Tag: Week

  • Week in review: The beginning of the end for the Education Department?

    Week in review: The beginning of the end for the Education Department?

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    Most clicked story of the week: 

    Trump administration officials took major steps toward dismantling the U.S. Department of Education last week, announcing they were moving several programs to other federal agencies. 

    Those include moving TRIO and Gear Up grants — programs that help low-income students prepare for and persist through college — to the U.S. Department of Labor, according to an agency fact sheet. Also moving to the Labor Department are grant programs that help higher education institutions bolster their academics and financial stability. 

    Number of the week: $740M+ 

    The amount billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has donated to colleges since mid-October. Scott is on another gifting spree, giving hundreds of millions of dollars to over a dozen historically Black colleges and universities and at least one tribal college. 

    Fall 2025 enrollment trends: 

    • A survey of 825 colleges found that their international enrollment declined 1% this fall, driven by a 12% drop in graduate students, according to the annual Open Doors report. Those institutions reported an even steeper decline — a whopping 17% drop-off — in foreign students attending U.S. colleges for the first time. 
    • The State University of New York system reported that its international enrollment declined 3.9% this fall, dropping to around 20,600 students. However, SUNY reported an overall enrollment increase of 2.9%, resulting in nearly 387,400 students and the system’s third straight year of growth. 
    • Meanwhile, Drexel University, a private nonprofit in Philadelphia, reported a roughly 19% decline in first-year enrollment this fall, dropping to some 1,900 students, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. However, the research university’s overall headcount only dipped by roughly 1%, falling to roughly 20,900 students, with gains in graduate students offsetting some of the first-year enrollment dip.

    Texas State upholds professor firing: 

    • Texas State University’s governing board on Thursday upheld the decision to fire Thomas Alter, a tenured professor who it terminated after comments he made at a socialist conference went viral, according to News 4 San Antonio. 
    • In one video of the conference, Alter condemned “insurrectional anarchists,” according to The Texas Tribune. But a shorter, more widely circulated clip of his comments included only part of his ideas, showing Alter saying, “Without organization how can anyone expect to overthrow the most bloodthirsty, profit-driven, mad organization in the history of the world — that of the U.S.?”
    • Texas State University President Kelly Damphousse argued that Alter’s comments amounted to inciting violence. Alter in turn is suing the university, alleging his firing violates his free speech rights. 
    • The Texas State Employees Union condemned Thursday’s decision amid other political disciplinary actions against other faculty in the state. Union President Ilesa Daniels Ross described Alter’s termination to KVUE as part of a coordinated political effort in Texas “silencing educators, suppressing dissent, and turning our public institutions into tools of ideological control.”

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  • Week In Review: Fallout from the Education Department’s breakup

    Week In Review: Fallout from the Education Department’s breakup

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    Most clicked story of the week:

    The U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday that it is transferring management of six programs to other federal agencies as the Trump administration continues pushing toward the agency’s closure. The move, the administration said, will give states more control over education funding decisions.

    Among the program shifts are the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education to the U.S. Department of Labor, and international education and foreign language studies programs to the U.S. Department of State.

    Number of the week:

     

    58%

    The percentage of schools in the U.S. that offer algebra by the 8th grade, according to a study released Tuesday by assessment and research organization NWEA. Beyond that slim majority, access to 8th grade algebra is much lower in rural areas, high-poverty schools and schools with more than 75% Black or Latino students, the study said. High-achieving Black students in particular are “systematically less likely” than other high-achievers to be placed in 8th grade algebra when it is offered.

    Ed Dept split raises concerns

    • Reaction to the Education Department’s announcement that it is shifting the management of a handful of programs to other federal agencies ranged from celebration to condemnation. As many stakeholders praised or criticized the management shift, several others said they want more details about logistics and exactly what would change.
    • On Thursday morning, a coalition of more than 850 local, state and national organizations released a joint commitment to support federal special education law and to protest any move that separates services for students with disabilities from the Education Department. Coalition members, who also include individual advocates, support keeping the department as an independent agency that is fully staffed and funded to oversee federal laws including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Section 504.

