As is so often the case, education largely has been left out of the spotlight in this year’s presidential election. But many of the topics candidates — and voters — are talking about directly affect and involve schools and colleges.
The Hechinger Report has covered many of the key election issues, including abortion, the economy and immigration. Read our coverage of some of the biggest topics on this year’s campaign trail.
We want to know what questions you have about the election and education policy. Write to us: editor@hechingerreport.org.
On abortion
Immediately after Roe was overturned, we wondered what the fallout would be for medical education and soon reported on future doctors who were rethinking where they wanted to conduct their training. The concerns raised in that piece — that abortion bans could intensify OB-GYN shortages in certain parts of the country — began to be realized when we checked back in the following year. States with abortion bans saw the largest drops in OB-GYN residency applications. Medical school students in those states expressed frustrations with the complete lack of training in abortion, while program directors scrambled to find out-of-state training options.
We also looked at anti-abortion clinics known as crisis pregnancy centers and the outsized role they play in schools in Texas, despite offering risk-focused sex ed courses with little evidence that approach helps reduce teen pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections.
“Student education has become a very, very important part of our focus,” one center director said on a panel at a conference. “It’s a great way for us to begin to instill and teach and to educate these individuals on the pro-life message.”
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more election coverage
Election 2024
The Hechinger Report delved into where the presidential candidates stand on early education through higher education and beyond.
On the economy
In many ways, reporting on higher education is reporting on the economy. We’ve written about the impact of high housing costs on graduate students, the difficulty working college students can face getting food stamps and problems with many short-term certificate programs meant to lead to a well-paying career.
Many educators across the country are trying to explicitly tie their offerings to local industry needs, like we found in Colorado where a group of school districts has banded together to offer students a new array of career and technical education classes in keeping with the area’s job market. Similarly, at the higher ed level, trade school enrollment is booming, buoyed by students who see the credentials as an affordable, clear path to a job.
Related: College student voting is way up
On immigration
The surge in asylum seekers and immigrants into the country has had real effects on many communities where these individuals have settled – including the schools. We took a deep dive into Denver and its surrounding area, where thousands of newcomer students were enrolled last academic year. And while the schools aimed to welcome everyone and provide appropriate support, there were also signs of strain. As one district official put it: “We have some less-than-ideal circumstances. We have some very full classrooms. We hear most from teachers, ‘This is kind of overwhelming. There’s a lot more kids and they all need a lot more from me.’”
The political debates and culture wars over immigration have also trickled down to schools, as we reported in Alabama. There, a superintendent who prioritized helping English learners was ousted. Dozens of interviews suggested that antipathy towards immigrants played a role in his downfall.
On the Supreme Court
The next president will likely appoint at least one new Supreme Court justice, experts predict. And those appointees will likely consider key education cases over the course of their tenure. Take, for instance, last year’s landmark case banning affirmative action at the nation’s colleges and universities.
We’ve been tracking the impact of that ruling, looking closely at how it’s affecting high schoolers applying for college. As part of that work, we gathered 50 college essays from high school seniors and talked to the students about how they pitched themselves to admissions officers. Many reported struggling with the question of whether to talk about their racial identity.
In 2022, the Supreme Court took up a school prayer case, ruling in favor of a football coach who prayed on the field following games. Now, educators and lawmakers are testing just how far they can go with a school-prayer friendly Supreme Court.
On climate change
For years, Hechinger has been reporting on the effects of climate change — and the increase in extreme weather it brings — on education, from fires to floods to intense heat. These weather events disrupt schooling, sometimes forcing students to flee their homes and adding to mental health strains. As one expert said, “Extreme weather is going to increasingly impact and disrupt learning. That is something that school leaders and administrators are going to have to grapple with and start to better plan for.”
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But we’ve also looked at ways schools and universities are using climate change as a teaching opportunity. And it could be an economic one as well — potentially leading to the creation of thousands of new jobs.
On LGBTQ+ rights
Protections and rights for LGBTQ+ people remain a divisive issue. State lawmakers have filed hundreds of anti-LGBTQ+ bills and the Supreme Court has indicated openness to reconsidering the right to same sex marriage. Against this backdrop, we looked at the mental health of LGBTQ+ college students, who described feeling drained and emotionally exhausted.
Some high school students are struggling too, especially when the campus groups founded to support them come under attack. We reported on one Kentucky mom’s attempts to push her school to create a Gay-Straight alliance despite the state’s harsh anti-LGBTQ law. And we’ve profiled an Alabama principal who was removed from her post after she began coming out as gay to colleagues.
And we’ve reported on how, thanks to a legal morass, the nation’s K-12 schools and colleges are operating under completely different regulations for how to handle issues of sex and gender discrimination, including determining which bathrooms transgender students can use.
Contact investigations editor Sarah Butrymowicz at 212-678-3585 or butrymowicz@hechingerreport.org.
This story about the election and education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.