Choosing a college has always been an excruciating, time-consuming process for prospective students and their families. But it seems to be getting even more difficult.

These days, after prospective students have figured out how to pay, how close to home they want to be, which schools offer majors they’re interested in studying, and whether the sports teams are ones they’d be proud to cheer for, there are about a zillion other things to consider. Among them: Will there be other students like them in race, gender and sexuality or political orientation? Are there laws in the state that might affect their life and education? Will there be guest speakers or outspoken professors who are shouted down on campus or banned from speaking altogether? Are they going to feel comfortable and safe walking to the nearest grocery store for instant ramen and Red Bull during finals week?

Amid the flurry of questions, one thing is clear: The culture wars are starting to affect where students choose to go for college.

Until now, when planning for college, students and families have been left to do a zillion Google searches on their own, especially if they want to learn what factors influence the social climate of any given campus. Until now, there hasn’t been an easy, one-stop-shop way to assess where a student might feel welcome.

This week, The Hechinger Report launched the College Welcome Guide, an interactive tool that allows you to search by state or any college in the nation for factors such as the racial diversity of students and faculty, freedom of speech, whether the college has an LGBTQ+ resource center, local regulations on abortion access and whether the state has enacted any legislation that might affect the way certain topics are taught.

The College Welcome Guide can also tell you the percentage of students who get Pell Grants (federal aid for students from low-income families); graduation rates by race; whether a state offers in-state tuition to undocumented students; state-level policies on tuition benefits for student veterans, and other campus data.  

The idea behind putting these various elements together in one place was to make the increasingly long and daunting process of choosing a college a bit easier and less intimidating. We don’t purport to know what college is best for anyone, but we hope that with so much information in one place, people will be able to compare options and make the best choices. 

I was one of the Hechinger journalists who worked on this guide, and I’d like to tell you a little bit about the herculean lift by our higher education team that brought it to life.  

My colleagues Jon Marcus and Fazil Khan got the idea in June, while many of us were at the Education Writers Association’s national conference in Atlanta, Georgia.

When they came back with the proposal, many of us thought it was admirable but might be impossible. If it could be done, why hadn’t someone already done it?

We started by compiling a list of all the questions we’d like the then-hypothetical tool to be able to answer, and split up the data-scavenging duties among our staff. Most of what we set out to collect, we collected. (Not everything, though! More on that in an upcoming newsletter.) And, like everything we publish, it’s all been rigorously fact-checked.

Related: Culture wars on campus start to affect students’ choices for college

Much of the data on student outcomes and diversity comes from the federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). For cultural climate and local policy data, we relied on the work of researchers and nonprofits. For example, the Mapping Advancement Project calculates an “equality score” for each state how welcoming or hostile it is to queer and transgender people. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression rates the state of free speech on college campuses with scores from “abysmal” to “exceptional,” based on student surveys. And we got information on state abortion laws from the Center for Reproductive Rights. (You can read more about our methodology here.) 

As the idea started to feel more like a reality, we began to argue over what to call it. We spent what felt like hours on Zoom debating whether it was a tool or an index or a tracker or a guide. It definitely would not be a ranking. We wanted to accurately describe it without being prescriptive or biased. While tedious, the back-and-forth helped us drill down even more specifically toward defining the tool’s purpose. 

We don’t purport to know what college is best for anyone, but we hope that with so much information in one place, people will be able to compare options and make the best choices. 

We had to go back to what was driving this project from the beginning. We wanted to help prospective college students answer the question: Will I feel welcome on that campus? 

The name “The College Welcome Guide” seems so obvious now, but even the word “welcome” was contested. As journalists, we do our best to remain neutral, and we worried that the word “welcome” might turn off prospective students and families who didn’t necessarily want a college that would be welcoming to everyone. 

Ultimately, we decided that every student, regardless of identity or political affiliation, wants to feel welcome on campus. What might make them feel welcome is different, but this tool measures a wide array of issues that might be important to students, regardless of what side of an issue they’re on.

For background, Jon Marcus’s story tells  more about what factors are influencing college applicants today, We hope his story, in combination with our College Welcome Guide, will be helpful to anyone who is thinking about enrolling – or re-enrolling – in college.

This story about choosing colleges was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.

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In the last few years, the American education system has been bludgeoned by changes that have upended decades of progress toward better academic, economic and social outcomes for all.

Politicians around the country have been aiming to demolish progressive policies by targeting teaching about race and ethnicity, the LGBTQIA+ community and women’s reproductive rights. Calls for book banning and censorship have become common. These dangerous culture wars will wreak havoc on education and education policy for years to come.

As a teacher and school-based leader, I always understood the necessity of advocating for students and helping them navigate life, and I tried to help other teachers change the trajectory of many lives.

I taught my students to respect the power of civic engagement and social activism. Recent politics has made it hard to extend that work. The rollout of Florida’s House Bill 1557, popularly known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, was the start of a radical transformation that threatens to undo decades of social change. Other states, including Indiana, Alabama, Ohio and Tennessee have followed Florida’s lead with legislation that is discriminatory against the LGBTQIA+ community. It must be resisted.

Teaching is inherently activist.