    Religion in schools is once again in front of the courts

    • The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 17 refused to hear a case on whether a Christian school should be allowed to broadcast a pregame prayer over a football stadium’s loudspeaker before a state championship game. The decision comes on the heels of several other First Amendment decisions by the high court in recent years related to school prayer and speech.
    • A federal judge on Nov. 18 ordered about a dozen Texas school districts to remove any displays of the Ten Commandments in classrooms by Dec. 1. The preliminary injunction temporarily prohibits these districts from carrying out a state law that requires the schools to display the religious text while related cases are pending in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
    • Another religious school — this time Jewish — has applied to operate a virtual public charter school in Oklahoma next year, reviving the debate of whether religious schools can be considered public just months after a similar effort by a Catholic school was blocked by a deadlocked U.S. Supreme Court.

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  • Week In Review: Special education debates ramp up

    Week In Review: Special education debates ramp up

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    Most clicked story of the week:

    The U.S. Department of Education’s downsizing under the Trump administration has intensified debate among parents, special education advocates and policy experts about the federal government’s role in serving students with disabilities. Some critics of the Education Department’s Office of Special Education Programs say an overhaul is needed to improve responsiveness to parents’ concerns and school districts’ needs, while others have called for the office, which oversees implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, to be eliminated altogether. 

    Advocates, however, have warned that shrinking the department would “decimate implementation of key education and disability laws.”

    Number of the week:

     

    6%

    The size of enrollment declines in Wisconsin for the 2025-26 school year, based on preliminary unaudited state data recorded in September and compared to the same time the previous school year. That amounts to about 46,180 students. Numerous states and districts nationwide are seeing enrollment trend downward due to factors such as declining birthrates and competition from school choice initiatives.

    Policies in the spotlight

    • California’s McKinleyville Union School District was making progress on a key mental health initiative, having won a $7.2 million grant in October 2024 from the U.S. Department of Education that would help it hire the equivalent of six full-time credentialed school social workers, psychologists or counselors over the next five years. The funds were also expected to help the district hire three full-time instructional coaches to implement a multi-tiered system of supports. However, almost five months into its mental healthcare system overhaul, the rug was pulled out from under the district’s plans when the Trump administration canceled those school mental health grants. 
    • There’s still no official plan from the Trump administration to move special education oversight from the U.S. Department of Education to another federal agency such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Over the past several weeks, however, advocates have sent multiple letters and hosted online forums to stave off such a transition. 
    • All Colorado public school students will continue to have access to free school meals after voters on Tuesday approved two state referendums, one of which — Proposition MM — will raise state income taxes for those earning an annual income of $300,000 or more. Backed by 58% of voters, Proposition MM will increase the average income tax by $486 for Colorado residents at that income threshold, providing an expected additional $95 million in annual revenue for the state to continue funding its universal school meals program approved by voters in 2022.

    What’s working in classrooms?

    • Some upsides of using artificial intelligence chatbots to help students improve writing and studying skills are that these tools can act as coaches or mentors when humans aren’t available, offering generic but reasonably good and “relatively creative” feedback to middle and high school students during brainstorming, says Sarah Levine, assistant professor at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education. On the other hand, she says, students sometimes “hand over the thinking work” of writing to bots, which create the end product quickly — and “they can do B-plus work all the time.”
    • Teachers and school leaders can take certain approaches to ensure students with autism thrive in the classroom. Among the best practices are direct and multisensory instruction, role-playing and modeling behaviors, employing a variety of communication strategies, and being sensitive to overstimulating situations.
    • Despite state and district leaders making significant progress in closing student access gaps to devices, internet and other technology, these gains haven’t led to “meaningful improvements in teaching and learning,” according to a report from the State Educational Technology Directors Association and other education organizations. The report said a “digital use divide” is persisting, at least partially due to a lack of sustained teacher professional development to help students engage in deeper learning experiences through technology — especially as AI becomes more prevalent.

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  • Week in review: Trinity Christian closes as other colleges make cuts

    Week in review: Trinity Christian closes as other colleges make cuts

    Most clicked story of the week: 

    Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has donated $387 million in unrestricted funds to eight historically Black colleges and universities in recent weeks. Each institution described their donation as one of the biggest, if not the biggest, in their history. Scott, who is largely out of the public eye, does not announce donation values unless the recipients do.

    Number of the week: 900+

    The number of layoff notices the University of Southern California has issued since July. The private institution’s leadership said last week that it is “on track” to eliminate its longstanding deficit by the end of the fiscal year, following the significant cost-cutting measures.

