The Current Role of the Department of Education and How That Could Change with Dr. Jen Newton, ep. 216

The Current Role of the Department of Education and How That Could Change with Dr. Jen Newton, ep. 216, Instructional Coaching with Ms. B Podcast

Chrissy Beltran 00:01
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Chrissy Beltran 01:03
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Chrissy Beltran 01:49
Welcome to instructional coaching with Miss B, where we believe that every teacher deserves a coach, and every coach does too. I’m Chrissy Beltran, an elementary teacher who became a coach, and I had to create my own coaching program that worked. Now I teach coaches how to design their coaching programs, build a school wide action plan and use differentiated strategies to support teachers. Plus, I’ve got a special spot in my heart for literacy coaches. Now let’s dig into the episode.

Chrissy Beltran 02:16
Hey coach and welcome to episode 216, of instructional coaching with Miss B today, we are talking about a big topic that is in the news, and it is, you know, on your phone, and it is probably something that you have either heard of or been recently made aware of or you’re concerned about, and that is the Department of Education. So we are going to do our best this episode. I have a wonderful guest to provide you with some accurate information so you can think about how this will affect you, your family, your school, and this country, the United States as a whole. Personally, it’s no secret that I support public education, and believe it. So one thing we do for all of our people, regardless of wealth, where they live in the country, the background they come from, whatever their abilities are, and I believe that the protections and the processes that we have at the federal level try to ensure that we do this as equitably as we can. And I personally believe that is something ethical we do as a nation, for every one of our people. That’s I believe it’s our job, but I know we need more information to actually uncover what the Department of Ed does and what things could look like if there wouldn’t be a Department of Education. So that’s why I’ve invited my guest, Jen newton of teaching as intellectual she’s been sharing some really great content about the role of the Department of Education in public education, and I knew that she would be a thoughtful, throw guest for this topic, so I cannot wait to welcome her to this podcast. So thank you so much for joining us today. Jen. I really appreciate you making time, and I have a couple of questions that we can use to get to know you a little bit. Okay, great.

Dr. Jen Newton 03:58
Okay, thanks for having me. Oh

Chrissy Beltran 03:59
yes, of course. I’m really glad I know it’s kind of short notice. I appreciate you being able to work us in So as a quick way to introduce yourself a little bit, I would love to hear about a few things. The first one is, who do you help? And then the second part of that is, and how do you spend most of your time at an energy at work?

Dr. Jen Newton 04:17
Oh, who do I help? I hope that I help to make I hope I help communities broadly who are involved in supporting kids at school with understanding what their rights are, parents, caregivers, teachers, kids, what their rights are at school how to advocate for kids with disabilities and their support needs. I hope I help people to consider their own biases and their own beliefs about disability and the ways in which we were all kind of, you know, taught and inferred through our own growing up about disability, and I hope I. Help people to consider the ways in which those beliefs might be doing harm. And the bulk of the time that I’m at work, what do I What wait tell me that again.

Chrissy Beltran 05:10
How do you spend most of your time and energy at work? What does your day look like?

Dr. Jen Newton 05:14
Oh my gosh. My days are variable. The best thing about my job is that no two days are the same. So let’s see, the bulk of my energy is spent on students, I would say, for the most part, or preparing for professional development opportunities to engage with teachers and communities. I work on research right now. I’m working on research around an inclusive playground. I am working a lot on on supporting my students who are entering into final season. So we’re ending up wrapping up our semester. So lots of student needs. You can see student projects behind me for the end of the semester. So a lot of my time is spent thinking about also right now, how to protect and advocate for teacher preparation in my state, as it is being undermined by our administration and our state and our state leaders so working toward advocacy around making sure that we are going to continue to have A really highly supported and highly educated and highly prepared workforce for educators. I love

Chrissy Beltran 06:25
it. And then this one is a fun one. What is your go to, movie, book or TV show?

Dr. Jen Newton 06:33
Okay, so right now my family, we’re hosting an exchange student this year, and so my family is re watching Stranger Things. Oh, nice. Yeah, that’s our go to and it’s fall, and I have three daughters, so we’re also watching Gilmore Girls.

Chrissy Beltran 06:47
That’s so funny. I could not make it through Gilmore Girls. I tried, I tried, I made it about seven minutes of one episode.

