Education Policy & School Reform News

Returning from a sabbatical in my 21st year at Ohio’s Shawnee State University, I resumed teaching my regular political philosophy course. Taking questions in one such class at the end of my first day back, I acknowledged a male student with a “Yes, sir?” (It’s my practice to address my students in this way and…

School choice was a policy star this week at the Republican National Convention. President Donald Trump capped off the week by stating his desire to “expand charter schools and provide school choice for every family in America” during his speech Thursday night, the final night of the convention. A slate of speakers throughout the week…

The coronavirus pandemic might permanently affect American education. Lindsey Burke, director for the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation, says “the pandemic has just completely upended education.” But some of the changes might actually be a good thing. Burke joins “Problematic Women” to discuss how COVID-19 could bring about needed education policy reform…

Is patriotism dying? Are there any good Americans left? Over the past few months, Americans may have begun to wonder about those questions, and both will be on the minds of conservative students as they return to school this fall. It has been a long time since colleges were the refuges of free thought and…

Normally when a business shuts its doors, it doesn’t still get to charge its customers for a product they can no longer access. It certainly doesn’t get to charge its customers twice for the privilege. Yet, that’s exactly what we’re seeing from some public school districts. They refuse to open their doors for in-person learning—citing…

For many families, home has become both office and school during the coronavirus pandemic. Parents across America are facing the challenge this fall of managing a full-time job with their child’s education. Memories of a chaotic spring have driven moms and dads to find creative solutions. Education pods are one way families can ensure their…

Progressive activists seek to expand sex education in schools across America to include topics such as sexual orientation and gender identity. Their proposed curriculum also promotes abortion. On today’s episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast,” we listen in on The Heritage Foundation’s virtual event Wednesday, the Protecting Children in Education Summit. Participants break down proposed…

Some schools are reopening this fall. COVID-19 is still going around, so parents have a lot of questions about what this means for their kids, their families, and their extended families. Here’s our take on the top questions we’re hearing.  1. If my child returns to school, should I expect my child to contract COVID-19? If so,…

Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia last week sued the Trump administration in federal court over the president’s rollback of transgender health care. The lawsuit, filed in New York, includes more traditionally “conservative” states such as Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. That Wisconsin’s attorney general would participate in this lawsuit is surprising, given the controversy…

The rise of “pandemic pods” over the past two weeks in response to public school shutdowns is a real-time, large-scale demonstration of community responsiveness in a crisis. Pandemic pods are the education version of “little platoons” first mentioned by Edmund Burke. They prove that the “spirit of association”—which Alexis de Tocqueville identified as a defining…

President Donald Trump announced at the White House his unequivocal commitment to getting America’s schools back open. “So, what we want to do is, we want to get our schools open,” he said. “We want to get them open quickly, beautifully, in the fall.” When the COVID-19 crisis was just beginning to grip the nation…

In March, school shutdowns around the globe caused 1.5 billion children to begin schooling from home, representing over 91% of children, UNESCO estimates. Here in the U.S., conversations about the state of school reopenings have hit a fever pitch as August quickly approaches. Many parents—some 71% in Education Next’s 2020 poll—feel their children learned less…

Parents looking for a national consensus on whether schools should open in the fall won’t find one. But that’s OK. We don’t need one. As soon as President Donald Trump announced his support for reopening schools this fall, teacher unions said he was “brazenly making these decisions.” So much for consensus. And this despite the fact that both proclamations…

Most students around the country haven’t been to school since March, when large parts of the country began to lock down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the data increasingly suggests that reopening schools entails the least risks and should be a goal of every level of government. The early hope was that the…

School districts around the country have been announcing reopening possibilities for the upcoming school year. The options often include full-time virtual learning, two or three in-person days at school, or a combination of the two. In a few districts, I’ve seen four or five suggestions. Public schools in Fairfax County, Virginia, one of the wealthiest…

Thomas Sowell has just published “Charter Schools and Their Enemies.” He presents actual test scores of students in traditional public schools and charter schools on New York State Education Department’s annual English Language Arts test and its mathematics test. Sowell gives the results of student tests in charter schools such as KIPP, Success Academy, Explore…

One size does not fit all when it comes to education. The COVID-19 pandemic has made this education choice adage crystal clear. With schools shuttered nationwide since mid-March, millions of children became instant homeschoolers. For some students, like Veronique Mintz, remote learning was more effective than classroom experiences. Fewer disruptions from other students, dedicated office…