Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) introduced the Helping Foster and Homeless Youth Achieve Act last Thursday, December 9, 2021. CWLA has endorsed the legislation. The bipartisan legislation seeks to improve access to educational opportunities by requiring that higher education institutions receiving federal assistance waive application fees for young people who are
The House of Representatives passed the Build Back Better Act reconciliation bill (HR 5376) on Friday, November 19, 2021, after a week of waiting. The waiting was driven by the need for a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) “score” or estimation of costs and savings. That score came back on Thursday at the expected $1.7 trillion.
Current funding for federal fiscal year ends on December 3, 2021, and while it appears likely Congress will pass another CR for a matter of weeks, a full year long appropriation adding new funds now seem much in doubt. A CR that extended for the rest of FY 2022 means that there would be a
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will provide a great deal of help to address a need that was exposed during this pandemic, access to the internet for remote and poor areas. The pandemic has highlighted the need for Broadband technology for work, school, and health resources. Broadband technology is defined as a “high-capacity transmission
On November 10, 2021, Schoolhouse Connections sponsored a briefing, “Year-in-Review and Preparing for 2022.” Lisa Pilnik, Child & Family Associates, facilitated the panel of Child Welfare experts including Heather Hanna, National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL), Cameron Rifkin, National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL), and Alleane Anderson, Schoolhouse Connections This year, the main theme
On November 3, 2021, First Focus on Children hosted the Children’s Budget Summit to highlight the release of their 15th annual Children’s Budget Analysis. Over the last 10 years, the Children’s Budget analysis has documented federal spending for children. Typically, this means watching federal spending for children be cut at a high rate. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic caused devastation across the world, Congress was compelled to make investments in early childhood, child care, education, family
Last week’s news break by National Public Radio (NPR) that the U.S. Department of Education will offer a fix of the troubled public services loan forgiveness program proved to be true when the US Department of Education announced on Wednesday, October 6, new efforts that “Will Put Over 550,000 Public Service Workers Closer to Loan
On Friday, October 1, 2021, National Public Radio (NPR) had an exclusive report that the U.S. Department of Education is about to offer a fix of a troubled loan forgiveness program which was supposed to relieve education loans for public servants—including child welfare workers. The report by NPR: NPR Exclusive: Troubled Public Service Loan
As the reconciliation bill is fought over, several prominent groups are weighing in support of a major expansion of child care as part of the final reconciliation. In the past two weeks, more than 120 economists, forty-five business leaders, and 100 House members have called on Congress to include the robust child care expansion that
Last Wednesday, September 15, 2021, the United States Department of Treasury released a study on the significance of child care to the U.S. economy and to families. The report, The Economics of Child Care Supply in the United States, indicated that for an average family with at least one child under age 5, approximately 13 percent