I Was a School Nurse. What's Happening to the Education Department Terrifies Me.
For 23 years I worked as a school nurse consultant. I participated in hundreds of meetings with students who were being evaluated for special education services, including health-based accommodations. I joined countless 504 plan and Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meetings to ensure students' academic, health and emotional needs were met. I woke up every day with an earnest desire to ensure that children and young people had every opportunity to learn.
Today I sit on the sidelines, but with a heart tilted toward young people.
It seems that every day there is a wave of fresh cuts at federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Education. I personally know a reading specialist who will not be able to return to her position next year because of these decisions. The cuts keep coming, and they will affect the education that schools are able to provide.
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With each announcement, my stomach churns. Staff layoffs will be debilitating. I am also concerned that the proposed closure of the Education Department will reduce or severely limit access to vital support for students.
As a mother, a retired school nurse, and a woman of faith, I am pleading with elected leaders to invest in children — including our most vulnerable. Investing looks like ensuring that students and educators have what they need to thrive. It looks like maintaining consistent standards for the education of young people.
The Education Department is responsible for ensuring that schools meet the needs of neurodivergent students and those who need extra support to succeed academically. It also holds schools accountable for providing services to students of all ages and abilities. Shuttering the department means not only widening the achievement gap, but pushing children and young people into the cracks.
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Our nation cannot thrive if we continue to perpetuate a system in which some students receive a quality education and others do not. Further, any family can find themselves in need of support, whether it's for their child's physical, mental or special education needs. Education in America should mean that regardless of where you come from or what you need, you will have an opportunity to have your needs met.
Moreover, if the federal agency is fully dissolved, the responsibilities for mandating services and providing expertise will fall to the states. Every state operates differently, has different priorities and different challenges. Educational services may become wildly inconsistent. Students in Colorado could receive vastly different services than students in, say, Utah.
No essential service —which helps children, families and communities — should exist in a state of uncertainty. When faced with budgetary challenges or limited oversight, I fear that some schools may consider special education services and student accommodations as disposable.
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Though I am no longer in schools, I am now the national president of United Women in Faith. Among our many campaigns for justice is a fight against 'school pushout.' Pushout occurs through a patchwork of policies that disproportionately funnels children of color, children with disabilities, and students identifying as LGBTQ from the classroom into the criminal justice system.
Currently, it is estimated that the dropout rate for students with disabilities is about 40%, which is twice that of their peers without disabilities. Far too often, students with disabilities are unfairly maligned and funneled into the criminal justice system.
We need a functioning Department of Education to ensure that preventative services and those provided under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) give children their best chance to succeed and not end up as just another statistic. I, along with my sisters at United Women in Faith, will keep pushing for education justice, but this is not our fight alone. Everyone has a role to play to ensure students get what they need in schools.
Children are our future, and their education shouldn't be an option or an afterthought.
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The Hill
4 hours ago
- The Hill
In fight with Columbia, Trump seeks ‘death sentence'
In President Trump's war with higher education, Columbia University just became the first to face the nuclear option. While other schools have also faced devastating funding cuts and new investigations from multiple federal agencies under Trump, the Education Department is now calling for Columbia to lose its accreditation, endangering its access to the entire federal student loan system. Republicans are cheering Trump on, but for Columbia, which his administration accuses of violating Title VI antidiscrimination laws, the threat is existential. 'It's often called, colloquially, in higher education, a death sentence, because very few institutions could continue to enroll students, especially lower- and middle-income students, without having those students have the ability to borrow or get grants to go to those schools,' said Jon Fansmith, senior vice president of government relations and national engagement at the American Council on Education. The college accreditation process is typically one of the most mundane aspects of higher education, involving a federally approved nonpartisan accreditor evaluating every aspect of an institution, from class selections to admission processes. But the accreditor determines if a school is allowed to have access to student aid, including federal loans and Pell Grants. Columbia costs $71,000 a year for tuition and fees without financial aid, and that doesn't include room and board. The school notes that 24 percent of its first-year students have Pell Grants. Without access to aid, Columbia would be inaccessible to most students in the country. Experts doubt that the accreditor in question, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, will summarily nix Columbia's status. 'It is extraordinary for the Department of Education to do something like that, but I also recognize that Middle States is a very serious and professional entity,' said Raymond Brescia, associate dean for research and intellectual life at Albany Law School. 