Jennifer Berkshire

1 month ago | barnraisingmedia.com | Jennifer Berkshire |Winona LaDuke

Kristina Reser-Jaynes can still recall a time when she’d never heard of school vouchers. Then, a few years ago, the Kickapoo school district in Southwestern Wisconsin that her daughters attend confronted a challenge all too common in small rural communities these days: a declining number of kids. “I started looking into the causes of our declining enrollment and just trying to get better informed,” says Resar-Jaynes, 57, who grew up in this scenic corner of Wisconsin.

1 month ago | educationwars.substack.com | Jennifer Berkshire

If you read the coverage regarding this week’s ‘bloodbath’ at the Deparment of Education, there is little sense to be made of the savage layoffs and shuttering of whole units. In reports like this one, this one, and this particularly half-baked take, the general tone is a sort of ‘how could this be happening?’ bafflement. But there is a brutal logic to rendering much of the Department inoperable.

1 month ago | inthesetimes.com | Jennifer Berkshire

When the Texas state House education committee held a hearing on a proposed voucher bill this Tuesday, parent Hollie Plemons was among the first people to arrive in the committee room. She’d spend much of the next 12 hours in the cramped, crowded space, waiting for her chance at the mic. And when her name was finally called, she didn’t hold back.

1 month ago | educationwars.substack.com | Jennifer Berkshire

This weekend, my inbox filled up with reports of contentious townhalls. No, not THOSE contentious townhalls, in which angry voters confronted GOP officials over the DOGE-ing of America. The raucous events that caught my attention involved locals in Texas who are unhappy that their elected officials are supporting a massive, and deeply controversial, school voucher bill. Here’s one such scene from Palestine, TX, where some residents are furious over their state rep’s flip flop on the issue.

1 month ago | thebaffler.com | Jennifer Berkshire

“No such department exists in the federal government,” Elon Musk pronounced recently of the Department of Education. While the official dismembering of ED—as it is referred to distinguish it from the other DOE, the Department of Energy—will require an act of Congress, Musk’s wrecking crew has already succeeded in hollowing out the beleaguered agency, laying off staff, shutting off funding, and winnowing its mission.