Timothy Snyder: When Donald Meets Vlad

August 14, 2025 //

Trump and Putin are meeting Friday in Alaska to discuss Ukraine. Ukrainian leader Zelensky was not invited, nor were any representatives of Europe. Trump will hear Putin’s grievances and claims. He will hear no other. After Russia intensified its drone bombing of Ukrainian civilian targets, Trump demanded a ceasefire. Putin ignored him. He gave his a deadline of 50 days (!) to stop the attacks. Putin intensified the attacks. Then Trump said the deadline was 10-12 days. That was two weeks ago. Putin got a face-to-face meeting with Trump on American soil, and his war against Ukraine goes on.

Timothy Snyder is one of the nation’s pre-eminent historians of Europe. He taught at Yale University for many years, but decided to accept an offer to teach at the University of Toronto after Trump was re-elected in 2024. He is the author of many books, including the national bestseller On Tyranny.

Snyder writes:

In the ancient world, people spoke of “Ultima Thule,” a mythical land in the extreme north, the end of the earth.

By venturing north to Alaska to meet Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump reaches his own Ultima Thula, the arctic endpoint of a foreign policy dreamworld.

The premise of Trump’s foreign relations is that foreign leaders can be dealt with like Americans, with fantastic promises and obnoxious bullying.

The fantasies do not function beyond America’s borders. The empty offer of a “beautiful” future does move dictators who commit crimes for their own visions, or affect people who are defending their families from a criminal invasion.

Ukraine has been resisting Russia’s full-scale invasion for three and a half years. Ukrainians fight because Russians invade their land, steal their wealth, kidnap their children and raise them as Russians, torture civilians in basements, murder people with any sort of association with politics or civil society, and destroy their sovereignty.

Putin, for that matter, has his own vision of a beautiful future, and no reason to prefer Trump’s to his own. Putin’s utopia is one of a Ukraine with no government, with a population cowed by torture, with children stolen and brainwashed, with patriots murdered and buried in mass graves, with resources in Russian hands.

Like Trump’s fantasizing, Trump’s bullying also does not work abroad. To be sure, many Americans are afraid of Trump. He has purged his own political party through stochastic violence. He is deploying the US military as a police force, first in California and then in Washington DC.

But foreign enemies apprehend these intimidation tactics differently. In Moscow, deployments of soldiers inside the United States look like weakness. Trump is signalling that he sees the task of the US military as to oppress unarmed Americans. The very move that shocks Americans delights America’s foes.

The tough talk may resonate in America, where we confuse words with actions. But for Russian leaders it covers a weak foreign policy. Trump has made extraordinary concessions to Russia in exchange for nothing at all. Russia has repaid him by continuing the war and seeking to win it — and by laughing at Trump on state-controlled television.

What are those concessions? Just by meeting Putin in Alaska, Trump gives the Russian dictator a chance to spread his own story of his invasion of Ukraine, both to the Americans around Trump and to the American press. By shaking hands with an indicted war criminal, Trump signals that the killings, the tortures, the kidnapings do not matter.

Even the choice of Alaska is a concession, and an odd one. Russians, including major figures in state media, routinely claim Alaska for Russia. As one of Putin’s special envoys put it, Putin’s journey to Alaska is a “domestic flight.”

Inviting people who claim your territory inside your main military base on that territory to discuss a war of aggression they started without any participation of the country they invaded — well, that is just about as far as a certain logic of fantasy can go. It is Ultima Thule.

It is Ultima Thule, the very end, because Trump has already conceded the more fundamental issues. He does not speak of the need for justice for Russian war criminals, or of the need for Russia to pay reparations. The Trump administration grants that Russia can determine Ukraine’s and America’s foreign policy on the crucial point of NATO membership. They have accepted that Russia’s invasions should lead not only to de facto but also de jure changes in sovereign control over territory.

It would take a longer essay to explain how senseless these concessions are. Accepting that invasion can legally change borders undoes the world order. Granting Russia the right to decide the foreign policy of others encourages further aggression by Russia. Dropping the obvious legal and historical responses to criminal wars of aggression — reparations and trials — encourages war in general.

Trump speaks loudly and carries a small stick. The notion that words alone can do the trick has led Trump to the position that Putin’s words matter, and so he must go to Alaska for a “listening exercise.” Trump’s career has been full of listening to Putin, and then repeating what Putin says.

Trump and Putin are moved by the future perception of their greatness. Putin believes that this can be achieved by war, and an element of this war is the manipulation of the American president. Trump believes that this can achieved by being associated with peace, which, so long as he is unwilling to make policy himself, puts him in the power of the warmaker.

Putin is not moved to end the war when his own propaganda is repeated by the president of the United States. He cannot be enticed by a vague vision of a better world, since he has in mind his own very specific atrocity.

In Alaska, Trump reaches his personal Ultima Thula, the limits of his own personal world of magical talk.

He faces a very simple issue: will Putin accept an unconditional ceasefire or not.

Putin has refused any such thing. The Russians propose an obviously ridiculous and provocative counter: that Ukraine should now formally concede to Russia territory that Russia does not even occupy, lands on which Ukraine has built its defenses. And then Russia can of course attack again, from a far better position.

Putin knows that Trump wants the Nobel Peace Prize. And so Putin’s obvious move is to suggest to Trump that war will end someday, and Trump will get the credit, if the two of them just keep talking (and while Russia keeps bombing).

