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Time of India
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
With no national plan, how educators lead US learning revival amid political neglect
For decades, the pursuit of academic excellence was a shared political priority in the US. Both Republican and Democratic leaders once positioned themselves as champions of student achievement, recognizing reading and math proficiency as both a national responsibility and a viable electoral promise. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now But that era appears to be over. As reported by The New York Times, no major US political figure today seems committed to a serious agenda for improving academic learning. In a time of intense ideological conflict, measurable educational goals have fallen off the radar, leaving student outcomes to suffer. A decline in national leadership on education Since taking office, President Trump has shifted the federal focus away from learning outcomes and toward cultural and ideological issues. He canceled federal exams designed to track student progress and ended programs that shared effective teaching strategies with schools. As reported by The New York Times, a spokeswoman for the administration defended these decisions by pointing to low test scores, stating, 'What we are doing right now with education is clearly not working. ' Trump's administration has instead prioritized 'patriotic' curricula and launched investigations into how schools handle race and gender issues. But as The New York Times noted, none of these efforts add up to an agenda centered on learning. Democrats have largely responded by defending the education status quo. While they've fought to protect the Department of Education from elimination and challenged funding cuts, they've offered little in terms of a comprehensive strategy for student learning. As The New York Times reported, even when Democratic leaders such as Kamala Harris addressed education, the focus was on book bans or student debt—not on improving core instruction. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Alarming trends in academic performance and college outcomes Student performance indicators show a troubling picture. Reading scores are now at their lowest point in decades, according to The New York Times. Meanwhile, college outcomes are also suffering—40% of students who begin college do not graduate, often leaving with debt and insufficient job-ready skills. Former education secretary Arne Duncan stated, 'Right now, there are no education goals for the country,' as quoted by The New York Times. He added there are no clear metrics, strategies, or transparency in place to drive improvement. Michael Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute echoed this sentiment, noting that national conversations rarely mention achievement gaps or social mobility. How bipartisan reform collapsed During the Bush and Obama administrations, bipartisan efforts like and the Common Core aimed to raise academic standards. These policies showed early gains, particularly for the lowest-performing students. However, the emphasis on testing led to excessive test prep, reducing time for science and social studies, according to The New York Times. Widespread backlash followed. On the right, there was resistance to federal oversight. On the left, parents increasingly opted students out of testing—20% did so in New York in 2015. Ultimately, Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act, unraveling much of his own policy legacy. Learning beyond politics Despite political neglect, a new grassroots movement is emerging. As The New York Times detailed, educators and advocates are emphasizing the importance of a rigorous, knowledge-rich curriculum. In Louisiana, for example, students at Highland Elementary engage with advanced vocabulary and historical context—without screens. Groups like the Knowledge Matters Campaign, led by Barbara Davidson, promote such evidence-based approaches. Davidson, who served under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, believes these strategies correct past policy excesses. Structured phonics has seen success in early literacy, but broader knowledge-building in subjects like history and science is also essential. Jon Gold, a teacher in Providence, Rhode Island, told The New York Times he moved back to paper-based reading, finding 'reading comprehension is stronger' without screens. The future of education reform While public school satisfaction is at a 25-year low and enrollment continues to fall, some leaders are responding. Democrat Jake Auchincloss has called on his party to take accountability for school closures and proposed taxing social media to fund tutoring. Republican Senator Tom Cotton supports taxing elite university endowments to fund job training for high school graduates. As reported by The New York Times, these efforts suggest the possibility of a new political platform—one rooted in learning outcomes, not ideological battles. The question now is whether the US will recognize the academic crisis for what it is and act accordingly.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ohio Education Association president speaks out against bill that could close low-performing schools
(Stock photo from Getty Images) The head of a statewide Ohio teachers union on Tuesday slammed a proposed bill that would automatically close low-performing Ohio public schools, saying it would harm students and communities, and force districts into counterproductive situations and decisions. Ohio Education Association President Scott DiMauro testified against Ohio Senate Bill 127 Tuesday morning during the Ohio Senate Education Committee meeting. The bill would revise Ohio's public school closure law and require a poor performing school to either close or take remedial action. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX 'S.B. 127 proposes a heavy handed and overreaching state approach to local schools that receive low ratings on state report cards,' DiMauro said. 'The impact of the actions compelled by S.B. 127 would harm students and communities. The harsh measures required by the bill ignore mitigating factors, forcing districts to make counterproductive decisions that could harm well-functioning schools.' Senate Education Committee Chair Andrew Brenner, R-Delaware, introduced the bill last month and no one has submitted supporter testimony for the bill yet. Five people submitted opponent testimony while the Buckeye Institute and the pro-charter-school Thomas B. Fordham Institute submitted interested party testimony. S.B. 127 defines a poor performing school as a school (district-operated, community or STEM), serving grades four and older, that has performed in the bottom 5% among public schools based on its Performance Index Score for three consecutive years, and is in the bottom 10% based on its Value-Added Progress for three consecutive years. A poor-performing school would have the option to close at the end of the school year or replace its principal and a majority of licensed staff. Another option is the school could get the help of an Ohio Department of Education and Workforce management organization, charter management organization, education service center, or an Ohio public or private university with experience in school improvement. Ohio charter schools are automatically closed if they have three straight years of poor performance. 