Author: BelieveAgain

The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 4 took up a major case on medical care for transgender youth, with the potential implications for schools bubbling just below the surface—and at times coming up during the arguments.“If you prevail here on the standard of review, what would that mean for women’s and girls’ sports in particular?” Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh asked U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar, who is challenging a Tennessee law that bars puberty blockers and hormone therapy if they are meant to help transgender minors transition to a gender identity that’s different from their sex assigned at birth.Tennessee…

In January, Rep. Virginia Foxx will pass the chairman’s gavel of the House Education and Workforce Committee to her successor. Foxx, a former community college instructor, college professor, and college president, has represented North Carolina’s 5th District in Congress since 2005. Given that Foxx’s tenure as the committee’s ranking Republican spanned the pandemic, a historic expansion of school choice, heated culture clashes, and campus chaos, I was especially curious to hear her thoughts regarding accomplishments, frustrations, and takeaways. Here’s what she had to say.—RickEditor’s note: This post has been lightly edited for clarity. The opinions expressed here are those of…

The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 2 took up an important case on the regulation of vaping products with candy and fruit flavors that the Food and Drug Administration views as harmful to the nation’s youth.“Seven percent of youth are still using open-tank systems or mod [vaping products], according to survey results from earlier this year,” Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Curtis E. Gannon, representing the FDA, told the justices. “That’s more than 114,000 middle and high school students who are using devices that could use liquids like the ones that [manufacturers in the case] want to market.”E-cigarette use among middle…

The allegations in a recent lawsuit that Linda M. McMahon, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be the U.S. secretary of education in his new administration, failed decades ago to prevent the sexual abuse of teenage workers when she was CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment are prompting sharply divergent reactions.Some observers argue that the claims in the suit—that McMahon and her husband, Vince McMahon, allowed a ringside announcer who was known to abuse the adolescent workers to remain employed at WWE—should be disqualifying for a position that oversees federal education policy as well as the enforcement of students’ civil rights.Others, meanwhile,…

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has tried to revolutionize space travel, the electric vehicle industry, and social media.Next up on his list? School.Musk’s Texas-based private school—Ad Astra, meaning “to the stars” in Latin—has been in development for the past year. Last week, the state child-care regulator granted its permit for the site’s preschool to open in Bastrop, Texas, a city outside Austin that is home to a base for Musk’s company, SpaceX, Fortune reported.The school’s website states that it is accepting applications for the current, 2024-25 academic year for both the preschool, open to children ages 3-6, and the lower-elementary school,…

The Trump administration could enter office in January with proposals to cut, redirect, restructure, and even eliminate key streams of funding for K-12 schools, after four years when schools received more money from the federal government than ever before.Trump and his advisers have also said in recent days that they believe the president should be able to choose not to spend money Congress has approved—potentially paving the way for priorities like withholding funds from schools that Trump says, without evidence, are “pushing critical race theory” and “transgender insanity.” Under current federal law, the president can’t override Congress’ spending decisions, and…

Free school meals for millions of students could be at risk if President-elect Donald Trump takes aim at a rule that allows public schools to serve them universally, a move that many of his political allies support.While Trump hasn’t introduced any concrete policies around school meals, some of the conservative groups and politicians who supported his campaign favor restrictions on the community eligibility provision. That federal rule allows schools to provide federally subsidized free lunches and breakfasts to all students without requiring income verification from their families. Individual schools or clusters of schools are eligible to offer free meals for…

The momentum to abolish the U.S. Department of Education following the election of Donald Trump, who campaigned on such an effort, has already reached Congress with a newly introduced bill that seeks to dismantle the agency.The bill, sponsored by Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota, represents another stab at realizing a perennial GOP objective to dissolve the department, which experts have said would be a challenging undertaking.This year’s effort comes with internal skeptics mostly out of the way and Democrats losing control of the Senate, meaning there will be fewer guardrails to stand in the way of Trump’s…

Fights over religion in public schools are not new. But several Republican-led states are testing the limits through initiatives that seem primed to land before the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to reshape how faith and schools intersect.Texas on Friday became the latest state to infuse religion into instruction, with the state school board approving a controversial curriculum with Bible-infused lessons for elementary schools. It comes amid a wave of related measures in nearby Republican-led states, with Louisiana passing a law requiring all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments, a mandate in Oklahoma ordering teachers to include the Bible…

For decades, lawmakers and advocates have tried and failed to create a sweeping, federal school choice program that allows families to use public resources to cover private school tuition or home-school expenses.Now the policy’s fans—and detractors—see the political stars aligning.Former President Donald Trump is set to ascend to the White House for a second time. His education secretary pick, Linda McMahon, a former pro-wrestling executive, who heads up the America First Policy Institute, a think tank that has been supportive of private school vouchers.Republicans will control both chambers of Congress. And states across the country are embracing education savings accounts,…