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Trump’s Illegal Demolition of the U.S. Department of Education

By dianeravitch
December 17, 2025 //
3

Senator Maxie K. Hirono of Hawaii conducted a forum on Trump’s illegal demolition of the U.S. Department of Education.

Trump promised to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education but he needs the approval of the U.S. Congress to wipe out a Department authorized by Congress. There are Republicans who would not support this reactionary step, so Trump bypassed Congress and took a different, blatantly illegal path.

Acting through his Secretary of Education, wrestling entrepreneur Linda McMahon, he began laying off employees. Then his DOGE crew closed down whole sections of the Department, including its historic mission, the collection of data and statistics about education, as well as its research arm.

The legal way to achieve his goal was to seek Congressional action. Instead, he broke up the Department and handed its functions to other Departments.

McMahon likes to say that the Department spends lots of money, but test scores haven’t gone up. That’s not the purpose of the Department. it exists to equalize funding to some extent, to add extra funding for students who are low-income, who have disabilities, or who have other needs. It also funds postsecondary education and, though its Office for Civil Rights, protects students against discrimination. OCR is now in the hands of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, which is hostile to the traditional definition of civil rights; its highest priority appears to be the protection of the straight white makes.


WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI) held a spotlight forum titled, “Dismantling Education: What the Trump Administration’s Illegal Attacks on Federal Programs Mean for Students, Families, and Educators,” highlighting the dangerous consequences of the Trump Administration’s efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education (ED) for our nation’s students, families, educators, and schools—among others. During the forum, a panel of witnesses comprised of K-12 education leaders and civil rights experts spoke about how abolishing ED and moving these programs to other federal agencies would harm students across the country, especially those who come from low-income, rural, Native, migrant, and federally-impacted communities.

 

“From Day One, President Trump and his regime have been illegally attacking and undermining the Department of Education, in an attempt to abolish the Department altogether,” said Senator Hirono. “Trump has sown and continues to sow chaos for students across the country: directing the closure of the Department of Education; firing nearly half the Department workforce; slashing, withholding and rescinding funding for federal education programs; and creating a national school voucher program—to name a few things. In the process, he has jeopardized our children’s futures. Today’s forum provided an important opportunity to inform individuals and communities about the destructive actions he has taken so far. Every child in our country deserves access to a quality education, and I will continue working with my colleagues to make sure that is the case.”

 

Specifically, the forum focused on this administration’s recent proposal to illegally move nearly all federal K-12 programs and many higher education programs to other federal agencies that have limited capacity to run these programs and have no experience with dealing with them. ED announced last month that it would partner with the Departments of Labor, Interior, Health and Human Services, and State to conduct the transfer of these programs. This move would essentially fulfill Trump’s promise to eliminate the Department altogether and remove the federal government’s role in helping to ensure that all students have access to a quality education.

 

The forum featured testimony from:

  • Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers
  • Rachel Gittleman, President, American Federation of Government Employees Local 252
  • Denise Forte, President and CEO, The Education Trust
  • Dr. Amy Loyd, CEO, All4Ed
  • Chad Rummel, Executive Director, Council for Exceptional Children
  • Angelica Infante-Green, Rhode Island Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education, Rhode Island Department of Education

 

At the forum, Senator Hirono was joined by a number of her colleagues, including Senators Peter Welch (D-VT), Jack Reed (D-RI), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Dick Durbin (D-IL).

 

“The Trump Administration has taken a wrecking ball to essential federal education programs like Title I, which ensure first-generation, rural, and lower-income students get an equal opportunity to learn and grow. Despite our taxpayers spending one of the highest rates in the country for our students’ education, Vermont now ranks well below the national average on reading and math scores. Just a decade ago, our students scored the 4th highest in the country,” said Senator Welch. “Instead of trying to dismantle the Department of Education, we should be doing everything in our power to give students the resources they need to succeed.” 

 

“The Trump Administration’s plan to dismantle the Department of Education isn’t about streamlining or efficiency.  It’s whittling down or just completely abandoning critical programs and support for public school students, teachers, and entire communities,” said Senator Reed.  “I’m fighting to ensure our teachers and schools have the support and resources they need to give every child a top-notch education that prepares them for success.  I am grateful for Rhode Island’s Education Commissioner Angelica Infante-Green and education leaders from across the nation who joined us today to discuss their work protecting and preserving opportunity for our students.”

 

“After a year that included mass firings, cancelling critical grant funds for our local schools, and cutting access to student loans, the Trump Administration is trying to make good on their promise to shutter the Department of Education,” said Senator Van Hollen. “While there are many ways to improve our education system, dismantling the department piece by piece only threatens our longstanding goal of ensuring that every child has access to a quality education. We should be investing more in this objective, not less – for the success of today’s students and the future of our country.”

 

“The Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the Education Department are an attack on public education and public schools,” said Senator Warren. “I’m fighting to ensure every kid, no matter their zip code or how much money their family makes, has a shot at a quality education.”

 

“When I was young, my father took me to the doors of the schoolhouse and told me ‘If you walk through those doors and work hard, you can do just about anything because we are fortunate to live in America,’” said Senator Merkley. “I’m grateful that a public school education opened the doors of opportunity for me, but today that dream is harder and harder to achieve as the Trump Administration undermines the tools and resources students need to succeed. We must fight to protect programs like TRIO that expand opportunity for all and strengthen the four foundations working families need to thrive – including health care, housing, good-paying jobs, and education.”

 

“A good education for every American is one of the very best investments we can make in our future as a nation,” said Senator Klobuchar.“That is why I so strongly oppose President Trump’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education and retreat from our commitment to education and our nation’s future. Instead of working with states and school districts to support students, this administration is adding more layers of bureaucracy that will make it even harder for students and schools to succeed.”

 

“The Trump Administration is sabotaging our nation’s future by dismantling the Department of Education,” said Senator Durbin. “So many students rely on the programs and protections provided by the Department, and without that support, the next generation will have less access to the resources they need to thrive.”

 

“No government agency is perfect, and the Department of Education is no exception. Improvements and efficiencies can always be made. But what we are seeing now is not reform—it is abandonment. The administration is walking away from the federal role in education and effectively selling it off for parts,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten. “Families deserve safe and welcoming public schools that are relevant, engaging, and inclusive. These schools, along with thriving universities, are the bedrock of our children’s future and the nation’s economic, scientific, and medical success. We must strengthen—not abandon—public education. Our economy, our democracy and our children depend on it. Every American deserves nothing less.”

 

“The Trump Administration’s plan to dismantle the Congressionally created U.S. Department of Education is unlawful and an insult to the tens of millions of students who rely on it to protect access to a quality education,” said AFGE 252 President Rachel Gittleman. Splintering the Department’s core responsibilities across agencies that lack the expertise to carry them out creates more red tape for states and communities, not less. After attempting to fire the public servants who do this critical work, the Administration is now pushing those responsibilities onto agencies unequipped to serve students and families—creating confusion, eroding public trust, and leaving students and families to pay the price.”

