I will talk education policy this week. I had a conversation this weekend with a local lady with the in on what it is like to be a college grad with student loan debt in Baltimore and that includes being tied to working for debt forgiveness for 10 years in corporations like Johns Hopkins that pay so low a wage as to send most employees working for them into poverty----that is what Baltimore's black market and high poverty is about-----Hopkins' push for all public policy leading to the lowest wage for citizens working in Baltimore and especially for them as the leading employer.
We talked of a college grad in Physical Therapy---PT----required by PT boards to have a Master's Degree plus extra certification to become a PT and all that leaving degree holders with hundreds of thousands of student loan debt. Before Clinton neo-liberalism ------social Democratic economic policy had college grads finding strong salaries at graduation in either their field or in a management level position. Now, with corporate universities----the goal becomes using students as free labor and then keeping them tied to the corporate plantation working for little or nothing for years. THIS IS CALLED THE INDENTURED SERVANT OR THE DARK AGES LIFE-LONG APPRENTICESHIP.
This is the education policy that Obama and Clinton neo-liberals pretended was 'progressive' in relieving the burden of student debt that should never have been so high to begin.
As an aside----I walk by a homeless man in my neighborhood who cannot get housing because his Social Security has been attached to student loan debt and he is victim of the Federal Student loan department being outsourced to Wall Street credit collection corporations that are known full of fraud and predatory collections and fee fraud. So, this is affecting all sides of the process of American families wanting and needing Federal student loans, grants, and scholarships and it is deliberate----global pols do not intend for 90% of Americans to access what was the best higher education institutions in the world for centuries-----
Cities look at subsidized housing to stem teacher shortages
SAN FRANCISCO — As the days get shorter, first grade teacher Esmeralda Jiménez watches the dimming afternoon sky outside her classroom window the way her pupils watch the clock at dismissal time.
The studio apartment Jiménez rents for $1,783 a month, or 43 percent of her salary, is located in one of San Francisco's sketchiest neighborhoods. Getting home involves running a gauntlet of feces-strewn sidewalks, popping crack pipes, discarded needles and menacing comments — daily irritants that become more daunting after dark.
"If I lived in a better area, I wouldn't feel so scared going home and I would be able to stay at school a little longer," Jiménez, 26, said. "You have so many things to do to prep for the next day, but it's gotten to the point where even if I leave at a decent time I will walk three blocks out of my way to avoid some streets."
It's a scenario that has Jiménez wondering if she should find a profession that pays more, and public officials here and in other cities looking at housing as a tool to prevent the exodus of young educators like her.
Inspired by the success in the heart of the Silicon Valley of a 70-unit teachers-only apartment complex, school districts in high cost-of-living areas and rural communities that have long struggled to staff classrooms are considering buying or building rent-subsidized apartments as a way to attract and retain teachers amid concerns of a looming shortage.
IN BALTIMORE THESE UNITS ARE GOING TO TEACH FOR AMERICA BECAUSE BALTIMORE IS CONTROLLED BY VERY RIGHT-WING PRIVATIZERS LIKE JOHNS HOPKINS.
Housing costs especially have become a point of friction for teachers in expensive cities such as Seattle, where teachers who went on a one-week strike in September said they could not afford to live in the same city as they children they teach.
In San Francisco, where many of Jiménez's colleagues have roommates or long commutes, addressing the affordability crisis for teachers was one of the main selling points of a housing bond voters approved in November, the first to pass in a generation.
About $35 million of the $310 million to be raised has been earmarked for construction of up to 100 new apartments on surplus land owned by the San Francisco Unified School District. The units would be rented at below-market rates to the district's 3,500 teachers and 1,600 classroom aides, who also would be eligible for new rental housing allowances and home down payment loans aimed at reducing living costs for another 300 educators, Deputy Superintendent Nyong Leigh said.
"Each one of these ideas would reach some modest number, but in aggregate it would hopefully make a difference," Leigh said.
Officials in the Roaring Fork School District in western Colorado, which serves three mountain towns in the valley that houses Aspen's posh ski resorts, similarly leveraged a $122 million school construction bond on the November ballot to secure $15 million for subsidized teacher rentals.
The district hopes to acquire 15 to 20 apartments in each of the three towns, enough to house at least 10 percent of its 450 teachers, Assistant Superintendent Shannon Pelland said. In an area where the average home sells for $630,000 and the average teacher makes $47,000, housing costs are "without a doubt the number one reason we lose teachers and it's the number one reason people turn down jobs," Pelland said.
"Our typical pattern with teachers is they come to the valley, it's an absolutely beautiful place, it's a great lifestyle with wonderful recreational opportunities, and they are willing to live with roommates and do whatever they have to do to make it work for four or five years," she said. "And right at that 5-year mark we see a lot of them saying, 'This is great for a while, but I'll never be able to afford a home here or make it work here, I'm moving on.'"
School districts in Oakland, Milwaukee, Odessa, Texas, and Ashville, North Carolina, also have apartment projects for teachers in the works. The Los Angeles Unified School District this year opened its first apartment complex on school grounds for district employees and has two more under construction.
Stockton Williams, executive director of the Urban Land Institute's Terwilliger Center for Housing, said the concern over teachers being priced out of the communities they serve reflects an inadequate supply of new rental housing designed for middle-income workers instead of the high end of the market.
"It's not just a San Francisco-New York-Seattle story. It's in many cities, large and small, and in most parts of the country," Williams said.
Officials in Santa Clara, California, found a workable formula more than a decade ago that other school districts in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond still are trying to replicate. Working with a private developer under a tax-exempt financing scheme, the school district built 70 apartments between 2002 and 2009 that collectively are known as Casa del Maestros, Spanish for "house of the teachers."
When kindergarten teacher Katy Howser moved into a one-bedroom apartment there 6 ½ years ago, she was a 23-year-old living with her parents while she paid off her student college loans and credit card debt. The teachers-only complex was all she could afford, but having other educators as neighbors turned out to be more than a financial advantage.
"Everyone has the same common courtesy for each other," Howser said. "There are technically quiet hours, but it's not ever really loud. Everyone just wants to come home and be quiet because we have to be loud all day."
Now married and expecting her first child, Howser and her husband pay $1,700 a month for a two-bedroom apartment, at least $1,000 less than for a comparable place in the area. They will have to move out in June because tenants can only stay for seven years. Howser hopes they will have saved enough for a down payment on a house by then.
"The fact that our district sees enough value us in teachers to make a way for us to be here says a lot," Howser said. "It tends to be a relatively thankless job, and if you can't afford to live, you can't afford to stay."
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If you are not being tied to corporations like Johns Hopkins paid pultry wages for 10 years to gain student loan debt forgiveness----you are a teacher or school administrator also dealing with this same debt being tied to installing all of the right-wing corporatization policies from Obama and Bush through Race to the Top-----meaning---making global corporations more profitable.
Baltimore is one of the most corporate and right-wing of education policies because Baltimore pols push all of a very, very, very neo-conservative Johns Hopkins' education policies that are as repressive as all its policies. So, the subsidized housing for teachers in Baltimore goes to TEACH FOR AMERICA employees again, trying to do what is called apprenticeship work before simply starting a career---replacing all of the community teachers in Baltimore's underserved communities that knew how to create a save place in classrooms and learning skills for children from the most difficult of living environments. Now, people are simply brought to Baltimore having no connection to poverty---no connection to what experiences children have in these communities---and no idea of how to address all this. So, often these Teach for America serve a few years and leave---creating a revolving door in schools with students needing stability the most.
Again, this is all tied to the education policy that makes apprenticeships out of what was a strong, well-paying career for people with a passion for teaching.
Below you see an administrator's day-----with many connections to outsourced education non--profits that come in with their own idea of what a school needs----with parents and students often left with feeling the need to go along to get along.
In Baltimore there were public schools that required principals to pay their own salaries back to their schools at year's end-----often ten to twenty thousand in a sign of good faith to Baltimore's corporate school board. Of course they quit soon after.
Is working for a PRIVATE corporation like Hopkins or a national charter chain really PUBLIC SERVICE?
Public service debt forgiveness: The most widely available program pays off remaining debt for those who have already worked in a public service profession for 10 years while paying down their debt. The catch? You must pay on your loans for 10 years while working in a qualifying profession. If you quit your qualifying job at nine years and 11 months, you're out of luck. And if you're able to pay off your debts completely in 10 years, you also don't get any help.
The article below is long but it is worth glancing through to see what these K-12 administrators are doing for far lower salaries.
'Dana Butler is one of only 30 CPS principals to have put in at least 12 years at the same school. He says he never knows what each day will entail'.
Catalyst Chicago
18 mins ·
A day in the life of a veteran CPS principal
17 mins ago
Photo by Michelle Kanaar
Dana Butler, principal of Irma C. Ruiz Elementary School in Pilsen, takes a phone call in his office. His walls are decorated with memorabilia of family and former students.
By Stephanie Choporis
One constant in decades of school improvement efforts in Chicago is a recognition that principals play a pivotal role. Good principals are magnets for good teachers, good programs and support from parents and the larger community.
CPS, colleges of education and nonprofit education organizations have conducted a variety of principal preparation programs over the years. And now two reports – one on the early implementation of a 2010 law on principal training and the other on principal turnover – have again sharpened the focus.
To see what these and other policy initiatives aim to produce, Catalyst’s Stephanie Choporis spent a day with Dana Butler, the long-time principal of Ruiz Elementary, a school with impressive statistics on teacher retention and student achievement.
Dana Butler, principal of Ruiz Elementary in Pilsen, thinks of his job as an “incredible balancing act.” From making daily classroom visits to helping students cross the street, Butler wears many hats and sometimes actually changes clothes a couple times a day.
7:50 a.m.
Butler sits at his desk and reaches for a tissue to dab his brow. The school day hasn’t officially started, and he is already sweating.
While students and several teachers are still filing in 10 minutes before the bell rings, Butler has been here since 6 a.m. And his day started even earlier: A little after 4 a.m., he was checking text messages, emails and Twitter updates from his apartment in Beverly. At 5:18 a.m., a teacher texted him to see if the 8th-graders could still go on a field trip, despite losing one chaperone. David “Mac” MacWilliams, a former Ruiz teacher who now volunteers at the school, cut his hand on a power saw and was being kept at a hospital overnight for observations.
