EdAction in Congress July 19, 2020
McConnell’s coronavirus bill to be unveiled this week
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Two months after the House took bold action and passed the HEROES Act, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is finally expected to reveal his vision for the next coronavirus bill. Initial indications are that it will provide insufficient support for education and contain multiple poison pills, including a renewed push for vouchers. In short, McConnell and his enablers are continuing to waste time instead of working with Democrats to craft a bill Congress can pass.
Meanwhile, parents, educators, and school districts are emphasizing the need to reopen schools safely. In a positive development, the administration reversed course and abandoned its plan to deport international college students unless they attend classes in person; a public outcry and multiple lawsuits propelled the shift.
NEA’s priorities for the next coronavirus package remain the same: at least $175 billion to stabilize education funding, at least $56 million in directed funding for personal protective equipment (PPE), at least $4 billion to equip students with hot spots and devices to help narrow the digital divide and close the homework gap, relief for student loan borrowers, and at least $4 billion to protect voting rights and make voting by mail more widely available. TAKE ACTION
All students must be able to do schoolwork at home
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NEA believes the best approach is to work through the Federal Communications Commission’s trusted E-Rate program—not a new program that leaves room for winners and losers. The Emergency Educational Connections Act (S. 3690/H.R. 6563) would provide up to $4 billion for a one-time emergency fund, administered by E-Rate, to equip students with hot spots and devices during the COVID-19 pandemic. TAKE ACTION
New DeVos rule shifts resources from public to private schools
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The CARES Act explicitly requires districts to provide private schools with services in the “same manner” as Title I, which uses the number of low-income students in each school to allocate funds. Under the new DeVos rule, districts may instead base allocations on the total private school population—a change that could rob under-resourced public schools of hundreds of millions of dollars. In Michigan, for example, private schools would get four times as much—$21.6 million instead of the $5.1 million worth of services the Title I funding formula would provide, according to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. TAKE ACTION
Cheers and Jeers
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