| | | | |  | | By Juan Perez Jr. | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Rebecca Carballo
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Former President Donald Trump is shown covered by Secret Service agents after an incident during a rally on July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images | THE AFTERMATH — Leaders of the country’s teacher unions renewed their campaign for gun regulations as federal authorities investigated an apparent assassination attempt that targeted former President Donald Trump. — But as Republicans look for ways to blame Democrats for an attack that injured Trump and killed two people, including the suspected gunman, it’s time to watch whether influential education leaders and Democratic Party supporters abandon or recalibrate rhetoric that declares democracy — and public education — under threat by Trump and extremist forces in the closing months of 2024’s campaign. — Union leaders’ immediate responses to the shooting focused on denouncing violence and promoting gun safety. — “My thoughts and prayers are with everyone injured or traumatized at the rally today, including former President Trump,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said on X after the shooting on Saturday. “This is horrific: political violence is never ok. Sadly, this again highlights the need for common sense gun safety measures.” — “Political violence is never acceptable and is never justified,” National Education Association President Becky Pringle wrote in her own statement on social media after the shooting. “We must reject these evil acts, and we must do more to keep our communities safe from gun violence.” — President Joe Biden urged the country to avoid assumptions about the gunman’s “motives or his affiliations”. But the growing chorus of conservative voices seeking to pin responsibility on liberals already includes one of Trump’s fastest-rising supporters in education politics. — “The left, the liberal media, and the radical extremists of Joe Biden’s party tried to assassinate @realDonaldTrump,” Oklahoma state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters declared on social media. “They’ve tried to politically assassinate him through the judicial system. It did not work so they’ve resorted to actual violence.” IT’S MONDAY, JULY 15. WELCOME TO MORNING EDUCATION. This week’s Republican National Convention will continue as planned, Trump’s senior advisers told their staff in a memo, but warned workers to stay away from campaign offices as locations are assessed and new security measures are implemented. Reach out with tips to today’s host at jperez@politico.com and also my colleagues Becca Carballo (rcarballo@politico.com), Bianca Quilantan (bquilantan@politico.com) and Mackenzie Wilkes (mwilkes@politico.com).
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President Joe Biden, flanked by first lady Jill Biden and NEA President Becky Pringle, addresses the National Education Association's annual meeting and representative assembly on July 2, 2021. | Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images | STRIKE UPDATE — The National Education Association Staff Organization’s strike against the country’s labor giant is set to stretch into a second week. But the consequences could reverberate for longer. — Staff union members say there’s still a significant gulf between them and the National Education Association’s managers. While they’re considering involving a federal mediator in ongoing talks, staff union members say that step alone won’t be enough to close a deal at the bargaining table. — “It’s not a good look,” NEASO President Robin McLean said of the union’s management in an interview. “That's really the bottom line.” — NEA President Becky Pringle isn’t pleased, either. — “NEASO has consistently misstated facts, manipulated information, and undermined the integrity of bargaining,” Pringle said in a statement to Weekly Education. “NEA stands committed to achieving a solution that meets the needs of our staff while ensuring the long-term health and vitality of our organization.” — Staff union representatives who spoke with your host said they are struggling to obtain information from management about NEA’s use of contracted services, amid their demands for limits on the use of “contracting out” in lieu of work from full-time staffers. That’s in addition to the staff union’s demands for NEA to resume step-and-lane pay increases plus annual cost-of-living increases per year of a successor agreement. — They believe the stance of NEA management is the result of direct influence from Pringle and senior leadership. They also say a strike threatens the union’s organizing and political work ahead of the fast-approaching back-to-school season and this fall’s federal and down-ballot elections. — “What NEA appears to be doing is cutting off its nose to spite its face,” NEASO member Branita Griffin Henson told your host. — “That's what I don't understand, especially at this critical juncture, not just for NEA but for this country,” she said. “When democracy is hanging in the balance, you chose this time to pick this level of fight with the people who do the work for you so that you can be the bastion of democracy, the bastion of union values, and the largest labor union in the United States.” — More bargaining is scheduled to occur this week, the union said.
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| | SAVE UPDATE — Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed an emergency motion on Friday asking a circuit court judge to block the Biden administration from “continuing to unlawfully forgive student loans.” — Judges in Missouri and Kansas have both issued separate preliminary injunctions against different parts of the SAVE plan. In the Missouri case, Judge John A. Ross of the Eastern District of Missouri blocked the Education Department from carrying out “any further loan forgiveness for borrowers” under the SAVE program until he decides the full case, Rebecca reports. — Bailey now alleges the Education Department is evading the injunction by still implementing certain parts of the plan, such as allowing borrowers of a certain income level to have $0 payments. — “Defendants continue cancelling hundreds of billions of dollars in loans despite the district court’s declaration that they lack authority to do so,” Bailey’s office wrote in a Friday legal brief asking for another injunction in the case. — Bailey alleges the SAVE plan has a higher price tag at $475 billion than the Biden administration’s loan forgiveness program that was struck down by the Supreme Court. — “Worse, this plan asserts a statutory interpretation that would give the Secretary of Education unrestricted power to cancel every penny of every federal student loan,” according to the injunction request. — The Justice Department wrote the Education Department is in compliance with the preliminary injunction. Certain parts of SAVE were blocked, but permitted the rest to go into effect. Missouri is asking the judge to block more parts of the plan. — The Justice Department said implementing such a block would “be profoundly inequitable, causing chaos and disrupting the status quo for millions of student loan borrowers nationwide, without affording the government a full and fair opportunity to respond to plaintiffs’ meritless arguments.”
| | | | A message from Sallie Mae®:   | | | | | BAD CONNECTION — The New York City public school system is looking to require schools to adopt a "cell phone free school space" in an effort to curb students’ use during the school day, POLITICO’s Madina Touré reports. — During a Friday briefing with members of the Panel for Educational Policy — the city Department of Education's governing body —Mark Rampersant, the agency’s security director, said the city will leave it to individual schools to adopt the approach they believe is best for them. — That could include having pupils put their devices in lockable pouches, Rampersant said. Another option floated was having students place their phones in plastic bags with bubble wrap inside and their student ID information on the outside of the bag. Students would put their devices in a box and pick it up at the end of the school day. Schools can also take students’ phones and return them at dismissal time. — Rampersant also said parents will be able to have direct contact with schools, who will reach out to them in the event of an emergency. — The DOE’s education panel has to approve any changes to the school system’s cell phone policy. Rampersant said that vote will happen “sometime soon,” but did not provide a date. OUT THE DOOR — Florida A&M University President Larry Robinson is resigning as leader of the state’s only public historically Black university, POLITICO’s Andrew Atterbury reports, amid a probe into a dubious failed $237 million donation. — Robinson, who has led the school for nearly seven years, announced the decision Friday, although the specific timing for when he will step down as president is undecided. — His resignation coincides with an investigation at FAMU surrounding a supposedly campus-altering $237 million donation that came crashing down shortly after it was publicly heralded during a graduation ceremony. The proposed donor appeared to have nowhere near the net worth needed to make a pledge that large, something that only came to light after FAMU had announced the gift. — The probe, led by the university and overseen by system officials, is anticipated to wrap up this month and should shed new light on a snafu that already sparked the resignation of Shawnta Friday-Stroud, FAMU’s vice president for university advancement and executive director of the school’s fundraising foundation.
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