Trump to seek merger of Education, Labor departments Presented by Comcast

With help from Mel Leonor and Michael Stratford

TRUMP TO SEEK MERGER OF EDUCATION, LABOR DEPARTMENTS: The Trump administration plans to advocate a merger of the Education and Labor departments, according to two individuals familiar with the proposal who declined to be named because it's not yet public. The new combined agency, if approved by Congress, would be part of a broader government reorganization plan that could be announced as soon as today, POLITICO reported.


— Not exactly new: The plan, if undertaken by the administration, would pose a heavy political and legislative lift — and past attempts to eliminate the Education Department haven’t proven popular or successful in Congress. Until a reorganization of agencies in the 1970s, federal social programs were managed by the now-defunct Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Michael Stratford and I have the story.

— The Education Department is in the middle of its own restructuring, including a massive shakeup of the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. And as part of its overall agency reform plan submitted to the Office of Management and Budget last fall, the Education Department had proposed taking over a slew of programs that are currently managed by the Labor Department. It did not propose a merger with Labor.

— On the calendar today: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will attend a Cabinet meeting.

GOOD THURSDAY MORNING, JUNE 21. I quickly blew through the first two seasons of “Queer Eye” on Netflix and now there’s a serious void in my life. I’ve moved on to Jonathan Van Ness’ podcast, “Getting Curious,” but I need a third season of “Queer Eye” ASAP. Send boxes of tissues to: [email protected] or @caitlinzemma. Send events to: [email protected]. And follow us on Twitter: @Morning_Edu and @POLITICOPro.

WHITE HOUSE SCHOOL SAFETY PANEL CONSIDERS ‘VIOLENT ENTERTAINMENT’: Four Cabinet members this afternoon will hear about the possible links between school violence, entertainment, social media and cyberbullying at a public meeting of the Federal Commission on School Safety. One expert invited to testify on “youth consumption of violent entertainment” plans to tell the White House panel that “this is kind of a waste of time, honestly.”

— Christopher Ferguson, an associate professor in the department of psychology at Stetson University, told Morning Education in an interview that if the commission is “really serious about school violence, this is not something they should be focused on. It’s essentially a moral panic, if anything.”

— Ferguson, who said he received the invitation last week and has about eight minutes to speak this afternoon, plans to say that violent entertainment doesn’t directly exacerbate youth violence and that research has been inconsistent. For example, one study suggests that reading violent passages from the Bible can increase aggression, Ferguson said. But “things like mental health and family environments tend to be fairly steady predictors of youth violence,” he said.

— Rowell Huesmann, a professor of psychology and communication studies at the University of Michigan, plans to argue that violent video games and entertainment can increase aggression in children, especially when they’re already primed for violent behavior.

---But according to a prepared statement shared with Morning Education, Huesmann plans to stress that serious acts of violence like school shootings can’t be attributed to one factor. Rather, a convergence of personal and environmental factors can contribute to a serious act of violence, like growing up exposed to a lot of violence and being ostracized by peers, Huesmann plans to say.

— The meeting this afternoon is expected to include all four Cabinet members who make up the panel: DeVos, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. It would be the first time all have attended a public meeting of the school safety commission. DeVos chairs the commission, which was created after the Valentine's Day school shooting in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 people dead.

— Two other sessions during the meeting will focus on "cyberbullying and social media” and the "effects of press coverage on mass shootings," according to an Education Department release. The Federal Commission on School Safety has already held one public listening session and paid a field visit to a Maryland school to discuss behavioral interventions and support for students. Today’s meeting will be held at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and will livestream here starting at 2 p.m. More details.

— A number of organizations, including the American School Counselor Association and the National Association of School Psychologists, are urging the White House school safety commission to consider a framework the groups have already agreed upon to improve school safety. More on that here.

TRUMP SIGNS ORDER HALTING FAMILY SEPARATIONS: President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order ending the administration’s policy of separating migrant families crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, abandoning the president’s previous stance that only Congress can fix the problem. The order directs the Department of Homeland Security to keep families together and instructs the Department of Defense to help house the families because many of the detention centers are at capacity, POLITICO reported.

— But the executive order contains no language addressing how these children will be reunited with their parents, POLITICO Pro’s Ted Hesson reports. One potential obstacle to reuniting families is poor record-keeping. “The biggest problem, as far as I can tell, is where the kids’ records don’t have information on the parents,” said one Homeland Security Department official. “I don’t know how they’re going to go about fixing that.”

— Prince George’s County in Maryland has served thousands of unaccompanied migrant children in recent years. More than 4,700 were released by the Office of Refugee Resettlement to the county between 2014 and 2018, according to federal records. Most ended up back with their parents, while around 1,200 were released to extended family, said Patricia Chiancone, an international student specialist for Prince George's County Public Schools.

— Chiancone told Morning Education in an interview that, to her knowledge, the county hasn’t yet received any children who were recently separated from their parents. But the trauma of that separation can add another layer to educating unaccompanied migrant children, ensuring that they get the services they need and making them feel welcome.

