HBCUs Testify Before Congress

HBCUs Testify Before Congress

By LAWT News Service

Wiley College President Herman Felton (UNCF photo)

Wiley College President Herman Felton (UNCF photo)

Tuesday, April 9, Herman Felton, Ph.D., president and CEO of Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, provided testimony before the House panel that decides the funding levels for all federal education programs.  The House Ap­propriations Committee’s Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee received public witness testimony from only 24 individuals to inform their crafting of the upcoming bill to fund the government for fiscal year 2020.  The remarks provided by Dr. Felton focused on the funding and national benefits of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

A Marine Corps veteran and lifelong educator, Dr. Felton’s testimony was the first of the afternoon to receive bi-partisan support from both Subcommittee Chairwoman Rosa L. DeLauro (D-CT) and Ranking Member Tom J. Cole (R-OK).  The funding leaders commended Wiley College (a UNCF-member institution) and similar HBCUs, for their work with first-generation college students, specifically for being an integral part of the American higher education fabric for decades. Chairwoman DeLauro added, concerning the $39 billion National Institutes of Health (NIH), “We will be sure that the center of our discussion and debate will be that we strengthen HBCUs.”  Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) who introduced Dr. Felton to the Subcommittee prior to his testimony, noted that funding recommendations in Dr. Felton’s testimony “just make sense.”

UNCF (United Negro College Fund) worked with Congress to garner the opportunity for HBCUs to be represented in today’s proceedings. Dr. Felton echoed the priorities laid out by UNCF’s president and CEO Dr. Michael L. Lomax during the organization’s inaugural “State of the HBCUs Address” on March 5, including:

  • Increase funding for the discretionary “Strengthening HBCUs” Program to $375 million ($93 million increase over FY 2019);
  • Reauthorize the mandatory “Strengthening HBCUs” Program this year;
  • Fund the HBCU Capital Finance Program, including support for the deferment authority;
  • Double the Pell Grant award and support Second Chance Pell; and
  • Support funding to produce more African American health professionals and researchers, including at NIH.

“What we witnessed today was history,” commented Lodriguez V. Murray, UNCF’s vice president for public policy and government affairs. “One of our HBCU member presidents delivered remarks about the needs of all HBCUs and their students, weaving in the history of Wiley College. The goals are clear: increase resources necessary for the Pell-eligible and first-generation college students who have found an HBCU education to be a necessity; and allot the funding necessary for HBCUs to continue to remain competitive and thrive.”

Murray concluded, “The reception Dr. Felton received at the hearing showed, once again, that when we take a positive proactive agenda to Capitol Hill, bipartisanship is the response.”

This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Sentinel

Democrats grill DeVos on school shooting response, transgender students

Democrats grill DeVos on school shooting response, transgender students

By Juana Summers, CNN

Washington (CNN) Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday addressed the deadly shooting at Santa Fe High School in Texas, telling House lawmakers the shooting “was only the most recent, devastating reminder that our nation must come together to address the underlying issues that create a culture of violence.”

“Our commitment to every student’s success is one we must renew every day, but first we must ensure our children are safe at school,” she said.

DeVos also said the school safety commission she oversees, which was created in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, shooting earlier this year, “looks forward to delivering best practices and findings by year’s end” and gave lawmakers some details of the group’s most recent meeting last week. She described that meeting as “one of the first broader listening sessions” and said members heard from parents of students that had been killed in school shootings.

She stressed that the “primary responsibility for the physical security of schools rests with states and local communities, and made no mention of gun measures or reforms.


Betsy DeVos pushes back against criticism over “60 Minutes” interview, March 12, 2018

DeVos’s Capitol Hill testimony Tuesday marked her fifth time testifying before congressional lawmakers and comes on the heels of a trip to New York in which she was criticized for not visiting any public schools. Instead, DeVos toured two Orthodox Jewish schools and spoke in support of public funding for religious schools.

While DeVos was questioned by several lawmakers about school safety in the wake of another deadly shooting, the issue was not the overwhelming focus of the broad hearing. DeVos took questions on a wide variety of topics including her response to teacher walkouts across the nation, the agency’s Office for Civil Rights and her commitment to the rights of LGBTQ students.

She was pressed by Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott — the committee’s top Democrat — over whether she had approved state education plans that violate the law. Scott repeatedly pressed DeVos on plans where school grades don’t include subgroup performance, suggesting that allowed states to ignore disadvantaged groups.

“All of the plans that I have approved follow what the law requires and it will, we will continue to do so,” DeVos said.

“How do you address an achievement gap if subgroup performance isn’t addressed,” Scott asked DeVos.

At one point during the hearing Florida Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson asked DeVos if she was aware she was “resegregating” the nation’s schools by expanding school choice programs, and in turn, transferring federal funds away from public schools.

Read the full article here.

$250 Teacher Tax Deduction Here to Stay in Final GOP Bill – Teacher Beat – Education Week

$250 Teacher Tax Deduction Here to Stay in Final GOP Bill – Teacher Beat – Education Week

Education Week logoThe final tax bill that Congress will soon vote on maintains the $250 tax deduction that teachers can use for classroom supplies—and yet teachers’ unions are finding little consolation in a legislative overhaul they say hurts working families.

The House and Senate versions of the bill took different tacks on the teacher deduction. The House bill called for eliminating it—a move that angered many teachers and brought much public attention to the relatively minor provision. The Senate bill, on the other hand, doubled the tax deduction to $500.

