As a matter of principle, I believe in the “live and let live” way of life. So long as people aren’t hurting anyone else, their choices about how to live should be tolerated at least and respected at best.
Governor Tim Walz used a memorable phrase that captures the same idea. “It’s none of your damn business!”
That’s my response when Republicans whip up the public to hate or fear transgender people.
Why do they do it? It’s a sure fire winner. It appeals to base instincts. (“How dare they flaunt society’s norms?”) They made it a big issue during the 2024 Presidential campaign.
But it’s overdone.
According to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, about 1% of the population over the age of 13 identifies as transgender. Or, 2.8 million people.
I understand the outrage about biological males competing in women’s sports, most especially, sports where men have a physical advantage, like swimming or track and field.
But I do not understand why Trump and Hegseth have expelled members of the military who are transgender. Many of those who have been booted from the military are decorated veterans who have served their nation with courage and distinction. Some are high-ranking officers with medals and multiple commendations.
I truly don’t understand why the military would expel officers or enlisted personnel who want to serve their nation and who are willing to risk their lives for our protection.
What does their sexual identity have to do with their ability to perform their duties? Does it give them an unfair advantage? I have not heard a convincing argument from Trump or Hegseth to justify their purge of transgender personnel from the military.
It seems to me that this is an open and shut case of bigotry, no different from discrimination based on religion, race, or gender. The transgender members of the military have been discharged because of who they are, not because of any dereliction of duty.
The Republican Party seems intent on banning the very existence of transgender people. In the states, Republican legislatures have passed laws mandating that there are only two biological genders, and you are whatever your birth certificate says. No matter what laws they pass or what executive orders Trump signs, transgender people are not going to disappear. But these official actions can make them miserable and ruin their lives.
A recent article by M. Gessen in The New York Times described the unnecessary harassment of transgender people in Kansas. There, transgender people must have their birth gender on their driver’s license. Why? What governmental purpose does this serve? None.
For 1% of the population, this bifurcation is not true. A tiny percentage of people born male live as females. A tiny percentage of people born female live as males. This is who they are.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche went mask-off last week, promising behind closed doors to roll back abortion access even further, and telling religious pro-life hard-liners that he wanted the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning the right to abortion to become “permanent in every single state.”
Blanche made the comments in a “prayer call” last Thursday hosted by the White House Faith Office and attended by various faith leaders. The call was not open to press and not on the record, although the entirety of the call is now up on YouTube.
“We don’t have complete victory yet, but we will have victory, and victory will be soon, and it will be permanent,” Blanche said. “If states have said, ‘We are going to protect the unborn and we’re going to protect every life from the moment of conception,’ we’re putting practices and policies in place so that other states and other organizations can’t attack that.”
“They can’t do things like they’re doing with mailing in mail-order drugs,” Blanche added, singling out abortion pills.
This is a far cry from the answer he offered at his confirmation hearing, when he claimed he would “carefully evaluate every lawful action available to ensure the faithful enforcement of the Comstock Act,” the 150-year-old law that bans the mailing of contraceptives and other things considered to be “obscene.”
He also noted that the Trump administration is “putting practices and policies in place” to block abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol from being sent to states that have banned abortion, a process that would require the Justice Department to invoke the Comstock Act—something President Trump specifically said he wouldn’t do back in 2024 while campaigning.
“A vote to confirm Todd Blanche is a vote ‘so that the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state,’” Senator Patty Murray wrote Tuesday on X. “Those were his own words to anti-abortion extremists. Senators who vote for Blanche are voting for an Attorney General who will attack abortion rights in EVERY state.”
What is life like for a military veteran who is transgender, caring for her Trump-loving relatives, living in Trump country? The Washington Post recently featured this interview of Cassandra Williamson, who lives a life of contradictions and faces it with equanimity.
It begins:
The day that a gunman killed Charlie Kirk in Utah, Cassandra Williamson was at home in rural Kentucky, washing laundry and checking her mom’s vital signs. Williamson, 66, is a veteran of both the Marine Corps and the Navy, and for the last few years, she has been the primary caregiver for her mother and two siblings. Williamson is also transgender — a fact that has put her at odds with her Trump-loving family and a growing network of conservatives who want to strip trans people of rights.
When prosecutors and public officials said Kirk’s alleged shooter was in a romantic relationshipwith a person who is transitioning from male to female, prominent Republicans called for trans activists to be institutionalized and labeled terrorists. For Williamson, the suggestion felt ludicrous. How could she be a threat to the nation she fought to protect?
Williamson started a satirical blog called “A Day in the Life of a Transgender Terrorist” in which she recounts the activities of her daily life as a caretaker. (Video: Cassandra Williamson)
She decided to start a satirical blog.
In “A Day in the Life of a Transgender Terrorist,’ Williamson recounts in intimate and often humorous detail the chores and conversations that make up her days. She changes soiled bedsheets. She deploys “a full-scale tactical assault on the laundry pile with extreme prejudice (and a little bit of OxiClean).” She pushes Ensure on her ailing mom, and she makes sure her sister’s Trump hat sits just right on her head as she watches Fox News. In one entry, Williamson writes, “Good to know the best and brightest minds in D.C. are focused on the real threat: a veteran from coal country who can operate a glucometer and a washing machine. Sometimes simultaneously.”
The Washington Post interviewed Williamson about her life, this tumultuous political moment and what she sees as the way forward in an increasingly divided nation. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
What were you thinking when you heard Charlie Kirk had been shot?
The first thought that occurred to me when Charlie Kirk had been shot was that I hoped this was not in any way associated with transgender people. I was really sad about it all because I hate seeing someone killed over their political beliefs. It just goes against everything I believe in. And even though he and I would disagree on everything, I don’t want to see people killed over their beliefs. He has a family, he’s got children, he’s got a wife, he’s got a sister. And it pains me enormously the loss that they are feeling now.. Those are all the things that went through my head all within a matter of a couple of seconds.
Why were you scared that it might have a connection to the trans community?
I didn’t want there to be an association because I knew that it would be weaponized against the entire community. And they already have a bull’s eye on our back, essentially, without this.
You posted a video the day after Kirk was shot, and you called for a moment of silence for him, his family and his supporters. Tell me about that.
He’s an American. His family is American. And in that moment of tragedy, it was important for me to show my community, my part of this American community, another life had been lost. I think that we needed to have that moment of silence, recognizing that there are people who do agree with him. We don’t agree with him or them, but they’re still Americans and they deserve that respect.
And you’re someone who has served this country.
I served for everyone, even the ones I disagree with, even the ones who want to kill me, even the ones who see me as less than. And I would go to the grave defending their right to believe those things. They might not do that for me, but that’s on them, not on me.
Republican lawmakers Nancy Mace and Ronny Jackson have called for trans people to be treated as “terrorists” and institutionalized. You decided to start a blog called “A Day in the Life of a Transgender Terrorist.” Why?
