Dive Brief:

• The National Education Association, which is backing Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, has committed to a six-figure campaign attacking her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, for his negative impact on school bullying.
• The Huffington Post reports the NEA is drawing on a Southern Poverty Law Center report that identified the “Trump Effect” as the culprit in a rise in school bullying, noticed anecdotally by teachers who say students have been empowered by his rhetoric to taunt their immigrant classmates.
• The NEA plans to buy online ad space and send mailers to potential voters in swing states, decrying a candidate who has made teachers scrap lessons about the presidential election because of Trump’s behavior.

Dive Insight:

As schools welcome a generation that is more diverse than any that came before it and expected to be more accepting of each other’s differences, the presidential campaign has, in some ways, been prompting a slide backward. Trump has gained millions of supporters by saying things other people — especially politicians — will not. Now it falls to schools to make sure their school climates do not change for the worse leading up to the November election and in the years to come.

The Every Student Succeeds Act expands school accountability, asking states to incorporate at least one non-academic factor into their assessments of how schools are doing. School climate is expected to become a more important focus because of this. Whether it is national politics or local strife that creates the challenge, schools have to create safe places for students to learn.