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  • Every Day Should Be Labor Day

    Every Day Should Be Labor Day

    As Americans celebrate Labor Day, the traditional holiday honoring workers, it is worth asking a blunt question: why do we set aside only one day to recognize the people who keep this country running? For the majority of working-class Americans, labor is not a seasonal event—it is a daily struggle. And yet, political and economic systems continue to undervalue, underpay, and exploit the very workforce that sustains them.

    The numbers are stark. The U.S. Department of Labor reports that over 100 million Americans are part of the labor force. Yet median wages have barely budged in decades, while the top 1% of earners have seen their wealth multiply. In higher education, adjunct professors often earn less than $30,000 a year while carrying the teaching load of full-time faculty, and the majority of college graduates leave school with over $30,000 in student loan debt, only to find themselves in jobs that fail to utilize their skills or provide financial security.

    The “gig economy” promised flexibility and empowerment, but in reality it has created precarious work with no benefits, no sick leave, and few protections. Companies like Amazon, Uber, and DoorDash rely on a workforce that bears nearly all the risk while executives reap outsized rewards. The same dynamic extends to knowledge industries: research assistants, graduate students, and postdocs often perform essential labor for universities without fair compensation, health care, or job security.

    Labor Day should not simply celebrate the ideal of work—it should spotlight injustice. It should remind policymakers, university administrators, and corporate leaders that the human cost of economic growth is real and rising. Childcare costs, rent, healthcare premiums, and student debt are not abstract numbers—they are barriers that prevent workers from achieving economic stability or pursuing meaningful lives outside of work.

    Across the country, workers are pushing back. Teachers strike to demand fair pay and better conditions. Nurses, long on the frontlines of a pandemic, advocate for safer staffing levels and respect. Fast-food workers, warehouse employees, and adjunct faculty organize for recognition and dignity. These struggles reveal a truth that is too often ignored: every worker deserves more than symbolic recognition; they deserve economic justice, security, and respect every single day of the year.

    For policymakers, higher education leaders, and business executives, the lesson is clear: labor should not be celebrated just once a year. Fair wages, comprehensive benefits, and meaningful protections should be the baseline for every workplace. The fight for workers’ rights is ongoing, and the consequences of ignoring it are profound—not just for individual families, but for the health of the American economy itself.

    This Labor Day, Americans should reflect on a simple truth: the nation thrives not because of CEOs, venture capitalists, or administrators, but because millions of people show up to work every day under conditions that are far from ideal. If respect for labor is genuine, it cannot be confined to a single Monday in September. Every day should be Labor Day.

    Sources:

    • U.S. Department of Labor, Labor Force Statistics

    • Federal Reserve, Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households

    • National Center for Education Statistics, Adjunct Faculty Data

    • Economic Policy Institute, The State of American Wages

    • Brookings Institution, Gig Economy and Worker Precarity

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  • British Council undeterred after Russian strike “practically obliterated” Kyiv HQ

    British Council undeterred after Russian strike “practically obliterated” Kyiv HQ

    Speaking on August 29, two days after an attack on the Ukrainian capital in which at least 16 people were killed, the British Council’s director for the country, Colm McGivern, laid bare the impact on the organisation’s offices in Kyiv.

    Standing outside the ravaged offices, which were severely damaged after Russian forces fired two missiles at it, McGivern said that the building had been “absolutely devastated – it’s been practically obliterated”.

    While extending condolences to the families of those who died during the “horrific attack”, McGivern was firm in his resolve that the British Council’s work in Ukraine would continue even as the war with Russia wages on.

    “I’d like to tell everyone that the British Council’s resolve is still there,” he said. “We will be here in Ukraine, we’ve been here 30 years. We’ll continue our work.”

    He pointed out that the organisation did not stop its work in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion in 2022, and that this will not change. “To the contrary, we’re more determined than ever to make sure that cultural and educational links between the UK and Ukraine can thrive, not just survive,” he said.

    He pledged that an upcoming British Council event in Lviv, located in the west of Ukraine, would take place this week as planned, as well as promising young Ukrainians that face-to-face learning would also resume in the coming days.”We will keep those promises. We will start those classes,” he stressed.

    McGivern extended best wishes to a British Council colleague who had been injured on the evening of the attack, who he said was recovering in hospital. And he said his team had been overwhelmed by the support they had received from the international education community, as well as the Ukrainian first responders and emergency services who helped in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

    There has been an outpouring of support for British Council colleagues in Ukraine by the international education community.

    Our work will not stop now because of this horrific attack. To the contrary, we’re more determined than ever
    Colm McGivern, British Council

    Gwen van der Helden, a professor of education reconstruction during/post war, crisis and conflict at the University of Warwick and a visiting professor at V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, expressed her shock.

    “The BC is hardly of military interest, not a danger to anyone, and the people working there do nothing than trying to contribute to the future of fellow citizens. It is utter codswallop to think that the BC is in any way a reasonable target. But then, so few of the targets that have been hit in this war have been,” she wrote on LinkedIn.

    “Furious is how we should all feel at this point. Our colleagues in Kyiv (and yes I do think we should regard BC colleagues as exactly that), deserve better.
    Sending courage, strength and a large portion of defiance to our British Council colleagues.”

    The British Council’s mission in Ukraine offers English language programs and other training or educational programs. In June, Russia made accusations that it was being used as a cover for British intelligence operations in Kyiv.

    After the attack, British Council chief executive Scott McDonald confirmed that bombing in the city had damaged its offices.

    “Our guard was injured and is shaken but stable. At the insistence of my amazing colleagues, we will continue operations in Ukraine today wherever possible,” he said.

    Meanwhile, European leaders have condemned the strike, which saw 629 missiles and drones launched at the city.

    President of the European Council, António Costa, confirmed that the British Council’s Ukrainian office “was damaged in this deliberate Russian strike”, while UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer hit out at Vladimir Putin – accusing him of “sabotaging peace”.

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  • 5 Trends Reshaping K-12 Education Across the U.S. – The 74

    5 Trends Reshaping K-12 Education Across the U.S. – The 74


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    Since 2020, interest in homeschooling, microschooling, and other alternatives to conventional education has soared. Entrepreneurial parents and teachers have been building creative schooling options across the U.S. Kerry McDonald, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education and contributor to The 74, was so inspired by these everyday entrepreneurs that she wrote a book about them: Joyful Learning: How to Find Freedom, Happiness, and Success Beyond Conventional Schooling.The following is an adapted excerpt from McDonald’s book. It is reprinted here with permission from the publisher.

    In 2019, I gave a keynote presentation at the Alternative Education Resource Organization’s (AERO) annual conference in Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1989 by Jerry Mintz, AERO has long supported entrepreneurial educators in launching new schools and spaces, with a particular focus on learner‑centered educational models. It was about a month after my previous book Unschooled was published, and I was talking about the gathering interest in unconventional education. Homeschooling numbers were gradually rising, and more microschools and microschooling networks were surfacing. I predicted that these trends would continue, but I said they would remain largely on the ­edge— as alternative education had for decades. They would offer more choices to some families who were willing to try new things, similar to those of us who eagerly embraced Netflix’s mailed DVDs when they first appeared. But I didn’t think these unconventional models would upend the entire education sector the way Netflix ultimately did with entertainment. I thought they would remain small and niche. I was wrong.

