Weekly Update

 
Facing History & Ourselves

In this week's edition: The Trump administration has undone policies encouraging the hiring of women in the trades. A Virginia school district's social studies curriculum asks students to think through all sides of historical and political debates. Rural, religious campuses are facing major enrollment challenges


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Despite making up 47 percent of the workforce in the U.S., women constitute less than 5 percent of workers in skilled construction trades. Credit: Sophie Park for The Hechinger Report

More women are landing construction jobs. Trump’s war on DEI could change that

Despite making up 47 percent of the workforce in the U.S., women constitute less than 5 percent of workers in skilled construction trades — a cluster of careers that typically offer high pay without requiring a college degree. The few women who land apprenticeships in a skilled trade often face bullying, harassment and low-level work opportunities. In recent years, nonprofit groups offering “preapprenticeships” and other programs designed to improve female representation in the trades have made some progress in changing the culture of construction worksites and improving access for women, nearly doubling the share of women in skilled trades from less than 3 percent to about 5 percent in the past decade. Now, advocates say those efforts are under threat from the Trump administration’s attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion.

A day after his inauguration in January, President Donald Trump revoked several decades-old executive orders designed to diversify the workforce, in an attempt to root out what he called “immoral race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Among them was Executive Order 11246. Issued in 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson, the order required federal contractors to provide equal employment opportunity without discriminating by race.


In 1978, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance issued a goal that took the order a step further: Contractors had to make a good faith effort to hire women to fill at least 6.9 percent of their positions in construction. That figure, which hasn’t been updated in 45 years, was based on the share of women in the workforce in the 1970s.

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A school district singled out by Trump says it teaches ‘whole truth history’

After the deadly 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia’s Albemarle County school system set out to combat racism by teaching about discrimination, resistance and resilience.

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“We’re not changing what we’re doing."


Losing faith: Rural, religious campuses are among the most endangered

Rural students often have few options other than religious institutions fighting to survive.

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“We just don’t have the demographics anymore."


📣 Listen up

Episode 6 of season 4 of College Uncovered, a podcast from The Hechinger Report and GBH News, is out now. 

College Uncovered: The Old College Try

High school students now make up a fifth of community college enrollment. At 37 community colleges nationwide, more than half of students are still in high school

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Purple text on white background: Facing History & Ourselves provides summer professional development workshops, webinars, and courses on history, ELA, justice, equity, and more. Blue button: explore now.

Reading list

University students offload critical thinking, other hard work to AI

Two studies indicate students are using chatbots in a way that undermines what they learn

For new grads, landing a job may be hard. Navigating the workplace may be harder

Colleges are rewriting career services for a generation that prioritizes mental health and well-being

Tracking Trump: His actions to dismantle the Education Department, and more 

The president is working to eliminate the Education Department and fighting ‘woke’ ideology in schools. A week-by-week look at what he’s done

15 years of The Hechinger Report

We launched in 2010, and our site has become a deep repository of some of the best education journalism in the nation

Trump’s cuts to teacher training leave rural school districts, aspiring educators in the lurch

The administration nixed some $600 million in teacher-training grants, citing DEI. Programs to recruit and train rural teachers are cutting scholarships, laying off staff and closing shop

A federal program helped student-parents thrive. Now it’s on life support

More than 1 in 5 college students is a parent, but a lack of child care holds many back

As conservatives push for more babies, Congress proposes cuts that could hurt families, toddlers and infants

Proposed cuts to Medicaid, energy assistance and child care will be felt by the nation’s youngest

OPINION: Canceling AmeriCorps grants threatens the future of education and workforce pipelines that power our nation’s progress

We are alarmed by cuts to the transformative, life-changing programs that we now lead

OPINION: School principals play a unique role in setting the tone for their schools. We should all pay attention

Community school leaders are key to improving our education system during these challenging times of funding loss and shifting federal mandates


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