Most-clicked story of the week:
In an Aug. 18 Dear Colleague letter, the U.S. Department of Education issued school discipline guidance that called for schools to “stop racial balancing,” a pivot from prior Democratic administrations’ efforts to reduce discipline disparities for Black and other historically marginalized students.
“This guidance makes clear that neither Title VI nor the Constitution requires the use of race in student discipline,” Kimberly Richey, assistant secretary for civil rights, said in the new guidance. “Neither Title VI nor the Constitution prohibits unintentional disparate impact; nor do they require schools to consider race in student discipline to address an unintentional disparate impact.”
The amount provided to school districts between 2021 and 2025 by the Federal Communications Commission’s E-rate program, which connects schools and libraries to telecommunications services at discounted rates. E-rate is the fifth-largest pot of federal funds that schools receive, according to a data analysis by E-rate advocates — and the FCC is weighing changes to or potential discontinuation of the program in a proposed rule currently open for public comment.
Policy in the spotlight
- In another Dear Colleague letter issued Aug. 20, the Education Department defended classroom technology use, stressing that it is a separate issue from recreational technology. Decisions on schools’ screen time and technology policies should be made at the state and local levels, and questions around those decisions should focus on whether ed tech is improving learning and student outcomes — not whether it should be used at all, the letter said.
- Immigration enforcement on or near school properties remains a concern for educators and equity advocates as students return to classes for the 2026-27 school year. In Baltimore, for instance, a June Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest that occurred on school grounds in front of students prompted a proposal that aims to expand the city’s Safe Passage Program to protect students as they travel to and from schools. There have been at least 17 documented incidents of ICE activity on school properties in 2025 and 2026 to date.
- If a Trump administration proposal to partially roll back federal Head Start performance quality standards in favor of individual state standards moves forward, a majority of toddlers would see worse adult-to-child ratios, and only two states would meet Head Start lead teacher qualification requirements. That’s according to a 50-state policy analysis published by the Children’s Equity Project at Arizona State University this month, which also said such a change would result in uneven implementation of disciplinary approaches.
K-12 in the courts
- Two prominent challenges to laws requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms were appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on Aug. 17. In Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District and Cribbs Ringer v. Comal Independent School District, Texas families are asking the high court to determine if such laws violate the First Amendment’s establishment clause and parents’ rights under the free exercise clause to direct their children’s religious upbringing.
- The Trump administration’s effort to overhaul the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program was blocked by a federal judge on Aug. 19. Judge Christopher Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said the administration’s new emphasis on abstinence instead of contraception for pregnancy prevention, as well as its termination of grants that don’t align with that approach, didn’t go through the proper administrative channels. Despite temporarily blocking the implementation of the policy overhaul, he stopped short of ordering the grants’ reinstatement due to questions over the court’s jurisdiction.
