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  • Popular textbook evaluation organization hasn’t followed the science

    Popular textbook evaluation organization hasn’t followed the science


    An elementary student reads a book to himself during class.

    Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

    California’s recent NAEP report card showing our fourth- and eighth-grade students performing below pre-pandemic levels in reading is an urgent wake-up call. 

    As California considers how best to support literacy improvement, one area we need to get right is approving curriculum materials based on evidence, not convenience.

    Unfortunately, one of the main resources states rely on for this is EdReports, an independent nonprofit whose evaluations many states and districts turn to when choosing a commercial curriculum.

    On the surface, this may seem like an efficient and convenient solution.

    However, EdReports, which was launched in 2015 to help districts identify instructional materials aligned to the then-newly adopted Common Core State Standards (CCSS), has long been out of sync with the body of scientific research about effective reading instruction, particularly in the earliest grades. Instead, it has used as its framework the Common Core Standards, which do not robustly address the importance of early foundational reading skills.

    In 2024, journalist Linda Jacobson of The 74 Million published the article “Critics Call ‘Consumer Reports’ of School Curriculum Slow to Adapt to the Science of Reading,” and Natalie Wexler highlighted flawed rubrics, lack of rater reliability and overstuffed textbooks that contain “a lot of time-wasting fluff” in her Forbes article “Literacy Experts Say Some EdReports Ratings Are Misleading.” These articles illuminate the underlying problems with EdReports’ methodologies. To date, EdReports has evaluated curricula against a subset of the Common Core State Standards and its own internally developed criteria — not against scientific research and not including any focus on English learners.

    Concerns about this misalignment are not new. More than four years ago, Louisa Moats, a nationally recognized expert on reading instruction, warned about flaws in the Common Core standards for young students:

    “There is so much in the Common Core State Standards that just doesn’t square with how the majority of children learn to read. For instance, there are incorrect assumptions made about pacing, some of which are simply wrong and others that reflect the needs of only a fraction of students in any given classroom.

    “Unfortunately, some of the people who led the development of the CCSS were more well-versed in research pertaining to middle and high school and didn’t have a strong grasp of beginning reading instruction. They didn’t understand the complexities of teaching young children to read. They didn’t know all the data about the pace of learning, the individual differences kids bring, and the sheer volume of practice that most children need to consolidate reading skills.”

    As a result, reviews on EdReports frequently promote curricula that experts have widely criticized for not being effective at teaching reading, while giving lower ratings to some that have been shown to improve literacy.

    Despite these underlying flaws in its methodology, many state education agencies continue to rely heavily on the convenience of EdReports reviews to create “approved lists” of curricula. EdReports’ sphere of influence has grown to include other websites, such as the California Curriculum Collaborative (CalCurriculum), which provides guidance to California school districts on adopting and implementing instructional materials based on EdReports and using the same problematic and outdated evaluation criteria.

    Notably, many of the states that have shown the most improvement in reading — including Louisiana and Tennessee — did not rely on EdReports and instead used their own process for selecting curricula.

    On Jan. 28, EdReports announced an update to its English language arts (ELA) evaluation criteria, claiming a shift toward alignment with the science of reading. However, given EdReports’ influence, this change is too little too late. For years, EdReports did not prioritize this research, meaning all its previous reviews — still available on its website — are based on criteria not centered on evidence-based research.

    This raises a crucial concern for California as we may be on the precipice of recommending new English language arts/English language development materials along with a new comprehensive state literacy plan and literacy road map. If we rely on EdReports’ past recommendations, we risk adopting materials that do not align with the best available research on how children learn to read and how to ensure their learning sticks.

    Fortunately, there is a strong, evidence-based alternative: The Curriculum Navigation Reports created by The Reading League, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the awareness, understanding and use of evidence-aligned reading instruction.

    These reports, using criteria reviewed by experts for reliability and validity (the consistency and accuracy of a measure), evaluate curricula through the lens of scientifically based research, not the Common Core standards. These reports serve as informational educational resources for curriculum decision-makers to identify aligned practices within their curricula as well as opportunities to strengthen reading instruction. The Reading League also provides Curriculum Evaluation Guidelines and a Review Workbook that schools and districts can use if they wish to review materials on their own. Finally, literacy leaders can seek guidance and support from their state chapters of The Reading League (of which California has one), which are composed of researchers, educators, parents, and other stakeholders committed to using research to guide literacy instruction.

    Curriculum providers are invited and encouraged to submit their programs for evaluation in a Curriculum Navigation Report; it is noteworthy that several companies that fared well on their EdReports reviews declined to submit their programs to The Reading League.

    Good policy is only as effective as the tools used to implement it. As California determines its next steps in literacy policy, we should follow the example of those states that have developed comprehensive plans and vetted curriculum lists based on rigorous, evidence-based criteria. We must also heed the cautionary tale from other states’ experiences and avoid making decisions driven by convenience or influenced by outdated, inaccurate standards. The quick adoption of materials reviewed by EdReports or its derivatives, such as CalCurriculum, may seem like an attractive shortcut, but the result would shortchange California students.

    We urge California’s education leaders to do the necessary work: Vet curriculum materials based on the established scientific research on reading instruction. The future of our students’ literacy — and their lifelong learning — depends on it.

    •••

    Linda Diamond is author of the Teaching Reading Sourcebook and executive director of the Evidence Advocacy Center, a clearinghouse to connect states, districts, schools, higher education institutions, and parent advocates to trustworthy resources that are proven to have an impact.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Denis Smith: What I Learned at the NPE Conference in Ohio

    Denis Smith: What I Learned at the NPE Conference in Ohio


    Denis Smith retired from his position at the Ohio Department of Education, where he oversaw charter schools (which are called “community schools” in Ohio). In this post, he describes what he saw at the Network for Public Education Conference in Columbus, Ohio, in early April.

    He wrote:

    When It’s About Hands Off! That Also Applies to Public Schools

    The Hands Off! demonstrations at the Ohio Statehouse that drew thousands of protestors wasn’t the only gathering of activists last weekend in downtown Columbus. Just a short distance away at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, a smaller but equally passionate gathering of concerned citizens from across the nation came to Ohio’s capital city to attend the Network for Public Education’s National Conference and affirm their support for the common school, the very symbol of democracy in this increasingly divided nation.

    That disunion is driven in part by the rapid growth of universal educational vouchers and charter schools, where public funds flow to private and religious schools as well as privately operated charter schools and where public accountability and oversight of taxpayer funds is limited or even absent. In many states, including Ohio, those public funds in the form of vouchers are drawn from the very state budget line item that is earmarked for public schools.

    Of particular concern to the conference attendees is the division in communities fueled by vouchers, which have been shown in some states to subsidize private and religious school tuition exceeding 80% of those enrolled. In Ohio, according to research conducted by former Ohio legislator Stephen Dyer, the figure is 91%.Several speakers referred to this situation as “welfare for the rich” and “an entitlement for the wealthy.” 

    The research shared at the conference also confirmed the findings of the National Coalition for Public Education that “most recipients of private school vouchers in universal programs are wealthy families whose children never attended public schools in the first place.” So much for the tired Republican rhetoric of vouchers being a lifeline of escape from “failing schools” for poor inner-city children.

    Another strong area of concern shared at the NPE event was the growing intrusion of religious organizations like Life Wise Academy which recruit students for release time Bible study during the school day. While attendees were told that school guidelines direct that such activities are to be scheduled during electives and lunch, the programs still conflict with the normal school routine and put a burden on school resources, where time is needed for separating release time students and adjusting the instructional routine because of the arrival and departure of a group within the classroom.

    One presenter, concerned about students receiving conflicting information, said that his experience as a science teacher found situations where there was a disconnect between what he termed “Biblical stories and objective facts.” In addition, he shared that a group of LifeWise students missed a solar eclipse because of their time in religious instruction.  

    Some Ohio school districts, including Westerville and Worthington in Franklin County, had to amend their policies in the wake of HB 8, which mandated that districts have religious instruction release time policies in place. The district policies had been written as an attempt to lessen the possibility of other religious programs wanting access to students and the further disruption that would cause to the school routine. 

    The recent legislative activity about accommodating religious groups like Life Wise is at variance with history, as conference chair and Network for Public Education founder Dr. Diane Ravitch pointed out in her remarks about the founding of Ohio. As part of the Northwest Territory, she noted that Ohio was originally divided into 32 plots, with plot 16, being reserved for a public school. No plot was set aside for a religious school.

    Ohio became the first state to be formed from the Northwest Territory, and its provision for public education would become a prototype for the young republic. The common school, an idea central to the founders of the state, would be located such “that local schools would have an income and that the community schoolhouses would be centrally located for all children.”

    Unfortunately, the idea of the common school being centrally located in every community is an idea not centrally located within the minds of right-wing Republican legislators. From the information exchanged at the conference, that is the case in the great majority of statehouses, and a matter of great concern for continuing national cohesiveness.

    The theme of the NPE National Conference, Public Schools – Where All Students Are Welcome, stands in marked contrast with the exclusionary practices of private and religious schools where, unlike public schools, there are no requirements to accept and enroll every student interested in attending. While these schools are reluctant to accept students who may need additional instructional support, they show no reluctance in accepting state voucher payments.