Politicians are also attacking the Black population. When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis challenged the College Board’s AP African American Studies course, he inspired others to follow suit with flagrant concessions to institutional racism. Calls to be “anti-woke” and “anti-indoctrination” have become increasingly popular battle cries. Earlier, the complete misrepresentation and misunderstanding of critical race theory signaled a disregard for the Black community and contempt for the importance of students learning about all people and cultures. Since then, states such as Arkansas and Texas have also opposed the true teaching of the history of Black people in this country by dropping African American history courses and eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. The states’ actions provide a smoke screen for efforts to limit discussion of race and racism and disenfranchise the Black community.

As teachers worry about losing their jobs for violating the often-vague language of these new laws, school boards have succumbed to the demands of the few over the best interests of the majority. Who suffers the most? The students.

Related: Teachers, deputized to fight the culture wars, are often reluctant to serve

There is a critical need to prepare teachers to be intentional voices calling out the oppression that continues to plague our education system. We must do this through teaching, learning and advocacy — as well as social activism and civic engagement.

I have trained in, taught and led educator preparation programs. In past years, these programs met societal and student needs through instruction on culturally responsive teaching, trauma-informed education, conscious leadership and many other progressive approaches. Our goals were not far-fetched or new.

Teacher preparation programs have traditionally served as catalysts for shaping the future of the American education system and the ways in which we collectively work as a society to improve outcomes for all students. Teaching is inherently activist. Colleges, schools of education and alternative teacher preparation programs prepare people to engage in activism through teaching and learning. This is not what some politicians would call “indoctrination”; instead, these efforts embrace the potential for educators to be true change agents and justice warriors.

Related: OPINION: You can’t teach psychology without covering gender and sexuality, and you can’t teach history without covering racism

Today, during this 21st century version of the civil rights struggle, it is more important than ever to remember the lessons of the past and the role of educator preparation in training teachers and other education professionals to confront lies, dismantle oppressive systems and be advocates for students’ causes.

We must be deliberate in the ways in which we prepare teachers to serve the community. So many rights and freedoms are currently under attack in this country. That makes it even more important to fight for justice within the American K-12 educational system and ensure that our students learn the truth. This is dire.

Eugene Pringle Jr. is a senior professorial lecturer at the American University School of Education.

This story about teacher activism 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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America has pulled back from the brink of denying science in education. About 30,000 students in Florida were set to lose out this fall because Advanced Placement psychology classes were “effectively banned” due to a state prohibition against discussing certain gender and sexuality topics in high schools; fortunately, the state education department reversed course at the last minute in a game of Public Relations Chicken.

The College Board, which administers the AP classes, had planned to remove the course, arguing that obeying the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law would weaken it.

We have to place facts, history and science at the heart of our education systems.

The College Board was right to insist on maintaining its standards, and yet the cost to students could have been extremely high. AP Psychology is a popular course, and rigorous AP classes help prepare students for college and demonstrate their skills for college admissions.

As the leader of an organization for women’s political empowerment, I am keenly aware how this latest spat — on the heels of the Supreme Court’s recent affirmative action decision — could serve to shrink the pool of young women who get to college and thus deal another blow to the political talent pipeline.

The study of psychology is particularly important in this regard because it is a field led by women. I majored in psychology before forging a political career. Excluding tens of thousands of Florida students from this subject and opportunity could have stifled them.

The ins-and-outs of all this warrant explanation. Last year, Florida lawmakers outlawed instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity. The initial ban was on instruction through third grade; that’s the “Don’t Say Gay” law. This spring, they expanded the ban through 12th grade. (I took AP Psychology as a 16-year-old, in 10th grade, and it changed my life.)

The AP Psychology course has a unit that includes definitions of gender, sexuality, gender roles and stereotypes and discusses socialization factors. Dropping such instruction from the course would mean that AP Psychology wouldn’t be “AP,” the College Board said. It stood firm in defense of the unit.

Related: Inside Florida’s ‘underground lab’ for far-right education policies

Florida’s state board of education then accused the College Board of “playing games with Florida students.” But it’s the state board that was asking teachers to ignore a key part of basic psychology.

Eventually, Florida’s education commissioner backed down, writing a letter to school district superintendents saying that the state believed the AP Psychology course could be taught “in its entirety.”

It’s still unclear how that fits with the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. The College Board issued a statement responding to the state’s new guidance with a mixture of optimism and skepticism, noting: “We hope now that Florida teachers will be able to teach the full course, including content on gender and sexual orientation, without fear of punishment in the upcoming school year.”

My own AP Psychology class in Contra Costa County, California, paved the way for my career in which I encourage young women to run for office. I was one of the youngest students in the class, and we learned everything about human behavior.

There should be nothing partisan about teaching young people the truth.

I’m still connected with my AP Psychology teacher, Jacki Della Rosa Carron, and she remains one of my favorite humans. She shaped my entire understanding of how I wanted to live and work.

My high school, like so many public schools today, offered very few AP classes. Jackie’s class was special. She helped me understand how to channel anger and prompted me to ask questions like, “How do you impact the world at a larger scale?” Focusing on psychology and later pursuing my masters in social work helped me kickstart my career, impact my community and teach young women how to do the same through political leadership.

Jackie also covered sexuality in the course. In conservative Contra Costa, I remember conversations about being gay. For many students this was their first opportunity to really think about gender and identity. This was controversial for some, but gay people are a part of American history and life, and California is where Harvey Milk did his activism.

