In this article, we bring to you the five most popular articles of 2025, allowing you to reconnect with the stories that inspired superintendents’ decision-making amid one of the most tumultuous years for public education.

1. This is what a smaller Education Department might look like

In the first few months of President Donald Trump’s second term, District 91¿´Æ¬istration closely tracked the major changes made to public education, including the billion-dollar federal funding freeze, the administration’s “first steps” to dismantle the Education Department and more.

Read the article here.

2. NOLA is the latest big district to pick new leader

Managing Editor Matt Zalaznick’s long-running series showcasing the latest superintendent transitions nationwide highlights appointments in high-profile districts and the rise of female leaders in the superintendency.

Read the article here.

3. What will happen to districts that defy Trump’s DEI order?

During the first months of Trump’s order requiring schools to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion policies, nearly a dozen states publicly declared they would not comply. Marguerite Roza, director of Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab, outlined the potential funding consequences for districts in those areas.

Read the article here.

4. Sal Khan: How to navigate AI with Trump’s order

On a federal level, the Trump 91¿´Æ¬istration’s executive order to advance AI education is a step in the right direction, Sal Khan, CEO of , told District 91¿´Æ¬istration in April. He explained why students—and teachers—must be well-trained in AI.

Read the article here.

5. Latest Trump ‘skinny budget’ draws a warning from AASA

Over the summer, the Trump administration introduced its “skinny budget” proposal for fiscal year 2026, which aimed to cut federal spending by $163 billion, including a nearly 15% reduction to the Education Department’s budget.

The announcement drew large concern from education organizations, including AASA, The School Superintendents Association, which warned that vital K12 funding programs would see significant reductions.

Read the article here.

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Note: This story will be updated as more news surfaces regarding Trump’s plans for education.

Trump’s K12 education plan

In our past conversations with experts, many have told us that Trump is not overly focused on K12 education. Arman Jaffer, a policy aide to the chief technology officer during the Trump 91¿´Æ¬istration, argues the Trump administration will not spend much political capital making structural changes to the national education system.

“I expect the new administration to explore how technology and alternative school models can be used to achieve improved student performance,” says Jaffer, CEO and founder of Brisk Teaching, an AI teaching platform. “In a nod to some of the persistent cultural clashes happening at school boards across the country, we can also expect the new Republican administration to advocate for more local control and parent involvement in curriculum.”

One policy in particular continues to make media headlines, and that’s Trump’s proposal to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, which would transfer more power to the states, parents and local governments, according to the website.

Several presidents in the past have tried to limit the department’s power, including our 40th president, , who also argued that education should be managed at the state and local levels.

Basil Smikle, professor and director of the M.S. in Nonprofit Management Program at Columbia University School of Professional Studies, says that dismantling the department altogether is arguably the most impactful policy Trump has outlined for K12.

“Conservative and Democratic lawmakers alike are in districts that get substantial funding, particularly in red states and rural communities where many schools benefit from Title I funds,” Smikle says.

Obviously, no Republican president has successfully closed the department because of the difficulty of eliminating all the programs that the DOE supports. The more likely scenario, Smikle explains, is a scaling down of equity and civil rights offices that will impact everything from school discipline to graduation rates and curriculum.

Additionally, Trump may use the agency to push for more school choice options in the form of education tax credits, charter schools and voucher programs.

“Since many of these programs and indeed much education policy is determined at the state level, he’ll need to rely on a carrot and stick approach—support states when they comply with federal programs, i.e., Race to the Top, or withhold funding for states that reject his proposals,” Smikle says.

As far as curriculum goes, Smikle says leaders should expect more local battles over content. Constituencies supportive of Trump’s platform may also assert more power over school- and district-level decisions “now that they have an ally in the White House.”

About Linda McMahon

McMahon has an extensive resume ranging from experience in business and politics. Her relationship with Trump dates back to the mid-2000s when he appeared at Wrestlemania in 2007.

Her political journey began in 2010 after she stepped down from her leadership role in the WWE to run for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut. She lost both times she ran, to Richard Blumenthal in her first campaign and to Chris Murphy in 2012.

She also has been a prominent supporter of Trump’s presidential campaigns. McMahon gave six million dollars to Trump after he earned the presidential nomination in 2016, the Associated Press .

One month into his previous presidency, Trump appointed McMahon to lead the , where she provided entrepreneurs with capital to support their businesses and federal contracting opportunities. The agency also distributed financial assistance following declared disasters.

