While union leaders are the bill as a win for their members, it’s a bad deal for the rest of us. It will undermine the progressive nature of the Social Security program, cost taxpayers billions and force painful cuts down the road.

The new bill is short and simple, less than 300 words. In a clever bit of marketing, the sponsors dubbed it the Social Security Fairness Act. But the bill isn’t about “fairness”; it’s about giving a windfall to a relatively small group of people at the expense of taxpayers.

That’s because the new act repeals two provisions affecting certain state and local government workers who split their careers between jobs that are exempt from Social Security and those that require them to pay into the system. One, literally called the Windfall Elimination Provision, affected the employees themselves, while the second, called the Government Pension Offset, affected the of those workers.

Repealing these provisions, former Social Security Advisory Board chair Sylvester Schieber told , “gives workers who earn salaries not covered by Social Security disproportionately generous benefits compared to workers covered under the system for all their earnings.”

In fact, the American Enterprise Institute’s Andrew Biggs and found that a hypothetical teacher who worked a full career in a state where educators are exempt from Social Security could receive $283,300 more in federal retirement benefits than the exact same teacher who paid into Social Security for her entire career.

This was exactly the type of inequity the provisions were supposed to prevent. Now, Congress has not only opened the door to such windfalls; it has created winners and losers across states. Teachers who pay into Social Security for their full working lives, in New York, Florida and 33 other states, will subsidize those who do not in Illinois, Massachusetts, California, 13 other states and the District of Columbia. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost of those extra payments — which the retirees will receive in addition to their state pensions — will amount to over the next 10 years.

But it’s even worse than that. The money will come out of the Social Security , which was already projected to run out of money sometime around 2033. With higher Social Security payments now going to those special beneficiaries every month, Congress just sped up the clock. 

Once the money runs out, the sitting president will be forced to immediately cut Social Security benefit payments by 21%. Those cuts will be painful no matter when they happen. But by granting this windfall, Congress made sure they will happen sooner. That’s not smart or rational policymaking, let alone fair or just.

A federal district court judge in Kentucky has struck down President Joe ��������’s effort to protect transgender students and make other changes to Title IX, ruling the U.S. Department of Education violated teachers’ rights by requiring them to use transgender students’ names and pronouns.

The ruling issued Thursday, which applies nationwide, came as a major blow to the Biden administration in its final days and to LGBTQ+ advocates. It comes less than two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, when the rule was likely to face more scrutiny from a candidate who took aim at transgender people in a culture-war focused campaign.

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The Biden and aimed to protect LGBTQ+ students in K-12 schools, colleges and universities. The rule also conferred protections for pregnant students. The update to Title IX, the federal law that forbids sex-based discrimination in education, was expanded to include gender identity and sexual orientation.

In his , Chief Judge Danny Reeves of the Eastern District of Kentucky wrote in his opinion that the education department could not expand Title IX to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. Reeves was nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush.

Gender identity refers to the gender that an individual identifies as, regardless of their sex assigned at birth.

“The entire point of Title IX is to prevent discrimination based on sex — throwing gender identity into the mix eviscerates the statute and renders it largely meaningless,” Reeves wrote.

Louisiana was among the states that sued the Biden administration over the rule. Its case at the time of the ruling in Kentucky, which came in the case Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti brought.

“Louisiana is honored to have litigated this issue alongside Tennessee and our sister States,” Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement to the Illuminator. “This is a great day for America!”

Gov. Jeff Landry also praised the decision in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“��������’s attempt to rewrite Title IX is dead!,” Landry posted from his personal account. “It’s a shame this even had to go to court, but pleased to see this win for women and girls across our Nation.”

Prior to Thursday’s decision, the rule had been temporarily blocked in nearly half of U.S. states, including Louisiana and Tennessee, as litigation played out.

While Reeves’ opinion references a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that limits the regulatory authority of federal agencies, it also notably rejects the rule on First Amendment grounds.

“The First Amendment does not permit the government to chill speech or compel affirmance of a belief with which the speaker disagrees in this manner,” Reeves said, referring to sections of the law that could be interpreted as defining deadnaming and misgendering of students as harassment.

Deadnaming is when someone uses a transgender or nonbinary person’s birth name or “dead name” against their wishes. Misgendering occurs when someone refers to an individual by a gender they do not identify as.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com.

“I’m directing the members of my cabinet to return to me within 110 days with resources and information for schools to improve active-shooter drills, minimize this harm, create age-appropriate content and communicate with parents before and after these drills happen,” Biden said during a Thursday afternoon White House event. “We just have to do better and we can do better.” 

Students nationwide participate in active-shooter drills, between school districts and have received mixed reviews as to their effectiveness from students, parents and educators. In some states, including New York, lawmakers have sought to scale back routine drills amid concerns they’ve exacerbated the youth mental health crisis. A approved this summer bans realistic drills that use props and actors to mimic real-world school shooting scenarios. 

Biden also ordered on Thursday the creation of a new task force to assess the threat of conversion kits that allow semi-automatic guns to be modified into fully automatic weapons, so-called “ghost guns” without serial numbers and weapons created with 3D printers. 

The efforts fit into the president’s agenda to toughen gun laws and prevent mass shootings. The Rose Garden announcement also featured Vice President Kamala Harris, who in a tight presidential race against Republican Donald Trump has positioned herself as a gun owning-Democrat in favor of stricter firearms restrictions. Trump has the endorsement of the National Rifle Association.  

“It is a false choice to suggest you are either in favor of the Second Amendment or you want to take everyone’s guns away,” Harris said. “I am in favor of the Second Amendment and I believe we need to reinstate the assault weapons ban and pass universal background checks, safe storage laws and red flag laws.” 

Active shooter drills have become routine in schools nationwide although a White House fact sheet notes there is “very limited research on how to design and deploy” them in a way that’s effective without becoming harmful in themselves. Though the executive order doesn’t mandate the drills or specific strategies on how to conduct them, it directs the U.S. Education Department and the Department of Homeland Security to publish a report outlining the existing research on their efficacy, how to design them in ways that are age-appropriate and “how to prevent students and educators from experiencing trauma or psychological stress associated with these drills.” 

Rob Wilcox, the deputy director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, told The 74 on Wednesday that the variation in how drills are being conducted presents a need for federal officials to analyze their usefulness and provide guidance around the best path forward. 

Along with “traditional lockdown drills” where students are instructed to shelter in place behind closed doors, he said the Biden administration has been warned about the psychological harms of “unannounced simulations” where “fake guns, fake blood, fake gunshots” and a militarized police response are used to portray real-world assaults. 

“The president and vice president have heard from parents and students across the country about the need to know more about these drills and the need to really understand what our kids are going through,” Wilcox said. “What is the effective way to do it and what are the harmful ways?”

Traumatizing — or empowering? 

Teachers are split on the value of active-shooter drills, according to released this month. Fewer than half of educators said the drills have prepared them for a school shooting. More than two-thirds said they have had no impact on their perceptions of campus safety and just a fifth said they made them feel more safe.

A Pew Research Center survey found that a quarter of teachers experienced lockdowns in the 2022-23 school year because of gun incidents at their campuses. While 39% of teachers gave their schools a fair or poor job of training them to deal with active assailants, a smaller share — 30% — gave their school leadership an excellent or very good rating.

About two-thirds of parents of K-12 students say that children should be required to participate in at least one active-shooter drill per year and 83% were confident their kids’ schools were well equipped to keep them safe, released last fall. While 80% of respondents said the drill should be “evidence-based and age-appropriate,” just 36% said they should feature the sounds of guns or gunshots. 

that active-shooter drills , but other researchers have sought to combat that narrative. A in the peer-reviewed Journal of School Violence found children exposed to gun violence feel safer after undergoing lockdown drills. 

Research into the psychological impact of active-shooter drills and lockdown drills has generally treated all procedures as one in the same, said Jaclyn Schildkraut, the lead author of the Journal of School Violence report and executive director of the Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium at New York’s Rockefeller Institute of Government. Given that schools have deployed a range of drills — and because some efforts may be more effective than others — she said it’s “very important that we do have very clear guidance about what schools are being asked to do.”

Drills that seek to mimic active shootings have, in particular, become a point of controversy. In one in 2019, teachers reported injuries after they were shot with pellet guns during a mock shooting simulation at their elementary school. While some drills have taught kids to shelter in place during a shooting, others have instructed kids to use school supplies as makeshift weapons and fight back against an armed assailant. In some communities, schools have and as a solution to help kids defend themselves. 

But the drills, including those criticized for traumatizing kids, have been credited with saving lives during campus shootings, which remain statistically rare but have reached record highs in the last several years. During a shooting at Michigan’s Oxford High School in 2021, a 16-year-old student was reportedly shot as he charged at the assailant — an act that cost the star running back his life but the county sheriff said likely saved his classmates. 

“We don’t light schools on fire to practice a fire drill, yet we know that some schools are simulating active-shooter situations to practice for an active shooter,” Schildkraut said. 

The effects of conducting realistic shooting scenarios, she said, should not be conflicted with the impacts of less-invasive emergency preparation like lockdowns. 

Keeping guns locked

Thursday’s executive order coincided with the release of a new Education Department tool designed to encourage families to keep their guns at home behind lock and key. 

The outlines state safe-storage and child-access prevention laws, which have been adopted in 31 states and penalize gun owners who fail to lock their weapons or who provide access to them to an unsupervised child. Though no such laws exist at the federal level, the Education Department website says the state-based efforts are an “important step towards keeping our youth, schools, and communities safe.”

The website also features examples of community and school district measures to promote firearm storage, including by the Cincinnati, Ohio, school district and a campaign at Colorado’s Cherry Creek School District, which distributed several hundred gun locks to families for free last year.

“When school administrators communicate with parents about safe storage of firearms in their homes, it motivates parents to act,” Biden said Thursday. 

About three-quarters of school shooters get their guns from a parent or another close relative, according to . In about half of cases, the guns had been readily accessible.

Prosecutors have increasingly turned to the actions — and inactions — of the parents of school shooters, who are . 

Earlier this month, a 54-year-old father from Georgia was arrested on murder charges after his 14-year-old son was accused of carrying out a shooting at Apalachee High School that left two of his classmates and two math teachers dead. The boy was given an AR-15-style rifle as a holiday gift last year.

In April, Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were each given decade-long prison sentences in first-of-their-kind convictions after their son, who was 15 years old at the time, killed four students in the 2021 Oxford High School shooting. The parents gave their son the 9-millimeter handgun used in the assault as a Christmas gift and stored it in an unlocked drawer in their bedroom despite warning signs the teenager planned to act violently. 

“After current events, especially in Georgia, it’s beyond clear that safe storage in the home is essential,” Wilcox, the White House gun prevention office deputy director, told The 74. “Fourteen-year-olds should not have access to assault weapons.” 

WASHINGTON — U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona announced last month he is launching a “2024 Back to School Bus Tour” that will include stops in multiple battleground states across the United States as he and other Biden administration officials highlight their work in investing in public education.

