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  • Oklahoma Bills Would Restrict Student Cellphone Use, Social Media, Sex Ed – The 74

    Oklahoma Bills Would Restrict Student Cellphone Use, Social Media, Sex Ed – The 74


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    OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma lawmakers filed hundreds of bills affecting education for the next legislative session.

    Oklahoma Voice collected some of the top trends and topics that emerged in legislation related to students, teachers and schools. The state Legislature will begin considering bills once its 2025 session begins Feb. 3.

    Bills would restrict minors’ use of cellphones and social media

    A poster reads, “bell to bell, no cell” at the Jenks Public Schools Math and Science Center on Nov. 13. The school district prohibits student cellphone use during class periods. (Nuria Martinez-Keel/Oklahoam Voice)

    As expected, lawmakers filed multiple bills to limit student cellphone use in public schools, an issue that leaders in both chambers of the Legislature have said is a top priority this year.

    The House and Senate each have a bill that would prohibit students from using cellphones during the entire school day. Some Oklahoma schools already made this a requirement while others allow cellphone access in between classes.

    After encouraging all districts to establish cellphone restrictions, Gov. Kevin Stitt visited multiple schools in November that have done so.

    Senate Bill 139 from Education Committee vice chair Sen. Ally Seifried, R-Claremore, would require all districts to ban students from accessing their cellphones from the morning bell until dismissal, and it would create a $2 million grant program to help schools enact phone-free policies.

    Legislation from a House leader on education funding, Rep. Chad Caldwell, R-Enid, would prohibit student cellphone use while on school premises.

    Multiple bills target children’s social media use. Sen. Kristen Thompson, R-Edmond, aims to ban social media accounts for anyone under 16 with SB 838 and, with SB 839, to deem social media addictive and dangerous for youth mental health. 

    A bill from Seifried would outlaw social media companies from collecting data from and personalizing content for a minor’s account, which a child wouldn’t be allowed to have without parent consent

    SB 371 from Sen. Micheal Bergstron, R-Adair, would require districts to prohibit the use of social media on school computers or on school-issued devices while on campus. SB 932 from Sen. Darcy Jech, R-Kingfisher, would allow minors or their parents to sue a social media company over an “adverse mental health outcome arising, in whole or in part, from the minor’s excessive use of the social media platform’s algorithmically curated service.”

    School chaplain bill reemerges

    Multiple lawmakers have refiled a bill seeking to enable religious chaplains to counsel students in public schools. A version of the controversial bill passed the House last year but failed in the Senate.

    Its original author, Rep. Kevin West, R-Moore, refiled it as House Bill 1232. Sen. Shane Jett, R-Shawnee, and Sen. Dana Prieto, R-Tulsa, filed similar school chaplain bills with SB 486 and SB 590.

    More restrictions suggested for sex education, gender expression

    Another unsuccessful bill returning this year is legislation that would have families opt into sex education for their children instead of opting out, which is the state’s current policy.

    Students wouldn’t be allowed to take any sex education course or hear a related presentation without written permission from their parents under SB 759 from Prieto, HB 1964 from Danny Williams, R-Seminole, and HB 1998 from Rep. Tim Turner, R-Kinta.

    Sen. Dusty Deevers, R-Elgin, would have any reference to sex education and mental health removed from health education in schools with SB 702.

    Prieto’s bill also would exclude any instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity from sex education courses. It would require school employees to notify a child’s parents before referring to the student by a different name or pronouns.

    Other bills similarly would limit students’ ability to be called by a different name or set of pronouns at school if it doesn’t correspond to their biological sex.

    Deevers’ Free to Speak Act would bar teachers from calling students by pronouns other than what aligns with their biological sex or by any name other than their legal name without parent consent. Educators and fellow students could not be punished for calling a child by their legal name and biological pronouns.

    Rep. Gabe Woolley, R-Broken Arrow, filed a similar bill.

    No public school could compel an employee or volunteer to refer to a student by a name or pronoun other than what corresponds with their sex at birth under SB 847 from Sen. David Bullard, R-Durant, nor could any printed or multimedia materials in a school refer to a student by another gender.

    Corporal punishment in schools

    Once again, Oklahoma lawmakers will consider whether to outlaw corporal punishment of students with disabilities. State law currently prohibits using physical pain as discipline on children with only the most significant cognitive disabilities.

