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'Standardized tests create test scores which are then used to target students of color by limiting the creative depth, intellectual wealth, and variety of their education. Producing test scores is an act of racial profiling.'
Several days before writing this blog post, I visited a 12th-grade class I have followed since the beginning of their 11th-grade year. I am a researcher studying how education policy affects teachers and students daily. The youth I work with are all immigrants and students of color learning English as a second language. I sat beside a student I didn't recognize and asked the teacher who he was. The teacher explained that the boy was simply in class to try to pass the NY Regents' exam- the test all high schoolers in New York state have to take to graduate from high school.
The boy had all the credits necessary for high school graduation but hadn't passed the Regents' exams in math and English. Without passing scores, youth do not receive a high school diploma, their only other option to study for the GED. Now in his fifth year in the high school, the teachers had created a specialized plan for the young man so he only had to attend math and English classes to prep for the Regents'. "He isn't going to graduate," the teacher whispered to me. The teacher continued, "he is going to age out of high school in January when he turns 21. He won't be able to get his scores up in time, his English is too weak. He has only been in the country for three years, and we think he may also have some special needs."
"Frankly, the situation has nothing to do with these youths' willingness to work hard and attempt the American Dream, and everything to do with how we treat people of color and immigrants in this country."
I asked the teacher what would happen to a young man of color and English Learner with no high school diploma in a neoliberal city like New York with a shrinking middle class. "I don't know," he said. "It breaks my heart. And guess who is going to have to tell him that he won't graduate? Me. The policy makers won't tell him. The people who are in the classroom with these kids have to deliver the news. After they moved here, got to class, did the work and learned English ... that they won't graduate. And then they evaluate me based on my students' test scores when my kids barely speak English ... it is not fair. The system is designed for these kids to fail."
Of the 22 young people in the class of students I have been studying for 14 months, 22 will attempt the English Language Arts Regents' exam for the 3rd time in January, having received non-passing scores on their first two attempts. Some of them, their teachers predict, will take the test seven or eight times. English Language Learners -- who are currently 14.4% of the student population in NYC- have the highest drop out rates of any student sub-group population in the city. Only 39.1% of ELLs graduate from high school according to data from 2013. Something is deeply wrong when we create a system that causes 60% of youth to leave high school without a diploma.
Kate Menken, a linguist and professor at CUNY has studied the Regents' at length, and determined that the exam is not a valid measure of academic content knowledge for youth learning English, given that the oft-idiomatic or culturally-specific English used on the test is challenging to someone newly learning the language. Consider this passage by Margaret Atwood from p. 5 of the Aug. 2015 Comprehensive English Exam:
Invitations to perform cascaded over us. All the best places wanted us, and all at once, for, as people said--though not to me--my voice would thrive only for a certain term. Then, as voices do, it would begin to shrivel. Finally it would drop off, and I would be left alone, denuded--a dead shrub, a footnote. It's begun to happen, the shrivelling.
Cascaded. Thrive only for a certain term. Denuded. Shrivelling.
I am a memoirist and poet, as well as a researcher. It behooves me, with a Ph.D., to use language in sophisticated and creative ways. But what are we trying to prove with 17 and 18-year old youth? What are we actually testing?
It would be easy enough to provide these youth with a different kind of test that more accurately assesses what they know and can do and is still rigorous and standards-based. My argument isn't to dumb down the tests, but provide them with reasonable tests where the majority can actually show off what they can do well and get credit for their hard work in high school. But we don't. Frankly, the situation has nothing to do with these youths' willingness to work hard and attempt the American Dream, and everything to do with how we treat people of color and immigrants in this country. If 60% of immigrant youth, who are also people of color, do not graduate in New York state then the white power elite is maintained.
The power elite is preserved because in a time of shrinking opportunities, a filter that eliminates large numbers of English learners from the mix gives white students an advantage. Let us be clear: the promises of the civil rights era have not come true. Both the workforce and schools remain segregated with a significant white power elite that is both about class and about race. Today, Blacks make up less than 4% of practicing physicians, and Latinos about 5%- similar percentages to 1960. Schools are not desegregated, and maintain the same rates of segregation since landmark Brown v. Board policy in 1954. Today, Black and Latino students tend to be in schools with a substantial majority of poor children, while white and Asian students typically attend middle class schools.
