Last Friday special counsel Robert Mueller accused 12 Russian military intelligence officials of hacking into US political institutions and meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. The Justice Department indictment was impressively detailed, complete with names, dates, times, and tactics of the alleged computer offenses.

On Monday President Trump cast doubt on whether any of that description was true. Standing with Russian president Vladimir Putin after a summit in Helsinki, Finland, Mr. Trump said Mr. Putin had vehemently denied interfering in American politics. Trump added that in any case he saw no reason why Russia would have carried out such an operation.

In the short term, Trump’s questioning of the conclusions of his own intelligence agencies, while on stage with the man accused of ordering the cyber assault, will supercharge partisan debate in Washington over the propriety of the president’s Helsinki behavior. In the longer term, it points to an inevitable, and perhaps historic, clash between Trump’s deep-seated rejection of the idea that a foreign power tried to help elect him, and Mr. Mueller’s patient accumulation of facts detailing the extent of just such an effort.

If the indictment was an attempt to get Trump to take the issue seriously and speak directly to his Russian counterpart about consequences, it does not seem to have worked. Perhaps it backfired, as Trump pushed back against the notion that anything or anyone other than himself is responsible for his stunning 2016 triumph.

“The effort by some of the president’s team to contain or shape him has fundamentally failed … he has succeeded in breaking out and being true to himself, which has been pretty favorable to Putin,” said Thomas Wright, Director of the Brookings Institution Center on the United States and Europe, in a conference call with reporters following Monday’s summit.

Trump’s joint appearance with Putin was remarkable on many levels. It came at the end of a foreign swing in which the president had assailed NATO allies as deadbeats on defense spending and pictured the European Union primarily as a US economic foe. For two days prior to the Helsinki meeting Trump had relaxed at his own Scottish golf course, except perhaps for the time an ultra-light aircraft trailing a protest sign puttered by.

Then in the press conference following the meeting Trump was deferential to his Russian counterpart, declining, when asked directly, to offer any criticisms of Putin’s geopolitical behavior. Questioned about the alleged Russian election meddling, Trump voiced doubt, citing Putin’s strong denials. Then he segued into a discussion of Hillary Clinton’s server and other related issues – a detour whose details foreign audiences may have found difficult to follow.

Mixed views of summit

The good news is that major disaster at the summit was avoided, according to Alina Polyakova, a Russia expert and fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe. There was no deal struck trading US recognition of Russian gains in Ukraine for Russian concessions in Syria. There was no hint of softening about commitment of US troops in Europe.

On the other hand, the optics of the meeting, and the fact that it occurred at all, were everything Putin could have wanted, said Ms. Polyakova.

“This is the summit Putin has been waiting for his entire life,” she said.

Other observers thought the outcome of the day rather better than that. “It was a net positive for the US,” says retired Army Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, a senior fellow and military expert at Defense Priorities, a think tank in Washington.

Russia may have hacked into US political organizations, but bringing that up in the middle of a press conference would have been antagonistic, and certainly would not have changed Putin’s future behavior, says Lt. Col. Davis. And what’s wrong with negotiations to try and reach agreements of mutual benefit?

“Nobody gains from adversarial relations between Russia and the United States,” Davis says.

Summit aside, even some of Trump’s Republican allies in Washington are becoming increasingly critical of his dismissal of all aspects of the Mueller probe as a witch hunt of fake news carried out by hardened Democrats.

Evidence of hacking is not the same thing as evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, and the president needs to treat the former seriously even as he dismisses the latter, according to some Republicans. Statements from top elected GOP officials on Monday were generally restrained but drew clear contrasts with Trump’s conclusions.

“There is no moral equivalence between the United States and Russia,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan.

“The Russians are not our friends and I entirely agree with the assessment of our intelligence community,” said Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.

“I disagree with the president’s comments,” said House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Ed Royce.

Avoiding nuance, at his own risk?

Trump does not seem to grasp that he could be better off to accept the premise that Russia probably interfered in 2016, and then work backward from there, says Andrew Wright, an associate professor at Savannah Law School in Georgia and former assistant counsel to Vice President Al Gore.

He could say that he stands with America, and will defend it against all such attempts at meddling, and that he supports a full investigation into the matter. That’s happening anyway, and it’s politically better to get in front of such a probe, Wright says. It’s a time-honored political two-step that Trump does not appear to understand or embrace.

