Christine Cooke Fairbanks

Viewing today’s education policy issues outside of the framework of right-left politics may help us find our way forward in education reform.

Utah education leaders and researchers note that there is no single reason to explain the uptick in absenteeism – the reasons are as varied as the students and families.

While all states have accepted the responsibility of creating a universal, “free” (tax-supported) education system, some states see that the objective can now be met while including a range of options.

Even before the pandemic, education savings accounts and other types of education choice policies were gaining ground.

Congress was never intended to implement sweeping policies on education minutiae involving person-centric, one-on-one interaction between students, teachers, parents and school boards.

Education choice is now available to more parents of all backgrounds, which reflects public school choice’s early bipartisan beginnings.

The advent of modern home school – a radical reform for the time in which it began – grew from roots in both the political left and conservative Christian movements during the 1960s and ’70s.

Federal education policy is as hotly debated today as ever before. The creation of the Department of Education did not come without controversy.