Tag: contracts

  • Teachers unions leverage contracts to fight climate change

    Teachers unions leverage contracts to fight climate change

    This story first appeared in Hechinger’s climate and education newsletter. Sign up here. 

    In Illinois, the Chicago Teachers Union won a contract with the city’s schools to add solar panels on some buildings and clean energy career pathways for students, among other actions. In Minnesota, the Minneapolis Federation of Educators demanded that the district create a task force on environmental issues and provide free metro passes for students. And in California, the Los Angeles teachers union’s demands include electrifying the district’s bus fleet and providing electric vehicle charging stations at all schools. 

    Those are among the examples in a new report on how unionized teachers are pushing their school districts to take action on the climate crisis, which is damaging school buildings and disrupting learning. The report — produced by the nonprofit Building Power Resource Center, which supports local governments and leaders, and the Labor Network for Sustainability, a nonprofit that seeks to unite labor and climate groups — describes how educators can raise demands for climate action when they negotiate labor contracts with their districts. By emphasizing the financial case for switching to renewable energy, educators can simultaneously act on climate change, improve conditions in schools and save districts money, it says. 

    As federal support and financial incentives for climate action wither, this sort of local action is becoming more difficult — but also more urgent, advocates say. Chicago Public Schools has relied on funding for electric buses that has been sunsetted by the Trump administration, said Jackson Potter, vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union. But the district is also seeking other local and state funding and nonprofit support.

    Bradley Marianno, an associate professor in the College of Education at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said that educator unions embracing climate action is part of a move started about 15 years ago in which more progressive unions — like those in Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere — focus on “collective good bargaining,” or advocating for changes that are good for their members but also the broader community. But this approach is unlikely to catch on everywhere: “The risk lies in members feeling that core issues like wages and working conditions are being overlooked in favor of more global causes,” he wrote in an email. 

    I recently caught up with Potter, the CTU vice president, about the report and his union’s approach to bargaining for climate action. Collaborating with local environmental and community groups, the Chicago Teachers Union ultimately succeeded in winning a contract that calls for identifying schools for solar panels and electrification, expanding indoor air quality monitoring, helping educators integrate climate change into their curriculum, and establishing training for students in clean energy jobs, among other steps. 

    This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

    The report talks about contract negotiations being an underused — and effective — lever for demanding climate action. Why do you see that process as such an opportunity for climate action?

    On the local level, our schools are 84, 83 years old on average. There is lead paint, lead pipes, mold, asbestos, PCBs, all kinds of contamination in the HVAC system and the walls that require upgrades. By our estimate, the district needs $30 billion worth of upgrades, and right now I think they spend $500 million a year to just do patch-up work. We’re at a point where it’s a system fail of epic proportions if we can’t figure out a way to transition and make things healthier. And so if you’re going to do a roof repair, put solar on it, have independence from fossil fuels, clean air in areas that have faced environmental racism and contamination. 

    We’re also dealing with a legacy of discrimination and harm, and that is true of the nation. So how do we get out of this and also save the planet and also prevent greater climate events that further destabilize vulnerable communities and put people at risk? It made sense for us to use our contract as a path to do both things — deal with this local crisis that was screaming for new solutions and ideas, in a moment when the climate is on fire, literally.  

    How challenging was it to get educators to view climate issues as a priority? There are so many other things, around pay and other issues, on the table. 

    When we started, it almost felt like people in the membership, in the community, viewed it as a niche issue. Like, ‘Oh, isn’t that cute, you care about green technology.’ As we figured out how to think about it and talk about it and probe where people were having issues in their schools, it became really obvious that when you started talking about asbestos, lead and mold remediation — and helping communities that have been hit the hardest with cumulative impacts and carcinogens and how those things are present in schools — that became much more tangible. Or even quality food and lunch and breakfast for students who are low-income. It went from bottom of the list to top of the list, instantaneously. 

    Your contract calls for a number of climate-related actions, including green pathways for students and agreements with building trade unions to create good jobs for students. Tell me about that. 

