Author: BelieveAgain

Education savings accounts, tax-credit scholarships, vouchers, charter schools, hybrid homeschooling, and microschools are transforming K-12 in profound ways. In our series of conversations, “Talking Choice,” Ashley Berner and I try to make sense of the shifting landscape. Berner directs Johns Hopkins University’s Institute for Education Policy and is the author of Educational Pluralism and Democracy. Whatever you think of educational choice, we seek to provide more concrete insight into what it means for students, families, and educators. Today, we discuss what a blue wave in next month’s midterm elections might mean for school choice programs.—RickRick: Ashley, Democrats look poised to…

The U.S. Supreme Court will take up a key issue arising in lawsuits that challenge school district efforts to use race-neutral methods to boost racial and socioeconomic diversity in selective programs.In a case involving student selection to magnet schools in the Montgomery County, Md., school district, outside Washington, the court said it would consider whether a plaintiff challenging a facially neutral admissions policy as racially discriminatory must establish that the targeted racial group suffered an “aggregate disparate impact” relative to its share of the applicant pool.That is a legally complex question arising in high-temperature suits that accuse some of the…

Another court declared Ohio’s private school voucher program unconstitutional on Thursday, finding it provides a choice to the private schools that must honor the taxpayer-funded vouchers rather than to Ohio families.The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 10th District Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s June 2025 ruling that found the EdChoice program violates an Ohio constitutional requirement for “a thorough and efficient system of common schools.” The ruling will not immediately affect the EdChoice program, which was allowed to remain operational in anticipation of an appeal.“EdChoice, as presently structured and funded, secures with taxpayer funds a competing…

How much money will flow to public school students from the new federal tax-credit scholarship program? And who is most likely to benefit? These are important considerations as states mull whether to opt into the program by Jan. 1. But they’re also difficult questions to answer.Traditionally, tax-credit scholarships and related state-run programs like vouchers give money to private school students. But the new federal program allows public school students to receive scholarships and even spend their money at their public schools. (How that will work is a separate question and debate. More on that here.) Josh Cowen, a professor of…

Democratic governors have mostly been in wait-and-see mode this year as the start of the first national school choice program approaches—and little has changed since the Trump administration released its proposed rules for the program two weeks ago.Sixteen governors—15 Democrats and one Republican—and the mayor of the District of Columbia have yet to announce whether they’ll opt in to the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program, according to Education Week’s tracking of governors’ decisions. That number hasn’t changed since May.Through the program, which launches Jan. 1, taxpayers can claim dollar-for-dollar federal credits of up to $1,700 (and $3,400 for married couples)…

In one state, schools would have to play the “Star-Spangled Banner” weekly. In another, six questions on next month’s ballot could affect how much funding there is for schools and how quickly new schools can be built.The race for control of Congress is the highest-profile battle underway this fall in advance of the Nov. 3 midterm elections. But there’s a lot more on the ballot in every state that matters for schools, the policies they have to follow, and their budgets.Education Week reviewed what’s on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Below, type in your…

With students back in school and Nikole Hannah-Jones’ first person account of her struggles with the education system lighting up social media, education is back at the top of the national conversation. What remains clear is that parents and educators are experiencing unprecedented confusion about our education performance and direction while millions of students are unprepared to face a rapidly changing economy.Some of the examples may be new, but our country has been adrift on education policy for a decade, and students have paid the price. Recent National Assessment of Educational Progress data show modest academic improvement for 9-year-olds following…

Democrats have a good chance of winning a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections coming up on Nov. 3.If that happens, Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, currently the top Democrat on the House education committee who served as its chairman from 2019 to 2023, may be back in a position to set much of the chamber’s agenda on K-12 policy and conduct oversight of the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education.Scott, an architect of the Every Student Succeeds Act, will have competition for the gavel from Rep. Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon,…

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that states may bar transgender girls from female athletics, it made clear it was not deciding the flip side of that issue—whether Title IX and the Constitution allow states and schools to permit transgender girls to play on female teams.“That question is currently the subject of litigation in some lower courts,” Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote in a footnote in his majority opinion in West Virginia v. B.P.J. “Nothing in this opinion is intended to decide that question.”That additional litigation has continued, with one older case trudging through the legal system for…

Cheering on the Trump administration’s attempt to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education: Out. Aggressive oversight: In.Legislation to dramatically expand school choice: Out. Attempts to significantly boost funding for federal K-12 grant programs: In.That’s the CliffsNotes version of the U-turn educators can expect if Democrats gain control of either chamber of Congress after the Nov. 3 midterm elections—a distinct possibility based on recent polling.A majority in either chamber would put Democrats in the driver’s seat on the legislative agenda and in a position to hold official hearings on the Trump administration’s dissolution of the Education Department.To be sure, Democrats are…