Author: BelieveAgain

Federal payments to rural schools that lapsed more than a year ago are on track to resume—but they’d only be guaranteed through 2026, and they may come too late for some schools to reverse cuts they made during the delay.The U.S. House on Dec. 9 approved the Secure Rural Schools Act of 2025 and sent it to President Donald Trump, who’s expected to sign it soon. The latest iteration of the program allocates roughly $250 million in annual formula funds—as well as two years of back pay—for counties to pay for road improvements and help school districts that lose revenue…

President Donald Trump didn’t fulfill his pledge to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education in 2025. But he got closer than any other president in the agency’s 46-year-old history, and his dramatic downsizing of the agency and attempts to redirect federal funding cast a shadow of uncertainty over schools and districts. That’s why “dismantle” is Education Week’s 2025 word of the year. Education is largely governed by states, and federal funding makes up about 10 cents for every dollar K-12 schools spend. So shifts in federal bureaucracy seem to pale compared to actions on the state and local level. But…

Even as the U.S. Department of Education dismantles large swaths of the Institute of Education Sciences, a bipartisan group of lawmakers wants to create a new research center modeled on the Pentagon’s moonshot research-and-development program. The proposed legislation, introduced this week by Reps. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., would create a fifth IES center, the National Center for Advanced Development in Education or NCADE to fund “informed-risk, high-reward education research” to improve teaching and learning.“We must pursue innovation with both ambition and accountability,” Fitzpatrick said in a statement. The proposal ” builds a smarter bridge between research and…

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week in a death penalty case in which the defendant’s school records from more than 40 years ago are playing a key role.The central question in Hamm v. Smith is whether Joseph Clifton Smith, a 55-year-old Alabama man, has an intellectual disability that would make him ineligible for execution under a series of Supreme Court decisions beginning with the 2002 case of Atkins v. Virginia.In that case, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority that executing individuals with intellectual disabilities would be a cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth…

The U.S. Department of Education on Thursday announced 65 new grant awards to boost school mental health services, the latest development in a seven-month saga that has involved the cancellation of more than 200 previously awarded grants and legal efforts to reverse those terminations.The agency said it’s awarding more than $208 million to boost the ranks of school psychologists working in schools and training for future school psychologists. It didn’t identify the grant recipients in a news release, but said 33 serve rural areas and that rural areas account for more than $120 million of the grant funding.School districts and…

The Trump administration is bringing back dozens of Education Department staffers who were slated to be laid off, saying their help is needed to tackle a mounting backlog of discrimination complaints from students and families.The staffers had been on administrative leave while the department faced lawsuits challenging layoffs in the agency’s office for civil rights, which investigates possible discrimination in the nation’s schools and colleges. But in a Friday letter, department officials ordered the workers back to duty starting Dec. 15 to help clear civil rights cases.A department spokesperson confirmed the move, saying the government still hoped to lay off…

In “Straight Talk with Rick and Jal,” Harvard University’s Jal Mehta and I examine the reforms and enthusiasms that permeate education. In a field full of buzzwords, our goal is simple: Tell the truth, in plain English, about what’s being proposed and what it means for students, teachers, and parents. We may be wrong and we will frequently disagree, but we’ll try to be candid and ensure that you don’t need a Ph.D. in eduspeak to understand us. Today’s topic is “standing up for unpopular truths.”—RickRick: A little while back, we discussed how education research became a partisan issue. You…

Rod Paige, an educator, coach, and administrator who rolled out the nation’s landmark No Child Left Behind law as the first African American to serve as U.S. secretary of education, died Tuesday.Former President George W. Bush, who tapped Paige for the nation’s top federal education post, announced the death in a statement but did not provide further details. Paige was 92.Under Paige’s leadership, the Department of Education implemented the No Child Left Behind law that in 2002 became Bush’s signature education law and was modeled on Paige’s previous work as a schools superintendent in Houston. The law required states to…

Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday gave a full-throated endorsement of Turning Point USA and its assassinated founder Charlie Kirk’s quest to grow the conservative organization’s presence in high schools.The Texas governor, speaking at the Governor’s Mansion alongside Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and a Turning Point USA leadership official, also warned school district officials who might be resistant to creating local chapters of the group in public schools.“Let me be clear, any school that stands in the way of a Club America program in their school should be reported immediately to the Texas Education Agency, where I expect meaningful disciplinary action…

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ordered a federal appeals court to reconsider its decision to uphold a New York state law that eliminates religious exemptions for required school vaccinations.The justices asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, in New York City, to give a second look to the claims of a group of Amish schools and parents in light of the high court’s decision last summer in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which held that parents have a free exercise of religion right to challenge certain aspects of the public school curriculum.The order came on a busy day…