Across the country, state legislatures have passed bills to ban “age-inappropriate” books from schools, in many cases subjecting teachers and school librarians to criminal charges for possession of such books. In January, EveryLibrary, a group that tracks legislation that puts school and college librarians, higher ed faculty and museum professionals at risk of criminal prosecution, identified 44 bills in 14 states as “legislation of concern,” for the 2024 session.

This climate has teachers and librarians feeling fearful, confused and stressed. Lindsey Kimery, the coordinator of library services for Metro-Nashville Public Schools, said she has “no hidden agenda other than that reading was my favorite thing.” Having books by, about and for LGBTQ+ students, she said, “does not mean we are out there promoting it. It just means we have books for those readers, too. What I try to convey is that a library is a place for voluntary inquiry.” 

Krause’s List

It is unclear how the recent book ban fervor started. Certainly, a former Texas state representative, Matt Krause, deserves some credit. On October 25, 2021, using his power as chair of the Texas House Committee on General Investigating, Krause sent a letter to the Texas Education Agency and to school districts listing some 850 books. He demanded that districts (1) identify how many copies of each title they possessed and where they were located, including which campuses and classrooms; (2) say how much the district spent to acquire the books; and (3) identify books not on his list that dealt with topics such as AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, or other subjects that “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”

Districts had until November 12, less than a month, to respond. This alarmed librarians. At the time, Mary Woodard, president of the Texas Library Association, was also in charge of school libraries in the Mesquite Independent School District (ISD). She recalled receiving the letter. “I was actually at home. My superintendent forwarded it to me. It was in the evening,” she said. “I just felt a cold chill. I was beyond shocked that somebody from our state government was asking what books were available in our school libraries. I never thought I would see anything like that.”  Like librarians around the state, Woodard was quickly called into a meeting with her superintendent. Ultimately, they gathered the information Krause asked for, but decided not to send it unless it was specifically requested. It wasn’t.

The lack of follow-up by Krause was interesting. He has repeatedly refused to say how he compiled the list or what he was trying to accomplish. But around the time the letter gained attention, Krause was running for state attorney general. He failed to make it onto the Republican ballot in March 2022, then decided to run for district attorney in Tarrant County as a “Faithful, Conservative Fighter,” but lost. His legislative term ended on January 10, 2023. He is now running for Tarrant County Commissioner.

Related: The (mostly) Republican moms fighting to reclaim their Idaho school district from conservatives 

The list was probably the most newsworthy thing he did as state legislator — it caught fire. Suddenly, Krause’s list was a state resource and discussed in the national media. Governor Greg Abbott called on the Texas Education Agency to launch criminal investigations into the availability of “pornographic books” in school libraries. Some of writer Andrew Solomon’s books were on the list, prompting him to write an essay titled “My Book Was Censored in China. Now It’s Blacklisted — in Texas.”

Actually, Krause’s list was quite sloppy. Media outlets dove into specifics and unearthed a ridiculous assemblage. Of course, books that mention LGBTQ+ students or are about sexuality (even from the 1970s) or race were well represented. But there was a lot that was puzzling. “Almost one in five of the books listed, I have no idea why they’re included,” wrote Danika Ellis of Book Riot, a podcast and website about books and reading, who sifted through the entire list. “Probably the one that has me the most stumped is ‘Inventions and Inventors’ by Roger Smith from 2002. What’s controversial about a book on inventions??” Other outlets shared similar head-scratching reactions. The Dallas Observer named their “10 most absurd” books on the list.

Actually, Krause’s list was quite sloppy. Media outlets dove into specifics and unearthed a ridiculous assemblage.

Yet many educators treated the list like an instructional manual. Chris Tackett, a political campaign finance expert, tweeted a photo of a man in a hoodie leaving the high school library in Granbury ISD pulling a dolly of cardboard boxes labeled “Krause’s List.” Granbury ISD’s superintendent, Jeremy Glenn, was eager to comply, as a leaked audio recording showed. He gathered librarians in January 2022 and told them that students didn’t need access to books about sexuality or transgender people. A secret recording shared by the Texas Tribune–ProPublica Investigative Unit and NBC News revealed a stunning disregard for students’ First Amendment rights.

Yet when Glenn addressed the librarians, there was clearly no room for disagreement. He stated that school board trustees had been in touch. “I want to talk about our community,” he said in a firm but syrupy drawl. “If you do not know this, you have been probably under a rock, but Granbury is a very, very conservative community and our board is very, very conservative.” He warned, “If that’s not what you believe, you’d better hide it because it ain’t changing in Granbury. Here, in this community, we will be conservative.”

He then detailed that meant not having books about sexuality or LGBTQ+ or “information on how to become transgender.” Then, Glenn revealed his discomfort with gender-fluid individuals, saying, “I will take it one step further with you and you can disagree if you want. There are two genders. There’s male and there’s female. And I acknowledge that there are men that think they are women and women that think they are men. And I don’t have any issues with what people want to believe, but there is no place for it in our libraries.” He told librarians that he was forming a review committee of parents and educators and that they would “pull books off the shelves, especially the 850” on Krause’s list. He finished with a directive that camouflaged the seriousness of what he asked them to do: “When in doubt, pull it. Let the community sign off on it, put it back on the shelf. You’re good to go.”

Objections Reflect Times, Personal Views

Not surprisingly, the matter of what should and may be included in school libraries has long been a source of contention, often influenced by the political climate of the time. In 1950, amid the fervor of McCarthyism, the Yale Law Journal delved into a controversy between The Nation and The New York City Board of Education after the left-leaning magazine published articles critical of Roman Catholic church doctrine and dogma. The school board voted to remove The Nation from school libraries. A multi-year battle followed with The Nation offering free subscriptions, but appeals to the state department of education failed. Was it censorship, as the Yale Law Journal and The Nation defense suggested? Libraries cannot subscribe to every periodical. The schools did not remove existing materials but did not include new issues.

The example hits on a current matter. Aside from pressure to remove materials, what should be included in the first place? Nowadays, rather than face controversy, some librarians are simply choosing not to purchase some books. A survey conducted by School Library Journal in Spring 2022 received input from 720 school librarians, 90 percent from public schools (all anonymous). It found that 97 percent weighed the impact of controversial subjects when making purchases. “The presence of an LGBTQIA+ character or theme in a book led 29 percent of respondents to decline a purchase,” the survey report said. Forty-two percent admitted removing a “potentially problematic” book that had not faced challenge or review. An updated 2023 survey revealed that this has only become more common. Thirty-seven percent said they declined to select books with LGBTQIA+ subject matter; 47 percent admitted to removing a book on their own. Interestingly, one-third said they had considered leaving the profession “in reaction to the intensity over book bans” — but two-thirds said that intensity has moved them to be more active in fighting censorship.

Book banning is a chaotic and illogical business. How a book is received or understood is often subject to the historical moment — and the tastes of individuals.

Book banning is a chaotic and illogical business. How a book is received or understood is often subject to the historical moment — and the tastes of individuals. The notion of an objective measure or checklist to decide what is “appropriate” — something far-right school boards have worked to police and enforce — is slippery to define. In the late 1930s, the children’s book “The Story of Ferdinand,” about a bull who would rather smell flowers than fight a matador, was interpreted as carrying a pacifist political message. But in a whirl of confusion, it was marked as both pro-Franco and anti-Franco — and also as “communist, anarchist, manic-depressive, and schizoid,” according to an analysis of children’s book censorship in the Elementary School Journal in 1970.  

Related: Florida just expanded school vouchers — again. What does that really mean?

In other words, people saw what they wanted to see. That also happened to “Sylvester and the Magic Pebble,” a children’s book by William Steig about a donkey who finds a magic pebble and, frightened by a lion, wishes himself into becoming a rock. The book contained images of police officers dressed as pigs. In 1971, the International Conference of Police Associations took offense at that portrayal of police as pigs — “pig” being a derogatory term for law enforcement officers. According to the author of the journal article, school librarians who agreed with the police association view of the drawings and “considered [the portrayal] a political statement,” pulled the books from shelves in many locales, including Lincoln, Nebraska; Palo Alto, California; Toledo, Ohio; Prince George’s County, Maryland; and several cities in Illinois.

Books often get singled out because they make someone uncomfortable. Lately, far-right activists have particularly objected to graphic images, including of intimate body parts. Which is what happened in the 1970s with Maurice Sendak’s “In the Night Kitchen.” The book includes drawings that reveal the toddler hero’s penis on several pages. School and public libraries quietly devised a solution: They used white tempera to paint diapers on Mickey, the main character. At a meeting of the American Library Association in Chicago in June 1972, some 475 librarians, illustrators, authors and publishers were outraged at the practice of the painting over the penis and signed a petition denouncing it as a form of censorship.

“School libraries are for all students but not all students are the same — they have diverse interests, abilities, and maturity levels, and varied cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.”

