Connecticut taxpayers will be covering some health care costs for thousands of paraeducators as the state seeks to fill workforce shortages in public schools.
A new program rolled out Wednesday by state Comptroller Sean Scanlon includes a one-time $5 million subsidy that will help pay paraeducators’ health insurance bills not covered by local school districts.
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By now almost every American child starts a new school year. Many challenges confront families seeking solid formations for their children — from school violence, to radical secular humanist indoctrination, to the ongoing severe harm inflicted by the 2020-2021 lockdowns.
But Biden’s created border crisis now adds to that list of hurdles, as schools across the country – not just in border areas – grapple to deal with an illegal influx that prioritizes foreign migrants above our own American children.
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A Tennessee state senator said Dr. Bren Elliott, Tennessee’s new State Turnaround Superintendent, and new State Education Commissioner Lizette Gonzalez Reynolds, do not reflect “the educational philosophy desired by parents and Tennesseans.”
“The hiring of Bren Elliott is the continuation of the bad decision of hiring Commissioner Reynolds. They represent the destructive direction of schools becoming ‘mental and emotional institutions’ rather than traditional educational facilities,” State Senator Janice Bowling (R-Tullahoma).
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While students across the state are now back in class, the list of secondary schools that will begin the year without a school resource officer continues to grow.
On Monday the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office announced it will pull its officers it has contracted as SROs from six schools in the east metro. Well more than a dozen law enforcement agencies across the state have now pulled their SROs from school campuses in the wake of a new law they say the legislature needs to fix so their officers can safely do their jobs.
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Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne announced a tutoring program with hopes to combat the negative consequences of learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The $40 million program intended to pay public school teachers an additional $30 an hour if they take part in the program starting Oct. 2. According to a news release, private tutoring companies will also be allowed to take part.
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Parental rights advocacy group Moms for Liberty announced a public town hall event in Mesa, Arizona, on September 14, with confirmed attendees including State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, four Republican state legislators, Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich, and award-winning musician and actress Mary Millben.
Described as an “honest discussion on the state of education and parental rights in Arizona,” Moms for Liberty revealed on X, formerly Twitter, that State Senator Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek), State Senator Justine Wadsack (R-Tucson), State Representative Justin Heap (R-Mesa), and State Representative Barbara Parker (R-Mesa) are also scheduled to attend as members of a panel.
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U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) joined 18 of his Republican colleagues on Tuesday in introducing a Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval.
The CRA aims to end President Joe Biden’s latest end-around to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling this summer striking down the administration’s original student loan bailout.
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Dr. Lisa B. Spanierman, a faculty member in the psychology department of Arizona State University, teaches that “white guilt” can be used to coerce students into social justice activism. The counseling and counseling psychology professor, and associate dean for academic personnel and faculty success in ASU’s College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, is developing a reputation for pushing this in higher education.
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The Tennessee Education Lottery Corporation recently announced it raised $515,397,000 for education in the Volunteer State during Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23), setting a new Fiscal Year record for the amount generated for education.
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Georgia Piedmont Technical College broke ground on a 24,000-square-foot Regional Transportation Training Center in Stonecrest.
The facility should open to students in the fall of 2024. With this addition, officials said the school has room to double its commercial truck driving program enrollment.
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The student group that defeated affirmative action in the Supreme Court is turning their attention to American military academies exempted from the ban.
The group is currently collecting experiences of students who applied to the Air Force, Army and Navy military academies.
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A Colorado affiliate of the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, told its teachers to destroy any evidence of having given students a gender identity survey, according to a recent report.
CBS Colorado notes that while the JeffCo Public Schools district says it is “unclear” whether surveys about “preferred pronouns” are in violation of state law, it advised teachers against using them as lawsuits are ongoing.
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Despite the controversiality of the curriculum, business schools are still following the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiative.
The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance defines ESG as an effort that “grew out of investment philosophies clustered around sustainability and, thereafter, socially responsible investing,” though “there is no single list of ESG goals or examples, and ESG concepts often overlap.”
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The State Board of Education completed its review of state standards of learning for math and has approved new 2023 standards to go into effect during the 2024-25 school year.
In 2000, the General Assembly voted to make it a law that the board must review the state’s standards of learning for core subjects every seven years. The last review was in 2016.
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The Alaska State Board of Education voted on Thursday to support a regulation banning boys from competing on girls’ high school athletic teams, according to The Associated Press.
