Weaponizing what's left of the Department of Education

 

trans colored heart on a sidewalk at Smith College
photo by Kate Hobbs

If you follow me on any social media platform other than this one, you've probably caught my ire that the U.S. Department of Education has now started a (well-publicized) investigation into my alma mater, Smith College for, they say, admitting men. Smith is the largest historically women's college in the country; the college started admitting women who are trans in 2015 (after an uproar over not doing so). The admission policy specifically says Smith:

considers for admission any applicants who self-identify as women; cis, trans, and nonbinary women are eligible to apply to Smith.

And a cheer for Shawnee Mission School District in Kansas

 ...which has not only refused to sign an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education regarding their "investigation" into the district's inclusion of trans students, they also extensively questioned the grounds of the investigation, and concluded with this: 

“Finally, the resolution agreement you have provided contains provisions that are inconsistent with the values that inform our work of supporting all children in our communities. We will never issue a policy that devalues certain members of our diverse community.”

May we all be so bold in defending our students.*

_____________________
*I wish my alma mater were being so public and bold.

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.

“I’m complying with state and federal law"

In case you missed Maine Governor Janet Mills stand up to President Trump earlier this week, you can watch the video here.

While it's (naturally) her refusal to back down that's making the news, what she said matters a lot: her response was "I'm complying with state and federal law."

Executive orders and "Dear Colleague" letters are not federal law.

Please repeat that as often as necessary.

Given the thin-skinned nature of the executive, it isn't surprising that the next investigation by what we used to call the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, but will need to come up with another name for was one into Maine. 

What is new on this one, and this worries me because this is where free lunch is funded from, is that the United States Department of Agriculture also launched an investigation into the University of Maine. This isn't school nutrition, but it is concerning to see this also coming from that department. 

Don't, however, think you can go along and somehow get along with this administration. They're coming for everyone, sooner or later.

For those wondering about the Title IX executive order

 I thought this, in Ohio Capital Journal, was quite good: 

But lawyers and Title IX experts told States Newsroom it remains to be seen how exactly schools across the country will enforce the executive order and how the administration would rescind federal funds for any schools failing to adhere.

Shiwali Patel, a Title IX expert and senior director of safe and inclusive schools at the National Women’s Law Center, said the “blatantly discriminatory” order is “extremely broad” and raises “a lot of questions.”

“It touches educational institutions, it touches international competitions, it touches immigration of trans women athletes, it calls for these convenings, it calls for state attorneys general to identify some enforcement mechanisms,” Patel said.

The order asks the assistant to the president for domestic policy to bring together state attorneys general to “identify best practices” in enforcing the ban.

The assistant is also responsible for bringing together “representatives of major athletic organizations and governing bodies” to promote such policies regarding trans athletes’ participation in women’s sports. 

Elana Redfield, a lawyer and federal policy director at the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, which focuses on laws and policies affecting LGBTQ+ people, pointed out that the executive order “contains kind of broad language, including addressing locker rooms.”

“So, it suggests that any kind of space … for example, PE classes or locker rooms for use in elementary and high school, middle schools as well — those kinds of spaces would be affected,” she said. 

Kelli Rodriguez, assistant dean for academic affairs at Seattle University School of Law, said it’s going to be “really confusing for a while” and “a lot of waiting and seeing.”

Rodriguez, who is also the director of sports law at Seattle University School of Law, said “the one thing that’s different is that the executive order calls for, potentially, ramifications or punitive actions if institutions don’t comply.”

“I don’t know what that means yet, I think that’s one of the things that’s kind of outstanding — we’ll see what that means from an enforcement standpoint,” she said, noting that she thinks many schools right now are “very anxious” for what exactly those punitive actions would look like when it comes to federal funding.

Rodriguez also said she expects to see state attorneys general, individual athletes, parents of athletes and institutions challenge the executive order.

From Massachusetts Secretary of Education Patrick Tutwiler

 posted Friday on Twitter, with this note:

The Healey-Driscoll Administration issued the following statement today in response to the U.S. Department of Education's announcement that they will be enforcing the Trump Administration’s 2020 Title IX Rule.

Some things I really hope we get right in 2025

Let there be goblin hordes, let there be terrible environmental threats, let there be giant 

mutated slugs if you really must, but let there also be Hope. It may be a grim, thin hope, an Arthurian sword at sunset, but let us know that we do not live in vain.

Terry Pratchett, "When Children Read Fantasy"

As the turn of the calendar gives one of the "looking back/looking forward" opportunities, I thought I'd put together some hopes I have of this coming calendar year, if only, as the great Pratchett put it, to "know that we do not live in vain."

