The Education Report - March 2
On March 1, the House Education and the Workforce Committee held a hearing titled, “Education Regulations: Weighing the Burden on Schools and Students.” Republican leadership hosted the hearing “to examine the scope of federal education mandates, including data collection requirements and paperwork burdens, and analyze how compliance with these mandates creates unnecessary hurdles for K-12 schools, colleges, and universities.”

The Education Report - Feb. 11
With both the House of Representatives and the Senate in session this week, Capitol Hill was a busy place. Chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee John Kline (R-MN) chaired his first and much anticipated education hearing. The topic was general and the intent to introduce the 17 new Republicans on the Committee to education issues of importance in preparation for the pending reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

112th Congressional Committee Assignments

The Education Report - Feb. 1
On Tuesday, the new Congress took on an old tradition—hosting the President for the annual State of the Union address—and added a new twist by mixing up the seating so Republicans and Democrats sat side-by-side instead of being divided by party. Building up to the address, pundits speculated that innovation, education and infrastructure would be front and center, and they were proved right.

The Education Report - January 21, 2011
The Education Report, a weekly publication of WPLLC, provides an executive summary of public policy issues affecting American education.

PISA scores releases and U.S. scores remain stagnant: What does this mean for education policy?
On December 7, the latest test scores were released from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an assessment developed by 65 developing nations that compares academic achievement in Reading, Mathematics and Science among 15-year-olds. The PISA results, released every three years, have gained significant international attention as countries acknowledge that an increasingly globalized economy requires more international economic competition.

NGA Provides Six Steps to Improve Early Childhood State Systems
The National Governor’s Association (NGA) released a report on October 27 outlining six steps governors can take to improve early childhood services.

Department of Education stakeholders meeting
On Friday, October 22, the U.S. Department of Education hosted another in its ongoing series of Stakeholders Forums to update advocates, national education organizations and parent and community organizations about the Department’s reform efforts and program activities. This briefing included information on Race to the Top (RTT) technical assistance, next steps for the RTT state assessment consortia, Promise Neighborhoods investments and the launch of the TEACH Campaign.

ETS addresses achievement gap and role of families in childhood education
On Monday, October 18, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) held its 14th panel discussion in a series of symposia titled, “The Family: America’s Smallest School.” This event launched the release of a report that examines achievement gaps in education and assesses the current status and structure of U.S. families while exploring their educational role as the “smallest school.”

New America Foundation discusses early childhood data systems
On Friday, October 1, the New American Foundation (NAF) held an event titled, “Many Missing Pieces: A Frank Discussion about Early Childhood Data and State Longitudinal Data Systems,” to examine the many challenges associated with linking early childhood data to K-12 and K-20 data systems and to learn about state progress in creating early childhood data systems.

Brookings and NIEER Examine early childhood federal policy
On Wednesday, October 13, the Brookings Institution in partnership with the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) hosted a forum on “Investing in Young Children,” to release a collection of reports and analysis on federal early childhood policy, including recommendations for early childhood education (ECE) providers such as Head Start, Early Head Start and home visiting programs.  

Analysis: Pledge to America
September 24, 2010

On Thursday, Sept. 23, House Republicans presented their promise for a new governing agenda built on what they argue are the priorities, principles and founding values of the United States, calling it “A Pledge to America.” While the creation of jobs and economic recovery were front and center, the “Pledge” strikes a similar tone to the 1994 Republican “Contract With America.” Within the introductory content of the “Pledge,” proposals to stop “out-of-control spending and reduce the size of government; create a smaller, more accountable government; lower taxes; implement fiscal responsibility; protect life, American values, and the Constitution; and provide for a robust national defense” underline an election-year agenda.
 

Child Development Accounts
Sept. 21, 2010

The New American Foundation, in partnership with the Saving for Education Entrepreneurship and Down Payment Initiative (SEED), released a new publication titled, Lessons of SEED which reports on the results of the first-ever research to be conducted on Child Development Accounts.

Annual Poll on Education
Aug. 27, 2010

On Wednesday, August 25, the Professional Association in Education, in partnership with Gallup, hosted a briefing to release their 42nd annual poll pertaining to education in the United States titled, ―School of Thought: Data-Driven Insights to Inform Education Policy.