If Trump leaves Alaska without Putin having agreed to an unconditional ceasefire, there are two paths that Trump can take. He can continue the fantasy, though it will become ever more obvious, even to his friends and supporters, that the fantasy is Putin’s.

Or Trump can make the policy that will make the war harder for Putin, and thereby bring its end closer.

The United States has not formalized its outlandish concessions to Russia, and could take them back in one press conference. The United States has the policy instruments to change the direction of the war in Ukraine, and could employ them.

Trump has threatened “serious consequences” if Putin does not accept an unconditional ceasefire. Those are words, and thus far the consequences of Trump’s words, for Russia, have been more words. This all becomes clear now, at Ultima Thule, clear to everyone.

When Trump reaches the border of his fantasy world, what is his next step? Where will he go after Ultima Thule?

Categories Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, History, Ignorance, International, Lies, Stupid, Trump, Tyranny

Why Jess Piper is a Star

By dianeravitch

August 14, 2025 //

Jess Piper lives on a farm in rural Missouri. She taught English literature for 16 years, then decided to run for the legislature even though her district is ruby-red. Since then, she has been organizing, agitating, encouraging Democrats to run for office in every district. It annoys her that Democrats don’t even put up candidates in districts, so many voters have no choice. She was a speaker at the last conference of the Network for Public Education in Columbus, Ohio, and she was wonderful. Oh, yes, she’s a big presence on TikTok.

She wrote on her blog:

Have you ever seen a bucket with live crabs in it? It’s fascinating to watch. I’ve seen it a few times when I visited the coast and stood to watch fishermen on the piers.

A fisherman can pull up crabs all day long and leave them in a bucket. He won’t have to babysit the bucket.

The crabs won’t let any of their own escape. As soon as one starts to find a place to pull itself up, another crab will grab it and pull it back down into the bucket. The creatures are stuck there not because there is no way out, but because they won’t let another crab try to get out.

No matter how long you watch in amazement and horror, the crabs are caught in a game that never stops. One crab gets high enough to grab the outer part on the bucket only to be pulled back by the others.

Like a circle of hell…round and round for eternity. Dante style.

It turns out, some people aren’t much better than crabs.

You have likely heard of the crab in the bucket mentality, but if you haven’t, here’s the gist: it’s the mindset of people who try to prevent others from gaining a favorable position, even if attaining such position would not directly impact those trying to stop them.

Every crab for itself. It’s jealousy and envy and spite.

If I can’t have it, neither can you. And if you try to get it, I will pull you back down.

The GOP mindset in two sentences.

It used to be a little less pronounced than it is now — I don’t know many Trump supporters who are happy these days even though they got every thing they’ve ever wanted and more. The crabs in a bucket mentality has only gotten worse.

Bitterness and cruelty are the point. The resentment Republicans show to people who aren’t like them is so ingrained in the party, that I don’t know that I need to expand on that point. They hate with a viciousness that seems to have no bounds.

A Trump supporter yells at counter-protesters outside of the U.S. Supreme Court during the Million MAGA March in Washington. Credit: Caroline Brehman.

Trump supporters, and most Republicans, have a problem with others getting ahead or even making progress. Look at the way the regime is dismantling public education and civil rights and women’s healthcare and even programs for the most oppressed and marginalized groups.

Attacks on public education are meant to keep poor kids off the playing field. The fact that states like Missouri have defunded schools for so many years that 33% of schools are running a 4-day week is evidence. Almost every 4-day week school district is in a defunded rural area.

The fact that my state is now 50th in educational funding while finding millions in taxpayer money to send to private religious schools is another piece of evidence.

If you try to better yourself through education, they will attempt to pull you back down into the bucket.

The crab mentality.

Why would I care if someone is gay and wants to marry? What has that got to do with me or my marriage? Nothing. Why would I ever interfere with the love two other people have for each other? Why would I stand in the way?

I wouldn’t, but many Republicans would. It would seem they think letting others get married keeps them down…in the bucket.

If a person feels they were born the wrong gender and wants to express their own gender differently, why would I have anything to say about that? It’s not my body and it’s not my business. Why would I stand in the way of trans rights or anyone’s ability to get the healthcare that helps them realize their happiness?

I wouldn’t, but many Republicans would. It would seem like letting a trans kid play soccer makes them uncomfortable and keeps them down…in the bucket.

If someone is religious, and it’s not my religion, what would that have to do with me? If they worship in a church or a synagogue or a mosque, why would I have any say about that and how in the world would that impose any restrictions on my own religion or non-religion?

It wouldn’t, but many Republicans think it does. It would seem letting other people make up their own minds about their own faith makes them feel less than and keeps them down…in the bucket.

This mentality is not contained to one party, though. Democrats do it as well.

Ask me how I know…

I ran for office in ‘22. I called the party to ask for help, they told me, “you can’t win.” Okay, I know I am not at all likely to flip a seat that no Democrat has won in three decades, but why is “you can’t win” the first thing the party would tell a rural person standing up in a red district?

I wonder if this quip has caused others to decide against running?

I ran anyway. I ran hard. I did everything I could to at least show up for the people, listen to folks, and make a difference. I raised almost 275K in a ruby red district. That’s nearly unheard of.

