LEARNING FORWARD CAPITOL HILL BRIEFING:
Addressing Equity in Teaching Through Professional Learning

Click here to download the Capitol Hill Briefing PPT slides.

All of America’s teachers need access to high-quality professional learning and support to address students’ cultural contexts, social-emotional development and an ability to engage with demanding academic content. All too often, the teachers of the students who need the most support are in schools with the most limited resources for professional learning. We can turn the tide by providing ongoing, collaborative and job-embedded professional learning for all teachers and leaders.

Hear from the field about the challenges schools and districts are facing, how they have intervened with professional learning and what the impact has been. Specifically, this panel focused on how Title II-A supported initiatives are making a difference in recruiting and retaining teachers and leaders and increasing student achievement. 

Advocacy update: Appropriations Action
Heating Up on Capitol Hill

August 28, 2019

The next month is going to be critical for federal education funding. While the President and the Congress did agree earlier this month to raise the overall spending caps for the next two years, it remains uncertain how much (if at all) federal education programs will benefit from the higher spending caps. This is due to competing priorities all vying for those additional dollars.

We expect that the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee and Full Committee will mark-up the Senate version of FY20 Labor HHS Education Appropriations in mid-to-late September. Once the Appropriations Committee is finished marking up this bill, it will be paired with Defense Appropriations and brought to the Senate floor. After this mini-bus bill passes, it will be conferenced with the House version, which passed a few months back and which contains far more money for education than the Senate version is likely to include. These negotiations are where the rubber will meet the road as House and Senate appropriators determine how much funding each individual education program will receive. The stakes are particularly high for Title II, to which the House accorded a $500 million increase in its bill. That level may prove difficult to maintain as the Senate is likely to come in with a lower dollar figure for Title II.

Therefore, it is critical that Congress, particularly the Senators and House members on the appropriations committees, understand that Title II-A merits the full $500 million increase included in the House approved bill. This means that we need them to hear from educators about how these funds have made a strong impact in your school or district. We urge everyone to call, email, and tweet to your Senators and US Representatives, informing them of two things:

• Title II-A funding is critical in your schools and districts; and
• For the final, conferenced bill, they should support the House approved $500 million increase for Title II-A.