However, her nomination has already met with some controversy. According to The Hill, McMahon has been accused of negligence regarding a sexual abuse case while she was with the WWE.

The lawsuit, , accuses her and her husband, Vince McMahon, of knowing about a ringside announcer who allegedly abused young boys for years but refused to do anything about it. The plaintiffs, who remain unnamed, said announcer Mel Phillips, who died in 2012, sexually assaulted them when they served as “ring boys” in the 1980s. They were responsible for running errands and setting up venues for fights.

“Thanks to the bravery of our clients, we finally have a chance to hold accountable those who allowed and enabled the open, rampant sexual abuse of these young boys,” Gren Gutzler, a partner at DiCello Levitt, who is leading the litigation, said in a .

McMahon has since denied the allegations and plans to fight against the suit.

More from 91¿´Æ¬: Education policy: How it will shift under new administration

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Some eight million youth have entered the electorate in 2024, from the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) suggests. This election season’s newest voters are a diverse bunch, too, as nearly half of newly eligible voters are people of color.

Eighty-three percent of Gen Z plan to vote this year, a new survey from the National Society of High School Scholars suggests. Seventy percent of them already know which candidate they’ll vote for. Both male (68%) and female (77%) respondents believe the U.S. is ready for a female president.

One interesting finding is that nearly every Gen Z respondent (90%) believes there should be an age cap for presidential candidates. A quarter of them say 60 is too old to run for president.

Issues at stake

When asked to rank their top concerns this election season, the economy, healthcare, women’s rights and the environment were most commonly named. Here’s how those issues vary in importance by gender:

• Top three issues for women: economy (27%), women’s rights (24%) and healthcare (20%)
• Top three issues for men: economy (47%), healthcare (11%), the environment (10%) and immigration (10%)

Nearly three-fourths of Gen Z say their high school has prepared them to make informed decisions about voting. Nearly 25% of them have participated in voter education initiatives at their school or communities.

91¿´Æ¬ election coverage

Be sure to check out District ´¡»å³¾¾±²Ô¾±²õ³Ù°ù²¹³Ù¾±´Ç²Ô’²õÌýlatest election coverage below:

Predicting what lies ahead—and what doesn’t—for K12 this election

A lot is riding on the 2024 presidential election. In whom should educators instill their trust to ensure K12 education is revered and teachers respected? It’s hard to say.

K12 debuts in vice presidential debate

Their discussions focused primarily on gun violence and what steps needed to be taken to prevent school shootings.

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According to data published in April, some 33% or more of teachers trust ²Ô±ð¾±³Ù³ó±ð°ùÌýpolitical party to improve several education issues. This includes topics like funding (33%), teacher pay (35%), access to high-quality education (31%), shaping school curriculum (42%) and making schools safer (35%).

Meanwhile, the majority of public school teachers identify as Democrats, the research adds. Only 35% lean to the right. Could our current presidential candidates garner more support from America’s teachers?

The National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union, in July and thanked President Biden for his leadership.

“Our students’ future will be shaped by the decisions made in the Oval Office over the next four years, and the future of our public schools, freedoms and democracy is on the ballot this fall,” said Becky Pringle, president of the NEA.

Harris and K12

The union’s support for Harris dates back to 2017 when she was a U.S. senator. She received an “A” grade from the NEA based on how she voted on critical legislation, spanning public education to labor.

During her 2020 presidential campaign, she advocated for teacher pay increases of $13,500 for every teacher, universal preschool and increased funding for Head Start programs. Most recently, she’s played a key role in securing billions in federal funding through the American Rescue Plan, which helped support schools as they recovered from the pandemic.

Also under the current administration, $167 billion in student loans has been wiped clean, impacting roughly 4.75 million Americans and counting.

“One out of every 10 federal student loan borrowers approved for debt relief means one out of every 10 borrowers now has financial breathing room and a burden lifted,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.

K12 education is typically a “party splitter” for Democrats, says Dale Chu, an independent consultant on education programs and policy and a senior visiting fellow at the Thomas Fordham Institute, an education reform think tank. But until Harris selects her secretary of education, if elected, it’s hard to say how education might be impacted.

“Consider the parlor game among insiders about who Harris might pick for her cabinet and note how education is usually off of the list,” says Chu. “But if I were to put money down, my guess is that Harris would largely hew to Biden’s education priorities, which on K12 meant no daylight between the White House and the teachers unions.”

