California’s chief elections officer said late Friday that Bakersfield Republican Vince Fong cannot appear on the ballot for a Central Valley congressional seat because he is already running for reelection to the state Assembly — a decision the state lawmaker vowed to challenge in court.
When Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) this month announced his retirement, Fong, 44, said he would stay in his job in the 32nd Assembly District and would not run for Congress. Days later, Fong changed his mind and filed paperwork to enter the race, prompting complaints from other candidates that he was trying to run for two offices at once, which is prohibited by state law, they said.
Fong’s paperwork to run for Congress was “improperly submitted,” the office of Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber said late Friday. The office said Fong “will not appear on the list of certified candidates for Congressional District 20 that our office will transmit to county election officials on candidates on Dec. 28.”
Fong’s campaign released a statement vowing to file a lawsuit “imminently” and calling the secretary of State’s decision an “unprecedented interference in the candidate filing process.”
County elections offices have “full jurisdiction to qualify candidates for the ballot,” while the secretary of State “simply has a ministerial duty to certify the candidate lists and include ALL qualified candidates,” the campaign said.
Fong was sworn in as a candidate for the congressional race Monday at the Kern County Elections Division office in Bakersfield.
“I will fight the Secretary of State’s misguided decision and do whatever it takes to give voters in our community a real choice in this election,” Fong said in a statement.
Jessica Levinson, an election law professor at Loyola Law School, said California is “not at all alone in making a policy choice that candidates should only run for one office at the same time.
“Given that there are a number of state laws that do appear to have bans on running for two different offices in the same election, and California appears to have such a ban, this does seem to be an appropriate decision,” Levinson said.
But, she said, she wondered whether Fong could challenge as outdated a section of the state law that reads: “No person may file nomination papers for a party nomination and an independent nomination for the same office, or for more than one office at the same election.”
In 2010, California voters rewrote the state’s primary system, scrapping party nominations in favor of a system in which the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation.
Fong, 44, has been widely seen as the front-runner in the congressional race and has secured McCarthy’s endorsement. Born and raised in Bakersfield, Fong began his career working for McCarthy’s predecessor, then-Rep. Bill Thomas, then worked for nearly a decade as McCarthy’s district director.
Fong was elected in 2016 to the state Assembly, where he has largely focused on public safety, water and fiscal issues, generally eschewing the culture wars that dominate factions of the GOP. He carried bills attempting to pause a tax on gasoline that funds road repairs and direct money away from high-speed rail, both of which were unsuccessful.
Fong has served as vice chairman of the Assembly budget committee, a perch he has used to advocate for conservative fiscal policies, even though Republicans have little power to influence decisions in the state Capitol.
Fong was the only candidate who filed to run for the 32nd Assembly district seat. The filing deadline for the race was Dec. 8.
Editor’s note: This story led off this week’s Higher Education newsletter, which is delivered free to subscribers’ inboxes every other Thursday with trends and top stories about higher education.
Everyone and their mother seems to have an opinion on the three college presidents who testified before Congress last week on the topic of antisemitism on campus. Yes, I’m talking about the hearing that resulted in one university president losing her job and investigations into three elite universities.
Did the university leaders speak out strongly enough? Where is the line between free speech and hate speech, and at what point should someone be disciplined?
Congressmembers, faculty, alumni and donors have all weighed in. But how do the students feel? Based on reports in their student newspapers and statements from different campus groups, they seem to be just as divided as everyone else.
During the hearing, Elizabeth Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, Claudine Gay of Harvard University and Sally A. Kornbluth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said they opposed antisemitism and supported the existence of Israel, but when asked whether calls for the genocide of Jews constitute harassment and bullying, they said it depended on the context. Since then, Gay and Magill have issued apologies and Magill has resigned.
Many students see this as a free speech issue, raising the question of whether calling for a genocide is free speech or hate speech. Others say that such questions are quibbling compared to the hatred and fear created by both antisemitic and anti-Islamic rhetoric.
Harvard Hillel students wrote that “President Gay’s failure to properly condemn this speech calls into question her ability to protect Jewish students on Harvard’s campus,” adding that they would like to work with the university administration on ways to educate the community on “the history of the Jewish people and the evolution of antisemitism.” At Penn, students and community members rallied in support of the protection of Jewish students. And Jewish MIT students told ABC News that they felt there was institutional support for students who support Palestine but not for Jewish students, and that they felt Jewish and Muslim students had been pitted against each other.
Here are some excerpts of students’ thoughts.
Harvard University
The editorial board of The Crimson, Harvard’s student newspaper, published an editorial in which they strongly opposed both antisemitism and calls for President Gay to resign. They wrote that antisemitism has “been treated as a prop in political theater.”
“Recent rhetoric has portrayed non-Jewish Harvard students — and Harvard more broadly — as deeply antisemitic. We reject this careless characterization. We believe the vast majority of our peers do not harbor hate toward Jewish people.
“This perspective has been obscured as Congress has portrayed Jewish and pro-Palestinian students as diametrically opposed monoliths with uniform sets of beliefs and emotions. In reality, our campus is home to Jewish students who advocate for a free Palestine, Arab students who endorse a Jewish right to self-determination, and many more individuals whose experiences have shaped complex, well-reasoned beliefs.”
“Recent rhetoric has portrayed non-Jewish Harvard students — and Harvard more broadly — as deeply antisemitic. We reject this careless characterization.”
The Harvard Crimson
The editorial board urged students not to let snippets of the Congressional hearing define what is happening at Harvard. Having witnessed the vitriol of the past few months, the students said, they wanted to set the record straight.
“Gay’s response about context dependence may seem unsatisfying, but there is — equally unsatisfyingly — no University policy that unequivocally answers Stefanik’s question. These policies do warrant more robust discussion and clarification, but a truthful answer about their ambiguity does not merit such opprobrium.”
The Daily Pennsylvanian’s editorial board opted not to weigh in on Magill’s resignation. Instead, it published an editorial urging students to speak for themselves about their experiences at Penn.
“As global and local events continue to converge on this campus now and into the future, we should not let voices that are prominent, but distant, speak for us,” the editorial board wrote. “The path forward for Penn must be paved with more, not less, speech. As members of the Penn community, we have a special opportunity, and some may even say responsibility, to speak up about our experiences here.”
The publication has published a series of opinion pieces on Magill’s resignation from a range of viewpoints.
One student writer, Mritika Senthil, wrote that pressure from media attention and donor demands could lead to performative changes, rather than substantive ones.
“The path forward for Penn must be paved with more, not less, speech. As members of the Penn community, we have a special opportunity, and some may even say responsibility, to speak up about our experiences here.”
The Daily Pennsylvanian
Senthil wrote that there are administrators and faculty making decisions every day that do not involve the president. She questioned how much difference the president’s departure could make without a “comprehensive restructuring of campus standards.”
“Our leadership needs to recognize that their speech can contribute to student discomfort and fear of open dialogue. I’m sure that most of Penn’s community not only accepts but actively seeks the exploration and debate of differing ideas. But when students and faculty cease to maintain mutual respect, the ethics of the academic community are ironically ignored,” Senthil wrote.
“I ask you: what is next? If university presidents can be bullied into stepping down for allegations that serve as a contrast for actual policies they’re implementing, where do we go from here? Do we censor free speech and punish students for saying political statements that don’t align with major donors? Do we cast aside the First Amendment and live on a campus that doesn’t allow free expression?” Vesely wrote.
The Tech, M.I.T.’s student newspaper, hasn’t published any news story or opinion piece since the university leaders testified before Congress. But the student body appears to have been divided on these issues before the hearing.
On Nov. 1, The Tech published an opinion column by Avi Balsam, who detailed the distress he experienced hearing chants of “intifada,” on campus during a demonstration outside M.I.T.’s Hillel. He wrote, “Words gain meaning from the historical context in which they are used. In this case, the historical context is violence and terrorism in the name of resistance. Claims to the contrary are either misinformed or dishonest.”
Balsam, a sophomore who serves as vice president of the student board of M.I.T.’s Hillel, called on Kornbluth to condemn calls for “intifada.”
On Nov. 30, The Tech published an opinion column by a group of graduate students requesting several things from the university administration, including that it “make clear what students’ legal and institutional rights are in demonstrating on and off campus, and how to seek protection if needed.”
“We ask the MIT administration to support all students whose safety and well-being are adversely impacted by the decades-long violence in Israel and Palestine and who are expressing their views on campus,” the students wrote.
“Above all, we ask that MIT be an institution true to its values as a place where rights to freedom of expression are upheld, and where commitments toward making a better world are driven by the desire for human flourishing—not the interests of donors, the net gain of financial holdings, or US foreign policy agendas.”
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.
As a former public-school teacher, I know that my students sometimes acted out when they didn’t receive the additional educational supports they needed. Too often they then faced a choice: Get your licks or go home.
“Licks” meant an assistant principal beat their backsides with a paddle. “Go home” meant suspension. Those who chose the former would come back to class dejected, disengaged and depressed.
Many people may assume that what I saw is an outlier, but the latest Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) shows that at least 19,395 students experienced corporal punishment during the 2020-21 school year. Every time the CRDC data is released, I am reminded that corporal punishment continues in our schools today, and I am convinced it can be put to an end tomorrow.
To make this change, advocates must demand that their education leaders end this inhumane practice.
Corporal punishment has been banned in a majority of states since the mid 1990s. Nevertheless, during the 2017-18 school year, the CRDC reported, 69,492 students received corporal punishment, on top of 92,479 students in 2015-16. The most recent number is much lower mainly because in-person instruction and data reporting were disrupted during the pandemic.
Corporal punishment remains expressly legal in 16 states. Banning the practice in just 10 of those states, including the one I taught in, Alabama, along with Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas, would reduce the number of schools using corporal punishment by over 99 percent. Despite the small number of cases in the remaining six states where it is legal — Arizona, Idaho, Kentucky, South Carolina, North Carolina and Wyoming — it is still important to ban corporal punishment there to prevent individual schools from continuing the practice.
Additionally, explicitly prohibiting corporal punishment in states that have not yet done so (Connecticut, Kansas, Indiana, Maine, New Hampshire, and South Dakota) would protect future generations.
Corporal punishment needs to end because there is no evidence that retaining it decreases misbehavior. In other words, in the states that allow it, corporal punishment is not helping students control their behavior.
Instead, corporal punishment is associated with unintended negative consequences. These include higher rates of mental health problems, more negative parent-child relationships, lower cognitive ability, lower academic achievement, lower self-esteem and higher risk for physical abuse.
While practicing corporal punishment has never made sense, it makes even less sense now.
Ending corporal punishment is also a civil rights issue: It is disproportionately used against Black students, students with disabilities and male students. News reports have highlighted that Black students receive physical punishment at twice the rate of white students nationwide; research shows that educators’ perceptions of student behavior are based on the students’ race — rather than the actual behavior — and that these perceptions contribute to the disproportionate rates in school discipline.
While practicing corporal punishment has never made sense, it makes even less sense now that millions of students have not returned or are continuing to miss school since pandemic-based disruptions.
While states revisit their discipline policies, they should also reduce the “go home” exclusionary discipline practices (suspensions and expulsions), which can undermine children’s attachment to school. Such harsh punishments increase the chances of students dropping out and feed the school-to-prison pipeline. In addition to those punishments increasing the number of school days students miss, research shows that exclusionary discipline can decrease students’ likelihood of accumulating course credits, reduce their likelihood of graduating and lower their chances of earning a postsecondary credential.
In my experience observing its impacts, corporal punishment has a similar distancing effect on students as suspensions and expulsions — making school feel like a place where they do not belong.
Schools still need to address misbehavior, of course, but there are better ways to do this. They can replace corporal punishment with evidence-based practices that help create safe and inclusive learning environments for all students. Such practices — including advisory systems, in which students meet regularly with a staff member about academic challenges, and “looping,” in which students have the same teacher for multiple years — build positive school-student relationships. These positive relationships can help prevent physical violence and bullying.
Restorative practices, also backed by research, typically foster dialogue in “circles” or “conferences” in which educators help students listen to each other and to teachers in order to resolve conflict and build community. For me, this often meant chatting with students in a hallway about why they acted out, giving them a chance to share their side of the story, regroup and refocus on school.
