We’ve suffered through the creep of a dynamic known as “,” where conspiracy theories, falsehoods and wildly distorted views of reality become easier for some Americans to embrace than the demonstrable facts of our present moment. 

Recently, a House subcommittee hearing offered a new flavor of the problem, as Republicans and their conservative witnesses tried to win political turf by substituting facts about one group of students — English learners — with beliefs about children in undocumented families, a very different group of students. 

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government’s March 11 hearing was titled, “.” That struck down a Texas law that would have blocked districts from using state education funding to teach undocumented children. In a 5-4 decision, the court held that children are covered by the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, and could not be denied a public education based on their families’ legal status. 

Writing for the majority, , “The Equal Protection Clause was intended to work nothing less than the abolition of all caste-based and invidious class-based legislation. That objective is fundamentally at odds with the power (Texas) asserts here to classify persons subject to its laws as nonetheless excepted from its protection.”

The congressional hearing was a culmination of years of work by organizations like , who seek to overturn that decision. After nearly 44 years, they’re getting closer. This spring, Republicans in the Tennessee legislature passed a to erode the Plyler ruling. 

The Tennessee House of Representatives adopted a bill that would require schools to gather data on students’ citizenship and immigration status, while the state Senate approved a measure that would allow public school districts to to students who lack legal documentation. , as time is running out in the state’s legislative calendar, and lawmakers are jockeying over how to reconcile the two bills. 

This was Tennessee’s second push to restrict immigrant children’s access to public schools — it’s unlikely that it will be its last. Other states, like and , have made similar efforts. It seems inevitable that conservative state legislators will eventually succeed in enacting a bill along these lines, which will then face a legal challenge from advocates for immigrant families, civil liberties, and/or children’s data privacy. Ultimately, this may open the door for the court’s current conservative 6-3 majority to erode or remove Plyler’s civil rights protections. 

Why would anyone want to keep kids out of school? What could possibly be gained by punishing children for their families’ decisions to migrate? 

In the congressional hearing, conservatives’ main answer to these questions was financial. Republican Subcommittee chair Rep. Chip Roy of Texas and his fellow conservatives claimed that undocumented children represent a large drain on public education budgets. Critically, the evidence they provided for this relied heavily on confusing undocumented immigrant children with all immigrant children and/or with English learners. 

As a prelude to his questions, Roy claimed, the national debt is “now cracking $39 trillion, and I would note that there are a lot of reasons why, and this is one of them 
 we continue to have this fanciful notion that we can just say, ‘Anybody can come into the United States and it doesn’t have an impact on our overall budget.'”

that Texas schools enroll roughly without legal documentation, adding, “for every English learner, Texas schools receive $616 or $950 for those enrolled in a dual language program.” He then asked the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Mandy Drogin, one of the witnesses called by Roy and his Republican colleagues, “How much does that cost?” Drogin estimated that this cost Texas around $830 million per year. 

, this is wildly irresponsible data use. That $830 million isn’t being spent on the estimated 100,000 undocumented children in Texas. It’s being spent on the state’s . 

Meanwhile, those 100,000 undocumented children are a diverse group, with some who are likely currently classified as English learners, others who have already become proficient in English and have moved out of that group and some who spoke English well enough upon their arrival in U.S. schools that they were never classified as English learners in the first place.

Data on English learners that are . In other words, conflating spending on English learners with spending on undocumented children is a bit like claiming that a public library is wasting money on foreigners just because international tourists sometimes come in to use the public WiFi network. 

What’s more, because the overwhelming majority of English learners are U.S. citizens, if Plyler were reversed and undocumented children were blocked from school, major budget savings. Texas schools would still enroll well over a million English learners with citizenship and/or legal residency documentation. The state would still — hopefully — want to maintain these U.S.-born students’ linguistic and academic success.

That last bit is key. Texas schools are with linguistically diverse kids — regardless of their citizenship status or their families’ immigration statuses. In the Lone Star State — and the  â€” data show these do well. That academic success produces better prepared graduates who go on to contribute more to the economy than they would have if blocked from school — earning more, paying more taxes and spending more in their local communities.

 This is why of immigration nearly always find that newcomer families — — grow the economy and than they cost to public service programs.

These recent assaults on kids’ access to public schools exacerbate a concerning conservative trend — policy research organization KFF studied during the 2024 election and found widespread public confusion. Their researchers polled the public and found that Republicans were significantly more likely than Democrats or independents to agree with false, negative claims about immigrants. 

When presented with the false statement that “Immigrants are causing an increase in violent crime in the U.S.,” fully 45% of Republicans responded that this was definitely true and 36% said it was probably true. By contrast, 39% of Democrats believed that the statement was definitely false — and another 39% believed that it was probably true. 

Look: Research is not ambiguous on this question — immigrants are to commit violent than U.S.-born adults. As a National Policing Institute summary of the evidence , “political scapegoating and hyperbole are no substitute for scientific evidence.” 

For leaders serious about improving schools for all kids, that’s obviously true. But the subcommittee’s attacks on Plyler show that a perverse inversion of that line may also be true: When it comes to ambitious demagogues, evidence is no match for the allure of xenophobic, hyperbolic scapegoating. 

The views expressed here are Conor P. Williams’s alone, and do not reflect those of his employer or any other affiliated organizations. 

The 5-4 vote by the Senate Education Committee came despite the Legislature’s own fiscal analysis, which said the proposed legislation “may jeopardize federal funding to the state and to local governments” and violate the federal Civil Rights Act, which specifically prohibits discrimination based on national origin in programs receiving federal dollars. Three Republicans joined the committee’s sole Democrat in voting “no.”

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Immediately after the vote was cast, shouts of “so shameful” and “that’s trash” erupted inside the hearing room. Others, including school-age children in attendance, streamed out of the room in tears.

The bill () by Sen. Bo Watson, a Hixson Republican, and House Majority Leader William Lamberth, a Portland Republican, says that local school districts and public charter schools “shall require” students to provide one of three forms of documentation: proof of U.S. citizenship, proof the student is in the process of obtaining citizenship or proof they have legal immigration status or a visa.

Students who lack one of the three forms of documentation could then be barred by their local school district from enrolling unless their parents paid tuition.

Watson,  the bill’s sponsor, said he brought the measure in response to the increasing cost to the state of providing English-as-a-second-language instruction.

“Remember, we are not talking about people who are here lawfully,” Watson said. “What I’m trying to discuss here is the financial burden that exists with what appears to be an increasing number of people who are not lawfully here.”

In response to a question from Sen. Raumesh Akbari of Memphis, the sole Democrat on the panel, Watson said he had received no formal request from any school official to introduce the measure.

“In an official capacity, this is one of those issues people do not talk about,” Watson said. “This is a very difficult bill to present. It is very difficult to have all these eyes on you.”

“In an unofficial capacity at numerous events, have people mentioned this problem to me? Absolutely,” Watson said.

Akbari responded: “I’m from the largest school district in the state. I have not had those conversations.”

“I am offended by this legislation,” Akbari said. “I find that it is so antithetical to the very foundation of this country
.This is saying that babies – you start school at five years old – that you do not deserve to be educated.”

The bill’s sponsors have acknowledged the measure is likely to face a legal challenge if enacted. The proposed legislation, they have said, is intended to serve as a vehicle to potentially overturn the Supreme Court’s Plyler v. Doe decision, which established a constitutional right to a public school education for all children. The 1982 decision was decided by a 5-4 vote, Watson noted.

“Many 5-4 decisions taken to the court today might have a different outcome,” Watson said.

The proposed legislation is part of an unprecedented slate of immigration-related bills introduced in the Tennessee legislature this year as Gov. Bill Lee and the General Assembly’s GOP supermajority seek to align with the Trump Administration’s immigration policies.

Lee last month signed into law legislation to create a state immigration enforcement office to liaise with the Trump administration, create distinct driver’s licenses for noncitizens and levy felony charges at local elected officials who vote in favor of sanctuary policies.

Among nearly three dozen other immigration-related bills still being considered is one to require hospitals that accept Medicaid payments to report on the immigration status of their patients. would open up charitable organizations, including churches, to lawsuits if they have provided housing services to an individual without permanent legal immigration status and that individual goes on to commit a crime.

Following Wednesday’s hearing in the Senate Education Committee, hundreds congregated in a hallway of the Legislature, chanting “education for all” and pledged to return as the bill winds through the committee process.

The bill “instills fear and hopelessness in these students,” said Ruby Aguilar, a Nashville teacher who testified against the bill during the hearing.  “Education is not merely a privilege, it is a shared human right every child should have access to.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com.

Several GOP wins in the Texas House of Representatives on Tuesday will expand Republicans’ existing majority, giving Abbott an estimated 87 of 150 seats in the lower chamber. When lawmakers reconvene in January, that could finally give him the votes needed to successfully put forth legislation that offers a universal voucher, or education savings account — a proposal that many Democrats and rural Republican lawmakers have rejected in past legislative sessions.

“Frankly, it was a bit surprising that Abbott pulled this off,” said Jon Taylor, a political scientist at the University of Texas at San Antonio. 

With flips of Democratic seats in Corpus Christi and Uvalde, the GOP now enjoys an 87-to-63 margin in the House. He noted, “At a minimum, the Legislature is likely to pass some form of an Education Savings Account plan,” which families could use to cover tuition or other expenses. 

Taylor added that two House districts in San Antonio came close to flipping the other way, from Republican to Democratic, but fell short by about four percentage points apiece, handing the seats to pro-ESA Republicans.

Abbott, who first began pushing for school choice , has aggressively fought for it ever since. In 2023, he called lawmakers into four special legislative sessions to pass a school choice bill, among other measures, and has proposed giving students about $10,500 per year, overseen by the state comptroller. 

He has also worked over the past year to oust lawmakers who fought his proposal to offer ESAs to all students, not just those whose families are low-income.

With deep pockets, Abbott targets ESA foes

Late last year, Abbott began actively campaigning against members of his own party who stood in his way, portraying them as weak on important issues like border security and property tax relief. He was aided by deep-pocketed donors and political action committees that poured millions of dollars into state legislative races.

