Education

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Two States Repeal Education Standards

The governors of Oklahoma and South Carolina signed bills within the past week repealing the Common Core state standards, guidelines for children’s achievement in reading and math between kindergarten and high school graduation. Both states had been among the 46 and the District of Columbia that had adopted the standards, written by a group of educators and other experts convened by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. But as resistance grew in their states, lawmakers moved to replace them with standards developed within the states. Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina signed that state’s bill last week, and Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma signed a bill on Thursday that would require educators in the state to set new standards to replace the Common Core.

A Curriculum to Strengthen Students Against Cyberbullying

The Facing History School in New York City takes a unique approach to cyberbullying, based in part on its partnership with Facing History and Ourselves, a professional development organization that integrates the concepts of identity, community, responsibility, decision-making and participation into all aspects of its curriculum. By looking at case studies about social injustices, students try to understand the circumstances and decisions surrounding these events and then relate that back to their own experience and communities.

Last fall, I asked students at the school to describe their experiences with social media and bullying and how their thinking has evolved since freshman year — thanks in large part to their school.

“I would hang out with this group of girls and I guess there were other people that didn’t like my friends so then it turned out that they didn’t like me,” said Dayanara Romero, 17, who experienced bullying during her sophomore year. Now a senior, Ms. Romero, said that at the time she was being called names in school and online. “It’s horrible because they would list it on the Internet,” she said, “so everybody thinks that’s you when in reality they don’t know who you are.” Ms. Romero said she learned to trust the social workers in the school. “They would make meetings with me and those people and that would actually help,” she said.

In the history class that I observed, students were discussing human trafficking. “We don’t maybe see human trafficking here but there are behaviors associated with it, said Mark Otto, 33, assistant principal. “There’s ideas of being a perpetrator, control, power, a victim, that we see,” he said, “and so how do we make those connections for kids and help them understand that there are similar behaviors in different instances.” The students apply the lessons of larger social issues to their own lives.

The curriculum also consists of an advisory period where each grade focuses on a different topic. Meeting four times a week over four years with the same group of students and the same adviser “is designed as a way of saying to students there’s a space in the school for you to stop and think about these issues,” said Daniel Braunfeld, 32, program associate for special projects at Facing History and Ourselves.

In the advisory period I observed, students were watching a video about a young girl who lived in the South during the 1960s and witnessed her parents attacking buses. “When we talk about standing up against injustice and all of our curriculum is surrounded by ways that individuals speak out against the wrongs that are happening, it kind of ingrains in the kids and they become these empathetic individuals,” said Jeffrey Galaise, 32, special ed coordinator and a teacher of English and history.

The ultimate goal is to encourage students to be both good students as well as civic participants. “Cyberbullying is an amazing case study because it doesn’t happen inside of the walls of the school,” Mr. Braunfeld said. “So what we are hoping will happen is that the students are being given the tools and the perspective and the lens to look outside of their school community and say this is something that is happening to members of my community that is wrong and I have the tools to be able to address that.”

Obama Plans Steps to Ease Student Debt

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Monday will take executive actions to ease the burden of college loan debt for potentially millions of Americans, in a White House event coinciding with Senate Democrats’ plans for legislation to address a concern of many voters in this midterm election year.

Before an East Room audience, Mr. Obama is scheduled to announce “new steps to further lift the burden of crushing student loan debt,” said a White House official, who declined to be identified describing the actions in advance of the president’s event. Despite past actions by the administration, borrowers’ debt load is growing and retarding the ability to buy homes, start businesses or otherwise spend to spur the economy, economists say.

Mr. Obama’s main action will be to expand on a 2010 law that capped borrowers’ repayments at 10 percent of their monthly income. The intent is to extend such relief to an estimated five million people with older loans who are currently ineligible — those who got loans before October 2007 or stopped borrowing by October 2011. But the relief would not be available until December 2015, officials said, given the time needed for the Education Department to propose and put new regulations into effect.

Also, Mr. Obama will announce that the department will renegotiate contracts with companies that service federal loans to give them additional financial incentives to help borrowers avoid delinquency or default. The Education and Treasury Departments are to work with the nation’s largest tax-preparation firms, H&R Block and Intuit Inc., to ensure that borrowers are aware of repayment options and tax credits for college tuition.

The president said in January, in his State of the Union address, that he would use his “pen and phone” to take executive actions and enlist private institutions on matters when disputes with congressional Republicans block legislation.

But legislation generally is more far-reaching, so Mr. Obama will also urge passage of a measure that the Democratic-led Senate plans to take up this week. He plans to discuss the proposal at his Monday event and in a Tuesday question-and-answer session about student loan debt on the Tumblr social-networking website.

The Senate bill, sponsored by Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, would allow an estimated 25 million Americans to refinance student loans, federal and private, at lower interest rates. Reduced interest payments would cost the government about $58 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office, but the legislation would raise $72 billion by imposing a new tax on some high-income individuals.

Because of the tax and the bill’s overall cost, it is unclear whether Democrats can muster enough Republican support to get the 60 votes needed. Even if they succeed, the Republican-controlled House is likely to ignore the measure.

Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, a Senate Democratic leader who worked with the White House on the issue, said, “Even though our bill goes further, the president’s action means something will be done even if Republicans block it.”

In his weekly address, Mr. Obama defined the choice before Congress in political terms: “Protect young people from crushing debt, or protect tax breaks for millionaires.”

About $1 trillion in federal student loans or loan guarantees is outstanding, on top of more than $100 billion in outstanding private student loans that are not federally guaranteed, the Congressional Budget Office reported. While economists argue that a postsecondary education is an investment that pays off, average tuition at four-year public colleges has more than tripled over the past three decades, according to the administration, and 71 percent of those who graduated with a bachelor’s degree carried debt, which averaged $29,400.

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