News
Rep. Bobby Scott: Trump Drama Shrouds $23B Schools Disparity
by Stacy Brown
03.06.19 **FILE** Rep. Bobby Scott (NNPA photo) The controversial blackface and sexual assault scandals that have rocked the Virginia leadership and the drama that regularly surrounds President Donald Trump simply act as distractions, said Rep. Bobby Scott. Those distractions lead the media and others to take their eyes off what's vital to everyday life, particularly for African Americans, said Scott, chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor. The Virginia Democrat highlighted two i… Continue Reading
DeVos Pushes Federal Tax Credit to Boost School Choice
by Alyson Klein
03.05.19 U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who has had trouble selling her school choice agenda in Washington, has thrown her weight behind new legislation to establish a federal tax credit to expand choice. The measure, which faces long odds in Congress, would offer a new federal tax credit for individuals and companies that donate to organizations offering scholarships to students. Under the plan, states would get to decide how big those scholarships are, which students and organizations would … Continue Reading
This Week’s ESSA News: New Mexico Readies to Ditch A-F Rating System, House Democrats Call Out DeVos on Addressing Achievement Gaps & More
by Ashley Inman Zanchelli
03.03.19 The newly empowered Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives is ready to provide vigorous oversight of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her department in the coming weeks and months, reports Erica L. Green for the New York Times. Among the initial issues targeted by Democrats will be "the carrying out of the Every Student Succeeds Act and the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act; recommendations from the Federal Commission on School Safety led by Ms. DeVos in respons… Continue Reading
Democrats, conservative group knock down Betsy DeVos 'school choice' plan
by Anne Flaherty
02.28.19 A Trump administration proposal aimed at encouraging "school choice" appeared to be dead on arrival in Congress after both House Democrats and a conservative think tank issued statements Thursday saying it was the wrong way to go. The legislation, pitched by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos with GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rep. Bradley Byrne of Alabama, would offer $5 billion a year in tax credits for scholarship donations to privately run education programs. In a press conference, DeVos sai… Continue Reading
Betsy DeVos Backs $5 Billion in Tax Credits for School Choice
by Erica L. Green
02.28.19 WASHINGTON - Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Thursday pitched a $5 billion federal tax credit that would fund scholarships to private schools and other educational programs, throwing her weight behind what will be a difficult legislative undertaking to fund the Trump administration's signature education initiative. Ms. DeVos will join Republican lawmakers in championing legislation that would allow states to opt into a program that provides individual and corporate donors dollar-for-dollar t… Continue Reading
Congressman Bobby Scott Leading School Infrastructure Effort
by Michael Pope
02.27.19 CREDIT AP PHOTO / J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE Now that Democrats have taken control of the House of Representatives, Tidewater-area Congressman Bobby Scott has become chairman of a key committee. And, he's using that position to help high-poverty schools. Crumbling school facilities are concentrated in high-poverty neighborhoods that serve minority students. That was the conclusion of a Government Accountability Office study, and a problem that Congressman Bobby Scott wants to fi… Continue Reading
House Committee Advances Pay Bias Legislation
by Tyrone Richardson
02.26.19 The House labor committee Feb. 26 approved legislation designed to close the gender pay gap, clearing a path for a full chamber vote on what is a key part to the Democrat's economic policy agenda. The Committee on Education and Labor voted in favor of the Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 7, S. 270) along party lines. The legislation would tackle wage discrimination "by requiring employers to prove that gender-based pay disparities are based on bona fide job-related factors such as education, traini… Continue Reading
Education and Labor Committee approves Paycheck Fairness Act
by Julia Varnier
02.26.19 WASHINGTON - The Committee on Education and Labor approved the Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 7) on Tuesday. The legislation strengthens the protections against gender-based wage discrimination to ensure that all women receive equal pay for equal work. Today, a woman still makes only 80 cents, on average, for every dollar earned by the white male counterpart. Chairman Bobby Scott had this to say at Tuesday's markup: The gender wage gap, which collectively withholds up to $500 billion from wom… Continue Reading
Republicans try and fail to stop equal pay bill from advancing in House
by Dan Desai Martin
02.26.19 The Paycheck Fairness Act passed out of the House Education and Labor Committee without a single vote from the committee's Republican members. The House Education and Labor Committee voted 27-19 Tuesday to advance a bill that helps close the gender wage gap. Every single "yes" vote came from Democrats, while every single Republican on the committee opposed the bill, which now moves to the full House for a vote. H.R. 7, the Paycheck Fairness Act, is designed to close loopholes and strengthen… Continue Reading
Democrats urge DeVos to toss 'supplement-not-supplant' proposal
by Kimberly Hefling
02.25.19 Key congressional Democratic leaders on education have asked the Education Department to abandon proposed guidance pertaining to Title I spending. Instead, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate HELP Committee, said in a letter dated Feb. 22 to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos that the department should conduct negotiated rulemaking on the issue of "supplement, not supplant." Th… Continue Reading
