Author: BelieveAgain
K-12 education plays a prominent role in two conservative policy agendas that shed light on what could change for public education if former President Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election.Project 2025, a 900-page policy document assembled by a number of former Trump administration officials and other allies of the former president and helmed by the conservative Heritage Foundation, lays out a conservative plan of action for virtually every corner of the federal government. The Republican National Committee’s 2024 policy platform, meanwhile, outlines a set of 20 “promises” for 2024, written in all caps, as well as the party’s official…
Classroom apps, tools, and programs, many driven by artificial intelligence, evolve faster than quality control efforts can keep up.This more tech-driven and interconnected education landscape will require a different approach to research, development, and evaluation, according to the head of the U.S. Education Department’s research agency.Matthew Soldner, the acting director of the Institute of Education Sciences, called for a faster and more robust “research and development ecosystem” to build structures to ensure new programs and tools are effective in the classroom. For example, while IES traditionally awards grants for five-year studies, it has launched one new pilot called “Seedlings to…
The appeal arrived at the U.S. Supreme Court late in the summer of 1980, after more than two years of debate and legal action in Kentucky over a state law that required the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.The Kentucky Supreme Court had upheld the law, and the challengers—a Unitarian stay-at-home mom, a rabbi, a public school teacher who was Catholic, and an atheist Republican—were asking the justices to review the case of Stone v. Graham. The Kentucky case is getting fresh attention now that Louisiana, more than four decades later, has adopted a nearly identical law…
Former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party would push for universal school choice, expand parental rights over education, end teacher tenure, and prohibit transgender girls from playing girls’ sports if they win the White House and majorities in Congress in the 2024 election. The Republican Party’s platform committee released the party’s 2024 platform on July 8, and formal adoption is expected at the party’s upcoming national convention, which kicks off July 15. While elected officials aren’t bound to follow it, the document serves as the official policy agenda for a potential second Trump term and for Republicans in Congress.…
What would a world without property taxes look like?In every state, revenue from property taxes is one of the biggest sources of K-12 school funding.But that could change soon as efforts ramp up in a handful of states to abandon property taxes altogether, or at least as a funding source for schools.In Nebraska, Republican Gov. Jim Pillen wants to dramatically reduce or even eliminate property taxes without slashing school budgets. Instead, he wants the state to cover the lost local funding by increasing sales tax collections. Pillen in recent weeks has been barnstorming the state in an effort to garner…
The Biden administration’s rewrite of regulations for Title IX, the nation’s landmark law prohibiting sex discrimination at federally funded schools, has drawn at least eight lawsuits since its release in mid-April that have complicated its path to taking effect. The Title IX revision expands the scope of the law’s prohibition on sex discrimination so it also applies to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also streamlines processes schools use to investigate and respond to complaints of Title IX violations and directs them to use a “preponderance of the evidence” standard to evaluate sexual harassment, assault, and discrimination…
Project 2025, a 900-page conservative policy agenda that proposes eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, has become a dominating force in the 2024 election campaign as President Joe Biden and Democrats use it to make their case against former President Donald Trump. Biden’s team has referred to Project 2025 as a “manifesto infused with MAGA ideology” that “should scare every single American” and has mentioned it in dozens of recent news releases. Its creators frame it as an effort to bring “self-government to the American people,” according to the Washington Post. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign recently has tried to distance…
For the fourth summer in a row, Ypsilanti Community Schools in southeast Michigan’s Washtenaw County is operating Grizzly Learning Camp, a free seven-week summer learning program for students in prekindergarten through 12th grade. Like traditional summer school programs, it offers academics. But, as its name suggests, it doesn’t feel like a traditional summer school. “The students aren’t sitting in a row in the classrooms,” said Alena Zachery-Ross, the superintendent in Ypsilanti, located outside of Ann Arbor. The academics, driven by project-based learning, might include staging poetry slams, learning math from a teacher who uses rap as a vehicle for instruction,…
The Biden administration’s Title IX rule is now blocked in 14 states and a hodgepodge of other locations across the country after a third federal judge issued a temporary order on July 2 preventing it from taking effect in four additional states. U.S. District Judge John Broomes’ order is the latest development in a set of eight lawsuits challenging the Biden administration rule, which explicitly protects LGBTQ+ students and staff from discrimination by adding gender identity and sexual orientation to the definition of “sex discrimination.”The order halts the rule in Alaska, Kansas, Utah, and Wyoming. It also blocks the rule…
Over the dissent of two justices, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear the appeal of a student seeking to hold the owner of Snapchat liable for its alleged role in facilitating the sexual abuse of the boy by one of his teachers.“The court chooses not to address whether social-media platforms—some of the largest and most powerful companies in the world—can be held responsible for their own misconduct,” Justice Clarence Thomas said in a dissent from the court’s denial of review in Doe v. Snap Inc.Joined by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Thomas said the case presented a good…