The first San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) strike in nearly 50 years ended Friday, Feb. 13, having lasted for four days. The new $183 million agreement includes some essential demands made by the union representing San Francisco’s teachers, the United Educators of San Francisco (UESF). The major demands included increased compensation packages, fully funded […]
Tag: education
To Water the Seed, to Heal Our Children
School is meant to be a safe space for students to build social and intellectual skills. At the same time, it can quickly turn into a violent landscape. Take Watsonville High School, where four teenagers were arrested on charges of attempted murder and felony battery. One of the teenagers, a 16-year-old boy, can be tried […]
Caught in the Crossfire: UC Berkeley and the Federal War on Higher Education
At the crossroads of politics and pedagogy, the Department of Education has become a focal point of national controversy under the Trump Administration. Since 1867, the Department of Education has widely administered and funded state-run education in the United States. Along with this function, it also operates investigations on the grounds of racial preferences, and […]
A Homicide Against Academia
On August 14th, UC Berkeley students received an email from the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor & Provost that provided an all-access service for Google’s AI large-language model (LLM), Gemini. Vice Chancellor Hermalin and his colleagues crafted an email that consists of two main parts: the first section of the email outlines the services […]
The Smithsonian v. Nationalism
Individuals are able to communicate with the past, present, and the future through museums; they can interact with their long-lived ancestors, connect through deteriorating or flourishing culture, and discover minor and major triumphs as well as sins of the collective. It’s a privilege of the United States to be home to the world’s largest museum […]
Inside San Quentin: The Transformative Power of Education and Rehabilitation
This summer, I worked at a small non-profit organization called Humans of San Quentin, whose primary aim is to humanize incarcerated people through personal narratives and other creative contributions. I not only read about the lives and experiences of countless people in prison, but also talked to them on the phone and asked questions that […]
The Executive’s Ambush on Multilingualism
On March 6, 2025, the Executive Office of the President released Executive Order no. 14224: Designating English as the Official Language of the United States. The order revokes Executive Order 13166, which was put in place to protect limited English proficiency (LEP) people’s access to federally-funded services like education by providing multilingual access to their […]
School Vouchers: Salvation or Scam?
Imagine if you were only legally allowed to shop at one grocery store. The produce is rotten, and the store doesn’t have any of your favorite items. Worse, other customers are violent, and they harass you, so you feel unsafe every time you shop. If you pay an exorbitant amount of money, you could shop […]
From Abandoned to Essential: China’s Ban on International Adoptions Signals a New Era for Daughters
For decades, Chinese daughters were abandoned in favor of sons, leading to waves of international adoptions like Kate’s. This new restriction on international adoption seems to signal a change in how Chinese society views its daughters today.
Teaching in America: A Shattered Dream
I dreamed of following in my mother’s footsteps to become a teacher. We would spend our Augusts decorating her classrooms with cheesy quotes and fun colors. During the year, she would grade assignments and share her elementary school students’ funny insights while I did my homework by her side. Then, I began to watch her […]
Silencing Knowledge: The Ignorance Behind Book Bans
At the age of four, we are sent off into an entirely new world filled with education. We move grade to grade, learning about our passions and eventually what we want to do in life, largely credited to the content we digest and are given in classrooms. However, children of the new generation and those […]
In Myanmar, Military Drafts Scare Away the Educated
“There’s no future for the youth.” —Tun Myint, Professor of Political Science at Carleton College VOA In Myanmar, youth are forced to confront a deadly choice. The country’s precarious position is under constant threat from rebel groups. Since the 2021 coup that replaced democratically elected leadership with a military junta, Myanmar has teetered on the […]
A Legacy of Separation: Connecting San Francisco’s History of Redlining to the Educational Disparities in SFUSD
The city of San Francisco, seated at the center of innovation and wealth, has a long history of trying to reverse the effects of neighborhood segregation within the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD). In the 1970s, their first desegregation attempt was enacted through the Horseshoe Plan and Operation Integrate, dividing SF into zones to […]
The Climate Crisis is Worsening Gender Inequality in Education
One in every five children currently not enrolled in school resides in Nigeria. Despite primary education being entirely free and compulsory, over 10.5 million children are currently out of school. Gender plays a significant role in this pattern of educational deprivation. The net attendance rate for young girls in Nigeria is around 47% percent, compared […]
Not My Child: Parental Pressure on Teachers in South Korea
In South Korea, suicide is the leading cause of death among teenagers. It is the number one cause of death for young people since 2017, and the number of deaths continues to rise. Popular media and expert surveys pin the blame on the country’s rigorous educational system. Students are not only weighed down by long […]
Free Speech is Under Attack
The Problem: Censorship in higher education In March 2023, Kyle Duncan, a conservative federal judge, was invited to speak at Stanford Law School. He was met by hundreds of student protestors, who gathered outside the classroom where his talk was scheduled to brandish signs and hurl insults at Duncan. One student shouted: “We hope your […]
Good Riddance, Affirmative Action: What’s Next?
