What to expect as Republicans hammer out their coronavirus relief package — Mixed court rulings on CARES Act relief for college students — Pandemic hits close to home as HBCUs weigh fall plans

Delivered every Monday by 10 a.m., Weekly Education examines the latest news in education politics and policy.

Jul 27, 2020 View in browser   By Michael Stratford Editor's Note: Weekly Eduction is a weekly version of POLITICO Pro's daily Education policy newsletter, Morning Education. POLITICO Pro is a policy intelligence platform that combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day's biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro. ALL EYES ON REPUBLICAN STIMULUS PLAN THIS WEEK: Senate Republicans are set to release, as early as today, their proposal for another round of coronavirus relief. Education funding has already been a point of contention in the negotiations as the Trump administration makes a concerted push to physically reopen schools this fall and seeks to advance some of its school choice policy agenda. — Here's what we're watching for as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell prepares to unveil the GOP's stimulus plan, which is expected to clock in at about $1 trillion: — Funding for education: McConnell and top Republicans have said the bill will include $105 billion for education. Based on what GOP lawmakers have said, we already have a rough sense of how that breaks down: $70 billion for K-12 schools; nearly $30 billion for colleges; and another $5 billion for governors to spend on education. — That dollar figure isn't far off from the $100 billion that House Democrats included in their stimulus plan that passed the chamber in May, H.R. 6800 (116) — but Senate Democrats have said they want $345 billion for education. — What will the strings for schools look like? Democrats have already panned the concept of tying coronavirus relief for schools to their physical reopening this fall. The Republican plan is expected to condition roughly half of the $70 billion for K-12 schools on their reopening. But we haven't yet seen what the triggers would be or how the legislation would define "reopening." — How far will the school choice proposals go? Senate HELP Chair Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) has said the bill will include school choice provisions that expands support for students attending private schools. But it's not yet clear which provisions will make it in the bill. — A proposal floated by Alexander and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) last week — and backed by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — would redirect 10 percent of the money already allocated to K-12 schools by the CARES Act, H.R. 748 (116), to scholarships for families to pay tuition at private schools or cover other educational expenses. It would also include the Trump administration's proposal to establish a new $5 billion federal tax credit to boost school choice options. — Student loan provisions: Another remaining question is how the Senate plan will address the looming expiration of CARES Act student loan relief for some 40 million Americans. Alexander has said his plan to consolidate and streamline the government's existing income-based repayment options will be in the bill, but it would not continue the CARES Act student loan benefits.   LIVE: OREGON ATTORNEY GENERAL ELLEN ROSENBLUM JOINS TO DISCUSS ONGOING PROTESTS – TODAY @ 2:30 p.m. EDT: Join Playbook authors Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman for an interview with AG Rosenblum, who filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration alleging that federal agents are arresting protesters in Portland without probable cause, taking them in unmarked cars and using excessive force. REGISTER HERE.     IT'S MONDAY, JULY 27. WELCOME TO MORNING EDUCATION. Drop me a line with your tips and feedback: mstratford@politico.com or @mstratford. Share event listings: educalendar@politicopro.com. And follow us on Twitter: @Morning_Edu and @POLITICOPro. Higher Education MORE LEGAL LIMBO FOR CARES ACT GRANTS FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS: As Congress debates another round of stimulus funding, the legal fights are continuing over how colleges may distribute some of the money from the CARES Act. — At issue: DeVos has limited the $6 billion emergency assistance program for college students only to those students who meet the qualifications for federal financial aid. The policy excludes a wide range of students, including international students, undocumented students, DACA recipients, and other immigrants who don't have a green card. — New over the weekend: A federal judge in Massachusetts on Saturday ruled that DeVos could not deny funding to a Boston student who is participating in the Temporary Protected Status program. U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin's order, released on Saturday, applies only to the individual student who brought the lawsuit, but he said he would soon consider expanding it to cover all colleges in Massachusetts. — The student, Farah Noerand, came to the U.S. when she was medically evacuated from Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. Now a student at Bunker Hill Community