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National Post
7 days ago
- General
- National Post
J.D. Tuccille: U.S. Department of Education should be abolished
Article content In 2017, an article in the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Ed. magazine noted that, 'The federal government uses a complex system of funding mechanisms, policy directives and the soft but considerable power of the presidential bully pulpit to shape what, how and where students learn.' Article content In fact, state and local educators, largely linked by the culture and ideology that permeates teachers' unions and the federal Department of Education, are usually more than happy to have their arms twisted into accepting the latest trends favoured by Washington. The result is less variety and experimentation among schools that are locally operated but don't want to offend the feds. Maybe that would be tolerable if such standardization produced well-educated kids, but it doesn't. Article content In January, the Department of Education announced the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) — often called 'the nation's report card' — by admitting they 'reveal a heartbreaking reality for American students and confirm our worst fears: not only did most students not recover from pandemic-related learning loss, but those students who were the most behind and needed the most support have fallen even further behind.' Article content Inefficient and unresponsive public schools aren't a new thing — Americans have complained about them for decades. But they're now doing more than complaining — they're heading for the exits in favour of alternatives, such as private schools, publicly funded but privately run charter schools, co-operative learning pods, micro-schools and various forms of homeschooling. Article content Since the COVID-19 pandemic, while traditional public schools saw enrolment decline by over a million students, private schools, which educate nine per cent of combined public and private students, picked up enrolment, many paying tuition with the help of tax credits and education savings accounts explicitly established to support school choice. At the same time, charter schools increased enrolment by 400,000 and now educate roughly seven per cent of all students. Article content Homeschooling is harder to measure since not all states track those who choose DIY education, but the Johns Hopkins University Homeschool Hub estimates that six per cent of students are educated through various homeschooling approaches and that, 'The number of home-schooled students is going up as the total number of U.S. students in going down.' Culture wars and battles over politicized classrooms — exemplified in those competing California and Texas textbooks — only serve to accelerate the exodus. Article content If the U.S. Department of Education is doing anything, it's presiding over a decline in public education that Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Cara Fitzpatrick dramatically overstates in her 2023 book, ' The Death of Public Schools.' The public schools aren't dead, but they're mortally wounded and shedding support after having been rendered repulsive by their own advocates. Article content In March, President Trump ordered Education Secretary Linda McMahon to 'take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the states and local communities.' He's since laid off almost half the department's workforce — a move boosted this week when the U.S. Supreme Court eased the way for mass firings of federal workers. Article content Article content Article content
New York Times
01-07-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Trump Withholds Nearly $7 Billion for Schools, With Little Explanation
The Trump administration has declined to release nearly $7 billion in federal funding that helps pay for after-school and summer programs, support for students learning English, teacher training and other services. The money was expected to be released by Tuesday. But in an email on Monday, the Education Department notified state education agencies that the money would not be available. The administration offered little explanation, saying only that the funds were under review. It gave no timeline for when, or if, the money would be released, saying instead that it was 'committed to ensuring taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the president's priorities.' The frozen funds are unrelated to the millions of dollars in cuts included in the domestic policy bill that squeaked through the Senate on Tuesday. 'It's catastrophic,' said Jodi Grant, executive director of the Afterschool Alliance, a group that works to expand after-school services for students. She estimated that the federal dollars for after-school and summer-school programs — about $1.3 billion annually — support 1.4 million students, mostly lower income, representing about 20 percent of all students in after-school programs nationally. The move is likely to be challenged in court and has already been criticized as illegal by Democrats and teachers' unions, who emphasized that the money had been appropriated by Congress and was approved by President Trump in March as part of a broader funding bill. 'This is lawless,' said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. The administration has taken an aggressive approach to cutting back the federal government's role in education, including plans to eliminate the Education Department entirely. Though only Congress can abolish the department, the Trump administration has taken an ax to education staffing and funding more broadly as it seeks to whittle down the department. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Washington Post
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
New standards for Oklahoma high school students promote misinformation about the 2020 election
OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma high school students studying U.S. history learn about the Industrial Revolution, women's suffrage and America's expanding role in international affairs. Beginning next school year, they will add conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election . Oklahoma's new social studies standards for K-12 public school students, already infused with references to the Bible and national pride, were revised at the direction of state School Superintendent Ryan Walters. The Republican official has spent much of his first term in office lauding President Donald Trump , feuding with teachers unions and local school superintendents, and trying to end what he describes as 'wokeness' in public schools.
