Jan Resseger: Trump’s Rush to Dismantle the Federal Government

By dianeravitch
November 19, 2025 //
3

Department after department, agency after agency, in the Federal government has been killed or destroyed by the Trump administration. Foreign aid, which had decades of bipartisan support, was virtually eliminated, meaning certain death for hundreds of thousand of children and families who count on the U.S. for food and medicine. The Department of Defense is now called the Department of War, without Congressional approval. The Consumer Financial Board is gone. The Department of Education has been eviscerated. Civil rights enforcement has been turned upside down, to exclude vulnerable groups for which it was intended.

Jan Resseger is a brilliant, thoughtful analyst of education. I encourage you to sign up for her blog. Here she takes a deep dive into what this chaos means for public schools and students:

Despite that the federal government shutdown has ended, SNAP funds are being distributed, and airplanes are returning to their expected schedules, many of us are feeling disoriented and troubled by the way the federal government seems to be operating under Donald Trump’s leadership. We have been observing the Trump administration violating core principles we learned in civics class are at the heart of our democratic society. And we thought the Constitution was supposed to protect every one of us. In today’s post, I’ll try to name and explore some of the principles that President Trump seems to be violating as he attempts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. On Thursday, in Part 2, I’ll explore three serious constitutional violations. All of this is undermining the well-being of our nation’s massive institution of K-12 public schools, the leaders of 13,000 public school districts, over three million public school teachers, and more than 50 million students enrolled.

NY Times economic reporter Tony Romm reflects on the deeper meaning of the recent federal government shutdown: “(T)he president has frequently bent the rules of (the) budget, primarily to reap political benefits or exact retribution. He has found new and untested ways to spare certain Americans, like the military, from the pain of the government closure, while claiming he has no power to help others, including low-income individuals who rely on benefits like SNAP. The result is a shutdown unlike any other, one that has posed disparate and debilitating risks for those unlucky enough to depend on the many functions of government that Mr. Trump has long aspired to cut… At the heart of Mr. Trump’s actions is a belief that the president possesses vast power over the nation’s spending, even though the Constitution vests that authority with Congress. Mr. Trump and his budget director, Russell T. Vought have dismantled entire agencies, fired thousands of workers and canceled or halted billions of dollars in federal spending—all without the express permission of lawmakers.” Romm is not writing about public education, but you will recognize that his concerns apply to public schools and all the rest of our society’s primary institutions.

Trump Seizes the Power of the Purse

The NY Times Editorial Board enumerates three ways the President has grabbed power from Congress  by violating “the power of the purse” granted to Congress in the Constitution: “First, he has refused to spend money that Congress allocated… Second, Mr. Trump has spent money that Congress has not allocated… Third, the president has taken steps that effectively overturn Congress’s spending decisions. In these cases, he has not added or subtracted federal funds, but he has taken other steps that make it so an agency cannot carry out the mission that Congress envisioned for it.”

All year, and at a new and radical level during the recent federal shutdown, President Trump has ordered Education Secretary Linda McMahon and his other appointees in the Department of Education to usurp the power of the purse primarily by slashing the expenditure of Congressionally appropriated funds to staff the department, along with announcing the goal of eliminating the department and its federal role altogether.  The administration’s imposition of permanent layoffs during the federal shutdown focused on firing the professionals responsible for carrying out the very reason a U.S. Department of Education was established back in the fall of 1979, during President Jimmy Carter’s administration: to gather together and administer programs that equalize opportunity for students across the states, where there had historically been unequal protection of students’ rights depending on children’s family income, race, primary language, immigrant status, sexuality or disability.  Huge grant programs like Title I and IDEA and myriad smaller programs ensure that public schools, no matter where a student lives, meet the specific learning needs of all students including those whose primary language is not English and students with disabilities.

During the shutdown, the Trump administration appeared intent on violating the power of the purse at the U.S. Department of Education by radically reducing the staff who do the work—impounding funds congressionally appropriated for paying the staff who enable the Department of Education to fulfill its primary mission.  For example, Education Week‘s Brooke Schultz examines the implication of the shutdown staff cuts for the Office for Civil Rights, on top of massive staff cuts last spring: “Though the latest layoffs are on hold, an enforcement staff that had 560 members spread across 12 offices… will shrink by more than 70% if they go through… Experts worry that without federal enforcement, a fractured interpretation of civil rights laws and protections could take shape across the country—leading to conflicting and politicized handling of cases depending on where students live and what laws are on the books. They worry students in one state might not have the same protections at school as students in another… (S)ome state lawmakers are worried about civil rights complaints not being handled at all.”

