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

    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 | Crystal Bonham
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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 | Jay Greene
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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 | Kristen Eichamer | Crystal Bonham
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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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  • news

    EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Mike Lee Introduces ACE Act to Promote School Choice
    Later today, Sen. Mike Lee will introduce in the Senate the Achieving Choice in Education (ACE) Act, legislation that will bolster parental rights. The ACE Act increases tax exemptions for families to make private school or homeschooling more affordable for parents and encourages states to adopt school choice programs. The move comes as more states…
    Jacob Adams
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  • news

    Why Is the Department of Education Still Offering a ‘Nonbinary’ Gender Marker on Student Aid Applications?
    President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that there are two sexes, male and female, and the federal government will operate by that truth. Yet the Department of Education is still hosting the Free Application for Federal Student Aid with options for students to select a “nonbinary" gender identity. A source sent The Daily…
    Tyler O’Neil
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  • opinion

    2025 Will Be the Tipping Point for School Choice
    As the nation celebrates National School Choice Week, the school choice movement is on the cusp of hitting a major milestone. By the end of 2025, it is likely that more than half of K-12 students nationwide will be eligible for private school choice. In the past five years, the number of students benefitting from…
    Jason Bedrick
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  • opinion

    3 Crucial Ways to Avoid Poverty Should Be Taught in Schools
    Americans have forgotten how to form families. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the U.S. population will begin to shrink in eight years, which The Wall Street Journal noted is seven years earlier than the CBO projected in 2024. Radical social interest groups and the outgoing Joe Biden administration have been steering youth away from…
    Jonathan Butcher
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  • opinion

    Why Public Schools Struggle to Teach: A Substitute’s Perspective
    For the past three years, I was a substitute teacher in the public schools of Warren County, Virginia. I served both as an aide in classrooms with a regular full-time teacher and as a substitute alone in the classroom.  Warren County schools are probably typical of public schools everywhere: Most teachers love the students and…
    Connie Marshner
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  • opinion

    Education Department Cancels Loan Cancellation Scheme
    The U.S. Department of Education announced that it will be withdrawing both parts of its Plan C for student loan cancellation. One part involves various ways the department would have declared that a borrower has a “hardship” deserving of complete loan cancellation. The other part would have identified additional categories for waivers of loan repayments,…
    Adam Kissel
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  • news

    Christian School Shooter Manifesto Documents Family Breakdown
    Just days before Christian students’ scheduled vacation to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, a lonely and radicalized high school student opened fire inside Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, killing two people and wounding six more. Police say 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, who went by the name “Samantha,” opened fire with a 9mm handgun during study…
    Ben Johnson
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  • opinion

    Missing the Public School ‘Segregation’ Forest for the Trees
    ProPublica recently published “Segregation Academies Across the South Are Getting Millions in Taxpayer Dollars.” The article focuses on 20 private schools in North Carolina founded during the civil rights era with student bodies that are 85% or more white. “Segregation academies that remain vastly white continue to play an integral role in perpetuating school segregation—and,…
    Matthew Ladner
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