Category: Elementary to High School

  • The Trump administration’s biggest impact on education in 2025 

    The Trump administration’s biggest impact on education in 2025 

    by Nirvi Shah, The Hechinger Report
    December 18, 2025

    Even with a conservative think tank’s blueprint detailing how the second Trump administration should reimagine the federal government’s role in education, few might have predicted what actually materialized this year for America’s schools and colleges. 

    Or what might be yet to come. 

    “2025 will go down as a banner year for education: the year we restored merit in higher education, rooted out waste, fraud and abuse, and began in earnest returning education to the states,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon told The Hechinger Report. She listed canceling K-12 grants she called wasteful, investing more in charter schools, ending college admissions that consider race or anything beyond academic achievement and making college more affordable as some of the year’s accomplishments. 

    “Best of all,” she said, “we’ve begun breaking up the federal education bureaucracy and returning education control to parents and local communities. These are reforms conservatives have championed for decades — and in just 12 months, we’ve made them a reality.” 

    Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter featuring the most important stories in education. 

    McMahon’s characterization of the year is hardly universal. Earlier this month, Senate Democrats, led by independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, called out some of the administration’s actions this year. They labeled federal changes, especially plans to divide the Education Department’s duties across the federal government, dangerous and likely to cause chaos for schools and colleges. 

    “Already, this administration has cancelled billions of dollars in education programs, illegally withheld nearly $7 billion in formula funds, and proposed to fully eliminate many of the programs included in the latest transfer,” the senators wrote in a letter to Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, chair of the committee that oversees education. “In our minds, that is unacceptable.” 

    So, what really happened to education this year? It was almost impossible for the average observer to keep track of the array of changes across colleges and universities, K-12 schools, early education and education research — and what it has all meant. This is a look back at how the education world was transformed. 

    Related: Tracking Trump: How he’s dismantling the Education Department and more 

    Higher education

    The administration was especially forceful in the higher education arena. It used measures including antidiscrimination law to quickly freeze billions of dollars in higher education research funding, interrupting years-long medical studies and coercing Columbia, Brown, Northwestern and other institutions into handing over multimillion-dollar payments and agreeing to policy changes demanded by the administration.

    A more widespread “compact” promising preference for federal funding to universities that agreed to largely ideological principles had almost no takers. But in the face of government threats, universities and colleges scrapped diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs that provided support based on race and other characteristics, and banned transgender athletes from competing on teams corresponding to genders other than the ones they were assigned at birth.

    As the administration unleashed its set of edicts, Republicans in Congress also expanded taxes on college and university endowments. And the One Big Beautiful Bill Act made other big changes to higher education, such as limiting graduate student borrowing and eliminating certain loan forgiveness programs. That includes public service loan forgiveness for graduates who take jobs with organizations the administration designated as having a “substantial illegal purpose” because they help refugees or transgender youth. In response, states, cities, labor unions and nonprofits immediately filed suit, arguing that the rule violated the First Amendment. 

    The administration has criticized universities, colleges and liberal students for curbing the speech of conservatives by shouting them down or blocking their appearances on campuses. However, it proceeded to revoke the visas of and begin deportation proceedings against international students who joined protests or wrote opinions criticizing Israeli actions in Gaza and U.S. government policy there.  

    Meanwhile, emboldened legislatures and governors in red states pushed back on what faculty could say in classrooms. College presidents including James Ryan at the University of Virginia and Mark Welsh III at Texas A&M were forced out in the aftermath of controversies over these issues. — Jon Marcus

    Related: How Trump 2.0 upended education research and statistics in one year  

    K-12 education

    Since Donald Trump returned to office earlier this year, K-12 schools have lost millions of dollars in sweeping cuts to federal grants, including money that helped schools serve students who are deaf or blind, grants that bolstered the dwindling rural teacher workforce and funding for Wi-Fi hotspots. 

    Last summer, the Trump administration briefly froze billions of dollars in federal funding for schools on June 30, one day before districts would typically apply to receive it. Although the money was restored in late July, some school leaders said they no longer felt confident they’ll receive all expected federal funds next year. And they are braced for more cuts to federal budgets as the U.S. Department of Education is dismembered.

    That process, as well as the end goal of returning the department’s responsibilities to the states, has raised uncertainty about whether federal money will continue to be earmarked for the same purposes. If the state of Illinois is in charge of federal funding for every school in the state, said Todd Dugan, superintendent of a rural Illinois district, will rural schools still get money to boost student achievement or will the state decide there are more pressing needs?  

    As part of layoffs at the Education Department during the government shutdown in the fall, the Trump administration cut loose almost everyone who works in the Office of Special Education Programs, alarming many parents and advocates. About 7.5 million children ages 3 to 21 are served under federal law protecting students with disabilities, and the office had already lost staffers after the Trump administration dismissed nearly half the Education Department’s staff in March. Some worry this additional round of layoffs is a big step toward moving oversight of how states treat students with disabilities to the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Even as the Trump administration attempts to push more control over education to the states, it has aggressively expanded federal power over school choice and transgender student rights in public schools. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act will create a federal school voucher program, allowing taxpayers to donate up to $1,700 for scholarships that families can use to pay for private school. The program won’t start until 2027, and states can choose whether to participate — setting up potentially divisive fights over new money for education in Democratic-controlled states. 

    Already, some Democratic-led states have come to the defense of schools in funding and legal fights with the federal government over transgender athletes participating in sports. The U.S. departments of Education and Justice launched a special investigations team to look into complaints of Title IX violations, targeting school districts and states that don’t restrict accommodations or civil rights protections for transgender students. Legal experts expect the U.S. Supreme Court to ultimately decide how Title IX — a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education — applies to public schools.

    The federal government directly runs just two systems of schools — one for military families and the other for children of tribal nations. In an executive order signed in January, the president directed both systems to offer parents a portion of federal funding allocated to their children to attend private, religious or charter schools. 

    And as part of the dismantling of the federal Education Department, the Interior Department — which oversees 183 tribal schools across nearly two dozen states — will assume greater control of Indian education programs. In addition to rolling out school choice at its campuses, the department will take over Indian education grants to public schools across the country, Native language programs, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian programs, tribally controlled colleges and universities, and many other institutions. — Ariel Gilreath and Neal Morton

    Related: Trump administration makes good on many Project 2025 education goals

    Early education

    Early education was not at the top of Trump’s agenda when he returned to office. On the campaign trail, when asked if he would support legislation to make child care affordable, he gave an unfocused answer, suggesting tariff revenue could be tapped to bring down costs. Asked a similar question, Vice President JD Vance suggested that care by family members was one potential solution to child care shortages. 

    However, many of the administration’s actions, including cuts to the government workforce and grants, have affected children who depend on federal support. In April, the administration abruptly closed five of 10 regional offices supporting Head Start, the free, federally funded early childhood program for children from low-income families. Head Start program managers worried they would be caught up in a freeze on grant funding that affected all agencies. Even though administration officials said funds would keep flowing to Head Start, some centers reported having problems drawing down their money. The prolonged government shutdown, which ended Nov. 12 after 43 days, also forced some Head Start programs to temporarily close. 

    Though the shutdown is over, Head Start advocates are still worried. Many of the administration’s actions have been guided by the Project 2025 policy document created by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Project 2025 calls for eliminating Head Start, which serves about 715,000 children from birth to age 5, for a savings of about $12 billion a year. 

    The One Big Beautiful Bill Act contained some perks for parents, including an increase in the child tax credit from $2,000 to $2,200. The bill also created a new program called Trump accounts: Families can contribute up to $5,000 each year until a child turns 18, at which point the Trump account will turn into an individual retirement account. For children born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028, the government will provide a $1,000 bonus. Billionaires Michael and Susan Dell have also promised to contribute $250 to the account of each child ages 10 and under who lives in a ZIP code with a median household income of $150,000 or less. 

    That program will launch in summer 2026. — Christina A. Samuels

    Contact staff writer Nirvi Shah at 212-678-3445, on Signal at NirviShah.14 or [email protected].   

    This story about the Trump administration’s impact on education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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  • What parents, teachers say about Trump’s policies on education

    What parents, teachers say about Trump’s policies on education

    by Caroline Preston, The Hechinger Report
    December 18, 2025

    Child care workers, students and teachers shared dismay over Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that are disrupting learning. School superintendents and college presidents described how uncertainty around federal funding is making their jobs far trickier. 

    Others — including a charter school leader and a for-profit college president — told The Hechinger Report they were grateful for recent changes to education policy, including a new emphasis on school choice and on the importance of workforce education. 

    Those were just a few of the many reactions we heard from 17 parents, students, educators and others around the country when we asked about the impact of President Donald Trump’s actions this year on their schools and communities. Several people told us that with the federal government stepping back from many of its long-standing responsibilities in education, they and their communities were taking on new roles. 

    Below are excerpts from the interviews, which have been lightly edited for clarity and length.      