    In 2020, the state Department of Education used its administrative rules to ban corporal punishment on any student with a disability, but similar bills have failed to pass the state Legislature, drawing frustration from child advocates.

    Sen. Dave Rader, R-Tulsa, was an author of last year’s bill to prohibit corporal punishment of students with any type of disability. He filed the bill again for consideration this session.

    HB 2244 from Rep. John Waldron, D-Tulsa, would require schools to report to the Oklahoma State Department of Education the number of times they administer corporal punishment along with the age, race, gender and disability status of the students receiving it. The state Department of Education would then have to compile the information in a report to the Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth.

    Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: [email protected].


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  • The Death of DEI (Margaret Kimberly, Black Agenda Report)

    The Death of DEI (Margaret Kimberly, Black Agenda Report)

    Black
    people must be discerning about racist attacks on DEI programs while
    also acknowledging that “diversity” can be a con that damages Black
    politics, just as it was meant to do.

    The sight of Al Sharpton
    holding a protest at a New York City Costco store is a sure sign that
    very problematic politics are being practiced. In this instance,
    Sharpton’s theatrics were inspired by the corporations which
    discontinued their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. DEI
    has been in conservative crosshairs with conservative think tanks and activists
    filing numerous lawsuits claiming that the programs are discriminatory.
    The same corporations who joined in the performative DEI programs when
    it was convenient have now run for cover. Costco is one of the few who
    didn’t and so got the seal of approval from Reverend Al.

    Corporate DEI programs came into vogue in 2020 in
    the wake of nationwide protest after the police killing of George Floyd.
    The fact that both white police and corporate CEOs were “taking a knee”
    allegedly in sympathy with protesters should have been a sign that
    anything emanating from these gestures was a joke at best and a betrayal
    at worst.

    According to a 2023 report ,
    only 4% of chief diversity officer positions in U.S. corporations were
    held by Black people, who also had the lowest average salaries. DEI
    mania was a public relations effort intended to stem Black protest while
    doing nothing to improve the material conditions of Black workers, even
    for those who were involved in this project. The usual hierarchies
    remained in place, with white men and women getting the top jobs and the
    most money. Also Black people were not the only group subject to DEI
    policies, as other “people of color,” women, and the LGBTQ+ community
    were also competing for a piece of the questionable action.

    In addition to the right wing legal attack, Donald Trump is so obsessed
    with ending DEI in the federal government that all employees connected
    with such programs were placed on administrative leave after one of his
    many executive orders were issued. Federal workers were instructed to report
    on their knowledge of any DEI activity that hadn’t been ferreted out.
    The Trump administration DEI ban means that agencies are being told not
    to even allow for any affinity events or celebrations. Although that
    idea might not be bad if it prevented the FBI from claiming to honor Martin Luther KIng , a man they surveilled, harassed, and encouraged to commit suicide. Not to be deterred in the Trumpian witch hunt, the Air Force
    briefly deleted information about the Tuskegee Airmen and Women Army
    Service Pilots (WASPs) from a basic training curriculum, only to return
    the information after public outrage emerged when military heroes,
    usually revered, were getting the usual rough treatment meted out to
    Black people.

    Yet it is difficult to ignore the Trump anti-DEI
    frenzy. At its core it is an effort to disappear Black people from
    public life altogether under the guise of protecting a white meritocracy
    which never existed. However, it would be a mistake to embrace a failed
    effort which succeeds only at liberal virtue signalling and creating a
    more diverse group of managers to help in running the ruling class machinery.

    DEI was a repackaging of affirmative action, a term
    which fell into disfavor after years of complaint from aggrieved white
    people and which was undone by Supreme Court decisions. Like affirmative
    action, it was a calculated response to serious political action,
    action which threatened to upend a system in dire need of disrupting and
    bringing the justice and the democracy that are so often bragged about
    yet that remain so elusive.

    As always, Black people are caught between the
    proverbial rock and hard place, not wanting to ignore Trumpian antics
    while also being wary of any connection with the likes of Al Sharpton.
    The confusion about what to do is rampant and mirrors the general sense
    of confusion about Black political activity.

