Staff Picks

"With the Supreme Court on Monday clearing the way for the Trump administration to shrink the Education Department's workforce, the department on Tuesday announced plans for the Department of Labor (DOL) to co-manage its adult education and career and technical education (CTE) programs. The Education Department (ED) said in a release that DOL will take on a "greater role" in administering the adult education and family literacy programs funded under Title II of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and career and technical education programs funded by the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (Perkins V). ED noted that it will maintain all statutory responsibilities and positions, policy authority and oversight of these programs." MLH

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"he AFT, alongside the United Federation of Teachers and lead partner Microsoft Corp., founding partner OpenAI, and Anthropic, announced the launch of the National Academy for AI Instruction today. The groundbreaking $23 million education initiative will provide access to free AI training and curriculum for all 1.8 million members of the AFT, starting with K-12 educators. It will be based at a state-of-the-art bricks-and-mortar Manhattan facility designed to transform how artificial intelligence is taught and integrated into classrooms across the United States. " -CAN

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"I'm not all that focused on driving innovation within government, which is what some other chief innovation officers would be focused on around the country. Instead, you can think of my role as Michigan's chief architect for innovation, if you will. So, how do you knit together risk capital founders, businesses, universities, and state government, all of the key stakeholders that need to be at the table together to build a more effective innovation ecosystem? I talk a lot about building connective tissues that can achieve one plus one equals three outcomes." [...] My charter is relatively simple. It's to help make sure that Michigan wins in a now hyper-competitive global economy. And to do that, I end up being super focused on orienting us towards a growth and innovation-driven economy. That can mean a lot of different things, but I ultimately came to the MEDC and the role within the state with a builder's mindset. My background is not in traditional economic development, it's in not government at all. I spent the last 10 years building hard tech startups, one in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and another one in the Northern Virginia area. Before that, I spent a number of years at, think of it like, an innovation factory at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in the Mojave Desert, working on national security projects. I'm sort of wired for that, builder's thinking, rapid prototyping, iterating, scaling, and driving that muscle into the state government ecosystem. I think it's important that the government also figure out how to pull out all the stops and be able to move at the speed that founders expect. A bias towards action, if you will. And so this is ultimately what my mission is. There are a lot of real interesting things that the state of Michigan can bring to bear to building our innovation ecosystem. And I think, tackling it with this sort of a mindset, I am absolutely optimistic for the future that we've got ahead of us.

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"Agency officials provided GAO examples of how these initiatives have supported rural STEM education in various ways. For example, some initiatives have supported recruiting and training STEM educators. Other initiatives have focused on enhancing STEM learning and career exploration for students in rural schools, such as through educational field trips and hands-on activities."

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"In a new white paper exclusively shared with Latitude Media before publication, FAS, in collaboration with Climate Group and the Center for Public Enterprise, outlines a roadmap for scaling subnational project finance for climate projects. It was based on a series of closed-door conversations with developers, financiers, and local-level stakeholders. The immediate challenge, Safford explained, is stabilizing high-impact projects in the U.S. that were shovel-ready before the second Trump administration withdrew, or threatened to withdraw, funding. That requires stakeholders to come together to direct bridge funding toward those projects, via a suite of financing mechanisms designed to leverage public sector advantages. Revolving loan funds, for example, allow public entities to provide lower-cost debt financing that can help attract private capital, with loan repayments recycled for future projects. Another key mechanism is joint procurement, where multiple buyers coordinate purchases, increasing volume and reducing costs early on in a tech’s maturation. (One key example the white paper outlines here is that of cities jointly buying electric buses to get better pricing and streamline contracts.) Public equity participation, meanwhile, could allow states to take small ownership stakes in projects, sharing both risks and revenues. Critically, Safford and her co-authors said, these mechanisms leverage the “superior bond ratings” of state institutions, thereby reducing borrowing costs substantially." MLH

