Underage children were exposed to adult nudity at a recent drag show at Oregon State University’s Lasells Stewart Center, hosted by the student-fee funded campus LGBTQ group Rainbow Continuum on June 2.
The drag performance—called “Illegal Drag Show”—openly encouraged LGBTQ members to “Be Gay. Do Crime.” An Instagram post advertised the event to “all ages,” alongside a note that it would contain “adult themes.”
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The Media Research Center (MRC) has revealed that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is using the “Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) Grant Program” to single out and vilify political opposition- effectively criminalizing freedom of thought and free association. This is the same DHS that has classified the American people’s personal “thoughts, ideas, and beliefs” as “critical infrastructure” and “cognitive assets.”
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Arizona Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill earlier this week that would have stopped transgender students in public schools from using a bathroom that didn’t match their biological sex.
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The “largest website and community of nurses online,” nurse.org, named the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s (UTC) School of Nursing as the best in the state as part of its 2023 nurse.org Best Nursing Schools by state rankings.
In its ranking explanation, nurse.org cited UTC’s National Council of State Boards of Nursing Licensure Exam (NCLEX) pass rate of 96 percent. Graduates are eligible to take the NCLEX to become a registered nurse upon completion of the bachelor’s program in nursing. The national average NCLEX pass rate is 82 percent.
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The Tennessee Department of Education released district-level data on Tuesday from the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) retake opportunity, one of the pathways to promotion for third-grade students who failed to score proficient on the original administration of the assessment.
Statewide, roughly 44,000 students, which translates to 60 percent of the state’s third-graders who took the initial assessment, did not score proficient on the spring TCAP English Language Arts assessment. By law, those students are eligible for a retake exam. According to the TDOE, over 25,000 students took advantage of the opportunity.
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Students in Wisconsin are a step closer to having to take a financial literacy class to graduate from high school.
The Assembly on Wednesday approved a plan that would require a class on credit, credit cards, investing, and basic financial skills. State Rep. Calvin Callahan, R-Tomahawk, said the idea is to make sure that high schoolers can make smart financial decisions once on their own.
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The Biden administration announced new “actions” Thursday centered on ensuring LGBTQ individuals are protected from perceived “attacks on their rights and safety,” including state laws that protect children and teens from a predatory transgender medical industry.
The announcement of the “new actions,” the Biden administration said, is made “in celebration of Pride Month.”
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Free speech attorneys sent a letter this week to University of Pittsburgh officials defending the organizers of a transgender issues debate that ignited a campus protest earlier this year.
Philip Sechler, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom – a non-profit legal firm that litigates issues related to free speech, religious freedom, parental rights, and abortion – said the university demanded an unconstitutional security fee from College Republicans and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute for public unrest that officials themselves provoked.
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Ahead of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the constitutionality of affirmative action in universities’ admissions process, 50% of Americans are opposed to the race-based method, according to a Thursday Pew Research poll.
Approximately 74% of Republicans disapprove of the use of affirmative action while 29% of Democrats also disapprove of the race-based admissions process, according to a Pew Research poll. In October, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for two lawsuits which will decide whether Harvard University and the University of North Carolina’s use of race-based admission policies is constitutional.
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The country’s largest teachers union released an LGBTQ toolkit Wednesday for educators, explaining “ze/zim” pronouns and how to address bias around sexual orientation and gender identity within the classroom.
The National Education Association’s (NEA) newest guidance aims to provide resources to educators to help them support LGBTQ students within the classroom by “using inclusive language [and] addressing harmful comments.” The toolkit includes a guide that encourages teachers to introduce themselves with their pronouns and use “gender neutral” pronouns such as “they, them, or their” when they are unsure of someone’s gender.
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The Virginia Department of Education released a report on recommendations for the General Assembly, and the status of the commonwealth’s commitment to promote excellence in education.
Leaders and stakeholders met to evaluate and recommend specific policies and performance standards for public education in the commonwealth.
