Weekly Update 3/1/21

California

Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers struck a deal Sunday, 2/28, that would push school districts to open certain classrooms by the end of March…

Gov. Newsom likes to say he’s “meeting the moment” when tackling the state’s problems, but with a rocky COVID-19 vaccine rollout and a potential recall election, the first-term Democrat will need to seize the moment before he delivers his next State of the State address…

All counties will play by the same rules starting today, 3/1, as Blue Shield takes over distribution of vaccines in California…

Coronavirus

On Saturday, 2/27, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine for emergency use…

A real-world test of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine in more than half a million people confirms it’s very effective at preventing serious illness or death, even after one dose…

A new 40,000-person study from Iceland has found that children under 15 are about half as likely as adults to be infected with COVID-19 and, when they do catch the virus, only half as likely as adults to transmit it to others…

Dozens of people contracted COVID-19 from high-intensity workouts in gyms. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that masks and better ventilation are necessary…

President and Administration

Acting Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairwoman Rosenworcel circulated a report and order for the Emergency Broadband Benefit…

The White House is weighing several gun safety proposals as it looks to deliver on Biden's campaign promises, including an executive order that would require buyers of so-called “ghost guns” — homemade or makeshift firearms that lack serial numbers — to undergo background checks…

President Biden said that once the COVID-19 pandemic has been defeated, his administration will target another deadly disease: cancer…

The Supreme Court last week said it will review a pair of Trump-era policies barring federal family planning funds to abortion clinics and limiting immigrants’ use of public benefits, even as the Biden administration signals it’s preparing to roll back those policies…

President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package would trigger cuts to Medicare and other programs early next year unless Republicans agree to a waiver — a hurdle that could give the GOP leverage over Democrats’ slim majorities…

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued guidance today, 3/1, clarifying that businesses with forgiven Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans can still claim a tax credit meant to encourage businesses to keep employees on their payroll…

Congress 

The House passed the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package without any Republican votes and two Democrats (Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Kurt Schrader of Oregon) voting against it…

Senate Democrats will begin efforts to solidify the expanded child credit included in Biden’s COVID-19 relief plan after Congress enacts the aid bill in coming weeks…

Congressmember Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) has revealed a plan to bring back Congressionally directed spending (otherwise known as “earmarks”)…

The House passed The Equality Act, an LGBTQ rights bill that bans discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation…

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s bid to create a broad bipartisan review of the Jan. 6 insurrection is in peril after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) slammed the proposal on Wednesday, 2/24, as “partisan by design”…

On Thursday, 2/25, the Senate confirmed Jennifer Granholm to lead the Department of Energy…

Education

Twenty percent fewer kindergartners are on track to learn how to read than their peers were at this time last year, and most haven’t made much progress since the fall, according to new assessment data released Wednesday, 2/24…

Policymakers are considering whether schools should stay open this summer to make up for lost time, including President Joe Biden, who suggested as much earlier this week…

When schools don’t consistently enforce precautions such as social distancing and mask wearing, teachers can play a “central” role in COVID-19 transmission, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study released late last week…

First Lady Dr. Jill Biden said in her first one-on-one interview since the inauguration that she is continuing to fight to make it free to go to two-year institutions…

The Education Department on Thursday, 2/25, announced a number of additional appointments of aides who will play prominent roles in shaping the nation’s higher education policies…

Weekly Update 2/22/21

California

Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers have worked out a $9.6 billion dollar COVID-19 relief package that will set aside $2 billion for small business and nonprofit grants and fee waivers, as well as another $2 billion for tax relief for small businesses….