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"Almost two years ago, the Commerce Department under former President Joe Biden designated 31 metropolitan areas as Tech Hubs, an effort they said would spur regional innovation and create jobs. Among those was Birmingham, Alabama, which received recognition for advancing biotechnology and its efforts to discover new drugs and vaccines, including more representative clinical trials. Led by the Southern Research Institute at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, it set the city up to receive millions of dollars in federal support, which it said could result in an injection of $75 million into the local economy. In the waning days of the Biden administration, the city was announced as one of six implementation grant recipients, and would receive $44 million. But this year, the program was thrown into doubt as new Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced in May that the department was “revamping” the Tech Hub grant awards and would make new awards next year. It’s led to some uncertainty in cities around the country as part of a wider scaling-back of federal support, but Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said in an interview this week that the city’s tech ecosystem is already very strong, and while it will only grow in the coming years, he remains confident of receiving federal funding in the future. Woodfin sat down with Route Fifty before the SLOSS.Tech conference in downtown Birmingham to discuss the city’s burgeoning tech ecosystem, the uncertainty around federal tech hub funding and what the future holds in the Magic City." MLH

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"Ahead of the 2024 election, about one in five Americans said they would be interested in moving abroad if their preferred candidate did not win. Following Trump’s victory, the number of Americans searching for study abroad opportunities on the site Studyportals multiplied fivefold. CNBC reported that Google searches for “how to move to Canada” surged, especially in blue states such as Maine, Oregon, Vermont and Washington." MLH

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"Two high school students in Charlotte are tackling a STEM education gap by building robotics programs for children with no access to them. Spencer Hirsch and Aarnvav Sathish, co-founders of Robolution CLT, have grown their student-led nonprofit into a hands-on robotics education program. It has already reached more than 100 students across Charlotte and surrounding areas. The duo, both rising seniors at Providence High School, launched the nonprofit last summer to close an education gap they say is far too wide in subjects related to STEM — shorthand for science, technology engineering and math. “The whole reason that we actually started it (Robolution) was because Spencer and I are both very heavily invested in robotics,” Sathish said. “We found that there was a severe lack of specialized robotics or even STEM education for that matter.” The pair recently wrapped their biggest program yet, a summer camp at the Sullenberger Aviation Museum at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Over two weeks, nearly 40 students attended the program, which now serves charter schools and community centers in south and west Charlotte. Robolution plans to expand into Union County by the end of the year." (gms)

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"They found that people perceived AI scientists more negatively than climate scientists or scientists in general, and that this negativity is driven by concern about AI scientists' prudence—specifically, the perception that AI science is causing unintended consequences. The researchers also examined whether these negative perceptions might be a result of AI being so new and unknown, but found that public perceptions of AI science and scientists did not significantly improve from 2024–2025, even as AI became a more common presence in everyday life. Perceptions of science are often influenced by political dynamics: Climate science has long suffered from partisan politicization and, after the COVID-19 pandemic, Republicans' confidence in medical scientists and scientists in general declined. But the researchers found that perceptions of AI are less polarized than perceptions of science and climate science." MLH

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Accurately measuring R&D in surveys is challenging due to differences in how respondents interpret and apply definitions– an issue further complicated by sector-specific accounting standards and definitions. Recognizing the importance of consistent interpretation for improving the quality of R&D data, NCSES provides R&D definitions from U.S. and international sources, organized by performing sector, to facilitate a better understanding of R&D reporting requirements. CG

• Even though definitions of R&D are detailed within individual surveys and even though survey definitions are aligned with domestic and internationals standards, some respondents either over- or underreported R&D as a result of “a combination of confirmation bias, misunderstanding of survey concepts due to lack of reading supporting instructions, and respondent inability to match survey concepts to [respondent] records.
• Respondents in different economic sectors (i.e., government, business, higher education, and nonprofit organization) face different accounting definitions of R&D or perhaps are accountable for financial standards that explicitly do not define R&D.
• The ability of a survey to accurately and precisely measure an economic concept depends considerably on respondents’ understanding of how the survey defines that concept
• Understanding the differences between these various standards for defining R&D is therefore critically important when reviewing survey responses and when communicating with respondents.
• The remainder of this document provides definitions of R&D from U.S. and international sources and by performing sector. By providing this resource, NCSES aims to facilitate a better understanding of R&D reporting requirements and improve the quality of R&D data.

