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.
Filter articles by
  • opinion

    Critical Race Theory Is Still Plaguing Some K-12 Schools. Here’s How Parents, Lawmakers Can Fight Back.

    Critical race theory gripped the nation’s attention after the summer of 2020 and the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. According to Google Trends, the search term peaked in June 2021, then interest tapered off going into 2022. But the radical philosophy has not disappeared from public life. Rather, Americans are more familiar with this…
    Read More
  • opinion

    Irresponsible School Districts Force Teachers to Create Amazon Wish Lists

    For several weeks, social media has been flooded by teachers’ posts with Amazon wish lists, soliciting others to stock their classrooms with basic supplies. Creating these lists has been commonplace in recent years as teachers look outside their schools and districts to fill their supply needs. Some of the most popular requested items are dry…
    Read More
  • news

    EXCLUSIVE: Case Could Make Unenforceable a Law That Prohibits Schools From Disclosing Gender Transitions to Parents

    FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A California mom's lawsuit against the school district that helped her daughter identify as a boy without her knowledge could block the enforcement of a new California law that mandates schools hide students' so-called gender identities from parents.   The Center for American Liberty first filed a lawsuit against Chico Unified School…
    Read More
  • opinion

    What’s Wrong With Gov. Tim Walz’s Education Policies

    In herdlike fashion, the media describe Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as “folksy,” suggesting that he is just a regular guy with whom Middle America can identify easily. Supporters on social media liken the Democrat to a cool grandpa. Judging from his education policies, however, Walz would be like your folksy grandpa only if you are…
    Read More
  • opinion

    Back to School, and Time to Foster Creativity

    Back-to-school season is here, and with the recent examples of race-based classroom activities and sexually charged curriculum in schools nationwide, parents are right to wonder what their students will be taught this fall. A recent commentary by an education reporter about his own children revealed that last year his sixth grader had no homework, spelling…
    Read More
  • opinion

    Biden’s Illegal Title IX Rule Is Set for Enforcement. The School Year Is Going to Be Complicated.

    It may still be the dog days of summer, but parents, students, and educators everywhere are already looking to the start of the school year. And this year will bring one massive change to schools and colleges across the country. On Aug. 1, President Joe Biden’s Department of Education is set to enforce its massive…
    Read More
  • news

    EXCLUSIVE: Parents Petition Denver Schools to Stop ‘Seal of Diversity’ Program

    FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A Denver high school allows students to take classes such as Queer Literature and Gender Studies to earn a “Seal of Diversity” award. Students can submit a short, five-minute application to be part of the program, then take “diversity, equity, and inclusion”-related classes and engage with a DEI-related club or organization…
    Read More
  • news

    Parents Outraged School District Forces Children to Room With Trans Students on Overnight Trips

    FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Students in a Southern California school district could be forced to choose between rooming with a transgender-identifying student or missing out on an overnight school field trip.  If parents complain about their child rooming with a transgender-identifying student of the opposite biological sex, staff in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District listen…
    Read More
  • news

    RELIGIOUS LIBERTY VICTORY: Va. Court Deals Blow to School District’s ‘Unconstitutional’ Pronoun and Bathroom Policies

    A Virginia court ruled Wednesday that students can challenge unconstitutional “transgender” pronoun and bathroom policies. “We are pleased with the court’s decision recognizing that students can, in fact, challenge unconstitutional policies implemented by school boards in Virginia,” America First Legal attorney Andrew Block told The Daily Signal. Fairfax County Public Schools in Northern Virginia requires…
    Read More
  • opinion

    Can US Department of Education Really Be Closed? Yes, Starting Here.

    A congressional committee’s recent vote should be a message to taxpayers: Yes, it is possible to close the U.S. Department of Education. The House Appropriations Committee approved a proposal to cut an entire program from the agency, demonstrating how lawmakers can downsize and then eliminate the department. The Appropriations Committee voted to defund Title II,…
    Read More
  • news

    The New GOP Litmus Test on School Choice

    Party platforms are a way of signaling to voters the policies that politicians are likely to pursue if they’re elected to office. But platforms also send a message to a party’s candidates about what policy positions the party expects them to support. If elected officials go against their own party’s platform, they might expect to…
    Read More
  • news

    Rep. Donalds Rips Democrats for Not Being ‘Pro-Choice’ on Education

    Rep. Byron Donalds made a case for school choice in a speech Monday on the opening night of the Republican National Convention.  The Florida Republican talked about his own story of growing up poor, while his mother pushed to ensure he had a good education. But he said too many children today are trapped in…
    Read More
  • 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…
    Read More
  • 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…
    Read More
  • 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…
    Read More
  • 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….
    Read More
  • 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…
    Read More
  • 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…
    Read More
  • 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…
    Read More
  • 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,”…
    Read More