Lawmakers challenge OK superintendent's Bible initiatives after test scores tank

Photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplas

Nuria Martinez-Keel,

 Oklahoma Voice

January 30, 2025

OKLAHOMA CITY — As national testing again ranks Oklahoma in the bottom 10 for academic results, lawmakers on Wednesday debated whether the state is headed in the right direction or is pursuing policies that distract from better outcomes.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) released 2024 reading and math results from every state Wednesday. The NAEP tests showed Oklahoma was among the lowest-performing states in the country, had no significant progress since 2022 and still has not reached pre-pandemic performance.

The same day as the NAEP release, lawmakers at the state Capitol heard a budget presentation from the head of Oklahoma’s public education system, Superintendent Ryan Walters, who said his administration is making a difference for schools and students by funding teacher recruitment efforts, literacy programs and high-dosage tutoring.

But, House Democrats said Walters has spent too much time focusing on divisive rhetoric rather than school needs.

“We saw some rosy pronouncements. We saw a lot of hand waving about educational performance improvements,” Rep. Andy Fugate, D-Oklahoma City, said after the budget hearing. “The sad reality is year-over-year scores did not improve, and we saw that confirmed in the release this week of the NAEP scores.”

A spokesperson for Walters did not return a request for comment on Oklahoma’s NAEP results. Walters didn’t discuss it either during his budget hearing even when a Republican lawmaker asked how Oklahoma compares to other states in education.

“We are still not where we need to be in math, reading and ACT (scores),” Walters said during the hearing in the House chamber. “I believe what we’ve got to continue to do is continue to aggressively help the schools in the bottom 5% (of the state).”

Improving scores from the lowest-performing students corresponded with an overall upward swing in national test results through the mid-1990s and early 2000s, officials from the National Center for Education Statistics said in a NAEP town hall Wednesday. The 2024 results, though, show the gap is widening between the top and bottom performers.

Walters also touted a new rule that would penalize a school district if more than half of its students score below a basic performance level in reading and math. His administration proposed the rule, and Gov. Kevin Stitt signed it into law last year.

“We’ve got to continue to move forward with reforms that are focused on student outcomes,” Walters told lawmakers.

He asked for an extra $1 million to support a new program mentoring early career teachers and another $4 million to meet demand for teacher maternity leave.

Walters’ policy priorities divide lawmakers

But, Walters’ request to spend $3 million on Bibles for classrooms came under question from members of both political parties.

Rep. Jacob Rosecrants, D-Norman, noted multiple versions of the Bible are available for free online, and Rep. Michelle McCane, D-Tulsa, questioned whether $3 million could be better spent on literacy or early childhood programs.

Rep. Denise Crosswhite Hader, R-Piedmont, asked why the state couldn’t seek out donated Bibles rather than buying them with taxpayer funds. Rep. Cynthia Roe, R-Lindsay, said she worried whether inviting the Bible into classrooms might open a door to the Quran, Wicca, atheists and “other religions outside of Christianity.”

Walters said the Bible should be physically present in classrooms, along with the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, to help contextualize American history.

His pursuit of requiring proof of U.S. citizenship in public school enrollment also came under fire at the Capitol on Wednesday in multiple Democrat-led news conferences.

Members of the Legislature’s Latino Caucus said the idea could drive up chronic absenteeism rates among immigrant students, whose families are fearful of the state superintendent’s support of immigration enforcement in schools. Alabama saw a similar trend when it enacted a law in 2011 to check students’ immigration status.

“Walters accusing immigrants of being the one to overburden our system is exactly the opposite of the truth,” Rep. Arturo Alonso-Sandoval, D-Oklahoma City, said. “It is him that’s overburdening our schools by bringing these political issues into the classroom.”

Some of Walters’ fellow Republicans, though, praised the state superintendent’s work on improving academic results. The head of the House subcommittee on education funding, Rep. Chad Caldwell, R-Enid, thanked Walters during Wednesday’s budget hearing for his work “to move our state forward.”

The subcommittee’s vice chair, Rep. Toni Hasenbeck, R-Elgin, even joined Walters’ news release Wednesday to compliment his budget request.

“We appreciate Superintendent Walters’ dedication to our students and proven programs like high-dosage tutoring,” Hasenbeck said in her statement. “He has proven that he is willing to go to bat, time and time again, for Oklahoma’s teachers, parents, students and school safety.”

Oklahoma ranks toward the bottom in reading, math scores

Underscoring the day’s proceedings is yet another bottom-10 ranking for Oklahoma education. NAEP assessments, also known as the Nation’s Report Card, found Oklahoma showed no significant improvement since the previous round of national testing in 2022.

NAEP has been testing fourth and eighth graders across the country since 1992.

In NAEP’s 2024 results, Oklahoma ranked 47th in fourth-grade reading and 48th in eighth-grade reading. Oklahoma fourth graders ranked 44th and its eighth graders 45th for math proficiency.

Christy Hovanetz, a senior policy fellow at the Foundation for Excellence in Education, speaks at a panel about school accountability during the foundation’s national summit at the Omni Hotel in Oklahoma City on Nov. 14. (Photo by Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoma Voice)

The state’s reading scores indicate students are about a full grade level behind where fourth and eighth graders were before the COVID-19 pandemic, said Christy Hovanetz, a school accountability expert at the education-focused think tank ExcelinEd.

