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

    Baltimore’s Answer to High Homicide Rates and Low School Performance? Ban Plastic Bags

    What do you do when your community faces crushing poverty, failing schools, and disturbing homicide rates? In Baltimore, the answer is: Ban plastic bags, of course. Yes, Charm City is saving the world, one plastic bag at a time. The Baltimore City Council passed a citywide ban on retailers’ use of plastic bags at checkout…
    Jarrett Stepman
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    • Opinion

    We Hear You: ‘Education Is Too Important to Leave to Professionals’

    Editor's note: Count on The Daily Signal's audience to have a lot to say on the state of public education and other topics, as this week's mailbag reveals. You can join in by emailing [email protected].—Ken McIntyre Dear Daily Signal: Excellent article by Fred Lucas about the education failures of the Great Society (“Why LBJ’s Great…
    Ken McIntyre
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    • Opinion

    What I Learned About the Transgender Politics Injected Into This Affluent County’s Schools

    I live in Fairfax County, Virginia, which has the 10th-largest public school district in the nation, but I never focused on our public schools. My kids go to Catholic schools, and that was the center of our universe. I never focused, that is, until I heard that the Fairfax County School Board voted to let…
    Cathy Ruse
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    • Opinion

    Nation’s Report Card Shows Why We Should Get Washington Out of Education

    Across the country, math and reading scores have continued a yearslong stagnation, with students largely showing no progress in academic achievement. That’s one major takeaway from the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress, released earlier this week by the National Assessment Governing Board. Often referred to as the Nation’s Report Card, the assessment tracks the…
    Lindsey Burke
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    • Opinion

    We Hear You: Notes on Our Schools From the ‘Belly of the Beast’

    Editor's note: We’re back with a roundup of your emails, beginning with one on the state of public schools from a correspondent who recently moved from California to Virginia. Don’t forget to write us at [email protected].—Ken McIntyre Dear Daily Signal: About your "Back to School Edition" roundup of reader comments: I served on a consultative…
    Ken McIntyre
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    • Opinion

    ‘Micro-Schools’ Punch Above Their Weight by Offering Personalized Education

    With the school year in full swing, anxious parents hope their children are content in their local schools. Families worry about finding the right school environment for their children, especially since every child learns differently. Take the Gilbert family, in Florida, whose story captures the importance of having multiple education options. Four of their five…
    Jude Schwalbach
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    • Opinion

    Problematic Women: How Big Government Education Programs Failed the Young

    This week on “Problematic Women” we talk with Lindsey Burke, The Heritage Foundation’s education fellow, about a new collection of essays, “The Not-So-Great Society.” Burke, co-editor of the project, discusses what Lyndon B. Johnson’s programs really did for public education, and it’s little that is positive. She also suggests how we can begin to solve…
    Virginia Allen
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    • News

    Why LBJ’s Great Society Gets a Failing Grade in Improving Education

    President Lyndon B. Johnson’s vision for a Great Society unleashed an army of bureaucrats on American schools but produced little or no improvements to public education in 54 years, according to a new report published by The Heritage Foundation.  The report, titled “The Not-So-Great Society,” delves into the impact of Johnson’s string of initiatives—among them…
    Fred Lucas
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    • Opinion

    Puerto Rico’s School Choice Reforms Are Helping Kids

    Last year brought a whirlwind of education opportunities to Puerto Rican families. The island’s first charter school, Proyecto Vimenti, opened to serve disadvantaged children. The commonwealth’s legislature approved a private school scholarship program for children who are bullied, experience sexual harassment, or who have special needs. These were notable victories for families where most have…
    Jude Schwalbach
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    • Opinion

    After Getting Kicked Off Campus, This Christian Group Got Justice

    In a significant win for religious liberty, a federal court last month ruled that a state university in Iowa can’t require a Christian student organization to have non-Christian leaders. The court ruled that the university had discriminated against the Christian group and that top university officers, including the vice president, must pay out of their…
    Nicole Russell
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    • Opinion

    Teacher Fired Over Trans Pronouns Sues School

    West Point High School French teacher Peter Vlaming is a soft-spoken man who was well loved by his students. He wasn’t looking for a fight. He was just looking to do his job. But when the school demanded that he use male pronouns for a biological girl student who had decided to identify as a…
    Cathy Ruse
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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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