Friday, June 02, 2017




Charter schools vs. traditional public schools in NJ

For Ezdehar Abu-harab, the North Star Charter Academy in Newark, New Jersey was a godsend. She was horrified at the quality of education her son was receiving in one of Newark's other public elementary schools.

"No homework!" she said, incredulous. "They never got homework! It was just about maintaining order in the classroom."

Charter schools were first introduced into this chronically low-performing urban school district in the nineties and expanded in the last decade with support from both Republican and Democratic politicians.

They are publicly funded independent schools established by teachers, parents, or community groups under the terms of a charter with a local or national authority.

Now 31 percent of public school children in Newark, including Abdu-harab's two children, attend charter schools. District-wide graduation rates and test scores are up; suspension rates are down.

Abdu-harab heard about the schools when her daughter was entering kindergarten. The college biology teacher put her daughter's name in the lottery and landed a coveted spot.

The difference between her son's and daughter’s educations, she said, was night and day.

"She was using words my son couldn't even understand," even though he was three years older, she explained. Her son is now in the charter school as well, thanks to a provision that allows siblings to attend the same school.

The US Department of Education under the Trump administration and its new Secretary Betsy Devos is promoting charter schools as a way to empower parents and provide better options for students, like Abdu-harab's children.

By allowing schools to be independent of the district's bureaucracy and union commitments, the argument goes, the schools operate more efficiently and are more responsive to the community's needs.

The administration has proposed increasing aid to charter schools by $267m nationwide while at the same time slashing the overall education budget by more than 13 percent.

Racial and economic segregation

A growing chorus of critics, however, including teachers' unions, minority groups and parents, not just in New Jersey but around the country, accuse charters of draining resources from traditional district-run schools and contributing to racial and economic segregation.

That is allegedly the case in Red Bank, a small borough on the Jersey coast, barely an hour's drive but a world away from Newark.

Housed in a residential downtown neighbourhood, the school has the look and feel of a small, private institution with longer school days and smaller classes. Many parents picking up their children one afternoon said they were drawn to its intimate setting.

Like Rodolfo Ramirez, who said it reminded him of how he was raised in Costa Rica. He called it a good inner-city school.

At first glance the school looks quite diverse. The parent group known as Fair Schools Red Bank, however, along with the Latino Coalition of Monmouth County, have filed a complaint with the Education Department alleging that the Red Bank Charter School is having a discriminatory impact on the district.

Jennifer Garcia said the parents initially got together when the charter school applied to the state for permission to double its enrolment from 200 to 400 students, a petition that was ultimately denied.

Parents' initial concern was the loss of funding to the district, which was forcing the school to cut popular programmes and increase class sizes.

By law New Jersey charters are entitled to just 90 percent of the district's cost per pupil. In practice, however, district funds have been frozen, despite growing enrolment, while charter schools, favoured by the current Republican state administration, remain fully funded.

According to Jared Rumage, Superintendent of Red Bank borough schools, charters are currently getting more than half of the district's $3m in state funds, even though they are educating far fewer students than the 1,200 in the borough.

"The duplicative costs that are required to run two school districts do not make sense for a community when you have an outstanding district," Rumage insists.

He points out that his schools' test scores have been going up the past three years, despite the challenges of a growing population, many of whom speak English as a second language.

The Charter School's test scores, while higher, have been on a downward trend.

And while Red Bank Charter was 50 percent white last school year, with the rest minority, primarily Hispanic, the complaint points out that the district schools' population is just 7 percent white and 81 percent Hispanic.

It contends that is a violation of rules meant to encourage desegregation of New Jersey schools. The percentage of poor students who speak English as a second language is also much higher districtwide, students Garcia describes as "harder [and more costly] to educate".

But Charter School Principal Meredith Pennotti says the district was segregated long before her school got there.

"The Red Bank Charter School is one of the most integrated schools in one of the most racially segregated states in America," Penotti said in a statement.

She points out that the total school age population of Red Bank, including children who attend private schools, is 36 percent white according to the U.S. Census Bureau – closer to her school’s demographics.

Parental choice

Amanda Vega-Malinowski, communications director of the New Jersey Charter School Association, says a number of charter schools, including Red Bank, are now using a weighted admissions system to give low-income students an advantage in applying.

Charters also provide information about the lottery process in a variety of languages, so everyone can take advantage, she said.

"But at the end of the day we can't make people apply," says Vega-Malinowski, who was herself a teacher in a Newark Charter school with the Teach for America programme. "It comes down to parental choice."

SOURCE




Your Tax Dollars Are Paying for Drag Queens to Read Stories to Children

By Amelia Hamilton

A friend of mine was recently at a play group when one mom suggested reading a fairy tale in which two princes end up with each other. She asked the other parents present if they were OK with it, adding, “You know how some people can be.” I suggested that, the next time these parents got together, she bring one of Newt Gingrich’s children’s books and ask if the other parents were OK with it, using the same disclaimer of, “You know how some people can be,” because we all know that the open-minded two-princes mother would likely have a major problem with a book by a conservative and have no problem expressing it.

Then again, for parents like that one, Brooklyn now has taxpayer-funded programming that turns children’s story time into an agenda-driven activity. The public library is now offering “Drag Queen Story Time.”

From the Brooklyn Pubic Library website:

What do drag queens and children have in common? They love dressing up and all things sparkly and fancy! Drag Queen Story Hour captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity in childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models.

It’s not just Brooklyn, reports Smithsonian Magazine. Drag Queen Story Hour hit San Francisco in 2016 and will soon be coming to Orlando as well. Apparently, people around the country are interested in having their tax dollars spent paying drag queens to read to their children.

While this story time is ostensibly meant to introduce children to new ideas and open their minds, it is clear that the events skew in a particular political direction. What sort of outcry would there be if there were a children’s event promoting American exceptionalism or traditional values? An event with books about gun rights or the value of life in the womb? No, that would never do.

There is always the option of leaving agenda-driven events off of the calendar, of course, particularly when it comes to children’s activities, but that is evidently too much to ask in 2017, when everything has to be political, even story time for kids. When it comes down to it, these libraries are not aiming o teach children various worldviews, allowing them to grow into well-rounded adults capable of forming their own opinions, but to indoctrinate them into one specific worldview at the expense of all others. These are not people who are comfortable with children having truly open minds.

As the author of two patriotic (and apolitical) children’s books, I can attest to the fact that the left is highly suspicious of exposing children to anything that could potentially be considered conservative. The hate mail I received for educational books about America’s founding proved that liberals were extremely uncomfortable with patriotism, which they see as political. Why teach children facts when they can learn left-wing talking points instead?

Story time is, of course, optional, but funding it is not. Taxpayers pay for the library, which means they’re paying for these hyper-politicized story times that teach kids to fall into line with left-wing values. That’s what this comes down to—a public entity offering programming to indoctrinate children into a specific (and ideological) way of thinking. This isn’t about being open to a particular way of thinking, it’s about being closed to any other. Ladies and gentlemen, your tax dollars (and libraries) at work.

