With help from Mackenzie Wilkes and Bianca Quilantan
RACES TO WATCH — Few down-ballot elections set to end tomorrow have been quite as vicious, sophisticated, expensive and injected with dueling endorsements from political committees and national organizations as the campaigns in the Keystone State.
— Pennsylvania is a good reminder of the power school boards possess. In the absence of a sufficiently friendly state legislature and governor, conservative-led boards can (and do) implement policies in line with the Republican Party’s mood. Suburban Pennsylvania offers key examples of this dynamic, but raises the question of whether a moderate-liberal backlash is brewing on Nov. 7.
— One place to watch is the Central Bucks School District outside Philadelphia, where conservatives won a 6-3 majority on the board in 2021 and set out fights over library book restrictions, curriculum and student gender identity. Now a slate of five liberal candidates is trying to seize power.
— A venture capitalist put up hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend Republican control and support other Pennsylvania school campaigns. Moms for Liberty chapters and the 1776 Project PAC have endorsed candidates in counties throughout the state. Progressive organizations, teacher unions and groups linked to federal Democratic lawmakers including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are fighting back through races in State College and big-city suburbs.
— “What you see in Pennsylvania is a lot of Moms for Liberty chapters that are not happy with the policy in their districts, or want to be more involved in helping shape the policies in their district,” organization co-founder Tiffany Justice told Weekly Education. “They’re exercising their ability to endorse in elections and help get people elected to office.”
— One Pennsylvania progressive organizer, though, is calling Central Bucks for her side.
— “I think that we know that the majority of people don’t agree with what has been happening in these areas,” said Ronna Dewey, the state director of the Red Wine and Blue organization that has marshaled suburban women to fight conservative school candidates.
— “Most voters want to go back to school being about learning and education — and not culture wars,” Dewey said. “Even if you’re registered a certain way to vote, it doesn’t mean you’re gonna vote that way. … You can vote with your heart and your mind — and I think that we’re going to see some big wins, particularly in Central Bucks.”
IT’S MONDAY, NOV. 6. WELCOME TO WEEKLY EDUCATION. Election Day 2023 will be full of lessons for 2024. Here’s a cheat sheet on the 10 races that both election nerds and casual observers should be following to see where voters stand a year before the presidential election.
Reach out with tips to today’s host at [email protected] and also my colleagues Michael Stratford ([email protected]), Bianca Quilantan ([email protected]) and Mackenzie Wilkes ([email protected]). And don’t forget to follow us on whatever it is people call Twitter now: @Morning_Edu and @POLITICOPro.
RECOUP FOR-PROFIT FUNDS — Congressional Democrats want Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to go after the University of Phoenix, one of the nation’s largest for-profit schools, and the online for-profit Ashford University to pay for the more than $100 million in student loan relief discharged through borrower defense claims.
— The Education Department in September announced $37 million of loan forgiveness for former students who it determined were misled by the University of Phoenix, and in August discharged $72 million in student loans for Ashford University students. Biden administration officials said they would seek to recover some of the $72 million in loan forgiveness from the University of Arizona, which now owns Ashford and renamed it the University of Arizona Global Campus.
— Nearly a dozen lawmakers, led by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), applauded Cardona’s decision to provide relief to those students and expressed support for the department to go after the schools.
— “While this is a victory for defrauded students, it is Ashford and Phoenix, not taxpayers, which should foot the bill,” lawmakers wrote. “We therefore urge the Department to aggressively recoup funds from these institutions. This would send a strong warning signal to other predatory for-profit colleges that there are substantial financial consequences for defrauding students.” More from Bianca.
EASING LOAN REPAYMENTS — A student loan repayment program offering up to $250,000 for substance abuse professionals who work directly in treatment or recovery services expired at the end of September.
— Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) are introducing legislation this morning to reauthorize the program.
