Author: BelieveAgain

In his second week as president, Donald Trump began wholeheartedly to act on his intentions with education policy—with efforts that could fundamentally change the federal government’s relationship with public schools.Trump signed two executive orders this week that toe the line of the federal government’s authority over schools’ everyday operations—with one that directs several agencies to look into using taxpayer dollars to fund private school tuition, and another threatening to pull federal subsidies from schools that teach about race and gender in ways the administration considers to be “radical indoctrination.”Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights has been…

Confusion and panic over the prospect of an imminent halt to federal funding continued to dominate the mood in school districts Wednesday, even as the Trump administration appeared to walk back its plan for a far-reaching funding freeze less than 48 hours after announcing it.Whether a temporary funding freeze takes effect in the near future or doesn’t, school officials and their advocates and advisers are absorbing this week’s events as a sign to brace for continued disruptions to federal funding as the second Trump administration settles in.The chaos kicked off Monday evening when the federal Office of Management and Budget…

In the 10 days since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, he has set a dizzying pace for his second term and is endeavoring to make his mark on the nation’s schools, despite laws limiting the federal government’s K-12 reach.His most direct efforts to dive into education came Wednesday, when the president issued two executive orders, directing federal agencies to determine how to expand school choice and develop a strategy to end what he considers “radical indoctrination” in schools.Both orders put federal dollars on the line to hammer home his agenda. With existing law, though, the White House…

A federal push to allow students and families to use taxpayer money for private education is underway, following an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Wednesday.The executive order directs a number of federal agencies to look into their ability to use funds they oversee to allow families to attend private schools—including religious schools—and charter schools. Under the order, agency heads have to report back in the coming months on the options they have for doing that and their plans for implementing those options for families starting next fall.The order also directs the U.S. Department of Education to develop…

In his broadest attempt yet to directly influence what schools teach, President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued an executive order mandating that administration officials develop plans to eliminate federal funds for schools that he says indoctrinate kids based on “gender ideology” and “discriminatory equity ideology.”The order also reinstates Trump’s 1776 Commission, which the president created in his first term to promote “patriotic education,” but was disbanded in the Biden administration.The order was one of two affecting K-12 schools issued Wednesday; another that the president signed presses federal agencies to expand school choice options, allowing taxpayer funds to be used for…

Parents enrolling students in Oklahoma schools will have to provide their child’s proof of citizenship or legal immigration status under a proposed rule unanimously approved by the state’s board of education on Jan. 28.The rule, which must now go to the state’s Republican-controlled legislature and GOP governor, marks what legal experts and immigration advocates call one of the latest efforts to undermine and potentially overturn the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plyler v. Doe that grants undocumented students the constitutional right to a free, public education. Such actions come at a time when President Donald Trump is prioritizing immigration…

The nation’s school districts on Tuesday were swept into a nationwide avalanche of confusion and panic surrounding a Trump administration order the night before that sought to indefinitely suspend hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grant funding.School districts and education policy experts spent much of Tuesday struggling to determine which education-related funding streams would be frozen as a result of the order, and wondering what the future held for the funds long-term. Then, just minutes before the freeze order was set to take effect Tuesday evening, a federal district court judge in Washington halted it until a follow-up hearing…

There’s a familiar, frustrating tension between practice and policy. When it comes to grading, devices, equity, choice, student behavior, and much else, there are yawning gaps between the views from inside and outside the schoolhouse. Worse, educators and policy types often wind up talking past one another. I think we can do better. To delve into this disconnect, I reached out to Alex Baron, the director of academic strategy at a District of Columbia charter school, an Oxford Ph.D., and a former early-childhood and high school math teacher. Together, we’ll try to bridge a bit of the practice-policy chasm.—RickRick: Let’s…

Though Trump’s pick for the top education job, Linda McMahon, has limited experience in the field, she’ll be joined in leadership by a seasoned educator with a bipartisan track record—creating what could be an effective team for advancing the Trump administration’s priorities, education policy watchers say.The appointment of former Tennessee state education commissioner Penny Schwinn as deputy secretary at the U.S. Department of Education marks a contrasts with Trump’s selection of McMahon for the agency’s top job.McMahon’s background in business—as co-founder and former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO before serving as administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration in Trump’s first…

First Person is where Chalkbeat features personal essays by educators, students, parents, and others thinking and writing about public education.Here’s what you might see when you step into my classroom: rapturous renditions of nursery rhymes, Play-Doh being turned into letters, and 4-year-olds acting out the adventures of a very hungry caterpillar.As a transitional kindergarten teacher in Oakland, California, my job is to get the youngest learners ready for school as part of California’s universal public preschool program. I teach my students how to get up when they fall, how to open a carton of milk without incident, and how to…