    The COVID crisis catapulted peripheral educational trends into the mainstream, not only creating the opportunity for new schools and spaces to emerge but, more importantly, permanently altering the way parents, teachers, and kids think about schooling and learning. The pre‑pandemic tilt toward homeschooling and microschooling has converged with five post‑pandemic trends that are profoundly reshaping American education for families and founders. Together, these trends are shifting the K–12 education sector from being an innovation laggard to an innovation leader.

    Trend #1: The growth of homeschooling and microschooling

    The nearby microschool for homeschoolers that my children attended before COVID was one of only a sprinkling of schooling alternatives in our area. Now, it’s part of a wide, fast‑growing ecosystem of creative schooling options— both locally and nationally— representing an array of different educational philosophies and approaches. Families today are better able to find an education option that aligns with their preferences. From Maine to Miami to Missouri to Montana, the majority of the innovative schools and spaces I’ve visited have emerged since 2020, and many already have lengthy waitlists, inspiring more would‑be founders. The demand for these options will grow and accelerate over the next ten years, as will the number of homeschooling families, many of whom will be attracted to homeschooling as a direct result of these microschools and related learning models. Indeed, data from the Johns Hopkins University Homeschool Hub reveal that homeschooling numbers continued to grow during the 2023/2024 academic year compared to the prior year in 90 percent of the states that reported homeschooling data, shattering assumptions that homeschooling’s pandemic‑era rise was just a blip. Parents that otherwise wouldn’t have considered a homeschooling option will do so because homeschooling enables them to enroll at their preferred microschool or learning center.

    One particularly striking and consistent theme revealed in my conversations with founders as I’ve crisscrossed the country is that their kindergarten classes are filling with students whose parents chose an unconventional education option from the start. These parents aren’t removing their child from a traditional school because of an unpleasant experience or a failure of a school to meet a child’s particular needs. They are opting out of conventional schooling from the get‑go, gravitating toward homeschooling and microschooling before their child even reaches school age. This trend is also likely to accelerate, as younger parents become even more receptive to educational innovation and change.

    Trend #2: The adoption of flexible work arrangements

    Today’s generation of new parents grew up with a gleeful acceptance of digital technologies and the breakthroughs they have facilitated in everything from healthcare to home entertainment. These parents see the ways in which technology and innovation enable greater personalization and efficiency, and expect these qualities in all their consumer choices. It’s no wonder, then, that parents of young children today are generally more curious about homeschooling and other schooling alternatives. They are often perplexed that traditional education seems so sluggish.

    The response to COVID gave these parents license to consider other options for their children’s education. The school closures and extended remote learning during the pandemic empowered parents to take a more active role in their children’s education. That trend persists, as does the remaking of Americans’ work habits. The number of employees working remotely from home rather than at their workplace has more than tripled since 2019. 

    As more parents enjoy more flexibility in their work schedules, they will seek similar flexibility in their children’s learning schedules. While remote and hybrid work generally remain privileges of the so‑called “laptop class” of higher‑income employees, the growing adoption of flexible work and school arrangements is driving demand for more of these alternative learning models, including many of the ones featured in Joyful Learning that offer full‑time, affordable programming options for parents who don’t have job flexibility. Remote and hybrid work patterns are here to stay, and so is the trend toward more nimble educational models for all.

    Trend #3: The expansion of school choice policies

    The burst of creative schooling options since 2020 is now occurring all across the United States, in small towns and big cities, in both politically progressive and conservative areas, and in states with and without school choice policies that enable education funding to follow students. 

    Education entrepreneurs aren’t waiting around for politicians or public policy to green‑light their ventures or provide greater financial access. They are building their schools and spaces today to meet the mounting needs of families in their communities.

    That said, there is little doubt that expansive school choice policies in many states are accelerating entrepreneurial trends. Founders I talk to who are developing national networks of creative schooling options, are intentional about locating in states with generous school choice policies that enable more parents to choose these new learning models. Other entrepreneurs are moving to these states specifically so that they can open their schools in places that enable greater financial accessibility and encourage choice and variety. Jack Johnson Pannell is one example. The founder of a public charter school for boys in Baltimore, Maryland, that primarily serves low‑income students of color, Jack grew discouraged that the experimentation that defined the early charter school movement in the 1990s steadily disappeared, replaced by an emphasis on standardization and testing that can make many—but certainly not all—of today’s charter schools indistinguishable from traditional public schools. He saw in the choice‑enabled microschooling movement the opportunity for ingenuity and accessibility that was a hallmark of the charter sector’s infancy. In 2023, Jack moved to Phoenix, Arizona, to launch Trinity Arch Preparatory School for Boys, a middle school microschool that families are able to access through Arizona’s universal school choice policies. 

    Trend #4: The advent of new technologies and AI

    New technologies are also accelerating the rise of innovative educational models, while making it harder to ignore the inadequacies of one‑size‑fits‑all schooling. The ability to differentiate learning, personalizing it to each student’s present competency level and preferred learning style, has never been easier or more straightforward. It no longer makes sense to say that all second graders or all seventh graders should be doing the same thing, at the same time, in the same way—and failing them if they don’t measure up. 

    Emerging and maturing technologies help prioritize students over schools and systems, but the widespread introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and bots like ChatGPT, will hasten this repositioning. New AI bots can act as personal tutors for students, helping them navigate through their set curriculum. The real promise, according to founders focused more on agency‑ based or learner‑directed education, is for AI tools to work for the students themselves, helping them to control their own curriculum.

    “We don’t have a set pathway for our learners. It’s personalized,” said Tobin Slaven, cofounder of Acton Academy Fort Lauderdale, which he launched with his wife Martina in 2021. Part of the global Acton Academy microschool network, Tobin’s school prioritizes student‑driven education in which young people set and achieve individual goals in both academic and nonacademic areas, participate in frequent Socratic group discussions, engage in collaborative problem‑solving and shared decision‑making, and embark on their own “hero’s journey” of personal discovery and achievement. 

    When we spoke in 2024, Tobin had recently founded an educational technology startup building AI companion tools that act as a personal tutor, life coach, and mentor all in one. He sees AI tools like his as being instrumental in helping learners have more independence and autonomy over their learning. Rather than AI bots guiding a student through a pre‑established curriculum, Tobin thinks the truly transformative potential of AI lies in tools that help students lead their own learning—answering their own questions and pursuing their own academic and nonacademic goals.

    “When I hear the visions of some other folks in the education space, their visions are very different from mine,” Tobin said, referring to many of today’s emerging AI‑enabled educational technologies. He offered the example of a device known as a jig, used often in carpentry, to further illustrate his point. “The jig tells you exactly where the curves should be, where the cut should be. It’s like a template. The template that most of the AI folks are using is traditional education. It was broken from the start. It’s a bad jig,” Tobin said.

    Instead, he sees the potential of AI to help reimagine education rather than reinforce a top‑down, traditional model. He is helping to create a new and better educational jig.

