Education Equity Series Episode 2

What happens when public schools become the final safety net for families facing systemic oppression? In this urgent second episode of "The Politics of Possibility," co-hosts Dr. Ezekiel Dixon-Román and Dr. Sonya Douglass engage in a profound conversation exploring how changing policies, structural shifts, and the right-wing culture wars are reshaping K-12 school districts across the United States. The panel features a unique mix of research and frontline leadership: Dr. Carrie Sampson (Associate Professor at Arizona State University), Dr. Jonathan E. Collins (Assistant Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University), and Superintendent Wilmer Chavarria (Winooski School District, Vermont). The conversation opens with a harrowing, real-time account from Superintendent Chavarria about a second-grade student tracked down by a school volunteer task force in an ICE detention center—vividly illustrating how educators are forced to act as social workers, legal navigators, and crisis managers. From there, the panel digs into the systemic erosion of democratic governance: how universal vouchers shutter Title I schools, how open-enrollment policies politically disenfranchise families of color, and how corporate AI marketing risks overtaking frontline teacher autonomy. This episode is a masterclass in understanding the intersection of local practice, academic research, and systemic policy harm.

Implications for Schools and Districts in the Post-Civil Rights Era

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Episode Transcript

Ezekiel Dixon-Román: Welcome everyone, and thank you for joining us for The Politics of Possibility: Implications for Schools and Districts in the Post-Civil Rights Era. I am Ezekiel Dixon-Roman, director of the Edmund W. Gorham Institute for Advanced Study, and this is my co-host, Dr. Sonya Douglass, director of the Black Education Research Center here at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Sonya Douglass: We are glad to introduce William Chavarria, superintendent of Winooski School District, Dr. Jonathan Collins of T- Teachers College, Columbia University, and Dr. Kari Sampson of Arizona State University. Um, at this time, we'd like to invite each of our pan- panelists to say a little bit about who you are and your work, um, to help frame our conversation today

We can start with Dr. Sampson

Carrie Sampson: Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for the invitation. It's good to see you all and good to be here. Um, I am, like s- like Dr. Douglas said, I'm associate professor at Arizona State University. A lot of my research, um, focuses mostly on school boards, democratic governance, districts, and equity.

Um, however, I've done a lot more expansion around school choice lately as well.

Sonya Douglass: Thank you. Dr. Collins.

Jonathan Collins: Sure. Thank you, Doctors Douglas and Dixon-Roman for the, uh, opportunity, for the invitation. Thank you to the Gordon Institute for organizing this conversation and allowing me to be a part of it. Um, so I'm Jonathan Collins.

I'm a political scientist, essentially, who studies, um, education, specific emphasis on school governance, and, uh, as well as political participation. So I study, you know, why, uh, folks, especially folks of color, engage in the politics of education, and I examine, uh, the extent to which democratic governance can, um, deepen or worsen systems of representation.

Sonya Douglass: Excellent. Thank you. And Superintendent Chavarria.

Wilmer Chavarria: Hello, everybody. Thank you for the invitation. It's a pleasure to be here. Um, my name is Wilmer Chavarria. I'm the superintendent for the Winooski School District in the state of Vermont. We're a very small district. Uh, the state is a very rural state. Uh, but it's also a very, uh, racially, um, homogeneous state, and so we are the only district in the state that i- has, uh, where the majority of students are not white and where the majority of students are, uh, of immigrant backgrounds.

And so that puts us in a bit of a unique, uh, position. Uh, not in a good position, but a unique position in these times. So I'm happy to be here and share some of our experiences, uh, with all of you today. Excellent. Wonderful. We're so delighted that you said yes. Um, and think I'll pass it back to Adizeq.

Ezekiel Dixon-Román: Yeah. Thank you all. It's a, um, it's a pleasure to have you all with us and also to hear all the amazing work that you're doing. Um, to get us started here, um, uh, we'd love to begin with this question, especially for, um, for you, Superintendent Chavarria. Um, how would you describe the current state of K through 12 education in the US?

What roles are distri- what, what roles are districts and schools playing in the context of federal policy changes on multiple fronts, not only including education, but also in areas such as immigration, nutrition, and housing? Can you share some stories of the impacts of federal policy with us that you're going through and that you've been experiencing?

Wilmer Chavarria: Wow, that we, we've begun with the big ones, huh? Um, thank you for the question. Um, so rather than me, uh, reminding much of our, our, uh, the, all of us here of, uh, the reality we're going through, I, I will take your, um, part of the question there and actually give you a, a quick, uh, story of, uh, this week. Uh, this Monday we called, um...

When our students don't, uh, come to school, we usually, uh, teachers or our support staff, we send a message home or call home and, uh, remind people that it's a school day. So we, our students were on break last week, um, and some of our students didn't come to school this, uh, Monday, so we sent our usual messages.

And, uh, there was this, uh, family, um, uh, the second grader didn't show up to school, and so we send a message saying, "Hey, just a reminder, school's back in session. Um, we're wondering where so-and-so is." And the father is like, "I don't know where my child is. Can you help me find my child?" Um, and we're like, "What do you mean you don't know where your child is?"

And, and he's like, "Well, he left with his mother at the end of last week for, for the break to visit family, and I have not been able to contact them ever since." And, uh, so this father is in a state of desperation and, um So we, uh, put the, the case immediately to what we have a, a group called the rapid response team, the, our rapid response team here in the school, um, which is a group of volunteers, and we put it in the chat, and in a matter of minutes our team managed to locate the mother and the child in detention by ICE in a Texas facility very far away from Vermont.

