Weekly Update 1/18/22

California

Gov. Newsom released his new budget blueprint, some highlights include…

State Senator Dave Cortese is considering legislation that would create a pilot program at select California State University campuses issuing $500 monthly stipends for one year to students whose family income is in the bottom 20 percent of earners in the state…

Gov. Newsom said the executive order would help alleviate the shortage by giving retirees and substitute teachers "more hours of opportunity" and speeding up the hiring process, which he described as "laborious”…

Newsom’s statement is his first public concession that some K-12 schools will likely be forced to temporarily shutter in the coming weeks as COVID-19 cases rapidly increase due to the Omicron variant…

Bay Area counties once again are postponing an important census count of homeless residents as they grapple with staffing and volunteer shortages...

Following an hours-long debate and public discussion on Tuesday night, 1/11, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors voted to ban flavored tobacco sales - candy-flavored e-cigarettes, hookah tobacco, menthol cigarettes, and sweet cigars often used to smoke cannabis will all be banned beginning in July 2022…

About $11.5 million of the direct restitution and $261 million of the private debt cancellation will be for Californians, according to the California attorney general’s office…

Last week, Newsom’s administration announced a plan for addressing extreme heat that includes recommendations on how to monitor deaths caused by heat waves and the possible establishment of temperature limits for residential units…

Coronavirus

On Wednesday, 1/12, the Biden administration announced that they were increasing COVID-19 testing for schools by…

The Biden administration on Wednesday, 1/19, will begin accepting orders for free at-home COVID-19 tests, the latest government response to a record number of infections…

Distrust, misinformation and delays because of the holidays and bad weather have combined to produce what authorities say are alarmingly low COVID-19 vaccination rates in U.S. children ages five to 11… 

A study of 53,000 cases from Southern California found that there were about 50 percent fewer hospital admissions, about 75 percent fewer intensive care admissions and a 70 percent reduction in hospital length of stay with Omicron cases as compared with Delta…

Scientists are seeing signals that COVID-19′s alarming omicron wave is about to peak in the U.S., at which point cases may start dropping off dramatically…

On Thursday, 1/13, President Biden announced that the federal government is deploying additional medical teams to six states - New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Michigan and New Mexico - to help hospitals struggling to respond to the spike in cases of Omicron…

President and Administration

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is facing criticism from the disability rights community for remarks she made during a recent interview on ABC’s Good Morning America…

The Supreme Court on Thursday, 1/13, blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers, dealing a blow to a key element of the White House’s plan to address the pandemic…

Prices rose at the fastest pace in four decades in December, increasing seven percent over the same period a year ago, and cementing 2021 as a year marked by soaring inflation wrought by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic…

Water projects meant to quench drought-stricken Western cities’ thirst are set to receive $1 billion over the next five years with infrastructure funding made available through the Interior Department, the agency announced Friday, 1/14…

Last week, Treasury Department officials said that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will face “enormous challenges” during this year’s tax filing season, warning of delays to refunds and other taxpayer services…

Congress  

A bill to auto-enroll veterans in the Veterans Affairs Department health-care programs will be taken up by the House this week…

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told reporters early last week that he expects Biden to soon request “substantial sums” through a supplemental appropriations bill to combat COVID-19, possibly including foreign aid…

After preliminary discussions last weekend between Senate leaders and top appropriators about moving omnibus spending legislation before the 2/18 deadline, the group - Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Appropriations Committee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Appropriations Committee ranking member Richard Shelby (R-AL) - met again on Tuesday, 1/11 and Wednesday, 1/12 - in an attempt to break the logjam…

House Democrats running for reelection in competitive districts have confronted party leaders with demands that they break up President Biden’s sprawling Build Back Better spending bill that has stalled in the Senate amid opposition from Sen. Manchin, and hold votes on a series of politically popular provisions that would appeal to centrist voters and core Democrats… 

The Senate is expected to consider a House-passed package that includes the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act today, 1/18…

The 165-member Congressional Gun Violence Prevention Task Force held its first meeting of 2022 on Thursday, 1/13, which included a briefing from 97Percent and Beacon Research on new polling of more than 1,000 gun owners, including the finding that gun owners underestimate support for gun safety policies among their peers…

