Now, with the start of the next financial aid season less than three months away, the U.S. Department of Education won’t promise it can avoid a repeat.

The department is “working toward” opening the Free Application for Federal Student Aid on time and ensuring “a smooth experience,” a spokesperson told ĂŰĚŇÓ°ĘÓ, but dismissed last week’s bipartisan vote by the House education committee to legally enforce an Oct. 1 start as an unhelpful “political stunt.”

comes as financial aid officials are dealing with another delay hindering some students from receiving final aid packages for the fall. The complications have also deterred others from even applying for assistance. Completion rates remain below last year’s rate, suggesting enrollment will stay down this fall.

“Are we going to close the gap? It would be a really herculean effort,” said Bill DeBaun, senior director for data and strategic initiatives at the National College Attainment Network, an organization of college access organizations. Summer, he said, isn’t typically FAFSA season. But even increasing the rate by 3 or 4 percentage points would mean “tens of thousands of additional” students receiving funds for college. 

Members of Congress say forcing the department to release next year’s FAFSA on Oct. 1 will avoid the confusion and chaos that families and colleges endured this year. “Establishing a hard deadline … will provide students, families and schools with much needed clarity and stability,” Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, who chairs the House education committee, said before the July 10 vote.

Six Democrats on the committee who voted against the bill argued that Congress didn’t provide to help the department make the switch and predicted it could lead to even more errors. 

“I want FAFSA to work; we all want FAFSA to work,” said Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott, the ranking Democrat on the committee. “What we don’t want is for the department to rush to meet arbitrary deadlines and push out a FAFSA form once again that has the same technical problems.”

‘A lot of anxiety’

Schools that predominantly serve students whose parents are not U.S. citizens — the population most harmed by the FAFSA overhaul — have been especially stressed.

“It’s been a rollercoaster,” said Ingrid Fragoso, a counselor at KIPP Austin Collegiate in Texas. Only about 10% of the charter school’s students have parents with social security numbers. The redesign first blocked them from completing the form and then required  to submit it. “In the beginning, there was a lot of anxiety around how to help our students.”

At the peak of the chaos, in February and March, the counseling team phoned the department daily to troubleshoot issues for families. While waiting on hold, the counselors used a detailed grid of each senior’s schedule to quickly grab students from class when a department staffer came on the line. For parents with limited English skills, they held practice sessions prior to calls. Now, all 91 students going to four-year schools have received aid packages.

Some counselors and higher education officials say they’re beginning to see the streamlined FAFSA’s potential.

“I feel a lot better about where we’re at than I did a few weeks ago,” said Karen Krause, the executive director of financial aid at the University of Texas at Arlington. The FAFSA completion rate is up 4% compared to last year, bucking and national trends, and the staff was able to begin distributing aid offers in April — ahead of many other . “I do think it’s going to be a better process for students and families.”

When FAFSA works, it works quickly — sometimes in less than 10 minutes. Students and parents who have submitted the forms, she said, keep asking, “Is that all?” The education department also kept to conduct fewer reviews of students’ forms. At UT Arlington, that number dropped dramatically, from over 5,300 last year to under 200, Krause said. 

At the same time, her staff is grappling with a new setback — a backlog of corrections the department . Those revisions ultimately affect how much money colleges can offer students, especially those whose financial circumstances changed since they first applied.

“Say a family member loses a job or there are medical expenses,” explained Jill Desjean, director of policy analysis at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. In those cases, schools might issue a new offer to make tuition more affordable, but those figures won’t be official until the education department approves them. 

Currently, colleges can only one at a time.

“It’s manual and it’s way more work,” Desjean said. 

But they can’t submit them in bulk until next month, a time when students are usually preparing to register for classes and move into dorms. 

‘Answers for kids’ 

If higher education officials feel any sense of relief after such a stormy season, it’s partly because of their own work to ensure families don’t pay the price for FAFSA’s botched implementation. UT Arlington, for one, has waived late fees for students still waiting on federal aid and isn’t dropping them from summer classes if they can’t make tuition payments, Krause said.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice declared a state of emergency over FAFSA, allowing students to apply for state aid without completing the federal form. The move made 17,000 students eligible for merit- or need-based aid, according to a state higher education commission.

And at the University of Florida, Mary Parker, vice president for enrollment management, created a special that offers low-income students up to $15,000 to tide them over until their federal aid comes through. If they end up qualifying for less federal aid than the scholarship covers, they won’t have to make up the difference.

That short-term fix impressed one university official who understands the strain on families with first-time college students.

“It will not be perfect, but [Parker] had enough in her budget to eat the cost of the margin of error. It was more important to prioritize first-generation students,” said Penny Schwinn, the former Tennessee education commissioner who now serves as vice president for the university’s “pre-K to pre-bachelors” initiatives. “K-12 and states are wrestling with this, and it was a really proud moment to see my colleague find innovative and immediate answers for kids.”

