Equity in Education

The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development is under fire from the U.S. Department of Education for failing to comply with maintenance of equity provisions required to receive COVID-19 aid under the American Rescue Plan.

The Education Department designated the state as high risk for future ARP grant funding, a classification that will remain in place until the state proves its compliance, according to a March 27 letter sent to the state agency. Alaska is the only state to have been designated as such under the ARP provision.

The action follows a string of correspondence dating back to last year when the department told Alaska it could make supplemental payments to the highest-poverty districts to make its funding equitable.

According to the Department of Education's calculations, the state owes over $16 million to Anchorage School District — the state's largest district — alone. 

Alaska disputed the federal agency in a March 22 letter, saying it met maintenance of equity requirements and questioned the Education Department's constitutional authority in setting state compliance requirements.

"Alaska enjoys a good working relationship with USDOE and is certainly not looking for a constitutional law legal dispute," said Deena Bishop, commissioner of education for Alaska, in her March 22 letter to the department. "But we would be remiss not to note that although the federal government has the ability to place conditions on a state’s acceptance of federal funds, there are limits to that authority under the Constitution."

The disagreement over Alaska's federal aid follows significant confusion over the maintenance of equity provision that was put in place to help ensure school systems didn't disproportionately cut the budgets or staffing of high-poverty schools with the receipt of the federal emergency pandemic aid.

The requirement was meant to prevent supplanting and make sure historically marginalized students receive an equitable share of state and local funding during the pandemic, in addition to federal dollars.

The Education Department first defined the provision in June 2021 guidance on American Rescue Plan funds that said states cannot disproportionately reduce per-pupil spending for high-need districts or decrease per-pupil spending below fiscal 2019 levels for the highest-poverty districts. It also prevented districts from disproportionately reducing state and local per-pupil funding for high-poverty schools and from disproportionately cutting the number of full-time staff in those schools.

These requirements lasted until the end of fiscal year 2023, or the end of the 2022-23 school year.

Despite the guidance, state and district education leaders expressed confusion on how to enforce the provision, such as which spending data they should rely on to determine equitable per-pupil funding.

In June 2022, the Education Department solidified its guidance in a final rule clarifying how to ensure states and districts did not make disproportionate budget and staffing cuts.

The Education Department doubled down on its warning in its March 27 response to Alaska's letter that questioned the department's enforcement of the ARP provision. The agency marked the state as "high-risk" for receiving future Education Department ARP grant funding, saying "Alaska must address the outstanding non-compliance."

Alaska has 10 days to request that its high-risk status be reversed. "Failure to comply may result in additional, appropriate enforcement actions including potential withholding proceedings or the recovery of ARP ESSER funds," the Education Department said. Alaska's DOE did not respond to K-12 Dive's request for comment.

While the Education Department has the power to withhold funds if states do not meet various federal requirements, it rarely chooses to do so.

In 2023, the department threatened to withhold a quarter of Maine Department of Education's funding for Title I, after the federal agency said the state failed for two consecutive school years to meet assessment requirements. As a result, it was designated "high-risk" for Title I Part A funds and risked losing $117,422 federal dollars for fiscal year 2022.

Maine disputed the department's claim, saying withholding funding “would be unreasonable, disproportionate, and unfair, given the fact that no other state has received such sanctions.”

WASHINGTON — Brookside Primary School in Waterbury, Vermont, used part of its federal COVID-19 emergency funds to create a kindergarten interventionist position to support teachers in developing their young students' math and literacy skills.

The principal of Henderson Middle School in Jackson, Georgia, said her school invested its allocation toward strengthening relationships between students, staff and families so the school's culture could become one that is welcoming and supportive.

And in Indianapolis Public Schools, the district's spending on tutoring initiatives has resulted in substantial academic gains for participating students. 

These examples of return-on-investment success stories from the one-time Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund were shared during a convening of the Coalition to Advance Future Student Success on March 20 in Washington, D.C.

The coalition includes 12 education organizations, such as the Council of Chief State School Officers and AASA, The School Superintendents Association, that encourage school systems to maintain the school improvement momentum that was buoyed by $189.5 billion in federal ESSER funds.

Understanding why some investments worked and others didn't is key to developing future funding streams to sustain improvement programs that began under ESSER, education leaders said. States and districts must obligate all their ESSER funds by Sept. 30.