    Cuts and Closures

    • Trinity Christian College, in Illinois, announced it will shutter at the end of the 2025-2026 academic year, citing ongoing financial issues such as persistent budget deficits and falling enrollment. In addition to establishing teach-out and transfer pathways, the private liberal arts college is allowing students to go over course load maximums with the goal of graduating as many as possible before closing.
    • Another religious college in Illinois, the University of St. Francis, is taking steps to address budgetary issues. The university has laid off 18 staff and administrators following a $9 million deficit in fiscal 2024. It also notified “a number of faculty” that it was not renewing their contracts, which Joliet Patch reported as affecting another 18 employees.
    • The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is facing pushback against its chancellor’s proposal to eliminate six academic programs. An internal advisory group voted to oppose ending four of the programs and raised concerns with the methods and pace UNL’s leadership used to decide which degrees should be on the chopping block.

    Guidance for college leaders

    • Colleges undergoing significant restructuring must be prepared to “craft a positive narrative” about it and their involvement, according to the latest edition of the regular opinion series Merger Watch. Throughout mergers, acquisitions and even closures, college leaders need to own these narratives — or others will craft them instead, writes Ricardo Azziz, a consolidation expert who pens the series.
    • A federal judge on Thursday ruled the Trump administration must fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during the government shutdown — a decision the government has already appealed. Given the legal back-and-forth, it’s unclear when SNAP recipients will get their benefits, warned The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs, a resource and policy center at Temple University. The center is offering administrators and campus leaders a toolkit to help support food-insecure students during this “period of uncertainty.”

    Quote of the Week:

    This is the end of an era. Even if things settle out, the damage has already been done.

    Michael Lubell

    Physics professor at City College of New York

    Under an August presidential order, Trump administration political appointees at federal agencies now have the power to ensure grant awards align with the federal government’s “priorities and the national interest” and don’t promote undefined “anti-American values.”

    Academics and researchers like Lubell are raising alarms that the change — yet another significant departure from scientific funding norms — will erode U.S. research.

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  • Missouri Voters Approve Four-Day School Week in Two Districts, Showing Rising Support – The 74

    Missouri Voters Approve Four-Day School Week in Two Districts, Showing Rising Support – The 74


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    When the Independence School District announced it was switching to a four-day week during the 2023-24 school year, it drew questions from local families and statewide officials.

    Parents wondered what kind of child care they would have on days without classroom instruction. And lawmakers debated whether the state needed to intervene.

    Ultimately, Missouri’s General Assembly passed a law requiring a vote for non–rural school districts to authorize a four-day week.

    On Tuesday, the Independence and Hallsville school districts became the first large districts to receive the approval of voters to continue with four-day weeks.

    “I knew that the majority of our community supported it,” Hallsville Superintendent Tyler Walker told The Independent. “I was a little bit surprised to see how much support it was.”

    In Hallsville, residents had two questions on the ballot related to the school district. One asked about the four-day week and the other was a bond measure previously passed in April but not confirmed by the State Auditor.

    The election drew 25% of registered voters, according to the Boone County Clerk, and 75% of those voted in favor of the four-day school week. The vote authorizes the schedule for the next 10 years, when then the district will have to hold another special election.

    Walker didn’t think the margin would be that wide. Earlier surveys from the district’s 2022 adoption of the schedule put approval at around 60%.

    He believes that the district’s growing success on standardized tests and other publicly available metrics have given families confidence that the four-day week isn’t such a bad thing.

    “Our community has grown to appreciate the four day week more after experiencing it for a few years,” he said.

    Todd Fuller, director of communications for the Missouri State Teachers Association, told The Independent that voters in districts who have already been operating in a four-day week like Independence and Hallsville have an idea of how it works for their students. The state law, passed in 2024, will require a vote prior to the schedule’s adoption for those who do not already adopt the abbreviated week.

    “Anyone who’s a constituent of the district has had time to digest this process, and they’ve been able to decide over a two-year period whether it’s been beneficial or not beneficial for their kids,” Fuller said. “So if they are expressing that feeling with their vote, then we’re going to have a pretty good understanding of what they really want.”

    The association doesn’t have an official stance on the four-day week. But Fuller said the teachers it represents have been pleased with the schedule.

    Jorjana Pohlman, president of Independence’s branch of the Missouri National Education Association, told The Independent that the overall sentiment is positive from the district’s educators.

    Mondays out of the classroom have become a good time for teachers to have doctor’s appointments, spend time with their families and plan for the week ahead, she said.

    “In the beginning, it was fear of the unknown for families as well as teachers,” she said. “A lot of teachers had the attitude of, ‘Let’s try it.’ They, I think overall, felt it was a positive thing.”