Dr. Jen Newton 06:55
I was like, I can’t do this, but it’s probably our seventh time through. Oh my gosh. Like an every fall kind of adventure for us? Yes, I’ve

Chrissy Beltran 07:04
seen it be very popular this fall. So I guess cozy vibes, right? It’s all Exactly, yeah, yeah, I get that. So the topic we’re talking about today is, is a big one, and so what I would like to do is get started with just an explanation of what the current role of the Department of Education is in public schools, and then how does that compare to what states currently handle? Because I’ve seen lots of different, you know, questions about and statements about curriculum and about funding and about, you know, all kinds of things. And so if we could kind of differentiate between what the Department of Education currently does and what the state currently does that would be great. Okay,

Dr. Jen Newton 07:43
so the Department of Education is responsible for a couple of big things. So one is to distribute funding for a couple of big projects. One is Title One, which was established because it became clear that states were not able or willing to provide funding for kids who were living in or experiencing extreme poverty, so kids who lived in low resourced areas were experiencing an inequitable education in their public schools, because public schools are largely funded by the tax base in their local areas. Right? Because 90% of public school funding comes from their local and state funding streams, 10% of that funding comes from the federal government. So Title One was in place to provide additional funding to low resource areas to provide additional funding for schools to invest in specifically reading intervention, because we were seeing that kids were getting less and less reading instruction, that there was a real discrepancy between low resource schools in reading scores and kids who were living in more affluent areas, who had more affluent schools, were doing better in reading and so Title One wasn’t focused on reading and math scores. So that’s you. You will might hear people say, I work in a title one school. That means that it’s a low resource school. Tend to have 9590 900% look free and reduced lunch numbers. The other thing that the Federal Department of Education funds is idea the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act now that these are both federal laws, idea is a law that says that kids with disabilities have a right to a free and appropriate public education, and that that education should be provided in their local public school in the closest approximation to the general public general education learning environment. And so the Congress, when that law was passed in 1975 promised to fund it up to 40% of the cost of of educating. From students with disabilities. They’ve never funded it. It hovers around 14% of the funding that was intended right to be 40% so you can see it’s been largely an unfunded or underfunded mandate. So that’s one of the things that it does. Another thing that it does is collect data. It collects data on demographics. It like, who are the students we’re serving, right? Where do kids live? How many kids are what demographics are they? How many kids are Hispanic, in indigenous how many kids speak different languages? How many kids live in poverty? How many kids are black, white, Asian, American, all of these different demographics. They collect data on civil rights violations. There’s an Office of Civil Rights within the Department of Education where we do research on or they collect data on the disproportionality of discipline. So where we see more black kids being suspended and expelled? That data is collected through the Office of Civil Rights. That’s where we collect data about trans kids and LGBTQ and all of the ways in which girls are potentially not being provided with equitable education at school. And then the Office of Civil Rights is the one that enforces the law of equitable education. So if you’ll if you see that there’s an equity right, like a school might be putting all of its money toward a football program and and offering no girls sports, right? Because it’s investing entirely in football. So then the community might come together and file a title nine violation, and then the Office of Civil Rights will get engaged to say, Nope, you have to spend the same amount of money on girls sports that you spend on boy sports. That’s an example of what the Department of Education does to ensure that there is an equitable opportunity for education. So that’s another thing the school or the Department of Education has nothing to do with curriculum. It doesn’t do curriculum. States make decisions about curriculum. The some people have are confused about the Common Core, thinking that that was a Department of Education Initiative. It wasn’t the Obama administration did provide incentives for states that adopted the Common Core, but the Common Core was an initiative that was put together by volunteers across all states, that was kind of spearheaded by a superintendent’s Association and a Governor’s Association that came together saying what would be really great is if we could create kind of a set, set of expectations so that kids who are military, kids, migrant kids, kids who move a lot are all doing kind of the same big things in the same grade level, yeah, because it’s very disruptive educationally when you’re doing, you know, electricity in fourth grade, and then you’re doing it again in sixth grade, and you’re missing out on the that you were doing in third grade at the other school. So that was the idea that drove the Common Core, sort of coming up again now as evidence that the Department of Ed is problematic. Now, I do think it’s important to say that the Department of Ed has been a lightning rod since it was established in 1979 by Jimmy Carter Reagan. Was very fixated on abolishing the Department of Education, he brought together a team to do some research into the Department of Education and its inefficiencies. And A Nation at Risk was the product that came out of that. And what that that workforce came up with was the idea that America was actually at great risk for falling behind all industrialized countries, and that we really did need to come up with a unified plan for ensuring that all of America’s children were educated and ready to be a part of the global workforce and prepared to compete at a global level. And while that sort of moved to a more nationalized educational system in terms of funding, trying to equip make an equitable funding system. States have retained a huge amount of influence over their educational system, and anybody who’s paying attention can see that there’s so much different state to state in in curriculum, in systems, in decision making, and, you know, funding priorities and all of those things. So states are really driving the bus. It’s just that the the federal government is distributing funds and is in. Ensuring and enforcing equitable educational opportunities for all of us. So

Chrissy Beltran 15:05
then, in terms of the future administration, you know, recording in November, what is the plan for public education, and is there any kind of timeline on this plan?

