SAN FRANCISCO — Philanthropist and Levi’s heir Daniel Lurie has won the hard-fought race for San Francisco mayor, ushering in a new era of leadership for a city whose voters made clear they are fed up with brazen retail theft and sprawling tent cities.
It took two days to determine a winner under San Francisco’s ranked-choice voting system, which allows voters to select multiple candidates by order of preference. The city uses a multiround process to count the ballots, and it can take several rounds of tallying before a winner receives more than 50% of the vote. Though thousands of votes remained uncounted Thursday evening, the gap of support between Lurie and his opponents was deemed too big to bridge.
Lurie, a centrist Democrat, outpaced incumbent Mayor London Breed and three other prominent local Democrats, receiving 56.2% of the total ranked-choice vote compared with Breed’s 43.8% as of Thursday’s count.
Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, the only leading candidate running as an old-school progressive, came in third after being eliminated from the running with 21.6% of first-choice votes, and venture capitalist Mark Farrell, a moderate, trailed in fourth place. Supervisor Ahsha Safaí was knocked out of the running early after getting just 2.7% of first-choice votes.
Lurie issued a brief statement on social media Thursday night thanking supporters. In an election night event Tuesday, he summarized his leadership vision for jubilant supporters gathered at a music venue in the Mission district to cheer him on.
“Our challenge and opportunity is to show how government can deliver on its promise of a safer and more affordable city,” Lurie said. “And executing on these promises requires us to be courageous, compassionate and honest.
“It’s never been more clear to me that so many people love this city, and it’s time for us to start making people feel like the city loves them back.”
In a statement posted on social media Thursday evening, Breed said she had called Lurie to congratulate him.
“Being mayor of San Francisco has been the greatest honor of my lifetime. I’m beyond grateful to our residents for the opportunity to serve the City that raised me,” Breed wrote. “During my final two months as your mayor, I will continue to lead this City as I have from Day One — as San Francisco’s biggest champion.”
The transition from Breed to Lurie is a remarkable turn on many fronts.
Breed, 50, made history six years ago when she became the city’s first Black female mayor. She was born into poverty in the Western Addition, at the time one of San Francisco’s toughest neighborhoods, and raised by her grandmother. She lost a sister to a drug overdose and has a brother in prison for robbery. Before being elected mayor, she was president of the powerful Board of Supervisors.
Lurie, 47, was also born in San Francisco, the son of a rabbi. His parents divorced when he was a young boy, and his mother, Miriam Haas, went on to marry Peter Haas, who helped raise Lurie. Peter Haas, now deceased, was the great-grandnephew of the Levi’s founder and a longtime executive at the company. Lurie and his mother are among the primary heirs of the Levi Strauss family fortune. Lurie has never before held elected office.
Throughout the campaign, Lurie distinguished himself as a political outsider running against four City Hall veterans. He pledged to root out government corruption, a concern among voters following a series ofpolitical scandals in city departments and nonprofits in recent years.
The election was broadly viewed as a referendum on Breed’s efforts to address homeless encampments, crime and a flagging post-pandemic economy that cut at voters’ sense of a safe, well-functioning city.
“This is not an election that was about an ideological or policy-based shift or rejection of Breed,” said Jason McDaniel, a political science professor at San Francisco State University. “It’s an outsider who is different and who was able to portray himself in that way as someone who will do things differently.”
In a marked shift for San Francisco, the city’s wealthy tech sectorplayed an influential role in this year’s race. Tech titans who have put down roots in the city poured millions of dollars into campaign contributions, pressing for an outcome that would infuse this famously liberal city with more centrist politics.
That money overwhelmingly benefited Lurie, Farrell and Breed.
“It’s been the billionaire election,” said Jim Ross, a veteran Bay Area Democratic strategist.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed faced a tough reelection bid against four challengers who said she had not done enough to address property crime and homelessness in the city.
(Eric Risberg / Associated Press)
Breed was first elected in 2018, winning a special election after the unexpected death of then-Mayor Ed Lee. She led the city through a challenging period that includes the unsettling early spread of COVID-19 and the subsequent exodus of scores of downtown tech workers who, amid pandemic-related shutdowns, found themselves able to work remotely — and more cheaply — from other cities.
Breed has never been a bleeding-heart progressive, despite San Francisco’s liberal reputation. But the Breed of six years ago was more open to experimenting with a progressive reformist agenda when it came to solving complex issues such as addiction and poverty.
In the last two years, by contrast, she has become a leading voice in a movement to crack down on homeless people and addicts who refuse shelter or treatment. And this year she successfully championed two local ballot measures that bolstered police surveillance powers and will require drug screening and treatment for people receiving county welfare benefits who are suspected of illicit drug use.
Many of her supporters noted her quick action to shut down San Francisco in the early days of the COVID emergency, a decision credited with saving thousands of lives.
In making her case for reelection, Breed touted recent data showing improvements in some of San Francisco’s greatest problems, notably a reduction in property crime and violent crime over the last year.
Her opponents dismissed that progress as too little, too late, and seized on voter dissatisfaction to pitch themselves as more qualified alternatives.
Both Lurie and Farrell promised a more concerted crackdown on crime and homelessness and to reinvigorate the downtown economy.
Lurie had the advantage of his family’s vast wealth to strengthen his name recognition. He showered his campaign with more than $8 million of his own money. His mother contributed more than $1 million to an independent committee backing his mayoral bid.
He showcased his role as founder of Tipping Point, a San Francisco nonprofit that funds efforts to lift people out of poverty, to highlight his commitment to solving intractable problems. He said the organization has funneled $500 million to Bay Area organizations focused on early childhood education, scholarships, housing and job training since its founding nearly two decades ago.
Farrell entered the race with support generated during his seven years as a supervisor, and made the case that his blend of political and business experience made him most qualified to get San Francisco back on track. But his campaign floundered amid ethical concerns. This week, he agreed to pay a fine of $108,000 following an ethics investigation that determined he had illegally financed his mayoral campaign with money poured into a separate ballot measure committee he sponsored to reduce the number of government commissions in San Francisco.
Peskin, a longtime supervisor, organized a robust grassroots campaign focused on traditional liberal ideals, such as making the city affordable for nurses, teachers, and the artists and bohemians who have long made San Francisco a creative hub.
Republicans are expected to retake control of the U.S. Senate, creating obstacles for Vice President Kamala Harris if she is elected president and a potential glide path for former President Trump’s agenda if he wins the White House.
The GOP’s edge is created by a number of factors. Several of the Democratic senators up for reelection were initially elected during years favorable to their party, such as the 2006 backlash to then-President George W. Bush or during then-President Obama’s successful 2012 reelection campaign — and are facing headwinds for the first time.
“The nature of the calendar of Senate elections almost always gives one party or other an advantage in every cycle. Democrats have a lot more seats up this year and so they’re working at a disadvantage,” said Dan Schnur, a politics professor at USC, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine.
“One other way of looking at it is that 2018 was Trump’s first midterm election, and it ended up being a very good year for the Democrats,” Schnur added. “But now many of the senators who benefited from that climate six years ago are facing a much more difficult challenge this year.”
Additionally, Republicans recruited a number of wealthy candidates who have self-funded their campaigns or raised large sums of money. For example, Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin is being challenged by GOP Sen. Eric Hovde, who has put $20 million into his campaign, more than her last two rivals spent combined, said Jessica Taylor, the Senate and governors editor for the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan analyst of races.
“Our current projection is Republicans picking up between two and five seats,” Taylor said.
Democrats currently control 51 seats of the 100-member Senate because the three independents in the body caucus with Democrats. Republicans control 49 seats.
Which states are the best pickup opportunities for Republicans?
One of the Senate’s three independents is Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, who is retiring. Republicans are expected to easily win this open seat in a state Trump carried by nearly 70% of the vote in 2020.
Montana, where Republican businessman Tim Sheehy is challenging Democratic incumbent Jon Tester, is also expected to be a likely GOP pickup. Sheehy leads Tester by an average of 6.5 percentage points in recent polling compiled by Real Clear Politics.
Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown was also believed to be vulnerable in a challenge by Republican businessman Bernie Moreno. The race is in effect tied in recent polling. Democrats have been hammering Moreno over a statement he was caught making on camera saying abortion rights shouldn’t be an issue for women over age 50. Taylor points to a new Iowa poll that showed a Democratic shift among older women that could boost Brown if it is happening in Ohio.
What other states are being watched closely?
Wisconsin’s Baldwin has a 1.4-point edge over Hovde in recent polling, according to Real Clear Politics. Contests in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada have similar tight contests, though the two Western states show an interesting dynamic:
Democrats Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada have narrow leads over their Republican challengers, but both outpace how Harris is expected to do in their respective states.
GOP incumbents are facing notable challenges in the red states of Texas and Nebraska.
In Texas, GOP Sen. Ted Cruz holds a 4-point lead over Democratic Rep. Colin Allred in recent polling, but the race is tight for such a traditional Republican state.
In Nebraska, incumbent GOP Sen. Deb Fischer narrowly leads independent union leader Dan Osborn.
What does control of the Senate mean for the next president?
Schnur and Taylor agreed that a Republican-controlled Senate would allow Trump to enact the policies he has discussed throughout his campaign.
“If it’s a Republican Senate, you could certainly see Republicans passing a lot of Trump’s priorities — no tax on tips, tariffs, following his foreign policy guidelines,” Taylor said.
Schnur added that the filibuster would almost certainly be eliminated and the body would become “almost an assembly line” for Trump’s judicial nominees.
The exact opposite is true if Harris wins the White House, they said.
“If President Harris was given a Republican Senate, she would be the first president in almost 40 years not to take office with a Congress of the same party,” Schnur said. “So from Day One, it would be much more difficult for her to move her agenda forward.”
Those of us who worked with high school students in the wake of the Supreme Court’s historic decision overturning race-conscious admissions can’t profess shock over news showing decreases in enrollment among Black and Latinx students across many college campuses, especially those considered competitive for enrollment.
We saw this coming.
Last year we saw too many highly qualified students shy away from applying to schools because they were sent a message that they wouldn’t get in without affirmative action. This year, it is more important than ever that we encourage our Black and Latinx students to apply to schools attended by similar students before the court’s reversal. Mentoring is a critical catalyst to achieve this goal.
Another year of dips in enrollment among Black and Latinx students would arguably ignite a snowball trend in some of our nation’s most recognized institutions, leading to a perception that they are unwelcoming to students of color.
As a society, we simply can’t afford this. We are at a demographic crossroads: Generation Z is forecast to be the last majority-white generation; the majority of Americans under the age of 18 are “nonwhite.” If we don’t increase the numbers of Black and Latinx students going to colleges where they belong and deserve to have a seat at the table, we are impacting the future of America.
To change this new dynamic, we need to think outside the [check your race] box. College-educated adults hold the key to reshaping how to support Black and Latinx students getting to and through the college process so that they can unlock their full potential and achieve the “holy grail” of economic mobility.
As colleges put more emphasis on early action and deadlines specific to first-generation students, our Black and Latinx high school seniors have the chance to make their voices heard through the power of their applications.
Increasing applications by November’s early admission deadlines is a critical first step.
Related: Interested in innovations in the field of higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly Higher Education newsletter.
Also, vitally, first-generation students need to have strong, trusting relationships in place before, during and after the application process to reinforce a sense of belonging. The adults these students meet early in their lives — often outside the home — can help blunt a seismic shift in the makeup of college enrollment across our nation.
Over the past 25 years of working with primarily first-generation and low-income students, I have found that the path to and through college is built on a mentorship model that relies heavily on schools, corporations and communities working in lockstep. This tripod of support needs to work even more closely together to encourage students to increase their applications to and enrollment in selective universities.
Through a focus group of 42,000 (the total number of students mentored since 1999), my organization has shown that the model of starting junior year of high school with 1:1 mentoring is proven and ensures that every student has an adult champion to not only help them chart a path to college but also build the sense of belonging needed to persevere to graduation.
Mentoring develops the social capital to help establish careers and create the building blocks needed for long-term economic mobility.
Every adult needs to adopt a mentoring mindset. We cannot sit back and watch as Black and Latinx students are shut out of college.
One successful mentoring model I’ve seen uses partnerships with corporations that open their doors to high school students. This helps students start charting a course toward college and career paths based on interactive experiences in the conference room as well as the classroom.
As DEI initiatives decline on college campuses, many corporations are expanding their own affinity groups and DEI initiatives. For students, these corporate communities foster a sense of belonging in both college and careers. For adults, these experiences hone a greater understanding of the many inequities that Black and Latinx, often first-generation, students face.
Seemingly simple connections matter. Planting seeds of trust and confidence early in a relationship helps students see their future selves in their mentors. More Black and Latinx students need to hear “we don’t know if we don’t try,” and this work needs to start well before the beginning of senior year.
Looking through the lens of a trusted adult, students can better trust the process and not be deterred by such things as the reversals of court decisions.
While the decrease of Black and Latinx students enrolled in some selective universities this fall is discouraging, there is hope. The vast majority of students (97 percent) mentored in my organization who apply to college are accepted.
Higher education has a critical accountability role as well as we head into this admissions year. I applaud those who have already reached out to try to help encourage underrepresented students to apply for college.
Through an ecosystem of support, more Black and Latinx students will earn seats at the table in college and beyond.
Mentoring helps close equity gaps for first-generation students, guiding them toward successful college careers and beyond. Together, we can turn these recent challenges into a transformative opportunity for lasting impact. The future needs as many Black and Latinx college-educated students as possible.
Heather D. Wathington is CEO of iMentor, a national leader in 1:1 mentoring that builds long-term, personal relationships to help students, largely first-generation college students from underresourced communities, access and navigate postsecondary educations and careers.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
With two days left before election day, a new poll shows Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón has cut slightly into challenger Nathan Hochman’s lead in the race for the incumbent’s seat.
But Gascón is still down 25 points in the closely watched contest. While that’s an improvement over the 30-point deficit he was staring down in the same poll on Oct. 8, it’s still no better than the 25-point margin he faced in the survey on Aug. 18.
If the election were held today, 50% of likely voters would vote for Hochman, a former federal prosecutor, and 25% would cast a ballot for Gascón, a former LAPD assistant chief who swept into office in 2020 on a progressive platform of criminal justice reform. That leaves 25% undecided, according to the poll of 1,205 likely L.A. County voters from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times.
The poll comes near the end of a period of intense politicking by both candidates and their supporters. Since the last Berkeley-LA Times poll results were released on Oct. 8, Gascón and Hochman have held a series of campaign events across the county, addressed hundreds of voters, and faced off in a contentious debate.
Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll conducted online in English and Spanish between Oct. 22-29, said the slight narrowing of the gap between Gascón and Hochman shouldn’t offer much hope to the incumbent.
“It’s really not all that significant a change. The voters have pretty much stuck where they were before, with a quarter not really paying much attention,” he said.
Negative opinions on Hochman increased slightly since last month’s poll, which DiCamillo attributed partly to Hochman having the “scarlet letter” of being a former Republican in deep blue L.A. County, but his unfavorability still pales in comparison to the bad vibes voters seem to get from Gascón. Forty-nine percent of likely voters have a somewhat or strongly unfavorable view of Gascón, compared to just 15% for Hochman, who has also served as a former assistant U.S. attorney general and past president of the L.A. City Ethics Commission.
“It’s mostly a vote on Gascón,” DiCamillo said. “Hochman is the other candidate in this race and he’s in that fortunate position of running against an unpopular incumbent.”
About 70% of Gascón’s supporters said partisan affiliation played a role in their decision, and it’s possible undecided voters could trickle toward the incumbent given Democrats hold a massive advantage in voter registration in L.A. County.
Hochman is running as an independent and has worked to distance himself from his past GOP affiliation, saying he plans to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in this year’s presidential race.
Jamarah Hayner, Gascón’s chief campaign strategist, said the narrowing deficit is a sign that his campaign’s ground game is impacting the race.
“What we hear when we talk to voters are serious concerns about Hochman’s history with the Republican Party and the likelihood that he’ll roll back progress on issues like police accountability and wrongful convictions,” she said in a statement. “So every phone call and door knock matters as we get down to the wire.”
Hochman countered that the poll results are still indicative of an electorate frustrated with Gascón. A former two-term D.A. in San Francisco, Gascón has faced multiple lawsuits from his own staff in L.A. over implementation of his policies. He has also been forced to confront the perception that crime is rising — even as he points to statistics showing declines in some categories.
“The people of Los Angeles County are fed up with crime and ready for new leadership in the D.A.’s Office,” Hochman said in a statement. “I appreciate that voters want a prosecutor like myself with 34 years’ criminal justice experience who will base decisions on just the facts and law and not on a personal political agenda.”
