Dr. Ibram X Kendi鈥檚 Progress 2025 Vision for Education

Oct 9, 2024

The Heritage Foundation鈥檚 Project 2025 takes aim at the United States educational system by and students of color, LGBTQ students, and low-income students. The project鈥檚 authors hope to eliminate the Department of Education and roll back federal protections and funding for students with disabilities, transgender and nonbinary students, and low-income students.

Project 2025鈥檚 plan comes amid efforts to privatize public schools, rising college student debt, book bans, the infiltration of Christian nationalism in schools, attacks on accurate history education, and more. In such a context, what would a progressive vision of education in the U.S. look like? National Book Award鈥搘inning, best-selling author , Ph.D., spoke with 大象传媒 Senior Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on 大象传媒 Presents: Rising Up With Sonali to help answer that question.

Sonali Kolhatkar joined 大象传媒 in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of聽大象传媒 Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute鈥檚 Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of聽Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice聽(2023) and聽Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence聽(2005). Her forthcoming book is called聽Talking About Abolition聽(Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women鈥檚 Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master鈥檚 in Astronomy from the University of Hawai鈥檌, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on 鈥淢y Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host鈥� in her 2014聽聽of the same name.