A bill requiring Tennessee public schools to gather data on student immigration status and report it to the state education department advanced out of a House legislative committee Tuesday.

The bill () was introduced last year as part of a Republican effort to challenge Supreme Court precedent requiring public schools to enroll all children regardless of immigration status. As originally introduced,  the bill would have allowed Tennessee public school districts to refuse to enroll immigrant students who could not provide proof of legal status – or charge their families tuition.

But the controversial measure stalled, in part due to concerns it could jeopardize more than $1.1 billion in federal education funding.

House Majority Leader William Lamberth, a Portland Republican who sponsored the measure, told a legislative committee Tuesday the bill in its amended form is now “literally a data bill” to give state leaders reliable information on the number of students without legal immigration status enrolled in taxpayer funded schools. Provisions allowing schools to deny enrollment or charge tuition have been stripped from the bill.

But opponents of the measure, among them educators, immigrant advocates and Democratic lawmakers, have questioned how the data will ultimately be used, how educators untrained in immigration law can reliably review complex immigration documentation and how the specter of being asked to produce immigration paperwork in schools would impact children and families.

Lamberth last week deflected questions about the ultimate use of student immigration data, which the legislation specifies would be reported to the state in aggregate, non-identifying formats.

“We can take whatever action down the road that this body would choose to take,” after the data was gathered, he said then.

A statement Tuesday from Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director of TIRRC Votes, raised continued alarms about the ultimate goal of student immigration status data gathering. TIRRC is the political arm of the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition.

“Across history, we’ve seen the dangers of governments making and keeping lists of the people that they think don’t belong,” the statement said.

“But rather than learn from our past, these power-hungry politicians, desperate for Trump’s approval, are doubling down on their efforts to identify and track immigrant students in the hopes of one day being able to exclude them from our schools.”

The bill is cosponsored by Sen. Bo Watson, a Hixson Republican. The full senate passed the bill in its original form in April but has yet to take it up in its amended form this year. The House and Senate versions of the bill would have to be reconciled before the legislation could ultimately advance to the governor’s desk.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com.

A new Department of Public Instruction (DPI) says that 100% of traditional public school districts currently have a 1-to-1 digital device-to-student ratio, though many districts are struggling to replace old or damaged devices due to a lack of funding.

Dr. Ashley McBride, a digital learning initiative consultant at DPI, the Statewide Trends in Student Digital Learning Access report at the State Board of Education meeting on Wednesday.

The compiles data on students’ access to digital devices in and out of school, as well as their out-of-school internet access, from 115 school districts and 239 charter, lab, and regional schools. Among those 239 nontraditional schools, 84% had a 1-to-1 digital device-to-student ratio.

The report says that in total, these public school units had 1,190,045 digital devices available for students in 2024-25. Chrome devices make up 90.3% of this fleet; 8.7% were Windows devices, and Apple devices made up 1%.

Students can take less than half of these devices home, as 56% of them must stay on school campuses.

“Together, these findings demonstrate that North Carolina continues to rely heavily on school-issued, portable devices to support both in-school instruction and extended learning opportunities beyond the school day,” the report says.

The also included findings from a survey on out-of-school devices with responses from families representing 55,082 students.

In this sample, 42% of families said their student uses a school-provided device at home, while a third said their student uses a device owned by the family. Around one in five families reported that their student has access to both family-owned and school-provided devices at home. However, 4% of families reported their student does not have access to a digital device at home.

Families who did not have devices at home said they were too expensive, they chose not to purchase one, or the devices they owned were broken, damaged, or outdated, according to the report.

A survey with 36,365 respondent families found that 93% had consistent and adequate internet access for their students at home. Families with limited or no access to the internet at home said that was due to high costs or the internet connection not being dependable.

Still, those families described several alternatives they use to ensure their students can access the internet, including using the internet at public libraries, hot spots, other people’s homes, school parking lots, among other options.

“My rural county, still one third of it, does not have internet capability. And after Helene, many parts of our community do not have Wi-Fi coverage, nor do they have cell coverage. That’s typical in the western part of the state,” said Board member John Blackburn, who represents the state’s Northwest region. “I just want to remind everybody that there are still points of darkness in the state of North Carolina.”

Beckie Spears, , said that her rural elementary school had one Chromebook cart per grade level prior to 2020. Now, there’s one in every classroom, she said, but the devices are aging and the district doesn’t “have any ways to replace them.”

“The reality is we have stretched every resource as far as we can, and in Tier 1 counties and Tier 2 counties where local funds are not accessible, this is a real and urgent problem that needs attention from our legislators,” Spears said.

The report says that these findings highlight the importance of school-provided digital devices for students. But since pandemic-era funding from the federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) and the Emergency Connectivity Funds (ECF) has ended, many schools are struggling to sustain student device programs.

McBride’s presentation said 88 out of the state’s traditional school districts — nearly 77% — as well as 97 charter, lab, and regional schools, don’t have dedicated funds to refresh students’ school-provided digital devices.

“Large portions of the current device fleet have aged beyond expected lifespans, resulting in higher failure rates, declining performance, and reduced reliability for both classroom and at home use,” the report says.

The report says some schools have limited or stopped take-home access for their device fleets because they don’t have inventory to replace them.

According to McBride, prior to ESSER funding, only 16 school districts had a 1-to-1 digital device-to-student ratio.

DPI recommends that the state allocate recurring funding to support student device programs to reduce reliance on short-term federal funding, according to the report. This legislative session, for a 1-to-1 device refresh over a four-year period.

The report also recommends providing statewide guidance on devices’ life cycle management, including cost considerations and multiyear budgeting strategies. The department also recommends using data systems to track devices’ age, availability, and take-home capacity, and “exploring how to improve parental participation in reporting on home connectivity and device access.”

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The , led by the University of California-Riverside, followed more than 54,000 South Carolina students from the time they entered ninth grade at low-performing schools — primarily between the years 2000 and 2005 — until 2017, when most were in their early 30s.

The arrest rate for graduates of unsatisfactory schools was 19.7%, versus 22.4% for below-average schools. 

The study also found improvements in student academic performance and school climate, but no changes involving teacher turnover, per-pupil spending or the replacement of principals.

“It appears that accountability pressures prompted schools to implement policies that led to changes in school climate, which, in turn, manifest as improvements in short-term success and long-term reductions in criminal involvement,” the study said.

In , schools can be labeled unsatisfactory, below average, average, good or excellent. Low-performing schools are often required to create an improvement plan and set by the state. If schools don’t make progress, the state may replace their leaders or even take over. 

Researchers have of school accountability systems — another recent study found that only 29% of school leaders across the nation said the ratings help improve student outcomes. 

But other that turnaround programs are associated with better attendance, test scores and graduation rates.

The California researchers measured school climate by the percentage of students who felt satisfied with their learning, social and physical environments at school. The student satisfaction with the learning environment at unsatisfactory schools was nearly 65%, compared with 60.6% in below-average schools. Satisfaction with the social and physical environment was about 71% for unsatisfactory schools but 66.4% for those that were below average.

More than 64% of 10th graders passed standardized tests in unsatisfactory schools compared to 61.6% in below average schools. 

“Improving low-performing schools is a perennial problem,” the study said. “Policymakers have implemented various strategies to turn around struggling schools. Our findings are intriguing in that they suggest the existence of policies and practices that low-performing schools have implemented when they faced increased accountability pressures.”

Ethan Brignac, a transgender student at Wylie East High School, has been “Ethan” since seventh grade — to his friends, family and teachers. When he reached high school, his dad further validated his chosen name by requesting “Ethan” be used in school records, including in his email, class rosters and ID, which his teachers honored until this fall.

Three weeks after Brignac started his senior year, Wylie East administrators called him to the library and gave him a new ID. On it, in white capital letters, was a name he hadn’t been called in five years.

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“In the first week of school, when I was kind of trying to convince my teachers to call me Ethan, I was like, ‘Hey, look, it’s still on my ID,’” said Brignac, who did not want The Texas Tribune to publish his birth name because it causes him discomfort. “Then one of my teachers this year said, ‘Okay, they’re gonna fix that soon.’”

Now, he said, some teachers seem to wedge his legal name into every interaction, outing him to peers and resurrecting the dread he felt before school records reflected his chosen name.

“It was definitely a big change having my deadname kind of sprawled everywhere,” Brignac said, referring to a derogatory practice of calling a trans person by their birth name. “It was like, wow, okay, that wasn’t just a social media post I saw, this is real life.”

A Wylie spokesperson said the move was “to ensure full compliance with state law, including Senate Bill 12.”

A sweeping piece of legislation that went into effect Sept. 1, bars public school employees from socially transitioning a student, which it defines as helping to change a student’s sex assigned at birth by using a different name, pronoun or other practice that denies the birth sex. Dubbed the “Parents’ Bill of Rights,” the law allows guardians to report school-supported social transitioning to the school board, among other powers.

The law also prohibits K-12 faculty from referencing LGBTQ+ identities in class instruction and casual conversations, and it bans school-sanctioned clubs that center sexual orientation or gender identity.

Several transgender students at Texas schools that enforce birth names told the Tribune the new policies have transformed school from a place of support to one that rejects who they are. Considered a derogatory practice in the LGBTQ+ community, dead-naming undermines the wishes of trans people and in some cases, forcibly reveals their trans identity, which can cause or worsen mental health problems among these children, studies have found.

Some parents of trans Texas students say they are frustrated because the law appears to ignore their rights for those of other guardians. A few of these parents joined advocacy and teacher groups to file a lawsuit against SB 12 in August, seeking to pause districts from enforcing the law while the case proceeds.

Parents who support SB 12 say the law boosts their role in their children’s education. Many of them want to erase LGBTQ+ topics from K-12 schools, saying they prompt children to question their identities or that schools force progressive views onto their kids.

“We live in an insane world where a school board has to remind teachers that they cannot tell children, you know, suggest to kids they might be homosexual or they might be actually a girl if they’re a biological male,” said Jeffrey Keech, whose children go to Wylie schools. “It’s unbelievable to me that this even is an issue.”

The Tribune contacted two dozen districts across the state, including districts in the Austin, Houston and San Antonio areas, and spoke with a dozen teachers, parents and transgender students about how schools are implementing SB 12, finding that administrators are taking varied approaches. This is because the law leaves the Texas Education Agency and school districts to decide how to implement it, said Rachel Moran, a law professor at Texas A&M University who directs the education law program.

Some Texas school districts and boards, like Wylie, have adopted policies to ban teachers from aiding in social transitioning, but many have not yet — and are still allowing teachers to honor students’ preferred names and pronouns.

TEA would not respond to questions about how school districts are implementing SB 12, how many districts have complied with the law or deadlines for doing so.

Moran said schools might adopt hard-line policies to shield themselves from retribution.

“This is true with any broad mandate — some are going to be overcomplying,” she said. “It has a real chilling effect. They’re afraid to get anywhere close to a perceived line.”

Teachers told the Tribune the law leaves them anxious and confused because they are unsure when they can use nicknames or how they should respond to parents who request their children’s preferred names and pronouns be used. They lament that they won’t be able to support students who come out as queer. School district officials also worry how the policies will interfere with federal and district rules and daily affairs.

Now, Texas public school students sit in the crosshairs of debates over free speech, race, religion and gender and sexuality in school.

SB 12 is part of a slate of laws that increase oversight of K-12 schools, including new rules that mandate the Ten Commandments in classrooms and clear the way for book bans. In federal and state governments and now school board meetings, disagreements have escalated from “I don’t think that you have the right idea,” to “I don’t think you’re the right kind of person,” Moran said.