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A Pittsburgh-based think tank’s analysis published this week shows the city’s public schools spend far more per student than the average public school even as achievement severely lags.
Examining student testing statistics and finance data, the brief by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (AI) determined that Pittsburgh Public Schools spend almost $30,000 per pupil — among the highest spending figures in the state — while their institutions score woefully low.
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On February 12, the president of the Harvard Graduate School of Education urged higher education bureaucrats to blacklist Florida’s public universities for refusing to establish offices of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA). The institutions “have no right to be accredited,” wrote Professor Brian Rosenberg.
If you think this argument is all bark and no bite, think again. Wokeness has penetrated virtually every institution in America. School accrediting agencies are no exception. Increasingly, they are demanding that schools incorporate DEIA into their policies and curricula—or else. If current trends continue, it won’t be long until non-woke colleges lose their accreditation, jeopardizing their reputation and very existence.
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St. Paul Federation of Educators (SPFE) is boycotting the National Education Association’s (NEA) annual meeting, which will be held in Florida, claiming Florida is hostile towards minority and LGBTQ communities.
The SPFE urged the NEA to cancel the 2023 Representative Assembly (RA) or convert to a virtual format. The RA is where delegates annually vote on issues that will nationally impact education and the teachers unions.
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An “anti-racist” dance instructor is set to start at The Ohio State University this upcoming semester as the school’s new “artist laureate.”
The university named Nyama McCarthy-Brown its first “artist laureate.” She is also an associate professor at the university and has taught there since 2018.
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Two long-term Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) executives have announced they will be leaving the department in the coming months. This announcement comes on the heels of Commissioner Penny Schwinn’s June 1 resignation.
Eve Carney, TDOE deputy commissioner, and Meghan McLeroy, TDOE’s chief statewide support officer, have served the department for over a quarter of a century. Along the way, they have earned accolades and appreciation from the state’s educators.
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High school students will learn about the causes of racial inequality and discuss reparations for slavery as part of a new “reparations math” curriculum developed by the creators of the controversial 1619 Project.
The 1619 Project Education Network, overseen by the Pulitzer Center, released the outline for “Reparations Math and Reparations History” on May 8.
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Florida’s three largest universities must vastly expand their instruction on constitutional principles under a new law recently signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The new law refocuses three already established academic centers at Florida State, University of Florida and Florida International University, retooling them with an emphasis on nurturing patriotism and western-democratic thought through active instruction.
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Arizona’s universal school choice program is estimated to see significant growth over the next fiscal year to 100,000 students with a price tag of $900 million. Opponents of the program say its cost will bankrupt the state but others say the expense will be offset.
In complying with state law, the Arizona Department of Education offered the Joint Legislative Budget Committee its annual estimate on what it would need to fund empowerment scholarship accounts for the upcoming fiscal year. With nearly 58,000 students already enrolled in the program, ADE projects the program will grow to 100,000 students in fiscal year 2024 at a cost of $900 million.
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Virginia axed bachelor’s degree requirements for 90 percent of state jobs this week, following a precedent adopted by several states with bipartisan support over the last year.
“Governor Glenn Youngkin announced today a landmark change in how state agencies will recruit and compete for talent by eliminating degree requirements, preferences or both for almost 90% of state classified positions,” according to a Tuesday news release from the governor’s office.
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School districts across the country are using drag shows, parades, assemblies and proclamations to celebrate LGBTQ Pride month.
Some school districts that are promoting the events throughout the month of June are located in Washington, Oregon, California and New Hampshire. The Pride celebrations are a part of the growing push to expand lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation into the classroom, education advocates told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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A lesser known document created in 2015 by the National Education Association (NEA), a group of LGBTQ activists, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) laid the “groundwork” for the gender ideology movement in schools years before the recent increase in the numbers of transgender young people, reports the Freedom Foundation.