I think we should "call a spade a spade": standardized tests are a function of white supremacy and a method of racial profiling in schools.
Racial profiling is understood as the act of targeting particular groups of people because of their race. We usually think of the targeting as done by law enforcement, and racial profiling is usually thought of as traffic and pedestrian stops, raids on immigrant communities, and the ejection of Muslim Americans and South Asians on airlines and at airports.
Tests are a form of racial profiling because they provide a way for school districts and education reformers to frame black, brown and immigrant youth as "failing" and target the education services that these youth then receive. When a child's knowledge, worth and assets are reduced to a test score, assumptions can be made about that child's intelligence (and by extension the intelligence of the child's racial group). The low intelligence of people of color and immigrants is a regular trope in this country. The assumed superiority of the white brain means that we norm all "standards" (aka tests) to bizarre and out-of-touch expectations that only youth with an array of special services can pass.
Let's talk about those special services. Once youth of color get low scores on bad tests, they are framed as "failing" and targeted to receive an array of expensive for-profit services put into place at the expense of recess and social studies and fun and joy. Effectively, their educational opportunities are reduced to passing math and English. In fact, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), part of the U.S. Department of Education, released the findings of the first nationwide arts survey reporting an "equity gap" between the availability of arts instruction as well as the richness of course offerings for students in low-poverty schools compared to those in high-poverty schools, leading students who are economically disadvantaged not to get the enrichment experiences of affluent students.
Frame and target. Frame and target. This is at the center of racial profiling.
Standardized tests create test scores that target students of color by limiting the creative depth, intellectual wealth, and variety of their education. Producing test scores is an act of racial profiling. The alternative here is to opt young people out of tests, which means opting children out of this particular form of racial profiling. If they (the district, the power elite, the mayor, the education corporate reformers) do not have a young person's test score, then they cannot assign value or worth to that particular young person. Test refusal is refusing racial profiling and saying yes to dignity and anti-racist, humanizing schooling.
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Several days before writing this blog post, I visited a 12th-grade class I have followed since the beginning of their 11th-grade year. I am a researcher studying how education policy affects teachers and students daily. The youth I work with are all immigrants and students of color learning English as a second language. I sat beside a student I didn't recognize and asked the teacher who he was. The teacher explained that the boy was simply in class to try to pass the NY Regents' exam- the test all high schoolers in New York state have to take to graduate from high school.
The boy had all the credits necessary for high school graduation but hadn't passed the Regents' exams in math and English. Without passing scores, youth do not receive a high school diploma, their only other option to study for the GED. Now in his fifth year in the high school, the teachers had created a specialized plan for the young man so he only had to attend math and English classes to prep for the Regents'. "He isn't going to graduate," the teacher whispered to me. The teacher continued, "he is going to age out of high school in January when he turns 21. He won't be able to get his scores up in time, his English is too weak. He has only been in the country for three years, and we think he may also have some special needs."
"Frankly, the situation has nothing to do with these youths' willingness to work hard and attempt the American Dream, and everything to do with how we treat people of color and immigrants in this country."
I asked the teacher what would happen to a young man of color and English Learner with no high school diploma in a neoliberal city like New York with a shrinking middle class. "I don't know," he said. "It breaks my heart. And guess who is going to have to tell him that he won't graduate? Me. The policy makers won't tell him. The people who are in the classroom with these kids have to deliver the news. After they moved here, got to class, did the work and learned English ... that they won't graduate. And then they evaluate me based on my students' test scores when my kids barely speak English ... it is not fair. The system is designed for these kids to fail."
Of the 22 young people in the class of students I have been studying for 14 months, 22 will attempt the English Language Arts Regents' exam for the 3rd time in January, having received non-passing scores on their first two attempts. Some of them, their teachers predict, will take the test seven or eight times. English Language Learners -- who are currently 14.4% of the student population in NYC- have the highest drop out rates of any student sub-group population in the city. Only 39.1% of ELLs graduate from high school according to data from 2013. Something is deeply wrong when we create a system that causes 60% of youth to leave high school without a diploma.