While not a campaign event, the Sept. 3-6 tour will take place in the swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, along with stops in Indiana and Illinois. As schools are getting back in session, the department said Cardona, Deputy Secretary of Education Cindy Marten and Under Secretary of Education  will shed light on the administration’s “commitment to helping students and communities recover from the impacts of the pandemic by improving academic achievement and succeed from cradle to college and career.”

Cardona said “this year’s Back to School Bus Tour will remind the American people why the Biden-Harris Administration has unapologetically fought for public education, the foundation of opportunity in this country, and the contrast between our efforts and those who wish to destroy public education,” per a statement.

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The Education secretary added that he is “looking forward to lifting up what’s working in public education and celebrating the exciting work taking place in our schools and communities to ensure that all students, no matter their race, place, or background, have opportunities to succeed and contribute to our country.”

Cardona and other officials will be talking about some of the Biden administration’s initiatives in education, such as promoting the importance of regular attendance, providing student debt relief — including through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program — expanding full-service community schools and widening mental health support access at schools.

The department said it has invested more than $357 billion under the Biden administration to “strengthen education across America.”

This year’s tour, with a “Fighting for Public Education” theme, will kick off in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Sept. 3. Other stops in the Badger State will include Madison and Milwaukee. The Education Department said White House domestic policy adviser Neera Tanden and Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will also be at some of the stops.

Officials will also visit Chicago, Illinois, and La Porte, Indiana.

Cardona and other administration officials will then take the tour to Michigan, with stops in Grand Rapids, Lansing and Detroit. Becky Pringle, president of the , will join the tour in Grand Rapids, according to the department. NEA is the largest labor union in the country.

The tour will wrap up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and feature U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. Both the �����Ի��� have endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, the vice president.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on and .

A federal district court judge in Missouri has blocked implementation of the Biden administration’s new Title IX rule in six additional states — Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

The , ordered late Wednesday, brings to 21 the total number of states where the U.S. Department of Education can’t enforce the rule on Aug. 1.

Judge Rodney W. Sippel, a Clinton nominee, said the plaintiffs have a “fair chance” of demonstrating that the department “exceeded its statutory authority” by using the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County to expand Title IX protections to LGBTQ students. 

Ravina Nath, a recent graduate of Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California, originally included Rice University in Houston on her short list of colleges to attend this fall. With an interest in neuroscience, she was drawn to its top-ranked biomedical engineering program. 

That was before Texas became one of to sue the U.S. Department of Education  over its new Title IX rule. The regulation extends protections against discrimination and harassment to LGBTQ students and requires prompt investigations into students’ complaints.

Instead, she’ll attend Barnard College in New York City.

“I need to be in a place where I would feel like my school supported me,” said Nath, who became a in high school. At Rice, some students to how officials handled complaints of sexual misconduct. And she ruled out the University of Georgia, a “potential safety school,” because it to make data on such investigations public. Several of her friends made similar calculations when narrowing down school choices. 

“My friends who are survivors and who are LGBTQ+ students applied to schools on the West Coast or the Northeast,” she said. “I don’t think any of my friends applied to school in .”

With the new rule set to go into effect Aug. 1 — just seven days away — a flurry of lawsuits has once again turned the map of the United States into a familiar patchwork of red and blue.

District courts have blocked the regulation in 15 Republican-led states. In the most recent development, the on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow all but related to gender identity issues to go into effect in 10 of those states after two appellate courts denied earlier requests. 

Complicating the legal math further, in an earlier action, a federal judge in Kansas the rule just at serving children of current and future members of the conservative Moms for Liberty and students involved in , another advocacy organization opposed to trans girls competing on teams consistent with their gender identity. Moms for Liberty sees the ruling as an expansion opportunity: On Tuesday, the group tied to Title IX.

With the legal landscape changing daily, some experts think the Education Department should take a step back and delay the rule.

“For schools, universities and students, it’ll calm things down,” said Sandra Hodgin, who runs a Title IX consulting firm in Los Angeles. “What are we talking about, 75% of the country not implementing Title IX and only 25% of the country implementing it?”

A spokesperson said the department has no plans to skirt the Aug. 1 deadline. On Tuesday, it sent schools a list of “” and a on how to draft policies to comply.   

For now, the Supreme Court is considering whether to lift the temporary pause on the rule in the affected states.

The far larger question is what the justices might decide if and when they consider the substance of the rule itself. In addition to expanding protections to LGBTQ students, the new rule largely replaced one issued under former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. That regulation narrowed the definition of sexual misconduct and required live hearings so male students could face their accusers. 

W. Scott Lewis, managing partner with TNG Consulting, which trains districts across the country on Title IX, has advised red states covered by an injunction, like Wyoming and Idaho, that they’re currently bound by the 2020 regulation.

But that could change quickly. 

“It’s a race to the Supreme Court right now,” he said.

‘Bigger than sports’

Some families with LGBTQ students aren’t waiting for the legal drama to run its course. They’ve already to escape laws that bar trans students from using bathrooms or playing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity. Several have moved to the Denver metro area, where Lewis lives, to attend schools in a state that is not challenging the rule.

“We have more than a handful of students at my kid’s high school who moved here from Wyoming, from Kansas, from Iowa,” he said. 

Most of the controversy surrounding Title IX focuses on trans students’ participation in sports, a part of the rule that the U.S. Department of Education has delayed addressing until after the election. But in Lewis’s estimation, that issue is “bigger than sports.” 

“If I’m in a state that won’t let me compete, I’m probably not in a state that’s very friendly to LGBTQ students on the whole,” he said. “I’m far more likely to just move on.”

In blue states set to implement the new rule, many conservative parents say their children’s rights are also at stake. 

They’re concerned students would be disciplined for not using LGBTQ kids’ preferred pronouns, forced to censor their speech or share bathrooms and locker rooms with trans students.

Hillary Hickland, a mother of four in central Texas, moved her children out of the Belton Independent School District partly because she felt there was too much emphasis on students’ gender identity. Her sixth grade daughter told her that teachers encouraged a friend to identify as a boy and use a boy’s name without the parents’ knowledge. 

“Don’t do it behind the backs of the parents. That’s a huge violation of trust,” she said. As a Republican running for the Texas House, she’s concerned about sexual orientation and gender identity becoming part of Title IX. “We have the federal government dictating what goes on in our local public schools. It really undermines the neighborhood school and that culture that we’re trying to preserve.”

‘Nine months behind’

Lewis predicts the Supreme Court will eventually follow its precedent in , which said that at least in the workplace, LGBTQ employees are protected from discrimination. The Biden administration’s new rule rests on that decision.

, who wrote that majority opinion, “can’t undo Bostock. He said sex means LGBTQ rights,” Lewis said. In red states where the rule is on hold, districts “better be ready to implement very quickly because [they’re] going to be nine months behind everyone else.”

If the court also decides to address sports participation — an expected part of the regulation the administration has yet to issue — Lewis said it’s possible the justices would rule similar to the way they handled , leaving it to the states to determine when trans students can compete on teams consistent with their gender identity. 

He called that a “nightmare scenario” because it would “create a world where athletes could compete in some states but not others.” And at the college, NCAA level, “there will be all sorts of questions that can’t be limited to state borders,” said Joshua Dunn, executive director of the Institute of American Civics at University of Tennessee, Knoxville. “They’ll have to address that, too.”

Dunn also suggested the conservative court might not follow Bostock and could treat LGBTQ issues differently at school than they do in the workplace. He noted cases, like , where the court put limits on students’ First Amendment rights in schools “that it would never allow outside of K-12 education.” 

Overturning ‘Chevron’

Another recent Supreme Court decision, unrelated to education, adds an additional layer of uncertainty to the debate over Title IX’s future — one that could affect both sides. 

In , the court overturned what was known as “Chevron deference,” which gave federal agencies broad authority to interpret ambiguous laws through guidance and regulations. The decision gives federal courts more power to explain the law when it’s unclear, and experts say, should end “.”

The Obama administration first issued a in 2011 stating schools’ obligations to protect students from sexual violence and harassment, which the Trump administration largely reversed in 2020, followed by yet another 180 in the spring by ��������’s education department.

Republicans have Education Secretary Miguel Cardona that they will review the department’s rules since President Joe Biden took office,  including Title IX. GOP leaders call the rule “overreach.” 

The conservative Heritage Foundation’s , largely assumed to be a legislative blueprint for a second Trump term,would remove the terms sexual orientation and gender identity from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation and piece of legislation that exists.”

But if Trump tries to reinstate the DeVos rule, Democrats could use Loper Bright to bring the same challenge, Lewis said.

“If you … say the department does not have the authority, then the 2020 regulations don’t count either,” he said. “It was exactly the same procedure.” 

“My first-grade teacher, Mrs. Wilson, encouraged me when I was her student,” Harris back in 2021. “Years later [she] cheered me on when I graduated from law school.

“This year and every year, we celebrate America’s teachers, who make a lifelong impact on America’s students.” 

Here’s what else Harris has had to say about Mrs. Wilson: 

Other recent EDlection coverage from The 74: 

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• Endorsing Harris: Nation’s Second-Largest Teachers Union Endorses Harris for President
  
• Project 2025: Plan Would Cut Education Department, Fulfill Conservative K-12 Wish List Under Trump
  
• Get the Latest Updates on the Election & Education: Sign Up For The 74’s Newsletter 

“I spoke in support of the resolution — for our students, our patients, our families, our communities, our democracy and ourselves!” union President Randi Weingarten wrote on from the AFT’s 2024 convention in Houston. “Let’s win this!”

The delegates ratified the AFT Executive Council’s unanimous vote Sunday evening to endorse Harris, mere hours after President Joe Biden upended the race with his historic announcement that he was giving up his embattled candidacy. The council’s swift action positioned the country’s second-largest teachers union as one of the first major labor organizations to get behind the vice president.

“Vice President Harris has fought alongside Joe Biden to deliver historic accomplishments and create a better life for all Americans,” Weingarten said in the statement released early Sunday evening.

“Trump left his successor a country in crisis and chaos, with soaring inflation and an economy in free fall,” she added. “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris turned it around. They stabilized schools, saved pensions for hundreds of thousands of retired union workers and remade the economy.” 

The AFT has placed its significant political heft alongside other key unions supporting Harris, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the nation’s largest private sector union, and the United Farm Workers, the nation’s largest farm workers’ union.

The labor endorsements followed ��������’s own for Harris and were promptly joined by a chorus of other , including former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, Bill and Hillary Clinton and several governors, who were either being considered themselves as potential Biden successors or , such as Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona also came out in support of Harris on Sunday.

After ��������’s announcement, Weingarten scrambled to rewrite some of her planned remarks at the kickoff to the convention, according to reporting from Just earlier that morning she criticized efforts to push Biden out of the race, telling Weekly Education, “This fantasy that billionaire donors are having, that they can yoke this away from the president because they don’t like his performance at the debate, is wrong.” 

By the afternoon, though, she emphasized the importance of uniting around

In Harris’s for president, she advocated for universal preschool and free college and called for a $13,500 raise for every teacher by the end of her first term.

Becky Pringle, president of the nation’s largest teacher’s union, the National Education Association, took a different approach to the game-changing news, leaving out any mention of Harris in her tweets Sunday thanking President Biden for his service. Instead, she noted that the NEA will “renew our efforts to ensure he is succeeded by a leader equally dedicated to building the future our students, educators, and families deserve.”