Jeff Yass, a well-known school choice proponent and investor in TikTok parent company Byte Dance, contributed more than in this political cycle, while Miriam Adelson, owner of the Las Vegas Sands casinos, spent about , making the pair — residents of Pennsylvania and Nevada, respectively — Texas’ two biggest political donors.

Last spring, the effort helped persuade voters to unseat eight House Republicans who had blocked ESAs. One of them, of San Antonio, said in a September interview with ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ that he opposed Abbott’s plan because Texas families already have many options, from magnet schools to charters to a program that lets students in low-performing schools transfer to a better-performing school. Lawmakers, he said, have approved countless programs that provide “choice on top of choice on top of choice” within districts.

Abbott is already doing a victory lap. Taking to the social media site X , he wrote, “Every candidate that I backed in Texas House general election races won tonight. We even had Republican candidates win seats that had been held by Democrats. There are more than enough votes to pass school choice in Texas.”

Katherine Munal, policy and advocacy director of , said Tuesday’s election results in Texas mark “a significant victory for school choice advocates, signaling a continued momentum for policies that prioritize parental empowerment and educational freedom.”

Texas, she said, “is poised to expand opportunities for students and families, allowing them to access a wider range of educational options that best meet their needs. This shift reflects a broader recognition of the importance of individualized education and the belief that every child deserves the opportunity to thrive in an environment that works for them.”

Mark P. Jones, a political scientist at Rice University, said that for Abbott, “the night really couldn’t have gone better.” 

The question now, he said, isn’t whether school choice will succeed in Texas in 2025. “It’s really what form of school choice legislation will pass. How robust and expansive will it be?”

The most likely scenario, he said, would have Abbott offering an ambitious proposal with more students covered than in his 2023 plan, and with less money going to school districts that lose students to ESAs.

While foes of Abbott’s plan can probably still negotiate to help districts, he said any hope that Democrats and anti-school-choice Republicans had of blocking choice in 2025 “vanished last night.”

Abbott has pushed for ESAs despite recent polling that isn’t necessarily conclusive: of respondents to a recent University of Texas survey said they support spending taxpayer dollars to help families pay for private school. Meanwhile, a poll from the University of Houston and Texas Southern University found 65% support.  

The Texas Education Agency last year estimated that about 500,000 children, or about half of the state’s private school and homeschooled students, would apply for the program in its first stages, with more each cycle. The figures prompted Democratic Rep. James Talarico during a legislative hearing that it would be “a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top.”

He added, “It’s welfare for the wealthy.”

Elsewhere on Tuesday, voters in two states — Kentucky and Nebraska — defeated voucher-related ballot measures. A third measure, in Colorado, appeared headed for defeat.

But in late 2023, Abbott began speaking out against him. With the support of other lawmakers and several political action committees, the governor began portraying Allison as weak on border security and property tax relief — two no-compromise issues for Texas GOP voters. In February, one PAC ran a calling Allison “wrong for Texas.”

The San Antonio Express-News as “easily the most qualified candidate in this race,” but the attacks stuck: Voters in his district in the March 5 primary, overwhelmingly choosing Marc LaHood, a criminal defense attorney with no political experience, as the Republican nominee.

In an interview, Allison said his defeat came down to one unlikely issue: school choice, specifically his opposition to Abbott’s long-stalled effort to enact a statewide Education Savings Account to help families pay for private and homeschool expenses.

It’s a scenario that’s playing out in Texas and beyond as lawmakers, pushing to remake legislative maps, increasingly turn for assistance to groups like the American Federation for Children and the School Freedom Fund, a pro-ESA group tied to tech billionaire Jeff Yass. Yass, a well-known Pennsylvania-based school choice proponent and investor in TikTok parent company Byte Dance, has spent millions to promote ESAs.

The effort has already changed the ballot this November and produced an unprecedented shift in statehouses, with lawmakers increasingly approving taxpayer support for private education. Seventeen states now have universal or near-universal ESA programs. 

Whether it’s via a traditional voucher, which gives families tuition for private education, a tax credit, or a less restrictive ESA fund, the idea is increasingly finding favor in state legislatures. In Florida, families can receive 72% of what the state spends per-pupil; in Arizona, it equals 90%. The pro-school-choice group EdChoice has estimated that more than now take advantage of ESAs, up from 40,000 in 2022.

But many rural conservatives fear the funding won’t be useful in isolated areas where private schools are unlikely to open. In many small towns, school districts are the largest employer, making ESAs political kryptonite.

A few observers say the development also could backfire. Mark P. Jones, a political scientist at Rice University, warned that a rightward primary shift could spell defeat for Republicans in the Nov. 5 general election.

“It is possible, even after all the craziness, even after all the attacks and the millions of dollars spent, particularly by a particular TikTok owner, that you’ve got a situation where Abbott may not get his vouchers after all,” Jones said.

‘So wrong for Tennessee taxpayers’

For the moment, school choice efforts are moving full-speed ahead. FutureEd, a Georgetown University think tank, private-school choice bills in 34 states, with most aiming to broaden options like ESAs.

The effort is playing out in states like , and, most recently, in Tennessee, where the School Freedom Fund spent an estimated against Republicans who stopped a in 2024. Among their targets: Sen. Frank S. Niceley, a 20-year legislative veteran who boasted a lifetime on the conservative Tennessee Legislative Report Card. 

The fund painted him as “liberal Frank Niceley,” with one ad to give undocumented students in-state tuition benefits at Tennessee colleges, adding, “No wonder there’s an invasion.” Playing on his last name, it concluded: “Nice to illegals, but so wrong for Tennessee taxpayers.”

Niceley in July that allowing out-of-state PACs to label the most conservative senator as a liberal amounted to trashing elections in favor of pre-determined outcomes by interest groups. “Just call up and ask ’em who they want.”

A statewide voucher, Niceley said, ran counter to Tennessee’s reputation for curbing what he called wasteful spending.

Early evidence in other states suggests that while ESAs are popular, their benefits often take the form of tuition discounts for families whose children are . In Iowa last year, for the state’s ESA came from such students. In Florida, .

Despite Niceley’s plea for frugality, in August, primary voters ousted him in favor of Jessie Seal, a public relations director for a medical facility. 

Celebrating the defeat of Niceley and others, David McIntosh, a former Indiana congressman and the School Freedom Fund president, said, “Make no mistake: if you call yourself a Republican and oppose school freedom, you should expect to lose your next primary.” 

McIntosh declined an interview request.

Abbott’s ‘white whale’

On the flip side, teachers’ unions are well-known for supporting both Democratic candidates and anti-school-choice legislation. In this political cycle, the National Education Association has spent $21,800,773, according to , a nonprofit that follows money in politics. The American Federation of Teachers has spent $3,949,330.

In Texas, anti-ESA Republicans earned support from a PAC funded by H-E-B grocery store chain heir Charles Butt. It threw in more than $4 million last winter, equal to what the School Freedom Fund a dozen Republicans who blocked Abbott’s voucher legislation.

Voters have rewarded the Freedom Fund’s efforts: Over the past few months, they’ve sent more than a dozen anti-ESA lawmakers packing. Abbott has persuaded a handful of others to retire rather than face difficult primaries. 

Yass, the TikTok billionaire, more than $12 million in this political cycle, while Miriam Adelson, owner of the Las Vegas Sands casinos, about $13 million, making the pair — residents of Pennsylvania and Nevada, respectively — Texas’ two biggest political donors.

School choice backers hope that kind of support ultimately results in a win for ESAs, a goal that has repeatedly eluded Abbott. 

Jon Taylor, a political scientist at the University of Texas at San Antonio, joked that ESAs have become Abbott’s “white whale,” one of the few legislative wins he can’t seem to earn.

Jones, the Rice political scientist, noted that several red-leaning states, including Florida, Georgia and Arizona, have ESAs. Texas Republicans have enjoyed a unified government since 2003, he said, creating a kind of “dissonance” between Texas’ perception as the most conservative state and Abbott’s inability to seal the deal.

While the financial support of Yass and groups like the School Freedom Fund may seem unprecedented, Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform, said it merely serves to counterbalance “the enormously, humongously large coffers” of teachers’ unions and the educational establishment.

“The choice movement support, even with lots of wealthy people, pales in comparison to the tens of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars of in-kind and financial support that the unions put into legislative races,” said Allen, who also directs the . She called the development “obviously overdue.”

Allison said he opposed Abbott’s plan because Texas families already have many options, from magnet schools to charters to a program that lets students in low-performing schools transfer out. Lawmakers, he said, have approved countless programs that provide “choice on top of choice on top of choice” within districts.

Recent polling on school choice isn’t necessarily conclusive: of respondents to a recent University of Texas survey said they support spending taxpayer dollars to help families pay for private school. Meanwhile, a poll from the University of Houston and Texas Southern University found 65% support.  

‘We lost some very good members’

On occasion, the push to defeat lawmakers like Allison has taken an ugly turn. Last October, while he was down in Austin for one of several special sessions, an activist pulled a onto his suburban street. Mounted on the back were huge video screens that broadcast messages saying the former school board member “hates children” and “supports rogue administrators.”

“They also came up on the lawn and videoed and scared my wife and scared kids in the neighborhood,” he said. The truck’s commotion forced police to reroute a school bus.

Though lawmakers in Texas don’t convene again until early 2025, the effects are already playing out, said Allison. “We lost some very good members because of this — and some very experienced members.”

That could affect the legislature’s institutional memory and its ability to deal not just with education but other urgent issues, he said. “We’ve got a population that is growing by leaps and bounds. We’ve got some serious infrastructure problems: water, roads, bridges. Property taxes. I mean, it just goes on and on. So to single us out and to focus so much by the governor on this one issue is very shortsighted.”