Recent research shows that investing in student supports, including social and emotional learning and mental health, is a better way to make schools truly safe, along with professional development for teachers and school staff. States should act quickly to make these alternatives more widely available and make schools less like prisons and more like everywhere else.
Corporal punishment is prohibited in almost every facet of life in the U.S. except schools. It is banned in military training centers, child care centers and juvenile detention facilities, and cannot be carried out as a sentence for a juvenile crime. The vast majority of children (76 percent) across the globe are protected by law from corporal punishment. Let’s use this current round of CRDC data to spur action to give our students better choices than the one my students faced.
Stephen Kostyo is an Impact Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists. Before working in education policy, Kostyo taught middle and high school math and science — and was recognized as a high school Teacher of the Year by his peers in 2015.
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.
WILMINGTON, Del. — Striding into a packed community center filled with high school seniors, Atnre Alleyne has a few words of advice for the crowd, members of the first class of college applicants to be shaped by June’s Supreme Court ruling striking down race-conscious admissions.
“You have to get good grades, you have to find a way to do the academics, but also become leaders,” said Alleyne, the energetic co-founder and CEO of TeenSHARP, a nonprofit that prepares students from underrepresented backgrounds for higher education. “In your schools, do something! Fight for social justice.”
Many of the TeenSHARP participants gathered here, who are predominantly Black or Hispanic, worry that their chances of getting into top-tier schools have diminished with the court’s decision. They wonder what to say in their admissions essays and how comfortable they’ll feel on campuses that could become increasingly less diverse.
Tariah Hyland joins fellow TeenSHARP alums Alphina Kamara and William Garcia to meet with and advise TeenSHARP co-founder Atnre Alleyne in Wilmington Delaware. Credit: Liz Willen/The Hechinger Report
On this autumn night, Alleyne and his team are fielding questions from the dozens of students they advise, on everything from early decision deadlines to which schools are most likely to give generous financial aid and scholarships. The changed admissions landscape has only increased the team’s determination to develop a new generation of leaders, students who will fight to have their voices represented on campuses and later on in the workplace.
“I want them to kick the door open to these places, so they will go back and open more doors,” Alleyne said.
That goal is shared by successful alumni of the program Alleyne and his wife, Tatiana Poladko, started in a church basement 14 years ago. Several are on hand tonight recounting their own educational journeys, culminating in full scholarships to schools such as the University of Chicago and Wesleyan University, where annual estimated costs approach $90,000.
Before the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, highly selective colleges served as a beacon of hope and economic mobility for students like those TeenSHARP advise. Many are first in their families to attend college and lack legacy connections or access to the private counselors who’ve long given a boost to wealthier students.
But even before the high court ruling, Black and Latino students were poorly represented at these institutions, while the college degree gap between Black and white Americans was getting worse. For some students, the court decision sends a message that they do not belong, and if they get in, they worry they’ll stand out even more.
“I felt really upset about it,” Jamel Powell, a high school junior from Belle Mead, New Jersey, who participates in TeenSHARP, said about the affirmative action ruling. “This system has helped many underrepresented minorities get into these Ivy League schools and excel.”
While the full impact of the ruling on student demographics remains unknown, representatives of 33 colleges wrote in an amicus brief filed in the case that the share of Black students on their campuses would drop from roughly 7.1 percent to 2.1 percent if affirmative action were banned.
The uncertainty of what the decision means is taking a toll on students and school counselors nationally, said Mandy Savitz-Romer, a senior lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. As colleges sort through how they can meet commitments to diversity while complying with the law, students wonder if mentioning race in their essays will help or hurt them.
TeenSHARP alums Taria Hyland and Alphina Kamara reconnect in Wilmington, Delaware, to share advice on navigating college admissions and financial aid. Credit: Liz Willen/The Hechinger Report
In his majority decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that race could be invoked only within the context of the applicant’s life story, making essays the one opportunity for students to discuss their race and ethnicity. But since then, Edward Blum, the conservative activist who helped bring the case before the court, has threatened more lawsuits, promising to challenge any essay topic that is “nothing more than a back-channel subterfuge for divulging a student’s race.”
The Department of Education has published guidelines saying that while schools cannot put a thumb on the scale for students based on their race, they “remain free” to consider characteristics tied to individual students’ life experiences, including race. The National Association of College Admission Counseling issued similar guidance, while the Common App introduced new essay prompts that include one about students’ “identity” and “background.”
Because of the uncertainty,school counselors need specific training on crafting essays and how or whether to talk about race, Savitz-Romer said during a Harvard webinar last month on college admissions after affirmative action. “We need counselors and teachers to make students understand that college is still for them,” she said.
It’s a tall order: On average, public school counselors serve more than 400 students each, which offers little time for one-on-one advising.
That reality is why nonprofit advising groups like TeenSHARP toil alongside students, guiding them through an increasingly confounding admissions system. TeenSHARP’s team of three advisers works intensively with roughly 140 students at a time, including 50 seniors who often apply to as many as 20 colleges to maximize their chances.
That’s a fraction of those who need help, another reason why the group’s leaders rely on their network of more than 500 “Sharpies,” as alums are known.
Emily Rodriguez, a TeenSHARP senior who attends Conrad Schools of Science in Wilmington, decided to address race head on in her college essays: She wrote about her determination that she would not “play the role of the poor submissive Mexican woman.”
“Admissions officers assure us that their commitment to diversity hasn’t changed. But we will have to see. We’ve explained to families and students that this year is a learning year.”
Tatiana Poladko, co-founder, TeenSHARP
Hamza Parker, a senior at Delaware’s Smyrna High School who moved to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia as a sixth grader, said he was against writing about his identity at first. “I feel like it puts you in a position where you have to have a sob story for your essay instead of talking about something good, like, that happened in your life,” he told Alleyne and Poladko during a counseling session over Zoom.
But in the session Alleyne and Poladko encouraged him to draw from his own story, one they know something about from working with his older sister Hasana, now a junior at Pomona College. The family had a difficult move from Saudi Arabia to New York City and later Delaware, where Hamza joined the Delaware Black Student Coalition.
Hamza decided to revise his essay from one focused on linguistics to describe experiencing racism and then embracing his Muslim heritage.
“I am my normal social self and my Muslim faith and garb are widely known and respected at my school,” he wrote. “My school even now has a dedicated space for prayer during Ramadan.”
Alleyne and Poladko typically work with students who are beginning their first year of high school, so the pair can guide the entire college application process, much as some pricey private counselors do — although TeenSHARP’s services are free; as a nonprofit it relies on an array of donors for support.
Neither Poladko nor Alleyn attended elite schools. They met as graduate students at Rutgers University and became committed to starting TeenSHARP after helping Alleyne’s niece apply to colleges from a large New York City public high school.
Astonished by how complicated and inaccessible college admissions could be, the two decided to make it their life’s work, writing grants and getting donations from local banks and foundations so they could serve more students.
“I felt really upset about it. This system has helped many underrepresented minorities get into these Ivy League schools and excel.”
Jamel Powell, a high school junior from Belle Mead, New Jersey, who participates in TeenSHARP, about the affirmative action ruling.
Their work is now largely remote: During the pandemic, the couple relocated from Wilmington to Poladko’s native Ukraine to be closer to her family, leading to a dramatic escape to Poland with their three young children when war broke out. Poladko is taking a sabbatical from TeenSHARP this year, although she still helps some students via Zoom. Alleyne flies from Warsaw to Wilmington to meet with students in person, often at the community center downtown that once housed their offices.
They also rely on relationships they’ve built over the years with college presidents and admissions officers at schools like Boston College, Pomona College and Wesleyan, along with both Carleton and Macalester Colleges in Minnesota, many of whom have welcomed TeenSHARP applicants.
“We need more ‘Sharpies’ on our campus,” said Suzanne Rivera, president of Macalester College, in Minnesota, and a member of TeenSHARP’s advisory board. “Their questions are always so smart and so insightful.”
Sharpies also tend to become campus leaders, in part because TeenSHARP requires that its students develop leadership skills. That’s something William Garcia, who graduated from the University of Chicago last spring, told seniors in Wilmington.
“If Black high school seniors no longer feel like they are welcomed on predominantly white campuses, they are less likely to apply and even less likely to enroll even if they are offered admission.”
Chelsea Holley, director of admissions at Spelman College in Atlanta
At first, he felt isolated in Chicago, reticent to talk about his experiences as a Hispanic man. “I was in your shoes five years ago,” Garcia said. He later realized his background could be an asset, and drew on it to turn an ingredient for one of Mexico’s most popular liquors into a business venture for his own agave beverage company.
“Embrace your story; tell your story,” Garcia said. “I would tell my story and people would be really interested and would start to help me.”
Alphina Kamara, a 2022 graduate of Wesleyan University, urged seniors to aim high and look beyond state schools and local community colleges that have lower graduation rates and fewer resources — campuses she might have ended up at it not for TeenSHARP.
“I would have never have known that schools like Wesleyan existed, and that I, as a first-generation Black woman, had a place in them,” said Kamara, the child of immigrant parents from Sierra Leone.
Still, there will always be some TeenSHARP students who don’t want to be on campuses that had terrible track records for diversity, even before the court’s decision.
Tariah Hyland, who in high school co-founded the Delaware Black Student Coalition, knew she’d be more comfortable at one of the country’s more than 100 historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs. She told the Delaware audience that she’s thriving in her junior year at Howard University, where she is studying political science.
Powell, the New Jersey junior, is eyeing both Howard and Atlanta’s Morehouse College and said he’ll likely only apply to HBCUs.
“When I was in public school, I was the only Black boy in my classes,” said Powell, who now attends Acelus Academy, an online school. “I was always the minority, and so by going to an HBCU, I would likely see more people who look like me.”
That’s no surprise to Chelsea Holley, director of admissions at Spelman College in Atlanta, who said she’s expecting “more interest from Black and Brown students, now that the Supreme Court has made what I believe to be a regressive political decision.”
HBCUs like Spelman — whose graduates include Children’s Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman and author Alice Walker — are already seeing more applications and are becoming even more competitive.
“If Black high school seniors no longer feel like they are welcomed on predominantly white campuses, they are less likely to apply and even less likely to enroll, even if they are offered admission,” Holley said, adding that students may be worried about further assaults on diversity and inclusion on college campuses and believe they will be more comfortable at an HBCU.
Still, not everyone predicts the court ruling will precipitate a permanent drop in Black and Hispanic students at predominantly white, selective colleges. Richard Kahlenberg, an author and scholar at Georgetown University predicts the drop will be temporary, and that the affirmative action ban will eventually lead to a fairer landscape for low-income students of all races.
Kahlenberg, who served as an expert witness for Students for Fair Admissions, said he wants to see an end to legacy preferences as well as athletic recruiting, so that colleges can give “a meaningful boost” to “disadvantaged students of all races” and “you can get racial diversity without racial preferences.” Challenges to legacy admissions are mounting: The Education Department has opened an investigation into Harvard’s use of the practice, and a recent bipartisan bill calls for colleges to end it.
As mid-December approaches, Alleyne and Poladko are anxiously waiting to see how the handful of TeenSHARP students who applied for early decision will fare.
“Admissions officers assure us that their commitment to diversity hasn’t changed,” Poladko said. “But we will have to see. We’ve explained to families and students that this year is a learning year.”
Until that time, both Poladko and Alleyne will continue pushing students to help those who come after them.
“Our goal is to figure out the game of admissions and give our students an advantage,” Alleyne said. “And our job is to teach them how to play the game.”
This story about TeenSHARP is the first in a series of articles, produced by The Hechinger Reportin partnership with Soledad O’Brien Productions, about the impact of the Supreme Court ruling on race-based affirmative action. Stay tuned for an upcoming documentary and part II.Hechinger is a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
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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.
SALISBURY, Md. — Three times a week, on average, a police car pulls up to a school in Wicomico County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. A student is brought out, handcuffed and placed inside for transport to a hospital emergency room for a psychiatric evaluation.
Over the past eight years, the process has been used more than 750 times on children. Some are as young as 5 years old.
The state law that allows for these removals, which are known as emergency petitions, intended their use to be limited to people with severe mental illness, those who are endangering their own lives or safety or someone else’s. The removals are supposed to be the first step in getting someone involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital.
