The Trump administration has dropped an effort to defund schools that teach “diversity, equity and inclusion.” The legal move undermines a top Arizona official’s threats to schools.
One year ago, President Donald Trump issued an executive order pledging to defund any schools teaching DEI, but a federal judge blocked that order in August, finding it was a violation of the First Amendment.
The Trump administration was seeking an appeal until this week.
Arizona GOP Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne made defunding schools a central threat in his annual address to lawmakers on Tuesday.
Horne said hundreds of millions of dollars are at risk unless Arizona reviews its teaching standards to eradicate any “DEI” language. He also told lawmakers he was prepared to cut funding because he agrees with the Trump administration that DEI is wrong.
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A pair of education groups are proposing a ballot initiative to rein in Arizona's universal school voucher program — which has ballooned to a nearly billion-dollar-a-year expense since first approved in 2022. -
The Phoenix Union High School District Governing Board is planning to discuss censuring one of its members at next month’s meeting. This come after community calls for his resignation. -
A Mesa teacher’s aide who was arrested over inappropriate texts with a student worked with special needs students, the prosecutor says. Dominic Sette was arrested by Mesa police on Tuesday. -
There's a looming crisis for Arizonans on the autism spectrum, as the cost of a popular form of therapy spirals out of control. -
Mesa police say they arrested 24-year-old Dominic Sette after administrators at Empower Academy in east Mesa discovered inappropriate texts between Sette and a 14-year-old male student.
