Author: BelieveAgain

When Herriman High School in Utah published a poster online for Inclusion Week earlier this year, encouraging students to dress up differently each day of the week, a former state school board member attacked the event on social media and called it a “way of giving the finger to anyone who says they are not allowed to do DEI”—including President Donald Trump. She called on people to report the school to the U.S. Department of Education.But the effort—calling on students to dress for pajama day, sports day, beach day, crazy sock day, and Herriman pride day—wasn’t the type of race-based…

More than a month after the U.S. Department of Education abruptly told states and districts they had to unexpectedly stop spending several billion dollars of remaining federal pandemic relief funds, chaos and confusion continue to reign supreme.Sixteen states that sued the department over what they called an illegal effort to withhold money now have until May 24 to cancel investments and terminate contracts, or seek a federal reprieve from that updated deadline, a department official announced Sunday in a letter to those states. A judge ruled last week that the department’s initial changes were illegal but left open the possibility…

School superintendents have for the most part worked hard to remain nonpartisan in the legislative arena. True, we have worked with our local, state, and federal representatives to help them understand our students’ needs but try to steer clear of divisive politics.Unfortunately, we no longer have the luxury of remaining apolitical in our positions—not when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement threatens to show up on our campuses, our schools are accused of radical indoctrination, and the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education puts our most vulnerable students at risk.As the superintendent of the Denver public schools, where a majority…

Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter, a staunch defender of racial equity and the constitutional separation of church and state in education, died Thursday at home in New Hampshire, the court announced on Friday. He was 85.Souter was appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1990 to succeed liberal stalwart Justice William J. Brennan Jr. Over the next 19 years, he became a reliably liberal vote in several areas of school law before being succeeded by Justice Sonia Sotomayor in 2009.He wrote a dissent to a 1995 decision that struck down a broad remedial desegregation plan for the…

A Washington insider discusses the immediate—and long-term—implications of the administration’s education goals. 2025-05-06 10:00:00 Source link

A federal judge on Tuesday halted the Trump administration’s decision to effectively cancel more than $1 billion in K-12 education funding for more than a dozen states—but left the door open for the U.S. Department of Education to again terminate the funding after giving states advance notice.Judge Edgardo Ramos said in the May 6 order that the 16 Democratic state officials that sued along with the District of Columbia had shown sufficient reason to halt a March 28 letter from Education Secretary Linda McMahon abruptly announcing that the administration had moved up the due date for spending remaining pandemic relief…

President Donald Trump’s first federal budget proposal of his second term last Friday kicked off a flurry of activity in the K-12 education landscape, as district leaders and policy watchers tried to make sense of sweeping cuts outlined in relatively scant detail.Trump is proposing to Congress that the federal government pull back billions of dollars in K-12 education investments, consolidate more than a dozen disparate grant programs into a single state allocation, and potentially rejigger special education law for the first time since the early 2000s.The administration plans to follow up on the “skinny budget” it shared Friday with more…

There are two distinct legal questions before the U.S. Supreme Court as it hears arguments this week in a major case over a religious charter school in Oklahoma. Both are infused with deep ideological divides over the legacy of private religious education in the United States, the more recent history of charter schools and choice in public education, and the future landscape of public and private schooling.The first question in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond is whether a public charter school run by a private organization, whether a church or some other nonprofit organization, is a “state actor”…

Early childhood educators with the federal Head Start program nationwide are experiencing a fresh round of funding delays and administrative headaches, with some providers left with no option but to temporarily close their doors and lay off staff.These challenges are already causing widespread alarm and distress among providers and the families they serve. But they may pale in comparison to what’s next. President Donald Trump is reportedly readying a budget proposal that aims to shut down the Head Start program altogether. Already, sweeping federal staffing cuts have decimated regional Head Start offices that serve roughly half the country. “We walked…

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday appeared likely to rule in favor of a Minnesota student with a severe form of epilepsy by tossing out a federal appeals court standard that makes it more difficult for families to prevail against school districts under two key federal disability-discrimination laws.The main question after nearly 90 minutes of an often technical but sometimes fiery oral argument in A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools was whether the victory for the student would be narrow in scope or the justices would use the case to more clearly define the liability standard for families and schools nationwide…