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

    Maryland Public School District Announces ‘Anti-Racist System Audit’
    Maryland’s largest school district plans to issue an “anti-racist” survey to students to “address racial barriers” in the school district, according to an announcement from the district superintendent. Montgomery County Public Schools will issue an “Anti-Racist System Audit” to all parents, guardians, staff, and all fourth through 12th graders from March 1-31 to review “district…
    Kendall Tietz
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  • opinion

    Maryland Legislature Considers Creating ‘Advisory Council’ to Collect Data on Homeschoolers
    If we have learned anything about left-wing cultural revolutionaries over the past few years and decades, it’s that they insist that all conform to their view of “diversity.” All are welcome, except for those who disagree. That’s why it’s so troubling to see government authorities rope in, and attempt to control, people attempting to maintain…
    Jarrett Stepman
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  • news

    YouTube Removes, Then Restores, Video of Mom Fighting Mask Mandates in School
    YouTube has reversed course after removing a video of a mom calling for the end of mask mandates in her children’s school district.  Virginia resident Merianne Jensen last week stood before her local school board and demanded that the elected leaders stop playing “politics with kid’s faces.”  “We are forcing healthy children home for exposure…
    Virginia Allen
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  • opinion

    We Hear You: Do Catholic Schools Really Embrace Gender Ideology?
    Editor's note: The Daily Signal's audience reacted passionately to a mother's commentary about how a Catholic high school encouraged her daughter's attraction to transgenderism rather than helped the girl's parents respond with facts and faith. Below is a generous sampling of opinion from the mailbag at [email protected].—Ken McIntyre Dear Daily Signal: Charlie Jacobs' commentary article…
    Ken McIntyre
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  • news

    ‘You Are on the Losing Side of History’: Meet Mom Fighting Schools’ Mask Mandates
    Watch the video, above, of Virginia mom Merianne Jensen, whose powerful speech about masks at a school board meeting went viral, or read the lightly edited transcript below. To see somebody, just a plain old simple mom, getting up and calling out the superintendent, I think that resonated with parents. People all over the country…
    Lauren Evans | Mark Guiney | Philip Reynolds
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  • opinion

    Schools Conspire With Outside Groups Behind Parents’ Backs to Counsel Kids on Myriad Gender Choices
    As a former school board member and currently a public school teacher of 30 years, I want to share some information with parents that school districts won’t tell them. Under a program called Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, many outside agencies have access to students without parental knowledge or consent. Many of those agencies provide mental…
    Brenda Lebsack
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  • opinion

    Despite What They Say, Public Schools Have Plenty of Funding
    Editor’s note: Jan. 23-29 is National School Choice Week. This is the last of a five-part series of commentaries exploring the successes and challenges of educational choice and the people fighting to make it available to all American schoolchildren.  As we conclude National School Choice Week 2022, people around Washington state are about to hear…
    Liv Finne
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  • opinion

    Left Barely Masks Its Contempt for Parents’ Involvement in Education
    As a rule, leftists are pretty stealthy about expressing their true feelings, preferring to pose as “moderates” until the time comes to actually impose their radical agendas. That results in a good deal of dishonesty when it comes to their message, but every so often a whiff of candor does leak out—only to be quickly…
    Jeff Rhodes
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  • opinion

    Education Is Not One-Size-Fits-All
    Jan. 23-29 is National School Choice Week. This is the fourth of a five-part series of commentaries exploring the successes and challenges of educational choice and the people fighting to make it available to all American schoolchildren.  All children in the United States should have access to a quality education, no matter their race, gender,…
    Susan Kay Moses
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  • opinion

    Mask Mandates in School: Should Parents Have That Choice?
    A new Republican governor is trying to return power to the hands of parents in his state.  On his first day in office on Jan. 15, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed an executive order giving parents the choice about whether or not their child should wear a mask at school. Now, seven Virginia school districts…
    Virginia Allen | Lauren Evans
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  • opinion

