Trump Administration Fires 13 Members
of Key Education Research Board, Citing
‘Partisan Influence’
Posted By: sunset, 6/4/2025 2:16:10 PM
he Trump Administration fired all 13 Biden-appointed members of a key federal education research board last month, a move that drew sharp rebuke from former members amid the Administration’s ongoing campaign to dismantle the Department of Education. The firings targeted the National Board for Education Sciences (NBES), which Congress established in 2002 to advise the Department of Education’s research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). The board—whose members include researchers, educators, and civic leaders—had been tasked with shaping the Department’s $900 million research agenda, including approving priorities, overseeing peer-reviewed grants, and advising on efforts to close achievement gaps across race, income, and disability status.
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Trump Administration Fires 13 Members
of Key Education Research Board, Citing
‘Partisan Influence’ 13 replies
of Key Education Research Board, Citing
‘Partisan Influence’ 13 replies
he Trump Administration fired all 13 Biden-appointed members of a key federal education research board last month, a move that drew sharp rebuke from former members amid the Administration’s ongoing campaign to dismantle the Department of Education. The firings targeted the National Board for Education Sciences (NBES), which Congress established in 2002 to advise the Department of Education’s research arm, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). The board—whose members include researchers, educators, and civic leaders—had been tasked with shaping the Department’s $900 million research agenda, including approving priorities, overseeing peer-reviewed grants, and advising on efforts to close achievement gaps across race, income, and disability status.
The U.S. Department of Education revealed that over $30 million in federal student aid had been distributed to thousands of deceased individuals during the past three years. The disclosure followed an internal cross-check of student aid records against federal grant logs and the Social Security Death Index.
The discovery of erroneous payments totaling over $30 million to deceased individuals raises significant concerns about the integrity of federal financial aid programs, which are funded by U.S. taxpayers. President Donald Trump's administration has been emphasizing the amount of money the government is wasting and has been trying to eliminate unnecessary expenses.
Three days before the start of the 2024-25 school year, the San Francisco Unified School District sent an email telling freshman parents that their kids had been automatically enrolled in a two-semester ethnic studies class. The course — which covers such topics as structural racism, colonialism, and the relative merits of capitalism versus socialism — had been an elective for a decade, but families were now being told it had been made a requirement of graduation. Students have raised concerns that they might not be able to fit into their schedules electives such as art, or even core classes like biology, world history, or Spanish, as a result.
The Justice Department on Thursday formally notified the American Bar Association that it will no longer comply with its ratings process for judicial nominees, the result of what it argues is a biased system and one that "invariably and demonstrably" favors nominees put forth by Democratic administrations. The Department of Justice said it will no longer grant the ABA the "special treatment" and first access it has received, revoking decades of precedent where the ABA interviewed and vetted potential members of the incoming DOJ team. "Accordingly, while the ABA is free to comment on judicial nominations, there is no justification for treating the ABA differently from such other activist organizations
The state organization that oversees school sports in California will allow cisgender female athletes to compete in an upcoming statewide championship track meet if they lost a qualifying position to a transgender competitor, a change that was announced hours after President Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal funds if local officials didn’t block a trans girl from competing at the event.
