School security tension simmers between Biden and Republicans

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SECURITY SHAKEUP — Schools can hire more cops and install more security systems on campus using federal money distributed after last year’s attack at Robb Elementary, the Education Department says.

— Education Secretary Miguel Cardona is reminding a top Republican that metal detectors, student threat assessments and active shooter drills are fair game for federal funds approved under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The department is reiterating similar points in a newly finalized FAQ document for schools.

— But school safety tension continues to simmer between President Joe Biden’s administration and conservatives after yet another shooting last month killed three students and three adults inside a Nashville private school.

— “Shootings should never happen in any of our schools or communities,” Cardona wrote Friday in a letter obtained by Weekly Education to Sen. Bill Cassidy, (R-La.), ranking member of the Senate HELP committee. “Schools must be safe environments for students to learn and grow, and no student, parent, or teacher should worry about their physical safety at or around school buildings.”

— Cassidy, in turn, accuses the administration of “dragging their feet” and hampering schools’ ability to receive the federal funds.

— “The purpose of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was to prevent shootings like Nashville,” Cassidy said in a statement to Weekly Education. “The administration is getting in the way of this legislation accomplishing that goal.”

IT’S MONDAY, APRIL 17. WELCOME TO WEEKLY EDUCATION. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s new debt limit negotiating proposal set to be unveiled Monday morning will include broad moves to restrict food assistance for millions of low-income Americans. His GOP colleagues in the Senate aren’t optimistic any of those measures will survive.

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Public Safety

COPS, CAMERAS, AND THREATS — States are in the early stages of distributing $1 billion included in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act for school safety grants. The Biden administration has sought to prod local officials into spending the money on “nurturing learning environments” instead of focusing solely on hardening schools.

— “We have to do more to protect our schools so they aren’t turned into prisons,” President Joe Biden said last month in the immediate aftermath of the Nashville shooting. “These children, these teachers, they should be focusing on their mental health, as well.”

— Last month, Cassidy told Cardona in a letter that state and district leaders also “need to know that they can and should use these funds to harden schools” and urged the secretary to make clear that spending on “imperative” physical infrastructure and hardening techniques is allowed.

— Republicans are already moving ahead on security spending. In the days following the Nashville shooting, Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee pitched legislative and budget measures to fortify schools and send more security funding to public and private institutions.

— Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne pushed cities to use local grant money for school cops last week, and released polling showing broad support for officers on campus. In Cassidy’s home territory, Louisiana State Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley has announced his intent to use federal money on tougher school entryways.

— In Cardona’s response to Cassidy’s March 30 letter, the secretary highlighted four areas of government-approved spending: Emergency plans such as shooter drills; school-based police officers; security equipment including cameras and metal detectors; and threat assessment systems or teams to identify potential attackers.

— The Senate Republican criticized other department suggestions and proposals for how states and schools can spend the money. In September, the department said it “strongly encourages” states and schools to “implement student-centered policies and practices” even as it acknowledged spending on campus entryways and some infrastructure improvement was allowable.

— “The ‘updated’ guidance does not come close to addressing our concerns,” Cassidy said of the department’s latest FAQ. “The administration is dragging their feet and imposing dangerous delays in getting schools this money to protect their students. They are actively imposing barriers, not present in the law.”

Campaigns

ELECTION WATCH — Amid all the attention on this month’s elections in Wisconsin and Illinois, another outcome with major implications for 2024 flew under the national radar: School board candidates who ran culture-war campaigns flamed out.

— “The takeaway for us,” said Kim Anderson, executive director of the National Education Association labor union, “Is that parents and community members and voters want candidates who are focused on strengthening our public schools, not abandoning them.”

— School board results from the Milwaukee and Chicago areas are hardly the last word on the matter. Thousands more local school elections are set for later this year in some two dozen states. They are often low turnout, low profile, and officially nonpartisan affairs, and conservatives say they are competing aggressively.

— “We lost more than we won” earlier this month, said Ryan Girdusky, founder of the conservative 1776 Project political action committee.