Well, I didn’t know how else to address what they were trying to say. I know that I cannot persuade people to come along with anything that I’m trying to tell them. I can give them numbers. They don’t care. I can give them a mountain of evidence. They don’t care. The only thing left is trying to find some humor in all of this, at least, satirically.
You’re calling me a terrorist and here I am, getting up at 7 a.m., making sure my mom gets her shots and her medicine and breakfast, making sure my brother’s all right, sister’s all right. And then mom pees in the bed.
Look, there’s a lot of humor in what I’m doing here. I mean, there’s a lot that can be used to show people we can laugh even though you want to traumatize us. I can let this thing beat me up. But I decided that somebody’s got to be the example that says there is a way through this, and here it is.
Tell me what’s going on with your family.
Mom is almost 87 years old. She’s been losing the battle with her cognitive abilities. She can’t see real well. She can’t hear real well. And her mobility is extremely limited. Brother has COPD, very severe. He worked in the coal mines for all of his life. And it’s difficult for him to breathe. And he has to keep oxygen around. He’s very weak. My sister has some physical mobility issues, as well as educational deficiencies. She doesn’t have the ability to talk in any way that you can understand her. You really have to listen closely to the sounds that she makes to kind of interpret what she wants to eat.
You have posted some pictures of them wearing Trump hats.
This whole area is Trump country. This whole region of Pike County, eastern Kentucky, it is Trump country, period. And when I came here, the first thing I noticed is that Fox News was on all the time in every room and loud.
I had to go to my granddaughter’s graduation in Texas this past year. So I stopped at this place down in Tennessee on the way back. It’s called the Trump Superstore. I go in and buy [my sister] Irma a pair of short pants that says Trump. And I got my brother a shirt that says Trump, and I got my sister one of those gold-plated $50 bills for five bucks. And it has Trump on it. They’re entitled to believe what they want, and it does not hurt me or offend me in any way, even though I know that what they are supporting is harmful to me and those like me. I can’t demand that they treat me another way from how they’ve always done things. So I don’t worry about all of that. If I did, I would be one sour person. I wouldn’t be able to exist here. So you have to find a way to survive.
Do you all talk about transgender issues?
My brother and I had a good conversation just a couple days ago. He had seen what was going on with Jackson and Mace and the Heritage Foundation wanting to institutionalize all of us. And he knows that it doesn’t apply to me. Right now, I am the one who represents all transgender people. And he noticed that I’m not like any of those things that he hears. He puts more faith in what they’re saying about it in a broader perspective. And I’m not gonna change his mind on a lot of that. We can have those conversations, but it’s a very slow process. The more they get to interact with me as just being a normal person, like anyone else here in this community, the more they see that we’re just as real as they are.
You came out in 2016. You were in your mid-50s. How did you decide it was time?
I was living with this girl. She had this tube of Premarin in her bathroom. The warning label said men should not touch this thing because it can cause breast development. I think I passed out. I saw that and I went, “Oh, my God, there’s a way.” That was in 2004. It took me another five years to study and think through all these things. And then in 2009, I decided I’m going to order this stuff from overseas. I would get that stuff in. I’d get scared. I’d flush it down the toilet. I’d go buy more.
I have known who I am for a long, long, long, long, long time. But that little box with that warning label was the key that said, “There is a way.”
I ended up taking a picture with family, and I’m in a big, baggy shirt, trying to scrunch. I’d been hiding completely. I decided then that I couldn’t hide anymore. I went to my therapist and they said, “You’re gonna have to help me write a letter.” I took the letter, gave it to all my kids, my ex-wife. I posted it on Facebook. The kids came to me within like four hours and said, “What do you want us to call you?” And I said, “Whatever you want. I’m good with it.” My ex-wife, it took her about 12 hours.
So, I’d sent that letter to my brothers and sisters. I’m the oldest of six. And they let me know that they didn’t want mom to know. They thought it would probably kill her. And so, I waited, but then on a Monday, I called mom, and I said, “Mom, I’ve got something to tell you, but, but I’m not going to tell you today. I want you to go into your prayer closet and pray. And then I’m going to call you back in a couple of days.” So I called back Wednesday and said, “Mom, have you prayed? You ready?” She’s Southern Baptist. And she said, “I think I’m ready.” And I said, “So I’m one of those transgender people you’ve heard of, Mom.” She said, “Oh, I thought it was worse than that.” And we just carried on a conversation after that. And she didn’t die, thank goodness.
Did she accept you?
No, she did not accept me. Her faith wouldn’t allow for that. And even today, she gets confused sometimes because I’ll come through in a really low-cut dress. And she’s asked me, “So, who are you?” And I said, “I’m Cassandra, your oldest child.”
But I’m good with that. I am really thrilled to be able to spend time with my mom, brother and sister here. That’s important to me, regardless of how they feel.
How do things feel for you now compared to when you first came out?
If I take a global perspective, we’ve come a long way. But we’ve also experienced a lot more difficulties since then, too. When [former defense secretary] Ash Carter announced [in 2016] that he was lifting the trans ban for service in the military, it was like a whole new world was in front of us. It was exciting. Little did we know, in just a few months, Trump would take office and send out his infamoustweets on trans people serving in the military. It was really devastating when he started trying to strip trans military people of their rights.
This year has been horrendous on a global scale for rights for every minority in the country and the world, really. This is a conservative reset. And through history, you can actually see that in the 50s, they got tired of all of the LGB people in federal government. They kicked 20,000 people out of the federal government in the 50s for security reasons. Same argument they used today for the military.
You have sent your blog to many prominent right-wing pundits and officials. Have you heard back from any of the politicians like Nancy Mace or anyone else that you’ve tweeted at?
No, and I’m not going to. You know why? They don’t want to be Loomered. Laura Loomer, she’s the one who will go, “You talked to a trans person. We want you fired now.” Or LibsofTikTok: “We want you fired because you had a picture of a trans person standing beside you. We don’t want that.” I know people in the military have been chased out. People will send it to Pete Hegseth for their removal. They’re not going to talk to me because they don’t want the ire of their base raised up against them.
Do you think Charlie Kirk would have talked to you?
Charlie probably would have. That’s the thing that he actually believed in. But I do think that he would have tried to bully me with his vast knowledge. He was a very smart person. I will talk to anyone, whether you agree with me or not.
And that makes me the biggest “terrorist” in the world to people like Trump and Jackson and Mace and the Heritage Foundation. Because I’m changing minds here at the local level. I’m affecting their base in a way they don’t want their base to move. It’s one person at a time, one greeter at Walmart at a time.
The leaders of Arkansas–such as Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders–oppose abortion. They also oppose birth control. They apparently don’t teach sex education. They rely on “abstinence education,” or just say no.
But it’s not working the state has the second highest rate of births to unwed teen mothers.
The Arkansas Timesreviewed a movie that explains the human consequences of this policy.
