“The case against government grocery stores is straightforward. Government providers have no incentive to spend money wisely or respond to customers’ needs. Unlike private businesses, which must compete for customers by offering quality goods at reasonable prices, government entities get paid regardless of performance. Tax dollars flow into the system whether the shelves are stocked or empty, whether the service is stellar or abysmal.”
“A divided Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Education Department to fire almost 40 percent of its workforce four months after President Donald Trump ordered his administration to begin closing down the department.
The justices, by an apparent 6-3 vote announced Monday, lifted an injunction a federal judge in Boston granted in May against the firings. That judge found that the staff cuts were so drastic they would prevent the department from carrying out duties mandated by Congress. He also said the mass firings appeared to be part of Trump’s plan to eliminate the Education Department entirely, despite a lack of congressional authorization to do so.
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The high court’s majority offered no explanation for its decision, but all three liberal justices joined a 19-page dissent that accused the court’s conservative majority of favoring the Trump administration when considering emergency appeals.
“When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
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The majority stressed in that decision that the high court was not giving its legal blessing to any specific plan to downsize any particular agency. But now it appears to have done just that with the Education Department.”
“Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Party’s newly minted candidate to be the next mayor of New York City, found himself in some hot water last week after The New York Times reported that he claimed to be both “Asian” and “Black or African American” on his college application to Columbia University in 2009.
Mamdani holds U.S. citizenship, but was born in Uganda to Indian parents. He is African, and he is American, but he is definitely not black, which is what the term “African American” implies.”
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“Mamdani told the Times that his options were suboptimal and that he subsequently wrote in “Ugandan” to add clarity.
“Even though these boxes are constraining, I wanted my college application to reflect who I was,” said Mamdani.”
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“If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at colleges that incentivize applicants to be misleading about their skin pigmentation because false value is assigned to it—a practice that majorities of American voters and the Supreme Court wisely hold in disdain.”
A common Republican response to a school shooting is mental health is the problem. A few years ago, members of both parties passed a mental health bill and school therapists were paid for. The Trump administration cut that funding because of a line about diversity hiring; Republicans who voted for this funding are silent.
“Texas will require all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments under a new law that will make the state the nation’s largest to attempt to impose such a mandate.
Gov. Greg Abbott announced Saturday that he signed the bill, which is expected to draw a legal challenge from critics who consider it an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state.”
“Chronic absenteeism—often defined as when a student is absent for more than 10 percent of the school year—skyrocketed during the pandemic. According to AEI’s absenteeism tracker, by 2022, national chronic absenteeism increased by 89 percent when compared to three years prior. While absenteeism has declined from its 2022 peak in most states that report such data, 2024 figures show it remains higher than pre-pandemic levels. Absolute rates of absenteeism varied broadly state by state. In Alabama, students had the lowest rate, peaking at 18 percent in 2022 and falling to 15 percent in 2024. By contrast, nearly half of all students in Washington, D.C., were chronically absent in 2022, dropping to a still-staggering 40 percent in 2024.”
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“According to Polikoff’s research, low-income students in particular are facing persistent increases in absenteeism when compared to pre-pandemic numbers.”
“Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) suddenly terminated about 4,700 records in the database of foreign students with F-1 visas authorizing them to attend American universities. That move, which sowed panic among students across the country, was the result of the Trump administration’s “Student Criminal Alien Initiative.” But contrary to the implication of that label, the initiative affected many people who had no criminal record that would justify revoking their visas. Nor did ICE cite any other specific justification listed in the relevant regulations. Instead, the students were told their records had been terminated for “otherwise failing to maintain status.””
Trump administration is forcing students to start paying their loans again. The systems in place to help people who can’t afford it are broken due to DOGE cuts. The lack of staff also makes it difficult to fix a mistake, like when people receive a loan bill higher than it should be.
“The first case, Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, poses the question of whether the 46 states with charter schools must offer public funds to schools that would teach religious doctrine as truth. The second case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, involves the claim that religious parents should have a right to opt their children out of controversial public school curricula.
Taken together, Drummond and Mahmoud threaten the twin cornerstones of the American education system that Brown affirmed six decades ago: Since Brown, America’s public schools have operated under a norm of inclusive enrollment, and they’ve offered all children a shared curriculum that reflects the values that communities believe are essential for civic participation and economic success.
If the court tears down these foundational norms, the schools that remain in their wake will be a shell of the democracy-promoting institution the court itself has long lionized — and that healthy majorities of parents continue to support in their local neighborhoods. And although there’s a way to avoid the worst outcome in both cases, the path ahead is uncertain: It will require the court to follow history in an evenhanded manner (in Drummond) and progressives to accept a middle ground (in Mahmoud).
The legal challenges presented in Drummond and Mahmoud did not arise out of thin air. They are part of a long-term conservative movement strategy aimed at eroding public education.”
“The Trump administration froze $1 billion in federal funding for Cornell University and $790 million for Northwestern University, the White House confirmed.
The freeze is the latest in a series of federal funding attacks against the Ivy League, but Northwestern would be the first institution to face a funding cut outside of that group. University officials from Northwestern have said they have not yet received official notice of the funding freezes.”