’re proud to have landed a transformative contract that turns away from decades of disinvesting in Black children and turns toward creating the world-class education system for every single student in CPS no matter their zip code. If the contract is ratified by our members, we will be one major leap forward toward the educational experience Chicago’s children and the mainly women workers who serve them in our schools deserve.”

Additional Information:

###

The Chicago Teachers Union represents nearly 30,000 teachers and educational support personnel working in schools funded by City of Chicago School District 299, and by extension, more than 300,000 students and families they serve. The CTU is an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Federation of Teachers and is the third-largest teachers local in the United States. For more information, please visit the CTU website at www.ctulocal1.org.

Categories Chicago, Class size, Closing schools, Community Schools, Courage, Democracy, Early Childhood Education, Equity, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Funding, Health, Justice, Students, Supporting public schools, Teacher Tenure, Teachers, Turnaround Schools, U.S. Department of Education, Union

DOGE Aims to Privatize Federal Government Functions

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2025 //
11

Those of us who have watched the movement to privatize public education over the past 30 years have witnessed a long list of broken promises. Privately-run schools, we were told, would be more effective, more accountable, more transparent, more responsive to students and parents, and would save money!

Now we know that none of those claims were true.

Privatization, in the case of charter schools and vouchers, does not produce better results, except when the privatizers exclude the students with the greatest needs. Privatization does not save money; in fact, it’s more expensive because the business has to turn a profit. Privatization means less accountability and less transparency; lobbyists for the charter chains and voucher entities fight both accountability and transparency. Accountability and testing, it turns out, is only for public schools, not for religious and private schools. Privatization opens the way to graft, corruption, fraud, waste, and abuse.

The Washington Post wrote that the highest goal of Elon Musk’s DOGE plan is privatization of government services.

Mail delivery. Real estate. Foreign aid grants. The Trump administration is moving to privatize a sweeping number of government functions and assets — a long-standing Republican goal that’s being catalyzed by billionaire Elon Musk.

The slash-and-burn approach of Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service is paving the way for a new shift to the private sector, reducing the size and power of the federal bureaucracy in a real-world test of the conservative theory — a version of which is also widely popular in Silicon Valley — that companies are better than government at saving money and responding to people’s needs.

Examples are popping up across Washington and in proposals from President Donald Trump’s allies, though the plans are at various stages of development and, in some cases, have already encountered resistance.

At the DOGE-allied General Services Administration, officials are quietly moving ahead with a push to sell hundreds of publicly owned buildings to private companies — which can then lease them back to the government, theoretically saving maintenance and upkeep costs for taxpayers, according to two people briefed on internal deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

At the Postal Service, whose leaders have tussled with DOGE representatives, a plan for full privatization appears to have lost steam after facing pushback and legal hurdles. But private firms are preparing for a piecemeal government effort to outsource mail and package handling and long-haul trucking routes, while off-loading leases for unprofitable post offices, according to six industry executives.

At the Interior Department, Secretary Doug Burgum has proposed allowing private developers to build on federal lands across the West. And in his first public address as treasury secretary, former hedge fund manager Scott Bessent vowed to “reprivatize the economy.”
Businesspeople and policymakers close to the administration are stepping up with additional proposals.

A Wall Street investor nominated to run the International Development Finance Corporation, a little-known foreign investment agency that works to align the private sector with U.S. foreign policy goals, has suggested redirecting a large portion of the $40 billion budget of the shuttered U.S. Agency for International Development to investors, start-ups and companies that work in developing countries.

The proposal, which was posted on X by the nominee, Ben Black, and tech investor Joe Lonsdale, is under consideration within the White House, according to a person familiar with it, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations. Bloomberg first reported that the initiative was under consideration.

The military contractor Erik Prince has pushed to turn over defense and immigration enforcement functions to private security firms, at one point pitching U.S. officials on a plan to execute operations in Africa, according to three people with knowledge of the idea, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private conversations. CNN reported that Prince also has floated the use of private military contractors to carry out operations against Houthi rebels in Yemen…

Traditional Republicans have long argued that private companies can do a better job of managing government services than civil servants. But Musk and his Silicon Valley associates want to push the idea much further than the mainstream GOP. At a Morgan Stanley technology conference this month, Musk said the government should privatize “everything we possibly can.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corruption, Disruption, Equity, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Failure, For-Profit, Fraud, Musk, Elon, Privatization, Trump

Are Trees “WOKE”? Are They Infected with DEI?

By dianeravitch
March 30, 2025 //
8

Doktor Zoom at the Wonkette blog alerts us to the elimination of a federal program to plant trees.