'Instead of offering significant support, S.B. 127 proposes significant punishments that will most likely destabilize schools where many great things are happening, even if those successes are not revealed on data printouts of standardized test scores,' DiMauro said. 'The barriers to learning caused by under-resourced schools and communities do not disappear when a state punishes a school district. Greg R. Lawson, a research fellow at the Buckeye Institute, said the bill addresses chronic underperformance in public schools. 'Critics worry that closures may disrupt communities, but trapping students in the status quo cycle of underachieving schools is far more disruptive to students and their futures,' he said. Thomas B. Fordham Institute's Vice President for Ohio Policy Chad Aldis said he would support the bill if a few tweaks were made including revising the growth measure to the Ohio report card one-star rating on Value Added Progress. 'This is a clearer and more stable indicator of inadequate growth, and it better reflects the state's own definition of 'low performance,' Aldis said. 'Combining this with a bottom 5% Performance Index score would ensure that only schools with sustained low achievement and weak student progress are flagged— exactly as intended.' Follow Capital Journal Reporter Megan Henry on Bluesky. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Boston Globe
12-03-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
The Education Department was created to ensure equal access. Who would do that in its absence?
Without the department, advocates worry the federal government would not look out in the same way for poor students, those still learning English, disabled students and racial and ethnic minorities. Advertisement 'Gutting the agency that is charged to ensure equal access to education for every child is only going to create an underclass of students,' said Weadé James, senior director of K-12 education policy for the Center for American Progress, a think tank that advocates for racial equity policies and increased investment in public schools. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The equity goal of the Education Department, which was founded in 1980, emerged partly from the anti-poverty and civil rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s. The act creating the department described its mission, in part, as: 'To strengthen the Federal commitment to ensuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual.' If new Education Secretary Linda McMahon really does work herself 'out of a job,' as Trump has said he wants, the government will lose a bully pulpit to draw attention to the nation's challenges and evangelize solutions, said Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank that advocates for more rigorous academic standards and accountability for public schools. But Petrilli doubts that significantly paring back the department — if not completely eliminating it — will be 'noticeable in the real world.' Test scores continue to show many school children are struggling academically. The latest national tests showed one-third of eighth grade students missing fundamental skills in reading, and a widening gap between the highest-performing and lower-performing students. That's the justification McMahon and other Trump allies have used for dismantling the department and sending its funding directly to states to spend. Advertisement Far from perfect, the department has offered a valuable 'north star' for schools, said Wil Del Pilar, senior vice president of EdTrust, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that advocates for educational equity. It is the role of the department to institute guardrails, investments and protections 'that support equal outcomes for students,' he said. Trump has said he wants to return all control of schools to states. The biggest question for many is what happens to the billions of dollars sent to run public schools every year, such as Title I funding, which supports schools in communities with high concentrations of poverty. Educating low-income children, students learning English and those with disabilities often costs more because it requires specialized teaching or smaller class sizes. Districts without a strong tax base to fund schools often struggle to meet these students' needs, which Congress recognized by authorizing the money. McMahon has said she wants to send the money directly to states, with fewer restrictions. Some have worried that without guardrails or federal oversight, states will use the money to advance their own priorities in ways that potentially entrench inequality. If the funding is distributed to states as block grants, it's potentially a 'way to defund public education,' said Del Pilar. Block grants allow politicians to 'direct funds as they see fit, and that could be away from schools,' he said. Students in Mississippi, South Dakota, Arkansas, Montana and Alaska could be affected the most if rules or oversight changes for how states spend this money. During the 2021-2022 school year, these states relied on federal aid for at least 20% of school funding, according to government data. Advertisement The agency traditionally has worked on behalf of disadvantaged students through its Office for Civil Rights, with an emphasis defending the rights of students with disabilities and students facing harassment tied to their skin color. Under the Trump administration, the agency has prioritized allegations of antisemitism. While some advocates worry about the pivot in priorities, some attorneys say they had given up on recommending parents pursue complaints with the Office for Civil Rights, which they perceived as understaffed and too slow to provide relief. Well before Trump was sworn in for a second term, the system moved slowly, but it has now gotten even worse, said A. Kelly Neal, a special education attorney in Macon, Georgia. 'Usually they were a little bit more responsive,' Neal said. 'It may not have been the response you wanted. But at least they tried to pretend they were doing something.' She said she would have no problem if the Department of Justice took on enforcement of these cases. As part of a crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, the Trump administration last month ended the contract for the Equity Assistance Center-South, a technical assistance program for Southern school districts still operating under federal desegregation orders. On Tuesday, the Southern Education Foundation appealed the decision to cancel its contract to run the center. The attempt to close these such centers abdicates the government's responsibility to 'help school districts address educational inequities and provide greater education opportunities for our students,' said Raymond Pierce, Southern Education Foundation's president and chief executive officer. Advertisement Associated Press writer Heather Hollingsworth contributed to this report.