I signed up to walk in parades and have booths at fairs. My team knocked over 1,000 doors and we called about that many numbers. We cleaned up the VAN data that had not been recorded for years.

That was work I did for free for the party, but I was getting too much attention and some of the crabs weren’t happy. I needed to be pulled back down into the bucket.

From Missouri Democratic politico Jeff Smith:

Others might argue that Jess Piper’s energetic state House campaign in northwest Missouri, which has already raised over a quarter million dollars this cycle, is another counterexample showing Democrats’ commitment to branching out beyond the two major metros.

That’s an extraordinary fundraising haul for any rural House candidate, especially a Democrat in an un-winnable district. Piper has leveraged all available social media tools by tweeting, Tik Tok-ing and Instagramming her way to raise more than any other Democratic House candidate.

In fact, the last two fundraising reports show Piper with more cash on hand than the entire House Democratic Campaign Committee.

But, I suspect, instead of deploying a significant portion of her financial haul in large chunks to 4 or 5 swing districts where she could have a decisive impact and help her party gain seats — perhaps even helping position herself to chair the party next cycle — she’ll instead spend it to close her margin from 30 to perhaps 20 points.

See what he did there?

How dare I run in a rural race and expect to win? How dare I circumvent the party’s expectations? How dare I raise money in a red district because it’s not worth it and I can’t win anyway. How dare I not send donor money to the party or to others who might win an easier race in an easier district.

How dare I attempt to get out of the bucket and pull my community out with me?

We can easily recognize the crabs in the other party, but we need to examine what we do as well. We need to step away from jealousy and greed and pride and spite.

We can’t make progress by pulling others down. We can’t win by keeping others from rising above their condition.

Help those pulling themselves up and they will reach back down and help the others still stuck.

It’s the only way.

~Jess

Categories Democracy, Democrats, Missouri, Politics, Republicans

New Hampshire: Vouchers Are Costly Subsidy for Mostly Affluent Families

By dianeravitch

August 14, 2025 //

Garry Rayno, veteran statehouse reporter for InDepth NH, writes here about the now-familiar voucher scam. Republican legislators claimed that low-income students would use vouchers to transfer to private schools that better met their needs. When New Hampshire removed income limits on families that want vouchers, the voucher program proved to be a subsidy for students who were already enrolled in private schools, mostly religious schools. The program is more costly than predicted, and public schools will see cuts to finance vouchers.

Rayno has the story:

Free money is free money so many New Hampshire parents in the last month lined up at the non-public schoolhouse door to grab what they can.

The parents of the 11,000 students who applied for grants from the newly opened vault in the state treasury are not the ones advocates tout as the beneficiary of the Education Freedom Account program if New Hampshire resembles other state’s experiences when they transitioned to “universal vouchers.”

In those states like Arizona, Ohio and North Carolina very few students left public schools to take a voucher, almost all of the new enrollees are students currently in religious and private schools or homeschooled as they are here in New Hampshire.

These are parents who did not qualify when there was a salary cap of 350 percent of the federal poverty level or $74,025 for a family of two and $112,487 for a family of four, because they made too much money.

Consequently, most of the new Granite State enrollees will have family incomes above $112,487 and if the average grant is similar to what it was last school year, $5,204, the state will be liable for well over $52 million this fiscal year because there are a number of exceptions for the cap that could add 1,000 or more students.

As has been the history of the program, the number of students and the cost have always been way more than the department’s estimates.

Lawmakers used estimates from Drew Cline, the State Board of Education Chair and the head of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, a Libertarian organization, that were substantially less than 10,000, and they only budgeted $39 million for the first year of the biennium and $47.8 million for the second year when the salary cap will rise to 12,500 or when the cost is likely to be over $65 million.

For the biennium, the program is likely to be $30 million more than budgeted or more than what was spent last school year for the program.

The money comes from the Education Trust Fund which also pays for the state adequacy grant to school districts, charter school per-pupil grants (about twice the public school per-pupil grant), special education costs and the school building aid program.

The fund was expected to be in deficit this year and require an infusion from the general fund to meet its obligations, when general fund revenues are shrinking and not be able to cover the cost.

You can see where this is headed. The current crop of lawmakers in the majority will say they will have to cut back on state aid to public education just as the state Supreme Court agreed with a superior court ruling in the ConVal case that the state has failed to meet its constitutional obligation to pay for an adequate education for its students.

The decision did not say the state is obligated to pay for an adequate education for students in religious and private schools or being homeschooled.

The greatest vendor beneficiaries of the new state obligation according to out-of-date data from the administrator of the EFA program, The Children’s Scholarship Fund NH, are religious schools, followed by private schools and homeschooling parents.

But the students in those programs are not the ones touted to benefit from the EFA program.

Even before its beginning, voucher advocates touted the EFA program as an opportunity for low-income parents to find the best educational environment for their students if they do not do well in the public school environment.

How many of these students actually left public schools since the program began to take EFA grants?

The Department of Education lists the number of “switchers” for each year and a couple extra years before the program began.

The total for the first four years is 1,417 if you remove the two years prior to the start of the program that the department uses to derive its suspect 36 percent figure.

The agency’s statistics also list the number of students who re-enrolled in public school after the first year and that number is 214, so the actual switchers over the first four years are 1,203.