During the shutdown, the Trump administration also eliminated most of the remaining staff in the Office for Elementary and Secondary Education who administer the huge and essential Title I grants for school districts serving concentrations of students living in poverty. Trump and McMahon also reduced staff in the Office of Special Education Programs, which oversees IDEA grants, from around 200 to five.  Everyone has understood those proposed shutdown layoffs as the Trump administration’s threat to move special education programming from the Department of Education to the Department of Health and Human Services, despite that the mission of that department emphasizes treatment instead of education. During the shutdown, Federal District Court Judge for the Northern District of California, Susan Illston temporarily blocked the proposed permanent staff layoffs and their implications for undermining the mission of the U.S. Department of Education, though, of course her pause on the staff firings had no effect while the shutdown continued.

The end of the shutdown did temporarily end all the shutdown layoffs. We shall have to wait a couple of months to see what happens. K-12 Dive‘s Kara Arundel explains: “The continuing resolution signed into law Wednesday funds federal education programs at fiscal year 2025 levels. This temporary spending plan expires Jan. 30, unless Congress agrees to a more permanent budget before that deadline.  The deal nullifies the reduction-in-force notices sent to 465 agency employees on Oct. 10. The Education Department is also prohibited from issuing additional RIFs through the end of January and must provide back pay to all employees who did not receive compensation during the shutdown.” Clearly Trump and Vought’s power grab to eliminate much of the staff in a department established and funded by Congress has been blocked only temporarily.

Education Week‘s Mark Lieberman addsthat prior to the shutdown, “The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan federal watchdog funded by Congress, had been investigating more than 40 instances of the Trump administration potentially violating the Nixon-era federal law that prohibits the executive branch from impounding… funds appropriated by Congress… The GAO had already published decisions before Oct. 1 finding that the administration broke the law by withholding funding from programs supporting school infrastructure upgrades, library and museum services, Head Start, and disaster preparation.”

Supreme Court Gives Trump Power through the Shadow Docket

We have also watched all year as Federal District Court judges have temporarily blocked Trump’s executive orders, but lacked the power to declare them permanently unconstitutional or in violation of federal law. Only the U.S. Supreme Court can do that. These cases then become part of “the shadow docket”— cases decided temporarily on an emergency basis but awaiting a full hearing and final decision. The number of these cases derailed to “the shadow docket” has grown rapidly in this first year of Trump’s second term.

In March, the Department of Education fired nearly 2,200 of its 4,133 staff.  After a Federal District Court judge blocked the layoffs temporarily, the case was subsequently appealed. On July 15, Diane Ravitch reported in her blog: “Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the President could continue to lay off the employees of the Department of Education while leaving aside the legal question of his power to destroy a Department created by Congress 45 years ago… If the Supreme Court ever gets around to deciding whether Trump has the legal authority to abolish the Department of Education, it will already be gone.”

After a Federal District Court case is appealed, the Supreme Court releases a temporary, emergency decision, putting off a formal hearing, oral arguments, and what the NY Times‘ Adam Liptak calls, “an explanation of the court’s rationale” until some future time when the case could be scheduled for hearings on what Liptak calls the Supreme Court’s “merits docket.” Liptak explains: “The question of whether the nation’s highest court owes the public an explanation for its actions has grown along with the rise of the ’emergency docket,’ which uses truncated procedures to produce terse, provisional orders meant to remain in effect only while the courts consider the lawfulness of the challenged actions. In practice, the orders often effectively resolve the case.” His implication here is what Diane Ravitch worries about. By the time the Supreme Court fully considers and decides the case, perhaps years from now, it may be too late.

The shutdown has ended, but it is not clear what will happen to the U.S. Department of Education and the many federal programs that support public school equity across our nation.  Part 2 of this post on Thursday will explore what appear to be serious constitutional violations as they impact children and public schools.

Categories Budget Cuts, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Lies, Privatization, School Choice, Trump, U.S. Department of Education, Vouchers

Trump Moves to Shut Down US Department of Education

By dianeravitch
November 18, 2025 //
11

Trump said he would close the Department of Education, and he’s well on the way to closing a Congressionally-authorized Department without asking Congress for permission.

