Moms for Liberty Leader Raises Hand For Trump Ed. Sec.
Tiffany Justice, the co-founder of the conservative activist group Moms for Liberty, is interested in serving as former President Donald Trump’s education secretary—or in another key position—should he win a second term.
“I think there’s a cultural revolution happening in America and I think our schools are being used as one of the major battlefields,” said Justice, in an interview with Education Week. “And so, I’m willing to serve in the next administration, however I need to, because we have got a country to save.”
Before heading up Moms for Liberty, the mother of four served on Florida’s Indian River County school board for four years.
In addition to advocating the removal of books from classrooms and school libraries, group members have opposed policies that allow transgender and nonbinary students to play sports and use restrooms that align with their gender identity. They have supported restrictions on instruction about race and gender and joined a so-far successful challenge to President Joe Biden’s new Title IX regulation, which explicitly prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
Justice’s name—along with Louisiana’s schools chief Cade Brumley’s—surfaces in speculation on who might get the education secretary post, given her national profile and relationship with Trump.
“She’s as much in the mix as anyone, to the extent that this is even being discussed right now,” said one former Republican congressional staffer. While formal vetting hasn’t started, Justice certainly “fits the bill on the education agenda,” the former staffer said.
Ultimately, Justice’s chances may come down to whether Trump is looking for a secretary who has direct experience governing on education or a flashy culture warrior, in which case Justice is a good bet, the GOP staffer added.
If Justice were to get the secretary gig, what would be her priorities?
She’d like to dramatically expand school choice and give parents more of a voice in schools and try to pull federal funding from schools that teach critical race theory and about nonbinary and transgender identities.
Justice also champions putting at least two teachers in every classroom, especially in early-elementary school, and raising teacher salaries.
District Size Matters When It Comes to Factors Stressing Out School District Superintendents
What stresses out superintendents—and takes up most of their time? It largely depends on the size of their district.
Leaders of smaller districts (fewer than 3,000 students) cite budget constraints as their top stressor, while the leaders of larger districts (10,000 or more students) say the intrusion of political issues and opinions into schooling was the most common stressor, according to a survey from the RAND Corp. and the Center on Reinventing Public Education.
Superintendents—especially those in small districts—identified budget management as among their most time-consuming activities, along with school operations, gathering and analyzing student and school data, and facility maintenance.
Conversely, superintendents of large districts said internal and external communications took up the largest chunk of their time. Sixty-four percent of superintendents of large districts reported that communicating with school board members ranked among their top three most time-consuming activities, compared with 28 percent of small-district superintendents. Fifty-three percent of large-district superintendents also said board relations are a source of stress, compared with just 20 percent of small-district superintendents.
The sharp divide suggests that “the very job of the superintendent and, therefore, likely the skills needed most to succeed in the job” differ markedly, and training programs may need to adjust to better prepare future leaders for this reality, the report says. For example, preparation programs for smaller districts’ leaders may need a more “jack of all trades” approach, the report says.
“It’s like a tale of two cities,” said Heather Schwartz, one of the authors. “It’s like the large districts are just a different beast than the small districts.”
This year, as in 2023, superintendents of larger districts were more likely (74 percent) to feel the job is worth the stress and disappointment. That’s compared with about 60 percent of smaller-district superintendents.
Other common sources of stress among district leaders, regardless of district size, were students’ mental health, the quality of academic instruction, and school safety.
Educators Tend to Mete Out Harsher Penalties For Black Girls Regardless of the Infraction
Schools discipline Black girls more frequently and severely than their white peers—even for similar incidents, a federal report released last week shows.
Black girls are subjected to higher rates of exclusionary discipline—detention, suspension, and expulsion—than other students of color and white peers, and the largest gaps in discipline rates are between Black and white girls, according to the Government Accountability Office’s report, which examines the discipline disparities among girls in public schools.
Although it’s been widely reported that students of color—and those with disabilities—tend to face higher rates of exclusionary discipline practices in schools, the impact of disproportionality on girls has largely been understudied.
GAO researchers looked at data on infractions from the 2017-18 school year from 36 states, and saw that, even when accounting for the behavior that prompted discipline, Black girls were punished more frequently and more harshly than any other girls, said Jackie Nowicki, the director of the GAO’s education, workforce, and income-security team.
