The ACLU of Rhode Island sent a letter to Brown University President Christina Paxson urging her to "forcefully and publicly reject" a new Trump administration "compact" sent to nine universities that would impose conditions to receive federal funding. The compact would restrict university employees from speaking out on political issues, limit foreign student enrollment, and require the university to deny the existence of transgender students while claiming to promote a "marketplace of ideas" that prohibits anything that would "belittle" conservative ideas.

Brown University will eliminate 48 positions and leave 55 vacant jobs unfilled as part of efforts to trim spending by 2.5% and close a $30 million shortfall in fiscal year 2026 operations. The cuts, announced in a September 22 letter from President Christina Paxson and university leadership, come despite an August agreement with the federal government that restored NIH funding in exchange for ideological concessions including binary gender definitions in athletics and housing.

Rhode Island Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Angelica Infante-Green outlines the state's strategy to address science achievement, where about two-thirds of students miss proficiency benchmarks. Rhode Island includes science assessment results in school accountability ratings and has strengthened graduation requirements to specify multiple required lab classes. The state has expanded career and technical education programs by 60 percent since 2019, now offering over 318 programs connecting to high-demand STEM fields.

Stefanie Steffan, coordinator of elementary literacy for Missouri's Rockwood School District, shares how their approach of keeping students together in grade-level cohorts with flexible, needs-based small groups has produced impressive results. The district's kindergarteners outperformed national proficiency averages in every skill group by more than 17 percentage points in some areas, while first and second graders outpaced national averages across nearly every domain.

Seven months after the Trump administration eliminated hundreds of jobs at the U.S. Department of Education and gutted research contracts, several developments offer researchers cautious optimism. The department plans to reinstate 20 of the 100+ canceled research contracts and is seeking public guidance on modernizing the Institute of Education Sciences. Researchers note recent poor NAEP results have catalyzed support for IES, though severe staff shortages continue threatening data quality and research progress.