Boston Globe
10-02-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
They trained on diversity under Trump. Now he's punishing them for it.
Some of the workers who were put on leave are struggling to understand how a training they took with the encouragement of the first Trump administration could be jeopardizing their jobs under the second. 'It's the most ironic thing,' said one employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, 'because Betsy DeVos supported it.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Enter Email Sign Up In messages to the staff, DeVos and top aides spoke of the importance of building and acknowledging a diverse workforce - using terminology that Trump's team has recently excised from the agency's website and now uses as a barometer to cancel contracts and grants, according to more than a dozen documents obtained by The Washington Post. Advertisement 'In order for ED to be a high-performing organization in the 21st century, we must constantly strive to foster an inclusive work culture and maintain an environment that embraces the diversity of our workforce,' DeVos wrote in a February 2020 memo to all department employees. The memo specified that all people should be treated with respect, regardless of factors including race, age, sex, 'transgender status' and gender identity. In the new Trump administration, education officials spent their first day scrubbing the agency's website for any mention of words including diversity, transgender, LGBTQIA and equity, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. On Friday, a directive sent to department employees said the agency would terminate programs, contracts, policies or media that mention transgender or 'fail to affirm the reality of biological sex.' Advertisement The moves have come under heavy criticism. 'This is Kafkaesque, Orwellian,' said Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank. 'It is ridiculous to threaten professionals' livelihoods because they attended a training. Most of America attended a DEI training in 2020. This policy by keyword search will lead to all kinds of dumb outcomes and, I hope, a real backlash.' A spokeswoman for the Education Department, Madi Biedermann, defended the decisions to place the employees on leave as a part of the Trump administration's shake-up of the federal civil service. 'We are evaluating staffing in line with the commitment to prioritize meaningful learning ahead of divisive ideology in schools and putting student outcomes above special interests,' she said. A changed GOP The polar opposite messages in the two Trump administrations reflect the hostility that has built toward diversity, equity and inclusion among conservatives over the past four years. Under DeVos's leadership, the department regularly celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month. In July 2020, a training was offered to employees called 'Unconscious Bias to Unleash Potential,' according to an email obtained by The Post. And in October 2019, Kenneth L. Marcus, who headed the department's Office for Civil Rights, sent a memo to 'reiterate my commitment to fostering a culture of diversity, inclusion and respect within our workforce.' He said the office would not tolerate discrimination on the basis of factors including gender identity. A diverse workforce, he said, was 'essential' to the mission. Marcus, in a statement to The Post, said he has always fought against discrimination, harassment and bullying. 'I see no contradiction between that position, which I made explicit to my staff through the first Trump administration, and President Trump's recent statements opposing unlawful, discriminatory DEI policies,' he said. Advertisement DeVos's chief of staff, Nate Bailey, declined to comment on DeVos's statements or support for diversity and inclusion, calling this article 'fake news about made-up controversies.' The backlash to DEI began building after the May 2020 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the nationwide discussion of race that followed. Conservatives objected to discussions of systemic racism, saying they painted the country with an overly negative brush. Some DEI opponents worked to spotlight programs and policies, particularly those dealing with race, they found offensive. That included programs such as a training session in Seattle that separated employees by race and delivered a lesson on 'our complicity in the system of white supremacy' to the White workers; a Smithsonian museum chart that was included (and that it later apologized for) in an online discussion that described values such as 'hard work' as White traits; and an effort in San Francisco to rename schools, including Abraham Lincoln High School, because of perceived racism in their eponyms' pasts. Others argued that DEI had been innocuous or positive but transformed into something they found militant and offensive. Ideas that may have had merit had been 'captured and distorted,' said Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. He said many conservatives concluded that 'the only sensible course is to rip them out.' DEI supporters contend that Republicans are cherry-picking outlier programs to attack the entire field for political gain. Conservative media feed their voters a constant stream of anecdotes to build outrage, said Shaun Harper, an education professor at the University of Southern California, who spends hours each week watching Fox News to understand what conservative Americans are hearing. Advertisement Harper, who also works for corporations, universities and K-12 districts as a consultant, said the political right is wrongly suggesting that the most controversial DEI trainings are commonplace. The training sessions he conducts, he said, discuss ways to make sure everyone has opportunity for advancement, how to ensure that salaries are equitable and how to make sure customers and clients won't experience discrimination or harassment. Participants 'find those kinds of things enormously useful,' he said, after describing his approach. 