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

    Petition Calls on San Francisco School Board to Focus on ‘Improving Schools, Not Renaming Them’

    A petition being circulated online in San Francisco is demanding that the city’s Board of Education focus on “improving schools, NOT renaming them.” The petition calls on San Francisco’s school board to rescind its decision late last month to rename 44 schools in the city that bear the names of former presidents and other historical…
    Steven Hall
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    • Opinion

    Why Civil Discourse Should Be Fruit of Liberal Arts Education

    Even in the midst of a global pandemic with many college students off campus in virtual classrooms, debates about free speech in higher education remain a hot topic. The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding free speech at public university campuses this year. And last year, the U.S. Department of Education opened investigations into…
    Jude Schwalbach
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    • Opinion

    San Francisco School Board Cancels Lincoln, Washington for ‘Dishonorable’ Legacies

    Editor’s note: The San Francisco school board voted Tuesday to rename 44 public schools in the school district. Among the figures with “dishonorable” or racist legacies, according to the school board, were Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. In December, Jarrett Stepman wrote about how the war on history has even come for Lincoln and what…
    Jarrett Stepman
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    • Opinion

    Here’s How Some States and Families Are Taking Back Control Over Their Children’s Education

    When schools closed last March due to the coronavirus pandemic, no one expected them to still be closed nearly a year later. The image projected by the public education system as a reliable and stable fixture of society has waned as classrooms remain empty. At the same time, teachers unions—who have long tried to claim…
    Jude Schwalbach
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    • Opinion

    Military Families Deserve More School Choice for Their Children

    I was disturbed to read a 2017 Military Times survey that found that 35% of service members pointed to dissatisfaction with their children’s education as a “significant factor” in deciding whether to continue their military service. A big part of the military’s readiness is its retention rate. If more service members stay enlisted for longer,…
    Rep. Jim Banks
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    • Opinion

    Amid Shuttered Schools, 7 Days of Hope for Educational Freedom

    Hope is a powerful, uniquely human concept. Hope is also a necessity to persevere through the trials and tribulations, the ups and the downs, of the human experience that all of us inevitably will face. Hope is especially important as the country approaches what is, hopefully, the twilight of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hope is exactly…
    Garrett Ballengee
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    • News

    EXCLUSIVE: House Republicans Offer 6 School Choice Bills

    The Republican Study Committee plans to introduce six school choice measures in the House on Thursday in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which has shuttered schools across the country.  “These [committee] members recognize that if Congress had placed a greater emphasis on school choice, parents and students could’ve been freer to avoid the debacle…
    Rachel del Guidice
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    • Opinion

    National School Choice Week 2021 Is an Opportunity to Reexamine Our Children’s Education

    As we prepare to celebrate National School Choice Week, so many things come to my mind. The months of the COVID-19 pandemic have caused parents everywhere to look at how their children are being educated.   I think back to a time when we became so concerned about our children and began looking for ways to help them…
    Virginia Walden Ford
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    • News

    Minnesota Law School Students Aim to ‘Cancel’ Alumna Rep. Fischbach

    Some students at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, are asking the school’s administration to ban an alumna and newly elected congresswoman because of her stance on voter fraud and support for President Donald Trump.  “Rep. Michelle Fischbach (MN-8), an alumna of one of Mitchell Hamline’s predecessor institutions, directly contributed to…
    Rachel del Guidice
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    • Opinion

    Time to Heed the Science and Reopen Schools

    There’s no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted childhood education. In many countries, kids have physically returned to school. In others, schools were never closed. Yet in the United States, many public schools have been closed since March, yielding disastrous results for millions of kids. While scientific data say it’s safe to bring them…
    Veronique de Rugy
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    • Opinion

    How to Stop Schools From Parenting Your Children

    I’m tired of schools trying to play the role of surrogate parents. Like too many parents across our nation, I’ve become increasingly concerned about the radical social and political ideas that are being forced upon our children in public schools. While I’m raising my children with biblically-based morals and values at home, schools are undermining…
    Stephanie Curry
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    • Opinion

    2020 Proves What Happens on Campus Does Not Stay on Campus

    The Las Vegas marketing slogan “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” meant to convey the hope that whatever you did during your stopover in “Sin City” would remain secret to friends and family. Equally, many assumed that the racialized theories that developed in the academy in the 20th century would stay within the cloistered…
    Mike Gonzalez
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    • Opinion

    8 Education Choice Wins in 2020

    This year, the coronavirus pandemic presented new hurdles for 55.1 million students and their families after 124,000 public and private schools closed nationwide. Despite these unprecedented challenges, policymakers and families responded quickly with innovative solutions, which helped to advance education choice in 2020. Here are eight examples of education choice wins from this year: 1….
    Jude Schwalbach
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    • Opinion

    Human Rights Campaign Wants Christian Schools to Abandon Beliefs or Lose Accreditation

    The Human Rights Campaign—a large, influential LGBTQ advocacy group— recently released a policy brief with recommendations for a Biden administration, and the suggestions are alarming. The organization’s “Blueprint for Positive Change 2020” describes itself as “a comprehensive list of 85 individual policy recommendations aimed at improving the lives of LGBTQ people.” But the Human Rights…
    Nicole Russell
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    • News

    Ohio County Closes Schools, Leaves Casino Open

    The blackjack tables remain open in Toledo, Ohio, but some middle schools and all high schools are required to close. An order issued by Ohio’s Lucas County Regional Board of Health on Nov. 25 mandated that “education for Grades 7-12 (or 9 to 12 depending on school configuration) will be virtual from December 4th until…
    Virginia Allen
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    • News

    Education or Indoctrination? ‘Anti-Racist’ Teaching Sweeps K-12 Schools Targeting ‘Whiteness’

    The notices to parents began arriving fast and furious in the weeks after the death of George Floyd in late May. In dramatic, urgent language, K-12 schools across the country—both public and private—professed solidarity with Black Lives Matter and vowed to dismantle white supremacy, as they scrambled to introduce anti-racist courses and remake themselves into…
    John Murawski
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    • Opinion

    The Tragedy of Black Education Is New

    Several years ago, Project Baltimore began an investigation of Baltimore’s school system. What it found was an utter disgrace. In 19 of Baltimore’s 39 high schools, out of 3,804 students, only 14 of them, or less than 1%, were proficient in math. In 13 of Baltimore’s high schools, not a single student scored proficient in…
    Walter E. Williams
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    • News

    Online Learning Tanked Grades, Learning in VA’s Largest School System, Study Finds

    Virtual learning due to the coronavirus pandemic is tanking academic achievement in the largest school system in Virginia, a study from Fairfax County Public Schools published this week found. “Results indicate a widening gap between students who were previously performing satisfactorily and those performing unsatisfactorily,” the report said. “Students who performed well previously primarily performed slightly…
    Mary Margaret Olohan
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    • Opinion

    What American Schools Should Teach About Race, Racism, and Slavery

    Regarding race and much else, America’s students are not taught history. In fact, they are not taught; they are indoctrinated. With anti-Americanism. The purpose of all teaching about race in American schools is to engender contempt for America. They are, therefore, “taught” the lies of The New York Times’ 1619 Project—that the United States was…
    Dennis Prager
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    • Opinion

    Should Blacks Support Destruction of Charter Schools?

    The academic achievement gap between black and white students has proven resistant to most educational policy changes. Some say that educational expenditures explain the gap, but is that true? Look at educational per pupil expenditures: Baltimore city ranks fifth in the U.S. for per pupil spending at $15,793. The Detroit Public Schools Community District spends…
    Walter E. Williams
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