Author: BelieveAgain

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to take up an Indiana school district’s appeal asking that the justices clarify whether Title IX or the U.S. Constitution’s equal-protection clause bars districts from requiring transgender students to use restrooms corresponding to their “biological sex.”The court’s action leaves districts without uniform, national guidance on a topic on which federal courts around the country have differed, though advocates for the transgender student pointed out to the court that pending federal regulations on Title IX, which support the right of transgender students to use school facilities consistent with their gender identity, would resolve the…

The $1.2 trillion funding package that will keep the federal government operating through September includes a cut of about $100 million to the U.S. Department of Education’s budget even as it provides small increases to key K-12 programs and holds the line on others.President Joe Biden signed the funding package into law over the weekend after it passed the House on March 22, and the Senate early the next day, averting a partial shutdown. The package combines six annual spending bills to pay for different parts of the federal government, which had been operating on stopgap measures in the absence…

Critics of programs that allow parents to spend state funds on private school options for their kids want more regulatory scrutiny over where the funds go, what parents do with them, and how participating students fare in the classroom.In Arkansas, a coalition of education advocacy organizations including the state teachers’ union is pushing to secure a referendum spot on the election ballot this November asking voters to support requirements for all schools that receive state funds to comply with the same standards for academics and accreditation. Arizona’s governor recently unveiled a proposed legislative package that would require students to attend…

The Biden administration wants states and school districts to increase student attendance, adopt high-dosage tutoring, and expand summer and after-school learning as part of a new agenda for reversing declines in student achievement.U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and White House Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden announced on Wednesday the administration’s new “Improving Student Achievement Agenda” at a White House event with governors and state education leaders. The announcement comes at the start of an election year in which President Joe Biden will likely face former President Donald Trump.“These three strategies have one central goal: giving students more time and…

Twenty-nine percent of public schools have made comprehensive or targeted improvement under federal and state accountability systems. Schools must develop an improvement plan if they miss state academic, graduation rate, or other accountability goals for two years in a row. They use targeted plans if individual student groups, for example, perform in the bottom 5 percent of all students in a state in math. Schools require comprehensive improvement plans if multiple student groups fall behind, or if high schools graduate fewer than 67 percent of their students from high school after four years. These are the first school improvement plan…

Fifty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision that some considered the Brown v. Board of Education for students whose native language is not English.In its 1974 ruling in Lau v. Nichols, the court held that the failure of the San Francisco school system to effectively educate some 1,800 Chinese-speaking students denied them “a meaningful opportunity” to participate in school.Like the 1954 Brown decision striking down racial segregation in schools, Lau addressed educational inequities faced by a disadvantaged minority population. Like Brown, the justices spoke without dissent (though there were some minor differences over the case issued in…

After serving as president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools since 2012, Nina Rees stepped down last month. Charter schools thrived on Rees’ watch but also became increasingly contentious. Given that, it seemed like a good time to check in with Rees and get her frank perspective, now that she’s newly freed from the responsibility of being the official voice of the charter sector. Before taking on the role of representing the nation’s nearly 8,000 charter schools, Rees served as the first head of innovation and improvement at the U.S. Department of Education. Here’s what she had to…

What would Donald Trump do in the realm of K-12 if voters return the former president to the White House?He and his campaign haven’t outlined many specifics, but a recently published document that details conservative plans to completely remake the executive branch offers some possibilities. Among them: Title I, the $18 billion federal fund that supports low-income students, would disappear in a decade. Federal special education funds would flow to school districts as block grants with no strings attached, or even to savings accounts for parents to use on private school or other education expenses.The U.S. Department of Education would…

The ranking Republican on the U.S. Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, Bill Cassidy has represented Louisiana in the upper chamber since 2015. Cassidy recently released a much-discussed report, “Preventing a Lost Generation: Facing a Critical Moment for Students’ Literacy.” As schools struggle to address learning loss, and at a time when “the nation’s report card” finds that just 33 percent of 4th graders are proficient in reading, it’s heartening to see leaders step up. Given that, I reached out to the senator to discuss his report and what he has in mind. Here’s what he had to…

Idaho Gov. Brad Little made a big announcement on Jan. 8 during his annual State of the State address: He’s proposing a $2 billion investment, the largest in state history, to renovate and modernize the state’s school buildings.The announcement was notable for several reasons. Idaho was recently the subject of a series of investigative articles by ProPublica and the Idaho Statesman that exposed dismal and even unsafe conditions in many of the state’s schools.The Gem State, the news organizations reported, spends less per student on school infrastructure than any other state.Little’s proposed investment in the state’s school buildings would be…