Education Policy & School Reform News

Arkansas has been a national leader on education freedom, but a bill before the state Legislature would be a step in the wrong direction. In 2023, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican, signed into law the Arkansas LEARNS initiative, an ambitious education reform package that expanded education choice, restructured teacher compensation to pay more for…

Judging from the Left’s responses to President Trump’s order to wind down the Department of Education, you might be forgiven for thinking the president had just started World War III. “Donald Trump has officially declared war on America’s students,” Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., posted on X. Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, responded…

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit recently determined that the efforts of a Florida middle school to help a minor child socially transition to a different gender behind her parents’ backs were not sufficiently egregious to “shock the conscience” and allow the parents’ claim to proceed. But in granting…

America’s public high schools are strange places to find displays of the alphabet. Perhaps with plummeting standardized test scores and a substantial increase in English-as-a-second-language students in sanctuary districts, high school educators feel the need to review kindergarten basics. In Fairfax County, Virginia’s West Springfield High School, located just 17 miles from the White House,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…