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

    How 1 Man Is Leading the Fight for School Choice in Richmond

    Antione Green is working to open a second charter school in Richmond, Virginia. The school, called Richmond Urban Collective, would serve at-risk boys in grades six through eight. Although he is facing steep opposition from the school board in the city, Green has mobilized parents around Richmond who are supportive of his fight to bring…
    Lindsey Burke
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    • Opinion

    How 1 Woman Helped DC’s Underprivileged Kids Find School Success

    When Virginia Walden Ford crossed the threshold of her new high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, as one of the second wave of black students to integrate the school, little did she know these were her first steps in a lifetime journey to champion educational opportunity for all children. Ford would go on to help…
    Jude Schwalbach
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    • Opinion

    Americans Deserve Better Schools

    With most services, you get to shop around, but rarely can you do that with government-run schools. Philadelphia mom Elaine Wells was upset to learn that there were fights every day in the school her son attended. So she walked him over to another school. “We went to go enroll and we were told, ‘He…
    John Stossel
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    • Opinion

    America’s Children Need Universal School Choice Now More Than Ever

    What social institutions have the most immediate and strongest impact on a child’s development and well-being? According to researchers for the Pew Charitable Trust’s Economic Mobility Project, it’s the child’s family circumstances, with schools ranking as the second-most important factor. In the U.S., family circumstances and schools are closely linked, because most cities and counties link schooling to housing….
    Lindsey Burke
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    • Opinion

    We Hear You: Our ‘Back to School’ Edition

    Editor's note: Kids of all ages are returning to school, and "We Hear You" is back from a summer hiatus. What could be more fitting than some of your letters on the state of public education? Remember to write us at [email protected].—Ken McIntyre Dear Daily Signal: I'm writing with thoughts arising from Stephanie Curry’s commentary…
    Ken McIntyre
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    • News

    School Board to Fight After Judge Imposes Pro-Trans Bathroom Policy

    Virginia’s Gloucester County School Board will appeal a federal judge’s finding that its bathroom policy unlawfully discriminates against transgender students. U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen ruled Aug. 9 that the district’s decision violates constitutional equal protection principles and Title IX, the federal law governing sex discrimination in education. Former President Barack Obama appointed Allen to the…
    Kevin Daley
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    • Opinion

    How LGBTQ Groups Are Quietly Dismantling Norms, Changing Education

    Virtually every week, there seems to be another issue that preoccupies the country. But while our attention is focused on President Donald Trump, Google, Charlottesville, Russia, impeachment, Jeffrey Epstein, the next elections, racism, a trade war with China, the #MeToo movement, or something else, LGBTQ organizations are quietly going about their work dismantling ethical norms,…
    Dennis Prager
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    • Opinion

    Common Sense in Free Fall on College Campuses

    Evidence is mounting that political ideology is corrupting the liberal arts. According to Campus Reform, in late July, Portland State University accused one of its professors, Peter Boghossian, of “‘questionable ethical behavior’ and banned him from conducting academic research.” What was the professor’s offense? He successfully convinced several prestigious, peer-reviewed journals to publish articles that…
    Jason Snead
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    • News

    Stand on Marriage Costs Christian School Its Place in Voucher Program

    When the state of Maryland found out that Bethel Christian Academy affirms the biblical view of marriage in its student handbook, officials last fall cut the Baltimore-area school from a state-sponsored school voucher program, arguing it practiced sexual discrimination.  Now the principal says at least six students no longer can afford to attend Bethel, a…
    Carmel Kookogey
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    • Opinion

    A Time for Trade Schools

    Solving the huge debt incurred by young adults who took out loans to attend college has become a key policy debate. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for example, recently announced proposed legislation to eliminate student loan debt by taxing bonds and stocks. By the beginning of 2019, student loan debt was at an all-time high: Over…
    Nayeli Riano
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    • News

    San Francisco School Board Votes to Paint Over George Washington Mural

    The San Francisco Board of Education unanimously voted last month in favor of painting over a George Washington mural series on a school wall depicting Washington standing over a Native American’s corpse and another in the company of slaves on his Mount Vernon estate. “This is reparations,” Education Board Commissioner Mark Sanchez said in a…
    Joshua Q. Nelson
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    • Opinion

    Supreme Court Set to Hear School Choice Case Next Term

    Before hitting the road for their summer vacations, the justices of the Supreme Court announced last week that they would hear a major school choice case in the next term. If the court rules in favor of the families that brought this case, it could pave the way for educational freedom and opportunity for millions…
    Elizabeth Slattery
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    • Opinion

    Expand School Choice in DC

    Families in the nation’s capital deserve a choice about educating their children. This year, Congress has the chance to make changes to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program—up for reauthorization—that could positively affect the future of D.C. children for decades to come. The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program provides scholarships to cover private school tuition for low-income…
    Jude Schwalbach
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    • Opinion

    Why Military Families Overwhelmingly Support Education Choice

    While protecting American freedom, the active-duty men and women of our armed forces want education freedom as well. That’s the general finding of a new report by EdChoice, a nonprofit organization that promotes educational choice through research and advocacy. The report includes results of a survey of nearly 1,300 current members of the U.S. military…
    Kerry McDonald
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    • News

    Tussle Over Charter Schools Puts These NAACP Branches on Side of Betsy DeVos

    The NAACP’s support for a moratorium on new charter schools across America has put the nation’s oldest civil rights group at odds with three of its local branches—and in California, of all places.  Not only that, but the local NAACP chapters appear to agree with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos that charter schools offer valuable opportunities…
    Joshua Q. Nelson
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    • News

    Parents Call Out School Board’s Transgender Policy Proposal

    ARLINGTON, Va.—A group of concerned parents held a press conference just ahead of a scheduled Arlington County School Board meeting Tuesday evening about the adoption of a policy concerning transgender student protections in the school district. “[Arlington Public Schools] has far overreached its authority in this matter, and needs to be reminded by concerned parents…
    Kaylee Greenlee
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    • Opinion

    Christian School Kicked Out of Voucher Program for Biblical Views on Sexuality

    Don’t say America wasn’t warned. During the oral arguments for same-sex marriage in 2015, a question came up about the fallout for Christian education. Asked if religious schools could be punished for holding a natural view of marriage, U.S. Solicitor Donald Verrilli was surprisingly honest. ” … [I]t’s certainly going to be an issue. I…
    Tony Perkins
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    • Opinion

    Treasury Department Just Fixed a Situation That Threatened School Choice

    Lawmakers intended with the 2017 tax cuts not only to promote economic growth and job creation and to allow families to keep more of their hard-earned money, but also to make the federal tax code more neutral toward state tax policy. But state-based tax credit scholarship programs got unintentionally caught up in the broader reform….
    Adam Michel
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    • Opinion

    How Anti-Semitism Became a Staple of ‘Woke’ Activism on Campus

    Recent events in higher education have led many to conclude that college campuses are hubs of anti-Semitism. Stanford University student and resident assistant Hamzeh Daoud declared in July 2018 his intent to “physically fight Zionists on campus.” Oberlin College professor Joy Karega asserted in November 2016 that U.S. intelligence agencies conspired with Israel to commit…
    Dion Pierre
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    • News

    Grandmother Asks Governor Not to Scrap School Choice Program

    A North Carolina woman with three grandchildren in the state’s school voucher program says she isn’t too proud to beg the governor not to reduce funding and phase it out, as he proposes. “I would just really hope to beg him not to make this cut to this program,”  Lisa Davis told The Daily Signal….
    Joshua Q. Nelson
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