    We’re trying to use the transformation of our facilities as another opportunity for families and students in these communities that have been harmed the most to get the greatest benefit from the transformation. So if we can install solar, we want our students to be part of that project on the ground in their schools, gaining the skills and apprenticeship credentials to become the electricians of the future. And using that as a project labor agreement [which establishes the terms of work on a certain project] with the trades to open doors and opportunities. The same goes for all the other improvements — whether it’s heat pumps, HVAC systems, geothermal. And for EV — we have outdated auto shop programming that’s exclusively based on the combustible engine reliant on fossil fuels, whereas in [the nearby city of] Belvidere they are building electric cars per the United Auto Workers’ new contract. Could we gain a career path on electric vehicles that allows students to gain that mechanical knowledge and insight and prepares them for the vehicles of the future? 

    The report talks about the Batesville School District in Arkansas that was able to increase teacher salaries because of savings from solar. Have you tried to make the case for higher teacher salaries because of these climate steps?  

    The $500 million our district allocates for facility upgrades annually comes out of the general fund, so we haven’t at all thought about it in terms of salary. We’ve thought about it in terms of having a school nurse, social worker, mental health interventions at a moment when there is so much trauma. We see this as a win-win: The fewer dollars the district has to spend on facility needs means the more dollars they can spend on instructional and social-emotional needs for students. In terms of the Arkansas model, it’s pretty basic. If you get off the fossil fuel pipelines and electric lines and you become self-sufficient, essentially, powering your own electric and heat, there is going to be a boon, particularly if there are up-front subsidies. 

    Math and climate change 

    When temperatures rise in classrooms, students have more trouble concentrating and their learning suffers — in math, in particular. That’s according to a new report from NWEA, an education research and testing company.

    The report, part of a growing body of evidence of the harms of extreme heat on student performance, found that math scores declined when outdoor temperatures on test days rose above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Students in high-poverty schools, which are less likely to have air conditioning, saw declines up to twice as large as those in wealthier schools. 

    The learning losses grew as temperatures rose. Students who took tests on 101-degree days scored roughly 0.06 standard deviations below students who tested when temperatures were 60 degrees, the equivalent of about 10 percent of the learning a fifth grader typically gains in a school year. 

    It’s not entirely clear why student math scores suffer more than reading when temperatures rise. But Sofia Postell, an NWEA research analyst, said that on math tests, students must problem-solve and rely on their memories, and that kind of thinking is particularly difficult when students are hot and tired. Anxiety could be a factor too, she wrote in an email: “Research has also shown that heat increases anxiety, and some students may experience more testing anxiety around math exams.”

    The study was based on data from roughly 3 million scores on NWEA’s signature MAP Growth test for third to eighth graders in six states. 

    The report urged school, district and state officials to take several steps to reduce the effects of high heat on student learning and testing. Ideally, tests would be scheduled during times of the year when it wasn’t so hot, it said, and also during mornings, when temperatures are cooler. Leaders also need to invest in updating HVAC systems to keep kids cool. 

    “Extreme heat has already detrimentally impacted student learning and these effects will only intensify without action,” wrote Postell. 

    Mea culpa: A quick note to say I got two things wrong in my last newsletter — the name of the Natural Resources Defense Council was incorrect, as was the number of hours of learning California students have missed so far this year. It’s more than 54,000. 

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

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

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • HHS moves to cut Harvard off from all federal grants and contracts

    HHS moves to cut Harvard off from all federal grants and contracts

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    Dive Brief:

    • Harvard University could lose access to all federal grants and contracts under proceedings initiated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Monday.
    • The agency’s Office for Civil Rights has referred the university for suspension and debarment, the process by which the agency can cut off entities from federal grants and contracts if it determines that wrongdoing renders them “not responsible enough to do business” with the government.
    • The move represents the latest federal effort to bend Harvard to the Trump administration’s will through financial pressure. The administration has sought to use multiple federal agencies to gain increased influence over the higher education sector, singling out Harvard as a prime target.

    Dive Insight:

    On Monday, HHS’ OCR recommended excluding Harvard from federal funding, arguing the move would protect the public interest. The agency cited its June notice that formally accused Harvard of being in “violent violation” of Title VI by being “deliberately indifferent” to harassment of Jewish and Israeli students on its campus.

    Title VI forbids institutions that accept federal funds from discriminating based on race, color or national origin.

    HHS can pursue the debarment process when an entity — in this case Harvard — does not voluntarily agree with the agency’s terms to return to compliance with Title VI, according to Paula Stannard, director of HHS’ OCR. HHS and three other federal agencies on the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism in June called for Harvard to “institute adequate changes immediately” but did not publicly detail what those changes should be.