The can be found below.

President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race Sunday, he said in , creating an unprecedented vacancy atop the Democratic ticket one month before he was scheduled to officially accept his party’s nomination.

In a followup  less than 30 minutes later, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place as the Democratic nominee.

��������’s withdrawal came after a weeks-long pressure campaign from party insiders following a  June 27 debate performance against GOP candidate former President Donald Trump.

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The move throws an already-unusual presidential race into further chaos, and it was not immediately clear Sunday how Democrats would choose a replacement for Biden in November’s election, though Harris would have a strong claim to lead the ticket.

Biden praised Harris as “an extraordinary partner” in the administration’s accomplishments.

Biden, who has been fighting a COVID-19 infection at home in Delaware since last week, was not specific about his reasons for stepping aside, but said he believed it was in the country’s best interest.

“It has been the great honor of my life to serve as your President,” he wrote in the one-page letter. “And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.”

Biden, 81, appeared frail and confused at several points throughout the debate, leading to worries among elected Democrats and the party’s voters that he was no longer up to the task of governing or contesting Trump’s bid to win back the White House.

As several congressional Democrats called for him to quit the race, others asked that he ramp up his public schedule and include more unrehearsed appearances that could demonstrate his fitness.

But a more robust schedule of news interviews, press conferences and campaign rallies did not sufficiently quiet the Democratic voices saying ��������’s candidacy was likely to throw the presidential race to Trump – whom Biden and others have described as an existential threat to U.S. democracy – and deeply handicap Democrats in other races up and down November’s ballot.

On Friday, Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and  brought the number of senators calling on Biden to drop out to four. A day earlier, Montana Sen. Jon Tester  Biden should drop his reelection campaign and that Democrats should hold an open nomination process at their Chicago convention next month.

In the U.S. House, 29 Democrats had called for Biden to withdraw from the race by the end of the day July 19.

In a post following the announcement to his social media site, Truth Social, Trump said Biden was “never” fit to serve as president.

“Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve – And never was!” Trump wrote. “He only attained the position of President by lies, Fake News, and not leaving his Basement. All those around him, including his Doctor and the Media, knew that he wasn’t capable of being President, and he wasn’t – And now, look what he’s done to our Country.”

More details of announcement

In the letter, Biden praised his administration’s accomplishments over three-and-a-half years, saying he’d worked to make “historic investments” in the country, lowered prescription drug costs, nominated the first Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court and “passed the most significant climate legislation in the history of the world.”

“Together we overcame a once in a century pandemic and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,” Biden wrote. “We’ve protected and preserved our Democracy. And we’ve revitalized and strengthened our alliances around the world.”

Biden said he would “speak to the Nation later this week” about the decision.

He praised Harris and other supporters.

“For now, let me express my deepest gratitude to all those who have worked so hard to see me reelected,” he wrote. “I want to thank Vice President Kamala Harris for being an extraordinary partner in all this work. And let me express my heartfelt appreciation to the American people for the faith and trust you have placed in me.”

In follow-up posts, Biden said he was endorsing Harris and added a fundraising link.

“My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President,” he said. “And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”

Trump gains in polls

The about face in what was to be a 2020 presidential election rematch leaves Democrats searching for a new candidate as Trump, who promises authoritarian-style leadership, has gained support in recent polls.

With just 107 days until Election Day, ��������’s move marks the latest date in modern presidential history that a candidate has withdrawn from the race.

President Lyndon Johnson announced in March 1968 that he would not seek reelection that year, leaving Democratic delegates to decide on a replacement – ultimately Vice President Hubert Humphrey – at the party’s convention that summer in Chicago.

Harris appears to be in a strong position to replace Biden as the party’s standard bearer, though questions remain about how the process will play out and  would become the vice presidential nominee.

Democrats praise decision

Reaction poured in shortly after the Sunday afternoon announcement, with Democrats largely praising ��������’s record and calling his decision courageous.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement that he understood ��������’s decision to step out of the race was “not easy, but he once again put his country, his party, and our future first.”

“Joe Biden has not only been a great president and a great legislative leader but he is a truly amazing human being,” the New York Democrat said.

Several Republicans called for Biden to resign his office.

“If Joe Biden is not fit to run for President, he is not fit to serve as President,” House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote on X. “He must resign the office immediately. November 5 cannot arrive soon enough.”

A crescendoing chorus to step down

Biden faced calls for him to abandon his reelection bid from congressional Democrats, even as he tried to stabilize the debate aftershock by holding a series of campaign rallies,  for  and holding a press conference at.

Democratic lawmakers   a public front of support for Biden in statements and passing interviews in the U.S. Capitol hallways with reporters.

What began as a trickle of dissent from rank-and-file Democrats —  with Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas and a handful of doubtful senior House Democrats — steadily grew to a torrent by Friday.

50-year career in Washington

��������’s exit marks the closure of a long, storied career in Washington, including 38 years in the U.S. Senate, featuring stints leading the Foreign Affairs and Judiciary committees, and eight years as vice president under President Barack Obama.

��������’s presidency was punctuated with major economic wins for Democrats, beginning with nearly $2 trillion to combat the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

His leadership with a Democratic majority in Congress resulted in substantial nationwide infrastructure investments, drove financial incentives to tackle climate change and revive the U.S. global role in semiconductor manufacturing, and strengthened flagging tax enforcement.

However, low approval ratings followed Biden throughout his presidency as Americans aimed their frustrations over inflation at the White House and assigned blame for record numbers of border crossings as a divided Congress – after Democrats lost their House majority in the 2022 midterms – failed to pass immigration restrictions negotiated with the administration.

��������’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war also hurt his support among young and progressive voters as Israel’s continued offensive against Hamas militants in the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip killed tens of thousands of civilians. Protesters against the U.S. supply of weapons to Israel interrupted dozens of ��������’s reelection campaign events through 2024.

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.

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“In your second term, what would you do to make child care more affordable?” asked former President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate.

The National Parents Union and Moms First, two nonprofits focused on family issues, petitioned CNN to ask the question, over 13,000 signatures to a producer the day before the debate.  

Tonight, has the opportunity to address the concerns of over 13,000 moms, advocates, & allies who want child care prioritized at the presidential debate.

This is our moment — and we deserve to know how our leaders plan to combat the child care crisis. .

— National Parents Union (@NationalParents)

But rather than focus on children, many critics said the two candidates behaved like them.

Trump ignored the question. He instead denied he’s ever and called his opponent the “worst president in the history of our country.” President Joe ��������’s comeback could be summed up as, “No, you are.” He briefly mentioned increasing the child care tax credit and urging employers to offer workplace child care, but also used some of his allotted time to insult Trump back. 

Their candidate’s performance left some Democrats and led to for Biden to step out of the race. While some party leaders have regrouped and hope to put the president’s bad night , the moment was a thorough for many parents who watched.

“You’re arguing about your freaking golf game and neither one of you has any clue about how hard the child care crisis is hitting American families,” said Keri Rodriques, president of the National Parents Union. “It was just kind of a depressing night overall.”

for child care average $11,000, and for some parents, access to free preschool doesn’t always solve the dilemma. A Las Vegas mom of four boys, Karri Siv has a 4-year-old who attends a federally funded Head Start center while her 6-year-old will start first grade this fall. As a nursing assistant who works 12-hour shifts, she can’t find care in the early morning or late evening. 

“There are a couple of 24-hour daycares, but [they’re] impossible to use because it’s just so expensive,” she said. “I’m literally living check to check.”

As part of the , an organization that supports low-income single mothers who work and go to school, she relies on a network of other moms for backup care. But those arrangements only provide a short-term fix. Siv sometimes misses work to stay home with her kids. “How much more can I call out before I get fired?” she asked.

For now, parents interested in the candidates’ positions on the issue will have study their records.

In 2021, Biden signed the American Rescue Plan, which included $24 billion in relief funds to stabilize the industry during the pandemic. He ​​proposed to cap child care costs at 7% for families as part of his sweeping Build Back Better proposal, but it never got through Congress. 

Earlier this year, he issued an executive order that for about 100,000 families who receive child care subsidies. 

Those efforts encourage Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, executive director and CEO of MomsRising, an advocacy group. She said the Biden administration has “worked tirelessly” to lower child care costs for families.

“Moms know that there’s a chasm between these two candidates on this issue,” she said in a statement. 

The Trump years, however, included significant expansions of programs for children and families. In 2018, Congress passed a $2.4 billion for child care — the largest-ever. Trump proposed a far smaller increase of $169 million and wanted to to other programs, but ultimately signed the budget without the change.

His 2017 tax cut package also doubled the child tax credit to $2,000. This year, a passed the House in January that would increase the refundable amount parents can receive. But the measure has stalled in the Senate, with some Republicans arguing it would allow parents to receive more money even if they work less. 

The proposed increase in the tax credit has been another priority for groups like the National Parents Union. But the candidates didn’t talk about that topic either. 

“There were no winners after that debate — certainly not American families,” the group said in . “Both candidates were embarrassingly short on policy details and left us with zero confidence that we will be better off four years from now than we are today.”

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans on Wednesday night failed to garner enough votes to block a new Biden administration rule on an income-driven repayment plan for federal student loans.

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As artificial intelligence rapidly expands its presence in classrooms, President Biden signed an executive order Monday requiring federal education officials to create guardrails that prevent tech-driven discrimination. 

The , which the White House called “the most sweeping actions ever taken to protect Americans from the potential risks of AI systems,” offers several directives that are specific to the education sector. The order dealing with emerging technologies like ChatGPT directs the Justice Department to coordinate with federal civil rights officials on ways to investigate discrimination perpetuated by algorithms. 

Within a year, the education secretary must release guidance on the ways schools can use the technology equitably, with a particular focus on the tools’ effects on “vulnerable and underserved communities.” Meanwhile, an Education Department “AI toolkit” released within the next year will offer guidance on how to implement the tools so that they enhance trust and safety while complying with federal student privacy rules. 

For civil rights advocates who have decried AI’s potentially unintended consequences, the order was a major step forward. 

The order’s focus on civil rights investigations “aligns with what we’ve been advocating for over a year now,” said Elizabeth Laird, the director of equity and civic technology at the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology. Her group has called on the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights to open investigations into the ways AI-enabled tools in schools could have a disparate impact on students based on their race, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity. 

“It’s really important that this office, which has been focused on protecting marginalized groups of students for literally decades, is more involved in conversations about AI and can bring that knowledge and skill set to bear on this emerging technology,” Laird told The 74. 

In to federal agencies on Wednesday, the Office of Management and Budget spelled out the types of AI education technologies that pose civil rights and safety risks. They include tools to detect student cheating, monitor their online activities, project academic outcomes, make discipline recommendations or facilitate surveillance online and in-person.  

An Education Department spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment Monday on how the agency plans to respond to ��������’s order. 

Schools nationwide have adopted artificial intelligence in divergent ways, including in to provide students individualized lessons and with the growing use of chatbots like ChatGPT by both students and teachers. It’s also generated heated debates over technology’s role in exacerbating harms to at-risk youth, including educators’ use of early warning systems that mine data about students — including their race and disciplinary records — to predict their odds of dropping out of school. 