But advocates say schools across the country are sending children to the emergency room for psychiatric evaluations in response to behaviors prompted by bullying or frustration over assignments. The ER trips, they say, often follow months, and sometimes years, of the students’ needs not being met.
In most places, information about how often this happens is hidden from the public, but in districts where data has been made available, it’s clear that Black students are more frequently subjected to these removals than their peers. Advocates for students with disabilities say that they, too, are being removed at higher rates.
“Schools focus on keeping kids out rather than on keeping kids in,” said Dan Stewart, managing attorney at the National Disability Rights Network. “I think that’s the fundamental crux of things.”
Data from the Wicomico County, Maryland, Sheriff’s office shows that over the past eight years, county schools have sent children more than 750 times to the emergency room for a psychiatric evaluation. Credit: Julia Nikhinson/ Associated Press
In 2017, as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice intended to address widespread racial disparities in how students were disciplined, schools in Wicomico County agreed not to misuse emergency petitions. But while the number of suspensions and expulsions declined, mandated trips to the emergency room ticked up.
Last year, children were handcuffed and sent to the emergency room from Wicomico schools at least 117 times — about once per every 100 students — according to data obtained from public records requests to the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office.
At least 40 percent of those children were age 12 or younger. More than half were Black children, even though only a little more than a third of Wicomico public school children are Black.
In interviews, dozens of students, parents, educators, lawyers and advocates for students with disabilities in Wicomico County said that a lack of resources and trained staff, combined with a punitive culture in some of the schools, are behind the misuse of emergency petitions.
One Wicomico mom, who asked for anonymity because she feared retaliation from the school, recalled the terror she felt when she got the phone call saying that her son’s school was going to have him assessed for a forced psychiatric hospitalization. When she arrived at the school, she said, her son was already in handcuffs. He was put in the back of a police car and taken to the hospital.
“He said his wrists hurt from the handcuffs,” the boy’s mom said. “He was just really quiet, just sitting there, and he didn’t understand why he was in the hospital.”
The use of psychiatric evaluations to remove children from school isn’t just happening in Wicomico. Recent data shows that New York City schools still call police to take children in emotional distress to the emergency room despite a 2014 legal settlement in which they agreed to stop the practice.
A Kentucky school district was found to have used a forced psychiatric assessment on kids more than a thousand times in a year.
In Florida, thousands of school-aged children are subjected to the Baker Act, the state’s involuntary commitment statute.
In a settlement with the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, , the Stockton Unified School District in California agreed to protocols that require other interventions before referring students with disabilities for psychiatric evaluation.
In Maryland, Wicomico uses emergency petitions more often per capita than almost every other Maryland district where data is available. Baltimore City, for example, last year had 271 emergency petitions from schools, compared with Wicomico’s 117, according to data obtained from law enforcement agencies through public records requests. But Baltimore City’s student population is five times as large.
‘Trying to get him out of school’
Wicomico parents describe struggling to get support from the schools when their children fall behind on basics like reading and math in early grades. These gaps in learning can lead to frustration and behaviors that are challenging for teachers to manage.
The Wicomico mother whose son was handcuffed said she fought for years with administrators to obtain accommodations for her child, who is autistic, an experience echoed by other parents. Her son, who also has ADHD, was several years behind in reading by the time he got to middle school. The mother said he was sent to the hospital after an outburst rooted in frustration, not mental illness.
Black students in Wicomico County schools are sent to psychiatric emergency rooms at a higher rate than their peers. Advocates say the same is true for students with disabilities. Credit: Julia Nikhinson/ Associated Press
She recalled school officials telling her, “‘He doesn’t have special needs, he just has anger issues.’ They were trying to get him out of the school.”
Her son had grown increasingly discouraged and agitated over an assignment he was unable to complete, she said. The situation escalated, she said, when the teacher argued with him. The student swiped at his desk and knocked a laptop to the floor, and the school called for an emergency petition. After being taken to the hospital in handcuffs, he was examined and released.
“After that, he went from angry to terrified,” she said. “Every time he saw the police, he would start panicking.”
A spokeswoman from the Wicomico County Public Schools said that emergency petitions “are used in the most extreme, emergency situations where the life and safety of the student or others are at risk.”
“[Emergency petitions] are not used for disciplinary purposes and frequently do not result from a student’s behaviors,” Tracy Sahler, the spokeswoman, said in an email. “In fact, a majority of EPs are related to when a student exhibits suicidal ideation or plans self-harm.”
Schools did not respond to questions about why the rate of emergency petitions was so much higher in Wicomico than in other counties in Maryland. The Sheriff’s Department declined to share records that would show the reasons for the removals.
Educators stretched thin
By law, certain classroom removals must be recorded. Schools are required to publicly report suspensions, expulsions and arrests — and the data reveals racial disparities in discipline. Those statistics are what state and federal oversight agencies typically use to judge a school, and they often serve as triggers for oversight and investigations.
But with the notable exceptions of Florida and New York City, most places do not routinely collect data on removals from schools for psychiatric assessments. That means oversight agencies don’t have access to the information.
Without insight into how often schools are using psychiatric removals on children, there is no way to hold them accountable, said Daniel Losen, senior director for the education team at the National Center for Youth Law.
“The civil rights of children is at stake, because it’s more likely it’s going to be Black kids and kids with disabilities who are subjected to all kinds of biases that deny them an educational opportunity,” he said.
Parents and community leaders in Wicomico County, Maryland, are concerned that schools are sending students to the psychiatric emergency room too often and for the wrong reasons. Credit: Julia Nikhinson/ Associated Press
Families who have experienced emergency petitions say that the educators who can best communicate with their child are stretched thin, and measures that could de-escalate a situation are not always taken. The day that her son was sent to the hospital, the Wicomico mother who requested anonymity recalled, the administrator who had consistently advocated for him was out of the building.
In another instance, a middle schooler said that the required accommodations for his learning and behavioral disabilities included being allowed to take a walk with an educator he trusted. The day he was involuntarily sent to the hospital, that staff member was unavailable. When he tried to leave the building to take a walk on his own, an administrator blocked him from leaving. The student began yelling and spat at the staffer. He said that by the time police arrived, he was calm and sitting in the principal’s office. Still, he was handcuffed and taken to the hospital where he was examined and released a few hours later.
Because emergency petitions happen outside the standard discipline process, missed school days are not recorded as suspensions. For students with disabilities, that has special consequences — they are not supposed to be removed from class for more than 10 days without an evaluation on whether they are receiving the support they need.
“If you use the discipline process, and you’re a student with a disability, your rights kick in,” said Selene Almazan, legal director for the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates. With emergency petitions, the same rules do not apply.
In many places around the county, the resources needed to support students with disabilities are scarce.
“‘He doesn’t have special needs, he just has anger issues.’ They were trying to get him out of the school.”
Wicomico, Maryland, mother whose autistic son was sent to hospital in handcuffs
On Maryland’s Eastern Shore, lawyers and advocates for families said the spectrum of alternatives for students is limited by both money and geography. Those can include private, out-of-district placements and specialized classrooms for specific needs like dyslexia, for example.
“If it’s a resource-rich school system, you can provide services and supports,” said Maureen van Stone, director of the Maryland Center for Developmental Disabilities at Kennedy Krieger Institute. “If you need a walk, if you need a sensory work break, if you need to go see the school counselor, those kinds of things can prevent some of this escalation of getting to the point that you’re … emergency petitioning.”
When children need targeted services that are unavailable in the local district, the district must allow them to be educated outside the school system — and pay for it.
“You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place because you’re like, ‘This kid needs more services,’ but you can’t get the school to agree,” said Angela Ford, clinical director at Maple Shade Youth and Family Services, which serves children with emotional and behavioral disabilities in Wicomico.
Last year, only one student was placed in a private day school, according to data from the Maryland State Department of Education.
ER trips increased after settlement
The 2017 settlement with the Justice Department required the Wicomico district to reduce the significant racial and disability-related disparities in suspensions, placements in alternative schools and other discipline measures.
The district agreed not to use emergency petitions when “less intrusive interventions … can be implemented to address the behavioral concern,” and not to use them “to discipline or punish or to address lack of compliance with directions.”
But since the settlement, many parents, teachers and community leaders said the district has seemed more concerned with keeping suspension numbers down than providing support for teachers to help prevent disruptive behavior.
“If we know how to handle and deal with behaviors, then we will have less EPs,” said Anthony Mann, who was an instructional aide at Wicomico County High School last year and is a Wicomico public school parent.
“The civil rights of children is at stake, because it’s more likely it’s going to be Black kids and kids with disabilities who are subjected to all kinds of biases that deny them an educational opportunity.”
Daniel Losen, senior director for the education team at the National Center for Youth Law
Tatiyana Jackson, who has a son with a disability at Wicomico Middle School, agrees teachers need more training. “I don’t think they have a lot of patience or tolerance for children with differences. It’s like they give up on them.”
Wicomico school officials said ongoing professional development for staff includes the appropriate use of emergency petitions.
“Each school has a well-trained team that includes a social worker and school counselor, with the support of school psychologists,” said Sahler. “All supports that may be beneficial to assist the student are utilized. However, the safety of the student is paramount, and the determining factor is ensuring that there is no unnecessary delay in obtaining aid for the student.”
But Denise Gregorius, who taught in Wicomico schools for over a decade and left in 2019, questioned the feasibility of the discipline and behavior strategies taught during professional development.
“The teachers, when they said they wanted more discipline, really what they’re saying is they want more support,” she said.
“You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place because you’re like, ‘This kid needs more services,’ but you can’t get the school to agree.”
Angela Ford, clinical director at Maple Shade Youth and Family Services
Under the terms of the settlement, Wicomico was under federal monitoring for two years. Since then, the number of suspensions and expulsions has declined markedly — for both Black and white students.
But the number of emergency petitions, which don’t appear in state statistics and are often only revealed through FOIA requests, has edged up. And other measures of exclusionary discipline remained high, including school arrests. In 2021-22, Wicomico had 210 school-based arrests — the second-highest number in the state, while they were 15th in student enrollment. More than three-quarters of the children arrested were Black, and 80 percent were students with disabilities; 37 percent of Wicomico students are Black, and 10 percent of Wicomico students have disabilities.
“Monitoring the numbers doesn’t bring you the solution,” said Losen, from the National Center for Youth Law. “If you’re going to a district where they’re resistant, and they have sort of draconian policies that they can’t justify educationally and there are large racial disparities, the problem is more than what they’re doing with discipline.”
The Department of Justice declined to comment.
Black parents point to culture problem
Some Wicomico parents and educators point to an insular culture in the school district where problems are hidden rather than resolved.
They are frustrated, for example, that there is no relationship with the county’s mobile crisis unit, which is often relied on in other counties to help de-escalate issues instead of calling the police.
Many Black parents say they believe their children are more often viewed as threats than as children who need support.
Jermichael Mitchell, a community organizer who is an alum and parent in Wicomico County Schools, said that teachers and school staff often do not know how to empathize with and respond to the trauma and unmet needs that may lead to children’s behavior.
Last year, among children sent to the hospital on emergency petitions by Wicomico schools, at least 40 percent were age 12 or younger and more than half were Black children..
“A Black kid that’s truly going through something, that truly needs support, is always looked at as a threat,” he said. “You don’t know how those kids have been taught to cry out for help. You don’t know the trauma that they’ve been through.”
Studies have found that Black and Latino children who have a teacher of the same race have fewer suspensions and higher test scores. Such educator diversity is lacking in Wicomico County: Its schools have the largest gap in the state between the percentages of students of color and teachers of color .
Wicomico school officials said they do not discriminate against any of their students.
A Wicomico teenager described a years-long process of becoming alienated from school, with an emergency petition as the ultimate break. He said he was bullied in middle school over a series of months until one day he snapped and hit the student who had been taunting him.
The school called the police. He told the officers not to touch him, that he needed to calm down. Instead, the officers grabbed him and shoved him onto the ground, he said. He was handcuffed and transported to the emergency room. But when he returned to school, he said the only thing that was different was how he felt about the adults in the building.
“I got used to not trusting people, not talking to people at school,” he said. “Nothing else really changed.”
This story about emergency petitions was produced by The Associated Press and The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.
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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.