    When the Target retail outlet ended its DEI
    programs there were calls for boycotts. Of course others pointed out
    that Target sold products created by Black owned companies
    which would be harmed by the absence of Black shoppers. All of the
    proposals are well meaning, meant to mitigate harm and to help Black
    people in their endeavors. Yet they all miss the point.

    The reality of an oppressive system renders such
    concerns moot. Racial capitalism may give out a crumb here and another
    there, and allow a few Black businesses some space on store shelves. If
    nothing else it knows how to preserve itself and to co-opt at opportune
    moments. Yet the fundamentals do not change. DEI is of little use. But
    by ending it, Trump evokes great fear in a group of people whose
    situation is so tenuous that it still clings to the useless and
    discredited Democratic Party to protect itself from Trump and his ilk.

    It is absolutely necessary to leave the false
    comfort of denial that gives the impression Trump is offering some new
    danger to Black people. The last thing Black people need is for the CIA
    or the State Department to hide their dirty deeds behind King birthday
    celebrations or Black History Month events. Black History Month should
    be a time when plans for liberation are hatched, making it unattractive
    to enemy government agencies to even consider using for propaganda
    purposes.

    The death of DEI should not be mourned. Its
    existence is an affront to Black peoples’ history and valiant struggles.
    DEI is just one of many means to keep us compliant and to give
    legitimacy to what isn’t legitimate. If Al Sharpton is marching anywhere
    the best course of action is to stay very far away.

    Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents . You can support her work on Patreon and also find it on the Twitter , Bluesky , and Telegram platforms. She can be reached via email at [email protected]



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  • Shaping higher education for commuter students

    Shaping higher education for commuter students

    For the first time, there are now more commuter students in the UK – students who continue to live at home whilst studying, rather than relocating to attend university – than traditional residential students.

    Surprised? You’re not alone. My research on commuter students suggests that even commuter students themselves don’t realise that there are others like them. In common with most of those who shape higher education pedagogy, policy, practices and plans for the future, they believe that they are a minority, an anomaly, inconsistent with the (presumed) majority of “normal,” residential students.

    The sector is increasingly waking up to the needs and experiences of commuter students, supported by the inclusion of commuters in the Office for Students Equality of Opportunity Risk Register in England – Emma Maslin has explored this further on the site.

    It is essential, for students, higher education institutions and the future viability of our sector, that we increase awareness of commuter students – who they are and what they need – and that we reshape higher education provision for this growing cohort.

    Students will benefit from a better experience and outcomes. Institutions will benefit from higher retention, league table position and therefore recruitment. The sector as a whole will benefit from greater financial stability and clear evidence to the government that we are meeting their priorities and truly expanding access and improving outcomes for non-traditional students.

    Who commutes – and why?

    Commuter students are diverse. However, there is a strong correlation between being a non-traditional student – those targeted by widening participation initiatives – and being a commuter student.

    This is because many of the reasons that students have historically been unable or unwilling to enrol in higher education are the same as those that make them unable or unwilling to relocate. These include affordability, being first in family to higher education, from a low-participation neighbourhood, having caring or family commitments, over 25. Commuters are also likely to be in employment, be home owners, to be studying part time, at lower-tariff universities. Finally, my research suggests that commuter students are more likely to be local students, not long-distance learners.

    This said, commuting isn’t always about widening participation. It is likely that the undersupply of student accommodation and resultant increasing prices, alongside the cost-of-living crisis, are encouraging traditional students to remain at home. There is also evidence to suggest that international and postgraduate students are more likely to be commuters, both key target markets for UK higher education institutions.

    Relocation as a predictor of success

    But why does this matter? Data tell us that commuter students have a poorer experience throughout the student lifecycle. Choice of institution, access to learning, resources, support and extra-curricular activities, are all restricted. Commuters are less able to engage with in-person learning activities and are isolated from their learning community.

    They feel less a sense of belonging, more a sense of burden. In consequence, commuter students have lower attainment, continuation and graduate outcomes than their residential counterparts.

    In part, this is because higher education has been designed without consideration of the need to travel. Pedagogy, policy and processes have historically been and continue to be shaped around residential students. Assessments, extracurricular activities, facilities, learning and wellbeing support, teaching activities, timetabling—all continue to be premised on the residential model, structured for the residential student, provided at a time and in a place that assumes that students live on or near to campus.

    What next?

