Tag: education policy

Poll Shows Voters in Battleground States Trust Republicans over Democrats on Education

Susan Berry, PhD

A new EdTrends poll of voters in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada, shows that Democrats have given up what was once a double-digit lead on “trust in education” and are now lagging behind Republicans by three percentage points.

The poll revealing the historic shift was released Friday by Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), an organization that lobbies for Democrat candidates and heads campaigns to achieve “educational equity for students of color and students from low-income backgrounds.”

Read the full story

Tennessee Senate Education Chair Files Bill That Gives Local Districts Flexibility on Class Size

TC Weber

State Senator Jon Lundberg (R-Bristol), who serves as chair of the Senate Education Committee, filed legislation that would lift classroom size limits for k-12 schools.

SB0197, if made law, would repeal the existing maximum class sizes, maximum class size averages, student-teacher ratios, and the prohibition against split-grade classes established by law. It would authorize each local education agency (LEA) and public charter school with authority to establish the maximum class sizes for schools under its control and jurisdiction. Transferring power from the Tennessee Department of Education(TDOE) back to local school boards while still requiring the department to set recommendations.

Read the full story

Legislative Session Finds Tennessee Lawmakers Poised to Expand and Amend Existing Education Policies

TC Weber

The 113th Tennessee State General Assembly is set to convene at noon on Tuesday, January 10, and preliminary indications are that the state’s Department of Education (TDOE) will not be supporting any new initiatives this year. The official position of the TDOE is that the administration sets the legislative agenda for state agencies, but in the past, the department has led the charge on several occasions – including, but not limited to, literacy, high-quality materials, and school funding.

For their part, legislators appear to be looking to amend – and in some cases expand – past efforts to improve student educational opportunities. This year’s legislative agenda forsakes the bold initiatives of the recent past in order to tweak and expand existing laws. Education Savings Accounts (ESA), TISA, and the 3rd-grade retention policy are all on the table for modification this year.

Read the full story

State-Mandated Since 2021, the Third Grade Retention Law Has Tennessee State Legislators and Parents Calling for a Change

TC Weber

Lawmakers and parents are increasingly questioning Tennessee’s third-grade retention law. While Tennessee has long had legislation in place allowing districts the ability to retain third-grade students who did not score “proficient” on TCAP, the previous law left the decision up to local districts. Legislation passed during 2021’s Special Session took that decision out of local districts’ hands and made it state-mandated. A move that state lawmakers are now openly questioning.

Read the full story

Study Recommends ‘Dynamic Upgrades’ to Address Disparities in Michigan’s Per-Pupil School Funding

The Center Square
Ben DeGrow

Asserting “student aid should take precedence over school aid,” a new study seeks to address among other topics the funding disparities between traditional public schools and charter school academies.

Released earlier this week, “From School Aid to Student Aid” was written by Ben DeGrow, Education Policy director at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

DeGrow notes the COVID-19 pandemic played a significant role in parents selecting alternatives to publicly funded schools for their children. He also says schools are recognizing the effects of declining birth rates.

Read the full story

Nonprofit Blasts Philadelphia, Pennsylvania School District for Efforts on Gender and Neglect of Academics

Bradley Vasoli

As the School District of Philadelphia labors to make its digital student-information system accord with expanding progressive concepts of gender, a right-leaning nonprofit is urging officials to refocus on academics.

In 2016, the district adopted a policy allowing students to pursue their “gender identity” and therein defined the term as “a person’s deeply held sense or psychological knowledge of their own gender, regardless of the sex they were assigned at birth.” The new rule allows students of one biological sex identifying as another to access restrooms, locker rooms, gym classes and athletic programs consistent with the former rather than the latter. In 2020, several school employees reportedly asked Sarah Galbally, the district’s lobbyist, to push for recognizing a broader variety of gender identities in the student tracking system, something that couldn’t be done without tweaking state-education policy.

Read the full story