PHILADELPHIA – Students with disabilities who are homeless in Pennsylvania have won an important victory.
Following an investigation into the plights of two students in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Department of Education has been ordered to issue specific guidance to all school districts on their legal obligation to assign surrogate parents to students with disabilities who are living on their own.
Paige Joki, an attorney with the Education Law Center, points out that without surrogate parents, students have no way to enforce their legal right to get the educational services they need.
"It is our hope that by re-sending out this guidance, school districts are going to be better equipped across the Commonwealth to serve unaccompanied young people, and ensure that they're prepared for their bright future ahead," she states.
Federal law requires districts to appoint surrogate parents within 30 days to represent unaccompanied students throughout the special education process.
Joki notes that the two Philadelphia students, who were subjects of a complaint filed by the Education Law Center, were not assigned surrogate parents and suffered severe educational consequences.
"One student was wrongly graduated, which forced her to surrender her right to remain in school until age 21, which deprived her of years of educational services,” Joki relates. “And another student was forced to linger in a classroom that couldn't meet her needs."
The Bureau of Special Education investigation determined the students' rights had been violated, and that the district did not have an adequate system to track and assign surrogate parents.
Joki says the state's actions to remedy the problem represent vital progress for unaccompanied youth with disabilities across Pennsylvania.
"It is essential that we do everything we can to support these young people,” she stresses. “And part of the way that that needs to be done is that students need, and they have a legal right, to access a free and appropriate public education."
In the 2016-2017 school year, there were more than 4,000 unaccompanied students statewide.
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By Nirvi Shah for The Hechinger Report.
Broadcast version by Mark Richardson reporting for the Rural News Network-Public News Service Collaboration
During Donald Trump's first term as president, he was reluctant to speak boldly about school choice.
That's according to Kellyanne Conway, an aide to the president back then, and one of his former campaign managers. "He would say 'Aren't we the ones who say it [education] is local? Why would the president of the United States bigfoot all that?'"
Expect that reticence to be a thing of the past, Conway told the audience at an event last week devoted to promoting the benefits of school choice - from sweeping education savings accounts in the style of programs in West Virginia and Arizona to charter schools and microschools. On the campaign trail, Trump already has been vocal about his embrace of parental choice. "We want federal education dollars to follow the student, rather than propping up a bloated and radical bureaucracy in Washington, D.C.," he said at a rally in Wisconsin last month.
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(To be sure, Trump did issue an executive order near the end of his first term offering states the opportunity to use federal money to create school choice programs. When I looked into it a few years ago, I couldn't find any state that had taken him up on the offer.)
Conway urged participants at the post-Election Day gathering to speak a certain way in their advocacy to lawmakers going forward. "Lead with solutions not problems. The problems can be the second part of the sentence, or maybe the second paragraph." The panelists - including the founder of a group of charter schools for students with autism in Arizona, the leader of a private school for boys in Alabama and the head of a foundation that supports microschools - were all winners of the Yass Prize, fueled by billionaire Jeff Yass and run by the Center for Education Reform.
She also urged the crowd not to make school choice about teachers unions, "which is fun to do, especially this week but it doesn't educate another child." (The National Education Association, the nation's largest labor union, generally has opposed private school vouchers and has been celebrating the defeat of school choice measures at the ballot box in three states. "The decisive defeat of vouchers on the ballot across multiple states speaks loudly and clearly: The public knows vouchers harm students and does not want them in any form," NEA President Becky Pringle said in a statement.)
Lawmakers who need convincing aren't holding out just because of union pressure, Conway said. In Texas, for instance, rural lawmakers worried about the effect of vouchers on their schools have repeatedly voted down or torpedoed plans in that state that would allow parents to use public money for private school tuition. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott helped elect enough new members in place of those rural holdouts, however, that school choice may soon be a reality in his state.
Related: The school choice plan that is controversial, even in Texas
The school choice event at the Ronald Reagan Building in D.C. was notable for the range of people it featured, including parents and pastors, people who are white, Black and Latino, and several Democrats, including Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams of Pennsylvania. Some of the speakers told stories about opening their own charter schools and private schools. They urged the president-elect to take action on choice, including allowing federal subsidies for school meals for children in low-income families to follow those kids to private schools or other settings outside public schools.
