LIMA, Peru — At a Roman Catholic elementary school on the ramshackle outskirts of Lima, students are rambunctious and seemingly carefree. By contrast, school administrators are stressing out.

One tells NPR that gangsters are demanding that the school pay them between 50,000 and 100,000 Peruvians sols — between $14,000 and $28,000.

“They send us messages saying they know where we live,” says the administrator — who, for fear of retaliation from the gangs, does not want to reveal his identity or the name of the school. “They send us photos of grenades and pistols.”

These are not empty threats. A few weeks ago, he says, police arrested a 16-year-old in the pay of gangs as he planted a bomb at the entrance to the school. The teenager had not been a student or had other connections with the school.

Schools in Peru are easy targets for extortion. Due to the poor quality of public education, thousands of private schools have sprung up. Many are located in impoverished barrios dominated by criminals — who are now demanding a cut of their tuition fees.

Miriam Ramírez, president of one of Lima’s largest parent-teacher associations, says at least 1,000 schools in the Peruvian capital are being extorted and that most are caving into the demands of the gangs. To reduce the threat to students, some schools have switched to online classes. But she says at least five have closed down.

Miriam Ramírez is president of one of Lima’s largest parent-teacher associations and she says at least 1,000 schools in the Peruvian capital are being extorted and that most are caving into the demands of the gangs.

John Otis for NPR

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John Otis for NPR

If this keeps up, Ramírez says, “The country is going to end up in total ignorance.”

Extortion is part of a broader crime wave in Peru that gained traction during the COVID pandemic. Peru also saw a huge influx of Venezuelan migrants, including members of the Tren de Aragua criminal group that specializes in extortion — though authorities concede it is hard to definitively connect Tren de Aragua members with these school extortions.

Francisco Rivadeneyra, a former Peruvian police commander, tells NPR that corrupt cops are part of the problem. In exchange for bribes, he says, officers tip off gangs about pending police raids. NPR reached out to the Peruvian police for comment but there was no response.

Political instability has made things worse. Due to corruption scandals, Peru has had six presidents in the past nine years. In March, current President Dina Boluarte declared a state of emergency in Lima and ordered the army into the streets to help fight crime.

But analysts say it’s made little difference. Extortionists now operate in the poorest patches of Lima, areas with little policing, targeting hole-in-the-wall bodegas, streetside empanada stands and even soup kitchens. Many of the gang members themselves are from poor or working class backgrounds, authorities say, so they are moving in an environment that they already know.

“We barely have enough money to buy food supplies,” says Genoveba Huatarongo, who helps prepare 100 meals per day at a soup kitchen in the squatter community of Villa María.

Even so, she says, thugs stabbed one of her workers and then left a note demanding weekly “protection” payments. Huatarongo reported the threats to the police. To avoid similar attacks, nearby soup kitchens now pay the gangsters $14 per week, she says.

But there is some pushback.

Carla Pacheco, who runs a tiny grocery in a working-class Lima neighborhood, is refusing to make the $280 weekly payments that local gangsters are demanding, pointing out that it takes her a full month to earn that amount.

Carla Pacheco runs a tiny grocery in Lima and she is refusing to make the $280 weekly payments that local gangsters are demanding.

John Otis for NPR

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John Otis for NPR

She’s paid a heavy price. One morning she found her three cats decapitated, their heads hung in front of her store.

Though horrified, she’s holding out. To protect her kids, she changed her children’s schools to make it harder for gangsters to target them.

She rarely goes out and now dispenses groceries through her barred front door rather than allowing shoppers inside.

“I can’t support corruption because I am the daughter of policeman,” Pacheco explains. “If I pay the gangs, that would bring me down to their level.”

After a bomb was found at its front gate in March, the San Vicente School in north Lima hired private security guards and switched to online learning for several weeks. When normal classes resumed, San Vicente officials told students to wear street clothes rather than school uniforms to avoid being recognized by gang members.

“They could shoot the students in revenge,” explains Violeta Upangi, waiting outside the school to pick up her 13-year-old daughter.

Due to the threats, about 40 of San Vicente’s 1,000 students have left the school, says social studies teacher Julio León.

Rather than resist, many schools have buckled to extortion demands.

The administrator at the Catholic elementary school says his colleagues reported extortion threats to the police. But instead of going after the gangs, he says, the police recommended that the school pay them off for their own safety. As a result, the school ended up forking over the equivalent of $14,000. The school is now factoring extortion payments into its annual budgets, the administrator says.

“It was either that,” the administrator explains, “or close down the school.”

Downing Street should commit to education, health and care plans (EHCPs) to keep the trust of families who have children with special educational needs, the Labour MP who chairs the education select committee has said.

A letter to the Guardian on Monday, signed by dozens of special needs and disability charities and campaigners, warned against government changes to the Send system that would restrict or abolish EHCPs. More than 600,000 children and young people rely on EHCPs for individual support in England.

Helen Hayes, who chairs the cross-party Commons education select committee, said mistrust among many families with Send children was so apparent that ministers should commit to keeping EHCPs.

“I think at this stage that would be the right thing to do,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “We have been looking, as the education select committee, at the Send system for the last several months. We have heard extensive evidence from parents, from organisations that represent parents, from professionals and from others who are deeply involved in the system, which is failing so many children and families at the moment.

“One of the consequences of that failure is that parents really have so little trust and confidence in the Send system at the moment. And the government should take that very seriously as it charts a way forward for reform.

