Latest news with #EducationReform
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Spectrum: Rep. Mike Carey; Ohio's budget; marriage equality
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – This week on The Spectrum: The Spectrum's Colleen Marshall goes one-on-one with Rep. Mike Carey about conflicting reports about the success of American strikes on Iran, and the final push to get President Donald Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' across the finish line. The $60 billion Ohio budget is heading to Gov. Mike DeWine's desk after receiving zero support from Democrats. The budget includes a late-night amendment that came as a devastating surprise to a group of retired Ohio teachers, and why they said it silences their voices. It's been a decade since the United States Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. Hear from the Ohio man who was at the center of that case and why he believes marriage equality is still at risk. There are big changes for education, Medicaid, and a $600 million promise to build a football stadium – all in Ohio's state budget. Republican strategist Mehek Cooke and Democratic strategist Lou Gentile join the roundtable to discuss. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Washington Post
a day ago
- Business
- Washington Post
New laws in Virginia, Maryland and D.C. range from seat belts to taxes
Adults will have to buckle up in the back seat, students give up cellphones in school and large restaurants must quit packing takeout in polystyrene containers in Virginia come Tuesday, when new laws take effect in the Old Dominion. Just across the Potomac, the District will boost its minimum wage and Maryland will hike an array of taxes and fees, launch a teacher-recruitment program and a suicide hotline, and help unemployed parents who owe child support find jobs.
Arab News
4 days ago
- Politics
- Arab News
British Council, Sindh government to train 30,000 teachers, impact two million students
ISLAMABAD: The British Council and the Government of Sindh have signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to improve English language teaching in public schools, aiming to train 30,000 teachers and indirectly benefit over two million students, according to a statement issued on Friday. English is a compulsory subject in Pakistan's schools and colleges and remains the dominant language in government, academia and the corporate sector. Despite years of formal exposure, however, many students struggle to use the language effectively, raising concerns about the quality and methods of instruction. The new initiative aims to address these challenges by equipping teachers with inclusive and multilingual approaches that support more effective language acquisition. 'This agreement renews our partnership with and commitment to the people and Government of Sindh,' said James Hampson, Country Director, British Council Pakistan. 'Our ambition of supporting 30,000 teachers and 2 million children is a great next step.' Under the agreement, the British Council will deliver its 'English as a Subject for Teachers and Educators' (EaSTE) program to newly inducted primary and early childhood teachers. The collaboration also includes training 1,000 in-service teachers as mentors and deploying a scalable digital Learning Management System (LMS) to facilitate continuous professional support. 'Our focus is not just on access but on quality,' said Sindh Education Minister Sardar Ali Shah at the occasion. 'Through this initiative, we are equipping our teachers with the tools they need to teach English more effectively, in ways that reflect the linguistic and cultural realities of our classrooms.' The program builds on the British Council's long-standing work in education in Pakistan and replicates a successful model from Punjab, where EaSTE reached more than 140,000 teachers.
Yahoo
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Virginia Republicans pick radio host to run alongside Winsome Sears in race to replace Youngkin
Conservative Richmond radio host John Reid will be the Republican nominee for Virginia's lieutenant governorship, after running unopposed in Tuesday's statewide primary election. Reid was the only man left after Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity – the rare Republican officeholder in the vote-rich but heavily Democratic Washington, D.C. metro -- bowed out of the contest last month citing health reasons. Reid has been a well-known Republican voice in central Virginia, previously serving on the Henrico County Republican Committee, as a delegate to the RNC in 2024 and as a top staffer to former Sen. George Allen, R-Va. Reid will join current Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears on the Republican ticket this fall, while Attorney General Jason Miyares joins them too in running for re-election. Gop Hopeful Earle-sears Unveils 'Axe-the-tax' Plan In Virginia Governors Race Reid has centered his campaign on a unity message to "grow" the GOP in a state where the political divide is numerically narrow, but marked in that Democrats are often the favored line in statewide elections. Read On The Fox News App The first point of his campaign message on his website centered around education versus "indoctrination." "His focus is on ensuring that our educational system imparts knowledge and critical thinking skills, not political bias, preparing students for success in a diverse world instead of creating radical activists," read a line on his website. On the hot topic of immigration, Reid's campaign said the candidate is "dedicated to enforcing immigration laws, not allowing localities to ignore them." His campaign also objected to "obliterating" U.S. heritage by conserving landmarks. Winsome Earle-sears Announces Va Gov Bid To Build On Youngkin Record: It's 'All About Business' Reid's campaign did run into a short-lived controversy when the former pundit – the first openly gay man to run statewide in Virginia – was subjected to lewd photos of himself being posted online. Reid denied any connection with the Tumblr account in question, but the controversy led some Republicans to briefly call for him to drop out. Reid, Earle-Sears and several top Virginia Republicans converged on Richmond Tuesday night to celebrate the primary winners across the board, including in the General Assembly's lower chamber. Democrats currently hold a two-seat majority in the 51-49 Virginia House of Delegates, where Republicans hope to make the narrow gains necessary to take control in November. Republicans face a tough road in that respect, and are defending several seats, particularly along the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike corridor that were won by former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris – or both. One such member is Del. Kim Taylor, R-Petersburg, who flipped a "Biden+12" district in 2023 in what is the commonwealth's most-Democratic municipality per-capita. Dels. David Owen, R-Goochland, Carrie Coyner, R-Hopewell, and Amanda Batten, R-Williamsburg, all hold seats in Democrat-friendly territory. Miyares is running unopposed in Tuesday's attorney general primary, and Gov. Glenn Youngkin is article source: Virginia Republicans pick radio host to run alongside Winsome Sears in race to replace Youngkin