    Trend #­ 5: Openness to new institutions

    The final trend that is merging with the others to transform American education is the shift away from established institutions toward newer, more decentralized ones. Some of this is undoubtedly due to emerging technologies that can disrupt entrenched power structures and lead to greater awareness of, and openness to, new ideas, but the trend goes beyond technology. Annual polling by Gallup reveals that Americans’ confidence in a variety of institutions has fallen, with their confidence in public schools at a historic low. Only 26 percent of survey respondents in 2023 indicated that they had a “Great deal/Quite a lot” of confidence in that institution. The good news is that confidence in small business remains high, topping Gallup’s list with 65 percent of Americans expressing a “Great deal/Quite a lot” of confidence in that institution in 2023. The falling favor of public schools occurring at the same time that small businesses continue to be well‑liked creates ideal conditions for today’s education entrepreneurs. Families who are dissatisfied with public schooling may be much more interested in a small school or space operating or opening within their community. 

    For another signal of the shift away from older, more centralized institutions toward newer, more customized options, look at what the Wall Street Journal calls the “power shift underway in the entertainment industry,” as YouTube increasingly draws viewers away from traditional television networks. Individual YouTube content creators, such as the world’s top YouTuber, MrBeast, who has some 300 million subscribers, appeal to more viewers than the legacy media networks with their more curated content. New content creators are particularly attractive to younger generational cohorts like Gen Z, who prefer decentralized, user‑generated content over traditional, top‑ down media models. Consumers today are looking for more modern, responsive, personalized products and services, especially those being developed by individual entrepreneurs who bear little resemblance to legacy institutions. This is as true in education as it is in entertainment and will be an ongoing, indefinite, and transformational trend in both sectors.

    Shortly before completing this manuscript, I spoke again at the annual AERO conference, this time in Minneapolis. Gone was my measured optimism of 2019. In its place was a mountain of evidence showing how popular alternative education models have become since 2020, and how steadily that popularity continues to grow. This isn’t a pandemic- era fad or an educational niche destined for the edges. This is a diverse, decentralized, choice‑filled entrepreneurial movement that is shifting American education from standardization and stagnation toward individualization and innovation.

    We are only at the very early stages of a fundamental change in how, where, what, and with whom young people learn. Over the next decade, homeschooling and microschooling numbers will continue to grow, work flexibility will trigger greater demand for schooling flexibility, expanding education choice policies will make creative schooling options more accessible to all, AI and emerging technologies will help create a new “educational jig” fit for the innovation era, and declining confidence in old institutions will enable fresh ones to arise. The future of learning is brighter than ever. Families and founders are finding freedom, happiness, and success beyond conventional schooling, inspiring the growth of today’s joyful learning models and the invention of new ones yet to be imagined.


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  • Top UK unis partner on career initiatives for India and China

    Top UK unis partner on career initiatives for India and China

    The University of Birmingham, home to over 2,000 Indian students, has partnered with the University of Glasgow to create a new in-country role in India employability relationship manager – who will be responsible for building links with employers, career services, and alumni networks to help graduates succeed in the local job market.

    According to a joint statement issued by the institutions, graduates will be offered practical support through pre-entry briefings, skills development programs, and post-graduation engagement.

    The two universities have also launched an exclusive partnership with the Chinese graduate career support organisation, JOBShaigui.

    The career portal, well regarded in China for its links to top employers, will offer a range of bespoke services, including online seminars with the latest job market insights, guidance on recruitment processes, access to an extensive employer network, and in-country networking events with alumni and employers.

    Both Birmingham and Glasgow, ranked among the QS global top 100, see China and India, with their combined 400,000 alumni worldwide, as priority markets.

    Offering enhanced career support is seen as crucial, as recent trends show a majority of students from these countries are choosing to return home after their study abroad journey.

    “More and more students, quite reasonably, are saying: I want to know what my employment prospects are after getting a degree. We do a lot to prepare students for their future careers while they study with us, but it has become increasingly clear that we must also support them after they graduate,” Robin Mason, pro-vice-chancellor (international) at the University of Birmingham, told The PIE News.

    “Our two largest cohorts of international students are from China and India, so we said: for these two really important countries, we’re going to create in-country support for careers and employability career fairs, interview preparation, CV workshops, all those sorts of things.”

    Increasingly, after that period of work in the UK, Indian graduates are looking to come back home to India
    Robin Mason, University of Birmingham

    While both Birmingham and Glasgow already collaborate on joint research, particularly in the medical field, the career support initiative made sense as the cost could be shared between the two universities, according to Mason.

    Moreover, the universities expect the initiative to be particularly successful in India, from where students make up the largest cohort of graduate visa holders.

    “Particularly Indian students, more than Chinese students, want to stay in the UK after graduation. But increasingly, after that period of work in the UK, Indian graduates are looking to come back home to India,” stated Mason.

    According to Mason, while most Indian students prefer fields such as computer science, data science, engineering, business management, finance, economics, and health-related subjects, in principle students of any discipline, “even classics, English, or history”, will be supported equally in their careers back in India.

    The initiatives also come at a time when international students in the UK are being urged to “sharpen their skills” for both the UK and global job markets, as employers increasingly look beyond “textbook skills” to focus on a candidate’s ability to bring innovation to the table.

    Further plans in India for University of Birmingham

    Although the University of Birmingham operates an overseas campus in Dubai, an attractive option for Indian students given its proximity to the UK and large Indian community, the institution has no plans to establish a campus in India anytime soon.

    Instead, it is focusing on initiatives such as the in-country employability role and partnerships with local institutions.

    While the University of Birmingham offers dual degrees with Jinan University in China in fields such as maths, economics, statistics, and computing, it is now exploring a partnership with IIT Bombay in India in areas such as quantum technology, energy systems, AI, and healthcare, building on its successful venture with IIT Madras.

    “If you do it properly, campuses are very expensive things. I don’t think you do these things lightly. You have to make the investment and be there for the long term,” said Mason. “Birmingham is 125 years old this year, and you need to be thinking in terms of decades if you’re going to build a campus. It’s a really long-term commitment because it takes so much time and investment to build a high-quality university.”

    As part of its 125-year celebrations, the institution also announced scholarships for Indian students, offering funding of £4,000 to £5,000 for a wide range of postgraduate taught master’s degrees starting in September 2025.

    “As part of our 125th anniversary celebrations, we introduced a special scholarship, offering up to 40% funding for students joining our Dubai campus,” stated Devesh Anand, regional director, South Asia and Middle East, University of Birmingham.

    “This was combined with academic and merit-based scholarships, giving students the opportunity to access multiple forms of support. The response has been fantastic, as students saw it as a real achievement and recognition of their efforts.”

    The number of Indian students studying in the UK remains high, with the Home Office data showing 98,014 study visas granted in the year ending June 2025.

    However, not everything is rosy, as students are increasingly concerned about their future in light of the immigration white paper, which proposes reducing the Graduate Route by six months and imposing a levy on international student fees.

    In such a situation, the aim for institutions like the University of Birmingham is to remain attractive to graduates seeking employment opportunities.

    “What we have to ensure is that University of Birmingham graduates are career-ready and can get the sorts of jobs that allow them to continue working in the UK if they want to, so they can be sponsored by an employer at the required graduate-level salary,” said Mason.

    “To put it delicately, I think the universities that will struggle with the immigration changes are those not paying enough attention to employability. If your graduates are employable, it’s not an issue.”

