Category: Featured

  • Despite Reservations, Florida BOG Approves New Accreditor

    Despite Reservations, Florida BOG Approves New Accreditor

    Plans for a new accreditor, announced by Florida governor Ron DeSantis in June, are becoming a reality.

    The Florida Board of Governors voted Friday afternoon to create a controversial new accrediting agency, in coordination with five other state university systems. The decision came after about an hour of heated discussion between board members and the State University System of Florida’s chancellor regarding details of the plan.

    Chancellor Raymond Rodriguez argued that the new accreditor, called the Commission for Public Higher Education, would eliminate the bureaucracy that comes with existing accrediting agencies and focus specifically on the needs of public universities.

    “The Commission for Public Higher Education will offer an accreditation model that prioritizes academic excellence and student success while removing ideological bias and unnecessary financial burdens,” he said. “Through the CPHE, public colleges and universities across the country will have access to an accreditation process that is focused on quality, rooted in accountability and committed to continuous improvement.”

    But before voting in favor of the motion, board members repeatedly pushed back, arguing that the plans for starting an accreditor from scratch were half-baked. They raised a litany of questions about how the CPHE would work in practice.

    Some wanted to hash out the details of the would-be accreditor’s governance structure before voting. According to the CPHE business plan, the Florida governing board would incorporate the accreditor as a nonprofit in Florida and serve as its initial sole member, using a $4 million appropriation from the Florida Legislature for start-up costs. (Other systems are expected to put in similar amounts.) A board of directors, appointed by all the university systems, would be responsible for accrediting decisions and policies.

    But multiple BOG members worried that the roles of the governing board and board of directors were not clearly delineated.

    “With us as the sole member, it appears, or could appear, to stakeholders that the accreditor lacks independence from the institution being accredited,” said board member Kimberly Dunn.

    Alan Levine, vice chair of the Board of Governors, called for a clear “proverbial corporate veil” between the two in corporate documents.

    “Our role is not to govern or direct the activities of this body,” Levine said of CPHE. “It has to be independent or it won’t even be approvable by the Department of Education.”

    Board member Ken Jones pressed for greater detail on the governing board’s “fiduciary or governance obligation to this new entity.”

    “I’m in support of this … I really believe this is the right path,” he said. “I just want to be sure that we all go in, eyes wide-open, understanding what is our responsibility as a BOG? … We’re breaking new ground here, and we’re doing it for the right reasons. But I want to be sure that when the questions come—and I’m sure they certainly will—that we’ve got the right answers.”

    Members asked questions about the accreditor’s future cybersecurity and IT infrastructure, as well as its associated costs. Some asked whether accreditors have direct access to universities’ data systems and raised concerns about potential hacking and the board’s liability; they were given reassurance that colleges themselves report their data. Some board members also asked for budget projections of what CPHE would cost.

    “I have an internal, unofficial estimation around the funds and revenues, but nothing I’d be prepared and comfortable to put forward publicly,” said Rachel Kamoutsas, the system’s chief of staff and corporate secretary, who fielded questions about the initiative.

    The answers didn’t seem to fully satisfy the governing board.

    “I do think the chancellor and team have a lot of work to do to continue to educate this board, to be blunt,” said BOG chair Brian Lamb, “because a lot of the questions that we’re asking—forecast, IT, infrastructure, staffing—every last one of those are appropriate.”

    He emphasized to other board members, however, that voting in favor of the motion would jump-start the process of incorporating the new accreditor and provide seed money for it. But, he added, “not a penny is going anywhere until we have an agreed-upon document on how this money will be spent.”

    Accreditation expert Paul Gaston III, an emeritus trustees professor at Kent State University, raised similar questions in an interview with Inside Higher Ed.

    “The credibility of accreditation really is directly related to whether the public can accept it is an authoritative source of objective evaluation that is in the public interest,” he said. “And the question that I would ask as a member of the public is, how will an accreditor that is created by and that is answerable to the institutions being evaluated achieve that credibility?”

    Despite all the pushback, the BOG ultimately voted unanimously to approve the measure. Now CPHE can file for incorporation, establish its Board of Directors and set out on the multiyear process of securing recognition from the Department of Education.

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  • A 20-Year Reflection on Transparency and the Illusion of Access (Glen McGhee)

    A 20-Year Reflection on Transparency and the Illusion of Access (Glen McGhee)

    The cancellation of the latest NACIQI (National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity) meeting brought back bitter memories that refuse to fade. 

    It’s been twenty years since I traveled to Washington, DC—dressed in my best lobbying attire and carrying a meticulous roster of Department of Education staff—to visit the Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) on K Street. My goal was simple, even noble: to seek answers about the opaque workings of accreditation in American higher education. What I encountered instead was a wall of silence, surveillance, and authoritarianism.

