The end of the federal ESSER extension announced by Trump Secretary of Education McMahon Friday hit the Massachusetts news wires today, largely because the executive branch issued a frankly not very helpful press release, which goes for impact without starting with what the funding actually is.
And now we have news articles and headlines that are only making that worse, so in lieu of banging my head against the train window here, let's try to parse more of this out.
Cheering for large sections of today's New Bedford Light interview with Superintendent Andrew O'Leary:
Soon after Trump took office this year, O’Leary got some social media and talk radio flak because he had sent out a letter to school staff informing them that the New Bedford district follows state guidelines that restrict building and information access from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities.
O’Leary feels strongly about his system’s immigrant students. He spoke at a Saturday City Hall rally, objecting to a March 21 New Bedford raid where, he said, several children who attend city schools “woke up to terror” when federal agents in military fatigues broke the door to their home.
He says the criticism hasn’t bothered him because as superintendent he’s the person who can better deal with rebukes so staff can go about their jobs educating and protecting children. He is particularly concerned, he said, about continuing the New Bedford schools’ inclusive philosophy toward marginalized populations like undocumented immigrants and transgender and nonbinary people.
“All the criticism came to me because you have seen scenarios out there, around the state and around the nation, where this individual teacher and this individual principal got targeted,” he said. His voice then grew quiet. “I would hate to see that” in New Bedford, he said.
And also:
Business roundtable-type organizations, he said, have incorrectly convinced the public that schools should be about producing skilled, high-earning graduates for the commercial sector.
That’s the wrong paradigm, according to the superintendent.
“I think we’ve listened to the wrong people around that, and what it does is, it diminishes what a school actually is for: its community,” he said. “It’s a place where students grow and flourish and develop as young people who can contribute to society in all sorts of ways.”
O’Leary is doing nothing less than laying down a marker that the New Bedford schools are not about business or careers or even getting into college, but rather about boosting the people of the city and how they feel about themselves.
“What concerns me the most is that these are community assets,” he said. “Schools are the hubs of neighborhoods. Schools, where our young people are, are one of the most important things that society invests in, and they belong to the community.”
Public schools have traditionally been thought of as something for the whole group, not for one individual, he said.
“Eroding a community asset is something we should raise concern about,” O’Leary said.
Yes, indeed! More of this, please!