The classroom

Jo-Anne Smith has spent the last two years as a kindergarten intervention specialist at Brookside Primary, where she helps kindergarten teachers analyze assessment data, supports early literacy activities, and models classroom instructional practices for teachers. 

Her position was funded through ESSER dollars, and even though her role is expected to expire with the end of the relief funds, she said her work has been a vital boost to teachers and students. Before her current position, Smith was a 1st and 2nd grade teacher at the school. 

Through providing evidence-based interventions for teachers and students, Smith is hopeful instructional practices will be sustained, and that she's helped teachers build their capacity to support early learners.

"It's been such a great experience for me to have that time and bandwidth, not having my own classroom, to support teachers and also be a leader in my district around literacy," Smith said.

The school

When the pandemic caused widespread school closures in spring 2020, Suzan Harris, principal of Henderson Middle School said she almost quit. Instead, she learned how to navigate the new situation and vowed to use her school's ESSER funds to improve social-emotional wellbeing at the school. 

Before the pandemic "kids were coming into our school everyday and struggling," Harris said. Carter Glover, now an 8th grader, said she was scared to visit the school because an older sibling told her about frequent fights in the cafeteria.

Harris and other staff worked to improve student-student, student-adult and adult-adult relationships at the school. The school also gauged students' social-emotional status, created small group counseling sessions, and helped teachers with classroom management. 

Other changes are helping create a more positive school culture, Harris said. Those include arranging group seating in the cafeteria for students to interact with each other and their teachers, and implementing a system for students to feel comfortable talking to adults in school about issues they’re concerned about.

Carter agreed that the cafeteria is a more calm place. "Nothing really happens in the lunchroom. People are minding their own business."

Because of the approaches the school has taken, office referrals have significantly dropped, from 1,536 in the 2018-19 school year to 589 in the 2022-23 school year. 

Still, the data shows there are still areas of need, and the school is planning to sustain its investments through professional development for newly hired educators, Harris said.

She said the school is now committed to catering to students' social-emotional learning needs. "We would have never had that opportunity if we didn't get funding from ESSER to put toward training teachers in that area," Harris said.

The districts

Adam Kunz, assistant superintendent of Minnesota’s St. Paul Public Schools, and Andrew Strope, deputy superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools, shared how their districts invested in learning recovery, and how they plan to carry those efforts forward — even after ESSER funds run out.

In Indianapolis, the district has used ESSER money to launch a multi-year reorganization plan that aims to provide a more robust student experience for all students, including academic supports and increased access to band, world language courses and higher-level classes, Strope said.

For example, 41% of the district's middle school students have access to Algebra I, but the goal is 100% access.

With its tutoring initiatives, the district has seen "substantial and sustained growth," according to a slide Strope shared. 

The district has also focused its efforts on improving access to higher performing schools in the district that have traditionally been located in higher-income areas. 

But the district had to go through the "painful process" of school consolidations starting this school year due to efficiency and economical factors, Strope said. 

"You have to confront the brutal facts without losing hope," Strope said.

Despite the school closures, there has been a 146% increase in out-of-district enrollment applications for the 2024-25 school year. 

"A lot of this is about trying to make our offerings aligned with what families want and really trying to be competitive," Strope said.

In St. Paul, Kunz said the school district facilitated over 10,000 community meetings, surveys and other outreach that helped the school system narrow its focus for ESSER spending on literacy, safety and sense of belonging, and respectful and reflective schools. 

Kunz said the district is attempting to take the most effective pandemic-era approaches and maintain those. For example, the district created summer learning programs featuring hands-on and outdoor activities. Its traditional high school credit recovery programs, however, were less engaging. 

Now, the district is building a more experiential credit recovery program featuring all-day field trips and exposure to different activities.

"I don't know why it took a pandemic for that light bulb to go off," Kunz said.

The state

North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt shared how early ESSER investments targeted safe return-to-school approaches. Later ESSER allocations were funneled more toward learning recovery and teacher retention. 

The state received $3.6 billion in K-12 American Rescue Plan funds, also known as ESSER III .

Truitt said analyzing data such as summer school attendance and academic progress helped state leaders better understand where the needs were. The data, for example, guided the state to prioritize middle school math programs, efforts to bridge students' transitions to middle and high schools, and literacy instruction, Truitt said.