Elementary and Secondary Education Act
August 20, 2010

In 2007, Congress began the arduous process of reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)—named the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) during the last reauthorization process. Following widespread calls for change from think tanks, business and industry, education groups, teachers, administrators, state and local policymakers and the public, the House and Senate committees that oversee education policy held a series of hearings on priorities for reauthorization. In addition, both chambers solicited recommendations from the education community and other stakeholders, and in August, 2007 the House Education and Labor Committee released a draft reauthorization bill. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee followed suit in October, releasing a partial proposal.

Available Federal Early Childhood Funding Opportunities FY 2010
Aug. 16, 2010

FY 2011 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations
First 5 years fund: The Early Learning Challenge Fund
First 5 years fund: Start here and you’ll finish with a better US
July 28, 2010

WHAT WORKS FOR HOME VISITING PROGRAMS: Lessons from Experimental Evaluations of Programs and Interventions
July, 2010

House Education and Labor Committee examine the Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act
July 1, 2010

The House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing to examine the Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act (H.R. 5504), aimed at expanding access to nutritious meals year round, both in and out of school, for low-income children.

ZERO TO THREE EXAMINES HOME VISITATION STATE SYSTEMS - Webinar Brief
June 22, 2010

Zero to Three held a webinar titled, “Building Successful Early Childhood Home Visitation State Systems.” Lisa Schreiber, a consultant to Zero to Three, provided a brief overview of the new Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, created as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Additionally, four representatives from model states discussed many successes and challenges surrounding home visitation programs in Colorado, New Jersey, Virginia and Washington. Beth Jacob, the Manager of Pew’s Home Visiting Campaign, concluded the webinar with an update from Pew.

ZERO TO THREE EXAMINES LITERACY - Webinar Brief
June 16, 2010

On Wednesday, June 16, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and the national nonprofit Zero to Three hosted a webinar, “Building Connections to Support Literacy: Systems of Early Learning for Children Birth to Age 8.” Both Janice Im, Director of Programs at Zero to Three, and Rosemary Fennell, Program Manager, Early Childhood and Reading Group at ED , provided opening remarks and explained this session was just one of several pre-conference events being held for participants who will be attending the Reading Institute, hosted by ED in Anaheim, CA in July.

Senate HELP Committee Hearing Summary
May 25, 2010

This hearing regarding the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) focused on early childhood education and what Congress can do to ensure that more young children begin their education fully prepared to learn and succeed.

House Education And Labor Committee Holds Hearing on GAO Investigation of Head Start Grantees
May 19, 2010

On Tuesday May 18, 2010, the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing titled, “Examining GAO’s Review of Selected Head Start Grantees.”  Upon learning about the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) investigation of fraudulent behavior by some Head Start grantees, Chairman George Miller (D-CA) felt it important the Committee hold a hearing to look into the GAO’s findings and the resulting action from the Department of Health and Human Services.

Read a Brief on this Hearing

Early Learning Challenge Fund Update
March 22, 2010

The overhaul of the health care system remains in the spotlight, since the House voted on Sunday (March 21) to pass the health care reform bill and a reconciliation  bill that makes “corrections” sought by House Democrats to the health care reform bill. The health care reform bill will now be sent to the President for his signature to become law, which is expected to happen this week. To complete the process, the Senate will now take up the budget reconciliation bill.

With the passage of the health care reform bill, this means that the funding for the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visitation program is on the road to becoming a reality – with only the President’s signature necessary for the program to be enacted.  Despite a valiant effort by early childhood stakeholders, the final reconciliation bill did not include the Early Learning Challenge Fund. There is a strong commitment to finding a way to move the Early Learning Challenge Fund forward in another way, and we will keep you informed as potential strategies become clearer.

The Senate will begin 20 hours of debate on the reconciliation bill. Following the debate, the Senate will proceed to a series of non-stop votes on amendments and points of order as part of a process called a “vote-a-rama.” Many are predicting that this could take until the end of the week. If changes are made to the reconciliation bill in the Senate, the bill will then have to go back to the House for a vote. If changes are not made and the bill is passed by the Senate, the reconciliation bill will then go to the President to become law.