“We’ve heard reported cases of using data to predict who might commit a crime, so very Minority Report,” Laird said. “The bar that schools should be meeting is that they should not be targeting students based on protected characteristics unless it meets a very narrowly defined purpose that is within the government’s interests. And if you’re going to make that argument, you certainly need to be able to show that this is not causing harm to the groups that you’re targeting.” 

AI and student monitoring tools

An unprecedented degree of student surveillance has also been facilitated by AI, including online activity monitoring tools, remote proctoring software to detect cheating on tests and campus security cameras with facial recognition capabilities. 

Beyond its implications on schools, the Biden order requires certain technology companies to conduct AI safety testing before their products are released to the public and to provide their results to the government. It also orders new regulations to ensure AI won’t be used to produce nuclear weapons, recommends that AI-generated photos and videos be transparently identified as such with watermarks and calls on Congress to pass federal data privacy rules “to protect all Americans, especially kids.”

In September, The Center for Democracy and Technology released a report that warned that schools’ use of AI-enabled digital monitoring tools, which track students’ behaviors online, could have a disparate impact on students — particularly LGBTQ+ youth and those with disabilities — in violation of federal civil rights laws. As teachers punish students for using ChatGPT to allegedly cheat on classroom assignments, a survey suggested that children in special education were more likely to face discipline than their general education peers. They also reported higher levels of surveillance and subsequent discipline as a result. 

In response to the report, a coalition of Democratic lawmakers penned a letter urging the Education Department’s civil rights office to investigate districts that use digital surveillance and other AI tools in ways that perpetuate discrimination. 

Education technology companies that use artificial intelligence could come under particular federal scrutiny as a result of the order, said consultant Amelia Vance, an expert on student privacy regulations and president of the Public Interest Privacy Center. The order notes that the federal government plans to enforce consumer protection laws and enact safeguards “against fraud, unintended bias, discrimination, infringements on privacy and other harms from AI.” 

“Such protections are especially important in critical fields like healthcare, financial services, education, housing, law and transportation,” the order notes, “where mistakes by or misuse of AI could harm patients, cost consumers or small businesses or jeopardize safety or rights.”

Schools rely heavily on third-party vendors like education technology companies to provide services to students, and those companies are subject to Federal Trade Commission rules against deceptive and unfair business practices, Vance noted. The order’s focus on consumer protections, she said, “was sort of a flag for me that maybe we’re going to see not only continuing interest in regulating ed tech, but more specifically regulating ed tech related to AI.”

While the order was “pretty vague when it came to education,” Vance said it was important that it did acknowledge AI’s potential benefits in education, including for personalized learning and adaptive testing. 

“As much as we keep talking about AI as if it showed up in the past year, it’s been there for a while and we know that there are valuable ways that it can be used,” Vance said. “It can surface particular content, it can facilitate better connections to people when they need certain content.” 

AI and facial recognition cameras

As school districts pour billions of dollars into school safety efforts in the wake of mass school shootings, security vendors have heralded the promises of AI. Yet civil rights groups have warned that facial recognition and other AI-driven technology in schools could perpetuate biases — and could miss serious safety risks. 

Just last month, the gun-detection company Evolv Technology, which pitches its hardware to schools, acknowledged it was the subject of a Federal Trade Commission inquiry into its marketing practices. The agency is reportedly probing whether the company employs artificial intelligence in the ways that it claims. 

In September, New York became the first state to , a move that followed outcry when an upstate school district announced plans to roll out a surveillance camera system that tracked students’ biometric data. 

A new Montana law bans facial recognition statewide with one notable exception — . Citing privacy concerns, the law adopted this year prohibits government agencies from using facial recognition, but with a specific carveout for schools. One rural education system, the 250-student Sun River School District, employs a 30-camera security system from Verkada that uses facial recognition to track the identities of people on its property. As a result, the district has a camera-to-student ratio of 8-to-1. 

In an email on Wednesday, a Verkada spokesperson said the company is in the process of reviewing Biden’s order to understand its implications on the company.

Verkada offers a cautionary tale about the potential security vulnerabilities of campus surveillance systems. In 2021, the company suffered a massive data breach and hackers claimed to expose the live feeds of 150,000 surveillance cameras — including those in place at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the site of a mass shooting in 2012. A conducted on behalf of the company found the breach was more limited, affecting some 4,500 cameras.

Hikvision has similarly made inroads in the school security market with its facial recognition surveillance cameras — including during a pandemic-era push to enforce face mask compliance. Yet the company, owned in part by the Chinese government, has also faced significant allegations of civil rights abuses and in 2019 was placed on a U.S. trade blacklist after being implicated in the country’s “campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention and high-technology surveillance” against Muslim ethnic minorities. 

Though multiple U.S. school districts continue to use Hikvision cameras, a recent investigation found the company’s software despite claiming for years it had ended the practice.

 In an email, a Hikvision spokesperson didn’t comment on how Biden’s executive order could affect its business, including in schools, but offered a letter it shared to its customers in response to the investigation, saying an outdated reference to ethnic detection appeared on its website erroneously.

“It has been a longstanding Hikvision policy to prohibit the use of minority recognition technology,” the letter states. “As we have previously stated, that functionality was phased out and completely prohibited by the company in 2018.“

Data scientist David Riedman, who built a national database to track school shootings dating back decades, said that artificial intelligence is at “the forefront” of the school safety conversation and emerging security technologies can be built in ways that don’t violate students’ rights. 

Riedman became a figure in the national conversation about school shootings as the creator of the K12 School Shooting Database but has since taken on an additional role as director of industry research and content for ZeroEyes, a surveillance software company that uses security cameras to ferret out guns. Instead of using facial recognition, the ZeroEyes algorithm was trained to identify and notify law enforcement within seconds of spotting a firearm. 

The — as opposed to facial recognition — can “evade privacy and bias concerns that plague other AI models,” and internal research found that “only 0.06546% of false positives were humans detected as guns.” 

“The simplicity” of ZeroEye’s technology, Riedman said, puts the company in good standing as far as the Biden order is concerned.

“ZeroEyes isn’t looking for people at all,” he said. “It’s only looking for objects and the only objects it is trying to find, and it’s been trained to find, are images that look like guns. So you’re not getting student records, you’re not getting student demographics, you’re not getting anything related to people or even a school per se. You just have an algorithm that is constantly searching for images to see if there is something that looks like a firearm in them.”

However, false positives remain a concern. Just last week at a high school in Texas, from ZeroEyes prompted a campus lockdown that set off student and parent fears of an active shooting. The company said the false alarm was triggered by an image of a student outside who the system believed was armed based on shadows and the way his arm was positioned. 

U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona last week said House Republicans’ debt limit proposal would cut vital education programs and harm vulnerable students across the U.S., such as those who are low income or have a disability.

“It would be taking us backwards,” Cardona said on a call with reporters.

U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s would lift the nation’s borrowing capacity by $1.5 trillion or suspend it through March.

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It would also set discretionary spending levels during the upcoming fiscal year to last year’s levels, meaning at least $130 billion in spending reductions to federal agencies.

McCarthy, a California Republican, plans to put the on the House floor as soon as Wednesday for a vote, and the administration stepped up its criticism in advance.

The White House said in a Tuesday statement that President Joe Biden the proposal, calling it “a reckless attempt to extract extreme concessions as a condition for the United States simply paying the bills it has already incurred.” Biden has said debt limit legislation should not be tied to spending reductions.

Even if the bill is passed in the House, it’s highly unlikely to gain the 60 votes needed to move past the legislative filibuster in the Senate, where Democrats hold a slim majority.

At least 26 million students who are low income would see Title I funding levels for their schools drop, and more than 7 million students with disabilities would be affected by cuts in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Cardona said.

He added that those cuts are equivalent to eliminating 60,000 teachers for low-income students and eliminating 48,000 teachers and related services providers from the classroom for students with disabilities.

The plan would also require states to return unspent pandemic funding, much of which went to helping schools reopen. Pandemic funding also provided mental health services for students.

“During the pandemic, students with disabilities were amongst the hardest impacted by the disruption of learning,” Cardona said.

State-by-state cuts

The Department of Education released a breakdown of cuts to education-related programs in the GOP plan.

Among the estimated effects in Iowa:

• Cut about $25 million in Title I funding for Iowa schools serving low-income children, affecting an estimated 110,000 students.
• Cut Title IV, Part A funding for Iowa schools by about $1.9 million, limiting educators’ abilities to address student mental health issues, including through violence, suicide, and drug abuse prevention.
• Cancel President ��������’s student debt relief plan, keeping emergency student loan relief of up to $20,000 from 169,000 approved applicants across Iowa.

Potentially eliminate Pell Grants for 700 students in Iowa and also reduce the maximum award by nearly $1,000 for the remaining 169,000 students who receive Pell Grants.

A senior Department of Education official said the cuts in the debt relief plan also would make it harder for students to afford higher education.

Across the nation, it would mean an elimination of Pell Grants for about 80,000 students and more than 6 million Pell Grant recipients would have cuts of about $1,000 each annually, the administration said. Grants are tied to family income.

The Republican proposal would also nullify the executive order Biden issued last year to cancel federal student loan debt.

The bill would also prevent the agency from finalizing its , which sets a monthly repayment plan based on the borrowers’ income.

��������’s on student loans would cancel up to $10,000 in federal student debt for borrowers earning up to $125,000 annually, or up to $250,000 for married couples, with the boost to $20,000 in forgiveness for Pell Grant recipients.

The program only applies to current borrowers, not future ones, and income levels for the 2020 and 2021 tax years would be considered. Those who have private student loans are not eligible.

But the policy is from taking effect due to two lawsuits, one from six Republican attorneys general and another by two student loan borrowers who do not qualify for the program.

The Department of Education has collected more than 24 million applications for the relief program,

The Supreme Court will make a decision on the policy in the coming months.

Regardless of the outcome, the Department of Education announced that the pandemic-era pause on federal student loan repayments will , and those borrowers will be required to begin repayments either after the Supreme Court’s decision or 60 days after the June deadline.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on and .

If adopted, school systems in that “categorically” ban transgender athletes could find themselves caught between state and federal laws, a tension that is likely to play out in the courts.

Under the proposed rule, however, schools and colleges could “adopt policies that limit transgender students’ participation” in specific sports — particularly at the more competitive high school and college levels. That would effectively bar some transgender girls from participation.

“Some sex-related distinctions in sports are permissible as long as the school ensures overall equal athletic participation opportunities,” a senior administration official said in a briefing with reporters, noting the department’s effort to address the shifting legal landscape on an issue that has sharply divided the country since President Joe Biden took office. 

The rule will be published in the coming weeks, the official said, and available for public comment for 30 days.

“Every student should be able to have the full experience of attending school in America, including participating in athletics, free from discrimination,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. 

The proposed rule makes good on a promise Biden issued on his first day as president, when he released an stating that Title IX protections against discrimination extend to students based on their gender identity and sexual orientation. Since then, banning transgender students from competing in girls sports has become a defining issue for Republicans. Just this week, Kansas lawmakers overrode the veto of Gov. Laura Kelly and imposed a ban on transgender athletes competing in kindergarten through college. And 17 states that they would sue if the department went through with efforts to “redefine biological sex to include gender identity.” 

