Free Republic

Jim Crow may be dead in most of America — but not at Columbia University. Almost 50 years after the Civil Rights Act ended legal discrimination, the bastion of liberalism is finally trying to change one of its scholarships, which is restricted to “whites only.” The Ivy League school’s Lydia C. Roberts Graduate Fellowship stipulates that the funds be given only to “a person of the Caucasian race.”

Summer break has started very early for kids in one Michigan school district. Buena Vista schools have been closed for five days already, and on Monday, the district's website stated that the school would be closed until further notice. For good reason, this decision has parents, and the community, up in arms. The problem in Buena Vista is that the school district, educating approximately 450 kids, is out of money. All the teachers have been laid off and a financial emergency has been declared. The district has suffered from declining enrollment, which, in turn, has led to a loss of...

I didn't vote for that ...

It's no secret that falling behind on student loan payments can squash a borrower's hopes of building savings, buying a home or even finding work. Now, thousands of retirees are learning that defaulting on student-debt can threaten something that used to be untouchable: their Social Security benefits.

I noticed this one from a few days ago. The full text is available of course at the link, but here's a few highlights I got from a scan of the verbiage: Section 2a: There is hereby established the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans (The Initiative), to be housed in the Department of Education (The Department). There shall be an Executive Director of the Initiative, to be appointed by the Secretary of Education (The Secretary). The Initiative shall be supported by the Interagency Working Group established under subsection (c) of this section and advised by the...

A mother of four who was laid off in 2008, Danielle Torno had planned on turning her life around next year with the help of a Cal State East Bay business degree. Instead, the 36-year-old San Jose resident will be searching for another solution because of a little-noticed congressional decision to reduce or eliminate Pell Grants for hundreds of thousands of the poorest college students. The changes take effect July 1, and students like Torno will bear the brunt of the reforms, which are expected to save $11 billion over 10 years. Among those who will lose Pell Grants in...

BATON ROUGE — Louisiana will be home to one of the nation’s largest school voucher programs once Gov. Bobby Jindal signs legislation that recently passed his state’s legislature. Today, by a vote of 60-42, the Louisiana House of Representatives approved Gov. Jindal’s voucher expansion, which passed the Senate last night 24-15. “This is a momentous day for the families of Louisiana,” State Superintendent of Education John White said. “All students deserve a fair chance in life, and that begins with the opportunity to attend a high-quality school. These policy changes are aligned with that central belief, and Gov. Jindal and...

Instead of saving up for their sons' college education, Bill Dunham and his wife are taking out loans for high school. Their eldest son will begin ninth grade at a school in Boston where annual tuition runs around $10,000 -- and they already pay $5,000 a year for their younger child. A project manager for a mechanical construction company, Dunham says the schools referred him to lenders who specialize in pre-college education loans. He's taking a loan to cover his son's full high school tuition, which he plans to repay over two years. "If we had the money, we'd pay...

Financial aid, whether it's a cheap loan, a work-study job at the campus library, or a grant, is supposed to make college more affordable and accessible for students. But what if, by handing money out to undergrads, the government is simply encouraging schools to spend more and jack up tuition? Meet "the Bennett hypothesis," the dismal notion named for Reagan Education Secretary William Bennett, who suggested it in a 1987 New York Times op-ed diplomatically titled "Our Greedy Colleges." Generous student-aid policies had "enabled colleges and universities blithely to raise their tuitions, confident that Federal loan subsidies would help cushion...

As of Tuesday, programs like elementary music, art and physical education are gone and libraries are closed. School days are shortened to just 5 1/2 hours -- leaving kids less time for instruction, and working parents scrambling. "What are kids gonna do with that big window of time when their parents are still working and all that idle time that they still have, to do God knows what?" parent Jeff Bodziony said. Hot school lunches are also thing of the past. In fact, lunch is a thing of the past. Students used to have lunch in the noon hour. Instead...

DENVER -- A Denver judge ruled Friday that Colorado's education funding system is "irrational and inadequate" and violates the state's constitution -- a decision that's a victory for school districts and parents who sued but hardly the end of a years-long debate.

