Public Schools Have Many Self-Inflicted Challenges

  • Elementary and secondary schools are facing a long-anticipated enrollment cliff due to declining birth rates, but few school districts have taken action to adjust their budgets in response.
  • In response to sharp enrollment declines and budget challenges, more districts likely will begin considering closing  under-capacity schools and reducing historically high staffing levels.

Remote Learning During Covid Opened Parents’ Eyes

  • Parents received a glimpse behind the K-12 curtain while serving as their children’s remote learning “Zoom butlers” during Covid-era school closures. As they watched “online learning” unfold over their children’s shoulders, they realized schools were not teaching their children basic knowledge and skills.
  • They discovered school materials steeped in environmental alarmism, race essentialism, and radical doctrines.
  • Parents who assumed their neighborhood schools prioritized academics and pathways to success discovered lessons focused on ideology and victimhood. Parents also realized their child’s “straight A’s” did not equate to strong reading and math proficiency.

Transparency In Our Public K-12 Schools Is Common Sense

  • Academic transparency laws should require schools to post comprehensive lists of the materials used for every grade and subject on their websites.
  • States should make participation in intrusive student surveys “opt-in,” rather than opt-out.” Parents have the right under the federal Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) to opt their students out of surveys and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) gives parents of minor students the right to inspect and review their children’s education records.
  • States should introduce a version of the Given Name Act, which requires public education employees to receive written permission from a student’s parents or guardians before addressing a student by a name other than the name listed on a student’s birth certificate (or diminutive nickname) or using a pronoun in addressing a student that differs from that student’s biological sex.

Click HERE to read the policy focus and learn more about transparency in public schools.