“We’re huge on supervision,” says Butler, noting that the 8th-graders had enough chaperones even without MacWilliams.
On this particular Friday -- Nov. 20, 2015 -- three of the school’s 50 teachers and two of its roughly 16 educational support personnel (ESP) are absent. He considers this a “soft” number but still was able to get only two replacement teachers and one educational support person, despite keeping a “bank” of substitutes.
When he comes up short, he looks for Ruiz teachers whose schedules can accommodate another class, and if necessary, he steps in to lead the class himself.
“You’d be hard-pressed to find a principal who’s never done it,” he says.
Minutes later, office clerk Patricia “Patty” Urbano pops in to tell Butler that a concerned parent would like to speak with him. He agrees to take the call.
His desk phone rings. “Good morning, Mr. Butler. May I help you?” the 53-year-old principal says in a voice slightly deeper and more serious than his typically jolly tone. “Well, thank you. Thank you. We love our school, and we try to do our absolute best.” His voice is now back to normal. The parent on the line is considering placing her son at Ruiz.
Meanwhile, Michael Micek, a dean and 7th-grade teacher, hovers in the doorway and then comes in to chat about a former student who is transitioning back into the school after a long absence. As Micek leaves, Butler asks whether he has heard about MacWilliams’ hospitalization. The injury is the topic of conversation for much of the morning.
Dana Butler stands in the doorway of his office. He started working at Ruiz 27 years ago as a teacher and rose up the ranks to assistant principal and then principal.
8 a.m.
With a blue tooth device around his neck for answering cell phone calls, Butler walks to a second-floor classroom to check on handouts to be discussed at two professional development meetings for middle-grades teachers. The first meeting is scheduled to start in 20 minutes. Normally, there is only one such meeting in any given day. But due to report card pick-up day earlier in the week, Butler says they have to double up.
Heading for Room 202, he bumps into Martin Robles, an attendance clerk, who is greeting students as they enter the building.
“I got Mac’s spot,” Butler tells Robles, referring to the after-school cooking class for 4th-graders that MacWilliams helps supervise -- Butler will be filling in for MacWilliams.
After he learns that copies of the handouts are ready, Butler walks through the hallways and greets students.
“Hi, Mr. Butler,” exclaims a little girl sitting with a group outside of a classroom. “I like your outfit.” She’s referring to Butler’s gray button-down shirt, black suede jacket, bow tie with white polka dots and black suede shoes topped with silver ornamentation.
“Thank you,” he responds. “I dressed myself.”
Photo by Michelle Kanaar
Dana Butler removes his bow tie prior to joining a fourth grade class in the school's community garden.
Butler continues to greet students, giving some high-fives and others hugs. He says he’s not a morning person or a coffee-drinker but will play SongPop, a music trivia game, on his Samsung Galaxy 5 cell phone in the morning to get energized and stay “sane.”
“Give your mom a goodbye hug and you run on up. ... Abrazo,” he tells another girl. Abrazo is the Spanish word for “hug.”
Butler, who is African American, picked up the Spanish language and culture while studying in Mexico during his time at Central State University. Former Local School Council Chair Sergio Ramirez -- who sent four of his seven children to Ruiz -- says Butler’s dedication to Latino students is “unbelievable,” especially since “there’s so much division in … communities.”
According to CPS data, 96 percent of Ruiz’s students are Latino and 92 percent are considered low-income. Nearly 30 percent are learning to speak English-- almost double the district average.
8:25 a.m.
The first professional development meeting begins, as several teachers discuss how they are incorporating collaborative discussions and writing into their subject areas. Ana Salinas, who teaches math, says she has started giving her students math-related writing prompts, and Heidi Grozdic reports that her students are now able to sit and write for longer periods of time.
“That’s huge,” says Butler. Meetings like these take place once a week, and “help guide instruction and make sure that the grade levels are basically doing the same thing,” he says.
With his laptop and cell phone by his side, Butler checks both frequently. By the end of the roughly 45-minute meeting, he has received 10 text messages and five emails -- none of them personal.
9:25 a.m.
As the second meeting for middle-grades teachers gets under way, Butler notes the presence of Denise Escota, one of three special education teachers at Ruiz who are bilingual. He calls this a “rarity”-- which state data confirm -- and says he is “blessed” to have them.
About 11 percent of Ruiz’s 781 students are in special education, and the faculty includes seven special education teachers.
Photo by Michelle Kanaar
Dana Butler meets with Adriana Casas, who teaches sixth- and seventh-grade science, and other teachers during a regular professional development meeting.
As the meeting continues, science teacher Adriana Casas shares information about a student who has performed poorly on tests and might need special education services. She suggests that the student may simply have test anxiety instead.
Casas is one of three teachers who were students at Ruiz and had Butler as a teacher. Student teachers also return as full-fledged teachers, and staff members and former students enroll their children. Illinois State Board of Education data show Ruiz had a 97 percent teacher retention rate for 2015, while the district average was 81 percent.
“It’s a family,” Butler says. “I’ve always felt like I was part of a community and part of a team and part of a system … that really cared about students.”
Ruiz received a coveted Level-1 ranking this year under the district’s school rating system, which Butler says is a first for the school since he’s been there.
10:20 a.m.
Photo by Michelle Kanaar
Dana Butler photographs fourth graders in the school’s community garden as Sam Koentopp of The Kitchen Community (R) tells them how to properly pull weeds and arugula leaves.
Butler has just a few minutes before heading outside to help supervise a class of fourth-graders in the school’s community garden. In 2011, Ruiz students and faculty were honored at the White House for achieving gold status in First Lady Michelle Obama’s HealthierUS School Challenge. Less than a year later, Ruiz became one of six CPS schools to receive a learning garden from The Kitchen Community, a nonprofit that runs the garden initiative across the country. Today, the students will plant garlic cloves and harvest arugula and dill.
Just outside his office, the 6-foot-2 principal sheds his suit jacket and bow tie and slips on a gray Ruiz T-shirt and brown coat. “When I was in college … there was this contest to see how quickly you could get dressed out of a suit,” he says. “I was able to do it in 50 seconds.”
10:30 a.m.
Out in the cold, windy garden area, Butler throws hoods over children’s heads as they listen to Sam Koentopp of The Kitchen Community. As students begin pulling weeds, Butler adopts a more serious persona, keeping everyone in line.
12:10 p.m.
“Hey Vero, how ya doin’?” Butler is back in his office ordering lunch for himself and a few faculty members from Miceli’s Deli & Food Mart, a sandwich shop about a block away. Although Butler says he typically doesn’t take time for lunch, he sometimes makes exceptions.
“Are the golden girls over there?” He’s referring to a group of elderly patrons who frequent the deli and fill him in on happenings in the neighborhood while he awaits his order. Butler says it’s important for him to visit from time to time, simply because it’s part of the community.
“Everything that you are doing that impacts children is important,” he says. “The guy who lives across the street, who doesn’t have any children … is important.”
Ten minutes later, he grabs his walkie-talkie and heads for a nearby alley. He says he uses this less-traveled route to the sandwich shop so he can check for graffiti.
At Miceli’s, he’s greeted by workers and points out the table his “golden girls” usually claim. He has frequented the deli since his days as a teacher but in recent years has rarely found the time. This year, though, he’s already dropped by four times.
“I’m better, right, Vero?” he asks cashier Veronica Malinowski. “Yeah,” she exclaims. “Last year, I didn’t see him at all.”
Photo by Michelle Kanaar
Dana Butler picks up lunches, including his chicken salad sandwich, from Stacee Tolbert and Irene Hogue at Miceli’s Deli & Food Mart.
12:50 p.m.
Back in his office, Butler pops open a bottle of cranberry juice and bites into his chicken salad sandwich. He is surrounded by memorabilia, including family photos from his childhood and old class pictures from when he was a teacher. A shelf of blue binders contain work by former students.
In one photo, Butler is posing with a former student on her wedding day. He was her partner for the father-daughter dance.
As Butler eats his lunch, a new recess supervisor and an office clerk drop in. He then gets on the phone to ask an office clerk to encourage a parent to pick up her three children’s report cards by 5:30 p.m. He is shooting for a 100-percent pick-up rate, and she’s the only parent left to go. When he hangs up, he places a partially-filled water bottle on top of his head and puts his hands together as if praying. He says he sometimes does this to achieve balance during a hectic day.
Dana Butler's large Snoopy collection stands in memory of his late brother, who read him Peanuts books while growing up. "[Snoopy] says a whole lot, but he never says a word," Butler says.
Butler once had two assistant principals, but one retired a couple of years ago, and he and the other assistant principal, Marla Elitzer, took on extra work.
“She’s just the greatest thing since sliced bread,” Butler says of Elitzer, whom he has worked with for about 25 years. And as much as Butler would like to have a second assistant principal, he says it is more important to put available funding into opportunities for students.
This year, Ruiz’s enrollment dropped by 58 students, spelling a loss of nearly $463,500 in funding, one of the hardest hit schools in Pilsen. But with one teacher retiring, Butler had to lay off only one educational support person. Recently, he petitioned to reopen that slot and learned on Christmas Eve that the CPS administration had granted the request.
Enrollment at Ruiz has dropped nearly every year since 2005, which Butler attributes to fewer students enrolling in district-run schools and neighborhood gentrification. He notes that fewer families are moving into the neighborhood. And research has shown that Pilsen is no longer a top destination for immigrant families, as they are choosing instead to reside in the suburbs.
But Butler doesn’t dwell on what he doesn’t have. He has instead found ways to be resourceful, such as encouraging staff to become licensed so they can step into administrative roles. He says he has at least 10 staff members who are eligible to apply for such positions.
Similarly, to stretch his dollars further, he has hired college students to help with such activities as tutoring, chaperoning on field trips and answering the phones. He now has 12 such part-time aides, who together cost less than four teacher aides would.
2:10 p.m.
Butler takes about 20 minutes to visit classrooms during the last hour of the school day. When he stops by the fourth-grade class that worked in the garden, he’s presented with a stack of thank you letters to be delivered to Koentopp. He also makes sure to stop by Room 316, where he spent much of his time while teaching.
3 p.m.
Butler switches into gym shoes, grabs a hand-held stop sign and heads out to the corner of Leavitt and 24th streets for crossing guard duty. He smiles, greets people he recognizes and jokes with recent graduates.
