was originally reported by Barbara Rodriguez of . .

Although a majority of Americans are confident that childhood vaccines are highly effective against serious illness, Republicans’ trust in vaccine safety and support of school requirements is dropping, .

Sixty-three percent of Americans are extremely or very confident in the effectiveness of childhood vaccines, according to a survey published Tuesday. But Democrats and those who lean Democrat are much more likely than Republicans and Republican-leaners to hold that view — 80 percent versus 48 percent.

And while the majority of Americans believe in the safety of vaccines — 53 percent believe childhood vaccines have been tested enough for safety and 51 percent agree that the is safe — there is significantly more uncertainty among Republicans. For Democrats, 74 percent show high confidence in the safety testing of vaccines and 71 percent believe the childhood vaccine schedule is safe. For Republicans, those numbers are 35 percent and 32 percent, respectively.

“Both things can be true, that people believe in vaccines’ effectiveness overall and the confidence is a little softer on safety,” said Eileen Yam, director of science and society research at Pew who was part of the primary research team. “But writ large, that’s been pretty stable to see confidence in vaccines. But at the same time, when it comes to things like school requirements, or ‘telling me what to do,’ or requiring me to do something — that’s where you see the bristling on the Republican side.”

Americans have become more skeptical of requiring that children get the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine to attend public school. Sixty-nine percent support it, a decline from 82 percent in 2016. Most of the drop can be attributed to Republicans — with just 52 percent believing in the requirement, compared to 79 percent in 2016. For Democrats, that support was 83 percent in 2016 and actually climbed to 86 percent this year.

This all comes amid that started in Texas and . And while students are required in each state to get the MMR vaccine to attend public school, have indicated a willingness to drop that requirement.

Pew found broad and consistent support for the MMR vaccine: 84 percent believe its benefits outweigh its risks (). When Pew first started asking about this in 2016, support was at 88 percent. Yam said the findings show some agreement on the benefits of the MMR vaccine. While 92 percent of Democrats believe the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks, 78 percent of Republicans do, too.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist who has that helps decide vaccine policy, . He has the backing of President Donald Trump, .

Pew surveyed parents and found a majority with minor children (57 percent) say they are extremely or very confident in childhood vaccines’ effectiveness. Republican parents are far less likely than Democratic parents to have that confidence (45 percent versus 71 percent), belief in safety testing (29 percent versus 63 percent) and the childhood vaccine schedule (27 percent versus 58 percent).

Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say medical scientists should have a major role in decisions about childhood vaccines (85 percent vs. 62 percent). There are more partisan fissures on the role of parents: 71 percent of Republicans say that parents of young children should have a major role in policy decisions about childhood vaccines. For Democrats, it’s 46 percent.

“That speaks to just a divergence in trust in science that we’ve been tracking since before the pandemic,” Yam said. “Just Republicans since the pandemic, their confidence in scientists, the way they look at the CDC has just dropped off much more than on the Democrat side. Democrats have had fairly stable views on scientists and on the CDC, in contrast to Republicans.”

Pew also examined how have influenced Americans’ decisions around getting a COVID-19 shot. The agency recently agreed with Kennedy’s new vaccine panel to stop recommending the shot to everyone and to instead leave the choice up to people. Forty-four percent say they have heard nothing at all about the CDC’s changes to recommendations. Among those who have heard at least a little, 63 percent say it has had no influence on whether they got an updated vaccine.

“The one big takeaway there is that policies really can’t influence behaviors if people haven’t heard about the policies or the recommendations,” Yam said. “And in this case, a lot of people haven’t heard about it, and some when they have, their minds were made up. They’ve already kind of decided, and it really didn’t influence their behavior one way or the other.”

This was originally published on .

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.”

Among the biggest wins of her tenure, she counts increases in charter funding and twice electing Democrat and school reformer Gov. Jared Polis as governor. After serving as chief of staff for the Denver Public Schools, she fully expected to finish her career at DFER.

“We worked hard to build power in the Democratic Party specifically around accountability, choice and the role of public charter schools,” she said. “Everything had always been grounded 100% in public education.”

But last year, she said she “saw the writing on the wall” when the organization’s leader embraced Education Savings Accounts and other forms of private school choice. She is among several who have since left the group over the issue.

In a , DFER CEO Jorge Elorza, former two-term mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, suggested that instead of “rejecting them offhand,” his party should explore how ESAs can advance Democratic values like uplifting needy families and protecting civil rights. Eighteen Republican-led states now have such programs, which parents can use for private school tuition or homeschooling. Most Democrats say vouchers and ESAs lack accountability and threaten funding for public schools.

To Alisha Searcy, who just last year, Elorza’s about-face felt like a betrayal. 

“DFER has done extraordinary work to get courageous Democrats elected to push bold policies that would truly improve public education,” said the former Georgia state legislator. She was hired last year to expand the organization’s reach into her state, Alabama and Tennessee, but resigned in May. “We need a strong Democratic voice, now more than ever. This move to embrace vouchers and ESAs is the exact opposite.” 

The issue has brought bubbling to the surface a debate that was previously restricted to Democratic backrooms. Elorza took the helm of DFER at a time when polls began to show that voters were losing confidence in Democrats as the party they most trusted on education. Parents, the surveys suggested, were more preoccupied with whether their kids were recovering from pandemic learning loss than how schools were teaching issues of race or gender in the classroom. The only intensified in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s election.

Founded in 2007, DFER always advocated for . Leaders worked with the Obama administration and reform-minded Democrats to support like magnet schools, dual enrollment and lifting state . Now, Republicans and their push for parental rights are dominating the education conversation, including a recent to enact a national tax credit for private school choice. Elorza is among those who say the party needs to be open to more options for families if it’s going to regain its edge with voters, especially parents. But he recognizes the risks.

“There are a lot of Democrats who are choice curious,” he told The 74. “They’ll say privately that they’re open to the idea of choice, including private school choice, but that the politics of it are just so darn challenging.”

In a , he pointed to Pennsylvania as the best opportunity for a swing state to pass an ESA program. Democratic came close to supporting such a bill in 2023.

Some observers say Shapiro and Elorza are outliers in the party. During the Obama years, DFER “nudged” the party toward school reform policies like and maintaining strong, said David Houston, an assistant education professor at George Mason University in Virginia. But now it’s “further from the center of Democratic politics.”

The recent departure of other DFER staff offers further evidence that Elorza’s position doesn’t reflect the Democratic mainstream.

Will Andras served as political director in Colorado for Education Reform Now, a think tank affiliated with DFER that Elorza also leads. Andras left last year, shortly after DFER joined the , a group of organizations that advocate for open enrollment and removing school attendance boundaries. 

The member organizations, funded largely by the conservative Koch network, also support vouchers and ESAs. In his resignation letter, Andras referenced the change in direction since Elorza came on board in 2023. 

“The last six months have shown that the organization I have devoted a substantial portion of my professional career to help build no longer aligns with my political or personal values,” he wrote.

Jessica Giles, who led the D.C. chapter, similar words when she walked away in May. It’s one of several chapters to close since Elorza became CEO. The Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts and DFER South chapters have also shut down. 

Elorza said he respects their stance.

“There are a lot of folks who put a great deal of stock into this public-private distinction, and I think it comes from a principled place,” he said. “But I truly believe that it is in the party’s political best interest to be open minded to any approach that moves the needle for kids and families.”

‘Political winds are shifting’ 

Backed by , the private school choice movement has been on a winning streak since 2022, when Arizona passed the first universal ESA.

“The political winds are shifting,” Corey DeAngelis, a self-described “school choice evangelist” and fellow at multiple think tanks, said at a conference in Atlanta in April. “If Democrats are smart, they’ll stop the Republicans from being able to pick up the football and win on this issue.”

He pointed to Louisiana, where six House Democrats — one-fifth of the party’s caucus — for the LA GATOR Scholarship, an ESA that starts this fall. One of them, Rep. Jason Hughes, passionately defended his vote on the House floor. 

“As I watch children in poverty, trapped in failing schools, who can hardly read, I’ll be damned if I will continue to defend the status quo,” he said. 

Rep. Marlene Terry, a Missouri Democrat, delivered an equally heartfelt speech in May after caucus leaders when she supported a $50 million increase to the state’s ESA program. 

“I will vote how I please, when I please and where I please,” she said. “No one can take away my voice. I will not be silent.”

While her own children attended public school, she said families in the St. Louis-area district she represents are frustrated that their schools have for 15 years. 

“That’s a long time for families to wait for improvement,” Terry told The 74. Riverview Gardens, a majority Black, high-poverty district, regained local control from the state in 2023, but leaders are still working to make continued gains in . “That’s why I support giving families a range of high-quality public options, including public charter schools, and — when absolutely necessary — scholarships to attend other schools if no viable public options exist.”

Some Democrats agree with Elorza that the party shouldn’t distance legislators like Terry. In a , Virginia Board of Education Member Andy Rotherham, who served in the Clinton White House and co-founded Bellwether, a think tank, said Democrats need to welcome “a much wider range of perspectives on these questions,” given school choice’s surge in popularity since the pandemic.

“This is America — we like choice,” he wrote. “Being on the wrong side of that culturally and politically is not a great place to be.”

‘Solidly entrenched’ 

Using an ESA can be particularly uncomfortable for a lifelong Democrat — especially In Arizona, where Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs has called the program a “” and wants to on families using it. Kathy Visser, who administers a ESA Facebook group for parents and vendors, knows some who left the forum because they felt that it was “not a safe space for Democrats.” 

“I hate election time because it’s always a mess in the group,” she said. “People think we should be able to talk about ESAs without talking about politics, but when you’ve got one party so solidly entrenched against it, it’s really hard.” 

Some Democrats who use ESAs say they hold their noses when it comes to other aspects of the Republican agenda. 

Christina Foster, whose daughter has used an ESA in the past, said she gets “heart palpitations” when she has to decide on a candidate. She’s board chair for Arizona’s , which runs microschools serving students using ESAs, and wants to protect the program. But in the 2024 election, she voted for Democrats. 

“Some of those Republicans were not supportive of minority rights, immigration rights, women’s rights. Those are very important to me,” she said. “I said ‘OK, unfortunately, I’m going to have to vote against the ESA.”

For those within the traditional K-12 system, the choice to use an ESA can be tricky. As a kindergarten teacher in Arizona’s Peoria district, Melanie Ford is familiar with about how the program undermines funding for traditional schools and is susceptible to waste and fraud. 

But she overlooked those arguments when public school no longer seemed like a safe place for her transgender son Ash. He avoided using the bathroom all day because students said he didn’t belong in the boys’ or the girls’ restroom.

For the 2023-24 school year, Ash used an ESA to attend the , a microschool for middle schoolers in Phoenix that incorporates into the curriculum. Ford told her colleagues that despite her support of public schools, she had to think first about her son. Ash has since returned to a public high school, where he plays on a drumline in the marching band and has straight A’s, his mother said. But using the ESA allowed him to transition in a more supportive setting.

“He didn’t have to deal with the comments from peers that slowly rip a person apart from the inside out,” she said. “He could grow into himself without judgement from others and this was so important for his mental health.”

While some Democrats, as Elorza suggested, may think an ESA is the best option for their children, that interest hasn’t risen to the national level. No Congressional Democrats, for example, have endorsed the federal Educational Choice for Children Act, the tax credit scholarship program tucked into the Republicans’ reconciliation bill.

In some states, vouchers remain unpopular, said Joshua Cowen, an education professor at Michigan State University and a strong opponent of directing public funds to private schools. 

He points to Kentucky, where a private school choice measure last November. Coloradans also defeated a school choice-related , and voters in Nebraska .

While the Democratic party may embrace vouchers in the future, that day is a long way off, said Ravi Gupta, a former Obama staffer who runs a nonprofit media company. On an intellectual level, he’s intrigued by ESAs. Democrats, he said, would never say Medicaid should only be used at a public hospital or Section 8 vouchers only in a housing project, so why doesn’t the same principle apply to education? 

“Twenty years from now, do I think that could be the reality?” he asked. “I think it’s very likely, but it will take some time.”

Disclosure: The Charles Koch Foundation funds Stand Together Trust, which provides funding to The 74. Andy Rotherham sits on The 74’s board of directors. 

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.

