Mike Simpson posts amazing memes on Twitter and BlueSky. He calls himself “Big Education Ape.” He makes the point with his illustrations.

Here is one of his best: THE GHOST OF ELI BROAD: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF VULTURE PHILANTHROPY AND THE ONGOING DESTRUCTION OF AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION.

I wasn’t able to copy some tables and graphics. Please open the link to read the post in full.

Eli Broad was one of the billionaires who was eager to tear apart public education and remake it. I referred to him, the Waltons, and the Gates Foundation as “the Billionaires Boys Club,” which was chapter 10 of my book The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.

Eli Broad’s distinctive contribution to the corporate reform movement was his Broad Academy, where aspiring superintendents were “trained” with his ideas. All expenses were paid, and trainees got to hobnob with others. They also had the Academy’s help in job placement; many “graduates” of the Broad Academy were placed as superintendents in big-city districts, imbued with the ideology that schooling was a business, that low-performing schools should be closed and replaced by charter schools. Eli and his wife Edythe were both graduates of the Detroit Public Schools, but they were not grateful for what they learned.

In 2009, when I was writing the book, I was not aware that the Billionaire Boys Club had many more members and that some were women. There was Alice Walton, Betsy DeVos, the Koch brothers, John Arnold, Joel Greenberg, Daniel Loeb, Jeff Yass, and many more. I posted a far longer list of the super-rich underwriting the privatization of public money in my book Slaying Goliath.

I once was invited by Eli Broad to meet at his gorgeous apartment in New York City, overlooking Central Park. He wanted to know why I was critical of his efforts. He told me that he knew nothing about teaching or curriculum, but he knew a lot about business management and organization. His belief was that public schools could improve by better management.

Mike Simpson performs a public service here by updating the legacy of Eli Broad.

He writes:

How a billionaire’s “vision” became a scandal-soaked legacy — and why it refuses to die, now dressed in Yale’s ivy

There’s a particular kind of audacity required to spend a quarter-century systematically dismantling public education, leave a trail of federal indictments, billion-dollar procurement disasters, and devastated communities in your wake — and then get your name engraved on a building at Yale University. That, in essence, is the story of Eli Broad, the Broad Academy, and its reincarnation as The Broad Center at Yale School of Management. If you were hoping the death of Eli Broad in 2021 would finally close this chapter of American education history, well — ghosts don’t follow rules. And this one has a $100 million endowment.

Part I: Venture Philanthropy — When Billionaires Play School

Let’s start with the concept that makes all of this possible: “venture philanthropy.” It sounds benign — even noble. In practice, it means a billionaire who made his fortune in housing construction (KB Home) and insurance (SunAmerica) decided he understood public education better than educators, parents, communities, or — heaven forbid — children.

Eli Broad’s core thesis, launched formally in 2002 with the Broad Superintendents Academy (BSA), was elegantly simple and catastrophically wrong: public school systems are just badly managed corporations, and what they need is corporate managers.

Not teachers. Not child psychologists. Not community leaders. Corporate managers. Preferably ones with MBAs, military command experience, or backgrounds in supply-chain logistics. Because nothing says “I understand the developmental needs of a seven-year-old” quite like a background in restructuring defense procurement contracts.

The curriculum reflected this philosophy with almost comedic precision:

10% — Actual education: pedagogy, curriculum, child development
90% — Corporate operational reform: fiscal optimization, data-driven accountability, labor relations, and what the Academy euphemistically called “reform accelerators” — which, translated from the original MBA-speak, meant privatization strategies

The program was free to participants — tuition, travel, lodging, all covered. Because when you’re deploying an ideological army, you don’t charge the soldiers.

Part II: Yale Said “Yes” — And Charged It to Prestige

In 2019, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation committed $100 million to Yale University to transform the independent, unaccredited Los Angeles operation into The Broad Center at Yale School of Management. The transition was completed in 2020, and the unaccredited LA entity was quietly sunsetted — like a getaway car abandoned after the heist.

The rebranding was masterful. Suddenly, the same ideological pipeline that had produced federal convicts, FBI raid subjects, and a generation of “disruptors” who disrupted primarily the educational lives of low-income children of color was now operating under the imprimatur of one of the world’s most prestigious universities.

The center today operates two flagship tracks, both tuition-free:

The 2026–27 MMS cohort is already being assembled, per the center’s own Instagram, described as “leaders committed to reimagining” public education — which, given the network’s history, should be read as a threat as much as a promise.

Beyond the programs themselves, the center has launched an aggressive data aggregation initiative — a centralized repository hosted on GitHub tracking superintendents across more than 10,000 of the nation’s 13,000 public school districts, aggregating over 180,000 data points across 23 states. The stated goal is academic research. The unstated goal, critics argue, is mapping the vacancy pipeline for the next generation of Broad placements.

Part III: The Damage Ledger — Twenty-Five Years of “Disruption”

Let’s be precise about what the word “disruption” meant in practice. A landmark 2022 longitudinal study published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis tracked two full decades of Broad Academy graduates and delivered findings that would be devastating — if anyone in the venture philanthropy world were capable of embarrassment:

No statistically significant positive effects on district spending, student completion rates, or test scores
Broad-trained superintendents had 18% shorter tenures than non-Broad peers in equivalent districts
The only statistically significant footprint left behind? A sustained, measurable trend toward increased charter school enrollment and sector privatization

In other words, after 25 years and hundreds of millions of philanthropic dollars, the Broad Academy’s measurable legacy in public education was: more charter schools and shorter superintendent tenures. That’s it. That’s the product.

The Human Cost

The abstract numbers become concrete when you look at specific communities:

Oakland & Detroit saw aggressive charter expansion and centralized fiscal management that critics argued deepened structural deficits and fractured community trust for generations.

Chicago experienced the largest single wave of school closures in modern U.S. history — 50 neighborhood schools shuttered in 2013 under Broad-network-affiliated Barbara Byrd-Bennett — triggering federal civil rights complaints alleging the closures disproportionately harmed low-income students of color.

Seattle watched Broad graduate Maria Goodloe-Johnson (BSA Class of 2003) get fired in 2011 following a state audit revealing $1.8 million in public funds funneled into a contracting program that provided little to no actual services — with investigators concluding she exercised a “severe lack of oversight” despite early warnings.

Part IV: The Scandal Hall of Fame — From Procurement Fraud to Federal Prison

Here is where the story transitions from ideologically troubling to criminally spectacular.

John Deasy — The iPad That Broke LAUSD

Deasy (BSA Class of 2006) championed a $1.3 billion initiative to put Apple iPads loaded with Pearson software into the hands of every LAUSD student. The rollout failed within days — students bypassed security filters almost immediately — but the procurement scandal was far worse than the technical failure.

Internal records revealed that Deasy and his deputies had close personal and professional ties to Apple and Pearson executives prior to the bidding process, raising serious allegations of a rigged procurement cycle. The FBI seized boxes of district records. Deasy resigned in 2014. The district eventually abandoned the program and settled for millions in refunds.

His post-resignation career? He was immediately hired by the Broad Center as a Superintendent-in-Residence — coaching the next generation of urban leaders. Because in this ecosystem, failure is a credential.

Barbara Byrd-Bennett — The Federal Prison Graduate

Byrd-Bennett’s career arc is the Broad model in miniature: leave Cleveland in fiscal distress, leave Detroit in structural chaos, get hired as a “turnaround expert” in Chicago, execute the largest school closure wave in American history, then get indicted on 20 counts of federal mail and wire fraud.

Federal investigators proved she steered $23 million in no-bid contracts to SUPES Academy and Synesi Associates — the very consulting firms she had worked for immediately before taking the CPS helm. Internal emails laid bare her motive with a candor that would be almost admirable if it weren’t so brazen: she needed the money because she had “tuitions to pay and casinos to visit.”

In exchange, she was promised a 10% kickback disguised as future consulting fees funneled into trust funds for her twin grandsons. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four and a half years in federal prison.

Robert Runcie — The Perjury Arrest

Runcie (BSA Class of 2009) took over Broward County Public Schools — the nation’s sixth-largest district — and oversaw a culture of severe administrative bid-rigging around an $800 million capital bond program, with independent investigations revealing contracts steered to pre-selected corporate entities.

Following the 2018 Parkland school shooting, which exposed deep systemic lapses in district safety infrastructure, a statewide grand jury investigation led to Runcie’s arrest by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement on felony perjury charges in April 2021 — prosecutors proving he lied under oath about communications regarding procurement contracts.

He resigned in exchange for a $743,000 separation agreement. Paid by taxpayers.

Alberto Carvalho — The AI Echo of the iPad Disaster

If the Deasy iPad scandal was the defining Broad-era procurement catastrophe of the 2010s, Alberto Carvalho’s LAUSD tenure became its 2020s technological sequel — almost as if the universe decided one billion-dollar tech procurement disaster per decade wasn’t sufficient.

Carvalho, a celebrated figure on the corporate-reform speaking circuit who regularly headlined Broad Center leadership panels, aggressively championed a contract with “AllHere,” a tech startup contracted to build a multi-million dollar AI student-chatbot tool for LAUSD. The project collapsed into total insolvency. The startup’s founder was indicted for fraud. Federal investigators traced systemic steering of contracts that bypassed traditional public bidding protections.

In early 2026, FBI agents raided Carvalho’s personal residence and district offices. He was placed on paid administrative leave and subsequently resigned — a modern, tech-era echo of the Deasy iPad scandal, separated by exactly one decade and approximately zero lessons learned.

Part V: The Carousel — How Failed Superintendents Get Recycled

One of the most structurally revealing features of the Broad model is what happens after a superintendent fails. In a normal accountability framework, catastrophic failure — federal indictment, FBI raids, mass community protests, historic labor strikes — would end careers.

In the Broad ecosystem, it typically accelerates them.

The recycling mechanism operates in three predictable stages:

Stage 1 — The Soft Landing: Departing executives are caught by the philanthropic safety net. Foundations like Broad, Walton, or Gates place them into well-funded “fellow,” “executive coach,” or “senior advisor” roles at charter management organizations or policy think tanks. The local political dust settles. The national network maintains their status.

Stage 2 — The Headhunter Buffer: National executive search firms — operating with screening frameworks that prioritize corporate operational metrics over community approval or longevity — present the executive to a new school board in another state as a “courageous, battle-tested change agent.” The fact that the “battle” was largely against the parents and teachers of the previous district is presented as a résumé enhancement.

Stage 3 — The Next Major District: Re-hired at a higher salary, with stronger contractual protections, and a golden parachute clause ensuring that the next failure will also be financially comfortable.