    I stepped off the elevator on the seventh floor of the Department building and signed in. Under “Purpose of Visit,” I wrote: Reform. I was calm, professional, and respectful. I asked to see the NACIQI Chair, Bonnie, hoping that she would be willing to speak with me about a system that, even then, was falling into disrepair. But what happened next still infuriates me.

    Within seconds, two armed, uniformed guards approached me. They didn’t ask questions. They gave an ultimatum: leave or be arrested.

    I eventually complied, descending into the lobby, still stunned. From there I began dialing—one by one—through the directory of names I had so carefully assembled. I called staffers, analysts, assistants, anyone who might answer. Not a single person picked up. I could feel the eyes of the guards watching me, one of them posted on the mezzanine like a sniper keeping watch over a public enemy. I was not dangerous. I was not disruptive. I was, however, unwanted.

    The next day, I turned to my Congressman, Allen Boyd, whose LA generously tried to intervene. His office contacted OPE, attempting to broker a meeting on my behalf. The Department didn’t even return his call. Apparently, a sitting member of Congress—who didn’t sit on a high-ranking committee—carried no weight at the fortress of federal education oversight.

    This most recent overstepping by US ED—unilaterally postponing NACIQI’s Summer 2025 meeting—reminds observers of how limited the oversight provided by NACIQI really is. It is, apparently, nothing more than a performative shell that fulfills ceremonial functions, and not much more.

    I would argue that this latest episode reveals that NACIQI is less an independent watchdog and more a ceremonial body with limited real power, and so my view differs somewhat from David Halperin, because he sees more substantive activity than I do.

    The history of ACICS (Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools) and SACS (Southern Association of Colleges) appearing before NACIQI illustrates how regulatory capture can manifest not only through industry influence, but also through bureaucratic design and process control. The OPE’s central role, combined with NACIQI’s limited enforcement power, has allowed failing accreditors to retain recognition for years, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of noncompliance and harm to students.

    The illusion of accountability has long been a feature of the accreditation system, not a flaw. NACIQI meetings, when they occur, are tightly scripted, with carefully managed testimony and limited public engagement. The real decisions are made elsewhere, behind closed doors, often under the influence of powerful lobbying groups and entrenched bureaucracies that resist transparency and reform at every turn.

    Despite the increasing scrutiny on higher education and growing public awareness of student debt, poor educational outcomes, and sham institutions, the federal recognition of accreditors remains an elite-controlled process. It is a closed loop. Institutions, accreditors, and government officials all play their roles in a carefully choreographed performance that rarely leads to systemic change. The result is a system that protects institutions at the expense of students, particularly the most vulnerable—low-income, first-generation, and minority students who are often targeted by predatory schools hiding behind federal accreditation.

    This is the reality of the U.S. Department of Education’s accreditation apparatus: inaccessible, unaccountable, and increasingly symbolic. NACIQI, far from being an independent advisory body, has always functioned as a ceremonial front for political appointees and entrenched interests. It is, as I see it, just another arm of Vishnu—multiplicitous, all-seeing, but ultimately indifferent to critique or reform. Whether it’s chaired by a bureaucrat or a former wrestling executive like Linda McMahon, the outcome is the same: the process is rigged to exclude dissent and suppress scrutiny.

    And yet, pundits today still fail to grasp the implications. They speak of accreditation as if it were a technocratic process guided by evidence and integrity. They act as if NACIQI were a neutral arbiter. But I know otherwise, because I was there—thrown out, silenced, and treated like a trespasser in the very institution that claims to protect educational quality and student interest.

    This is more than personal bitterness. It’s about structural rot. When critics are expelled, when staff are muzzled, and when public servants ignore elected representatives, we are not dealing with oversight—we are witnessing capture. Accreditation in this country serves the accreditors and the institutions, not students, not taxpayers, and certainly not reformers.

    Two decades later, the anger remains. So does the silence.

    Sources:
    Department of Education building directory and procedures (2005)
    Congressional Office of Rep. Allen Boyd (archival record, 2005)
    Public notices regarding NACIQI meeting cancellations (2024–2025)
    David Halperin, Republic Report

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  • School districts grapple with ‘budgetary chaos’ in wake of federal funding freeze

    School districts grapple with ‘budgetary chaos’ in wake of federal funding freeze

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    The U.S. Department of Education’s withholding of $6.2 billion in federal K-12 grants has local and state school systems scrambling to figure out how to make up for the budget shortages. It has also caused a swell of advocacy from families, lawmakers, educators and others across the nation.