Newsom conceded that he has not yet struck a school reopening deal after having said it could arrive last week…

On Thursday, 2/18, state legislation emerged requiring schools in the state’s red tier or better to open for kindergarteners through sixth graders, and would channel billions to schools willing to open by mid-April…

Coronavirus

The U.S. recorded its unfathomable 500,000th death from COVID-19 today, 2/22…

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released the first of two volumes of a COVID-19 Handbook that has implementation guidance, strategies, and considerations for the education community…

Last week, as part of his national strategy for COVID-19 response, President Joe Biden announced a series of actions to expand COVID-19 testing, improve the availability of tests, and better prepare for the threat of variants…

On Friday, 2/19, President Biden announced during the virtual G7 summit that the U.S. would contribute up to $4 billion to COVAX, the World Health Organization-backed initiative aimed at ensuring equitable access to vaccines around the world…

President and Administration

A multimillion dollar advertising campaign is being led by the advocacy groups Judicial Crisis Network, Heritage Action for America, and Americans for Public Trust…

Vice President Kamala Harris said on Thursday, 2/18, that the 2.5 million women who have left the workforce during the pandemic constituted a “national emergency” to be addressed by the Biden administration’s COVID-19 relief plan…

When President Biden met with a group of mayors and governors last week, he bluntly told them to get ready for a legislative defeat: his proposed minimum wage hike was unlikely to happen, he said, at least in the near term…

President Biden last week reaffirmed his commitment to expanding registered apprenticeships to reward work, rebuild the middle-class, and connect a diverse workforce to family-supporting, living wage jobs by endorsing Congressman Bobby Scott’s (D-VA) bipartisan National Apprenticeship Act of 2021…

The Biden administration will give the nation’s smallest businesses exclusive access to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) for two weeks as part of a broader effort to steer federal aid to the most vulnerable parts of the economy…

Congress 

House Democrats renewed a push Friday, 2/19, for a federal hate crimes tracking law, amid an increase in assaults on members of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic…

The debate over reopening schools amid the ongoing pandemic is spilling into negotiations over billions of dollars in new money to help students without home internet access…

Democrats’ second major legislative initiative later this year is expected to include a massive infrastructure proposal—plus some extra provisions—but it’s unclear if they’ll look to add a corporate tax increase, an immigration plan, or debt limit measures to the package…

Democrats begin the final push for their $1.9 trillion stimulus bill this week, dropping any pretense of bipartisanship to quickly pass the package before an earlier round of benefits runs out….

Education

Student veterans are reporting increased need for support due to the COVID-19 pandemic, suggests a study from Operation College Promise and the Texas A&M University system…

The Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) concluded that the negative impacts of the pandemic are disproportionately higher “by students with minority identities”…

A survey of high school seniors by YouthTruth has found that their plans for the fall are fluid, especially for minority students…

Weekly Update 2/16/21

California

Gov. Newsom is in defense-mode with daily appearances up and down the state, complete with local officials praising his work and swiping at his would-be opponents…

On Friday, 2/12, California released data on COVID-19 vaccine distribution by race and ethnicity across the state…

Coronavirus

U.S. public health officials are weighing whether to require domestic travelers to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test before boarding their flights, drawing fierce opposition from airlines, labor unions, and lawmakers but underscoring the severity of the pandemic and difficult trade-offs involved with trying to subdue it…

The Biden Administration's guidelines for reopening schools includes recommendations for phased reopening based on rates of community transmission, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Friday, 2/12..

President and Administration

The Biden administration is preparing to remove nearly all remaining federal prosecutors appointed by former President Trump, with an exception for those handling highly sensitive investigations to continue with their work, a senior Justice Department official said Monday, 2/8…

President Joe Biden on Sunday, 2/14, called on Congress to institute "common sense gun law reforms," including widespread firearm sales background checks and a ban on assault weapons, highlighting an "epidemic of gun violence" in the U.S. on the third anniversary of the deadly Parkland school shooting…

The Biden administration is moving to roll back Medicaid work requirements in its latest effort to undo a controversial Trump-era policy… 

Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour — a proposal included in the President Biden’s relief package — would add $54 billion to the budget deficit over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office concluded…

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee met Thursday, 2/11, and approved the nominations of Miguel Cardona and Marty Walsh to be the Secretaries of Education and Labor…

Congress 

 The Senate voted Saturday to acquit former President Trump of inciting the deadly insurrection of Jan. 6. In the end, seven Republicans supported a conviction — 10 votes short of the two-thirds threshold required…

The House is aiming to vote 2/26 on President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan, as Democrats pivot quickly to their top priorities after Donald Trump’s impeachment trial ended in acquittal…