Testing constitutional limits, Republicans in at least 15 states have introduced legislation this year that would require the Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms.

GOP lawmakers are attempting to follow Louisiana, which last year became the first state in the country to have such a requirement in the modern era. That law is currently blocked in five public school districts as a lawsuit makes its way through the courts; other districts are expected to comply with the law.

The federal lawsuit argues that the law violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The case is likely heading to the U.S. Supreme Court. In December, 18 Republican state attorneys general supporting Louisiana’s law to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is currently hearing the case.

Republican state lawmakers also have introduced bills that would require prayer, Bible reading or chaplains in public schools.

The Ten Commandments are the basis of Judeo-Christian doctrine. In Jewish and Christian theology, God gave the commandments directly to the Prophet Moses, as described in the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Supportive state legislators say the commandments are a historical example of law and not purely religious in nature. But while there are commandments that prohibit murder and stealing, some declare that there are no other gods above God, and that people must observe the Sabbath.

So far this year, no state has enacted legislation requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in public schools. Measures in Mississippi and Oklahoma died in committee. In Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota, they failed after passing out of one legislative chamber. Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs similar GOP-led legislation last year.

Although Republicans dominate the legislature in each of those states, the bills have been a hard sell for Christian lawmakers who say they also value the Constitution.

“So, if we put the Ten Commandments up, which are Christian commandments, then we’re actually violating the plain language of our Constitution in our First Amendment,” Montana state Sen. Jason Ellsworth, a Republican, earlier this month, as reported in the Daily Montanan.

Eight Republicans joined every Democrat in the Montana Senate to defeat the measure.

‘A new day for religious freedom’

In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court that Kentucky’s law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools was unconstitutional.

However, 45 years later, supporters of these measures believe there’s a new legal pathway considering the makeup of the nation’s high court. The Supreme Court now has a 6-3 conservative majority, with three of its members appointed by President Donald Trump in his first term.

“It is now a new day for religious freedom in America,” Republican state Sen. Bob Phalen, who sponsored the Montana bill, during a committee hearing last month. “The Supreme Court’s approach on religious displays has evolved over time.”

Indeed, in 2022, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority in favor of a Washington state public school football coach who prayed with his team on the 50-yard line. Images of Moses and the Ten Commandments also appear in many U.S. government buildings, including the Supreme Court and the Capitol.

Bills requiring the display of the Ten Commandments are just one example of Republican state lawmakers attempting to insert religious doctrine into the school day.

On Tuesday, the Republican majority in the Kentucky Senate passed that would require schools to have a moment of silence at the beginning of each day, lasting at least one minute. It now heads to the state House. School staff would be prohibited from telling students how to use the time, but critics — including the ACLU and some members of the state's Jewish community — say students to pray.

In Texas, Republican senators this session legislation that would allow school districts to require every campus "to provide students and employees with an opportunity to participate in a period of prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious text" each day. That bill is sitting in committee.

In Idaho, a bill that Bible readings in schools is also in committee.

In Oklahoma, the state’s top education official last year that the Bible would be incorporated into school curricula. The ACLU in October Oklahoma over the proposal. The suit is ongoing.

And in Nebraska, that would allow local public school boards to hire chaplains is sitting in committee.

The U.S. Supreme Court school-sponsored prayer and Bible readings in 1963.

How it looks in Louisiana

Meanwhile, in Louisiana, Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill last month to public schools, colleges and universities for how to comply with the novel law, which took effect in the new year.

The guidance came with four example posters — one including images of Moses and Republican U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who represents a Louisiana district.

Requirements include that the posters of the Ten Commandments must be at least 11 inches by 14 inches and must be donated to schools; there is no legal penalty for not displaying the canonical edict.

Murrill also advised that the posters be included next to other historical documents, such as the Declaration of Independence.

Murrill said the law was “plainly constitutional.” A federal district court judge disagreed last year when he blocked the law, which “unconstitutional on its face” and “overtly religious.” It seems likely the U.S. Supreme Court will decide which side prevails.

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.

Republican legislators are set to push for further expansion of charter schools around Missouri when the General Assembly reconvenes next month.

Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing for more local control in counties where charters already operate, along with rolling back an expansion into Boone County that passed earlier this year.

Identical bills filed , a Washington Republican, and , a Republican from St. Louis, seek to authorize charter schools in the state’s five charter counties and in municipalities with at least 30,000 residents.

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Iterations of the bill have been filed since 2022. O’Donnell prefiled the legislation last legislative session but did not receive a hearing.

With some exceptions, charter schools are only allowed to operate in Kansas City, St. Louis and Boone County.

Bills authorizing specific counties to establish charter schools had more traction. Rep. Brad Christ, a St. Louis Republican, got seeking to authorize charter schools in St. Louis County through committee early in the 2024 legislative session and has refiled the bill this year.

He believes legislation providing alternatives to traditional public schools will gain more traction under the leadership of Gov.-elect Mike Kehoe, who has for charter schools and K-12 tax-credit scholarships.

“There will be much more coordination between the governor’s office and both bodies than in the past,” Christ told The Independent.

Residents in his district have asked for more publicly-funded schooling options for various reasons. The schools in his district have a good reputation, so Christ doesn’t anticipate a large exodus from the public districts.

“I don’t think charter schools will be popping up overnight all over St Louis County if this passes,” he said. “But in areas where there’s a need and where there’s a demand, I think it will provide options for families, whether that be academic, personal, social, religious or whatever it might be.”

He’s open to his bill amending a larger education package. Last year, his bill was tacked onto proposals to expand charters into St. Charles and Boone County.

Ultimately, only the Boone County legislation survived a tumultuous 2024 legislative session, with former Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden of Columbia pushing for his county to be a new home for charter schools.

Rep. David Tyson Smith, a Democrat from Columbia, is hoping to reverse the decision with a that would remove the authorization from state law and, secondly, call for a vote in Boone County to let voters decide if charters are welcome.

“Ultimately, it would be good to just completely have a repealed charter school provision,” he told The Independent. “But also, if we can take it to the voters and let them decide, I think that would be appropriate.”

Smith said Boone County residents “never wanted” charter schools expanded to their county, calling the legislation “Rowden’s baby.” Rowden is leaving office because of term limits and has accepted a job as director of strategic advocacy at the lobbying firm Strategic Capitol Consulting.

“I don’t know that now that he’s gone, you’re gonna have anyone who’s just adamant about keeping charter schools in Boone County,” Smith said.

He said he didn’t know of anyone in the House pushing for charter schools in Boone County. Last year, Republican Rep. Cheri Toalson Reisch from Hallsville filed the legislation. In November, she narrowly and is term limited from continuing her work in the Missouri House.

Other bills seek to change the way charter schools operate in Missouri.

A , a Democrat from Kansas City, would require charter schools to obtain a certificate of need from their local school districts to operate. The State Board of Education would review and approve the certificates of need.

, which he filed last year as well, would require local school districts to sponsor charter schools. Most of the state’s charter schools are currently sponsored by the Missouri Charter Public School Commission, a state board that oversees charters. Clemens’s bill would remove the need for the commission.

“The idea that local school boards don’t have control over charter schools operating within their district is just not okay,” Clemens told The Independent. “I think that it is worth talking about local control when it comes to the education of our children.”

Having local governance of charter schools would allow residents to have more input on the way their tax dollars are spent on education, he said.

His bill did not get a hearing last legislative session, along with bills filed by other lawmakers that would modify charter sponsorship.

Rudi Keller contributed to this report.

This article has been updated to reflect the presence of exceptions to Missouri charter school law.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com.

According to conducted for Fox News by , caregivers of children under the age of 18 favored Joe Biden over Donald Trump by a margin of three percentage points in 2020. By comparison, Trump won the same group by four points over Kamala Harris — a seven-point swing in four years’ time. The electorate overall only moved six points rightward in the same period, meaning that parents have become warmer toward the former president than the rest of the country. ( was even more stark, indicating a nine-point Trump gain among mothers and a 20-point bounce among fathers.)

In a country where more than one-quarter of all voters are parents of school-aged kids, a shift of that scale moves millions of votes. And unlike over the last decade, it’s one that political observers have long seen coming.

Throughout the Biden administration, statistical evidence on the public’s attitudes toward K–12 schools have carried ominous news for Democrats, who traditionally over Republicans on the issue of education. A 2022 conducted by Impact Research, a respected Democratic polling firm, was one of the first to find that parents in closely fought congressional districts trusted Republicans more when it came to running schools. 

Matt Hogan, a partner at Impact, said that the results were particularly striking given how well the Democratic brand has held up in other historic areas of strength. 

“Democrats still have significant advantages on health care and abortion and have largely maintained those advantages,” Hogan said. “Whereas education is fairly unique in being an issue that Democrats traditionally won on, but have lost a good deal of ground recently.”

Those developments will leave Democratic leaders wondering not only what hurt their credibility with parents, but also whether the damage can be reversed anytime soon. 

Many among the party’s noisy coalition of professional operatives, interest groups, and activists acknowledge that the left some families furious with local Democratic officials, who tended to be more cautious about reopening during the pandemic. But for those memories to fade, they argued, they must be replaced with a more defined agenda for K–12 policy, which has been largely impressionistic since the end of the Obama administration.

Jorge Elorza is the CEO of the advocacy group , which commissioned Impact’s survey work. In an interview, he said that while the GOP had responded to the public’s pandemic-era dissatisfaction with public education by launching a forceful drive for school choice, Democrats “haven’t offered anything” to strike a meaningful contrast.

“As a party, we’ve lost the language, the ideas, the policy, and the vision on education, and it needs to be entirely rebuilt,” said Elorza, the former mayor of Providence, Rhode Island. “Most Democrats would be very hard-pressed to answer the simple question of what is our party’s vision on education.”

The legacy of lockdowns

Sarah Sachen, a Chicago mother of four, said she’d been a “lifelong Democrat” before this November. But after the difficulties she faced putting her kids through school during the pandemic, she cast her first ballot for Donald Trump.

Sachen said the seeds of her decision were laid during the 2021–22 school year. Having already struggled with the transition to online learning — her home’s electricity was spotty throughout parts of 2020, making it difficult for her children to use the Chromebooks provided to them by the school district — she was livid when the Chicago Teachers’ Union over safety protocols. Two of her children have Individualized Education Programs, making it nearly impossible for her to consider switching them to a private school, she said.

“It wasn’t fair to me that the Catholic school down my block was allowing kids to come and get their education while my kids, who have to be serviced by the system because they have special needs, were punished,” remembered Sachen, whose involvement with Chicago Public Schools includes service on her .

COVID-era lockdowns presented a special challenge to the Democratic mayors who run most major American cities. Black and Hispanic families, much more so than their white and Asian counterparts, were to return to in-person schooling during 2020 and 2021; yet the educational and social-emotional disruptions posed by months spent in Zoom classrooms by students who were already struggling in school, further widening inequities in educational achievement.  

Sachen was already outraged with the length of the closures, the union for their resistance to reopening campuses. But she grew more animated last year, when the progressive Democrat and former CTU organizer Brandon Johnson won election as the city’s mayor. By this November, she said, she felt perfectly comfortable voting for Trump, whom she said she “hated” during his previous campaigns in 2016 and 2020.  

Not even Trump’s over their support for transgender healthcare access could sway Sachen, who has a transgender son. 

“I wasn’t scared to vote for him this time,” Sachen said. “I think it’ll be better for education and better all-around.” Many of her friends in the neighborhood of Garfield Ridge reached a similar calculation, and Trump lost consistently Democratic Illinois than any Republican nominee since the 1980s.

Michael Mikus, a Democratic political consultant based in western Pennsylvania, agreed that the challenge of educational leadership during a once-in-a-lifetime public health crisis had harmed his party’s brand. Swing voters in his home state, perennially one of America’s most decisive battlegrounds, too often thought of Democrats as being led by “people who want to control your life.”

“Democrats were often portrayed as not caring about what parents think,” Mikus said, recalling the 2021 Virginia governor’s race, in which Republican Glenn Youngkin as a closing argument en route to an upset victory. “Rightly or wrongly, there was a segment of the electorate that may have considered voting for Democrats, but that sense just left a bad taste in their mouths.”

Returning to basic skills

Yet it remains unclear how the party might reclaim the initiative — or, indeed, how deep the reputational damage goes. 

