Author: BelieveAgain

The mass layoffs that touched virtually every division of the U.S. Department of Education cut deeper into some offices than others, particularly affecting the agency’s civil rights investigation and research arms, according to an Education Week analysis of documents detailing the cuts.The firings, which the department announced on Tuesday, will shrink the already diminished federal agency’s footprint by over half as a “first step” toward abolishing it, should Congress approve such an effort, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a Fox News interview Tuesday night. President Donald Trump is also considering an executive order that would direct McMahon to prepare…

A federal appeals court has ruled against two Florida parents who allege a school district aided their child’s “secret” gender transition in a case highlighted by President Donald Trump in his address to Congress last week.A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, ruled 2-1 on March 12 that January and Jeffrey Littlejohn could not prevail on their parental-rights claim under the 14th Amendment’s due-process clause because school officials’ actions did not “shock the conscience.”The story of the Littlejohns and their child, who was assigned female at birth and sought to transition at age…

Every major education strategy in America hinges on one fundamental question: Is it working? Yet, the vital infrastructure that allows policymakers to evaluate charter school expansion, address achievement gaps, allocate billions in federal funding, and much more is severely at risk, especially in light of workforce cuts to the U.S. Department of Education.State and local policymakers depend on comprehensive data about student outcomes, teacher effectiveness, and systemwide performance. As executive director of the American Statistical Association, I know this evidence—meticulously gathered by the National Center for Education Statistics—shapes decisions that impact nearly 50 million public school students. However, policymakers cannot…

Use these buttons to jump to a specific section of this article The seismic dismissal of employees at the U.S. Department of Education this week represents a “first step” toward abolishing the federal agency, Education Secretary Linda McMahon confirmed shortly after reduction-in-force notices went out to hundreds of employees Tuesday evening. In the meantime, the slashes further diminish the department’s capacity to carry out its key functions of funding and disseminating research, enforcing the nation’s school accountability laws, investigating discrimination claims and bringing schools into compliance with anti-discrimination statutes, and more.The department will shrink to just about 2,200 employees by…

The U.S. Department of Agriculture slashed hundreds of millions of dollars in funding that helped schools buy food from local farms, in a move that one food service director said was “devastating.”The department’s $660 million Local Food For Schools program, which was started under President Joe Biden in 2021, was canceled for 2025, according to the School Nutrition Association, which criticized the cuts. The USDA did not respond to a request for comment. An agency spokesperson told Politico that the programs “no longer effectuate the goals of the agency.”The program sought to bring local produce to schools and child care…

The U.S. Department of Education is cutting its staff by almost half as it starts a massive reduction in force, the federal agency announced Tuesday evening, leaving a diminished workforce to carry out all the agency functions required by law.The reductions will bring the agency’s total workforce to about 2,183 employees, the agency said, from the 4,133 who worked there when President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20 following a campaign in which he repeatedly pledged to eliminate the 45-year-old department.The reductions will be a multistep process. First, the department will place almost 1,400 employees on administrative leave starting…

In January, Republicans took control of the White House and both chambers of Congress. In the U.S. House, the GOP’s education efforts will be led by Rep. Tim Walberg, the new chair of the Education and Workforce Committee. Walberg, a veteran member of Michigan’s congressional delegation, replaces Rep. Virginia Foxx, who’d led the committee’s Republicans since 2017. I was curious to hear how Walberg’s approaching his new role and what we should expect to see over the next two years. Here’s what he had to say.—RickRick: Mr. Chairman, what made you want to lead the Committee on Education and Workforce?Walberg:…

California joined seven Democrat-led states that sued the Trump administration Thursday, seeking to halt hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to teacher training programs designed to increase instructors in direly needed STEM fields as well as educate students who have disabilities or are learning English.The suit, filed in federal district court in Massachusetts, zeroes in on two Obama-era grants Congress created to address teacher shortages in rural and urban areas and encourage college students studying STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and math—to take on teaching jobs in K-12 education.The Department of Education cuts amounted to roughly $148 million in California…

School programs, classes, and events focused on particular cultures don’t automatically run afoul of federal civil rights law, the Trump administration said over the weekend. But schools must ensure those programs are open to all students and don’t make students of a particular racial group feel guilt for their ancestors’ actions.That’s one takeaway from a new, FAQ document the U.S. Department of Education released March 1, two weeks after the agency’s office for civil rights issued a sweeping directive instructing schools to cease all race-based programming or risk losing federal funds.That Feb. 14 directive brought widespread confusion about whether schools…

A federal agency’s finding that Maine’s department of education violated Title IX for allowing student-athletes to play on teams consistent with their gender identity is the clearest showing yet of just how far the Trump administration will go to follow through on the president’s many threats to pull federal funding from states, schools, colleges and athletic associations that defy his executive orders.And the agency’s finding of a violation—of which legal experts are dubious—possibly tees up a legal battle that could determine how much authority the president has to withhold public schools’ federal funds, and whom the landmark law prohibiting sex-discrimination…