    Texas Rep. Gina Hinojosa. Photo: Texas House of Representatives

    Texas State Representative Gina Hinojosa, one of the keynote speakers, told the audience about her experience in fighting Gov. Greg Abbott’s voucher scheme and the double meaning of the term school choice. “School choice is also the school’s choice,” she told the audience, as she estimated that 80% or more of state funds will go to kids who are already enrolled in private and religious schools.

    Her battle with the Texas governor, who has defined the passage of voucher legislation in the Lone Star State as his “urgent priority,” is a tale of his alliance with Jeff Yass, a pro-voucher Pennsylvania billionaire who has donated $12 million so far to Abbott’s voucher crusade. 

    Hinojosa was scathing in her criticism of Abbott and his fellow Republicans and of a party that once “worshipped at the altar of accountability.” Now, she told the attendees, “they want free cash money, with no strings attached.” 

    “Grift, graft, and greed” is the narrative of appropriating public funds for private purposes, Hinojosa believes, a tale of supporting “free taxpayer money with no accountability.”

    Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Photo: Denis Smith

    The NPE conference ended with an address by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee. With his background as a former teacher and coach, Walz had a strong connect with an audience comprised mostly of educators and public school advocates. His folksy language and sense of humor further endeared him to the conference attendees.

    Based on the continuing bad behavior of Jeff Yass and other affluent actors in the voucher and charter wars, greedy bastards is a better descriptor than oligarchs, he observed. From the reaction of the audience and what they heard previously from Gina Hinojosa and other presenters, the language offered by Walz was a more accurate definition of welfare for the wealthy. 

    At the end of his remarks, Walz encouraged educators not to despair but to accept their key place in society. “There is a sense that servant leadership comes out of serving in public education.”

    Attendees at the NPE conference included educators, school board members, attorneys, legislators, clergy, and policy makers – a cross-section of America. Their presence affirmed a core belief that the public school, open to all, represents the very essence of a democratic society. And there is no debate about whether or notthose schools are under attack by right-wing legislatures intent on rewarding higher-income constituents with tuition support to schools that choose their students as they exercise the “school’s choice.”(As a devotee of the Apostrophe Protection Society, I applaud this distinction.)

    So what are we going to do about this? Attendees left the conference with some strong themes.

    The choir needs to sing louder.

    Hope over fear. Aspiration over despair.

    The road to totalitarianism is littered with people who say you’re overreacting.

    Who are the leaders of the Democratic Party? They’re out there. On the streets.

    It’s not just don’t give up. Be an activist.

    As the loudness about the subject of what is more aptly described as “the school’s choice” gets louder,” you can bet that servant leaders like Diane Ravitch, Gina Hinojosa, Tim Walz and others are making a difference in responding to the challenge of servant leadership to ensure that the common school, so central to 19th century communities in the Northwest Territory and beyond, continues to be the choice of every community for defining America and the democracy it represents.

                                                                       



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  • How to describe middling and poor test scores? State Board frets over the right words

    How to describe middling and poor test scores? State Board frets over the right words


    Students in a Fresno Unified classroom.

    Credit: Fresno Unified / Flickr

    Ending several months of uncertainty, the California State Board of Education on Wednesday chose new labels to describe how students perform on the four levels of achievement on its standardized tests.

    The decision was difficult. The 90 minutes of presentations and discussions offered lessons in the subtleties of language and the inferences of words.

    Board members said they were aware of the need to send the right messages to many parents, who had criticized the California Department of Education’s previous choices for labeling low test scores as vague euphemisms for bad news. 

    “Labels matter,” said board member Francisco Escobedo, executive director of the National Center for Urban Transformation at San Diego State. “Knowledge is a continuum, and how we describe students in different levels has a powerful impact.”’

    Researchers have warned that parents are getting confusing messages, with inflated grades on courses and declining scores on standardized tests of how well their children are doing in recovering from Covid setbacks in learning. The new labels will apply to scoring levels for the state science assessments and for the Smarter Balanced English language arts and math tests.

    Board members quickly agreed on “Advanced” for Level 4 and “Proficient” for Level 3 labels, the top two levels of scores. But their selection of “Developing” for Level 2 and “Minimal” for Level 1 differed from the consensus of parents, students and teachers who had been offered various options during focus groups in December and January.

    They had preferred “Basic” for Level 2 and “Below Basic” for Level 1.  The terms are clear, simple and familiar, a summary of the discussions said. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) classifies Basic as the lowest of its three levels, and California’s old state tests, which the state abandoned a decade ago to switch to Smarter Balanced, used Basic and Below Basic for scoring criteria as well.

    But for some veteran educators on the board, familiarity has bred contempt, or at least bad memories, of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the federal law under the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Schools were under heavy pressure to increase their math and English language arts scores, or potentially face sanctions.

    “I had a visceral reaction to the word Basic,” said board member and veteran teacher Haydee Rodriguez. “I remember NCLB and how finite that felt for students.” The feedback should be encouraging, not a label that discourages growth, as Basic did under NCLB, she said.

    She and Kim Patillo Brownson, a parent of two teenagers who served as a policy director at the Advancement Project, a civil rights organization, also pointed out that “basic” has a different connotation for students in 2025. It’s slang for a boring and uninteresting person.  

    “Calling a student Basic is an absolute insult in 2025,” said Rodriguez. “It could shut a child down.”

    Board President Linda Darling-Hammond agreed. “If Basic is being used derogatorily, one can only imagine how Below Basic will be used. It is a real consideration; the meaning is different for adults.”

    Board members turned to other words that had been presented to the focus groups. They agreed the choices should be frank, not Pollyannaish or dispiriting.

    With Level 2, the purpose should be “trying to light a fire under parents to realize there is work to do,” said Patillo Brownson.

    Stating that “Below Basic” says a student is failing, Escobedo preferred “Developing” for Level 1 and “Emerging” for Level 2. These terms are consistent with labels used for scoring the progress of English learners.

    Patillo Brownson called Emerging “vague” and supported “Basic.”

    Board Vice President Cynthia Glover Woods, who was chief academic officer of the Riverside County Office of Education before her retirement, favored “Minimum” for Level 1 because “it is important we are clear for students and parents that students scoring at the level have a minimal understanding of grade-level knowledge.”

    Sharing the perspective of her peers, the student board member on the board, Julia Clauson, a senior at Bella Vista High School in Sacramento, recommended substituting “Approaching” for “Basic,” so as not to deter students from trying challenging courses. “Older students make academic decisions (based on what signals they get), so language matters,” she said.

    The County Superintendents association also endorsed “Approaching” for Level 2 and “Developing” or “Emerging” for Level 1.

    The board initiated what turned into a multi-month decision because of growing dissatisfaction with the labels that had been used since the first Smarter Balanced testing in 2015. They were Standard Not Met for Level 1, Standard Nearly Met for Level 2, Standard Met for Level 3 and Standard Exceeded for Level 4. Focus groups by the California Department of Education found that parents were confused about what “standard” meant. They found Standard Not Met as discouraging and Standard Nearly Met as unclear.

    But a coalition of student advocacy groups, including Teach Plus, Children Now and Innovate Public Schools, along with the County Superintendents association and the Association of California School Administrators, criticized the labels for Levels 1 and 2 that the California Department of Education recommended as their replacements as soft-pedaling euphemisms for poor scorers. The department had proposed Inconsistent for Level 1 and Foundational for Level 2.

    At its December meeting, the board told the department to try again with more focus groups.

    Changing the labels to Advanced, Proficient, Developing and Minimal won’t change how scores are determined; the individual scores within each achievement band have remained the same in all the 18 member states that take all or some of the Smarter Balanced tests, which are given to students in grades three through eight and once in high school, usually in 11th grade.

    However, additional work is needed to communicate the changes to parents and students. The department and its testing contractor, ETS, will spell out the differences between performing at the various levels in each subject and grade and the level of improvement needed to raise scores.

    Tony Alpert, executive director of Smarter Balanced, pointed out that performance differences are a continuum with students showing gaps in some grade-level skills but not others. A student scoring at Level 1 may have answered some questions showing knowledge at grade level. As scores progress from Levels 2 to 4, students demonstrate increasing accuracy and complexity in their knowledge and skills.

    Students who reach Level 3 have the knowledge to succeed in future coursework. Research has determined that for California high school students, Level 3 correlates with preparation for first-year courses at California State University.

    The state board hoped that the label changes and new explanations would be ready for this spring’s testing results. Instead, they will take effect in 2026.





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  • Trump Wants to Erase the History He Doesn’t Like, But Historians Are Pushing Back

    Trump Wants to Erase the History He Doesn’t Like, But Historians Are Pushing Back


    Petula Dvorak of the Washington Post wrote about the efforts by the Trump administration to rewrite American history. Trump wants “patriotic history,” in which evil things never happened and non-white people and women were seldom noticed. In other words, he wants to control historical memory, sanitize it, and restore history as it was taught when he was in school about 65 years ago (1960), before the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, and other actions that changed what historians know and teach.

