Latest news with #ArneDuncan
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Student visa pause ‘extraordinarily disturbing': Arne Duncan
After ordering U.S. embassies and consulates to stop scheduling student visa interviews for international students, the Trump administration is also weighing putting a 15 percent cap on the enrollment of international students. A U.S. official said the halt is temporary. The State Department is also weighing the expansion of 'social media screening and vetting' for applicants. Speaking to reporters Wednesday, President Trump said the expansive screening would determine if foreign students were 'troublemakers' and wants to ensure that any admitted students are those who 'love our country.' In an exclusive interview with NewsNation, former Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who served under former President Obama, said the administration's move was the opposite of its 'Make America Great Again' slogan. 'We attract the best and brightest students from around the world, and we only help ourselves,' Duncan said. 'These are future innovators, job creators, entrepreneurs.' He added, 'These are researchers who can help us find the next cure for cancer, and to lose their talent and expertise is extraordinarily disturbing.' The former Education chief also noted that it puts the country in a 'very bad position,' and even though it is a temporary decision, it could leave a 'chilling effect' on the U.S. that could last for a long time. He said it could deter international students and even U.S.-born students from applying to certain colleges. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Student visa pause ‘extraordinarily disturbing': Arne Duncan
After ordering U.S. embassies and consulates to stop scheduling student visa interviews for international students, the Trump administration is also weighing putting a 15 percent cap on the enrollment of international students. A U.S. official said the halt is temporary. The State Department is also weighing the expansion of 'social media screening and vetting' for applicants. Speaking to reporters Wednesday, President Trump said the expansive screening would determine if foreign students were 'troublemakers' and wants to ensure that any admitted students are those who 'love our country.' In an exclusive interview with NewsNation, former Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who served under former President Obama, said the administration's move was the opposite of its 'Make America Great Again' slogan. 'We attract the best and brightest students from around the world, and we only help ourselves,' Duncan said. 'These are future innovators, job creators, entrepreneurs.' He added, 'These are researchers who can help us find the next cure for cancer, and to lose their talent and expertise is extraordinarily disturbing.' The former Education chief also noted that it puts the country in a 'very bad position,' and even though it is a temporary decision, it could leave a 'chilling effect' on the U.S. that could last for a long time. He said it could deter international students and even U.S.-born students from applying to certain colleges.
Boston Globe
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Has America given up on children's learning?
He has begun a bevy of investigations into how schools handle race and transgender issues, and has demanded that the curriculum be 'patriotic' -- a priority he does not have the power to enact, since curriculum is set by states and school districts. None of it adds up to an agenda on learning. Democrats, for their part, often find themselves standing up for a status quo that seems to satisfy no one. Governors and congressional leaders are defending the Department of Education as Trump has threatened to abolish it. Liberal groups are suing to block funding cuts. But none of that amounts to an agenda on learning, either. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up All of this is true despite the fact that reading scores are the lowest they have been in decades, after a pandemic that devastated children by shuttering their schools and sending them deeper into the realm of screens and social media. Advertisement 'Right now, there are no education goals for the country,' said Arne Duncan, who served as President Barack Obama's first secretary of education after running Chicago's public school system. 'There are no metrics to measure goals, there are no strategies to achieve those goals and there is no public transparency.' Advertisement Many Americans will recall that on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush was in a second grade classroom in Florida as children read a story called 'The Pet Goat.' What they may not remember is why Bush was there that morning. The president was promoting No Child Left Behind, which he was struggling to get through Congress. It would eventually pass with bipartisan support, instituting a national program of annual standardized testing in reading and math. While Obama critiqued how No Child Left Behind was carried out, he agreed with its core vision and advanced it. States were prodded to adopt the Common Core, a set of shared curriculum standards, which brought changes like more thesis-driven writing assignments and a greater emphasis on conceptual understanding in math. In those years, Washington sought to hold educators accountable for raising students' scores on tests linked to the new standards. Schools could be labeled 'failing.' Teachers with low evaluation scores could even lose their tenure protections. It worked, at least for a time. Achievement in reading and math increased, especially among the lowest-performing students. But tying punishments to test scores led to a predictable outcome: a curriculum that, in too many schools, centered on test prep. And with principals focused intently on raising scores in reading and math, they whittled away time for social studies and science. All of this contributed to a potent anti-education-reform movement, led by teachers and parents. On the right, there was resistance to any kind of federal mandate over local schools. On the left, a vocal group of parents began to refuse standardized tests. The politics of top-down school accountability had become untenable. In 2015, Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act, largely unraveling his own education agenda. Bipartisan school reform was dead. Advertisement Since then, Republicans have embraced a free market vision of parental rights, in which as many tax dollars as possible are freed to help parents pay for private school tuition, homeschooling and for-profit virtual schooling. That movement accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when conservative parents organized to resist school closures, mask mandates and progressive ideas about race and gender in the curriculum. Meanwhile, Democrats drew closer to their traditional allies, the teachers unions. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the party had engaged in an internal debate on whether to expand the number of public charter schools, an idea that Obama supported. Many charters were built around the conviction that poor children deserve an academically rigorous education -- but they largely were not unionized. President Joe Biden, a staunch labor ally, marginalized the charter school sector, despite the fact that it has created thousands of quality public schools. In one classroom in Louisiana, you can see several ideas that have emerged far from the spotlight of national politics. One recent afternoon at Highland Elementary School, where 70% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a group of fifth graders sat, rapt, as their teacher, Lauren Cascio, introduced a key insight: that the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution and the Reformation all occurred during the same period of human history. Cascio reviewed vocabulary words that students would need: heretic, rational, skepticism, heliocentric. Then, over the course of an hour, 10- and 11-year-olds broke into groups to discuss why Leonardo da Vinci was interested in human anatomy. They wrote about how the ideas of Copernicus and Galileo differed from those of the ancient Greeks. Advertisement Unlike in many elementary school classrooms, the students did not have computers or tablets on their desks. They had open books, which they were avidly marking up with highlighters and pencils. The work in Louisiana has been celebrated by the Knowledge Matters Campaign, an effort led by Barbara Davidson, a policy advocate and veteran of the Department of Education under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Davidson has worked to amplify the ideas of a loosely organized network of educators, curriculum-writers, parents and local policymakers who are rejecting ideological approaches to education, and instead, are focused on how to maximize learning. It starts with reading. One positive development of the past decade has been a shift toward a research-backed focus on structured phonics in the early grades -- to successful effect. But now, some of the attention has shifted to additional aspects of literacy instruction that are backed by cognitive science, and crucial for turning beginning readers into proficient ones; namely, the finding that to become a good reader, children need a strong vocabulary and knowledge about the world. The subjects that best build vocabulary and knowledge are social studies and science -- the exact subjects that the Bush-Obama reforms often stripped from the school day. But students face an additional challenge that didn't exist during the education battles of the 2000s: ubiquitous screens. Children cannot learn to focus their attention on books or anything else if they are constantly distracted by addictive technology. The push to ban phones in schools transcends partisanship, and parent activism has helped a dozen states ban or limit cellphones in schools. Still, many educators say that screens remain a problem. Advertisement Some teachers are moving in-class reading and writing back to paper. Among them is Jon Gold, a middle school history teacher in Providence, Rhode Island, who frequently writes on how to enrich the curriculum and use technology in smarter ways. He now requires his students to close their laptops and read on paper. 'Their reading comprehension is stronger,' he said. The country is deeply polarized. But a survey of some of the most exciting work happening in schools shows that educators and parents have the ability to embrace new ideas and come together around the goal of giving the next generation a quality education. It could even be the beginning of a political platform. This article originally appeared in
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Chicago Teachers Union members overwhelmingly ratify new contract with CPS
The Brief The Chicago Teachers Union members voted overwhelmingly to ratify a new contract last week, the group announced on Monday. About 97% of the members who weighed in voted to approve the deal. CTU has nearly 30,000 members. The contract includes teacher and staff pay raises, class size limits, more planning time, and more funding for various programs. CHICAGO - The Chicago Teachers Union overwhelmingly voted to ratify a new contract with Chicago Public Schools last week with 97% of voters supporting the deal, the union announced on Monday. About 85% of the nearly 30,000 members of the CTU voted on the latest proposal last week and the votes were tallied over the weekend. Every member had a chance to vote on the contract. The contract still requires final approval from the Chicago Board of Education. What we know The contract will be in effect through the 2028-29 school year after approval from all levels. The contract took almost a year to negotiate and was won without a strike vote, the union pointed out. The CTU said the contract includes funding for 90 new librarians, 215 additional case managers, 400 more teachers assistants, and 68 new centralized technology coordinator positions. In an announcement, the CTU said the new deal "will represent a major leap forward in the transformation of a district that is still recovering from the gutting and financial irresponsibility" of former Mayor Rahm Emanuel and former CPS CEOs Arne Duncan and Paul Vallas. The union also called out sitting district CEO Pedro Martinez saying he was an obstruction to the process. Dig deeper The four-year contract includes an overall pay raise of at least 16% for all teachers, with annual increases between 4% and 8.5%, plus step increases based on a teacher's years of service. The starting salary for new teachers will increase to nearly $69,000, while the median CPS teacher will earn more than $98,000 by fiscal year 2026. Other key provisions include: Class size limits: Kindergarten capped at 25 students, grades 1-3 at 28 students, grades 4-8 at 30 students, and high school classes between 29-31 students. CPS will increase funding for additional teachers and aides to help manage larger classes. Teacher prep time: Elementary school teachers will receive 10 additional minutes of daily planning time, bringing the total to 350 minutes per week. Additional professional development days will be restructured to provide more teacher-directed prep time. Expanded benefits: CPS will provide 100% tuition reimbursement for up to 300 teachers seeking bilingual or English as a Second Language endorsements. The district will also expand medical and dental benefits for employees making under $90,000, increase coverage for therapies, and guarantee access to abortion coverage, infertility treatments, and gender-affirming care. Student and school resources: The district will triple funding for athletics, add teacher assistants to all general education pre-K classrooms, increase funding for fine arts education, and expand the number of "sustainable community schools" from 20 to 70.
Yahoo
09-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Thomas: 'They will say that anything that benefits our institutions is a DEI intervention'
In this latest Civil Rights Summit convened by MSNBC's Rev. Al Sharpton, Education leaders including former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, President of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten, and President of Morehouse College David Thomas discuss the attacks on education and how the current political climate is impacting the issues of race.