But administration officials believe they’ve struck an appropriate compromise. “The proposed rule that we offer today is our best judgment,” the department official said. “We are confident in our legal opinion.”

The proposal would require schools to carefully balance issues of inclusion and fairness, and nods toward evolving understanding of how children’s bodies develop during puberty. It states that most students in the elementary grades would be able to play sports consistent with their gender identity and likely be able to continue doing so in middle school. At higher levels, schools would have to consider the specific sport and competitiveness level before determining if transgender students should be excluded. Schools would be allowed to decide for themselves, the official said, whether limiting trans students’ participation meets an educational goal.

“This is a high, demanding standard that will be difficult for schools to meet,” said Scott Skinner-Thompson, an associate law professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder. 

The administration’s measure may not go far enough for transgender student activists or those who think inclusion hinders the goals of women’s sports.

Conservatives who have opposed the administration’s stance on the issue said it puts school districts in the middle. The proposal, according to , places “the onus on school districts” to determine whether their policy would violate the law.

Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. went further, promising in a statement that “we will never allow boys to play in girls’ sports. We will fight this overreach tooth and nail. And we will stop at nothing to uphold the protections afforded women under Title IX.” 

LGBTQ advocates say conservatives are discriminating against vulnerable students who make up just . 

Some advocates welcomed the proposed rule’s language that across-the-board bans on trans girls participating in girls and women’s sports violate the law, but expressed concern that some trans students would still face discrimination.

Title IX “protections don’t stop when a student leaves the classroom to go out onto the soccer field or a volleyball court or into a bathroom,” said Sasha Buchert, nonbinary and transgender rights project director at Lambda Legal, a law firm and advocacy organization. 

The draft rule also comes as the GOP-led House prepares to vote on — the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act — that would essentially turn state bans into federal policy. The legislation is not expected to pass in the Senate. 

The state bans have been the subject of numerous legal challenges. The release of the rule late in the afternoon before a holiday weekend coincided with the Thursday of West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrissey’s emergency request to allow its 2021 Save Women’s Sports law to go into effect. Becky Pepper-Jackson, identified male at birth, and her mother Heather Jackson to prevent the law from being implemented, saying that it violates Title IX and the U.S. Constitution. 

The court’s ruling means that Pepper-Jackson, 12, can continue participating on her school’s cross country and track teams while the U.S, Appeals Court for the 4th Circuit considers her case.

The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia and Lambda Legal called the state’s request “a baseless and cruel effort to keep Becky from where she belongs — playing alongside her peers as a teammate and as a friend.”

The draft is the second part of the administration’s rewrite of Title IX. Released last year, the initial draft extended Title IX protections to LGBTQ students but left unanswered questions about school sports.

The administration largely aims to reverse a Trump-era rule that required live hearings as part of investigations into sexual harassment and misconduct. The proposed rule also removes a requirement that defines harassment as “severe, pervasive and objectively offensive.” 

The department had to review nearly 350,000 comments on Title IX, with many focusing on sports. 

“We’ve been very grateful to be able to take account of the very wide variety of views on this topic,” the official said. Comments from students, professional athletes, teachers and others were incorporated to “inform that proposed law.” 

“Biden has been the caregiver-in-chief in terms of championing these issues,” said Melissa Boteach, vice president for income security and child care/early learning at the National Women’s Law Center. “This administration has really been a standout leader on child care.”

Biden recently released his annual budget, which over 10 years to child care and early childhood education. , that funding would allow states to expand child care for more than 16 million children while ensuring that low-income families get care for free and families earning up to $200,000 would pay no more than $10 a day for each child. It would also send states money to provide high-quality, universal, free preschool in a variety of settings for all four-year-olds, and after states accomplished that they would also be able to expand it to three-year-olds.

On top of those funds, the budget would also spend $22.5 billion on existing child care and early education programs, including a $1 billion increase for the Child Care and Development Block Grant over what Congress approved at the end of last year. It puts an extra $1.1 billion into Head Start and $45 million into Preschool Development Grants to states.

It’s “the largest investment that’s ever been made in a president’s budget,” Boteach said. “This budget is setting a goalpost.” Despite the fact that ��������’s attempt to include for child care over three years in his Build Back Better plan ultimately failed, his budget calls for even more funding than that. “He’s building upon the commitment, not backing away from it,” she said.

The budget also “shows you can reduce the deficit,” Boteach pointed out, “and still invest in child care if you do the popular step of taxing corporations and wealthy individuals.”

Still, presidential budgets, while telegraphing an administration’s priorities and values, rarely get enacted as-is, and there is little chance that Congress will pass legislation to match the child care and early childhood education funding ��������’s included. Still, he has overseen some other concrete changes for the sector.

Last year, Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act, which creates $39 billion in incentives to build semiconductor plans in the U.S. The Commerce Department has since for companies that seek those incentives, and is one that they outline how they will ensure child care for their employees and “strongly consider defraying the price of care such that it is within reach for low- and medium-income households.” Companies will be some of the subsidy money they receive to meet that requirement, such as building on-site child care facilities, giving workers money to afford care or investing in existing providers to ensure they have enough slots.

The effects of the requirement will be small. It’s not likely to do much to address the crisis roiling the sector in which providers can’t hire and retain enough employees, leaving people who need care .

Some worry that it will also misalign with policy goals. “This is not the optimal way to do child care policy,” said Chris Herbst, associate professor at Arizona State University who studies the child care industry. “Industry-targeted child care policy is not what the market needs.” He is concerned that, because the money goes to people who work at semiconductor plants, it will go to higher earning workers, “which is inefficient, and feels inequitable as well,” he said. They are likely already paying for child care out of pocket, so this money will just replace what they were already spending. “We’re not going to bring anybody new into the labor market as a result,” he said. “We’re not going to expose any new kids to high-quality child care.” It also leaves out anyone in school or training programs who need child care while they learn, even if their ultimate aim is to get a semiconductor job.

Boteach sees it as a worthwhile marker, however. “It sends an important message that child care is economic policy,” she said.

She acknowledges it won’t have an impact on the sector “at scale.” But many of the workers who will be employed at new semiconductor and other plants that get the CHIPS funding will need child care—especially if these companies plan to attract women to these jobs—and Boteach sees this requirement as a way to ensure that the increased demand doesn’t disrupt existing child care markets. “If all of a sudden you have all these workers coming in to build the plant and operate the plant,” she said, and they’re trying to find slots for their kids without any extra supply, “it’s going to drive up prices and push out some of the families who use child care locally.”

“This is about providing a point of planning,” Boteach said.

What is already having a much larger impact is funding that Biden signed into law at the start of his term: the American Rescue Plan Act, which included $39 billion for the sector, the amount of funding the child care industry had ever received in the country’s history. “It was huge,” Boteach said with a laugh. have received stabilization grants made possible by the money, and say it helped them stay open. An stayed open that would have otherwise closed.

The money also helped prompt states to with child care innovations, from giving providers healthcare and retirement benefits in Oregon to offering subsidies to nearly all residents in New Mexico to waiving parent copays in Indiana. “The amount of innovation on child care right now is really exciting,” Herbst said. Those experiments are at risk of being erased when the money runs out this year and next. Still, “There’s going to be a tremendous amount of learning that happens as a result of all of this experimentation that may work its way back up to the federal level and find its way into legislation,” Herbst said. “That will ultimately improve the quality of our debate whenever we have another serious debate about this at the federal level.”

States at least have one ongoing pot of money that they can turn to, a pot that’s even bigger now. In December, Biden signed an appropriations bill into law that included for the Child Care and Development Block Grant, a $1.9 billion increase over last year’s funding, representing the second-largest increase in the grant’s history. Boteach called it “historic.”

Ultimately, although child care and early childhood investments were stripped out of Democrats’ reconciliation package, both Herbst and Boteach remain positive about where the issue stands. “I’m actually more optimistic than I have been in a while,” Herbst said.

The pandemic forever changed the way the country views care. “Between parents and businesses and people who are caregivers in general, you can’t really unsee the last few years,” Boteach said.

The debate over Build Back Better, meanwhile, “changed the debate, and it moved it forward,” Boteach said. “We have moved from child care being a nice to have to a political imperative.” The country got closer than it had in a half century to investing in a robust, national child care system. It used to be that advocates like Boteach had to push candidates for office at both federal and state levels to “really embrace and have a plan on this,” she said. “It’s a default now that you need to have a robust and long-term plan to address this country’s child care crisis to be a serious candidate. That’s a huge step forward.”

“I really do think we’re having a moment,” Herbst said. “We are in a drastically different spot than we were even just a few years ago.” Child care legislation will keep getting reintroduced, he said, and each time it’ll improve on the last. “One of these days we’ll get it.”

Beyond the “standing” issue, however, conservative justices expressed skepticism that the administration had the authority to offer up to $20,000 in debt relief without going through Congress or at least allowing public comment.

“We take very seriously the idea of separation of powers, and that power should be divided to prevent its abuse,” Chief Justice John Roberts told Nebraska Solicitor General James Campbell, representing the states. “This is a case that presents extraordinarily serious important issues about the role of Congress and about the role that we should exercise.”

Those eligible for relief — roughly 40 million borrowers — have been since November, when a Trump-appointed federal judge halted the plan. Both the Trump and Biden administrations had argued that the secretary of education has the authority under a 2003 law, the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students, or HEROES, to forgive student debt because of the pandemic. COVID caused severe financial harm and  increased the chances that borrowers would default on their loans, said U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar.

“Millions of Americans have struggled to pay rent, utilities, food, and many have been unable to pay their debts,” she said. 

Biden’s plan offers $10,000 in relief to borrowers earning up to $125,000 and $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients.

‘A breathtaking power’ 

In the first case, , Prelogar argued that the six states had no right to sue on behalf of the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, the student loan servicer that would primarily be affected if students don’t make good on their debt.

Campbell argued that because the state created the nonprofit, it has an interest in the case and that if the authority loses revenue, it won’t be able to adequately contribute to the state’s higher education programs. On the merits of the case, he argued that the administration misinterpreted HEROES.

“The secretary here asserts a breathtaking power to do anything that he thinks might reduce the risk of borrowers defaulting,” Campbell said.

Justice Elena Kagan, one of the three liberals on the court, disagreed that Education Secretary Miguel Cardona was acting outside the intent of the law. 

“Congress used its voice in enacting this piece of legislation,” she said. “Congress has authorized the use of executive power in an emergency situation.”

That’s what former Rep. George Miller of California, one of the authors of HEROES, wrote in last week. He was among those who filed amicus briefs in support of loan forgiveness, saying the law’s use of the terms “waive” or “modify” in regard to the terms of a loan includes debt cancellation. 

“Congress empowered officials to say that those requirements no longer apply — that borrowers no longer need to pay off the debt they owe,” he wrote. “And there’s no question that the COVID-19 pandemic is a ‘national emergency’ within the meaning of the law.”

In the second case, , attorney John Connolly, representing two borrowers and the conservative Job Creators Network Foundation, argued that Cardona should grant relief but should have used a different law — the Higher Education Act. That law would have required the department to seek comments from the public.

