In the educational justice movement, the specter of the coming 2024 election season has been hanging over us for years now. Even before any candidates were officially declared, there was a shared knowledge that the already vitriolic rhetoric around education would reach a fever pitch that would impact our work at all levels. At a time where trust in government institutions continues to decline, we are forced to contend with a deeply consequential question: why would people fight to save government institutions that have never served them (regardless of what president is in office)? One thing we know for sure is that we can’t unpack this question without thinking about the history of the role of the federal government in education and dreaming beyond it.