Jones, the Rice political scientist, noted that while legislatures turn over regularly, the more immediate impact will be the “de facto purge” of House moderates. While he predicted that Abbott will likely gain enough support on Nov. 5 to pass some sort of voucher — perhaps not a particularly robust one — Taylor said Abbott’s aggressive pursuit of centrists could backfire, tilting as many as nine House districts into Democratic hands. Texas Democrats have said they hope to flip several seats based on what they call Abbotts’ .

In what may be the final irony of his ordeal, Allison reluctantly predicted that LaHood, who beat him in the primary, may have difficulty winning the seat against newcomer Democrat . LaHood in 2022 lost a race for county district attorney to a Democratic incumbent. 

One of Allison’s soon-to-be-former colleagues, Democratic Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, who represents a nearby district, in June Democrats’ hopes to gain seats “increased tenfold” with LaHood’s primary win.

For his part, Allison didn’t hesitate when asked if he thought the district might flip blue in November. “I think there’s a very good chance,” he said.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Several House Republicans have signed a letter asking for an investigation into “alarming” actions from state Superintendent Ryan Walters and the Oklahoma State Board of Education and asked for an inquiry into whether the “failures” justify impeachment.

Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, wrote the letter and sent it to House Speaker Charles McCall on Tuesday, along with 16 co-signing lawmakers. McBride’s office said four more lawmakers have signed the letter since he submitted it to the speaker.

The letter, which Oklahoma Voice obtained, marks the first time that public calls for an impeachment inquiry have come from within Walters’ own Republican Party. House Democrats have made similar requests since last year.

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Walters said the lawmakers who signed the letter are “liberal Republicans” who have “joined the far-left Democrats to try to thwart the will of Oklahoma voters.”

“Their calls are baseless and have no merit,” Walters said in a statement. “They reek of political desperation from those who are failing in their misguided attempts to stop the positive education reforms that parents and voters have demanded from their elected leaders.”

McCall said he would not consider the letter’s request until 51 or more Republicans sign it, according to a response he sent to his caucus.

He said criminal investigations should be handled by the Attorney General’s Office, not the Legislature, and the financial concerns listed in the letter could be answered in public budgetary meetings with officials from the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

“I take elections very seriously, and anyone who was duly elected by the people of this state should not be removed from that office, given to them by the people unless absolutely required by the Constitution,” McCall said.

He his chamber wouldn’t initiate impeachment proceedings against Walters unless “somebody puts forth an allegation of something criminal (in) nature.”

Many of the co-signers, like McBride, sit on education-related committees, including the Common Education Committee leader Rep. Rhonda Baker, R-Yukon, and the committee’s vice chair, Rep. Mark Vancuren, R-Owasso.

McBride, who has long been an outspoken critic of Walters, listed six concerns that arose since the 2024 Legislative Session ended on May 30.

First on the list is the state Board of Education’s . State law grants permission to legislators who sit on related committees to attend a board’s closed-door executive sessions, which are kept private from the rest of the public.

Multiple lawmakers have said in recent months the private meetings.

McBride also cited a lack of responsiveness from Walters’ administration to lawmakers’ requests for information and to open records requests from the public. The education funding committee leader also referenced a “failure to comply” with the Legislature’s budgetary directives on school security funds and funding for childrens’ asthma inhalers.

The variety of complaints add up to a “pattern of overreach, disregard for legislative oversight and policy making, and lack of concern for student safety and budgetary stability,” McBride wrote.

The letter calls for a special investigative committee on the state Department of Education. The committee’s responsibility would be to investigate “internal and external failures” to follow the law by Walters and the state Board of Education.

It also would look into whether those failures amount to willful neglect of duty or incompetency, which the Oklahoma Constitution says are grounds for impeachment.

“It saddens me that I must make such a request of you,” McBride wrote to the speaker. “However, I believe that all other remedies have been exhausted. I hear daily from constituents from my district and taxpayers from across the state pleading for this body to take action and hold the superintendent and the state Board of Education accountable for their rogue behavior.”

The House speaker would have to agree to create such a committee. McCall will be in office until he is term-limited in November.

The House is responsible for drawing up articles of impeachment and presenting the case to the Senate, which would act as a “court of impeachment,” according to the state Constitution.

House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson, D-Oklahoma City, said her caucus has made five unheeded calls for impeachment proceedings against Walters. She said on Tuesday she is glad members of the Republican supermajority are now on board.

“Republicans hold the power in both legislative chambers and the Governor’s mansion,” Munson said. “It is time for them to use their power to hold the state superintendent accountable to the people of Oklahoma. We have all waited long enough.”

Vocal discontent from Republican lawmakers escalated this week, even among those who didn’t sign McBride’s letter.

The next House speaker who will succeed McCall, Rep. Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, echoed other lawmakers’ objections to the Education Department’s untimely responses and refusals to allow legislators into executive sessions.

Hilbert did not sign the letter requesting an investigation. Instead, he issued a statement Tuesday urging the rhetoric toward educators to “not only be toned down, but reversed.”

“This past week my daughter started kindergarten in a public school where I know she is loved and supported by phenomenal teachers and support staff,” Hilbert said. “School districts across the state are back to school but instead of talking about the excitement of a new year, we are discussing these issues due to the statements being put out by (the state Education Department).”

Two of the lawmakers who signed the letter, Rep. Ty Burns, R-Pawnee, and Rep. Josh West, R-Grove, also voiced frustration over Walters’ “disparaging comments” about the superintendent of Bixby Public Schools.

Burns and West joined Rep. Chris Banning, R-Bixby, in a statement Monday defending Bixby Superintendent Rob Miller, a former marine. The three lawmakers also are military veterans.

Miller had complained the state Education Department has been slow to provide estimates for Oklahoma schools’ annual Title I funding. Walters responded by calling Miller a “liar and a clown.”

Burns, West and Banning said the name-calling is “unbecoming of any leader, especially the highest-ranking person in the Oklahoma public school system.”

“As elected officials, paid with taxpayer dollars and entrusted with the future of our state, we must hold ourselves accountable to Oklahomans and have the integrity to admit when we are wrong,” they wrote. “We had hoped Walters would eventually grow into his role, but after two years of problematic leadership tactics, our patience is wearing thin.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect additional lawmakers who signed McBride’s letter after initial publication and responses from McCall, Walters and Hilbert.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on and .

A federal district court judge in Missouri has blocked implementation of the Biden administration’s new Title IX rule in six additional states — Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

The , ordered late Wednesday, brings to 21 the total number of states where the U.S. Department of Education can’t enforce the rule on Aug. 1.

Judge Rodney W. Sippel, a Clinton nominee, said the plaintiffs have a “fair chance” of demonstrating that the department “exceeded its statutory authority” by using the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County to expand Title IX protections to LGBTQ students. 

Ravina Nath, a recent graduate of Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California, originally included Rice University in Houston on her short list of colleges to attend this fall. With an interest in neuroscience, she was drawn to its top-ranked biomedical engineering program. 

That was before Texas became one of to sue the U.S. Department of Education  over its new Title IX rule. The regulation extends protections against discrimination and harassment to LGBTQ students and requires prompt investigations into students’ complaints.

Instead, she’ll attend Barnard College in New York City.

“I need to be in a place where I would feel like my school supported me,” said Nath, who became a in high school. At Rice, some students to how officials handled complaints of sexual misconduct. And she ruled out the University of Georgia, a “potential safety school,” because it to make data on such investigations public. Several of her friends made similar calculations when narrowing down school choices. 

“My friends who are survivors and who are LGBTQ+ students applied to schools on the West Coast or the Northeast,” she said. “I don’t think any of my friends applied to school in .”

With the new rule set to go into effect Aug. 1 — just seven days away — a flurry of lawsuits has once again turned the map of the United States into a familiar patchwork of red and blue.

District courts have blocked the regulation in 15 Republican-led states. In the most recent development, the on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow all but related to gender identity issues to go into effect in 10 of those states after two appellate courts denied earlier requests. 

Complicating the legal math further, in an earlier action, a federal judge in Kansas the rule just at serving children of current and future members of the conservative Moms for Liberty and students involved in , another advocacy organization opposed to trans girls competing on teams consistent with their gender identity. Moms for Liberty sees the ruling as an expansion opportunity: On Tuesday, the group tied to Title IX.

With the legal landscape changing daily, some experts think the Education Department should take a step back and delay the rule.

“For schools, universities and students, it’ll calm things down,” said Sandra Hodgin, who runs a Title IX consulting firm in Los Angeles. “What are we talking about, 75% of the country not implementing Title IX and only 25% of the country implementing it?”

A spokesperson said the department has no plans to skirt the Aug. 1 deadline. On Tuesday, it sent schools a list of “” and a on how to draft policies to comply.   

For now, the Supreme Court is considering whether to lift the temporary pause on the rule in the affected states.

The far larger question is what the justices might decide if and when they consider the substance of the rule itself. In addition to expanding protections to LGBTQ students, the new rule largely replaced one issued under former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. That regulation narrowed the definition of sexual misconduct and required live hearings so male students could face their accusers. 

W. Scott Lewis, managing partner with TNG Consulting, which trains districts across the country on Title IX, has advised red states covered by an injunction, like Wyoming and Idaho, that they’re currently bound by the 2020 regulation.

But that could change quickly. 

“It’s a race to the Supreme Court right now,” he said.

‘Bigger than sports’

Some families with LGBTQ students aren’t waiting for the legal drama to run its course. They’ve already to escape laws that bar trans students from using bathrooms or playing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity. Several have moved to the Denver metro area, where Lewis lives, to attend schools in a state that is not challenging the rule.

“We have more than a handful of students at my kid’s high school who moved here from Wyoming, from Kansas, from Iowa,” he said. 

Most of the controversy surrounding Title IX focuses on trans students’ participation in sports, a part of the rule that the U.S. Department of Education has delayed addressing until after the election. But in Lewis’s estimation, that issue is “bigger than sports.” 

“If I’m in a state that won’t let me compete, I’m probably not in a state that’s very friendly to LGBTQ students on the whole,” he said. “I’m far more likely to just move on.”