But colleges are taking risks when they use their own funds to lower tuition costs for students, said Desjean, with the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

“Not all schools can afford to front their own money while waiting for the federal dollars,” she said. “But it’s great to see that those who are able are doing what they can to minimize harm to students.”

The  passed 213 to 208, with five Republicans voting against it. 

“Teachers unions and education bureaucrats worked to push progressive politics in classrooms while keeping parents in the dark,” Rep. Virginia Foxx, chair of the House education committee, said during Thursday’s floor debate. “The Bill of Rights …aims to end that and shine a light on what is happening in schools.”

But with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that it would face a “dead end,” the legislation is unlikely to get far in the Democratic-controlled Senate. 

House Democrats — who renamed it the “politics over parents act” — say the legislation duplicates existing policies and rights and would micromanage how local schools interact with families. 

“This legislation has nothing to do with parental involvement, parental engagement, parental empowerment,” said Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York. “It has everything to do with jamming the extreme MAGA Republican ideology down the throats of the children and the parents of the United States of America.”

For years, educators who work with families have longed for this level of national attention to the role parents play in their children’s education. But some experts called the Republican approach adversarial and heavy-handed. Republicans view parents rights as a cornerstone of their agenda and are expected to carry the issue into next year’s elections. Even if the House bill dies in the Senate, the debate likely won’t.

Family engagement experts, meanwhile, say they’re hoping for a less-partisan discussion about building trust between educators and parents.

“If we’re creating bills that pit parents against teachers, kids lose,” said Vito Borrello, executive director of the National Association for Family, School and Community Engagement. 

Democrats, he said, have sent the wrong message at times, pointing to former Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe’s that parents shouldn’t tell schools what to teach and the that educators know “better than anyone” what students need. But the GOP legislation, he said, approaches parents rights from a “vigilante perspective.”

Among other provisions, the bill would require schools to post curricula online, provide lists of all books and other reading materials in the library and notify parents of the affiliations of any outside speakers at school events. 

Prior to the vote, the House approved several amendments, including one that would make schools disclose when they eliminate any gifted and talented programs and another requiring educators to turn over videos or recordings of any “violent activity” at school. Another stating that parents have a right to “timely notice” of a cyberattack against a school that could expose student or parent information received overwhelming support from both parties, passing 420 to 5.

But amendments that would have eliminated the Department of Education, sent Title I funds directly to families to use for private schools or homeschooling, and block grant education funding to the states failed. 

Dozens of education organizations, including AASA, The School Superintendents Association, the NAACP and The Education Trust, endorsed , led by Rep. Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon, that emphasized inclusion, high-quality schools and a well-rounded education. But the bill failed, 223 to 203, with one Democrat, Sharice Davids of Kansas, voting against. 

Charles Barone, vice president for K-12 policy at Democrats for Education Reform, said the Senate would likely let the bill GOP die and not try to negotiate a compromise. The question is whether passage of the bill gives Republicans momentum going into the election next year. 

“As a general election strategy, it’s pretty ill-advised,” Barone said. “There is a set of voters that buys their line of argument, but that set is pretty narrow. This is such an old playbook.”

The Biden administration has already expressed its disapproval. “The administration strongly supports actions that empower parents to engage with their children’s teachers and schools, like enabling parents to take time off to attend school meetings,” the White House statement said. “Legislation should not politicize our children’s education. It should deliver the resources that schools and families actually need.”

Gender identity provision

The administration’s statement drew attention to a provision that it said would make LGBTQ students feel less welcome. The legislation would require schools to get parental consent if a student wants to officially change their gender markers or pronouns or use facilities inconsistent with the sex they were assigned at birth. During the debate, Foxx clarified that the bill would not require counselors or teachers to “out” students if they discuss such topics in confidence.

During the education committee’s mark-up of the bill March 8, several Democrats said not all trans students have supportive parents and that a “one-size-fits-all” federal mandate could put already-vulnerable students at a greater risk. 

But Republican Tim Walberg of Michigan, who pushed for notification, said that informing parents of their child’s request would alert educators to potential maltreatment.

“When a child goes on a field trip or fails a test … their parents are told and often required to sign some sort of acknowledgement,” he said. “Why should the small things require notification but something as significant as a child’s pronouns or a change in accommodations be withheld from the people who raise them care for them?” 

Civil rights advocates argue that even if the bill fails in the Senate, the House’s move still harms trans students. 

“More trans kids are going to wake up reminded that there are leaders in this country who don’t want them to be safe,” said Liz King, senior director of the Education Equity Program at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

The GOP’s bill is inspired by laws that have already passed in several states, like , that allow parents to contest books used in school lessons and libraries and prevent discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in the early grades. Gov. Ron DeSantis now plans to apply to all grades.

