Education has become a major battleground for the attempted anti-racist paradigm shift of diversity, equity and inclusion work; mirroring society, this work remains stuck in a cycle of advancement and retaliation.

Education administrators at all levels need to act now to resist a rising tide of efforts against social science knowledge. That tide includes bans on state funding for teaching DEI in schools, public colleges and state agencies.

Alabama just followed Florida, Utah and Texas in banning state funding of DEI work and DEI positions and programs are being restricted, challenged and canceled across the nation, in industry and academia. DEI instructors are suffering the consequences.

The backlash against DEI work is predictable. History reminds us that counterattacks have followed every advancement in equity and inclusion, from Brown vs. Board of Education to affirmative action.

But schools must not acquiesce to this backlash. The work is too important to abandon. That’s why schools need to broaden the reach of DEI content and protect the instructors and faculty who are responsible for teaching it.

Related: One school district’s ‘playbook’ for undoing far-right education policies

Instead of caving in, educational institutions should double down on DEI efforts. California is leading the way by requiring the teaching of ethnic studies at the secondary level. That’s a good start, but to be transformative, nationally, content should be representative and include African American studies; Asian American studies; Latinx studies; Native American Studies; women, gender and sexuality studies; and sociology and other social sciences across the K-12 curriculum. The lack of instruction in these fields in K-12 education can help explain why there are such strong attacks on DEI.

Universities also need to integrate such content more fully to foster an understanding of diverse experiences and inequities within our institutions. Universities would do well to consider requiring DEI seminars as part of orientation and encourage faculty to include DEI content in every course. Universities can offer professional development to faculty and staff.

Universities must also update retention, tenure and promotion methods to create new ways for faculty who teach DEI content to be evaluated and help neutralize the personal and political anti-DEI response. Neither university nor K-12 policies have yet caught up with the need to protect faculty.

As professionals, instructors are expected to facilitate controversial course content and student dialogue. Yet, for DEI instructors, university environments can be openly contentious, particularly in predominantly white spaces and in courses addressing a less receptive crowd.

And yet DEI content is vital. If students are exposed to DEI curricula, they can learn how white supremacy is enacted and maintained. They can learn how white privilege and power operate, how institutional policies uphold whiteness, how stereotypes are perpetuated and how implicit biases cultivate mistrust and disrespect.

Yet many students, especially in required courses, have difficulty accepting these concepts.

Usually, when a student in a classroom is not understanding the material, they ask for help. But a different tactic is typical in DEI classes. There, too often, struggling students attempt to discredit the educator and the field of social science.

In course evaluations, some students have called DEI educators “divisive” or “close-minded” for discussing racism — and have even attacked the appearance of their DEI educators. Their end-of-term evaluations reveal hate speech protected by anonymity.

These attacks then become entrenched as part of professors’ academic records and impact their well-being, salaries, employment and careers. Research shows that women and educators of color, particularly Black, Asian, Latinx and Indigenous women, receive worse evaluations than their white and male counterparts.

How should educators respond to such hostility and resistance? Should we confront, ignore, accommodate, negotiate, tolerate or use conflict mediation techniques?

A business educator would not be required to conform to the beliefs of anti-business students; we don’t ask dental educators to change their practices and curriculums to be more palatable to anti-dentistry audiences.

To accommodate resistance to our legitimate fields is to coddle and reproduce white supremacy.

Related: STUDENT VOICE: Bill targeting DEI offices in public universities has a chilling impact on students

DEI knowledge must be made accessible even to an aggressively anti-DEI crowd. This education is direly needed. States and universities fail their faculty and the public when they cave in and allow cuts and bans to DEI and fail to protect those who teach it.

Education is meant to broaden horizons and encourage critical thinking. Exposure to social science research, which underpins and is informed by much DEI work, is needed to build an informed public.

When paradigms are shifting, they rarely go without resistance.

Sumer Seiki is an artist and associate professor at University of British Columbia with the Restoration Project.

Megan Thiele Strong is a sociology professor at San José State University and a 2023-24 Public Voices fellow at the The OpEd Project.

This story about DEI bans was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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At a national park in Virginia on Monday, President Joe Biden announced that people can start applying to the American Climate Corps, a program that is expected to connect workers with more than 20,000 green jobs. 

“You’ll get paid to fight climate change, learning how to install those solar panels, fight wildfires, rebuild wetlands, weatherize homes, and so much more that’s going to protect the environment and build a clean energy economy,” Biden said at the Earth Day event. 

The American Climate Corps (ACC) is modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which was created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 to employ men in environmental projects on the country’s public lands — projects like trail building, planting trees and soil erosion control. Nearly 3 million people were put to work in an effort to address both Depression-era unemployment and to shore up national infrastructure.

But it wasn’t very diverse. Although Black and Native American men were allowed to enroll, the work was segregated. And women could not apply. For a brief time, a sister program created by Eleanor Roosevelt — mockingly called the “She-She-She camps” by its detractors — trained 8,500 women in skills like typing and filing.  

The Biden administration is adamant that this iteration of the program will attract a more diverse conservation and climate workforce, promising that the program will “look like America” and expand pathways into the workforce for people from marginalized backgrounds.

On Monday, Biden announced the launch of a long-awaited job board where applicants can look for opportunities. Some positions were created through the American Climate Corps partner agencies like the Forest Service, which announced the Forest Corps — 80 jobs in reforestation and wildfire mitigation — or the USDA’s Working Lands Climate Corps, with 100 positions. At the same time, the Department of Interior and the Department of Energy announced a new project that will place corps members in priority energy communities — places that have historically been the site of coal mining and power plants — for work in community-led projects like environmental remediation. All of these positions have a term limit, although they vary; some listed on the website are seven-months for example, others are over a year long. 

Other jobs listed on the site are compiled from existing conservation corps programs; either state-run programs like the California Conservation Corps or those run by nonprofits like Conservation Legacy. These provide opportunities for young people in local communities to do everything from prescribed burning on public lands to solar panel installations on schools. 

So far, there are 273 listings on the website, ranging from working on trail crews to invasive plant management to wildland firefighting positions. There is also an “ag literacy” position to teach kids about where their food comes from, and a posting for a climate impact coordinator who will help a Minnesota nonprofit develop climate resilience projects. That’s a far cry from the administration’s goal of 20,000 jobs.

But supporters of the program say opportunities to expand ACC are endless — from home weatherization positions to planting tree canopies in urban areas. The question is whether these mostly taxpayer-funded jobs will attract and retain a diverse workforce and benefits women and LGBTQ+ workers, as well as people of color. 

“We know that it is going to take everybody to solve the climate process and we need to field the whole team. That’s exactly the way we’ve thought about building this program,” said Maggie Thomas, special assistant for climate to Biden.

Because the program is working with The Corps Network, a national association of about 140 conservation groups, there is already some data on how modern-day organizations operate, said Mary Ellen Sprenkel, president and CEO of the network. “They collectively engage almost 25,000 young people a year and are very diverse — young people from urban areas to rural areas. There is a diversity of race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status and education level.”

According to the organization’s data from 2023, the most recent year available, 44 percent of their members were women and 3 percent were gender non-conforming or gender expansive.