'I am confident that Middle States will take that concern seriously […] if Middle States determines that there is a concern here, then they will work with Columbia to rectify any issues,' he added. Typically, the Education Department will work with schools to try to correct specific issues before escalating the situation, but the Trump administration and other conservatives contend Columbia has had plenty of time to fix its alleged inaction on antisemitism. 'The question of 'Gosh, is this too soon?' I mean, how much longer do we need to wait? What other example of damage or harassment do we need to see before we can tell a university that it needs to comply with the law?' asked Jonathan Butcher, the Will Skillman senior research fellow in education policy at the Heritage Foundation. The very fight will cost Columbia time and money, even if it is ultimately victorious. The school said it is 'aware of the concerns' the Education Department brought to its accreditor 'and we have addressed those concerns directly with Middle States.' 'Columbia is deeply committed to combating antisemitism on our campus. We take this issue seriously and are continuing to work with the federal government to address it,' a spokesperson for the university added. Columbia and the Trump administration have been engaged in negotiations for months after the federal government pulled $400 million from the university, saying it had failed to adequately confront campus antisemitism. Instead of fighting like fellow Ivy League member Harvard University, Columbia agreed to many of the demands from the Trump administration, such as changing its disciplinary policies, but the capitulation only led to more funding being pulled. In recent weeks, friendlier tones were struck after the Trump administration praised Columbia for swiftly shutting down a pro-Palestinian protest at the school's library. Nevertheless, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said this week that Columbia has failed to meet its Title VI obligations. 'After Hamas' October 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel, Columbia University's leadership acted with deliberate indifference towards the harassment of Jewish students on its campus. This is not only immoral, but also unlawful. Accreditors have an enormous public responsibility as gatekeepers of federal student aid,' McMahon said. 'Just as the Department of Education has an obligation to uphold federal antidiscrimination law, university accreditors have an obligation to ensure member institutions abide by their standards,' she added. 'We look forward to the Commission keeping the Department fully informed of actions taken to ensure Columbia's compliance with accreditation standards including compliance with federal civil rights laws.' Education experts suspect Columbia will not be the last to see its accreditation threatened. The president has taken away billions of dollars from universities, threatened to revoke schools' tax-exempt status and tried to rescind Harvard's ability to admit and enroll foreign students, along with launching numerous civil rights and Title IX investigations against colleges across the country. And considering Trump was willing to take this particular step against a university that has been cooperating with his administration, it seems like it could be only a matter of time before Harvard, which has launched two lawsuits against the federal government, will be next. 'The writings on the wall, right? Why would he stop at Columbia? The goal here is to control higher education, because they think that higher education is a threat to their authoritarian rule,' said Todd Wolfson, national president of American Association of University Professors. 'I think the most important point is the people who are getting hurt here are our students and our families across this country. They are the collateral damage here,' he added. But some highlight another target in this action: accreditors themselves. On the campaign trail, Trump called accreditors his 'secret weapon' against higher education. In April, he signed an executive order to create more competition among accreditors and make it easier for schools to switch accreditation organizations, saying some accreditors have engaged in 'ideological overreach.' 'A big part of this is to intimidate the accreditors, to try to force the administration's viewpoints, which, again, aren't really supported by the law,' Fansmith said. One part is to 'scare the institution, come after the institution, but another part of this is to try to force the accreditors to get in line with the administration's policies. And that is in many ways, just as, if not more, troubling than what they're trying to do with these institutions,' he added.
The Hill
4 hours ago
- The Hill
White House dismisses Pride Month as WorldPride gathers in Washington
President Trump's administration has not formally recognized Pride Month this year, but has doubled down on LGBTQ-related actions some advocates deem hostile — even as one of the world's largest Pride celebrations takes place in the nation's capital. Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump has 'no plans' to issue a proclamation recognizing June as Pride Month. Trump declined to issue Pride Month proclamations throughout his first term but briefly acknowledged Pride in a 2019 social media post touting his administration's efforts to decriminalize homosexuality globally and recognizing the'outstanding contributions LGBT people have made to our great nation.' This year, Trump has not acknowledged Pride Month publicly. But the Education Department on Monday said it would instead recognize June as 'Title IX Month' in a nod to the administration's efforts to use the 1972 civil rights law to bar transgender students from girls' and women's school sports, restrooms and locker rooms. 'This is going to come as maybe tough news for the Trump administration to stomach, but June is Pride Month, whether they choose to acknowledge that or not,' said Brandon Wolf, national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBTQ advocacy group. 'And Pride is, and always has been, a protest, whether they choose to acknowledge that or not.' Pride Month marches and celebrations began in June 1970, one year after demonstrators demanded equal rights for LGBTQ Americans at the Stonewall riots in New York. 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They accused the nonprofit TV network PBS, on which 'Sesame Street' has long aired, of 'grooming' children, an accusation that opponents of LGBTQ rights have long used to associate LGBTQ identity with predatory behavior. 