| | | | |  | | By Juan Perez Jr. | Presented by FIRST® | | 
Activists protest outside the Capitol to demand action on gun control legislation after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at a Texas elementary school. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo | UNDER SIEGE — America's teachers are worried. — Significant portions of educators feared a mass shooting would target their workplace in the wake of May's nightmare attack at Robb Elementary School in Texas, according to survey data released today by a top labor union. — More than 40 percent of polled American Federation of Teachers workers worried about a mass shooting, according to results compiled in a union report, "Under Siege: The Outlook of AFT Members." — More than 60 percent said their schools were unprepared to deal with a mass shooter, a trend the union's pollster said was especially apparent among elementary and high school teachers in urban and suburban communities. That perception held even though seven in 10 pre-K-12 workers said their school trains for shooters and despite the rarity of such attacks. — Teachers' safety concerns played out atop a growing sense of frustration with the job, according to the union, after more than two years of virus-disrupted schooling. Nearly 80 percent of teachers said they were somewhat or very dissatisfied with their overall job conditions, marking a sharp rise from 2020. Most teachers wouldn't recommend the profession. — "AFT members were on the front line of the first wave of the pandemic, but in many ways the last year was even harder," union President Randi Weingarten said in a statement. — The national survey of close to 2,400 AFT members was conducted online from June 17 to 21 by Hart Research Associates. Its margin of error was plus-or-minus 2.9 percentage points. IT'S MONDAY, JULY 11. WELCOME TO WEEKLY EDUCATION. Mark your calendars: First Lady Jill Biden will address AFT members in Boston on Friday during the labor group's conference. The teachers union is also scheduled to hear this week from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Labor Department Secretary Marty Walsh and March for Our Lives Co-Founder David Hogg. Reach out with tips to today's host at jperez@politico.com and also my colleagues Michael Stratford (mstratford@politico.com) and Bianca Quilantan (bquilantan@politico.com). And don't forget to follow us on Twitter: @Morning_Edu and @POLITICOPro.
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A woman stands in front of memorial dedicated to the 19 children and two adults killed on May 24 during the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. | Brandon Bell/Getty Images | WORST YEAR EVER? — According to AFT polling, roughly 70 percent of the surveyed teacher and classroom assistant workforce labeled the recently completed school year as "one of the worst" ever. — Their concerns include a familiar list of complaints: Pay that doesn't keep up with the cost of living, staff shortages and a perceived lack of respect for school workers were cited as serious problems by roughly 90 percent of the union's elementary and high school workers. — But the union's pollster also looked into teachers' feelings about the politics enveloping today's education landscape. Eighty-eight percent said education becoming too politicized was a very or fairly serious problem. The survey found some interesting partisan breakdowns here. For example, 73 percent of Republican union members said overly politicized education was a problem in their workplace, compared with 65 percent of Democrats. — For what it's worth: Fifty-four percent of the AFT's elementary and high school teachers said public schools don't spend enough time teaching children about racial issues and the role of race in America. Opinions were more evenly split over lessons about gender and sexuality. Thirty-nine percent said schools don't give the topic enough time, while roughly 30 percent either felt schools spend too much time — or the right amount — on the subject.
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White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, April 26, 2022. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo | CLEARING THE AIR — Federal officials are urging schools to assess and improve campus air quality during summer break as Covid-19 levels remain elevated throughout the country. — "Unfortunately, the pandemic is not over," White House Covid-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha said Friday during a briefing with school officials on indoor ventilation. — "We have, yet again, another new subvariant that may cause some substantial challenges in terms of infections and hospitalizations in the days and weeks ahead," Jha said. "We may get more infections and another wave of infections in the fall and winter." — "One of the absolutely critical things we can do to keep schools open and safe this fall and winter is to improve the quality of indoor air," he said. — Education Secretary Miguel Cardona noted an abundance of American schools has struggled to update costly building air-circulation systems. A 2020 Government Accountability Office report estimated that 41 percent of districts needed to update or replace heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems in at least half of their schools. — "Investing in good ventilation systems should be a part of how we view student supports — just as important as academics, just as important as connections to mental health services and just as important as access to college and career counseling," Cardona said Friday.
