Author: BelieveAgain

A federal appeals court has reversed the discipline of a New York state high school student over an off-campus social media post that mocked the 2020 death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police officers.While the student’s post was “ill-advised” and “offensive,” schools “cannot—and should not—protect the school community from hearing viewpoints with which they disagree or engaging in discourse with those who have offended them,” said a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, in New York City, that was unanimous in its bottom-line judgment.The decision in Leroy v. Livingston Manor Central…

More than two dozen student leaders from across the country fanned out across Capitol Hill on Oct. 28 to advocate for maintaining federal investments in K-12 education that the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers are looking to cut.The 28 student leaders—representing 21 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico—were part of the National Student Council, a flagship program of the National Association of Secondary School Principals.The students were advocating for the continuation of long-standing federal programs designed to give them equal opportunities to high-quality education, during a period when the federal government is looking to offload education responsibility…

Texas officials are making progress toward creating a new bilingual special education teacher certification, which advocates hope will set a national example for states serving students dually identified as English learners and students with disabilities.In 2021, the Texas legislature passed House Bill 2256, mandating the creation of a bilingual special education teacher certificate. After years of development, the state board of education formally adopted the standards for the new certification in September 2025. The exam for the certification is expected to be in practice in 2028.“I think the certification represents a very historic shift in how we prepare teachers to…

A federal judge in Seattle says the Trump administration can’t move ahead with the termination of about four dozen grants in 15 states meant to expand mental health services in schools and bolster the ranks of school mental health professionals.Judge Kymberly Evanson ruled Oct. 27 that the U.S. Department of Education likely violated federal law when it issued notices in late April telling the grant recipients that their multiyear awards would end years early because they reflected Biden administration priorities.Funding for most grants, made before President Donald Trump took office in January, was set to end Dec. 31 under the…

A federal appeals court has added the Texas law mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms to the full court review already announced for a similar law in Louisiana.The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, in New Orleans, added the review of the Texas law known as S.B. 10 to its docket in a brief procedural order dated Oct. 28.The decision heightens the stakes in a legal battle that conservative supporters of Ten Commandments laws in schools hope will reach the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court in 1980 struck down a Kentucky Ten Commandments…

The lead challengers in the U.S. Supreme Court against President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff program on imported goods are two Illinois-based companies that produce educational toys and learning materials sold nationwide.Learning Resources Inc. and hand2mind Inc., both based in Vernon Hills, Ill., a Chicago suburb, sell hands-on learning toys such as Pretend & Play Calculator Cash Register, Spike the Fine Motor Hedgehog, and Botley, the Coding Robot. Their products focus on STEM learning, computer coding, social emotional learning, reading, and mathematics.“We’re very active in the school business,” said Rick Woldenberg, the chief executive officer of both family-owned companies. “We all…

K-12 education is at an inflection point amid the ongoing vast and rapid changes at the federal level, experts said this week during an online event on education equity and research.Since returning to office in January, President Donald Trump and the U.S. Department of Education have made a flurry of policy changes affecting schools—for example, ramping up immigration enforcement, working to prohibit transgender students from using restrooms or participating in sports teams aligned with their gender identity, and delaying federal funding and canceling grants. These actions have resulted in about 61 lawsuits, according to Education Week reporting.Several of the K-12…

The education research field was reeling after the U.S. Department of Education slashed staff from its research arm and canceled scores of contracts and research efforts earlier this year. Since then, the Institute of Education Sciences has delivered some data late and in a scaled-back fashion, and the body that oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress has announced fewer tests in the coming years because of the cutbacks.But last month, a glimmer of hope emerged when the department asked the public how it could improve IES, as the research arm is called.In late September, it issued a notice requesting…

Having already cut the U.S. Department of Education’s staff by half earlier this year, the Trump administration announced another round of layoffs citing the government shutdown. Court filings showed an attempt to cut 466 more positions (a bit less than one-fourth of the approximately 2,000 who remain at the department), though the details are all quite hazy. (And hazier still after a U.S. district judge temporarily blocked federal layoffs during the shutdown, only for the White House to announce that 10,000 additional federal workers could be laid off.)The new cuts have sparked a slew of furious denunciations from progressive groups…

School districts that collectively enroll roughly 1 in 7 of the nation’s K-12 public school students will begin going without routine federal payments in the coming days as the government shutdown drags on—and fears among districts and advocates are growing that the funding could cease altogether now that the Trump administration has laid off all the staffers who manage it.More than 1,000 school districts nationwide qualify for the Impact Aid program, which Congress established in 1950 to make up for districts’ lost local property tax revenue in places with nontaxable federal land. Districts that have military bases, tribal lands, national…