NN4DA Working Group Monthly Call Schedule
The NN4DA is convening several working groups to collaborate on implementing our new federal grant and to address big issues in the field. Our state partners and their members are welcome to join. Each topic has been selected based on input from the field and on upcoming work by our state partners. Please join us and reach out to Alex directly for more information on each. The current offerings include:
Legal and Policy Developments: co-hosted by Tom Hutton, meets on the 4th Friday of the month, 1:00 pm, Mountain. Next meeting, Jan. 23. Zoom Link
- Technology and Artificial Intelligence in Authorizing: co-hosted by Marianne Blaire, meets on the 2nd Thursday of the month, at 1:00 pm, Mountain. Next Meeting, Jan. 8. Zoom Link
- Authorizer Assessment and Technical Assistance: co-hosted by Mackenzie Khan, meetings on the 3rd Wednesday of the month at 2:00 pm, Mountain. Next meeting, Dec. 17. Zoom Link
- Charter School Models & Authorizing: co-hosted by Tim Scottberg, date and time TBD.
Federal Education Programs Moving to New Homes
The big news in Washington is the recent announcement to begin dismantling, or perhaps dispersing, the US Department of Education (ED). See coverage at PBS and ABC, and in the NYT and the Washington Post (there are paywalls for these last two).
You can read commentary and analysis from Andy Rotherham at Bellwether and Matt Barnum at Chalkbeat. Both downplay the substantive impact of the announcement. Barnum notes:
“There is very little reason to think that moving various programs to other agencies will matter much for schools. Running the same programs, just out of a different department, is unlikely to affect the typical student.”
While Barnum is probably right about student experience, the move is important symbolically and logistically. In the near-to-medium term, it is likely to generate administrative headaches and complications for a lot of public administrators working at the federal, state, and local level.
The action is intended to start implementing the Administration’s plan to dismantle ED. Legally, at this stage the Department is using Inter-Agency Agreements (IAAs) to delegate the administrative work of several ED programs to other federal departments. This likely means that the staff people from ED administering programs will move with their programs and become housed in new agencies.
Once relocated, ED’s current staff affected by the transfers would continue running the programs. They would operate under their existing authorizing statutes, rules, and regulations.
If this goes smoothly, and nothing else in policy changes, these transfers might not be a big deal for recipients of federal funding.
The changes are likely to create some delays. They could also prompt some staff to leave federal service, rather than relocate. A continued “brain drain” could decease staff capacity and cause further delays and challenges. And there could be thorny issues of system integration and in HR that might further slow work. It is the federal government, after all.
As Barnum and Rotherham argue, these changes may not affect how much money eventually ends up in our public schools, but it could make it more difficult for the adults in our education systems to do their jobs and get the money to them.
The IAA’s cover the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education’s formula and competitive grants, which include Title I and the Charter School Program (CSP). Collectively the transferred programs include $28 billion in K-12 funding, and $3.1 billion for helping students in higher education. Technically, ED still exists and owns these programs. These programs are still “overseen” by the Secretary of Education, who has agreed to let other agencies administer ED’s programs for them.
The transfers did not include IDEA or the Office for Civil Rights. According to the Washington Post, ED is still exploring options for these and other programs that remain at ED.
The programs are dispersing to different places. OESE programs, including Title I and the CSP, are transferring to the Department of Labor (DOL), as are several Post-Secondary Education Programs. The Native American education programs are moving to the Department of Interior, pre-school programs are moving to Health and Human Services, and programs addressing foreign language and international education will shift to the Department of State.
My Experience the Last Time ED Programs Moved
On a personal note, I worked at ED from 1997 to 2001. When I started, the current building housing ED at 400 Maryland Avenue was being remodeled because of health concerns. The Department was temporarily working out of a fancy office building the Department rented on the Potomac. (Rumor has it, some policymakers and administrators were eventually indicted because of sketchy aspects of the rental agreement.)
When I came on as an Expert Appointment in the Charter School Program, I was one of the last staff people to join the Department in their swanky temporary building. All the offices had been claimed already. Consequently, while I was there, I worked in the building’s atrium, in its only cubical.
It was lonely, but there was an upside. When I walked in the first day, they pointed me to a stack of grey cubical walls. I was encouraged to take as many as I wanted. Unfortunately, while there was a nearly unlimited supply of wall panels, there were only a few of the bases that held them up. I was able to extend my walls by leaning the panels without bases against the panels supported by bases. By leaning another panel, the opposite direction against the first leaning panel, I could extend my cubical walls in a zigging-and-zagging line indefinitely. I exercised some restraint, but still built a long, and highly unstable, “rectanglical”.
I staked out and claimed my turf in the bureaucracy — both figurately and physically. I eventually seized a sizable portion of the atrium for my Charter School Program house of cards. OSHA probably would not have approved, but it was fun.
When we eventually moved back into 400 Maryland Avenue, it was wonderful to peak over my new, and much smaller, cubical wall. I could chat with the guy who led the Magnet School Program about the differences between charter schools and magnets and our respective programs. But ultimately, all the comings and goings didn’t change the work much for either of us.
To learn more about changes to federal policy law, join the NN4DA calls on Policy and Legal Developments.