Author: BelieveAgain

Hundreds of public school employees have lost their jobs, with many more fearing they’ll be next, as a flurry of legal challenges and political backlash to the Trump administration’s latest round of abrupt grant cancellations continues to develop.As of early December, the U.S. Department of Education had more than 70 active grant awards through the Full-Service Community Schools program, which helps schools network with local organizations and expand on-site social services for students and families. On Dec. 12, the department notified recipients of 19 of those grants, across 11 states and the District of Columbia, that they would not be…

The constitutional principle known as “the power of the purse” has been a fixture of American history classrooms for generations. Federal law explicitly prohibits the executive branch from overriding Congress’ spending decisions.But with a cascade of unilateral federal funding changes in the last year, President Donald Trump has challenged those principles more directly and aggressively than any leader in the nation’s 250-year history—and the education field felt the effects early and often.Education Week has spent the last year building a running—and increasingly sprawling—tabulation of the individual grant cancellations and broader funding disruptions affecting education as they’ve happened. During the first…

Whole milk is heading back to school cafeterias across the country after President Donald Trump signed a bill Wednesday overturning Obama-era limits on higher-fat milk options.Nondairy drinks such as fortified soy milk may also be on the menu in the coming months following adoption of the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, which cleared Congress in the fall.The action allows schools participating in the National School Lunch Program to serve whole and 2% fat milk along with the skim and low-fat products required since 2012.“Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, whole milk is a great thing,” Trump said at…

The number of students using public funds to enroll in private school or pay for home-school expenses has been growing rapidly following a wave of state policies that have launched new private school choice programs or expanded existing ones.Their impact on academics and public school enrollment, though, remains far from clear—partly a result of how hard it is to study the diverse array of programs.To date, 19 states have programs on the books that make virtually all their students eligible for state funding to use on private school tuition or home-school expenses, according to an Education Week analysis. And every…

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared inclined to uphold two state laws that prohibit transgender girls and women from female sports.The justices engaged in more than three hours of measured and generally respectful consideration of cases from Idaho and West Virginia, which are among the 27 states that have laws designating boys’ and girls’ athletic teams based on individuals’ sex assigned at birth.“Given that half the states are … allowing transgender girls and women to participate, about half are not, why would we at this point … jump in and try to constitutionalize a rule for the whole country…

A group of California parents has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate a federal district court decision that said parents have a federal constitutional right to be informed by schools of any gender nonconformity and social transition by their children.A federal appeals court earlier this month blocked the district court decision, calling it too “sweeping” and “ambiguous” and likely wrong on the merits.The pause by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, reinstated a mandate by the California Department of Education that restrains teachers and district staff members from informing parents…

Sharie Lewis, chief financial officer for the suburban Parkrose school district in Oregon, always anxiously anticipates the outcome of her state’s annual legislative session. But this year she’s especially on edge.The state is bracing for a revenue shortfall of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars, and has asked every agency—including the state education department—to prepare for budget cuts that could range from .5 percent to 5 percent and take effect for the school year that’s currently underway. Mid-year cuts of that magnitude—the first of their kind since Lewis joined the 2,800-student district a decade ago—would translate to Parkrose schools losing…

New York has joined California and Minnesota in passing a law requiring warning labels on social media platforms deemed to have addictive features.Platforms that offer feeds that the state considers addictive, and those with auto-play, or infinite scroll, will now be required to display a mental health warning when users open an app and at various points throughout the user’s experience. Social media sites can’t obscure the label or bury it in their terms of service—if they do, they face a penalty of up to $5,000, according to the legislative text.The law will apply to users in the state, though…

The public schools in St. Mary Parish have been under a federal order to desegregate longer than Tia Paul has been alive.The oversight began in 1965, barring the school board from sending Black students like Paul’s mother to different schools from White students and requiring it to eliminate the effects of segregation. It continued through Paul’s graduation from Patterson High School in 1995 and remains in place now as her daughter completes her junior year there.The orders gave Black students access to schools where they had been shut out, including formerly all-White Patterson High, which became 35% Black within several…

The Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers sued the state’s education department on Tuesday, accusing it of an improper “wave of retaliation” against public school employees over their social media comments following the killing of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk. The lawsuit says the Texas Education Agency and Commissioner Mike Morath violated the free speech rights of teachers and other school staff because they directed local school districts to document what the education agency described as “vile content” posted online after Kirk’s fatal shooting in September.Despite calls for civility, some people who criticized Kirk after his death drew…