Next year will mark seven decades since the U.S. Supreme Court declared racially segregated public schools to be unconstitutional. Even the current Supreme Court’s conservatives have embraced that Brown vs. Board of Education decision.
Yet, 70 years after Brown, a key obstacle to racial equality in education continues to be white resistance to racial integration and to adequate funding for the education of Black and Latino children.
In the 1950s and 1960s, white resistance took the form of a revolt against integration and busing.
Private “white academies” — also known as segregation academies — sprang up to preserve the advantages held by the previously white-only public schools.
Today, one form of ongoing resistance is what scholars label “hoarding opportunities.” By using zoning and districting to create and perpetuate overwhelmingly white spaces and declining to share resources with Black and Latino children, white Americans limit the reach of integration and perpetuate inequality.
Not surprisingly, in 2022, the Government Accountability Office declared that school segregation continues unabated. The agency reported that even as the nation’s student population has diversified, 43 percent of its schools are segregated, and 18.5 million students, more than one-third of all the students in the country, are enrolled in highly segregated schools (75 percent or more of the students identify as a single race or ethnicity).
The Midwest — with 59 percent of all schools classified as segregated — is the leader in segregation.
The same GAO study showed that when new school districts are formed, they tend to be far more racially homogeneous than the districts they replace.
A key obstacle to racial equality in education continues to be white resistance.
Direct evidence of white resistance to racial equity in education can be seen in a survey experiment my co-authors and I conducted in 2021 that closely replicated findings from earlier periods. The study shows that white Americans continue to be reluctant to support increased funding for schools for Black children.
In our experiment, 552 white Americans were randomly assigned to one of two groups. The first group was asked: “Do you favor or oppose expanding funding for pre-kindergarten programs so that it is available for poor children nationwide? The $24 billion a year cost would be paid for by higher taxes.”
The second group was asked the same question, except that “poor children” was replaced by “poor Black children.”
About 75 percent of respondents in the first group said they favor spending tax dollars for such a program. However, in the group asked about “poor Black children,” just 68 percent were in favor. This is a significant gap in support.
The experiment suggests that among white Americans, support for public education funding for poor children is robust. But less so for poor Black children.
White resistance to desegregation and school funding for Black students has severe consequences for racial equality and the economy.
Research published this month shows that Black students who attended Southern desegregated schools in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s experienced positive lifelong cognitive effects.
And data from the U.S. Department of Education still shows “substantial” racial gaps in reading and math competencies, high school graduation rates and, inevitably, college entry.
A recent Brookings report estimated that if the racial gap in education and employment had been eliminated, the U.S. GDP from 1990 to 2019 would have been $22.9 trillion larger. This would benefit us all.
The great promise of Brown was one of equal access to high-quality education. The hope was that income and other social disparities among white, Black and Latino people would dissipate over time. White resistance contributed to America not keeping this promise.
Policymakers, funders and education advocates must overcome white resistance to strengthen support for programs geared toward Black and Latino children.
This will help America’s quest to fulfill the promise of Brown. It’s time.
Alexandra Filindra is an associate professor of political science and psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago and a Public Voices Fellow through The OpEd Project. She is also the author of “Race, Rights and Rifles.”
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 Black college students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) share a common bond with other marginalized groups. Our nation’s history is replete with stories of the relentless fight for equitable voting rights.
That’s why, as this struggle continues due to the need to combat various voter suppression tactics, college campuses must play a crucial role in promoting a connection between political leaders and their electorate.
Higher education has the power to formidably facilitate political engagement on campus by supporting greater access to political candidates.
The voices heard, the debates sparked and the connections made can ignite student political engagement.
As researchers on the political socialization of Black youth voters at HBCUs, we can offer critical advice for those seeking to engage with HBCU students. Successful political messaging to this demographic lies in authentic engagement that includes a sincere effort to address students’ concerns and priorities.
Superficial appearances, monologues or insincere support-seeking will not make the intended impact.
When political candidates embark on message and outreach tours, they must be careful not to alienate the critical yet frequently underestimated population of Black youth voters, who too often feel that they only matter to politicians during election season.
We know this from interviews with over 118 young Black voters at HBCUs, who expressed frustration with politicians who resort to hollow pandering by playing identity politics — for example, “Vote for me because you are Black” — or making superficial statements like “I keep hot sauce in my bag” or “I’ve lit up a joint.”
Such tactics are a turn-off for these young voters, who want genuine conversations about their rights before discussions about what they should do with their votes.
Politicians who invite themselves onto our campuses should prioritize giving students unfiltered access that allows for unscripted interactions and authentic engagement.
Here are some recommendations based on our findings:
First, candidates should strategically engage with youth voters by going where they are. The key to engaging young voters effectively lies in the choice of location and method of interaction.
Instead of speaking in grand auditoriums, candidates should focus on smaller venues — campus cafeterias, quads and student dormitories — to facilitate flexible and genuine conversations.
Second, candidates should emphasize that they want to learn from students during their campus visits. The significance of these visits lies in the lessons imparted by and the feedback received from students — listening to student voices is essential to make visits impactful. Candidates should convey that they believe students can make valuable contributions.
Third, these young voters want politicians to pay genuine attention to their needs and aspirations. As one participant aptly expressed, “Show what you’ve done. Why would I vote for you, if you haven’t done anything in my community that shows me that you’re here for me and not just my vote?”
Finally, candidates should make efforts to keep the momentum of voter engagement going beyond Election Day. Voting is just the beginning, and if candidates gain Black youth voters’ initial support, they may earn enduring support.
Candidates’ campus visits are opportunities for voters and politicians to cultivate trust and foster stronger relationships beyond Election Day.
Engagement is not about pandering or making campaign pit stops; instead, it’s about empowering a generation to vote for leaders who truly champion their causes.
However, her lecture-like approach, with moderated discussions, seems to be falling short of establishing a genuine connection. If the tour’s goal is to inspire and empower young voters on topics important to their demographic, it should actively include them in the plan.
Politicians who invite themselves onto our campuses should prioritize giving students unfiltered access that allows for unscripted interactions and authentic engagement.
Politicians need not search far for exemplars, for academics manifest this practice daily in their classrooms. They engage students in open dialogues, affording them the opportunity to pose unvetted inquiries and receive forthright responses.
Postsecondary institutions should help facilitate these connections between politicians and students, thus amplifying youth voter voices in a manner that centers them. Simply giving politicians the chance to be visible on campus is not enough and won’t matter beyond Election Day.
Students want to hear from and vote for leaders who legitimately connect with them and will actively advocate for their causes.
Amanda Wilkerson is an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida in the Department of Educational Leadership and Higher Education.
Shalander “Shelly” Samuels is an Afro-Caribbean assistant professor in the English department in the College of Liberal Arts at Kean University.
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.
“I’m under no illusion that humanity will completely eradicate the racial tribal instinct or racism or bigotry itself. But I feel that colorblindness is the North Star that we should use when making decisions,” argues Coleman Hughes during a live taping of The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie podcast in New York City.
Hughes is a writer, podcaster, and opinion columnist who specializes in issues related to race, public policy, and applied ethics. His new book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America is about returning to the ideals of the American Civil Rights movement because our departure from the “colorblind ideal has ushered in a new era of fear, paranoia, and resentment.” When his recent TED talk was seen as “hurtful” by some TED conference attendees, for example, he discovered that TED actually suppressed his presentation. Hughes describes how that situation left him concerned, “that TED, like many organizations, is caught between a faction that believes in free speech and viewpoint diversity and a faction that believes if you hurt my feelings with even center left, center right or, God forbid, right-wing views, you need to be censored.”
Editor’s note: This story led off this week’s Future of Learning newsletter, which is delivered free to subscribers’ inboxes every other Wednesday with trends and top stories about education innovation.
After an elder passed away recently in their community, the students at Dzantik’i Heeni Middle School in Dzántik’i Héeni, the Tlingit name for Juneau, Alaska, got to work creating a special gift.
Using skills they’d learned in their computer science lessons, the students designed a traditional button blanket on a laser cutting machine. “They found a meaningful way to apply all of that skill and knowledge that they have learned and in such a way that it was authentic,” said Luke Fortier, the school librarian and math teacher.
Fortier’s school participates in a program operated by the American Indian Science and Engineering Society to expand access to computer science and science, technology engineering and math, or STEM, among Native American, Alaska Native and Pacific Islander students. The program trains educators at K-12 schools whose students include Native children on different ways they can introduce young people to programming, robotics and coding.
But computer science lessons like the ones at Dzantik’i Heeni Middle School are relatively rare. Despite calls from major employers and education leaders to expand K-12 computer science instruction in response to the workforce’s increasing reliance on digital technology, access to the subject remains low — particularly for Native American students.
Only 67 percent of Native American students attend a school that offers a computer science course, the lowest percentage of any demographic group, according to a new study from the nonprofit Code.org. A recent report from the Kapor Foundation and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, or AISES, takes a deep look at why Native students’ access to computer and technology courses in K-12 is so low, and examines the consequences.
Director of “seeding innovation” at the Kapor Foundation and report coauthor Frieda McAlear, who is Native Alaskan of the Inupiaq tribe, said the study “forefronts the context of the violence of centuries of colonization and its continuing impacts on Native people and tribal communities as the driver of disparities in Native representation in tech and computing.”
Schools serving higher proportions of Native students are more likely to be small institutions that lack space, funding and teachers trained in computer science, according to the report. In addition, many Native students attend schools that may lack the hardware, software and high-speed internet needed for these classes.
Even when the instruction is available, courses often lack cultural relevance that would allow Native students to authentically engage with the material, the report says.
Given the history of settler colonialism and the use of Native boarding schools that sought to erase Native identity, making sure that students’ tribal knowledge and traditions are celebrated and integrated into the curriculum will allow students to succeed, the report’s authors say.
“For Native young people and Native professionals to be excluded systematically from the computing and tech ecosystem, it really means that they don’t have access both to the wealth generation possibilities of tech careers, but also access to creating technology tools and applications that can support the continual thriving and growth of cultural and language revitalization in our tribal communities,” McAlear said.
“For Native young people and Native professionals to be excluded systematically from the computing and tech ecosystem, it really means that they don’t have access both to the wealth generation possibilities of tech careers, but also access to creating technology tools and applications that can support the continual thriving and growth of cultural and language revitalization in our tribal communities.”
Frieda McAlear, director of “seeding innovation” at the Kapor Foundation and report coauthor
The situation isn’t much better at the post-secondary level, according to report co-author and director of research and career support for AISES, Tiffany Smith, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and a descendant of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Since 2020, Native student enrollment in computer science courses has declined at most two-year and four-year institutions, she said, even as more students overall have received degrees in the subject. Part of the reason is that Native students don’t necessarily see a place for themselves and their culture in tech classes and spaces at predominantly white institutions, Smith said.
But the relatively few Native students who do graduate with these degrees are making significant contributions to their communities, according to Smith. She noted that graduates are using their computer science knowledge and emerging technologies to help revitalize Native languages and alleviate other issues tribal nation communities face, including climate change, biases in data collection and poverty.
Because tribal nations are at the forefront of job growth and development in their communities, they “should be considered critical partners in the future of the technology sector,” the report’s authors write.
The report calls for more investment in training Native educators to teach computer science and related fields, and integrating Indigenous culture, traditions and languages into those classes.
A 4-year-old program run jointly by the Kapor Foundation and AISES, for example, partners with school districts and Native-serving schools to develop tribe-specific culturally relevant computer science curriculum. That instruction doesn’t only happen in computer science class, said McAlear. The program’s staff work with schools to develop project-based, culturally relevant computer science lessons that are woven into other classes including science, language and history.
In Fortier’s district, students in science classes were recently tasked with using robots to code the life cycle of a salmon. Through that activity they gained knowledge of their local tribal economies while being introduced to new tech, he said.
Before the pandemic, Fortier’s school had eliminated some computer science and technology courses due to budget cuts. But with federal Covid relief funding, along with grants from Sealaska Heritage Institute, a nonprofit arm of a regional Native corporation, and programmatic support from AISES, the school was able to restore some of that instruction.*
Fortier said he believes these courses are essential for his students — not necessarily because they’ll have to learn all the latest cutting-edge technology for their future careers, but so they can use contemporary methods to share Native practices, knowledge and skills with the wider community.