Mike Miles left Dallas ISD under multiple internal investigations and extreme executive turnover, founded a charter network, and was then directly appointed by the Texas Education Agency — which had dissolved Houston ISD’s elected school board — to run the entire Houston district with even fewer democratic constraints than before.

Jean-Claude Brizard left Rochester under a 95% teacher vote of no confidence, was immediately recruited to lead Chicago Public Schools (the nation’s third-largest system), triggered the historic 2012 Chicago Teachers Strike within 17 months, was pushed out with a $250,000 buyout, and transitioned smoothly into senior advisory roles at national education foundations.

The pattern is not a bug. It is the feature.

Part VI: Buying the Boardroom — How Venture Philanthropy Captured School Governance

The Broad playbook cannot function under genuine democratic oversight. A superintendent who closes 50 neighborhood schools, eliminates teacher tenure protections, and converts public schools into privately managed charter networks will be fired by an elected school board that answers to the community — unless that school board has been pre-selected to not do that.

The solution was elegant and corrosive: buy the school board elections.

Because local school board races historically required minimal campaign capital, the injection of billionaire wealth fundamentally altered the political landscape. The money flows not directly to candidates (which faces statutory limits) but through Independent Expenditure Committees and Super PACs — allowing unlimited spending on sophisticated polling, negative television ads, and targeted digital saturation.

In Los Angeles, Eli Broad, the Walton family, and allied donors regularly poured $5 million to $10 million per election cycle into LAUSD board races — specifically to achieve a “pro-reform majority” that would protect executives like John Deasy and later Austin Beutner (a former investment banker with no education background whatsoever) from community accountability.

In Oakland, independent groups funded by the California Charter Schools Association outspent local parent-teacher associations 10-to-1, successfully seating board members who routinely approved charter petitions and fiscal consolidation plans drafted by Broad Residency staff embedded in the central office.

When even this proved insufficient — when local civic resistance made winning democratic elections too expensive or unpredictable — the network pivoted to eliminating the elections entirely:

Chicago: Mayoral control legislation allowed Mayor Rahm Emanuel to single-handedly install Broad executives without board confirmation.
Houston: The Texas Education Agency dissolved the elected school board entirely and replaced it with a state-appointed body, allowing direct installation of Mike Miles.
Detroit: The short-lived Education Achievement Authority bypassed the traditional school board to implement a centralized, non-unionized reform experiment under Broad graduate John Covington.

The structural message is unambiguous: the corporate management model and democratic accountability are incompatible. When democracy gets in the way, the solution is to remove democracy.

Part VII: The Network Map — 1,000 Alumni and Counting

The Broad Network now comprises more than 1,000 alumni spanning major urban school districts, charter management organizations, state education agencies, and venture philanthropy foundations — with its heaviest concentrations precisely where the playbook finds the most fertile ground:

California remains the densest hub, with alumni embedded throughout LAUSD, Oakland Unified, and San Diego Unified central offices, as well as major CMOs like KIPP SoCal, Aspire Public Schools, and Green Dot.

Texas has become the fastest-growing hub, with Houston ISD under state-appointed Miles serving as the current flagship experiment, alongside significant placement within Dallas ISD, Fort Worth ISD, the Texas Education Agency, and massive charter entities like KIPP Texas and IDEA Public Schools.

New York serves as the “soft landing” capital of the network — hundreds of alumni operating within Wall Street-adjacent education foundations, charter advocacy groups, and elite national search firms headquartered in Manhattan.

Illinois and Pennsylvania — Chicago and Philadelphia specifically — remain high-density environments where teams of Broad Residents are embedded in central operations managing financial stabilization, facilities restructuring, and school assignment data systems.

Meanwhile, the network has largely migrated out of direct superintendencies — where the political friction is high and the tenure is short — and into the broader ecosystem where influence is durable and accountability is minimal: senior director roles at the Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative; high-level education consultancies like Watershed Advisors and Instruction Partners; and, of course, The Broad Center at Yale SOM itself, where the current MMS cohort is being trained to carry the philosophy forward.

Part VIII: Yale — Laundering a Legacy in Ivy

Let us be direct about what the Yale partnership accomplishes that the standalone Los Angeles operation never could: institutional legitimacy laundering.

The Broad Academy, operating independently, was unaccredited, ideologically transparent, and easy to critique. Its graduates were called “Broadies” — a term used by both allies and critics — and the pipeline was visible enough that parent groups, teachers’ unions, and education researchers could track, document, and organize against it.

The Broad Center at Yale SOM is something different. It is now embedded within one of the world’s most prestigious academic institutions, granting an Ivy League master’s degree, hosting fellows in New Haven, and publishing peer-reviewed research. The same corporate management philosophy that produced federal convictions and FBI raids now arrives in urban school districts wearing a Yale credential.

The center’s new data aggregation initiative — tracking superintendents across more than 10,000 districts, aggregating 180,000+ data points — is framed as academic research. Critics see it as something more operational: a comprehensive national vacancy map for the next generation of Broad placements, now with the algorithmic sophistication that the original Los Angeles operation could only dream of.

The 2025-26 Fellowship cohort of 17 fellows is already gathering in New Haven for weeklong modules at Yale SOM. The 2026-27 MMS cohort is being assembled. The pipeline flows.

The Synthesis: What Twenty-Five Years Actually Taught Us

Here is what a quarter-century of Broad-style education reform has empirically demonstrated:

The Promise: The Reality

Corporate management improves district outcomes/No measurable positive effect on test scores, graduation rates, or spending efficiency”

Disruptors” bring needed change/18% shorter tenures; accelerated community fracture

Charter expansion improves options/Statistically significant increase in privatization; no demonstrated academic gains

Data-driven accountability improves teaching/Curriculum narrowing; teaching to the test

Free consulting support helps districts/Permanent embedding of private ideology on public payroll

School board reform improves governance/Systematic dismantling of democratic accountability

The most damning verdict is not the federal indictments — though those are damning. It is not the FBI raids — though those are spectacular. It is not even the $23 million in no-bid kickback contracts or the billion-dollar iPad disasters.

It is this: after 25 years, hundreds of millions in philanthropic investment, and the placement of Broad-trained executives in over 160 school systems, there is no credible empirical evidence that any of it helped a single child learn to read better.

What it did produce — measurably, statistically, reproducibly — was more charter schools, shorter superintendent tenures, and a revolving door of well-compensated executives cycling between urban districts, consulting firms, and Ivy League fellowship programs while the communities they “disrupted” rebuilt themselves from the wreckage.

Epilogue: The Ghost That Won’t Be Exorcised

Eli Broad died in April 2021. His foundation subsequently announced it would spend down its assets and close. The Los Angeles operation was already gone, folded into Yale two years prior.

And yet — the ghost persists. It persists in the 2026-27 MMS cohort assembling in New Haven. It persists in the 180,000 data points tracking superintendent vacancies across 10,000 districts. It persists in the career of Mike Miles, currently running Houston ISD under state protection from democratic accountability. It persists in the aftermath of Alberto Carvalho’s FBI-raided departure from LAUSD — a scandal so structurally identical to the Deasy iPad disaster of 2014 that it reads less like history repeating and more like history plagiarizing itself.

The Broad Center at Yale SOM is not a reformed version of the Broad Academy. It is the Broad Academy with better branding, an Ivy League address, and a GitHub repository. The philosophy is identical. The network is intact. The pipeline flows.

The only thing that has genuinely changed is the zip code — from Los Angeles to New Haven — and the price tag of the credential being handed to the next generation of disruptors preparing to be deployed into the public schools of America.

Eli Broad may be gone. But his ghost has tenure.

And unlike the superintendents he trained, it shows no signs of an early exit.

Sources:

: The Broad Center institutional history, curriculum breakdowns, alumni scandal documentation, EEPA 2022 longitudinal study findings, and school board funding mechanics — as documented in comprehensive public education policy research and investigative reporting compiled in the source brief above.
: EdSource — “FBI raid of Los Angeles Superintendent Carvalho’s home, office may be linked to student AI chatbot” (2026) — edsource.org
: Los Angeles Times — “How probe into failed startup led to LAUSD superintendent investigation” (March 1, 2026) — latimes.com
: Yale School of Management — “The Broad Center Announces 2025-26 Cohort of the Fellowship for Public Education Leadership” — som.yale.edu

Master Source List: The Ghost of Eli Broad & The Broad Center at Yale

🏛️ The Broad Center at Yale SOM — Official Sources

$CITETitleSourceLinkThe Broad Center — Official Program Overview Yale School of Management som.yale.edu/centers/the-broad-center Master’s in Public Education Management — Admissions Yale School of Management som.yale.edu — MMS Admissions Broad Center Announces 2025-26 Fellowship Cohort Yale School of Managementsom.yale.edu — 2025-26 Fellowship Broad Center Announces 2025-26 Master’s Cohort Yale School of Management som.yale.edu — 2025-26 MMS Cohort

📊 Academic Research & Empirical Studies

$CITETitleSourceLinkThe Case of Broad Superintendents— Full EEPA Longitudinal Study (2022) Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis / Tom Dee tom-dee.github.io — EEPA-Broad.pdf New Study: Broad Supes Made No Difference, Other Than Increasing Charter Schools Diane Ravitch’s Blogdianeravitch.net

🗞️ Investigative Journalism & Policy Criticism

$CITETitleSourceLink Critics Target Growing Army of Broad Leaders Education Week edweek.org The Broad Foundation’s Impact on Public Schools Facebook — Oakland Parent Sharon Higgins Analysis facebook.com — Broad Foundation Analysis

⚖️ Barbara Byrd-Bennett — Federal Conviction (Chicago)

$CITETitleSourceLink Former Chief Executive of Chicago Public Schools Sentenced to More Than Four Years in Prison U.S. Department of Justice — Official Press Release justice.govBarbara Byrd-Bennett — Full Coverage Archive WTTW Chicago Public Media news.wttw.com Barbara Byrd-Bennett — Wikipedia Overview Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

⚖️ Robert Runcie — Broward County Perjury Arrest

$CITETitleSourceLinkFDLE Arrests Broward County Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie for Perjury Florida Department of Law Enforcement — Official Release fdle.state.fl.us Former Broward Superintendent Robert Runcie Avoids Trial — Perjury Charge Dropped CBS News Miami cbsnews.com/miami State Drops Perjury Charge Against Former Broward Schools Superintendent Miami Herald miamiherald.comPerjury Charge Dropped Against Ex-Broward Schools Superintendent NBC Miami nbcmiami.com

🤖 Alberto Carvalho — LAUSD FBI Raid & AllHere AI Scandal

$CITETitleSourceLinkFBI Raid of Los Angeles Superintendent Carvalho’s Home and Office May Be Linked to Student AI ChatbotEdSource edsource.org How Probe Into Failed Startup Led to LAUSD Superintendent Investigation Los Angeles Times latimes.com

📌 Quick Citation Reference Guide

For the article sections, citations map as follows:

Broad Center Yale programs → , , ,
EEPA 2022 empirical study → ,
General Broad criticism & history → ,
Byrd-Bennett federal conviction → , ,
Runcie perjury arrest → , , ,
Carvalho FBI raid / AllHere AI → ,

⚠️ Research Note: Several additional primary sources — including the original EEPA journal publication, the Jeffrey Hubbard California Supreme Court ruling, the Maria Goodloe-Johnson state audit, and the Jean-Claude Brizard Chicago strike documentation — are recommended for deeper verification. Additional searches can be run to surface those specific primary documents on request.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry

George Will: The Senate Should Reject Todd Blanche as U.S. Attorney General

By dianeravitch

July 27, 2026 //

George Will is a respected voice of conservatism, not MAGA, but the thoughtful conservatism that once was Republican philosophy. Thoughtful conservatives were fiscally prudent and careful about their public language. They looked carefully before engaging in new policy. They viewed innovation with suspicion. They demanded honesty and integrity from those who held the Presidency. They did not tolerate Presidents who ignored the Constitution or who engaged in profiteering.

