Zahava Stadler
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zahavastadler.bsky.social
Zahava Stadler
@zahavastadler.bsky.social
2.2K followers 3.5K following 1.3K posts
K-12 education policy person with a focus on school finance. Currently Project Director, Education Funding Equity Initiative @educationwork.newamerica.org. Formerly EdTrust, EdBuild. Parent. Order Muppet. I aspire to one day take the Colbert Questionert.
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zahavastadler.bsky.social
My colleague @jbeowulf.bsky.social and I joined @newamerica.org's Democracy Deciphered podcast to talk about the US Dept of Ed and why it would be damaging (not to mention illegal!) to take it apart. Check it out!
Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...
Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/3QOZ...
October 31, 2025 at 3:50 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
I have a monthly looseleaf tea subscription and I really cannot get enough of the bergamot/lavender combo in this one.
Packet of tea from Tea Runners called "Lady Lavender," with ingredrents black tea, lavender, orange peel, mallow flowers, bergamot, & vanilla flavoring.
September 29, 2025 at 4:29 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
Seen in the wild, @aefpweb.bsky.social!
While I have your attention, any chance you're extending that proposal deadline for this year's conference?
A navy blue hatchback with a license plate reading "AEFP 006"
September 26, 2025 at 1:55 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
I very much agree with where this piece ends up. But I don't at all think that Charlie Kirk's political practice is an example of this ethos.
Final words of Ezra Klein's piece, linked above: "It is supposed to be an argument, not a war; it is supposed to be won with words, not ended with bullets. I wanted Kirk to be safe for his sake, but I also wanted him to be safe for mine and for the sake of our larger shared project. The same is true for Shapiro, for Hoffman, for Hortman, for Thompson, for Trump, for Pelosi, for Whitmer. We are all safe, or none of us are."
September 11, 2025 at 2:25 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
FWIW, @wutrain.bsky.social is a religious Catholic. She testified about sanctuary cities at a congressional hearing this year on Ash Wednesday while wearing ashes. This issue is clearly as much an expression of her faith as of her politics.
Bost Mayor Michelle Wu testifying at a congressional hearing with an ash cross on her forehead.
August 21, 2025 at 1:24 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
Anyway, here's the before and after distribution for a school finance equality reform we're modeling! I'm being mysterious! But stay tuned for a release late next month! #edpoliy #edresearch
Mysterious histogram showing a lot of variation in something school-finance-related Mysterious histogram showing very little variation in something school-finance-related
August 6, 2025 at 2:53 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
Amen, David Downey.
This administration is sabotaging federal government work and then saying, "See? Look how bad government is at doing things!"