In blue states set to implement the new rule, many conservative parents say their children’s rights are also at stake. 

They’re concerned students would be disciplined for not using LGBTQ kids’ preferred pronouns, forced to censor their speech or share bathrooms and locker rooms with trans students.

Hillary Hickland, a mother of four in central Texas, moved her children out of the Belton Independent School District partly because she felt there was too much emphasis on students’ gender identity. Her sixth grade daughter told her that teachers encouraged a friend to identify as a boy and use a boy’s name without the parents’ knowledge. 

“Don’t do it behind the backs of the parents. That’s a huge violation of trust,” she said. As a Republican running for the Texas House, she’s concerned about sexual orientation and gender identity becoming part of Title IX. “We have the federal government dictating what goes on in our local public schools. It really undermines the neighborhood school and that culture that we’re trying to preserve.”

‘Nine months behind’

Lewis predicts the Supreme Court will eventually follow its precedent in , which said that at least in the workplace, LGBTQ employees are protected from discrimination. The Biden administration’s new rule rests on that decision.

, who wrote that majority opinion, “can’t undo Bostock. He said sex means LGBTQ rights,” Lewis said. In red states where the rule is on hold, districts “better be ready to implement very quickly because [they’re] going to be nine months behind everyone else.”

If the court also decides to address sports participation — an expected part of the regulation the administration has yet to issue — Lewis said it’s possible the justices would rule similar to the way they handled , leaving it to the states to determine when trans students can compete on teams consistent with their gender identity. 

He called that a “nightmare scenario” because it would “create a world where athletes could compete in some states but not others.” And at the college, NCAA level, “there will be all sorts of questions that can’t be limited to state borders,” said Joshua Dunn, executive director of the Institute of American Civics at University of Tennessee, Knoxville. “They’ll have to address that, too.”

Dunn also suggested the conservative court might not follow Bostock and could treat LGBTQ issues differently at school than they do in the workplace. He noted cases, like , where the court put limits on students’ First Amendment rights in schools “that it would never allow outside of K-12 education.” 

Overturning ‘Chevron’

Another recent Supreme Court decision, unrelated to education, adds an additional layer of uncertainty to the debate over Title IX’s future — one that could affect both sides. 

In , the court overturned what was known as “Chevron deference,” which gave federal agencies broad authority to interpret ambiguous laws through guidance and regulations. The decision gives federal courts more power to explain the law when it’s unclear, and experts say, should end “.”

The Obama administration first issued a in 2011 stating schools’ obligations to protect students from sexual violence and harassment, which the Trump administration largely reversed in 2020, followed by yet another 180 in the spring by ”țŸ±»ć±đČÔ’s education department.

Republicans have Education Secretary Miguel Cardona that they will review the department’s rules since President Joe Biden took office,  including Title IX. GOP leaders call the rule “overreach.” 

The conservative Heritage Foundation’s , largely assumed to be a legislative blueprint for a second Trump term,would remove the terms sexual orientation and gender identity from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation and piece of legislation that exists.”

But if Trump tries to reinstate the DeVos rule, Democrats could use Loper Bright to bring the same challenge, Lewis said.

“If you 
 say the department does not have the authority, then the 2020 regulations don’t count either,” he said. “It was exactly the same procedure.” 

Texas Democrats are zeroing in on education issues in their bid to flip several state House districts this fall, as they look to blame GOP lawmakers for teacher shortages and school closures and mobilize their base around defeating Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature school voucher policy.

That approach came into focus last week at the Texas Democratic Convention in El Paso, where party leaders and House candidates repeatedly bashed Abbott’s push to provide taxpayer funds for private school tuition. They also acknowledged the governor’s recent success ousting members of his own party who oppose school vouchers, invoking it as a reason to focus on battleground House races this fall.

State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, an Austin Democrat who is leading House Democrats’ campaign efforts, told delegates at the convention that Abbott’s crusade against voucher opponents in the primary has tipped the scales of the House narrowly toward passage of vouchers next year.

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“To put it another way, we need to elect about three more Democrats to the Texas House to defeat vouchers and defend our neighborhood public schools,” she said.

Democrats and rural Republicans in the lower chamber have historically united against measures that would divert state funds to help families pay for private school. Critics say vouchers would siphon money away from public schools that are already facing widespread teacher shortages and budget deficits — a trend exacerbated by lawmakers’ failure last year to tap the state’s historic $33 billion budget surplus to boost school funding, after the effort got caught up in the voucher fight.

Most of the House battlefield this election cycle is centered in the Dallas and San Antonio suburbs and South Texas, across several districts with struggling schools where Democrats hope public education will resonate at the ballot box.

Among their top targets is GOP state Rep. John Lujan, who won his Bexar County district in 2022 by 4 percentage points — overcoming trends atop the ballot, where Democrat Beto O’Rourke carried the district by 2 points over Abbott.

Kristian Carranza, a progressive organizer and Lujan’s Democratic opponent, said when she meets voters on block-walks, “the No. 1 issue at the door is public education and the voucher fight.” She noted that the district — which covers south San Antonio and the eastern side of Bexar County — includes beleaguered districts like Harlandale ISD, which amid a funding deficit.

“For people, this is a lived reality when we talk about private school vouchers,” said Carranza, who opposes the measure. “The way I talk about this is, the financial crisis schools are facing is due to massive budget deficits, and that’s the inevitable result of elected officials like John Lujan who have been choosing to toe the line with their party rather than stand up for their community.”

Abbott and his pro-voucher allies argue that parents deserve the option to remove their kids from the public education system, which has been attacked by conservatives over its response to the COVID-19 pandemic and concerns about how race, history and sex are taught in the classroom.

Republicans are already countering Democrats’ narrative, accusing the House voucher opponents of being responsible for the demise of a bill last fall that would have pumped billions into public schools. The bill died after a coalition of House Democrats and 21 Republicans removed vouchers from the package; the bill author then withdrew the entire measure, citing Abbott’s threat to veto education funding that did not include vouchers.

Abbott spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris said Democrats, by putting voucher opposition at the forefront of their campaigns, “are fighting for teacher unions and their self-serving agenda, instead of the Texans they claim to represent.”

“When it comes to education, parents matter, and families deserve the ability to choose the best education opportunities for their children,” Mahaleris said in a statement. “If Democrats want to make their opposition to parental empowerment a central theme of their campaign, good luck.”

Joshua Blank, research director for the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, said part of the strategy for Democrats “is to move the debate over public education back onto friendlier terrain” — toward school funding and away from things like curriculum.

In recent years, Blank said, Republicans have mobilized voters “based on the idea that, essentially, teachers weren’t to be trusted and the curriculum had gone off the rails,” allowing them to go on offense in an area typically dominated by Democrats.

“Traditionally, we think of public education as a Democratic issue, because most often if we’re talking about public education, we’re talking about spending, and 
 there’s almost no debate in which Democrats aren’t going to be more willing than Republicans to spend money on public education,” Blank said. “But if we’re talking about curriculum concerns and parental rights, that puts Democrats in a difficult position.”

Under the banner of protecting kids in public schools, Texas Republicans in recent years have passed laws aimed at of school libraries and and racism can be taught in public schools. Conservatives have also extended the battle outside the classroom, passing a law in front of minors and proposing a bill that drag queen story hours — events typically held at public libraries and bookstores aimed at promoting literacy.

Over the last several days, Republicans including Abbott and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz have taken aim at Democrats for hosting a drag queen, Brigitte Bandit, at their convention. Bandit delivered a speech where she defended the practice of reading books to children at drag queen story hours and took aim at the Legislature’s move to ban transgender youth from taking puberty blockers and receiving hormone therapies.

“These are the same Texas Democrats who thought it was a good idea to parade a drag queen on stage to talk about indoctrinating impressionable children,” Mahaleris said, underscoring how Abbott has painted the public school system as a hotbed of liberal indoctrination in his push for school vouchers.

Carranza is not the only Democratic candidate shaping her campaign around public education and vouchers. In Dallas County, is emphasizing her background as a substitute teacher in her bid to unseat state Rep. Angie Chen Button, R-Richardson. Bishop also has pointed to the firsthand view she received of Texas’ flagging public schools after winning the 2022 Miss Texas competition.

“I personally saw how severely underfunded and undersupported our schools are,” Bishop said at the Democratic convention. “School vouchers will pass if we do not flip my seat from red to blue.”

Democrats also see a newfound opportunity to pick up the San Antonio-area seat held by state Rep. Steve Allison — a moderate Republican who opposes school vouchers — after Allison was defeated in the March primary by conservative challenger Marc LaHood, a criminal defense attorney who backs vouchers.

State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, said LaHood holds “extreme views” that are out of step with the district.

“Looking at the contrast between Steve Allison and Marc LaHood, and understanding and knowing the independent and educated voters in the [district’s] Alamo Heights area, there’s no doubt in my mind that our Democratic hopes just increased tenfold,” said Martinez Fischer, who chairs the Texas House Democratic Caucus.

Under its current configuration, the district would have been carried by former President Donald Trump by about 2 percentage points in 2020. Trump would have carried Button’s district by half a point the same year.

LaHood, asked about Martinez Fischer’s comment, said in a statement that “parental choice isn’t a partisan issue.”

“Parents want and deserve to have more options in selecting the best educational environment for their individual children,” LaHood said. “Democrats are in for a rude awakening if they want to make disempowering parents their hill to die on. I welcome the conversation and the fight.”

This article originally appeared in at . The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

A U.S.-based tutoring company on Tuesday pushed back against a conservative campaign to “destroy” it due to security fears over its Chinese owner.

In a posted online, said the parents’ rights group in recent months has misrepresented its operations, falsely claiming it has ties to the Chinese government. The company, based in New York, said the parents’ group is trying to persuade lawmakers and others that Tutor.com “is somehow a puppet of the Chinese government and a threat to national security,” according to the letter. 

