Author: BelieveAgain

Former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party would push for universal school choice, expand parental rights over education, end teacher tenure, and prohibit transgender girls from playing girls’ sports if they win the White House and majorities in Congress in the 2024 election. The Republican Party’s platform committee released the party’s 2024 platform on July 8, and formal adoption is expected at the party’s upcoming national convention, which kicks off July 15. While elected officials aren’t bound to follow it, the document serves as the official policy agenda for a potential second Trump term and for Republicans in Congress.…

What would a world without property taxes look like?In every state, revenue from property taxes is one of the biggest sources of K-12 school funding.But that could change soon as efforts ramp up in a handful of states to abandon property taxes altogether, or at least as a funding source for schools.In Nebraska, Republican Gov. Jim Pillen wants to dramatically reduce or even eliminate property taxes without slashing school budgets. Instead, he wants the state to cover the lost local funding by increasing sales tax collections. Pillen in recent weeks has been barnstorming the state in an effort to garner…

The Biden administration’s rewrite of regulations for Title IX, the nation’s landmark law prohibiting sex discrimination at federally funded schools, has drawn at least eight lawsuits since its release in mid-April that have complicated its path to taking effect. The Title IX revision expands the scope of the law’s prohibition on sex discrimination so it also applies to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also streamlines processes schools use to investigate and respond to complaints of Title IX violations and directs them to use a “preponderance of the evidence” standard to evaluate sexual harassment, assault, and discrimination…

Project 2025, a 900-page conservative policy agenda that proposes eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, has become a dominating force in the 2024 election campaign as President Joe Biden and Democrats use it to make their case against former President Donald Trump. Biden’s team has referred to Project 2025 as a “manifesto infused with MAGA ideology” that “should scare every single American” and has mentioned it in dozens of recent news releases. Its creators frame it as an effort to bring “self-government to the American people,” according to the Washington Post. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign recently has tried to distance…

For the fourth summer in a row, Ypsilanti Community Schools in southeast Michigan’s Washtenaw County is operating Grizzly Learning Camp, a free seven-week summer learning program for students in prekindergarten through 12th grade. Like traditional summer school programs, it offers academics. But, as its name suggests, it doesn’t feel like a traditional summer school. “The students aren’t sitting in a row in the classrooms,” said Alena Zachery-Ross, the superintendent in Ypsilanti, located outside of Ann Arbor. The academics, driven by project-based learning, might include staging poetry slams, learning math from a teacher who uses rap as a vehicle for instruction,…

The Biden administration’s Title IX rule is now blocked in 14 states and a hodgepodge of other locations across the country after a third federal judge issued a temporary order on July 2 preventing it from taking effect in four additional states. U.S. District Judge John Broomes’ order is the latest development in a set of eight lawsuits challenging the Biden administration rule, which explicitly protects LGBTQ+ students and staff from discrimination by adding gender identity and sexual orientation to the definition of “sex discrimination.”The order halts the rule in Alaska, Kansas, Utah, and Wyoming. It also blocks the rule…

Over the dissent of two justices, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear the appeal of a student seeking to hold the owner of Snapchat liable for its alleged role in facilitating the sexual abuse of the boy by one of his teachers.“The court chooses not to address whether social-media platforms—some of the largest and most powerful companies in the world—can be held responsible for their own misconduct,” Justice Clarence Thomas said in a dissent from the court’s denial of review in Doe v. Snap Inc.Joined by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Thomas said the case presented a good…

California will add a financial literacy course to its high school graduation requirements after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law June 29, following an agreement with an advocacy group that had collected enough signatures to take the issue to voters.Californians for Financial Education, a group founded by businessman Tim Ranzetta, asked state election officials to remove their question from the November general election ballot after lawmakers passed a similar bill last week, an 11th-hour move to beat the withdrawal deadline.While Ranzetta and other supporters argued students need lessons in concepts like the tax system and credit to succeed…

In a decision that may be felt in schools and colleges across the country, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday overruled a major precedent on when courts should defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of the laws that apply to them.The 6-3 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo could have near-term implications on matters such as the U.S. Department of Education’s recent final regulation interpreting Title IX to protect transgender students. The rule, scheduled to take effect Aug. 1, has been challenged in multiple lawsuits and has already been blocked from taking effect in 10 states.Chief Justice John G. Roberts…

Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters has ordered educators in his state to teach the Bible, a move that adds to a list of recent actions by state leaders who are testing the limits of the separation of church and state in public schools. Walters, who’s built a national profile as an outspoken critic of “woke indoctrination,” sent a June 27 memo to the state’s district superintendents directing them to incorporate the Bible into lessons for 5th through 12th grades as “one of the most historically significant books and a cornerstone of Western civilization.”“This is not merely an educational directive but a…