by Susan Van Gelder

Columbia capitulates to fear and loathing

Despite a restoration of much research funding at Columbia University, Historian Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor emeritus of Modern Arab studies, has cancelled his planned lecture course and fiercely criticized the agreement between Columbia and the Trump Administration.

Columbia adopted the definition of antisemitism that “conflates Jewishness with Israel, so that any criticism of Israel, or indeed description of Israeli policies, becomes a criticism of Jews.” Thus “it is impossible to teach honestly about the creation of Israel and its perpetration of genocide in Gaza,” Khalidi wrote in an open letter.

He concluded: “Columbia’s capitulation has turned a university that was once a site of free inquiry and learning into a shadow of its former self, an anti-university, a place of fear and loathing, where faculty and students are told from on high what they can say and teach, under penalty of severe sanctions.”

Interestingly, three Columbia Nobel Prize winners reportedly said the agreement saved Columbia. Aren’t they supposed to be the smartest people in the world?

‘Show us the money!’

In the Republican-dominated purple State of Michigan, most K-12 schools begin classes on Aug. 25. The state legislature has delayed submitting the State Budget whose deadline was July 1, leaving schools with no secure funding for academic support staff and even school meals after Sept. 30.

While the State Superintendent urged districts to begin the school year with free meals for all, some legislators want students not qualified for free lunches to pay for their meals. Lunch payments were dropped several years ago in high-poverty districts because the additional record keeping—and parent failure to fork over—outweighed the revenue and created needless distinctions among the children.

Oklahoma’s ‘America First’ tests

Oklahoma, a state forged entirely from stolen tribal lands, will vet new teachers from blue states with its “America First” test. The Oklahoma Education Association told its members that the state “has no legal authority to vet certified teachers based on political ideology” because state law requires Oklahoma to recognize out-of-state teaching credentials.

A sample question:

Why is freedom of religion important to America’s identity?

1. It makes Christianity the national religion
2. It bans all forms of public worship
3. It limits religious teaching in public life
4. It protects religious choice from government control

— Oklahoma State Department of Education

Prager University, a nonprofit that’s not a university, produces educational materials emphasizing patriotic and conservative views. It developed the exam.

‘State-driven censorship’

The Florida State Board of Education issued a harsh warning to the Hillsborough County school district in May, saying that if they didn’t remove “pornographic” titles from their library, formal legal action could ensue. More than 600 books were pulled as a result, costing the district an estimated $350,000.

The censored books included The Diary of Anne Frank and What Girls Are Made Of by Elana K Arnold. None were under formal review by the district or flagged by local parents as potentially inappropriate. Furthermore, parents can opt their children out of a particular reading. State-sponsored terrorism is reaching new levels as nine more nearby Florida counties voluntarily removed up to 400 library books in response, surrendering before a single bird has pooped on their white flags.

Arizona public school closures boosted by universal vouchers

Since the first schools were chartered in 1994, Arizona has been leading the move from universal public education to a marketplace of school choice that opened vouchers to all in 2017. Predictably, public schools in neighborhoods like South Phoenix, largely Black and Hispanic, are closing for lack of enrollment.

Arizona is not alone. Milwaukee, Wisc., initiated its first voucher plan in the country in 1990 to address the needs of African-American students living in poverty

In Ohio, the legislature agreed to increase voucher spending to $1.3 billion by 2027, up from just over $1 billion in 2025, while traditional public schools, which serve far more children, were given a smaller increase—and less than what public education advocates say had been promised under a multiyear agreement to ramp up school spending.

In Detroit, a plethora of charter schools and suburban school district recruitment have already denuded the city of its original network of neighborhood and area-specific public schools. Neither the school district nor the city addressed the changing demographics and deindustrialization in ways that could have maintained a more relevant school system.

If we don’t teach English we can punish ‘them’ for using their first language!

In a move reminiscent of the historic treatment of Native American children, the Trump administration rescinded the official guidance to schools outlining their legal obligations to prevent discrimination against students who speak another language. By civil rights law, they are required to ensure that students and their parents and guardians can participate meaningfully in educational programs and services. Now Trump’s lackeys stamped the 2015 Dear Colleague letter from the Education Department and Department of Justice with a red message saying the document had been formally rescinded. The 40-page Dear Colleague letter was groundbreaking when it was released under former President Barack Obama and remained a critical resource.

The Trump Administration has laid off nearly every staffer in the Education Department responsible for serving English learners, proposed zeroing out dedicated Title III funding for English learners and issued an executive order declaring English the official language of the U.S.

Trump officials also cleared the way for immigration agents to make arrests at or near schools, childcare centers, and after-school programs.

The rights of students with disabilities are protected under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The rights of English learners stem from multiple Supreme Court cases and federal laws which courts have interpreted to mean schools must take steps to help children overcome language barriers so they can obtain a meaningful education.

$65,000 a year for a teacher-less AI private school

Mackenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha School, has nearly a million Instagram followers and is backed by proponents of both alternative schooling and those pushing for more AI learning in the classroom. The school in northern Virginia plans to enroll 25 in grades K-3 this fall.

Students study for just two hours a day using adaptive apps and personalized lesson plans and spend their afternoons on life skills. Price donated $1 million to Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (Republican) for favoring school choice and is backed by an A-list of billionaires, very few of whom have education expertise.

Instead of teachers, the students have “guides.” In addition to AI guides within the platforms, human guides will help the children with life skills, like riding a bike five miles without stopping, financial literacy or managing an Airbnb property!

In April, Trump’s executive order created a policy to integrate AI into K-12 education. Alpha’s model uses AI to promote individualized instruction but other models use generative AI and chatbots with tutors to assist children. Last year, Alpha School served about 300 students in Austin and Brownsville in Texas and in Miami. Tuition varies by campus, ranging from $15,000 to $65,000 a year. Twelve more schools will open this year, presumably serving students who are “coachable,” according to Price.

Extremes abound in these schools: the horrors of AI-only learning, no credentialed teachers and an emphasis on life skills tailored for budding real estate magnates and CEO’s. Price admits that the model “may not work for public education.” Alpha schools are now a drop in the bucket of untested educational innovation. But throughout U.S. schools the tsunami of untested AI models, rushed into classrooms without good studies, are clashing with current education systems crying for major uprooting and revolutionary reform. Parents, students and educators must think and work hard and quickly to create 21st century education that works for many more children than the “coachable” future CEO’s.