Katie Paris is the founder of , a progressive advocacy group that specifically targets suburban women. Herself the mother of school-aged children, Paris said that while Trump’s election was a major disappointment, she was heartened by to establish school voucher-like programs across multiple states. The for state superintendent in North Carolina, offered more cause for optimism.

Green’s Republican opponent in the pivotal swing state, a longtime homeschool teacher who had referred to public schools as “indoctrination centers,” is now in the Trump administration, though her future in state-level politics is murky.

Going forward, Paris argued, Democrats should speak directly to parents’ concerns about the academic and psychological deficits absorbed by students during the pandemic. Previous polling has revealed that K–12 schools are on the wrong track, and a plurality believe that reading instruction in recent decades.

“I would like for the focus in public education to be on helping our kids recover from learning loss since COVID, which we’re still not talking about,” Paris said, adding that Republicans would prefer to keep the spotlight on hot-button issues like the rights of LGBTQ students. “Unfortunately, the only people we heard talking about [schools] were those who wanted to tear them down and blame the trans community for their downfall.”

Impact’s Hogan agreed that the huge task of academic recovery was under-emphasized in Democrats’ campaign messaging. In focus groups, he said, when it came to providing resources for schools, including free lunch and after-school programs. But on the question of lifting achievement and bolstering student skills, a large number of respondents said that neither party had their support.

“About a fifth of voters overall don’t trust either party to ensure school quality, and both parties are tied on that issue,” he said. “So for me, that’s a huge opportunity for Democrats to make gains.”

Since the end of the Obama administration, amid enervating fights over the Common Core academic standards and the rewriting of the No Child Left Behind Act, the party has mostly avoided staking out ambitious positions on K–12 policy. In the absence of a set federal program, Democrats have gone their own ways, embracing the science of reading in some blue states while eliminating graduation requirements in others. 

Whatever direction they take, Mikus said, Democrats should take care to position themselves as the champions of families’ interests. 

“What we have to say is that the Democratic Party is on the side of parents and children. You can’t eliminate parents and parenting from the equation.”

Republican lawmakers want to require Ohio school districts to make their Pledge of Allegiance policy publicly available.

State Reps. Gail Pavliga, R-Portage County, and Tracy Richardson, R-Marysville, introduced over the summer and testified in support of their bill Tuesday during the Ohio House Primary and Secondary Committee Meeting, calling it a transparency bill.

“Many of you grew up reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in school and may be surprised to discover that not all schools and classrooms in Ohio are currently learning or reciting the Pledge,” Richardson said. “Some parents too are unaware that their children are not being taught this important practice. Parents have a right to know.”

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The bill would not require students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, it would just require school districts to post the policy on their website.

“Very little would need to be done by each school district, the policy already exists, and most schools already have a website,” Pavliga said.

The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1943 that at public schools if it goes against their religious beliefs. This case came after Jehovah’s Witnesses students were expelled from their West Virginia school for not reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. At the time, West Virginia Board of Education required public school students to salute the flag and Jehovah’s Witnesses do not say the Pledge of Allegiance because it conflicts with their Bible teachings around worshipping God.

Learning the Pledge of Allegiance teaches students to respect the flag, Richardson said.

“Reciting it builds unity and nationalism by affirming our commitment to our values,” she said. “At a time when many seem polarized, it is a meaningful tradition that brings all Americans together.”

As a former teacher, State Rep. Sean Patrick Brennan, D-Parma, said it broke his heart when students would not take part in the Pledge of Allegiance.

“I don’t think it was because of a religious exemption,” he said. “I think it was simply apathy.”

He asked Pavliga and Richardson how school districts and parents can motivate students to want to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

“I think that, as we bring more awareness to this issue, that I think that you will see more parents being more vocal with their children and with the school district,” Pavliga said. “And I think it will start and spark some discussions.”

State Reps. Jodi Whitted, D-Madeira, asked the bill’s sponsors if they have received questions from parents who were unable to find their school district’s policy on the Pledge.

“No, it was something that we had talked about, and just felt that the time was right to be able to have it out there,” Pavliga said. “And we’re kind of a bit shocked by the fact that the school system might have a policy in place, but they weren’t required to publish it.”

If the bill were to become law, a school district that already has their Pledge of Allegiance policy posted on their website would already be in compliance, Pavliga said.

The current General Assembly will finish at the end of the month, meaning any bills that don’t pass will die and would have to be re-introduced next General Assembly.

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 .

Incumbents Tom McMillin and Nikki Snyder held onto their seats on the Michigan Board of Education in Tuesday’s election. They are the only Republican members of the board.

It was another good down-ballot result for Michigan Republicans, who rode to flip the state House and almost every seat on the boards of the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and the Wayne State University.

McMillin and Snyder defeated Democratic challengers Theodore Jones and former state Rep. Adam Zemke for seats on Michigan’s Board of Education and will serve eight-year terms on the board that is tasked with overseeing the educational system across the state and recommending changes to lawmakers.

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Snyder has served a single term on the board. She is a former nurse who has previously had unsuccessful runs for U.S. Senate and Congress. She the Michigan Advance along the campaign trail that she is focused on school safety, improving literacy in schools and providing eligible students with appropriate special education resources.

Snyder received the most votes of any education board candidate at nearly 2.5 million votes or 24.48% of the vote, according to unofficial election results.

McMillin also has served one term on the Michigan Board of Education, having been elected alongside fellow incumbent Snyder in 2016. Previously, McMillin served as a state legislator representing Oakland County and has served in local government and as an Oakland County Commissioner, among other roles.

McMillin secured about 24% of the vote, beating out Democratic challengers by more than 60,000 votes apiece.

Jones is a former teacher, school social worker and has worked in administration for Detroit public schools. His campaign centered around increasing investments into Michigan schools to help students recover from learning loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic and to allocate resources to retain good teachers.

Zemke, was previously a state lawmaker representing Ann Arbor who served on education-related committees. He has been a part of education-focused groups like the and was previously the president of . He the Michigan Advance during his campaign that he’d like to better bridge the board with lawmakers and other stakeholders and implement meaningful change while serving on the board.

Four Republicans prevailed in five contested Texas State Board of Education races Tuesday night, solidifying a GOP majority on the board responsible for determining what the state’s 5.5 million public school children learn in the classroom.

Factoring in the election results, the board now comprises 10 Republicans and five Democrats. Democrats regained a seat after it was vacated by Aicha Davis, who stepped down to run for the Texas House.

Republican incumbents Tom Maynard (District 10), Pam Little (District 12) and Aaron Kinsey (District 15) defeated their Democratic challengers, while Republican Brandon Hall, who ousted longtime GOP incumbent Patricia “Pat” Hardy (District 11) in the March primary, was also victorious.

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In the race for the District 1 seat currently held by El Paso Democrat Melissa Ortega, who decided not to seek another term, Democrat Gustavo Reveles defeated Republican challenger Michael “Travis” Stevens.

Democrats Marisa Perez-Diaz (District 3) and Staci Childs (District 4), both of whom ran uncontested, held onto their seats. Tiffany Clark, a Democrat running to fill the District 13 seat vacated by Davis, also won after running unchallenged.

The 15 members on the board play an extraordinary role in determining what students learn in the classroom and what’s required for kids to graduate, as well as in overseeing to support Texas public schools.

The stakes of were especially high this year, since the group’s responsibilities next year could include revising Texas’ social studies curriculum. Some conservatives on the Republican-dominated board campaigned on the idea that public schools are harming children with how they teach America’s history of racism and its diversity.

The board in recent months has fielded complaints about a Texas Education Agency-proposed curriculum that, if approved later this month, would insert into elementary school reading and language arts lessons. The group has on a long-awaited Native Studies course, covering the culture and history of tribes and nations across Texas and the U.S. And in recent years, the board has over their messaging on climate change and its to school vouchers, a program that would set aside public tax dollars for parents to pay their children’s private school tuition.

Of the eight races this year, here are the results of the five contested ones.

District 1

Democrat Gustavo Reveles defeated Republican Michael “Travis” Stevens in , which encompasses El Paso County and part of Bexar County.

Reveles, who currently serves as communications director for the Canutillo school district outside of El Paso, said he ran to ensure that Texas’ border community continues to have a presence at the state level. While acknowledging that he has not worked as a teacher or an educator, Reveles said the board needs people who respect educators as leaders and experts in the field. Top of mind for Reveles is helping ensure that students of all backgrounds feel represented in curricula. He also would like to see a more rigorous approval process of , which are publicly funded but privately managed.

District 10

In , which includes Bell County and part of Williamson County, Republican defeated Democrat Raquel Sáenz Ortiz.

Maynard, of Florence, has served on the board for 11 years. He is currently the chair of the board’s Committee on School Finance and helps oversee the known as the Permanent School Fund. With more than 30 years in education, Maynard spent more than a dozen of them as an agricultural science teacher. He also worked as of the Texas FFA Association. Maynard’s priorities include improving the quality of instructional materials, creating and implementing a library book review process and completing revisions to the social studies and mathematics standards as some of his top priorities. He also has said he opposes so-called “woke ideologies” in public education, , and has vowed to “continue to fight to ensure students are not subject to radical and inappropriate content in Texas classrooms.”

District 11

In , which includes Parker County and part of Tarrant County, Republican Brandon Hall defeated Democrat Rayna Glasser and Green Party candidate Hunter Crow.

Hall is a youth pastor who has described Texas as having “a broken public education system” where kids “face an onslaught against their innocence” — particularly with how America’s history of racism is taught in classrooms and what he has called “obscene library books” and a “sexualized agenda.” Hall his commitment “to making quality, conservative education a reality for all students” and to establish charter schools more easily. He also wants parents to “play a central role in shaping the educational trajectory of their children.”

District 12

In , which includes Collin County, Republican Pam Little defeated Democrat George King.

Little, of Fairview, has served on the board since 2019 and is currently the group’s vice chair. A co-owner of a fence company, she has taught courses in small business management in community college, according to her . Little has voted against presenting a “biased view” of the fossil fuel industry and social studies standards that “water down our history,” according to her . She listed as her accomplishments while on the board, among other things, implementing phonics-based curriculum standards, approving personal financial literacy education and updating the Texas Dyslexia Handbook.

District 15

In , which includes Ector and Lubbock counties, Republican Aaron Kinsey defeated Democrat Morgan Kirkpatrick and Libertarian Jack Westbrook.

Kinsey, of Midland, was elected to the board in 2022 and appointed chair by Gov. last December. Kinsey is a former Air Force pilot who now oversees an aviation oil field services company in Midland, according to . At the Texas Republican Party Convention this year, Kinsey acknowledged he did not know much about the State Board of Education prior to running but that he did “understand the greatness of Texas” and that his family’s values were not being represented in public schools. Among Kinsey’s top priorities, he said at the convention, is for schools to teach Texas children “how to think and not to hate themselves.” He also advocated for curricula that embrace “capitalism and self-reliance as nobel quests.” Kinsey proclaimed at the end of his speech: “You have a chairman who will fight for these three-letter words: G-O–D, G-O-P, and U-S-A.”

This article originally appeared in , a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

The investigation, prompted by complaints from districts and the public, and led by the GOP-led House, cleared Walters of any misconduct and found no missing funds. 

But Walters and his staff frequently put off asking for clarification when issues were ambiguous, often took months to correct mistakes and left districts in the dark about accessing funds. 

The department “could have allayed districts’ concerns with communication in advance of delays or as soon as a problem was identified,” the report said.

Critics say the Republican state chief has neglected his duties, focused on culture war controversies and prioritized his own political career as top officials left the department.

Much of the back-and-forth between lawmakers and agency staff focused on what districts viewed as an in getting preliminary estimates of Title I funds for high-poverty schools. In previous years, districts received those figures in the spring, allowing them time to recruit and hire staff. The drawn-out timetable left districts “understandably upset,” said the report, describing Walters’ staff as “overconfident” in their position that there was no delay. 

 Walters, however, took a defiant tone during a two-hour session before the oversight committee Tuesday.

“This is a waste of time for the people of the state of Oklahoma,” he said. “We have been transparent in everything that we do.”