So they had been apprehended. So the parent did- the dad didn't know this. We were the ones who were able to manage to find this information. So we called the father... Well, no, we actually sent a team to the father's home to go sit down with him and calm him down and, and start, begin the advice on what, what next steps to give, uh, to take.

And, um, and then in a, in a couple of hours we had the father here in my office, and we s- we were still trying to problem solve and see what we could do move, uh, uh, starting at that, at, at that point. Um, we managed to speak with the mother for a few seconds in the detention facility, and then the call drops after a few seconds, and so everybody's in a state of, uh, like we just wanna know whether our second grader is safe.

So because our... All we know at this point is our second grader is in detainment, which sounds amazing to me that I have to say that. Mm-hmm. Uh, but, um, and so ever since, the work that I was planning to do this week had to take a, a back burner, uh, had to be put on the back burner because, or take a back seat because I, uh, we, we've had to try and find legal, uh, support, uh, just put money in the jail account so that the mother can buy something for the child.

Um, it, it has been quite the, um, quite a stressful situation. Um, and, and, and what I keep saying is that I don't... Our number one goal is to get our second grader back in his second grade classroom, uh, because he should be in the classroom. He should not be in a, in a detention cell. So I'm just gonna leave it at that.

Ezekiel Dixon-Román: Um, uh, and we can use it as a starting point for the rest of the conversation. But you know, I actually wanna ask, you know, to s- follow up. I, so I was a professor for, of social policy for 14 and a half years before I joined the Teacher's College faculty, and I o- I've often said that educators are also so- social workers, are often having to play the role and do the work of social workers.

And I, I, I mean, it may just go without saying, but I almost would wanna invite you to speak to the ways in which, um, yourself and also all of your colleagues are, um, within the school district are doing social work beyond even what had even been the case in m- possibly in previous years, or if you feel like it's been an increase.

Wilmer Chavarria: Oh, yes, 100%. Um, uh, as we speak, I'm actually late for, um, uh, right now we're having, uh, this gigantic event in the m- main, uh, lobby of the school district where, uh, lots of families are coming in and receiving a hot meal, for example. And w- and they're getting shopping bags, and we call it the necessity store, where families come once a week, and they just put all the groceries they need, uh, uh, uh, and, uh, for free.

We don't charge them anything. Uh, all, all day in my office, we had volunteers, people who should be teaching in the classroom, who should be, you know, covering recess, trying to get in touch with lawyers, trying to... Uh, some people volunteering to be immigration sponsors for their, for their students. Um, uh, making sure that the family has enough money for rent this month because they had to stop working since last week and such.

Um, these things are, these things people don't realize educators, teachers, uh, support staff are having to do. Uh, we're not coming here and, and, and going into the classroom and only teaching math. We're also helping students, uh, be fed, helping students, uh, get out of jail. That's what we're trying to do, and that's the work that we're, w- that's the work that educators do nowadays, uh, in this, in this time of, of, of, of, of history.

Sonya Douglass: Oh. Mm-hmm. Thank you, Superintendent Chavarria. Um, y- you give some really immediate, um, and timely examples of the challenges that school districts, um, especially teachers and leaders are facing right now, um, which really move us away from even getting to the teaching and learning that's so important. Um, we have two researchers, you know, who have done really important work in, in looking at the politics of education, and I wanted to ask, um, Dr.

Sampson and Dr. Collins, you know, based on your research, what are you seeing as some of the, the major trends that are happening now, given, again, federal and state policy in places across the country, and what that is meaning for local school boards, districts, families, and young people?

You want to take that first Dr. Collins? Okay. Um, well, my research, like I said, mo- focuses largely on school boards, but in the last few years, I've recognized, um, that the expansion of school choice policies have impacted and in many cases, erode local school board governance, um, as well as community's willingness to invest in their local schools.

Carrie Sampson: And so I think that, um, these expansive school choice policies are a concern and a, and a, certainly a trend. Um, Arizona passed their first universal voucher, the first, the country's first univers-versal voucher program, uh, which they call the Education Savings Accounts, um, which gives, you know, money from, from essentially local mo- local fund, uh, locally, local federal or state funding to, um, private and home schools, and 10 states have passed their own bills since then.

Um, one of the things that we're seeing is, uh, school closures as a result of this. At least 20 school, schools have closed, um, or are scheduled to close in Arizona. 75% of those schools are Title I schools compared to 35%, um, district-wide, uh, Title Wi- Title I representation, so it's highly impacting marginalized communities.

Um, one of the things that I realized too, a few years back, I was at a school board meeting, um, and there was a group of Black mothers who were advocating against disproportionate discipline because there were a large proportion of Black, uh, particularly Black boys that were being pushed out of schools, expelled, suspended, um, and they were really upset about what was happening in these schools.

And so they went to the school board, and afterwards they went, they met and they said, "You know, we need to, to consider voting new school board members in." And one of the things that they realized was that many of these families in the school district did not actually, um, have the opportunity to vote because they were not residents.

Um, they, the school, because of open enrollment, school choice policies, these schools had been siphoning, uh, particularly Black and brown families from neighboring school districts, uh, busing them over to, uh, what, what was considered like A+ or A-rated schools, uh, with the idea that, okay, we have a better school over here, and yet they were not prepared really to serve these particular families and s- and students.

And so one of the things I kept thinking about was, what does this mean when we have, uh, families going all over the, the cities or, you know, um, in different spaces, they don't have the opportunity to engage in the same way democratically, and communities don't have the same investment to wanna vote in school board ele- uh, school board elections or bonds and, and such forth.