 

“The focus of this Administration has been to deliver on the Great American Heist. The administration’s talk of efficiency and bureaucratic bloat is a cover for stripping students of civil rights, destabilizing millions of student borrowers, and pushing privatization through massive tax credits that subsidize wealthy families’ private and religious schooling,” said Denise Forte, President and CEO of EdTrust. “The federal government should be working with States to improve and strengthen public education for all students, instead of cruel attempts to steal students’ futures.”  

 

“At a time when the U.S. Department of Education faces unprecedented threats—weakening oversight, equity protections, and student supports—every policy decision matters,” said Dr. Amy Loyd, CEO of All4Ed.“The Trump Administration’s attempt to dismantle the Department is illegal, ineffective, and reckless. Rather than one agency coordinating federal education funding, accountability, and oversight, responsibilities are scattered across five departments—Labor, HHS, Interior, State—and a hollowed-out Department of Education. This is not streamlining government; it is fragmenting our national commitment to learners of all ages. I applaud Senator Hirono’s leadership in sounding the alarm and urge Congress to halt these unlawful actions and restore the Department of Education.”

 

“Special education is facing a five-alarm fire,” said Chad Rummel, Council for Exceptional Children Executive Director. “Current actions to close the U.S. Department of Education, fire nearly everyone in the Office of Special Education Programs and deplete the Office for Civil Rights are fracturing the federal education system designed to support all children, and pose a cruel and unnerving threat to the education of children with disabilities.”

 

“As a state education chief, a daughter of immigrants, a lifelong educator, and a mother of two school-aged multilingual children, including one who is on the autism spectrum, I know that a quality education can make all the difference in a child’s life,”said Angelica Infante-Green, Rhode Island Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education. “During this critical time for our students, the federal government should be finding ways to better support local school communities rather than providing less and creating chaos and concern by proposing to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. Federal support is not optional; it is essential for continued academic recovery and for advancing the success of children in Rhode Island and across the nation.”

 

Video of the full forum can be found here and photos can be found here.  

 

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Categories Disruption, Extremism, Special Education, Trump, U.S. Department of Education

Trump and McMahon Illegally Undermine Special Education Services

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2025 //
8

I am reposting this article because I posted it before I had finished preparing it, omitting the name of the author and the publication.

Trump decided long before the 2024 election to close the Department of Education. Like many others, I predicted that Congress would not allow him to close the Department. I said, even Republicans will oppose closing the Department. What I did not anticipate was that Trump would destroy the Department by firing its employees and transferring its functions to other agencies.

Warning: if Trump turns funding for special education into block grants to states without strings, the money could be used for charters and vouchers, not for children with disabilities.

Kathleen Romig of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities wrote this valuable analysis:

Earlier this month, the Trump Administration took aim at a vital program with deep bipartisan support that provides screening, accommodations, and interventions for 7.5 million disabled children each year, imperiling their access to the accommodations and services they need to succeed at school. The Administration announced that it intends to fire nearly all the staff responsible for distributing federal funding and ensuring states use it to provide disabled students the supports and services they need to succeed in school, from assistive technology to specialized teachers. Their work makes it possible for students with disabilities to get the free, appropriate public education they are guaranteed by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

Gutting the staff who administer IDEA not only threatens the quality education disabled children need, but also undermines Congress’s constitutional authority — and underscores why legislators must enact safeguards to ensure that the Administration follows the laws Congress passes.

This reckless and illegal action is another step toward the Administration’s goal of dismantling the Department of Education, which started with firing nearly half its staff in March, including the legal staff in the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), who protect disabled students’ rights. With this latest action, the Trump Administration is effectively shuttering OSEP, which distributed $15 billion in federal grants to schools in 2025. These grants pay for special education teachers and aides, speech and occupational therapists, assistive technology, screening and early intervention for infants and toddlers, and other critical services and supports that millions of families rely upon.

IDEA requires that the Education Department verify that states are lawfully supporting students with disabilities before granting funds, and to require states to take corrective action if they are not. Without OSEP staff, it is unclear who will review and certify states’ grant applications and ensure funds are lawfully distributed and that states are using them appropriately.

OSEP staff use a system of reporting, analysis, and auditing to ensure children’s needs are being met. They intervene if a school district systematically isn’t providing an accommodation that students need — for example, not hiring enough speech therapists or purchasing devices that allow non-verbal students to communicate. These cuts come as funding for public schools and the students they serve is already under threat from a growing list of sources, including state tax cuts, private school vouchers, and other federal actions.

About 15 percent of students receive services under IDEA. They have conditions such as vision and hearing impairments, speech and language delays, learning disabilities, and developmental disabilities such as autism, Down Syndrome, and intellectual disability. Meeting their needs requires not only funding, but continual oversight and assistance, because school districts often struggle to comply with the law’s requirements. OSEP gives states and school districts the assistance and assurance they need to avoid penalties or prevent a loss of federal funds in the future and, most importantly, to meet the needs of their disabled students.

IDEA has a long history of bipartisan support. Congress and President George H.W. Bush enacted the law on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis in 1990. In 2004, President George W. Bush and Congress reauthorized IDEA with substantial amendments, again with strong bipartisan approval. Despite President Trump’s call during the shutdown to end “Democrat programs,” federal IDEA funding benefits students and families in every state and across all political affiliations.

The Administration has been vocal about its desire to dismantle the Education Department, but it lacks the legal authority to make such a change. The President issued an executive order calling for the dissolution of the department, and he has spoken about moving IDEA administration to the Department of Health and Human Services. Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought’s Project 2025 proposed turning IDEA into a block grant with “no strings attached.”

But an act of Congress is required to dismantle the Department of Education or undo the statutory requirements for the department to administer IDEAand maintain an Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. The Administration has not requested these changes, including as part of its 2026 budget request. And Congress has shown no interest in either ending the Department of Education or moving the special education office. The 2026 education funding bills approved by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees would not defund the Department of Education nor change its legal responsibility to implement IDEA.

This latest harmful and unlawful action by the Trump Administration will cause needless uncertainty and turmoil: they have fired the staff tasked with overseeing special education programs with no plan for fulfilling their statutory responsibilities. This is another illustration of why Congress must assert its authority to ensure that the Administration faithfully execute the laws it passes, including on federal agency structure, functions, and personnel. Congress should not let the Trump Administration take yet another step that undermines their role, at the expense of disabled children and their families.

Categories Cruelty, School Choice, Special Education, Trump

Trump and McMahon Wipe Out Special Education Staff in Education Department

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2025 //
9

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon took advantage of the federal government shutdown to impose additional cuts to the Department of Education. The deepest cuts were imposed on the Office for Civil Rights. Another office that was hard hit was the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.

During the draconian budget-cutting days of Elon Musk and DOGE, the Education Department’s personnel was almost cut in half, from 4,000 to 2,400. DOE is one of the smallest Departments in the federal government. The latest reduction-in-force cuts terminated the jobs of 466 employees of the Department, including the remaining 20 or so employees overseeing special education programs.

Project 2025 called for all funding streams–especially Title I and special education–to be turned over to the states as block grants, which the states could spend as they choose. Eliminating federal oversight is a significant step towards that goal.

