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public schools
'At a Breaking Point': Survey Shows Teachers Working Second Jobs, Spending Hundreds on Supplies
"They are battling education funding cuts, out-of-control Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, limitations on what they can say, much less teach, and an affordability crisis," said one union leader.
Sep 02, 2026
As the academic year kicks off, survey results released Wednesday by the second-largest teachers union in the United States show how educators are struggling because of underinvestment in schools and high prices under a Republican-controlled White House and Congress.
In the lead-up to classes resuming, Grow Progress last month surveyed 2,112 American Federation of Teachers (AFT) members who teach kindergarten through 12th grade about spending, stress, President Donald Trump's policies, and more.
The pollsters found that a majority of respondents anticipate spending at least $100 to $600 on supplies for their classrooms without being reimbursed. Over a quarter said that school funding issues shift costs to teachers, and supply prices keep rising.
While 61% said they are buying basic supplies, that's not all that teachers are shopping for this year. Nearly a third are spending on food, hygiene, and student care items, and around a quarter are purchasing specialized tools and accessibility supports as well as items for classroom setup, organization, and decor. Roughly a fifth are buying books and rewards for students.
Half of the teachers surveyed said they anticipate needing to buy food for their students at some point during this school year.
Over three-quarters of them reported seeing negative impacts of the Trump administration's policies in their schools and communities, with 61% selecting "very negative." They pointed to funding cuts and privatization of schooling, immigration enforcement that "traumatizes students and families," rising costs, vulnerable students losing support and protection, political pressure that restricts teaching and inclusion, and issues with bigotry and hostility.
Gasoline prices have stayed at record highs lately thanks to Trump's illegal war on Iran, which has responded by restricting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a key trade route. Just 15% of teachers said their commute will cost about the same this year, compared with 36% who expect it to be "a little more" and 47% worried it will be "much more."
A plurality—48%—blamed Trump and Republicans specifically for "the rising costs of groceries, gas, and other goods," while 28% pointed to government policies and leadership, 18% said tariffs and global instability, and 11% cited corporate greed and profiteering.
Prices for everything are climbing while the national debt races past $40 trillion. The bottom line? The current economy is not working for hardworking Americans. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/29/u...
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— AFT (@aft.org) September 2, 2026 at 9:45 AM
Asked to rank their stress level on a 1-10 scale, with 10 being extremely stressed, 62% selected somewhere in the 7-10 range.
Almost a third of teachers said they were somewhat or very likely to leave the profession in the next year. While over half of all respondents said they can't afford to lose their salary, pension, and benefits, and a quarter pointed to their love for teaching and students, nearly a fifth said the stress and workload make the job unsustainable.
"Teachers are at a breaking point," said AFT president Randi Weingarten said in a statement. "Many work more than one job to make ends meet, and they still dig into their pockets each year for basic classroom supplies, from books to art materials and even food for their students."
"They are battling education funding cuts, out-of-control Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, limitations on what they can say, much less teach, and an affordability crisis that's making it even harder for working families to get by, let alone get ahead," she emphasized. "No wonder they're stressed and talking about leaving the profession. All of this is taking its toll."
The survey results followed a report released late last month by the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the Economic Policy Institute that suggests leaving the field could lead to a pay boost. Sylvia Allegretto, a senior economist at CEPR and research associate at EPI, found that "in 2025, the teacher pay penalty stood at an estimated 25.2%—meaning teachers earned about a quarter less than comparable college graduates in other professions."
"Inflation-adjusted weekly wages for public school teachers fell 6.2% over the last three decades, while wages for other college graduates rose 28.8% over the same period," according to the report. "Teachers typically receive better benefits packages than other professionals, but after accounting for the difference in benefits, teachers' total compensation penalty was 14.5% in 2025."
Allegretto said in a statement that "the decades-long teacher pay penalty has taken a heavy toll on public education. Yet, policymakers have failed to make the needed investments to reverse course. That failure is especially troubling in a country as wealthy as the United States, with more than enough resources for its public schools to be the envy of the world."
It's not just teachers who are contending with soaring costs as school resumes; parents and students are also facing high prices for academic supplies and other essentials, including food, fuel, healthcare, and housing, due to the Iran War, Trump's tariffs, and GOP cuts to key programs.
With the midterm elections just two months away, Senate Democrats on Wednesday released a roundup of recent reporting on how families are struggling with back-to-school season, and said that "as Trump continues to claim affordability is a 'hoax' and a 'con job,' Americans are feeling the strain of Trump's policies on their pocketbooks."
"Headlines from across the country this summer lay bare Trump's cost-of-living crisis as families get ready to send their kids back to school," Senate Democrats stressed. "Parents are worried about the cost of school supplies and their kids' lunches, gas prices are at an all-time high for August, and families' vacations had to be cut short as rising inflation and the cost of airfare hit wallets."
"Trump's attempts to pass the buck belie Americans' reality: His illegal war in Iran, his tariffs, and the rest of Republicans' failed economic policies have made life unaffordable for families nationwide," they added. "Because of President Trump and Republicans' broken promises, working families across the country are now paying more but getting less—and they're fed up."
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Jewish Safety Does Not Require Silencing Muslim Voices
A recent lawsuit where parents at Palo Alto Unified School District sued over a field trip to a mosque is one of the latest manifestations of the policing of California public schools over how Palestine is or is not taught.
Aug 29, 2026
As Jewish-Arab American, I feel the responsibility to work to overturn the dominating narratives that divide my people. I can see clearly the manufactured ill will that has fueled ignorance and the murder of ten of thousands of Palestinians and stripping of the survivors’ dignity. Misinformation about Islam and the silencing of Arab voices are shadows on the wall, distracting us from a deeper truth: that we share a common humanity, and that the best of our cultures and faiths calls us toward kindness, forgiveness, and humility, even as public attention so often fixates on separation.
California has seen a sustained campaign by pro-Israel advocacy organizations to reshape how Palestine is taught—or not taught—in public schools through a plethora of bills aimed to censor ethnic studies, and a recent lawsuit where parents at Palo Alto Unified School District sued over a field trip to a mosque is one of the latest manifestations of the policing of public schools. The lawsuit sparked serious debate on the discretion afforded to public educators in developing course content.
Claims made include that students were encouraged to wear hijabs, that other houses of worship were not included in the class plans, and that students were exposed to a speaker they deemed controversial, Zahra Billoo.
Whatever one’s personal views are on these topics, let’s ground back to facts: A field trip to a mosque isn’t illegal. Lawsuits are often made even in cases where the plaintiff is aware the law wasn’t broken, but the lawsuit itself can be used as a tactic of intimidation and to mobilize negative press attention toward the defendants, as is the case here.
This lawsuit is motivated by a desire to intimidate schools away from exposing students to Islam and speakers who represent the opposite of Israeli propaganda.
