According to a federal survey of school leaders, 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.
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) announced its findings this week that the percentage of students school leaders estimated to be behind where they should be was down 7% from the 2022-23 school year but still 8% higher than before the pandemic.
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A group of parents, teachers and religious leaders filed a lawsuit Thursday with the Oklahoma Supreme Court challenging a new state requirement to teach the Bible in public schools.
Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters announced the mandate for children in grades five through 12 be taught lessons on the Bible “as an instructional support into the curriculum” in June, and was quickly met with pushback from schools refusing to implement the rule. The suit alleges the mandate, which allocates $3 million to the Bibles, violates the state Constitution’s prohibition on spending public funds on religious items and is contrary to religious freedom.
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Americans are like members of a quarrelsome family, so intent on arguing their petty grievances around the kitchen table that they don’t smell the rising smoke from the oven. As our nation fumes and the world burns, neither major party presidential candidate is addressing the lapping flames around us.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are not simply ignoring our frightening national debt – both vow to ramp it up. Neither candidate has a serious plan to respond to the threats posed by China, Russia, or Iran.
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Next month, the Huntsville School District in Arkansas will join the wave of public schools switching to a four-day week.
The shorter school week, which first emerged in a few rural areas decades ago, is now expanding into suburbs and smaller cities. At least 2,100 schools in half the states have embraced the three-day weekend mostly as an incentive to hire and keep teachers, prompting cheers of support from instructors, unions, and many families.
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It’s true. Sometimes homeschoolers do school in their pajamas.
But that wasn’t the norm in my home when I was growing up. Generally, my mother kept us to a set schedule. Piano practice was at 8:15 sharp. Math class started at 9:00. The other subjects fell into place around that. Often, we finished our work by lunchtime, after which my sister and I would go outside and play in the woods behind our house, read, draw, or work on some other personal hobby.
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Oklahoma is now requiring that all schools include teachings centered around the Bible in curriculums for grades five through 12.
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A record number of students are skipping school, propelling chronic absenteeism to a national crisis, according to an analysis of public-school attendance data.
The analysis comes as public school districts nationwide are laying off teachers, citing high inflationary costs, budget deficits, and spending decisions related to federal COVID-era funding, which is running out after schools received windfalls in federal subsidies for three years.
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Call it the big reset – downward – in public education.
The alarming plunge in academic performance during the pandemic was met with a significant drop in grading and graduation standards to ease the pressure on students struggling with remote learning. The hope was that hundreds of billions of dollars of emergency federal aid would enable schools to reverse the learning loss and restore the standards.
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