Center for Education Policy

Oct 01, 2024

Dear Colleague,

Welcome back. We are excited to share the latest from The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy.

The Grand Canyon Institute Cries "Wolf" Again on School Choice

Arizona Daily Independent News Network, Matthew Ladner

How many times can an organization falsely cry “wolf” before people start ignoring them? The Grand Canyon Institute—a self-described “centrist” think tank that has produced a stream of slanted studies and false predictions—seems determined to find out...

Lawmakers Should Consider Oklahoma Funding Model After South Carolina High Court's Rejection of ESAs

Next Steps, Jonathan Butcher

For David Warner, choosing a school for his son was a “very personal” decision, he said. The ability to select the place where he could learn near their home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, made him and his family feel valued, a stark contrast, David said, to his experience with assigned public schools...

Critical Race Theory Is Still Plaguing Some K-12 Schools. Here’s How Parents, Lawmakers Can Fight Back

The Daily Signal, Jonathan Butcher and GianCarlo Canaparo

Critical race theory gripped the nation’s attention after the summer of 2020 and the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. According to Google Trends, the search term peaked in June 2021, then interest tapered off going into 2022. But the radical philosophy has not disappeared from public life...

Power to the Principals: Bureaucrats Need to Stop Gatekeeping New Teachers

The Washington Times, Erika Donalds

This year, the Florida Legislature passed a law allowing classical schools to hire teachers without having to jump through the usual hoops to confirm their state education certificates. As the founder of an organization dedicated to expanding access to classical education, I’m grateful. Current teacher certification rules aren’t a logical fit for classical schools...

Kamala Harris Criminalized and Prosecuted Parents

Newsweek, Jay P. Greene and Jason Bedrick 

If you want to know which groups of people public officials like and which groups they dislike, look at who they want to put in jail and who they think deserve leniency. By this standard, Vice President Kamala Harris loves illegal immigrants, drug users, and rioters in urban and campus protests, but hates parents...

Taxpayers Shouldn't Be Paying for Professors to Proselytize

Washington Examiner, Jay P. Greene and Frederick Hess

Academic organizations, like the American Historical Association or the American Chemical Society, have long served the useful purpose of gathering far-flung scholars and sharing advances in knowledge. But, in recent years, too many of these organizations have taken on a new and inappropriate role: issuing official statements on all matters of political interest... 

Campus Chaos Can't Convince Colleges to Ditch DEI, What Will?

Goldwater Institute, Jonathan Butcher If 

Many college students are heading back to campus this week, asking if this year will be different than last. According to Campus Safety Magazine, there were more than 100 colleges around the world where rioting students encamped on campus lawns or otherwise held violent demonstrations against Israel “resulting in student arrests, suspensions, and expulsions.” …

Universities Have Vital Partnerships With Military, but More Security Needed

The Daily Signal, Adam Kissel and Steven Bucci

Higher education drives some conservatives and even some leftists crazy, but conservatives should support universities’ historic role in advancing national security interests. Republican leadership’s ongoing investigations into national security risks involving institutions of higher education are both praiseworthy and, from a national security point of view, absolutely necessary. But maintaining universities’ role in national security—while adding safeguards—is also necessary...

Biden Student Loan Debt Cancellation | Adam Kissel on Nexstar TV

Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Ethnic Studies Have Got to Go

State lawmakers and education officials should replace ethnic studies as a subject in public K–12 schools and state universities with history and civics instruction focused on historical facts, lessons on citizenship, the mechanics of government, and rights under law. This new Heritage report by Jonathan Butcher and Mike Gonzalez examines how ethnic studies is not a benign discipline—it is a radical field based on Marxist ideas that teaches students to prioritize their racial, ethnic, sexual, or “gender” identities over a shared national allegiance and national identity. Radicals who were part of the New Left created ethnic studies in the 1960s in an academic and political power grab to overthrow existing societal structures.

Read the full report here.

Classical Schools in America: A Movement of Hope

Responding to parental demand for more options and input regarding their children’s education, lawmakers have created or expanded education choice programs in more than a dozen states over the past few years, restoring education freedom for rising numbers of American parents. But parents are not simply seeking education freedom: They are, in increasing numbers, seeking an education for freedom for their children—a classical liberal arts education that aims to form adults capable of understanding, exercising, and protecting their American rights and responsibilities. This new Heritage report by Rachel Cambre constitutes an inquiry into that model of education by surveying the growing number of classical liberal arts schools committed to it. 

Read the full report here.

Rejecting Critical Race Theory in State K-12 Laws

More than 12 states have rejected the teaching of critical race theory in K–12 schools. The theory’s philosophical convictions favor racial preferences and the dismantling of America’s representative system and rule of law. Policymakers and school officials may not force educators and students to defend critical race theory’s racist perspective as a condition of course completion or, for teachers, as part of their employment responsibilities. A recent federal court ruling, however, demonstrates that policymakers must design such policies carefully and be specific about their prohibitions. Critical race theory’s applications violate civil rights laws, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which is the pillar of civil rights legislation in the federal code. This new Heritage legal memo by Jonathan Butcher and GianCarlo Canaparo reviews state laws for K-12 schools, critical race theory, and legal challenges. 

Read the full report here.

What the Education Choice Movement Can Do Next: Personal-Use Tax Credits for K–12 Education

The United States faces substantial cultural, political, and military challenges, yet remains hampered by a severely underperforming and costly system of K–12 education. Far from an unhappy accident, American school districts behave broadly as their major interest groups desire, and the demand for non-district K–12 options continues to greatly exceed the supply. State lawmakers have taken unprecedented steps to create and expand private education choice programs, but families require further action. Creating a demand-driven K–12 education system requires multiple robust choice programs. Several states passed modest personal-use tax credits for non-public education expenses. Oklahoma lawmakers passed the most robust version of this policy to date in 2023. State lawmakers should pass an optimized personal-use tax-credit program in every state to enhance family control over K–12 education across the country. This new Heritage report by Matthew Ladner makes the case for personal-use tax credits, saying that “America’s K–12 system needs fundamental reform. 

Read the full report here.

Scholarly Associations Gone Wild: Stop Publicly Funding Scholarly Groups That Trade Academics for Advocacy

Higher education is thick with academic associations. These associations can play a vital role in fostering a robust exchange of ideas and cultivating a community of scholars. Unfortunately, today, too many have drifted from this mission and now operate more like political entities than scholarly ones. A new American Enterprise Institute report by Jay P. Greene, and Frederick M. Hess shows how charter school choice is falling short of that goal. The authors encourage states to adopt universal private school choice to avoid a binary option for families of charter schools that may not be aligned with their values or district public schools that are frequently unaligned, unsafe, and academically ineffective.

Read the full report here.