Kate Menken, a linguist and professor at CUNY has studied the Regents' at length, and determined that the exam is not a valid measure of academic content knowledge for youth learning English, given that the oft-idiomatic or culturally-specific English used on the test is challenging to someone newly learning the language. Consider this passage by Margaret Atwood from p. 5 of the Aug. 2015 Comprehensive English Exam:
Invitations to perform cascaded over us. All the best places wanted us, and all at once, for, as people said--though not to me--my voice would thrive only for a certain term. Then, as voices do, it would begin to shrivel. Finally it would drop off, and I would be left alone, denuded--a dead shrub, a footnote. It's begun to happen, the shrivelling.
Cascaded. Thrive only for a certain term. Denuded. Shrivelling.
I am a memoirist and poet, as well as a researcher. It behooves me, with a Ph.D., to use language in sophisticated and creative ways. But what are we trying to prove with 17 and 18-year old youth? What are we actually testing?
It would be easy enough to provide these youth with a different kind of test that more accurately assesses what they know and can do and is still rigorous and standards-based. My argument isn't to dumb down the tests, but provide them with reasonable tests where the majority can actually show off what they can do well and get credit for their hard work in high school. But we don't. Frankly, the situation has nothing to do with these youths' willingness to work hard and attempt the American Dream, and everything to do with how we treat people of color and immigrants in this country. If 60% of immigrant youth, who are also people of color, do not graduate in New York state then the white power elite is maintained.
The power elite is preserved because in a time of shrinking opportunities, a filter that eliminates large numbers of English learners from the mix gives white students an advantage. Let us be clear: the promises of the civil rights era have not come true. Both the workforce and schools remain segregated with a significant white power elite that is both about class and about race. Today, Blacks make up less than 4% of practicing physicians, and Latinos about 5%- similar percentages to 1960. Schools are not desegregated, and maintain the same rates of segregation since landmark Brown v. Board policy in 1954. Today, Black and Latino students tend to be in schools with a substantial majority of poor children, while white and Asian students typically attend middle class schools.
I think we should "call a spade a spade": standardized tests are a function of white supremacy and a method of racial profiling in schools.
Racial profiling is understood as the act of targeting particular groups of people because of their race. We usually think of the targeting as done by law enforcement, and racial profiling is usually thought of as traffic and pedestrian stops, raids on immigrant communities, and the ejection of Muslim Americans and South Asians on airlines and at airports.
Tests are a form of racial profiling because they provide a way for school districts and education reformers to frame black, brown and immigrant youth as "failing" and target the education services that these youth then receive. When a child's knowledge, worth and assets are reduced to a test score, assumptions can be made about that child's intelligence (and by extension the intelligence of the child's racial group). The low intelligence of people of color and immigrants is a regular trope in this country. The assumed superiority of the white brain means that we norm all "standards" (aka tests) to bizarre and out-of-touch expectations that only youth with an array of special services can pass.
Let's talk about those special services. Once youth of color get low scores on bad tests, they are framed as "failing" and targeted to receive an array of expensive for-profit services put into place at the expense of recess and social studies and fun and joy. Effectively, their educational opportunities are reduced to passing math and English. In fact, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), part of the U.S. Department of Education, released the findings of the first nationwide arts survey reporting an "equity gap" between the availability of arts instruction as well as the richness of course offerings for students in low-poverty schools compared to those in high-poverty schools, leading students who are economically disadvantaged not to get the enrichment experiences of affluent students.
Frame and target. Frame and target. This is at the center of racial profiling.
Standardized tests create test scores that target students of color by limiting the creative depth, intellectual wealth, and variety of their education. Producing test scores is an act of racial profiling. The alternative here is to opt young people out of tests, which means opting children out of this particular form of racial profiling. If they (the district, the power elite, the mayor, the education corporate reformers) do not have a young person's test score, then they cannot assign value or worth to that particular young person. Test refusal is refusing racial profiling and saying yes to dignity and anti-racist, humanizing schooling.
Several days before writing this blog post, I visited a 12th-grade class I have followed since the beginning of their 11th-grade year. I am a researcher studying how education policy affects teachers and students daily. The youth I work with are all immigrants and students of color learning English as a second language. I sat beside a student I didn't recognize and asked the teacher who he was. The teacher explained that the boy was simply in class to try to pass the NY Regents' exam- the test all high schoolers in New York state have to take to graduate from high school.