The total enrollment over the first four years is 14,192 which would be 8.5 percent and if you just account for the new students every year it would be less than 20 percent of the students that left public school to join the program at the most optimistic.

More than 80 percent of the students who have enrolled in the program were not in public schools when they were awarded EFA grants that were as high as $8,670 last school year when students received the base per-student aid, as well as differential aid by qualifying for free and reduced lunches and special education services, at the same rates as public schools.

While students in public schools and the EFA program have to meet the same criteria to receive the differential aid for free and reduced lunches, the students in the EFA seeking special education aid only need a medical professional to say they need the services and not the elaborate process students and parents have to traverse in the public school system.

The next question is if EFA grants are a determining factor in being able to send your kid to a private or a religious school or is it essentially a subsidy allowing the family to take a trip to Europe or a ski vacation in the Rockies.

Paying to send your child to the best private schools in the state is not cheap, for example attending St. Paul’s School in Concord costs $76,650 according to the school’s website including room and board, while Phillips Exeter costs $69,537 for boarding students and $54,312 for day students.

Holderness, Dublin, Kimball Union, and Proctor Academy all cost about $80,000 a year for boarding students, with different rates for day students, and New Hampton costs about $75,000 for boarding students and $45,000 for day students.

Derryfield, which only takes day students, costs $43,650 a year according to its website.

Religious schools tuition varies a great deal, but Concord Christian costs $7,600 a year, while Laconia Christian, which received the most in EFA money for the 2021-2022 school year of any private or religious school according to data from the Children’s Scholarship Fund NH, the only year the organization reported vendor receipts, has a sliding rate of $7,536 for Kindergarten to fifth grade, $8,087 for grades six to eight, and $8,570 for high school.

Trinity High School in Manchester costs $14,832 for the coming school year, while Bishop Brady in Concord charges $15,250 and Bishop Guertin in Nashua charges $17,225 plus $600 in fees, according to the schools’ websites.

You can see why the religious schools are the prime beneficiary of the free money that is now available to every parent of a school age student in the state.

If nothing else is done, about $120 million will be spent on the EFA program in the next two school years without much accountability.

With that kind of tax money flowing mostly to religious schools, the program’s administrator should have to provide a yearly breakdown of where the money is being spent several months after every school year for public consumption.

The Children’s Scholarship Program NH retains up to 10 percent of the grants as its administrative fee, which would be about $12 million over the biennium, making the organization the biggest beneficiary of the EFA program.

This organization, with the blessing of former Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut, refused to make program data available to the Legislative Budget Assistant’s Office for a performance audit of the program required by state law.

The limited audit is expected to be released by the end of the year.

When a compliance check was done in-house by the Department of Education after the first two years of the EFA program of 100 applications, 25 percent contained errors that allowed students to enroll when the information provided was inadequate.

People need to tell their state representatives and senators to make the program more accountable for the millions of dollars of state taxpayers’ money it spends.

Because if they don’t demand transparency, the current crop of lawmakers will shift more public school costs on to your future property tax bills while blaming the public schools and not themselves for irresponsible spending.

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.

Categories Accountability, Ethics, Failure, Fake, Funding, New Hampshire, Privatization, Vouchers

RFK Jr. Cancellation of Vaccine Research Was “the Most Dangerous Public Health Decision,” Says Expert

By dianeravitch

August 14, 2025 //

PBS ran an important segment on Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s decision to cancel $500 million in grants to study mNRA vaccine grants. These are the vaccines that broke the COVID pandemic.

PBS interviewed scientists about this surprise decision. If you would like to see the interviews, open the link.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to cancel nearly half a billion dollars in federal funding for mRNA vaccine development has left many public health experts and scientists stunned.

mRNA technology was central in the battle against COVID and can be developed more quickly than traditional vaccines. But anti-vaccine communities and skeptics don’t trust its safety.

Geoff Bennett spoke with Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, about the latest in mRNA vaccine research and the implications of Kennedy’s move.

“I can say unequivocally that this was the most dangerous public health decision I have ever seen made by a government body,” Osterholm said.

U.S. children’s health in decline

As the Trump administration works to reimagine public health through its “Make America Healthy Again” initiative, a new study paints a stark picture of the challenges facing the nation’s kids.

The health of American children has significantly worsened across several key indicators since 2007, according to a recent study published in JAMA.

Categories Education Reform

Nancy Bailey: School Reforms That Succeed

By dianeravitch

August 13, 2025 //

Nancy Bailey frames her latest post as a program to end truancy. But in fact, she lays out a bullet list of reforms that would make school what it’s supposed to be: a welcoming place to learn, to make friends, to expand your world, to learn how to work with others.

She writes:

School starts for students whose families rely on public education, which the Trump administration is trying to end. For years, however, school reforms have made schools less personable; as a result, school attendance has decreased, especially since the pandemic.

Why do kids reject school? Bullying, harassment, family problems, parental work schedules, mental health, illnesses, transportation, and residual effects of COVID might be issues that school districts must address.

Another reason is disengagement; public education has become impersonal, due to terrible school policies over the years, which may overlook the unique capabilities of individual students. If no welcome mat is rolled out to show children they’re valued, why would they care?

It wouldn’t be hard to fix the issues discouraging students from going to school. Teachers do their best, but poor schools, lacking resources or following poorly devised reforms, face a greater challenge in attracting students.