Asked about a list of factors in the D.A.’s race, 54% of voters selected “ability to prosecute cases involving violent crimes” as influencing their decision; 48% cited “making reforms to the criminal justice system.”
But that hasn’t translated into similar levels of support for the incumbent, whom Hochman has repeatedly slammed as soft on crime. Gascón has countered by arguing that Hochman wants to return to mass incarceration and pull back on police reform and accountability.
Asked if Gascón should have any reason for hope on election day, DiCamillo said: “Unless the polling world is turned upside down, I would say no.”
LOCKHART, Texas — Sometime last year, Alfonso Sifuentes was on a bus tour as part of a chamber of commerce’s efforts to map out the future of the bustling Central Texas region south of Austin where he lives and works.
There was chatter about why San Marcos, a suburb along one stretch of the Interstate 35 corridor, had little interest in a proposed expansion of Austin Community College into that area. Voters previously rejected the idea because of the property tax increase it would have required. As he swayed in his seat on the moving bus, Sifuentes, a businessman in the waste management industry who has long been involved in community development, thought about his hometown of Lockhart — like San Marcos just 30-some miles from Austin — and about the opportunities the college’s growing network of campuses could bring. Somewhere along the bus route, he made a declaration for all to hear.
“Well, if San Marcos doesn’t want it,” Sifuentes said, “Lockhart will take it.”
This November, the college is coming to voters in the Lockhart Independent School District with a proposition to begin paying into the Austin Community College taxing district. In exchange, residents would qualify for in-district tuition and trigger a long-term plan to build out college facilities in this rural stretch of Texas, which is positioning itself to tap into the economic boom flowing into the smaller communities nestled between Austin and San Antonio.
Community colleges have long played a crucial role in recovering economies. But in Lockhart, ACC’s potential expansion could serve as a case study of the role colleges can play in emerging economies as local leaders and community members eye the economic growth on the horizon.
That is, if they can convince enough of their neighbors to help pay for it.
Related: Interested in innovations in the field of higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly Higher Education newsletter.
At the edge of two massive metropolitan areas — Austin to the north and San Antonio to the south — Caldwell County is dotted by quaint communities offering small-town living. While the streets in other small rural communities are lined by shuttered storefronts or sit in the shadow of industry long gone, local leaders pitch this as a place “where undeniable opportunity meets authentic Texas community.”
Lockhart, the county seat, is revered as the barbecue capital of Texas with an established status as a day trip destination. About 30 miles southeast of Austin, its picturesque town square hosts a regular rotation of community events, including a summer concert series on the courthouse lawn and a series of pop-ups on the first Friday of the month featuring some mix of live music, receptions at a local art gallery, and sip and strolls and cheesecake specials at the antique store.
The county’s population of roughly 50,000 residents is dwarfed by the big cities and the nearby suburban communities that often rank among the fastest growing in the country. But what the county lacks in population it makes up for with a relatively low cost of living, space to make room for industry, housing and, potentially, Austin Community College.
The potential annexation is an example of how colleges are becoming more nimble and more responsive to both emerging economies and the needs of students, said Maria Cormier, a senior research associate for the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University. But Cormier argues such expansions must be intentionally designed with equity in mind to envision multiple pathways for students so that, for example, students from marginalized backgrounds aren’t limited only to certificate-level programming. (The Hechinger Report is an independent unit of Teachers College.)
Representatives of Austin Community College speak with community members to help them learn about the institution at an event in early October in Lockhart, Texas. Voters decide in November whether to accept a tax hike in exchange for the college expanding into their rural region. Credit: Sergio Flores for The Hechinger Report
“These sorts of questions become important when colleges are proposing these kinds of expansions: To what extent are they thinking about longer-term pathways for students?” Cormier said.
ACC already partners with Lockhart ISD on an early college high school that allows students to complete transferable college credit hours while earning a high school diploma, and proponents of annexation highlight the affordable higher education opportunities it would generally provide students in the Lockhart area. But their sales pitch emphasizes what it would mean to leverage ACC for the whole community. While the share of adults with a high school degree within Lockhart ISD’s territory is roughly aligned with the state, the share who have a bachelor’s degree — just 16.8 percent — falls to about half of the state rate.
“An effort like this can never be wrong if it always is for the right reasons,” said Nick Metzler, an information technology manager and consultant who serves as the president of the Greater Lockhart for ACC political action committee, which formed to pursue the college’s expansion.
First established in 1973, ACC has steadily grown its footprint in Central Texas through annexation. Though not commonly used, a provision of Texas education law grants a community college the ability to expand its taxing district by adding territory within its designated service area. Working within a service district roughly the size of Connecticut, ACC first expanded its reach in 1985 when voters in the territory covered by the Leander Independent School District, a northern suburb of Austin, agreed to be annexed.
In the years since, neighboring communities in the Manor, Del Valle and Round Rock school districts followed with large majority votes in favor of annexation. ACC’s expansion into Austin’s southern suburbs didn’t begin until 2010, when annexation passed in the Hays Consolidated Independent School District.
The collective initiative to bring ACC to Lockhart has been the topic of discussion for many years, but the current effort was formally triggered by a community-led petition that required locals to gather signatures from at least 5 percent of registered voters. Fanning out at youth sporting events, school functions and other community gatherings, PAC members met with neighbors who indicated their children would be the first in their families to go to college, if they could afford it. Others were adults excited by the prospect of trade programs and certifications they could pursue and the transformative change it could bring to their families as new industries move into Caldwell County.
A billboard promoting Austin Community College in Spanish sits on a highway that leads to Lockhart, Texas. Credit: Sergio Flores for The Hechinger Report
“Those things would catch a lot of the individuals who couldn’t make it to four-year universities or couldn’t afford to go to four-year universities,” Metzler said. “That’s always been kind of where we as a community have kind of been lacking.”
Lockhart also has an incentive for partnering with ACC: A recent assessment commissioned by the city identified the need to partner with a postsecondary institution for job training if it wanted to meet its economic goals and compete in its target business sectors, namely large-scale auto and electronic manufacturing, food processing and tourism. It also identified the lack of skilled administrative workers along with computer and math specialists as a challenge to reaching those goals.
In the end, PAC members easily surpassed the threshold of the 744 signatures they were required to submit — they turned in 1,013.
On the ballot now is a proposal for homeowners to trade $232.54 a year on average — a rate of $.1013 per $100 in property value — for in-district services. That includes a steep discount for in-district tuition that comes out to $85 per credit hour compared with $286 for out-of-district residents, though high school graduates from Lockhart ISD would also qualify for free tuition under a recently adopted five-year pilot program going into effect this fall.
“We are very interested in providing access to high-quality, affordable education in our region because we think it’s a game changer for families,” Chris Cervini, ACC’s vice chancellor for community and public affairs, said in an interview. “We think it promotes affordability by providing folks a lifeline to a family-sustaining wage, so we are very bullish on our value proposition.”
A flier provides information in Spanish about Austin Community College during a community event in early October in Lockhart, Texas. Credit: Sergio Flores for The Hechinger Report
The vote would also allow ACC to grow its tax base as it works to keep pace with its growing enrollment. When classes kicked off this fall, ACC was serving about 70,000 students across 11 campuses in the Central Texas region — an enrollment increase of 15 percent compared with a year earlier. The potential expansion comes as community colleges are adapting to a new state financing model based on student outcomes, including financial incentives for schools if students obtain workforce credentials in certain fields.
The college proposed a three-phase service plan that would begin with expanded offerings in the area, such as evening classes, and eventually work up to a permanent facility tailored to match workforce needs, including demand for certificate programs to “reskill and upskill” for various high-demand careers. Cervini, who has been a main liaison with the Lockhart community, previously said the college was considering whether it could quickly deploy its resources into the community through mobile training rigs for HVAC and welding.
Its timeline could be sped up now that the college has identified a historic building in the heart of downtown — the old Ford Lockhart Motor Company building — as its potential home. During a recent presentation to the Lockhart City Council, ACC Chancellor Russell Lowery-Hart told city leaders he appreciated that the site would represent the community’s history juxtaposed to “what we think the future looks like.”
But ACC leaders said the issue ultimately has to play out in the community. There’s been no apparent organized opposition to the vote in Lockhart, and ACC officials say they’ve been engaged with local leaders who have been supportive in helping inform voters about the annexation process. The proposal recently picked up the endorsement of Lockhart’s mayor, Lew White, who commended ACC leaders for their outreach to the community about their offerings.
“I think that’s what a lot of people have been asking for, and I think you’re really shaping your proposal for this fall election very nicely,” White said. “And I think it’s something that our community needs to get together and get behind and support.”
Even Lockhart ISD leaders frame the college’s pitch as an initiative with potential benefits extending well beyond the increased access it would offer students in the region.
Overseeing a record 6,850 students in a district covering about 300 square miles, Superintendent Mark Estrada said education is essential to cultivating communities where residents can not only actively participate in the sort of growth Caldwell County is experiencing but benefit from it as well.
“I think the real conversation and consideration is how would this benefit the educational attainment of the entire community, which currently is one of the lowest in Central Texas,” Estrada said. “The mid-career switches, people’s opportunity to have access to education to pursue a passion or career they’ve always been interested in — that’s a major consideration for the community. It’s a narrow look if we’re only looking at high school graduates.”
In exchange for paying more taxes, residents in the Lockhart Independent School District would qualify for in-district tuition at Austin Community College, which would also build out college facilities in this rural stretch of Texas. Lockhart grads also qualify for free tuition under a recently adopted five-year pilot program taking effect this fall. Credit: Sergio Flores for The Hechinger Report
Still, Caldwell County remains a conservative area in a conservative state where fighting property tax increases has become a favorite political calling card. Much of that debate has centered on funding for public schools, with the fight over school finance often falling to the question of whether older Texans, who are mostly white and less likely to have children enrolled in public schools, are willing to pay for the future of younger Texans, who are mostly Latino. Roughly 4 out of every 5 students enrolled in Lockhart ISD are Latinos.
Voters in the area have shown at least some unwillingness to foot the bill for education-related expansions. In 2019, they rejected a $92.4 million bond proposed to address the significant growth in student enrollment Lockhart ISD had seen in the prior decade. The bond package would have gone toward making more room for more students through the addition of a two-story wing to the local high school, two new school buildings and renovations throughout the district. It also would have backed improvements to the district’s workforce preparation efforts, including a new agricultural science facility and additions to the district’s career technology center to allow more students to participate in auto repair classes and hospitality training. Opponents of the measure, 1,632 voters, won with 55 percent of the vote compared with 1,340 who voted in favor.
This time around, proponents of annexation are hoping the eagerness they’ve felt in the community from those who signed onto the original petition — and those who come to see the broader benefits it could bring to the community — will translate to votes.
In recounting the interest they fielded in the early days of their efforts collecting signatures, PAC members described one canvas of a local gym in a portion of the county that’s seeing some of the biggest growth but trails in terms of income. Some of the gym-goers were enthusiastic about the possibility of pursuing technical certifications but realized they weren’t registered to vote, a requirement of the signature collection process.
They went out and got on the voter rolls. Then, they came back to put their names on the petition.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Now that Anora has hit select theaters, Sean assesses the state of the Best Picture race by running through a long (emphasis on long) list of 26 films that have a chance to be nominated at the Oscars (1:00). Then, Sean and Amanda discuss Anora, Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or–winning drama about a whirlwind romance between a sex worker and the son of a Russian oligarch (30:00). Finally, Sean is joined by John Crowley, the director of the new Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh romance We Live in Time (1:15:00). They discuss, among other things, the qualities that attracted Crowley to Garfield and Pugh, how he chooses to work in film vs. theater, his long-running project of sincere romantic dramas, and more.
Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: John Crowley Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Video Producer: Jack Sanders
All David Mamet plays are a symphony of quippy dialogue and playful profanity. Plays like American Buffalo (1975) and Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) established Mamet’s style: how a writer acutely aware of how language — spoken or unspoken — can reveal the true intentions and underlying beliefs of his characters.
Few would describe those characters as likable or relatable, but many could walk away from those plays knowing exactly who the characters were and the world that created them.
Unfortunately, Mamet’s later works lack this attention to character that made his earlier works stand out. Instead, Mamet’s previous acumen for dynamic characters gives way to a predilection for ideological arguments about race, gender, and politics. Say goodbye to character and welcome to debate. Say goodbye to drama and say hello to talking points.
In Race (2009), a privileged white man claims he’s been falsely accused of raping a black woman. Cue the Left and the Right. No facts required.
Dirt Dogs Theatre Co.’s Artistic Director, Malinda L. Beckham injects enough dramatic tension into the production to make up for a script that lacks conflict and credibility. And despite the plot misfires, the actors deliver engaging performances that almost surmount the material they’re given.
Susan (Ashlyn Evans) is a smart and competent new attorney at the law firm yet makes mistakes that only seem plausible if they were done by a doe-eyed receptionist straight out of high school.
Charles Strickland (Aaron Alford) is a wealthy and privileged man who is buffoonishly naive. Toward the end of the play, he errs in such a bewildering way that it’s highly improbable it was done on accident. Yet, I am to believe it was.
Jack Lawson (Jay Sullivan) is a pragmatic attorney who resents racial preference laws and makes sweeping generalizations about White-Black racial relations yet his law partner is a black man, Henry Brown (Andraes Hunt). It’s difficult to believe that he carries such vague prejudices when his main co-worker is a black man. How can Lawson opine with such cocksureness about black people when his co-worker doesn’t reflect what he says?
Give up on the play making sense. Characters behave and do things simply so that discussions about race and who can talk about race can take place. The answer is always white people can’t talk about race, yet for some reason, both white characters talk plenty about race and share loudly what presumptions they’ve made about people such as Jews and African Americans.
Race fails to provide any unique insights. If it does, it’s hidden by an improbable plot and a purposefully inflammatory premise that presupposes controversy without providing evidence.
To believe that a wealthy white man would face such an insurmountable opposition in the legal system just because he is white and the accuser is black seems like a tall order. Do class, gender and racial biases no longer exist?
Again, director Beckham is able to save some of this with deft direction. Having the audience on opposite sides of the stage highlights the black and white position of how arguments on race can be expressed.
It, also, makes the conversations that take place on stage feel more like listening in on private thoughts. This production works fiercely to keep the audience engaged in what the story of this play is.
Very few facts of what actually did occur between the accused and the accuser are revealed. Despite the accused being on stage, the script never tells what happened that night in the hotel room. Instead, affidavits from eyewitnesses are peppered throughout the story as the truth of what may have happened changes with each new account.
In critical moments where a new source of information is revealed, swelling and sustained chords (sound design by Trevor B. Cone) or the lights would shift colors (lighting by John Baker) to punctuate the importance. These design cues provide intrigue because they call attention to the fact that this play does have the ability to captivate as a mystery or thriller when the characters aren’t parroting ordinary observations of race in America.
The tight blocking and movement of characters visually express the power dynamics between characters where a detail as small as which character sits and which one stands becomes a source of interest.
The acting fires on all cylinders. Sullivan, once warmed up, plays the shrewd and morally ambiguous attorney who delivers the most clinical and impersonal observations about race, yet it’s clear that race is a matter he takes very personally.
Sullivan projects an overwhelming confidence of how race works when he’s confronted toward the end by his new hire that all the contradictions, hypocrisies and absurdity of his behavior comes to the surface. His body caves in like he knows he’s wrong, yet this character is one who can never admit his faults.
The way Sullivan conveys his guilt without confessing to any shame is thrilling to watch. His performance is engaging, and he complements all the other actors on stage.
While both Sullivan and Hunt play cynical and jaded lawyers, Hunt is more measured in his estimations of how the legal system works and the role race plays in this case. Whereas Sullivan waxes on about race with broad strokes, Hunt has more precise observations due to the fact he is a Black man.
His personal beliefs about race diverge from his professional responsibilities to defend his client as innocent and Hunt navigates those tensions without any strain.
Alford peppers his performance with the right amount of indifference for someone who has enough money to buy himself out of any conflict yet also with a certain level of naivety that volleys between being sincere or manipulative.
There’s a moment toward the end where Alford’s voice (body positioned away due to the stage setup) feels so earnest and apologetic that maybe one starts to believe that he is innocent after all. His remorse is palpable, yet was it real?
Race continues through Nov 2 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m Fridays, Saturdays, 2 p.m Sundays, and 7:30 p.m Monday, October 28, Industry Night at Dirt Dogs Theatre Co., at MATCH, 3400 Main. For more information, call 713-521-4533 or visit dirtdogstheatre.org. $30.
Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday unveiled new proposals targeting Black men as she seeks to strengthen her coalition ahead of Election Day.Related video above: Get the Facts: Checking claims made about taxes by Kamala HarrisThe announcement comes as Harris lags behind President Joe Biden’s numbers with Black voters in 2020, especially men, though recent polling suggests she has room to grow. Last week, former President Barack Obama delivered a stark warning to Black men, saying it’s “not acceptable” to sit out this election and suggesting they might be reluctant to vote for Harris because she’s a woman.The proposal aims to provide Black men “with the tools to achieve financial freedom, lower costs to better provide for themselves and their families, and protect their rights,” according to a release by the campaign.Part of the proposal includes providing one million loans that are fully forgivable up to $20,000 to Black entrepreneurs and others to start a business. According to the campaign, the loans would be provided through a new partnership between the Small Business Administration and some lenders and banks.Harris is also calling for creating and investing in programs that help expand pathways for job opportunities for Black men, including promoting apprenticeships, strengthening the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and investing in more Black male teachers. On the campaign trail, Harris has said she will cut college degree requirements for certain federal jobs if elected president.The plan will also support a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and other digital assets and a National Health Equity Initiative that focuses on addressing health challenges that disproportionately impact Black men. Another component includes legalizing recreational marijuana and creating opportunities for Black Americans to succeed in the industry. The vice president has often reiterated that she believes marijuana should legalized in the U.S.The campaign will tout the agenda during several upcoming events, including “Black Men Huddle Up” events, an Economic Freedom Talk series and paid media outreach as they try to draw a contrast with former President Donald Trump.“Donald Trump’s outreach is gold sneakers, T shirts of mug shots and insults and putting other communities down. The Vice President is actually speaking to what Black men can achieve under her presidency. We think that’s a stark point of contrast, and one that is important to talk about,” Harris-Walz campaign communications Director Michael Tyler said in a statement.As CNN has reported, Harris had been focused on turning out Black men even before she took over as the Democratic nominee, trying to get the enthusiasm there for Biden when he was still running for reelection.“The concern is that the couch is going to win,” one person close to the Harris team previously told CNN. “We need to make sure that Black men, Hispanic men, don’t sit on the couch. Because if they don’t vote at all. That’s (a) vote for him.”Harris will travel to Detroit this week for a Tuesday radio town hall hosted by nationally syndicated radio co-host Charlamagne tha God, who has millions of followers across digital platforms, while “The Breakfast Club” enjoys a vast nationwide audience, much of it Black.
WASHINGTON —
Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday unveiled new proposals targeting Black men as she seeks to strengthen her coalition ahead of Election Day.
Related video above: Get the Facts: Checking claims made about taxes by Kamala Harris
The announcement comes as Harris lags behind President Joe Biden’s numbers with Black voters in 2020, especially men, though recent polling suggests she has room to grow. Last week, former President Barack Obama delivered a stark warning to Black men, saying it’s “not acceptable” to sit out this election and suggesting they might be reluctant to vote for Harris because she’s a woman.
The proposal aims to provide Black men “with the tools to achieve financial freedom, lower costs to better provide for themselves and their families, and protect their rights,” according to a release by the campaign.
Part of the proposal includes providing one million loans that are fully forgivable up to $20,000 to Black entrepreneurs and others to start a business. According to the campaign, the loans would be provided through a new partnership between the Small Business Administration and some lenders and banks.
Harris is also calling for creating and investing in programs that help expand pathways for job opportunities for Black men, including promoting apprenticeships, strengthening the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and investing in more Black male teachers. On the campaign trail, Harris has said she will cut college degree requirements for certain federal jobs if elected president.
The plan will also support a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and other digital assets and a National Health Equity Initiative that focuses on addressing health challenges that disproportionately impact Black men. Another component includes legalizing recreational marijuana and creating opportunities for Black Americans to succeed in the industry. The vice president has often reiterated that she believes marijuana should legalized in the U.S.
The campaign will tout the agenda during several upcoming events, including “Black Men Huddle Up” events, an Economic Freedom Talk series and paid media outreach as they try to draw a contrast with former President Donald Trump.
“Donald Trump’s outreach is gold sneakers, T shirts of mug shots and insults and putting other communities down. The Vice President is actually speaking to what Black men can achieve under her presidency. We think that’s a stark point of contrast, and one that is important to talk about,” Harris-Walz campaign communications Director Michael Tyler said in a statement.
As CNN has reported, Harris had been focused on turning out Black men even before she took over as the Democratic nominee, trying to get the enthusiasm there for Biden when he was still running for reelection.
“The concern is that the couch is going to win,” one person close to the Harris team previously told CNN. “We need to make sure that Black men, Hispanic men, don’t sit on the couch. Because if they don’t vote at all. That’s (a) vote for him.”
Harris will travel to Detroit this week for a Tuesday radio town hall hosted by nationally syndicated radio co-host Charlamagne tha God, who has millions of followers across digital platforms, while “The Breakfast Club” enjoys a vast nationwide audience, much of it Black.
BROOKLINE, Mass. — It was a humid, gray morning in July, and most of their peers were spending the summer sleeping late and hanging out with friends. But the 20 rising 10th graders in Lisa Rodriguez’s class at Brookline High School were finishing a lesson on exponents and radicals.
As Rodriguez worked with two students on a difficult problem, Noelia Ames was called over by a soft-spoken student sitting nearby. Ames, a rising senior who took Algebra II Honors with Rodriguez as a sophomore, was serving as a peer leader for the summer class.
“Are you stuck on a problem?” Ames asked, leaning over to take a closer look.
Noelia Ames, a senior at Brookline High, helps a younger student with a math problem during a summer class where she served as a peer teacher. Credit: Javeria Salman/The Hechinger Report
The students in Rodriguez’s class were participating in a summer program created by the Calculus Project, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit. Founded at Brookline High near Boston in 2009, the group now works with roughly 1,000 students from 14 nearby districts beginning in the summer after seventh grade to help them complete advanced math classes like calculus before they finish high school.
It focuses on helping students who are historically underrepresented in high-level math classes — namely those who are Black, Hispanic and low-income — succeed in that coursework, which serves as a gateway to selective colleges and well-paying careers. While some states and districts are nixing advanced-math requirements, sometimes in the name of equity, the Calculus Project has a different theory: Students who have traditionally been excluded from high-level math can succeed in those courses if they’re given a chance to preview advanced math content over the summer and take classes with a cohort of their peers.
In recent years the Calculus Project’s work has taken on fresh urgency, as the pandemic hit Black, Hispanic and low-income students particularly hard. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court ruling banning affirmative action left even some college officials concerned that inequities in high school math would make it harder for them to fill their classes with students from diverse backgrounds. The Calculus Project’s national profile has grown — its staff advises the College Board on AP math exams and classes and have advised groups in a few other states — even as the organization has attracted some scrutiny from parents, due to its emphasis on students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
“One out of 10 Black students in the eighth grade math scores were scoring basic or above,” saidKristen Hengtgen, a senior policy analyst at the nonprofit advocacy group EdTrust, referring to last year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the Nation’s Report Card. “When you see that, you need to throw certain student groups the life jacket,” she added. “We cannot combat a math crisis if we’re not helping the students who need it the most.”
Related: Widen your perspective. Our free biweekly newsletter consults critical voices on innovation in education.
The racial and socioeconomic gaps in math are stark: Only 28 percent of Black students and 31 percent Hispanic students nationwide took advanced math in high school compared with 46 percent of white students, according to a 2023 report from EdTrust. Just 22 percent of low-income students took advanced math. Experts say that’s because these students are less likely to attend high schools that offer higher-level math or to be recommended by their teachers for honors or AP classes, regardless of mastery.
They are also less likely to report feeling confident in math class or to enroll in calculus even when they are on a path to take the class early in high school, according to a report from EdTrust and nonprofit Just Equations. When it comes to Black and Hispanic students, Hengtgen blames what she calls “the belonging barrier.” “Their friends weren’t in the class,” she said. “They rarely had a teacher of color.”
Senior James Lopes, wearing a green sweatshirt, listens to William Frey teach a lesson on polynomials, rational trigonometrics, exponential and logarithmic functions at the Calculus Project’s summer leadership academy program at Boston University. Credit: Javeria Salman/The Hechinger Report
As a math teacher at Brookline High in the early 2000s, Calculus Project founder Adrian Mims got firsthand experience in what the research was beginning to establish. Black and Hispanic students were largely absent from the high school’s honors and advanced math courses, he said, and the few Black and Hispanic students who did enroll often dropped out early in the year.
As a PhD candidate at Boston College, Mims was writing his dissertation on how to improve African American achievement in geometry honors classes. His findings — suggesting that Black students dropped out of the course because they lacked knowledge of certain foundational math content, spent less time studying and preparing for tests, and lacked confidence in their math ability — became the catalyst for the first iteration of The Calculus Project.
Mims’ idea was to introduce Black students over the summer to math concepts they’d learn in eighth grade algebra in the fall. Students would be able to take the time to really understand those concepts and to build their confidence and skills, learning both from district teachers and peer teachers who could provide individual support.
In the summer of 2009, Mims piloted his idea with a group of rising eighth graders. In addition to learning concepts they’d see in algebra that fall, they were exposed to the stories of famous Black and Latino figures who excelled in STEM, such as Black NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson and Mexican-American astronaut Jose M. Hernandez. When the school year arrived, they participated in after-school tutoring at Brookline High.
The next fall, 2010, the district opened the program to all interested students, regardless of race. Summer participants were placed into cohorts so they could advance through math classes in high school with peers they knew.
Teachers and administrators at Brookline say the project had an immediate — and lasting — impact. “It’s so much more than learning math,” said Alexia Thomas, a guidance counselor and associate dean of students at Brookline High.
In 2012, Brookline High saw more Black students score as advanced on the state Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System Math test than ever before; 88 percent of those students had participated in the Calculus Project. The highest-scoring student in the district was Black – and a program alum. Two years later, when the first cohort of students who participated in both the summer and year-long programs graduated from high school, 75 percent had successfully completed calculus.
A class of rising eighth graders in the Calculus Project’s summer leadership academy at Emmanuel College finishes a review before their final exam on content previewing Algebra I. Credit: Javeria Salman/The Hechinger Report
Today, eight districts participate in the year-round program and another six send their students to the group’s summer programs, two three-week sessions that take place at Boston University, Emmanuel College and University of Massachusetts-Lowell. As of May 2024, 31 percent of students in the program identified as Black, 39 percent as Hispanic/Latino, 11 percent as Asian and 7 percent as white, according to program data. Mims has helped develop similar models in Florida and Texas.
In 2023, research consultancy group Mathematica, in partnership with the Gates Foundation, published findings from a two-year study on the effectiveness of the Calculus Project and two other math-oriented summer programs. (Disclosure: The Gates Foundation is one of the many funders of The Hechinger Report.) According to the report, students in the Calculus Project outperformed students who hadn’t participated by nearly half a grade point in their fall math classes, on average.
The project runs counter to a recent push to engage high schoolers in math by making the content more relevant to the real world and substituting classes like data science for algebra II and calculus. Justin Desai, the Calculus Project’s director of school and district support and a former Boston Public Schools math teacher and curriculum designer, said he sees risks in that approach. Students need subjects like calculus, he said, because “it’s the foundation of modern technology.” To replace advanced math classes in favor of less rigorous math courses keeps students from accessing and excelling even in some non-STEM fields like law, he said.
The project finds ways to show students how math skills apply in the professional world. Every semester students take field trips to Harvard Medical School, Google and to university research centers and engineering companies, where they are introduced to careers and see how the math they are learning is used in society.
A group of rising eighth graders from Newton Public Schools learn how to use different engineering applications at MathWorks headquarters in Natick, Mass. Credit: Javeria Salman/The Hechinger Report
In late July, a group of rising eighth graders from Newton Public Schools’ summer program took a field trip to the sprawling campus of global software company MathWorks. In one room, an engineer showed students how a car simulation model is built and used, while a second engineer helped students test a robotic arm. Another group of students learned how to use a programming software to turn an image into music.
As the Calculus Project has grown, there has at times been friction. In July, simmering tension between teachers and students at Concord-Carlisle High School came to a head when some project participants learned they’d been placed in financial literacy or statistics courses instead of calculus.
Some students being placed into lower-level classes has been a pattern since the program started at Concord-Carlisle in 2020, Mims said. He threatened to pull the program from the high school, and the students were reassigned to calculus (and one to statistics).
Mims said “this is a clear example” of how teacher recommendations can lock students out of advanced math classes. School administrators and teachers often point to students and parents as the reason for a lack of diversity in high-level math. “When we destroy that myth and we show that students can achieve at that level,” said Mims, “they can no longer point the finger at the students and the parents anymore, because we’ve created a precedent that these students can thrive.”
Laurie Hunter, the Concord-Carlisle superintendent, wrote in an email that her district is committed to partnering with the Calculus Project and that it “works closely with individual students and families to ensure their success and path align with the outcomes of the project.” She did not respond to specific questions.
A student in William Frey’s summer class at Boston University works on graphs during a lesson on functions. Credit: Javeria Salman/The Hechinger Report
Milton Public Schools, another district that works with the Calculus Project, was the subject of a 2023 federal civil rights complaint from national conservative group Parents Defending Education. The group accused the district of discrimination by partnering with the Calculus Project, which it said segregates students by intentionally grouping students of certain backgrounds together as part of cohorts.
Mims rejects the group’s claims, noting that the Calculus Project is open to students of all backgrounds including white and Asian students. He says he has not heard from the federal government or the group about the complaint since early 2023. Parents Defending Education did not respond to several interview requests. A spokesperson for the federal Department of Education said the Office for Civil Rights does not confirm complaints but pointed to its list of open investigations. At the time of publication, there were no open investigations against Milton Public Schools.
Art Coleman, a founding partner at legal group EducationCounsel LLC, said that he doesn’t expect such challenges to be successful. School districts have a legal obligation to address inequities in student performance, he said, and “there is nothing in federal law that precludes that targeted support, as long as in broad terms, all students, regardless of their racial or ethnic status, have the ability to tap into those resources and that support.”
This summer, the Calculus Project expanded its programming, including by adding a college advising class for rising seniors. It’s part of the group’s mission to help its students succeed not just in high school but in college and beyond, Mims said.
The group plans to help its graduates secure internships while they’re in college and network once they’re out, he said, and will soon begin tracking students to see how they do in college and the workforce. “It’s really about giving them every advantage that rich kids have,” Mims said.
Ames, the Brookline High senior and peer teacher, said she has found the program “totally life-changing,” in part because of the relationships she’s built with other students and teachers.
Miranda Vasquez-Mejia, a rising ninth grader from Newton, learns how to handle a robotic arm at MathWorks headquarters in Natick, Mass. Credit: Javeria Salman/The Hechinger Report
“You can be in the hardest class or the easiest class and every teacher will be there to support you,” said Ames, who is taking AP Calculus this fall and is considering studying finance after high school. “Whatever questions you have, they’ll answer.”
Quentin Robinson, a college junior who joined the Calculus Project as a rising seventh grader, said it taught him that he enjoyed math and also how to advocate for himself.
“My freshman year, they tried to put me in a lower-level math class because they didn’t think I was capable,” Robinson said. But his summer experience empowered him, and he persuaded the school to place him in Geometry Honors instead. He graduated from high school having completed both calculus and a college-level statistics course.
Now, Robinson is an accounting and data analytics major at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. The Calculus Project, he said, helped him realize the voices of naysayers can be used as “a fuel” to achieve what you want.
Contact staff writer Javeria Salman at 212.678.3455 or salman@hechingerreport.org.
This story about advanced math was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our newsletter.
Related articles
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Matt is joined by New York Times awards season reporter Kyle Buchanan to preview the 2024-25 Oscar race now that the table is mostly set. Kyle sets the table for a fascinating Oscar season—one without a clear front-runner like Oppenheimer was last year—and highlights the biggest narratives that have emerged, including the movies with the strongest momentum, early 2024 films that could make a last-second surge, and other burning questions (02:09). Matt finishes the show with a prediction about the MLB playoffs (28:28).
For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, What I’m Hearing …, click here.
Musician, actor, and style iconJanet Jackson has been open about her views in recent years, with her 2017 State of the World tour beginning with a video statement of her politics. “We will not be silent. LGBTQ rights. Peace not war. Black Lives Matter. Immigrants are welcome. Liberty and justice for all,” the screens at tour stadiums read. “Prejudice: No! Ignorance: No! Bigotry: No! Illiteracy: No!” the message continued.
Those values were at odds with the messages presented by then-president Donald Trump, whose own values appear to have growneven further from those tenets during his current campaign to retake the White House. It appears that Jackson’s values might also have shifted, at least when it comes to her list of non-negotiables.
The 58-year-old singer’s 1986 song, “Nasty,” received an ironic bump in 2016 when Trump used that word against Democratic contender Hillary Clinton during that election cycle’s presidential debate. That was a politics-meets-pop-culture moment that almost seems quaint now, given Trump’s reported fondness, these days, for referring to his Democratic opponent, vice-president Kamala Harris, as a “bitch.” (Sadly for “Bitch” singer Meredith Brooks, the American public seems less inclined to view Trump’s insults as a silly joke this time around.)
