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

    EXCLUSIVE: Parents Outraged by School District’s Plan to Conceal Students’ Gender Identity

    FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A Southern California school district trains counselors to help students hide their transgender identity from their concerned parents, according to documents obtained by The Daily Signal. Capistrano Unified School District in southern Orange County, California, allows students to change their name and gender in school records without parental permission. The Individual…
    Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell
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    • Opinion

    Parents Defending Education Adviser Explains ‘Anti-Woman,’ ‘Anti-Girl’ Title IX Reinterpretation

    Parents Defending Education filed a lawsuit on April 29 against the Biden administration’s reinterpretation of Title IX allowing males in female sports and private spaces. The parental rights organization joined the Independent Women’s Forum, Speech First, and the states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina in challenging President Joe Biden’s rule change to the 1972 federal law that prohibits…
    Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell
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    • News

    Don’t Let the Department of Education Silence Our Kids

    The Founding Fathers recognized that an educated citizenry was vital to the survival of our republic. Thomas Jefferson, for example, saw education as essential to giving every citizen the opportunity to participate meaningfully in a free society. Writing in 1818, our third president described public education as “the means to give every citizen the information he…
    Kimberly Hermann
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    • Opinion

    Rising Trend of Classical Education Offers Hope for Civic Renewal

    As we celebrate our independence on the Fourth of July, Americans would do well to reflect upon what’s necessary for a nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, to long endure. A free people requires an education in the civic knowledge and virtues necessary to preserve liberty….
    Jason Bedrick
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    • Opinion

    Court Threatens 1st Amendment Rights of Tenn. News Site After Publishing Details From Nashville School Shooter’s Leaked Diary

    The editor-in-chief and publisher of the Tennessee Star was ordered to appear in court last week and threatened with charges of contempt after his news website reported on an anonymously leaked collection of documents authored by Nashville mass shooter Audrey Elizabeth Hale. Michael Patrick Leahy was joined by his attorneys in court on Monday for…
    Charlie Tidmarsh
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    • News

    Charter Schools Are Even More Woke Than Public Schools, Study Finds

    School choice should empower parents to select education options that align with their values, but many charter schools fail in this regard, experts warn. “School choice should yield schools with values that are aligned with those of parents,” Jay Greene, senior research fellow in the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, told The Daily Signal…
    Olivia Pero
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    • News

    Objections From Parental Rights Group Derails Vote on School District’s Trans Policy

    A parental rights group successfully helped delay a Colorado school board’s vote on what parents call a radical transgender policy for students. The Colorado Parent Advocacy Network and its allies gathered 335 signatures in only six hours on its petition to delay the Douglas County Board of Education’s vote on the proposal to classify female-only…
    Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell
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    • News

    San Francisco Schools Let Students Change Name, Pronouns Minus Parents’ Knowledge or Consent

    The San Francisco public schools allow students to change their preferred name and pronouns at school without the knowledge or consent of their parents.  San Francisco United School District’s LGBTQ Student Services department offers guidance on “Changing Your Name and/or Gender” in the district’s systems. The document offers a note “for students to think about,”…
    Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell
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    • News

    School District Evaluates Parent Knowledge of Child’s Transition

    A Colorado school district uses a form asking staff whether a student’s parents know their child identifies as transgender and support that decision. St. Vrain Valley Schools, in a Denver suburb, developed a so-called Gender Identity Guidance form for “counselors, interventionists, and administrators to support students dealing with issues related to gender identification.” The document,…
    Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell
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    • Opinion

    Becket Fund Lawyer Argues for Religious Liberty of Catholic School

    A Catholic school’s ability to operate in accord with its faith is in jeopardy.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit heard oral arguments June 11 in St. Joseph Parish v. Nessel. The case involves St. Joseph Catholic School in Saint Johns, Michigan, which is asking the court to protect its ability to…
    Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell
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    • News

    ‘Really Uncomfortable’: 16-Year-Old Girl Speaks Out About Having to Share School Restrooms, Locker Rooms With Males