Dr. Jen Newton 15:18
So what we know so far, and I think it’s really important to acknowledge that everything is happening very quickly. There is a lot of momentum there. This administration is moving very quickly with a lot of their planning. So what we know so far is that this the Department of Education, is top of mind. They have noted it is a priority, and so we are watching it very closely. What we know is that they’re abolishing the Department of Education is a huge feat. What we do know, though, is that privatizing education increasing what is known as school choice. And if you can’t see me, I’m using rabbit ears, which means funneling federal money toward religious schools, private schools, independent schools, and away from public schools is a huge part of the Republican agenda. Moving forward, we can. We will see that if, even if the Department of Education is not abolished, we might see money moving from the Department of Education to the Department of Treasury to be distributed as block grants to states. So rather than as a federal allotment that comes to the state, it will be distributed as a block grant that that states will apply for and then that funding will be allotted to the state through a No Strings Attached block grant. And if that happens, then it will change the way that states can use that money, and then there’s like less accountability back to the federal government about how they used it. So you could give it to a religious school, you could give it to families who have plenty of money to pay for their own private school, right? And they can use it for whatever kind of educational opportunities they want. It doesn’t have to go to low resource schools. It doesn’t have to go to children with disabilities who need services, services and supports. It doesn’t have to go to the things that we have typically allotted those funds for the state. So that’s kind of how the federal government might change things, with or without abolishing the Department of Ed. Now, an abolishment of the department Ed doesn’t mean that all of the funding goes away. It doesn’t mean the idea goes away. It just means that some of those services will move to other departments. The Office of Civil Rights will move to the Department of Justice. They might form a small office of civil rights within the Department of Justice, but the Department of Justice is a big, huge department that would all of a sudden be in charge of just looking at the inequities that are happening within schools. So we’d have to think about what kind of priority it might make K 12 education as well as higher ed within the bigger scope of the Department of Justice that oversees the Department of Corrections, right? All of the big things that happen in the Department of Justice, and then states will have all the autonomy,

Chrissy Beltran 18:14
all of the Yeah, because you’re saying that it’s like a grant labeled education, and so as long as they’re using it in it for education which could be literally anything, then it’s fine.

Dr. Jen Newton 18:28
Yes, so the national report card, which the Department of Education, becomes moot, right? It’s irrelevant because then they’re no longer expected to provide that data so that their states can do whatever they want. Does your state prioritize public education right now? No, has your state

Chrissy Beltran 18:50
you were actually asking me,

Dr. Jen Newton 18:52
these are things that your listeners should be thinking about? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. There’s a little bit of a misconception if, oh, I live in a blue state, my state prioritizes education. That does not necessarily mean that your state is going to be untouched by these changes. Mm, hmm, because you’re expecting then that a lack of oversight, a lack of regulation, will make that continue to be the case, right? So, and then the local level, one of the things that we have to sort of think about is that there is an expectation that in some places, there will be an increase in taxes to offset this different allotment of funding, or there’ll be a decrease in services. I sort of expect to see, particularly for kids with disabilities and kids in Title One neighborhoods, that there won’t be an increase in taxes, there will be a decrease in services, though, there will just not be educational opportunities for kids there won’t, you know, they’ll everything. Will move toward charters and vouchers and for profits. Schools, and because we’re moving into education as a part of the free market. And so what can you afford? Or what can your voucher get you? Yes, what, what we have to do now is get involved locally. If you haven’t been doing that before, find the people who have, and listen to them and get caught up, because what is going to happen next is going to start at home. And if you want to make sure that your community members remember all the kids that didn’t have internet when we went online, and all the kids that were sitting at McDonald’s parking lots trying to do their homework, trying to get into class, going to the library. Remember all of those kids, if you want those kids to continue to have access to school, if they’re not your kids, you have got to figure out right now where they are and what their options are going to be, and how your community can figure out how to make sure they have options for transportation, for high quality education, for access to those resources, for their families to know what their choices are. Because what we know about huge districts that have already gone in this way, where they have lots of magnets, lots of lotteries, all that, who applies for the lotteries, right?

