A federal judge held U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in contempt of court last week for billing thousands of students who were victims of education fraud. U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim on Thursday said the Department of Education continued to collect money from former students of the for-profit Corinthian Colleges despite a May 2018 court order to stop. The San Francisco judge fined the department $100,000 and required detailed monthly reporting to verify future compliance.

California last week became the first state in the country to mandate later school start times in an attempt to alleviate the effects of chronic sleep deprivation for teens.

Starting July 1, 2022, high schools in the state must start at 8:30 a.m. or later, and middle schools may not begin before 8 a.m. The move aligns California’s schools with the prevailing recommendations of all the major medical associations.

In the run-up to the 2020 presidential primaries, almost every Democratic candidate has proposed big changes to address college affordability. Last week, former Vice President Joe Biden unveiled his higher education plan, which includes free community and technical college for all. Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts are promoting $1 trillion in proposed reforms, including broad student debt cancellation.

Harvard University has prevailed in a lawsuit against its acceptance policies, but the court proceedings revealed obvious bias in how the Ivy League school makes admissions decisions.

Serial sexual abuser Larry Nassar is serving a de facto life sentence in prison, but his victims are still fighting for justice. The female gymnasts who accused and brought down Nassar, a former sports doctor for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University, want to hold accountable the institutions that propped up their abuser.

An advisory board tasked with finding ways to desegregate the nation’s largest school district wants to do away with New York City’s gifted and talented programs for elementary students. The suggestion has parents, politicians, and education officials in an uproar at the prospect of shuttering a successful program rather than figuring out how more people can benefit from it.

Oklahoma state investigators claim an online charter school pocketed millions in taxpayer funds by inflating its enrollment and tricking parents into participating in the alleged fraud.

Epic Charter Schools’ founders, David Chaney and Ben Harris, face accusations of enrolling “ghost students” who received little or no instruction because they already attended private schools or their parents homeschooled them. Investigators said Epic offered families who double-enrolled an $800 “learning fund” they could spend without any obligation to receive instruction through Epic.