    Sylvelia Pittman, math interventionist, Henry H. Nash Elementary School, Chicago Public Schools 

    Under this administration we have witnessed ICE being in our neighborhoods. ICE detained two parents of our students. The husband of one of my colleagues was detained and deported to Mexico. The husband of another colleague was questioned at work because he’s half Latino, half white. So it’s hit hard. And then with the cuts that have been made to the Education Department, those have hit my school. We have a large population of special education students. We are about 35 percent Latino and the rest of our students are Black. Many of our families receive SNAP benefits and they were affected. Trump withheld $8 million from our schools because of the mayor’s Black Student Success Plan, for students to continue to learn their history and bring more Black teachers into schools. It’s almost like we’ve taken hit after hit. It’s just as stressful as when we had Covid. We have had to come to grips with the idea that we must take care of our own. It’s going to be up to us, to city officials. Homelessness, health care, mental health — all of these things have to be addressed at the state and local level, because we can’t wait for the federal government to get it right. 

    — Caroline Preston

    TJ Katz, sophomore at Columbia University in New York, which reached a deal with the Trump administration restoring $400 million in federal funding frozen due to allegations of discriminatory conduct, including a failure to protect Jewish students during protests over the Israel-Hamas war

    Campus feels completely different than two years ago. All of the protests have stopped. The Trump administration effectively eliminated them. Whether you want to say Columbia cares about antisemitism, they definitely fear what it would mean to have $400 million stripped away from their budget. As a Jewish student on campus, I would absolutely say I’m glad that the change happened. As someone who’s a massive proponent of democracy and free speech, I have qualms about it. What if there was an administration that didn’t align with what I think is just? We now have a precedent set where the administration could snap their fingers and say this is what has to happen on campuses now. It is slightly scary the precedent that’s been set and the power a president now has over higher education in America. 

    — Meredith Kolodner 

    Ian Rowe, founder of Vertex Partnership Academies, a charter school in New York City, which Linda McMahon toured earlier this year in her first public school visit as education secretary 

    In the Trump administration, there’s a greater affinity for the concept of school choice. That alone is a huge breath of fresh air. There are other things, too — for example, the federal tax credit scholarship. On the surface, it may not seem like that would benefit charter schools, but it does. The money could pay for tuition for a student to attend a private religious school or it could cover SAT prep, tutoring — and that goes to any kind of parent. You could have parents in a public charter school who now have the additional resources to be able to pay for the kinds of things that a lot of middle- and upper-class families are doing to supplement education for their kids. 

    With the Department of Education already heavily gutted, it’s had zero impact on us — literally zero impact. But even if there’s not a formal federal Department of Education, there are a couple of different functions that are important. One is as the scorekeeper: There absolutely needs to be an assessment, annual or biannual, where you can consistently compare 2026 to 2024 to 2022 to 2020. That’s crucial because we do need, every couple years, a sense of what percent of our kids are reading against a common standard. I also think there is value in having kind of a best practices reservoir so that the federal government can be the place to show, ‘Here’s some innovative work going on in Indiana vs. New York.’ But in general, there’s a very limited number of things that I think could really add value in education at the federal level. 

    — Nirvi Shah

    Meka Mo, millennial comedian and nonprofit worker in New York City who took out student loans for undergraduate and graduate school  

    I’m one of the people who should be receiving public service loan forgiveness, but that’s in limbo and tied up in court right now. We don’t know what’s going to happen. So honestly, it’s kind of a mess, and no one’s paying attention to it, because everyone has, like, one thousand other things going on. Basically all our financial futures are being fought out in the courts right now. It’s like they’re not trying to have social upward mobility in the country. 

    — Marina Villeneuve 

    Leticia Wiggins, librarian at the Center for Ethnic Studies at Ohio State University, which closed its Office of Diversity and Inclusion and Center for Belonging and Social Change in response to the Trump administration’s threats to withhold funding from schools that use race-conscious practices in programs, scholarships and other areas of campus life 

    Those were places where people could go and feel a sense of community and that they belonged somewhere, and now those spaces no longer exist. Some of the student communities have been sort of dissolved — students feel at a loss for where to go. We’re still trying to conduct business as usual and make up for what’s lacking, but everything is just getting more threatened in terms of what we’re even able to talk about. 

    — Meredith Kolodner 

    Todd Dugan, superintendent of Bunker Hill Community Unit School District 8 in Illinois, which saw roughly $22,000 in Title II federal funds frozen for services to recruit, retain and train teachers

    I’ve been a superintendent for 14 years. It’s definitely getting harder. It’s taking a job that’s already hard and getting harder, and making it harder still. And it appears that it’s being done needlessly. The freezing and clawing back of Title II was announced on June 30, when usually we apply for it on July 1. And then they finally released it the second week of August. It was a lot of extra work making things difficult for a job that is already difficult. I don’t know what the game was, because Title II funding didn’t get clawed back. It just made everybody anxious. 

    — Ariel Gilreath

    Michael A. Elliott, president of Amherst College, in Massachusetts 

    I see an impact in the growing anxiety of our international students, faculty and staff members. Many are questioning whether there is a safe and stable place for them on our campus or in this country. These uncertainties touch every part of their lives — academic, personal and professional. They influence decisions about research, travel and connections with family, and they undermine the sense of belonging and security that is essential to a place like Amherst. When members of our community carry this kind of persistent fear, the effects are felt by all of us who care about them and want to support them as extraordinary classmates and colleagues. 

    — Lawrie Mifflin 

    Kyshanna Patman, a North Carolina mother of four children who works from home

    It’s been a crazy year, especially since he’s been in office, with the food stamp benefits being delayed, Medicaid — it’s crazy. And then the things they’re saying about autism. My 4-year-old is autistic and it’s really, really crazy how they’re making the assumption about women taking Tylenol and causing autism. It has not been a good experience since he’s been in office.

    When SNAP benefits were delayed, I was struggling trying to come up with the money to keep food in the house. I have four kids in the house and they need to eat. I mainly made sure they had enough before I tried to eat anything myself.

    And with the Medicaid work requirements, I just don’t understand. It shouldn’t have to be a requirement for people to have Medicaid. People have preexisting conditions. You’re talking about a work requirement just for people to be seen. It doesn’t make any sense. 

    There’s too many changes he’s trying to do. They’re not trying to listen to what people have to say. People put you in [office]. He’s supposed to be listening to us and working for us instead of being stricter. You’re supposed to be helping and he’s not doing that. He’s doing the complete opposite. 

    — Jackie Mader 

    Leslie Cornick, provost and vice president of academic affairs at California State University, Chico, which lost funding for teacher training after the Trump administration canceled two grant programs of roughly $600 million, citing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives

    One of the challenges we are still continuing to follow up on is the loss of the Teacher Quality Partnership and SEED grants that support stipends for students who are going into teacher education programs and becoming teachers in rural counties and communities. Many of those students are Latinx and are coming to Chico State to become teachers so they can go back into their rural communities that desperately need teachers.

    We lost $700,000 or so. We couldn’t run the entire fall cohort of that program this year because access to those grants is still being litigated. We’re making the case for why these grants are so important and why they should not be discontinued. But in the meantime, we don’t have the money and so we can’t support the students. That means we are losing students that we will never get back. And there’s an impact not only on that individual student, but on that student’s family, generationally, and on our economy in the state of California because we’re not getting those teachers out into those rural communities that need them.

    From my perspective, it’s critically important that we continue to engage the administration in dialogue and help them understand especially the value of the regional public institutions. 

    — Olivia Sanchez

    Nicole Greene, a special education teacher at Scarsdale Middle School, in New York

    The landscape of special education has changed dramatically in the 13 years that I’ve been teaching, and that’s thanks to the ample research and the amount of effort that can go into advancing the field, advancing the profession. Without that, how do teachers get better? How do we learn more about how students learn best? Maybe we can agree that grants are good for furthering the field.

    A child should be able to go to any state in the country and their needs should be supported based on federal law in equal measure. At the end of the day, the argument that we are going to leave it up to the states just means that they can interpret IDEA however they see fit, without anyone ensuring that that’s in compliance with what was written. That’s a dangerous place to leave kids. 

    — Christina A. Samuels

    Daniel Cordova, junior at Edmonds-Woodway High School in the Edmonds School District in Washington state, which enrolls many children of migrant parents who work on nearby farms

    It’s scary times right now. You leave school, and you don’t know if you’re going to see your friends the next day because they might have some orders from the government to go back to their country. One of my friends is an immigrant. He’s worried like crazy about being deported. My friend’s mother has a deportation order. They’re struggling a lot right now. We feel it across the whole school. 

    It kind of changes the atmosphere. There’s less trust. It doesn’t feel safe, I would say. 

    — Neal Morton

    Brad Kuykendall, CEO of the for-profit Western Technical College, in El Paso, Texas 

    I point back to the executive order issued in April that dealt with preparing Americans for high-paying skilled trade jobs for the future. For far too long, there’s been a lack of acknowledgement of the importance of career, technical and trade schools. We were looked at as a lesser option for students, and to a degree, that’s still the case. But I think we’re starting to see that change a bit. The refocus and reemphasis — not as the only option, but as one of the many options — is very healthy for our economy as a whole and for our nation to continue to grow.

    Under the Biden administration, we did feel like there was definitely not as friendly of an environment [for for-profit colleges] to operate in. I did feel that we were underrepresented in many of the negotiated rulemaking sessions in the previous administration on regulations that impacted us far more than any other institution. We were one or two out of 15 seats at the table, so trying to come to consensus about a regulation in that environment was just very difficult. Going into negotiated rulemaking [to develop regulations under the ’big, beautiful bill’], I think there’s more fair representation at the table, and it’s a more balanced approach. 