— “But we didn’t lose everything. We didn’t get obliterated,” Girdusky told your host of his group’s performance. “We still pulled our weight through, and we just have to keep on pushing forward on this.”

— Democrats still hope the spring school election season validates their playbook: Coordinate with local party officials, educator unions and allied community members to identify and support candidates who wield an affirming pro-public education message — and depict competitors as hard-right extremists.

— Yet despite victories in one reliably blue state and one notorious battleground, liberals are confronting Republican momentum this year that could resemble November’s stalemating midterm results for schools and keep the state of education divided along partisan lines.

— “What I was most surprised by was just the sheer prevalence of these Republican candidates,” said Ben Hardin, executive director of the Democratic Party of Illinois, after his party made an unprecedented decision to endorse dozens of local school and library board candidates and funnel nearly $300,000 into those elections.

— “Obviously this is not a new phenomenon,” Hardin said in an interview. “But to see it so widespread here in Illinois, across the state in regions that are across the partisanship spectrum, was what was most interesting to me.”

First Look

A GOP WHITE HOUSE GUIDEBOOK — The conservative Heritage Foundation is publishing a policy platform for Washington’s next administration later this month, offering some reading material to Biden’s aspiring Republican replacements.

— The Project 2025: Presidential Transition Project’s recommendations for the Education Department and federal education programs will look familiar — including suggestions to break up the department and transform its funding streams into few-strings-attached block grants. Many pitches penned by Heritage Foundation education expert Lindsey Burke would require a likely divided Congress to agree on a massive government renovation project. A long shot, for sure.

— Heritage, joined by a coalition of allied organizations, is still setting down markers for a conservative White House. Their top targets for regulatory changes include charter school grant programs, student loan forgiveness, Title IX, and civil rights data collection proposals.

— “The next administration will need a plan to redistribute the various Congressionally approved federal education programs across the government, eliminate those that are ineffective or duplicative, and then eliminate the unproductive red-tape and rules by entrusting states and districts with flexible, formulative-driven block grants,” Heritage writes.

Technology

UNBLOCKED? — As the federal government escalates its efforts against TikTok, it’s coming up against a stark reality, POLITICO’s Brendan Bordelon reports: Even a politically united Washington may not have the regulatory and legal powers to wipe the social media behemoth off American phones.

— Lawmakers, legal and national security experts and former officials in two administrations — including some directly involved in the TikTok effort — now suggest a ban may simply face too many hurdles to ever work.

— Between the company’s steep price tag, antitrust concerns and expected resistance from Beijing, almost no experts believe Washington will be able to force ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese owner, to sell the app. If divestiture fails, the government will need new authorities from Congress to prevent getting laughed out of court when it attempts a direct ban.

— Even if Capitol Hill can deliver on a new law, a legal battle over the impact of a TikTok ban on the First Amendment is almost inevitable. “All roads lead to court,” said James Lewis, director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.

Higher Education

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT — Rutgers University reached a tentative agreement with unions to end a historic strike and resume classes, officials announced this weekend.

— After five days of “intensive” bargaining at New Jersey’s statehouse, the two sides announced the framework for a deal early Saturday. It was one of the largest strikes in higher education history and the first at Rutgers since its founding 257 years ago — 10 years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

— Now, the state school’s 67,000 students can expect to return to classes and not worry about the possibility of missing final exams or having graduation put on hold.

— New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, who stepped in early this week to force the university and unions to the negotiating table, and Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway called the agreement a “fair and equitable” resolution that raises wages and benefits and improves working conditions for faculty.

— The three striking unions said in an email that they secured “profound victories” for students and faculty members ranging from pay increases to teaching conditions. POLITICO’s Dustin Racioppi has the story.

Syllabus

— How a campaign against transgender rights mobilized conservatives: The New York Times

— Chip Roy, pivotal in House speaker talks, braces for fight on debt ceiling: The Wall Street Journal

— Teachers nationwide are flummoxed by students’ newfound chess obsession: The Washington Post

— A Texas trilogy of anti-DEI and tenure bills: Inside Higher Ed

— Vermont State University chief steps down before all-digital library launch: The Associated Press