There’s no way around it: affirmative action was a failure. Affirmative action sought to help non-White Americans overcome systemic barriers to equal opportunity. Considering the racial imbalances in education–funding inequities in primary/secondary schools, advanced coursework inaccessibility, and various non-academic factors–a system like affirmative action is necessary for approaching equal opportunity. A system like affirmative action, […]
Homeschooling: Fueling White Supremacy
The seventh most populous state of the union, Ohio, is so typical that it verges on the point of drab. But on the Buckeye State’s quiet streets teeming with suburban housing of seeming normalcy, there rests an underbelly of white supremacy. In the Winter of 2023, the Ohio Department of Education uncovered a bustling Neo-Nazi […]
Orbán’s Assault on Academic Freedom
Since his election in 2010, President Viktor Orbán of Hungary has been wreaking havoc on liberal democratic institutions and channels of political and everyday freedoms. Orbán has changed the rules of the game. Among his major assaults on democracy have been changing the original constitution to override constitutional-court decisions, introducing a new constitution, and implementing […]
AP DeSantis Studies: His Fight to Control Black Narratives
Following the rise of social justice movements in the summer of 2020, particularly the revitalization of the Black Lives Matter movement, the College Board announced in August of 2022 that it will be piloting a new Advanced Placement (AP) African American studies course in about 60 high schools. Officially offered nationwide in the 2024-2025 school […]
Embracing AI: ChatGPT is a Teacher’s Friend, Not Foe
Artificial intelligence is powerful. We can use it to generate artistic images with a short prompt in DALL-E, or to negotiate our daily lives via smart assistants like Siri or Alexa. But as ever, the arrival of transformative technology raises doubt and fear: will it be made to do our bidding in ways that improve […]
A Case Against Higher Education
It is no secret that attainment of a four-year college degree is associated with an increase in earnings over the course of a lifetime; recent college graduates earn, on average, about $52,000, while high school degree holders have average earnings of $30,000 in the United States. This discrepancy is the cause of massive economic inequality […]
Education Is Not The Great Equalizer
We have all been fed a lie: “Education is the great equalizer.” That line dominates the public discourse on K-12 public education. However, it’s certainly not true in the Bay Area nor in California. Piedmont High School and Oakland High School are less than 3 miles apart. Yet the academic performance of their students couldn’t […]
Standardized Testing Isn’t What’s Wrong with College Admissions
“Standardized testing is a form of eugenics,” declared a classmate in my legal studies class. We had been discussing the legacies of eugenics in the United States and how these harmful, pseudoscientific beliefs permeate our lives today. In response to the statement, other students began pointing to popular criticisms of standardized tests like the SAT […]
Dear Supreme Court, Affirmative Action Needs To Go
He scored 1550 on the SAT, maintained a 3.9 unweighted GPA as an IB student, played two varsity sports, won state and national rewards for debate and international recognition for his start-up. Like thousands of other qualified applicants, he didn’t make it into Harvard. Why? Because he ticked “Asian” for ethnicity on his Common App. […]
Fund Schools First: What the Free College Education Movement is Forgetting
In 2019 President Biden released “Joe’s Plan for Higher Education,” detailing his intentions to help Americans access higher education easily. With almost two-thirds of Americans supporting free college tuition, Biden’s initiative attracts much intrigue and support from the majority of voters. However, his plan does not consider a vital issue in the movement—the quality of […]
The Debate Around Reopening K-12 Schools in the Bay Area
Covid-19 has undoubtedly harmed our most vulnerable communities disproportionately. This effect has not just been seen on overall public health— it is also apparent throughout our education system. Due to the structure of public school funding, each school throughout the state differs enormously with varying degrees of resources. Public schools are beginning to face unprecedented […]
The U.S.-China Brain Drain