Accepting the possibility of foreign cyberattacks and vowing to defend America isn’t the same as denigrating one’s own election. But that’s how Trump seems to see things, say some analysts. “I don’t think we’re ever going to get him to acknowledge that. He doesn’t want to share his victory,” says Jamie Kirchick, a Brookings Institution visiting fellow.

The president seems very categorical, adds Wright. You’re an enemy or a friend. China is good or bad. He does not seem to grasp key nuances of presidential leadership, such as the fact that you can’t lead the Justice Department without having discussions with your attorney general about some things – and not about other things.

Yet Trump’s inflexibility, his desire to not apologize or look back, just invites more criticism.

“This president has transformed himself into flypaper for controversy,” Professor Wright says.

Meanwhile, special counsel Robert Mueller has been slowly gathering speed. Whenever his investigation rises to the surface, as it does by issuing indictments, its size and detail seem surprising. How that eventually reconciles itself with Trump’s denials about the very foundations of the investigation could determine the future of the Trump presidency.

Mike Blake/Reuters

Gas tax opponent Carl DeMaio speaks on California Proposition 6, a growing movement to repeal a state gas tax in San Diego, Calif., July 11, 2018. Voters will weigh the cost of the tax on its poorest residents versus the growing need to fund transportation improvements and repairs.

If the categories of threatened species applied to politics, the Republican Party in California would be listed as critically endangered. Chin-tugging researchers would warn that the group appears destined for extinction, offering data that illustrate its depleted condition in the country’s most populous state.

The number of voters registered as Republican has fallen to third behind Democrats and those with “no party preference.” Hillary Clinton tallied 4.2 million more votes statewide than Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Democrats hold almost three-fourths of California’s 53 seats in Congress and both US Senate seats, along with two-thirds of the 120 seats in the state Legislature and, in the person of Jerry Brown, the governor’s office.

Even so, Republicans here sense a golden chance to change their short-term fortunes a few months before Election Day. Their optimism arises from a ballot measure to repeal a gas tax hike enacted by legislators last year to boost funding to repair California’s decaying roads and bridges. In last month’s primary election, Republicans stoked voter discontent over the 12-cent-a-gallon tax and recalled Josh Newman, a Democratic state senator from Orange County who supported the increase.

The recall of Senator Newman and recent polls showing strong opposition to the tax among conservatives and independent voters have roused Republicans in a manner last seen in 2003, during the recall of Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat. Jason Roe, a Republican strategist based in San Diego, predicts that the repeal initiative will lure centrists and moderate Democrats to the right in November. Such a shift could provide a lift to Republican candidates in seven congressional districts that Democrats hope to flip as they seek to regain control of the House.

“The state’s voters are not as far left-of-center as people might imagine, and the gas tax is an issue that aligns with working-class values,” Mr. Roe says. He adds that persistent criticism of President Trump from California’s Democratic leaders has sharpened the ire of conservatives. “Their frustration will be clear on Nov. 6.”

As California confronts a $130 billion backlog in roadway and bridge repairs, the repeal measure, or Proposition 6, sets up a collision between progressive ideals and pocketbook politics in a state as known for its Democratic dominance as its high taxes.

The initiative arrives as the average price of gas in California hovers around $3.66 a gallon, the nation’s costliest after Hawaii, while the state’s gas tax of 55 cents a gallon ranks second-highest behind Pennsylvania’s. Supporters of Prop. 6 intend to amplify those numbers as they attempt to drown out the reasons Democratic lawmakers and Governor Brown pushed for the state’s first gas tax hike since 1994. 

The state’s almost 400,000 miles of roadways rate among the country’s worst, with 37 percent considered in poor condition and another 42 percent graded as mediocre or fair. Traveling on deficient roads costs California motorists an estimated $53.6 billion a year in added vehicle operating expenses, traffic delays, and crashes, including an average of $2,450 per driver in the five largest urban areas. The tax hike and related fees would raise $5.4 billion a year over the next decade to upgrade roads and bridges and expand and enhance mass transit systems.

A coalition of local governments, labor unions, business leaders, and environmental groups has vowed to fight the repeal, aided by Brown, who will retire when his term ends in January. The unlikely alliance of special interests illuminates the unusual ideological clash wrought by Prop. 6. 

“The repeal campaign could show the limits of California’s liberalism,” says Thad Kousser, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego. “But that’s because it’s bad for progressives to defend a regressive tax. This is a tax that hits the poor harder than the rich. That tears right at the heart of the Democratic Party.”