    Stannard said Monday that Harvard has the right to a formal hearing during the suspension and debarment process.

    “An HHS administrative law judge will make an impartial determination on whether Harvard violated Title VI by acting with deliberate indifference towards antisemitic student-on-student harassment,” Stannard said. 

    Harvard has 20 days to request the hearing. The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

    Suspension and debarment applies to all federal grants and contracts, not just those from HHS. And agencies across the federal government can initiate suspension and debarment proceedings. If sustained, debarment is not permanent and typically lasts under three years, according to a 2022 HHS report.

    Monday’s announcement is unrelated to HHS’ joint civil rights investigation with the U.S. Department of Education into Harvard and the Harvard Law Review. The agencies opened the probe in April, citing allegations of “race-based discrimination permeating the operations” of the student-run journal.

    Months before HHS formally determined Harvard had violated Title VI, the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force froze over $2.2 billion of the university’s grants and contracts. 

    The halt came after Harvard President Alan Garber publicly rebuked the Trump administration’s call for increased federal control of the institution. Its demands included that the university hire a third party to audit the viewpoints of Harvard students and employees, halt all diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, and reduce the power of certain faculty and administrators involved in activism.

    A federal judge ruled in early September that the Trump administration violated the university’s First Amendment rights and didn’t follow proper steps when it suspended the funding. No evidence indicated that “fighting antisemitism was Defendants’ true aim in acting against Harvard,” the judge wrote. 

    The judge’s decision barred the Trump administration from cutting off Harvard’s federal funding in retaliation for the university exercising its free speech rights or without following the procedural requirements of Title VI. However, the judge noted that her ruling didn’t prevent the Trump administration from “acting within their constitutional, statutory, or regulatory authority.”

    Trump administration officials appealed the decision and said it would keep Harvard “ineligible for grants in the future.”

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  • University of Michigan has ended private surveillance contracts but the chill on free speech remains

    University of Michigan has ended private surveillance contracts but the chill on free speech remains

    Clare Rigney is a rising second-year student at American University Washington College of Law and a FIRE summer intern.

    After a news story last week that the University of Michigan was paying private investigators to spy on pro-Palestinian student protesters, the school quickly ended its contracts with the surveillance firm.

    In case anyone is unaware, the year is 2025. Not 1984.

    Now the university says this Orwellian practice has ended, but the chill on student speech will likely remain for some time.

    On June 6, The Guardian reported on the story, citing multiple videos and student accounts of investigators cursing at students and threatening them. Between June 2023 and September 2024, U-M reportedly paid about $800,000 to the Detroit-based security company City Shield to carry out this surveillance instead of using the funds to increase the size of the campus police force. 

    Several of the targeted students were members of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, the local chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine, causing critics to accuse the school of targeting pro-Palestinian speech.

    One student, Josiah Walker, said he counted 30 people following him at different times on and off-campus. (As a precaution, he started parking his car off-campus.) On one occasion, Walker believed a man at a campus protest was following him. The man seemed to have a speech impairment, so Walker felt bad about that assumption. However, he later saw the same man speaking in a completely normal manner. When Walker confronted him, the man pretended Walker was trying to rob him.

    The whole incident was caught on camera.

    On the recording, Walker said, “The degree to which all these entities are willing to go to target me is amazing. Guys, this doesn’t make sense. What are you doing? Leave me alone.”

    To serve their proper function, universities must facilitate an open and collaborative learning environment as a marketplace of ideas. U-M ostensibly knows this, saying it values “an environment where all can participate, are invited to contribute, and have a sense of belonging.” 

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    Surveillance and intimidation do not cultivate such an environment. U-M’s surveillance will make students want to look over their shoulders before seeking to use their right to free speech.

    The Supreme Court’s ruling in Healy v. James requires universities to uphold their students’ First Amendment rights. This extends even to students whose speech the university deems offensive or “antithetical” to the school’s goals. 

    In Healy, the Court emphasized the danger of an institution targeting a group of students as particularly dangerous based on their viewpoint, noting, “the precedents of this Court leave no room for the view that, because of the acknowledged need for order, First Amendment protections should apply with less force on college campuses than in the community at large.”

