#education-policy

#education-policy

The White House is making it clear that it's putting AI education front and center, advocating for its use to teach impressionable young minds despite the tech's shortcomings.

Mayor Mamdani has been very clear he wants to reduce class sizes in accordance with the mandate. But both he and the chancellor have suggested that more time and more money may be needed. It would not be unreasonable for the city to commit to a 70%, 80%, 90%, and then 100% timetable.

Beginning in the fall of 2026, all Florida middle and high school students will be required to take a yearly social studies class on the history of communism. The curriculum has already received the stamp of approval from the conservative Heritage Foundation (the group behind Project 2025), a right-wing nonprofit organization called the National Association of Scholars (NAS) and a NAS spinoff called the Civics Alliance.

The text of the bill, HB333, adds new language to the Virginia statutes that requires any local school board that imposes new restrictions on any program of instruction on or relating to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the United States Capitol and any accompanying curriculum or instructional materials, or any instruction provided by a teacher as a part of any program of instruction.

Most middle schools and high schools do not have a requirement to teach Social Emotional Learning; therefore, most high school students have less than two years of SEL learning, which was given to them when they were three and four years old. The result is that most adults do not have formal social and emotional learning skills, and yet they are expected to have emotional intelligence.

While there has been no specific incident giving rise to this decision, the Board consider it both prudent and responsible to pause occupation of the building in order to implement priority works and ensure full statutory compliance. Among the issues being addressed are structural and building compliance verification measures.

Ministers have asked the exams watchdog, Ofqual, to extend current arrangements, providing GCSE maths, physics, and combined science students with formula sheets. Ofqual is consulting on extending this until current GCSEs are reformed following a curriculum review. The government will then consider if memorisation is required for new qualifications.

The bill, H.R. 7661 also known as the 'Stop the Sexualization of Children Act', was introduced by Illinois representative Mary Miller who has a long history of anti-trans politics. It seeks to amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to ban federal funds being used to 'develop, implement, facilitate, host, or promote any program or activity for, or to provide or promote literature or other materials to, children under the age of 18 that includes sexually oriented material'.

We acknowledge that the measure may have a serious impact on the group one claimants if they are unable to afford private education which accords with their religious convictions, but it is important to bear in mind that they have the option of home schooling if free education in the state sector is not acceptable to them.