Author: BelieveAgain
The federal government often falls short of solving our most challenging problems because our most challenging problems are more complex and nuanced than a one-size-fits-all approach can offer. State policymakers grapple with ideas that start in Washington and trickle down to the local level with layers of bureaucratic strings attached. It drove me crazy when I was governor of Florida. The Trump administration has a chance to shift the power dynamic back to the states, where policymakers are uniquely equipped to understand and address the diverse needs of their students, schools, and communities. As we enter this new chapter, it is…
The federal official who oversees a key measure of the nation’s educational progress was abruptly placed on administrative leave by the Trump administration Monday, a move that follows the sudden cancellation of millions of dollars of projects at the U.S. Department of Education’s research arm.Former President Joe Biden appointed Peggy Carr, a career employee at the National Center for Education Statistics for more than 30 years, to a six-year term as commissioner of the agency in 2021. The Education Department’s press office that Carr was placed on leave, butadid not respond to a request for further comment Tuesday.NCES collects and…
Sudden cuts to federal education funds occurred with little transparency and have wasted federal money by terminating projects that were well underway, Democratic lawmakers say in a Feb. 21 letter to the U.S. Department of Education.The lawmakers—including Democrats from the Senate and House of Representatives—demand the agency answer a list of 27 questions to explain about $900 million in recently terminated contracts associated with the the Institute of Education Sciences, the agency’s research arm. They also call for explanation of $350 million in cuts for federal equity-assistance centers, which advise schools on meeting obligations under civil rights laws; and regional…
School and district leaders are navigating questions from educators, students, and families on how safe schools are from deportations after the Trump administration rescinded a policy protecting schools from immigration enforcement actions.But just how many students and families would be affected by changes to immigration policies? That number—likely in the tens of millions—stretches beyond estimates of an undocumented immigrant population, researchers said.Students who are undocumented, students in households where one or more relatives are undocumented, immigrant students with visas or other temporary protections against deportation, and U.S.-born citizens with friends who aren’t showing up to school out of fear of…
When President Donald Trump last week signed an executive order meant to keep transgender athletes out of girls’ and women’s sports, representatives of groups that had sued the Biden administration over its broad interpretation of Title IX as protecting LGBTQ+ students were at the White House ceremony to cheer on Trump.“We’re thrilled with this,” Kimberly S. Hermann, the executive director of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, said in an interview after the Feb. 5 ceremony in which Trump was flanked by young female athletes. “I have a 7-year-old who plays softball, and it was just great to be with her at…
President Trump’s proposal to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education would require an act of Congress, and K-12 schools would continue receiving key streams of federal money even if the department no longer existed, Trump’s education secretary nominee Linda McMahon said Thursday during her Senate confirmation hearing.“It is not the president’s goal to defund the programs, it is only to have the programs run more efficiently,” McMahon said roughly half an hour into the hearing in response to a question from Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La.Trump has reportedly been preparing an executive order to begin dismantling the 45-year-old agency as part…
Linda McMahon’s nomination to serve as secretary of education advanced through a U.S. Senate committee in a party-line vote on Thursday, paving the way for the business mogul to lead a diminished U.S. Department of Education and potentially seek its closure.Senators on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee voted to approve McMahon’s nomination, 12-11, with all Democrats voting against her. Her nomination will now go to the full Senate for final approval. “We need a strong leader at the department who will get our education system back on track, and Ms. McMahon is the right person for the job,”…
The federal E-rate program that funds internet connections in education is subject to a major anti-fraud statute, potentially bolstering schools that have been allegedly overcharged by telecommunications companies, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Friday.In its unanimous decision in Wisconsin Bell Inc. v. United States ex rel. Heath, the court rejected arguments by an AT&T Corp. subsidiary that the $4 billion program is entirely privately funded through the payments from telecommunications companies to a private administrator and thus not subject to the False Claims Act, a Civil War-era law that allows private parties to help root out fraud in federal…
Investing in our children is a moral choice, not a political one.That’s a sentiment most voters gravitated to about education, according to a survey the Hunt Institute conducted on the 2024 election. Contrast it to the daily tit-for-tat in our news feeds and the rapidity at which the Trump administration and its supporters are calling to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.It feels as if politics couldn’t be more partisan.Yet, the Hunt Institute’s Across the Aisle survey of more than 1,300 likely 2024 voters uncovered high levels of agreement across the partisan spectrum—an emphasis placed on improving education over divisiveness.…
The threats to cut off schools’ federal funds have come at a dizzying pace in the past month, since President Donald Trump was sworn into office for his second term.The president signed an executive order in his second week telling top administration officials to figure out how to withhold federal funds from schools that he says indoctrinate kids based on “gender ideology” and “discriminatory equity ideology.” Then he signed an order threatening funding if schools and colleges allow transgender girls to compete on girls’ sports teams. An order last week threatens money to schools and colleges with COVID-19 vaccine mandates.…