Today, Dept. of Education officials announced a series of actions centering on transparency in an effort to force accreditors to focus more on student outcomes and hold failing colleges accountable. For the most part, the accrediting agencies will not be required to change their practices. Instead, ED hopes to drive change by publishing and disseminating a wealth of information about accreditors and the colleges they oversee on a revamped department web page. One definite change accrediting agencies will have to make: submitting decision letters – which the department will then publish online – when they put institutions on probation.
Category: STEM Education
Senate Hearing on HEA
The Senate will be holding a hearing on the HEA this Wednesday entitled Reauthorizing the Higher Education Act: Exploring Barriers and Opportunities within Innovation. The hearing will be held at 10 am on Wednesday, July 22.
Senate Passes ESEA
Today, the Senate finished its debate and votes on amendments to S. 1177, the Every Child Achieves Act, a bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). In total, of the 79 amendments that were voted on, 66 were adopted and 13 failed.
The Senate has passed a bipartisan overhaul of the long-expired No Child Left Behind education law by a vote of 81-17.
The bill would continue to require annual testing in reading and math but restores power over low-performing schools back to states.
The partisan House-passed version, which passed earlier this month, goes to an extreme that Democrats and the White House have condemned. The most contentious point of the House version is that it would allow federal dollars to follow students to another public school of their choice.
To devise a version that can become law, lawmakers will have to satisfy White House concerns about the bill’s protections for poor and minority students and House GOP demands that the bill diminish the federal role in education.
COMPETES on the House Floor Wednesday
The House is set to consider HR 1806 – the America COMPETES Reauthorization Bill of 2015 on Wednesday. The rule allows for the consideration of two other bills, HR 2353 – Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2015 and HR 2250 – Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2016.
Out of the 45 amendments filed, only 12 amendments were made in order. None of the amendments to be considered increase the GEO or SBE directorate funding authorizations despite several amendments being authored to do such.
Additionally, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy (SAP) on the bill late yesterday, warning “If the President were presented with H.R. 1806, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill.” The SAP Statement charges that the bill “would undermine critical investments in science, technology, and research.” Further, HR 1806 sets “maximum funding levels significantly below those provided in the President’s FY 2016 Budget” for DOE, NSF, NIST, and OSTP with some authorizations less than half that requested. The SAP also criticizes program policy changes in the legislation.
Federal Relations will continue to monitor the legislation as it moves on the House Floor.
COMPETES Rule Yanked
The House Rules Committee cancelled their hearing to craft a rule for HR 1806, the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act. It is unknown at this time when the House Rules Committee will take up the measure or if this will delay the consideration of the measure last week.