Starting with the claim regarding hijabs: Is it illegal to encourage a student to wear the proper attire to enter a space of worship that is optional to enter in the first place? I don’t think so.
Next, a main claim was that “the mosque was the only house of worship included in the program, according to the lawsuit,” as Jweekly put it. This one caused me to pause.
Should you be allowed to take students to a house of worship? If so, then where would we be able to draw the line?
There are hundreds of religions out there. Classes would be going to houses of worship everyday in order to meet the proposed standards. Does it have to be all or nothing? Surely students could be allowed to visit one or two houses of worship without visiting them all, as it would be impossible to determine a reasonable legal standard for this.
I think defining the purpose of the class in question is also very important here. If the purpose of the class is to expose students to minorities, which would be characteristic of a class called “Social Justice Pathway,” it is true that Muslims are minorities in this country. Islamophobia is ironically being triggered online in the responses to this incident.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is a legal advocacy organization for Muslims. CAIR supports Muslims whose civil rights are directly targeted. It is appropriate to have a representative of that organization address a class focused on social justice. Muslims are materially being denied access and rights based on their religion and identity in the United States. With the other Abrahamic religions being dominant and widely represented, I would assert that Islam is the least represented of the Abrahamic religions in the US and is deserving of students getting a chance to experience it firsthand.
Recent national polling suggests that Muslim Americans experience religious discrimination at higher rates than any other faith group surveyed, including in consequential areas such as employment, housing, banking, healthcare, travel, education, immigration, and interactions with law enforcement.
Another thing that bothered me (but didn’t shock me) about this lawsuit is that it assumes students shouldn’t be exposed to “controversial” speakers. It is hardly illegal for students to hear controversial speakers in school. In fact, a balanced education relies on freedom of ideas and information rather than censorship. Even if a parent finds some of Billoo's statements deeply objectionable, does that mean high school students cannot hear her speak?
Zahra is a staunch supporter of Palestinian rights, and it is convenient for Zionist groups to label her as antisemitic. Articles portraying her as antisemitic rely on the conflation of Judaism and Zionism. Zahra is a supporter of Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now, which are composed of Jewish people who refuse to allow Israeli nationalist propaganda to define what it means to be Jewish.
If the plaintiffs are arguing that any discussion of and exposure to Muslims must be accompanied by a discussion of other religious groups—where does that requirement end? Such a rule would be impractical and inappropriate in many educational contexts.
Educators require the agency to make reasonable judgments about which communities and perspectives are relevant to a particular lesson. This lawsuit is motivated by a desire to intimidate schools away from exposing students to Islam and speakers who represent the opposite of Israeli propaganda.
Ultimately, all of this is to say: I reject the premise that protecting Jewish students requires shielding them from Palestinian advocacy or Muslim voices. My Jewishness does not require that.
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Establishment Media: Narrow Wisconsin Loss for Hong Is Massive Defeat for the Left
Her defeat was welcomed by conventional media and pundits impatiently awaiting some sign that a wave of progressive victories was finally being halted by sensibly moderate Midwestern voters. But is this accurate?
Aug 17, 2026
Mainstream media voices reflexively advising “moderate” politics for the Democrats have unveiled a comfortably reassuring explanation of the razor-thin 3,796-vote defeat of democratic socialist Francesca Hong in Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary.
Her defeat was welcomed by conventional media and pundits impatiently awaiting some sign that a wave of progressive victories—especially by democratic socialists—was finally being halted by sensibly moderate Midwestern voters. Apparently, Beltway observers had no problem discounting left-wing progressives in places including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, and most recently with Senate primary winner Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota on August 11.
Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary provided the opportunity to serve up a pre-baked narrative favored by many journalists. Following democratic socialist Francesca Hong’s narrow defeat by just 3,796 votes, “The socialists met their match,” The New York Times concluded smugly. Axios similarly declared, “Hong's loss blunts progressives' recent momentum and hands moderate Democrats a chance to prove their electability.“ For other outlets, too, the central narrative was depicted as a decisive repudiation of progressive politics in a swing state.
This theme was rapidly spread across conventional media despite Francesca Hong’s notable inroads for a combative and visionary brand of fighting for economic and social justice.
But the fact remains—much to the discomfort of establishment media and centrist Democratic leaders—that Francesca Hong got over 311,000 votes, just shy of victory.
But in Wisconsin with Hong’s defeat, mainstream media sources found an opportunity to stretch the real picture to fit their established frame. Rather than a major setback for the spreading success of progressive and democratic socialist candidates across the nation, Hong convincingly demonstrated that Wisconsin has a large and powerful base for innovative progressive policies.
Hong, 37, is a former chef and restauranteur and was first elected to the State Assembly in 2020. A diminutive and soft-spoken Korean American making her first run for statewide office, Hong supplied the vision and energy to build a massive statewide campaign machine while running as an unabashed democratic socialist. She was rightly perceived as reviving the traditions of Wisconsin’s much-revered anti-corporate populist governor “Fighting Bob” LaFollette and Milwaukee’s “sewer socialist” movement that ruled the city for much of the 20th century.
But the fact remains—much to the discomfort of establishment media and centrist Democratic leaders—that Francesca Hong got over 311,000 votes, just shy of victory. This outcome was hardly the momentous repudiation of progressive politics in a key swing state that was frequently portrayed.
Hong demonstrated the broad hunger for policies like taxing the super rich, calling for the termination of school privatization, substantially raising revenues for public schools and urban areas, marijuana legalization, and universal healthcare, proposals that far exceeded what "moderate" Dems in Wisconsin have been offering.
Second, she also showed the power of grassroots organizing as a potent political strategy. She amassed an army of 7,000 volunteers, mostly young people. This youthful infusion of energy seems certain to be a major force in Wisconsin politics to be reckoned with in the future.
Third, where Axios headlined Crowley’s victory as the win of a “moderate,” Crowley explicitly labeled himself as a "progressive" in his TV ads, stressing his pro-labor credentials and his support for “guardrails” on highly unpopular data centers.
(However, while Crowley campaigned as a “progressive,” many progressives are troubled by his opposition to the elimination of education privatization via “school choice,” which transfers funding away from public education.)
Fourth, Hong compiled 311,00 votes in her run for governor and brought in more votes—excepting of course the winner Crowley—than any previous Democrat running in a contested gubernatorial primary.
The excitement ignited by Hong’s bold campaign helped in part to produce a huge Democratic turnout. The Democratic gubernatorial candidates raked in a record 792.009 votes, a level normally attained only in presidential campaigns. Meanwhile, the Republican primary winner Tom Tiffany and a marginal candidate pulled in just 490,819 votes.
While The New York Times and other media have dwelled on the meltdown of her big polling lead on election day, Hong’s strong final results show that her democratic socialist politics were not somehow disqualifying for hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters. The campaign showed an enormous base for policies like taxing the super rich, a $20-an-hour minimum wage, a state-owned bank as in North Dakota, paid family leave, an end to school privatization, and universal healthcare that far exceeded what "moderate" Dems have been offering in the state.
