Biden Administration: What Can They Accomplish via EO?
As the odds of Democrats winning a majority of the Senate
look highly unlikely, much of the conversation in D.C. has shifted to what the
Biden Administration can accomplish via Executive Orders or through their
administrative powers. Over the summer, the Biden campaign published the
results of a Democrat
unity taskforce they led with Senator Bernie Sanders which contains policy
proposals, both legislative and executive, that would unite the party. While
the majority of them do require Congressional approval, there are some policies
that the American
Prospect has identified that the Biden Administration could execute via Executive
Order that directly impact public school students and policies. Here is a brief
list of actions Biden could take unilaterally to change or influence district
policies and practices:
Fully implement the Every Student Succeeds Act, which gives states
the option to choose school climate as an indicator of school quality; all
states must describe how they will plan to support districts in reducing the
use of policies and practices that push students out of school.
Encourage states to adopt and develop a multiple measures approach
to assessment, like the New York Performance Standards Consortium and the
International Baccalaureate so students can showcase what they know in a
variety of ways.
Provide support to districts to best meet the needs of their students
during the crisis and beyond. This includes crafting recovery plans with an
equity lens and determining how to responsibly use remote learning as an
emergency tool when necessary and returning to face to face classrooms when
conditions allow. Digitize all necessary educational materials and ensure
access to hardware, software, and particularly broadband for all students and
educators.
Ban for-profit private charter businesses from receiving federal
funding.
Appoint a federal task force to study charter schools' impact on
public education and make recommendations
Initiate a series of reforms regarding parent and community
participation in charter governance, accountability and transparency
Support the six recommendations from the National Commission on
Social, Emotional, and Academic Development report, "From a Nation at Risk
to a Nation at Hope," as well as the action agenda.
Require the Secretaries of Education and HHS to develop federal
standards for ensuring that all federally funded childcare settings include
children with disabilities and do not discriminate on the basis of disability.
Address the shortage in special education teachers within our
system with an eye towards teacher recruitment, training opportunities, and
workload for special education teachers
Aggressively enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act and the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to address both programmatic and
architectural barriers
Work with higher education institutions to support a career path
for early childhood educators to attain early childhood certificates (CDAs),
associate and bachelor's degrees, and ongoing job-embedded training and
professional development and create a career path for lead teachers in
preschool classrooms to have a bachelor’s degree in child development and/or
early childhood education and assistant teachers to have an associate’s degree
in child development.
Improve federal data collection on racial segregation in schools
as part of a broader project of reinvigorating Ed's Office of Civil Rights.
Maintain the U.S. Department of Education’s current level of Civil
Rights Data Collection (CRDC) by preserving the existing questions and
disaggregation of data by student subgroups, requiring all schools and
districts to collect and report the data annually and continuing to make the
CRDC accessible to the public.