If you have worried that “from little acorns, DEI will grow,” you will be pleased. If you fear that planting trees is the first step towards a “Green New Deal,” you can relax. Words like “justice” and “equity” alerted the AI censor to the risks. The federal government grant to plant trees has been axed. Put in Elon musk’s wood chipper, so to speak.

Doktor Zoom writes:

Rejoice, America! Donald Trump’s war on wokeness has chalked up another victory over the forces of Marxism and divisiveness, so we will never again be torn apart by racial hatred aimed at white people. In the name of combating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (this is the new rightwing code for Black people and gay people existing in public) as ordered by the Great Leaderhis first day in office, the US Forest Service in February cancelled all unspent funds in a $75 million grant that had already started planting trees in communities all over America. You probably thought that trees were green, but it turns out that these particular trees were also anti-white, at least according to the Trump administration. 

The program was meant to help grow trees in neighborhoods that lacked them, to provide shade, make the places nicer, reduce the “urban heat island effect” that makes cities more miserable in the summer, and even capture some carbon. The grant, from funds in Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, was administered by the revolutionary cadres at the National Arbor Day Foundation, which distributed the money to around 100 cities, nonprofits, and tribes. 

As NPR reported Friday, such dangerous slight improvements to the lives of some Americans had to be stamped out, as the Forest Service explained in a form letter advising the affected green freaks that the tree ride was over. The program, the letter said, “no longer aligns with agency priorities regarding diversity, equity and inclusion.” And so the program had to be not just nipped in the bud but destroyed, root and branch. 

Wonkette knows our readers’ fertile imaginations will keep germinating hope, letting a thousand flowers of resistance bloom.

Oh yes, and let’s once more remind you, dear reader, that pulling back the funds doesn’t merely breach a contract between the Forest Service and the Arbor Day Foundation, it’s also blatantly unconstitutional, because Congress appropriated the funding for the IRA, and Trump has no legal authority to stop it from going for its intended purpose. 

Arbor Day Foundation Executive Director Dan Lambe said the sudden termination of the program uprooted some terrific efforts, telling NPR that the project had been an opportunity to join with partners to “plant trees in communities, to create jobs, to create economic benefits, to create conservation benefits, to help create cooler, safer, and healthier communities.” Now, it seems, these communities will have to do without the magic of frondship. 

Among the local tree-planting programs shut down was an effort to 1,600 plant trees in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. The city lost some 200,000 trees in Hurricane Katrina, and replanting was an important part of improving climate resilience, since trees not only cool urban neighborhoods, they also help slow stormwater and improve air quality. 

The project in the majority Black Lower 9th Ward was managed by local nonprofit Sustaining Our Urban Landscape, or SOUL, which had a $1 million Forest Service grant for urban forestry. SOUL Executive Director Susannah Burley suspects that the labeling of the tree planting program as a crime of “equity” may have at least partly been due to the kind of boneheaded CTRL-F search for wokeness that we’ve seen in other parts of the War On DEI: 

“That has nothing to do with this grant funding. The word ‘equity’ is pervasive in the grants that were funded by this, but in a totally different context,” Burley said, adding that in this context, equity meant planting trees in neighborhoods without them.

“Funding would have allowed us to finish planting the Lower 9th Ward, which is a really big deal,” Burley said. “That’ll be the third neighborhood that we’ve planted every street.”

Nobody in the Trump administration ever explains anything, so it’s possible that seeking to have an equal distribution of trees wasn’t at the root of the cancellation. More likely, it was because the urban forestry grant was part of Biden’s Justice40 initiative, which sought to direct 40 percent of the benefits of his administration’s major climate programs to help disadvantaged communities, especially those that bore the brunt of pollution and damage from fossil fuels. While that often meant minority communities, like those in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” it also included places that were in economic peril because they’d depended on fossil fuels for most of their jobs, like majority-white towns where coal mines or coal-fired power plants had closed. 

The NPR story also looks at municipal forestry projects in infamously woke inner-city ghettos like Butte, Montana (90.8 percent white), and the small town of Talent, Oregon (population 6,332, 86.5 percent white). In Talent, a scary DEI grant of about $600,000 was supposed to go to replanting parts of town scorched by the 2020 Almeda Wildfire, including mobile home parks where greenery has been slow to come back, but thank goodness, Donald Trump ensured the place will continue looking like a lifeless post-fire hellscape for the foreseeable future. 

Maybe both communities should simply be thankful Trump hasn’t decided to help them out by flooding them.

Ladd Keith directs the University of Arizona’s Heat Resilience Initiative, and points out that trees in urban areas are a great investment, resulting in far more benefits than they cost, in the form of improved health, lower utility bills, and even higher property values, not that Trump wants anyone but himself seeing those. 

Keith dared to suggest that planting trees in low-income communities wasn’t actually some sort of pinko-greenie plot to harm wealthy white people who don’t also get money for trees in suburbs, seeing as how they have ‘em already. 