Founded two decades ago, Tutor.com was acquired in 2022 by , a Beijing-based investment firm in Hong Kong, Singapore and Palo Alto, Calif. In the letter to attorneys representing Parents Defending Education, the company said the parents’ group has chosen to portray Tutor.com “as a stalking horse to advance the advocacy group’s broader political agenda.”

The effort by Parents Defending Education both echoes and influences a larger one by lawmakers nationwide to raise security concerns about companies linked to China, including fears that they could be compelled to share student data with the Chinese government.

But John Calvello, Tutor.com’s spokesperson and chief institutional officer, said the fears are misplaced.

“First and foremost, it’s important to say: We are an American company,” he said in an interview. “I want to be very clear about that. And again, as an American company, you have to abide by all U.S laws and regulations.”

Tutor.com, Calvello said, “cannot be compelled to share data” with anyone.

He noted that it had recently undergone a voluntary review by the federal , which found, in his words, “no unresolved national security concerns.”

He also said the company has a designated security officer approved by the U.S. government to ensure data security compliance. And he said all of Tutor.com’s data is housed in the United States. 

According to the watchdog site , states, school districts, colleges and even the Pentagon have spent more than $35 million on contracts with Tutor.com over the past decade. Among the largest: nearly $1.6 million in 2015 for online homework tutoring for the U.S. Defense Department and $1.1 million in 2022 for tutoring at California State East Bay.

Following the pandemic, state and school district spending on Tutor.com, as with other tutoring providers, skyrocketed. In December, the New Hampshire Department of Education said it would through Tutor.com to every student in fourth- through twelfth grades, as well as to those prepping for GED exams. 

But many lawmakers have also sought to minimize China’s influence in both K-12 and higher education.

After Congress in 2018 targeted the nearly 100 Confucius Institutes on U.S. college campuses, restricting federal funding at schools with programs, their number dropped to fewer than five, according to a 2023 U.S. Government Accountability Office . 

In 2024, lawmakers are seeking to ban TikTok due to the social media application’s Chinese ownership. Primavera is a minority investor in ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company. ByteDance also owns the AI-powered homework helper .

But Tutor.com has been the subject of much of the scrutiny around student data. In February, U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, Lloyd Austin, saying the Pentagon’s relationship with Tutor.com is “ill-advised, reckless, and a danger to U.S. national security.”

Cotton said the Pentagon should end its dealings with the company, suggesting that students’ personal data, such as location, IP addresses and the contents of tutoring sessions, could be released to the Chinese government. He said the U.S. is “paying to expose our military and their children’s private information to the Chinese Communist Party.”

In March, Manny Diaz, Jr., Florida’s commissioner of education, to public K-12 and higher education leaders statewide, saying Tutor.com’s ties to “foreign countries of concern” may compromise student data privacy. Diaz said the State Board of Education had adopted rules to protect student data “to keep it out of the hands of bad actors,” adding that school districts, charter schools and state colleges “must take the necessary steps to protect their students from nefarious foreign actors such as the Chinese Communist Party.”

And last month, 13 lawmakers, led by U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Michigan, to U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, saying Tutor.com “poses a significant national security threat.” They asked what measures the department had taken to assess “the potential national security risks associated with Tutor.com’s relationship.”

A spokesperson for Cardona did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Neily recently that Tutor.com’s Chinese ties are “something that just seemed to have slipped past the goalies.”

During a segment on the company, the show’s host alleged that providers like Tutor.com can gather data from even the youngest students and “adapt what they need to teach these kids to make sure they’re good, functional little robots.” He asked Neily, “Is that the plan?” 

She replied, “That very much seems to be the plan,” adding, “Let’s be honest, this data is not being secured by America’s best and brightest.”

Neily did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tutor.com’s Calvello said much of the alarm around the company’s Chinese ties stems from the parents’ group, which he said has been “promoting falsehoods” that lawmakers and others have amplified. As a result, he said, a few school districts have been under pressure to drop the service, with critics quoting the parents’ group’s materials. 

“We’re prepared to pursue legal avenues to protect our reputation and operations from false claims,” he said.

Following five years of unsuccessful attempts by Georgia Republican lawmakers to expand the state’s school voucher program, GOP Senators on Wednesday cast enough votes to send the latest version of the controversial plan to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk to be signed into law.

On Wednesday, several Republican House Majority Caucus members joined their colleagues in the Senate chamber to celebrate the so-called Georgia Promise Schools Act’s passage by a 33-21 party-line vote. The measure allows families with students enrolled in Georgia’s K-12 public schools to remove $6,500 of state funding provided to local school districts in order to attend private schools or to homeschool.

Critics of the vouchers continued the debate on Wednesday whether $6,500 would be enough for o afford cost of tuition at many of the state’s better private schools.

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Sen. Greg Dolezal, a Cumming Republican, said that $6,500 is close to the state’s median private school cost, which should entice parents of students attending low-performing schools to send their children to a private school.

According to , the average private school tuition in Georgia is $11,893 per year, and tuition in the state ranges from $1,042 to $57,500.

Dolezal praised the GOP leadership in the House and Senate as well as Kemp for fighting to get across the finish line ahead of the March 29 deadline for this year’s Legislative session.

“I remember my freshman year 2019 when this bill failed on the floor of the Senate,” Dolezal said. “It means the world to me that five years later we united around this tailored bill that we can all agree is a step in the right direction.”

Different versions of so-called school choice proposals as a number of Republican legislators joined the majority Democratic lawmakers to block a plan they contend would divert taxpayer funding crucial to public schools to cover private schools.Several conservative state lawmakers from rural areas in the past have frequently criticized the expansion of a voucher program that local school officials contend will cost them funding that will be hard to cover with local money.

Senate Bill 233’s notable changes this year are intended to address recurring criticisms of voucher programs by attempting to ensure vouchers are available to students from low income families and hold private schools accountable by reporting to the state how those students are performing academically.

According to the bill, private schools must administer standardized tests to students enrolled in the program. In addition, vouchers will be prioritized for families with household incomes under 400% of the poverty level, amounting to $120,000 for a family of four.

If signed into law, the promise scholarship vouchers would first be available in the fall 2025 school year. Gov. Brian Kemp said earlier this year that the voucher program was a top legislative priority this year.

The bill caps the states’ investment into the program at 1% of the state’s Quality Basic Education formula budgeted for K-12 public education, which now comes out to $141 million annually to cover tuition for about 21,500 students.

The program would have a 10-year window before it expires. Any student enrolled in the program when it ends will keep receiving the payments until they graduate from high school.

Sen. Elena Parent, an Atlanta Democrat, compared the $6,500 voucher to a shiny object to misdirect attention away from how the Legislature has failed to provide many school districts across the state with the financial resources they need to succeed.

“The reality is that a $6,500 voucher doesn’t go nearly far enough to afford any quality, private education,” she said. “The state spends more than that on public schools.

“If you want to talk about real school choice, let’s put our money where our mouth is,” Parent said. “Give every kid $20,000, give $25,000, then we’d actually be talking about real school choice.”

Cobb County Republican Sen. Ed Setzler said the notion of school choice is often exercised by his fellow legislators and many other Georgians who have enough money to attend a strong academically performing public school or be able to afford homeschooling or private school tuition.

“Senate Bill 233 is for those single moms out there working two jobs to keep the lights on who wants school choice for their kids,” he said. “They can’t afford to move to a neighborhood in an area that has a successful public school. They can’t afford to move and sell their house because they’re upside down in their mortgage.”

Sen Nabilah Islam-Parkes said private schools’ autonomy in choosing which types of students they want to accept likely means many students who might benefit most from being in a new environment would be left behind.

“This bill is a thinly veiled effort to segregate and discriminate, under the guise of choice, private institutions free to pick their students will inevitably leave behind those who perhaps need the most support like our special needs kids, our struggling learners,” said the Duluth Democrat.

The nonprofit IDRA, which focuses on equal education opportunities, and the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition labeled it a harmful bill that diverts resources away from the state’s 1.7 million students in public schools.

The legislation was applauded by the conservative-leaning Americans for Prosperity-Georgia’s state director Tony West.

“Every yes vote today was a vote to empower families and students with the choices and resources they need to chart bright futures for Georgia’s students,” West said in a statement. “We applaud the lawmakers who heard from their constituents and made the right choice to expand educational opportunity in the Peach State. This unlocks so much potential for Georgia’s students.”

Georgia Recorder reporter Ross Williams contributed to this report.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com. Follow Georgia Recorder on and .

A bill from Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature would require University of Wisconsin schools to provide out-of-state students with information on how to vote absentee in their home states.

The bill’s authors say the proposal is a way to encourage civic participation from students in communities they know better than their college campuses, but opponents say it’s an effort to remove the largely Democratic student vote from close statewide elections. Students would still be able to decide if they want to vote in Wisconsin or their home states.

“We want to encourage maximum civic participation, but out-of-state students are not often provided the information on how to vote in their state of residence,” the bill’s co-sponsorship states. “This bill would require the Universities of Wisconsin to provide non-resident students information on how to vote absentee in their home state. The goal is to make sure that every UW student has the best information on how to vote before they vote. A 2020 study shows that only 15% of non-Wisconsin resident students stay in Wisconsin after graduating.”

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“College students from out of state typically move back to their home state after graduating and do not stay here in Wisconsin,” the memo continues. “Students are typically more involved in their home state where they grew up and have ties to. This bill would simply require the UW System to give students information on voting absentee so they are able to vote in their home state.”

The student vote in Wisconsin is often consequential. In the spring 2023 election, long lines were seen at campus polling locations across the state and the heavy turnout among students was cited as a reason for Janet Protasiewicz’s comfortable margin of victory in last spring’s Supreme Court race.

In Madison, the large student population is one source of the Democratic Party’s strength in Dane County, yet Wisconsin residents make up less than half of the approximately 37,000 undergraduate students.

Rep. Clint Moses (R-Menomonie) told his concern is college students casting deciding votes in local races when they aren’t fully entrenched in the community and don’t pay property taxes.

“Why should a student be voting on these when they are not gonna have any of the impact of it? They’re not paying any of the property taxes in our area,” Moses, one of the bill’s co-authors, said.

