The Trump administration reversed guidelines from the Obama administration directing schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their choosing. Trump’s move affected a case scheduled to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding a transgender teen’s claim his Virginia school discriminated against him. USA Today explains:
The Supreme Court will not decide the hot-button issue of transgender bathroom rights after all.
The justices on Monday vacated a lower court’s ruling in favor of Gavin Grimm, a 17-year-old Virginia high school senior seeking to use the bathroom corresponding to his gender identity. It did so because the Trump administration withdrew guidance to schools that had instructed them to grant transgender students’ bathroom preferences. The case had been scheduled for oral argument later this month.
By rescinding the Obama administration’s policy, the Departments of Justice and Education eliminated the basis for the appeals court’s earlier decision in Grimm’s favor. While the Supreme Court could have decided the case on other grounds, it decided instead to wipe out last year’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit and give that court another chance to consider the case.
It would have been nice to have the Supreme Court done with the matter once and for all, and even nicer to have Justice Antonin Scalia there to deliver a dose of resounding rationale.
SOURCE: USA Today
IN THIS ISSUE:
- KENTUCKY: Kentucky is halfway to seeing the first charter schools pop up in the state, as the House has approved charter legislation. The Senate will vote on the bill next.
- BOSTON: A record number of students have applied to attend the city’s charter schools, though voters in the November election approved a cap on the number of charter schools allowed in the state.
- KANSAS: Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) is calling on lawmakers to enact school choice measures in his state.
- TEXAS: A Texas state representative wants to give special-needs students access to ESAs.
- TRUMP: The president visited a Florida school to promote school choice.
Common Core and Curriculum Watch
- PHYS ED: A Pennsylvania school is incentivizing students to exercise more efficiently by equipping them with wrist monitors to track their heart rates and calories burned.
- TENNESSEE: A Tennessee lawmaker says he plans to introduce legislation that would require students who can’t read at a third-grade level to be retained a year.
- CURSIVE: More states are requiring students to learn how to write in cursive, The Christian Science Monitor reports.
- WISCONSIN: Wisconsin’s public schools are borrowing like crazy, growing their debt by hundreds of millions of dollars.
- CHICAGO: “Chance the Rapper” pledged $1 million to help fund Chicago Public Schools’ arts programs.
- MINNESOTA: Facing a teacher shortage crisis, Minnesota is proposing plans to attract and maintain teachers; namely, making it easier to become licensed to teach.
- CALIFORNIA: A California Catholic high school made millions of dollars after investing just $15,000 in Snapchat.
Thank you for reading! If you need a quicker fix of news about school choice, you can find daily updates online at https://heartland.org/topics/education.
Teresa Mull is a policy advisor for education and an editor at The Heartland Institute.