He says the school’s previous crossing guard was recently moved, so he sometimes takes on the responsibility. “Every physical body that could be out there monitoring the dismissal of the kids are out there,” he says.
Dana Butler helps students and parents cross the street at the end of the day.
3:15 p.m.
Inside the school cafeteria, Butler dons an apron that reads “The Grillfather” for the 4th-grade after-school cooking class. Chef instructor Alekka Sweeney of Common Threads informs the excited students that Butler will be supervising in MacWilliams’ place.
Photo by Stephanie Choporis
Dana Butler helps his group of fourth-graders measure ingredients for a Senegalese soup in an after-school cooking class.
Common Threads is a nonprofit that partners with schools to teach children about nutrition and cooking. Each week for 10 weeks, students cook dishes from a different country. This week it’s Senegal, with mashed sweet potatoes, plantain chips and Egusi soup. Butler’s group is responsible for the soup.
As he watches his group mince peppers and helps them stir the soup, he admits that much of what he has learned about cooking has come from this program.
“You have to work real hard to be a bachelor this long,” he jokes about his culinary skills.
5:10 p.m.
Butler walks back to the main office to see whether those final three report cards will be picked up. He greets a mother holding a piece of paper, laughs loudly and gives her a hug.
“You know what that hug was?” he asks the woman. “That was a 100-percent hug ‘cause now I got 100-percent report card pick-up. Bam!”
This means that all students' report cards had been picked up within two days of parent conferences. Butler thinks that only four schools achieved 100 percent last spring.
6:30 p.m.
Butler grabs his dry cleaning out of a closet, where he keeps a suit, extra ties and waterproof boots, and heads out to his black, “beat-down” 2004 Chevy Monte Carlo. His official work day is finally over, and he leaves behind only the custodians. For the rest of the evening, he plans to “detox,” and maybe he will cook dinner.
But there’s a good chance he will still do some school-related tasks, such as return phone calls.
“This job, for me, never stops,” he says. “It just keeps going.”
Dana Butler is one of only 30 CPS principals to have put in at least 12 years at the same school. He says he never knows what each day will entail.
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Is working for a PRIVATE corporation like Hopkins or a national charter chain really PUBLIC SERVICE?
Again, posing progressive global pols are making this corporate education policy sound as if it is addressing social concerns when in fact most college grads are simply sent to work for corporations -----not providing public service.
As the article below shows-----in the small print of legislation hundreds of pages long -------you are literally indentured for 10 years----you cannot have a gap in employment so this sets the stage for exploitation of that worker-----not surprisingly this is what immigrants accessing education are facing the most and it is harder for immigrants to stay with a job because they are abused the most.
TIED TO A CORPORATE PLANTATION---THAT IS WHAT OBAMA AND CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS PASSED WITH THIS STUDENT LOAN DEBT FORGIVENESS.
This is what the the young adults in the US are facing today and it was all planned-----Clinton and Bush tied what was a Federal Student Loan agency that attached loans to students in ways that made sure they could pay----to subpriming this Federal agency handing it to private Wall Street banks that then loaned far too much money to students knowing they would not be able to pay. Remember the mantra during the Bush years? They kept saying----YOU WILL NEED A GRADUATE DEGREE TO GET A JOB ------all designed to push people wanting to get a degree beyond what they could handle.
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'The catch? You must pay on your loans for 10 years while working in a qualifying profession. If you quit your qualifying job at nine years and 11 months, you're out of luck. And if you're able to pay off your debts completely in 10 years, you also don't get any help'
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PERSONAL FINANCE
Wiping out teachers' student loan debt
Programs abound for educators who need help paying off their loans, but the requirements can be narrow and just finding them is a chore.
February 14, 2010|Kathy M. Kristof | Personal Finance
If you are a teacher in debt, there's good news and bad news.
There are literally dozens of programs that could potentially help wipe out your student loans. But most of them have narrow requirements that may lock you out.
Just ask Troy Dale, a high school counselor from Ellis, Kan. He and his wife have $23,000 in student loans that they've been paying down for nearly a decade. At their current rate, they'll still be paying off their student debts when their oldest child enrolls in college.
That realization sent Dale on a wide-ranging search to find some sort of debt forgiveness plan that could help his family. He found plenty of programs, including a national debt forgiveness program for public service workers and one specifically for schoolteachers.
But in each case, he missed the qualification standards by a fraction. To qualify, Dale and his wife, Jessica, would either have to teach different subjects or switch schools.
"It's really frustrating that there is just nothing out there for us," Dale said. "We're not exactly knocking the top of the roof off with our salaries."
Though Dale was frustrated, he did what every teacher and public service employee ought to do. He kept looking, said Edie Irons, communications director for the Institute for College Access and Success.
There are an ever-expanding number of programs that can help some indebted graduates pay off their loans, but the programs aren't necessarily widely advertised or understood. You have to search for them.
"There is still a lot of outreach that needs to be done," Irons said. "You shouldn't have to go on a treasure hunt to find them. But there is no national repository of all this information."
What programs are available for the nation's 3.5 million school teachers?
Public service debt forgiveness: The most widely available program pays off remaining debt for those who have already worked in a public service profession for 10 years while paying down their debt. The catch? You must pay on your loans for 10 years while working in a qualifying profession. If you quit your qualifying job at nine years and 11 months, you're out of luck. And if you're able to pay off your debts completely in 10 years, you also don't get any help.
This program provides only back-end help that kicks in after you've followed all the rules for 10 full years, said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org and FastWeb.com.
Still, the program could be invaluable if you are highly indebted and committed to public service work -- whether that's being a public defender, a teacher or a clerk at the Department of Motor Vehicles. If you qualify, every dollar of federal student debt that remains after 10 years is wiped out.
Who qualifies: anyone who works for the government -- state, federal or local; employees of nonprofit organizations operating under tax code section 501(c)(3), and those who work for the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps. In addition, if you provide services to the disabled, work in early-childhood education or public service law, you may also qualify, even if you work for a for-profit company. More information: www.IBRinfo.org.
Federal Perkins loan cancellation: This program, which pays off Perkins loans over five years, is specifically designed for teachers who serve low-income families or who teach specific subjects or populations, such as special-needs students.
The U.S. Department of Education maintains a list of public school districts in low-income neighborhoods, which you can find at www.tcli.ed.gov. (TCLI stands for Teacher Cancellation Low Income.)
If your school is not in a low-income district, you may still qualify for the program if you teach learning-disabled students or teach certain subjects full time, including math, science, a foreign language or bilingual education.
If you qualify, this program will pay off 100% of your Perkins loans (they're a specific type of student loan offered to needy students) over a five-year period. It eliminates 15% of your loan balance in the first year; another 15% in the second year; 20% in the third and fourth years; and the final 30% in year five.
Stafford loan forgiveness: If you have Stafford loans (the most common type of student loan), there's a separate program that can pay off up to $17,500 of your loan balance.
Many of the qualifications are similar to the Perkins cancellation program. However, if you don't teach in a low-income school, the requirements are a bit stricter about what you're teaching and how well you're qualified, Kantrowitz said.
In simple terms, this means that you must be state-certified and teaching in the subject area that you studied. In some cases, you also must pass a test.
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Remember last decade when older Americans were encouraged to go back to college to make their degrees current and more related to today's market----well, they did and as with the young adult grads----they are not able to get jobs. Now these older adults are aging into Social Security or if you are on SS Disability ----you are now being attacked by predatory Wall Street debt collectors as I said openly known to be acting fraudulently. So, the homeless man in my neighborhood trying to work with a lawyer to get these collection agencies and fees off his record-----faces an impossibility as the Federal Student Loan Department under Arne Duncan and Obama protects the Wall Street collectors from any justice for citizens. IT IS CRAZY STUFF.
Think what Obama is proposing as Social Security monthly checks have lost hundreds of dollars from monthly payments because of FED's manipulated Cost of Living created the first time ever seniors lost money from SS checks-----rather than get those hundreds back on senior's monthly payments----Obama is doing a one time payment of $500 to SS just before the coming 2016 elections-----AND OBAMA SEIZES THAT $500 FOR ANYONE HAVING A STUDENT LOAN DEFAULT----IT GOES RIGHT TO WALL STREET COLLECTORS.
The homeless man in my neighborhood fighting off attacks from Student Loan predatory credit collectors WILL DIE ON THE STREETS AS WINTER TURNS COLD.
Thu Sep 25, 2014 10:10am EDT
Related: Money
It happens: Seniors with student debt - and smaller Social Security checks
CHICAGO | By Mark Miller
It's a rude awakening for a growing number of seniors: They file for Social Security, then discover that the federal government plans to take part of their benefit to pay off delinquent student loans, tax bills, child support or alimony.
This month the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released findings on the problem of rising student debt burdens among retirees - and how the government goes after delinquent borrowers by going after wages, tax refunds and Social Security checks.
Under federal law, benefits can be attached and seized to pay child support and alimony obligations, collection of overdue federal taxes and court-ordered restitution to victims of crimes. Benefits also can be attached for any federal non-tax debt, including student loans.
It seems the student loan crisis isn’t just for young people. The GAO found that 706,000 of households headed by those aged 65 or older have outstanding student debts. That’s just 3 percent of all households, but the debt they hold has ballooned from $2.8 billion in 2005 to about $18.2 billion last year. Some 27 percent of those loans are in default.
If you're among the 191,000 households that GAO estimates have defaulted, your Social Security benefits can be attached and seized.
“When that happens, the federal government pays off the creditor, and now it’s a debt to the federal government,” says Avram L. Sacks, an attorney who specializes in Social Security law. “So they can go after you for the loans - and now that students are reaching retirement age, long-forgotten debts are coming back to haunt them.”
The amounts that can be seized are limited, and the maximum amounts vary. In the case of any federal non-tax debt, including student loan debt, the government can take up to 15 percent of your monthly Social Security check. That's a painful bite for low-income seniors living primarily on their benefits.
The law prohibits any attachment due to a federal non-tax debt that reduces a monthly benefit below $750. (Federal tax debt is not subject to this limitation.) Retirement and disability checks can be attached, but Supplemental Security Income - a program of benefits for low-income people administered by the Social Security Administration - is exempt.
