Department of Education

RichLegg/iStock/Getty Images Plus The Biden administration announced new federal actions on Thursday to help promote the safe storage of firearms in households, adding to an executive order signed by President Biden last March in response to increasing gun violence.  The administration claimed they are taking comprehensive action to prevent gun violence because it is now “the leading cause of death of children in...

Last fall, the Duluth News Tribune reported: Spring, 2022, the National Assessment of Educational Progress results released Monday, Oct. 24, show Minnesota eighth-graders’ math test scores dropped by 11 points from 2019, placing the state among the 10 biggest drops in that age group nationally. No state reported gains in math performance for fourth and eighth graders since the last assessment, and...

Maryland GovPics/Wikimedia Commons Congressional Republicans have begun an investigation into the Biden administration Department of Education’s (DOE) alleged cozy relationship with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the widely discredited left-wing organization that claims to be an arbiter of all that is hateful in America. On December 11, Representative James Comer (R-Ky.), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, sent...

jmsilva/iStock/Getty Images Plus A March incident in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, in which an 18-year-old biological male allegedly exposed his genitalia to four ninth-grade girls in a locker room is finally being investigated by federal authorities. The unnamed male student apparently told the young girls that he identified as a female prior to proving to the girls that, at least biologically,...

jaker5000/iStock/Getty Images Plus They used to be report cards — now they’re distort cards. As a consequence, says education expert Cindi Williams, parents are oblivious to how their kids are failing in school. And failing they are. In a Friday article, Williams laments how focus groups have shown that even in districts where student performance is rock bottom, parents believe...

SolStock/iStock/Getty Images Plus Tennessee lawmakers are considering a bold move: forgoing federal education funding in return for regaining control of their state’s public-education system. Last month, Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton and Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally, both Republicans, appointed a 10-member, bipartisan (albeit heavily Republican) panel called the Joint Working Group on Federal Education Funding. According to The Tennessean, the...

John Stossel This week Republicans and Democrats got together to avert a government shutdown. Too bad. There’s so much that ought to be shut down. Useless Cabinet departments, for example, like Housing and Urban Development, Labor and Agriculture. Agriculture employs almost 100,000 people. Why? Independent farmers grow our food. They don’t need a giant department. Let’s get rid of the...

Ron Paul Former President Donald Trump infuriated many anti-abortion voters last week when he refused to commit to national abortion restrictions and seemed to blame them for Republican losses in the 2022 mid-term elections. Trump even criticized the six-week abortion ban signed by Florida Governor (and fellow Republican candidate) Ron DeSantis. So, not only is Trump balking at national restrictions...

Joe Brusky/flickr California lawmakers are considering legislation that critics warn could criminalize parents’ speaking out at school-board meetings or otherwise criticizing school officials. Passed by the California Senate in May and now under consideration in the Assembly, SB 596 would amend state law to classify causing “substantial disorder” at a school-board meeting or engaging in “harassment” of a school employee...

btrenkel/iStock/Getty Images Plus Parents Defending Education (PDE), a grassroots organization “working to reclaim our schools from activists imposing harmful agendas,” released a report on Wednesday that provides evidence linking the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to sponsoring affiliated educational programs to a number of American K-12 schools.  The report, titled “Little Red Classrooms,” details how 143 school districts, including 20 near...

News Analysis The Supreme Court ruled on June 29 that affirmative action is unconstitutional. Nonetheless, history suggests that liberal states and institutions could obstruct implementing the decision that race-conscious admissions violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. GianCarlo​ Canaparo, senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, predicted to The...

As the Biden administration’s plan to erase more than $400 billion in federal student loan debt failed at the U.S. Supreme Court, both Democrats and Republicans are saying they have an answer to help with the looming student loan default crisis. To fulfill his campaign promise, President Joe Biden has pledged that he will still push through a blanket student...

Following the Supreme Court’s recent ruling to block the current administration’s student loan forgiveness proposal, President Joe Biden announced that his administration would pursue different avenues to offer relief to millions of borrowers. “I’m not going to stop fighting to deliver borrowers what they need, particularly those at the bottom end of the economic scale,” Mr. Biden said in a...

PHILADELPHIA—A smattering of protesters hollered insults, like “bigot” and “fascist,” over a loud speaker, blasted music, waved rainbow flags and danced in the street in a transgender “dance protest” on Friday and Saturday at the Moms for Liberty “Joyful Warriors” National Summit in Philadelphia. The political rally, which was advertised beforehand as a dance protest in media stories, social media...

Ron DeSantis said if he’s elected president, he’ll look to eliminate four major federal agencies. And he’s got a Plan B if he can’t get rid of them. In an interview with DeSantis on June 28, Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum asked the Florida governor, “Are you in favor of eliminating any agencies? I know conservatives in the past have...

Commentary “‘Mississippi miracle’: Kids’ reading scores have soared in Gulf South states,” AP just reported. It noted educators in other states with low test scores no longer can say, “Thank God for Mississippi.” That’s a cliché also in California, where journalists are wont to say of low test scores, “California is nearly as bad as Mississippi.” Not anymore. “Lately, the...

FG Trade/iStock/Getty Images Plus A New Hampshire school district already embroiled in a lawsuit over its gender-identity policy is spending $4,000 of federal Covid-19 relief funds on a high-school Pride event that includes a drag show. Manchester High School West art teacher Richella Simard applied in April for a grant from the city’s Community Event and Activation Grant (CEAG) program,...

Commentary I don’t know when the debt ceiling will be raised, but it will be raised. Every time federal spending bumps up against the debt ceiling, we witness the same drama, a drama so predictable that you could almost call it a ritual: Republicans, citing a need for fiscal restraint, demand some cuts to federal spending; Democrats resist the proposed...

Commentary Can California further socialize the raising of children, reducing the parents’ role even more? Yes, it can. In the May Revision to his budget proposal for fiscal year 2023-24, Gov. Gavin Newsom advances what’s called “Whole Child” health care: “The state is reasonably positioned to sustain the continued multi-year implementation of the California for All Kids plan—a whole child...