Once a place to hear diverse perspectives, she worries schools will leave children unable to tolerate different views.

“The stakes are not just whether I win or lose this particular culture war,” Moran said. “It’s whether I preserve a tradition that has been so formative of our democracy.”

School policies vary

In addition to the ban on social transitioning, SB 12 prohibits hiring, training, programs and activities centered on race, ethnicity, gender identity and sexual orientation — referenced in the law as diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives.

It also requires schools to tell parents their rights, such as allowing them access to school records and course content, and requiring that they give permission for their child to receive health care, hear lessons about sexuality and join clubs.

Among parts of the bill that confuse teachers and administrators is how to respond when parents ask that schools use their child’s preferred name and pronouns or what to call students who have already transitioned.

More than two months after the deadline to comply with SB 12, districts are implementing the bill differently.

Conner Carlow, a former registrar who now works as a classroom support specialist in the Leander school district, said faculty can continue to call students by their preferred name if that was done prior to SB 12 going into effect. However, faculty cannot use new names or new pronouns moving forward, and administrators must approve fresh changes on a case-by-case basis through a form parents submit. These updates are only allowed if they appear unrelated to social transitioning, he said.

The name change form is the only written directive Carlow has gotten regarding SB 12. Leander spokesperson Crestina Hardie would not say how the school district is handling name changes because the board has no policy about it. Hardie said the school district is waiting to enact new rules while it reviews the law and gets clarification from TEA and the district’s legal counsel.

“SB 12 deeply impacts personal and highly complex areas of school life, and the biggest challenge for districts statewide is the lack of clarity and consistency in how these laws intersect with existing Board policy, federal protections and day-to-day school operations,” Hardie said.

The and school districts adopted policies that ban DEI practices and prohibit social transitioning or providing information about it.

and school districts have posted parental rights resolutions, but nothing on social transitioning.

linked SB 12 on its website, but it is unclear how the district will implement the law, including gender-affirming names and pronouns.

Wylie distributed a advising employees to use the names and pronouns in school records and barring them from discussing race, color, ethnicity, gender identity and sexual orientation.

Although officials disagreed with parts of the law, Houston-based DRAW Academy rolled out the new rules. The 98% Hispanic charter district issued parental notices and consent forms, banned DEI and limited instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity, according to superintendent and CEO Patricia Beistegui.

“DRAW Academy stands for Diversity, Roots, and Wings, founded under the core belief that diversity and inclusivity is a strength in our democracy,” Beistegui said in an email. She said SB 12 is designed to make positive changes but actually revokes protections.

SB 12 and the way schools are implementing it forces teachers to blindly try to follow the law, said Charlotte Wilson, a Garland ISD special education teacher.

“It’s not clear to teachers what we can say or even do,” Wilson said, referencing instruction about race and LGBT topics. “Teachers are afraid because we don’t want to lose our certifications.”

Wilson wants a say in her children’s learning, but she thinks the law might lead teachers to skip lessons that touch on prohibited themes, undermining students’ quality of education.

“We already highlight different cultural historical events throughout the year, like MLK Day, Hispanic Heritage Month, women’s history,” Wilson said. “If we approach Pride Month the same way, as part of America’s inclusion, and communicate about what’s being taught, that shouldn’t violate anyone’s rights.”

Carlow said Leander’s bar on LGBTQ+ topics makes it hard to support his students. He remembers grappling with his sexuality as a middle schooler and how hard that was.

“I wasn’t telling my parents what was going on, so I imagine these kids aren’t either,” Carlow said. “The fact they’re willing to tell us before even the parents is a big deal, and now the fact that we have to just not accept them, I mean, it’s awful.”

“Called something I’m not”

The varied approaches to SB 12 means transgender students across Texas are experiencing different levels of alienation.

Pride flags fly and teachers use gender-affirming pronouns at Alief Early College High School, said Marshall Romero, a transgender third-year. The only change he noticed was a permission slip to join the speech and debate club.

An Alief spokesperson said the district also sent parents an opt-in and opt-out form for school health services.

Romero said the school remains largely supportive of LGTBQ+ students.

“I never had to worry about the teacher or any instructor telling me, like, ‘Hey, I can’t call you that, or I’m not going to call you that,’” Romero said. “Being able to be called by a name that reflects who I am, being called by certain pronouns, just really gives me a quality of life that I feel like I can hold on and is worth living.”

Cassie Hilborn, a Woodlands High School junior, yearns to be called her gender-affirming name at school. One of Hilborn’s earliest memories is looking in the mirror and wishing she was a girl. During the pandemic, she watched a YouTube video explaining what it meant to be transgender and finally understood why she felt misaligned with her body.

But the past year’s onslaught of transgender-focused federal and state policies stripped her confidence and dashed her plan to wear feminine clothes and ask her teachers to use her chosen name.

“It feels like every day I look at the news and then the headline just reads, ‘Sorry, more things you’ve lost,’” Hilborn said.

The Conroe school board, which governs Woodlands High School, was among the first in Texas to bar teachers from using gender-affirming names and pronouns.

At the school Dungeons & Dragons club, Hilborn’s peers and faculty adviser call her “Cassie,” but everyone else uses the legal name on her ID, which she hides under blue masking tape. She wants her classmates and teachers to know she’s transgender, but laws like SB 12 have discouraged her from coming out.

“Now, even teachers that might have respected my identity have been told that they unequivocally are not allowed to do so,” Hilborn said.

Once school records reflected Brignac’s preferred name, his grades climbed. He became president of the National Art Honor Society and founded an art mentorship program. He raised his hand so often that one teacher joked about it.

His stepmom Shannon Keene worries that being misgendered at school will thrust him back into isolation, like she saw before he entered high school.

This year’s reversal “made him feel rejected as a human being,” she said.

Having socially transitioned in seventh grade when he cut his hair and asked to go by Ethan, Brignac’s peers have been confused to hear his feminine name now used.

He’s reminded every day that his state and school deny his identity. “It’s rough being called something I’m not,” said Brignac, who now avoids talking in class.

Queer young people disproportionate rates of depression and mental illness. But a of 129 transgender and gender nonconforming students found that having their identities affirmed decreases symptoms of severe depression. Being called preferred names and pronouns is correlated with a drop in suicidal thoughts by 29% and suicidal behavior by 56%, according to the study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in 2018.

Refusing to use preferred names tells transgender and nonbinary students they’re unworthy of respect, said Johnathan Gooch of Equality Texas, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ equality.

“It’s as if someone else picked a nickname for you that you didn’t want, a malicious nickname, that they repeatedly use despite the fact they know what you prefer to be called,” Gooch said.

Parental rights for all?

Some parents who support expelling discussions about queer identities from schools say SB 12 protects children from viewpoints that might spur them to question who they are.

Around three years ago, after Kevin Brooks’ then-middle school daughter returned from school in the Wylie district and said her friend used nonbinary pronouns, he responded: “Sweetheart, don’t buy into that foolishness.”

The army veteran thinks children are too young to learn about LGBTQ+ identities and that it confuses them to hear that gender and sexuality are spectrums, like some schools have taught.

“Why are you teaching these kids that are as young as 5 and 6 years old all this stuff that they don’t need to deal with?” Brooks said. “I told my son the other day, I wish you’d stay innocent till you’re 35 years old, because the stuff that’s going on in the world right now absolutely just, it not only mortifies me, it terrifies me. It just really pisses me off.”

Brooks hasn’t heard of teachers at Wylie discussing LGBTQ+ identities, but he’s terrified to imagine them pledging allegiance to a rainbow flag, which happened in a California classroom in 2021.

In May, Don Zimmerman participated in a protest against a transgender teacher at Cedar Ridge High School in the Round Rock district, where he lives and previously ran for the school board.

Students and at least one faculty member stood across the street with posters saying, “Y’all means all.” To Zimmerman, the faculty member’s presence is proof of schools “coaching children and encouraging them to embrace and publicly protest in favor of this transgender extremism.”

“The school is so hell bent on this agenda of promoting transgenderism and the LGBT lifestyle, …and the parents feel so powerless at stopping the public schools agenda that they go to the Legislature and get these laws passed,” said Zimmerman, who sent his third grader to private school to shield him from LGBTQ+-themed lessons.

Parents of transgender students say new policies complying with the so-called “parents’ bill of rights” are a slap in their face. Keene, Brignac’s stepmom, said policies against using gender-affirming names and pronouns pander to conservative views and hurt gender-queer children, who are of youths ages 13-17 in the U.S.

Brignac’s biological mom told the Tribune she is now seeking to change her son’s legal name so he hears Ethan when he graduates.

“I fail to see the correlation between a parent asking that their child be called by their preferred name and pronouns and providing direct instruction on gender identity,” Keene said. “It’s about control, not about rights. And it’s also just blatant disregard for a person’s sense of self. And to do that to kids is unconscionable.”

This first appeared on .

West Virginia schools continue to lose students, a continuing problem that has contributed to a wave of proposed school closures and consolidations around the state. 

State Schools Superintendent Michele Blatt said schools have lost 2.5% of their students in the past year.

The state’s enrollment is now 234,957 students for this current school year, Blatt shared on Wednesday during a state Board of Education meeting.

“Fifty-three of 55 of our districts did decrease in enrollment this year,” Blatt said, noting only Tyler and Doddridge counties had an increase in student population.

A new West Virginia enrollment showed a 6.5% decline from when the state had 250,899 students in the 2021-22 school year.

School officials have pointed to the state’s ongoing population decline as a major reason for the enrollment drop.

“There’s declining enrollment in our state as a whole and that’s affecting our school systems,” Blatt said.

West Virginia experienced decline in the nation from 2020 to 2024, a time period that included the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Multiple school districts school closures or consolidations this year. Last week, the Roane County Board of Education two elementary and middle schools at the end of the 2025-26 school year. The county plans to consolidate students into other nearby schools. The state Board of Education will have to approve the plan. 

Roane County School Board President Jeff Mace said funding was part of the problem, MetroNews . He said the state’s school funding formula needs to be modernized and should focus more on the needs of students rather than student enrollment.

“I believe if we don’t invest in our education, we’re just going to continue to drive all of our young people and our young talent out of the state and we’re going to prevent people from coming in,” Mace said. 

State school board President Paul Hardesty has already to fix the school funding formula during the next legislative session to prevent more school closures in the rural state. 

According to the state Department of Education, 16 public schools closed in 2024.

Micah Whitlow, director of the West Virginia Department of Education’s Office of School Facilities, said that counties are making these decisions “based on real problems.”

“These things aren’t done on a whim or they just woke up one day thinking about this. Some of them are staff shortages, finances, deteriorating facilities. Some of these it’s all those things together,” he said.

Expired pandemic relief funding and students opting out of public schools to use the state’s broad school voucher program – – have also put a financial strain on public schools. Around 19,000 students are using the voucher program this school year, typically at private religious schools. 

The enrollment report showed that public schools served 477 students using the Hope Scholarship; students using the Hope program can pay to take public school classes. Public schools also served 1,336 Hope Scholarship students that were not funded, according to the report. 

More than 4,000 children are attending virtual schools, which are considered public schools in West Virginia. Most of those students are enrolled in virtual charter schools. The state’s number of charter students has increased since the 2023-24 school year when 2,270 were enrolled.

Overall, most West Virginia students continue to be served in public schools as leaders grapple with financial issues, which can lead to .

