Education Week - November 16, 2016 - 1

Education Week
VOL. 36, NO. 13 * NOVEMBER 16, 2016

edweek.org:

BRE AKING NEWS DAILY

Trump Lesson Plan Awaited

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

By Andrew Ujifusa

President Barack Obama shakes hands with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval
Office last Thursday, after the two met to discuss the presidential transition.

TION
ELEC

2016

Donald Trump's victory in the race for the White House leaves widespread
uncertainty about what's in store for public schools under the first Republican
administration in eight years. Aside from school choice, Trump, a New York-based
real estate developer who has never before held public office, spent little time
talking about K-12 education during his campaign. And he has no record to speak
of on the issue for insights into what he may propose.
"We're all engaging in a lot of speculation because there hasn't been a lot of
serious discussion about this, especially in the Trump campaign," Martin R. West,
an associate professor of education at Harvard University, said in the run-up to
the Nov. 8 presidential election. West has advised Republicans, including 2012
nominee Mitt Romney and Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, on education.
Trump did propose a $20 billion plan to dramatically expand school choice
for low-income students. It would use federal money to help them attend
private, charter, magnet, and regular public schools of their choice. It's also
designed to leverage additional state investments in school choice of up to
PAGE 23 >

CONGRESS:

STATES:

BILINGUAL:

CHARTERS:

UNIONS:

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT:

GOP still holds reins on
panels overseeing K-12
policy. PAGE 18

Rounding up results on
state races, education
ballot measures. PAGE 18

California voters end
prohibition on bilingual
education. PAGE 20

Massachusetts bid to lift
charter cap fails in
expensive fight. PAGE 20

Teachers' unions come up
short despite big campaign
spending. PAGE 22

Agency may once again
face Republicans'
chopping block. PAGE 22

A Day After Election, Classes
Are Awash in Emotions
By Madeline Will

Dahna Bozarth

Students
pen letters to
President-elect
Donald Trump in
a New York City
classroom.

When teachers walked into their classrooms the morning after Donald Trump claimed the presidency in a
stunning victory, they had their work cut out for them.
Some students were jubilant, with many wearing
"Make America Great Again" hats and shirts in celebration. Others were angry and upset, with some

crying in class. Immigrant students, or those from
immigrant families, expressed fear that they or their
family members would be deported under the Trump
administration.
In a handful of schools, including in Berkeley, Calif.;
Phoenix; and Des Moines, Iowa, students-and in some
cases, teachers-staged walkouts in protest of the Republican nominee's win. Educators even reported physical outbursts and confrontations as emotions ran high.
Now, teachers must work to ease divisions in their
classrooms. They must soothe the fears of their students
of color, while giving all students space to process their
PAGE 14 >

Few Women Run
School Districts. Why?
Stubborn Gender Gap in the Top Job
By Denisa R. Superville

PAGE 10>

CARMEN FARIÑA
New York City Schools
"I have never been soft.
If anything, I know what
I want, I know how I want it,
but I know that sometimes
you take a step backward
before you go three steps
forward. And how you create
the climate to make those
difficult decisions is very,
very important."

Victoria Will for Education Week

Nearly a decade after she was hired as the first woman to
run the Council Bluffs, Iowa, school district, Mary Martha
Bruckner is often one of the only women in the room.
That was the case last month when about two dozen superintendents and finance officers from Iowa's urban school
systems met to set their legislative agenda for the coming year.
Surveying the room, Bruckner spotted two other women.
"It was like, 'Wow, things haven't changed much at all,' "
said Bruckner, who is used to being a pioneer. In 1986, she
became the first female high school principal in the Ralston,
Neb., district.
Even though K-12 education is largely a female enterprise,
men dominate the chief executive's office in the nation's
nearly 14,000 districts, numbers that look especially bleak
given that the pool of talent is deep with women. Women
make up 76 percent of teachers, 52 percent of principals,
and 78 percent of central-office administrators, according to
federal data and the results of a recent national survey. Yet
they account for less than a quarter of all superintendents,

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Education Week - November 16, 2016

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