A number of student organizers in the US have unveiled what they call an 'Occupy Student Debt' campaign, urging borrowers across the country to default on their college loans. The campaign was made public Monday afternoon in New York's Zuccotti Park, where the national Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement emerged, the Huffington Post reported. “Since the first days of the Occupy movement, the agony of student debt has been a constant refrain,” said Andrew Ross, a professor at New York University and an active OWS member, while addressing a crowd in the park “We've heard the harrowing personal testimony...

Ben Barnhard finally had reason to be optimistic this summer: The 13-year-old shed more than 100 pounds at a rigorous weight-loss academy, a proud achievement for a boy who had endured classmates' taunts about his obesity and who had sought solace in the quiet of his bedroom, with his pet black cat and the intricate origami designs he created. But one month before school was to start for the special-needs teen, his mother, psychiatrist Margaret Jensvold, shot him in the head, then killed herself. Officers found their bodies Tuesday in the bedrooms of their home in Kensington, Md., an upper-middle...

College is a scam — so let’s make money off it Commentary: Debt creates generation of indentured servants By James Altucher NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — We can’t deny it anymore: College is a scam and a bubble — and the reasons why appear below. But I’ll be the first to admit it’s going to take years for that bubble to burst. And while college tuitions are still skyrocketing and student-loan debt is creating a generation of indentured servants, we might as well benefit from it. Many stocks will continue to go up from the multidecade college bubble, even as it...

Eight young illegal immigrants were arrested for sitting in the middle of a busy street in front of the Georgia Capitol, protesting their lack of access to higher education.

As the new Republican House majority wrestles with ways to cut our unsustainable budget deficit, Barack Obama threw down the gauntlet. On March 14, he said, "We cannot cut education." But why not? If we are going to cut programs that are proven to have failed to achieve their goals, federal spending on education should be at the top of the list. Federal spending on public schools (which is only a small percentage of their school budgets) was given specific goals in the 2002 law called "No Child Left Behind," the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It...

As you read this, there are over 18 million students enrolled at the nearly 5,000 colleges and universities currently in operation across the United States. Many of these institutions of higher learning are now charging $20,000, $30,000 or even $40,000 a year for tuition and fees. That does not even count living expenses. Today it is 400% more expensive to go to college in the United States than it was just 30 years ago. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/facts-about-student-loan-debt-2010-12##ixzz19C0sagpR

Kindergarten teacher Marisa Martinez was tired of political promises, unfulfilled vows to restore California classrooms to their former glory. She despaired as she saw her beloved art and music disappear from the schools as money dried up, leaving teachers scrambling for pencils and paper. To Martinez, 41, paintbrushes and pianos weren't luxuries; they were necessities. A professional musician as well as an educator at San Francisco's El Dorado Elementary School, she decided to take things into her own hands. With her own money, she created a CD of songs she sings to her predominantly low-income students, tunes with a bluegrass,...

Nonprofits have long used the honor roll, a list of benefactors prominently displayed, to inspire others to make gifts. In the last school year, seniors at Dartmouth College and Cornell University turned that tactic on its head, creating a sort of dishonor roll of peers who failed to donate to the class gift. At Dartmouth, the lone student in the graduating class who held out, Laura A. DeLorenzo, was excoriated in the student newspaper and on The Little Green Blog, a student Web site, which also ran her picture. Raising the stakes for the student fund-raisers was the potential of...

UC Berkeley’s recent elimination of popular sports programs highlighted endemic problems in the university’s management. Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s eight-year fiscal track record is dismal indeed. He would like to blame the politicians in Sacramento, since they stopped giving him every dollar he has asked for, and the state legislators do share some responsibility for the financial crisis. But not in the sense he means. A competent chancellor would have been on top of identifying inefficiencies in the system and then crafting a plan to fix them. Compentent oversight by the Board of Regents and the legislature would have required him...

Recently, President Obama has been urging Congress to pass legislation that will provide $50 billion in aid to the states to fill budget gaps related to education/teachers, health care, and emergency personnel such as police and firefighters. Specifically, the legislation includes “$23 billion to help prevent teacher layoffs, $25 billion for state health care aid and $2 billion for cops and firefighters.”