Here are a few considerations.

Provide safe schools with smaller class sizes.

School officials and communities must ensure student safety. Children and teens should not fear school.

Smaller class sizes (at least one homeroom) allow teachers to know students, enabling friendships, ending bullying, and better welcoming families.

Every school leader, teacher, and staff member should know the warning signs of students. Here’s one checklist. There are more online.

School gatherings like sports, plays, art exhibits, concerts, etc., help bring families and students together and show school pride in students’ achievements. The motto: Know and Care About Every Student!

Teachers and students need support.

Teachers and students also require support, counselors, school psychologists, social workers, and outside specialists to help when a child is facing trauma or a crisis. Resources and placement settings for children must be available.

End poor and over-assessment.

Pushing privatization, high-stakes standardized testing has been a tool used against public schools and teachers. Students aligned to tests focus on the same information, but much is excluded, and individual strengths may be overlooked. Parents have understood this for years!

Children judged harshly for poor test performance are left without options and safety nets, made to feel like failures.

Want to excite students about school? End repetitive high-stakes standardized tests!

Focus on child development.

Students are pushed to perform beyond their age and development. Kindergartners are expected to read earlier. High school studentsare expected to do college work.

Reduce pressure with a focus on what’s appropriate for the age and development of students.

Increase community support.

Community businesses supporting local public schools help students, teachers, and families. Too often, the focus is on the future workforce, getting students to do what companies want.

What’s most important is the student focus, helping young people to know that they belong, businesses are behind them, and that they have the freedom to choose what they do based on their interests and abilities.

Businesses can sponsor concessions at sports events, high school plays, or art shows, or they might work with teachers to tutor students. Acts like this tell students that the community believes in them and their achievements. They are proud of their public schools.

Offer a variety of extracurricular activities.

Extracurricular activities encompass a wide range of topics. (Prep Scholar (scroll) lists activities.)

In the Abbott Elementary episode “Wishlist,” the teacher Jacob tries to find what interests a student who seems disengaged. Most teachers work to unearth what students care about. This student eventually shares his interest in golf.

Extracurricular activities can bridge the gap between academic pursuits and leisure.

Insist that students have qualified teachers and staff.

Well-prepared teachers, counselors, paraprofessionals, psychologists, nurses, librarians, media specialists (including educational technologists), and administrators, fairly paid, comprise a school well-equipped to teach subjects and provide the support students need to learn effectively. These professionals should understand how to engage students in learning.

When school districts show disdain for teachers, water down credentials, or teachers face cuts or staff shortages, children don’t get the assistance they need. Students may learn incorrect information, or critical subjects essential for their future success may be omitted.

Establish school libraries with real librarians in everyschool.

Research indicates that children who attend public schools with school libraries tend to perform better academically. Sadly, many poor school districts have closed their school libraries.

How do children learn to read if a school doesn’t provide them access to books and enjoyable reading material?

Offer students socialization opportunities.

Understanding how to care for others essentially begins in school with integration, during school recess, where kids learn through free, supervised play and opportunities to interact with those who may look different and hold different beliefs.

We want students not to fear their fellow students, but to like them, not merely to tolerate them.

Develop innovative, nonstigmatizing special education programs.

Since 1975, public school teachers have worked to address the needs of students with disabilities. Ensuring that children have access to quality programs and well-qualified teachers who communicate effectively with parents is key.

Welcoming children with differences and embracing diversity is a strength of America’s public school system.

Reduce technology.

Over the years, a significant portion of school funding has been allocated to technology, yet we’re told that learning outcomes have not improved. Now, serious questions surround the implementation of AI in public schools.

Most parents want their children to rely less on screens and more on beneficial human connections, whether it be with their families or friends. It seems prudent to proceed slowly with AI and any technology. Help students work on human relationships.

Run a vibrant arts program.

Since NCLB, and even before, school districts cut art programs; yet, music, acting, dance, drawing, painting, and chorus give children a creative outlet to explore their interests. These classes are both fun and critical for learning, and they shouldn’t be made tougher or used for assessment. Nor should they be eliminated. The arts can lead to careers for many.

Children with mental health difficulties and the poor may thrive with the arts, and the arts can keep children in school.

Welcome students with lovely school facilities.

Studies have shown that clean, efficiently run school buildingswith a positive school climate can make a significant difference in student progress. Students don’t want to attend buildings that resemble prisons. The school should be clean, safe, and welcoming.

Schools should also ensure that there are few interruptions and that classrooms are conducive to learning with comfortable temperatures and quietness.

Ensure that students have a whole curriculum.

Public schools should offer a variety of instructional options starting at a young age to pique a child’s curiosity. Reading and math are important, but so are geography, science, history, civics, life skills, and the arts, all of which should have a place in public education.

Public schools have never been perfect, but they have educated the masses, and it’s reckless and irresponsible to dismantle them without proof that whatever replaces them will be better. If you want students to come to school, end harsh school reforms, and make public schools a personable, exciting place to be.

Categories Education Reform

Becky Pringle: Hungry Children Can’t Learn

By dianeravitch

August 13, 2025 //

Trump and his compliant allies in Congress took pride in the One Big Ugly Bill that they passed in early July. But it offers reasons for shame, not pride. The Trump bill finances tax cuts for the richest Americans by cutting food for schoolchildren and Medicaid for millions of children.