Rep. Ron Wright (R-TX) has died after a recent battle with COVID-19. Wright, 67, tested positive for COVID-19 last month and had been hospitalized in Dallas for the past two weeks…

The new chairs of the House and Senate Appropriations panels will announce in the coming weeks that Democrats will reinstate earmarks (also known as “member-directed spending”) in next fiscal year's spending bills…

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wrote in a letter to House Democrats on Monday, 2/15, that Congress must “get to the truth” behind the Jan. 6 insurrection, saying the House will move quickly to establish a 9/11 Commission-style review of the deadly attack and the security failures that allowed a mob to overrun the Capitol… 

Education

According to an analysis by the National College Attainment Network, which focuses on reducing equity gaps in postsecondary access and success, the early data on FAFSA renewals by current college and university students are actually pretty good…

Weekly Update 2/8/21

California

The spread of the highly contagious COVID-19 variant first identified in Britain is sparking worry about a future surge in Southern California, one of the nation’s two hot spots of the strain…

Senator Padilla will serve on the U.S. Senate Committees on Budget; Rules and Administration; Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (HSGAC); Environment and Public Works (EPW); and Judiciary…

On Monday, 2/2, the state Department of Finance formally notified lawmakers that California had received an unanticipated $1.7 billion in federal funds to help with its COVID-19 response and vaccination efforts…

Los Angeles County campuses that closed amid the COVID-19 pandemic should immediately reopen, according to a regional affiliate of the American Academy of Pediatrics, because the harms of keeping children out of school outweigh the risks of safely and carefully managed classrooms…

Coronavirus

President Biden is hoping Vice President Kamala Harris, the highest ranking and most visible person of color in the federal government, can sell communities of color on trusting and receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, particularly the African American community, which has been among the most skeptical of any about getting the vaccine…

COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. surpassed 450,000 on Thursday, 2/4, and daily deaths remain stubbornly high at more than 3,000 a day, despite falling infections and the arrival of multiple vaccines…

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is preparing to release new standards for COVID-19 vaccine booster shots, tests and drugs in the coming weeks — all aimed at preparing the country to beat back fast-spreading virus variants that are less susceptible to existing shots…

President Joe Biden said it’s unlikely the U.S. will reach herd immunity for COVID-19 before the end of the summer due to a shortfall in vaccine availability…

Johnson & Johnson (J&J) asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to clear its experimental COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use…

Regulators in the U.S. have begun to review certain data required for clearance of Novavax Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine while final-phase clinical trials are still underway, the company said in a statement…

President and Administration

The Biden administration said it would release $1.3 billion in aid that Puerto Rico can use to protect against future climate disasters, and is starting to remove some restrictions put in place by the Trump administration on spending that was to help the island after Hurricane Maria in 2017… 

President Joe Biden’s quest to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour as part of his $1.9 trillion pandemic-relief package may have hit a political and procedural roadblock in a new report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO)…

President Biden has offered Julie Su, who heads California’s Labor and Workforce Development Agency, the role of deputy Labor secretary, and she accepted…

Congress 

House Democrats on Monday, 2/8, released the first draft text for key pieces of legislation that will comprise President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 relief bill…

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) will keep her job as the No. 3 House Republican after a resounding victory Wednesday, 2/3, easily beating back a conservative-led push to oust her as conference chair for voting to impeach Donald Trump…

On Thursday, 2/4, House Democrats stripped freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) of her committee assignments after Republican leaders refused to act unilaterally…

Education

The Center for Collegiate Mental Health, a research group made up of college counseling centers and based at Pennsylvania State University, released new data on Tuesday, 2/2…

A new report on California’s online charter schools says that the state is “wasting hundreds of millions of dollars a year by funding these schools at a level far above their costs”…

To help safely reopen America's schools and promote educational equity, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) at the U.S. Department of Education announced the largest representative and highest-quality effort yet to gather vital data on the impact of COVID-19 on students and the status of in-person learning…

