Hello! It’s Lily, from Chalkbeat’s national desk. Today’s big story is about the way states are taking control — and threatening control — of school districts across the country. More state oversight of school districts might be in the Republican playbook, if recent rhetoric and takeovers are an indication.

And hey — don't miss our next Chalkbeat Ideas event on March 16, where we will explore a big question: Is American higher education still worth it? RSVP now to save your virtual seat and join Chalkbeat Ideas Editor Matt Barnum in conversation with KIPP Foundation CEO Shavar Jeffries and Princeton University economics professor Zachary Bleemer. We hope to see you there!

Keep reading to find out why the federal government has kept us busy the past week, from Supreme Court rulings to a report on the future of education research. We’ll also fill you in on microschools, civics exams and more.

Republican states are taking control of local school boards across the country. And Texas is leading the charge, starting with its takeover of Houston’s school district in 2023, followed by four more districts in the past six months.

One of the more recent takeovers in Texas is of Fort Worth’s school district, which serves about 70,000 students, many of whom are Hispanic or Black. Fort Worth parents and a teacher told me they’ve watched Houston’s takeover closely — sometimes with horror and sometimes with intrigue. They’d like to see more students thrive academically, but they’re not sure the state’s presence will help.

This may feel a little “something old is new again,” because takeovers have been a tactic in many states for decades. But researchers told me they’ve noticed a shift in the political rhetoric around takeovers, with Republican leaders making more overtly political arguments in favor of taking over major school districts.

For instance, in January, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis seemed to imply it was time for the state to take control of Broward County’s school district, one of the state’s largest, because the district was being run for “the entrenched interests, particularly the school unions, rather than the parents and the students.” Florida’s education commissioner hasn’t initiated any kind of receivership, but we’re keeping an eye on it.

Nevada Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo included state oversight in his marquee education reform plan proposed last year. He said the ability to take power from local school boards was important to free students from failing schools.

“If governance is the obstacle, and in some cases it clearly is, this bill gives us the authority to act,” he said unveiling the plan. He signed the final reform bill into law last year.

Read the full story here.

Parents should know if their child is going by a new gender identity at school, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday. The conservative majority blocked a California law that banned school districts from revealing a students’ gender identity without their consent. Up until this ruling, the court had declined to consider similar cases. The court argued that parents have the right to “direct the upbringing and education of their children.”

State and school education leaders say they are seeing “unprecedented” interest from the federal government, even amid Trump’s vow to cut the U.S. Department of Education. Education Secretary Linda McMahon has been touring the country spreading the administration’s promise to “return education to the states.” But folks on the state level say they are closely monitoring federal policy shifts, with the federal government scrutinizing everything from a gender-neutral bathroom policy in Denver to a Native American school mascot in Long Island.  

The Trump administration’s cuts to education may make it harder to track how many children bring guns to school. Researchers can’t effectively study school safety and are building their own data tools to fill in the gaps. The Trace used a few data sources to try to understand how guns make it into schools, finding students are more likely to bring a firearm to school with them when they are exposed to violence.

The Institute of Education Sciences was among the most decimated offices within the U.S. Department of Education when the cost-cutting U.S. DOGE Service took a hatchet to things about a year ago. Yet in the wreckage, some saw an opportunity to rebuild the federal government’s research arm to be more relevant and urgent for today’s challenges. 

And supporting research and disseminating best practices is one of the main roles of the federal government in education. 

The Education Department brought in Amber Northern, senior vice president for research at the center-right Thomas B. Fordham Institute, to look at the work IES had been doing and talk to researchers, state schools chiefs, and others about the best path forward. 

The Education Department released Northern’s recommendations last week. Her report represents both a vigorous defense of the value of a strong federal role in education research and a call for significant changes in how the government approaches that job.

“I think most people will see this as a nuanced report,” said Dan Goldhaber, who heads the CALDER Center at the American Institutes for Research, which lost a number of contracts in the purge. “There can be disagreements about specifics and recommendations, but taking a step back and casting a wide lens, she got it right about what was working and what wasn’t.” 

The Education Department hasn’t publicly committed to adopting the recommendations, but some changes already are afoot. As Education Week reported, the department has published a proposal for revamping comprehensive centers that provide technical assistance and research support to state and local education leaders. Instead of following federal priorities, a national hub would provide “concierge-style” services to state education departments.

DOGE canceled the contracts that funded the comprehensive centers and regional education labs, then a federal judge ordered them restored last fall. Feedback collected by Northern found that some centers provided valuable services, but there was inconsistency, duplication of effort, and competition. 

Checker Finn, Northern’s colleague at Fordham and a former top Education Department official, noted that one of her important recommendations — focusing on a smaller set of the most urgent problems, as informed by states and local communities — raises questions about who gets to decide what those are.

“One must ask,” he wrote, “whether gathering advice in that way can ever yield a coherent and worthwhile agenda for a federal agency that should instead (in my view) be leading states and districts into the future.”

That’s the range for the estimated number of students enrolled in microschools across the country. The Hechinger Report profiled a microschool in Indiana started by a rural school district leader who thinks the model could help public schools attract more students.

That was Secretary of State Marco Rubio, responding to claims that airstrikes hit a girls’ school in Iran as part of joint U.S. military operations with Israel. 

Thousands of mourners attended a funeral Tuesday for those killed in the attack in southern Iran. The bombing killed at least 175 people. An Al Jazeera investigation suggests the school, which primarily served the children of military personnel, was hit by a direct strike. Al Jazeera questioned whether the strike was intentional or relied on very old intelligence.

Rubio said the Department of War would investigate such claims “if that was our strike.”

Looking for your next read? Check out these other great newsletters.