Three college presidents — from Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT — will testify in Congress on Tuesday about how they have handled antisemitic incidents on their campuses since the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel, CBS News reports.

Nebraska State Sen. Tom Brewer (R) proposed during a legislative hearing that more people should be allowed to carry firearms in schools, the Omaha World Herald reports.

Said Brewer: “I think we would be very neglectful of our students if we don’t look at all the options possible. Our laws order parents to send their kids to school. I believe that leaves us with an obligation to protect the kids while they are there.”

“More than 800,000 student loan borrowers are set to receive a message from President Biden Tuesday afternoon,” Axios reports.

“The email is a direct appeal from the president to beneficiaries of his administration’s debt forgiveness push, as his approval rating among Democrats hit a record low last month, jeopardizing his 2024 re-election bid.”

“The presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will be called before Congress next week to address antisemitism on their campuses,” Bloomberg reports.

A school board member in Tuolumne County, California “read in Revelations that I was going to be executioner for God and kill your children,” the Modesta Bee reports.

“Senators are taking fresh aim at legacy and donor preferences for admission to college, as advantages given to certain students and groups come under increasing scrutiny following a recent Supreme Court ruling striking down the use of race in college admissions,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“A bill introduced Tuesday by Sens. Todd Young (R-IN) and Tim Kaine (D-VA)—called the MERIT Act—would try to end legacy admissions at colleges and universities.”

Politico: “Trump’s latest policy proposal proposes taxing large private university endowments to pay for a new institution called ‘American Academy.’ … Using the federal government to create an entirely new educational institution aimed at competing with the thousands of existing schools would drastically reshape American higher education.”

“More than three million borrowers have had $127 billion of their federal student loans flagged for cancellation, despite a Supreme Court ruling in June that blocked relief for millions more student-loan holders,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The high court ruled that the Biden administration couldn’t cancel hundreds of billions of dollars for tens millions of student-loan holders, reasoning that the authority for such a broad-based policy doesn’t exist under the law. While that closed one path, Biden tapped a variety of different tools that no previous president had ever used to this extent.”

David French: “In rightly ascribing importance to the Harvards of the world, we can forget that other schools in other contexts also exercise immense influence, and their virtues and flaws can sometimes be more consequential than anything that happens in the Ivy League.”

“In fact, I’d argue that the moral collapse at Liberty University in Virginia may well be the most consequential education scandal in the United States, not simply because the details themselves are shocking and appalling, but because Liberty’s misconduct both symbolizes and contributes to the crisis engulfing Christian America. It embodies a cultural and political approach that turns Christian theology on its head.”

An Arizona father stripped down to a “crop top and short shorts” at a school board meeting to protest against a proposed relaxing of the student dress code, KPNX reports..

Said the father: “Under the proposed policy this would be appropriate in a classroom.”

The board was not swayed and approved the new, relaxed dress code.

“President Biden announced student-debt forgiveness for another tranche of Americans on Wednesday, months after the Supreme Court blocked the administration’s most ambitious borrower-relief plan,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The string of politically advantageous announcements comes thanks to the administration’s use of existing programs that allow the government to waive debt for certain borrowers.”

“The moves are separate from the administration’s troubled attempt to cancel as much as $20,000 in student debt for any borrower who earns less than $125,000 a year. The Supreme Court struck down that executive action in June.”

Washington Post: “The American Library Association is facing a partisan firefight unlike anything in its almost 150-year history.”

“The once-uncontroversial organization, which says it is the world’s largest and oldest library association and which provides funding, training and tools to most of the country’s 123,000 libraries, has become entangled in the education culture wars — the raging debates over what and how to teach about race, sex and gender.”

“Over the summer, state libraries in Montana, Missouri and Texas announced that they were severing ties with the ALA, imperiling their libraries’ access to funding and training.”

Texas made the most attempts to ban or restrict books in 2022, according to a new report from the American Library Association, The Guardian reports.

“Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday he wants to close the Department of Education and have state governments ‘run the education of our children,’ pushing for a long-held Republican goal that has been endorsed by several other 2024 GOP candidates,” CNN reports.

Said Trump, in a video: “We’re going to end education coming out of Washington, DC. We’re going to close it up – all those buildings all over the place and people that in many cases hate our children. We’re going to send it all back to the states.”

“But eliminating the US Department of Education would not necessarily give any more power to states over K-12 schools. While the federal agency helps the president execute education policies, the power to set curriculum, establish schools and determine enrollment eligibility already lies with the states and local school boards.”

“The elite colleges that found an ally in Miguel Cardona while defending their admissions practices are now among the Education secretary’s biggest targets,” Politico reports.

“The Supreme Court’s decision to gut race-conscious college admissions policies ignited new urgency among civil rights groups concerned about Black and brown students being left out of higher education. But it also gave Cardona — and President Joe Biden — an opening to air long-held criticisms of how Harvard, Yale and other selective institutions favor applicants who come from wealthy alumni families through legacy admissions.”

“The head of the Chicago Teachers Union is facing backlash for sending her eldest child to a private high school, a decision she says represents a stark statement about disinvestment in public schools and drives home why the fight to fully fund neighborhood schools is so important,” the Chicago Sun Times reports.

Said Stacy Davis Gates: “In many of our schools on the South Side and the West Side, the course offerings are very marginal and limited. Then the other thing, and it was a very strong priority, was his ability to participate in co-curricular and extracurricular activities, which quite frankly, don’t exist in many of the schools, high schools in particular.”

“The Classic Learning Test is the college admissions exam that most students have never heard of. An alternative to the SAT and ACT for only a small number of mostly religious colleges, the test is known for its emphasis on the Western canon, with a big dose of Christian thought,” the New York Times reports.

“But on Friday, Florida’s public university system, which includes the University of Florida and Florida State University, is expected to become the first state system to approve the Classic Learning Test, or CLT, for use in admissions.”

“As Florida lawmakers expanded eligibility for school vouchers this year, they also gave parents more ways to spend the money,” the Tampa Bay Times reports.

“Theme park passes, 55-inch TVs, and stand-up paddleboards are among the approved items that recipients can buy to use at home. The purchases can be made by parents who home-school their children or send them to private schools, if any voucher money remains after paying tuition and fees.”