Weekly Update 4/24/23

California

California launched the CalAIM initiative in early 2022 , which is a five-year, $12 billion social experiment that Governor Gavin Newsom is betting will eventually cut soaring health care spending in Medi-Cal…

California has spent billions of dollars on homelessness in recent years and a bipartisan group of California legislators is calling for a first-of-its kind, large-scale audit of the state’s homelessness spending…

The latest push for education savings accounts – a type of school choice voucher that would give parents money to finance their children’s non-public schooling – was defeated in a 5-2 vote in California’s senate education committee earlier this week…

Congress

According to Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), House Republicans are taking the first step forward in the appropriations process and will likely deem a top-line spending number of $1.47 trillion, which is in line with the cap outlined in the Republican debt-limit bill…

House Republicans plan to pass their proposal to raise the debt ceiling this week…

On Thursday, 4/20, House Republicans passed a bill that would amend a landmark federal civil rights law to bar transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports…

House lawmakers backed by a wide array of industries think they have a solution to Medicare’s approaching insolvency: moving more care from the hospital to the home…

On Thursday, 4/20,  Emergent BioSolutions said that it planned to charge “less than $50” for a two-pack of the nonprescription version of its opioid overdose reversal nasal spray…

President and Administration

On Thursday, 4/20, residential solar company Sunnova Energy International said the U.S. government would provide a partial loan guarantee of up to $3 billion to back financing for its rooftop solar systems…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine advisers chided the Federal Drug Administration’s (FDA) new bivalent-only plan for vaccinating children against COVID-19, saying that the schedule for kids five and under is too complicated and leaves some immunocompromised groups without coverage…

Education

Obama-era guidance from 2014 warned districts that racial gaps in suspension rates could indicate discrimination, but the Trump administration rescinded the document in 2018 amid fears of school shootings…

Missouri is one of 19 remaining states that legally allow the physical disciplinary method…

According to a new poll, Black parents say they play a much more active role in their children’s education than they did before the COVID-19 pandemic…

Weekly Update 4/17/23

California

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that the state will get the largest portion of a multistate settlement with Juul, an e-cigarette company that will pay out $462 million to seven jurisdictions for “deceptive and misleading marketing”…

Rep. Young Kim (R-CA) says she is trying to be a bridge builder between South Korea and the U.S., but as one of only two Korean American Republicans in Congress, she also is facing challenges educating her own party…

President and Administration

On Thursday, 4/13, President Biden announced efforts to expand federal health care to immigrants who came to the United States as children but do not qualify for government insurance plans…

House Republicans are working on a plan to suspend the debt ceiling…

According to the Education Department, schools can hire more cops and install more security systems on campus using federal money distributed after last year’s attack at Robb Elementary…

Education

The question of whether Oklahoma will approve the nation’s first explicitly religious charter school will continue to remain open for now…

The business of selling and buying undergraduate educations is a tricky one, and college shoppers are increasingly seeking more price predictability and granular data to assess the offers students get…

Public Safety and Justice Update: 4/14/23

On Monday, 4/7, just one week after six were killed in a Nashville school shooting, a 23-year-old bank employee shot and killed five colleagues and wounded nine at his workplace in Louisville, all while livestreaming the attack on social media, police said…

The police have not yet determined a motive in last month’s shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville that killed six, including three children…

Gun violence has touched most American households, including two Governors from two recent mass shootings in Nashville and Louisville…

There were 131 incidents classified as mass shootings in the first three months of the year, according to the Gun Violence Archive…

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation Thursday aimed at preventing gun violence in Michigan by expanding background checks and establishing penalties for those who fail to keep firearms out of the hands of children…

A California bill to regulate law enforcement's use of facial recognition technology cleared its first policy committee hearing Tuesday — but with heavy backlash…

National Public Safety Telecommunications Week is a chance to recognize the important work of people on the other side of a 911 call…

Confidential reports that provided the basis for the firing of Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong were internally inconsistent and relied on thin evidence to unfairly tarnish his reputation…

Contra Costa County Judge Clare Maier released the names of 17 city police officers that allegedly used racial slurs,jokes, and memes in text messages this week…

San Jose Police Chief Anthony Mata made his first public statement following the arrest and firing of the San Jose Police Officers Association’s (SJPOA) Executive Director Joanne Marian Segovia…

At least 80 people, including police officers, allege they were shot by their SIG Sauer P320 pistols…

Thousands of protesters marched toward the State Capitol in the days after the shooting…

Weekly Update 4/10/23

California

According to a report released by the California Budget & Policy Center, most homeless people in California are childless adults that disproportionately come from marginalized communities…