'This hostile rhetoric, the lengths to which they've gone to punish people for existing as LGBTQ, all of it is a testament to just how much our power scares them,' said Wolf, noting that Washington's pushback against Pride comes as the city hosts WorldPride, an international LGBTQ Pride event that's expected to draw millions to D.C. Within the administration, Trump's Defense Department's actions have made perhaps the biggest splash during the first week of Pride Month. On Tuesday, reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered Navy Secretary John Phelan to rename an oil tanker named for the assassinated gay rights activist Harvey Milk, with an official announcement expected next week and planned intentionally for Pride Month. Milk, a Navy lieutenant who served during the Korean War and in 1977 became the first openly gay man elected to public office in California, spearheaded an effort to mobilize California voters to oppose a 1978 ballot measure that would have banned gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools. The proposal to strip the ship of Milk's name drew widespread media attention and criticism. 'I don't agree with it,' Retired Adm. James Stavridis, once floated as a possible candidate for Secretary of State during the first Trump administration, said Friday on 'The Michael Smerconish Program.' He questioned why 'we need to rename this ship' at 'this moment' during Pride Month. The Navy is also considering renaming other ships named after prominent civil rights leaders, according to CBS News, including Harriet Tubman, Thurgood Marshall and Lucy Stone. This week, Senate Republicans blocked a Democrat-led resolution that would have expressed the upper chamber's belief 'that the Department of Defense should not seek to remove these names.' This week, the military also ordered transgender service members to self-identify and start a voluntary separation from the armed forces by Friday, also during Pride Month. In an email, Alex Wagner, an adjunct professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, said Hegseth's recent actions targeting Pride Month and LGBTQ people at the Pentagon 'have made him look petty and silly.' Wagner, who served as assistant secretary of the Air Force under former President Biden, helped organize the Defense Department's first Pride event in 2012 while serving in the Obama administration. 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The former Fox News personality and Army veteran also ended the Defense Department's recognition of cultural and heritage months, including Pride Month, Black History Month and Women's History Month, shortly after his Senate confirmation. In guidance titled 'Identity Months Dead at DoD,' Hegseth stated, 'Efforts to divide the force – to put one group ahead of another – erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution.'
San Francisco Chronicle
a day ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Trump repeats threats to California over transgender track state champion
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump targeted California's education funding again after a transgender student won two high school track and field events at the state meet Sunday. AB Hernandez, 16, became the center of political controversy overnight because she is transgender and running in girls track and field in California. Trump threatened to withhold federal funding from the state of California in a May 27 Truth Social post prior to the meet because of her presence and issued a similar threat for 'large scale fines' Tuesday after she was crowned a California state champion in girls triple jump and high jump. The California Interscholastic Federation adopted regulations in 2013 allowing students to engage in high school sports 'in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on a student's records.' The same year, California lawmakers codified into state law that students could participate in school programs consistent with their gender identity. After Trump's May 27 threat, the CIF changed its rules to allow the athlete with the next-best qualifying mark in three events to participate and to issue a duplicate medal to the next-best finisher behind Hernandez in those events. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon threatened legal action Monday against California public schools if they continue allowing transgender athletes to compete in accordance with their gender identity. The attack on California's education funding over transgender girls' participation in girls' sports teams came as little surprise after the Justice Department filed suit against Maine in April for a similar policy. The White House argues policies like those in California and Maine are discriminatory, and therefore allow it to terminate federal K-12 funding to those states. Trump ordered investigations into all three, but has moved more swiftly in its dispute with Maine, whose governor publicly challenged Trump over the policy. Several education policy researchers and attorneys previously told the Chronicle that Maine is a test case, intended to see whether the Trump administration can subvert the normal process for cutting funds — as well as terminate all education funding to a state, rather than a more targeted cut. The Education Department is investigating California, Minnesota and Oregon's high school athletic associations, individual school districts in Oregon and Washington, the University of Pennsylvania and San Jose State University for allowing transgender athletes to compete on teams consistent with their gender identities. The Education Department confirmed Tuesday that it has opened an investigation into a Connecticut school system for allowing transgender athletes to compete on sports teams consistent with their gender identity. California received about $8 billion in federal funding for K-12 education in the 2024-25 school year, about 6% of its total budget, according to the state Department of Education. Of that, $2.5 billion was for low-income students under Title I, $1.5 billion for special education and students with disabilities, $157 million for English as a second language programs, and $5.7 million for nutritional services. To terminate funding, the Trump administration will need to argue that allowing athletics participation based on gender identity rather than sex assigned at birth violates Title IX. Several federal courts have found the opposite: that if a school tells a transgender athlete they can't participate in certain sports or use bathrooms in accordance with their gender identity, it is discriminating against that student on the basis of sex.