“We can say that 98.2% of our students are still served in our public schools,” Blatt said. 

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. West Virginia Watch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Leann Ray for questions: info@westvirginiawatch.com.

Public school districts have two options. They can sit back and hope the pendulum of support swings back to public education, or they can use increased competition as a driving force for innovation to best serve their students’ specific needs.

In Worthington, Ohio, where I became school superintendent 11 years ago, the district has embraced school choice as an opportunity. Serving students in a diverse, inner suburb of Columbus, hit its in 2025, without boundary or population shifts. Families are choosing neighborhood public schools despite an abundance of alternatives, and the community continues to invest in modernizing district facilities. 

The lessons learned demonstrate that public schools not only continue to matter to families, but they can set benchmarks for excellence in today’s competitive education landscape.

parents lean toward school choice is that they are searching for more rigorous and challenging learning experiences for their children. To remain competitive, districts need to think beyond the traditional classroom and create academic and extracurricular opportunities that fit students’ learning styles, interests and goals.

For instance, the allows Worthington’s second-semester high school seniors to complete their education in real-world settings, from working alongside business leaders to backpacking across Europe.

offers a mastery-based learning environment that emphasizes taking intellectual risks and reframing mistakes as learning opportunities. A key component of the program is Phoenix’s Connections class, a writing course that deepens students’ critical thinking skills across all core subjects. Teachers encourage inquiry by asking open-ended questions and posing thought experiments, helping students develop basic techniques of analysis, organize arguments and evaluate evidence, and learn how to engage one another respectfully in sustained discussions of current ethical and social issues.

Expanding to appeal to every student’s interests is a tall order on a small budget. However, keeping kids busy with positive learning experiences and connected to school and friends prevents them from filling their time with less favorable activities. Through a combination of community funding and participation fees, Worthington has expanded its extracurriculars offerings to include 33 varsity sports, a variety of music programs and 70 clubs. 

Because real learning happens through relationships, the district has also focused on ensuring that all students know they have an identified, trusted adult within the school system who cares for and believes in them. This one-on-one connection is a clear expectation for every member of the school community, whether they are a teacher, coach, nurse, custodian or other staff member. This individualized attention and support shifts the narrative that public schools can’t provide the personalized experience parents want for their children.

As centerpieces of their neighborhoods, Worthington schools host a variety of community activities, including art shows, Fourth of July fireworks displays and civic events, while sports stadiums and running tracks are open for use by the public. By building these connections, Worthington has in turn fostered essential public-private partnerships. Some of the area’s largest employers, including Worthington Industries, Honda of America, Abbott Laboratories and Columbus State Community College, work with the district to provide on-site job training. Students gain critical career skills, while businesses develop a strong workforce built on local talent, ensuring the region remains an economic powerhouse.

Because Worthington’s relationships with local residents don’t end when their children graduate, there is greater community support for essential capital projects. Over the past few years, Worthington has passed multiple levies and launched a three-phase, 15-year master facilities plan to renovate decades-old buildings into modern learning environments that align with diverse student needs. To secure buy-in from the community, the district has maintained complete transparency and engaged families throughout the planning process.

Between 2017 and 2021, Worthington redesigned four middle schools, and in 2022, voters passed a bond issue to rebuild a 1950s-era high school. Through the support of the community, today’s students enjoy bigger and better classrooms, children with special needs or English learners have access to more flexible learning spaces, and the community itself has new multipurpose rooms for public gatherings and events.  

In today’s competitive education market, when families see firsthand how deeply a community cares about the long-term success of a school district and the funds it is willing to invest in their children’s education, they are more likely to make public school not just their first choice, but their only choice.

The national debate around struggling student enrollment assumes public schools are in decline. Worthington’s experience shows there is another path. Public schools can grow, adapt and remain central to the community when they stay rooted in values, relationships and responsiveness. It’s up to forward-focused school and community leaders to rethink K-12 education and help public schools reclaim their status as the best option for families.

Alabama’s public school enrollment could see its largest decline in 40 years, Alabama State Schools Superintendent Eric Mackey told members of the Alabama State Board of Education on Thursday.

Enrollment in the state’s K-12 schools in the 2024-25 school year , a slight increase over 2023-24. The department did not release numbers Thursday for the 2025-26 school year, but Mackey said Thursday only about 12 schools have seen growth in enrollment while other districts have seen numbers decline.

About 5,000 students have been unenrolled from public schools in the state with roughly 3,000 students total taking funds to go to a private school.

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The CHOOSE Act is a voucher-like program that offers families up to $7,000 per qualifying child for education related expenses including private school tuition. The program currently operates under income caps scheduled to be lifted next year.

“We know a portion of [the students] took CHOOSE Act dollars and we’re working with the governor’s office and the Department of Revenue to figure out exactly what that number looks like,” he told board members.

The department is expected to release final numbers next Friday.

The loss of students is a nationwide problem. In May, the that there would be a decline in public school enrollment, due to growth in private and charter school enrollment and the general aging of the population. Nationwide, public school enrollment is expected to fall by 7.6% by 2031. Alabama’s

Mackey said Thursday he was mostly concerned with the 2,100 students who were enrolled last year that never showed up for school.

“They didn’t transfer to private school, they didn’t go to home school, they didn’t go to school in another state. They just disappeared,” he told the School Board of Education.

Mackey said local superintendents have reported to him that a majority of the unaccounted students are Hispanic.

“We don’t know if they’re still living in this state, just not going to school. If they have moved to another state, they did not enroll in school in that state,” he told the board. “If they left the country, we don’t know if they are documenting students or undocumented, because, as you know, that’s something we are not allowed to ask, and we don’t ask under federal law.”

According to the , about 12% of students enrolled in Alabama public schools are Hispanic.

Mackey said getting these students back in school is important for their progress.

“If those students all come back to us in January and they missed a semester of instruction, we’re going to teach them, but we’re going to pick them up where they are,” he said. “I would implore, publicly, [for] parents to get them back in school. The sooner they get back in school quicker, we can catch them up and move them forward.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

In the past month or so, federal courts have dealt a string of blows to conservatives’ push for the biblical Ten Commandments to be posted in public schools.

Yet as states lose over required religious displays, many are working on another route to faith-based education by allowing kids to attend off-campus religious instruction. This year, , , and passed laws guaranteeing parents the right to have their children excused during the school day for free, off-campus religious instruction, often called “released time.”

Those four states are the latest of at least 12 that require school districts to offer released time religious schooling upon parental request, including: Florida, Hawaii, Kentucky, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Wisconsin.

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The released time approach may be more likely to pass constitutional muster than other government-imposed religious efforts, experts say, by shifting influence off school grounds and under the direction of faith-based groups rather than public school teachers, and by making it free to students.

A 1952 U.S. Supreme Court decision in allows for released time religious instruction as long as it’s off school property, privately funded and parent permitted.

“Not every family has access to private or parochial school, but for many generations families have been able to take their students out of school for a portion of the day for religious education if they choose,” said Jennifer Jury, a program advocate for LifeWise Academy, an Ohio-based Christian nonprofit founded in 2018.

The organization has been active in expanding its reach and lobbying lawmakers for stronger legislative support. This school year, LifeWise expects to serve nearly 100,000 public school students across 1,100 schools in 34 states, Jury said.

The off-campus gatherings work the same way in most states: With parents’ approval, public school students sign out of school during a lunch, recess or study hall block. Students will either walk or ride one of the distinctive red LifeWise buses to a local church or a program-leased community building in town.

And depending on state limitations for the religious instruction, for either a half or full hour, kids will learn about the Bible. When the allotted time is up, students go back to their public school to finish the day.

In some states, students can earn academic credit for the off-campus instruction, which has been more controversial.

In Montana, for example, that would have required school districts to develop policies for academic credit was amended to “authorize” a district to allow credit, after pushback from the state’s school boards and school administrators associations.

“School districts should have the autonomy to determine which external coursework aligns with the academic frameworks and whether such courses should be eligible for credit,” Rob Watson, who represented the two groups at the legislature, said in his comments to a House committee in February. He noted the groups did not oppose the released time policy itself.

Despite the changes, only one Democrat in the legislature voted “yes.” Montana GOP Gov. Greg Gianforte signed the bill into law in May.

Supporters had touted the academic credit option as a way to entice homeschooling families to consider public schools. In her interview with Stateline, Jury noted similar programs that accommodate Jewish, Muslim and Mormon faith-based teaching for public school students.

“Whether a person is religious or not, the Bible is widely recognized as one of the most influential books in history,” Jury said. “A lot of our Western culture was born out of ideas that come from the Bible, like the fact that every person is created equal, that we are to love our neighbor.”

Identical bill language

The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC, in August adopted model legislation about released time policies that state lawmakers can propose.

��������’s would allow from one to five hours per week of off-campus religious instruction and would require school districts to award academic credit if the course meets certain criteria. Districts would have to assess instruction based on secular standards and would not be allowed to test for particular religious content, according to the model legislation.

Nearly identical language had already appeared in several state bills, including in North Carolina and West Virginia this year and in Mississippi in 2023. In North Carolina, LifeWise Academy registered with the secretary of state’s office in 2024, as by NC Newsline, and a released time bill was introduced in February. It was sent to committee but never moved ahead.

The bills in Mississippi and West Virginia also stalled.

Legislation that does become law earns praise from groups such as Alliance Defending Freedom, one of the nation’s most active legal organizations opposing abortion rights and same-sex marriage.

Statements from Greg Chafuen, senior counsel for the nonprofit’s Center for Public Policy, say the new released time laws respect “parents’ educational decisions” and ensure “parents are in the driver’s seat when it comes to their kids’ education.”

An Indiana law lets high school students leave school for religious instruction each week for an amount of time equal to one elective course. Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee laws allow students to earn elective credit for released time religious instruction, though it cannot replace a “core curriculum” class. School boards can set standards for when such programs qualify for credit.

LifeWise operates in each of those states.

Ten Commandment displays

Jury, of LifeWise Academy, said her organization wants off-campus religious options for public school students to be available in all 50 states.

“It’s important to note this is an option, and parents are the ultimate decision-makers in enrollment,” she said.

“We would love to see every student in the United States have the option to attend a program like LifeWise if they want to and if their parents want them to.”

A lack of parental choice might be what trips up state efforts to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms.

After Louisiana last year became the first state in recent decades to require that the Ten Commandments, a central tenet of the Judeo-Christian tradition, be displayed in school classrooms, in at least 15 other states. Two states — Arkansas and Texas — enacted laws.

But for now, courts have blocked the mandates in all three states. In Texas, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery warned the displays “are likely to pressure [children] into religious observance” and undermine parents’ rights.

In Arkansas, U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks the state’s requirement to post a specific version of the Ten Commandments “plainly unconstitutional.”

The law “is not neutral with respect to religion,” he wrote. “By design, and on its face, the statute mandates the display of expressly religious scripture in every public-school classroom and library.”

He also noted that the law “requires that a specific version of that scripture be used, one that the uncontroverted evidence in this case shows is associated with Protestantism and is exclusionary of other faiths.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

This story was originally published by . for their newsletters.

Funding cuts. Raids near campuses. Exclusion from programs like Head Start and career training. For months, the Trump administration has been chipping away at the rights of students without legal status in public schools.

Could the administration take away those students’ right to free public school entirely? Experts say that may be the next step.

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“People have worried about this for a couple decades, but this is different,” said Patricia Gándara, education professor and co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA. “Right now we have to be extremely vigilant. These people will stop at nothing.”

