#education-policy

#education-policy

As states across the country consider blocking trans athletes from participating in school sports - and those bans are challenged in court - the Education Department said it aimed to provide clarity for schools and families and underscored that blanket bans on transgender student-athletes would jeopardize institutions and educational programs that receive federal funding under Title IX, which protections against sex discrimination.

Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

Missouri State Sen. Joe Nicola (R) introduced a bill that would ban "social transition" in schools and forcibly out any transgender and nonbinary students to their potentially unsupportive parents if the students ask a school staff member to address them by a name or gender identity different from the sex assigned to them at birth. The bill would also allow teachers to be fired and banned from teaching,

Can you guess which professionals in England work 26 hours of overtime a week without compensation, give up time with friends and family to deal with the workload and often find themselves on call in the holidays? Not CEOs, bankers or even doctors, but teachers. No wonder, then, that teaching vacancies are at the highest level ever. Workload is the top concern that teachers cite for leaving the profession, with almost as many quitting as those who joined last year.

The 4 Day Week Foundation has written to the education secretary calling for greater autonomy for schools to pilot shorter working weeks, saying the government will not be able to meet its manifesto pledge of recruiting 6,500 new teachers without change. It comes after the Scottish government announced new proposals last week for teachers to be able to work a flexible four-day teaching week, which would see them given one day a week to focus on work such as preparation and marking.

The crisis over special educational needs and disabilities in England is not just a question of cash. Children and parents spend months and years battling for support to which the law entitles them, schools lack the funding to meet needs, and specialist provision is inadequate. An adversarial system shunts families towards tribunals that councils almost invariably lose. Tory reforms created obligations for local authorities but did not adequately fund them allowing ministers to duck responsibility.

A wave of bills introduced this year in state legislatures across the country sought to censor Palestine-related education in public schools. Several passed with the support of pro-Israel Democratic lawmakers, a trend that educators and First Amendment advocates told Truthout reflects the alignment of pro-Israel groups with MAGA forces. As these efforts continue, many said they fear public education could be reshaped far beyond social studies classrooms and the topics of Israel and Palestine.

A new vision for the United States is being forced into place - one rooted not in liberty or justice, but in subjugation and the quiet normalization and acceptance of fascism. You can see it in the memes, the slogans, and the curated nostalgia flooding social media accounts aligned with the Trump administration. You can see it in the way frontier and 1950s iconographies have returned not as history but as aspiration.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground.

As teachers and professors reel over how generative AI is ruining education, one expert is suggesting that the true technological menace in the classroom has been staring us in the face for decades: laptops. It would explain, writes psychology professor at San Diego State University Jean M. Twenge in an opinion piece for The New York Times, why standardized test scores for American students have plunged to their lowest point in twenty years in 2023 and 2024.

This week, the Education Department said it would break off several of its main offices and hand over their responsibilities to agencies like the Department of Labor and the Department of the Interior. Under the plan, those two agencies will run several programs that fund and oversee the education of Native American children and college students. Tribal leaders and Native education organizations said the move will add to budgetary confusion and a possible breakdown ins services.

The Trump administration has sued California for providing in-state college tuition, scholarships, and state-funded financial aid to students who aren't legally in the United States. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, alleges the practice harms U.S. citizens and encourages illegal immigration. Among the defendants are the state, top state officials, and the state's two public university systems, the University of California and California State.

Overthe past few years, a huge number of schools in the United States and around the world have banned cell phone use among their students. It's a divisive topic, and the effects are only starting to come into focus. Just look at New York State, where governor Kathy Hocul and lawmakers put a ban into the state budget last spring in an effort to give kids a break from distractions at school.

Bridget Phillipson has said she is ready to take on the unions in a battle over compulsory reading tests for 13-year-olds and more extracurricular activities for all children to prevent them becoming stuck in a doom loop of detachment from school. The education secretary said that teaching unions, who have argued the tests were unnecessary and distracting, should really think carefully about whether they could justify standing in the way of tackling the shocking outcomes that exist for many working-class children.

Childhood doesn't end the day you turn five, Ruth Lue-Quee said to me on the phone as she shepherded her son to the playground this half term. Playing is what children are born to do. It's innate in them. It is how they learn. The former deputy headteacher's petition to make play-based pedagogy a core part of the key stage 1 (KS1) national curriculum in England has garnered almost the required 100,000 signatures for debate in parliament.

Education Minister Paul Calandra says if an Ontario school board doesn't restore prom plans for three of its high schools that cancelled them, he will step in and do it. Three schools in the Durham District School Board decided to cancel the traditional event due to what the principals called growing liabilities and risks connected to school-run proms. Students reacted with anger and disappointment that they would not be able to celebrate in the way so many other students have

New vocational courses called V-levels will be rolled out for 16-year-olds under government plans to simplify a "confusing landscape" of qualifications in England. They are set to replace Level 3 BTecs and other post-16 technical qualifications. Ministers also plan to reduce the number of teenagers resitting maths and English GCSEs by introducing an alternative qualification. The Sixth Form Colleges Association warned that V-levels may not fill the gap left by BTecs.

Students with dyslexia will find out this month if extra time to complete state examinations will be added to the Race scheme for 2026

Recently, the Administration for Children and Families sent letters to health departments in states and territories across the United States, requiring them to remove "all references to gender ideology"from the Personal Responsibility Education Program that provides federal funding for sex education. It's a disturbing move that mirrors how, from the 1980s through the early 2000s, the Bush administrations threatened to and did cut federal funding to states and schools that refused to teach abstinence-only sex education as part of the Purity Culture Movement.

I'm anticipating a teachers' strike very quickly after winning the next general election, he said during a question and answer session at the event last month. They are poisoning our kids. They are telling them to be ashamed of their country. They are telling little Johnny, who's eight, who is black, that he is a victim and little Oliver, who is white, who is eight, that he is an oppressor. They are dividing us, not uniting us. They are feeding this negative culture in.

The Trump administration can try to blackmail us, they can try to starve our schools of funding, but we will not cower or bend before them, said Councilmember Tiffany Caban, who co-chairs the LGBTQIA+ Caucus. The Trump administration sent letters demanding that New York City and other school districts rescind policies protecting transgender individuals by Sept. 23. When that deadline came and went, the White House said it would cut about $36 million in total funding for Magnet Schools Assistance Program funding in New York City alone, though cuts were also made to school districts in Chicago, Illinois, and Fairfax, Virginia.