In alimony or child support situations, garnishment is limited to the lesser of whatever maximums are set by states or the federal limit. The federal limits vary from 50 percent to 65 percent depending on how much the debt is in arrears and on whether the debtor is supporting a spouse or child. In victim restitution cases, the limit is 25 percent of the benefit.
Benefits can be deducted through an “administrative offset” against the amount the government sends you or through garnishment. In the case of garnishment, banks are required to protect the two most recent months of benefits that have been paid into your account, and the bank must notify you within five days that benefits have been attached.
Sacks advises people who have had benefits attached to establish stand-alone bank accounts for their Social Security deposits. “It’s much more simple and safe, and makes it much easier to trace funds,” he says.
Sacks says the government has been going after benefits more often because of changes in federal law and court rulings that have widened its powers. He urges people in their pre-retirement years to make every effort to pay off delinquent debts.
“It can be painful, but consider going to legal aid or finding a non-profit debt counselor who can help negotiate repayment. The worst thing is to ignore it.”
The government can go after delinquent debt while you’re working - but that requires a court judgment. “[Benefits] are a known asset over which the federal government has total control,” says Sacks.
He adds that people sometimes are blindsided by garnishment for unpaid debts they had forgotten about. If you’re not sure about a federal debt, contact the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Bureau of the Fiscal Service (800 304-3107), which serves as a clearinghouse for debts.
If the bureau shows a debt that you dispute, contact the agency that is owed. Do the same if your benefits already have been tapped. “Don’t try to deal with the Social Security Administration,” says Sacks. “They don’t have direct responsibility for the attachment.”
Finally, Sacks notes funds not in the bank can’t be garnished. Most people don’t hang on to Social Security benefits for long - they’re used to meet living expenses. “I hate to urge people to keep money under the mattress, but money that’s been sitting in a bank account for more than two months is exposed to attachment.”
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As college grads are taking on low-paying jobs to settle student loan debt----we all know there is soaring fraud by the Wall Street student loan debt collectors operating out of Arne Duncan and Obama's Federal Student Loan program outsourced more by Obama then Bush.
Student Loan Fraud: It’s Worse Than You Think
Fraudulent activity has increased by 82 percent just since 2009.
The student loan fraud report is coming at a contentious time. Student loan interest rates will double if Congress doesn't act before July 1. (Photo: Zephyr Picture)
Jun 6, 2013
Suzi Parker is a regular contributor to TakePart. Her work also appears in The Christian Science Monitor and Reuters.More and more people are gaming the federal student loan system.
According to a new report by the Office of the Inspector General, college students who are suspected of engaging in loan fraud increased 82 percent in the last four years from 18,719 students to 34,007. The office identified more than 85,000 recipients who might have participated in student aid fraud rings.
And the price tag for such fraud? About $874 million, with the government losing about $187 million.
“These programs are inherently risky because of their complexity, the amount of funds involved, the number of program participants and the characteristics of student populations,” the report’s authors wrote in their biannual report to Congress. “Our efforts in this area seek not only to protect federal student aid funds from waste, fraud and abuse, but also to protect the interests of the next generation of our nation’s leaders—America’s students.”
But how does a person go about defrauding the government? That’s the question many in Washington will be asking as a battle brews in Congress to try and avert student loan interest rates from doubling by July 1, 2013.
On Thursday, Democrats on Capitol Hill blocked a bill by Republicans that would tie the student loan rate to a ten-year T-bill rate, which would make it fluid and undoubtedly higher than the current 3.4 percent. Consequently, Republicans blocked the Democrats’ bill to keep rates at the current rate. Both parties agree that rates should remain low.
As the new OIG report states, 34,007 students defrauding the government is a small number compared to the 54 million students who borrowed loans through federal programs.
“The results of our efforts have led to prison sentences for unscrupulous school officials and others who stole or criminally misused these funds, significant civil fraud actions against entities participating in the Title IV programs, and hundreds of millions of dollars returned to the Federal Government in fines, restitutions, and civil settlements,” the report stated.
In some cases, identity thieves get student loans in other people’s names. Some students would simply rather try to obtain loans instead of an education. In other instances, fraud rings—large, loosely affiliated groups of criminals—are used to obtain federal aid illegally.
Here’s such a case: In Mississippi, 12 residents were indicted in a student aid scheme to attend Pikes Peak Community College in Colorado. A ringleader recruited people to act as “straw” students who submitted false admissions and financial aid applications to the college. Of course, they didn’t intend on attending classes.
The ringleader received a cut of about $800. The students received more than $52,000 in student loans and grants they were not entitled to receive. Subsequently, the ringleader was sentenced to serve 33 months in prison and ordered to pay nearly $244,000 in restitution. The other participants received sentences ranging from 24 months of probation to six months in prison, and they were ordered to pay various restitutions.
Last year, a California man, along with five others, were indicted on charges that they stole more than $250,000 from the Department of Education in a scheme. They used 100 straw students to apply for student aid at vocational and community colleges all around California, according to a news report.
According to the national law firm Morgan and Morgan’s website, individuals who deceive the government to qualify for federal student loans could be in violation of the False Claims Act. It notes that such fraudulent actions include providing “false or misleading student financial information on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA),” “helping students obtain invalid high school diplomas” and “violating Department of Education Regulations.”
As the debate continues in Washington over student loan rates, this new report certainly gives added ammunition to Congressional members who already oppose student loan programs because of potential fraud.
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As with all that Clinton/Obama neo-liberals do in posing progressive----even something called a BILL OF RIGHTS for student loan holders simply protects Wall Street credit collection corporatiions----not students.
The Federal Student Loan agency announced under Obama hundreds of billions of dollars in profit even as all kinds of journalism outed Wall Street fraud against students making these profits soar.
'The language merely emphasizes that there is not even a pretense of a right to higher education in this country. The 43 million Americans who owe some $1.3 trillion in student loan debt were offered zero forgiveness. In fact, Obama does not propose even one measure to actually lessen the ever-escalating cost of college or encroach on the lucrative business of student loan debt. All the “rights” remain in the hands of the government, the banks and hedge funds.'
So, as with the subprime mortgage frauds----the low-income people are signing on to the fraud to simply get some small benefit while Wall Street is raking in hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars in fraud against these Federal Student Loan programs-and then coming down hard on those committing fraud at the lower end of the income ladder.
This is real organized crime coming from the top of the income ladder and they think it is funny-----
GET RID OF GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS AND GET WALL STREET BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT AND VERY NEOCONSERVATIVE JOHNS HOPKINS DRIVING ALL THESE FRAUDS LOCALLY OUT OF OFFICE!
SHOW ME THE MONEY PLAYERS COULD CARE LESS ABOUT PEOPLE RUINED FINANCIALLY OR DYING OVER THESE FRAUDS AND ATTACKS AGAINST OUR SOCIAL SAFETY NETS!
Beware of Clinton neo-liberals posing progressive as they shout out after a decade of these education frauds aimed at an Obama leaving office who could care less what people say----as locally with Rawlings-Blake and Baltimore City Hall-----shouting at the person leaving while silent during the entire decade of fraud is not progressive.
The fraud of Obama’s “Student Aid Bill of Rights”
By Nancy Hanover
23 March 2015Last week President Obama announced a series of executive actions that he dubbed a “Student Aid Bill of Rights.”
The initiative is partially an exercise in damage control. It follows a series of lawsuits and scandals involving the Department of Education (DOE). The government agency has become the target of growing anger for protection of predatory student loan collection agencies, its bailout of the for-profit career college chain Corinthian and its overall profit-taking from student loans.
Obama’s initiative, in the form of a memorandum directed to the DOE, calls for:
It is farcical to call such rudimentary accounting and communications procedures a “Bill of Rights.”
The language merely emphasizes that there is not even a pretense of a right to higher education in this country. The 43 million Americans who owe some $1.3 trillion in student loan debt were offered zero forgiveness. In fact, Obama does not propose even one measure to actually lessen the ever-escalating cost of college or encroach on the lucrative business of student loan debt. All the “rights” remain in the hands of the government, the banks and hedge funds.
To add insult to injury, the centerpiece of the memorandum is the promise of a web site system—in a distant 15 months—from an administration who has not recovered from the political debacle of the Affordable Care Act web site.
Meanwhile Obama’s new budget calls for further cuts to students on the Income Based Repayment (IBR) and Public Service Loan forgiveness programs. These cuts will reduce government write-offs and drive up student loan volumes.
The “Student Loan Bill of Rights” is, however, something of an admission of guilt. The Department of Education has been on the hot seat for some time over its cozy relationships with debt collectors using unscrupulous and outright illegal methods and the fact that the federal government is directly profiting from student loans, to the tune of about $10 billion per year.
Earlier this month, the Department of Education said that it would terminate its lucrative contracts with five debt collection agencies that systematically lied to or misled student borrowers. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau provided evidence that student loan collectors told students that they would face legal action when that wasn’t true, and further misled students as to their options and rights.
Despite the terminations, two of the debt collection companies, Coast Professional and National Recoveries, were awarded new contracts in 2014 which may still be valid, according Inside Higher Ed. Such contracts amount to tens of millions of dollars annually. Three of the debt collection agencies, known for their clout on Capitol Hill, have filed suit against the DOE over the contracts.
Separately the Navient-owned Pioneer Credit Recovery (formerly Sallie Mae) has filed a formal protest, one step down from litigation, over the contract termination.
Navient, one of the more notorious violators, paid $97 million in a settlement last year for illegally maximizing late fees on the student loans of military personnel. Over 60,000 loans were affected by the violation of the 6 percent interest rate cap which is afforded to active duty service members. Navient’s contracts amount to $130 million annually, and Obama has come under fire from the American Legion for the administration’s failure to hold Navient liable.
On the other hand, there is worry among the powers-that-be that they are sitting on a political and economic time bomb. Nearly 7 in 10 graduating seniors in 2013, 69 percent of the total, left school with student loan debt, with an average debt of $28,400.
An extraordinary meeting was held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on March 4, where the bank’s president William Dudley spoke at length on the macroeconomic consequences of student loans. His remarks make the real purpose of the Obama web site clear: to be an early warning system for a crash of the student loan system.
Dudley pointed to the government’s inadequate knowledge of the student loan crisis and a “data gap.” He also cited statistics that put loan repayment rates at a catastrophically low level.
