School Choice Week
What to know: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has declared Jan 21-27 as School Choice Week in Texas.
The TPPF take: It’s time for Texas to trust parents.
“Nationwide, 32 states and the District of Columbia have some form of school choice,” notes TPPF’s Mandy Drogin. “Surely, if the dire predictions are true, we’d see the results in states that have empowered parents for years.”
For more on parent empowerment, click here.
Protecting Children
What to know: Challenges to Texas’ law banning experimental gender treatments continue to make their way through the courts.
The TPPF take: The Texas Public Policy Foundation has filed an amicus brief ahead of the state’s oral arguments on Jan. 30, defending Texas Senate Bill 14.
“Senate Bill 14 is critical legislation that protects the health and wellbeing of children against experimental and harmful sex trait modification procedures,” says TPPF’s Andrew Brown. “Rather than infringing on parents’ rights, this legislation safeguards children and their families from the irreparable harm that these procedures inflict.”
For more on protecting children, click here.
FAFSA
What to know: Congress has made a mess out of the federal student aid application program (FAFSA). Now it must fix it.
The TPPF take: The new FAFSA site suffers from implementation hurdles smacking of negligence at best—and incompetence at worst.
“What went wrong was misprioritization by the Department of Education, particularly the office of Federal Student Aid (FSA), which is responsible for the FAFSA,” says TPPF’s Andrew Gillen. “The Wall Street Journal editorial page suspects that ‘Richard Cordray, the Federal Student Aid chief operating officer, has prioritized implementing various loan forgiveness schemes. The FAFSA has been a side project, and it shows.’”
For more on FAFSA, click here.