Sparking Equity

Why Public Education's Survival Matters for America's Future

• Advancing Education Success Initiative

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Educational leaders across the country are navigating a storm of uncertainty as the Trump administration unleashes a barrage of executive orders targeting public schools. What began with a minimal education focus during the Presidential campaign has morphed into a centerpiece of the Trump administration's agenda. 

In this conversation with noted education scholar and advocate Pedro Noguera, we explore how school leaders are responding to this treacherous landscape while continuing to serve students who show up at their doors every day.  We highlight the contrast between educators committed to serving all children and an administration seemingly focused on waging culture wars rather than offering solutions to improving students' educational outcomes.  

"What you don't hear from the administration is the emergence of a coherent policy aimed at making education in this country better," notes Noguera, pointing out that previous administrations from both parties at least attempted to address challenges students face in the classroom. 

As K-12 and higher education institutions respond to federal intrusion into local control, using ending federal financial support as a weapon, a key question emerges: How can educational leaders maintain their focus on serving students while navigating this politically charged environment? 

The podcast offers insights for those on the front lines who believe public education serves as an essential cornerstone of democracy. regardless of partisan politics.


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Brought to you by the Advancing Education Success Initiative -- Coby McDonald, Producer; Louis Freedberg, Executive Producer and Correspondent

Pedro Noguera:

Welcome to Sparking Education Equity, a podcast highlighting strategies to ensure all students succeed and have the opportunity to learn.

Louis Freedberg:

I'm Pedro Noguera, dean of the USC Rossier School of Education, and I'm Louis Friedberg, Director of the Advancing Education Success Initiative and Executive Producer of this podcast.

Pedro Noguera:

We just passed 100 days of the Trump presidency and I thought it's a good time for us to process what we've seen so far. It's been a dizzying 100 days and I expect that we're going to continue to see more of these executive orders, and Trump is really showing he's living up to the promises he made from Project 2025, from the Heritage Foundation, which seems like their playbook.

Louis Freedberg:

Yeah. What's quite remarkable is that education hardly featured on the presidential campaign trail last year. Trump disavowed Project 2025, but it has emerged as a central focus of the Trump administration.

Pedro Noguera:

I think it's because education is really at the heart of many of the culture war battles that Trump and some conservatives want to wage in the country. I think, though, they're in the minority position. A lot of the things they're advocating don't really resonate with the majority of Americans, and I think we're going to start to see and the polls are suggesting that many Americans don't approve. I think we may start to see more and more resistance. I was encouraged when we interviewed Superintendents Alberto Carvalho from Los Angeles and Alex Marrero from Denver. T hey're quite willing to stand up to the administration, particularly to protect children from unlawful entry into schools by the Homeland Security or by ICE.

Louis Freedberg:

What do you think about how people who are in the trenches, who are having to make decisions, how do they stay energized, focused and not beaten down by what is going on?

Pedro Noguera:

Most education leaders, regardless of their political affiliations, really believe education should be a nonpartisan issue, that regardless of who's in office, they have a job to do of serving kids, making sure that educational needs are met, making sure they're safe, making sure that schools can respond to those social and psychological needs that children bring with them. And so I think what they're looking for is support. They're looking for politics not to get in the way, and they're looking for leadership that will guide the nation in a way that reinforces and supports public education, because public education really is vital to not just democracy but to our future, and that's what I think leaders want is they want leadership in Washington that provides support in carrying out this important work.

Louis Freedberg:

I think it's often possible to really lose sight of the fact that, while all this noise is going on and potential attacks on our schools from Washington, every day millions of students are showing up at the schoolhouse door, and many more in preschools and many more in higher ed, and educators have to serve those kids regardless and have to keep pushing forward at a time when, certainly here in California but elsewhere, they are dealing with budget crises and absenteeism is still too high, post-pandemic. We haven't totally gotten out from that shadow. So it seems like it takes some compartmentalization between what's going on in the larger landscape and dealing with these kids on a daily basis. Do you think it's possible to compartmentalize daily basis?