“We can learn a lot from the elders in the traditional knowledge,” he said. “But our kids need to apply it in a new, modern, meaningful way. They need to be able to communicate to and within the world.”
*Correction: This sentence has been updated with the correct version of Sealaska Heritage Institute’s name.
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.
JEFFERSON PARISH, La. — El año escolar de la escuela primaria Washington concluyó a las 2:35 pm de un caluroso martes de mayo. Aun así, Malaysia Robertson, de 9 años, permaneció afuera del plantel.
Ella había pasado la mayor parte de su vida en la pequeña escuela pública de este suburbio de Nuevo Orleans, donde vive con su abuela. Su escuela no volvería a abrir sus puertas al comienzo del nuevo año escolar en septiembre. Al igual que miles de otros estudiantes del distrito escolar más grande de Luisiana, a ella se le asignó a un nuevo colegio como parte de un plan de consolidación que afecta a casi uno de cada 10 estudiantes afroamericanos como Malaysia. Esta es una cifra desproporcionada.
En ese último día de clases, ella no quería despedirse.
“Íbamos corriendo por los pasillos llorando y todo eso”, dijo Malaysia, recordando su último día en tercer grado. El estacionamiento seguía lleno de estudiantes, familias y maestros mucho después de la 4 p.m., todos abrazándose antes de salir de la escuela por última vez.
Malaysia Robertson, de 9 años, afuera de la cerrada escuela primaria Washington en Kenner, Louisiana, el viernes 28 de julio de 2023 por la tarde. Credit: Christiana Botic para The Hechinger Report
La decisión de la junta escolar de cerrar 6 escuelas permanentemente ha estremecido a Jefferson Parish, donde la inscripción de estudiantes en escuelas públicas disminuyó casi un 10% desde el inicio de la pandemia.
Esta disminución empeoró casi una década de avances en el distrito, en la que se buscó revitalizar la inscripción escolar después del huracán Katrina. Los funcionarios del distrito han dicho que los cierres de escuelas son una respuesta necesaria a la disminución de la población estudiantil. Datos del distrito muestran que aproximadamente 1 de 3 cupos permanecieron vacantes el año escolar pasado y varios edificios albergaron a menos de la mitad de los estudiantes para los cuales fueron diseñados.
“Tenemos escuelas poco utilizadas — eso es un hecho”, explicó el vicepresidente de la junta escolar Derrick Shepherd durante una votación en abril. “Las cifras no se pueden cambiar”.
El distrito volvió a dibujar su mapa para distribuir a los alumnos en una manera que requiere que muchos estudiantes deban viajar fuera de sus vecindarios y más lejos de casa. Los oficiales explicaron que los nuevos mapas hacen que las rutas de transporte por autobús sean más estables y que ninguno de sus maestros se quedará sin empleo. Pero la decisión ha enfurecido a los líderes comunitarios y abogados de derechos civiles, quienes dicen que los cierres no son solo dañinos para familias como la de Malasia, sino además son discriminatorios.
La escuela primaria Washington en Kenner, Louisiana, el domingo 23 de julio de 2023 por la noche. Credit: Christiana Botic para The Hechinger ReportUn cartel de “esté atento a los niños” afuera de la cerrada escuela primaria Washington en Kenner, Louisiana, el domingo 23 de julio de 2023 por la noche. Credit: Christiana Botic para The Hechinger Report
A pesar de que los estudiantes blancos representan casi un cuarto de los estudiantes del distrito, según los datos estatales de inscripción escolar estos solo representan al 12% de los estudiantes afectados por los cierres de escuelas. El plan que la junta escolar aprobó, el cual se diseñó teniendo en cuenta cuáles instalaciones escolares tenían más espacio sin usar y su estado, cerró dos escuelas secundarias con alto rendimiento escolar en las cuales la mayoría de los estudiantes eran hispanos y afroamericanos.
Como resultado cientos de estudiantes hispanos y afroamericanos serán asignados a escuelas de rendimiento más bajo el próximo año escolar, repitiendo para algunas familias el pasado de racismo y segregación del distrito.
“¿Quién se va beneficiar de todo este proceso? No serán los niños afromericanos y latinos”, dijo Debra Houston Edwards, de 77 años, quien se graduó de Washington hace más de sesenta años y comenzó a trabajar para el distrito en la década de los ochenta y fue una de las pocas administradoras afroamericanas en aquel entonces. “No hay equidad en lo que está pasando.”
Shepherd y el presidente de la junta escolar, Ralph Brandt, no respondieron a las solicitudes de comentario para esta nota. En un correo electrónico, la persona encargada de comunicaciones del distrito señaló a una página en línea sobre los cierres pero no respondió a preguntas.
La organización sin ánimo de lucro, El Southern Poverty Law Center SPLC (por sus siglas en inglés), presentó una denuncia por incumplimiento a los derechos civiles al departamento de educación, donde alegan que los cierres discriminan a los estudiantes basados en su raza y que el distrito falló en compartir información sobre los cierres con familias que tienen un dominio limitado de inglés. En una segunda denuncia, SPLC alega que los cierres son parte de una tendencia de discriminación racial generalizada, y de otros tipos , contra algunos estudiantes.
El departamento no ha anunciado una investigación a raíz de estas denuncias.
El vestíbulo de la escuela primaria Washington en Kenner, Luisiana, la tarde del domingo 23 de julio. Credit: Christiana Botic para The Hechinger Report
Mientras tanto, a los expertos les preocupa que los distritos escolares en todo el país pronto enfrenten problemas parecidos. A nivel nacional, más de un millón de alumnos no regresaron a escuelas públicas después de la pandemia. Algunos se matricularon en colegios privados, otros comenzaron a recibir educación en su hogar y otros simplemente desaparecieron, dijo Thomas S. Dee, profesor en la escuela de posgrado en educación de la Universidad Standford. Dado la disminución de tasas de nacimiento, el departamento de educación estima que la inscripción a nivel nacional en escuelas públicas va a bajar un 5% o más para el 2031. Este es un descenso drástico después de décadas en las que la matrícula ha sido creciente.
“Va a haber un ajuste de cuentas para muchos distritos escolares que no han reconocido su nueva realidad”, agrega Dee, quien estudia el éxodo de las escuelas públicas. Él anticipa que muchos distritos se verán obligados a considerar el cierre de escuelas.
Este debate sobre el cierre de escuelas y cómo hacerlo, también es sobre para identificar cuáles cuáles estudiantes tendrán que asumir las cargas. Hasta ahora los estudiantes hispanos y afroamercanos se han visto afectados de forma desproporcionada. Investigadores académicos y defensores les preocupa que la decreciente inscripción en las escuelas públicas, y los cierres que probablemente seguirán, intensifican la desigualdad académica en la educación pública.
“Los siguientes 10 años van a estar repletos de este tipo de historias”, dijo Douglas N. Harris, presidente del departamento de economía en la Universidad Tulane y director del Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre Acceso y Elección en Educación. Al analizar cierres de escuelas y tendencias de reestructuración en todo el país durante los últimos 30 años, Harris encontró que escuelas con altos porcentajes de estudiantes de color tenian una probablidad mas alta de cerrarr que las que tienen una mayoría de estudiantes blancos.
Harris explicó que esto a veces ocurre por desigualdades históricas, como cuando colegios donde asisten más estudiantes de color reciben menos inversión a largo plazo y terminan con resultados bajos en los exámenes y edificios deteriorados. Eso puede empeorar la baja inscripción, y al considerar el rendimiento escolar y el panorama financiero, puede hacer parecer que cerrar la escuela es una opción sensata.
Pero incluso cuando Harris y sus co-investigadores compararon escuelas con niveles de inscripción y rendimiento parecido, las de mayor cantidad de estudiantes de color y de bajos ingresos seguían siendo las más propensas a cerrar. Investigaciones previamente realizadas por el Centro de Investigación sobre Resultados en la Educación de Stanford revelaron hallazgos similares al observar que de entre las escuelas con bajo rendimiento académico, las que tienen una mayor proporción de estudiantes hispanos y afroamericanos tienen mayor probabilidad de cerrar cuando se las compara con las que tienen más alumnos blancos, aunque tengan una clasificación similar.
Ce’Vanne Ursin, de 12 años, derecha, y su hermana Canyon Sunday Ursin, de 7 años, frente a la cerrada escuela primaria Washington en Kenner, Louisiana, el domingo 23 de julio de 2023 por la noche. Credit: Christiana Botic para The Hechinger Report
Para la tía de Malaysia, Cheryl Earl, la decisión de la junta ha sido devastadora. Su hija mayor se mudó a Washington hace dos años y su hija menor comenzó el primer grado en esa escuela el año pasado. Igual que Malaysia, sus niñas prosperaron en la escuela comunitaria de 240 estudiantes.
Antes de transferirse a Washington para el cuarto grado, la niña mayor de Earl, Ce’Vanne Ursin, le había dicho a su mamá que odiaba la escuela. “No podía esperar llegar al doceavo grado para abandonar la escuela”, recordó Earl. Pero Ce’Vanne cambió de opinión en Washington. Para el quinto grado fue seleccionada para el programa de estudiantes dotados y talentosos. Al finalizar el año escolar, fue nombrada maestra de ceremonias para la graduación final, un puesto codiciado entre los estudiantes.
“Antes pensaba que era tonta, pero realmente no lo soy”, dijo Ce’Vanne, de 12 años. “Washington me hizo sentir cómoda. Me hizo sentir que todos en la escuela eran mis amigos y familiares”.
Ce’Vanne dijo sentirse afortunada de formar parte de la última generación que se graduará en Washington. Pero el cierre significa que su hermana de ocho años, Canyon Sunday, no tendrá la misma experiencia. En cambio, el distrito asignó a Canyon a cursos el segundo grado en el mismo colegio donde Ce’Vanne tuvo malas experiencias, antes de ir a Washington. Su madre dijo que está demasiado cicatrizada por el tiempo de Ce’Vanne en esa escuela como para enviar a su hermana menor allí, por lo cual decidió inscribir a ambas niñas en una escuela privada católica cercana.
Cheryl Earl, centro, con sus hijas Ce’Vanne Ursin, de 12 años, izquierda, y Canyon Sunday Ursin, de 8 años, afuera de la cerrada Escuela Primaria Washington en Kenner, Louisiana, el domingo 23 de julio de 2023 por la noche. Credit: Christiana Botic para The Hechinger Report
Cuando las escuelas cierran, el efecto dominó dura años, explica Molly F. Gordon, quien fue científica investigadora del Consorcio de Investigación Escolar en la Universidad de Chicago. El rendimiento académico de los estudiantes sufre, algunas familias optan por mudarse a medida que sus vecindarios se vuelven menos deseables, y como consecuencia se borran historias importantes.
Después de que Chicago cerró casi 50 escuelas públicas en el 2013, Gordon y su equipo siguieron los resultados de los estudiantes afectados. Incluso antes de que ocurrieran los cierres, durante el año que se anunciaron, la lectura y matemáticas de los estudiantes afectados sufrieron y los estudiantes quedaron retrasados por meses comparados con los estudiantes de escuelas que permanecieron abiertas.
“Los estudiantes que venían de las escuelas cerradas sentían que habían perdido algo, porque lo perdieron”, dijo Gordon, ahora científica investigadora senior en el Centro Nacional de Investigación de Opinión en la Universidad de Chicago. “Ellos estaban viviendo un duelo”.
Los cierres en Chicago tenían el objetivo de ahorrarle dinero al distrito y cerrar escuelas con bajo rendimiento, donde casi exclusivamente asistían estudiantes hispanos y afromericanos. Los funcionarios prometieron que el cambio resultaría en colocar a esos estudiantes en escuelas con mejor rendimiento académico. Una investigación del periódico The Chicago Sun Times y la estación local de radio WBEZ descubrió que una década después muchos de los beneficios anunciados con el cierre masivo, hasta la fecha, nunca se materializaron.
Los estudiantes de las escuelas cerradas no mostraron mejor rendimiento académico que los alumnos de escuelas parecidas que permanecieron abiertas, y su índice de graduación era ligeramente más bajo que el de estudiantes de las escuelas comparadas, por debajo del promedio del distrito escolar. Y, a pesar de que el cambio recortó costos, los ahorros probablemente fueron mucho menores de lo que originalmente habían calculado los funcionarios.