    The withheld funds for fiscal year 2025 were expected to be released by the Education Department July 1. Programs at risk due to the funding hold include English learner services, academic supports, after-school programming and professional development. 

    The frozen funds represent at least 10% or more of states’ overall K-12 federal revenues if the money is not distributed, according to the nonpartisan Learning Policy Institute.

    At the local level, superintendents and principals are voicing concern about how the funding freeze will impact their school services, particularly those that serve English learners, homeless students and students from low-income families. 

    Chase Christensen, principal and superintendent of the 80-student Sheridan County School District #3 in rural Clearmont, Wyoming, said his district was expecting $30,000 in Title II and IV funding that is being withheld. 

    The district had nearly finalized its roughly $4 million budget for the upcoming school year when it learned of the federal funding freeze. It then adjusted the budget to remove those federal funds and is making up the difference by leaving a staffing position vacant.

    Although the budget adjustment means student services under those title programs can continue, Christensen said “every dollar of federal funding for education is impactful” at the individual student level.

    “When these funds are pulled, especially this late in the game for budget planning and everything else, students are going to be the ones that lose out,” Christensen said.

    Nationally, bigger districts have the largest funding gaps, according to a New America analysis of data from 46 states that had available funding figures. Those districts include Los Angeles Unified School District ($82 million), Florida’s Dade County School District ($38 million), and Nevada’s Clark County School District ($22 million).

    Advocacy groups and policymakers are calling on the Trump administration to restore the funds. The Boys and Girls Clubs of America, a nonprofit that supports afterschool programs, said the impact of the blocked funds will be “swift and devastating,” in a statement from President and CEO Jim Clark. 

    Clark said 926 Boys and Girls Clubs across the country could close, and 5,900 jobs would be lost if the funding is not released. “Afterschool and summer learning programs are cornerstones of academic success, public safety, and family stability for millions of young people — but right now, we stand at a dangerous tipping point,” Clark said. 

    The National English Learner Roundtable, a coalition of more than a dozen national and state-based organizations supportive of English learner services, said in a Thursday statement, “This unprecedented move by the Department has blindsided schools that have always been able to rely on these funds to support the start of the school year, and has created budgetary chaos for nearly every K-12 school district.” 

    On Thursday, 150 Democratic House lawmakers sent a letter to U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon and White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought demanding the title funds be released.

    “This late-breaking decision, which provided no timeline for which states can expect a final decision, is leaving states financially vulnerable and forcing many to make last minute decisions about how to proceed with K12 education in this upcoming school year,” the letter said.

    The funding hold has already led to staff layoffs, program delays and cancellations of services, the House members said.

    Spending under review

    The withheld funds were appropriated by Congress and approved by President Donald Trump earlier this year. States expected to gain access to the monies starting July 1, as routine. But the day before, on June 30, the Education Department told grantees not to expect the funds while it conducts a review and referred questions to OMB.

    The specific grant funding being withheld includes:

    • Title II-A for professional development: $2.2 billion.
    • Title IV-A for student support and academic enrichment: $1.4 billion.
    • Title IV-B for 21st Century Community Learning Centers: $1.3 billion.
    • Title III-A for English-learner services: $890 million.
    • Title I-C for migrant education: $375 million.

    On Thursday, in a statement to K-12 Dive, OMB said no funding decisions have been made and that it is conducting a “programmatic review of education funding.”

    The office also said, “initial findings show that many of these grant programs have been grossly misused to subsidize a radical leftwing agenda.”

    OMB and the Education Department have not indicated a timeframe for the review of the frozen federal funds.

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  • The Platform Monopoly on Jobs and Careers

    The Platform Monopoly on Jobs and Careers

    In the platform-dominated economy, Indeed.com has established itself as the central marketplace for jobseekers and employers alike, boasting tens of millions of listings across industries and geographies. But behind its user-friendly design lies a powerful, opaque system that reinforces labor precarity, exploits the desperation of the underemployed, and facilitates fraud and exploitation—including through job scams designed to funnel people into for-profit colleges and dubious training schemes.

    Indeed’s rise is emblematic of a larger pattern in the U.S. political economy, where platforms extract profit from human need—especially from the millions of Americans struggling to find secure employment in a shrinking labor market. While claiming to connect jobseekers with opportunity, Indeed increasingly operates as a gatekeeper and a filter, favoring employers with the ability to pay for prominence, and quietly profiting from a user base navigating worsening inequality.

