May & June

May and June 2024 IEL Federal Policy Update

/ Events, Federal Government, Policy/Legislation, Preparing Leaders, Resources / By

Policy by the People Agenda

Summary of federal policy action this past month and a look-ahead to the next few weeks/month

  1. The United States Celebrates the 70th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. On May 16th, President Biden Issued a proclamation commemorating the 70th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court Ruling outlawing racial segregation in schools. In the opening statement of the proclamation, President Biden reminds us, “We are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives. While our society has never fully lived up to that idea, we have never fully walked away from it either—and on this milestone anniversary, we promise we will not walk away from it now.”
  2. Jeremy Singer joins the Office of Federal Student Aid as Executive Advisor to Address Issues Related to the FAFSA Rollout. On June 14th, the U.S. Department of Education announced that Jeremy Singer would be leaving his role as President of the College Board to join the Department as the FAFSA Executive Advisor in an effort to correct numerous errors which led to challenged rollout of the 2024-2025 FAFSA Form. By mid-Jun , the ED announced that over 11 million students had completed the FAFSA, representing an 8% decline in completion rates in 2023. This is a significant increase from the year-over year completion gap in March, which was a startling 40%, this lag in completion rates mean colleges and universities are significantly behind in offering financial aid packages to students.

Events

  • Past Event: The Learning Policy Institute hosted the webinar, “Addressing State Teacher Shortages: The Promise of Apprenticeship Programs,” on May 16th. More information can be found here.
  • Past Event: On June 17th, The Hunt Institute hosted the webinar, “Impact of State Policies on Family Resources.” More information can be found here.
  • Past Event: On June 25th, FutureEd hosted the webinar “Applying Lessons from Advocacy Research to Expand Tutoring in Public Education.” More information can be found here.
  • Past Event: The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held the hearing “The Immediate and Long-Term Challenges Facing Public School Teachers: Low Pay, Teacher Shortages, and Underfunded Public Schools” on June 20th. More information on the hearing and the recording may be found here.

Resources

IEL Policy Highlights:

  • In May, IEL graduated the 60th DC Education Policy Fellowship Program cohort. These 20 fellows, from all across the country, spent nine months developing education-related policy projects designed to improve conditions on the local and state levels and create more equitable education opportunities for students and families.
  • IEL hosted the Annual Community Schools and Family Engagement National Conference in Atlanta, GA, at the end of May. 5,000 educators came together to meet with subject-matter experts, policymakers, colleagues, and practitioners to advance the impact of Full-Service Community Schools and family engagement.
  • In June, The Coalition for Community Schools sent a letter to the leadership of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Other Related Agencies requesting $443 million in funding for Full-Service Community Schools in fiscal year 2025. The letter was signed by 240 national, state, and local organizations.
  • IEL, in partnership with leadership from the Early Childhood Policy in Higher Education initiative, hosted the ECPIHE Federal Policy Institute in late June. The Institute brought together over 35 graduate students and faculty from across the country with Early Child Development Policy Leaders in Washington, D.C. to learn about how to advance the resources young children and their families need to thrive

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