Judges Nix Orders by Administration to Ban DEI Efforts
Two federal judges last week put the brakes on the Trump administration’s enforcement of a series of orders telling the nation’s schools and colleges to eliminate much of their diversity, equity, and inclusion programming or risk losing federal funds.
The judges in Maryland and New Hampshire both found the administration’s anti-DEI efforts didn’t pass legal muster but for slightly different reasons. Their orders came in response to separate lawsuits led by the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.
The judges’ orders came April 24, the same day states and school districts faced a deadline from the U.S. Department of Education to sign a certification that their schools aren’t using what the administration has termed “illegal DEI practices.”
The judge in Maryland, Stephanie Gallagher, an appointee of President Donald Trump, found the administration hadn’t followed proper procedure in directing schools to eliminate DEI programs, which she said represented a significant policy change. She also found that the directive overstepped the federal government’s authority with respect to curriculum, which it’s prohibited by law from influencing or prescribing.
In response to the NEA’s lawsuit, in New Hampshire, Judge Landya McCafferty—an appointee of President Barack Obama—said the administration’s directives were unconstitutionally vague and overstepped the government’s authority over schools.
Because the directives have neither defined DEI programs nor practices that violate federal civil rights law, and because the penalties for noncompliance are so steep, McCafferty wrote, schools run the risk of “overcorrecting” and eliminating “all vestiges of DEI to avoid even the possibility of funding termination.”
The Education Department has not detailed what it considers to be impermissible DEI practices.
“The federal government has no authority to dictate what schools can and cannot teach to serve its own agenda, and this ruling is an important step in reaffirming that,” Sarah Hinger, the deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s racial-justice program, which partnered with the NEA, said.
As of April 24, 19 states and Puerto Rico said they would sign the certification while 17 said they wouldn’t, according to an Education Week tally. Others have not decided or declared their intent.
Fewer Subjects, Students, Data Points: Funding and Staffing Cuts Lead to Diminished NAEP
The nation is on track to know a lot less about student achievement.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress, the only nationally comparable test given periodically to U.S. students, will shrink in scope over the next eight years, the National Assessment Governing Board announced last week, following sweeping cuts to the U.S. Department of Education’s research arm in March.
Fourth graders, who were scheduled to take science assessments in 2028 and 2032, will lose the first test, while 12th graders won’t be assessed in the subject at all through 2032. Seniors also won’t take a previously scheduled U.S. history test in 2030; only 8th graders will take the assessment. The writing test, scheduled for 2032, was canceled for all three grades.
State-by-state data in some grades and subjects, as well as data for a collection of large urban districts, won’t be available for 12th graders in reading and math for the next two test administrations nor for 8th graders taking the 2030 U.S. history test. District results won’t be provided for 8th grade science over the next two test administrations.
NAGB has had to scale down proposed schedules before, but the forces driving this week’s decision are different from those in the past, said Martin West, the vice chair of NAGB and a professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
“What’s different here is that the changes we are making are not in response only to congressional appropriations but also clear signals from the administration of the need to reduce spending,” West said.
The whittling down of the exam schedule comes after President Donald Trump’s administration cut almost the entire staff of the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers NAEP.
The cuts come just days after U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon promised that the 2026 results would go forward and that the department “will ensure that NAEP continues to provide invaluable data on learning across the U.S.”
The 2026 tests will continue as planned with no changes.
Supreme Court Conservatives Lean Toward Letting Parents Opt Their Kids Out of LGBTQ+ Lessons
Looks like the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority are leaning heavily toward forcing a Maryland district to allow parents to opt their children out of classes where LGBTQ+ storybooks are used.
“The plaintiffs here are not asking the school to change its curriculum. They’re just saying, ‘Look, we want out,’ ” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said during oral arguments last week. “What is the big deal about allowing them to opt out of this?”
