According to a Federal Register notice published August 7, 2025, the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) is proposing to abandon data collection on transgender and nonbinary students, including on whether they are victims of harassment and bullying and whether school districts have policies prohibiting those incidents. The changes come as part of the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) for the 2025-26 and 2027-28 school years, a mandated survey of all public school districts that has been administered for over five decades. The USDE noted on its website that the CRDC has “captured data on students’ equal access to educational opportunities to understand and inform schools’ compliance with the civil rights laws” enforced by the USDE’s Office for Civil Rights.”

The proposed changes to the upcoming collections eliminate transgender students and the term “gender identity” from the USDE’s definition of “rape” and “sexual assault and, according to the USDE, are being proposed to comply with the 2020 Title IX rule, which excludes LGBTQ+ students from sex-based discrimination protections.

The CRDC is used to inform civil rights compliance and discrimination investigations.

The USDE is accepting comments on the notice until September 8, 2025.For more from K-12 Dive, click here.

The U.S. Department of Education (USDE) has quietly rescinded Obama-era guidance that called on states and school districts to ensure English learners “can participate meaningfully and equally” in school and “have equal access to a high-quality education and the opportunity to achieve their full academic potential.” In doing so, the USDE said in a statement to K-12 Dive that it rescinded the guidance because “it is not aligned with [Trump] Administration priorities.” The rescission of the guidance is part of a broader effort from the Trump administration to center the English language above all others.

According to K-12 Dive, the comprehensive and long-standing guidance included information on identifying and assessing potential EL students, evaluating EL students for special education services, ensuring their parents have meaningful access to information, and avoiding “unnecessary segregation” of EL students, among other tasks districts typically undertake when serving English learners. 

The current administration’s rescission of the guidance follows the department’s closure of the Office of English Language Acquisition, which was shut down entirely as part of USDE’s downsizing efforts that began in March 2025.

For more details, click here.

Despite a shift in attitude away from public schools, the 57th annual PDK International Poll released August 19, 20205 found that 66% of respondents were opposed or strongly opposed to the closure of the U.S. Department of Education (USDE). Only 22% said they support or strongly support shuttering the agency.

Conversely, nearly 60% of parents support using public funds for their child to attend a private or religious school, up from 50% in 2007, according to the poll.

Overall support for public schools has dropped, as the percentage of respondents grading their own community schools with an A or B fell from 53% in 2013 to 43% in 2025. 

For more from K-12 Dive click here.

In June 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court (Court) ruled to restrict gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. In that case, the Court’s decision said a person’s identification as “transgender” is distinct from their “biological sex.” It did not touch on whether discrimination against transgender people amounts to sex-based discrimination.

However, as a result of the Court’s ruling the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) has begun citing that decision in findings related to transgender access to athletics and facilities. Further, although the Court’s ruling in U.S. vs. Skrmetti did not directly involve education civil rights law, the Trump administration has used it to bolster its stance that Title IX can be used to exclude transgender students from teams aligning with their gender identities. In fact, by using the decision to inform Title IX cases, the USDE has excluded transgender students from protections against sex-based discrimination.

Further clarity on this issue is expected when the Court rules on a transgender athletics case during its next term. For more details from K-12 Dive click here.

A federal judge is standing by his June 2025 decision requiring the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) to restore its Office for Civil Rights (OCR) “to the status-quo” so that it can “carry out its statutory functions.” The order, which prevents the USDE from laying off OCR employees, comes despite a U.S. Supreme Court emergency order in a separate case allowing the agency to move forward with mass layoffs across the USDE.

According to the judge, the case challenging the gutting of OCR, which included the shuttering of seven out of 12 regional OCR offices, was brought by two students who “faced severe discrimination and harassment in school and were depending on the OCR to resolve their complaints so that they could attend public school.” The Judge said that case (Victim Rights Law Center v. U.S. Department of Education) is separate from New York v. McMahon (the Supreme Court case that allowed the department to proceed with mass layoffs) because the students have “unique harms that they have suffered due to the closure of the OCR.”

As a result of the judge’s latest decision, on August 14, 2025 the USDE appealed the ruling to the U.S.
First Circuit Court of Appeals.For more from K-12 Dive, click here.