    Indeed, an important function of college is to allow students to broaden their horizons and meet different kinds of  people. And freedom of association allows them to seek out individuals whose beliefs align with theirs so that they can work toward a common goal. 

    Unfortunately, universities have used these chilling tactics against student political protestors for years. 

    Amid protests demanding sick pay for frontline workers, the University of Miami in 2020 used facial recognition technology to identify protestors. The university then hauled these students into meetings where they were forced to review Miami’s events policies.

    “The take-home message that we got was basically, We’re watching you,” Esteban Wood, one of the student protesters, later said. 

    When colleges and universities surveil students, they chill speech and promote distrust between student activists and the police meant to protect them.

    In 2018, Campus Safety Magazine revealed that the University of Virginia had contracted with a private service called Social Sentinel. This service used an algorithm to monitor students’ social media posts and, if it deemed it necessary, report them to the police.

    That same year, FIRE reported on a similar situation at the University of North Carolina. During protests over a confederate statue, a UNC campus police officer masqueraded as an approachable civilian named “Victor” in order to gain information from protesters and track their movements. Later, when students confronted “Victor” in a police uniform, he revealed himself as Officer Hector Bridges, explaining he had pretended to be sympathetic to their cause as a part of his “work.” 

    “I”m representing the university right now,” Bridges admitted on video.

    The UNC Police Department later released a statement saying the university had a practice of sending “plain clothes” officers to patrol the statue to purportedly “maintain student and public safety.”

    Chilling student speech in the name of undisclosed and unspecified safety is nothing new. But if it is serious about change, it couldn’t hurt for U-M to start with reviewing its own policies. According to its Division of Public Safety and Security, its role is to foster “a safe and secure environment” where students learn to “challenge the present.” Furthermore, U-M’s Standard Practice Guide section on freedom of speech states that when any non-university security forces are needed, they should know and follow these policies. 

    While it’s possible to imagine a circumstance where student surveillance might be necessary, colleges should keep in mind that courts have generally disfavored such efforts. For example, in White v. Davis, the Supreme Court of California rebuked the Los Angeles Police Department’s unconstitutional surveillance of UCLA students:

    The censorship of totalitarian regimes that so often condemns developments in art, science and politics is but a step removed from the inchoate surveillance of free discussion in the university; such intrusion stifles creativity and to a large degree shackles democracy.

    When colleges and universities surveil students, they chill speech and promote distrust between student activists and the police meant to protect them. That can be dangerous for both the students and the officers. Police investigations will be more difficult if the student body does not trust them enough to cooperate when needed. Students may be less likely to contact the police for legitimate violations. 

    Colleges and universities should empower their students to boldly state their beliefs. That’s simply not possible if they are also hiring outside agencies to spy on them. While we are glad the University of Michigan ended the practice, this case should serve as a reminder that such heavy-handed surveillance tactics have no place at American universities. 

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  • Feds to Columbia: ‘You want $400 million in contracts back? Do this (or else)’

    Feds to Columbia: ‘You want $400 million in contracts back? Do this (or else)’

    Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, and the U.S. General Services Administration announced the immediate cancellation of $400 million in federal contracts with Columbia University. 

    The announcement corresponded with ongoing Title VI investigations alleging an anti-Semitic hostile environment at Columbia. Last night, the agencies sent a follow-up letter sidestepping important procedures and including demands that will seriously erode free speech and academic freedom on campus. 

    There is significant evidence to suggest that Columbia failed to respond effectively to unlawful conduct directed against Jewish students based on their Jewish identity and that this has resulted in Title VI violations. Indeed, Columbia responded to the agencies’ March 7 announcement about canceling contracts by stating it is “committed to working with the federal government to address their legitimate concerns.” [Emphasis added].

    However, the departments’ demands in last night’s letter to Columbia go too far. The letter announces steps the school must take “that we regard as a precondition for formal negotiations regarding Columbia University’s continued financial relationship with the United States Government.” While these include some policy steps that Columbia should already have taken, the letter goes far beyond what is appropriate for the government to mandate and will chill campus discourse.

    Our nation’s colleges need to protect free expression and comply with anti-discrimination laws, but too often … they enact overbroad or vague policies that do not track the Supreme Court’s definition for discriminatory peer harassment.

    For instance, the letter demands that Columbia “Formalize, adopt and promulgate a definition of anti-Semitism.” It cites President Trump’s 2019 executive order on anti-Semitism — which orders the government to consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition and examples of anti-Semitism for civil rights enforcement — hinting strongly that Columbia should adopt that definition. 