Appealing to ‘Jekyll-and-Hyde voters’

California voters approved a ballot initiative in 2004 that levied a 1 percent tax surcharge on annual incomes above $1 million to generate funding for mental health services. Six years ago, they voted in favor of raising state income taxes on earnings of more than $250,000, and later supported extending the increase.

The measures passed with relative ease in a state that collects almost half its income taxes from the wealthiest 1 percent. The gas tax hike, by contrast, has drawn criticism as an excessive burden on working-class residents by further reducing their disposable income.

“The far left sees the tax as good because it affects behavior,” Roe says. “Their thinking is, ‘If it becomes more expensive to drive to work, you’ll find an alternative to driving.’ That doesn’t help people who live where there are no alternatives or who can’t afford more fuel-efficient cars.”

John Cox, the Republican candidate for governor, has turned Prop. 6 into a campaign refrain in his long-shot bid against Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), his opponent, who backs the gas tax. The repeal effort has raised more than $2 million and received donations from prominent Republicans, among them House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Kevin McCarthy, the House majority leader from Bakersfield, Calif.

Political analysts regard Prop. 6 as a kind of Trojan horse that holds the larger aspirations of Republican leaders in Washington as the party tries to a thwart a “blue wave” and preserve its majority in Congress. In the view of David McCuan, a political scientist at Sonoma State University, the measure could improve the odds of the party’s congressional candidates prevailing in tight races.

“Republicans are irrelevant in Sacramento, so they use the ballot box to get things in front of voters,” he says. “Ninety-five percent of a ballot measure’s success comes down to timing. With gas prices up, that puts the anti-tax folks in the driver’s seat.”

Dr. McCuan asserts that the potential impact of Prop. 6 depends on what he dubs the “Jekyll-and-Hyde voters” in the political middle whose party loyalty oscillates as they weigh conflicting desires. “These are the people who want good schools, good roads, and good jobs,” he says, “but they don’t want to pay for it.”

Mr. Cox, seizing on a populist crusade, has accused Democrats of “ignoring the needs of working Californians.” The rhetoric emphasizes high gas prices while skirting the less obvious costs of crumbling roads, explains Ethan Elkind, author of “Railtown,” a history of the Los Angeles metro rail system.

“The repeal may be short-sighted, but ‘gas tax’ just doesn’t sound good,” says Mr. Elkind, director of the climate program at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. “If you drive over a pothole and break an axle, that’s going to set you back more than having to pay 12 cents more for a gallon of gas. But it’s harder to imagine that happening than to see what you’re paying every time you go to the pump.”

A progressive sales pitch

The ballot measure’s influence beyond Republican voters could hinge on the extent to which the election serves as a referendum on the president. In the state leading the anti-Trump resistance, and where Mrs. Clinton carried the seven congressional districts that national Democrats hope to wrest from Republicans, the president’s approval rating remains below 40 percent.

Former Democratic strategist Darry Sragow expects Trump’s looming presence to boost turnout statewide compared with the 2014 midterms, when 42 percent of registered voters went to the polls, a record low. (Turnout for last month’s primary election topped the 2014 primary by 12 percentage points.) Yet he ascribes support for Prop. 6 among independents and moderate Democrats to concern that the tax hurts the poor, and he doubts that voting for one conservative-backed measure would induce them to cast ballots for Republican candidates.

“Every once in a while there’s an initiative that becomes a lightning rod,” says Mr. Sragow, who publishes the California Target Book, a nonpartisan election and campaign guide that compiles statewide voter data. “But I don’t see support for the repeal as cracks in the progressive coalition. There clearly are going to be some progressives who feel that the gas tax falls more heavily on people with lower incomes and want to get rid of it.”

Groups working to defeat the ballot measure have amassed more than $11 million for the cause, and Brown has promised to raise as much as $25 million. He has enlisted local officials to tout the allocation of $9.2 billion in existing and future revenue from the gas tax for dozens of road and transit projects, ranging from carpool lanes in Sacramento to light-rail extensions in Los Angeles County.

Brown’s tactics reveal his awareness that the measure’s passage would imperil dozens of projects already under way and diminish his legacy. Sragow contends that Brown needs to deliver a progressive sales pitch, framing the tax as a shared responsibility that, over time, will improve roads while saving money for commuters and the state alike.

“If the tax is going to survive,” Sragow says, “the governor and his supporters have to start sending a very loud and credible message that it fills a critical need.”