Pedro Noguera:

I think it's going to become increasingly difficult. I think the two words that I would say I hear most often from education leaders about the current climate is chaos and confusion. Those are the politics of the Trump administration. What you don't hear is the emergence of a coherent policy aimed at making education in this country better. I think it's so ironic that making America great does not include making it great in education. There's no strategy for doing that.

Pedro Noguera:

Instead, what we hear are culture wars. We hear attacks against things like DEI. We hear about raids from ICE. We don't hear about strategies for improving education, which is such a departure from both Republican and Democratic administrations. In the past, even when I was a critic of the Bush administration and the Obama administration, at least I had to say they were trying to do something to improve education. You can't say this at all about the Trump administration. They are really making the job for education leaders that much more difficult and, as you said already, their job. Education leaders have to contend with keeping schools safe, meeting educational needs, and doing it in this climate is, I think, becoming more and more difficult.

Louis Freedberg:

What I see is that the entire Trump agenda around education is informed by an extreme hostility to public schools. In general, the view is that schools have become indoctrination machines. I mean, I can't think of any initiatives that actually speak to what is going on in the classroom, to support teachers, to really focus on how kids succeed. All the initiatives are around ideological, cultural issues. That's a problem when you're trying to teach in that kind of political environment and I'm afraid it's going to get worse.

Pedro Noguera:

Just last week, Trump unveiled his budget and it calls for deep cuts in the education budget, to Title I, which is used to fund Head Start and to support children in poverty. That budget has to support poor kids, result in meals being served, child care for families with low incomes. Republican representatives cannot go back to their constituents and say "we took away your child care and your kids won't be eating at school anymore. This is going to be a real political problem, I think, for Trump with his own party, because they have to answer to their constituents in a year from now. So I think we're going to see more resistance. At least that's my hope.

Louis Freedberg:

One of the things that happened in the last couple of weeks, as you well know, is that Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, dr Priscilla Chan. They started this private school in 2016 in East Palo Alto, a very poor enclave in Silicon Valley. It was a very impressive school, all the bells and whistles, everything you would expect and hope for from a school. The Zuckerbergs decided just to abandon the school and they're going to be closing the school next year. Public schools can't just shut their doors and send the kids somewhere else and say, "well, we tried, we're done. Same thing with charter schools. Charter schools can close, and then the public schools the regular public schools have to address those kids' needs, regardless of what happens.

Pedro Noguera:

Our public schools are probably our most stable institutions in the country. Our public schools are probably our most stable institutions in the country. And that stability is important because it means that for kids who lack stability in their lives, who don't have stable housing, who don't have stable parents, at least they know school is a place where there will be a teacher, where they will be safe, where there will be heat in the building, where there will be a meal. This is not something we should take for granted. This is a critical part of the social safety net for children in this country.

Pedro Noguera:

And you know, the sad thing is when you see the Zuckerbergs just abandoned, it's not because they ran out of money, it's because it's no longer a priority for them. It's a reflection of the kind of whimsical thinking, the faddish approach to philanthropy that we're seeing from some tech companies and some tech titans. You know, someone pointed out Elon Musk. Where's his philanthropy? What has he ever given back, despite being so wealthy? And I thought Zuckerberg's might be different. But their abandoning of a school in East Palo Alto, such a poor community in Silicon Valley, you know it couldn't be because of lack of money, it's about lack of commitment. So our public schools don't have that ability.

Pedro Noguera:

As you pointed out,

Pedro Noguera:

lewis,

Pedro Noguera:

they have a responsibility. They are charged with serving all children, and that includes the homeless, that includes the undocumented. Right now, the courts have said all children have a right to an education and that's why educational leaders have to be able to withstand and cut through the politics to do the work. And although it's challenging in this environment, we had an event here recently at USC where we heard from women leaders who are superintendents throughout the state of California, who are doing just that. Many of them are faced with hostility from their boards, faced with a difficult political environment, but they're still doing the work because that's what they signed up for. And they don't do it because they think they can get rich or famous. They do it because of a deep commitment to children and that's what I think makes educational leadership so different than the leadership we see in Washington, much less from the tech titans in Silicon Valley.