“New York Fed economists have shown that for the 2009 cohort of graduates, only 17 percent of their original debt had been paid down after five years,” said Dudley. “More than 20 percent of high-balance student borrowers owe more now than when they graduated in 2009. For the 2005 cohort of graduates, only 38 percent of their original student debt had been paid down, on average, nearly ten years after graduation.”
With student loan debt surpassing credit card debt and the only form of debt that continued to grow between 2008 and 2013, the effect on overall financial stability of growing defaults and slow repayments is a concern to the Federal Reserve.
These considerations put into context the policies of a section of the Democratic Party who posture as defenders of indebted students, but are loyal advocates for the financial industry.
The most outspoken of this group is Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who reintroduced last year’s stillborn bill, the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act, last week. Such legislation seeks to rein in the most rapacious aspects of student loans in the hopes of increasing repayment rates and averting a collapse of the $1 trillion loan bubble.
Like Obama’s call for free community college, however, there is little chance the proposal will advance, as the Republican majority is advocating increased student loan interest rates, pegged annually. Even were students to be allowed to refinance their loans at modestly lower rates, as Warren advocates, the substantial spread between the Federal Reserve rate and the student loan rates will still net large profits for the government and banks.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), one of the most strident defenders of Wall Street, also announced new legislation last week, “Andrew’s Law,” which would require private student loan companies to forgive outstanding debt if a borrower dies. Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), and senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Richard Blumenthal (D-CN), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), among others have joined with Warren questioning the bailout of Corinthian Colleges by the DOE and requested clear guidelines on DOE policies for loan discharges. Waters has supported a debt strike by some Corinthian students.
Obama himself floated the idea of allowing private loans (10-15 percent of the student market) to be discharged under personal bankruptcies. The Fairness for Struggling Students Act of 2015, also sponsored by a group of Democratic senators including Warren and Richard Durbin of Illinois, has also been introduced in Congress.
The administration’s nod to the bill, interestingly, was greeted with approval on Wall Street. “Obama’s proposition may encourage Americans to take on more student loan debt,” noted Zack’s, an equity research firm. “This will indeed be a boon for post-secondary education providers like DeVry Education Group Inc., Strayer Education Inc, Apollo Education Group, Inc [Phoenix Universities], Capella Education Co, Universal Technical Institute, Inc. and many more. Share prices of most of these education companies have risen following the announcement.”
This group of for-profit colleges applauded the proposal on private loans, adding the hope that the Obama measures might reverse falling college enrollments and the “decline in student demand due to hesitancy over taking a loan.”
Far from a “Bill of Rights” Obama continues to deliver a fraudulent bill of goods. At every point, his administration has protected the financial industry in looting an entire generation of students, preventing millions of young people from either attaining the education they desire or making them pay through the nose for the rest of their lives.
We talked of a college grad in Physical Therapy---PT----required by PT boards to have a Master's Degree plus extra certification to become a PT and all that leaving degree holders with hundreds of thousands of student loan debt. Before Clinton neo-liberalism ------social Democratic economic policy had college grads finding strong salaries at graduation in either their field or in a management level position. Now, with corporate universities----the goal becomes using students as free labor and then keeping them tied to the corporate plantation working for little or nothing for years. THIS IS CALLED THE INDENTURED SERVANT OR THE DARK AGES LIFE-LONG APPRENTICESHIP.
This is the education policy that Obama and Clinton neo-liberals pretended was 'progressive' in relieving the burden of student debt that should never have been so high to begin.
As an aside----I walk by a homeless man in my neighborhood who cannot get housing because his Social Security has been attached to student loan debt and he is victim of the Federal Student loan department being outsourced to Wall Street credit collection corporations that are known full of fraud and predatory collections and fee fraud. So, this is affecting all sides of the process of American families wanting and needing Federal student loans, grants, and scholarships and it is deliberate----global pols do not intend for 90% of Americans to access what was the best higher education institutions in the world for centuries-----
Cities look at subsidized housing to stem teacher shortages
- Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — As the days get shorter, first grade teacher Esmeralda Jiménez watches the dimming afternoon sky outside her classroom window the way her pupils watch the clock at dismissal time.
The studio apartment Jiménez rents for $1,783 a month, or 43 percent of her salary, is located in one of San Francisco's sketchiest neighborhoods. Getting home involves running a gauntlet of feces-strewn sidewalks, popping crack pipes, discarded needles and menacing comments — daily irritants that become more daunting after dark.
"If I lived in a better area, I wouldn't feel so scared going home and I would be able to stay at school a little longer," Jiménez, 26, said. "You have so many things to do to prep for the next day, but it's gotten to the point where even if I leave at a decent time I will walk three blocks out of my way to avoid some streets."
It's a scenario that has Jiménez wondering if she should find a profession that pays more, and public officials here and in other cities looking at housing as a tool to prevent the exodus of young educators like her.
Inspired by the success in the heart of the Silicon Valley of a 70-unit teachers-only apartment complex, school districts in high cost-of-living areas and rural communities that have long struggled to staff classrooms are considering buying or building rent-subsidized apartments as a way to attract and retain teachers amid concerns of a looming shortage.
IN BALTIMORE THESE UNITS ARE GOING TO TEACH FOR AMERICA BECAUSE BALTIMORE IS CONTROLLED BY VERY RIGHT-WING PRIVATIZERS LIKE JOHNS HOPKINS.
Housing costs especially have become a point of friction for teachers in expensive cities such as Seattle, where teachers who went on a one-week strike in September said they could not afford to live in the same city as they children they teach.
In San Francisco, where many of Jiménez's colleagues have roommates or long commutes, addressing the affordability crisis for teachers was one of the main selling points of a housing bond voters approved in November, the first to pass in a generation.
About $35 million of the $310 million to be raised has been earmarked for construction of up to 100 new apartments on surplus land owned by the San Francisco Unified School District. The units would be rented at below-market rates to the district's 3,500 teachers and 1,600 classroom aides, who also would be eligible for new rental housing allowances and home down payment loans aimed at reducing living costs for another 300 educators, Deputy Superintendent Nyong Leigh said.
"Each one of these ideas would reach some modest number, but in aggregate it would hopefully make a difference," Leigh said.
Officials in the Roaring Fork School District in western Colorado, which serves three mountain towns in the valley that houses Aspen's posh ski resorts, similarly leveraged a $122 million school construction bond on the November ballot to secure $15 million for subsidized teacher rentals.
The district hopes to acquire 15 to 20 apartments in each of the three towns, enough to house at least 10 percent of its 450 teachers, Assistant Superintendent Shannon Pelland said. In an area where the average home sells for $630,000 and the average teacher makes $47,000, housing costs are "without a doubt the number one reason we lose teachers and it's the number one reason people turn down jobs," Pelland said.
"Our typical pattern with teachers is they come to the valley, it's an absolutely beautiful place, it's a great lifestyle with wonderful recreational opportunities, and they are willing to live with roommates and do whatever they have to do to make it work for four or five years," she said. "And right at that 5-year mark we see a lot of them saying, 'This is great for a while, but I'll never be able to afford a home here or make it work here, I'm moving on.'"
School districts in Oakland, Milwaukee, Odessa, Texas, and Ashville, North Carolina, also have apartment projects for teachers in the works. The Los Angeles Unified School District this year opened its first apartment complex on school grounds for district employees and has two more under construction.
Stockton Williams, executive director of the Urban Land Institute's Terwilliger Center for Housing, said the concern over teachers being priced out of the communities they serve reflects an inadequate supply of new rental housing designed for middle-income workers instead of the high end of the market.
"It's not just a San Francisco-New York-Seattle story. It's in many cities, large and small, and in most parts of the country," Williams said.
Officials in Santa Clara, California, found a workable formula more than a decade ago that other school districts in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond still are trying to replicate. Working with a private developer under a tax-exempt financing scheme, the school district built 70 apartments between 2002 and 2009 that collectively are known as Casa del Maestros, Spanish for "house of the teachers."
When kindergarten teacher Katy Howser moved into a one-bedroom apartment there 6 ½ years ago, she was a 23-year-old living with her parents while she paid off her student college loans and credit card debt. The teachers-only complex was all she could afford, but having other educators as neighbors turned out to be more than a financial advantage.
"Everyone has the same common courtesy for each other," Howser said. "There are technically quiet hours, but it's not ever really loud. Everyone just wants to come home and be quiet because we have to be loud all day."
Now married and expecting her first child, Howser and her husband pay $1,700 a month for a two-bedroom apartment, at least $1,000 less than for a comparable place in the area. They will have to move out in June because tenants can only stay for seven years. Howser hopes they will have saved enough for a down payment on a house by then.
"The fact that our district sees enough value us in teachers to make a way for us to be here says a lot," Howser said. "It tends to be a relatively thankless job, and if you can't afford to live, you can't afford to stay."
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If you are not being tied to corporations like Johns Hopkins paid pultry wages for 10 years to gain student loan debt forgiveness----you are a teacher or school administrator also dealing with this same debt being tied to installing all of the right-wing corporatization policies from Obama and Bush through Race to the Top-----meaning---making global corporations more profitable.
Baltimore is one of the most corporate and right-wing of education policies because Baltimore pols push all of a very, very, very neo-conservative Johns Hopkins' education policies that are as repressive as all its policies. So, the subsidized housing for teachers in Baltimore goes to TEACH FOR AMERICA employees again, trying to do what is called apprenticeship work before simply starting a career---replacing all of the community teachers in Baltimore's underserved communities that knew how to create a save place in classrooms and learning skills for children from the most difficult of living environments. Now, people are simply brought to Baltimore having no connection to poverty---no connection to what experiences children have in these communities---and no idea of how to address all this. So, often these Teach for America serve a few years and leave---creating a revolving door in schools with students needing stability the most.
Again, this is all tied to the education policy that makes apprenticeships out of what was a strong, well-paying career for people with a passion for teaching.
Below you see an administrator's day-----with many connections to outsourced education non--profits that come in with their own idea of what a school needs----with parents and students often left with feeling the need to go along to get along.
In Baltimore there were public schools that required principals to pay their own salaries back to their schools at year's end-----often ten to twenty thousand in a sign of good faith to Baltimore's corporate school board. Of course they quit soon after.
Is working for a PRIVATE corporation like Hopkins or a national charter chain really PUBLIC SERVICE?