And so we're seeing the continuous impact of this hyper-competitive school choice policy, not just with vouchers, but even open enrollment, tax credits. And my concern is, um, that the erosion of this type of school board governance is also the erosion of healthy public neighborhoods of schools. So, for example, what Wilmer shared in, in Vermont, in this small community Where you, if you have a healthy school environment, you're able to provide the support and security for students and families in a much more, um, sa- you know, much more, uh, robust way because that community is close enough to really, you know, um, come together around these issues.

Jonathan Collins: But right now what we're seeing, and I think what we're gonna continue to see across the country, is just the erosion of that, um, if we don't, you know, continue to fight for public schools, and neighboring public schools, and high quality public schools. Such an important point. Um, Dr. Collins? Yeah, and, and I'll just, I'll add to that.

I, I think Professor Sampson, uh, is spot on here. Uh, the only thing that I'll add, too, is just w- what, what we're seeing is that there's a concerted effort to essentially change the way that the game is played, the, the, the rules and structure of the game, right? I think, you know, before, I think, you know, I think the last couple of decades, if you look at the politics of education, it was more of, um, it was the domain of policy wins and losses.

You know, there were ... We kind of had this idea that, um, the main focus was ideological disagreement on how we support kids of color and kids who are living in poverty, right? Like, that was not contested. You know, the, the big, the big push was, well, do you think that it's more of a, a systemic structural issue, or do you think that there, the- these more sort of market-based approaches are, are the route?

Mm. But the, we understood that this was a process that should be decided through a very particular, um, game, which is, uh, going through school boards, and to the extent we can, weaken the power of school boards to implement these more sort of choice-based systems. Now, w- what we're seeing is a complete attempt to destroy the idea of school boards and democratic governance.

Um, and not just d- destroy them, to overtake them, and to actually mobilize, uh, people directly against them. So, and, uh, this mobilization has led to very specific changes. So we've been tracking, um, news coverage of school boards for the past year plus, and what we're finding is that more than a third of all media coverage from our sampling process show that, uh, media coverage was being essentially hijacked by the culture war.

So issues related to, um, uh, anti-Black, um, you know, policy agendas, especially attacks on, um, Black education, uh, and African American studies, um, attacks on, uh, LGBT students, especially transgender students, um, and, uh, w- and especially, you know, things that are related to sort of gender equity. This has, uh, ballooned to become one of the most prevalent areas of media coverage discussion for school boards.

We've seen a slight increase in, um, the nature of partisan elections in school boards. If you go back to the, uh, if you go back 100 years to the, um, uh, the, uh, the sort of, sort of early era, um- Sort of political reform w- uh, movement that we had to essentially get rid of a lot of the corruption that was happening in local politics in, like, the 1920s.

One of the big, um, pushes that emerges out of that is nonpartisan school board elections, and that had not been, again, something that was uncontested for the last century. And now suddenly we're seeing an uptick in school board elections becoming more partisan. We're seeing the redrawing of school district lines.

We're seeing, um, shifts from ward-based representation to at-large representation, which the data very clearly shows hurts representation for Black and brown folks. So again, like, they're, uh, they are trying to change the rules and the structure of the way that the game is played. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Thank you, both.

Ezekiel Dixon-Román: Just, uh, both comments really important and enlightening. Um, also, I really appreciate the fact that you brought up, um, this point about the rules of the game changing, um, especially in light of, um, what we know about the ways in which authoritarianism controls the media, um, and all forms of media, um, including, uh, social media.

Uh, and I'll throw in here AI as well. Um, and, you know, and there's a... I think there's a really important way in which AI's connected to the changing of the rules, if you will. Um, we see how AI is being just marketed substantially to schools especially. Um, I think the estimate is over eighty percent of educators are using AI at some, at some point throughout the day in various ways in the classroom.

Um, with the heavy marketing to educators with the inc- of AI, with the encouragement of the federal government, I mean, the ways in which federal government is working directly with tech companies to push AI. Um, uh, Superintendent Chavarria, I'd love to hear your experience of what is the role for AI in schools and, and school districts.

Um, what are the, what do you see as the pitfalls and opportunities? Um, who can districts and school leaders trust for guidance on AI? And how does the marketing of AI square in relation to the simultaneous restriction of content in schools, such as the banning of books and even narrowing of curriculum?

Wilmer Chavarria: I g- okay. Um, it's another big question. I will say there's so much about it, and I think it's, uh, the, the time is ripe for, um, abuse, misleading, um, uh, weaponization of technology in order to advance some of the s- some of the things, some of the attacks on our public education, m- some of which were just mentioned by my colleagues.

Um, and, uh, one anecdote I have is my colleagues in the region, all of the superintendents in the region were meeting the other day, um, and, um- To-- They, they all wanted professional development, whatever that might be. They wanted PD on AI. And it made me wonder, what does that even mean? What exactly about AI do you want PD on?

And, uh, what are you gonna do with that PD? And, uh, who, most importantly, is going to give you that PD? What are, what i-- who do they represent? What is their agenda they might have? And, uh, the saddest part was that, uh, my colleagues did not, uh... I do-- I love my colleagues dearly, but, uh, based on some of my own observations, I do not believe they or we are, uh, ready to use whatever PD comes to us, uh, responsibly.

And w- the problem with superintendents, uh, and many people in positions of leadership of, of, of especially large systems, is that we tend to believe that, um, once we think we understand something, then the rest of the system should understand it the same way. And, and if you get excited with something that is just n- we're just not very clear, uh, on, on, on all of the ramifications that something can have, it's a very dangerous thing to be playing with and to be establishing in a whole district or s- uh, i- or at a state, a whole, in a whole state.