The boy had all the credits necessary for high school graduation but hadn't passed the Regents' exams in math and English. Without passing scores, youth do not receive a high school diploma, their only other option to study for the GED. Now in his fifth year in the high school, the teachers had created a specialized plan for the young man so he only had to attend math and English classes to prep for the Regents'. "He isn't going to graduate," the teacher whispered to me. The teacher continued, "he is going to age out of high school in January when he turns 21. He won't be able to get his scores up in time, his English is too weak. He has only been in the country for three years, and we think he may also have some special needs."
"Frankly, the situation has nothing to do with these youths' willingness to work hard and attempt the American Dream, and everything to do with how we treat people of color and immigrants in this country."
I asked the teacher what would happen to a young man of color and English Learner with no high school diploma in a neoliberal city like New York with a shrinking middle class. "I don't know," he said. "It breaks my heart. And guess who is going to have to tell him that he won't graduate? Me. The policy makers won't tell him. The people who are in the classroom with these kids have to deliver the news. After they moved here, got to class, did the work and learned English ... that they won't graduate. And then they evaluate me based on my students' test scores when my kids barely speak English ... it is not fair. The system is designed for these kids to fail."
Of the 22 young people in the class of students I have been studying for 14 months, 22 will attempt the English Language Arts Regents' exam for the 3rd time in January, having received non-passing scores on their first two attempts. Some of them, their teachers predict, will take the test seven or eight times. English Language Learners -- who are currently 14.4% of the student population in NYC- have the highest drop out rates of any student sub-group population in the city. Only 39.1% of ELLs graduate from high school according to data from 2013. Something is deeply wrong when we create a system that causes 60% of youth to leave high school without a diploma.
Kate Menken, a linguist and professor at CUNY has studied the Regents' at length, and determined that the exam is not a valid measure of academic content knowledge for youth learning English, given that the oft-idiomatic or culturally-specific English used on the test is challenging to someone newly learning the language. Consider this passage by Margaret Atwood from p. 5 of the Aug. 2015 Comprehensive English Exam:
Invitations to perform cascaded over us. All the best places wanted us, and all at once, for, as people said--though not to me--my voice would thrive only for a certain term. Then, as voices do, it would begin to shrivel. Finally it would drop off, and I would be left alone, denuded--a dead shrub, a footnote. It's begun to happen, the shrivelling.
Cascaded. Thrive only for a certain term. Denuded. Shrivelling.
I am a memoirist and poet, as well as a researcher. It behooves me, with a Ph.D., to use language in sophisticated and creative ways. But what are we trying to prove with 17 and 18-year old youth? What are we actually testing?
It would be easy enough to provide these youth with a different kind of test that more accurately assesses what they know and can do and is still rigorous and standards-based. My argument isn't to dumb down the tests, but provide them with reasonable tests where the majority can actually show off what they can do well and get credit for their hard work in high school. But we don't. Frankly, the situation has nothing to do with these youths' willingness to work hard and attempt the American Dream, and everything to do with how we treat people of color and immigrants in this country. If 60% of immigrant youth, who are also people of color, do not graduate in New York state then the white power elite is maintained.
The power elite is preserved because in a time of shrinking opportunities, a filter that eliminates large numbers of English learners from the mix gives white students an advantage. Let us be clear: the promises of the civil rights era have not come true. Both the workforce and schools remain segregated with a significant white power elite that is both about class and about race. Today, Blacks make up less than 4% of practicing physicians, and Latinos about 5%- similar percentages to 1960. Schools are not desegregated, and maintain the same rates of segregation since landmark Brown v. Board policy in 1954. Today, Black and Latino students tend to be in schools with a substantial majority of poor children, while white and Asian students typically attend middle class schools.
I think we should "call a spade a spade": standardized tests are a function of white supremacy and a method of racial profiling in schools.
Racial profiling is understood as the act of targeting particular groups of people because of their race. We usually think of the targeting as done by law enforcement, and racial profiling is usually thought of as traffic and pedestrian stops, raids on immigrant communities, and the ejection of Muslim Americans and South Asians on airlines and at airports.
