Weekend To-Do List

11/23 - 11/24

and

Nov 23, 2024

1. WWE CEO to Lead Education

READ: President-elect Donal Trump has nominated former WWE CEO Linda McMahon to lead the U.S. Department of Education. McMahon’s background includes a stint on Connecticut’s State Board of Education and leadership roles at Sacred Heart University. Trump emphasized McMahon’s business acumen and her commitment to school choice and parental rights, aligning with his broader goal to shift education oversight to the states:

“Linda will use her decades of Leadership experience, and deep understanding of both Education and Business, to empower the next Generation of American Students and Workers, and make America Number One in Education in the World,” Trump wrote. “We will send Education BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort.”

Read more from Erica Meltzer in The Hechinger Report here.

2. Polymarket 2.0? Why It’s Time To Bet on Edu

READ: Mike Goldstein took to the pages of Education Next to propose a prediction market for the education sector. Borrowing from successful prediction markets in politics, an “Edumarket” could empower education wonks and generalists to bet on the outcomes of new initiatives, injecting truth and accountability into the system:

First, some forecasters turn out to be really good. What often happens then is people seek out their opinions in advance. That’s positive.
Second, once bets are made, Bigwigs might change tack midstream. This is probably what political candidates will do more of going forward: “Polls say that we’re tied, but prediction markets show we’re way behind. We need to change strategy.”

3. Redefining Disability Support

READ: Beth Hawkins reported on new research from the Center for Learner Equity, which highlights innovative strategies used by 29 diverse charter schools to improve outcomes for students with disabilities. Researchers found that schools that emphasize inclusive cultures where general and special educators collaborate, such as co-teaching, universal design for learning, or all-staff training in behavioral supports, led to better learning outcomes than schools using more traditional methods:

“It comes back to the idea that the whole school owns the experience of students with disabilities,” says Chase Nordengren, director of research for the nonprofit organization, which focuses on improving disabled children’s outcomes. “They make sure general education teachers feel as prepared to meet the needs of students with disabilities as special educators.”

4. Is the New FAFSA Better?

READ: The Free Application for Federal Student Aid for the next academic year opened this week. The Education Department has added staff, clarified questions, and resolved many bugs since last year’s disastrous rollout of the new streamlined application form, but issues such as manual entries for students with undocumented parents or foreign schooling and minor errors in form submissions persist:

“There’s a lot of reputation rebuilding that’s going to need to happen,” said Isaiah Allen, senior director of external relations at College Possible. “How do we re-engage students and families who struggled with this over and over last year?”

Read more from Oyin Adedoyin in The Wall Street Journal here.

5. It’s Easier To Get Into College

READ: As college enrollment declines, universities are broadening admissions, and acceptance rates have risen significantly. 87% of nonprofit four-year colleges accepted at least half of their applicants in 2022. Jon Marcus at The Hechinger Report spoke with college admissions professionals and researchers who say the data should encourage students to apply to their dream schools:

Being accepted to college “is easier than people think,” said Melissa Clinedinst, NACAC’s director of research initiatives and partnerships. “That’s the message we’ve been trying to get out for years.”

6. UF Rankings Clash

READ: Stephanie Saul took a closer look at former Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse’s brief tenure as the University of Florida president. Sasse resigned just 17 months into his contract, citing his wife’s health issues, but new reporting says the friction started after Sasse questioned the board and faculty’s emphasis on national rankings:

At a meeting of the university’s faculty senate in August 2023, just before new rankings were due out, Dr. Sasse posed a question: “What is the North Star of things we organize around?”
He suggested that it should not be U.S. News. “I don’t think we should outsource our judgments about the most important things to whatever a given rating agency happens to measure,” he said, according to a publicly available recording of the meeting.
Emphasizing the ephemeral nature of the rankings, Dr. Sasse added, “U.S. News & World Report could go bankrupt or they could change their algorithms.”

Read more in The New York Times here.

7. Regional Roundup

NEW YORK: New York City schools faced a record surge in student homelessness during the 2023-24 school year, with nearly 150,000 children affected—a 23% increase from the prior year. Marianna McMurdock shared more about the city’s response in The 74 here.
TENNESSEE: Ty, a 13-year-old with autism and an intellectual disability, was arrested at his Tennessee school after a misunderstanding over a comment about his stuffed bunny, triggered by a strict new law mandating felony charges for school threats. Aliyya Swaby and Paige Pfleger reported on what the incident highlights about gaps in protection for vulnerable students. Read more in ProPublica here.
TEXAS: Jaden Edison at The Texas Tribune wrote about the Texas State Board of Education’s decision to approve Bluebonnet Learning, a controversial curriculum featuring biblical references, despite concerns over church-state violations and religious bias. Read more here.

Imbroglio will take a short break next week. We’ll be back December 7!