Oklahoma’s decision this year to reduce its own expectations for student performance on state-administered tests won’t help, she said. The state quietly lowered the bar in 2024 for students to reach a proficient score on its yearly exams for reading and math.

States that shot up the NAEP rankings in recent years, like Mississippi, have done so by maintaining high expectations for students and schools, Hovanetz said.

She said Oklahoma also must ensure it has a qualified teacher workforce that is trained in the science of reading. That’s an issue Walters has put money behind to improve.

“I just don’t want to see us saying this is all we should be expecting of our kids, knowing that 10 years ago we were getting a lot more from them,” Hovanetz said. “We know what works. We know how to do it. It’s just not easy, but it’s time to start implementing some of those tougher reforms again.”

Reporter Emma Murphy contributed to this report.

Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com.

Yes, Trump can rename the Gulf of Mexico — here's how

Photo by Adolfo Félix on Unsplash

The Conversation

January 27, 2025

Among the blizzard of executive orders issued by Donald Trump on his first day back in the Oval Office was one titled Restoring Names that Honor American Greatness. It unilaterally renamed “the area formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico” as the “Gulf of America”.

The order was justified by this maritime space having long been an “integral asset” to the United States, with its “bountiful geology” yielding around 14% of US crude oil production, “vibrant American fisheries”, and it being “a favourite destination of American tourism”.

The gulf was also characterised as “an indelible part of America” that would continue to play “a pivotal role in shaping America’s future and the global economy”.

But while it’s undoubtedly important to the US, this part of the Atlantic Ocean washes against other countries, too. So, can the president really rename it? Sure! At least as far as the US is concerned, anyway.

Naming rights

The relevant federal body is the Board on Geographic Names (BGN), established in 1890 with the mission to maintain uniform geographic name usage.

Specifically, Trump’s executive order instructs the secretary of the interior to take “all appropriate actions” to change the name to the Gulf of America, ensure all federal references reflect the renaming, and update the Geographic Names Information System.

The BGN has usually been reluctant to change generally accepted geographic names. However, the executive order clearly signals that the composition of the board may change in order to ensure the proposed renaming happens.

But whatever the US decides to call the gulf, it doesn’t mean other countries will pay any heed. Indeed, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo promptly suggested the US might itself be renamed Mexican America.

She was referring to a 17th-century map showing that name for much of the area that now makes up the US, and asserted Mexico and the rest of the world would continue to use the name Gulf of Mexico.

Disputed histories

The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) publishes a volume called Limits of Oceans and Seas, covering the names of seas and oceans around the world, including the “Gulf of Mexico”.

But the study is explicit that these limits “have no political significance whatsoever” and are “solely for the convenience” of hydrographic offices preparing information for mariners.

It has not been published since 1953 – precisely because of a dispute over the geographic name of the body of water between Japan and Korea. Japan prefers to call it the Sea of Japan (as most know it) but South Korea has long campaigned for it to be named the East Sea or East Sea/Sea of Japan.

A revised edition of the IHO volume was submitted to member states in 2002 but dealt with the issue by omitting coverage of the East Sea/Sea of Japan. It remains a working document only.

The issue is taken so seriously by South Korea that an ambassador-level position was created to deal with it, and a Society for the East Sea was established 30 years ago.

That this deadlock has prevented a new edition of an IHO publication for more than 70 years shows not only the difficulty of changing generally well-recognised geographic names, but also the importance countries place on these matters.
Dangerous ground

Place names – known as toponyms – are sensitive because they show that any country changing a name has the right to do so, which implies sovereignty and possession. Names therefore carry historical and emotional significance and are readily politicised.

This is particularly true where past conflicts with unresolved legacies and current geopolitical rivalries are in play. For example, the Sea of Japan/East Sea dispute goes back to Japan’s 1905 annexation of Korea and subsequent 40-year colonial rule.

Similarly, the disputed sovereignty of the Falkland Islands/Las Malvinas, over which Britain and Argentina went to war in 1982, remains a perennial source of diplomatic dispute.

But the South China Sea case is hard to beat. All or parts of this body of water are simultaneously referred to as the South Sea (Nan Hai) by China, the West Philippines Sea by the Philippines, the North Natuna Sea by Indonesia, and (another) East Sea (Biển Đông) by Vietnam.

To further complicate things in that same area, what in English are generally known as the Spratly Islands are known in Chinese as the Nánshā Qúndǎo, the Kepulauan Spratly in Malay, and in Vietnamese as the Trường Sa.

All the individual islands, rocks and cays in this highly disputed zone also carry names, individually or collectively, in multiple languages. Even the names of entirely and permanently submerged features have proved controversial. Early British Admiralty cartographers were arguably most accurate in naming the area simply “Dangerous Ground”.

Political gulfs

Globally, there have been moves to replace colonial references with original indigenous names, something very familiar to Australians and New Zealanders.

In the same executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico, Trump also changed the name of the highest peak in North America (in Alaska) from Denali back to Mount McKinley (named after the 25th president, William McKinley, in 1917).

This simultaneously attacked the legacy of former president Barack Obama, who renamed the peak Denali in 2015, and spoke to Trump’s war on perceived “woke” politics.

That said, the change was tempered by the fact the national park area surrounding the mountain will retain the name Denali National Park and Preserve.

Ultimately, Trump can rebadge the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, but only from a strictly US perspective. It is unlikely to matter much to the rest of the world, save for those wishing to curry favour with the new administration.