Texas Library Association

Books that involve drugs, violence, sex and sexual orientation can attract fierce opposition, regardless of the intended message, literary merit or value. Sometimes these books offer windows into other worlds and experiences, which in 1971 bothered school board members and a few parents in a white middle-class section of Queens, New York City. Community School District 25 board voted to ban “Down These Mean Streets,” by Piri Thomas, in which the author shares his tough story of survival in Harlem as the dark-skinned son of Puerto Rican immigrants. The five members of the school board who voted to ban the book did not have children in any public schools governed by the district. At a meeting that drew some 500 people and lasted for six hours, 63 attendees spoke with most objecting to the ban. According to a New York Times account, “Book Ban Splits a Queens School District,” the five school board members who favored the ban were nicknamed “The Holy Five” or “The Faithful Five.” Four had run on a slate sponsored by the Home Schools Association, a support group for Catholic parents home-schooling their children. In a parallel to the present, some questioned their motives, concerned that they were reflecting personal interests and not the district’s. A few years later, in December 1975, the board, composed of different and recently elected members, voted to repeal the ban. The board president called the book banning “abhorrent” and “undemocratic.”

Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico

Thomas’s book also played a role in a case on which the Supreme Court ruled in 1982. It began in September 1975, when several board members of the Island Trees Union Free School District on Long Island, New York, attended a weekend education conference in Watkins Glen, New York, organized by a far-right group, Parents of New York United, Inc. (PONY-U. Inc. for short). Island Trees Union Free School District board members mixed with representatives from the Heritage Foundation and parents opposed to school desegregation in Boston. The keynote speaker, Genevieve Klein, a member of the New York State Board of Regents, advocated for adoption of a voucher system for education. “If you are a parent who believes that reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic are basic tools necessary for developing into a contributing member of society, then you know that parental control is an immediate necessity,” she told the group. “If there is to be any hope for saving another generation from becoming functional idiots the time to act is now.”

PONY-U. Inc. was not just a local group eager to talk about schooling. Headed by Janet Mellon, a far-right activist, the group had spent several years orchestrating opposition to sex education and human relations education in schools and to student busing across Upstate New York. Yet books were top of mind leading up to Watkins Glen. A few weeks prior, the group hosted a talk titled “Book Censorship in Our Schools” at the Central Fire Station in Ithaca, New York. The Watkins Glen conference also came on the heels of one of the most violent and divisive school textbook battles in history. For six months in 1974 and 1975, bitter conflict roiled West Virginia’s Kanawha County after a new school board member, Alice Moore, sought the removal of textbooks that she found objectionable. She had won her seat by convincing voters that schools were “destroying our children’s patriotism, trust in God, respect for authority and confidence in their parents.”

Moore mobilized other conservatives locally and nationally, including prominent education activists Mel and Norma Gabler, who sought to “excise the rot from the nation’s schoolbooks,” as Adam Laats writes in “The Other School Reformers: Conservative Activism in American Education.” That “rot” included teaching evolution; communicating a “liberated” sexuality; “graphic accounts of gang fights; raids by wild motorcyclists; violent demonstrations against authority; murders of family members; of rape” and “books that denigrated traditional patriotic stories” in favor of popular subjects at the time, including Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Gertrude Ederle, Bobby Jones, Joan Baez, W. E. B. Du Bois “and many others dear to liberal hearts.”

Related: Who picks school curriculum? Idaho law hands more power to parents

As protests in Kanawha County grew, violence spread. Reverend Marvin Horand, a fundamentalist minister and former truck driver, called for school boycotts, arguing that “no education at all is 100 percent better than what’s going on in the schools now. If we don’t protect our children from evil, we’ll have to go to hell for it.” The controversy resulted in two shooting deaths and multiple bombings. Horand was charged and ultimately found guilty in connection with the dynamiting of two elementary schools. The Heritage Foundation was also on the ground, providing legal support and helping a local group hold a “series of ‘Concerned Citizen’ hearings on discontent with the public schools.” Mellon of PONY-U. was one of their “expert” speakers.

At the Watkins Glen conference — with the memory of Kanawha County still fresh — board members of the Island Trees Union Free School District received a list of 32 books described as “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and just plain filthy.” Then, in February 1976, the board ordered the Island Trees Union Free School superintendent to remove 11 books from the district’s junior and senior high schools, including nine from school libraries. The move stirred outrage, but the board defended the ban, claiming that the books contained “material which is offensive to Christians, Jews, blacks and Americans in general.” Two of the books — “The Fixer,” by Bernard Malamud, and “Laughing Boy,” by Oliver La Farge — had won the Pulitzer Prize. At a press conference, school board member Frank Martin read aloud from “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut, citing sentences in which Jesus is called a “bum” and a “nobody.” Martin said that “even if the rest of the book was the best story in the world, I still wouldn’t want it in our library with this stuff in it.” The other books: “Down These Mean Streets,” by Piri Thomas; “The Naked Ape,” by Desmond Morris; “Soul on Ice,” by Eldridge Cleaver; “Black Boy by Richard Wright;” “Best Short Stories of Negro Writers,” edited by Langston Hughes; “Go Ask Alice,” by an anonymous author; “A Hero Ain’t Nothing but a Sandwich,” by Alice Childress; and “A Reader for Writers,” by Jerome Archer.

“We are not even allowed to order the newest ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ or the latest ‘Guinness World Records’ unless the board gives express permission for those specific titles. We can’t get any new nonfiction books about camels or squirrels or football without specific approval of the school board.”

A librarian from the Bear Creek Intermediate School, Keller Independent School District, Texas

Opposition to the ban grew. In April 1976, 500 people jammed a local school board meeting. Many juniors and seniors in high school also attended. One told a reporter, “These books are very tame. It’s nothing you can’t hear in the sixth-grade school bus.” Yet the board upheld the ban. Then, several months later, it reaffirmed the ban, saying that board members had read the books and pronounced them “educationally unsound.” By September 1976, the matter had attracted broad notice and Thomas, the author of “Down These Mean Streets,” wrote in The New York Times arguing for “the right to write and to read.”  He explained that the book “was not written to titillate but to bring forth a clarity about my growing up in El Barrio in the 1930’s and 1940’s.” He added, “Since the horrors of poverty, racism, drugs, the brutality of our prison system, the inhumanity toward children of all colors are still running rampant, let the truth written by those who lived it be read by those who didn’t.”

When the books were first removed, Steven Pico, at 16, was vice president of the junior class and a member of the school newspaper’s editorial board. The following year, as student council president and a liaison to Island Tree Union Free District Board of Education, he attended school board meetings. He decided to mount a challenge to the ban. Pico connected with lawyers from the New York Civil Liberties Union, and four other students joined the suit. It took years for the case to make it to the high court. Pico went off to college, earning his BA from Haverford College in 1981. Just over a year later, on June 25, 1982, the Supreme Court handed down its decision. The Court ruled that the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech limited the discretion of public school officials to remove books they considered offensive from school libraries. The New York Times ran its story on the ruling on page one. Linda Greenhouse, who covered the Supreme Court, noted that Bruce Rich, general counsel to the Freedom to Read Committee of the Association of American Publishers, “called the ruling ‘marvelous’ and said it ‘sends a very important message to school boards: Act carefully.’”

The decision in Pico was taken as a victory by those opposed to book bans, but as Greenhouse’s story also stated, it was a complicated win. It was a plurality ruling, which included a four-justice majority and two concurring opinions, that recognized school officials had violated students’ rights when they removed library books they didn’t like. “Our Constitution does not permit the official suppression of ideas,” wrote Associate Justice William J. Brennan Jr. But, as Greenhouse noted, “The Court did not define the precise limits of the Constitutional right it recognized.”

In the late 1930s, the children’s book “The Story of Ferdinand,” about a bull who would rather smell flowers than fight a matador, was interpreted as carrying a pacifist political message. But in a whirl of confusion, it was marked as both pro-Franco and anti-Franco — and also as “communist, anarchist, manic-depressive, and schizoid.”

School board members in Pico wanted to remove books whose content they disapproved of. But what if books were removed as a result of a restrictive policy? Or if state legislatures or school boards passed rules that restricted library materials? Would that run afoul of the law? Or would it provide cover for de facto book bans? What if a district made a process for approving books so onerous that librarians simply stopped ordering books with certain content?

These and related questions are playing out in real time now over what should be allowed in school libraries. Keller ISD, near Fort Worth, Texas, has faced controversy. When Governor Abbott announced plans to investigate school libraries amid reports of “pornographic” books, he specifically targeted Keller ISD, putting librarians in the district on the defensive. And when the Texas Education Agency released new guidelines for how districts should prevent “obscene content” from entering school libraries — a bid for wholesale changes in how books were acquired for libraries, bypassing the graduate training that is part of being a librarian — a far-right majority Keller ISD school board, newly-election in Spring 2022 with backing from the Patriot Mobile Action PAC, was only too happy to get involved.

Related: Moms For Liberty flexes its muscles — and faces pushback

At the time, the Texas Library Association and the Texas Association of School Librarians (a division of the Texas Library Association) objected to the new state guidelines. Those guidelines included the language of the Texas Penal Code Åò43.24(a)(2), a clear political statement, and a not-so-veiled threat. In most states, after all, K–12 schools and public libraries are typically exempt from obscenity laws; it is recognized that items that may clash with the language of those standards — art, biology, literature — involve creative and educational works that seek to deepen understanding of the human experience. Removing that exemption was the goal of the failed Tennessee House Bill 1944; it is a focus of several proposed bills around the country. 