This publication, the Berkeley Political Review, is situated within the Bay Area, a section of California that is best known for its incredible innovations in the technology field. The ecosystem created in Silicon Valley is unlike any other comparable industry ecosystem in the world and has led to the creation of world-conquering technology companies. Focusing […]
The Korea You Know Doesn’t Exist
Trigger Warning: Suicide, Self Harm, and Eating Disorders It’s the 2017 American Music Awards. In a packed theater, the crowd competes with the blaring music as individuals scream their favorite band members’ names — an all too familiar sight. From performances by the Beatles to One Direction, swooning fans are the staples of music awards […]
America’s Forgotten History of Forced Sterilization
In early September, a nurse working at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Georgia came forward with shocking allegations of medical neglect and abuse, claiming that numerous involuntary hysterectomies (uterus removal surgeries) were performed on detained immigrant women. This allegation understandably evoked fury and outrage among the general public, with numerous people […]
Affirmative Action: Failed Promises & The Brighter Future
During the time of Dr. King, when America boldly established that its original promise would live up to the meaning of its creed, that equality under the law must be the privilege of all Americans, this country began on a path of reimagined possibility for the victims of its oppressive past. And in 1965, President […]
On California’s Law and Order Initiative: Proposition 20, Featuring Eric A. Stanley
“This bill is being pushed through at the same time that the people across the United States are demanding the abolition of the prison industrial complex. It’s indicative of a culture war, which is to say a class war, around prisons and policing.” – Eric A. Stanley Walking on the streets of California after consuming […]
Affirmative Action: Back on the Ballot
This November, one line could change California dramatically. Proposition 16 reads simply “That Section 31 of Article 1 [of the California Constitution] thereof is repealed”. And yet on a ballot packed full of controversial issues, Proposition 16 could be the most controversial of them all. In this installment of On the Ballot, we discuss Affirmative […]
Weighing Education Against Women’s Rights In Tanzania
When Mwajuma was fifteen and living in Shinyanga, Tanzania, her parents informed her she would have to drop out of school. She was getting married. Such instances of child marriage are not uncommon in Tanzania. It’s ingrained in the culture and in the law; the 1971 Law of Marriage Act allows girls to legally get […]
What the Chicago Teachers’ Strikes Reminded Us About Public Education
Like our parents, they see us off when we cross the stage and graduate. They applaud us, they congratulate us and they say their goodbyes. Years later they retire, and we learn that they’re just above the poverty line, even after those 45 years of dedicated work. We reminisce on their career and realize that […]
California’s Push for Performance in Higher Education
Over the past decades, reforms to implement performance-based funding (PBF) programs have been sweeping across the nation. California, joining 36 other states, is the most recent to switch to a PBF model for their higher education system. This legislation intends to link funding with specific measurable outcomes to ensure that public stakeholders receive the greatest […]
How Reparations Can Address Educational Inequities for Black American Students
While the rhetoric of a post-racial society has diminished the urgent claims for reparations, a national conversation has resurfaced. Largely because of the Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “A Case for Reparations” and the push to pass H.R. 40 (a bill to create a committee to research the impact of reparations), reparations are being reintroduced as a method […]
The “Split-Roll” Initiative: California’s New Hope for its Property Tax Loophole
Proposition 13, passed nearly 40 years ago, has been benefiting large corporations by handing them massive property tax breaks. This seemingly innocuous anti-tax legislation resulted in fundamental changes to the division of fiscal responsibility in California’s government. Now, a statewide coalition is trying to fight this through a new ballot measure. Passed in June 1978, […]
Are Democrats Dumping Charters?
