Pennsylvania Charter School Enrollment Up 12 Percent, Public Enrollment Down Three Percent

Since the pandemic began, Pennsylvania’s public charter schools enrollment has gone up by almost 12% as parents have chosen to take their children out of traditional public schools.

According to a new report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools,  the change isn’t unique to Pennsylvania. Since the 2019-20 school year, the 41 states examined in the report with charter systems had a 7% increase in charter school enrollment and about a 3.5% decrease in public school enrollment.

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Analysis Shows Some Tennessee Students Lost Months of Learning Between 2019 and 2022

A new analysis of data from the Nation’s Report Card shows that Tennessee students lost, on average, what equals five months of math learning between 2019 and 2022 while the state’s students lost four months of reading learning.

The Education Recovery Scorecard, from researchers at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University and Stanford University’s Educational Opportunity Project, includes interactive district-level learning loss information from across the state of Tennessee and the country.

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New Program Allows UT Knoxville Students to Work as City of Knoxville Fellows

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy and the City of Knoxville announced a partnership launching a fellows program for Baker Center students.

The program would allow the students to “work directly in a variety of departments or agencies with the City of Knoxville,” according to a Friday press release by the City.

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Gov. DeSantis: Nation’s Report Card Scores Show Keeping Schools Open the Right Decision

The 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) rankings indicate that Florida students are “well ahead of their peers, especially with younger and educationally at-risk students who were harmed the most from distance-learning in other states,” the governor said.

“We insisted on keeping schools open and guaranteed in-person learning in 2020 because we knew there would be widespread harm to our students if students were locked out,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said. The results, he said, “once again prove that we made the right decision.”

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Columbus City Schools Staff Removes Controversial Book from High School Library Collection

One of the most banned controversial books in the United States, according to the New York Times, has been removed from Columbus City Schools high school library shelves.

The autobiography, Gender Queer: A Memoir, was published in 2019 and is both written and illustrated by Maia Kobabe. The 240-page book tells Kobabe’s story from adolescence to adulthood covering sensitive topics such as gender identity, masturbation, menstruation, and navigating the world as someone who considers themself nonbinary.

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Three Ohio School Districts Take Part in Pilot Program to Teach Students About Where Their Food Is Grown

Three local school districts in Ohio are teaching students about where the food they eat at school is grown, as well as adding to the overall menu variety, as part of a pilot program through Feed Our Future’s Local Menu Takeover.

This pilot program started last year in Northeast Ohio, and this year, three Cincinnati school districts have committed to serving only locally sourced meals this week as part of Farm to School Month.

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Telling a Student to Get an Abortion Could Be a Felony, Idaho Universities Warn

Idaho universities told educators that advising students to get an abortion could result in a felony, according to the Associated Press.

The University of Idaho in Moscow and Boise State University in Boise both issued notes to staff in September warning that “promoting” abortions or abortion services could result in felony charges, according to the AP. Educators are prohibited from advising students on abortion services under the state’s No Public Funds for Abortion Act.

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Harvard Orders Students to Use Correct Pronouns, Says Wrong Pronouns Constitute ‘Abuse’

One of the nation’s most prestigious universities is ordering students to attend mandatory training on using “correct” pronouns for their fellow students, warning that using their real pronouns may constitute “abuse” and could lead to disciplinary action.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the Ivy League school Harvard University now requires all students to attend mandatory Title IX training sessions. At these sessions, they are told, among other things, that “using the wrong pronouns” for students who believe they are a different gender constitutes “abuse,” and that “any words used to lower a person’s self-worth” are “verbal abuse.”

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Parent-Teacher Tensions Run High over Lack of Mental Health Transparency from Mentor School Educators

Mentor Schools is withholding mental health information about transgender or transitioning students from parents.

An Ohio school board meeting on Tuesday, September 13th raised concern in parents over an e-mail which went out to teachers in the district informing them that they are not required to inform parents if a student, 11 years old or older, who is transgender or transitioning asks to use a different name or pronoun.

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California School District Gives Students Access to Books with Pornographic Content

A California school district is offering books with pornographic scenes in its school websites, and parents are planning to take action.

Poway Unified School District in Poway, California, is giving students access to several books that feature pornographic scenes, according to the library databases. Several parents have compiled a database of age-inappropriate content in the district libraries and brought it to the attention of the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, a group that focuses on equal rights in education, the Executive Director of the group, Wenyuan Wu told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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Commentary: Pronoun Pronouncements Underscore Contempt for Students

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, 37.3 percent of students in grades 3 through 11 met the grade-level “proficient” standard for mathematics in statewide testing for the 2022 school year. Only 55 percent measured up in literature/language arts and 63.7 in science.