    A study by Missouri State University researchers looked at recent applicants to teaching positions in Independence, finding that the four-day week was a key part of the district’s recruitment.

    In particular, 63% of applicants rated the four-day schedule as a top-three reason for applying, and 27% said it was their top priority.

    The study also looked at the value of the four-day week for applicants, asking how much they would sacrifice in salary to work at a district with the schedule. On average, applicants were willing to sacrifice $2267 annually for the four-day week.

    Walker said the schedule has also improved recruitment in Hallsville, with a dramatic uptick in veteran teachers applying to positions.

    With teachers coming to Independence schools particularly for their schedule, some worried that returning to a five-day week would have large consequences for staffing. But Pohlman said a survey showed that the loss of educators is less than many would think.

    “The educators, they care deeply about their students, and they want what’s best for students and for the community, whether it’s four day week or five day week,” she said. “They are still going to be committed.”

    Almost a third of Missouri districts have adopted a four-day week, with around 91% of those districts in rural settings. Only districts in cities with at least 30,000 residents, or those located in Jackson, Clay, St. Louis, Jefferson and St. Charles counties, must call for a vote before moving to a four-day week.

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


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  • A week of media literacy across the globe

    A week of media literacy across the globe

    From 24 to 31 October, the world marks Global Media and Information Literacy Week, an annual event first launched by UNESCO in 2011 as a way for organizations around the world to share ideas and explore innovative ways to promote media and information literacy for all. This year’s theme is Minds Over AI — MIL in Digital Spaces. 

    To join in the global conversation, over the next week News Decoder will present a series of articles that look at media literacy in different ways.

    Today, we give you links to articles we’ve published over the past year on topics that range from fact-checking and information verification to the power of social media and the good and bad of artificial intelligence. 

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  • For World Space Week it’s time to look up

    For World Space Week it’s time to look up

    This week marks World Space Week, an international celebration of humankind’s last frontier launched by the United Nations in 1999. In more than 80 countries, people are celebrating through thousands of events.

    One of the goals of space week is to let people know how many of the products we depend on down on earth came out of space exploration programs: Life support systems for miners, memory foam mattresses, scratch-resistant lenses, nutritional supplements, cordless tools and freeze-dried food.

    Learning about outer space and space exploration excites young people and attracts them to science, technology, engineering and math fields.

    But for News Decoder, it is the international cooperation we see in space exploration programs that excites us. When we look to the moon, our galaxy and beyond, we see the possibility for peace and cooperation here on Earth.

    To celebrate World Space Week, check out some of the stories we’ve published about outer space and the people exploring it.

     

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  • Week In Review: Mental health grants return and FCC rolls back E-rate expansion

    Week In Review: Mental health grants return and FCC rolls back E-rate expansion

    We’re rounding up last week’s news, from the government shutdown’s impact on schools to differentiated teacher compensation.

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  • The 2026-27 FAFSA launches a week ahead of schedule

    The 2026-27 FAFSA launches a week ahead of schedule

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    Dive Brief: 

    • The U.S. Department of Education rolled out the 2026-27 Free Application for Federal Student Aid to all students Wednesday, about a week before the congressionally mandated deadline.  
    • Education Department officials billed the release as the “earliest launch in the program’s history.” The new form comes with several updates, including a redesigned process for inviting parents or other contributors to add information to the application and faster account verification for students and parents, according to the agency. 
    • The on-time FAFSA follows later than usual releases the past two years. In 2023, the Education Department didn’t roll out the FAFSA until the final days of December — nearly three months after students and their families usually can access the form. 

    Dive Insight: 

    Education Department officials praised the on-time release after two rocky financial aid cycles. 

    “No one would have thought this was possible after the Biden-Harris administration infamously botched FAFSA’s rollout two short years ago,” U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a Wednesday statement. 

    In 2023, the Biden administration was responsible for carrying out the first major redesign of the FAFSA in over four decades, including by paring down the number of questions applicants must answer. However, even after the Education Department released the FAFSA in December that year, many students and families struggled to complete the form due to glitches and other technical issues. 

    Moreover, the Education Department didn’t begin sending FAFSA applicant data to colleges that financial aid cycle until March 2024, even though that information is typically available shortly after the form rolls out in October. Scores of colleges pushed back their traditional May 1 decision deadline as a result. 

    In response, congressional lawmakers passed a law in November 2024 mandating that the Education Department release the form by Oct. 1 each year. The statute also requires the U.S. education secretary to testify before Congress if the agency anticipates it will miss the deadline. 