Public service debt forgiveness: The most widely available program pays off remaining debt for those who have already worked in a public service profession for 10 years while paying down their debt. The catch? You must pay on your loans for 10 years while working in a qualifying profession. If you quit your qualifying job at nine years and 11 months, you're out of luck. And if you're able to pay off your debts completely in 10 years, you also don't get any help.
The article below is long but it is worth glancing through to see what these K-12 administrators are doing for far lower salaries.
'Dana Butler is one of only 30 CPS principals to have put in at least 12 years at the same school. He says he never knows what each day will entail'.
Catalyst Chicago
18 mins ·
A day in the life of a veteran CPS principal
17 mins ago
Photo by Michelle Kanaar
Dana Butler, principal of Irma C. Ruiz Elementary School in Pilsen, takes a phone call in his office. His walls are decorated with memorabilia of family and former students.
By Stephanie Choporis
One constant in decades of school improvement efforts in Chicago is a recognition that principals play a pivotal role. Good principals are magnets for good teachers, good programs and support from parents and the larger community.
CPS, colleges of education and nonprofit education organizations have conducted a variety of principal preparation programs over the years. And now two reports – one on the early implementation of a 2010 law on principal training and the other on principal turnover – have again sharpened the focus.
To see what these and other policy initiatives aim to produce, Catalyst’s Stephanie Choporis spent a day with Dana Butler, the long-time principal of Ruiz Elementary, a school with impressive statistics on teacher retention and student achievement.
Dana Butler, principal of Ruiz Elementary in Pilsen, thinks of his job as an “incredible balancing act.” From making daily classroom visits to helping students cross the street, Butler wears many hats and sometimes actually changes clothes a couple times a day.
7:50 a.m.
Butler sits at his desk and reaches for a tissue to dab his brow. The school day hasn’t officially started, and he is already sweating.
While students and several teachers are still filing in 10 minutes before the bell rings, Butler has been here since 6 a.m. And his day started even earlier: A little after 4 a.m., he was checking text messages, emails and Twitter updates from his apartment in Beverly. At 5:18 a.m., a teacher texted him to see if the 8th-graders could still go on a field trip, despite losing one chaperone. David “Mac” MacWilliams, a former Ruiz teacher who now volunteers at the school, cut his hand on a power saw and was being kept at a hospital overnight for observations.
“We’re huge on supervision,” says Butler, noting that the 8th-graders had enough chaperones even without MacWilliams.
On this particular Friday -- Nov. 20, 2015 -- three of the school’s 50 teachers and two of its roughly 16 educational support personnel (ESP) are absent. He considers this a “soft” number but still was able to get only two replacement teachers and one educational support person, despite keeping a “bank” of substitutes.
When he comes up short, he looks for Ruiz teachers whose schedules can accommodate another class, and if necessary, he steps in to lead the class himself.
“You’d be hard-pressed to find a principal who’s never done it,” he says.
Minutes later, office clerk Patricia “Patty” Urbano pops in to tell Butler that a concerned parent would like to speak with him. He agrees to take the call.
His desk phone rings. “Good morning, Mr. Butler. May I help you?” the 53-year-old principal says in a voice slightly deeper and more serious than his typically jolly tone. “Well, thank you. Thank you. We love our school, and we try to do our absolute best.” His voice is now back to normal. The parent on the line is considering placing her son at Ruiz.
Meanwhile, Michael Micek, a dean and 7th-grade teacher, hovers in the doorway and then comes in to chat about a former student who is transitioning back into the school after a long absence. As Micek leaves, Butler asks whether he has heard about MacWilliams’ hospitalization. The injury is the topic of conversation for much of the morning.
Dana Butler stands in the doorway of his office. He started working at Ruiz 27 years ago as a teacher and rose up the ranks to assistant principal and then principal.
8 a.m.
With a blue tooth device around his neck for answering cell phone calls, Butler walks to a second-floor classroom to check on handouts to be discussed at two professional development meetings for middle-grades teachers. The first meeting is scheduled to start in 20 minutes. Normally, there is only one such meeting in any given day. But due to report card pick-up day earlier in the week, Butler says they have to double up.
Heading for Room 202, he bumps into Martin Robles, an attendance clerk, who is greeting students as they enter the building.
“I got Mac’s spot,” Butler tells Robles, referring to the after-school cooking class for 4th-graders that MacWilliams helps supervise -- Butler will be filling in for MacWilliams.
After he learns that copies of the handouts are ready, Butler walks through the hallways and greets students.
“Hi, Mr. Butler,” exclaims a little girl sitting with a group outside of a classroom. “I like your outfit.” She’s referring to Butler’s gray button-down shirt, black suede jacket, bow tie with white polka dots and black suede shoes topped with silver ornamentation.
“Thank you,” he responds. “I dressed myself.”
Photo by Michelle Kanaar
Dana Butler removes his bow tie prior to joining a fourth grade class in the school's community garden.
Butler continues to greet students, giving some high-fives and others hugs. He says he’s not a morning person or a coffee-drinker but will play SongPop, a music trivia game, on his Samsung Galaxy 5 cell phone in the morning to get energized and stay “sane.”
“Give your mom a goodbye hug and you run on up. ... Abrazo,” he tells another girl. Abrazo is the Spanish word for “hug.”
Butler, who is African American, picked up the Spanish language and culture while studying in Mexico during his time at Central State University. Former Local School Council Chair Sergio Ramirez -- who sent four of his seven children to Ruiz -- says Butler’s dedication to Latino students is “unbelievable,” especially since “there’s so much division in … communities.”
According to CPS data, 96 percent of Ruiz’s students are Latino and 92 percent are considered low-income. Nearly 30 percent are learning to speak English-- almost double the district average.
8:25 a.m.
The first professional development meeting begins, as several teachers discuss how they are incorporating collaborative discussions and writing into their subject areas. Ana Salinas, who teaches math, says she has started giving her students math-related writing prompts, and Heidi Grozdic reports that her students are now able to sit and write for longer periods of time.
“That’s huge,” says Butler. Meetings like these take place once a week, and “help guide instruction and make sure that the grade levels are basically doing the same thing,” he says.
With his laptop and cell phone by his side, Butler checks both frequently. By the end of the roughly 45-minute meeting, he has received 10 text messages and five emails -- none of them personal.
9:25 a.m.
As the second meeting for middle-grades teachers gets under way, Butler notes the presence of Denise Escota, one of three special education teachers at Ruiz who are bilingual. He calls this a “rarity”-- which state data confirm -- and says he is “blessed” to have them.
About 11 percent of Ruiz’s 781 students are in special education, and the faculty includes seven special education teachers.
Photo by Michelle Kanaar
Dana Butler meets with Adriana Casas, who teaches sixth- and seventh-grade science, and other teachers during a regular professional development meeting.
As the meeting continues, science teacher Adriana Casas shares information about a student who has performed poorly on tests and might need special education services. She suggests that the student may simply have test anxiety instead.
Casas is one of three teachers who were students at Ruiz and had Butler as a teacher. Student teachers also return as full-fledged teachers, and staff members and former students enroll their children. Illinois State Board of Education data show Ruiz had a 97 percent teacher retention rate for 2015, while the district average was 81 percent.
“It’s a family,” Butler says. “I’ve always felt like I was part of a community and part of a team and part of a system … that really cared about students.”
Ruiz received a coveted Level-1 ranking this year under the district’s school rating system, which Butler says is a first for the school since he’s been there.
10:20 a.m.
Photo by Michelle Kanaar
Dana Butler photographs fourth graders in the school’s community garden as Sam Koentopp of The Kitchen Community (R) tells them how to properly pull weeds and arugula leaves.
Butler has just a few minutes before heading outside to help supervise a class of fourth-graders in the school’s community garden. In 2011, Ruiz students and faculty were honored at the White House for achieving gold status in First Lady Michelle Obama’s HealthierUS School Challenge. Less than a year later, Ruiz became one of six CPS schools to receive a learning garden from The Kitchen Community, a nonprofit that runs the garden initiative across the country. Today, the students will plant garlic cloves and harvest arugula and dill.
Just outside his office, the 6-foot-2 principal sheds his suit jacket and bow tie and slips on a gray Ruiz T-shirt and brown coat. “When I was in college … there was this contest to see how quickly you could get dressed out of a suit,” he says. “I was able to do it in 50 seconds.”
10:30 a.m.
Out in the cold, windy garden area, Butler throws hoods over children’s heads as they listen to Sam Koentopp of The Kitchen Community. As students begin pulling weeds, Butler adopts a more serious persona, keeping everyone in line.
12:10 p.m.
“Hey Vero, how ya doin’?” Butler is back in his office ordering lunch for himself and a few faculty members from Miceli’s Deli & Food Mart, a sandwich shop about a block away. Although Butler says he typically doesn’t take time for lunch, he sometimes makes exceptions.
“Are the golden girls over there?” He’s referring to a group of elderly patrons who frequent the deli and fill him in on happenings in the neighborhood while he awaits his order. Butler says it’s important for him to visit from time to time, simply because it’s part of the community.
“Everything that you are doing that impacts children is important,” he says. “The guy who lives across the street, who doesn’t have any children … is important.”
Ten minutes later, he grabs his walkie-talkie and heads for a nearby alley. He says he uses this less-traveled route to the sandwich shop so he can check for graffiti.
At Miceli’s, he’s greeted by workers and points out the table his “golden girls” usually claim. He has frequented the deli since his days as a teacher but in recent years has rarely found the time. This year, though, he’s already dropped by four times.
“I’m better, right, Vero?” he asks cashier Veronica Malinowski. “Yeah,” she exclaims. “Last year, I didn’t see him at all.”
Photo by Michelle Kanaar
Dana Butler picks up lunches, including his chicken salad sandwich, from Stacee Tolbert and Irene Hogue at Miceli’s Deli & Food Mart.
12:50 p.m.
Back in his office, Butler pops open a bottle of cranberry juice and bites into his chicken salad sandwich. He is surrounded by memorabilia, including family photos from his childhood and old class pictures from when he was a teacher. A shelf of blue binders contain work by former students.
In one photo, Butler is posing with a former student on her wedding day. He was her partner for the father-daughter dance.