During a public appearance days before the gas tax passed last year, Brown urged voters to pressure lawmakers to support the initiative. Referring to the state’s roads, he said, “Fix them now or you may never get them fixed.”

Longtime observers of Brown, who has also absorbed scorn from Republicans for his advocacy of a $77 billion high-speed rail project, believe he feels liberated as his political career nears its end. McCuan foresees the governor waiting until two months before the election to launch a counteroffensive against Prop. 6. 

“The advantage of moving second is you know your opponent’s strategy,” he says. The drawback might be that, with gas prices expected to reach as high as $4 a gallon this summer, voters will think only of their next visit to the pump when they head to the polls.

“Democrats have reason to be concerned,” McCuan says, “because the pocketbook trumps partisanship.”

In marked contrast to the past decade of political deadlock, sectarian strife, and occasional bouts of bloodshed, this tiny eastern Mediterranean country bordering Syria and Israel is enjoying a period of relative stability.

The newfound calm is largely down to the triumph of the powerful Shiite organization Hezbollah and its allies in overcoming their parliamentary opponents in an 11-year power struggle and cementing that win in parliamentary polls in May. Hezbollah performed well in the elections, and, with its allies, now holds a small majority in the 128-seat parliament.

Its parliamentary rival, a coalition backed by the United States and Saudi Arabia, has meanwhile unraveled, leaving its leaders to cut their own deals to ensure continued political relevance.

But while haggling over ministerial appointments for a new government continues, new challenges are looming, as in Washington, President Trump’s administration mulls what it considers the unpalatable reality of a Lebanon dominated by the Iran-backed Hezbollah. Already Lebanon’s important banking sector, fearing US financial sanctions, is sounding the alarm about what could amount to a heavy price that Lebanon would pay for its domestic peace.

Even so, US influence in the region appears to be diminishing while Russia, which along with Iran has backed the winning side in the protracted bloody conflict in next-door Syria, is ascendant, even in Lebanon.

The US once supported efforts by Lebanon’s Western-backed, so-called March 14 coalition to push back against Hezbollah, and it continues to maintain a military assistance program that has seen more than $1.7 billion delivered to the Lebanese Army since 2006. But in the months ahead, the Trump administration’s anti-Iran agenda and the likelihood of additional financial measures against Hezbollah could call that support into question.

“The US government is a vast multi-centered organization and within it there’s a wide variety of opinions on Lebanon,” says Paul Salem, senior vice president for policy research and programs at the Washington-based Middle East Institute. “Much rests on the formation of [Lebanon’s new] government. If Hezbollah has a big share, that could be a red flag for Congress and might affect the issue of funding [for the Lebanese Army]. It doesn’t mean that the relationship would end, but it could reduce some of the funding and equipment.”

Diplomatic and political sources in Beirut say the US has signaled to Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri that Washington would not view with favor a heightened Hezbollah presence in the next government. Hezbollah presently has two ministers holding relatively minor portfolios in the caretaker government. The Iran-backed party is believed to be seeking a deeper role in the next government, including a “services” ministry, such as health, to reflect its success in the parliamentary elections.

Pivot to Russia?

However, Mr. Hariri has a limited ability to deny Hezbollah’s goals in fulfilment of Washington’s cautioning. Despite more than a decade of bitter opposition to the militarily powerful Hezbollah, Hariri agreed in November 2016 to endorse Hezbollah’s candidate for president, ending a two-and-a-half year impasse that had undermined the economy and paralyzed state institutions. In return for succumbing to Hezbollah’s will, Hariri was appointed prime minister.

Michael Young, a leading Lebanese political analyst and senior editor at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, says he would not be surprised if the “tide is shifting” in Washington’s attitude toward Lebanon, but notes the constraints facing Lebanon’s leaders because of Hezbollah’s dominance.

“It’s easy [for the US] to say ‘do this,’ or ‘don’t do that’ regarding Hezbollah. But Hezbollah is a major player in the state and it would be very difficult for the Lebanese to implement anything on that front,” he says.

Furthermore, Hariri has been showing more interest lately in developing relations with Russia, says a political source in Beirut close to the prime minister-designate’s thinking.

Russia has seen its influence in the region soar since 2015 when it intervened in Syria’s brutal war to prop up the then ailing regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Moscow, today, is the locus of Middle East diplomatic and political maneuverings with top officials from Israel, Iran, and Turkey making frequent visits to win support for their respective – and rival – agendas in Syria.