    — Meredith Kolodner 

    Mike Shaver, president and CEO at Brightpoint, an Illinois nonprofit that operates child-focused programs, including free, federally funded Head Start centers and home-based Early Head Start services 

    It’s impossible to escape that this administration has not exactly done a great job at supporting poor families when you look at what happened with the struggle over SNAP benefits. And in our state, the increased ICE enforcement activities have had a profound impact. We have seen attendance levels drop.

    In November, an early learning employee — not someone in our program — got out of her vehicle, was walking into the facility where she was an instructor, and ICE agents followed her in, removed her from the building and detained her. It’s really hard to overstate what that kind of image does, not only for the staff who show up every day to meet the needs of these families, but also the families themselves. This is just a lot of added stressors for families, in addition to the challenges that already brought them to our Head Start programs. 

    — Jackie Mader

    Tiffany Tangel, a disability advocate and parent of three — including two children with dyslexia and other learning differences — in western New York 

    I’m closely watching what’s happening with IDEA. Trump said he was going to move it to Health and Human Services. A lot of people are worried about that. There’s a lot of disabilities that have nothing to do with health in that way. My kids have dyslexia. When it was newly diagnosed for my oldest, I went to our pediatrician and asked for resources on dyslexia, for places I could go for help, and they said we don’t know and the school should be helping you.

    I’m also working to restart our school’s special education PTA. Our school had one, but it closed in 2020. With so much unknown in terms of what’s next for our kids, a group of us just felt like now it was needed more than ever. Our hope is to be a place for the parents, because when you have kids in special education, it can be very lonely, and you feel very isolated. And then we really do want to focus on the teachers, because we know as soon as resources are cut, the teachers are feeling it.

    You’ve got to keep advocating at a federal level, at a state level, but it’s going to come down to your individual level, too. 

    — Christina A. Samuels

    Aiden Sirk, high school senior, Lawrenceburg, Indiana

    Conservatives, they’re not about, ‘We don’t want kids to have an education,’ — it’s that we want to make sure that we’re doing it in the most efficient way possible. And with the Department of Education cut, what they’re making sure they’re doing is that we are still going to have Pell Grants, we’re still going to have FAFSA, I can see that’s OK. There is a lot of bureaucracy at the Department of Education.

    A lot of these workers, they’re getting paid and they’re not even coming into the office like they were pre-pandemic. So we didn’t really need all that workforce. But then again, there is a proper way to do things. You can’t just dictate: ‘We’re shutting it down.’ You have to go through Congress. You have to go through the courts. And you have to do it the right way. So yes, I see it’s reasonable, but the way they’re doing it is not reasonable. 

    — Christina A. Samuels

    Heather Shotton, new president of Fort Lewis College, in rural Durango, Colorado, where nearly 40 percent of students are Native American. The college is a Native American-Serving, Nontribal Institution. Shotton is an enrolled citizen of the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes 

    Fort Lewis lost $2.27 million in Title III money for Native American-serving institutions. The money paid for academic success initiatives: summer bridge programs, peer educators, various academic supports. That impacts our entire campus. Yes, it helped Indigenous students, but it also helped all of our students. It’s part of the federal government trust responsibility to support Native students. The majority of our Native students are not at tribal colleges and universities. And the majority of tribal colleges are two-year colleges. The shifting of money from Native-serving institutions to tribal colleges — itʼs one-time money, spread across 36 institutions. 

    — Nirvi Shah

    Sevan Minassian-Godner, third-year student at the University of California, Irvine and president of Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi and Jewish campus organization Hillel 

    Oct. 7 was a really big event on our campuses, and there was a lot of antisemitism floating around. But that kind of petered off after the first year, and we’re now at a point where it’s much less than it was my first year. But I wouldn’t necessarily attribute that to the Trump administration. I just think we’re further from the incident and from the encampments. I will say that we have experienced an uptick in right-leaning antisemitism recently; there are more groups on campus now that are participating in right-leaning antisemitism. I think that’s become more OK with the Trump administration in office. And I actually do attribute it a lot to Charlie Kirk’s death, too. I think that that ignited a lot of people early on in the year. People are more openly antisemitic, and especially on the right, and this kind of far-right white supremacist ideology, I think, has found its way into a lot more people’s hearts recently. 

    — Meredith Kolodner 

    Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at [email protected].

    This story about education policies and the Trump administration was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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  • Trump administration checks off many Project 2025 education goals

    Trump administration checks off many Project 2025 education goals

    by Christina A. Samuels, The Hechinger Report
    December 18, 2025

    Last year, Project 2025 was a conservative wish list: a grab bag of proposals large and small that would transform the federal government, including in education.

    Months later, many of those wishes have become reality. That includes, at least in part, Project 2025’s ultimate goal of doing away with the Education Department.

    The department still exists — getting rid of it completely would require congressional action— but it is greatly diminished: Much of the department’s work is being farmed out to other federal agencies. Half of its workforce of about 4,100 people have left or been fired. And Education Secretary Linda McMahon wrote after her confirmation that she was leading the department’s “final mission.”

    Eliminating the Education Department was just one of many goals, however. While the administration did not meet all the other tasks in this “to-do” list below, compiled by The Hechinger Report and taken directly from Project 2025, there’s still three more years to go.

    Early childhood

    Eliminate Head Start: NO. Head Start, which provides free preschool for low-income children, still exists, though some individual centers had problems accessing their money because of temporary freezes from the Department of Government Efficiency and the prolonged government shutdown. The federal government also closed five of 10 Head Start regional offices, which collectively served 22 states.

    Pay for in-home child care instead of universal (center-based) daycare: NO. Project 2025 states that “funding should go to parents either to offset the cost of staying home with a child or to pay for familial, in-home childcare.” There have been no moves to fulfill this goal, but the budget reconciliation bill the president signed in July increased the child tax credit and introduced “Trump Accounts” for children under age 18.

    Expand child care for military families: YES. The National Defense Authorization Act, passed on Dec. 17 and sent to the president for his signature, authorizes over $491 million to design and build new child care centers for these families, among other provisions. The Department of Defense provides child care to military families on a sliding scale based on income. However, about 20 percent of military families who need child care can’t get it because there is not enough space.  

    Give businesses an incentive to provide “on-site” child care: NO. Project 2025 states that “across the spectrum of professionalized child care options, on-site care puts the least stress on the parent-child bond.” 

    K-12 education

    Move the National Center for Education Statistics to the Census Bureau; transfer higher education statistics to the Labor Department: NO. Education data collection remains at the Education Department. However, the agency’s capacity has been sharply reduced following mass firings and the termination of key contracts — a development not envisioned in Project 2025. At the same time, Donald Trump directed the center to launch a major new data collection on college admissions to verify that colleges are no longer giving preferences based on race, ethnicity or gender.

    Expand choice for families by making federal funding portable to many school options: PARTIAL. In January, the president signed an executive order encouraging “educational freedom.” One of the order’s provisions requires the departments of Defense and Interior — which run K-12 schools for military families and tribal communities, respectively — to allow parents to use some federal funding meant for their children’s education at private, religious and charter schools. However, that initiative for Indian schools ended up being scaled back after tribes protested. The “big, beautiful” spending bill signed in July created a national voucher program, but states have to opt in to participate.  

    Send money now controlled by the federal government, such as Title I and special education funding, to the states as block grants: NO. In the current fiscal year, about $18.5 billion in Title I money flowed to districts to support low-income students. States received about $14 billion to support educating children with disabilities. Project 2025 envisions giving states that money with no strings attached, which it says would allow more flexibility. While the administration has not lifted requirements for all states, it is considering requests from Indiana, Iowa and Oklahoma that would allow those states to spend their federal money with less government oversight. Also, in his fiscal 2026 budget proposal, Trump floated the idea of consolidating several smaller education programs, such as those supporting rural students, homeless students and after-school activities, into one $2 billion block grant. That would be far less than the combined $6.5 billion set aside for these programs in the current budget. 

    Reject “radical gender ideology” and “critical race theory,” and eliminate requirements to accept such ideology as a condition of receiving federal funds: YES. Immediately after Trump was sworn into office, he reversed a Biden administration rule that included protection of LGBTQ+ students under Title IX, which bans sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities that receive federal money. Trump also signed an executive order threatening to withhold federal dollars from schools over what the order called “gender ideology extremism” and “critical race theory.” In the months since, the administration launched Title IX investigations in school districts where transgender students are allowed to participate on sports teams and use bathrooms that align with their gender identity. It sent letters to schools across the country threatening to pull funding unless they agree to its interpretation of civil rights laws, to include banning diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies and initiatives. The Education Department also pulled federal research grants and investigated schools and colleges over DEI policies it calls discriminatory. 

    Pass a federal “parents’ bill of rights,” modeled after similar bills passed at the state level: NO. House Republicans passed a Parents’ Bill of Rights Act two years ago, which would have required districts to post all curricula and reading materials, require schools receiving Title I money to notify parents of any speakers visiting a school, and mandate at least two teacher-parent conferences each year, among other provisions. The Senate did not take it up, and lawmakers have not reintroduced the bill in this session of Congress. About half of the states have their own version of a parentsʼ bill of rights.