Fifty-nine percent identified as White, while 14 percent were Black, 23 percent were Latino, 4 percent were American Indian, 3 percent were Asian and 2 percent were Pacific Islander. 

Sprenkel sees those numbers as progress. “What has evolved out of the original CCC has naturally become much more diverse in terms of member opportunities. And so building on that for the ACC, I think it will naturally happen,” said Sprenkel. 

In addition, any of the jobs created through federal agencies in collaboration with the ACC must adhere to the administration’s Justice 40 initiative, which means 40 percent of the benefits must go to marginalized communities, in this case either through job creation, or through the projects being funded through monies like the Inflation Reduction Act. 

One aspect of parity will be how well these jobs pay. Many of the positions listed on the ACC site are funded through AmeriCorps, which pays modest living stipends that have been criticized as “poverty wages.” AmeriCorps “was designed for middle class White people who could get support from their parents to have this opportunity,” Sprenkel said. But the Biden administration wants to ensure that all young people can serve, she continued, not just those who can afford to take lower-paying positions.

Sprenkel said the administration is aiming for positions to pay a living wage — with some wiggle room that allows for lower wages as long as housing and other benefits are provided. “[They’ve] said we would like for programs to strive to pay their members $15 an hour, but if that is the result of a package where you’re providing housing and transportation, that’s OK.”

One way the administration has aimed to increase pay transparency is to list an hourly wage equivalent for the jobs posted on the ACC website, said Thomas. This number could factor in stipends for transportation, living expenses and educational awards. Many jobs currently listed go above the $15 minimum — though some require more than entry-level experience. 

There are also efforts in the works to increase the low stipends of current AmeriCorps members. “The president has called on Congress to raise the minimum living allowance for all of our crew members to at least $15 an hour as a starting point,” said Yasmeen Shaheen-McConnell, senior advisor for AmeriCorps. In the interim, she said, many corps positions have been able to offer packages equivalent to $15 an hour through public and private partnerships with states and outside organizations.

Madeleine Sirois, a research analyst with the left-leaning think tank Urban Institute, has been researching workforce development pathways in the clean energy transition. She said offering paid opportunities to enter a new career is a good starting point. “So many people want to upskill, they want to get new credentials, and maybe change career paths. But then they can’t leave their current job that maybe only pays 10 bucks an hour,” she said. 

But other benefits are important, too, if the program is going to be equitable in its rollout, said Sirois. “It’s been mentioned on the portal that there are health care, child care, transportation and housing available, but it does say only some opportunities will offer that,” she said. “So it leaves me with the question of: Who has access to that and who doesn’t?” 

Among the initial 273 listings posted on the ACC site, The 19th found only four that listed child care as a benefit, though Shaheen-McConnell said that eventually more of the positions will offer it. 

Sirois said another important aspect of the ACC will be whether it will lead to actual jobs in clean energy and climate work after corps service ends. She was heartened by Monday’s announcement that the ACC had partnered with the North America’s Building Trades Alliance TradeFutures program, which will provide every ACC member access to a free pre-apprenticeship trades readiness program. Trades jobs make up the foundation of the clean energy transition, but have historically gone to men. Just 4 percent of women are trades workers in the United States. 

“These are all really important, especially for getting women and people of color into these jobs, and apprenticeships that will lead into quality careers that are unionized in many cases. So I think that’s fantastic,” said Sirois. However, while the administration has also touted that ACC positions will offer workforce certifications and skill-based training, Sirois said those are only offered for some corps members. Getting clarity on how many of these jobs will lead to improved employment opportunities will be key. 

It’s going to take time to see how the program plays out, she said, and learn if it will be successful in placing women and people of color in trades jobs, despite historic discrimination.

“When we talk about moving people into jobs, it’s making sure we’re very specific about what kinds of jobs in terms of the quality,” she said. “It’s about opportunities for advancement, having meaningful work, a workplace free from discrimination and harassment, and feeling that you have a voice on the job.” Sirois hopes the administration will collect data on corps members that tracks completion rates and job placements after service, and that the data can be disaggregated by gender and race.

Thomas said American Climate Corps jobs should be considered the earliest stage of the workforce development pipeline — leading to better paying jobs down the line. “This is an opportunity for young people to take action right now in communities across the country, on climate projects that we know have a tangible impact today.”

This story was originally published by The 19^th and reprinted with permission.

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JERSEY CITY, N.J. — When Keischa Taylor sees fellow student-parents around her campus, she pulls them aside and gives them a hug.

“I tell them, ‘Don’t stop. You’ve got this. You didn’t come this far to stop. You’re not going to give up on yourself.’ ”

Taylor is exceedingly well qualified to offer this advice. She began her college education in her early 20s, balancing it with raising two sons and working retail jobs. And she just finished her bachelor’s degree last semester — at 53.

It’s a rare success story. Student-parents disproportionately give up before they reach the finish line. Fewer than four in 10 graduate with a degree within six years, compared to more than six in 10 other students.

Many have long had to rely on themselves and each other, as Taylor did, to make it through.

Now, however, student-parents are beginning to get new attention. A rule that took effect in California in July, for example, gives priority course registration at public universities and colleges to student-parents, who often need more scheduling flexibility than their classmates. New York State in September expanded the capacity of child care centers at community colleges by 200 spots; its campus child care facilities previously handled a total of 4,500 children, though most of those slots — as at many institutions with child care on campus, nationwide — went to faculty and staff.

Taylor put her sons in a Salvation Army daycare center when they were younger. “It’s a matter of paying for college, paying for the babysitter or sneaking them into class,” Taylor recalled, at Hudson County Community College, or HCCC, where she went before moving on to Rutgers University. Even though the community college is among the few that have improved their services for student-parents, she remembered asking herself, “How am I going to do this?”

Parents with children comprise a huge potential market for colleges and universities looking for ways to make up for the plummeting number of 18- to 24-year-olds and states’ growing need for workers to fill jobs requiring a college education. Many of these parents already have some college credits. More than a third of the 40.4 million adults who have gone to college but never finished have children under age 18, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, or IWPR.

“If you want to serve adult learners, which colleges see as their solution to enrollment decline, you have to serve student-parents,” said Su Jin Jez, CEO of California Competes, a nonpartisan research organization that focuses on education and workforce policies.

Another reason student-parents are more visible now: The Covid-19 pandemic reminded Americans how hard it is to be a parent generally, never mind one who is juggling school on top of work and children.

Related: The hidden financial aid hurdle derailing college students

“A lot of the current energy has come from the focus on child care crises,” said Theresa Anderson, a principal research associate at the nonprofit research organization the Urban Institute. “Student-parents are at the intersection of that.”

There’s also new attention to the benefits for children of having parents who go to college.

“The greatest impact on a child’s likelihood to be successful is the education of their parents,” said Teresa Eckrich Sommer, a research professor at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research.

Lori Barr dropped out of college when she got pregnant at 19, but went back as a mother and ultimately got a master’s degree. With her son, Minnesota Vikings linebacker Anthony Barr, she later co-founded a scholarship organization for single student-parents in California and Minnesota called Raise The Barr.

“Whatever we’re doing to support the parent directly impacts the child,” Barr said. “A parent can’t be well if the child’s not well, and vice versa.”

