News : ‘Distressingly low’ education research spending is under the microscope

Monday, June 17, 2024

‘Distressingly low’ education research spending is under the microscope

Jun 17, 2024

Students are pictured using computers in a classroom.

THE FUTURE IS NOW — The Alliance for Learning Innovation faces renewed pressure in its crusade to boost federal spending on education research and development projects.

— Appropriators will soon consider a spending bill that could propose deep education program cuts. The AI age has dawned in classrooms, but students are too often missing from school. Elections are looming.

— Meanwhile: “Federal investment in education research is distressingly low,” Daniel Correa, CEO of the Federation of American Scientists, told an audience of federal and state officials, researchers, congressional staffers, advocates and lobbyists during a Thursday gathering on Capitol Hill.

— The alliance of scientific, educational and philanthropic groups wants the government to help drag the country’s K-12 education system into the second half of this century — and potentially the next one — by funding work on new advances to address some of education’s thorniest problems.

— “We view this as a crisis,” Correa added at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, “and we believe that a different future is possible.”

— The future is already here. A recent survey commissioned by the Walton Family Foundation concluded majorities of teachers, K-12 students, undergraduate students, and K-12 parents hold favorable views of AI chatbots. And roughly half of surveyed educators, parents, and students reported using AI chatbots once a week or more. Technology’s potential to reshape education is a marquee concern.

— “Thinking that the AI revolution is going to come through putting tutors in front of kids is missing the whole point of this conversation in this moment that we're in,” Richard Culatta, a former Obama administration education technology official, said Thursday.

— “We can fundamentally rethink some of the issues related to education, and putting a crappy AI tutor in front of a kid is not going to get us there,” he said.

— The alliance, which launched just last year, has pushed lawmakers as they weigh how to reauthorize federal law that collects statistics and conducts research on the country’s education system.

— It has also supported legislation from Reps. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), known as the “NEED Act”, which proposes spending $500 million on an education research and development program modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) are soon expected to introduce companion legislation to that effort, a federation official told the audience.

— “This is obviously a moment when many of us are preoccupied with November's elections,” Correa said. “I just think it's really worth underscoring just how bipartisan this agenda is, and can be.”

IT’S MONDAY, JUNE 17. WELCOME TO MORNING EDUCATION. The New York Democrat running to unseat Rep. Jamaal Bowman has an unusual double advantage against the incumbent: local political clout and the backing of a national pro-Israel group.

Reach out with tips to today’s host at jperez@politico.com and also my colleagues Becca Carballo (rcarballo@politico.com), Bianca Quilantan (bquilantan@politico.com) and Mackenzie Wilkes (mwilkes@politico.com).

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Unions

National Education Association President Becky Pringle speaks at a “Red for Ed” rally in Oakland, California, in 2018.

National Education Association President Becky Pringle speaks at a “Red for Ed” rally in Oakland, California, in 2018. | NEA

FAMILY MATTERS — Labor strife is striking tension inside the country’s largest union — again.

— The National Education Association is locked in heated contract talks with hundreds of its administrative employees as their latest deal expires, prompting disputes that have defined prior negotiations.

— Members of the National Education Association Staff Organization voted to authorize a strike in late April amid bargaining over a new, potential three-year contract.

— Though its members have not yet walked off the job, the NEASO accuses managers of the 3-million-member labor giant of using an “anti-worker playbook” at the bargaining table.

— That includes dragging out negotiations, according to the staff union. NEASO further accuses the NEA’s negotiating team of using “racist and sexist language at the bargaining table that is steeped in America’s slavery past”.

— “NEA’s Management team is fighting their staff on things they would never recommend NEA members agree to during negotiations,” NEASO President Robin McLean said in a statement last week. “Once again, the nation’s largest union is utterly failing to live up to its union values.”

— We’ve been here before. In 2021, NEASO authorized a potential strike after saying managers sought to reduce staff salaries, hike health care costs and block retirement earnings. Both sides reached a deal later that year. Labor action and worker rabble-rousing is something of a defining feature of the staff union’s history.

— In response to the tension, the NEA said it “is fully committed to and respects the collective bargaining process and unequivocally supports our staff’s right to use that process to advocate for themselves.”

— “NEA has engaged in negotiations in good faith, and continues to apply a solutions-based approach to resolve any outstanding issues in a manner that addresses articulated priorities of NEASO while also balancing the strategic priorities of NEA and its members,” a union spokesperson said in a statement.

In the Courts

HOT LAWSUIT SUMMER — A cascade of lawsuits from Republican states could dismantle much of President Joe Biden’s education agenda months before the election, Bianca reports.

— Dozens of states are targeting the president’s new student loan repayment plan and expanded sex discrimination protections in schools — signature White House policies aimed at younger voters. The challenges threaten to unravel Biden’s few major education successes after a bungled federal aid rollout and legal setbacks to debt relief.

— Republican attorneys general accuse the president of overstepping his legal authority and attempting to buy votes with a more generous student loan repayment plan, known as SAVE. They also say Biden is forcing their states to enact policies on gender identity that their constituents don’t support. Some landed their first victory on Thursday when a judge agreed to block the administration’s gender identity protections in their states.

— “I don't think it's hard to see that with all of these plans he's pandering to certain constituencies of his voting base,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, a Republican who is participating in lawsuits on both issues, said in an interview. “That's pretty flagrantly clear, especially with the debt plan. He's trying to chase the young, recently graduated college vote.”

‘STOP WOKE’ GETS A HEARING — Federal appeals court judges appear to be divided on the constitutionality of a Florida law signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis that would limit what state university professors say to students in the classroom, POLITICO’s Arek Sarkissian and Andrew Atterbury report.

— A Friday hearing before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Miami marked a pivotal test for one of DeSantis’ banner policies, the so-called Stop Woke law that the state has been unable to enforce for more than two years since it was originally blocked by Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in 2022.

— A lawsuit brought by eight college professors, two students, and a student organization in 2022 alleges the law amounts to unconstitutional censorship. The DeSantis administration maintains that the state, as an employer over faculty, holds the power to decide what should and should not be taught in college classrooms.

— “In the classroom, the professor’s speech is the government’s speech,” state Board of Education lawyer Charles Cooper argued during Friday’s hearing. “And the government can restrict professors on a content-wide basis and they can restrict them from offering viewpoints.”

Higher Education

CALLING FOR BACKUP — The Education Department is turning to a longtime corporate education leader to tackle next year’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid, amid worries from lawmakers and education organizations that delays to the form’s debut will imperil yet another college admissions cycle.

— College Board President Jeremy Singer will serve as a FAFSA executive adviser in the Federal Student Aid office, the department announced Friday. Singer will lead “overall strategy and accelerate technology innovation," according to the department, while the student aid office undergoes a massive overhaul.

— A bipartisan and bicameral group of lawmakers has publicly voiced concern that the department won’t be able to meet looming deadlines for next school year. A group of influential education organizations has further pressed the department to commit to an Oct. 1 launch date for the form.

— The department acknowledged concern over the Oct. 1 deadline Friday and said it is “working toward that goal.”

— The agency also said the 2025-26 FAFSA “will remain consistent with the 2024-25 form” to minimize disruptions, and that it will solicit feedback and conduct a series of “listening sessions” over the coming weeks to inform how to better support students and the industry ahead of the coming year’s application rollout.

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