The Education Law Center of Pennsylvania released this statement:

Widespread layoffs in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) have effectively eviscerated federal enforcement of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which requires that the U.S. Department of Education bear the ultimate responsibility for ensuring that local school districts and charter schools comply with special education laws.

OSERS, which includes the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), provides essential guidance, reviews and monitors state compliance with federal special education laws, and issues corrective action to states. The impact of its dismantling cannot be overstated: without staff to oversee legal compliance and equitably distribute federal funds, children with disabilities will lack critical federal protections, and become more likely to be excluded and left behind. The Department currently administers more than $15 billion in IDEA funds for special education programs nationwide; OSERS provided essential guidance to ensure effective and equitable use of those funds.

The deep slashing of OSERS’ staff is part of a broad effort by this administration to dismantle the Department of Education (“ED”) and unlawfully flout Congress’ authority; in this case, by abandoning enforcement required under IDEA, a law enacted 50 years ago next month. The IDEA guarantees all children with disabilities access to a free and appropriate education and importantly, this landmark legislation remains the law of the land, requiring continued compliance by states, school districts, and charter schools.

Schools remain legally mandated to follow both federal and state special education laws.  This includes identifying and serving children with disabilities, protecting them from discrimination, and ensuring that they are educated in the least restrictive environment alongside their non-disabled peers. Importantly, Pennsylvania’s Department of Education must continue to ensure schools’ compliance with federal and state special education laws, which may now require increased oversight.  

ELC-PA urges federal legislators to push back against this unlawful dismantling of OSERS and ED. Federal enforcement and oversight is needed to sustain key civil rights protections for children with disabilities. Under our Constitution, only Congress has the authority to create or eliminate federal agencies. These unlawful mass layoffs and dismantling of the Department undertaken by the executive branch will substantially diminish federal enforcement of disability laws and is a devasting setback for students with disabilities who thrive in supportive, inclusive classrooms. Without ED’s enforcement authority, state agencies that fail to meet their legal obligations could face fewer consequences and be less likely to undertake systemic reforms. However, parents will continue to bring administrative complaints and federal court actions against schools and the state to uphold the rights of their children.

We look to Congress and the courts to reject the administration’s efforts to undermine the rights of students with disabilities, restore robust federal oversight, and reaffirm the nation’s commitment to educational equity and to all students with disabilities. The time to push back is now. 

*****************************************

The Education Law Center-PA (ELC-PA) is a nonprofit, legal advocacy organization with offices in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, dedicated to ensuring that all children in Pennsylvania have access to a quality public education. Through legal representation, impact litigation, community engagement, and policy advocacy, ELC advances the rights of underserved children, including children living in poverty, children of color, children in the foster care and juvenile justice systems, children with disabilities, English learners, LGBTQ+ students, and children experiencing homelessness. For more information, visit elc-pa.org.

Lindsay Wagner, Director of Communications
(Pronouns: she/her)
Education Law Center-PA | 1800 JFK Blvd., Suite 1900A, Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 701-4264 | (215) 772-3125 (fax) | lwagner@elc-pa.org

Categories Cruelty, Deregulation, Ethics, Evil, Special Education, Trump

NOLA Parent: After 20 Years of “Ed Reform,” a $1 Billion Failure

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2025 //
5

Ashana Bigard is a parent activist in New Orleans. From her perspective as a parent leader and as the parent of a child with special needs, the New Orleans experiment has been a very expensive flop.

She wrote this overview for Public Voices for Public Schools:

Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina, the nation’s most radical education overhaul has produced stunning inequality alongside modest test gains

As I sit in Bricolage Academy’s office, frustrated but trying to remain pleasant, I’m having the same conversation again about my son. He’s on the autism spectrum. He is high performing, extremely quiet, and sweet. Despite his IEP, he wasn’t receiving the required services. The special education coordinator had quit in frustration, the school counselor was cut due to budget issues, and my fifth-grader was falling through the cracks.

I’m not just any parent. I’m an advocate who has worked with the CEO since the school’s creation. I have written for national magazines about our system’s problems and challenged the school’s “diversity by design” narrative. Yet here I was, fighting for basic services. If this is my experience, imagine what average parents face.

The Numbers Don’t Add Up

Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina replaced New Orleans’ traditional public schools with the nation’s first all-charter system, the grand experiment presents a troubling paradox. With half the students and double the funding, the system has achieved modest academic gains while disempowering the communities it promised to serve.

Before Katrina, New Orleans educated over 65,000 students in 126 schools. Today, just 47,667 students attend 70 schools–a 27% enrollment reduction. Yet per-pupil spending has exploded to approximately $17,000-$20,000, significantly above Louisiana’s state average.

“When you have half the students and twice the resources, you should see transformational results,” says Neil Ranu, a civil rights attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center. “Instead, we see money flowing upward to administrators while classrooms struggle.”

The money trail is revealing. Charter CEOs earn over $200,000 annually, while average teachers make between $44,000-$55,000 if they stay long enough.

The Human Cost

The city’s teacher turnover rate of 28% for new educators doubles that of comparable cities. The displacement began when the state fired the entire education workforce after Katrina, including over 4,000 teachers with an average of 15 years of experience. The teaching force dropped from 71% Black to under 50%.

When ‘Success’ Crumbles

The system’s fragility became apparent at John F. Kennedy High School in spring 2019. On graduation day, 177 students walked across the stage. A month later, state auditors revealed nearly half were ineligible to graduate due to grade changes from F’s to D’s, improper credit recovery, and students taking unsupervised classes at home.

Antonio Travis, director of Black Man Rising, mentored several affected students. “There was shame, self-blame. Many felt they wouldn’t be successful in college.” Families canceled graduation celebrations, uncertain about the future.

The Illusion of Choice

Parents quickly learn that “choice” often means choosing between bad options, especially for children with special needs. At Benjamin Franklin High School, Louisiana’s top-ranked public school, students from minority backgrounds face significant admission barriers. The school serves 39% white students in a city where whites comprise only 10% of public enrollment.

Special Education Crisis

In 2010, ten families sued the state over charter schools admitting too few special-needs students and failing to provide proper services. The resulting federal consent decree remains in effect today, with monitors continuing to find systematic violations, including parents being excluded from meetings, services not being provided, and evaluations being denied.

Right now, Louisiana U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey is currently presiding over the dissolution of the special-needs consent decree related to New Orleans schools. Because New Orleans public schools have no oversight, and no unions to fight to ensure the law is followed, we, as parents of children with special needs, have to fight to get our stories to the judge so hopefully he will keep it in place.

Economic Verdict

For a system serving 84% Black students, the economic impact is devastating. The racial wealth gap has widened dramatically since Katrina. White households now hold 13 times the wealth of Black families–$181,000 versus $18,000 median net worth. New Orleans went from 67% Black to 57%, losing over 120,000 Black residents.

Missing Pieces

Walk through charter schools and notice what’s absent or insufficient. Arts programs have declined; fewer offer pre-kindergarten, and students average 35-minute bus commutes. Basic skills, such as cursive instruction—required by state law for signing legal documents—are often ignored. “The children only learn what’s tested,” observes one advocate. “Everything else gets cut.”