“Our governments historically have disinvested in low-income communities, and so it’s our responsibility to make that right now,” Keith said. “These grants allocated to these lower-income communities to plant trees would have done a little bit of justice, in bringing that urban canopy back up to more on par with higher-income neighborhoods.”

God God, man, you’re talking about arboreal reparations!! We were about to make a joke about Trump eliminating funding for the U of Arizona, my graduate alma mater, but then we remembered that’s exactly what the fucker is already doing, so good luck, Dr. Keith. 

Considering that the clawback of funding for this modest program is insanely unconstitutional, we hope there will be lawsuits by states and nonprofits harmed by it. Trees should be an uncontroversial good. But in the larger picture of Trump’s attempts to undo democracy, and to make sure Americans can never have nice things, this one may get lost in the chaos. That would be a damn shame. Maybe some of the donors who have been quietly filling in part of the funding gap for other frozen climate resilience efforts will help out. 

God damn what that man is doing. God damn the people who fell for, or willingly embraced, his lies. We want our trees back, goddamn it. 

But eventually this Trump winter must end, and if the roots are strong, all will be well again in the garden.

Categories Democracy, Environment, Equity, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Funding, Musk, Elon, Trump

Julie Vassilatos: Why Trump Wants to Kill the Education Department

By dianeravitch
March 20, 2025 //
3

Julie Vassilatos lives in Chicago, where she has been active as a parent in the resistance to privatization. In this post, she explains why Trump insists on closing the U.S. Department of Educatuon.

She writes:

What a difference a year makes. 

One minute you’re watching your city absorb tens of thousands of new residents, asylum seekers bussed up unannounced from Texas wearing shorts and flip flops in the dead of winter, watching your city do the best they can to make room, to make a home, to help integrate these new neighbors into our city of immigrants. 

Blink, and it’s the next winter. Now you see ICE snatching parents from school drop off, right in front of their kids. 

It’s a whole new world. But one, at least, in which deportation chief Tom Homan is really quite far behind in his local quotas because “the people in Chicago are too educated about their rights.” Apparently this makes his work difficult.

Or take another example. A year ago we lived in a country with a Department of Education. 

Blink, and that Department is in rubble on the ground, drastically defunded and illegally dismantled. 

We’re not quite there yet. But we’re about to be. The right has been hollering about shutting down the Department of Education almost since its modern inception. Now they get everything they have ever wanted with Elon Musk doing the chopping in the interest of cost savings. 

But even if it cost nothing, the DoE would have to be extinguished under our current regime. Because it only exists for one reason. It only has ever existed for one reason. It first came into a short-lived existence for only one reason. And that reason is really, really out of style just at the moment.

The only reason for the Department of Education is equity.

The very first time the idea of a national department of education came up was in the aftermath of the Civil War, when Congressman James A. Garfield—very much understanding the leveling capabilities of education—persuaded Congress to create a department whose sole purpose was to support public education for all Americans, particularly for new immigrants and formerly enslaved people. He thought that “improving the education of citizens was the wisest expenditure a government could make” (Goodyear, 171). And, sure enough, right off the bat, Democratic opponents of such a federal authority cranked and complained about Why do we have to support millions of lazy people who already are hogging at the government trough blah blah Why should Congress have to appropriate public funds for “illegal and improper political purposes” blah blah blah blah….ad nauseam (Goodyear, 173). 

(Cue the creepy Twilight Zone music as the reader slowly realizes that we may be permanently stuck in some kind of post-Civil War time loop)

In short order, Garfield’s embattled Department was whittled down to a Bureau; educational equity for all Americans went very out of vogue in the decades post-Reconstruction. 

Fast forward eighty years and the nation was still, unsurprisingly, mired in educational inequity. Segregated by race, schools for Black Americans were grossly underfunded and inadequate. 1954’s Brown v Board of Education established school desegregation, but after a painful 20 years and with public schools still not serving all Americans remotely equally, the modern Department of Education was created by Congress in 1979. 

This is its first stated goal: “to strengthen the Federal commitment to ensuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual.”

It’s had a rocky life, with folks on the right wanting to kill it immediately upon birth, and ever since. But its goals have always remained the same: to advance educational equity in a nation sorely in need of it. 

Anyway you can see why it has to die now, for so many obvious reasons. Take your pick. 

Nothing that exists solely to promote equity must be allowed. 

That is a bad goal. 

Trump doesn’t like it. 

We already have it. 

The word “equity” makes white people feel bad and sad. 

If someone is horning in on my equity it’s not fair. 

Some people are more equity than others. 