The effect works two ways, Sommer said. In a study she co-authored of an unusual program that gives college scholarships to both high school students and their parents in Toledo, Ohio, the Institute for Policy Research found that students and parents alike performed at or above average, despite what Sommer noted were financial challenges and limited academic preparation.

“Call it mutual motivation. The children helped the parents with technical issues. The parents helped the children with time management,” she said. “We think of kids as a barrier to student success. We have to turn that on its head. Kids are a primary motivator to student success.”

Tayla Easterla was enrolled at a community college near Sacramento, California, when her daughter was born prematurely four years ago; she took her midterms and finals in the neonatal intensive care unit. “I just found that motherly drive somewhere deep inside,” said Easterla, 27, who now is majoring in business administration at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

Krystle Pale is about to get her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz. When she looks at her children who live with her, who are 5, 7, 12 and 13, “I want better for them. I just want them to have a better life,” said Pale, choking up.

Sydney Riester, of Rochester, Minnesota, who is about to earn her dental assistant associate degree, also said her children — ages 3, 6 and 7 — were foremost in her planning. “These kids need me, and I need to get this done for them,” Riester said.

Related: ‘We’re from the university and we’re here to help’

There’s a surprising lack of information about whether students in college have dependent children. Most institutions never ask. That is also slowly changing. California, Michigan, Oregon and Illinois have passed legislation since 2020 requiring that public colleges and universities track whether their students are also parents. A similar federal measure is pending in Congress.

“Ask community college presidents what percentage of their students are parents, and they’ll say, ‘That’s a really good question. I’ll get back to you,’ ” said Marjorie Sims, managing director of Ascend at the Aspen Institute, one of a growing number of research, policy and advocacy organizations focusing on student-parents.

Nearly one in four undergraduate and nearly one in three graduate students, or more than 5.4 million people, are parents, the Urban Institute estimates. More than half have children under age 6, according to the IWPR.

Seventy percent of student-parents are women. Fifty-one percent are Black, Hispanic or Native American. Student mothers are more likely to be single, while student fathers are more likely to be married.

Among student-parents who go to college but drop out, cost and conflicts with work are the most-stated reasons, various research shows; 70 percent have trouble affording food and housing, according to the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice at Temple University.

Student financial aid is based on an estimated cost of attendance that includes tuition, fees, books, supplies, transportation and living expenses, but not expenses related to raising a child. The out-of-pocket cost of attending a public university or college for a low-income parent can be two to five times higher than for a low-income student without children, according to the advocacy group The Education Trust.

A student-parent would have to work 52 hours a week, on average, to cover both child care and tuition at a public university or college, EdTrust says. A separate analysis by California Competes found that students in that state who have children pay $7,592 per child a year more for their educations and related expenses than their classmates who don’t have kids.

But “when they apply for financial aid, they get financial aid packages as if they don’t have children. It’s ludicrous,” said Jez, at California Competes.

Forty-five percent of student-parents who dropped out cited their need to provide child care as a significant cause, a survey released in February found. Yet the number of colleges and universities with on-campus child care has been dropping steadily, from 1,115 in 2012 to 824 today, federal data shows. That’s a decline of 291 institutions, or 26 percent.

Fewer than four in 10 public and fewer than one in 10 private, nonprofit colleges and universities have on-campus child care for students, an analysis by the think tank New America found. Ninety-five percent of those campus child care centers that existed in 2016 — the most recent year for which data is available — had waiting lists, and the number of children on the average waiting list was 82, according to the IWPR. Other students couldn’t afford the cost.

Related: When a Hawaii college sets up shop in Las Vegas: Universities chase students wherever they are

“Colleges and universities that enroll student-parents should be committed to serving their needs,” said Christopher Nellum, executive director at EdTrust-West and himself the son of a student-mother who ultimately dropped out and enlisted in the military, finding it was easier to be a parent there than at a community college. “It’s almost willful neglect to be accepting their tuition dollars and financial aid dollars and not helping them succeed.”

Even where child care is available and spots are open, it’s often too expensive for students to manage. More than two-thirds of student-parents in Washington State said they couldn’t afford child care, a state survey last year found. About half of student-parents nationwide rely entirely on relatives for child care.

Hannah Allen, who goes to HCCC, gets up at 5 a.m. to get her three kids ready for the day — first the 4-year-old, then the 6-year-old, then the 8-year-old. “I go down the line,” she said. Her schedule is so tight, she has a calendar on her refrigerator and another on the wall.

She can’t drop off her children at school or daycare earlier than 8:30 or pick them up later than 5. “When my kids are in school is when I do as much as I can.” She calls her school days “first shift,” while her time at home at night is “second shift.”

“First you put your kids, then you put your jobs, then you put your school and last you put yourself,” said Allen. “You have to push yourself,” she said, starting to cry softly. “Sometimes you think, ‘I can’t do it.’ ”

There is a little-noticed federal grant program to help low-income student-parents pay for child care: Child Care Access Means Parents in School, or CCAMPIS. Last year CCAMPIS was allocated about $84 million; the Government Accountability Office found that student-parents who got CCAMPIS’s subsidies were more likely to stay in school than students generally. But there were more students on the waiting list for it than received aid. A Democratic proposal in the Senate to significantly increase funding for the program has gone nowhere.

The Association of Community College Trustees, or ACCT, is pressing member colleges to make cheap or free space available for Head Start centers on their campuses in the next five years. Fewer than 100 of the nation’s 1,303 two-year colleges — where more than 40 percent of student-parents go — have them now, the ACCT says.

Related: Aging states to college graduates: We’ll pay you to stay

These things are a start, but much more is needed, said Chastity Lord, president and CEO of the Jeremiah Program, which provides students who are single mothers with coaching, child care and housing. “When your child is sick, what are you going to do with them? It becomes insurmountable. Imagine if we had emergency funding for backup child care.”

Jen Charles struggled with child care as she tried to earn a degree and become a social worker from the time she was 19, when she had a son who was born with disabilities. He was followed by a daughter. Charles was also working, as an administrative assistant and, later, a paralegal.

“When things were going smoothly, I would enroll for one class and say, ‘I’m going to get through this,’ ” she said. But it proved too much. And even though Charles, now 49, got an information technology certification last year through the continuing education arm of HCCC, earning a full-fledged degree “became kind of an extinguished dream.”

As important as an education was to her, she said, “your priority becomes being able to sustain your family — their well-being, their needs being met, a roof, food. All of these other things take precedence. And where in there do you fit your papers that are due, or studying for your quiz? Is that at 10 o’clock at night, when you’re exhausted?”

Just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, HCCC has steadily added programs to support the parents among its 20,000 students. It has set aside “family-friendly” spaces in libraries and lounges and holds events for parents with kids, including movie nights, barbecues, trick-or-treating and a holiday tree-lighting ceremony. There’s a food pantry with meals prepared by the students in the college’s culinary program.

Student-parents get to register first for courses. College staff help with applications to public benefit programs. Lactation rooms are planned. And there are longer-range conversations about putting a child care center in a new 11-story campus building scheduled to open in 2026.

The college’s 20,000 students are largely poor and the first in their families to go to college, said Christopher Reber, HCCC’s president, and many are not native English speakers. Ninety-four percent qualify for financial aid. Having children, Reber said, “adds insurmountable challenges to that list of insurmountable challenges.”

