Here’s a quick look at the news from last week (September 2 – 6) in Washington.   

HOUSE and SENATE
The House and Senate are in recess and will return to session this week.

The House Education and the Workforce Committee will hold a full Committee hearing titled “Education Research: Exploring Opportunities to Strengthen the Institute of Education Sciences,” on Tuesday, September 10 at 10:00 am.  Witnesses include George Scott, Director for Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues at the U.S. Government Accountability Office; Dr. Bridget Terry Long, Chair of the National Board for Education Sciences at IES; Dr. James Kemple, Executive Director of the Research Alliance for New York City Schools; and Kathy Christie, Vice President, Knowledge/Information Management and Dissemination at the Education Commission of the States.

The House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training will hold a hearing on Wednesday, September 11 at 12:00 p.m., titled “Keeping College Within Reach: Supporting Higher Education Opportunities for America’s Servicemembers and Veterans.”

The Congressional Budget Office issued a report documenting the growth in the cost of the Pell Grant program over the past few years. This report also provides possible policy options to respond to the growth in cost. The report estimated that real spending on Pell Grants increased by 158 percent from the 2006-2007 to 2010-2011 award years.

ADMINISTRATION
Late last week, the Administration released the document, as well as background information, which will be the starting point for negotiations on new gainful employment regulations. The document proposes a number of changes to the final regulations on gainful employment issued in 2011, including limiting its data collection to Title IV students, eliminating the third metric regarding loan repayment rates, and it assumes amortization of all loans over a 10 year period in the calculation of its metrics. Negotiations are scheduled to begin on September 9.

The Administration is seeking public input on how it can improve technical assistance on services for English language learners and strengthen technical assistance dissemination activities to states and school districts through the National Clearing House for English Language Acquisition and Language Instruction Educational programs. Comments are due by September 25.

GRANT OPPORTUNITIES
Penn Hill Group provides a weekly list of grant opportunities, and summaries for select grants, including Race to the Top-District. Please visit our website for more information.