What is the Utah State Board of Education’s ACEESS committee and why should you care? In 2016, the USBE made a resolution to form ACEESS (pronounced “ak-cess”), the Advisory Committee on Equity of Educational Services for Students. The committee’s purpose is to advise the USBE on “underrepresented, historically marginalized and underserved students,” and its membership …
Continue reading “USBE’s ACEESS Commitee brings Critical Race Theory to Utah schools”
The idea of “school choice” has a certain lure to it. Who doesn’t want more choice in where and how our kids become educated? Utah’s public school performance is in a free fall, and the writing is on the wall: public education has been co-opted by third-parties and outside interests and our children have become a …
Continue reading “Analysis: More risk than reward to HOPE Scholarship bill”
In September 2021, the Utah State Board of Education staff drafted a document entitled Understanding Gender Identity to Better Support Students, with some lofty goals of offering educators and administrators a “best practices guidance” on how to create an “environment of dignity and respect for all.” It didn’t. In fact, it faced intense criticism from …
Continue reading “The USBE Commits Educational Malpractice on Gender Issues”
There’s a lot of conversation about school choice right now in Utah. Our state is a bit of an outlier in that families have wide latitude in sending their kids to the schools of their choice, whether those options offer public, private, charter, dual-enrollment, or home-based instruction. Even better, non-traditional routes like homeschooling and private schooling have the added advantage of …
Continue reading “Utah School Choice: Slam Dunk or False Hope?”
Recently the Davis School District has come under fire for what is being portrayed as rampant, systemic racism in its schools. No one is defending Davis School District leadership. The district has historically been poorly run, and notoriously unresponsive to parental concerns and rights. But the nature of the DOJ’s investigation and the unclear origin …