    Dvorak writes:

    A section of Arlington National Cemetery’s website highlighting African American military heroes is gone.

    Maj. Lisa Jaster was the first woman to graduate from Army Ranger school. But that fact has been scrubbed from the U.S. Army Reserve [usar.army.mil] and Department of Defense websites. [search.usa.gov]

    The participation of transgender and queer protesters during the LGBTQ+ uprising at New York’s Stonewall Inn was deleted from the National Park Service’s website [nps.gov] about the federal monument.

    And the Smithsonian museum in Washington, which attracts millions of visitors who enter free each year, will be instructed by Vice President JD Vance to remove “improper ideology.”

    In a series of executive orders, President Donald Trump is reshaping the way America’s history is presented in places that people around the world visit.

    In one order, he declared that diversity, equity and inclusion efforts “undermine our national unity,” and more pointedly, that highlighting the country’s most difficult chapters diminishes pride in America and produces “a sense of national shame.”

    The president’s orders have left historians scrambling to collect and preserve aspects of the public record, as stories of Black, Brown, female or LGBTQ+ Americans are blanched from some public spaces. In some cases, the historical mentions initially removed have been replaced, but are more difficult to find online.

    That rationale has galvanized historians to rebuke the idea that glossing over the nation’s traumas — instead of grappling with them — will foster pride, rather than shame.

    Focusing on the shame, they say, misses a key point: Contending with the uglier parts of U.S. history is necessary for an honest and inclusive telling of the American story. Americans can feel pride in the nation’s accomplishments while acknowledging that some of the shameful actions in the past reverberate today.

    “The past has no duty to our feelings,” said Chandra Manning, a history professor at Georgetown University.

    “History does not exist to sing us lullabies or shower us with accolades. The past has no obligations to us at all,” Manning said. “We, however, do have an obligation to the past, and that is to strive to understand it in all its complexity, as experienced by all who lived through it, not just a select few.”

    That is not to say that the uncomfortable weight of difficult truths isn’t a valid emotion.

    Postwar Germans were so crushed by the burden of their people’s past, from the horrors of the Nazi regime to the protection of war criminals in the decades after the war, that they have a lengthy word for processing it: vergangenheitsbewältigung, which means the “work of coping with the past.” It has informed huge swaths of German literature and film and has shaped the physical way European cities create memorials and museums.

    America’s version of vergangenheitsbewältigung can be found across the cultural landscape. From films to books to classrooms and museums, Americans are learning more details about slavery in the South, the way racism has affected everything from baseball to health care, and how sexism shaped the military.

    Trump, however, looks at the U.S. version of vergangenheitsbewältigung differently.
    “Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth,” said the executive order targeting museums, called “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”

    That is what “fosters a sense of national shame,” he says in his order.

    Historians take exception to that. “I would argue that it’s actually weird to feel shame about what people in the past did,” Georgetown history professor Katherine Benton-Cohen said.
    “As I like to tell my students, ‘I’m not talking about you. We will not use ‘we’ when we refer to Americans in the past, because it wasn’t us and we don’t have to feel responsible for their actions. You can divest yourself of this feeling,’” she said.

    Germans also have a phrase for enabling a critical look at their nation’s past: die Gnade der spät-geborenen, “the grace of being born too late” to be held responsible for the horror of the Nazi years.

    Benton-Cohen said she honed her approach to this during her first teaching job in the Deep South in 2003, when she emphasized the generational gap between her students and the history they were studying.

    “They could speak freely of the past — even the recent past, like the 1950s and 1960s, because they weren’t there,” she said. “They were free to make their own conclusions. It was exciting, and it worked. Many told me it was the first time they had learned the history of the 1960s because their high schools — both public and private — had skipped it to avoid controversy. We did fine.”

    Trump hasn’t limited his attempt to control how history is presented in museums or memorials. Among the first executive orders he issued was “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.” Another one sought to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion in the nation’s workplaces, classrooms and museums. His version of American history tracks with how it was taught decades ago, before academics began bringing more diverse voices and viewpoints into their scholarship.

    Maurice Jackson, a history professor at Georgetown University who specializes in jazz and Black history, said Black Americans have fought hard to tell their full story.

    Black history was first published as “The Journal of Negro History” in 1916, in a townhouse in Washington when academic Carter G. Woodson began searching for the full story of his roots. A decade later, he introduced “Negro History Week” to schools across the United States, a history lesson that was widely cheered by White teachers and students alongside Black Americans who finally felt seen.

    “Black history is America’s history,” Jackson said. And leaving the specifics of the Black experience out because it makes some people ashamed gives an incomplete picture of our nation, he said.

    After Trump issued his executive orders, federal workers scrambled to interpret and obey them, which in some cases led to historical milestones being removed, or covered up and then replaced.

    Federal workers removed a commemoration of the Tuskegee Airmen from the Pentagon website, then restored it. They taped butcher paper over the National Cryptologic Museum’s display honoring women and people of color, then uncovered the display.

    Mentions of Harriet Tubman in a National Park Service display about the Underground Railroad were removed, then put back. The story of legendary baseball player Jackie Robinson’s military career was deleted from the Department of Defense website, then restored several days later.

    Women known as WASPs risked their lives in military service — training and test pilots during World War II for a nation that didn’t allow them to open a bank account — is no longer a prominent part of the Pentagon’s digital story.

    George Washington University historian Angela Zimmerman calls all the activity. which happened with a few keystrokes and in a matter of days, the digital equivalent of “Nazi book burnings.”

    In response, historians — some professional, some amateur — are scrambling to preserve information before it is erased and forgotten.

    The Organization of American Historians created the Records at Risk Data Collection Initiative, which is a callout for content that is in danger of being obliterated

    This joins the decades-long work of preserving information by the Internet Archive, a California nonprofit started in 1996 that also runs the Wayback Machine, which stores digital records.

    Craig Campbell, a digital map specialist in Seattle, replicated and stored the U.S. Geological Service’s entire historical catalogue. His work was crowdfunded by supporters.

    “Historical maps are critical for a huge range of industries ranging from environmental science, conservation, real estate, urban planning, and even oil and gas exploration,” said Campbell, whose mapping company is called Pastmaps. “Losing access to the data and these maps not only destroys our ability to access and learn from history, but limits our ability to build upon it in so many ways as a country.”

    After astronomer Rose Ferreira’s profile was scrubbed from, then returned, to NASA’s website, she posted about it on social media. In response, an online reader created a blog, Women in STEM, to preserve stories such as Ferreira’s.

    “Programs that memorialize painful truths help ensure past wrongs are never revived to harm again,” Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nevada), said on X, noting that presidents are elected to “run our government — not rewrite our history.”

    Authoritarian leaders have long made the whitewashing of history a tool in their regimes. Joseph Stalin expunged rivals from historic photographs. Adolf Hitler purged museums of modernist art and works created by Jewish artists, which he labeled “degenerate.” Museums in Mao Zedong’s China glorified his ideology.

    While this may be unfamiliar to Americans, Georgetown University history professor Adam Rothman says that in the scope of human history, “these are precedented times.”

    It’s not yet clear what the real-world effect of Trump’s Smithsonian order will be or exactly how it will be carried out. Who will determine what exhibits cause shame and need to be removed? What will the criteria be? Will exhibits that discuss slavery, for instance, be eliminated or altered?

    “Our nation is an ongoing experiment,” says Manning, the Georgetown history professor, who has written books about the Civil War. “And what helps us do that now in 2024 compared to 1776 is that we do have a shared past.

    “Every single human culture depends upon, grows out of, and is shaped by its past,” she said. “It is the past that has shaped all of us, it is our past that contains the bonds that can really hold us together.”

    It’s what makes the study — and threat to — American history unique among nations. Benton-Cohen said that is what she sees happen with her students.

    “The American striving to realize the democratic faith and all the difficulties it entailed and challenges overcome should inspire pride, not shame,” she said. “If you feel shame, as the kids would say, that’s a ‘you’ problem. That’s why I still fly the flag at my house; I’m not afraid of the American past, I’m alive with the possibilities — of finding common cause, of fighting for equality, of appreciating our shared humanity, of upholding our freedoms.”



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  • Anand Talks to a Therapist: How to Survive the Abuser-in-Chief

    Anand Talks to a Therapist: How to Survive the Abuser-in-Chief


    The Ink “sees” a therapist to explore the links between narcissism and authoritarianism — and get some advice for the next four years

    THE INK AND NASTARAN TAVAKOLI-FAR

    Anand Giridhadaras is a brilliant thinker and writer. He did all of us a service by seeing a therapist to get advice about how to survive the return of Trump, the Abuser-in-Chief. His blog is called “The Ink,” where this post appeared.

    We’ve gotten ourselves into an abusive relationship, and it’s one we can’t escape.

    The abuser in question is Donald Trump. And by abuse, we’re not talking about abuse of power, real as that may be. We’re talking about emotional abuse, doled out by a narcissist with an unstoppable need to rebuild the world in his image and to use the most powerful office in human history as a treatment center for his wounded ego.