In Congress, with Republicans taking hold of the Senate and expected to retain control of the House, lawmakers already have proposed legislation that has, until now, mostly been a nonstarter. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who is likely to become chair of the committee that oversees education in his chamber, introduced a bill this session that would give families and corporations tax credits if they contribute to groups that give scholarships to students to attend private or parochial schools. It would target students whose families earn no more than 300 percent of the area median gross income. Cassidy's wife, Laura, runs a charter school for children with dyslexia in Baton Rouge.
"I think that there's going to be a real opportunity to promote innovation in school choice," Cassidy said. "There is great promise in this administration, and I am looking forward to working with them."
Neal Morton contributed reporting.
This story was originally produced by Nirvi Shah of The Hechinger Report as part of the Rural News Network, an initiative of the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN), supporting more than 475 independent, nonprofit news organizations.
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As the nation prepares for the second term of President-elect Donald Trump, librarians are increasingly worried about his agenda and what it might mean for their bookshelves.
The conservative-leaning playbook known as Project 2025 would overhaul government agencies, cut budgets, increase censorship and reduce civil rights enforcement, according to the EveryLibrary Institute.
Peter Bromberg, associate director of EveryLibrary, said it could spell trouble for public and school libraries when books are labeled "pornographic" for containing LGBTQ+ material.
"What is getting banned as pornographic are mainstream books, are classic books or award-winning books," Bromberg pointed out. "Even picture books like 'And Tango Makes Three,' 'Heather Has Two Mommies' or a biography of Billie Jean King that's a picture book that's age-appropriate, but it mentions that she's a gay woman."
Other books under scrutiny in Indiana contain racially themed or feminist material. A 2023 report from the American Library Association said there were 16 attempts to restrict access to books in Indiana. That year, the Hamilton East Public Library Board's book ban decisions received national attention.
Also in 2023, Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a bill into law saying school libraries cannot claim legal protection by using "educational reasons" for sharing questionable books with minors.
Despite the publicity book bans get, they are not growing in popularity. A library association survey found most voters support librarians' authority over what's on the shelves. But Bromberg emphasized partisan divisiveness persists.
"Once groups are formed and money starts coming in to fund these types of political projects, and I think as we've seen, as we continue to see, people's anger and people's distrust and people's fear can be weaponized and can be hijacked towards political ends," Bromberg contended.
A book is considered "banned" when it is completely removed from a library's collection, and "restricted" when it's relocated to a section away from minors. The library association reported just over 100 books appeared on a banned book list last year in Indiana, including the Bible and works written by Nobel Peace Prize and National Book Award winners.
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A Tennessee education advocacy group is voicing concerns about Project 2025, which aims to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and transfer control of education funding to states.
In Tennessee, more than 1 million students are enrolled in more than 1,800 schools in 141 school districts.
Alexa Barajas Clark, interim executive director of the Education Trust-Tennessee, explained the Tennessee Legislature last year formed a study group to explore the effects of rejecting federal funding. She added undermining the federal government's role or rejecting funding altogether could have significant consequences.
"Tennessee could not ensure that all students, especially those from rural communities, students with disabilities, students from low-income backgrounds, they could not guarantee that they would continue to receive the funding and the necessary support and interventions and the services that they would need to receive an equitable education," Barajas Clark outlined.
She pointed out dismantling the department would need congressional approval. In the meantime, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee supports President-elect Trump's plan to shut down the department. Lee believes Tennessee is best equipped to decide how to spend education dollars and welcomes redirecting federal education funds to the state's public schools.
Barajas Clark stressed the need for education policies to prioritize individual students. She noted while progress has been made in addressing pandemic-related learning loss, dismantling efforts would undo gains, and further restrictions are unnecessary.
"States, especially in Tennessee, are already and have already been doing a lot of what's being proposed without the need to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education," Barajas Clark contended. "There's a voucher bill, there's monitoring of curriculum and controlling what's being taught in the classroom. All of that is being done at the state level."
Barajas Clark pointed out the Education Freedom Act of 2025 was filed the day after the election, to propose an expansion to a voucher program in Tennessee. Public schools in Tennessee serve nine of 10 students.
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