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  • Trump Administration’s Higher Education Policies Drive Sharp Decline in College Graduate Support

    Trump Administration’s Higher Education Policies Drive Sharp Decline in College Graduate Support

    The Trump administration’s aggressive stance toward higher education institutions is contributing to a precipitous drop in support among college-educated voters, with new polling data revealing the president’s approval rating among graduates has fallen to historic lows.

    President Donald J. TrumpAccording to Gallup polling, Trump’s approval rating among college graduates plummeted from 34% in June to just 28% by August, with disapproval climbing to 70%. This represents a concerning trend for Republicans as they look toward the 2026 midterm elections, particularly given the growing influence of college-educated voters in key suburban swing districts.

    The administration’s education policies have taken aim at what Trump characterizes as liberal bias and antisemitism on college campuses. Harvard University has faced the most severe federal intervention, with the White House canceling approximately $100 million in federal contracts and freezing $3.2 billion in research funding. The administration has also moved to block international student enrollment and threatened to revoke the institution’s tax-exempt status while demanding sweeping reforms to admissions processes and curricular oversight.

    Similar measures have been enacted against Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Cornell University over issues ranging from pro-Palestinian campus activism to policies regarding transgender athletes in women’s sports. Harvard officials have characterized these interventions as an unprecedented assault on academic freedom and institutional autonomy.

    The crackdown has generated significant campus unrest and drawn comparisons to Cold War-era loyalty investigations, raising questions about the federal government’s appropriate role in higher education governance.

    The polling data reflects broader dissatisfaction with the administration’s educational approach. Only 26% of college graduates approve of Trump’s handling of education policy, while 71% disapprove. A separate AP-NORC survey from May found that 56% of Americans nationwide disapprove of the president’s higher education agenda.

    However, the policies resonate strongly within Trump’s Republican base, with roughly 80% of Republicans approving his higher education approach—a higher approval rate than his economic policies garner. About 60% of Republicans express significant concern about perceived liberal bias on college campuses, aligning with the administration’s framing of universities as ideologically compromised institutions.

    The Republican coalition shows some internal division on enforcement mechanisms, with approximately half supporting federal funding cuts for non-compliant institutions while a quarter oppose such measures and another quarter remain undecided.

    While political controversies dominate headlines, economic concerns remain the primary driver of public opinion on higher education. Sixty percent of Americans express deep concern about college costs, a bipartisan worry that transcends ideological divisions around campus politics.

    Current data from the College Board and Bankrate show average annual costs of $29,910 for in-state public university students, $49,080 for out-of-state students, and approximately $61,990 for private nonprofit institutions when including room, board, and additional expenses. Financial aid reduces these figures to average net prices of $20,800 at public universities and $36,150 at private colleges.

    These costs reflect decades of sustained increases. EducationData.org reports that public in-state college costs have risen from $2,489 in 1963 to $89,556 in 2022-23 (adjusted for inflation). Over the past decade alone, in-state public tuition has increased by nearly 58%, while out-of-state and private tuition have risen by 30% and 27% respectively.

    The economic pressures extend beyond college costs to post-graduation employment prospects. While overall unemployment among adults with bachelor’s degrees remains low at 2.3%, recent graduates face significant challenges. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that only 69.6% of bachelor’s degree recipients aged 20-29 were employed in late 2024, with unemployment among 23-27-year-olds reaching nearly 6%—substantially above the 4.2% national average.

    These employment difficulties contribute to broader economic anxiety, with 39% of college graduates describing national economic conditions as “poor” and 64% reporting job search struggles.

    The confluence of political and economic pressures creates a challenging landscape for Republicans heading into the 2026 midterms. College-educated voters represent a growing and increasingly decisive demographic, particularly in suburban areas that often determine control of swing seats.

     

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  • LSU’s First Black Law Dean Alleges Discrimination in Forced Departure

    LSU’s First Black Law Dean Alleges Discrimination in Forced Departure

    Alena AllenAlena Allen, who broke barriers in 2023 as the first Black person and woman to serve as dean of Louisiana State University’s Paul M. Hebert Law Center, will step down from her leadership role against her wishes, citing racial and gender discrimination.

    LSU announced Allen’s departure in an internal email dated August 29, stating she would transition to a full-time faculty position at the Baton Rouge institution. However, Allen maintains she did not voluntarily resign and may pursue legal action for alleged whistleblower retaliation.

    The controversy began when Allen raised concerns about financial “irregularities” she discovered in the law school’s budget—problems that predated her appointment. When she attempted to address these gaps and implement reforms, Allen alleges LSU leadership unfairly blamed her for the pre-existing issues.

    “I am the first woman and the first person of color to serve as the permanent dean of the Paul M. Hebert Law Center. That fact is not incidental—it is central to what follows,” Allen wrote in her response to auditors. “I find it deeply troubling, and frankly difficult to ignore, that I appear to be held to a standard far more exacting than that applied to my white, overwhelmingly male predecessors.”

    Allen’s attorney claims the LSU Board of Supervisors “engaged in systematic discrimination and retaliatory conduct” against her, arguing that her predecessors had “oversaw and entrenched the very practices” she questioned and began reforming.

    Allen’s forced departure adds to a concerning pattern of Black leadership exits at LSU. The university recently lost its first Black president, Dr. William Tate, who left on June 30 to become president of Rutgers University. Several other Black administrators have also announced departures from the institution.

    After Allen requested an investigation into the alleged racial and gender discrimination, university leaders informed her during a meeting that the law school would move in a “different direction” without her leadership.

    Allen will continue serving as dean through the end of the spring 2026 semester while LSU conducts a national search for her replacement. Interim LSU Provost Dr. Troy Blanchard is overseeing the search process.

     

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  • California Schools Brace for Fallout from SCOTUS Decision on Religious Rights – The 74

    California Schools Brace for Fallout from SCOTUS Decision on Religious Rights – The 74

    Two months after the U.S. Supreme Court granted public school parents the right to withdraw their children from materials and discussions on LGBTQ+ issues and other subjects that conflict with their “sincerely held religious beliefs,” conservative leaders in California are predicting schools will be swamped with opt-out demands. 

    That hasn’t happened yet, but attorneys agree that this latest escalation of the culture wars will likely cause turmoil, confusion, and years of litigation, largely because the court offered no guidance on how opt-out requests should be handled, how religious belief claims can or should be verified, and how schools should handle potential logistical issues.

    “There is a lot of trepidation about how to handle this issue in a way that is legally compliant and doesn’t trigger a backlash from one side of the issue or the other,” Troy Flint, a spokesperson for the California School Boards Association, told EdSource via email Saturday night.

    “Superintendents have concerns about how to make a fact-specific determination regarding parent requests, and we have heard of districts getting threats of litigation from both sides,” he said.

    LGBTQ+ advocates and defenders of the state’s progressive school standards are threatening discrimination lawsuits if opt-outs are granted, Flint said. Parents are threatening to sue if they aren’t granted immediately.

    In most districts, he added, leaders “are hesitant to address this publicly for fear of attracting more scrutiny and making the issue even more difficult to manage.”

    A leading academic on education law said that while the Supreme Court decision was based on parental objections to LGBTQ+ books and lessons, the religious opt-outs are likely to have a broader reach.

