Author: BelieveAgain
The Trump administration could enter office in January with proposals to cut, redirect, restructure, and even eliminate key streams of funding for K-12 schools, after four years when schools received more money from the federal government than ever before.Trump and his advisers have also said in recent days that they believe the president should be able to choose not to spend money Congress has approved—potentially paving the way for priorities like withholding funds from schools that Trump says, without evidence, are “pushing critical race theory” and “transgender insanity.” Under current federal law, the president can’t override Congress’ spending decisions, and…
Free school meals for millions of students could be at risk if President-elect Donald Trump takes aim at a rule that allows public schools to serve them universally, a move that many of his political allies support.While Trump hasn’t introduced any concrete policies around school meals, some of the conservative groups and politicians who supported his campaign favor restrictions on the community eligibility provision. That federal rule allows schools to provide federally subsidized free lunches and breakfasts to all students without requiring income verification from their families. Individual schools or clusters of schools are eligible to offer free meals for…
The momentum to abolish the U.S. Department of Education following the election of Donald Trump, who campaigned on such an effort, has already reached Congress with a newly introduced bill that seeks to dismantle the agency.The bill, sponsored by Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota, represents another stab at realizing a perennial GOP objective to dissolve the department, which experts have said would be a challenging undertaking.This year’s effort comes with internal skeptics mostly out of the way and Democrats losing control of the Senate, meaning there will be fewer guardrails to stand in the way of Trump’s…
Fights over religion in public schools are not new. But several Republican-led states are testing the limits through initiatives that seem primed to land before the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to reshape how faith and schools intersect.Texas on Friday became the latest state to infuse religion into instruction, with the state school board approving a controversial curriculum with Bible-infused lessons for elementary schools. It comes amid a wave of related measures in nearby Republican-led states, with Louisiana passing a law requiring all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments, a mandate in Oklahoma ordering teachers to include the Bible…
For decades, lawmakers and advocates have tried and failed to create a sweeping, federal school choice program that allows families to use public resources to cover private school tuition or home-school expenses.Now the policy’s fans—and detractors—see the political stars aligning.Former President Donald Trump is set to ascend to the White House for a second time. His education secretary pick, Linda McMahon, a former pro-wrestling executive, who heads up the America First Policy Institute, a think tank that has been supportive of private school vouchers.Republicans will control both chambers of Congress. And states across the country are embracing education savings accounts,…
President-elect Donald Trump has announced plans to nominate former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon to serve as U.S. Secretary of Education.McMahon was the head of the Small Business Administration in Trump’s first term, later taking on roles in support of his political campaign, policy agenda, and presidential transition.If confirmed by the Senate, McMahon will be charged with leading an agency Trump has pledged to abolish—a goal that Republicans have tried and failed to achieve in the past.Trump said McMahon will be a good choice to dramatically downsize the federal role in education. Critics of the pick, including Senate Democrats…
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up a major case about the constitutionality of the funding mechanism for the Universal Service Fund, which distributes some $4 billion annually under the E-rate program for connecting schools and libraries to the internet.The justices on Nov. 22 granted appeals by the Federal Communications Commission and the Schools, Health, and Libraries Broadband Coalition of a federal appeals court ruling that struck down the funding mechanism as a “misbegotten” and unconstitutional tax on consumers.Under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, telephone and cable companies make required contributions to the Universal Service Fund, which through…
Pennsylvania’s state education department will no longer require school districts to follow its initial guidelines that sought to confront racial and cultural biases in education and better prepare teachers to support students of color. The change comes after a conservative group challenged the guidelines in court, and it reached a settlement with the state agency on Nov. 13.The lawsuit, filed by the Thomas More Society, a nonprofit conservative law firm based in Chicago, on behalf of school districts and families, took issue with the education department’s 2022 guidelines. They were implemented for the ongoing education of teachers—in educator preparation, during…
Last May, soon after the Biden administration announced its final Title IX regulation that for the first time said gender identity is covered by the law’s sex discrimination protections, former President Donald Trump vowed to nix it if he won re-election.“We’re gonna end it on Day 1,” Trump told a conservative talk radio host in Philadelphia. “It’ll be terminated.”In that same interview, Trump referred to documents that President Joe Biden had signed early in his administration to offer some protections to LGBTQ+ students and workers, saying, “That came down as an executive order. And we’re gonna change it—on Day 1…
Linda McMahon’s rise to the nation’s top education job is set to come as the political stars align for some of the incoming president’s more ambitious education policy proposals: cuts to the federal education budget if not the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education, and a dramatic expansion of private school choice.That backdrop has advocates for low-income students and teachers concerned about her lack of experience in education. At the same time, supporters of McMahon point to her background running a multibillion-dollar business enterprise as an asset in steering a giant federal bureaucracy with a roughly $80 billion budget.McMahon,…