Author: BelieveAgain

The lead challengers in the U.S. Supreme Court against President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff program on imported goods are two Illinois-based companies that produce educational toys and learning materials sold nationwide.Learning Resources Inc. and hand2mind Inc., both based in Vernon Hills, Ill., a Chicago suburb, sell hands-on learning toys such as Pretend & Play Calculator Cash Register, Spike the Fine Motor Hedgehog, and Botley, the Coding Robot. Their products focus on STEM learning, computer coding, social emotional learning, reading, and mathematics.“We’re very active in the school business,” said Rick Woldenberg, the chief executive officer of both family-owned companies. “We all…

K-12 education is at an inflection point amid the ongoing vast and rapid changes at the federal level, experts said this week during an online event on education equity and research.Since returning to office in January, President Donald Trump and the U.S. Department of Education have made a flurry of policy changes affecting schools—for example, ramping up immigration enforcement, working to prohibit transgender students from using restrooms or participating in sports teams aligned with their gender identity, and delaying federal funding and canceling grants. These actions have resulted in about 61 lawsuits, according to Education Week reporting.Several of the K-12…

The education research field was reeling after the U.S. Department of Education slashed staff from its research arm and canceled scores of contracts and research efforts earlier this year. Since then, the Institute of Education Sciences has delivered some data late and in a scaled-back fashion, and the body that oversees the National Assessment of Educational Progress has announced fewer tests in the coming years because of the cutbacks.But last month, a glimmer of hope emerged when the department asked the public how it could improve IES, as the research arm is called.In late September, it issued a notice requesting…

Having already cut the U.S. Department of Education’s staff by half earlier this year, the Trump administration announced another round of layoffs citing the government shutdown. Court filings showed an attempt to cut 466 more positions (a bit less than one-fourth of the approximately 2,000 who remain at the department), though the details are all quite hazy. (And hazier still after a U.S. district judge temporarily blocked federal layoffs during the shutdown, only for the White House to announce that 10,000 additional federal workers could be laid off.)The new cuts have sparked a slew of furious denunciations from progressive groups…

School districts that collectively enroll roughly 1 in 7 of the nation’s K-12 public school students will begin going without routine federal payments in the coming days as the government shutdown drags on—and fears among districts and advocates are growing that the funding could cease altogether now that the Trump administration has laid off all the staffers who manage it.More than 1,000 school districts nationwide qualify for the Impact Aid program, which Congress established in 1950 to make up for districts’ lost local property tax revenue in places with nontaxable federal land. Districts that have military bases, tribal lands, national…

A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from implementing multi-agency layoffs during the federal government shutdown, sparing an already depleted U.S. Department of Education from further reductions—at least for now.Susan Illston, a San Francisco-based U.S. district judge, sided with the unions that brought the case against the Trump administration, which represent thousands of federal workers who were laid off in the last week. She said she believes they will “demonstrate ultimately that what’s being done here is both illegal and is in excess of authority and is arbitrary and capricious.”Trump administration officials, she said during a Wednesday…

A divided federal appeals court has sided with Michigan school administrators who barred students from wearing shirts with the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon!”, which gained traction as a coded message of opposition to then-President Joe Biden.The 2-1 decision this week by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit provides some important guidance to educators on when they can prohibit speech promoting a “vulgar message” in schools, even if doesn’t contain actual expletives or is political in nature. “The Constitution doesn’t hamstring school administrators when they are trying to limit profanity and vulgarity in the classroom…

Office of Elementary and Secondary Education – at least 132 staff members laid off This office houses the majority of the department’s K-12 grant programs. Office of Discretionary Grants and Support Services Effective Educator Development Program • Charter Schools Program (CSP) Competitive grants supporting the establishment and maintenance of charter schools. The Education Department in May invested an additional $60 million in this program by pulling funds from other programs.Annual funding: $440 millionTrump proposal: $500 million • American History and Civics Competitive grant supporting civics education programs in schools and nonprofit partners. The Education Department supercharged investment in this program in September…

Oklahoma’s new public schools superintendent announced Wednesday he is rescinding a mandate from his predecessor that forced schools to place Bibles in classrooms and incorporate the book into lesson plans for students.Superintendent Lindel Fields said in a statement he has “no plans to distribute Bibles or a Biblical character education curriculum in classrooms.” The directive last year from former Superintendent Ryan Walters drew immediate condemnation from civil rights groups and prompted a lawsuit from a group of parents, teachers, and religious leaders that is pending before the Oklahoma Supreme Court. It was to have applied to students in grades 5…

The U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday took the next step in firing more than 250 office for civil rights employees who have been in professional limbo since March, just days after the agency slashed hundreds of other positions during the federal government shutdown.The department sent out notices to the civil rights employees telling them their last day on the payroll would be Nov. 3. The notices, obtained by Education Week, came more than two weeks after a federal appeals court said the Education Department could proceed with the layoffs while litigation challenging cutbacks that have shrunken the civil right…