A 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, , guarantees all students, regardless of immigration status, the right to a free public education in K-12 schools. But last year the conservative Heritage Foundation to overturn the ruling and for states to charge tuition to immigrant families, even if their children are U.S. citizens. The rationale is that schools spend billions of dollars educating those students — money that instead should be spent on students who, along with their parents, are native-born U.S. citizens.

Project 2025, also published by the Heritage Foundation, .

Such a policy would have an outsized impact in California, where nearly half of the state’s children have at least one immigrant parent, according to the .

“This would have tremendous negative impacts,” said Megan Hopkins, chair of the education department at UC San Diego. “For starters, we’d have a less educated, less literate populace, which would affect the economy and nearly every other aspect of life in California.”

Tuition for noncitizens

Plyler v. Doe stemmed from a case in Texas in the early 1980s. The state had passed a law allowing schools to charge tuition to students who weren’t citizens. The Tyler Independent School District in Tyler, Texas, a small city about 100 miles southeast of Dallas, was among the districts that tried, triggering a lawsuit that eventually brought the case to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, arguing that children who aren’t citizens are entitled to equal protection under the law. Still, the ruling was close — 5 to 4 — even though the court was more liberal than it is today.

Since then, the ruling has been mostly forgotten. But there have been occasional attempts to restrict immigrants in schools, in California and elsewhere. In 1994 California , which banned immigrants living illegally in the U.S. from receiving public benefits, including access to public schools. A federal court blocked it before it went into effect.

In 2011, Alabama passed a law requiring schools to collect students’ immigration status. That law was later blocked by a federal court. In 2022, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and that states should not have to pay to educate students without legal status.

Since the Heritage Foundation published its report, about a half-dozen states have attempted to pass laws that would allow schools to charge tuition to noncitizens. None passed last year, but advocates said they plan to keep trying.

Route to Supreme Court

They’re likely to have a sympathetic supporter in President Donald Trump, who’s so far followed many of the policies put forward by Project 2025. In the past few months, his administration has amped up immigration arrests and said it would no longer honor schools as safe havens from enforcement. It also cut (although later reinstated after states sued) funding for migrant students and barred students without legal status from Head Start, adult education and career and technical education.

The issue could land before the Supreme Court in at least two ways. A state could pass a law allowing public schools to charge tuition, leading to a lawsuit which could end up before the Supreme Court. Or Trump could issue an executive order that could also trigger a lawsuit.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Law School, said some of Trump’s actions, such as barring children without legal status from Head Start, is already a violation of Plyler.

“There’s no doubt that the Trump administration has increased pressure on Plyler,” Chemerinsky said. “Certainly, what Trump is doing could lead to cases that would get to the Supreme Court. Could this court overturn Plyler? Of course they could. … all it would take is five justices wanting to overrule it.”

Even if it’s not overturned, the current policy shifts have had a chilling effect on schools and immigrant families, said Hopkins, at UC San Diego. in communities experiencing immigration crackdowns, which has caused academic repercussions for some students and widened the achievement gap between Latino students and other groups. A recent report by Policy Analysis for California Education found that Latino students and English learners fared worse in math and English in the wake of immigration arrests in their communities, and reported a significant increase in bullying at school.

Hopkins also said the policies aren’t especially effective. If the goal is to encourage immigrants to return to their home countries voluntarily, research has shown that doesn’t often happen. After Alabama passed its anti-immigrant law in 2011, many families simply moved to Mississippi.

‘Our biggest fear’

In Monterey County, the new policies have led to widespread fear and confusion among immigrant families, said Monterey County Office of Education Superintendent Deneen Guss. Attendance has dropped not only in schools, but at community events as well.

To support families, schools have been hosting “Know Your Rights” information nights (in-person and virtually), encouraged parents to submit child care plans to schools in case a parent is arrested, given out booklets in Spanish on how to help children experiencing anxiety, and provided .

But when the Trump administration announced it was barring students without legal status from Head Start, “that gave me pause,” Guss said. “That made me think they really were going after Plyler. That’s our biggest fear.”

She worries about the impact that would have on families, as well as school staff who would suddenly be responsible for checking students’ citizenship paperwork. Currently, schools don’t ask for students’ immigration status.

“Educators’ jobs are hard enough,” Guss said. “Our job is to give children the best possible education. Don’t make us become immigration officers. It’s a position we do not want.”

She’s been urging parents, and the public, to stay informed and speak out. Regardless of whether the Supreme Court overturns Plyler, anti-immigrant policies are almost certain to continue, with devastating consequences for students.

“You can’t sit back and pretend everything is going to be OK,” Guss said. “People need to ensure their voices are heard. And we have to fight for our kids.”

This article was and was republished under the license.

Across the country, public school enrollment has failed to rebound to pre-pandemic levels — and data suggests the decline is far from over.

According to projections from the National Center for Education Statistics, public K-12 enrollment peaked at 50.8 million students in autumn 2019, but is to fall by nearly 4 million students to 46.9 million by 2031, a 7.6% nationwide drop.

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The enrollment losses are in elementary and middle grades, with districts in the Northeast, West and Rust Belt most affected. When public school enrollment fell by 3% in 2020, it was the largest single-year decline World War II.

The NCES 2024 December , which accounts for fall 2023 data, found that 18 states saw public school enrollment declines of more than 4%. Ten states — California, Colorado, Hawaii, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and West Virginia declined more than 5%.

A new study from Boston University that high-income districts and middle schools in Massachusetts were especially vulnerable, with middle grade enrollment in fall of 2024 down almost 8% and the most significant losses concentrated among white and Asian students.

Public school enrollment in Massachusetts was down 2% from pre-pandemic trends for the fall 2024 school year, while private school enrollment rose 14% and homeschooling surged 45%.

Long-term demographic shifts — such as falling birth rates, domestic migration and a post-COVID shift toward school choice — are also a factor in public school enrollment declines. Parents increasingly opt for private, charter or homeschooling models — options that rapidly during and after the pandemic.

A February Gallup showed that dissatisfaction with the U.S. public education system is rising, with the percentage of adults who report feeling satisfied about public education falling from 37% to 24% between 2017 and 2025.

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools a net gain of 400,000 students over five years, offsetting some of the 1.8 million student losses from traditional districts.

Public school funding, often tied to enrollment, is also shrinking. According to the Reason Foundation, 98 public schools in 2023-24 across 15 states, with significant losses in California, Colorado, Florida and New York. Districts are facing tough decisions around school consolidations, staffing and infrastructure.

ProPublica reported that shrinking enrollment roughly 150 Chicago schools operating at half-capacity this past school year, with another 47 at one-third capacity.

However, some researchers offer a more nuanced view. A Kennesaw State University researcher that declining enrollment can lead to higher per-student funding. Since districts often retain funding for students who’ve left, those resources can be reallocated to support remaining students, improving staff compensation and access to teachers and other support services.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

Many discovered their children were better suited for learning outside traditional schools and stuck with it. Others said schools were pushing and wanted to teach their own values. These parents help to explain why homeschooling during the pandemic and shows no sign of retreating to pre-COVID rates.

But that doesn’t mean those families have completely left public schools behind, according to the latest data from researchers at Johns Hopkins University.  More than a third of families with at least one homeschooled child also have a student enrolled in a traditional district school. Another 9% of homeschoolers have a child in a charter.

Angela Watson, an assistant professor and director of the university’s Homeschool Research Lab, called a “big deal.” 

The data is “evidence that there’s not this rejection of public schooling that people frame it as,” she said. She doesn’t know whether  many families were “mixing” different forms of education before the pandemic. “To my knowledge, no one has thought to ask this question before. Folks just assumed homeschool families were homeschool families.” 

As more families choose to educate their children at home, Watson’s post-COVID analysis of responses from nearly 3,200 parents reflects the within the population. Less than half of homeschoolers identify as Republicans, whereas, , this group outnumbered Democrats 3 to 1. A quarter say they are politically liberal, and a third say they never attend religious services. That’s a big shift from 2012, when of parents said imparting their religious beliefs to their children was a primary reason for homeschooling.

“That really changes the conversation for Democrats to see how diverse this group is,” Watson said. 

Families often turn to homeschooling after struggling to get adequate services in the public system for children with disabilities. Education savings accounts — public funds that pay for private school tuition or homeschooling costs — have made that decision even easier. 

Angela Faber pulled her youngest child, who has autism, out of the Deer Valley Unified School District, near Phoenix, during the pandemic. Remote learning had allowed Faber to see up close the extent of her daughter’s delays. She was in fourth grade, but reading at a kindergarten level and getting just 30 minutes of extra help each week.  

With state funds, her daughter now learns at home with a private teacher and receives horseback riding therapy, which helps with balance, coordination and focus. 

But she’s sometimes envious of her older sister, who attends what Faber described as a “pretty darn liberal” charter school and manages a hectic extracurricular schedule. As a basketball player, she’s out the door some mornings at 6 a.m. and not back until after dark.

“The youngest is like ‘I want to go to school and play all these sports.’ But she just doesn’t like people and she knows that,” Faber said. “I don’t know any family that really has kids who learn the same way.”

‘Not a fit for all situations’

One complication for families juggling the mix is that the rhythms of homeschooling and public school don’t necessarily mesh. 

When Audria Ausbern, from the west Texas town of Tahoka, homeschooled her two sons, the family used to avoid vacation crowds by scheduling trips after public schools started in the fall. That’s what they did in 2019 when Talon, their oldest, insisted they visit Boston, the site of the of 1919. He learned about the bizarre event from the “I Survived” of books.

For five years, they took off in their RV whenever they wanted, with excursions to the Pacific Northwest, Florida, and Minnesota, where they biked the Grand Marais trail. But once Talon entered public school in 2022, they had to plan their adventures around the school calendar. At 6-foot-6, he wanted to play high school basketball and get used to the dynamics of a typical classroom so he’d be better prepared for college.

The transition came with hiccups. The school didn’t accept all of his credits — like sign language for a foreign language — and he had to take an extra science class, Ausbern said. The counselor wasn’t pleased that Talon didn’t take social studies courses in the same order as district kids, and she required him to double up on English when she decided his at-home curriculum didn’t include enough paperwork.

“Since English is Talon’s weaker subject, and he had room in his schedule, we decided not to fight the issue,” his mother said. 

Now Weston, his younger brother, is weighing whether he too will spend his senior year in a public school.

Homeschooling “is not a fit for all situations,” she said, “and we had some great experiences with public education.”

In the future, families’ preferences may even change “year by year,” said Jeremy Newman, vice president of policy and engagement at the Texas Home School Coalition, an advocacy group. 

“It’s not the case anymore that the average student is going to one form of education for their whole K-12 education,” he said. That doesn’t mean, however, that the “natural suspicion” some homeschoolers have toward the public system is gone, he said. “It was just like 30, 40 years ago when states were trying to prosecute homeschoolers just for homeschooling.” 

Two attorneys the Home School Legal Defense Association in 1983 for that reason, and the organization still fights legal challenges today. For example, a bill proposed in Illinois in this year’s session recently reignited parents’ mistrust toward the government.

The Democratic-backed would have required parents to have a high school diploma to homeschool and to alert their local district if they intended to do so. Sponsors said they want to ensure children are safe and learning, but families and have . 

Kevin Boden, an attorney with the association, thinks the growing racial, economic, cultural and diversity of homeschoolers is one reason why the legislation died this year. While he spends his time protecting parents’ right to educate their children at home, he said he’s not surprised that so many families also have a child in public school. 

