There was so much news over our break that we needed two editions to cover it all! Yesterday’s Ohio-centric catch-up can be read here. Today’s national catch-up covers stories from 3/1/25 – 3/21/25.
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Opening salvo
Newly-confirmed Secretary of Education Linda McMahon made her first official school visit on March 6. She spent the day at Vertex Partnership Academies in the Bronx, a virtues-based high school that aims to instill courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom in its students. In a press release, Secretary McMahon wrote, “School choice is crucial for students and parents to access learning environments that best fit their needs” and called Vertex “a perfect example of how a community can come together to build an education program that serves the unique needs of its students and families.” Nice.
Next step
Two weeks later, Madam Secretary was visiting True North Classical Academy, a charter network in Miami, again touting the value of school choice for families. She acknowledged that more choices are needed in cities all over the country, but that growing those choices will be up to individual states. The federal government, she said, would have a shrinking but not entirely nonexistent role to play in the future.
Final phase?
Yesterday, as widely expected, President Trump signed an executive order directing Secretary McMahon to “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.” (Full text of the order is here.) Among many electronic column inches of coverage since yesterday, the Wall Street Journal digs in to what it all means and what may happen next. Ohio governor Mike DeWine was among the dignitaries and elected officials in attendance for the signing.
Meanwhile, at the U.S. Supreme Court…
A couple of updates on the appeals case before the United States Supreme Court on the creation of religious charter St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School in Oklahoma. First up, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops filed an amicus brief in the case this week, arguing that St. Isidore’s participation in the state’s charter school program would “not make it a state actor.” The full text of the brief is here. Meanwhile, Forbes’ Peter Green published a piece reminding folks that the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has expressed opposition to the creation of a religious charter school in a previous case and reiterated that opposition in regard to the Oklahoma case back in January.
The wheels on the bus
A lot closer to the ground, school choice parents in Indiana—whose numbers are growing by the year—are advocating for changes to state transportation rules to help make their lives easier. Two bills are currently being heard in the state legislature that would include charter and private school students in mandated transportation (no such students are included currently) and would change funding mechanisms to pay for it. However, The 74’s Patrick O’Donnell reports that the effort is being overshadowed by a larger push to revamp school funding in general in light of the fact that so many Hoosier families are choosing to send their children to schools other than their assigned district building. More to come!
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