Chrissy Beltran 21:16
Can, who can get through the process, who can go to the meetings. Who

Dr. Jen Newton 21:21
can, yeah? Who have access, yeah? Who know about those early deadlines, who can read the form for all those schools? So we need to figure out how we can be a part of a larger community that looks out for each other and gets that information out. So today is the day for everyone to do that, because really the the focus should be local, then state, then federal. For everyone who’s concerned, I would encourage us to, like, turn it this way.

Chrissy Beltran 21:47
Mm, hmm. There’s a lot that we have in place currently, and what do we need to do currently?

Dr. Jen Newton 21:51
And how do we bring our community together around this? Because everyone will be impacted, but your your support, like the work you can do to help is going to be local first. Mm, hmm,

Chrissy Beltran 22:06
that makes sense. So then, what if we’re looking at, you mentioned, some changes that we’re going to see at the federal level. If this were to continue as planned, right at the federal level, that we would see a completely different way of distributing funds that, I mean, I’m thinking about like you talk about idea and the way that so something can be a law, but the way that it’s enforced is you can get sued, right? If you don’t do it. It’s not enforced because of the law. A law can be a law that nobody pays any attention to if there’s no consequence for paying no attention to it, right? So the reason things are done a certain way is because people are like, well, we’re going to get sued if we don’t do this. Right? You just can’t. And so you know if, if we see that, if the Department of Ed were, or you said, department civil rights replaced inside the Justice Department, right? I would imagine we would not see as much opportunity for people to make make sure that this law is that that idea is operated in the way that it’s supposed to be. Does that make sense? Like it would impact individuals ability to make sure their kids get what they deserve? Yeah,

Dr. Jen Newton 23:18
I would say this might be a controversial statement, but I would say that I say this a lot too. Is that idea there is no Ida police now i kids rights, families rights are violated every single day. Schools are violating kids rights every day, all over the nation. Kids, idea is not implemented with fidelity. We are not doing what we are supposed to be doing. The you know, yeah, it’s going to get worse, for sure. So I work in inclusive education. I work in a lot of states. There every everybody who does the kind of work I do is looking around like, who’s the model for Inclusive Education, who’s the model for supporting kids with disabilities and like, really letting them thrive? There isn’t one. There just isn’t and so we have a lot to feel concerned about. And if you are the parent of a kid with support needs, it doesn’t matter if they are a kid with dyslexia, a kid with an intellectual disability, a kid with like, low support needs, with a learning disability, or speech and language supports they get at school, all kids are going to be affected. All kids are going to be affected if you like the services and supports that you are getting at school right now, or if you are already feeling like you have to fight every single day, you. So all of those things are going to get worse, because we have idea and we have the due process and the procedural safeguards that are in the law, because people do not inherently want to support things in any way unless they are legally obligated to, yeah, and so if the lever is not constantly pushing on you, I has, I just, I worry about what

25:32
we will see, yeah, yeah, go ahead. Over I can’t,

Dr. Jen Newton 25:35
I just can’t. Over stress that, Mm, hmm. Consequences will be extreme, I think, because the reality today is extreme. Even if the

Chrissy Beltran 25:45
Department of Ed isn’t abolished, we would expect to see just over time, like a change in the way that we we respond to kids with special needs,

Dr. Jen Newton 25:54
yes, because with disabilities, because they are going to continue, they’re going to cut funding and and it’s already low. It’s already low.

Chrissy Beltran 26:03
Yeah, yeah. Anybody who’s working in school knows that there are never enough special education teachers, right? There are never enough paraprofessionals, that paraprofessionals don’t have enough training, that there’s not enough hours in the day for those teachers to actually meet all those minutes in the IEPs.

Dr. Jen Newton 26:18
And that’s paraprofessionals are, are are paid $10 an hour, right? They have high school diplomas that, right? And that they turn over very quickly because it’s not an appreciated or supported position. Yeah, there we should expect that that will can that will not only perpetuate, but it will get worse. Yeah,

Chrissy Beltran 26:44
so then, how do you think that this could impact teachers? Because, I mean, obviously some of them, some of the some of the consequences are fairly obvious, but, but for anybody who’s a teacher, let’s say in a public school, specifically, what could this do, you know, to their job, to their you know? I mean, morale is all tied to, you know, whether you feel like you can do your job well and you enjoy doing it, you know? What? How? What impacts could this have on teachers?