Watching “Baby/Girls,” a documentary about teen mothers in Arkansas that screened Wednesday at the Bentonville Film Festival, might be an impossible task if it weren’t for the youthful optimism of its subjects. The seriousness of what’s happened to them hasn’t sunk in, at least not in the opening scenes. They still speak in soft, girlish tones. They wear fake eyelashes, dye their hair teal. One giggles while trying to recall the word for “uterus,” the organ her baby will be emerging from in just a matter of weeks. By the end of the film, the light has gone out of their eyes.
One girl has taken off with her baby and run away from home. Another is pregnant again, on an 18-month waiting list for childcare, and desperately poor. The third, living in a dingy flop house with her boyfriend, chooses to give her baby up for adoption after leaving the infant alone on at least one occasion so she can hang out with her sisters.
“Baby/Girls” is cinematic, but it’s a hard watch, and I don’t think the people who really need to see it — the politicians that enforce abstinence education and work to outlaw abortion, and the religious fanatics who treat sex like we’re living in Victorian England — will even bother.
But the movie isn’t just for pro-lifers; it’s for the rest of us who need to be reminded that unplanned pregnancy is, for many women, especially teenagers, one of the absolute worst things that could ever happen, leading to a cycle of poverty, family dysfunction and more teen pregnancy.
According to Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, “Arkansas is still 49th in the country for teen births with a rate that is almost double the national teen birth rate of 13.” (That is: On average, 22 of every 1,000 women aged 15 to 19 give birth annually in Arkansas.)
“Baby/Girls” traces three girls — Grace, 15; Olivia, 16; and Ariana, 17 — from pregnant-and-near-bursting until their kids are infants or toddlers. They’re all living in Compassion House, a home for teen moms in Springdale, at the documentary’s start.
The filmmakers are given incredibly intimate access to their births, family dynamics, home life, court dates and the like. We quickly learn all three grew up in terrible, neglectful situations — and their pregnancies are a continuation of a terrible, unending cycle. Grace was molested at age 3 by a man she thought to be her biological dad. Her mother was a drug addict. Olivia’s mom committed suicide when Olivia was 8 years old, and when we meet Olivia, a judge has ordered her to Compassion House because she’s decided that her grandmother’s house is not a safe place for her to be. Finally, Ariana, somehow the most well-adjusted, is the product of rape. Her mother — wire-thin and missing her teeth — is emotionally abusive and absent.
It’s disturbing to watch the girls explain why they ever thought this would go differently. Grace watched the lives of glamorous teen moms on TikTok. They looked happy. “I wanted to feel that,” she says. Olivia simply didn’t realize that sex made babies — ”I didn’t even realize I had three holes down there,” she says, chortling.
But none of them got pregnant on purpose. Grace forgot to take her birth control consistently. Ariana was too embarrassed to ask her mom for condoms. For Olivia, “it just kind of happened.” On the subject of abortion, Ariana is the only one who speaks about it directly. She’s religious. It was never an option.
Crystal, the movie’s wise sage who works at Compassion House, says that girls aren’t learning basic sex education in school anymore.
None of that matters now, as the girls’ lives come spectacularly undone once they leave the shelter and support of Compassion House and move out on their own after the birth of their kids. The girls’ lives go so horribly wrong that I almost wondered if parts of the film had been staged.
Grace, a beautiful, impossibly childish girl, runs away again to live the life of a degenerate teen, vaping and doing shots around a bonfire. She leaves her baby behind with her mother, who, with four other kids to raise, is buckling under the responsibility. Grace is mystified as to why she doesn’t want to be a mom. It’s not your fault. Society failed you, the filmmakers want us to scream. And I do, silently.
Olivia goes away to juvenile detention for a year, missing her baby’s first steps. The second she gets her ankle monitor off after returning home, she takes off with her kid.
Ariana’s story is the saddest because, for a moment, the filmmakers let us believe she might beat the odds. Early in the film, still at Compassion House, we see Ariana’s list of goals, written out in pencil. She wants to get her own apartment and a nursing degree, find childcare, get on food stamps. It’s an impossible list for a 17-year-old but she seems so determined and clear-eyed.
Even with a supportive partner and a tidy home, reality catches up to her. Without a GED and no time to finish it, she can’t get a better job and can’t afford childcare. The bills are piling up. And then she ends up pregnant again.
How did we get here? The movie is careful not to blame the obvious scapegoats — pro-lifers and right-wing politicians — and equally careful to not suggest abortion as the only or even the most immediate solution. Crystal, a woman who manages Compassion House and a former teen mom herself, says that she’s a Christian and she’s pro-choice, but “the pro-life movement won the war against abortion a long time ago.” Her role in all this is just to give these girls a chance to survive.
I want to be mad at the film for not advocating harder for abortion access but also have to agree that teen pregnancy is a multi-headed hydra that will be solved with a lot of different approaches. Helping girls know how to identify a uterus before they start having sex seems like an obvious place to start.
The blogger “Liberty Beats News” reported the following disturbing story. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is obsessed with the idea of “lethality” and “masculinity” that leads to stories like this one, as well as bias against women, who don’t have the same levels of testosterone as men. Even without the testosterone that Hegseth demands, women seem to be capable of exemplary leadership. Hegseth, however, continues to block most women from leadership roles in the military.
Blogger Liberty Brats News reports:
Pentagon Announces Mandatory Testosterone Testing for Troops Over 30 — And the Science Behind It Is Shakier Than Hegseth Is Selling It
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is framing declining testosterone as a fixable threat to military “lethality,” but the medicine tells a messier story: most people prescribed testosterone therapy never get properly diagnosed first, and the FDA has flagged real cardiovascular risk
WASHINGTON — July 15, 2026
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Wednesday that all active-duty service members age 30 and older will be required to undergo annual testosterone deficiency screening as part of their existing periodic health assessment — branding the effort “The High-T Department of War” in a video posted to social media.
What Was Announced
Under the new policy, troops 30 and up will be tested annually; those under 30 can opt in voluntarily. If a service member is found to have a deficiency, testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) is offered, not mandated — the choice to actually take it remains with the individual. Hegseth framed it as a health and performance initiative: “It’s about restoring and optimizing your natural capabilities, protecting your longevity, and ensuring you have the biological foundation required to sustain the fight.” The Pentagon has not clarified whether the requirement or the treatment option extends to women in the military, whose testosterone levels also decline with age.
The Marketing Language vs. the Actual Medicine
Hegseth’s own phrase, “High-T,” isn’t a medical term — it’s borrowed directly from a social media fitness and masculinity trend, where influencers encourage men to chase higher testosterone numbers as a marker of strength and virility. That distinction matters, because the FDA has never approved testosterone therapy on that basis.
