Weekly Update 11/8/21

California

Last week, the Education Department announced the approval of California’s American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ARP ESSER) plan and distributed the $5 billion remaining ARP ESSER funds to the state…

CA Attorney General Rob Bonta unveiled on Wednesday, 10/27, a new California Department of Justice housing “strike force” that will work with other government agencies to enforce state housing laws, including by prodding local governments to meet their legal housing obligations…

Proponents are circulating various ballot initiatives that seek to overhaul public education in California - three of which have entered the signature-gathering phase…

If everything had gone according to plan, California would have approved new guidelines this month for math education in public schools…

The California Community Colleges system suffered a 14.8 percent enrollment decrease - a loss of 318,800 students - during the 2020-21 academic year compared to the previous year…

A study released last week said that global warming was essentially two-thirds to 88 percent responsible for the atmospheric conditions fueling increasingly destructive wildfires…

The entire Bay Area has returned to the CDC’s orange ‘substantial’ and red ‘high’ categories of COVID-19 transmission - a step backward for some counties, like Marin and San Francisco, where transmission was previously classified as yellow, or ‘moderate’…

Members of Congress want to close the gap on the Central Valley’s doctor shortage with student loan forgiveness incentives…

After years of restricting the growth of fossil fuel infrastructure, California has increasingly looked to natural gas for power generation this year after drought and wildfires left it with few other options to keep the lights on…

California’s independent redistricting commission is in its third week of looking at possible scenarios for redrawing lines based on how the state’s population has shifted, responding to public input it has received, while trying to keep an equal number of people in each district - 52 for Congress, 80 for state Assembly and 40 for state Senate…

Coronavirus

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday, 11/2, formally endorsed the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children aged five through 11, a move that will buttress defenses against a possible surge as winter arrives and ease the worries of tens of millions of pandemic-weary parents…

The pace at which vaccines lose their effectiveness remains a subject of intense debate…

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a federal rule mandating COVID-19 vaccinations or at least weekly testing for workers at U.S. companies with 100 or more employees on Thursday, 11/4…

Last week, the Education Department, in collaboration with the CDC, launched a new COVID-19 data dashboard to help the public track COVID-19 on K-12 schools…

The U.S. lifted restrictions yesterday, 11/9, on travel from a long list of countries including Mexico, Canada and most of Europe, setting the stage for emotional reunions nearly two years in the making and providing a boost for the airline and tourism industries decimated by the pandemic…

A high percentage of federal workers are reporting they have been vaccinated against COVID-19…

Pfizer’s oral antiviral candidate Paxlovid cut COVID-19 hospitalizations or death by 89 percent in trial, Pfizer said in statement…

A new study has found that with layered mitigation measures, in-school transmission even before student or staff vaccination is rare…

 Pfizer's CEO says a vaccine-resistant COVID-19 variant is 'likely' to emerge...

President and Administration

Federal food aid programs are failing to provide low-income homes with nutritious meals, exacerbating the public health “crisis” of diet-related diseases and obesity within the U.S., lawmakers and poverty analysts said last week…

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Chuck Rettig anticipates another difficult income tax return filing season next year due to errors involving advanced child credit payments and economic impact payments…

The Federal Reserve's decision Wednesday, 11/3,  to begin slowing its massive bond purchases later this month was a long-awaited step, and shows both optimism about the pace of job growth and wariness about price surges that have pushed inflation to its highest level in three decades…

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Wednesday, 11/3, that she thinks inflation nationwide will continue rising for “months,” but argued that passage of President Biden’s legislative agenda and a recently announced trade deal with the European Union (EU) would ease pressure on rising prices… 

The Justice Department is increasing actions to combat ransomware and cybercrime through arrests and other actions, as the Biden administration escalates its response to urgent economic and national security threats…

Last week, Biden joined world leaders in pledging to tackle climate change…

President Biden’s commission to examine potential Supreme Court reforms plans to have their final report submitted by 12/15… 

Last week, the Senate voted 58-35 to confirm Robert Santos to be director of the Census Bureau… 

Congress 

On Friday, 11/5, the House cleared a $550 billion infrastructure bill for President Biden's signature just before midnight and moved ahead on Democrats' $1.75 trillion Build Back Better reconciliation bill…

Last week, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) said another continuing resolution will likely be needed in December to fund the government, following an initial meeting on Tuesday, 11/2, between top lawmakers on the House and Senate appropriations committees over fiscal year 2022 funding bills…

One big takeaway from the Build Back Better bill is clear: the $1.75 trillion package marks a dramatic shift toward boosting support for families with children after decades of government benefits being skewed toward the elderly…

House Democrats on Thursday, 11/4, decided to tweak their proposal to change the $10,000 deduction cap on state and local tax (SALT) payments, floating a more generous deduction than they were previously considering…

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is taking flak from both sides of Capitol Hill - and both parties - over delays to defense policy legislation as the window narrows for lawmakers to negotiate and pass a compromise bill…

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) assured three potential holdout House Democrats late Thursday, 11/4, that immigrant protections will be a top priority after the party finishes the Build Back Better bill, potentially strengthening a deal that doesn’t include a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants…

Last week, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said that the House has no plans to use the reconciliation process to raise the debt limit…

Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), who has declined to say where he stands on eliminating the filibuster, is now willing to support an exception to the 60-vote hurdle in order to pass voting rights legislation…

Education

On Friday, 11/5, the Education Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) resolved a compliance review of the Saco Public Schools in Maine…

Providing community college students with comprehensive supports increases their chances of earning an associate degree within three years, according to a study released last week by the University of Chicago Inclusive Economy Lab, a research lab focused on economic opportunity for marginalized communities…

A coalition of 105 advocacy organizations sent a letter to Biden Thursday, 11/4, urging him to cancel student loan debt via executive action and to continue the repayment pause until the debt is canceled…

Of the 200 largest U.S. school systems, 135 now have mask mandates - down from 150 on 10/1 and lower than at any point this school year since mid-August, according to numbers from Burbio, a data service that has tracked school policy through the pandemic…

Despite promises to focus on the growing racial and income divide among the nation’s students, new fall testing data show academic gaps have worsened, falling heaviest on some of the most vulnerable children…

The stress and anxiety that have plagued college students throughout the COVID-19 pandemic are starting to ease, according to a new report on mental health published by the Hi, How Are You Project and American Campus Communities… 

Lawmakers don’t need to decide between increasing Pell Grants for lower-income students or expanding eligibility to more middle-income students, because boosting the maximum award would accomplish both, according to a new report by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators…

Long Beach City College leaders are allowing up to 15 houseless students to sleep overnight in their cars in a campus parking structure…