A new Illinois law requires Illinois schools to teach kids of all ages about the contributions of the LGBTQ community, the Chicago Tribune reported last month. Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker signed the Inclusive Curriculum Law August 9; it mandates that…
Blaine Amendments are state constitutional provisions rooted in 19th-century anti-Catholic bigotry, designed with the purpose of preventing the government from funding religious schools. Fortunately, challenges to the Blaine Amendment’s constitutionality are being heard with increasing frequency by the Supreme Court. This legal…
Late last year, billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates announced his foundation would spend another $1.7 billion on public education initiatives over the next five years. Toward the end of his announcement, though, Mr. Gates said something revealing. He…
One of President Trump’s promises to the American people was that he would provide billions to fund private school choice for parents, especially low-income families. By allocating zero dollars for school choice, congressional Republicans, in their $1.3 trillion spending bill,…
How would consumers react to the state mandating that Americans shop at only the supermarket nearest to them? When the corner market corners the market, it can offer inferior products, inflate prices, and treat customers as pests instead of patrons….
The evidence is clear that charter schools increase academic performance among students they serve. Some wonder, though, about charter schools’ impact on nearby public schools. Is it possible that charters harm their traditional district counterparts? A new study from Temple University answers this…
Capitalism’s two centuries have proved competition is its essential element. No place in America’s 21st century demonstrates this like its educational system. On the positive side stands America’s world-leading college system; on the other stands America’s world-lagging public school system….
The bad thing about elective politics (not the only bad thing; there’s a long list) is the philosophical and, especially, rhetorical extremes into which it squeezes differently minded folk, who, more and more frequently, find themselves saying things like: “You…
Public schools beleaguered by waves of refugees will get a breather thanks to President Trump’s executive order suspending refugees from entering the U.S. for 120 days. And under Trump’s new policy, when the U.S. re-opens its doors to refugees, local…
About a century ago, the Ku Klux Klan spearheaded a coalition of anti-Catholic organizations in Nebraska to lobby the state legislature to pass a law that would ban public school teachers from wearing religious insignia or garb in the classroom….
