Defending Education Ranks States on Parental Rights, DEI and Gender Policies

Defending Education's new RISE rankings put Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, Florida, and Iowa atop a first-of-its-kind state education integrity index, with Washington, Rhode Island, California, Oregon, and Illinois near the bottom. What RISE measures: The Rankings in Integrity in State Education, released by Defending Education, grade states on policies aimed at keeping what the group calls "ideological distractions" out of K-12 classrooms: gender ideology, DEI, foreign influence, and teacher union issues, along with the strength of parental rights laws. The rankings reflect the organization's own criteria. Top five: Tennessee ranks first, followed by Alabama, North Carolina, and Florida; Iowa rounds out the top five. Dr. Terry Stoops, Defending Education's director of government affairs, says the top states advanced these changes through their legislatures. He notes North Carolina's reforms passed despite a Democratic governor and Democratic superintendent of public instruction. Bottom five: Washington, Rhode Island, California, Oregon, and Illinois rank lowest, and the District of Columbia is last at No. 51. Stoops attributes Illinois's placement to the influence of teachers unions on state leadership and says residents are leaving states like Illinois and California over taxes and school quality. The union concern: Stoops says his group has documented classroom curriculum that presents unions favorably and retailers like Amazon unfavorably for being non-union, and argues unions have an interest in controlling curriculum content. The academic argument: Stoops contends that time spent on these topics takes away from student achievement, and says red states are performing better on standardized tests because they prioritize academics. How should states balance curriculum content, parental rights, and academic outcomes? Leave your thoughts in the comments. #Education #K12 #ParentalRights #CenterSquare #TheStates