Most of the world will likely continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico. And the Gulf of America may yet be consigned to history in four years’ time.

Clive Schofield, Professor, Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS), University of Wollongong

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

'Scare them into quitting': Senator says Trump’s letter to aviation workers may have led to crash

Image: Shutterstock

Carl Gibson

January 31, 2025

ALTERNET

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump's administration offered millions of federal workers seven months of pay in advance if they quit their jobs. Days later, a mid-air collision between a regional jet and a military helicopter killed dozens outside the Washington D.C. National Airport. One senator thinks the two events may be related.

Politico reported Thursday evening that the deadly Wednesday night crash above the Potomac River that killed 60 American Airlines passengers and four crew members along with three U.S. Army pilots in a Black Hawk helicopter has lawmakers and aviation officials demanding answers. During a Thursday press conference, officials with the National Transportation Safety Board promised to fully investigate the crash to determine what caused the fatal error, though they cautioned it could take a year or more before their investigation is complete.

The New York Times reported earlier Thursday that the air traffic controller who was on duty at the time of the crash was performing duties normally done by two controllers, and that staffing levels were "not normal" on Wednesday night. And Politico reported that airports across the country have had a critical shortage of air traffic controllers for years, mostly due to a lack of funding appropriated by Congress for hiring and training new airport control tower workers. According to the Times, many air traffic controllers work six days a week for as much as 10 hours per day.

But Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) — an Iraq War veteran who used to pilot a Black Hawk helicopter — suggested that morale among federal employees being lower than usual due to the Trump administration's recent buyout offer letter could have also been a contributing factor. She also blasted Trump for his assertion that diversity, equity and inclusion-based hiring practices under former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden were to blame.

"Obviously, you’re relying on air traffic control," Duckworth said. She noted that both Federal Aviation Administration officials and air traffic controllers were among those who received emails from the Office of Personnel Management asking them to consider leaving their jobs.

"[Letters were sent to] some air traffic controllers that are responsible for airspace in the Northeast region,” she continued, “Basically trying to scare them into quitting at a time when we have a shortage of air traffic controllers. So I don’t think the Trump administration is in a strong position right now to start blaming others.”

“This should’ve never happened, and we wanna understand what happened,” said Senate Commerce Committee member Ted Budd (R-N.C.)

Click here to read Politico's report in full.

New Trump memo claims DEI, Obama and Biden 'decisions' linked to fatal aviation disaster

U.S. President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 30, 2025. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

David Badash

January 31, 2025

ALTERNET


President Donald Trump continued his attacks on his Democratic predecessors and diversity programs late Thursday afternoon, signing a presidential memo that linked “decisions” made by Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s administrations, and DEI initiatives, to Wednesday’s mid-air collision between an Army helicopter and a regional commercial airplane. The President’s memo offers no practical evidence they played a role. Sixty-seven people are believed to have died, and no one is believed to have survived.

Trump’s memo orders “a systematic assessment of any deterioration in hiring standards and aviation safety standards and protocols during the Biden Administration.”

Axios reports that the “order shows Trump is doubling down on his claim, without evidence, that DEI policies were a factor in the crash. His memo explicitly mentions ‘diversity equity and inclusion,’ and reflects how anti-DEI efforts are a centerpiece of his second administration’s policy.”

Critics, including U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), say the incident took place on Trump’s watch, after he allowed the head of the FAA to reportedly resign under pressure, and gutted a critical aviation safety group Trump also just fired the head of the TSA, and placed a hiring freeze on nearly all government positions.

One Federal Aviation Administration traffic controller was assigned to both helicopters and planes when the deadly collision occurred, the FAA stated in a report.

“The report, reviewed by The New York Times, said that one controller was communicating with both helicopters and planes. Those jobs are typically assigned to two people, not one,” The Times reported. “Staffing at the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport was ‘not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,’ according to an internal preliminary Federal Aviation Administration safety report about the collision that was reviewed by The New York Times.”

Staffing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport “has been understaffed for years,” and “nearly a third below targeted staff levels,” The Times reports, citing “years of employee turnover and tight budgets.”

Calling the deadly collision a “shocking event” Trump’s memo says it “follows problematic and likely illegal decisions during the Obama and Biden Administrations that minimized merit and competence in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).”

A CNN fact check found that a congressional law from 1973 “aimed to increase federal hiring of qualified people with disabilities.”

“The Obama Administration implemented a biographical questionnaire at the FAA to shift the hiring focus away from objective aptitude,” Trump’s memo alleges. He claimed “the Biden Administration egregiously rejected merit-based hiring, requiring all executive departments and agencies to implement dangerous ‘diversity equity and inclusion’ tactics, and specifically recruiting individuals with ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities in the FAA.”

The memo claims, “During my first term, my Administration raised standards to achieve the highest standards of safety and excellence,” but a CNN fact check reveals that “Trump’s FAA used the same language about hiring people with disabilities [that] he’s now blasting.”

“During his Thursday press conference,” CNN reported, “President Donald Trump repeatedly suggested there was a link between the tragedy and diversity hiring policies at the Federal Aviation Administration.”

“It’s most important to note that Trump provided no evidence whatsoever that there was any such connection. But it’s also worth noting that some of Trump’s specific assertions about the FAA’s push to hire people with disabilities were either inaccurate or missing critical context about what happened during Trump’s own first presidency.”