SOURCE




Second Thoughts About Higher Education Decisions

Most former college students say they would change either their major, college attended or credential pursued if they could do it all over again, survey finds.

A majority of Americans who attended college say they received a quality education. But half would change at least one of these three decisions if they could do it all over again: the type of degree they pursued or their choice of major or institution.

Those are among the key findings from a new annual survey conducted by Gallup and Strada Education Network, the former USA Funds.

While 51 percent of the nearly 90,000 respondents said they would change one big decision, the most common regret was their choice of major, with 36 percent saying they wish they’d chosen differently.

The survey found that 40 percent who pursued or completed a bachelor’s degree would pick a different field of study compared to 31 percent of those who hold a technical or vocational certificate.

Over all, 28 percent of respondents said they would choose a different institution, while 12 percent said they would pursue a different level of degree.

The report said these findings suggest that people’s regrets about higher education are not driven entirely by their thoughts about the colleges they attended.

“Rather, individuals’ desires to change their education decisions may be a function of having made decisions without comprehensive information, such as an understanding of employment opportunities, earning potential or the implications of long-term student debt,” said the report. “In short, education consumers’ regret about their previous decisions could be read as a signal to improve the resources available to inform future education decisions.”

Respondents who attended college but did not receive a degree were the most likely to say they would change at least one of three education decisions. That’s understandable, given that students who take out loans for college but never graduate are three times more likely to default, according to federal data.

What is surprising about that finding, the report said, is the relatively small gap between those with regrets who don’t hold a degree and those who do.

For example, 59 percent of respondents without a degree would change a decision compared to 52 percent with a bachelor’s degree and 54 percent with an associate degree. Respondents who attended graduate or vocational programs were the least regretful.

Debt also is a driver of regrets. Not surprisingly, respondents with more student loan debt said they would make different decisions.

However, there was very little variation by debt level among respondents on whether they would pursue a different major, with an overall three-percentage-point range across all five quintiles of debt level. But large debt holders were more likely to say they would attend a different institution or pursue a different type of degree.

On the optimistic side, at least from the academy’s perspective, the quality of the education former students received does not appear to be a major concern for most American college goers.

The survey found that four of five respondents who completed a credential or degree program said they received a high-quality education, ranging from 81 percent of vocational or technical credential holders and 81 percent of associate degree holders to the highest approval, 95 percent, among graduate degree holders.

Even 70 percent of respondents who attended college but did not complete said they received a high-quality education.

“This is a positive outcome for current postsecondary leaders,” the report concludes, adding that “however, the fuller picture of education consumers’ experiences reveals there is room for improvement in guiding them to and through their paths to successful completion and on to rewarding careers.”

Strada and Gallup said the report would be the first of many from a three-year survey, dubbed the Education Consumer Pulse. The survey will be conducted daily, with a goal of asking 360,000 current, past and prospective college students about their experiences in higher education.

“We hope the Education Consumer Pulse will serve as a catalyst for deeper exploration and application of consumer insights to help solve the critical challenges facing our postsecondary education and work force development systems,” Bill Hansen, Strada’s president and CEO, said in a written statement.

SOURCE


Thursday, June 01, 2017




Trump Budget Reduces Government's Role in Higher Ed, Will Curtail Runaway Tuition Prices

President Donald Trump released his budget proposal on Tuesday, which includes some dramatic changes to higher education funding.

While there is still room for improvement, the president's proposals would be a significant first step in reducing the federal government's role in higher education and giving much-needed relief to the U.S. taxpayer.

Elimination of Public Service Loan Forgiveness

The president's budget proposal eliminates the costly Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which offers special student loan forgiveness to graduates for performing certain public service jobs. This will be welcome news to taxpayers, who have been picking up the tab for federal employees who, under this policy, have their loans forgiven after just 10 years of payments.

Loan forgiveness in general is bad policy-it encourages students to take on large amounts of debt, often without a plan to pay it back. In particular, loan forgiveness for public service elevates public sector work over the private sector. The administration is correct to move away from this misguided policy.

Unfortunately, though, the president's budget would allow all students to take advantage of loan forgiveness after 15 years, only reducing it from 20.

Loan repayment policies that are based on income already protect students from burdensome loan payments. These generous loan forgiveness policies leave taxpayers on the hook for much of the cost of a college student's education.

Year-Round Pell Grants

The president's budget also allows students to use their Pell Grant dollars year-round, which may offer needed flexibility to students who want to finish their degree faster. However, any changes to the Pell Grant system should focus those funds on truly low-income students, and should not increase overall Pell spending.

Consolidation of Federal Loans

This budget consolidates the current five loan programs into a single loan option. This will streamline federal lending, and has the potential to infuse fiscal responsibility to the system if terms are aligned with the current terms of the Graduate Stafford Loan Program. Additionally, all loans should be issued with both an annual and lifetime borrowing cap. These reforms could both help put downward pressure on college tuition prices and insulate taxpayers from high rates of default.

As my colleague Jamie Hall and I recently outlined:

"Issuing all future direct loans under a single set of terms would simplify the program and eliminate some perverse incentives in current law ... Issuing all new loans under the current terms of Graduate Stafford Loans would generate savings relative to the [Congressional Budget Office] baseline of $9.4 billion under [Federal Credit Reform Act accounting], or a cost of $2.5 billion under [Fair Value] accounting, closer to revenue neutrality than any other loan type."

Additionally, this budget proposes the elimination of loan interest subsidies. Many economists have pointed to the heavy subsidization of federal student loans as one of the primary drivers of rising tuition. The elimination of subsidized loans will be a smart first step in deflating the student loan bubble and making college more affordable based on market principles.

Consolidating federal student loans into a single option and eliminating loan interest subsidies may help achieve the added benefit of revitalizing the private lending market.

The president's proposal overall reduces the federal government's role in higher education and will encourage more students to turn to the private market to finance their loans. That will protect U.S. taxpayers while curtailing runaway tuition prices.

SOURCE




UCLA students say ‘free speech is under attack’ and a conservative professor is the target

Students and supporters of a UCLA adjunct professor are protesting what they say is pressure the university is putting on him because of his outspoken conservative politics.

Keith Fink, a lawyer, has taught classes on free speech, contemporary issues, entertainment law and other subjects at UCLA for 10 years. He and student supporters said he may be dismissed from the school because administrators disagree with his views and practices, such as holding seminars on students’ rights and interviews he gave on Fox’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” about his charge that UCLA is blocking students from taking his popular free speech course.

“The administration doesn’t like what I have to say,” Fink said by phone Friday. “I also support students’ basic rights to due process and the school doesn’t like that. ... I show the students how their rights are violated. ... I don’t believe in trigger warnings. I don’t walk on eggshells. I don’t believe in safe spaces. I run against that current.”

Fink, an adjunct professor at the university, said a recent shift in the leadership of the Communication Studies department, where he teaches, has led to pressure on him. He is undergoing a review process that he said could result in his dismissal and which UCLA said is routine for lecturers who have completed 18 quarters of teaching at the school. Fink said he didn’t accept a salary in his first years of teaching at UCLA, which is why, administrators told him, the review is taking place now rather than several years ago.