    The first step is to see our commuters. Count them, to make them count. Make them visible, not only to decision makers and practitioners, but also to each other. Provide information for commuters, before, during and after application. Create a sense of belonging, building community through awareness, acceptance and actions such as repurposing unused parts of the estate, for commuter students – a common room, sleeping areas.

    Next, review all policies for accessibility, with particular focus on timetabling, attendance, learning and teaching, support services and skills development.

    Make changes where necessary, enabling students to maximise access, whilst minimising travel. Rethink in-person learning and make attendance worth it. Consider online learning, but avoid hybrid learning and include on-commute learning options.

    Myth busting

    For commuter students, access to learning isn’t just about distance. It’s not even just about transport. We need to look at the acceptability, accessibility, affordability and availability of transport. However, we also need to recognise that access and participation are also about students’ activities, responsibilities and relationships, outside of the classroom.

    The data tell us that our commuter students are struggling to adapt to pedagogy, policies and practices that are based on the assumption that they will relocate to attend university. Our ability to adapt our provision to their needs is likely to be key to the future sustainability of many of our institutions, if not the sector as a whole.

    This article is the first in our series on commuter students where we’ll explore their student journey and what support institutions and the sector can provide to enhance their experience. If you’d like to get involved in the series, we’d welcome further contributions, email [email protected] to pitch us an article.

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  • Report from Eloy Detention Center (Rebel Diaz)

    Report from Eloy Detention Center (Rebel Diaz)

    A report about mass incarceration in Eloy, Arizona, from Rebel Diaz, the Chilean American political hip hop duo of Rodrigo Venegas (RodStarz) and Gonzalo Venegas (G1). For 18 years, Rebel Diaz has used their music to educate, agitate, and organize working class folks across the globe.  Much of their music is here. 

    Un informe sobre el encarcelamiento masivo en Eloy, Arizona, de Rebel Diaz, el dúo de hip hop político chileno-estadounidense formado por Rodrigo Venegas (RodStarz) y Gonzalo Venegas (G1). Durante 18 años, Rebel Diaz ha utilizado su música para educar, agitar y organizar a la clase trabajadora en todo el mundo.

    Related links:

    Rebel Diaz TV on YouTube

    Rebel Díaz’ Rodrigo Starz: Empowering Communities with New FREE FAMILY PORTRAITS Album (Latino Rebels)

    Rebel Diaz: A musical legacy of activism

    Department of Justice stops federally-funded legal aid, affecting detained Arizona immigrants (AZPM)

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  • Chicago Public Schools Launches Long-Awaited Site to Show How Schools Are Doing – The 74

    Chicago Public Schools Launches Long-Awaited Site to Show How Schools Are Doing – The 74


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    Chicago Public Schools launched new school profiles on its website — a milestone in the district’s five-year push to change how it portrays the quality of its campuses.

    The new school accountability dashboards replace the district’s controversial number ratings for schools, which CPS put on hold and then scrapped during the pandemic. Those ratings had drawn the ire of educators and some community members, who said they unfairly stigmatized campuses that serve students with high needs. The old level ratings had also factored into high-stakes decisions about school closures and staff overhauls.

    Some parents who’ve provided feedback on the shift said families welcome having a one-stop repository of information on school performance again. But they said they’d like to see simpler, more accessible language in information about the metrics the district included to put the numbers into context. And they noted that a busy parent must click repeatedly to get to each metric — only to find out in many cases that these numbers aren’t available yet.

    Bogdana Chkoumbova, the district’s chief education officer, said the new system aimed to strike a balance.

    “We didn’t want this to be just another state report card; we are embracing the complexity of the data,” she said. “If it looked like a one-pager in red and green, that just brings in the trauma.”

    The new profiles went up in mid-December, the day after the window to apply to the district’s selective and magnet programs closed. Chkoumbova said the timing was not intentional. After all, families could find most of the information available on the dashboards so far on schools’ Illinois Report Card profiles.

    For now, the profiles include only a portion of the data they’ll eventually feature — mostly traditional metrics such as test scores, chronic absenteeism, and graduation rates. Later this year, the district is gearing up to add long-anticipated information that gets at students’ experience and well-being — metrics that in some cases officials are still weighing how to best capture.