“Hariri believes that Russia is the only party that can moderate Iran and Hezbollah’s behavior. His basic premise is that he is not going to be the spearhead of American opposition to Iran,” the political source said.

Last year, Russia floated a $1 billion credit line with favorable repayment terms for the Lebanese government to purchase Russian arms and equipment for the Lebanese Army, an offer that drew warnings from the US and Britain that their respective military assistance programs to Lebanon could be jeopardized if Beirut accepted the deal.

While the arms package appears to be off the table for now, it was one of several indicators that Russia could be looking to expand its influence from Syria into Lebanon at the expense of the US. And that could further harden Washington’s attitude toward Beirut.

Cost of coordinating with Hezbollah

“Sympathy for Lebanon in Washington has diminished, in my view, due in part to the election results and Hezbollah’s growing power,” says Elliott Abrams, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council for Foreign Relations in Washington.

Abrams has been critical of the military assistance program to Lebanon because of the persistent allegations that the Lebanese Army cooperates too closely with Hezbollah, designated a terrorist organization by the US.

“I do not favor cutting off aid to the LAF, but I favor reducing and strongly conditioning it,” he says, using the acronym for the Lebanese Army. “The message to the LAF and the government should be clear: Every form of coordination with Hezbollah and of Hezbollah influence is noticed and will have a cost. If the LAF meets the tests, it should get all the aid.”

The Lebanese banking sector, the most vibrant economic sector in Lebanon, is in the gunsights of the Treasury Department, which has spent years attempting to locate and sever sources of funding for Hezbollah. New anti-Hezbollah legislation due to be adopted shortly will impose additional measures on the organization and raise further concerns in Beirut of a financial backlash.

“Lebanon’s mix of civilian and military leaders don’t appear to always gauge the stakes or fully appreciate that this administration is actively weighing its relationship with Beirut,” says Aram Nerguizian, co-director of the Program on Civil-Military Relations in Arab States at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.

“Lebanon’s banking sector is regularly sounding the alarm bell, and Lebanese politicians and leaders need to understand that a larger and multi-faceted crisis of confidence in Lebanon is quite real,” Mr. Nerguizian says.

“Be that as it may, the Trump administration must also understand that damaging Lebanon’s banking sector and demoralizing the LAF will go a great distance to making Lebanon a failed state, and do far more to strengthen, rather than weaken, Hezbollah.”

Bekah McNeel/The Hechinger Report

On a recent field trip to the Microsoft Store, a group of CAST Tech freshmen took turns trying out the HTC VIVE Virtual Reality System. CAST Tech is a new career-focused, in-district charter high school in San Antonio. The campus, on the site of the city’s first high school, sits near some of the city's biggest employers.

CAST Tech, the newest public high school in San Antonio, looks like an outpost of Google. Fiber optic cables run along the ceilings and a cybersecurity lab occupies the basement.

The school, located in the heart of San Antonio’s slowly revitalizing downtown, is just a stone’s throw from some of the city’s big employers. That makes it easy for business executives to pop by – and they do. This past academic year, the school entertained dozens of local business leaders as guest speakers and, nearly every week, students welcomed tech employees who serve as mentors.   

All of this is by design. CAST Tech, an in-district charter school which opened last fall with 175 freshmen, is the first of three career-themed public high schools planned for the city. The schools are the brainchild of Charles Butt, a big donor to local education causes and chairman of H-E-B, the region’s largest grocery store chain.

Modeled in part on California’s High Tech High charter network, business-backed programs in Georgia and South Carolina, and STEM programs in Massachusetts, the schools are part of a growing push to more closely match students’ skills with workforce needs. While some educators worry about turning schools into vehicles for job readiness, efforts to integrate technical training and academic education continue to gain traction. A recent White House proposal to merge the education and labor departments into a new cabinet-level agency, the Department of Education and the Workforce, underscores the popularity of this view in Washington.    

In San Antonio, the CAST schools are also one prong of a larger effort by a local school district to promote integration in one of the most economically segregated cities in the country. The San Antonio Independent School District (ISD), which will operate two of the CAST schools, is one of 19 school districts in the county and among its poorest.

Mohammed Choudhury, who joined the district last year as its chief innovation officer, wants to ensure that these and other specialized schools in his district avoid some of the common pitfalls of school choice.

“Usually when districts launch specialized initiatives around school choice, and resources are put into the school in an urban environment, they end up exacerbating segregation that already exists,” he says. But while CAST Tech encourages applications from across the metro area, it eschews the admissions exams used by magnet schools, and, unlike most charters, is run by the school district. Plus, Mr. Choudhury solicits applications from the city’s poorest pockets, and carefully tinkers with the mix of students from low- and middle-income families.