About 25 students and supporters, carrying signs saying “Free speech is under attack” and “Keep your agenda out of our classroom,” gathered Friday on campus before bringing a list of demands to Laura Gómez, interim dean of UCLA College Division of Social Sciences which oversees the Communication Studies department, who wasn’t in her office when they delivered their list. Among the demands: that Fink be allowed to keep teaching and that the school implement curriculums “that increase intellectual tolerance” on campus.

Mick Mathis, a senior at UCLA, said pressure on Fink is about curtailing free speech.

“This is supposed to be a marketplace of ideas, and it’s not a marketplace of ideas if they’re trying to get rid of somebody with a contradictory viewpoint,” Mathis said.

Requests for comment sent to Gómez and to Kerri Johnson, dean of the Communication Studies department, weren’t returned by deadline Friday.

But university officials issued a statement in response to questions about whether Fink’s employment at UCLA is under consideration:

“The content of his courses has never been curtailed, and as a lecturer, Mr. Fink is protected by a collective bargaining agreement between UCLA and the American Federation of Teachers, the union to which he belongs as a lecturer.

UCLA’s process for reviewing instructors is comprehensive and fair, as well as respectful of the privacy normally accorded to personnel procedures. His current review is in-progress, and he has been afforded the full due process considerations mandated by the collective bargaining agreement and that every lecturer undergoing this review receives,” said the statement sent by UCLA spokeswoman Rebecca Kendall.

Cynthia Truhan, a UCLA alumna and volunteer at the school, said she came to the protest Friday out of concern that the situation reflects a chilling of free speech at a public school.

“As an alumni, I am highly disturbed, because now in our own backyard is a firm example of what is happening across the nation, which I feel is a silencing of free speech of any divergent opinion that varies from the base of that particular university,” Truhan said.

Fink and students said that a popular class he teaches, “Race, Sex & Politics: Free Speech on Campus,” has consistently had more students who want to attend than spots available, yet the school has effectively reduced the class size to around 200 through a cap on enrollment and by moving it to a smaller classroom. Fink said he was allowed nearly 300 seats for past sessions of the class.

Fink, an alumnus of UCLA, said he is outspoken in his political viewpoints. Asked if he has ever used a racial slur in his class, as a student alleged in one news report, Fink said he has only in the context of discussing free speech.

“N-----, c--- ... Of course! I teach harassment. You have to use those words” in discussions with students about what constitutes a hostile environment, he said. “It’s all contextual. That infuriates me, the insinuation that I’m using racial epithets, out of context.”

SOURCE





Campus Double Standards Mean Free-Speech Laws Are Just a Start

Could college free-speech laws be weaponized to suppress free speech?

In May, Tennessee enacted Senate Bill 723, the Campus Free Speech Protection Act. The law is based on model legislation drafted by the Goldwater Institute and has been hailed as the nation’s “most comprehensive” protection for campus speech by FIRE’s Robert Shibley. Similar legislation has been proposed in statehouses across the nation. The bill promises to end overbroad speech codes, ludicrously named “free-speech zones,” and other assaults on the First Amendment. The statute is an important victory, yet lawmakers and like-minded allies need to recognize that it is only a start. To see why, it’s useful to remember the hypocritical and selective manner in which college officials wield their existing policies.

Case in point: This month, Paul Griffiths, a professor of Catholic theology at Duke Divinity School, resigned after facing backlash and formal punishment for criticizing university-sponsored racial-sensitivity training. In response to a faculty-wide e-mail “strongly urging” participation in the two-day “Racial Equity Institute,” Griffiths decried such events as “anti-intellectual” and wrote to his colleagues:

I exhort you not to attend this training. . . . It’ll be, I predict with confidence, intellectually flaccid: There’ll be bromides, clichés, and amen-corner rah-rahs in plenty. When (if) it gets beyond that, its illiberal roots and totalitarian tendencies will show.


The divinity school’s dean, Elaine Heath, deemed Griffiths’s statement “inappropriate” and implied that his response had been hatefully motivated, declaring, “The use of mass emails to express racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry is offensive and unacceptable.” After Griffiths refused to meet with her unless a trusted colleague could witness their conversation, Heath barred him from faculty meetings and promised that he would face “further consequences.” Meanwhile, the professor who issued the initial invitation filed an official complaint of harassment against Griffiths for “the use of racist and/or sexist speech in such a way as to constitute a hostile workplace.” Griffiths ultimately felt compelled to resign from the university.

Griffiths’s tale presents a remarkably different picture from the way administrators addressed concerns about faculty bigotry and harassment a decade ago, when three white members of Duke’s men’s lacrosse team were falsely accused of raping an African-American stripper. In that instance, less than a week after allegations became public, Duke professor Houston Baker penned an open letter demanding the immediate expulsion of the entire lacrosse team – not just the three players who were accused (and ultimately cleared). There was also the infamous “Group of 88” ad, in which 88 Duke professors issued a public statement that ran in the school newspaper. Entitled “What Does a Social Disaster Sound Like?,” the ad was paid for by the university’s African-American Studies program and claimed to be endorsed by three academic departments and 13 academic programs (although none of the departments voted on endorsement). The professors declared that “the disaster” represented by these (ultimately exonerated) students would not “end with what the police say or the court decides.” At no point, not even after the accusations were proven to be a fabrication, did Duke administrators take any action against these faculty members for violating the campus’s commitment to combating intolerance and promoting a safe learning environment.

More familiar to most readers will be the contretemps that played out at Middlebury College earlier this spring, when our colleague Charles Murray was invited to speak. There, a violent crowd prevented Murray from delivering his address and then assaulted him and his hosts, ultimately hospitalizing a Middlebury professor. Forty-six days after the fact, Middlebury finally announced that its investigation had identified “more than 70 individuals it believes may be subject to disciplinary procedures.”

It all sounds promising enough — but what did the discipline actually amount to? Middlebury’s student newspaper reported that most students were given an especially modest form of “probation” in which they “have a letter placed in their file that will be removed at the end of the semester.” Since Middlebury’s spring semester ended on May 15, all those students had to do was behave for a few weeks and the whole thing went away. Meanwhile, 19 students received an additional two semesters of probation. That was it. The college acknowledged that not a single student was suspended, kicked off campus, or otherwise visited with any meaningful consequences.

In the moments before Murray spoke, video captured Bill Burger, a Middlebury official, jovially playing the part of stern administrator. To student cheers, Burger announced, “You’re going to love this next part” before reading a perfunctory statement about Middlebury’s rules on audience conduct. Burger closes by informing the students that continued disruption “may result in college discipline, up to and including suspension” — and is met with whoops of approval from the students. As Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, pointed out in The Federalist, “Burger’s lines were excerpted from Middlebury’s official statement on ‘Demonstrations and Protests,’ but curiously omitted a few key points including this: ‘Disruption may also result in arrest and criminal charges such as disorderly conduct or trespass.’” In short, Middlebury officials felt no obligation to take their own norms and policies seriously, or to mete out the appropriate consequences to those who violated them.