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) declared Wednesday, 1/12, that he won’t voluntarily undergo an interview with the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attacks…

Education

In Florida’s public school system, school personnel can use handcuffs, zip-ties, straightjackets, or other devices on students who are acting out or misbehaving in a way that poses a threat to themselves or others…

Enrollments continued to fall nationwide despite a full in-person return to campus last semester for many colleges and universities, the latest data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center show…

According to Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Director Mark Schneider’s latest blog post, IES will shortly announce two new prize competitions: one to incentivize innovation in middle school science instruction, and another to improve mathematics achievement for elementary students with disabilities…

Almost nine in 10 college students think campuses are facing a mental health crisis, according to a new survey from TimelyMD, a student-first telehealth provider…

The administration this month plans to start rewriting key parts of its college accountability agenda, drafting new regulations that restrict how and when colleges and universities - particularly for-profit institutions - can access federal funding…

State financial aid totals continued to grow during the 2019–20 academic year, just before state budgets and family incomes were roiled by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the latest report from the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs…

More than half of Americans favor remote learning to protect students and teachers’ “health and safety” as COVID-19 surges, according to a new Harris Poll conducted for Axios…

In a Dear Colleague Letter, Secretary Cardona outlined (1) evidence-based and promising short- and long-term strategies for addressing teacher and staff shortages, which can be acute in STEM fields, that may be funded through American Rescue Plan (ARP) Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund and (2) examples of how ARP and past relief funding are already being used to attract and retain teachers and staff…

Today, 1/18, the U.S. Department of Education announced that every state education agency (SEA) received approval of their American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ARP ESSER) plan before the end of December 2021…

Weekly Update 1/10/22

California

In a press conference on Wednesday, 1/5, state Health and Human Services chief Mark Ghaly repeatedly vowed that California would marshal its resources to keep kids safely in classrooms…

The current mask mandate, initially set to expire 1/15, is now extended until 2/15, and any potential for lifting the mask mandate is dependent on the severity of COVID-19 on hospitals…

Gov. Newsom will be unveiling his budget proposal for the next fiscal year today, 1/10…

Despite daily hospitalization numbers being higher than last winter’s COVID-19 surge, hospitals are able to accommodate the demand, and most children are neither on ventilators nor in intensive care, officials announced…

Statewide assessment scores released Friday, 1/7, show less than half of students at or above grade level in English, only a third in math and less than a third in science, a step backward from modest gains before the pandemic in what already were troubling achievement levels…

A Treasury news release shows that $ 50.3 million has been distributed to CA state-owned rent relief programs…

Last week, Sen. Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge) unveiled a bill that would fund districts based on yearly enrollment rather than average daily attendance, a move that would deliver an estimated $3 billion extra to schools across the state…

Last week, former Rep. Harley Rouda said he will not run for a newly drawn Orange County congressional seat, averting a potentially bruising intraparty battle with Rep. Katie Porter, a fellow Democrat…

On Monday, 1/3, David Kim announced that he would be stepping down on Friday, 1/14, so that he could rejoin his family in Virginia…

Libertarian talk show host Larry Elder announced he is not running for governor this year, despite eclipsing his Republican competitors in the recall race…

Coronavirus

Updated K-12 guidance for quarantines and isolation was released Thursday, 1/6, and answers some questions…

On Wednesday, 1/5, the CDC endorsed booster shots of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 12 to 17, citing rising infections in teens and young adults and a troubling increase in pediatric hospitalizations…

The White House is finalizing details with the U.S. Postal Service to deliver 500 million COVID-19 test kits to households across the country, kick-starting a key part of President Biden’s response to Omicron…

The U.S. government doubled its order for Pfizer’s COVID-19 pills last week, a move expected to modestly increase the nation’s very limited supply of the treatment in the short term amid a record-setting surge in COVID-19 cases…

A new CDC study from University of Arizona researchers found Pfizer's vaccine is 92 percent effective at preventing COVID-19 in children ages 12 to 17… 

