Author: BelieveAgain

President Donald Trump kick-started his second presidential term by issuing a slew of executive orders taking aim at federal career civil servants, including those at the U.S. Department of Education.The first-day directives seek to freeze hiring at agencies including the Education Department, crack down on telework among federal employees, and make it easier to terminate career civil servants.The legality of these executive orders is an open question. Federal workers’ unions are expected be challenge them in court. But their mere existence may create enough concern among federal workers that a significant portion of the Education Department’s roughly 4,000 career staffers…

Amid growing calls—and even some early legislation—to dissolve the U.S. Department of Education, three former secretaries who ran the agency under a Republican and a Democratic president agreed that while some reform could be warranted, its work remained crucial, particularly as the nation’s students struggle to regain academic ground lost in recent years and schools report stubbornly high absenteeism.Though President Donald Trump’s attempt in his first term to end the department—through a merger with the Department of Labor—eventually dissipated, he breathed new life into longstanding Republican calls to eliminate the agency during his 2024 campaign.But, in a wide-ranging discussion hosted…

If you follow what’s going on in Washington, you know that the Trump administration is primed to pursue big changes in federal taxes and spending through a process called “budget reconciliation” (most recently used to pass the Biden administration’s “Inflation Reduction Act”). Budget reconciliation, used 23 times since it was created by the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act, could have enormous implications for school spending, student lending, and school choice. But what exactly is it? How does it work? And what’s this mean for schools? There are few who can answer these questions better than Lindsay Fryer, the president…

President Donald Trump has directed the interim leader of the U.S. Department of Education’s federal student aid office to serve as acting secretary of education until the U.S. Senate confirms his pick for the role.Denise Carter will lead the department in the early days of the new administration until the Senate confirms Linda McMahon—the former WWE CEO and former U.S. Small Business Administration leader—to the role. McMahon’s Senate confirmation hearing hasn’t yet been scheduled.Joining McMahon in leadership of the department will be Penny Schwinn, the former Tennessee education commissioner whom Trump has tapped as deputy education secretary. Carter’s designation as…

President Donald Trump will return to the White House on Monday, and, though education accounted for only a sliver of his campaign platform, the Republican could use his second term to attempt far-reaching policy changes that would reshape the landscape for K-12 schools.Trump—who in his first term unsuccessfully sought hefty cuts to federal school funding, proposed a private school tax-credit scholarship program, and pitched a merger of the education and labor departments—will take office with a laundry list of campaign promises he vowed to tackle on his first day back. Those early actions could affect schools—even though K-12 schools are…

Penny Schwinn, a former teacher, charter school founder, and state commissioner of education, has been named by President-elect Donald Trump as his pick for deputy secretary of education at the U.S. Department of Education.Schwinn, a strong supporter of school choice, would serve as the #2 official in the agengy, working under Linda McMahon, Trump’s choice for the top job at the Education Department. Schwinn’s extensive experience in K-12 stands in contrast to that of McMahon, a wealthy business executive who founded and served as CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment. Trump announced his choice of Schwinn on Truth Social late Jan.…

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeal of parents who object on religious grounds to a Maryland school district’s policy of preventing them from opting their children out of LGBTQ+ inclusive “storybooks” used in elementary English/language arts classes.Lower courts had refused to block the policy of the 160,000-student Montgomery County school district, and the parents’ case has become a rallying point among groups fighting sexual orientation- and gender identity-inclusive school policies.A federal appeals court’s ruling “that parents essentially surrender their right to direct the religious upbringing of their children by sending them to public schools … contradicts…

The U.S. Supreme Court’s Jan. 17 decision upholding a federal law to shut down TikTok or force its China-controlled parent company to sell it throws uncertainty into how educators will continue to use the platform to share ideas, learn new teaching skills, and build their social media influencer reputations.The platform, which is highly popular among many educators and students, has also prompted frustration from others, who have seen it used by kids to spread dangerous viral challenges, such as vandalizing schools; distract students from learning in school; and contribute to kids’ mental health problems. That’s why many educators are not…

During elementary school in Long Island, N.Y., Luisa Sanchez was thriving in a school full of English learners like herself. In particular, she excelled at math.But just before Sanchez entered 6th grade, she and her parents moved to rural Danville, Ky. Sanchez quickly realized that two American public schools could look vastly different. She was the only Hispanic student, and the only immigrant, in any of her classes. Instead of a dedicated classroom space for English learners, her school sent those students to the library for instruction.Most devastating, she said, her teachers never gave her a math placement exam. She…

A federal appeals court has declared that the Tucson, Ariz., school district, after nearly 50 years under a court-supervised desegregation plan, has reached the point where it’s considered legally desegregated.A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, unanimously upheld a 2022 decision by a federal district judge in Tucson that court supervision was no longer necessary.“Today we conclude that the district court’s work is done,” the appeals court said in its Jan. 15 decision in Mendoza v. Tucson Unified School District. “We agree that the district is now operating in unitary status…