    Shrink the pool of students eligible for free school meals by ending the “community eligibility provision” and reject universal school meal efforts: NO. Under current rules, schools are allowed to provide free lunch to all students, regardless of their family’s income, if the school or district is in a low-income area. That provision remains in place. The Trump administration has not changed income eligibility requirements for free and reduced-price lunch at schools: Families that earn within 185 percent of the federal poverty line still qualify for reduced lunch and those within 130 percent of the poverty line qualify for free lunch.

    Higher education

    Roll back student loan forgiveness and income-driven repayment plans: PARTIAL. Three income-driven repayment plans will be phased out next year and a new one — the Repayment Assistance Plan — will be added. RAP requires borrowers to make payments for 30 years before they qualify for loan forgiveness. The administration also reached a proposed agreement to end even earlier the most controversial repayment plan known as SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education). Trump officials have referred to the SAVE plan as illegal loan forgiveness. Under the plan, some borrowers were eligible to have their loans cleared after only 10 years, while making minimal payments.

    End Parent PLUS loans: PARTIAL. These loans, which parents take out to help their children, had no limit. They still exist, but as of July 2026, there will be an annual cap of $20,000 and a lifetime limit of $65,000 per child. Grad PLUS loans, which allow graduate students to borrow directly on behalf of themselves, are being phased out. Under the Repayment Assistance Plan, graduates in certain fields, such as medicine, can borrow no more than $50,000 a year, or $200,000 over four years.

    Privatize the federal student loan portfolio: NO. The Trump administration reportedly has been shopping a portion of the federal student loan portfolio to private buyers, but no bids have been made public. Project 2025 also called for eliminating the Federal Student Aid office, which is now housed in the Education Department and oversees student loan programs. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the Treasury Department would be a better home for the office, but no plans for a move have been announced. 

    End public service loan forgiveness: NO. PSLF allows borrowers to have part of their debt erased if they work for the government or in nonprofit public service jobs and make at least 120 monthly payments. The structure remains, but a new rule could narrow the definition of the kinds of jobs that qualify for loan forgiveness. The proposed rule raises concerns that borrowers working for groups that assist immigrants, transgender youth or provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians, for example, could be disqualified from loan forgiveness. The new rule would go into effect in July.

    Rescind Biden-era rules around sexual assault and discrimination: YES. The Department of Education almost immediately jettisoned changes that the Biden administration had made in 2024 to Title IX, which governs how universities and colleges handle cases of sexual assault and discrimination. Under the Biden rules, blocked by a federal judge days before Trump’s inauguration, accused students were no longer guaranteed the right to in-person hearings or to cross-examine their accusers. The Trump Education Department then returned to a policy from the president’s first term, under which students accused of sexual assault will be entitled to confront their accusers, through a designee, which the administration says restores due process but advocates say will discourage alleged victims from coming forward.

    Reform higher education accreditation: YES. In an executive order, Trump made it easier for accreditors to be stripped of their authority and new ones to be approved, saying the existing bodies — which, under federal law, oversee the quality of colleges and universities — have ignored poor student outcomes while pushing diversity, equity and inclusion. Florida and Texas have started setting up their own accreditors and said the administration has agreed to expedite the typically yearslong approval process. The Department of Education has earmarked $7 million to support this work and help colleges and universities switch accreditors. 

    Dismantle DEI programs and efforts: PARTIAL. Though the administration called for eliminating college DEI programs and efforts, most of the colleges that have shut down their DEI offices have done so in response to state-level legislation. Around 400 books removed from the Naval Academy library because of concerns that they contained messages of diversity or inclusion, but most of the books were ultimately returned. The National Science Foundation canceled more than 400 grants related to several topics, including DEI. 

    Jill Barshay, Ariel Gilreath, Meredith Kolodner, Jon Marcus, Neal Morton and Olivia Sanchez contributed to this report. 

    This story about Project 2025 and education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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  • 11 numbers that capture the Trump effect on education

    11 numbers that capture the Trump effect on education

    by Sarah Butrymowicz, The Hechinger Report
    December 18, 2025

    About 1.5 million people teach on college campuses in the United States, and nearly 4 million teachers work in its public elementary and secondary schools. More than 15 million undergraduates attend U.S. colleges and universities. There are more than 50 million school-age children across the country.   

    They all have one thing in common: Federal education policy affects their lives. 

    President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon say they want to close the Department of Education and return control of education to the states. At the same time, however, they have aggressively, and rapidly, wielded federal power over schools. 

    Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter featuring the most important stories in education. 

    Here’s a look at some key data points from the first year of Trump’s second term that represent the outsized effect this presidency has had on the nation’s educational institutions and the people within them.

    — 15 —

    Number of executive orders Trump signed that exclusively address colleges or schools 

    In 2017, the first year of his first term, Trump signed two executive orders related to education. This year, he signed three times that number on just a single day in April.

    Among his most notable executive orders was one early in his term requiring the Department of Education to begin dismantling itself. He also established an Artificial Intelligence Education Task Force and asked cabinet members to provide him with a plan to end “radical indoctrination” in schools. Other executive orders have addressed school discipline, transgender athletes, registered apprenticeships and foreign influence on college campuses. 

    Another set of executive orders indirectly affected schools. For instance, the Department of Education interpreted an order about undocumented immigrants to require limiting access to some adult and career and technical education programs. And separately, in a presidential memorandum, Trump ordered universities to begin reporting the race of their applicants and admitted students, not just those who enroll in the fall. 

    — 26 —

    Number of investigations into K-12 transgender policies announced by the Education Department

    At the K-12 level, the administration has given no issue more attention than policies that govern which bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams transgender students can access. In all, the department has announced at least 26 such investigations, including into six state education agencies and three statewide athletic associations. 

    By comparison, the Trump administration announced eight investigations into antisemitism at elementary and secondary schools and four cases of alleged racial discrimination that hurts white teachers or students. 

    In higher education, it’s the inverse: Just five investigations into transgender issues have been announced, while dozens of cases of antisemitism and racial discrimination are being investigated. 

    — 50+ —

    Number of education-specific lawsuits filed against the Trump administration

    It’s not unusual for presidential administrations to be sued: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton brags about suing the Biden administration 100 times. But the first year of Trump’s second term has been marked by unprecedented legal activity related to his administration’s education actions, according to a review of court documents and other lawsuit trackers. Trump, McMahon and the Department of Education have been sued over efforts to fire employees and dismantle the department, freeze funding and cancel grants, and end diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

    The administration’s track record defending itself in court has been mixed, but it scored a major victory when the Supreme Court allowed its March layoffs of hundreds of Education Department staffers. However, courts have blocked some efforts to ban diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, forced the federal government to pay out some once-frozen grants and allowed Harvard to continue enrolling foreign students. 

    — 1,950 —

    Number of employees who left the Department of Education in the spring

    When Trump took office, the Education Department had more than 4,100 employees. Soon after, those numbers started dropping. In the first seven weeks of the new administration, 572 staffers voluntarily resigned. In March, 1,378 more employees were let go. Many offices were decimated without a clear plan for how or if their work would continue. 

    The National Center for Education Statistics, for example, went from about 100 staffers to three. That office is responsible for collecting data on the nation’s schools and colleges and administering the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Or take the Office for Civil Rights, which is in charge of investigating complaints about civil rights violations, including sexual harassment, racial discrimination and failure to provide an adequate education to students with disabilities. Seven of its 11 regional offices were shuttered and, in all, it lost nearly half its staff. (In December, some of those staffers were temporarily called back to help reduce a backlog of cases.) 

    The administration notified another 466 employees they were being let go during the government shutdown in October. Those positions were reinstated, however, as part of a congressional deal to reopen the government. The department also launched a plan to move large swathes of its work to other agencies, including the departments of Labor, State and Health and Human Services. 

    The Education Department did not respond to several requests for information about how many people are working at the agency now.

    — 5 — 

    Number of regional Head Start offices closed

    As part of the administration’s sweeping reductions in force, five out of 10 regional Head Start offices were abruptly closed and all employees fired in April. The offices, all in blue states, help oversee the free child care services provided by local early education programs for low-income children. In all, the five offices had been responsible for oversight of 318,000 — or 44 percent — of Head Start slots. 

    That wasn’t the only upheaval Head Start programs faced this year. At the end of January, the Trump administration directed agencies to temporarily freeze federal funding for thousands of financial assistance programs, including Head Start. Soon after, the White House said the program was exempt, and later it withdrew the order altogether. (A federal judge eventually ruled the entire directive was illegal.) But dozens of centers serving more than 20,000 children reported weeks-long delays in accessing federal money, with some forced to close temporarily. Then, during the government shutdown in the fall, centers serving 9,000 kids had to close their doors, some for several weeks, according to tracking by the First Five Years Fund.

    — 17% — 

    Decline in new international student enrollment in fall 2025

    The Trump administration’s attacks on foreign students with political views it disliked made international headlines this spring, as it targeted students protesting the Israel-Hamas war for deportation and announced plans to scour the social media accounts of new visa applicants. It also imposed travel restrictions and delayed some processing of student visas. The result is a slower pipeline of new foreign students coming to the United States, according to data from the Institute of International Education.

    The decrease in new international students was driven by graduate students, whose enrollment declined most sharply. But because most returning students stuck with their U.S. education plans, the overall number of foreign students (including those engaged in jobs related to future or past higher education enrollment) ticked down just 1 percent. Still, that’s a big deal for colleges and universities: Graduate students make up the lionʼs share of international enrollment and are a major source of revenue for many colleges. International students typically do not get financial aid, paying full price to attend. 