    From Opportunity to Exploitation: The Platform Economy

    Indeed’s near-monopoly over online job listings positions it as the Amazon of employment—a central aggregator of job ads, resume submissions, employer reviews, and workforce data. Its business model is rooted in ad-based revenue: companies pay to boost job visibility, while jobseekers receive a flood of suggested listings—many of which are irrelevant, low-quality, or outright deceptive.

    One particularly disturbing trend: a growing number of “job postings” on Indeed are not job offers at all, but veiled advertisements for for-profit colleges and unaccredited training programs. These listings typically appear legitimate, bearing the titles of medical assistant, phlebotomist, cybersecurity technician, or paralegal. But once an applicant shows interest, they are quickly routed to admissions representatives, not employers. In short, they’ve fallen for a bait-and-switch scheme.

    Indeed does little to prevent these tactics. Despite flagging mechanisms and user complaints, scammers and aggressive recruiters return repeatedly under new listings or shell company names. And because these advertisers pay to promote their listings, there is a built-in conflict of interest: Indeed profits from ads designed to exploit vulnerable jobseekers, many of whom are already burdened by unemployment, underemployment, or student debt.

    The Job Training Charade: A National Problem

    As labor economist Gordon Lafer argues in The Job Training Charade, job training programs have long functioned as a public relations tool for elected officials, who promise “skills-based solutions” rather than structural labor reform. Publicly funded retraining programs and for-profit career schools capitalize on this narrative, convincing jobseekers that their struggles stem from a personal “skills gap” rather than systemic inequality.

    Indeed’s platform reinforces this logic by flooding users with listings that promote training and certification programs as prerequisites for jobs that often don’t exist or pay poorly. Even in legitimate industries—like healthcare and IT—the overabundance of credential inflation and unnecessary gatekeeping leads to further debt accumulation without guaranteeing meaningful work.

    As Lafer writes, “Training has become a substitute for economic policy—a way of appearing to do something without actually improving people’s lives.” And Indeed is a willing partner in this substitution, profiting from a constant churn of dislocated workers trying to retool their résumés and lives to meet an ever-shifting set of employer demands.

    The Educated Underclass and Platform Paternalism

    Gary Roth, in The Educated Underclass, identifies another critical aspect of this ecosystem: the overproduction of college graduates relative to the needs of the labor market. As more people earn degrees, the wage premium diminishes, and once-secure professions become crowded with overqualified applicants chasing scarce opportunities.

    Indeed’s platform becomes the proving ground for this underclass: college-educated workers competing for service jobs, temp contracts, or entry-level roles barely above minimum wage. Meanwhile, the site’s tools—resume scores, AI-based job match algorithms, and automated rejection letters—reinforce the idea that unemployment is a personal failure rather than a structural outcome.

    This is platform paternalism at its worst. Jobseekers are “nudged” into applying for low-quality work, “encouraged” to pursue unnecessary training, and surveilled through behavioral data that is packaged and sold to employers and third-party marketers. Career development becomes not a public good but a private product—sold back to workers in pieces, with no guarantee of outcome.

    Job Scams and Regulatory Blind Spots

    The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general have received thousands of complaints about online job scams—including fake recruiters, phony employers, and misleading school advertisements. Yet enforcement remains weak, and platforms like Indeed enjoy limited legal liability, protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields them from responsibility for user-generated content.

    Even when caught, fraudulent advertisers often reappear. As one whistleblower told The Higher Education Inquirer, “We’d flag scam listings, and two days later they’d pop back up under a new name. It was like a game of whack-a-mole—and no one at the top cared.”

    Indeed’s user agreement explicitly disclaims responsibility for the authenticity of job listings. And although the company has instituted basic verification and reporting tools, they are inadequate to stem the tide of predatory postings, especially those tied to the multibillion-dollar for-profit education industry.

    A Broken System Masquerading as Innovation

    The consolidation of online job markets under platforms like Indeed represents a profound shift in the political economy of labor. No longer mediated by public institutions or strong unions, the search for work is now a privatized experience, managed by algorithms, monetized through ads, and vulnerable to deception.

    To be clear: Indeed does not create jobs. It creates the illusion of access. It obscures labor precarity behind UX design and paid listings. It enables fraudulent training pipelines while pushing the burden of risk and cost onto workers. And it profits from the widening chasm between what higher education promises and what the economy delivers.

    At The Higher Education Inquirer, we demand accountability—not just from institutions of higher learning but from the platforms that now mediate our futures. The illusion must be pierced, and jobseeking must be reclaimed as a public function, free from predation, profiteering, and platform capture.

    Sources:

    • Lafer, Gordon. The Job Training Charade. Cornell University Press, 2002.

    • Roth, Gary. The Educated Underclass: Students and the Promise of Social Mobility. Pluto Press, 2019.

