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Dear Colleague,
Welcome back. We are excited to share the latest from The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy.
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Finally Fulfilling the Promise of Public Education
NH Journal, Jason Bedrick
The Live Free or Die State has long been a leader in education freedom and choice. New Hampshire's Education Freedom Accounts policy was among the first in the nation to empower families with the freedom and flexibility to customize their child’s education. But in recent years, 16 other states have made similar policies available to all K-12 students, while fewer than half of Granite State students are eligible.
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Trump Rejects Obama-Era Race-Based School Discipline Policies
The Daily Signal, Jonathan Butcher
The second Donald Trump administration continues to ferret out racial favoritism in education and the federal workforce, and there is plenty to be found. The administration is now turning to K-12 classrooms and already has a good model to use for its latest order to end race-based quotas in school discipline.
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The Left Ignores 'The Science' on Federal Education Programs
The Daily Signal, Jay Greene and Lindsey Burke
Why do the folks who shout about "following the science" repeatedly object when decisions are made to shutter federal education programs that rigorous research—i.e., “the science”— has shown to be ineffective? A prime example of this selective embrace of “the science” can be heard in the howls of protest to proposed cuts in the Trump administration’s budget for the Department of Education. Two of the programs placed on the chopping block are TRIO and GEAR UP, which were previously known as Upward Bound and provide services to disadvantaged high school students to encourage them to earn a college degree. That all sounds very nice, but does it actually work?
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Texas and the Promise of 'Universal' School Choice
The Daily Signal, Jason Bedrick
With a stroke of his pen this Saturday, Gov. Greg Abbott will make every school-aged child in Texas eligible for education choice. It’s a historic victory for education freedom, long sought after by the school choice movement. Following Idaho, Indiana, Tennessee, and Wyoming this year, Texas is now the 16th state to enact a “universal” education choice policy for which every K-12 student is eligible.
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What a Croc: Don't Let 'LA GATOR' Scholarships Go Underfunded
The Daily Signal, Jason Bedrick
Louisiana families are on the cusp of a transformative opportunity for their children—but that opportunity is in jeopardy of being swamped. Last year, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law the Louisiana Giving All True Opportunity to Rise ("LA GATOR”) Scholarship Program, which has the potential to be a legacy-defining achievement. The policy gives Pelican State families the freedom and flexibility to customize their child’s education. Families can use their GATOR scholarships to pay for private school tuition, textbooks, curricular materials, special-needs therapy, and more.
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Schools Closing in Arizona? Blame the Failing Schools, Not School Choice
The Daily Signal, Jason Bedrick and Matthew Ladner
School choice opponents have long predicted that policies like Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program would destroy the public school system. For years, Gov. Katie Hobbs has warned that it would "decimate" the state budget and "bankrupt" the state, yet the program has a history of surplus and savings. The choice deniers’ predictions have always proven false, but as more states follow Arizona’s lead by expanding eligibility for school choice to all K-12 students, the Chicken Littles are back to claiming that the sky is falling.
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Higher Education Commentary
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How the NYT Labeled Christians Fighting Antisemitism a 'Scandal'
Jewish Press, Jason Bedrick
Earlier this week, the New York Times uncovered a supposed "scandal": The Heritage Foundation – America’s foremost conservative think tank – has a plan to combat antisemitism. What’s the offense, according to the Times? That Heritage is actively working to expose and dismantle networks of groups supporting Hamas through a new initiative called Project Esther. That’s it. That’s the “scandal.” The Times frames Project Esther as targeting mere “supporters of Palestinian rights” using supposedly “authoritarian” or “fascist” tactics (in the words of a far-left group they cite) to squelch their freedom of speech. In reality, the project is a network of conservative, Jewish, Christian, pro-Israel, and other civic organizations focused on combating antisemitism and the growing influence of terrorist-linked networks within the United States.
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Trump Cuts to Schools Like Harvard Are Justified
U.S. News, Jay Greene
Taxpayer funding for higher education is a privilege, not an entitlement. That funding is conditioned on universities complying with civil rights law that ensures that no one is denied full access to their education on the basis of race, color, or national origin. The Trump administration has informed Harvard and several other elite universities– including Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Northwestern and Princeton – that it is freezing substantial portions of their federal funding over concerns that they grossly and repeatedly failed to fulfill their civil rights obligations by addressing antisemitic harassment and discrimination against Jewish students.
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A Test Fit for America's Finest Schools
The Daily Signal, Jonathan Butcher and Lindsey Burke
“Merit” is making a comeback in higher education. Next stop: U.S. service academies. College officials around the country—including those at some of the most selective (and notoriously left-leaning) schools—have admitted a student’s high school grades and often-obscure extracurricular activities aren’t enough for making admissions decisions...
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Harvard, Please Enforce Rules for Foreign Students
The Daily Signal, Jay Greene
Once again, Harvard and the Trump administration find themselves in a dispute, this time over whether Harvard can enroll foreign students without providing information demanded by the administration on whether those students are complying with visa rules. On the merits, Harvard shouldn’t be allowed to enroll foreign students unless it can agree to reforms that ensure it will handle that privilege responsibly in the future.
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Heritage Experts in the Media
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