Tests are a form of racial profiling because they provide a way for school districts and education reformers to frame black, brown and immigrant youth as "failing" and target the education services that these youth then receive. When a child's knowledge, worth and assets are reduced to a test score, assumptions can be made about that child's intelligence (and by extension the intelligence of the child's racial group). The low intelligence of people of color and immigrants is a regular trope in this country. The assumed superiority of the white brain means that we norm all "standards" (aka tests) to bizarre and out-of-touch expectations that only youth with an array of special services can pass.
Let's talk about those special services. Once youth of color get low scores on bad tests, they are framed as "failing" and targeted to receive an array of expensive for-profit services put into place at the expense of recess and social studies and fun and joy. Effectively, their educational opportunities are reduced to passing math and English. In fact, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), part of the U.S. Department of Education, released the findings of the first nationwide arts survey reporting an "equity gap" between the availability of arts instruction as well as the richness of course offerings for students in low-poverty schools compared to those in high-poverty schools, leading students who are economically disadvantaged not to get the enrichment experiences of affluent students.
Frame and target. Frame and target. This is at the center of racial profiling.
Standardized tests create test scores that target students of color by limiting the creative depth, intellectual wealth, and variety of their education. Producing test scores is an act of racial profiling. The alternative here is to opt young people out of tests, which means opting children out of this particular form of racial profiling. If they (the district, the power elite, the mayor, the education corporate reformers) do not have a young person's test score, then they cannot assign value or worth to that particular young person. Test refusal is refusing racial profiling and saying yes to dignity and anti-racist, humanizing schooling.
"What is it going to take for Senate Republicans to oppose this unfit nominee? Every Republican senator who votes to confirm Bove will be complicit in undermining the rule of law and judicial independence."
After a second whistleblower came forward claiming that Emil Bove III instructed attorneys at the U.S. Department of Justice to ignore federal court orders, his critics on Friday renewed calls for the Senate to reject the DOJ official's appointment as an appellate judge.
"Evidence is growing that Emil Bove urged Department of Justice lawyers to ignore federal court orders. That alone should disqualify him from a lifetime appointment to one of the most powerful courts in our country," said Sean Eldridge, president and founder of the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America, in a statement.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced in late May that he would nominate Bove, his former personal attorney, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. Then, last month, a whistleblower complaint was filed by Erez Reuveni, who was fired from the DOJ's Office of Immigration Litigation in April after expressing concerns about the Kilmar Ábrego García case.
On Friday, as the Republican-controlled Senate was moving toward confirming Bove, the group Whistleblower Aid announced that another former Justice Department lawyer, whose name is not being disclosed, "has lawfully disclosed evidence to the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General that corroborates the thrust of the whistleblower claims" from Reuveni.
"Loyalty to one individual must never outweigh supporting and protecting the fundamental rights of those living in the United States."
"What we're seeing here is something I never thought would be possible on such a wide scale: federal prosecutors appointed by the Trump administration intentionally presenting dubious if not outright false evidence to a court of jurisdiction in cases that impact a person's fundamental rights not only under our Constitution, but their natural rights as humans," said Whistleblower Aid chief legal counsel Andrew Bakaj in a statement.
"What this means is that federal career attorneys who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution are now being pressured to abdicate that promise in favor of fealty to a single person, specifically Donald Trump. Loyalty to one individual must never outweigh supporting and protecting the fundamental rights of those living in the United States," Bakaj added. "Our client and Mr. Reuveni are true patriots—prioritizing their commitment to democracy over advancing their careers."
Bove has also faced mounting opposition—including from dozens of former judges—due to his embrace of the so-called "unitary executive theory" as well as his positions on a potential third Trump term and the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by the president's supporters.
The Senate on Thursday voted 50-48 to proceed with the consideration of Bove's nomination. Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine) joined all Democrats in opposition. Responding in a statement, Demand Justice interim executive director Maggie Jo Buchanan warned that "Bove will be a stain on the judiciary if confirmed."
"Voting to confirm Trump's judicial nominees to lifetime seats on the federal bench, as he wages a war on the very idea of judicial independence, is an unacceptable choice for any senator who believes in our democracy and the importance of individual rights," said Buchanan, who also blasted the Senate's Tuesday confirmation of Joshua Divine to be a U.S. district judge for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri.