Donald Trump and Project 2025

With former president Donald Trump, the elephant in the room for many educators is . The policy aims to dismantle the Department of Education by shifting control and funding of education from D.C. to parents and state and local governments.

Weadé James, senior director for K12 Education Policy at the Center for American Progress, says Project 2025 puts education at risk. “The proposal to eliminate the Department of Education is very concerning,” she says. The Department has numerous responsibilities, like ensuring states have adequate funding to provide equal access to education for students with disabilities under the (IDEA).

“The Department of Education is actually the least funded in terms of cabinet agencies,” explains James.

Title I support for America’s most marginalized students would also be in jeopardy under Project 2025. According to James, the current playbook seeks to phase out such funding over 10 years and relinquish that responsibility over to the states.

However, these ideas ring hollow for Chu, who says the GOP has been trying to eliminate the Department of Education since Jimmy Carter. “When Trump talks about deep-sixing it, he’s all hat and no cattle,” says Chu. “Which is to say, he’s got no plan to rally popular support for shutting the agency down, let alone marshaling the votes needed on Capitol Hill to make it happen.”

Trump’s impact on K12 during his first term was hardly measurable, adds Chu. Instead, he’ll likely feed off of COVID’s negative impact to propel his larger movements.

“In a second term, he’ll stoke the culture war fires when it’s convenient and some will sympathize with his calls for private school choice, but that’s in large part because many parents are still frustrated about what happened with their kids during COVID,” explains Chu.

School vouchers

One topic that James says is gaining rapid momentum is the school choice movement. As of April, at least 29 states have adopted some form of an Education Savings Account, according to the .

James worries that such policies will dramatically impact public school funding. “Parents can now pursue vouchers using public school dollars to send their children to private schools,” she says. “Not just private schools, but we’re also seeing the evolution of different choice options. Now, we’re seeing micro-schools.”

We don’t know how these schools are structured, either, she adds. There’s no federal definition of a micro-school, although there are numerous state definitions and policies.

“None of them are using state curriculum, we don’t know who the educators are,” she says. “There are a lot of concerns there when we think about school choice and the layers to it.”

And finally, she questions who’s benefitting from private school vouchers. Many states only award as much as $8,000 when average tuition costs are much higher.

“It’s going to benefit the parents who have the means to make up the difference,” she explains. “There are concerns surrounding equity when we think about the use of taxpayer dollars to fund private and religious education.”

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Political turmoil in recent years has led to higher voter turnout in our younger population than ever. In the 2022 midterm elections, it’s estimated that 27% of youth ages 18-29 cast a ballot, according to from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University. The current political climate is again boosting engagement, but how is it impacting college choice?

Political considerations are a factor in college choice for roughly three out of every four students, the research affirms. For instance, liberal-leaning students say they’re most concerned about attending college in states like Texas, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and South Carolina.

On the other end of the political spectrum, conservative students would rather not attend college in California and New York.

“Understanding these dynamics is essential for educational institutions aiming to attract and retain a diverse student body,” said Jarrett Smith, senior vice president at Echo Delta, which published the report.

Additionally, the report explains what political factors keep students from applying to a particular college. Survey respondents cited issues such as racial equity (58%), healthcare (56%) and freedom of speech (53%) as their top three concerns.

Higher education institutions offset these fears by fostering a welcoming and inclusive campus, the research suggests. Students themselves expressed a desire for colleges to maintain open communication about their political stances and promote free speech on campus.

Liberal and politically active students prefer institutions to take transparent stances on political issues, especially those surrounding racial equity and freedom of speech.

More from 91¿´Æ¬: State of the American student: Here are 2 big perspectives

As for K12, we encourage you to tap into the data regarding how students gather information about a college’s political climate. This may be useful to your college and career coaches as they guide students throughout their college searches.

For example, 86% of prospective college students look for information that will help them gauge the political environment of a college. Students say they use social media, college websites and personal networks to inform their decisions. They also look for other context clues like looking into student-run clubs, organizations, academic programs and who colleges invite as featured speakers.

We encourage you to take a deeper look at the report, which you can access .

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In a fundraising email, the state GOP explained that students are at risk of “LGBTQ indoctrination.”

“Our next policy aims to save Colorado children from progressive Democrats who want to turn more kids trans by requiring teachers to use ‘pronouns’ that do not make any sense and cause gender confusion,” the email reads.

