I think that part of the introduction was a reference to their more advanced teaching for high school math, rather than saying that was the purpose of this one, but I could be wrong. This was a review of it from the time.
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I think it’s clear that the kids that actually do the work and get legitimate As and Bs are graduating with a higher level of knowledge in most subjects than in the past, especially the distant past. What worries me is how high that number is. I think the number of kids being pushed to the next grade/graduating without actually doing the work to pass has increased dramatically over the past few decades. If 20% of kids got Fs for years and years and all of a sudden that number is down to 12%, there might be something else behind that besides “kids today are smarter,” don’t you think? It’s part of the reason that a HS degree is becoming worthless. The adjustment to grading that has happened during the pandemic is only going to exacerbate this problem. Under the 88% statistic, kids at least had to show up to pass. Now that isn’t even the case!
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I know this is not necessary representative of the country, but here’s NYC’s performance stats for their schools.
While state officials lauded scoring increases, only 47.4 percent of city students in grades 3 to 8 scored at proficient levels in English and 45.6 percent made the grade in math, according to the numbers.
There’s more in the article if you’re interested, especially how the charter schools are doing very well in absolute terms, not just in comparison to the relatively poor NYC public schools.
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It’s also important to note that it is particularly difficult for English as a second language (ESL) learners to score at a proficient level in basic English (duh) and math until they have become fluent. While there are “dopey” kids that can’t pass algebra scattered all over the country, the ESL kids are clustered more in cities and parts of the suburbs closer to the cities. For instance, my suburb’s schools are drastically different depending on where you live with the general rule that grades and graduation rates are lower the closer you get to the city. While the achievement levels of my suburb’s highest performing students has gone up, the increase in ESL students in other parts of the suburb has actually brought those schools’ achievement levels down. And they haven’t just gone down because those kids are bringing the average down. The fact that teachers have to go slower in classes with more ESL kids is bringing down the achievement levels of the english as a first language kids that are sharing a classroom with the ESL kids. It’s a shame because those kids are from lower income households, so they are the kids that are already behind the 8-ball. These poor kids are being weighed down even further, not by a poor school system, but by their neighbors, while the kids from families able to live further out are succeeding at greater rates.
Above = facts
Below = my political bone to pick
The left won’t admit that their immigration policies are hurting the exact people that they purport to be for. This is more proof that the left has written off blacks as a constituency and that they don’t actually do anything for them because they take their vote for granted. The right is so terrible as messaging that they can’t make this point without sounding racist. And Trump was so simple minded that even though he didn’t care about sounding racist, he never tried to make this point to parents of poor city kids who are dealing with this problem. If he had done a better job at pointing out how his immigration policies were going to improve schools for kids from poor black families, he would have increased his share of the black vote even more.
My hope for the future is that republicans no longer dance around this issue. They are going to be called racist by the left anyway, so might as well make the points and show people in the cities how conservative policies help them more than progressive policies. But first the right has to stop with the attitude that people in the cities are the problem with this country and that people in flyover country are the real Americans. That attitude is extremely toxic and also a recipe for never winning the national popular vote ever again.
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yes indeed
House Democrats last year initially proposed up to $10,000 in student loan forgiveness per borrower as part of their Covid relief proposal, though Democratic leaders significantly scaled back the proposal amid concerns about the price tag.
Separately, the House last year passed an amendment to the annual defense policy bill that would have canceled up to $10,000 of private student loan debt, though it did not survive negotiations with the GOP-controlled Senate, which has been opposed to widespread loan forgiveness. The amendment won a handful of GOP votes in the House, though some moderate Democrats voted against it.
Interesting that they passed private* student loan debt forgiveness. Maybe I shouldn’t be as worried about my FFEL Stafford UHEAA loan being eligible after all.
Between my wife and I this is possibly worth $20K
I wonder if they’re going to have a cutoff in terms of time, or if you’re supposed to get a $10k private student loan from a relative before they pass it, just in case.
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THIS.
Much like the PPP etc I’m sure there will be stipulations. The point of the thread is how to best position yourself, not argue whether they should do it/ merits. It’s going to happen at some point in the Biden admin. esp now with a Cong. majority. I guess most here don’t have student loans. I felt the same way about mortgage “mods” in 2009 etc, but it happened.
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For the moral hazard folks
So it was almost free for boomers, will be free for Gen ZZZ, and we got screwed… I think 10K forgiveness would be great equalizer with tuition waivers
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I think for this to stick, you’d have to have had increased and targeted investment in those inner city school districts to the point where the affected families would notice the difference. Trump had the immigration part in place but I cannot recall anything Devos did that seemed laser focused on improving schools in those districts. It just seems like education is not a big item on recent GOP platforms to be honest. Sure this year was very different with COVID taking a lot of attention away from conventional issues but when was something like “no child left behind” initiative center stage on a GOP platform (not saying that this NCLB policy was successful but at least it was a deliberate attempt).
Honestly, as much as Dems have taken minority voters for granted, it seemed like the GOP has almost written them off entirely by the same token of why bother trying to address their issues since they won’t vote for us. A bit of a chicken and egg problem there.
You touch upon it very appropriately with contrasting flyover country vs cities. The trend of surrendering the cities and suburbs is not promising for getting back the popular vote. As someone who frequently voted for pre-Trump GOP candidates - still do for some in local races-, I wish Republicans focused a bit more on promoting conservative policies that work for city folks too. I’m on board with foreign policy of less direct intervention and more soft power. But I don’t care about 2nd amendment or immigration as much as I care about going back to conservative economic policies - including balanced budgets -, healthcare and entitlement reform, institutional stability, and education on par with Europe or Asia. And if we could cut on conspiracy theories and alternative facts, it’d be awesome too.