He and wrestling entrepreneur Linda McMahon have decided that the Department is responsible for stagnant test scores. Nothing could be stupider but what would one expect from people who look with contempt on education. Especially public schools.

I cannot explain their thinking but know this: Trump wants to destroy research into science and medicine. He wants to control the curriculum and to ban teaching about race, ethnicity and gender.

As Forrest Gump’s mother taught him: “Stupid is as stupid does.”

Michael C. Bender of The New York Times wrote:

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday an aggressive plan to continue dismantling the Education Department, ending the agency’s role in supporting academics at elementary and high schools and in expanding access to college.

Those responsibilities will instead be largely taken over by the Labor Department.

Additional changes include moving a child care grant program for college students and foreign medical school accreditation to the Health and Human Services Department, and transferring Fulbright programs and international education grants to the State Department. The Interior Department will take over the Indian Education Office.

Shifting duties away from the Education Department aligns with President Trump’s goal of eventually closing the agency, a move opposed by teachers’ unions and student rights groups and one that can only be accomplished with an act of Congress.

Less clear was how moving programs to other agencies aligned with Mr. Trump’s reason for closing the Education Department, which he has said was to give states more power in shaping school policies. A senior official at the Education Department said the changes would streamline bureaucracy so that “at the end of the day, it means more dollars to the classroom.”

“Cutting through layers of red tape in Washington is one essential piece of our final mission,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement, adding that the changes were an attempt to “refocus education on students, families and schools.”

The plan drew some immediate blowback from Republicans, including Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, who said in a statement that the “department’s core offices are not discretionary functions.”

“They are foundational,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said. “They safeguard civil rights, expand opportunity, and ensure that every child, in every community, has the chance to learn, grow and succeed on equal footing.”

Kevin Carey, the vice president for education and work at New America, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, said the changes were “wasteful, wrong and illegal.”

“Secretary McMahon is creating a bureaucratic Rube Goldberg machine that will waste millions of taxpayer dollars by outsourcing vital programs to other agencies,” Mr. Carey said. “It’s like paying a contractor double to mow your lawn and then claiming you’ve cut the home maintenance budget. It makes no sense.”

Administration officials have pointed to the recent federal shutdown to justify the moves, noting that schools remained open and students continued to be taught despite nearly all of the Education Department’s staff having been furloughed.

The department has posted several social media memes making such a point. In an X post last week, the department announced that federal workers were returning to the office, adding, “But let’s be honest: did you really miss us at all?”

Liz Huston, a White House spokeswoman, said the administration was committed to shrinking the agency “while still ensuring efficient delivery of funds and essential programs.”

“The Democrat shutdown made one thing unmistakably clear: Students and teachers don’t need Washington bureaucrats micromanaging their classrooms,” Ms. Huston said.

Republicans in charge of the House and Senate in Washington have signaled little enthusiasm for voting on a bill to close the department, which was created by an act of Congress in 1979.

Mr. Trump has also shown little interest in collaborating with Congress in his bid to reshape the federal government, and his administration has continued to seek ways to diminish the Education Department.

“We’re going to shut it down, and shut it down as quickly as possible,” Mr. Trump said in March after signing an executive orderthat directed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to start razing the department.

Ms. McMahon’s first act after joining Mr. Trump’s cabinet this year was to instruct the department’s staff to prepare for its “final mission” of shuttering the agency. The following week, Ms. McMahon fired 1,315 of those workers.

The layoffs decimated the department’s Office for Civil Rights, which was created to enforce Congress’s promise of equal educational opportunity for all students, and eliminated the agency’s research armdedicated to tracking U.S. student achievement, which for many students is at three-decade lows.

In July, after the Supreme Court cleared the way for mass layoffs at the department, the administration moved adult education, family literacy programs and career and technical education to the Labor Department.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Health, Trump, U.S. Department of Education

When Jimmy Kimmel Interviewed George W. Bush

By dianeravitch
November 18, 2025 //
5

While going through my Internet feed, this interesting interview popped up. It was Jimmy Kimmel interviewing former President George W. Bush. You may think it odd to look back on a president reviled by Democrats for launching years of war that cost the lives of so many Americans and changed so little.

But what fascinated me about this interview was the book that former President was selling. It’s a compilation of some of his paintings.

Its title, Out of Many, One: Portraits of America’s Immigrants.