Congress, through HEROES, he said, “did not authorize the secretary to create a $400 billion debt forgiveness program behind closed doors with no public involvement.”

One of his clients, , is ineligible for the Biden program because she received loans from commercial lenders. Another, , qualifies for only $10,000 in relief because he’s not a Pell Grant recipient. Connolly said loan forgiveness is so important to the administration that Cardona would likely use the Higher Education Act to grant it if the current Biden plan were overruled. 

But Prelogar said the case uses a “Rube Goldberg theory” and takes a “circuitous route” to get relief. 

Even Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a liberal, agreed. 

“You … have to convince us that the administration would have provided this sort of debt relief under the authority you point to,” she told Connolly. 

‘A technicality’

Observers said it’s possible that the court will never rule on the major question of whether the debt relief plan is an example of government overreach. 

The administration has “staked a lot” on the idea that the plan will be upheld “on essentially a technicality rather than on this question of whether the Department of Education had the right to do this,” said Michael Brickman, an adjunct fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who focuses on higher education. 

The arguments ran for over three hours, while demonstrators — overwhelmingly advocating for debt relief — amassed outside the court. About 100 college students with Rise, a nonprofit, had spent the night outside to get tickets to hear the arguments. 

“We get caught up in the legalese — standing issues, statute issues — that we miss the big picture around the students’ lives who are going to be impacted by what the justices decide,” said Max Lubin, the organization’s founder. “Our job as advocates is to be prepared for every possible outcome.”

Among the 26 million borrowers who were automatically eligible for the relief or submitted an application are many K-12 and early childhood educators who needed more than a bachelor’s degree to meet job requirements and advance in their careers. That has consequences for students, some say.  

Albert Sackey, principal of Hommocks Middle School in Larchmont, New York, said he knows teachers, principals and other administrators who are “strongly exploring changing career paths to everything from catering to real estate to law,” in part because of financial strain.

“We want to make sure that the people we are putting in front of our children have the necessary training and education that is needed,” said Sackey, who has two master’s degrees and a doctorate. “I graduated with my undergraduate degree in 1998 and have been paying significant student loans ever since.”

The court will hear two cases that say the administration exceeded its authority when it offered borrowers up to $20,000 in debt relief last August. One is from six GOP-led states; the second is from a conservative organization that sued on behalf of two borrowers who argue the administration’s plan leaves them out. 

Given the 6-3 conservative majority on the court, experts say it will be tough for Biden to win. Just last year, that the administration’s plan to set limits on carbon emissions crossed “constitutional lines” and exemplified government overreach.

The states — Nebraska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and South Carolina — and the plaintiffs who filed the second lawsuit will first have to convince the court that ��������’s plan would cause them financial harm and that they had legal “standing” to sue in the first place. 

“It seems likely that if there is standing, that the loan forgiveness will be overturned,” said Michelle Dimino, deputy director of education at Third Way, a center-left think tank. “Can the department do something with that level of political and economic significance without an act of Congress?”

After the administration paused repayment multiple times, ��������’s decision to go forward with the loan forgiveness plan was viewed as a politically popular move ahead of the recent midterm elections. Supporters hailed it as compassionate toward borrowers, including the who took out loans to afford college. American Federation of Teachers President said many were “eagerly awaiting the breathing room … student debt relief would bring.” But Republicans argue it’s not only illegal, but favors one group of borrowers at the expense of others. 

“Where is the forgiveness for the guy who didn’t go to college but is working to pay off the loan on his work truck?” Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, ranking member of the education committee, asked earlier this month during the first meeting of the new Congress.

Others say the plan increases inflation and could leave today’s K-12 students with the impression their college debt might be slashed as well. 

“If [politicians] have the authority to give away money if they declare an emergency, there’s a lot of incentive to declare emergencies — or give it away after they’ve declared one,” said Rick Hess, a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

But Kim Cook, CEO of the National College Attainment Network, said Biden presented the plan as “one-time debt relief” and that “future students shouldn’t depend on it.” Her organization, and many others, advocate for to $13,000 so low-income students won’t have to borrow so much to go to college.

‘Continued recovery’

During this month’s State of the Union address, Biden efforts to reduce student debt, but didn’t directly reference the cases before the court. 

The administration’s argument rests on a 2003 law called — for Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students. The law gives the education secretary the flexibility to make temporary changes to the federal student loan system in the case of a national emergency, including war.

“Student loan borrowers from all walks of life suffered profound financial harms during the pandemic,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said last month when filed briefs in support of the plan. “Their continued recovery and successful repayment hinges on the Biden administration’s student debt relief plan.”

One “wild card issue,” Dimino added, is that Biden plans to end the on May 11, which could make it harder for the administration to prove its case before the court.

In addition, former Republican education secretaries wrote in that the link between HEROES and ��������’s plan is weak.

“Such a pause only ensured that affected individuals were not placed in a worse position financially,” they wrote. “It did not authorize the executive branch to cancel $400 billion in student debt and leave borrowers in a better position than they would have been in if the COVID-19 pandemic had never occurred.”

In Biden v. Nebraska, the states argue that their tax revenues would drop if students don’t pay back their loans. The Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, for example, is a nonprofit that services student loans and contributes to the state’s higher education system. ��������’s plan, the states say, could cost the Missouri organization nearly $44 million a year and reduce what it pays the state.

Job Creators Network Foundation, an advocacy group, filed the second case, U.S. Department of Education v. Brown, on behalf of of Texas. Brown, a business owner from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, received loans from commercial lenders, making her ineligible for the Biden program. 

Taylor, a graduate of the University of Dallas, argues that limiting the maximum amount of relief — $20,000 — to Pell Grant recipients is unfair because borrowers earning far more than him will have more debt erased. He earns less than $25,000 a year, but qualified for $10,000 in loan forgiveness because he was not a Pell Grant recipient. Brown and Taylor argue that the administration didn’t give the public a chance to comment on the plan.

In the meantime, borrowers who took advantage of the Biden plan remain in limbo. 

In October, people were automatically eligible or applied for the relief. The department approved over applications before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit blocked the plan.

If the program is overruled, it’s unclear how soon borrowers would have to begin repayment, Dimino said.

“Borrowers are still totally in the dark,” she said. “These are really difficult circumstances for those making immediate financial decisions.”

Pennsylvania is set to receive the first installment of federal funding to improve and expand broadband internet access across the commonwealth, Gov. Tom Wolf said last week.

State and federal officials joined Wolf in the Governor’s Reception room of the state Capitol on Thursday to announce that $6.6 million from President Joe ��������’s “Internet for All” initiative is on its way to Pennsylvania.

The federal infusion is the first installment of more than $100 million Pennsylvania is set to receive for projects that expand and improve high-speed internet access in urban and rural areas of the commonwealth.

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“We really need to do a good job of making sure every corner of Pennsylvania is connected in a robust way to the internet,” Wolf, who leaves office in January, said. “This $6.6 million is the beginning of a generational change waiting for Pennsylvanians.”

The funds, and broadband projects statewide, are overseen by the Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority, created by Wolf in 2021 as a independent agency of the Department of Community and Economic Development.

In mid-November, the authority released its for spending the money to expand broadband access in Pennsylvania.

“With guidance from the Pennsylvania Broadband Authority, distribution will be carefully targeted for guaranteed progress,” Wolf said.

Wolf said that the lack of affordable and accessible broadband is hindering Pennsylvania’s economic growth.

“The lack of consistent, affordable, quality statewide broadband keeps children from learning. It keeps businesses from growing, it keeps the job market for workers much more limited than it should be, and it reduces medical care options for all of us,” Wolf said. “It’s one of the biggest challenges holding Pennsylvania’s economy back right now.”

Western Beaver County School District and Blackhawk School District Superintendent Dr. Rob Postupac echoed Wolf’s comments, adding that “families living without broadband face significant barriers in educational opportunities, employment opportunities and access to basic needs such as healthcare through telemedicine.”

“For too long now, those in our rural communities have had to live in digital darkness,” Postupac said. “The time has come to tackle this issue.”

Earlier this week, the Wolf administration’s broadband authority asked Pennsylvanians to review Federal Communications Commission (FCC) maps, which are used in accessibility and infrastructure projects, for accuracy before they are finalized in mid-January.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor John Micek for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on and .

Being a low-income child in the U.S. is daunting and outright depressing. Living in a family with income below the poverty line as a child is associated with lower levels of educational attainment, poorer health in adulthood and lower lifetime earnings than more affluent children attain. However, can blunt these negative effects of poverty and bring poor children closer to equal opportunity and equal access to extracurricular activities like piano lessons and baseball clubs, afterschool tutoring, healthy meals at dinnertime, mentorship and more quality time with their loved ones. All these things taken together not only level the playing field for disadvantaged kids, but help them thrive and flourish into adulthood.

Families across the country are facing unprecedented challenges, forcing them to make hard choices at the grocery store, the gas pump, in housing and for child care. The National Parents Union’s found the majority of families were extremely concerned about the rise of everyday costs and that Child Tax Credit monthly checks made a difference. Of the 68% of parents who received an expanded Child Tax Credit, said it had an impact on their family’s financial situation and their bottom line. Interestingly enough, although parents are not certain the midterm election results will have a net positive impact on their family, kids’ education and the economy, they are very clear on actions the federal government could take: in our December poll support restoring the expanded Child Tax Credit.

It is not a surprise the Child Tax Credit expansion resulted in an unprecedented reduction in households experiencing food insecurity: 14.8% of households in 2020 experienced food insecurity, compared with 12.5% in 2021. This means that as a result of the expansion, 2.5 million fewer children lived in households that experienced food insecurity, even though the since October 2021.

Housing costs have also risen exponentially. In 2021, , the largest increase in 34 years of data collected. A by the National Low Income Housing Coalition found that 70% of Child Tax Credit recipients used their payments to supplement their housing costs — and evictions dropped dramatically as a result.

These factors, and more, have a direct impact on learning. Generation A is experiencing an education emergency, as more students are reading, writing and doing math below grade level than before COVID-19 struck. This year’s showed the largest declines in math ever reported. Kids are in need of extended learning opportunities — quality programs and extracurricular learning opportunities to help them catch up. The Child Tax Credit would give families the breathing room that they need to hire tutors, pay for sports teams and dance classes, and provide their children with access to joyful moments of learning to complement classroom learning that they might not otherwise have.

The National Parents Union is asking all families and allies to join our fight by to support the restoration of the Child Tax Credit expansion and prevent 2.1 million children from falling back into poverty. Congress has until Thursday, Dec. 22 to pass an end-of-year tax package that could include relief for hardworking families as the 117^th Congress winnows down.

This is not about the entitlement state — it is about raising the bar for the quality of life of America’s children. An expanded Child Tax Credit, along with the ‘s new , are necessary policies for helping families overcome needless mental and physical challenges due to an inability to afford healthy food options. When Sen. Mitch McConnell insists that any end-of-year tax deal must prioritize defense spending over domestic policies, my question is: Why do lawmakers continue to stymie efforts to lift 4 million kids out of poverty? The country needs to fortify the future by prioritizing children — their health, education, resiliency. It is a moral imperative to create the conditions in which kids are free to experience joy, shielded from unnecessary suffering, and able to access resources that will positively impact their lives. 