George Will is that kind of conservative.

Here is what he wrote about Todd Blanche, who has been nominated by Trump to serve as the Attorney General of the United Dtates.

What benefit of norms is owed to someone who disdains norms? There are many sufficient reasons to oppose confirming Todd Blanche as attorney general. Presidents generally are owed some deference in selecting Cabinet members, but “some” implies limits, lest the Senate’s advice-and-consent duty be drained of responsibility. And not all presidents are equally owed. Today’s president is owed little, given his contempt for the unwritten rules of civility that can lubricate a congenial society’s governance.

Eight days after the 2024 election, Donald Trump set the tone of his second term by announcing his beau ideal of an attorney general: Rep. Matt Gaetz. This insult lasted eight days, until Gaetz withdrew as nominee. He had resigned from the House earlier, reportedly to prevent release of the House Ethics Committee’s report on his alleged drug use and sexual misconduct, which a woman said included sex with her twice when she was 17.

Trump settled for Pam Bondi as attorney general, with Blanche as her deputy. While Blanche was the Justice Department’s second-in-command, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, a Justice appendage, sought criminal indictments of six congressional Democrats, all with military or intelligence backgrounds. They had made a video.

Made while Trump’s administration was killing people on boats (in international waters) suspected of carrying drugs, the video said what the Uniform Code of Military Justice says: Do not obey illegal orders. A grand jury did something vanishingly rare in criminal cases. It refused to indict the six.

Blanche was acting attorney general when the Justice Department took seriously Seashellgate. His department secured a second indictment of former FBI director James B. Comey, this time for posting a photograph of shells arranged on a beach to read “86 47”; “86” is slang for “remove.”Trump is the 47thpresident. Blanche’s DOJ pretended to regard Comey’s infantile gesture as a prosecutable threat.

Republican senators now have demanded Blanche’s assurances that the proposed $1.776 billion slush fund, for compensating persons Trump designates as victims of Biden administration persecution, is dead. But this grift was incubated in Blanche’s DOJ.

Blanche, who serves at the pleasure of the president, signed a memo pledging that the IRS is “Forever Barred” from “examinations” of Trump, certain members of his family, the Trump Organization and “related or affiliated individuals.” This “negotiated” — try not to snicker — settlement between the president and the executive branch he heads exemplifies the administration’s sludge of self-dealing.

Trump sicced Blanche’s compliant Justice Department on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell, ostensibly about fictitious criminality in construction spending, actually to pressure Powell to resign. With Blanche as deputy, then acting, attorney general, the Justice Department (per the Economist) gave courts inaccurate information “nearly 100 times in Mr Trump’s first 14 months.”

In April, Blanche became acting attorney general when Trump fired Bondi. “Nobody has any idea why,” said Blanche. Plausible reports said Trump considered Bondi insufficiently aggressive about prosecuting his enemies. Blanche has said, cloudily, that “some” Justice Department prosecutions “involve men, women, and entities” that Trump “has had issues with. … That is his right, and indeed it is his duty to do that, meaning, to lead this country.”

Blanche said it is “completely false” that the president targets political enemies. Trump merely “wants justice.” Blanche said he was not “celebrating” Trump’s pardons of almost all the approximately 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters when, to a gathering of Trump supporters, he praised the “generous” pardons as one of the administration’s accomplishments.

If at most four Republican senators had, in committee or floor votes, behaved as independently as the Founders thought senators would, Bondi, Kristi Noem, Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others would not have been confirmed to offices far above their competences. Children probably have died of measles, and of hepatitis B passed from mothers to infants, because of vaccine hesitancy promoted by Kennedy, who lied when he promised not to indulge in such quackery if confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services.

Now comes Blanche. He received this embarrassingly backhanded endorsement (in the Wall Street Journal) from former attorney general William Barr: Blanche “will run the department as effectively as anyone could under President Trump.” Is this sufficient reassurance for Republican senators? Or will, at last, a nominee trigger their gag reflexes?

Once, when someone noted that Sen. Richard Russell, the Georgia Democrat, had “served under” six presidents, Russell bristled, saying he “served with” six. It will be a pleasant surprise if, concerning Blanche, a few Republican senators become similarly sensitive about those prepositions.

Categories Education Reform

Randi Weingarten: Why We Are Fighting for a Better Society for All

By dianeravitch

July 27, 2026 //

This is one of Randi Weingarten’s best speeches. She delivered it at the 2026 Convention of the American federation of Teachers on July 26 in Washington, D.C.

Not only does she identify income inequality as a dire threat to our democracy, she speaks one of the greatest lines I have ever read:

Mr. President, you don’t own July Fourth. You own Jan. 6.

Randi points out that the dramatic income inequality of our times is destroying the middle class. Unions build a strong middle class. The large increase in the number of billionaires is it a sign of a healthy society; it is a sign of gross inequality.

As more people slip out of the middle class or hang on by their fingertips, our social problems get worse.

How do we restore a thriving middle class? Encourage the growth of strong unions.

She reminds us that today only 1 of every 10 workers belongs to a union. Union workers are paid more, significantly more, than non-union workers. In mid-century America, when 1 in 3 American workers were in a union, we had the largest middle class and the lowest income inequality. And she says, “That’s why, in the long term, growing the union movement is key to solving America’s affordability crisis.”

Rightwingers have done their best to eviscerate unions. And they have won significant victories in the courts.

But, despite the obstacles, the AFT is growing. It now has the largest number of members in its history: 1.875 million members. Al Shanker and Sandy Feldman would be proud of that accomplishment.

Unions are key to a better life.

Randi said in her address:

We plan our conventions years in advance. When we decided to hold this convention in our nation’s capital, to coincide with the celebration of America’s founding 250 years ago, who would have thought that the grievances that led to the American Revolution would be so relevant and relatable today? Or that America would have a new kind of aristocracy based on mind-blowing wealth?

In the United States, there are now 1,000 billionaires—and the world’s first trillionaire—at a time when nearly half of American households—46 percent—don’t earn enough to make ends meet.

This wealth imbalance—the top 1 percent having as much wealth as the entire bottom 90 percent of Americans combined—has led to a power imbalance that affects the lives of everyone in our country. These oligarchs influence policy. They have the power to undo social progress. To sway financial markets, monopolize the media, buy elections and undermine democracy.

In an earlier period of extreme wealth inequality, the country elected Franklin D. Roosevelt, and his New Deal programs lifted millions of Americans out of poverty.

This time, the country elected Donald Trump, and well …

Remember that warning—about the barbarians at the gate? Well, the barbarians aren’t at the gate, they are inside, including at the highest levels of government.

The president and his cronies are abusing government powers to punish political opponents. Every day they find new ways to attack voting, presumably to entrench themselves. Their war on working-class Americans includes stripping collective bargaining rights from 1 million federal workers, including members of our union, in the biggest act of union-busting in U.S. history. All while engaging in the most blatant corruption in modern American history to enrich themselves.

The attacks—on unions, on working people, on public education, on higher education, on the public good, on democracy—didn’t start with Trump. They’ve been decades in the making, going back to the 1971 memo by future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell that successfully plotted corporate dominance in American politics. And the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that fueled the massive surge of “dark money” in elections—which has now been supercharged by the court’s ruling last month that blew up whatever campaign finance limits were left. And its 2018 Janus decision that anti-union forces hoped would drive a stake through the heart of public sector unions. Project 2025 became the playbook to enact this extremist agenda. This year’s Callais decision not only gutted what remained of the 1965 Voting Rights Act but did so in time to affect the 2026 elections. Then there’s the bare-knuckled crusade to destroy public education and higher education. Just look at Christopher Rufo’s tweets, or his unabashed declaration years ago that “To get to universal school choice, you really need to operate from a premise of universal public school distrust.”

And I haven’t even gotten to Big Tech and artificial intelligence.

Yes, the other side has enormous power. But this is what they don’t have: the power of the people.

That’s not a mere slogan; it’s the potential to work together, to bargain together, to protest together, to vote together, to act together to bring about change—real, lasting, life-improving change. That is the power and potential of our movement and of the AFT.

Our union stands at the intersection of the ways that regular people gain and exercise power in our democracy—through public education, unions and voting.

The skills and knowledge people secure through public and higher education expand opportunity—that’s power. Union contracts improve economic well-being—that’s power. Elections—voting for people who answer to their constituents, not wealthy donors—that’s power.

It’s power not just for ourselves, but for our students, our patients and our communities. Power to build what Martin Luther King Jr. called the “beloved community”—an America where hate has no home. Where the trans nurse, the Palestinian teacher, the Jewish student, and every person regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, gender or place of origin, feels welcome, safe and valued.

We use our power for good—against chaos, cruelty and corruption. We care, we fight and we show up—for a better life for all. Oh, and one more thing: We get shit done!

We are a fighting union. To quote the president of Texas AFT, Zeph Capo, “Our members will forgive us if we fight and lose, but they’ll never forgive us if we don’t even fight.”

Look at what we have fought for, and won, in these last two years—despite constant challenges.

Through the AFT’s student debt clinics and our other activism, we have helped more than 1 million borrowers, many of them our members, get $78 billion in student debt forgiven! That is life-changing; people can start a family, buy a home, save for retirement.