    While the IHRA definition was originally crafted to study incidents of anti-Semitism in Europe, its primary author has repeatedly stated that it was never intended to be used for anti-discrimination enforcement because it risks chilling speech on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on campus. The examples of anti-Semitism cited by IHRA include criticisms of Israeli policy that can, depending on the situation, be political speech protected by our First Amendment. 

    Other demands may be of even greater concern. The government’s demand that an academic department be put under “academic receivership” is a clear intrusion on academic freedom, and its deadline of March 20 for a “full plan” to do so is likely impossible to meet. And there is no basis to believe that the federal government has the power to demand that Columbia eliminate its University Judicial Board or to mandate specific punishments (“expulsion or multi-year suspension”) be given to student demonstrators.

    The demands in the letter pose a problem, but so is the process the government is using to issue those demands. This is not the normal procedure for revocation of federal financial assistance for violations of Title VI. Instead, the government appears to rely on authority under Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) to cancel contracts based on “termination for convenience of the government” clauses that exist in most federal contracts. As a Biden-era document states: “the Government has a lot of latitude to terminate contracts for convenience and the Federal Acquisition Regulations do not require a lot from the Government when terminating contracts for convenience.” 

    Federal anti-discrimination law has been one of the most frequently cited justifications for campus censorship throughout FIRE’s history. Our nation’s colleges need to protect free expression and comply with anti-discrimination laws, but too often — and sometimes at the federal government’s behest — they enact overbroad or vague policies that do not track the Supreme Court’s definition for discriminatory peer harassment. As a result, their policies and actions end up targeting speech protected by the First Amendment. This has long been a problem in the Title IX context relating to sex discrimination, and has more recently become a problem in the Title VI context as well.

    One important protection that colleges have against improper pressure from the federal government to censor students and faculty is the process federal civil rights law provides for colleges accused of failing to address unlawful discrimination. Civil rights investigations should not be handled through ad hoc directives from the government. Existing procedures, which include an attempt at a voluntary resolution followed by either an administrative hearing with the opportunity for the institution to defend itself or a trial in federal court, are intended to reduce the risk of error, individual biases, and overreach. 

    None of those safeguards are in evidence in the Columbia process, which increases the likelihood of abuse. Title VI processes are in place for a reason, and those procedures, when followed in good faith, are more likely to generate just outcomes for colleges, students, and faculty. 

    Earlier this week, the Department of Education announced it was launching Title VI anti-Semitism investigations into 60 colleges and universities across the country. Any of those institutions that have contracts with the federal government would reasonably expect to be treated similarly to Columbia and risk losing federal government contracts unless they enact policies similar to those outlined in last night’s letter. 

    The threat to both free speech and academic freedom are clear, and last night’s letter is a blueprint to supercharge campus censorship.

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  • Trump administration cancels $400M of Columbia’s grants and contracts amid antisemitism probe

    Trump administration cancels $400M of Columbia’s grants and contracts amid antisemitism probe

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    Four federal agencies announced Friday they are immediately canceling $400 million of grants and contracts to Columbia University over what they described as the Ivy League institution’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” 

    The cancellation of the grants and contracts comes just four days after the Trump administration’s newly created Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced a probe into Columbia. 

    The four agencies — the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Education and U.S. General Services Administration — said more cancellations will follow. The university has over $5 billion in federal grant commitments, according to the announcement. 

    “Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding,” U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a Friday statement. “For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus. Today, we demonstrate to Columbia and other universities that we will not tolerate their appalling inaction any longer.”

    A Columbia spokesperson said Friday that officials are reviewing the announcement and plan to work with the federal government to restore the funding. 

    “We take Columbia’s legal obligations seriously and understand how serious this announcement is and are committed to combatting antisemitism and ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our students, faculty, and staff,” the spokesperson said.

    The four agencies threatened to take similar actions against other colleges. 

     “The decisive action by the DOJ, HHS, ED, and GSA to cancel Columbia’s grants and contracts serves as a notice to every school and university that receives federal dollars that this Administration will use all the tools at its disposal to protect Jewish students and end anti-Semitism on college campuses,” they said in Friday’s announcement. 