The Texas Library Association objected to the increased burden on librarians, superintendents and school boards to read and review thousands of titles, acknowledging the difficult task for people who lack training as librarians. Such a process means relying on personal views of elected officials and other untrained people, which got the Island Trees Free Union School Board in trouble. In a statement, the Texas Library Association also underscored the actual role that libraries play: “School libraries are for all students but not all students are the same — they have diverse interests, abilities, and maturity levels, and varied cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.” The statement also pointedly rebuffed Abbott’s charge, adding, “Furthermore, school libraries do not collect obscene content.”

Yet the new Keller ISD school board was more than eager to take up removing “obscene content” from school libraries, and on July 8, 2022 passed an updated book policy that largely mirrored the new state guidelines. They weren’t done. A month later, on August 22, the board voted 4-2 (with one abstention) to adopt new district guidelines for selecting books. Each would be judged according to how often certain items appeared in its pages. Ill-defined terms like “prevalent,” “common,” “some” or “minimal” would indicate what amount of specific flagged content — profanity, kissing, horror, violence, bullying, drug or alcohol use by minors, drug use by adults, the glorification of suicide or self-harm or mental illness, brief descriptions of nonsexual nudity, and sexually explicit conduct or sexual abuse — would be permitted at different age levels.

Veteran board member, Ruthie Keyes, who had abstained, puzzled over how to apply the guidelines. In talking about violence, she asked, “Are they talking about military combat?” She had spoken with teachers who estimated having to remove two-thirds of their classroom library books. “That’s a lot,” she said. “And none were talking about explicit sex scenes.” (In November 2022, the board added one more rule: No mention of “gender fluidity” was permitted.)

The new policy created a selection process with more layers of librarians reviewing each purchase. Books would be also placed on a list open to review and challenge by members of the community for 30 days. The board would then approve the purchase of each book. This had an almost immediate effect. At the October 24, 2022, school board meeting, a librarian from the Bear Creek Intermediate School made her way to the mic, her hair piled in a messy swirl, glasses affixed to her face, and paper in hand. She spoke calmly about the policy, which she considered an affront to the training she and her peers had undergone. The board “has shown by its actions that Keller ISD librarians are not respected at all,” she said. “We are not even allowed to order the newest ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ or the latest ‘Guinness World Records’ unless the board gives express permission for those specific titles. We can’t get any new nonfiction books about camels or squirrels or football without specific approval of the school board.”

“I just felt a cold chill. I was beyond shocked that somebody from our state government was asking what books were available in our school libraries. I never thought I would see anything like that.” 

Mary Woodard, president of the Texas Library Association

She described “a huge environment of fear” among librarians who “are not even trusted to order a new alphabet book like ABC Cats for pre-K students.” Students, she said, keep asking why there are no new books. She must constantly say that titles are coming soon and makes excuses for the lack of new books. What she doesn’t reveal is the truth: “I certainly don’t mention the role that politics is playing in our libraries and our district.”

But in a reminder that this is political, the far-right Keller ISD Family Alliance PAC used the new policy and book removals to fundraise, trumpeting that the board had “stood up against the left’s woke agenda in schools, now we MUST hold the line and protect our hard-earned victories and our children.” Then it asked, “Can we count on you today to support our school board with a donation of $25, $50, $100, $250 or even $500?” Below the text was a “donate” button.

Much as moves to ban books get cast by far-right activists as “protecting” students, they are —and long have been — baldly political. Just last week, a federal judge in Florida heard oral arguments in a case brought by PEN America, publishers, authors and parents against the Escambia County School District and Escambia County School Board. The plaintiffs charge that the board and district removed and restricted books “based on their disagreement with the ideas expressed in those books.” Further, they “have disproportionately targeted books by or about people of color and/or LGBTQ people.”

As this case proceeds, as state legislatures prepare to take up bills that threaten librarians, teachers and the freedom of students to read, however, it is important to remember that this is more than some theoretical debate. There are consequences — for librarians doing their jobs, for children who want ordinary books, and for those for whom these restrictions are received as an attack.

In Keller ISD, during the five-and-half-hour school board meeting at which the board adopted restrictive book selection policies, a high school senior spoke during public comments. He said that he was gay, and in middle school had been told by peers that he was “a freak.”  I began to agree with them,” he said. Then, he recounted, “I found a book about boys that felt the same way as I did.” Reading it made him less alone; he gained confidence as he reached high school. Yet the new library and book policies made students like him “feel attacked by the school board,” he said. “This pervasive censorship is about more than politics,” he added. “It is about lives.”

This is an adapted excerpt from “School Moms: Parent Activism, Partisan Politics and the Battle for Public Education” by Laura Pappano. Copyright 2024. Excerpted with permission by Beacon Press.

The post The magic pebble and a lazy bull: The book ban movement has a long timeline appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

WILMINGTON, Del. – A wall of the Rodriguez family home celebrates three seminal events with these words: “A moment in time, changed forever.”

Beneath the inscription, a clock marks the time and dates when three swaddled newborns depicted in large photos entered the world: Ashley, now 19, Emily, 17, and Brianna, 11.

Another“moment in time” occurred last June, one that could change the paths of Emily and Brianna. That’s when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its landmark case on affirmative action, barring colleges from taking race into consideration as a factor in admission decisions.

The ruling struck down more than 50 years of legal precedent, creating newfound uncertainty for the first class of college applicants to be shaped by the decision – especially for Black and Hispanic students hoping to get into highly competitive colleges that once sought them out.

It also places the Rodriguez sisters on opposite sides of history: Ashley applied to college when schools in many states could still consider race, while Emily can expect no such advantage.

Their parents, Margarita Lopez, 38, and Rafael Rodriguez, 42, are immigrants from Mexico who moved to the United States as teenagers.

Ashley is the first in her family to attend college, a freshman studying child psychology on a full scholarship to prestigious Oxford College of Emory University, where annual estimated costs approached $80,000 this year.

Emily is the middle daughter, a senior and mostly straight-A student at Conrad Schools of Science in Wilmington who wants to become a veterinarian, and who spent most of this fall anxiously awaiting word from her first-choice college, Cornell University.

The impact of the court’s decision on enrollment at hundreds of selective colleges and universities won’t start to become clear until colleges send out offers this spring and release final acceptance figures.

“We definitely feel that this year, the window is narrower for students whose GPA does not tell the full story of their brilliance and the challenges they’ve overcome.”

TeenSHARP co-founder Atnre Alleyne

But many students, counselors and families view this admission cycle as the first test of whether colleges will become less diverse going forward, while cautioning it may take years before a clear pattern emerges. The Hechinger Report contacted more than 40 selective colleges and universities asking for the racial breakdown of those who applied for early decision and were accepted this year.

About half the institutions responded and none provided the requested information. Several said that they would not have such data available even internally until after the admissions cycle wraps up next year. Some have cited advice from legal counsel in declining to release the racial and ethnic composition for the class of 2028.

For the Rodriguez family, higher education has already become a symbol of upward mobility, a life-altering path to meaningful careers and the sort of financial stability that Margarita and Rafael have never known.

College wasn’t a part of their culture, and before last year Rafael and Margarita had no idea how complicated and competitive the landscape would be for their bright, hardworking daughters. Of all U.S. racial or ethnic groups, Hispanic Americans are the least likely to hold a college degree.

“I never even dreamed about a place like Emory, or about all the schools that have really good financial aid,” Margarita said recently. She wouldn’t have looked beyond the local community college and state universities for her daughters if she hadn’t learned about TeenSHARP, a nonprofit that prepares high-performing students from underrepresented backgrounds for higher education.

She immediately signed up Ashley, and later, Emily.

TeenSHARP co-founder Atnre Alleyne, with his wife, Tatiana Poladko, and team of advisers, guided Ashley and Emily through their high school course selection and college essays, while pointing out leadership opportunities and colleges with good track records of offering scholarships.

Related: College advisors vow to kick the door open for Black and Hispanic students despite affirmative action ruling

Emory is one. The school admitted no Black students until 1963, but has aggressively recruited students from underrepresented backgrounds in recent years. Hispanic enrollment had been growing before the Supreme Court’s decision, from 7.5 percent in 2017 to 9.2 percent in 2021. Ashley’s class at Oxford is 15 percent Hispanic.

“I felt like I was right at home here,” Ashley said, shortly after arriving in August. The entire Rodriguez family dropped her off and stayed for a few days until she was settled. “It felt very homey to me,” she said. “Everybody is so welcoming.”

Still, Ashley worried about her grades as she adjusted to her new workload. She fielded constant texts and calls from her family, who were adjusting to having her away from home for the first time.

Emily missed her sister terribly – together they’d started their high school’s club for first-generation scholars, helping others navigate college choices. “She has the brain and I like to talk,” Emily joked.

This fall, Emily set her sights on some of the most selective colleges in the country, many of which had terrible track records on diversity even before the Supreme Court’s decision. She approached her search knowing that she was unlikely to get any boost based on her ethnicity.

That makes her angry.

“We have so much history behind us as people of color,” Emily said. “So why would we be put at the same level as somebody whose family has benefited off of the harm done to communities of color?”

