Weekly Update 11/20/23

Appropriations

Another House Republican spending bill hit a roadblock Wednesday (11/15) as the House punted legislation to fund the departments of Labor, Health and Education until after the Thanksgiving break in the face of opposition from within their own ranks…

House lawmakers left town Wednesday (11/15) for Thanksgiving after a GOP revolt that led to defeat of the rule for floor debate on the final two pieces of legislation before leaving…

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) says she wants to see Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) call up another multibill funding package for floor debate, in short order…

President and Administration

On Monday, 11/13, the Federal Communications Commission proposed the creation of a Schools and Libraries Cybersecurity Pilot Program that would allow the Commission to obtain valuable data concerning the cybersecurity and advanced firewall services that would best help K-12 schools and libraries address the growing cyber threats and attacks against their broadband networks…

On Tuesday, 11/14, the U.S. Supreme Court  took up its first major Second Amendment case since it expanded the right to bear arms in a landmark decision last year, and once again the idea of protecting schools was in the backdrop of the debate…

 More Americans used tobacco, misused drugs and alcohol and struggled with mental illness in 2022 compared to 2021, a new national survey released Monday (11/13) shows, leading Biden administration officials to call for more funding from Congress to address the crisis…

Congress

Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum are among a list of conservative luminaries who wrote congressional leadership on Tuesday, 11/14, urging lawmakers to strengthen the Child Tax Credit in a potential year-end tax deal…

Education

Despite undergraduate enrollment gains for the first time since the pandemic began, a new report shows jarring declines among traditional freshmen…

In an unusual, first-of-its-kind ranking of 35 states and the District of Columbia, charter schools in Alaska turned in the highest scores in reading and math, with students there learning the equivalent of about a year’s more material than their peers in other charter schools…

Educators in Los Angeles are awaiting the unveiling of a new policy limiting the use of nearly half the city’s school buildings by independently run charter schools…

Public charter schools are more productive than traditional school districts in terms of their ability to translate a given level of investment into math and reading gains for students…

About 2.9 million high school students took at least one Advanced Placement course in the 2020-21 school year, according to the latest federal data measuring access to educational opportunity…

A new case study found that schools continue to deploy “school hardening measures” like campus police and surveillance technology despite research suggesting that efforts to support youth well-being are more effective…