Janet Jackson fans will likely be relieved to learn that the megastar didn’t use language that harsh to describe Harris. But her framing of a possible Harris presidency wasn’t terribly supportive, either. In an interview published Saturday by the Guardian, the “Pleasure Principle” singer perpetuated one of the most ignorant falsehoods presented during this Idiocracy-leaning presidential election: the lie that Harris has been deceptive about her race.
It’s clear from reading the conversation that even reporter Nosheen Iqbal was nonplussed. According to the journalist (who also hosts the Guardian’s Today in Focus podcast), she only asked Jackson about Harris due to the social justice messages Jackson has presented in work going back to her groundbreaking Rhythm Nation album in 1989. “Well, you know what they supposedly said?” Jackson responded. “She’s not black. That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian.”
It’s a claim that echoes the one first made by Trump in July, when he participated in an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists. At that event, Trump said of Harris that “She was always of Indian heritage and she was only promoting Indian heritage.”
“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black,” Trump falsely continued regarding the vice-president, who has never concealed her identity as the daughter of Donald J. Harris, her Black, Jamaican American father, and mother Shyamala Gopalan, who came to the U.S. from India in 1958.
“So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” Trump continued from the NABJ stage in July. “She was Indian all the way, and all of a sudden, she made a turn and she became a Black person.”
Though nearly every journalistic outlet fact-checked Trump’s remarks that day, it appears that the message didn’t reach Jackson, who actually expanded on Trump’s falsehoods when speaking with Iqbal. “Her father’s white. That’s what I was told. I mean, I haven’t watched the news in a few days,” Jackson said when Iqbal corrected her. “I was told that they discovered her father was white.”
It’s unclear who the “they” is that Jackson referred to, nor did she cite a source for the false claim about Harris’s father. Representatives for Jackson have not responded to Vanity Fair’s request for clarification.
As Iqbal wrote, “The people who are most vocal in questioning the facts of Harris’s identity tend to be hardcore QAnon-adjacent, Trump-loving conspiracy theorists,” but as she doesn’t “think Jackson falls into that camp,” one has to “wonder what the algorithms are serving her.” But just hours after the Guardian interview was published, Jackson returned to the headlines for another reason: her penthouse apartment is allegedly infested with black mold, a fungal growth that experts say can cause neurological issues including memory loss, confusion, and cognitive impairments.
According to the Daily Mail, Jackson recently moved out of her $26,000/month residence in London’s Chelsea Barracks after finding the toxic substance, after living in the flat “for several years.” The Mail reports that she’s now mulling a return to America, which is surprising given what else she had to say about the aftermath of the upcoming election. “I think either way it goes is going to be mayhem,” Jackson said, then repeated herself. “I think there might be mayhem either way it goes. But we’ll have to see.”
Colorado voters are set to weigh in on ballot questions related to abortion rights, veterinary services, mountain lion trophy hunting and an overhaul of the state’s election system in November.
The deadline to finalize the state’s ballot is coming Friday, but all of the citizen initiatives — meaning ballot questions pursued by members of the public, rather than the legislature — were finalized late last week. State election officials certified that the final ones had received enough petition signatures after clearing earlier regulatory hurdles.
Nine ballot measures from the public have been approved. But two of those — the property tax-related initiatives 50 and 108 — are both set to be withdrawn by sponsors as part of negotiations with the governor’s office and the state legislature, which on Thursday passed another property tax relief bill at the end of a special session.
When people learn that I have a doctorate in educational psychology and quantitative methods, they often assume that I love math. And the truth is, I do now, although that wasn’t always the case.
Like many Black students, I faced challenges throughout my academic journey, with math tracking being the primary one. Despite high math scores in earlier grades and a passion for the subject, I was placed into lower-level math courses in middle school.
All students deserve to benefit from enriching math learning experiences and the promising future those experiences can unlock.
Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter to receive our comprehensive reporting directly in your inbox.
When I was in elementary school, my father, a master carpenter and math enthusiast, played a significant role in shaping my love and curiosity for math. He believed that no concept was too complex to learn, and he used carpentry to help me understand the interconnectedness of math and the world around me.
I learned about fractions, angles, precision and spatial awareness using wooden blocks and puzzle pieces I helped my dad create. By the age of 11, I could read a floor plan and calculate the length of a diagonal roofline using the Pythagorean theorem.
My dad taught me that math makes the world better, and that learning math is key to understanding the world.
But in middle school, being tracked into lower-level courses contradicted my math identity and eroded my confidence to the point of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy: I became a lower-level math student, which marked the beginning of a full-blown math identity crisis.
Frequent learning disruptions — a result of the lower-level classes also being used for students with behavioral challenges — combined with a curriculum without meaningful content facilitated a swift shift in my relationship with math.
Tracking also limited my access to advanced high school courses such as statistics and calculus that would have further developed my math skills and opened up numerous postsecondary opportunities.
Sadly, I was learning to hate math, despite my early love for it.
The tracked classes did, however, improve my social skills and popularity. Through regular exchanges of humorous insults with fellow classmates on various topics — such as who was the least intelligent or most economically disadvantaged — I developed a well-curated arsenal of diss material.
The joke-telling also became a great defense mechanism against the stigma of having been placed in lower-level classes. So instead of practicing math during study hall, I worked on refining my repertoire of jokes. I didn’t learn much math, but I did learn how to be funny.
Unfortunately, my story is far too common. Indeed, more than half of U.S. states have recognized that their traditional approaches, including placement policies and limited math course options, often advantage an elite few while overlooking the needs of the broader student population.
While a lack of resources in underserved schools is a real issue, the most damage to students’ math identities and success can be attributed to dated perspectives on the type of math courses that should be offered and systemic racism dictating who they should be offered to.
I was fortunate to discover applied statistics in graduate school. This discovery marked a pivotal turning point in my post-elementary school relationship with math, which had, up until then, been more a “situationship” — a noncommittal and sporadic interest driven by prerequisite requirements.
For the first time since learning with my dad, I was engaged and sufficiently challenged while learning mathematics. Unlike my previous math classes, the statistics courses weren’t focused on rote memorization or problems that lack any relevance to the real world.
And since earning my Ph.D., I’ve used these skills across various professional domains.
I’ve used structural equation modeling to predict STEM access for underserved students and to make recommendations to broaden pathways to STEM. As a United Way director of education, I used statistical methods, such as linear regression, to make investment and funding decisions. During my 2019 run for Congress, my statistical expertise proved invaluable in analyzing trends, guiding campaign messaging and optimizing resource allocation. I felt empowered like never before, having the ability to make more accurate interpretations and informed decisions.
I recently co-authored a report addressing the equity dimensions of math education, delving into past policies and emerging strategies to better engage and prepare students for college and career in a data-driven society.
The report sheds light on the need to enrich students’ math experiences with challenging and relevant content that offers opportunities for deeper learning. This content should provide pathways for students to make connections between theoretical concepts and practical solutions, such as building sustainable communities in underresourced regions.
The most valuable lesson I learned throughout this journey was the inextricable link between math identity and math experiences. In other words, when people say they don’t like math, they really mean that they didn’t like their experiences learning math.
Students learn more than just mathematics in math class; they are affirming their abilities and math identities and discovering that they can have a place in shaping an advanced technological society. We owe it to our students to ensure that they have better math learning experiences than those I received decades ago.
Melodie K. Baker is national policy director for Just Equations, a nonprofit organization reconceptualizing the role of math to ensure educational equity.
This story about math tracking was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.
Related articles
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Inside a small, mural-covered building just outside Indianola, Mississippi, 14-year-old Tamorris Carter made the rounds, bouncing lightly on his heels.
He stopped frequently to explain objects of interest; pictures of class field trips to civil rights monuments, or a poster he made on “social dominance orientation,” a term that describes one’s tolerance for social inequality. Even in moments of pause, Tamorris found a way to remain in motion. He would smooth down the cap on his head, lean forward to pinch the bubbles of a rainbow-printed fidget toy, and trace the words of his poster.
Tamorris was giving a tour of the Sunflower County Freedom Project, an after-school and summertime educational program where he’d been a student for a little over two years. The Sunflower County Freedom Project is one location of the Freedom Project Network, an organization that gives Mississippi students “holistic and liberatory education experiences.”
Tamorris Carter stands for a portrait in Indianola, Miss. Credit: Andrea Morales for MLK50 Andrea Morales for MLK50
At the Freedom Projects, students — called “Freedom Fellows” — learn about Black and Indigenous history, math, reading and public speaking. The program also prepares students for college. Freedom Fellows range in age from third to 12th grade.
Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter to receive our comprehensive reporting directly in your inbox.
Most Freedom Fellows at the Sunflower County location are from Indianola, the county seat. Around 9,000 people live there; 84% of them are Black. Almost a third live in poverty. The town center is ringed by cotton fields, which in July, are low to the ground and bright green. In certain places, neat rows of small plants extend to the horizon. The Mississippi State Penitentiary, a place once described by historian David Oshinksy as “the closest thing to slavery that survived the Civil War,” is a short drive from Indianola. Last year, the town made national news when an Indianola police officer shot an unarmed, Black 11-year-old in the chest.
Other educational programs might prepare students to leave towns like Indianola. But the Freedom Project Network is “not an organization just trying to get kids into college,” emphasized LaToysha Brown, the organization’s executive director. “We are not trying to bring kids in to separate them from the community.”
Instead, she hopes Freedom Fellows will use their education to change their communities for the better.
An education that empowers
Students in a fourth-grade math class work through their lessons together. Photo by Andrea Morales for MLK50 Credit: Andrea Morales for MLK50
By early July, the Sunflower County Freedom Project was wrapping up its summer program. Tamorris and other Freedom Fellows moved from class to class in different parts of the building.
“This is our library,” Tamorris announced, cutting through a small room filled with books on Black history, social critique, philosophy, and young adult fiction. From there, he reached a large open area with mats on the ground. “This room is kind of like a gym,” he said. “This is where we do taekwondo.” He paused briefly to demonstrate a move, a decisive punch to the air.
Tamorris walked through a door at the back of the gym, which connected to a classroom with blue walls. A third-grade math class was in session, so he dropped the volume of his voice to a whisper. The classroom’s walls were covered in homemade posters left behind from student presentations. Among others, there were posters with information about historically Black colleges, “The Myth of Racial Progress,” and the signs of ADHD.
A 1964 image of a Freedom School class in Hattiesburg, Miss. Credit: Herbert Randall for the SNCC via the University of Southern Mississippi
The Freedom Project Network takes its name from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s Freedom Schools of 1964, whose alums are celebrating the schools’ 60th anniversary this year. The original Freedom Schools opened to educate young Black Mississippians on Black history and political activism. Charlie Cobb, the SNCC member who proposed the idea, wrote that segregated schools in Mississippi were “geared to squash intellectual curiosity and different thinking.” By contrast, Cobb hoped the Freedom Schools would provide Black kids with an education that empowered them. Eventually, these students would use their education to advocate for racial justice in Mississippi.
In 1998, three decades after the last Freedom Schools closed, a group of community members and Teach for America fellows established the Sunflower County Freedom Project.
LaToysha Brown, 28, grew up in Indianola and is a Freedom Fellow at the Sunflower County Freedom Project. From her perspective, the need for the Freedom Project Network was obvious.
“In Indianola schools, students do not receive a quality education,” she said. “When I was a student, we didn’t receive new textbooks, and we weren’t challenged to read many books. Our teachers were amazing with the resources they had. But our schools were under-resourced.”
In Indianola schools, “you’re never going to have an in-depth conversation about enslavement,” Brown said. Instead, the history of racial injustice is limited to “a paragraph or two” in a textbook.
The Freedom Project gave Brown an education she would not have received at school. Now, Brown works with students who attend that same school system — kids like Tamorris.
Filling in gaps
Credit: Andrea Morales for MLK50
A photo of Tamorris Carter sitting next to a statue of Rosa Parks while on a field trip to Dallas hangs on the bulletin board at the Sunflower County Freedom Project. Photo by Andrea Morales for MLK50
Tamorris became a Freedom Fellow in eighth grade. By that point, he’d already gained an awareness of injustice, even if he couldn’t label it as such. He remembers looking around his middle school one day and noticing something strange — “I thought, ‘all I see is Black people.’”
He suddenly realized all his classmates were Black, as were the teachers and administrators at his school. This didn’t bother him, exactly, but it did make him wonder: Where are the white kids?
After he joined the Freedom Project, a guest speaker gave him the answer he was looking for: Most white students in Indianola still attend the private Indianola Academy, established to maintain segregation in 1965. Each year, around 400 students attend Indianola Academy. In 2012, then-headmaster Sammy Henderson admitted to The Atlanticmagazinethat the school only enrolled nine Black students, but added that “we also have Hispanic, Indian, and Oriental students.”
For Tamorris, learning about Indianola Academy was a revelation. He had suspected his education was shaped by racism, but he couldn’t bring himself to voice those thoughts. “I didn’t want to be one of those guys that makes everything a conspiracy,” he said. But the guest speaker “gave me reassurance.” He felt — or, allowed himself to feel — that the reality of his life had been kept secret.
He began to see racism throughout his education. At school, teachers had barely mentioned Fannie Lou Hamer, who was born and raised in Sunflower County. They had not taught Tamorris about Juneteenth, either.
Indeed, it started to feel as though his entire life had been shaped by oppression. Tamorris’ mother sometimes struggles to afford food; before, this was an unfortunate fact of life. Now, Tamorris understands it as a symptom of a larger system of racial capitalism. “Screw capitalism,” he said with a grin. “Capitalism is what keeps me broke.”
Tamorris Carter celebrates with fellows and staff following his presentation on July 12 Credit: Andrea Morales for MLK50
This kind of thought process is a part of the Freedom Schools’ “liberatory pedagogy,” a teaching style that takes for granted that, according to Brown, “People already know what’s happening to them. They just need the language.”
Brown acknowledges that Tamorris is an extraordinary student. Still, she said, “a lot of our students walk into our space feeling like something just isn’t right in their lives. We fill in the gaps. We give them language. We allow them to share their experiences with each other about what’s happening in their community.”
On July 12, Tamorris and a few other freedom fellows gathered to present a project of their choosing to their family members and supporters. Tamorris gave a presentation on social dominance orientation, which he argues plays a role in the continuation of oppressive systems.
These presentations are a major aspect of the Freedom Project’s teaching style; they are intended to get Freedom Fellows comfortable educating their community members. From Brown’s perspective, a student like Tamorris is perfectly capable of analyzing society by himself, without the assistance of the Freedom Project. But to Brown, analysis is only part of the process.
“I said, ‘Great, you have this great big analysis of the world,” said Brown of Tamorris. “‘Now, I want you to apply that. How can you use that analysis to organize with the people around you?’”
Rebecca Cadenhead is the youth and juvenile justice reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. She is also a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. Email her rebecca.cadenhead@mlk50.com.
This story was written by MLK50 and reprinted with permission.
Related articles
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Noah Lyles has said when people see the race, they know something special is about to happen and he didn’t disappoint in the men’s 100 m finals with *** photo finish. It’s *** personal best for Lyles in 9.72 seconds in *** race that came down to 5000 th of *** second. His teammate Fred Curly wins bronze, his second Olympic medal in the 100 m. Lyles is the first American man to win gold in the 100 m since Justin Gatlin at the 2004 Athens games. Everybody thought that this was going to be *** slow year for the 100 but here we are proving that it wasn’t. This race came down to 5, 1/1000 of *** second. I mean, that’s maddening how small that is. How much of that is the energy of this crowd. I feel like it definitely got in tune with the energy. But at the end of the day, we all train for these moments like this and you can’t take it away from nobody. I think it’s hard being the world’s this man will try being his mom. We talked to her just minutes before her son raced. I told him that he was born for such *** time as this, this moment was created for him. I told him to have fun that we love you, but he already knows that and just go out there and do what you do next up. It’s the men’s 200 m prelims that’s coming up Monday night, Paris time at the Paris Olympics. I’m Deirdre Fitzpatrick.
