A reading list that includes Bible stories will be required of five million Texas public school K-12 students beginning in 2030. Texas and other states are already well down the road of illegally forcing religion into public schools.
education
Eyes on Education đ: Backlash growing against tech in education
May 7, 2026AI is drastically changing education. Pausing its use and respecting educatorsâ experience with students is urgently needed. The April 21 resolution to implement major limits on educational technology in Los Angeles is an example of parents and educators working together for quality education.
Eyes on Educationđ: March 2026
March 5, 2026Takes up: a whitewashed required curriculum for introductory sociology in Florida’s 28 public community colleges; a loan-limit policy by the Federal Student Loan Program that could have disastrous implications for the medical field; and implications of Trump’s âOne Big Beautiful Bill Actâ in Indiana colleges.
Eyes on educationđ: Education 2025–Creating resistance for 2026
February 5, 2026In Oklahoma, Maine, Florida and Chicago, Van Gelder gives us a view of battles in defense of public and higher education. The rightist moves against state and local K-12 school districts and even individual teachers, staff, parents and students attempts to instill fascism and Christian Nationalism from the cradle.
đ Eyes on Education: Back to school
October 5, 2025A view of the educational situation in several states of the U.S., from budget cuts and ideological repression to language discrimination and the introduction of AI in classrooms.
Columbia University settles with fascism
August 3, 2025Columbia University acquiesced to the Trump administration which restores their federal funding and grant money but agreed to punish students exercising their free speech against the genocide in Gaza. In addition, Columbia will have to pay $221 million to the federal government. This “is a disaster for higher education,” says Todd Wolfson, National President of the American Association of University Presidents.
Guest Essay: The Pedagogical Crisis of Political Economy
July 29, 2025Muhammad Adel Zaky argues that neoclassical economics aims to produce knowledge devoid of humanity, conflict, or memory. Schools and universities have become a theater of indoctrination. To liberate political economy and education from this prison is a civilizational emergency.
Education roundup: What did you do over summer vacation?
July 26, 2025The Trump administration has doggedly tried to destroy public education by cutting its funding, barring children of undocumented parents from Head Start, sabotaging school lunch programs, as well as what is taught. His national school voucher program continues the attack.
Bad [cuts] to the bone: DOGE at work
March 30, 2025DOGE is slashing grants, contracts and jobs in federal agencies. Especially Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility, climate change, education and food safety. Resisting fascism means looking for ways to fight for real reform as steps toward revolutionary development by and for humanity.
Detroit braces for Trumpâs ICE invasion
February 4, 2025Rumors about ICE are spreading in Southwest Detroit. In a school, student absences are already elevated. Meanwhile communities are gathering resources and planning activities. The sooner we gather, more people can be helped.
Essay: The decades-long struggle for free universal public education
January 11, 2025Facing Trumpist attack on public schools, teacher Susan van Gelder traces history of the struggle in the U.S. for free education, from Reconstruction to the present. She highlights what we must fight for and the forces of retrogression.
On the Anniversary of the 1871 Paris Commune: Women, youth and education in revolutionary Paris
February 12, 2024In this essay, originally published in the March 1985 N&L, Erica Rae takes up the new kind of education arising in the 1871 Paris Commune. She focuses on the role of women during this historic turning point, especially the revolutionary educator Louise Michel.
In Memoriam Erica Rae (Erica Sufritz) 1958-2024
February 8, 2024As youth, woman, and educator, Erica Rae (Erica Sufritz) made many contributions to News and Letters Committees since she was a teenager. We will miss the comrade who loved music passionately and sang with the North Shore Choral Society and who cheerfully worked alongside us for revolution for her whole life.
Readersâ View, August 2023: Librarians fight back and win
August 5, 2023San Diegans defended books about sexual orientation and gender identity when queerphobic Amy Vance and Martha Martin removed almost all the books from Rancho Penasquitos library.
Ecuador’s Indigenous movement wins concessions
July 2, 2022On June 30, after 18 days of protests, the government of Ecuador sat at the negotiating table with the leaders of the Indigenous movement. A representative of the Catholic Church asked reluctant Indigenous leaders to sign the agreement prepared by the government.
