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A Congressional Research Service memo released last week found that regulations submitted to Congress after May 30, 2016, would be subject to review under a little-used tool called the Congressional Review Act. With control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, the GOP has said one of its first priorities will be rolling back regulations affecting labor, finance, the… Read more »

The U.S. Department of Education overpaid Pell grant recipients by $2.03 billion in fiscal 2016 and made another $188 million in underpayments, according to an agency finance report released this week. The error rate for the student-aid program was 7.85% for the year ended Sept. 30, an increase over rates published for the prior year, but officials said they used a new methodology for… Read more »

After serving multiple terms as chairwoman of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Education and the Workforce subcommittee on higher education, Representative Virginia Foxx is poised to assume leadership of the full committee in the next Congress. And the longtime critic of the Obama administration’s higher education policies says she and other Republicans are ready to reverse course on… Read more »

Following a pair of ceremonies held at Avery County High School and the Avery Senior Center on Nov. 4, Avery County veterans were honored once more on Nov. 11, as approximately 120 people filled the Chapman Center of the Williams YMCA for the Avery County Rotary Club’s 2nd Annual Veteran’s Day Celebration. As veterans and their family members arrived, each found a place at one of the… Read more »

The day after President-elect Donald Trump won the election, Rep. Virginia Foxx had her list ready of Obama administration labor policies she would like to see repealed – including expanding overtime pay to 4.2 million Americans. The North Carolina congresswoman, who is widely expected to be the next chair of the House Education and the Workforce committee, said her top priority is… Read more »

United States Congresswoman Virginia Foxx spent Oct. 25 visiting Boone’s Two Rivers Community School, a public charter school that has been recognized as an Honor School of Excellence by North Carolina. As recently as last school year (2015-2016), students at Two Rivers Community School outperformed students in both the Watauga County Schools system and North Carolina public schools in… Read more »

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said Wednesday that she will officially run to be chairwoman of the House education committee when the next session of Congress begins in 2017. Foxx has long been rumored to be one of the top candidates to replace the outgoing chairman, Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., who is retiring. She currently leads the House panel's subcommittee on higher education and… Read more »

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) wants to reverse a variety of Obama administration labor actions and push legislation to limit the executive branch's regulatory authority if she's named chairwoman of the Education and the Workforce Committee in the next Congress. “We need to not just roll back the regulations from the Obama administration, but write legislation that makes it abundantly… Read more »

After passing bipartisan legislation updating the national K-12 law (PL 114-95), education advocates and lawmakers are hoping to make similar progress on reauthorizing the main higher education law. College Costs The issue: Student loans are near the top of the list for lawmakers to tackle when they reauthorize the 2008 version of the Higher Education Act (PL 110-315). The law… Read more »

President-elect Donald Trump has placed a bull's-eye on the Education Department, and promised to dramatically downsize — or even eliminate — the agency. But it won't be easy.  Previous GOP heavyweights, including Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich, tried to axe the department, and the task proved elusive. Reagan's opposition to the Education Department — spelled out in his… Read more »