Education in Focus

As the battle over allowing certain classroom curricula continues into 2025, two opposing groups shared milestones and failures from the past year regarding explicit books in the classroom. The debate over what kinds of books should be allowed in school libraries has roiled school board meetings for years, with those critical of sexually explicit material saying it has no place in taxpayer-funded...

Despite the high-profile headlines around school shootings in 2024 and more incidents from 2023, schools are one of the safest places for young people, according to safety experts. Jaclyn Schildkraut, executive director for the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium at the Rockefeller Institute of Government, said that while the group doesn’t have a generally accepted data source to track the n...

With all the money from the federal government’s COVID-19 relief, states received a huge influx of funds in 2022 for schools. But how much did an increase in taxpayer dollars toward school districts affect student performance? According to data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the United States Census Bureau, despite the largest increase in per-pupil funding in two decades,...

Chalkboard News' 2024 Year in Review including the changes to Title IX and its legal challenges, continued struggles to improve student performance, and the increasing use of online credit recovery programs. Keep up with all education related news in 2025 at Chalkboard News: https://www.chalkboardnews.com/   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our co...

According to research conducted by the nation’s education data agency, the number of teaching positions did not increase or decrease compared to the 2022-23 school year. Meanwhile, half of school leaders reported feeling like their school was understaffed. It also said 40% of students in the nation’s public schools were behind grade level in one or more subjects at the beginning of the school year...

Michigan lawmakers are working to become the 38th state to host a Purple Star program in schools, which would help accommodate students who often change schools due to parental military service. Last week, the Michigan House of Representatives passed House Bill 4027, which would create the framework for Michigan to certify schools to ensure resources and information exist to help military children...

An organization focused on creating pipelines for students of color to become teachers says it receives payment from public schools, while other reporting indicates it receives funds from private sources. The Center for Black Educator Development has recently been criticized and praised for its work, which, according to its website, is geared toward “current and future Black educator-activists.” T...

According to international test results, student academic performance in the United States has dropped dramatically since 2019, the last assessment and the year before government and school leaders sent children to learn at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.  According to the results of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study assessment released this week, U.S. students scored lo...

The Supreme Court said it would not hear a case brought by parents in Wisconsin against their school district over its lack of a parental notification policy for students who change their gender. Justice Brett Kavanaugh said he would have heard the case brought against an association of parents against the Eau Claire Area School District. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented from th...

During a congressional hearing on civics education Wednesday morning, Democrats stated that K-12 students do not receive instruction on critical race theory. Republicans disagreed and asked witnesses pointed questions to show the framework is in schools. The hearing highlighted the partisan divide on the kinds of instruction students should receive regarding the nation's founding and whether schoo...

A spate of New York School districts have become the latest to join more than 500 school districts across the United States suing the biggest social media companies for what they allege are adverse effects on students’ mental health. According to court filings, the Potsdam School District in New York joined the series of suits last week. More than 30 states are also suing the social media company....

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by a group of Jewish parents and teachers claiming that an ethnic studies course taught in Los Angeles Unified School District classrooms was antisemitic because of its position on the state of Israel. Judge Fernando M. Olguin dismissed the case Saturday. He said the organization Concerned Jewish Parents and Teachers of Los Angeles did not have sufficien...

A lawsuit by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton lawsuit against the Austin-based Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center may spell trouble for its regulars and relief for those living and going to school nearby this holiday season. Paxton asked the court Tuesday to prevent Sunrise, the self-proclaimed “highest-volume provider of homeless services in Travis County,” from operating within 1,000 feet of a...

President-elect Donald Trump announced that former wrestling CEO and administrator of the Small Business Administration Linda McMahon will be his secretary of Education. On Truth Social Tuesday evening, Trump posted a statement announcing McMahon would lead the agency and alluded to his campaign promise to dissolve the Department of Education. "We will send education back to the states, and Linda...

States and private organizations argued this month that the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals should overturn a district court decision allowing the Biden administration to implement its expanded Title IX rules ahead of oral arguments next month. The Department of Education previously argued that the appellate court should side with a district court’s ruling to allow the rule to go into effect whi...

The transition team for President-elect Donald Trump has said it will “deliver” on the former president's promises regarding sweeping changes to the nation’s educational system and federal agencies. On the campaign trail, Trump said he would disassemble the Department of Education and give states control of local schools as well as promoting school choice and removing improving outcomes for studen...

According to a prominent free speech advocacy group, the United States experienced more than 10,000 book bans, the highest in the last three years, as the nation waits for possible changes to federal enforcement from another Trump administration. According to a new report from PEN America, the organization has found a steady increase in what it labels book bans occurring in the U.S. each year. Org...

The Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights announced Wednesday that it had come to a resolution with the Oklahoma school district where nonbinary student Nex Benedict attended before their death in February. Owasso Public School District has entered into a resolution agreement with the enforcement branch of the federal education agency that requires it to take specific actions related to...

With the victory of Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump for president of the United States, his campaign positions on education will become focal points for parents, educators and school leaders in the coming months and years. On the campaign trail, Trump said he would abolish the U.S. Department of Education and promote school choice policies. However, scholars and actions from...

Liam Morrison, whose Massachusetts middle school told him to remove a shirt that said “there are only two genders,” has asked the Supreme Court to take up his case, alleging the school is violating his First Amendment rights by preventing him from wearing it. The case typifies the divide between outspoken conservative families and school leaders who say they must protect and promote acceptance for...

A member of the North Carolina State Board of Education is alarmed by a new academic performance report on the state’s remote learning academies. According to the report, two schools received an F, while 12 were rated with a D and 19 with Cs. Only one earned an A and one a B. By comparison, traditional schools had much higher percentages of schools rate A, B or C. Support this podcast:  https://se...

With the rising popularity of generative artificial intelligence, which allows users to enter prompts or questions and receive text or answers, students can cheat in ways they couldn’t just a few years ago, and now they can do it even better with programs like StealthGPT. As Chalkboard has reported, cheating services have also risen in popularity. These services offer the technology to students in...

After charges were announced against administrators and test proctors allegedly involved in a fraudulent teacher certification scheme, state agencies said they would follow law enforcement's lead to ensure teachers are properly licensed. The Texas Education Agency and the Arizona Department of Education have said that they will cooperate with law enforcement and state boards of education to take a...

A new report from Reason Foundation ranks every state’s open enrollment laws, which allow students to transfer from their assigned public school to other public schools with open seats. Reason Foundation, a libertarian public policy group, found that Arizona, Idaho, Oklahoma, Utah and West Virginia had the best laws for students hoping to transfer to a different school. The report also examined ot...

A report released this week says that by silencing "agents of disruption" from speaking out on "culturally divisive" conflicts in schools, districts could have saved $2 billion in the 2023-24 school year. A survey of superintendents says challenges to how districts teach race and racism, LGBTQ+ policies and school library books cost taxpayers $3.2 billion last school year. In the last several year...