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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    • News

    Summit for High Schoolers Aims to Inspire ‘Leaders of Tomorrow’

    Conservative high schoolers learned how to “go out and speak their mind” during a summit in Washington designed to groom them for leadership roles, a young proponent of the Second Amendment who helped organize the gathering told The Daily Signal. “The sheer intensity and numbers that we have been able to get is a representation…
    Ginny Montalbano
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    • Opinion

    Podcast: A High Schooler Goes to Washington

    On today’s edition of The Daily Signal podcast, Rob Bluey and Ginny Montalbano interview high school student Genna Montalbano (Ginny’s younger sister) about her experience at Turning Point USA’s High School Leadership Summit. Genna reveals her favorite conservative speakers and what advice she’ll share with her peers. We also have: Clips from Attorney General Jeff Sessions,…
    Robert B. Bluey
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    • News

    Sen. David Perdue to High Schoolers: ‘Don’t Be Embarrassed to Be Conservative’

    The only Fortune 500 CEO currently in the U.S. Senate, David Perdue, told a gathering of conservative high school students Tuesday not to be embarrassed because of their views. “You do not have to be embarrassed to be conservative,” Perdue, R-Ga., said. “This agenda works, what we believe in works.” The world “is changing dramatically,”…
    Jeremiah Poff
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    • News

    ‘A Threat to Our Freedom’: Jeff Sessions Warns of Hostile Environment on College Campuses

    Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke to students Tuesday at the Turning Point USA High School Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C. He also joined The Daily Signal for an exclusive interview about his views on free speech and the Department of Justice's recent actions on the issue. An edited transcript of the interview is below. Rob Bluey: Attorney General…
    Robert B. Bluey
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    • News

    Liberal Groups Get 160 Times More Money Than Conservative Ones at This School

    Left-wing student groups at the University of Oregon receive over 160 times more money than conservative groups, a new study reveals. Funds distributed by the student government of the University of Oregon to campus groups come partially from mandatory student fees paid by the students, The College Fix reported. “Student groups are allocated money through the…
    Rob Shimshock
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    • News

    Citizenship Is No Longer Required to Vote in San Francisco School Board Elections

    Noncitizens can vote in San Francisco’s Board of Education elections after the city’s Department of Elections ruled Monday to do away with citizenship requirements. Noncitizens seeking to vote in San Francisco’s Board of Education elections must be at least 18 years old and residents of the city, CBS SF Bay Area reported Monday. They must also…
    Grace Carr
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    • News

    Freedom From Religion Foundation Tries to Bully School Into Removing Prayer From Graduation

    The Freedom From Religion Foundation accused a Tennessee school of violating constitutional law by allowing prayer at its graduation ceremony, but the school won’t budge. Christopher Line, legal fellow with FFRF, wrote in a letter to Catoosa County Schools district that Ringgold High School should not have permitted public prayer at their May graduation ceremony, claiming…
    Joshua Gill
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    • Opinion

    Eliminating Identity Politics From the Schools and the US Census

    Just in time for the Fourth of July, the Trump administration announced it is rescinding Obama administration policies that directed universities to use racial preferences in the admissions process. Because this type of discrimination is the gateway drug of the identity politics balkanizing America, Tuesday’s decision is a boost for unity and a setback for…
    Mike Gonzalez
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    • News

    Legal Group Appeals Ruling That Backed Opening School’s Restrooms, Locker Rooms to Transgender Students

    A conservative legal organization is asking the full 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the May ruling of a three-judge panel against school privacy in upholding a Pennsylvania school’s opening of its locker rooms, showers, and restrooms to students of the opposite sex. “The U.S. Supreme Court has already spoken: The real differences…
    Rachel del Guidice
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    • Opinion

    Against Parents’ Wishes, School District on the Radar of LGBT Group Imposes New Sex Ed

    Most Americans have probably never heard of Fairfax County, Virginia—but their children could be the next victims of its latest policy. That’s because the 10th-largest school district in the country rewrote the rules on sex ed—and the LGBT activists who helped are about to take the model everywhere. It was one of the fiercest debates…
    Tony Perkins
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    • Opinion

