Policy & Politics

Education news, analysis, and opinion about the legislation, guidance, policies and people involved in federal and state government
School Choice & Charters As Private School Choice Grows, Critics Push for More Guardrails
Calls are growing for more scrutiny over where state funds for private school choice go and how students are faring in the classroom.
Mark Lieberman
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7 min read
Law & Courts Supreme Court Declines to Hear School District's Transgender Restroom Case
The case asked whether federal law protects transgender students on the use of school facilities that correspond to their gender identity.
Mark Walsh
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4 min read
Law & Courts What a Proposed Ban on AI-Assisted ‘Deep Fakes’ Would Mean for Cyberbullying
Students who create AI-generated, intimate images of their classmates would be breaking federal law, if a new bill is enacted.
Alyson Klein
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2 min read
School Choice & Charters Opinion What's the State of Charter Schools Today?
Even though there's momentum behind the charter school movement, charters face many of the same challenges as traditional public schools.
Rick Hess
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10 min read
Image shows a multi-tailed arrow hitting the bullseye of a target.
DigitalVision Vectors/Getty
Law & Courts In 1974, the Supreme Court Recognized English Learners' Rights. The Story Behind That Case
The Lau v. Nichols ruling said students have a right to a "meaningful opportunity" to participate in school, but its legacy is complex.
Mark Walsh
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12 min read
Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court William O. Douglas is shown in an undated photo.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, shown in an undated photo, wrote the opinion in <i>Lau</i> v. <i>Nichols</i>, the 1974 decision holding that the San Francisco school system had denied Chinese-speaking schoolchildren a meaningful opportunity to participate in their education.
AP
Accountability What the Research Says More than 1 in 4 Schools Targeted for Improvement, Survey Finds
The new federal findings show schools also continue to struggle with absenteeism.
Sarah D. Sparks
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2 min read
Vector illustration of diverse children, students climbing up on a top of a stack of staggered books.
iStock/Getty
Federal Biden Admin. Says New K-12 Agenda Tackles Absenteeism, Tutoring, Extended Learning
The White House unveiled a set of K-12 priorities at the start of an election year.
Libby Stanford
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4 min read
U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona participates in a roundtable discussion with students from Dartmouth College on Jan. 10, 2024, on the school's campus, in Hanover, N.H.
U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona participates in a roundtable discussion with students from Dartmouth College on Jan. 10, 2024, on the school's campus, in Hanover, N.H.
Steven Senne/AP