President and Administration

President Biden is not expected to submit his FY’23 budget until sometime after his March 1, state of the Union Address…

A newly-released report from SAMHSA shows that in 2019, suicide was the 10th leading cause of death among persons over the age of 18 (adults); in that year, 45,861 adults died as a result of suicide, and an estimated 381,295 adults visited hospital emergency departments for nonfatal, self-inflicted injuries…

A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that management of the pandemic, once an issue that strongly favored President Biden and his fellow Democrats, is beginning to recede in the minds of Americans…

Then-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was inside Democratic National Committee headquarters on 1/6/21, when a pipe bomb was discovered outside the building…

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has launched the $14 billion Affordable Connectivity Program (previously named the Emergency Broadband Benefit)…

As of December 2021, the FCC has committed more than $3.8 billion to support more than 9,000 schools, 760 libraries and 100 consortia, providing nearly 8.3 million connected devices and over 4.4 million broadband connections so far…

Workers quit their jobs at a record rate in November while job openings stayed close to highest-ever levels, signs the U.S. labor market remained tight late last year…

The IRS on Wednesday, 1/5, released new guidance for businesses that claim a research and development tax credit… 

Congress 

The U.S. Innovation and Competitiveness Act, which started off as the Endless Frontiers Act, is aimed at combating the rise in technological and innovative prowess in China, remains stalled after passing the Senate with a big bipartisan margin…

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has vowed the Senate will tackle voting rights legislation and will vote on changing key Senate rules by Monday, 1/17, if Republicans once again block the Democrats’ elections bill - the Freedom to Vote Act, a bill backed by all 50 Senate Democrats… 

The Build Back Better (BBB) bill is stalled in the Senate, where Sen. Manchin said last week there are “no discussions” going on about reviving it…

Several Senate Republicans - including Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee who isn’t running for reelection - have been pushing the idea that with the $1.7 trillion Build Back Back Act apparently stalled there is political room for leaders in both parties to reach a deal on a large-scale omnibus spending package…

Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Roger Wicker (R-MS) are discussing a possible pandemic relief package that would provide additional support for restaurants that are struggling amid a surge of COVID-19 cases…

Read one-on-one interviews with thirteen lawmakers from both chambers and both parties about the effects of Jan. 6 on each of them and on the legislative process…

 Education

Over the Biden administration’s first year, administration and White House officials have sparred internally and externally over how to address the outstanding $1.7 trillion in student loan debt Americans carry…

A working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that state test scores dropped significantly in both reading and math during the pandemic…

Students who return to college and finish their bachelor’s degrees earn on average $4,294 more immediately after graduation and see extra income growth of $1,121 per year, on average, a new study from Kansas State University found…

The Departments of Transportation and Education announced that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is giving states the option of waiving the portion of the commercial driver’s license (CDL) skills test that requires applicants to identify the “under the hood” engine components…

Weekly Update 1/3/22

California

California’s case rate has surged in the past two weeks as the Omicron variant has taken hold…

California finalized its redistricting maps on 12/20…

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond has announced a plan to recruit 10,000 new clinicians to provide for the mental health needs of California students…

A new California law, which took effect 1/1/22, requires the state’s public institutions to update records for students who have legally changed their names and allows graduates to request an updated copy of their diploma at no cost…

The rapid change of fortunes for the state, which has seen increasing weather extremes due to climate change, is only a first step toward shaking off a grueling drought that’s entering a third year…

PFAS

Industries are advised to brace for more federal moves next year to reduce and control “forever chemicals,” including plans by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to propose water and waste regulations for two PFAS…

Coronavirus

A series of business events, company holiday parties and family gatherings have fueled a 4,600 percent increase in cases in Puerto Rico, a surge that public health officials worry could linger into the New Year…

 The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized the use of a Pfizer-BioNTech booster in adolescents 12 to 15 years old…

On 12/27, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cut isolation restrictions for asymptomatic Americans who catch COVID-19 from 10 to five days, and similarly shortened the time that close contacts need to quarantine…

Test-to-stay is a “another valuable tool” that can keep students from missing school and learning due to quarantine, the CDC announced on 12/17…