The version put out by the congressional conference committee Friday afternoon, which still needs to be passed by both the House and Senate and signed into law by President Donald Trump, offers a compromise, keeping the deduction where it is at $250.

K-12 teachers, principals, counselors, and aides have been able to claim the “educator expense deduction” for about 15 years now. Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who is still in office, pushed for the deduction as a way of helping reimburse teachers who spend money of their own on supplies and professional development. According to a 2016 survey from Scholastic, teachers spend about $530 out of their own pockets each year on classroom items

Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.

Donald Trump Praises Betsy DeVos and Urges More Local Control Over Education

President Donald Trump repeated a few promises related to the Common Core State Standards and education governance from his 2016 campaign, and also praised Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, at a town hall of business executives in Washington on Tuesday.

In response to a question about college- and career readiness at the event, Trump sharply criticized the academic performance of students New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles, while also praising charter schools. “I don’t call it an experiment any more. It’s far beyond an experiment,” he said of charters. (More on recent academic performance of students in Chicago and L.A. here.)

He then moved on to one of his key priorities for education: shifting control from federal to state and local leaders…

Read the full article here. May require an Education Week subscription.

How Could Trump’s Budget Use $1 Billion in Title I Aid to Boost School Choice?

How Could Trump’s Budget Use $1 Billion in Title I Aid to Boost School Choice?

Along with the various cuts to the U.S. Department of Education’s budget proposed by President Donald Trump, the other part of Trump’s fiscal 2018 spending plan getting a lot of attention is the $1 billion the president wants to add to Title I in order to encourage open enrollment in public schools. There are a lot of questions about how that, along with many other parts of Trump’s education budget blueprint, would work. Let’s explore some of them.

First, it’s important to point out this increase isn’t necessarily and strictly a $1 billion bump for Title I. The budget says it’s an increase from the $14.9 billion that Title I grants technically get now. But ESSA gets rid of the Obama-era School Improvement Grants and instead shifts that money over to a portion of Title I money states can set aside for their own school improvement activities. That means that once Congress gets around to doing a regular fiscal year budget, Title I is already slated to rise to $15.4 billion.

So once (or if, for you pessimists out there) that happens, Trump’s proposed Title I funding increase would only be roughly $500 million…

Read the full article here. May require an Education Week subscription.

Here’s What Key Lawmakers Told State Chiefs About ESSA, Budget

Here’s What Key Lawmakers Told State Chiefs About ESSA, Budget

Washington

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., told a roomful of state education chiefs Tuesday that he’ll push to fund the new block grant Congress created under the Every Student Succeeds Act to help districts cover the cost of health, safety, technology programs, and moer. And he said he looks forward to the kind of innovation and change the new law can bring to states.

Meanwhile, Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., also an ESSA architect and the top Democrat on the House education committee, challenged states to develop plans that will look out for historically disadvantaged groups of students.

And Scott told those at the…

Read the full article here. May require an Education Week subscription.

Trump Is Speaking to Heritage; Four Things to Know About Its K-12 Record

Trump Is Speaking to Heritage; Four Things to Know About Its K-12 Record

Set your DVR: President Donald Trump will be speaking at the Heritage Foundation’s “President’s Club” meeting Tuesday night. There’s no way to know whether, €”or how much, education will play in the speech. Supposedly, taxes are the big focus.

Presidents don’t address think tanks often, though, so this speech is a signal of Heritage’s influence in Trump’s Washington. And that matters for education because Heritage’s lobbying arm—the Heritage Action Fund—has been an active player on K-12 policy in recent years.

Generally, the think tank has pushed for a much a smaller role for the feds in schools. Heritage has even opposed some Republican ideas for expanding school choice—like a federal tax credit scholarship program—because they’re worried about growing the federal footprint on K-12…

Read the full article here. May require an Education Week subscription.

Budget Tangles Ensnare Key Early-Childhood Programs – Education Week

Budget Tangles Ensnare Key Early-Childhood Programs – Education Week

October 10, 2017

Congress is late in turning in two important assignments that affect young children: Both the Children’s Health Insurance Program and a federally funded program that provides counseling to vulnerable families expired Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.

Neither program will run out of money immediately, and both programs have support from Republicans and Democrats. But the expiration, even if it proves temporary, illustrates how difficult it has been for Congress to address other legislation as it has wrestled, unsuccessfully, with repealing the Affordable Care Act.

The highest-profile of the two programs to expire is the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which Congress failed to extend by the end of September, could put a financial strain on states—and eventually jeopardize coverage for the roughly 9 million children covered by the program…

Read the full article here. May require an Education Week subscription.

 

Will Trump Get His K-12 Budget Cuts? Washington Edu-Insiders Say No.

Will Trump Get His K-12 Budget Cuts? Washington Edu-Insiders Say No.

President Donald Trump alarmed a lot of the education community when he proposed slashing the U.S. Department of Education’s nearly $70 billion budget by $9 billion. So will those cuts become a reality?

Probably not, say a couple dozen inside-the-beltway education experts surveyed by Whiteboard Advisors. In fact 79 percent of them don’t think Congress will follow through on the proposals.

Here’s a handy graphic breaking this down:

whiteboard snip.PNG

Most of those surveyed expected to see Title II, a $2.05 billion program aimed at improving teacher quality, stick around too, although it might be reduced…

Read the full article here. May require an Education Week subscription.