It is described as:

“A collection of portraits and stories celebrating the resilience and contributions of immigrants to America.”

George W. Bush’s brother Jeb is married to Columba Garnico Galla (Bush), who was born in León, Guanajuato, Mexico. They have three children and four grandchildren, all of whom share her Mexican descent.

Neither George nor Jeb has ever endorsed Trump (although Jeb’s son, George P. Bush, has). None of the Bush family has denounced Trump’s vile characterizations of Mexican-Americans or his orders to ICE to deport them, as brutally as necessary.

Mexican-Americans and other immigrants that George W. Bush celebrated in his book are living in fear and snatched away from their jobs, their homes, and their families.

Wouldn’t it be great if George or Jeb or other members of the Bush family spoke out against Trump’s vicious attacks on our immigrant neighbors?

Deport “the worst of the worst,” as Trump promised, and give the others a path to citizenship.

Categories Humor, Immigration, Republicans

High School Graduate Beats His Government Teacher in County Election

By dianeravitch
November 18, 2025 //
4

This delightful article appeared in the New York Times.

In the recent election in Virginia, 19-year-old Cameron Drew ran for a seat on the Surry County Board of Supervisors and won by a mere 10 votes. Even more interesting, the candidate he beat was his high school teacher of civics, history, and government.

Drew won 345 votes. His former teacher, Kenneth Bell, received 335.

The New York Times wrote:

The election, to represent the Dendron district, wasn’t contentious. In fact, Mr. Drew said he remained “very close” with his former teacher, fondly recalling that Mr. Bell twice took him to Richmond to shadow lawmakers. Mr. Bell, for his part, said he was “over the moon” when he found out who he would be running against.

“He’s the type of student that if teachers could have a little cloning machine in their classrooms to duplicate, he would be all over the place,” Mr. Bell said.

Surry County, with a population of about 6,500, is in a rural area of southeastern Virginia between Richmond and Norfolk. The five members of the county board serve four-year terms.

A seat opened up in July when a board member resigned, and both Mr. Bell and Mr. Drew raised their hands for an interim appointment. The board seated Mr. Bell. Mr. Drew then gathered the 125 signatures needed to get on the ballot for Tuesday’s special election.

A bald man in a pink T-shirt and glasses.
Kenneth Bell was appointed to a vacant seat on the Surry County Board of Supervisors earlier this year.Credit…Kenneth Bell

“I saw that the youth wasn’t always taken care of or just appreciated, so I was like, ‘Hey, it’s time for me to step up,’” said Mr. Drew, who is studying business administration at Virginia Peninsula Community College in Hampton, Va.

He made direct-to-camera appeals to voters on Instagram, dressed in a suit and positioning himself as someone “who’s looking to move Surry forward, while retaining our rural charm,” as he put it in one post…

Mr. Bell said that, because of his affection for Mr. Drew, he didn’t campaign aggressively.

Mr. Drew reported spending $2,295 on his campaign, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan group that tracks voting data. Mr. Bell spent nothing.

Mr. Bell and Mr. Drew, neither of whom ran on a party line, largely agreed on the issues and held just one joint town hall-style forum. Describing himself as a philanthropist, Mr. Drew told the audience, “It’s time to bring young minds to the table.”

The campaign centered on local issues, though some, such as affordable housing, have resonated nationally. Mr. Drew focused particularly on how to incentivize young people to stay in the area.

On election night, Mr. Drew was at a watch party for a mentor of his, Kimberly Pope Adams, who flipped a seat in the House of Delegates, helping Democrats increase their majority.

On the Virginia elections website, Mr. Drew saw that he had eked out a victory — a moment he called “surreal.” Mr. Bell called to concede. They had a pleasant five-minute conversation.

“He was like, ‘If you ever need anything from me, just let me know,’” Mr. Drew said. “He was, once again, still the supportive person he has always been.”

Mr. Bell said there was “not a sad bone in his body” that he lost.

“I have found that is not the answer people in our community want me to give,” Mr. Bell said. “I think everybody wants me to be in a depression and sad. It’s because I know Cameran and I know the quality of a person that he is. And so I can’t be sad.”

Categories Elections, Politics, Students, Teachers

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi Should Be Investigated for Ignoring Epstein’s Sex Crimes

By dianeravitch
November 18, 2025 //
8

Trump ordered U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Democrats who participated in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking of girls and young women. Apparently, it’s ok for Republicans to mess around with girl victims, but not Democrats.