 On 12/21, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona urged school leaders not to retreat from in-person learning…

The White House is pledging to purchase 500 million rapid, at-home COVID-19 tests with the aim of beginning delivery of the tests for free directly to the homes of Americans during this month…

More than 167,000 children are believed to have lost parents or caregivers to COVID-19 during the pandemic - roughly one in every 450 young people in the U.S. under age 18…

Just like COVID-19 testing sites and vaccines, COVID-19 treatment pills will be in short supply for months until production can increase…

Continuing gaps in the CDC’s data collection program, which almost two years into the pandemic still relies on state health departments who use a mix of often incompatible and outdated state systems to identify cases, impedes the nation’s understanding of where and how fast COVID-19 is spreading…

The Supreme Court said it would hear arguments on an expedited basis on Biden’s COVID-19 shot-or-test rule for large employers and his separate vaccine mandate for health-care workers…

President and Administration

The Biden administration announced on 12/22 that it would extend the pause on federal student loan payments through May 1 amid a surge in COVID-19 cases fueled by the Omicron variant…

On 12/21, U.S. officials announced approval of two large-scale solar projects in Riverside, California and moved to open up public lands in other Western states to potential solar power development, as part of the Biden administration’s effort to counter climate change by shifting from fossil fuels…

Biden has put more people into lifetime federal judgeships than decades of past presidents by this point in their terms…

Under intense pressure from criminal justice reform advocates, the Justice Department has reversed a Trump-era legal opinion that could have required several thousand federal convicts to return to prison from home confinement if the Biden administration declares an end to the pandemic-related national emergency… 

Congress 

The REMOTE Act (H.R. 5545) was signed into law on Tuesday, 12/21/21…

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has announced that he plans to hold a floor vote on Biden's Build Back Better bill in January, even as the legislation's fate remains uncertain…

The current continuing resolution keeping government agencies open runs out in 47 days, and there has been zero progress on an omnibus funding package so far…

Senate Majority Leader Schumer has announced that if Republicans block elections reform legislation in January when given another chance to take up that legislation - which Manchin backs - the Senate will hold a vote on rules changes designed to weaken the filibuster…

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Schumer announced that the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will lie in state on 1/12 in the Rotunda…

Education

Due to an increase in requests for training, the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) will host an encore presentation of its latest study, Averting Targeted School Violence: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Plots Against Schoolsb on 1/12/2022…

The Education Department is seeking comments on its draft guidance, "Impact of COVID-19 on 2021-2022 Accountability Systems”…

A new resource from CCSSO and the National Center for School Mental Health outlines five key steps state education agencies can take to support a comprehensive approach to school mental health, alongside state examples and relevant resources…

The Education Department recently launched two communities of practice to support states and school districts in addressing the impact of lost instructional time from the pandemic on students’ social, emotional, and mental health and academic well-being…

The nonprofit testing company NWEA has reported that the median student in grades 3 to 8 returned to school this fall nine to 11 percentile points behind in math and three to seven percentile points behind in reading…

Weekly Update 12/20/21

California

California residents will be required to wear facial coverings in all indoor public spaces from 12/15 to 1/15 to help fend off a rise in COVID-19 cases as the holidays approach..

Amplify Energy and its subsidiaries have been charged with negligence in the Orange County oil spill…

A major rainstorm flooded a Santa Cruz homeless community…

California, Arizona and Nevada agree to take less water from ailing Colorado River…

Coronavirus

On Thursday, 12/16, ​​the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended adults take a COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna over Johnson & Johnson’s after agency officials reported the rate of a rare but serious blood-clotting condition was higher than previously detected… 

Preliminary data from South Africa suggests that children have a higher risk of hospital admission from Omicron than from previous waves of infection with other variants…

Dr. Anthony Fauci said there is ‘no need for a variant-specific booster’ at this time because research shows that the current U.S. booster vaccine programs are effective against Omicron…

The CDC is endorsing “test-to-stay” policies that allow close contacts of students infected with COVID-19 to remain in classrooms if they test negative… 