    Still, CPS leaders say the launch of the new dashboards is an important start. They can be a handy tool as the members of a new, partly elected school board learn about the district and its schools. District officials plan to show off the profiles at the board’s monthly meeting on Thursday.

    “We are transitioning to a completely new way of how we view student success and the district’s role in supporting schools,” said Chkoumbova.

    The dashboards are available here by scrolling to the bottom and looking up a school.

    The new profiles are five years in the making

    Chicago first set out to overhaul how it measures and publicly communicates about school quality in 2019. At that time, school board members called on district officials to do away with the School Quality Rating System, or SQRP, policy, which many considered too focused on metrics that are affected by poverty levels and other demographics of the student body. The district formally adopted a new Continuous Improvement and Data Transparency policy in 2023.

    With input from academics, parents, and others, the district tried to design a more holistic approach, bringing in a wider array of metrics, including some that got at the experience students have on campus — and at whether the district is providing schools the resources they need to improve that experience.

    After years of largely behind-the-scenes work, the new dashboards went live quietly in December, giving principals and other educators a chance to weigh in.

    Claiborne Wade, the father of four CPS students, served on a district committee that provided input on the new accountability system. He said he is a big believer in the district’s efforts to take a more holistic look at school performance.

    “It’s more than test scores and attendance rates and graduation rates,” he said. “Those are important, but so is making sure we have funds for extracurricular activities and parents have a seat at the table.”

    Last week, Wade presented the new dashboards to a group of 10 parents actively involved at DePriest Elementary on the West Side, where he works as a family coordinator as part of the Sustainable Community Schools program. Some liked that the new dashboards offer information about each metric and how to interpret it. But many felt these explanations were too heavy on education jargon and terms such as “alternate assessments.”

    Jaqueline Vargas, the mother of two CPS students and two district graduates, said the site asks parents to do too much navigating — especially given that many metrics are not landing on the dashboard until later this year.

    “You have to click a lot, but when you finally get there, the information isn’t there,” said Vargas, who also served on the district’s Transparency Committee.

    She said she would love to see more information on parent leadership groups and parent engagement more generally, photos of principals, and readily accessible listings of the specialized programs and support services a campus offers. One of her CPS graduates was really interested in cooking while in high school, but the family had no idea that even though their neighborhood high school did not offer a culinary program, two nearby campuses did.

    Hal Woods, chief of policy with the parent advocacy group Kids First Chicago, said the dashboards are clearly a work in progress. The layout can be more user-friendly. The metrics available so far are largely what SQRP offered, though the recently released dashboards do include some new information, such as whether a school has quality curriculums.

    Parents are eager to see the full set of metrics later this year, Woods said — including those that show how schools are providing social and emotional support to students, a task that recent research has shown greatly affects outcomes such as high school graduation.

    The district aims to better measure the student experience

    Like districts across the country, CPS is still grappling with how to measure the student experience on campus more fully, said Elaine Allensworth of the University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research. For the past two years, the district has given students a survey called Cultivate, which was developed by Allenworth’s team at the university. But she says the survey was designed to give teachers information about students’ experiences in their classrooms — not as an accountability tool for families and others.

    “There’s a concern that if the survey becomes public, teachers would feel under pressure to make their schools look good and won’t feel as comfortable using it for their own development,” she said.

    The district also explored how to best present another key piece of the student experience: extracurricular activities. The district could likely do more than simply listing the activities a school offers, Allensworth said. The new dashboards show the portion of students who participate in any activities. But are these activities high-quality? Are outside partners chipping in?

    Chkoumbova said the district will continue to work on improving the platform. In late February, it will include new data on the growth toward math and reading proficiency on state tests that students make — a metric that Ellensworth said is much more telling about how well a school is doing than the portion of students who meet state standards on these tests.

    Chkoumbova feels CPS is on the right track.

    “We are trailblazers,” she said. “There are very few systems that have taken such an innovative and different approach.”

    Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.


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  • The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights (Dylan C. Penningroth)

    The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights (Dylan C. Penningroth)

    From the Stanford Humanities Center: 

    As part of our online Inside the Center series, Dylan C. Penningroth, a 2013–14 SHC fellow, discusses his latest book, “Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights.” Joining him in conversation is historian and Stanford professor James T. Campbell. Through an empirically rich historical investigation into the changing meaning of civil rights, “Before the Movement” seeks to change the way we think about Black history itself. Weaving together a variety of sources—from state and federal appellate courts to long-forgotten documents found in county courthouse basements, from family interviews to church records—the book tries to reveal how African Americans thought about, talked about, and used the law long before the marches of the 1960s. In a world that denied their constitutional rights, Black people built lives for themselves through common law “rights of everyday use.”

