I received great news from the Virginia Department of Education this week. I realize that is a strange and unlikely sentence for the host of IWN's Esc...
Author: McKenzie Holmes
I'm dancer and creative writer from the Dallas, Texas, area, and I would be remiss without saying I work for IW! In my spare time, I like reading and trying new recipes (I have a love for my baking, not a love of baking). Lately, I have taken up vermiculture (worm farm!), knitting, country western dance, and can play four instruments.
Stacey Brown: ESA recipient and Education for All Arizona Leader
#IWReads Book Club with Bethany Mandel
What Have Education Savings Accounts Meant to Families?
When IWN launched the Escaping Your Government Assigned School series back in the fall of 2021, traditional public schools in many areas were just opening back up for full-time instruction. The families I interviewed in the early months of the series had protected their children during school closures by choosing to homeschool or send them to private schools. They were so happy with the choices they had made for their children. Since we started the series, I’ve been fortunate to interview dozens of parents – close to 70 – eager to share their education freedom stories.
With numerous state legislatures creating universal Education Savings Account programs, including Arizona in 2022 and Iowa, Utah, Arkansas, and Florida in 2023, even more families will be able to access alternatives to public schools. We’ll continue sharing families’ stories here at IWN and I’ll interview the policymakers and advocates supporting the programs on the Students Over Systems podcast.
In addition, you can check out the stories of families benefiting from the universal school choice programs over at Independent Women’s Forum. IWF has been gathering and sharing these powerful stories as part of an ESA storytelling campaign. What are ESAs, you ask? Here’s how IWF describes them:
Thanks to education savings accounts (ESAs), eligible families with a K-12 student can choose the best educational option for their child. With ESAs, parents can elect to redirect a portion of the money that the state allocated for their child to the options that meet their needs — regardless of zip code or income.
ESAs can be used for approved education expenses, including private school tuition, homeschooling, learning pods, tutoring, technology, and other educational services. Thousands of students are already benefiting from the flexibility and freedom these accounts provide.
ESA Stories Shared with IWF
Andrea McNeely: Doctors Basically Told Me He Can’t, and We’re Showing Him That He Can
Stacey Brown: Kindergartener Soared Through Second-Grade Math After Family Opted Into Arizona’s Universal ESA Program
Colleen McGregor: Struggling Student Exceeded Expectations Thanks To Arizona’s ESA Program
Wendy Cameron: With Universal ESAs, A Rural Arizona Family No Longer ‘Pinches Pennies’ To Afford Homeschooling
Elizabeth Koth: One-Size-Doesn’t-Fit-All: How Arizona’s ESA Program Helped One Mom’s ‘Twice-Exceptional Son’ Overcome Learning Obstacles
Elizabeth Wright: ESAs Proved “Life-Changing” for This Arizona Student’s Speech Development
Save Our Sports: Protect Single-Sex Athletic Opportunities
The Biden administration’s Department of Education has introduced a new rule requiring schools to allow biological males who identify as women to compete in women’s sports.
This rule flips Title IX on its head, making it discriminatory for schools to exclude males from women’s teams unless they have developed detailed sport-specific eligibility rules that demonstrate the unfairness of male participation in that particular sport while “minimizing “harm” to trans-identified athletes.
But what about the harm to female athletes? It is well known that males who have experienced puberty have significant, lasting athletic advantages over females in almost every sport. That’s not debatable. That’s science. And women shouldn’t have to relitigate this point with respect to specific sports at every single high school and college across the country.
Title IX guarantees equal athletic opportunity for both sexes. But every time a biological male takes a roster spot on a women’s team or takes the field in a woman’s sport, a female athlete loses an athletic opportunity. That’s sex discrimination, and it violates Title IX.
It’s time to TAKE BACK TITLE IX.
We have 30 DAYS to weigh in on the Biden administration’s Title IX sports rules. Don’t let inclusion come on the backs of female athletes.
Fill out the form to easily submit a comment to urge the Biden administration not to limit women’s athletic opportunities but to keep women’s sports female.
