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  • Federal judge blocks Trump’s Education Dept. shutdown, orders reinstatement of laid off staff

    Federal judge blocks Trump’s Education Dept. shutdown, orders reinstatement of laid off staff

    This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

    A federal judge on May 22 issued a preliminary injunction blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order to shut down the U.S. Department of Education and said the agency must reinstate the employees who were fired as part of mass layoffs.

    After U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced the agency’s plans in March to slash its workforce by roughly half, she called it a first step in getting rid of the agency. Trump followed days later with his executive order aiming to eliminate the department, a move he has long wanted.

    But only Congress can actually eliminate the department, and the administration’s attempt at getting around that influenced U.S. District Judge Myong Joun’s Thursday ruling.

    The Trump administration argued that they implemented agency layoffs to improve “efficiency” and “accountability,” the Massachusetts judge wrote, but then said: “The record abundantly reveals that [the administration’s] true intention is to effectively dismantle the Department without an authorizing statute.”

    Joun added: “A department without enough employees to perform statutorily mandated functions is not a department at all. This court cannot be asked to cover its eyes while the Department’s employees are continuously fired and units are transferred out until the Department becomes a shell of itself.”

    Within hours of the Joun’s ruling, the Trump administration filed an appeal.

    “This ruling is not in the best interest of American students or families,” Madi Biedermann, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications, wrote in a statement.

    Calls for the injunction came from lawsuits filed by the Somerville and Easthampton schools districts in Massachusetts along with the American Federation of Teachers, other education groups, and 21 Democratic attorneys general.

    They argued that the gutting of the department rendered the agency incapable of performing many of its core functions required by Congress.

    For example, all of the attorneys from the agency’s general counsel office who handle grants for K-12 schools and grants under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, had been fired. The dismantling of the Office for Civil Rights made it difficult to enforce civil rights protections. The department’s Financial Student Aid programs, which provide financial assistance to almost 12.9 million students across approximately 6,100 postsecondary educational institutions, were also hampered.

    Trump’s executive order instructed McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities” to the “maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”

    At the same time, the order said McMahon should ensure “the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”

    Trump said he would move the agency’s student loan portfolio to the Small Business Administration, and the Department of Health and Human Services would replace the Education Department’s role in “handling special needs.”

    Before the layoffs, the Education Department was the smallest of the 15 cabinet-level departments in terms of staffing, according to the judge, with around 4,100 employees. And the plaintiffs said the agency was strained meeting its obligations even then.

    The ruling was not based on the employees’ job rights, but rather how the agency was able to fulfill its obligations.

    “It’s not about whether employees have a right to a job,” said Derek Black, a University of South Carolina law professor. “It’s about whether the department can fulfill its statutory obligations to the states and to students.”

    The case made by former department employees, educational institutions, unions, and educators, Joun wrote, paints “stark picture of the irreparable harm that will result from financial uncertainty and delay, impeded access to vital knowledge on which students and educators rely, and loss of essential services for America’s most vulnerable student populations.”

    American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten heralded the judge’s ruling, calling it “a first step to reverse this war on knowledge and the undermining of broad-based opportunity.”

    But Biedermann, from the Education Department, said the ruling was unfair to the Trump administration.

    “Once again, a far-left Judge has dramatically overstepped his authority, based on a complaint from biased plaintiffs, and issued an injunction against the obviously lawful efforts to make the Department of Education more efficient and functional for the American people,” she said in a statement.

    Chalkbeat national editor Erica Meltzer contributed reporting.

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

    For more news on federal policy, visit eSN’s Educational Leadership hub.

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  • Students learn the basics of AI as they weigh its use in their future careers

    Students learn the basics of AI as they weigh its use in their future careers

    This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

    On a recent Thursday morning, Michael Taubman asked his class of seniors at North Star Academy’s Washington Park High School: “What do you think AI’s role should be in your future career?”

    “In school, like how we use AI as a tool and we don’t use it to cheat on our work … that’s how it should be, like an assistant,” said Amirah Falana, a 17-year-old interested in a career in real estate law.

    Fernando Infante, an aspiring software developer, agreed that AI should be a tool to “provide suggestions” and inform the work.

    “It’s like having AI as a partner rather than it doing the work,” said Infante during class.

    Falana and Infante are students in Taubman’s class called The Summit, a yearlong program offered to 93 seniors this year and expanding to juniors next year that also includes a 10-week AI course developed by Taubman and Stanford University.