Lyles makes Olympic 200-meter final despite finishing second in semifinal qualifying race
Updated: 12:13 PM PDT Aug 7, 2024
Noah Lyles will race for his second Olympic gold medal despite finishing second Wednesday in the 200-meter semifinal, his first loss at that distance in three years. Letsile Tebogo of Botswana finished the heat in 19.96 seconds, beating Lyles by .12 and marking the first time the American has lost a 200 of any kind since he finished third at the Tokyo Games.It opened up a 24-hour period to debate and discuss the meaning of the second-place finish, which still earned Lyles an automatic qualifying spot in Thursday night’s final but could have him running the curve from a less-than-ideal lane.Last weekend, Lyles notably lost both his opening heat and the semifinal round of the 100, before coming back to eke out a .005-second victory over Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson in the final. That win came about 90 minutes after another Jamaican, Oblique Seville, beat him in the semifinal for that sprint.Lyles, normally a regular in the interview room with reporters, even after early rounds, skipped it this time and team officials said he had headed to the medical tent. Asked if Lyles was OK, his coach, Lance Brauman, told The Associated Press: “He’s fine.”Some things to consider:—Was Tebogo, a world bronze medalist with the third-best time of 2024, trying to send a message, and if so, did he burn too much energy trying to make his point? He finished in 19.96 for the only sub-20 run of the night.—Was Lyles taking it easy, even after conceding he had been a bit unprepared for the challenges he would face in the early rounds after opening the Games with a second-place finish in the 100 meters?—Or might this fuel Lyles, who does not take kindly to being messed with in his favorite race?Video above: Noah Lyles’ mom shares her Olympic journey as her son makes historyAmong those waiting for him in the final will be Kenny Bednarek, the American who came within .06 of Lyles earlier this summer at Olympic trials. Also, Erryion Knighton, the 20-year-old American who was long seen as Lyles’ next, big threat but whose only victories over Lyles came in the opening rounds of the 2021 Olympic trials.The defending champion, Andre De Grasse of Canada, finished third in his heat and did not advance.
SAINT-DENIS, France —
Noah Lyles will race for his second Olympic gold medal despite finishing second Wednesday in the 200-meter semifinal, his first loss at that distance in three years.
Letsile Tebogo of Botswana finished the heat in 19.96 seconds, beating Lyles by .12 and marking the first time the American has lost a 200 of any kind since he finished third at the Tokyo Games.
It opened up a 24-hour period to debate and discuss the meaning of the second-place finish, which still earned Lyles an automatic qualifying spot in Thursday night’s final but could have him running the curve from a less-than-ideal lane.
Last weekend, Lyles notably lost both his opening heat and the semifinal round of the 100, before coming back to eke out a .005-second victory over Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson in the final. That win came about 90 minutes after another Jamaican, Oblique Seville, beat him in the semifinal for that sprint.
Lyles, normally a regular in the interview room with reporters, even after early rounds, skipped it this time and team officials said he had headed to the medical tent. Asked if Lyles was OK, his coach, Lance Brauman, told The Associated Press: “He’s fine.”
Some things to consider:
—Was Tebogo, a world bronze medalist with the third-best time of 2024, trying to send a message, and if so, did he burn too much energy trying to make his point? He finished in 19.96 for the only sub-20 run of the night.
—Was Lyles taking it easy, even after conceding he had been a bit unprepared for the challenges he would face in the early rounds after opening the Games with a second-place finish in the 100 meters?
—Or might this fuel Lyles, who does not take kindly to being messed with in his favorite race?
Video above: Noah Lyles’ mom shares her Olympic journey as her son makes history
Among those waiting for him in the final will be Kenny Bednarek, the American who came within .06 of Lyles earlier this summer at Olympic trials. Also, Erryion Knighton, the 20-year-old American who was long seen as Lyles’ next, big threat but whose only victories over Lyles came in the opening rounds of the 2021 Olympic trials.
The defending champion, Andre De Grasse of Canada, finished third in his heat and did not advance.
Nota de la editora: Este reportaje sobre las escuelas de Russellville fue producido por palabra, una iniciativa de la Asociación Nacional de Periodistas Hispanos, The Hechinger Report, una organización de noticias independiente y sin fines de lucro que se enfoca en la desigualdad y la innovación en la educación, y AL.com.
RUSSELLVILLE, Alabama — Lindsey Johnson y Yesenia de la Rosa estaban usando estrategias diferentes para impartir la misma lección de inglés sobre letras mudas, sentadas en extremos opuestos de ese salón de clases de primer grado en la Escuela Primaria West. En esa tarde de marzo, Johnson, la maestra del aula, estaba leyendo un cuento con niños de 6 y 7 años que dominaban el inglés. Los estudiantes de la asistente bilingüe, De la Rosa, aún estaban aprendiendo el idioma, así que, aunque les estaba leyendo el mismo cuento, iba más lento, traduciendo palabras, actuando emociones y mostrándoles fotos en su iPhone.
Valentina, de 6 años, que llevaba puesta una camiseta negra con un logo de Nike en dorado y mallas, había llegado hacía menos de dos semanas desde Guatemala. Sentada en el suelo, cerca de la silla de De la Rosa, su mejilla casi tocaba la pierna de su maestra. De la Rosa solía trabajar con ella de forma individual, ya que la niña no sabía letras ni números, ni en español ni en inglés. Cuando Valentina fue al kínder en su país natal, lo único que hacía era colorear. “Así que cuando llegó aquí, eso es lo que pensaba que iba a hacer. Solo dibujar”, dijo De la Rosa. “Pero aquí es distinto”.
El distrito escolar de la ciudad de Russellville creó el puesto de De la Rosa a principios de 2021, como parte de un esfuerzo más amplio por ayudar a educar a su creciente población de alumnos que hablan inglés como segundo idioma. Muchos de los estudiantes de inglés, como se les llama, tienen padres provenientes de México o Guatemala que trabajan en una planta avícola cercana y en empleos locales en la industria y la construcción. Hoy, el 60% de los niños del distrito son hispanos/latinos y aproximadamente un tercio son estudiantes de inglés.
Johnson dijo que, sin De la Rosa, no podría comunicarse con más de la mitad de sus alumnos, ni entender los desafíos a los que se enfrentan. Johnson sabía que Yeferson, un estudiante de inglés de Guatemala, era uno de los niños más inteligentes en la clase, ya que leía más de 100 palabras, muy por encima de la meta de 60. “Es una esponja. Lo absorbe todo”, dijo Johnson. Pero ella supo gracias a De la Rosa que Yeferson se estaba destacando a pesar de sus muchas responsabilidades en casa: su mamá trabajaba turnos nocturnos, por lo que Yeferson lavaba la ropa, fregaba los platos y cuidaba de sus hermanos menores. Dijo Johnson: “Tener un asistente bilingüe hace una gran diferencia”.
Russellville quizás no dé la impresión de ser una comunidad que va a invertir e innovar a favor de los estudiantes inmigrantes. Es una ciudad políticamente conservadora del noroeste de Alabama, con una población aproximada de 11.000 habitantes, y en la que un 72% de los votantes optó por Donald Trump en las últimas elecciones presidenciales.
Cuando la planta de procesamiento avícola abrió, en 1989, la población hispana de Russellville era aproximadamente el 0,5% del total de habitantes. En 2000, había aumentado al 13% y, en 2020, era casi del 40%. Al principio, al distrito escolar, como a muchos otros del país, se le hizo difícil dar cabida al creciente número de estudiantes de inglés, que abandonaban los estudios en altos porcentajes, estos eran empujados a clases de educación especial y después mostraban escasos progresos académicos. Sin embargo, sus logros importan: hoy en Estados Unidos, más de uno de cada 10 estudiantes es un estudiante de inglés como segundo idioma y, en una época en la que la matrícula en los centros públicos en general está disminuyendo, se encuentran entre los grupos de estudiantes que más rápido están creciendo del país.
A principios de 2015, cuando el entonces superintendente anunció su retiro, el distrito reclutó para el puesto a Heath Grimes, que en aquel momento era el superintendente del sistema escolar del cercano condado de Lawrence. Grimes, de 48 años, quien se autodenomina sureño conservador y hombre de fe de la Alabama rural, se propuso abordar la reforma de la enseñanza para los estudiantes de inglés por completo, estableciendo actividades extracurriculares culturalmente relevantes y conectando con la comunidad hispana. Se sintió el impacto de dichos esfuerzos: la porción de estudiantes hispanos que tomaron clases de nivel avanzado (AP, por sus siglas en inglés), así como cursos de doble matrícula en el colegio comunitario local, aumentó. También lo hizo la participación de los padres. Y Grimes lideró un esfuerzo para convencer a los legisladores de que cambiaran la fórmula de financiación del estado de Alabama para los estudiantes de inglés como segundo idioma, multiplicando por más de ocho la asignación estatal, hasta llegar a los $18,5 millones. El distrito y Grimes recibieron el reconocimiento estatal y nacional por su labor con los estudiantes de inglés.
Heath Grimes lideró el distrito escolar de la ciudad de Russellville, en Alabama, de 2015 a 2024. Credit: Charity Rachelle for palabra/The Hechinger Report
“Cualquier distrito con una población significativa de estudiantes de inglés ha acudido a Heath (Grimes) porque él se adelantó a los acontecimientos ”, dijo Ryan Hollingsworth, director ejecutivo de los Superintendentes Escolares de Alabama, que representa a los 150 distritos escolares del estado. “Es simplemente increíble ver lo que ha podido lograr en un distrito pequeño sin muchos recursos”.
Pero a medida que la figura de Grimes ascendía a nivel estatal, según los educadores y residentes locales, su relación con los dirigentes de la ciudad comenzó a desmoronarse. Luego, a mediados de mayo de 2023, un miembro de la junta escolar le informó a Grimes que su contrato, que terminaba en junio de 2024, no sería renovado. Grimes aceptó retirarse cuando terminara su contrato al año siguiente, a cambio de un aumento en el salario de su último año. A partir de noviembre, intenté hablar con miembros de la junta escolar, con el alcalde y con miembros del ayuntamiento acerca del distrito escolar y de Grimes, y en un principio no respondieron a mis reiteradas solicitudes de entrevistas. (Cuando me presenté ante al alcalde, David Grissom, sobre la calle en Russellville, me dijo “sin comentarios” y se marchó). Pero a lo largo de los meses, sin embargo, pude hablar con más de 60 funcionarios estatales, administradores locales, docentes, exmiembros de la junta escolar, líderes comunitarios y residentes, incluyendo personas que conocí en negocios y en la calle, en Russellville. Dichas entrevistas indican que la decisión de forzar a Grimes a dejar el cargo como superintendente surgió de una maraña de políticas de pueblo pequeño, una antipatía profundamente arraigada hacia los inmigrantes y una añoranza de la ciudad que Russellville solía ser.
“Heath Grimes puso a los estudiantes primero. Y esto al final pudo haberlo perjudicado”, dijo Jason Barnett, superintendente del Consejo de Educación de la ciudad de Guntersville, en el norte de Alabama, y uno de las docenas de líderes de distrito en el estado que trabajaron de cerca con Grimes. Aproximadamente, 18 educadores y líderes comunitarios en Russellville, muchos de ellos con conocimiento de los acontecimientos, me dijeron que el apoyo de Grimes a la creciente población de estudiantes que aprenden inglés fue clave para que perdiera el apoyo entre los principales dirigentes de la ciudad. Muchos de los líderes pidieron no ser citados por temor a represalias o a tensar las relaciones en esta pequeña comunidad. Un administrador escolar, que no quiso ser identificado por miedo a perder su empleo, dijo de Grimes: “Muchas personas dijeron que el aumento en la población indocumentada se debía a que él hizo de las escuelas de Russellville (y por ende la ciudad) un lugar acogedor en el que los inmigrantes querían vivir. A la gente no le gustó eso”.
A principios de julio volví a buscar a Grissom; a Daniel McDowell, al abogado de la junta escolar, y a Greg Trapp, quien fue hasta hace poco el presidente de esa misma junta. Les compartí mis hallazgos tras meses de reportajes, junto con una lista detallada de preguntas para ellos. McDowell y Grissom respondieron con declaraciones por escrito en las que afirmaron que los estudiantes de habla hispana habían prosperado en el distrito mucho antes de que llegara el superintendente Grimes, y negaron que su dedicación a los estudiantes de inglés hubiera propiciado su partida. “Los inmigrantes de los países latinoamericanos han venido mudándose a Russellville durante los últimos 25 años y siempre han sido bienvenidos en la ciudad y al cuerpo estudiantil”, escribió Grissom. “Mirando hacia atrás, nuestra escuela preparatoria ha coronado a una reina latina de baile de bienvenida, votada por el cuerpo estudiantil, y ha reconocido al primer estudiante latino graduado con las mejores calificaciones. Esos eventos ocurrieron mucho antes de que el Dr. Grimes llegara a Russellville”.
Credit: Illustration by Pepa Ilustradora for palabra/The Hechinger Report
Inmigrantes no bienvenidos
Antes de que Grimes llegara a Russellville, los legisladores estatales aprobaron, en 2011, la ley HB 56, considerada ampliamente como la ley antiinmigrante más severa del país. Dicha ley daba a la policía la autoridad para detener a las personas que creían que no tenían documentos legales para vivir en Estados Unidos, y tipificaba como delito que las empresas contrataran a estas personas a sabiendas y que los propietarios alquilaran a quienes carecían de documentación. Además, las universidades públicas no podían admitir estudiantes sin documentos de inmigración y, aunque, según la ley federal, las escuelas K-12 están obligadas a acoger a los estudiantes sin importar su estatus de ciudadanía, la legislación de Alabama también exigía que los distritos escolares recopilaran información sobre el estatus de ciudadanía de sus estudiantes. Aunque partes de la ley fueron posteriormente anuladas por un tribunal federal, el mensaje era claro: los inmigrantes no eran bienvenidos.
Por todo eso, cuando Greg Batchelor, entonces presidente de la junta escolar de la ciudad de Russellville, buscaba un nuevo superintendente escolar, en el 2015, sabía que las cosas se volverían controversiales. La población hispana de la ciudad era del 22% y seguía creciendo. Algunos antiguos residentes “anglo”, como se autodenominaban los miembros de la población de raza blanca, se referían despectivamente al centro de la ciudad como “Pequeño México”, y se quejaban de oír hablar español y de ver las casas coloridas que asociaban con la comunidad hispana.
La población hispana de Russellville ha pasado de representar casi el cero, a fines de la década de 1980, a constituir casi un 40%, en 2020. Credit: Charity Rachelle for palabra/The Hechinger Report
Batchelor y otro exmiembro de la junta escolar, Bret Gist, recordaron haber oído a antiguos residentes decir que estaban inscribiendo a sus hijos en escuelas privadas o marchándose de Russellville porque no querían que sus hijos fueran “la minoría”. A otros les preocupaba que los estudiantes de inglés hicieran bajar las calificaciones de los exámenes y dañaran la reputación de su distrito escolar. En aquel entonces, apenas cinco distritos del estado tenían una población de estudiantes de inglés superior al 10%; la de Russellville era la segunda más alta, con un 16%.
Batchelor, que también es presidente de la junta directiva de CB&S, uno de los bancos comunitarios más grandes de Alabama, dijo que sabía que la futura economía de la ciudad dependía del próximo líder escolar: “Si nuestra comunidad sobrevive y le va bien, solo podrá ser tan buena como eduquemos a nuestros niños”. También expresó que creía que los estudiantes hispanos de la ciudad merecían las mismas oportunidades que sus compañeros de clase, y que estaba profundamente influenciado por su padre, quien fue miembro de la junta escolar de Russellville durante 20 años. “Mi papá solía decir que todos se ponen los pantalones de la misma manera, una pierna a la vez”, recordó Batchelor.
En ese momento, Grimes, un exmaestro de educación especial y entrenador de fútbol americano, se encontraba en su sexto año como superintendente del condado de Lawrence. En su primer mandato de cuatro años, había cerrado tres escuelas secundarias debido a una caída de la matrícula y a un déficit presupuestario que heredó. “Es muy inusual en Alabama que un superintendente cierre escuelas en un condado y luego sea reelecto, y él fue reelecto”, dijo Batchelor. “Sentí como que él no temía tomar decisiones difíciles”. Gist, el exmiembro de la junta escolar, recuerda la emoción que sintieron los integrantes de la junta tras la entrevista con Grimes. “Yo estaba listo para que llegara y tuviera un gran impacto”, dijo Gist.
El 11 de mayo de 2015, Grimes fue votado por unanimidad como el nuevo superintendente escolar de Russellville.
Credit: Illustration by Pepa Ilustradora for palabra/The Hechinger Report
Nuevas estrategias
Kristie Ezzell, quien se jubiló de las escuelas de Russellville en 2022 después de 31 años en los que trabajó bajo cuatro superintendentes, presenció la transformación de primera mano. Como maestra de segundo grado en la década de 1990, enseñó a una de las primeras estudiantes de inglés del distrito. Ezzell recordó a una niña pequeña que intentaba una y otra vez comunicarse, pero a quien Ezzell no podía entender. “Comenzó a llorar y luego comencé a llorar yo, y las dos nos quedamos paradas ahí y nos abrazamos y lloramos”, recordó Ezzell. “La barrera idiomática entre nosotras era simplemente desgarradora”.