Research into assessment data shows encouraging progress in 3rd graders' reading proficiency, with an overall improvement of 95% between 2021 and 2023. Those 3rd graders, Truitt said, missed all of kindergarten and half of 1st grade due to the pandemic. She added the gains are evident across different student racial populations. 

To help districts plan for the end of ESSER funding, the state created a funding cliff toolkit and a district-level spending dashboard that also shows grade level learning recovery progress.

Truitt and state Sen. Michael Lee emphasized the importance of the legislature and state education agency working together to ensure funding is directed to programs demonstrating a positive impact, and that spending is approached with equity in mind.

Truitt added that "having very specific asks that are backed by data" is a recommended practice when approaching lawmakers with funding requests. 

Ultimately, education leaders need to help lawmakers "filter out the noise" and "help show them how to put kids at the center" of decisions, Truitt said.

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Language development is more than just the ability to read and write; it is a part of who we are. I am a reader and a learner, and I have the power to shape my future. The link between literacy and identity is significant for Emergent Bilingual students undergoing the complex process of gaining the asset of a second language. How we label students, English Learners–implying deficit, and Emergent Bilinguals–implying asset, can shape the expectations we set for them in the classroom, potentially leading Emergent Bilingual students to question their abilities and agency with thoughts such as: Am I a reader? Can I learn? What power do I have to shape my future?

When it comes to literacy instruction, not all students have equal access to effective teaching methods. This discrepancy can compound the challenges Emergent Bilingual students face and exacerbate existing educational inequities. One solution to this problem? Strong leadership. As leaders in the educational community, it is our responsibility to address the unequal access to literacy instruction and support our multilingual students in their language development. This includes providing targeted literacy instruction as well as respecting and representing who students are and the assets they bring to the classroom.

We know the science of reading (SoR) has a proven track record of accelerating literacy learning for monolingual students. 

The science of reading provides valuable insights into how students learn to read and the most effective instructional strategies. By leveraging this research, we can develop evidence-based practices that support the literacy development of all students. 

We know Emergent Bilinguals learn English differently. 

One key finding from SoR research is that systematic phonics instruction is particularly effective in helping Emergent Bilingual students develop their decoding skills and overall reading comprehension. We also know that explicit vocabulary instruction and comprehension strategies can support Emergent Bilingual students in their understanding and engagement with complex texts. 

How can educators use the knowledge from the science of reading paired with other research to best support their bilingual students? 

By prioritizing both SoR and a culturally responsive approach to literacy instruction, we can create learning environments that support Emergent Bilingual students and all students in their literacy development. As educational leaders, it is our responsibility to continually reflect on our practices, engage in ongoing professional development, and prioritize the needs of our students, particularly those who have been historically underserved. 

Doing so can create a brighter and more equitable future for all. Literacy is a powerful tool that allows us to express ourselves, understand others, and shape our paths. We must recognize its importance in our own lives and the lives of our students and work to foster a love of reading and learning for all. For actionable strategies to better serve your Emergent Bilingual students on their literacy journeys, watch our on-demand webinar: “Is the Science of Reading Enough for Emergent Bilinguals?” presented by Jeannette Mancilla-Martinez, Associate Professor of Special Education at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. Learn more here. 

 

 

Growing efforts to limit diversity, equity and inclusion programs in elementary and secondary schools may negatively impact special education activities meant to expand inclusive opportunities for students with disabilities, warn some special education and disability rights advocates.

Several of these advocates said there's little evidence so far that anti-DEI efforts are excluding special education students from general education activities or even explicitly proposing this. But they expressed growing concerns about what they say is a misunderstanding about inclusive special education under the politically charged DEI label. 

They point to anecdotal examples of opposition to general and special education co-teaching practices, scrutiny over special education teacher prep materials, and legislative efforts to separate students with disruptive behaviors from general education classrooms.

"There could be some chilling effects or some kind of negative impacts of the overall anti-DEI efforts on how things look for kids with disabilities in schools," said Dan Stewart, managing attorney for education and employment at the National Disability Rights Network, or NDRN, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of the legal rights of people with disabilities.

Another fear is that the anti-DEI movement will lead to a return of the stigmas and segregation of students with disabilities that occurred before the 1975 enactment of the landmark federal civil rights law requiring public schools to provide free appropriate public education for students with disabilities. 