To put these results in perspective, just two years earlier, 45.4 percent performed at grade level in math, while 62.4 met the standard in literature and 66.4 did so in science.

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Minnesota Licensure Changes Ask Teachers to Make Students ‘Agents of Social Change’

The Minnesota Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB), whose members are appointed by the governor, is revising its “standards of effective practice” for teacher licensure that will apply to all new teachers when adopted.

According to the Center of the American Experiment, the changes will impact teacher licensure programs and “require aspiring educators to ‘demonstrate’ ideologically driven content in their coursework to obtain their teaching license.” This goes for educators who end up teaching at private schools, too.

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Study Shows Educators Giving Students Assignments ‘Substantially’ Below Grade Level

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic significantly hampering K-12 education, millions of students across the U.S. are working on assignments substantially below their grade level, according to a study released Monday.

Readworks, a non-profit focused on K-12 literacy gaps, studied 65 million assignments given to three million students in the 2020-2021 school year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused students to miss months of learning, according to the report. Students were given assignments below their “grade level,” or academic expectations correlating to their age, one-third of the time.

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Two Studies Raise Concerns About Public School ‘Serious Violence Incidents’

At a time when school shootings are a concern for many Americans, serious violence incidents are also up in schools across the nation, reports two recent studies.

One study, from the National Center for Education Statistics, shows a 35% increase in serious violence incidents in K-12 public schools from the 2015-16 school year to 2019-20. Serious violence incidents include rape, attempted rape, sexual assault other than rape, threatened rape, physical attacks, fights with a weapon, threat of physical attack with a weapon, and robbery with or without a weapon.

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Gov. Lee Says over 2,000 Families Have Signed Up for School Voucher Program

Governor Bill Lee said last week that more than 2,000 families in Shelby and Davidson counties have already signed up for school vouchers. According to the Tennessee Department of Education, up to 5,000 are available this upcoming school year.

In 2019, the Tennessee General Assembly passed and Governor Bill Lee signed Public Chapter 506, which created the Tennessee Education Savings Account (ESA) program. The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled in May that the school voucher program is constitutional.

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Pennsylvania Has More Teachers, Fewer Students, and There’s Still a Teacher Shortage

Teachers unions, public school officials and the Pennsylvania’s Department of Education say the state has a teacher shortage.

Data analyzed by The Center Square, however, shows there has been an increase in the number of teachers against a dropping enrollment. Still, the communications director for the Pennsylvania Department of Education explained how shortages do remain.

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Ohio Students Could Be Allowed Excused Mental Health Days from School

Ohio could join 11 other states and allow students to miss school if they feel the need to stay home that day for their mental health.

A bill proposed in the Ohio House would give K-12 students three mental health days a year, defining mental health days as a “school day during which a student attends to the student’s emotional and psychological well-being in lieu of attending school.”

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Researchers Claim Students Will Need Three Years to Fully Recover from Pandemic

Researchers from a nonprofit group released a report claiming that elementary school students will need at least three years to fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and return to their pre-pandemic learning skills.

As reported by the New York Post, the report was released on Tuesday by the nonprofit group Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), which focuses on educational standards in K-12 grades.

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Christian Student Silenced by School Receives Settlement

A college student will receive a massive settlement from his school after it tried to silence him from speaking about his faith, according to a Wednesday press release from Alliance Defending Freedom.

Georgia Gwinnett College settled with Chike Uzuegbunam for $80,000 six years after the lawsuit was first filed, which alleged that the school repeatedly denied him the right to speak about his Christian faith to other students, the press release said.

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Fewer Students, Bigger Budget Requests for Pennsylvania Higher Education

The pandemic has not been kind to Pennsylvania higher education: Its colleges have seen a 6.4% enrollment drop for freshmen since spring 2020.

The data, from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, is a reminder that Pennsylvania’s shrinking population of college-aged youth has made it harder for colleges to fill seats. The two-year decline means that 22,738 fewer students are on campuses now.

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Parents Flee the Public School System as Charter Schools See Surge in Enrollment

Enrollment in New York City schools is dropping while charter schools are seeing a growth in the number of students, according to a report published Wednesday by the Manhattan Institute.

Throughout all New York City schools enrollment declined with 80,707 fewer students enrolled in grades K-12 in the most recent academic year than in the 2019–20 academic year, the report said. The drop has been most pronounced in schools operated by the New York City Department of Education (NYDOE), where enrollment is down by 83,656 students, the largest drop the NYDOE has seen.

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Schools See Rise in Students Seeking Mental Health Assistance After COVID

Over three-fourths of American public schools have reported a rise in the number of students seeking mental health assistance in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As reported by Fox News, the data was released on Tuesday by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which operates under the guidance of the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES). The report shows that 76 percent of public schools saw staff express concerns about the mental health of their students, including depression, anxiety, and trauma since the coronavirus pandemic began in early 2020.