The AFT has filed more than 25 lawsuits against the illegal actions of the Trump administration. If I talked about all of them, I would blow everyone’s bets on the length of the speech. So here are just a few: The Trump administration tried to stop any school—pre-K through college—from doing anything that could be construed as advancing diversity, equity and inclusion, essentially erasing 60 years of civil rights law. And it sought to condition all federal funding for schools on compliance with its dictates. We sued, and we won. We challenged the administration’s policies to detain and deport noncitizen students and faculty for participating in protected political speech. Again, we won. We sued to stop the administration from stripping federal funding from universities and to stop its efforts to control curriculum, hiring and speech. You guessed it—we won.

And then there’s the collective bargaining victories. Like for better wages—from Boston to Kansas City, from Chicago to Los Angeles and so many more. That’s the union difference: Union workers’ wages are 11 percent higher than nonunion workers. Unionized teachers earn 24 percent more in states with collective bargaining, and education support professionals earn 13 percent more.

And as we speak, the city council in New York City is voting to provide every United Federation of Teachers-represented paraprofessional a $10,000 “Respect Check” that the union has relentlessly fought for.

Life is better with a union.

It goes beyond wages. Take the United Educators of San Francisco, whose successful strike this year led to winning premium-free healthcare not only for members but for their families.

And paid parental leave. Kudos to our affiliates in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Fairfax County (Va.), New York City and Oregon for making great strides to help families thrive.

And safe staffing. The UFT has had some incredible wins through arbitration. And in New Jersey, our healthcare union, Health Professionals and Allied Employees, has negotiated 14 contracts in a row with enforceable safe-staffing provisions. And now one of our newest affiliates, Hawaii Nurses and Healthcare Professionals, has created a broad coalition to do the same.

And we have a sacrosanct commitment to retirement security. After a generation-long battle, we won passage of the Social Security Fairness Act that gave millions of public workers the full benefits they had earned but been denied. Our New York unions made great progress this year to fix Tier 6; now younger workers who had inferior pensions can retire in their late 50s. And AFT Massachusetts, AFT Pennsylvania and our Alaska affiliates are making progress on retirement security as well.

There’s also what we have fended off. The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers reached an agreement to stop the cuts of 340 school-based positions for the coming school year. In Utah, a labor coalition including AFT Utah gathered more than 250,000 signatures and got the Legislature to repeal a ban on public sector bargaining. AFT New Hampshire has a mean game of whack-a-mole—defeating right-to-work, school vouchers and campus carry legislation, and successfully challenging a law that restricted teachers’ rights to teach and students’ access to honest history. In New York, our unions—United University Professions and the Public Employees Federation—and a broad community coalition successfully fought to keep SUNY Downstate hospital open after years of threatened closure, and they secured $1.1 billion to upgrade and expand facilities and services.

These are fights we’ll have to keep waging. The Republicans’ Big Ugly Bill cuts $1 trillion in Medicaid, makes the largest cuts to nutrition assistance in history, triples the cost of student debt for tens of millions of Americans, and threatens hundreds of rural hospitals with closure—all to give $1 trillion in new tax cuts to the richest 1 percent. State and local budgets are seeing the strain. We’ll keep fighting, school district by school district and hospital by hospital.

Then there is artificial intelligence—the most seismic industrial revolution of our time. From UUP in New York to the University Professionals of Illinois, we’ve won strong contract language so AI won’t be used to take our jobs, replace our professional judgment, or evaluate or discipline us.

And density matters: Like New York State United Teachers in education, Oregon’s density in healthcare is making a difference. The Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals secured the largest raises in its history—nearly 35 percent over four years for registered nurses. And OFNHP and HNHP in Hawaii have aligned all their contract expiration dates for the next Kaiser battle.

And then there is the protection of our students, our patients and our neighbors from brutal immigration tactics, like the recent fatal shootings by ICE agents in Texas and Maine of two men who should be alive today. Healthcare locals in Oregon won legislation to protect healthcare facilities from immigration enforcement. Educators across the country have fought for their students’ release from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers. Our Twin Cities union family peacefully and courageously stood up to the occupation and harsh immigration enforcement that led to the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and terrified thousands of immigrant families. We were there with mutual aid—food, diapers, rent money, books, toys and safe passage for children to and from school.

The AFT is always at the ready to help—like with our program for states and locals in crisis. Right now, we are helping our members in Florida, who are in the bull’s-eye of anti-union attacks intended to wipe them out. Let me be clear: We are with you every step of the way. And we’re investing in our affiliates through our MOVE grants, which affiliates are using as fuel to engage members, connect with community and strengthen their power.

This is what the power of the people looks like: caring, fighting, showing up and getting shit done.

This administration is waging a war on knowledge, from school voucher schemes, to erasing rather than facing history, to selling the Department of Education off for parts, to its all-out assault on higher education. Here, too, we’re not just fighting back; we’re putting forward big ideas.

The AFT and the American Association of University Professors have launched a national higher education campaign. We’re fighting to keep vital research funded and against attacks on academic freedom. We won collective bargaining rights for higher education employees in Maryland and made strides toward free college in Connecticut and Pennsylvania. In April, the AFT and AAUP released “A Blueprint for Strengthening and Transforming Higher Education”—and we launched it in Texas, because that is ground zero in the attacks on critical thinking.

Through AFT Healthcare’s Code Red campaign, we’re working to secure safe staffing limits, enforceable workplace-violence standards, and contracts that help recruit and retain frontline caregivers. That’s good for patients and for healthcare workers.

And on AI, we have a multifaceted plan: from limiting screens and child-facing AI for young students, to a tech tax to hold tech companies accountable for the massive disruptions their products are creating, to contract language, to our National Academy for AI Instruction to help educators master AI so AI doesn’t master us. AI is not going away, so we’re going to fight for the protections that matter to our members, our families and our communities.

And of course, we give out books, 11 million and counting, to children and families through our Reading Opens the World program.

All this is why the AFT is bigger, badder and more big-hearted than ever.

The AFT is the fastest-growing union in the AFL-CIO. Since our last convention, we have organized 173 more units, with close to 60,000 new members in these new locals. New affiliations have deepened our work in states like Hawaii, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. And many existing locals have grown as well.

I am thrilled to announce that, despite everything that’s been thrown at us, we have hit a historic milestone: We proudly represent more members than ever before. Today the AFT is 1.875 million members strong!

People see the value of belonging. They see that we’re a fighting union—and that we get shit done! It’s amazing. You are amazing. And we are not going to let up. Too few people have the benefit of a union.

Half of all nonunion workers want to join a union, but only 1 in 10 workers in the U.S. belongs to a union. Americans are 14 times more likely to have an Amazon Prime membership than to be a member of a labor union.

In the mid-20th century, when 1 in 3 American workers were in a union, we had the largest middle class and the lowest income inequality. That’s why, in the long term, growing the union movement is key to solving America’s affordability crisis.

But what do we do now? We’ve got to win elections. And here’s why.

As I said, 46 percent of households—55 percent of households of color—did not earn enough to make ends meet in 2024. And inflation has soared since then. That means there’s not enough to put food on the table, gas in the tank and still cover rent. It means constant stress and struggle.

Our members see it every day in the people they teach, heal and protect.

And our members feel it.

This winter we surveyed AFT members about the financial issues that keep them up at night, and 7,500 responded. Nearly three-quarters report living paycheck to paycheck, and more than a third say they are unable to cover all of their monthly bills.

There are few things worse than the fear of not being able to provide for your family. Reading our members’ responses took me back to my teenage years when my father was laid off. I remember my parents whispering about which bills they had to pay now and which they could hold off on until he found work. They tried to protect my sister and me from knowing, but there’s no hiding anxiety that deep.

Millions of Americans believed Trump’s promises to end inflation and make America affordable again on “day one.” It’s “day 542” since he took office. Is anybody paying under $2 a gallon for gas like he promised? What happened to the “DOGE dividend checks”? Or your tariff rebate check? After they got rid of the Obamacare tax credits, have they fixed healthcare?

Trump isn’t worried about being able to afford healthcare, housing or anything else. Since returning to the White House, he has raked in more than $2.2 billion, through what government watchdogs call unprecedented corruption and self-dealing.

The president has called the affordability crisis “bullshit.” And he has said, “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.” But he has made it worse.

Trump’s tariffs sent the strong economy he inherited into a slump, even with an AI bubble. His trade wars are costing American families $1,000 more every year. He started a costly war against Iran that has left us worse off than when it started. Trump said taxpayers wouldn’t pay “one dime” for his ballroom, but it turns out we’re on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars.

We’re not holding our breath for the president to deliver on his promises to lower costs. We’re fighting for economic security and to put more money in our members’ pockets—like the 1 million borrowers we’ve helped get Public Service Loan Forgiveness relief. Our Fight for Affordability builds on that work, with resources to help navigate medical and credit card debt and on other support people are legally entitled to but may not know about.

And we are working with allies in Congress on bold solutions, like increasing the minimum wage to $25 and passing the Working Americans’ Tax Cut Act, which would exempt 104 million lower-income adults from federal taxes—paid for by millionaires paying a fairer share. We’re pushing for increased funding for public schools and colleges. We’re fighting back against the draconian cuts to Medicaid and to rural hospitals. Millions of children risk going hungry because of the heartless changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in the Big Ugly Bill; we are fighting for every single one of them.

But we need majorities in statehouses and in Congress this year, and ultimately the White House, to secure the foundational changes we seek.

Threats to Democracy

We face another grave danger: dire threats to democracy. I know, some of you are thinking, here she goes. But really, when is the erosion so much that we can’t get our freedoms back?

I remember the scoffing when terms like “authoritarian” were first used. And I have been asked repeatedly about why I used the term “fascist” in the book I wrote, Why Fascists Fear Teachers.

Unfortunately, the answer is clearer every day.

I don’t actually care what you call it, but I care very much about what Trump is doing. He is weaponizing the justice system to target political opponents, journalists and dissenters. He is sending armed forces trained for war to police American cities, especially to Democrat- and Black-led cities. He is using the presidency for his own benefit and to enrich himself and his family. He is trying to obstruct free and fair elections to maintain power.

Donald Trump keeps trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He urged on the Jan. 6 rioters and pardoned even those who brutally attacked officers bravely protecting the Capitol.

He is aggressively testing the legal and constitutional limits of presidential power.

Then there are the lies. It started with crowd size but now he lies about everything—about election results, the economy, his critics, the war in Iran. Even the botched paint job on the Reflecting Pool.

And sadly, instead of uniting the country to celebrate the great American experiment of democracy, what did Trump do for the 250th? He held what he described as “the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all.”

Mr. President, you don’t own July Fourth. You own Jan. 6.

