Nell W.

Opinion | Beware: We Are Entering a New Phase of the Trump Era

Gift article: www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/o...

I will have to listen to this! Mike Schur also talks about how he took inspiration from the Power Broker (what if Robert Moses had been good?) on @99pi.org's Power Broker series, which I loved.

Education Policy Early Career Paper Swap The goal is to create an opportunity for early career scholars and recent Ph.D. graduates to connect with peers at similar stages and receive constructive feedback on article-length drafts they’re pre...

🚨Organizing a paper swap for early career edu policy researchers.🚨
Share a nearly-complete draft, exchange feedback, and connect with peers.
Great if you’ve got a lingering project or diss chapter that could use feedback and soft deadlines to move it forward this summer.
Sign up & learn more here:

Fantastic idea! ♥️

YouTube video by Monty Python What Have The Romans... - Monty Python's Life of Brian

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7H...

Mohsen Mahdawi released from prison while immigration proceedings continue U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford ordered Mohsen Mahdawi to be released from detention Wednesday morning, more than two weeks after he was arrested by ICE at his citizenship appointment in V...

And local coverage of the decision from @vermontpublic.org and @vtdigger.bsky.social : www.vermontpublic.org/local-news/2...; vtdigger.org/2025/04/30/j...

He Wanted Peace in the Middle East. ICE Wants to Deport Him. (Gift Article) Mohsen Mahdawi was arrested at a citizenship interview in Vermont. He had spent a decade trying to understand the conflict that shaped his life, his supporters say.

Here's more on Mohsen's story: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/n...

Mohsen Mahdawi, Columbia Student Detained by Trump Administration, is Freed Mohsen Mahdawi had been an organizer of pro-Palestinian protests at the university. The Trump administration is trying to deport him for it.

"To President Trump and his cabinet: I am not afraid of you." www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/n...

My next-door neighbor, Judge Geoff Crawford, ordered that Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi, who was ambushed at his citizenship appointment and arrested by immigration agents, be released on bail. So proud to have my roots in this community.

With CDC injury prevention team gutted, 'we will not know what is killing us' Workers who track data on car crashes, drownings, traumatic brain injury, falls in the elderly, and other perils lost their jobs. Advocates worry life-saving work will stop.

Workers who track data on car crashes, drownings, traumatic brain injury, falls in the elderly, and other perils lost their jobs. Advocates worry life-saving work will stop.

HHS plans to cut the national suicide hotline’s program for LGBTQ youth In February, the program received an average of 2,100 contacts per day.

The federal government plans to eliminate services for LGBTQ youth who call 988, the national suicide and crisis hotline, according to a Health and Human Services budget draft leaked last week.

Internal budget document reveals extent of Trump’s proposed health cuts HHS would be asked to absorb a $40 billion cut, about one-third of its discretionary budget.

"Money for the Head Start program, which provides early child care and education for low-income families and is funded by HHS’s Administration for Children and Families, would be eliminated."

Ghoulish.

www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

What does wind mean in this context?

Bar chart showing the states and school systems that rely the most on federal aid for K-12 schools, based on a Pew Research Center analysis. Mississippi, South Dakota, Montana, Alaska, Arkansas and North Carolina top the list of states.

Chart: The states and school systems that rely the most on federal K-12 educational aid

In Mississippi, South Dakota, Montana, Alaska, Arkansas and North Carolina, more than 20% of school funding comes from federal sources.

www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

Also—why would rehousing agencies in multiple other departments lessen the amount of paperwork? Seems like a recipe for paperwork proliferation

New Statement from @apduorg.bsky.social on Education Research & Data. "NCES is mandated by law to report on the condition of education annually, collect and disseminate key education data, and support state and local education agencies." apdu.org?p=5812775 Spread the word #SaveEducationData

Yes, your local public school is at risk. What happens next:
1) No personnel left to administer categorical K-12 funding
2) Those funds get block granted
3) Red states funnel the money into vouchers instead of supporting America’s most disadvantaged kids

The USED performs critical functions that are especially needed as we recover from the pandemic. Eliminating it will put this recovery in reverse. I know our attention is pulled in a million directions right now, but please, please make some noise about this.

To wrap up:
This is a disastrous time in education—the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on our systems, and we are facing crises in teacher shortages, student learning, and absences. The pandemic was particularly hard on special education students.

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

And an article documenting college students' declining interest in becoming teachers (look at Figure 3):

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

What Do We Know About the Extent of Teacher Shortages Nationwide? A Systematic Examination of Reports of U.S. Teacher Shortages - Tuan D. Nguyen, Chanh B. Lam, Paul Bruno, 2024 Teachers are critical to student learning, but adequately staffing classrooms has been challenging in many parts of the country. Though teacher shortages are wi...

Here's an accounting of teacher shortages (note that they use USED data—which, to reiterate, may no longer be available after cuts to USED). States in the southeast appear to be hardest hit: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Trump administration cancels federal teacher training, retention grants in NC Tens of millions of dollars in federal grants for teacher training and retention have been canceled in North Carolina, including a $12 million program in Wake County.

Here are a few examples of cut programs:
www.wral.com/news/educati...

**Finally, there are other programs and initiatives have been cut, including ones aimed at recruiting and retaining teachers and training college students to become teachers. These programs are critical: we have a major teacher shortage and fewer students are choosing to become teachers.

What Trump is trying to do to the Education Department, explained Between DOGE and new Secretary Linda McMahon, the department is allegedly on its “final mission.”

This article is a great general summary of the implications of cutting USED staff, funding, and programs.

www.vox.com/policy/40233...

This could get much worse for students hoping to use financial aid to attend college next year. The Vox article below quotes expert @bakerdphd.bsky.social saying, “I am not certain whether or not students will be able to get financial aid next year.”

After Botched Rollout, FAFSA Is Delayed for a Second Year Despite months of troubleshooting the college aid application process, the Education Department said the form would not be fully ready for next year’s students until Dec. 1.

Re: #4: USED administers federal financial aid, which impacts so, so many families across the US. Just look at the fallout from the last two years, when there were problems in the financial aid app: www.nytimes.com/2024/08/07/u...

What Impacts Can We Expect from School Spending Policy? Evidence from Evaluations in the United States (January 2024) - We conduct meta-analysis on a comprehensive set of studies of the impacts of US K-12 public school spending on student outcomes—estimating average marginal impacts and heterogeneity a...

Not only that, but federal funding for schools and districts that serve more low-income students is crucial. Research has consistently shown that education funding has more positive impacts for low-income students—meaning, again, this funding is *efficient*.
www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

Re: #3: The USED also provides funding for students with disabilities and low-income students. There is a major shortage of special education teachers (ex: look at Figure 4 in the article linked below). Cutting federal funding will make this worse. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Kids' disability rights cases stalled as Trump began to overhaul Education Department As President Donald Trump reshaped the Education Department, parents say investigations and mediations into kids' disability rights cases ground to a halt.

In January, USED stopped this enforcement. They resumed it in February, but the rights of students with disabilities going forward under this administration are tenuous.
apnews.com/article/educ...

How Department of Education cuts could hurt resources for students with disabilities As the Trump administration continues to downsize and dismantle many government agencies, the Department of Education could be next on the chopping block. At stake are resources and support for more t...

This is huge. Educating students with disabilities can become extremely costly, and the USED provides not only funding to help but also, critically, enforcement to ensure these students aren't denied education. www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...