    In Kentucky, Education Opportunity Accounts Can Give Students Chance to Overcome Hardship
    Jan. 23-29 is National School Choice Week. This is the second of a five-part series of commentaries exploring the successes and challenges of educational choice and the people fighting to make it available to all American schoolchildren.  In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kentucky lawmakers seized the opportunity to pass the state’s first significant…
    Heather Huddleston
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  • opinion

    As I Found Out With My Daughter, Not Even Catholic Schools Are Safe Havens From Gender Ideology
    My husband and I looked to a Catholic school to be an ally in our fight to break our daughter free from the grip of gender confusion. We were naive. Our daughter, now 15, was 13 when she was coached into believing that she was born in the wrong body and could change to be…
    Charlie Jacobs
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  • opinion

    For Parents, School Choice Provides Hope
    Jan. 23-29 is National School Choice Week. This is the first of a five-part series of commentaries exploring the successes and challenges of educational choice and the people fighting to make it available to all American schoolchildren.  There’s a local coffee shop that has become a hub for people working from home who also want…
    Jenny Clark
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  • news

    Parents Group Claims Saint Paul School System Indoctrinates Preschoolers on Transgender Issues
    A parents group claims that a Minnesota school district is indoctrinating toddlers about pride and other “equity” agenda items. Saint Paul Public Schools is partnering with two organizations, AMAZE and OutFront Minnesota, to purportedly push materials discussing gender identity on children as young as 3, according to a release by Parents Defending Education. One document released by Parents…
    Harold Hutchison
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  • news

    State Superintendent Won’t Approve Curriculum Telling Disabled Preschoolers to ‘Deconstruct Whiteness’
    North Carolina's school superintendent walked back plans to implement a statewide curriculum that would teach disabled preschoolers to “deconstruct whiteness,” according to a report from Education First Alliance. Catherine Truitt, North Carolina’s superintendent of public instruction, said she “will not sign” a contract proposal that would teach disabled preschoolers that “we are all products of a racialized society” and…
    Kendall Tietz
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  • news

    GOP Lawmakers Demand Ouster of Education Secretary Over Reported Role in Targeting Parents
    More than 40 House Republicans are calling for the ouster of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona after a report of his apparent role in a national schools group’s calling some concerned parents “domestic terrorists,” while 24 GOP senators are asking the nation’s top education official for answers.  The push comes after Fox News reported earlier this…
    Fred Lucas
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  • opinion

    It’s Time for Parents to Lead on Education Because They ‘Know Their Children Best’
    When it comes to children’s education, parents know best, Laura Zorc says.  As the mother of four kids herself, Zorc has been fighting for education reform since 2013, when her home state of Florida began adopting Common Core education goals. She successfully rallied a group of parents to stand against the federally funded learning standards….
    Virginia Allen
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  • news

    Oklahoma Proposes Bill That Would Allow Parents to Remove Sexually Graphic Books From School Libraries
    An Oklahoma bill introduced on Dec. 16 may allow parents to seek the removal of books that they deem inappropriate from school libraries. The bill, Senate Bill 1142, would give parents a right to ask for the removal of “books that are of a sexual nature that a reasonable parent or legal guardian would want to…
    Kendall Tietz
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  • news

    1619 Project Creator: I Don’t ‘Understand This Idea That Parents Should Decide What’s Being Taught’ in School
    The creator of The New York Times' 1619 Project said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday she doesn’t understand the argument “that parents should decide what’s being taught” to their children in school. The 1619 Project was created by Nikole Hannah-Jones, a writer for The New York Times, and it promotes the idea that America’s "true…
    Kendall Tietz
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  • opinion

    A Glimpse Into Homeschooling Through Holidays
    Homeschooling during the holidays is a meaningful time in my family’s homeschool. Since my husband and I started homeschooling our children, we have taught them year-round. This means we don’t take summer breaks. That’s not to say that we don’t take breaks at all. It means we have more flexibility to choose when and how…
    Eve Deborah
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