After having trouble finding skilled employees for his corporate headquarters, Mr. Butt, the businessman, brought together San Antonio school superintendents, business leaders, and workforce experts to explore school models that could give students the academic foundation and skills required for jobs in fast-growing, well-paying local industries.

Their answer was CAST (Centers for Applied Science and Technology). The CAST schools are intended to prepare students from across the San Antonio metro area for careers in tech and business, health care, and advanced manufacturing. They rely on industry “partners” — 10 so far at CAST Tech — to guarantee students internships and mentorships and to help keep the curriculum current. Students take a mix of core academics and classes such as entrepreneurship and graphic design; in addition, they can earn up to 30 college credits through dual enrollment programs with local colleges.

One year in, the approach to economic integration, dubbed “diversity by design,” is working. However, the specialized schools under Choudhury’s purview, including CAST Tech, have met resistance from locals who worry that they are sapping resources from the district’s existing neighborhood schools.  

Choudhury, though, is adamant about the value of economic integration — and the importance of giving low-income students, in particular, access to educational options. This includes the specialized tech skills and business networking opportunities ingrained in the CAST Tech model. 

'A better opportunity'

One school day this spring, a beeping sound comes from under freshman Toney Coronado’s shirt. A monitor she is wearing as part of a PE class project is going off, informing her she has reached her resting heart rate, and cueing her to make a note of her current activity. 

Bekah McNeel/The Hechinger Report

CAST Tech freshman Toney Coronado wants to work in cybersecurity. A member of the inaugural class, she chose the high school because she believed it could give her access to the type of company she wants to work for in the future.

Toney lives in the North East ISD, a relatively affluent section of the city with well-rated schools. But she says she wanted more than strong academics. The 15-year-old also sought real-world experience in her desired career: cybersecurity.

“I thought that CAST would be a better opportunity for me,” she says. She’s always loved the idea of cybersecurity — being a good-guy hacker. Getting a job in that field will require more than just technical skills though. CAST Tech also helps with the nuts and bolts of the application process. Toney recently showed her mom a mock resume she’d been working on in “principles of business,” a required class for freshmen. “My mom was shocked,” Toney says, laughing. “She wants me to help my older brother.”

In addition to her classes in English, history, algebra, and life sciences, Toney will have the opportunity to earn a “Red Hat Certification” in cybersecurity, a competitive credential in the field. 

“They are teaching strong fundamentals,” says Bret Piatt, chief executive of Jungle Disk, a startup cybersecurity firm. The average annual salary at his company is $75,000, well above the median income of families in the San Antonio ISD, which is roughly $32,000, and the $56,000 median in the San Antonio metro area. Mr. Piatt says he plans to recruit from CAST Tech in the years to come.

CAST Med, scheduled to open in the district in the fall of 2019, will prepare kids for midlevel careers in the booming health-care field. Manufacturing jobs, which pay a median local wage of $42,952, are growing quickly too, by an expected 8 percent over the next six years. CAST STEM, focused on advanced manufacturing, will open this fall in the city’s Southwest ISD, a more rural district with a high percentage of low-income students.  

While CAST encourages input from industry partners on the curriculum, so far there’s been no evidence of any concern that the schools are giving businesses too much influence. That may be because, for all the focus on professional preparation, the schools are also giving students the academic education to equip them for college — not just the workforce, say CAST leaders. As more and more jobs require some education beyond high school, Pedro Martinez, who joined the district as its superintendent in 2015, urges all students to consider earning a college or post-secondary credential. At CAST Tech, says principal Melissa Alcala, “We’re trying to prepare them for both tracks.”

Managing attendance

Choudhury acknowledges that companies could see the schools as labor farms for whatever jobs they happen to have, but added the schools’ goal is to educate children for jobs that will help move them out of poverty, not keep them in it. “Let’s not launch these [career-and-technical education] programs to give employers a new assembly line,” he says. 

Another risk, Choudhury says, is complacency about who gets to attend.   

When he arrived in San Antonio in April 2017, after three years with the Dallas public school system, CAST Tech was in the middle of enrolling its inaugural class, Choudhury says. He looked at the demographics and began to worry. By simply opening up admission to all and seeing how “it plays out,” he says, the school was attracting plenty of teens from middle-class families but few from the district’s poorest neighborhoods.