As Attorney General of Florida from 2011 to 2019, Bondi declared that finding and prosecuting sex traffickers was one of her top priorities.

Dean Obeidallah finds it strange that Pam Bondi never investigated Jeffrey Epstein, who resumed his predatory sex trade after serving a light sentence in 2008. By Bondi’s account today, Epstein had at least 1,000 victims.

Yet she ignored him.

Why?

Obeidallah writes:

What we truly need is an investigation into Pam Bondi. Specifically, why didn’t she investigate Jeffrey Epstein for the countless sex crimes he committed against children and women in Florida when she served as Florida’s Attorney General?!

Taking a step back, when Bondi served for eight years as Florida’s top law enforcement officer, she very publicly declared that investigating and prosecuting sexual predators—especially those who preyed on children–a top priority. Indeed, as Florida’s AG, she announced an initiative focused on “Making Florida a Zero-Tolerance state for Human trafficking.”

To that end, in 2013 she proudly boasted about the arrest of 15 child sex predators as part of a five-day investigation known as Operation e-Guardian. At the time, Bondi stated, “Sadly, sexual predators will use any means available to them, including the Internet, to lure children in order to exploit them. This operation was a great multi-agency collaboration that has brought down 15 child predators.”

And in 2018, Bondi launched a confidential tip website for people to report allegations of past child sex abuse by Catholic priests in Florida. She statedthen that any “priest that would exploit a position of power and trust to abuse a child is a disgrace to the church and a threat to society.” Bondi added, “I am calling on victims and anyone with information about potential abuse to please report it to my office.”

Yet despite this very public commitment to investigate and bring to justice people involved in sex crimes against children—even those committed years earlier–she never announced an investigation into or prosecuted Jeffrey Epstein. (At least no investigation that was publicly reported.)

Categories Education Reform

Stephen Dyer: How the Ohio Legislature Cheats the Majority of Students, Who Are Enrolled in PUBLIC Schools

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2025 //
1

Stephen Dyer is a former legislator who keeps watch on the ways that Ohio Republicans have cheated public school students. Ohio Republicans love charters and vouchers, even though taxpayers have been ripped off repeatedly for years by grifters.

He writes on his blog Tenth Period:

Look, I like Greg Lawson as a guy. We’ve been on panels together and fought over things on the radio and in other places. 

But man, he really, really thinks y’all are stupid.

In an op-ed he had published in the Columbus Dispatch yesterday where he argued that public school districts whine too much about money, he made the following claim:

“State K-12 spending in 2023 was 39.5% higher than in 2010 — and school spending in 2024 and 2025 shows no sign of cooling off: “State funding for primary and secondary education totaled $11.64 billion in FY 23; was $13 billion in FY 24 (a $1.36 billion or 11.7% increase); and is estimated at $13.42 billion in FY 25, the second year of the state budget (a $415.8 million or 3.2% increase).”

See, Greg wants you to conclude something from these numbers: that public school districts are swimming in money and their griping over vouchers and his budget-sucking agenda is bullshit. It’s those greedy bastards in your local school districts that are causing your property taxes to skyrocket.

What he leaves out is that the numbers he’s using to make the districts-swimming-in-money claim include money for charter schools and vouchers. 

That’s right. 

He’s writing an entire article complaining that school districts whine too much about vouchers taking away money from public school kids by citing K-12 expenditure data that … includes money going to vouchers and charter schools.

Can’t make it up.

I’ll break down his ridiculous claim in two parts. 

Part I — Overall K-12 Funding

First, let’s look at the overall claim — massive increases to K-12 spending. Forget about the fact that the voucher and charter money need to be deducted out of that number. 

Let’s just look at Greg’s topline claim — the state’s spending tons more now than 15 years ago on K-12 education, so quit whining! 

Yes. Spending is up. But you know what else is up? 

Inflation. 

See, in the 2009-2010 school year, the state spent a total of $7.9 billion on K-12 education. In the 2024-2025 school year, that number was $11.5 billion. 

Big jump, right?

Well, if you adjust for 2025 dollars, that $7.9 billion spent on K-12 education in 2009-2010 is the equivalent of $11.9 billion, or about $400 million less than what the state spent on K-12 education last school year.

Let me repeat that.

The state is spending the equivalent of $400 million less on K-12 education than they did 15 years ago, adjusted for inflation.