I speak and write about democracy a lot because education is vital to understanding, and understanding is vital to acting. If we don’t heed the warnings from the generals who worked for Trump in his first term; if we don’t recognize the hallmarks of authoritarianism—fear, division, isolation and apathy; if we don’t learn the lessons of tyrants, how do we the people have the shared understanding and the urgency to organize and mobilize for democracy to work for working people.

As I wrote last year, fascists fear teachers because they fear a well-educated citizenry. They fear what educators do—the teaching of critical thinking, of honest history, of pluralism—because their brand of greed, power and privilege cannot survive in a democracy of diverse, educated citizens. We see it in the book bans. In the attacks on DEI. In the efforts to control what schools and universities can and cannot teach. And in the attempts to rewrite and whitewash history.

To be clear: Fascists don’t just fear teachers—they fear, loath and try to silence all of us who stand up for democracy, dignity, fairness and opportunity for all.

And stand up we must.

Americans are losing faith in democracy. Seven in 10 U.S. adults say they are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working in the country. Young Americans in particular feel the country is on the wrong track.

I understand the disappointment. But we cannot give up on democracy. Winston Churchill was right when he said in 1947, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried.”

But we must improve it. As John Dewey said, “Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.”

Look at where democracy is being born anew: In Hungary, where this spring 80 percent of voters turned out to reject Viktor Orbán’s far-right agenda, ending his 16-year grip on power. In South Korea, where labor unions spearheaded mass protests and nationwide “strikes to defend democracy” after the president declared martial law. And here at home, at May Day and “No Kings” protests in small towns, suburbs and cities across America, where millions of people turned out to say we will not stand by while democracy is dismantled.

We are not helpless to change what is wrong. We can build a better future and a stronger democracy. But that requires winning in November.

Elections

As big and bad and big-hearted as we are, neither bargaining nor bullhorns alone will get us out of these treacherous times.

To get a working-class tax cut, to pass living-wage legislation, to get limitless money out of politics, to fix the healthcare system, to strengthen education, and to restore vital safety net and climate programs, we have to win majorities in 2026 and the White House in 2028. We have to elect people who support working people, leaders with real plans to make life better.

Strengthening public schools and stopping the reckless runaway train that private school vouchers are becoming should not be a partisan issue. Ensuring everyone who works can earn a living wage should not be a political issue. Fighting so everyone has access to high-quality, affordable healthcare should be a human priority, not one party’s priority. Shoring up Social Security to keep seniors out of destitution should have universal support. Addressing the climate crisis that threatens all humanity should unify all humanity.

Perhaps one day these issues will be bipartisan.

But sadly, the reality is that since Trump’s first term, Republican officeholders’ support for our priority issues averaged just 8 percent, while Democrats averaged 95 percent. Do I wish that was different? Of course. And do I wish Democrats were bolder? I do. But Republican leaders don’t even seem to want to try.

This election will decide whether we are a country governed by the people or ruled by the powerful. A country of opportunity or oligarchy. A country whose people live in freedom or in fear.

Do we want a future where billionaires and a trillionaire continue to grow their wealth at the expense of working people? Or one where working people earn a decent wage, support their families and take a vacation once in a while?

Do we want a future in which classrooms lack resources and life-changing research is abandoned? Or one in which we can nurture the potential of every student and continue to lead the world in bold discoveries?

Do we want a future where big healthcare corporations put profits over people? Or one in which every person—every person—has access to healthcare, and healthcare professionals have the resources, staffing and power to help their patients?

Do we want a future ruled by tech bros and robots? Or a future grounded in dignity and humanity?

Do we want a future in which elections are rigged to maintain one-party control and government is for sale to the highest bidder? Or one in which every person’s vote matters and government serves the people?

That’s what’s at stake in November 2026. And the future we want is within reach. We can win majorities in the House and in the Senate and in state capitals. Majorities who will act on our priorities.

But only if we vote, get others out to vote, and protect the vote. That’s why we are committing to our most ambitious election program ever.

Here’s the math: 1.3 million AFT members and their families live in a place where there is a competitive race in November. 600,000 of us are in battleground gubernatorial states. 464,000 live in the states with the seven top U.S. Senate battleground races. We need to flip four seats to win a Senate majority that works for working folks. And we have more than 1,000 members and voting family members in 86 critical, competitive congressional districts. We only need a net gain of three seats to win a working folks’ majority in the U.S. House. Can we do it?

With the AFL-CIO, we have a goal of reaching 2 million new voters. That means the AFT has to turn out about 200,000 more householders than in the last election. That means we need 28,000 volunteers to make calls, knock on doors and get out the vote—28,000 out of 1.875 million. Can we do it?

And it’s not just about getting out the vote in this election but also about protecting the vote. That’s why we are launching a new Democracy Defenders election protection program. We are recruiting 5,000 members to make sure that people can exercise their right to vote free from intimidation. Our Democracy Defenders will be part of the 50,000 people the AFL-CIO is recruiting for this critical work. Can we do it?

People power can win, but we need to be all in, and that means we need you to be all in. No one can do everything, but each of us can do something to win in November and achieve the better future we fight for.

So are we going to vote? Are we going to get out the vote? Are we going to protect the vote?

Conclusion

That’s the energy and commitment we need to achieve the America we dream of: An America where everyone has opportunity and economic security. An America where everyone’s dignity and freedoms are respected. An America whose democracy not only endures but finally lives up to its noble ideals.

I’ve spoken often this year about Martin Luther King Jr.’s final book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Since January 2025, we have experienced a lot of chaos, fear and division.

Lately, I find myself drawn to another piece of King’s wisdom—that the “arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I still believe that, and I hope you do too.

But the arc doesn’t bend on its own. It bends toward freedom and opportunity through the work you do every day making a difference in people’s lives—in classrooms, at the bedside, in our communities. You bend the arc. Unions bend the arc. Voting bends the arc. The power of the people bends the arc toward justice.

On this 250th anniversary of our nation, that is our responsibility. That is what I am asking you to do, what I am asking us to do—this bigger, badder, big-hearted union and our 1.875 million members.

And when we do, when we bend that arc, we will change the trajectory of our nation and secure a better future for all, from sea to shining sea. Thank you.

Watch the full speech

https://www.aft.org/media/oembed?url=https%3A//youtu.be/oIASmJ3ZO70&max_width=0&max_height=0&hash=Sadl1eN7tbOr37C7SenWNH-Hx34YmVOAuIc7CHYyQyQ

Categories Academic Freedom, Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Democracy, Education Reform, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Funding, Justice, Teachers and Teaching, Unions

Trump Administration Admitted in Court That It Cancelled Major Grants for Political Reasons

By dianeravitch

July 25, 2026 //

The person who is elected President usually says on election night that he will govern on behalf of the American people. He makes a point of obligation to be respectful for all Governors, to send FEMA to any state that has suffered from natural disasters, regardless of whether they vote for him or his rival.

Trump has said frankly that he hates his enemies. He sometimes doesn’t pretend to care about states that did not vote for him.

Aaron Parnas of the Parnas Perspective points out that the Trump administrative made decisions about environmental grants based solely on whether the states supported him in the 2024 elections. This involved billions of dollars in grants.

Parnas wrote:

A major constitutional violation, confirmed in court. The Trump administration admitted in court filings this month that it canceled 284 Biden era clean energy grants worth billions of dollars based solely on whether the recipient state voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 and had two Democratic senators. A lawyer for the Energy Department conceded that none of the terminations were based on any programmatic, statutory, cost reduction, or performance related factor, directly contradicting Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s June congressional testimony that no decisions were made on politics. The Energy Department disputes any contradiction, saying Wright was distinguishing between the review process and the timing of the cancellations, but hundreds of additional grants the department had itself recommended for cancellation were left untouched simply because they sat in states that backed Trump.

Real projects and real money were caught in the fallout. The politically targeted cancellations halted funding for hundreds of energy projects, including electrical grid upgrades in California and Oregon, methane leak reduction efforts in Colorado, and clean hydrogen fuel hubs in California and the Pacific Northwest. The cuts came in October alongside a broader White House push to pressure Democratic lawmakers during a government funding standoff, with Trump publicly threatening to slash what he called Democrat agencies. Some grant recipients have since sued to try to recover their funding, and this is not the first time the Energy Department has admitted politics played a role, since a federal judge already ruled in two earlier cases that more than a dozen grants were improperly canceled for political reasons, though this latest admission is far broader and more detailed.

Democrats say it exposes a dangerous pattern with more to come. Senator Patty Murray and Representative Marcy Kaptur called the cancellations an outright un-American weaponization of government and accused the administration of corruptly abusing its power to punish states over how they voted. The controversy lands as the administration finalizes new rules, expected by October, that would give Trump’s political appointees direct control to review, block, or revoke federal grants across the entire government, worth more than a trillion dollars annually. Budget office director Russell Vought has defended the changes as necessary to ensure democratic control of spending, but critics, including antipoverty groups, scientists, and city leaders, have flooded the government with comments warning the rules would let the administration extend this kind of political targeting far beyond energy grants. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities fellow Devin O’Connor said the willingness to be this blatant in court should be taken as a serious warning about what the new framework could enable nationwide.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Disruption, Environment, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Politics, Trump

Trump Insults Reporters and His Critics at White House Correspondents Dinner

By dianeravitch

July 25, 2026 //

You may recall that the annual White House Correspondents Dinner was interrupted last April 25, then cancelled, after a lone gunman tried to break through security and was stopped.

The event is a venerable tradition. The April dinner was designed for 2,500 guests. The rescheduled dinner was held last night. It was slimmed down to 700 people, which included prominent figures in the media, especially those journalists who cover the White House.

The speech took place at the same time that the Trump Justice Department claims the authority to issue subpoenas to reporters for writing stories that Trump treats as leaks.

Trump did what he does best: he insulted the journalists who cover him, and he ridiculed politicians who are his enemies.

The Washington Post reported:

He said that he had once mixed up CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins, whom he said “never smiles,” with a transgender social media personality, Dylan Mulvaney, after he called the 34-year-old cable news star a “young, attractive woman.”
He said he planned to host twice-weekly fights at the White House.

“We will have sloppy Chris Christie, one of the sloppiest human beings, fighting,” Trump said to silence. “I could mention the governor of Chicago, but I’m going to mention instead Jerry Nadler. Oh my God! They’re fighting for a big piece of cheesecake, big fat piece of cheesecake.”
Then he told a joke about Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California).

“I hate some people,” he said to groans. “He’s a liar, and I called him watermelon head because he has the largest head I’ve ever seen with the smallest neck, pencil neck. How does that make a fat, ugly head on a little pencil neck?”

