Author: BelieveAgain

The National Science Foundation has slashed funding available for research into STEM instruction in K-12 schools. The move—which amounts to a roughly 50% cut for such research, experts calculate—also cut the maximum amount available for STEM education research grants by 85%, from $5 million to $750,000. And the NSF refocused the grants primarily on artificial intelligence, a Trump administration priority.The NSF outlined this new approach in a call for grants released last month. The call for grants invited researchers from higher education institutions, nonprofit organizations, for-profit companies, and state or tribal governments to apply for a slice of $30 million…

The U.S. Department of Education is kicking off two grant competitions to boost mental health services in schools, nearly five months after the agency abruptly told former grantees their awards would end because they reflected Biden administration priorities.But while the agency is devoting $270 million to resurrect the grant programs, it’s changed their emphasis to focus solely on boosting the ranks of school psychologists, and it’s eliminated a Biden-era emphasis on boosting the diversity of mental health professionals working in schools.The application period for the School-Based Mental Health Services and Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration grant programs officially opens Sept.…

The U.S. Department of Education released two new proposed priorities for competitive grant-making on Thursday, shedding more light on what initiatives the administration plans to champion—just as it cancels hundreds of ongoing grants.The two prospective additions, published in the Federal Register on Thursday, would focus on supporting “meaningful learning opportunities” in what the agency describes as foundational subjects, and advancing career and technical education.They would join the existing list, which includes evidence-based literacy, school choice, “returning education to the states,” artificial intelligence, and patriotic education.These priorities only affect dollars distributed through competitive grant programs, a tiny slice of the total…

The U.S. Department of Education is shutting down a Biden-era grant program intended to help make K-12 classrooms more racially and socioeconomically diverse—leaving four urban school districts and one charter school network millions of dollars short of the funding they budgeted for the school year that’s now underway.The school districts in Anchorage, Alaska; East Baton Rouge, La.; and two boroughs of New York City each had three years remaining of the five-year Fostering Diverse Schools grants they received in 2023. All four were expecting $1.5 million to $3 million apiece for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.The school district…

The Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in San Fernando, Calif., this week is wrapping up the first year of what was supposed to be a seven-year federal education grant totaling $19 million. Thousands of 6th and 7th graders at more than a dozen Los Angeles-area public charter schools have been getting tutoring and mentoring aimed at exposing them to college opportunities they might otherwise see as out of reach.As rumors swirled this summer about potential federal cuts, program leaders hoped the Trump administration would spare them, given that the Vaughn center is a charter school district, and charter schools are…

As education savings account (ESA) laws have been adopted by a number of states in the past few years, many observers have wondered how these work in practice. One huge area of interest is their impact on students with special needs. Well, Arizona’s status as home of the nation’s first ESA program could be instructive. Karla Phillips-Krivickas, a member of Arizona’s state board of education, has some practical wisdom to share. She is co-founder of Champions for Kids, a former Arizona education department official, and a veteran education advocate who consults with private schools on special education. Here’s what she…

President Donald Trump this week used the platform of the presidency to promote unproven and in some cases discredited ties between Tylenol, vaccines, and autism as his administration announced a wide-ranging effort to study the causes of the complex brain disorder.“Don’t take Tylenol,” Trump instructed pregnant women around a dozen times during the unwieldy White House news conference, also urging mothers not to give their infants the drug, known by the generic name acetaminophen in the United States or paracetamol in most other countries. He also fueled long-debunked claims that ingredients in vaccines or timing shots close together could contribute…

From curriculum disputes to transgender rights to questions about the reach of federal power, the nation’s courts issued a series of high-stakes rulings this summer that have the potential to reshape the landscape of public education in the United States.Together, these cases highlight the wide range of constitutional, civil rights, and policy debates happening across schools—and the central role courts continue to play in determining how classrooms function and how schools operate.Here’s a look at major education-related rulings from late June through mid-September. Supreme Court sides with parents in LGBTQ+ curriculum opt-out case The U.S. Supreme Court on June 27…

The Trump administration has dropped a proposal that would have made it so schools no longer had to provide both boys and girls the chance to play noncontact sports as a condition of receiving U.S. Department of Energy funding.The federal agency took the unusual step of proposing the rule change under Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination at schools, in May. The U.S. Department of Education generally takes the lead on Title IX regulations.The Energy Department change would have rescinded a requirement that schools receiving money from the agency allow all students to try out for noncontact athletic…

Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Thursday called for educators to contribute to a broader nationwide shift toward more civil political discourse in light of recent violence on school and university campuses, including the assassination of Charlie Kirk.During a Ronald Reagan Institute event here, McMahon struck a different, more conciliatory tone from President Donald Trump and others in his administration in the week following Kirk’s killing.She also drew attention to the continued prevalence of school shootings as evidence that the country needs to collectively improve its ability to “agree to disagree.”“These things are still happening,” she said. “We have to make…