‘I needed help’

Aimeé Fletcher, a Nashville-area mom, took remote learning during COVID as a chance to rethink how her children were being educated. After the pandemic, she put her two sons, Noah and Nash, in private school. Now homeschooled, they follow a Bible-themed curriculum with a study group two days a week and spend the rest completing assignments on the couch or at the dining room table. The flexibility allows Noah, a sophomore this fall, time to paint, teach himself guitar and work part-time at a local farm.

“Both boys seem to have settled and are thriving in the homeschool environment,” she said. 

Their sister Sara has very different needs, which for now, Fletcher thinks the public schools are in the best position to meet. Adopted from Colombia, the rising fifth grader has cerebral palsy, was orphaned and didn’t know English when she arrived in 2020. With her learning still delayed, she depends on more than 1,000 minutes a week of one-on-one and small group support in reading and math.

A homeschool advocate who works for a conservative nonprofit, Fletcher tried to teach Sara letters and numbers. But she determined that enrolling her at Amanda North Elementary, in the Williamson County district, was the best option.

“I needed help and I still do, honestly,” Fletcher said. “Her story is different from my boys, and so is her schooling.”

A sea of red descended upon the Indiana Statehouse Monday as hundreds of teachers, parents and students from across the state rallied to demand increased funding for public schools — and to protest pending policy proposals that could shift millions of local dollars to charters.

The rally — one of many hosted in recent years by the Indiana State Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union — came just hours ahead of a possible final vote on a massive property tax plan. The latest provisions baked into the legislation could reduce public schools’ tax dollars .

ISTA President Keith Gambill said that blow comes in addition to education funding gaps in the .

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“The overall funding increase of 2% per year — of $870 million — does not even meet inflation,” Gambill said. “Our students deserve bold investment, not the bare minimum.”

He said teachers will be pressing lawmakers in the coming days and weeks “to ensure that public dollars are staying with public schools.”

ISTA organizers demand action

The legislative session must end by April 29 but could be finished as early as April 24. All bills — including the state budget — must be finalized by that time.

“Our schools deserve to be fully funded — and fully public — so all kids receive a quality education,” Gambill emphasized.

Teacher attendance at the rally forced at least three Hoosier school districts to move to an e-learning day, including Indianapolis Public Schools and nearby Pike Township, as well as Monroe County Community Schools in Bloomington.

The shift to e-learning appeared to prompt a morning by Indianapolis Republican Rep. Andrew Ireland.

Proposed language filed to , an unrelated education bill, sought to jeopardize funding for public school districts that convert scheduled in-person instructional days to virtual because of “planned or coordinated absence of teachers or other personnel for the purpose of participating in a protest, demonstration, or political advocacy event.”

Districts would risk losing state tuition support for each day of a violation, according to Ireland’s amendment.

Gambill read the amendment aloud during the rally, drawing shouting and boos from the crowd.

“We have got to talk to our legislators today, tomorrow and every day between now and the end of the session. We must be vigilant,” he said. “We have to speak from the heart, and remind them that behind every policy is a classroom with a teacher and students.”

Ireland introduced the amendment Monday afternoon to make a statement, but withdrew it without discussion or a vote.

Rallygoers demand action

Chants echoed throughout the Statehouse halls for more than two hours Monday morning.

“Schools need funding!”

“Pay our teachers!”

“Defend public education!”

Rallygoers, many dressed in red t-shirts, had homemade signs in tow, too. Banners, poster boards, paper placards — and even painted messages on the backs of LaCroix boxes — were raised by attendees amid chanting, cheering and frustrated yells.

Everyone’s goal was the same: demand “fair” and “adequate” funding for public schools.

Gambill said recent changes to both bills were improvements from their original versions. But he maintained that increases to base tuition support in the Senate GOP’s state budget draft “are not enough,” and held that amendments added to the property tax measure would divert “critical” dollars from traditional publics to charters and could allow districts to “side step” collective bargaining rights for teachers.

Monica Shellhamer, a vice president with the Indianapolis Education Association, said during her rally remarks that teachers continue to be left out of conversations around school funding.

“Indianapolis public schools has been a target of the legislature for many years and this year is no different,” Shellhamer said. “Bill after bill continued to be submitted to shut down or defund Indianapolis public schools.”

Jenny Noble-Kuchera, president of the Monroe County Education Association, further pointed to pending education cuts at the federal level.

“The way it is currently, public education as we know it will begin to disappear, and our children are the victims,” she said Monday. “We already have severe mismanagement at the federal level of Title I grants for our lower-income students, of critical programs supporting students with disabilities, and elimination of programs for our schools.”

“This is bad enough, and now Indiana politicians can’t put their youngest constituents first, and support basics, like learning to read and write, and foundational math,” she continued. “It’s not OK.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com.

As enrollment in New York City’s public schools, city officials said reversing the trend would be a major priority.

New statistics offer some clues about why many families left: A desire for better instruction and concerns about school safety, according to the Education Department released Friday.

About 41% of families who left the system said more rigorous instruction was one of their top reasons for withdrawing. Another 40% cited a move away from the city. One in four families pointed to concerns about school safety.

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More than 1,600 families who transferred their children to local private or charter schools, home-schooled them, or left the city between September 2022 and December 2023 responded to the survey.

Education Department officials framed the survey results as a way to better understand parents’ choices, some of which are tied to broader policy issues such as the city’s . Public school enrollment, which was already on the decline before COVID hit, is now 11% below pre-pandemic levels, with 815,000 students in grades K-12. And officials predict the numbers will continue to fall over the next decade.

City officials have grown increasingly worried about recruiting and retaining families in the nation’s largest school system. Dwindling rosters are prompting that are often too small to offer a robust set of programs and extracurricular activities.

Among families who departed the city, half listed “concerns about schools” as one of their top five reasons for leaving. Nearly two-thirds said they were looking for a better environment to raise their family, half said they were looking for bigger homes, 42% cited concerns about crime, and 36% said they were looking for more affordable housing.

The city is trying to win families back, and officials pointed to some existing efforts to improve the system: and curriculums and parent volunteers to help address chronic absenteeism. Officials are also in higher-need neighborhoods.

“I am committed to listening to our families and following their lead as we shape our schools to best serve our children,” schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said in a statement. “Understanding why families may choose to leave a NYC public school is an essential part of that work.”

The survey results are also notable for what families did not seem to prioritize when they chose programs outside the city’s public school system.

Only about one-third of families cited school diversity or a culturally relevant curriculum as significant factors. About 41% listed career preparation programs such as apprenticeships, which public schools have . By contrast, 74% of families said they prioritized schools that felt supportive and welcoming.

Still, multiple experts said the results offered little in the way of policy guidance and included significant limitations.

Only about 3% of families who left the city’s public schools responded to the survey, raising concerns that caregivers who did not answer may have been more likely to offer different responses.

Plus, it is difficult to interpret what families mean when they list concerns about broad issues such as academic rigor or school safety, said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College.

“It’s not something that I think is totally worthless,” Pallas said of the survey results. “On the other hand, I don’t think it’s telling us much that’s actionable.” Information the Education Department collected from focus groups that were conducted separately from the survey could be more useful in understanding families’ decision-making at a more granular level, he said.

Jen Jennings, a Princeton University sociology professor who has studied the city’s public schools, noted there is often a disconnect between how people respond to surveys and the reasons motivating their decisions. When families raise concerns about school safety, for instance, some they might be responding to a school’s racial composition, Jennings said.

Still, listening to what families say about their enrollment decisions can be worthwhile on its own.

“If a value of the system is getting feedback and what they’re trying to do is engage families and let them know that they care,” Jennings said, “this could have a really important purpose.”

This was originally published by . Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

Republican politicians who accuse public school teachers of indoctrinating students with a “woke agenda” are pushing to bring religious chaplains into the same schools to provide counseling to students.

“I think Jesus is a lot better than a psychologist,” Rep. David Marshall, R-Snowflake, said during a March 11 meeting of the Arizona House of Representatives’ Education Committee.

Marshall said that he’s been a chaplain who provides counseling for 26 years.

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, sponsored by Flagstaff Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers, was modeled after similar legislation passed in recent years in Texas and Florida.

The proposal would give school districts the option of allowing volunteer religious chaplains to provide counseling and programs to public school students. Districts that decide to allow chaplains would be required to provide to parents a list of the volunteer chaplains at each school and their religious affiliation, and parents would be required to give permission for their child to receive support from a chaplain.

Despite ample concerns that the proposal violates the and that it would open up schools to legal liability for any bad mental health advice a chaplain might provide, the bill has already passed through the Senate on a party-line vote. The House Education Committee also approved it along party lines.

Rogers told the Education Committee that the existence of any requirement for the separation of church and state in U.S. law “was a myth,” adding that she sees no harm in bringing religion into public schools.

Rogers, a far-right extremist, has , and in 2022 , calling the attendees “patriots” and advocating for the murder of her political enemies.

She has also said she is “honored” to be and regularly trafficks in antisemitic tropes. And Rogers has , appeared on and aligned herself with .

Democrats on the committee raised the alarm that Rogers’ bill would violate the Establishment Clause by allowing chaplains with religious affiliations to counsel students, while not providing the same kinds of services to students who don’t follow a religion or who follow a less-common religion with no chaplains available to the school.

An amendment to the bill, proposed by committee Chairman Matt Gress, a Phoenix Republican, requires that the chaplains be authorized to conduct religious activities by a religious group that believes in a supernatural being. The amendment would also allow a volunteer chaplain to be denied from the list if the school’s principal believes their counsel would be contrary to the school’s teachings.

Both of these changes would allow districts to exclude chaplains from The Satanic Temple of Arizona, a group that and has chapters across the country that challenge the intertwining of Christianity and government.

Oliver Spires, a minister with The Satanic Temple of Arizona, voiced his opposition to Rogers’ bill during a Feb. 5 Senate Education Committee meeting.

The legislation, Spires said, would disproportionately impact students from minority religions who see Christian chaplains providing support to their peers while no chaplains representing their religion are available.

“If a district listed a Satanist on their chaplain list, would they have your support?” he asked the committee members.

Gress’s amendment would preclude that.

Gaelle Esposito, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, told committee members on Tuesday that school counselors are required to undergo specialized training to prepare them to help students — requirements that religious chaplains wouldn’t have to meet, even though they’d be providing similar services.

“They will simply not be equipped to support students dealing with serious matters like anxiety, depression, eating disorders, self harm or suicidal ideation,” Esposito said. “Religious training is not a substitute for academic and professional training in counseling, health care or mental health… Even with the best intentions, chaplains may provide inappropriate responses or interventions that could harm students.”

But as Democrats on the House Education Committee argued that Arizona should provide more funding for trained counselors and social workers to help students with mental health issues, the Republicans on the panel said that students are actually struggling with mental health issues because they don’t have enough religion in their lives.

“I’ve heard that there is a mental health crisis afflicting kids,” Gress, a former school board member, said. “Now, I don’t necessarily think in many of these cases that something is medically wrong with these kids. I think, perhaps, there is a spiritual deficit that needs to be addressed.”

Rep. Justin Olson, R-Mesa, said he’s been frustrated by the federal courts’ interpretation of the First Amendment to require the separation of church and state, claiming it has made the government hostile to religion instead of protecting it.