    As part of the course, students use artificial intelligence tools – often viewed in a negative light due to privacy and other technical concerns – to explore their career interests and better understand how technology could shape the workforce. The class is also timely, as 92% of companies plan to invest in more AI over the next three years, according to a report by global consulting firm McKinsey and Company.

    The lessons provide students with hands-on exercises to better understand how AI works and how they can use it in their daily lives. They are also designed so teachers across subject areas can include them as part of their courses and help high school students earn a Google Career Certificate for AI Essentials, which introduces AI and teaches the basics of using AI tools.

    Students like Infante have used the AI and coding skills they learned in class to create their own apps while others have used them to create school surveys and spark new thoughts about their future careers. Taubman says the goal is to also give students agency over AI so they can embrace technological changes and remain competitive in the workfield.

    “One of the key things for young people right now is to make sure they understand that this technology is not inevitable,” Taubman told Chalkbeat last month. “People made this, people are making decisions about it, and there are pros and cons like with everything people make and we should be talking about this.”

    Students need to know the basics of AI, experts say

    As Generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, graduate high school and enter a workforce where AI is new, many are wondering how the technology will be used and to what extent.

    Nearly half of Gen Z students polled by The Walton Family Foundation and Gallup said they use AI weekly, according to the newly released survey exploring how youth view AI. (The Walton Family Foundation is a supporter of Chalkbeat. See our funders list here.) The same poll found that over 4 in 10 Gen Z students believe they will need to know AI in their future careers, and over half believe schools should be required to teach them how to use it.

    This school year, Newark Public Schools students began using Khan Academy’s AI chatbot tutor called Khanmigo, which the district launched as a pilot program last year. Some Newark teachers reported that the tutoring tool was helpful in the classroom, but the district has not released data on whether it helped raise student performance and test scores. The district in 2024 also launched its multimillion project to install AI cameras across school buildings in an attempt to keep students safe.

    But more than just using AI in school, students want to feel prepared to use it after graduating high school. Nearly 3 in 4 college students said their colleges or universities should be preparing them for AI in the workplace, according to a survey from Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse’s Student Voice series.

    Many of the challenges of using AI in education center on the type of learning approach used, accuracy, and building trust with the technology, said Nhon Ma, CEO of Numerade – an online learning assistant that uses AI and educators to help students learn STEM concepts. But that’s why it’s important to immerse students in AI to help them understand the ways it could be used and when to spot issues, Ma added.

    “We want to prepare our youth for this competitive world stage, especially on the technological front so they can build their own competence and confidence in their future paths. That could potentially lead towards higher earnings for them too,” Ma said.

    For Infante, the senior in Taubman’s class, AI has helped spark a love for computer science and deepened his understanding of coding. He used it to create an app that tracks personal milestones and goals and awards users with badges once they reach them. As an aspiring software developer, he feels he has an advantage over other students because he’s learning about AI in high school.

    Taubman also says it’s especially important for students to understand how quickly the technology is advancing, especially for students like Infante looking towards a career in technology.

    “I think it’s really important to help young people grapple with how this is new, but unlike other big new things, the pace is very fast, and the implications for career are almost immediate in a lot of cases,” Taubman added.

    Students learn that human emotions are important as AI grows

    It’s also important to remember the limitations of AI, Taubman said, noting that students need the basic understanding of how AI works in order to question it, identify any mistakes, and use it accordingly in their careers.

    “I don’t want students to lose out on an internship or job because someone else knows how to use AI better than they do, but what I really want is for students to get the internship or the job because they’re skillful with AI,” Taubman said.

    Through Taubman’s class, students are also identifying how AI increases the demand for skills that require human emotion, such as empathy and ethics.

    Daniel Akinyele, a 17-year-old senior, said he was interested in a career in industrial and organizational psychology, which focuses on human behavior in the workplace.

    During Taubman’s class, he used a custom AI tool on his laptop to explore different scenarios where he could use AI in his career. Many involved talking to someone about their feelings or listening to vocal cues that might indicate a person is sad or angry. Ultimately, psychology is a career about human connection and “that’s where I come into play,” Akinyele said.

    “I’m human, so I would understand how people are feeling, like the emotion that AI doesn’t see in people’s faces, I would see it and understand it,” Akinyele added.

    Falana, the aspiring real estate attorney, also used the custom AI tool to consider how much she should rely on AI when writing legal documents. Similar to writing essays in schools, Falana said professionals should use their original writing in their work but AI could serve as a launching pad.

    “I feel like the legal field should definitely put regulations on AI use, like we shouldn’t be able to, draw up our entire case using AI,” Falana said.