The Republican budget bill locks in benefits for the rich and hunger for children of the poor.

Imagine laughing, applauding, and feeling proud of this heartless bill! I

President Trump Signs His "Big, Beautiful Bill" Into Law And Celebrates Independence Day At The White House

President Donald Trump, joined by Republican lawmakers, signs the One, Big Beautiful Bill Act on July 04, 2025 in Washington, DC. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill will cut federal spending on SNAP by around $186 billion over the next decade. Samuel Corum—Getty Images

Becky Pringle, President of the NEA, writes in TIME magazine about the shamefulness of this legislation.

She writes:

Hunger in America’s public schools is a real problem, and it is heartbreaking. As the head of the largest union of educators in the country, I hear stories almost daily of how kids struggle and how schools and teachers step up to fill the gaps. It’s the school community in Kentucky filling a Blessing Box with foods to help fellow students and families who don’t have enough. It’s the teacher in Rhode Island who started a food “recycling” program to ensure no food goes to waste and to give students access to healthy snacks like cheese sticks, apples, yogurt, and milk.

School meals are more than a budget line item. They are lifelines that help millions of students learn and grow. But as families across America prepare for the new school year, millions of children face the threat of returning to classrooms without access to school meals.

President Donald Trump’s newly-signed tax bill, which Republicans overwhelmingly voted to pass, slashes food assistance benefits via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by an estimated $186 billion over the next decade—thelargest cut in American history. These devastating reductions will result in an estimated 18 million children losing access to free school meals.

The cuts shift the cost of school lunches to the states, costing them more than they can afford when they are already grappling with tighter budgets and substantial Republican-led Medicaid cuts.Twenty-three governors warned these cuts will lead to millions of Americans losing vital food assistance.

It’s hard to understand if you’ve never faced hunger, but millions of American children do not have access to enough food each day. In a recent survey of 1,000 teachers nationwide, three out of every four reported that their students are already coming to school hungry.

Our children can’t learn if they are hungry. As a middle-school science teacher for more than 30 years, I have seen the pain that hunger creates. It’s the student who skips breakfast so she can give it to her little brother. It’s the student who misbehaves because his stomach is rumbling. It’s the students who struggle in class after a weekend where they didn’t have a single full meal. Educators see this pain everyday, and that’s why they go above and beyond—buying classroom snacks with their own money—to support their students.

Free school meals represent commonsense and cost-effective public policy. They don’t just prevent hunger, they help kids succeed. Decades of research reviewed by the Food Research & Action Center shows that when students participate in school breakfast programs, behavior, academic performance, and academic achievement go up and tardiness goes down. When I stand in a room of bright and curious children, it breaks my heart that some of them are going without the food they need to learn and thrive—not because America can’t afford to feed them, but because adults in Washington decided they’d rather spend the money on tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy.

The cuts from the Republican tax bill will hit hardest in places where families are already struggling the most, especially in rural and Southern states where school nutrition programs are a lifeline to many. In Texas, 3.4 million kids, nearly two-thirds of students, are eligible for free and reduced lunch. In Mississippi, 439,000 kids, 99.7% of the student population, were eligible for free and reduced lunch during the 2022-2023 school year.

These are not abstract numbers. These are real children who show up to school eager to learn but are instead distracted by hunger and uncertainty about when they will eat again. America’s kids deserve better.

The National School Lunch Act of 1946 laid the foundation that public schools are places where children can receive a free breakfast and lunch each day. This shouldn’t be a partisan issue. For decades, Republican and Democratic administrations alike expanded school lunch programs, operating under the shared understanding that no child should go hungry at school in the richest country in the world.

But the extreme right wing of today’s Republican Party has walked away from that moral consensus—ripping away these programs to give another tax break to billionaires.

The Trump Administration’s authoritarian blueprint outlined in Project 2025 takes the anti-public education attacks even further by attempting to gut the Department of Education and to send tax dollars to private schools, and promoting ideologically-driven book bans and classroom censorship.

And now, as the Trump Administration and its allies work to destroy public education, they also have attempted tointimidate the National Education Association and our 3 million educators. They know we are powerful and vocal advocates for students and a formidable opponent to their attacks on public education. Last month, the relentless efforts of organized educators and our allies got the Trump Administration to release $7 billion in education funds it had tried to withhold.

Together, we will fight forward: for our vision where every student attends a safe, inclusive, supportive, and well-resourced public school, which includes nutritious meals for all students regardless of race or place.

We are educators. We don’t quit. We will continue to engage with school boards, town halls, state legislatures, and Congress to fight for students. Public education does not belong to politicians trying to dismantle it. It is for every student, parent, and educator who understands it has the power to transform lives.”

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Cruelty, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Funding, Health, Poverty, Trump

Trump Orders Review of Smithsonian Museums to Remove Unpatriotic Exhibits

By dianeravitch

August 13, 2025 //

The Trump administration has announced plans to review the contents of exhibitions at several Smithsonian institutions. Trump has made clear that he wants all exhibits purged of negative or unpatriotic content. He wants exhibits to show only the positive aspects of American history. This is called censorship. When Trump is gone, the full story of American history will be restored the good, the inspiring but also the dark episodes where people were treated unfairly.