With the pressure of Hong’s ambitious program and substantial lead in polling, Crowley felt compelled to label himself as a "progressive" in his TV ads, stressing his pro-labor positions and criticism of data centers.
Crowley is a Black man who overcame a childhood that included homelessness to rise to become the largest county’s top elected official. After entering the primary, Crowley, becoming discouraged by low poll numbers, temporarily dropped out of the race. But the state’s establishment Democrats pulled him back into the race with promises of all-out support, and they delivered. Top Dems like Gov. Tony Evers almost instantaneously uncapped a gusher of funds fueling a flood of Crowley TV ads in the closing days of the primary.
In her first statewide campaign, Hong found herself hammered in the closing two weeks by a relentless media spotlight on her old social media posts. Carelessly left online by her campaign, these posts—calling for “defunding the police” and criticizing traditional holidays like Thanksgiving—do not reflect her current perspective. But they generated derisive headlines and overwhelmingly unfavorable discussion. With the terrifying specter of the Republican nominee hard-line MAGA acolyte and election denier US Rep. Tom Tiffany eagerly poised to feast on her old social posts and aspirational and ambitious program, even some of Hong’s loyal following seemingly trickled away. This late-arriving erosion was likely enough to tip the final outcome away from her to David Crowley.
Still, Francesca Hong came within 0.5% of access with an aspirational program and an innovative grassroots campaign strategy. Yet the dominant media frame for Hong’s narrow defeat—as supposed proof that serious progressive politics are a fatal formula outside the coasts—has been simmering in recent months. Centrists among leading media voices and top Democrats have uneasily watched a parade of left-wing successes in Democratic primaries across the nation, in states as diverse as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, and in Minnesota with the election of Peggy Flanagan.
Although Hong fell just short of winning the primary, she powerfully demonstrated the growing demand for a bolder vision by voters.
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America Promises Safe Schools, So Why Are Children Still Exposed to Toxic Pesticides?
Schools should be among the safest places in a child's life, not environments where unnecessary exposure to hazardous chemicals remains a possibility.
Aug 12, 2026
In 1998, my 6-year-old son walked onto his Los Angeles elementary school campus and into a preventable crisis.
A school gardener wearing a full hazardous materials suit was spraying pesticides, unaware that children were nearby. My son, unprotected, was sprayed directly in the face with a toxic pesticide. Within minutes, he struggled to breathe and suffered a severe asthma attack.
He recovered. But one question stayed with both of us: How could this happen at a school?
The contradiction was impossible to ignore: If the pesticide required an adult applicator to wear full protective equipment, why was it considered safe to use where children could be exposed?
California's experience demonstrated that schools do not have to choose between controlling pests and protecting students. They can accomplish both.
Children are not simply smaller adults. Pound for pound, they breathe more air; consume more food and water; and their brains, lungs, immune systems, and endocrine systems are still developing. These differences make them uniquely vulnerable to environmental chemicals. Research has linked exposure to certain pesticides with asthma, learning and developmental problems, neurological effects, endocrine disruption, and other long-term health concerns. Children cannot choose where they spend their days, nor can they protect themselves from environmental hazards created by adults. That responsibility belongs to us.
My son's exposure changed the course of my life. It led me to establish California Safe Schools, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting children from harmful environmental exposures. I worked with parents, educators, physicians, scientists, and school officials to create the groundbreaking Los Angeles Unified School District Integrated Pest Management Policy, one of the first of its kind in the nation. Rather than relying on routine pesticide spraying, the policy embraced the Precautionary Principle: When there is credible evidence that a chemical may harm children's health, schools should take preventive action even if every scientific question has not yet been answered. Simply put, children's health should come before convenience.
The policy also established the public's Right to Know, recognizing that parents, teachers, and school employees deserve timely information about pesticides used on school campuses. Families cannot make informed decisions or advocate for their children's health if they are unaware of when or what pesticides are being applied. Transparency became a cornerstone of protecting students.
The Los Angeles policy became a model for California and helped pave the way for the Healthy Schools Act of 2000, which required schools to notify parents and staff before pesticide applications, maintain records of pesticide use, and encourage schools to adopt Integrated Pest Management practices that emphasize prevention and least-toxic pest control methods.
California strengthened these protections even further with AB 405, authored by Assemblymember Cindy Montañez (D-39), sponsored by California Safe Schools, and signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger in 2005.The law prohibited the use on school sites of experimental pesticides, pesticides under conditional registration that had not completed all required health and environmental testing, and pesticides that the US Environmental Protection Agency was phasing out because of health or environmental concerns. The legislation recognized a simple but important principle: Children should never be exposed at school to pesticides that have not been fully evaluated for safety or that regulators have already determined should be removed from use. AB 405 closed important gaps in school pesticide protections and reinforced California's commitment to putting children's health first and protecting more than 6 million students, teachers, and staff.
Over the past 28 years, California Safe Schools has continued to work with parents, educators, students, scientists, physicians, school officials, and policymakers to advocate for safer school environments. One lesson has remained constant: Pesticide exposure in schools is almost always preventable.
Pesticides are designed to kill living organisms. While they target insects, weeds, fungi, and rodents, many also pose risks to human health. The question has never been whether schools should control pests. They should. The real question is how they do it.
For decades, many schools relied on routine pesticide spraying as the first line of defense. Yet experts have long recognized that safer, more effective approaches exist. Integrated Pest Management, or IPM, focuses first on prevention by eliminating the conditions that allow pests to thrive. Better sanitation, sealing cracks and openings, repairing leaks, improving waste management, and monitoring pest activity often reduce or eliminate the need for chemical pesticides. When pesticides are necessary, IPM emphasizes choosing the least hazardous products and applying them only when children are not present or when they could reasonably be exposed.
California's experience demonstrated that schools do not have to choose between controlling pests and protecting students. They can accomplish both.
Unfortunately, protections remain uneven across the United States. While some states and school districts have adopted strong Integrated Pest Management programs, others continue to rely heavily on pesticide applications with fewer safeguards. Parents may receive little or no advance notice before pesticides are used, and school staff may lack training in safer pest management practices. As a result, children's protection often depends on where they live rather than on a consistent national standard.
This is particularly troubling because children spend approximately 1,000 hours each year at school. Schools should be among the safest places in a child's life, not environments where unnecessary exposure to hazardous chemicals remains a possibility.
The good news is that we already know what works.
Integrated Pest Management has been successfully implemented in thousands of schools across the country. It reduces pesticide use while maintaining effective pest control, often lowering long-term maintenance costs by addressing the underlying causes of infestations rather than repeatedly treating the symptoms. Prevention is not only safer; it is also smarter.