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More Policy & Politics

  • Illustration of an archer aiming away from the back of a target.
    Vanessa Solis/Education Week + DigitalVision Vectors/Getty Images
    Policy & Politics Opinion Scholars Aren’t Studying the Questions Education Leaders Care About Most
    Practitioners and policymakers have no choice but to rely on self-interested industry figures and consultants, writes Rick Hess.
    Rick Hess, January 11, 2024
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    5 min read
    Chicago charter school teacher Angela McByrd works on her laptop to teach remotely from her home in Chicago, Sept. 24, 2020.
    Chicago charter school teacher Angela McByrd works on her laptop to teach remotely from her home in Chicago, Sept. 24, 2020. In Montana, a district hopes to save a virtual instruction program by converting it into a charter school.
    Nam Y. Huh/AP
    School Choice & Charters How a District Hopes to Save an ESSER-Funded Program
    As a one-time infusion of federal funding expires, districts are searching for creative ways to keep programs they funded with it running.
    Mark Lieberman, January 10, 2024
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    6 min read
    Illustration of dice with arrows and court/law building icons: conceptual idea of laws and authority.
    Andrii Yalanskyi/iStock/Getty
    States Q&A How Districts Can Navigate Tricky Questions Raised by Parents' Rights Laws
    Where does a parent's authority stop and a school's authority begin? A constitutional law scholar weighs in.
    Caitlynn Peetz, January 9, 2024
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    6 min read
    The Supreme Court building is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 10, 2023.
    The Supreme Court building is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 10, 2023.
    Patrick Semansky/AP
    Law & Courts Supreme Court Declines Case on Corporal Punishment for Student With Autism
    The justices refused to hear the appeal of an 11-year-old Louisiana student who alleges that two educators slapped her on her wrists.
    Mark Walsh, January 8, 2024
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    3 min read
    Linda Brown Smith stands in front of the Sumner School in Topeka, Kan., on May 8, 1964. The refusal of the public school to admit Brown in 1951, then nine years old, because she is black, led to the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the "separate but equal" clause and mandated that schools nationwide must be desegregated.
    Linda Brown Smith stands in front of the Sumner School in Topeka, Kan., in 1964, a segregated white school where she had been denied enrollment in 1951, leading to the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down the "separate but equal" doctrine in the case that bears her family name, <i>Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.</i> The high court on Jan. 8 turned away an effort by descendants of the litigants in a companion desegregation case from South Carolina to rename the historic decision for their case, <i>Briggs</i> v. <i>Elliott</i>.
    AP
    Law & Courts U.S. Supreme Court Declines Bid to Rename 'Brown v. Board of Education'
    Descendants argued that their case, not the one from Topeka, Kan., should have topped the 1954 decision on racial segregation in schools.
    Mark Walsh, January 8, 2024
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    3 min read
    Image shows a multi-tailed arrow hitting the bullseye of a target.
    DigitalVision Vectors/Getty
    Policy & Politics Opinion 2024 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence: Top 10 Lists
    Where scholars rank within their discipline may be more telling than where they are in the overall rankings.
    Rick Hess, January 5, 2024
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    1 min read
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Student Achievement Quiz Quiz Yourself: How Much Do You Know About Connecting Schools & Communities?
Answer 7 questions about the whole child approach of connecting schools and communities.
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    Policy & Politics Opinion The 2024 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings
    The rankings recognize the university-based scholars in the United States who had large influence shaping educational practice and policy.
    Rick Hess, January 4, 2024
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    2 min read
    Image shows a multi-tailed arrow hitting the bullseye of a target.
    DigitalVision Vectors/Getty
    Policy & Politics Opinion The 2024 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Scoring Rubric
    Tomorrow, Rick will unveil the 2024 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings. Here is the methodology used to generate those rankings.
    Rick Hess, January 3, 2024
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    10 min read
    Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, Nov. 8, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa. On Friday, Dec. 29, 2023, a federal judge temporarily blocked key parts of an Iowa law that bans some books from school libraries and forbids teachers from raising LGBTQ+ issues.
    Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, Nov. 8, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa. On Friday, Dec. 29, 2023, a federal judge temporarily blocked key parts of an Iowa law that bans some books from school libraries and forbids teachers from raising LGBTQ+ issues.
    Charlie Neibergall/AP
    Law & Courts Iowa Judge Blocks Key Parts of Law on Book Bans and Discussion of LGBTQ+ Issues
    The law bans books depicting sex acts from schools and forbids teachers from raising gender identity and sexual orientation issues with students through the sixth grade.
    The Associated Press, January 2, 2024
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    2 min read
    Image shows a multi-tailed arrow hitting the bullseye of a target.
    DigitalVision Vectors/Getty
    Policy & Politics Opinion What It Takes to Be an Effective Public Scholar
    Education researchers may have impeccable credentials in the world of academe. But do they move the needle on public debates?
    Rick Hess, January 2, 2024
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    4 min read
    The U.S. Capitol is seen in Washington, Monday, Feb. 6, 2023. President Joe Biden on Tuesday night will stand before a joint session of Congress for the first time since voters in the midterm elections handed control of the House to Republicans.
    The rising role of artificial intelligence in education and other sectors will likely be a hot topic in 2024 at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, as well as in state legislatures across the country.
    Mariam Zuhaib/AP
    States What 2024 Will Bring for K-12 Policy: 5 Issues to Watch
    School choice, teacher pay, and AI will likely dominate education policy debates.
    Libby Stanford, December 29, 2023
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    7 min read
    People hold signs during a protest at the state house in Trenton, N.J., Monday, Jan. 13, 2020. New Jersey lawmakers are set to vote Monday on legislation to eliminate most religious exemptions for vaccines for schoolchildren, as opponents crowd the statehouse grounds with flags and banners, including some reading "My Child, My Choice."
    People hold signs during a protest at the state house in Trenton, N.J., on Jan. 13, 2020, opposing legislation to eliminate most religious exemptions for vaccines for schoolchildren. In North Carolina, a bill passed to protect parents' rights in schools caused uncertainty that led two districts to pause a child sex abuse prevention program out of fear it would violate the new law.
    Seth Wenig/AP
    States How a Parents' Rights Law Halted a Child Abuse Prevention Program
    State laws that have passed as part of the parents' rights movement have caused confusion and uncertainty over what schools can teach.
    Libby Stanford & Caitlynn Peetz, December 21, 2023
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    7 min read
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EdWeek Market Brief

Purchasing Alert Illinois District Looks for Universal Screeners; N.J. System Seeks High Impact Tutoring
A district in Illinois is looking for K-12 universal screeners for math and literacy, while a New Jersey school system seeks high impact tutoring services.
Emma Kate Fittes
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2 min read
Marketplace K-12 The Social Media Platforms District and School Leaders Use to Get Their Jobs Done
EdWeek Market Brief survey data reveals the top platforms school officials are using to inform their work.
Alexandria Ng
•
4 min read
Marketplace K-12 K-12 Dealmaking: PowerSchool Acquires Allovue K-12 Budgeting Software
The deal is the latest in a series of acquisitions made by PowerSchool over the last decade.
Emma Kate Fittes
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2 min read
Analyst's View Texas Approved a Sweeping Curriculum Overhaul. Here’s What Comes Next
Publishers face a deadline to comment on proposed regulations that will guide the sweeping policy change in the critical K-12 market.
David Saleh Rauf & David Saleh Rauf
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12 min read
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