NEA, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, provides a “toolkit” website page that features “NEA LGBTQ+ Resources,” the purpose of which appears to be to offer “support to transgender and non-binary students,” to indoctrinate all students with “LGBTQ+ history in their classrooms,” and to engage students in a political agenda that includes stopping “LGBTQ+ bias and intolerance in our public schools.”
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A Vermont school district punished a father and his daughter for speaking out against a biological male in the girls’ locker room. Now, The Daily Signal has learned, the district has settled with the Allen family in what its legal team is hailing as a “resounding victory.”
That settlement requires that the Vermont School Boards Insurance Trust pay $125,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees and costs to Travis Allen and Jessica Allen, on behalf of their daughter, Blake Allen, and their attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom.
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A bipartisan group of lawmakers made their case for school choice in Georgia, saying parents should have the opportunity to choose better schools for their children.
During this year’s session, Georgia lawmakers killed Senate Bill 233, the Georgia Promise Scholarship Act, a measure to create state-funded education savings accounts. Nearly all Democrats and a few Republicans voted against the measure.
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An unorthodox coalition wants Gov. Josh Shapiro to put money behind the support he expressed for school choice on the campaign trail last year.
Advocates said Friday that letting children move to better schools should transcend partisan lines and is crucial for their futures.
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A Pennsylvania state senator is working on legislation to abolish the commonwealth’s new Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education (CR-SE) guidelines that impose leftist ideology on teachers and students.
The document instructs teachers to “know and acknowledge that biases exist in the educational system,” biases the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) specifies as “racial and cultural.” Educators are further called on to “believe and acknowledge that microaggressions are real and take steps to educate themselves about the subtle and obvious ways in which they are used to harm and invalidate the existence of others.” Another guideline tasks teachers with “disrupt[ing] harmful institutional practices, policies, and norms by advocating and engaging in efforts to rewrite policies, change practices, and raise awareness.”
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Illegal immigrants will be eligible for free college tuition in the state of Minnesota, according to Axios.
Under Minnesota’s free tuition program, dubbed the “North Star Promise,” illegal immigrants will have their full tuition paid for if they enroll in a two or four-year program within the University of Minnesota or Minnesota State systems and come from a household with an income of $80,000 0r less, according to Axios. To be eligible for the free tuition, applicants must have either graduated from a Minnesota high school or have lived in the state for a year without being enrolled in a college for six months.
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The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston denied 12-year-old Liam Morrison’s request this week for a temporary injunction or restraining order to block his school from prohibiting expression of his view that “there are only two genders” before the court issues its final decision. “MFI [Massachusetts Family Institute] recently filed suit to vindicate the rights of this brave Middleborough 7th-grader to wear a shirt to school that simply stated ‘There Are Only Two Genders,’” the pro-family organization said in a press statement sent to The Star News Network. “After being censored by his school, Liam’s case went viral. MFI has partnered with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) to file a federal lawsuit against the school.”
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June 1st officially marked the end of Penny Schwinn’s tenure as the top education official in Tennessee. Schwinn submitted her resignation on May 1st but gave the state 30 days’ notice before making it official.
Long-time Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) employee Sam Pearcy will assume the reins for the next 30 days. At that time, Governor Bill Lee’s appointed successor, Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds, officially begins her term.
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In his report Wednesday that the University of Colorado (CU Boulder) is facing backlash for a statement on its “Pride Office” website that claims misgendering people can be considered an “act of violence,” legal scholar Jonathan Turley observed that when schools declare opposing views to be “violence,” they allow professors and students to “rationalize their own acts of violence or censorship.”
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The Pennsylvania State University has reportedly yet to answer a Philadelphia-based free-speech nonprofit’s request that the school confirms adherence to freedom of association.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) asked Penn State to do so after a brief disagreement this spring between administrators and the College Independents. This student group hosts political discussions featuring “a wide variety of viewpoints.”
