As reported by K-12 Dive, on July 23, 2026 the U.S. Department of Education’s (USDE) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that it has rescinded regulations to implement disparate impact provisions under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Those regulations have been used to investigate school districts…
As reported by CBS News, a coalition of 25 states and the District of Columbia is suing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, accusing the Trump administration of withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in disaster-preparedness and homeland security grants to force states…
On July 30, 2026 he U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee plans to take up two bills next week that would prohibit the outsourcing of certain education programs from the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) to other federal agencies. One of them is a bipartisan bill that…
On July21, 2026, the House Education and Workforce Committee advanced a proposal to define “sex” as biological sex under Title IX. The Republican-led Title IX Clarification Act of 2026 seeks to codify a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in West Virginia v. B.P.J. Those concerned with the marginalization of transgender…
On July 22, 2026, special education professionals and advocates warned that moving special education functions out of the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) would be detrimental to students with disabilities. Citing the likelihood that the move would cause disparities in services across the states and reduce accountability measures, along with…
On July 17, 2026, a federal judge ruled in favor of a coalition of 21 attorneys general and three governors who sued over the Trump administration’s approach to grant terminations. According to the lawsuit, since the Trump administration began its second term, it has terminated billions of dollars in federal…
On a monthly basis the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) receives on average nearly 300 requests for data under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). However, under the Trump administration the USDE has only responded to about 3% of those requests. and staffing issues have been a major hurdle. For…
On July 15, 2026, the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee approved 10 Republican-led bills that are the first steps in eventually closing the U.S. Department of Education (USDE). The bills would codify several interagency agreements the USDE already has in place that move core education-related functions, but not the…
At a recent session at the National Association of Elementary School Principals’ National School Leaders Conference, attendees heard how choosing the right incentives to motivate students can make or break efforts to combat chronic absenteeism. For example, the use of perfect attendance awards is unrealistic and can be punitive for…
In a July 13, 2026 letter to federal legislators, 13 former federal officials who were responsible for overseeing special education implementation in states and districts urged Congress to reject the U.S. Department of Education’s (USDE) plans to move programs serving students with disabilities to another federal agency. The letter’s authors…