Moms for Liberty lawsuit and MA schools

 It's possible you've caught that the Kansas case filed by Moms for Liberty and others reached beyond the district of federal court in which it was filed. The New Bedford Light looks at what this means for the Massachusetts schools named: 

...in Massachusetts, state law already offers the same protections for transgender students that Moms for Liberty is challenging at the federal level. So Massachusetts schools will still be able to uphold their current policies, legal experts say. 

Things to read this week

 As always, a lot of this has come through on the microblogger sites, but for those who prefer somewhere else: 

To read this weekend

 From the "I know not everyone is on Twitter" files:

• Know who is satisfied with K-12 education? Parents. (again)

Two notes on the Supreme Court

•  I've been enjoying Kevin Kruse's new Substack "Campaign Trails" and his latest one is on Engel v. Vitale, a case decided in 1962 on school prayer. As Kruse notes:
  

  After explaining the details of the case, Black paused to collect himself and clutched his papers tightly. There could be “no doubt,” he read, that “the daily invocation of God’s blessings [was] a religious activity” and, as a result, no doubt that New York “adopted a practice wholly inconsistent with the Establishment clause.” Black asserted that the First Amendment embodied the founders’ belief that faith was “too personal, too sacred, too holy to permit its ‘unhallowed perversion’ by a civil magistrate.” (Here, an observer noted, “his voice trembled with emotion as he paused over ‘too personal, too sacred, too holy.’”)
  In Black’s view, religion certainly deserved a place of prominence in American life, but the state could not dictate it. “It is no part of the business of government,” he read, “to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by the government.” Departing from his text, Black added an impromptu plea. “The prayer of each man from his soul must be his and his alone,” he said. “If there is anything clear in the First Amendment, it is that the right of the people to pray in their own way is not to be controlled by the election returns.” 

• There was some surprise in the online education universe this morning that the Supreme Court declined to take up Charter Day School. v. Peltier, which is a case on dress codes that hinges on if the charter school in North Carolina is a public school. The charter school in question barred girls from wearing pants to school; parents sued, saying this was sex discrimination, which public schools cannot do under Title IX. The lower court decision that will now stand agreed with the plaintiffs. As Matt Barnum wrote in Chalkbeat: 
  

  The case turned on whether Charter Day School is a private entity or a public “state actor.” This issue is also crucial for the brewing legal dispute over religious charter schools. If charter schools are state actors then they likely cannot be religious. If they are private, though, religious entities would have a stronger case for running charter schools. These debates will likely be tested in Oklahoma, which recently approved what could be the country’s first religious charter school. Ultimately, this may end up being sorted out via years of litigation — which could end up back at the Supreme Court.

  So...stay tuned. 

A early April reading round-up

please enjoy this Boston daffodil

Despite the ongoing temper tantrums of a particular billionaire, I do continue to share things I think worth reading over on my Twitter feed (which is also on the bottom left if you read this on a full screen), but here's a bit of a recent round-up of things I found worth reading:

• You might remember that among the disasters of the previous presidential administration was an update on Title IX guidance regarding sexual misconduct. We have been waiting (and waiting and waiting) for the Biden administration to issue an final update on the rules; this week saw another round of pleas to get that done soon.
  
  
• What the U.S. Department of Ed actually released this week in terms of trans kids and sports got a round of confusing headlines, at least initially. I (as always) recommend Chalkbeat and K-12 Dive on this. The press release from USEd is here; the notice of proposed rulemaking is here.
  
  
• This New Yorker piece on Hillsdale College--which, yes, is influencing K-12 education--is a worthwhile read.
  

  when DeSantis and other Republican politicians try to articulate what they’re for—what exactly they want education to look like—one name comes up repeatedly: Hillsdale College.

• Excellent, in depth, round up of the various efforts to loosen child labor laws across the country from the Iowa Capital Dispatch. As Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire outlined in The Nation last month, this is directly related to public education.
  
  
• If you didn't read the ProPublica piece on Justice Thomas, please do.
  
  
• A good reminder from Wellesley that important decisions are made at New England town meetings this time of year, and you should attend them if you are a voter who doesn't, for example, want millions of dollars randomly cut from your school budget.
  
  
• There have been some efforts related to the bookbanning/diversity and equity blowback in Massachusetts, but so far, the school committee elections are supporting those against bans and in favor of supporting all kids. You might also listen to this piece from WGBH on this push.
  