    Court’s Janus Ruling Is a Win for Teachers’ Rights and School Choice

    In a win for individual liberty, the Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled, in a much-anticipated decision in Janus v. AFSCME, that public employees will no longer be required to pay involuntary agency fees to special-interest groups. The 5-4 decision overturns the 1977 Supreme Court ruling in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, which upheld agency…
    Jude Schwalbach
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    • News

    University Settles Lawsuit After Discriminating Against Republicans

    A Washington university is shelling out big bucks to settle a dispute with a Republican student group that filed a lawsuit alleging the school discriminated against it by charging exorbitant security fees for speaker events. The University of Washington settled with the university’s College Republicans Monday, agreeing to pay $122,500 to make the lawsuit go away….
    Grace Carr
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    • Opinion

    These Small Changes to the PROSPER Act Could Unlock Higher Education Accreditation Reform

    “Underwater Basket Weaving,” “Tree Climbing,” the “Art of Walking.” Believe it or not, those are all courses taught at accredited colleges and universities in the United States. The modern system of accreditation, codified in the Higher Education Act of 1965, supposedly exists to ensure that taxpayer dollars do not go toward courses of questionable value….
    Mary Clare Amselem
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    • News

    Northeastern University Professor: ‘Why Can’t We Hate Men?’

    A Northeastern University professor’s Washington Post op-ed “Why Can’t We Hate Men?” has received a flood of negative feedback. Northeastern sociology professor Suzanna Danuta Walters, also director of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, authored the article published Friday, which appears to advocate contempt toward individual men, instead of institutions, and instructs men to relinquish their grasp on power. “Pledge to vote…
    Rob Shimshock
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    • News

    Kentucky Board of Education to Keep God and the Bible in Schools

    Kentucky will keep God and religion in schools after its education leaders approved a Bible standard that all public schools in the state must meet. The Kentucky Board of Education approved "Bible literary" standards in a unanimous affirmative vote that allow students to take religion and Bible classes as electives, The Associated Press reports. The classes…
    Grace Carr
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    • Opinion

    We Hear You: Poor School Discipline, Hard-to-Fire Bureaucrats, Obstructive Democrats, and ‘Colluding’ Green Groups

    Editor's note: Some personal chords were struck by  Kelsey Harkness'  video report on one Maryland family's bad brush with the nation's lax school discipline policy. Their responses lead this week's roundup of comments. Write us at [email protected]—Ken McIntyre Dear Daily Signal: Bullying is a bigger problem than school officials know or will admit, as indicated…
    Ken McIntyre
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    • News

    School Board Fights to Preserve Bathroom Policy After Judge OKs Trans Student’s Lawsuit

    A Virginia public school district will pursue an appeal after a federal judge ruled that a transgender student can challenge the district’s bathroom access policies under federal civil rights law and the Constitution. Gloucester County Public Schools asked U.S. District Court Judge Arenda Wright Allen to allow its appeal on Friday. Allen’s late May decision allowing the student…
    Kevin Daley
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    • Opinion

    Why There’s an Increased Interest in Homeschooling

    There’s a lot to dislike about many public schools—and right now, student safety is at the top of the list. “After a gunman opened fire on students in Parkland, Florida,” a new Washington Times feature explains, “the phones started ringing at the Texas Home School Coalition, and they haven’t stopped yet.” Like so many state organizations,…
    Tony Perkins
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    • News

    San Diego Parents Pulling Their Kids From School Over Inappropriate Sex-Ed Curriculum

    San Diego parents pulled their kids from school and rallied outside the district’s headquarters Tuesday, expressing anger and frustration over a sex-ed curriculum they allege is completely inappropriate for their young children. The sixth grade curriculum includes lessons on gender identity, birth control, the stages of sex, STDs, HIV, and pregnancy. Parents are calling the material “too much,…
    Grace Carr
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    • Opinion

    Why It’s OK for This School Choice Program to Underperform on Standardized Tests

    K-12 education in the nation’s capital has struggled for decades. Yet since 2003, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program—a voucher program open to low-income children in the District of Columbia—has been a bright spot for educational opportunity. But a new report by the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education, released Tuesday, found…
    Lindsey Burke
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