    • U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). “Job Scams: What You Need to Know.” 2024.

    • Recruit Holdings. Annual Reports and Investor Presentations, 2020–2024.

    • U.S. Department of Labor. “Contingent and Alternative Employment Arrangements.” 2023.

    • Brody, Leslie. “Students Lured Into For-Profit Colleges Through Fake Job Ads.” Wall Street Journal, 2022.

    • Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. PublicAffairs, 2019.

    • Glassdoor, Indeed, and CareerBuilder community complaint forums (2021–2025).

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  • All that glitters is not gold: A brief history of efforts to rebrand social media censorship

    All that glitters is not gold: A brief history of efforts to rebrand social media censorship

    Whenever a bill aimed at policing online speech is accused of censorship, its supporters often reframe the conversation around subjects like child safety or consumer protection. Such framing helps obscure government attempts to shape or limit lawful speech, yet no matter how artfully labeled such measures happen to be, they inevitably run headlong into the First Amendment.

    Consider the headline-grabbing Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). Re-introduced this year by Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) as a measure to protect minors, KOSA’s sponsors have repeatedly characterized its regulations as merely providing tools, safeguards, and transparency. But in practice, it would empower the federal government to put enormous pressure on platforms to censor constitutionally protected content. This risk of government censorship led KOSA to stall in the House last year after passing the Senate. 

    Child safety arguments have increasingly surfaced in states pursuing platform regulation, but closer inspection reveals that many such laws control how speech flows online, including for adults. Take Mississippi’s 2024 social media law (HB 1126), which was described as a child safety measure, that compelled platforms to verify every user’s age. Beneath that rhetoric, however, is the fact that age verification affects everyone, not just children. By forcing every user — adult or minor alike — to show personal identification or risk losing access, this law turned a child-safety gate into a universal speech checkpoint. That’s because identity checks function like a license: if you don’t clear the government’s screening, you can’t speak or listen. 

    A judge blocked HB 1126 last month, rejecting the attorney general’s argument that it only regulated actions, not speech, and finding that age verification gravely burdens how people communicate online. In other words, despite the bill’s intentions or rationales, the First Amendment was very much at stake.

    Utah’s 2023 Social Media Regulation Act demanded similar age checks that acted as a broad  mandate that chilled lawful speech. FIRE sued, the legislature repealed the statute, and its 2024 replacement — the Minor Protection in Social Media Act — met the same fate when a federal judge blocked it. Finding there was likely “no constitutionally permissible application,” the judge underscored the clear conflict between such regulations and the First Amendment. 

    Speech regulations often show up with different rationales, not just child safety. In Texas, HB 20 was marketed in 2021 as a way to stop “censorship” by large social media companies. By trying to paint the largest platforms as public utilities and treating content moderation decisions as “service features,” the legislature flipped the script on free expression by recasting a private actor’s editorial judgment as “conduct” the state could police. When the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the law, in a decision that was later excoriated by the Supreme Court, the court repeated this inversion of the First Amendment: “The Platforms are not newspapers. Their censorship is not speech.” 

    Florida tried a similar strategy with a consumer-protection gloss. SB 7072 amended the state’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act to include certain content moderation decisions, such as political de-platforming or shadow banning, exposing platforms to enforcement and penalties for their speech. Unlike the Fifth Circuit, the Eleventh Circuit blocked this law, calling platform curation “unquestionably” expressive and, therefore, protected by the First Amendment. 

    In July 2024, the Supreme Court took up the question when considering challenges to these two state laws in Moody v. NetChoice. Cutting through the branding, the Court rejected the idea that these laws merely regulated conduct or trade practices. Instead, it said content moderation decisions do have First Amendment protection and that the laws in Texas and Florida did, in fact, regulate speech. 

    The Court clarified in no uncertain terms that “a State may not interfere with private actors’ speech to advance its own vision of ideological balance.” And it added that “[o]n the spectrum of dangers to free expression, there are few greater than allowing the government to change the speech of private actors in order to achieve its own conception of speech nirvana.”

    California tried the dual framing of both child safety and consumer protection. AB 2273, the California Age Appropriate Design Code Act, was described as a child-safety bill that just regulated how apps and websites are built and structured, not their content. The bill classified digital product design features, such as autoplaying videos or default public settings, as a “material detriment” to minors as well as an unfair or deceptive act under state consumer-protection statutes. But this too failed and is now blocked because, the court noted, “the State’s intentions in enacting the CAADCA cannot insulate the Act from the requirements of the First Amendment.”

