President Donald J. Trump has continued to retract Obama-era education regulations. On Monday, he overturned two bills as the Republican party pushes through with its commitment to undoing key factors of the previous administration's legacy.
The first order of business was President Trump's crackdown on immigrants. He issued an executive order banning citizens from a few countries to travel to the United States.
The arrest of a DREAMer, or someone who is protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program of the Obama administration, has sparked worry among undocumented students about their safety. Virginia's Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe did give an assurance, though, that the president will not end the DACA program.
Recently, the education sector has been shaken with the proposed budget cuts which will lead to the removal of $2.4 billion in grants for teacher training and $1.2 billion in funding for after-school programs. The announcement was made earlier this month.
The Chicago Tribune reported that President Trump has scrapped new requirements for training programs of new K-12 teachers. He also signed bills that rolls back a set of rules that outline how states should implement the Every Student Succeeds Act, which is a bipartisan federal law intended to hold schools accountable for the performance of its students.
On Monday, during the signing ceremony, President Trump described the measures as the removal of an additional layer of bureaucracy to encourage freedom in schools. It was claimed that the accountability rules were an executive overreach by former President Barack Obama.
Democrats argued, though, that retracting the rules allows for loopholes that can be used by states to cover up poorly performing schools from scrutiny. This could have a negative impact on the service that these schools offer to low-income, minority and disabled students.
According to CNN, the new moves are intended to go beyond President George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" education reform bill and its reliance on a limited range of metrics. It aims to provide more tools for school success, which includes academic outcomes, student progress and school quality.