La pregunta que permanece es una que le plantean frecuentemente a Marguerite Roza, directora del Edunomics Lab en la Universidad de Georgetown: ¿Con pocos recursos y la disminución cifras de inscripción, que deben hacer los distritos escolares?
Canyon Sunday Ursin, de 8 años, en la cerca fuera de la cerrada escuela primaria Washington en Kenner, Louisiana, el domingo 23 de julio de 2023 por la noche. Credit: Christiana Botic para The Hechinger Report
Roza enfatiza dos factores esenciales para limitar la interrupción: planear con anticipación y darle prioridad al rendimiento. Esencialmente, al cerrar escuelas se debe beneficiar a todos los estudiantes del distrito; y liberar recursos para usarlos en personal y programas. Pero para asegurarse de eso, los distritos deben prestar atención especial a los estudiantes a los que reubican, cambiándolos a escuelas de mejor rendimiento y siendo transparentes al explicarle a las familias el razonamiento tras el cambio.
Pero en Jefferson Parish, los datos estatales del rendimiento muestran que este no ha sido el caso. Mientras los estudiantes de primaria serán incorporados a escuelas de alta clasificación, los de secundaria enfrentan una realidad distinta. El nuevo plan cerrará las escuelas secundarias que ocupaban el segundo y tercer lugar de rendimiento en el distrito -un paso que “desafía la lógica” dijo Roza. .
Una de esas escuelas es la secundaria Grace King, donde los dos nietos de Lillie Magee, residente por largo tiempo de Jefferson Parish, completaron el décimo y undécimo grado en mayo. La escuela estaba compuesta en su mayoría por estudiantes hispanos y afroamericanos, como los nietos de Magee, y todos parecían llevarse bien, dijo ella.
Magee siente que sus nietos, a quienes cuidaba, estaban seguros dentro de las paredes de la escuela. Ella conocía a sus profesores y entrenadores y había asistido a juegos de fútbol americano, llena de pasión y orgullo escolar. Ahora, ella se preocupa de que al reasignar a muchos estudiantes de Grace King a su antigua escuela secundaria rival resulte en violencia y peleas. Sus chicos han perdido la escuela que conocían, y ella ha perdido la comunidad en la que confiaba para mantenerlos a salvo.
“La forma en que nos trataron, fue simplemente muy injusta”, dijo Magee. La escuela a la que asistirá su nieto mayor el próximo año está clasificada como la segunda peor del distrito en términos de rendimiento.
Mientras tanto, en la primaria Washington, los edificios están oscuros y vacíos, el césped exterior está descuidado y lleno de basura. Un mes después del cierre, un incendio arrasó el edificio que albergaba el gimnasio y la cafetería, dejando escombros esparcidos sobre las largas mesas donde los maestros habían organizado un desayuno de graduación semanas antes. Ahora, las ventanas siguen cubiertas con madera y las puertas exteriores están cerradas con llave.
El momento del incendio, que la policía dijo que parecía haberse originado como un incendio eléctrico, dejó a muchos miembros de la comunidad con sospechas. El distrito ahora planea vender el terreno, permitiendo que el futuro comprador restaure o derribe la escuela.
Debra Houston Edwards, la anterior administradora del distrito, espera que al menos los edificios puedan ser salvados, dado su importancia histórica y para que puedan seguir sirviendo como centro para la comunidad.
A principios de la década de 1930, el abuelo de Edwards y otros cinco hombres del condado que vivían en la ribera Este del río Mississippi pidieron a la junta escolar que abriera una escuela secundaria para estudiantes afroamericanos en la zona. Pero la junta les dijo que era su responsabilidad: tendrían que comprar el terreno y cubrir parte de los costos de construcción. En respuesta, la comunidad recaudó fondos de puerta en puerta. En 1936, se convirtió en la primera escuela en la ribera este donde los niños afroamericanos podían recibir una educación superior al octavo grado.
“Nadie más tuvo que hacerlo excepto nosotros”, dijo Edwards, quien ha conservado la historia de la escuela en recortes de periódico antiguos y fotografías que se desvanecen. “Y aquí estamos de nuevo, pasando por el mismo proceso”.
A principios del mes pasado, Edwards y un grupo de miembros de la comunidad ofrecieron comprar la escuela por un dólar, esencialmente solicitando a la junta escolar donara el terreno, un sitio “por el que nuestros antepasados ya han pagado”, escribió el grupo en una carta a Brandt, el presidente de la junta.
Pero el grupo dijo que no ha recibido una respuesta formal. En una declaración a los medios de comunicación locales Brandt dijo que la junta está “legalmente obligada a buscar el valor justo de mercado” por cualquier propiedad que tenga la intención de vender.
Angie Robertson afuera de la cerrada escuela primaria Washington en Kenner, Louisiana, el viernes 28 de julio de 2023 por la tarde. Credit: Christiana Botic para The Hechinger Report
Cuando Malaysia se imagina el nuevo año escolar ella dice que siente esperanza. Varios de sus profesores se van a mudar con ella al nuevo colegio y ella espera que varios de sus compañeros de clase la acompañen en el nuevo edificio desconocido.
Pero para su abuela, Angie Robertson, es un mundo diferente – un vecindario en el cual no viven y una comunidad a la cual no pertenecen.
“Tenía profesores allá,” en Washington, “que era como parte de la familia”, dijo Robertson, quien también va a enseñar en el programa de aprendizaje temprano del Head Strart de la escuela. “Para mí, yo siento que ese era el hogar fuera del hogar de los niños”.
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.
In the heart of the Deep South, Mississippi has wrestled with enduring educational disparities, a profoundly rooted challenge passed down through generations.
The pandemic exacerbated preexisting funding inequities for high-need, under-resourced school districts, a longstanding challenge for the Magnolia State. Evidence of this persistent struggle is the distressing fact that32 school districts remain under federal desegregation orders.
To delve deeper into how chronically under-resourced schools fared during the pandemic, theMississippi Center for Justice (MCJ) spent over a year conducting parent focus groups and examining educational testing data in 12 predominantly Black and economically disadvantaged communities in the rural Delta, the northwestern section of the state, one of the poorest regions in the U.S.
Sadly, what we discovered was not surprising. Mississippi’s past, marked by a legacy of racial segregation and educational inequality, continues to cast a long shadow on its present and future.
Our extensive work at MCJ culminated ina report that showcased an unsettling reality: Affordability and availability are formidable barriers to internet access, while reading and math proficiency rates are significantly below the state averages in grades 3-8. In addition, special education programs and staff remain woefully under-resourced, while access to mental health professionals and support is often limited or, in some cases, entirely nonexistent. Past excuses by the state to avoid addressing these disparities are no longer acceptable.
It is past time for lawmakers to make education in Mississippi a priority for all students.
These issues, among others, further widen the chasm between the haves and have-nots in Mississippi and are creating a new generation of students failed by the system. The evidence of this gap is glaring according to the School Finance Indicators Database.
Spending in Mississippi’s highest-poverty districts is 55 percent below the estimated “adequate” level and 18 percent below adequate in the state’s wealthiest districts, according to the Database.
A significant challenge for Delta communities is the ever-growing digital divide. During the pandemic, students in better-resourced school districts had greater access to high-speed internet connections for a relatively seamless transition to remote learning, while students throughout the Delta struggled with internet accessibility, which contributed to significant learning loss.
While most students across the state received devices for virtual learning, many couldn’t use them due to poor, limited or no internet access. Our report found that this left them at a severe disadvantage.
Mississippi has one of the largest populations of K-12 students who lack broadband access; its sparsely populated rural communities are often redlined by internet service providers, leaving them grossly unserved or underserved. But it’s not just a Mississippi trend. According to a national study of the Black Rural South, nearly three-quarters, or 72.6 percent, of households in the Black Rural South do not have broadband of at least 25 Mbps — the minimum standard for broadband internet.
Compounding these challenges is the stark lack of access to mental health care, a formidable barrier for Mississippi students. According to our report, while parents described the immense toll the pandemic had on their family’s mental health, few of them sought help or had access to mental health professionals. Over 70 percent of children in Mississippi with major depression disorder do not receive treatment, surpassing the national average of 60 percent.
Unfortunately, the pandemic exacerbated this issue, with many students grappling with losing loved ones, economic instability and the social isolation imposed by remote learning. The student-to-counselor ratio in Mississippi is 398 to 1, almost 60 percent higher than the American School Counselor Association recommendation of 250 to 1, according to an analysis done by Charlie Health.
Our report also found that students with disabilities were acutely affected during the pandemic. Although Covid guidelines mandated compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, many districts consistently failed to support students and their parents.
Mississippi now confronts a moral imperative to fortify its historically underserved school districts, especially those most severely impacted by the pandemic. With a $3.9 billion surplus of state revenue in 2023, legislators finally have the means to fully fund the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP) for the first time since 2008. Yet they have chosen not to do so during a time when schools need investment and support the most.
It is past time for lawmakers to make education in Mississippi a priority for all students, especially those in historically under-resourced districts. The state must begin investing in education to overcome historical inequities and post-pandemic challenges. This is the only viable path toward dismantling the systemic barriers that have perpetuated disparities for far too long.
Until then, Mississippi’s commitment to the well-being and success of all its residents, regardless of their ZIP code, will remain in question.
The time for unwavering action is now.
Kim L. Wiley is a former educator who serves as the Education Analyst & Project Coordinator for the MississippiCenter for Justice, a nonprofit, public-interest law firm committed to advancing racial and economic justice.
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.
For years, she sat through meetings with her son’s special education teachers, struggling to maintain a smile as she understood little of what they said. On the rare occasions when other teachers who spoke Barrera’s language, Spanish, were asked to help, the conversations still faltered because they weren’t trained interpreters.
But by the time her son, Ian, entered high school, Barrera decided to invite a bilingual volunteer from a local nonprofit to sit with her and to remind the school team of her rights.
“I wanted someone on my side,” Barrera, whose son has autism, said through an interpreter. “All this time, they weren’t making things easy for us. It’s caused a lot of tears.”
Mireya Barrera, left, spent years struggling to understand her son Ian’s teachers in special education meetings without a Spanish interpreter. Husband Enrique Barrera, right, often tried to help with interpretation, which federal laws require schools to provide. Credit: Ken Lambert/The Seattle Times
Regardless of what language parents speak at home, they have a civil right to receive important information from their child’s educators in a language they understand. For students with disabilities, federal law is even more clear: Schools “must take whatever action is necessary” — including arranging for interpretation and translation — so parents can meaningfully participate in their kid’s education.
But schools throughout the country sometimes fail to provide those services.
Families who don’t speak English are forced to muddle through meetings about their children’s progress, unable to weigh in or ask educators how they can help. Cultural and linguistic differences can convince some parents not to question what’s happening at school — a power imbalance that, advocates say, means some children miss out on critical support. In a pinch, it’s not uncommon for schools to task bilingual students with providing interpretation for their families, placing them in the position of describing their own shortcomings to their parents and guardians.
“That’s totally inappropriate, in every possible way — and unrealistic,” said Diane Smith-Howard, senior staff attorney with the National Disability Rights Network. “If the child is not doing particularly well in an academic subject, why would you trust your teenager to tell you?”
“Parents for whom English might not be their primary language are often overwhelmed with information and unable to participate meaningfully in the process.”
Jinju Park, senior education ombuds, Washington State
School districts blame a lack of resources. They say they don’t have the money to hire more interpreters or contract with language service agencies, and that even if they did, there aren’t enough qualified interpreters to do the job.
In Washington and a handful of other states, the issue has started to gain more attention. State lawmakers in Olympia earlier this year introduced bipartisan legislation to bolster federal civil rights in state code. Teachers unions in Seattle and Chicago recently bargained for — and won — interpretation services during special education meetings. And school districts face an escalating threat of parent lawsuits, or even federal investigation, if they don’t take language access seriously.
Still, efforts to expand language access in special education face an uphill battle, due to the small pool of trained interpreters, lack of enforcement at the state level and scant funding from Congress. (Despite promising in 1974 to cover nearly half the extra cost for schools to provide special education, the federal government has never done so.) Washington’s bipartisan bill to add more protections for families suddenly failed, after state lawmakers stripped it of key provisions and advocates pulled their support.