You can’t teach psychology without covering gender and sexuality, and you can’t teach American history without covering racism.

The most infuriating thing about these latest attacks on education is that young women, especially young women of color, along with young queer and gay people, are the ones who are seeing themselves erased and further marginalized.

The timing couldn’t be worse; the mental health crisis amongst teen girls is very real.

The AP Psychology situation has created confusion and frustration for many students, teachers and parents. Some school districts decided to drop the course altogether. Others are still looking for alternative options or waiting for more guidance.

Meantime, we should commend the College Board for standing up for the integrity of the course. We should highlight the importance of psychology and AP classes. And we should continue to advocate for academic freedom and the teaching of facts.

Related: COLUMN: Pop quiz: What state just banned an AP African American studies course?

It is remarkable that to say so in America in 2023 is to risk sounding partisan. There should be nothing partisan about teaching young people the truth.

If a firestorm like this can erupt in Florida, it can catch light across the country. The stakes are too high for it to be ignored. We should learn valuable lessons from the risks exposed.

Sara Guillermo is chief executive of IGNITE, a young women’s political empowerment organization.

This story about AP Psychology and “Don’t Say Gay” 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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ATLANTA – As more and more attempts to restrict discussion of gender and race in K-12 schools across the country take hold, where do the ideas go?

Despite the general hostility, despite the recent legislative attacks on so much of what they stand for, the leaders of Spelman College’s comparative women’s studies department have fostered a sort of “safe haven” for Black feminist and queer studies, said M. Bahati Kuumba, the associate director of the department.

Women’s studies, at Spelman and elsewhere, is an interdisciplinary major that examines the way identity – including race, class, sexuality, gender, ability and age – affects the dynamics of power and privilege in society. The discipline looks critically at racism, sexism and other systems of inequality in society. In a college known for that field of study, it would be hypocritical not to create an environment that welcomes every student and celebrates them for who they are as a whole person, said Esther Ajayi-Lowo, an assistant professor in the department.

“I just feel really lucky, happy that those of us at Spelman are not as impacted by the negative trends,” Kuumba said.  She said this motivates her to “work even harder to make sure the theoretical perspectives that encapsulate our experiences, which are the areas of thought that they’re trying to make illegal, are actually valued at Spelman.”

“I just feel really lucky, happy that those of us at Spelman are not as impacted by the negative trends.”

M. Bahati Kuumba, associate director, department of comparative women’s studies, Spelman College

Among the 102 historically Black colleges and universities, Spelman is the only one that offers a bachelor’s degree in women’s or gender studies. Some other HBCUs offer interdisciplinary degrees in which students can select a concentration on similar topics, and others offer minors in gender or women’s studies. 

Kuumba said that Spelman is an intellectual oasis that has, so far, been spared any legislative attempts to cut funding for certain departments or control what topics can be studied. Other political changes to the education sphere, such as the expected Supreme Court ruling on the use of race in college admissions, Kuumba said, are unlikely to have a significant effect on historically Black colleges like Spelman.

Application figures suggest increased interest in Spelman over the past few years. The women’s college received 13,614 applications for the fall of 2022 – a 48 percent increase over the 9,179 who applied in fall of 2019, according to a spokesperson for the college. Enrollment over the same time period rose by about 12 percent, and the number of students who are majoring in women’s studies has remained steady.

At Spelman, students are sheltered from the negativity in some ways: the community is overwhelmingly made up of Black women, and the principal mission of the college is to educate Black women and prepare them to contribute to positive social change.

And while Atlanta is a liberal city, Georgia isn’t immune to the political struggles. Last year, the governor signed a law limiting what K-12 schools can teach children about racism, and prohibiting anything that might make a student feel guilt or shame about their race. A bill meant to restrict education about gender and sexuality in K-12 schools and other settings was introduced by Republican state lawmakers this spring, but has not progressed.  

Instead of despairing about these policies and others like them in other states, Ajayi-Lowo said the women’s studies department gives students the opportunity to make sense of “racial and gendered oppression,” use history to put it into context and begin building hope. She believes it’s personally empowering to students to learn how to advocate for themselves and their communities.

“It’s not just like, ‘there is a war, all of this is happening, the world’s falling apart,’” Ajayi-Lowo said. “They’re able to see themselves as critical stakeholders who have the agency to make changes.”

Fostering a “safe haven” at Spelman shows students that it’s possible to create communities that are free of oppression, Ajayi-Lowo said, and teaches them that if, later in life, they find themselves with no space like this, they will have the power to recreate it. Knowing they have this power is even more important in a moment marked by pervasive hostility and so many legislative efforts to control various aspects of education, Ajayi-Lowo said.

Discussion of race and gender is not being limited only in grade schools. Wyoming has seen several attempts to defund gender and women’s studies programs at public colleges. Florida has a new law that severely restricts gender and women’s studies instruction and defunds initiatives related to diversity, equity and inclusion in the state university system. A similar bill has passed the Texas legislature and is awaiting signature from the governor. 

To Shoniqua Roach, an assistant professor of women’s studies and African American studies at Brandeis University, it makes sense that Spelman’s comparative women’s studies program would feel protected and safe during such politically tumultuous times. 

