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Hey Mitt, Leave Our Teachers Alone by Terrance Heath, OurFuture.org | June 13, 2012
Yesterday was the last day of school for public school students in Montgomery County, Maryland, where we live — including our nine-year-old son, who just completed the third grade. I began the morning by sending a one last email to his teacher. I asked her about the summer reading and math packets we were expecting our son to bring. I also thanked her for all the work she'd done to help our son this year. As I thought about how much our son has grown and improved over the past year, and how very much the dedicated teachers and staff at his school had to do with those changes, I couldn't help being mystified at Mitt Romney's assertion that our children need fewer teachers. Mystified, that is, but not surprised. read more »The Sununu Spin by Digby , OurFuture.org | June 12, 2012
I've always loathed this jerk, but he is always one of those guys who is wiling to come right out and defend the indefensible, so you have to give him a sort of credit: read more »The Secret of Joy: Six Lessons From Quebec's "Maple Spring" by Terrance Heath, OurFuture.org | June 6, 2012
As I read more about the student movement in Quebec, known as the "Maple Spring" or the "Casserole Revolution," it brings to mind the final scene from Possessing the Secret of Joy, by one of my favorite authors, Alice Walker. In that scene, the main character — Tashi, a minor character from The Color Purple — discovers a truth. From Wall Street to Wisconsin, and Cairo to Quebec, people the world over are realizing that same truth every day. Today, that truth is echoed in the chants, protests and placards of protesters in the streets of Montreal. It's the same truth Walker spelled out in huge block letters near the end of her novel: RESISTANCE IS THE SECRET OF JOY. That's one of six lessons of Quebec's "Maple Spring." read more »Learning by Making by Dale Dougherty, slate.com | June 4, 2012
On a morning visit to a Northern California middle school, I saw not a single student. The principal showed me around campus, but I didn’t see or hear students talking, playing, or moving about. The science lab was empty, as were the library and the playground. It was not a school holiday: It was a state-mandated STAR testing day. The school was in an academic lockdown. A volunteer manned a table filled with cupcakes, a small reward for students at day’s end. This is what the American public school looks like in 2012, driven by obsessive adherence to standardized testing. The fate of children, their schools, and their teachers are based on these school test scores. read more »Why Is Student Debt Different From Other Kinds Of Debt? by Suzy Khimm, The Washington Post | June 1, 2012
When it comes to consumer debt, Americans are slowly but surely starting to dig themselves out of the hole of the recent downturn. Severely delinquent mortgages, credit card bills, and car loans have all been in decline over the last two years, according to the New York Federal Reserve. But Americans have had significantly more trouble paying back one particular kind of loan. “Student loan debt continues to grow even as consumers reduce mortgage debt and credit card balances,” Donghoon Lee, senior economist at the New York Fed, said in a statement. “It remains the only form of consumer debt to substantially increase since the peak of household debt in late 2008.” Why are Americans having more trouble paying off student loans, as compared to other kinds of debt? read more »Conservatives Again Risk Higher Student Debt To Protect The Wealthy by Isaiah J. Poole, OurFuture.org | May 8, 2012
Senate Republicans today filibustered the effort to prevent federal student loan rates from doubling, once again obstructing the majority and putting the finances of millions of college students at risk for the sake of protecting the leather wallets of the 1 percent. read more »Tell The Senate To Act On Student Loan Debt by Isaiah J. Poole, OurFuture.org | May 7, 2012
As the Senate prepares to vote Tuesday on legislation that will stop a scheduled doubling of the rate on Stafford student loans on July 1, conservatives are engaged in a shameless (and shameful) effort to detail the effort. read more »Free College? We Can Afford It. by Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Washington Post | May 1, 2012
Student loans set off the latest Washington spitball fight. The House Republican budget called for letting interest rates double on government-subsidized student loans (and for deep cuts in Pell Grants and other student support). Students who borrow the maximum in subsidized loans would end up paying as much as $1,000 a year in added interest. Last week, President Obama sensibly called for extending the lower rate and starting stumping through colleges and talk shows to enlist students in the cause. The standoff allows for what has now become the routine exchange of insults, slurs and posturing before a deal is worked out at the last possible moment. Ignored in this is the stark reality that even with the lower rates, more and more students can’t afford the college education or advanced training that everyone except for Rick Santorum believes they need. read more »What Makes Health-care And Education Costs Similar To Each Other — And Unlike Anything Else by Ezra Klein, The Washington Post | May 1, 2012
