for-profit colleges

Play video: The InformED Report: Episode 1 (2 minutes 41 seconds)2:41

In the autumn of 2016, ten months after the Every Student Succeeds Act replaced No Child Left Behind, the fight over how the new law would work had moved from Congress to the regulations. The InformED Report for October 26, 2016 opened with the Obama administration’s proposed rule on how districts spend federal money meant for poor children, and the objections it met at a House hearing. The edition then looked at where the presidential candidates stood on school and college funding, a coalition’s push to take police out of schools, and the federal decision to strip the largest accreditor of for-profit colleges of its recognition.

In this edition

• A House subcommittee heard arguments over the administration’s proposed rule on how districts spend federal money for high-poverty schools.
• Education Secretary John King named universal access to high-quality early learning as the largest piece of unfinished business.
• Clinton and Trump both called for more federal school spending, and third-party candidates offered free college or an end to the Education Department.
• More than 100 groups called for fewer police in schools, where officers had spread from 10 percent of schools in 1997 to about a third in 2014.
• The Education Department revoked federal recognition of ACICS, the accreditor of Corinthian Colleges and ITT Tech.

The fight over the federal spending rule for poor students

On September 21, 2016, a subcommittee of the House Education Committee held a hearing on the Obama administration’s proposal for how school districts spend the billions of federal dollars meant to educate children in poverty. The Washington Post’s Emma Brown called it perhaps the most hotly contested education issue in Washington since the new federal law passed the previous December. The hearing was titled “Supplanting the Law and Local Education Authority Through Regulatory Fiat.”

The rule turned on an old principle: federal money for poor students has to add to state and local spending, not replace it. The Education Department and its allies in the civil rights movement said the rule would make sure children in high-poverty schools received the aid they were due. Opponents said it had overreached. Steve Canavero, Nevada’s state schools superintendent and a former principal, warned in his prepared remarks that districts would have to manage spending centrally to comply, so that almost any decision touching money would need a compliance check from the district finance office, from hiring and purchasing to curriculum.

Education Secretary John King, reported by U.S. News’s Lauren Camera, framed the administration’s remaining work more broadly. Early childhood education was first on his list. “There is a very large number of students in this country who don’t have access to high-quality early learning,” he said, adding that the goal was universal pre-K for low- and middle-income families, for 3-year-olds as well as 4-year-olds.

For district finance officers and superintendents, the hearing was a reminder that the details of ESSA were still being written. A rule on supplement-not-supplant could change how budgets were built school by school, so leaders had good reason to follow the comment process closely rather than wait for a final version.

Where the candidates stood on paying for schools and college

Two weeks before the election, UPI’s Eric DuVall reported that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both called for more federal spending on schools. Trump argued for greater accountability for schools and teachers, school choice with government support, and more control for states and districts. Clinton, allied with the teachers’ unions, called for higher teacher pay, a smaller role for charter schools, universal prekindergarten and a rethink of school discipline, especially for minority students.

The third-party candidates pushed further on higher education. Inside Higher Ed’s Andrew Kreighbaum reported that Green Party nominee Jill Stein promised free college and the cancellation of existing student debt. Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson promised to end the U.S. Department of Education. Their platforms showed how wide the range of positions on federal education spending had become.

The push to take police out of schools

The Huffington Post reported that the Dignity in Schools Campaign, a coalition of more than 100 education and social justice organizations from 27 states, had released recommendations for alternatives to harsh discipline and youth criminalization. Law enforcement officers were regularly stationed in 10 percent of schools in 1997. By 2014, school resource officers were in about one-third of them.

The administration was moving in a similar direction. U.S. News reported that the Departments of Education and Justice had sent letters to states and districts stressing well-designed training for school resource officers. “We must ensure that school discipline is being handled by trained educators, not by law enforcement officers,” Secretary King said. The New York Times had reported that where officers were already stationed, judges and youth advocates were seeing a surge in criminal charges against children for misbehavior many believed belonged in the principal’s office.

For principals, the practical question was who handles discipline when an officer is present. A written agreement on the officer’s role, and training that keeps everyday misbehavior with educators, were the steps both the coalition and the departments pointed toward.

The federal government cuts off the largest for-profit accreditor

On September 22, 2016, the Education Department revoked its recognition of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, known as ACICS. The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Andy Thomason reported that Emma Vadehra, chief of staff to the education secretary, agreed with the recommendations of department analysts and a federal advisory panel. ACICS had accredited the now-closed Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institute campuses. “ACICS’s track record does not inspire confidence that it can address all of the problems effectively,” Vadehra wrote, in a letter quoted by U.S. News.

The stakes were large. U.S. News reported that the council oversaw about 725 institutions and, the year before, $3.3 billion in federal financial aid. Senator Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate education committee, said 245 colleges would have 18 months to find a new accreditor while 600,000 students waited. ACICS planned to appeal to Secretary King.

Sources

• Emma Brown, “Congress to hear arguments on Obama administration’s proposed education spending rule,” The Washington Post, September 21, 2016.
• Lauren Camera, “John King: We’ve Got Unfinished Education Business,” U.S. News, September 2016.
• Eric DuVall, “On The Issues: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump urge more school funding, differ in use,” UPI, September 21, 2016.
• Andrew Kreighbaum, “Third Parties on Higher Ed,” Inside Higher Ed, August 25, 2016.
• “Over 100 Education Groups Want to Kick Cops Out of Schools,” The Huffington Post, September 2016.
• “Obama Administration Pushes to Limit Police In Schools,” U.S. News, September 2016.
• “With police in schools, more children in court,” The New York Times.
• Andy Thomason, “Education Dept. Revokes Recognition of Embattled Accreditor of For-Profit Colleges,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 22, 2016.
• Lauren Camera, “Education Department Strips Authority of Largest For-Profit Accreditor,” U.S. News, September 22, 2016.

About the InformED Report

The InformED Report is edCircuit’s short news program on education. This edition first ran on October 26, 2016. In 2026, edCircuit re-presented it with a new anchor and this full written account. Both report the stories as they stood on that date and link the original reporting, so readers can see exactly where each claim came from.

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