Emily also knew she would need a hefty scholarship to attend one of her dream schools; her family can’t afford the tuition, and they’ve been loath to saddle their daughters with loans.

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing if poor whites now benefit from affirmative action.”

Richard Kahlenberg, an author and scholar at Georgetown University

Elite schools like those on Ashley and Emily’s lists are more likely to be filled with wealthy students: Families from the top 0.1 percent are more than twice as likely to get in as other applicants with the same test scores. But such schools also offer the most generous scholarship and aid packages, and Emily and Ashley believed they presented the best shot at a different life from their parents’.

“Ever since I was little, I knew that college was the ticket to break this cycle our family has been in for generations and generations, of not knowing, of not being educated,” Emily said. “And because of that, having to work with their backs instead of their brains.”

That the Rodriguez sisters could even consider top-tier colleges is a credit to their mother.

“I want them to have the opportunity I never had,” Margarita said. “I know that life after education will be easier for them. I don’t want them to be working 12, 14 hours like their dad did.”

Rafael Rodriguez has always worked: first, with livestock as a child in central Mexico and later, in Florida, on an orange farm until the age of 15, with a residential permit. His earnings went toward helping the rest of the family come to the United States and settle in West Grove, Pennsylvania.

Rafael didn’t attend high school because he had to help support his parents and sisters. He now owns a trucking company.

Margarita desperately wanted to go to college, but said her mother did not believe in taking out loans for higher education and refused to sign her financial aid forms.

Instead, she married Rafael a few days after graduating from high school and had Ashley a year later. Emily was born 17 months later. Margarita was thinking of enrolling in community college until Brianna came along six years later. She now helps Rafael with his trucking business while working as a translator.

Both sisters are keenly aware of the gulf between their lives and their mom’s. In her college essay, Ashley described being “a daughter of two immigrant parents who undertook a dangerous journey from their native Guanajuato, Mexico, to America.”

Emily wrote about how Margarita had violated “every norm of our Mexican community, allowing me to sacrifice my time with family on weekends and in the summer” to attend Saturday leadership trainings with TeenSHARP, as well as college-level courses in epidemiology and health sciences at Brown, Cornell and the University of Delaware.

Related: Colleges decry Supreme Court decision on affirmative action, but most have terrible track records on diversity

The pressure Emily feels is both formidable and familiar to the immigrant experience, magnified by the divisive court decision.

Hamza Parker, a senior at Smyrna High School in Delaware, feels it as well. He was at first unsure of whether or not to write about race in his essay, a debate many students have been having.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his majority decision that race could be invoked only within the context of the applicant’s life story, leaving it up to students to decide if they would use their essays to discuss their race.

Meanwhile, conservative activist Edward Blum, who helped bring the case before the court, has threatened more lawsuits and said he would challenge essays “used to ascertain or provide a benefit based on the applicant’s race.”

“I never even dreamed about a place like Emory, or about all the schools that have really good financial aid.”

Margarita Rodriguez, mother

Hamza wavered at first, then rewrote his essay to describe his family’s move to the United States from Saudi Arabia in sixth grade and the racism he subsequently experienced. He applied early decision to Union College in upstate New York; earlier this month, he learned via email that he did not get in.

Neither Hamza nor his father, Timothy Parker, an engineer, know why, or what role affirmative action played in Union’s decision: Rejections never come with explanations.

Parker hopes his son will now consider an HBCU like the one he attended, Hampton University, in Virginia. He worries that if Hamza ends up at a school where he is clearly in the minority, he could be made to feel as though he doesn’t belong.

Related: Beyond the Rankings: College Welcome Guide

“I’m letting it be his choice,” Parker said, noting that Hamza might also feel more comfortable at an HBCU given the nation’s divisive political climate. With the end of affirmative action, he added, “It feels like we are going backwards not forward.”

HBCUs are becoming more competitive after the court’s decision. Chelsea Holley, director of admissions at Spelman College in Atlanta, said Black high schoolers may be choosing HBCUs because they fear further assaults on diversity and inclusion and believe they’ll feel more comfortable on predominantly Black campuses.

Parker is now finishing his applications to Denison University, the University of Maryland, the University of Delaware, and Carleton College. He’s not sure if Hampton will be on his list.

Alleyne, Hamza’s adviser, said that while they will never know if the court’s decision had any impact on Hamza’s rejection from Union, he’s concerned about what it portends for other TeenSHARP seniors.

“We have so much history behind us as people of color. So why would we be put at the same level as somebody whose family has benefited off of the harm done to communities of color?”

Emily Rodriguez, high school senior

“There are so many factors at play with every application,” Alleyne said. “We definitely feel that this year, the window is narrower for students whose GPA does not tell the full story of their brilliance and the challenges they’ve overcome.”

Alleyne is also concerned that scholarships once available for students like Parker are disappearing. Some of the race-based scholarships his students applied for in past years are no longer listed on college websites, he said.

At the same time, there are plenty who believe that the court’s decision was a much-needed correction, including Richard Kahlenberg, an author and scholar at Georgetown University who testified in the case. He argues that the ban will lead to a fairer landscape for low-income students for all races.

Kahlenberg is in favor of using affirmative action based on class instead of race. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing if poor whites now benefit from affirmative action,” Kahlenberg said.

Related: A poster child for protesting affirmative action now says he never meant for it to be abolished

For the Rodriguez family, Cornell’s early decision announcement was long anticipated, to be marked on the magnetic calendar attached to their refrigerator as soon as they knew it. Ashley would be home from Emory for winter break and would hear the news alongside her sister.

For weeks, the family had prepared themselves for bad news: Cornell had announced it was limiting the number of students it would accept early decision, in what the university said was “an effort to increase equity in the admissions process.”

Still, Emily had spent a summer studying at Cornell and gotten to know some faculty and advisers there. She had fallen in love with the animal science program, and the lively upstate New York college town of Ithaca, set amid stunning gorges and waterfalls.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” Rafael said as they huddled together in front of Emily’s laptop. Emily wore a white t-shirt with “Cornell” emblazoned in bold red letters on the front, for good luck. She wavered, then clicked.

“Congratulations, you have been admitted to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences: College major: Animal Science at Cornell University for the fall of 2024. Welcome to the Cornell community!” said the email on her screen, adorned with red confetti.Annual estimated costs for next year would be $92,682 – but Cornell pledged to meet all of it.

Emily screamed, and the room erupted in cheers. Every member of the family began sobbing. Cinnamon, the family’s three-year-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, barked wildly.

Emily jumped up and down. “Ivy League!” she shouted. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. I did it.”

Brianna, a sixth grader who will work with TeenSHARP once she’s in high school, hugged both of her sisters.

It will be her turn next.

Additional reporting was contributed by Sarah Butrymowicz.

This story about the end of affirmative action is the second in a series of articles accompanying a documentary produced by The Hechinger Report in partnership with Soledad O’Brien Productions, about the impact of the Supreme Court ruling on race-based affirmative action. Hechinger is a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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Next year will mark seven decades since the U.S. Supreme Court declared racially segregated public schools to be unconstitutional. Even the current Supreme Court’s conservatives have embraced that Brown vs. Board of Education decision.

Yet, 70 years after Brown, a key obstacle to racial equality in education continues to be white resistance to racial integration and to adequate funding for the education of Black and Latino children.

In the 1950s and 1960s, white resistance took the form of a revolt against integration and busing.

Private “white academies” — also known as segregation academies — sprang up to preserve the advantages held by the previously white-only public schools.

Today, one form of ongoing resistance is what scholars label “hoarding opportunities.” By using zoning and districting to create and perpetuate overwhelmingly white spaces and declining to share resources with Black and Latino children, white Americans limit the reach of integration and perpetuate inequality.

Related: Reckoning with Mississippi’s ‘segregation academies’

Not surprisingly, in 2022, the Government Accountability Office declared that school segregation continues unabated. The agency reported that even as the nation’s student population has diversified, 43 percent of its schools are segregated, and 18.5 million students, more than one-third of all the students in the country, are enrolled in highly segregated schools (75 percent or more of the students identify as a single race or ethnicity).

The Midwest — with 59 percent of all schools classified as segregated — is the leader in segregation.

The same GAO study showed that when new school districts are formed, they tend to be far more racially homogeneous than the districts they replace.

A key obstacle to racial equality in education continues to be white resistance.

Direct evidence of white resistance to racial equity in education can be seen in a survey experiment my co-authors and I conducted in 2021 that closely replicated findings from earlier periods. The study shows that white Americans continue to be reluctant to support increased funding for schools for Black children.

In our experiment, 552 white Americans were randomly assigned to one of two groups. The first group was asked: “Do you favor or oppose expanding funding for pre-kindergarten programs so that it is available for poor children nationwide? The $24 billion a year cost would be paid for by higher taxes.”

The second group was asked the same question, except that “poor children” was replaced by “poor Black children.”

About 75 percent of respondents in the first group said they favor spending tax dollars for such a program. However, in the group asked about “poor Black children,” just 68 percent were in favor. This is a significant gap in support.

The experiment suggests that among white Americans, support for public education funding for poor children is robust. But less so for poor Black children.

White resistance to desegregation and school funding for Black students has severe consequences for racial equality and the economy.