The authors specifically cited backlash to , which was passed last month. “In reality, all Colorado parents should be aiming to remove their kids from public education,” according to the strongly-worded email.

“The bill, sponsored by four far-left progressives, two of whom do not know their own genders and do not have children, requires teachers in public schools to use ‘pronouns’ for kids with gender confusion that do not align with their actual specific gender, without parental consent.”

Senator Faith Winter, D- Adams, Broomfield, and Weld Counties, one of the bill’s sponsors, said the law is critical to ensuring the safety of students.

“This bill is asking educators to use a child’s chosen name when they’re in school,” reports. “And this is really important because children are going to learn better, have better access to education, and this is going to save lives.”

More from 91¿´Æ¬: School closures: More big districts are making tough choices

The state GOP also encouraged families who feel their rights are being stripped to identify religious exemptions that may serve as a case against the new state policy.

“The goal here is clear; the Colorado legislature seeks to break down the family unit while convincing kids that government knows best,” the email reads.

They referred to one California teacher who recently won $360,000 in a lawsuit against the district after NBC News reports.

“People of faith should be allowed to maintain their personal beliefs without fear of losing their job,” Mariah Gondeiro, vice president and legal counsel for Advocates for Faith & Freedom, the nonprofit law firm that filed on Jessica Tapia’s behalf, said in a statement last year. “Jessica Tapia was not dismissed for any wrongdoing, rather, she was dismissed for her Christian beliefs. This is a clear violation of our Constitutional rights.”

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Nearly four in 10 LGBTQ+ teens and young adults reported that they or their families have considered moving to another state because of anti-LGBTQ+ policies and laws, such as those that restrict teaching about gender identity. The percentage is even higher among transgender and non-binary young people.

Almost all respondents (90%) said these laws and policies harmed their well-being somewhat or “a lot.” But those are just a few findings among a larger set of troubling conclusions reached by the 2024 edition of Trevor Project’s annual .

‘Talking Out of School’ podcast: One way superintendents learn to solve wicked problems

“There is no doubt that this has been a challenging year for LGBTQ+ young people,” says the survey of 18,000 members of the LGBTQ+ community ages 13 to 24 across the U.S. “Yet despite these challenges, including the historic wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that has targeted them, these young people remain powerful, optimistic and resilient.”

Similar to past surveys, the 2024 poll found that LGBTQ+ young people continue to experience disproportionate rates of depression, anxiety, risk of suicide and bullying. Just about one-third of high school and college students reported being verbally harassed due to perceptions about their gender identity or sexual orientation. Nearly 50% of the high schoolers said they had been bullied in the past year.

Similar to 2023, about 40% of LGBTQ+ young people reported “seriously considering” suicide in the past year and about half who sought mental health care could not find it.

How to help LGBTQ+ students

The report also offers guidance on how schools, campuses and communities can better support LGBTQ+ young people. Around half of the respondents said their school was gender-affirming and the poll found lower rates of suicide attempts among this group.

School leaders can provide LGBTQ+-affirming spaces, such as gender-neutral bathrooms, and allow young people to use preferred names and pronouns. A large majority of LGBTQ+ students said they have at least one adult at school who supports their LGBTQ+ identity.

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A national keyword search conducted by K12 data tracker shows how often four big topics—including mental health and career and technical education—are covered at meetings nationally. Burbio has been providing regular updates on what school boards in the largest districts have been talking about.

Its most recent analysis looks at this year’s school board discussions in districts serving about half of the students in California, Florida, Texas, New England and parts of the Deep South. Not surprisingly, there’s some evidence of political lines being drawn, particularly around SEL and related topics.

Read more from 91¿´Æ¬: Superintendent turnover—lots of new hires, just a few departures

Student mental health has been an ongoing and major concern for administrators. Mental health and related terms such as “therapist” were mentioned at nearly half of the meetings in California and more than 40% of the sessions in New England, compared to just 13% in Texas.

The SEL divide is similar, though the term was mentioned less often in all parts of the country. Social-emotional learning was covered at nearly 40% of meetings in New England and more than 20% in California, compared to around 5% in Florida and Texas, both of which have laws restricting the teaching of sensitive topics such as race and LGBTQ issues.

CTE and security

Regional divides are narrower for career preparedness and safety. CTE was on the agenda at nearly 75% of Florida school boarding meetings, 63% in California and half of the meetings in the South.