Readers’ Views: May-June 2022, part two
May 19, 2022Readersâ Views on: Philosophy vs. Capitalism; Education for What?; Homelessness and Humanism; Religious Oppression; Voices from Behind Bars
Authoritarian attacks on teachers
March 19, 2022Critical piece on a “parents’ bill of rights” requiring schools to post online every piece of instructional material that will be used for the school year.
Thoughts from the Outside: Whitewashing history
November 16, 2021The opposition to âcritical race theoryâ is an old idea in new clothes, whitewashing U.S. history based on a mythical past. We canât find a way out until we face the horrors of reality, not just in history but in life.
Reopening schools mirrors class divide
March 11, 2021The divide between âreopen schools NOWâ and âreopen schools SAFELY ASAPâ mirrors the class divide in U.S. education.
Detroit dispatch #3: a pall over the city
April 27, 2020Two weeks of chilly weatherâincluding a little late-spring snowâcombined with increasingly dangerous Presidential âleadership,â a quarter of Michiganâs workers claiming unemployment, and more deaths of friends and relatives has cast a pall over the city and state.
Youth in action, March-April 2020
March 17, 2020Youth in action column on the Valentineâs Day’s Fridays 4 Future and Climate Strike protests, and the student group Teens Take Charge’s actions against segregation in New York schools.
Mexican and U.S. teachersâ dialogue
September 2, 2019A U.S. teacher reflects on the article âTeachers debate how to oppose âreformââ in Mexico and its connections with the world-historic movement of an education for freedom.
Teachers debate how to oppose âreformâ
June 27, 2019Teachers in a study circle on the book “MĂ©xico: represiĂłn, resistencia y rebeldĂa” speak on teachersâ resistance in Mexico. Translated from Praxis en America Latina.
Queer Notes, July-August 2018
July 25, 2018Queer notes on Delaware’s anti-Transgender legislation; Gay asylum seeker and detainee Udoka Nweke; Lesbian activist Constance Kurt; Aryman Menem, founder of Tea and Talk for Syrian LGBT; and Baltic Prideâs Pride Parade in Riga, Latvia.
Handicap This!, January-February 2018
February 1, 2018Santa Barbara’s jail system and sheriff are sued; Texas caps the number of students who can receive special education services; people with disabilities criticize Esther McVey, the Work and Pensions Secretary in the United Kingdom.
Puerto Ricans suffer as Donald Trump plays to his racist base
November 12, 2017Puerto Rico is devastated by hurricanes, with climate change a factor, and by the administration’s racist malign neglect, atop an existing debt crisis the masses did not create. Real solidarity came from below. .
Los Angeles Rebellion 25 years later
July 1, 2017Report on the the 25th Anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion on April 29, 2017.
25 years since the Los Angeles Rebellion
June 5, 2017A participant reports on the actions on April 29, the 25th Anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion, when over 500 Latino, Asian, and Black and white mostly youth marched through the streets starting from Florence and Normandie, where the Rebellion began.
Detroit teachers and parents fight school closings
March 16, 2017Report on the resistance against the closure of “low quality” schools in Detroit, Michigan.
Reader’s Views: March-April 2017, Part 2
Readers’ Views on Hegel’s dialectic and today’s retrogression; Why read N&L?; La Raza unida; Education and freedom; Racism in Burma and U.S.; Voices from behind the bars
Detroiters oppose school closings
February 7, 2017Report of the âEmergency Community Meeting on School Closingsâ in Detroit, MI, taking up and condemning Gov. Rick Snyder’s plan to close 38 schools, most of them in Detroit.
Democracy in the streets votes Trump out!
January 23, 2017Reports from the huge Women’s March from participants in Chicago, Ill., Detroit, Mich., Oakland, Calif., Nashville, Tenn., Memphis, Tenn., Los Angeles, Calif., and New York City.
Letter from Mexico: Education for the service of society
September 17, 2016Teachers, parents and their supporters hold a national strike, protesting Mexico’s so-called “educational reform” and working for education that truly serves society.
Readersâ Views: September-October 2016, Part 1
September 14, 2016Readers’ Views on: Racism and Revolt Put U.S. on Trial; Life and Death Under the Class Divide; Environmental Struggles; War and Atrocities; and Women’s Lives at Stake.