Related: OPINION: Our education system is not setting up students for success

Research published this month shows that Black students who attended Southern desegregated schools in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s experienced positive lifelong cognitive effects.

And data from the U.S. Department of Education still shows “substantial” racial gaps in reading and math competencies, high school graduation rates and, inevitably, college entry.

A recent Brookings report estimated that if the racial gap in education and employment had been eliminated, the U.S. GDP from 1990 to 2019 would have been $22.9 trillion larger. This would benefit us all.

The great promise of Brown was one of equal access to high-quality education. The hope was that income and other social disparities among white, Black and Latino people would dissipate over time. White resistance contributed to America not keeping this promise.

Policymakers, funders and education advocates must overcome white resistance to strengthen support for programs geared toward Black and Latino children.

This will help America’s quest to fulfill the promise of Brown. It’s time.

Alexandra Filindra is an associate professor of political science and psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago and a Public Voices Fellow through The OpEd Project. She is also the author of “Race, Rights and Rifles.”

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“What are you going to do with that?” is a question I heard often from my family as both an undergraduate and a graduate student.

Yes, I was an English major. My older siblings were going to nursing and medical school and all of my cousins were pursuing engineering, science and business degrees. So there was always an edge to that question every time it came up at family gatherings. A just-under-the-surface skepticism about the usefulness of a humanities degree as job preparation.

I know now that this question was meant kindly — and was informed by the older generation’s desire to see their children enjoy a return on investment (ROI) on a college education similar to what they themselves experienced as first- and second-generation college-goers.

College degrees changed the trajectories of their lives. They opened opportunities for economic and social mobility and moved my parents’ generation beyond the experiences of their grandparents and great-grandparents, many of whom, as first- and second-generation immigrants to this country in the nineteenth century, started their working lives as farmers or day laborers.

My aunts, uncles and parents were keenly aware that they themselves had benefited substantially from America’s grand expansion of the public higher education system post-World War II. Though their question burdened me at the time with self-doubt, among other things, they asked it out of a caring sense of concern for my future.

Decades later, I now have the privilege of serving as the dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at George Mason University, an access-oriented public research university that serves and graduates high numbers of students who are first-generation college goers, military veterans, economically under-resourced or transfer students, or from historically underrepresented groups.

Related: PROOF POINTS: The number of college graduates in the humanities drops for the eighth consecutive year

As the idea of higher education as a public good is increasingly questioned or under attack, and as public perceptions of the value of a college degree relative to its cost continue to shift, I often remind my faculty of our fundamental purpose: We are here to educate our students.

We are here to engage them in the kinds of high-impact discovery learning that public research universities can offer at scale; the kinds of experiences that can change the trajectory of their lives and the lives of their families.

“What can’t you do with a humanities degree?”

It is because of my institution’s access-oriented educational mission that I view the release of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences’ Humanities Indicators report, “Employment Outcomes for Humanities Majors: State Profiles,” as an important occasion.

Drawing on data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the data collected and analyzed in this study should help change national narratives about both the “death” of the humanities and the low ROI on a four-year college degree.

The first national study of its kind, the report offers a state-by-state comparison of the salary ranges and unemployment rates of college graduates who majored in the humanities with those of, on the one hand, high-school and two-year college graduates and, on the other hand, college graduates in the arts, education, social sciences, business, natural sciences and engineering.

In doing so, the report tells a very different story than the one you typically see circulating in the media these days. Key takeaways:

• Earnings: Humanities graduates’ earnings are substantially higher than those of people without a college degree and are often on par with or higher than those of graduates in non-engineering fields.
• Earnings Disparities: Except in a few northwestern states, humanities majors earn at least 40 percent more than people with only a high school degree.
• Unemployment: The unemployment rate of humanities majors is around 2-4 percent in every state, similar to that of engineering and business majors and substantially lower than that of people without a college degree.
• Occupational Versatility: Humanities graduates make up big portions of the legal, museum and library workforces across all states; other significant areas of humanities graduate employment are education, management and sales.

Without question, the total cost of college attendance should continue to be a concern for all of us. And earnings and occupation are not the only measures of success in one’s career or life. But I am excited, as a dean, to have in hand the American Academy of Arts & Sciences’ new Humanities Indicators report and its “State of the Humanities 2021: Workforce and Beyond”report as resources to use to help current undergraduate and graduate students see how humanities majors in all 50 states have put their degrees to work across a broad spectrum of occupations and industries.

The workforce data in this new American Academy of Arts & Sciences report is the perfect complement to individual storytelling in helping today’s humanities majors think through “What are you going to do with that?” — and see clearly the vast world of work that opens to them through education in these disciplines.

Related: OPINION: Studying humanities can prepare the next generation of social justice leaders

“What can’t you do with a humanities degree?” is a tagline we invite the George Mason undergraduate admissions officers to keep top of mind as they begin their recruitment road trips.

Even as technological change is accelerating and reshaping jobs in ways that will require all of us to reinvent our careers, this American Academy of Arts & Sciences report gives today’s college students a data-informed way to conceptualize both the job opportunities and the career earning trajectories of humanities majors in all 50 states and across many sectors of our nation’s knowledge-based economy.

Ann Ardis is dean of George Mason University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

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The thing that surprised me most about my teacher preparation program was that we never talked about how kids learn.

Instead, we were taught how to structure a lesson and given tips on classroom management. I took “methods” classes that gave me strategies for discussions and activities.

I assumed that I would eventually learn how the brain worked because I thought that studying education meant studying how learning happens.

But in my training in the late ’90s, the closest I got to cognitive science was the concept of “practitioner inquiry.” I was told to study my own students and investigate what worked best. That sounded hollow to me; surely more-experienced hands knew better.

But discussions around teacher effectiveness — what methods are scientifically proven to support cognitive development — were painfully rare. Eventually, I concluded that I never learned, and we never talked about, how the brain processes information because scientists didn’t know much about it.

I was wrong. If you are a mid-career educator like me, perhaps this sounds familiar. Maybe you have also been surprised to find out that cognitive scientists actually know quite a bit about how we learn. Over the last several years, many of us have had the uncomfortable realization that there is a gap between how we teach and how scientific findings suggest we should teach.

Many of us first felt this uneasiness when we heard about the “science of reading” in a series of podcasts by Emily Hanford. Since it aired, reading educators have engaged in a great national conversation about the discrepancy between what science understands about how students learn to read and how we often teach it in schools.

The discovery of the science of reading has led to the larger, more practice-shattering realization that educators know very little about the science of learning itself.

Related: The ‘science of reading’ swept reforms into classrooms nationwide. What about math?

Just as scientists have made great gains in understanding how students read, they have also made tremendous gains in understanding how students learn. Although some educators are familiar with this research, most of us are not. It is time to know and do better.

A 2019 survey of teachers uncovered some of these gaps. In answering one question, only 31 percent endorsed a scientifically backed strategy over less effective ones. In other answers, the vast majority of respondents voiced faith in scientifically disproven concepts – such as “learning styles” and the “left-brain, right-brain” myth.

Over the last several years, many of us have had an uncomfortable realization that there is a gap between how we teach and how scientific findings suggest we should teach.

Much of the disinformation stems from training like my own. A 2016 study found that not one textbook in commonly used teacher-training programs adequately covered the science of learning.

Delving into that science is beyond the reach of this editorial but here is a quick check to see where you stand. If any of the following six terms — central to what cognitive scientists have discovered about learning — are unfamiliar, you probably had a teacher training program like mine: retrieval practice, elaboration, spacing, interleaving, dual coding and metacognition.

If these concepts are part of your current practice as an educator, nice work. But if you are among the majority of us who have not fully encountered or employed these ideas, I humbly suggest that you have some urgent reading to do. All these ideas are established learning science.

Related: Student teachers fail test about how kids learn, nonprofit finds

One of the first principal syntheses of these findings with clear recommendations for the classroom was a 2007 federal report, “ Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning.” The seven recommendations in the report represent, according to the U.S. Department of Education, the “most important concrete and applicable principles to emerge from research on learning and memory.”

Sixteen years later, we have no one to blame but ourselves for these ideas not taking hold in every classroom.

Scientists are trying. The 2014 bestseller “Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning,” by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III and Mark A. McDaniel, made an urgent case for these ideas. Psychology professor Daniel Willingham and middle school teacher Paul Bruno, working with the organization Deans for Impact, summarized these concepts in a concise 2015 report, “The Science of Learning.” Willingham’s books are also tremendous primers for educators who want to know more about cognitive science.

Yet the simple fact remains that these concepts remain tangential to most of us when they should be central.

Now that we are being bombarded by headlines about students’ pandemic learning loss, perhaps we should focus on what we educators never learned. If we are to overcome these recent setbacks, we need to do so with the most effective tools.

M-J Mercanti-Anthony is the principal of Antonia Pantoja Preparatory Academy, a public school for grades 6-12 in the Castle Hill neighborhood of New York City, and a member of the Board of Education of Greenwich, Connecticut.

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More than 40 million Americans — roughly one out of every seven adults — have earned college credit but have no degree to show for their time and money.

