Author: BelieveAgain

Linda McMahon, the nation’s 13th (and possibly last) U.S. secretary of education, wants to “reorient” the federal Department of Education. She aims to “fund education freedom” (read charter and private schools), “not government-run systems” (read public education), and “empower states” (implicitly, disempowering the Education Department). She has been tasked with shutting it down and putting herself out of a job.It’s the latest chapter in a national story of education reform gone awry, one I was (too often unhappily) involved in from its beginning in 1983 until I retired in 2014 after 16 years as the superintendent of the Scarsdale, N.Y.,…

When the Justice Department lifted a school desegregation order in Louisiana this week, officials called its continued existence a “historical wrong” and suggested that others dating to the Civil Rights Movement should be reconsidered.The end of the 1966 legal agreement with Plaquemines Parish schools announced Tuesday shows the Trump administration is “getting America refocused on our bright future,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said.Inside the Justice Department, officials appointed by President Donald Trump have expressed a desire to withdraw from other desegregation orders they see as an unnecessary burden on schools, according to a person familiar with the issue who…

President Donald Trump on Friday unveiled a budget plan that would slash billions of dollars in federal funding for K-12 education and dramatically rework how the federal government distributes education grants to schools.The “skinny” budget proposal—which the administration will flesh out in the coming weeks—falls well short of Trump’s stated goal to eliminate the Department of Education and shift some of its core functions to other agencies. It also leaves unanswered many questions about the administration’s priorities and intentions.“This is better than my worst imagining, but not very good,” said Sarah Abernathy, executive director of the Committee for Education Funding,…

A federal judge agreed to temporarily block the Trump administration from taking any more steps to dismantle an agency that funds and promotes libraries across the United States.U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled Thursday that plaintiffs who sued to preserve the Institute of Museum and Library Services are likely to show that the Republican administration doesn’t have the legal authority to unilaterally shutter the agency, which Congress created.The American Library Association and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees filed a lawsuit last month to stop the administration from gutting the institute after President Donald Trump signed a…

The Trump administration and lawmakers in Congress are gearing up for fierce debates over education funding in the coming months—and with only two months to go before schools typically get the bulk of their annual federal allocation, it’s still not clear which priorities will win out.The executive branch has three opportunities in the near future to detail its education funding priorities in writing: a plan for spending federal money that’s already been allocated; a budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year; and a package of proposed federal spending cuts for Congress to approve or reject.President Donald Trump’s administration hasn’t shared…

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared open to arguments that Oklahoma must allow a religious charter school, though the recusal of one conservative justice contributed to uncertainty about the outcome.Four of the conservatives participating in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond appeared likely to support St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which would be sponsored and controlled by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and Diocese of Tulsa. The Oklahoma Supreme Court blocked the school from joining the state charter program.“All a religious school is saying is, don’t exclude us on account of our religion,” Justice…

The U.S. Department of Education will stop funding roughly $1 billion in grants that were meant to boost the ranks and training of mental health professionals who work in schools, saying the grant awards made under the Biden administration now conflict with Trump administration priorities.The multi-year grants will end at the conclusion of their current budget period, some recipients were told in an April 29 letter sent by Murray Bessette from the Education Department’s office of planning, evaluation, and policy development.The letter told grantees that their awards provide “funding for programs that reflect the prior Administration’s priorities and policy preferences…

The U.S. Department of Education is investigating New York’s state education department for its enforcement of a state policy that prohibits the use of Native American imagery in school mascots, in a continued show of force from the agency and one that also challenges a yearslong trend of phasing out logos long called offensive.The federal Education Department announced on Friday that its office for civil rights would investigate the state agency and the board that oversees it for discrimination after the Massapequa school district refused to eliminate its “Chiefs” mascot at the state’s insistence.Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the elimination…

President Donald Trump’s second first 100 days have already felt like being trapped inside a Russian novel—and we’re barely underway.Here’s my take on what we’ve seen in K-12. Be forewarned, you’ll need to look elsewhere for a blistering denunciation or an exercise in cheerleading. That’s because I’m feeling pretty conflicted. On the one hand, I support Team Trump’s priorities and vision. On the other, I think responsible government is less a matter of what you intend to do than what you actually do. And, on that score, there’s much to give me pause.Character is destiny, in Russian novels as in…

Laura Baker/Education Week via Canva On National Girls and Women in Sports Day, Trump signs an executive order threatening to withhold federal funds from schools that allow transgender students to compete on women’s teams. Under the order, the secretary of education is told to prioritize civil rights cases against schools and athletic associations that don’t comply. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency abruptly revokes hundreds of millions of dollars in Department of Education contracts that fund key data collection and research efforts largely overseen by the agency’s Institute of Education Sciences. The contract terminations are the first of a series…