    “It is deeply misguided for people to believe that this case is only about LGBTQ+ and equality,” Yale Law School professor Justin Driver told EdSource. The decision “sweeps, given the prevalence of deeply felt religious objections, to lots of material,” he said.

    It could “affect everything from reading to science, to literature to history. It’s difficult to overstate the significance of the decision,” Driver said. “Some people think Bert and Ernie are gay. Is ‘Sesame Street’ now suspect?”

    California, for instance, requires students to learn the history of gay people fighting for civil rights and the story of the country’s first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk. The San Francisco supervisor was assassinated in 1978 and posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Barack Obama.

    Flint said that parents “in at least one district have hinted at trying to expand the opt-out requests to other types of instructional materials.” He did not identify those materials.

    Meanwhile, as school administrators ponder their next steps, firebrand social conservatives are seizing the moment that the nation’s highest court created.

    “There should be opt-outs. There are things that go against what God laid down,” pastor Angelo Frazier, of Bakersfield’s RiverLakes Community Church, said of what’s taught in California schools. 

    “It’s not education. It’s ‘You can touch me here.’ It’s very suggestive and inappropriate.” He said the ruling was a relief to frustrated parents in his congregation. “It gives them breathing room.”

    The leader of a Fresno-based Christian group, long involved in parental rights advocacy, said the state is no longer in charge of what children learn in school.

    The ruling shows that “parents are the ultimate determination of whose values get taught to the child,” said Greg Burt of the California Family Council. “We’re now in charge of deciding what we think is good and what we think is not good.”

    But as opt-outs begin to play out across California’s more than 10,000 public schools as the 2025-26 academic year opens, the only certainty from the case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, is that uncertainties abound — and may for years.

    They include:

    • Can or should parents file blanket opt-out requests stating they want their child removed from any and all instruction about LGBTQ+ topics, and leave school personnel to sort it out? Or should schools ask parents to review reading lists — often available online — and let parents flag those items to which they object? 
    • What do school leaders do with students whose parents opt them out of a class? Their class time still needs to be used for instruction. Where do they go?
    • Who watches or instructs the youngest of removed students, who can’t be left unsupervised? Some of the books cited in the Supreme Court case, including ones about a child’s favorite uncle marrying a man and a puppy getting lost at a Pride parade, are used in kindergarten and even transitional kindergarten classes.
    • Will school districts need to budget money to defend lawsuits from parents whose opt-out requests may be denied? 
    • Can parents even attempt to opt out their child from exposure to an LGBTQ+ teacher, or a teacher who displays a Pride flag in a classroom?

    Lawyers and academics interviewed for this story said that Justice Samuel Alito’s decision, joined by the court’s five other conservatives, offered little guidance on how opt-outs should work.  

    Mahmoud v. Taylor happened because the Montgomery County schools in suburban Maryland created an opt-out program to appease parents who objected to the teaching of LGBTQ+ materials on religious grounds. But the program ended in less than a year. Alito noted in his decision that school officials found that “individual principals and teachers could not accommodate the growing number of opt-out requests without causing significant disruptions to the classroom environment.” Parents then sued.

    Focusing largely on principles of religious freedom, Alito’s decision doesn’t specifically address how opt-outs might work given the Maryland situation, or how claims of a sincerely held religious belief might be evaluated. 

    The high court has long recognized the rights of parents to “direct the religious upbringing of their children,” he wrote, a principle at the case’s core.

    But in a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonja Sotomayor predicted opt-outs would cause “chaos for this nation’s public schools.”

    Giving parents the chance to opt out of all lessons and story times that conflict with their beliefs “will impose impossible administrative burdens,” Sotomayor wrote. It threatens the very essence of public education.

     “The reverberations of the court’s error will be felt, I fear, for generations.”

    Opting out in California

    Conservative groups in California opposed to LGBTQ+ themed teaching materials are generating letters and emails to school districts for parents to use to demand that school leaders proactively remove children from classes where there might be any mention of gay or transgender people, same-sex marriage and other related topics.

    A nonprofit Riverside County law firm, Advocates for Faith & Freedom, created one such letter, calling for children to be removed from any teaching involving “gender identity, the use of pronouns inconsistent with biological sex, sexual activity or intercourse of any kind, sexual orientation, or any LGBTQ+ topics” so parents can raise children “in the fear and knowledge of the Lord.”

    The letter gives principals 10 calendar days to respond in writing. Lack of a response “will be considered a denial” that will cause parents to “proceed accordingly.”  

    Erin Mersino, an attorney at the firm, said via email, “responses were just starting to come in,” and that it was too soon to discuss the letter’s effectiveness. Other groups are circulating at least four similar opt-out templates or email forms.  

    The 10-day response demand in the nonprofit’s letter “is insufficient in my opinion,” said Mark Bresee, a La Jolla attorney specializing in education law.

    Bresee also questioned if “a blanket, year-long ‘opt-out’ demand” is consistent with Alito’s decision, noting that the justice wrote that the “religious development of a child will always be fact-intensive. It will depend on the specific religious beliefs and practices asserted, as well as the specific nature of the educational requirement or curricular feature at issue.”

    It’s unclear how far and fast those letters are circulating. Some school officials said they have received a few opt-out notices.

    Conservative activist Brenda Lebsack, a Santa Ana Unified School District board member, said mass opt-out requests are unlikely to come until school districts themselves notify parents of the new right the court granted. “Opt-out forms should really be coming from the schools because if you’re getting opt-out forms from all these different law firms, and they’re all different, that could get really confusing,” she said. 

    At the Manteca Unified School District in San Joaquin County, Assistant Superintendent Victoria Brunn said late last week that only one “opt-out request has been received so far. She said the parents who made it were told it would be granted. 

    A spokesperson for the Turlock Unified School District in Stanislaus County said it had received a single inquiry about the opt-out process and created a standard form for requests, but that no requests had been received. Parents can either use the form or email a teacher, citing “specific instructional content” a student should not receive, according to a copy provided to EdSource.

    “Teachers can also provide notice of upcoming curriculum,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.

    At the Hope Elementary School District in Santa Barbara County, Superintendent Anne Hubbard created an opt-out form. As of Friday, it had been used once to opt out two children in the same family, she said. 

    Last week, the board of the 85-student Howell Mountain Elementary School District in Napa County canceled plans to create an opt-out form after community objections.

    “Howell Mountain Elementary respects and values the LGBTQ+ community. We will not be adopting any type of opt-out form that specifically targets LGBTQ+ curriculum,” Superintendent Joshua Munoz said in a statement. Instead, the district will remind parents annually that the right to opt out exists, but will not cite any specific curriculum.

    The Press Democrat reported that among those who spoke to the board was a St. Helena High School junior who’d attended Howell Mountain.

    “When I was in seventh grade, I realized that I liked girls,” she said. “In school, the times that we were taught about LGBTQ+ people would remind me that I was not alone. I was not a freak or an alien. I was just me. And I could still do anything I wanted in my life.”

    In San Francisco, Mawan Omar, the parent of a sixth grader, told EdSource he intends to opt his son out of LGBTQ+ materials because the teaching contradicts his family’s Muslim faith.  

