Democrats in disarray, understanding Trump’s reversal, & 2 big departures in Dallas
🏆Best Education Journalism of the Week🏆(08/08/2025)
In this week’s newsletter:
Welcome back! Hope you had a great summer break.
📌 Democrats in disarray about private school choice.
📌 Districts with dwindling enrollment try everything to attract students.
📌 Understanding Trump’s latest education reversal is key to writing smarter stories about this administration.
📌 Two big departures from the Dallas Morning News.
📌An education reporter tries her hand at a back-to-school video.
We’re on Substack now! Let us know how you like it @thegrade2015.
DEMOCRATS DIVIDED OVER CHOICE
The big education story of the week
The big education story of the week is the looming divide among Democratic parents, voters, and politicians over publicly funded private school choice, as highlighted by the creation of a new center-left education group that hopes to bridge the divide and divisions among Democratic governors over whether to participate in a new federal program (New York Times, Chalkbeat, Stateline, EdWeek, Atlanta Journal Constitution).
For some Democrats, including allies of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), former Obama administration officials like Arne Duncan, and a handful of choice-curious electeds, there’s no other choice but to find ways to participate in policy around private school choice.
For other Democrats, private school choice remains a line they won’t cross. Thus far, at least two Democratic governors announced that their states will not participate in the recently-passed federal legislation. And two former DFER staffers just launched a new organization that’s intended to be a home for center-left education politics that don’t include private school choice. (Want to know more? Scroll down to see my new interview with Alisha Thomas Searcy, co-founder and CEO of the new organization focused on four Southern states.)
Other big stories of the week include Houston school improvements, new school cellphone bans, Medicaid reimbursement worries, and (ugh!) special ed secrecy.
‘THE MONOPOLY IS OVER.’
Top education journalism of the week
🏆Public Schools Try to Sell Themselves as More Students Use Vouchers takes a helpful approach to the intersecting issues of dwindling public school enrollment, demographic and geographic shifts, and private school choice — focusing on efforts in Florida and avoiding a simplistic but common narrative in which public schools are victims whose challenges are externally created.“The monopoly is over,” says one Florida superintendent quoted in the story. (Dana Goldstein / New York Times)
See also How Some Schools Are Trying to Counter Enrollment Decline (Voice of San Diego)
🏆Why Trump backed down on education cuts explores red-state support for federal education funding that forced Trump to back down — an under-covered development and important dynamic that should be included in stories that often make Trump’s pronouncements seem automatic and inevitable. (Toluse Olorunnipa / The Atlantic)
See also Trump has promised to eliminate funding to schools that don’t nix DEI work – but half of the states are not complying (The Conversation)
🏆Some parents struggle to keep up with the rising cost of school supplies features an interview with a school social worker and educator about Baltimore parents struggling to keep up with rising costs — a timely and politically important story given political attention on inflation and cost of living issues. It’s short, but it feels real. (A Martinez / NPR).
🏆For Decades, the Feds Were the Last, Best Hope for Special Ed Kids. What Happens Now? Highlights the importance of the looming federal education pullback and compares three places (Nebraska, California and Washington, D.C.) where things aren’t going very well and one (Texas) “that seems to be on track to getting it right.” Comparisons like this would bolster many other stories I see. (Lauren Wagner & Beth Hawkins / The 74)
🏆Telling the untold: Two students and their teacher document Oakland’s Mam community addresses a little-covered story about the Maya-Mam language and Oakland’s Mam history, told in first person from the perspective of two Skyline High students. Schools are microcosms of so many different subcultures, and it’s great to see stories that address this richness. (Lorena Mendoza, Miguel Ortiz, and Ximena Loeza / El Tímpano)
DIVIDED DEMOCRATS
So you want to start a new education organization?
In this new interview, Alisha Thomas Searcy tells me about why she felt the need to start a new education organization.
“We call ourselves the home where center-left elected officials can come, get policy support, be surrounded by other Democrats who are deeply passionate about transforming education, re-imagining public education, [and] who also support public school choice.”
We also bond over having been theater kids.
TIKTOK & JOURNALISM
What’s the latest from The Grade?
Just before the summer break, former WAMU education reporter Jenny Abamu wrote a piece for The Grade about why she finally started posting on TikTok — and why you probably should, too.
She’s not alone. Freelancer Julia Gilban-Cohen is giving it a go. Look for a forthcoming piece about other current and former education journalists who have made the leap — and lived to tell the tale. Nearly 40 percent of young adults get at least some of their news on TikTok, but fewer than 1 percent of all TikTok accounts followed by Americans are traditional media outlets.
The latest evidence that TikTok needs journalism (and vice versa)? A viral rumor that President Trump has shortened the school year by three months.
PEOPLE, EVENTS, ETC.
Who’s going where and doing what?
Above: The Atlantic’s Toluse Olorunnipa appears in a recent Morning Joe segment to talk about Trump’s education funding reversal.
📰 People: Oh, no! The Dallas Morning News’ Talia Richman announced that she is leaving the Dallas Morning News Education Lab. Her announcement follows on the heels of the news that EdLab editor Eva Marie-Ayala is headed to help run a Ft. Worth news outlet. Nieman Reports featured S. Mitra Kalita and others who are covering immigrant communities during a particularly precarious time. The Free Press now has someone who’s covering higher education at least part of the time: Maya Sulkin. At NABJ25, AP education reporter Cheyanne Mumphrey talked about how journalists should conduct themselves to help ensure they get the interviews they need.
📰 Jobs: The Washington Post’s job postings for a K12 education reporter and an ed accountability reporter are still listed. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is (or was) looking for a K-12 education reporter. No word yet on the Dallas Morning News editor job, but Talia Richman’s reporter spot is open.
📰 Podcasts & broadcast segments: NPR’s Juana Summers interviewed an education leader about the impact of paying high school students $50 a week — no strings attached. The Free Press’s Bari Weiss interviewed the head of the Teamsters union about how the Democrats lost so many union members. WBUR’s On Point aired a segment on how the left lost the working class.
📰 Stats: Many of the states with the biggest declines in public school enrollment since COVID are blue (California, Illinois, New York), notes 50CAN’s Marc Porter Magee — not those with private school choice programs. While controversies over books continue to erupt here and there, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that the most-taught books in American classrooms have barely changed in 30 years. While many schools in the Southeast (Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee) have already started the school year, schools in other parts of the country have not yet begun.
📰 Quotable:
"The politicians &, you know, all the private institutions couldn't hold a candle to [the] level of control, paranoia, vindictiveness & vituperativeness that you experience in covering the press."
"I’m 100% here for stories that question AI thoughtfully, and in doing so, reveal how it can improve human skill and knowledge. Maybe the kids, and the bots, are alright."
"Zero independent confirmation of any of the claims, but of course the NYT runs with it."
"Trans people aren't taking away our health care. Muslims aren't defunding our schools…. The culture wars are a smokescreen.”
KICKER
We saved the best for last
"How do we solve for the fractured transportation system we have? And how do I do reels?" That’s Chalkbeat’s Amelia Pak Harvey, braving an on-camera appearance as part of a first-day ridealong. I thought she did great, but she says “It took me very little time to realize I shouldn’t go into broadcast.”
That's all, folks. Thanks for reading!
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By Alexander Russo