The only FDA-approved use for TRT is treating clinical hypogonadism — a specific, diagnosable medical condition involving genuine testicular or pituitary dysfunction, confirmed through repeated blood tests and documented symptoms. Simply having a number that’s lower than it used to be isn’t the same thing as having a treatable deficiency, and the FDA has never approved TRT as a tool for boosting combat performance, aggression, or “lethality” in men with normal age-related hormone decline.
What “Low Testosterone” Actually Means — And Doesn’t
Testosterone drops by roughly 1% a year after age 30, according to the Mayo Clinic — a completely normal, expected part of aging, not a malfunction. True testosterone deficiency, called hypogonadism, affects an estimated 5.6% of men between 30 and 79. That means the overwhelming majority of the men this policy will test every year have testosterone levels that are simply aging normally, not failing.
Testosterone Levels By Age: Normal Ranges 2026 Guide
A 2026 Endocrine Society study presented at its annual meeting found that most men who are already being prescribed testosterone therapy in civilian medicine never received proper, guideline-based diagnostic testing beforehand — meaning a huge share of current TRT patients may not actually meet the medical bar for needing it in the first place. One of the study’s independent reviewers, a reproductive endocrinologist at Imperial College London, called overprescribing “a problem of our time,” driven in part by corporate telehealth providers with minimal clinical oversight — a dynamic a mandatory military-wide testing program risks reproducing at scale.
The Risks Nobody’s Talking About in the Announcement
Testosterone therapy isn’t risk-free. The FDA issued a formal safety communication requiring TRT products to carry warning labels about a possible increased risk of heart attack and stroke. The research since then has been genuinely mixed — some large studies have found elevated cardiovascular risk in men on TRT, while others, including a comprehensive Harvard-affiliated review of 72 studies, found no compelling evidence of increased heart disease or cancer risk. What that actually means is that the cardiovascular safety of giving testosterone therapy to a large, mostly healthy population has not been settled science — which makes rolling it out across the entire U.S. military, framed as a performance and readiness initiative, a real-world experiment on hundreds of thousands of people rather than a proven intervention.
A Broader Pattern
This isn’t happening in isolation. The FDA moved in April to expand access to TRT more broadly, and Hegseth has spent his tenure building what he calls a “warrior ethos” around hyper-masculine physical standards — requiring all combat roles to meet a single “highest male standard,” warning against “fat generals and admirals,” and mocking transgender troops in public remarks.
Notably, Health and Human Services official Dr. Mehmet Oz has already publicly praised Trump’s own testosterone levels, according to RFK Jr., calling them the highest he’s seen in a man over 70 — a strange data point to have entered the public discourse days before this policy, and a reminder that “optimizing testosterone” has become as much a cultural signal in this administration as a medical one.
Bottom Line
Nothing about this policy is inherently sinister — screening for a real, underdiagnosed medical condition isn’t unreasonable on its face. What doesn’t hold up is the marketing: testosterone testing doesn’t measure “lethality,” normal aging isn’t a deficiency, and the treatment itself carries cardiovascular questions that haven’t been fully answered even in civilian medicine, where prescribing already outpaces proper diagnosis. Framing a hormone panel as the key to combat readiness sells better on social media than it does in a peer-reviewed journal.
• U.S. FDA Drug Safety Communication — “FDA cautions about using testosterone products for low testosterone due to aging,” fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm436259.htm
Paul Thomas taught in public high schools for many years, before becoming a professor at Furman College in South Carolina. He is a persistent critic of the “Mississippi Miracle.” He uses data to check on state claims. In this post, he fact-checks Florida.
He wrote:
Reading proficiency is a powerful data point despite it being a moving target.
When anyone refers to “reading proficiency,” that usually means a percentage of students who have met or exceeded an established score on a standardized test of reading.
However, “proficiency” is not a standard term. States tend to use “proficient” as grade level expectations while NAEP uses “proficient” as an aspirational achievement level (and “basic” more closely correlates with state grade-level proficiency).
To further complicate “reading proficiency,” not only does the measurement vary from state to state, but also the expectations for what percentage of students should be proficient at any grade is more a debate than an established fact.
A 10-part video series produced by the Children’s Literacy Project tells what happened. It makes a compelling case that these results are attributable to a distinctive public-private partnership between the district and a nonprofit called The Learning Alliance. The story starts with two moms, Liz Woody-Remington and Barbara Hammond, whose children were struggling to read. In 2010, they asked themselves: What would it take to get 90% of the district’s children reading on grade level by the end of third grade?
I find these statistics troubling, similar to concerns raised by Hansford:
Over the years, I have on numerous occasions seen the claim that 95% of students can learn how to read proficiently, so long as they are provided adequate tier 1/2 instruction. Truthfully, it has always stuck out to me as a strange figure, for three reasons. First, most academic research does not typically use percentages in this sort of manner. Second, I often see this figure unaccompanied by a citation. And third, it seems low; I find it hard to believe that 5% of students just cannot learn how to read. …For this figure to have scientific validity, it would need experimental research demonstrating it to be true. Ideally, I would want to see multiple large scale studies, due to the universality of the claim. Intrigued by the discussion, I put out a public call on twitter asking if anyone had a citation for the figure.
Hansford walks us through the research (thin at best) and reaches an interesting conclusion:
This all said, it does seem there is some level of support for 96% being a benchmark goal, for reading proficiency rates. While some might argue, this is too high, I worry it’s too low, as it is clearly possible to achieve better than 96%. For example, in the Torgesen 2003 paper, 98.4% of students were able to read at grade level. When I asked for research on this topic, I was given an anecdote about a school using EBLI that went from 87% proficiency rates to 100%, within a matter of years. Well this is just an anecdote. I do think 100% proficiency is—in many cases—possible and should always be the goal.
I think the points here that must not be missed are the role of “anecdote” in claims about reading proficiency as well as claims about surprising gains and outlier“miracle” evidence, such as, again, Aldeman highlights:
Even more impressively, low-income third graders at Indian River schools scored better than the statewide average for all students. And, perhaps not surprisingly, when we went looking for high-poverty schools that were nevertheless getting good outcomes in reading, we identified three of the district’s schools — Rosewood Magnet, Fellsmere Elementary and Pelican Island Elementary — for our “Bright Spots” list. Fellsmere in particular stood out: Based on its 99% poverty rate, our calculations predicted that it would have a third grade reading rate of just 29%. But its actual rate was much higher, at 53%.
Indian River County was never exactly a failing district, but a decade ago it was performing a bit worse than the state as a whole. It has since begun to pull away, especially in third grade. Coming out of the pandemic, 60% of district third graders scored proficient in reading in 2023. That figure rose to 63% in 2024 and then jumped again, to 69%, in 2025.
This reporting fits into a “beating the odds”approach that frames outlier evidence as the normfor an entire population.
The evidence [1] is overwhelming in education that outlier “miracle” evidence is usually misleading or false, and even more problematic, outlier success, when valid, is rarely scalable.
In short, “beating the odds” stories make for compelling journalism and politics but not for effective or reasonable education reform.