Some of the most glaring instances of institutional hypocrisy have played out in the University of California system, which encourages students to anonymously report any observed behavior that might include “expressions of bias” or “hate speech,” or create a “hostile climate.” As Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor and influential blogger, chronicled in the Washington Post, UC administrators have taught that actions that can create a hostile climate on campus include such statements as “America is the land of opportunity” and “I believe that the most qualified person should get the job.”

Despite the system’s commitment to creating a welcoming environment for “all,” no disciplinary action has yet been taken against student protesters who shouted down Manhattan Institute scholar Heather Mac Donald during her recent visit to campus. While shouting “Bulls**t! Bulls**t!” at a guest speaker may not be an “expression of bias,” it certainly violated UCLA’s “Principles of Community” and “True Bruin Respect” civility policy — and would seem to create a “hostile climate.” Stephen Bainbridge, another UCLA law professor, pointed out the hypocrisy of the whole situation on his blog (with copious links providing examples):


Bainbridge puts his finger on the crux of the matter, illustrating why Tennessee’s necessary and important Campus Free Speech Protection Act is only a start. Policies securing free speech need to be enforced, and they need to be enforced in a serious and evenhanded manner. Unfortunately, today’s supine administrators have given no indication that they are up to that task – yet they are the ones charged by states with breathing life into these new directives. Worse, the record gives reason to fear that campus officials may find ways to apply these new protections in troubling ways that subvert their intent. That means that the next challenge is to monitor whether campuses honor these protections, find ways to change the culture and blind spots of university leaders, and ask what more might be done to ensure that campuses are bastions of free inquiry and not hothouses for ideological thugs.

SOURCE

Wednesday, May 31, 2017



Study: Liberal universities indoctrinate students before they even arrive for the fall semester

By Natalia Castro

It is no secret universities across the country are teaching America’s youth to adopt liberal ideology, but now they have taken this indoctrination a step further. Before students even enter college, university reading lists are promoting a progressive agenda. As universities continue to promote summer reading, their reading lists shed light on the liberal profit oriented agenda encompassing universities across the country.

Universities are not just picking any books for students to read, analysis from the National Association of Scholars (NAS) found that the largest genre of suggested or required readings was Civil Rights/ Racism/Slavery books. Books with a progressive angle to highlight inequality and racial division in the country. Schools also select books with environmentalist and pro-immigration angles, pushing the liberal agenda before students even begin to attend school.

More often than not these liberal books are written by exactly who you would suspect, that is, liberal activists.

One of the most common required readings before the 2016-2017 school year, according to NAS, was Between the World and Me by prominent black author Ta-Nehisi Coates. The novel explores the struggles of African Americans living in the United States; a fitting agenda for Coates as he also writes a comic book series entitled the Black Panther, the story of a radical African American superhero.

Rather than having students read information about how the United States government system works, they are being fed reasons why it supposedly works incorrectly and unfairly, before they have even developed their own ideas.

This becomes true about liberal issues across the board.

Many universities are now also pushing the book The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, which explains that the world will be ending if environmental concerns are not immediately addressed. The author of this book, Elizabeth Kolbert, has built her career around being an environmentalist, even receiving an award in 2016 for Global Environmental Activism.

Meanwhile books in genres such as politics, career advice, and education are rarely selected.

Aside from being clear activist in their fields, these authors have their own financial incentive to have their books read university wide.

One commonly required book by Ivy League Universities is Our Declaration by Danielle Allen. This novel parodies the Declaration of Independence to highlight inequality that has apparently existed since our nation’s inception. Rather than an analysis of our nation’s founding document, universities are pushing students to read a mockery of it.

But Allen loves that Ivy Leagues promote her book, because she is an Ivy League professor herself. As a government professor at Harvard University, Allen and other liberal professors are making double the money; students are taking their classes and being required to buy their books.

Rather than educating children, universities and professors are making a profit from liberal indoctrination.

Before my own freshman year in college all students entering my university were required to read How Does it Feel to be a Problem: Being Young and Arab in America. A book which villainized police and compares the struggles of Arab-Americans to African Americans during the slave era.

These required readings force students into a specific liberal ideology and inhibit educational growth. The NAS suggests universities assign summer writing assignments instead of reading, to force students to grow their own opinions before the university experience.

While liberal universities and professors seek profits rather than student success, they no longer fulfill the mission they are established to pursue.

A mission the taxpayer pays for. With anywhere from $8,000 to more than $100,000 in taxpayer subsidies going to most colleges and universities for each bachelor’s degree, the taxpayer is funding this liberal indoctrination.

Even private universities cannot exist without taxpayer support, so the taxpayer should be able to reject the progressive agenda these universities are forcing onto students.

Students attend college to have a balanced educational experience, yet before they even attend classes they receive the messages of environmental and race activists for their own profit. Universities must begin proving students with a balanced education that prepares them for success in the real world, not one that perpetuates a selected progressive ideology.

SOURCE




What UK party policies mean for teachers and education in the General Election

With the pledges and promises for the main five UK political parties being announced through their manifestos, many will be questioning "what's in it for me?"

The policies you may really care about are often hidden deep in these documents of 50 or 60 pages, so we have done the hard work for you.

Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats, The Green Party and UKIP have all released their manifestos but for parents, children and carers, what are they proposing for the future of education?

Conservatives:

The Tory manifesto has called for more support to be given to teachers, by offering more bursaries to attract graduates into teaching. A forgiveness will be given to teachers while they remain in the profession for their student loan repayments.(Meaning that loan repayments will be suspended while they remain in the profession)

More technology will be given to teachers to help with the process of planning lessons and marking. They have called for a balance to how funding is distributed across the country and have given a promise to increase the overall schools budget by £4 billion by 2022.

They have suggested that they "do not believe that giving school lunches to all children free of charge for the first three years of primary school – regardless of the income of their parents – is a sensible use of public money."

Instead, they have proposed that free school breakfast will be offered to every child in every year of primary school, and children from low-income families will receive free school lunches throughout both primary and secondary school.

The Conservative party is proposing to build at least a hundred new free schools a year to continue to reform of the education system they started during their current government. The ban will also be lifted on the building of new selective, grammar schools.

Labour:

The Labour party has proposed a four-point list of suggestions to improve the quality and fairness of education in the United Kingdom.

Increased investment will be offered, to make sure schools have enough resources. New buildings will be built, and asbestos will be removed from existing schools.

A heavy emphasis on quality of teaching has been placed in their manifesto, claiming that they would want to "drive up the standard across the board."

Accountability will be placed on individual schools, to ensure that requirements for the number of children expected in each class is met.

"Every child is unique", the manifesto calls for inclusion for all children, regardless of their background, and that each should have their own individual learning path, in terms of courses and qualifications.

SOURCE






Survey: Just 1 in 4 say our higher ed system functioning as it should

Looking for another thing that Americans are sour about these days? How about college?