Security was most common in Florida (78% of meetings), Texas (64%) and New England (54%).

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For educators, however, it’s been a unique tool used to connect with students and build a positive school culture. How would K12 be impacted if TikTok were to be banned? TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew says the app isn’t going anywhere.

Our CEO Shou Chew's response to the TikTok ban:

— TikTok Policy (@TikTokPolicy)

We won’t get into whether TikTok is a national public safety threat, but if you want to read up on the controversy, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan nonprofit policy research organization, recently published a describing the recent legislation and the alleged risks TikTok poses on its U.S. audience.

Instead, we want to know if its exile would impact the work of those in K12 education who have been using it for good. Educators constantly go viral for the posts they traditionally label #teachersoftiktok. Some are rather comical, allowing teachers to express themselves in hopes that other educators can relate. Take this one, for example:

We’re teachers… @Laura Stringfellow

David Schexnaydre, executive director of secondary schools at St. Charles Parish Public Schools and Louisiana’s 2023 Principal of the Year, is another example. He says he regularly used the app to build a positive school culture.

Every Monday, students at Harry Hurst Middle School would watch YouTube videos that Schexnaydre constructed as a fun way to deliver weekly announcements. It wasn’t long before the kids told him to bring this content to social media proper. Here’s one of his videos, which earned nearly 500k views on TikTok:

Students get innovative when they forget their IDs!!!

“We want to build engagement with our kids and we want our kids to know what things are going on in our school and be part of the culture,” he explains. “You have to be able to reach them and they were all on TikTok.”

It’s a stark contrast to simply communicating your school’s daily updates via the intercom every morning, he explains. Most of the time, students aren’t paying attention.

Media headlines suggest that, if TikTok is banned, students will lose out on a vital resource they’ve been using to deepen their learning on particular subjects. Folks have been using it to , and other ways.

Educators and administrators on the other hand shouldn’t be too concerned if the app does get banned. Schexnaydre says they’ll look elsewhere for opportunities to reach their school communities. Instead, he encourages leaders to use what’s already out there to increase their visibility.

“No one knows about the things you’re doing unless you put it out there,” he explains. Before COVID, for example, he says his school had already established a strong school-parent relationship on Facebook.

“We figured out who our audience was and what the best platform was for them. For parents, it was Facebook. For kids, it was Instagram and TikTok. We catered our communications to those platforms.”

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Starting on Aug. 1, LGBTQ+ students will be legally protected from harassment based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. The updated Title IX regulations released by the Department of Education last week offered no guidance about transgender and nonbinary students joining sports teams that align with their gender.

On Monday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directly to Biden claiming the updates are “illegal” and that he has ordered the Texas Education Agency to ignore the new rules. Title IX, Abbott wrote, recognizes only two genders and its purpose is to support the advancement of women academically and athletically.

‘Talking Out of School’ podcast: Teachers need ‘professional authority’

“You have rewritten Title IX to force schools to treat boys as if they were girls and to accept every student’s self-declared gender identity,” Abbott argued. “This ham-handed effort to impose a leftist belief onto Title IX exceeds your authority as president.”

Lousiana State Superintendent Cade Brumley told district leaders and school boards not to alter any of their policies despite the Biden 91¿´Æ¬istration’s ruling. The new rule “alters the long-standing definition that has created fairness and equal access to opportunity for women and men,” Brumley wrote in a letter to Louisiana school system leaders. “The Title IX rule changes recklessly endanger students and seek to dismantle equal opportunities for females.”

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis posted a video to X saying, “We will not comply.”

Lousiana has joined with Texas and several other states in against the Title IX updates. State superintendents in , and South Carolina also told districts not to comply or make any new policies to protect their LGBTQ communities.

South Carolina’s ACLU chapter blasted state Superintendent Ellen Weaver’s rejection of the Title IX update, calling it the latest move in state leaders’ “cruel” efforts to marginalize LGBTQ students and communities.

“In addition to encouraging districts to ignore federal regulations—and putting our underfunded schools at risk of losing critically needed dollars—her letter suggests transgender kids don’t exist and shouldn’t be protected from discrimination,” South Carolina ACLU Executive Director Jace Woodrum said in .

“The rights of transgender and cisgender people are not a zero-sum game,” the organization added. “Trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people belong in South Carolina, and they deserve to be protected from discrimination, not vilified by politicians.”

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