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"The program is a joint venture between Maurer, IU’s Kelley School of Business, IU Ventures, and the city of Bloomington’s Trades District, a downtown entrepreneurship hub and incubator. It’s designed to immerse graduate students—two from Maurer and two from Kelley in the pilot year—in the fast-evolving world of venture capital, scalable startups, and legal innovation. For Maurer students, it’s a rare opportunity to apply transactional legal skills in a real-world setting shaped by entrepreneurship and investment." -CAN

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"A quarter of employers surveyed said they will remove bachelor's degree requirements for some roles by the end of 2025, according to a May 20 report from Resume Templates. In addition, 7 in 10 hiring managers said their company looks at relevant experience over a bachelor's degree while making hiring decisions." MLH

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"Without knowing what proposals go unfunded, there is no way to know whether agencies are supporting a wide range of ideas or favoring a narrow theory. Are "high-risk, high reward" proposals getting a chance? Have hard-won changes in grant policies actually helped early-career researchers? Do the questions researchers ask change in response to demands from Congress or calls from citizen groups? These questions seem both valuable and straightforward. Yet metaresearchers (those who research how research is done) are unable to address such topics with any certainty. The public cannot know, for example, how many NIH grant applications come from historically Black colleges or universities, or how many researchers propose to study gain-of-function in viral genomes, without knowing what is included in all R&D grant applications, funded and not.  " MLH

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"SHEEO noted important differences in the sources of two- and four-year public institution state and local funding, despite similar levels of education appropriations per FTE: Two-year public institutions received $6,451 per FTE in state general operating appropriations, which is 69% of the four-year general operating appropriation ($9,354). Local appropriations were 115 times higher at two-year institutions ($3,712) than at four-year institutions ($32 per FTE). There were two-year local appropriations in 29 states, compared to only eight for four-year institutions, the report notes. Total state and local support at two-year institutions was $10,899, about 84% of the amount at four-year institutions ($12,986)." MLH

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"The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the renaming of its Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) to the Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC). The new name reflects DOE’s sharpened focus on turning scientific breakthroughs into real-world results—supporting the full path from research and development to private sector deployment and economic impact. " --CAN

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"Omaha and Pittsburgh, despite being 1,000 miles apart and having different economic engines, are facing many of the same challenges, including workforce shortages and slowing regional growth. Each region received federal Build Back Better funding from the Biden administration to turn that around. " MLH

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"Students who attend high schools that offer a computer science course end up earning 8% higher salaries than those who don't, regardless of career path or whether they attend college, according to a report by the Brookings Institution. (The study examined the impact of giving students access to computer science classes, not of requiring them.) The effects are more significant for students who haven't historically been well represented in computer science fields, like women, students from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds and Black students. Some new computer science classes have seen higher enrollment among these underrepresented groups, according to research released last month. From 2009 to 2016 a Java-programming course was the only AP Computer Science class offered. The launch of a newer, more broadly focused AP Computer Science class quadrupled the female, Black and Hispanic student test takers."

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"The Sources of U.S. Economic Growth in the Aftermath of the COVID–19 Recession" CG

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"Today, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC, formerly OTT) awarded more than $100,000 total in cash prizes at the Spring 2025 EPIC Pitch Competition, where startups presented their groundbreaking energy technologies. The Energy Program for Innovation Clusters (EPIC) provides opportunities for the nation’s most innovative technology business incubators to continue their support of energy entrepreneurs. " -CAN

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