The Honest Assessment

As the 20th anniversary of Katrina approaches,New Orleans offers a sobering lesson. With unprecedented resources and freedom, the charter system produced modest academic gains alongside community economic decline and systematic exclusion of vulnerable students.

“When people ask if they should move out of the city for better education,” says one advocate, “my answer is: if you can afford to move, you should. This system is not built to support our children.”

The comment hangs like an indictment not just of a school system, but of a 20-year experiment that promised everything and delivered prosperity for some, displacement for others, and continued struggle for families who need excellent public education most.

Ashana Bigard is a fifth generation New Orleanian and lifelong resident of the Crescent City. A mother of three, Ashana is a tireless advocate for equity and social justice, especially in her work advocating for children and families in New Orleans and Louisiana. She leads the Education Justice Project of New Orleans, where she organizes and advocates for the rights of students and parents. Ashana is an adult ally advisor to United Students of New Orleans. She also serves as a Community Faculty member with Tulane University’s Center for Public Service.

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Louisiana, New Orleans, Parents, Privatization, Special Education, Students

What Can the Federal Government Do to Promote Learning?

By dianeravitch
May 23, 2025 //
12

On May 10, Dana Goldstein wrote a long article in The New York Times about how education disappeared as a national or federal issue. Why, she wondered, did the two major parties ignore education in the 2024 campaign? Kamala Harris supported public schools and welcomed the support of the two big teachers’ unions, but she did not offer a flashy new program to raise test scores. Trump campaigned on a promise to privatize public funding, promote vouchers, charter schools, religious schools, home schooling–anything but public schools, which he regularly attacked as dens of iniquity, indoctrination, and DEI.

Goldstein is the best education writer at The Times, and her reflections are worth considering.

She started:

What happened to learning as a national priority?

For decades, both Republicans and Democrats strove to be seen as champions of student achievement. Politicians believed pushing for stronger reading and math skills wasn’t just a responsibility, it was potentially a winning electoral strategy.

At the moment, though, it seems as though neither party, nor even a single major political figure, is vying to claim that mantle.

President Trump has been fixated in his second term on imposing ideological obedience on schools.

On the campaign trail, he vowed to “liberate our children from the Marxist lunatics and perverts who have infested our educational system.”Since taking office, he has pursued this goal with startling energy — assaulting higher education while adopting a strategy of neglect toward the federal government’s traditional role in primary and secondary schools. He has canceled federal exams that measure student progress, and ended efforts to share knowledge with schools about which teaching strategies lead to the best results. A spokeswoman for the administration said that low test scores justify cuts in federal spending. “What we are doing right now with education is clearly not working,” she said.

Mr. Trump has begun a bevy of investigations into how schools handle race and transgender issues, and has demanded that the curriculum be “patriotic” — a priority he does not have the power to enact, since curriculum is set by states and school districts.

Actually, federal law explicitly forbids any federal official from attempting to influence the curriculum or textbooks in schools.

Education lawyer Dan Gordon wrote about the multiple laws that prevent any federal official from trying to dictate, supervise, control or interfere with curriculum. There is no sterner prohibition in federal law than the one that keeps federal officials from trying to dictate what schools teach.

Of course, Trump never worries about the limits imposed by laws. He does what he wants and leaves the courts to decide whether he went too far.

Goldstein continued:

Democrats, for their part, often find themselves standing up for a status quo that seems to satisfy no one. Governors and congressional leaders are defending the Department of Education as Mr. Trump has threatened to abolish it. Liberal groups are suing to block funding cuts. When Kamala Harris was running for president last year, she spoke about student loan forgiveness and resisting right-wing book bans. But none of that amounts to an agenda on learning, either.

All of this is true despite the fact that reading scores are the lowest they have been in decades, after a pandemic that devastated children by shuttering their schools and sending them deeper and deeper into the realm of screens and social media. And it is no wonder Americans are increasingly cynical about higher education. Forty percent of students who start college do not graduate, often leaving with debt and few concrete skills.

“Right now, there are no education goals for the country,” said Arne Duncan, who served as President Barack Obama’s first secretary of education after running Chicago’s public school system. “There are no metrics to measure goals, there are no strategies to achieve those goals and there is no public transparency.”

I have been writing about federal education policy for almost fifty years. There are things we have learned since Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965. That law was part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s agenda. Its purpose was to send federal funds to the schools enrolling the poorest students. Its purpose was not to raise test scores but to provide greater equity of resources.

Over time, the federal government took on an assertive role in defending the rights of students to an education: students with disabilities; students who did not speak English; and students attending illegally segregated schools.

In 1983, a commission appointed by President Reagan’s Secretary of Education Terrell Bell declared that American schools were in crisis because of low academic standards. Many states began implementing state tests and raising standards for promotion and graduation.

President George H.W. Bush convened a meeting of the nation’s governors, and they endorsed an ambitious set of “national goals” for the year 2000. E.g., the U.S. will be first in the world by the year 2000; all children will start school ready to learn by 2000. None of the goals–other than the rise of the high school graduation rate to 90%–was met.

The Clinton administration endorsed the national goals and passed legislation (“Goals 2000”) to encourages states to create their own standards and tests. President Clinton made clear, however, that he hoped for national standards and tests.

President George W. Bush came to office with a far-reaching, unprecedented plan called “No Child Left Behind” to reform education by a heavy emphasis on annual testing of reading and math. He claimed that because of his test-based policy, there had been a “Texas Miracle,” which could be replicated on a national scale. NCLB set unreachable goals, saying that every school would have 100% of their students reach proficiency by the year 2014. And if they were not on track to meet that impossible goals, the schools would face increasingly harsh punishments.

In no nation in the world have 100% of all students ever reached proficiency.

Scores rose, as did test-prep. Many untested subjects lost time in the curriculum or disappeared. Reading and math were tested every year from grades 3-8, as the law prescribed. What didn’t matter were science, history, civics, the arts, even recess.

Some schools were sanctioned or even closed for falling behind. Schools were dominated by the all-important reading and math tests. Some districts cheated. Some superintendents were jailed.

In 2001, there were scholars who warned that the “Texas Miracle” was a hoax. Congress didn’t listen. In time the nation learned that there was no Texas Miracle, never had been. But Congress clung to NCLB because they had no other ideas.

When Obama took office in 2009, educators hoped for relief from the annual testing mandates but they were soon disappointed. Obama chose Arne Duncan, who had led the Chicago schools but had never been a teacher. Duncan worked with consultants from the Gates and Broad Foundations and created a national competition for the states called Race to the Top. Duncan had a pot of $5 billion that Congress had given him for education reform.

Race to the Top offered big rewards to states that applied and won. To be eligible, states had to authorize the creation of charter schools (almost every state did); they had to agree to adopt common national standards (that meant the Common Core standards, funded wholly by the Gates Foundation and not yet completed); sign up for one of two federally funded standardized tests (PARCC or Smarter Balanced) ; and agree to evaluate their teachers by the test scores of their students. Eighteen states won huge rewards. There were other conditions but these were the most consequential.