Teachers' seniority rights are under fire from public officials and policy experts who say experience and effectiveness don't always go hand in hand. The grip seniority holds on schools has gained attention as money runs short and education leaders, including Cleveland's, slash jobs by the hundreds. Its effects also come into play as urban school districts wrestle with how to place the right teachers in schools serving low-income, or so-called "hard to serve," populations. Cleveland schools Chief Executive Eugene Sanders has acknowledged a desire to dismantle the district's seniority system as part of difficult contract negotiations going on now. Union...

TEANECK, N.J. (CBS) ― Click to enlarge1 of 1 New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie accuses a local district of sending information back home to ask how parents will vote on school budgets. After months of heated debate and angry protests, New Jersey residents woke up Wednesday morning to see that a majority of the proposed school budgets were defeated Tuesday night. In one of those towns – Teaneck – several hundred students held a protest on the high school track. The New Jersey school budget vote will likely be remembered for Governor Chris Christie's deep involvement in the debate, and...

Ronald Reagan said it best. "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" I was reflecting on this quote in light of Washington's plan, as part of "health-care reform," to nationalize all college loans. This is an aspect of the legislation that hasn't received nearly as much attention as it deserves, because it's one of those seemingly innocuous, do-gooder notions that most people just don't understand. Why would a government deeply, hopelessly in debt seek a monopoly on college loans? Obviously, Washington under the rulership of Barack Obama, Nancy...

Gov. Chris Christie is making good on his promise to get tough with New Jersey's $2.2 billion budget gap -- by taking aim at one of the drivers of the state's out-of-control taxes: school budgets. Under Christie's budget, New Jersey's 605 school districts will see their state aid reduced by 5 percent of their last budget. That trims state spending by $820 million, forcing school districts to make deeper cuts or raise property taxes. If it stopped there, Christie's one-time aid cut would do nothing but aggravate property-tax payers. But he's also seeking a constitutional amendment on the November ballot...

The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that not only must the state provide a substantially equal educational opportunity to its youth in its free public elementary and secondary schools, but they must also get an education that will adequately prepare them for college or a job in the real world. ... It's not student to teacher ratios, it's not overall enrollment, it's not computers in the classroom, or dollars spent per student ... it's the median income of residents in the school district. It is the hopes and aspirations of the parents, and the drive to get into a good college...

The Connecticut Supreme Court today at 11:30 a.m. is releasing a long-awaited decision in an education-funding lawsuit brought to establish that children have a right to an "adequate" education, not merely a free and public education. The decision will be accompanied by two dissenting and concurring opinions, indicating a deeply divided court. The justices have been wrestling with this case since 2008. The suit was filed by the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding, which maintains a web site with detailed background, arguments and relevant documents. The coalition's amended complaint can be read here. The plaintiffs call the case,...

MONTGOMERY (AP) — Alabama's prepaid college tuition plan appears unable to pay tuition beyond the fall semester of 2011 and still have enough money to provide refunds to the 44,000 participants, administrators said. For leaders of the Save Alabama PACT parents group, that creates the need for the Legislature to find a solution in the current legislative session. Patti Lambert of Decatur, the group's co-founder, said she would prefer a solution in the Statehouse rather than the courthouse, but members may have no choice but to join a handful of parents who have already sued the state to demand the...

While government leaders attempt to tackle budget deficits that are ballooning to historic proportions, 55% of Americans say the government does not spend enough money on public education. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 20% think the government spends too much on public education, while another 21% say the amount it spends is about right. Sixty-seven percent (67%) of Democrats and 55% of voters not affiliated with either party say the government does not spend enough, a view shared by just 42% of Republicans. Among all voters, 45% believe it is more important for the government...