“It must be undertaking reform and setting out new proposals in a way that helps to build the trust and confidence of parents and which doesn’t make parents feel even more fearful than they do already about their children’s future.”

She added: “At the moment, we have a system where all of the accountability is loaded on to the statutory part of the process, the EHCP system, and I think it is understandable that many parents would feel very, very fearful when the government won’t confirm absolutely that EHCPs and all of the accountabilities that surround them will remain in place.”

The letter published in the Guardian is evidence of growing public concern, despite reassurances from the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, that no decisions have yet been taken about the fate of EHCPs.

Labour MPs who spoke to the Guardian are worried ministers are unable to explain key details of the special educational needs shake-up being considered in the schools white paper to be published in October.

Stephen Morgan, a junior education minister, reiterated Phillipson’s refusal to say whether the white paper would include plans to change or abolish EHCPs, telling Sky News he could not “get into the mechanics” of the changes for now.

However, he said change was needed: “We inherited a Send system which was broken. The previous government described it as lose, lose, lose, and I want to make sure that children get the right support where they need it, across the country.”

Hayes reiterated this wider point, saying: “It is absolutely clear to us on the select committee that we have a system which is broken. It is failing families, and the government will be wanting to look at how that system can be made to work better.

“But I think they have to take this issue of the lack of trust and confidence, the fear that parents have, and the impact that it has on the daily lives of families. This is an everyday lived reality if you are battling a system that is failing your child, and the EHCPs provide statutory certainty for some parents. It isn’t a perfect system … but it does provide important statutory protection and accountability.”

The repercussions from the decimation of staff at the Education Department keep coming. Last week, the fallout led to a delay in releasing results from a national science test.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is best known for tests that track reading and math achievement but includes other subjects too. In early 2024, when the main reading and math tests were administered, there was also a science section for eighth graders. 

The board that oversees NAEP had announced at its May meeting that it planned to release the science results in June. But that month has since come and gone. 

Why the delay? There is no commissioner of education statistics to sign off on the score report, a requirement before it is released, according to five current and former officials who are familiar with the release of NAEP scores, but asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the press or feared retaliation. 

Related: Our free weekly newsletter alerts you to what research says about schools and classrooms.

Peggy Carr, a former Biden administration appointee, was dismissed as the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics in February, two years before the end of her six-year term set by Congress. Chris Chapman was named acting commissioner, but then he was fired in March, along with half the employees at the Education Department. The role has remained vacant since.

A spokesman for the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees NAEP,  said the science scores will be released later this summer, but denied that the lack of a commissioner is the obstacle. “The report building is proceeding so the naming of a commissioner is not a bureaucratic hold up to its progress,” Stephaan Harris said by email.

The delay matters. Education policymakers have been keen to learn if science achievement had held steady after the pandemic or tumbled along with reading and math. (Those reading and math scores were released in January.)

The Trump administration has vowed to dismantle the Education Department and did not respond to an emailed question about when a new commissioner would be appointed. 

Related: Chaos and confusion as the statistics arm of the Education Department is reduced to a skeletal staff of 3

Researchers hang onto data

Keeping up with administration policy can be head spinning these days. Education researchers were notified in March that they would have to relinquish federal data they were using for their studies. (The department shares restricted datasets, which can include personally identifiable information about students, with approved researchers.) 

But researchers learned on June 30 that the department had changed its mind and decided not to terminate this remote access. 

Lawyers who are suing the Trump administration on behalf of education researchers heralded this about-face as a “big win.” Researchers can now finish projects in progress. 

Still, researchers don’t have a way of publishing or presenting papers that use this data. Since the mass firings in mid-March, there is no one remaining inside the Education Department to review their papers for any inadvertent disclosure of student data, a required step before public release. And there is no process at the moment for researchers to request data access for future studies. 

“While ED’s change-of-heart regarding remote access is welcome,” said Adam Pulver of Public Citizen Litigation Group, “other vital services provided by the Institute of Education Sciences have been senselessly, illogically halted without consideration of the impact on the nation’s educational researchers and the education community more broadly.  We will continue to press ahead with our case as to the other arbitrarily canceled programs.”

Pulver is the lead attorney for one of three suits fighting the Education Department’s termination of research and statistics activities. Judges in the District of Columbia and Maryland have denied researchers a preliminary injunction to restore the research and data cuts. But the Maryland case is now fast-tracked and the court has asked the Trump administration to produce an administrative record of its decision making process by July 11. (See this previous story for more background on the court cases.)

Related: Education researchers sue Trump administration, testing executive power

Some NSF grants restored in California

Just as the Education Department is quietly restarting some activities that DOGE killed, so is the National Science Foundation (NSF). The federal science agency posted on its website that it reinstated 114 awards to 45 institutions as of June 30. NSF said it was doing so to comply with a federal court order to reinstate awards to all University of California researchers. It was unclear how many of these research projects concerned education, one of the major areas that NSF funds.

Researchers and universities outside the University of California system are hoping for the same reversal. In June, the largest professional organization of education researchers, the American Educational Research Association, joined forces with a large coalition of organizations and institutions in filing a legal challenge to the mass termination of grants by the NSF. Education grants were especially hard hit in a series of cuts in April and May. Democracy Forward, a public interest law firm, is spearheading this case.

Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or barshay@hechingerreport.org.

This story about delaying the NAEP science score report was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.