Trump’s entourage laughed at his vitriolic barbs, but the journalists sat in “stunned silence” as Trump attacked the journalists who cover him.

Trump proved to all who heard him that he has low regard for a free press. But he is a master of insults and disparagement.

Categories Democracy, Extremism, Freedom of the Press, Trump

Trump Lashes Out at Smithsonian Museum for Refusing His Censorship

By dianeravitch

July 25, 2026 //

For more than a year, Trump has pestered the Smithsonian Museum to remove exhibits that shine attention on despicable episodes and phenomena in American history. Trump wants a patriotic version of American history.

The Smithsonian has rejected his bullying, so Trump ordered the National Park Service to place signs around the Smithsonian museums warning visitors about their bias in favor of accurate history.

The Guardian reported:

Donald Trump on Friday ordered the interior department to display signs in front of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History that accuse the institution of inaccuracy.

The order escalates the Trump’s attacks against the Smithsonian, which he and his allies accuse of politicizing the institution by focusing too much on injustices in American history, instead of more triumphant moments such as the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The order directs interior secretary Doug Burgum to huddle with the National Park Service and assistant to the president for domestic policy Vince Haley to come up with some temporary signs to install along the National Parks Service-maintained sidewalks and walkways leading into the museum.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for more details about what these signs would say.

The order says the signs “shall notify visitors that the museum exhibits should be renovated consistent with the findings in the report”. The signs should direct the public to other places where they can get better American history information, the order says.

The same group will also have to produce signs for the public criticizing the Smithsonian for not commemorating sufficiently the Declaration of Independence during the 250th anniversary of its adoption.

The American Historical Association, a group composed of professional historians, praised the Smithsonian Institution’s “commitment to scholarship and accuracy” in a statement earlier this month.

“Historians practice our craft with scholarly integrity according to established standards of evidence, historical inquiry, and professional practice,” the AHA statement reads. “Political interference in professional museum work threatens the accuracy of historical interpretation and erodes public trust in one of our nation’s most important institutions.”

The National Museum of American History declined to comment.

Categories Bias, Bigotry, Censorship, Democracy, Ethics, Extremism, History, Propaganda, Trump

The Century Foundation: Federal Voucher Program Will Increase Segregation

By dianeravitch

July 24, 2026 //

It is a well-established fact that the school choice movement was created in the South in the 1950s to protect segregation. After the Brown decision of 1954, whites resisted desegregation with e Rey strategy they could dream of. One such was to offer vouchers to every student to attend the school of their choice. The predictable result was to protect segregated schools.

In this century, voucher promoters sell them as parental choice, “saving poor kids from failing public schools,” etc.

But unless an effort is made to enrcuage racial integration, choice will lead to segregation.

Halley Potter of The Century Foundation wrote this report. I urge you to open the link and read it in full.

Potter wrote:

In rural Northampton, North Carolina, a private Christian school called Northeast Academy is 99 percent White in a county that’s 40 percent White. It receives about half of its tuition from taxpayers, through the state’s private school voucher program. Northeast is one of a number of private schools known as “segregation academies,” because they were founded during desegregation so that White parents could avoid having their children educated in an integrated setting.

Segregation academies ought to be a thing of the past, but they could experience a resurgence—paid for with taxpayer dollars—under the new federal private school voucher scheme enacted as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA). Bringing back segregation academies using taxpayer dollars is part of the Trump administration’s radical two-pronged approach to undermine public education. The first tactic in the Trump administration’s plan to undercut public school systems is to dramatically reduce the federal role in education by dismantling federal programs, reducing oversight, attempting to cut federal funding for K–12 schools, and working to close the U.S. Department of Education. The second tactic is actively working toward privatization through an unprecedented federal private school voucher program.

How the Voucher Plan Would Work . . .

In July 2025, OBBA established a new federal tax credit—known as the Education Freedom Tax Credit—that, in effect, serves as a private school voucher program. The program allows individuals, beginning January 1, 2027, to contribute up to $1,700 per year toward private entities known as scholarship granting organizations (SGOs) and receive a dollar-for-dollar return of their money in the form of a federal tax credit. SGOs then would then be able to decide how to distribute the funds as scholarships to applicant students for them to spend on education. There is no cap on the size of such scholarships, and no limit on the number of individuals that can claim the tax credit. While recipient students may be able to use scholarship funds to pay for some things like tutoring or activity fees at public schools, because public schools are essentially free, it is anticipated that the vast majority of these funds will go toward private school enrollment.

There are very few requirements of SGOs in the statute, and it appears that any organization in a participating state that meets the criteria will be allowed to participate. SGOs must give scholarships to ten or more students who do not all attend the same school, must spend at least 90 percent of the income on scholarships, must give priority to students who received scholarships the previous year and to siblings, cannot earmark funds for a particular student, and must ensure that students come from families earning no more than 300 percent of the area median gross income. Essentially everything else will likely be up to the SGO, as the program’s regulations are not expected to add additional guardrails. It appears an SGO could, for example, be set up to fund scholarships to Christian schools only. Because private schools are not subject to all of the same civil rights laws as public schools, SGOs could also likely discriminate against students based on disability or sexual orientation.

While starting the process with individual donations gives the program the veneer of a charity operation, this is a ruse. All this does is mask who is truly bearing the cost of the program. In actuality, the donors to SGOs bear no cost, as they are later fully reimbursed by the federal government through the dollar-for-dollar tax credit. The federal government—using taxpayer dollars sent to the supposed donors—bears the entire cost of the program. Estimates of the cost to taxpayers range from around $4 billion to over $50 billion annually.

Moreover, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s language regarding the tax credit program is very misleading. Their fact sheet states: “A recent report estimates that the Education Freedom Tax Credit will generate an additional $24 billion in education funding annually.” That makes it sound like this is a revenue-creating program rather than one that bears a huge federal cost.

States and the District of Columbia have to decide annually whether or not to opt out of or into the voucher program. As of July 6, 2026, twenty-nine states had indicated that they plan to opt in for the first year of the program. However, federal regulations guiding the program are not expected until September. Further complicating matters, at least eighteen states will have new governors and the District of Columbia will have a new mayor when the program launches in 2027 because of term limits, and that number could be as high as thirty-six after this fall’s elections.

. . . To Increase Segregation and Undermine Public Education

One of the dangers of private school voucher programs—alongside their well-demonstrated negative effects on students’ academic outcomes, civil rights violations, and destabilization of public school funding—is that they can exacerbate racial and socioeconomic segregation.

Diverse learning environments that bring students of different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds together are one of the most powerful educational tools we have. Integrated schools help encourage critical thinking, boost academic achievement, and build the skills for working across lines of difference that are essential for our democracy. The growth of private school voucher programs threatens to roll back progress on integration, limit educational opportunity, and further fracture the educational landscape by race and class.

As state leaders and advocates weigh whether or not to opt into the federal voucher program, they should consider the evidence on how the program could deepen inequality and further racial and socioeconomic divides. New analysis in this piece shows that in some metro areas in states that are still deciding whether to opt out of or into the federal voucher program, private schools already drive more than 40 percent of the racial segregation in schools.

The Segregationist History of Private School Vouchers

Private school enrollment nationwide is disproportionately White and wealthy. As of 2021, 9 percent of American schoolchildren attended private schools. Sixty-five percent of private school students are White, compared to 45 percent of public school students. Private school students are about twice as likely as public school students to come from higher-income households, and private school attendance is concentrated among the highest earners.

Private school voucher programs were started by segregationists across the South in the 1950s and 1960s as part of efforts by Southern leaders engaged in “massive resistance” to avoid integrating their schools in the wake of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling. Many communities opened all-White private schools, which became known as segregation academies. Local governments slashed public school funding and instead created public subsidies for these private schools—including voucher programs to reimburse tuition as well as tax credits.

The courts eventually struck down many of those voucher programs tied to segregation academies, but current voucher programs still show troubling patterns of segregation. Roughly 300 private schoolsthat were founded as segregation academies still receive money from publicly funded voucher programs. Most voucher money goes to students who are already attending private schools, and data has shown that private schools tend to raise their tuition after the introduction of voucher programs. For example, when Iowa started a new voucher program in 2023–24, two-thirds of vouchers went to students who were already attending private schools. By 2026, tuition at some of the state’s largest private high schools had grown by as much as 50 percent. It is important to note that vouchers typically do not cover the full cost of tuition, making private schools still out of reach for most low-income families, and so the voucher programs tend to function mostly as cost-reducing schemes for wealthier families sending their children to private schools. In Arizona, for example, half of all voucher recipients come from the wealthiest quartile of zip codes.

There are some private school voucher programs that target low- to middle-income students and enroll mostly students of color, such as the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, the oldest operating school voucher program in the United States. However, research shows that even students in these programs, which arguably have the highest potential for integration, by and large did not give students greater access to integrated schools.

Furthermore, some voucher programs that started out serving mostly students of color have now seen an increase in White students in recent years. When North Carolina’s private school voucher program launched in 2014, for example, a majority of students receiving vouchers were Black, and just 27 percent were White; however, as the program expanded incrementally from one serving only low-income students to one with no income limits, the percentage of vouchers going to White students grew to 73 percent, in a state where only 51 percent of school-aged children are White. A 2024 investigation by ProPublica into North Carolina’s private school voucher program found thirty-nine schools that fit the profile of segregation academies that were receiving public money through voucher programs.

The new federal private school voucher program specifies that participation is open to families earning up to 300 percent of area median gross income, which means it would be open to roughly 90 percent of students nationwide. With near universal eligibility, the federal program could easily be susceptible to similar patterns of segregation, disproportionately benefiting White students and furthering segregation between public and private schools.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Extremism, Privatization, Racism, School Choice, Segregation, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

Afghanistan: The Corruption of Boys’ Education

By dianeravitch

July 24, 2026 //

The Guardian posted a fascinating and depressing article about the “education” of boys in Afghanistan.

It is a reminder that religious education is likely to be indoctrination.

It is a reminder of the importance of separation of church and state.

It is a reminder of why public funds should not pay for religious education.

It is a reminder of the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, who guaranteed freedom of religion and prohibited the establishment of any state religion.

In the world of the Taliban, critical thinking and questioning are not permitted.

In the world of religious zealots, indoctrination is the goal of education.

In the U.S., critical thinking and questioning are necessary for our democracy to thrive.

Which path we will choose?

The Guardian reports:

Before he leaves for Kabul University each morning, Hashmat* checks his face for the beard he has been ordered to grow. Male students are required to grow their facial hair and wear traditional Afghan clothes and those who fall short are punished. Hashmat says he recently saw a classmate beaten for wearing trousers.