Dr. Jen Newton 27:12
Well, I think teachers are so conditioned to continuously accept doing more with less. Yeah,

Chrissy Beltran 27:25
because it says keep, they just keep putting more on there. So like you’re the frog in the boiling pot. It wasn’t boiling on your first day, you know, but it is now it’s been sort of,

Dr. Jen Newton 27:39
you don’t notice it’s getting hotter in here until, you know, you’re, you’re boiling. And I think, or maybe you do notice, but you’re just like, kind of opening a window, and you’re turning on a fan, and you’re, you’re making and you’re, you know, yes, you’re, you’re always MacGyver, always MacGyver. And it, I think at some point, I think this is going to we are already seeing an exodus. We’re seeing a pretty mass exodus. We’ve had shortages for the last 20 years that we’ve studied and studied and studied. It kind of cracks me up every time I get, like a manuscript review request, like, look at the shortage of special ed teachers. Can you understand it? And I’m like, Are we still asking the question, it’s

Chrissy Beltran 28:24
a hard job, guys, it’s an impossible job. That’s right?

Dr. Jen Newton 28:27
I mean, we know why it’s hard, and we don’t change anything like, I don’t like. So what, what I think it will mean is that we will see, I mean, I think there’s a couple of things, and we’re not really touching on this in our conversation today, so I’m just going to slide this in. But there are also massive consequences and impacts on higher education. And so actually, do want to know about that? Yeah, one piece of this, like the higher education piece, is going to have an impact on the teacher workforce, right? Okay, so the states like mine, I’m in Ohio, um, and I’m guessing this is going to happen pretty, pretty quickly in Texas, um, are developing like alternative teacher pathways, right? So Florida has been doing this for a while. Ohio has been doing this for a while. So the idea is that you can just register with the state, you can get a job as paraprofessional. The teacher that you’re working with can be your mentor teacher. You can do some like modules online with the state through, you know, an accredited university program, but they’re online eight week modules that you do at your own pace. And then you can be a licensed teacher. And so when you go through that alternative pathway. You don’t have to do some of the things, like, in my state, it’s illegal to pay you while you’re student teaching, but you have to soon teach for 15 weeks full time,

Chrissy Beltran 29:52
as you’re a pair professional well,

Dr. Jen Newton 29:54
but if you’re, if you do the alternative pathway, Oh, you don’t have to. Okay, yeah, your job. Okay. Okay, so they sweeten the deal for you, right? So some of the laws that we are held by, they can work around. And so they make it kind of they make it more appealing to do with that route. Now you don’t have to do all the gen ed credits that where you learn about, like, the history of us. You learn about how to write a paper, you learn about how to public speak. You learn about right? You learn about how to be ology

Chrissy Beltran 30:26
and biology and all the things that you take as an undergraduate that I feel like I learned so much from that I still think about as an educator now,

Dr. Jen Newton 30:37
absolutely and that help you to have the content knowledge, to teach all the things and give you a basis for the ways in which you think about the world. I mean, that’s, I could go on and on about why, why liberal arts education is essential for a Democratic Society, right? But that’s the function of a general education curriculum on top of and then we come in and supplement with like, pedagogy and methodology, assessment and all of those pieces, right? So we’re going to just do away with all that. We’re going to put everybody in the classroom as quick as possible. It’s fine if you only last two or three years, because we’re just going to create like, a hamster wheel of teacher prep, and then you don’t need people like me, and we’ll just close down the colleges of ed because they’re just doing indoctrination anyway, and inclusion and all of those kinds of things are not important, and they’re all that feel good kind of stuff. We don’t, we don’t need it. So that’s going to have an impact, I think, on teachers, because a lot of the ways in which teachers come in is this like, place of empowerment, this place of feeling like I learned all these things. I’m ready. I feel completely equipped. And they have that really high sense of efficacy when they come out of college, right? And it takes a little bit of time now, the pathway is different if you come in as a para, where you feel a low sense of empowerment. And, you know, I’m not sure if this pathway will build that. I think it’ll be interesting to see, but not interesting in a good way, yeah, but I think that’s one of the ways that we’ll see an impact, because the teacher workforce, I think, is going to come from a lower place of empowerment, which will help with the things that you were talking about, right? So it’ll help for them to be less empowered for advocating, less empowered for asking for more, less empowered for unionizing and those kinds of things. So I think we’ll see a shift in the workforce in that way, and then

Chrissy Beltran 32:41
I’m thinking about as a teacher who was considered highly effective, and often had, like student teachers, and often had, you know, like peer coaching and things like that, via workload of those teachers who are going to be expected to train their colleagues all the time, right? I just, I just can’t, I feel for these people still in the classroom, because it’s going to be, they’re going to be expected to to save the school.