Tennessee won $500 million. It is hard to see what, if anything, is better in Tennessee because of that audacious prize. The state put $100 million into an “Achievement School District,” which gathered the state’s lowest performing schools into a new district and turned them into charters. Chris Barbic, leader of the YES Prep charter chain in Houston was hired to run it. He pledged that within five years, the lowest-performing schools in the state would rank among the top 20% in the state. None of them did. The ASD was ultimately closed down.

Duncan had a great fondness for charter schools because they were the latest thing in Chicago; while superintendent, he had launched a program he called Renaissance 2010, in which he pledged to close 80 public schools and open 100 charter schools. Duncan viewed charters as miraculous. Ultimately Chicago’s charter sector produced numerous scandals but no miracles.

I have written a lot about Race to the Top over the years. It was layered on top of Bush’s NCLB, but it was even more punitive. It targeted teachers and blamed them if students got low scores. Its requirement that states evaluate teachers by student test scores was a dismal failure. The American Statistical Association warned against it from the outset, pointing out that students’ home life affected test scores more than their teachers.

Duncan’s Renaissance 2010 failed. It destroyed communities. Its strategy of closing neighborhood schools and dispersing students encountered growing resistance. The first schools that Duncan launched as his exemplars were eventually closed. In 2021, the Chicago Board of Education voted unanimously to end its largest “school turnaround” program, managed by a private group, and return its 31 campuses to district control. Duncan’s fervent belief in “turnaround” schools was derided as a historical relic.

Race to the Top failed. The proliferation of charter schools, aided by a hefty federal subsidy, drained students and resources from public schools. Charter schools close their doors at a rapid pace: 26% are gone in their first five years; 39% in their first ten years. In addition, due to lax accountability, charters have demonstrated egregious examples of waste, fraud, and abuse.

The Common Core was supposed to lift test scores and reduce achievement gaps, but it did neither. Conservative commentator Mike Petrilli referred to 2007-2017 as “the lost decade.” Scores stagnated and achievement gaps barely budged.

So what have we learned?

This is what I have learned: politicians are not good at telling educators how to teach. The Department of Education (which barely exists as of now) is not made up of educators. It was not in a position to lead school reform. Nor is the Secretary of Education. Nor is the President. Would you want the State legislature or Congress telling surgeons how to do their job?

The most important thing that the national government can do is to ensure that schools have the funding they need to pay their staff, reduce class sizes, and update their facilities.

The federal government should have a robust program of data collection, so we have accurate information about students, teachers, and schools.

The federal government should not replicate its past failures.

What Congress can do very effectively is to ensure that the nation’s schools have the resources they need; that children have access to nutrition and medical care; and that pregnant women get prenatal care so that their babies are born healthy.

Categories Civil Rights, Closing schools, Curriculum, Democrats, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), For-Profit, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Graduation rates, Health, NAEP, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Obama, Poverty, Privatization, Race to the Top, Republicans, Segregation, Special Education, Standardized Testing, U.S. Department of Education, U.S. education, Vouchers

NEA: The Purpose of Block Grants is to Diminish Federal Responsibility for Education

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2025 //
2

Project 2025’s section on education proposes that the U.S. Department of Education’s largest funding streams for K-12 schools be turned into block grants to the states with minimal oversight. The two big programs are Title 1 for poor kids and the funding for students with disabilities (IDEA).

The states would be free to convert these funds into vouchers, instead of spending them on low-income students or students with disabilities.

The National Education Association explains here:

Block Grant Overview

Typically, the deal between the federal government and states when specific program funds are block-granted is that the federal government will provide less funding in return for less regulation and requirements. With less regulation, the assumption is that states should be able to do as much or more with less money. While it may be appealing initially to those who administer federal grants at the state and local level, in reality, fewer dollars mean fewer programs and services. States and school districts may have more flexibility in using federal funds but it comes at the expense of the students the federal grant program was designed to help in the first place.

 Many states already underfund their commitment to public education. If states and districts don’t cover the shortfall, students receiving Title I and IDEA services will suffer. Furthermore, both Title I and IDEA have maintenance of effort and supplement, not supplant requirements to ensure states and districts hold up their levels of spending when receiving federal funds. Those requirements will fall away, too, and, most likely, so will the funding commitments by states and districts.

Title I of the ESEA and IDEA were created to ensure all students have equal access to an education, regardless of family income or disability. Many states were failing to adequately educate students in these populations, if at all. The federal role here was clear: where a student lived or their circumstances should not determine the quality of their education. ESEA and IDEA enshrined this principle and attached specific conditions and requirements that states must follow, in return for federal financial assistance, to ensure that students from lower-income families and communities and those with disabilities have the same opportunity to learn as any other student. “No-strings-attached” block grant funding turns the clock back 60 years on education policy and progress, and turns its back on our nation’s commitment to educating all students. While one would like to think that we can trust states to do the right thing on behalf of all students, history tells us differently. 

Providing states with federal aid and fewer requirements leaves the door open for states to do as they wish. Title I of ESEA and IDEA include important requirements and protections for students and families precisely because they were lacking previously. At its core, the Department of Education is a civil rights agency, providing dollars, regulations, requirements, guidance, technical assistance, research, monitoring, and compliance enforcement to preserve and protect students’ access to a free and appropriate education. Strip it away, and you strip away the rights of certain students to a meaningful education.  

 

Categories Accountability, Disruption, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Funding, Home Schooling, Inequity, Poverty, Privatization, Special Education, Trump, Vouchers

Jess Piper: Don’t Let Them Kill Section 504

By dianeravitch
February 21, 2025 //
8

Jess Piper lives on a farm in Missouri. She has been fighting for years against the mean-spirited policies of the Republicans in her state. She’s also pushed hard to persuade the Democrats to run candidates in rural counties, which they have written off.

In this post, she calls on parents, teachers, and decent folks to speak out against the lawsuit to kill Section 504, which protects the rights of people with disabilities.

She writes:

I loved my Kentucky-born grandma. She was one of 12 kids who lived in a small cabin in a valley next to a creek in Harlan. She made bologna gravy and fried chicken, but every time I visited, she made potato soup and a German Chocolate Cake. She knew they were my favorites.

She called me Jessie and I loved to sit and listen to her talk. You had to pry the stories out, but once she started, her narratives always kept me laughing or crying. 

I miss her.

My grandma pictured with her siblings and parents. Harlan, Kentucky — 1930 something.

I was one of the first on that side of my family to graduate from college. When I received my MA in Education, my grandparents came all the way down to Arkansas to celebrate the day with me. They were very proud, but especially Grandma. She was proud to have a teacher in the family.

One day, years later, she asked me a question, “Jessie, what happened to education? The kids I went to school with could all read and write. Now, there are so many in school who can’t read well or do math.”

Grandma wasn’t trying to berate me or public schools — she did watch Fox News though and was getting some ideas in her head that didn’t live in reality. Fox regularly ran stories on kids in urban areas falling behind and that part isn’t necessarily untrue, but you and I both know why they focused on urban kids and not rural kids.