Ah warm weather...

...means the dress coding starts (yes, it's been verbed). Please note that Politico took this up today in their daily email, linking to this report on D.C. and this letter to a district in Florida.
And I read this before my own children came home with their reports from the first warm day in Worcester...

And while we're talking about how female students are treated inequitably, I know this report from Noble Charter Schools in Chicago has also been making the rounds, in case you thought period shaming only happened in other countries.

Massachusetts Council of School Attorneys 2017 Annual Meeting

First up: Rhoda Schneider from DESE
"change is constant in this field...there's a reason we went into public education, or for many of us, school law...there are changes in education and in law every day...that keeps our practice dynamic"

New bilingual law: LOOK act
to design and tailor work with English learners
there will be guidelines and regulations: rolling out over the course of the next six months or so
"every reason to hope this law will be a benefit"

Trump administration rolls back protection for transgender students

Rejecting their responsibility on what even our Secretary of Education appears to have realized is a civil rights issue, tonight the Trump administration rolled back federal protections for transgender students. You can read the full letter here. They also informed the Supreme Court that they would not be defending that guidance in court next month.
A few things to note:
This does not change Title IX or federal civil rights protections. It changes the federal interpretation of applying those protections.
It does not change Massachusetts General Law or regulation; for specific guidance on schools, DESE resources are here.

Finally, a few statistics that demonstrate why this matters;
33% of transgender youth have attempted suicide.
55% of transgender youth report being physically attacked.
74% of transgender youth reported being sexually harassed at school.
90% of transgender youth reported feeling unsafe at school because of their gender expression.
78% reported having been verbally harassed.
48% reported having been victims of assault, including assault with a weapon, sexual assault or rape.

These are our kids. They are in our schools. They need our protection.

And if by chance you are a transgender young person reading this: you're ours. You deserve better. Lots and lots of us care about you. And if you need support:

You don't have to have it all figured out, now or later 🌱 We're here for you 24/7 at: 866.488.7386 💚 [ art by @EmmNotEmmaRoy ] #lgbtq+ pic.twitter.com/2htSoeffVg

— The Trevor Project (@TrevorProject) February 5, 2017

US DoE under a Trump administration

There's already been some good writing on this (which I'll link to throughout), but what does the incoming administration intend in terms of education?

First, an easy one: no, the president doesn't have the power to "end Common Core" as has been his rhetoric. In fact, under ESSA, there is explicit language barring the Secretary of Education from setting standards. The states set standards, and the only thing the federal government can do is attempt to persuade them in particular directions (usually through funding).

Can Trump, as he has said, get rid of the federal department of education? It's unlikely. He would need Congressional coordination to do so (as that's essentially a budgetary decision), and there's a great deal of funding that flows to states through the US DoE. Even those who have long complained about federal education oversight would be hardpressed to tell the areas they represent why they have lost the state millions of dollars. For a perspective on just how much comes from US DoE, see here for what those losses could look like. How that funding comes through to states could well be rearranged--essentially, as EdWeek points out, implementing some of the amendments to ESSA--to block grants or something similar. That is absolutely something to watch for, as, for example, lumping Title I in with other programs could result in fewer dollars getting near poor kids (and likewise through the titles).
(editing to add) Part of his 100 day plan is the following:

School Choice And Education Opportunity Act. Redirects education dollars to give parents the right to send their kid to the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of their choice. Ends common core, brings education supervision to local communities. It expands vocational and technical education, and make 2 and 4-year college more affordable.

SO that's federal vouchers. It's not clear where the money on that is coming from, if it's Constitutional (state by state) and how that would work; would states have a choice? Vouchers, for the record, have already been found unconstitutional in Massachusetts.

He also might well cut the Department itself, and that is where my biggest concern is right now:

...they’ve said there’s no need to keep the department’s Office for Civil Rights, which oversees Title IX enforcement and has become increasingly active over the last eight years as the spotlight on campus sexual assault increased. But eliminating OCR would be “absolutely devastating to survivors and educational access in this country,” said Alyssa Peterson, a policy coordinator at Know Your IX, a group that advocates on behalf of sexual assault victims.

This is also the office that send out guidance around inequalities around student discipline, has ensured equal access to education regardless of legal status, and has spoke to districts regarding Title IX and transgender student access. The link above says that states then will have to step up their own enforcement; the problem is that some states will not. This absolutely leaves students vulnerable.

More as I have it. 

UPDATE to add this link to the Hechinger Report, which can't find much more, but has some Massachusetts mentions. 