As Butler eats his lunch, a new recess supervisor and an office clerk drop in. He then gets on the phone to ask an office clerk to encourage a parent to pick up her three children’s report cards by 5:30 p.m. He is shooting for a 100-percent pick-up rate, and she’s the only parent left to go. When he hangs up, he places a partially-filled water bottle on top of his head and puts his hands together as if praying. He says he sometimes does this to achieve balance during a hectic day.
Dana Butler's large Snoopy collection stands in memory of his late brother, who read him Peanuts books while growing up. "[Snoopy] says a whole lot, but he never says a word," Butler says.
Butler once had two assistant principals, but one retired a couple of years ago, and he and the other assistant principal, Marla Elitzer, took on extra work.
“She’s just the greatest thing since sliced bread,” Butler says of Elitzer, whom he has worked with for about 25 years. And as much as Butler would like to have a second assistant principal, he says it is more important to put available funding into opportunities for students.
This year, Ruiz’s enrollment dropped by 58 students, spelling a loss of nearly $463,500 in funding, one of the hardest hit schools in Pilsen. But with one teacher retiring, Butler had to lay off only one educational support person. Recently, he petitioned to reopen that slot and learned on Christmas Eve that the CPS administration had granted the request.
Enrollment at Ruiz has dropped nearly every year since 2005, which Butler attributes to fewer students enrolling in district-run schools and neighborhood gentrification. He notes that fewer families are moving into the neighborhood. And research has shown that Pilsen is no longer a top destination for immigrant families, as they are choosing instead to reside in the suburbs.
But Butler doesn’t dwell on what he doesn’t have. He has instead found ways to be resourceful, such as encouraging staff to become licensed so they can step into administrative roles. He says he has at least 10 staff members who are eligible to apply for such positions.
Similarly, to stretch his dollars further, he has hired college students to help with such activities as tutoring, chaperoning on field trips and answering the phones. He now has 12 such part-time aides, who together cost less than four teacher aides would.
2:10 p.m.
Butler takes about 20 minutes to visit classrooms during the last hour of the school day. When he stops by the fourth-grade class that worked in the garden, he’s presented with a stack of thank you letters to be delivered to Koentopp. He also makes sure to stop by Room 316, where he spent much of his time while teaching.
3 p.m.
Butler switches into gym shoes, grabs a hand-held stop sign and heads out to the corner of Leavitt and 24th streets for crossing guard duty. He smiles, greets people he recognizes and jokes with recent graduates.
He says the school’s previous crossing guard was recently moved, so he sometimes takes on the responsibility. “Every physical body that could be out there monitoring the dismissal of the kids are out there,” he says.
Dana Butler helps students and parents cross the street at the end of the day.
3:15 p.m.
Inside the school cafeteria, Butler dons an apron that reads “The Grillfather” for the 4th-grade after-school cooking class. Chef instructor Alekka Sweeney of Common Threads informs the excited students that Butler will be supervising in MacWilliams’ place.
Photo by Stephanie Choporis
Dana Butler helps his group of fourth-graders measure ingredients for a Senegalese soup in an after-school cooking class.
Common Threads is a nonprofit that partners with schools to teach children about nutrition and cooking. Each week for 10 weeks, students cook dishes from a different country. This week it’s Senegal, with mashed sweet potatoes, plantain chips and Egusi soup. Butler’s group is responsible for the soup.
As he watches his group mince peppers and helps them stir the soup, he admits that much of what he has learned about cooking has come from this program.
“You have to work real hard to be a bachelor this long,” he jokes about his culinary skills.
5:10 p.m.
Butler walks back to the main office to see whether those final three report cards will be picked up. He greets a mother holding a piece of paper, laughs loudly and gives her a hug.
“You know what that hug was?” he asks the woman. “That was a 100-percent hug ‘cause now I got 100-percent report card pick-up. Bam!”
This means that all students' report cards had been picked up within two days of parent conferences. Butler thinks that only four schools achieved 100 percent last spring.
6:30 p.m.
Butler grabs his dry cleaning out of a closet, where he keeps a suit, extra ties and waterproof boots, and heads out to his black, “beat-down” 2004 Chevy Monte Carlo. His official work day is finally over, and he leaves behind only the custodians. For the rest of the evening, he plans to “detox,” and maybe he will cook dinner.
But there’s a good chance he will still do some school-related tasks, such as return phone calls.
“This job, for me, never stops,” he says. “It just keeps going.”
Dana Butler is one of only 30 CPS principals to have put in at least 12 years at the same school. He says he never knows what each day will entail.
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Is working for a PRIVATE corporation like Hopkins or a national charter chain really PUBLIC SERVICE?
Again, posing progressive global pols are making this corporate education policy sound as if it is addressing social concerns when in fact most college grads are simply sent to work for corporations -----not providing public service.
As the article below shows-----in the small print of legislation hundreds of pages long -------you are literally indentured for 10 years----you cannot have a gap in employment so this sets the stage for exploitation of that worker-----not surprisingly this is what immigrants accessing education are facing the most and it is harder for immigrants to stay with a job because they are abused the most.
TIED TO A CORPORATE PLANTATION---THAT IS WHAT OBAMA AND CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS PASSED WITH THIS STUDENT LOAN DEBT FORGIVENESS.
This is what the the young adults in the US are facing today and it was all planned-----Clinton and Bush tied what was a Federal Student Loan agency that attached loans to students in ways that made sure they could pay----to subpriming this Federal agency handing it to private Wall Street banks that then loaned far too much money to students knowing they would not be able to pay. Remember the mantra during the Bush years? They kept saying----YOU WILL NEED A GRADUATE DEGREE TO GET A JOB ------all designed to push people wanting to get a degree beyond what they could handle.
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'The catch? You must pay on your loans for 10 years while working in a qualifying profession. If you quit your qualifying job at nine years and 11 months, you're out of luck. And if you're able to pay off your debts completely in 10 years, you also don't get any help'
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PERSONAL FINANCE
Wiping out teachers' student loan debt
Programs abound for educators who need help paying off their loans, but the requirements can be narrow and just finding them is a chore.
February 14, 2010|Kathy M. Kristof | Personal Finance
If you are a teacher in debt, there's good news and bad news.
There are literally dozens of programs that could potentially help wipe out your student loans. But most of them have narrow requirements that may lock you out.
Just ask Troy Dale, a high school counselor from Ellis, Kan. He and his wife have $23,000 in student loans that they've been paying down for nearly a decade. At their current rate, they'll still be paying off their student debts when their oldest child enrolls in college.
That realization sent Dale on a wide-ranging search to find some sort of debt forgiveness plan that could help his family. He found plenty of programs, including a national debt forgiveness program for public service workers and one specifically for schoolteachers.
But in each case, he missed the qualification standards by a fraction. To qualify, Dale and his wife, Jessica, would either have to teach different subjects or switch schools.
"It's really frustrating that there is just nothing out there for us," Dale said. "We're not exactly knocking the top of the roof off with our salaries."
Though Dale was frustrated, he did what every teacher and public service employee ought to do. He kept looking, said Edie Irons, communications director for the Institute for College Access and Success.
There are an ever-expanding number of programs that can help some indebted graduates pay off their loans, but the programs aren't necessarily widely advertised or understood. You have to search for them.
"There is still a lot of outreach that needs to be done," Irons said. "You shouldn't have to go on a treasure hunt to find them. But there is no national repository of all this information."
What programs are available for the nation's 3.5 million school teachers?
Public service debt forgiveness: The most widely available program pays off remaining debt for those who have already worked in a public service profession for 10 years while paying down their debt. The catch? You must pay on your loans for 10 years while working in a qualifying profession. If you quit your qualifying job at nine years and 11 months, you're out of luck. And if you're able to pay off your debts completely in 10 years, you also don't get any help.
This program provides only back-end help that kicks in after you've followed all the rules for 10 full years, said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org and FastWeb.com.
Still, the program could be invaluable if you are highly indebted and committed to public service work -- whether that's being a public defender, a teacher or a clerk at the Department of Motor Vehicles. If you qualify, every dollar of federal student debt that remains after 10 years is wiped out.
Who qualifies: anyone who works for the government -- state, federal or local; employees of nonprofit organizations operating under tax code section 501(c)(3), and those who work for the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps. In addition, if you provide services to the disabled, work in early-childhood education or public service law, you may also qualify, even if you work for a for-profit company. More information: www.IBRinfo.org.
Federal Perkins loan cancellation: This program, which pays off Perkins loans over five years, is specifically designed for teachers who serve low-income families or who teach specific subjects or populations, such as special-needs students.
The U.S. Department of Education maintains a list of public school districts in low-income neighborhoods, which you can find at www.tcli.ed.gov. (TCLI stands for Teacher Cancellation Low Income.)
If your school is not in a low-income district, you may still qualify for the program if you teach learning-disabled students or teach certain subjects full time, including math, science, a foreign language or bilingual education.
If you qualify, this program will pay off 100% of your Perkins loans (they're a specific type of student loan offered to needy students) over a five-year period. It eliminates 15% of your loan balance in the first year; another 15% in the second year; 20% in the third and fourth years; and the final 30% in year five.
Stafford loan forgiveness: If you have Stafford loans (the most common type of student loan), there's a separate program that can pay off up to $17,500 of your loan balance.
Many of the qualifications are similar to the Perkins cancellation program. However, if you don't teach in a low-income school, the requirements are a bit stricter about what you're teaching and how well you're qualified, Kantrowitz said.
In simple terms, this means that you must be state-certified and teaching in the subject area that you studied. In some cases, you also must pass a test.
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Remember last decade when older Americans were encouraged to go back to college to make their degrees current and more related to today's market----well, they did and as with the young adult grads----they are not able to get jobs. Now these older adults are aging into Social Security or if you are on SS Disability ----you are now being attacked by predatory Wall Street debt collectors as I said openly known to be acting fraudulently. So, the homeless man in my neighborhood trying to work with a lawyer to get these collection agencies and fees off his record-----faces an impossibility as the Federal Student Loan Department under Arne Duncan and Obama protects the Wall Street collectors from any justice for citizens. IT IS CRAZY STUFF.
Think what Obama is proposing as Social Security monthly checks have lost hundreds of dollars from monthly payments because of FED's manipulated Cost of Living created the first time ever seniors lost money from SS checks-----rather than get those hundreds back on senior's monthly payments----Obama is doing a one time payment of $500 to SS just before the coming 2016 elections-----AND OBAMA SEIZES THAT $500 FOR ANYONE HAVING A STUDENT LOAN DEFAULT----IT GOES RIGHT TO WALL STREET COLLECTORS.
