| | Report: 2 million students have left public schools | | Curated for you byCP Editors | | Good afternoon! It's Tuesday, August 23, and today's headlines include a report highlighting a significant drop in the number of public school students since 2020, a federal judge dismissing a lawsuit against a school district over its policy that permits hiding trans-identified students' gender identity from parents, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's warning following a car bombing that killed a Putin ally's daughter. | | Research from Education Next, a nonpartisan research organization based in Cambridge, Mass., shows that nearly 2 million students have left public schools since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, which led to mandated school closures and an influx of online education. Between 2020 and 2022, public school enrollments declined from 81% to 76.5%, while charter school enrollment increased from 5% to 7.2% and private school enrollment increased from 8% to 9.7%. Homeschooling saw an uptick from 6 to 6.6%. The researchers noted that the percentage drop for public schools "means that nearly 2 million students have shifted from traditional public schools to alternative school arrangements." | | However, the researchers did not view the drop as "a wholesale mass exodus" from public schools and noted that "the parents of children in states both blue and red report less anxiety about their children’s academic and social progress than was the case two years earlier." Debates surrounding lockdown measures and controversial curriculum content have led many parents to take their children out of public schools in favor of private education or homeschooling. A 2021 report from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools showed that new enrollments in public charter schools were up 7%, while the National Catholic Educational Association also saw a slight increase in Catholic school enrollment for the 2021-2022 academic year. Read more. | | P.S. Did you hear? CP has launched FreedomPost, a free, twice-weekly newsletter highlighting breaking news and headlines on key issues ranging from freedom to religious liberty. Sign-up today to get FreedomPostdelivered to your inbox every Monday and Thursday. Check out these headlines from our latest issue of Freedom Post:BC, AD: Texas State Board of Education meeting sparks debateAd calls out Biden for ‘silence’ on church attacksJudge blocks Utah's ban on biological males competing in girls' sports |
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| UN General Assembly one step closer to declaring abortion a 'human right' | | Delegates at the United Nations General Assembly are finalizing negotiations on a resolution that would mandate all U.N. agencies to declare abortion is a human right, reportedly due to pressure from the European Union and the Biden administration. "The European Union and the U.S. government are trying to undermine the long-standing consensus of the General Assembly that abortion is an issue that should be decided at the national level without external interference from the United Nations," Stefano Gennarini, vice president for legal studies at the Center for Family and Human Rights, said in an emailed statement to The Christian Post on Monday. "The issue isn't just whether abortion should be accessible as a matter of human rights or not. It is about protecting the integrity of international aid," Gennarini wrote. "Until now, the General Assembly consensus was that governments should help women avoid abortion." Gennarini believes women will be pressured to abort should the U.N. adopt the resolution as part of its response to sexual violence, noting, "Abortion is cheaper than providing healthcare and social support to mothers and their children." Read more. | | Judge dismisses lawsuit over school district's trans guidelines | | Judge Paul Grimm of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama, has dismissed a lawsuit filed by parents over a Montgomery County Public Schools policy that allows school officials to withhold information about students' gender identity from their parents in some cases, causing critics to warn of efforts to "destroy the family and capture the souls of our children." A group of parents anonymously filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to prevent the school district from implementing its policies regarding trans-identified students. The guidelines state, "Prior to contacting a student's parent/guardian, the principal or identified staff member should speak with the student to ascertain the level of support the student either receives or anticipates receiving from home" and repeatedly suggests that schools should hide children's gender transition from parents. Read more. | | Also of Interest... | | Judge allows parents' lawsuit against school district over policy allowing kids to identify as opposite sex Biden tells teachers students are ‘like your’ kids, 'not somebody else’s’ while at schoolFlorida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs bill banning LGBT instruction in early elementary schoolAnguished moms detail how gender ideology in schools threatens parents' rights, led to suicide | | Tim Gibson to step down as president of The King's College | | Tim Gibson, who has served as president of The King’s College for the last five years, will be stepping down later this month. A spokesperson for the New York-based Christian institution told The Christian Post "it was time for a change" as the school looks to a "dual focus" of maintaining its campus program while "developing and expanding an extensive online division with potential global reach." Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Stockwell Day, praised Gibson's integrity and "Christ-like manner," saying he "has set an impeccable standard for all of us to follow." Read more. |
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| Is the Church ready for Trump 2024? | | Dr. Michael Brown, author of the forthcoming book, The Political Seduction of the Church: How Millions of American Christians Confused Politics with the Gospel, discusses the upcoming 2024 Presidential election and questions how the Church will react should former President Donald Trump run again. Acknowledging that Trump "did so many excellent things and kept his promises to his conservative Christian base," Brown nevertheless asserts that many Christians exalted Trump as a political savior and enjoyed watching him belittle his political opponents. Stating that it is the Church's fault that Trump changed the Church more than the Church changed Trump, Brown writes, "[W]e compromised our witness, put our trust in the political system, and divided over the president rather than united around Jesus. Will we do better if Trump decides to run again?" Read more. | | Biblical investors renouncing ESG | | In this editorial, Inspire Investing CEO Robert Netzly renounces ESG, an investment approach that "seeks to ascertain potential risks and rewards inherent within an investment based on environment, social, and governance criteria." Saying ESG has been weaponized by liberal activists to push their social-Marxist agenda, Netzly writes, "We see that battle lines have been drawn—not by us, but by the hard left—which squarely position us at odds with the ESG world that has been overrun by the intolerant, extremist viewpoints of hostile liberal activists. In our view, ESG has joined CRT among acronyms worth fighting against." Read more. |
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| Zelensky issues warning after car blast kills Putin ally's daughter | | Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned of escalation by Russia after Darya Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian ideologue, was killed in a car bombing outside Moscow. Kyiv has denied having any links to the murder. "We should be conscious of the fact that this week Russia may try to do something particularly nasty," Zelensky said in a video address on Sunday. "But Russia has done the same constantly each week throughout the past six months." The 29-year-old Dugina, a journalist and political activist, was driving to central Moscow after attending a literary and arts festival on the outskirts of the city, where her father, the ultra-nationalist philosopher Alexander Dugin, was to speak at an event, The Wall Street Journal reported. Although Russian officials blamed Kyiv for the car bombing, which would mark the first attack in Moscow since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, Zelensky adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said in an interview, "Ukraine has no connection to yesterday’s explosion because we are not a criminal state like Russia." Read more. |
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