I reminded her of a few things about schools back in the 30s and 40s in Kentucky. Her school was poor but not nearly as poor as the Black schools in surrounding counties. I also asked her if she could remember any kids with disabilities in her class or school. She did not remember anyone with a disability, but she did say there were quite a few boys who couldn’t read well and they always dropped out by 6th or 8th grade to go to work on the farm or in a coal mine.

There you go, Grandma. There it is.

I will never forget that scene in “Forrest Gump” when Forrest’s mom had to have sex with the local Principal so her child could be enrolled in school. I know that is likely a stretch, but how far of a stretch?

There were no accommodations back then. If a child presented with a disability, they were most often turned away. Children could legally work on a farm at any age and they could work in a mine by 14. 

The poor kids went to work and the kids with disabilities were shut out.

Grandma understood immediately after our talk…she just hadn’t thought about it much.

Fast forward to 2025 and Missouri is under the boot of a GOP supermajority and an Attorney General with few morals but a lot of hate that he directs at women, minorities, and folks with disabilities…even children.

Missouri AG Andrew Bailey was appointed in 2022 when Eric Schmitt won his Senate race. Don’t get me wrong — Eric Schmitt was nearly as bad and sued Missouri schools to force them to remove mask mandates in 2020. You know, when folks were dying from a global pandemic. 

But, in my opinion, Andrew Bailey is the worst AG we have had in recent memory and that’s saying a lot because Josh Hawley was also a Missouri AG. 

We have scraped the bottom of the barrel with Andrew Bailey.

Bailey is suing China for failing to supply our state with masks during COVID though Bailey has repeatedly said that masks didn’t prevent the spread of COVID.

Bailey is suing Costco for their DEI policies, saying that the private company should be forced to hire more white men because hiring women and people of color is discriminatory.

Bailey is suing Starbucks because he argues that, “Starbucks diversity initiatives have caused higher prices and longer lines,” and that, “Starbucks workforce is more female and less white.” 

Yes, you read that right. I mean, it’s as condescending and racist as it sounds, but his first statement also goes against the Republican mantra of the “free market.” If folks don’t like a line or think the coffee is too high, they can just run over to a Scooter’s or McDonald’s. 

But, it only goes downhill from there…Missouri’s AG has joined a suit to gut the 504 program.

What is Section 504 in plain language?

Section 504 is an important law that protects people with disabilities. 504 says you can’t discriminate against disabled people if you get money from the United States government. Section 504 says you cannot mistreat people because of their disabilities. 

Section 504 has rules that explain what disability discrimination is. The rules say that schools, hospitals, and doctors’ offices have to include people with disabilities. 

In the suit, my AG and sixteen other state AGs are suing because they want to eliminate gender dysphoria from a protected status under 504 — a Biden era addition to protect trans kids. But, the suit asks the court to get rid of all the updated rules – and to get rid of Section 504 altogether. The lawsuit says that Section 504 goes against the United States Constitution.

This will impact so many students in the country. The point is to offer no accommodations for any disability. For any child. 

This is what they meant when they said Make America Great Again. They meant Kentucky in the 1930s.

There are a few things you can do: Call your AG if you live in Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, or West Virginia. Demand that they drop from the lawsuit.

The bright side of this suit is that it is bringing disability and accommodations in front of everyday Americans. Folks who may not understand DEI, understand a 504 — they should know diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts include disability.

Another positive note: my AG has rarely won any suit he has filed or joined. He is very bad at his job because he doesn’t seem to understand the Constitution. I hope this suit ends like most of them do…Bailey, with his tail tucked between his knees, running from cameras.

You can help get the word out by sharing this post or the others I will list at the bottom of this post. 

Tell everyone you know and then start calling. We can’t do everything, but we can do one thing. 

Every day.

~Jess

Sources:

Plain Language Explainer: Texas v. Becerra Section 504 Under Attack: https://www.bazelon.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Plain-Language-Explainer_Texas-v-Becerra.pdf

Action Alert: Save Section 504
Categories Education Reform, Missouri, Parents, Resistance, Special Education, Students

17 States Are Suing to Abolish Section 504 for People with Disabilities

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2025 //
15

The Attorneys General in 17 states have sued in federal court to eliminate Section 504, which guarantees the rights of people with disabilities.

If you are a parent of a child with disabilities, you should become active to inform others and to contact your elected representatives.

Here are the states that are involved in this lawsuit:

Here is a fact sheet that should be helpful.

Section 504 assures that every institution that receives federal funds includes people with disabilities.

This is what the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education said about Section 504.

I should warn you, however, that the Office of Civil Rights may not exist anymore. It will probably be transferred to the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. The person nominated to lead that office is hostile to many of the civil rights protections that have been law for many years.

Here is a plain language explanation of the lawsuit, prepared by the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.

If the suit is successful, it would affect students and everyone else in every state, not just those where the suit was launched.

Wherever you live, join with other parents to protest. Contact all organizations that defend disability rights. Call your local officials.

Don’t let them get away with this attack on the disability rights of your child, which have been the law since 1973.

Categories Justice, Parent Groups, Special Education, Students

Brookings Institution: What Project 2025 Means for Education

By dianeravitch
October 29, 2024 //
6

A group of scholars at the Brookings Institution analyzed Project 2025’s proposals for education and their implications.

What struck me as most bizarre about Project 2025 was not its efforts to block-grant all federal funding of schools, nor its emphasis on privatization of K-12 schools. (Block-granting means assigning federal funding to states as a lump sum, no strings attached, no federal oversight).

No, what amazed me most was the split screen between the report’s desire to hand all power over education to states and communities, and the report’s insistence on preserving enough power to punish LGBT students, especially trans students and to impose other far-right mandates, like stamping out critical race theory. You know, either you let the states decide or you don’t. The report wants it both ways.

It’s also astonishing to realize that the insidious goal of the report is eventually abandon federal funding of education. That’s a huge step backward, taking us to 1965, before Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, whose purpose was to raise spending in impoverished communities. I essence, P2025 says that decades of pursuing equitable funding “didn’t work,” so let’s abandon the goal and the spending.

Here is the Brookings analysis:

Project 2025 outlines a radical policy agenda that would dramatically reshape the federal government. The report was spearheaded by the right-wing Heritage Foundation and represents the policy aims of a large coalition of conservative activists. While former President Trump has attempted to distance himself from Project 2025, many of the report’s authors worked in the previous Trump administration and could return for a second round. Trump, himself, said in 2022, “This is a great group, and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.”

In other words, Project 2025 warrants a close look, even if the Trump campaign would like Americans to avert their gaze.

Project 2025’s education agenda proposes a drastic overhaul of federal education policy, from early childhood through higher education. Here’s just a sample of the Project 2025 education-related recommendations:

  • Dismantle the U.S. Department of Education (ED)
  • Eliminate the Head Start program for young children in poverty
  • Discontinue the Title I program that provides federal funding to schools serving low-income children
  • Rescind federal civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ students
  • Undercut federal capacity to enforce civil rights law
  • Reduce federal funding for students with disabilities and remove guardrails designed to ensure these children are adequately served by schools
  • Promote universal private school choice
  • Privatize the federal student loan portfolio

It’s an outrageous list, and that’s just the start of it.