House Panel Plans 5 Hearings on Higher Education Act
by Melanie Waddell
02.25.19 The House Education and Labor Committee plans to hold five bipartisan hearings on higher education, marking the "formal start" of an effort the reauthorize the Higher Education Act(HEA) in the 116th Congress. The law, passed in 1965, authorizes a number of federal student aid programs and sets aid eligibility requirements for colleges. Intended to be reauthorized every five years, it expired in 2013 and has been extended since then. The committee "will consider a comprehensive Higher Education… Continue Reading
House plans 5 hearings on Higher Education Act reauthorization
by James Paterson
02.25.19 Dive Brief: The U.S. House of Representatives' Education and Labor Committee will begin discussing a potential reauthorization of the Higher Education Act(HEA), which is now years overdue. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., the committee chairman, and Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., a ranking member, announced the committee will host five bipartisan hearings on topics such as college costs, accountability, retention, equity and the role of community colleges and minority-serving institutions in upward mo… Continue Reading
The New Principal in the House: Virginia's Robert Scott
by Erin Bacon
02.25.19 After nearly 25 years on the House Education panel, Rep. Robert C. Scott has at last ascended to the chairmanship, giving him the opportunity to focus on his priorities - a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act paired with free college for students and rigorous oversight of the Trump administration's policies. Scott (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call) During his tenure, the Virginia Democrat has helped pass much of the modern education legislation, most recently the Every Student Succeeds A… Continue Reading
House Education and Labor Committee: US schools are in shambles
by J. Cooper
02.22.19 On Tuesday, February 12, the House Education and Labor Committee held its first hearing of the new Congress, an event which highlighted the desperate conditions in schools across the US. As Democrat Bobby Scott of Virginia gaveled the session into order, teachers were escalating their demands by other means-on the picket lines. Three thousand striking educators in Denver struck and were enthusiastically joined by thousands of high school students. Charter school teachers from Civitas schools in… Continue Reading
Alarm Sounds Over Resurgent Black Lung Disease
by David Sparkman
02.22.19 Once thought to have been nearly eradicated, a new epidemic of an even more vicious black lung disease is rampaging through the thinning ranks of coal miners. The slow development of knowledge about the true nature of the illness and confusion over how to prevent it has provoked a new round of finger-pointing by the mineworkers union and other mining industry critics. It was relatively recently that research uncovered how widespread is the new black lung. It is different from the older di… Continue Reading
House education panel to hold 5 hearings on rewriting Higher Education Act
by Michael Stratford
02.21.19 The House education committee announced today that it plans to hold five hearings in the coming months on reauthorizing the Higher Education Act. Rep. Bobby Scott, (D-Va.), the panel's Democratic chairman, and Rep. Virginia Foxx, (R-N.C.), the committee's top Republican, said that the hearings marked the formal start of an effort to comprehensively update the higher education law for the first time in more than a decade. The committee said that the five "bipartisan" hearings would be on … Continue Reading
Betsy DeVos' free rein at the Education Department is over with a Democratic House
by Joan McCarter
02.20.19 The oversight-free party is over for Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, with Democratic Rep. Robert Scott now in charge of the House Education Committee. He's got a long and growing list of issues Democrats are going to hold DeVos accountable for. Among the things Democrats are planning: requiring the department to hold states accountable for achievement gaps between white students and students of color, as the law requires; asking for an explanation for why the Accrediting Council for Indepen… Continue Reading
Hill Democrats say Education Dept. tried to interfere in probe, remove investigator
by Heidi Przybyla
02.19.19 WASHINGTON - House and Senate Democrats say they have obtained evidence that a senior official at the Department of Education tried to oust the department's independent watchdog after she pushed back on an attempt to interfere in an active investigation of Secretary Betsy DeVos. Lawmakers from four House and Senate committees who oversee the department sent a letter to DeVos on Tuesday, suggesting that the effort to replace the department's acting inspector general, Sandra Bruce, had been relat… Continue Reading
House Democrats Prepare to Scrutinize DeVos’s Education Department
by Erica Green
02.19.19 The last face-to-face meeting between Representative Robert C. Scott and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos ended in an awkward cliffhanger. At a hearing last May of the House Education Committee, Mr. Scott, Democrat of Virginia, challenged the secretary's assertion that she was holding states accountable for achievement gaps between white and minority students as required by a new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act. Mr. Scott, unconvinced, asked more pointedly: How can you assu… Continue Reading
Dems say DeVos’ deputy tried to influence internal inquiry
by Collin Binkley
02.19.19 BOSTON (AP) - Democrats in Congress are accusing the Education Department of interfering with an investigation by the agency's independent watchdog. Five lawmakers sent a letter to Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday saying her deputy pressured the department's inspector general on Jan. 3 to drop an internal investigation . After the inspector general said she would continue, she was told she was being replaced. That decision was reversed after it became public. Department spokeswoman Liz Hill… Continue Reading