Now we have a newly minted Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, who on her first day sent out a missive concerning her department’s “final mission.” She knows little about its proper work and brings with her to the role, mainly decades of a white-dominant WWE culture that is steeped in racist tropes. Freshly confirmed, McMahon is here to burn it all down, and she is happy to. 

But what is this department that’s dying, anyway? What is this beast that needs to be sacrificed? Former IL congressman Adam Kinzinger shared a good, brief explainer last week, “The Grinch Who Stole Education,” about what it does and doesn’t do. It does financially support struggling schools, administer student loans, uphold federal laws supporting disabled students, and enforce civil rights laws in public education. It does not dictate curriculum or teacher standards or exercise local control, despite what Trump says. 

A much deeper dive, “Cruel to Your School,” comes from Jennifer Berkshire in The Baffler, for those interested in well-narrated, riveting history. Her conclusion is the same as Kinzinger’s—that the entire point of those who want to kill the DoE is to increase the wealth of the wealthy at the expense of children and the marginalized. Cutting this department, as well as all the others, will pay for a $4.5T tax cut for the wealthiest. “Children in need are in the crosshairs,” says Kinzinger, and the wealthy elites who stand to benefit the most are Trump, Musk, and friends. Berkshire notes that “Musk and his DOGE wrecking crew seek to deepen inequality by dismantling not just the federal Department of Education, but the institution of public education itself.” After all, in the world according to Musk, “a cognitive elite with the highest IQs deserves to rule over the rest of us, all in our natural places” in a “good and natural” hierarchy. “In this fixed economy of spoils, there is little point to an institution whose goal is ‘equalizing.’ It can’t be done.”

Peter Greene of Curmudgucation recently explained that these people hate the notion of equity so much that they have set up a tattle line for school districts. If you spot anything like equity happening at your school, you are to whisper your findings to a special website, promoted by Mom for Liberty Tiffany Justice. (I’ve written about her and her cronies….here.) So in the rubble of the former Department of Education, we will at least still have a federal mechanism to root out every last trace of equity from our public school system—as long as we have one. 

In this rather horrifying moment, in this context of the violent bludgeoning of a basic and centuries-long effort to create an equitable public education system, I’m giving the last word to Eve Ewing. When those with power strip everything away, shred every value, crush every intention toward a society of justice and equity, it is not enough merely to be angry about what has been taken away. We must—we MUST—dream a good and right future. There is no other way. 

“[I]t’s imperative to understand this nightmarish moment as actually being a reflection of someone else’s dream. Groups like Moms for Liberty and The Heritage Foundation have spent years bringing their most deeply held conjurations across the threshold into reality. Regardless of who prevails in the halls of power, who has more lawmakers and more funding on their side, in this one matter — the matter of imagination — we are equals. So how do we use our dreams as a map forward?

“It’s not enough to be afraid of the laws and rules we don’t want to see in schools. We have to clarify our visions of what, how, where and with whom see we want our beloveds to learn. What are we fighting for? Who are the young people you love most, and what do you dream for them? What are the values you hold dear that you want desperately for them to understand, to inherit? What are the histories, the legacies, the ancestors you need them to know? Where can you and the people you trust build collective power to make space for that teaching, for that learning?”

Beyond using your imagination in powerful ways, what are some things you can do?

There’s the ever-necessary Call Your Congressman.

Go to school board meetings. Go to PTA meetings or Local School Council meetings. Find your allies and band together. Throw in your lot with larger orgs and increase your power. 

Use that above-mentioned equity tattle line in ways that seem appropriate to the moment. 

Get acquainted with the work of the Journey 4 Justice Alliance and attend their upcoming national virtual town hall, “The Threats of Dismantling the USDOE on Black and Brown School Districts,” Thursday, March 20th, 7 pm EST. 

Listen to the outstanding Jennifer Berkshire/Jack Schneider podcast about public education, “Have You Heard?” You’ll learn a lot and it’s painless, even entertaining, and sometimes actually hopeful.

Categories Bigotry, Chicago, Education Industry, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Funding, Ignorance, Parents, Privatization, Trump

Jan Resseger: Will the Trump Gang Succeed in Demonizing the Words “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”?

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2025 //
12

Jan Resseger reflects on the Trump administration’s determination to eliminate not only to eliminate programs based on “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” but the words themselves. Those three words must be expunged from our vocabularity. We must not recognize that there is diversity of people, even within the same religion or race. We must not strive for equity, which means that everyone has an equal chance to thrive. When they don’t thrive, we ask why. But we mustn’t care anymore.

Inclusion is the third “dirty” word that must be extirpated, inclusion means “all.” Remember when you recited the Pledge of Allegiance in school? I do. We said, “with liberty and justice for all.” I suppose it will be changed now to “with liberty and justice for some.”

