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Trump Education Department Will Reconsider Rules for Title I, Charter Schools

By Alyson Klein — December 14, 2017 1 min read
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Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her team will be taking a second look at rules for Title I, Part A, also known as the part of the Every Student Succeeds Act that deals with accountability, testing, standards, and more. And they are also considering a revamp of language governing the the charter schools program.

The department put out a notice Thursday alerting everyone who spends their life combing the federal register that they planned to examine Title I rules.

Right now, details are scant, but this may be even less sexy than it sounds. Here’s why: The Obama administration wrote regulations for the accountability portion of the Every Student Succeeds Act, but Congress voted to kill them earlier this year through the Congressional Review Act. Technically speaking, that means the moldy and outdated rules for the previous version of federal K-12 law, the No Child Left Behind Act, are still on the books. And to get rid of them, the department will need to go through this formal process.

Of course, while DeVos and her team are busy taking a look at Title I, they have the option of rethinking rules for parts of the law that the secretary sees as priorities, including how federal funds flow to private schools, or the weighted student funding pilot. It doesn’t appear likely, however, that the department will do anything other than toss old rules.

The department is also taking a second look at rules governing charter management organizations and how they replicate high-performing charters. Again, there are no major details yet. DeVos helped create the charter sector in her home state of Michigan that critics say is weak on accountability.