The Senate passed the sweeping policy bill after a marathon debate and vote session that started late on June 28. The bill now heads back to the House.  WASHINGTON—The Senate passed its version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act at midday on July 1 after a “vote-a-rama” that began the previous day and continued through the night.  Vice President JD Vance broke a 50–50 tie to secure passage of the bill.  Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and Susan Collins (R-Maine) voted in opposition. view article

Established in the 1940s, the original Buena Vista school building in Imperial, Texas has served generations of students, teachers, and staff. But with growing enrollment and aging infrastructure, the district is preparing for a much-needed transformation. From pre-K through 12th grade, Buena Vista ISD had 215 students last year—a number that continues to grow. To mark the end of an era, the district hosted a walk-through of the school building, giving the community one final opportunity to say goodbye to a space filled with decades of memories. view article

School districts sued to hide the accountability ratings from the public; 2024 ratings remain blocked. view article

There is a growing and disturbing trend of anti-intellectual elitism in American culture. It's the dismissal of science, the arts, and humanities and their replacement by entertainment, self-righteousness, ignorance, and deliberate gullibility. Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason, says in an article in the Washington Post, "Dumbness, to paraphrase the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has been steadily defined downward for several decades, by a combination of heretofore irresistible forces. These include the triumph of video culture over print culture; a disjunction between Americans' rising level of formal education and their shaky grasp of basic geography, science and history; and the fusion of anti-rationalism with anti-intellectualism."  view article

A Mississippi school district has been ordered to desegregate its schools after what the Justice Department called a five-decade-long legal battle. The Cleveland School District, about two hours northwest of Jackson, was told that it must consolidate its schools in order to provide real desegregation for students in the city of about 12,000. view article