Education in 2019 will feel like 'Groundhog Day'
There’s buzz that this could finally be the year Congress reaches a deal to reauthorize the federal higher education law.
The nation’s most exclusive colleges are fending off lawsuits and federal probes over their use of race in admissions.
Teacher strikes and protests look likely to pop up across the states, starting in Los Angeles.
Advocates are up in arms over Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ overhaul of rules for how schools handle allegations of sexual assault.
Feeling a little deja vu? Who could blame you? At the outset, 2019 sure looks a lot like 2018. But there are some unexpected twists emerging, as well, especially with Democrats in control of the House.
Here are eight developments in education we’re watching this year:
Will they or won’t they… reauthorize the Higher Education Act? Last year began with a lot of hype around HEA that never really materialized into much. House Republicans put out a bill that made it through committee, but didn’t reach the floor. Negotiations in the Senate fell apart after a slew of hearings on higher education issues.
But this year could be different. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the top Republican on the Senate HELP committee, won’t seek re-election in 2020, so the stakes have been raised for him to make progress on a major overhaul of higher education during his final two years in the Senate.
Meanwhile, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), the Democrat expected to lead the House education committee, has said reauthorizing HEA is a top priority and has indicated he’s willing to work across the aisle to get that done. "If it's got no Republican support, you can't believe it would have much of a chance in the Republican Senate," Scott told POLITICO last year.
Expect the House Democrats’ effort to mirror the Senate’s in early 2018: A lot of hearings on all things higher education to see what could stick in a bill.
Building schools into an infrastructure push: Another one of Scott’s top priorities is getting schools into any House attempt to pass a sweeping infrastructure bill — an area where Democrats are expected to be able to work with President Donald Trump.
Scott has pushed the Rebuild America’s Schools Act, H.R. 2475 (115), which would create a $70 billion grant program and $30 billion tax credit bond program for high-poverty schools with facilities that pose health and safety risks.
Wide-ranging rulemaking: An Education Department-appointed panel will gather this month to begin hammering out how to rewrite numerous federal rules regulating higher education. On the table are federal regulations around college accreditation, religious schools and nontraditional education providers. DeVos has said an "ambitious" rulemaking push will "aim to restore shared responsibility in higher education oversight and to encourage new approaches and new partnerships."
The panel is expected to dive into accreditation; "state authorization" rules; the federal definition of a "credit hour"; the requirement that online courses provide "regular and substantive interaction" between students and the instructor; the rules governing direct assessment programs and competency-based education programs; changes to the TEACH Grant program; and the easing of restrictions on funding for religious colleges.
More action on affirmative action: A judge could rule this year on a federal lawsuit claiming Harvard is discriminating against Asian-American applicants. It’s a closely watched case that many view as the next shot at ending affirmative action. A final hearing in the case is expected in February, leaving Judge Allison Burroughs most of the year to issue a ruling.
It's just the beginning — both sides are likely to appeal if they lose, and many expect the case will work its way to the Supreme Court, which may now be less likely to green-light the use of race in admissions with Trump’s addition of Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.
But it’s not just Harvard. Students for Fair Admissions, the same group that sued the Ivy League school, is also suing the University of North Carolina in another federal case that will heat up this year. Motions for summary judgment in that case, in which SFFA alleges UNC’s use of race violates the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, are due this month.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice and Education Department continue to probe the use of race in admissions at Harvard and Yale. More could come, too. The Yale investigation stems from a 2016 complaint filed by the Asian American Coalition for Education that also included Brown and Dartmouth.
A FERPA frenzy: Student data privacy could enter the spotlight this year as public anger at big tech companies like Facebook could lead states to push new consumer protection laws in the model of the California Consumer Privacy Act, passed last August — potentially creating a mess that companies are already advocating for Congress to preempt and clear up. The California law allows parents to delete their child’s information. But there are questions over how far that can go. Can they force a school to delete a student’s entire academic record, or ask the College Board to erase their test scores?
The federal school safety commission led by DeVos, meanwhile, recommended the Education Department make clear to schools that the federal privacy law doesn’t necessarily prevent them from sharing disciplinary information about students within the school. It also suggests the department “work with Congress to modernize FERPA to account for changes in technology since its enactment.”
Title IX fight keeps ticking: The department will have a flood of comments to respond to before issuing its final rule for schools handling allegations of sexual assault. It’s also battling ongoing lawsuits over its interim rules, which remain in place, and the Trump administration could soon reignite the battle over protections for transgender students if it seeks to define gender, as it is reportedly considering.
Brace for the next wave of teachers strikes: A union representing some 31,000 Los Angeles teachers says they’re planning to walk out Jan. 10 after negotiations over a new labor agreement with the LA Unified School District fell apart last month. “We are not going back into a bargaining process that has failed and that the district has not taken seriously for 20 months,” Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, said just before the holidays, the LA Times reported. “In this context, the traditional bargaining process has not worked.”
They may not be alone. A group of Virginia teachers, under the mantle of the Red For Ed movement, plans to walk out Jan. 28 and march on the Capitol in Richmond to demand lawmakers boost education funding. Teachers in South Carolina and Indiana have also threatened to strike.