He attributed the hold-up to fraud prevention efforts and cited the department’s success in stopping one unnamed district from using federal dollars to renovate a “fourplex” owned by the superintendent. Dan Isett, department spokesman, did not respond to a request for more details.

State officials informed districts of the extra fraud precautions by email, Walters said. 

“We can’t make them read emails,” he said. 

Democrats, however, seemed dissatisfied with the superintendent’s explanations.

“I wonder if the concerns cited by our districts will continue to be met with derision, to be quite frank,” said Rep. Melissa Provenzano, who represents Tulsa, home to the state’s largest school district.

The investigation sought to understand the “breakdown of communication,” said Regina Birchum, the oversight agency’s interim director. “All we wanted to do was try to bridge the gap.”

The agency surveyed districts about their concerns, but only about a third responded — proof, to Walters, that most districts have no complaints with the department. But Birchum added that some superintendents declined to complete the survey for fear of retribution.

Provenzano pressed Walters on whether he would follow the recommendations of the report, which include promptly reviewing legislation to identify potential confusion and improving communication to districts. He only said his office was reviewing them.

Thoughts on answers at the LOFT hearing:

It wasn’t my fault.
Everyone else is lying.
Blame the feds.
The legislature was unclear.

Am I missing anything?

— Rick Cobb (@grendelrick)

Request to attorney general

While the report focused on five programs that districts and lawmakers complained about, including funds for and emergency , another Democrat, Rep. Meloyde Blancett, wants the oversight committee to expand its investigation into other issues. Those include for political purposes and which are receiving funds through the state’s tax credit scholarship program.

Republican Rep. Kevin Wallace, a co-chair of the committee, said he’ll leave that request up to new leaders in the legislature. 

Blancett, however, has also asked Attorney General Gentner Drummond to offer a legal definition of “malfeasance” to “clarify the conditions under which legal action may be warranted.” 

Drummond’s office has not yet responded.

The report also examined what happened with $150 million in school security funds lawmakers approved last year in response to the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas. 

While it took six months to do so, the department initially told districts they could roll over unused funds from one year to the next in case they were reserving the money for a large security upgrade. Then the department reversed that guidance, sparking complaints to lawmakers. 

It took an opinion from Drummond, issued in August, to clear up the matter, but Walters’ lack of urgency in seeking clarity and miscommunication within the department were among the issues the oversight agency found “problematic.” 

“Agency departments were not communicating clearly with each other, which resulted in incorrect communications to school districts,” the report said.

Provenzano’s questioning also pointed to one area where there still seems to be a misunderstanding among Walters’ top aides. She asked whether payroll savings would be used to purchase Bibles for classrooms — something Isett, the department spokesman, told reporters. 

“We’ve never stated that,” Walters said.

She also asked whether communication with districts might improve if the department filled vacant positions. But that seems unlikely. 

“Our goal,” he responded, “is to shrink government.”

In fact, following the meeting, he issued another demand in keeping with what he has as his “aggressive, offensive agenda.” In , he insisted Vice President Kamala Harris turn over $475 million as reimbursement for educating immigrant students in Oklahoma, even though prohibits denying an education to non-citizens. 

Harris’ office did not respond to a request for comment.

After expressing opposition to the pro-voucher movement he embodied, she added, “Side note — Corey A. DeAngelis, the face of school choice, was a model that catered to the gay community” and included a black-and-white photo of what appeared to be a shirtless DeAngelis in a suggestive pose. 

At the time, the revelation didn’t cause a stir or interfere with DeAngelis’s hectic schedule as a leading lobbyist for “funding students, not systems.” He his book, “The Parent Revolution,” which earned from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. And and other conservative outlets continued to feature him and that schools focus too much on the “LGBT’s as opposed to the ABC’s.”

But that abruptly ended Friday when , a far-right fringe account on Substack, reported that DeAngelis had a gay adult film career under the pseudonym “Seth Rose” and appeared in a 2015 film set in a college. The Betsy DeVos-backed American Federation for Children, where DeAngelis has been a senior fellow pushing school choice bills since 2021, quickly erased him from its website. 

“We have placed the employee on leave as we investigate this matter further,” a spokeswoman for the pro-school choice group said.

Has anyone heard from Corey DeAngelis in the last few days? He normally tweets at me incessantly- he’s been very silent. Hope he’s ok.

— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten)

Known for aggressive online rhetoric aimed at school districts, unions, and particularly American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, DeAngelis has been uncharacteristically silent on social media since the news broke and didn’t return texts or a phone call from The 74. His on Thursday referenced a video of Vice President Kamala Harris talking about children being “of the community.”

“They think they own your kids,” he wrote.

Online and in person, DeAngelis has been an avid culture warrior and perhaps the most visible face of a brand of school choice that paints traditional districts as failing institutions that are forcing left-wing ideas on students. “School choice defeats the woke mind virus,” he commented in response to from House Speaker Mike Johnson featuring a “lesson plan” parody that included “drag queen story hours” and transgender students’ participation in school sports. 

He frequently browbeat Democratic opponents to and trolled them when they blocked him.

But the news of DeAngelis’s alleged past ultimately came not from his many critics on the left, but rather has its origins in an intra-MAGA dispute involving right-wing Texas groups that trade in conspiracy theories and oppose Gov. Greg Abbott’s plan for school vouchers.

The Texas Freedom Coalition, which is run by Fields, calls itself a network of “patriots” who opposed COVID lockdowns. They view vouchers as another form of government overreach.

Fields gave Current Revolt, a far-right site that has , credit for digging into gay porn sites to find the film and other photos. But she told The 74, “My post is what caused several people to start asking questions about his past.”

A screenshot of what appeared to be a policy expert for DeAngelis with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization raised red flags for her and other conservative parents who view talk of “global” partnerships as a threat to U.S. independence. One of UNESCO’s is “inclusive and equitable quality education.”

“School choice isn’t merely a lucrative scam; it’s a cunning ploy to enable government oversight of all educational avenues through a web of regulations and accountability tied to public funding,” Fields wrote in her July post about DeAngelis. 

DeAngelis any connections to the U.N. group.

Mary Lowe, a conservative activist who split from Moms for Liberty — another — over the issue of school choice, was also skeptical. She said she never understood why conservatives flocked toward DeAngelis after in 2020, “I didn’t vote for Trump — and I’m not a Republican.”

But Gov. Greg Abbott and pro-voucher advocates like the Texas Public Policy Foundation — who have for years to pass a school choice law — embraced DeAngelis’s take-no-prisoners style of advocacy. Following other states with similar laws, they want Texas to give parents roughly $10,000 a year to spend on private school tuition or homeschooling. At Republican lawmakers’ invitation, he testified before the Texas House education committee on the topic of “parent empowerment” in 2022, despite the fact that he was single with no children at the time.

“Our moms’ intuition was like ‘There is something missing to this story,’” said Lowe, who founded a new group, Families Engaged for Effective Education, after leaving Moms for Liberty. ‘There is something not right here.’ ”

DeAngelis a “slick salesman” for the school choice movement.

It wasn’t until last week, however, that news linking DeAngelis to porn films spread like wildfire on social media.

Immediate reaction to the graphic images spread on porn-related websites and among who saw the scoop as “” for one of their bitterest foes. , an Oklahoma City attorney, asked how Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and state Superintendent Ryan Walters “who are so anxious to privatize Oklahoma public education never vetted Corey DeAngelis?” DeAngelis supported their campaigns in 2022, and Walters similarly accuses public schools of spreading “woke gender ideology” in schools and frequently posts examples of what he considers left-wing indoctrination.

The school choice grifters at the American Federation for Children deleted Corey DeAngelis off their site

— Jess Piper (@piper4missouri)

The Hoover Institution, a Stanford University think tank where DeAngelis has been a visiting fellow for the past year, no longer lists him as an expert, but retains his articles on the site. There have been no changes to his profiles on the sites of two libertarian organizations where he’s been a contributor, the and the .

On his Eduwonk blog, Andy Rotherham, co-founder of Bellwether, a think tank, “a little grace” toward someone he described as a “deeply troubled person.” But he argued that , which include about drag shows and Pride festivals, are “going to be hard for his allies to defend.”

Other school choice advocates were already pointing fingers back at traditional public schools.

“What’s better? A person with a sinful past trying to do a virtuous thing?” , a conservative Latino broadcaster and political analyst asked on X. “Or those claiming virtue, like defenders of gov-ed’s debauchery, who knowingly push evil today?” 

But others said the episode serves as a warning to education activists who place too much faith in one polarizing individual to carry their message.

“Oftentimes these character traits go hand in hand. Being a very outstanding speaker and charismatic leader … comes with a degree of narcissism,” Morgan Polikoff, a University of Southern California education professor, who is gay, told The 74. “The feeling that you’re above reproach can lead to questionable judgment.”

Disclosure: Corey DeAngelis wrote several opinion pieces for The 74 between 2018 and 2023. The Hoover Institution, where DeAngelis served as a visiting fellow until this month, provides financial support to The 74. Andy Rotherham sits on The 74’s board of directors.

“There are clear priorities that overwhelming numbers of Americans on both sides of the aisle can support,” said James Lane, CEO of PDK International, a professional organization for educators that administers the annual survey. “If I were a candidate for any office at the federal level, I would want to know those things that have broad support because they’re likely to have an opportunity for success.” 

But beyond those narrow avenues of agreement, the country is separated by large partisan differences on issues from student mental health to paying for college. Eighty-six percent of Democrats want the next administration to focus on mental health and college affordability, compared with less than two-thirds of Republicans.

American voters also vary widely on their views of Washington’s role in education. Former President Donald Trump says he would dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, push for universal private school choice and expect schools to promote patriotism, according to his . On the Democratic side, Vice President Kamala Harris would push for more “stringent guardrails” on charter schools, revive an effort to pass and expand the to provide up to $6,000 for families with a newborn. 

Less than half of Americans — 45% — approve of how the Biden administration has handled education policy, the same they gave former President Donald Trump in 2020. But less than a third say they’d trust Trump on education if he’s elected again in November. Their views on a potential Harris-Walz administration are unclear — the poll was conducted before the disastrous debate that sparked President Joe Biden’s departure from the race. 

Lane, who served as acting assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education at the U.S. Department of Education in the Biden administration before joining PDK last year, declined to comment on the president’s education track record. Attitudes toward the candidates might have shifted slightly if the poll had been conducted after Harris became the nominee, he said, but views on the major issues likely wouldn’t have changed much. 

The large partisan gaps are surprising given that many issues “don’t really have a straightforward partisan connotation,” said David Houston, an education professor at George Mason University. Public pre-K, for example, has long held bipartisan support at the state level, but a federal role in expanding access is a much higher priority for Democrats than Republicans, 71% and 48% respectively. 

The poll also shows that 54% of Americans overall — and 70% of public school parents — say education will play an extremely or very important role in the upcoming presidential election. But Houston is skeptical. 

“I would be surprised if education was the top-of-mind issue that would be deciding those votes,” he said. That could change, he said, if the race is really close. “Anything that moves the vote count a fraction of a percent matters in a head-to-head race.”

Across the sample of over 1,000 participants, there are also striking differences in responses by race. Support for a greater focus on helping students catch up in school, addressing mental health and reducing college costs is roughly 20% higher among Blacks than whites. 

The largest gap is on the issue of protecting students from discrimination, with 87% of Black respondents saying they want more attention paid to civil rights, compared to 51% of whites. Hispanic and Black Americans were nearly tied on wanting the next administration to strengthen access to public pre-K — 66% and 67% respectively — but just half of white respondents viewed it as a priority.

The Trump platform doesn’t mention early learning, but a for his potential second term, released by the conservative Heritage Foundation, would eliminate Head Start, the federally funded program for low-income families. While for 3- and 4-year-olds remains a plank in the Democratic platform, Biden was not able to win Congressional support for the issue when he ran on it in 2020.

Views on charters

Charter school expansion was the only issue where less than half of Americans — 35% — want an expanded federal role. Surprisingly, just half of Republicans called it a priority, perhaps reflecting the party’s increasing shift toward education savings accounts, which allow parents to pay for private school tuition or homeschooling costs with public funds.

“[GOP] interest in charter schools has really petered out, compared to their heyday in the 2010s,” Houston said. “The school choice wing of the party has its energies focused elsewhere.”