There’s an even more immediate motivation for the two-year college to support its student-parents. It graduates only 17 percent of students, even within three years, which is among the lowest proportions in the state.

“If a student doesn’t know where their next meal is coming from, it doesn’t matter how much academic support you offer — the student is not going to succeed,” said Reber, in his office overlooking downtown Jersey City.

Related: One college finds a way to get students to degrees more quickly, simply and cheaply

With a grant it got in January from the Aspen Institute’s Ascend, HCCC is expanding its work with the housing authority in Jersey City to help student-parents there enroll in and complete job-focused certificate programs in fields such as bookkeeping and data analytics, hiring a coordinator to work with them and appointing an advisory committee made up of student-parents.

It can be hard to win the trust of student-parents, said Lori Margolin, HCCC’s associate vice president for continuing education and workforce development. “Either they’ve tried before and it didn’t work out, so they’re reluctant to go back, or it’s too much of an unknown. ‘Do they care that I have children and I’m not going to be able to take classes at these times?’ ”

Like other schools, HCCC had what Reber called “Neanderthal” rules for student-parents. They weren’t allowed to bring their kids to campus, for example.

“I remember one student, a single mother, relying on parents and friends to watch her baby. The only time she could study was late at night [in the library], but the library said no.”

That rule was dropped, with more changes planned. A new program will reward student-parents with financial stipends for doing things such as registering early and researching child care options, said Lisa Dougherty, senior vice president for student affairs and enrollment at HCCC.

A few other colleges and universities have programs designed for student-parents. Misericordia University in Dallas, Pennsylvania provides free housing for up to four years for up to 18 single mothers, who also get academic support and tutoring, priority for on-campus jobs and access to a children’s library and sports facilities.

At Wilson College in Pennsylvania, up to 12 single parents annually are awarded grants for on-campus housing and for child care, and their children can eat in the campus dining hall for free.

St. Catherine University in Minnesota subsidizes child care for eligible student-parents and has child-friendly study rooms.

And Howard Community College in Maryland, whose president was once a student-parent, provides mentorship, peer support, career counseling, financial assistance and a family study room in the library.

“That may not seem like a big deal, but those are the messages that say, ‘You belong here, too,’ ” Lord said.

These efforts have so far helped a small number of students. Forty single mothers have graduated from the Misericordia program since it was launched more than 20 years ago, for instance.

Some of the obstacles for student-parents are hard to measure, said Jessica Pelton, who finished community college after having a daughter at age 20 and ultimately graduated from the University of Michigan, where her husband also was enrolled.

“You’re typically isolated and alone,” said Pelton. “I just kind of stuck to myself.”

She would often miss out on nighttime study groups with classmates who lived on campus. “Their priorities are not to go home, make dinner and put their kid to bed. We don’t have the option to go party. We’re not here on our parents’ money. We’re paying our own way.”

Some faculty offered to let her bring her daughter to class, she said. “It really meant a lot to me, because it made me feel like a part of campus.”

Finding fellow student-parents helps, too, said Omonie Richardson, 22, who is going to college online to become a midwife while raising her 1-year-old son and working as a chiropractic assistant 35 hours a week in Fargo, North Dakota.

“I felt very isolated before I found a group of other single moms,” she said. “If we had the understanding and support in place, a lot more parents would be ready to pursue their educations and not feel like it’s unattainable.”

This story about student-parents was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.

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In 2023, Diamond Harriel was looking to make a career switch. She had a 10-month-old daughter and had recently gone back to school for a business administration degree, hoping it could help her earn higher pay than the temporary administrative jobs she had been working. 

One day, through a program that helps single moms, she saw a flier about a new city initiative in Rochester, Minnesota, that aimed to bring women of color into the construction workforce.  

After learning more, Harriel enrolled into a trades readiness training program that taught the ins and outs of construction, from how to read a blueprint, to operating different tools and basic safety. The program exposed her to the possibilities within the construction world: building inspections, project management, apprenticeships in skilled trades like plumbing and electricity.

The city initiative that guided Harriel through the training and helped set up the interview is called the Equity in the Built Environment program. It started in 2023 after Rochester Mayor Kim Norton won a $1 million grant from the Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Mayors Challenge. 

When the 2020 recession hit, one thing had become apparent to Norton: Women of color were bearing the brunt of it. In Rochester, they already held some of the lowest paid jobs, and as the pandemic took hold, those positions disappeared in sectors like the service industry, which disproportionately employs women of color. 

Related: The jobs where sexual harassment and discrimination never stopped

“Probably they struggled the most anyway,” Norton said. “But it was held up and in the sunlight during the pandemic in a way that it was so obvious you couldn’t ignore it.” 

What her office realized is that there wasn’t a shortage of employment opportunities.

Rochester, with a population around 220,000, was halfway into a $585 million, 20-year funding initiative to build new infrastructure downtown. It was also home to the prestigious Mayo Clinic, which had just announced a $5 billion economic growth project.  

All of that growth meant a lot of available construction jobs, which was facing a worker shortage. Could that problem be solved by diversifying the workforce? 

“Our research showed that very few women are in construction and almost no women of color. We said, ‘Well, here’s an opportunity,’” Norton said.  According to the city, women of color make up 13 percent of the city’s population but less than 1 percent work in the construction industry.

Over the past year the city has piloted Equity in the Built Environment to create a solution that could work for everyone — both the construction industry facing an employee shortage and the women they sought to help. If they are successful, they could be a model for other cities as construction projects boom across the country. 

The pilot project consists of tackling the workforce challenge in three ways, said project manager Julie Brock: educating women and girls about the employment possibilities; training and recruitment for women of color; and addressing long-standing issues with discrimination and harassment in the industry. 

First, program participants are set up with a career counselor with a local workforce development nonprofit, and then they enter either a trades readiness track, or an entrepreneurial track that helps women start their own construction businesses. Throughout that time they have access to wraparound services like child care and transportation to remove barriers to attending classes. For those looking for a job, the program works to place them at three different companies that are partners in the work. So far eight women have completed the program. 

Related: Women in construction have been marginalized. This bill would change that

Explaining to women that there could be a job in the field that fits their interests and skills has been a challenge, Brock said. At first, women assumed that the only jobs available would be more around tradework. Now, the pilot program has framed conversations around the built environment, more broadly, with other career opportunities in health and safety inspections, interior design and project management among others.

“The mindset shift is you are not asking people to go on a construction crew to swing hammers,” Brock said. “If somebody wants to do that, that’s great. But there is amazing wealth to be made in the built environment.”

Aaron Benike, vice president of operations at Benike Construction, one of the pilot’s partner companies, said that his company is doing whatever it can to attract a more diverse workforce. It’s what drew him to participating in this pilot. 

With the industry currently going through a wave of retirements of its primarily White male workforce — nationwide 1 in 5 construction workers is 55 or older — he realized they need to be more intentional about outreach. 

Out of over 200 employees, they have few women, and just one woman of color who currently works for the company. 

“It’s just a segment of the population that for one reason or another isn’t part of the team,” Benike said. “For one reason or another they haven’t felt welcome or we haven’t reached out, it’s probably both.”