Governor Gavin Newsom is pushing for major reform of California’s mental health system, this time by overhauling the way counties spend mental health dollars and placing a bond measure before voters to build more psychiatric beds…

President Biden declared that a major disaster exists in the State of California and ordered Federal aid to supplement State, tribal, and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by severe winter storms, straight-line winds, flooding, landslides, and mudslides beginning on February 21, 2023, and continuing…

California public school enrollment continued to decline this year even as full-time in-person instruction had returned and as preschool expansion offset losses…

Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Wednesday, 4/5, that Emeryville, Fresno, Needles, Rancho Cordova, Redwood City, Riverside, Salinas, Stockton, and Ukiah, and the counties of San Diego and Yuba have been named “prohousing” communities, a designation that makes them eligible for additional state funds to fast track housing developments…

President and Administration

The Supreme Court hasn’t ruled yet on whether President Biden can move forward with his student debt relief plan…

The Biden administration this week will hold three public listening sessions to discuss its next round of higher education rulemaking slated for this fall…

Under draft rules released by the U.S. Department of Education on Thursday, 4/6, school districts that ban transgender athletes in school sports risk losing millions of dollars in federal education funds…

Groundbreaking new research is showing that, during the two decades prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a steep and steady reduction in serious forms of violence, including bullying and weapon-related behaviors, across California’s middle and high school campuses…

America’s pandemic response may be winding down, but the number of children being treated for mental health disorders isn’t slowing…

Education

According to a new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, college transfer enrollment declined by 7.5 percentage points in fall 2022 and 14.5 percentage points since fall 2020 — the equivalent of 37,600 and 78,500 students respectively…

Lawmakers across the country are moving to make it easier to kick disruptive students out of school, a get-tough turn toward stricter discipline that reflects mounting fears about school violence and disorder…

Research has shown that a surprisingly large number of parents are aware of and considering social-emotional factors when it comes to making school choices…

According to a new report, community college baccalaureate programs in California can help more Black and Latino students earn bachelor’s degrees in a state that badly needs a more educated workforce…

Weekly Update 4/3/23

California

California’s reparations task force is months away from releasing a report on how much Black residents should be compensated for the harms of slavery and racism, but the group recently drew international headlines over a staggering dollar figure included in research it commissioned…

The University of California has proposed, for the first time, a guaranteed admission plan for all qualified community college students, but the plan applies to the UC system, not individual campuses…

Millions of Californians who get their insurance through work could lose access to free lung and colorectal cancer screenings, HIV testing and prevention and some tobacco cessation programs under a court ruling this week…

During the first three months of this year, legislators have introduced 574 bills around the country, including two in California, that target gender identity and sexuality, according to suicide prevention organization The Trevor Project…

In 2019, just 34 percent of Black households in the nine-county Bay Area owned their homes, down from 41 percent in 2000, according to researchers with the Bay Area Equity Atlas…

President and Administration

According to a new report from the Health Resources and Services (HRSA) advisory committee, expanding a popular program into rural America could improve access for older adults…

The National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services' report offered recommendations to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra…

On Wednesday, 3/29, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first nonprescription, “over-the-counter” (OTC) naloxone nasal spray, Narcan…

 The FDA is expected to unveil its long-awaited nationwide ban on menthol cigarettes in August…

The Education Department has sent its proposed Title IX rule on athletics participation to the White House Office of Management and Budget, a key procedural step to unveiling the policy that's expected to safeguard transgender students' right to play on sports teams consistent with their gender identity…

About two dozen governors described teenage mental health as a crisis during their state of the state addresses this year and proposed budgets that would expand treatment options…

According to a new report from the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, counties with better access to civic infrastructure like parks, schools and libraries and higher civic participation are, on average, healthier than those with less access…

Congress 

Rep. Norma Torres (D-CA) and 20 of her colleagues sent a letter to the heads of the Labor-HHS-Education spending panel, asking for the appropriations leaders to continue growing funding for Basic Needs Grants, a relatively new assistance pipeline that was first funded in fiscal 2021…

The Senate has moved forward with debate on its six-page bill to reauthorize federal fire safety programs, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) two firefighter grant programs and the agency’s hub for fire data, education, research and training…

The latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal that nearly 60 percent of teenage girls report feelings of persistent sadness or hopelessness…

Education

On Monday, 3/28, Florida became the nation’s biggest K–12 marketplace when Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation that offers school vouchers and education savings accounts to every family in the state…

A bill moving through the Minnesota Legislature would curtail a popular path to a teaching credential, potentially removing hundreds of educators in high-needs areas from classrooms and throwing up roadblocks for future teachers…