Almost time for tricks ‘n’ treats–but the news kept on happening. Here are some of the top stories from last week:

Do “working-class” white evangelicals really support Trump most?

• Paul Krugman says yes, at NYT.
• Poll data says no.No doubt, though, that some white evangelicals remain the staunchest Trumpists. Even when Lindsay Graham and Moscow Mitch McConnell disputed Trump’s move in Syria, Franklin Graham stuck with Trump. At CBN.

Will Queen Betsy and the Kochs end up destroying charter schools? At Curmudgucation.

I don’t find it at all difficult to imagine a future in which the scorched earth folks work to take down charter schools right along with the public system (the one that charters insist they’re part of). If I were a scorched earth person, my plan would be first to split the funding stream into several streams (public this way, vouchers over there) and then just slowly pinch off the public stream. The techniques that we’ve already seen work just fine– starve the schools, create a measure to show that they’re failing, use their failure as justification for starving them further.

Can Democrats learn to “speak evangelical?” Hell Heck yes. At the New Yorker.

“Trying to memorize John 3:16 in the car on your way to the event and then quote that is probably not the best way to connect with faith-based voters,” he said. He had seen a candidate try this trick on the way to a rally in Kansas and then struggle to remember the phrase onstage.

The US government sues a company for discriminating against conservative Christians, at EEOC. HT: DS.

According to the suit, West Reading, Pa.-based Service Caster subjected two assemblers and one assembly line supervisor to a hostile work environment because of their national origin, Puerto Rican, and religion, Pentecostal. The plant manager routinely made derogatory remarks about their national origin. The EEOC says the plant manager also made disparaging comments about their Pentecostal faith, including calling it a “cult.” The EEOC said the harassment continued even after the workers com­plained to the company owner.

• Why won’t conservative pundits celebrate this news? We ask at ILYBYGTH.

Why is one evangelical university in Tennessee thriving while another shrinks? At CT.

In some ways, the schools are very similar. Both recruit large portions of their student body from Tennessee, and are especially appealing to conservative Christians. . . . full-time enrollment at Trevecca has grown by 3 to 6 percent each year since 2013. . . In that same time frame, Bryan saw enrollment decline. The number of full-time undergraduates decreased between 6 and 13 percent in 2013, 2014, and 2015, according to IPEDS. Enrollment numbers rebounded a bit in 2016, but then declined again in 2017.

Bethel Professor Chris Gehrz asks two tough questions about evangelical colleges and tax exemptions, at PS:

institutional self-preservation isn’t our mission. And if we can’t fulfill our mission except with the economic assistance of the state, perhaps this model of Christian education is ready to join others on the dust heap of history.. . . Are we [Christian colleges] doing something necessary and good for our neighbors that couldn’t be done as well by other nonprofit educational agencies that don’t impose a religious test that may discriminate against a category of citizens?

Alfie Kohn has a different question for every Democratic candidate: What do we do about high-stakes testing?

real leadership on this issue would consist of steering the conversation beyond problems with how the tests are used, to problems with the tests themselves; and from talking about how often students are tested to talking about whether these tests are needed at all (in light of the harm they do as well the availability of more informative and less destructive alternatives).

What to do with “gifted and talented” programs? At The Atlantic.

Justice in education isn’t realized through uniformity; it’s realized by ensuring that every single child has the best shot at reaching his or her highest potential.

Religious right shuts down controversial display in Connecticut library. But it’s not what you might think: This religious right is the Indian government and the display was about a 1984 attack on the Sikh minority. At RNS.