The next Republican presidential debate is set to go live on Wednesday, October 28. Titled “Your Money, Your Vote,” the debate will take place at the University of Colorado in Boulder at 8:00pm Eastern Time. The event will air on CNBC and is set to run for two hours with a focus on economic issues, such as taxes, retirement spending, and job growth. In addition, CNBC has also stated tech policy will come up during the questioning. The three moderators, all from CNBC, are John Hardwood, Beck Quick, and Carl Quintanilla. Debatep articipants will include Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, and John Kasich.
“Everything you need to know about Wednesday’s GOP Debate” (Politico)
Policy Update: Obama Administration Calls for Capping Class Time Devoted to Standardized Testing
On Saturday, the Obama administration announced that it was taking steps to combat the amount of time students spend in prepping and taking standardized tests. They have called upon Congress to follow its lead as ESEA discussions are coming to a potential close. In his video announcement, President Obama stated “Learning is about so much more than just filling in the right bubble. So we’re going to work with states, school districts, teachers, and parents to make sure that we’re not obsessing about testing – to make sure that our kids are enjoying learning, that our teachers are able to operate with creativity, to make sure we are preparing our kids for a lifetime of success.”
In addition, the White House posted on Facebook in conjunction with the announcement:
If our kids had more free time at school, what would you want them to do with it?
A) Learn to play a musical instrument?
B) Study a new language?
C) Learn how to code HTML?
D) Take more standardized tests?
More information on the Administration’s latest action can be found on the Wall Street Journal.
Policy Update: 2-Year Budget Deal Near Agreement
Senior White House officials and Congressional leaders have announced that they are nearing a deal to raise the debt limit and set the federal budget for the next two fiscal years (2016 – 2017). The deal was finalized and submitted to the Rules Committee shortly before midnight. The full text of the bill can be found on the Rules Committee website here. Stay tuned for the latest developments on the budget deal, including our analysis on how this may affect music and arts education and education funding.
More information on the budget deal can be found on The Hill.
Ronny Lau, Legislative Policy Advisor, Center for Advocacy, Policy, and Constituency Engagement, October 27, 2015. © National Association for Music Education (NAfME.org)
