Education Under Threat hosted its second teach-in in Annenberg Hall Tuesday evening to discuss the impact of federal funding and executive orders on K-12 public schools.
Four panelists from across Chicago area schools, including Northwestern faculty, addressed the impact of national policy changes on K-12 educators, children and district leaders. The teach-in garnered an audience of about 50 attendees and follows Education Under Threat’s first teach-in April 9.
Corey Winchester (BS ’10, MS ’20), an Evanston Township High School history teacher and a fifth-year Ph.D. student in Learning Sciences, moderated the panel composed of Chicago Public Schools teacher Luz Vargas, ETHS Superintendent Marcus Campbell, SESP Prof. Nichole Pinkard (MS ’97, Ph.D. ’98) and SESP Prof. Sally Nuamah (Ph.D. ’16). Each panelist spoke for about eight minutes about K-12 education and changemaking throughout history and in the modern moment. Afterwards, attendees broke into small group discussions before the event concluded with time for questions.
“Here’s the impact: a lot of confusion, families feeling unsafe, people feeling erased and mental health concerns,” Campbell said. “There’s a human impact, right? It’s not just a budgetary impact.”
Campbell said the current political cycle is an onslaught of fear and marginalization where changes and executive orders from the federal government are targeting race and identity, as they have throughout history.
He gave an overview of recent executive orders attacking DEI, gender identity and immigration and how compliance with them would comprise the values of the school district, Campbell said.
Although Campbell is unsure of what the future holds, he said, ETHS will not abandon its commitment to justice and protection of its students, despite potential financial losses.
“We might run a deficit, but we’re running a deficit because of what … our values really cost us,” Campbell said.
Pinkard spoke on the importance of communities standing together through these troubling times. She said school boards, city councils, research centers, parks and libraries must work together to understand the various challenges people are facing at this moment and bring their resources together to combat funding cuts by the Trump administration.
“We have to think of this as being architects, right? He’s tearing things down, we have to think about how we’re going to build things up,” Pinkard said.
Nuamah focused her time on what people gain through education in addition to academic achievement. Nuamah researches how people learn about politics through institutions, including schools. Schools shape our understanding of politics, democracy, what it means to be a citizen and whether it’s worth participating in civic life, she said.
She cited how Chicago’s closure of numerous schools in 2013 — the most schools closed in a single year in the U.S. — disproportionately affected Black and Brown students. She asked the audience to consider what this teaches young children about which schools matter.
Nuamah said people need to be on the same page about what they are fighting against. It is important, she said, to create conditions such that the “burden of resistance” doesn’t continue to fall on those who are the most under-resourced.
“Nothing runs — no school, no city, no system without our labor,” Nuamah said. “We are the power if we organize and act like it.”
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