ABSTRACT Conservative activism around the purported influence of Critical Race Theory (CRT) on K-12 education has swept the country in recent years. While others have documented the sources of these messages, how school districts have responded to these critiques has not yet been investigated. Drawing on research on how social media algorithms elevate polarizing information and activate emotions, we analyze public social media posts on school/district Facebook pages mentioning the phrase “critical race” to examine how educators address the claim of teaching CRT and how the local community responds. We use sentiment analysis to examine the emotions of these posts and how they are distributed across states. We also explore the sentiment of subsequent community reactions reflected in the comments of each post, including negative emotions such as anger and fear, and positive emotions such as trust. This study has implications for how school districts can help to stop cycles of fearful rhetoric and engage with stakeholders in ways that unite a school community around shared priorities.

ABSTRACT In the run-up to the U.S. 2022 midterm elections, Republicans brought their fight to regain control of Congress to school districts across the country. Deploying a national disinformation campaign regarding how issues of race and racism are taught in K-12 public schools, astroturf 1 1 Astroturf organizations maintain a facade that creates an impression of grassroots support and hides their elite origins and backing. conservative advocacy organizations mobilized activists to descend on school board meetings and upend school board elections nationwide demanding an end to indoctrination of children with critical race theory (CRT). These efforts created a chilling effect among superintendents and school board members committed to advancing equity, anti-racism, and social justice. In this descriptive, conceptual paper, we portray and analyze the national campaign against CRT and equity in schools, how it played out at the local school district level, and its implications for superintendents and school board members leading for equity. Tenets of critical policy analysis are used to frame and organize our analysis of the national disinformation campaign to include policy documents, blog posts, news coverage, and related materials that illustrate its impact on local school districts. We conclude with a discussion of how superintendents and school board members committed to equity leadership must understand how the politics of race and effective use of political spectacle can undermine local efforts to advance equity and social justice in schools, and consider the far-reaching consequences for the future of public education in the U.S.

ABSTRACT As agentic documents, anti-trans policies express a yearning for the queer, the trans, the black, exist through a poetics of silence. In this conceptual manuscript, I discuss voice as a trans woman phenomenon, a phonic movement through which trans women reorganize themselves to the world. The annihilation of trans women’s voice, then, is a realization of transmisogyny, which animates and orients the schooling process. I argue what is needed is not more policy, but a solidarity of the marooned beyond, outside of, and underneath policies that (fore)tell trans girls and women being (in schools).

ABSTRACT While schools are necessary spaces for democratic education, more analyses are needed that unpack their limits. Drawing from ethnographic research in U.S. Government classrooms in two predominantly White schools in politically conservative communities in central Ohio, findings show that teachers and students idealize a politically neutral pedagogy, yet in practice, teachers engage in discursive and pedagogical moves that reify right-wing politics in implicit and explicit ways. Ideas that deviate from “neutrality”—those deemed “racial” or left-leaning—are viewed as “political” and avoided. Drawing on the concept of hegemonic power and situating this amidst conversations of the White normative trappings of civic and social studies education, this paper offers insights into the political ideologies and pedagogical choices that shape right-wing civic learning opportunities in politically and racially homogenous schools.

ABSTRACT Despite a long history of local control of schools, educational issues have become increasingly contested at higher levels of government as battles are fought in state and federal venues and along partisan lines. In light of this change as well as recent battles over school responses to COVID-19 and schools’ roles in combating systemic racism, we explore how the shifting politics of education have affected public attitudes toward localism in education. We demonstrate that the public’s preference for local control is not as deeply held as conventional wisdom suggests. Local government is never the public’s most preferred option when asked about the optimal distribution of education funding or decision-making authority across all three levels of government. Our results also show that preferences for local control have remained relatively stable and exhibit only narrowly increasing partisan differences; however, the increase in the partisan divide is larger among parents. We note that Democrats have adjusted their preferences over the last few years, shifting modestly in favor of local decision-making when Republicans control the Presidency and Congress. Finally, we observe some evidence that prompting individuals to consider schools’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic causes them to gravitate toward local control of education.

ABSTRACT In the aftermath of the Capitol Insurrection, many states sought to bolster civic education through efforts such as the South Dakota Civics and History Initiative (SDCHI). This study examined the SDCHI through a Critical Policy Analysis and Critical Race Theory lens to understand how the initiative and related rhetoric reflected, protected, and perpetuated Whiteness as property. To answer this question, we conducted an inductive content analysis of 40 policy documents. Our analysis generated a microhistory and two thematic findings that underscored the contradictions in policy rhetoric, rationales, and implementation to reveal how the SDCHI perpetuated White supremacy by reinforcing a single-narrative master script of American history and identity. Collectively the findings pointed to the ways that Whiteness as property functioned to thwart efforts toward socially just and culturally responsive education. By critically examining these policy mechanisms, this study seeks to inform the responses of educators and policymakers committed to emancipatory, democratic, and socially just approaches to civic education.

ABSTRACT This article presents the National Rural Education Association’s Rural Research Agenda 2022–2027. In order to determine rural stakeholders’ perspectives of research priorities, data collection included 328 surveys, six focus groups with 43 participants, and nine interviews with rural education practitioners, leaders, and policymakers. From a grounded theory methodological framework, findings revealed a core category of educational and spatial equity, surrounded by five additional interconnected themes: college and career trajectory; community partnerships and relationships; health and wellness; policy and funding; and teacher/leader recruitment, retention, and preparation. A call to action, the research findings point to a need for rural education research that centers educational and spatial equity while also recognizing the intersectional nature of the agenda’s five supporting themes. The five-year agenda charts a path for rural education research that is focused on addressing rural education challenges while highlighting innovative rural practices that are transferable across locales.

ABSTRACT In this article, we conduct a systematic review of the literature completed over the past 4 decades pertaining to teacher recruitment, retention, and resultant teacher shortages. We focus on research that examines rural settings, per the National Rural Education Association’s identification of the recruitment and retention of teachers in rural schools as a primary research priority. Evidence distilled in this systematic review shows that though this area of scholarship has expanded in recent years, there remains a paucity of policy and program evaluations focused on rural settings, a stark contrast to the depth of urban-focused and location-agnostic scholarship. While research on other geographic settings may provide some level of relevance for rural settings, evidence pertaining to rural schools, particularly that focused on heterogeneous rural contexts, likely would inform rural policy and practice more effectively. We summarize the existing body of research and conclude by considering possibilities for future avenues of actionable scholarship.