Reinstating the Child Tax Credit expansion in the end-of-year tax package should be a no-brainer, a genuine and unprecedented demonstration that Congress — representing everyday, hardworking Americans — does indeed care about the wellness of the nation’s poorest children.

A newly released brings much-needed visibility to this disparity, which has long been ignored in the public dialogue about educational access. The report provides comprehensive data and a fresh set of powerful personal testimonies that illuminate how Native students experience the many facets of funding their college education. It offers recommendations for making higher education more financially accessible to Native students, such as providing aid for non-tuition expenses. 

Indigenous researchers collected information from nearly 3,000 students (a 23.2% response rate). These students represent 172 Tribal nations. This Indigenous-led data sharing, collection, analysis and reporting —  an unprecedented collaboration among the nation’s four Native scholarship providers — found that college affordability, not academic performance or any other factor, is the primary obstacle preventing Native students from earning their degree. Simply put: Of the Native students who do not complete their college studies, most stop because they simply do not have enough money to keep going. 

It has long been known that Native students are far less likely than U.S. students overall to graduate from college. has shown that 36% of Indigenous undergraduates entering four-year colleges and universities in 2014 completed their academic degrees in six years, compared with 60% of all other students. 

The new study goes deeper, painting a more detailed portrait of the financial challenges facing Native students. For example, it found that 72% reported running out of money at least once in the previous six months. Many Native students report making sacrifices that no student should have to make — such as not eating in order to have enough money for education-related expenses. Over 50% said they struggled with food insecurity, and 16% experienced homelessness while pursuing their degrees.

Examining the underlying reasons for these financial challenges, the report found that Native students shoulder tremendous financial responsibilities. Many are the breadwinners for their families. Almost 50% of respondents in the survey agreed that they served as the primary source of income for their household during college. More than two thirds said they are expected to contribute to family bills. 

As a member of the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes growing up in Montana, I experienced many of these same hardships when I attended college two decades ago. Now, as a scholarship provider, I hear each year from students enduring food insecurity and homelessness. Native Forward helps these students, providing them not just with funding for tuition, but also with housing, food aid and other forms of critical support. 

What I fear is that 20 years from now, students will still be coming to us for emergency relief. Meanwhile, the higher education system will not have evolved to meet their needs.  

The can empower colleges and universities to chart a different course — one that provides Native students with the resources and support they need to make higher education truly affordable. In my conversations with financial aid officers across the country, I’ve found that few have meaningful data on Native students’ financial literacy or challenges. Armed with the treasure trove of statistics in this study, financial aid staff can finally begin to develop expertise around Native students’ experiences in paying for their education. Universities can then develop data-informed strategies to better meet these students’ needs.  

The report also urges secondary schools to do more to equip Native students to navigate the costs of higher education, such as strengthening financial literacy school curricula and pre-college financial planning, and expanding information and planning for families, caregivers and students around filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).Year after year, Native Forward sends the majority of its funding to students enrolled at a small group of colleges and universities. This is because those schools excel at supporting this student population. Now, it’s time for more schools to follow their examples. With the  as a new baseline, all those who support Native students, from colleges to policymakers to philanthropists, can take informed action and create the institutional change that will finally achieve full equity and opportunity for Native students.

Some 27% of all people ages 18 to 29 cast ballots, more than in any recent midterm election except 2018, according to estimates from Tufts University’s .

“Despite being consistently told that young people do not vote, Gen Z turned out in huge numbers during the midterms,” Santiago Mayer, executive director of the youth-led organization , said in a . “Young people are overwhelmingly pro-democracy and Gen Z showed that we are excited and ready to take part in shaping what we want our future to look like.”

Young people’s ballots overwhelmingly broke for Democrats, who claimed 63% of their vote in U.S. House races. Only 35% favored GOP candidates, exit polling by the revealed. 

President Joe Biden expressed his gratitude on Twitter Wednesday. 

“You voted to continue addressing the climate crisis, gun violence, your personal rights and freedoms and student debt relief. Thank you for making your voices heard,” the president .

In what was widely predicted to be a “red wave” Tuesday night amid rising inflation, Democratic candidates out-performed pre-election polling, picking up a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania and fending off formidable GOP gubernatorial challengers in several states. 

“If not for young people, we have a starkly different result,” said John Della Volpe, director of polling at Harvard Kennedy School and author of , on .

The party in power almost always suffers stark losses in the midterms when the president’s approval rating is low. The question of who will control the U.S. House and Senate remains outstanding as election officials continued to count ballots in Arizona and Nevada going into the weekend and a Dec. 6 runoff election looms in Georgia.

While 63% of 18- to 29-year-olds voted blue, the same was true of only 51% of 30- to 44-year-olds, 44% of 45- to 64-year-olds and 43% of those 65 or older.

“Youth turnout helped the Democrats defy political gravity,” observed Varshini Prakash, executive director of the , a youth organization devoted to stopping climate change. 

The high degree of mobilization came, Prakash argued, despite “massive under-investment” in the issues that benefit the younger generation such as protecting the planet.

Pundits noted that analysts may have failed to accurately factor in young people’s votes in the Election Day leadup because they failed to connect with them.

“Last I checked, young people, they don’t even take calls from their mothers. I can’t imagine they take calls from pollsters,” MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle .

Pollsters were also faulted for missing how potent the abortion issue remained for all voters, even while concerns over the economy gained ground. Jack Lobel, a Columbia University political science major and Voters of Tomorrow’s deputy communications director, the day after the election that his group had done its own polling and knew the loss of reproductive rights was an imperative for young voters.

“We saw that abortion was certainly a top issue. I think young voters recognize that when Roe fell, it may have been the first of many rights to fall,” he said.

Gun violence and the prevalence of school shootings were also key “motivating issues” pushing youth voters to turn out for progressive candidates, said Lamia El-Sadek, executive director of March For Our Lives. It should be a lesson for those running for government office in years to come, she said.

“The pathway to victory for candidates running in 2024 is to make bold commitments — like passing an assault weapons ban, raising the age to buy a firearm and requiring background checks for every gun sale.”

Student debt cancellation may have also pulled young people left. President Biden canceled up to $10,000 for federal borrowers and $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients in September, a move that those under 30. However, a U.S. District Court judge in Texas the move on Thursday, putting relief in legal limbo. The federal government quickly appealed the decision. 

Meanwhile, in Florida, voters elected the , as Democrat Maxwell Frost, 25, won the state’s 10th Congressional District with 59% of the vote. Elsewhere in Florida, Republicans saw a near-sweep, including in school board elections.

Here’s how youth showed up in some of the nation’s key races this season, according to the Tufts analysis:

• In Pennsylvania, where Democrat John Fetterman won a U.S. Senate seat by just a 3-point margin, youth ages 18 to 29 preferred Fetterman 70% to 28% 
• In Wisconsin, where Democratic Gov. Tony Evers won re-election also by a 3-point margin, young voters favored Evers 70% vs. 30%
• In Georgia, where the U.S. Senate race went to a runoff with less than 1 point separating the candidates, youth cast ballots for Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock 63% to 36%

In all of those races, the Republican candidates were backed by former President Donald Trump and espoused support in varying degrees for his false campaign to deny the 2020 election results. The strong youth vote was seen as a of those attacks on American democracy and the electoral process young people embraced.

“Young voters were the deciding factors in many close races,” co-founder Eve Levenson said. “We have more than earned our seat at the decision-making table.”

The are indisputable. Programs are constrained by high fixed costs and meager public support, so they sky-high fees while cutting wages to the bone, yet still struggle to keep the lights on. More than 16,000 providers have since the start of the pandemic, and the system is beset by ongoing of over 85,000 educators. Without a major increase of permanent public money, parents will face continually fewer and more expensive choices, while the economy experiences ongoing drag.

Passing large amounts of child care funding now requires going through regular order and the 60-vote filibuster threshold. On nearly any other issue, that is an insurmountable obstacle. However, 12(!) Republican Senators are on a bill reflecting many Democratic priorities: reducing child care fees while improving child care supply and quality. For those keeping score at home, those 12 plus the Democratic caucus gets a bill passed. The problem is the legislation has no dedicated funding attached.

The Child Care and Development Block Grant Reauthorization Act in March by GOP Senators Tim Scott and Richard Burr. The bill supercharges the existing child care subsidy system used in every state. Among other policies, it makes care free for all families below 75% of state median income (in an average state like Michigan, that’s ~$70,000 for a family of four) and substantially improves educator compensation. Without any set aside funding, of course, these promises are worth as much as the paper they are printed on. That said, a common bipartisan framework clearly exists.

And it should — child care needs swamp ideology. Two-thirds of U.S. children under the age of six . Child care deserts are rampant and in both and . By some metrics, than urban ones. Beyond the youngest kids, millions more families rely on child care programs for their elementary schoolers’ before- or after-school care. Many of the nation’s stay-at-home parents are and feel. No politician has constituents untouched by the issue.

Compromises will be needed to win enough support to pass child care legislation, but as the gun safety, CHIPS, PACT, and IRA bills have recently proved, compromise (both between and within parties) is indeed possible.

Democrats will need to accept explicit language affirming faith-based child care programs’ right to receive public funding. This is already a feature of the existing system, but one that during the Build Back Better debate. Moreover, this would be an ideal time to adopt some form of a ‘home care stipend,’ cash support for stay-at-home parents. This is an idea with backing from both and . Similarly, the processes for starting in-home daycares and for informal caregivers (like grandparents) becoming recipients of public support could be eased. Together, these measures would address concerns about government overreach or putting the government’s thumb on the scale against stay-at-home parents.

For the Right, the concession will come in agreeing to robust funding sources. One obvious candidate is the estate tax, a levy currently only paid by the wealthiest 0.2% of Americans. A from researchers at Penn-Wharton shows that if the 2000 estate tax law were in place, the U.S. would be generating nearly $80 billion more a year. Other studies that simply going back to Obama-era standards would raise between $20 billion and $30 billion per year over current levels. Framed as a tax on the ultrarich, the policy has , and that’s before tying it to broad child care benefits.

Whether through estate tax reform or other means, leaders on both sides of the aisle should sit down and identify a dedicated source of permanent child care funding. Between the proposals put forth by Senators Scott and Burr on the right and on the left, there is surely a deal to be struck. It is unquestionably worth the attempt.

No other path is so promising. States are , but simply don’t have the funding capacity to solve the crisis. The includes a measly $1 billion increase in child care funding (the Murray-Kaine plan offers more than ten times as much). Digging up another tranche of emergency funding would help but do little to address the crippling workforce shortage. Relying on a post-midterms Congress to contain a hardline House is somewhere between risky and reckless.

President Biden and the Democrats have notched an impressive set of legislative victories by not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Republicans have displayed a willingness to set down their sabers when there is a legitimate opportunity to advance their goals. Those principles should now be applied to aid the millions of families with young children — across both parties — who are waiting, desperately, for their turn to get some support.

County-level voting patterns revealed school districts in Biden-elected counties lost more students over the last two academic years than those that voted for Trump because they tended to stay closed longer, according to the report.

