Policy & Politics

Education news, analysis, and opinion about the legislation, guidance, policies and people involved in federal and state government
Law & Courts Judge Ends School Desegregation Order at Trump Administration's Request
The decision ends decades of federal oversight to ensure schools' compliance with the order to desegregate.
Patrick Wall, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate
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4 min read
Policy & Politics Opinion Who Are the Nation's Top Education Scholars?
The RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings recognize researchers who shape practice and policy.
Rick Hess
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2 min read
Law & Courts Appeals Court Blocks Ruling Bolstering Parental Rights Over Gender Identity
A federal appeals court blocked a groundbreaking ruling over the disclosure of students' gender identities.
Mark Walsh
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4 min read
Federal Opinion The Federal Government Hasn’t Been Meeting Our Need for Unbiased Ed. Research
Trump’s attacks on data collection are misguided—but that doesn’t mean it was working before.
Rick Hess
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5 min read
The end of a bar chart made of pencils with a line graph drawn over it.
DigitalVision Vectors/Getty + Education Week
Policy & Politics Opinion Who Tops Their Field in the 2026 RHSU Edu-Scholar Rankings?
A scholar's rank within a discipline may be more telling than their place in the overall rankings.
Rick Hess
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1 min read
The United States Capitol building as a bookcase filled with red, white, and blue policy books in a Washington DC landscape.
Luca D'Urbino for Education Week
States States Are Banning Book Bans. Will It Work?
Approved legislation aims to stop school libraries from removing books for partisan reasons.
Sarah Schwartz
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5 min read
Amanda Darrow, director of youth, family and education programs at the Utah Pride Center, poses with books that have been the subject of complaints from parents in Salt Lake City on Dec. 16, 2021. The wave of attempted book banning and restrictions continues to intensify, the American Library Association reported Friday. Numbers for 2022 already approach last year's totals, which were the highest in decades.
Eight states have passed legislation restricting school officials from pulling books out of school libraries for partisan or ideological reasons. In the past five years, many such challenges have focused on books about race or LGBTQ+ people. Amanda Darrow, the director of youth, family and education programs at the Utah Pride Center, poses with books that have been the subject of complaints from parents in Salt Lake City on Dec. 16, 2021. (Utah is not one of the eight states.)
Rick Bowmer/AP
States McMahon Touts Funding Flexibility for Iowa That Falls Short of Trump Admin. Goal
The Ed. Dept. is allowing the state education agency to consolidate small sets of funds from four grants.
Mark Lieberman
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6 min read
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is interviewed by Indiana’s Secretary of Education Katie Jenner during the 2025 Reagan Institute Summit on Education in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 18, 2025.
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, pictured here in Washington on Sept. 18, 2025, has granted Iowa a partial waiver from provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act, saying the move is a step toward the Trump administration's goal of "returning education to the states." The waiver allows Iowa some additional flexibility in how it spends the limited portion of federal education funds used by the state department of education.
Leah Millis for Education Week

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