Rep. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) said that paying property taxes isn’t a requirement to vote and noted that college is often when students become more politically engaged and informed about local issues where they live. He added that the Legislature should be finding ways to keep out-of-state students in Wisconsin after graduation.

“We are constantly talking about workforce challenges and we know that the only way to solve that is gonna be to bring people into our state,” he told WPR. “And bringing them here for college and then spending those four years convincing them that Wisconsin is where they wanna spend their rest of their lives is one of the ways that we can do that.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Wisconsin Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Ruth Conniff for questions: info@wisconsinexaminer.com. Follow Wisconsin Examiner on and .

Georgia’s GOP leadership says fighting against cyberbullying will be a top priority when the Legislature convenes in January.

Sen. Jason Anavitarte, a Dallas Republican, said he plans to file a bill to tackle the issue, but he said the specifics of the plan are not yet hammered down.

“This legislation, when we introduce it, is going to be modeled after some similar states like Louisiana,” he said. “There are some bad examples out there that we won’t be copying because we do want to be sensitive to the First Amendment protection for citizens across the state.”

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łąŽÇłÜŸ±ČőŸ±ČčČÔČč’s defines cyberbullying as “the transmission of any electronic textual, visual, written, or oral communication with the malicious and willful intent to coerce, abuse, torment, or intimidate a person under the age of eighteen,” and proscribes a fine of up to $500, a sentence of up to six months or both.

Anavitarte did not point to any specific states as bad examples, but in 2014, New York’s highest court a cyberbullying law on First Amendment grounds, and attempts to eliminate cyberbullying in other states have faced similar hurdles.

“There’s going to be teeth within the legislation itself,” said Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who joined Anavitarte at a Capitol press conference Monday to introduce the planned bill. “That’s not going to be limited to school districts, it’s going to have teeth in it where the people perpetrating these things, we’re going to try to hold them accountable.”

Jones said legislators will partner with school systems and social media companies to craft the bill.

Free speech

Some free speech advocates say schools or districts interfering with a student’s off-campus speech violates the First Amendment.

In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of a Pennsylvania high school student on free speech grounds who was suspended from the cheerleading team after making a profane social media post criticizing her school.

But the justices wrote that schools’ ability to regulate student speech “do not always disappear when that speech takes place off campus,” and listed “serious or severe bullying or harassment targeting particular individuals” as a circumstance in which schools may implement regulation or punishment, even if it takes place off campus, if the speech could cause a disruption on campus.

Parents and victims say cyberbullying can be more pernicious than traditional bullying because it is not limited to school hours, the anonymity of the internet can spur bullies to be more vicious than they would be in person and victims may not even know who is tormenting them. Widespread adoption of social media among tweens and teens has meant bullies can spread mean messages to much wider audiences than schoolground taunts.

In a published earlier this year, the Cyberbullying Research Center found that in 2021, 23.2 percent of 13- to 17-year olds nationwide reported experiencing cyberbullying within the previous 30 days, up from 17.2 percent in 2019 and 16.7 percent in 2016.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John McCosh for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com. Follow Georgia Recorder on and .

Amid a crush of late-breaking business in Austin, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s proposal to grant education savings accounts (ESAs) to every family in Texas before the May 30 deadline. Months of wrangling had yielded enough twists to both encourage and dismay the policy’s backers: an early passage out of the state Senate; a 16-hour hearing in the more moderate, skeptical House; and even a compromise measure, quashed after a veto threat from Abbott. 

But in the end, the hope of instituting universal school choice didn’t advance nearly far enough, even under unified Republican control over both the legislature and executive. An effort that could have transformed Texas, virtually overnight, into the biggest school choice marketplace in the country — and potentially bolstered its governor’s conservative bona fides — instead faltered before the goal line. And while the chances of a statewide voucher offering haven’t been extinguished entirely, the greatest prize for voucher proponents appears to be slipping away.

James Henson, director of at the University of Texas at Austin, said that while Abbott is “not inclined to back off” of his conservative policy instincts, he still hasn’t won over the allies he needs after spending considerable political capital.

“At the most mundane level, the governor has found himself in a position where he’s very publicly committed” to vouchers, Henson said. “But he may have overestimated his ability to turn votes in the House.”

The fight isn’t quite over, as that he will call legislators back for a special session dedicated to the question of ESAs. Whether that move will be announced in the coming months, the fall or even later is still unknown, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, one of the state’s loudest voucher advocates, has candidly said what tradeoffs the bill’s passage might necessitate.

It could make for a puzzling endgame to what had been a conservative breakthrough in statehouses around the country. Fueled by activist calls for greater parental rights and fierce battles over the teaching of subjects like race, gender and sexuality, the movement for private school choice has proceeded from strength to strength this year, with Iowa, Utah, Arkansas and Florida all instituting voucher-like initiatives for every student. But Texas, the nation’s biggest red state, couldn’t close the deal.

Some of the state’s leading players in education say that the halting progress shouldn’t be seen as a surprise. Going back nearly two decades, Republicans have tried to establish school voucher systems — only to be thwarted by members of their own party. No matter the ideological currents, GOP members from rural areas have consistently proven hostile to programs they believe would unsettle the finances of local school districts, which are often the biggest employers and social anchors in their communities. Their support, in Texas and other states, could determine the path forward for perhaps the most controversial K–12 idea today.

“There is a group of Republican lawmakers who are otherwise very conservative in the ways that they vote, but who see this as a measure that would take money away from their communities’ public schools,” said Christy Rome, executive director of the anti-voucher Texas Schools Coalition. “Largely, they don’t have private school options in those communities, so they feel that this is a way in which the state invests in education without benefiting their ČőłŠłóŽÇŽÇ±ôČő.”

The rural factor

For all the new momentum behind school choice — often born of parents’ dissatisfaction with COVID-era policies or their suspicion of teachings on race and gender — this year’s push for ESAs in Texas carried unmistakable echoes of earlier, similarly unsuccessful efforts.

In 2017, rural Republicans joined forces with urban Democrats , even after Abbott and Patrick signaled their forceful support for the measure. In 2013, 2009 and 2007, House members passed the use of public funds to pay for private schools. Even in 2005, with arch-Texan George W. Bush occupying the Oval Office and the education reform era in its ascendancy, a Republican-led voucher proposal by a similar coalition.

This year’s model, dubbed , was to circumvent common objections to private school choice, with $8,000 ESAs made available only to students who hadn’t attended private school the previous year; temporary subsidies were even offered to smaller districts that saw students leave for private alternatives. 

Nevertheless, the law was huge in scope. An analysis from the state’s Legislative Budget Board would increase to $1 billion by 2028. 

That price tag bred resistance from the start. Although the state just before the pandemic began, K–12 schools are still funded to a large degree through local property taxes. Given the challenging economic and demographic trends facing many communities in the more remote stretches of Texas — 86 of the state’s 254 counties lost population between 2010 and 2020, by the Texas Association of School Boards — many state representatives jealously guard resources for public institutions like schools, hospitals and fire departments.

“Nobody has been able to come up with a deal that persuades enough rural school districts, and rural members, that this is not going to hurt them,” Henson said. “If there’s a structural factor, it’s the size and geography of Texas — it’s hard to change the situation in these very small, far-flung districts where the economics of keepings schools in business are just very difficult.”

Abbott got a taste of public disapproval for his plan while traveling the state to persuade families. The tour, which around Texas, was met with by local educators and community members. 

Judge Scott Brister, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Texas appointed by Abbott to chair a , said that schools “are what hold these small communities together. They’re frequently the main business in town, the thing keeping people there. And if those schools die, the towns will die.” 

But while he wasn’t involved in this session’s ESA debate, Brister is bullish on the ability of tiny communities like Penelope, TX — a Central Texas town with a population of 207, where his mother worked as a school counselor — to adapt to changes in how educational services are delivered. 

Supporters even see the policy as a means of arresting years of flight from small towns. Michael Barba, K–12 policy director at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, said vouchers held the promise of attracting parents who might otherwise give up on rural life.

“A number of the rural counties have a declining population of school-aged kids because young families aren’t dropping roots in their hometowns,” Barba said. “They’re moving to the big cities because they don’t have the educational opportunities, the workforce opportunities, in their hometowns.”

Doubts about special session

Barba said he was encouraged by Abbott’s focus on vouchers, calling it the governor’s “number-one issue.” The commitment was evidenced last month by Abbott’s pledge to call a special session if SB 8 wasn’t brought to his desk.

But that legislative maneuver comes with peril as well as promise. Already, a special session called in late May to deal with property taxation from the House and Senate, which have been divided this year on a number of issues besides school choice. Hyper-focused on a narrower set of priorities than are typically debated, such sessions offer fewer opportunities to horse-trade in pursuit of a compromise. They also tend to catch the eye of the local political press, making it harder for quiet deals to be struck.

One question on the minds of local education observers is why the conservatives — including Abbott and Patrick, but also their allies in the state Senate — didn’t aim for a narrower victory, perhaps by launching a voucher system solely for low-income or special needs students. Similar, small-bore programs were established in states like Arizona and Florida before incrementally being expanded statewide.

Rome, of the Texas Schools Coalition, suggested that a recent round of legislative redistricting, wherein with other jurisdictions, partially diluted the strength of the rural anti-voucher bloc. That may have led the governor’s team to think they could dispense with more marginal steps, she argued. 

“The shift in membership of the Texas legislature made state leaders believe they had the votes to pass a voucher proposal without starting small,” Rome said. “There was some thinking that the coalition would disband or not have the votes to prevent full vouchers, but that hasn’t proven to be the case.”

A special session would offer the opportunity to rethink that strategy, and existing legislation could point the way forward. A late in the regular session, for instance, linked vouchers with a $50 increase in per-pupil allotments from the state. Another version, originated in the House, would have provided vouchers only for the roughly 800,000 Texas students either attending a failing school or diagnosed with a disability; that idea from the governor’s office.