A new survey of American adults finds that we are deeply split about the USA’s higher education system and increasingly frustrated with the costs.

While most of us still believe a college degree makes it more likely that a young person will be successful, only one in four of us believe that our higher education system is functioning as it should.

And the dissatisfaction is especially keen among Millennials, the generation that came of age in the last decade. They’re also the folks who have most recently been to college, lived a post-college life and dealt with the debilitating debt that often comes with it. And they've experienced the rising dropout rates at U.S. colleges: About four in 10 students who start a four-year degree now leave college without one.

Among Millennials, just 13% believe that our higher education system works as it should. The younger generation, known sometimes as “Generation Z,” has a slightly more generous vision, on par with that of most other Americans: 27% of them think things are working well on America’s college campuses.

The survey, out Thursday from the left-leaning Washington, D.C., think tank New America, also found that nearly six in 10 of us believe that colleges put their own long-term interests ahead of those of students.

“Folks are starting to realize that while institutional and student interests may often be aligned, they’re not always aligned,”  New America’s Amy Laitinen said.

Among the bright spots: Community colleges are beginning to seem more promising to many Americans — more promising than either public or private four-year colleges: While just 61% say public four-year colleges “are worth the cost,” 82% say the same about community colleges.

That surprised the researchers, who admit that community colleges have spent the past few years sharpening their focus and taking a hard look at costs, among other factors.

“If we had done this survey 10 years ago, we would not have seen these numbers,” Laitinen said.

When it comes to public sentiment about the value of private four-year colleges, things get ugly: Just 43% say private universities are worth the cost; and just 40% say private for-profit universities are worth the cost.

Jeff Selingo, author of the 2016 book There Is Life After College, said rising costs are to blame for many of the negative findings in the New America survey.

“To me, it goes back to this idea that college for a growing number of Americans is further and further out of reach,” said Selingo, a visiting scholar at Georgia Tech's Center for 21st Century Universities.

Researchers have long noted that students in wealthier families are about eight times more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree by age 24 than kids from low-income families. But Selingo said middle-income families — those that earn too much to qualify for federal assistance such as Pell Grants — are also being squeezed by rising costs.

“Those families are struggling, and I think that is reflected in this poll,” he said. “The high negativity ratings of colleges and universities are largely around affordability and the fact that families don’t think they can afford college without either their son or daughter or themselves going deep into debt at some point.”

Median family incomes have long been relatively flat, he noted. “Meanwhile, college costs … still go up every year more than income levels. As a result, what ends up happening is that every year, more and more people fall out of that ‘I can afford college’ category.”

That’s what makes community colleges so much more attractive, he said, noting that even students from wealthier households are now turning to community colleges. Recent research shows that about one in four students at these schools now come from a family earning more than $100,000 a year.

“That’s a big change since the last decade,” Selingo said.

SOURCE




Tuesday, May 30, 2017



Citing Disparities, Dem Wants to Sink $100B Into Dilapidated Public Schools

Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) on Wednesday introduced legislation that would invest $100 billion in crumbling public school infrastructure that he says is hurting students’ ability to learn.

Introduced on the 63rd anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, the Rebuild America’s Schools Act and the Equity and Inclusion Act was crafted partly in response to a 2016 Government Accountability Office report finding that poor and minority students don’t have “full access” to educational opportunities compared to predominantly white schools. Scott’s office contended that the GAO report shows that American public schools are “re-segregating by race and class.”

“No child should learn, and no teacher should teach, in an unsafe or dilapidated learning environment,” Scott said in a statement Wednesday. “We know that poor school facility conditions impact teaching and learning and disproportionately plague schools that serve low-income and minority students.”

Scott pointed to a 2014 Department of Education study estimating that it will cost $197 billion to “bring all public schools into good condition.” Substandard infrastructure is a health and safety hazard to more than 50 million students and 3 million teachers, Scott added.

The GAO report, published in April 2016, found that the number of schools with poor populations, mostly black and Hispanic, increased from 9 percent to 16 percent between 2000 and 2014, based on Department of Education data. About 75 to 100 percent of the student bodies at these schools were eligible for subsidized lunch offerings, which the GAO referred to as “a commonly used indicator of poverty.” Further, GAO analysis showed that these schools offered fewer classes focused on math, science and college preparation.

Citing a 2006 Building Education Success Together report, Scott’s office provided statistics last week that show predominantly white schools “spend nearly 50 percent more on capital construction than those serving minority students, and wealthy districts spend nearly triple their high-poverty counterparts on capital construction.”

Gerard Robinson, an African-American education policy fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said in an interview Wednesday that there are challenges, but the public school system is not segregated like it was 63 years ago. A Republican and former secretary of education for the state of Virginia, Robinson noted that there are hundreds of predominantly minority schools that the Department of Education has recognized in its National Blue Ribbon Schools Program, which distributes awards for academic performance.

The term segregation, Robinson said, is very real to lawmakers like Rep. Scott and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who co-sponsored the legislation, “because they grew up at a time where they actually saw the segregation that Brown was fighting against.” But Robinson said the makeup of schools is the result of the communities that surround them.

“To say that 63 years later, if my children are in a public school, and somehow the kids have to look like them, that somehow that’s a decision of Jim Crow just basically says that you failed in 63 years to do something, and that’s simply not the case,” Robinson said.

Robinson commended the proposal to provide greater funding for public school infrastructure, noting that the system needs to work well because the majority of American students attend public schools. He suggested identifying high-poverty, high-performing Blue Ribbon schools, spending the money at those institutions and allowing the lessons learned to “spill over into the traditional public school system.”

The issue should be addressed using an education-focused approach, not an approach that emphasizes color-coding, Robinson said, adding that the money needs to be well-spent. He discussed Washington, D.C., which spends more money per student than the vast majority of states across the country. According to 2013 U.S. Census Bureau data, the district’s $17,953 in spending per pupil ranked No. 3 behind New York ($19,818) and Alaska ($18,175). Yet D.C.’s 69 percent graduation rate in 2016 falls well short of the national average, which was recorded around 82 percent in 2014. Still, the district’s 2016 rate marked a five-point improvement from the previous school year.

“In the District of Columbia, we have seen school renovation and redevelopment have a major impact on the lives of students,” Norton Holmes said in a statement. “The Rebuild America’s Schools Act would help ensure that we are meeting all the digital and physical infrastructure needs of students and teachers, which will improve student academic achievement.”

SOURCE 




Tories accused of 'sleight of hand' on manifesto grammar schools data

A senior academic has accused the Conservatives of a "sleight of hand" over the justification of its grammar schools policy in its manifesto. Prof Alice Sullivan challenges the party's statement that selective schools have proportionately more pupils from "ordinary working class families" than non-selective schools.

She says families in the bottom third for income have been excluded from the calculation supporting this data.

The Tories stand by their manifesto. The party argues that increasing the number of grammar schools will improve social mobility as more poor bright children will be taught by them. It says that is because the achievement gap between rich and poor children closes to near zero in grammars.

