public schools

President Donald Trump’s recent White House “Back to School and Education Freedom Event” showcased the extraordinary progress his administration has made in just a year and a half to replace federal overreach with parental empowerment and education freedom. As President Trump declared in his remarks, “We’re systematically ending every single one of these radical left betrayals, and we’re putting the parents back in charge. They’re the ones that love our children. They’re the ones that should be in charge.” President Trump and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon understand the fundamental truth that parents, not distant government bureaucrats, belong in the driver’s seat of their children’s education. One of the Trump administration’s most consequential achievements is the nation’s first Education Freedom Tax Credit scholarship program, Read More ›

For far too long, Washington has expanded its control over K-12 education while student learning has continued to decline. However, President Trump is changing course by returning education to the states, advancing education freedom, and restoring parents’ rightful authority over their children’s education. After decades of federal overreach, a long-overdue hard reset for American education is underway. The U.S. Department of Education has been a 45-year, astronomically expensive failure. More than $3 trillion has been spent without improving student learning. While states receive only about 10% of their education funding from the federal government, those dollars bring a disproportionate burden of rules, regulations, and bureaucracy. The result is less freedom to innovate, higher costs, and decision-making increasingly removed from students, parents, and local Read More ›

A poll by the Cato Institute found that over 60% of Americans aged 18-29 hold a “favorable view” of socialism, with 34% saying the same of communism. By contrast, 98% of those age 65 and over have an “unfavorable” view of communism. This shift did not emerge overnight. With an anti-capitalist and anti-free-market worldview taught in K-12 education, Gen Z has been conditioned to view socialism not just favorably but as superior to capitalism, free enterprise, and free markets. At the same time, rising housing costs, inflation, and affordability concerns have made promises like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s government-owned grocery stores, rent freezes, and universal child care sound like solutions. If we want future generations to preserve America’s prosperity, students must learn why capitalism Read More ›

Keri D. Ingraham appeared on NTD Evening News on August 2 to discuss the rising monopoly of the American mind. Ingraham explained that school choice is needed to counteract the widespread promotion of socialism and communism in public schools. She went on to explain why capitalism and free markets are superior, given the examples throughout history of human flourishing under systems that allow for individual freedom rather than top-down control.

Across 423 counties in 13 states, 26 million Americans live with a persistent opportunity gap. It’s not because of a lack of effort, talent, or community commitment, but because big government systems meant to serve them have failed to deliver. At the center of that failure is education. For too long, families in Appalachia have been asked to accept a one-size-fits-all public education system that assigns children to schools based on ZIP code rather than need, fit, or school quality. The results have been predictable. According to the Appalachian Regional Commission’s 2019-2023 American Community Survey, just 27.3 percent of adults in the region hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 35 percent nationally. In Kentucky’s Appalachian counties, that number Read More ›

Keri D. Ingraham appeared on Futures Edge on June 22 to discuss the landscape of education freedom in America today. She and host Jim Iuorio discussed the Trump Administration’s progress in dismantling the Department of Education and why it was created under President Jimmy Carter. They also explore alternatives to public school and four-year colleges that can set students on paths toward a successful future.

For decades, the Appalachian region of America has been the subject of political promises, federal programs, philanthropic funding, and endless so-called solutions. Despite trillions of dollars in government spending and generations of outside intervention, the majority of Appalachian communities continue to struggle with poverty, addiction, outmigration, economic stagnation, and weak educational outcomes. Appalachia has long been given “the wrong kind of attention,” according to Garrett Ballengee, president and CEO of the Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy. Under Ballengee’s leadership, the Center for Appalachian Renewal is committed to creating a brighter future for people, not another generation of paternalistic programs or distant experts managing decline from afar. Nowhere is that failure more obvious than in education. If Appalachia is going Read More ›

On May 28, Keri D. Ingraham appeared on The Andy Caldwell Show with guest host Dave Cross. Ingraham explains how the Department of Education is reducing its federal footprint. Ingraham dispels the fearmongering tactics of teachers unions and government officials and highlights how the major reforms happening in the Department of Education are incentivizing states to modernize their education systems. In part two, Ingraham explores how the push for phonics-based literacy instruction in states like Mississippi is producing better academic outcomes and forging the way for other states to do the same. School choice is empowering parents to ensure their child gets an academically rigorous education.

Recently, Discovery Institute Senior Fellow and American Center for Transforming Education Director, Keri D. Ingraham, returned to the White House. In recognition of her education work, Ingraham has received a dozen invitations over the past year. The first invitation came in March of 2025 from President Trump to attend the “Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities” executive order signing ceremony in the East Room of the White House. It was a special day that provided her with the opportunity to speak individually with nine governors and many other state and national leaders. Following that, Ingraham was invited to the White House for meetings and then for the America 250 Summit in August. In September, she was invited Read More ›

America’s public education system has drifted dangerously far from its core mission. Schools exist to educate children — to teach them how to read, write, think critically, and understand the world around them. But across the country, many classrooms are increasingly focused on something else entirely. They are bent on turning students into political activists. Schoolchildren participating in anti-ICE drills and protests are the latest example of political propaganda forced on kids during the school day. In New York, footage shows a preschool encouraging children to talk about how they feel about ICE and President Trump — obviously based on the so-called education they have received from their teacher. In Boston, a teacher posted a video online showing her elementary Read More ›

Across the country, policymakers have long assumed that boosting K-12 funding is the surest path to better student outcomes. Yet decades of rising spending have proven otherwise. The missing ingredient is not money — it’s meaningful choice. Florida provides one of the clearest examples. In 2001, the state launched a modest tax-credit scholarship program to help low-income students access alternative educational options. Roughly 15,000 students participated in the program’s first year. Today, Florida’s school choice ecosystem serves over 500,000 students across multiple programs, giving families options tailored to their children’s needs. Critics long warned that policies empowering parents with educational options for their children harm public schools and their students. The data, however, tell a different story — the positive Read More ›

Earlier in March, the U.S. Supreme Court had to step in and reaffirm the basic reality that parents, not schools, must be the primary decision-makers for their children. In the Mirabelli v. Bonta ruling, the Court determined that the California law, which barred schools from telling parents about their child’s claimed gender identity, violated parents’ constitutional rights — both their First Amendment free exercise rights and their Fourteenth Amendment rights to make decisions about their children’s upbringing. For most of American history, parents were recognized as the primary authority in their children’s lives. Today, that authority is repeatedly under attack, especially in public schools. Across the country, families are being shut out of what their children learn, denied access to Read More ›