Giving Compass' Take:

• The 74 examines Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court in the context of education, reporting on his background (his mother was a teacher in the D.C. area) and his history of his opinions regarding religion in schools.

• Those in the education field should pay close attention to how the Kavanaugh hearings play out: With his record on ed policy thin — but thus far adhering closely to a conservative background — his voice on the bench may be influential on our nation's schools for years to come.

• Speaking of schools and SCOTUS, here's what might happen with teachers unions in the wake of the Janus ruling.

After much waiting and Twitter speculation, President Trump announced on live television Monday night that he is nominating conservative D.C. Appeals Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.

With only one school district under the D.C. Circuit’s jurisdiction, District of Columbia Public Schools, Kavanaugh’s record on school-related cases is relatively thin, particularly when compared to the others rumored to have been on the short list of possible nominees ...

Kavanaugh wrote an essay praising former Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s efforts to turn back the staunch wall of separation between church and state.

Rehnquist wasn’t able to expand the role of prayer in public school but “had much more success in ensuring that religious schools and institutions could participate as equals in society and in state benefits programs, receiving funding or benefits from the state so long as the funding was pursuant to a neutral program that, among other things, included religious and nonreligious institutions alike.”

Without that string of cases, Kavanaugh wrote, the 2017 Trinity Lutheran ruling that said a church-affiliated preschool in Missouri could not be excluded from a state program for resurfacing playgrounds wouldn’t be possible.

Kavanaugh’s own most notable actions on school-related issues came before he took to the bench.

In 2000, Kavanaugh wrote an amicus brief on behalf of a congressman arguing that student-led prayer should be permitted at school-scheduled events through the public address system; the Supreme Court eventually ruled that it violated the First Amendment.

Read the full article about what Brett Kavanaugh's nomination might mean for religion and public schools by Taylor Swaak at The 74.