Making School Work for African-American Girls: National Women's Law Center at NSBA Conference

National Women's Law Center presenting today
a lot of work on implementing Title IX, women and economic issues, health, equity
reporting out on report from last year: Unlocking Opportunity
girls of color faring worse than national average girls on almost every measure of academic achievement

Duncan's most destructive legacy

Salon's response to the Washington Post piece on Arne Duncan goes in several different directions, but it hits the most important point last:

Congress, in its efforts to rewrite NCLB, has “moved to substantially scale back the federal government’s role in education.” The impetus for this scaling back is bipartisan and shared in both the House and the Senate. And should a new version of NCLB pass, it will limit the federal government’s role in our nation’s schools.

What’s particularly unfortunate about that policy direction is that the federal government historically has had a mostly positive influence in public schools. As the article reminds us, what we now call NCLB was “initially passed in 1965 as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,” a law that “was originally designed to protect the nation’s neediest students, and that the federal government must play a significant enforcement role to ensure that poor students, racial minorities and students with disabilities all receive an equal education.”

Because of that act, millions upon millions of impoverished children have had resources funneled to their schools through programs like Title I. Students who do not speak English as their first language have had funds sent to their schools to pay for specialists. Students who have physical disabilities, social-emotional problems and trouble with their learning and intellectual development have had more access to education opportunities and better supports in their schools. More girls and young women have been provided opportunities to play sports and experience a full curriculum.

Sure, this federal mission has not always been fully funded or adequately implemented. But that was the goal, and it was the goal NCLB took our attention away from and the goal this blundering oaf of a secretary refused to take up as his primary job, even though everyone outside his inner circle clamored he do so.

So the biggest tragedy of Arne Duncan is not only the millions of students and families ill-served under his tenure but the millions that will likely be ill-served in the future because it looks like his self-righteous, narrow-minded zeal will leave the federal government’s role in education marginalized for the immediate and foreseeable future.

Come cheer on the Main South girls this afternoon!

Our Main South (that's UPCS and Claremont) girls basketball team has made the state semi-finals!
They're playing Lee High School at 4:15 today at the DCU Center, so let's take advantage of it being a home court!
Admission is $13/adult and $8/student*




*which I know is ridiculously high. MIAA. 

Worcester School Committee meets on Thursday

The Worcester School Committee will have its second February meeting on Thursday at 7 pm at City Hall. You can find the agenda here. 
(And it's a lengthy one; that's what happens when there's an extra week in between meetings!)
Governance and Employee Issues is reporting out from their meeting on Valentine's Day.
Administration is reporting back on:

• additional training for IA's (this is the backup, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me; asking)
• snacks for athletes: USDA After School Snack program is being implemented
• CORI's in other languages (in English, Spanish, Porteguese, Vietnamese, Albanian and downloadable in Arabic)
• principals hired over the past three years
• a change in an account name (to "Supplemental Programs Salaries")
• scheduled student (nursing) screenings
• a Constitution Day report
• evening meeting locations 
• notifying teachers of the state ethics commission finding on class gifts
• distribution of donated instruments
• music lessons citywide (there are more than I'd thought!)
• changes in the school nutrition regs (not a new change; just discussing a previous one)
• the articulation agreements
• Friday is READ ACROSS AMERICA DAY, which means there's a decent chance you'll see a Cat in the Hat hat at the meeting.

In other news: we still have $45,000 to allocate from the $500,000 the City Council sent to WPS.

The cross-country course at Newton Hill needs preservation, as the Fire Alarm Building changes hands.

There's a request for a waiver for the 180 day requirement.

Congratulations going to kids who received awards on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and on Valentine's Day. 

A request is coming in that we look at the summer learning collaborative.

There's a suggestion that we celebrate September 2 as "World War II Commemoration Day."

A request that we look at establishing mock trial and debate teams at the secondary level, as well as after school activities at the middle schools.

Mayor Petty is suggesting that we name the gym at Columbus Park School after Sergeant William Benjamin Soutra, Jr.

We need to look at the findings of the Civil Rights Secretary on sports participation and the Title IX finding, also on sports.

We're congratulating on Thomas Greene Award winners!

Mr. O'Connell has filed items regarding both changes to IDEA (on parental consent) and proposed Local Educational Agency Governance, Flexibility, and Efficiency Act.

We're congratulating South High's bowling team.

There's a request coming in for projected changes in principals for next year.

And we're asking how that increased supply budget was spent.

7 pm, City Hall!