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Don’t give up on the FAFSA, advocates for student financial aid urge
WASHINGTON — Though the new version of the form to apply for federal financial student aid has had its fair share of highly publicized hiccups, U.S. Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal says the department has made a lot of progress in the past couple of months. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid — better known […]
‘Extremely low pay’ cited at U.S. Senate hearing as prime reason for teacher shortage
WASHINGTON — The only reason John Arthur is able to be a public school teacher is because his wife makes much more money than he does. Arthur — the 2021 Utah Teacher of the Year — testified on Thursday at a hearing in the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on the […]
Biden Title IX regulation targeted by Republicans in Congress
WASHINGTON — Republicans in Congress got one step further in their efforts to reverse the Biden administration’s final rule for Title IX after the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce approved a measure on Thursday that would overturn the updated regulations. The U.S. Department of Education’s final rule — which seeks to protect […]
Prodded by fed up parents, some in Congress try to curb kids’ use of social media
WASHINGTON — Attempts to get kids off of their phones are ramping up in Congress, despite intense lobbying by social media giants and pushback by those worried about violations of First Amendment speech rights. Lawmakers are seeking to set a minimum age to access social media and put more of the onus on social media […]
Funds for clean school buses coming to hundreds of districts, White House says
WASHINGTON — As part of its ongoing effort to replace diesel-fueled school buses, the Biden administration on Wednesday said it will provide approximately 530 school districts across nearly all states with almost $1 billion to help them purchase clean school buses. The initiative, part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus Program rebate […]
Congress, campaigns engage in tug-of-war over gas prices as summer travel begins
WASHINGTON — As Democrats continue to ramp up their push against the oil industry, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and others on Thursday called out big oil companies and their executives for high gas prices heading into the heavily traveled Memorial Day weekend. Republicans in turn have blamed President Joe Biden’s energy policies for high […]
More than half of states sue to block Biden Title IX rule protecting LGBTQ+ students
WASHINGTON — Twenty-six GOP-led states are suing the Biden administration over changes to Title IX aiming to protect LGBTQ+ students from discrimination in schools. Less than a month after the U.S. Department of Education released its final rule seeking to protect against discrimination “based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics,” a […]
Brown v. Board litigants, family mark anniversary as Biden decries ongoing school inequality
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is commemorating the 70th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education this week while recognizing that the full potential of the decision “remains unfulfilled.” Friday marks 70 years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional in […]
Even as interest in women’s college sports rises, report finds big gap in participation
WASHINGTON — A congressional watchdog in a new report called on the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to improve its enforcement of Title IX compliance in college athletics. The U.S. Government Accountability Office in the report issued Thursday appeared critical of the OCR’s oversight in expanding opportunities for women in college athletics, saying the […]