The construction industry as a whole does have a reputation for discrimination and harassment. A report released by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last year found that women were often denied jobs or harassed and discriminated against on job sites in the construction industry. 

Benike, who had the opportunity to talk with women interested in construction when the program was being designed, said it opened his eyes to things he’d never really thought about. For the women, he said, “safety meant safety from harassment … and that was a blind spot to me,” he said. “I’ve been on job sites my whole life and never experienced anything like that, but why would I, right?” 

His company is currently undergoing training to obtain an Inclusive Workforce Employer Designation, a series of trainings focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, and a requirement to participate in the pilot. He hopes that job seekers will see that as a sign that his company is a safe space to work. The city’s pilot also has trained mentors at each company to work with women when they are hired to ensure a smooth transition into a new field. 

Benike wants to convince more women to consider getting into the field. “The pay is good. The training is good. It’s safe and the pension is good,” he said. 

In recent weeks the city has also launched public service announcements to bring more women into the pilot; now that it’s been running for over a year, organizers feel ready to scale up. 

For Sara Tekle, a participant who did the entrepreneurial track, the pilot has helped her start a business in craft labor, doing the demoing and cleaning up for construction projects.

Tekle, who is originally from Eritrea, was working in nursing at the Mayo Clinic for years. She had already been doing side jobs with construction after taking on some remodeling at her own house. 

But the program helped her build her website, start the process of getting her contractor license and register her business. She is now in a training that will help her place bids for construction work. She’s also been able to network with companies from the city’s pilot who could potentially contract with her company.

The Rochester City Council has adopted requirements that a certain number of women- and minority-owned businesses be involved in construction on city projects, which could help women like Tekle. 

The program made Tekle feel more comfortable working in construction and supported in making a transition to running a company full-time, which she hopes to do in May when bidding season starts for construction work. 

Tekle, who also works as a women’s advocate, said she’d like to encourage other women she knows to consider working in the built trades — eventually she hopes to be an employer. 

“The construction industry is not engaging or welcoming to women,” she said. “When I start my own company, the biggest vision is to hire a woman.” 

This story was produced by The 19th and reprinted with permission.

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Choosing a college has always been an excruciating, time-consuming process for prospective students and their families. But it seems to be getting even more difficult.

These days, after prospective students have figured out how to pay, how close to home they want to be, which schools offer majors they’re interested in studying, and whether the sports teams are ones they’d be proud to cheer for, there are about a zillion other things to consider. Among them: Will there be other students like them in race, gender and sexuality or political orientation? Are there laws in the state that might affect their life and education? Will there be guest speakers or outspoken professors who are shouted down on campus or banned from speaking altogether? Are they going to feel comfortable and safe walking to the nearest grocery store for instant ramen and Red Bull during finals week?

Amid the flurry of questions, one thing is clear: The culture wars are starting to affect where students choose to go for college.

Until now, when planning for college, students and families have been left to do a zillion Google searches on their own, especially if they want to learn what factors influence the social climate of any given campus. Until now, there hasn’t been an easy, one-stop-shop way to assess where a student might feel welcome.

This week, The Hechinger Report launched the College Welcome Guide, an interactive tool that allows you to search by state or any college in the nation for factors such as the racial diversity of students and faculty, freedom of speech, whether the college has an LGBTQ+ resource center, local regulations on abortion access and whether the state has enacted any legislation that might affect the way certain topics are taught.

The College Welcome Guide can also tell you the percentage of students who get Pell Grants (federal aid for students from low-income families); graduation rates by race; whether a state offers in-state tuition to undocumented students; state-level policies on tuition benefits for student veterans, and other campus data.  

The idea behind putting these various elements together in one place was to make the increasingly long and daunting process of choosing a college a bit easier and less intimidating. We don’t purport to know what college is best for anyone, but we hope that with so much information in one place, people will be able to compare options and make the best choices. 

I was one of the Hechinger journalists who worked on this guide, and I’d like to tell you a little bit about the herculean lift by our higher education team that brought it to life.  

My colleagues Jon Marcus and Fazil Khan got the idea in June, while many of us were at the Education Writers Association’s national conference in Atlanta, Georgia.

When they came back with the proposal, many of us thought it was admirable but might be impossible. If it could be done, why hadn’t someone already done it?

We started by compiling a list of all the questions we’d like the then-hypothetical tool to be able to answer, and split up the data-scavenging duties among our staff. Most of what we set out to collect, we collected. (Not everything, though! More on that in an upcoming newsletter.) And, like everything we publish, it’s all been rigorously fact-checked.

Related: Culture wars on campus start to affect students’ choices for college

Much of the data on student outcomes and diversity comes from the federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). For cultural climate and local policy data, we relied on the work of researchers and nonprofits. For example, the Mapping Advancement Project calculates an “equality score” for each state how welcoming or hostile it is to queer and transgender people. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression rates the state of free speech on college campuses with scores from “abysmal” to “exceptional,” based on student surveys. And we got information on state abortion laws from the Center for Reproductive Rights. (You can read more about our methodology here.) 

As the idea started to feel more like a reality, we began to argue over what to call it. We spent what felt like hours on Zoom debating whether it was a tool or an index or a tracker or a guide. It definitely would not be a ranking. We wanted to accurately describe it without being prescriptive or biased. While tedious, the back-and-forth helped us drill down even more specifically toward defining the tool’s purpose. 

We don’t purport to know what college is best for anyone, but we hope that with so much information in one place, people will be able to compare options and make the best choices. 

We had to go back to what was driving this project from the beginning. We wanted to help prospective college students answer the question: Will I feel welcome on that campus? 

The name “The College Welcome Guide” seems so obvious now, but even the word “welcome” was contested. As journalists, we do our best to remain neutral, and we worried that the word “welcome” might turn off prospective students and families who didn’t necessarily want a college that would be welcoming to everyone. 

Ultimately, we decided that every student, regardless of identity or political affiliation, wants to feel welcome on campus. What might make them feel welcome is different, but this tool measures a wide array of issues that might be important to students, regardless of what side of an issue they’re on.

For background, Jon Marcus’s story tells  more about what factors are influencing college applicants today, We hope his story, in combination with our College Welcome Guide, will be helpful to anyone who is thinking about enrolling – or re-enrolling – in college.

This story about choosing colleges was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.

The post Reporter’s notebook: Why we created the College Welcome Guide appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

In the last few years, the American education system has been bludgeoned by changes that have upended decades of progress toward better academic, economic and social outcomes for all.

Politicians around the country have been aiming to demolish progressive policies by targeting teaching about race and ethnicity, the LGBTQIA+ community and women’s reproductive rights. Calls for book banning and censorship have become common. These dangerous culture wars will wreak havoc on education and education policy for years to come.

As a teacher and school-based leader, I always understood the necessity of advocating for students and helping them navigate life, and I tried to help other teachers change the trajectory of many lives.

I taught my students to respect the power of civic engagement and social activism. Recent politics has made it hard to extend that work. The rollout of Florida’s House Bill 1557, popularly known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, was the start of a radical transformation that threatens to undo decades of social change. Other states, including Indiana, Alabama, Ohio and Tennessee have followed Florida’s lead with legislation that is discriminatory against the LGBTQIA+ community. It must be resisted.

Teaching is inherently activist.

