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Most clicked story of the week:

The House Appropriations Committee advanced a bill Tuesday that would reduce federal Title I funding for low-income schools by 26%. It would also cut the overall U.S. Department of Education budget by 15% to $67 billion for fiscal year 2026. The budget plan aligns closely with a proposal by President Donald Trump but veers sharply from the Senate Appropriations Committee’s bipartisan plan. The Senate plan recommends funding the Education Department in FY 26 at $79 billion, an increase of about $300 million from current spending.

Grant cancellations, written state complaints weigh on special education:

• The impact of Trump administration grant cancellations is highlighted by the struggles deafblind programs are facing via cuts to funding that advocates describe as a “lifeline.” A notice of noncontinuation from the U.S. Department of Education recently went to four deafblind projects in Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin and a consortium of New England states including Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. The noncontinuation notice to Oregon’s deafblind project fiscal agent, for example, said continuing the project “would be in conflict with agency policy and priorities, and so is not in the best interest of the Federal Government.” 
• The number of special education written state complaints jumped 22% in the 2023-24 school year compared to the year prior, according to a new analysis by the Center for Appropriate Dispute Resolution in Special Education. CADRE’s data shows 9,927 written state complaints were filed in 2023-24, a 79% rise over the previous 10-year average of 5,537. CADRE’s analysis doesn’t explore the causes for trends in dispute resolution activities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. However, CADRE Director Melanie Reese said in an email that the state complaint data suggests states are struggling to keep up with the demand because of limited capacity and resources.

An increasingly complex legal landscape for schools:

• In a Monday memo to the FBI and all 93 U.S. attorneys, the U.S. Department of Justice warned that public schools must provide parents with avenues to opt their children out of instruction related to sexuality and gender ideology — or risk being put under the microscope by the federal agency. The memo directed the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division “to be alert” to violations of parental rights at schools and for U.S. attorneys nationwide to weed out and respond to “credible threats against parents.” 
• The nation’s two largest teachers unions joined a lawsuit Wednesday challenging the Trump administration’s immigration policy change allowing enforcement on school grounds and other sensitive locations. Administrators of a private early childhood school in Oregon also joined the lawsuit, saying their jobs and the education of the children they serve were interrupted as a result of the administration’s policy change after Immigration and Customs Enforcement apprehended a parent on school grounds. 
• A controversial Trump administration policy that would exclude some immigrants from federal programs, including in education, was blocked in two separate cases this week as the change’s legality is weighed in court. Federal judges in Washington and Rhode Island temporarily blocked the policy in back-to-back court orders issued Sept. 10 and 11. In July, a handful of agencies including the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services changed their policies to require immigration status verification for programs like Head Start, as well as adult education and career training programs.