"Trump and his MAGA allies are helping him consolidate power in the executive branch, attacking judges who dare to rule against his interests, and targeting Trump's perceived political enemies—all while seemingly unconcerned about the future this sets up for our nation," she stressed. "Every senator will have to decide where they stand when it comes to this assault on our country's values—and that choice will not be forgotten."
After news of the second whistleblower complaint broke on Friday, Stand Up America's Eldridge declared that "again and again, Bove has proven he lacks the temperament, integrity, and independence to serve on the federal bench. He's nothing more than a political foot soldier doing Trump's bidding."
"What is it going to take for Senate Republicans to oppose this unfit nominee?" he added. "Every Republican senator who votes to confirm Bove will be complicit in undermining the rule of law and judicial independence."
"This administration deserves no credit for just barely averting a crisis they themselves set in motion," said one Democratic senator.
While welcoming reporting that the Trump administration will release more than $5 billion in federal funding for schools that it has been withholding for nearly a month, U.S. educators and others said Friday that the funds should never have been held up in the first place and warned that the attempt to do so was just one part of an ongoing campaign to undermine public education.
The Trump administration placed nearly $7 billion in federal education funding for K-12 public schools under review last month, then released $1.3 billion of it last week amid legal action and widespread backlash. An administration official speaking on condition of anonymity told The Washington Post that all reviews of remaining funding are now over.
"There is no good reason for the chaos and stress this president has inflicted on students, teachers, and parents across America for the last month, and it shouldn't take widespread blowback for this administration to do its job and simply get the funding out the door that Congress has delivered to help students," U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Friday.
"This administration deserves no credit for just barely averting a crisis they themselves set in motion," Murray added. "You don't thank a burglar for returning your cash after you've spent a month figuring out if you'd have to sell your house to make up the difference."
🚨After unlawfully withholding billions in education funding for schools, the Trump Admin. has reversed course.This is a massive victory for students, educators, & families who depend on these essential resources.And it's a testament to public pressure & relentless organizing.
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— Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@pressley.house.gov) July 25, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward—which represents plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's funding freeze—said Friday that "if these reports are true, this is a major victory for public education and the communities it serves."
"This news following our legal challenge is a direct result of collective action by educators, families, and advocates across the country," Perryman asserted. "These funds are critical to keeping teachers in classrooms, supporting students in vulnerable conditions, and ensuring schools can offer the programs and services that every child deserves."
"While this development shows that legal and public pressure can make a difference, school districts, parents, and educators should not have to take the administration to court to secure funds for their students," she added. "Our promise to the people remains: We will go to court to protect the rights and well-being of all people living in America."
Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes—a plaintiff in a separate lawsuit challenging the withholding—attributed the administration's backpedaling to litigatory pressure, arguing that the funding "should never have been withheld in the first place."
They released the 7 B IN SCHOOL FUNDS!! This is a huge win. It means fighting back matters. Fighting for what kids & communities need is always the right thing to do! www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...
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— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten.bsky.social) July 25, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association—the largest U.S. labor union—said in a statement: "Playing games with students' futures has real-world consequences. School districts in every state have been scrambling to figure out how they will continue to meet student needs without this vital federal funding, and many students in parts of the country have already headed back to school. These reckless funding delays have undermined planning, staffing, and support services at a time when schools should be focused on preparing students for success."
"Sadly, this is part of a broader pattern by this administration of undermining public education—starving it of resources, sowing distrust, and pushing privatization at the expense of the nation's most vulnerable students," Pringle added. "And they are doing this at the same time Congress has passed a budget bill that will devastate our students, schools, and communities by slashing funds meant for public education, healthcare, and keeping students from their school meals—all to finance massive tax breaks for billionaires."
While expanding support for private education, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Donald Trump earlier this month weakens public school programs including before- and after-school initiatives and services for English language learners.
"Sadly, this is part of a broader pattern by this administration of undermining public education."
Trump also signed an executive order in March directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin the process of shutting down the Department of Education—a longtime goal of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led roadmap for a far-right takeover and gutting of the federal government closely linked to Trump, despite his unconvincing efforts to distance himself from the highly controversial and unpopular plan.
Earlier this week, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office determined that the U.S. Health and Human Services Department illegally impounded crucial funds from the Head Start program, which provides comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition, and other services to low-income families.