These stories from Florida also raise some red flags.
Like other Republican states such as Oklahoma and Texas, Florida is seeking ways to erode the separation of church and state, specifically in public schools.
Schools partnering with organizations to promote and support reform is not necessarily a problem, but the outside help does create tensions about ideology as well as erodes the likelihood reforms are scalable.
Another few aspects of Florida are not highlighted in the reporting but deserve attention.
Returning to measurements of reading proficiency, Florida is in the bottom quartile of states in terms of the standard for “proficient”:
Florida, like Mississippi, is also a state where relative success in grade 4 reading quickly evaporates by grade 8:
Again like Mississippi, Florida is in the top of states for grade 4 reading on NAEP, but drops to the bottom quartile in grade 8:
Finally, the media and political story most often focuses on reforms in reading programs, teacher training, school leadership, and school expectations; however, outlier and surprising gains in grade 4 reading are likely driven by grade retention (a harmful punishment) and not the celebrated reforms.
Notably, high-grade retention states like Florida and Mississippi are also the states with significant decreases from grade 4 to grade 8.
Florida has a long history of aligning itself with “miracle” education reform that proves to be a mirage.
Beware the current numbers game about reading proficiency—a measurement that changes with the political wind.
Graham Platner won the Democratic primary for the Senate, despite troubling allegations by women who questioned his treatment of them. When a woman he had dated said last Monday that he had forced her to have sex without her consent, it was all over for Platner. He was accused of having raped the girlfriend. He denied it, but the air was out of his balloon.
Tonight Platner denied the allegations, blamed the “establishment” for derailing his campaign, but announced that he was suspending his campaign.
The Maine Democratic Party will hold a convention and pick a new candidate.
This is the best outcome. In retrospect, the most damning evidence against Platner came from his wife, who told a campaign leader that her husband had been sexting with other women after they were married. Why would he do that? That’s a career destroyer.
Last night at 10:20 pm, the Post published a vile, disgusting story about Platner that never should have seen the light of day, in my view..
In that article, Lyndsey Fifield, the conservative woman who worked for the Heritage Foundation and was part of a group supporting Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, made a lewd accusation against Platner that could not be verified or corroborated. She said that when she had sex with Platner, he took off his condom without her consent, even though he knew she did not use birth control. Apparently this happened more than once. She dated him over a three-year period and said he “repeatedly” engaged in sex without a condom.
It started like this:
“An ex-girlfriend of embattled Senate candidate Graham Platner told The Washington Post that he repeatedly removed protection without her consent when they were having sex. “Lyndsey Fifield, who said she dated Platner from 2013 to 2015 in D.C. and has previously accused him of physical abuse, said that she told Platner on multiple occasions that he had to wear condoms during sex because she was not on birth control. “He would pull condoms off,” she said in an interview. “He would do it in a sneaky way. He wouldn’t tell me.” “In a statement in response to questions about Fifield’s allegation, Platner’s campaign called the claim “categorically false and politically motivated.” The statement noted Fifield supported now-Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh when he was accused of sexual assault before his confirmation, an allegation he denied.”
Most of the comments–at least the first 100 or so–attacked Fifield’s credibility and motives. One asked why she didn’t use birth control. Another asked why she continued to have intercourse with him.
My reaction was that the charges should never have been published because a) there was no way to verify her allegations; b) how he had sex with a female friend is irrelevant to his character or fitness for office. Having unprotected sex is dangerous, because it might produce an unwanted pregnancy. But, to my knowledge, it is not criminal.
Rape and sexual assault are criminal acts. They do reflect on one’s fitness for office. We should have learned from Trump’s adjudicated behavior not to trust men who abuse women.
The story was disgusting. The Washington Post should be ashamed to have published this slime.
I’m glad Platner stepped aside. I’m sorry all the allegations about him did not come out long ago.
I hope the Maine Democratic Party picks a strong candidate who can unite the party and beat Susan Collins.
In a stunning victory for the First Amendent’s guarantee of free speech, a federal appeals court overturned Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s “Stop WOKE” act. A district court judge had previously issued a preliminary injunction on the law, calling it “positively dystopian.”
The state contended that it paid the professors’ salaries and had the authority to tell them what to teach. The appeals court decision disagreed, by a 2-1 vote. The dissenting judge–Barbara Lagoa– was appointed by Trump.
The opinion said:
“Florida’s salary-for-speech rule is a breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse in the very places the state’s own statutes recognize as centers of inquiry — classrooms where students are trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard, ideally getting ever closer to the truth,”
The dissenting judge wrote:
“We need not agree or disagree with Florida that the viewpoints at issue here constitute racial discrimination,” Lagoa wrote. “We need only acknowledge that the state is allowed to decide what is endorsed by its professors in its own classrooms.”
The American Civil Liberties Union announced:
TALLAHASSEE, FL – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit today struck down the higher education provisions of the Stop W.O.K.E. Act, a classroom censorship law in Florida that severely restricted educators from teaching about race and gender in schools and workplaces. The court ruled the higher education provision of the law was unconstitutional, saying: “Florida’s salary-for-speech rule is a breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse in the very places the State’s own statutes recognize as centers of inquiry—classrooms where students are trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard, ideally getting ever closer to the truth.”
The court goes on to say it does not matter if the State of Florida agrees or disagrees with the ideas. “Either way, in this context the First Amendment trusts students to figure it out for themselves.”
“This ruling sets a strong precedent that higher education cannot be limited to the whims of politicians,” said Leah Watson, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program. “All students and educators deserve to have a free and open exchange about ideas without government control. Students can’t fight racial discrimination that they don’t see; training and instruction is key to empowering future leaders to pursue racial justice.”
The decision comes in Pernell v. Lamb, a 2022 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Florida, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), and the law firm Ballard Spahr on behalf of a group of Florida professors at public universities whose teaching has been impacted by this law.
“We are thrilled the court has stopped the erasure of topics that have real implications for our students, allowing them to learn, discuss, and develop tools for combatting the complex issue of racism in our country without being gagged by those who would dictate that only state-approved thought may be promoted,” said LeRoy Pernell, a Florida A&M University College of Law professor and the named plaintiff in this lawsuit.
Championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, this overreaching law specifically targeted and placed vague restrictions on educators’ ability to teach concepts such as racism, sexism, privilege, and unconscious bias. It also imposed harsh penalties, including ineligibility for millions of dollars in performance funding from the state for colleges and universities and termination for educators who had been found to violate the law.
The court concluded, “[i]f the First Amendment offers any boundary of protection at all for public university classrooms, this statute crosses it.”
