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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    • Opinion

    Is the Jig Up for Elite Higher Education?

    Over the last three decades, elite American universities have engaged in economic, political, social, and cultural practices that were often unethical, illegal—and suicidal. They did so with impunity. Apparently, confident administrators assumed that the brand of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and other elite universities was so precious to the nation’s elite movers and shakers that…
    Victor Davis Hanson
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    • Opinion

    Dismantling the Education Department

    Conservatives have been working to correct President Jimmy Carter’s mistake ever since he made federal education programs into a Cabinet-level agency. For decades, Republicans have said they wanted the U.S. Department of Education abolished as billions of dollars have been spent at the federal level, yet student test scores have steadily declined. Now, President Donald…
    Adam Kissel
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    • Opinion

    Leftist ABA Used Its Accrediting Power to Force Law Schools to Violate the Law

    Virtually every law school in America must be accredited by the American Bar Association, an organization that has abused this position of trust to push a radical leftist agenda on law students, including policies that violate the law itself. The American Bar Association has long held an undeserved position as a vaunted legal institution—largely through…
    Zack Smith
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    • News

    GOP Lawmakers File SCOTUS Brief Supporting Parents’ Lawsuit Against Schools Forcing Gender Ideology on Kids

    DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Dozens of congressional Republicans will file an amicus brief to the Supreme Court Tuesday morning in support of parents’ constitutional rights to opt their children out of left-wing gender ideology and sexuality content in schools. The 66 lawmakers signed on to an amicus brief in support of parents’ legal challenge to a Maryland…
    Adam Pack
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    • Opinion

    A Renaissance in American Education: The Phoenix Declaration’s Bold Vision

    When debates over education often focus on what we’re against—bureaucratic overreach, ideological indoctrination, declining standards—a refreshing alternative has emerged. The Phoenix Declaration, unveiled by The Heritage Foundation under the leadership of Jason Bedrick, offers a compelling vision for what conservatives are for in education. Launched at the Conservative Vision of Education Conference in Phoenix on…
    Tiffany Justice
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    • News

    Mom Tries to Get Pornographic Content Out of Daughters’ High School Curriculum 

    A New Mexico mom is speaking out against pornographic content in her two daughters’ high school curriculum.   One of Monika Bialostocka’s twin daughters brought home a book assigned as part of her English curriculum that graphically depicted pedophilia between a 64-year-old woman and a 10-year-old boy, according to an original report last week in Independent…
    Moira Gleason
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    • Opinion

    Court Rules Schools Can Hide Kids’ Gender Identity From Parents

    As further evidence of a sweeping national trend in constitutional analysis gone awry, yet another federal court has ruled that parents have no right to information related to the gender that their minor child chooses to identify as at public school. In Foote v. Ludlow, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit determined…
    Sarah Parshall Perry
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    • Opinion

    School Districts Linda McMahon Must Investigate on Day One as Education Secretary 

    In his short tenure in office, President Donald Trump has already taken swift action to eliminate radical gender ideology and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives from public institutions, including K-12 schools.  Trump has signed multiple executive orders that would eliminate federal funding to any school that continues to promote these dangerous ideologies. As a result,…
    Casey Ryan
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    • News

    New Guidance Seeks to End Use of ‘Race Preferences, Stereotypes’ in School Admissions

    THE CENTER SQUARE—Though there has been talk of President Donald Trump abolishing the U.S. Department of Education through an executive order, for now, he’s chosen to act through existing means to refashion the department. On Tuesday, the department notified schools that they have 14 days to end all admissions, scholarship, discipline, and employment practices that…
    Morgan Sweeney
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    • Opinion

    Schools Are Battleground in Fight to Preserve Children’s Innocence

    A return to common sense and traditional values remains the theme of the Trump administration. In his first two weeks back in office, President Donald Trump signed two executive orders aimed at ending radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling and dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.   This fight to preserve the innocence of children is not…
    Kristen Eichamer
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    • News