     The antisemitism task force is already poised to review several other high-profile colleges. Last week, the Justice Department said the group would visit 10 college campuses, including Columbia, where antisemitic incidents have been reported since October 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel. 

     The other campuses are George Washington University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Northwestern University, University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, Berkeley, University of Minnesota and University of Southern California. 

    Even more recently, the task force on Wednesday announced a probe into the University of California over allegations that it discriminated against employees by not doing enough to prevent an antisemitic and hostile work environment. 

    Groups raise concerns over free speech

    Columbia has drawn Republican policymakers’ ire for months over the way university administrators have responded to pro-Palestinian protests on its campus. Protesters erected an encampment on the university’s lawn in April, sparking similar demonstrations nationwide that led to hundreds of student arrests. 

    This past fall, many colleges tightened their protest rules to deter encampments. Since then, Columbia and other high-profile institutions largely haven’t seen the same long-running encampments that rocked their campuses last spring, though protesters have held sit-ins and other demonstrations. 

    Columbia itself has made several policy changes — including some that have attracted criticism from free speech scholars. 

    The university’s Office of Institutional Equity — a newly created committee — has recently been bringing disciplinary cases against students who have criticized Israel, the Associated Press reported earlier this week. 

    “Based on how these cases have proceeded, the university now appears to be responding to governmental pressure to suppress and chill protected speech,” Amy Greer, an attorney advising the students under review, told AP. 

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  • Education Department cancels $350M in contracts, grants

    Education Department cancels $350M in contracts, grants

    Last week, the department canceled nearly $900 million in contracts at the Institute for Education Sciences.

    J. David Ake/Getty Images

    The U.S. Education Department has canceled 10 contracts with Regional Educational Laboratories totaling $336 million and a further $33 million of grants to Equity Assistance Centers.

    The decision, announced Friday, appears to be another example of Elon Musk’s U.S. Department of Government Efficiency slashing the department’s activities and of anti–diversity, equity and inclusion activist Christopher Rufo’s continuing influence. The cuts also seem to part of the Trump administration’s crusade against programs that could be considered DEI-related, but it’s unclear what all the canceled contracts and grants were actually for.

    Regional Educational Laboratories, or RELs, have been around for more than a half century. Among other things, they contribute “research on how experiences within the nation’s education system differ by context and student group, thereby impacting outcomes,” according to the website of the Institute of Education Sciences, which administers the 10 RELs.

    On Feb. 10, the Trump administration said it canceled nearly $900 million in Institute of Education Sciences contracts. Then, on Thursday night—in a news release titled “U.S. Department of Education Cancels Additional $350 Million in Woke Spending”—the department announced the severing of the REL contracts.

    “Review of the contracts uncovered wasteful and ideologically driven spending not in the interest of students and taxpayers,” the department said. It said REL Midwest “has been advising schools in Ohio to undertake ‘equity audits’ and equity conversations.”

    But the release didn’t say how much REL Midwest was receiving for that work or further explain what the other canceled contracts were for. The department said in an email Friday that no further information was “cleared for release.”

    President Trump has said he plans to close the Education Department, but the release suggested that these contract cancellations might not be part of a permanent reduction in spending. “The department plans to enter into new contracts that will satisfy the statutory requirements, improve student learning and better serve school districts, state departments of education and other education stakeholders,” the release said.

    The release also said the department “terminated grants to four Equity Assistance Centers totaling $33 million, which supported divisive training in DEI, critical race theory and gender identity for state and local education agencies as well as school boards.” It didn’t hint at restoring this funding.

    The Equity Assistance Centers were originally referred to as the Desegregation Assistance Centers program, according to the Education Department, and help to ensure “that all students have equitable access to learning opportunities, regardless of their child’s race, sex, national origin, or religion.”

    On Thursday afternoon, Rufo, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, posted on X a few examples of what he had telegraphed as “a trove of insane videos, slides and documents from the Department of Education. The whole department functions like a Ponzi scheme for left-wing ideologies.”

    Then, roughly three hours before the department announced the cuts, he posted, “I’m hearing murmurs that the @DOGE team is following my posts about the Department of Education.” About an hour before the announcement, he posted that the department’s “DOGE team has terminated $350 million in federal contracts to the DOE’s ‘regional education laboratories’ and ‘equity assistance centers.’ We expose corruption on X, then DOGE wipes it out in D.C.”

