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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
No Child Left Behind Doomed?, time.com | June 9, 2008
There was always something slightly insane about No Child Left Behind, the ambitious education law often described as the Bush administration's signature domestic achievement. Educators cited its unattainable goals for schools and unrealistic expectations of students. read more »
Student Loans to Bypass 2-Year Colleges, The New York Times | June 2, 2008
Some of the nation's biggest banks have closed their doors to students at community colleges, for-profit universities and other less competitive institutions, even as they continue to extend federally backed loans to students at the nation's top universities. read more »
Government Enters Student Lending, The Washington Post | May 21, 2008
The Department of Education is preparing to exercise broad new powers in the coming weeks that could fundamentally recast how millions of students pay for college. This initiative could transform the federal government from a guarantor of student loans into the dominant provider, replacing the outside lenders to whom students and their families have long turned. read more »
More Schools Failing, MSNBC News | May 20, 2008
The federal No Child Left Behind law says that by the 2013-14 school year all students must pass state tests in these subjects. According to a recent study, about half of the states have steady annual goals for increasing the percentage of students passing, or working at their proper grade level. read more »
Failing Grade for Reading Program, The Washington Post | May 2, 2008
Students enrolled in a $6 billion federal reading program that is at the heart of the No Child Left Behind law are not reading any better than those who don't participate, according to a U.S. government report. read more »
Education Act Reformed, MSNBC News | April 23, 2008
Unable to push education fixes through Congress, the Bush administration is taking its own pen to the No Child Left Behind law. The Education Department plans to make a host of changes to the education law through regulations. Among the biggest changes is a requirement that by the 2012-13 school year, all states must calculate their high school graduation rates in a uniform way.
1 Million Drop Out Annually, news.newamericamedia.org | April 20, 2008
A recent study found urban schools in metropolitan areas surrounding 35 of the nation’s largest cities have lower graduation rates than schools in nearby suburban communities. Approximately 1.2 million students drop out each year–about 7,000 every school day, or one every 26 seconds. read more »
Student Loan Bill Passes House, The Washington Post | April 18, 2008
The House, trying to avert a looming shortage in available student loans, approved a measure allowing the Department of Education to buy federally guaranteed loans that lenders are unable to sell to private investors. read more »
Student Loan "Train Wreck" Predicted, MSNBC News | April 17, 2008
Sallie Mae says it cannot write money-losing student loans indefinitely. Top executives are holding “daily deliberations” about how long the nation’s largest student lender can afford to sacrifice its bottom line for the sake of college-bound Americans, Sallie Mae CEO Albert J. Lord said. read more »
Hedge Funds Eye Student Loans, Politico | April 17, 2008
Some financial prognosticators see the struggling student loan market, hit by the same credit crunch that’s battered Wall Street, as a potential moneymaker. As many as a dozen hedge funds are watching intently to see if Congress cobbles together a rescue package that adds liquidity to the market for student-loan-backed securities.
