Dive Brief:

• The Trump administration is set to impact a lot more than school choice efforts when it comes to education, and Education Week has compiled a list of top federal policy issues to watch, including Affordable Care Act repeal, which could impact students as well as school district employees.
• The U.S. Department of Education under Trump will play a major role in implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act, particularly when it comes to accountability plans that states will begin submitting in April, and President Donald Trump’s first budget proposal will reveal what he plans to do with the Department of Education and his promise to scale it back or eliminate it.
• While the Obama administration was particularly aggressive when it came to civil rights enforcement, Education Week reports there’s little information about how the Trump administration will approach the role and when it comes to his immigration plans, some are even worried a transformed Supreme Court could overturn the 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision that gives undocumented children access to free public school.

Dive Insight:

In the first days of the Trump administration, speculation about what policy changes are coming down the pike are reaching a fever pitch. Trump’s nominee for secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, has not yet been confirmed. The Senate committee charged with giving her an initial vote postponed its decision until next week to give members time to go over her ethics review.

One concrete action already taken by the Trump administration, common among recent presidents, is freezing pending regulations. The flurry of work Obama administration staffers did in recent months has always had the potential to be nullified and for many of the ESSA regulations, it is still not clear what will happen. Any regulations that have not gone into effect, however, have been put on pause.