Schools Compete News Today

In April 2021, the board overseeing Colorado’s Jeffco Public Schools was about to hire Tracy Dorland as its new superintendent. But first, an urgent matter demanded their attention — closing Allendale Elementary School. The district’s new chief thought spring was too late for such a drastic move: Parents had already made plans for the fall […]

Days before Christmas, the school board in Jackson, Mississippi, voted to close 11 schools and merge two more — a drastic move that parents in the district had long feared. Some on the list have lost 30% or more of their students since 2018. Despite the district’s high poverty, Superintendent Errick Greene said he could […]

Nina Rees wasn’t the first person to lead the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. But her tenure witnessed the sector’s largest growth as well as some of the harshest attacks from critics who see charters as a threat to traditional public schools. Her announcement last month to leave the position she’s held since 2012 […]

Middle- and high-school students, who have the least time to catch up before they leave the K-12 system, may be suffering the most as schools emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, warns a new report released Wednesday. These students, researchers said, “deserve our urgent attention.” The report, which relies largely on recent findings from outside research […]

The landscape of American education has undergone an unmistakable change since the emergence of COVID-19, with building closures and virtual instruction giving way to a sizable, national disenrollment from schools. As many parents began searching for private and homeschool alternatives to the traditional K–12 experience, conservatives seized the opportunity to enact or expand sweeping school […]

In nearly half the states in the country, parents risk criminal prosecution — and jail time — if they use a false address to get their children into a better school, a new report shows. Georgia is one of them, something Valencia Stovall, a former state legislator, tried to change in 2020. She sponsored a […]

For the past three years, districts have received more federal money than ever — $190 billion — to hire staff, dole out hefty bonuses and address the learning loss and mental health problems fueled by the pandemic. The expiration of these funds in about 14 months could be the biggest jolt to school finances that […]

Members of Congress will soon have the opportunity to grantlow-income District of Columbia families the chance to choose wheretheir children attend school. If every Member who uses privateschools votes to give disadvantaged D.C. families the same access,the legislation will pass. In the past three years, every piece ofparental choice legislation would have passed if those whoexercised choice in their own families had voted with supporters ofschool choice.