Education news and discussion

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Nearly Two Million Student-Loan Borrowers Are at Risk of Docked Pay This Summer
The government is set to start garnishing wages after a pandemic-era reprieve ended
https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/st ... v1VQ%3D%3D

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'You Don't Thank a Burglar for Returning Your Cash': Trump Admin Finally Releases Education Funds
By Brett Wilkins
July 25, 2025

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) While welcoming reporting that the Trump administration will release more than $5 billion in federal funding for schools that it has been withholding for nearly a month, U.S. educators and others said Friday that the funds should never have been held up in the first place and warned that the attempt to do so was just one part of an ongoing campaign to undermine public education.

The Trump administration placed nearly $7 billion in federal education funding for K-12 public schools under review last month, then released $1.3 billion of it last week amid legal action and widespread backlash. An administration official speaking on condition of anonymity told The Washington Post that all reviews of remaining funding are now over.

"There is no good reason for the chaos and stress this president has inflicted on students, teachers, and parents across America for the last month, and it shouldn't take widespread blowback for this administration to do its job and simply get the funding out the door that Congress has delivered to help students," U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Friday.

"This administration deserves no credit for just barely averting a crisis they themselves set in motion," Murray added. "You don't thank a burglar for returning your cash after you've spent a month figuring out if you'd have to sell your house to make up the difference."

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/trum ... funding

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Trump Education Department Partners With Right-Groups to Spread White-Washed Civics Lessons in ‘Schools Across the Nation’
By Stephen Prager
September 18 , 2025

Introduction:

(Common Dreams) President Donald Trump’s Department of Education has announced that it will partner with right-wing think tanks and organizations to develop and spread what it claims is “patriotic education”—but which critics worry is nothing less than ahistorical propaganda—in American ”schools across the nation.”

Earlier this week, the Trump administration redirected $137 million initially meant for programs aimed at minority students toward what it described as “American history and civics education.”

Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced Wednesday that the money will be directed toward discretionary grants aimed at K-12 schools alongside the announcement of new civics curriculum and programs being drawn up by the 250 Civics Education Coalition—a consortium of more than 40 right-wing groups. The goal, McMahon said, was to advance education that “emphasizes a unifying and uplifting portrayal of the nation’s founding ideals” in advance of the nation’s 250th anniversary in 2026.

It is not Trump’s first crack at instilling the nation’s youth with a “patriotic education.” In the waning days of his first term in office, Trump unveiled the 1776 Report, which, education columnist Jennifer Berkshire recently noted in The Baffler, “was widely panned by actual historians for its worshipful treatment of the Founding Fathers, its downplaying of slavery, and its portrayal of a century-old ‘administrative state’ controlled by leftist radicals.”

While little has been publicized yet about what McMahon’s new endeavor will look like in practice, it is known the kinds of people and organizations who will be crafting it. The civics initiative is being led by the America First Policy Institute, a MAGA-aligned think tank that has been responsible for staffing Trump’s second administration and has received over $1 million from his political action committee, the Save America PAC. Until 2023, McMahon herself served on the board of AFPI.

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/news/trum ... ducation

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DoEd permanently fires Most Special Ed Staff

The Mango Mussolini administration fires most of the DoEd Special Education and Rehabilitative Services Office staff, including all of the staff supporting IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) which is the primary federal law supporting students with disabilities.
These are billed as permanent cuts, not furloughs.

This administration has repeatedly stated that it cares a great deal about special education.

This is how they show that "great concern".

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/edu ... 646104007/

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Nearly two dozen states sue Trump admin over rule limiting student loan forgiveness for public servants

Source: CNBC

Published Mon, Nov 3 2025 11:58 AM EST Updated Moments Ago

New York Attorney General Letitia James and more than a dozen other state attorneys general are suing the Trump administration over its new rule limiting eligibility for a popular student loan forgiveness program.

The AGs’ lawsuit was prompted by the U.S. Department of Education’s final rule, released last week, that changes the definition of a “qualifying employer” under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. The rule excludes certain organizations “that engage in unlawful activities” such as “supporting terrorism and aiding and abetting illegal immigration,” according to an Education Department statement.

PSLF, signed into law in 2007 by George W. Bush, offers debt cancellation after a decade to borrowers who work for non-profits and the government. “Public Service Loan Forgiveness was created as a promise to teachers, nurses, firefighters, and social workers that their service to our communities would be honored,” said Attorney General James in a statement. “Instead, this administration has created a political loyalty test disguised as a regulation,” James said.

The U.S. Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/03/states- ... -pslf.html

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There’s an Intensifying Kind of Threat to Academic Freedom – Watchful Students Serving as Informants
By Austin Sarat
January 14, 2026

Introduction:

(The Conversation) Texas A&M University told philosophy professor Martin Peterson in early January 2026 that he could not teach some of Greek philosopher Plato’s writings that touch on “race and gender ideology.”

The university’s local chapter of the American Association of University Professors, an organization of professors and academics in the U.S., quickly denounced this requirement.

Peterson, in response to his university’s direction, replaced the Plato readings with material on free speech and academic freedom.
Silencing a professor from teaching a certain subject fits within what experts have long recognized as encroaching on academic freedom.

Read more here: https://theconversation.com/theres-an- ... s-273182

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Education Department’s “Efficiency” Layoffs Cost At Least $28 Million
By Alex Nguyen
February 2, 2026

Introduction:

(Mother Jones) The Education Department spent an estimated $28 to $38 million on attempted staff cuts last year at its Office of Civil Rights, according to a report from the US Government Accountability Office released Monday.

The department initiated a reduction in force last March, pushing nearly 50 percent of its more than 4,000-strong workforce onto administrative leave. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon called the cuts a “commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers.”

Later that month, Donald Trump signed an executive order stating that the Secretary of Education should “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities.”

At the Office of Civil Rights (OCR), which enforces federal civil rights laws in schools and other institutions that receive Education Department funding, close to half its 575 employees were put on leave in March. In October, they were officially laid off. In November, they were taken off the payroll. The department’s cuts were challenged in court, and in December, some fired staff were told to return to work.

This back-and-forth doesn’t scream “efficiency.” And the cuts to OCR did not, in fact, save money.

Read more here: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2 ... ge-report

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So Much for Abolishing the Department of Education
By Eric Boehm
February 5, 2026

Introduction:

(Reason) On the campaign trail in 2024, Donald Trump repeatedly pledged to close the Department of Education and return oversight of public schooling to the states.

Trump has a habit of throwing undercooked ideas around, but this wasn't one of them. Abolishing the Department of Education was part of the Republican Party's platform for the 2024 election, and was included in the goals of "Project 2025," the Heritage Foundation's blueprint for a conservative-controlled federal government in the wake of that election. That effort seemingly culminated with a March 2025 executive order signed by Trump that ordered Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take steps to close the department and return its functions to the states.

"I told Linda, 'Linda, I hope you do a great job in putting yourself out of a job.' I want her to put herself out of a job," Trump said at one point.

A year later, McMahon's job looks as secure as ever.

The omnibus appropriations bill that Trump signed on Tuesday to fund the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year directs $79 billion in taxpayer money to the Department of Education. That's a larger budget (by about $200 million) than the department had in fiscal year 2025, and it is $12 billion more than the Trump administration requested in its budget proposal for the year.

Read more here: https://reason.com/2026/02/05/so-much- ... ducation/

caltrek’s comment: It is a shame that Reason seems to want to frame this as a failure of the Trump administration to deliver on campaign promises to abolish the Department of Education instead of as a victory for supporters of education.

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