The Guardian
17-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Oklahoma high schools to teach 2020 election conspiracy theories as fact
As part of the latest Republican push in red states to promote ideologies sympathetic to Donald Trump, Oklahoma's new social studies curriculum will ask high school students to identify 'discrepancies' in the 2020 election results. The previous standard for studying the 2020 election merely said: 'Examine issues related to the election of 2020 and its outcome.' The new version is more expansive: 'Identify discrepancies in 2020 elections results by looking at graphs and other information, including the sudden halting of ballot-counting in select cities in key battleground states, the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of 'bellwether county' trends.' The revised curriculum standard comes at the behest of Ryan Walters, the state school superintendent, who has publicly voiced his support for Trump. In October, Walters lauded Trump in an interview, saying that 'Trump's won the argument on education'. Walters, who has also advocated for ending 'wokeness' in public schools, went on to say: 'We have education bureaucrats that are left-wing, elitist, that think they know best for families, and they have become so radicalized that our families are going: 'What is going on here?'' Oklahoma's new social studies standards for K-12 public school students, already infused with references to the Bible and national pride, were revised at Walters' direction. The Republican official has spent much of his first term in office not only lauding Trump but also feuding with teachers' unions and local school superintendents. 'The left has been pushing left-wing indoctrination in the classroom,' Walters said. 'We're moving it back to actually understanding history … and I'm unapologetic about that.' As part of his revisions, Walters also proposed removing education about Black Lives Matter and George Floyd's murder, Tulsa's NBC affiliate KJRH reports. The outlet further reported that the revisions were expected to cost the state's taxpayers $33m in new textbooks and related material. Other efforts by Walters include promoting Trump-endorsed Bibles across classrooms, as well as supporting an attempt to establish the US's first public religious charter school – a case the conservative-majority supreme court seems open to siding with. The new standard raised red flags even among Walters' fellow Republicans, including the governor and legislative leaders. They were concerned that several last-minute changes, including the language about the 2020 election and a provision stating the source of the Covid-19 virus was a Chinese lab, were added just hours before the state school board voted on them. A group of parents and educators have filed a lawsuit asking a judge to reject the standards, arguing they were not reviewed properly and that they 'represent a distorted view of social studies that intentionally favors an outdated and blatantly biased perspective'. While many Oklahoma teachers have expressed outrage at the change in the standards, others say they leave plenty of room for an effective teacher to instruct students about the results of the 2020 election without misinforming them. Aaron Baker, who has taught US government in high schools in Oklahoma City for more than a decade, said he's most concerned about teachers in rural, conservative parts of the state who might feel encouraged to impose their own beliefs on students. 'If someone is welcoming the influence of these far-right organizations in our standards and is interested in inserting more of Christianity into our practices as teachers, then they've become emboldened,' Baker said. 'For me, that is the major concern.' Leaders in the Republican-led Oklahoma legislature introduced a resolution to reject the standards, but there wasn't enough GOP support to pass it. Part of that hesitation likely stemmed from a flurry of last-minute opposition organized by pro-Trump conservative groups such as Moms for Liberty, which has a large presence in Oklahoma and threatened lawmakers who reject the standards with a primary opponent. 'In the last few election cycles, grassroots conservative organizations have flipped seats across Oklahoma by holding weak Republicans accountable,' the group wrote in a letter signed by several other conservative groups and GOP activists. 'If you choose to side with the liberal media and make backroom deals with Democrats to block conservative reform, you will be next.' After a group of parents, educators and other Oklahoma school officials worked to develop the new social studies standards, Walters assembled an executive committee consisting mostly of out-of-state pundits from conservative thinktanks to revise them. He said he wanted to focus more on American exceptionalism and incorporate the Bible as an instructional resource. Among those Walters appointed to the review committee were Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation and a key figure in its Project 2025 blueprint for a conservative presidential administration, and Dennis Prager, a radio talkshow host who founded Prager U, a conservative non-profit that offers 'pro-American' educational materials for children that some critics say are not accurate or objective. In a statement to the Associated Press, Walters defended teaching students about 'unprecedented and historically significant' elements of the 2020 presidential election. Recounts, reviews and audits in the battleground states where Trump contested his loss all confirmed Democrat Joe Biden's victory, and Trump lost dozens of court cases challenging the results. In addition to the curriculum revisions, a proposed rule approved by the state board of education in January mandates that parents enrolling their children in the state's public schools show proof of immigration status. Describing the rule, which has been met with widespread outrage among parents, students and immigration advocates, Walters said: 'Our rule around illegal immigration accounting is simply that … It is to account for how many students of illegal immigrants are in our schools.'
