Trump is Diverting Funds from One of the Best U.S. School Systems to Build His Wall
Yesterday the Pentagon announced that it would cut funding to its schools and daycare centers as part of a $3.6 billion diversion of funds toward construction of President Trump’s proposed wall on the southern border:
Schools for the children of U.S. military members from Kentucky to Germany to Japan will be affected. A daycare center at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland - the home of Air Force One - will also have its funds diverted, the Pentagon said.
This diversion, a result of President Trump using “national emergency” powers, means that the Federal government is cutting funding to a school system that educates the children of men and women serving in the military and is one of the highest-performing, most equitable school systems in the United States.
Under the auspices of the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), the Pentagon operates 163 schools in seven states, Puerto Rico, Guam, and eleven other countries. Students at DoDEA schools consistently rank among the highest-performing in the nation: 2017’s National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) saw DoDEA 8th graders take top marks in Reading and tie with Massachusetts students in Mathematics.
But what makes DoDEA schools so unique is more than just test scores. As Michael Winerip wrote in the New York Times several years ago,
In the last decade, the gap in reading between black and white fourth graders at base schools has decreased to 11 points this year (233 compared with 222), down from a 16-point difference in 2003 (230 compared with 214), a 31 CONTINUE READING: Trump is Diverting Funds from One of the Best U.S. School Systems to Build His Wall | Schott Foundation for Public Education
A Long Stare in the Mirror
Edgar Villanueva, author of Decolonizing Wealth, says philanthropy needs to take a long stare in the mirror. He’s a leading voice in the push for real equity and inclusion in the sector. “We need to look back at our history,” he said. “We exist with all these contradictions and we have to understand that the work of equity is messy. This is intentional work that we have to do every single day. How far are we willing to go to change things so that it’s not in service of our own comfort?”
Video produced by the Skoll Foundation.
