Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs (OLCA)

Welcome to the Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs

OLCA serves as the liaison between ED and Congress, coordinating all Department matters relevant to Congress.

OLCA's organizational structure consists of political leadership who work to effectively communicate the Administration's position on education issues, career staff for policy that advise on legislation, and Congressional affairs staff that aid in resolving constituent concerns.

General Contact Information

The Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs serves as the liaison between the U.S. Department of Education and Congressional offices. Please contact this office with any questions, and we will be pleased to respond or connect you with the appropriate office.

Office of Legislation & Congressional Affairs
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20202-3100
Phone: 202-401-0020
Fax: 202-401-1438
Business Hours: 9:00am—5:30pm EST, Monday through Friday

Office Leadership

Gwen Graham
Assistant Secretary

Rachel Niebling
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary

Vacant
Chief of Staff

JoAnn Martinez-Shriver
Senior Advisor for Oversight

Molly Petersen
Principal Advisor, Legislative Affairs

Legislative and Outreach Staff

Executive and Administrative Staff

Liza Araujo, Executive Officer

Resources

The following are links to various datasets and websites to find area specific information and resources. Click on the title to be directed to the platforms.

DATA COLLECTIONS AND STATE TABLES

Data.gov. This website provides information on some of the U.S. Department of Education's (Department) new discretionary grant programs. It also provides links to various Department of Education data tools and includes a catalogue of raw data sets.

Civil Rights Data Collection. Here you will find a data tool for exploring the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), which collects data on key education and civil rights issues in our nation's public schools for use by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR), other Department of Education offices, and other policymakers and researchers. This data collection provides information about students in public elementary and secondary schools on a variety of indicators, including enrollment, access to educational programs or services, and academic proficiency results, "disaggregated" or broken out, by factors including race, ethnicity, sex, and disability.

Common Core of Data. The Common Core of Data (CCD) is an annual collection of fiscal and non-fiscal data about all public elementary and secondary schools, public school districts and state education agencies in the United States collected by the National Center for Education Statistics. The data include information that describes schools and school districts including name, address, and phone number; descriptive information about students and staff, including demographics; and fiscal data, including revenues and current expenditures. From this website, users can also link to the Build a Table tool, which allows users to explore CCD data. This site also provides links to the complete documentation of the data set.

Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). The primary source for data on colleges, universities, and technical and vocational postsecondary institutions in the United States. 

State by State Budget Tables. The below link will give you access to the Department's Congressional Budget Justifications, and state by state budget tables.

PK-HIGHER ED

StudentAid.ed.gov. New streamlined Federal Student Aid website is making it easier for students and families to navigate the financial aid process and make informed decisions about paying for college and is the initial step in a multi-phase project to offer a "one-stop shop" where consumers can access federal student aid information, apply for federal aid, repay student loans, and navigate the college decision-making process. Also includes the FSA data center where individuals can obtain information on Title IV loans and grants, broken down by state and Institution of Higher Education default rates.

College Scorecard. Search and compare colleges: their fields of study, costs, admissions, results, and more.

Federal Student Aid Estimator. This tool provides an estimate of how much federal student aid a student may be eligible to receive. 

College Financing Plan. This webpage provides students, families, and institutions with a consumer tool that participating institutions use to notify students about their financial aid package.

Raise the Bar: Lead the World. "Raise the Bar: Lead the World" is the U.S. Department of Education's call to action to transform education and unite around what truly works—based on decades of experience and research—to advance educational equity and excellence. This includes fact sheets for all 50 states outlining how each state has benefited from historic investments made by the Biden-Harris Administration.      

Raise the Bar Policy Brief: Eliminating Educator Shortages through Increasing Educator Diversity and Addressing High-need Shortage Areas. The Department is committed to a comprehensive policy agenda to recruit, prepare, and retain a racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse and well-prepared educator workforce. This includes promoting educator diversity while recruiting, preparing, retaining, and supporting teachers, administrators, and other educators and ensuring that education is a profession that people from all backgrounds can pursue.

GRANTS

ED offers three kinds of grants:

• Discretionary grants: awarded using a competitive process.
• Student loans or grants: to help students attend college.
• Formula grants: uses formulas determined by Congress and has no application process.

Frequently Requested Resources: 

Bipartisan Safer Communities Act

Education Stabilization Fund

Education Stabilization Fund Dashboard

Additional grant information. 

BUDGET

Office of Budget Service.

NEWS

Newsroom.

Congressional Casework

OLCA is available to assist Congressional offices with constituent casework inquiries related to Federal Student Aid Civil Rights Complaints and Grant inquires. Please send all casework, questions, and other requests to OLCAInquiries@ed.gov

Federal Student Aid

OLCA works with FSA to provide responses to Congressional FSA casework inquiries. The typical time frame for response is 6 weeks. The Department also provides information on a number of frequently asked questions. It may be helpful to reference this website prior to forwarding inquiries to ED as a number of FSA casework inquiries can be answered by information already available on our website. We recommend that Congressional staff view www.studentaid.gov for information. The website includes information on loan forgiveness and cancellation, total and permanent disability, loan servicers, and FAFSA, among other things.

If however, this website does not answer your specific question, OLCA will need the following information from Congressional offices:

• constituent's name, full SSN, DOB on a signed privacy release form;
• a brief description of the constituent's concerns with supporting documents, including any difficulty with the handling of their student loans/loans process; and
• an explanation of the constituent's specific request that includes by name the U.S. Department of Education as the "Name of Agency" for the Congressional office to contact.

Civil Rights Complaints

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is responsible for serving student populations facing discrimination and the advocates and institutions promoting systemic solutions to civil rights problems. The Office for Civil Rights enforces several Federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination in programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance from the Department of Education. For more information about the statutes they enforce visit OCR's Overview of the Agency.

An important responsibility of OCR is resolving complaints of discrimination. A number of OCR casework inquiries can be answered by information already available on OCR's website. We recommend that Congressional staff view OCR's Complaint Process for more information.

If however, this website does not answer your specific question, OLCA will need the following information from Congressional offices:

• constituent's name, SSN and DOB on a signed privacy release form;
• a brief description of the constituent's concerns, including their case number;
• an explanation of the constituent's specific request that includes by name the
  U.S. Department of Education as the "Name of Agency" for the Congressional office to contact.

Grants

OLCA works with Congressional offices on grants casework inquiries. This would include information about grant opportunities and meeting requests. For more specific information regarding grants and the Congressional notification process please see our "Grants" link above for more information.