    During Taubman’s class, students also discussed fake images and videos created by AI. Infante, who wants to be a software developer, added that he plans to use AI regularly on the job but believes it should also be regulated to limit disinformation online.

    Taubman says it’s important for students to have a healthy level of skepticism when it comes to new technologies. He encourages students to think about how AI generates images, the larger questions around copyright infringement, and their training processes.

    “We really want them to feel like they have agency in this world, both their capacity to use these systems,” Taubman said, “but also to ask these broader questions about how they were designed.”

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

    For more on AI in education, visit eSN’s Digital Learning hub.

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  • Trump signs executive order that aims to close U.S. Department of Education

    Trump signs executive order that aims to close U.S. Department of Education

    This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

    President Donald Trump has signed a much anticipated executive order that he said is designed to close the U.S. Department of Education.

    The order Trump signed Thursday tells Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities” to the “maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.” At the same time, the order says McMahon should ensure “the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”

    Despite polling to the contrary, Trump said in his speech Thursday that closing the department is a popular idea that would save money and help American students catch up to other countries. He also said his order would ensure that other federal agencies take over major programs now housed at the Education Department, like those for students from low-income backgrounds and students with disabilities.

    “Beyond these core necessities, my administration will take all lawful steps to shut down the department,” Trump said. “We’re going to shut it down, and shut it down as quickly as possible. It’s doing us no good. We want to return our students to the states.”

    The executive order represents a symbolic achievement for Trump, who for years has expressed a desire to close the department. Yet the president has already radically transformed the department without relying on such an order. McMahon announced massive layoffs and buyouts earlier this month that cut the department’s staff nearly in half.

    Beyond the rhetoric, it’s unclear how exactly the order will impact the department’s work or existence.

    By law, only Congress can eliminate a cabinet-level agency authorized by Congress; White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt seemed to acknowledge as much Thursday before Trump signed the order, when she said that the Education Department will become “much smaller.” And during his Thursday remarks, Trump expressed hopes that Democrats as well as Republicans would be “voting” for the department’s closure, although prominent Democratic lawmakers have blasted the idea.

    The order does not directly change the department’s annual budget from Congress. And federal law dictates many of the Education Department’s main functions–changing those would require congressional approval that could be very hard to secure.

    Still, Trump’s move to dramatically slash the department’s staff could impact its capacity and productivity, even if officially its functions remain in place.

    At her confirmation hearing, McMahon promised to work with Congress on a reorganization plan. Project 2025, a prominent blueprint for conservative governance from the Heritage Foundation released before Trump’s second term, says that along with closing the Education Department, the federal government should move the department’s education civil rights enforcement to the Department of Justice, while the collection of education data should move to the U.S. Census Bureau.

    In a statement on Thursday, McMahon said closing the Education Department does not mean cutting off funds from those who depend on them.

    “We will continue to support K-12 students, students with special needs, college student borrowers, and others who rely on essential programs,” she wrote. “We’re going to follow the law and eliminate the bureaucracy responsibly by working with Congress and state leaders to ensure a lawful and orderly transition.”

    The executive order could be challenged in court. Many of Trump’s efforts to remake the federal bureaucracy are already tied up in litigation, including the Education Department layoffs.

    The executive order notes that the Education Department does not educate any students, and points to low test scores on an important national assessment as evidence that federal spending is not helping students.

    “Closing the Department of Education would provide children and their families the opportunity to escape a system that is failing them,” the order says.

    Trump order is triumph for department’s foes

    The Republican governors of Florida, Texas, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Louisiana, Tennessee, Idaho, and Nebraska were present during the signing ceremony. Trump said they “badly” wanted the federal government to give their states more control over education.

    “Probably the cost will be half, and the education will be maybe many, many times better,” Trump said. States that “run very, very well,” he said, could have education systems as good as those in Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway–countries that tend to outperform the United States on international reading and math tests.

    The Education Department administers billions of dollars in federal assistance through programs such as Title I, which benefits high-poverty schools, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, which offsets the cost of special education services.

    The department also administers financial aid for college students, shares information about best practices with states and school districts, and enforces civil rights laws. And it oversees the school accountability system, which identifies persistently low-performing schools to extra support.

    States and school districts already make most education decisions, from teacher pay to curriculum choices.

    Conservatives have wanted to get rid of the U.S. Department of Education since it was created by President Jimmy Carter and Congress in 1979, and Trump talked about doing so in his first administration. But those efforts never gained traction.

    Conservatives say that for decades the department has failed to adequately address low academic performance. They also see the department as generally hostile to their political and ideological perspectives.