"There's the very significant concern that efforts that have been going on for decades are now going to be subsumed under the political machinations regarding the anti-DEI efforts," Stewart said.

Propelled by mainly conservative policymakers, DEI critics are pushing for schools to focus on the basics of academics and shared American values rather than on what they call "divisive" instruction and training on racial disparities and gender identities. While anti-DEI measures are more prevalent in workplaces and higher education, K-12 schools are also being targeted by some DEI critics raising concerns that certain lessons and materials are indoctrinating students and further contributing to racial prejudices.

A researcher for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank and policy advocacy group critical of DEI activities, said the disability rights field should not be alarmed by efforts to dismantle DEI initiatives in schools. In fact, he said the pro-DEI movement may do more harm than good to disability rights advocacy.

"The rollback of DEI is actually beneficial for special education, because it allows special education advocates to fight for their own interests and rights without being subsumed in a broader movement that actually does not prioritize their concerns," said Jay Greene, senior research fellow in the Heritage Foundation's Center for Educational Policy.

On the defense

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires schools and families to make individualized decisions about including students with disabilities in general education programming. The law holds schools accountable for educating students with disabilities alongside their peers without disabilities to the maximum extent possible, also known as "least restrictive environment."

Disability rights advocates, special educators, researchers and the U.S. Department of Education have pointed to short-term and long-term benefits of inclusion for students both with and without disabilities, including high expectations for academic progress. 

And while efforts in some Republican-led states to restrict DEI initiatives and classroom discussion on race and gender-related topics aren't directly focused on special education programming, they are putting disability rights advocates on the defensive against what they see as threats to inclusive practices. 

"I think that the negative attention that we're seeing to the DEI efforts can really breed this culture of intolerance, to breed this culture of bullying, to breed a culture of discrimination," said Robyn Linscott, director of education and family policy at The Arc, a nonprofit that advocates for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. 

Participation of special education students in general education classes has increased over the past few years. According to the Education Department, 67% of school-aged students with disabilities attended general education classrooms for 80% or more of their school day in fall 2021, the last year for which data is available. That was up from 63% in fall 2016. 

But the number of preschool children with disabilities who received special education services in settings separate from their peers without disabilities, which was 55% in 2021, has largely remained unchanged over the past four decades. 

Additionally, non-White students made up the majority of students ages 3-21 who received IDEA services during the 2021-22 school year, according to federal data. But personnel entering the special education and early intervention field are predominately White.

Under IDEA, districts must measure for racial disparities in special education annually in 14 categories — including a student’s disability identification, where a student’s learning takes place, and discipline — as well as for seven racial and ethnic groupings.

Between the 2018-19 and 2020-21 school years, Education Department data showed a nearly 100% increase in the number of districts identified with what’s known as “significant disproportionality,” where students in special education programs are overrepresented by race.

There is no indication that anti-DEI efforts contributed to the increase in significant disproportionality during that time. But, some educators and advocates say controversial legislation in several states restricting instruction and training on racial injustices is having a negative spillover effect on some districts’ approaches to remedying racial inequities, administrators and advocates have said.

In Utah, where a new law prohibits public school DEI programs, disability rights advocates are closely monitoring other legislative activity that they said could threaten inclusive education progress or even potentially violate IDEA-required practices. 

Disability Law Center, a Utah nonprofit that advocates for people with disabilities and is a state affiliate of NRDN, has opposed HB 347, a law that Gov. Spencer Cox signed on March 12 that would require school districts to provide safe and "minimally disruptive" educational environments for all students. Specifically, the law says schools must provide education in the least restrictive environment that "does not result in a pattern of behavior that interferes substantially and materially with the instruction of the other students in the classroom." 

That wording is troublesome, some say, since it could lead to the exclusion of students whose disabilities can impact their behavior. 

"What would happen to a student with Tourette’s syndrome under this bill? Or a student who displays stimming behavior like flapping their hands? Where would schools have them go, if their behavior does interfere with other students, which seems very likely for these students?" the Disability Law Center wrote in a March 5 letter to the governor, asking him to veto the bill. 

The center also testified in opposition to SB 137, a bill that would have given teachers the authority to remove a student from a classroom for disruptive behaviors. That could have jeopardized IDEA disciplinary due process protections for students with disabilities, the center said.