The special education system can be “incredibly difficult for everybody,” said Ramona Hattendorf, director of advocacy for the Arc of King County, which promotes disability rights. “Then everything is exacerbated when you bring language into the mix.”
Nationwide, roughly 1 in 10 students who qualify for special education also identify as English learners, according to federal education data, and that share is growing. About 791,000 English learners participated in special education in 2020, a jump of nearly 30 percent since 2012. In more than a dozen states, including Washington, the increase was even higher.
As their numbers grow, their parents’ frustration with language services is rising too.
During the 2021-22 school year, the Washington State education ombudsman received nearly 1,200 complaints from parents about schools. Their number one concern, across all racial and demographic groups, was access and inclusion in special education. Senior education ombuds Jinju Park estimates that between 50 and 70 percent of calls the agency receives are about special education — and 80 percent of those calls are from clients who need interpretation services.
While most states allow schools up to 60 days once a student is referred for special education services to determine if they qualify, Washington schools can take up to half a school year. And if a parent needs interpretation or translation, the wait can last even longer.
Mireya Barrera embraces her son Ian’s hands. She tries to spread awareness of people with autism spectrum disorder and sometimes supports other families facing language barriers in special education. Credit: Ken Lambert/The Seattle Times
“Our current laws do not support full parent participation,” Park wrote to Washington state lawmakers in support of an early version of House Bill 1305, the proposal that ultimately failed. “Parents for whom English might not be their primary language,” she added, “are often overwhelmed with information and unable to participate meaningfully in the process.”
Barrera, whose son attended the Auburn School District, south of Seattle, said she often felt cut out of his learning.
In kindergarten, after his diagnosis for autism, Ian’s special education team concluded he needed a paraeducator assigned to him full time, Barrera said. She relied on Google Translate and other parents to help her compose emails asking why he didn’t receive that support until the third grade. Her requests for translated copies of legal documents largely went unanswered, she said — until a principal told her that the translation was too expensive.
When Ian entered high school, bullying and his safety became Barrera’s top concern. He once came home with a chunk of hair missing, she said. Despite repeated calls and emails to his teachers, Barrera said she never received an explanation.
Barrera said that when she asked to come to the school to observe, a teacher told her, “You don’t even speak English. What’s the point?’ ”
“That’s totally inappropriate, in every possible way – and unrealistic. If the child is not doing particularly well in an academic subject, why would you trust your teenager to tell you?”
Diane Smith-Howard, senior staff attorney with the National Disability Rights Network
Vicki Alonzo, a spokesperson for the Auburn district, said that the region’s booming immigrant population in recent years has prompted the district to commit more resources toward helping families whose first language isn’t English. Nearly a third of its students are multilingual learners, she said, and they speak about 85 different languages at home.
In the 2019-20 year, the district spent about $175,000 on interpretation and translation services, she said; last school year, that figure was more than $450,000.
Alonzo noted the district received no additional funding for those services, which included about 1,500 meetings with interpreters and translation of more than 3,000 pages of documents.
“Families are our partners,” she said. “We need them to have student success.”
Lawmakers in other states have tried to address language access issues.
Proposed legislation in California would set a 30-day deadline for schools to comply with parents’ requests for a translated copy of their child’s individualized education program, or IEP, which details the services a school will provide for a student with disabilities. Similarly, lawmakers in Texas introduced a bill earlier this year to expand translation of IEPs if English is not the native language of the child’s parent (the bill died in committee).
“It’s a nationwide phenomenon,” said Smith-Howard of the National Disability Rights Network. “It’s a resource problem and also a matter of respect and dignity and understanding — that all parents should receive.”
In New York City, parents turned to the courts in pursuit of a solution.
Mireya Barrera wears a puzzle piece necklace, which matches a tattoo on her wrist, to spread awareness of people with autism spectrum disorder. Credit: Ken Lambert/The Seattle Times
Four families there filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in 2019, claiming the nation’s largest school district failed to provide translation services for families that don’t speak English. Like Barrera, one of the New York City parents asked for a Spanish interpreter at an IEP meeting; their school provided one who spoke Italian, according to M’Ral Broodie-Stewart, an attorney representing the families for Staten Island Legal Services.
In 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation into New Bedford Public Schools in Massachusetts after students and families who speak K’iché, an Indigenous Mayan language, complained about discriminatory practices.
A settlement reached last year commits the Massachusetts district to using professionally trained interpreters — and not students, relatives or Google Translate — to communicate essential information to parents.
In Washington state’s largest school district, the Seattle teachers union picketed and delayed the start of school last year over demands that included interpretation and translation in special education. The eventual contract, which lasts through 2025, requires that staff have access to various services that provide telephonic (a live interpreter) or text-based translation (for written documents). The provision was to ensure that bilingual staff weren’t being asked to translate if it wasn’t a part of their job description.
Teachers say these tools have been helpful, but only to a degree: There are rarely telephone interpreters available for less common languages, such as Amharic, and technical issues like dropped calls are common.
The availability of interpreters is “not as consistent as we would like it to be,” said Ibi Holiday, a special-education teacher at Rising Star Elementary School in Seattle.
There’s also an issue of context. Translators may not have a background in special education, so families may come away from a meeting not understanding all the options. This can slow down the process significantly.
Mireya Barrera, middle, walks her son Ian to University of Washington fraternity home where volunteers help to support younger students with disabilities. Ian, now 18, was diagnosed with autism in preschool. Credit: Ken Lambert/The Seattle Times
“For a lot of the families, they attended a school in their country that functions completely differently,” said Mari Rico, director of El Centro de la Raza’s Jose Marti Child Development Center, a bilingual early education program. “Translating wasn’t enough; I had to teach them about the system.”
Many Seattle district schools have multilingual staff, but the number and diversity of languages spoken isn’t consistent, Rico said. And there is a greater risk of a student’s case getting overlooked or stagnating because of language barriers. She said she’s had to step in where families have gone months without an IEP meeting even as their child was receiving services.
Hattendorf, with the Arc of King County, said that cheaper tech solutions like those Seattle is using do offer some assistance, but their quality varies widely. And the services may not offer parents enough time to process complicated information and ask follow-up questions, she said.
South of Seattle, the Barreras decided to move Ian to a different high school.
He graduated earlier this year, but federal law guarantees his special education services for another three years. Ian is now attending a transition program for students with disabilities, where he will learn life skills like getting a job.
“We know, with help, he can do whatever he wants,” Barrera said.
Already, she added, “it’s all different. The teachers just try to find the best way to communicate with me.”
This story about interpretation services was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education, in partnership with The Seattle Times.
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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.
House Republicans recently returned to one of their favorite targets for spending cuts: the country’s most vulnerable youth and the schools that serve them. Their plan would represent a major setback to efforts to achieve racial equity in our nation’s public schools.
During the latest battle over preventing a government shutdown, Republicans called for cutting Title 1 education grants earmarked for low-income students by 80 percent, which would mean a loss of nearly $15 billion in funding for schools with sizeable populations of these students, disproportionately affecting schools that serve more children of color.
We already see this racial logic playing out in the efforts of red states to use school funding as a political football. In Tennessee, the house speaker and lieutenant governor have teamed up to explore rejecting federal education funds altogether. They hope to shirk federal oversight on matters related to inequality, including civil rights protections based on race.
Given the patterns in funding schemes across the country, it is clear that we need to set aside targeted school funding on both the state and local levels with the express purpose of remedying injustices inflicted upon particular groups of students.
Yet the reality is that government funding decisions about education have long been a way to install and preserve racial inequality in our society. And since these inequalities have origins in funding malpractice, to remedy them, the government must use targeted funding for racial equity going forward.
School funding stems from three major sources: federal, state and local. Looking at average breakdowns from recent data, we see that U.S. schools receive about 47 percent of their funds from their state government, 45 percent from local and 8 percent from federal.
This means that states and districts can counteract any proposed federal cuts with concerted efforts to reinvest in vulnerable youth. But even states with Democratic leadership have struggled to do so.
For example, in Pennsylvania, where I call home, the state’s funding scheme has been found unconstitutional for providing inadequate and unequal funding. Recent investigations have revealed how damaging the effects of this system have been on districts where a majority of students are students of color; one study, from the advocacy group The Education Trust, found that “districts with the most students of color on average receive substantially less (16 percent) state and local revenue than districts with the fewest students of color, equating to approximately $13.5 million for a 5,000-student district.”
The state of California, and its largest city, Los Angeles, however, have initiated thoughtful and large-scale efforts to right the wrongs of governments past. California’s funding formula and Los Angeles’ program to holistically support Black students are both concrete efforts to tinker with school funding to move towardequity, rather than away from it. In a nutshell, these programs exemplify meaningful, targeted investments in marginalized populations and represent a significant course reversal from much of United States history.
Though these two programs in California have flaws, which I detail below, there are real lessons that leaders across the country can glean from them in order to make real, lasting change in their own locales.
I spent the previous five years in California training teachers and studying school improvement. This year, we are arriving at the 10th anniversary of the state’s Local Control Funding Formula, which changed how schools were funded and allows for greater flexibility in how local education agencies meet the needs of three targeted student populations: low-income, foster youth and English learners.
These programs exemplify meaningful, targeted investments in marginalized populations and represent a significant course reversal from much of United States history.
Results so far include a demonstrable gain in test scores for these “high-need” students, including a 13 percentage point increase in the number of students meeting or exceeding standards on state tests in districts where 95 percent of students are high-need.
These numbers could have been even higher, however, had there been greater compliance at the district level. The same report noted that roughly 60 percent of districts reported spending “less money on high-need students than they were allocated for these students. Nearly 20 percent spent about half or less.”
Further, advocates argue that California’s funding formula does not do enough to target the needs of Black students in the state, who continue to face an accumulation of disadvantages both in and out of school. This was one impetus for even more targeted funding in California’s largest district: Los Angeles Unified.
In February 2021, Los Angeles approved a reform initiative known as the Black Student Achievement Plan. This plan set out to address rampant racial disparities in the district, pulling together $36.5 million in funds from the school police department budget and the district’s general fund.
The money went toward many important endeavors, including reforms of school discipline and curriculums and hiring support staff such as counselors, school climate coaches and nurses.
Additional resources were provided according to need, with schools serving the highest number of Black students also receiving psychiatric social workers, attendance counselors and funding for restorative justice programs.
Early data found some notable gains, including increases in graduation rates, completion of courses required for admission to California State universities, enrollment in Advanced Placement courses and attendance. These successes, while modest, provide evidence that targeted funding for Black students can improve how schools serve them.
But the problems with LA’s program are also instructive. An April report found that, similar to the deployment of the state funding formula, nearly 40 percent of the allocated funds were not used after the first year of the program, while the rollout and follow-through varied greatly across school campuses.
Those findings were later corroborated by an ongoing evaluation study, which noted that several LA schools dealt with unfilled positions related to the Black Student Achievement Plan while others tended to overwhelm program staff with responsibilities beyond their job descriptions.
These struggles show how, to fulfill their promise, programs like California’s targeted funding formula and Los Angeles’ plan for Black students must: (1) hire appropriate numbers of staff with clear job responsibilities, (2) communicate actively with communities about the purpose of the funds, (3) check-in regularly with schools to keep track of the funds they have left to spend and (4) consistently support the educators making use of the funds.
While there will certainly be differences in state policies, school district size and budgets, more states and districts should heed the lessons, both good and bad, from California.
Given how much pressure we collectively put on schools to improve society, setting aside specific funds for programs to support the most systematically disadvantaged students constitutes an educational imperative. These important California models can pave a path forward with more explicit commitments to racial justice.
Julio Ángel Alicea is an assistant professor of sociology at Rutgers University-Camden. A former public school teacher, his research interests include race, urban education and organizational change.
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When Jackie Lacey sought a second term as Los Angeles’ top prosecutor in 2016, she wound up running unopposed.
The man who ousted her from office, George Gascón, has a much steeper hill to climb to win reelection next year.
During his first term in office, Gascón has frequently been at odds with his own prosecutors and law enforcement, who say his policies aimed at reducing mass incarceration and racially disparate outcomes in the criminal justice system have led to spikes in violence. Data show the violent crime rate is trending down, but some experts have cautioned against making connections between short-term shifts in the crime rate and a prosecutor’s policies.
