California
Three Western states announced Tuesday, 10/27, that they would join California's workgroup set to independently review any COVID-19 vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)…
On Tuesday, 10/27, California assembly members demanded more specific statewide guidelines for school reopening, emphasizing that equity gaps will otherwise grow as some students return to classrooms faster than others…
School districts around the Bay Area are reporting sharp increases in failing grades - in some cases up almost 50 percent - during a term that has largely been taught online…
President and Administration
The Trump administration is fighting in federal court to block states from giving billions of dollars in emergency food stamps to the lowest-income Americans during the COVID-19 crisis..
The Trump administration’s new public charge rule, expanding the definition of immigrants who are inadmissible to the U.S. because of their finances, was vacated by a federal court in Illinois Monday…
Education
On Tuesday, 10/27, House Democrats introduced the Save Education Jobs Act of 2020, a proposal that would authorize $261 billion to states and school districts over 10 years to protect jobs at K-12 schools, an education priority for the post-election session and next Congress…
In a sharply worded letter to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, key Democrats on the House Education Committee lambasted the Education Department for its investigations of Princeton University and the University of California, Los Angeles, for racial bias, as well as the administration's prohibition on institutions using federal funds for diversity training…
Seventy-seven advocacy groups wrote Education Secretary DeVos on Wednesday, 10/28, asking her to extend the moratorium on borrowers having to repay their federal student loans until at least next September…
On Monday,10/26, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and five other Democratic senators urged Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to do more to hold the owners of for-profit colleges personally financially liable for the cost to the federal government if the colleges are found to have defrauded their students and then closed…
Congress
The House and Senate will return to DC next week, with the COVID-19 stimulus and FY21 appropriations on the agenda…
Presidential Election
Closed college campuses, a decline in enrollment, and obstacles for first-time voters could depress the student-age vote in Tuesday’s election, possibly depriving Democrat Joe Biden of votes from shuttered college towns in battleground states…
In swing states around the country, Republicans are already gearing up legal challenges to the election results…