We’ve reviewed the Project 2025 chapter on education (Chapter 11), along with other chapters with implications for students. We’ve come away with four main observations:

1. Most of the major policy proposals in Project 2025 would require an unlikely amount of congressional cooperation

Project 2025 is presented as a to-do list for an incoming Trump administration. However, most of its big-ticket education items would require a great deal of cooperation from Congress.

Proposals to create controversial, new laws or programs would require majority support in the House and, very likely, a filibuster-proof, 60-vote majority in the Senate. Ideas like a Parents’ Bill of Rights, the Department of Education Reorganization Act, and a federal tax-credit scholarship program fall into this category. Even if Republicans outperform expectations in this fall’s Senate races, they’d have to attract several Democratic votes to get to 60. That’s not happening for these types of proposals.  

The same goes for major changes to existing legislation. This includes, for example, a proposal to convert funding associated with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to no-strings-attached block grants and education savings accounts (with, presumably, much less accountability for spending those funds appropriately). It also includes a proposal to end the “negotiated rulemaking” (“neg-reg”) process that ED follows when developing regulations related to programs authorized under Title IV of the Higher Education Act (HEA). The neg-reg requirement is written into HEA itself, which means that unwinding neg-reg would require Congress to amend the HEA. That’s unlikely given that HEA reauthorization is already more than a decade overdue—and that’s without the political baggage of Project 2025 weighing down the process.

The prospect of changing funding levels for existing programs is a little more complicated. Programs like Title I are permanently authorized. Eliminating Title I or changing the formulas it usesto allocate funds to local educational agencies would require new and unlikely legislation. Year-to-year funding levels can and do change, but the vast majority of ED’s budget consists of discretionary funding that’s provided through the regular, annual appropriations process and subject to a filibuster. This limits the ability of one party to make major, unilateral changes. (ED’s mandatoryfunding is more vulnerable.)

In sum, one limiting factor on what an incoming Trump administration could realistically enact from Project 2025 is that many of these proposals are too unpopular with Democrats to overcome their legislative hurdles.

2. Some Project 2025 proposals would disproportionately harm conservative, rural areas and likely encounter Republican opposition

Another limiting factor is that some of Project 2025’s most substantive proposals probably wouldn’t be all that popular with Republicans either.

Let’s take, for example, the proposed sunsetting of the Title I program. Project 2025 proposes to phase out federal spending on Title I over a 10-year period, with states left to decide whether and how to continue that funding. It justifies this with misleading suggestions that persistent test score gaps between wealthy and poor students indicate that investments like Title I funding aren’t paying off. (In fact, evidence from school finance reforms suggests real benefits from education spending, especially for students from low-income families.)

The phrase “Title I schools” might conjure up images of under-resourced schools in urban areas that predominantly serve students of color, and it’s true that these schools are major beneficiaries of Title I. However, many types of schools, across many types of communities, receive critical support through Title I. In fact, schools in Republican-leaning areas could be hit the hardest by major cuts or changes to Title I. In the map below, we show the share of total per-pupil funding coming from Title I by state. Note that many of the states that rely the most on Title I funds (darkest blue) are politically conservative.

[Open the link to see the map.]

Of course, the impact of shifting from federal to state control of Title I would depend on how states choose to handle their newfound decision-making power. Given that several red states are among the lowest spenders on education—and have skimped on programs like Summer EBT and Medicaid expansion—it’s hard to believe that low-income students in red states would benefit from a shift to state control.

What does that mean for the type of support that Project 2025 proposals might get from red-state Republicans in Congress? It’s hard to know. It’s worth keeping in mind, though, that the GOP’s push for universal private school voucher programs has encountered some of its fiercest resistance from rural Republicans across several states.

3. Project 2025 also has significant proposals that a second Trump administration could enact unilaterally

While a second Trump administration couldn’t enact everything outlined in Project 2025 even if it wanted to, several consequential proposals wouldn’t require cooperation from Congress. This includes some actions that ED took during the first Trump administration and certainly could take again.

Here are a few of the Project 2025 proposals that the Trump administration could enact with the authority of the executive branch alone:

  • Roll back civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ students
  • Roll back Title IX protections against sex-based discrimination
  • Dismantle the federal civil rights enforcement apparatus
  • Eliminate current income-driven repayment plans and require higher monthly payments for low-income borrowers
  • Remove protections from predatory colleges that leave students with excessive debt

Federal education policy has suffered from regulatory whiplash over the last decade, with presidential administrations launching counter-regulations to undo the executive actions of the prior administration. Take, for example, “gainful employment” regulations that Democratic administrations have used to limit eligibility for federal financial aid for colleges that leave students with excessive loan debt. A second Trump administration would likely seek to reverse the Biden administration’s “gainful employment” regulations like the first Trump administration did to the Obama administration’s rules. (Then again, with the Supreme Court striking down Chevron, which provided deference to agency expertise in setting regulations, the Trump administration might not even need to formally undo regulations.)

Other Project 2025 proposals, not explicitly about education, also could wreak havoc. This includes a major overhaul of the federal civil service. Specifically, Project 2025 seeks to reinstate Schedule F, an executive order that Trump signed during his final weeks in office. Schedule F would reclassify thousands of civil service positions in the federal government to policy roles—a shift that would empower the president to fire civil servants and fill their positions with political appointees. Much has been written about the consequences of decimating the civil service, and the U.S. Department of Education, along with other federal agencies that serve students, would feel its effects.

4. Project 2025 reflects a white Christian nationalist agenda as much as it reflects a traditional conservative education policy agenda

If one were to read Project 2025’s appeals to principles such as local control and parental choice, they might think this is a standard conservative agenda for education policy. Republicans, after all, have been calling for the dismantling of ED since the Reagan administration, and every administration since has supported some types of school choice reforms.

But in many ways, Project 2025’s proposals really don’t look conservative at all. For example, a large-scale, tax-credit scholarship program would substantially increase the federal government’s role in K-12 education. A Parents’ Bill of Rights would require the construction of a massive federal oversight and enforcement function that does not currently exist. And a proposal that “states should require schools to post classroom materials online to provide maximum transparency to parents” would impose an enormous compliance burden on schools, districts, and teachers.

Much of Project 2025 is more easily interpretable through the lens of white Christian nationalism than traditional political conservatism. Scholars Philip Gorski and Samuel Perry describe white Christian nationalism as being “about ethno-traditionalism and protecting the freedoms of a very narrowly defined ‘us’.” The Project 2025 chapter on education is loaded with proposals fitting this description. That includes a stunning number of proposals focused on gender identity, with transgender students as a frequent target. Project 2025 seeks to secure rights for certain people (e.g., parents who support a particular vision of parental rights) while removing protections for many others (e.g., LGBTQ+ and racially minoritized children). Case in point, its proposal for “Safeguarding civil rights” says only, “Enforcement of civil rights should be based on a proper understanding of those laws, rejecting gender ideology and critical race theory.”