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As a side comment, what the heck did it have to do with defense policy? I really hate lawmakers of either side trying to stuff pork or unrelated junk amendments in bills having nothing to do with it.
I’m not sure how I feel about the federal government forcing private debt forgiveness either. If it’s a private loan, isn’t it strictly an issue between lender and borrower? Does the federal government step in if you overpaid on your house or got a bad mortgage rate?
Honestly, in terms of college debt help, I’d like the government to step in by providing low rate loans more widely. Like it created Fanny and Freddy for mortgages, but for education to curb interest rates on private loans in the first place. Considering how hard these student loans are to discharge, is a 9+% fixed-rate private student loan rate really justified?
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They’re gonna be super easy to discharge if our indigenous senator gets her way. See this prior post on that proposal.
I agree with you 99%. Sadly, our old fashioned brand of conservatism has no place in the Republican party at the moment.
But I do want to push back on your characterization of GOP education platforms. The GOP has been consistent on this for years.
- Education is a local issue.
- School choice helps students and is popular with parents (especially black parents) where schools perform poorly.
Top down education mandates are not useful. NCLB and ESSA didn’t have a noticeable effect on student performance. As far as giving money to schools - the spending per student has been going up across the board for decades. Generally speaking (especially in “bad” schools), student achievement is not tied to spending. There was no reason for the GOP or DeVos to focus on “improving” city schools with more money when those schools are already spending record dollars and not getting record achievement. The GOP and DeVos’s goal for improvement was school choice. The immigration enforcement obviously wasn’t part of the education platform, but I propose it will (or would have if it could have been more permanent) have a longer term effect that isn’t immediately noticeable.
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There should be no bailouts or student loan forgiveness unless they are going to eliminate the student loan program.
It is clear that all the government programs to “help” students pay for college have caused the price to skyrocket to the moon, thus it is counterproductive.
Now we are saying that these college degrees did not increase future earnings potential. This is now bad debt that cannot be repaid. That is an admission that these “loans” were a bad investment and should have never been made. The government needs to get out of the student loan business.
Let private lenders determine if someone’s college degree is a worthwhile investment and charge them accordingly based on the risk of it not working out. That will immediately end the $200,000 worthless liberal arts degree nonsense going on and stop people from taking on debt that makes no sense.
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Uhm…
The government made them hard to discharge, thus creating an irresponsible private loan industry. So why is it strictly an issue between lender and borrower?
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It just seemed wrong for the government to step in to forgive private loans. It just looks like a half-baked attempt to remedy a broken system without addressing the cause at all.
My take is that you either go with a private loan system that receives no special treatment (basically personal loans like any other) or a government-backed loan system which aims to be non-profit. But not a mix of both that gets the worst of both systems like we have currently.
I’d probably favor scraping student loan rules and reverting them to personal loans because I think the government-backed loans would further increase college costs for little to no tangible returns. But either system would at least be a self-consistent take on the issue unlike the current system and the loan forgiveness band aid political stunt.
But assuming it applied only to new loans and not existing ones, isn’t that close to the remedy advocated to prevent out of control private lending for degrees not worth it and thus indirectly curbing college costs in the long run?
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Oh no, I’m very sure it would apply to existing loans - that’s the point of giving away government / taxpayer money to the younger voters for their support. I mean, it’s not exactly a progressive talking point that we should throw a bunch of cash at richer, college educated (and god forbid “whiter”) people who have much better than average employment and career prospects.
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Here’s what to expect. Waivers on making any payments and interest for 8 months and then haggling over how much more to give away.
His DOE head is already saying they don’t need congressional authority to wipe out as much federal student debt as they feel like, whether that’s $10k or $50k per person or all of it.
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I’m ok with deferral of federal loans. And it’s not imposed on private loans either. I think as part of stimulus package or support of student who just graduated and are having trouble finding a job because of COVID, it’s valid and something the previous administration had already implemented. Continuation makes sense considering we’re not out of the woods yet in terms of jobs. It’s also not super costly in the big picture of stimulus money.
But needless to say I’m not on board with wiping out all student debt or $50k. That level of debt was not the result of the pandemic but in many cases, the result of poor decisions to take on student debt that was not worth it. We shouldn’t be in business of rescuing incompetent borrowers. We did too much of that already in the mortgage lending crisis. But $50k per student? Where does relinquishing all accountability stop? Not like the borrowers did not know what they were signing off on. And it’d totally be flipping the bird at all responsible borrowers (aka suckers) who repaid their loans as promised, who worked through college to minimize their loan amounts, parents who made sacrifices to pay for parts of their kids college costs, etc. and a signal going forward that paying what you owe is for morons.
That’s a major difference for me. It’s a bait and switch if it applied to existing loans. It becomes a handout. If it only applied to new loans, it’d help reshape the private loan industry first (and force college to lower costs most likely) without costing the taxpayer an arm and a leg. But making it apply to existing loans is again giving away money we don’t have. This is what I’m afraid of with the loss of senate majority. Hopefully there are a few Dem senators with some financial sense who won’t bend under pressure but I’m not very hopeful considering the partisan voting we’ve seen in the last few years…
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Did the DOE head mention the type of loans at all? The payment-deferrals don’t apply to FFEL / Non-DOE Direct loans (which I’m ok with ) but the forgiveness = $20K b/t my wife and I