A federal appeals court reinstated a Biden administration rule requiring employees of large businesses to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or submit to weekly COVID testing starting in early January…

Biden administration health officials are privately warning COVID-19 test makers and laboratories that demand for tests could double or even triple over the next two months as cases surge across the country…

The Biden administration on Thursday, 12/16, filed two emergency applications in the Supreme Court, asking the justices to revive a requirement that health care workers at hospitals that receive federal money be vaccinated against COVID-19…

Pfizer’s pill to treat COVID-19 retained its 89 percent efficacy at preventing hospitalization and death in the full results of a study of 2,246 high-risk patients…

President and Administration

Last week, President Biden addressed the families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, marking the tragedy's nine-year anniversary by calling it "an unconscionable act of violence”…

There was a brief lull in eviction filings after the federal ban ended in August…

Nearly two years and six relief bills into the pandemic, the U.S. has spent the majority of its available COVID-19 rescue funding…

Last week, the Federal Reserve said it will speed up the timeline for ending its extraordinary aid to the economy - a likely first step toward raising interest rates during the 2022 election year to help fend off heightened inflation…

Congress 

On Wednesday, 12/15, the House cleared legislation to raise the statutory debt limit by $2.5 trillion, an amount intended to give the Treasury Department enough borrowing room to make it past the midterm elections and into 2023…

Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) announcement that he will not support the Democrats’ Build Back Better bill leaves the White House and Democratic leadership with few options to advance much of their economic agenda…

The enhanced Child Tax Credit, implemented under the American Rescue Plan expires in 11 days, and without the Build Back Better bill – or some other reconciliation package as a vehicle – it’s hard to see this getting renewed…

Voting rights legislation is going nowhere in the Senate. Sen. Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) have said for months that they won’t change the filibuster rule without GOP buy-in…

Education

Julia Keleher, the embattled former education secretary in Puerto Rico who oversaw large-scale reforms to the island’s faltering public schools, will serve six months in federal prison and pay a $21,000 fine after being sentenced Friday, 12/17, for fraud conspiracy…

Multiple reports released by nonprofit and education-focused research organizations in California are calling for the state to reconsider its “Local Control Funding Formula,” which the groups say has been successful in empowering local district budget processes and investments but has not done enough to close concerning achievement gaps for students with disabilities, English Learners, and low-income or homeless students… 

A new poll from Data for Progress that found a majority of voters believe Biden should extend the pause on student loan repayment given the Omicron variant, something the Biden administration has so far been unwilling to commit to do…

For both community colleges and four-year institutions, cyberthreats are now very pronounced, and that reality has led to more institutions facing cyber-insurance premium hikes of as much as 400 percent - or even discovering they are uninsurable…

The troubling enrollment losses that school districts reported last year have in many places continued this fall, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt public education across the country… 

A 10 percent boost to state higher education funding over a 12-year period would have resulted in 27,200 more bachelor’s degrees awarded to Black, Latinx and white students who attended the public, four-year colleges sampled in a new report from the Midwest Higher Education Compact…

The Education Department’s negotiated-rulemaking committee has wrapped up its work after months of debate over the Biden administration’s proposals…

Three higher education associations - the American Council on Education, the Council for Higher Education Accreditation and the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers - published a statement Wednesday, 12/15, that outlines “sound, equity-minded” policies for accommodating transfer students…

Weekly Update 12/13/21

California

The outlook for the California economy appears more feeble than was the case just three months ago because of the uncertainty from the Omicron variant…

Gov. Gavin Newsom said he wants to allow private citizens to sue anyone who manufactures, sells or distributes assault weapons or ghost gun kits or parts in the state for at least $10,000 per violation, modeling his proposal after the legal framework used in the Texas law that bans abortions past six weeks…

Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) said Friday, 12/10, that his newly proposed legislation would set new per-engine minimums at Cal Fire and would launch a staffing study to help prepare the department for fire conditions that are projected to keep getting worse in the years ahead…

Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins and Senate Budget Chair Nancy Skinner outlined a set of “values" that Atkins’ office said will offer a starting point for budget negotiations with the Assembly and Gov. Newsom…