Florida native Alix Petkov is one of them. He enrolled in college right after high school with the idea of becoming a psychiatrist. Unaware that this career choice required medical school — and unable to afford college, much less a graduate education — Petkov changed majors twice and found himself making only halting progress toward a bachelor’s degree.

An on-campus job in information technology rekindled his interest in computers, but the gig paid just $10 per hour, and his computer science classes covered the same things he had already picked up at work.

So Petkov quit college roughly 30 credits short of a degree, with $16,000 in student loans and a credit card balance of $4,000 from paying living expenses.

He burnished his tech portfolio with freelance computer work, applied for IT jobs, worked in restaurants and stewed over his frustrating experience, later saying that “College only destroyed me.”

It doesn’t have to be this way. Like millions of other learners, Petkov was forced into an outdated and bureaucratic model of higher education that’s not designed for how people navigate learning and work today.

Far too many learners are pausing their education long before they earn a credential because they run out of money, time or patience. Or they wind up in a program that lacks the support and structure to meet their individualized needs and goals.

Related: The college degree gap between Black and white Americans was always bad. It’s getting worse

Learners need better access to lower-cost, shorter-term programs that help them achieve their career goals.

Federal and state governments and postsecondary institutions can and should adopt policies and practices that will help students build career pathways and make alternatives to a college degree more accessible, affordable and practical.

To achieve this, federal and state policymakers must ease some of the guardrails meant to protect learners from making “bad” decisions — after all, some of these guardrails have stifled postsecondary innovation and limited competition between college and noncollege options, ultimately restricting learners’ choices. Students must also receive better information about college and noncollege pathways and outcomes both before they begin a program and while they are enrolled.

College isn’t always the best option for every learner.

Petkov said he received little — and often incorrect — information in high school and college about higher education and potential alternatives. No one advised him, for example, that he could save thousands of dollars by completing university-required general education classes at a local community college.

Looking back, Petkov admits he would have pursued a different path altogether if he had a better up-front understanding of the costs and courses required to complete a degree.

His story, which he shared with me this summer over a video call after I requested an introduction, illustrates why students need more transparent financial counseling and more options for using financial aid beyond the limited college options currently afforded by student aid programs.

Giving high school students information about program costs and financial aid well before they apply to college will aid their decision-making. Students should be able to use Pell Grants for noncollege alternative programs that have proven track records of moving students into jobs that pay family-sustaining wages.

Petkov said it didn’t become apparent until later that his financial aid and campus job wouldn’t cover all of his college expenses. Because he was awarded Pell Grants, he borrowed less than other students.

But Pell Grants can be used in just one setting: college. Had Petkov been allowed to use the federal subsidy to pursue a college alternative — like an accelerated tech or healthcare upskilling program from a noncollege provider — he would have done that instead.

Related: OPINION: Often overlooked vocational-tech schools provide great solutions to student debt, labor shortages

Because of time and expense, college isn’t always the best option for every learner. Mounting evidence on program-level outcomes shows that far too many of the options that the government deems “safe” simply because they are accredited have failed learners and left them no better off than if they had not pursued college at all.

Petkov didn’t find his true path until more than a year after he quit college. While searching online for IT jobs, he stumbled on information about Merit America, a nonprofit offering low-cost programs that prepare people for tech careers. (Merit America is a grantee of the Charles Koch Foundation, part of the Stand Together philanthropic community, where the author is a senior fellow.)

Merit America built on Petkov’s existing IT knowledge to give him new tech skills that allowed him to push past self-doubt and launch a successful career. After completing the program, Petkov landed a tech coordinator’s job at a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., that started him at $45,000 — more than twice what he was making in food service.

Two jobs later, he’s currently the IT director of an executive coaching firm and makes a little more than $100,000 per year. A University of Virginia analysis shows that Merit America completers see an average annual wage increase of $24,000 three or more months after finishing the program.

Merit America is among the growing number of providers preparing students for placement into high-demand tech and healthcare careers. Yet students from low-income backgrounds who rely on financial aid and loans often get little guidance about such college alternatives and may instead be advised to pursue a college degree.

It’s time to open more doors to short-term, noncollege options, so that students like Petkov can access more personalized options to help them thrive.

Steven Taylor is a senior fellow on postsecondary education at Stand Together Trust. He leads the postsecondary education and workforce policy portfolio and partnership strategy.

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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The journey to Boston was more than 1,500 miles. The plane ticket cost about $500. The hotel: another $400. She felt a little guilty about going, knowing that not everyone could afford this trip. But it was important; she was headed there to learn. 

So, Amrita Bhagia, a second-year medical student from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, caught that flight to Boston to attend a weekend workshop hosted by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. There, she joined medical students from around the country for a summit on abortion care. She learned about medication abortion, practiced the technique of vacuum aspiration using papayas as a stand-in for a uterus, and sat in on a workshop about physician’s rights. 

“It was the most empowering thing I could have imagined, especially coming from a state where people don’t want to talk about this stuff, ever,” said Bhagia, an aspiring OB-GYN at the University of South Dakota, a state where abortion is banned. “Other than me flying to Boston to go to an ACOG workshop, I have no idea how to get that training.” 

Even before Roe v. Wade was overturned last summer, access to abortion training was uneven. Medical schools are not required to offer instruction on it, and students’ experiences vary wildly based on their institution. 

But for Bhagia and med students like her in states where abortion has been banned or severely restricted, those training opportunities have gone from not great to nonexistent.

As a result of this insufficient gynecological training, experts warn, a generation of doctors will be ill-equipped to meet their patients’ needs. And across the country, maternal-care deserts will likely expand, as graduating medical students and residents avoid abortion-restricted states.

More than 30,000 medical students are training in states with abortion bans. Another 1,400 OB-GYN residents, who are required to receive abortion training as part of their specialty, are studying in states where abortion is banned or severely restricted. 

“There’s a concern that in states with these restrictions, students are simply not getting enough training and exposure,” said Jody Steinauer, an OB-GYN, medical educator and director of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco. “There’s really a worry that if this continues, you’re going to be training a large group of OB-GYNs who can’t provide patient-centered, evidence-based care, no matter where they practice.”

“I would love to stay in Texas and train. This is a fantastic institution and I want to serve this community. But if I can’t get the training I need, I will have to leave.”

Chelsea Romero, a third-year medical student at McGovern Medical School in Houston, Texas

A related concern: Fewer medical students will choose to become OB-GYNs at all, fearing lawsuits or criminal prosecution. Figures show that OB-GYN residency applications are down across the country, but programs in states with abortion bans saw the biggest drops. Application rates for family medicine programs experienced a similar decline.

Abortion is currently banned in 14 states. All offer a narrow exception to this blanket prohibition when the mother’s life is at risk and a few of these states allow abortions in cases of rape or incest. But doctors say guidance on maternal health exceptions remains unclear, leaving physicians vulnerable to potential prosecution when treating patients.

“Students are seeing us struggle with this stuff and they’re like, ‘Yeah, why would I stay here for this?’” said Amy Kelley, a Sioux Falls OB-GYN and clinical associate professor at the University of South Dakota, a state where doctors can face up to two years in prison for violating the state’s ban.

These developments are particularly worrisome in South Dakota and other rural states that are already struggling to recruit and retain maternal healthcare providers. More than half of the state’s counties have no OB-GYNs, and rural South Dakotans with high-risk pregnancies often have no choice but travel to Sioux Falls for specialty care.

Limited access to maternal health care is reflected in troubling maternal mortality rates in abortion-restricted states across the country, where mothers are three times as likely to die due to their pregnancy, according to recent research. Barriers to abortion training could amplify physician shortages, increasing the number of maternal-care deserts and posing even greater risk to maternal health.

“We already have a physician shortage in this country,” said Pamela Merritt, a reproductive rights activist and director of Medical Students for Choice. “And we have the maternal health outcomes that come with that shortage. We have the worst pregnancy outcomes in the developed world. The last thing I want to see is people either having an insufficient education yet providing care, or people not even thinking of OB-GYN as a specialty in certain states.”

Although medical schools’ curricula vary, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education requires OB-GYN residency programs to provide access to abortion training. Residents with moral or religious objections are allowed to opt out. It’s a key component of an OB-GYN’s training, even for doctors who have no plans of becoming abortion providers.

An OB-GYN must be able to evacuate a uterus — whether the skill is used to care for a patient who’s had an incomplete miscarriage, to remove polyps for cancer diagnosis or assist someone who wants to terminate an unwanted pregnancy — and doctors-in-training can develop this ability through clinical abortion training. 

“Such training is directly relevant to preserving the life and health of the pregnant patient in some instances,” ACGME program requirements state.

Yet in states with abortion bans, direct access to that training has vanished. In the past year, program directors in those states have scrambled to find out-of-state training opportunities so their residents can fulfill OB-GYN program accreditation requirements. But identifying and coordinating those training opportunities is no small feat.

“A lot of programs are grappling with the logistics piece of partnering with another institution to send a resident somewhere else,” said Alyssa Colwill, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health & Science University, who directs the university’s OB-GYN Ryan Residency program. OHSU plans to host a dozen out-of-state learners for four- to six-week clinical rotations during this academic year. 

Programs like these require significant behind-the-scenes orchestration and space is limited. Visiting learners must apply for a medical license in their new state, complete required hospital training, take out new malpractice insurance, and secure housing and transportation.

