WASHINGTON (AP) – The right to self-determining how to educate American children — a hotly contested issue that dates back to the civil war at least — has long been intertwined with the principles of educating children equally and equitably across racist lines.
Last week President Donald Trump I signed an executive order To dismantle the US education sector, he declared that “the experiment to dominate American education through federal programs and dollars has clearly failed our children, teachers and families.” In doing so, he resumed the debate in the fight. The role of the federal government In education policy.
Civil rights advocates see Trump’s order as broadening the order of closing the department The benefits of the tough battle for educational access – Part of the movement for unfinished, but nevertheless, racial equality and greater democracy. However, supporters of the president’s plan see it as a step towards providing more local management and high quality educational opportunities for different communities.
Now, a coalition of civil rights and education groups, including the NAACP and the National Education Association, has filed a lawsuit against Trump’s order to shut down the education sector, claiming that cuts to government staff are hampering mandatory functions, such as protecting students from discrimination and fundraising education programs.
The Union argues that the order is unconstitutional because it must be made by the Congress, which established the department in 1979. They further argue that communities of disabled people, low-income students and some educators would not oppose school civil rights violations if the sector was closed.
The Trump administration has it Anti-Semitism incidents have been made a priority For the Civil Rights Bureau of Education, which investigates discrimination complaints at schools. Education Secretary Linda McMahon suggests that the Civil Rights Office can move to the Department of Justice.
Civil rights leaders bring out historical similarities
Janai Nelson, chairman of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said in a statement that the White House debate that abolishing the department would allow states and regions to better accommodate their respective communities is a “fake justification” “back to an era of legalized school separation.”
Congressional members and liberal laws also promise to act according to the order.
Former school teacher, Rep. Jahanna Hayes, has introduced a bill in Congress that reverses Trump’s orders that Connecticut Democrats called “inconsistent.” The law is unlikely to advance in a Republican-led home, but it underscores the Democrats’ message on the issue.
Michael Pirela, a former senior civil rights lawyer in the education sector, argued that Trump’s order “will destroy the civil rights guardrail that ensures educational opportunities for all students, and will crush educational opportunities, especially for black students and other students of color.”
However, school choice advocates view the executive order as an important step in ensuring the community is more nuanced to meet the needs of different students. School choice is a broad term that describes policies that help families pursue alternatives to local public schools, such as charter schools, homeschooling, and taxpayer-funded vouchers for private schools.
Tommy Schultz, CEO of the American Federation of Children, a school choice advocacy organization, said Trump’s orders would “both would have defeated the bureaucratic machines that failed in DC and brought school choices to all states.”
Advocates of school choice often point to low-performing public schools measured by test scores and other student outcomes as the reason the school system should be targeted for greater market power. However, many civil rights groups and educators say that such policies only benefit wealthy or privileged students, exacerbating many of the issues that school choice advocates seek to address.
“We all know that we need to do more to improve our schools, especially because we have routinely rejected good education,” Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Council on Leadership on Private and Human Rights, said in a statement. However, he argued that Trump’s orders were “a direct attack on schools and a right to education.”
The department said it should be improved for black families who may feel the worst impact of the closure.
The relationship between the Department of Education and the civil rights legacy
The first US Department of Education was established in 1867 as a hub to investigate and improve American education. This occurred in the era of reconstruction 12 years after the Civil War, when the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were adopted and adopted to unite and advance the country.
The agency only lasted a year before it was caught up in the internal division, amid a pushback from white politicians and white supremacist vigilantes who linked federal oversight to the freedoms that empowered Freedmen, former enslaved people of African descent. Until more than a century later, an independent sector was not reestablished by President Jimmy Carter in 1979.
Education has long been the basis for discussions about civil rights and democracy. Once enslaved, who were prohibited from being educated by the law, were soon organized so that schools could literate and trained in their professions for self-determination. Historically, black universities have been the centre for improving black economic power and served as incubators for the civil rights movement.
The fight against school separation was an integral chapter in the Jim Crow era in America. School segregation was based on the idea that the education system could be “separate but equal” or that black students could receive similar quality education despite the state and local explicit discrimination against them.
The Supreme Court Landmark in Brown v. Board of Education 1954 decision found that school segregation had “harmful effects” on black students, hinting at the “inferiority” of the black community and therefore unconstitutional. The court also acknowledged that education is “substantial complexity” in enacting the judgment, as it is handled by state and local governments.
The decision launched decades of debate on discrimination and educational access in communities across the country. Since it was created 25 years after the groundbreaking ruling, the education division has played a central role in mediating conflict and enforcing civil rights laws across the country.
What happens when the education sector closes?
The administration has pushed back concerns that closure of the sector would end critical funding despite several calls from Republican lawmakers, despite overhauls or downsizing of many such programs. Republican lawmakers have argued that the federal government will not play a role in education policies and conservative activists. This was encouraged by the post-Covid-19 pandemic education crisis and gained momentum by portraying public education and education sectors as overwhelming and effective.
McMahon says she will remove the red tape so that the state can determine what’s best for the school. She is also committed to continuing important services such as those for students with disabilities.
However, some black educators are concerned that the closure of the sector could undermine education in marginalized communities.
“I think it’s extremely dangerous to be completely dependent on state rights,” said Sharif El-Mekki, former principal and founder of the Center for Black Educators Development, a nonprofit that recruits black teachers. “Too often, states’ past rights meant that the state had the right to hurt those they chose and leave their children behind, and often had the right to choose less support on the backs of black, brown, indigenous and immigrant students.”
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