“They’re able to see themselves as critical stakeholders who have the agency to make changes.”

Esther Ajayi-Lowo, assistant professor, comparative women’s studies, Spelman College

“Black feminism was born out of impossible conditions,” Roach said. “Our field has only gotten more resilient in the face of chaos and the face of crisis.”

Roach said that many of the concepts being targeted by conservative lawmakers originate from Black feminist scholars, including the idea that Black people and people from other historically marginalized groups have had a different experience in the United States from others, and that they deserve systemic changes to prevent further mistreatment and to repair damage done. These ideas are core tenets of women’s studies and intersectional feminism, and challenges to them are not new.

“It’s a pretty creative, rigorous, resilient and incredible time for Black feminist theory, which doesn’t surprise me because as a field, we’ve always already been under siege,” Roach said. “I’m already excited to see the creativity that is born out of this chaos.”

Black feminist theory in part argues for human empowerment, but specifically for empowering Black women, one of the most marginalized groups in the United States, Roach said. She is seeing more scholars take advantage of the opportunity to share Black feminist thought beyond academia, which “is an incredible creative, political and intellectual achievement.”

Ariella Rotramel, a professor at Connecticut College and the vice president of the National Women’s Studies Association, believes political pushback comes as a direct result of social justice progress being made. 

For example, Rotramel said, if more people start acknowledging racism and its material effects on health and wealth, then it’s more likely to be addressed. And they see attempts to restrict gender-affirming health care for transgender children as evidence that there are enough parents that love and support their trans children for people to feel threatened by it, Rotramel said.

Rotramel said that they, like most educators, teach theories, and students do not have to agree with every single thing they teach.

“It’s a competing imagining of what our world should be,” Rotramel said. “Of course, I think you always have to believe that the best things about people and humanity will win and people will realize there are ways to care and ways to respect differences.” 

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

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After the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021, tens of thousands of girls were banned from attending school beyond sixth grade. Many found a way to continue their studies through informal tutoring centers, but those too have come under increased scrutiny as the government continues to crack down on women and girls’ access to education.

As a group of girls in Kabul have been grappling with all this, they’ve formed a connection with some other teens half a world away in California. The two sets of students, through meetings on Zoom talking about their lives and goals, formed the Flowers for the Future club, now a branch of the Eileen Murphy Foundation.

Below are two essays from members of the club: Mahsa Kosha in Afghanistan and Emily Khossravi in California.

“Like a walking dead”: Being a teenage girl who wants to study under Taliban rule

By Mahsa Kosha

I was born in 2006. I continued my childish life from birth to 6 years old and had a relatively good childhood period. I had many dolls and friends at that time. My yellow-haired doll’s name is Princess. I love her so much because she is so loyal that I still have her. When I was 6 years old, I started studying in school. Later, I started studying English, too. I continued my school and course lessons until our economic situation deteriorated and I could not study English anymore.

My younger sister was born with a heart problem. My parents got into a lot of debt to treat her, and we entered very difficult years. But my sister became healthy, and my parents were trying very hard to allow us to study. A few years later, I was back studying English and math at the same time at school.

Until the age of 14, I had a completely normal life. I was studying and trying to achieve great success in the future. I wanted to become a pilot. At that age, I didn’t really understand the concept of failure, and I continued my life without any fear or concern, and every day I moved forward with small successes. I got four certificates of appreciation from different departments, one of which was from a cultural community. I gained from singing hymns and reciting poems. I thought that “I will continue my work and efforts and within a few years I will reach bigger goals,” unaware that it will not happen.

Related: STUDENT VOICE: ‘Then one day a bomb exploded during my geometry class’

With the arrival of the Taliban, a new page opened in my life, and my life entered into great changes. After the Taliban seized power, many problems arose, and I suffered many failures. I really entered into a back-breaking transformation. At the beginning of the ban on the entry of girls to my school, I was depressed, and I was like a walking dead, and I didn’t want to continue my studies.

But in those hard days, I was not alone. My older brother tried very hard to help me and always encouraged me to study. He even brought me very good motivational books to read and try, such as “Atomic Habits” and “The Power of Habit.” One day, my brother showed me a picture he had taken of an ad for a place where girls could go take classes. When I went to the address, I saw a lot of other girls who were like me and were looking for lessons in courses. Slowly I got the motivation to study again and started reading books on the side of those lessons. I continued in the promised course.

But this time they closed the course gates on us, and this time I will fight back and search for methods to achieve my dreams.

The arrival of the Taliban taught me that I have to fight against my problems. Someone who has always been in the dark and struggled with problems wants to reach the light and understands the light. I try to reach it. Only someone who faces their problems can succeed.

An example is James Clear, the author of “Atomic Habits.” He was hit by a baseball bat right in the middle of his face when he was in high school, which caused his brain to be crushed inside his skull. Despite all the problems he had, he got back on his feet better than before. The work he did turned out to be very strong. He was able to get perfect grades in all subjects by the end of the year, and six years later he was selected as the best male athlete at Denison University in Ohio. His book gave me new motivation and changed my way of thinking in life. Well, I will take James Clear as my example and continue on my way again like any other Afghan girl.

