The word for this is bullying

 I highly recommend ProPublica's work with the Bangor Daily News on SIX federal agencies investigating Maine. 

Some view Maine as a test case for how the Trump administration may try to force its policies on states, regardless of existing state laws. In public comments, residents have invoked the state’s motto to rally Mainers: “Dirigo,” Latin for “I lead.”

“It’s Maine now, but what state is it going to be next? This is not just a Maine issue, but Maine spoke up. So right now, it’s, ‘Let’s make an example out of Maine,’” said Kris Pitts, executive co-director of the nonprofit MaineTransNet.

Halving the Department of Education

 Reductions in force are established processes for cutting positions in a workforce. The federal government has a series of regulations that oversee how this happens. 

Those have yet to be followed for the cuts last night at the Department of Education; thus, while the press release calls it a "reduction in force," it isn't clear that it is. While I have yet to see legal action, I'd expect it. 

You can read about the cuts in The Hill; K-12 Dive; NPR; EdWeek; New York Times.

Besides many, many people who care a lot about public education, and in many cases, have been doing their jobs for years, losing their jobs (which, to be clear, is bad enough!*), what does this mean?

Someone from the Department shared a list of who had been cut last night on Bluesky, and James Murphy of Ed Reform Now posted an analysis of who is gone. While the largest number of employees have been cut from FAFSA (insert the hollow laugh of the parent of a college student), by percentages of total employees compared to 2024, the big hits are the Office of Civil Rights and the Institute of Education Sciences: 

from James Murphy's post here 

I think just "FAFSA" alone is concerning, but note that some of that office's duties are ensuring that funding for higher education through student aid is used in ethical ways.

The Office of Civil Rights is of course what ensures schools protect and preserve students' civil rights; that's race, gender, special education, language, and more. While we've already seen signs of the office being weaponized (as I warned about in November), they have a VERY legitimate function. With an even smaller office, the prioritization of the ideological use of the office, one assumes, will take priority over families who need the OCR to work to ensure their students are appropriately treated by their schools.

IES is one of the quiet functions that few know exists, but many have used. If you've seen (or said) anything comparing one state to another on educational outcomes, or cited state education spending, or any of many, many other data points, you used IES. The New York Times has a useful piece on this, as well as the research funded by the Department, today. The lack of accountability--for states! for the country!--is not good here. 

Program Administration also worries me. While school districts have the big grants for the current year now, those granting systems don't run themselves, and that, plus a lot of other Department functions take people doing things. It's that sort of thing--the dribbles of "wait, no one is doing that??" that I will say I dread.

Now we have half as many people doing this work. And I have to say that I have little confidence that the cut was done in any way that ensures the functions we need are served. 

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*If you lost your job yesterday, I am sorry. Your work is valuable and valued.

Just to offer: MASC did a Learning Lunch in January on what the U.S. Department of Education does (and what it means for districts) and you can find the video here. 

And what does this mean?

 Good thread here from Stephen Sawchuk on what having a half a Department may look like

“the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law"

 You know those websites that exist to answer a single question? "Is it Christmas?" is a classic; there was (is?) "Is Henry Kissinger Dead?" for another. I've wondered for the past week or so if someone should grab "Is there a U.S. Department of Education?" given the state of the news.

The answer (as of this blog post) is: 

YES

USDA cancels a billion dollars in food funding for schools and food banks supporting local farms

 Need a reason to call Congress today?

Yesterday, the United States Department of Agriculture cut two programs for the current fiscal year: one, the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, that nationally is about $500M, provides support for local food banks; and the Local Food for Schools program, that nationally funds $660M for schools. Both were the result of a December expansion of prior programs to provide for locally-grown, minimally-processed food from local farmers to go to local food banks and schools.

Per Politico, USDA:

...confirmed that funding, previously announced last October, “is no longer available and those agreements will be terminated following 60-day notification.”

The spokesperson added: “These programs, created under the former Administration via Executive authority, no longer effectuate the goals of the agency. LFPA and LFPA Plus agreements that were in place prior to LFPA 25, which still have substantial financial resources remaining, will continue to be in effect for the remainder of the period of performance.”

I personally fail to see which aspects of USDA's goals aren't "effectuate[d]" through funding local farmers to provide healthy food for the hungry. 

In Massachusetts, this is $12.2M. Asked yesterday about it, Governor Healey's response was a harbinger of where we're at here: 

When she was asked whether the state had a plan to backfill that loss of federal support, Healey, flanked by Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, state Senate President Karen Spilka, D-Middlesex/Norfolk, and House Speaker Ronald J. Mariano, D-3rd Norfolk, didn’t mince words.

“Are you kidding?” she shot back.

“I think people have got to understand the scope of what we’re talking about here ... the scope is so vast when you’re talking about federal funding,” she said. “We’re talking about tens of billions of dollars,” she continued.

Healey’s $62 billion budget proposal for the new fiscal year that starts July 1 is premised on more than $16 billion in assistance from Washington.