    Whether Trump suffers from a real disorder — malignant or traumatic narcissism has been floated — is a matter of debate among psychiatrists and psychologists. Most professionals have refused to make a diagnosis without a clinical interview (the so-called “Goldwater rule”), though before the 2024 election 225 experts felt Trump presented clear enough signs that they published an open letterwarning of his threat to the nation since, in their estimation, if it quacked like a duck, it was a duck:

    Trump exhibits behavior that tracks with the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual’s (DSM V) diagnostic criteria for “narcissistic personality disorder,” “antisocial personality disorder,” and “paranoid personality disorder,” all made worse by his intense sadism, which is a symptom of malignant narcissism. This psychological type was first identified by German psychologist Erich Fromm to explain the psychology of history’s most “evil” dictators.

    We’ve talked often in the newsletter about the way autocrats can build support even without offering anything to their supporters by way of real material improvements, playing on the same deep emotional needs exploited by abusers within relationships and families. 

    The real battleground of 2024 is emotion

    Earlier this year we also looked back to Erich Fromm’s work to understand how Trump’s cultlike appeal depended on a bond of mutual emotional dependence between abuser and abused and against a threatening world — a bond Fromm called “group narcissism.”

    “Even if one is the most miserable, the poorest, the least respected member of a group, there is compensation for one’s miserable condition in feeling ‘I am a part of the most wonderful group in the world. I, who in reality am a worm, become a giant through belonging to the group,”

    Donald Trump, Victim King

    The situation today is even more complex — and dire — than most expected early in the campaign, as Trump competes for power and attention with fellow narcissists: the oligarchs. And chief among them is the shadow president, Elon Musk, whose sense of his own omnipotence and importance is even stronger than Trump’s, and his vision of the future far more dystopian, and his disregard for humanity even more total.

    What Elon Musk really wants

    To better understand the situation facing Americans (and, to be honest, everyone around the world) our Nastaran Tavakoli-Far talked to therapist Daniel Shaw about how we can use the techniques that have helped people survive cults, abusive relationships, and toxic families to face and process and maybe even transcend the second Trump administration.

    As someone who’s done a lot of reporting on topics involving narcissists and cults, something that’s really striking to me is that the advice given to the people suffering is to get out, go “no contact,” or have as little contact as possible. If you need to speak to this problematic individual do it via a lawyer, you know that kind of thing of just staying as emotionless as possible and not getting involved.

    Now, what I always wonder is, because I think a lot of people when they look at Trump and MAGA, I mean a lot of people have said to me, “This is similar to what happened in my family.” A lot of these dynamics, if you’ve been exposed to narcissism, it’s actually very relatable to a lot of people.

    But this isn’t a situation where you can go “no contact” because these are the people in power. You’re in a situation where you actually have to engage with these people. You can’t just leave the cult and try and heal. So what is your advice in this sort of scenario?

    Stay sane, stay humane, and don’t isolate, would be the three phrases I would use.

    Going “no contact” is sometimes a very good idea, but not always. And it’s also an idea that’s been turned around by abusive narcissists who isolate victims from their own families. You know, it’s the same thing that happens in Jehovah’s Witnesses. If you criticize the community, you are disfellowshipped and nobody, not your children, your spouse, your parents, or anybody is allowed to ever talk to you.

    In terms of going “no contact” in a political situation, well, you don’t have that option. What are you going to do if, for example, the government benefits that you’ve paid into the system are suddenly turned off and there’s no more Social Security? Are you just going to say “Well, I’m not going to have anything to do with that bad president who just did that to me?” Or are you going to get involved in whatever way possible to fight against it?

    Going “no contact” in this situation could be enabling the perpetrator, enabling the autocrat and I think that’s important to understand. If we’re enabling the autocrat, we’re complicit in the autocrat’s abuse.

    So what can we do right now? If I wanted to ask for some practical advice?

    One of the things that I’ve taken to heart about the current situation is the advice of Timothy Snyder, the historian who has studied the rise and fall of democracies and autocracies in Eastern Europe. One of the things he says is to not submit in advance.

    Now, in the case of traumatizing narcissists, having managed a successful seduction they will begin to then create more dependence and they do that paradoxically through becoming more belligerent and belittling and more humiliating or shaming. What that does is create a state of constant intimidation at the same time increasing the sense of dependence the victim has on the narcissist.

    In the current situation, it’s clear that everyone who is an opponent of the Trump administration is meant to feel horrified, shocked, belittled, and intimidated. That is what I believe is important: not to submit to the intention to terrify, intimidate, and make people feel powerless and small. So not to submit to that means that I don’t allow myself to be paralyzed with fear. I don’t allow myself to be boiling with rage, and I don’t isolate myself. I remember and connect to what I love about being in the world, about being a person, what I love about other people, and to the people who love me. Staying connected, not isolating, and not allowing yourself to drown in fear or rage is not submitting in advance.

    So that’s my sense of what’s important right now.

    You mentioned staying sane and about keeping connections. This time around it seems a lot of people are either kind of checking out or not checking the news every day. A lot of people are saying “I just want to do something positive in my community or be there for my family.” and things like that. What do you think about that? Why aren’t people protesting?

    Right. I think everybody got exhausted, those who voted against Trump were exhausted by the amount of energy and effort spent hoping to elect Harris. I do limit my exposure so that I can keep my sanity for the time being. I don’t think that’s wrong and I encourage people who need to do that to do it.

    So staying sane and humane, having those connections, and speaking up, speaking to our political representatives and pushing them.

    People who care about these issues, who do not want to enable autocracy in this country or in general, exist at every level of society, and each of us has a certain amount of power. 

    I speak primarily to other psychotherapists but some of my ideas can be useful in thinking about the political, so I try to speak where possible within my community. Each of us has a community, and if we can be vocal within our communities at least we can hope to make an impact, even on one person.

    Groups will form that we may want to lend our support to, either financial support or volunteer support. I’m currently supporting Democracy Docket, for example, where Mark Elias has been conducting so many successful lawsuits against a lot of abuses of government. I am not a millionaire elite, so I make small donations on a regular basis. People can do that.

    People can volunteer, they can protest and demonstrate. All of these things are happening. They will happen, I believe, to a greater extent. 

    We may be under the threat of martial law in Trump’s world. We’re under the threat of having the National Guard tear-gas us if we take to the streets. He’s already demonstrated that he will do that and he’s saying he’ll do it again. But to whatever extent possible we need to speak, whatever our community might be, no matter how small. If you hold beliefs about injustice, it’s worth speaking out.

    So what, exactly, is a traumatizing narcissist?

    The traumatizing narcissist is a person who — for various reasons, based on their developmental history — has developed what starts out as a fantasy of omnipotence.

    Did you ever buy a lottery ticket? That’s a fantasy of omnipotence. We all have them. It was said by Freud that we start out as babies with a sense of omnipotence because everybody adores us. And that we have to grow up and lose that sense of omnipotence so that we don’t become narcissists.

    A traumatizing narcissist doesn’t lose that infantile omnipotence. They go through some kind of traumatic humiliation growing up, and that leads them to the fantasy that they can be the most powerful person in the world and nobody can hurt them or humiliate them or make them feel small or weak. As that fantasy becomes a delusion, they start to be absolutely convinced of their superiority, of their infinite entitlement, and of their greatness.

    Some traumatizing narcissists focus on an individual or a family. There they can exercise their delusion of omnipotence over a small group of people or over just one person. But their delusion can be so powerful that it invites others to join in. Often the delusion makes them charismatic and persuasive. They can become, in some cases, autocratic politicians. In other cases, they can become gurus, or they can become internet influencers. They have so much conviction in their own delusion of their own omnipotence that they persuade others to join.

    Could you briefly describe the kind of people who join in? Who get into these kinds of relationships?

    When people speak to me about having been in this kind of a relationship, they’re often full of shame and trying to understand what’s wrong with them. What I’ll say is, “Well, you were being vulnerable, which is very human.”

    There is nobody who volunteers to be groomed and the traumatizing narcissist grooms people. We don’t volunteer for that. Some people may be more vulnerable to grooming than others but I’ve seen some very together, high-functioning people who got groomed by traumatizing narcissists, it’s not about being weak or unstable as a person. Look at Bernie Madoff, who convinced some of the most wealthy, creative, high-functioning people in the world that they should give him all their money.

    I was very inspired when I left the cult I had been part of when I was younger by Erich Fromm’s book Escape from Freedom. He tried to understand what was happening in Germany which led people to believe that Hitler was a savior.

    I think in a similar vein, people believe that Donald Trump is a savior, and part of the problem is that they are only being exposed to the information that Donald Trump wants them to have, which is the propaganda that is funded by millions and millions and millions of dollars by fossil fuel oligarchs and digital oligarchs. There is extraordinary support for Trump as the CEO and them as the board of directors of the new world they think they’re creating. It’s frightening because it is like they read Orwell’s 1984 and decided the hero was Big Brother.

    I would call these people malignant narcissists rather than traumatizing narcissists because they’re not just narcissistic, they’re also sociopathic and they believe that there is no law that they should have to obey, that they make the laws.

    Sorry, when you say these people, do you mean Trump, or do you mean Trump and the tech bros and fossil fuel bros?