“The Stop W.O.K.E Act is an egregious example of widespread efforts across the country, most notably in Florida, to force the public higher education system to adopt the viewpoints of those in power. Thankfully, we have a judicial system to protect First Amendment rights and ensure that professors have the academic freedom to foster the type of learning environment where all students can learn and thrive,” said Jin Hee Lee, Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Legal Defense Fund. “It is no coincidence that this state law aimed to censor the perspectives of Black people and LGBTQ+ people, the very same people who are currently under attack. With this decision, the federal appeals court has made clear that Florida cannot actively erase their history of discrimination or their lived experiences without running afoul of our Constitution.”
This decision marked the first time an appellate court has considered the constitutionality of this censorship movement, and it will have implications for students and educators across the country who are subject to related laws. Since the Stop W.O.K.E Act went into effect, more than 30 states have moved to introduce and pass higher education classroom censorship bills. In May 2024, a federal court struck down a law in another ACLU lawsuit in New Hampshire, holding that the law’s vagueness violated the 14th Amendment. A similar higher education classroom censorship law was struck down in an ACLU lawsuit in Oklahoma, ruling that many of its provisions were so vague that it was difficult for teachers to know what they could and could not teach in the classroom.
“By upholding the district court’s ruling, the Eleventh Circuit ensured that our system of higher education is guided by the principle of free speech, not government censorship,” said Carrie McNamara, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Florida. “Our classrooms are meant to be rooms of curiosity, creativity, and learning. When we stifle this kind of critical thinking, we risk losing our education system as we know it.”
“The recent legislative efforts to undermine academic freedom and limit the rights of marginalized communities are incredibly harmful,” said Emmy Parsons, a litigator at Ballard Spahr who was a member of the legal team. “We are proud to be part of this historic case and will keep fighting to protect the First Amendment rights of those teaching the next generation of leaders.”
Michelle H. Davis of “Lone Star Left” closes out her coverage of the Texas Republican convention. Her incisive reporting demonstrates the lunacy and cruelty that now dominate Texas Republicans. Well, at least they didn’t adopt a resolution to give the death penalty to any woman who dared to have an abortion. That’s something.
She writes:
The Republican Party of Texas is a party of hate and a party of cruelty. They were built in smoky back offices and pulpits in the early 1970s on the Moral Majority and the New Right. Then, they conquered Texas through the shady legal maneuverings of Tom DeLay and Karl Rove. The men at the top built an empire of corruption and theft. Theft of our water, theft of our clean air, theft of our labor.
Texas Republicans have long had everything they’ve wanted. For decades, the rich have gotten richer, and the poor have gotten poorer. But it’s not enough. They have to keep people voting for them somehow. Dumb down education. Appeal to the most extreme elements. That’s all they have left.
In 1964, the John Birch Society found its moment at the Republican National Convention. Barry Goldwater didn’t fully embrace them. But he didn’t reject them either. When Nelson Rockefeller stood at that podium and named the John Birch Society alongside the Ku Klux Klan as examples of extremism that the party should refuse, the crowd booed him off the stage. Goldwater then declared, “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.”
Goldwater was a total shit.
The Birchers never went away. And over the next sixty years, what was once considered the lunatic fringe became the Republican mainstream. The “deep state.” The “new world order.” Conspiracies about globalists, infiltrators, and enemies within. It’s the same playbook.
Which brings us to the 2026 Republican Party of Texas Convention.
The “Abolish Abortion” plank failed the final vote in the platform. That’s the one that would have handed the death penalty to any woman who received abortion care. Any woman. A minor. A rape survivor. Doesn’t matter. But don’t mistake that for a victory, because the men who stood on that convention floor and pushed for it are still on the ballot. Including:
Rep. Bret Money (R-HD02). You can donate to his Democratic opponent, Fatima Muse, HERE.
Rep. David Lowe (R-HD91). You can donate to his Democratic opponent, Yisak Worku, HERE.
But what did pass on the platform?
Banning IVF. Banning Sharia Law.
In 2026, the Birchers write the Republican Party platform.
Why IVF? Well, because they say this is a person:
But, actually, that ⬆️ is a mouse embryo I found on Google. But if women who are struggling with fertility are not allowed to have IVF in Texas anymore. 1- It will eventually spread to other states, and 2- what kind of repercussions will come from this?
America already has a history of this.
The Indian Adoption Project, beginning in the early 1950s, adopted Native children out primarily to non-Indian families to reduce reservation populations. By the time Congress finally acted, approximately one-third of all American Indian children had been removed from their homes. The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 was the legislative response, and the right has been trying to gut it ever since.
First of all, they already tried this in the 2015 Legislative session during the last time Muslim panic swept the state of Texas. During that time, Beth Van Duyne, the then-mayor of Irving, was directly responsible for the statewide outrage and upset. This was simialar to the Muslim panic after 9/11. Maybe, not that bad. But the Republicans go back and forth between which marginalized group they hate most each year. This year, it happens to be Muslims.
When you Google “What is Sharia Law,” you get a lot of different answers, so hear it directly from Rep. Salman Bhojani (D-HD92):
From the Republicans’ perspective, it really boils down to ignorance and bigotry. Just like the “Show Me Your Papers” bill. Just like the DEI bans. Same rhyme, different verse.
All the Texas transplants, pretending to be Texans.
Now, don’t get me wrong, we love our transplants. They add to the vibrant culture that makes our state so unique. But nothing chaps my hide more than a bunch of dudes that moved here in their 40s rambling on about how THEY represent Texas values more than ME. Like, sirs, I have a grandfather and a great-uncle in the square the day JFK got shot, and they were both born in Dallas.
And all of these Republicans, the wealthy ones, who came here to get into politics or nepo-baby their way into their daddy’s corporation that came to Texas for the low taxes, they think the Texas spirit is all about taking as much as you can for yourself, while screwing everyone else at the bottom, and hurting anyone different from you.
Senate Majority Leader Tan Parker, born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, stood at that podium and invoked the Alamo. He talked about faith, family, liberty, and the God-given right of free people to govern themselves. He said Texas is proof that freedom works.
Parker has been rated as one of the most dangerous anti-choice legislators in Texas. He’s endorsed by both Texas Right to Life and Texas Alliance for Life. His legislative priorities in 2025 centered on capital markets packages and making Texas a hub for financial services, because when women are dying from abortion ban complications, and Texas has a maternal mortality rate that rivals that of developing nations, but Parker’s focus is on helping rich people move their money here faster.
The man flew in from Pennsylvania, wrapped himself in the Texas flag, invoked the memory of the men who died at the Alamo, and has spent nearly two decades making life harder for the working Texans he claims to represent.
The full platform will be posted on the Republican Party of Texas website in the coming weeks. Read it. Share it. Make sure every voter in your life knows exactly what these people are planning.
Because we already know what’s coming in the 90th Legislative Session. They’ve written it down for us. Frozen embryos have more rights than the mothers who made them. Muslims are the designated enemy of the cycle. A Texas that looks less like the state we love and more like the fever dream of a John Birch Society pamphlet from 1962.
They are telling us exactly who they are.
The question is whether we’re going to let them keep doing it.