Read Jan’s post. As always, it is thoughtful, incisive and well researched.

Have faith. This madness and meanness will come to an end.

Categories Censorship, Equity, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Freedom of Speech, Gender, Language, Lies, Stupid, Trump

Trump’s List of Banned Words: It’s Worse Than You Thought!

By dianeravitch
March 8, 2025 //
52

Reporters at The New York Times pored through 5,000 pages from various federal agencies and found that the following words had been removed from government websites and publications. As the article points out, Trump and Musk frequently claim to be champions of “free speech,” but they have no problem censoring words and ideas that offend them.

Karen Yourish, Annie Daniel, Saurabh Datar, Isaac White andd Lazaro Gamio wrote:

As President Trump seeks to purge the federal government of “woke” initiatives, agencies have flagged hundreds of words to limit or avoid, according to a compilation of government documents.

  • accessible
  • activism
  • activists
  • advocacy
  • advocate
  • advocates
  • affirming care
  • all-inclusive
  • allyship
  • anti-racism
  • antiracist
  • assigned at birth
  • assigned female at birth
  • assigned male at birth
  • at risk
  • barrier
  • barriers
  • belong
  • bias
  • biased
  • biased toward
  • biases
  • biases towards
  • biologically female
  • biologically male
  • BIPOC
  • Black
  • breastfeed + people
  • breastfeed + person
  • chestfeed + people
  • chestfeed + person
  • clean energy
  • climate crisis
  • climate science
  • commercial sex worker
  • community diversity
  • community equity
  • confirmation bias
  • cultural competence
  • cultural differences
  • cultural heritage
  • cultural sensitivity
  • culturally appropriate
  • culturally responsive
  • DEI
  • DEIA
  • DEIAB
  • DEIJ
  • disabilities
  • disability
  • discriminated
  • discrimination
  • discriminatory
  • disparity
  • diverse
  • diverse backgrounds
  • diverse communities
  • diverse community
  • diverse group
  • diverse groups
  • diversified
  • diversify
  • diversifying
  • diversity
  • enhance the diversity
  • enhancing diversity
  • environmental quality
  • equal opportunity
  • equality
  • equitable
  • equitableness
  • equity
  • ethnicity
  • excluded
  • exclusion
  • expression
  • female
  • females
  • feminism
  • fostering inclusivity
  • GBV
  • gender
  • gender based
  • gender based violence
  • gender diversity
  • gender identity
  • gender ideology
  • gender-affirming care
  • genders
  • Gulf of Mexico
  • hate speech
  • health disparity
  • health equity
  • hispanic minority
  • historically
  • identity
  • immigrants
  • implicit bias
  • implicit biases
  • inclusion
  • inclusive
  • inclusive leadership
  • inclusiveness
  • inclusivity
  • increase diversity
  • increase the diversity
  • indigenous community
  • inequalities
  • inequality
  • inequitable
  • inequities
  • inequity
  • injustice
  • institutional
  • intersectional
  • intersectionality
  • key groups
  • key people
  • key populations
  • Latinx
  • LGBT
  • LGBTQ
  • marginalize
  • marginalized
  • men who have sex with men
  • mental health
  • minorities
  • minority
  • most risk
  • MSM
  • multicultural
  • Mx
  • Native American
  • non-binary
  • nonbinary
  • oppression
  • oppression
  • oppressive
  • orientation
  • people + uterus
  • people-centered care
  • person-centered
  • person-centered care
  • polarization
  • political
  • pollution
  • pregnant people
  • pregnant person
  • pregnant persons
  • prejudice
  • privilege
  • privileges
  • promote diversity
  • promoting diversity
  • pronoun
  • pronouns
  • prostitute
  • race
  • race and ethnicity
  • racial
  • racial diversity
  • racial identity
  • racial inequality
  • racial justice
  • racially
  • racism
  • segregation
  • sense of belonging
  • sex
  • sexual preferences
  • sexuality
  • social justice
  • sociocultural
  • socioeconomic
  • status
  • stereotype
  • stereotypes
  • systemic
  • systemically
  • they/them
  • trans
  • transgender
  • transsexual
  • trauma
  • traumatic
  • tribal
  • unconscious bias
  • underappreciated
  • underprivileged
  • underrepresentation
  • underrepresented
  • underserved
  • undervalued
  • victim
  • victims
  • vulnerable populations
  • women
  • women and underrepresented
  • Notes: Some terms listed with a plus sign represent combinations of words that, when used together, acknowledge transgender people, which is not in keeping with the current federal government’s position that there are only two, immutable sexes. Any term collected above was included on at least one agency’s list, which does not necessarily imply that other agencies are also discouraged from using it.
  • The above terms appeared in government memos, in official and unofficial agency guidance and in other documents viewed by The New York Times. Some ordered the removal of these words from public-facing websites, or ordered the elimination of other materials (including school curricula) in which they might be included.