El crecimiento rápido de la población de estudiantes de inglés había tomado por sorpresa a los educadores de Russellville. En todo el distrito, había apenas un maestro titulado para enseñar inglés como segundo idioma, ningún intérprete y muy poco desarrollo profesional. “Nos llegaban estudiantes que no hablan una pizca de inglés, sus padres no hablan una pizca de inglés, y se espera que nosotros los eduquemos”, me dijo una maestra, quien pidió no ser identificada para evitar consecuencias. “Y yo ni siquiera sabía si están pidiendo ir al baño o si tienen hambre”. La situación también era injusta para los estudiantes angloparlantes, que perdían tiempo de aprendizaje porque sus maestros tenían la mente en otras cosas, dijo . “Simplemente era un desorden en todos los sentidos”.
Grimes, que no habla español y tenía poca experiencia con estudiantes de inglés en sus roles anteriores, dijo que lo primero que escuchó fue: “¿Cómo vas a solucionar esto?”. “Creo que pensaban que yo iba a hacer, de alguna manera, que la población de estudiantes de inglés desapareciera”, me dijo. “Y mi actitud fue: ‘No, no vamos a hacer eso’”. En lugar de ello, les pidió a los educadores: “Aceptar, Acoger, Celebrar”. “Primero, tienen que aceptar que su distrito está cambiando. Y, cuando abracemos ese cambio, vamos a ver algunos cambios muy positivos que vamos a poder celebrar”, recuerda que les dijo. “Y todo eso se ha hecho realidad”.
Para entonces, Ezzell era directora de la Escuela Primaria de Russellville. Recordó la primera reunión que tuvo Grimes con maestros, en la que presentó las calificaciones de los exámenes de los estudiantes, desglosados por escuelas. “Me hundí en mi asiento y vinieron lágrimas a mis ojos porque nuestros resultados no eran muy buenos”, me dijo.
Su mensaje, según Ezzell, fue simple: “No más excusas. Nuestros maestros ya no van a decir: ‘Bueno, son estudiantes de inglés’. Eso no está bien. (Estos estudiantes) van a crecer igual que todos los demás”. Mientras exponía sus expectativas, los maestros comenzaron a mirar nerviosos a su alrededor, recordó. Algunos lloraron y uno tuvo que dejar el salón. A algunos les preocupaba que Grimes estuviera criticando sus competencias; otros lo desestimaron por forastero, dijo Ezzell. Pero, ella recordó, una cosa estaba clara: “Sabíamos que hablaba en serio”, dijo. “Era muy empático con todo lo que estábamos enfrentando, pero afirmó: ‘Esto no puede continuar’”.
Cuando comenzaron a llegar más estudiantes hispanos a las escuelas de Russellville, en la década de 1990, el distrito tenía pocos recursos para atenderlos. Con el superintendente Heath Grimes, el distrito invirtió en esos alumnos. Credit: Charity Rachelle for palabra/The Hechinger Report
Cuando Ezzell se fue a casa esa noche, no podía dejar de pensar en la reunión. Era consciente de lo duro que trabajaban sus maestros. “Nunca dejaron de enseñar”, dijo. Pero las pésimas estadísticas le demostraron que no se estaban enfocando en las cosas indicadas. Ezzell me dijo que, desde ese momento, ha comenzado una misión para encontrar mejores formas de educar a sus estudiantes: “Dediqué mi vida a ello”.
Grimes dijo que la actitud predominante era que los estudiantes de inglés eran una carga, una percepción similar a la que se tenía de los estudiantes de educación especial a los que él una vez enseñó. Entonces trajo a una profesora y asesora educativa, Tery Medina, que explicó que los niños inmigrantes eran estudiantes del distrito bajo la ley federal. Siendo ella misma refugiada cubana, dirigió debates con los docentes sobre las similitudes entre la cultura hispana y la sureña. “Aman a la familia. Son trabajadores y muchos tienen fe en Cristo. Eran todas esas cosas con las que todos se podían identificar”, recordó Grimes. Por su parte, Medina dijo que estaba impresionada con la apertura que Russellville tuvo con estos estudiantes. Durante el mandato de Grimes, “Russellville fue una pequeña joya”, dijo, “allí no se veía a los estudiantes de inglés como una carga”.
El distrito también invirtió en el desarrollo profesional de los maestros, asegurándose de que tuviera lugar durante las horas de trabajo, dijo Ezzell. Expertos, libros, videos, planes de lecciones detallados… para los maestros, en ese momento, era como una maraña de aprendizaje continuo. Lentamente, los educadores comenzaron a compartir estrategias y a impartir clases juntos. “¿Conoces el dicho, ‘Cuando sabes más, haces mejor?’”, me preguntó Ezzell. “Eso fue lo que sucedió”. Los maestros experimentaron, hicieron sus lecciones más interactivas y se guiaron por las más recientes investigaciones. Algunos maestros incluso crearon lo que se convirtió en una premiada clase de ciencia en tres idiomas: inglés, español y q’anjob’al, un dialecto guatemalteco. “Les dedicábamos tiempo para que fueran a aprender las mejores prácticas. Y eso benefició a todos los estudiantes, no solamente a los estudiantes de inglés”, dijo Ezzell.
No todos en el distrito aceptaron el cambio. Grimes recordó haberse reunido con una maestra que estaba a cargo de una clase en la que el 30% de los estudiantes estaba reprobando. Ella no lo veía como un problema, dijo Grimes. “(Su actitud) era como: ‘Vengo haciendo esto durante 20 años y no vas a decirme lo contrario’”. Según Grimes, dicha maestra se jubiló poco después; algunos otros maestros renunciaron.
Pero los maestros que se quedaron dijeron que podían ver que los estudiantes empezaban a responder a los nuevos enfoques. Los estudiantes de inglés comenzaban a participar más en clase; ya no se sentaban al fondo del salón. Muchos más de ellos comenzaron a tomar clases AP, de nivel avanzado, así como también clases de doble inscripción en el Colegio Comunitario Northwest College. “Los motivamos. Y cuando motivas con amor, vas a tener éxito”, dijo Ezzell.
El distrito comenzó a acumular galardones. Varias de sus escuelas recibieron el codiciado Blue Ribbon School of Excellence (un premio a la excelencia). Desde 2021, la escuela secundaria Russellville ha sido nombrada una de las mejores 25 escuelas en Alabama por U.S. News & World Report. En 2022, fue el único distrito de Alabama en el que predominan las minorías que recibió una nota “A” en el boletín de calificaciones del estado; en 2023, Russellville fue uno de los dos únicos en el estado nombrado como “Spotlight District” (Distrito destacado) en lectura y alfabetización, y su escuela secundaria fue reconocida como Escuela de Excelencia A+ College Ready, designación otorgada por una organización sin fines de lucro contratada por el departamento de educación estatal para maximizar la preparación para la universidad.
El núcleo de las estrategias de Grimes, además del fomento del conocimiento cultural y del desarrollo profesional, eran los educadores bilingües. En un principio, Grimes colocó intérpretes en cada escuela para ayudar con las traducciones cotidianas, pero sabía que los maestros necesitaban aún más ayuda en los salones de clases. Sin embargo, una escasez nacional de educadores bilingües exigía creatividad. Grimes decidió enfocarse en contratar asistentes bilingües, que ganaban la mitad del sueldo de un maestro. Se comunicó con el reverendo Vincent Bresowar, de la Iglesia Católica del Buen Pastor de Russellville, para que lo ayudara a correr la voz sobre los puestos que se ofrecían.
El tamaño de la congregación de Bresowar había crecido a medida que habían ido llegando familias inmigrantes a Russellville; su iglesia había construido recientemente un nuevo edificio de $4,5 millones para adaptarse a ese aumento.
Sus feligreses, mientras tanto, trabajaban largas e irregulares jornadas, tenían problemas económicos y a menudo cargaban con traumas. “El sufrimiento es muy intenso y puede ser muy difícil”, me dijo Bresowar. Además, sabía cómo la barrera idiomática podía exacerbarlos malos entendidos. El reverendo dijo que su propia comprensión y aprecio por la comunidad hispana cambió una vez que aprendió a hablar español y compartió tiempo con ellos. “Creo que mucha gente tiene miedo porque no puede comunicarse y eso hace más difícil acortar la brecha”, dijo Bresowar.
Él puso a Grimes en contacto con feligreses y, en 2021, usando fondos destinados a la pandemia, Grimes contrató a una docena de asistentes bilingües de esa comunidad. Al mismo tiempo, puso a esos asistentes en contacto con un programa de aprendizaje, gestionado por la organización sin fines de lucro Reach University, para que ellos pudieran simultáneamente formarse como docentes. “Fue un punto de inflexión”, dijo Grimes sobre esa ayuda adicional en las escuelas.
Elizabeth Alonzo fue una de esas asistentes bilingües. Se incorporó al plantel de la Escuela Primaria West, de Russellville, (la escuela de la maestra Johnson y de la asistente bilingüe De la Rosa), en 2021, donde trabajaba mayormente con estudiantes de segundo grado en pequeños grupos y también servía de intérprete durante actividades escolares y para comunicarse con los padres. Mientras caminaba por un pasillo en una reciente jornada escolar, niñas hispanas de otras clases dejaron sus filas y corrieron a darle un abrazo rápido. “Al principio era como: “Oh, ¿tú hablas español? Sus rostros se iluminan, ¿sabes?”, dijo Alonzo, quien nació en Alabama y fue criada allí por padres inmigrantes. En el pasado mes de diciembre de 2023, completó los cursos para convertirse en maestra y espera quedarse en West.
Si lo consigue, será la sexta maestra hispana del distrito, mientras que, cuando llegó Grimes, había solo una. El nivel de recursos para los estudiantes de inglés es muy distinto del que había cuando ella iba a la escuela. Cuando Alonzo estaba en el kinder de una escuela del condado, su prima fue retirada de su clase de primer grado para hacer de intérprete para ella, recordó. “Y, luego, cuando yo estaba en primer grado, me sacaban de clase para ayudar a mi hermano menor”. Alonzo asistió a las escuelas de Russellville de 2008 a 2013.
Otro maestro de Russellville, Edmund Preciado Martínez, también recordó haberse sentido aislado cuando era estudiante en Alabama a fines de la década de 1990. A veces, confundía palabras en español y en inglés, dijo, por lo que a menudo se sentía demasiado avergonzado como para hablar en clase. “Eso me llevó a educación especial porque pensaban que algo andaba mal conmigo”, recordó.
Era maestro en un distrito cercano cuando se enteró de los cambios que Grimes estaba implementando en Russellville y decidió solicitar un empleo. Hace seis años, fue contratado para trabajar con estudiantes de inglés en la escuela secundaria de Russellville.
Cada año, dijo Preciado Martínez, los docentes eligen un lema alrededor del cual unirse, como #whateverittakes (lo que sea necesario) or #allin (completamente comprometidos). La camaradería allí es muy diferente a las historias que ha escuchado de sus colegas en otras partes del estado, quienes hablan de compañeros que se quejan de los estudiantes de inglés e incluso se refieren a ellos de manera despectiva y con insultos.
“Siempre que necesitamos algo, simplemente lo pedimos y ellos hacen su mayor esfuerzo por conseguírnoslo”, dijo Martínez refiriéndose a los líderes de su distrito. “E incluso, si no pueden, buscan alternativas que podemos utilizar”.
Credit: Illustration by Pepa Ilustradora for palabra/The Hechinger Report
“Hay espacio para todos nosotros”
Grimes también se enfocó en involucrar a los padres hispanos en la educación de sus hijos. Se dio cuenta de que muchos de ellos se sentían demasiado intimidados o avergonzados para hablar con los educadores; en sus países natales, a veces se consideraba una falta de respeto cuestionar a un docente o incluso preguntarle sobre el progreso de su hijo. Así que se dedicó a entablar relaciones, frecuentando comercios hispanos, reuniéndose con líderes comunitarios y traduciendo al español todos los anuncios en la página web y Facebook del distrito escolar.
Dichos esfuerzos cambiaron la experiencia escolar de la madre Analine Mederos. Ella había abandonado la escuela en México en séptimo grado y deseaba con desesperación que sus hijos recibieran una buena educación. Pero, dijo Mederos, cuando su hija mayor se inscribió en las escuelas del distrito de Russellville, en 2006, ella no estaba involucrada en su educación en absoluto. “No interactuaba con los maestros porque no hablaba mucho inglés. La mayor parte del tiempo me daba miedo hablar”, me contó. Sentía que los empleados de la escuela la miraban por encima del hombro por la barrera idiomática, y no le veía sentido a hablar. “Si tienes preguntas, ¿quién te va a ayudar?”, dijo. “Así que, dijeran lo que dijeran, yo decía: ‘Bueno, está bien’”.
Muchos de los estudiantes hispanos de Russellville hicieron lobby por un programa de fútbol, que Grimes puso en marcha en 2017. No tenía los fondos para una nueva cancha de fútbol, así que reemplazó el césped del campo de fútbol americano. Credit: Charity Rachelle for palabra/The Hechinger Report
Pero con su segundo hijo, que ahora está en el décimo grado, ha tenido una experiencia completamente distinta. “Grimes ha hecho un gran… no sé ni cómo decirlo… un gran impacto. Especialmente con la comunidad hispana”, me dijo. Y agregó que a su hija le encanta la escuela, y que a su hijo, que está en la enseñanza media, no ve la hora de hacer la prueba para el equipo de fútbol. Cuando ve a Grimes en la comunidad, dice que se siente lo suficientemente cómoda como para hablarle de sus hijos: “Te va a escuchar. No va a fingir que te está escuchando. No; realmente escucha”.
Ahora, a Mederos se le hace más fácil seguir las reuniones escolares. Hace apenas unos años, en la escuela primaria, había apenas un intérprete para 600 niños, por lo que la escuela solamente podía programar reuniones con los padres cuando un niño estaba en problemas o reprobaba. Ahora, con seis asistentes bilingües, el personal de la escuela puede tener reuniones individuales con cada familia al menos una vez al año, y también ofrecen dos días completos de actividades para padres en inglés y en español. Los padres saben que habrá un intérprete presente y eso manda un mensaje claro. “Nuestros padres saben que los estamos acogiendo y que los valoramos”, me dijo la directora Alicia Stanford.
El evento Mes de la Herencia Hispana que Grimes inició en la escuela secundaria Russellville se ha convertido en una gran celebración para todo el distrito, en la que los estudiantes aprenden sobre distintas culturas y tradiciones, hacen presentaciones de baile, leen a autores célebres e investigan sobre figuras históricas. Pero quizás sea el programa de fútbol, que Grimes puso en marcha, el que ha obtenido la mayor respuesta. Antes de la llegada de Grimes, los estudiantes habían hecho lobby por el programa, sin éxito, pero él comprendió que era una parte querida e importante de la cultura latinoamericana. “Querían algo que fuera suyo”, dijo Grimes.
Bajo Heath Grimes, la escuela secundaria Russellville inició una celebración del Mes de la Herencia Hispana que se ha convertido en una tradición para todo el distrito. Credit: Rebecca Griesbach / AL.com
Grimes no tenía fondos para una nueva cancha de fútbol, por lo que mandó a reemplazar el césped del campo de fútbol americano, y los estudiantes comenzaron a jugar allí en 2017. En 2021, cuando el equipo de fútbol de Russellville, los Golden Tigers, jugó en las semifinales estatales, tanto familias hispanas como no hispanas acudieron en masa. “Todos estaban animando, ‘Sí, se puede’, ‘Yes, we can‘”, recordó Grimes cuando nos reunimos en su oficina en marzo. El logo de la escuela es una antorcha como la de la Estatua de la Libertad, y hay una tradición escolar de levantar los puños cerrados para mostrar unidad y orgullo. “Toda la comunidad latina se pone de pie con sus antorchas en alto ―añadió―, y están cantando: ‘Russ-ell-ville, Russ-ell-ville’. Eso fue muy, muy poderoso”.
La pared de la oficina de Grimes estaba adornada con trofeos deportivos de eventos como este, junto con credenciales académicas enmarcadas, incluido su título de doctorado. Fue el primer miembro de su familia en ir a la universidad. También había fotos familiares y de antiguos alumnos, junto con una Biblia desgastada en su escritorio.
Batchelor, el expresidente de la junta escolar, dijo que, aunque en algunas ocasiones el proceso fue difícil, gracias a los esfuerzos sostenidos de Grimes y a su ejemplo, familias de todos los orígenes poco a poco vieron que mejorar los resultados de los estudiantes de inglés significaba que todo el sistema escolar mejorara. “Creo que la comunidad ha aceptado que hay espacio para todos nosotros”, dijo Batchelor.
