Author: BelieveAgain

Previously: Chavez-DeRemer served as mayor of Happy Valley, Ore., from 2011 to 2019. From 2023 to 2025, she represented Oregon’s 5th District in Congress. Schooling: She attended public K-12 schools and earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from California State University, Fresno. Education policy positions: Her 2022 campaign for Congress emphasized education priorities including a parental bill of rights and ending critical race theory instruction in public schools. While in Congress, she bucked her party’s majority on some labor issues, including by co-sponsoring legislation to expand public-sector workers’ rights to organize unions. During her Senate confirmation hearing, Chavez-DeRemer expressed…

The U.S. Supreme Court this week will consider the legality of one of the biggest items on President Donald Trump’s immigration-enforcement agenda—an executive order that seeks to end birthright citizenship for children born on U.S. soil of immigrant parents who are undocumented or have lawful temporary status.The case, Trump v. Barbara, is being watched by educators because enforcement of the order would vastly expand the population of undocumented children, which could discourage their enrollment in public schools—even though a 1982 Supreme Court decision bars states from denying students a free public education based on immigration status.That decision, Plyler v. Doe,…

The Trump administration sued Minnesota and its school athletics governing body on Monday, carrying out a threat to punish the state for allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports.The lawsuit is part of a broader fight over the rights of transgender youth. More than two dozen states have laws prohibiting transgender women and girls from participating in certain sports and some have barred gender-affirming surgeries for minors. Courts have blocked some of those policies.In the lawsuit filed Monday, the Justice Department alleges the state Department of Education and the Minnesota State High School League are violating Title IX, a…

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…