    Omar said his son, Hezma, objected on his own to an LGBTQ+ lesson in elementary school because it was contrary to what he had learned from the Holy Quran. “He just didn’t want to be around it because he knows our religion,” Omar said. After what he described as a dispute with the school’s principal, it was agreed informally that Hezma would be allowed to leave any classes involving similar materials.  

    Now, Alito’s decision, Omar said, is gratifying. “We knew all along we were right.”

    But Lebsack, who focuses on transgender issues and has formed an interfaith coalition primarily around them, said Alito’s decision isn’t enough.

    “I think Mahmoud versus Taylor is throwing us crumbs,” she said in an interview. “I mean, I’m grateful for it, but it needs to go much further than that.”

    Lebsack, a special education teacher and former Orange County probation officer, claimed the California Department of Education is ripe to be sued under the First and 14th amendments for “compelling public school students to accept and affirm extremist ideologies of unlimited gender identities” and for “bringing extremist forced teachings into K-12 public education.”

    Asked to respond to Lebsack’s assertion, a spokesperson for the state Education Department directed a reporter to guidance posted online about Alito’s decision. It states, in part, “The California Department of Education and California law continue to promote a safe, fair, and welcoming learning environment in all schools. It is important to note that Mahmoud does not invalidate or preempt California’s strong protections for LGBTQ+ youth from discrimination, harassment, and bullying.” 

    The goal: Banning books?

    Other conservatives said they see a path where Alito’s decision could lead to the removal of books and teaching they oppose by overwhelming schools with opt-outs to the point where the best option is to remove the materials.

    “If there are so many people who want to opt out of this curriculum, maybe we should stop teaching it,” said Julie Hamill, an attorney and president of the California Justice Center. School leaders, she said, should be reflecting on whether they are “doing something wrong as a district and educational entity. Those are questions that are not being asked right now. It’s very obvious that’s what needs to happen.”

    Sonja Shaw, a Chino Valley Unified School District board member running for state superintendent of public instruction in next year’s election, said she wants opt-outs to “overtax the system to where they just give up, and they stop teaching this stuff.”

    If so many opt-outs were filed that books are removed from curricula, that would help, said Burt of the California Family Council, which has urged parents to flood districts with opt-outs. “We’re advocating for good books in school, and we think these are bad books, so we’re not going to be sad if we see them go.”

    But an anti-censorship advocate said that would amount to book banning by a different name. 

    “I’m not at all surprised that this is their plan of attack,” Tasslyn Magnusson, senior adviser to the Freedom to Read team at PEN America, an anti-censorship group, said of conservative activists. “These are books about families. These are books about how we experience the world, and they’re beautiful and well written,” she said. “Remember that it’s important for kids to have a variety of materials in front of them that resonate with their lives and their experiences.”

    Another impact of the opt-outs will be how LGBTQ+ students and students from families with LGBTQ+ members will react when classmates leave and when teaching materials reflecting their lives are presented.

    That could make “a child feel they’re not only different, but that they’re not accepted or that they should be ashamed of the family that they have,” said Jorge Reyes Salinas,  a spokesperson for Equality California, a civil rights group. Although the opt-outs promise to be disruptive, he said, they won’t end the state’s use of an inclusive curriculum. “We’re talking about a very small population of parents that are ignorant and full of hate.”

    The presidents of California’s two largest teachers unions both said educators are not going to fold under pressure created by the high court’s decision.

    “The role of the public school is to help students develop the critical thinking skills and knowledge necessary to engage in a pluralistic democracy,” said Jeff Freitas, president of the California Federation of Teachers. “We cannot have individuals dictating what is the good of the public. It’s also important that our public schools avoid over-compliance and refuse to capitulate to the weaponization of this decision.”

    David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, said that teachers “will obviously follow the law, but we want to make it clear to our members that there are other laws in California around kids’ ability to learn about their own identity, cultures, or all kinds of identities. We’re going to still honor kids’ ability to learn about their own identity and all kinds of identities.”

    Goldberg also said it would be a mistake for school administrators to place the burden of opt-outs on teachers. “Teachers are overwhelmed already, just getting through the curriculum,” he said. Opt-outs are “a compliance thing that districts are going to need to figure out.”

    The Scopes Monkey Trial

    The country has a long history of science clashing with religion.

    Driver, the Yale law professor, noted that in a 1987 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overturned a lower court that ruled fundamentalist Christians could remove their children from public school lessons that depicted women working outside the home, which they argued conflicted with their religious beliefs. 

    Now, following Alito’s decision in the Maryland case, the losing argument in that case could be successful, Driver said. “It seems to me the Mahmoud versus Taylor decision empowered these sorts of objections to potentially carry the day.”

    Alito’s decision also came 100 years after the landmark court case on the teaching of evolution in public schools — the epic clash of science versus religion known as the Scopes Monkey Trial that pitted legendary lawyers Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan against each other. 

    Jennings, hired to prosecute a high school biology teacher, John Scopes, for teaching evolution against state law, won. But Tennessee’s Supreme Court later overturned Scopes’ conviction, ruling that a state law banning the teaching of evolution in public schools was unconstitutional.

    But it didn’t end the debate over teaching science in the face of religious beliefs, said Pepperdine University law and history professor Edward Larson, author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on the trial. When it ended, “school districts all over the country and some states banned the teaching of the theory of human evolution,” he said.

    Even when religious objections were later banned, “a series of state laws and local actions calling for balanced treatment of either teaching creation science, along with evolution, or later intelligent design” followed, Larson said. Several states, including Alabama, require disclaimers in biology books stating evolution “is just a theory,” he said.

    “The issue of evolution in public schools remains a flash point,” Larson said. “It has been for a hundred years, it still is today.”

    As the Alito decision plays out in the coming years, Larson said, “Schools may want to force people to provide all sorts of evidence” to prove their sincerely held religious beliefs. “But I’m thinking that most won’t feel it’s worth their time to get too engaged,” he added. 

    “That’s just inviting trouble.” 


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  • Can your religion put your nationality at risk?

    Can your religion put your nationality at risk?

    Standing on the charred remains of his hut in a village near Assam’s Morigaon district in South India, Shafik Ahmed clutched a worn folder of papers: land deeds, ration cards and a laminated voter ID, all declaring the 68-year-old bicycle repairman an Indian citizen.

    None of it mattered when bulldozers rolled into his neighbourhood in June 2025, demolishing 17 homes, all belonging to Bengali-speaking Muslims.

    “I was born here, voted here, paid taxes here,” Ahmed said. “Still, they told me I am a foreigner. They dumped us near the border like we are cattle.”

    Ahmed is among the hundreds of Muslims who say they were pushed across India’s eastern border into Bangladesh in recent months, as part of what human rights lawyers say is a rapidly intensifying campaign of ethnic targeting in Assam, a region famous across the world for the quality of tea it produces. 

    The drive has escalated in the run-up to the 2026 state elections, with Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma branding undocumented Muslims as “infiltrators” and vowing to “protect the culture of Assam.”

    Islamophobia is a global concern.

    The expulsions, many executed without due legal process, have sparked concern far beyond India’s borders. As the United Nations warns of a global surge in anti-Muslim bigotry, activists say Assam’s campaign fits a broader pattern of Islamophobia playing out across continents.

