Education in Focus

President Donald Trump signed an executive order this week outlawing what the White House termed “radical indoctrination” in K-12 schools. Wednesday's order calls on agency secretaries to submit an “Ending Indoctrination Strategy” to eliminate “federal funding or support for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including [sic] based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.” “Parents trust America’s schools to provide their children with a rigorous education and to instill a patriotic admiration for our incredible Nation and the values for which we stand,” the order reads. 

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A forthcoming Supreme Court case will determine the legality of the religious charter schools that operate with public taxpayer dollars. The United States Supreme Court decided to hear the case last week, seven months after the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School’s application to operate as a religious charter school in the state. Michael J. Petrilli, president of the Thomas Fordham Institute, wrote in a commentary article this week that the case will likely address whether or not religious charter schools must be allowed in states that also allow secular charter schools. 

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The New York City Department of Education has received multiple recommendations from its watchdog organization to stop allowing teachers to contact students directly after it was found that two teachers had behaved inappropriately with students. In reports published on its website Monday, the Special Commissioner of Investigation for the New York City School District said the city’s education agency should amend its policy to create barriers between students and teachers to minimize grooming and inappropriate behavior. The New York City Department of Education did not respond to Chalkboard News’ requests for comment clarifying whether it was changing its position on teacher and student communications. 

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The Trump administration’s Department of Education announced Thursday that it was working on eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) from its website and workforce. The agency said staff leading DEI initiatives have been placed on administrative leave, and over 200 web pages with DEI resources that “promote or endorse harmful ideological programs” have been deleted. It also killed over $2.5 million of DEI contracts, it says. The department said the actions aligned with President Donald Trump’s “ongoing commitment to end illegal discrimination and wasteful spending across the federal government.” 

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While tense school board meetings over cultural and other issues have dominated education news headlines, instances of culture war battles in schools have declined by 42% according to a new report from the CATO Institute. For more than a decade, the think tank has been collecting data on culture war trends in public schooling according to Neal McCluskey, director of CATO’s Center for Educational Freedom. “I am an advocate for school choice and one of the objections to school choice is if we could all choose schools we would be balkanized — everyone would go off to their own kind of school,” McCluskey told Chalkboard. “But there is also the implication that we would be at war with each other.”

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A new report from a nonprofit organization that ranks states by educational freedom found large differences between them based on their efforts to improve the school choices families have for their children. The American Legislative Exchange Council's Index of State Education Freedom, released Thursday, ranks states based on the school choice options and funding programs they offer students and their families. Andrew Handel, director of ALEC’s education and workforce development task force and the report’s lead author, told Chalkboard News which states ranked at the top of the index and the bottom based on their education choice programs. 

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President Donald Trump signed an executive order to limit the government’s recognition to two sexes based on male and female biology, a reversal of the Biden administration’s attempts to expand the definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity. The order Trump signed on Monday after his inauguration said the executive branch of the government would reaffirm “the biological reality of sex” and rescind the Biden administration’s regulatory expansion of Title IX. “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” the order reads. “These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.” 

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PowerSchool, a large education technology company that provides services to public school districts, says it has been hacked and that the FBI is investigating the student data breach. Hanover County Public Schools in Ashland, Virginia, told parents on Jan. 9 that the hack included student names and addresses, parent contact information, teacher names and schedules. Parental advocates said the breach raises questions about the information districts collect about students. 

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The Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction says the Biden administration failed to secure the southwest border, leading to rising education costs in the state. Superintendent Ryan Walters filed a lawsuit in federal court on Tuesday. Walters and the Oklahoma Department of Education say the federal government should cover the additional costs incurred due to the influx of immigrant students. The lawsuit comes just days before President-elect Donald Trump's second inauguration. Walters told Fox 25 KOKH that Oklahoma spent $474 million, and it is owed the funds back. 

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A California lawsuit alleging a school district’s parental notification policy for student gender identity violates teachers’ First Amendment rights will continue after a judge denied motions to dismiss the case on Tuesday. U.S. District Court Judge Roger T. Benitez said Mirabelli v. Olson would continue after California Attorney General Rob Bonta, members of the California Department of Education and the Escondido Union School District sought to have the lawsuit thrown out because the parental notification policy is “just a suggestion.” “Here, the State Defendants say the Plaintiffs lack standing because there is no harm to parents or teachers because the policy is just a suggestion,” according to court documents. 

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