How inspiration and friendship from across the world help create a global club

By Emily Khossravi

I still remember the first day of my AP World History class in 2021. I walked into the class, eager and excited for the year to come. Little did I know that class would change my life.

On the first day, my teacher, Timothy Stiven, announced that we would be meeting with girls from a tutoring center in Afghanistan on Zoom the next day. I was so excited about the experience. That afternoon, when I got home, I immediately sent an email to Mr. Stiven and indicated that I could talk to the students in Farsi if it would make them feel more comfortable. The next day, I introduced our class and spoke with the Afghan students, asking them how they were doing and what their hopes and dreams were for the future. They responded with a variety of answers: Some wanted to work in the fields of computer science, others wanted to pursue their soccer dreams and yet others wanted to write literature. Witnessing their determination and eagerness to continue to learn despite not being allowed to go to school was amazing and inspired us to amplify their voices.

Related: Refugee girls want to improve the world. Will we let them do so?

I began translating a collection of one hundred poems that one of the girls had written. I began corresponding with her, and we started sharing goals. It wasn’t until then that I was fully hit with the intense dedication of these girls. Despite her situation, this girl still aimed to learn the advanced topics of chemistry and mathematics, as well as English grammar. She also asked me how I foster productivity and organize my schedule.

Needless to say, I wasn’t the only one inspired. As we began meeting over Zoom more and more often, the club Flowers for the Future emerged. Through the club, we sought to provide the girls with interactive STEM and humanities lessons, in topics such as biology, chemistry and English and engage them in continuing their education, even when they couldn’t go to school. The club has grown to include branches in Massachusetts, Kentucky, Hong Kong, Australia and more. We will continue to expand, with the goal of having the girls achieve their dreams, while striving to make a positive impact on everyone’s life.

Flowers for the Future has served as a platform to connect students through the passion of learning different subjects; it emphasizes the importance of learning through the connections between schools thousands of miles apart. Not only do we seek to help educate these girls in Afghanistan, but we also seek to inspire others to do the same. Because education is worth pursuing – it advances humanity.

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

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With the spring semester upon us, districts across the nation are still struggling with teacher shortages. In New Jersey, it’s a crisis that is making it harder to hire and retain Black and Latino teachers.

Teacher shortages continue to disproportionately affect historically underserved communities. Black educators are leaving the profession in high numbers, and this reality harms an often vulnerable school population. Representation matters, and education is starving for it.

While districts scramble to fill vacancies, schools must do a better job not only hiring diverse teachers, but also keeping them on board. When children have exposure to school leaders from a variety of cultures, they do better both in K-12 classrooms and in our communities.

Related: Schools can’t afford to lose any more Black male educators

Study after study shows that student outcomes are affected by the existence of a demographic match between teachers and students. Black and Latino students perform better when they have at least one teacher who is the same race. A “disadvantaged” Black male’s exposure to at least one Black teacher in elementary school reduces his probability of dropping out of high school by nearly 40 percent.

I know firsthand what racial representation on campus can do for a young student. I had a single mother, and my Black male teachers stood in as father figures for me.

When children have exposure to school leaders from a variety of cultures, they demonstrate better outcomes both in K-12 classrooms and in our communities.

These adults connected with me culturally. They knew what it was like to grow up poor in the inner city. They spoke from experience, with a level of explicitness that forced me to listen when they shared advice about what to look for in friends and assured me that I would belong in college.

Their words were among the significant factors that drove me to attend college, and why I chose education as my major. I was mentored, educated and held accountable by Black males who had persevered in college and graduated. My relationships with them changed my life and shaped who I became as an adult.

That’s why at College Achieve Public Schools (CAPS) in New Jersey, where I’m now the chief academic officer and executive director of College Achieve Paterson, we’ve made it our mission to hire — and retain — teachers who represent the diversity of our students. We serve mostly Black and Latino students who fall below the poverty line, and 70 percent of the educators at CAPS Paterson identify as Black or Latino.

This type of representation isn’t the norm in New Jersey, where 6.6 percent of teachers are Black and 9.3 percent are Latino, while 15 percent of students are Black and 31 percent Latino. The discrepancy is magnified in my hometown of Paterson, where more than a quarter of the general population identifies as Black and more than 60 percent as Latino.

Related: The culture wars are driving teachers from the classroom. Two campaigns are trying to help

While at College Achieve we don’t have all the answers, we’ve seen how a representative teaching staff positively affects our students and our school community. Our academic outcomes are improving — even through the pandemic — and our students are outperforming their peers in neighboring schools in every grade level in both math and English Language Arts.

Students can envision their own paths to success through their teachers’ journeys. Here’s how we hire, and retain, teachers who reflect the diversity of our students.

First, we partner with nearby universities to hire qualified Black and Latino college students as substitute teachers and pair them with experienced school staff for mentoring.

Once they earn their bachelor’s degrees, these substitutes can earn full teaching certificates through the state’s alternate teacher pathway and return to College Achieve. Since 2018, we’ve hired 18 of these educators into full teaching positions.

Second, we encourage and facilitate a more fulfilling and innovative approach to teaching. Our teachers motivate our students, who have enormous potential but limited resources, to think critically rather than just look for the “right” answer. Our low student-to-teacher ratio allows us to provide individualized attention, including for students who are English learners or academically at-risk or have disabilities. This approach leads to teacher retention.