    A 16-year-old Minnesota girl forced to share private spaces with males under a public school transgender policy says that girls deserve privacy in their restrooms and locker rooms. “It’s really uncomfortable, because I was in gym class, and I was just about to change, but then I heard this voice, and I was, like, ‘That…
    Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell
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    • News

    Heritage Foundation Chief Urges Abolishing Federal Education Department

    The Department of Education has given the Left dangerous power over schooling in the U.S., and the next president should aim to abolish the nearly 45-year-old federal agency.  So says Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts on this week’s edition of his podcast, “The Kevin Roberts Show.” Roberts, himself a former K-12 and college educator, made…
    Hudson Crozier
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    • News

    Montgomery County Parents Bring Babies, Elementary Schoolers to Kids’ Pride Parade

    Hundreds of parents brought their children, as young as babies and toddlers, to wave rainbow flags, pose with a drag queen, and do LGBTQ-themed crafts at the “Kids’ Pride Parade and Street Fair” in Montgomery County, Maryland, on Sunday. “Pride is for everyone. That’s the whole point of Pride is to be inclusive of everybody,”…
    Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell
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    • Opinion

    Parents’ Involvement Called Key to Keeping Leftism Out of Schools

    The head of Florida’s Education Department is urging parents to “be involved” in public schools for their children’s sake.  “Parents are the most important teacher, and the child’s first teacher, and ultimately are responsible for these kids,” Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. told Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts. “These kids don’t belong to the…
    Hudson Crozier
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    • Opinion

    2 School Textbook Giants Replace ‘Sex’ With ‘Gender.’ Parents, Teachers Aren’t Buying.

    Two giants among publishers of children’s books and textbooks are selling the idea of “gender” to small children. But are Americans buying? Scholastic, one of the world’s largest publishers and distributors of children’s books, released a “Resource Guide” for parents and teachers promoting its “Read With Pride” series. The guide is aimed at children of…
    Jonathan Butcher
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    • News

    ‘Gender Inclusion’ Policy in Minneapolis Schools Allows Boys in Girls’ Restrooms, Locker Rooms  

    Minneapolis Public Schools passed a new “Gender Inclusion” policy allowing boys who identify as girls to share restrooms, locker rooms, and overnight-trip hotel rooms with females.   The School Board unanimously adopted a policy stating that “gender-expansive” students can use facilities and participate in programs consistent with their “gender identity” at an April 23 meeting reviewed…
    Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell
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    • News

    Supreme Court Won’t Hear Case Challenging School District Policy Hiding Students’ ‘Gender Identity’ From Parents

    The Supreme Court declined Monday to consider a case challenging a Maryland school district policy that hides information from parents about their child’s “gender identity.” Under the Montgomery County Board of Education’s guidelines, parents deemed “unsupportive” will not be told if their child is undergoing a “gender transition” at school, according to court filings. The justices declined to hear…
    Katelynn Richardson
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    • Opinion

    Parents Are Winning Education Revolution With School Choice, Corey DeAngelis Says

    There’s a war being waged for America’s elementary, middle, and high school students. But the leftist agenda-driven campaign that began behind the closed doors of teachers unions and government-run schools is now out in the open and has led to a “parent revolution,” says Corey DeAngelis.  The “teachers unions overplayed their hand and awakened a…
    Virginia Allen
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    • Opinion

    More Public Charter Schools Are Needed Nationwide

    Parents, children, and supporters of school choice have cause to celebrate this National Charter Schools Week. Charter schools earned the top two spots on a list of the best high schools in America, according to a recent report by U.S. News & World Report. And, of the top 100 public high schools, charter schools claimed…
    Keri D. Ingraham
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    • News

    Judge Blocks Suspensions of Middle School Female Athletes Who Refused to Compete Against Male Student

    A West Virginia judge granted a preliminary injunction allowing several middle school girls to compete after the school district banned them from competition after refusing to play against a biological male, according to 12 WBOY, a local media outlet. Five middle school female athletes forfeited their positions at a track meet in April after they…
    Kate Anderson
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