| | | | |  | | By Bianca Quilantan | Presented by Sallie Mae® | 'A RECORD' FOR TITLE IX — Education Secretary Miguel Cardona's proposed Title IX rule that aims to overhaul the Trump-era rules on responding to sexual misconduct on campus drew more than 240,000 comments by the regulation's comment deadline. — Cardona's move to codify protections for sexual orientation and gender identity in Title IX is setting up a fight that's just as divisive as former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' rule, which drew more than 124,000 written comments during the regulatory process and attracted five lawsuits. — The comment count on Cardona's rule appears to be "a record," according to Bob Eitel, president of the Defense of Freedom Institute and DeVos' senior counselor from 2017 through 2020. Eitel was key in shaping DeVos' regulatory agenda, including her Title IX rule, a cornerstone policy of her tenure. — "The previous record holder was the 2020 rule, which was proposed in November of 2018 and finalized and published in May of 2020," he said. "This rule is a rather large expansion of the sexual harassment reforms that the 2020 rule created. This rule is drastically different from the 2020 rule because it encompasses issues of gender identity." — Going through the comments could take months. But many of the comments could be duplicates, said Kenneth Marcus, who led the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights under DeVos and now leads the Brandeis Center. But "those replies take a minimal amount of time to address," he said. "There are also numerous comments that will be nearly identical. … Those may not take much more time." — "The department is facing a large volume of complex, well-formed and unique legal arguments, many of which were drafted with future litigation in mind," Marcus said. "To review this volume of content of comments will take months. ... To do that right is a very significant undertaking. There may be temptations for the administration to cut corners in order to move more quickly, but if they do that, they will render their final rule more vulnerable to legal challenges." — Eitel said it's not likely that the final rule will be published before late spring or early summer 2023. The Education Department has not given any indication on when it may finalize the rule. Your host is also keeping an eye on when it will unveil its separate rule on sports eligibility. ICYMI: CLERICAL ERROR IN TITLE IX COMMENT COUNT — Wondering why the number of comments on the Biden administration's Title IX rule dropped from 349,177 comments earlier this month? The department found a clerical error with a comment unrelated to the proposed regulation. IT'S MONDAY, SEPT. 26. WELCOME TO WEEKLY EDUCATION. Let's grab coffee. Reach me at bquilantan@politico.com. Send tips to my colleagues Juan Perez Jr. at jperez@politico.com and Michael Stratford at mstratford@politico.com. And follow us on Twitter: @Morning_Edu and @POLITICOPro.
| | A message from Sallie Mae®: Federal student loan forgiveness is an attempt to address the current symptoms of the broken federal higher education financing system. Without rethinking federal student lending and college affordability, students and families will likely be in the same situation in a few years. We need a simpler system to help those who truly need public support to access and complete college. Sallie Mae CEO Jon Witter shares ways we can improve the system for future generations. | | | Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You'll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day's biggest stories.
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Attorney General Merrick Garland | (Patrick Semansky/AP Photo) | JUDGE TOSSES LAWSUIT OVER DOJ MEMO — A federal judge on Friday dismissed a case from a group of parents that challenged Attorney General Merrick Garland's memo that addressed school board threats. The memo addresses "a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff who participate in the vital work of running … public schools." — The group of parents from Saline, Mich., and Loudoun County, Va., accused Garland of using the memo to stifle their free speech. They alleged the policy labels them as "domestic terrorist[s]" and "criminalize[s]" their speech while opposing school board curricula and policies. — The judge ruled that the memo "does not impose any regulations, requirements or enforcement actions on individuals." Garland's memo, the judge said , explicitly says "it does not target what 'is protected under our Constitution,' which includes 'spirited debate about policy matters.'" The judge also said "the policy does not label anyone a domestic terrorist, as the plaintiffs suggest."