Every school district should adopt comprehensive Integrated Pest Management policies that prioritize prevention, maintenance, monitoring, and least-toxic methods before chemical pesticides are considered. Hazardous pesticides should never be applied when children are present or could reasonably be exposed. Parents, teachers, and school employees should receive timely notification before any pesticide application so they can make informed decisions. School personnel and pest management professionals should receive ongoing training to ensure these policies are implemented consistently and effectively.
Most importantly, policymakers should recognize that children's health deserves a precautionary approach. When credible scientific evidence suggests a pesticide may pose a risk to children, protecting them should not depend on waiting years for absolute certainty while exposures continue. Prevention should always come before regret.
Nearly three decades after my son's exposure, we should still think about the question that was asked that day: Could it happen again?
The answer should be no.
No parent should have to wonder whether their child will be exposed to toxic pesticides during the school day. No child should suffer an asthma attack or another preventable health consequence because adults failed to take reasonable precautions.
We have the knowledge. We have safer alternatives. We have decades of successful experience showing that schools can manage pests without unnecessarily exposing children to hazardous chemicals.
The remaining question is whether we have the will to make those protections the standard in every school across America.
A safe school environment should never be left to chance. It should begin with a simple promise: No child should be placed in harm's way by preventable pesticide exposure.
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Backlash as Texas Approves 'Unconstitutional' Mandatory Bible Lessons in Public Schools
“That’s government-sponsored religious favoritism—and the First Amendment strictly forbids it," said one critic.
Jun 26, 2026
As education officials in Texas ban hundreds of books that run afoul of their interpretation of Christian morality, the State Board of Education on Friday approved a required reading list that forces the state's more than 5 million public school students to read from the Bible.
The Republican-controlled SBOE voted 9-5 with one abstention to approve the list, which includes passages from the Book of Exodus as well as the Shepherd's Psalm and the myths of Adam and Eve and David and Goliath.
"We’re going to stop watering down American history. We’re going to teach the truth. Our nation was founded as a Christian nation, and Texas is a Christian state,” Republican board member Brandon Hall—who is also a youth pastor at Cavalry Baptist Church in Springtown—said during a Thursday press conference in Austin.
That "truth" omits or marginalizes climate change, US imperialism, women's history, the genocide of Indigenous peoples, slavery, and racism.
Evelyn Brooks, the only Republican SBOE member to vote against the required reading list, told CNN on Friday that she believes the board's move is "unconstitutional."
“Teachers need to have their autonomy," she said. "They’ve been selecting books for decades."
In 2023, Texas' Republican-controlled Legislature passed HB 1605, which mandated the creation of a K-12 required reading list and directed the Texas Education Agency to develop state-owned textbooks. Those texts, called Bluebonnet Learning, contain lessons on Christianity starting in kindergarten. The SBOE approved Bluebonnet Learning as an optional curriculum in late 2024 and is currently working to correct thousands of errors in the curriculum at a cost of over $8 million to Texas taxpayers.
The SBOE action comes amid a legal battle over SB 10, a law signed last year by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that requires public elementary and secondary schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. US District Judge Fred Biery, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, subsequently issued a preliminary injunction blocking the law. Texas families also sued to block the legislation. However, Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton—who is running for US Senate—demanded that schools comply with the law.
Public schools "exist to educate students with diverse faith backgrounds, as well as those who adhere to no faith doctrine," the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) said Friday. "Public schools are not Sunday schools, and elected officials have no business using state power to elevate one religion above all others. A required reading list that overwhelmingly favors Christian texts while excluding the writings and literary traditions of other faiths, not to mention the perspectives of millions of nonreligious Americans, sends an unmistakable message about who belongs and who does not."
FFRF co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor asserted that “a mandatory public school reading list should never function as a Bible lesson."
"Texas is telling millions of children that one religion deserves the government’s seal of approval, while everyone else is an afterthought," she added. "That’s government-sponsored religious favoritism—and the First Amendment strictly forbids it.”
Rabbi Joshua Fixler at Congregation Emanu El in Houston told CNN Friday that "this list is full of Christian texts that are inappropriate for public school classrooms."
"As a rabbi and a parent of Jewish kids, I think it is vital that this board make a distinction between teaching about religion and teaching religion," he added. "This list will force teachers to cross that line."
Fort Worth high school teacher Chanea Bond told The Associated Press on Friday that the SBOE's required reading list is "very old and very white."
“It is very narrow and does not represent what classrooms in Texas look like,” she said. “Going through most of high school without ever having much value put into voices that sound like yours kind of sends a message that your voices aren’t valuable.”
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Can We Build a Country That Chooses Butter Over Guns?
How do we stop this war? How do we redirect the money being wasted into the schools and health centers, bike lanes and sustainable-energy infrastructures that we all so desperately need?
May 16, 2026
Guns or butter. Butter or guns. Can we have both? If not, which should come first? Consider it one of those chicken-and-egg conundrums of modern society.
“Guns” is the stand-in for a well-funded military and “butter” for all the human goods, comforts, and needs of a society.
Economists, politicians, and generals have long considered the balance of guns and butter. Wage too many wars, produce too many arms, and there won’t be enough money to keep a nation decently fed and comfortable. Produce too many consumer goods, meet everyone’s needs, and a nation might find itself ill-prepared and vulnerable in the face of a possible attack or even invasion. Everyone from Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has had something to say about the balance of guns and butter (or, more likely, the lack of it).
No surprise, but I like butter and don’t like guns. I have long been attracted to the graphics produced by groups like the National Priorities Project (NPP) and Brown University’s Costs of War Project that dramatize the opportunity costs of war investment in the United States. At some point, one of those groups created a pen that had a long scroll on a pull-out flap inside it. At parties, as you were discussing the military budget, you could take out that pen and unfurl a long bar graph comparing US military spending to the budgets for education, healthcare, and infrastructure. Neat trick, right?
Every war is bad, stupid, and represents a colossal failure of the imagination, but this one, with the Trump trademark on it, should be considered the ur-war to oppose, resist, and refuse to pay for.
These days, NPP has a new factsheet that offers a breakdown of how the cost (so far) of President Donald Trump’s Iran “escapade” could have been so much better spent:
- Covering Medicaid for all 14 million people at risk of losing their insurance,
- AND the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, for all 4 million people at risk of losing food assistance, including 3.5 million due to new work requirements for older people and caregivers,
- AND expanding Medicaid to an additional 10.3 million people.
Those numbers are based on the Pentagon’s request for $200 billion in supplemental funding for the Iran war effort. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was on Capitol Hill on April 30, supporting a lowball estimate of the war costs as a mere $25 billion (and worth every dollar!) and asking for support for an inconceivable $1.5 trillion for Trump’s war machine in fiscal year 2027. Guns vs. Butter? More like guns force-fed foie gras and caviar and sautéed in the world’s most expensive butter.