Finally, we cultivate an inclusive staff culture, in which teachers not only feel comfortable enough to stay, but confident enough to move up and grow their careers. We help teachers understand what it means to be anti-racist and how to communicate these practices with our students.

More than academics, it’s about sharing lived experiences. Of course, it wasn’t only Black male teachers who influenced my life. Students need diverse teachers. But when I walk into a classroom and share my story, it resonates with our students.

It ignites what’s possible, and shows our students what can happen when they believe in themselves. By replicating the CAPS model, we can ensure that teachers really connect with students and empower our next generation of leaders.

Gemar Mills is chief academic officer of College Achieve Public Schools (CAPS) in New Jersey and executive director of CAPS Paterson.

This story about diverse teachers was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter.

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Personal attacks on educators and others working in public education by political extremists have become all too common in recent years — and our children are paying the price.

Our children are being used as pawns in the politically motivated culture wars being forced into our nation’s public schools, and it’s time for this to stop.

Remember these stories? Last year, Kentucky’s 2022 Teacher of the Year, Willie Carver Jr., a gay man, was baselessly accused of invoking controversial materials in the classroom. As the sponsor of his school’s Gay-Straight Alliance, he faced an unending storm of homophobic hate and personal attacks. Carver was forced to quit his job serving the children and families of his community after 17 years.

In 2020, in North Texas, James Whitfield of Colleyville Heritage High School became the school’s first Black principal. A year later, he was forced to resign despite his expertise and positive impact on students.

Political extremists in the state accused him of promoting divisive concepts simply because he wrote a letter to the community expressing his grief and pain over the deaths of three Black Americans: George Floyd in Minnesota, Breonna Taylor in Kentucky and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia.

The increasing frequency of stories like these is deeply concerning — because our children are the ones caught in the middle.

Related: How Moms for Liberty wants to reshape education this school year and beyond

We send our kids to school and entrust their teachers to give them the skills they need to succeed in the classroom and beyond. No matter where you live, it’s highly likely that finding and retaining high-quality teachers and administrators is a top concern for your child’s school district.

But more and more, good teachers are leaving the profession over fear of being harassed or fired — or worse — just for doing their jobs. Without access to quality educators, our kids will struggle, and the results will be devastating.

Yet as parents and educators work hard to help kids catch up on learning time lost during the pandemic, opportunistic politicians are taking advantage of families’ frustrations to push their extremist agendas into classrooms nationwide.

As a mother, I’m fearful for the future of this country if we can’t allow our educators to speak honestly about modern challenges without suffering dire consequences. Our shared goal should be to equip our children with the knowledge and independent thinking skills they need to build a brighter, safer future for us all.

Good teachers are leaving the profession over fear of being harassed or fired — or worse — just for doing their jobs.

Learning from each other and our shared history helps us confront the issues we face today — that’s what will keep our country great. We must not let partisan politics get in the way of that.

That’s why my organization, the Campaign for Our Shared Future, recently announced the Educator Defense Fund, a central, rapid-response resource of support services for educators, superintendents and school board members who find themselves under attack by extremists.

Our goal is to create a desk staffed by a team of experts providing communication and legal advice and other resources to help educators withstand and oppose these dangerous attacks. Politicians have no place in our classrooms.

I wish that the Educator Defense Fund wasn’t necessary, but unfortunately it’s desperately needed because extremist politicians continue to attack educators for teaching our kids lessons that don’t adhere to the politicians’ views.

They will continue to defame our most respected community leaders, nonprofit organizers and writers of history. They will do their best to erase American heroes — like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks — from our history books. They will do all of this in an attempt to assume more power by injecting their divisive agendas into our children’s classrooms and undermining trust in public education and, eventually, our democracy — and they are determined. No person is safe from their attacks.

Related: OPINION: Let’s listen to what parents, not politicians, really want from their public schools

Luckily for us, combatting these extremists is quite simple, if we’re willing to work together. We as parents must work as trusting partners with our local schools and communities in order to give our children the best education possible. This battle is winnable if we come together across the political aisle to defeat these extremist invasions and restore healthy debate among families and professionals invested in student success.

For the sake of our country’s future, let’s put an end to the culture wars and classroom witch hunts in 2023, and shift our focus back to the needs of our kids.

Heather Harding, Ed.D., is executive director of the Campaign for Our Shared Future, a nonpartisan effort to support high quality K-12 education and preserve access, inclusion and meaningful content in our schools.

This story about culture wars in public 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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STEM movements often miss one thing — the voices of today’s students.

If we want to create successful and lasting pathways, for all young people, into fields like science, technology, engineering and math, then our voices — and those of the millions of other young women like us— must be heard.

As high school students, we were born at the same time as the iPhone and after the launch of social media and YouTube. We are growing up in a world completely different from that of our parents, teachers and leaders.

As a result, our generation’s relationship with technology and STEM education is distinct. The way we access information and interact with each other is new. We see problems and solutions differently from the adults around us.

Our generation is set to inherit a complicated world with challenges we did not create; now is the time to start listening to us. And we have a few ideas about how to build a better, more inclusive future for women in STEM.

Number one: More after-school and summer STEM programs.