Among Democrats, who often accuse such schools of siphoning students from traditional outlets, less than a quarter wanted more federal attention on charter expansion.

Enrollment trends tell a different story, said Sonia Park, executive director of the Diverse Charter Schools Coalition, a network that encourages socioeconomic and racial diversity. Charters overall have seen continued growth — a 2% increase last year, — during a time when the student population in district schools was flat or declining. 

“Parents want quality public school choice, regardless of where they are, and charters are part of that,” she said.

Democrats promise to pick up where the Biden administration left off on charter policy. According to the 2024 , additional federal funding for charter expansions or renewals would hinge on whether local districts determine they “systematically underserve the neediest students” — a change that goes beyond restrictions the Biden administration adopted in 2022. 

‘Harrowing’ results on teaching

With Harris’s selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a former high school teacher, as her running mate, education is likely to get frequent attention during the fall campaign. But Lane, with PDK, wants to hear specific plans to address ongoing in the teaching workforce. Relief funds that allowed districts to hire more staff will soon expire, a reality that already contributed to a wave of . Some districts are still starting the school year with , and another shows just 16% of teachers would recommend the profession to their friends.

For the first time, the survey also asked the public about AI in education, a subject that often generates mixed reactions. Over 60% of Americans support AI for tutoring, test preparation and lesson planning. But only 43% favored students relying on AI for help with homework.

In keeping with its focus on teaching, PDK International routinely includes a question in its poll that asks parents whether they’d support their children going into education. The organization runs , a nationwide program that aims to get middle and high school students interested in the profession.

Just four in 10 parents say they’d like to see one of their children become a teacher — a significant drop from the three-fourths of parents who favored that choice when the question was first asked in 1969. The primary reason: low pay. 

​​”We’re going to have to address salaries,” Lane said. “The fact that 60% of folks wouldn’t even recommend a teaching career to their own children is harrowing, considering the needs that we have.”

OKLAHOMA CITY — Several House Republicans have signed a letter asking for an investigation into “alarming” actions from state Superintendent Ryan Walters and the Oklahoma State Board of Education and asked for an inquiry into whether the “failures” justify impeachment.

Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, wrote the letter and sent it to House Speaker Charles McCall on Tuesday, along with 16 co-signing lawmakers. McBride’s office said four more lawmakers have signed the letter since he submitted it to the speaker.

The letter, which Oklahoma Voice obtained, marks the first time that public calls for an impeachment inquiry have come from within Walters’ own Republican Party. House Democrats have made similar requests since last year.

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Walters said the lawmakers who signed the letter are “liberal Republicans” who have “joined the far-left Democrats to try to thwart the will of Oklahoma voters.”

“Their calls are baseless and have no merit,” Walters said in a statement. “They reek of political desperation from those who are failing in their misguided attempts to stop the positive education reforms that parents and voters have demanded from their elected leaders.”

McCall said he would not consider the letter’s request until 51 or more Republicans sign it, according to a response he sent to his caucus.

He said criminal investigations should be handled by the Attorney General’s Office, not the Legislature, and the financial concerns listed in the letter could be answered in public budgetary meetings with officials from the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

“I take elections very seriously, and anyone who was duly elected by the people of this state should not be removed from that office, given to them by the people unless absolutely required by the Constitution,” McCall said.

He his chamber wouldn’t initiate impeachment proceedings against Walters unless “somebody puts forth an allegation of something criminal (in) nature.”

Many of the co-signers, like McBride, sit on education-related committees, including the Common Education Committee leader Rep. Rhonda Baker, R-Yukon, and the committee’s vice chair, Rep. Mark Vancuren, R-Owasso.

McBride, who has long been an outspoken critic of Walters, listed six concerns that arose since the 2024 Legislative Session ended on May 30.

First on the list is the state Board of Education’s . State law grants permission to legislators who sit on related committees to attend a board’s closed-door executive sessions, which are kept private from the rest of the public.

Multiple lawmakers have said in recent months the private meetings.

McBride also cited a lack of responsiveness from Walters’ administration to lawmakers’ requests for information and to open records requests from the public. The education funding committee leader also referenced a “failure to comply” with the Legislature’s budgetary directives on school security funds and funding for childrens’ asthma inhalers.

The variety of complaints add up to a “pattern of overreach, disregard for legislative oversight and policy making, and lack of concern for student safety and budgetary stability,” McBride wrote.

The letter calls for a special investigative committee on the state Department of Education. The committee’s responsibility would be to investigate “internal and external failures” to follow the law by Walters and the state Board of Education.

It also would look into whether those failures amount to willful neglect of duty or incompetency, which the Oklahoma Constitution says are grounds for impeachment.

“It saddens me that I must make such a request of you,” McBride wrote to the speaker. “However, I believe that all other remedies have been exhausted. I hear daily from constituents from my district and taxpayers from across the state pleading for this body to take action and hold the superintendent and the state Board of Education accountable for their rogue behavior.”

The House speaker would have to agree to create such a committee. McCall will be in office until he is term-limited in November.

The House is responsible for drawing up articles of impeachment and presenting the case to the Senate, which would act as a “court of impeachment,” according to the state Constitution.

House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson, D-Oklahoma City, said her caucus has made five unheeded calls for impeachment proceedings against Walters. She said on Tuesday she is glad members of the Republican supermajority are now on board.

“Republicans hold the power in both legislative chambers and the Governor’s mansion,” Munson said. “It is time for them to use their power to hold the state superintendent accountable to the people of Oklahoma. We have all waited long enough.”

Vocal discontent from Republican lawmakers escalated this week, even among those who didn’t sign McBride’s letter.

The next House speaker who will succeed McCall, Rep. Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, echoed other lawmakers’ objections to the Education Department’s untimely responses and refusals to allow legislators into executive sessions.

Hilbert did not sign the letter requesting an investigation. Instead, he issued a statement Tuesday urging the rhetoric toward educators to “not only be toned down, but reversed.”

“This past week my daughter started kindergarten in a public school where I know she is loved and supported by phenomenal teachers and support staff,” Hilbert said. “School districts across the state are back to school but instead of talking about the excitement of a new year, we are discussing these issues due to the statements being put out by (the state Education Department).”

Two of the lawmakers who signed the letter, Rep. Ty Burns, R-Pawnee, and Rep. Josh West, R-Grove, also voiced frustration over Walters’ “disparaging comments” about the superintendent of Bixby Public Schools.

Burns and West joined Rep. Chris Banning, R-Bixby, in a statement Monday defending Bixby Superintendent Rob Miller, a former marine. The three lawmakers also are military veterans.

Miller had complained the state Education Department has been slow to provide estimates for Oklahoma schools’ annual Title I funding. Walters responded by calling Miller a “liar and a clown.”

Burns, West and Banning said the name-calling is “unbecoming of any leader, especially the highest-ranking person in the Oklahoma public school system.”

“As elected officials, paid with taxpayer dollars and entrusted with the future of our state, we must hold ourselves accountable to Oklahomans and have the integrity to admit when we are wrong,” they wrote. “We had hoped Walters would eventually grow into his role, but after two years of problematic leadership tactics, our patience is wearing thin.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect additional lawmakers who signed McBride’s letter after initial publication and responses from McCall, Walters and Hilbert.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on and .

While a slight majority of Black and Hispanic voters say they still trust Democrats more than Republicans on the issue of education, more than two-thirds say they do not think Democrats are focused enough on improving K-12 schools, according to a .

The shot across the bow comes as Democrats seek to maintain their slim Senate majority and nab four seats to take control of the House in November. more or less a dead heat in the race for the House for months – though calculations in both chambers are somewhat scrambled in the wake of President Joe Biden stepping aside to anoint Vice President Kamala Harris as the presumptive Democratic nominee and the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. 

“Black and Hispanic voters view and experience education differently, particularly parents, and the data shows that they strongly believe that public schools are failing children of their race,” says Cornell Belcher, president of Democratic polling firm Brilliant Corners. “Improving K-12 schools is a top issue concern they want their elected officials focused on and they overwhelmingly believe that Democrats are not focused enough on the issue of education.”

Brilliant Corners performed the survey between June 4 and June 17 on behalf of Freedom Coalition for Charter Schools, and polled more than 800 Black and Hispanic likely voters in seven swing states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“It’s quite frustrating as someone who lives in the city of Atlanta and who does vote that you often don’t see our elected officials have even been paying attention to education until something tragic happens,” says Keisha Spells, who has spent nearly two decades working with families as a community engagement specialist in the public school system, and whose  own four children attended  Atlanta’s public schools. 

“In 17 years, I have seen families in complete frustration,” she says. “I’ve watched failing schools remain open and fail more kids. You have to ask yourself: Are we failing generations now, as the grandmother, mother and now the child, all are unsuccessfully reading at [a] third grade [level]?” 

“They know that this isn’t right and that their kids need something more, but they don’t know how to advocate for it.”

For decades, voters overwhelmingly trusted Democrats over Republicans on the issue of education. But that trust has eroded in recent years, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, when K-12 schools across the country shuttered, some for more than an entire academic year. The impact of those closures disproportionately fell on Black and Hispanic students and students from low-income families, and their academic recovery has been painfully slow as a result. 

The new poll shows that a quarter of all respondents say they trust neither party on education issues or don’t know who to trust. Over a third, 36%, of Black voters who also identify as public school parents trust neither party, and roughly a quarter of Hispanic voters trust Republicans more than Democrats.

“Democratic leaders have an opportunity here to better position themselves in these important battleground states with this key base constituency by addressing their concerns about how the school system is serving their communities and elevating education as a national issue and priority,” Belcher says.

As it relates to specific education policy issues, 91% of the survey’s respondents say parents deserve the right to choose the public school that best meets their child’s individual needs, and 68% agree that children in their neighborhood would be able to get a better education if they could attend a different school outside their current zip code. Nearly the same percentage, 67%, agree that most children who graduate from their assigned public school aren’t yet ready for college or the workforce.

The vast majority of those polled also say they support increasing funding for public schools, including public charter schools, increasing teacher pay, hiring more diverse teachers and school leaders and including more Black and Latino history in curricula.

“We really wanted to hear from Black and Latino swing voters because this is an opportunity for lawmakers to hear what their constituents want and need,” says Jay Artis-Wright, the executive director of Freedom Coalition for Charter Schools, which advocates for equitable access to quality public school options for Black and Brown communities. 

“Here are the lived experiences of swing voters and here is an opportunity for lawmakers to know exactly how they feel,” she says.  “The clear message is that education is a priority for us and the data is showing that not only do we want education, we prioritize public education.”

Notably, Republicans in many of the same swing states where Black and Hispanic voters were polled – Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – have capitalized on parental frustrations over public schools in the wake of the pandemic. Several Republicans are calling for more choices by passing legislation that establishes or significantly expands private school choice programs, including education savings accounts, tax credit scholarships and voucher programs. 

The poll shows that while Black and Hispanic swing state voters generally support private school choice programs, their support is contingent upon ensuring that  funding for these programs  isn’t shifted from public school budgets and  that the schools don’t discriminate based on values or beliefs of students and staff. They’re much more enthusiastic about increasing funding for public schools and creating more public school choices, including charter schools.

“Republicans have been a little bit more out ahead on the issue, but our Black and Latino voters favor Democrats and trust Democrats more on education,” Artis-Wright says. “And at the same time, feel like they could be doing more.”

“We don’t want to do the us versus them narrative,” she says about public schools versus private schools. “But the reality is that they want more options. And that’s a huge issue coming out of the pandemic because we can’t just focus on this monolithic traditional public school. We cannot do this anymore and everyone is yelling about it.”

The poll is hardly the first to pick up on the increasing frustration among Black and Hispanic voters on the issue of K-12 education, including as it relates to calls for more funding and more choices. commissioned by the National Parents Union, a parent-led advocacy organization. 

“Parents have been really clear about wanting something different,” says Keri Rodrigues, founding president of the National Parents Union. “Upwards of 90% of people say parents deserve the right to choose the public option that best meets their child’s individual needs. You see it in this poll, you see it in our poll. We couldn’t be clearer about this.”

“Education for us is the pathway to economic mobility,” she says about Black and Hispanic parents. “We don’t see schools actually keeping pace with that and that is why you’re seeing a lot of movement among parents seeking alternatives and having this consistent outcry of wanting something different.”