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  • Higher Education Inquirer : Higher Education Inquirer: Increasingly Relevant

    Higher Education Inquirer : Higher Education Inquirer: Increasingly Relevant

    The Higher Education continues to grow. We believe our growth stems largely from our increasing relevance and in our truth telling, which other higher education news outlets are unwilling to do in these times.

    Our devotion to transparency, accountability, and value for our readers guides us. 

    We invite a diverse group of guest authors who are willing to share their truths. The list includes academics from various disciplines, advocates, activists, journalists, consultants, and whistleblowers. We back up all of this work with data and critical analysis, irrespective of politics and social conventions. We are willing to challenge the higher education establishment, including trustees, donors, and university presidents.

    Our articles covering student loan debt, academic labor, nonviolent methods of protest, and freedom of speech are unparalleled. And we are not shy about including other issues that matter to our readers, including stories and videos about mental health, student safety, technology (such as artificial intelligence), academic cheating, and the nature of work.  And matters of of war, peace, democracy, and climate change. 

    Our focus, though mainly on US higher education, also has an international appeal. 

    Some of our work takes years to produce, through careful documentation of primary and secondary sources, database analysis, and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. We share all of this information for everyone to see, at no cost.  

    Of course, we could not operate without all your voices. We welcome all your voices. Something few other sources are willing to do.    

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  • WEEKEND READING: Change is our ally by Professor Sir Chris Husbands

    WEEKEND READING: Change is our ally by Professor Sir Chris Husbands

    This blog has been kindly written for HEPI by Professor Sir Chris Husbands, who was Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University between 2016 and 2023, and is now a Director of  Higher Futures, working with university leaders to lead sustainable solutions to institutional challenges.

    The scale of the funding challenge in higher education is widely known, though almost every week brings news of fresh challenges and responses. Real term funding for undergraduate teaching in 2025 is close to 1997 levels – levels which led the Blair government to introduce £1,000 top-up fees. Some commentators have argued that the scale of the challenge now is as great as the 1981 cuts in government funding for universities, which reduced spending on universities by 15%, and saw Salford University lose 44% of its income.

    As contemporary funding challenges have intensified, growth options have become more difficult:

    • international student numbers have either stalled or declined;
    • undergraduate growth, although evident, has not tracked demographic trends;
    • the Office for Students has identified persistent optimism bias in the sector’s funding projections; and
    • competitive pressures are multiplying.

    In many countries, flexible for-profit providers are growing fast, especially in professional and post-graduate education. Many of these are backed by funds with deep investment pockets; some UK for-profit providers are growing very quickly and the expansion of private provision in Germany, France and Canada has been remarkable. In summary, the funding challenge is not only real but increasingly profound.

    Institutional responses to these challenges have been extensive. Almost all universities are now undertaking significant change programmes. There have been major strides in revising operating models, especially for professional and support services, and the impact has been significant. On the other hand, although portfolio reviews are widespread, there have been fewer developments in reshaping business models for teaching and research, though some do exist. Core delivery arrangements largely remain based on a two-semester or three-term model. Staff-student ratios which, as the King’s College Vice-Chancellor Shitij Kapur has repeatedly emphasised are low by international standards, have not been significantly shifted. Undergraduate study remains relatively inflexible. Module sharing and simplified credit transfer arrangements remain small scale. Estate use has not been significantly intensified. All this suggests that individual institutions are finding it difficult to look at the challenge strategically with an eye to the longer term shape, size, structure and nature of the university. There is a lot happening in individual change plans, but probably not enough. Without a secure and sustainable core academic model, institutions will be forced into repeated restructurings, which will not be comfortable for them or for the sector more generally.  