    The executive order says that McMahon must ensure that “any program or activity receiving Federal assistance terminate illegal discrimination obscured under the label ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ or similar terms and programs promoting gender ideology,” a reference to policies intended to make schools more welcoming for students of color and LGBTQ students.

    The department has moved to publicly target and root out diversity-focused practices in schools in recent weeks. And the department has already threatened to withhold federal funding from Maine for allowing trans athletes to compete on teams that match their gender identity.

    Public education advocates say critical expertise will be lost and students’ civil rights won’t be protected if Trump further diminishes the department. They also fear that a department overhaul could endanger billions in federal funding that bolsters state and local education budgets.

    They say they’re already seeing impacts from layoffs, which hit the Office for Civil Rights, Federal Student Aid, and the Institute of Education Sciences particularly hard.

    Even before McMahon took office, the U.S. DOGE Service, the cost-cutting initiative run by billionaire Elon Musk, canceled hundreds of millions of dollars worth of research grants and contracts.

    The Education Department already was one of the smallest cabinet-level departments, with around 4,100 employees, before the layoffs. With buyouts and layoffs, the department now employs just under 2,200 people.

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

    Related:
    The ED is dead! Long Live the ED!
    Linda McMahon is confirmed as education secretary–DOGE and a department overhaul await her

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  • U.S. Department of Education slashes staff

    U.S. Department of Education slashes staff

    This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

    The U.S. Department of Education announced March 11 that it’s cutting its workforce nearly in half–a move that Education Secretary Linda McMahon said is a first step toward eliminating the department.

    Roughly a third of staff will lose their jobs through a “reduction in force,” the department said in a press release. Combined with voluntary buyouts, the Education Department will have just under 2,200 employees by the end of the month, compared with 4,133 when President Donald Trump took office with promises to shutter the department.

    The layoffs represent a significant escalation of Trump’s efforts to reduce the department’s role in education, which is mostly run by states and school districts. Already, the administration has canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and contracts that paid for education research, technical assistance to states and school districts, and teacher training programs.

    Affected staff will be placed on administrative leave starting March 21, the department said. Ahead of the announcement, workers were told to leave the office by 6 p.m. Tuesday and that the office would remain closed until Thursday “for security reasons.” McMahon later said this was standard corporate process when layoffs occur.

    “Today’s reduction in force reflects the Department of Education’s commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers,” McMahon said in a press release. “I appreciate the work of the dedicated public servants and their contributions to the Department. This is a significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States education system.”

    The Education Department administers major federal funding programs such as Title I, which provides extra money to high-poverty schools, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, which supports special education. It also investigates civil rights complaints and oversees an accountability system that pushes states to identify low-performing schools and provide them with additional resources.

    Exactly how the layoffs will affect specific programs was not immediately clear. A former Education Department staffer, who spoke with Chalkbeat on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the information, said the entire Office for Civil Rights teams based in Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Cleveland, Boston and New York were let go. That represents half of regional civil rights offices.

    The department said all divisions are affected but did not describe specific positions that were eliminated. In the press release, department officials said all functions required by law will continue.

    Only Congress can eliminate the department, but such deep cuts could leave the department a shell of its former self.

    Appearing on “The Ingraham Angle” on Fox News shortly after the layoffs were announced, McMahon said Trump had given her a clear mandate to shutter the department. She said she would work with Congress to do that. Immediately cutting these positions would help the federal government send more money to the states, she said.

    “I said ‘OK we have to identify where the bloat is, where the bureaucracy is, and we’re going to start there,’ McMahon said. “We need to make sure that that money does get to the states.”

    Trump is expected to sign an executive order to start the process of eliminating the department, but has not yet done so. Conservatives say that for decades the department has failed to adequately address low academic performance and is a bloated bureaucracy.

    On Fox, McMahon reassured viewers that programs such as IDEA would still be funded through congressional appropriations. Asked what IDEA stood for, McMahon responded, “I’m not sure I can tell you exactly what it stands for except that it’s programs for disabled needs. It’s my fifth day on the job, and I’m really trying to learn quickly.”

    Conservative state school chiefs said in a letter to McMahon last month that they need more flexibility in how to use federal money, rather than following complex rules that ensure specific funding streams benefit certain student groups.

    Public education advocates fear that if money flows unrestricted to states, there’s no guarantee it will help the most vulnerable students. Even without an executive order, they worry that administrative changes could affect the department’s ability to perform basic functions.

    Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, condemned the layoffs.