We can stop them by flipping the Texas House. Democrats need a net gain of just 14 seats to break Republican control, and the candidates to do it are on the ballot right now.
The greatest mystery in Texas is why people who aren’t rich continue to elect Republicans, who do nothing for them other than to whip up culture war issues.
Michelle H. Davis reports on the latest state convention of the Texas Republican Party. You should read this to understand their thinking, or lack thereof. One candidate promises to investigate George Soros. Another asks the audience how they feel about Texas becoming a Muslim state. The big event was that hard-right Governor Greg Abbott brought an elephant to parade around, and the elephant pissed before he left the convention. Davis thought the act was symbolic of what Republicans do to ordinary Texans.
She is very witty writer. You will enjoy reading her account of the very unserious swindlers who run the state.
She writes:
Undoubtedly, by now, you’ve seen the biggest news of the Republicans’ Convention. Governor Abbott closed his speech by bringing out an elephant, which promptly peed all over the floor. It was performance art. A perfect representation of what the Republican government in Texas has been doing to the people for years.
It’s rumored that some of the people in the front rows could hear Abbott cackle, “Ha! It’s raining,” as the incident occurred.
Attendance for the Republican Party of Texas’ (RPT) Convention was way down. Notably, at one point yesterday, only 38 people were watching the live stream. (And one of them was me, lol.)
Then, if you follow the Texas Democratic Party on social media, you may have seen this meme they shared of Senator Bettencourt’s quote on the polling environment.
The Convention has thus far been a disaster. Today is the final day. I’ll have the report on that tomorrow, which means we’ll be pushing out our Meet the Candidate article this week to Monday (stay tuned). Yesterday, they elected the new Chair of the Republican Party of Texas.
D’Rinda Randall, new Republican Party of Texas Chair.
So, this is really interesting. And it’s also a lot to unpack. First, you have to understand that the RPT elects a new Chair every two years. And by the time their cycle is up, they always have some faction against them, and they get pushed out. Abraham George is out. Before him, it was Allen West. Before him, it was James Dickey. And so on. Typically, Republicans break their own bylaws to elect their favored chair. I’m not sure if that happened this time. My emails are open.
Randall was the Vice Chair under Abraham George. Like with the Democratic Party, the Chair and Vice Chair must be of opposite genders. Randall is the first Republican woman to chair in Texas since 2003. Stick a pin in that, we’ll circle back around.
The Vice Chair who was elected to serve under Randall is David Covey. You may remember that Covey ran a multi-million dollar campaign against Dade Phelan (R-HD21) in 2024, had Trump’s endorsement, and still lost. He was a loser.
Now, it’s important to understand where the Republican Party is with women’s rights in 2026. Not just women’s rights, but with women being seen as people.
Check out this report from CBC News earlier this week at the Erika Kirk Christian National Convention in San Antonio, where a bunch of women said they were willing to give up their right to vote:
To impose the death penalty on any woman who receives abortion care, even minors and rape survivors.
To ban IVF.
To ban all egg and sperm donation clinics.
It’s all connected.
Don’t you find it strange that at the same time, Republican women are talking about freely giving up their right to vote, the willingness to sacrifice their lives for an ectopic pregnancy, and that all of a sudden, the Republican Party of Texas would elect its first woman in over 20 years?
Of course, the Republican rumor mill is going wild with conspiracies. Before we jump on that bandwagon, we’ll have to see how they can cannibalize each other in the coming months.
The keynote speakers woke up, showed up, and said nothing.
One of yesterday’s keynote speakers was Ken Paxton, and he looked awful. He might have been hungover. He shuffled out on stage, slouching, looking like he just woke up, no excitement, no energy, just, “I’m here.”
The speech itself was a masterclass in saying nothing for eight and a half minutes. Trans panic. Biden. Chuck Schumer. Open borders. The radical left. You’ve heard it. You’ve heard it a thousand times. He called James Telerico “Low T-arico,” “Sixgender Jimmy,” and “Talifreako.” He was like a middle schooler who thinks he’s the funniest kid on the bus.
He didn’t talk about the cost of living. He didn’t talk about gas prices. He didn’t talk about the rising unemployment rate. Or the increasingly difficult access to healthcare.
Paxton, who hails from North Dakota, said the words “Texas values,” then he talked about culture war garbage. It’s hard to believe that anyone takes this man seriously.
Or Dan Patrick, who, besides, said on stage, Talarico was going to hell, came out wearing a black pleather jacket and matching boots.
Of course, it will never beat this jacket ⬇️, but it was a close second.
Black pleather turtleneck and matching boots, in June, in Houston, and explained, unprompted, that it was his “time travel suit.”
Sir, it is 95 degrees outside, and you look like a community theater villain.
He ran two campaign ads on the convention floor. The first one was Paul Revere warning colonists that the British were coming, except the British were James Talarico, an 8th-generation Texan, unlike Danny, who is from Maryland. The second one was the Alamo. Because nothing says “I’m in touch with modern Texas voters” like reaching back to 1836.
Then he recited the Alamo, the lyrics to a Johnny Cash song from 1960. He just said them, without rhythm, not singing them. He stood on that stage in his time-travel turtleneck, performed a Johnny Cash song, and presented it to the delegates of the Republican Party of Texas as a history lesson. It was really weird.
He called Democrats “socialist, leftist, communist, and idiots,” in that order. He declared that the entire transgender rights movement is just a plot to make Republicans argue with each other.
This is the Lieutenant Governor of Texas. This is a man who is one heartbeat from the governorship. This is who shows up in a pleather turtleneck and recites Johnny Cash and condemns his political opponents to eternal damnation in front of a live audience.
Texas values, from the mouth of a Marylander.
But peel back the costume and the lyrics, and you find a frightened man. He spent a big chunk of that speech begging Republicans not to stay home and doing the math out loud. Talarico starts at 45%. He only needs six more points. If Republicans aren’t unified, if rural turnout softens, if the sore losers stay home. Dan Patrick knows exactly what happens.
The man in the time travel suit is scared.
Good.
And speaking of weird.
Mayes Middleton, for those keeping score at home, is a billionaire from Galveston who has purchased every office he has ever held. State rep. State senator. And now, Republican nominee for Attorney General of Texas, because when you have that kind of money, the next rung on the ladder is just another check to write.
At the Convention, Middleton took the stage and delivered what can only be described as a greatest hits collection of things that are not real problems in Texas. I don’t know what else to expect from nepobaby billionaires who have only ever harmed their own lives. He announced he will investigate George Soros on day one. He announced he will “attack Sharia law” as organized crime.
He compared Nathan Johnson and James Talarico to Santa Anna. Somehow, the Democrats are to the left of Santa Anna. He said that. Out loud. Into a microphone.
And then, because he apparently needed you to know he is a relatable family man, he told a story about his four-year-old daughter calling him “MAGA Mayes” after watching too much TV. He thought that was charming.