Funny Greg didn’t mention that.

Part II — Privatizers Force Property Tax Increases

Now let’s look at charters and vouchers. Let’s just set aside how poorly charters prepare kids, or how the EdChoice program is an unconstitutional scheme that provides not a single dollar to a parent or child and voucher test scores aren’t great either, compared with school district counterparts.

Let’s just look at the money.

In the 2009-2010 school year, Ohio sent $768 million to charter schools and vouchers. 

Last school year, that number was $2.3 billion. 

For those of you scoring at home, that’s a more than 100% increase in funding for these privatization efforts … above inflation!

So while in 2009-2010 the state spent about same percentage of their K-12 spend on the percentage of kids who attended public schools at the time, last year the state spent 77% of their K-12 spend on the 84% of kids who attended public schools.

This cut in the share of state funding going to public school students can be directly tied to the state more than doubling the inflationary increase on charter schools and vouchers over the last 15 years.

Bottom line: What has this meant in funding for Ohio’s public school kids?

Well, in 2009-2010, the state, after deducting charter school and voucher funding, provided $7.1 billion for Ohio’s public school students. 

Adjusted for inflation, that’s $10.7 billion in today’s dollars. 

(I would also like to add that the 2009-2010 school year was the first year of the Evidence Based model of school funding that I shaped as the Chairman of the Primary and Secondary Education Subcommittee on the Ohio House Finance Committee. We pulled off this investment — greater than last school year’s investment, adjusted for inflation — in the middle of the Great Recession. So it’s not like we had shit tons of money lying around the way lawmakers do now. Which should tell you about the priorities back then vs. today.)

I digress.

Last school year, Ohio’s public school students received $9.1 billion.

That means that Ohio’s public school students are receiving $1.6 billion less, adjusted for inflation, than they did 15 years ago.

Should I mention here that not a single penny of the more than $1 billion going to vouchers is publicly audited to ensure the money goes to educate kids rather than Lambos for Administrators?

Anyway.

Put another way: If Ohio lawmakers and governors had simply kept the same commitment to charter schools and vouchers that they did 15 years ago and kept pace with inflation on their K-12 spend, Ohio’s public school students would have received $1.6 billion more last year than they actually did. 

In other words, we’d have a fully funded Fair School Funding Plan.

I’m not asking the legislature or Governor to do anything crazy here. No elimination of vouchers and charters. 

This is simply doing inflationary increases and making sure the percentage of state funding going to each sector (public, charter and voucher) matched the percentage of kids attending each sector. 

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, if the state had actually let “money follow the child”, Ohio’s public school students would have a fully funded Fair School Funding Plan and there would stillhave a $1.2 billion charter and voucher program!

Instead, state leaders have so overvalued private school vouchers and charter schools that now we have an unconstitutional EdChoice voucher program that doesn’t send a single dollar to a parent or student, charter schools that spend about double the amount per pupil on administration that public schools spend while tragically failing to graduate students, and a school funding formula that’s severely underfunded for the 84% of students who attend public school districts. 

While Greg might tell school districts, “Quit your bitching!”, I might humbly suggest that school districts haven’t bitched enough.

So when people complain about property taxes, directly point fingers at the Ohio legislature and Governor because they’re doing what they’ve always done — force you to fund the only thing — public schools — the Ohio Constitution requires them to fund. 

It’s governmental malpractice. And our kids are the ones who suffer.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Education Industry, Ethics, Evil, For-Profit, Ohio, Privatization, Vouchers

Trump’s Shocking Destruction of the Department of Justice

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2025 //
3

The New York Times published a deeply researched article about the Trump administration’s systematic destruction of the U.S. Department of Justice.

This is a gift article, meaning that non-subscribers may open the link.

Traditionally, the Department of Justice is independent of the administration in power.

Trump has broken down all the guardrails that protected the Department from political interference.

Trump selected Pam Bondi as Attorney General to carry out his wishes. He selected his personal defense attorneys as Bondi’s top assistants. Hundreds of career officials were fired. Thousands have left. The ethics officer was fired, because he insisted that the Department abide by ethics rules. The pardons attorney was fired, because Trump wanted to give pardons to friends, like actor Mel Gibson, who wanted his gun rights restored despite his history of domestic violence.

The Justice Department is now completely under the personal control of Trump. It is an instrument of his whims.