However, Prof Sullivan, professor of sociology at University College London, said the main reason grammar schools were an "unlikely tool for promoting social mobility" is that working class children were far less likely than richer children to attend them.

The party's manifesto says: "Contrary to what some people allege, official research shows that slightly more children from ordinary, working class families attend selective schools as a percentage of the school intake as compared to non-selective schools."

SOURCE 




Australia: Principals under pressure to enrol children with disabilities without support

This is a result of the manic Leftist committment to "all men are equal".  Kids with disabilities must be placed in mainstream schools instead of the old system of special schools.  The result is mayhem with the disabled not given the special attention they need and mainstream classes being disrupted by the special needs students

A lack of support and resources to teach children with disabilities or special needs has resulted in unsafe classrooms for teachers and students, a survey has revealed.

The survey of principals of more than 200 primary schools in south-western Sydney also found breaches of disability discrimination laws "occur on a regular basis".

Eighty-nine per cent of principals rated the funding for students with a disability or special needs was either poor or very poor, according a submission from South Western Sydney Primary Principals to a NSW parliamentary inquiry into students with a disability or special needs in NSW schools.

Their submission contained examples of how inadequate resources had left schools unable to cater for some children with disabilities and special needs, including one student whose high anxiety led to outbursts of physical aggression.

"He has bitten, kicked, strike out at teachers and students on at least 15 occasions in two weeks," the submission said. "He will abscond from the classroom. This student does not attract any funding."

Another student attracted funding for a teachers' aid for only three hours a day despite requiring "full toileting assistance".

"She requires a [teachers' aid] to support her with changing and if she requires showering of a full change she requires two [teachers' aids] at times," the submission said.

The submission said funding was often only provided for a child's "primary disability", and not for other special needs: "Schools may undertake a laborious process to apply for additional funds. The result is usually tardy and inadequate."

Inflexible staffing arrangements and excessive class sizes resulted in "inadequate" learning opportunities for children with disabilities and special needs.

"Principals are sometimes placed in a position whereby they feel compelled to enrol a child with a disability/special needs knowing that they are not able to provide the necessary supports and resources that a child requires to fully access the curriculum," the submission said.

"The pressure to do so from NSW Department [of] Education personnel is significant."

It also said parents were "compelled" by education bureaucrats to complete requests for resources that were "totally inadequate" for their children.

"Parents are sometimes forced to accept enrolment placements that they know are not sufficient for their child due to a lack of special placements available," the submission said. "They are usually given no better alternative."

A majority of principals reported school counselling services were inadequate, with one counsellor per 1500 students: "Some of the students with greatest needs (e.g. emotionally disturbed/mental diagnosis) have access to a school counsellor less than one day per week."

The safety concerns expressed by the principals of schools in south-western Sydney were echoed in the submission from the NSW Primary Principals' Association.

"Principals are struggling to keep staff and other vulnerable students safe," the submission said. "Staff are being injured at alarming rates. Many staff in [Schools for Specific Purposes] come to work expecting to be hurt."

Chris Presland, the president of the NSW Secondary Principals' Council, told the inquiry there had been an increase in physical threats, assaults, verbal threats and abuse towards staff and students.

Mr Presland also said there was a growing number of students with disabilities being integrated into mainstream schools: "Teachers put the education of their students first, but they are finding it more and more difficult to cope with the many students with disabilities or special needs in their classes."

The inquiry, chaired by the Liberal Party's Lou Amato, received more than 400 submissions from teachers, parents, government agencies and disability organisations. It will conduct its next public hearing in Tamworth on June 8.

A spokesman for the NSW Department of Education did not answer specific questions but issued a statement that said more than $1 billion was provided directly to schools or through specialist programs and services to assist students with a disability.

"In 2017, more than $237 million of needs-based funding has been allocated to schools in south-western Sydney for principals to use flexibly to support the learning needs of all students in their schools," he said.

He added: "The department also works with schools to ensure the environment for students and staff is conducive for effective, safe learning and takes action to address situations brought to its attention where this may not be the case."

David Roy, a lecturer at the University of Newcastle's School of Education, expressed concerns about placing children with disabilities in special schools.

"Often the argument is that the students are happier," he said. "If we replaced the words disability with 'black' or 'Muslim' or 'gay' then the discriminatory aspect of this is apparent. That is not withstanding the educational reasons that it is harming not only the students isolated but also the wider social cohesion of the whole school and community."

Mr Roy also said research indicated mainstream students were not adversely affected if students with disabilities were in their class: "In fact, those very same 'diverse' students often bring new ways of thinking to the whole class. We need to stop seeing disability as a deficit, but as also having assets attached."

SOURCE

Monday, May 29, 2017



Teacher under fire for awarding seventh-graders 'Most Likely To Blend In With White People'

This may have been intended as a jocular comment on the pupils' achievements in schoolwork

A second middle school student has spoken out about a crass school award she received, as it emerges that the teacher said to be responsible for the ceremony is a former cheerleader for the Houston Texas.

Sydney Caesar, 13, has revealed the cringe-worthy 'Most Likely To Blend In With White People' she said she received in a mock awards ceremony at Anthony Aguirre Junior High School in Houston, Texas, on Tuesday.

Her seventh-grade classmate Lizeth Villanueva, also 13, had previously spoken out about her own award, 'Most Likely To Become A Terrorist', bestowed the day after the horror bombing in Manchester Arena.

Meanwhile, the teacher responsible for the awards has been named as Stacy Lockett, who on social media and in prior news reports professes to be a former cheerleader for the Houston Texans.

She teachers in the middle school's AVID program, which is a college prep course. A page with her contact information on the school's website had been deactivated on Saturday.

Lockett has not spoken publicly about her reasoning for the awards and could not be reached for comment by DailyMail.com.

Channelview Independent School District official Mark Kramer told KPRC the award ceremony was a 'poor attempt to poke fun' and that the activity 'wasn't well thought out'.

The principal personally apologized to the family and the school announced on Thursday that the teachers involved had been disciplined.

The school district has also issued an apology, but Lizeth's mother says it doesn't excuse the action. 'We're really upset about it coming from a teacher,' Ena Hernandez said.

'That program is supposed to be for advanced kids. It is kind of hard to believe that she's doing that. Being a teacher, giving this to a 13-year-old. How is she going to feel when she grows up later on?'

'For that child to either be called a terrorist or she's not black enough, basically now the students are taking that and that's her label for the rest of the school year,' her mother Latonya Robinson told the local Fox affiliate.

In a statement, the school district said: 'The district does not condone the incident that occurred and we are taking this matter very seriously.'

SOURCE 






Students and Faculty Protesters Demand Punishment of College Republicans Chapter

Student and faculty protesters rushed a college administration building Monday calling for the school to punish its College Republicans chapter.

Orange Coast College faculty and students protested the College Republicans chapter after the group published emails from OCC professor Jessica Alabi to Orange Coast College President Dennis Harkins. The emails revealed the professor said she would “stand up” to the group, if the president did not, according to Campus Reform.