    Multiple nationwide lawsuits now claim social media feeds are defective products, using product-liability law to attack the design of platforms themselves. But by calling speech a “product” or forcing it into a product liability claim, it recharacterizes the editorial decisions of lawful content as a product flaw, which attempts to shift the legal analysis from speech protections to consumer protection. State attorneys general, however, cannot erase the First Amendment protections that still apply.

    A sound policy approach to online speech looks not at branding, but impact. Even when packaged in terms of child safety, consumer protection, or platform accountability, it is essential to ask whether the rule forces platforms to host, suppress, or reshape lawful content. Regardless of the policy goal or rhetorical framing, if a requirement ultimately pressures platforms to host or suppress lawful speech, expect judges to treat it as a speech regulation. 

    Unfortunately, re-branding speech regulations can obfuscate their censorial ends and make them politically attractive. That’s what’s happening with KOSA’s obvious appeal of protecting children, combined with the less obvious censorship threat from targeting “design features,” has made it popular in the Senate.

    Giving the government power to censor online speech puts everyone’s liberty at risk. Just as Americans enjoy the right to read, watch, and talk about whatever we want offline, those protections extend to our speech online as well. Protecting free expression now keeps the marketplace of ideas open and guards us from sacrificing everyone’s right to free expression.

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  • Department of Education Blocks Undocumented Students from Career and Technical Programs

    Department of Education Blocks Undocumented Students from Career and Technical Programs

    The U.S. Department of Education announced it will no longer allow federal funds to support career, technical, and adult education programs for undocumented students, rescinding a nearly three-decade-old policy that permitted such access.

    The department said it is rescinding a 1997 “Dear Colleague Letter” from the Clinton administration that allowed undocumented immigrants to receive federal aid for career, technical, and adult education programs. The interpretive rule, published in the Federal Register, clarifies that federal programs under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act and the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act are “federal public benefits” subject to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.

    Education Secretary Linda McMahon stated that “under President Trump’s leadership, hardworking American taxpayers will no longer foot the bill for illegal aliens to participate in our career, technical, or adult education programs or activities”.

    The policy change affects access to dual enrollment programs, postsecondary career and technical education, and adult education programs. The department said it will send letters to postsecondary schools and adult education programs clarifying that undocumented immigrants cannot receive federal aid and may take enforcement actions against schools that do not comply by August 9.

    Augustus Mays, vice president of partnerships and engagement at EdTrust, a Washington-based education equity advocacy organization, condemned the decision.

    “This move is part of a broader, deeply disturbing trend,” Mays said. “Across the country, we’re seeing migrant communities targeted with sweeping raids, amplified surveillance, and fear-based rhetoric designed to divide and dehumanize.”

    Mays argued the change “derails individual aspirations and undercuts workforce development at a time when our nation is facing labor shortages in critical fields like healthcare, education, and skilled trades”. He noted the decision compounds existing barriers, as undocumented students are already prohibited from accessing federal financial aid including Pell Grants and student loans.

    The department maintains that the Clinton-era interpretation “mischaracterized the law by creating artificial distinctions between federal benefit programs based upon the method of assistance,” a distinction the department says Congress did not make in the 1996 welfare reform law.

    The change comes as President Trump proclaimed February 2025 as Career and Technical Education Month, stating his administration will “invest in the next generation and expand access to high-quality career and technical education for all Americans”.

    Career and technical education programs served approximately 11 million students in 2019-20, with about $1.3 billion in federal funds supporting such programs through the Department of Education in fiscal year 2021.

    The interpretive rule represents the department’s current enforcement position, though officials indicated they do not currently plan enforcement actions against programs serving undocumented students before August 9.

    EdTrust called on policymakers, education leaders, and community advocates to oppose the change. 

    “We must fight for a country where every student, regardless of where they were born, has access to the promise of education and the dignity of opportunity,” Mays said.

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  • IRS: Churches Can Now Back Political Candidates, But Scholars Remain Concerned

    IRS: Churches Can Now Back Political Candidates, But Scholars Remain Concerned

    In a July 7 court filing, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced that churches can now endorse political candidates without losing their tax-exempt status. This news follows over seven decades since the Johnson Amendment, a U.S. tax code provision that prohibited non-profit organizations and churches from intervening in political campaigns.

    Religion, American public life, and Black church studies scholars argue that this moment marks a significant erosion of the separation of church and state.

    Dr. Valerie Cooper“Both the government and the church are incredibly powerful institutions,” says Dr. Valerie Cooper, an associate professor of religion and society and Black church studies at Duke Divinity School and senior fellow at the Center for Theological Inquiry (CTI). “While it is important for citizens to be able to bring their religious convictions to their civic life, there is a concern, for me, as a person who loves the Christian church, about churches selling out for government power and losing their ability to be a prophetic voice.”