The Washington Post reported::

The White House will launch a sweeping review of Smithsonian exhibitions, collections and operations ahead of America’s 250th-birthday celebrations next year — the first time the Trump administration has detailed steps to scrutinize the institution, which officials say should reflect the president’s call to restore “truth and sanity” to American history.

The vetting process would include reviewing public-facing and online content, curatorial processes and guidelines, exhibition planning and collection use, according to a letter sent to Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III on Tuesday and signed by White House senior associate Lindsey Halligan, Domestic Policy Council Director Vince Hale and White House Office of Management and Budget chief Russell Vought.

A White House official confirmed the plan, which was posted on the White House website Tuesday and first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

“The Smithsonian’s work is grounded in a deep commitment to scholarly excellence, rigorous research, and the accurate, factual presentation of history,” a Smithsonian spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. “We are reviewing the letter with this commitment in mind and will continue to collaborate constructively with the White House, Congress, and our governing Board of Regents.”

The institution already planned its own content review, ordered by the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents in June amid pressure from President Donald Trump. The regents instructed Bunch “to ensure unbiased content” across the institution and report back on “any needed personnel changes.”

The board at that time affirmed Bunch’s authority amid a high-stakes standoff between the White House and Kim Sajet, whom Trump had attempted to fire as director of the National Portrait Gallery. Sajet later resigned, saying her presence had become a distraction from the Smithsonian’s mission.

It is not immediately clear whether the White House’s action will supersede the Smithsonian’s review.

The letter states that the initial review will focus on eight museums: the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Air and Space Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Portrait Gallery and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

To begin the process, officials requested that the museums provide information within 30 days concerning 250th-anniversary programming, current and future exhibition content, and other material.

The White House added that museums were expected to start making changes within 120 days.

“Museums should begin implementing content corrections where necessary, replacing divisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate, and constructive descriptions across placards, wall didactics, digital displays, and other public-facing materials,” the letter read.

Since returning to office in January, Trump has moved quickly to overhaul the country’s most prominent arts and cultural institutions. His focus on the Smithsonian has stoked concerns about political interference at the institution, which is not a traditional government agency and is historically considered nonpartisan.
In July, painter Amy Sherald withdrew her upcoming exhibition “American Sublime” from the National Portrait Gallery, citing concerns that the museum discussed removing from the show her painting of a transgender woman posing as the Statue of Liberty. (The Smithsonian said it discussed pairing the work with a video, not removing it.)

That same month, The Washington Post reported that a temporary placard containing references to Trump had been removed from an impeachment exhibit at the National Museum of American History as part of the Smithsonian content review. The museum later updated the display to restore context about Trump’s impeachments following swift outcry from members of the public and several Democratic leaders.

In March, Trump signed an executive order to eliminate “divisive narratives” across the Smithsonian museums and “restore the Smithsonian Institution to its rightful place as a symbol of inspiration and American greatness.”
The order, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” directs Halligan and Vice President JD Vance to remove “improper ideology” from the Smithsonian Institution, including its museums, education and research centers and the National Zoo.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, History, Trump

Did Trump’s Hiring Freeze Raise the Death Toll in Texas Floods?

By dianeravitch

August 12, 2025 //

The Texas Monthly points out that the state was supposed to get an emergency coordinator for its weather service. But that person was never hired because Trump ordered a freeze on all federal hiring the day he took office.

The Texas Monthly reported:

The prospective hire was meant to help solve a persistent problem in dealing with Texas’s many natural disasters: translating warnings about extreme weather into appropriate action. By late January, the National Weather Service’s Fort Worth office had selected a meteorologist to serve as an “emergency response specialist” within the Texas Division of Emergency Management, which coordinates the state’s emergency-management program. The new hire, part of a nationwide reorganization of the National Weather Service, would have “embedded” at the TDEM to help decision-makers prepare for and respond to extreme weather. If all had gone according to plan, the federal meteorologist would have been working elbow to elbow with state emergency responders during the July flooding in Central Texas that killed at least 135.

But when Donald Trump took office on January 20 and announced a federal hiring freeze that day, the new hire hadn’t yet started. The role was left unfilled. “We just couldn’t quite dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s before the federal hiring freeze hit,” said Victor Murphy, the climate-service program manager in the Fort Worth office who took early retirement in April after 45 years with the NWS. “Lives may have been saved or could have been saved, but we’ll never know.”

In the aftermath of the floods in Kerr County and others parts of Central Texas, officials questioned whether staffing shortages in the National Weather Service—the result of the hiring freeze as well as DOGE-led early retirements and firings—had damaged the federal agency’s ability to accurately forecast the extreme rainfall and warn about the extraordinary flooding that would quickly follow. Many meteorologists pushed backhard on this narrative. They said the Austin/San Antonio office, which covers much of the Hill Country, performed adequately despite the cuts, with reasonably accurate forecasting and timely flood watches and warnings. Still, others have asked whether the NWS’s messaging to the public and to emergency responders could have been more aggressive.

The axed TDEM role would have worked to make sure the NWS’s forecasts and warnings were understood and heeded, serving as a liaison between the local, state, and federal governments, according to a job description and interviews with those involved in the hiring process. The emergency specialist would’ve “provided TDEM with eye-to-eye, one-on-one expert analysis,” including during weather emergencies, Murphy said. Texas gets a lot of wild weather. Residents and even decision-makers may need help distinguishing between a typical gully washer and extremely dangerous flooding, between a hard freeze and a life-threatening winter storm.