Almost immediately, he began calling low-income families whose children had been admitted but had yet to accept. Failing to follow up, he explains, ends up excluding low-income families who may lack voicemail or the ability to regularly check email. Choudhury personally called families until someone answered. He also began pulling low-income families off the waitlist as spots became available. The result: District data show that CAST Tech’s first class was split evenly between families earning above and below $44,000 per year. Roughly 60 percent are from the San Antonio ISD and the rest are from outside the district.  

Going forward, Choudhury says he and his staff will carefully monitor the enrollment process and promote the schools in neighborhoods with uneven access to internet, social media, and other information platforms, going door-to-door if they have to. Then they’ll hold separate lotteries for students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch and those who don’t, to ensure that the next batch of students accepted is roughly a 50-50 economic mix. Next they’ll take a closer look at those enrolled to ensure that at least 12.5 percent of students come from the deepest pockets of poverty in the city. When skeptics ask why CAST emphasizes socioeconomic integration, Choudhury points them to studies showing that kids of every income level thrive academically and socially in economically integrated schools.

Building these attractive schools, however, takes money; to get those dollars, the schools needed a rainmaker and found one in Superintendent Martinez. The CAST schools underscore the fundraising success of Martinez, who was hired three years ago from the Nevada Department of Education. In that time, giving to the San Antonio ISD Foundation has risen from $919,520 in 2015 to more than $11 million last year. Gifts to CAST schools since 2015 have totaled $10 million, including a $3.6 million donation from H-E-B in 2016.

But all that giving has come at a price. “My concern is that the district, in its attempt to be innovative, has created all of these specialty schools at the cost of the neighborhood school,” says Candace Michael, who retired from teaching in the district and is now an educational consultant. “They get everything they need or want.”

The district has plans to improve the rest of its schools, filling them with effective teachers, and allowing campuses to apply to become part of Choudhury’s “innovation zones,” whose schools have longer days, weeks, and even school years. Few of these schools are as high profile as CAST Tech, however, and none has the same level of philanthropic investment.

“We have to do high-poverty schools well,” Choudhury says of the existing district schools, where roughly 90 percent of students are low-income. “At the same time, we have to stop recreating them.”

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. 

Step aside, Buzz Lightyear. America’s favorite flop-eared beagle has earned an official spot aboard NASA’s rockets.  

Snoopy, who once shot for the stars as a mascot with the Apollo lunar missions in the 1960s, has returned to partner with the space organization. But this time his mission will be Earth-focused – he’ll be promoting space exploration and STEM education among kids.

NASA administrators hope that Snoopy will inspire students to take an interest in science, technology, engineering, and math at an early age so they have the necessary foundation to pursue STEM careers later in life if they choose to. Research has shown that only 26 percent of students who express interest in pursuing STEM majors in college are prepared to take the rigorous classes required.

“[Some] kids are thinking, ‘I’m never going to be an author, I’m never going to be something that requires tons and tons of reading, but I’m really good with my hands and mechanical stuff.’ I really feel strongly that needs to be represented in schools,” says Bonnie Schulman, a fifth-grade teacher at Barnstable United Elementary School in Barnstable, Mass. “I’m sad still that schools seem to be catering toward one type of learner…. The kids who have other kinds of abilities, that might be science-related, they don’t necessarily feel successful in school.”

Brought to life by the pen of Peanuts’ creator Charles Schulz, Snoopy first excited Americans' cosmic wanderlust in the 1960s when he soared to the moon with nothing but a fishbowl on his head – beating the Russians and even the cat next door.

So when NASA’s Apollo 10 lunar module had to “snoop around” the moon’s surface in 1969 to determine Apollo 11’s landing site, the crew aptly nicknamed their craft Snoopy and the command module Charlie Brown. It’s an affiliation that stuck. To this day, NASA awards employees and contractors with the Silver Snoopy Award for “outstanding achievements related to human flight safety or mission success.”

Now NASA is taking its canine loyalty to new heights through a Space Act Agreement that will update Snoopy’s look “for space-themed programming with content about NASA’s deep space exploration missions,” according to a NASA-issued press release.

Refueling Americans' passion for space

When self-described NASA fan Patricia Rapp, who grew up during the lunar mission era, first heard about the renewed partnership between NASA and Snoopy, she immediately recalled the excitement she felt as a little girl watching Apollo 11 land on the moon.