Leila Hooshyar and Tara Madhav Discuss the Changing Debate Around Charter Schools within the Democratic Party
Race Based Affirmative Action Has Run Its Course
One of the aspects of American governmental institutions that doesn’t get enough attention is the lack of an intersectional approach to juridical issues that arise out of society. We have never been known to be able to take a multifaceted approach to any issue, especially when it comes to race relations. With years and years […]
Censor That Sh*t
Is censorship in California school districts an issue that the public’s ignored? Do school districts have the right to ban books from their libraries or restrict student access to literary materials? Are we doing more harm than good by omitting sensitive discussions in the classroom? In 2014, The Fault in Our Stars, a book chronicling […]
Failing Grade: How China’s All-Important Exam is Stunting National Growth
Every year, for two days in June, China comes to a standstill. Construction work is halted, traffic is diverted, and motorists are banned from honking, lest they disturb the nine and a half million teenagers taking a college entrance exam they believe will dictate their careers, wealth, and perhaps even marriage prospects. Drones are dispatched […]
Policy Shootout: Georgia Versus Delta Airlines
Corporations have followed the lead of social activists in the nationwide movement calling for greater gun control in the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, instituting anti-NRA and anti-gun policies. Delta Airlines, in particular, has raised headlines recently. “You’ve got to stand up for what you believe in” said […]
Recipe for a Successful Public School System
How properly implemented charter schools could aid students in historically poor areas Charter schools do not represent a desire to force capitalism further into the public school equation or a lack of desire to reform public schools that already exist. They represent the very real need to educate and do justice to the students that […]
Redefining Homelessness: The Struggle for Recognition
The sudden rush of people cramming onto BART is Brittany Jones’s alarm clock every morning. Since the age of 19, Brittany has been uncertain of where she will sleep each night, bouncing between BART, relatives’ and friends’ houses, group homes, and shelters. She is merely one of California’s thousands of homeless people trying to find […]
Dear Mr. Sanders: Tuition-Free Education is a Handout to the Rich
As an eye-catching, sloganeering, vote-winning policy, tuition-free public university is certainly a crowd pleaser. It was for Bernie Sanders, and his left-wing doppelganger in Britain, Jeremy Corbyn, is discovering the same thing. It’s the kind of policy that sounds big, bold, and revolutionary — especially to their young, usually middle-class college student supporters. However, as […]
The “Scourge of South Korea”: Stress and Suicide in Korean Society
“Suicide is everywhere,” says South Korean author Young-ha Kim, referring to modern Korean society, in his op-ed for the The New York Times. Countless others have documented what some call “the scourge of South Korea” – the fact that people of all classes, ages, and genders are committing suicide at exceptionally high rates. South Korea […]
To Fund or Not to Fund
How should society determine its priorities? Should government invest only in services that yield a quantifiable, measurable benefit? Or, should government also recognize the importance of things that, while gratifying to the soul, are not as clearly utilitarian? For decades, the arts have been lumped in with the second category. Museums, theaters, galleries, and other […]
A Dance with the Devl(in): Insight to the Fracturing of the Berkeley College Republicans and How It’s Still Dangerous
Note: The views in this article are those of the author alone, and do not represent the views of any organization in any official capacity. Even to outsiders, it is hard to miss the drama surrounding the Berkeley College Republicans that has drawn national attention by inviting controversial speakers and giving rise to protests that […]
Make Education Great Again
How politics and campaign funding affects the future of school reform “If confirmed, will you insist upon that equal accountability in any K-12 school or educational program that receives federal funding whether public, public charter, or private?” asked Senator Tim Kaine. “I support accountability,” replied Education Secretary nominee Betsy Devos. “Equal accountability for all schools […]
India, South Asia, and Hindutva: What’s Going On With California Textbooks?