“We have known for a long time that there have been discipline disparities, but never before have we been able to factor in the behavior that prompted the discipline,” she said. “It’s not that girls are behaving differently, it’s not that some girls are attending schools that just have higher discipline rates in general. We are seeing these differences within schools.”
Black girls face more severe punishment for any infraction.
In turn, Black girls are more likely than their peers to say they don’t feel safe in schools and fear being attacked and they disagreed that school handles discipline fairly, the report found.
“They’re girls, they’re Black, so they have a lot that they are fighting when they’re just trying to be teenagers,” said Renita Brooks, a school counselor at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, who has studied discipline for Black girls. “People feel like Black girl strength is inherently impermeable. And that’s not true. They see them as rock hard, but they are the ones who are actually more vulnerable because they have a lot more on their plate.”
Black girls are suspended up to five times the rate that white girls are, the report found.
N.Y.C. Chief to Leave Post As Federal Probe Ensues
The scandal embroiling top officials in New York City has ensnared the city’s schools chancellor, who announced last week that he will step down at the end of the calendar year.
David Banks’ resignation comes weeks after federal agents seized his phones, as well as devices belonging to the city’s police commissioner, two deputy mayors, and a top mayoral adviser.
Mayor Eric Adams almost immediately appointed a new schools chancellor—shortly before he was indicted on charges of bribery, wire fraud, and seeking illegal campaign donations. Adams denied the allegations.
Melissa Aviles-Ramos, a deputy chancellor and a former teacher, will take the reins of the nation’s largest school system in January.
In a retirement letter Banks shared with the Associated Press, he said he informed the mayor this past summer of his plan to step down “after ensuring the school year got off to a good start.”
“Everybody is going to think I’m leaving because of this stuff, and it had nothing to do with that,” Banks told The New York Times when asked why he announced his resignation just three weeks into a new school year.
A former teacher, principal, and founder of a network of all-boys public schools, Banks has led the city’s public school system since 2022.
When Adams appointed David Banks as schools chancellor, he heralded his friend as a “visionary, leader, innovator, who has spent his career fighting on behalf of students.”
Banks founded the Eagle Academy in 2004 to educate young Black and Latino boys who he believed were often poorly served by the educational system.
Before his appointment as schools chancellor, Banks ran the foundation that raises funds for the six Eagle Academy schools, one in each New York City borough and one in Newark, N.J.
Sheriff Posts Videos of Kids Who Make Shooting Threats
A Florida sheriff fed up with a spate of false school shooting threats is taking a new tactic to try get through to students and their parents: He’s posting the mugshot of any suspect on social media.
Law enforcement officials in Florida and across the country have seen a wave of school shooting hoaxes recently, including in the wake of the deadly attack at Apalachee High School in Georgia that killed two students and two teachers.
Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood said he’s tired of the hoaxes targeting students, disrupting schools, and sapping law enforcement resources. In social media posts last month, Chitwood warned parents that if their kids are arrested for making these threats, he’ll make sure the public knows.
Chitwood made the announcement in a video highlighting the arrest of an 11-year-boy who was taken into custody for allegedly threatening to carry out a school shooting at a middle school. Chitwood posted the boy’s full name and mugshot to his Facebook page.
Several days later, he released another video online showing two more young people, identified as 16- and 17-year-olds, in handcuffs and being led to jail over what he called another school threat.
In the video of the 11-year-old, the camera pans across a conference table covered in airsoft guns, pistols, fake ammunition, knives, and swords that law enforcement officers claim the boy was “showing off” to other students.
Later, the video cuts to officers letting the boy out of a squad car and leading him handcuffed into a secure facility, dressed in a blue flannel button-down shirt, black sweatpants, and slip-on sandals. The boy’s face is fully visible at multiples points in the video.
The video prompted a stream of reactions on social media, with many residents praising Chitwood, calling on him to publicly identify the parents as well—or press charges against them.
Others questioned the sheriff’s decision, saying the 11-year-old is just a child, and that the weight of the responsibility should fall on his parents.