That language has since been removed from the bill, which more broadly seeks to empower and retain teachers in the state.  

"We are seeing some concerning stuff around pushing back on the idea of inclusion, generally of students with disabilities," said Nate Crippes, Disability Law Center's public affairs supervising attorney. 

However, he added, Utah has also seen proactive grassroots efforts and state board of education action to promote awareness of and support for inclusive special education practices.

Impact on teacher education programs

Across the country, there are increasing concerns about how anti-DEI efforts are impacting special education teacher preparation programs as textbooks and sllyabi with the word "inclusion" are being questioned.

In fact, teacher prep coursework materials often contain the word "inclusion," according to Kyena Cornelius, president of the Teacher Education Division of the Council for Exceptional Children. Cornelius noted that IDEA history and including students with disabilities in general education programs are core study areas for aspiring teachers.

"We want special ed teachers to help educate students with disabilities so they become productive members of society, but if they aren't included with productive members of society, how are we going to [do that]?" asked Cornelius, who is also a professor in the School of Special Education, School Psychology, and Early Childhood Studies at the University of Florida.  

The Arc's Linscott, who is a former special education and history teacher, said it's imperative that prospective teachers learn about special education inclusion and efforts to reduce racial disproportionality of students with disabilities.  

"If everybody understood special education inclusion, then I think we would see a higher level of inclusion than we do already," Linscott said.

Some DEI opponents, meanwhile, are questioning co-teaching approaches — where general and special educators are paired in a classroom — as an inclusive practice, Cornelius said.

Building awareness about inclusion

Using DEI activities as opportunities to increase student belonging and acceptance of marginalized groups is not what concerns critics, said the Heritage Foundation's Greene. 

"The word ‘inclusion’ is a good word," Greene said. "The word ‘diversity’ is a good word. And it would be a shame if we abandoned those words for their good and legitimate purposes, just because some people have appropriated them for bad purposes." 

He said the origin of DEI, as critics see it, is an ideological foundation that groups people into oppressors or oppressed, not based on individual merit but on a group identity. The oppressed are then seen as deserving of restitution for historic and collective wrongs, and oppressors are viewed as those whose privileges should be taken away, Greene said.

The problem with this DEI world view, Greene said, is that rather than treating everyone the same, people are treated differently based on their oppressor or oppressed status. And people with disabilities can be either oppressed or oppressors, he said. As such, those supporting DEI initiatives are "not really including disability in their intersectional set of alliances, precisely because advantaged people can also have disabilities," he said.

Greene questioned, for example, how DEI proponents can advocate stripping advantages from wealthy children with disabilities in favor of poor children with disabilities. "If they do that," he said, "then they're helping some disabled students and hurting others." 

It should be common knowledge that special education inclusion is "about making reasonable accommodations so that students with special needs can thrive in regular classroom environments," Greene said. "Once you explain it to people, everyone gets it with no problem, and they don't confuse it for the other kind of DEI that is about splitting the world into oppressors and oppressed."  

But not everyone will make that connection, disability rights advocates said. More important, they said, they don't want one group to feel marginalized because another one has a stronger platform.

"If we allow this vocal group of people to change the way we talk and act about other groups of people, then we're allowing this othering to happen at such a rate that we're going to go back to students with disabilities having to stay home," CEC's Cornelius said.

According to Stewart, of NDRN, the significant problem with anti-DEI action is its breadth. "It could mean so many different things," he said. "And without clear definitions about what it is that politicians in different states are considering bad and good, there's the overall concern that lots of things could be tamped down." 

Overall, disability rights and special education advocates say they are strong supporters of DEI efforts to reduce racial biases in schools. But in aligning with DEI efforts, do they risk sowing further doubt from critics about the validity of special education inclusion services? If they take a stance that disability inclusion is separate from race and gender-equity programs, are they perpetuating the marginalization of one cause over others?

For now, educating people about the benefits of inclusive practices is one way to help skeptics and those unaware to understand their importance, said both Stewart and Cornelius. 

"​​It's not a fight. It shouldn't be a fight," said Cornelius. "It should be me telling my story." 

For example, if a textbook or syllabus is criticized for having the word "inclusion," then that should be a teaching moment to explain how university-level curriculum is approved, along with the purpose of IDEA, least restrictive environment and inclusive practices, she said.

