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

    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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    • News

    Portland Schools Teaching Young Children About ‘Infinite Gender Spectrum’

    A Portland school is teaching children as young as kindergarteners about the “infinite gender spectrum” and gender “colonization,” according to public documents. The curriculum implemented in 2021 at Portland Public Schools in Portland, Oregon, teaches K-12 students that there is an “infinite gender spectrum” and that they can make up their own pronouns, according to…
    Reagan Reese
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    • News

    Iowa School District Allows Students to Spend Overnight Trips With Whichever Gender They Identify With

    An Iowa school district policy allows students to spend overnight trips with the students who share their “gender identity.” The discrimination policy at Linn-Mar Community School District in Linn County, Iowa, gives students a Gender Support Plan, which makes “appropriate arrangements” for students in seventh grade or older wishing to change their gender identity at…
    Reagan Reese
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    • Opinion

    New School Model Combines Virtual Reality With Classical Education

    Classical education is a trusted model of learning. Virtual reality is a new technology still being fully developed. Despite the view of some that the two could be in conflict with each other, Erika Donalds disagrees.  “Classical education … is content-based, and [virtual reality] is the perfect way to deliver that content,” says Donalds, president and…
    Virginia Allen
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    • Opinion

    School Meals Bill Serves Up 2 Unappetizing Helpings of Left’s Agenda

    The House Committee on Education and Labor is expected this week to consider legislation known as the Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids Act. HR 8450 is a far-left wish list, seeking to expand welfare for all through universal free school meals and trying to use the school meals programs as a pretext to push far-left environmental,…
    Daren Bakst
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    • News

    ‘Queer All School Year’: Los Angeles School District Forces Gender Theory Into Classroom

    The largest public school district in California is teaching a curriculum promoting transgenderism and gender theory to children, according to public documents. The Human Relations, Diversity, and Equity department at Los Angeles Unified School District is using presentations, training programs, and clubs to instruct K-12 students on gender identity, according to public documents, first reported by…
    Reagan Reese
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    • News

    Education Reformers Look to Example of Mary McLeod Bethune

    Congressional leaders unveiled a statue of education pioneer Mary McLeod Bethune in a ceremony Wednesday in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall. The next day, a Heritage Foundation panel convened to discuss the legacy of Bethune and what her work means today to Americans, as well as the future of education in this country. Bethune, a…
    Jarrett Stepman
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    • Opinion

    Cornell University Removes Bust of Abraham Lincoln After Getting 1 ‘Complaint’

    The war on history came for all our past, from Columbus to the Founding Fathers to Abraham Lincoln. Now, college campuses appear to be conducting mop-up operations. The College Fix reports that officials removed a bust of Lincoln from a Cornell University library exhibit after somebody complained. “Someone complained, and it was gone,” Cornell University…
    Jarrett Stepman
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    • Opinion

    Best Teachers Could Be Your Parents, ‘Homeschool Awakening’ Documentary Suggests

    Actor Kirk Cameron’s new documentary “The Homeschool Awakening” features 14 homeschooling families. Those families, failed by the public education system, have embarked on a homeschooling journey, and they share how the decision has changed their lives.   Like most other American families, those parents initially sent their children to public school because “it’s just what you do.” The…
    Bernadette Hassan
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    • Opinion

    Federal Court’s School Dress Code Ruling Skirts Larger Issues

    In the 1950s, when television was in black and white—as was the distinction between acceptable and unacceptable behavior—comedian Milton Berle would occasionally wear a dress in a skit, causing the studio audience to laugh uproariously. How things have changed. A U.S. court of appeals recently ruled that North Carolina charter day schools cannot have dress…
    Cal Thomas
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    • News

    School Counselor Put on Leave After Deriding ‘Gender Ideology’

    A Milwaukee public school counselor was placed on administrative leave after stating she would refuse to support transgender students, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. The school district announced Friday that Marissa Darlingh was put on leave on June 15, the last day of school, for speaking out against transgender students, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.  Darlingh’s…
    Reagan Reese
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