No todas las ideas de Grimes funcionaron. Al principio, separó a los estudiantes de inglés del resto de los alumnos durante las clases curriculares, pero luego abandonó la idea cuando los maestros le dijeron que no estaba funcionando. Ahora, las escuelas combinan la enseñanza a los alumnos de inglés en grupos pequeños, por un lado, y por otro, con lecciones junto a toda la clase. Luego de que un acto de “vuelta a clases” demorara más de lo previsto, porque Grimes pidió que cada frase fuera traducida, él decidió realizar reuniones escolares simultáneas donde los padres podían elegir entre escuchar en inglés o en español.
Y no ha sido fácil sostener todo lo conseguido. Entre 2019 (cuando los asistentes de educación bilingües fueron contratados) y 2021, los estudiantes de inglés de algunos grados registraron grandes avances en los exámenes para medir su nivel de dominio del idioma inglés. Por ejemplo, los niveles de desempeño de los estudiantes de segundo grado pasaron del 46% al 84% y, los estudiantes de tercer grado, del 44% al 71%. Pero el progreso desde entonces no ha sido consistente; los porcentajes de estudiantes que dominan el idioma en algunos grados cayeron en 2023 por debajo de las cifras de 2019. Los administradores dicen que se debe a que la cantidad de estudiantes de inglés como segundo idioma sigue aumentando mientras que el número de educadores no, lo que significa que los niños reciben menos atención individualizada.
Bajo Heath Grimes, la escuela secundaria Russellville inició una celebración del Mes de la Herencia Hispana que se ha convertido en una tradición para todo el distrito. Credit: Charity Rachelle for palabra/The Hechinger Report
Pero la buena disposición que Grimes género al abrazar a las familias hispanas dio sus frutos de maneras inesperadas. En 2018, el distrito necesitaba reparar los techos de los edificios escolares pero no tenía los fondos para completarlos, dijo Grimes. Alguien de la comunidad hispana llamó a Grimes, ofreciendo hacer el trabajo gratis, dijo. “Ofrecieron voluntariamente su tiempo, sus esfuerzos, su energía y sus materiales, y completaron esos edificios”, él me dijo.
Hoy en día, los comercios hispanos dominan el centro de la ciudad, un área de unas pocas manzanas que hasta hace poco estaba llena de edificios deteriorados y vacíos. Hay tres panaderías mexicanas, dos tiendas de comestibles atinas, tres barberías, salones de manicura y una carnicería. Los dueños de los comercios se esfuerzan por apoyar al sistema escolar, dijo Yaneli Bahena, quien hace cuatro años se graduó en el distrito escolar de Russellville y ahora es propietaria de un negocio llamado The Ville Nutrition.
Un restaurante mexicano se encargó del catering para un evento de “vuelta a clases” de 200 personas, las panaderías suelen donar pan y dulces, y algunas peluquerías ofrecen cortes de pelo gratuitos antes del comienzo del año escolar. El campo de fútbol está rodeado de carteles de negocios hispanos locales que han patrocinado al equipo. La propia Bahena patrocina comidas para eventos escolares, y dona mochilas y material escolar. “La escuela me dio un sentimiento de esperanza”, dijo. “Tuve muy buenos maestros. Todos se preocupaban por mi”. En la escuela secundaria, notó que, a diferencia de años anteriores, se incluía a los estudiantes en las excursiones y se los animaba a cursar materias optativas. Bahena dijo que algunos de sus compañeros de clase se quedaron en la escuela en lugar de abandonar los estudios para irse a trabajar gracias al “empuje de ayuda” de los educadores. Ella también le dio crédito a Grimes: “Todo lo que han puesto para estos niños no sería posible sin el superintendente”.
Abogando a nivel estatal
En 2019, ansioso por encontrar socios y apoyo para su labor con los estudiantes de inglés, Grimes comenzó a hablar con otros líderes del distrito que enfrentaban desafíos parecidos, y a intercambiar sobre cómo sería abogar por esos estudiantes en todo el estado. A nivel nacional, aproximadamente cinco millones de niños son estudiantes de inglés y la mayoría de ellos hablan español en casa. Pero, aunque la mayoría son ciudadanos estadounidenses, rara vez reciben el apoyo que necesitan, en parte porque su educación ha sido politizada, según Thelma Meléndez de Santa Ana, una exsuperintendente y secretaria auxiliar de educación K-12 de Estados Unidos en la administración de Barack Obama. “La gente ve el mundo (en términos de) una cantidad de recursos limitada. Entonces siente que, ‘si les estás dando tal cantidad a ellos, entonces me la estás quitando a mi’”, dijo.
En parte como consecuencia de dicha actitud, dicen los expertos, las calificaciones de lectura y matemática de estudiantes de aprendizaje de inglés a nivel nacional se encuentran entre las más bajas de todos los subgrupos de estudiantes, sus índices de graduación de la escuela secundaria van a la zaga y tienen menos probabilidades de ir a la universidad. “Necesitamos a estos niños, y los necesitamos que se eduquen”, dijo Patricia Gándara, codirectora del Proyecto de Derechos Civiles en la UCLA y experta en estudiantes de inglés como segundo idioma. “Representan una parte muy grande del futuro de este país”.
Al año siguiente, en 2020, Grimes fundó una coalición de superintendentes llamada Alabama Leaders Advocating for English Learners (Líderes de Alabama abogando por los estudiantes de inglés), bajo el paraguas de una operación estatal, el Council for Leaders in Alabama Schools (Consejo de líderes de escuelas de Alabama). “Su pasión era evidente y no se iba a detener”, dijo Hollingsworth, de Superintendentes Escolares de Alabama. “Si sigues tocando la puerta, tocando la puerta, eventualmente alguien va a abrir la puerta. Y eso fue más o menos lo que pasó”.
La coalición de superintendentes encabezada por Grimes logró presionar a la legislatura para obtener más fondos para los estudiantes de inglés, hasta $150 por estudiante, frente a los $50 a $75 de 2015. Los distritos con una población de estudiantes de inglés superior al 10% reciben $300 por estudiante. Para Russellville, eso significó un aumento cuadruplicado de los fondos dedicados a los estudiantes de inglés, llegando a $400.000, en un momento en el que los fondos de la ciudad disminuyeron. Grimes recibió un premio estatal por sus “excepcionales aportes y defensa incansable de la financiación para los estudiantes de inglés en las escuelas de Alabama”. Gracias, en parte, a sus esfuerzos, el estado ahora tiene apoyo educativo para los distritos, 12 instructores y un director estatal de aprendizaje de inglés. Grimes también abogó por que las calificaciones de los estudiantes de inglés en los exámenes solo se tuvieran en cuenta en el boletín estatal de notas después de que hubieran estado matriculados por cinco años (aproximadamente lo que tardan los estudiantes en aprender un nuevo idioma). Esa ley, que tiene sus críticos, entró en vigor el año pasado.
Barnett, del Consejo de Educación de la ciudad de Guntersville, dijo que los esfuerzos de Grimes por los estudiantes de inglés ayudaron a persuadir a otros líderes de distrito de que ellos también podían hacer ese trabajo. “Russellville es un gran lugar, pero no hay nada especial allí que no pueda suceder en cualquier otro lugar”, dijo. “No hay nada en el agua. Definitivamente se puede replicar”.
En el distrito escolar de la ciudad de Russellville, el 60% de los niños son hispanos/latinos y aproximadamente un tercio son estudiantes de inglés como segundo idioma. Los porcentajes son aun mayores en algunas clases de la Escuela Primaria West del distrito. Credit: Charity Rachelle for palabra/The Hechinger Report
Durante siete años, Grimes y la junta escolar de Russellville trabajaron bien juntos, dijeron tanto él como exmiembros de la junta. Pero el disgusto de otros líderes de la ciudad surgió pronto, me dijeron varias personas. Grimes había comenzado a chocar por cuestiones de financiamiento con el alcalde de la ciudad, David Grissom, quien fue electo por primera vez en 2012. Un residente de Russellville cercando al funcionamiento del gobierno de la ciudad ―que pidió no ser identificado por temor a represalias― dijo que Grimes había hecho enojar a Grissom y a algunos miembros del ayuntamiento desde el principio, cuando señaló públicamente que su presupuesto para las escuelas era de $200.000 menos que el de su predecesor. (McDowell, escribió un correo electrónico en el que me decía que antes de ocupar el puesto se le informó a Grimes sobre el recorte y que había estado de acuerdo con el mismo). Los miembros del ayuntamiento “no tomaron bien que se les pusiera contra la pared o que se les hiciera quedar mal. Así que, desde ese momento, Grimes estuvo marcado”, me dijo el residente. Grimes también enfureció a Grissom cuando se negó a apoyar públicamente al candidato preferido del alcalde para un puesto en el ayuntamiento, en 2020, prefiriendo mantenerse neutral, me dijeron varias personas.
Al responderme, Grissom no hizo comentarios sobre esos detalles específicos, pero escribió que “había entrevistado y había sido entrevistado por varias cientos de personas de todas las razas y etnias” sobre el desempeño de Grimes y que algunas de las personas con las que habló estaban insatisfechas con el superintendente. Planteó preguntas sobre si Grimes había estado en su oficina a diario, si trataba a los empleados de manera diferente y si gastaba demasiados fondos del distrito en conferencias. Grimes dijo que a veces viajaba por todo el estado por su trabajo, que las conferencias eran para el desarrollo profesional y (estaban) aprobadas por la junta, y que, como líder, a veces tenía que tomar decisiones que desagradaban a la gente, porque estaba sopesando diferentes perspectivas y necesidades. Dijo que estaba asombrado por las declaraciones del alcalde, porque ni el alcalde ni nadie más le había mencionado tales preocupaciones anteriormente. Gist y Batchelor, antiguos miembros de la junta escolar, dijeron que nunca habían escuchado semejantes quejas de nadie en los casi ocho años que llevaban trabajando con Grimes. “Ni una sola palabra”, dijo Gist. El expediente laboral de Grimes no contenía información alguna que indicara que había preocupaciones con el desempeño del superintendente. Ni el alcalde ni el abogado de la junta escolar ofrecieron aclaraciones sobre por qué, si existían tales quejas, no fueron comunicadas a Grimes.
Mientras tanto, a medida que Grimes seguía invirtiendo esfuerzos para ayudar a los estudiantes de inglés, sus números aumentaban todos los años, duplicándose durante su mandato, hasta alcanzar el 33% de los estudiantes.
Russellville es una ciudad políticamente conservadora del noroeste de Alabama, de unos 11.000 habitantes. Credit: Charity Rochelle for palabra/The Hechinger Report
Después de aquella elección para miembros del ayuntamiento de 2020, en un esfuerzo ampliamente visto como destinado a destituir a Grimes como superintendente, Grissom e integrantes del ayuntamiento comenzaron a reemplazar a los cinco miembros de la designada junta escolar que había apoyado a Grimes. (En su correo electrónico, el alcalde Grissom escribió que los miembros del ayuntamiento tienen el derecho a reemplazar a los integrantes de la junta escolar y que lo habían hecho también previo al mandato de Grimes). En mayo de 2023, Greg Trapp, el miembro de la junta escolar, le informó al superintendente que no iban a renovar su contrato al expirar el año siguiente.
Gist, el exmiembro de la junta escolar, dijo que, aunque en un principio quedó sorprendido por la decisión del Ayuntamiento de reemplazarlo a él y a otros, tenía lógica dada la antipatía que tenía dicho organismo hacia Grimes. “Así es la política en un pueblo pequeño. Para que ellos pudieran controlar el sistema, tenían que deshacerse de los miembros de la junta escolar que estaban haciendo las cosas bien”, dijo. Y agregó: “Esa era la única manera en la que podían sacarlo”. Lo que les disgustó fue saber que la decisión no estaba motivada por lo que era mejor para los estudiantes. “Si hubieran querido reemplazarme por alguien mejor, eso está bien”, me dijo Gist. “Pero cuando lo hicieron por razones personales, eso me molestó”. (Intenté comunicarme con Trapp por lo menos tres veces, y también traté de contactar a otros miembros de la junta, y no respondieron a mis solicitudes de comentarios.) Batchelor, quien fue reemplazado poco después de que votó a favor de mantener a Grimes, también dijo que la decisión mayoritaria de la junta fue un error: “Creo que es el mejor superintendente en el estado de Alabama”.
En marzo de 2024, el distrito nombró a un nuevo superintendente, Tim Guinn, un exdirector de la Preparatoria de Russellville, quien también había sido candidato a superintendente cuando Grimes fue electo. Más recientemente, había trabajado como superintendente del distrito de Satsuma. Guinn no respondió a repetidas solicitudes de entrevista.
Programas se desmoronan
Algunos de los programas y las prácticas que Grimes implementó parecen estarse desmoronando. A partir de junio, la mayoría de los asistentes bilingües, cuyos salarios se pagan con dinero de la asistencia por la pandemia y expira en septiembre de 2024, no habían sido contratados de nuevo. Además, los contratos de algunos docentes bilingües no fueron renovados. La junta escolar no ha dicho si tiene previsto seguir adelante con las mejoras que Grimes había planificado para los estudiantes de inglés de secundaria y preparatoria. Una escuela chárter de inmersión en dos idiomas, por la que Grimes había abogado y la junta había aprobado, estaba programada para abrir en 2025. Sin embargo, el proyecto ha sido descartado. (McDowell no comentó en un correo electrónico sobre los planes del distrito para los estudiantes de inglés. En cuanto a los asistentes bilingües, escribió que algunos de ellos no habían sido recontratados de nuevo porque los subsidios federales habían expirado. Grimes dijo que tenía previsto pagar por sus salarios mediante una combinación de fondos de las reservas del distrito escolar y fondos resultantes de la jubilación de algunos docentes: “Tomas decisiones con base a tus prioridades”, comentó.
Grimes y la junta escolar habían acordado que él permanecería en su cargo hasta el final del año escolar de 2023-2024, mientras el distrito buscaba un reemplazo. Pero una semana después de mi visita a Russellville, McDowell acusó a Grimes de intimidar a la gente que hablara conmigo, según Grimes, y le dijo al superintendente que no podía pisar propiedad escolar o hablar con empleados del distrito fuera de su papel de padre, según Grimes. En ese momento, Grimes dejó las responsabilidades cotidianas de su cargo, pero seguirá en la comunidad hasta que su hija de 14 años termine la secundaria. Su esposa también sigue siendo maestra en el distrito. (En un correo electrónico y en una entrevista, McDowell dijo que nunca había acusado a Grimes de intimidar a nadie y que tampoco le prohibió al superintendente pisar terreno escolar.) Fue también después de mi visita que más de una docena de educadores con los que hablé en Russellville me dijeron que ya no se sentían cómodos siendo identificados, por temor a perder sus empleos. The Hechinger Report y palabra acordaron retrasar la publicación de este artículo hasta que Grimes recibiera su último sueldo el 30 de junio.
Heath Grimes led the Russellville City school district, in Alabama, from 2015 to 2024. Credit: Charity Rachelle for palabra/The Hechinger Report
En julio de 2024, Grimes empezó a trabajar a tiempo completo en Reach University, la organización sin fines de lucro que forma a asistentes bilingües para que se conviertan en docentes, como su director regional de asociaciones en Alabama, Misisipi y Tennessee.
Los últimos seis meses han pasado factura. Grimes ha dicho poco públicamente sobre su partida y le ha dicho a la mayoría de las personas de la comunidad que se está jubilando. Cuando estuvimos almorzando juntos en un restaurante local, El Patrón, otros comensales se acercaron una y otra vez para desearle lo mejor. Dos de ellos le dijeron en broma que se veía demasiado joven para jubilarse. Grimes se rió y les siguió la corriente pero, una vez que se fueron, sus hombros se hundieron y parpadeó para contener las lágrimas.
“He pasado mi carrera muy entregado, muy comprometido en hacer lo que era mejor para los niños”, me dijo en voz baja. “No sentía que yo mereciera acabar de esta manera”.
Afirmó que no se arrepiente de los cambios que hizo por los estudiantes de inglés de la ciudad. “Jesús amaba a la gente que los demás no amaban. Y ese fue parte de su mensaje: amas a tus enemigos, amas a tus vecinos, amas a los extranjeros y amas al pecador”, dijo. “Yo veo a Dios en esos niños”.
Related articles
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Donald Trump appeared onstage over an hour late Wednesday for his controversial interview at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago, citing technical difficulties. But the former president had no problem steering the conversation—led by ABC News senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott, Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner, and Semafor political reporter Kadia Goba—off the rails as soon as it began.
Trump called Scott’s opening question “disgraceful,” after she asked why Black voters should trust him given his association with white supremacists as well as his racially charged broadsides against Black politicians and journalists. “I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner,” he responded with disdain. “I love the Black population in this country.”