  • In other cases, federal agency managers advised caution in the terms’ usage without instituting an outright ban. Additionally, the presence of some terms was used to automatically flag for review some grant proposals and contracts that could conflict with Mr. Trump’s executive orders.

  • The list is most likely incomplete. More agency memos may exist than those seen by New York Times reporters, and some directives are vague or suggest what language might be impermissible without flatly stating it.

  • All presidential administrations change the language used in official communications to reflect their own policies. It is within their prerogative, as are amendments to or the removal of web pages, which The Times has found has already happened thousands of times in this administration.

  • Still, the words and phrases listed here represent a marked — and remarkable — shift in the corpus of language being used both in the federal government’s corridors of power and among its rank and file. They are an unmistakable reflection of this administration’s priorities.

  • For example, the Trump administration has frequently framed diversity, equity and inclusion efforts as being inherently at odds with what it has identified as “merit,” and it has argued that these initiatives have resulted in the elevation of unqualified or undeserving people. That rhetorical strategy — with its baked-in assumption of a lack of capacity in people of color, women, the disabled and other marginalized groups — has been criticized as discriminatory.

Haha. That “rhetorical strategy,” assuming that those groups are incompetent has not only been “criticized as discriminatory.” IT IS DISCRIMINATORY!

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Democracy, Equity, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Freedom of Speech, Gender, Hypocrisy, Ignorance, Inequality, Inequity, Racism, Stupid

Julian Vasquez Heilig: How to Respond to the Department of Education DEI Tipline!

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2025 //
3

Julian Vasquez Heilig is a scholar of diversity, equity and inclusion. His blog is called Cloaking Inequity. He was Provost at Western Michigan State University. He recently stepped down to further his scholarship and advocacy as a professor. Julian is a founding member of the board of the Network for Public Education.

His advice for the DEI tipline: “Let’s flood it with truth.”

He writes:

In yet another attempt to weaponize the federal government against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts in education, the U.S. Department of Education—at the urging of Moms for Liberty and other far-right extremist groups—has launched the “Stop DEI Portal” (https://enddei.ed.gov).

This taxpayer-funded snitch line is designed to invite anonymous complaints against public schools, colleges, and universities that are actively working to create inclusive and equitable environments for all students. Their goal? To stoke fear, intimidate educators, and dismantle efforts to address racial, gender, and socioeconomic inequities in education.

Let’s be clear: this is not about stopping discrimination—it’s about silencing efforts to eliminate it.

But here’s the thing: if this portal is truly meant to address discrimination, then let’s make sure it serves that purpose.

Let’s Turn the Tables: Report REAL Discrimination

If the Department of Education wants reports of discrimination, let’s give them exactly that. But let’s report real, documented cases of discrimination—the kind that actually harms students and families every single day, especially in underregulated charter and voucher-funded schools.

Here’s what they don’t want reported, but what we should be flooding their portal with:

1. Discrimination Against Students with Disabilities

• Many charter and voucher schools systematically exclude students with disabilities, either by refusing to provide necessary accommodations or pushing them out with discriminatory discipline policies.

• Special education students in voucher programs often lose their federal protections under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) when they transfer to private schools.

• Some schools refuse to admit students who require additional supports, effectively segregating students with disabilities from their peers.

📌 If you or someone you know has experienced this, report it here: https://enddei.ed.gov

2. Discrimination Against LGBTQ+ Students

• In some states, charter and private schools receiving taxpayer-funded vouchers have explicit policies that allow them to deny admission to LGBTQ+ students or expel them for their identity.

• LGBTQ+ students often face harassment, deadnaming, misgendering, and bullying—sometimes by school officials—without intervention.

• Books and curriculum that acknowledge LGBTQ+ history and experiences are being banned, erasing the existence of LGBTQ+ students and families from the classroom.

📌 If you’ve seen LGBTQ+ students being targeted or erased, report it here: https://enddei.ed.gov

3. Racial Discrimination and Segregation in Schools

• Many charter and private schools resegregate students by race and income, creating de facto segregation that mirrors the Jim Crow era.

• Black and Brown students face harsher disciplinary actions than their white peers for the same behaviors.

• AP African American Studies, ethnic studies courses, and other curriculum that acknowledges systemic racism are being banned or watered down, denying students an accurate understanding of history.

📌 If you have evidence of racial discrimination in schools, report it here: https://enddei.ed.gov

4. Discrimination Against Low-Income Students

• Voucher programs siphon public dollars away from neighborhood schools, making it harder for low-income students to access well-funded, high-quality education.