Gascón’s positions have motivated one of the largest primary fields in the history of the office, with a mix of former federal prosecutors, county judges and deputy district attorneys taking a run at the self-described “godfather of progressive prosecutors” in 2024.
Gascón, who announced his own reelection campaign and claimed the endorsement of L.A.’s powerful Federation of Labor last week, still figures to be well-funded and has largely retained the support of the burgeoning L.A. progressive bloc that vaulted him into office in 2020.
But in a sign of the divide in the race, Gascón declined to attend the first debate last week. Hosted by police unions that spent millions against the progressive candidate in 2020, contenders at the forum spent two hours making the case that Gascón is unfit for office and needs to be replaced.
Here are the contenders vying for Gascón’s office next March, listed in the order they announced their candidacy:
The Prince and Princess of Wales marked the United Kingdom’s observance of Black History Month with a visit to their home territory.
Princess Kate and Prince William trekked to Cardiff Tuesday for an event commemorating Black History Month, celebrated in October in the UK, as well as the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the HMT Empire Windrush to London. The Empire Windrush was a liner carrying around 1,000 mostly West Indian passengers from Jamaica to London, with nearly 800 aboard listing their last place of residence as a Caribbean locale, and about 700 of those saying they planned to make a home in England. Immigrants from this period are often referred to as the “Windrush generation.”
The Waleses met with members of groups supporting diversity and growth in Wales, including representatives of the Windrush Cymru Elders, Black History Cymru 365, and the Ethnic Minority Youth Forum. Continuing in the theme of Princess Kate’s work with children, the royals also met with elementary school-aged kids. An 11-year-old named Gracie said that she and Kate had talked about what she learned in school, including lessons about Windrush, and how much she loved math.
“I said I like maths and like our teachers teaching us,” she told People. “And she said I could teach [Prince] George some maths!”
Another student, 8-year-old Lilly, told the outlet that after shaking hands with the royal couple, she had no immediate plans to suds away any royal traces that may be lingering.
“I’m not going to wash my hands now,” she said. “This one was Prince William and this one was Kate,” she said.
The UK marks “Windrush Day” annually on June 22, and Prince William will reportedly also appear in a documentary about the Windrush Generation in Britain later this month.
The monarchy’s legacy with immigrants, former colonies, and the Black community at large is complicated: Last year, when the Waleses toured the Caribbean, they were met with protests, and Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness informed them that the country intended to become a republic and remove Queen Elizabeth (before she died) as head of state.
At a 2022 Windrush Day event unveiling a new monument in Britain, William reflected on the controversial trip: “Our trip was an opportunity to reflect and we learned so much,” he said. “Not just about the different issues that matter most to the people of the region, but also about how the past weighs heavily on the present.”
The lawsuits that ultimately led to the Supreme Court’s long-awaited decision on race-conscious admissions centered on two colleges where most prospective students who apply won’t get in.
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, just two in 10 applicants were admitted for the fall of 2021, according to the most recent federal data. The odds of enrolling at Harvard were even slimmer: The Ivy League institution had an admission rate of 4 percent.
Institutions like them — selective enough to need to use race as a factor in admissions to diversify their student bodies — have garnered outsize attention in the long-running debate over affirmative action’s role in higher education. That’s in part because the road to high-level positions in government and industry often includes a stop at a highly selective institution. One example: Five out of six living U.S. presidents earned undergraduate degrees at colleges that admit less than 15 percent of applicants.
Still, in the landscape of colleges and universities, highly selective institutions are far outnumbered by those with much higher acceptance rates. Most students never participate in an admissions process that considers race in the manner of UNC and Harvard. Although it’s hard to say definitively which colleges use race in some way when making admissions decisions, selectivity is a useful lens through which to view the practice’s real reach, as the following data visualization shows.
Methodology
This analysis considered more than 3,000 degree-granting institutions in the United States that participate in the Title IV student-aid program. The percentages by race include the total minus students who identified as nonresidents or of unknown race. “Underrepresented minority” is the sum of students who are American Indian/Alaska Native, Black, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and two or more races. Only institutions that received more than 50 applications for first-time, first-year students for 2021-22 and had 150 or more undergraduates in the fall of 2021 are included. The percentages may not add up to 100 percent because of rounding.
In Grutter v. Bollinger, a landmark 2003 case that reaffirmed the validity of affirmative action in college admissions, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor infamously put an expiration date on her own opinion—that is, on how long the limited use of race in the college-admissions process would be permissible under the law. “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today,” she wrote.
The nation is still a few years away from that deadline, and that quarter-century mark may have well been aspirational, if not illusory, as racism and structural inequalities, which undergird who does and who doesn’t get to go to college, are not artifacts of the past. Even so, Chief Justice John Roberts on Thursday achieved by judicial fiat a long sought-after goal of Republicans and social conservatives: a declaration that affirmative action policies as the US has known them for roughly a half century are forbidden by the Constitution’s guarantee of equality under the law—the very equal protection clause that took the Civil War to write into the law.
But a reader attempting to digest Roberts’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina, a pair of long-running challenges to the admissions policies at Harvard and UNC, would be hard-pressed to find a single word in Roberts’s 40-page opinion acknowledging that he’s overruling precedents that have been with us since 1978. That year, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the Supreme Court permitted the limited use of race for the purpose of achieving a diverse student body on campus—which the justices agreed was a compelling government interest that complied with the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The goal of achieving diversity, widespread in corporate America and deemed a national-security imperative in the military, has been in the crosshairs of conservative legal activism as far back as the Reagan years. But the Supreme Court has reaffirmed it time and again. Roberts, joined by all five of his conservative colleagues—Clarence Thomas,Samuel Alito,Neil Gorsuch,Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—doesn’t purport to discard it. He pretends to apply it in concluding that both Harvard and UNC cannot achieve diversity through their holistic reviews. As he sees it, “the Harvard and UNC admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause.”
He adds: “Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points. We have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way, and we will not do so today.” (Disclosure: I edit a journal at an institute affiliated with Harvard Law School.)
Roberts stops short of declaring that the Constitution is, in fact, a color-blind document—one that must not, under any circumstances, take into account race, let alone the reality that race has been a driving force of much of American life and law since the country’s founding. But his majority opinion teems with his enduring belief that any and all consideration of race, no matter how circumscribed, is beyond the pale under the law. Deep down, he must know that he’s altering the status quo—much like the five justices to his right altered it when ending the constitutional right to abortion last year. The rules are different now, since Roberts notes that “nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”
Roberts, in other words, puts it on students to discuss racial barriers they may face—and limits universities in what they may do with that information.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor,a proud child of affirmative action, authored the lead dissenting rebuttal to Roberts, and she saw right through this artifice. “It is a disturbing feature of today’s decision that the Court does not even attempt to make the extraordinary showing required by stare decisis,” she writes in a dissent that is rich in the history of the 14th Amendment. “The Court simply moves the goalposts, upsetting settled expectations and throwing admissions programs nationwide into turmoil.”
Even Thomas, who has long despised the affirmative action programs that gave him a leg up, notes that Roberts “rightly makes clear that Grutter,” which O’Connor authored 20 years ago, “is, for all intents and purposes, overruled.” Roberts never owns up to this. But Sotomayor doesn’t let him slide. She invokes the Dobbs ruling to suggest that, once again, the Supreme Court is charging ahead because its composition has changed. “At bottom, the six unelected members of today’s majority upend the status quo based on their policy preferences about what race in America should be like, but is not, and their preferences for a veneer of colorblindness in a society where race has always mattered and continues to matter in fact and in law,” Sotomayor writes. She is also quite candid that the “three Justices of color on this Court” are where they are thanks to affirmative action.
She ends her dissent with a warning that the Supreme Court can’t put the genie back in the bottle. “Diversity is now a fundamental American value,” she writes, “housed in our varied and multicultural American community that only continues to grow. The pursuit of racial diversity will go on. Although the Court has stripped out almost all uses of race in college admissions, universities can and should continue to use all available tools to meet society’s needs for diversity in education. “
The debate over race-conscious admissions policies has been blazing for so long that an observer might have trouble seeing the world beyond the flames. But as a new report from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce clarifies in great detail, those controversial policies have never been an adequate remedy for the vast racial and socioeconomic inequities found throughout all levels of American education.
Now, with the U.S. Supreme Court seemingly poised to end or curtail race-conscious admissions nationwide, the report’s authors argue that it’s high time to confront those inequities — and for colleges to help lead the way. “We need to recognize that the campus diversity achieved through race-conscious admissions practices has served to conceal, and divert attention from, much bigger problems in education and elsewhere,” the report says. “The Supreme Court will have ripped the bandage off the wound, leaving us no choice but to tend to the segregation, inequality, and bias in education and broader society that hinder” underrepresented minority students applying to selective colleges.
The robust report underscores an important fact: While race-conscious admissions policies have helped colleges enroll more Black and Latino students, those policies haven’t resulted in their equitable representation, relative to their share of the college-age population, at the nation’s most-selective institutions. “Over the past 30 years, white students have consistently held a significant advantage in terms of access to selective colleges, with their share of enrollment more than 10 percentage points above their share of the graduating high-school class,” the report says. “Over the same time frame, the Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino share of enrollment at such institutions has been one-quarter to one-half of their share of all of the nation’s high-school graduates.”
The demise of Grutter, the 2003 Supreme Court decision upholding the limited use of race in admissions, would make it more difficult, if not impossible, for selective colleges to maintain current levels of racial and ethnic diversity — such as it is — on their campuses, the authors write. Recently, the center conducted simulations of enrollment outcomes using six different admissions models, including race-neutral ones, as described in a previous report. Its conclusion: “Nothing substitutes for explicitly considering race or ethnicity in admissions when trying to promote racial and ethnic diversity.”
But if that long-used admissions tool is taken away, what can colleges do? Only by enacting sweeping reforms can institutions offset major declines in underrepresented minority students that would result from a ban on race-conscious admissions, the authors argue. The catch: Many prominent institutions have long resisted substantive changes to the status quo in the admissions realm. Selective colleges, the report says, “would have to take steps they have been loath to consider, such as eliminating admissions preferences for legacy students, student-athletes, and other groups now favored, such as wealthy students who won’t need financial aid.”
The authors argue that so-called class-conscious admissions models could result in greater student diversity than the current system does — but only if all institutions adopted those models, drew from larger, more diverse applicant pools, and discontinued admissions practices that favor legacies, the children of big donors, and athletes. And selective colleges, the report says, also would have to enroll more students with lower standardized-test scores and high-school grade-point averages.
The above scenarios, the authors write, “envision an idealized world that ignores the way that selective colleges now compete: on the basis of prestige and exclusivity. Given the decades that colleges have invested in their brands and attaining their advantages in admissions, they are not at all likely to throw away that model and start anew.” Nor are so-called elite institutions likely to support the report’s unlikely recommendation that the federal government require that federal Pell Grant recipients account for at least one-fifth of enrollment at every college in the nation. (Hold your breath at your own peril, dear reader.)
As the report explains in great detail, the racial and socioeconomic inequities at selective colleges are deeply rooted in the K-12 system. If and when race-conscious admissions becomes extinct, the authors write, the push for greater equity in education will shift to courts and state legislatures grappling with racial segregation and inequitable funding in the nation’s schools.
But colleges leaders, especially admissions and enrollment officials, surely shouldn’t act as if they, too, won’t remain in the spotlight of the nation’s enduring debate about who gets a seat — and an affordable offer — at selective colleges. The choices those officials make, the strategies they emphasize, and the priorities they pursue will continue to shape the educational opportunities of living, breathing students who are underrepresented in higher education.
Colleges tend to operate in a bubble, in which their own wants and wishes reign supreme. The report includes a reminder about the importance of admissions and enrollment leaders helping their institutions see beyond that bubble: Enrollment officials, the report says, “can end up so focused on achieving specific numerical outcomes that they lose sight of how their decisions are affecting students and broader society.”
At the same time, admissions and enrollment leaders are often keen observers of the world beyond their campuses — and are among the staunchest proponents of race-conscious admissions. Its demise, the report concludes, should serve as a wake-up call, one that opens the nation’s eyes to “the conditions that made race-conscious admissions necessary in the first place.”
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