COMMENTARY: When It Comes to ‘Dreamers,’ Schools Have a Trump Problem – Education Week

COMMENTARY: When It Comes to ‘Dreamers,’ Schools Have a Trump Problem – Education Week

Education Week logoBruce Fuller, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley, works on how schools and civic activists push to advance pluralistic communities. He is a regular opinion contributor to edweek.org where he trades views with Lance Izumi, on the other side of the political aisle.

America’s high schools rarely offer a warm cocoon for our youths, secluded from pressing social ills. Neighborhood disparities deepen wide gaps in learning. The cowardice of pro-gun politicians leads to bloodshed inside classrooms.

President Donald Trump chose Easter Sunday to again vilify the children of immigrants, falsely claiming that dangerous “caravans” of immigrants are crossing the border to take advantage of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. This follows the president’s implications earlier this year that young immigrants were fording the Rio Grande River simply to join the cross-border gang MS-13 and infiltrate our schools.

The future of DACA, which covers less than a quarter of the 3.6 million undocumented residents who arrived before their 18th birthday, remains uncertain. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal on the Trump administration’s attempt to unilaterally end the program, leaving DACA recipients in limbo as the legal battle works its way through the lower appeals courts. That didn’t stop Attorney General Jeff Sessions from traveling to California to warn city officials they cannot provide safe sanctuary for these youths…

But students are pushing back against Trump’s efforts to inject fear and prejudice into the nation’s high schools. Hundreds walked out of Stephen F. Austin High School in Houston last month, after Dennis Rivera-Sarmiento, a senior, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

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Could Democrats, Trump Team Up on K-12 Issues? – Education Week

Could Democrats, Trump Team Up on K-12 Issues? – Education Week

October 10, 2017

Hemmed in by a Republican-controlled Congress and President Donald Trump, the top Democrats in the Senate and House have been working to parry GOP advances in general. But when it comes to education, could Democrats cut deals with Trump on at least a few issues?

The two parties have shown some willingness to find common ground in other areas. Prime example: the deal Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi struck with Trump last month to raise the debt ceiling and keep the federal government running through the rest of 2017.

The move stunned GOP leadership. But if Trump is willing to work publicly in that way with leaders of a party he frequently blasts, are there any deals to be had on education and…

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Catching Up: John B. King Jr. on Trump, ESSA, and Heading Back to the Classroom

Catching Up: John B. King Jr. on Trump, ESSA, and Heading Back to the Classroom

Education Week — Last year at this time then-U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. was on a back-to-school bus tour through a swath of the South, touring school districts hit by a hurricane, and dropping by a charter high school in New Orleans to talk to students about a recent turnaround effort.

Now he’s the president and CEO of the Education Trust, which looks out for poor and minority children. And he’s got a new side gig, teaching an education policy class at the University of Maryland.

I caught up with King at his offices in Washington and talked to him about some of the changes in Washington over the past year and where he sees things heading…

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