Education Policy & School Reform News

This section covers K12 policy, school board elections, curriculum transparency, parental rights, school choice, charter and voucher programs, and state and federal rules that shape classrooms. The Daily Signal includes news reports, analysis, commentary, and opinion pieces to explain how these decisions affect students, families, and educators.
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    • News

    Politicizing College Football, UMass Trolls Liberty University With ‘Pride Day’

    College football season is back—and so is the politicization of a fall pastime that used to unite Americans across the aisle. This year’s game day rivalries on the University of Massachusetts’s home field consist of a little more than fans with opposing school spirit. With plans to host the Liberty University Flames on its territory…
    Marjorie Jackson
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    • News

    Vanderbilt University Medical Center Under Fire After Videos Expose ‘Big Moneymaker’ Allegations About Transgender Surgeries on Kids

    The governor of Tennessee is calling for an investigation into Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Pediatric Transgender Clinic following viral tweets exposing alarming attitudes toward transgender surgeries and procedures for children. Daily Wire host Matt Walsh shared Tuesday afternoon that his team has been investigating the transgender clinic, claiming that “Vanderbilt drugs, chemically castrates, and performs…
    Mary Margaret Olohan
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    • News

    Lawmakers, Parents Vow to Stop Infiltration of LGBT Gender Ideology in Schools

    As parents become more aware of what radical activists are teaching their kids in school, a group of House Republicans held a “Back-to-School Roundtable” on Capitol Hill aimed at protecting children from LGBT ideology.  “We have seen school boards, teachers unions, and even the Department of Justice attempt to hijack parental rights. But these people…
    Douglas Blair
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    • Opinion

    Supreme Court Hands Short-Term Win to Pride Group, but Encourages Yeshiva University to Return

    Another conflict is brewing between the constitutional right to freely exercise religion and the civil right to be free from discrimination. Like several such cases in recent years, the Supreme Court is likely—or so we hope—to decide this one favorably in the end. Yeshiva University, located in New York City, includes America’s largest Jewish undergraduate…
    Thomas Jipping
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    • Opinion

    Does Your Kid’s School Librarian Need Parental Supervision? ‘Banned Books Week’ May Tell You.

    Banned Books Week is coming to K-12 schools and city libraries across the nation September 18-24. This is a time for librarians to promote books that have been challenged for offensive content, such as sexually explicit writing and images, the promotion of so-called transgender lifestyles, and child sexual abuse. Librarians get to tout their activism…
    Amy Haywood
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    • News

    Southern Poverty Law Center Takes Aim at School Boards, Local Elections With New PACs

    The Southern Poverty Law Center, notorious for branding mainstream conservatives and Christians as “hate groups” and equating them with the Ku Klux Klan, is taking aim at school boards and local elections.  The SPLC Action Fund announced the launch of two political action committees on Monday, targeting local government races in the South and countering…
    Tyler O’Neil
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    • News

    DeSantis: Purpose of Education Is to Educate, Not ‘Indoctrinate’ Kids

    ORLANDO, Florida—Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke about how important it was for parents to reclaim their rights in education, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic.  “We’ve seen over the last few years in our country how important policy is, both good and very bad,” DeSantis said at a Heritage Foundation event Friday in Orlando. “There may be no…
    Douglas Blair
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    • Opinion

    Orthodox Jewish Schools Share Priorities of Most Americans, Regardless of What NY Times Says

    The New York Times is once again preparing to release a hit piece on Orthodox Jewish schools, also known as “yeshivas.” The attack comes just before a key state Board of Regents meeting, apparently timed to support a push to regulate the content of instruction in those schools so that it’s “substantially equivalent” to that…
    Jay Greene
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    • News

    Where Does Your State Rank in Education Freedom?