Every Warship Launched, Every Rocket Fired
If I ever got a tattoo, it would probably be of this line from President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1953 “Chance for Peace” speech: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
Eisenhower gave that speech 73 years ago (even as military budgets increased significantly while he was president) and yet the words ring truer than ever today. In reality, I’m unlikely to get a first tattoo at the age of 52, but I did see all of this up close and personal a couple of weeks ago at my Connecticut town’s school board meeting.
For months, school board members had been ringing an alarm bell about their budget. After years of scrimping and shaving, layoffs and early retirement packages, they were no longer able to economize their way to a balanced budget, and so were considering a “nuclear option”: closing one of our local schools.
Community members rallied, testified, and harangued. Busloads of kids joined our superintendent at the state capitol to ask for more support for our schools. For the last two months, everyone in my neighborhood has been talking about this, and on a Monday night a few weeks ago, the school board held a public meeting to make an ultimate decision about what to do.
I drove there over streets riddled with potholes, past new luxury apartments built as “workforce housing” for the engineers at General Dynamics Electric Boat, where a new class of nuclear submarines (12 boats for $132 billion) is now being designed. Those $2,200-a-month studio apartments overlook a gas station, train tracks, and a low block of struggling businesses in a flood zone.
A Theft from Those Who Hunger
The school budget gap (more than $7 million) is there for all the usual reasons, made more extreme because we’re living through what, in the age of President Donald J. Trump, can only be considered the cratering of imperial America globally and the volume is up to 11 on everything. In these years, the line items for staff health insurance, building utilities, and a host of other costs have skyrocketed. The contributions from the state of Connecticut aren’t even close to keeping pace. The whole enterprise is built on the backs of local property owners, and our taxes are already far too high.
The place most likely to be shuttered was CB Jennings School, right up the road from my house, which has (for the rest of this school year, anyway) 338 students. All but 30 of those students qualify for free or reduced-fare lunches, meaning they come from low-income households. The school population includes 149 “multi-language learners” and 66 special-education students.
The 338 kids there would be divided between the other two elementary schools in our neighborhood. The fifth graders would all go to the local middle school (which itself was to be consolidated from two buildings into one) and the eighth graders to the local high school.
Teachers and custodians, principals and paraprofessional educators, social workers and secretaries will all be moved around, too. Routines will be broken, friendships and collegial collaborations disrupted, teaching teams split up. There will be a great jostling for parking spaces, offices with windows, and classrooms that face out of (or into) the sun. September will be stressful indeed and no one is happy.
Who bears the brunt of all this disorder? The answer: the kids who pay no taxes and make no policies. The little ones who are already deemed behind when they show up for kindergarten and need all the help the professionals there can give them. The tween ones who just want to see their friends, show off their new braids, learn to play the trumpet, and get first place in the spelling bee. The older ones who need the breakfast, lunch, and snacks that are served at school. The ones who bring the light and the joy of learning with them every day.
The lives of those little ones and their slightly bigger siblings are all soon going to be subjected to massive disruptions.
A Theft from Those Who Are Cold
Of course, those “massive disruptions” are only so in relative terms. They’re but a minor hiccup compared to what’s happening in the lives of children throughout Iran during President Trump’s war on their country.
I cry about the war against Iran every day. (Truly!) The terror and the horror buzz through my head at the weirdest times: as I run errands, work in my garden, perform my school-crossing guard duties, and greet my young walkers. All this daily predictability and precious stability, the gorgeous ho-hum of the daily grind that has been stolen from the people of Iran by our war.
I look at pictures of Iranians cleaning up around buildings reduced to rubble and trying to go about their lives amid the catastrophe and I’m filled with awe. How would I ever begin again after surviving a rocket attack? Would I be able to extract the broom from the wreckage or ever brew tea again?
I tried to put such images aside when I went into the school board meeting that fateful night. When it was my turn to speak, I had three points to make—one minor, one secondhand, and one massive. I was nervous. My first point was easy. I argued that the school at the edge of the city should close instead of Jennings, which is more centrally located. My second point was awkward. My 12-year-old had written a speech, but then refused to read it and was whispering contradictory instructions to me as I got up for my turn to speak.
Finally, I got to my third point. Facing a semicircle of board members, I tried to channel the gravitas of President Eisenhower by pointing out that the Trump White House began its war against Iran by hitting a primary school with a Tomahawk cruise missile and killing 165 civilians, most of them schoolgirls. And I pointed out that decisions like the one to start a war with Iran ripple all the way to our coastline—destabilizing our local world and stealing from our kids, too. Closing an elementary school or having a massive budget hole are not our only two options, I said. We could instead be living in a society that prioritizes keeping elementary schools open and fully funded instead of bombing schools 6,700 miles away.
I tried not to think about the room full of parents and teachers behind me, but I still felt uncomfortably out on a limb making my geopolitical points during our local school board meeting. Despite my doubts, however, I continued, noting that between February 28—when my country started that terrible, illegal war—and March 27, the United States had fired 850 Tomahawk missiles at targets in Iran. And mind you, each one of those missiles comes at a cost to taxpayers of more than $3 million.
My three minutes of time were running out, so I rushed through the next part, mentioning that our senator, Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), estimated at the beginning of April that Trump’s war is now costing US taxpayers $1 billion dollars a day! And that’s before we factor in the long-term economic consequences of oil and gas price rises, disruptions to the global supply chain, and the cratering of my country’s already teetering standing globally.
I finished up by saying that we all have to work so much harder to stop this war as well as fund our schools and that the two were connected. This budget gap would be a difficult dilemma under the best of circumstances, but against the backdrop of war and calamity, it feels indicative of a much deeper problem than a few-million-dollar local budget holes. As I concluded. I made eye contact with the school board members and thanked them for their time.
Making my way back to my seat, I noticed that I was a little sweaty and that my hands were trembling. Why was I so nervous? Why was that so hard?
The Hopes of Its Children
Eisenhower’s speech is a rhetorical master class, well worth revisiting in this age of imperial fiat by tweet. Ike went on to intone:
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities…. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people… This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
After some formalities and hearing from a handful more people, the school board voted to shutter the CB Jennings Elementary School, a remarkably modern school in the heart of our city with a new playground and a beautiful library. The vote was unanimous. The board members were sad but resigned. It was treated as an inevitable but unfortunate outcome or even as a forward-looking, resolute action. They were “doing something” in the face of a huge budget gap.
And indeed, the school budget will be back in the black—for now—once a $1.4 million shortfall is settled by cutting more positions, shaving costs, and looking for grants. Meanwhile, the local schools that remain are indeed closer to a balanced budget (at least until utility costs spike even higher and yet more global war-making costs hit home in this country).
Humanity Hanging from a Cross of Iron
The cost of the war against Iran is just one reason to be against it. The wanton violence, the indiscriminate death dealing, the gold-plated hubris, and the gargantuan stupidity of Trump and crew, as well as the massive long-term impacts of the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, are something to try to take in.