Politicians are also attacking the Black population. When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis challenged the College Board’s AP African American Studies course, he inspired others to follow suit with flagrant concessions to institutional racism. Calls to be “anti-woke” and “anti-indoctrination” have become increasingly popular battle cries. Earlier, the complete misrepresentation and misunderstanding of critical race theory signaled a disregard for the Black community and contempt for the importance of students learning about all people and cultures. Since then, states such as Arkansas and Texas have also opposed the true teaching of the history of Black people in this country by dropping African American history courses and eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. The states’ actions provide a smoke screen for efforts to limit discussion of race and racism and disenfranchise the Black community.

As teachers worry about losing their jobs for violating the often-vague language of these new laws, school boards have succumbed to the demands of the few over the best interests of the majority. Who suffers the most? The students.

Related: Teachers, deputized to fight the culture wars, are often reluctant to serve

There is a critical need to prepare teachers to be intentional voices calling out the oppression that continues to plague our education system. We must do this through teaching, learning and advocacy — as well as social activism and civic engagement.

I have trained in, taught and led educator preparation programs. In past years, these programs met societal and student needs through instruction on culturally responsive teaching, trauma-informed education, conscious leadership and many other progressive approaches. Our goals were not far-fetched or new.

Teacher preparation programs have traditionally served as catalysts for shaping the future of the American education system and the ways in which we collectively work as a society to improve outcomes for all students. Teaching is inherently activist. Colleges, schools of education and alternative teacher preparation programs prepare people to engage in activism through teaching and learning. This is not what some politicians would call “indoctrination”; instead, these efforts embrace the potential for educators to be true change agents and justice warriors.

Related: OPINION: You can’t teach psychology without covering gender and sexuality, and you can’t teach history without covering racism

Today, during this 21st century version of the civil rights struggle, it is more important than ever to remember the lessons of the past and the role of educator preparation in training teachers and other education professionals to confront lies, dismantle oppressive systems and be advocates for students’ causes.

We must be deliberate in the ways in which we prepare teachers to serve the community. So many rights and freedoms are currently under attack in this country. That makes it even more important to fight for justice within the American K-12 educational system and ensure that our students learn the truth. This is dire.

Eugene Pringle Jr. is a senior professorial lecturer at the American University School of Education.

This story about teacher activism was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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America has pulled back from the brink of denying science in education. About 30,000 students in Florida were set to lose out this fall because Advanced Placement psychology classes were “effectively banned” due to a state prohibition against discussing certain gender and sexuality topics in high schools; fortunately, the state education department reversed course at the last minute in a game of Public Relations Chicken.

The College Board, which administers the AP classes, had planned to remove the course, arguing that obeying the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law would weaken it.

We have to place facts, history and science at the heart of our education systems.

The College Board was right to insist on maintaining its standards, and yet the cost to students could have been extremely high. AP Psychology is a popular course, and rigorous AP classes help prepare students for college and demonstrate their skills for college admissions.

As the leader of an organization for women’s political empowerment, I am keenly aware how this latest spat — on the heels of the Supreme Court’s recent affirmative action decision — could serve to shrink the pool of young women who get to college and thus deal another blow to the political talent pipeline.

The study of psychology is particularly important in this regard because it is a field led by women. I majored in psychology before forging a political career. Excluding tens of thousands of Florida students from this subject and opportunity could have stifled them.

The ins-and-outs of all this warrant explanation. Last year, Florida lawmakers outlawed instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity. The initial ban was on instruction through third grade; that’s the “Don’t Say Gay” law. This spring, they expanded the ban through 12th grade. (I took AP Psychology as a 16-year-old, in 10th grade, and it changed my life.)

The AP Psychology course has a unit that includes definitions of gender, sexuality, gender roles and stereotypes and discusses socialization factors. Dropping such instruction from the course would mean that AP Psychology wouldn’t be “AP,” the College Board said. It stood firm in defense of the unit.

Related: Inside Florida’s ‘underground lab’ for far-right education policies

Florida’s state board of education then accused the College Board of “playing games with Florida students.” But it’s the state board that was asking teachers to ignore a key part of basic psychology.

Eventually, Florida’s education commissioner backed down, writing a letter to school district superintendents saying that the state believed the AP Psychology course could be taught “in its entirety.”

It’s still unclear how that fits with the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. The College Board issued a statement responding to the state’s new guidance with a mixture of optimism and skepticism, noting: “We hope now that Florida teachers will be able to teach the full course, including content on gender and sexual orientation, without fear of punishment in the upcoming school year.”

My own AP Psychology class in Contra Costa County, California, paved the way for my career in which I encourage young women to run for office. I was one of the youngest students in the class, and we learned everything about human behavior.

There should be nothing partisan about teaching young people the truth.

I’m still connected with my AP Psychology teacher, Jacki Della Rosa Carron, and she remains one of my favorite humans. She shaped my entire understanding of how I wanted to live and work.

My high school, like so many public schools today, offered very few AP classes. Jackie’s class was special. She helped me understand how to channel anger and prompted me to ask questions like, “How do you impact the world at a larger scale?” Focusing on psychology and later pursuing my masters in social work helped me kickstart my career, impact my community and teach young women how to do the same through political leadership.

Jackie also covered sexuality in the course. In conservative Contra Costa, I remember conversations about being gay. For many students this was their first opportunity to really think about gender and identity. This was controversial for some, but gay people are a part of American history and life, and California is where Harvey Milk did his activism.

You can’t teach psychology without covering gender and sexuality, and you can’t teach American history without covering racism.

The most infuriating thing about these latest attacks on education is that young women, especially young women of color, along with young queer and gay people, are the ones who are seeing themselves erased and further marginalized.

The timing couldn’t be worse; the mental health crisis amongst teen girls is very real.

The AP Psychology situation has created confusion and frustration for many students, teachers and parents. Some school districts decided to drop the course altogether. Others are still looking for alternative options or waiting for more guidance.

Meantime, we should commend the College Board for standing up for the integrity of the course. We should highlight the importance of psychology and AP classes. And we should continue to advocate for academic freedom and the teaching of facts.

Related: COLUMN: Pop quiz: What state just banned an AP African American studies course?

It is remarkable that to say so in America in 2023 is to risk sounding partisan. There should be nothing partisan about teaching young people the truth.

If a firestorm like this can erupt in Florida, it can catch light across the country. The stakes are too high for it to be ignored. We should learn valuable lessons from the risks exposed.

Sara Guillermo is chief executive of IGNITE, a young women’s political empowerment organization.

This story about AP Psychology and “Don’t Say Gay” was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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ATLANTA – As more and more attempts to restrict discussion of gender and race in K-12 schools across the country take hold, where do the ideas go?

Despite the general hostility, despite the recent legislative attacks on so much of what they stand for, the leaders of Spelman College’s comparative women’s studies department have fostered a sort of “safe haven” for Black feminist and queer studies, said M. Bahati Kuumba, the associate director of the department.

Women’s studies, at Spelman and elsewhere, is an interdisciplinary major that examines the way identity – including race, class, sexuality, gender, ability and age – affects the dynamics of power and privilege in society. The discipline looks critically at racism, sexism and other systems of inequality in society. In a college known for that field of study, it would be hypocritical not to create an environment that welcomes every student and celebrates them for who they are as a whole person, said Esther Ajayi-Lowo, an assistant professor in the department.