Child Nutrition Markup Soon In Senate Agriculture Panel 
March 18, 2010

Senate Agriculture Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln said Wednesday that she hopes to hold a markup on a child nutrition reauthorization bill next week and that she has identified offsets for $4.5 billion over 10 years in increased funding.

But Lincoln also said she would still like to meet to meet President Obama's goal of increasing funding by $10 billion over 10 years. Earlier Wednesday, Lincoln introduced a bill to reauthorize the child nutrition programs for five years. The bill covers school meal programs, the special nutrition program for women, infants and children known as WIC and child and adult care feeding programs.

Lincoln said the increased funding could come from a $1 billion reduction in USDA purchases for school meal programs, a $1.2 billion cut in the food stamp nutrition education program and a $2.2 billion shift in the environmental quality assistance program, which would slow immediate spending but index it to inflation in the future.

Senate Agriculture ranking member Saxby Chambliss said later that he supports the bill, but has "concerns with some of the offsets."

Early Learning Challenge Fund Update
 March 18, 2010

The House Rules Committee just released the text of what will become the reconciliation bill when passed by the committee. As we have discussed, the text was released as an amendment that will be adopted by the Rules Committee. The amendment will strike all language in the reconciliation bill as passed by the House Budget Committee and replace it with the text of the Rules Committee amendment which will become the reconciliation bill once approved by committee.

As we suspected, this will eliminate funding for the Early Learning Challenge Fund. Once the text of the amendment is adopted the Early Learning Challenge Fund will have been struck from the House Budget Committee-passed bill.

Read the summary of the provisions of the House Rules Committee amendment specific to education. As you can see, under Part I Investing in Students and Families only those education provisions will remain in the bill and provide funding for Federal Pell grants, Student Financial Assistance, College Access Challenge Grant Program, and Investments for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Serving Institutions.

This is only the reconciliation bill. The Senate-passed bill will also need to be passed and has not changed since passed by the Senate. Therefore, funding that was included in the Senate-passed bill for home visiting programs remains in the bill and is not changed by the reconciliation bill.

Summary of Federal Funding Opportunities 2010-2011 Released: Read the report here.

Early Learning Challenge Fund Update
March 17, 2010

Despite reports yesterday that the text of the budget reconciliation bill (and any amendments) on health care and student loans would be posted on the House Rules Committee website around midnight, the no such posting has occurred. The delay appears to reflect the fact that the administration and Democratic leadership are experiencing a more difficult time in securing the requisite number of votes in support of the measure than they had anticipated and in getting a CBO budget score that meets the reconciliation instructions to cut the deficit by $2 billion.

We will be watching closely for the amendments which will likely be how the final text of the reconciliation bill will be offered in Rules Committee. It is the final version that will be passed by Rules Committee where it is very likely (nearly certain) that we will see the elimination of the Early Learning Challenge Fund. This becomes even more likely with the news that they need to make further reductions/changes to the reconciliation bill to meet a required budget score.

Early Learning Challenge Fund Update
Monday, March 15, 2010

As expected, the House Budget Committee on Sunday evening released text that will serve as the base legislation for the changes the House will seek to the Senate bill this week. The measure did combine the health care bill and student loan reform bill in one reconciliation measure. As of now, the Early Learning Challenge Fund (ELCF) was included in the measure and I have attached the pages that specifically reference ELCF.

Of importance to note, the measure posted online on Sunday does not include the substantive changes to the Senate healthcare bill that House Democrats will seek. Those changes will be offered during the markups in the Budget and Rules committees, which the budget panel hopes to begin on Monday afternoon.

The House is expected to approve the Senate's healthcare bill along with the package of changes. The Senate would then be expected to approve the package of changes under budget reconciliation rules. We will continue to track the bill as it moves through the process and changes are made. At this point, it is not known if changes will impact ELCF. Read the ELCF language here.

