Hello! It’s Lily and Erica on Chalkbeat’s national desk. Today’s big story will dive into school board elections this year, plus we’ll take you on a little, pugilistic trip down memory lane. Stick around for the latest on Memphis’ state takeover, the private group paying for public school construction, and a school integration program that works. 

One of our stories this week involves a major power player in Indiana education who also happens to be a funder of Chalkbeat. We maintain strong guardrails to ensure our journalism remains independent. If you’re ever curious, you can find our funders here and our ethics policy here.

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Sorry to do this, but just for a second: Think back to school board meetings in 2020 and 2021. We recall a lot of yelling, fighting, accusations of open meeting violations, kooky internet video compilations, and general unpleasantness. 

Still need help remembering that time? The U.S. Department of Justice is here to assist: It issued a scathing report this week revisiting the Biden administration’s memo about threats to school board members in October 2021. The report argues that Biden officials weaponized the federal government against parents trying to advocate for their children. Internal emails from that period show some Biden officials thought the threats might be best handled by local law enforcement. 

The new Justice Department report says former Attorney General Merrick Garland and others “attempted to interfere with parental rights and speech.” But school board members encountered real threats during that time, said Jonathan Collins, an education professor at Columbia University: “Fist fights were breaking out. You had meetings where people had to be literally detained by local law enforcement.”

School board meetings seem to have calmed down, mostly. But school board politics can still be pretty intense — and expensive. About 18,000 school board seats are up for grabs in November, according to BallotReady. School board members remain some of the most powerful decisionmakers in education. And in the communities we cover, these races illustrate a lot about some of the biggest issues in American education.

In Detroit, 31 people are competing for five open seats on Nov. 3. (Thirty-four will appear on the ballot, but three have said that actually, they’re not running.) A decade after the Detroit district had a rebirth following a financial crisis, it has reached a critical juncture. Five candidates in Detroit’s race have banded together to try to oust the current superintendent and oppose school closures.

In Indianapolis, 15 candidates are vying for five seats — and like Detroit, the winners will contend with decisions over budget cuts. They’ll have less power than their predecessors, due to a new nine-member board appointed by the mayor that’s taken over key responsibilities from the elected board, including managing school buildings and transportation.

And finally in Chicago, a closely watched race illustrates the tensions between candidates backed by the teachers union and candidates who support charter schools, which the board also oversees. This race is so competitive for a reason: After 30 years of mayoral control, the Chicago Board of Education will be fully elected in November. Unsurprisingly, spending in Chicago’s race is surging.

Read the full story here.

A Boston school busing program improved participating students’ chances of graduating college and even led to higher earnings. Metco, which still operates today, buses a few thousand mostly Black and Hispanic students from Boston to mostly white suburban schools. A new study documents the program’s remarkable success. It’s harder to say why it works, but the lead researcher has thoughts.

The U.S. Department of Education is investigating what it calls “pass the trash” policies that allow teachers accused of sexual misconduct to keep teaching. Reporting in multiple states has documented how some teachers exploit loopholes and school district inaction to move from one school to the next, evading responsibility and maintaining access to kids. Some of the districts under scrutiny have also been targeted by the Trump administration for more partisan reasons, including policies supportive of transgender students. 

Treasury Department rules for the education tax credit program are here. We’re still reading and talking to folks to understand all the implications — and the rules don’t answer all the questions. But we identified a few things Democratic governors might be thinking about as they weigh whether to opt in. Meanwhile, in Colorado, where Gov. Jared Polis is a rare Democrat to embrace the tax credit, a small group of optimists is trying to prove the program can benefit public schools in hopes that Polis’ likely successor doesn’t nix the whole thing in 2028.

Every student brings to the classroom different background knowledge and learning needs. Modern research suggests that multimodal instruction — combining modalities and learning experiences to support access and understanding — can reduce learning barriers, especially for students with disabilities and language-learning needs.

Join us for a conversation focused on what the research shows about how students engage with, interpret, and communicate understanding across different formats and walk away with a practical framework for building multimodal instruction into everyday teaching.

That’s how many Texas students saw their state reading scores improve after school districts asked for their tests to be re-graded by a human rather than a computer. The Texas Tribune reports that more school districts are asking for scoring to be redone, and the state is changing more scores. These are high-stakes tests, because persistent low scores at just a few schools can set a district up for state takeover.

That’s from a protest sign among the crowds in Paris. Thousands of students, teachers, and parents are demonstrating over the state of the country’s schools. Their complaints are wide-ranging, and protesters say the education system needs more funding.