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

    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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  • opinion

    Supreme Court Upholds School Choice, Free Exercise in Maine Case
    “The state will take your money, but won’t allow you to use it as you know best,” Amy Carson said, in a stinging rebuke of her home state of Maine last year when legal scholars from the Institute for Justice and First Liberty Institute appealed her case to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a child’s…
    Sarah Parshall Perry | Jonathan Butcher
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  • opinion

    Concerned Parents: Ask Your Children If They’ve Encountered a Drag Queen at School
    The world continues to change, and as a result, so do our social standards and norms. This change has been a part of the human experience and development since the dawn of creation. However, there are certain standards that have remained untouched, such as the protection of our children and the things they should and…
    Armstrong Williams
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  • opinion

    ‘A Drag Queen in Every School’ Is Modern Left’s ‘Chicken in Every Pot’
    For today’s left, it seems that, politically, “A drag queen for every school” has replaced “a chicken in every pot.” Really.  Here’s what Michigan’s Democratic attorney general, Dana Nessel, who is gay, had to say about the trend of bringing drag queen events to schools. “Drag queens make everything better. Drag queens are fun,” Nessel…
    Jarrett Stepman
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  • news

    New Jersey Parent Sues School for Curriculum That Allegedly Discriminates Against White Students
    A parent is suing their child’s school district and its individual administrators in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, for teaching an educational curriculum that allegedly promotes “anti-racism” and discriminates against white students, according to legal documents. The parent, listed as B.L. for privacy, is suing Mountain Lakes School District for certain parts of its curriculum put in…
    Reagan Reese
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  • opinion

    Kirk Cameron’s New Documentary Explores World of Homeschooling
    Thanks to virtual schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic, parents were horrified to discover the radical lesson plans their children’s activist teachers were teaching. Lessons on critical race theory and on sexual orientation and gender identity caused parents to realize they would have to take their kids’ education into their own hands. Post-pandemic, the homeschool boom…
    Douglas Blair
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  • opinion

    How Vocational-Technical Schools Are Helping Students Achieve the American Dream
    The Pioneer Institute is out with a new book, “Hands-On Achievement: Massachusetts’s National Model Vocational-Technical Schools,” which finds that vocational-technical high schools have lower dropout rates and on-par test scores with traditional high schools. The Boston-based think tank also makes the case that these high-performing schools in Massachusetts should serve as a national model, both…
    Robert B. Bluey
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  • opinion

    Ilya Shapiro Resigns at Georgetown Law, Citing ‘Untenable’ Status at School
    Georgetown law professor Ilya Shapiro resigned less than a week after being reinstated by the school. Georgetown Law School placed the constitutional scholar on administrative leave and subjected him to a four-month “investigation” over a tweet. The tweet, which Shapiro deleted and called “inartful,” opposed the idea that a Supreme Court justice should be chosen…
    Jarrett Stepman
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