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

    How Close-Minded Liberals Have Ruined Higher Education

    While college administrators and professors accept disgraceful behavior, we as taxpayers, donors, and parents should not foot the bill. Let’s look at some of that behavior. A University of Washington Tacoma Writing Center press release told students that expecting Americans to use proper grammar perpetuates racism. The University of Nebraska Omaha will host a workshop…
    Walter E. Williams
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    • Opinion

    We Hear You: The NAACP, Political Correctness, and School Choice

    Editor's note: Today your letters include thoughtful responses to a commentary by school choice activist Virginia Walden Ford and to a Daily Signal supporter's appeal about making a difference on important issues. Want to write us? You'll see how below. —Ken McIntyre Dear Daily Signal: I agree with Virginia Walden Ford’s commentary article. The NAACP has…
    Ken McIntyre
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    • Opinion

    On Education, the Left Protects a Miserable Status Quo

    U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, “The president’s decision to ask Betsy DeVos to run the Department of Education should offend every single American man, woman, and child who has benefitted from the public education system in this country.” Expressing similar sentiments, Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Cedric Richmond said, “I expect…
    Walter E. Williams
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    • News

    College Students Reveal the Crazy Things Happening on Campuses

    At last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., The Daily Signal asked college students about what’s happening on their campuses. From sanctuary campuses to free speech zones, conservative students detail some of the spectacles they’ve witnessed lately. Watch our video to hear what’s happening.
    Kelsey Bolar
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    • Opinion

    Dispelling Myths About This Inexcusable School Meal Policy

    A Washington Post article argues that a recently implemented federal school meals policy, the Community Eligibility Provision, is largely responsible for increased participation of low-income children in the school breakfast program. In reality, the Community Eligibility Provision turns welfare on its head by making it possible for children from middle-class and wealthy families to receive…
    Daren Bakst
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    • News

    Protesters Block Betsy DeVos From Entering DC Public School

    Protesters effectively blocked new Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos from entering a Washington, D.C.-area public school, according to a local NBC News affiliate report. The trip to Jefferson Middle School Academy was supposed to be DeVos’ first trip to a school in her official role, but protesters critical of her appointment blocked the entrance; security was forced…
    Phillip Stucky
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    • Opinion

    Americans Should Not Have to Subsidize Campus Lawlessness

    In 1964, students at the University of California, Berkeley joined together to fight for their right to free speech. Last night, a group of over 1,500 protestors showed up on that same campus to shut down a speaker with whom they disagreed, and about 150 of them started a riot. Clearly, the culture of tolerance…
    Mary Clare Amselem
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    • Opinion

    Fossil Fuel Divestment Foolishness on Our College Campuses

    Students at dozens of academic institutions across the country have called for their university endowments to divest equities in the fossil fuel industries. When University of Denver trustees voted this week against fossil fuel divestment, many students walked out of their classes to bring awareness to this cause as the meeting took place. Fossil fuel…
    Richard Sigman
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    • Opinion

    Another College’s Speech Code at Odds With First Amendment Values

    In the words of Supreme Court Justice William Brennan Jr., America serves as a “marketplace of ideas.” A state-funded college campus, of all places, should epitomize this function. But restrictive policies on campuses across the country are silencing certain viewpoints and limiting speech on campus. Take Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek, Michigan. This college…
    David Rosenthal
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    • Opinion

    Before Leaving Office, Obama Administration Admits It Got Student Loan Data Wrong

    In case you ever had any doubts about the inefficiencies of the Department of Education, look no further than the recent revelation that the agency has been vastly overestimating student loan repayment rates. On the last day of the Obama administration’s tenure, the College Scorecard the department established has been quietly revealed to have serious…
    Mary Clare Amselem
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    • Opinion

    Why Betsy DeVos’ Support for School Choice Will Help America’s Schoolchildren

    According to her opponents during Wednesday’s Senate confirmation hearing, Betsy DeVos, President Donald Trump’s choice for secretary of education, is guilty of wanting to privatize the public schools. To be sure, the nominee’s critics are entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. Here are the facts: DeVos believes that all children are…
    Jim Daly
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    • Opinion

    Betsy DeVos Hearing Highlights the Need for Less Government Control in Education

    On Tuesday night, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions held a confirmation hearing for Education Secretary-designate Betsy DeVos. Devos, a longtime proponent of school choice, also fielded questions about her positions on higher education and preschool. The hearing turned into a vibrant debate among the senators about the merits of education choice,…
    Lindsey Burke
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    • Opinion

    What Went Wrong in US Higher Ed? Harvard Tells the Story

    In 1636, the first college in our nation was founded for Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae (for Truth, for Christ, and for the Church). Since then, Harvard has had a profound—and sometimes profoundly bad—impact on the American system of higher learning. With the start of a new academic semester and 381 years of history, now is…
    Abigail Doty
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    • News

    They Grew Up in a Poor Neighborhood. How School Choice Changed These Brothers’ Lives.

    Carlos and Calvin Battle grew up in the poorest neighborhood of Washington, D.C., where nearly two-thirds of children are living in poverty. In 2016, only 42 percent of students attending the local public high school graduated. In an attempt to get her sons a better education, their mother, Pam Battle, enrolled Calvin and Carlos in the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship…
    Kelsey Bolar
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    • News

    Campus Disinvitations Hit Record Number in 2016, Report Says

    The number of speakers who faced opposition or disinvitation this year reached a record high, according to a report from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. FIRE, which has been tracking the number of incidents involving campus speakers since 2000, found that in 2016, at least 42 separate incidents occurred—double the number that occurred…
    Ashe Schow
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    • Opinion

    Middle School Girl Gets Suspended for Possessing a Butter Knife

    Who would have thought a butter knife could become the center of a school controversy? Last month, officials at Silver Trail Middle School near Miami, Florida, suspended an 11-year-old honors student for violating a county policy strictly prohibiting weapons on campus. The girl’s weapon of choice: a butter knife fit for a toddler. To highlight the…
    David Rosenthal
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    • Opinion

    How Texas Can Lead the Charge on Education Choice

    The debate around school choice has shifted from whether states should enact education choice to how best to accomplish that goal. In a special report released on Monday—co-published by The Heritage Foundation and the Texas Public Policy Foundation—we discuss how this question will be especially important in Texas, which is considering adopting education savings accounts,…
    Jason Bedrick
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    • Opinion

    Setting the Record Straight on Detroit Charter Schools

    The nomination of school choice supporter Betsy DeVos for the post of education secretary has reignited a lively debate over the impact of school choice and student-centered education financing. One case in point is a piece by Douglas Harris, who last Friday took to the pages of the The New York Times. In his piece,…
    Lindsey Burke
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    • Opinion

    How Infantilized Campuses Threaten Our Nation’s Future

    What are we to make of higher education when students and institutions respond to the recent presidential election with cry-ins, canceled exams, therapy dogs, Play-Doh, coloring books, group screams, Legos, bubble-blowing, and trauma counseling? Well, college “ain’t what it used to be.” For some time, higher learning has been a political matter, one where the…
    David Whalen
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    • News

    President of National Teachers’ Union Cites Holocaust in Comments on Trump

    The president of one of the nation’s largest teachers’ union cited the Holocaust in comments she made about President-elect Donald Trump while speaking at an LGBT event in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. “After what happened in the 1930s and ’40s, we used to have a saying called ‘never again,’” Randi Weingarten, president of American Federation…
    Kelsey Bolar
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