    — $1,700 —

    Maximum tax break an individual can get for donating to school choice scholarships

    Trump’s signature legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, was a major win for school choice advocates: It created a new federal school voucher program. The law sets up tax credit scholarships — vouchers — families can use to pay for private school tuition, tutoring or other educational expenses. Parents will also be able to use the money to cover homeschooling costs. Starting in 2027, individuals can get a tax credit of up to $1,700 for donations to nonprofits that provide the scholarships. Those nonprofits, in turn, will be in charge of handing out the money. 

    States must opt in if they want schools within their respective borders to be able to participate. At least three states so far have said they will decline, but more than 20 others have already established their own tax credit scholarship programs and are expected to sign up when the federal option becomes available. 

    — 6,353 —

    Number of complaints the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights dismissed between mid-March and mid-September

    In one six-month stretch, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights dismissed more than 6,000 complaints without an investigation, according to a September court filing. By contrast, the Biden administration did the same with 2,527 cases in its final three months. 

    The Trump administration has said in court filings it is following longstanding policies for dismissing cases. Former employees and advocates counter that the jump in dismissals suggests student and parent complaints are not being adequately probed, and that layoffs are affecting an agency that has long struggled to keep up with its caseload. 

    The rate at which the Trump administration reaches a final resolution in the cases it does investigate has significantly slowed. Between mid-March and mid-September, OCR resolved 581 complaints through mediated settlements, voluntary agreements or technical assistance. Another 138 were resolved after an investigation did not find evidence of violations. Those numbers are roughly the same as the last three months of the Biden administration (595 and 119 respectively).

    — $153 million —

    Amount of grant money the administration is spending to promote civics education 

    The Education Department said in September it gave more than $153 million to 85 grantees to work on civics education. That’s a major increase: Since this grant program launched in 2017, just 38 grants worth about $75 million had been awarded in all. 

    Promoting patriotic education is one of McMahon’s goals. “Patriotic education presents American history in a way that is accurate, honest, and inspiring,” her agency said in a September announcement prioritizing discretionary spending on this issue. “It emphasizes a unifying and uplifting portrayal of the nation’s founding ideals.” 

    McMahon also started the America 250 Civics Education Coalition, in preparation for next year’s anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The coalition is made up largely of conservative organizations including Turning Point USA, Moms for Liberty, Hillsdale College and Priests for Life. 

    — $5.8 billion —

    Minimum amount of federal research funding cut or frozen

    Federal research dollars, many of which flow to colleges and universities, were cut way back this year. It’s difficult to calculate exactly how much was lost; this money comes from many agencies and some remains mired in legal battles. The website Grant Witness, run by a group of researchers, tracks canceled or frozen grants. Its data shows that more than $5.1 billion in National Institutes of Health money that had yet to be spent was earmarked for colleges or universities, as was nearly $700 million from the National Science Foundation. (Some of that funding may have been restored.)

    Those agencies were two of the largest sources of federal grants to higher education, but not the only ones. More than $425 million in National Endowment for the Humanities grants, many of which are awarded to colleges, were canceled. (Those cuts were later found to be unlawful.) The Department of Agriculture canceled tens of millions of dollars in higher education research funding, and the Environmental Protection Agency also terminated such grants. 

    The picture doesn’t look better for year two of Trump’s term: The White House has proposed cutting all federal research funding by a third — a decrease of more than $33 billion from 2025. 

    — 0 —

    Number of colleges that have signed the Trump ‘Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education’

    The Trump administration has been aggressive in trying to bend higher education to its will. In October, officials reached out to nine universities, including some of the country’s most selective institutions, with a deal. The schools could be first in line for federal money if they agreed to a litany of demands including: 

    • Publishing standardized test scores for admitted students by race, sex and ethnicity
    • Capping foreign student enrollment at 15 percent
    • Prohibiting transgender females from using women’s locker rooms and bathrooms 
    • Freezing tuition for five years

    So far, none have accepted the offer, with seven universities rejecting it outright. The University of Texas at Austin and Vanderbilt University did not publicly rebuke the compact, but did not sign it. New College of Florida, which was not one of the nine, said it would sign if given the chance. Other universities signed separate agreements with the administration to unfreeze federal money. Columbia University, for example, paid $221 million and accepted a host of conditions to regain access to billions of federal dollars. 

    Contact investigations editor Sarah Butrymowicz at [email protected] or on Signal: @sbutry.04.

    This story about Trump’s effect on education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.  

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  • As Justice Department priorities shift, concerns about protection of students’ civil rights escalate

    As Justice Department priorities shift, concerns about protection of students’ civil rights escalate

    by Sarah Butrymowicz, The Hechinger Report
    December 14, 2025

    The 10-year-old was dragged down a school hallway by two school staffers. A camera captured him being forced into a small, empty room with a single paper-covered window. 

    The staffers shut the door in his face. Alone, the boy curled into a ball on the floor. When school employees returned more than 10 minutes later, blood from his face smeared the floor.

    Maryland state lawmakers were shown this video in 2017 by Leslie Seid Margolis, a lawyer with the advocacy group Disability Rights Maryland. She’d spent 15 years advocating for a ban on the practice known as seclusion, in which children, typically those with disabilities, are involuntarily isolated and confined, often after emotional outbursts. 

    Even after seeing the video, no legislators were willing to go as far as a ban. Nor were they when Margolis tried again a few years later.

    In 2021, however, the federal Justice Department concluded an investigation into a Maryland school district and found more than 7,000 cases of unnecessary restraint and seclusion in a two-and-a-half-year period. 

    Four months later, Maryland lawmakers passed a bill prohibiting seclusion in the state’s public schools, with nearly unanimous support.

    “I can’t really overstate the impact that Justice can have,” said Margolis. “They have this authority that is really helpful to those of us who are on the ground doing this work.”

    Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter featuring the most important stories in education. 

    Within the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is a small office devoted to educational issues, including seclusion, as well as desegregation and racial harassment. The division intentionally chooses cases with potential for high impact and actively monitors places it has investigated to ensure they’re following through with changes. When the Educational Opportunities Section acts, educators and policymakers take notice.

    Now, however, the Trump administration is wielding the power of the Justice Department in new and, some say, extreme ways. Hundreds of career staffers, including most of those who worked on education cases, have resigned. The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights also has been decimated, largely through layoffs. The two offices traditionally have worked closely together to enforce civil rights protections for students. The result is a potentially lasting shift in how the nation’s top law enforcement agency handles issues that affect public school students, including millions who have disabilities. 

    “There are those who would say that this is an aberration, and that when it’s over, things will go back to the way they were,” said Frederick Lawrence, a lecturer at Georgetown Law and former assistant U.S. attorney under President Ronald Reagan. “My experience is that the river only flows in one direction, and things never go back to the way they were.”

    Related: Tracking Trump: His actions to dismantle the Education Department, and more

    The Justice Department’s lawyers historically have worked on a few dozen education cases at once, concentrating on combating sexual harassment, racial discrimination against Black and Latino students, restraint and seclusion, and failure to provide adequate services to English learners. 

    In the last 11 months, however, the agency has sued over and opened investigations into concerns about antisemitism, transgender policies and bias against white people at schools. It sued at least six states for offering discounted tuition to undocumented immigrants and pressured the president of the University of Virginia to resign as part of an investigation into the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies. And it joined other federal departments to form a special Title IX investigations team to protect students from what the administration called the “pernicious effects of gender ideology in school programs and activities.”  

    As the Educational Opportunity Section’s mission shifted, it shrunk in size. In January, before President Donald Trump took office, about 40 lawyers tackled education issues. In the spring, the U.S. Senate confirmed Harmeet Dhillon as leader of the Civil Rights Division. Dhillon founded the conservative Center for American Liberty, which describes itself as “defending civil liberties of Americans left behind by civil rights legacy organizations.”

    After her confirmation, staff who weren’t political appointees began resigning en masse, concerned Dhillon would promote only the administration’s agenda. 

    By June, no more than five of the 40 lawyers were left, according to former employees. Some new staff have been hired or reassigned to the section, but the head count remains well below usual. It’s far from enough to sustain the typical workload, said Shaheena Simons, who was chief of the Educational Opportunities Section until she resigned in April. “There’s just no way the division can function with that level of staffing. It’s just impossible,” said Simons, who took over the section in 2016. “The investigations aren’t going to happen. Remedies aren’t going to be sought.” 

    Department officials responded to a list of questions from The Hechinger Report about changes to their handling of student civil rights protection with “no comment.” 

    The Department of Justice, including its educational work, has always been somewhat subject to White House interests, said Neal McCluskey, director of the libertarian Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom. During President Joe Biden’s term, for example, the agency pursued allegations of discrimination against transgender students, reflecting administration priorities. 

    McCluskey added, though, that the Trump administration is more aggressive in how it is pursuing its goals and is bypassing typical protocols, noting that in many cases “it’s like they’ve already decided the outcome.”  

    Related: Which schools and colleges are being investigated by the Trump administration?

    An investigation into allegations of antisemitism at the University of California, Los Angeles, for instance, took just 81 days before the department concluded the school had violated federal law. DOJ investigations typically have taken years, not months, to complete. 