    Since 1954, only one house of worship has lost its tax-exempt status for violating this amendment.

    “The law has not changed, but the interpretation has,” says Dr. Corey D.B. Walker, Dean of Wake Forest University’s School of Divinity and a professor of the humanities. “What the IRS has said is that they’re not going to bring any cases for churches violating the Johnson Amendment.”

    According to Cooper, “conservative churches, particularly, white evangelicals, have been after this for years, if not decades,” she says in an interview with Diverse. “There are hot-button issues, and they’ve distributed information doing everything short of endorsements.”

    The issue has caught the attention of civil rights leaders like the Reverend Al Sharpton who said that the issue has to be studied carefully to ensure that “it does not create a double-edged sword.”Dr. Corey D.B. WalkerDr. Corey D.B. Walker

    “We cannot have a system in which right-wing congregations may endorse political candidates and others of a different political persuasion remain under scrutiny and lead to a situation that is not beneficial to all,” says Sharpton, the founder and president of National Action Network (NAN). 

    Sharpton, and NAN’s Board Chairman Reverend Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson, have convened a Zoom call with Black pastors and legal experts to explore the pros and cons of the decision

    Scholars of African American religion and religion in American public life have been tracking this movement for decades as well, says Walker. 

    “That danger the founders of the nation saw, that’s also the danger that we saw,” he says. “One of the real and understated issues that this new interpretation brings is that partisan political actors can now fund whatever limit they want into religious bodies to then instill and support particular political ideologies and projects, and that’s the danger of continually eroding the line between church and state.”

    Cooper, who was the first African American woman to earn tenure at Duke Divinity School in 2014, examines the ways religion does or does not impact other existing structures, like racism or inequality. 

    “I’m not just a religious scholar,” she adds. “I’m a religious person, and so I’m concerned about what appears to be a kind of political intervention.”

    Cooper says this kind of engagement could end with churches compromising their principles for political reasons.

    “Almost exactly a year before his assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. gives us a speech/sermon where he comes out against the Vietnam War, and many people in the Civil Rights Movement were horrified by this choice, because Johnson had been such an ally,” she says. “But King really felt that it was his obligation to speak prophetically and according to his faith, not according to what was maybe even wise political policy.”

    Cooper questions how this new development might impact church leaders’ ability to speak prophetically in the present day. 

    “What does that mean? Does that mean that the pastor is then no longer free to speak, even to call out the candidate, if he or she stops doing what is in the interest of the church,” she asks.

    Walker says that he is concerned about making absolute claims on public life that bypass shared beliefs, languages, and common frameworks.

    “So, the question becomes, what is the Court of Appeal when individuals are discriminated against, such as our LGBTQ brothers and sisters, or when individuals find themselves without funding for public schools because public school funding has been funneled into private religious schools,” he says. “What happens when you have reproductive rights no longer supported because reproductive rights are seen as anathema to God?”

    Walker adds that this development blurs the lines between churches and families.

    “Churches, congregations, religious bodies and worship are not the same as families discussing politics,” he says. “Families belong in the private sphere, so the idea that a worship service and a sermon are the same as a family in their living room discussing politics begs the question, what logic is operative at this moment?” 

    Cooper believes that this intervention on churches will impact everyone, even those who fought to remove the restrictions of the Johnson Amendment.

    “If people begin winning elections at the cost of the health and vitality of churches, we have not won anything,” she says.

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  • Expanded AI Makes Active, Personalized Learning More Accessible

    Expanded AI Makes Active, Personalized Learning More Accessible

    Top Hat’s AI-powered assistant, Ace, just got even better. Two new features—example generation and personalized practice—make it easier than ever for educators to personalize learning and give students the support they need to stay on track.

    Ace was designed to take the heavy lifting out of creating assessments and provide students with help when they need it. Now, it’s enabling educators to make learning more relevant by connecting course content to student interests and career goals and by offering targeted practice based on where students are struggling most.

    “Each of these features reflects our belief that great teaching and learning happens when technology helps people do what they do best,” said Maggie Leen, CEO of Top Hat. “With Ace, we’re building an experience that empowers busy educators and motivates students to connect, explore, practice, and succeed.”

    Since its introduction in 2023, Ace has become a trusted partner for instructors seeking to deepen engagement and boost learning outcomes. The new enhancements make it simple for educators to implement teaching practices shown to improve learning, and enhance student success through on-demand, personalized study support.