His opponent, Nathan Johnson, is a Dallas state senator with a long legislative record. Middleton’s record is a checkbook. But in the Republican Party of Texas in 2026, that’s apparently enough.
The only nepo-baby more out of touch than Mayes Middleton is Bo French. Yes, also a nepo-baby. Republicans love electing men with soft hands.
Bo French is the Republican nominee for Texas Railroad Commissioner, which, if you don’t know, regulates the oil and gas industry. It does not regulate Muslims. It does not regulate DEI. It does not regulate the Green New Deal. It regulates oil and gas.
Bo French does not appear to know this.
He asked the crowd (and this is a direct quote), “Do you want Texas to become a Muslim state?” At a Railroad Commissioner speech. He just needed you to know that was on the table. That was a concern he had about the Railroad Commission.
He cited Genesis. He cited Proverbs 14:34. He explained that God’s command to exercise dominion over the earth is actually a mandate for responsible oil and gas extraction. The Bible, Bo French has determined, is pro-drilling.
The bar was on the floor, right next to the elephant puddle.
Low attendance. A new party chair elected amid swirling conspiracies. A hungover Senate candidate workshopping middle school nicknames. A Lieutenant Governor in a pleather time travel suit who performed Johnny Cash and sent a man to hell. A billionaire who has never earned anything listing things that aren’t real problems. A Railroad Commissioner candidate who is very concerned about the Muslim takeover of oil and gas regulation. And an elephant that peed on the floor while the Governor of Texas watched.
This is a party that is performing. And the performance is getting sloppier, louder, and more desperate by the year, because underneath all of it, Dan Patrick’s math is right. They know how close this is. They know what’s coming. And they have nothing to offer the people of Texas except fear, nicknames, and Johnny Cash lyrics they didn’t write.
Meanwhile, Texans are losing farms and losing access to healthcare. Paying more for everything. And the people responsible for that spent three days in Houston talking about George Soros and Sharia law and what gender God is.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the 2026 Republican Party of Texas.
They’ve been pissing on you for years and calling it rain. The elephant just finally did it in front of everyone.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
. To further complicate “reading proficiency,” not only does the measurement vary from state to state, but also the expectations for what percentage of students should be proficient at any grade is more a debate than an established fact. How many students should be proficient in reading? Sometimes it is 90%; sometimes it is 95%—and then there are state goals, for example, in Florida, as reported by Aldeman: A 10-part video series produced by the Children’s Literacy Project tells what happened. It makes a compelling case that these results are attributable to a distinctive public-private partnership between the district and a nonprofit called The Learning Alliance. The story starts with two moms, Liz Woody-Remington and Barbara Hammond, whose children were struggling to read. In 2010, they asked themselves: What would it take to get 90% of the district’s children reading on grade level by the end of third grade? I find these statistics troubling, similar to concerns raised by Hansford: Over the years, I have on numerous occasions seen the claim that 95% of students can learn how to read proficiently, so long as they are provided adequate tier 1/2 instruction. Truthfully, it has always stuck out to me as a strange figure, for three reasons. First, most academic research does not typically use percentages in this sort of manner. Second, I often see this figure unaccompanied by a citation. And third, it seems low; I find it hard to believe that 5% of students just cannot learn how to read. …For this figure to have scientific validity, it would need experimental research demonstrating it to be true. Ideally, I would want to see multiple large scale studies, due to the universality of the claim. Intrigued by the discussion, I put out a public call on twitter asking if anyone had a citation for the figure. Hansford walks us through the research (thin at best) and reaches an interesting conclusion: This all said, it does seem there is some level of support for 96% being a benchmark goal, for reading proficiency rates. While some might argue, this is too high, I worry it's too low, as it is clearly possible to achieve better than 96%. For example, in the Torgesen 2003 paper, 98.4% of students were able to read at grade level. When I asked for research on this topic, I was given an anecdote about a school using EBLI that went from 87% proficiency rates to 100%, within a matter of years. Well this is just an anecdote. I do think 100% proficiency is—in many cases—possible and should always be the goal. I think the points here that must not be missed are the role of “anecdote” in claims about reading proficiency as well as claims about surprising gains and outlier “miracle” evidence, such as, again, Aldeman highlights: Even more impressively, low-income third graders at Indian River schools scored better than the statewide average for all students. And, perhaps not surprisingly, when we went looking for high-poverty schools that were nevertheless getting good outcomes in reading, we identified three of the district’s schools — Rosewood Magnet, Fellsmere Elementary and Pelican Island Elementary — for our “Bright Spots” list. Fellsmere in particular stood out: Based on its 99% poverty rate, our calculations predicted that it would have a third grade reading rate of just 29%. But its actual rate was much higher, at 53%. Indian River County was never exactly a failing district, but a decade ago it was performing a bit worse than the state as a whole. It has since begun to pull away, especially in third grade. Coming out of the pandemic, 60% of district third graders scored proficient in reading in 2023. That figure rose to 63% in 2024 and then jumped again, to 69%, in 2025. This reporting fits into a “beating the odds” approach that frames outlier evidence as the norm for an entire population. The evidence [1] is overwhelming in education that outlier “miracle” evidence is usually misleading or false, and even more problematic, outlier success, when valid, is rarely scalable. In short, “beating the odds” stories make for compelling journalism and politics but not for effective or reasonable education reform. These stories from Florida also raise some red flags. The organization promoting this reform, Children’s Literacy Project, is faith-based. Like other Republican states such as Oklahoma and Texas, Florida is seeking ways to erode the separation of church and state, specifically in public schools. Schools partnering with organizations to promote and support reform is not necessarily a problem, but the outside help does create tensions about ideology as well as erodes the likelihood reforms are scalable. Another few aspects of Florida are not highlighted in the reporting but deserve attention. Returning to measurements of reading proficiency, Florida is in the bottom quartile of states in terms of the standard for “proficient”: Florida, like Mississippi, is also a state where relative success in grade 4 reading quickly evaporates by grade 8: Again like Mississippi, Florida is in the top of states for grade 4 reading on NAEP, but drops to the bottom quartile in grade 8: https://radicalscholarship.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/image-6.png Finally, the media and political story most often focuses on reforms in reading programs, teacher training, school leadership, and school expectations; however, outlier and surprising gains in grade 4 reading are likely driven by grade retention (a harmful punishment) and not the celebrated reforms. Notably, high-grade retention states like Florida and Mississippi are also the states with significant decreases from grade 4 to grade 8. Florida has a long history of aligning itself with “miracle” education reform that proves to be a mirage. Beware the current numbers game about reading proficiency—a measurement that changes with the political wind. [1] Thomas, P.L. (2016). Miracle schools or political scam? In W.J. Mathis & T.M. Trujillo, Learning from the Federal Market-Based Reforms: Lessons for ESSA. Charlotte, NC: IAP.){kind=link}