    Lawrence, who also serves as president of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, said he could not speak to specific investigations, but the UCLA timeline “does suggest a rather accelerated process.”

    A federal judge recently ruled that the administration could not use the findings from its UCLA investigation as a reason to fine the university $1.2 billion, which if paid would have unlocked frozen federal research funding. She wrote that the administration was using a playbook “of initiating civil rights investigations of preeminent universities to justify cutting off federal funding.” 

    As new investigations are opened, older ones remain unresolved, including one of practices in Colorado’s Douglas County Public Schools.

    In 2022, Disability Law Colorado submitted a complaint to the Justice Department about the district’s use of seclusion, as well as restraint, where school employees physically restrict a student’s movement.

    The following year, three other families sued the school system, alleging racial discrimination against their children. The students were repeatedly called monkeys and the N-word, threatened with lynchings and “made by teachers to argue the benefits of Jim Crow laws,” according to the complaint.

    Related: Red school boards in a blue state asked Trump for help — and got it

    The Department of Justice decided to investigate both issues. Four staffers were assigned to the restraint and seclusion investigation, said Emily Harvey, co-legal director at Disability Law Colorado.  

    As part of the inquiry, Justice officials visited the district twice. The second time was during the final week of Biden’s presidency. 

    After that visit, Douglas County didn’t hear anything about the investigation from the Trump administration until a mid-May email. “Good morning,” it read. “We are having some staffing changes.”

    The email, which The Hechinger Report obtained through a public records request, said that going forward, the district could contact two staffers on the restraint and seclusion case. The racial harassment case would be reduced to only one employee until another Justice staffer returned from leave in the fall. 

    One Douglas County parent, who asked her name be withheld because she is afraid of retaliation from the district, said that although she knew the investigation could take a couple of years, the longer it goes without a resolution, the more children could be harmed. 

    “The justice system is just moving so incredibly slow,” she said. 

    The parent said she knows of dozens of families who have dealt with restraint and seclusion issues in the district. Her own son, she said, was secluded in kindergarten. “He was scared of the person who put him in there. He kept saying, ‘I can’t go back,’” she said. “I never envisioned, until my son was secluded, a world where the school would not care about my child.” 

    When Harvey, of Disability Law Colorado, first contacted the Department of Justice, she hoped for statewide reform. She wanted to see a ban on seclusion, like Margolis had helped secure in Maryland, and for the state to commit to more accurate tracking of use of restraints. The way Colorado law is written, restraints must be recorded only if they last more than a minute. Douglas County, the second largest in the state with 62,000 students, reported 582 restraints to the Colorado Department of Education in the 2023-24 school year. The number of shorter-term restraints, however, is unknown. 

    “We believe this is an arbitrary distinction,” Harvey said. “My hope was that the Department of Justice would potentially weigh in on that as a violation” of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

    Related: How Trump 2.0 upended education research and statistics in one year

    Douglas County school administrators said in a statement to The Hechinger Report that their “focus is on taking care of each and every one of our students” and that they take all concerns seriously. 

    They have worked with the federal government to set up school visits and interviews during their visits, according to emails from January. 

    Subsequent emails between district and federal officials describe a phone call over the summer and requests for additional documents. Another DOJ employee was included in the messages.

    There are signs that the Justice Department is not abandoning restraint and seclusion work, said Guy Stephens, founder of the national advocacy group Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint. A webpage about previous cases that was removed after Trump took office has been restored, and in July, the DOJ announced a settlement with a Michigan district over these issues.

    Yet Stephens has concerns. “There are still people very, very dedicated to this work and the mission of this work, but it’s very hard to work in a system that is shifting and reprioritizing,” he said.

    Former DOJ employees worry that it might not only be future investigations that are markedly different. The department has historically monitored places where it has reached agreements that demand corrective action, rewriting them if districts or colleges fail to live up to their promises. It also provides support to achieve the new goals. Now, provisions written into past resolutions might be at odds with Trump administration actions, and oversight of some settlements is ending early.

    Take, for instance, a DOJ investigation into Vermont’s Elmore-Morristown Unified Union School District over allegations of race-based harassment against Black students. Investigators found that the district didn’t have a way to handle harassment or discrimination not targeted at a specific person, according to David Bickford, the school board chairman. 

    As part of a settlement agreement signed two weeks before Trump was inaugurated, the district agreed to provide staff training on implicit bias. A Trump executive order, however, calls for eliminating federal funding for anyone that discusses such a concept in schools. 

    Bickford said that the district has complied with everything the settlement called for, including professional development. 

    The investigation itself, he said, was extremely thorough, and required handing over nearly a thousand pages of documentation. Since then, the district has sent regular reports to the department but has not received any lengthy response or input, Bickford said. He also noted there had been staffing changes in who the district reports to. 

    Related: Federal policies risk worsening an already dire rural teacher shortage

    Justice officials decided to end supervision of a 2023 settlement early following a racial harassment investigation in another Vermont district, Twin Valley. The original plan was to monitor the district for three years. In October 2024, investigators visited the district to check in. In a letter two months later, officials noted that while Twin Valley had made significant progress, they still had several areas of concern, including how the district investigated complaints, as well as “persistent biased language and behavior on the basis of multiple protected classifications; a pervasive culture of sexism; and lack of consistent and effective adult response to biased language and behavior.” 

    Even so, the department was pleased overall with its visit, said Bill Bazyk, superintendent of Windham Southwest Supervisory Union, which includes Twin Valley. “But things certainly sped up after the election,” said Bazyk, who started his job after the case had been settled.

    Throughout the spring, Bayzk and his staff checked in with the department, and in May the district was told oversight of the settlement would end a year early, as Twin Valley had fully complied with the terms. 

    “We were doing all the right things,” Bayzk said, noting that the district’s work on diversity and equity is ongoing. “We took the settlement very seriously.”

    The investigation began in 2021 after the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont filed a complaint. Legal Director Lia Ernst said it is possible that Twin Valley resolved those lingering problems between December and May, stressing that it’s impossible to know from the outside. But still, she said, there is a larger pattern of ambivalence to the Justice Department’s approach to civil rights complaints.  

    “It is disappointing to see that one ending early,” she said. “It is my hope that it is ending early because Twin Valley has made so much progress, but it is my fear that it is ending early because DOJ just doesn’t care.” 

    Contact investigations editor Sarah Butrymowicz at [email protected] or on Signal: @sbutry.04.

    This story about the Justice Department was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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  • We must help the next generation get from classrooms to careers with real guidance, not guesswork

    We must help the next generation get from classrooms to careers with real guidance, not guesswork

    by Jason Joseph, The Hechinger Report
    December 2, 2025

    Too many high school graduates are unsure how their education connects to their future. Even the most driven face a maze of options, with little guidance on how classroom experiences connect to real-world careers. 

    It’s no wonder that fewer than 30 percent of high school students feel “very prepared” to make life-after-graduation decisions, according to a recent study. 

    This isn’t just an education gap; it’s an economic fault line. During this period of significant economic transition, when the labor market is demanding specialized skills and adaptability, students must be prepared for what comes next. 

    And yet they are not, in part because our job market is increasingly opaque to those without established networks. Many jobs are filled through networking and referrals. But few young people have access to such resources, and the result is a generation attempting to launch careers through guesswork instead of guidance. This lack of access is hindering not only the repopulation of America’s workforce but also American competitiveness on the world stage. 

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.  

    Consider this: Some 45 percent of employers struggle to fill entry-level roles — often because applicants lack the skills they need, a 2023 McKinsey survey found. Yet nearly half of recent college graduates end up underemployed, Higher Ed Dive reports, providing clear evidence of a disconnect between degrees earned and jobs available. 

    At the same time, many young people’s post-pandemic disengagement and companies’ growing interest in skills-based hiring and increasing automation have altered the employment landscape forever. 

    So let’s be clear — we need a top-to-bottom shift from reactive hiring to the pragmatic creation of more intentional pathways. Bipartisan voices are calling for better alignment between K-12 education and workforce needs. Attempting to improve this alignment, in turn, offers critical opportunities to invest in career navigation and employer engagement systems.  

    Some states are already demonstrating what’s possible. In South Carolina, SC STEM Signing Day honors students from every county who choose career paths in STEM, regardless of whether they’re attending a four-year college, a two-year program or starting a skilled apprenticeship.  

    This initiative reflects a broader truth: Higher education is one of many valuable pathways, but not the only one.  

    Initiatives such as SC Future Makers have facilitated tens of thousands of virtual conversations between students and professionals, helping young people understand real-world connections between classroom skills and career outcomes.  

    This model, which pairs digital scale with local relevance, offers a replicable playbook. And it’s working elsewhere. Tallo, a career development platform, powers dozens of virtual employer events and digital campaigns each year, from regional showcases to national hiring days. In partnership with AVID and SME, Tallo has helped young people secure job interviews, land internships and earn recognized credentials. 

    States like Indiana and Tennessee are also finding new ways to connect degrees to jobs. Through programs like Next Level Jobs and Tennessee Pathways, these states incentivize employer engagement in high school career navigation and align funding to skills-based training.  

    Related: What happened when a South Carolina city embraced career education for all its students 

    All these models emphasize scalable, bipartisan approaches, and they are not only much needed and possible — they’re already in motion. 