Whatever the details, Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson said that Abbott would have to be willing to accept something less than his ideal package. Without paring back the voucher footprint, or adding additional sweeteners to financially strapped districts, he said, the effort was likely doomed.

“I can’t imagine why you would bring this up in a special session in the same form, because you’re just offering to get beat again,” Jillson said. “Unless you’re going to change the offer, there’s no reason at all to bring it up.”

U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona last week said House Republicans’ debt limit proposal would cut vital education programs and harm vulnerable students across the U.S., such as those who are low income or have a disability.

“It would be taking us backwards,” Cardona said on a call with reporters.

U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s would lift the nation’s borrowing capacity by $1.5 trillion or suspend it through March.

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It would also set discretionary spending levels during the upcoming fiscal year to last year’s levels, meaning at least $130 billion in spending reductions to federal agencies.

McCarthy, a California Republican, plans to put the on the House floor as soon as Wednesday for a vote, and the administration stepped up its criticism in advance.

The White House said in a Tuesday statement that President Joe Biden the proposal, calling it “a reckless attempt to extract extreme concessions as a condition for the United States simply paying the bills it has already incurred.” Biden has said debt limit legislation should not be tied to spending reductions.

Even if the bill is passed in the House, it’s highly unlikely to gain the 60 votes needed to move past the legislative filibuster in the Senate, where Democrats hold a slim majority.

At least 26 million students who are low income would see Title I funding levels for their schools drop, and more than 7 million students with disabilities would be affected by cuts in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Cardona said.

He added that those cuts are equivalent to eliminating 60,000 teachers for low-income students and eliminating 48,000 teachers and related services providers from the classroom for students with disabilities.

The plan would also require states to return unspent pandemic funding, much of which went to helping schools reopen. Pandemic funding also provided mental health services for students.

“During the pandemic, students with disabilities were amongst the hardest impacted by the disruption of learning,” Cardona said.

State-by-state cuts

The Department of Education released a breakdown of cuts to education-related programs in the GOP plan.

Among the estimated effects in Iowa:

• Cut about $25 million in Title I funding for Iowa schools serving low-income children, affecting an estimated 110,000 students.
• Cut Title IV, Part A funding for Iowa schools by about $1.9 million, limiting educators’ abilities to address student mental health issues, including through violence, suicide, and drug abuse prevention.
• Cancel President ”țŸ±»ć±đČÔ’s student debt relief plan, keeping emergency student loan relief of up to $20,000 from 169,000 approved applicants across Iowa.

Potentially eliminate Pell Grants for 700 students in Iowa and also reduce the maximum award by nearly $1,000 for the remaining 169,000 students who receive Pell Grants.

A senior Department of Education official said the cuts in the debt relief plan also would make it harder for students to afford higher education.

Across the nation, it would mean an elimination of Pell Grants for about 80,000 students and more than 6 million Pell Grant recipients would have cuts of about $1,000 each annually, the administration said. Grants are tied to family income.

The Republican proposal would also nullify the executive order Biden issued last year to cancel federal student loan debt.

The bill would also prevent the agency from finalizing its , which sets a monthly repayment plan based on the borrowers’ income.

”țŸ±»ć±đČÔ’s on student loans would cancel up to $10,000 in federal student debt for borrowers earning up to $125,000 annually, or up to $250,000 for married couples, with the boost to $20,000 in forgiveness for Pell Grant recipients.

The program only applies to current borrowers, not future ones, and income levels for the 2020 and 2021 tax years would be considered. Those who have private student loans are not eligible.

But the policy is from taking effect due to two lawsuits, one from six Republican attorneys general and another by two student loan borrowers who do not qualify for the program.

The Department of Education has collected more than 24 million applications for the relief program,

The Supreme Court will make a decision on the policy in the coming months.

Regardless of the outcome, the Department of Education announced that the pandemic-era pause on federal student loan repayments will , and those borrowers will be required to begin repayments either after the Supreme Court’s decision or 60 days after the June deadline.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on and .

Republican lawmakers want to put Arizona teachers behind bars if they so much as recommend a book to students that is considered too “sexually explicit.”

On Thursday, Senate Republicans advanced a measure punishing teachers who “refer students to or use sexually explicit” materials with a class 5 felony, which carries with it a prison sentence as long as two years.

The only exception included in the bill is if the school has first obtained written parental consent, and the material has serious educational value for minors or possesses serious “literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”

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Critics warned that threatens to jeopardize the free speech of teachers and criminalize honest mistakes.

“What if a teacher has a book on their desk? Or what if they refer to a classic novel in conversation with a student or another teacher?” asked Sen. Anna Hernandez.

The Phoenix Democrat pointed out that the bill makes no distinction between kindergarten and high-school aged students, who are likely ready for more serious literature — and some of whom are legally adults.

She warned that the legislature’s relentless vilification of teachers will have a detrimental effect on a state already struggling to staff classrooms. A February survey from the Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association found that as many as , continuing a seven-year streak.

“If this type of legislation continues, there will be no one else left that’s going to be willing to teach our kids,” Hernandez said.

But Republican lawmakers shot back that it aims to protect children from harmful content.

“This bill actually protects children and their fundamental Christian values,” said Sen. Anthony Kern, R-Glendale.

Kern added that teachers are being run out of the state due to intimidation, citing the recent decision by Washington Elementary School District , which trains young teachers, over an anti-LGBTQ “statement of faith” that all its students are required to sign and abide by.

“This bill is about stopping the sexualization of Arizona children,” said Sen. Jake Hoffman, who sponsored the measure. “There is nothing more important than protecting the innocence of our state’s kids.”

Hoffman, a Queen Creek Republican, claimed schools all over Arizona are “sexualizing” students, but didn’t specify where. His proposal builds on legislation he that was signed into law, which simply prohibited such materials from being used in classrooms unless parental permission was obtained first. It defines sexually explicit as a depiction of sexual conduct or as broadly as physical contact with a person’s clothed or unclothed body, including their genitals, buttocks or breasts.

Initially, last year’s measure would also have , but that language was removed after widespread outcry. Still, critics worried it could lead to the removal of classic literature, and at least in response.

Sen. Christine Marsh, D-Phoenix, a former teacher, worried that adding criminal penalties to already unclear legislation would worsen the censorship of important books, and could negatively impact educational quality.

“Teachers are going to have anxiety levels go up, and (they will) err on the side of extreme caution, which means that a whole lot of literature that probably doesn’t fall under that category — but teachers are afraid that it will — is not going to end up getting taught,” she said.

Sen. Mitzi Epstein, D-Tempe, a former school board member, said that plenty of laws already exist to punish the exposure of minors to pornographic materials. Schools are that protect students from encountering explicit material online, or risk forfeiting state funding.

And it’s a class 4 felony, which is punishable by up to , to , something depicting nudity or sexual conduct that isn’t considered suitable for minors and has no serious literary, artistic, scientific or political value.

The measure was approved by the state Senate with only Republican support on a vote of 16-13, but is unlikely to make it past Gov. Katie Hobbs — a possibility that Hoffman denounced ahead of time, saying that if she vetoed the bill, it would mean she “will have aided in the sexualization of Arizona children.”

Hobbs has vowed to support only bipartisan legislation and has against schools as distractions from the real issues facing educators across the state.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. Follow Arizona Mirror on and .

Parents would be given easier access to school curriculum and teacher training materials under GOP proposals that critics say only serve to further vilify teachers and force schools to violate legal agreements.

Mistrust of schools and demonization of teachers has become a central tenet of conservative politics, as Republican lawmakers have moved to clamp down on what they perceive as social agendas in the classroom. Last year, that manifested in an attempt to plan and worksheet online.

That proposal was ultimately defeated, but a new iteration this year, , seeks to garner support by requiring schools to post links to all purchased curriculum online instead of placing the burden on teachers.

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“(This is) due to the contention between school transparency and parents’ needs,” the bill’s sponsor, Rep. John Gillette, said during a House Education Committee hearing on Feb. 14.

The Lake Havasu City Republican said school districts would bear the burden, not teachers. The proposal requires districts to post an electronic copy of the course of study offered by each school in the district, a list of all learning materials and each lesson plan used in every school on its website.

Gillette told lawmakers on the panel that can be as simple as uploading a hyperlink to the vendor’s digital copy of the curriculum. Educational curriculum vendors like McGraw-Hill, which sells both textbooks and suggested coursework, often offer an online version.

But Rep. Nancy Gutierrez wasn’t convinced the posting responsibilities wouldn’t eventually fall on teachers. A provision in the bill mandates that all learning materials be posted, including any “supplemental” materials. The Tucson Democrat, who is a former teacher, wondered if bill’s requirements also looped in chapter books used in addition to the textbook, or if teachers who put together creative lesson plans that aren’t sourced from the textbook would be forced to report them.

Gillette rebutted that even creative lesson plans have some grounding in required curriculum and, thus, should be covered. He added that concerns over the minutiae should be resolved on an individual basis between parents and their children, but things like textbooks and curriculum should be made easier to find.

“It’s the parents’ due diligence to look at their kids’ homework, but I can’t see what the school is giving the teacher to teach,” he said.

State law already requires schools to of textbooks and instructional materials upon request and over which curriculum and materials to approve for use.

Brandy Reese, a spokesperson for Civic Engagement Beyond Voting and parent of a school-age child, said she already has sufficient access to curriculum and is aware of what is being taught because she communicates with teachers.

“Schools have never been more transparent,” she said. “I can readily access syllabi and online parent portals. I attend school board meetings and talk to my children regularly about what they’re learning. Teacher, principal and counselor contact information is also readily available and easily accessible for parents to reach out.”

Isela Blanc, a spokesperson for the Arizona Education Association, which represents more than 20,000 teachers across the state, said implementing the policies in the bill would funnel money away from students.

“We don’t need to add more administrative burdens and we continue to wonder why the money isn’t going into the classroom. It’s bills like these that cause burdensome costs to school districts,” she said.