Fifteen states and the District of Columbia survived the first cut Thursday in the Obama administration's unprecedented $4 billion school reform contest. This Story 15 states, D.C. make first cut in Race to the Top school reform contest R.I. district may reverse firing of high school teachers See our Higher Ed page for college news & admission advice at washingtonpost.com/higher-ed Analysts pointed to some surprises among the finalists, including New York, Ohio and Kentucky. It was also notable that the most populous state, California, missed the cut even though the state's legislature approved a significant school-improvement plan. Federal officials say...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Many teachers and educators across the United States are at risk of losing their jobs in the next few months, the country's education secretary told a meeting of the National Governors Association on Sunday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Many teachers and educators across the United States are at risk of losing their jobs in the next few months, the country's education secretary told a meeting of the National Governors Association on Sunday. "I am very, very concerned about layoffs going into the next school year starting in September. Good superintendents are going to start sending out pink slips in March and April, like a month from now, as they start to plan for their budgets," said Arne Duncan, referring to the slips of paper included in some paychecks to notify a person of being fired....

By TERENCE CHEA SAN FRANCISCO – The nation's public schools are falling under severe financial stress as states slash education spending and drain federal stimulus money that staved off deep classroom cuts and widespread job losses. School districts have already suffered big budget cuts since the recession began two years ago, but experts say the cash crunch will get a lot worse as states run out of stimulus dollars. The result in many hard-hit districts: more teacher layoffs, larger class sizes, smaller paychecks, fewer electives and extracurricular activities, and decimated summer school programs. The situation is particularly ugly in California,...

The state's largest teachers union, which stood against Minnesota's application for millions in federal "Race to the Top" funding, plans a 10-week TV ad campaign to push the Legislature for more funding. Don't cut schools to balance the budget, Education Minnesota will say. But that plea leaves out important context, such as this from our side of the river: 1. During a deep recession, the union drives through $10 million worth of salary and benefit increases. 2. Which amounts to close to half of this year's operating deficit. 3. And then will be followed by TV ads urging the Legislature...

Central Pennsylvania school districts received millions of dollars in federal stimulus funding and were advised to use the money for one-time expenses, since it will last for only two years. But with the tight economy, many districts are using the money to fill gaps that otherwise may have had to be handled by cuts or tax increases. In addition to using the money for operating expenses, Harris said many districts are using the funding for small purchases rather than large-scale projects. Though districts were advised by federal officials on how to use the money, they were not restricted in its...

It happened at least once a year, every year. In a roomful of a dozen Harvard University financial officials, Jack Meyer, the hugely successful head of Harvard’s endowment, and Lawrence Summers, then the school’s president, would face off in a heated debate. The topic: cash and how the university was managing - or mismanaging - its basic operating funds. Through the first half of this decade, Meyer repeatedly warned Summers and other Harvard officials that the school was being too aggressive with billions of dollars in cash, according to people present for the discussions, investing almost all of it with...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Students aren't the only ones benefiting from the billions of new dollars Washington is spending on college aid for the poor. An Associated Press analysis shows surging proportions of both low-income students and the recently boosted government money that follows them are ending up at for-profit schools, from local career colleges to giant publicly traded chains such as the University of Phoenix, Kaplan and Devry.

Title IX Expansions Bethany Stotts, November 20, 2009 During a November 10 press call on “Women Scientists and American Competitiveness,” speakers suggested that Title IX should be used to focus on “educational equity” and not just athletic equity. One speaker stressed, in particular, the importance of reaching out to federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes for Health (NIH), the Department of Defense (DOD), and the Department of Energy (DOE) for additional grant money. (Predoctoral women received 63% of the NIH’s awards in 2007, but only 25% of “competitive faculty grants” that same year, reports...

GRAND RAPIDS -- Gov. Jennifer Granholm told Kent County educators Friday the state's school financing system "clearly is not working" and said lawmakers must agree to both a short-term fix as well as long-term changes by the end of the year. But the gathering of superintendents and school board members also gave Granholm an earful, especially after she said lawmakers are "battle weary." "If elected people are weary, my level of sympathy for them is zilch," Catherine Mueller, Grand Rapids school board president, told Granholm. "They ran for these jobs and put themselves in this situation." Granholm appeared before educators...