    The consequences of career misalignment extend beyond personal frustration — they ripple across the economy. Youth disconnection cost American taxpayers billions of dollars in government expenditures and in tax revenue lost.  

    Closing this gap is thus both a moral imperative and an economic strategy. Technology is ultimately playing a growing role in helping students make more informed decisions about their future. 

    Of course, real obstacles remain: resource constraints, outdated mindsets and legacy policies often slow progress. Yet successful states, communities and technological platforms are proving that it’s possible to build flexible, sustainable models when schools, employers and local leaders align around shared goals: coordinated investment, public-private alignment and bold leadership to move from promising pockets to national progress.  

    The stakes could not be higher. We need career pathways to succeed. 

    This is a generation ready to act if we give them the tools. That means better data, stronger networks and clearer paths forward.  

    Let’s replace chance with strategy and replace confusion with opportunity. 

    With smarter systems and stronger collaboration, we can help more young people build meaningful careers and meet the needs of a changing economy. 

    Jason Joseph is corporate chief of staff at Stride Inc., a leading education company that has served more than two million students nationwide. 

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected]. 

    This story about career education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter. 

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  • I earned my associate degree while still in high school, and it changed my life

    I earned my associate degree while still in high school, and it changed my life

    by Maxwell Fjeld, The Hechinger Report
    December 1, 2025

    Earning an associate degree alongside my high school diploma was an ambitious goal that turned into a positive high school experience for me. By taking on the responsibilities of a college student, I further prepared myself for life after high school.  

    I needed to plan out my own days. I needed to keep myself on task. I needed to learn how to monitor and juggle due dates, lecture times and exams while ensuring that my extracurricular activities did not create conflicts. 

    All of this was life-changing for a rural Minnesota high school student. Dual enrollment through Minnesota’s PSEO program saved me time and money and helped me explore my interests and narrow my focus to business management. After three years of earning dual credits as a high school student, I graduated from community college and was the student speaker at the commencement earlier this year in May — one month before graduating from high school. 

    As a student earning college credits while still in high school, I gained exposure to different career fields and developed a passion for civic engagement. At the beginning of my senior year, while taking courses at the local community and technical college, I was elected to serve as that school’s first cross-campus student body president. 

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.  

    While most states have dual-enrollment programs, Minnesota’s support for its PSEO students stands out. As policymakers consider legislative and funding initiatives to strengthen dual enrollment in other states, I believe that three features of our program could provide a blueprint for states that want to do more. 

    First, the college credits I earned are transferable and meet degree requirements.  

    Second, the PSEO program permitted me to take enough credits each semester to earn my associate degree. While the number of dual-enrollment credits high school students can earn varies by state and program, when strict limitations are set on those numbers, the program can become a barrier to higher education instead of an alternate pathway.  

    Third, Minnesota’s PSEO program limits the cost burden placed on students. With rising costs and logistical challenges to pursuing higher education credentials, the head start that students can create for themselves via loosened restrictions on dual-enrollment credits can make a real financial impact, especially for students like me from small towns. 

    Dual-enrollment costs vary significantly from state to state, with some programs charging for tuition, fees, textbooks and other college costs. In Minnesota, those costs are covered by the Department of Education. In addition, if families meet income requirements, the expenses incurred by students for education-related transportation are also covered.  

    If I did not have state support, I would not have been able to participate in the program. Financial support is a crucial component to being a successful dual-enrollment student. When the barrier of cost is removed, American families benefit, especially students from low-income, rural and farming backgrounds.  

    Early exposure to college helped me choose my major by taking college classes to experiment — for free. When I first started, I was interested in computer science as a major. After taking a computer science class and then an economics class the following semester, I chose business as my major.  

    The ability to explore different fields of study was cost-saving and game-changing for me and is an opportunity that could be just as beneficial for other students. 

    Targeted investments in programs like this have benefited many students, including my father in the 1990s. His dual-enrollment experience allowed him to get a head start on his education and gain valuable life skills at a young age and is a great example of dual enrollment’s potential generational impact. 

    Related: STUDENT VOICE: I’m thriving in my dual-enrollment program, but it could be a whole lot better 

    When dual-enrollment students receive guidance and support, it can be transformational. Early exposure to college introduced me to college-level opportunities. As student government president, I went to Washington, D.C., to attend a national student summit. I was able to meet with congressional office staffers and advocate for today’s students and for federal investment in dual-enrollment programs, explaining my story and raising awareness. 

    The daily life of high school is draining for some and can be devastating for others. I had many friends who came to believe that the bullying, peer-pressure and culture they experienced in high school would continue in college, so they deemed higher education “not worth it.” 

    Through dual enrollment, I saw the difference in culture; students who face burnout from daily high school life can refocus and feel good about their futures again. 

    Congress can help state legislatures by establishing strong dual-enrollment programs nationwide. With adequate government support, dual-enrollment programs can help students from all walks of life and increase college graduation rates. If all states offer access to the same opportunities that I had in high school, our next generation will be better prepared for the workforce and more successful. 

    Maxwell Fjeld is pursuing his bachelor’s degree at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities’ Carlson School of Management after earning an associate degree upon high school graduation through dual enrollment. He is also a student ambassador fellow at Today’s Students Coalition. 

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected]. 

    This story about dual-enrollment programs was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter. 

    This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org/student-voice-i-earned-my-associate-degree-while-still-in-high-school-and-it-changed-my-life/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org”>The Hechinger Report</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/cropped-favicon.jpg?fit=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>

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  • Funding high-quality teacher preparation programs should be the highest priority for policymakers

    Funding high-quality teacher preparation programs should be the highest priority for policymakers

    by Sharif El-Mekki and Heather Kirkpatrick, The Hechinger Report
    November 25, 2025

    By dismantling the Department of Education, the Trump administration claims to be returning control of education to the states. 

    And while states and local school districts are doing their best to understand the new environments they are working in, they have an opportunity amidst the chaos to focus on what is most essential and prioritize how education dollars are spent.  

    That means recruiting and retaining more well-prepared teachers with their new budget autonomy. Myriad factors affect student learning, but research shows that the primary variable within a school’s control is the teacher. Other than parents, teachers are the adults who spend the most time with our children. Good teachers have been shown to singularly motivate students.  

    And that’s why, amidst the chaos of our current education politics, there is great opportunity. 

    Until recently, recruiting, preparing and retaining enough great teachers has not been a priority in policy or funding choices. That has been a mistake, because attracting additional teachers and preparing them to be truly excellent is arguably the single biggest lever policymakers can use to demonstrate their commitment to high-quality public schools. 

    Related: Interested in innovations in higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter. 

    Great teachers, especially whole schools full of great teachers, do not just happen. We develop them through quality preparation and meaningful opportunities to practice the profession. When teachers are well-prepared, students thrive. Rigorous teacher preparation translates into stronger instruction, higher K-12 student achievement and a more resilient, equitable education system. 

    Teachers, like firefighters and police officers, are public servants. We rightly invest public dollars to train firefighters and police officers because their service is essential to the safety and well-being of our communities. Yet teachers — who shape our future through our kids — are too often asked to shoulder the costs of their own preparation. 

    Funding high-quality teacher preparation should be as nonnegotiable as funding other vital public service professions, especially because we face a teacher shortage — particularly in STEM fields, special education and rural and urban schools.  

    This is in no small part because many potential teaching candidates cannot afford the necessary education and credentialing. 

    Our current workforce systems were not built for today’s teaching candidates. They were not designed to support students who are financially vulnerable, part-time or first-generation, or those with caregiving responsibilities.  

    Yet the majority of tomorrow’s education workforce will likely come from these groups, all of whom have faced systemic barriers in accumulating the generational wealth needed to pursue degrees in higher education. 

    Some states have responded to this need by developing strong teacher development pathways. For example, California has committed hundreds of millions to growing the teacher pipeline through targeted residency programs and preparation initiatives, and its policies have enabled it to recruit and support more future teachers, including greater numbers of educators from historically underrepresented communities. 

    Pennsylvania has created more pathways into the education field with expedited credentialing and apprenticeships for high school students, and is investing millions of dollars in stipends for student teachers. 

    It has had success bringing more Black candidates into the teaching profession, which will likely improve student outcomes: Black boys from low-income families who have a Black teacher in third through fifth grades are 18 percent more interested in pursuing college and 29 percent less likely to drop out of high school, research shows. Pennsylvania also passed a senate bill﷟HYPERLINK “https://www.senatorhughes.com/big-win-in-harrisburg-creating-the-teacher-diversity-pipeline/” that paved the way for students who complete high school courses on education and teaching to be eligible for career and technical education credits. 

    At least half a dozen other states also provide various degrees of financial support for would-be teachers, including stipends, tuition assistance and fee waivers for credentialing.  

    One example is a one-year teacher residency program model, which recruits and prepares people in historically underserved communities to earn a mster’s degree and teaching credential.  

    Related: Federal policies risk worsening an already dire rural teacher shortage 

    Opening new pathways to teaching by providing financial support has two dramatic effects. First, when teachers stay in education, these earnings compound over time as alumni become mentor teachers and administrators, earning more each year.  

    Second, these new pathways can also improve student achievement, thanks to policies that support new teachers in rigorous teacher education programs. 

