Author: BelieveAgain

Former President Donald Trump’s unexpectedly decisive victory in the presidential race doused political accelerant over his long-articulated plans to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, slash K-12 spending, and enact a sweeping federal school choice program.Trump has “one of the largest mandates in presidential history,” said Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s elected superintendent of public instruction and a vocal Trump supporter who has been discussed as a potential education secretary. “He has definitively laid out a plan for education. It’s actually even better [than in the first term] because we’re seeing more specifics. We’re seeing more support. He has put himself in…

Former President Donald Trump, who has pledged to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, slash K-12 spending, and put public schools squarely in the crosshairs of culture warriors, is headed back to the White House, the Associated Press projected. Conservative supporters of expanding school choice and parents’ rights groups such as Moms for Liberty are likely to cheer his ascendency. Civil rights advocates have warned for months that a second Trump term would decimate federal protections for LGBTQ+ students, students of color, and students from low-income backgrounds.Big questions loom over just how much Trump, who is only the second president…

A federal appeals court has struck down the public comments policies of a Florida school board, saying that its rules barring abusive, obscene, or personally directed comments blocked protected speech or were applied inconsistently.The decision addresses issues being faced by school boards all over the country in recent years as parents and others have flooded board meetings with angry comments over a range of topics, including pandemic-related restrictions, gender policies, library books, or teaching about race. Many boards have similar policies addressing decorum and some seek to limit naming of school employees by board speakers. “For many parents, school board…

The newest legal battle against social media platforms—this time against TikTok—could have a trickle-down effect for schools where some of the alleged harms of social media often play out.But first, the 13 states and the District of Columbia that have filed a series of lawsuits will have to prove their claims that TikTok is intentionally designed to be addictive to kids. And those addictive features, the lawsuits say, are harming kids’ mental health.The lawsuits against TikTok are another effort targeting social media algorithms, which prioritize the posts individual users see on their social feeds based on how likely people are…

Could schools see greater protections against getting overcharged by some telecommunications companies under the E-rate program? That is a question that will surely arise among K-12 ed-tech leaders following a lively Nov. 4 argument in the U.S. Supreme Court in Wisconsin Bell Inc. v. United States ex rel. Heath. The justices seemed inclined to allow a fraud case over a telecommunications company’s alleged overcharging of schools under the E-rate program—which helps fund schools’ internet connections and other technology services—to move forward. But they seemed to favor a narrow rationale that the federal government directly “provides” a small portion of the…

The 2024 election is finally upon us, and more than 150 million people will be voting for a slew of federal, state, and local officials. If you’ve been paying attention this fall, you’ve heard a lot of emphatic claims about what’s at stake. While we await the election results—a process that could take days or weeks for some races—let’s try to address some frequently asked questions about what the results in the presidential election might mean for the next four years.#1: If Donald Trump wins, is the Department of Education likely to be abolished?Nope. Trump can’t abolish the department via…

Programs that offer families public funds to spend on private education expenses are becoming bigger, more common, and more complex.Debates about these programs are dominated by claims from supporters and opponents, many of which leave little room for nuance. Academic research can help separate hype from reality—but figuring out what the research actually says can be a challenge even for the researchers themselves, not to mention advocates, critics, policymakers, and journalists who cite studies in their work.More than half of states now have at least one private school choice program, according to Education Week’s private school choice tracker. Many have…

The White House has exceeded its goal of recruiting 250,000 mentors and tutors to support students’ academic recovery in K-12 schools, according to a new report. But it remains to be seen how much impact those services will have on student learning, as schools continue to grapple with stagnant academic achievement and chronic absenteeism and as federal funding that supported such initiatives winds down. In 2022, the Biden administration launched the National Partnership for Student Success, an initiative meant to help overcome learning gaps. The effort centered around recruiting people to serve as mentors, tutors, student success coaches, counselors, and…

The topic of education has been largely absent from the presidential race, and debate over charter schools—once a marquee issue in the national discourse about education—especially so. But the upcoming elections still stand to impact the publicly funded, privately run schools that have found favor with previous administrations from both parties.From big constitutional questions around the push for religious charter schools to more practical, local concerns such as procuring facilities and hiring teachers, the charter school sector faces a number of challenges that could be affected by the 2024 elections.It may seem like charter schools have largely receded from the…

As far as education policies go in the 2024 presidential election, calls from Republicans to abolish the U.S. Department of Education have generated significant debate during a campaign season when politicians’ attention is largely focused elsewhere.On the campaign trail and in his platform, former President Donald Trump has called for the federal agency’s elimination, arguing recently that it’s an “abuse of your taxpayer dollars” that allows schools to “indoctrinate America’s youth.”The Republican Party’s official platform calls for shuttering the 45-year-old agency.And Project 2025, the conservative policy document spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation and written by a number of former Trump…