Author

Shauneen Miranda

Shauneen Miranda

Shauneen Miranda is a reporter for States Newsroom’s Washington bureau. An alumna of the University of Maryland, she previously covered breaking news for Axios.

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

GOP plan to reverse final Title IX rule passes U.S. House, but Biden says he’d veto  

By: - July 11, 2024

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House on Thursday passed a measure to reverse an Education Department rule seeking to extend federal discrimination protections for LGBTQ students, though President Joe Biden has vowed to veto the legislation should it land on his desk. House passage of the resolution on a party-line vote, 210-205, is part of a […]

Don’t give up on the FAFSA, advocates for student financial aid urge

By: - June 24, 2024

WASHINGTON — Though the new version of the form to apply for federal financial student aid has had its fair share of highly publicized hiccups, U.S. Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal says the department has made a lot of progress in the past couple of months. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid — […]

‘Extremely low pay’ cited at U.S. Senate hearing as prime reason for teacher shortage

By: - June 20, 2024

WASHINGTON — The only reason John Arthur is able to be a public school teacher is because his wife makes much more money than he does. Arthur —  the 2021 Utah Teacher of the Year  — testified on Thursday at a hearing in the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on the […]

Funds for clean school buses coming to hundreds of districts, White House says

By: - May 30, 2024

WASHINGTON — As part of its ongoing effort to replace diesel-fueled school buses, the Biden administration on Wednesday said it will provide approximately 530 school districts across nearly all states with almost $1 billion to help them purchase clean school buses. The initiative, part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus Program rebate […]

More than half of states sue to block Biden Title IX rule protecting LGBTQ+ students

By: - May 21, 2024

WASHINGTON — Twenty-six GOP-led states, including Virginia, are suing the Biden administration over changes to Title IX aiming to protect LGBTQ+ students from discrimination in schools. Less than a month after the U.S. Department of Education released its final rule seeking to protect against discrimination “based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics,” a wave of […]

Even as interest in women’s college sports rises, report finds big gap in participation

By: - May 13, 2024

WASHINGTON — A congressional watchdog in a new report called on the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to improve its enforcement of Title IX compliance in college athletics. The U.S. Government Accountability Office in the report issued Thursday appeared critical of the OCR’s oversight in expanding opportunities for women in college athletics, […]