That money funds a host of programs, including MassHealth, as Medicaid is known in the Bay State, as well as public education.

“And that’s not even accounting for the funding that doesn’t even come to us,” Healey continued. “There’s money that comes directly to not-for-profits, and to organizations and to school districts directly that is also subject to just being cut completely. So, the numbers are so huge that there is no way the state can begin to fill the void and pick up the tab.”

It is important to note that even Massachusetts, even with $8B in the rainy day fund, does not have the capacity to make up for the full weight of federal funding. We could try; we could do some things; we cannot do it all.

Something to complain to your reps and senators about. in particular because this is the first time we've seen USDA funding for school nutrition cut or frozen. That does not bode well. 

Special meeting of the Board of Ed March 10: acting commissioner

 Craven: "due credit and praise" to Johnston
March 28 is his last day
finalists will be selected by board members on search committee (four)
new commissioner for July 1

Secretary Pat Tutwiler is willing and able to serve "on top of his responsibilities" as Secretary
will not accept additional compensation
Secretary makes appointment on recommendation of a 2/3rd vote
effective March 29, 2025

Motion, second

Hills: not in support of this 
think Tutwiler "would make an outstanding commissioner"
soft power, hard power
"has to do with the structure that has been set up in the laws over the past year"
"there are several different statutes that this would be in violation of"
"at some point, it actually matters what's written in the statute"

Mohamed: "if it doesn't violate statute, I think it violates principles of good governments"
"don't think a person can serve as supervisor of himself"
will vote no on this item

Tutwiler: Commissioner doesn't report to the Secretary; the Commissioner reports to the Board
(on which the Secretary serves)

Moriarty: comfortable with this and support it
"I don't think the secretary as it exists in statute is that old"
"I think it's a novel question, not one that" has a history
Johnston receiver while at the Department (but he didn't report to himself; it both positions he reported to the Commissioner)
"and if it's a mulligan, we correct it at our next meeting"

Stewart asking if it's legal for him not to take compensation

Motion to recommend to the Secretary that he appoint himself acting commissioner (the Secretary appoints upon a 2/3rd recommendation from the Board)

7-2-1, 2/3 vote as required (Hills and Mohamed opposed, Tutwiler abstains)

motion passes

No one asked me but speaking as always only for me: 

1. Serving on a Board whilst also working for it would certainly appear a conflict. 
2. Taking the second role at the same time on would appear to somewhat denigrate what is necessary for either. 
3. And having the Governor's appointment serve as the Board's appointment SUPER crosses the quasi-independence of the Department

Special meeting of the Board of Ed: March 10 CTE regulations

 Just saying up front: I'm not planning on liveblogging public comments. The news tonight is the question of acting Commissioner. Agenda is here. Note that the regulations proposed have been updated since the last meeting; they can be found here. 

Updating as we go

New acting commissioner being appointed Monday evening

Note that added to the special Board of Ed meeting for Monday night--set to take further public comment on the proposed changes to the regulations on CTE admission--is appointment of an acting commissioner.

I don't know that it's been generally circulated as yet, but current Acting Commissioner Russell Johnston is leaving at the end of March. As the Board's next regular meeting is March 25, it's more timely to make that appointment now.

No clue from the posting as to who is being tapped on that one. 

Worcester has a housing report on the Council agenda tomorrow

 ...and I admit that I am skimming, but this is what they have on education: 

Also, let's talk about how dumb this Y axis is. The bottom is 22,500.
The change is not nearly as dramatic as it looks, and let's consider why the city would be exaggerating it.

...plus a map of where the schools are. 
I think, for a district that approaching where it was in enrollment when it closed eight school buildings, we probably need more than that. 

Agenda is here; report is here.

Damn right, Maine will see you in court

 The FAQ released last Friday by the United States Department of Education on race in schools earned a 'softened tone' headline from the Washington Post (that's a gift link), which is fair, but I also want to note what they do NOT say.

Here's the response to question 14, which is about consequences of not following their guidance and decisions: 

If OCR determines that a school failed to comply with the civil rights laws that it enforces, OCR will contact the school and will attempt to secure its willingness to negotiate a voluntary resolution agreement. If the school agrees to resolve the complaint, OCR and the school will negotiate a written resolution agreement to be signed by the school that describes the specific remedial actions it will take to address the area(s) of noncompliance identified by OCR. OCR will monitor implementation of the resolution agreement’s terms. If a school is unwilling to negotiate a resolution agreement, OCR will inform the school of the consequences, which may result in OCR initiating enforcement through administrative proceedings or referring the case to the Department of Justice for judicial proceedings.  

Do you notice what that does not say?
We will take away your Title I funding. We will take away your IDEA funding.  

I'm not sure who they've hired or not--they also have this "be a snitch and report your district"* portal still up--but it looks like maybe a lawyer looked at this one. 

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*obligatory: gosh wouldn't it be a shame if it were flooded with silly nonsense from faked email addresses?