    The group of elites who support autocrats. The autocrat and the elites that support the autocrat are people who see themselves as a superior race of people, entitled to rule over everyone else. Their solution for poor people is to create a jail system.

    One of the major thinkers in the tech world has proposed that poor people be made into biofuel, that the prison system could become a factory for creating biofuel out of human beings. These things sound unbelievable. But they are being said publicly.

    Is this Curtis Yarvin you’re thinking of?

    Yes, that’s the person. He’s extremely influential over Vice President JD Vance, and Peter Thiel is a big disciple of his, as are quite a few other billionaires in the tech world. 

    So we have an elite oligarchy in support of an autocrat. But why do people view Donald Trump as a savior?

    There are a lot of reasons. But what Erich Fromm said is that people are afraid of freedom. They are uncertain of how to be free. And when they feel that there is a powerful leader, it’s like that becomes a magical person who they can feel safe and protected by. The allure of somebody promising absolute total protection, who seems very strong and very powerful and very certain, that is a very powerful allure.

    To be a free person means that you have to provide yourself with a sense of safety and you have to create safety in your community.



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  • Aaron Tang: The Supreme Court Threatens Public Schools Even More Than Trump

    Aaron Tang: The Supreme Court Threatens Public Schools Even More Than Trump


    Aaron Tang, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, explains how the U.S. Supreme Court is more dangerous to the future of public schools than Trump’s policies.

    He writes in Politico:

    The greatest threat to public education in America isn’t Donald Trump.

    Yes, he’s moving to dismantle the Department of Education, and yes, he’s trying to restrict what schools can teach about race. But the most dangerous attack on the horizon isn’t coming from the president, it’s coming from the Supreme Court.

    This is a particularly disheartening reality because the Supreme Court has often been one of public education’s greatest champions. As far back as 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education, the court described public schooling as “the very foundation of good citizenship” and the “most important function of state and local governments.” Just four years ago, in an 8-1 opinion involving a Snapchatting cheerleader, the court proudly declared that “Public schools are the nurseries of democracy.”

    Later this month, however, the court will hear oral argument in a pair of cases with the potential to radically destabilize public schools as we know them. And there is reason to be deeply worried about how the conservative majority will rule.

    The first case, Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, poses the question of whether the 46 states with charter schools must offer public funds to schools that would teach religious doctrine as truth. The second case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, involves the claim that religious parents should have a right to opt their children out of controversial public school curricula.

    Takentogether, Drummond and Mahmoud threaten the twin cornerstones of the American education system that Brown affirmed six decades ago: Since Brown, America’s public schools have operated under a norm of inclusive enrollment, and they’ve offered all children a shared curriculum that reflects the values that communities believe are essential for civic participation and economic success.

    If the court tears down these foundational norms, the schools that remain in their wake will be a shell of the democracy-promoting institution the court itself has long lionized — and that healthy majorities of parents continue to support in their local neighborhoods. And although there’s a way to avoid the worst outcome in both cases, the path ahead is uncertain: It will require the court to follow history in an evenhanded manner (in Drummond) and progressives to accept a middle ground (in Mahmoud).

    The legal challenges presented in Drummond and Mahmoud did not arise out of thin air. They are part of a long-term conservative movement strategy aimed at eroding public education.

    A major component of this strategy has been a consistent call to fund school choice, a broad umbrella term that encompasses various programs such as school vouchers and educational savings accounts that channel taxpayer dollars away from traditional public schools and into private ones. Drummond’s call for a constitutional right to taxpayer-funded religious education can thus be thought of as a major front in Project 2025’s “core principle” of “significantly advanc[ing] education choice.”

    Conservatives have likewise sought to brand public schools as purveyors of “woke” ideology rather than facilitators of a shared set of community values. The claim at issue in Mahmoud — a parental right to opt out of curricular choices that some find religiously objectionable — is accordingly another salvo in the broader culture wars, and one in which conservatives are asking the court to grant them a legal trump card.

    Ultimately, to a significant cross-section of the Republican Party, public schools are now the “radical, anti-American” enemy. And viewed from that perspective, Drummond and Mahmoud may represent the greatest chance for delivering a knockout blow.

    Drummond and Inclusive Enrollment

    Technically, the Drummond case is just about Oklahoma. That’s because it arose out of Oklahoma’s refusal to fund a religious charter school named the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. (According to St. Isidore’s handbook, “the traditions and teachings of the Catholic Church and the virtue of Christian living permeate the school day.”)

    But make no mistake: It is blue states that have the most to lose in this case. For if St. Isidore has a right to public funding in Oklahoma, that same right would exist for religious charter schools in California and New York — places where, until now, taxpayer funds have never been used to teach religion as truth to K-12 students.

    It is hard to overstate how big a sea change this would be. Nonreligious charter schools currently receive more than $26 billion in public funds and educate some four million children. So a ruling in favor of religious charter schools could mean billions of dollars for religious education — a prospect that one Catholic school executive called “game-changing” for how it would enable religious schools to “grow [their] network.”

    But the implications are far more than monetary. They strike at the very vision of public schools as places where children come together from all walks of life to learn what the Supreme Court once called the “values on which our society rests.” Bankrolled by taxpayer dollars, Drummond would transform the American education system into a taxpayer-funded mechanism for transmitting each family’s preferred religious tenets.

    What is more, religious charter schools will likely argue that they have a further Free Exercise right to restrict enrollment only to adherents of their particular faith (indeed, a religious private school in Maine has already advanced this claim). At the end of that argument is a publicly funded K-12 education system that tribalizes the American people at a time when we need to be doing exactly the opposite: forging bonds of connection across our differences.

    Justice Thurgood Marshall once cautioned that “unless our children begin to learn together, there is little hope that our people will ever learn to live together.” If the court rules for the religious charter schools in Drummond, we will come one giant — and regrettable — step closer to the world Marshall feared.

    Mahmoud and the Attack on Curriculum

    The Mahmoud case emerged out of a 2022 Montgomery County, Maryland, school board policy that introduced a new set of LGBTQ-inclusive storybooks into its pre-K through 12th-grade language arts curriculum. In general, the books aimed at instilling respect and civility for people from different backgrounds. In practice, though, the books led to controversy. One of the books, entitled Pride Puppy, was directed at pre-K students and invited students to search for images of a lip ring and a drag queen.

    Montgomery County initially permitted parents to opt their children out of reading these new books. But the district soon changed course, which is what led the Mahmoud family to sue. Their argument was that the Free Exercise Clause grants parents like them the “right to opt their children out of public school instruction that would substantially interfere with their religious development.”

    This is a truly difficult case, even for someone who, like me, holds an unyielding commitment to ensuring that all LGBTQ students feel safe at school. But one can hold that commitment while also acknowledging that the choice to force children as young as five years old to read books like Pride Puppy over their parents’ objection is not an obvious one. Indeed, Montgomery County has since removed Pride Puppy from its curriculum — a reasonable concession.

    The great danger in this case, though, is not about the parental right to opt 5- and 6-year-olds out of controversial curricula. It’s that a decision recognizing a parental opt-out right would be difficult to contain via a sensible limiting principle. Would parents of middle or high school children enjoy a similar right to opt their children out of any assignment or reading that espouses support for LGBTQ rights? How about a right to opt out of science classes that teach biology or evolution? And what of history classes that some religious parents may find too secular for their liking?

    In all of those contexts, lower federal courts had unanimously rejected the contention that simply because a parent finds something to be religiously objectionable, they can excuse their child from a shared curricular goal. Mahmoud could upend that settled consensus and replace it with a world in which public schools are forced to offer bespoke curricula to all different families based on their particular religious commitments.

    That’s a recipe for an education system that would certainly teach some values to our children. But this much is for sure: They would no longer be shared ones.

    How to Save Public Education at the Court

    The plaintiffs in both Drummond and Mahmoud may be optimistic that the 6-3 conservative supermajority will side with them. After all, religious litigants have fared remarkably well at the Supreme Court of late.

    But a surprising obstacle exists in the Drummond case — and Maryland officials, if they are smart, may yet have the final word in Mahmoud.

    In Drummond, the best argument against the claimed Free Exercise right to taxpayer-funded religious schools comes from the very place that the conservative Supreme Court has lately looked to move the law right on abortion and guns: history and tradition.

    As Ethan Hutt, a leading historian of education, and I show in a forthcoming paper, it turns out the denial of funding that St. Isidore complains of today is something that happened routinely during the founding era. Yet no one — no parent, no religious leader, not even a religious school that was denied funds on equal terms with its nonsectarian counterparts — ever filed a lawsuit (much less won one) arguing that the right to Free Exercise demanded otherwise.

    This is precisely the historic pattern that the Supreme Court relied on to reject the right to abortion in Dobbs: “When legislators began to [ban abortion in the 19th century], no one, as far as we are aware, argued that [they had] violated a fundamental right.”

    If the absence of legal contestation in the face of government action 200 years ago shows that the Constitution’s original meaning does not encompass a claimed right to abortion, it’s hard to see why that logic should differ when the claimed right involves religious school funding. Put simply, the court can be consistently originalist, or it can recognize the religious charter school funding right claimed in Drummond. But it can’t do both.

