Critics of charter schools claim they suck funding from traditional public schools because students bring tax dollars with them when they switch over. But a new study from the Fordham Institute questions that narrative.

When Sarah Nightingale’s fellow classmates made walking sticks for their seventh grade art class, they wrote paragraphs explaining their designs. But Sarah’s teacher had her record a video explanation instead. Sarah has dyslexia and dysgraphia, reading and writing disorders. When her public school combined in-person and remote instruction this year, teachers assigned extra reading and writing for remote instruction days, and Sarah struggled to keep up in the fall.

In Iowa, a bill offering education money to parents to use with more discretion and opening the door to easier charter school approval is waiting for debate on the state Senate floor after passing a committee vote in late January. Iowa is one of at least 20 states that have introduced bills supporting school choice in 2021.

In the early days of his administration, President Joe Biden promised extra funding, guidance, and data collection to help schools fight racial inequality and reopen safely during COVID-19. Liberal educators and teachers union advisers fill out his Education Department, which could signal coming attacks on school choice. They could also delay his plans to get students back to class quickly.

As the pandemic began last spring, enrollment at Footprints Christian Children’s Center shrank from 107 students to about 20. The facility cares for infants to school-age children in Lancaster, Calif. Half its original size, the preschool class kept rehearsing songs and a skit for the spring graduation ceremony. Director Tammy Damon borrowed caps and gowns from a friend, hung a backdrop, and streamed the ceremony for parents over Zoom. COVID-19 cases have only shut down the center once so far, and a Paycheck Protection Program loan helped pay staff. But Damon still worries.

Amid a flurry of executive orders on his first day in office, President Joe Biden nixed a controversial education initiative that took aim at revisionist histories of the United States.

Starting shortly after noon on Jan. 14, teachers in Mariposa County, Calif., rolled up their sleeves in an elementary school for their first of two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Now that the rural county has inoculated most of its healthcare workers, it is moving on to educators, who have worked in-person since October. About 70 percent of the school district’s staff have signed up for their first dose, according to Superintendent Jeff Aranguena.