Political strategist Donna Brazile noted, “Without an investigation or the recovery of all of the souls that have fallen, Trump inflicts partisan damage without proof or evidence.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

'Sickening': Senator says Trump’s DEI 'blame game' means he’s 'afraid to answer questions'

U.S. President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 30, 2025. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

Carl Gibson

January 30, 2025

ALTERNET


Less than 24 hours after a mid-air collision at the Washington D.C. National Airport killed as many as 67 people, President Donald Trump argued that tragedy was the result of is predecessors' hiring practices. One Democratic U.S. senator called his argument "sickening."

From the White House briefing room, Trump asserted without evidence that diversity, equity and inclusion policies, or DEI, under former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden were the main contributor to the crash. During a Thursday interview on MSNBC, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told host Chris Jansing that Trump's comments were "sickening" and "turned [his] stomach." He also suggested that Trump may be hoping to distract the media from one of his actions that could have contributed to the crash.



"Imagine you're a you're a family member and you're grieving the loss of a family member. And you have the president of the United States telling you that your loved one was killed because of DEI, when he has zero evidence — and I mean zero, I mean less than zero — to suggest that that's true," Kaine said. "It's been reported today that President Trump scrapped an aviation safety board that was advising the [Department of Homeland Security] on January 22nd, maybe he wanted to change the subject and not have to answer questions about why he did that."

READ MORE: '67 people are dead': Aviation reporter rips Trump's 'inconsiderate' and 'frankly unhinged' presser

As Kaine mentioned, Trump fired every member of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee on January 22, along with the heads of the Transportation Security Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard. In the memo announcing the firings, the Trump White House wrote that the firings of advisory committee members were part of his "commitment to eliminating the misuse of resources and ensuring that D.H.S. activities prioritize our national security."

According to the New Republic, the Aviation Security Advisory Committee was established more than 30 years ago after the PanAm Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. The outlet reported that virtually all of the committee's recommendations had been incorporated into federal aviation safety standards, and that the committee had been out of commission for more than a week at the time of the crash.

"There was not an there was not a [Federal Aviation Administration] administrator named, okay. He's named somebody today. Great. But his decision to instead of comfort grieving families, start to play a blame game is really sickening," he continued. "And maybe there's something that he doesn't want to have the public pay attention to."

Watch the video of Sen. Kaine's comments below, or by clicking this link.

'Heinous personality': Internet unleashes on 'psychopath' Trump after he jokes about crash

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks while signing executive orders during a brief event in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 30, 2025. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

Carl Gibson

January 30, 2025

ALTERNET

Before all the bodies of the 67 people killed in a mid-air collision Wednesday night have even been recovered, President Donald Trump made a quip about the tragedy. One comment Trump recently made from the Oval Office resulted in anger and outrage on social media.

On Thursday evening, while taking questions from reporters from the Resolute Desk, Trump demurred from answering questions about whether he would meet with victims' families. But in one exchange, he suggested to a reporter that he didn't plan to visit the site of the crash, which happened above the Potomac River, because he didn't want to "go swimming."

"I have a plan to visit — not the site, because, you tell me, what's the site? The water? You want me to go swimming?" Trump said. "I don't have a plan to do that, but I will be meeting with some people that were very badly hurt — with their family member, obviously."

Pennsylvania Capital-Star correspondent Nick Field theorized that because the fatal plane crash took up the bulk of TV news coverage on Thursday, Trump was "p—d" and "had to rectify that by putting his heinous personality on display and stealing attention." Writer and comedian Akilah Hughes wrote on Bluesky: "Wow. What a piece of s—."

"Absolutely no empathy at all," TV actor and writer Jean-Marcos González posted to X.

Attorney Chase Madar lamented that Americans were "in for another four years of this s—." Author and artist Oisín McGann responded to the video of Trump's comments by writing: "Okay, so he's a psychopath." And actor Nazarin Nour tweeted that she "hate[s] this f—ing idiot."

"People’s loved ones died in that water, children included, and he makes a joke," Nour wrote.

'67 people are dead': Aviation reporter rips Trump’s 'inconsiderate' and 'frankly unhinged' presser

Image via Screengrab / CNN

Alex Henderson

January 30, 2025

ALTERNET


After an air collision between a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet occurred outside Washington, DC, some MAGA Republicans — including President Donald Trump and Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tennessee) — were quick to blame DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs for the tragedy.

Ogles blamed DEI during a conversation with Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo, and Trump attacked DEI during a press conference on Thursday.

But aviation expert Pete Muntean called out Trump's comments as ridiculous during a conversation on CNN.

When CNN's Pamela Brown asked him if DEI policies at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) were "to blame" for the collision, Muntean replied, with frustration, "I put my head in my hands, Pam. when the president said that. This is something that has been pushed by the far right for a few months now: that die policies are to blame and a degradation in safety in aviation in the United States. But frankly, the president is getting out ahead of his skis here."

Muntean continued, "What he has said is not only unprofessional, unpresidential, inconsiderate of the status of this investigation, but frankly, it is just unhinged that he could even say, with any sort of certainty, that diversity, equity and inclusion policies had any part to play in this accident."

Muntean grew even angrier when he described the likely death toll in the collision. Officials believe that neither the 64 passengers on the American Airlines flight nor the three people on the Blackhawk helicopter survived.