    The legal argument to protect public education is less clear in Mahmoud. But in that case, there is another way to steer clear of a Supreme Court ruling that would imperil evolution, biology, history and LGBTQ-inclusive lessons in the upper grades: Maryland officials can override the Montgomery County policy and extend an opt-out choice to parents of young children like the Mahmouds.

    There would be clear precedent for such an action by the state. After New York officials took a similar step to eliminate a policy dispute in a major gun case in 2020, the court dismissed that case as moot — putting off a dangerous ruling for at least the time being.

    Of course, doing so would require lawmakers in Maryland to accept parents of young children choosing to withdraw their children from reading controversial LGBTQ-inclusive books. But perhaps lawmakers can see a principled distinction between the desire to make schools a safe space for LGBTQ children — a nonnegotiable, core value — and the desire to use elementary school classrooms as a tool for changing hearts and minds on controversial topics more generally.

    In truth, progressives were probably never going to win that battle in kindergarten classrooms, especially with the present political climate. Progress on social attitudes concerning the transgender community was always more likely through the same mechanisms that produced rapid change for the gay and lesbian community — mainstream media, social media and the critical realization that our friends, family and other loved ones are members of these different communities and deserve equal respect.

    In the end, the Supreme Court may choose simply to ignore history and tradition in Drummond, where it is inconvenient for a movement conservative cause. And a policy change in Maryland could simply delay the inevitable, as new cases could always be brought advancing

    The bigger takeaway, then, is about the war against public education and its likely toll. Public schools were a major part of what made America great. So in seeking public education’s demise, the Drummond and Mahmoud cases could portend staggering consequences: less social tolerance, reduced international competitiveness and continued inequality along economic and racial lines.

    But the greatest cost may be for our democracy. After all, the Supreme Court reminded us just four short years ago that public schools are where our democracy is cultivated. That’s why the timing of these cases could not be any worse. In a moment when American democracy is being tested like never before, the court should be the last institution — not the leading one — to dismantle our public schools.



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  • Thom Hartmann: The Day Democracy Died in the U.S.A.

    Thom Hartmann: The Day Democracy Died in the U.S.A.


    Thom Hartmann explains the significance of what Trump did to our democracy yesterday. He killed it. He sneered at the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. He snuffed out the rule of law, which is the foundation of democracy.

    Thom Hartmann writes:

    Yesterday was the day democracy in our nation officially died.

    We no longer live in the America we grew up in: “The land of the free and the home of the brave.” The country the rest of the world looked up to and depended on. The country that claimed to follow the rule of law, and valued compassion and the protection of its most vulnerable people.

    We are now in the midst of an outright coup against the Constitution, against the United States, and against our founding ideals: Donald Trump proclaimed it yesterday when he openly defied the Supreme Court and our founding documents with a sneer, and his neofascist sycophants chuckled and giggled in the Oval Office.

    When Marco Rubio claimed that arresting and deporting a man legally living in the US was “foreign policy” that can’t be overseen by the Supreme Court and then congratulated himself on his cleverness.

    Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a legal U.S. resident who committed no crime, is now held in El Salvador’s most notorious concentration camp, where as many as 75 men are packed into cells designed for a fraction of that number. 

    Prisoners are not allowed outside — not for fresh air, not for exercise — and the fluorescent lights never go off. Food is minimal: plain rice or beans twice a day, with water. There is no possibility of appeal for him or the other 75,000 people El Salvadoran dictator Bukele has arrested and imprisoned without due process.

    This father of three US citizens, this husband of a US citizen, who had been in the US with the permission of our government, is today packed in with savage gang members — literally murderers and rapists — in one of the most infamous and violent prisons in the world.

    He has no access to legal counsel, no information about charges or release, and medical care is often denied except in extreme emergencies. Days blur into nights as men lie on concrete floors or sit in silence, many carving repetitive paths along the walls to stay sane. 

    Kilmar may be doing the same, clinging to routine, to hope, to anything that reminds him he once belonged to a country that promised justice.

    But then came the most lawless president in the history of America, who yesterday all but declared that we are no longer a constitutional democratic republic as long as he is president.

    Article I, Section 9 of the United States’ Constitution is unambiguous about habeas corpus, Latin for “produce the body,” which means no person can be imprisoned without first knowing the charges against them, being able to challenge those charges, and having a court of law decide their fate.

    This right embraced by our Founders and written into our Constitution literally dates back to the year 1215 when King John signed the Magna Carta at Runnymede, as Article I Section 9 clearly states:

    “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”

    (Trump is falsely and cynically claiming in an illegal Executive Order that the government of Venezuela has sent gang members to “invade” the US. Bizarrely, even if a court were to uphold this “invasion” gimmick, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is neither a gang member nor even a Venezuelan; he’s a citizen of El Salvador who’s lived in the US since he was 16, is a union worker and beloved member of his community, and was here legally.) 

    Fifth Amendment to the Constitution:

    “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury… nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…”

    Sixth Amendment to the Constitution:

    “In all criminal prosecutionsb, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”

    Seventh Amendment to the Constitution:

    “[T]he right of trial by jury shall be preserved…”

    Eighth Amendment to the Constitution:

    “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

    Please point out to me where, in our Constitution, it says that the President of the United States or the Secretary of State can simply order a “person” (see 5th Amendment; nowhere does the word “citizen” appear) to be arrested and transported to a foreign hellhole concentration camp without a warrant, without an attorney, without a trial, and without even advance notice that might give him a chance to protest his innocence.

    An unanimous Supreme Court ruled last week that our Constitution, as quoted above, says exactly what it means and Trump must “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who is not a criminal and has been denied all of the due process provisions detailed above in our Constitution and its amendments.

    Justice Sotomayor was explicit:

    “The Government’s argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U. S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene. … 

    “[T]he proper remedy is to provide Abrego Garcia with all the process to which he would have been entitled had he not been unlawfully removed to El Salvador. That means the Government must comply with its obligation to provide Abrego Garcia with ‘due process of law,’ including notice and an opportunity to be heard… 

    “It must also comply with its obligations under the Convention Against Torture.”

    Trump’s response yesterday was a resounding, “Fuck you” to our courts, our Constitution, and our laws. And to the millions of American citizens who are frightened by his systematic dismantling of our legal system.

    It was an open assertion by Trump that he can do anything he wants, no matter how unlawful or unconstitutional, without fear of consequences. That he has successfully staged a coup against the government of the United States and her laws and has every intention of running this country like Russia or Hungary.

    And not only that, he told El Salvador’s authoritarian president Bukele that the people he next wants to send to his slave labor camp are American citizens like you and me:

    “Home grown criminals. Home growns are next. You gotta build about five more places. It’s not big enough.”

    Which brings us to a frightening echo of Jefferson’s objections to the “tyranny” of King George II, as outlined in the Declaration of Independence he authored and was signed on July 4, 1776:

    “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

    “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

    “He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. …

    “He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. …

    “He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone…

    “He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws…

    “For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

    “For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: …

    “For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: …

    “In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” (emphasis added)

    If Trump and his ass-kissing lackeys aren’t stopped by public outrage, our courts, and our Constitution and laws, then America has ceased to be a functioning republic and the future is unknowable but certainly grim.

    That would be, the Declaration says, the very definition of tyranny. As Senator Chris Murphy just posted to Bluesky:

    “You may not think this case matters to you. But Abrego Garcia was legally in the U.S., just like all the rest of us. His status as an immigrant doesn’t matter as a matter of law. If Trump can lock up or remove ANYONE — no matter what the courts say — we are all at grave risk.”

    Trump should be impeached for his defiance of the Supreme Court and our Constitution. For spitting in the face of our Founders and every American veteran who has ever fought (or died) for this country and it’s ideals. For using foreign concentration camps.

    Tragically, however, Republicans in Congress and across the country are now fully in on the coup. They have chosen an egomaniacal, self-centered narcissist and his billionaire friends over their integrity, country, and their oath of office.

    Show up in the streets this coming Saturday and reach out to your elected representatives to demand a return to the rule of law. 

    The number for Congress is 202-224-3121, at least for the moment; like with Social Security, Trump may cut that phone number off any day now, too. 



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  • California college professors have mixed views on AI in the classroom

    California college professors have mixed views on AI in the classroom


    Cal State Long Beach lecturer Casey Goeller wants his students to know how to use AI before they enter the workforce.

    Tasmin McGill/EdSource

    Since Open AI’s release of ChatGPT in 2022, artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots and models have found their way into the California college systems. These AI tools include language models and image generators that provide responses and images based on user prompts.

    Many college professors have spoken out against AI’s use in college coursework, citing concerns of cheating, inaccurate responses, student overreliance on the tool, and, as a consequence, diminished critical thinking. Universities across the U.S. have implemented AI-detecting software like Turnitin to prevent cheating through the use of AI tools.

    However, some professors have embraced the use of generative AI and envision its integration into curricula and research in various disciplines. To these professors, students learning how to use AI is critical to their future careers.

    An October 2024 report from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business found that 38% of the school’s faculty use AI in their classrooms.

