After months of uncertainty, education leaders, teachers, researchers, and advocates received an answer to whether state annual assessments would resume this school year following an abrupt cancellation this past spring due to the coronavirus. In a letter to all state superintendents – not just the...
According to Education Week, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos will soon be releasing a proposed rule to resolve the “dispute over how much coronavirus aid private school students should receive.” In a letter to a group representing state education leaders, DeVos announced the soon-to-be...
Senator Lamar Alexander—the chairman of the U.S. Senate Education Committee and co-author of the Every Student Succeeds Act—“has a different interpretation than the head of the U.S. Department of Education of how much federal coronavirus aid should be available to private school students.” In her...
Democratic lawmakers in Congress did not hold back in expressing their opposition to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s guidance about federal COVID-19 relief for K-12 schools, calling it “way out of bounds” and urging her to abandon it. In a letter sent to DeVos,...
According to Education Week, guidance provided by the U.S. Department of Education “telling school districts to direct much more coronavirus aid than they expected to private school students has triggered intense opposition.” DOE has indicated that school districts must use COVID-19 relief funds “to provide ‘equitable services’...
Collaborative for Student Success Executive Director Jim Cowen explains the need for transparency for funds provided by the recently passed Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act in this piece published by Forbes. While flexibility for state leaders is essential, Cowen argues that “the...
Tens of thousands of schools across the country have closed in response to the spread of coronavirus, throwing state assessments into disarray. After initially considering “targeted” waivers of federal testing requirements, the Department of Education “shifted to a broader approach that will let most states...
While the coronavirus economic aid package gives U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos authority to waive some key federal education requirements under ESSA, current law “does include restrictions on the secretary’s waiver power,” including funding-related restrictions. Secretary DeVos “can’t waive requirements for allocating of federal...
The U.S. Department of Education has finalized its “supplement not supplant” rules requiring districts to demonstrate they are using federal Title I money in addition to state and local funds, reports Linda Jacobson for Education Dive. “The guidance says districts must show the methods they use...