    Rufo didn’t return requests for comment Friday. The Knowledge Alliance, a coalition advancing research that’s critical to solving education problems, said in a news release Friday that the REL contract cancellations continue “the unprecedented assault on learning and evaluation in the U.S. education system.”

    “RELs provide research and technical assistance that is tailored to specific states and communities, helping schools and districts tackle the most pressing challenges they face,” the Knowledge Alliance release said. “Working in close partnership with educators, school leaders and policymakers, RELs help design and implement approaches that meaningfully improve outcomes for everyone in our school communities.”

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  • Cancellation of Education Department research contracts sparks concerns

    Cancellation of Education Department research contracts sparks concerns

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    Dive Brief:

    • The U.S. Department of Education abruptly canceled about $881 million in multiyear research contracts on Monday, sparking a storm of protest from groups concerned about a loss of data accuracy and the dissemination of evidence-based practices.
    • The temporary Department of Government Efficiency, led by billionaire Elon Musk, said the contracts terminated by the Education Department’s Institute of Educational Sciences include 29 related to diversity, equity and inclusion that total $101 million. 
    • Activities involving the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the College Scorecard and the College Navigator were not impacted by the cancellations, a department spokesperson said in an email.

    Dive Insight:

    In total, 89 IES contracts worth nearly $900 million were canceled, according to DOGE and the Education Department. The Education Department did not respond to a request for a list of the canceled contracts or provide a reason for the terminations.

    President Donald Trump has pledged to eliminate the Education Department, although that action would need congressional approval. As a first step, Trump is expected to issue an executive order in the near future limiting the department’s power and responsibilities. 

    Last month, the Education Department said it had “removed or archived” hundreds of DEI-related outward-facing documents — including guidance, reports and training materials — to comply with Trump’s executive order to end federal DEI activities. The Education Department also recently put employees charged with leading DEI efforts on paid leave.

    As the education field was attempting to better understand the reach of the canceled contracts, several individuals and organizations expressed concern.

    The “robust collection and analysis of data are essential for ensuring quality education,” according to a joint statement on Monday from the American Education Research Association and the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics.

    The organizations said the contract terminations will prevent the National Center for Education Statistics from participating in international assessments and reporting data on school, college and university finances. Also concerning will be the loss of future survey data to understand the extent of teacher shortages and chronic absenteeism in schools, they said. 

    Limiting NCES’ work “will have ramifications for the accuracy of national-level data on the condition and progress of education, from early childhood through postsecondary to adult workforce,” AERA and COPAFS said. As a result,  “student learning and development will be harmed.”

    EdTrust, a nonprofit that aims to eliminate racial and economic barriers in schools, said the abrupt cancellations jeopardize “our collective responsibility to identify and address” inequities affecting populations including students from low-income families, students of color, English language learners, students with disabilities, student parents, and rural students. 

    Sameer Gadkaree, president and CEO of the Institute for College Access & Success, pointed to a risk that “core Congressional mandates — including increasing transparency and improving student outcomes through evidence-based strategies — will be delayed and may not be possible.

    “Without action, ongoing data collection efforts will be impaired and future availability of basic, up-to-date information will be at risk,” Gadkaree said in a statement Tuesday.

    But some saw the move as a restart for federal education research.

    Mark Schneider, director of the Institute of Education Sciences from 2017 to 2024 and currently a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, addressed the matter during a LinkedIn conversation Tuesday with Bellwether, a nonprofit education research and analysis organization. 

    IES systems need to be re-evaluated and modernized, said Schneider, adding he wished he could have made large-scale reforms as director of IES. “Do I wish I had even a modicum of the power that that DOGE [has]? Yes, of course,” he said.

    He said the federal education research arm needs significant rebuilding by people knowledgeable about research infrastructure. 

    “I think we have to understand that this is not a tragedy. This is not a catastrophe. This is an opportunity,” said Scheider.

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  • DfE committed to £200m of contracts for loan sale that’s not proceeding

    DfE committed to £200m of contracts for loan sale that’s not proceeding

    Page 221 of the Department for Education’s 2019/20 financial statement contains the note reproduced above.

    The sale programme for “pre-2012” student loans was cancelled in March. But DfE looks like it will be paying out over £30million per year for the next few years to financiers anyway. Total liabilities are booked above at over £220million.


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