Sorry to be late with this. One of the more interesting personnel moves noted below is the departure of Peter Oppenheim from the Senate HELP Committee to go and work for the Department as Assistant Secretary for Legislation and Congressional Affairs. FYI, NCL nominated Sen. Reed for a CEF award this year. I think I’ve nominated Sen. Reed for one of these awards several years now, for various organizations. He usually gets bumped by the awards committee in favor of someone with a higher education profile or someone retiring, but I think he might have a shot this year. Jeff Jeff Carter — Advisor, National Coalition for Literacy www.national-coalition-literacy.org jcarter@literacypolicy.org Personal Twitter: @jeffcrtr > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Sheryl Cohen <cohen@cef.org> > Subject: CEF Update: 06.08.17 - Gala sponsors & nominations, DeVos hearing, congressional group memberships, new ED appointments > Date: June 8, 2017 at 1:39:05 PM EDT > To: CEFMembersList <CEFMembersList@americancontinentalgroup.onmicrosoft.com> > > > Thursday, June 8, 2017 > > Thanks to those who have already sponsored CEF’s 2017 Gala! > Straight “A”s sponsor: American Federation of Teachers > Honor Roll sponsors: AASA/Consortium for School Networking; ACT; American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; Discovery Education; Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities; National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities; National Council for Community and Education Partnerships; and National PTA/National Association for College Admission Counseling > > Dear CEF Members: > > I. Advocacy > > · Secretary DeVos’s testimony this week – Education Secretary Betsy DeVos testified before the Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee on Tuesday in support of the President’s fiscal year 2018 budget. Chairman Roy Blunt (R-MO) began his opening remarks <https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/060617-Chairman-Blunt-Opening-Statement.pdf> saying “This is a difficult budget to defend.” After pointing out that “education funding is 15 percent below the bill we passed just last month” he said that “it is difficult to know whether you made cuts because you believe the programs are truly ineffective or because your budget number required these reductions just to reach the bottom line,” and noted that “such a significant cut to the Department’s budget is likely untenable.” He and other Republicans, as well as Committee Democrats, called out specific education cuts that they think are harmful. The attached 2-page summary highlights key points of the hearing. > > · Hill Teams – CEF Hill Teams have been meeting with offices of Members on the Appropriations Committees and in Congressional Leadership. We met with 24 offices so far this year – including almost all the Republicans on the House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee and half the Republicans on the Senate Committee - and have requests pending with 9 other offices. We will continue this focus, but have also started meeting with other Members who play influential roles in determining congressional strategy and policy. This includes the moderate Republicans who belong to the informal Tuesday Group, and the bipartisan membership of the new Problem Solvers Caucus <http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/26/problem-solvers-caucus-congress-trump-238845>. There are no official membership lists of these groups, but we have pulled together what we know based on press reports and intel for those two groups plus the members of the conservative Freedom Caucus in the attached spreadsheet, which has tabs listing each group. We are also circling back to Leadership offices now that the FY 2018 funding cycle has begun. > > · CEF “Budget Response” book event on July 13 – CEF will release its much anticipated budget response book at a Hill event on July 13 (10am-noon, Room G11 Dirksen Senate Office Building). We’re excited about capitalizing on all the great work by the many CEF members who wrote articles and edited the material. This year we will use the event to not only distribute this important resource but also to showcase the need for increased investments across the education continuum. The Advocacy and Research Committee is identifying practitioners to talk about the importance of the federal investment to education programs from across the continuum. The speakers are coming from the states of Members we’re targeting (Missouri, Tennessee, West Virginia, New Jersey, and Oklahoma or Kentucky), and we’ll be working to get press attention back in those home state and districts. > > II. Policy Intelligence and Education News > > · More Department of Education (ED) appointments – More hires at ED, some of whom are familiar faces to CEF: > o Peter Oppenheim, Assistant Secretary for Legislation and Congressional Affairs. He leaves the Senate HELP Committee to become only the second person after the Secretary to be nominated for a position that requires Senate confirmation (Carlos Muñiz already has been nominated to be ED’s general counsel). > o Adam Kissel, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Higher Education Programs. He has been active in free speech and civil liberties on campus, writing that “higher education is smothered in intolerance of diverse ideas <https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2015/05/a-liberal-calls-out-intolerant-leftists-who-smother-free-speech-on-campus/>,” and could play a role in considering changes to ED’s past guidance on the standard of proof required in campus disciplinary hearings on campus sexual assault issues. > o Kimberly Richey, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. She is that National School Board Association’s interim chief advocacy officer. > > · Budget and appropriations process explained – If you’d like a short refresher on how the budget and appropriations process works, check out Roll Call’s clever whiteboard demonstration <http://www.rollcall.com/video/David%20Hawkings%E2%80%99%20Whiteboard:%20How%20Appropriations%20Are%20Supposed%20to%20Work> – and get a catchy tune stuck in your head as a bonus! > > > III. CEF News and Calendar > > · CEF Gala 2017! > o Sponsorship - Big thanks to the early sponsors (listed above) of CEF’s annual gala! Our fundraising and planning is underway for the CEF Gala on October 3. We encourage you to sign up early to be a sponsor. We will run over the details of this fall’s Gala and all the sponsorship opportunities at Friday’s CEF meeting. > o Awardee nomination deadline extended to June 23 – Good news - you have more time to nominate someone to receive an award at the Gala. We’ve extended the deadline for nominations to June 23. Please think about possible awardees who represent any aspect of our members’ interests, and who will help draw people to attend the gala. Past awardees <https://cef.org/events/cef-awardees/> are a bipartisan roster of those who have taken a lead in efforts to provide federal education funding, including Members of Congress from both parties, Administration officials, former staffers, as well as those working outside of government on initiatives that will help students and promote learning. Nominations on the attached form are due to Gala Committee co-chair Kelly Vaillancourt at kvaillancourt@naspweb.org <mailto:kvaillancourt@naspweb.org> by Friday, June 23, 2017. > > · CEF’s upcoming schedule – Please note that we have canceled Friday meetings originally scheduled for June 30 and July 14, and added a Hill event on Thursday, July 13, for the release of our annual budget response book. > o Friday, June 9, 9-11 am: CEF meeting (AASCU, 1307 NY Ave, NW). Guest speaker: Mike Gentile, Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee Republican staff > o Friday, June 16, 9-11 am: Quarterly meeting (University of California, 1608 Rhode Island Ave, NW, 1st Floor Auditorium) > o Friday, June 23, 9-11 am: CEF meeting (AASCU, 1307 NY Ave, NW). Guest speaker: Mary Cassell, OMB Education Branch chief, with education staffers > o Friday, June 30 – no CEF meeting (this is a change from the original calendar) > o Friday, July 7 – no CEF meeting (Congressional recess) > o Thursday, July 13, 10am-noon: Release of CEF’s Fiscal Year 2018 Budget Analysis book, “Education Matters: Investing in America’s Future.” Room G11 Dirksen Senate Office Building. > o Friday, July 14 – no CEF meeting (this is a change from the original calendar) > > My best, > > Sheryl > > > Sheryl V. Cohen, Executive Director > > > 1800 M Street, NW > Suite 500 South > Washington, DC 20036 > T: 202-327-8125 > cohen@cef.org <mailto:cohen@cef.org> > www.cef.org <http://www.cef.org/> > >