Every war is bad, stupid, and represents a colossal failure of the imagination, but this one, with the Trump trademark on it, should be considered the ur-war to oppose, resist, and refuse to pay for. And sitting in that makeshift meeting room of the New London Board of Education, I felt like a tightly wound, somewhat muted Cassandra, requesting that people who are probably against the war, too, somehow consider it part of the reason we are being called upon to close a school and reduce the quality of our kids’ education.
We have a well-worn poster in the back hallway of our house. It’s an image of kids playing on a metal jungle gym alongside the words: “It will be a great day, when our schools get all the money they need, and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.”
A bake sale to buy a bomber? A car wash to get a Tomahawk? A dime drive for the next generation of nuclear submarines? This administration’s officials aren’t even pretending to enlist the public in support of their latest war, nor did they even try to get Congress to rubber-stamp it. They care that little for democracy, the rule of law, or even our hearts and minds. This White House grows fat on our outrage, our protest gestures, and our well-mannered critiques. They are printing money and telling lies in a frenzy of impunity that will (hopefully) finally be checked by the November elections. But there is so much violence and scapegoating and scaremongering coming out of Donald Trump’s White House and his Florida compound that many people are checking out on all of it just to carry on with their lives. But nothing now is NORMAL and we can’t allow ourselves to normalize any of it.
How do we stop this war? How do we redirect the money being wasted into the schools and health centers, bike lanes and sustainable-energy infrastructures that we all so desperately need? How do we take care of those victimized, maimed, and orphaned by our military? How do we take care of those rendered homeless, stateless, limbless by our wars?
The answer: We do something to protest, undermine, and challenge militarism every day. We work to connect those faraway wars, framed as invisible or normal or too complicated for us to grasp, to our everyday lives. We make all the awkward speeches we can. We hold up homemade antiwar signs. We refuse to pay for the wars we oppose. We continue to demand that butter, not guns, schools, not heavy bombers, homes, not destroyers be the focus of our lives.
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The Lesson From the LA Teachers' Win: There Is Money to Pay Educators If We Demand It
For too long, the narrative has been that we cannot afford to support teachers. We’ve just shown we cannot afford not to.
Apr 25, 2026
Before stepping into the classroom, I spent 12 years as an investigator with the California State Bar, examining cases of attorney misconduct. I chose to teach because I saw a meaningful way to serve my community, and I understood there would be sacrifice. Still, it took 10 years before my salary caught up to what I earned in my final year as an investigator.
In California, becoming an educator is neither easy nor inexpensive. In fact, it is one of the most challenging states to obtain a teaching license. Despite this, teachers remain among the most underpaid professionals relative to their level of education. According to the US Census Bureau, teacher earnings have not only lagged behind comparable fields, but have experienced a steady annual decline.
The debate is not whether schools have enough money, it is about what we choose to spend it on. Today, many educators cannot afford to live where they teach. Teaching, while never lucrative, used to offer a stable path to a middle class life. Educators could buy a home, live in the communities where they worked, and maintain the financial stability expected of other professions with similar levels of education. Sadly, even the most modest of those expectations are rapidly disappearing. I only own a home because I purchased it prior to switching my career.
Most educators did not choose this career for the money, but there is a clear difference between modest compensation and exploitation. Nearly 1 in 5 teachers in Los Angeles are housing insecure. And nearly 60% of educators across the country take on second jobs outside of teaching to make ends meet. It is unacceptable that the people responsible for educating our children are struggling to hold their head above water.
These victories for Los Angeles educators are not perks. They are the foundation of a functioning school system, and a respected career.
Teachers are also expected to subsidize their classrooms out of their own pockets. These stories are often framed as heartwarming and altruistic, but they reflect systemic failure and a lack of meaningful investment in public education. Few other professions require employees to pay out of pocket while already being underpaid.
The consequences of this underinvestment are becoming impossible to ignore. As the cost of living rises, fewer educators can afford to remain in the classroom. A teacher shortage has already hit Southern California, and the impact is profound. Nationally, teaching shortages have led to larger class sizes, burnout, and financial strain on the education system.
Education is expected to operate in scarcity while other sectors experience enormous growth. The education technology market alone is projected to grow by $170.8 billion by 2029. In the Los Angeles Unified School District alone, more than $1.6 billion has been spent on edtech. Framing this as a funding problem misses the point; it is a question of priorities. We are told we can’t make investments in educators, while billions continue to flow toward technology and outside contracts instead of the classrooms they are meant to serve.
And yet, during recent labor negotiations in Los Angeles, we were told a familiar refrain: There is no money.
This was the backdrop of three educational unions, representing more than 70,000 workers, on the brink of striking across Los Angeles. At the center of the dispute for United Teachers Los Angeles was a straightforward demand: a salary structure that reflects economic reality. As negotiations stretched over 14 months, frustration grew not only among educators but across school communities, culminating in escalating public pressure, organizing efforts at school sites, and an overwhelming strike authorization vote that made clear teachers were prepared to act if necessary.
Only when the possibility of a strike became real did the district return to the table with urgency. We ultimately won the majority of our demands, including overhauling the outdated pay system that kept incoming educators at artificially low salaries, raising the starting salary from $68,966 to $77,000 for teachers, and securing an average salary increase of 13.86% across the board. This is evidence that the “no money” claim is negotiable, not factual.
Just as significantly, for the first time in California, educators in Los Angeles have secured four weeks of paid parental leave. This is a historic breakthrough that now sets a precedent for teachers across the state of California, as well as the entire country. Additionally, we won a major expansion of student support, including more than 450 additional social workers, to address the growing mental health crisis among our youth.
These victories for Los Angeles educators are not perks. They are the foundation of a functioning school system, and a respected career.
When teachers are paid a living wage, they stay. When they can afford to live in the communities they serve, schools are more stable. And when students have access to trained mental health professionals, they are better able to learn. Investment is what makes public schools strong. Without it, everything else collapses.
For too long, the narrative has been that we cannot afford to support teachers. We’ve just shown we cannot afford not to. The lesson from Los Angeles is simple: School funding is not fixed by scarcity, but by priorities. And when educators and school workers organize, those priorities can change—for the better.
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'I Might’ve Made a Mistake': How the Military 'Recruits' Kids Like My Students
Thus far we’ve lost six service members. That number will almost certainly increase as this drags on. And the hard truth is the majority of those casualties will be kids recruited out of high schools in marginalized communities.
Mar 09, 2026
When the powers that be talk about sending kids to war, they aren’t talking about their kids. So, whose kids are they talking about, and where do those kids come from?
I teach senior English at an urban high school in upstate New York. The poverty rate here is high. There are no Fortunate Sons (or daughters) on my roster. And several have signed up to join the military after graduation. While I have nothing but reverence and respect for anyone willing to serve our great nation, I’m not sure 18 is old enough–or mature enough–to make such a seismic decision, especially now that a protracted conflict with Iran is a real possibility.