“I just feel really lucky, happy that those of us at Spelman are not as impacted by the negative trends,” Kuumba said.  She said this motivates her to “work even harder to make sure the theoretical perspectives that encapsulate our experiences, which are the areas of thought that they’re trying to make illegal, are actually valued at Spelman.”

“I just feel really lucky, happy that those of us at Spelman are not as impacted by the negative trends.”

M. Bahati Kuumba, associate director, department of comparative women’s studies, Spelman College

Among the 102 historically Black colleges and universities, Spelman is the only one that offers a bachelor’s degree in women’s or gender studies. Some other HBCUs offer interdisciplinary degrees in which students can select a concentration on similar topics, and others offer minors in gender or women’s studies. 

Kuumba said that Spelman is an intellectual oasis that has, so far, been spared any legislative attempts to cut funding for certain departments or control what topics can be studied. Other political changes to the education sphere, such as the expected Supreme Court ruling on the use of race in college admissions, Kuumba said, are unlikely to have a significant effect on historically Black colleges like Spelman.

Application figures suggest increased interest in Spelman over the past few years. The women’s college received 13,614 applications for the fall of 2022 – a 48 percent increase over the 9,179 who applied in fall of 2019, according to a spokesperson for the college. Enrollment over the same time period rose by about 12 percent, and the number of students who are majoring in women’s studies has remained steady.

At Spelman, students are sheltered from the negativity in some ways: the community is overwhelmingly made up of Black women, and the principal mission of the college is to educate Black women and prepare them to contribute to positive social change.

And while Atlanta is a liberal city, Georgia isn’t immune to the political struggles. Last year, the governor signed a law limiting what K-12 schools can teach children about racism, and prohibiting anything that might make a student feel guilt or shame about their race. A bill meant to restrict education about gender and sexuality in K-12 schools and other settings was introduced by Republican state lawmakers this spring, but has not progressed.  

Instead of despairing about these policies and others like them in other states, Ajayi-Lowo said the women’s studies department gives students the opportunity to make sense of “racial and gendered oppression,” use history to put it into context and begin building hope. She believes it’s personally empowering to students to learn how to advocate for themselves and their communities.

“It’s not just like, ‘there is a war, all of this is happening, the world’s falling apart,’” Ajayi-Lowo said. “They’re able to see themselves as critical stakeholders who have the agency to make changes.”

Fostering a “safe haven” at Spelman shows students that it’s possible to create communities that are free of oppression, Ajayi-Lowo said, and teaches them that if, later in life, they find themselves with no space like this, they will have the power to recreate it. Knowing they have this power is even more important in a moment marked by pervasive hostility and so many legislative efforts to control various aspects of education, Ajayi-Lowo said.

Discussion of race and gender is not being limited only in grade schools. Wyoming has seen several attempts to defund gender and women’s studies programs at public colleges. Florida has a new law that severely restricts gender and women’s studies instruction and defunds initiatives related to diversity, equity and inclusion in the state university system. A similar bill has passed the Texas legislature and is awaiting signature from the governor. 

To Shoniqua Roach, an assistant professor of women’s studies and African American studies at Brandeis University, it makes sense that Spelman’s comparative women’s studies program would feel protected and safe during such politically tumultuous times. 

“They’re able to see themselves as critical stakeholders who have the agency to make changes.”

Esther Ajayi-Lowo, assistant professor, comparative women’s studies, Spelman College

“Black feminism was born out of impossible conditions,” Roach said. “Our field has only gotten more resilient in the face of chaos and the face of crisis.”

Roach said that many of the concepts being targeted by conservative lawmakers originate from Black feminist scholars, including the idea that Black people and people from other historically marginalized groups have had a different experience in the United States from others, and that they deserve systemic changes to prevent further mistreatment and to repair damage done. These ideas are core tenets of women’s studies and intersectional feminism, and challenges to them are not new.

“It’s a pretty creative, rigorous, resilient and incredible time for Black feminist theory, which doesn’t surprise me because as a field, we’ve always already been under siege,” Roach said. “I’m already excited to see the creativity that is born out of this chaos.”

Black feminist theory in part argues for human empowerment, but specifically for empowering Black women, one of the most marginalized groups in the United States, Roach said. She is seeing more scholars take advantage of the opportunity to share Black feminist thought beyond academia, which “is an incredible creative, political and intellectual achievement.”

Ariella Rotramel, a professor at Connecticut College and the vice president of the National Women’s Studies Association, believes political pushback comes as a direct result of social justice progress being made. 

For example, Rotramel said, if more people start acknowledging racism and its material effects on health and wealth, then it’s more likely to be addressed. And they see attempts to restrict gender-affirming health care for transgender children as evidence that there are enough parents that love and support their trans children for people to feel threatened by it, Rotramel said.

Rotramel said that they, like most educators, teach theories, and students do not have to agree with every single thing they teach.

“It’s a competing imagining of what our world should be,” Rotramel said. “Of course, I think you always have to believe that the best things about people and humanity will win and people will realize there are ways to care and ways to respect differences.” 

This story about Spelman women’s studies was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter.

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After the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021, tens of thousands of girls were banned from attending school beyond sixth grade. Many found a way to continue their studies through informal tutoring centers, but those too have come under increased scrutiny as the government continues to crack down on women and girls’ access to education.

As a group of girls in Kabul have been grappling with all this, they’ve formed a connection with some other teens half a world away in California. The two sets of students, through meetings on Zoom talking about their lives and goals, formed the Flowers for the Future club, now a branch of the Eileen Murphy Foundation.

Below are two essays from members of the club: Mahsa Kosha in Afghanistan and Emily Khossravi in California.

“Like a walking dead”: Being a teenage girl who wants to study under Taliban rule

By Mahsa Kosha

I was born in 2006. I continued my childish life from birth to 6 years old and had a relatively good childhood period. I had many dolls and friends at that time. My yellow-haired doll’s name is Princess. I love her so much because she is so loyal that I still have her. When I was 6 years old, I started studying in school. Later, I started studying English, too. I continued my school and course lessons until our economic situation deteriorated and I could not study English anymore.

My younger sister was born with a heart problem. My parents got into a lot of debt to treat her, and we entered very difficult years. But my sister became healthy, and my parents were trying very hard to allow us to study. A few years later, I was back studying English and math at the same time at school.

Until the age of 14, I had a completely normal life. I was studying and trying to achieve great success in the future. I wanted to become a pilot. At that age, I didn’t really understand the concept of failure, and I continued my life without any fear or concern, and every day I moved forward with small successes. I got four certificates of appreciation from different departments, one of which was from a cultural community. I gained from singing hymns and reciting poems. I thought that “I will continue my work and efforts and within a few years I will reach bigger goals,” unaware that it will not happen.

Related: STUDENT VOICE: ‘Then one day a bomb exploded during my geometry class’

With the arrival of the Taliban, a new page opened in my life, and my life entered into great changes. After the Taliban seized power, many problems arose, and I suffered many failures. I really entered into a back-breaking transformation. At the beginning of the ban on the entry of girls to my school, I was depressed, and I was like a walking dead, and I didn’t want to continue my studies.