More than half of South Dakota’s counties have no OB-GYNs; rural South Dakotans with high-risk pregnancies often have no choice but travel to Sioux Falls for specialty care.

In addition, programs in abortion-restricted states must often cope with the loss of a team member while residents travel for training.

“Programs really need their residents for services they provide,” said Colwill. “It’s not the easiest ask, to have a resident be gone from all clinical duties at their site for a month at a time.”

And while the overturn of Roe has had the most profound impact on residency programs, medical students who are not yet in a residency say they’re also feeling its effects. Doctors-in-training spend four years in medical school before beginning a residency in their chosen specialty.

“Bringing abortion up feels like a violation because it’s so taboo now,” said Bhagia. “I don’t know if I can even ask questions, and that’s impeding my learning.”

Chelsea Romero, a third-year medical student at McGovern Medical School in Houston, Texas, where abortion is restricted, said she has never faced repercussions for discussing abortion, but the risk of consequences is always on her mind. 

“As a student, you’re being evaluated constantly, and these evaluations can dictate if you get residency interviews or not,” said Romero, who stressed she spoke only for herself and not as a representative of her university. “If I have those conversations with a wrong person in power, I could face blowback.” 

One year after Roe was overturned, this stifled learning environment appears to be having an influence on where medical students are applying to residencies. One recent survey of medical students found that 58 percent of those responding were unlikely to apply to a residency program in a state with abortion restrictions, regardless of their specialty. 

“I would love to stay in Texas and train. This is a fantastic institution and I want to serve this community,” said Romero. “But if I can’t get the training I need, I will have to leave.”

“Where you train is where you stay. It is rare that a resident will train in California and then move to rural South Dakota; it just doesn’t happen.”

Yalda Jabbarpour, a family physician and director of the Robert Graham Center, the American Academy of Family Physicians’ policy and research center

Decisions like hers will have ripple effects for the physician workforce in the coming years, said Yalda Jabbarpour, a family physician and director of the Robert Graham Center, the American Academy of Family Physicians’ policy and research center. “Where you train is where you stay,” she said. “It is rare that a resident will train in California and then move to rural South Dakota; it just doesn’t happen.”

That’s exactly what worries Erica Schipper, an OB-GYN in Sioux Falls.

South Dakota is one of only six states in the country without an OB-GYN residency program, which means medical students who want to become OB-GYNs must leave the state to receive their training. Schipper, who also teaches medical students at the USD Sanford School of Medicine, said the state’s abortion ban will make recruitment even harder. 

“When I look at some of the brightest, up-and-coming medical students who we’ve sent away for their residency, we’re hoping they’ll come back, but I suspect they’re thinking twice,” said Schipper. 

One of those students is Morgan Schriever, a Sioux Falls native and a graduate of USD’s Sanford School of Medicine. Schriever is a second-year OB-GYN resident at Southern Illinois University who said she always planned to return to her home state. But after training in Illinois, where abortion is protected, she’s having second thoughts. 

Schriever is not only concerned that she would be unable to provide elective abortions in her home state. She’s also worried that South Dakota’s restrictive law would impede her ability to provide medically necessary abortions when treating patients experiencing pregnancy loss.

“Being in practice in Illinois, I come across these scenarios where I picture myself in South Dakota and I’m like, ‘Oh my God. How would I have handled this?’ I’m just not sure I want to put myself in that position where essentially my license is on the line.”

“There’s really a worry that if this continues, you’re going to be training a large group of OB-GYNs who can’t provide patient-centered, evidence-based care, no matter where they practice.”

Jody Steinhauer, director of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health

These latest recruitment challenges particularly affect states already grappling with an OB-GYN shortage and struggling to improve maternal health care.

“Abortion-restrictive states are the same states that are traditionally rural and have a really hard time attracting physicians,” said Jabbarpour, “so any decline in those states is troublesome.”

Heather Spies, an OB-GYN who trains family medicine and general surgeon residents at Sanford Health, a hospital system in Sioux Falls, said the Sanford system is ensuring its residents are trained in basic obstetrics and gynecology care, including labor and delivery and miscarriage care. Even with the state’s abortion ban in place, she said, doctors at Sanford are able to provide miscarriage care and treat most pregnancy complications. 

“I don’t think those learning experiences have changed because the procedures that we do at Sanford haven’t changed,” said Spies. 

Still, there are some healthcare needs that require specialty care, certain medical emergencies that demand the expertise of an OB-GYN. And as abortion bans undermine training and push OB-GYNs out of restricted states, public health experts say they’re worried maternal-care deserts across the country will grow even drier.

“In the dead of a South Dakota winter blizzard, if you can’t get that helicopter to where it needs to go and that mom and that baby are in danger, you’re much more likely to save those lives if you have a doctor nearby,” said Schipper.

This story about OBGYN training was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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I make a habit of sitting at the lunch table and chatting with my preschool students every day. It is a wonderful time to talk with them. They are relaxed, sharing stories about pets, upcoming T-ball games and some truly terrible knock-knock jokes. Sometimes, those conversations take us in unexpected directions.

During a pause in lunchtime chat last week, 5-year-old Iris (name changed to protect privacy) looked up at me, frowned, and said, “I wish I was white instead of Black.”

I have been teaching for over two decades, and not a year has passed that I have not heard a Black child make a similar heartbreaking statement. As a white teacher, my responses have changed greatly over time.

Early in my career, I may have deflected my discomfort with an overly earnest statement about the beauty of melanin and why she should appreciate her skin. Or I might have avoided responding at all because I lacked the skill to navigate conversations about race with young children.

But I know now that I owe Iris and every other student in my classroom the dignity of a real and honest response in these moments when they are seeking connection. This time, I looked at her, nodded my head, and asked her a question to open up a conversation that I would have tried desperately to shut down 20 years ago:

“What would be different for you if your skin was white?”

As Iris leaves my preschool to begin her K-12 journey in public school this fall, she may have a Black teacher or two at some point who can respond to her in moments like this with a depth of lived experience in ways that I cannot.

Yet we should not expect those teachers of color to shoulder the work of supporting children’s healthy racial identity development: Students of color in the U.S. are much more likely to have white teachers than teachers who reflect their own race.

Related: Inside one school’s efforts to bridge the divide between white teachers and students of color

White teachers like me cannot build trusting relationships and meet the emotional needs of our students unless we learn how to talk honestly about race. Teacher training programs ensure that their graduates receive specific coursework related to children’s language and literacy development, elementary mathematical concepts and many other core subjects that all teachers must understand to support to students’ learning.

However, many white teachers are ill-prepared to navigate conversations with students about race, despite the fact that children as young as 2 are already forming ideas about race and are internalizing biases. Teacher training programs fail to address this knowledge gap between white teachers and teachers of color — very few of whom have had the luxury of avoiding conversations about race.

There are myriad opportunities for white teachers to learn this skill on their own time that did not exist when I started teaching. Organizations like EmbraceRace and the Center for Racial Justice in Education are terrific resources.

5-year-old Iris (name changed to protect privacy) looked up at me, frowned, and said, “I wish I was white instead of Black.”

But we need to expect more than self-directed professional development by individual teachers. We need systemic solutions.

Teacher training programs should address this educator skill gap. We can do real harm to students when our only response to conversations about race is to shut them down as quickly as possible.

Researchers Rita Kohli and Marcos Pizarro of the Institute for Teachers of Color have looked closely at this issue, and their proposed solutions include two game-changing ideas: requiring a “base level of racial literacy” for admission of candidates to undergraduate teaching programs  and including initiatives to “educate white teacher candidates on how whiteness operates … and teach them how to recognize and disrupt these ideologies.”

Back at our school lunch table, 5-year-old Iris, without missing a beat, was ready to answer why she wished she were white.

“I wouldn’t get shooted. I wouldn’t have to worry about police.”

The Black child next to Iris nodded her head in response. A white classmate across the table nodded too. The five of us asked one another questions and kept the discussion going long after lunch was done. I know that Iris left that lunch table feeling heard and valued.

Related: OPINION: Educators must be on the frontline of social activism

My heart aches when I think of the students with whom I failed to connect in my early years of teaching, all because I lacked the skill to respond to them honestly and openly.

Students learn best when they feel connected to their teachers.

While racism is not a problem we will solve overnight, each new day is another opportunity for us to act. As pivotal long-term efforts to recruit and retain more teachers of color take root, there remains an immediate need for our teacher training programs to prepare white teachers to truly support our students in all areas of their growth and development.

Suzanne Stillinger is an early childhood teacher leader and accessibility coordinator at New Village in Northampton, Massachusetts. She is a 2023-2024 Teach Plus Senior Writing Fellow and Teach Plus Senior Policy Fellow.

This story about teaching about race was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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WASHINGTON – Inside a high school classroom, Bryan Martinez jots down several purchases that would require a short-term savings plan: shoes, phone, headphones, clothes, and food.

His medium-term financial goals take a little more thought, but he settles on a car — he doesn’t have one yet — and vacations. Peering way into his future, the 18-year-old also imagines saving money to buy a house, start his own business, retire, and perhaps provide any children with a college fund. 

