29-05-2025
Kansas schools and students face avalanche of scorn. Leaders don't have our best interests at heart.
The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building in Washington, D.C., is shown on Nov. 25, 2024. (Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
As a Kansas public school teacher and parent, I am deeply concerned about ongoing attacks on public education, most recently through executive actions by the Trump administration that include eliminating the Department of Education and targeting the free speech of students.
Halting federal support for our schools and students will ensure historically marginalized students do not receive equal opportunities, will take away resources such as student lunches and special education programming, and will stifle learning communities. Despite these attacks, educators and communities are showing fight and resilience that is cause for hope.
Some leaders in Washington are pushing the Educational Choice for Children Act. If enacted nationwide, ECCA would divert billions of taxpayer dollars from our public schools to subsidize private institutions. In fact, similar bills were proposed locally in the Kansas Legislature, and recently, a coalition of organizations, including Game On for Kansas Schools, Showing Up for Racial Justice Education Core, Voter Rights Network of Wyandotte County, among many others, educated the public about the dangers of these with multiple screenings of the documentary 'Backpack Full of Cash.'
The Kansas Legislature recently passed a budget that cruelly underfunds special education, but due to the work of pro-public education groups, the voucher bill did not come up for a vote this session. Voucher programs only worsen ongoing budget cuts to public school children, benefiting a privileged few while leaving low-income and rural students with fewer resources.
Most recently, the Trump administration issued an executive order on school discipline, implying that school discipline had gotten worse as a result of the policies of Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. In fact, the school-to-prison pipeline, or the more nuanced school and prison nexus, which is caused by disproportionate policing and punishment leveled on Black and brown students, is a crisis that Trump's executive order will only exacerbate.
While it is true that serious improvements need to be made in terms of how our system relates to educators, school staff, students and communities to improve schools for all, it is also true that investments in prisons and police have exceeded holistic investments in educating our young people. In fact, policing is nearly the greatest expenditure for school districts nationally. With Trump reversing the nominal pressure of past Democratic administrations on this crisis, we can expect even greater pressure on schools and teachers to increasingly criminalize marginalized students.
Unfortunately, attacks on students, teachers, and communities do not stop with voucher bills and executive actions. Distressingly, there is bipartisan support at both the Kansas and national levels for punishing speech, especially in schools and against students who support Palestine or are simply critical of Israel.
It is also widely documented that immigrant students are struggling to learn along with their peers under increasing criminalization by the Trump administration. In fact, parents are reporting to school staff that they are afraid to bring their kids to schools because of widespread ICE raids ordered by this administration.
Resources for educators have popped up to help support immigrant students who are under attack. Families are also fighting back. In February, A Day Without Immigrants showed massive resistance to anti-immigrant attitudes and policies.
Furthermore, the GOP attacks on transgender students, and LGBTQ+ students more broadly, has reached a fever pitch and are being used to drive a wedge between Kansans who would otherwise stand for public education access for all children. Republicans voted to override Democratic Gov. Laura's Kelly veto and target some of the state's most vulnerable children. According to advocacy organization Loud Light: Legislators 'expanded their targeting of LGBTQ kids by providing legal protections to potential foster or adoptive parents with anti-LGBTQ beliefs, no matter how extreme.'
Public education is the foundation of a multiracial democracy. If we are serious about ensuring quality education for all students — not just the wealthiest — we must reject efforts to defund public schools and criminalize our youth.
Michael Rebne is a teacher in Kansas City, Kansas, a leader with Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ-KC) and a Board Member of Justice for Wyandotte. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
