Author: BelieveAgain

The U.S. Department of Education has begun outsourcing responsibility for overseeing the nation’s sprawling special education system and enforcing civil rights law in schools to other federal agencies, after months of previewing dramatic efforts to restructure both core functions.Department officials announced the moves—made possible by four new interagency agreements—on Tuesday morning to advocacy group representatives, and on Tuesday afternoon to reporters and the general public.The Education Department office that oversees special education and employment programs for adults with disabilities will move to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The U.S. Department of Justice will take on the Education…

The Southern Poverty Law Center, the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island, the National Education Association (on behalf of its members), and researchers have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education over the discontinuation of 28 grants intended to train teachers working with English learners.The National Professional Development grant program has historically offered a critical pipeline for educators serving a growing population of multilingual students, connecting research institutions with preservice and in-service teachers with training and affordable certification pathways. But since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, the program has experienced significant upheaval, including:The loss of most,…

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating how 43 school districts in three states teach about sexuality and gender identity and whether they give parents the opportunity to opt their children out of lessons that conflict with their religious beliefs.The agency’s civil rights division said the compliance reviews are necessary to ensure recipients of federal funding aren’t violating civil rights laws. But the investigations are a sharp departure from the practices of past presidential administrations. Fulfilling the requests will require extensive time and resources from district leaders, who’ve been directed to produce reams of curricula, documents, text messages, and other…

Indiana on Tuesday secured the broadest state waiver yet from federal school funding and accountability requirements, as the Trump administration aims to give state and local leaders more control over K-12 decision-making.It’s the third state to receive such a waiver from the U.S. Department of Education, following Iowa in January and Louisiana last month. But Indiana’s waiver goes further than the other two, marking the first time a state will be allowed to change how it rates school performance for federal accountability and the first to give school districts more leeway in how they spend certain federal education funds.Under the…

Microschooling has taken off since the pandemic. These small, personalized school models today enroll over 1 million K-12 students seeking flexibility, intimacy, or a particular instructional model. The growth has raised a host of challenges. The biggest may involve financing and growing these new models. On that score, I’m intrigued by a first-of-its-kind program called The Lending Lab, which helps microschools access the resources they need. Allison Serafin oversees The Lending Lab and serves as chief strategist at Building Hope. Previously, she founded IDEA Charter Schools in Greater Houston and served as vice president of Nevada’s board of education. I…

The federal government in 2022 awarded almost $9 million to the rural Cuba City school district in Wisconsin. District leaders planned to use the grant to outfit a new gymnasium building with a safe room where students and community members could shelter during a tornado outbreak.More than four years later, the district still hasn’t seen a cent of that money, and the plan to build a safe room is still on hold.First, the district needed to get its project plans approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which awarded the grant through its Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program.…

A Democratic governor who had been on the fence about participating in the new federal school choice program said Friday her state won’t participate, following the Trump administration’s release of a preview of how the program will operate.Gov. Tina Kotek of Oregon said in a statement that the Trump administration’s information release “indicates states like Oregon will not have the flexibility they need to participate in alignment with our values.“At this point, I simply cannot trust that any education policy coming from Trump’s White House is in the best interest of Oregon’s kids and our public education system,” she said.Kotek…

Last summer, when the Trump administration abruptly withheld nearly $7 billion in formula funding for K-12 schools nationwide, school district leaders in Gwinnett County, Ga., were concerned but not panicked.The 183,000-student district—Georgia’s largest—had enough cash on hand to weather at least three to four months of federal delays. Ultimately, the White House bowed to bipartisan backlash and released the withheld funds within a month of their original due date.Even so, memories of that chaotic period haven’t faded. Masana Mailliard, the Gwinnett district’s chief financial officer, recently helped identify $18 million worth of district-level administrative programs and vacant positions that could…

Federal officials have not yet released precise rules for how a new education tax credit will work. But that’s not stopping school leaders in Gwinnett County, Ga., from preparing to participate.The Gwinnett County Public Schools Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, already gives out dozens of student scholarships each year. It also partners with local organizations to supply classroom materials and necessities like food and clothing to students and staff.Now, the district hopes to boost investment in its 183,000 students by pitching the dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit launching next year as an incentive for donating to the foundation.“I’m already getting emails from…

A federal judge on Monday struck down the Trump administration’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas, contradicting an earlier federal court ruling upholding the fee hike.The administration announced the much-higher fee as a way of preventing foreign workers from taking American jobs.But U.S. District Court Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston sided with 20 states and struck down the visa policy, concluding that the executive branch exceeded its authority and violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.“The Court finds that the Policy imposes a tax on H-1B petitions without the requisite delegation by Congress,”…