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Tennessee’s College-Going Rate Dropped 11 Percent Since 2017

The college-going rate for Tennessee students after high school graduation has dropped from 63.8% for the Class of 2017 to 52.8% for the Class of 2021, according to a report from the Tennessee Higher Education Commission.

There has been a 9 percentage point drop since the Class of 2019, which matches a national trend where there was a 9.2% decline in freshman college enrollment from fall 2019 to fall 2021.

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Tennessee Public Colleges, Universities Will Freeze Tuition Rates for Next School Year

University of Tennessee campus shot

Tuition at Tennessee’s public colleges and universities will not increase for the next school year after a vote from the Tennessee Higher Education Commission froze those tuition rates for the first time.

The board sets annual tuition and fee ranges that must be followed by the state’s public universities, colleges and Tennessee College of Applied Technology campuses.

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GOP Warns Raffensperger of Stacey Abrams’ Voter-Education Initiative for Georgia Students: Report

Republicans in the U.S. House sent Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger a letter flagging a report that a voter-education initiative spearheaded by Stacey Abrams is teaching students the state’s laws restrict voting, The Washington Times reported Thursday.

The letter, written by Reps. Rodney Davis of Illinois and Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, asked Raffensperger how he plans to combat the initiative, which is taught in Atlanta’s public schools, the Washington Times reported. It was also sent to members of the Georgia State Elections Board and the chair and vice-chair of the Fulton County Elections Board, the Washington Times reported.

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Minnesota House DFL Pitches $1.15B Increase in Education Spending Using State Surplus

Catrin Wigfall

Minnesota House DFL committee chairs on Monday pitched a $1.15 billion increase in education funding for fiscal year 2023 and $2.12 billion in fiscal years 2024 and 2025.

The Minnesota House Education Finance, Policy and Early Childhood committees proposed using the state’s historic budget surplus for the increases.

Center of the American Experiment Policy Fellow and Educated Teachers MN Director Catrin Wigfall told The Center Square in an emailed statement Monday that the House plan won’t help.

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‘Cynical Symbolism’: Biden’s Education Department Issues New Rules to Crush Charter Schools

President Joe Biden’s administration is pushing new policies that make it harder for charter schools to survive while strengthening the power of teachers unions, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The newly proposed rules, which apply to the Department of Education’s (DOE) 2023 budget, will make it more difficult for charter start-ups to qualify and receive funding from a $440 million federal charter school program by requiring charter schools to prove there is a demand for education not being met by other institutions like public schools. The guidelines will consequently give teachers unions more control over education, experts told the DCNF.

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New Michigan Law Saves School Districts $8 Million in Interest

School bus

The School Loan Revolving Fund (SLRF) interest rate dropped to 1.19% last week, saving some local school districts about $8 million in interest.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed into law Senate Bill 618 that adjusted the SLRF interest rate.

“Every student, in every district, has a birthright to a phenomenal public education so they can pursue their potential,” Whitmer said in a statement. “With these cost savings, we will have even more resources to invest where they matter most – in our students, teachers, and classrooms. I am proud of the work the Michigan Legislature and I have done to close the funding gap between districts and increase per-pupil funding to its highest amount ever.”

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Florida Universities Can Now Ask Students About Their Political Beliefs

Florida’s public colleges and universities can now administer surveys to students and employees asking about their personal political beliefs and their impressions of the campus climate starting Monday, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law in 2021 requiring the Florida Board of Education (BOE) “to conduct an annual assessment of the intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” that is “objective, nonpartisan, and statistically valid” and “considers the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are presented and members of the college community … feel free to express their beliefs and viewpoints on campus and in the classroom.” The results will then be compiled and published, according to the law.

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Commentary: MIT Bucks the Trend and Reinstates Its SAT/ACT Requirement

SAT multiple choice exam with a number 2 pencil

In case you missed it, on Monday MIT announced that they would be reinstating their SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles. Like many universities, MIT had ditched the tests during the pandemic.

Even prior to the pandemic, however, there had been a widespread push to abandon these tests to enhance diversity.

“Data shows tests like the SAT are biased against students from low-income households. Poorer students tend to perform worse on the test,” CNN reported in 2015. “Blacks and Hispanics also consistently score lower on the SAT than whites.” (CNN conveniently left out that Asian Americans score much higher than whites, presumably because it didn’t fit the narrative.)

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Commentary: Parents Can Fight and Defeat Critical Race Theory

Critical Race Theory sign with a table of books

Five years ago, hardly anyone knew what Critical Race Theory (CRT) was, but now the phrase is a common one in American households. The Marxist-based theory advocating a race-essentialist approach to education, law, public policy, and even health care, seeks to deconstruct the foundations of society and rebuild it as “antiracist,” while discriminating against whites along the way. Many people are overwhelmed with both the pervasiveness of the doctrine and the large task of fighting it.