And so I will say in terms of AI, w-whatever, uh, aspect of AI we're talking about, whether, you know, we can go deeper on that area later. But, uh, I will say that it is a dangerous time to just be, uh, buying into big statements, buying into big practices related to new technology. Um, we should never close our doors to technology.

We should never prevent our students from learning how to live with technology we don't fully understand. But I think that the only gatekeepers we have right now, uh, of, of potential disaster are the teachers. The teachers and actual educators who are working with the students, who know our students best, and the teachers who are not stupid.

They are professional for a reason. They understand what's out there, and they understand how it can coexist with the reality of the classroom. And so if we do not begin by, uh, believing that the, the people on the front lines, the teachers, are the ones that can inform, uh, based on how to, uh, address something that is so gigantic and fast and overwhelming in this moment and being driven by bad political players and bad, uh, financial, uh, players, uh, then we're gonna be in trouble.

I don't think this should be left up to pol- left to politicians or, or, or superintendents. So, um, it, I, I would even follow up and say, based on what you just said, it probably would be almost the best intervention or way of approaching this of, as informing educators to have how to even be critical users and even, um, uh, uh, readers, if you will, of the technology itself to even have an understanding of what, what is the technology that they're being asked to adopt?

What are the pedagogical assumptions that it makes, and to what extent does it align with their own pedagogical philosophies? Mm-hmm. Um, so yeah, I, I app- I appreciate that point of the teachers, the educators being our main, um, frontline gatekeepers too. Yes. Yeah. And they, and, and the educators are not a monolith.

They are not gonna agree. One, one educator down the hallway might disagree with the approach the other one use- But that conversation, that dialogue needs to be had at that level. It cannot come from us. It cannot come from the top. And, uh, whatever decisions, especially in terms of policy, will be made, need to be made, need to be informed by that dialogue at that level, uh, between the students and educators and, and so on.

It has to begin there. And this connects to the other topics we're talking about, like the, the taking away the, the con- the, the local control and the voice of the communities and our ability to actually make our own decisions and invest our resources the way we see fit. It, it, it all connects back to that, uh, in taking the voice away from our students, from our educators, from the l- local communities actually feeling the impact, uh, of, of, of some of these changes.

Sonya Douglass: I would also say too that, you know, I think it's a responsibility of teacher preparation programs, and I, I teach in a educational leadership program, principals. Um, I think it's gonna be really important for us to, you know, think about how we're preparing these teachers who, you know, maybe are coming out of using so much AI at the, at the point when we get them five, 10 years from now, right?

And so does that, you know, like, what does that mean, and how do we, you know, prepare and consider that? Yeah, and where do we start, right? 'Cause research faculty who are responsible for teaching those courses in teacher and leader prep also need to have that understanding and be critical consumers of, um, AI and other educational technology.

So yes, there's so much happening all at once. And so for those who are researching or studying the politics of education, like both you, um, Jonathan and Carrie do, what are the research questions that students or maybe even emerging scholars should be taking up right now? There's so many different, I think, issues, controversies, um, trends that are happening with limited access to data.

Jonathan Collins: And so I just wanted to hear about how you're approaching that and how you're advising students or thinking about what, again, questions, what type of studies and work we should be taking up, um, in higher ed particularly. Yeah, I-I'll jump in first, and then, and then Kari, if you, and then you can follow. Um, so I think there's some big unsettled questions that we used to ask, then we stopped asking.

Like f- you know, one question I'm really in-interested in is the, just the relationship between, um, governance and policy and policy outcomes. Like, we have, you know, local governance in schools for a, a reason, and the reason seems to be just, like, as a old habit and not because we fundamentally believe that, like, local governance contributes to, um, a better education system.

And because we haven't believed that, that's why we've seen a lot of the siphoning, that's why we've seen the power taken away from school boards, that's why we've seen a close eye placed on superintendents, that's why we have a superintendent turnover rate that's like, what, three years on average? Um, because we've, like, we've l-lost any sort of like, um, almost, um, you know, sort of a, a, a, a kind of intellectual fulcrum of this understanding that what happens, uh, demo- uh, from a governance perspec-perspective democratically should directly shape policies, and, like, how that sort of potential, quote-unquote, "causal mechanism" actually works.

Like, how does a strong democratic system lead to a better school system? We be- I believe that it does. I think there's evidence that it does, but we need more and more evidence that, that that's the case because what we-we're seeing is the flip side, is that people are poking holes in this argument, and that every time a publicly elected school board experiences some sort of controversy, we say, "Oh, see?

Democracy doesn't work. The system is broken." And so I think we need, you know, more people asking the question of how does this relationship work with an, uh, with an expectation that it will. Um, going back to the previous conversation about AI, you know, it's, it's a very, uh, complicated issue in that on the one hand, AI is this sort of productivity enhancer, right?

Like, we can do... It allows us to do more and more things, especially, um, you know, in the kinds of sectors that we're in as researchers. Like, AI is actually very, very good for researchers when used properly, when paired with expertise. But at the same time, it can also lead to a lot of manipulation and misinformation.

Carrie Sampson: And so, you know, researching that at that intersection I think is incredibly important. Um, but I, I'll just, I'll, I'll leave it there, and, and, and Kari, let you jump in Sure. Um, I, I also-- One of my approaches that I've been, I've, I've found a little bit more meaningful lately is working with communities more directly and thinking about what is the research evidence that communities and schools need to help them mitigate what's happening right now and what we expect to happen in the future.