Muntean told Brown, "Sixty-seven people are dead. I hate to get so upset here, but this is something that investigators will really need to pick apart piece by piece. And that is going to take some really significant time. We're not even 24 hours after this crash. We're barely even 12 hours after this crash. And he is saying, with a lot of certainty, that the blame is on DEI and the blame is, in some ways, on air traffic control and air traffic controller hiring."

The aviation expert continued, "I have to feel for the air traffic controllers in the tower at Reagan National Airport, who had to essentially sit there helplessly and make the call to first responders to say, 'We have a serious aircraft crash.'"

Watch the full video below or at this link.

Trump's Firing of Labor Officials Shows He 'Could Not Care Less About Rights of Workers'

"Trump and Republicans are hell-bent on launching an all-out assault on working people and their rights—they're just hoping we don't notice," said Democratic Sen. Patty Murray.

Union members picket outside of the Netflix/Warner Bros. Discovery offices on October 31, 2023 in New York City.
(Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Jan 29, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

U.S. President Donald Trump's firing of officials on the National Labor Relations Board and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission earlier this week marks another clear indication that he "could not care less about the rights of workers," a top Democratic senator remarked late Tuesday as the implications of the president's moves set in.

"I am extremely alarmed by the unprecedented firings of EEOC commissioners and NLRB members without cause—these are yet more lawless actions by a president who thinks he is above the law," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said of Trump's termination of EEOC commissioner Jocelyn Samuels, former EEOC chair Charlotte Burrows, NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox, and NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo—decisions that are expected to spark legal fights.

"These brazen firings undermine not only the will of Congress but these agencies' critical work fighting on behalf of workers across the country," Murray added. "Trump and Republicans are hell-bent on launching an all-out assault on working people and their rights—they're just hoping we don't notice."

Trump's firing of Wilcox and Abruzzo—champions of workers' rights—halted the NLRB's ability to issue decisions, as the board is now without a quorum.


"The board reviews rulings by in-house judges in cases brought by the general counsel," Reutersnoted. "Until it does, those orders cannot be enforced."

News of the firings—which could have sweeping implications for the future of the NLRB and organizing rights—came on the same day the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released fresh data showing that the share of workers who were union members in 2024 fell to a new low of 9.9% even as public support for unions climbed to 70%, close to a record high.


The Economic Policy Institute noted that "although the latest BLS data show a decline in the unionization rate, many workers continued to make organizing gains within auto manufacturing, hospitality, public education, and healthcare."

AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler warned in a statement Tuesday that Trump's firing of Wilcox—who, under federal law, cannot be fired on political grounds—"is illegal and will have immediate consequences for working people."

"By leaving only two board members in their posts, the president has effectively shut down the National Labor Relations Board's operations, leaving the workers it defends on their own in the face of union-busting and retaliation," said Shuler. "Alongside the firing of NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, these moves will make it easier for bosses to violate the law and trample on workers' legal rights on the job and fundamental freedom to organize."

"Member Wilcox has already indicated she will challenge her firing," Shuler added, "and we fully expect she will succeed in the courts and be restored to her position so she can continue to be a critical pro-worker voice on the NLRB

Teachers Unions Blast Trump Plan to 'Steal Money' From Public Schools for Vouchers


"Every student deserves fully funded neighborhood public schools that give them a sense of belonging and prepare them with the lessons and life skills they need to follow their dreams and reach their full potential."


Teacher Hope Manuel talks with students on their first day of third grade at Moulton Elementary School in Laguna Niguel, California on August 20, 2024.
(Photo: Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Jan 29, 2025
COMMON DREAMS


Leaders of the nation's two largest teachers unions on Wednesday sharply criticized U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order that would direct federal funding toward enabling families to send their children to private rather than public K-12 schools.

Before the White House released the order Wednesday evening, multiple media outlets obtained and reported on related documents and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on Fox News that Trump intended to sign that order and others.

In response to reporting on Trump's order promoting "school choice," as right-wing advocates call it, the National Education Association (NEA)—the largest U.S. teachers union, representing over 3 million workers— released a statement lambasting the president's plan to "steal money from public school students to fund private school vouchers."

NEA president Becky Pringle declared that "every student deserves fully funded neighborhood public schools that give them a sense of belonging and prepare them with the lessons and life skills they need to follow their dreams and reach their full potential. Instead of stealing taxpayer money to fund private schools, we should focus on public schools—where 90% of children, and 95% of children with disabilities, in America, attend—not take desperately needed funds away from them. If we are serious about doing what is best for students, let's reduce class sizes to give our students more one-on-one attention and increase salaries to address the teacher and staff shortages."

"The bottom line is vouchers have been a catastrophic failure everywhere they have been tried," she continued. "President Trump is using his Project 2025 playbook to privatize education because he knows vouchers have repeatedly been a failure in Congress. Parents, educators, and voters know what students need—and vouchers are never the solution. In fact, when voters have a say about vouchers, they have been soundly rejected—time and again—at the ballot box. Just this past November, voters in Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska overwhelmingly said no to vouchers."

"We know vouchers take money away from neighborhood public schools. We know students with disabilities depend on these same public schools. We know that voucher programs leave out wide swaths of students, especially Black and brown students as well as those living in rural areas with no or limited access to private schools. And we know this stunt is meaningless without the consent of Congress," she said. "So, we are putting all anti-public education politicians on notice: If you try to come for our students, for our schools, and for our communities, NEA members will mobilize and will defeat vouchers again."



Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which has 1.8 million members, similarly stressed that "Americans of all political stripes want safe and welcoming public schools where kids are engaged and have the knowledge and skills to thrive in careers, college, and life. This plan is a direct attack on all that parents and families hold dear; it's a ham-fisted, recycled, and likely illegal scheme to diminish choice and deny classrooms resources to pay for tax cuts for billionaires."

"We already know that vouchers go mostly to wealthy families whose kids are already in private school. This order hijacks federal money used to level the playing field for poor and disadvantaged kids and hands it directly to unaccountable private operators—a tax cut for the rich," she explained. "It diminishes community schools and the services they provide. It dilutes crucial literacy and arts education grants. It takes an ax to the Department of Defense schools that are a global model for student success. It weakens Bureau of Indian Education schools already struggling due to underfunding and neglect."

Specifically, according to CBS News, "the executive order directs the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, to submit a plan to Mr. Trump for how military families can use Defense Department funds to send their kids to the school of their choosing."

"More broadly, it directs the Department of Education to prioritize school choice programs through its discretionary grant programs, and orders the Department of Health and Human Services to issue guidance on how states receiving block grants for families and children can use those funds to support private and faith-based institutions," the outlet reported.

CBS added:

The executive order also directs the Department of Education to issue guidance to states on how to use federal funding formulas—which determine how much money to allocate to districts and schools—to support their K-12 scholarship programs.

The interior secretary, when confirmed, must also submit a plan to the president outlining how families with students at Bureau of Indian Education schools can use federal money to send those children to a school of their family's choosing. About 47,000 American Indian and Alaska Native students are enrolled in Bureau of Indian Education schools.

Like Pringle, Weingarten highlighted that "voters overwhelmingly rejected billionaire-backed voucher scams in November—even in states Trump won—because they know vouchers hurt student achievement, bankrupt state budgets, and deny opportunity to rural and urban communities."

"They spurned extremist school board candidates and opted again and again for levies and ballot initiatives to improve public schools," she said. "While this order will succeed in uniting parents and educators in a righteous effort to defend public schools, it is unfortunate that we have to spend time fighting for—rather than strengthening—the institutions 90% of American kids attend."

The union leaders' comments came just hours after the National Assessment of Educational Progress released data on student performance in mathematics and reading for 2024—which Weingarten responded to by saying: "We don't need stagnant NAEP scores to show us the headwinds children are facing, regardless of whether they attend public or private school. Rather than waiting for lagging indicators such as NAEP, AFT members are fighting every day for 'real solutions' to create safe, welcoming, and joyful schools that engage kids and close the achievement gap between the lowest and highest performers."

Trump's order and the related backlash also came after the president said on his Truth Social platform Tuesday afternoon: "Congratulations to Tennessee Legislators who are working hard to pass School Choice this week, which I totally support. We will very soon be sending Education BACK TO THE STATES, where it belongs. It is our goal to bring Education in the United States to the highest level, one that it has never attained before. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

Trump has repeatedly teased fully dismantling the federal Department of Education, but he has also nominated its potential next leader: scandal-plagued former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon. She still needs to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, which is narrowly controlled by Republicans.

In addition to the measure that will shift money toward private schools, Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order "eliminating federal funding or support for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology," and "protecting parental rights."

As LawDork's Chris Geidner summarized, the latter measure "attempts to restrict all schools that receive federal funds from protecting trans and nonbinary students or supporting diversity measures, while at the same time purporting to advance 'patriotic education.'"

FIGHTBACK FRIDAY

'Fired Up to Make These Goons as Frustrated as Possible': Federal Workers Find Fighting Spirit



"This is mental warfare. Don't quit. Hold the line," wrote one user on an online forum for federal employees and contractors, amid the Trump administration's repeated attacks on government workers.

Eloise Goldsmith
Jan 30, 2025
COMMON DREAMS


Following a Tuesday memo sent from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management offering most of the federal workforce the option to resign or remain in their positions but without "full assurance regarding the certainty of [a worker's] position or agency," federal employees are taking to the social media platform Reddit to find solidarity and urge each other to stick it out.

"This non 'buyout' really seems to have backfired," wrote one user on subreddit for government workers and contractors, r/fednews.

"I'll be honest, before that email went out, I was looking for any way to get out of this fresh hell. But now I am fired up to make these goons as frustrated as possible, [President Donald Trump's return to in-person work directive] be damned. Hold the line!" the user wrote.

Common Dreams has included quotes from Reddit users who indicate they are federal employees, but did not independently verify their employment with the federal government.

Some media reports have called the OPM offer a "buyout," though the union the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and other observers have said it is merely an offer to resign, effective in September, with the ability to telework between now and September.

Federal employees have until February 6 to accept the offer, according to the email.

"The program is not buyout nor is it a Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment ('VISP') program. Instead, it purports to offer employees the ability to submit a deferred resignation and claims employees that do so will continue to receive pay, while still possibly working, until September 30, 2025," according to a fact sheet from AFGE.

AFGE and at least one other union representing federal employees have urged their members not to resign by responding to OPM's email.

Meanwhile, the OPM email has also sparked federal worker pride on Reddit.

A self-described "blue collar fed" wrote on Wednesday that the memo demonstrated that the current administration fundamentally misunderstands "the kind of person who works for the federal government."

"If we were able to be bought with empty promises and dubious buyouts, we'd be in the private sector, making 25% more money than we do here," the user wrote. "We swore an oath to the Constitution and the people of these United States of America. We're here because we know that not everyone can do the jobs we do, and we know that what we do is important."