Parents in Loudon County, VA, have tackled the issue head on, making national news by loudly criticizing CRT and electing school board members opposed to it. Such efforts, however, have been piecemeal nationwide.  

Momentum in fighting this hate-doctrine is growing, though, and many parents want to know how they can protect their children and eradicate such teaching from their local schools. Catrin Wigfall, a Policy Fellow with the Center of the American Experiment, offers some practical ways parents can fight CRT.

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St. Paul Refuses to Drop Mask Mandate for Students

Mother putting mask on child

St. Paul Public Schools voted this week against a resolution that would make masks optional for students and faculty.

St. Paul is one of a few school districts in the state to still have a mask mandate in place — Minneapolis Public Schools is another district that has yet to drop its mandate. Nationally, liberal strongholds like New York City and Portland have dropped their mask mandates for schools.

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Michigan Parents Demand Resignation of School Board and Administrators

student and teacher reading together

A group of parents in Rochester, Mich., are demanding a dramatic change in school leadership.

Parents expressed their anger at Rochester Community Public Schools administrators and school board members during a Monday meeting. Parents are demanding the school board fire Superintendent Robert Shaner, then tender their resignations.

The parents’ pique was prompted by revelations school employees were monitoring parents’ social media accounts, compiling dossiers of publicly disgruntled mothers and fathers, and phoning parents’ employers, which, in the case of Elena Dinverno, resulted in her firing.

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Most Minnesota School Districts Facing Budget Shortfalls amid Enrollment Decline

empty hallway

Minnesota school districts belonging to the Association of Metropolitan School Districts (AMSD), a lobbying organization, are facing a collective budget shortfall of $235.3 million for the upcoming 2022-23 school year.

That figure comes from the results of an AMSD survey taken by 45 school districts across the state.

For example, Minneapolis and Saint Paul Public Schools are facing respective shortfalls of $59.5 million and $42.8 million — approximately 43% of the combined shortfall. Only eight school districts that took the survey reported no projected shortfalls.

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Texas Lt. Governor Proposes Eliminating Tenure to Rid CRT from Public Universities

Dan Patrick of Texas

The Texas Lieutenant Governor has stated his priority to eliminate tenure in an attempt to stop Critical Race Theory (CRT) from “poisoning the minds of the next generation.”

During a Feb. 18 press conference, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick argued that academia has been infiltrated by “tenured, leftist professors” and called for additional oversight methods to crack down on the controversial curriculum. 

Patrick defined CRT as “an offshoot of critical legal studies, which is an offshoot of a socialist program (which says) that everything that happened in life is based on racism.”

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Vanderbilt Professor Calls Parents ‘Ignorant Racist[s]’ for Opposing Critical Race Theory

Vanderbilt University

A Vanderbilt University professor recently said that parents who oppose Critical Race Theory (CRT) are “ignorant racist[s].” 

“Meanwhile, ignorant racist [sic] are worried about scaring their kids w CRT,” Gilman Whiting tweeted last month after a bomb threat against Howard University, an historically Black college in Washington, DC. 

Earlier the same day, Whiting tweeted, “[S]chool boards across the country are banning teaching history while ignorantly calling it CRT.”

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Commentary: Revitalizing K-12 Education with 10,000 New Charter Schools

The American K-12 education system has been failing too many students for too long. And the problem has only gotten worse amid pandemic-era school closures and remote learning.

Increasingly, parents are venting their frustration at local government bureaucracies and teachers’ unions that they believe have too often failed to put the interests of kids first — and some are voting with their feet.

Throughout Covid-19, traditional public school enrollment has dropped by 3.3% (1.45 million students) while charter school enrollment has increased by 7.1% year over year (237,000 students). Families are increasingly taking advantage of other non-traditional schooling options as well: according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the rate of homeschooling nationwide increased by 5.6 percentage points between April and October 2020.

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American Bar Association Requires Law Schools to Educate Students on ‘Bias, Cross-Cultural Competency, and Racism’

Man in a suit writing on paperwork at a table

The American Bar Association House of Delegates has approved new law school accreditation standards at the 2022 ABA Midyear Meeting, of which two amendments were focused on “diversity.”

In order to eliminate bias and enhance diversity, the ABA’s amended Standard 303(c) requires that “a law school shall provide education on bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism: (1) at the start of the program of legal education, and (2) at least once again before graduation.”

To fulfill this requirement, “Law schools must demonstrate that all law students are required to participate in a substantial activity designed to reinforce the skill of cultural competency and their obligation as future lawyers to work to eliminate racism in the legal profession.”

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