Nat Malkus, a senior fellow and deputy director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, had difficulty finding exceptions to the enrollment trend.

“It’s not just a school district story, it’s a community story,” Malkus tells The 74. “Who bears responsibility for this to some degree? Dear reader, it may be you.”

According to the report, public school K–12 enrollment dropped by 2.9% – a loss of over 1.3 million students since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, marking the largest decline in the history of the U.S.

Here are the key takeaways from the report:

1. Disparities in student enrollment were influenced by school district decisions on in-person versus remote class time and safety measures.

Public school districts and their respective communities are described in the report as either “COVID-cautious” or “COVID-assertive.”

COVID-cautious districts are those that spent the most time in remote learning and maintained safety measures. In contrast, COVID-assertive districts returned to in-person learning earlier and removed safety measures faster.

“These categorizations are not meant to imply that districts either threw caution to the wind or were not interested in returning students to the classrooms,” the report said. “Instead, these categories describe which of the two goals the districts prioritized when pressed.”

According to the report, 90% of COVID-cautious districts and 70% of COVID-assertive districts experienced enrollment declines in the past two school years.

COVID-cautious districts experienced an enrollment decline of 4.4% and COVID-assertive districts experienced 1.2%. This is a disparity of one in 23 students compared to one in 87 students.

2. Student enrollment rebounded in Trump-elected counties while enrollment continued to decline in Biden-elected counties.

The 2020 presidential election impacted student enrollment, where schools in Trump-elected counties offered a significant amount of in-person class time compared to Biden-elected counties, according to the report.

The report also found Trump-elected counties saw enrollments rebound in the 2021-22 school year, suggesting voting patterns influenced COVID-cautious and COVID-assertive decisions.

“Certainly Donald Trump’s tweets about ‘hey, all students have to go back to school and don’t let the Democrats keep them out of school’ is something that is going to polarize people politically,” Malkus told The 74. “However, the response to Trump was just as adept when politicians on both sides took stands on the matter.”

3. Public school districts may experience revenue declines based on student enrollment.

COVID-cautious districts may experience a larger revenue decline compared to COVID-assertive districts as a result of in-person class time disparities.

“How do these districts maintain services under sharp decreases in enrollment? They’re going to have lower revenue and that’s going to be painful for school districts, and by extension, for students,” Malkus said. 

This includes potential hiring freezes, school closures, cuts to programs, teacher and staff layoffs and classroom consolidations, according to the report.

“COVID-cautious tendencies could extend the enrollment differentials for longer, but we won’t know the answer to that until we get another round of enrollment data so I hesitate to predict the future,” Malkus said of the 2022-23 school year.

However, Malkus found COVID-cautious districts have been following their COVID-assertive counterparts for the 2022-23 school year when it comes to mask mandates, vaccine requirements and other safety measures.

“It does seem to some degree that the COVID-cautious districts are giving way to normalcy, but we’ll see if that lasts in the face of potential endemic surges to come,” Malkus said.

The tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, which resulted in the deaths of at least 19 children and two teachers, unfolded just 10 days after the nation was shocked by a mass shooting that left 10 people dead at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. 

It could be more than a coincidence: A growing body of research suggests these assaults have a tendency to spread like a viral disease. A research theory called the contagion effect suggests that mass shootings often happen in clusters, with intense media coverage playing a significant role in subsequent attacks. About a dozen studies, dating to the 1970s, suggest this is the case.

The U.S. has experienced 16 mass shootings in just 10 days, including the carnage in Buffalo and Uvalde. That’s according to , which tracks shootings that result in at least four injuries or deaths. So far this year, the U.S. has endured 212 mass shootings in which four or more people were shot or killed, according to the archive. 

The tragedy in Texas has reignited the country’s divisive and cyclical debate over gun laws, with President Joe Biden asking in an emotional White House address Tuesday night, “When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?”

Jaclyn Schildkraut, an associate professor of criminal justice at the State University of New York Oswego, said shooters are often motivated by a desire for fame. She’s a proponent of the “, which urges media outlets to limit the frequency with which they publish a shooting suspect’s name and photograph.

Attackers “want people to know who they are, they want their name recognition, and so when we remove that incentive and we don’t report their names, we aren’t rewarding people for killing other people by making them celebrities,” Schildkraut said. “It’s also removing the incentive for other like-minded individuals who may be seeing the amount of coverage that a case is getting and want similar attention.”

A day after the May 14 Buffalo supermarket assault, four people were killed and 23 were injured in five mass shootings: two in Texas, two in North Carolina and one in California. In one incident, a at a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods, California, resulting in one death and five injuries. In another, two people were killed and three injured after in Houston. More recently, on Monday, in a shooting at a club in North Charleston, South Carolina. 

While the Buffalo and Uvalde suspects are both 18-year-old men, a motive for the Texas school shooting remains unknown, as does the degree to which the perpetrator studied or was inspired by the incident in upstate New York or elsewhere. But Adam Lankford, a criminology professor at the University of Alabama, noted that the Texas suspect was active on social media and reportedly outlined plans on Facebook prior to the attack. The suspect and communicated with a stranger online before the shooting, offering a cryptic message about what would soon unfold. Lankford said the suspect appeared to portray himself “as a mysterious, dangerous man who might do something like this.” 

“He was dancing around the possibility that seemed likely that he would do something dramatic, perhaps dangerous, and perhaps a mass shooting,” Lankford said. “You can only dance around or imply that in a culture in which people are aware that young men with firearms too often do that.”

The Uvalde shooting was the deadliest attack on a school since the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 20 children and six educators. 

In one 2015 study on the contagion effect, researchers at Arizona State University found a in the immediate aftermath of a similar attack with four or more victims. A second incident was statistically more likely to occur within 13 days, on average, researchers found.

Yet a similar contagion effect doesn’t appear to exist in the wake of attacks with just a few victims, “possibly indicating that the much higher frequency of such events compared with mass killings and school shootings reduces their relative sensationalism, and thus reduces their contagiousness,” according to the researchers.  

So far this year, 27 shootings at K-12 schools have resulted in 67 injuries or deaths, according to , which has tracked such attacks since 2018. Prior to the shooting in Uvalde, the most recent campus attack unfolded just last week in Kentwood, Michigan. In that May 19 tragedy, after a Crossroads Alternative High School graduation ceremony.

In recent years, mass shootings in the U.S. have become “substantially more deadly over time,” by Lankford. Shooters often take inspiration from previous attacks and apply the lessons learned to their own. In fact, the number of mass shootings where eight or more people were killed since 2010, compared with the previous four decades.

The number of shooters who were inspired by previous attackers has also doubled, Lankford found. Between 1966 and 2009, a quarter of the deadliest shootings were perpetrated by someone who directly cited, referenced or studied a previous mass killer. Such direct influence was observed in half of the deadliest shootings between 2010 and 2019. 

Older attacks seem to have a stronger direct influence than more recent events, Lankford said. The Buffalo suspect, for example, reportedly referenced the 2019 mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in writing. Lankford noted that mass shooters often conduct extensive research and planning before carrying out their attacks and are unlikely to act impulsively after learning about the most recent shooting on the news. Rather, at-risk individuals who have already been considering violence could see the latest headline and decide that now is the time to act. 

The rise of social media, Lankford said, has helped researchers understand how transmission occurs. 

“We’re increasingly able to study the social media and internet searches of the perpetrators themselves, so what was in previous decades mere speculation about transmission can now be confirmed,” he said. “So, as just one example, we know what the Parkland shooter was googling and that he was looking up both things like the Virginia Tech shooting or the Columbine shooters, but then also a shooting that had just occurred several weeks earlier.”

While many questions about the Texas shooter remain unanswered, Schildkraut said it’s important to focus attention on the victims and their needs. 

“There are so many people in years past who can tell you the names of shooters and not one of their victims, let alone all of their victims,” she said. “We just really need to refocus the attention on who matters in this, and it’s not the person who did the killing.” 

“Where in God’s name is our backbone to have the courage to deal with and stand up to the lobbies?”

The president asked the nation to pray for the families directly impacted by the shooting, calling on his own experience of losing his son Beau to brain cancer in saying that losing a child is like “having a piece of your soul ripped away.” 

Watch his full address:

“We have to act,” Biden said, calling for the passage of common sense gun laws. “Don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage.”

The question then turns to: how do we get from here to there?

Implementation is always tricky, all the more so when you’re trying to largely build a system from scratch (many child care advocates rightly say we have a child care ‘non-system’ at the moment). Happily, a recently released resource from Bank Street College of Education offers up some guideposts. Earlier this year, Bank Street convened a group of early childhood thought leaders—of which I was honored to be a part—to consider the question of what it looks like to establish child care as a public good. The of the same name puts forth the group’s recommendations.

The principles offered are:

• Update and Expand the Value Proposition
• Invest In and Plan for the Long-Term
• Design for Anti-Racism
• Commit to Quality
• Partner with Educators, Families and Communities Throughout Policy Design and Implementation

The last three points are particularly relevant for implementation. The brief notes that “we must name the system design components that perpetuate inequities, inefficacies, fragmentation and unintended consequences. At the same time, we can build from aspects of our system that have centered around anti-racism and equity … Designing an anti-racist ECE system requires a shared commitment to a concept of quality that includes equitable experiences of quality among the children and families it serves, allowing space for the definition of ‘quality’ to be expansive enough to include a continuum of preferences, priorities and values that represent the cultural diversity and needs of all learners.”

There are many racist (and classist) components to the current system: for instance, the process of applying for and acquiring child care subsidy — assistance disproportionately used by people of color—can feel designed to be a discouraging and brutal Kafka-esque journey. This is no accident; as historian Sonya Michel , the 1996 welfare reform bill turned child care “into a lever for punitive policy toward poor and low-income mothers.”

Similarly, suspensions and expulsions of young children occur among children of color than their white peers. (ELN also recently wrote about pre-K expulsions.) One thing I learned when reporting on the excellent design of Multnomah County (OR)’s universal pre-K initiative was how vital it is to have diverse parent voices involved to avoid the very unintended consequences the brief warns about. For instance, it was the parents’ involvement in setting the campaign’s policy priorities that ensured the initiative bans preschool suspensions and expulsions.

Quality is another area in need of a reckoning. There may be a temptation among policymakers to reach for public school analogues when it comes to quality metrics. While there are lots of times when schools make good comparisons for early learning settings, this isn’t one of them. Quality for younger children often looks and feels different (frankly, schools could take a few lessons from ECE!). Moreover, the traditional quality rating systems in early childhood have come under in recent years for privileging a particular perspective of care.

We can do better. In a blog post, Bank Street’s Brandy Jones Lawrence and Emily Sharrock a vision for how considering child care as a public good can lead to better quality, writing that “America has made the decision not to invest in quality care. But it does not have to be this way, and changing our approach does not have to be incremental.”

It is unbelievably exciting to be talking about the potential implementation of a real child care system instead of arguing about whether one should exist. The implementation phase is not, however, going to be easy. Starting with ‘first principles’ like those laid out in the brief will smooth what could be a rocky road — and no matter the state of the path, we are finally, finally, finally headed in the correct direction.