The CIF said it would launch a pilot program for the 2025 State Track and Field Championships allowing any biological female who would have earned the next qualifying mark for one of their Section’s automatic qualifying entries in the State meet an opportunity to participate in Track and Field Championships,”
In the latest signal that relations between state workers and their boss are getting tense, one public sector union created a strike fund to prepare for a fight over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to freeze employees’ salaries. The union hopes the first step to potentially walk off the job sends a clear message to the governor and lawmakers. The union leader said he hopes to communicate to members that the labor group is ready to fight over the budget proposal that aims to save $767 million by withholding salary increases
The Justice Department on Monday launched a new Civil Rights Fraud Initiative that will use the False Claims Act to investigate and pursue claims against federally funded entities that knowingly violate civil rights laws — including colleges and universities. The act, originally passed by Congress in 1863 to address fraud by defense contractors during the Civil War, will now be used to work to ensure universities and others do not allow civil rights abuses, such as favoring one race over another. The act allows private citizens to file complaints on behalf of the government, called “qui tam” lawsuits, against those who have allegedly defrauded the government,
California Republicans are launching an investigation into the Low Carbon Fuel Standard update that is expected to increase the cost of gasoline by 65 cents per gallon — impacting not just California, but the parts of Nevada and Arizona that rely on the Golden State for fuel — on July 1. “CARB and the Governor pushed an expensive gas price hike behind closed doors, ignored public input, and misled Californians about the real cost,” said Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones. CARB says its updated LCFS standards will increase fuel prices by $162 billion through 2046, with $105 billion going to credits for electric vehicle charging network owners
A Virginia church is encouraging its congregants to speak out against a school district where a transgender male student allegedly videotaped boys in a locker room. A father of one of those boys [said] that his son is among those being investigated by the district for sexual harassment. "He was questioning why there was a female in the males' locker room,". "And other boys were uncomfortable [with a female in the boys' locker room]. There were other boys asking the same question. "They [LCPS] created a very uncomfortable situation. They're young, they're 15 years old. They're expressing their opinions, and now they're being targeted for expressing those opinions."
The U.S. Senate will vote within days on overturning California’s stringent and influential regulations mandating 100% electric vehicle sales by 2035, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Tuesday.
The move has massive implications for the U.S. auto industry and represents a dramatic break from past procedure by Senate Republicans.
“While the Biden EPA EV mandate was bad,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said in a floor speech, “California is much worse." The Senate measure, which only needs a simple majority to pass, would nix a waiver granted late in the Biden administration for California to set nation-leading emissions standards
The Tennessee Valley Authority said it is the first utility in the United States to submit a construction permit application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for small modular reactor technology.
The utility said this is the next step in bringing a small modular reactor to the Clinch River site near Oak Ridge. The application is for GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy's small modular reactor BWRX-300 technology. Small modular reactors are significantly smaller than a traditional power plant, and they’re designed to produce a large amount of low-carbon energy.
For two years, New Orleans police secretly relied on facial recognition technology to scan city streets in search of suspects, a surveillance method without a known precedent in any major American city that may violate municipal guardrails around use of the technology, an investigation by The Washington Post has found.
Police increasingly use facial recognition software to identify unknown culprits from still images, usually taken by surveillance cameras at or near the scene of a crime. New Orleans police took this technology a step further, utilizing a private network of more than 200 facial recognition cameras to watch over the streets,
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Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy threatened Wednesday to pull federal grants for California’s High-Speed Rail Authority after it spent nearly $7 billion in taxpayer funds over a decade and a half without laying a single foot of track.
In a more than 300-page report, Duffy detailed the missed deadlines and stretched budget for the long-running project — and gave the Golden State’s high-speed rail office 37 days to respond or lose out on around $4 billion in grants.
“This report exposes a cold, hard truth: CHSRA has no viable path to complete this project on time or on budget,” he said.
She moved to the United States with a dream of studying medicine to transform lives. Then her father was charged with attempting to take them in connection with a fiery assault on pro-Jewish protesters in Boulder, Colorado.
Now Habiba Soliman, daughter of Boulder attack suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman, faces deportation along with the rest of her family.
The family, originally from Egypt, moved to the U.S. from Kuwait. Habiba Soliman recently graduated from high school, but her aspirations were upended when her 45-year-old father was charged with a federal hate crime and 16 counts of attempted murder related to the attack
A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from deporting the family of Mohamad Soliman, the individual suspected of firebombing a gathering of Israel supporters in Boulder, Colorado, on Sunday.
Judge Gordon P. Gallagher’s ruling stated that the administration cannot remove Soliman’s wife and five children from the District of Colorado or the United States pending a ruling from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. “[T]he Court finds that deportation without process could work irreparable harm and an order must issue without notice due to the urgency this situation presents,” the judge wrote. [Tweet]
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested the family earlier this week
Former Biden White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre revealed Wednesday she was registering as an independent and announced a forthcoming book about her time in the tumultuous administration.
