Education Policy & School Reform News

A court ruling against a Catholic girls school that declined to hire a gay man in a non-classroom job highlights the need for such religious institutions to do a better job of spelling out their teachings and expectations for potential employees, a Catholic educator said. “Parents and extended family members who entrust their children to a faith-based…

After refusing to comply with orders to stop kneeling at the 50-yard line and praying after games, Coach Joe Kennedy was banned from participating in any Bremerton High School football programs. The first game he was sidelined for happened to be Senior Night, the night where senior players are honored for their contributions to the team. Looking…

The Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether a state natural resources agency violated the First Amendment when it refused to grant funds to a preschool and daycare run by a church. In 2012, Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Mo., applied for a state grant to pay for replacing pea gravel at its Learning Center’s playground with recycled rubber material,…

A transgender student was granted access to an Illinois public school’s female locker room Friday after reaching an agreement with the school. The agreement with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights states that “Student A” will change behind curtains installed by the district in the girls’ locker room. The school has since upgraded…

The largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender activist group in the country is calling on the Department of Education to address what it calls a “disturbing trend” on college campuses. Specifically, the Human Rights Campaign is calling for more transparency towards what it sees as a trend of schools citing religious reasons for not adhering…

A recent report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute ranking America’s best and worst cities for school choice includes two consistent winners—New Orleans and Washington, D.C.—at the top, and a trio of Texas cities in the bottom half of the 30 areas surveyed, with Albany, N.Y., bringing up the rear. Fordham considered three criteria: political support,…

Speaking out, they knew, could make them the public face of a very private issue. It could lead their classmates to call them “bigots,” “insensitive,” and “homophobes.” But after seeing their high school back down to threats that the U.S. Department of Education would strip away federal funding, and watching school officials overrule their parents,…

A local dispute over a high school homework assignment made national headlines when parents in Virginia complained that a teacher was attempting to “indoctrinate” their children with the Muslim religion. “The sheet she gave out was pure doctrine in its origin,” Kimberly Herndon, mother of a 9th grade boy at the high school, told ABC affiliate…

Elementary school students in Johnson County, Ky., performed a version of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” purged of Bible verses after the school district barred religious references in holiday programs. School district officials censored the Thursday night performance of the play at W.R. Castle Elementary School, along with other Christmas productions, after receiving a lone complaint about mentions of religion in…