In one example, the Department of Justice sued a prestigious law firm for discriminating against white men, even though the law firm is 97% white. Why? The firm has represented Democrats.

The agency responsible for investigating domestic terrorism has been gutted. Civil rights enforcement has turned to attacking racial inequities and defending aggrieved white men.

The New York Times is the one major newspaper that has not bowed to Trump or capitulated to his threats. We sometimes criticize the Times for its efforts to be “on the one hand, on the other,” but this is not one of those articles.

This is a straightforward demonstration of the politicization and gutting of a bedrock protector of our democracy.

This article documents the early stages of fascism.

Categories Civil Rights, Corruption, Democracy, Disruption, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Injustice, Justice, Trump

Federal Judge Rules That Trump Regime Cannot Withhold $1.2 Billion from UCLA

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2025 //
2

Federal Judge Rita F. Lin ruled that the federal government cannot withhold $1.2 billion in funding for medical and scientific research as punishment for alleged anti-Senitism. This is an important victory for free speech, academic freedom, and the First Amendment. The Trump administration’s efforts to impose its views on the nation’s institutions of higher education—and U.S. research funding as leverage is unprecedented in American history.

The Los Angeles Times reported the decision.

A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from imposing a $1.2-billion fine on UCLA along with stipulations for deep campus changes in exchange for being eligible for federal grants.

The decision is a major win for universities that have struggled to resist President Trump’s attempt to discipline “very bad” universities that he claims have mistreated Jewish students, forcing them to pay exorbitant fines and agree to adhere to conservative standards.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The preliminary injunction, issued by U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin of the Northern District of California, rendered moot — for now — nearly every aspect of a more than 7,000-word settlement offer the federal government sent to the University of California in August after suspending $584 million in medical, science and energy research grants to the Los Angeles campus.

The government said it froze the funds after finding UCLA broke the law by using race as a factor in admissions, recognizing transgender people’s gender identities, and not taking antisemitism complaints seriously during pro-Palestinian protests in 2024 — claims that UC has denied.

The settlement proposal outlined extensive changes to push UCLA — and by extension all of UC — ideologically rightward by calling for an end to diversity-related scholarships, restrictions on foreign student enrollment, a declaration that transgender people do not exist, an end to gender-affirming healthcare for minors, the imposition of free speech limits and more.

“The administration and its executive agencies are engaged in a concerted campaign to purge ‘woke,’ ‘left,’ and ‘socialist’ viewpoints from our country’s leading universities,” Lin wrote in her opinion. “Agency officials, as well as the president and vice president, have repeatedly and publicly announced a playbook of initiating civil rights investigations of preeminent universities to justify cutting off federal funding, with the goal of bringing universities to their knees and forcing them to change their ideological tune.

Universities are then presented with agreements to restore federal funding under which they must change what they teach, restrict student anonymity in protests, and endorse the administration’s view of gender, among other things. Defendants submit nothing to refute this….”

Universities including Columbia, Brown and Cornell agreed to pay the government hundreds of millions to atone for alleged violations similar to the ones facing UCLA. The University of Pennsylvania and University of Virginia also reached agreements with the Trump administration that were focused, respectively, on ending recognition of transgender people and halting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Friday’s decision, for the time being, spares the UC from having to proceed with negotiations that it reluctantly entered with the federal government to avoid further grant cuts and restrictions across the system, which receives $17.5 billion in federal funding each year. UC President James B. Milliken has said that the $1.2-billion fine would “completely devastate” UC and that the system, under fire from the Trump administration, faces “one of the gravest threats in UC’s 157-year history.”

This is not the first time a judge rebuked Trump for his higher education campaign.

Massachusetts-based U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs in September ordered the government to reverse billions in cuts to Harvard. But that case did not wade directly into settlement negotiations.

Those talks have proceeded slowly. In a court hearing last week, a Department of Justice lawyer said “there’s no evidence that any type of deal with the United States is going to be happening in the immediate future.” The lawyer argued that the settlement offer was only an idea that had not received UC approval.
Because of that, he said, a lawsuit was inappropriate. Lin disagreed.

“Plaintiffs’ harm is already very real. With every day that passes, UCLA continues to be denied the chance to win new grants, ratcheting up defendants’ pressure campaign,” she wrote. “And numerous UC faculty and staff have submitted declarations describing how defendants’ actions have already chilled speech throughout the UC system.”

