Commentary Students will be heading back to school soon. If all goes well, this could be the first normal school year in more than two years and a normal education is something every student deserves. Unfortunately, there are worrying signs that school might not be totally normal this fall. Many people who are still living…

The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously upheld a lower court judgment blocking bans on masks in public schools, ruling that the measure and other Republican-passed state laws are unconstitutional. Tuesday’s ruling came less than two hours after the seven justices heard arguments in the state’s appeal of a trial court judge’s ruling. The justices…

The latest Republican-led bid to end mandatory masking of Pennsylvania school children failed Thursday in Harrisburg in a 4–7 vote by the little-known Joint Committee on Documents. In August, Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, asked the General Assembly to approve a mandate requiring all schools and childcare centers to make children wear masks to prevent…

A federal judge on Sept. 17 temporarily blocked the implementation of Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s executive order, which allowed parents to opt children out of wearing masks in schools. The judge blocked Lee, a Republican, from enforcing his order in Shelby County and directed Shelby officials to enforce the county’s health orders without exception to…

Split public opinion on mask mandates has put Michigan’s school board members and administrators between a rock and a hard place. As school doors reopened earlier this month, the divide between those for and against masks has triggered protests in several communities. In Manchester, Michigan, a small town near Ann Arbor, a group of roughly…