• Private voucher schools are not required to provide free or reduced-price lunch programs, effectively shutting out students who rely on school meals.

• School choice programs increase economic segregation, allowing affluent families to access better resources while leaving lower-income students in underfunded public schools.

📌 If you know of schools pushing out or underfunding low-income students, report it here: https://enddei.ed.gov

Weaponizing the Portal Against Its Own Purpose

The Stop DEI Portal is not about protecting students—it’s about political theater and furthering a radical agenda to dismantle public education.

Conservative groups like Moms for Liberty, the Heritage Foundation, and other well-funded organizations have pushed for Project 2025, a policy plan designed to eliminate federal civil rights protections, dismantle DEI initiatives, and privatize public education.

They want to create a parallel education system where only privileged, wealthy families benefit—while marginalized students are left behind.

What You Can Do Right Now

✅ Step 1: Submit REAL complaints to the Stop DEI Portal

Visit https://enddei.ed.gov and report discrimination against students with disabilities, LGBTQ+ students, students of color, and low-income students.

✅ Step 2: Share this far and wide

Encourage educators, parents, and students to flood the portal with real discrimination complaints.

✅ Step 3: Support organizations fighting back

Groups like Our Schools Our Democracy (OSOD) and the Network for Public Education (NPE) are exposing the harms of privatization and the discriminatory practices of charter and voucher schools.

✅ Step 4: Stay engaged in the fight to protect public education

The NPE/NPE Action Conference on April 5-6 in Columbus, Ohio is bringing together educators, advocates, and policymakers to discuss how to defend public schools and stop the Project 2025 playbook. I’ll be there. 

There’s no time to sit on the sidelines. The Stop DEI Portal is just the beginning of a much larger battle. If we don’t fight back now, the next generation will inherit an education system built on exclusion, discrimination, and privatization.

Let’s make sure the truth is louder than deception.

🔗 Submit your complaint now: https://enddei.ed.gov

🔗 Support OSOD and the Network for Public Education

🔗 Register for the NPE/NPE Action Conference before spots fill up!

This is about more than DEI. This is about democracy, justice, and the future of public education. Let’s fight back—together.

Categories Accountability, Civil Rights, Corruption, Democracy, Disruption, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Gender, Hoax, Injustice, Racism, Trump

If You See DEI, Report it to the U.S. Department of Education!

By dianeravitch
March 5, 2025 //
4

The U.S. Department of Education has followed civil rights law since the Department was created in 1979 and began operating in 1980. Its Office for Civil Rights investigates complaints of discrimination against students based on their race, gender, ethnic origin, or disability status.

The Trump administration has flipped the meaning of discrimination and now invites the public to report any examples of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” that they suspect or see. Is it Orwellian? Yes. What was once considered laudable is now labeled as dangerous.

Educators are expected to avoid acknowledging the existence and reality of diversity. They are expected to oppose “equity,” which means that everyone is treated fairly. They must stand up against “inclusion,” that is, welcoming all into activities.

Here is their “tip line,” which you are supposed to call.

From: U.S. Department of Education <ed.gov@info.ed.gov>

 

U.S. Department of Education Launches “End DEI” Portal

U.S. Department of Education Launches “End DEI” Portal

WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Department of Education launched EndDEI.Ed.Gov, a public portal for parents, students, teachers, and the broader community to submit reports of discrimination based on race or sex in publicly-funded K-12 schools.

The secure portal allows parents to provide an email address, the name of the student’s school or school district, and details of the concerning practices. The Department of Education will use submissions as a guide to identify potential areas for investigation. 

“For years, parents have been begging schools to focus on teaching their kids practical skills like reading, writing, and math, instead of pushing critical theory, rogue sex education and divisive ideologies—but their concerns have been brushed off, mocked, or shut down entirely,” said Tiffany Justice, Co-Founder of Moms for Liberty. “Parents, now is the time that you share the receipts of the betrayal that has happened in our public schools. This webpage demonstrates that President Trump’s Department of Education is putting power back in the hands of parents.”

The Office of Communications and Outreach works with national, state, and local educational agencies, programs, and organizations to empower parents and families with information and resources to help them be full partners in their child’s programmatic, education and academic progress.

Contributors: OCO Editorial Team.

Note: This document contains information about and from public and private entities and organizations for the reader’s information. Inclusion does not constitute an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education of any entity or organization or the products or services offered, or views expressed. This publication also contains hyperlinks and URLs created and maintained by outside organizations. They are provided for the reader’s convenience; however, the Department is not responsible for the accuracy of this information.