'Nowhere in there did I say anything about White men having a whole bunch of privilege and 'you have to check your privilege.' I don't do that.' 'A cadre of committed change agents' On his first day in office, Trump ordered federal agencies to end all DEI work. The following week, emails began arriving in Education Department workers' inboxes informing them they had been put on administrative leave. American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents 2,825 Education Department employees, said 74 of its members were put on administrative leave for supposed ties to DEIA. About 25 managers who are not in the union were, as well, according to Sheria Smith, president of the local. And something else unites them, too, Smith said. After requesting demographic data from the department on everyone placed on leave, Smith found that the majority are women of color. A few of them did work related to DEI, but many were flummoxed because their jobs had nothing to do with that, according to interviews with many of those put on leave and union officials. Only later, when the staffers compared notes, did they discover a common thread: A large number had participated in the department's Diversity Change Agent training program. Advertisement Their suspicions were confirmed when a person with knowledge of the process told The Post that workers from the U.S. DOGE Service, Elon Musk's team tasked with slashing the government, had combed through employees' files to uncover and target staffers who had taken single diversity trainings, sometimes years before. Not all participants in the program were put on leave; the person said it was not clear why some were chosen and others were not. The Diversity Change Agent program was a departmentwide initiative aimed at fostering an inclusive culture. The goal was to 'establish a cadre of committed change agents to help lead efforts to educate and train our workforce about diversity and inclusion,' according to training materials prepared by FranklinCovey, a leadership coaching company that ran the program for the agency. Goals included increasing 'individual awareness and understanding of diversity,' developing 'deeper trust among employees,' creating 'specific action plans to drive diversity and inclusion' and improving 'employee ability to communicate effectively,' according to the material. (A spokesperson for FranklinCovey declined to comment.) One former senior official who was involved with the program at the time said it was enthusiastically supported by DeVos and Denise Carter, who is acting secretary of the Education Department. Carter did not respond to requests for comment. On a slide deck about the program, a full page is devoted to DeVos, featuring her portrait alongside a message attributed to her: 'Diversity may be viewed as cliché, but I believe that getting to know, working with, befriending and including people who are different from ourselves is enriching and expanding.' During the two-day training sessions, conversations revolved around the idea that everyone sees the world through a different lens and that it can be difficult to understand how people in disparate situations think and feel, according to participants who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing their jobs. 'There was no gender bashing, no culture bashing,' said one participant who did the training in 2017. 'It was just, 'People are different. Accept it. And the quicker you can accept it and acknowledge it, the better working relationship you can have,' which would mean a better bottom line.' She recalled that the facilitator asked them to group themselves based on identities. At first, the groupings were obvious - race and gender, for instance. But then they joined with others based on factors like family background and education. The lesson, she said, was, 'You may think you are different, but you are more alike than different.' A second staffer who also participated during the first Trump administration recalled that attendees were asked to consider their own prejudices and to imagine how it might affect students if teachers or principals behave in a biased or prejudiced way. In another portion of the training, this person said, participants talked through how they would handle various scenarios: What would you do if your child came home and said they were gay? What would you do if your daughter was dating a much older man with tattoos? After completing the training, newly minted 'change agents' were encouraged to return to their offices and try to 'create change,' participants said. Some people formed office-level diversity councils. Others planned events celebrating different cultures. Still other change agents beefed up the department's celebrations of various observance months, such as Black History Month or Pride Month. One participant in the program said her group decided to work on cross-cultural awareness and wound up hosting a conversation about different places in the world where employees had traveled. She also helped plan a Lunar New Year celebration. By 2017, 207 employees had taken the training. The goal was a total of about 400 by 2020, documents show. As of January 2025, at least 300 people had taken the change agents training departmentwide, one staffer said. The employees put on leave are still receiving pay and benefits, though they are locked out of their work email accounts. It is unclear whether the administration will fire them as a way to make good on its promise to stamp out DEIA.