And so, um, I'm on a research committee with Save Our Schools network, and, um, we started talking to education lawyers and thinking about what is the evidence that you all will need to maybe litigate issues around anti-DEI, around, um, universal vouchers. And so they gave us a lot of good ideas about what type of things that we should be documenting right now and, you know, research that we should be collecting and questions that we need to be asking of district leaders.

So we started doing, um, interviews with district leaders to try to understand what are the impacts of vouchers? What have you, you know, the cost of vouchers that you're seeing? Are you losing teachers? Like, what, how many students are you losing? What-- And what are the questions that we... And how do we document that on an annual, biannual basis so we can see the, the trend over time?

Um, and I feel like, you know, that, that takes me out of my normal like, "Oh, what are the questions I'm interested in?" To, "What are the questions that we really need to be asking, um, to either reverse some of the harm that has been done or to move, uh, forward in terms of, you know, improving our schools, improving funding for schools, et cetera?"

Um, I think also, you know, how do, what are the strategies that schools, uh, school communities ne- are using, and what are successful strategies to navigate this, like, anti-CRT, anti-LGBTQ, anti-DEI movement, um, and thinking about that at various levels. So, you know, youth, what are youth doing? What can youth do?

What c- what can families do? What community c- what can community members do? What can teachers do, et cetera? School board members, state leaders. I mean, I think this is a varied level situation that, um, and, and, and these various groups, you know, can int- en-enact and, and implement these strategies. I think it's an important...

Uh, uh, one of the things I struggle with is whether we're, you know, being reactive and just documenting what's happening as researchers or, and how do we be proactive as well and, and think about, you know, what have we learned from the past, um- A lot of times in conversations with families and we have like, we talk about letter grades of schools, right?

Which a lot of them are based on test scores, and many of, uh, critical researchers will know that there's so many issues with test scores and how that's calculated into, you know, these factors. And so, you know, I think it's important to also have conversations with our communities about the harms of these certain things, these accountability systems that exist, because it's just been so normalized, um, a hyper-focus on testing, a hyper-focus on, you know, like not reading full books, um, you know, and just preparing, you know, having small passages.

Like thinking about how do we engage as scholars and provide some of that community, um, uh, scholarship in addition to gathering kind of what, what are the questions that, that, you know, are needed on the ground and how can we be part of that as researchers? I think also working with the media too, I wanna say, um, that's been really interesting.

When school boards kind of, you know, exploded the last few years, um, I've been in a lot more conversations with media, and there was one particular journalist who asked me to work with her on some school board meeting, like analyzing school board meetings, and she put together this beautiful, um, like six-piece, you know, uh, series in ProPublica about, you know, what was going on at school board meetings.

And so being able to work with her in a way and, and knowing that that work would get out to a much broader audience than I could ever get it out to, you know? And so thinking about how do we build these relationships with media that also wanna take a kind of a critical stance on what's happening. What does the research communities need?

Sonya Douglass: I, I think it's such a really important and significant question that I think we all should be grappling with more, and especially if we're interested in transformative education. Um, and I, it, it's a, I think, you know, as a sort of to piggyback on that, um, you know, this question, uh, you know, I'm definitely interested in hearing, um, Superintendent Chavarria's, um, uh, response to this, but also I think, you know, Kari, you've, you've led us off with this, but also Jonathan would love to hear maybe what you might have to add to this as well.

But how can education researchers support educational practitioners and communities in the current context of attacks on equity and public education itself? What questions and information would be useful to district leaders Well, Jonathan and Carrie already, uh, uh, answered much of that, uh, for me, and, uh, I cannot wait to, uh, see much of what this work yields over the next few years because we need, we need this last year.

Wilmer Chavarria: We need this last decade. We were already paying the price of a lot of unchecked, um, pseudoscience of, like, the great aspirational benefits of privatizing it all, of taking resources away, of punishing our Black schools, of, uh, of saying that our impoverished communities in certain neighborhoods are just, uh, just naturally inferior and they will never do good enough no matter what you do, so we need to close that school.

We need, we needed that in the 1980s. I don't know why we're still having this conversation right now and why still in 2025 I'm having to explain to people, even self-professed liberals, why undermining our public schools is a bad, bad idea for all of us, where even if you don't have children, even if you have, you know, w- it doesn't matter.

It's just bad for all of us. And so, um, right now in the state of Vermont, believe it or not, the bluest state, even bluer than Massachusetts, we're having to explain the basics to people. I have a Democratic Party here who self, is self-profess- professed, uh, pro-public education, yet I'm having to, um, remind them that, uh Remind them some of the basics again of why it's a bad idea to simply, uh, take control away from the local communities.

Remind them that sometimes the cost of education is m- uh, is not about the cost, but, but about, but about the value. Remind them that not every child is the same, not every community is the same. Remind them that the schools, again, much of like the very first question that we had here, do so much more both because we really want to and we see that our students need it, but because we were also made to.

Law after law after law, both at the federal level and the state level and even locally, continue to, uh, say, "The rest of society can forget about this. The rest of the state can forget about this. Everybody else, you don't have to worry about it 'cause in the end we're just gonna keep adding more and more and more onto the responsibilities of the schools.

And when something goes awry and when something goes wrong, when things are not working out, then we can just blame the schools because they were responsible for that." And so I n- I need the, uh, the empirical, uh, evidence right now so that I don't have to be the one having to constantly remind people of the basic, uh, basics, and I can simply say, "Read this."