“I heard comments here today that this is going to harm kids — harm kids by being exposed to religion? That is absolutely the opposite of what is happening here today in our society,” Olson said. “We have become a secular society, and that is damaging our society. We need to have opportunities for people to look to a higher power, and what better way than what is described here in this bill?”

Democratic Rep. Nancy Gutierrez, of Tucson, called SB1269 “outrageous” and “incredibly inappropriate.”

And Rep. Stephanie Simacek, of Phoenix, pointed out that the courts have repeatedly ruled against allowing religious leaders to be invited to share their faith with public school students. She described Rogers’ bill as indoctrination that gives preferential treatment to students who have religious beliefs over those who don’t

“No one is saying that you may not go and celebrate your God, however you see fit,” Simacek, a former teacher and school board member, said. “But this is not the place, in public education, where our students go to learn math, reading and writing and history.”

Florida’s school chaplain law, which went into effect last July and is similar to Rogers’ proposal, has from First Amendment advocacy groups, as well as some church groups who said that allowing untrained chaplains to provide mental health support to students would have unintended negative consequences.

The option to bring chaplains into schools in Florida has not been particularly popular, with several large school districts deciding not to implement a program allowing them.

Proposed legislation similar to SB 1269 has been introduced in red states across the country this year, including in , , , and .

The bill will next be considered by the full House of Representatives. If it passes the chamber, it will return to the Senate for a final vote before heading to Gov. Katie Hobbs.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com.

Gov. Mark Gordon lauded a controversial universal school voucher bill Tuesday morning before signing it into law hours later.

 will represent a significant expansion of school choice in the state, offering families $7,000 per child annually  for K-12 non-public-school costs like tuition or tutoring. The scholarship will also offer money for pre-K costs, but only to income-qualified families who are at or below 250% of the federal poverty level.

The legislation has sparked a deluge of constituent feedback, according to lawmakers, both from supporters of school choice and from critics who call the measure an unconstitutional bill that will erode the quality of public education in the state. 

Gordon had himself  last year, citing constitutional concerns. However, he lauded this version as a “remarkable achievement for Wyoming.” 

“I’m very excited that we’re not only going to be able to expand K-12 choices to be accompanied by careful oversight and … ensure that all families have access to the best educational options,” Gordon said, “but as we pursue these opportunities, I want to make sure that we uphold the strength of Wyoming’s public schools.” 

Bill journey

The law will transform and expand an existing state education savings account program that gives public money to income-qualified families to help them pay for pre-K programs, homeschooling costs or private school tuition. The education savings account program was passed last year and began accepting applicants in January. 

House Bill 199 sponsor Rep. Ocean Andrew, R-Laramie, called the 2024 ESA program much too narrow. His new bill proposed to offer up to $7,000 per student regardless of a family’s economic needs. Along with making the program universal, in its original form, the bill dropped: the preschool component, a requirement that participating students take statewide assessments or similar nationwide tests and a requirement that providers be certified by the Department of Education. 

The bill has been transformed substantially as it travelled through the Legislature; some 26 amendments were brought, including 11 that passed. Along with changing the name from the Wyoming Freedom Scholarship Act, the final version reinstated the assessment requirements, the provider certification and the inclusion of pre-K, though families have to show income need to qualify for that portion. 

It spurred much debate as it traveled through the body, triggering discussion on the state of public education in Wyoming, the constitutionality of the program and the importance of early childhood education. Many lawmakers asked what the rush is, given that Wyoming’s existing ESA program is only two months old.

Those who say the new law is unconstitutional cite Article 7, Section 8 of the Wyoming Constitution, which reads: “Nor shall any portion of any public school fund ever be used to support or assist any private school, or any school, academy, seminary, college or other institution of learning controlled by any church or sectarian organization or religious denomination whatsoever.”

When Gordon partially vetoed the education savings account bill last year, he pointed specifically to constitutional concerns when he narrowed eligibility to families at or below 150% of the federal poverty level. That referenced the constitutional language that prohibits the state from giving money to individuals “except for the necessary support of the poor.”

On Tuesday, he said he’s taken the last year to consider the issue, “and I realize that that will be sort of handled by our courts” if the question is asked. “In the meantime, I think it’s important to remember that we have all been working to try to expand school choice, and this gives that opportunity for parents.”

This comes less than a week after a judge ruled in favor of the Wyoming Education Association and eight school districts in a court case that’s anticipated to have major implications for the state. Laramie County District Court Judge Peter Froelicher the state’s public schools and ordered the state to fix that.

Praise and worry 

House Bill 199 drew loads of attention — both from local advocacy groups vowing to fight it and from out-of-state groups . President Donald Trump even weighed in when he gave kudos to Senate President Bo Biteman for helping to advance the legislation.

“This would be an incredible Victory for Wyoming students and families,” Trump wrote on Truth Social while the measure was still awaiting Senate votes. “Every Member of the Wyoming Senate should vote for HB 199. I will be watching!”

In Wyoming, the hard-right House Freedom Caucus celebrated the signing of the bill, crediting Rep. Andrew for its success. “Finally, we can say that in Wyoming, we support students, not systems,” a Wyoming Freedom Caucus Facebook post read. 

Many in the detractor camp, meanwhile, decried Gordon’s action. 

“Particularly in light of the extraordinary opposition to the voucher program by the majority of Wyoming’s residents, we are disappointed by Gov. Gordon’s decision to sign HB199 into law,” the Wyoming Education Association said in a statement. The association also questioned the decision’s wisdom following so closely on the heels of the strongly worded ruling. 

“The district court’s ruling from only days ago confirmed that the state is not funding public education to the level as it is required, and the choice to take taxpayer dollars to support a voucher program is a curiously poor decision,” the WEA said. 

The organization warned that similar laws in other states have proven these types of programs to be vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse and ineffective in improving student performance.

“Unconstitutional universal voucher programs serve as a taxpayer-funded welfare handout to wealthy families whose communities have access to such schools and whose students already attend private schools,” the WEA said. 

During his press conference Tuesday, Gordon characterized the ESA bill passed last year as a generic program. 

“I know it’s a big national agenda item,” he said of school choice. “But it’s important to remember that this is Wyoming’s way of doing it. This was created and crafted by people here in Wyoming, not somebody from out of state … and it really meets the needs specifically of Wyoming.”

Reporter Maggie Mullen contributed to this article.

Nearly 15% of school-age children in the Meade School District — 504 students — are enrolled in alternative instruction instead of attending a state-accredited private or public school.

Because state funding is partially based on enrollment, those children would bring roughly $3.5 million in funding to the district if they attended a public school.

That’s money that could cover staff salaries and resources, maintenance and repair of school buildings or extracurriculars, said Heath Larson, executive director of Associated School Boards of South Dakota.

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At Samuel Everett School of Innovation, students attend their brick-and-mortar school building one day a week and learn from home the other four days, using a combination of paper and digital materials and under the guidance of teachers. In many cases, the same teachers remain with their students for several years. What’s truly unique about the , though, is that it’s a part of the public school system.

With one in five school-age children engaged in homeschooling or in an umbrella program, Blount County Schools decided in 2018 to offer an option aimed at bridging the best of both homeschooling and public school, while offering a flexible schedule and college preparatory academics.

The district is not alone. Gwinnett County, Georgia, has experimented with hybrid learning for several years, often focusing these efforts on within much larger conventional public schools. At Collins Hill High School, for example, hybrid courses include synchronous online classes on home days with offerings, including AP classes, directed at juniors and seniors. in Texas, which serves students in grades 3 to 8, was created several years ago as a hybrid school by design – the first public hybrid school in the state.

While the hybrid schooling model is , two developments have emerged in recent years. First, interest in attending, founding, and working at these schools has increased since the Covid pandemic; and second, conventional public-school systems are starting to get into the game.

Hybrid programs can benefit teachers as well as students and families. An EdWeek survey last summer found only of teachers satisfied with their jobs. Compare that to what hybrid school teachers say about their jobs: Well over 90 percent were “somewhat” or “strongly” satisfied with being a teacher at their school, according to a by the . An even higher percentage agreed with the statement: “Most of my colleagues share my beliefs and values about what the central mission of the school should be.”

Why might this be? Perhaps because these schools tend to be small, they are more responsive to teacher and student needs. Perhaps because they are also very focused on their individual themes—as classical schools, as project-based schools, as outdoor schools, for instance—teachers are better able to find a situation that suits them.

At Samuel Everett, teachers are employed by Blount County Schools and receive the normal pay and benefits through the local school system. They all have experience in conventional public schools. Yet the transition to teaching at this hybrid school requires a mindset shift, as the way teaching and learning takes place is largely different with the school’s 400-some students being in the classroom for a few hours per week rather than five full days. 

Hybrid teachers at Samuel Everett have to be more precise with how they spend their limited in-class time and prioritize the aspects of teaching and learning that matter most with their time with students. As a result, class time is very academic, with feedback from assessments directing how to best use time with students. In addition to preparing lessons and supporting families, Samuel Everett teachers are also responsible and accountable for the same standardized test results as all other public school teachers in Tennessee. 

Many of the school’s elementary students work with the same instructors for several years. The same teacher leads both first and second grade, and a duo of educators leads the third to fifth grade classes (one teaches math and science and the other focuses on English and social studies). Secondary school teachers are content specialists, in many cases teaching both middle and high school courses. Each teacher has at least one day with no classes so he or she can spend a day preparing the upcoming week’s lessons, corresponding and supporting families, and evaluating and monitoring student work. 

Parents also play a role in the education process. Teachers prepare and send home plans and materials for the at-home work that will be completed by the student and their parents during the remainder of the week. The materials, plans, and curriculum require very little lesson planning and preparation on the parents’ end. Teachers introduce material, and parents review, support, and supplement it at home. 

While most hybrid schools are either private institutions or charter schools, Samuel Everett and others offer proof that this unconventional public-school option can also attract students and families. With teachers burning out and parents opting out of conventional schools, more public school systems should explore the hybrid model. 

That requires districts to reconsider what a partnership with their parents and communities might look like. It requires policy makers to value offering families a school choice that provides increased flexibility. And it requires parents to become more involved in their children’s education and be willing to try out a school model that looks unconventional. Done right, the public hybrid model has the potential to regain families’ trust in their local public-school districts.

Some of Michigan Democrats’ long-sought reforms could come to fruition by the end of the year.

The party wants to use its lame duck session to by making financial audits and individual expenditures available to the public. Also on the table is a bill that would to the schools they run.

– the state was among the first in the nation to pass laws allowing them. They were pitched as a tool of innovation in public education and a means to give parents more school options. .

Michigan’s charter schools, which are also known as public school academies, faced legal challenges early on from opponents who contended that charters weren’t public schools and shouldn’t receive public funding.

Charters must follow state and federal education law.

Charter schools often hire for-profit education management organizations, or EMOs, to run the entire operations of a school, or handle specific tasks like finance or human resources.

The private EMOs are not subject to the same public information laws as traditional public schools. Unlike traditional public schools, for instance, charter schools often aggregate their expenditures into a single line item for “purchased services,” which can make it difficult to track their spending.

Democrats have been skeptical of for-profit EMOs, saying they pocket tax dollars instead of investing the funds in classrooms. Republicans have opposed efforts to increase transparency in charters’ operations, however, arguing it could hinder the schools’ growth.

The history of charter schools in Michigan is long and complex. Here is a timeline of some major events:

This story was originally published at Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

Two-thirds of Ohioans support a universal free school breakfast and lunch program for all public school children, according to a Republican research firm.