We envision a future in which every young girl can imagine themselves as a future engineer, coder or inventor. So many of us find our spark in STEM during programs that happen outside of school, whether it’s an after-school robotics program or a summer course with Girls Who Code.

Girls everywhere need access to STEM learning beyond the classroom that gives them the freedom to be curious and explore and gain confidence in STEM.

Related: To attract more students to STEM fields in college, advocates urge starting in sixth grade

Number two: Youth ambassador opportunities that develop leadership and advocacy skills.

Unfortunately, many girls don’t stay engaged with an after-school program or STEM club because they are the only girl.

In our own STEM journeys, we learned what it feels like to be the “only.” It was lonely looking around a robotics competition or math club and feeling like an outsider.

Our experiences made us realize how challenging it can be to get more girls to attend after-school and summer STEM programs. We wanted to use our stories to help young girls like us who love STEM but are intimidated or worried about being the only girl. Unfortunately, we didn’t know how. That’s where a youth ambassador program made a real difference.

It was lonely looking around a robotics competition or math club and feeling like an outsider.

We answered a national call to join the inaugural Million Girls Moonshot Flight Crew. The Flight Crew is a youth ambassador program that gives middle and high school girls a community to experience mentorship and learn about communication, advocacy, outreach and perseverance.

Programs like the Flight Crew give young girls the space to be seen and heard in the STEM community by giving us opportunities to speak at conferences and forums, share our ideas with the media, network with key leaders and learn effective leadership and communication skills.

As Flight Crew members, we have strengthened our voices and learned how to share our journeys to inspire and give confidence to other young girls from our communities and in cities across the country to pursue STEM. When it comes to reaching young girls, no one is a better messenger than us, their peers.

Related: Researchers looked at how early STEM stereotypes begin for kids. They found them every step of the way.

Number three: Adults and mentors who listen and make space.

Advocacy efforts need to include and be led by youth, but that means we need support from the adults who are leading these conversations. Young people have shown their power to rally efforts that advocate for climate action and ending gun violence in schools. It’s time we do the same for STEM.

We need a seat at the tables where decisions are made, from local school boards to national STEM initiatives, and platforms to amplify our voices. Those who already have platforms can help by sharing them with students.

The future of STEM is with us. All young girls should have the opportunity to find and use their voices through after-school and summer STEM programs. Our voice is a superpower. By rethinking STEM advocacy to uplift youth voices, STEM advocates can help students share our stories of celebration and failure.

We can remind our parents and teachers and leaders around our nation that all girls belong. We are the future of STEM.

Henrietta Rasmusson is a freshman in high school from Pendleton, New York, and a member of the inaugural 2022 Million Girls Moonshot Flight Crew. Henrietta hopes to one day become an engineer.

Emerald Yankey is a junior in high school from Georgia and a member of the inaugural 2022 Million Girls Moonshot Flight Crew. Emerald plans to study software engineering or computer science or astrophysics in college.

This story about women in STEM 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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In an ideal world, early childhood education advocates wouldn’t need strategies for building respect for the profession. We wouldn’t need to develop arguments for why pre-K educators deserve better pay and working conditions — the country would just accept this as fact and make it happen.

Yet, the reality is we must redouble our efforts to convince the country to create better working conditions for those who serve in early education roles.

The pandemic made the situation more acute: The U.S. has roughly 80,000 fewer child care workers since the pandemic started, a loss of 7.5 percent, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

We believe that part of the solution to the workforce dilemma is higher pay. One way to foster higher pay is by recruiting more men to the field.

Nationwide, only 1.2 percent of early childhood and kindergarten teachers are men, according to MenTeach. We see this phenomenon in our efforts to promote the Child Development Associate credential, which is now widely recognized in early childhood education and is based on a core set of competency standards. Such standards guide early childhood professionals toward becoming qualified educators of young children.

Wages tend to increase after men enter jobs dominated by women.

The BLS says that industry and occupational segregation — through which women are overrepresented in certain jobs and industries and underrepresented in others — leads to lower pay for women and contributes to the overall gender wage gap. Its data also shows that “jobs such as child care workers, domestic workers and home health aides are mostly held by women, and all of these roles pay below average wages.” Women-dominated jobs like these (“pink collar jobs”) are less likely to include benefits than jobs predominately held by men.

Academic research has also found “substantial evidence” that the proportion of females in an occupation affects pay because we as a society don’t value work done by women. Fast Company stated that while “female-dominated jobs merit better wages regardless of men’s entrance, men’s participation in these jobs may enhance the job’s status and economic value.”

Indeed, research has shown that wages tend to increase after men enter jobs dominated by women, potentially because employers may more highly value the work that men do or more readily accept men’s negotiations for higher wages.

Related: Finding child care is still impossible for many parents

Thirty years ago, I began my own professional journey as a preschool teacher. It wasn’t my original plan, but I pursued the opportunity based on a suggestion from a family member working in the field. Her connection made the opportunity seem more plausible to me, despite starting as a low-paid teacher aide. At that time in my life, I was surrounded by strong, accomplished women who were early educators; I believe this helped me persist in a field where few men enter and stay.

The school enrolled me in a Child Development Associate credential program, which led me to learning everything I could about how children learn and grow.

