Education in Focus

A federal judge has ordered the Biden administration to delay implementation of its sweeping changes to Title IX in another four states and at schools attended by students who belong to specific organizations or have parents who do. A Kansas district court on Tuesday blocked the Department of Education from implementing its updated rules expanding longstanding protections around sex discrimination...

Two separate Tennessee families filed a joint federal lawsuit on behalf of their children against Bill Lee, the governor of Tennessee, and the Williamson County Board of Education. The lawsuit claims that on separate occasions, a child from each family (students in the William County School District) was wrongfully arrested, incarcerated and suspended as a result of the district’s interpretation o...

After the California Department of Education issued guidance that schools should not disclose students’ gender-related record change requests to parents, some California school districts adopted rules requiring parents to be notified if their children request to officially change their pronouns, go by a different name, or use facilities or school programs for children of the opposite gender. Calif...

After a report from the NYC Special Commissioner of Investigation (SCI) exposed how some New York City Department of Education employees lied about receiving the COVID vaccine during a mandate for educators, the district said the matter is “under review.” The investigation “substantiated” that 16 current and former employees of New York City's Department of Education knowingly submitted falsified...

A former Buffalo Public Schools principal accused of manipulating grades in the New York district has been chosen to be the keynote speaker at a continuous improvement summit held by the Kentucky Department of Education. Teachers say while Marck Abraham was principal at McKinley High School, he reportedly pressured them to change student grades, calling into question the method he outlines in his...

Researchers who analyzed an Algebra I online credit recovery course from Edmentum say it failed to challenge students, was vulnerable to cheating via Google searches and reused the same test questions. In a new paper that is under peer review, researchers at Vanderbilt University and Georgia State University have quantified how virtual credit recovery classes, which are often provided to students...

The Los Angeles Unified School District Board voted on a resolution Tuesday to revise its 2011 school cell phone policy to ban phones for students during school hours with few caveats. After a board vote, it chose to approve the resolution, 5-2, with board members George McKenna and Scott Schmerelson voting against the decision to begin banning phones during the entire school day. The board’s reso...

A federal judge has struck down the Biden administration’s rule expanding the definition of Title IX to include gender identity in six states, the latest in a salvo of legal challenges against the changes intended to protect LGBTQ+ students in recent days. Monday’s injunction from the United States District Court in the Eastern District of Kentucky prevents the Department of Education from impleme...

Chicago Public Schools used over $47,000 in federal funds for an event “to learn about and celebrate the galaxies of gender, sexuality and love” which taught 10-to-18 year old students how to be activists and reminded them they do not need to ask their parents before changing their name or pronouns at school. A portion of the district’s 2024 Galaxy Summit was sponsored by a HIV pharmaceutical comp...

Video platform TikTok has said that videos and accounts that promote online courseware cheating violate its policy governing frauds and scams, but reporting the videos doesn’t seem to have an effect and at least one removed account has returned. Last month, Chalkboard flagged two accounts that appear to violate TikTok’s policy on frauds and scams, which the company previously said governs accounts...

The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights said in a report that over two-thirds of all Title IX complaints came from one individual as it seeks to increase its staff for the next fiscal year. The branch of the education agency that enforces federal funding statutes tied to civil rights legislation said 5,590 out of 8,151 complaints related to alleged sex discrimination came from one per...

A new parents bill of rights took effect Thursday in Washington, but State Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal is telling school districts to ignore it. The measure approved by lawmakers back in March was introduced by a voter initiative. Supporters said it was a way to ensure parents don’t feel left out of their child’s education and, among other things, have access to medical or c...

As school board candidates run and win on more conservative-leaning platforms promising public school reforms, alternatives to traditional school board member associations have launched in states like Virginia and Pennsylvania in an attempt to redefine the role. Alternatives for conservative-leaning school board members have proven to be contentious, but proponents say they are following the law a...

A federal judge ruled earlier this week that New Hampshire laws limiting classroom discussions around critical race theory and divisive topics are unconstitutionally vague and violate the Fourteenth Amendment. New Hampshire was one of the dozens of states to pass laws limiting classroom instruction related to the legal framework that seeks to explain how racism permeates societal institutions, whi...

Notable author and outspoken scholar Ibram X. Kendi told educators and others in a taxpayer funded equity webinar Thursday that influencing school systems offers a “bigger bang for your activism” and said "antiracist" education should start before age 3. A Wisconsin state agency paid Kendi $15,000 using federal special education funding for a wide-ranging one hour and 15 minute “generative convers...

While the Montana Legislature passed measures that would enable the state to begin approving charter schools last year, a lawsuit could dramatically delay when the publicly-funded alternatives to traditional public schools would be able to open. The “Treasure State” passed HB 562 in 2023, establishing the Community School Choice Commission, tasked with approving prospective charter schools, also k...

Two teachers were fired from a Tennessee high school in a board meeting last week over allegations that they changed and interfered with almost 1,500 student grades at the behest of a former principal of the year. Teachers allegedly modified student’s courses so they would not have to learn. A document presented to the board by an Anderson County School official says former Clinton High School pri...

Chicago Public Schools has spent an increasing amount of taxpayer funds on balloon displays in the last five years. The school district has put more than half a million dollars toward elaborate displays for events and celebrations in that time. The district has in recent years rapidly inflated its budget for balloon displays to mark occasions like back-to-school, graduation or Black History Month,...

A Republican-led congressional committee asked school leaders whose districts have seen antisemitic incidents about what they’re doing to prevent further incidents in their schools since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas. Leaders of schools in New York City and Berkeley, California and Montgomery County, Maryland told the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Educatio...

A taxpayer-funded workshop for Oregon sex education teachers instructed teachers to embrace fat positivity, explained the “racist origins of fatphobia” and what it means to have “thin privilege.” It also told educators to normalize fat bodies when teaching physiology and anatomy to students. The Oregon Department of Human Services’s February workshop, presented to teachers under the umbrella of th...

Taxpayer-funded equity-focused events directed school employees to push public school boards to focus on race and gender, encouraged staff to focus on “disrupting whiteness” and promoted ideologies that critics say lay “the groundwork for a communist worldview.” Chalkboard reviewed recordings of federally sponsored virtual roundtables and events where presenters promoted controversial ideas like c...

Chicago Public Schools adopted a policy last year to honor academic credits received during virtual classes, citing equity as one of the reasons underpinning the policy as well as the benefits of the online instruction model. But as Chalkboard  reported last year , researchers have questioned the efficacy of virtual learning and raised concerns that virtual credit recovery classes actually hurt th...

A federal judge is allowing a class action lawsuit against the Chicago Public Schools Board of Education over its use of the “Quiet Time” transcendental meditation program, which allegedly required student participation and incorporated Hindu rituals. Chicago Public Schools stated it ended the Quiet Time program in 2020 and that it denies any liability related to the program, which former students...

A new report tied to the 70th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision Brown v. Board of Education says schools nationwide legally discriminate against some students based on their address. Available to All, the nonprofit watchdog group that advocates for equal access to public schools,  released the report  Monday asserting that top public schools can legally prevent disadvantaged students, of...

Former secretary of education Betsy DeVos said Friday that the Biden administration's finalized Title IX rule change has "gutted" five decades of protections for women and girls and replaced it with "radical gender theory." The Biden administration’s Department of Education has finalized its long-anticipated Title IX rule that expands the definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity...