Thanks to the creation of four new charter schools, East Baton Rouge Parish public schools collectively have more students this year than they did last year, but the overall growth obscures continued declines at most district schools.  These trends are evident in unofficial school system enrollment totals collected last week. Pending audits by the state, Oct. 1 and Feb. 1 are enrollment count days that drive per-pupil school funding through the state’s $3.7 billion funding formula known as the Minimum Foundation Program, or MFP. view article

WASHINGTON — An analysis by the Education Department has found that its proposed new rules for handling allegations of sexual misconduct on campus would substantially decrease the number of investigations by colleges and school districts into complaints of sexual harassment, assault and rape, and save educational institutions millions of dollars over the next decade. view article

SOME TEXAS DISTRICTS THAT ARM TEACHERS SAY NO TO FEDERAL FUNDS: Some Texas school districts that arm teachers are balking at the notion of using federal funds to buy more guns or for weapons training — even though it appears Education Secretary Betsy DeVos won’t stand in their way. When it comes to liability and paperwork, it’s just easier to keep it local, they say. view article

TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) - The Tucson Unified School District could soon be sending teachers into a local facility where immigrant children are currently being housed. Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo said leadership at the Southwest Key facility wishes for TUSD to be the "sole educational provider" for students  "This is the direction they wish to pursue with us," said Trujillo.  "This is exactly what we were hoping that they would pursue or what they would want to pursue with us." view article

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has left it to Congress to decide whether states can use federal funds to purchase firearms for their schools, prompting congressional Democrats to begin a last-ditch effort to restrict those funds. Conservatives said Ms. DeVos’s stance was consistent with her championing of local school control. But Democrats and advocates denounced her decision as a tacit endorsement of federally funded firearms in schools, and federal policy experts saw the move as an abdication of the department’s core function to help districts navigate the federal bureaucracy. view article

For nearly a decade, Republican officials have been treating ordinary Oklahomans like the colonial subjects of an extractive empire. On Governor Mary Fallin’s watch, fracking companies have turned the Sooner State into the earthquake capital of the world; (literally) dictated policy to her attorney general; and strong-armed legislators into giving them a $470 million tax break — in a year when Oklahoma faced a $1.3 billion budget shortfall. view article

The Federal Commission on School Safety held its fourth and final listening session in Montgomery, Ala., on Tuesday. Representatives heard the community's thoughts on how to improve school safety. view article

News that U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is considering whether to let school districts use federal money to buy guns set off a cascade of anger from lawmakers and others, and put the polarizing issue of arming teachers back at the center of the debate over school safety. At the request of officials in Texas, DeVos and her staff are considering an idea that a grant program under the Every Student Succeeds Act could be used by school districts to pay for firearms and firearms training for school-based staff. view article

U.S. Congressman John Culberson (TX-07) today issued the following statement praising the Department of Education’s announcement of $174.2 million in federal funds going to Texas to cover the costs of educating students who were displaced as a result of Hurricane Harvey. The Temporary Emergency Impact Aid for Displaced Students program provides $359.8 million in federal funds to 20 states, assisting the victims of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, and the 2017 California wildfires. view article

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced Tuesday her department would give Texas schools more than $174 million in federal grant money to help with the cost of educating students displaced by Hurricane Harvey. It's part of $359.8 million in new federal grants being offered to 21 states and territories that worked with students displaced by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, as well as the 2017 California wildfires. view article

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced today a total of approximately $359.8 million in new federal assistance for 20 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands under the Temporary Emergency Impact Aid for Displaced Students program (Emergency Impact Aid). The program assists with the cost of educating students displaced by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria or the 2017 California wildfires. "The impact of natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires goes beyond the disaster area. The effects are felt nationwide, especially in those communities that take in displaced students and families," said Secretary DeVos. "This additional funding will ensure schools serving displaced students are able to meet their unique needs under such difficult circumstances." view article

ABBEVILLE, La. (AP) — A Louisiana school superintendent whose hefty pay increase led to the videotaped handcuffing of a complaining teacher has been put on paid administrative leave. South Louisiana news outlets report Jerome Puyau (PEE'-oh) was placed on leave Monday night after the Vermilion Parish School Board voted to investigate a list of complaints by his critics. Puyau has been Vermilion's superintendent since 2013.  view article

Former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says that political decisions about education "don't reflect" a desire to have better schools and teachers, saying that Americans "never vote on education." In his new book "How Schools Work" out on Tuesday, writes that the American education system "runs on lies." view article

If President Trump moves to merge the Departments of Labor and Education, as the Office of Management and Budget proposes, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos could be the nation's last education secretary. CBS News "Face the Nation" moderator Margaret Brennan will sit down on Sunday with Arne Duncan, who was education secretary under President Barack Obama, to ask him what he thinks about the possibility. Duncan is the author of a new book called, "How Schools Work." view article

The ability for every child to obtain a free, quality public education is a foundational principle of American society. This principle is based on the belief that everyone should be given the opportunity to learn and have an equal chance for achievement and success. While most will not dispute the value of education, some challenge the value of public education. They contend that only through competition will public schools improve, and that options such as religious schools, private schools, and charter schools run by non-profit and for-profit corporations are systemically better than public schools run by locally elected school boards. view article

Unlike any other state, Michigan faces potentially serious consequences for its dismal record in special education. Rather than wait for federal officials to intervene to help students, Michigan should look to other states for dramatic changes.  As reported in The Detroit News, the U.S. Department of Education singled out Michigan among the 50 states for failing to adequately serve children with special needs.  view article

There is a growing and disturbing trend of anti-intellectual elitism in American culture. It's the dismissal of science, the arts, and humanities and their replacement by entertainment, self-righteousness, ignorance, and deliberate gullibility. Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason, says in an article in the Washington Post, "Dumbness, to paraphrase the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has been steadily defined downward for several decades, by a combination of heretofore irresistible forces. These include the triumph of video culture over print culture; a disjunction between Americans' rising level of formal education and their shaky grasp of basic geography, science and history; and the fusion of anti-rationalism with anti-intellectualism."  view article

A Mississippi school district has been ordered to desegregate its schools after what the Justice Department called a five-decade-long legal battle. The Cleveland School District, about two hours northwest of Jackson, was told that it must consolidate its schools in order to provide real desegregation for students in the city of about 12,000. view article