Martinez’s friend next to him writes a different long-term goal: Buy a private jet.

“You have to be a millionaire to save up for that,” Martinez said with a chuckle.

Call it a reality check or an introduction to a critical life skill, this exercise occurred in a course called Advanced Algebra with Financial Applications. The elective math class has been a mainstay in Capital City Public Charter School’s offerings for more than a decade, giving students a foundation in money management while they hone math skills. Conversations about credit, investments, and loans, for instance, intersect with lessons on compound interest, matrices, and exponential equations.

The Washington, D.C., charter school may be a front-runner in providing financial education, but in recent years, many others have followed suit. Since 2020, nine U.S. states have adopted laws or policies requiring personal finance education before students graduate from high school, bringing the total number to 30 states, according to the Council for Economic Education.

The surge comes as educators are scrambling to bolster students’ math skills, which plummeted during the pandemic and haven’t fully recovered. At the same time, a general dislike for math remains an obstacle among young people.

Related: Teachers conquering their math anxiety 

But do topics like high interest rates translate to higher interest among students? Tonica Tatum-Gormes, who teaches the course, says yes. She attributes better student engagement to them seeing the connection between math and their future financial well-being.

Students begin to understand that “yes, I need to learn decimals, and I need to learn fractions, and I need to learn percentages because I have to manage my money and I have to take out a loan,” Tatum-Gormes said.

Advocates say personal finance courses could pay dividends if students learn how to make wiser money decisions and avoid financial hazards. In the process, they may also develop an interest in math because of its practical applications. 

The K-12 standards for personal finance education, as recommended by the Council for Economic Education, include topics such as earning income, budgeting, saving, investing, and managing credit and financial risk. Experts say it’s a course that doesn’t necessarily have to be taught by a traditional math teacher.

Since 2020, nine U.S. states have adopted laws or policies requiring personal finance education before students graduate from high school, bringing the total number to 30 states, according to the Council for Economic Education. 

“The more math you add to financial literacy, frankly, the better it is,” said Annamaria Lusardi, founder and academic director of the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center. “In many cases, to make a decision, you have to do calculations, so I think math is a very powerful tool. … Having said that, financial literacy is more than math.”

Idaho is one of the states where a new financial literacy curriculum is hitting classrooms. The state legislature this year approved the course as a graduation requirement.

The new course will give students the chance to apply skills from their algebra, calculus, and economics classes to their real lives — computing their future student loans, rent payments, and income requirements.

“This was such a priority out of the gate because I heard from so many people during the campaign last year that our young people weren’t prepared with the basic financial skills they need to succeed in life,” said Debbie Critchfield, Idaho’s state superintendent of public instruction, who spearheaded the effort.

Related: College students are still struggling with basic math. Professors blame the pandemic  

Experts say the subprime mortgage crisis that helped spark the Great Recession in 2007, followed by pandemic economic uncertainty and today’s inflationary period, may have heightened Americans’ desire for a solid financial understanding. Less than a quarter, or 24 percent, of millennials demonstrate basic financial literacy, according to the Council for Economic Education.

Advocates say that left untaught, teens and young adults may turn to questionable sources, such as TikTok or YouTube videos. Plus, children whose parents aren’t financially savvy can’t rely on learning at home, making it an equity issue.

In 2020, the NAACP issued a resolution calling for more financial literacy programs in K-12 schools.

In schools with predominantly Black and Hispanic student populations, where there are no state-mandated requirements, only 7 percent of students have guaranteed access to at least a semester-long personal finance course, according to an analysis by Next Gen Personal Finance, a nonprofit that advocates for financial literacy education. That figure rises to 14.2 percent for schools with less than a quarter of students identifying as Black or Hispanic.

In 2020, the NAACP issued a resolution calling for more financial literacy programs in K-12 schools. 

The equity consideration has been a driving force behind the financial literacy course at Capital City Public Charter School, which serves a student body that is 64 percent Latino and 25 percent Black.

“It’s an empowering course,” said Laina Cox, head of the school. “I think it gives our young people the language that they need and the voice when they’re in certain rooms and at certain tables.”

In Tatum-Gormes’ classroom, the conversation about savings goals turns into a math problem on the whiteboard. She’s asking students to calculate how much someone would need to save to create an emergency fund covering three months’ worth of expenses. 

At her nudging, students piece together an equation, which she scrawls on the board. It’s early in the school year, but for students, the value of the dollar is already becoming apparent.

Martinez, who’s one of nine children, says he signed up for the course because he watched his parents struggle to make ends meet. He hopes that he walks away with knowledge about when to spend — and not spend — money.

“I just want to prepare myself for the things that are coming toward me,” he said.

Sadie Dittenber from Idaho Education News contributed to this report. 

This piece on financial literacy education is part of The Math Problem, an ongoing series documenting challenges and highlighting progress, from the Education Reporting Collaborative, a coalition of eight newsrooms: AL.com, The Associated Press, The Christian Science Monitor, The Dallas Morning News, The Hechinger Report, Idaho Education News, The Post and Courier in South Carolina, and The Seattle Times. To read more of the collaborative’s work, visit its website.  

© 2023 The Christian Science Monitor     

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A student in an elementary school drops an egg wrapped tightly in paper straws and tape to test whether it can survive a high fall. Next door, students engineer a solar oven out of pizza boxes, construction paper and aluminum foil. In another classroom, students construct a “biosphere” using foam balls, fake grass and dollhouses.

These and similar scenes from public schools around the country are more than just young learners having fun with recycled materials. This is STEM education in action: Hands-on projects help students develop critical thinking skills while sparking interest in science, technology, engineering and math.

Research shows that exposing students to STEM between grades one and three provides them with a foundation to enter many STEM-related careers: as doctors, chemists, geologists, computer scientists and many more.

Introducing these fields in elementary school helps capture students’ imaginations and kindle their interest in STEM. Besides the fun, these hands-on learning experiences foster a mindset that embraces innovation, experimentation and collaboration. That foundation will support this generation throughout their lives as they face an increasingly complex, interconnected world.

STEM careers are among the nation’s highest-paying and fastest-growing jobs. Early exposure to STEM education primes students to take advantage of these career opportunities — and the economic benefits that come with them. Without it, we risk perpetuating an exclusionary cycle that alienates underrepresented communities from STEM careers and fuels lifelong opportunity gaps.

Related: As science denial grows, science museums fight back by teaching scientific literacy

As parents have become more involved in their children’s education, they deserve to know how and where STEM is coming to life in their schools — and, more importantly, how to make sure that their children can take advantage of opportunities.

This is especially important now, as inconsistent and inequitable access to these subjects continues to reinforce representation gaps in STEM careers. In today’s STEM workforce, Black and Hispanic adults represent just 8 and 9 percent of the field, respectively. And while women make up 50 percent of STEM workers, they are overrepresented in health-related occupations compared to other areas like engineering and architecture.

We can reduce representation gaps in STEM and prepare more students to join the STEM-related workforce — but we have to start young. Students need opportunities to develop the critical thinking skills that will allow them to succeed in these fields.

We can reduce representation gaps in STEM and prepare more students to join the STEM-related workforce — but we have to start young.

That’s why GreatSchools, the nonprofit school information site that helps parents navigate education, partnered with Project Lead The Way (PLTW), a nonprofit organization that encourages STEM-based careers for students through hands-on, project-based learning starting in pre-K.

Because of this new partnership, parents can now see whether a school offers STEM when browsing GreatSchools profiles. Families looking to specifically prioritize STEM programs in their school search can use GreatSchools’ enhanced search tool to display only schools offering these courses.

We believe that providing this information to families — especially those whose identities are underrepresented in STEM careers — will allow them to take advantage of these programs early on, potentially changing the trajectory of their child’s academic and professional lives.

Furthermore, in the wake of the pandemic, parents are asking for different, not just better. It’s not enough just to improve our schools — we also need to change the playbook from which they’ve been operating for decades.

Related: STUDENT VOICES: We need more women in STEM fields, and we have ideas for making that happen

It’s time to meet this moment with action. Here are some ideas I believe education leaders can and should be pursuing in terms of STEM:

• Make sure teachers have adequate resources. In addition to proper training,teachers need technological equipment — computers, internet access and software — to effectively teach STEM classes.
• Adopt a curriculum that exposes students to STEM early on. Infusing elementary school curricula with topics and skill development aligned with STEM careers opens students’ minds to a world of possibilities.
• Create mentoring programs that center underrepresented STEM professionals. Mentors can play a significant role in shaping students’ career trajectories by exposing them to different fields while helping them reach their goals. Giving students the opportunity to connect with professional STEM mentors — particularly Black, Hispanic and female mentors — can help them see themselves in those careers.

Now is our chance to reimagine public education to more equitably serve all students. Exposing students to STEM early in their education is a crucial investment for students, their families and society. Collectively, we all reap the benefits of a diverse, rich workforce representative of the best in our communities.

And yes, we can simply start with a pizza box, paper and foil.

Jon Deane is chief executive officer of GreatSchools.org, a national education nonprofit that supports parents through every stage of their child’s education. He has more than two decades of experience in K-12 education, previously serving as a math teacher and school administrator.

This story about STEM education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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