Melissa Erickson, executive director of Florida’s Alliance for Public Schools, said the laws are “exacerbating the ” and don’t reflect the concerns of most parents. She doesn’t see the need for a national version. 

“I thought education was left to the states,” she said. “Parents have a right to be heard, but there is a difference between being heard and being accommodated.”

This week’s events in the nation’s capital drew 75 representatives from the National Parents Union, who lobbied against the GOP bill and in favor of Bonamici’s amendment. They met with U.S. Department of Education officials and they visited every House member’s office. 

But their highlight was getting from New York Democratic Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who cited their

“We’re all gripping our seats,” said National Parents Union President Keri Rodrigues. “When we got up to leave, the Democrats stopped on the floor and waved at us. For these parents, it was a powerful moment.”

To some, the congressman from New York is a rising star in the party. But he’s no stranger to the charter school community. 

“We have been able to consistently rely on his support for a decade,” said Nina Rees, CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

As his profile in the party has risen, however, Jeffries has grown less outspoken on the subject. Now responsible for uniting progressives and moderates, observers say he’s less likely to take a firm stance.

Jeffries probably won’t enthusiastically endorse charter schools because of the Democrats’ “need for teachers union support,” said Ray Ankrum, superintendent of Riverhead Charter School on Long Island. But, “if he goes on an Obama-like ascension — which it looks like he can — maybe he’ll be more vocal for school choice.”

The Brooklyn native’s transition to party leader comes at a pivotal moment for the charter community. Advocates and school operators say the Biden administration’s recent changes to a federal grant program for charters will hinder growth. A lawsuit challenging the public status of charter schools and a new openness toward religious charters in Oklahoma could further disrupt the sector. Advocates say they would welcome more public support, but still view Jeffries as an ally.

“To me, he gets it — what’s possible for people of color to start a school,” said Yomika Bennett, executive director of the New York Charter Schools Association. “To dust off an old term, there’s hope.”

In 2014, Jeffries voted for to increase federal funding for charter schools. He visited schools in the Success Academy network and participated with CEO and founder Eva Moskowitz in a 2016 Brooklyn event where thousands rallied for the city to increase the number of charters.

“Everyone in this city, every parent, every child, deserves to have an option, regardless of race, regardless of color, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of immigration status, regardless of ZIP code,” he told the crowd.

And two years later, the Alliance honored him with one of its first #BringTheFunk awards for Black charter school advocates. Jeffries could not be reached for comment.

‘An intra-party debate’

But those examples seem to be part of the distant past.

David Houston, a George Mason University assistant professor, who studies the politics of education, isn’t surprised.

“It doesn’t shock me that Democratic elected officials — especially those who are appealing to a broader swath of their constituency — are going to downplay charters as a key pillar of their education platform,” he said. “Charter schools were never wildly popular [with Democrats]. There’s always been an intra-party debate.”

Charters enjoyed more bipartisan support prior to the Trump administration. President Barack Obama as “incubators of innovation” and urged states to on the number allowed. 

The partisan gap in support for charters grew during the Trump years, Houston found, in part because Betsy DeVos, Trump’s education secretary, was a “reviled figure on the left.”

New charter rule

Recently, that tension resurfaced in the debate over the U.S. Department of Education’s new rule for its . The update urges charters to partner with their local schools, requires more transparency in funding and expects operators to justify creating new charters when local public schools are under-enrolled. Department officials say their goal is to increase accountability and promote more racially diverse schools. 

But critics argued the changes will hamper the growth of smaller operators who predominantly serve Black and Hispanic students — even after the department revised some provisions after backlash from charter leaders.

Now chair of the education committee in the GOP-led House, Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina said in a statement to ĂŰĚŇÓ°ĘÓ that she hopes Jeffries will “urge his conference to support charter schools” and help students by “ending the Biden administration’s harmful anti-charter school rule.”

Last May, some Democrats in the Senate might have agreed with her. 

Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado, Diane Feinstein of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey joined Republicans in telling Education Secretary Miguel Cardona that the rule — as it was originally written — would “add significant burdens and time to an already complex application process.”

By the December vote in the Senate, however, the political winds had shifted. No Democrat voted to overturn it.

The updated requirements, in fact, could give pro-charter Democrats, like Jeffries “more freedom to support increased … funding,” said Halley Potter, a senior fellow at the progressive Century Foundation. 

That’s because the rule requires charters to disclose any contracts with for-profit entities. Ankrum, the superintendent of the Long Island school, said he doesn’t view Jeffries as anti-charter — just being heavily involved in running them. 

“That,” he said, “seems to be the new Democratic push.”