Administration releases for ESEA Reauthorization
March 15, 2010

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will appear before the House Education and Labor Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Wednesday, March 17, to share and discuss the Administration’s vision for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).  As was widely reported in the press this weekend, the Administration posted its Blueprint for Reform: The Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, on the Department of Education’s (ED) website Saturday... More

SAFRA Bill Drawn into Health Care Strategy
March 12, 2010

The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009 (SAFRA) is legislation that would implement a number of Administration education priorities, including President Obama’s American Graduation Initiative and his plans for expanding quality Early Childhood programs. The bill would end the Federal Family Education Loan program and shift all student loans to the Federal Direct Loan program. The resulting savings, once estimated at around $87 billion over a ten-year period, would be applied to a broad range of programs and policies, including increases in the Pell Grant and Perkins loan programs, significant new funding for community college initiatives, early childhood education reform, and school infrastructure. The House passed the bill last September.  

Senate action on the bill has been stalled for months as leadership reserved reconciliation as a possible vehicle for health care reform.  As a result, the Senate has yet to introduce its version of the SAFRA bill, although draft legislation shared with stakeholders in the fall and public comments from Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and others suggest he would like the package’s content to be similar to the House version of the bill, with some difference in the size, scope and details of the proposed programs.  Due to changes in economic predictions and the interactions of the bill’s content, the scoring for the bill changed recently, decreasing its savings by as much as $20 billion, and forcing additional changes. 

On Thursday, House and Senate lawmakers held a press conference to urge their colleagues to include SAFRA legislation in the evolving reconciliation package that is at the center of the health care debate.  The press conference was meant to promote “the urgent need to include student loan reform as part of the reconciliation bill” and is arguably a response to rumors that Congressional leadership may be hesitant to include the legislation in a reconciliation package.  On Friday, it was rumored that a significantly smaller SAFRA package would be included in the would-be reconciliation package—one that includes the conversion of all student loans to the Direct Loan program, an increase in the Pell Grant maximum award amount, investments in minority-serving institutions and some version of the College Access and Completion Fund proposed in the House bill.   Members of the House and Senate are meeting to define a final package, but its size and scope has many Congressional factions to please.  More definitive details should be available in coming days. 

Senate HELP Committee in ESEA reauthorization
March 9, 2010
 

On Tuesday, March 9, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions held its first in a planned series of six hearings on the topic of reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.  The title of the hearing, “ESEA Reauthorization: The Importance of a World-Class K-12 Education for our Economic Success” was a theme reflected in the testimony of all of the witnesses and questions from Committee members... MORE

Nutrition Memo
March 2, 2010
On Tuesday, March 2, 2010, the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on strengthening the federal nutrition and school meal programs through the upcoming reauthorization of federal programs that address child nutrition.  Improving federal child nutrition programs is one of the four pillars of First Lady Michelle Obama’s recently announced “Let’s Move” campaign to combat childhood obesity.... More

Stable Prekindergarten Funding Proves Challenging for States

"The bottom line always is: How do you get the money?" said Diana Stone, a senior fellow at the Seattle-based Washington Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest, who conducted the finance research for Pre-K Now.... [The "Funding the Future"] report found that lotteries and private donations can supplement pre-K funding, but that paying for prekindergarten through general tax revenues - and preferably through funding formulas - provides the most secure way to sustain and expand the programs...  Click here to read (PDF file)
 

Do investments in children's health programs reap benefits beyond the costs?

In this paper, Dr. Bernard Guyer and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins University examine the costs of four specific types of young children's health problems - exposure to tobacco smoke, unintentional injury, mental health problems, and obesity - and review over 300 studies of a range of interventions to address them. While results vary for each health issue, the bottom line is that investing in early childhood health makes economic sense.  Click here to read (PDF file)

"A Science-Based Framework for Early Childhood Policy"
  New Report from the Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, August 2007

"It is widely recognized that the path to our nation's future prosperity and security begins with the well-being of all our children. To this end, one of the most important tasks facing policymakers is to choose wisely among strategies that address the needs of our youngest children and their families. Until now, confusing messages about which strategies actually can improve children's life chances have presented enormous challenges to this decision-making process. As scientists, we believe that advances in the science of early childhood and early brain development, combined with the findings of four decades of rigorous program evaluation research, can now provide a strong foundation upon which policymakers and civic leaders with diverse political values can design a common, effective, and politically viable agenda..."

Read the full report at: www.developingchild.harvard.edu/content/downloads/Policy_Framework.pdf 

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