— Unaccompanied migrant children are already dealing with a new country, a new language, maybe new family and often the traumatic process of crossing into the U.S., she said. “One of the most important things, especially younger children, is a sense of safety and security,” Chiancone said. “If they’re reunited with their parents, then that’s going to go a long way toward helping that.” Children who aren’t reunited with their parents could be dealing with a lot of “attachment issues, fear of participating in school and in other activities,” she said.

— “If they’re not reunited with their parents and we don’t know if they’re going to be reunited, it’s going to add quite a lot of anxiety and potential depression for the kids,” she said. “What’s going on now will be harmful to their education and their progress.”

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT SUED OVER CONTACTS WITH LOAN INDUSTRY ABOUT PREEMPTION: Two advocacy groups this morning plan to sue to force the Education Department to turn over documents related to its contacts with the student loan industry. American Oversight and the National Student Legal Defense Network are filing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to compel the department to release documents relating to its communication with two student loan industry groups about Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ guidance about federal preemption. DeVos earlier this year, in response to lobbying to industry groups, issued a declaration that states lack the authority to regulate student loan companies. Read the complaint here.

BILL WOULD USE ENERGY REVENUES TO BOOST EDUCATION FUNDING: A House Natural Resources subcommittee this afternoon will hold a hearing on a bill to require a portion of revenues from new federal mineral and geothermal leases to be paid to states to bolster public K-12 education funding and higher education funding. The bill, H.R. 5859 (115), was introduced in May by Rep. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.).

— “The teachers’ strikes in Colorado and across the country over recent weeks have reignited the conversation around teacher pay and education resources,” Tipton said in a release at the time. “By directing a greater portion of energy revenues to fund education, we can help bridge some of these gaps and make critical investments in the future of our children.” The hearing starts at 2 p.m. in 1324 Longworth. More details.

— On the Hill next week: The Senate education committee will mark up a bill reauthorizing the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, under which the federal government spends about $1 billion each year on CTE programs. The law hasn’t seen an update since 2006. The committee will also consider the nomination of Scott Stump for the Education Department’s top CTE office. Both are scheduled for June 26 at 2:30 p.m. in 430 Dirksen.

— The National Governors Association is urging lawmakers on the Senate education committee to keep governors in mind when it comes to a reauthorization of the law. “Perkins must be connected to state economic development and workforce systems,” the organization writes in a new letter. “As the only official in the state who oversees all of these systems, governors are well-equipped to make those connections in close partnership with their state CTE directors.”

REPORT: GATES PROJECT TO IMPROVE TEACHING WORKFORCE FLOPS: A $200 million, seven-year initiative that sought to improve the teaching workforce failed to boost student outcomes and eventually garnered local opposition, according to a new report by the RAND Corporation and the American Institutes for Research.

— The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation initiative rolled out across three school districts and four charter networks sought to prove that establishing performance-based pay, targeting teacher weaknesses, and rolling out new policies around teacher hiring and firing would lead to “greatly improved” student outcomes. But as the initiative neared its end, researchers found that “the desired outcomes had not yet materialized.”

— The report found uneven implementation of the initiative and no significant improvement in student achievement in math or reading, or graduation rates. While schools upped their attention to the effectiveness of their teachers, researchers did not find that effective teachers were more likely to be retained than ineffective ones.

— The findings back a decision from the Gates Foundation, announced by Bill Gates earlier this year, to turn away from its teacher evaluation work and try a new approach. During the last decade, the foundation’s Measures of Effective Teaching project partly drove a push for better teacher evaluation systems at the state level — resulting in controversial formulas in some places and teacher furor.

— “We have taken these lessons to heart, and they are reflected in the work that we’re doing moving forward,” said Allan Golston, president the U.S. program at the Gates Foundation, in a statement. Read more here.

ICYMI: DEVOS URGED TO PROBE CHINESE SPYING AT U.S. UNIVERSITIES: More than two dozen members of Congress urged DeVos in a letter this week to launch an investigation into possible attempts by Chinese organizations to steal research and technology from U.S. universities. The letter from both House and Senate members called on her to require American universities working with Huawei Technologies to turn over information on their joint projects. Huawei is a Chinese telecommunications firm that provides funding for research in communications, computer science, engineering and more. Benjamin Wermund has more.

SYLLABUS

— Colorado school district pays $1.3 million to settle landmark special education case: Chalkbeat.

— Betsy DeVos’ deputy privately admitted that rescinding the Obama administration’s school discipline policy could hurt kids: HuffPo.

— Judge declares Kentucky's pension overhaul bill unconstitutional: Lexington Herald-Leader.

— DeVos-backed “brain performance” company loses appeal over misleading advertising: Education Week.

— Ohio State to shut down sexual assault support center: WOSU.

— “There was no cyber attack,” investigator says of Tennessee’s online testing shutdown: Chalkbeat.

Am I very far from the Pro Education team? @caitlinzemma ([email protected]), @khefling ([email protected]), @mstratford ([email protected]), @BenjaminEW ([email protected]), @MelLeonor_ ([email protected]) and @JaneNorman ([email protected]).

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