The Executive Orders Project - Education

By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
Email Adele

Updated April 3, 2025

Overview

The White House has issued the following Executive Orders that could affect K-12 education:

• Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government (issued January 20): States that when administering or enforcing sex-based distinctions, every agency and all federal employees acting in an official capacity on behalf of their agency shall use the term “sex” and not “gender” in all applicable federal policies and documents. The EO further defines “gender identity” as “an internal and subjective sense of self” and directs agencies to take steps to eradicate use of the term and to implement regulations, guidance, forms and communications to comply with this order.

• Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity for Families (issued January 29): The EO directs the Secretary of Education to issue guidance within 60 days regarding how states can use federal formula funds to support K-12 school choice; directs the Secretaries of Labor, Education, Health and Human Services, and Defense to, within 90 days, issue guidance on how federal grants and funding can support school choice.

• Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling (issued January 29): Directs the Secretaries of Education, Defense, and Health and Human Services, along with the Attorney General, to develop recommendations within 90 days for “eliminating Federal funding or support [both direct and indirect] for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.”

Advance Stories

• (New) How Will Reduction of the Institute of Museum and Library Services Affect Local Libraries?

• EXECUTIVE ORDER PROJECT - EDUCATION: Department of Education Letter Orders Virginia K-12 Schools to 'End Racial Preferences'

• THE EXECUTIVE ORDER PROJECT: EDUCATION - Funding for Charting My Path for Future Success Program in Spotsylvania Schools Stopped

• ANALYSIS: Indoctrination or Education?

• 'Most Vulnerable Students' Would Be Hardest Hit by Funding Freeze

Local Obituaries

To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit the link that follows.

Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism

The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:

• First to break the story of Stafford Board of Supervisors dismissing a citizen library board member for “misconduct,” without informing the citizen or explaining what the person allegedly did wrong.

• First to explain falling water levels in the Rappahannock Canal.

• First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project

Our media group also offers the most-extensive election coverage in the region and regular columnists like:

• Drew Gallagher — Humorist

• Dennis Wemm — Theatre Critic

• Hank Silverberg — Transportation

• Bruce Saller — Environment

• Loraine Paige — Food and Business

And our newsroom is led by the most-experienced and most-awarded journalists in the region — Adele Uphaus (Managing Editor and multiple VPA award-winner) and Martin Davis (Editor-in-Chief, 2022 Opinion Writer of the Year in Virginia and more than 25 years reporting from around the country and the world).

• For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.

Your contributions 100% support our journalists.

Help us as we continue to grow!

This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”