— Their bill, the Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery Loan Repayment Program Reauthorization Act, calls for more funding for the program by increasing the amount authorized from $25 million to $50 million. It would also make the repayment tax-exempt. A reauthorization bill was introduced in the House earlier this year, with a slightly smaller pitch of $40 million and didn’t include the tax exemption.
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FIRST LOOK — Majorities of parents in three states that do not offer taxpayer-funded education savings accounts support the concept, according to recent polling released today by a technology firm that administers the voucher programs.
— A nine-state September survey conducted by John Zogby Strategies on behalf of the New York-based Odyssey firm concluded that parents in Alabama, Pennsylvania and California wanted savings-account programs to be made available in their states. ESA’s allow families to use public funds on a variety of expenses including private school tuition and other education-related items. You can see the crosstabs and polling memo summary here.
— The online poll of 2,714 parents was conducted Sept. 1-5. The margins-of-sample error was +/-5.7 percentage points for each state. States polled include Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, South Carolina, Utah, Alabama, California, and Pennsylvania.
EMHOFF TALKS ANTISEMITISM — Second gentleman Doug Emhoff said this week that a “crisis of antisemitism” has broken out in schools and on college campuses in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel and ensuing military response against Gaza, POLITICO’s Eugene Daniels reports.
— “It’s an antisemitism crisis to be clear on our campuses and even in our K-12 schools, on our streets and our markets, wherever you go. It’s unprecedented,” Emhoff said during a trip to London.
— “There seems to be a conflation of not being able to separate the actions of the Israeli government and Jewish people and taking out feelings that they have about the actions of the Israeli government on all Jews, irrespective of how those Jews may also feel about the actions of the Israeli government,” he said.
— “And that is very concerning. I think you’re seeing that in a lot of the actions on college campuses and now K-12 schools and a lot of the discourse — not able to deconstruct what’s happening and put in a box.”
CONFUCIUS INSTITUTES DECLINE — The number of Confucius Institutes at U.S. universities and colleges has declined since 2019, the Government Accountability Office recently concluded, from about 100 to fewer than five.
— Schools most commonly cited the potential loss of federal funding and external pressures as contributing to their decision to close their Confucius Institute, the GAO said based on January surveys of nearly 100 that either had open institutes or closed their programs since 2019.
— Most schools did not indicate having concerns about security or other risks related to the operation of Confucius Institutes, the GAO found. Eighty percent of survey respondents stated that they were “not at all concerned” when asked about their concerns related to espionage, intellectual property theft, or other national security threats based on experiences with their Confucius Institute.
— The GAO’s analysis mostly covered higher education programs that have seen sharp rebukes from lawmakers in recent years, but the findings also hinted at some significant impacts on regional K-12 education programs.
— Based on an open-ended survey question, 21 respondents from schools that their closed Confucius Institutes indicated the institute provided Chinese educational programs for K-12 schools. Several survey respondents, including some interviewed by the GAO, indicated that K-12 Chinese educational programs did not continue after their Confucius Institute closed.
Elected leaders from both political parties are often using the selection of state superintendents as an opportunity to make political statements — to increasingly predictable effect, according to a recent analysis from the ILO Group.
An examination of the last two state superintendents appointed in 39 states (and Washington, D.C.) found that Democratic-led states are choosing a district superintendent or administrator more than half of the time. Republicans are more likely to choose someone with a political background, with a growing emphasis on addressing cultural issues in schools.
Researchers found both parties have a clear preference for choosing superintendents whose careers began or developed in that state.
— Portland Public Schools strike closes schools Monday as negotiations continue: The Oregonian
— Their prophecy of enduring Democratic rule fell apart. They blame college grads: POLITICO Magazine
— Virginia school board elections face a pivotal moment as a cozy corner of democracy turns toxic: The Associated Press
— The Texas House’s new priority education bill offers the most concessions yet to sway voucher skeptics: The Texas Tribune
— The billionaire donor taking on his alma mater over antisemitism: The Wall Street Journal
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