If you’re having trouble reading this message, click here

Categories Censorship, Equity, Extremism, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Gender, Stupid, U.S. Department of Education

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon on the “Final Mission”

By dianeravitch
March 4, 2025 //
9

Former entertainment entrepreneur Linda McMahon is now U.S. Secretary of Education. She released her first statement, reiterating Trump’s attacks on “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” as well as “gender ideology” (I.e. recognizing the existence of ONLY the male-female binary and not recognizing those who are LGBT, such as Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, who is openly gay).

McMahon’s views are closely aligned with those of Moms for Liberty. Check out the website of the America First Policy Forum, where McMahon was chair of the board.

This statement was released by the department’s press office.

SPEECH

Secretary McMahon: Our Department’s Final Mission

MARCH 3, 2025

Secretary Linda McMahon

When I took the oath of office as Secretary of Education, I accepted responsibility for overseeing the U.S. Department of Education and those who work here. But more importantly, I took responsibility for supporting over 100 million American children and college students who are counting on their education to create opportunity and prepare them for a rewarding career. 

I want to do right by both. 

As you are all aware, President Trump nominated me to take the lead on one of his most momentous campaign promises to families. My vision is aligned with the President’s: to send education back to the states and empower all parents to choose an excellent education for their children. As a mother and grandmother, I know there is nobody more qualified than a parent to make educational decisions for their children. I also started my career studying to be a teacher, and as a Connecticut Board of Education member and college trustee, I have long held that teaching is the most noble of professions. As a businesswoman, I know the power of education to prepare workers for fulfilling careers. 

American education can be the greatest in the world. It ought not to be corrupted by political ideologies, special interests, and unjust discrimination. Parents, teachers, and students alike deserve better. 

After President Trump’s inauguration last month, he steadily signed a slate of executive orders to keep his promises: combatting critical race theory, DEI, gender ideology, discrimination in admissions, promoting school choice for every child, and restoring patriotic education and civics. He has also been focused on eliminating waste, red tape, and harmful programs in the federal government. The Department of Education’s role in this new era of accountability is to restore the rightful role of state oversight in education and to end the overreach from Washington. 

This restoration will profoundly impact staff, budgets, and agency operations here at the Department. In coming months, we will partner with Congress and other federal agencies to determine the best path forward to fulfill the expectations of the President and the American people. We will eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy so that our colleges, K-12 schools, students, and teachers can innovate and thrive. 

This review of our programs is long overdue. The Department of Education is not working as intended. Since its establishment in 1980, taxpayers have entrusted the department with over $1 trillion, yet student outcomes have consistently languished. Millions of young Americans are trapped in failing schools, subjected to radical anti-American ideology, or saddled with college debt for a degree that has not provided a meaningful return on their investment. Teachers are leaving the profession in droves after just a few years—and citing red tape as one of their primary reasons. 

The reality of our education system is stark, and the American people have elected President Trump to make significant changes in Washington. Our job is to respect the will of the American people and the President they elected, who has tasked us with accomplishing the elimination of bureaucratic bloat here at the Department of Education—a momentous final mission—quickly and responsibly. 

As I’ve learned many times throughout my career, disruption leads to innovation and gets results. We must start thinking about our final mission at the department as an overhaul—a last chance to restore the culture of liberty and excellence that made American education great. Changing the status quo can be daunting. But every staff member of this Department should be enthusiastic about any change that will benefit students. 

True change does not happen overnight—especially the historic overhaul of a federal agency. Over the coming months, as we work hard to carry out the President’s directives, we will focus on a positive vision for what American education can be. 

These are our convictions: 

  1. Parents are the primary decision makers in their children’s education. 
  2. Taxpayer-funded education should refocus on meaningful learning in math, reading, science, and history—not divisive DEI programs and gender ideology. 
  3. Postsecondary education should be a path to a well-paying career aligned with workforce needs. 

Removing red tape and bureaucratic barriers will empower parents to make the best educational choices for their children. An effective transfer of educational oversight to the states will mean more autonomy for local communities. Teachers, too, will benefit from less micromanagement in the classroom—enabling them to get back to basics. 

I hope each of you will embrace this vision going forward and use these convictions as a guide for conscientious and pragmatic action. The elimination of bureaucracy should free us, not limit us, in our pursuit of these goals. I want to invite all employees to join us in this historic final mission on behalf of all students, with the same dedication and excellence that you have brought to your careers as public servants. 

This is our opportunity to perform one final, unforgettable public service to future generations of students. I hope you will join me in ensuring that when our final mission is complete, we will all be able to say that we left American education freer, stronger, and with more hope for the future.

Sincerely,

Linda McMahon
Secretary of Education

Categories Bigotry, Billionaires, Censorship, Civil Rights, Curriculum, Education Industry, Equity, Extremism, For-Profit, Funding, Gender, Home Schooling, Ignorance, Innovation, Privatization, Racism, Religion, Segregation, Teachers, Vouchers
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