In this week’s newsletter: A sweeping new anti-DEI directive — and increasing skepticism about real-world impacts. Education reporters discuss the coverage challenges of the past four weeks. Sold a Story goes “solutions” with a new segment on Steubenville, Ohio. Southern states are surging when it comes to teaching kids to read — is anyone paying attention?
QUESTIONING TRUMP’S EDUCATION INITIATIVES
The big education story of the week
The big education story of the week is the Trump administration’s attempt to persuade schools to abandon DEI, schools’ emerging resistance — and growing media skepticism about the accuracy and inevitability of this and other Trump initiatives.
In the initial coverage of the DEI directive, many outlets played it pretty straight, seeming to assume their accuracy and likely inevitability (AP, Chalkbeat, EdSource, EdWeek, CNN, New York Times). And indeed, some contracts have been canceled and employees laid off or put on leave.
But several other stories that have come along since then featured state and local resistance — and explored what might happen if education officials pushed back or if these efforts faced legal and logistical obstacles (The Hill, USA Today, Boston Herald, Inside Higher Ed, Bridge Michigan, NPR, Washington Post, CalMatters, KUOW).
There’s no shortage of initiatives and announcements this past month, as a couple of outlets have noted with helpful trackers and timelines, (Hechinger Report, Oregon Public Broadcasting). Did the USDE really cut $600 million in contracts related to teacher training? Will these cuts and directives take effect? Are the Trump directives unwarranted and unpopular? (NPR, EdWeek, Hechinger Report, New York Times, Vox, New York Times, The Hill). Coverage that’s asking questions is key.
Other big education stories of the week include LAUSD’s first week with a cell phone ban, & the confirmation of Linda McMahon as Education Secretary. Follow @thegrade_ for education news all day, every day.
A DAILY ODYSSEY TO & FROM SCHOOL
The best education journalism of the week
The best education journalism of the week is Transit nightmare: Thousands of Baltimore kids can’t get to school on time by Liz Bowie and Greg Morton of The Baltimore Banner.
Bowie, a longtime education writer, and Morton, a data reporter, offer a big, satisfying, and absolutely maddening account of the travails that await thousands of Baltimore middle and high school students each morning as they attempt the simplest of acts: getting to school.
Since 2005, Baltimore has offered students their choice of high schools — middle school choice came in 2010 — but it’s also a city without a functioning yellow bus system for kids past fifth grade. So as many as 25,000 students each day are at the mercy of an unreliable transportation infrastructure that’s clearly not up to the job: The average commute for these kids is 40 minutes, more than twice as long as the typical yellow bus ride in neighboring Baltimore County — and longer than an average adult commute.
Bowie and Morton’s piece is at its best when it’s on the ground with students, by their side as they nervously wait for buses, subways and light rail trains that often show up late — or not at all. They profile a student who doesn’t know from day to day whether the system will get her to school on time. ”It’s just a game of luck,” she says. The student’s experiences with public transit over three-and-a-half years has, in their words, “worn her down and narrowed her ambitions.”
A vivid portrait of the “frustrating odyssey” of students that often ends as they arrive at school late: Learning time, Bowie and Morton write, is “measured in lost minutes, hours and days of instruction that cascade into academic failures.”
Other education stories we liked include how a Pasadena gardener helped reopen schools after the firestorm (LA Times), why Georgia lawmakers want to remove lucrative school zone speed cameras (AJC), Seattle parents angry about schools’ plans for advanced kids (KUOW), and how a pejorative slang for Latino kids who aren’t fluent in Spanish has become a badge of honor (palabra).
COVERING TRUMP’S FIRST-MONTH WHIRLWIND
Our latest columns and commentary
The Hill’s Lexi Lonas Cochran, the Boston Globe’s Mandy McLaren, and the New York Times’ Zach Montague (above) gathered online this morning with me to talk about the challenges and successes covering this whirlwind of DOGE-, Executive Order- and Dear Colleague-related activity.