But in those hard days, I was not alone. My older brother tried very hard to help me and always encouraged me to study. He even brought me very good motivational books to read and try, such as “Atomic Habits” and “The Power of Habit.” One day, my brother showed me a picture he had taken of an ad for a place where girls could go take classes. When I went to the address, I saw a lot of other girls who were like me and were looking for lessons in courses. Slowly I got the motivation to study again and started reading books on the side of those lessons. I continued in the promised course.

But this time they closed the course gates on us, and this time I will fight back and search for methods to achieve my dreams.

The arrival of the Taliban taught me that I have to fight against my problems. Someone who has always been in the dark and struggled with problems wants to reach the light and understands the light. I try to reach it. Only someone who faces their problems can succeed.

An example is James Clear, the author of “Atomic Habits.” He was hit by a baseball bat right in the middle of his face when he was in high school, which caused his brain to be crushed inside his skull. Despite all the problems he had, he got back on his feet better than before. The work he did turned out to be very strong. He was able to get perfect grades in all subjects by the end of the year, and six years later he was selected as the best male athlete at Denison University in Ohio. His book gave me new motivation and changed my way of thinking in life. Well, I will take James Clear as my example and continue on my way again like any other Afghan girl.

How inspiration and friendship from across the world help create a global club

By Emily Khossravi

I still remember the first day of my AP World History class in 2021. I walked into the class, eager and excited for the year to come. Little did I know that class would change my life.

On the first day, my teacher, Timothy Stiven, announced that we would be meeting with girls from a tutoring center in Afghanistan on Zoom the next day. I was so excited about the experience. That afternoon, when I got home, I immediately sent an email to Mr. Stiven and indicated that I could talk to the students in Farsi if it would make them feel more comfortable. The next day, I introduced our class and spoke with the Afghan students, asking them how they were doing and what their hopes and dreams were for the future. They responded with a variety of answers: Some wanted to work in the fields of computer science, others wanted to pursue their soccer dreams and yet others wanted to write literature. Witnessing their determination and eagerness to continue to learn despite not being allowed to go to school was amazing and inspired us to amplify their voices.

Related: Refugee girls want to improve the world. Will we let them do so?

I began translating a collection of one hundred poems that one of the girls had written. I began corresponding with her, and we started sharing goals. It wasn’t until then that I was fully hit with the intense dedication of these girls. Despite her situation, this girl still aimed to learn the advanced topics of chemistry and mathematics, as well as English grammar. She also asked me how I foster productivity and organize my schedule.

Needless to say, I wasn’t the only one inspired. As we began meeting over Zoom more and more often, the club Flowers for the Future emerged. Through the club, we sought to provide the girls with interactive STEM and humanities lessons, in topics such as biology, chemistry and English and engage them in continuing their education, even when they couldn’t go to school. The club has grown to include branches in Massachusetts, Kentucky, Hong Kong, Australia and more. We will continue to expand, with the goal of having the girls achieve their dreams, while striving to make a positive impact on everyone’s life.

Flowers for the Future has served as a platform to connect students through the passion of learning different subjects; it emphasizes the importance of learning through the connections between schools thousands of miles apart. Not only do we seek to help educate these girls in Afghanistan, but we also seek to inspire others to do the same. Because education is worth pursuing – it advances humanity.

This story about Afghan education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter.

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With the spring semester upon us, districts across the nation are still struggling with teacher shortages. In New Jersey, it’s a crisis that is making it harder to hire and retain Black and Latino teachers.

Teacher shortages continue to disproportionately affect historically underserved communities. Black educators are leaving the profession in high numbers, and this reality harms an often vulnerable school population. Representation matters, and education is starving for it.

While districts scramble to fill vacancies, schools must do a better job not only hiring diverse teachers, but also keeping them on board. When children have exposure to school leaders from a variety of cultures, they do better both in K-12 classrooms and in our communities.

Related: Schools can’t afford to lose any more Black male educators

Study after study shows that student outcomes are affected by the existence of a demographic match between teachers and students. Black and Latino students perform better when they have at least one teacher who is the same race. A “disadvantaged” Black male’s exposure to at least one Black teacher in elementary school reduces his probability of dropping out of high school by nearly 40 percent.

I know firsthand what racial representation on campus can do for a young student. I had a single mother, and my Black male teachers stood in as father figures for me.

When children have exposure to school leaders from a variety of cultures, they demonstrate better outcomes both in K-12 classrooms and in our communities.

These adults connected with me culturally. They knew what it was like to grow up poor in the inner city. They spoke from experience, with a level of explicitness that forced me to listen when they shared advice about what to look for in friends and assured me that I would belong in college.

Their words were among the significant factors that drove me to attend college, and why I chose education as my major. I was mentored, educated and held accountable by Black males who had persevered in college and graduated. My relationships with them changed my life and shaped who I became as an adult.

That’s why at College Achieve Public Schools (CAPS) in New Jersey, where I’m now the chief academic officer and executive director of College Achieve Paterson, we’ve made it our mission to hire — and retain — teachers who represent the diversity of our students. We serve mostly Black and Latino students who fall below the poverty line, and 70 percent of the educators at CAPS Paterson identify as Black or Latino.

This type of representation isn’t the norm in New Jersey, where 6.6 percent of teachers are Black and 9.3 percent are Latino, while 15 percent of students are Black and 31 percent Latino. The discrepancy is magnified in my hometown of Paterson, where more than a quarter of the general population identifies as Black and more than 60 percent as Latino.

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While at College Achieve we don’t have all the answers, we’ve seen how a representative teaching staff positively affects our students and our school community. Our academic outcomes are improving — even through the pandemic — and our students are outperforming their peers in neighboring schools in every grade level in both math and English Language Arts.

Students can envision their own paths to success through their teachers’ journeys. Here’s how we hire, and retain, teachers who reflect the diversity of our students.

First, we partner with nearby universities to hire qualified Black and Latino college students as substitute teachers and pair them with experienced school staff for mentoring.

Once they earn their bachelor’s degrees, these substitutes can earn full teaching certificates through the state’s alternate teacher pathway and return to College Achieve. Since 2018, we’ve hired 18 of these educators into full teaching positions.

Second, we encourage and facilitate a more fulfilling and innovative approach to teaching. Our teachers motivate our students, who have enormous potential but limited resources, to think critically rather than just look for the “right” answer. Our low student-to-teacher ratio allows us to provide individualized attention, including for students who are English learners or academically at-risk or have disabilities. This approach leads to teacher retention.

Finally, we cultivate an inclusive staff culture, in which teachers not only feel comfortable enough to stay, but confident enough to move up and grow their careers. We help teachers understand what it means to be anti-racist and how to communicate these practices with our students.

More than academics, it’s about sharing lived experiences. Of course, it wasn’t only Black male teachers who influenced my life. Students need diverse teachers. But when I walk into a classroom and share my story, it resonates with our students.

It ignites what’s possible, and shows our students what can happen when they believe in themselves. By replicating the CAPS model, we can ensure that teachers really connect with students and empower our next generation of leaders.

Gemar Mills is chief academic officer of College Achieve Public Schools (CAPS) in New Jersey and executive director of CAPS Paterson.

This story about diverse teachers was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter.

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