California plans to start converting residents’ food waste into compost or energy, becoming the second state in the U.S. to do so…

More than a half-million Californians struggling to pay their water bills during the pandemic will probably have their debt paid off by the state… 

Coronavirus

For Americans worried about rising prices and shrinking household budgets, January could bring another blow to the bottom line…

More than 40 people in the U.S. have been found to be infected with the Omicron variant so far, and more than three-quarters of them had been vaccinated and one-third of them had been boosted, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Wednesday, 12/8…

A booster using the current version of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine increased antibodies 25-fold, providing a similar level of immunity observed after two doses against the original virus and previous variants, the companies said Wednesday, 12/8…

Federal regulators on Thursday, 12/9, authorized booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for 16- and 17-year-olds, at least six months after they received their second shot…

Last week, the U.S. surgeon general warned that young people are facing “devastating” mental health effects as a result of the challenges experienced by their generation, including the COVID-19 pandemic…

President Biden announced last week that rapid COVID-19 tests were a pillar of his plan to fight the new Omicron variant…

As the COVID-19 pandemic approaches the end of a second year, the United States stands on the cusp of surpassing 800,000 deaths from the virus, and no group has suffered more than older Americans…

President and Administration

A U.S. Supreme Court that has consistently favored religious rights is poised to consider buttressing the rights of parents to use public dollars to pay tuition at faith-based schools…

The Biden administration urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a challenge to Harvard College’s use of race in admissions and leave in place affirmative action programs at selective universities around the country…

A bipartisan panel of legal scholars examining possible changes to the Supreme Court voted unanimously Tuesday, 12/7, to submit to President Biden its final report, which describes public support for imposing term limits but “profound disagreement” about adding justices…

Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday, 12/7, urged Congress to allocate an additional $3 billion for maternal healthcare and expand postpartum Medicaid coverage to one year as part of the proposed social safety net and climate package now before the Senate…

The Biden administration signed an executive order on Wednesday, 12/8, which directs the government to spend billions to create a federal fleet of electric vehicles, upgrade federal buildings and change how the government buys electricity, with the aim of cutting the government’s carbon emissions 65 percent by the end of the decade… 

Congress 

The House passed legislation Tuesday, 12/7, that would create a quick process to raise the U.S. debt ceiling by a simple majority vote in the Senate, approving a procedural measure on a 222 to 212 vote… 

The Senate will complete work on the National Defense Authorization Act this week…

House and Senate negotiators reached a landmark agreement last week that would strip military commanders of most of their authority to prosecute sexual assaults and a myriad of other criminal cases, a move that Pentagon leaders, lawmakers and presidents have resisted for nearly a generation…

Last week, the Senate voted 68-31 to approve Jessica Rosenworcel to lead the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and serve another five-year term with the regulator… 

Build Back Better: Latest on Negotiations

President Biden and Senator Manchin (D-WV) will speak about the bill as early as today, 12/13, a discussion that will go a long way toward deciding whether the $1.7 trillion package - the president’s top legislative priority - can be finished before Christmas or will slide into 2022… 

Senate Democrats are dropping a proposal that would have imposed taxes on vaping, removing a $9 billion provision backed by some public-health advocates…

Education

The Biden administration’s six priorities for K-12 and higher education grants were released on Friday, 12/10…

When the COVID-19 pandemic first swept the U.S. in March 2020, student debt relief was among the first policies enacted to help struggling Americans…

On Friday, 12/10, the Education Department published the Fall 2021 Unified Agenda and Regulatory Plan which showed that the Department anticipates issuing the Title IX notice of proposed rulemaking by April 2022, a month earlier than expected…

Global supply chain disruptions are leaving schools with food shortages and the Agriculture Department can use its authority to help, a new School Nutrition Association (SNA) survey suggests…

Nearly one million 2020 grads in the dataset, which comes from the National Student Clearinghouse, did not immediately enroll in college the following fall… 

Last year, data from the Understanding America Study, a nationally representative panel of U.S. households, found that nearly two-thirds of parents supported canceling standardized testing in the 2020-21 school year…