| | | | HAPPENING 9/29 - POLITICO'S AI & TECH SUMMIT : Technology is constantly evolving and so are the politics and policies shaping and regulating it. Join POLITICO for the 2022 AI & Tech summit to get an insider look at the pressing policy and political issues shaping tech, and how Washington interacts with the tech sector. The summit will bring together lawmakers, federal regulators, tech executives, tech policy experts and consumer advocates to dig into the intersection of tech, politics, regulation and innovation, and identify opportunities, risks and challenges ahead. REGISTER FOR THE SUMMIT HERE. | | | | | | | | GUN SAFETY IS ON THE BALLOT THIS NOVEMBER, BIDEN SAYS — President Joe Biden urged the importance of voting this November at a Friday Democratic National Committee event hosted at the National Education Association headquarters. "There's a heck of a lot at stake that's on the ballot," Biden said, adding later that "Gun safety for our kids and gun violence are on the ballot." — "The idea that you start school this year and kids in many parts of the country learn how to duck and cover rather than — no, I'm serious; think about it — rather than talking about reading, writing, and arithmetic is a very different circumstance," he said. "It's not right." — Additionally, the president touted his sweeping student loan debt forgiveness program, the money for schools in Democrats' American Rescue Plan, and the bipartisan gun safety package, which was Congress' first major response in nearly three decades to mass shootings.
| | | BROOKLYN LIBRARY COMBATS BOOK BANS NATIONWIDE — As conservative states move to restrict student access to books with racial and LGBTQ+ themes, the Brooklyn Public Library has become a key hub to keeping those titles in reach for students across the country. — Organizations in deep-blue New York have been directly lending 25,000 books to non-residents since spring, POLITICO New York's Madina Touré reports. The library's "Books Unbanned" program provides access to its eBook collection and learning databases for people between the ages of 13 and 21. — The New York Public Library, which serves the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island , made banned materials free through their free e-reader app in April and May. Tony Marx, the New York Public Library's president and CEO, said it is not a "big city pushing liberal agenda" but about libraries doing their jobs to make knowledge and information accessible.
| | | | A message from Sallie Mae®:   | | | | | | — Nebraska Commissioner of Education Matt Blomstedt announced Friday that he plans to resign his post on Jan. 3. He has led the Nebraska Department of Education for nine years. More on his departure from the Omaha World-Herald. — Kimberly A. Jones was elected by the Council for Opportunity in Education's Board of Directors to serve as the council's third president. She is COE's executive vice president. Jones's appointment takes effect on Oct. 1, 2023, following the retirement of COE's current President Maureen Hoyler.
| | | | THIS WEEK - MILKEN INSTITUTE ASIA SUMMIT : Go inside the 9th annual Milken Institute Asia Summit, taking place from September 28-30, with a special edition of POLITICO's Global Insider newsletter, featuring exclusive coverage and insights from this important gathering. Stay up to speed with daily updates from the summit, which brings together more than 1,200 of the world's most influential leaders from business, government, finance, technology, and academia. Don't miss out, subscribe today. | | | | | | | | — Pollsters fear they're blowing it again in 2022: POLITICO — Stressed out schools: How parents and teachers choices are changing education: USA Today — Ted Cruz was booed by a Texas audience when he said his plan to end school shootings is putting more police officers in schools: INSIDER — Rising tide of censorship and scrutiny has schools scrambling to avoid backlash: Chalkbeat — 'Other places in the country didn't do this': How one California town survived Covid better than the rest: POLITICO Magazine
| | A message from Sallie Mae®: The federal higher education financing system does too much for too many and not enough for students with the most need. We need to meaningfully expand the Pell Grant, simplify the financial aid process, and make federal loans unnecessary or a dramatically smaller part of how underserved or disadvantaged families finance their education. Pursuing higher education should be a catalyst for long-term success, but that success should not require unsustainable debt for the students and families who need the most support. Read more from Sallie Mae CEO Jon Witter about how we can build a simpler, more transparent college financing system. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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