Louis Freedberg:

I'll just note that I found this letter that Zuckerberg wrote to his daughter when she was born, right before the school opened, and it was a very moving and, I think, profound letter. One . of things. he s s he \ i if we're going to affect change, we have to hang in there for the long term 10, 20, 30 years. Change is difficult, of course. He did just the opposite more or less cut and run after a few years.

Pedro Noguera:

Now. I always say if you care about the future, then you need to care about education. You need to make sure that our children are being well-prepared to face the challenges they're going to inherit as adults. That's why this lack of commitment to education is really a reflection of very short-term thinking on the part of Trump and his allies. They just care about immediately making a buck. They're not showing this interest in investing in children, and I hope that parents and others will stand up and see it for what it is an attempt to really shortchange children, and you know we will suffer the consequences. Our children are future workers, are future taxpayers. They are our future, and so anybody who cares about the future needs to care about the actions of the administration and how they're impacting the education of our students.

Louis Freedberg:

The actions of the administration and how they're impacting the education of our students. And if I can just share with you something that happened last week, I've been following a school district here in the Bay Area, the West Contra Costa Unified School District. Richmond is the largest community in the district Pedro are you very familiar with it Very familiar.

Pedro Noguera:

I know the district. I knew what it was called the Richmond Unified School District. They changed the name to West Contra Costa.

Louis Freedberg:

One of the unfortunate distinctions they had were they were the first district in California to get a state bailout and they were under state supervision for many years. Last few years they've been fighting potential insolvency in another state takeover. I'm pleased to say that the district has been clawing itself out from this predicament and they now appear to have at least forestalled that possibility of a state takeover for at least the next couple of years. I was at the school board meeting. And then the last item on the agenda the superintendent announces that she had just gotten a letter the day before from the US Department of Education saying this $4.2 million grant that they had gotten to place mental health interns, counselors, in schools as a way to grow the school mental health professional workforce.

Louis Freedberg:

And of course we know that kids need mental health support. But the Department of Education said this program was no longer a priority of the administration and so they were cutting the whole thing from five-year grant to one-year grant. So instead of $4.2 million the district will get $600,000. There were 46 similar grants across the country. And then the same time and this hardly got any publicity the administration cut $1 billion in other mental health programs that were in fact part of legislation that was approved by Congress in 2022. After the Uvalde Texas school massacre, they just cut $1 billion a real attack on mental health, because again they're saying it's under the guise of DEI, diversity and so on.

Pedro Noguera:

Yeah, I mean. What's disturbing about this is we are in the midst of a mental health crisis facing young people. The number of students who are reporting depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and actual suicidal attempts has just gone up dramatically since the pandemic, and schools are often the first place to encounter these students. But you can't expect a teacher to be a psychologist or a social worker. You need trained professionals coming in who can reinforce the school and provide critical services to our students. So this is a life or death issue and you know, again, the Trump administration offers no rationale for why they made these cuts and the public needs to demand accountability because the lives of children are at stake.

Pedro Noguera:

A number of school districts have, you know, gotten rid of cell phones, banned cell phones, because they believe and I think rightfully so that this may be contributing to the mental health crisis. I think it goes beyond cell phones. I think it's the fact that kids are worried about their future, they're worried about climate change, they're concerned about their schools being shut up. These are real issues impacting children. So to take away critical services at this time is heartless, and I think it really reveals a lot about the orientation of the Trump administration toward families. It's ironic because you know, trump speaks to Moms for Liberty and calls them a critical organization, but if Moms for Liberty are willing to be silent in the face of these cuts, then you have to question what their orientation is, what their politics are and why. Why would safety and the well-being of children not be at the forefront of an issue that they are concerned about?

Louis Freedberg:

When you think about schools and government. I know the right wing and Trump himself has often referred to public schools as government schools. Well, they are government institutions. Government schools Well, they are government institutions mainly supported by local communities and states, but this is an institution, a government institution that arguably affects people more than any other institution. Is there a way to mobilize all those people, all those constituencies, who have gone through schools, who have benefited from schools? Because it does seem like, more than almost any other government service or function, schools have a constituency and is there a way to mobilize those people in defense of public schools?