In a move intended to help college students who’ve lost their jobs during the pandemic, the Education Department wrote financial aid administrators on Friday, 1/29, reminding them they have the discretion to consider special circumstances in deciding whether students are eligible for federal student aid…

Weekly Update 2/1/21

California

Facing criticism for its chaotic COVID-19 vaccine rollout, California has quietly launched a long-promised statewide website to help residents learn when they are eligible to receive the vaccine and schedule appointments…

A federal appeals court ruled Friday, 1/22, in favor of California's indoor worship ban in areas hardest hit by COVID-19, but opposed strict numerical caps in less-imperiled counties…

In 2022, California voters will choose whether to keep a ban on flavored tobacco products…

Preliminary estimates from 1/28 showed California spent nearly $19 million for a week’s worth of high security around the state Capitol and other locations due to fears of civil unrest surrounding the inauguration of President Biden…

In a significant reshuffling of vaccine eligibility guidelines, California officials said Monday, 1/25, they will be shifting who is prioritized in the next round of COVID-19 inoculations to focus on age rather than specific occupations considered higher risk…

Tenants would be protected from eviction through the end of June under a deal announced Monday, 1/25, by Gov. Newsom and legislative leaders…

Coronavirus 

President Joe Biden said Monday, 1/25, he believes it'll be "this spring" when any American who wants a COVID-19 vaccine will be able to get one…

Pregnant women looking for guidance on COVID-19 vaccines are facing the kind of confusion that has dogged the pandemic from the start… 

President and Administration

President Joe Biden is open to some negotiation on his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, but the $600 billion counterproposal announced by some Republican senators Sunday, 1/31, is "not going to scratch the itch”…

Ten Republican senators have proposed an alternative plan for COVID-19 economic stimulus costing about $600 billion that they say would attract bipartisan support, and urged a meeting with President Joe Biden to discuss it…

More than 50 House progressives are pushing President Biden to prioritize recurring direct checks instead of one-time payments in the next rescue package, upping the demands on Democratic leaders in their race to draft a bill…

Congress

The Census Bureau blew its December deadline for delivering apportionment data because of the pandemic, slowing the mapmaking process to a crawl and leaving both parties essentially immobilized at a crucial moment…

A bipartisan group of senators on Tuesday, 1/26, proposed providing federal grants to help partnerships between community or technical colleges and workforce development groups to help the unemployed or underemployed earn degrees and partnerships…

Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) intends to become the top Republican on the Senate health and education committee…

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Representative Tom Suozzi (D-NY) are leading efforts to fully repeal the $10,000 limit on state and local tax deductions, or SALT…

Congressional Democrats introduced legislation Thursday, 1/28, to guarantee women and men are paid equally for the same jobs — one of several gender equity priorities backed by President Biden…

Incoming Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) says he wants quick action on a measure to provide a pathway to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants in a limited initial attempt to alter U.S. immigration policy under the Biden administration…

Education

Dozens of higher education groups, including associations representing the nation’s colleges and universities, urged the Education Department on Thursday, 1/28, to clarify that undocumented and international students are eligible for emergency student grants created in the COVID-19 relief package Congress approved in December…

A recent survey from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics found that community college is playing a greater role in the educational trajectories of people with bachelor's degrees… 

Miguel Cardona, President Biden’s nominee to become education secretary, said increasing access to community colleges would be a high priority if he is confirmed by the Senate…

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is considering a proposed amnesty program through which academics could disclose past foreign funding without fear of punishment…

Higher education groups asked Congress on Monday, 1/25, for $97 billion more in aid if there is an additional COVID-19 relief package…

Trump

Former President Donald Trump has opened an office to “advance the interests of the United States and to carry on the agenda” of his administration, according to a statement released Monday, 1/25…

Former President Trump's five impeachment defense attorneys have left a little more than a week before his trial is set to begin, amid a disagreement over his legal strategy…

Former President Trump’s upcoming Senate impeachment trial poses a security concern that federal law enforcement officials told lawmakers last week requires as many as 5,000 National Guard troops to remain in Washington through mid-March…

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the Senate president pro tempore, is expected to preside over former President Trump’s impeachment trial, assuming a role filled last year by Chief Justice Roberts…