These types of proposals don’t come from the traditional conservative playbook for education policy reform. They come from a white Christian nationalist playbook that has gained prominence in far-right politics in recent years.

At this point, it’s clear that the Trump campaign sees Project 2025 as a political liability that requires distance through the election season. Let’s not confuse that with what might happen during a second Trump administration.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Civil Rights, Cruelty, Disruption, Early Childhood Education, Education Industry, Elections, Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Equity, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Extremism, Funding, Privatization, Religion, Republicans, School Choice, Separation of church and state, Special Education, Vouchers

Carl J. Petersen: Selecting a New Member for the Los Angeles School Board

By dianeravitch
October 22, 2024 //
6

The legendary Jackie Goldberg is retiring from the Los Angeles school board, which means there is an open seat. Carl J. Petersen, an LAUSD parent, sent questions to both candidates for the seat, but only one answered.

Petersen writes:

Karla Griego

LAUSD Board District 5 covers Northeast Los Angeles from East Hollywood to Eagle Rock and extends through Koreatown and Pico-Union to include much of Southeast L.A. (“SELA”) from Vernon to South Gate and also part of South LA. With its representative, Jackie Goldberg, taking a well-deserved retirement, a rare open-seat election is occurring in November.

As voters begin receiving their ballots, the two remaining candidates, Karla Griego and Graciela Ortiz, have been given one last opportunity to answer questions about issues facing the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Throughout the campaign, Ortiz has failed to answer questions sent to her as part of the LAUSD Candidate Forum series and this last set of questions were no different. Griego continued to participate and her answers to the first half of the questions can be found below:

  • According to the District, charter schools currently owe $3,003,768 in delinquent overallocation fees, some of this debt is several years old. How would you force the District to ensure that these debts are paid?

Charter Corporations should not be allowed to continue expanding while carrying outstanding debt to our district and our students. I would propose specific limits to their expansion and contract renewals until such debts are paid off.

  • After telling the LAUSD School Board for years that state law required the District to classify classrooms used to provide Special Education services as “empty” and are, therefore, available to be given away when providing space under PROP-39, the Director of the Charter School Division admitted this year that it was, instead, the policy of the district. As a result, some of our most vulnerable children were receiving these services in closets and stairwells. How should Jose Cole-Guitierez, Director of the Charter School Division, be held accountable for misleading the Board?

It is unconscionable that Charter corporations have deceived our districts’ decision-makers and that LAUSD has not yet held Charter companies accountable. In conjunction with the community schools model, schools should have the decision-making power to use their facilities to best benefit their students, and not be at risk of space being taken to expand or co-locate charters.

  • The LAUSD is required to have a Homeless Liaison for each school per the McKinney Vento Homeless Assistance Act. What are the candidate’s positions on LAUSD partnering with the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment Homelessness Liaisons in Neighborhood Councils to notify our constituents about homeless services for students and their parents at their schools?

LAUSD should at the very least have a homeless liaison in each school, and be in communication with existing partners so that our students and their families are aware of homeless services available to them. But we need to do more. With rising housing costs in Los Angeles, LAUSD has the responsibility– and the ability–to address homelessness in creative ways that offer vital services to our students. This includes using vacant lots to build housing for our students and their families and partnering with community based organizations, city and county offices to address the homelessness crisis.

  • What statement(s) from the opposing campaign team would like to address?

My opponent claims that it is not her place to evaluate the Superintendent, her boss. I disagree. I believe that as an educator, and as a School Board member, it will be my responsibility to hold the Superintendent accountable to the students we serve and to the many qualified employees of the District. We need to focus on funding services for our students, not new digital platforms that no one asked for. We need to focus on serving our special education population, not overtesting our kids. We need to focus on providing enrichment, arts education, and mental health services to our students, not selling our kids out to more privately-run charters. We need to evaluate his decisions every step of the way, and demand better.

  • Given the rhetoric around cutting wasteful spending, please provide one specific part of the budget where you believe waste exists and how would you make cuts that would not affect the classroom?

It seems that there are too many high paid administrators at the District and Local District levels as well as contracts with outside consultants, marketing and testing companies. One of those contracts, the recent AI Bot named Ed, whose company filed for bankruptcy, is an example of expenditures that were made at the top level without stakeholder input.

  • One of the basic jobs of a School Board Member is to hire and fire the Superintendent. How should a Superintendent be evaluated?

Evaluation should be based on progress towards goals which are predetermined by the school board. These goals should be informed by stakeholder input and priorities. Beyond progress toward academic achievement, graduation and attendance, goals should include school climate and culture, safety, wellness and progress toward improving the overall educational experience of all of our students. Data toward these goals should be collected throughout the Superintendent’s tenure, to provide guidance and opportunities to make changes and improvements on actions designated to achieve these goals.

  • Nurses need equipment and the proper size office to care for students. Have all school Administrators established a HIPAA compliant Health Office where the nurse has confidential work space to talk with students, parents, staff members, and doctors regarding students health needs, reporting abuse or neglect? Do they have a private area to do procedures, other than in a bathroom which is not appropriate to do give a Insulin Injection, or to do a Gastronomy Tube feeding or to put the tube back into a student in a space large enough and as sterile or clean as possible?

I support equipping our nurses with the resources and facilities necessary at all schools to provide safe and secure health services to our students.

  • Do Special Education Centers and special day classes have a place in the District’s continuum of services. If not, why? If yes, what will you do to ensure that families have an ability to choose them during the IEP process?

Special Ed Centers and Special Day Classes should have a place in the District’s continuum of services. Although it is part of the IEP meeting discussion, it is not necessarily one that is delved into deeply. Sometimes parents do not understand the difference between programs and placements. An action step toward making this conversation meaningful and collaborative with the whole IEP team, is to provide information to help parents be aware of their rights. They must also be encouraged and empowered to participate in the meetings. An accountability piece is adding space in the IEP document that records the conversation; holding local regional meetings at least 4 times a year that informs and supports parents’/caregivers’ understanding of the IEP process, their rights and engagement in the process. Furthermore, this meeting would also inform families and students what various Special Education Programs are offered in the LAUSD.

  • There is a wide consensus that the IEP process has become increasingly adversarial. How will you ensure that parents are equal partners in guiding special education services?

Some of the first steps of action to remedy this, is to ensure that case carriers/teachers’ caseloads/class size is honored and respected. This way, teachers and case carriers can meet with family members to review the IEP process and meeting. Building relationships and respecting families/caregivers and approaching the IEP meeting from a place of compassion and understanding while centering the child’s needs, is critical to build trust. Meetings should include norms of collaboration that are agreed upon by the IEP team, which explicitly states that everyone on the team is an equal partner (although these norms exist, they are not always reviewed at IEP meetings.)

Additional responses from either candidate will be published as they are received. Griego’s previous participation in the LAUSD Candidate Forum Series can be found in the following articles: Special Education, PROP-39 Co-Locations, Student Safety, The Budget, Inclusion and Diversity, and Charter School Accountability.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Elections, Los Angeles, Parents, Special Education
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