The measure was approved along party lines and is headed next to consideration by the full House of Representatives. If it continues to receive unanimous opposition from Democrats, however, it’s unlikely that Gov. Katie Hobbs will sign it, given that she’s vowed to support only bipartisan bills.

Gutierrez noted in her final remarks that the proposal would likely present a legal issue for school districts, who often sign agreements with vendors not to disseminate their copyrighted programs. She added that the bill follows a long string of legislation that unfairly paints teachers as nefarious.

“Teachers are professionals, and we should be treated as such. We are not the enemy,” she said.

Rep. Jennifer Pawlik, D-Chandler, echoed that sentiment, saying the bill sent a hostile message to teachers across the state, amid a worsening teacher shortage.

“It will be one more burden on already overworked and underpaid teachers and it will have the effect of driving more teachers from the profession,” she said. “It suggests that the Legislature doesn’t trust them to do their work.”

But Republican lawmakers on the panel, who voted to support it, reiterated their fear over leftist ideologies in schools.

“We need the transparency,” said Rep. Liz Harris, R-Chandler. “We really need teachers to be professional and not try to guide students politically. It happens all too often, and by parents having the context of the textbook, at least they can have the security of knowing what the kids are supposed to be taught.”

Teacher training would also be made available to parents under , which would require that all printed and digital materials used in any teacher-focused seminar, webinar or other instruction be made available. The bill makes specific reference to any lessons that include discussion of racial, sexual, gender identity, political or social themes.

Rep. Justin Heap, R-Mesa, told lawmakers on the House Education Committee that, while he’s seen transparency bills addressing classroom curriculum, he felt that teacher trainings, which he said set the tone for classrooms, are too lacking in oversight.

“In Arizona and across the country, there has been a unanimous voice from parents that says parents don’t want to see political, sexual, gender and racial policies inputted into their school,” he claimed.

To bolster his argument that teacher trainings are forwarding those ideologies, he presented a list of seminars offered for teachers in Mesa. Topics included terms like Latinx, equality vs. equity, antiracism, neurotypical and marginalized.

Gutierrez said she’d taken similar trainings as a teacher, and their goal is to ensure instructors are listening to and supporting all students. A lot of the instructional materials used in those trainings is also copyrighted, and schools are prohibited from distributing them freely. She added that information on training topics can be found on district websites — like Heap’s list of Mesa trainings was — and follow-up questions can be answered by reaching out to staff.

But Heap rebutted that digging through the district website for the list was difficult, and doesn’t readily provide insight into what, exactly, was discussed during training sessions.

“Parents have a right to know what their teachers are being taught,” he said.

Blanc, speaking on behalf of the Arizona Education Association, said the bill’s inherent suspicion of teachers is frustrating. Teachers should be respected as professionals and allowed to take advantage of opportunities that help them hone their skills, she said — otherwise, the state risks compounding the current shortage. A 2022 survey found during the current school year.

“We wonder why we’re having a difficult time retaining educators. It is because of policies like these that continue to put their knee on the back of teachers’ necks,” Blanc said.

All four Democrats on the panel voted against the bill, which moved forward along party lines.

Gutierrez urged lawmakers to trust educational professionals and called for a return to local control, where school districts can do what’s best for them without unnecessary and redundant government obstructions.

“School administrators and school districts are capable of making decisions for their staff based on their communities’ needs,” she said. “We don’t ask our doctors about every workshop that they attend.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. Follow Arizona Mirror on and .

With Ohio passing legislation that will make it easier for teachers to carry guns in school, educators and youth are sounding the alarm that the bill could make classrooms less safe — particularly for Black and Hispanic students.

“I have no doubt in my mind, it increases the likelihood of school violence,” said Julie Holderbaum, a high school English teacher in Minerva, Ohio. “I have no doubt it would lead to more tragedies.”

The law could raise the stakes on disciplinary policies that already target youth of color at rates disproportionate to white students, said Deborah Temkin, a school safety expert at .

“There is very much a possibility for disproportionate use of force in the event that the decision to use a gun has to be made,” she told ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ. “Making a decision in a split second relies inherently on your biases.”

Gov. Mike DeWine the bill into law June 13. It does not require districts to arm teachers, but gives school boards the option to do so while slashing the required training hours from over 700 to 24.

Ohio joins at least nine other states in explicitly allowing non-security school personnel to carry firearms on school grounds, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Some of those states set no minimum training requirement for armed teachers, but of those that do, Ohio ties Wyoming for the lowest requirement at 24 total hours. Florida, where in 2017 a teen gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School killed 17 students and staff, requires the most initial training, at 144 hours.

The Florida also mandates that armed teachers must first undergo at least 12 hours of diversity training, a nod to the possibility that educators carrying weapons could be prone to racial bias.

°żłóŸ±ŽÇ’s includes no such requirement. 

In the legislation’s , constituents submitted over 380 written comments; 360 opposed the measure while just 20 favored it. Among the voices urging lawmakers to reject was Kavita Parikh, co-founder of Students Demand Action Toledo. She emphasized that it could harm Black, Hispanic, Indigenous and Asian-American students.

“Arming teachers could lead to a negative culture of fear for students, especially students of color. As students of color are disproportionately disciplined, the notion of arming teachers has also been connected to decreasing high school graduation and college enrollment for these students,” she wrote.

‘You don’t pick threats based upon color’

Nationwide, GOP efforts to “harden” schools in response to the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, have over the negative impact of disciplinary policies and school security staff on students of color. Even in preschool, a disproportionate share of Black students face suspensions, starting a chain of events known as the that increases their risk of entering the juvenile justice system later in life.

Several state legislators who backed the Ohio bill told ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ either they do not believe racial disparities to be a possible outcome of arming teachers or that they did not consider the issue in the first place.

“It’s not anything that I’ve thought about whatsoever,” state Rep. Tom Young, who co-sponsored the bill. Like Young, the overwhelming majority of GOP legislators who backed the bill are white. 

“No matter who, a threat is a threat. 
 You don’t pick threats based upon color,” he said.

Ohio, however, is the site of at least two police killings infamous for alleged racial bias. White officers shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014 and 13-year-old Tyre King in 2016, both Black boys who were holding toy guns.

At the time, DeWine, then attorney general, called for an of police training on how to correctly identify an active shooter. 

Now as governor, his support for the new measure rolls back the preparation required for teachers to arm themselves on campus and respond to threats. 

“My office worked with the General Assembly to remove hundreds of hours of curriculum irrelevant to school safety and to ensure training requirements were specific to a school environment and contained significant scenario-based training. House Bill 99 accomplishes these goals, and I thank the General Assembly for passing this bill to protect Ohio children and teachers,” DeWine said in a statement to ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ.

The specified 24 hours of training are “ideal” for school staff, said DeWine’s Press Secretary Dan Tierney. He did not comment on whether the omission of anti-bias requirements was an oversight, nor on what changed the governor’s mind since calling for increased police training in 2014.

The legislation comes after a June 2021 Ohio Supreme Court decision interpreted an already existing state law on arming teachers to mean school staff were required first to complete over 700 hours of training before carrying guns. While the new bill drops that number to 24, school districts can set a higher bar if they choose. Districts that adopt the policies will have to inform community members that an adult on campus is armed.

Among those opposed to the bill are the Ohio Federation of Teachers, the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio and numerous other groups.

The state did not have any known incidents of gun misuse, nor of teachers unfairly targeting students of color before the 2021 court ruling, Rep. Thomas Hall, the bill’s sponsor, pointed out in a message to ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ.

‘Almost instant accessibility’

With a having gone into effect statewide June 13, teachers in districts that allow them to be armed could come to school with their gun tucked into a pocket, waistband or holster.

“What we don’t want, in my personal opinion, is for [teachers] to have to run down the hall to a locker and grab a weapon. That kind of defeats the purpose. 
 I would want to have [guns] in the classroom, if it’s the case of a teacher, so that they have access if somebody were to attack an individual classroom,” state Sen. Jerry Cirino, a co-sponsor of the bill, told ĂÛÌÒÓ°ÊÓ.

“We’re going to have to find the right methods so that we have almost instant accessibility, because that’s how [school shootings] happen,” he continued, “but also not make it possible for a weapon to be grabbed by the wrong person in school, even accidentally.”

Firearms getting into the wrong hands is a concern held by many of the bill’s opponents. In other states, guns brought to school by teachers have ended up . In one case, a loaded gun fell out of the waistband of a Florida substitute teacher while he was on the playground.

Districts may adopt their own individual protocols for gun safety and storage under the guidance of a statewide advisory team, explained Hall.

He emphasized that the legislation includes mandated de-escalation training to avoid gun use as a means for resolving issues like school fights. 

Cirino, however, said he thinks there could be some circumstances where trained personnel would use firearms not on outside intruders, but on students — including when youth bring knives or guns to school.

When a student is wielding “any weapon that would be capable of threatening somebody’s life or serious injury, I think there could be a justification for an administrator or teacher to use a weapon,” he said.

He expects large buildings to have 10-12 staff carrying guns and smaller ones to have “not more than a half dozen” in districts that adopt the policies. Other legislators, like Rep. Young, stressed that he only expects smaller rural districts who do not have school resource officers on staff to move forward with arming educators.

Holderbaum, the Minerva English teacher, has been thinking about the potential real-world implications of the legislation in her 1,800-student district. 

A few years ago, her school did a police demonstration with live gunshots in the gym so staff could recognize the sound. From her classroom, she said, the noise seemed like bleachers being pulled out. It troubled her that the sound didn’t seem out of the ordinary. If teachers were wielding guns, she wondered, how would they differentiate between everyday noises from the gym or cafeteria and gunshots? Would they have to step into the hallway with their finger on the trigger every time they heard something loud? 

Doing so, she thinks, would create a culture of fear at school that undermines learning and student well-being.

“If I’m in the middle of teaching Emily Dickinson poetry and I hear this noise and I decide to draw a loaded gun and go into the hallway, that’s going to traumatize my kids,” she said. 

“I don’t want that to become commonplace where they’re used to seeing a teacher pull a gun out.”