The TDEM job was part of a sweeping reorganization of the National Weather Service that began under the Biden administration. As part of the modernization effort, NWS officials were in the process of placing meteorologists in each state emergency-management office to help decision-makers. But the Trump administration effectively scuttled the project and decimated the agency’s existing workforce. NWS staffing levels were reduced by roughly 600 employees, to fewer than 4,000, in just a few months, according to Tom Fahy, the legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization, a labor union. Texas weather offices lost between 25 and 30 employees—a count that doesn’t include positions left unfilled because of the hiring freeze. “The arbitrariness and capriciousness of it is just really, really sad,” said Murphy. “This TDEM job getting axed is an example of that.”

This week, media outlets reported that the Trump administration is planning to fill up to 450 jobs at the federal agency. It’s unclear whether the TDEM position is included.

Hindsight is 20/20. We will never know.

Categories Funding, Texas, Trump

National Science Foundation Absorbed Deep Cuts in Staff and Funding

By dianeravitch

August 12, 2025 //

The National Science Foundation was a target for Elon Musk’s DOGE boys. Trump seemed to dislike science, so he went along with deep cuts. We can hope that historians will one day explain Trump’s disdain for science. At the moment, it’s inexplicable.

Only days ago, Trump released an executive order that places political appointees in charge of grantmaking, with the power to ignore peer reviews.

Science magazine reported:

Research advocates are expressing alarm over a White House directive on federal grantmakingreleased yesterday that they say threatens to enhance President Donald Trump’s control over science agency decisions on what to fund. It would, among other changes, require political appointees to sign off on new grant solicitations, allow them to overrule advice from peer reviewers on award decisions, and let them more easily terminate ongoing grants.

Although many changes described in the order are already underway at research agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation (NSF), its existence could strengthen the hand of Trump appointees, says Carrie Wolinetz, a former senior administrator at NIH.

“We’ve already seen this administration take steps to exert its authority that have resulted in delays, freezes, and termination of billions of dollars in grants,” says Wolinetz, now a lobbyist for Lewis-Burke Associates. “This would codify those actions in a way that represents the true politicization of science, which would be a really bad idea.”

Government Executive recently reported:

149 NSF employees, all members of the American Federation of Government Employees chapter that represents the agency’s workforce, sent a letter to Congress warning staffing cuts and other disruptions to NSF operations were threatening the agency’s mission and independence. Jesus Soriano, president of the chapter, said NSF has lost one-third of its staff—or nearly 600 employees—since January. The agency also began canceling hundreds of its research grants in April and has now scrapped 1,600 active grants, employees said.

Last month, the Trump administration announced it is going to evict NSF from its headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, to make room for the Housing and Urban Development Department, and has yet to unveil a plan detailing where the agency will relocate. President Trump proposed slashing NSF’s budget by 56% in fiscal 2026.

“What’s happening at NSF is unlike anything we’ve faced before,” Soriano said at a press conference held last week by Democrats on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. “Our members—scientists, program officers, and staff—have been targeted for doing their jobs with integrity. They’ve faced retaliation, mass terminations, and the illegal withholding of billions in research funding.”

Categories Disruption, Extremism, Musk, Elon, Science, Trump

New Hampshire: Governor Selects Nonpartisan Bureaucrat as Superintendent

By dianeravitch

August 12, 2025 //

Former Governor Chris Sununu of New Hampshire made a horrible choice for state school superintendent. He picked Frank Edelblut, after beating him in the election. Edelblut is a homeschooler of his 10 children with a low opinion of public schools. He successfully promoted vouchers and every other kind of school choice. He didn’t see the point of public schools.

The overwhelming majority of students in New Hampshire attend public schools. As soon as vouchers passed, most of them were used by families whose children never attended public schools. In other words, the state is spending many millions of dollars to subsidize the tuition of students already enrolled in private schools, whose families could afford the tuition.

Sununu was replaced by Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte. She did not reappoint Edelblut. Instead, she selected Caitlin Davis, a 15-year veteran of the state Department of Education. The selection of Davis was cheered by members of both parties, as well as the teachers’ union, no doubt thrilled to be rid of Edelblut.

Unlike Edelblut, she is unlikely to attack public schools but will collaborate with all sectors.

Davis, who most recently served as the director of education analytics and resources, had worked in the department for 15 years. She built a reputation as a neutral, data-driven financial expert, often sitting before lawmakers on the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee or Finance Committee to brief them on complicated budget spreadsheets. And she vowed to lead the department as a nonpartisan executive, carrying out both lawmakers’ and the governor’s policies without injecting her own politics…

In seeking the job, Davis styled herself as an experienced administrator. Near the start of a multi-hour confirmation hearing Tuesday, Executive Councilor Joseph Kenney, a Wakefield Republican, asked Davis whether she considered herself a “passionate educator” or a “passionate bureaucrat.”

“I suppose I’m a passionate bureaucrat, but I don’t like the term bureaucrat,” Davis replied. “… When you use the term bureaucrat, I think you take away all of the effort that state employees and the legislators and the citizens are putting into the system.”

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Home Schooling, New Hampshire, Privatization, School Choice, Vouchers

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