Author: BelieveAgain

Even as the U.S. Department of Education dismantles large swaths of the Institute of Education Sciences, a bipartisan group of lawmakers wants to create a new research center modeled on the Pentagon’s moonshot research-and-development program. The proposed legislation, introduced this week by Reps. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., would create a fifth IES center, the National Center for Advanced Development in Education or NCADE to fund “informed-risk, high-reward education research” to improve teaching and learning.“We must pursue innovation with both ambition and accountability,” Fitzpatrick said in a statement. The proposal ” builds a smarter bridge between research and…

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week in a death penalty case in which the defendant’s school records from more than 40 years ago are playing a key role.The central question in Hamm v. Smith is whether Joseph Clifton Smith, a 55-year-old Alabama man, has an intellectual disability that would make him ineligible for execution under a series of Supreme Court decisions beginning with the 2002 case of Atkins v. Virginia.In that case, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority that executing individuals with intellectual disabilities would be a cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth…

The U.S. Department of Education on Thursday announced 65 new grant awards to boost school mental health services, the latest development in a seven-month saga that has involved the cancellation of more than 200 previously awarded grants and legal efforts to reverse those terminations.The agency said it’s awarding more than $208 million to boost the ranks of school psychologists working in schools and training for future school psychologists. It didn’t identify the grant recipients in a news release, but said 33 serve rural areas and that rural areas account for more than $120 million of the grant funding.School districts and…

The Trump administration is bringing back dozens of Education Department staffers who were slated to be laid off, saying their help is needed to tackle a mounting backlog of discrimination complaints from students and families.The staffers had been on administrative leave while the department faced lawsuits challenging layoffs in the agency’s office for civil rights, which investigates possible discrimination in the nation’s schools and colleges. But in a Friday letter, department officials ordered the workers back to duty starting Dec. 15 to help clear civil rights cases.A department spokesperson confirmed the move, saying the government still hoped to lay off…

In “Straight Talk with Rick and Jal,” Harvard University’s Jal Mehta and I examine the reforms and enthusiasms that permeate education. In a field full of buzzwords, our goal is simple: Tell the truth, in plain English, about what’s being proposed and what it means for students, teachers, and parents. We may be wrong and we will frequently disagree, but we’ll try to be candid and ensure that you don’t need a Ph.D. in eduspeak to understand us. Today’s topic is “standing up for unpopular truths.”—RickRick: A little while back, we discussed how education research became a partisan issue. You…

Rod Paige, an educator, coach, and administrator who rolled out the nation’s landmark No Child Left Behind law as the first African American to serve as U.S. secretary of education, died Tuesday.Former President George W. Bush, who tapped Paige for the nation’s top federal education post, announced the death in a statement but did not provide further details. Paige was 92.Under Paige’s leadership, the Department of Education implemented the No Child Left Behind law that in 2002 became Bush’s signature education law and was modeled on Paige’s previous work as a schools superintendent in Houston. The law required states to…

Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday gave a full-throated endorsement of Turning Point USA and its assassinated founder Charlie Kirk’s quest to grow the conservative organization’s presence in high schools.The Texas governor, speaking at the Governor’s Mansion alongside Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and a Turning Point USA leadership official, also warned school district officials who might be resistant to creating local chapters of the group in public schools.“Let me be clear, any school that stands in the way of a Club America program in their school should be reported immediately to the Texas Education Agency, where I expect meaningful disciplinary action…

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ordered a federal appeals court to reconsider its decision to uphold a New York state law that eliminates religious exemptions for required school vaccinations.The justices asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, in New York City, to give a second look to the claims of a group of Amish schools and parents in light of the high court’s decision last summer in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which held that parents have a free exercise of religion right to challenge certain aspects of the public school curriculum.The order came on a busy day…

A federal appeals court has temporarily kept grant funding in place for 49 projects designed to boost school mental health services and train new specialists to work in schools.But the temporary relief, the result of the court’s decision last week, doesn’t end the uncertainty for those grant recipients in 15 states who have been scrambling to preserve their federal funding ever since the Trump administration last spring told them it would end. Plus, it brings some new uncertainty for another set of school districts and states that have been hoping for federal money to support their own initiatives to hire…

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to take up the legality of President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrant parents, an issue closely watched in the education community.The justices granted the administration’s request in Trump v. Barbara to consider whether the president’s Jan. 20 order complies with the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, which says, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”A federal district judge in New Hampshire…