We’ve learned that extremism cost our public schools $3.2 billion last year. Now we’re also seeing that President Trump and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon fully intend to defund and destroy the U.S. Department of Education entirely. That means our public schools can expect to lose even more money that they can’t afford.

With 97.5% of public schools experiencing some level of the extremist-driven culture wars last year, almost every one of nearly 50 million students¹ and 3.8 million teachers² in public schools has felt — or will feel — the impact of this assault. Their stories deserve to be heard.

The Costs of Conflict report includes compelling stories directly from superintendents who were interviewed. Earn your Easy A this week by downloading the full Costs of Conflict Report and giving them a look!

Want to take it one step further? Once you download the report, share it with everyone you know. We give you an easy way to share when you get your copy of the report. Let’s get loud with our support of public education!

The post Do This: Get Your Copy of the Costs of Conflict Report! appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

Watch this short video to hear directly from one of the researchers, Dr. John Rogers from the University of California – Los Angeles, about what else was learned in their study.

Mainstream parents don’t want this level of conflict in our schools. We want our teachers to be able to focus on their teaching, our students to feel safe and supported, and for our schools to spend their funding on their needs, not on fighting extremism. We must speak out when politicians and other groups hurt our kids, waste our educators’ time, and waste our schools’ precious funding like this. We’ll have one more action for you to take on this next week!

The post Watch This: The Costs of Conflict appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

Between 2021 and 2024, more than 300 bills were introduced in state legislatures to ban books, restrict schools from teaching about race and racism, and set restrictive policies for LGBTQ+ students. It’s all part of an extremist effort to attack our public schools with culture wars.

You’ve probably already heard a lot about this, especially if you’ve been reading our Easy A blog for awhile. And you probably know that these culture wars are hurting our kids’ mental health and taking a toll on our educators.

But a lot of us have been asking, what is the financial cost of these culture wars? Well, now we have the answer!

According to a recent report, “The Costs of Conflict: The Fiscal Impact of Culturally Divisive Conflict on Public Schools in the United States”, these culture wars cost our public schools $3.2 billion just last year. That’s right, we said $3.2 BILLION!

How is that possible? The report found that for an average-sized school district experiencing high levels of culture wars, fighting them cost $812,000 last year. Here are some more findings from the report:

• Two-thirds of the schools in the study were experiencing moderate or high levels of “culturally-divisive conflict.” Only 2.5% reported no conflict at all.
• When schools become the center of these culture wars, districts and school boards have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on:
  • Hiring lawyers and paying legal fees to fight the challenges.
  • Increased security to protect board members and educators at meetings.
  • Paying for additional staff hours spent responding to overwhelming public records requests, emails, and online disinformation.
  • Community and government relations.
  • Recruitment of teachers due to high staff turnover rates. 29% of the superintendents interviewed in the study had lost teachers due to culture wars!

We can all agree, this is not what mainstream parents want. We can think of a lot of ways that $3.2 billion could be better spent, and so did the study. Things like: hiring more counselors and teachers, upgrading supplies and technology, offering nutritious meals to all students, and providing more opportunities for kids and educators to prepare for the 21st Century.

You can learn more about “The Costs of Conflict” study on our website here. Please join us in speaking out in support of our public schools and against these divisive — and expensive! — culture wars!

The post Read This: The Costs of Conflict appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

Ok, now that you know more about the harm that school vouchers can do to a public school system, you’re probably wondering what you can do to help — We’ve got you.

We are committed to protecting public schools so that all children can learn and thrive, and we know you are 100% with us on that. Let’s take the next step together: sign our petition to protect public education for all kids. 

Thanks for taking action this week!

The post Do This: Sign the Petition to Stop School Vouchers appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

To hear more of our discussion about school vouchers, check out the full podcast here, or stream anywhere you get your podcasts.

The post Watch This: The Problem with School Vouchers appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

Proponents of school vouchers like to call this “school choice” — implying that vouchers are giving parents more options in their children’s education. But in reality, the actual choice is with the schools. Private institutions — even if they’re receiving public funds through voucher programs — are not required to admit students and can deny entrance to anyone. This means students with learning disabilities, students of color and students from lower socio-economic backgrounds often get left behind. All while these funds are diverted from public schools, making it harder for them to serve everyone.

So if school vouchers don’t give all students more choice in education, what’s the point? The real reason behind school voucher programs is to defund public education. It’s one step in a plan to eventually privatize education in the United States. We can’t let that happen. All students deserve access to well-funded public schools that provide equitable opportunities to learn and succeed.

The post Read This: The Problem with School Vouchers appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.