    Ramandeep Randhawa, professor of business administration and data science at USC, was one of the report’s 26 co-authors and organized the effort. 

    “As companies increasingly integrate AI into their workflows, it is critical to prepare students for this AI-first environment by enabling them to use this technology meaningfully and ethically,” Randhawa said. “Universities, as bastions of knowledge, must lead the way by incorporating AI into their curricula.”

    All in on AI

    At California State University, Long Beach, gerontology lecturer Casey Goeller has incorporated AI into his course assignments since fall 2023.

    Students enter Goeller’s Perspectives on Gerontology course with various levels of experience with AI. By asking students for a show of hands, Goeller estimates the class is usually evenly split, with some students having no experience, others having dabbled with it and some who have used it extensively.

    Goeller aims to help students understand how AI can be beneficial to them academically, whether it be assisting with brainstorming, organizing, or acting as a 24/7 on-call tutor.

    To achieve this, Goeller’s assignments include students using an AI tool of their choice to address his feedback on their essays based on criteria such as content, flow and plagiarism concerns. Another assignment, worth 15% of their grade, emphasizes the importance of prompt engineering by having students use AI-generated questions to interview an older person in their life.

    While Goeller gets a lot of questions from fellow faculty members about how AI works and how to implement it, he also hears plenty of hesitation.

    “There’s a lot of faculty who’s still riding a horse to work, I call it,” Goeller said. “One of them said, ‘I am never going to use AI. It’s just not going to happen.’ I said, ‘What you should do if you think you can get away with that is tomorrow morning, get up really early and stop the sun from coming up, because that’s how inevitable AI is.’”

    Goeller heeds the difficulties in establishing a conclusive way to incorporate AI into curricula due to different academic disciplines and styles of learning, but he does recognize the growing presence of AI in the workforce. Today, AI is filling various roles across industries, from analyzing trends in newsrooms and grocery stores, to generating entertainment, a point of contention for SAG-AFTRA members during 2023’s Hollywood strikes.

    “If we don’t help our students understand AI before they escape this place, they’re going to get into the workforce where it’s there,” Goeller said. “If they don’t know anything about it or are uncomfortable with it, they’re at a disadvantage compared to a student with the same degree and knowledge of AI.”

    California State University, Northridge, journalism lecturer Marta Valier has students use ChatGPT to write headlines, interview questions and video captions in her Multimedia Storytelling and Multi-platform Storytelling classes due to the inevitability of AI in the workforce.

    The goal of the implementation is to teach students how AI algorithms operate and how journalists can use AI to assist their work. Not using it, she said, “would be like not using ink.”

    “I absolutely want students to experiment with AI because, in newsrooms, it is used. In offices, it is used,” Valier said. “It’s just a matter of understanding which tools are useful, for what and where human creativity is still the best and where AI can help.”

    AI tools such as ChatGPT and Copilot are frequently updated, so Valier emphasizes flexibility when teaching about these technological topics.

    “I basically change my curriculum every day,” Valier said. “I think it reminds me as a professional that you need to constantly adapt to new technology because it’s going to change very fast. It’s very important to be open, to be curious about what technology can bring us and how it can help us.”

    However, Valier acknowledges the issues of AI in terms of data privacy and providing factual responses. She reminds students that it is their responsibility to make sure the information ChatGPT provides is accurate by doing their own research or rechecking results, and to avoid reliance on the platform.

    “Be very careful with personal information,” Valier said. “Especially if you have sources, or people that you want to protect, be very careful putting names and information that is sensitive.”

    Valier sees a clear difference in the quality of work produced by students who combine AI with their own skills, versus those who rely entirely on artificial intelligence.

    “You can tell when the person uses ChatGPT and stays on top of it, and when GPT takes over,” Valier said. “What I am really interested in is the point of view of the student, so when GPT takes over, there is no point of view. Even if [a student] doesn’t have the best writing, the ideas are still there.”

    Balancing AI use in the classroom

    Many AI-friendly instructors seek to strike a balance between AI-enriched assignments and AI-free assignments. 

    At USC, professors are encouraged to develop AI policies for each of their classes. Professors can choose between two approaches, as laid out in the school’s instructor guidelines for AI use: “Embrace and Enhance” or “Discourage and Detect.”

    Bobby Carnes, an associate professor of clinical accounting at USC, has adopted a balance between both approaches while teaching Introduction to Financial Accounting. 

    “I use it all the time, so it doesn’t make sense to tell (students) they can’t use it,” Carnes said.

    An avid user of AI tools like ChatGPT, USC associate professor of clinical accounting Bobby Carnes encourages AI experimentation for some assignments, but prohibits students from using it on exams. (Christina Chkarboul/EdSource)

    Carnes uses AI to refine his grammar in personal and professional work and to develop questions for tests. 

    “I give ChatGPT the information that I taught in the class, and then I can ask, ‘What topics haven’t I covered with these exam questions?’ It can help provide a more rich or robust exam,” Carnes said.

    He doesn’t allow students to use AI in exams that test for practical accounting skills, though. 

    “You need that baseline, but we’re trying to get students to be at that next level, to see the big picture,” he said.

    Carnes said he wants his students to take advantage of AI tools that are already changing the field, while mastering the foundational skills they’ll need to become financial managers and leaders. 

    “The nice thing about accounting is that the jobs just become more interesting (with AI), where there’s not as much remedial tasks,” Carnes said. 

    Preserving foundational learning

    Olivia Obeso, professor of education and literacy at California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, believes establishing foundational knowledge and critical thinking skills through AI-free teaching is non-negotiable.

    Obeso enforces her own no ChatGPT/AI usage policy in her Foundations of K-8 Literacy Teaching class to prepare her students for challenges in their post-collegiate life.

    “AI takes out the opportunity to engage in that productive struggle,” Obeso said. “That means my students won’t necessarily understand the topics as deeply or develop the skills they need.”

    Obeso is also concerned about ChatGPT’s environmental impact: For an in-class activity at the start of the fall 2024 semester, she asked students to research the software’s energy and water use. 

    The energy required to power ChatGPT emits 8.4 tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to Earth.Org. The average passenger vehicle produces 5 tons per year. Asking ChatGPT 20-50 questions uses 500 millliters (16.9) ounces of water, the size of a standard plastic water bottle.

    By the end of the exercise, Obeso said her students became “experts” on ethical considerations concerning AI, sharing their findings with the class through a discussion on what they read, how they felt and whether they had new concerns about using AI. 

    “You are a student and you are learning how to operate in this world, hold yourselves accountable,” Obeso said. 

    Jessica Odden, a senior majoring in child development, said Obeso’s class helped them understand AI use in the classroom as an aspiring teacher.

    “For people that are using (AI) in the wrong ways, it makes people reassess how people might be using it, especially in classes like this where we are training to become teachers,” Odden said. “What are you going to do when you actually have to lesson-plan yourself?” 

    Odden makes sure she sticks to learning the fundamentals of teaching herself so that she will be prepared for her first job.

    AI in curricula

    At the University of California, San Diego, some faculty members have echoed a concern for AI’s infringement upon independent learning. 

    Academic coordinator Eberly Barnes is interested in finding a middle ground that incorporates AI into curricula where it complements students’ critical thinking, rather than replaces it.

    Barnes oversees the analytical writing program, Making of the Modern World (MMW), where her responsibilities include revising the course’s policy of AI use in student work.

    The current policy enables students to use AI to stimulate their thinking, reading and writing for their assignments. However, it explicitly prohibits the use of the software to replace any of the aforementioned skills or the elaboration of the written piece itself.

    Despite the encouraged use of AI, Barnes expressed her own hesitancy about the role of AI in the field of social sciences and the research and writing skills needed to work within it. 

    “One of the goals in MMW is to teach critical thinking and also to teach academic writing. And the writing is embedded in the curriculum. You’re not going to learn to write if you’re just going to machine,” Barnes said. “The policy is inspired by the fact that we don’t think there’s any way to stop generative AI use.”

    When Barnes designs the writing prompts for the second and third series in the MMW program, she collaborates with teaching assistants to make assignment prompts incompatible with AI analysis and reduce the likelihood that students will seek out AI’s help for passing grades.

    “Students feel absolutely obsessed with grades and are very pressured to compete,” Barnes said. “That’s been around. I mean it is definitely worse here at UCSD than it was at other colleges and universities that I’ve been at.”

    A tool, not a cheat code

    Dr. Celeste Pilegard

    Celeste Pilegard is a professor of cognitive science and educational psychology at UCSD. She has been teaching introductory research methods since 2019, focusing on foundational topics that will prepare students for higher-level topics in the field.

    Educators like Pilegard have been struggling to adapt after the widespread adoption of AI tools. 

    “For me and a lot of professors, there’s fear,” Pilegard said. “We’re holding onto the last vestiges, hoping this isn’t going to become the thing everyone is using.”

    Pilegard is concerned that students rely on AI tools to easily pass their intro-level courses, leaving them without a firm understanding of the content and an inability to properly assess AI’s accuracy.

    “It’s hard to notice what is real and what is fake, what is helpful and what is misguided,” Pilegard said. “When you have enough expertise in an area, it’s possible to use ChatGPT as a thinking tool because you can detect its shortcomings.”