Associated Press
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
New standards for Oklahoma high school students promote misinformation about the 2020 election
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma high school students studying U.S. history learn about the Industrial Revolution, women's suffrage and America's expanding role in international affairs. Beginning next school year, they will add conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election. Oklahoma's new social studies standards for K-12 public school students, already infused with references to the Bible and national pride, were revised at the direction of state School Superintendent Ryan Walters. The Republican official has spent much of his first term in office lauding President Donald Trump, feuding with teachers unions and local school superintendents, and trying to end what he describes as 'wokeness' in public schools. 'The left has been pushing left-wing indoctrination in the classroom,' Walters said. 'We're moving it back to actually understanding history ... and I'm unapologetic about that.' The previous standard for studying the 2020 election merely said, 'Examine issues related to the election of 2020 and its outcome.' The new version is more expansive: 'Identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information, including the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of 'bellwether county' trends.' The new standard raised red flags even among Walters' fellow Republicans, including the governor and legislative leaders. They were concerned that several last-minute changes, including the language about the 2020 election and a provision stating the source of the COVID-19 virus was a Chinese lab, were added just hours before the state school board voted on them. A group of parents and educators have filed a lawsuit asking a judge to reject the standards, arguing they were not reviewed properly and that they 'represent a distorted view of social studies that intentionally favors an outdated and blatantly biased perspective.' GOP lawmakers can't muster enough support to reject the new standards While many Oklahoma teachers have expressed outrage at the change in the standards, others say they leave plenty of room for an effective teacher to instruct students about the results of the 2020 election without misinforming them. Aaron Baker, who has taught U.S. government in high schools in Oklahoma City for more than a decade, said he's most concerned about teachers in rural, conservative parts of the state who might feel encouraged to impose their own beliefs on students. 'If someone is welcoming the influence of these far-right organizations in our standards and is interested in inserting more of Christianity into our practices as teachers, then they've become emboldened,' Baker said. 'For me, that is the major concern.' Leaders in the Republican-led Oklahoma Legislature introduced a resolution to reject the standards, but there wasn't enough GOP support to pass it. Part of that hesitation likely stemmed from a flurry of last-minute opposition organized by pro-Trump conservative groups such as Moms for Liberty, which has a large presence in Oklahoma and threatened lawmakers who reject the standards with a primary opponent. 'In the last few election cycles, grassroots conservative organizations have flipped seats across Oklahoma by holding weak Republicans accountable,' the group wrote in a letter signed by several other conservative groups and GOP activists. 'If you choose to side with the liberal media and make backroom deals with Democrats to block conservative reform, you will be next.' Superintendent says his new standards 'encourage critical thinking' After a group of parents, educators and other Oklahoma school officials worked to develop the new social studies standards, Walters assembled an executive committee consisting mostly of out-of-state pundits from conservative think-tanks to revise them. He said he wanted to focus more on American exceptionalism and incorporate the Bible as an instructional resource. Among those Walters appointed to the review committee are Kevin Roberts, the president of The Heritage Foundation and a key figure in its Project 2025 blueprint for a conservative administration, and Dennis Prager, a radio talk show host who founded Prager U, a conservative nonprofit that offers 'pro-American' educational materials for children that some critics say are not accurate or objective. In a statement to The Associated Press, Walters defended teaching students about 'unprecedented and historically significant' elements of the 2020 presidential election. 'The standards do not instruct students on what to believe; rather, they encourage critical thinking by inviting students to examine real events, review publicly available information, and come to their own conclusions,' he said. Recounts, reviews and audits in the battleground states were Trump contested his loss all confirmed Democrat Joe Biden's victory, and Trump lost dozens of court cases challenging the results. Critics say Walters' new standard is filled with misleading phrasing that seeks to steer the discussion in particular direction. Democrats characterized it as another political ploy by Walters, widely viewed as a potential candidate for governor in 2026, at the expense of school children. 'It's harmful posturing and political theater that our kids do not need to be subjected to,' said Sen. Mark Mann, a Democrat from Oklahoma City who previously served on the school board for one of the state's largest districts. Concerns about politicizing school standards National experts on education standards also expressed alarm, noting that Oklahoma has historically ranked highly among the states for its standards. Brendan Gillis, the director of teaching and learning at the American Historical Association who oversaw a research project that analyzed standards in all 50 states, said Oklahoma's social studies standards had been 'quite good' until the latest version. In addition to concerns about election misinformation, Gillis added: 'There was also a lot of biblical content that was sort of shoehorned in throughout the existing standards.' He said a lot of the references to Christianity and the Bible misinterpreted the history of the country's founding and lacked historical nuance. David Griffith, a research director at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative-leaning education think-tank, said he was not aware of any other states that have tried to promote election misinformation in their curriculum standards. He called the new standards an 'unfortunate' departure from Oklahoma's traditionally strong social studies standards. 'It is just inappropriate to promote conspiracy theories about the election in standards,' he said. ___ Associated Press writer Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta contributed to this report.