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A mother is suing the Edmond School District in Oklahoma after a male student who identifies as transgender used the girls’ bathroom at school and allegedly attacked her daughter, according to the lawsuit.
A 17-year-old male allegedly entered the girls’ bathroom and “severely” attacked and beat the 15-year-old girl at approximately 7:15 a.m. on Oct. 26, according to the lawsuit filed on May 25. The school knew that the male student was biologically male, had made repeated threats of violence against the girl and routinely used the girls’ bathrooms in violation of a state law that requires students to use bathrooms aligned with their sex, the lawsuit alleges.
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As the school year ends and legislative sessions adjourn, Chalkboard updated its review of which legislatures nationwide are implementing school choice measures that provide education options for students and their families and which states have removed them.
Several states across the country have recently adopted legislation that would allow students to attend any school of their choice using taxpayer dollars, something that advocates call universal school choice. Critics of the legislation say such measures will divert money away from public school systems that need the funds.
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A poll conducted in May on behalf of Tennesseans for Student Success by VictoryPhones, showed that Nashvillians prefer a mayoral candidate with a strong position on education and infrastructure. That quality slightly edged “positions on social issues” as the leading factor in who earned their vote.
In discussing education policy with Nashville mayoral candidates, The Tennessee Star found few variances between potential city leaders. All candidates supported Metro Nashville Public Schools and appreciated the past administration’s efforts to increase teacher pay. They all voice a commitment to ensuring that Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) are among the best in the country. Outwardly, none are choice advocates.
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A recent audit of the Miami-Dade County School District has revealed several issues with accurate record-keeping and sound financial management.
The Florida Auditor General found nine separate issues, ranging from IT and security concerns to failing to correct deficiencies in annual inspections.
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State House Minority Leader Andrés Cano (D-Tucson) made a tweet Tuesday, sharing a letter from the Arizona Department of Education (ADE), and used it to blast the Universal Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) Program.
In this letter, Christine Accurso, leader of the ESA program, detailed the department’s estimations that there will be around 100,000 students enrolled in the program by the end of fiscal year 2024, and that it will cost roughly $900,000,000 to fund these students.
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Several leaders and education advocates are denouncing Governor Katie Hobbs’ reversal of funding Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) for kindergarten. Hobbs reversed the grant of $50 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act last week, which previous Governor Doug Ducey awarded for private school students to use.
Hobbs said in a statement that Ducey made the transfer “despite the fact that the State funds only half-day kindergarten for public school students.” However, State Representative Matt Gress (R-Phoenix), who served in the Ducey administration prior to becoming a legislator, said on the James T. Harris Show, “95 percent of public district and charter schools offer full day kindergarten using public tax dollars. So Governor Ducey saw this as a matter of fairness to provide full-day K to as many Arizona kids as possible. … It would have helped over 4,000 kindergarteners next school year.”
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ContextUS is the Jack Miller Center’s newly published, free online library that provides citizens with the content to gain that necessary civic knowledge. This state-of-the-art resource gives teachers, students, and scholars access to more than 700 core texts of the American political tradition, paired with the most up-to-date technology in library science, to transmit a civic education in self-government to the next generation of Americans.
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More than 30 Massachusetts public libraries are joining together to host a virtual drag queen event, targeted for teens aged 13-18, in which New England-based drag queen “Giganta Smalls” will teach the young people about the life of a drag performer and help them “pick up some advice on costuming and make-up.”
According to a Westhampton Public Library Facebook post for the June 10th event called “Dishing Out Drag with Giganta Smalls,” over 30 Massachusetts public libraries are “co-hosting this PRIDE event,” that has been “made possible by a discretionary fund of the Trustees of Rowley Public Library.”
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The Universal Expansion of the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program is unlikely to bankrupt the state, according to a new report from the nonpartisan research group, the Common Sense Institute Arizona (CSIAZ).