The board delayed its initial vote on the issue in July after hearing hours of testimony and receiving 1,400 pages of written comments, according to the AP. The board voted 7-1 to support the measure in a special session, and the proposal now heads to Republican Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor for approval.
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Kids, go to school! It’s time to go back. Some will have already started. A ritual that we adults attend every year with a mixture of nostalgia and indifference: nostalgia because we remember the beautiful — or ugly — child we were, and indifference because at least this time the math teacher will not ask us to explain the lesson. However, both feelings can coexist naturally with something deeper and more important: We need the teachers, and we need the teachers to do their best work possible.
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A professor and NASA scientist recently shared her “climate grief” and how she copes with the stress in an article for Nature.
Kimberley Miner, a professor at Virginia Tech and the University of Maine, shared a story of breaking down in tears when she realized a California drought would mean some blue oaks would die.
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Broadening opportunities for aspiring law enforcement officers, Gov. Josh Shapiro this week removed the 60-credit minimum requirement for state trooper applicants.
“This is the finest law enforcement agency in the nation,” he said during a news conference. “We need to show those who want to serve that this door of opportunity is open – and we want you on our team.”
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A tenured professor fired less than a month after seeking the scientific evidence behind her public university’s COVID-19 policies and challenging the legality of its vaccine mandate will get to continue her First Amendment retaliation lawsuit against the University of Maine System.
Patricia Griffin has sufficiently alleged “the subject matter of her speech pertained to a matter of great public concern and was outside the scope of her duties as a professor of marketing” at the University of Southern Maine, U.S. District Judge Jon Levy ruled last month, clearing the way for trial on that issue while dismissing Griffin’s other claims.
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The Tennessee Department of Education released data on Wednesday for third-grade students who participated in state-sponsored summer learning camps and completed the required post-test.
Beginning this summer, third-grade students scoring “approaching” or “below” on the ELA portion of the spring TCAP assessment faced prevention unless they participated in the state-provided pathways to fourth-grade promotion. These include the TCAP retake opportunity, free summer camp, and tutoring in the upcoming school year. Third-grade students who choose to participate in summer school must show adequate growth – defined by the State Board of Education(SBE) as 4 percent – to be eligible for promotion. Participants must also meet a 90 percent attendance measure.
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The University of Tennessee (UT) Tuesday announced that it will expand eligibility for a major scholarship program called the UT Promise.
“The University of Tennessee System announced plans to extend the qualifying income level for UT Promise scholarship recipients once again, this time from $60,000 to $75,000 (adjusted gross income),” the school said on its website. “The university increased the income level from $50,000 to $60,000 in 2021. The announcement was made as UT System President Randy Boyd prepares to tour high schools across the state for the fourth UT Promise tour.”
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Tennessee school districts are touting their Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System(TVAAS) scores, even as the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) has yet to make those scores available for public inspection.
TVAAS measures student academic growth over the course of a school year. Since it focuses on growth over proficiency, TVAAS allows administrators to see what strategies truly impact student performance.
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In an effort to attract students and the general public alike, Pennsylvania’s higher education system will partner with Google to offer certificate programs that demonstrate their skills to potential employers.
Students can earn a certificate as they get college credit within the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, and the public can earn a certificate through non-credit courses and workshops without enrolling in PASSHE.
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Yale University is seeking a “Global Black and African Diaspora Studies“ tenured associate professor well-versed in topics such as ”African/diasporic queer and feminist activism” and “transnational feminist and queer studies” to begin July 1, 2024.
“The Program seeks candidates whose research and teaching focus on the formations and lived experiences of Blackness, with emphasis on global, comparative, indigenous, or transnational perspectives drawn from African, Indigenous, Asian, Middle Eastern, European, or Latin American and Caribbean contexts,” the job posting by the Ethnicity, Race, and Migration Department states.
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The number of Minnesota students who consistently attend school has dropped by 15% since 2019, according to state Department of Education data released last week.
The annual North Star Accountability Report tracks “consistent attendance,” which is defined as the number of students who attend school at least 90% of the time and are not chronically absent.
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Would you be interested in a book on reforming education by a man who created flourishing grade, middle, and high school charter schools, all with waiting lists today, found them too mired in government bureaucracy and so started 13 even more successful purely private campuses in 2007 — and who is willing to share his secrets of success with you?
In hiring young people for his large private business, Bob Luddy of Raleigh, North Carolina, ran head-long into the problem shared by other employers — namely, that many potential employees with a public-school education did not have the elemental skills required to hold jobs, some unable to understand basic logic or even to read.
