Author: BelieveAgain

The U.S. spent about $946 billion on public K-12 schools in 2022-23, the most recent year for which statistics are available. The money comes from federal, state, and local governments, and the percentage coming from each source varies between and within states.The average per-pupil spending was $16,526 in 2022-23, but four states (Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont) and the District of Columbia spend more than $25,000 per student. On the other end of the spectrum, two states (Idaho and Utah) spend less than $11,000 per student on average. Read more statistics about U.S. schools.Per pupil spending nationally in…

Arts educators and their advocates met Tuesday to lament what they view as the arts’ second-tier status in schools and talk about the arts’ potential to help schools address poor student mental health and boost engagement. They also discussed how they could collaborate on their advocacy to ensure more students have access to classes in visual arts, music, theater, dance, and other arts disciplines.The meeting, organized by the advocacy organization Arts Ed NJ, included representatives from a number of different arts education groups, including Americans for the Arts, the National Association for Music Education; state-level arts advocacy groups; and the…

Schools do not collect information on students’ immigration status due to a 1982 Supreme Court ruling in Plyler v. Doe, which granted undocumented students the constitutional right to a free, public education.Collecting such data could discourage undocumented families from enrolling in school, potentially undermining that right, advocates say.But Tennessee lawmakers, in an effort to challenge the Plyler decision, are debating legislation that would require schools to collect all students’ immigration information as soon as the 2026-27 school year.Legal experts say the move would ripple across the country. Since President Donald Trump’s reelection win in November 2024, at least seven states,…

In 1982, the Plyler v. Doe decision by the U.S. Supreme Court established that undocumented students have a constitutional right to a free public education in a 5-4 decision.Since then, state-level efforts to challenge the landmark decision have surfaced, most notably in California in 1994 and Alabama in 2011. Both ultimately failed to overturn or meaningfully weaken the ruling.More recently, Tennessee lawmakers are expected to vote on legislation that would require schools to collect students’ immigration status information. Public schools nationwide do not currently collect such information, in part because it could deter undocumented students from enrolling in schools and…

The Trump administration’s dramatic downsizing of the U.S. Department of Education will soon extend to the agency’s physical space.The administration announced on Thursday that the Education Department beginning this summer will abandon its Lyndon B. Johnson building headquarters and move into a new location a block away formerly occupied by the U.S. Agency for International Development.The U.S. Department of Energy will take over the building the Education Department has occupied since its inception more than 45 years ago.Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, in a statement issued jointly with the heads of the Energy Department and General Services Administration, said the…

First lady Melania Trump often commands the attention of any room she enters but all eyes—and cameras—were trained on her humanoid companion on Wednesday.The humanoid accompanied the first lady as she arrived at the White House East Room for the final day of a summit she had convened with counterparts from around the world through her Fostering the Future Together global initiative. The group has been discussing ways to empower children using education, innovation, and technology, including artificial intelligence.Melania Trump and the humanoid walked slowly side by side along the red carpet from the opposite end of the hallway. The…

We, the board of directors of the National Academy of Education, sent a letter to Kristi Noem, the then-secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and Todd Lyons, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in February asking them to seriously consider the harms to students, families, teachers, and schools when making immigration enforcement decisions. We received no response. This week, former Republican senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma was sworn in to replace Noem. We urge him to put in place protections against these harms.Education has long been recognized as the backbone of our American democracy, and…

Schools that educate large numbers of students of color and children from low-income families are far more likely than others to be identified as the lowest-performing in their state, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm.One eye-popping data point: For every 5% increase in the percentage of students living in poverty, a school had a corresponding 42% increased risk of getting flagged as seriously low-performing (a designation called “comprehensive support and improvement” school under the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, the primary federal school accountability and funding law).That finding is the result of…

More than 100 programs run by the U.S. Department of Education are shifting to other agencies, and that number could grow in the coming months.The Trump administration has framed these program shifts, along with laying off scores of staffers and canceling hundreds of ongoing competitive grants, as steps toward the ultimate goal of closing the Education Department.But in some respects, that elimination goal remains far off. Top administration officials have acknowledged they need lawmakers to sign off on shuttering the department altogether. Congress supplied the agency with essentially level funding for this fiscal year. More than 2,000 employees remain on…

The U.S. Department of Education last year brought a quiet end to the Green Ribbon Schools program, which had for more than a decade honored schools for their sustainability work.In the absence of that federal recognition, some states are stepping up to continue recognizing educators for their work to reduce schools’ environmental impact and engage students in hands-on environmental education.One of those states is Wisconsin, where the state education department established a new state-level honor that supersedes other sustainability awards in an effort to make up for the loss of the federal recognition.Victoria Rydberg-Nania, the agency’s environmental education consultant, spoke…