On Monday, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said, “If anybody has ever been there and been able to smell the war that's happening around you and taste it, and feel it in your nostrils, and hear it, it's something that you'll never forget.” Of course, Mr. Mullin himself has never been anywhere near a war.
Trust me when I tell you: 18 year olds are still children. They say dumb things. They do dumb things. They act on impulse. And a high school like mine is fruitful ground for the military. Most days, there’s a recruiter in the cafeteria when the kids come for lunch. He brings pamphlets and a pull-up bar. He dangles a signing bonus. And once someone commits, the military has them. A contract with any branch of the armed services is the only bona-fide lifelong contract in our culture.
“Kids aren’t supposed to be hurt or used by adults, or sent to potentially die in the sand, when only a few months prior they had to ask permission for a bathroom pass.”
According to the US Department of “War,” the military is seeing its highest recruiting numbers in over a decade. By June 2025, the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force had already met their annual benchmarks. Perhaps this uptick is attributed to a sudden surge of patriotism. More likely, it’s because of a tightening job market for high school grads, or the rising costs of a college education.
Retired Staff Sergeant Tony Buchanan, who joined the Army in 2001 after high school, and served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, said, “While I believe the military does a good job evaluating these young men and women before enlisting them, legally, a recruiter does not need to speak with a parent.”
I have no doubt the military teaches hard work, respect, and humility, plus the opportunity to embark on some pretty cool careers. But the reality is, at some point, these young men and women could be called to a war front, regardless of their individual goals or beliefs. Because of that, we must hope that our leadership sees war as a last resort.
To justify the mission, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “The imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, they would immediately come after us. If we waited for them to hit us first after they were attacked by someone else, we would suffer more casualties and more deaths.”
As a public educator, when I build a unit of study, the first thing I determine is where I want the content to take my students. The defined endgame drives all planning. I don’t just make it up as I go along and hope everything works out. Students always know what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and where it’ll lead. They might not like it, and they may not agree with it, but they recognize the rationale.
Regarding our attack on Iran, I fear the endgame hasn’t been defined, and if it has, this administration has done a poor job articulating that. On Monday, Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intel Committee, said he’s heard the administration verbalize “at least four different goals in the last eight or nine days.”
Every winter I teach Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, a collection of short stories that explore the experiences of American soldiers in the Vietnam War. In it, O’Brien writes: “You don't make war without knowing why. Knowledge, of course, is always imperfect, but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. You can't fix your mistakes. Once people are dead, you can't make them undead.”
A CNN poll found that 59% of Americans disapprove of the Iran strikes and think a long-term conflict is likely.
Thus far we’ve lost six service members. That number will almost certainly increase as this drags on. And the hard truth is the majority of those casualties will be kids recruited out of high schools in marginalized communities.
“I’m a parent and teacher, so I see it as my job to protect kids,” said Derek Shuttleworth, a veteran educator who’s taught in Alaska, Oregon, California, and New York. “Kids aren’t supposed to be hurt or used by adults, or sent to potentially die in the sand, when only a few months prior they had to ask permission for a bathroom pass.”
This past January, I sat with a senior who’d just signed with the Army. He was excited about the cash bonus, enough to put a down payment on a “sick-ass truck.” Yesterday, he came back to see me. He’s now worried about the war. He doesn’t want to “catch a bullet in Iran.” He said, “I might’ve made a mistake."
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Despite Delay, Texas Republicans Push Proposal Forcing Students to Read Bible in School
“Religious readings belong in Sunday school, not in public schools," said one parent opposed to the proposal.
Feb 03, 2026
Less than six months after a federal judge enjoined a Texas law mandating display of the "allegedly Protestant version of the Ten Commandments" in public schools, Republican lawmakers in the Lone Star State are pushing legislation to force children to read the Bible in classrooms.
Last week, the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) voted 13-1 to delay voting on a proposed list of mandatory reading for all K-12 public school students until April in order to provide more time for feedback and thousands of corrections to a Bible-infused elementary school curriculum approved two years ago.
"This would bring the Word of God back into schools in a meaningful way for the first time in decades," SBOE member and Christian pastor Brandon Hall said last week in support of the forced Bible reading proposal.
However, as Texas parent Kevin Jackson—who spoke against the proposed list at a public hearing last week—put it, “Religious readings belong in Sunday school, not in public schools."
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), a Wisconsin-based advocacy group, said Tuesday on social media that "mandating Bible readings in public schools isn’t 'education,' it’s state-sponsored religious exercise."
"Public schools are for everyone," FFRF added. "Government has no business promoting or imposing religion on students. Church–state separation protects all Texans."
Carisa Lopez, deputy director of the Texas Freedom Network—a civil liberties and religious freedom group—said Friday that the proposal "enforces a one-size-fits-all approach in one of the largest and most diverse states in the nation."
“This kind of state micromanagement tosses aside local control and makes it harder or even impossible for teachers to tailor instruction in ways that are appropriate for their students," Lopez added. "Even worse is that this list represents another step by the state toward turning public schools into Sunday schools that undermine the right of parents to direct the religious education of their own children.”
Rabbi David Segal, policy counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, noted that “the proposed reading list relies heavily on Protestant Christian translations and leaves out other faith traditions."
“Public schools have a duty to prepare students to participate in civic life, not to advance a particular religious viewpoint," Segal stressed. "Teaching about religion has always been appropriate in public education, but what we are seeing here verges on state-sanctioned religious instruction."
The mandatory reading list also contains texts that conservative SBOE members say represent "foundational" literature that all students should know. However, some Democratic board members object to what they say is the list's lack of racial and gender diversity.
“This list does not represent the students of Texas,” Democratic SBOE member Tiffany Clark told Education Week. “For so many years, students of color have had to endure a European-centered philosophy, history, without representation of their own history being recognized. That is exactly what we see continuing to happen with this list.”
The proposed reading list follows the SBOE's 2024 approval of Bluebonnet Learning, a Bible-infused curriculum for elementary public school students that critics say violates the US Constitution's establishment clause.
Last year, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott—a devout Catholic—signed SB 10, which forces display of the Ten Commandments in all public school classrooms. This, despite an earlier ruling from a federal judge, who found that a similar law in Louisiana was an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state.
In an extraordinarily pointed ruling last August, US District Judge for the Western District of Texas Fred Biery issued a preliminary injunction blocking parts of SB 10.
"Imagine the consternation and legal firestorm were the following fictional story to become reality," Biery wrote. "Hamtramck, Michigan: Being a majority Muslim community, the Hamtramck City Council and school board have decreed that, beginning September 1, 2025, the following teachings of the Quran, Surah Al-An’am 6:151 and Surah Al-Isra 17:23, shall be posted in all public buildings and public schools."
