Author: BelieveAgain
The most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress results had a lot of bad news, but there were some scattered bright spots. Louisiana was one of them. In fact, the Pelican State was the only state in the nation that outperformed its pre-pandemic 4th grade reading scores on the 2024 NAEP. Over the past two testing cycles, Louisiana led the nation in reading growth and is in the top five for gains in math. I was curious to hear more about what might be going on, so I reached out to Cade Brumley, Louisiana’s state superintendent of education since 2020.…
I’m a big fan of rigorous academic research, especially well-constructed mixed-method studies that examine the effects of educational innovations on large, randomized samples. I like to know how innovations actually change educational practices and outcomes and I love the various quantitative and qualitative methods used to describe them.I am clearly biased in favor of strong research approaches. If someone tells me about “fantastic” new approaches to teaching, learning, managing, or designing educational systems, my first question is, what body of evidence do you have that supports these ideas?My second question is, how rigorous were the research methods used to inform…
Making good on an order from President Donald Trump’s first days in office to look into how it could expand school choice, the U.S. Department of Education on Monday reminded states of existing flexibility they have to spend some of their federal funds to allow parents more of a say in customizing their child’s education. The department said the move was a first step to push states to embrace existing freedom in law to advance a key education policy priority for the new administration. But the guidance on using a portion of federal funds earmarked for low-income students for that…
Alarmed by stubborn patterns of persistent student absences, state lawmakers have introduced dozens of bills aiming to make school attendance a priority.Legislators from both parties in 20 states have filed 49 bills related to school attendance and chronic absenteeism in their current legislative sessions, according to a new tracker by FutureEd, a think tank at Georgetown University.If passed, those bills would bring consistency to how schools define and count absences, improve statewide data tracking, and help identify promising practices for improving attendance.“The pandemic is a big reason” for state efforts, said Bella DiMarco, a senior policy analyst at FutureEd who…
Education policy can feel far removed from the real work of schooling. Why is that? What can we do about it? These are crucial questions, never more so than in 2025, and I can’t think of anyone better to help tackle them than Andy Rotherham, the author of the Eduwonk blog, co-founder of Bellwether, member of Virginia’s board of education, and former special assistant for education to President Bill Clinton at the White House. Today, Andy and I discuss Trump administration efforts to downsize the Department of Education and what they mean. —RickRick: Andy, the Trump administration has issued an…
The U.S. Education Department threw school districts and state education agencies into yet another cycle of confusion and chaos this weekend with its abrupt Friday announcement that the deadline to spend remaining COVID relief funds had already passed, and that it was revoking all the extensions it had granted.With a two-page letter to states, the department effectively canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds overnight, offering little clarity on whether and how states and districts could recover that money.Some districts are already moving to cancel long-planned projects, dip into emergency funds, and renegotiate already-signed contracts. Meanwhile, state education…
The U.S. Department of Education recently slashed its workforce by 50 percent as part of President Donald Trump’s directive to “send education back to the states.” This drastic reduction in staff has amplified the urgency around a critical question: What will it look like in practice when states are expected to assume greater control for K-12 education?Although the federal government has contributed only about 10 cents to every dollar of school funding, Uncle Sam’s involvement has, over time, created a dependency. Federal policies and mandates have encouraged states to prioritize compliance above all else. Indeed, many state education agencies—the entities…
President Donald Trump has set a dizzying pace with his rollout of education policies since returning to the White House—with his detractors frequently trying to stall his aggressive maneuvers through litigation.As of March 26, Education Week has identified 19 lawsuits that challenge either Trump administration education policies or broader policies from the administration that affect education. The chart below details each of those lawsuits and their status as they make their way through the courts. Click here for a glossary of the policies the lawsuits are challenging. Have we missed a lawsuit here or a development in one of these…
The Trump administration on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to cut hundreds of millions of dollars for teacher training.A federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the cuts, finding they were already affecting training programs aimed at addressing a nationwide teacher shortage. An appeals court turned away a plea from the administration to allow them to resume.The government asked the high court to step in, arguing that the order is one of several issued by federal judges around the country wrongly forcing it to keep paying out millions in grant money.The Supreme Court called for a response to…
The U.S. Department of Education has emerged as an aggressive enforcer of President Donald Trump’s social agenda, moving quickly and publicly to investigate school districts, colleges and universities, state education departments, and athletic associations and threaten their federal funding.As of March 28, the Education Department has opened at least 85 investigations aligned with core Trump policy objectives since the president took office, according to an EdWeek analysis of department announcements and local news reports.The Trump administration has initiated most of these investigations on its own, rather than in response to complaints it’s received. Most of the investigations announced have targeted…