Later, in my doctorial research for “The Sociological Factors That Affect the Retention of Male Early Childhood Teachers,” I reviewed the exit interviews of male teachers who left teaching. A majority of them did so for higher-paying fields. Other studies have also indicated that men are not as interested in the early childhood education sector due to lack of status, salary and benefits.

Hence, bringing more men into the profession could create a dynamic in which pay increases, helping bring more men into the profession, which further increases pay and benefits.

Related: Help us track child care challenges

Beyond the theory that recruiting more men to the sector will increase overall wages and the status of the profession, there are other benefits to such a diversified workforce. In a survey of members of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, 97 percent responded that it’s important for young children to know caring, loving men and have positive male role models.

In addition, men and women should share equally in caring for young children. We also know that the presence of male teachers often makes fathers feel more welcome and encourages them to become more involved. The more males in the child care center, the more likely we can draw men to parent meetings, teacher conferences and field trips.

Another small part of the way to address the lack of men in the field is by recognizing and praising men currently involved in early childhood education. We are planning to convene male educators to discuss topics like male teacher retention and early childhood education fatherhood initiatives. We are sharing the lessons we’ve learned with those in like-minded organizations in order to highlight the importance of bringing men to and keeping them in early childhood education. We’re doing our part. But we are just beginning.

Calvin Moore Jr. is CEO of the Council for Professional Recognition.

This story about men in early childhood 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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As a school board member in Arizona, I hear the concerns, hopes and frustrations that parents and citizens have about our public schools. The things that families worry about? School safety, shrinking budgets, student achievement and the accessibility of programs.

These are the issues that unite our students and families in our public schools and the kinds of problems that they want addressed. And these are the issues that I really want to work on with other policymakers who, regardless of political affiliation, care about similar things.

But the school board environments that I and so many of my colleagues from around the country work in make it seem like parents are more concerned with cultural and curriculum issues. So where is this coming from?

Recent polling of Republicans and Democrats revealed that a supermajority across both groups — approximately 76 percent — believe that their child’s school does a good job keeping them informed about the curriculum, including controversial topics. An incredible 86 percent agree that learning about the history of racism prepares children for a better future.

It’s surprising to read these results about how parents and students really feel when aggressive steps are being taken around the country to stop the teaching and discussion of race, culture and gender in public schools. Since 2021, school districts in 26 states have banned or opened investigations into more than 1,100 books dealing with those topics. Arizona has tried multiple times to pass statewide bans on ethnic studies and recently passed House Bill 2495, which severely restricts what students can be taught about sexuality and gender identity.

When I first read the results of that recent polling, I was skeptical. It’s hard to get that level of agreement on any issue, let alone on topics that we’ve been told are deeply dividing our nation’s communities. But the findings offer proof that families across the country understand why our public schools should provide an honest, accurate education to students, including exposure to diverse cultures, languages, perspectives and experiences.

Related: TEACHER VOICE: How the sad shadow of book banning shuts down conversations and lacerates librarians

Students in my district’s schools in suburban Arizona are beautifully diverse. Forty-nine percent identify as white, 36 percent as Hispanic/Latino, 4 percent as Black and 6 percent as Native American. To be a student in our schools means studying alongside other students from a wide range of ethnic and racial backgrounds, as well as those from wealthy, poor, immigrant and mixed-race families.

The diversity that my district’s students experience is likely the same they will encounter in their working and social lives after they graduate. Whether they settle in New York City, Tulsa or Phoenix, our students will be well prepared to live and work together with others who do not look like them.

This exposure to diversity of all kinds is important; similarly, students must learn to think critically about our nation’s complicated past and discuss it with educators and their peers so they can learn important lessons for the future. Discussing controversial issues in the classroom is how students learn how to handle conflict and work together peacefully and respectfully.

Research over several decades has shown clear benefits from such discussions for the development of critical thinking and decision-making abilities, and parents across the political spectrum clearly agree. Yet in 2021 alone, legislators in 35 states wrote 137 separate bills attempting to restrict teaching on race, gender, history and politics.

An incredible 86 percent of Democrats and Republicans agree that learning about the history of racism prepares children for a better future.

These bans were spearheaded by a small but powerful group of special interests who are not in alignment with the people they claim to represent. The same forces pushing these educational gag orders are also trying to dismantle public education entirely, using tactics like the “universal school voucher bill” in Arizona, which allows children to use state tax money to pay for private school tuition and other costs.

Parents, educators and district leaders must stay vigilant and take steps locally and at the state level to make sure that their elected officials understand the reasons that they support honest, accurate and fully funded public education. Book bans and educational gag orders are more easily passed when it’s assumed that few people are watching.

It’s time for the majority of parents, who want their children to develop critical thinking skills and the ability to consider different points of view, to give voice to their beliefs — and it’s time for elected officials to take note and listen to their constituents. As an elected official who is also a Black woman, I know that topics like how racism impacts our nation can be difficult to discuss publicly. Yet, it’s paramount for our public schools to lean into that discomfort.

In order for our students to learn, grow and succeed in their future personal and professional lives, we must encourage our educators to not shy away from teaching controversial topics.

Sherri Jones has been a leader in statewide efforts helping Arizona’s children, educators and families for 20 years. She is vice president of the Florence Unified School Board in Florence, Arizona, and a member of the HEAL Together initiative.

This story about controversial topics and public schools 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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