There’s a New Federal Budget. What’s in It for Schools?

After months of wrangling, Congress passed — and President Trump signed — a massive spending bill that ups funding for the U.S. Department of Education. The bipartisan measure is arguably a “wholesale rejection” of Trump’s education agenda, according to Caitlin Emma of Politico’s education team. For starters, rather than meet the call from Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to slash federal aid, lawmakers instead allocated an additional $2.6 billion, bringing the Education Department’s budget to nearly $71 billion. How did this happen? Why did lawmakers push back on requests to ramp up school choice and zero out funding for things like after-school programs and teacher training? What does it mean for DeVos’ plan to downsize the Office for Civil Rights when Congress just gave it a $8 million bump over the prior year’s funding? And how did higher education, including research universities, fare? Emma also provides insights into the new federal School Safety Commission, headed by DeVos and three other cabinet secretaries.