    This year, the Education Department began beta testing the form in early August. During that period, students started nearly 44,000 FAFSA forms and submitted roughly 27,000 of them, according to the department. The agency has processed almost 24,000 FAFSA forms without rejection. 

    However, this financial aid cycle hasn’t come without criticism. A report earlier this month from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency, raised questions about whether the Education Department was adequately overseeing contracted work on the new back-end system launched in 2023 for processing FAFSAs. 

    In September 2024, the Education Department told GAO officials that several functions required by a contract with a third-party vendor were not yet available, including the ability to make corrections to FAFSA applications and modify eligibility rules. At the time, the department said those functions would be available by 2026. 

    However, as of May 2025, the Education Department couldn’t provide an update on the system and said it was no longer tracking the contractual requirements, according to the GAO report. GAO recommended that Federal Student Aid’s chief operating officer take steps to improve contract monitoring. 

    The GAO’s report included a response from Aaron Lemon-Strauss, executive director of the FAFSA program, who pushed back on GAO’s framing. Lemon-Strauss wrote that some of its recommendations embrace a model that “assumes initial contracts can fully anticipate a system’s evolving needs.”

    Lemon-Strauss, who joined the department last year, said the agency has made changes to its FAFSA vendor contracts that allow it to adapt to user needs. For instance, after the 2024 FAFSA release, department officials identified that the FAFSA system still did not allow users to import their answers from the prior year to start their new forms — a contractually required feature. 

    “This is undoubtedly a helpful feature and one that should be included in the FAFSA,” Lemon-Strauss said to GAO. “Yet, rather than mechanically moving to implementing renewal capability, the team examined user data to determine where their next efforts would be maximally useful.”

    Internal data showed that some 5% of users were exiting the form and not returning once they needed to invite their parents or other contributors — such as a spouse or a parent’s spouse — to work on the application. In response, the Education Department decided to prioritize redesigning the process to invite outside contributors instead of focusing on the contractually required feature, Lemon-Strauss said.

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  • Week in review: University of Chicago to cut $100M from its budget

    Week in review: University of Chicago to cut $100M from its budget

    Most clicked story of the week:

    The University of Chicago will move to cut $100 million from its budget, citing “profound federal policy changes” and multi-year deficits. Paul Alivisatos, president of the private institution, said that goal would require staff reductions.

    Number of the week:

     

    15%

    The decline in the U.S. Department of Education’s fiscal 2026 budget under a new proposal from House Republicans. The steep cut, which lawmakers paired with reduced funding for certain federal student aid programs, echoes President Donald Trump’s budget proposal. The House Appropriations Committee’s education subcommittee advanced the proposal Tuesday evening.

    The latest in the Trump administration’s battle with higher ed:

    • A federal judge Wednesday ruled in favor of Harvard University in its lawsuit against the Trump administration, concluding the federal government failed to follow proper procedures and acted arbitrarily and capriciously when it froze $2.2 billion of the university’s federal funding in April. The move also violated Harvard’s First Amendment rights, the judge ruled. 
    • George Mason University’s governing board announced it would negotiate with the Trump administration in hopes of resolving federal allegations that the public institution illegally used race and other protected characteristics in hiring and employee promotions. George Mason’s president summarily rebuked the accusation.
    • The University of California will need at least $4 billion to $5 billion to staunch the budgetary bleeding if it loses its federal funding, the system’s president told state lawmakers. The Trump administration has set its sights on the system — particularly University of California, Los Angeles, which recently had $584 million of its grants suspended.

    Federal agencies complicate life for international and undocumented students:

    • The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement proposed setting a four-year cap on the length of time international students can stay in the U.S. If approved, student visa holders would need to apply for extensions and undergo “regular assessments” to stay beyond that time.
    • The U.S. Department of Justice sued Illinois over its laws allowing select undocumented college students to pay in-state tuition rates and receive state-administered scholarships. That makes Illinois the fifth state the DOJ has taken action against over such policies.

    Quote of the Week:

    “The First Amendment doesn’t set when the sun goes down. University students have expressive freedom whether it’s midnight or midday, and Texas can’t just legislate those constitutional protections out of existence.”

    That was JT Morris, senior supervising attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, in a statement Wednesday. FIRE sued the University of Texas system on behalf of students over a new state law that directs public colleges to prohibit “any speech or expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment” on campuses from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.

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