"Instead of spending the last many weeks figuring out how to improve after-school options and get our kids' reading and math scores up, because of President Trump, communities across the country have been forced to spend their time cutting back on tutoring options and sorting out how many teachers they will have to lay off," Murray noted.
"It's time for President Trump, Secretary McMahon, and [Office of Management and Budget Director] Russ Vought to stop playing games with students' futures and families' livelihoods—and end their illegal assault on our students and their schools," the senator added.
"You want history books to not record you as an evil genocide supporter?" said one organizer. "You need to actually make an impact, NOW."
U.S. college students are still facing punishment for protesting Israel's U.S.-backed bombardment of Gaza and its starvation of more than 2 million Palestinians there, with Columbia University announcing this week the suspension and expulsion of dozens of students who spoke out over the past year.
But a number of observers have pointed to a shift in the rhetoric of some of the student organizers' biggest detractors in recent days, with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton notably saying Thursday that "thousands of children in Gaza are at risk of starvation while trucks full of food sit waiting across the border" and calling for "the full flow of humanitarian assistance" to be restored.
Clinton didn't mention the Israeli blockade that has kept food from reaching Palestinians, more than 120 of whom have now died of starvation, or the at least $12.5 billion in military aid the U.S. has provided to Israel since the blockade first began in October 2023—in violation of U.S. laws prohibiting the government from giving military aid to countries that block humanitarian aid.
The former Democratic presidential nominee also didn't acknowledge the remarks she made in May 2024 about the campus protests that were spreading across the country, with students demanding that their schools divest from companies that work with the Israeli government and that the country end its support for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
At the time, Clinton said students who oppose Israel's policies in Gaza and the West Bank "don't know very much" about the conflict there. Clinton and other politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties have repeated the familiar phrase, "Israel has a right to defend itself" as the IDF has attacked so-called "safe zones," hospitals, and refugee camps.
Some suggested her comments on Thursday appeared to be those of an influential political figure who's come to a realization about the situation that both the Biden and Trump administrations, with bipartisan support from Congress, have helped to bring about in Gaza.
"Seems mostly like all the recent photos of starving children are responsible for this shift, though humanitarian aid groups have been warning about this for months and months," said Washington Post reporter Jeff Stein.
One observer said Clinton and a number of European leaders are speaking out now because Israel has already "carried out their final solution."
As Common Dreams reported this week, Integrated Food Security Phase Classification has said that 85% of people in Gaza are now in Phase 5 of famine, defined at "an extreme deprivation of food."
New York Times columnist Megan Stack said she welcomed anyone who is "[waking] up" to the reality of man-made mass starvation made possible by U.S. support, but called it "an absolute indictment of the center-left, such as it is, that it took pictures of dying, skeletal babies with trash bags for diapers to muster this pale response."
"Subtext: We can stomach mass bombings, but starvation is a bridge too far," said Stack.
The comments from Clinton coincided with a shift in the corporate media's coverage of Gaza, with major outlets focusing heavily on the impact of starvation.
Organizer and attorney Aaron Regunberg said that instead of simply doing "reputational damage control by speaking up in these very last moments," powerful political leaders must "shut shit down."
"You want history books to not record you as an evil genocide supporter?" said Regunberg. "One speech now—after countless speeches condemning those who have been speaking out—ain't gonna cut it... You need to go to Gaza. You need to actually make an impact, NOW."
Progressive organizer Lindsey Boylan wondered whether establishment leaders "will ever admit that smearing all protests to stop the genocide actually contributed to the genocide."
"Few people could have played a more pivotal role in shaping the democratic response to prevent genocide," said Boylan of Clinton's comments. "Now here we are. Watching mass death of kids."
On Friday, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has consistently demanded that the Biden and Trump administrations stop funding Israel's assault on Gaza and warned of the impact mass starvation would have, issued his latest call for U.S. support to end immediately.
"American taxpayer dollars are being used to starve children, bomb civilians, and support the cruelty of [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his criminal ministers," said Sanders. "Enough is enough. The White House and Congress must immediately act to end this war using the full scope of American influence. No more military aid to the Netanyahu government. History will condemn those who fail to act in the face of this horror."