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The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) under the Trump administration recently announced it is launching a Title VI . This comes not in response to concerns raised by Chicago families or CPS stakeholders, but at the behest of an outside group with no ties to our city: Virginia-based Parents Defending Education (PDE).

Let’s be clear. This is not about protecting civil rights.

PDE is a national political organization with no members in Chicago Public Schools, no children in our classrooms, and no genuine interest in the well-being of Chicago students. Despite this, they have repeatedly inserted themselves into local school district decisions across the country on an anti-DEI crusade that bullies through legal threat. In this case, they are acting in apparent coordination with an OCR led by an Acting Assistant Secretary who is part of the same Federalist Society network as PDE leadership. That’s not oversight – that’s collusion.

The complaint against BSSP hinges on a breathtaking misrepresentation of data and intent. PDE fixated on a single year’s statistic, where Latine students marginally underperformed Black students on one academic measure, to assert that CPS is discriminating. They then use this cherry-picked data point to launch a sweeping, illogical accusation: that targeting support for Black students is somehow an attack on all other students. They conveniently ignore that White and Asian students consistently outperform both groups, and that CPS, like most large urban districts, already offers programs tailored for English learners, students with disabilities, and other targeted populations. In education, this is called differentiated support. When it’s for Black students, PDE and now the OCR call it racism.

If the OCR and their non-Chicago parent group henchmen cared about the civil rights and education of all children, they would understand why CPS’s focus on Black student success is both necessary and overdue. Black children have long been the most underserved group in our public schools. They have consistently had the lowest reading and math proficiency scores, the highest rates of chronic absenteeism, and the least access to experienced teachers. These disparities are not random—they are the legacy of a century of racial segregation, redlining, disinvestment, and policy neglect. The impact of these legacies is what the OCR should be investigating.

What is most disturbing about this investigation is that its framing implies that Black students are the problem - that the system is fair and that if Black children are still behind, it's their own fault. This is not just wrong, it is also deeply racist. It echoes discredited, eugenics-era thinking that has no place in any modern civil rights discourse, let alone the Office of Civil Rights.

The BSSP is not about exclusion; it is about focus. It is about acknowledging that learning sometimes requires different strategies for different contexts and needs. That is especially true when that context has been shaped by a history of denying Black children and families their civil rights. If we can raise outcomes for Black students - the group that has historically fared the worst - we will raise outcomes for all students. That is what real education reform looks like. That is what civil rights look like.

You can read more of Daniel's thoughts in his Education Reconciliation .