Dan Gordon

Today is the last day for many Education Department workers. Here's what they did Employees across multiple divisions agree: They can't imagine how the department will fulfill its legal obligations with roughly half its staff gone.

Grateful for this piece by Cory Turner in @npr.org. These public servants did vital work. Imagine doing your job well and then hearing your boss's boss calling your layoff "a significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States education system." www.npr.org/2025/08/01/n... #edusky

Thank you to all the dedicated US Dept of Ed civil servants terminated today as part of the RIF and to all those still employed but now doing extra work to serve schools without sufficient staffing.

The Pandemic Learning Project: Using Research on COVID-Era Policy Change to Strengthen K-12 Education | Bellwether

CALDER partnered with @bellwetherorg.bsky.social on a new series looking at how pandemic-era research can help education leaders navigate today’s K–12 policy challenges. Check out the first report here: bellwether.org/publications...
@cedr.bsky.social

Reminds me of the Larry Hogan/Baltimore City Public Schools/Eastern-Shore-chamber-of-commerce fight about Maryland’s start day….

From a Harvard psychology professor - to his great credit

EducationCounsel ALERT: $7B in Frozen Funds Released, First Rescission Passes, Columbia Settlement, AI Developments, DOJ Limits Language Access & Other Significant Updates (7/28/25) EducationCounsel Alert for July 28, 2025 This EducationCounsel Alert shares updates about various recent actions by the federal government relevant to education, including: 1. Administration Releas...

Check out our latest Alert covering the past two weeks, which have been overflowing with federal education news 👇

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Faculty Support of George Mason’s President Draws Federal Investigation

Faculty who wrote to defend their president and object to a DOJ investigation of their university...are now being investigated by the DOJ.
The most banal defense of free speech and academic freedom will trigger the full wrath of the US government now.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/u...

If we accept the claim that the education funds were withheld only so long as it took to complete a review…KUDOS to public education for apparently administering $7B without a single instance of waste/fraud/abuse/radical-agenda/Administration-conflicts! When’s last time a $7B audit came up 💯 empty?

A side note to this Okla story: the Admin recently began process of launching new competitions for these grants. The proposed design includes (predictably) anti-DEI/trans prohibitions & (surprisingly) an apparent focus just on school psychologists (ie no funding for counselors/social workers).

If we accept the claim that the education funds were withheld only so long as it took to complete a review…KUDOS to public education for apparently administering $7B without a single instance of waste/fraud/abuse/radical-agenda/Administration-conflicts! When’s last time a $7B audit came up 💯 empty?

Good illustration of how much viewpoint discrimination is at the heart of the recent “Woke AI” EO. The LLM described below would likely be eligible for procurement by federal agencies while one that admits systemic racism or trans people merely exist would not.

Promoting School Success for Immigrant-Origin Students - EdResearch for Action

Some resources to support evidence-informed use of those newly released Title 1-c and Title III-a dollars:

edresearchforaction.org/research-bri...

edresearchforaction.org/research-bri...

#EdResearch #Multilingual #ESL #ESOL #ELL

“Color”?

pizza pie icon with one slice missing

Sunday marked 6 months since Inauguration. Now that we're (gulp) 1/8th through the term, we listed the key executive actions affecting education (with a few legislative & judicial ones too).

Hope it's a useful resource for finding some signals amid all the noise.

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Why wouldn’t he just grant in the moment? Concerns about heh heh “political backlash”?

#dcstatehood

Republicans Urge Trump to Release $6.8 Billion in School Funding He's Held Back The funds that were supposed to go out July 1 pay for teacher training, English learner services, after-school programs, and more.

New: Ten Republican senators wrote to the Trump admin. today urging the restoration of $6.8 billion for education Trump impounded earlier this month.

Cutting federal education funding with no notice runs counter to "returning education to the states," senators say. www.edweek.org/policy-polit...

Order on Motion for Preliminary Injunction – #40 in Victim Rights Law Center v. United States Department of Education (D. Mass., 1:25-cv-11042) – CourtListener.com Judge Myong J. Joun: MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION entered re: Doc. No. [18] For the reasons explained in the attached Memorandum and Order, Plaintiffs' Motion ...

There's a second PI in a case that halted the RIF just for USED's Office for Civil Rights. Though I'm confident DOJ will seek a stay, I don't think today's SCOTUS action can undo the injunction in a different case, right? Even if it's in the same district ct?

www.courtlistener.com/docket/69921...

EducationCounsel ALERT: Supreme Court Allows USED RIF to Proceed, Budget Reconciliation Enacted into Law, $7B Education Funds Withheld, Undocumented Students Excluded from Benefits & Other Significant... EducationCounsel Alert for July 14, 2025 This EducationCounsel Alert (updated on 7/14/25 at 5pm EDT) shares updates about various recent actions by the federal government relevant to education, inclu...

A lot has happened in the federal education policy world in the past week. Check out our latest EdCounsel Alert, including a write-up of today's breaking news that SCOTUS is allowing the Administration to proceed with mass terminations at US Dept. of Education:

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

I really really really wish I could say yes

Room for rescission in there…?

You’re speaking my love language.

In the context of the Administration refusing to spend $7B in congressionally-appropriated education funds, it's odd that the rescissions discourse just assumes the USAID/CPB funding will be spent if the deadline passes without Congress agreeing to rescind.

Is there a difference I'm missing here?

A District-by-District Accounting of the $6.2 billion U.S. Department of Education Has Held Back from Schools The Education Department is refusing to release billions of dollars for public schools. See the impact by school system and congressional district.

91 of the 100 school districts that would see the worst losses per pupil are in Republican-represented Congressional districts www.newamerica.org/education-po...

Vouchers/ESAs Explore private school choice programs: vouchers, ESAs, & tax-credit scholarships. Discover participant effects, system-wide impacts, & stratification.

I hope the many reporters digging into the school voucher issue for the first time know to consult AEFP's live handbook that summarizes the research on lots of subjects in education, including vouchers!
livehandbook.org/k-12-educati...

Do states have ‘statutory right’ to data, guidance from Education Department? The agency is asking the Supreme Court to allow its reduction in force — even as its laid-off employees remain on administrative leave.

The US Dept of Ed RIF case is with the SCT now so may be the first of those tests. www.k12dive.com/news/educati...

It's good to have good news, and the class of 2025's FAFSAs are delivering it!

Through June 27, the class of 2025 completed 17.5% more FAFSAs year-over-year. That's an additional 334,000 completions! Good for a ~54% completion rate!

www.ncan.org/news/705304/...

Another Education Department delay: release of NAEP science scores But administration relents on yanking data from researchers

"government efficiency"//Another Education Department delay: Release of NAEP science scores hechingerreport.org/proof-points...

"There is no commissioner of education statistics to sign off on the score report, a requirement before it is released"

#DCstatehood

What Republicans’ Sprawling Policy Bill Means for Higher Ed Trump’s signature legislation now heads to his desk after passing the House. It hikes some endowment taxes, remakes student aid, and introduces a new accountability standard for colleges.

The biggest impact of this legislation on higher ed is going to come from the budget hits states are going to take.

There's a lot in a state budget that can't be cut. Higher ed can be.

That's likely to make higher education more expensive for millions of people.
www.chronicle.com/article/what...