Cornelius suggested people share stories with school board members about the positive impact of special education inclusion. "That's where you have the most impact," she said.

A settlement announced March 11 between Florida parents, students, teachers and state education leaders limits the scope of the state's Parental Rights in Education law — also known as the "Don't Say Gay" law —that civil rights advocates said was chilling classroom speech and infringing on the rights of LGBTQ+ students.

The settlement clarifies that references to LGBTQ+ issues are acceptable in literature, classroom discussion, academic work and in teachers' speech in some situations. It also prohibits instruction claiming that heterosexuality is superior to other sexualities or identities. 

Other areas where LGBTQ+ issues are protected include when they are the subject of bullying prevention, extracurriculars, library books and guest lecturers.

Florida's anti-LGTBQ+ curriculum law was signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in March 2022 and implemented by the state board of education that October. It was on the forefront of the curriculum censorship movement that has since spread to many other conservative states. Its language served as a blueprint for other states’ lawmakers in drafting their own versions of the measure.

It also led to worries from LGBTQ+ students and teachers that they would be found in violation of the law if they expressed themselves on issues related to gender and sexuality. 

The settlement was reached with the Florida State Board of Education, Florida Department of Education, and certain school districts, and its terms were shared by LGBTQ+ civil rights organization Equality Florida, which filed the lawsuit. It addresses many of the worries shared by educators and clarifies that students and teachers can speak and write freely about gender identity and sexual orientation. References to LGTBQ+ people, relationships or families are not prohibited in any educational or extracurricular, either. 

Gay-Straight Alliances, a student-run organization and a source of support for many LGBTQ+ students, are also protected. 

"Simply put, the State of Florida has now made it clear that LGBTQ+ kids, parents, and teachers in Florida can, in fact, say that they are gay," said Roberta Kaplan, lead counsel for the plaintiffs and an attorney for Kaplan Hecker & Fink, in a statement. 

Lawyers from that firm and from the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed the lawsuit one day after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the "Don't Say Gay" bill on March 28, 2022. Supporters of the measure said the material it prohibited was not age-appropriate and infringed on the rights of parents to raise their children according to their personal beliefs.

The agreement that comes nearly two years later promotes "a much-needed culture of empathy and acceptance," said Shannon Minter, legal director for NCLR, in a statement.

It also comes one week after the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals paused another Florida policy impacting LGBTQ+ student inclusion. On March 4, a three-judge panel continued a block on the Stop WOKE Act, which prohibits employers, including schools, from conducting certain diversity, equity and inclusion trainings. That law was implemented in July 2022.

Judge Britt Grant, who wrote the unanimous opinion, said the law "penalizes certain viewpoints — the greatest First Amendment sin." 

"The only way to discern which mandatory trainings are prohibited is to find out whether the speaker disagrees with Florida," Grant wrote. "That is a classic — and disallowed — regulation of speech." 

DeSantis, who championed both laws now facing hurdles in court, said in a statement that the "Don't Say Gay" deal made this week was a "major win." He pointed to other areas of the law that remain in effect, such as prohibiting classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity for K-3 students.

“We fought hard to ensure this law couldn’t be maligned in court, as it was in the public arena by the media and large corporate actors,” said the governor's general counsel, Ryan Newman, in the statement. “We are victorious, and Florida’s classrooms will remain a safe place under the Parental Rights in Education Act.”

The Affordable Connectivity Program that helped provide broadband services to nearly 23 million households nationwide officially stopped taking applications in early February as federal funds are expected to completely dry up by the end of April, according to the Federal Communications Commission. 

Though congressional lawmakers proposed a $7 billion bicameral, bipartisan bill in January to temporarily extend the program, the legislation has stalled. Without the additional funding, the FCC said, millions of people who were connected to home internet services through the Affordable Connectivity Program could lose access. 

The program provided a $30 monthly discount to eligible households to pay for broadband. Those living on qualifying tribal lands received $75 per month for these services. Households also got a discount of up to $100 to buy a laptop, desktop computer or tablet. 

As signs of the Affordable Connectivity Program’s end become increasingly apparent, advocates worry the deep division of digital access for K-12 students will be exacerbated. In fact, 3.1 million families of students who receive free or reduced-price school meals have benefited from the FCC program. 