“I have been the best president for Black Americans since Abraham Lincoln,” Trump added.
It was hardly the first time Trump has claimed that his presidential record is somehow tantamount to Black emancipation. Indeed, Trump spent much of the Q&A simply riffing off the same tired old material about political persecution, immigrants, and inflation. There was, however, one moment in which the former president stooped to a new low: Trump falsely questioned the racial identity of Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee who was not in attendance due to a busy campaign schedule. “She was always of Indian heritage and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” Trump said of the vice president, who has never concealed her multiracial identity. “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black.”
“So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” he went on. “She was Indian all the way, and all of a sudden, she made a turn and she became a Black person.”
The former president, who left roughly 35 minutes into the event, which was billed for an hour, did not redeem himself at any other point in the interview. And one might even say he did just the opposite by:
Claiming that “millions and millions of people…happen to be taking Black jobs.” When pressed to define “Black jobs,” Trump responded with “anybody that has a job,” provoking jeers from the crowd.
When asked about the police shooting of 36-year-old Sonya Massey, appearing entirely unfamiliar with the case. “It didn’t look good to me,” he said. “It didn’t look good to me.”
Refusing to explain how the “federal immunity” he has vowed to give police officers would actually be applied in the event of those who have committed clear wrongdoing.
Repeating his promise to pardon January 6 rioters.
Arguing, with no evidence to speak of, that abortion-rights advocates want to legalize abortion post-birth.
Just about admitting that JD Vance was a bad choice for running mate by claiming that voters only care about presidential candidates.
Trying and failing to spin Vance’s verbal bile about how the country is run by “childless cat ladies.”
Claiming he doesn’t know what DEI means in reference to his allies calling Harris a “DEI hire.” When Scott graciously defined the acronym, Trump continued to play dumb.
Leaders have been lied to for decades about DEIA. We’ve been told there is a clean, clear way to integrate diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism into an organization and that simply making a statement, changing hiring demographics by a percentage point or investing in training is enough.
All of those things are positive; all are progress. However, human beings aren’t data points that can easily be changed and manipulated. We’re complex individuals with many layers and connecting identities. The equity we are hoping to see will not be reached by easy-to-achieve metrics alone.
That’s why we must push ourselves and our organizations to lead our DEIA work by accepting the mixed and unique nature of all our identities, so we can better serve our students, staff and families.
This sounds incredibly messy because it is.
The oppressive structure of systemic racism in this country is powerful, poisonous and must be explicitly combatted. Anti-racism must remain a core part of our DEIA work. We must talk about the hard things.
Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter to receive our comprehensive reporting directly in your inbox.
As a Black man and leader in public education, I have grappled with the complexities of race and identity throughout my life. My entry into this topic was — and largely still is — grounded in my racial identity and my upbringing in Texas, something I’m reminded of every time I look at my birth certificate and see the word “Negro” on it.
Yet we are all more than our race. It’s all too easy to focus solely on the parts of who we are that are the most visible or important to us. I am Black, I am a cisgendered man, I am heterosexual, I am Texan, I am a father and so much more.
Inclusion and belonging work is more than race too. In addition to grappling with our own personal DEIA journeys, we must navigate the surrounding political environments of our schools. These contexts often lead teachers and leaders to cherry-pick aspects of DEIA that seem easier to address, or more palatable, while neglecting others.
For example, many teachers struggle to tell parents about books and materials that feature religious or sexual identities. Yet these same teachers find it easy to vocalize the needs of students with learning disabilities.
Schools nationwide celebrate Black History Month enthusiastically, yet voice concerns about whether Pride Month should be recognized. Staff members urge schools to prioritize hiring diverse educators, yet advocate against using school budgets to update school facilities for all bodies.
With such messy work, it’s natural to cling to what feels most achievable or comfortable. Educators are overwhelmed by challenges, from the pandemic’s impact on learning to resource gaps, safety concerns and a myriad of society’s ills.
Facing down systemic racism can feel impossible, as can dismantling overlapping systems of oppression. When we see DEIA as a singular objective to achieve or a single battle to win, we can feel defeated.
But when educators adopt DEIA as a mindset and approach, that discipline allows us to make slow but steady progress toward a more just future. This is forever, all-encompassing work. The growth and progress for each of us is never done and requires us to lean into productive struggle.
To make real gains in creating inclusive schools, we need to go beyond just meeting goals and instead commit to making sometimes difficult choices and confronting uncomfortable truths to create a new world of standards. As we approach decisions, we must ask ourselves not only what measurable outcomes our choices will achieve, but also how they will change our culture. Just as systemic racism is entrenched in American culture, we need to entrench DEIA in the work of schools.
At the charter network I lead, DEIA is everyone’s responsibility. This commitment is rooted as much in mindset as it is in accountability. It’s the lens we use to critically examine our systems, policies, programs and interactions as we aim to eliminate inequitable and exclusionary practices — without focusing solely on one identity, but instead considering how different identities interact with one another.
In the classroom, we introduced reading programs that acknowledge literacy as a key factor in creating an anti-racist education; our literacy efforts are complemented by classroom library selections for all grades that promote an inclusive learning environment for students of all identities.
We see the work as both immediate and ongoing. We name and embrace that complexity. More than 79 percent of our staff do not identify as white; 64 percent identify as Black. The majority of our school leaders and executive team reflect a similar mix of identities. Every staff member is required to engage deeply with our value of centering justice.
We’re actively working to increase religious and gender inclusion, such as with designated prayer spaces and more all-gender bathrooms, so students feel supported every time they enter our buildings.
Much more work remains to be done. We will hold ourselves to it and continue to move forward, and I remain hopeful that we’re moving in the right direction.
It’s time for all of us to dive into the mess.
Recy Benjamin Dunn is CEO of Ascend Public Charter Schools, a network of K-12 public charter schools serving nearly 6,000 students in 17 schools across Brooklyn.
This story about DEIA work was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.
Related articles
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
The Philadelphia school district has failed to protect Jewish students from “a virulent wave of antisemitism” that swept through classrooms after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, according to a federal complaint filed Tuesday.
The district, among the largest public school systems in the U.S., has ignored persistent harassment and bullying of Jewish students, some of whom have been forced to drop out, lawyers wrote in the complaint. Some teachers and administrators have spread inflammatory anti-Jewish and anti-Israel messages on social media and even in the classroom without repercussion, the complaint said.
The Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish advocacy group, asked the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights to order the district to issue a statement denouncing antisemitism and to take disciplinary action against teachers and students who engage in discrimination and harassment. The ADL also wants training for faculty, staff and students and the removal of antisemitic posters, flags and other material on school property.
A school district spokesperson declined to comment on an active investigation, but said in a statement Tuesday night that the district “seeks to create safe learning spaces while navigating diverse perspectives and how students and staff are experiencing complex current events.”
Colleges, universities and high schools nationwide have seen a wave of pro-Palestinian student protests in response to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. The war began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, taking hostages and killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The toll in Gaza recently surpassed 39,000 Palestinians killed, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Most of the focus has been on protests that rocked college campuses this spring, leading to thousands of arrests. But a recent congressional hearing spotlighted antisemitism in K-12 education, with the leaders of New York City Public Schools, the Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland, and the Berkeley Unified School District in California all vigorously denying they had failed to address hostility toward Jewish people.
Like Philadelphia, New York City and Montgomery County are facing Education Department civil rights investigations into allegations of antisemitism. The ADL filed a complaint against Berkeley in California state court.
In Philadelphia, schools leaders allowed hostility toward Jewish students to spread and intensify over the past nine months, and “failed to address a rampant culture of retaliation and fear” that prevented Jewish students and parents from even coming forward, James Pasch, ADL’s senior director of national litigation, said in an interview Tuesday.
“There’s an environment here that really needs to change, and it really needs to change now,” he said.
A group of pro-Palestinian teachers called Philly Educators for Palestine, which was cited in the complaint, responded Tuesday by accusing the ADL of “multiple inaccuracies.” The group added in a statement to The Associated Press that “criticism of Zionism or the Israeli government is not antisemitism, and attempts to label it as such is not only antisemitic itself but troubling as it will shut down any opportunity for critical thought and discussion.”
In May, a group called the School District of Philadelphia Jewish Family Association made similar allegations against Philadelphia schools in a complaint to the education department under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on shared ancestry.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
The proposals in the 2025 Presidential Transition Project — known as Project 2025 and designed for Donald Trump — would reshape the American education system, early education through college, from start to finish.
Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage and its lobbying arm, Heritage Action, said in an interview with USA TODAY that Project 2025 should be seen “like a menu from the Cheesecake Factory.” No one president could take on all these changes, he said. “It’s a manual for conservative policy thought.”
The fast-changing political landscape makes it difficult to say which of these proposals might be taken up by Trump if he wins reelection. He has claimed to know nothing about it, though many of his allies were involved in drafting it. The exit of President Joe Biden from the presidential race may have an impact on Project 2025 that is still unknown. Finally, many of the broadest proposals in the document, such as changes to Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, would require congressional action, not just an order from the White House.
However, it remains a useful document for outlining the priorities of those who would likely play a part in a new Trump administration. The Hechinger Report created this reference guide that digs into the Project 2025 wishlist for education.
Stories that inspire
Sign up to receive our deeply reported education coverage in your inbox, every Tuesday.
Early childhood
Child care for military families
Project 2025 calls for expanding child care for military families, who have access to programs that are often upheld as premier examples of high-quality care in America. – Jackie Mader
Head Start and child care
Project 2025 calls for eliminating the Office of Head Start, which would lead to the closure of Head Start child care programs that serve about 833,000 low-income children each year. Most Head Start children are served in center-based programs, which have an outsized role in rural areas and prioritize enrolling a certain percentage of young children with disabilities who often struggle to find child care elsewhere. Head Start also provides a critical funding and resource stream to other private child care programs that meet Head Start standards, including home-based programs. – J. M.
Home-based child care
A conservative administration should also prioritize funding for home-based child care rather than “universal day care” in programs outside the home, Project 2025 says. That funding would include money for parents to stay home with a child or to pay for “familial, in-home” care, proposals that could be appealing to some early childhood advocates who have long called for more resources for informal care and stay-at-home parents. – J. M.
On-site child care
If out-of-home child care is necessary, Congress should offer incentives for on-site child care, Project 2025 says, because it “puts the least stress on the parent-child bond.” Early childhood advocates have been wary of such proposals because they tie child care access to a specific job. It also calls on Congress to clarify within the Fair Labor Standards Act that an employer’s expenses for providing such care are not part of the employee’s pay.– J. M.
K-12 education
Data collection
The National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” should release student performance data based on “family structure” — in addition to existing categories such as race and socioeconomic status — Project 2025 argues. Family structure, the document says, is “one of the most important — if not the most important — factor influencing student educational achievement and attainment.” The document goes on to endorse “natural family structure” of a heterosexual, two-parent household, “because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.” — Sarah Butrymowicz
LGBTQ students
Project 2025 advocates a rollback of regulations that protect people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. It calls for agencies to “focus their enforcement of sex discrimination laws on the biological binary meaning of ‘sex.’”
The plan also calls on Congress and state lawmakers to require schools to refer to students by the names on their birth certificates and the pronouns associated with their biological sex, unless they have written permission from parents to refer to them otherwise.
The plan also equates transgender issues with child abuse and pornography, and proposes that school libraries with books deemed offensive be punished. — Ariel Gilreath
Privatization
In place of a federal Education Department, the blueprint calls for widespread public education funding that goes directly to families, as part of its overarching goal of “advancing education freedom.”
The document specifically highlights the education savings account program in Arizona, the first state to open school vouchers up to all families. Programs like Arizona’s have few, if any, restrictions on who can access the funding. Project 2025 also calls for education savings accounts for schools under federal jurisdiction, such as those run by the Department of Defense or the Bureau of Indian Education.
In addition, Project 2025 calls on Congress to look into creating a federal scholarship tax credit to “incentivize donors to contribute” to nonprofit groups that grant scholarships for private school tuition or education materials. — Ariel Gilreath and Neal Morton
School meals
The federal school meals program should be scaled back to ensure that only children from low-income families are receiving the benefit, the document says. Policy changes under the Obama administration have made it easier for entire schools or districts to provide free meals to students without families needing to submit individual eligibility paperwork. — Christina A. Samuels
Special education
Project 2025 says that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which provides $14.2 billion in federal money for the education of school-aged children with disabilities, should be mostly converted to “no-strings” block grants to individual states. Lawmakers should also consider making a portion of the federal money payable directly to parents of children with disabilities, it says, so they can use it for tutoring, therapies or other educational materials. This would be similar to education savings accounts in place in Arizona and Florida.
The blueprint also calls for rescinding a policy called “Equity in IDEA.” Under that policy, districts are required to evaluate if schools are disproportionately enrolling Black, Native American and other ethnic minority students in special education. Districts must also track how these students are disciplined, and if they are more likely than other students in special education to be placed in classrooms separate from their general education peers. Current rules, which Project 2025 would eliminate, require that districts that have significant disparities in this area must use 15 percent of their federal funding to address those problems. — C.A.S.
Teaching about race
Project 2025 elevates concerns among members of the political right that educating students about race and racism risks promoting bias against white people. The document discusses the legal concept of critical race theory, and argues that when it is used in teacher training and school activities such as “mandatory affinity groups,” it disrupts “the values that hold communities together such as equality under the law and colorblindness.”
The document calls for legislation requiring schools to adopt proposals “that say no individual should receive punishment or benefits based on the color of their skin,” among other recommendations. It also calls for a federal Parents’ Bill of Rights that would give families a “fair hearing in court” if they believed the federal government had enforced policies undermining their right to raise their children. — Caroline Preston
Title I
This program, funded at a little over $18 billion for fiscal 2024, is the largest federal program for K-12 schools and is designed to help children from low-income families. The conservative blueprint would encourage lawmakers to make the program a block grant to states, with few restrictions on how it can be used — and, over 10 years, to phase it out entirely. Additionally, it says, lawmakers should allow parents in Title I schools to use part of that funding for educational savings accounts that could be spent on private tutoring or other services. — C.A.S.
Higher education
Affirmative action and diversity, equity and inclusion
The document calls for prosecuting “all state and local governments, institutions of higher education, corporations, and any other private employers” that maintain affirmative action or DEI policies. That position matches the views expressed by Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, about the use of race in college admissions and beyond. — Liz Willen
Data collection
In higher education, the proposal argues that college graduation and earnings data need a “risk adjustment” that factors in the types of students served by a particular institution. While selective colleges tend to post the highest graduation rates and student earnings, they also tend to enroll the least-“risky” students. A risk adjustment methodology could benefit community colleges, which often have low graduation rates but enroll many nontraditional students who face obstacles to earning a degree. It would also likely benefit for-profit colleges, which similarly tend to accept most applicants. Historically, for-profit schools have received scrutiny under Democratic administrations for poor outcomes and for allegedly misleading students about the value of the education they provide. Republican administrations typically have supported less regulation of for-profit institutions. — S.B.
Parent PLUS loans and Pell grants
The blueprint calls for the elimination of the Parent PLUS loan program, arguing that it is redundant “because there are many privately provided alternatives available.” Originally created for relatively affluent families, the PLUS loan program has become a crucial way for lower- and middle-income families to pay for college. In recent years, it has sparked criticism due to rising default rates and fewer protections than are afforded to otherstudent loan borrowers.
At present, interest rates for private loans are significantly lower than Parent PLUS rates, but they come with fewer protections, and it is more difficult to get approved for a private-bank loan. Project 2025 would also get rid of PLUS loans for graduate students.
If the federal PLUS programs were eliminated, it could stem one portion of the rising tide of families’ education debt, but it would also make the path to paying for college more difficult for some families.
Project 2025 does not call for a change to the Pell grant program, which provides federal funding for students from low-income families to attend college. Some advocates have called for doubling the annual maximum allotment, which is $7,395 for the 2024-25 school year, far below the cost to attend many colleges. — Meredith Kolodner and Olivia Sanchez
Student loan forgiveness
Project 2025 would end the prospect of student loan forgiveness, which has already been largely blocked by federal courts; the Biden administration, in a sort of game of Whac-a-Mole, has proposed still more forgiveness programs that are being fought by Republican state attorneys general and others. Project 2025 would also dramatically restrict what’s known as “borrower defense to repayment,” which forgives loans borrowed to pay for colleges that closed or have been found to use illegal or deceptive marketing. Largely restricting the Education Department to collecting statistics, Project 2025 would shift responsibility for student loans to the Treasury Department. — Jon Marcus
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Jackie Mader, Christina A. Samuels, Sarah Butrymowicz, Ariel Gilreath, Neal Morton, Caroline Preston, Liz Willen, Olivia Sanchez, Meredith Kolodner and Jon Marcus