A decade after the notorious 2005 California controversy over representation of Hinduism in state textbooks, it looks like a similar issue has come back to bite the California Department of Education. Previously, the Vedic Foundation and the American Hindu Education Foundation (HEF) complained to the California’s Curriculum Commission about an alleged misrepresentation of Indian Hinduism, […]
Disinvestment, Political Motives Mar the University of California
Late last year, the UC Regents passed a budget deal which provided the system with an injection of $119.5 million in new funds, in addition to $25 million from the state in return for enrolling 10,000 new California undergraduates over the next three years, starting with 6,500 this fall. The budget deal also called […]
Common Core Revisited
“Like it or not, life is full of measuring sticks,” narrates an upbeat female voice. A marker-wielding hand draws a scene of cartoon people happily interacting with measuring sticks in their day to day lives, including curiously enough, a boy on a stool holding a ruler and a paintbrush up against a canvas. “How smart […]
Singapore’s Challenge to Democracy
Henry Kissinger, the great American statesman of the 70’s, once wrote, “One of the asymmetries of history, is the lack of correspondence between the abilities of some leaders and the power of their countries.” But whom was Kissinger bestowing this rather grandiose compliment to? It was Lee Kuan Yew, a close confidant and friend of […]
Community College: Undivided Over an Educational Divide
On January 08, 2015, President Obama unveiled “a bold new plan” to universalize the first two years of community college. His initiative would provide free tuition to all students across the economic spectrum, but on the condition that students maintain a 2.5 GPA while attending school at least part-time. Although Obama’s proposal is only in […]
Governor Brown’s New Budget Outlines His Vision for the Future
Last week, California governor Jerry Brown unveiled his budget for the new fiscal year. As specified by the passage of Proposition 2 on the November ballot, Brown put $1.2 billion into a rainy day fund while paying down the same amount of the state debt and addressing other obligations that Brown says the state needs […]
The Text of Texas
Moses had influence over the constitution of the United States— at least that is what students are being taught in Texas. The social studies textbooks being used in Texas were recently evaluated by a group of history scholars and were judged to be full of “religious and conservative biases that… distort history”. The resultant biases […]
Piercing the Veil: Islamophobia and Miseducation in the American South
Cleveland County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Alton Nolen, the man accused of beheading his former coworker Colleen Hufford at a food distribution plant in Moore, Oklahoma. Minutes after being fired, Nolen, a Muslim, entered a different section of the Vaughan Foods facility and attacked employees. The tragic incident, concurrent with a surging […]
Children Left Behind: The ADHD Epidemic and Problems in American Education
The morning of October 21st, 2004, a fourteen-year-old named Matthew Hohmann took an Adderall XR pill for ADHD symptoms. His parents saw him down the pill with a cup of water; the next time they saw their son, he was prostrate on the bathroom floor. His lips were blue. He was nonresponsive. Matthew Hohmann died […]
2014 Nobel Peace Prize Winners Fight to Give Children a Voice and an Education
Last Friday, Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi were named the co-winners of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee stated that the two shared the prize for “their struggle against the suppression of children and for the right of all children to an education.” Yousafzai is a 17-year old Pakistani education activist, who […]
Tenure on Trial
In 2012, a study of fifteen year-olds from 34 developed countries ranked U.S. students 17th, scoring 25th in math, 17th in science, and 14th in reading. Yet the U.S. ranked 5th in spending for students. As a student from Los Angeles Unified School District, these dismal scores make complete sense to me. Amid the constant […]