The case was brought by more a dozen faculty and staff unions and associations from across UC’s 10 campuses, who said the federal government was violating their 1st Amendment rights and constitutional right to due process.

UC, which has avoided directly challenging the government in court, was not party to the suit.
“This is not only a historic lawsuit — brought by every labor union and faculty union in the UC — but also an incredible win,” said Veena Dubal, a UC Irvine law professor and general counsel for one of the plaintiffs, the American Assn. of University Professors, which has members across UC campuses.

Dubal called the decision “a turning point in the fight to save free speech and research in the finest public school system in the world.”
Asked about Friday’s outcome, a spokesperson said UC “remains focused on our vital work to drive innovation, advance medical breakthroughs and strengthen the nation’s long-term competitiveness. UC remains committed to protecting the mission, governance, and academic freedom of the university.”

Categories Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, Higher Education, Medicine, Research, Science

Trump’s Decadent “Great Gatsby” Party at Mar-a-Lago While Poor People Go Hungry

By dianeravitch
November 14, 2025 //
23

If there was ever a symbol of decadence, greed, and heartlessness in 2025, it must be the “Great Gatsby” party that Trump provided for his uber-rich friends at Mar-a-Lago in the midst of the government shutdown.

At the same time, 42 million Americans were wondering if their food stamps (SNAP) would be available for the month. The Trump Department of Justice was in court arguing that the administration had no obligation to fully fund SNAP, and the decision was not in the hands of the courts anyway. So, no, as far as Trump was concerned, let the losers go hungry.

The party was indeed decadent, as the food and drink were abundant. Caviar, champagne, truffles, stone claw crabs. No expensive delicacy left behind.

Even more decadent–considering that this is the home of the President–were the skimpily clad showgirls who waved boa feathers to show off their bodies.

If the goal was to display the vast disparity in wealth and income that plagues our society, Trump succeeded.

I’ve gathered a few videos and commentaries. See what you missed.

This is Jon Stewart with commentary on the party and video of the festivities. I especially liked the barely clad young woman in a giant champagne glass. His Mar-a-Lago spiel starts at 5:00.

Here is Amy Goodman of “Democracy Now” on the big party and what it signifies.

There were more than 200 paid performers, mostly showgirls in provocative outfits. The girls in pink sequins displayed their partially/nude butts.

You too can go to the party with no commentary, because the footage is on C-SPAN.

Ka Vang, a columnist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, roasted Trump and his buddies.

It pays to be a billlionaire if you are a friend of Trump!

Categories Billionaires, Character, Corruption, Cruelty, Evil, Inequality, Trump

Megyn Kelly Wondered if Epstein Was Really a Pedophile Because He Liked 15-Year-Olds, Not 5-Year-Olds

By dianeravitch
November 14, 2025 //
14

How low can they go? MAGA television host Megyn Kelly denied yesterday that Jeffrey Epstein was actually a pedophile. People she knows told her that when a man has sexual relations with a 15-year-old, it’s not pedophilia. She seems to agree. After all, she says, a 15-year-old is way different from a 5-year-old.

Here’s the relevant portion of Megyn Kelly’s remarks from the November 12 episode of her show, as reported by multiple outlets:

“I know somebody very, very close to this case who is in a position to know virtually everything. And this person has told me, from the start—years and years ago—that Jeffrey Epstein, in this person’s view, was not a pedophile.

“He was into the barely-legal type. Like, he liked 15-year-old girls. And I realise this is disgusting. I’m definitely not trying to make an excuse for this. I’m just giving you facts, that he wasn’t into, like, 8-year-olds. But he liked the very young teen types that could pass for even younger than they were, but would look legal to a passer-by.

“And that is what I believed, and that is what I reliably was told for many years. And it wasn’t until we heard from [Attorney General Pam Bondi] that they had tens of thousands of videos of alleged— forgive me, they used to call it ‘kiddie porn,’ now they call it child sexual abuse material — on his computer, that for the first time I thought, ‘Oh no, he was an actual pedophile.’

“Only a pedophile gets off on young-children-abuse videos. … We have yet to see anybody come forward and say, ‘I was under 10, I was under 14 when I first came within his purview.’ You can say that’s a distinction without a difference. I think there is a difference. There’s a difference between a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old, you know?”  

If I had a 15-year-old daughter, I would not approve of her having sexual relations with anyone, most certainly not a 40-year-old man.

Categories Education Reform
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