The materials also showed that Alabi stopped members of the group from attending a campus event because, she said, they were perceived as a threat to the “safe space.”

The College Repuplicans want OCC to investigate the professor.

The protesters shouted, “No hate, no KKK, no fascist USA” and “Get that club out of our face.” Students held socialist flags and symbols or signs mocking the College Republicans.

“It makes no sense to me why the union and a vocal minority of students would protest against the OCC Republicans for simply asking for an investigation into the matter and protections for students from being discriminated against on the basis of their political affiliation,” said Joshua Recalde-Martinez, the OCC College Republicans’ former president.

OCC’s College Republicans chapter has come under increasing faculty scrutiny since December, when the group released a video depicting an OCC professor calling President Donald Trump’s election an “act of terrorism.” The student who recorded that incident was temporarily suspended, while the professor received a “Faculty Member of the Year” award.

“The OCC administration has done everything in its power to silence the College Republicans for standing up for what they believe in,” said Peter Van Voorhis, who has worked with the group and reported extensively on controversies surrounding it for Campus Reform. “It’s incredible that in 2017, colleges across America continue to marginalize conservative students to promote their own leftist agenda.”

“Intellectual diversity is a hallmark of higher education, and there is certainly none left at OCC after today’s incident.”

The Daily Caller News Foundation sought comment from the university, but received none by press time.

SOURCE 




Trump to grant student loan servicing work to just one company

The Department of Education said it will hand over the work of servicing federal student loans to one company — from the current roster of nine — in what it says is a money-saving move, triggering concern and criticism from student loan advocates who fear customer service would get worse.

The department estimates the move will save about $130 million in the next five years. "Savings are expected to increase significantly over the life of the contract,” Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said in a statement. “Borrowers can expect to see a more user-friendly loan servicing interface, shorter email and call response times and an improved payment application method.”

Of about $1.4 trillion of student debt now owed by 44 million Americans, a vast majority of the total -- more than $1 trillion -- is issued by the Education Department. The government currently outsources the work of handling payment, collection, payment deferment and general customer service to nine private companies.

The average student loan debt in every state
By granting the business to one company, the government will create "a trillion dollar bank," said Natalia Abrams, executive director of Student Debt Crisis, an advocacy group. "The too-big-to-fail is what we saw with the banks in 2008," she said. "I see this already as an industry out of control, with high profit. And in creating one company...there would be no competition."

The nine loan service providers are: Navient, CornerStone, Granite State, Great Lakes Educational Loan Services, HESC/Edfinancial, MOHELA, Nelnet, OSLA Servicing and FedLoan Servicing (also known as Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, or PHEAA).

Navient, which was spun off from Sallie Mae in 2014, is the largest U.S. federal student loan servicer. Shares of Navient rose nearly 2% on Friday. They were up 0.4% in Monday morning trading. The company declined to comment.

The process to streamline the federal student loan servicing contracts began under the Obama administration, which sought to narrow the list of qualifying vendors to four companies — Navient, Great Lakes, Nelnet and FedLoan Servicing. The companies from that narrowed list will submit their proposals to the Education Department to compete for the exclusive government contract. In anticipation of the change, Great Lakes and Nelnet have formed a joint venture, called GreatNet Solutions, to bid for the contract.

It remains unclear when the change will take place. The Education Department will seek the vendors' detailed plans and answer their questions until July 10. Once the contract is awarded, the winning company has 18 months to implement its service. The winner and its subcontractors will be required to sign "level-of-service" agreements, promising to comply with federal standards.

SOURCE 



Sunday, May 28, 2017



Another Democrat obsessed with deviants

When educational standards generally are so low you would think that that would be the debate.  Instead it is the liberty of Christians to run Christian schools that was at issue.  Deviants were perfectly at liberty to go to the government schools so favored by the Left so what does it matter what Christian schools do?  Isn't it "diversity"?

US Representative Katherine Clark, a Melrose Democrat who has emerged as a leading critic of the Trump administration, wanted a simple answer Wednesday from US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

The secretary was testifying before a House appropriations subcommittee to sell the president’s education funding proposals, including a plan to sink $1.4 billion into a school choice initiative.

Clark waited patiently for her turn to question DeVos in the packed hearing room, and when the opportunity came, she asked about the private Lighthouse Christian Academy in Bloomington, Ind.

The school, Clark said, receives more than $665,000 in state vouchers, while noting in its handbook that it may deny admission to students from families where homosexual or “alternate gender identity” is practiced.

Leaning into her microphone and shaking her fist, Clark asked: If Indiana seeks federal funding as part of the president’s proposed voucher program, “will you stand up that this school be open to all students?”

All eyes turned to DeVos.

She thanked Clark for the inquiry and grinned as she tried to pivot to “broadly” discussing school choice.

Clark pounced, again shaking her fist and asking “is there a line for you on state flexibility?” Her eyes narrowing, Clark described DeVos as “the backstop for students and their right to access a quality education.”

“Would you in this case say ‘we are going to overrule and you cannot discriminate, whether it be on sexual orientation, race, special needs in our voucher programs.’ Will that be a guarantee from you for our students?” Clark asked.

DeVos demurred, extending a rocky back-and-forth between the officials, as a crowd of lawmakers and their aides, as well as reporters, watched the clash play out in the ornate chambers.

“For states who have programs that allow for parents to make choices, they set up the rules around that . . . ” DeVos said, as the glare of CSPAN cameras again captured her strained grin.

“So that’s a no,” Clark interjected, according to a video excerpt of the testimony posted to the congresswoman’s Twitter feed.

“Do you see any circumstance where the federal Department of Education under your leadership would say that a school was not qualified? What if they said ‘we are not accepting African-American students,’ but that was OK with the state? Does the state trump, do you see any situation where you would step in?” DeVos replied that federal Title IX protections are “broadly applicable across the board,” but she did not answer Clark directly.

“When it comes to parents making choices on behalf of their students . . . ” DeVos said. An incredulous Clark again interrupted, telling DeVos, “This isn’t about parents making choices. This is about use of federal dollars. . . . Would you say to Indiana: ‘That school cannot discriminate against LGBT students if you want to receive federal dollars, or would you say the state has the flexibility in this situation?”

“I want to make sure I get this right,” Clark said. “There is no situation of discrimination or exclusion, that if a state approved it for its voucher program, that you would step in and say ‘that’s not how we’re going to use our federal dollars.’ . . . Is that your testimony?”

DeVos reverted to talking points about school choice.

“The bottom line is, we believe that parents are the best equipped to make choices for their children’s schooling and education decisions,” she said. “Too many children today are trapped in schools that don’t work for them. We have do to do something different. . . . That is the focus, and states and local communities are best equipped to make these decisions.”

Clark was indignant. “I am shocked that you cannot come up with one example of discrimination that you would stand up for students,” she said, as the chairman banged his gavel to end the questioning.

Liz Hill, a spokeswoman for the US Department of Education, defended DeVos on Wednesday evening in statement.

