by Susan Van Gelder

Fully fund Indiana’s schools!

On April 14, administrators, teachers, staff, parents and supporters in Indiana flooded the State House wearing “Red for Ed” to oppose Senate Bills 1 and 518. Those bills would drastically reduce public education funding, and, for the first time, require property tax revenue to fund charter schools. Several Indiana school districts declared Monday an online learning day and added a day to the school year, to comply with state laws.

Indiana State Teachers Association President Keith Gambill was loudly cheered by the teachers when he told the Legislature: “The overall funding increase of 2% per year does not even meet inflation… Our schools deserve to be fully funded—and fully public—so all kids receive a quality education.”

Chants echoed throughout the Statehouse halls for more than two hours the morning of April 14: “Schools need funding!” “Pay our teachers!” “Defend public education!” Homemade signs, banners, poster boards, paper placards—and even painted messages on the backs of LaCroix boxes—were raised by attendees amid chanting, cheering and yells of frustration.

Gambill continued: “We have got to talk to our legislators every day… We must be vigilant…We have to speak from the heart and remind them that behind every policy is a classroom with a teacher and students.”

End ASD in Tennessee!

In Tennessee, the Achievement School District (ASD) is almost phased out. It was created to separate low-performing schools from their geographical districts, to turn them around by a certain date or close them.

This is reminiscent of what was done in Michigan majority-Black cities like Detroit and Benton Harbor. Then the State put their school districts under emergency managers who disregarded school and community history and concerns. Unsurprisingly a lot of harm was done and little “improvement.”

Democratic Rep. Antonio Parkinson of Memphis, a longtime advocate of ending the ASD, said the state still has too much power. “They’re saying they’re ending the ASD, but all they’re doing is redoing the ASD on a much larger scale,” he said. The “new” model would allow the state to replace school staff and expand charter conversions.

Trump uses Title IX to punish Maine

At a White House governors’ luncheon in late winter President Trump told Maine Gov. Janet Mills that she better comply with his executive order or Maine wouldn’t get any federal funding. “See you in court,” Mills replied curtly, as she defended the high-school trans athlete who won the girls’ state pole-vault title in February.

That viral exchange set off a battle over who is protected by Title IX, which bans sex discrimination in education, and just how far the president can take his aggressive and cruel approach to “civil rights” enforcement.

Two federal civil rights investigations rapidly (read: no requisite investigative procedures) determined Maine had violated Title IX. Maine officials say they are complying with their state’s human rights law, which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity, and don’t plan to back down. The Maine state attorney general’s office told the federal Education Department that the state would not sign a resolution agreement. That proposed agreement features several pages of demands, including that Maine must strip any trans girl, who has ever placed in a Maine girls sports competition, of her title and give it to the athlete behind her along with an apology letter.

But multiple civil rights experts told Chalkbeat that’s not how Title IX is enforced under the 1979 policy interpretation that governs the Education Department’s civil rights investigations. It’s a Title IX violation if girls lack equal access to athletics in the aggregate. “Identical benefits, opportunities, or treatment are not required, provided the overall effects of any differences is negligible,” the 1979 policy states. There’s a clear process for investigating potential civil rights violations, said Boston College Professor R. Shep Melnick, who has studied Title IX and civil rights. The Trump administration has “done none of that.”

WHO GETS TO DEFINE ‘SEX’?

Many biologists think sex is more complicated than the male and female binary. But Title IX is “completely silent” on the issue of transgender athletes. Underlying this conflict is the definition of sex proclaimed by Trump this past winter: sex is the sex of the person at time of birth and it’s unchangeable.

Now the Trump administration is taking Maine to court and moving to strip the state of its K-12 education funding—an unprecedented step. Maine has sued to recover the funds, in part on grounds that the federal government cannot eliminate other programs like school lunches. Meanwhile, there is a wide range of public views on questions of trans rights. The many points of contention (early medical intervention, trans women in women’s athletics) and even more basic rights and freedoms will require society to learn to treat trans people as whole human beings.