California
California is joining a historic lawsuit against the makers of “ghost gun” assembly kits that can be used to make an untraceable firearm at home…
Governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed a major reform bill that would have expanded the Cal Grant financial aid program to hundreds of thousands more students…
Long- simmering disputes with unions over staffing are reaching crisis points…
The California Department of Public Health will test the use of dogs trained to detect the scent of COVID-19 at schools as part of a pilot project funded by the CDC Foundation, state health officials announced last week…
California has experienced its driest summer since 1895, highlighting the difficult summer the state faced with fighting wildfires…
Coronavirus
The number of U.S. children orphaned during the COVID-19 pandemic may be larger than previously estimated, and the toll has been far greater among Black and Hispanic Americans, a new study suggests…
The advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted 19 to 0 in favor of emergency authorization of a half-dose booster of the Moderna vaccine, at least six months after the second dose…
Americans who received Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine should be able to receive a second shot of the vaccine two months after their first dose under an emergency authorization, FDA vaccine advisory committee members said in a 19 to 0 vote…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its quarantine guidance for K-12 schools in early October…
Today, 10/19, the Education Department released a new resource: “Supporting Child and Student Social, Emotional, Behavioral and Mental Health” to provide information and resources to enhance the promotion of mental health and the social and emotional well-being among children and students…
In recognition of World Mental Health Day on 10/13, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the Department of Justice jointly issued a fact sheet to support students with mental health disabilities, their families, and their schools in the era of COVID-19…
A new EdChoice/Morning Consult Poll has found that roughly two out of five school parents have had to quarantine a child because of COVID-19. Parents who are Hispanic, of lower income, or living in a small town/rural area are most likely to have had to quarantine multiple times…
The White House announced Thursday, 10/14, that the U.S. will commit 17 million additional doses of the J&J vaccine to the African Union in the coming weeks…
President and Administration
Last week, the FDA for the first time authorized an electronic cigarette to be sold in the United States, a significant turn in one of the most contentious public health debates in decades…
President Joe Biden on Friday, 10/8, signed into law legislation aimed at helping the federal government better identify K-12 cybersecurity risks and suggest appropriate solutions for school districts to adopt…
President Biden said Wednesday, 10/13, that a new plan to keep a key U.S. port open “24 hours a day, seven days a week” would relieve pressure on an overworked supply chain that has frustrated Americans and blossomed into a major economic shortcoming…
Last week, the White House announced that it will ease pandemic-related restrictions on overland border crossings from Canada and Mexico for foreign nationals…
Proposals to expand the size of the Supreme Court are facing skepticism from some members of the commission that President Biden appointed to consider overhauling the federal judiciary…
Last week, the State Department tapped veteran diplomat Elizabeth Jones as the new coordinator for Afghan relocation efforts, days after a U.S. delegation met face-to-face with representatives from the Taliban in Doha for the first time since the militants seized power in August…
The FDA on Wednesday, 10/13, released long-delayed short-term sodium reduction targets, urging food makers to voluntarily cut back their use of salt to help Americans eat healthier…
The Biden administration announced on Wednesday, 10/13, a plan to develop large-scale wind farms along nearly the entire coastline of the United States, the first long-term strategy from the government to produce electricity from offshore turbines…
Congress
Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) believes that the House may pass the bipartisan infrastructure plan “as early as next week”…
Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) - who represents a state that is a leading producer of coal - has told the White House and congressional leaders that he will not support including a key clean-power provision in the Democrats’ reconciliation package, putting at risk a central element of the legislation designed to fight climate change…
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) filed cloture yesterday, 10/18, on a pared-back voting rights bill, setting up a vote on the measure later this week, probably Wednesday, 10/20…
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) signaled in a Dear Colleague letter on Saturday, 10/16, a growing momentum to eliminate the debt limit following a cycle of brinkmanship over national credit that is set to repeat ahead of the next deadline…
Education
On Friday, 10/15, President Biden said that he will probably not get the funds from Congress to make community colleges tuition-free, as he’s proposed…
Thirteen-year-olds saw unprecedented declines in both reading and math between 2012 and 2020, according to scores released on Thursday, 10/14, from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)…
The Education Department is planning to increase its oversight of six loan servicing companies - Great Lakes Educational Loan Services Inc., HESC/EdFinancial, MOHELA, Nelnet, OSLA Servicing and Navient - beginning next year, by including stronger standards for performance, transparency and accountability in the servicers’ contract extensions…
For the first time, U.S. News published rankings of public elementary and middle schools…
As a reminder, in late September the Department of Agriculture announced up to $1.5 billion to help schools respond to supply chain disruptions in school meal programs…
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has appointed an elementary school principal, a business executive, a local school board member, a testing and measurement expert, and a former governor to the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees and set policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)…