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans on Wednesday night failed to garner enough votes to block a new Biden administration rule on an income-driven repayment plan for federal student loans.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com. Follow Arkansas Advocate on and .

As another school year defined by mass shootings ends in America, Republican-led state legislatures passed measures this session to fortify schools, create guidelines for active shooter drills and safety officer responses, and allow teachers to be armed.

Firearm restrictions, however, were a nonstarter in red states trying to curb school shootings.

The legislation pushed by GOP lawmakers in states such as Georgia, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Utah this year often ran contrary to the advice of gun safety advocates and national education experts, who remain concerned that having more guns in schools only further endangers children and educators.

But the Republican lawmakers interviewed by Stateline say the solution to preventing school shootings is not banning certain weapons or taking away guns from potentially dangerous people, but rather empowering schools to more quickly respond to an active shooter.

A little over a week after three children and three adults were killed in a Nashville elementary school in late March, the Republican-controlled Tennessee legislature passed a wide-reaching school safety bill that did not include firearm restrictions.

The requires schools to keep exterior doors locked when students are present, mandates newly built public schools to install classroom door locks and requires private schools also to conduct active shooter drills, among other elements. (The Nashville shooter, who attacked a private school, shattered a pair of locked glass doors to get inside.)

The bill passed with bipartisan support in April, with only a handful of Democrats voting against it. Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed the measure. In May, he signed that includes $230 million for all schools to have a school resource officer and allows schools to make security upgrades.

With armed personnel and properly secured school buildings, children in Tennessee will be safer, said Republican state Rep. Mark White, one of the bill’s sponsors and a former elementary school principal.

“I take it very seriously,” he said. “When you’re in the building with kids all day long, you fall in love with them, and you want to protect them.”

Hoping for a deterrent

Ensuring schools have armed personnel has been a common thread in the Republican-backed school safety laws this year.

Last month, a little over a year after a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Republicans there passed that requires an armed security guard at every school and compels school districts to adopt active shooter plans.

In Mississippi, teachers can now, with extensive training, carry guns in schools after the legislature passed a in March.

Republican state Sen. Jeff Tate, the legislation’s sponsor, argued that assailants target schools because there often is not armed security. He hopes his bill makes potential school shooters think twice.

“We need to make these people realize that, hey, look, there’s going to be a weapon if you go to the school,” Tate said. “That would deter these school shootings.”

Democratic state Sen. Rod Hickman, who voted against the measure because he thought it would make schools less safe, nonetheless wants to now focus on ensuring the state enforces robust training, not only for handling firearms but also to account for “implicit biases” that might prompt armed school personnel to view people of color as a greater threat.

“I hope that the proper steps are taken to create this program,” Hickman said, “but I ultimately don’t think this is the answer to protecting our students.”

Schools in the vast rural areas of Missouri wouldn’t have time to wait for law enforcement to respond to an active shooter, said Republican state Rep. Christina Dinkins. School officials need to react immediately to save lives, she said.

While teachers and administrators already are allowed to carry firearms if they are a school’s designated school protection officer — a position earned through a permit and state-mandated training — Dinkins, after being approached by a school district administrator, offered legislation to expand that role to any school personnel. That could include janitors, she said, who have keys to all the doors and know the ins and outs of the buildings.

“We’re just providing them with other avenues to make sure our children are safe, which is the ultimate goal,” Dinkins said. “You want the person who is most trained, most confident, most comfortable in that type of situation.”

The state House passed her bill in March; the legislative session has since ended.

More firearms in schools

Julie Hutchinson, a social worker for the Clark County, Nevada, school district, responded to the October 2017 mass shooting on the Las Vegas strip, helping people who were looking for loved ones and information after a gunman opened fire. Sixty people died and 413 others were wounded.

Hutchinson has continued to deal with gun issues, whether it’s helping the school district confront students who bring weapons to school or talking with her own children concerning the increased violence.

Having more guns in schools won’t help, she said.

“It would give a false sense of security,” Hutchinson said. “Is it really going to matter when it comes down to the actual moment?”

Many experts agree with her.

Two decades of association between having school resource officers or security professionals in the building and the prevention of school violence, said Justin Heinze, co-director of the National Center for School Safety, a training and technical assistance hub for implementing evidence-based safety programs in schools.

“There is very, very little to next to no data that supports having firearms within schools are going to make those buildings safer,” said Heinze, who also is an associate professor of public health at the University of Michigan.

He continued, “I do have concerns about introducing even more firearms in the building because there is almost certainly going to be an increase in firearm-related injury.”

As more students are exposed to school shootings and the overall number of shootings grows, there’s been a more urgent need for research regarding guns in schools, Heinze added.

Despite the high-profile nature of school shootings, schools are generally safe havens from gun violence, said Allison Anderman, senior counsel and director of local policy for the Giffords Law Center, a nonpartisan gun safety organization. This is largely because guns are mostly prohibited at schools, she said.

Arming teachers does not work, Anderman said.

“The idea that someone who’s protecting students and trying to keep them safe and calm is going to go and rush out and shoot an active shooter is just, it’s so absurd,” she said. “It’s very difficult to stop a homicidal person with an AR-15 and several high-capacity magazines.”

There are policies that can prevent school shootings, she said, including banning high-capacity magazines, implementing waiting periods of firearm purchases and expanding so-called red flag laws that take away firearms from people who may be a harm to themselves or others.

But that is a tough sell in some states.

Teachers need to be able to defend themselves and others in an active shooter situation, said Utah Republican state Rep. Karianne Lisonbee, who sponsored successful this session that will waive the permitting fee for school employees to carry a concealed weapon in schools.

“It’s really important that we maintain the availability for individuals who are the good guys who are trying to protect and defend their lives and the lives of others to be able to carry,” she said. “I don’t think it’s helpful to take guns away from everybody or to try to implement extreme gun control measures.”

She also sponsored this session that empowered school resource officers to refer students to judges for violence and weapons offenses on campus. She supported another that created a state position in charge of setting standards for school resource officers. Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed all three measures into law in March.

In Tennessee, the legislature is not done with addressing gun violence.

Lee, the GOP governor, called for a special session in August in hopes of implementing a red flag law. Gun safety experts argued the Nashville shooting may have been prevented if the state had a law that allowed a court to seize firearms from people who may harm themselves or others.

White and other Republican legislators will meet with the governor over the coming months to draft a bill that would prevent “innocent people” from having their firearms confiscated under a red flag law, he said.

Gun rights advocates often argue red flag laws violate gun owners’ due process privileges, since judges in some states can temporarily sign off on an extreme risk protection order without hearing from the targeted individual in emergency situations. Gun safety advocates counter that those individuals can eventually present evidence in their defense.

“We can do what’s right for all people,” White said. “Not only protect our children and law-abiding gun owners, but also address those who have mental issues, or those who are just outright criminals. That’s the needle we have to thread right now.”

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

The Louisiana Republican State Central Committee unanimously passed a resolution Saturday asking the legislature to ban diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) departments and offices within all colleges and universities in the state, both public and private, at their quarterly meeting held in Baton Rouge.

The resolution, sponsored by RSCC member Gerald Brouillette, refers to DEI departments as “commissariats,” a reference to the Soviet dictatorship, and accuses them of pushing a political orthodoxy. It also suggests, without evidence, such organizations bloat college budgets and increase student debt.

A review of DEI initiatives in Florida universities by the found that no institution devoted more than 1% of its budget on DEI undertakings, with some spending as little as $9,000. Louisiana’s schools fall far below Florida in spending in almost every area.

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The RSCC, made up of 230 popularly elected members, is the governing body of the Louisiana Republican Party and includes multiple elected officials. State Sens. Beth Mizell of Franklinton and Mike Fesi from-Houma, and state Reps. Beryl Amedee, Gray, Charles Owen, Rosepine, Buddy Mincey, Denham Springs, and Mark Wright, Covington, were present at the meeting.

The resolution passed with no discussion among the majority-white body.

In an interview after the meeting, Amedee, who previously served as vice chair of the state party, claimed diversity, inclusion and equity initiatives damage higher education.

“I believe that a lot of the DEI programs in our universities are taking things in a direction the majority of our citizens here in Louisiana would not support,” Amedee said. “I would rather our universities just get back to educating the subject matter that the students have signed up for.”

The passage of the resolution comes amid a nationwide Republican movement to clamp down on curricula and perceived “wokeness” in education.

In Louisiana, that has meant attempts to and for college faculty.

Still, Louisiana has resisted most attempts to push these controversial restrictions. In other southeastern states, which have Republican control of both the legislatures and the governors mansions, the crackdown has been more severe.

Georgia and Florida have created controversial post-tenure review systems. In Georgia, higher education leaders described the measure as “.”

Florida has served as the blueprint for programs.

While the RSCC resolution means little beyond a signal of the direction Republican primary voters are taking, another anti-DEI resolution is working its way through the official channels of the state legislature.

, sponsored by Rep. Valarie Hodges, R-Livingston, would request all public schools in the state, from elementary through high schools and colleges, submit reports on programs and activities related to DEI, critical race theory and social emotional learning.

While the resolution is non-binding, campus leaders are likely to comply.

In a statement to the Illuminator, University of Louisiana System President Jim Henderson confirmed its nine universities would submit the reports.

“As public institutions, we have a duty to be transparent in our operations,” Henderson said. “Complying with legislative requests for information is a given.”

Amedee, who sits on the House Education Committee that will hear the resolution, said she supports requesting universities report their DEI spending, like Florida did.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on and .

For the second year in a row, Arizona Republicans have sought to restrict the behavior of LGBTQ students, and for the second year in a row, students across the state walked out of class to protest that hostility.

On Friday, students at eight Arizona schools gathered to express their support for LGBTQ youth on the , held to acknowledge the erasure of LGBTQ people. At Chandler High School, dozens marched to nearby Dr. A.J Chandler Park, where they discussed their fears and called on schools to implement better safety measures and more inclusive policies.

Tamaiah Briggs denounced Republicans lawmakers and others who make students feel unwelcome in school.

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“Every student has the right to feel safe in the space where they go to learn,” the 15-year-old said. “Arizona legislators, teachers and administrators: you have a duty to make your students feel safe.”

That concern has been a key focus of , the student group that organized the walkout and has led other to call out discriminatory laws. The group was launched last year as a response to anti-LGBTQ laws approved by Doug Ducey’s administration, including one that now that best match their gender identity and another that .

Dawn Shim, who founded the organization, noted that its advocacy work is far from over, in light of the legislature’s continued attacks. The GOP legislative majority has advanced several measures intended to , that include any mention of pronouns, consistent with their gender identity and who request pronouns opposite of their biological sex. All of those measures are fated to meet Gov. Katie Hobbs’ , but Republican lawmakers have continued to back them.

“As students, (anti-LGBTQ bills) compromise our safety and our mental health, both of which are burgeoning crises across the nation amongst teens,” Shim wrote in an emailed statement.

In an attempt to fight back, Support Equality Arizona Schools issued a list of demands for Arizona public schools, including better systems for trans students to submit their preferred names and pronouns, more inclusive bathroom policies and equitability training for teachers.

The pronoun ban bill being considered and unanimously approved by GOP lawmakers is particularly concerning for 14-year-old Rhig Yates, who is transgender and uses “he” and “they” pronouns.

“We should all be ourselves and we should not be forced to come out to people when we don’t want to,” he told a crowd of students on Friday.

Yates experienced the anxiety of being forced to come out when he shared his preferred pronouns with a middle school teacher, who then told his parents. While his family wasn’t hostile, he warned that not all students can count on not being kicked out or hurt by transphobic parents.

“Sometimes secrecy is required,” he said. “And the bill that has been made won’t help, it’ll only make situations worse.”

Even with assurances that the measure is doomed to fail, Yates worries anti-trans rhetoric at the Capitol will bleed into classrooms and hurt trans and questioning students. Research from the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ suicide prevention organization, found that anti-LGBTQ legislation and speech from politicians

“It’s awful that people continue making these comments and rules that continue to oppress us,” Yates said. “They are literally killing people with what they say.”

Corinne Collins, an organizer with Support Equality Arizona Schools, lamented that lawmakers haven’t shown any inclination to stop advancing discriminatory legislation, despite ample testimony from the community. Members of the student-led group have been regular fixtures at the state Capitol this session, calling on lawmakers to halt anti-LGBTQ measures with little success.