Families participating in the program are also worried about the consequences of losing internet access. Some 81% of parents enrolled in the Affordable Connectivity Program said they were worried their children would fall behind in their academics if they lose home internet access, according to a fall survey of 1,600 program participants released by consulting firm Benenson Strategy Group. 

There are school districts that have relied on the Affordable Connectivity Program to provide home internet services to their students, said D’Andre Weaver, chief digital equity officer at the nonprofit Digital Promise. 

“Those are students that those districts don’t have to come up with a solution for at the moment," Weaver said. “And so now, we’re putting more of the responsibility back on school districts and local communities to try and solve a problem we think is embedded in the infrastructure of our country at this point.”

Weaver said he’s worried that some districts won’t have enough resources to take on that responsibility, and their students will go without home internet access as a result.

What can state and district leaders do?

Now that students will have to rely on their school districts to provide more assistance to keep them connected to the internet at home, Weaver said, it’s crucial that districts try to meet that need in some shape or form. 

States can support districts by ensuring they have access to resources or tap into already existing funds to help address larger infrastructure needs in their school communities. 

For instance, district leaders could consider partnering with their communities and local governments to address internet affordability when leveraging new infrastructure access to broadband that might have recently been established through the federal $42 billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program, said Brian Stephens, director of stakeholder engagement at Funds For Learning. The consulting firm helps schools and libraries navigate the E-rate funding process. 

The deployment program, administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, is helping communities across the U.S. plan, build out infrastructure, and adopt programs to expand high-speed internet access. 

There are also existing programs that can help districts serve students’ connectivity needs. For instance, Digital Promise has partnered with Verizon to provide students and teachers with internet-connected devices in select middle and high schools. 

In the last decade, the partnership has connected about 620,000 students across nearly 600 schools. The program is low-cost for participating districts, Weaver said, as schools need to commit some funding to sustain the program. 

Hopes and challenges with other FCC efforts

In the longterm, Weaver said he hopes the Affordable Connectivity Program will receive permanent funding from Congress. In the meantime, Weaver is anticipating that the FCC’s efforts to expand E-rate will help address concerns surrounding students’ digital access outside the classroom. 

In October, the FCC approved the use of federal E-rate funds to support Wi-Fi on school buses. About a month later, the agency also proposed a rule that would permit schools and libraries to use E-rate to pay for Wi-Fi hotspots and off-premises internet services. 

While the expansion of E-rate to cover school bus Wi-Fi is a positive first step for helping schools provide more internet access, students still can’t use the internet once they step off the bus, Stephens said. 

Because the decision to allow E-rate funds for school bus Wi-Fi happened fairly late in the fiscal year, not as many interested districts were able to bid for those services using E-rate funds, Stephens said. In fact, only about 500 school districts have been able to do so, he added.

But ultimately, if the FCC does not adopt its hotspot proposal at the same time that the Affordable Connectivity Program ends, Stephens said, “I hate to think about it, but there are students that are going to go dark when they leave school.” 

While the hotspot program is much needed, Stephens said, its approval would mean schools will have to determine which students are eligible for receiving hotspots based on who — as the FCC broadly describes — has “unmet needs.”

Schools “need to get strategic about ‘how do we determine who those students are in our district, and how do we document that,’ and get that ball rolling now to get a jump on what we imagine to be some fairly detailed record-keeping requirements in the future,” Stephens said.

The push for more equitable grading policies has contributed to grade inflation and yielded little evidence of increased rates of learning, according to a report released Feb. 28 by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education reform research and analysis organization.

While some grading reforms have merit and may benefit students, practices like “no-zero” mandates, homework bans and prohibitions on penalties for late work and cheating can reduce expectations and accountability for students, the report said.

In efforts to approach grading with more fairness and consistency, several school systems have considered or implemented reforms. The Fordham report recommends that schools, districts and states take the best of traditional and equity-oriented reforms to strengthen academic rigor and eliminate biases.

While concerns about grading inequities are legitimate, some new policies can hamper expectations for students, according to the report's co-author, Meredith Coffey, a senior research associate at Fordham. 

"We argue in the brief that top-down policies that lower expectations and limit teacher discretion aren't the answer — and what's more, these policies even risk doing academic harm to the very students policymakers are trying to support," Coffey said in an email. 

For example, the report points out that some new grading policies like prohibiting teachers from issuing zeros on assignments and bans on homework "confuse parents and other stakeholders who do not understand what grades have come to signify," making it harder to address learning loss. 

