Author: BelieveAgain

President Donald Trump’s first federal budget proposal of his second term last Friday kicked off a flurry of activity in the K-12 education landscape, as district leaders and policy watchers tried to make sense of sweeping cuts outlined in relatively scant detail.Trump is proposing to Congress that the federal government pull back billions of dollars in K-12 education investments, consolidate more than a dozen disparate grant programs into a single state allocation, and potentially rejigger special education law for the first time since the early 2000s.The administration plans to follow up on the “skinny budget” it shared Friday with more…

There are two distinct legal questions before the U.S. Supreme Court as it hears arguments this week in a major case over a religious charter school in Oklahoma. Both are infused with deep ideological divides over the legacy of private religious education in the United States, the more recent history of charter schools and choice in public education, and the future landscape of public and private schooling.The first question in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond is whether a public charter school run by a private organization, whether a church or some other nonprofit organization, is a “state actor”…

Early childhood educators with the federal Head Start program nationwide are experiencing a fresh round of funding delays and administrative headaches, with some providers left with no option but to temporarily close their doors and lay off staff.These challenges are already causing widespread alarm and distress among providers and the families they serve. But they may pale in comparison to what’s next. President Donald Trump is reportedly readying a budget proposal that aims to shut down the Head Start program altogether. Already, sweeping federal staffing cuts have decimated regional Head Start offices that serve roughly half the country. “We walked…

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday appeared likely to rule in favor of a Minnesota student with a severe form of epilepsy by tossing out a federal appeals court standard that makes it more difficult for families to prevail against school districts under two key federal disability-discrimination laws.The main question after nearly 90 minutes of an often technical but sometimes fiery oral argument in A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools was whether the victory for the student would be narrow in scope or the justices would use the case to more clearly define the liability standard for families and schools nationwide…

Linda McMahon, the nation’s 13th (and possibly last) U.S. secretary of education, wants to “reorient” the federal Department of Education. She aims to “fund education freedom” (read charter and private schools), “not government-run systems” (read public education), and “empower states” (implicitly, disempowering the Education Department). She has been tasked with shutting it down and putting herself out of a job.It’s the latest chapter in a national story of education reform gone awry, one I was (too often unhappily) involved in from its beginning in 1983 until I retired in 2014 after 16 years as the superintendent of the Scarsdale, N.Y.,…

When the Justice Department lifted a school desegregation order in Louisiana this week, officials called its continued existence a “historical wrong” and suggested that others dating to the Civil Rights Movement should be reconsidered.The end of the 1966 legal agreement with Plaquemines Parish schools announced Tuesday shows the Trump administration is “getting America refocused on our bright future,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said.Inside the Justice Department, officials appointed by President Donald Trump have expressed a desire to withdraw from other desegregation orders they see as an unnecessary burden on schools, according to a person familiar with the issue who…

President Donald Trump on Friday unveiled a budget plan that would slash billions of dollars in federal funding for K-12 education and dramatically rework how the federal government distributes education grants to schools.The “skinny” budget proposal—which the administration will flesh out in the coming weeks—falls well short of Trump’s stated goal to eliminate the Department of Education and shift some of its core functions to other agencies. It also leaves unanswered many questions about the administration’s priorities and intentions.“This is better than my worst imagining, but not very good,” said Sarah Abernathy, executive director of the Committee for Education Funding,…

A federal judge agreed to temporarily block the Trump administration from taking any more steps to dismantle an agency that funds and promotes libraries across the United States.U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled Thursday that plaintiffs who sued to preserve the Institute of Museum and Library Services are likely to show that the Republican administration doesn’t have the legal authority to unilaterally shutter the agency, which Congress created.The American Library Association and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees filed a lawsuit last month to stop the administration from gutting the institute after President Donald Trump signed a…

The Trump administration and lawmakers in Congress are gearing up for fierce debates over education funding in the coming months—and with only two months to go before schools typically get the bulk of their annual federal allocation, it’s still not clear which priorities will win out.The executive branch has three opportunities in the near future to detail its education funding priorities in writing: a plan for spending federal money that’s already been allocated; a budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year; and a package of proposed federal spending cuts for Congress to approve or reject.President Donald Trump’s administration hasn’t shared…

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared open to arguments that Oklahoma must allow a religious charter school, though the recusal of one conservative justice contributed to uncertainty about the outcome.Four of the conservatives participating in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond appeared likely to support St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which would be sponsored and controlled by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and Diocese of Tulsa. The Oklahoma Supreme Court blocked the school from joining the state charter program.“All a religious school is saying is, don’t exclude us on account of our religion,” Justice…