“They look at you before they listen to you. If your appearance is wrong, you are already in trouble before the class begins,” he says.

Five years after the ultra-conservative Islamists of the Taliban retook Afghanistan, students have described to the Guardian a collapsing education system, with women banned, lecturers leaving and teaching increasingly focused on religious subjects and discipline.

University has lost its purpose. It feels more like a … place where curiosity is banned and remaining silent ordered

Qader

Students are required to attend religious lectures and pray in public every day, sometimes for two hours at a time, says Hashmat. The lectures are about Islam, conduct and obedience. They are not optional. In some cases, he says, they are held during time that would otherwise be used for regular academic courses.

“I am missing my actual classes to sit in a lecture about obeying. That is what they [the Taliban] think education is for. Everyone talks about the girls who were banned, but nobody talks about what is happening to the boys who were allowed to stay.”

Another student studying in central Afghanistan said the problem is not only weak teaching, but also the disappearance of debate and questioning from the classroom. “We are expected to listen, not to question,” says Qader*. “Since the fall of Kabul, the university has lost its purpose. It feels more like a madrassa now — a place where curiosity is banned and remaining silent ordered.”

Hashmat studies journalism, a subject shaped by digital tools, online platforms, verification, ethics and technology, but as he listens in class, he says he wonders whether the person teaching the course understands the subject well enough to teach it.

“He is teaching us about the modern world while struggling to use PowerPoint in the class. How can you teach journalism technology if you do not understand what technology is?”

Hashmat’s account matches those of more than 20 students interviewed by phone at public and private universities in seven provinces across Afghanistan – Kabul, Kandahar, Helmand, Nangarhar, Bamiyan, Balkh and Wardak.

Teachers come to class and read from old notes they cannot explain … it feels like we are back in high school

Zalmay

Afghanistan’s higher-education sector contracted sharply between 2019 and 2024, according to Unesco, with female enrolment down to zero by 2024 and male enrolment falling from 310,369 in 2019 to 188,957 in 2024.

Kabul University still looks like a university from the outside. The buildings are open, male students still attend, exams are held and degrees are issued. But students say much of what makes it a university has been hollowed out.

Experienced professors have left the country, stopped teaching or been pushed aside. And ideologically aligned Taliban lecturers have been hired in their place. In some departments, recent graduates and even undergraduates are teaching.

*Names have been changed.

Categories History, International, Religion, Separation of church and state

Texas: 350 Teachers Were Investigated for Comments They Made After Charlie Kirk’s Death

By dianeravitch

July 23, 2026 //

The Texas Monthly reported on the aftermath of the murder of Charlie Kirk. Texas legislators wanted to punish public employees that posted “inappropriate” responses to his death. Their scrutiny ensnared 350 teachers who had not responded in a way that expressed sympathy. Eventually almost all the teachers were cleared of wrongdoing, but in the near term, they lived under a cloud of fear, fear that they would be fired, fear that they would lose their license. The hero in this story was the Texas AFT, the union, which stepped in to defend the teachers, few of whom could afford to pay for legal defense.

Naina Srivastava of The Texas Monthly wrote:

In her 28 years as a teacher working at schools in the Harris County area, Jennifer Courtemanche felt most at home at Lee High School. That changed for the 54-year-old English teacher on September 10. Hours after conservative influencer Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Courtemanche made a series of posts on Facebook about the right-wing influencer’s death and was met with dozens of comments, texts, and voicemails from strangers attacking her positions. Someone—it’s unclear who—reported her to the Goose Creek Consolidated Independent School District, while others attacked her directly. “I hope you’re next,” one read. “I hope you die by violence in front of your family,” said another. “Kill yourself,” said a third.

Courtemanche, who was born in Dallas and has lived in Texas for her whole life, had made four posts about Kirk that day. The first, in response to Utah Governor Spencer Cox’s statement that Kirk’s assassination was a tragedy, read, “I’ll bet if the victim had been Black or Brown or a Democrat influencer he’d have been singing a different tune. Could Kirk have baited just ONE too many people? Could this have been the consequences of his actions catching up with him?” The second was a repost of a friend’s post, containing a list of controversial statements on civil rights, the LGBTQ community, and gun deaths that Kirk had made throughout the years. The third was another repost, this time from Occupy Democrats, a progressive advocacy group, that quoted Kirk— “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually,”—with the caption “#karma.” And the last was another Occupy Democrats repost about President Donald Trump and other Republicans’ silence after Melissa Hortman, a former speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, was assassinated in her home last June.

At some point, Courtemanche’s posts reached the attention of Texas State Representative Briscoe Cain, a Republican from Deer Park who represents her district. On X, he called for her immediate termination for “celebrating the news of Kirk’s assasination.” That post now has over 550,000 views.

That night, Courtemanche recalls furiously searching for the settings to make her account private. A half hour before midnight, she received another voicemail. “I found your address. Someone is going to come to your house and f— you up, bitch,” an anonymous caller said. As messages continued to pour in, she worried about how people in the community might react. Courtemanche said she and her husband didn’t even go to church that Sunday, despite being regulars. Scared, Courtemanche reached out to her school principal, asking what she should do. He told her to call her local police department and to contact the district’s Human Resources. She did.

The next morning, the HR department rang her back. The district told her not to come in and that she was being put on administrative leave. By the next Monday, Courtemanche received an email from the district notifying her that it had reported her to the Texas Education Agency.

In the wake of Kirk’s assassination, there was a wide push by the Texas GOP to discipline teachers who’d made posts about his passing that it deemed offensive. Two days after Kirk died, TEA Commissioner Mike Morath instructed ISDs to report instances of educators sharing inappropriate content online to his agency. In total, 350 complaints were levied, including those against Courtemanche. According to documents obtained by Texas Monthly via public-records requests, some school districts, like Goose Creek, chose to terminate employees after conducting investigations. Others simply reported the complaint for a state investigation into the matter. But more than six months after Kirk’s death, it appears the discipline Texas politicians promised hasn’t gone very far. All but two of the 350 complaints against teachers had been dismissed as of April, according to the testimony of Keith Ingram, an attorney with the Office of the Attorney General.

Courtemanche’s case is an instructive one outlining how the state attempted to crack down on anti-Kirk speech. On September 22, less than two weeks after her original posts, the Goose Creek school board voted to terminate her contract by a vote of 2–0 with four abstentions. Mercedes Renteria III, one of the two members who voted for Courtemanche’s termination, gave an interview with the town’s local paper, TheBaytown Sun. “[S]he is an incompetent teacher, and she shouldn’t have crossed the line and spoken publicly on social media and every other venue to say bad things about Charlie Kirk,” he said. “I think she should be fired, and karma’s a bitch. How about that?”

Courtemanche immediately sought legal representation via the Texas American Federation of Teachers, a statewide labor union. By November, she had reached a settlement with the school that cleared her of wrongdoing. She chose to retire, but per the settlement, she waited until December 31 to resign, giving her an additional year’s worth of credit—worth $200 each month—under the teacher-retirement system.

Courtemanche was not alone. In January, the Texas AFT, which has more than 66,000 members, filed a lawsuit against the TEA, arguing Morath’s instructions for districts to report teachers violated teachers’ First Amendment right to speech and “unleashed a wave of retaliation and disciplinary actions against teachers.” The AFT contends that simply being placed under investigation—even if the probe leads nowhere—negatively impacts an educator’s reputation. When the state opens an investigation, it places a flag on the educator’s certification and can even include them on the agency’s public registry listing employees “Not Eligible For Hire,” according to the TEA’s website. Such investigations can result in the sanction or revocation of their teaching certificate.

AFT President Zeph Capo estimates that thirty to forty educators reached out to the AFT regarding discipline about Kirk posts. Some ended up being part of the litigation, while the AFT offered verbal counseling and individual representation to others. Capo said the organization’s biggest concern was for educators who were unable to renew their certificates while under investigation. If an educator’s certificate lapses, the school district could fire him or her automatically, he said.

“Just imagine you’ve went to school, you’ve paid a lot of money, you are now at risk of not being able to renew your certification to keep your job, all because of something you said on a Facebook post that had nothing to do with kids or anyone else,” Capo said. “That has an absolute chilling effect on those individuals.”

The Texas AFT’s lawsuit is supported by six anonymous teachers’ experiences, though filed on behalf of all its members. One teacher was placed on the “do not hire” registry for three months, preventing them from finding work, according to the lawsuit. Another was unable to renew her certification because she was under investigation and may lose her job this month as a result.

Texas Monthly’s investigation found that some teachers were reported for fairly tame posts, including reposts of popular progressive infographics regarding Kirk’s statements and gun violence. An educator who wrote, “He was ok with children dying in schools. I am not saying he should have been shot. He defended guns above all else,” received a complaint. Another educator posted a screenshot of a Newsweek article with the headline, “Charlie Kirk Says Gun Deaths ‘Unfortunately’ Worth It To Keep 2nd Amendment,” with the caption, “First Amendment meets Second Amendment.” That educator also received a complaint. To some observers, these posts, in particular, seem to squarely fall under the protection of the First Amendment.

Because teachers are public employees, however, their free speech rights are limited in some contexts. There have not been any notable Supreme Court rulings that directly address teachers and students’ social media usage, but the landmark 1969 Supreme Court ruling in Tinker v. Des Moines established that if speech outside the classroom “materially and substantially disrupt(s) the work and discipline of the school,” it can be restricted.

Daxton “Chip” Stewart, a Texas Christian University professor and First Amendment expert, said that the question at the heart of the Kirk cases is whether speech outside of the classroom may have affected lessons within it. “Posts about Charlie Kirk are undoubtedly a matter of public concern,” Stewart said. “That’s core First Amendment-protected speech. People should be able to comment about that kind of thing. So really, it comes down to, does that speech interfere with teachers’ [abilities] to do their jobs.”

This question has come up repeatedly in the complaints to the TEA obtained via records request. For example, in an email to an educator with the district who received a complaint for her posts, the Eagle Mountain–Saginaw ISD superintendent wrote, “You do not get to stop being a teacher off contract hours. You continue to be seen as a public service provider that is entrusted to take care of a vulnerable, impressionable community of children. It is expected that you conduct yourself in a manner at all times that is conducive to earning and maintaining the trust of the community, parents, students and coworkers.”

Stewart believes this standard is unfair. If a teacher spoke about Charlie Kirk in the classroom, it would be a different story, a “no-brainer,” he said. But in teachers’ private time, the state must prove that the speech is something outrageous for it to be punishable. (Ultimately, both Eagle Mountain–Saginaw and the TEA declined to take action against the educator.)