A Thursday post from a user expressing low morale in the face of the Trump administration's moves targeting federal workers and worrying that they could be fired, was met with encouragement and calls to remain strong. "This is mental warfare. Don't quit. Hold the line," a user wrote in response.

Multiple nonfederal workers said they were heartened by the solidarity and fighting spirit exhibited on r/fednews.

President of the group Run for Something, Amanda Litman, posted on X that one of the threads had her "in [her] feelings."

Unions representing federal employees are also fighting back against Trump administration actions focused on civil servants. Three unions have filed two separate lawsuits challenging Trump's "Schedule F" executive order, a measure aimed at removing job protections for many career federal employees.

Robert Reich has a special message for federal workers

REUTERS/Carlos Barria TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
Supporters react as Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Novi, Michigan, U.S. October 26, 2024.

Robert Reich

January 30, 2025

ALTERNET


I’m addressing this post to America’s 2.3 million federal employees.

My message: Don’t accept Elon’s offer.

Yesterday, Musk — via people he’s planted in the Office of Personnel Management — sent an email to all 2.3 million of you, offering to pay you for eight months of work, through September 30, if you’ll resign from the government before February 6. Otherwise, you risk being furloughed (that is, not paid) or fired.

You know what this is about. Not slimming the federal workforce, but substituting Trump loyalists for people like you, who are working for the American public.

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, said it out loud Tuesday on CNN: "The 2 million employees in the federal government are overwhelmingly left of center.” And now that Trump is elected, "it is essential for him to get control of government.”

But the fact is, neither Musk nor even Trump has legal authority to offer you eight months of pay if you’ll resign by February 6.

Your salaries are funded by the federal agencies and departments you work for, not by the Office of Personnel Management, not by Musk, and not by Trump.

None of them is authorized by Congress to move money from one agency or department to another without Congress’s approval. I know. I used to be a cabinet secretary.

Besides, the funding for your agency or department is guaranteed only through March 14, when the government is expected to shut down unless the debt ceiling is lifted. If not, any commitment for additional pay is worthless.

In fact, Musk (and Trump) are violating the law by agreeing to spend money that the administration doesn’t have. Congress could declare the entire offer illegal — which it is. Then where would you be?

May I also add that you shouldn’t trust Trump or Musk.

Trump has a long history of stiffing workers and contractors.

So, for that matter, does Musk. During the pandemic, Musk gave Tesla employees permission to remain at home if they didn’t feel comfortable reporting to the factory. Then he sent them termination notices alleging “failure to return to work.”

When he bought Twitter in 2022, Musk denied he wanted to lay off 75 percent of its staff (“No way I’m laying off 75 percent of them”) but then fired 80 percent of them (maybe that’s what he meant when he pledged not to fire 75 percent?)

In short, it’s a bum offer. Reject it.

By the way, thank you for your service.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Reich, former secretary of labor

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

Major Public Sector Unions Sue Over Trump's 'Politicization' of Civil Service

The head of a legal group representing the plaintiffs called the Trump administration's effort to "politicize" nonpartisan federal employees "simply and clearly illegal."



Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), speaks during a news conference outside the AFL-CIO headquarters on July 15, 2021 in Washington, DC.
(Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Eloise Goldsmith
Jan 30, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

Two unions representing federal employees filed a complaint in federal court on Wednesday arguing that U.S. President Donald Trump "illegally exceeded his authority" by attempting to roll back Biden-era worker protections when he implemented his "Schedule F" executive order, a measure aimed at removing job protections for many career federal employees.

The plaintiffs are the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents some 800,000 federal civilian employees, and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which represents some 1.4 million public employees, including federal workers.

The unions argue that Schedule F, which creates a new category of federal employees and makes it easier for a president to remove career civil servants not normally impacted by a presidential transition, is a scheme that put politics over professionalism.

"Despite this long-standing recognition of the importance of our professional civil service and protections against its politicization, the recently issued Schedule F order announces President Trump's intent to reclassify many career civil servants into a new category of federal employees and strip away their civil service protections so that they can be more easily fired," the plaintiffs argued.

Another union representing federal employees, National Treasury Employees Union, also filed a lawsuit challenging Schedule F last week.

The order, signed on Trump's first day in office, is a redux of an executive order that he implemented at the tail end of his first term, which was later reversed by former President Joe Biden.

In a statement Wednesday, AFSCME president Lee Saunders said that Schedule F "is a shameless attempt to politicize the federal workforce by replacing thousands of dedicated, qualified civil servants with political cronies."

"Our union was born in the fight for a professional, nonpartisan civil service, and our communities will pay the price if these anti-union extremists are allowed to undo decades of progress by stripping these workers of their freedoms. Together, we are fighting back," he said.

On Monday, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued guidance for the heads of departments and agencies to determine which workers are subject to Trump's Schedule F order.

The memo from OPM is "broadly worded; just about anyone in the civil service could be swept up into this category," Alan Lescht, a Washington, D.C.-based employment lawyer who represents federal workers, told the outlet Axios.

OPM, acting OPM Director Charles Ezell, and Trump are all listed as defendants in the lawsuit, which alleges that Trump overstepped his legal authority when he issued Schedule F and rendered parts of a preexisting OPM rule that reinforced civil service protections and merit system principles "inoperative and without effect."

The suit argues that OPM failed to adhere to the "notice-and-comment process" under Administrative Procedure Act when it rendered those regulatory provisions inoperative.