"It was a really unprofessional, frustrating and insane experience" seems like a good summary of all aspects of being a federal employee right now.
The March RIF moved swiftly: "At 6:06 a.m., before I received any communication [about] being on leave, I was unable to access my email outside of the department," Downey says. "We actually had colleagues that were supposed to be meeting with state departments of education the next day, and we had no way to even tell them we couldn't be attending the meeting. It was a really unprofessional, frustrating and insane experience." This RIF, Downey says, "creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: If you think that government is inefficient and a failure and is letting down America's students and American educators, cutting this agency in half is a really great way of proving that belief correct."
August 1, 2025 at 7:04 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
Where are the contempt orders? Where are the sanctions against lawyers who show up in Court and lie to federal judges? Why are we letting people cloak authoritarianism in the gentility of position and process instead of insisting that they FOLLOW THE LAW? www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Plaintiffs say Justice Department lawyers and the agencies they represent are snubbing rulings, providing false information, failing to turn over evidence, quietly working around court orders and inventing pretexts to carry out actions that have been blocked. Judges appointed by presidents of both parties have often agreed. None have taken punitive action to try to force compliance, however, allowing the administration’s defiance of orders to go on for weeks or even months in some instances.
July 21, 2025 at 3:32 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
Good NYT headline.
New York Times headline reading, "CBS Says it's Canceling Colbert Over Money, Not Politics. Is That Truthiness?"
July 18, 2025 at 5:46 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
Why the US court system is just not designed to constrain a lawless executive, in a nutshell. From p17 of Barrett's opinion. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...
Here, prohibiting enforcement of the Executive Order against the child of an individual pregnant plaintiff will give that plaintiff complete relief: Her child will not be denied citizenship. Extending the injunction to cover all other similarly situated individuals would not render her relief any more complete.
June 27, 2025 at 2:23 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
I love how Jewish publications can find the Jewish angle on the LITERAL POPE.
@jta.org
Headline in a breaking news alert from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that reads, "Leo XIV, first American pope, studied under a leader in Jewish-Catholic relations."
May 9, 2025 at 3:11 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
Trump's fentanyl thing is obviously bogus. But for what it's worth, the Conservatives in Canada are campaigning on a promise to "secure the border" against a public health threat coming in from the U.S.: guns.
February 4, 2025 at 1:30 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
Post a picture you took with no description to bring some zen to the timeline
Clear blue sky over bright turquoise water, with islands in the distant background and a small passenger boat on the left side of the foreground
January 3, 2025 at 3:56 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
Bless Tressie McMillan Cottom.
Healy: If Harris wins, are there steps she could take to unify the country? Or do you think unity will be out of reach? Cottom: Why would a President Harris be expected to unify a country that was never unified before? I want her to expand the court, make care work part of American infrastructure and use the bully pulpit responsibly. I don’t care about unity.
November 5, 2024 at 5:07 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
2010 U.S. Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell saying, "I'm not a witch. I'm nothing you've heard."
October 30, 2024 at 6:36 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
If anyone in the NY/NJ/CT tri-state area is interested in adopting an adorable kitten, I know four in northern New Jersey that need homes!
Four gray kittens in a white, fuzzy cat bed
October 10, 2024 at 4:21 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
It's a requirement of the ministry of tourism, I'm sure. Gotta keep up appearances re those giant grapes.
Logo of the Israel Ministry of Tourism, featuring a stylized drawing of two people carrying a massive, person-sized bunch of grapes
September 19, 2024 at 6:39 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
"Certified bluesky elder" should come with some kind of diplomatic immunity. At least for parking violations.
Celebrating 10M users. Zahava Stadler was user #281,895 and is a "certified bluesky elder."
September 17, 2024 at 2:24 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
Neither can millions of American women. What a coincidence.
Headline and cover photo of a New York Times columns by Jamelle Bouie entitled, "Trump Can't Get Himself Out of the Abortion Straitjacket."
September 6, 2024 at 12:37 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
First album you bought with your own money
The cover of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones album "Let's Face It"
August 11, 2024 at 11:40 AM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
Give it up, dude. Nobody's buying what you're selling.

(From the new YouGov survey: d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Pr...)
Partial results of the survey question on Project 2025 Proposals: Do you support or oppose eliminating the US Department of Education? Significantly more respondents oppose than support.
July 12, 2024 at 4:12 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
I was thinking of the smaller-type check-box categories (e.g. Chinese, Asian Indian, etc. under "Asian") included in the question image in your prior article (www.npr.org/2024/03/28/1...). Are those not finalized? I have lots of feelings about those, so if they're still in flux I want to know that!
New census question "What is your race and/or ethnicity?", with listed response options.
July 12, 2024 at 2:16 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
Me, a rube: Whether Trump gets away with trying to overthrow an election could decide the fate of our democracy.
Roberts, a genius: Ah, but we must look at the bigger picture.
A quote from the Supreme Court's opinion in Trump v. United States reading, "This case poses a question of lasting significance: When may a former President be prosecuted for official acts taken during his Presidency? In answering that question, unlike the political branches and the public at large, the Court cannot afford to fixate exclusively, or even primarily, on present exigencies."
July 1, 2024 at 2:54 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
What do we need to do to make good on the 70-year-delayed promise of Brown v. Board—schools that are neither separate nor unequal, but are integrated and fairly resource?

Brown's Promise is out with a new Call to Action document showing the way:
static1.squarespace.com/static/66232...
#edequity
An image from the cover of a document called Fulfilling Brown's Promise: A Call to Action to Mark the 70th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education
May 17, 2024 at 3:06 PM
zahavastadler.bsky.social
Also this is so disingenuous it makes my blood absolutely boil. This "narrow" lawsuit could have very broad (and devastating) consequences.
Image of two paragraphs in a Texas Tribune article reading: Texas Right to Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group, called for the court to rule that frozen embryos are people and, in case of divorce, should be given all the same rights as living children. They rejected the idea that this would lead to a shutdown of IVF in Texas. “Because this case would only set precedent for custody disputes of frozen unborn children in divorce cases, a decision abrogating Roman would have a much smaller impact than the Alabama case,” they wrote in an amicus brief.
May 14, 2024 at 3:29 PM