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The Truth about Student Debt by Anya Kamenetz, prospect.org | January 23, 2013
There are a few ready talking points when discussing the student-loan crisis: the collective $1 trillion burden of debt, how student debt is now larger than credit card debt in this country, the fact that the 90-day delinquency rate spiked to 11 percent last year, meaning over one in ten borrowers are behind on their payments—all facts that don’t give much hope to those with loans, or those trying to resolve the financial crisis. Another widely repeated belief is that student loans are completely nondischargeable in bankruptcy, a statement that a quick fact-check proves to be rated “pants on fire” and one that is causing tens of thousands of borrowers to suffer for no reason, for years. read more »Teacher Rebellion: Refusal to Administer Standardized Testing Spreads in Washington by Laura Gottesdiener, alternet.org | January 17, 2013
The teachers are rising up again—and this time, they’re going after standardized tests. In Seattle, a boycott against the national Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) tests is spreading across high schools. At Garfield High School, where the boycott began, 19 teachers called a press conference to announce that they would refuse to give the tests because they are a waste of time and resources for the students. The test scores do not affect the students’ grades or ability to graduate, and the test’s material itself has nothing to do with the students’ classes or curriculum—meaning that students rarely take the tests seriously. Despite this irrelevance, however, teachers in the Seattle school district learned that this year, the MAP test scores would be used to measure their teacher evaluations—spurring frustration and anger read more »Fighting Education Shock Therapy by James Cersonsky, prospect.org | January 14, 2013
The watchword of austerity, “there is no alternative,” connotes painful cuts and layoffs adopted by fiscally shot local governments. In practice, though, this is a contradiction in terms: the politics of austerity are also a politics of imaginative restructuring, in which fiscal crisis is a cover for what Clintonites called “reinventing government” or, as partisans of Naomi Klein might prefer, “shock therapy.” The lie is starkest in the realm of education policy, where the Obama administration prescribes a slate of options for impoverished communities receiving federal School Improvement Grants. These range from “turnarounds,” which replace the principal and at least half of school staff, to charterization or outright closure. The catch with turnarounds and closings? Urban schools affected by them house more students of color than those left alone. As such, a growing national movement argues, the implementation of these policies systematically violates Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits race-based discrimination in federally funded programs. read more »How Our Universities Have Been Turned into Corporate Marketing Centers by Jim Hightower, alternet.org | January 14, 2013
The "ivory tower" of academia has become overshadowed by a new edifice on campus that is reaching ridiculous heights: the tower of mammon. As public universities have been driven by budget-whacking lawmakers to seek ever-more private funding, schools that once prided themselves as being centers of free thinking are increasingly dominated by corporate-think, turning their institutions into sales centers. "A lot of schools are taking a much more corporate approach," exulted a PRexecutive who works with top university administrators, marveling that "a CMO didn't even exist on most campuses 10 years ago." A what? A chief marketing officer, whose job is to peddle the place like it's a new model of car or line of cosmetics. Forget intellectual pursuits, we're talking about pursuing buyers, in the brave new academic marketplace. This results in colleges resorting to the same kind of ridiculous come-ons that hawkers of consumer products often barf-up. read more »Michelle Rhee Gets A Failing Grade On Her Report Card by Ross Eisenberry, epi.org | January 10, 2013
Michelle Rhee and her misnamed school privatization organization, StudentsFirst, recently issued a report card on the nation’s schools that has been roundly criticized, and rightly so. Rhee ranks all 50 states and the District of Columbia by how closely they hew to her vision of school “reform,” which involves high stakes testing, maximizing the number of charter schools, expanding voucher programs that use tax dollars to pay for private schools, and eliminating teacher tenure and pension plans. Rhee’s right-wing agenda of privatization, de-unionization, and the funneling of public tax dollars into corporate coffers is becoming clearer to the public—and perhaps even to her own staff. Coupled with her recent stumble over the shootings at the elementary school in Newtown, Conn., her reluctance to oppose a Michigan bill to allow concealed weapons in schools, and the PBS Frontline exposé about cheating scandals during her tenure as chancellor in D.C., Rhee and her agenda may be losing their glitz and appeal. We can only hope so. read more »Families Shoulder Heftier Burdens as College Debt Swells by Marian Wang, propublica.org | January 3, 2013
It's been a year of eye-popping records for student debt. Outstanding student loan debt surpassed credit card debt, with one government estimate pegging total student loan debt at more than $1 trillion. Such staggering figures drew renewed attention to the fact that rising higher education costs and falling government support for state colleges and universities has burdened individual students and their families with immense debt — all at a time when new graduates face anemic prospects for getting a decent job. Increasingly, the debt burden falls on parents, not just students. read more »Today in Poverty: An Education Wish List by Greg Kaufmann and Elaine Weiss, The Nation | December 20, 2012
10. A Roof Over Every Student’s Head. 9. School Breakfast and Lunch for All Eligible Students. 8. Expanded Access to Quality Pre-kindergarten. 7. Elimination of Waiting Lists for Child Care Subsidies. 6. Affordable physical, mental and dental medical care. 5. Expanded learning time that delivers enriching after-school experiences. 4. Experienced, qualified teachers in appropriately sized classes. 3. Fully-resourced schools. 2. An enriching, holistic curriculum. 1. National policies that enable parents, families, and communities to provide children with what they need to thrive educationally. read more »Why You Can Kiss Public Education (and the Middle Class) Goodbye by Thomm Hartman, alternet.org | December 17, 2012