Pedro Noguera:

I think we should take issue with the characterization of schools as government institutions. Do we call roads government roads? They're paid for by our taxes. You know there's lots of public services, public parks, etc. That we rely on, because in any democratic society you expect public resources to be used to enhance public life. This is not a radical idea. It's something that we've lived with since the founding of this country. But I think in calling them government schools is an attempt to try to dismiss them and to say that private schools are superior, when we know that too often private schools only serve the affluent, not the average members of society.

Pedro Noguera:

So I do think parents are going to have to step up. Many parents are busy. They're busy with their jobs, they're busy raising families, they're busy with life. They don't want to have to lobby their congressman to say, listen, make sure that these funds don't get cut. But if you don't pay attention, you don't understand how this is going to affect your children, how it's going to affect your community. And what I think is also important is even people who don't have children in the schools need to understand they have something at stake here. We live in a country with an aging population. More and more Americans are going to be going into retirement dependent on Social Security. If we don't have an able workforce that's educated, that's productive, who is going to support the social security system? We are interdependent as a society, and so good public schools benefit all of us, not just those who send their children to schools. So we have to stop this disparaging of public schools and recognize that it's a vital resource that's critical to our future, critical to the way our society functions.

Louis Freedberg:

Yeah, the only reason I was kind of putting out this vision of sort of broader mass support is that when you look at individual schools and school districts, really tough for a superintendent out there or school board members to be fighting this battle and we can't just let them fight this battle on their own.

Pedro Noguera:

No, we can't, and that's why I think superintendents, increasingly, and boards, elected school boards have to communicate with the public about what's at stake, about how these actions from the administration will impact their children, their schools, because people do care about their schools. It's interesting All the polls show that even when attitudes about public education are negative attitudes towards your school tend to be very high People still support their teachers, support their schools because they know them, and so superintendents have to let them know, let the public know. This is the effect of these policies, this is how our schools will be affected, and I think that, as they do, we will start to see more and more parents and others step up and say this is not good for this country and we want a different policy direction.

Louis Freedberg:

What do you see next here? School districts are vulnerable now because the Trump administration put out an executive order that all schools had to certify that they didn't have DEI programs A lot of other programs they say are race-based that are now illegal under the Supreme Court's decision on affirmative action and they're threatening to cut off funds to those school districts and states that don't certify that they don't have any of these programs. And 26 states have said they're not going to do that because they're already certified. They're already saying we haven't broken any laws, we're following laws. Do you think there's a chance here that the Trump administration will move against districts will try to cut up these funds.

Pedro Noguera:

I'm really encouraged by the states that are stepping up. I'm encouraged by school districts like New York City, which said we're not backing down. We're the most diverse system in the nation, maybe in the world. We're not going to renege or remove our commitment to serving children from diverse backgrounds or to equity and inclusion. So I'm encouraged by their resolve and I think they're calling the bluff of the administration. Are you willing to disrupt the education of millions of children in pursuit of your ideological agenda? I have a feeling that the districts and the states are going to win this, but it remains to be seen. This is going to play out over the next few weeks and months and I'm glad we'll have a chance to talk about it and hopefully provide some guidance to the educators out there who are on the front lines figuring out how best to respond.

Louis Freedberg:

Well, one of the good things that happened, many states are filing lawsuits and those seem to be getting some traction right now.

Pedro Noguera:

And on that note let's wrap up this episode of Sparking Equity. Thanks to our producer, colby McDonald, and to Eric Olson. Thanks also to our sponsors, the Hewlett Foundation and School Services of California, and to the USC staff for their support.

Louis Freedberg:

Please let us know how you think school leaders could best respond to the current climate and any effective models that you see emerging. You can write to us at sparkingequity at gmailcom. That's sparkingequity at gmailcom.

Pedro Noguera:

Please be sure to subscribe to Sparking Education Equity. Wherever you listen to your podcast, I'm Pedro.

Louis Freedberg:

Nogueira and I'm Louis Friedberg. Thanks for listening.

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Lande Ajose

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Pedro Noguera

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Louis Freedberg

Producer