    This is the background to the important Jisc-KPMG report Collaboration for a sustainable future, which was the subject of a this week’s HEPI / Jisc webinar. For all the evidence of individual institutional change, the report argues that a collaborative approach is needed to secure sustainability and reshape the sector. Institutions need to find ways to work together, in back-office functions, in professional services and perhaps in academic delivery. The report acknowledges that there are technical difficulties to overcome, including the requirement to pay VAT on shared services and the need to navigate competition law, though these need to be genuinely tested in practice, but it also argues that the deeper barriers to effective collaboration are cultural. 

    The ingrained habit of individual autonomy, even and perhaps especially in non-competitive services (as Nick Hillman reinforced, no one chooses their undergraduate degree based on the university’s finance system) is a major barrier to significant change.  Moreover, the report acknowledges that collaboration and shared service arrangements are unlikely to deliver cost savings in the short-term – and just now a good deal of thinking in the sector seems to be shaped by Keynes’ dictum that ‘in the long-run we are all dead’. Institutions are caught between the economic realities of the funding challenge and the cultural challenges of collaboration.

    In Four Futures, my HEPI paper published in June last year, I argued that the financial and funding circumstances which produced the sector we have no longer exist. Government is unwilling or unable to pay for the sector most university leaders would like. I argued that there were some policy choices for higher education, and that the sector will almost certainly be different in the future. There are public policy questions here, but there are also questions and challenges for institutions. That means strategic choices for leaders, with universities being much clearer about the things they can do well, and do well sustainably, and building different relationships with other institutions. Leadership matters. As the Jisc / KPMG report observes:

    Given the current trajectory, there is a window of opportunity for institutions to act now and help drive this forward before they are compelled into action by necessity.

    Competition over the past decade has undoubtedly delivered benefits, and we should not understate those, especially in estate investment, student experience, teaching quality and research performance. But competition has also delivered homogeneity, duplication and overlap, and that needs to change.   And for that, as the Jisc / KPMG report identifies, the leadership culture needs to change. Hyper-competitiveness has driven institutionally focused leadership behaviours and associated performance indicators, targets and rewards. But there have been different leadership assumptions in higher education in the past, and other sectors have grappled with the challenge of changing leadership culture. The most successful school improvement initiative of the past generation was London Challenge, in which the performance of schools across the capital was significantly raised. One of the most important shifts was a cultural one, persuading headteachers to think not about ‘my school’ but about ‘[all] our children’: success across the system was a leadership challenge for all.

    The Jisc / KPMG Report is strong on the potential for collaboration to shape the future of the system, though it also makes painful reading on the challenges which have bedevilled this in the past. In the current context, government is unlikely to provide additional funding. The private sector could no doubt provide standardised sector-wide services, but the risks of a single supplier for key services are enormous. If government is not the solution, if the private sector is not the solution, if the status quo is not sustainable, the answer must be imaginative and engaged leadership which is not simply about ‘my institution’ but also about ‘our future’.

    This week’s HEPI / Jisc webinar on ‘Competition or collaboration? Opportunities for the future of the higher education sector’ can be watched back here.

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  • Education Department will enforce 2020 Title IX rule

    Education Department will enforce 2020 Title IX rule

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    Dive Brief:

    • The U.S. Department of Education has told colleges and school districts they should follow the 2020 Title IX rule for investigating sex discrimination in schools, closing the chapter on a Biden administration rule that faced much legal turmoil. 
    • In a Friday “Dear Colleague” letter, Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said that under the 2020 rule, the interpretation of “sex” means being born male or female. 
    • The letter also clarified that any open Title IX investigations initiated under the 2024 Title IX Rule should be immediately reevaluated to comply with the requirements of the 2020 rule.

    Dive Insight:

    Trainor said the change is based on a federal judge’s decision in early January that struck down the 2024 rule as unconstitutional across the country. That Biden administration rule for the first time extended Title IX civil rights protections to LGBTQI+ students and employees at federally funded schools and colleges — including by prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. 

    Released in April 2024, the rule drew legal challenges, and courts blocked the regulations in at least 26 states.

    Trainor also stated that the 2024 rule conflicts with a Jan. 20 executive order from President Donald Trump that requires all federal agencies and departments to recognize just two sexes — male and female — when it comes to “sex-protective” laws. 

    “As a constitutional matter, the President’s interpretation of the law governs because he alone controls and supervises subordinate officers who exercise discretionary executive power on his behalf,” Trainor’s letter said.

    Supporters of the 2020 rule, developed under the first Trump administration, praised the letter.