Dr. Jen Newton 33:11
They’ll leave, oh, eventually, oh yeah, yeah, they’re going

Chrissy Beltran 33:15
to get burned out and fried, and it’s horrible, and it’s just too bad, because those are your really strong people, you know, and then you just lean on them so much, because those are your resources,

Dr. Jen Newton 33:24
but they’ll be, I mean, there’s no incentive, because the pay is going to go down further than it is now, because we’re going to de professionalize it. And so I think those are going to be some of the impacts that will cause more and more of the professional teachers to leave, and then we’ll have more of this, like, you know, homegrown, kind of alternative pathway, kind of prepared teachers.

Chrissy Beltran 33:54
So you mentioned higher education. So then how do you think this is going to affect funding for higher ed, because that’s one of the conversations, is about grants, right? And funding, and, you know, privatizing loans. So what do you think that could look like?

Dr. Jen Newton 34:10
So privatizing loans, I think, is an interesting conversation. I think there the decision, the things that are happening there is kind of complicated. They say there’s been no mention in Project 2025 about Pell grants. So that leads me to believe that you haven’t thought about it, or it’s too complicated to cut Pell Grant. But I do think that, depending on your state, higher education is going to become more and more unattainable, that there will be less federal funding toward even less. Like, again, the federal government has been cutting access to higher education for 50 years. So it used to be the education was a federal of, you know, an economic good everybody. They should get it. Everyone should have it. When my dad went to college, it took him seven years, but he finally graduated, and he his tuition was like, you know, a couple $100 and he went to the University of Kansas, which is the same school I went to when I went there in the 90s, my tuition was like, $1,100 a semester, and it was like, I couldn’t believe that it cost that much, and my my parents, like, would write a check for it, and we were not rich, but like they had saved, you know, he had tuition money, and that’s how much it was. My daughter goes to Ohio University, the school that I go to I work at right now, and her tuition is like $15,000 and her housing is eight a semester, like I I cannot afford that so, and it’s because it’s not because colleges have gotten like, I mean, you can look my salary up. I make $78,000 a year. It’s not because I’m making they’re paying me a ton of money. They are not many public school teachers make more than me. I The reason is that they have withdrawn federal funding more and more every year. They do not subsidize the education of our of our college age students anymore, and so the only way that people can pay for it is through loans. And more and more loans are becoming more unsubsidized loans the federal government is, you know, it’s getting harder and harder for students to afford the amount of debt that they’re carrying, because they’re then not getting jobs that pay right enough to break the loans. Yeah, so what they would have to do in order to privatize all the loans is, I mean, it’s a huge endeavor. I’m not saying they couldn’t do it. It just depends on who is in all of these roles. And if all of those people are willing to agree, take an act of Congress, the OMB would have to agree that they would, you know, no longer have the role within the Office of Federal Services. All of those have to happen that. That’s what they’re saying they’re going to do, though, and if all of the loans be I mean, if, if everybody has to take out private loans, they’re saying no more Parent Plus loans, which means you can’t take out a loan for your child as a co signer, and I’m watching that pretty closely, so I think that the impact on higher education will probably be game changing.

Chrissy Beltran 37:52
So as we’ve, you know, we’ve talked about so many issues and how they affect people at different levels. At you know about how, you know, kids who are in special populations will be affected, kids like in, you know, like in my area, we are, our entire districts are title one. You know, my child gets free breakfast and lunch at school every single day because there are the majority of students at the school who are in Title One program, and then from there, the majority of the schools in the district are considered Title One schools. So, you know, the these, and that’s just one very small thing, but you know, it’s big for a lot of people. And then they’re, you know, kids who have disabilities are going to see a potential impact. Teacher is going to see an impact. Can you think of of any other reasons that people should be aware, even if none of these specific things check any of their own personal boxes.