    For example, the Teaching Academy model, which operates in several states, including Pennsylvania, New York and Michigan, attracts, cultivates and supports high school students on the path to becoming educators, giving schools and districts an opportunity to build robust education programs that serve as strong foundations for meaningful and long-term careers in education, and providing aspiring educators a head start to becoming great teachers. Participants in the program are eligible for college scholarships, professional coaching and retention bonuses.  

    California, Pennsylvania and these other states have begun this work. We hope to encourage other state lawmakers to seize the opportunities arising from recent federal changes and use their power to invest in what matters most to student achievement —teachers and teacher preparation pathways. 

    Sharif El-Mekki is founder & CEO of the Center for Black Educator Development in Pennsylvania. Heather Kirkpatrick is president and CEO Alder Graduate School in California. 

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected]. 

    This story about teacher preparation programs was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter. 

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  • I didn’t think I needed the help or advice, but a new literacy teaching coach from afar gave me the self-confidence I lacked

    I didn’t think I needed the help or advice, but a new literacy teaching coach from afar gave me the self-confidence I lacked

    by Thomas MacCash, The Hechinger Report
    November 24, 2025

    I was the only guy in my education classes at Missouri State University, and until this year I was the only male out of nearly 100 teachers in my school. My approach to teaching is very different, and more often than not was met with a raised brow rather than a listening ear.  

    I teach kindergarten, and there are so few men in early childhood education that visitors to my classroom tend to treat me like a unicorn. They put me in a box of how I am “supposed” to be as a male in education without knowing the details of my approach to teaching.  

    As a result, I’d grown skeptical about receiving outside help. When someone new came into my classroom to provide unsolicited “support,” my immediate thought was always, “OK, great, what are they going to cook up? What are they trying to sell me?” I’d previously had former high school administrators come into my classroom to offer support, but they didn’t have experience with the curriculum I used or with kindergarten. The guidance was well-intentioned, but not relevant. 

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.  

    My entire view of getting help and support changed when Ashley Broadnax, a literacy coach from New Orleans, nearly 700 miles away, came into my class in St. James, Missouri, population 3,900. Ashley works for The New Teacher Project, or TNTP, a nonprofit aiming to increase students’ economic and social mobility. Once a month for a full academic year, she came in to help us transition to a “science of reading” approach, as part of a special pilot program, the Rural Schools Early Literacy Collaborative. 

    I never thought I would love having a literacy coach and their feedback, but I now believe it is something that can work for many teachers. I hope that as Missouri and other states transition to new ways of teaching reading, more coaches will be available for others who could use the support. The state says that over 15,000 teachers may get trained in the science of reading to help build our knowledge of how children learn to read and what type of instruction is most effective.  

    Ashley had used the curriculum herself and was on hand to provide timely support. This was the first time I received relevant feedback from a former teacher who had firsthand experience with the lessons I was leading.  

    It completely changed my approach and my students’ learning. Although I come from a family of teachers — my mom, grandma and brother all taught — I had started teaching two weeks out of college, and I wasn’t familiar with the new reading curriculum and didn’t have a lot of self-confidence. 

    When Ashley came in for the very first visit, I knew working with her was going to be different. Even though she had never been to St. James, she was sensitive to the rural context where I’ve spent all my life. We’re 90 minutes southwest of St. Louis and a little over an hour southeast of Jefferson City, the state capital. In St. James, you may see a person on a horse riding past a Tesla a few times a year. I’ve seen this world of extremes play out in school open houses and in the learning gaps that exist in my kindergarten classroom.  

    Ashley had researched our community and was open to learning more about our nuances and teaching styles. She was also the first coach I’d met who actually had taught kindergarten, so she knew what worked and what didn’t. As a young teacher with a significant number of students with special needs, I really appreciated this.  

    Related: How coaches for teachers could improve reading instruction, close early academic gaps 

    Ashley provided me with a pathway to follow the new curriculum while also maintaining my unique approach to teaching. Everything came from a place of ensuring that teachers have what they need to be successful, rather than an “I know better than you do” attitude. She would let me know “I loved how you did this” and she’d ask, “Can you extend it in this way?” or tell me, “This was great, here’s how you can structure it a bit further.” 

    Not everything she did to help was profound. But her little tips added up. For example, the curriculum we used came with 10 workbooks for each student as well as stacks of literature, and I needed help integrating it into my lessons.  

    I soon noticed a shift in my ability to teach. I was learning specific ways to help students who were on the cusp of catching on, along with those who weren’t getting it at all.  

    Throughout the course of the year, we saw how our students were more quickly achieving proficiency in English language arts. In my school, according to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the percentage of kindergartners reading on grade level went from 82 percent in the fall to 98 percent in the spring; the percentage of first graders on grade level went from 41 percent to 84 percent.  

    There were similar gains across the other schools in my county participating in the pilot program; one school had all of its kindergarten and first grade students demonstrate growth on reading assessments. Those students, on average, made gains that were more than double typical annual growth, TNTP found. 

    I attribute a great deal of this progress to the support from Ashley and her peers. I know I am a better educator and teacher for my students. Her support has made a change for the better in my grade and classroom. 

    Thomas MacCash is a kindergarten teacher at Lucy Wortham James Elementary in St. James, Missouri.  

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].  

    This story about literacy teaching coaches was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

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  • It will take patience and courage to fix K-12 education without the Department of Education

    It will take patience and courage to fix K-12 education without the Department of Education

    by John Katzman, The Hechinger Report
    November 19, 2025

    The Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education this week provides a rare opportunity to rethink our current top-down approach to school governance.

    We should jump on it. It’s not sexy to talk about governance, but we can’t fix K-12 education until we do so, no matter how we feel about the latest changes.

    Since the Department of Education opened in 1980, we’ve doubled per-pupil spending, and now spend about twice as much per student as does the average country in the European Union. Yet despite that funding — and the reforms, reports and technologies introduced over the past 45 years — U.S. students consistently underperform on international benchmarks. And people are opting out: 22 percent of U.S. district students are now chronically absent, while record numbers of families are opting out of those schools, choosing charters, private schools and homeschooling.

    Most federal and state reform approaches have been focused on curricular standards and have accomplished little. The many billions spent on the Common Core standards coincided with — or triggered — a 13-year decline in academic performance. The underlying principles of the standards movement — that every student should learn the same things at the same time, that we know what those things are and that they don’t change over time — have made our schools even less compelling while narrowing instruction to what gets tested.

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

    We need to address the real problem: how federal, state and district rules combine to create a dense fog of regulations and directives that often conflict or constrain one another. Educators are losing a rigged game: It’s not that they’re doing the wrong things, it’s that governance makes them unresponsive, bureaucratic, ineffective and paralyzed — can you name an industry that spends less on research and development?

    Fixing governance won’t be simple, but it shouldn’t take more than 13 years to do it: three years to design a better system of state governance and 10 more to thoroughly test and debug it.

    I would start by bringing together experts from a variety of disciplines, ideally at a new “Center for K-12 Governance” at a university’s school of education or school of public policy, and give them three years to think through a comprehensive set of state laws and regulations to manage schools.

    The center would convene experts from inside and outside of education, in small groups focused on topics including labor, funding, data, evaluation, transportation, construction, athletics, counseling, technology, curricula and connections to higher education and the workforce. Its frameworks would address various educational and funding alternatives currently in use, including independent, charter and parochial schools, home schooling and Education Savings Accounts, all of which speak to the role of parents in making choices about their children’s education.

    Each group would start with the questions and not the answers, and there are hundreds of really interesting questions to be considered: What are the various goals of our K-12 schools and how do we authentically measure schools against them? What choices do we give parents, and what information might help them make the right decisions for their kids? How do we allow for new approaches to attract, support and pay great teachers and administrators? How does money follow each student? What data do we collect and how do we use it?

    After careful consideration, the center would hand its proposed statutes to a governor committed to running a long-term pilot to fully test the model. He or she would create a small alternative department of education, which would oversee a few hundred volunteer schools matched to a control group of similar schools running under the state’s legacy regime; both groups would include schools with a range of demographic and performance profiles. The two systems could run side by side for up to a decade.

    Related: Schools confront a new reality: They can’t count on federal money

    Each year, the state would assess the two departments’ performance against metrics like graduation and college-completion rates, teacher retention, income trajectories, civic participation, student and parent satisfaction, and, yes, NAEP scores. Under intense scrutiny by interested parties, both groups would be free to tweak their playbooks and evaluate solutions against a range of real-world outcomes. Once definitive longitudinal data comes in, the state would shutter one department and move the governance of its schools over to the other, perhaps launching a new test with an even better system.

    This all may seem like a lot of work, but it’s a patient approach to a root problem. Schools remain the nation’s most local public square; they determine income mobility, civic health and democratic resilience. If we fail to rewire the system now to support them properly, we guarantee their continued decline, to the detriment of students and society. Instead of celebrating students, teachers and principals who succeed despite the odds, we should address why we made those odds so steep.

    That’s why we should use this moment to draft and test something audacious, and give the next Supreme Court a happier education case to decide: how to retire a legacy system that finally lost a fair fight.

    John Katzman has founded and run three large ed tech companies: The Princeton Review, 2U and Noodle. He has worked closely with many large school districts and has served on the boards of NAPCS and NAIS.

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

    This story about fixing K-12 education was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

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