education

Supreme Court agrees to hear student debt forgiveness case

Published

10 months ago

December 5, 2022

Six Republican-led states which are challenging the Biden admministration’s student loan forgiveness program will be heading to the Supreme Court.

Earlier this month a federal appeals court in St. Louis sided with Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina, and issued an injunction blocking the plan to provide up to $20,000 in student-loan relief money to millions of individuals.

The Biden administration subsequently asked the Supreme Court to intervene. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar asked the Supreme Court to lift the injunction.

“The Eighth Circuit’s erroneous injunction leaves millions of economically vulnerable borrowers in limbo, uncertain about the size of their debt and unable to make financial decisions with an accurate understanding of their future repayment obligations,” Prelogar, told the Supreme Court in a filing.

Prelogar told the court that if it denied relief, it should agree to consider the merits of the case instead.

CBS News reports:

The court said in a brief order that it will hear arguments in February, but will keep the program on hold for now. Last week, President Biden extended his pause on federal student loan payments until June 30, 2023, to give the court time to consider the dispute.

“We welcome the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case on our student debt relief plan for middle and working class borrowers this February,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “This program is necessary to help over 40 million eligible Americans struggling under the burden of student loan debt recover from the pandemic and move forward with their lives. The program is also legal, supported by careful analysis from administration lawyers.”

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education

Parents, advocates call on leaders to step down after ZERO children pass math at 13 Baltimore state schools

Published

11 hours ago

September 27, 2023

Sara Carter Staff

How long will leaders who let our children down blame Covid-19 for their failures? Anger swept across Baltimore, Maryland, after not a single student passed their state math exams, and almost 75 percent testing at the lowest possible score.

The Daily Mail reports “The poor performances came in the latest round of Maryland‘s state testing, where 13 high schools in the city – a staggering 40 percent – failed to produce a single student with a ‘proficient’ score in math.” Baltimore City Schools not only received $1.6 billion last year from taxpayers, but the school district also received $799 million in Covid relief funding from the federal government.

“So, it’s not a funding issue. We’re getting plenty of funding,” said Jason Rodriguez, deputy director of Baltimore-based nonprofit People Empowered by the Struggle, to Fox Baltimore. “I don’t think money is the issue. I think accountability is the issue…This is educational homicide, there is no excuse for the failure, which has come after years of warnings over the city’s poor education standards,” added Rodriguez.

A bombshell study published this month by the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) found that 16 million students were chronically absent during the pandemic. “The millions of students had missed more than 10 percent of schools days during the 2021-22 year, twice the number seen in previous years. More than eight in 10 public schools also reported stunted behavioral and social-emotional development in their students due to the pandemic, according to a May survey cited in the report.”

However, six years ago a similar report by Project Baltimore found that 13 schools in the city had zero students test ‘proficiently’ in math. An almost identical finding. “We’re still dealing with these same issues year after year,” Rodriguez continued. “It’s just scary to me and alarming to me because we know that what’s happening now, you know, it’s just opening up the floodgates to the school-to-prison pipeline. I’m beyond angry… This is why we’ve been calling for the resignation of the school CEO.”

Daily Mail notes that Rodriguez’s group has previously held rallies over the mounting educational crisis in the city, and in 2021 led calls for Baltimore City Schools CEO Dr. Sonja Santelises to resign over low test scores and falling graduation rates.