Quick - when you hear "public housing," what picture jumps into your mind? Or "public hospital"? All around us, our public institutions are disintegrating, and the most important public institution of all – our public education system – is the next to be ghettoized. Despite several progressive victories this Election Day, there was one significant defeat in Georgia, as voters approved of Constitutional Amendment 1 , which changes Georgia’s Constitution to give Republicans in that state the power to create charter schools as part of Georgia’s public education system. The result will be crucial taxpayer dollars being funneled away from free public schools and directed toward brand new, sometimes for-profit, privately-run charter schools. This is a major shot in the multigenerational war on public education part of our commons. read more »Schools in the Crosshairs by Abby Rapoport, prospect.org | December 2, 2012
Won’t Back Down, like the movement it champions, begins from the assumption that public schools are a hopeless mess. The complicated challenges that public educators grapple with—severe budget cuts, for instance, or health problems that make learning a particular challenge for low-income kids—are nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, parents are exempted from responsibility. Anyone who believes in the school-reform fairy tale of Won’t Back Down should be required to watch another film released this fall to much less fanfare. This one doesn’t feature an Academy Award winner or a soundtrack of No. 1 hits. Instead, Brooklyn Castle chronicles a messy reality—that of Intermediate School 318, a Brooklyn middle school where 70 percent of the kids live below the poverty line, and where funding cuts are threatening the after-school activities that are key to getting many of them engaged. That includes the school’s chess team, which is, improbably, among the best in the country. read more »Charter School Proponents To Announce Major Focus On Shutting Down Failing Schools by Joy Resmovits, Huffington Post | November 28, 2012
Charter schools are about to get a reality check. As someone who has observed the breakneck pace of the growing charter school movement up close, Greg Richmond, who leads the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA), is taking a step back. "We didn't start this movement in order to create more failing schools, but that's what we have," Richmond told The Huffington Post. "Hundreds of them." On Wednesday morning, Richmond will join New Jersey Schools Commissioner Chris Cerf and California charter schools advocate Jed Wallace at Washington D.C.'s National Press Club to announce a new campaign, "One Million Lives," that aims to crack the whip on the duds. The campaign will focus on getting states to adopt rules that make failing charter schools close automatically, hold charter authorizers accountable for their schools' performance, and revamp their authorizing bodies so they become more professional. read more »
The Latest
"No Child Left Behind" to be "Rebranded", iht.com | February 23, 2009
Two years ago, an effort to fix No Child Left Behind, the main U.S. law on public schools, provoked a grueling slugfest in Congress, leading Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, to say the law had become "the most negative brand in America." Education Secretary Arne Duncan agrees. "Let's rebrand it," he said in an interview. read more »
Schools Get $106 Billion in Stimulus, Los Angeles Times | February 13, 2009
The massive federal economic stimulus package hammered out by Congress this week contains about $106 billion earmarked for education, an unprecedented expansion of federal spending into the nation's schools. The money would pay for, among other things, special education, school repair and retaining teachers who might otherwise be laid off. read more »
Stimulus Could Aid Colleges, Students, Associated Press | February 9, 2009
The stimulus plan emerging in Washington could offer an unprecedented, multibillion-dollar boost in financial help for college students trying to pursue a degree while they ride out the recession. It could also hand out billions to the states to kick-start idled campus construction projects and help prevent tuition increases at a time when families can least afford them. read more »
School Funds Double in Stimulus, Christian Science Monitor | February 5, 2009
The economic stimulus bills before Congress contain a $140 billion boost for education — and most of it would be used to more than double federal spending on America's public schools over the next two years. read more »
Democrats Seek Stimulus for Schools, Associated Press | January 25, 2009
Democrats want to use the big spending package designed to jump-start the staggering economy to send billions to long-term programs to help poor and disabled school children. President Barack Obama's recovery plan amounts to the biggest increase ever in federal money for schools. Many Republicans say it is not a short-term boost but an immense expansion that will be impossible to roll back. read more »
Schools Get Small Slice of Stimulus, money.cnn.com | January 15, 2009
President-elect Barack Obama has proposed an ambitious plan to rebuild the nation's crumbling schools as a part of his economic stimulus package, aiming to help budget-constrained school districts make much needed repairs. read more »
Obama Pledges School Upgrades, USA Today | January 1, 2009
Barack Obama probably cannot fix every leaky roof and busted boiler in the nation's schools. But educators say his sweeping school modernization program — if he spends enough — could jump-start student achievement. More kids than ever are crammed into aging, run-down schools that need an estimated $255 billion in repairs, renovations or construction. read more »
More Math, Science Teachers Needed, | December 29, 2008
It's no easy task to recruit people with proclivities for science into schools — and to keep them long enough to nurture a talent for teaching. But over the next decade, schools will need 200,000 or more new teachers in science and math, according to estimates by such groups as the Business-Higher Education Forum in Washington. read more »
More Students Need Subsidized Lunches, CNN | December 12, 2008
The sagging economy is taking a bite out of federal school-meal subsidies as more students take advantage of free or low-price breakfasts and lunches, nutritionists say in a report. read more »
Schools Health Experts Warn of Hunger , mcclatchydc.com | December 9, 2008
School nurse Carolyn Duff told a Senate committee that she sees signs of the financial downturn every day in the kids she treats. "More and more of the working poor are entering the ranks of unemployed, impoverished and homeless families," Duff testified before the Senate Agriculture Committee. read more »