    “Denuding an agency so it cannot function effectively is the most cowardly way of dismantling it,” she said in a statement. “The massive reduction in force at the Education Department is an attack on opportunity that will gut the agency and its ability to support students, throwing federal education programs into chaos across the country.”

    Sheria Smith, president of the American Federation of Government Employee Local 252, which represents 2,800 Education Department employees, said the union will fight back against the layoffs and against what she called a misinformation campaign about the department’s work.

    “We must ask our fellow Americans: do you want your and your children’s rights enforced in school? Do you want your children to have the ability to play sports in their school districts? Do you need financial aid for college? Are you a fellow civil servant that relies on student loan forgiveness? Does your school district offset property taxes with federal funding?” she said in a statement.

    “If yes, then you rely on the Department of Education, and the services you rely on and the employees who support them are under attack.”

    Shortly after she was confirmed, McMahon sent a message to Education Department staff describing a “final mission” that would affect staffing, budgets, and agency operations.

    Department staff were given one-time offers of up to $25,000 to retire or resign in advance of a “very significant reduction in force.” More than 500 employees took some form of buy out.

    Another 1,300 employees are losing their jobs through the reduction in force, McMahon announced.

    Employees who are laid off will be paid through June 9.

    This story has been updated to include comments from Linda McMahon on Fox News, reaction to the layoffs, and additional information about affected offices.

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

    For more on education policy, visit eSN’s Educational Leadership hub.

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  • Immigration arrests at schools loom after Trump changes longstanding policy

    Immigration arrests at schools loom after Trump changes longstanding policy

    This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

    The Trump administration has cleared the way for immigration arrests at or near schools, ending a decades-old approach.

    Republican and Democratic administrations alike have treated schools and child care centers, along with churches and hospitals, as “sensitive” or “protected” locations where immigration enforcement should only take place when there is an immediate danger to the public.

    But U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials announced on January 21 that they had rescinded the latest version of the policy, which was issued in 2021 by the Biden administration. The news was first reported early on January 21 by Fox News.

    A copy of the Homeland Security memo was not immediately available for review.

    But in a statement, a Homeland Security spokesperson said that Acting Secretary Benjamine Huffman issued a directive on Monday that rescinded the sensitive locations policy. The spokesperson said the action would help federal authorities enforce immigration law and catch criminals who entered the country illegally. Immigration agents will be asked to use “common sense” in enforcing the law.

    “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” the statement read.

    Since Trump’s reelection, observers anticipated the end of treating certain locations as “sensitive” with respect to immigration enforcement. News reports surfaced in mid-December that the incoming Trump administration was planning to get rid of the policy. Since then, schools have been bracing for the possibility of immigration agents showing up at their doors.

    Even before this policy existed, large-scale immigration raids weren’t conducted at schools. But Trump’s policy change paves the way for immigration agents to detain parents during dropoff or pickup, as has happened occasionally in the past.

    Immigrant rights advocates worry that could lead to more absenteeism among children with immigrant parents, who may now fear being stopped by immigration agents while driving or walking their kids to school. That happened during the first Trump administration. Advocates also worry about the potential for routine interactions with school police to reveal a student or family’s immigration status, and lead to their deportation.

    Some school districts have issued explicit instructions to educators and parents about how school staff should handle an immigration agent’s presence on campus. Some districts have also said they will not permit a federal agent on school premises without a judicial warrant, and that staff will be instructed to call the school system’s lawyer if these agents do show up.

    Some of the nation’s largest districts, including Los Angeles and Chicago, have re-upped or expanded existing policies meant to protect immigrant students and families. New York City is scheduled to vote on a resolution this week that would reaffirm a policy preventing school safety agents from collaborating with federal immigration authorities in most cases.

    Others, including several Texas school districts near the U.S.-Mexico border, are taking a “wait and see” approach to avoid causing confusion or fear among families. At the same time, immigrant rights advocates say it’s helpful to inform families of their rights and show them how to make a plan in case a parent is detained.

    The end of treating schools as sensitive locations is just one of many executive actions on immigration that the new Trump administration has taken since taking office on January 20.

    Trump also signed an executive order that seeks to end the automatic right to citizenship for any child born in the U.S. On January 21, 18 states announced they were suing to block the policy change.

    This story has been updated to include confirmation and comments from the Department of Homeland Security about the policy change.

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

    Related:
    Trump has won a second term–here’s what that means for schools
    Trump picks Linda McMahon to lead, and possibly dismantle, Education Department
    For more news on education policy, visit eSN’s Educational Leadership hub

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