Washington Update

Since I last wrote you, the House introduced a ten-bill package to write the interagency transfers into law, every Democratic senator signed a letter arguing the transfers exceed the Department’s authority, a lawsuit was filed over withheld education research funds, and the Department launched a public hub explaining its side of all of it. Add the regulatory agenda, the loan-cap litigation, and the oversight record from earlier in the week, and this is the fullest picture of the reorganization we have had since the agreements were signed. Read more >

This is the news many of us had been bracing for, and it came in the form most of us expected: not a statute, not an executive order, but a set of administrative agreements. On June 15, the U.S. Department of Education signed four Interagency Agreements (IAAs), three with the Department of Justice and one with the Department of Health and Human Services, and announced them the next day. Read more >

Earlier this week the numbers for our priorities were still sealed in the Committee Report, and I asked you to be ready rather than draw conclusions. The report is now public. Read more >

On June 4 the House Appropriations Committee released its FY 2027 Labor-HHS-Education bill, and the subcommittee advanced it June 5. This is Congress's first answer to the President’s budget request, and it matters as much for what it rejects as for the cuts it makes. Read more >

The semester has wound down, though I know the work never really pauses for this group; you have been at it all along, and so has Washington. As you know, the President’s fiscal year 2027 budget request is out, and it carries real consequences for the programs that hold up our field. Read more >