Michael Casserly
Posted October 30, 2025
Former President Barack Obama is fond of reminding us that democracy is not self-executing. Former U.S. Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy recently observed that “democracy is not guaranteed to survive.” And Sinclair Lewis, author of It Can’t Happen Here, once warned that America was vulnerable to dictatorship if the public became complacent. These are ominous sentiments, but democracy does require vigilance and care if it is to endure.
Many of our institutions, however, appear to be buckling under the attacks from Washington. Corporate media pulls its punches. Colleges and universities pay millions to protect their grants. Law firms provide pro bono services to be left alone. States are rigging the next election with their gerrymandering. And the high court rules in favor of practices once thought questionable.
Citizens who cannot read, cannot assess evidence, and cannot tell misinformation from the truth are easy prey for an authoritarian government.
The nation’s public education system is struggling to remain firm but make no mistake—schools are under attack as well. The Trump administration has already successfully advocated for a nationwide tuition tax program to encourage parents to exit public schools. Federal administrators have threatened school districts over their diversity and equity programs. They have impounded federal school funds and proposed sizable cutbacks in what remains. They have gutted the U.S. Department of Education and its ability to support states and districts, rolled back prohibitions on ICE in schools, restricted evidence-based vaccines that help keep schools safe, and have started to suggest what history is acceptable to teach and what is not.
Together these actions threaten to weaken the nation’s 14,000 school districts. And all of us—whether we have children in school or not—should care.
Public schooling, particularly in our major cities where many new arrivals first settle, has helped safeguard our democracy for generations. It shapes our national identity and enhances our economy and society by educating new immigrants, students of all races, languages, religions, sexual orientations, and students with disabilities, binding them together under a single concept of nationhood. Public schools build our capacity as a people. And they provide one of the few forums we have as a nation to debate and grapple with our differences.
Public schools, particularly our urban ones, have graduated and continue to produce many of the nation’s leading artists, scientists, authors, entrepreneurs, inventors, leaders, and musicians. They are critical to enhancing our country’s economic well-being, enriching our culture, creating opportunity and upward mobility, and contributing to our gross domestic product.
If we lose this shared resource and move to a more fragmented system of schools, then we lose not only an economic engine but part of one of the few unifying forces we have left. As a former Republican U.S. Senate staff member once told me, “We don’t have a common religion or race or ethnicity or ancestry in America, but we do have the public schools to create a common national identity.”
It is because our public schools are part of the glue that holds together our democracy, culture, and economy that we need them now more than ever.
But we also need our urban schools to continue improving to help our nation weather its current challenges. National outcomes in reading and math suggest that students have been slipping academically over at least the last ten to fifteen years, although the big city schools are doing better. Citizens who cannot read, cannot assess evidence, and cannot tell misinformation from the truth are easy prey for an authoritarian government.
If you want to see the kind of improvements that are both needed and possible, look no further than the Denver Public Schools. Under the leadership of Alex Morrero, Denver’s schools are making substantial academic headway, addressing mental health needs, building community trust, and speaking out for justice and fairness at the same time. Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show that Denver schools have largely made up its losses from the pandemic in fourth grade reading and math and are slightly ahead of where they were before the pandemic in eighth grade reading.
These gains mirror the progress being made in many other major city school systems across the country, including Philadelphia, Jackson, Detroit, Baltimore, Los Angeles, the District of Columbia, Dallas, and Houston. These improvements suggest that financial support for schools is a sound investment in our own future as a country.
More importantly, championing the progress and potential of our public schools—and pushing back against attempts to weaken them–will help the nation preserve its democracy, nurture our diverse cultural identity, and improve our collective economic and social welfare. All of us should care about the health and viability of these institutions because they are the centerpieces of what makes us a great country.
Michael Casserly is a Strategic Advisor for the Council of the Great City Schools, was its executive director for almost 30 years, and is the author of The Enduring Promise of America’s Great City Schools, published by Harvard Education Press.
- This Colorado City Shows the Way out of MAGA Dystopia - December 12, 2025
- Native People Deserve Better Than This. We All Do. - December 12, 2025
- Urban Public Education: The Centerpiece of Democracy - October 31, 2025