    “They call it pushback,” Ahmed said. “We call it expulsion.”

    Across Assam, particularly in Muslim-majority districts like Dhubri, Barpeta and Goalpara, families wake up to midnight police knocks, arbitrary detentions and the looming threat of forced deportation.

    Rubina Khatun, 53, said she was taken without explanation from her home In May 2025, driven 200km to the Matia detention centre and later left in the no-man’s land near the India-Bangladesh border along with other women and children.

    “The soldiers shouted at us: ‘You’re not Indian anymore. Go to your country’,” she said. “But I have never been to Bangladesh. We spent hours in the swamp. No food, no water. It felt like we were being erased.”

    Applying old laws to new intolerance

    Human rights lawyer Hameed Laskar, who represents several families appealing the orders by the Foreigners Tribunals, says the government is misusing a 1950 law meant for undocumented immigrants.

    “These people have lived in Assam for generations,” Laskar said. “Some even appear on the National Register of Citizens. But a misspelled name or a missing land receipt from 1970 is enough to be declared a foreigner. It’s not legal enforcement. It’s engineered exclusion.”

    The targeting of Muslims in Assam is not new. But since the conservative Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in India in 2014, the rhetoric has hardened and the policies have sharpened.

    In 2019, the national registry process excluded nearly 2 million people, most of them Muslims. That has left families in limbo. While Hindus excluded from the list can claim citizenship under India’s 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act, there is no such provision for Muslims.

    The wife of Parvez Alam, a schoolteacher in the city of Barpeta, Aswas recently declared a foreigner despite having a birth certificate and electoral record.

    “Muslims now need 20 documents to prove their Indian-ness. Hindus only need to declare it,” Alam said. 

    Ping-ponging people across borders

    According to a June statement from Chief Minister Sarma in the state assembly, more than 300 “illegal Bangladeshis” have been expelled since May. Local media and community groups put the number closer to 500, including at least 120 women.

    But the Bangladeshi government has rejected many of these returnees, saying they have no proof of origin. Several have been stranded in border areas, caught in a bureaucratic tug-of-war.

    In one incident that drew widespread attention, 60-year-old Salim Uddin, a retired truck driver from Golaghat, was found wandering along the India-Bangladesh border after his family saw a viral video showing him being handed over to Bangladesh’s border guards.

    His son, Rashid, later confirmed that Uddin had served in the Assam Police for nearly three decades.

    “How can the son of a state police officer be declared Bangladeshi?” Rashid asked. “Had my grandfather been alive, it would have broken his heart.”

    A pattern of prejudice

    The Assam government has denied that the crackdown is communal, insisting it targets only “illegal foreigners.” But the pattern tells a different story. A recent report by a coalition of civil society groups found that over 95% of those detained or expelled this year were Bengali-speaking Muslims.

    The fear gripping Assam’s Muslims mirrors rising Islamophobia globally. From bans on hijabs in French schools to mosque attacks in the United Kingdom, Muslims across continents are facing what the United Nations calls a “widening wave of intolerance.”

    On March 15, UN Secretary-General António Guterres marked the International Day to Combat Islamophobia by warning of a disturbing rise in anti-Muslim bigotry. “This is part of a wider scourge of extremist ideologies and attacks on religious groups,” Guterres said in a video address. “Governments must foster social cohesion and protect religious freedom.”

    He called on online platforms to curb hate speech, and on leaders to avoid rhetoric that demonizes communities. Muslim civil rights groups in Europe and North America have echoed those concerns.

    A spread of intolerance across the globe

    A recent report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations documented a record 8,658 anti-Muslim incidents in 2024 alone.

    In the UK, advocacy group Tell MAMA has reported a 30% increase in Islamophobic hate crimes since October 2023, including attacks on mosques, verbal abuse and discrimination in housing and employment.

    Dr. Arshiya Khan, a political sociologist based in London, said these patterns are not isolated. “They’re interlinked,” Khan said. “What starts as state policy in one country often emboldens vigilante behaviour in others.”

    In Assam’s tea belt, the fear is palpable. In several villages, Muslim residents say they have stopped going to police stations or even hospitals, afraid they might be detained. In one case, a 27-year-old man who went to register a land dispute at a local police station was declared a foreigner after a routine ID check.

    “We don’t know who is next,” said Shahina Begum, a mother of three. “They say we don’t belong here. But where do we go?”

    Fighting back

    At least four petitions have been filed in the Assam High Court since June by families who say their relatives disappeared after being taken by police. Most had no ongoing legal cases against them.

    “They’re being disappeared without a trace,” said Laskar. “This is not law enforcement, it’s ethnic cleansing in slow motion.”

    Back in Morigaon, Shafik Ahmed said he has no plans to leave, even as bulldozers return to neighbouring villages.

    “This land is all I know. If they push me out again, I’ll come back again,” he said, eyes fixed on the debris of his former home.

    But for those like Rubina Khatun the trauma is lasting. “We’re citizens,” she said. “We have documents. We were born here. But in their eyes, we will never be Indian enough.”

    As global attention briefly turns to Assam, with international bodies urging India to uphold human rights, residents say they don’t expect justice, only survival.

    “Every day we live feels like another test to prove we exist,” Ahmed said.

     

    Questions to consider

    1. Why do Muslim citizens of Assam India believe that their government treats them differently than non-Muslims? 

    2. Should religion be a factor in determining whether someone should get national citizenship?

    3. Should a government be concerned about the religions of its citizens? 

     

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  • 5 ways to infuse AI into your classroom this school year

    5 ways to infuse AI into your classroom this school year

    Key points:

    As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to reshape the educational landscape, teachers have a unique opportunity to model how to use it responsibly, creatively, and strategically.

    Rather than viewing AI as a threat or distraction, we can reframe it as a tool for empowerment and efficiency–one that allows us to meet student needs in more personalized, inclusive, and imaginative ways. Whether you’re an AI beginner or already experimenting with generative tools, here are five ways to infuse AI into your classroom this school year:

    1. Co-plan lessons with an AI assistant

    AI platforms like ChatGPT, Eduaide.ai, and MagicSchool.ai can generate lesson frameworks aligned to standards, differentiate tasks for diverse learners, and offer fresh ideas for student engagement. Teachers can even co-create activities with students by prompting AI together in real time.

    Try this: Ask your AI assistant to create a standards-aligned lesson that includes a formative check and a scaffold for ELLs–then adjust to your style and class needs.

    2. Personalize feedback without the time drain

    AI can streamline your feedback process by suggesting draft comments on student work based on rubrics you provide. This is particularly helpful for writing-intensive courses or project-based learning.

    Ethical reminder: Always review and personalize AI-generated feedback to maintain professional judgment and student trust.

    3. Support multilingual learners in real time

    AI tools like Google Translate, Microsoft Immersive Reader, and Read&Write can help bridge language gaps by offering simplified texts, translated materials, and visual vocabulary support.

    Even better: Teach students to use these tools independently to foster agency and access.

    4. Teach AI literacy as a 21st-century skill

    Students are already using AI–let’s teach them to use it well. Dedicate time to discuss how AI works, how to prompt effectively, and how to critically evaluate its outputs for bias, credibility, and accuracy.