| | | | A message from FIRST®:   | | | | | | HELP WANTED — Your host spoke with Robert Balfanz, director of the Everyone Graduates Center at the Johns Hopkins School of Education, to hear about the National Partnership for Student Success . The White House initiative, announced last week, aims to recruit 250,000 tutors, mentors and other schoolhouse volunteers during the next three years. The following is a snippet of our chat, edited for length and clarity: Where are you going to find 250,000 people who can fill these roles and provide high-quality services? One of them is colleges and universities with work-study programs. We're going to try to work with a coalition of institutions to see how more of those kids can do community service in schools near their university for their college work-study. Another source is large employers like Starbucks and Target, places that have lots of employees in lots of places and ways to increase corporate volunteerism. The final big source are the millions of adults who currently volunteer to support schools, whether it's through Boys and Girls Clubs or Big Brothers Big Sisters programs after school. We're going to see if just a small fraction of those adults can be 'skilled up' to do these more evidence-based strategies. How do you ensure this workforce actually supplements work teachers and counselors are already doing? Central to our success is making sure these folks are working side-by-side with teachers and counselors and are integrated into the school. That's a lesson that's been learned the hard way over time. This time around, we're really stressing that this has to be a partnership between the school, the principal, teachers, counselors and this support. They also have to ask for these services, and want them. We're not knocking on school doors to say, "The president sent us; tell us what to do." I really think it has to come from local demand and a local ask for support. We're trying to make the case proactively about why that's important, but ultimately it's their decision. Let's talk about timetables. How are you going to get this done in three years? There's three big activities that go together. One is getting people aware of both the need for these supports, and how the National Partnership for Student Success can help. We then have to work on getting more adults to serve in those roles because of the labor shortage. Many groups are saying, "We could do more if we had more people," so there's a whole recruitment effort built into this. The third part is connection work: bringing school districts together with local providers to get to know each other and build a joint plan that works for their community. Our basic timeline is to build momentum now, make progress in year one and then really accelerate in years two and three.
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| A LOOK AT SCHOOL EMERGENCY AID — The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District received an early rush of $1.5 million in emergency federal aid to help the community recover from May's mass killing at Robb Elementary. — The funds come from Project SERV, or School Emergency Response to Violence, and may be used to expand mental health services or cover overtime pay for teachers, counselors and security staff. — Yet a data analysis by POLITICO's Annette Choi found that many — but not all — schools that experience deadly shootings receive Project SERV grants.
| | | LONE STAR EDUCATION — The Texas Republican Party formally released its 2022 platform on Wednesday, including demands that would seed urgent policy debates for conservative lawmakers during next year's convening of the state legislature. — The Texas platform garnered prior attention with language that promotes the state's ability to secede from the United States and rejects the legitimacy of President Joe Biden's 2020 election. But it also issues significant conservative marching orders to regulate how schools teach about sex, gender and other curriculum. — "We demand the State Legislature pass a law prohibiting the teaching of sex education, sexual health, or sexual choice or identity in any public school in any grade whatsoever," the GOP platform declares, while also calling for curriculum that "only utilize sexual risk avoidance programs and promote abstinence outside of marriage" until such a law is approved. — The platform further calls for state legislators to prohibit reproductive healthcare services from being offered through public schools, including "counseling, referrals, and distribution of condoms and contraception." — Texas Republican activists also endorsed Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's campaign season call for a local version of a Florida measure critics have dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" law. — "We support passage of a law more comprehensive than the Florida law that prohibits instruction in sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools," the state GOP platform declares. "We advocate for those who violate any of the above to have their educator's certification revoked and be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law where appropriate." — In a statement, state party Chair Matt Rinaldi said: "Our platform, taken as a whole, shows that the GOP is, above all, a party of parents, families, and working Americans dedicated to preserving the American dream for our children."
| | | | A message from FIRST®: The U.S. is at an innovation crossroads: 2.1 million manufacturing jobs could go unfilled by 2030, mostly due to challenges in finding skilled talent. Meanwhile, U.S. competitiveness is in need of revitalization, and the social and environmental challenges we face require leadership, critical thinking, problem solving and innovation skills that simply aren't learned in a traditional classroom setting. Dean Kamen, lifelong inventor and STEM innovator, explains the growing need for private and public sector action in building a modern workforce and argues how exposure to robotics through FIRST programs helps students develop the skills they need to help solve society's complex problems and build a better world. | | | | | | — Incomplete grade? Columbia University loses ranking over dubious data: Associated Press — "I felt trapped": Sexual abuse of teens in the military's J.R.O.T.C. program:New York Times — People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows: Washington Post — Five takeaways from POLITICO Pro's briefing on student loan forgiveness and financial aid: POLITICO Pro | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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