“In 1969 I was 7, and I remember our family staying up late that night and we were all sitting on the couch,” says Ms. Rapp, who works at a library in Rochester, N.Y. “And we watched the lunar landing together…. [I]t was incredibly exciting to see the first steps on the moon.”

But even though she witnessed groundbreaking scientific history firsthand, Rap says it was Snoopy who made space seem fun. She remembers playing with a Snoopy astronaut action figure in the backyard, transforming it into the surface of the moon.

Peanuts and NASA will work together to create a STEM-themed curriculum for students, focused on US plans for space exploration. More details about the partnership will be released at San Diego’s Comic Con, which begins Thursday. This isn’t the first time NASA has partnered with a popular children's brand. LEGO and American Girl Doll have both launched products to promote STEM and space education among children in efforts to create new generations of space scientists and explorers. 

“[NASA is] looking down the road to ensure that a pipeline of talented people with scientific and engineering backgrounds can come work for the agency, or its contractors, in the years to come,” says Jeff Foust, a senior staff writer for Space News. “There’s been a long-running concern in the industry that not enough people are pursuing careers in those fields.”

Mr. Foust says he wasn’t surprised to hear that NASA would be renewing its partnership with Snoopy, possibly because the space organization and its programs could use a boost from the sassy beagle’s charm.

While 72 percent of American adults think that the United States should remain a world leader in space exploration, only 18 percent think sending astronauts to Mars should be a top priority for NASA. Only 13 percent think it should be a top priority to send astronauts back to the moon, according to data published by Pew Research Center in June. Most Americans prefer NASA to monitor the Earth’s climate systems, or asteroids that could hit Earth.

A character like Snoopy, Foust says, could appeal to the nostalgia among Americans for a time of innovation and curiosity inspired by the lunar space missions, and at the same time renew public support for space exploration.

“Bringing back this partnership with Snoopy is incredibly nostalgic for people my age, but also for the young kids because Snoopy is such an icon,” says Rapp. “He’s been a part of our culture for decades. So anything that we can do to spark that excitement again about science … there's so much value in [that].”

AP Photo

Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, on left, holds the hand of Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as they wave at the crowds in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, July 15. Official rivals just weeks ago, the leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea have embraced warmly to the roar of a crowd of thousands at a concert celebrating the end of a long state of war.

The new prime minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed, made a bold assertion last week after he helped end a two-decade conflict with neighboring Eritrea. “The reconciliation we are forging now is an example to people across Africa and beyond,” said the young reformist leader who holds a doctorate in peace studies.

The example is not simply that peace broke out quickly between the two countries on the Horn of Africa, where a war between them had killed more than 70,000. While the reconciliation was widely welcomed, Prime Minister Abiy and his counterpart, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, also tried, as they exchanged visits to each other’s capitals, to explain their motives in forging a peace.

A key motive, they indicated, was to offer mercy to the other side after years of conflict over a border dispute, driven in part by ethnic tensions.

“Forgiveness frees the consciousness,” said Abiy. “When we say we have reconciled, we mean we have chosen a path of forgiveness and love.”

And, he added, “Love is greater than modern weapons like tanks and missiles. Love can win hearts, and we have seen a great deal of it today here in Asmara [Eritrea’s capital].”

For his part, President Isaias promised the two countries would move forward as one. “No one can steal the love we have regained now. Now is the time to make up for the lost times.”

Vast crowds cheered the two men in their visits as they took steps to bring Eritrea and Ethiopia together. They opened embassies in each other’s country, restored phone and airline service, and made plans to demarcate the border and establish trade links.

The two sides had many economic and political reasons to reconcile, aided by foreign help from the World Council of Churches, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and others. Both are dealing with high joblessness. Eritrea has seen a mass exodus of people to Europe while Ethiopia saw mass protests recently that shook the ruling party and brought Abiy to power in April.

Their conflict had long had repercussions in nearby countries, such as Somalia and South Sudan. And with Eritrea situated across the Red Sea from Yemen and its violent conflict, Arab leaders had reason to seek peace on the Horn of Africa.

Now the peace deal, and the heartfelt motives behind it, may be examples for the nations involved in the many unfinished wars in Africa. The resumption of ties, said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, was “illustrative of a new wind of hope blowing” across the continent.

Both Ethiopia and Eritrea still have far to go to establish free and democratic governance. Their conflict was a frequent excuse to suppress dissent.

But said Isaias, “Hate, discrimination and conspiracy is now over.” Each side appears ready to set an example for other nations to follow.