Author: BelieveAgain

Benja Luke knew she needed a job that would be flexible as she completed student teaching—and she wanted one that would help her be even better prepared when she stepped into a classroom.It brought her to an AmeriCorps position through Communities In Schools of Georgia, a nonprofit focused on dropout prevention. For 20 hours a week, she tutored children who needed additional help with reading.That was almost two decades ago. Now, Luke is the principal of Ben Hill Elementary School in rural south-central Georgia, in the district where she started out as an AmeriCorps-funded volunteer. But the program that helped…

The U.S. Department of Education won’t cut loose more than a thousand employees next week, as originally planned in its March reduction in force, but the affected staff have not yet returned to work, according to an email sent out to the employees Friday.The message is the latest, but most significant, step the agency has taken to date to comply with a federal judge’s order last month that directed the department to reinstate the staff it shed through layoffs. Laid-off staff were initially placed on administrative leave, during which they’ve received pay and benefits. That leave period was scheduled to…

The nominee for the U.S. Department of Education’s No. 2 spot stopped short of a full-throated endorsement of closing the federal agency during her confirmation hearing Thursday—but, leaning on her time as a state education chief, stressed that states should be further empowered to spend federal funds largely as they see fit.“A department or an agency in the federal government is not going to change the outcomes of students,” Penny Schwinn told U.S. senators on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee. “What we need to do is ensure that we have created a system that is going to drive…

To the Editor:Michael V. McGill misses the mark in his May 1 opinion essay, “We’re All to Blame for What Has Become of the U.S. Dept. of Education.”McGill conflates public education with public schools. But education can—and increasingly does—happen anywhere. When states began to mandate education in the 1800s, travel and communication were difficult. Given those challenges, it’s understandable that states assigned kids to schools based on where they lived—and that education and schooling were treated as synonyms.There’s no reason for these limitations today. Recognizing that public schools are not the only—or necessarily the best—way to educate the public opens…

President Donald Trump is proposing $12 billion in cuts to the U.S. Department of Education budget for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. The plan “reflects an agency that is responsibly winding down,” the administration says in budget documents.While the president’s budget proposal keeps topline funding steady for the Education Department’s two largest sources of funding for schools, Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, it asks Congress to eliminate nearly four dozen other grant programs that provide services for specific K-12 student populations, pay for teacher training and professional development, and fund education research and data…

I know what it means to be treated as a problem rather than a student. My path to graduating from high school relied on protections that President Donald Trump’s policies are now making it harder for students to receive. These protections aren’t theoretical; in my own life, they were what made it possible for me to graduate and eventually even transfer to an Ivy League school.I’m only here because someone, somewhere, decided that equity in education mattered—that civil rights mattered.That moment came for me in my sophomore year of high school. As a Hispanic student who had recently transferred from…

A federal judge’s order directing President Donald Trump’s administration to reinstate laid-off U.S. Department of Education staff has not yet resulted in employees returning to work, much less the full restoration of a federal agency the president hopes to eliminate. And if the administration gets its way, it will be able to delay following the reinstatement order indefinitely while continuing to whittle away at the Education Department, legal experts say.Despite a court order issued May 22 calling on the Education Department to undo the firings of hundreds of department staffers, employees who were let go in a mass reduction in…

Harvard banners hang in front of Widener Library during the 374th Harvard Commencement in Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Rick Friedman/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Rick Friedman/AFP via Getty Images Harvard banners hang in front of Widener Library during the 374th Harvard Commencement in Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Rick Friedman/AFP via Getty Images The Trump administration has thrown so many curveballs at colleges and universities, it can be hard to keep track. But there’s logic behind the many efforts, from cutting research grants to detaining international students involved in activism.NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks with White House…

Families who “vote with their feet” by transferring their children out of their residential school districts may be less likely to vote at the ballot box in school bond elections, new research concludes.The study, released in May, comes at a pivot point in K-12 education, as families face more schooling options than ever—charter schools, inter-district transfers, and vouchers and scholarships that allow them to homeschool their children or send them to private schools. “Once a family has opted out of a residential district, they are just not going to have that same attachment to that district as a political community,”…

A New York state policy prohibiting the use of Native American school mascots violates civil rights laws, and the state must rescind it or face the possibility of losing federal education funds, the U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights argued in a letter issued Friday.The decision marks a significant reversal, as districts nationally in the past five years had accelerated the work of phasing out such logos over concerns supported by research that the use of such mascots is harmful to Native American students.Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced the department’s decision Friday at Massapequa High School, which has…