    ‘Disgusting’: Pentagon Schools Misinterpret Trump’s Directives to Cut Cultural Lessons

    The Pentagon school system appears to have misinterpreted the Trump administration's directive against diversity, equity, and inclusion to require ending lessons on Martin Luther King Jr., Susan B. Anthony, the Holocaust, and even Valentine's Day. On his first days in office, Trump issued executive orders prohibiting federal funding of radical gender ideology, critical race theory,…
    Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell
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    • Opinion

    ‘D-Minus’ for Public Schools, but Catholic Schools Shine in Latest Academic Assessment

    The National Center for Education Statistics gives academic exams to random samples of students in all 50 states, producing what is known as the annual “Nation’s Report Card.” The latest release of fourth and eighth grade mathematics and reading results from the report card, officially known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, show that…
    Matthew Ladner
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    • Opinion

    F-Minus: A Tale of Two Cities’ School Districts

    The Nation’s Report Card recently went public. It’s the kind of thing that kids hide from their parents.  The National Assessment of Educational Progress offers a grim view of America’s classrooms. Between 2022 and 2024, the share of fourth graders reading below basic level grew from 37% to 40%; among eighth graders, from 30% to 33%. Fourth grade math improved…
    Deroy Murdock
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    • News

    AG Pam Bondi Represented Mom in Case Against School District That Tried to Secretly Transition Daughter

    One of Pam Bondi's clients says the newly-confirmed U.S. attorney general took her case suing the school district that tried to secretly transition her daughter when no one else would consider it. In 2021, Erin Lee’s 12-year-old daughter was invited by her art teacher to come to art club after school in the Poudre School…
    Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell
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    • Opinion

    Future of Charter Schools Jeopardized by Their Own Political Shortsightedness

    A decade ago, charter schools were heralded as the crowning achievement of bipartisan education reform efforts. But during last week’s National School Choice Week observations, charters were barely an afterthought, their political energy having been largely reappropriated to newer, more robust systems of school choice. The future of the charter school movement is likely to be…
    Ian Kingsbury
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    • News

    EXCLUSIVE: New Bill Targets Foreign Interference in Education

    FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Rep. Mark Harris, R-N.C., introduced a bill Tuesday to require universities to disclose any contracts they have with foreign adversaries to the federal Department of Education. The No Contracts for Foreign Adversaries Act would mandate that universities alert the Education Department of relationships with China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran in…
    Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell
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    • Opinion

    Education Savings Accounts Would Give Military Families Freedom They Deserve

    Military families exemplify the best of America—sacrifice, service, and dedication to our nation’s security. Yet, too often, their children are shortchanged by an education system that fails to meet their needs. As President Donald Trump begins his second term, we have an unprecedented opportunity to fix that. It’s time to empower military families with true education freedom…
    Crystal Bonham
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    • Opinion

    Higher Education Must Reform—or Else

    A day of reckoning has come for higher education. In the past four years, acolytes from America’s most prestigious universities not only continued their project of indoctrination on their own campuses, they also attempted to transform the whole country into a grander version of the higher education insane asylum. From tearing down history to defunding the…
    Jarrett Stepman
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    • Opinion

    Abysmal National Report Card Shows Why Education Reforms Are Badly Needed in US

    The policies coming out of Washington, D.C., have the potential to affect Americans who have not even been born yet, whether for good or bad.  The latest National Report Card from the National Assessment of Educational Progress paints an abysmal picture of education across the U.S. The report card is published every two years and…
    Virginia Allen
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    • News

    EXCLUSIVE: GOP Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Expand School Choice

    FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Tim Scott of South Carolina are celebrating National School Choice Week by introducing a bill to empower businesses and individuals to fund education choice for students. Introduced Wednesday, the Educational Choice for Children Act provides a charitable donation incentive for individuals and businesses to…
    Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell
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