    Example Generation: Make Content More Relevant and Engaging

    One of the biggest challenges in teaching is helping students see why what they’re learning actually matters. With Ace’s new example generation feature, educators can highlight any part of their course material and ask Ace to create a scenario that ties the concept to something students might encounter in their future careers—or even in everyday life. For instance, an educator teaching anatomy to nursing students might ask Ace to show how muscle function affects patient mobility. When content is connected to students’ goals or lived experiences, it becomes more relevant and meaningful.

    This new capability builds on Ace’s popular question generation tool used by faculty to create formative assessments from their content with just a few clicks. With example generation, educators have another fast and flexible way to personalize course material and make learning more engaging.

    Personalized Practice: Turn Mistakes Into Learning Opportunities

    Many students want more chances to practice but often don’t know what to review or where to start. Ace’s new personalized practice feature gives them just that. As students work through assigned readings and questions, Ace pinpoints where they’re struggling and creates targeted practice sets based on those areas. Feedback is instant, helping students stay on track and build confidence before high-stakes tests.

    More than 100,000 students have used Ace for on-demand study help—from chat-based explanations to unlimited practice questions tied directly to their course content. The new personalized practice feature builds on these tools by offering even more tailored support. It’s a smarter, more continuous way to learn, to build confidence, and deepen understanding over time.

    “Ace shows what’s possible when AI is used thoughtfully to empower instructors, reflect students’ interests, and elevate the learning experience,” said Hong Bui, Chief Product Officer at Top Hat. “As Ace continues to evolve, we’ll add new capabilities to help educators teach more efficiently and create more impactful, engaging experiences for their students.”

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  • Heroic Telephone Operator saved the lives of others in the Folsom, New Mexico Flood of 1908 (Friday’s Labor Folklore)

    Heroic Telephone Operator saved the lives of others in the Folsom, New Mexico Flood of 1908 (Friday’s Labor Folklore)

    According to Tom Drake of the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, “the town never recovered from the disastrous flood of 1908.”  

    On that day – August 27, 1908 – a freak storm struck the town with only a few hours warning, leading to tragic results. Earlier that summer hay was cut and the leftover stalks littered the fields around the river’s headwaters. “When the rains came the water collected the hay stalks and other debris and carried them along until they began to block the small railroad bridges. When these impromptu dams gave way, the resulting surge added to the already swelling river.” (Mike Schoonover, Folsom Area History, 2010)

    People living upriver sounded the alarm by calling Folsom’s switchboard operator, Sally Rooke. Sally began ringing townspeople who had a telephone, warning them to escape the impending flood. She stayed at her station, contacting over 40 people who were saved from the flood. Then the rushing waters washed away her building. 

    “Residents of the town who lived on high ground and beyond the reach of the torrent, saw houses containing families crying for aid swept away before their eyes, powerless to render them any assistance.”

    Along with drowned cattle and horses, Sally’s body was found 12 miles downstream still wearing the headpiece worn by telephone operators. She died along with 17 other people that day.

    Eighteen years later the town honored her with a small memorial, donated by the contributions of telephone operators around the country. In 2007 the New Mexico Dept. of Cultural Affairs erected a historic marker in her name. Sally Rooke joins other notable women of New Mexico as part of that state’s Historic Women Marker Initiative.  

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  • Documents from US Department of Education (Federal Register)

    Documents from US Department of Education (Federal Register)

    Notices

    Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposals, Submissions, and Approvals:

    Streamlined Clearance Process for Discretionary Grants
    FR Document: 2025-13011
    Citation: 90 FR 30895    		 PDF Pages 30895-30896 (2 pages)
    Permalink
    Abstract: In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995, the Department is proposing an extension without change of a currently approved information collection request (ICR).

    Clarification of Federal Public Benefits under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act

    FR Document: 2025-12925
    Citation: 90 FR 30896    		 PDF Pages 30896-30901 (6 pages)
    Permalink
    Abstract: The U.S. Department of Education (Department) issues this interpretation to revise and clarify its position on the classification of certain Department programs providing “Federal public benefits,” as defined in Title IV of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), Public Law 104-193. The Department concludes that the postsecondary education programs and “other similar benefit” programs described within this interpretive rule, including adult…

    Notices

    Hearings, Meetings, Proceedings, etc.:

    Committee and Quarterly Board
    FR Document: 2025-13008
    Citation: 90 FR 30893    		 PDF Pages 30893-30895 (3 pages)
    Permalink
    Abstract: This notice sets forth the agenda, time, and instructions to access the National Assessment Governing Board’s (hereafter referred to as the Board or Governing Board) standing committee meetings and quarterly Governing Board meeting. This notice provides information to members of the public who may be interested in attending the meetings and/or providing written comments related to the work of the Governing Board. The meetings will be held either in person and/or virtually, as noted below….

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