"While 'We the people' rule by a majority, the Bill of Rights protects the minority Christians in Hamtramck and those 33% of Texans who do not adhere to any of the Christian denominations," he added.
I don’t know who this man is but protect him at all costs!! He finally broke it down. So much she had no come back! See the God yall worshipping is yourself and your opinions!! I love how he use the word, the one she claims to know in his argument! Sadly they still won’t get it.… pic.twitter.com/KHqrVf5SHC
— Leslie Jones 🦋 (@Lesdoggg) January 23, 2024
If the new reading list mandate is approved in April as anticipated, Texas will become the first state in the nation to force every student in the state to read the Bible. Former Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters—a Republican and Christian nationalist—mandated that all public school districts incorporate the Bible—and specifically the Ten Commandments—into their curricula for grades 5-12.
It would start with a mandate to read material including "The Golden Rule” in kindergarten, "The Parable of the Prodigal Son” in first grade, and "The Road to Damascus" in third grade.
As Hemant Mehta wrote for his Friendly Atheist blog :
The readings get more specific as students get older. Seventh graders would have to read "The Shepherd's Psalm (Book of Psalms, Chapter 23)” from the Old Testament along with “The Definition of Love” from 1 Corinthians 13. High schoolers would be reading Genesis 11:1-9 about the Tower of Babel, Lamentations 3, and the story of David and Goliath as told in 1 Samuel 17.
"What makes this proposal so damning is that Christianity is the only religious book included in the required readings, and even the more secular stories are infused with more direct religious messages," Mehta wrote on Saturday. "That’s on top of the state-sanctioned curriculum itself, which is already Bible-heavy."
"The Texas Board of Education is shoving explicitly Christian narratives into a mandatory, state-sanctioned reading list and pretending it’s objective when it comes to religion," Mehta added. "They want to privilege one (and only one) religion at the expense of all others, treating biblical stories as if they’re foundational truths and the default moral framework for everyone, regardless of their families’ beliefs."
There is an alternative proposal by Republican SBOE member Will Hickman that would increase the number of more contemporary works like The Hunger Games and Ender's Game and swap biblical texts with Judeo-Christian mythology such as the story of Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark "without any Bible thumping involved," as Mehta put it.
"That might be fine! But that’s clearly not what most Republicans are aiming for," he wrote. "They don’t care if kids are culturally literate regarding the Bible; they just want those kids to accept the Bible as true."
As if on cue, the Wiley Independent School District on Tuesday issued a statement announcing an investigation into what it called the "unauthorized distribution of religious materials" on the campus of Wylie East High School. While the announcement does not specify the religion in question, Marco Hunter-Lopez, who leads the school's Republican student club, said it was Islam.
🚨 Islamic Outreach Booth Sparks Parent Concerns at Wylie East High School 🚨
Wylie, Texas — Parents and community members are raising concerns after an Islamic outreach organization set up an informational booth on the campus of Wylie East High School during the school day this… pic.twitter.com/cNpq1aPfQf
— Texan Report (@TexanReport) February 3, 2026
At the national level, President Donald Trump and his administration have pledged to "protect" prayer in public schools.
“To have a great nation, you have to have religion," the thrice-married adulterer, serial liar, and purveyor of $1,000 branded Bibles said last year. "I will always defend our glorious heritage, and we will protect the Judeo-Christian principles of our founding.”
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Flag Linked to Christian Nationalism, Jan. 6 Hung at Education Dept
The Education Department has been at the center of Trump's push to "bring back religion in America" and promote “Judeo‑Christian principles.”
Dec 16, 2025
The union for US Department of Education workers has raised alarm about a top department official's display of a flag with Christian nationalist associations that was flown during the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol building.
The flag was spotted outside the Washington, DC, office of Murray Bessette, the principal deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development, according to a report on Monday from USA Today. However, it's not clear how long it's been displayed there.
The stark white banner, emblazoned with a pine tree and the phrase "An Appeal to Heaven"—a reference to John Locke's “Second Treatise on Government”—was first used during the American Revolution and flown by six schooner privateers known as "Washington's Cruisers" for naval operations and supply capture missions.
The flag was flown sporadically throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, most prominently in New England. But it remained relatively obscure until recently.
As the Southern Poverty Law Center explained in November, it has undergone a revival among proponents of Christian nationalism over the past decade:
Its affiliation with Christian supremacist politicians largely began in 2013 after being reintroduced as a symbol of supremacy by Dutch Sheets, a highly influential leader in the New Apostolic Reformation, today’s most powerful Christian supremacist movement.
The NAR is an anti-democratic Christian supremacist movement that seeks to control all areas of national life, from the halls of Congress to one’s living room, compelling all Americans to align their lives with NAR’s worldview. According to NAR leaders, those who oppose them are not just wrong but under the control of the demonic, and are even possibly demonic entities themselves.
Sheets, a prominent supporter of President Donald Trump, helped to mobilize thousands of Christian followers to the Capitol leading up to the January 6 riot, where supporters of the president sought to violently overturn the electoral victory of his opponent, former President Joe Biden. The pastor referred to the recognition of Biden's election as "an evil attempt to overthrow the government of the United States of America."
The "Appeal to Heaven" flag was spotted on multiple occasions at the Capitol on that day and at other "Stop the Steal" events protesting Trump's 2020 election loss. It has continued to cause controversy in the years since.
In 2023, the right-wing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was seen flying the flag outside his New Jersey beach house. Alito blamed his wife for the flag flying outside their property just weeks before a documentarian published a secret recording of him expressing his desire to return the country to “a place of godliness,” and agreeing with radical right-wing groups who he said refuse to “negotiate with the left.”
The flag has also been displayed by several Republicans in Congress, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who has expressed many Christian nationalist viewpoints, including a distaste for the idea that the Constitution requires the separation of church and state.
Its appearance outside Bessette's office is not the first time a government agency has displayed the flag during the second Trump presidency. In June, the Small Business Administration also displayed it during a ceremony, though only for about a day, according to Wired.
Rachel Gittleman, the president of the union for Education Department workers nationwide, said in a statement that the agency "has no place for symbols that were carried by insurrectionists."
“Since January, hardworking public servants at the US Department of Education have been subjected to threats, harassment, and sustained demoralization," she added. "Now, they are being asked to work in an environment where a senior leader is prominently displaying an offensive flag—one that, regardless of its origins in the American Revolution, has come to represent intolerance, hatred, and extremism."
The use of a flag with Christian nationalist affiliations is especially noteworthy at the Education Department, which has been at the center of Trump's push to "bring back religion in America" and promote “Judeo‑Christian principles.”
Trump has endorsed state-level policies requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in classrooms, which he called a "major step in the revival of religion." In September, he also said that he would soon roll out a policy to provide "total protection" for prayer in public schools, which has long been considered unconstitutional when sponsored by school or state officials.
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