Trump’s Attack on Education
Virginia Lea
In 1954, Brown vs Board of Education established the principle that segregated schooling was against the law. At the time, for many White and Black people, it seemed like a bold and socially just advance; for others, it was a problematic development that would lead to negative outcomes. Racists saw an inevitable mixing of people from the different sides of the racial divide; some Black and White people saw what was intended as an equitable advance in education as the context for white supremacy to define what went on in the classroom. Up to the passage of Brown, Black children had been taught by Black teachers, and race was not an issue that these teachers used, consciously or unconsciously, to hold lower expectations of their Black kids than teachers generally held about their White kids.
Trump’s current attack on the federal government seeks to abolish the Department of Education, except insofar as it supports the proliferation of private and Christian schools. Gone would be any support for the most vulnerable children in the public school system nationwide, who have been benefiting from Funding for TITLE 1. Gone would be the oversight of the federal government in to state educational practices, responding to those that violate federal law and are discriminatory towards students of color, girls, LGBTQ students, and immigrants.
We would love to know whether your schools are doing well in terms of providing our children with an equitable educational experience; or is your school bending to pressure to do away with infrastructure, values, and activities that further DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion)? Please respond to this blog. We will tally and post an analysis of your responses.
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