Harvard University’s failed bet that interest rates would rise cost the school at least $500 million in payments to escape derivatives that backfired, reports Bloomberg. Harvard paid $497.6 million to investment banks during the fiscal year ended June 30 to get out of $1.1 billion of interest-rate swaps intended to hedge variable-rate debt for capital projects, the school’s annual report said. Harvard said it also agreed to pay $425 million over 30 to 40 years to offset an additional $764 million in swaps. The transactions began losing value last year as central banks slashed benchmark lending rates, forcing the university...

How Harvard Nearly Went Bankrupt After A Rogue Interest Rate Swap Went Very Sour Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/16/2009 17:45 -0500 The school that epitomizes the dangers of groupthink (especially by very intelligent people) and tends to get caught in both the virtues and vices of its own ingeniosity, saw just how expensive hubris can be in 2009. Harvard's endowment dropped 27.3% in 2009 to $27 after hitting roughly $10 billion higher the year before. /snip Yet most notable in the entire report is an interesting story for all those who claim that representing the $200 or so trillion...

Verbotten. story here.

A skirmish between powerful teachers’ unions and President Barack Obama over nearly $5 billion in education spending is shaping up as a preview of the battle to come over No Child Left Behind in Congress early next year. But the tables are turned: now the unions are worried that Obama, a Democratic ally, is going to be just as tough on them as President George W. Bush, a longtime foe.

Harvard University last year lost nearly $2 billion in the cash account it uses to pay for daily operations, by investing the money with its endowment fund instead of keeping it in safer, bank-like accounts. The loss, disclosed today in the university's annual financial report, resulted from Harvard financial executives taking the unusual step of placing a large mount of the university's cash with Harvard Management Co., the entity that runs the school's endowment and invests in stocks, hedge funds and other risky assets. Typically, companies and institutions manage their cash accounts conservatively in order to have funds readily available,...

The debate over No Child Left Behind re-authorization is upon us. Except it isn’t. In his recent speech kicking off the discussion, education secretary Arne Duncan asked not whether the central federal education law should be reauthorized, he merely asked how. Let’s step back a bit, and examine why we should end federal intervention in (and spending on) our nation’s schools… in one thousand words or less:

Tucked away in an $87 billion higher education bill that passed the House last week was a broad new federal initiative aimed not at benefiting college students, but at raising quality in the early learning and care programs that serve children from birth through age 5. The initiative, the Early Learning Challenge Fund, would channel $8 billion over eight years to states with plans to improve standards, training and oversight of programs serving infants, toddlers and preschoolers. The Senate is expected to pass similar legislation this fall, giving President Obama, who proposed the Challenge Fund during the presidential campaign, a...

Harvard’s endowment tumbled 27.3 percent in its latest fiscal year, largely because of problems with its private equity and hedge fund portfolios, lopping off $10 billion and shrinking its portfolio to $26 billion. The loss is the biggest percentage decline at Harvard in 40 years and has prompted a review of how it manages its money and allocates assets. Jane Mendillo, who took over the endowment on July 1, 2008, intends to manage more of the school’s assets directly instead of using outside money managers and to hire additional people to oversee the management by outsiders. In her letter describing...

SEPTEMBER 3, 2009 Students Borrow More Than Ever for College Heavy Debt Loads Mean Many Young People Can't Live Life They Expected By ANNE MARIE CHAKER Students are borrowing dramatically more to pay for college, accelerating a trend that has wide-ranging implications for a generation of young people. New numbers from the U.S. Education Department show that federal student-loan disbursements—the total amount borrowed by students and received by schools—in the 2008-09 academic year grew about 25% over the previous year, to $75.1 billion. The amount of money students borrow has long been on the rise. But last year far surpassed...

Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan praised the federal economic recovery package Wednesday, saying it had saved more than 1,600 jobs in Orange County's public school system alone and 26,000 education jobs across Florida. Speaking at Jackson Middle in Orlando, the two called public school teachers the key to improving the country's economic situation and said many already do excellent work. But they also said that President Barack Obama's administration isn't interested in maintaining the status quo but instead wants to use the unprecedented resources now available as part of the recovery act -- some...