Dr. Jen Newton 38:45
I think bussing is another thing. I think we’ll see like, if things get if budgets get cut, we’re going to see transportation be something that gets cut, which is going to increase truancy. We’re just going to have fewer kids that are able to get to school, which, you know, is another huge concern, is that there’s just going to be more kids that don’t have access to school,

Chrissy Beltran 39:09
which creates, which, I mean, even in a completely selfish way of looking at this, crime goes up, right? I mean, kids who are not at school, what are they doing? Kids who can’t learn to read are more likely to end up in prison. And

Dr. Jen Newton 39:22
so there you everyone sort of has this idea in their head that like they can’t take away like school, right? But we have lived in a time where school have been pretty readily available, and that schools are the part of our community that kind of acts as a hub. But when schools close in rural areas, the areas tend to die around them. Right when your school closes, then so does your grocery store, so does the one restaurant in town, and if for. People who can in urban areas, who haven’t had those experiences or suburban areas, have never lived in a really rural area, and you haven’t seen that happen. It, it causes a level of scatter in a community that I think we’ll begin to see all over the place, because schools ground communities, and we we are centered as communities around our schools, and I think that we all need to sort of sit with how our our restaurants, our gas stations, our dollar stores, our communities will be impacted by a shift in the community and culture when our schools change? Yeah, because schools impact everybody.

Chrissy Beltran 40:50
Yeah, I totally agree with that. I also think, personally, I think I was called to teaching because it’s a very to me. It’s an ethical thing to do. And I don’t, I can’t think, really, of any other services that our country provides to everybody, regardless of of who you are and where you live and what you come with. And I, like my heart is racing right now, just thinking about it, I don’t understand, and and I don’t think I can. I don’t understand how a country that doesn’t believe that it’s the country at the federal level that is the country’s responsibility to ensure that every child has an education and thus a future, isn’t one, just what we what you have to do to be considered a country. You know, what is the point? We’re not a collection of states. We are a country. And also isn’t just the smartest thing you can do as a country, because a country full of people who have had to pave their own way through education and have not been given any opportunity. You’re not creating your best anything. You’re not creating your best citizens. You’re not creating your best resources. You’re not using your resources in the best ways. You’re not creating the amazing like, I mean, the just the manufacturing and the things that got us to be where we are in this country. You’re not building those things. You’re not highlighting you’re not pulling out of every person the potential that they have, and saying you can give this to your country. I don’t that. I just don’t understand.

Dr. Jen Newton 42:33
The Department of Education is not to indoctrinate anyone. It is to protect our children from any kind of discrimination or inequity that they might experience and to fund public education, that is the role, right? That’s all it is to do. And so when you come across any sort of buddy who’s saying, like, it should have never been, it’s not, you know, like this, states would do a better job. We should have never had this question why there’s why would you want to say that the federal government does not have a responsibility for funding the education of its students, and that the federal government does not have a responsibility for ensuring equity in education across the 50 states. Do you think if we look at all 50 states, is there equitable resources across all 50 states? Yeah,

Chrissy Beltran 43:37
absolutely not. Of course not.

Dr. Jen Newton 43:41
We have, I mean, I was in within a

Chrissy Beltran 43:43
state, there are not equitable. No,

Dr. Jen Newton 43:45
that’s a great point. So how do we ensure that kids are getting what they I mean, it’s not happening. I think it’s we have to also take off our rose colored glasses, right? It’s not that the Department of Education is perfect, no, but we have to fight within the systems that we have. We don’t just dismantle them.

Chrissy Beltran 44:06
Yeah, that’s right. I agree. And I think whenever the system is you’re talking about public school, whether you’re whether you’re at a private school or a charter school, it’s in your interests for people to be educated, yeah, however you choose to educate your child, it’s in your interest that everybody’s child is educated because you you want to. You want to be part of a a country where citizens, where people are educated, and where people are building something, not a bunch, not just people who can only get the jobs that they can get, because that’s what they have access to. That’s not going to benefit anybody,

Dr. Jen Newton 44:44
and just the fact that that’s the idea of, like, what does an education mean? Is controversial. What does it mean to be absolutely

Chrissy Beltran 44:52
yeah, and those are all questions we can talk about in the Department of Education, yeah, yeah. But I don’t think, and I think we have. Those conversations at an individual level, and we have them at the state level. We have a local we have all these levels, and that’s fine. Why wouldn’t we continue having them at a federal

Dr. Jen Newton 45:07
level? Yeah, well, we must.