    However, Pilegard does believe AI can assist in learning. She likens the current situation with AI to the advent of statistical analysis software back in the 1970s, which eliminated the need to do calculations by hand. 

    At that time, many professors argued for the importance of students doing work manually to comprehend the foundations. However, these tools are now regularly used in the classroom with the acceptance and guidance of educators. 

    ”I don’t want to be the stick in the mud in terms of artificial intelligence,” Pilegard said. “Maybe there are some things that aren’t important for students to be doing themselves. But when the thing you’re offloading onto the computer is building the connections that help you build expertise, you’re really missing an opportunity to be learning deeply.”





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  • Feds shutter California civil rights office: ‘The students are going to suffer’

    Feds shutter California civil rights office: ‘The students are going to suffer’


    Credit: Carlos Kosienski/Sipa via AP Images

    Este artículo está disponible en Español. Léelo en español.

    TOP TAKEAWAYS
    • The U.S. Department of Education announced that it is reducing its workforce by half, shutting seven of 12 regional branches of its Office for Civil Rights. 
    • California has over 700 pending cases with the Office for Civil Rights. The Trump administration has not provided details on what happens to cases handled by the shuttered regional office in San Francisco.
    • The administration said this dramatic slashing would be followed by “significant reorganization to better serve students, parents, educators and taxpayers.” 
    • Educators and civil rights advocates say that vulnerable students will not have recourse when schools violate their civil rights.

    The announcement of a large-scale effort to reduce the workforce of the U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday — or nearly half of the agency’s staff — is raising concerns among California educators and advocates about the future of civil rights enforcement and funding for vulnerable students.

    About 1,300 federal workers will be placed on administrative leave as of March 21 or have accepted a voluntary resignation agreement, according to a news release by U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. 

    Seven of 12 regional offices that handle federal civil rights complaints were shuttered, including the Office for Civil Rights branch in San Francisco, which handles complaints filed in California. 

    “There is no federal presence enforcing civil rights in schools in California,” said Catherine Lhamon, the former assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education. “Our country and California will effectively see an end to a federal backstop of harm in schools.”

    While local and state governments provide the vast majority of funding and governance for TK-12 schools and higher education, the federal government handles key aspects of education in the U.S., including disbursing student loans and Pell Grants; funding programs for students with disabilities as well as schools serving low-income students; and overseeing national research that provides critical data for educators and policymakers.

    The U.S. Department of Education is also tasked with enforcing federal civil rights laws, authorized by Congress, through its Office for Civil Rights in order to protect students from discrimination. California alone has more than 700 pending complaints of civil rights violations.

    “I don’t know what is going to happen to those cases,” said an attorney who works in the San Francisco branch of the Office for Civil Rights. The attorney declined to be identified, citing concerns about retaliation for speaking out. “The students are going to suffer.”

    McMahon said in a statement that the reduction in force reflects a commitment to efficiency and accountability, and that the department will “continue to deliver on all statutory programs that fall under the agency’s purview, including formula funding, student loans, Pell Grants, funding for special needs students, and competitive grantmaking.”

    Some conservative groups, such as the Cato Institute, applauded the dramatic slashing of staff.

    “We don’t know how many people are actually needed to execute (the U.S. Department of Education) jobs, and it’s time to find out if it’s been a bloated bureaucracy all along,” said Neal McCluskey, director of Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom.

    But many educators and advocacy groups who work with students forcefully condemned the cuts.

    The Los Angeles Unified School District board passed a resolution Tuesday condemning the cuts to the U.S. Education Department, as well as cuts to other federal funding for school meals and Medicaid. Board member Kelly Gonez called on legislators to “push back against this radical and cruel agenda.”

    “The Trump administration and its allies in Congress are looking to decimate federal funding to schools, including cuts to school meals, MediCal, and education block grants,” Gonez said. “More threats are on the horizon due to Trump’s ongoing efforts to dismantle the Department of Education entirely. We will not stand by while this administration removes essential support for students.”

    ‘These are not minor issues’

    After a student with autism died after being restrained, Davis Joint Unified agreed to change its policies and training related to secluding and restraining students in 2022. That same year, Los Angeles Unified promised to address the concerns of disabled students who said they received little legally required special assistance during the height of the pandemic.

    These are just a few of the high-profile complaints that the Office for Civil Rights investigated and settled in California.

    “These are not minor issues,” said Lhamon, who was then the assistant secretary for civil rights.

    The Biden administration pleaded with Congress for additional funding to staff the Office for Civil Rights, which was facing a mushrooming caseload that reached an all-time high during his presidency, according to the Office for Civil Rights’ annual report. Now staff face the prospect of their caseload doubling from 50 cases per person to 100 cases — an “untenable” number, Lhamon said.

    The increase in cases, combined with an existing staffing shortage has likely created a backlog, extending the wait time for investigations to be completed and findings issued, said Megan Stanton-Trehan, a senior attorney at Disability Rights California who represents students with disabilities.

    “With increasing complaints and an idea that we want to increase efficiency, what we shouldn’t be doing is closing offices and decreasing the workforce, unless what we really want is to not enforce civil rights,” said Stanton-Trehan. 

    The federal government is sending the message that though students are required to attend school, there is no federal agency that will protect them from harm, Lhamon said.

    “That’s dangerous for democracy; it’s dangerous for schools,” she said.

    The U.S. Department of Education has not announced a plan for transferring cases from San Francisco or any other shuttered regional office.

    “We are in this work because we care, and we are compassionate,” said the San Francisco Office for Civil Rights attorney. “We are devastated for our students.”

    The Office for Civil Rights page listed 772 records of pending cases that the office is currently investigating in the state of California, though it does not include any cases filed after Jan. 3. Of those, 597 of the listed cases involved K-12 institutions, while another 175 involved post-secondary education. Many of the complaints — 388 pending cases — involve disability discrimination complaints.

    The cases date back to complaints filed in 2016 on a range of topics, including discrimination on the basis of national origin, religion and English learner status, as well as allegations of sexual violence, racial harassment and retaliation.

    Earlier this week, the Trump administration announced that it had sent letters to 60 universities to inform them that the Office for Civil Rights was investigating them for antisemitic discrimination. That list included Sacramento State, Chapman University, Pomona College, Santa Monica College, Stanford University, UC Davis, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley.

    Ana Najera-Mendoza, director of education equity and senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Southern California, is concerned that these complaints may take precedence over others. Every complaint filed in the Office for Civil Rights deserves to be considered in good faith, she said.

    Stating that a reduction in force doesn’t equate to a reduction in the department’s responsibilities, Najera-Mendoza said, “No administration should elect to enforce some complaints over others to enforce a specific agenda.”





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  • Upcoming Features for the New School Year


    With virtual learning more relevant than ever, we at Wowzers are working hard to release a variety of new features for the upcoming 2020-2021 school year. As more schools make the move to virtual learning, our goals are to better support the diverse needs of students, provide more automation and adaptive features to personalize content, and encourage student accountability over their own learning. Here’s a rundown of what to expect in the coming months:

    Automated Personalized Learning Paths

    Soon, Wowzers will be able to automatically generate a personalized curriculum for all students. After completing our comprehensive pre-assessment, your students are assigned a curriculum path that meets them at their individual needs. As students work seamlessly across grade levels, they receive exactly the right content to accelerate their learning and engagement. This new feature is in addition to our integration with NWEA, which gives each student a personalized learning path based on their MAP Growth assessment results. Now, even schools that don’t use NWEA assessments will be able to automatically generate a personalized curriculum for all their students.

    Offline Mode for the Wowzers App

    Available on Chromebooks, iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS, our new app can be downloaded on almost any device.  Because each student’s progress is stored in the cloud, they can switch devices whenever needed and pick up where they left off in the curriculum. With new optimizations, the app downloads up to four times faster than when students access Wowzers via a browser window.

    Even when an internet connection isn’t available, the Wowzers app will soon be able to work offline, which allows students to work on Wowzers anywhere. Their progress is immediately retrieved when they sign in where there is an internet connection. The app is a perfect solution for students living in remote areas of the US, and the rest of the world, who don’t have internet access at home. When using the Wowzers app offline, it also requires very little time to load and uses less battery power. 

    K-2 in Spanish

    The kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade content in Wowzers will soon be available in Spanish! Both the text and the voiceover can be switched to Spanish to support our younger ELL students.

    New Student Dashboard

    The new student dashboard allows students to more easily track their own progress. They will be able to easily see their latest scores and usage, encouraging them to remain accountable in their education journey.

    New Remediation Videos

    We’re also adding brand new remediation videos to the kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade content, just like the ones found in the older grades. These 100+ videos target exactly where students are struggling and help get them back on track with a short whiteboard lesson.

    Additional Adaptive Features

    When a student doesn’t quite pass the cumulative assessment at the end of a section, we’ll now move them backward in the curriculum to review the content. Teachers no longer need to manually adjust students’ curriculum paths when they’re struggling and not quite ready to move forward.

    Our hope is that these features will make all our users’ lives easier, from students and their parents to teachers and administrators.



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