Education News
Reports on education reform, school choice, and classroom policies. The Daily Signal provides conservative commentary and opinion alongside education news.
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opinion
State Lawmakers Are Freeing Colleges From DEI’s Racial Bias
State lawmakers continue to unravel the thread of discrimination leading to university bureaucracies committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. This spring, prepare for more legislators to cobble together provisions that protect students and college employees from DEI’s racial bias. Last year, public officials in five states—Florida, Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin—adopted proposals that put university… -
opinion
Will Education Choice Momentum Continue in 2024?
National School Choice Week begins on Sunday, and this year, there’s much to celebrate. In 2023, the school choice movement made more progress expanding education options than ever before. The Year of Education Freedom saw seven states pass new education choice policies and nine states expand existing choice policies. There are now nine states with… -
news
EXCLUSIVE: Majority of Americans Oppose Using Preferred Pronouns in Schools, Report Finds
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL: A majority of Americans oppose the use of preferred pronouns in schools, according to a report released Tuesday by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. The Becket Fund’s Religious Freedom Index findings revealed a reversal in attitudes toward leftist school pronoun policies requiring that children and school employees address each… -
opinion
Can Higher Education Be Rescued From Grip of DEI?
Claudine Gay resigned Jan. 2 as Harvard’s president following outrage over antisemitism at the Ivy League school and amid claims that Gay plagiarized in her academic writings. Her resignation provides higher education institutions an opportunity to reconsider the leftist agenda-laden waters most “elite” colleges and universities swim in. As more people realize the true agenda… -
news
EXCLUSIVE: Overnight School Program Accused of Assigning Boys to Sleep With Girls
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL: Joe and Serena Wailes revealed last month that their 11-year-old daughter was assigned to share a bed with a boy who identifies as a transgender girl on an overnight school trip. Their story has led to more parents coming forward with similar allegations, according to a new demand letter first obtained… -
opinion
How to Get Better Teachers in America’s Schools
Twenty years ago, when I was hiring teachers for the private K-12 school I founded, I knew better than to recruit certified teachers. From my previous work as a college history professor, I know that the people least prepared to teach a subject are education majors. Requiring an embarrassingly low minimum of credit hours to be certified… -
opinion
DEI Is Alive and Well, America. Don’t Think Gay’s Resignation at Harvard Means Battle Over.
Harvard University’s embattled president resigned Tuesday, but it would be a mistake to think that the troubles of that school or higher education in general are over. Harvard President Claudine Gay’s disastrous testimony and serial, blatant plagiarism were certainly good reasons to give her the boot. The Harvard Corporation Board, which decides who will be president of… -
opinion
EXPOSING DEI: Inside the Pressure Campaign That Finally Ousted Claudine Gay as Harvard’s President
Claudine Gay ended her tenure Tuesday as the shortest president in the history of Harvard University, yet her resignation statement didn’t acknowledge the scandals that led to her ouster—instead suggesting that racism was to blame. The incident arguably illustrates the effectiveness of conservative critics in drawing attention to Gay’s many scandals, and the fecklessness of… -
news
Feds Add George Mason University to List of Schools Under Scrutiny Over Antisemitic Incidents
George Mason University—located in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.—has been added to a list of dozens of institutions of higher education under federal investigation for antisemitism on campus since the Hamas massacre in Israel occurred in early October. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights announced on Dec. 22 that it… -
opinion
It’s Up to the American People to Fix Higher Education
American institutions of higher education won’t reform on their own. The recent explosion of antisemitism on college campuses has made many Americans—including high-profile donors—turn against modern academia. How could our schools be filled with so many frothing antisemites who hate Jews, hate America, and hate the West? This has prompted many to understand the depth… -
opinion
Wisconsin Supreme Court Rejects Anti-Choice Position on Schooling
Liberal activist Kirk Bangstad’s Minocqua Brewing Co. SuperPAC on Oct. 12 filed a petition with the Wisconsin Supreme Court that sought to dismantle the state’s popular school choice programs and shutter the state’s independent charter schools. Bangstad hired international law firm Perkins Coie LLP—armed with more than $1 billion in revenue and 1,120 attorneys—to take… -
news
Oklahoma Becomes Latest State to Condemn DEI on Campus
Criticism continues to mount against so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion offices on college campuses. And the list of state policymakers calling for defunding the offices and eliminating their discriminatory practices is also growing—just in time for state legislators to work on the issue in the new year. The latest lawmaker to prohibit the use of taxpayer spending on DEI… -
news
Rep. Jim Banks Demands Answers About Butler University’s DEI Investigation Into College Republicans
Rep. Jim Banks, a Republican member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee and an Indiana congressman, has issued a letter to Butler University demanding answers over its investigation into Butler’s College Republicans chapter. “Your investigation not only risks having a chilling effect on students’ free speech, but reasonably could lead outside observers, including… -
news
Male Might Get Volleyball Scholarship Meant for Female Athletes at University of Washington
A California transgender volleyball player may become the first biological male recipient of a collegiate Division 1 athletic scholarship designated for women. Tate Drageset, 17, verbally committed to the University of Washington, where Drageset is poised to claim one of 12 Division 1 volleyball scholarships designated for female players, Reduxx first reported on Dec. 13. … -
news
EXCLUSIVE: Catholic All-Girls College Reverses Trans Policy After Backlash
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL: Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana, is backtracking on its decision to allow men who identify as transgender women to enroll in the formerly all-female, Catholic institution. The Daily Signal reported in November that Saint Mary’s College would allow men who identify as women to enroll at the college… -
news
EXCLUSIVE: Missouri School District Offers Coloring Pages on Preferred Pronouns, Gender Expression to Kindergartners
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A Missouri school district is providing elementary-school teachers with coloring pages, asking children as young as kindergartners to choose their pronouns and draw the corresponding hair and clothing. Webster Groves School District Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Shane Williamson emailed administrators a resource list of “Gender Identity and Expression Activities”… -
news
With Decree to Bus Drivers, School District Puts the ‘Scrooge’ in Christmas Spirit
A local school district in Pennsylvania acted to forbid school bus drivers from putting up Christmas decorations. On Friday, just over a week before Christmas, the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, issued a memo to school bus drivers saying: “If you have decorated your bus with anything specific to the Christmas holiday or any other… -
opinion
DEFUNDING DEI: Wisconsin Lawmaker’s Tactics Show Way to Kill Radical University Programs
Napoleon said that to master the art of war, you must “read over and over again” the campaigns of history’s most successful generals. The same advice applies if you want to master the art of legislating: You must study the strategies of the most successful legislators. To that end, any lawmaker that wants to thwart… -
opinion
EXCLUSIVE: Butler University Investigates College Republicans for Condemning Antisemitic Chants
While other universities, including Rutgers, have suspended a group called Students for Justice in Palestine over violations of discrimination and harassment policies, Butler University apparently is investigating anyone who dares to condemn the pro-Palestine organization. Indianapolis-based Butler University launched an investigation of the school’s College Republicans chapter Oct. 30, according to an email obtained by… -
opinion
New Education Model Charts Course for ‘Success Sequence’ in New Year
Just in time for Christmas, new data finds good news on education: Average graduation rates nationwide are up two percentage points. Before celebrating, though, research reminds us that students still are posting low scores in national and international comparisons, and a troubling share of college students need remedial work. Graduation rates may not represent what…