    Try this mini-lesson: “3 Prompts, 3 Results.” Have students input the same research question into three AI tools and compare the results for depth, accuracy, and tone.

    5. Automate the tedious–refocus on relationships

    From generating rubrics and newsletters to drafting permission slips and analyzing formative assessment data, AI can reduce the clerical load. This frees up your most valuable resource: time.

    Pro tip: Use AI to pre-write behavior plans, follow-up emails, or even lesson exit ticket summaries.

    The future of AI

    AI won’t replace teachers–but teachers who learn how to use AI thoughtfully may find themselves with more energy, better tools, and deeper student engagement than ever before. As the school year begins, let’s lead by example and embrace AI not as a shortcut, but as a catalyst for growth.

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  • 100 Ways the Trump Administration Has Undermined the Environment, Human Rights, World and Domestic Peace, Labor, and Knowledge

    100 Ways the Trump Administration Has Undermined the Environment, Human Rights, World and Domestic Peace, Labor, and Knowledge

    The Trump administration, since returning to power in 2025, has escalated attacks on the foundations of democracy, the environment, world peace, human rights, and intellectual inquiry. While the administration has marketed itself as “America First,” its policies have more often meant profits for the ultra-wealthy, repression for the working majority, and escalating dangers for the planet.

    Below is a running list of 100 of the most dangerous actions and policies—a record of how quickly a government can dismantle hard-won protections for people, peace, and the planet.

    I. Attacks on the Environment

    1. Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement—again.

    2. Dismantling the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases.

    3. Opening federal lands and national parks to oil, gas, and mining leases.

    4. Gutting protections for endangered species.

    5. Allowing coal companies to dump mining waste in rivers and streams.

    6. Rolling back vehicle fuel efficiency standards.

    7. Subsidizing fossil fuel companies while defunding renewable energy programs.

    8. Suppressing climate science at federal agencies.

    9. Greenlighting pipelines that threaten Indigenous lands and water supplies.

    10. Promoting offshore drilling in fragile ecosystems.

    11. Weakening Clean Water Act enforcement.

    12. Dismantling environmental justice programs that protect poor communities.

    13. Politicizing NOAA and censoring weather/climate warnings.

    14. Undermining international climate cooperation at the UN.

    15. Allowing pesticides banned in Europe to return to U.S. farms.

    II. Undermining World Peace and Global Stability

    1. Threatening military action against Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea.

    2. Expanding the nuclear arsenal instead of pursuing arms control.

    3. Cutting funding for diplomacy and the State Department.

    4. Withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO).

    5. Weakening NATO alliances with inflammatory rhetoric.

    6. Escalating drone strikes and loosening rules of engagement.

    7. Providing cover for authoritarian leaders worldwide.

    8. Walking away from peace negotiations in the Middle East.

    9. Blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza, Yemen, and other war-torn areas.

    10. Expanding weapons sales to Saudi Arabia despite human rights abuses.

    11. Using tariffs and sanctions as blunt instruments against allies.

    12. Politicizing intelligence briefings to justify military adventurism.

    13. Abandoning refugee protections and asylum agreements.

    14. Treating climate refugees as security threats.

    15. Reducing U.S. participation in the United Nations.

    III. Attacks on Human Rights and the Rule of Law

    1. Expanding family separation policies at the border.

    2. Targeting asylum seekers for indefinite detention.

    3. Militarizing immigration enforcement with National Guard troops.

    4. Attacking reproductive rights and defunding women’s health programs.

    5. Rolling back LGBTQ+ protections in schools and workplaces.

    6. Reinstating bans on transgender service members in the military.

    7. Undermining voting rights through purges and voter ID laws.

    8. Packing the courts with extremist judges hostile to civil rights.

    9. Weaponizing the Justice Department against political opponents.

    10. Expanding surveillance powers with little oversight.

    11. Encouraging police crackdowns on protests.

    12. Expanding use of federal troops in U.S. cities.

    13. Weakening consent decrees against abusive police departments.

    14. Refusing to investigate hate crimes tied to far-right violence.

    15. Deporting long-term immigrants with no criminal record.

    IV. Attacks on Domestic Peace and Tranquility

    1. Encouraging militias and extremist groups with dog whistles.

    2. Using inflammatory rhetoric that stokes racial and religious hatred.

    3. Equating journalists with “enemies of the people.”

    4. Cutting funds for community-based violence prevention.

    5. Politicizing natural disaster relief.

    6. Treating peaceful protests as national security threats.

    7. Expanding federal use of facial recognition surveillance.

    8. Undermining local control with federal overreach.

    9. Stigmatizing entire religious and ethnic groups.

    10. Promoting conspiracy theories from the presidential podium.

    11. Encouraging violent crackdowns on labor strikes.

    12. Undermining pandemic preparedness and response.

    13. Allowing corporations to sidestep workplace safety rules.

    14. Shutting down diversity and inclusion training across agencies.

    15. Promoting vigilante violence through online platforms.

    V. Attacks on Labor Rights and the Working Class

    1. Weakening the Department of Labor’s enforcement of wage theft.

    2. Blocking attempts to raise the federal minimum wage.

    3. Undermining collective bargaining rights for federal workers.

    4. Supporting right-to-work laws across states.

    5. Allowing employers to misclassify gig workers as “independent contractors.”

    6. Blocking new OSHA safety standards.

    7. Expanding exemptions for overtime pay.

    8. Weakening rules on child labor in agriculture.

    9. Cutting unemployment benefits during economic downturns.

    10. Favoring union-busting corporations in federal contracts.

    11. Rolling back protections for striking workers.

    12. Encouraging outsourcing of jobs overseas.

    13. Weakening enforcement of anti-discrimination laws in workplaces.

    14. Cutting funding for worker retraining programs.

    15. Promoting unpaid internships as a “pathway” to jobs.

    VI. Attacks on Intellectualism and Knowledge

    1. Defunding the Department of Education in favor of privatization.

    2. Attacking public universities as “woke indoctrination centers.”

    3. Promoting for-profit colleges with predatory practices.

    4. Restricting student loan forgiveness programs.

    5. Undermining Title IX protections for sexual harassment.

    6. Defunding libraries and public broadcasting.

    7. Politicizing scientific research grants.

    8. Firing federal scientists who contradict administration narratives.

    9. Suppressing research on gun violence.

    10. Censoring federal climate and environmental data.

    11. Promoting creationism and Christian nationalism in schools.

    12. Expanding surveillance of student activists.

    13. Encouraging book bans in schools and libraries.

    14. Undermining accreditation standards for higher education.

    15. Attacking historians who challenge nationalist myths.

    16. Cutting humanities funding in favor of military research.

    17. Encouraging political litmus tests for professors.

    18. Treating journalists as combatants in a “culture war.”

    19. Promoting AI-driven “robocolleges” with no faculty oversight.

    20. Gutting federal student aid programs.

    21. Allowing corporate donors to dictate university policy.

    22. Discouraging international students from studying in the U.S.

    23. Criminalizing whistleblowers who reveal government misconduct.

    24. Promoting conspiracy theories over peer-reviewed science.

    25. Normalizing ignorance as a political strategy.        

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