“As Secretary DeVos has made clear time and time again, protecting students’ civil rights under federal law is one of the department’s core missions,” Hill said. “The line of questioning during today’s hearing was about a theoretical voucher program the department has not proposed and included topics that aren’t covered under current federal law.”

Hill added that there is “a fundamental misunderstanding about the federal and state roles in education. When states design programs, and when schools implement them, it is incumbent on them to adhere to federal law. The Department of Education can and will intervene when federal law is broken.”

Hill said the federal grant program under consideration “would support states who apply for funding to develop school choice programs, and those states’ plans must adhere to federal law.”

But Clark doubled down on her criticism in a phone interview Wednesday night.

“[DeVos’s] testimony today showed that she has all the wrong instincts for this position,” Clark said. “The fact that she couldn’t find a way to stand up [against] something as fundamental as discrimination is, in my opinion, appalling and dangerous.”

SOURCE 





Trump Budget Reduces Government's Role in Higher Ed, Will Curtail Runaway Tuition Prices

President Donald Trump released his budget proposal on Tuesday, which includes some dramatic changes to higher education funding.

While there is still room for improvement, the president's proposals would be a significant first step in reducing the federal government's role in higher education and giving much-needed relief to the U.S. taxpayer.

Elimination of Public Service Loan Forgiveness

The president's budget proposal eliminates the costly Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which offers special student loan forgiveness to graduates for performing certain public service jobs.

This will be welcome news to taxpayers, who have been picking up the tab for federal employees who, under this policy, have their loans forgiven after just 10 years of payments.

Loan forgiveness in general is bad policy-it encourages students to take on large amounts of debt, often without a plan to pay it back. In particular, loan forgiveness for public service elevates public sector work over the private sector.

The administration is correct to move away from this misguided policy.

Unfortunately, though, the president's budget would allow all students to take advantage of loan forgiveness after 15 years, only reducing it from 20.

Loan repayment policies that are based on income already protect students from burdensome loan payments. These generous loan forgiveness policies leave taxpayers on the hook for much of the cost of a college student's education.

Year-Round Pell Grants

The president's budget also allows students to use their Pell Grant dollars year-round, which may offer needed flexibility to students who want to finish their degree faster.

However, any changes to the Pell Grant system should focus those funds on truly low-income students, and should not increase overall Pell spending.

Consolidation of Federal Loans

This budget consolidates the current five loan programs into a single loan option. This will streamline federal lending, and has the potential to infuse fiscal responsibility to the system if terms are aligned with the current terms of the Graduate Stafford Loan Program.

Additionally, all loans should be issued with both an annual and lifetime borrowing cap. These reforms could both help put downward pressure on college tuition prices and insulate taxpayers from high rates of default.

As my colleague Jamie Hall and I recently outlined:

    "Issuing all future direct loans under a single set of terms would simplify the program and eliminate some perverse incentives in current law ... Issuing all new loans under the current terms of Graduate Stafford Loans would generate savings relative to the [Congressional Budget Office] baseline of $9.4 billion under [Federal Credit Reform Act accounting], or a cost of $2.5 billion under [Fair Value] accounting, closer to revenue neutrality than any other loan type."

Additionally, this budget proposes the elimination of loan interest subsidies.

Many economists have pointed to the heavy subsidization of federal student loans as one of the primary drivers of rising tuition. The elimination of subsidized loans will be a smart first step in deflating the student loan bubble and making college more affordable based on market principles.

Consolidating federal student loans into a single option and eliminating loan interest subsidies may help achieve the added benefit of revitalizing the private lending market.

The president's proposal overall reduces the federal government's role in higher education and will encourage more students to turn to the private market to finance their loans. That will protect U.S. taxpayers while curtailing runaway tuition prices.

SOURCE 




Nazism has returned to America

Students at Evergreen State College - a school notable for its far-left politics and its preference for measuring students' performance with "narrative evaluations" instead of grades - have seized control of their campus and are reportedly seeking hostages following a confrontation with a biology professor who objected to a planned demonstration that asked white students and faculty to voluntarily leave campus for a day, the Washington Times reports.

The protest began Tuesday morning when an angry mob of SJW's confronted Professor Bret Weinstein after he had sent an email to faculty and staff explaining his reasoning for opposing the demonstration.

Now, Weinstein's reportedly been told to avoid campus because his safety is at risk.

“Police told me protesters stopped cars yesterday, demanding information about occupants,” Mr. Weinstein told The Washington Times. “They believe I was being sought. It appears that the campus has been under the effective control of protesters since 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. Police are on lockdown, hamstrung by the college administration. Students, staff and faculty are not safe.

A spokesman for the Evergreen Department of Police Services confirmed the agency had been in contact with Mr. Weinstein. He said officers would be in touch with The Times, but three subsequent phone calls were not returned.”

Following the modus operandi of protests at colleges like U.C. Berkeley, the angry mob of SJWs who confronted Weinstein refused to listen as he attempted to calmly explain his reasoning, prefering instead to hurl obscenities at him while demanding his resignation.

“Fuck you, you piece of shit,” once of them screamed.

When police arrived, presumably drawn by the uproar, the students fled to the library, where they barricaded themselves inside the Trans & Queer Unity Lounge and asked white students to patrol the halls for any police "intruders."

At a meeting between the administration and students later that day, University President George S. Bridges quickly assured the crowd that no students would be punished for their involvement in the demonstrations and promised a "major reiew" of what happened and why.

“First and foremost, I want to state that there will be, as far as I know, no charges filed against any students involved in actions that occurred this morning,” Mr. Bridges said. “We will be conducting a major review, an investigation of all that occurred and will be reporting back to you, the campus community, about exactly what happened, why it happened and what we intend to do about the incident — not the incident, excuse me, the actions that were taken, both students, staff and faculty involved.”

Weinstein explained his predicament to a local reporter on Thursday who met him at Sylvester Park in downtown Olympia, Wash., where he is temporarily holding classes until it's deemed safe for him to return to campus.

“We are unable to talk because there’s too much of a gap in the narrative between what they believe is taking place and what’s actually taking place."

“The narrative suggests that I’m a person whose benefiting from privilege and that I’m trying to preserve that privilege.”

Weinstein's brother, Eric Weinstein, told the Washington Times that the persecution of his brother is "ironic" given his center-left politics and staunch opposition to racism.

“If you had asked me who is one of racism’s most powerful foes, I would have said Bret Weinstein,” Eric Weinstein told The Times.

“There’s something sort of ‘Twilight Zone’ about one of the most thoughtful commentators on race, at one of the most progressive schools in the country, getting called a racist.”

Weinstein’s email objecting to the “Day of Absence Day of Presence” protest was circulated on Twitter. In it, he characterizes organizers’ demand that white students vacate campus for a day as “an act of repression.”

"There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and under-appreciated roles (the theme of the Douglas Turner Ward play Day of Absence, as well as the recent Women's Day walkout), and a group or coalition encouraging another group to go away. The first is a forceful call to consciousness....the second is a show of force and an act of oppression in and of itself.

SOURCE