Like the health-care sector, the higher education sector is heavily subsidized by the government. Some take that commonality as a causality: Health-care and college costs are out of control because the government subsidizes them. I think the truth is closer to the reverse: The government subsidizes them because their costs are out of control. Health-care and higher education are similar in another way, too: People don’t think they can responsibly say no to either expense. Families take on hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to pay medical bills and tuition costs. This inability to say no removes the ultimate form of market discipline: the consumer’s ability to simply walk out of the store. There’s certainly more we could do to bring market pressures into play in both sectors, but the reason the government ends up involved in health care and education is that a real market would require us telling more people than we’re comfortable with that they can’t have the medical care or education that they need. read more »The Imperiled Promise of College by Frank Bruni, The New York Times | April 30, 2012
For a long time and for a lot of us, “college” was more or less a synonym for success. We had only to go. We had only to graduate. And if we did, according to parents and high-school guidance counselors and everything we heard and everything we read, we could pretty much count on a career, just about depend on a decent income and more or less expect security. A diploma wasn’t a piece of paper. It was an amulet. And it was broadly accessible, or at least it was spoken of that way. With the right mix of intelligence, moxie and various kinds of aid, a motivated person could supposedly get there. College was seen as a glittering centerpiece of the American dream, a reliable engine of social mobility. I’m not sure things were ever that simple, but they’re definitely more complicated now. Because of levitating costs, college these days is a luxury item. What’s more, it’s a luxury item with newly uncertain returns. read more »
The Latest
Student Loan Industry Pushes Back, The Washington Post | April 14, 2009
With the Obama administration proposing to overhaul the programs a majority of American students use to finance their college education, the student loan industry is fighting back. read more »
White House Reaches Out to D.C. Schools, Associated Press | April 13, 2009
District of Columbia students are a familiar sight at the White House since Barack Obama became president on Jan. 20. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the White House is reaching out to support the efforts of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and schools superintendent Michelle Rhee, who are taking aggressive steps to turn around Washington's struggling schools. read more »
Community Colleges Gain Importance, | April 12, 2009
In Pennsylvania, all 14 community colleges are offering or finalizing plans for tuition assistance to locals who've lost jobs. More than 1,000 people are already signed up, says Diane Bosak, executive director of the Pennsylvania Commission for Community Colleges. read more »
School Aid Doesn't Always Match Needs, iht.com | March 22, 2009
In pouring rivers of cash into U.S. states and school districts, Washington is using a tangle of well-worn government formulas, some of which benefit states that spend more per pupil, while others help states with large concentrations of poor students or simply channel money based on population. read more »
More Career Switchers Become Educators, USA Today | March 22, 2009
Plenty of people dream of leaving their jobs to become teachers. Today, more people are actually doing it. These teachers, with real-life experience and often with deep knowledge of their subjects, are answering a call to service that is part of a strategy to dramatically boost the size and quality of the teaching workforce. read more »
Teacher 'Performance Pay' Considered., Christian Science Monitor | March 18, 2009
Performance pay is one of several areas getting attention right now as education reformers zero in on high-quality teaching as the key to helping students learn. The thinking goes like this: It takes good teachers to improve student achievement, and it will take better pay to lure and keep good teachers. Critics, including many unions, point to several issues. read more »
College Study Finds Two-Year 'Penalty', USA Today | March 17, 2009
Most workers who have a degree from a community college can earn more than a person who had no formal training after high school. And even if they never complete a two-year degree, students who attend some community college can get higher-paying jobs. But what if that student goes on to earn a bachelor's? read more »
School Wrestle With Spending Stimulus Funds, Christian Science Monitor | March 17, 2009
At the heart of President Obama's historic $787 billion economic stimulus program is a tough choice for educators: Do states and local school districts use the $100 billion spike in federal aid to do new things for kids or mainly to backfill the status quo? The Obama administration is calling on schools to do both. read more »
Schools Turn to Massive Layoffs, Reuters | March 13, 2009
Some U.S. public school districts are turning to mass layoffs of teachers and support staff to ease ballooning deficits in the latest sign of how the recession is hurting ordinary Americans. The Los Angeles Unified School District -- the nation's second largest -- will issue preliminary layoff notices to nearly 9,000 staff members, including teachers. read more »
Layoffs Come to Sesame Street, USA Today | March 12, 2009
The crisis on Wall Street is plaguing Sesame Street. Sesame Workshop, the non-profit producer of Sesame Street and other kids' programs, is cutting about one-fifth of its workforce because of the economic downturn. The company said that it's eliminating 67 of 355 staff positions. read more »