“I have a fear that legislators aren’t absorbing what we’re telling them,” she said.

But she firmly dismissed the idea of giving up, saying it’s important to continue advocating for the LGBTQ community, especially trans people who have been at the center of GOP attacks.

“Trans people are just people,” she said. “They are just trying to live their lives, they aren’t predators, they aren’t dangerous people. They are people.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus 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. Follow Arizona Mirror on and .

The  passed 213 to 208, with five Republicans voting against it. 

“Teachers unions and education bureaucrats worked to push progressive politics in classrooms while keeping parents in the dark,” Rep. Virginia Foxx, chair of the House education committee, said during Thursday’s floor debate. “The Bill of Rights …aims to end that and shine a light on what is happening in schools.”

But with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that it would face a “dead end,” the legislation is unlikely to get far in the Democratic-controlled Senate. 

House Democrats — who renamed it the “politics over parents act” — say the legislation duplicates existing policies and rights and would micromanage how local schools interact with families. 

“This legislation has nothing to do with parental involvement, parental engagement, parental empowerment,” said Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York. “It has everything to do with jamming the extreme MAGA Republican ideology down the throats of the children and the parents of the United States of America.”

For years, educators who work with families have longed for this level of national attention to the role parents play in their children’s education. But some experts called the Republican approach adversarial and heavy-handed. Republicans view parents rights as a cornerstone of their agenda and are expected to carry the issue into next year’s elections. Even if the House bill dies in the Senate, the debate likely won’t.

Family engagement experts, meanwhile, say they’re hoping for a less-partisan discussion about building trust between educators and parents.

“If we’re creating bills that pit parents against teachers, kids lose,” said Vito Borrello, executive director of the National Association for Family, School and Community Engagement. 

Democrats, he said, have sent the wrong message at times, pointing to former Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe’s that parents shouldn’t tell schools what to teach and the that educators know “better than anyone” what students need. But the GOP legislation, he said, approaches parents rights from a “vigilante perspective.”

Among other provisions, the bill would require schools to post curricula online, provide lists of all books and other reading materials in the library and notify parents of the affiliations of any outside speakers at school events. 

Prior to the vote, the House approved several amendments, including one that would make schools disclose when they eliminate any gifted and talented programs and another requiring educators to turn over videos or recordings of any “violent activity” at school. Another stating that parents have a right to “timely notice” of a cyberattack against a school that could expose student or parent information received overwhelming support from both parties, passing 420 to 5.

But amendments that would have eliminated the Department of Education, sent Title I funds directly to families to use for private schools or homeschooling, and block grant education funding to the states failed. 

Dozens of education organizations, including AASA, The School Superintendents Association, the NAACP and The Education Trust, endorsed , led by Rep. Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon, that emphasized inclusion, high-quality schools and a well-rounded education. But the bill failed, 223 to 203, with one Democrat, Sharice Davids of Kansas, voting against. 

Charles Barone, vice president for K-12 policy at Democrats for Education Reform, said the Senate would likely let the bill GOP die and not try to negotiate a compromise. The question is whether passage of the bill gives Republicans momentum going into the election next year. 

“As a general election strategy, it’s pretty ill-advised,” Barone said. “There is a set of voters that buys their line of argument, but that set is pretty narrow. This is such an old playbook.”

The Biden administration has already expressed its disapproval. “The administration strongly supports actions that empower parents to engage with their children’s teachers and schools, like enabling parents to take time off to attend school meetings,” the White House statement said. “Legislation should not politicize our children’s education. It should deliver the resources that schools and families actually need.”

Gender identity provision

The administration’s statement drew attention to a provision that it said would make LGBTQ students feel less welcome. The legislation would require schools to get parental consent if a student wants to officially change their gender markers or pronouns or use facilities inconsistent with the sex they were assigned at birth. During the debate, Foxx clarified that the bill would not require counselors or teachers to “out” students if they discuss such topics in confidence.

During the education committee’s mark-up of the bill March 8, several Democrats said not all trans students have supportive parents and that a “one-size-fits-all” federal mandate could put already-vulnerable students at a greater risk. 

But Republican Tim Walberg of Michigan, who pushed for notification, said that informing parents of their child’s request would alert educators to potential maltreatment.

“When a child goes on a field trip or fails a test … their parents are told and often required to sign some sort of acknowledgement,” he said. “Why should the small things require notification but something as significant as a child’s pronouns or a change in accommodations be withheld from the people who raise them care for them?” 

Civil rights advocates argue that even if the bill fails in the Senate, the House’s move still harms trans students. 

“More trans kids are going to wake up reminded that there are leaders in this country who don’t want them to be safe,” said Liz King, senior director of the Education Equity Program at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

The GOP’s bill is inspired by laws that have already passed in several states, like , that allow parents to contest books used in school lessons and libraries and prevent discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in the early grades. Gov. Ron DeSantis now plans to apply to all grades.

Melissa Erickson, executive director of Florida’s Alliance for Public Schools, said the laws are “exacerbating the ” and don’t reflect the concerns of most parents. She doesn’t see the need for a national version. 

“I thought education was left to the states,” she said. “Parents have a right to be heard, but there is a difference between being heard and being accommodated.”

This week’s events in the nation’s capital drew 75 representatives from the National Parents Union, who lobbied against the GOP bill and in favor of Bonamici’s amendment. They met with U.S. Department of Education officials and they visited every House member’s office. 

But their highlight was getting from New York Democratic Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who cited their

“We’re all gripping our seats,” said National Parents Union President Keri Rodrigues. “When we got up to leave, the Democrats stopped on the floor and waved at us. For these parents, it was a powerful moment.”

Parents, teachers and advocates traveled from across Texas on Tuesday to hear from Gov. and make their case to lawmakers for expanding support for private schools.

Abbott is all in this session on passing , which if passed would give families up to $8,000 in taxpayer money, per student, to pay for private schooling through an education savings account, called an ESA.

Lt. Gov. and many Senate Republicans have embraced the bill, which is set to be considered for the first time this session in a Senate committee hearing Wednesday. However, House Speaker hasn’t made “school choice” legislation a priority in the House, and there are questions whether the measure could pass his chamber.

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Speaking in the rain, Abbott rallied a crowd of around 200 supporters on the north Capitol steps to say “parents matter.”

“We’re going to show up, we’re going to show out and we’re going to show the Legislature exactly why it is so important that we empower parents to choose the education that is best for their child,” Abbott said.

Students who leave public schools will perform better under his plan, as would the schools they leave, Abbott said.

That rang true for Larry Romine, a principal at River City Christian School in San Antonio. The K-12 school specializes in teaching students with learning challenges such as ADHD, dyslexia and autism. He called them “educational crack babies,” meaning children who fall through the cracks of the education system and get overlooked. Parents and students end up trapped in a public school that doesn’t work for them, he said.

“It’s one of those situations where they’re like that little mouse on the wheel, running and running and running and they can’t ever get ahead,” Romine said. “They can’t get out, they can’t change it and it breeds a sense of hopelessness.”

Abbott has spent recent months traveling the state to advocate for school choice, monitoring school curricula and other so-called parental rights issues at “parent empowerment” nights.

School choice is an umbrella term that includes a variety of policies, including education savings accounts and vouchers, that give parents the option of enrolling children in schools other than their assigned district public school. It can also include online schools; charter schools, which are public schools run outside the traditional school district system; and magnet schools that are run by school districts but offer targeted programs.

“Our children are being taught a radical woke agenda,” Abbott said at the event. “There’s no reason why any students should have a woke agenda pushed on them. Our schools are for education, not indoctrination.”

The governor’s office and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, helped organize the event at the Capitol on Tuesday. TPPF hosted information sessions in the morning and afternoon for attendees and arranged buses for those like Romine and his students who traveled from out of town.

Danny Strassman, a parent who traveled to Austin from Dallas with members of the Jewish community, said it’s important for religious Jews to provide religious instruction to their children, which isn’t allowed in public schools.

“It’s expensive to run schools. We’re a small community. We pay property taxes and I’m happy to support all the schools, but we’d like some of that to help us as well,” Strassman said.

Strassman is supportive of Abbott’s approach, but he would like to see the program expanded to include children who are already in private schools.

Andrew and Jessica Brummett of Pflugerville are educators and parents of five children. Their children attend Austin Classical School, a private Christian school where Andrew is head of the upper school.

Andrew Brummett said he wants to see teachers be able to open their own schools, as an accountant might open their own practice.

“Part of being a professional is being able to own your own shop. It’s not working in a union shop,” he said. “I value the associations and the unions and people taking care of teachers because I am a teacher and we’re all part of the same team. But at the same time, I want to help teachers to be true professionals and be able to start their own small schools, start their own new program, and a universal ESA would be the kind of thing that can really empower all of us to do our jobs better, to see better results for the whole state.”

A family of seven like the Brummetts would need a household income of less than $159,000 to qualify for ACE scholarships, Texas’ program that provides scholarships for private schools. Andrew Brummett said their situation is emblematic of the middle class and the struggle of having a large family, and having education savings accounts would help address that.

“We’d be able to send our kids to where we want to. I don’t have to work at a school to be able to send them to a great school. I could choose whatever school works best for them,” he said. “We’ve made sacrifices to get them in good schools and to do the best that we were able to do, but it sure would be nice to have some more options.”

Although Republicans control the Legislature, SB 8 faces an uncertain future in the House. There, rural Republicans like state Rep. , R-Canadian, oppose the measure. If enough House Republicans oppose private school vouchers, proponents may have to snag support from House Democrats.

Abbott said opponents of school choice argue such measures would defund public schools and kill “Friday night lights” and high school football games. He pointed to the increases in public school funding made under his first two terms as governor.

In a statement to The Texas Tribune, state Rep. , chair of the House Democratic Caucus, disputed Abbott’s characterization that the governor has been a champion of public schools. In particular, the San Antonio Democrat highlighted the .

“As he’s on his statewide road show about parental rights, the governor should visit parents in Houston ISD and look them in the eye to say that he did everything in his power to support their children and their schools,” Martinez Fischer said.

Disclosure: Texas Public Policy Foundation has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete .

This article originally appeared in , a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

Republican lawmakers want to put Arizona teachers behind bars if they so much as recommend a book to students that is considered too “sexually explicit.”

On Thursday, Senate Republicans advanced a measure punishing teachers who “refer students to or use sexually explicit” materials with a class 5 felony, which carries with it a prison sentence as long as two years.

The only exception included in the bill is if the school has first obtained written parental consent, and the material has serious educational value for minors or possesses serious “literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”

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Critics warned that threatens to jeopardize the free speech of teachers and criminalize honest mistakes.

“What if a teacher has a book on their desk? Or what if they refer to a classic novel in conversation with a student or another teacher?” asked Sen. Anna Hernandez.

The Phoenix Democrat pointed out that the bill makes no distinction between kindergarten and high-school aged students, who are likely ready for more serious literature — and some of whom are legally adults.

She warned that the legislature’s relentless vilification of teachers will have a detrimental effect on a state already struggling to staff classrooms. A February survey from the Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association found that as many as , continuing a seven-year streak.

“If this type of legislation continues, there will be no one else left that’s going to be willing to teach our kids,” Hernandez said.

But Republican lawmakers shot back that it aims to protect children from harmful content.

“This bill actually protects children and their fundamental Christian values,” said Sen. Anthony Kern, R-Glendale.

Kern added that teachers are being run out of the state due to intimidation, citing the recent decision by Washington Elementary School District , which trains young teachers, over an anti-LGBTQ “statement of faith” that all its students are required to sign and abide by.

“This bill is about stopping the sexualization of Arizona children,” said Sen. Jake Hoffman, who sponsored the measure. “There is nothing more important than protecting the innocence of our state’s kids.”

Hoffman, a Queen Creek Republican, claimed schools all over Arizona are “sexualizing” students, but didn’t specify where. His proposal builds on legislation he that was signed into law, which simply prohibited such materials from being used in classrooms unless parental permission was obtained first. It defines sexually explicit as a depiction of sexual conduct or as broadly as physical contact with a person’s clothed or unclothed body, including their genitals, buttocks or breasts.

