President Trump on Wednesday signed a list of executive actions aimed at both higher education and K-12 schools.
Another promises new discipline guidance for K-12 schools, with the goal of “ensuring school discipline policies are based on objective behavior, not DEI,” the White House said in a statement.
The collection of orders aim to cement Trump’s conservative agenda when it comes to education in America, including rolling back the policies from the Biden administration, bolstering workforce training, improving teaching about artificial intelligence in schools, and launching a new White House initiative on historically Black colleges and universities.
The order pertaining to directs McMahon to “overhaul” the system. colleges are required to go through to receive federal financial aid, aimed at ensuring that a program meets an acceptable level of quality.
Colleges to disclose foreign gifts
Another executive action warns that federal grants for universities could be revoked if schools do not complete “full and timely disclosure of foreign funding.”
In a briefing announcing the order, White House staff secretary Will Scharf said, “We believe that certain universities, including, for example, Harvard, have routinely violated this law, and this law has not been effectively enforced.”
Federal law already requires schools to disclose gifts or contracts worth $250,000 or more from foreign entities. This new order doesn’t provide specific thresholds or new rules, but instead asserts that universities “provide the American people with greater access to general information about foreign funding.”
Changes to school discipline policy
In an executive action aimed at K-12 schools, Trump requested new federal guidance on school discipline. The measure calls for revoking previous policies by Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama aimed at reducing racial disparities in, for example, suspensions and expulsions. The new guidance would prohibit using “racially preferential discipline practices.”
The other executive actions issued Wednesday aim to enhance “high-quality education” at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs); to strengthen workforce programs like apprenticeships in high-demand trade jobs; and to establish a White House task force on teaching artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, prioritizing research on the use of AI in education, among other initiatives.
Source: www.npr.org