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As Pennsylvania’s legislators prepare to return to Harrisburg to sort out the state’s education system and budget, a new report challenges what they call “funding cuts and teacher shortage myths.”
A recently released report by the Commonwealth Foundation provides data showing increased spending and hiring alongside dropping enrollment numbers – suggesting more efficient spending options, including pension system reforms.
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A couple of months ago, a friend of my wife and of mine, a young Italian priest, was visiting with us. Our conversation veered toward youth books and movies. Our friend lamented what he perceived as a lack of substance in contemporary books and movies for young people. He said that the books kids read and the movies they watch should reflect the truth and impel them toward right living and virtue, instead of simply mirroring the symptoms of a wounded culture. Perhaps my friend was onto something.
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Arizona state House Speaker Ben Toma (R-Peoria) promised Republicans in the legislature will not relent in the partisan fight over Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs), even as Governor Katie Hobbs and Arizona Democrats claim the growing school choice initiative is draining the state budget.
Toma said critics of the ESA program are “disingenuous” in their claims for political reasons, asserting that Republicans instead believe it is “the state’s responsibility” to provide education for all children, and “[p]arents want choice” in the matter, during a Friday interview with Arizona Capitol Times.
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What is slavery? Has it been abolished? Is the truth about American slavery taught in our public schools? There are historically documented answers to these questions. But the primary narrative continually promotes only one truth, and that truth is skewed because people don’t know history.
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It’s back to school for Florida students and many others across the country this week. The first days and weeks of a new school year are always filled with anticipation, adjustments, transitions and growth for parents and students. Yet, this school year’s “firsts” for an expanding pool of families also includes the first time that their children will have the resources and freedom to enroll in the school of their choice. The short and long-term consequences of these new opportunities aren’t just experienced within the four walls of a home or school building, or by the families now empowered to pursue them – the impact of education choice stretches across communities and economies, helping to unleash prosperity and growth that benefits everyone.
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Ohio State University College of Medicine (OSUCOM) students are required to read a slew of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and antiracism literature, including an opinion piece that recommends a White colleague not ask a Black colleague how they are doing.
“This opinion piece … informs the reader of ‘things to be mindful of with not only Black friends but also Black Colleagues in the workplace.’ One recommendation is to stop asking, ‘How are you doing?’ Its reason is that the situation ‘for Black People (and all People of Color)’ is to ‘experience racism every day,’” the July 2023 report published by Do No Harm, a medical nonprofit, states.
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It is through wonder that men now begin and originally began to philosophize; wondering in the first place at obvious perplexities, and then by gradual progression raising questions about the greater matters too, e.g. about the changes of the moon and of the sun, about the stars and about the origin of the universe.
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The Libertarian law group, the Pacific Legal Foundation, is deep into two court cases involving a Virginia high school and several Maryland middle schools and what it calls “race neutral proxies” in their admissions policies.
In an effort to have more students of all backgrounds, the schools have developed policies that put Asian American students at a disadvantage, the foundation claims.
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The Florida Board of Education (BOE) voted Wednesday to require restrooms in private K-12 schools and state colleges to be used on the basis of biological sex rather than gender identity, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
The new rule requires all institutions within the Florida College System to alert the Florida BOE if their bathrooms and locker rooms within instructional spaces and dormitories are separated on the basis of biological sex rather than gender identity, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. If violations of the policy are reported, institutions must have an investigation process that determines disciplinary actions, such as termination, under the rule.
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The University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee’s LGBTQ+ Resource Center recently posted an Instagram infographic regarding one of the “hidden gems” of polyamory: “petamours.”
The post defines “petamours” as “a pet you get to enjoy due to being part of a polyamorous relationship or polycule.” The term is a portmanteau of the words “metamour,” which the Polyamory Dictionary defines as “[someone] that your romantic partner is in such a relationship with, but you are not,” and pet.
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Osseo Area Schools appears to have approved a proposal to fly an LGBT “pride” flag at all district buildings “indefinitely,” according to an audio recording of a recent school board work session.
Under the district’s existing “LGBTQIA+ History and Culture Resolution,” the school board “invites the community to join in the celebration by raising the LGBTQIA+ Progress Pride flag on June 1st at all district buildings and in the school board room as a symbol of support.”