“This is extremely rare in a time where voters are really reluctant to support further spending, either at the state or federal level,” Alexi Donovan, vice president of Tarrance Group Polling, said Monday during the monthly meeting.

This month’s meeting heard testimony on the importance of universal school meals and Tarrance Group Polling surveyed 600 Ohio voters about this topic in May.

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“It is clear from the research and the data over the years, universal school meals help students thrive, physically, mentally, socially and educationally,” said John Stanford, director of Children’s Defense Fund–Ohio.

In Ohio, 1 in 6 children, or about 413,000 kids, live in a household that experiences hunger. Despite that, more than 1 in 3 children who live in a food insecure household do not qualify for school meals, according to a from Children’s Defense Fund-Ohio.

“We believe that in a country as wealthy as we are, we should not have hungry children,” said Lisa Quigley, director of .

Exposing students to various fruits and vegetables through school meals helps them get a taste for “food that’s far more nutritious than what a lot of them are bringing to school,” she said.

“What we’re finding in the schools that are doing universal school meals, the food is getting better,” Quigley said.

National security

Children’s hunger is a national security issue, said Cynthia Rees, Ohio’s director for the Council for a Strong America.

The that found 77% of young people between the ages of 17 and 24 are ineligible for military service without a waiver. The most prevalent disqualification rate was for being overweight at 11%, above drug and alcohol abuse (8%) and medical/physical health (7%).

“It is critical to recognize that overweight and obesity can often be manifestations of malnutrition, food insecurity or the lack of access to affordable healthy foods often result in consuming cheaper and more accessible food, which often lack nutritional value,” Rees said.

The food insecurity rate for Ohio children is 15%, with some counties having rates up to 24%, Rees said.

“Increasing children’s access to fresh and nutritious food now, including through free school meals for all students, could help America recover from the present challenges and bolster national security in the future,” she said. “The military has a long standing interest in the health and nutrition of our nation’s youth.”

Universal school meals would eliminate the stigma of categorizing students who receive free and reduced meals and those that don’t, Rees said.

“Instead, all students can just have a meal together,” she said. “When we make school meals accessible to all, we remove that stigma.”

Ohio legislation

Last year’s budget bill allowed any student who qualified for free or reduced school breakfast or lunch got those meals for free during the 2023-24 school year.

Currently in Ohio, children are eligible for free or reduced school meals if their household income is up to 185% of the federal poverty line, which is $57,720 for a family of four, according to the .

State Reps. Darnell Brewer, D-Cleveland, and Ismail Mohamed, D-Columbus, introduced a bill earlier this year that would require public schools to provide a meal to any student that asks.

would also ban a district from throwing away a meal after it was served “because of a student’s inability to pay for the meal or because money is owed for previously provided meals.” The has only had sponsor testimony so far in the House Primary and Secondary Education Committee.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on and .

LINCOLN — Voters on Tuesday resoundingly rejected Nebraska’s new school voucher or scholarship program, steering public dollars spent to public schools.

Supporters of using state tax dollars to offset the costs of a private K-12 education have argued that families unhappy with their public schools need more options.

But rural and urban supporters of public schools, the Nebraska State Education Association and private foundations supporting public schools won the day.

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Tim Royers, president of the Nebraska State Education Association, said he was proud to see right- and left-leaning counties agree that vouchers were the wrong choice.

“It confirms what we knew, the majority of Nebraskans don’t want public dollars going to private schools,” Royers said. “What really stood out to me is the consistency.”

Royers hopes state senators move on

Royers said he is hopeful that state senators will follow the will of the voters and move onto other more pressing issues in education that teachers and parents can work on together.

Support Our Schools argued that diverting even small amounts of public money toward private K-12 schools with a scholarship program or vouchers risked long-term support for public education.

They pointed to the experiences in other states with voucher programs, including neighboring Iowa, which has seen the national rankings of its public schools slide since that program began.

They argued that school choice programs typically end up largely benefiting the people already making the choice to send their children to private schools.

And they said such programs risked creating greater concentrations of poverty in some schools by draining them of students who often act as stabilizing force.

Lawmakers plan to keep working for choice

State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Omaha and other lawmakers backing “opportunity scholarships” have already said they plan to keep working for school choice regardless of the outcome of Tuesday’s election.

Linehan, in a statement, said the teachers union and Support Our Schools spent two years and $7 million distorting the truth “in their endless pursuit to keep opportunity away from kids.”

“I am confident Nebraskans and the leaders in this state will continue fighting to keep kids first,” Linehan said.

The first version of Nebraska’s school choice law, passed in 2023, provided a tax credit for those donating to a scholarship fund for private K-12 education. After passage, those opposing the law launched a petition drive to put the issue before voters.

2023 law replaced in 2024

Linehan sidestepped that referendum by replacing the law in the 2024 legislative session.

She and other lawmakers transformed the program into a $10 million annual state appropriation for private school vouchers, to be run through the office of State Treasurer Tom Briese, a Linehan ally.

The Support Our Schools campaign, with support from public school proponents, including Omaha Public Schools supporter Susie Buffett, collected the necessary signatures a second time to challenge the law on the ballot.

Royers, new president of the NSEA, and Jenni Benson of Support Our Schools, the previous NSEA leader, have said Linehan should not have tried to avoid letting voters weigh in on an unpopular program.

Families of some children attending private schools through the precursor program, Opportunity Scholarships, or through the latest version have said they can’t afford private school tuition without such financial help.

State Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha, a Democrat who supports school choice, has said parents cannot afford to wait for public school systems to improve. They need help for their kids now, he said.

Jeremy Ekeler, executive director of Opportunity Scholarships of Nebraska, said his group and supporters of the program have focused on helping families who couldn’t wait for school districts and systems to change.

“While tonight we did not see the results that we hoped for, those thousands of Nebraska families who finally have access to the right educational fit for their children thanks to LB 1402 will make their voices heard for years to come,” he said.

It remains to be seen whether other lawmakers will offer a similar proposal in 2025. Linehan and Wayne are both term-limited and won’t return to the Legislature next year.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nebraska Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Cate Folsom for questions: info@nebraskaexaminer.com. Follow Nebraska Examiner on and .

Five-year trend data beginning in the 2020-21 school year shows traditional district public schools lost roughly 1.75 million students, while enrollment in charters grew by nearly 400,000 students. 

The figures, included in a from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, come as America’s K-12 system struggles to forge a comeback in the wake of the pandemic, beset by slow academic recovery, rising rates of absenteeism and perhaps the stickiest wicket of all, enrollment declines.

Complicating the landscape further is a major push by Republicans for the expansion of private school choice programs. In dozens of states across the country, the GOP has made significant inroads toward its goal, fueling concern among public school advocates.

“The data from this report should serve as a wake-up call to all who care about public education,” says Debbie Veney, lead author of the report and senior vice president of communications at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. “We have to offer families an option they believe in, or they will leave public schools altogether.”

To be sure, the vast majority of families – 80% according to the National Center for Education Statistics – still enroll their children in the traditional district public schools for which their neighborhoods are zoned. But district public schools lost about 275,000 students last school year. And while that amounts to less than 1% of total enrollment, the sector has experienced a 4% decrease over the last five years. Meanwhile, charters experienced a 12% gain over the same time span.

Among one of the notable statistics in the report: More than 75% of states saw their charter school enrollment increase last year, as roughly the same percentage of states saw their district’s public school enrollment decrease.

“Enrollment growth of more than 80,000 new students in just one year is a clear sign that families are not waiting for the system to catch up to their needs – they are actively seeking schools that meet their children’s needs today,” said Starlee Coleman, President and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. 

Indeed, since the pandemic, charters have been enrolling a larger share of students, including at least 10% of public school students in Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Washington, D.C. The rate of growth has been faster in places where there is more capacity to expand, especially in smaller states and states with new laws enacting charters and expanding or eliminating existing charter caps, such as Alabama, Iowa, Mississippi, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Washington and Wyoming.

Florida and Texas have posted the largest five-year gains and are responsible for 40% of all new charter students in the report. 

Notably, the report compared shifts in school-aged populations with enrollment patterns by state, allowing researchers to identify whether enrollment changes are being driven by population shifts or by a desire for different public school options. The comparison showed that in 36 out of the 43 states included in the report – 84% total – charter schools enrollment growth exceeded school-aged population growth. In contrast, every state’s district school growth underperformed population growth. 

“In a world where district schools and charter schools were doing equally well in terms of enrollment, we would see them picking up similar percentages of the school aged population in places seeing growth and similar declines for states where this population is declining,” says Veney. “We see divergent trends, however.”

When it comes to demographics, both charters and district schools are gaining Hispanic students, but charter school growth is outpacing district schools growth by 18 times. In fact, one of every three charter students in the U.S. is Hispanic. Similarly, Black student enrollment is on the rise, increasing roughly 8% at charters and 5% at district schools over the last five years. 

The big take-away for traditional school districts, however, is how significantly enrollment is down among white students: Last year, district schools lost nearly 300,000 white students, for a total of 1.4 million lost since the pandemic. Charters, however,  have increased enrollment among white students  by 21,000 over the same time period.

“The fact that the net outflow is most precipitous among white students from traditional public schools is significant. That really stuck out to me,” says Derrell Bradford, president of 50CAN, an education advocacy organization that supports giving families better options through both public and private school choice. 

On the East Coast, charter schools have traditionally sprung up in urban school districts to offer low-income students of color a choice other than their often poor-performing zoned neighborhood schools, Bradford points out. But that’s not necessarily the case in other states, like Arizona and Texas, where some charter schools, like the BASIS chain, are marketing rigorous college preparatory curriculums. The diversification of their offerings, he says, is at least one major driver of their enrollment increases.

To be sure, enrollment gains and drops are not universal – where they happen, the reasons why they happen, and how acutely they happen are all unique to the school district in which they occur. And traditional district enrollment isn’t decreasing solely because of charter school expansions. Many other factors are at play, including a rise in homeschooling and expanded access in Republican-led states to education savings accounts, private school voucher programs, tax credit scholarships and other types of private school choice. 

“This is a really interesting time for charters. Charters have been a balance point between two kinds of school choice – private school choice and open enrollment,” says Bradford. “The latter I’d argue is a significantly tougher nut to crack. People are like, ‘I bought my house, I bought my school, it’s mine.’ And that’s kind of a sacred thing.”

A nonprofit group that grew El Paso’s charter school network and invested in teachers in traditional public school systems is receiving a $10 million grant as it marks its 10th anniversary.

The Council on Regional Economic Expansion and Educational Development, or CREEED, will receive a $10 million grant from the Woody and Gayle Hunt Family Foundation, which previously gave $12 million to the organization.

A key part of CREEED’s mission has been to increase the number and percentage of El Paso County students completing a college degree or credential, said Woody Hunt, the El Paso businessman and philanthropist whose family foundation has provided most of CREEED’s funding since 2014. That has meant changing expectations and measurements of success, he said.

“An academic’s going to say, ‘We’re doing a great job given the student population we have and given their economic impairment challenges.’ The business community is going to say, ‘We’ve got to get out of this environment. The way we’re going to get out is we’re going to have to not let that be an excuse, and we’re going to have to outperform the parental income levels,’” Hunt said.

He said a number of El Paso schools have shown over the past decade that students from predominantly low-income backgrounds can out-perform students from wealthier districts across the state. That has required a commitment from the business community and school leaders, Hunt said.

A major early focus of CREEED was expanding the number of charter schools in El Paso. But Hunt said a number of factors – particularly a declining student population in El Paso – may mean charters will play a more limited role in El Paso education than originally planned.