I have wonderful people already, uh, in the state, in the nation. We already have great, um, great work out there right now, but clearly, clearly it's not enough. It has not been persuasive enough. Some people just don't want to see numbers. Uh, but, but let's keep the work going 'cause I think it's worth it, and I think we're not so deep in the bad swamp yet that, that it's unfixable.

I believe that we can fix this. We're still on time.

Sonya Douglass: I wanna offer one provocation. 'Cause I feel like in education, we, we kind of agree in terms of our values, right? In terms of our commitment to democracy, public schools, public education, and sometimes feel that we need to educate those that might not feel the same way. But there are people that genuinely don't have the same values.

They don't believe that. They don't need to be reminded 'cause they never really believed it in the first place. And so I just kind of raise that in thinking about how, what does a strategy look like when you recognize that people are not for educating all children? They don't want public dollars to be invested in schools.

They are really supporting what the president is doing in terms of dismantling the Department of Education and all that comes with that. And so I just, I wanna offer that, and I know that's a question that came up also in the Q&A, but what, h- what does a strategy look like and a vision for education when a large share of the country does not support a certain set of values as it relates to educating all students?

Um, and then connected to that, you know, how do you see the dismantling of the Department of Education and a lot of those functions just being distributed to other departments playing out at the local level?

Jonathan Collins: Thank you for adding that, that complication there. But I'll let my, my colleagues take the rest Well, it, so um, this is... I actually don't have that much of an issue with the dismantling of the, of the Department of Education, h- honestly. Like, I, I think that's... So here's the thing, like there's this, there's this kind of romantic attachment to the Department of Education as if it was this like in- incredible thing.

And, and it w- it, it, it's n- it's not. It's, it's fine. We spent a lot of time critiquing it. Yeah. Like Title I is, is great. It, it, the Title I is good, but it's not great. It's a, it- they in- w- what? We, we at most you're getting 8% of, uh, uh, of your, uh, uh, of your full expenditure budget coming from, you know, Title I programs and Title II and Title III.

It's fine. The Office of Civil Rights has been good, but could be, it could have b- could have been better. There are still le- legal ad- advancements in, in, in education that haven't been made. Like, we still have schools e- that are just as segregated if not more segregated than they were in the 1960s and 1950s.

So, like, there was you know, the, the Department of Education needed a, an more than a facelift, right? Um, so m- my issue is not the dismantling of the Department of Education. My issue is the, the, the, the rationale that's being given for its dismantling, and I think, you know, what we need to do is be figuring out what our rationale should be for constructing or reconstructing a Department of Education that actually does the work we need it to do, that actually ensures that kids in vulnerable communities are getting access to quality instruction every single day, and that are on pathways to social mobility and success and opportunity and self-love and joy, right?

Like, we should be planning that as opposed to like having some funeral Who's responsible for doing that? Who's responsible for it, for doing that? Well, I think w- we as scholars I think should be promoting this idea as opposed to, you know, like, you know, having some funeral for the Department of Education, which seems like that's what we're doing.

We're like all wearing black, and we're, you know, sad. Oh, the Department of Education is gone. Like, no. Like, this is a time to actually show up with our hard hats and some bricks and start thinking about how to, how to build something. Yeah. And, you know, uh, co- conversations like this with superintendents, state education agencies, leaders, nonprofit organizations, community activists, organizers who know what a quality education should look like for the kids in their communities.

Carrie Sampson: You know, like we should be having some real conversations about that I guess I'll build off of that. Um, in terms of I, I, I always think about, um, Valerie Carr's Revolutionary Love, and she was talking, she talks about, you know, this is a, a rebirth rather than just a, you know, a death of, you know. But perhaps this could be a rebirth of, of something better.

And so yes, Jonathan, I agree that, you know, I, I, I do think the Department of Ed, though, had did some really important work, um, in terms of, you know, collecting data and Office of Civil Rights complaints and following through. I mean, I've seen, like, the ways in which those complaints have moved districts to do what's right by our children.

Um, and now these complaints are being, you know, completely ignored and, and actually reversed, um , for, you know, uh, completely opposite it, w- you know, issues. And so, um, I am concerned. But yes, I think that they could do better, and how do we see this as an opportunity to, to improve? But I also, I, I recognize the s- the, the dilemma of, you know, uh, what do we do in the short term?

I mean, there's, like, our long-term goal of, you know, moving towards, um, making sure people are activated and trying to protect and, and fight for our public schools, and at the same time, when our neighborhood schools are closing, what do we tell these families? You know, where do we tell them to go? You know, and how do we provide safe spaces?

And so, you know, the Black Mothers Forum here, uh, created micro schools, which I'm highly concerned about, and at the same time, they become, you know, little, you know, micro spaces for, particularly for Black children learning about, you know, Afrocentric curriculum, and, you know, these children are not gonna be expelled and suspended, you know?

And, you know, I have huge concerns about it, and that, you know, and at the same time, I can't really blame them, um, because, you know, the, our neighborhood schools are so eroded and so defunded and, you know, there's so many issues. And so, um, I think it's a both/and strategy. I think we can't ignore and pretend like our, you know, where we're at is, is okay for our children.

Jonathan Collins: Um, and so, but we need to continue to fight for, for local public schools. W- well, I agree, and, but I, I also wanted to say something too to the other part of your question, Sonya, which is that, well, what do we do about these people that actually like what's happening politically and policy-wise? And I'm not even sure that they like it as much as they think they do, because, like, so w- here's the thing.