Initially, last year’s measure would also have , but that language was removed after widespread outcry. Still, critics worried it could lead to the removal of classic literature, and at least in response.

Sen. Christine Marsh, D-Phoenix, a former teacher, worried that adding criminal penalties to already unclear legislation would worsen the censorship of important books, and could negatively impact educational quality.

“Teachers are going to have anxiety levels go up, and (they will) err on the side of extreme caution, which means that a whole lot of literature that probably doesn’t fall under that category — but teachers are afraid that it will — is not going to end up getting taught,” she said.

Sen. Mitzi Epstein, D-Tempe, a former school board member, said that plenty of laws already exist to punish the exposure of minors to pornographic materials. Schools are that protect students from encountering explicit material online, or risk forfeiting state funding.

And it’s a class 4 felony, which is punishable by up to , to , something depicting nudity or sexual conduct that isn’t considered suitable for minors and has no serious literary, artistic, scientific or political value.

The measure was approved by the state Senate with only Republican support on a vote of 16-13, but is unlikely to make it past Gov. Katie Hobbs — a possibility that Hoffman denounced ahead of time, saying that if she vetoed the bill, it would mean she “will have aided in the sexualization of Arizona children.”

Hobbs has vowed to support only bipartisan legislation and has against schools as distractions from the real issues facing educators across the state.

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If Speaker Kevin McCarthy agrees to their demands, that would wipe out most of the administration’s budget request for education, including a $2.2 billion increase for schools serving poor students and almost half a billion dollars to address student mental health needs.

With the slogan, “shrink Washington and grow America,” leaders of the said Friday they want to avoid hitting the — the limit on how much the federal government can borrow to pay its bills. They also propose to rescind COVID relief funds not yet scheduled to be spent. Biden’s budget, meanwhile, includes $90 billion for education, a 13.6% increase over fiscal year 2023.

“We are clearly a long way away from the finish line and middle ground,” said Lindsay Fryer, president of Lodestone D.C., a Washington lobbying and consulting firm. “Talks of addressing the debt limit and overall budget levels are sure to add interesting dynamics to appropriations conversations that could prolong this [budget] process for quite a while.”

Even with Democrats controlling Congress during the first two years of his presidency, Biden wasn’t able to deliver on some of his major education proposals and negotiations stretched until December. But now he has to contend with a Republican majority that wants to scale back government spending — the question is how much. Republicans have just a five-vote advantage in the House, meaning that McCarthy — who didn’t become speaker until he bowed to concessions from the Freedom Caucus — will need their support to pass a budget through the chamber.

The administration, on the other hand, wants to raise the $31.4 trillion debt limit to avoid what most economists say would be a . In his budget last week, he pledged to reduce the national debt by $3 trillion with taxes on those earning over $400,000 million a year.

Despite the likely standoff later this year, advocates for schools and early learning programs were still generally pleased with Biden’s proposals.

“I’m celebrating,” Julie Kashen, director and senior fellow at The Century Foundation, said about the proposal for the to spend $600 billion over 10 years for child care and preschool. She called it “a significant commitment to meeting the needs of children, families and communities.”

The Department of Education’s budget also includes a new $500 million program to help school districts expand universal preschool for students eligible to attend Title I schools. 

Aaron Loewenberg, a senior policy analyst at New America, a left-leaning think tank, said he was encouraged by the proposal. But he’s also realistic about its prospects.

“With a prolonged fight over the debt ceiling looming and House Republicans demanding billions of dollars in funding cuts,” he said, “the administration’s new pre-K proposal will have a hard time passing Congress.” 

Biden wants to restore the expanded that was part of the American Rescue Plan — $3,000 for those 6 and older and $3,600 for younger children. U.S. Census data shows the monthly payments nearly in half in 2021, and that it helped them afford rent, groceries and school supplies.

Proposals for other major programs include: 

• $20.5 billion for Title I, a $2.2 billion increase over 2023
• $18.2 billion for special education, including grants for preschoolers, infants and toddlers
• $428 million to increase the number of counselors, school psychologists and social workers
• $368 million for community schools — more than double the $150 million in the 2023 budget
• $1.2 billion for English learners, including $90 million to increase teacher diversity by recruiting and training more multilingual educators 
• $178 million for the Office for Civil Rights, which last year saw a record number of

But the administration proposes to keep funding for grants to support new and expanding charter schools at $440 million — the same level since 2019.

That “amounts to a cut” when factoring in inflation, said John Bailey, an adviser to the Walton Family Foundation. 

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools wants to see funding bumped to $500 million. Enrollment in charters climbed 7% during the pandemic — “evidence that parents were looking for something more and better for their children during a time of crisis,” Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said in  

The president’s budget was also a “real disappointment” to afterschool providers, Jodi Grant, executive director of the Afterschool Alliance, said in a statement. The budget keeps funding for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program at $1.3 billion, the same as last year. 

While the budget McCarthy ultimately proposes might not include cuts that are as deep as those proposed by the hardline Freedom Caucus, it’s unlikely to include a lot of increases for education either. 

As negotiations move forward, Noelle Ellerson Ng, associate executive director for advocacy and governance at AASA, the School Superintendents Association, said she’d like to see Democrats prioritize the increase for special education. 

Others want to see the expanded child tax credit make it into the final budget.

“It prevented a lot of children and families from falling below the poverty line,” said Cary Lou, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute. 

But with McCarthy already saying cuts to are “off the table,” that means everything else, including funding for schools and children, is vulnerable, he said. McCarthy has signaled that he might not have ready for at least another month, adding to uncertainty over appropriations for next year, Lou said. “Multiple unknowns make it a bit more of a high-wire act.”

Last Wednesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California joined fellow GOP members to introduce the , which calls for greater transparency into what districts teach, how much they spend and how they publicly report whether violence has occurred at a school. The next step is for education committee members to review and offer any amendments before it reaches the floor.

“It’s just so tone deaf to where parents are. How do you have a parent’s bill of rights in 2023 that doesn’t mention student progress or the right to read and write?” asked Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union. McCarthy’s press conference, she said, lacked representation of minority parents and children. “I was like, ‘Do Republicans know any Black and brown people?’ “

She organized a gathering of several parent groups who plan to meet Monday with Democratic leaders in the House in an effort to defeat the bill.

Republicans pledged to introduce such a bill once they captured the House majority, arguing that schools ignored parents’ pleas to reopen during the pandemic and have pushed controversial lessons about race and gender. But with Democrats still in control of the Senate, it’s highly unlikely the bill would pass in its current form. In 2021, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri sponsored , but it never received a hearing. 

The House legislation echoes laws that many Republican-led states, including Florida, Georgia and Louisiana, . Some experts note that for a federal version, but that issue didn’t come up last week. 

“Parents are not going to be kept in the dark,” Rep. Aaron Bean of Florida promised during last week’s event. “Parents are going to be part of the educational process.”

He and other House members heard from a Fairfax County, Virginia parent who said her child was suspended 11 times for not wearing a mask when the district still had a mandate and from a parent who filed hundreds of public record requests with the in Rhode Island seeking information on how schools teach history and gender issues. The school board considered suing the parent, but ultimately did not. 

Rodrigues and — a nonpartisan organization — say such bills are an effort to keep the culture wars alive. They stress that federal and many state laws already give parents the right to examine curriculum and opt their children out of lessons they find inappropriate. 

Rodrigues said she wouldn’t feel comfortable proposing her own bill of rights until the organization consulted a broad mix of families. 

But based on the National Parents Union’s , she would like to see, for example, guarantees that students graduate ready to succeed in college without remediation, that parents have up-to-date information on their children’s academic progress and that schools offer free afterschool programs and tutoring as needed. 

Last year, Rodrigues pushed for the U.S. Department of Education to form a parent council so Education Secretary Miguel Cardona could regularly hear from parents involved in their children’s schools.

But the department nixed the idea after conservative organizations sued in federal court, saying that the proposed council lacked representation from their groups and didn’t follow proper advisory committee procedures.

National Parents Union members continue to bring their concerns to Cardona anyway. Several attended his January speech outlining priorities, such as multilingualism and higher teacher pay.

“They said, ‘We didn’t hear you talking about the regression that children with special needs faced,’” Rodrigues said. ‘They really held his feet to the fire.”

According to the department, Cardona also continues to meet with families during any school visits, and agency staff follow up with parents later, if needed.

“Parent partnership is not about giving in to the loudest voices or political grandstanding,” the secretary wrote in timed to Republicans’ bill. “It’s about welcoming the voices of all families, and inviting parents to be a real part of decision-making processes in education.”

To some, the congressman from New York is a rising star in the party. But he’s no stranger to the charter school community. 

“We have been able to consistently rely on his support for a decade,” said Nina Rees, CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

As his profile in the party has risen, however, Jeffries has grown less outspoken on the subject. Now responsible for uniting progressives and moderates, observers say he’s less likely to take a firm stance.

Jeffries probably won’t enthusiastically endorse charter schools because of the Democrats’ “need for teachers union support,” said Ray Ankrum, superintendent of Riverhead Charter School on Long Island. But, “if he goes on an Obama-like ascension — which it looks like he can — maybe he’ll be more vocal for school choice.”

The Brooklyn native’s transition to party leader comes at a pivotal moment for the charter community. Advocates and school operators say the Biden administration’s recent changes to a federal grant program for charters will hinder growth. A lawsuit challenging the public status of charter schools and a new openness toward religious charters in Oklahoma could further disrupt the sector. Advocates say they would welcome more public support, but still view Jeffries as an ally.

“To me, he gets it — what’s possible for people of color to start a school,” said Yomika Bennett, executive director of the New York Charter Schools Association. “To dust off an old term, there’s hope.”

In 2014, Jeffries voted for to increase federal funding for charter schools. He visited schools in the Success Academy network and participated with CEO and founder Eva Moskowitz in a 2016 Brooklyn event where thousands rallied for the city to increase the number of charters.

“Everyone in this city, every parent, every child, deserves to have an option, regardless of race, regardless of color, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of immigration status, regardless of ZIP code,” he told the crowd.

And two years later, the Alliance honored him with one of its first #BringTheFunk awards for Black charter school advocates. Jeffries could not be reached for comment.

‘An intra-party debate’

But those examples seem to be part of the distant past.

David Houston, a George Mason University assistant professor, who studies the politics of education, isn’t surprised.

“It doesn’t shock me that Democratic elected officials — especially those who are appealing to a broader swath of their constituency — are going to downplay charters as a key pillar of their education platform,” he said. “Charter schools were never wildly popular [with Democrats]. There’s always been an intra-party debate.”

Charters enjoyed more bipartisan support prior to the Trump administration. President Barack Obama as “incubators of innovation” and urged states to on the number allowed. 

The partisan gap in support for charters grew during the Trump years, Houston found, in part because Betsy DeVos, Trump’s education secretary, was a “reviled figure on the left.”

New charter rule

Recently, that tension resurfaced in the debate over the U.S. Department of Education’s new rule for its . The update urges charters to partner with their local schools, requires more transparency in funding and expects operators to justify creating new charters when local public schools are under-enrolled. Department officials say their goal is to increase accountability and promote more racially diverse schools. 

But critics argued the changes will hamper the growth of smaller operators who predominantly serve Black and Hispanic students — even after the department revised some provisions after backlash from charter leaders.

Now chair of the education committee in the GOP-led House, Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina said in a statement to The 74 that she hopes Jeffries will “urge his conference to support charter schools” and help students by “ending the Biden administration’s harmful anti-charter school rule.”

Last May, some Democrats in the Senate might have agreed with her. 

Sens. Michael Bennet of Colorado, Diane Feinstein of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey joined Republicans in telling Education Secretary Miguel Cardona that the rule — as it was originally written — would “add significant burdens and time to an already complex application process.”

By the December vote in the Senate, however, the political winds had shifted. No Democrat voted to overturn it.

The updated requirements, in fact, could give pro-charter Democrats, like Jeffries “more freedom to support increased … funding,” said Halley Potter, a senior fellow at the progressive Century Foundation. 

That’s because the rule requires charters to disclose any contracts with for-profit entities. Ankrum, the superintendent of the Long Island school, said he doesn’t view Jeffries as anti-charter — just being heavily involved in running them. 

“That,” he said, “seems to be the new Democratic push.”