Readersâ Views: March-April 2016, Part 1
March 30, 2016Readers’ Views on: Environment, Labor, Race and Philosophy; Queer Liberation; Black Lives Matter; Bolivian Social Movements; Trumperyâs Fascism & Racism.
Letter from Mexico: Meaning of Mexican workers’ struggles
March 18, 2016Upsurge of workers’ struggles in 2015 in Mexico, from field workers in San Quintin, Baja California to maquiladora workers in Ciudad Juarez along with ongoing opposition to government educational “reforms” by teachers in the autonomous union CNTE, demonstrate workers’ resistance to the plans of capital and its state. How can organizations of activist-thinkers meet what workers have achieved in our own organizational response?
Detroit schools need new ideas, political will
Detroit public school teachers and students win some needed school building repairs, but all Detroit schools need regulation, ideas and political will so that all students receive a high-quality education.
Program on ‘(in)Justice System’ leaves out ‘the heart’ of the issue
March 13, 2016An article by a formerly incarcerated person who gives a critical review of a conference on the criminal (in)justice system that leaves out the heart of the issue because it leaves out those most impacted by incarceration.
Handicap This!: March-April 2016
March 12, 2016Pasadena schools deny equal education to students with mental health needs; Florida prisons deny disabled prisoners access to wheelchairs, canes, sign language interpreters and hearing aids; and a proposed rule requires federal agencies to work toward more workforce representation of the disabled.
Stop campus racism!
January 26, 2016The last quarter of 2015 was marked by a national campaign against racism at campuses across the U.S.
Youth in Action, January-February 2016
Colorado student-teacher-parent walkouts lead to recall of reactionary school board members; Oxford students campaign to remove images of racist imperialist Cecil Rhodes; student activism sweeps South Africa.
Dismantling Detroit public schools
December 10, 2015Article highlighting the continued dismantling of Detroit public schools by Gov. Rick Snyder as well as the taking away any power of Detroit parents to have a say in the education of their own children.
Stop charter schools!
September 6, 2015The expansion of charter schools comes at the expense of unionized teachers, students and public education. It is a money making venture for the few while destroying public education in the process for the many.
Sandra Bland speaks for herself
September 3, 2015Excerpts of videos of Sandra Bland speaking for herself. She made the videos in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Bland died in Waller County, Texas, after being thrown in jail there for a manufactured traffic violation.
Letter from Mexico: CNTE teachers’ goal: autonomous learning
August 31, 2015The National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) has been struggling for autonomy, new labor relationships and a non-capitalist educational model. In September 2013, tens of thousands of peopleâteachers outside the CNTE, students, parents and activistsâdemonstrated throughout Mexico to show their rejection of the government’s privatizing educational reforms.
Readers’ Views, Sept.-Oct. 2015, Part 1
Readers’ thoughts on “Srebrenica, Bosnia, 1995; Europe and the World, 2015”; “Struggles against Racism”; “After Cecil, People Are Next”; “Teachers and Children”; “Workers, Customers Pay.”
The todayness of Selma, USA, 1965
March 8, 2015In acquainting readers with coverage of the forces of revolution in News & Letters over its first 60 years, we present âContinuing Magnolia Jungle terror exposes reality of âGreat Society,ââ written by Charles Denby in February 1965, in the midst of the bloody campaign for voter registration in Selma, Alabama.
Readersâ Views, November-December 2014, Part 1
November 23, 2014From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters
Readersâ Views, Part 1
WOMEN FIGHT RAPE, HARASSMENT AND ABUSE
When I voted, many posters reminded folks that within 100 feet of the polling place you may not âinterruptâ a person, nor âharassâ nor even speak about your political views. [=>]
Educators rally in New York City
July 8, 2014From the July-August 2014 issue of News & Letters
New YorkâMore than 300 teachersâas well as education personnel, parents, students, and community leaders and supportersâfrom New York City and other parts of the tri-state area concerned about education inequalities rallied outside New York Cityâs City Hall.
In a âTake Back Our Schoolsâ rally, we [=>]
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: The Free Speech Movement
July 7, 2014Suddenly, a generation of new radicals was born to replace “the silent generation” of the 1950s. By winter 1964 a new form of revolt, with a new underlying philosophy, called itself the Free Speech Movement. It becomes necessary to view the moment when the student revolt culminated in a mass sit-in.