So where do we see the most progress made on school desegregation? In the South. It was, it was, it was, it's been the southern states that at, that between 19, uh, between, uh, you know, 1954, Brown v. Board, and, you know, when we started to see that regression around 2007, it was school districts in the u- in the, in the South that made the most progress in desegregating their schools.

I'm not saying that these became bas- places became bastions of, of progressive racial politics, but I'm saying there was, there's proof of concept here that, like, there, there is support for a diverse and equality education being administered in this space, and I think what's happened is there's responsiveness to Trump's message, but not necessarily Trump's politics and policies.

But we have to offer an alternative to Trump's messages that not only have policies and practices, but have our own message, and I think, like, that's been an, an, an issue too. Like, we've acce- assumed that people don't want these things too, but I think if, that if we actually went out into communities and had more conversations with people who we seemingly disagree with, we'll find that, like, more of them actually want some of these same things as well.

Uh, uh, this goes back to something that was mentioned earlier about the media and who controls the media, and the ways in which certain messages, certain narratives are being suppressed, not even covered. Um, I mean, one simple case in point, the No Kings protest had a lot more people out there than was actually covered, right?

Ezekiel Dixon-Román: Um, and so I, I, I think that we're dealing with also a structural issue here that's at play that's also suppressing, um, what, what in fact is actually the sentiment, if you will, the opinion, the attitudes that actually exist out there. Um, there's also, I, what I hear, too, is this tension, um, at least in the conversation right now, is this tension between federal and state.

Um, federal and, and even local for that matter, right? Um, and on the one hand, I'm gonna take, uh, special education or even disability, right, the IDEA Act, for instance, that w- was really a federal, it's really on the federal level that is providing, um, provisions, if you will, for, at, at, for states. But, um, w- in relation to thinking about the dismantling of, of the Department of Education, how to think about that very tension there, and even how, how to account for concerns or interests around accountability.

Um, do we, are we still interested? Do we still have concerns around that? Is there another way of approaching that? Um, and so I think there's, there are these, there, there's this tension that I, I, I almost wanna try to get, get, to try to tease out a bit here between federal and, and, and state. And of course, what's being pushed?

States' rights, right? Um, w- and we know the history around that, so how, again, how do we think about and make sense of, of that very tension, and what is the kind of, um, m- movement and shifts that you think we should be moving, the directions we should be moving in?

Wilmer Chavarria: Um, I'm I'm not... Oh, I, there were several parts to that, but I will say I, I believe in government. I don't believe in this government, if we're talking at a federal level. Um, I... Not saying I believed in the government before it either, um, but I think that we as a society, we- the United States is such a complex and large system, and extremely influential, rich, you name it, uh, diverse especially, that, uh, it can, it, it, it c- there is a s- there is a world where, where it could work, and where children and our schools could make sense, whatever the, the setup may be.

Uh, you know, whether it's micro schools or, or our large schools, our comprehensive high schools, whatever it is. Um, and, um, I think the balance between the federal government and the state government, it co- uh, is one that, again, can work, can be acceptable to many of our policy priorities that many of us people like me would advocate for.

Um, the way in which we get to some of those ends, um, the, the, are not irrelevant, but less important than the players who control the means. The play- Who are the politicians? Who are the people in charge? What are their priorities? Are, are they... We know that the majority of, the majority of politicians, especially at a high level, don't really care much about what they say.

They, they care about most things that have generally to do with money and influence and, and, and, um, and things that we don't, we will not hear from them. Uh, but I will say I believe that a strong federal government has a role to play. I believe that many of the changes we've seen, whether in the South or elsewhere over the past few decades, would not have been, uh, possible without, uh, an actual, uh, strong federal structure.

Um, we can talk all day about how badly that went and how far from ideal, uh, the execution of much of that was, but I do not believe that leaving the states alone or the localities alone to do certain things will yield much of our, what our collective priorities should be. Do I-- Does that mean I don't believe in local control?

Of course, I do believe in local control, but I don't believe in allowing certain communities to simply, uh, become exclusionary and legitimize that and dignify that approach. Uh, so I, I'll leave it there.

Jonathan Collins: Yeah, and if I could add to it, I just think going to the federal government, to this administration, and actually starting to ask the, the, the central questions here. Uh, instead of playing defense so much, tell us what are you gonna do with the fact that we- the kids lost on average about, what, two months of instruction during COVID that we still haven't seen recovery from, and that re- and that learning loss was twice as prevalent in Black and Brown communities and in poor communities?

What are you going to do about that? The fact that higher education is becoming less and less attainable for our kids, what are you going to do about that? The fact that, look at the economy, look at the prospects of jobs for the futures. The kids now who are in elementary school, middle school, what, what future are they inheriting?

Like, and the administration has not had to answer these questions. And I think w- these are the kinds of questions that we should be putting on the table, and we're letting, we're, we're letting them off by not doing so and just sort of defending some of these sort of like, sort of, uh, principles, um, and talking points that we've kind of been sticking to.

Carrie Sampson: Can I also just throw a plug in there for a paper that, uh, Dr. Douglas and I wrote years ago, um, about putting the public back in public education a- around the Every S- Every Student Succeeds Act, and the idea was to focus more on local, you know, uh, localities. It was the first time that in one of these federal kind of bills that they had even mentioned school boards or school districts.

And so, um, you know, we, we acknowledged the concerns of a lack of federal government involvement, but at the same time we thought, "Okay, how do you, how do you utilize and leverage local politics in a way that can help move equity forward and continue equity?" And so, you know, we ta- i- in that paper we, we talked about the importance of community advocacy and activism, which has, you know, local community advocacy and activism has moved equity forward in many districts.