Jean-Pierre, a longtime Democratic Party operative, is urging Americans to step outside harsh party lines in her new book, "Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines," according to the book's description. The description also says the former Biden press secretary didn't come to the decision about leaving the party lightly.
"Until January 20, I was responsible for speaking on behalf of the President of the United States," she said in a statement, according to the AP.
Facing a federal investigation into his use of an autopen to sign executive actions, former President Joe Biden insists he was in control of the White House for the past four years.
“I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false,” Biden said in a statement on Wednesday.
President Donald Trump declared his predecessor’s last-minute pardons void early this year after the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project discovered the pardons were signed by a mechanical autopen rather than by the president’s own hand.
Karine Jean-Pierre Leaving Democratic Party
23 replies
Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is leaving the Democratic Party and writing that its betrayal led to former President Joe Biden dropping out of the 2024 election, according to a statement from Legacy Lit, who is publishing her upcoming book.
Jean-Pierre announced her new book “Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines” set to publish in October 2025 on Wednesday. The book, according to her publisher Legacy Lit, encourages Americans to “vote their values and maintain individuality within party lines.”
The Champlin Park Rebels girls' softball team controversially reached the Minnesota State Championship for the first time in history on Wednesday night - thanks in part to their transgender pitcher. Marissa Rothenberger threw a complete game and then hit two doubles as the Rebels narrowly beat White Bear Lake 3-2 for their historic achievment.
'She’s always clutch,' Champlin Park coach Bryan Woodley was quoted as saying by TwinCities.Com. 'I think she’s the best centerfielder in the state. She’s just a great all-around player.'
Democrat Congresswoman Becca Balint shared her perspective that immigrant labor in America serves a rather undesirable purpose.
If we don't have avenues for people to come here legally to work or to build a home here—I'm gonna be really crude right now. We're not gonna have anyone around to wipe our a**es because we don't have enough people."
The comments came while she was speaking to constituents at a town hall in Newport, Vermont. Balint is also proudly the first congresswoman for the state of Vermont. [Video]
Contrary to the claims made by Congresswoman Balint, avenues for legal immigration already exist in the United States.
The Republican megabill to codify President Donald Trump’s domestic policy agenda would add $2.4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, according to an analysis from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
The CBO estimates the “Big, Beautiful Bill” would lower tax revenues by $3.7 trillion and cut spending $1.3 trillion, creating $2.4 trillion in new debt. The non-partisan analysis factors in last minute changes to the House Republican version of the bill, including stricter Medicaid work requirements and a higher State and Local Tax Deduction (SALT), a top demand for New York lawmakers.
An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson noted a vessel carrying activists, including Greta Thunberg, was sailing toward Gaza, saying that Israel has experience “and will act accordingly.” Thunberg, 22, set sail from an Italian port on Sunday with 11 fellow activists from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), aboard a vessel delivering a symbolic shipment of aid to Gaza, according to The Times. “We are prepared for this case as well,” said Brigadier General Effie Defrin, the IDF spokesperson. “We’ve gained experience in recent years and will act accordingly.”
In the latest act of judicial overreach, a rogue lower court judge ordered the Trump administration to restore federal prisoners’ access to transgender-related “treatments” and accommodations on Tuesday.
Writing for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, granted petitioners’ request for a preliminary injunction on the Trump administration’s policy ensuring that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) expends “no Federal funds … for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.” The left-wing Associated Press once described Lamberth as “among the toughest judges”
Former First Lady Michelle Obama is back in the public eye, complaining about her time in the White House in a new book about fashion in which she whines about how people constantly "commented on her looks."
A press release from Penguin Random House about Obama's book "The Look" from the Crown Publishing Group announced that it "is a stunning journey through Michelle Obama's style evolution, in her own words for the first time. In this celebration of style, from the moment she entered the public eye during her husband's U.S. Senate campaign through her time as the first Black First Lady and today as one of this
Comments:
It was a DEI central office full stop. Comprised purely of idealogues determined to diminish learning opportunities for high achievers, and drive curriculum expectations down to match efforts of the lowest scoring percentile of test takers. "Shaun Harper is a Provost Professor in the USC Rossier School of Education. His research focuses primarily on racial and gender equity and inclusion."