In the past, the TEA has protected teachers’ right to speech that is controversial. In 2019, a Fort Worth English teacher asked president Trump for help removing the “illegals” from Fort Worth’s school system. She was fired. Morath said that her tweet was protected by the First Amendment, that the school district had overstepped, and that she should be reinstated. Later, courts upheld her firing.

That Morath is now taking a different stance strikes Capo, who agreed the Fort Worth teacher should not have been fired, as evidence of viewpoint discrimination in the TEA when it comes to free speech. “At least be consistent,” he said. “If you’re going to fire people for speech, then fire them for speech no matter which political direction it runs, and if you’re not going to fire them for speech, then you should be doing the same regardless of [the] political direction it comes from.”

The case between the TEA and Texas AFT hinges on the interpretation of Morath’s directive: whether it constituted a policy that school districts were required to follow. The letter sent to superintendents noted that if superintendents were made aware of “additional instances of inappropriate content being shared,” they should report it to the agency. In a September media statement, Morath said, “While all educators are held to a high standard of professionalism, there is a difference between comments made in poor taste and those that call for and incite further violence — the latter of which is clearly unacceptable.”

Capo said Morath has failed to define what would be considered “poor taste” or “inciting violence,” leading many districts to report teachers improperly out of caution. Indeed, some districts, like Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, reported they were influenced to submit complaints to the TEA because of the letter, even though they believed their employees’ speech fell within their rights. In an email to the TEA, the general counsel for Cy-Fair ISD, for one, wrote, “The District reviewed each instance of reported misconduct related to the death of Charlie Kirk individually and in light of the legal standards applicable to the specific situations. Because none of the posted comments were determined to violate District policies and to fall within the First Amendment rights of each employee, the complaints do not fall within the reporting requirements of Chapter 22A of the Texas Education Code.” However, the district still chose to report the complaint, it said, because of the notice letter.

So far, the courts have sided with the TEA. At an April preliminary injunction hearing in the U. S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Alan Albright, appointed by Donald Trump in 2018, said he failed to see how Morath’s letter infringed upon the First Amendment. “He’s not recommending punishment here,” Albright said. “He’s recommending that if the superintendents determine that inappropriate statements, in their view, were made, that there might be, you know, one of these investigations. I don’t understand how that’s chilling.”

The Texas AFT now has the option to appeal the ruling, but Capo said it likely will not, owing to the dismissal of most of the complaints against teachers. He said every AFT member who was terminated has now reached a favorable settlement or returned to work without disciplinary action. “Ultimately, what I was really looking for, it has been accomplished,” Capo said. He told me the union now believes that its other members won’t have to worry about state sanctions or issues that could impact their teaching certifications.

For Courtemanche, however, even reaching a settlement felt like a bittersweet resolution. She told me she’s just starting to heal from what happened. Some people she went to church with unfriended her, she said. “And so I guess if they weren’t friends to begin with, I could still go and worship with them. But if they pass judgment on me, that’s on them,” she told me.

Initially, when the social media firestorm started, Courtemanche feared she’d be pushed out of the classroom before she was ready to stop teaching. But after the investigation, she was eager to retire. She’s eligible to find work at a different school next year, but she told me it’s unlikely she’ll go back.She said the environment for educators has gotten worse in Texas, and she doesn’t want to subject herself to further difficulties.

Categories Censorship, Freedom of Speech, Texas

Arkansas: “Abstinence Only” Approach is a Failure for These Teen Moms

By dianeravitch

July 23, 2026 //

The leaders of Arkansas–such as Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders–oppose abortion. They also oppose birth control. They apparently don’t teach sex education. They rely on “abstinence education,” or just say no.

But it’s not working the state has the second highest rate of births to unwed teen mothers.

The Arkansas Times reviewed a movie that explains the human consequences of this policy.

Watching “Baby/Girls,” a documentary about teen mothers in Arkansas that screened Wednesday at the Bentonville Film Festival, might be an impossible task if it weren’t for the youthful optimism of its subjects. The seriousness of what’s happened to them hasn’t sunk in, at least not in the opening scenes. They still speak in soft, girlish tones. They wear fake eyelashes, dye their hair teal. One giggles while trying to recall the word for “uterus,” the organ her baby will be emerging from in just a matter of weeks. By the end of the film, the light has gone out of their eyes.

One girl has taken off with her baby and run away from home. Another is pregnant again, on an 18-month waiting list for childcare, and desperately poor. The third, living in a dingy flop house with her boyfriend, chooses to give her baby up for adoption after leaving the infant alone on at least one occasion so she can hang out with her sisters.

“Baby/Girls” is cinematic, but it’s a hard watch, and I don’t think the people who really need to see it — the politicians that enforce abstinence education and work to outlaw abortion, and the religious fanatics who treat sex like we’re living in Victorian England — will even bother.

But the movie isn’t just for pro-lifers; it’s for the rest of us who need to be reminded that unplanned pregnancy is, for many women, especially teenagers, one of the absolute worst things that could ever happen, leading to a cycle of poverty, family dysfunction and more teen pregnancy.

According to Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, “Arkansas is still 49th in the country for teen births with a rate that is almost double the national teen birth rate of 13.” (That is: On average, 22 of every 1,000 women aged 15 to 19 give birth annually in Arkansas.)

The movie is a tastefully-done “scared straight” for the grownups in Arkansas who should be protecting these girls. I was not surprised to find on the film’s website that its creators, Jackie Jesko and Alyse Walsh, have launched a campaign advocating for sex education, birth control and better support for pregnant teens in schools, with links to Arkansas organizations including Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ LARC (Long-acting Reversible Contraception) Initiative.

“Baby/Girls” traces three girls — Grace, 15; Olivia, 16; and Ariana, 17 — from pregnant-and-near-bursting until their kids are infants or toddlers. They’re all living in Compassion House, a home for teen moms in Springdale, at the documentary’s start.

The filmmakers are given incredibly intimate access to their births, family dynamics, home life, court dates and the like. We quickly learn all three grew up in terrible, neglectful situations — and their pregnancies are a continuation of a terrible, unending cycle. Grace was molested at age 3 by a man she thought to be her biological dad. Her mother was a drug addict. Olivia’s mom committed suicide when Olivia was 8 years old, and when we meet Olivia, a judge has ordered her to Compassion House because she’s decided that her grandmother’s house is not a safe place for her to be. Finally, Ariana, somehow the most well-adjusted, is the product of rape. Her mother — wire-thin and missing her teeth — is emotionally abusive and absent.

It’s disturbing to watch the girls explain why they ever thought this would go differently. Grace watched the lives of glamorous teen moms on TikTok. They looked happy. “I wanted to feel that,” she says. Olivia simply didn’t realize that sex made babies — ”I didn’t even realize I had three holes down there,” she says, chortling.

But none of them got pregnant on purpose. Grace forgot to take her birth control consistently. Ariana was too embarrassed to ask her mom for condoms. For Olivia, “it just kind of happened.” On the subject of abortion, Ariana is the only one who speaks about it directly. She’s religious. It was never an option.

Crystal, the movie’s wise sage who works at Compassion House, says that girls aren’t learning basic sex education in school anymore.

None of that matters now, as the girls’ lives come spectacularly undone once they leave the shelter and support of Compassion House and move out on their own after the birth of their kids. The girls’ lives go so horribly wrong that I almost wondered if parts of the film had been staged.

Grace, a beautiful, impossibly childish girl, runs away again to live the life of a degenerate teen, vaping and doing shots around a bonfire. She leaves her baby behind with her mother, who, with four other kids to raise, is buckling under the responsibility. Grace is mystified as to why she doesn’t want to be a mom. It’s not your fault. Society failed you, the filmmakers want us to scream. And I do, silently.

Olivia goes away to juvenile detention for a year, missing her baby’s first steps. The second she gets her ankle monitor off after returning home, she takes off with her kid.

Ariana’s story is the saddest because, for a moment, the filmmakers let us believe she might beat the odds. Early in the film, still at Compassion House, we see Ariana’s list of goals, written out in pencil. She wants to get her own apartment and a nursing degree, find childcare, get on food stamps. It’s an impossible list for a 17-year-old but she seems so determined and clear-eyed.

Even with a supportive partner and a tidy home, reality catches up to her. Without a GED and no time to finish it, she can’t get a better job and can’t afford childcare. The bills are piling up. And then she ends up pregnant again.

How did we get here? The movie is careful not to blame the obvious scapegoats — pro-lifers and right-wing politicians — and equally careful to not suggest abortion as the only or even the most immediate solution. Crystal, a woman who manages Compassion House and a former teen mom herself, says that she’s a Christian and she’s pro-choice, but “the pro-life movement won the war against abortion a long time ago.” Her role in all this is just to give these girls a chance to survive.

I want to be mad at the film for not advocating harder for abortion access but also have to agree that teen pregnancy is a multi-headed hydra that will be solved with a lot of different approaches. Helping girls know how to identify a uterus before they start having sex seems like an obvious place to start.

Categories Accountability, Arkansas, Childhood, Cruelty, Gender, Poverty

Part I: Venture Philanthropy — When Billionaires Play School

Part II: Yale Said “Yes” — And Charged It to Prestige

Part III: The Damage Ledger — Twenty-Five Years of “Disruption”

The Human Cost

Part IV: The Scandal Hall of Fame — From Procurement Fraud to Federal Prison

John Deasy — The iPad That Broke LAUSD

Barbara Byrd-Bennett — The Federal Prison Graduate

Robert Runcie — The Perjury Arrest

Alberto Carvalho — The AI Echo of the iPad Disaster

Part V: The Carousel — How Failed Superintendents Get Recycled

Part VI: Buying the Boardroom — How Venture Philanthropy Captured School Governance

Part VII: The Network Map — 1,000 Alumni and Counting

Part VIII: Yale — Laundering a Legacy in Ivy

The Synthesis: What Twenty-Five Years Actually Taught Us

Epilogue: The Ghost That Won’t Be Exorcised

Master Source List: The Ghost of Eli Broad & The Broad Center at Yale

🏛️ The Broad Center at Yale SOM — Official Sources

📊 Academic Research & Empirical Studies

🗞️ Investigative Journalism & Policy Criticism

⚖️ Barbara Byrd-Bennett — Federal Conviction (Chicago)

⚖️ Robert Runcie — Broward County Perjury Arrest

🤖 Alberto Carvalho — LAUSD FBI Raid & AllHere AI Scandal

📌 Quick Citation Reference Guide

Watch the full speech

How the Voucher Plan Would Work . . .

. . . To Increase Segregation and Undermine Public Education

The Segregationist History of Private School Vouchers

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