Author: BelieveAgain

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…

The U.S. Department of Education is using the primary federal law governing student privacy to investigate two state education departments over policies concerning how schools disclose changes to students’ gender identities to their parents.It’s a fresh attempt by the Trump administration to threaten federal school funding for states and school districts that flout the president’s agenda concerning transgender students.And those two state agency investigations—of the California and Maine education departments—could just be the start, according to a letter Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent to district leaders on Friday.McMahon warned educators in the letter that the Trump administration would make a…

Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Friday told states that their time to spend COVID relief money had suddenly come to an end—canceling extensions the department had previously granted to states to allow schools more time to spend the money on previously planned projects and services.McMahon alerted state education chiefs in a letter dated Friday that the deadline to spend all remaining funds was that same day at 5 p.m. EST.She said the additional time “was not justified” and that states and school districts “have had ample time to liquidate obligations.” Because the department can reconsider its decisions, McMahon wrote in…

State education officials nationwide say the U.S. Department of Education is blocking access to tens of millions of dollars meant for K-12 schools—an issue exacerbated by the Trump administration’s aggressive recent efforts to slash the federal agency’s workforce.The problems have affected at least seven states. In court filings this week, education officials in California, New York, and Illinois said the federal government has failed to reimburse funds for school district expenses since early March—transactions that are typically routine. Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, and Utah have experienced similar issues in recent weeks, representatives for their respective education agencies told Education Week.The money…