Um, we talked about school districts' abilities and school boards' abilities to provide their own kind of Office of Civil Rights type of complaint system so that they can start to address that. You know, we don't necessarily, you know, we don't have to wait for the federal government to come and do that, right?

There might, you know, so if you have a school district and, and a school board that is willing and wants to address, um, these issues, you know, they can set that up in a way, um, that makes sense at the local level and that is transparent and continues to engage the public, um, in their decision-making. I think that's such a great point.

Sonya Douglass: I mean, a lot of this is about power, right? And building political power and who holds that power and how, whether or not there is a vision and a strategy, um, I think to, to implement it and to make it real. Um, so we have only nine minutes left. Um, I wanna invite our panelists as well as Ezekiel to, to share any other thoughts before we close out today.

So maybe just take a, a minute or so if you have, um, some points that you wanna share. Um, we also have some questions in the chat if there's- I might even encourage thinking about, um, any, uh, thing you might wanna share of some glimmers of hope, um, and possibility

Carrie Sampson: I, I will say that what's been encouraging for me lately is to see that families and communities are activated. Like, um, you know, when, when we were dealing in the school district that I live in with these school closures, families showed up and showed out. Um, you know, youth showed up and showed out. You know, they were fighting for their local public schools.

They were crying in tears, begging, you know, to, um, have a local public school. And I think that that also helped them understand and, and be more, um, invested at the state level and show up at the, the capital that, you know, that, in the next rally. And, you know, there are people who are beginning to understand what this means and, um, there are groups that are organizing.

There are lots of organizations that have emerged, um, out of what's happening. And so I think I'm encouraged by the fact that, you know... And if, if our public schools were, were not worth fighting for, they wouldn't be showing up. Um, and, and, you know, they wouldn't be crying for them. They wouldn't be fighting for them.

And so I think that, you know, we have to leverage this opportunity, um, and ensure that we're, we're continuing to get involved as if y- you know, for your position as a scholar, like being engaged in a sch- as a scholar, a scholar activist, whatever it is that you need to do, a parent, a district leader. Like, engage and leverage, um, this activism that is, is happening

Jonathan Collins: Yeah. And I'll say similarly, um, I'm very... I, I find hope and optimism in the fact that it's just clear that, like, we are in, federal government with- notwithstanding, we are in a very, we're in such a better place than we were. Like, the conversations now are so different, and it's because of that activism.

It's, so now we're having conversations about, uh, how to support kids who are neurodivergent. You know, now we're having conversations about, um, identity-based learning. Now we're having talk, conversations about play-based learning and early, early childhood interventions. Like, we are so much smarter and so much better in how we think about education than we were, like, tw- 20, 30 years ago.

And the, the, the, the only sad part is that n- we're on the cusp of potentially losing that because we're not fighting for it hard enough. And so that's where I think we need to be right now, is, like, understanding that, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, there's real proof of concept that the narrative changes that we have created as education scholars, as activists, as practitioners, have shifted the education system in the right direction.

Don't look at the test scores. Look at the way we talk about how kids learn, how they think, how they achieve, what their possibilities are. And if we can build on that-

Wilmer Chavarria: Yes. Yes, yes, yes Um, for me, for me, uh, I was, I was born in a refugee camp in a, in a, in a, um, fenced-in refugee camp in Central America. I grew up in extreme poverty, uh, experienced education in the most, uh, extreme, in the most extreme scarcity you could, you could, you could think of. Think of the worst time or place or conditions to go to school, quote, unquote.

Uh, that was, that was my school all, all the way through my teens. Um, and also life. I experienced a government and... Not government. Politics and, and a world much, much because of the actions of the United States in Central America that were, uh, pretty, pretty hostile to a child Mm. Extreme. And I do not believe that we're gonna get there anytime soon here in the US.

I don't believe that, uh, we as a society will have to face much of those horrors. Uh, but I... And I'm not grateful that I lived through that, but I do, uh, value the lessons I got from having to suffer through that. And, um, and that helps me see what we're going through from a different perspective. And I... It might sound perverse, but I do wish for, uh, people in the US, for everybody to experience some of the negative consequences of, uh, nastiness, political nastiness, and political cruelty in the United States, not to the level in which we ruin, uh, children's lives, not to the level in which we have families go hungry, but some level that we as a collective, almost as c- collect- collective nightmare that we go through, even the people that thought that w- supported that type of approach.

I, I do not wish to cross the threshold, but I wish us to see some of the consequences of w- a- and, and maybe for that to be the real reset that we're talking about And that's not very positive, but it will be positive 

Sonya Douglass: Well, I will say this, Superintendent Chavarria, I think your story, um, and your commitment to the students and families in your community and in other places that you've been is, um, an example of that possibility.

And so we thank you for, for being here. We thank Dr. Jonathan Collins, Dr. Kari Sampson, for sharing your expertise and time, and just the work that you're doing. It's more than, you know, your scholarship, but y- you work, I know personally that you work directly, uh, with students and families and communities, and that is so important at a time like this.

So, um, we just want to thank you and our panelists, uh, as our panelists, and I wanna thank my co-, uh, moderator, Ezekiel Dixon Roman, um, for his leadership and thoughtfulness, um, and for all of you for being present, um, for this very important discussion. And we hope, uh, that we'll see you at the next discussion, um, as a part of our Politics of Possibility series, which will be focused on advancing education for liberation through the ethnic studies and culturally responsive curriculum.

Um, we thank you all so much again for joining us, and we hope that you enjoy the rest of your day.