According to the report, at least 56,000 students received an ESA grant as of May, an increase of 44,000 who joined following the expansion. In total, the CSIAZ states that there are roughly 82,000 private or homeschooled students in the state eligible for the program, and they expect all of these families to join during the 2024 school year.
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Three school districts north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania are litigating over new guidelines enjoined by the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) directing teachers and students to adhere to progressive ideology.
Representing Laurel School District, Mars Area School District and Penncrest School District as well as teachers and families in those jurisdictions, attorneys for the nonprofit Thomas More Society contend that the instructions violate both the state and federal constitutions.
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In 1983, having spent four years earning a PhD in English, I instantly turned down the reasonably secure entry-level faculty position my alma mater offered me and chose instead to sign up for that most financially insecure of all professions: freelance literary journalist. Why? Partly because it had taken me that long to face the fact that I just wasn’t the academic type. And partly because I saw that the kind of jargon-heavy approaches that were taking over America’s English departments — from politics-driven “feminist criticism” to pretentious postmodern “deconstruction,” straight out of France by way of Yale University — had nothing whatsoever to do with my own reasons for wanting to spend my life reading and writing about books.
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Middle school students in northern Virginia have created “fight clubs” with the assistance of parents, and the violence is entering the school building, the school’ principal says.
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Kohl’s has now joined Target, The North Face, Anheuser-Busch, and others in marketing LGBTQ merchandise, with Kohl’s releasing its “Baby Sonoma Community Pride” onesie in sizes for babies aged three, six, and nine months.
The Twitter account for End Wokeness and TPUSA’s Benny Johnson shared Kohl’s online sales pitches for the baby clothing items that feature what appears to be gay parents and rainbow banners with the slogan, “Be Proud.”
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The University of Connecticut (UConn) will officially make its “Anti-Black Racism” (ABR) course mandatory for all undergraduate students as part of the core curriculum’s new social justice requirement.
Provost Anne D’Alleva announced on May 17 that the requirement will go into effect during the 2024-2025 academic year with a course that will be similar to the one-credit ABR elective that has been offered since 2021.
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Democratic state Reps. Tod Ohnstad and Tip McGuire are pushing legislation that would make it a felony for school staff or volunteers to create an intimidating or hostile environment by sexually harassing students.
In addition to seeking to close a gap in the state’s criminal statutes that currently do not extend to all variations of sexual misconduct that some students have faced in schools, the bill would expand protections that now exist for public school students to all those who attend private schools.
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So far in 2023, six states signed school choice legislation into law, giving millions of families and their children education options, including access to taxpayer-funded vouchers.
Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Utah, South Carolina and Oklahoma all signed legislation into law that makes at least some, if not all students within the states, eligible for taxpayer funded vouchers or a tax credit that can be used on education expenses such as private school tuition, textbooks and transportation. Under the legislation enacted in 2023, millions of students across the country are now able to attend schools outside their designated zip code or apply to receive funding in order to seek a private or a homeschool education.
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Republican lawmakers in Virginia are requesting a spending report that focuses specifically on the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts at state colleges and universities, Higher Ed Dive reports.
Two lawmakers in particular are paving the way for this new initiative: House Speaker Todd Gilbert and House Majority Leader Terry Kilgore. In a May 4 letter, Gilbert and Kilgore requested the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) “to study the growing cost of public higher education in the Commonwealth.”
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University of Michigan’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum is committed to diversity – but not simply the diversity of the plants and animals that call the facility home.
It also employs a DEI manager and actively works to combat racism within its 700 acres of gardens and natural preserves to make up for its “participation in systemic injustices.”
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The Ohio State University’s (OSU) Board of Trustees voted in mid-May to adopt a new campus free speech policy and a resolution affirming the school’s commitment to preserving intellectual diversity.
The free speech policy is an updated version of one that OSU passed last August and creates a system through which students can submit complaints of free speech infringements, a requirement set forth under Ohio’s S.B. 135.
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