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A report published in the Washington Times last week, entitled “Young conservatives take climate activism to GOP presidential debate,” undoubtedly is of grave concern to conservatives and the Republican Party. A group of young Republicans called the American Conservation Coalition is warning GOP presidential candidates that they “need to engage on energy and climate or they’re going to lose young voters.”
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Tennessee transferred to a new platform for tracking students with unique educational needs.
The new platform, Tennessee Plans for Learning Success and Excellence, or TN Pulse, is free for school districts, public charter schools, and state-operated programs (SOPs).
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Every morning, Tennessee parents wave goodbye to their kids as they head to school. And every morning, teachers open their doors to receive over a million students. Educators are the lifeblood of our communities. Not only do they teach our children, but they also serve as role models and support systems, pouring their hearts into our kids. But increasingly, Tennessee’s teachers are no longer rewarded by their students with a smile, a “thank you,” or an apple on the desk, but instead with pepper spray and a punch to the gut. And when school boards and local leaders turn the other way, it’s no wonder why so many teachers are forced to walk away from their career and the students they love.
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Atop international science journal funded by the federal government recently acknowledged that thousands of its published research papers may contain misleading language.
More than 2,600 of the papers from “Science,” the peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and one of the world’s top academic journals, were examined in depth by another research journal, “Scientometrics.” It found in a study that from 1997 to 2021, the use of “hedging” words have fallen by about 40%.
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The state of Florida says a record number of students are either participating or have applied to the state’s two school choice scholarship programs.
In a news release, Gov. Ron DeSantis stated that almost 430,000 scholarship applications had been received for the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship and the Family Empowerment Scholarship programs.
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Amidst a budget crisis, Pennsylvania State University offers in-state tuition rates to qualifying illegal immigrants while American citizens across the country are charged out-of-state tuition.
An admissions page on the university’s website states that “Undocumented students, with or without DACA, can be eligible for in-state tuition if they meet Penn State’s residency requirements.”
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The president at the University of Wisconsin says the challenge now is to deal with the school’s financial challenges.
UW President Jay Rothman told university regents there’s been plenty of attention paid to the university’s deficits and diversity, equity and inclusion budget cuts. Now, though, the job is to find answers.
“Our focus now has to be on how to move forward from here,” Rothman said.
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In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education released a report titled, “A Nation at Risk,” which was an important point in the history of American education. The document used dire language, asserting that “the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.”
The report also stated: “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”
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Newly revealed teacher-training materials and sworn affidavits show Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools misled the federal court hearing a lawsuit by religious families against the district’s no-exemptions policy for gender and sexuality instruction in the English Language Arts curriculum, a national Muslim group claims.
School officials in the affluent suburb bordering Washington, D.C. told a judge last month it rescinded opt-outs and parental notification this spring because of the logistical challenges created by too many families choosing to remove their children from the “Pride storybooks,” which teach children as young as 3 about sex workers, kink, drag, gender transitions and prepubescent same-sex romance.
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The Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) hosted the first two of ten promised town halls last week designed to gather feedback on A – F letter grades for individual schools.
The TDOE staged initial meetings at the Dixon County High School and the General Motor Inn in Greenville. Neither session drew more than a handful of people. Those in attendance expressed confusion over the purpose of the town halls.
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Though school choice supporters lost a budget fight over a $100 million voucher program, the next battle appears to be at the ballot box.
On Monday, the Commonwealth Partners PAC announced plans for a $10 million campaign “to elect school-choice lawmakers,” saying the group would “continue to fight for kids’ interest against special interests,” according to a press release.
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Popular author and commentator Dr. James Lindsay joined Liz Collin on her podcast this week to discuss the deterioration of America’s education system over the last 30 years.
Lindsay’s new book, “The Marxification of Education,” examines the left’s “theft” of the education system. He has been touring the country and world speaking to audiences about this topic and will be in Minnesota Oct. 11 for an event hosted by the Child Protection League.
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The Arkansas Department of Education is investigating an Advanced Placement (AP) pilot course dedicated to African American studies for possible Critical Race Theory (CRT) content, according to The Associated Press.
Arkansas Education Secretary Jacob Oliva asked five school districts Monday to send in their course materials for the AP African American course, drafted by the College Board, an academic organization that administers and writes high school courses for college credit, so the state may evaluate whether the course complies with its CRT ban, according to the AP. Prior to the investigation, the five school districts announced that they would continue to teach the course despite the state saying that the course was not approved and would not count towards college credit.
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