    Chad Wolf, executive vice president of the America First Policy Institute, said that under the 2020 rule, women and girls were “unjustly and illegally” denied access to sex-segregated athletic opportunities and intimate spaces. Linda McMahon, President Trump’s nominee for U.S. education secretary, is chair of the board at AFPI. 

    “Female athletes were seriously injured competing against males, and many were forced to undress in front of males,” Wolf said in a statement. “It was a misguided policy that did real harm, and this new guidance puts an end to it.”

    But opponents to the 2020 rule voiced concern, saying it puts students at greater risk of harassment and discrimination.

    “This is an incredibly disappointing decision that will leave many survivors of sexual violence, LGBTQ+ students, and pregnant and parenting students without the accommodations critical to their ability to learn and attend class safely,” said Emma Grasso Levine, senior manager of Title IX policy and programs at Know Your IX, in a statement. “Schools must step up to protect students in the absence of adequate federal guidance.”

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  • Accreditors brace for Trump’s promised higher ed shakeup

    Accreditors brace for Trump’s promised higher ed shakeup

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    WASHINGTON — On the 2024 campaign trail, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump accused the nation’s faculty of being “obsessed with indoctrinating America’s youth” and declared, “The time has come to reclaim our once great educational institutions from the radical Left.”

    His administration’s “secret weapon” in this conflict would be the accreditation system for colleges and universities. 

    “When I return to the White House, I will fire the radical Left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics,” he said in a July 2023 campaign video. “We will then accept applications for new accreditors who will impose real standards on colleges once again and once and for all.”

    Earlier this week, officials and professionals from the accreditation system that Trump vowed to upend met in Washington, D.C., for the Council for Higher Education Accreditation’s annual conference to discuss the major topics facing the sector — not least among them being the second Trump administration that took office a week earlier.

    Along with the wholesale replacement of accreditors that Trump promised, plenty of other aspects of accreditation work could change under the new administration and with a Republican majority in Congress. Here is a look at some of the big political and policy questions under discussion. 

    Working with a new Education Department

    The U.S. Department of Education recognizes accreditors, which in turn vet and accredit institutions, rendering them eligible for Title IV federal financial aid, such as student loans and Pell Grants. 

    That makes the department’s relationship with accreditors of paramount importance to the latter group, and it would make the department the agent for enacting Trump’s policies. 

    “There will be — and we don’t know the scope of it yet — efforts to use accreditors to advance the administration’s policies, particularly around areas of DEI,” Jon Fansmith, senior vice president of government relations and national engagement at the American Council on Education, said during a panel Wednesday.

    One of Trump’s campaign pledges was to remove “all DEI bureaucrats” from higher education. As a senator, Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, introduced a federal bill last year that would have barred accreditors from enacting DEI requirements at colleges. A bill with a similar aim passed the House last year, but died in committee in the Senate. 

    With the change in administration will come a new Education Secretary. Fansmith described Trump’s pick to head the Education Department, Linda McMahon, as “pragmatic.” He also said her stint as head of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term went “remarkably smoothly.”

    “There are reasons to think that where she has weighed into the [higher ed] policy space, there’s opportunities to work with her,” Fansmith added.

    As for Trump’s stated desire to eliminate the department altogether? “Spoiler, the department won’t be abolished,” Fansmith said. 

    Jan Friis, CHEA’s senior vice president for government affairs, pointed out that the first bill proposing the elimination of the Education Department so far during the current House of Representatives term had no cosponsors. 

    Further attacks on DEI

    Colleges across the country have faced a Republican-led crusade against their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts over the past few years — and those attacks are only poised to grow stronger under the Trump administration. 

    On the first full day of his presidency, Trump issued an executive order calling for agencies to identify organizations, including colleges with endowments worth over $1 billion, for potential investigations into their DEI work. 

    The mounting backlash against DEI means that higher education leaders will have to frame “compelling narratives” about their equity work to help people see what they’re doing and why, Debra Humphreys, vice president of strategic engagement at Lumina Foundation, told conference attendees Tuesday.

    “How do we talk about all of that work in a way that more people can understand?” Humphreys said. “That’s become harder.”

    That’s because people who hear words like “equity” and “inclusion” often fall into two camps, Humphreys said.

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