A traditional summary grade — in addition to an explanation of clear expectations — can communicate what students know and don't know, the report said. 

Coffey and co-author Adam Tyner, national research director at Fordham, classify some grading practices — including mandatory retakes, rubric-based grading, "blind grading," and grading done by someone other than a student's teacher — as ways to combat bias in grading. Other practices, like grading for participation and allowing extra credit, were described as contributing to bias. 

Coffey and Tyner write that research and "common sense" show students do better academically when there are consequences to not meeting performance expectations on assignments.

"There is not an iota of hard evidence that reforms that make grading more lenient benefit students in the long run," the report said. 

Other research has pointed out an increase in high school students' GPAs over time. A 2022 study from ACT, the nonprofit that administers the college admissions exam of the same name, found high school GPAs rose by 0.19 grade points on average, from 3.17 in 2010 to 3.36 in 2021.

Also in 2022, the National Assessment of Educational Progress said high school graduates earned an average 3.11 GPA in 2019, up from 3.00 in 2009 and 2.68 in 1990. 

The movement to create more equitable grading systems began in the 2000s, the Fordham report said. But temporary restrictions on in-person learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic fueled more grading reform activities.

"Giving students grace" during that unprecedented time was understandable, the report said. However, as the health crisis has waned, schools should review their grading practices and identify policies that contribute to lower standards. 

Specifically, the report recommends:

• Maintaining high expectations. District leaders and state education agencies should support educators' efforts to hold students to high standards, as well as be aware of grade inflation. 
• Being flexible when needed. Schools and their academic departments should be allowed to weigh the costs and benefits of grading approaches and be understanding of a teachers' decision to offer a student reprieve when they truly need it. Leaders should avoid mandating reforms that could force teachers to lower standards and expectations.
• Widely adopting some equity-centered reforms. Merging effective traditional and equity-oriented approaches, such as eliminating most extra-credit assignments and implementing rigorous rubrics, can help strengthen academic courses and prevent bias.

A coalition of educators, researchers and advocates on Feb. 21 launched the National Newcomer Network Policy Platform to encourage support for newly arrived students to the U.S. and to make recommendations for their civil rights protections and services. 

The recommendations call for federal legislation and dedicated state funding to support wraparound services for students, including a proposal to strengthen newcomer case manager roles in school districts in partnership with community-based organizations.

The network was created in 2022 by Next100 and Californians Together, two nonprofit organizations, and now includes a coalition of over 100 members representing 30 states. It is based at The Century Foundation, an independent think tank.

The network refers to newcomer students as a linguistically and culturally diverse group of recent immigrant youth, refugees, asylum seekers, unaccompanied minors, migratory children and students with limited or interrupted formal education. These students may have varying levels of English proficiency and not all will be English learners, the network said.

There were about 1 million immigrant students in the U.S. during the 2017-18 school year, according to the most recently available federal data.

While some school districts have programming in place to welcome newcomer students and address their needs, other districts haven't built this capacity, according to the network. That raises equity concerns regarding students' academic, linguistic and social-emotional development, it said.

“This platform is just the beginning: educational equity is the right of every single student in the country, and we are going to continue fighting for solutions until that is a reality,” said Alejandra Vázquez Baur, a fellow at The Century Foundation and co-founder and director of the National Newcomer Network, in a statement.

The platform recommends:

• Developing and improving statewide intake procedures for newcomer students through targeted funding. Technical assistance should be provided to districts to implement this guidance.
• Authorizing funding for federal pilot programs to develop and expand instructional models for secondary students who are newcomers.
• Creating guidelines within the Education Department's Office of English Language Acquisition for how administrators can best support newcomer students.
• Requiring the Education Department to monitor the implementation of student programs and teacher training. 
• Designating federal funds to assist states in disaggregating data to support resources to meet the needs of newcomer students.

"This platform provides a roadmap to ensure that our nation’s policies and investments meet the needs of newcomer students," said Xilonin Cruz-González, deputy director at Californians Together and co-founder of the National Newcomer Network, in a statement.

OELA told advocates last fall that better data collection and resources for schools serving newcomer students is being planned. Additionally, the Education Department, last year, updated a newcomer toolkit to help state, district and school leaders support students who are multilingual, immigrants and refugees.