Chrissy Beltran 45:10
We must. So then if people have really thought about this and they’re like, You know what, I don’t agree. I that with the the closure of the Department of Education, they are moved to take some kind of action. What can they do? I

Dr. Jen Newton 45:21
would say, first get involved locally. Like, know what’s going on in your local school district at your state level, know about who your school board is at your state school board, if you have one, or what your structure is at the state level, who’s making the decisions at the state level, do you have a state CEO, or do you have a state superintendent? Like, what is the structure at your state? Learn follow those people, right? Like, put a Google alert on them. Follow them on blue sky, or on whatever your social media of choice is, or wherever they’re active, and pay attention to what they’re doing. And saying that’s going to tell you a lot. Get in communication with them. Like, track them, follow them. Pay attention to what they’re doing. Follow the all the school board members at the state and local level. You want to know what they’re talking about, what is rising to their attention. Then the next thing I would say is, like, pay attention to what the aft and the NEA are saying at the federal level. Follow them as well. There, if you can, if you are, you know, if you’re able to make space for it, I know some where you have to also preserve your piece. I would also say it’s important to join one of those national unions, because they’re working on behalf of maintaining that agency for teachers and ensuring that teachers have a federal Department of Education that provides them with that oversight. The oversight is essential. Like, well, if we lose the Department of Education, we lose oversight, and that, I think, is incredibly dangerous, and so we want to be involved in advocating, or we want to ensure that we have people at the table. And so having someone who represents your interest is really important, so local first, if you can only do one thing, make it local, because that’s the most important place for your voice to be heard, and if you have the capacity, then definitely get engaged with those unions at the national level, because they’ll do the work for you. They’ll send you like emails with the form letter, and you just have to send it to your reps straight from your box. You don’t have to do a ton of work, and that way, you’re still doing the you’re involved, but you’re managing your capacity, because it’s a long road from here, and we have to make sure that we’re we’re in the in it for the pace and not like running a sprint right here at the beginning. Remember, we haven’t even gotten to haven’t even gotten to inauguration, so we’ve got a long way to go. Yeah,

Chrissy Beltran 47:46
that’s right, all right. Well, thank you so much for sharing this information. I really appreciate that you took your time to meet with us and to share your expertise, and let’s hope for better days.

Dr. Jen Newton 47:59
I love being with you. Thank you so much for having me.

Chrissy Beltran 48:02
Thank you so Jen gave us a lot to think about, and as you are thinking about you know how this is going to affect you and others. You know I just I appreciate that you listened. I appreciate that you made it to the end, and that you know you have a voice, and if you have something to say, you should say it. You have experience. You are at a school. You are an educator. Many do not have that. You see what happens with kids. You see whether they are provided for you see whether they have what they need, and you see the potential in these children that we work with. And so if we can take some of Jen’s advice and do something to support the kids who are we are working with, you could be part of something important.

Chrissy Beltran 48:59
So next? Well, there’s no next episode. I left episode in Season Five, and so the next time you hear from me here, it’ll be in season six, which I always start in February. So I go February to November. So we’re on hiatus officially. And if you’re listening in real time, happy holidays. This is my favorite time of year, until January 2 comes and brings just nothing fun to the table. All the fun stuff I feel like is over, except that it will be time for me to plan for the next season of instructional coaching with Miss B. So if you have thoughts on this on the podcast, I would absolutely love to hear them, if you can give me your input at buzzing with Miss b.com/survey, I would love to plan a season just for you that you will love. If you fill out that survey between now and Friday, December 6, you’ll be entered to win one of several 25 $25 gift cards for my coaching or teaching resources. And so I I really hope that you enter that until. February. Here are a few ways that you can keep learning with me. On Instagram, at buzzing with Miss B. You can join my Facebook group, instructional coaching with Miss B. You can join my blog, check out my blog. At buzzing with Miss b.com you can grab resources on TPT which is you just search for Christie Beltran or buzzing with Miss B. And also, I send out weekly emails. So if you go to buzzing with Miss b.com you can check out all the show notes for every podcast episode going back to 2020 and you also can sign up to be a VIB and get an inbox email in your inbox every week, just giving you tips ideas and letting you know about what the podcast is for that week. So definitely do that. If you don’t currently get those emails, I would love to send you some hope, inspiration, and also really helpful information until February, that is it. So Happy coaching!

Chrissy Beltran 50:53
Now that you’ve got so much to think about, head over to buzzing with Miss b.com to grab some free downloads, become a VIBee and check out the podcast. Show Notes. Happy coaching!