    Florida ranks highest among the states in education freedom, while the District of Columbia trails behind all of them, according to a new “report card” from The Heritage Foundation.   The leading think tank’s 2022 Education Freedom Report Card, released Thursday, measures all 50 states and the District based on four broad categories: school choice, transparency,…
    Gillian Richards
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    • Opinion

    After Being Targeted by NBC News, Christian School Refuses to Back Down on Traditional Morality

    Grace Christian School “fielded hundreds, probably thousands, of phone calls Thursday, Friday, over the weekend, with just some of the most outrageous things: People threatening to burn my house down, threatening to kill my family,” said Barry McKeen, school administrator and pastor of Grace Community Church of Valrico, Florida, which runs the school. The threats came in…
    Joshua Arnold
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    • News

    New Jersey’s Largest School District Implements Mask Mandate for Entire School Year

    The largest school district in New Jersey is going ahead with plans to implement a mask mandate during the 2022-2023 school year, according to district policy. Newark Public Schools in Essex County, New Jersey, is requiring students and educators to wear a mask on all school “locations and grounds” to combat COVID-19, according to the district policy. The school district…
    Reagan Reese
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    • News

    Civil Rights Groups Silent as DC Blocks 40% of Black Kids From Going to School 

    In the nation’s capital, almost half of the city’s black students ages 12 and over won’t be going back to school this fall. As a result, their already precarious educational situation is primed to suffer even more.  Yet notable civil rights organizations are silent as 40% of the District of Columbia’s black students who are…
    Douglas Blair
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    • Opinion

    How Education Freedom Could Solve Our Crisis

    Arizona is leading the way in education freedom. Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, just became the first governor to sign into law universal education saving accounts for every student in Arizona. Education saving accounts give parents access to tax dollars for their child’s education. Instead of tax dollars automatically going to public schools in a…
    Virginia Allen
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    • Opinion

    School Choice Advocate Corey DeAngelis Explains Why Freedom Is Winning Education Revolution

    More parents than ever are taking their kids out of failing public schools and educating them in the way that benefits them most, whether that’s in a private or charter school, or through homeschooling. In the vanguard of the fight to achieve school choice across the nation is Corey DeAngelis. DeAngelis is a senior fellow…
    Douglas Blair
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    • News

    School Choice Ensures Equality of Opportunity, Empowers Families, Experts Say

    Government-assigned schools have fostered a system of resegregation, one in which students are divided “racially, socially, and economically,” says Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts.  Roberts contends that educational freedom is the foremost civil rights issue of the 21st century, because school choice ensures equality of opportunity, and that in turn improves public schools on every measure, he said.  “Because…
    Gillian Richards
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    • Opinion

    Public School Teachers Told to Indoctrinate Kids as Young as 3 in Radical LGBT Theory

    State universities indoctrinate future teachers in controversial transgender, racial, and political theories—and instruct them to teach these principles to children beginning in preschool, a new report has found. “There’s a huge amount of liberal indoctrination going on,” the report’s author, Will Flanders, told “Washington Watch” guest host Joseph Backholm on Monday. “We found it across…
    Ben Johnson
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    • Opinion

    The Exodus From Public Schools

    As parents prepare to send their children back to school, many will have made decisions about their child’s education that will not only put them on a different trajectory, but also impact the public education system, which is being used in too many districts to indoctrinate more than educate. Stories about drag queens in kindergarten,…
    Cal Thomas
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    • News

    Back-to-School Blues: Droves of Americans Ditching Public School

    This summer, students aren’t the only ones dreading going back to the classroom. According to staggering enrollment data, parents appear to have had a case of back-to-school blues over public education since COVID-19’s onset in early 2020. In the past two years, a mass exodus of over 1.2 million students has left the public school…
    Marjorie Jackson
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    • News

    Utah School District Pulls Dozens of Books With Titles Such as ‘Gender Queer’

    Utah’s largest school district has removed 52 books from its library for alleged inappropriate content and plans to investigate another 32, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. Alpine School District in northern Utah County is removing the books following an internal audit sparked by parental complaints, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. The school board will formally…
    Reagan Reese
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    • News

    Governors Have ‘Incredible Ability’ to Rescue Education, South Dakota’s Noem Says 

    South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem says governors can counter federal overreach in schools and accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of destroying kids’ education.  “We can talk about members of Congress eliminating the Department of Education, or reforming it to that level, but governors have incredible ability to make a difference right at home,” Noem, a Republican, said in remarks Wednesday…
    Samantha Aschieris
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