Reports on education reform, school choice, and classroom policies. The Daily Signal provides conservative commentary and opinion alongside education news.
At least four school districts in Indiana have flooded their communities with controversy in the past year by pushing radical transgender agendas. Now, state lawmakers are fighting back to clearly outline and protect parental rights. Indiana state Rep. Jake Teshka and state Sen. Jeff Raatz, both Republicans, have introduced two bills that would forbid any…
As the American Academy of Pediatrics issues new guidelines recommending the radical solutions of weight-loss drugs and even surgery for curbing childhood obesity, it’s worth revisiting an obvious but largely ignored treatment for poor health: turning off the screens. Screen time skyrocketed for children during the COVID-19 pandemic—by 52% according to some studies and closer…
The NWEA, which says it provides map-testing assessments to Roman Catholic dioceses and almost two thousand Catholic schools across the country, features articles on its website encouraging educators to help students to "come out" and promoting gender ideology to children. Formerly known as the Northwest Evaluation Association, the NWEA boasts of developing Pre-K through 12th…
Legislation introduced in the Florida House of Representatives this month is being touted by its sponsor as a “children’s rights” bill, but it would be more accurate to call it what it is, a “usurpation of parental rights” bill. Characterizing far-left Democratic state Rep. Michele Rayner-Goolsby’s HB 217 as a children’s rights bill is a…
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Missouri's attorney general sent a letter to the state's association of school boards, urging it to adopt a resolution mandating that parents and guardians receive advance notice and the ability to opt their children out of sexual instruction, following news that a middle school took students to a drag show without…
The nation’s largest teachers union recommends that educators begin teaching the concepts of preferred personal pronouns and gender identity starting in pre-kindergarten. “When you look at elementary school students, many people think they are too young to talk about pronouns,” said panelist Matthew Powell, a member of the National Education Association’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Committee,…
A Texas congressman has introduced legislation to ban federal funding for public schools that promote theories that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin. “The Combatting Racist Teaching Act will prohibit federal funding from going to schools that seek to indoctrinate children with critical race theory,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said in…
On Dec. 20, I helped my 200th teacher leave the Indiana State Teachers Association. This behemoth of a pyramid scheme charges Indiana teachers $1,000 per year to lobby for progressive political goals at the state and national level—while claiming to be integral in salary negotiation and legal defense. Over the last five years, I’ve enjoyed…
Teachers unions have long opposed efforts to give parents more choices in education. But parents today should quote something from Samuel Gompers, who founded the American Federation of Labor in the 19th century, to union members: “Doing for people what they can and ought to do for themselves is a dangerous experiment.” That surely applies…
Jan. 22 to Jan. 28 is National School Choice Week, and what better way to highlight the fact that parents today have more choices for their children’s education than ever before than by celebrating Iowa’s Students First Act being signed into law on Tuesday? The year 2011 was deemed “the year of school choice” after…
As America celebrates National School Choice Week, two states—Iowa and Utah—have made the first moves this year to empower families with a greater say in how their children are educated. Additionally, the evidence from states with robust school choice policies is debunking opponents’ charges that choice harms rural students and homeschoolers. Last week, the education…
The Arizona state Senate Education Committee met Wednesday to consider SB 1001, The Given Name Act, a one-page, 21-line bill that states that any individual involved in the Arizona public education system would be required to use the pronoun associated with a student’s biological sex unless the student’s public school or charter school received other…
Blake Masters, the former Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Arizona, slammed his Tucson school district for its curriculum's reliance on the Southern Poverty Law Center, a leftist activist group known for branding conservative organizations "hate groups" on a map with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan. "The SPLC is as extreme as it is dishonest….
Iowa came very close to enacting an expansive education choice policy last year. This year, after supporting school choice advocates who successfully primaried incumbents from her own party opposed to reform, Gov. Kimberly Reynolds is determined to see her ambitious education agenda over the finish line. Her proposal is a package of reforms that includes…
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican, signed seven executive orders to decrease the size of her state's government, combat "indoctrination" and critical race theory in schools, and remove the term "Latinx" from government documents. During her inaugural address Tuesday, Sanders pledged to sign an executive order "preventing the political indoctrination of Arkansas' schoolchildren." "As…
The University of Southern California Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work will no longer use the word “field” in its curriculum or its practices as part of its anti-racist framework, according to an email reportedly sent Monday. The school reportedly stripped the word from use due to alleged ties to “anti-Black” and “anti-immigrant” rhetoric, according to the…
The average American university has more than 45 individuals with jobs devoted to promoting so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion. DEI programs push divisive identity politics as well as distorted narratives about American history. But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is once again leading on this issue, taking a first step in clamping down on these…
The game’s afoot on the legal definition of “sex.” What was once a commonsense understanding of “sex” as meaning the biological distinctions between male and female has—under recent leftist claims that sex includes “gender identity”—become a flashpoint for the culture wars and clogged the federal courts. Parents, legislators, and educators across the country are navigating…
Kentucky long has lagged in giving families access to education choice. However, that changed dramatically in 2021 when, in the wake of school shutdowns over COVID-19, Kentucky joined a wave of states expanding education opportunities by enacting the Education Opportunity Account program. Unfortunately, Kentucky children who stood to benefit from access to a greater number…
Ring set aside days of his English III course to walk his students through critical race theory in detailed fashion—and the student, wishing to remain anonymous, was quick enough to hit “record.”