The Montgomery County district began using the storybooks in its English/language arts curriculum in 2022 and initially allowed religious parents to keep their children out before reversing course and ending that option. A group of Muslim, Roman Catholic, and Ethiopian Orthodox parents sued, arguing the reversal violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of free exercise of religion.
Alan A. Schoenfeld, the district’s lawyer, said “every school board walks a tightrope,” and that “it’s a difficult job balancing the interests of a diverse community. Montgomery County public schools are the most religiously diverse in the country.”
He said the five books “are meant to foster mutual respect in a pluralistic school community. … The lesson is that students should treat their peers with respect.”
The storybooks currently in use in pre-K and elementary grades all feature LGBTQ+ characters and themes.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett also asked questions or made comments that suggested they leaned toward the parents.
Eric S. Baxter, a lawyer with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the parents, emphasized that his clients are not seeking to remove the LGBTQ+ storybooks from the curriculum.
Justice Elena Kagan challenged him. “In the end, is what you’re saying: When a religious person confronts anything in a classroom that conflicts with her religious beliefs or her parents’ [beliefs], that the parent can then demand an opt-out?”
When Baxter said yes, Kagan said she worried that religious parents’ next legal case would be a broader challenge to alter the curriculum for all students.
White House Wants to End Preschool for Neediest Kids
The Trump administration is now targeting Head Start, an early education program for more than half a million of the nation’s neediest children and child care for their families.
Under a proposal tucked in an internal draft budget for fiscal 2026, the program would be scrapped.
While Congress often ignores a president’s budget request, the proposed elimination of Head Start highlights the administration’s priorities as President Donald Trump seeks to overhaul education in the United States.
The draft says eliminating the program is consistent with the administration’s “goals of returning control of education to the states and increasing parental control.”
Head Start had already been hit this year by layoffs and funding lags. The private and public schools that run Head Start classrooms are deeply reliant on federal money, and this year’s funding problems caused some to close temporarily and cut off child care for hundreds of thousands of low-income families.
“Eliminating funding for Head Start would be catastrophic. It would be a direct attack on our nation’s most at-risk children, their well-being, and their families.” said Yasmina Vinci, the National Head Start Association’s executive director.
Head Start, Vinci said, also provides meals and health screenings and helps level the playing field for children who might otherwise fall behind before starting kindergarten. Many Head Start children are in foster care or are homeless.
“This administration believes we cannot afford to help families get preschool or help kids get basic health services, but we can afford trillions of dollars more in tax breaks for billionaires,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. “It’s offensive and just plain wrong, and let me be clear: Democrats won’t let a proposal like this go anywhere in Congress.”
Student Loans in Default Headed to Debt Collection
Beginning next week, the U.S. Department of Education will begin collection on student loans that are in default, including garnishing the wages of potentially millions of
borrowers.
Roughly 5.3 million borrowers are currently in default.
The administration’s announcement marks an end to a period of leniency that began during the COVID-19 pandemic. No federal student loans have been referred for collection since March 2020. Under President Joe Biden, the department tried multiple times to give broad forgiveness of student loans, only to be stopped by courts.
Beginning May 5, the department will begin involuntary collection by withholding such government payments as tax refunds and federal salaries. After a 30-day notice, the department also will begin garnishing wages for borrowers in default.
The decision to send debt to collections drew criticism from advocates, who said borrowers had experienced whiplash and confusion with the changing student-loan policies.
“This is cruel, unnecessary, and will further fan the flames of economic chaos for working families across this country,” said Mike Pierce, the executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center.
Layoffs at the department’s Federal Student Aid office have made it harder for students to get their questions answered, even if they wanted to pay their loans, said Kristin McGuire, the executive director for Young Invincibles, a group that focuses on economic security for younger adults.
“Things are really difficult to understand right now. Things are changing every day,” McGuire said. “We can’t assume that people are in default because they don’t want to pay their loans. People are in default because they can’t pay their loans and because they don’t know how to pay their loans.”
