After 16 years in the Federal government, the Education Department’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) Luis Lopez is departing this month to head to the private sector, a department spokesperson confirmed to MeriTalk. […]

The Department of Education has tapped its Chief Technology Officer Vijay Sharma to serve as the agency’s responsible AI officer and chief AI officer (CAIO), a department spokesperson confirmed to MeriTalk on Tuesday.  […]

ICAM

The Department of Education is notching swift progress on the Biden administration’s cybersecurity executive order (EO) imperatives, with a particular focus on the identity aspect of zero trust, according to Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Steven Hernandez. […]

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Federal money spending government

The Department of Education’s one-time student debt relief application appears to be holding up nicely against website traffic during its first week after completing beta testing – with 22 million people using the site since then. That figure represents more than half of the universe of borrowers eligible to get student debt relief. […]

The Department of Education’s Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) has made some progress in its Next Gen program since it first launched in 2017, but ongoing scheduling delays pose significant challenges to those modernization efforts, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report. […]

President Biden

The Department of Education officially launched its formal online application for one-time student debt relief on Monday afternoon after President Biden announced that beta testing for the application handled more than eight million hits over the weekend. […]

The rise in the number of students who opt for online higher education programs has led colleges contracting with third-party companies – called online program managers (OPM) – to help develop and deliver their online programs. However, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found in a new report that the Department of Education (DoE) needs to strengthen how it monitors the arrangements between OPMs and higher education institutions. […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is flagging the Department of Education to address data-driven issues the agency has tracking student loan borrowers’ payments and to do more to ensure all eligible borrowers receive loan forgiveness when they are entitled to it. […]

The Department of Education is replacing its G5 grants management system over the next five years with an open and flexible cloud-based system following an increase in grant awards due to the COVID-19 pandemic. […]

Department of Education logo

The Department of Education (DoE) has released new updates to its College Scorecard that are intended to make the tool more useful for students and families weighing college options. DoE said that updates may also be beneficial to school counselors, college access providers, researchers, and other critical stakeholders. […]

With K-12 educational institutions increasingly targeted by ransomware and other cyber attacks during the coronavirus pandemic, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is pushing the Department of Education to update its plans – which currently date from 2010 – for addressing cyber risks faced by schools. […]

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released the Final Rule for its Connecting Minority Communities (CMC) Pilot Program this week, to provide $268 million to historically Black Colleges or Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges or Universities (TCUs), and minority-serving institutions (MSIs) to expand their broadband. […]

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Federal and state government chief data officers (CDO) discussed agency strategies and best practices for data governance at a FedInsider digital roundtable event on June 9 against the backdrop of Federal Chief Data Officer Council efforts to establish government-wide best practices for the management, use, protection, and generation of data. […]

website

The Department of Education is redesigning and modernizing its current website to provide a seamless digital experience for the American public, according to a department blog post. […]

Amid the widespread misery and dislocation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the few bright spots has been on the Federal technology front, where the imperative to adopt a range of remote processes including widespread telework has helped push Federal agency operations farther into the future. […]

Federal money spending government

Education Department CIO Jason Gray told Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., that the agency does not have the necessary authorities from Congress to set up a working capital fund under the Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act, but said if it received that authority the department would use the money exclusively to finance IT modernization projects. […]

Federal government IT and its ability to deliver vital services to citizens is often said to be one of the few notably bipartisan issues left in Congress, and that sentiment was on clear display as the House Government Operations Subcommittee unveiled its tenth FITARA Scorecard at a public hearing on August 3. […]

Federal IT has proven its value as the vital lifeline between government and citizen service during the COVID-19 pandemic. MeriTalk is chronicling the untold stories of how Federal IT is getting the job done – and lessons for the road to recovery. Our latest chapter of CIO Crossroads explores IT operations at the Department of Education. […]

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