Charter school investments

In 2018, CREEED provided , a charter school network that began in South Texas, to El Paso County. That effort continues to draw criticism from those who say that the expansion of charter schools in the region drew funding from and undermined traditional public school systems.

“What they want to do is have business drive what is taught and what is created in terms of products coming out of the school system,” said Ross Moore, president of the El Paso Federation of Teachers and Support Personnel, a union in the El Paso Independent School District.

Moore also said CREEED has amplified the emphasis on student testing, which “focused more classroom time on testing or test prep than on learning and developing critical thinking skills.”

Hunt said expanding charter schools was necessary for two primary reasons – to make El Paso more attractive to businesses looking to move to El Paso from areas with extensive charter school networks, and to push El Paso traditional public schools to improve from additional competition.

“I think that competition, which we’re all used to in the private sector, is generally beneficial,” he said.

Hunt noted that El Paso’s traditional public school districts are now open enrollment districts and competing with each other for students, much as charter schools compete for those students.

Texas Education Agency data shows that El Paso students attending school outside their home districts are as likely to go to another traditional school district as a charter school.

TEA records show that about 15,000 El Paso County students – about 9% of all students in the county – were enrolled at eight charter school systems last year. Hunt acknowledged that falls short of CREEED’s expectations of charter school enrollment.

“We’re behind that and that’s all attributable to where IDEA is versus their original plan,” he said.

IDEA Public Schools is the largest charter system in El Paso, with about 5,900 students last year. TEA has been investigating IDEA’s statewide operations since 2021 over allegations of improper spending, and earlier this year to help oversee IDEA.

“They were expected to do 20 schools and 10 campuses (in El Paso), and they’re half of that, 10 schools and five campuses. We still have expectations that they will resume, but it hasn’t happened yet,” Hunt said.

Moore offered a different explanation for charter school enrollment struggles.

“Because those that do go to charters, more often than not, have a bad experience despite the publicity, and they share with their friends. And honestly, the school districts have been fighting back. Not as much as I’d like them to, but they have been fighting back,” he said.

Public school investments

Both Hunt and CREEED’s CEO, Eddie Rodriguez, said an important step for the organization and educators was defining successful school achievement.

A decade ago, El Paso school districts touted the number of students who scored at least “approaches standards” on state tests, they said. Now, the districts focus on the number of students meeting or exceeding the statewide standards set on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR tests.

“I think one of the things that’s happened over the 10 years is the recognition from the standpoint of the leadership in our region — I’m talking about the academic leadership, superintendents — that, no, we’re going to measure ourselves against the ‘meets’ or the grade level standard. So I think in that respect, we can think of the last 10 years as a positive movement,” Rodriguez said.

Hunt said the focus on students “approaching” standards was misguided.

“That really had no correlation to post-secondary success, whereas meeting standards or mastering standards … could have a correlation there with post-secondary success,” he said.

Hunt and Rodriguez said El Paso’s traditional public schools had been closing long-standing achievement gaps with the state averages until the COVID pandemic closed in-person schooling for parts of two school years starting in 2020. Student test results showed the gap widening again in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, though the gap narrowed the past couple of years.

CREEED’s investments in public schools have focused on improved teacher training, expanding the number of teachers qualified to teach classes that allow students to earn college credit in high school, improving parent engagement, and getting more students to take and pass Algebra I in eighth grade instead of the traditional ninth grade.

The TEA also now is pushing the teaching of Algebra I to eighth grade.

“I think the reality is that we started in that direction before the state did. And so as a consequence, I think that that speaks well to the recognition (by El Paso schools) that this is something that needs to be done,” Rodriguez said.

The future for CREEED, El Paso education

A common outcome driving CREEED’s investments has been getting more El Paso students to earn a college degree or credential after completing high school. Historically, El Paso has had the highest rates in the state of students who enroll in college after high school, but the lowest rates of students completing college.

“So you’ve got this question: What happened here? Are you turning out graduates that want to go on to post-secondary but haven’t been prepared to go on?,” Hunt said. “Or do you have graduates that want to go on, but because of family circumstances, family support income, are unable to sustain their post-secondary to completion? Or do you have a job market that doesn’t have the right pricing signals that’s telling someone, if I stay in school, I complete, I can translate that into a monetary uptick on my financial circumstances?”

Hunt believes all those factors play a role and have to be addressed. Improving educational attainment levels is crucial if El Paso is to be economically competitive with other areas, including other border communities, he said.

Perhaps the biggest challenge for El Paso County schools in the coming years will be declining enrollment. The number of children born last year to El Paso County residents was 21% below the number a decade earlier, according to state records.

Declining enrollment will reduce state funding. That will increase the need for schools – whether charters or traditional school districts – to compete with each other for a shrinking number of students.

“I think the open enrollment (for traditional school districts) will probably reduce the growth of charters. I think going to open enrollment at our traditional public schools is forcing more competition,” Hunt said. “I see that all being positive and really accomplishing the same thing as a charter system would do.”

Hunt said that with increasing competition among traditional school districts, “charters, instead of being 15 or 20% of the student population, end up at 10% or something like that.”

Rodriguez said in the next decade, CREEED will focus on institutionalizing increased college completion – whether technical certificates, associate degrees, or four-year degrees – as the goal for El Paso’s education system, from the youngest grade levels through college.

That will make El Paso – and El Pasoans – more competitive for the higher skilled and higher paying jobs of the mid-21st century, he said.

“The objective from our standpoint is we want to make sure that in these next 10 years, we really establish this process as so instrumental to what makes our community and our society work that people take that as an accepted component,” Rodriguez said.

Disclosure: The Council on Regional Economic Expansion and Economic Development and the Woody and Gayle Hunt Family Foundation are financial supporters of El Paso Matters. Financial supporters play no role in El Paso Matters’ journalism. The news organization’s policy on editorial independence can be found .

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Once a fast-growing experiment in education reform, LA Unified’s decades-old charter school sector has never seen challenges like those it faces today, with falling enrollment, tough new policies, and a hostile school board that has throttled charters’ access to public school space.

But the school board part of that equation could shift, if LAUSD teacher and charter-supporting rabble rouser Dan Chang can take LA Unified’s seat for school board District 3 in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, from teachers’ union-backed incumbent Scott Schmerelson.

Chang and Schmerelson share many of the same priorities for board policies, but Chang said he sought to address and in LA Unified, while Schmerelson said he’d seek to ensure traditional district-run public schools aren’t constrained by the presence of charters in public school buildings. 

With the teachers’ union struggling to defend its 4-3 majority on the board, Chang and Schmerelson’s race will decide whether the board tips in favor of charters and school reforms, versus more orthodox approaches to improving schools favored by the union.   

Chang, a math teacher at James Madison Middle School in North Hollywood, whose first education job was at a charter school management organization, said in an interview that if he is elected he’d juice the city’s charter sector by moving to repeal the controversial policy established this year that limits where charters may operate.  

“LA Unified needs a new voice,” said Chang, who also previously led the boards of in the San Fernando Valley. “It’s critical to have someone with my experience on the board.”

The contest in District 3 is the most expensive school board race this year in LA, a city known for the, with more than $4 million raised or spent on behalf of the campaigns of Chang and Schmerelson.

Schmerelson, a former teacher and principal who’s held the seat at District 3 since 2014, is on the board, beat Chang in the March primaries, winning nearly 45% of the vote, compared to 29% for Chang.   

It wasn’t enough to prevent the race from going to a runoff at the general election next month, but Schmerelson, who is viewed as the favorite in the race, is sanguine. He has some reason to be confident, having broad support in his district and a track record of winning.

“I accept that I was elected by my constituents in board District 3, and I make sure that my schools get the attention that they need, everything that they need,” said Schmerelson. 

In 2020 Schmerelson in the general election, despite more than $6 million spent on Koziatek’s behalf by groups including those backing charter schools.

“The race is Scott’s to lose,” said David Tokofsky, former LAUSD board member and district gadfly.  

Tokofsky, who has worked on LAUSD board races for decades, estimated Chang’s campaign would have to outspend Schmerelson by four to one in order to capture the seat.

The show Chang’s campaign hasn’t quite reached the magic 4:1 ratio, yet. Chang’s campaign and its backers have raised or spent more than $3.6 million so far in the race, compared to nearly $1.4 million for Schmerelson’s campaign.

But with nearly a month left in the race, that could still change, Tokofsky said.

Los Angeles Unified is the largest district in the country controlled by a school board. LAUSD board members are relatively well-compensated compared to those of many other districts, with yearly salaries of $125,000. 

LAUSD school board members are also given a staff. Board members choose the district’s superintendent, help set district policy and control LA Unified’s $18.8 billion budget. 

LAUSD board elections in 2017 set a record for the most expensive school board races in U.S. history, with around $15 million spent that year on races that moved the board in the direction of pro-charter education reformers.

The outsize campaign spending in Los Angeles is unique, because the city has an organized opposition in the charter community to the teachers’ union, setting up arms races in campaign spending to control the board.

That’s compared to other cities, where unions often dominate board elections and their candidates often coast to victory. In places like New York and Chicago, the mayor appoints the school board, so unions concentrate their money on mayoral races.

With nearly 20% of the district’s enrollment, including LAUSD-affiliated charters, the charter sector in Los Angeles is the nation’s largest, with well-organized operations in advocacy and campaign finance.

The statewide California Charter School Association Advocates has endorsed Chang and helped fund efforts to get him elected, including television and radio advertisements targeted at LAUSD families who will vote in next month’s election.

CCASA Advocates Executive Director Gregory McGinity said his group is confident that Chang will fight to improve educational options and boost academic outcomes for all LAUSD students and not just those in charter schools.

“His commitment to expanding access to high-quality public schools—both traditional and charter public schools—aligns with our mission to empower families,” McGinity said. “We are confident in his ability to represent all voices and champion educational equity for all students.”

, which endorsed Schmerelson and helped fund efforts to keep his seat in this year’s race, didn’t respond to requests for comment on the race this year.

But in a statement on the union web site, UTLA lists the qualifications of Schmerelson, a former Spanish teacher, saying that he has ensured funding for schools in his district and pushed for changes in LA Unified to make schools cleaner and safer, reduce class sizes and boost students’ test scores.

“Schmerelson will make sure students feel safe and can meet their full potential,” states the UTLA’s endorsement.

UTLA has a track record of, and after charter advocates gained control of the board in.

Both Chang and Schmerelson said ensuring a post-pandemic academic recovery for all LAUSD students, increasing campus safety and addressing enrollment declines are among their top priorities for new policies in the coming years.

Where they differ is how to achieve those aims, with Schmerelson favoring magnet programs, high-impact tutoring and investments in traditional public schools as a means for academic improvement, compared to Chang’s emphasis on high-performing charters.

Both men favor the presence of police on LAUSD campuses as a means of improving school safety. The winner of the pivotal race will help shape the direction of the district as it contends with challenges including a shrinking budget and increasing school violence.

 “The weird thing is, if you listen to the candidates, it’s very hard to tell them apart. They all say more-or-less the same things on the issues,” said Pedro Noguera, dean of University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education.

“So you can’t really distinguish the candidates based on what they’re saying or what they’re putting out in campaign materials,” he added. “You really do have to follow the money.”

Black youth show up in emergency rooms with gunshot wounds or other violent injuries in the United States. Some hospitals have that can be effective in keeping these kids safer after they are treated, but in most cases victims are sent back into the world to continue their struggles.