And what a whirlwind it’s been. Over the past four weeks, President Trump and his team have declared schools in play for ICE raids, announced an intention to abolish the US Department of Education, claimed to have cut nearly $900 million in research contracts and another $600 million in teacher training, and laid off or put on leave DEI-tainted staff and probationary workers. In just the past week, Team Trump has called for the elimination of DEI programs nationwide and declared a ban on vaccine mandates in schools.
What’s it been like? What have been these reporters’ biggest challenges and successes? What have they learned about investigating Trump administration claims — and balancing fears against events? Watch a replay of the 45-minute session here (with apologies for the registration requirement). Thanks to everyone who participated and watched. Maybe we’ll do this again next month.
ALSO: In this week’s new column, the latest NAEP scores suggest that math instruction needs just as much coverage as reading. But covering math requires a slightly different lens, according to The Grade contributor Holly Korbey in her new piece, Why math coverage ≠ literacy coverage. When you’re done with that, Korbey also has a new piece also about math in the Hechinger Report, where she writes that “a flexible understanding of how numbers work is as important to math as phonics is to reading.”
PEOPLE, JOBS, & EVENTS
Who’s going where and what’s happening
📰 Appearances: What’s it like living in fear of being deported? Former ed reporter Melissa Sanchez, now at ProPublica, was on WBUR to talk about the experience. On Point featured the US Department of Education’s rise and potential fall. In case you missed it, the Washington Post’s Laura Meckler was on the PBS NewsHour last week, among other things debunking the Trump claim that red states are doing best at educating white kids. The Free Press’s Frannie Block was on Fox describing questionable materials distributed by the Massachusetts’ teachers union (which are now under review).
📰 Podcasts, series, & broadcast segments: Voice of San Diego launched its invaluable annual parent guide to schools. In its new series, Reading Reset, Atlanta News First has the story about a lawsuit claiming reading materials that hurt children. The Tennessean just launched “Class Disrupted,” a year-long education project that starts with (what else?) book bans. The Texas Tribune’s in-house podcast recently discussed the ins and outs of the school choice and vouchers. The White Lotus isn’t the only favorite show that’s back this winter! The first new Sold a Story episode in a while — focused on successful efforts in high-poverty Steubenville, Ohio schools.
📰 Quotable:
🗣 “What we’re seeing is the latest battle in a long war between two factions of the American elite,” writes Leighton Woodhouse in Compact. “The working class are just extras on the set.”
🗣 Real events “have real consequences for real people now,” reminds former NPR education reporter Anya Kamenetz. “ Pseudo-events are “purely symbolic gestures and speculation.”
🗣 “Eighth graders aren’t doing worse in school in 2024 than they were in 2019 because of a massive change in poverty or genetics,” writes Matt Yglesias. “It’s because the political system shifted.”
🗣”The pandemic era didn’t just demolish faith in scientific and political elites,” writes The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson. “It also strongly increased alone time.”
🗣 “The expansion of primary education in the West was driven not by democratic ideals, but by the state’s desire to control citizens,” writes UC San Diego professor Augustina Paglayan in a new interview in The Atlantic.
🗣”When you’re being integrated into institutions, into a culture that’s a supremacist culture… why are we being integrated into that?” asks Macarthur “genius” winner Ruha Benjamin in a conversation with Trevor Noah.
📰 Upcoming: Sign up for a Baltimore Banner subscriber-only event discussing the transit nightmare facing Baltimore kids (our pick for best story of the week). SXSW EDU events that look interesting include Exploring Teacher Morale State by State (featuring EdWeek reporters and researchers) and Journalism Training in Prison Teaches More Than Headlines (featuring Open Campus, The Marshall Project, and the Prison Journalism Project).
THE KICKER
We saved the best for last.
“I was all set to give this guy vast, unspecified power over the U.S. government.”
