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BIPARTISAN INFRASTRUCTURE BILL

On November 5, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a once-in-a-generation investment in the nation’s physical infrastructure and competitiveness. This bipartisan legislation will rebuild roads, bridges, ports, and rail; expand access to clean drinking water; help ensure every American has access to high-speed internet; address the climate crisis and advance environmental justice; and support communities that too often have been left behind. Combined with President Biden’s Build Back Better framework, it will also add, on average, 1.5 million jobs per year for the next 10 years (fact sheets 1 and 2).

Among the highlights for education:

Clean water. Currently, up to 10 million households and 400,000 schools and child care centers lack safe drinking water. The legislation invests $55 billion to expand access to clean drinking water, eliminate the nation’s lead service lines, and help clean up the toxic chemical PFAS.
Broadband access and affordability. Reliable, high-speed internet is necessary for Americans to do their jobs, participate equally in school learning, and stay connected. Yet, more than 30 million Americans live in areas where there is no broadband infrastructure that provides minimally acceptable speeds. The legislation invests $65 billion to help ensure that every American has access to reliable, high-speed internet through an investment in broadband infrastructure deployment. It will also help lower prices for service and help close the digital divide.
Clean school buses. The legislation will deliver thousands of electric school buses, replacing the yellow school bus fleet. Investments in zero- and low-emission public transit will drive demand for American-made batteries and vehicles, creating jobs and supporting domestic manufacturing. It will also help the more than 25 million children and thousands of bus drivers who breathe polluted air on bus rides. Air pollution is linked to asthma and other health issues that cause students to miss school.

PROMOTE DEMOCRACY AND PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION

Destroying Democracy Is Central to the Privatization of Public Goods

COVID

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officially recommends children ages 5- to 11-years-old be vaccinated against COVID-19 with the Pfizer-BioNtech pediatric vaccine. This recommendation comes after months of rigorous review and the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision to authorize emergency use of the vaccine for children. The COVID-19 vaccine is the best way to keep students safe and protect them against COVID-19, including the delta variant.

Starting this week, the pediatric vaccination program is fully up and running, and there are approximately 20,000 convenient locations where families can go to get their children vaccinated, with more sites coming online in the weeks ahead. The Departments of Education and Health and Human Services are supporting schools and communities with setting up vaccine solutions that work best for families, including hosting thousands of school-located vaccine clinics; matching school districts with local pharmacy providers; and supporting collaboration between schools, families, and local pediatricians and children’s hospitals. A joint letter from the agencies delineates three requests of school communities and shares information and resources to help fulfill them. (Note: First Lady Dr. Jill Biden recently visited a COVID-19 vaccination clinic at Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean, Virginia — which was the first school to administer the polio vaccine in 1954.)

The Department of Education and CDC are also providing resources to states and schools for testing and other mitigation efforts. A partnership among the agencies and the Rockefeller Foundation specifically aims to accelerate school-based screening testing for students and staff. It is making staff available to state health departments to coordinate, execute, and expand school-based testing, contact tracing/case investigation, and related public health activities; holding weekly “office hours” to help schools set up and sustain testing programs; and releasing guidance for districts on using American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding to provide incentives to families to participate in testing programs.

Meanwhile, the Department, in collaboration with CDC, launched a COVID-19 data dashboard to help the public track the impact of COVID-19 on K-12 schools. The dashboard aggregates — in one location — data on pediatric cases, youth vaccination rates, and schools operating in-person, remotely, or a hybrid of those two. Data will be updated each week, and, where possible, the information is presented geographically, so that educators and families can understand the impact within their communities.

Biden administration orders federal agencies to fix hundreds of cyber flaws
The federal government has been told to go on a security patching spree. Thanks to a new CISA directive out this week, agencies have six months to fix hundreds of bugs across their networks — and just two weeks to fix bugs from 2021. Each agency patches their own stuff, so some agencies may have fewer bugs to fix than others. The full catalog of vulnerabilities are here (which might also be useful for folks in the private sector).

COVID-19 conspiracy theories thrive on social media platforms, EXCEPT Twitter

#DELETEFACEBOOK
500 doctors demand Facebook disclose data about COVID misinformation

Facebook spent $23.4 million in 2019 on Zuckerberg’s security, private air travel Facebook released its latest regulatory filing that shows executive compensation for 2019.#DeleteFacebook

MILITARY – NO SHOT NO PROMOTION

WON’T ALLOW YOU TO REUP CAUSE YOU’LL BE OUT.

Navy prepares to begin discharging sailors who refuse COVID-19 vaccine

Oklahoma Guard goes rogue, rejects COVID vaccine mandate after sudden change of command

U.S. Cyber Command, the NSA sister agency that carries out offensive cyber operations, hijacked the servers of the REvil ransomware group earlier this year. But the compromise wasn’t detected until Cybercom blocked its website traffic a month ago. The operation wasn’t a hack or a takedown but crucially “deprived the criminals of the platform they used to extort their victims.” Well that’s one way to make sure they don’t get paid. One of the group’s leaders confirmed domains were “hijacked from REvil,” and that the authorities were looking for them. “Good luck everyone, I’m off,” the hacker wrote. REvil was behind the ransomware attacks on JBS, Travelex, and Kaseya. The AP has a detailed interview with deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco, who said following the U.S.-Russia tensions over cyberattacks that the U.S. has “not seen a material change in the landscape.”
https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/18/revil-ransomware-group-goes-dark-after-its-tor-sites-were-hijacked/

AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN

Last week, the Department announced approval of two more American Rescue Plan (ARP) Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund state plans — California and Colorado — and distributed remaining ARP ESSER funding to those jurisdictions. The plans detail how states are using and intend to use ARP ESSER funds to safely reopen and sustain the operations of schools and classrooms and address the essential needs of students, including by equitably expanding educational opportunities for students disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. Earlier this year, the agency distributed two-thirds of ARP ESSER funding, or $81 billion, to all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The remaining funding is being made available to states once plans are approved. To date, 46 plans have been approved (see state-by-state press releases and highlights online).

THE BIG READ

The National Endowment for the Arts’ (NEA) The Big Read, established in 2016, supports Americans reading and discussing a single book in their communities. Local governments, libraries, school districts, colleges and universities, and non-profit organizations are encouraged to apply for one of an estimated 75 grants to be awarded for programming occurring between September 2022 and June 2023. Besides the grant, communities will receive resources, including reader’s guides, teacher’s guides, and audio guides featuring commentary from artists, educators, and public figures, and publicity materials.

For this cycle, communities will choose from 15 titles:

The Bear(novel) by Andrew Krivak
The Best We Could Do(graphic memoir) by Thi Bui
Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?(graphic memoir) by Roz Chast
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude(poetry) by Ross Gay
Circe(novel) by Madeline Miller
The Cold Millions(novel) by Jess Walter
Deaf Republic(poetry) by Ilya Kaminsky
Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth(memoir) by Sarah Smarsh
Homegoing(novel) by Yaa Gyasi
Infinite Country(novel) by Patricia Engel
Interior Chinatown(novel) by Charles Yu
Nothing to See Here(novel) by Kevin Wilson
Postcolonial Love Poem(poetry) by Natalie Diaz
Sitting Pretty: The View from my Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body(memoir-in-essays) by Rebekah Taussig
There, There(novel) by Tommy Orange

The application deadline is January 26, 2022.

JOB FREE EDUCATION

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