"In just the nine days since Trump took office, his administration has repeatedly demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law in service of its political objectives," said Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman, whose firm is serving as co-counsel for the plaintiffs, in a Wednesday statement.

The Trump administration's effort "to politicize the nonpartisan, independent federal employees who protect our national and domestic security, ensure our food and medications are safe, deliver essential services to people and communities everywhere, and much more is simply and clearly illegal," Perryman said.

Federal Workers Union Warns Trump Purge 'Will Cause Chaos'


"Between the flurry of anti-worker executive orders and policies, it is clear that the Trump administration's goal is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot stay even if they want to."

U.S. President Donald Trump arrives at the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C. on January 27, 2025.
(Photo: Kent Nishimura/AFP via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Jan 28, 2025
COMMON DREAMS


A union that represents over 800,000 employees of the federal and District of Columbia governments on Tuesday responded with alarm to U.S. President Donald Trump's effort to pressure some workers to leave their jobs.

"The number of civil servants hasn't meaningfully changed since 1970, but there are more Americans than ever who rely on government services," said American Federation of Government Employees national president Everett Kelley in a statement. "Purging the federal government of dedicated career federal employees will have vast, unintended consequences that will cause chaos for the Americans who depend on a functioning federal government."

"This offer should not be viewed as voluntary," Kelley added, referring to a memo emailed to federal employees on Tuesday. "Between the flurry of anti-worker executive orders and policies, it is clear that the Trump administration's goal is to turn the federal government into a toxic environment where workers cannot stay even if they want to."

Another labor group for federal workers, the National Treasury Employees Union, filed suit last week over one of those orders, which reinstated, with some amendments, the "Schedule F" measure that Trump implemented near the end of his first term.

In response to the administration's actions regarding the federal workforce, some critics have pointed to the Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025, from which the Republican president unsuccessfully tried to distance himself while on the campaign trail. As Common Dreamsreported earlier Tuesday, a U.S. tech researcher revealed that the authors of policies published by Trump's Office of Personnel Management (OPM) have ties to the far-right organization and its infamous initiative.

Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said in a Tuesday night statement that "Donald Trump is trying every trick he and his Project 2025 cronies can think of to circumvent established civil service protections so they can purge the civil service of experts and replace them with political loyalists."

"The victims here, as is always the case with Donald Trump, are the American people who will see government services and benefits allocated not by nonpartisan civil servants, but by partisan hacks," added Connolly, ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Connolly and Kelley's and comments on Tuesday came after a senior Trump official toldAxios that "the government-wide email being sent today is to make sure that all federal workers are on board with the new administration's plan to have federal employees in office and adhering to higher standards. We're five years past Covid and just 6% of federal employees work full-time in office. That is unacceptable."

While Axios broke the news of the "acceleration in President Trump's already unprecedented purge of the federal workforce," other media outlets also swiftly published related reports. Government Executivecalled out the debunked 6% figure, noting that "more than half of federal workers cannot telework because their duties are portable, and employees who telework spent around 60% of their work hours in person, per 2024 Office of Management and Budget data."

Many initial reports framed the message to federal workers as a "buyout" program, but after OPM posted the full memo on its website, experts including Alan Mygatt-Tauber‪, an adjust professor at Seattle University School of Law, emphasized that it "is absolutely NOT an early resignation offer with eight months severance pay."

Slate journalist Mark Joseph Stern similarly stressed that "this is NOT a buyout! Those who take the offer simply get permission to telework through September, at which point they lose their jobs. Media coverage of the details has been pretty misleading."


The OPM memo emailed to workers explains that the "reformed federal workforce" will be built around four pillars: a return to the office, performance culture, a more streamlined and flexible workforce, and enhanced standards of conduct.

The memo states:
If you choose to remain in your current position, we thank you for your renewed focus on serving the American people to the best of your abilities and look forward to working together as part of an improved federal workforce. At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity and will be afforded the protections in place for such positions.

If you choose not to continue in your current role in the federal workforce, we thank you for your service to your country and you will be provided with a dignified, fair departure from the federal government utilizing a deferred resignation program. This program begins effective January 28 and is available to all federal employees until February 6. If you resign under this program, you will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason).

The offer "applies to all full-time federal employees, except for military personnel, the Postal Service, and those working in immigration enforcement or national security," Axios detailed. The White House expects 5-10% of workers will take the deal.

As NBC Newsnoted Tuesday:
Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who is now in charge of Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency, famously sent a similar email to employees shortly after he took over Twitter, which he renamed X, asking them to opt in to keep working at the company.

White House officials wouldn't say whether he was involved in the current effort. But the subject line of the email that will be sent to federal workers is: "A fork in the road."

Musk now has a post pinned on X of an art piece he commissioned called "A Fork in the Road."

Although "department" is in the name of the Musk-led entity, it is actually a presidential advisory commission—and although the billionaire initially suggested that it would lead the effort to cut $2 trillion in annual spending, he has since tempered expectations.

The commission and Musk, the world's richest person, have faced intense scrutiny from watchdog groups and progressive lawmakers, though some have also offered advice on how to pursue significant cuts without harming the lives of working people, including: ending privatized Medicare, reducing prescription drug prices, and slashing the Pentagon's massive budget.


This post was updated after the Office of Personnel Management memo was officially released to clarify the buyout language and add comment from Congressman Gerry Connolly.