College, Noerand said in her lawsuit that she sought access to the emergency financial aid grant to help pay for food and technology she needs to continue her studies. She previously accessed the food bank, computers and internet available on campus. — Sorokin ruled that the CARES Act "unambiguously authorized" funding to college students "without regard to their immigration status, i.e., without regard to whether the student is eligible for Title IV financial aid." Two other federal courts — in California and Washington state — have blocked DeVos' policy on similar grounds, rejecting her argument that pandemic relief should be limited only to students eligible for federal financial aid. — Sorokin also rebuffed another key argument from the Trump administration: that a 1996 welfare law broadly banning public benefits for undocumented individuals applies to the CARES Act higher education funding. He ruled that Congress effectively exempted the CARES Act higher education funding from that earlier restriction — known as Section 1611 — by "unambiguously" directing aid to "a plainly defined group of people." — But on Friday, DeVos notched a win on the same exact argument in a different court. The federal judge in Washington state — who already blocked DeVos from limiting CARES Act funding only to students who qualify for federal student aid — declined to go further and stop the Trump administration from relying on the 1996 welfare law to block pandemic relief to undocumented students. — U.S. District Judge Thomas Rice ruled that Congress had not made clear that it wanted to override the Section 1611 restrictions in the CARES Act. Any discrepancies in the law "are more likely attributable to inartful drafting under the constraints of a global pandemic rather than any clearly expressed intent to override a longstanding provision of federal law," he wrote.   EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED: Policy professionals' work has drastically changed since the outbreak of Covid-19. Read what 700+ policy professionals had to say about this "new normal" in POLITICO Pro's 2020 Policy Insider's Report: Policymaking during a Pandemic .     Coronavirus CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC HITS ESPECIALLY CLOSE TO HOME FOR HBCUs: "Leaders of historically Black colleges and universities are grappling with a challenge others in higher education don't fully share: how to reopen their campuses to a population that has proven especially vulnerable to Covid-19," POLITICO's Nolan D. McCaskill and Maya King report. — "We have to acknowledge and recognize that African Americans with comorbidities have fared far worse in this pandemic than any other group," Howard University President Wayne A.I. Frederick said in an interview. "I think, for an HBCU in particular, there's a lot of differences in terms of opening that are probably a little more accentuated because of our circumstances." THE GLOBAL DAMAGE TO CLOSING THE WORLD'S SCHOOLS: The United Nations estimated last week that more than one billion primary and secondary school students in 107 countries are subject to nationwide school closures because of the coronavirus pandemic, reports POLITICO's Ryan Heath in our Global Translations newsletter. — Another 548 million are subject to local closures, for a combined total of 98 percent of the world's school students. Education and child advocates are tearing their hair out over political decisions to allow venues like hair salons and tattoo parlors to open, while schools remain closed in dozens of countries. Map: Ryan Heath / POLITICO Source: UNESCO Education Department DEVOS AIDE: DON'T EXPECT MORE TESTING WAIVERS THIS SCHOOL YEAR: Jim Blew, a top aide to DeVos, told reporters during an Education Writers Association event on Friday that the Trump administration is leaning against again excusing states from academic testing requirements for the coming academic year. The administration announced earlier this spring that the Education Department would not enforce federal testing requirements for K-12 students for the current school year because of the coronavirus. — But Blew said states shouldn't bank on that happening again. It's premature for any state to ask for a waiver of testing requirements for the coming year, he said, adding that officials are not inclined to grant them. — "Our instinct would not be to give those waivers," he said. "There are so many benefits to testing," including providing transparency around where students might have fallen behind because of the coronavirus pandemic. Syllabus — Schools face shortage of nurses as districts consider reopening: NPR. — Judge faults Trump administration's response to DACA ruling: POLITICO. — Alcoa City Schools: First positive coronavirus case at middle school: Knoxville News Sentinel. — 40 million Americans face student loan cliff: POLITICO. — Coronavirus has made already-stressed college students even more anxious and depressed, study finds: The Washington Post. — With influx of college students looming, how will Boston keep safe? The Boston Globe.   Follow us on Twitter Michael Stratford @mstratford Nicole Gaudiano @ngaudiano Bianca Quilantan @biancaquilan Juan Perez Jr. @PerezJr   Follow us

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