The homeless man in my neighborhood fighting off attacks from Student Loan predatory credit collectors WILL DIE ON THE STREETS AS WINTER TURNS COLD.
Thu Sep 25, 2014 10:10am EDT
Related: Money
It happens: Seniors with student debt - and smaller Social Security checks
CHICAGO | By Mark Miller
It's a rude awakening for a growing number of seniors: They file for Social Security, then discover that the federal government plans to take part of their benefit to pay off delinquent student loans, tax bills, child support or alimony.
This month the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released findings on the problem of rising student debt burdens among retirees - and how the government goes after delinquent borrowers by going after wages, tax refunds and Social Security checks.
Under federal law, benefits can be attached and seized to pay child support and alimony obligations, collection of overdue federal taxes and court-ordered restitution to victims of crimes. Benefits also can be attached for any federal non-tax debt, including student loans.
It seems the student loan crisis isn’t just for young people. The GAO found that 706,000 of households headed by those aged 65 or older have outstanding student debts. That’s just 3 percent of all households, but the debt they hold has ballooned from $2.8 billion in 2005 to about $18.2 billion last year. Some 27 percent of those loans are in default.
If you're among the 191,000 households that GAO estimates have defaulted, your Social Security benefits can be attached and seized.
“When that happens, the federal government pays off the creditor, and now it’s a debt to the federal government,” says Avram L. Sacks, an attorney who specializes in Social Security law. “So they can go after you for the loans - and now that students are reaching retirement age, long-forgotten debts are coming back to haunt them.”
The amounts that can be seized are limited, and the maximum amounts vary. In the case of any federal non-tax debt, including student loan debt, the government can take up to 15 percent of your monthly Social Security check. That's a painful bite for low-income seniors living primarily on their benefits.
The law prohibits any attachment due to a federal non-tax debt that reduces a monthly benefit below $750. (Federal tax debt is not subject to this limitation.) Retirement and disability checks can be attached, but Supplemental Security Income - a program of benefits for low-income people administered by the Social Security Administration - is exempt.
In alimony or child support situations, garnishment is limited to the lesser of whatever maximums are set by states or the federal limit. The federal limits vary from 50 percent to 65 percent depending on how much the debt is in arrears and on whether the debtor is supporting a spouse or child. In victim restitution cases, the limit is 25 percent of the benefit.
Benefits can be deducted through an “administrative offset” against the amount the government sends you or through garnishment. In the case of garnishment, banks are required to protect the two most recent months of benefits that have been paid into your account, and the bank must notify you within five days that benefits have been attached.
Sacks advises people who have had benefits attached to establish stand-alone bank accounts for their Social Security deposits. “It’s much more simple and safe, and makes it much easier to trace funds,” he says.
Sacks says the government has been going after benefits more often because of changes in federal law and court rulings that have widened its powers. He urges people in their pre-retirement years to make every effort to pay off delinquent debts.
“It can be painful, but consider going to legal aid or finding a non-profit debt counselor who can help negotiate repayment. The worst thing is to ignore it.”
The government can go after delinquent debt while you’re working - but that requires a court judgment. “[Benefits] are a known asset over which the federal government has total control,” says Sacks.
He adds that people sometimes are blindsided by garnishment for unpaid debts they had forgotten about. If you’re not sure about a federal debt, contact the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Bureau of the Fiscal Service (800 304-3107), which serves as a clearinghouse for debts.
If the bureau shows a debt that you dispute, contact the agency that is owed. Do the same if your benefits already have been tapped. “Don’t try to deal with the Social Security Administration,” says Sacks. “They don’t have direct responsibility for the attachment.”
Finally, Sacks notes funds not in the bank can’t be garnished. Most people don’t hang on to Social Security benefits for long - they’re used to meet living expenses. “I hate to urge people to keep money under the mattress, but money that’s been sitting in a bank account for more than two months is exposed to attachment.”
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As college grads are taking on low-paying jobs to settle student loan debt----we all know there is soaring fraud by the Wall Street student loan debt collectors operating out of Arne Duncan and Obama's Federal Student Loan program outsourced more by Obama then Bush.
Student Loan Fraud: It’s Worse Than You Think
Fraudulent activity has increased by 82 percent just since 2009.
The student loan fraud report is coming at a contentious time. Student loan interest rates will double if Congress doesn't act before July 1. (Photo: Zephyr Picture)
Jun 6, 2013
Suzi Parker is a regular contributor to TakePart. Her work also appears in The Christian Science Monitor and Reuters.More and more people are gaming the federal student loan system.
According to a new report by the Office of the Inspector General, college students who are suspected of engaging in loan fraud increased 82 percent in the last four years from 18,719 students to 34,007. The office identified more than 85,000 recipients who might have participated in student aid fraud rings.
And the price tag for such fraud? About $874 million, with the government losing about $187 million.
“These programs are inherently risky because of their complexity, the amount of funds involved, the number of program participants and the characteristics of student populations,” the report’s authors wrote in their biannual report to Congress. “Our efforts in this area seek not only to protect federal student aid funds from waste, fraud and abuse, but also to protect the interests of the next generation of our nation’s leaders—America’s students.”
But how does a person go about defrauding the government? That’s the question many in Washington will be asking as a battle brews in Congress to try and avert student loan interest rates from doubling by July 1, 2013.
On Thursday, Democrats on Capitol Hill blocked a bill by Republicans that would tie the student loan rate to a ten-year T-bill rate, which would make it fluid and undoubtedly higher than the current 3.4 percent. Consequently, Republicans blocked the Democrats’ bill to keep rates at the current rate. Both parties agree that rates should remain low.
As the new OIG report states, 34,007 students defrauding the government is a small number compared to the 54 million students who borrowed loans through federal programs.
“The results of our efforts have led to prison sentences for unscrupulous school officials and others who stole or criminally misused these funds, significant civil fraud actions against entities participating in the Title IV programs, and hundreds of millions of dollars returned to the Federal Government in fines, restitutions, and civil settlements,” the report stated.
In some cases, identity thieves get student loans in other people’s names. Some students would simply rather try to obtain loans instead of an education. In other instances, fraud rings—large, loosely affiliated groups of criminals—are used to obtain federal aid illegally.
Here’s such a case: In Mississippi, 12 residents were indicted in a student aid scheme to attend Pikes Peak Community College in Colorado. A ringleader recruited people to act as “straw” students who submitted false admissions and financial aid applications to the college. Of course, they didn’t intend on attending classes.
The ringleader received a cut of about $800. The students received more than $52,000 in student loans and grants they were not entitled to receive. Subsequently, the ringleader was sentenced to serve 33 months in prison and ordered to pay nearly $244,000 in restitution. The other participants received sentences ranging from 24 months of probation to six months in prison, and they were ordered to pay various restitutions.
Last year, a California man, along with five others, were indicted on charges that they stole more than $250,000 from the Department of Education in a scheme. They used 100 straw students to apply for student aid at vocational and community colleges all around California, according to a news report.
According to the national law firm Morgan and Morgan’s website, individuals who deceive the government to qualify for federal student loans could be in violation of the False Claims Act. It notes that such fraudulent actions include providing “false or misleading student financial information on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA),” “helping students obtain invalid high school diplomas” and “violating Department of Education Regulations.”
As the debate continues in Washington over student loan rates, this new report certainly gives added ammunition to Congressional members who already oppose student loan programs because of potential fraud.
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As with all that Clinton/Obama neo-liberals do in posing progressive----even something called a BILL OF RIGHTS for student loan holders simply protects Wall Street credit collection corporatiions----not students.
The Federal Student Loan agency announced under Obama hundreds of billions of dollars in profit even as all kinds of journalism outed Wall Street fraud against students making these profits soar.
'The language merely emphasizes that there is not even a pretense of a right to higher education in this country. The 43 million Americans who owe some $1.3 trillion in student loan debt were offered zero forgiveness. In fact, Obama does not propose even one measure to actually lessen the ever-escalating cost of college or encroach on the lucrative business of student loan debt. All the “rights” remain in the hands of the government, the banks and hedge funds.'
So, as with the subprime mortgage frauds----the low-income people are signing on to the fraud to simply get some small benefit while Wall Street is raking in hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars in fraud against these Federal Student Loan programs-and then coming down hard on those committing fraud at the lower end of the income ladder.
This is real organized crime coming from the top of the income ladder and they think it is funny-----
GET RID OF GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS AND GET WALL STREET BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT AND VERY NEOCONSERVATIVE JOHNS HOPKINS DRIVING ALL THESE FRAUDS LOCALLY OUT OF OFFICE!
SHOW ME THE MONEY PLAYERS COULD CARE LESS ABOUT PEOPLE RUINED FINANCIALLY OR DYING OVER THESE FRAUDS AND ATTACKS AGAINST OUR SOCIAL SAFETY NETS!
Beware of Clinton neo-liberals posing progressive as they shout out after a decade of these education frauds aimed at an Obama leaving office who could care less what people say----as locally with Rawlings-Blake and Baltimore City Hall-----shouting at the person leaving while silent during the entire decade of fraud is not progressive.
The fraud of Obama’s “Student Aid Bill of Rights”
By Nancy Hanover
23 March 2015Last week President Obama announced a series of executive actions that he dubbed a “Student Aid Bill of Rights.”
The initiative is partially an exercise in damage control. It follows a series of lawsuits and scandals involving the Department of Education (DOE). The government agency has become the target of growing anger for protection of predatory student loan collection agencies, its bailout of the for-profit career college chain Corinthian and its overall profit-taking from student loans.
Obama’s initiative, in the form of a memorandum directed to the DOE, calls for:
- a new web site where all federal loans will be visible by July 2016
- requiring loan servicers to notify debtors when their loans are transferred or payments are late
- instructing loan servicers to apply prepayments to loans with the highest interest rate
- a “state-of-the-art” complaint system.
It is farcical to call such rudimentary accounting and communications procedures a “Bill of Rights.”
The language merely emphasizes that there is not even a pretense of a right to higher education in this country. The 43 million Americans who owe some $1.3 trillion in student loan debt were offered zero forgiveness. In fact, Obama does not propose even one measure to actually lessen the ever-escalating cost of college or encroach on the lucrative business of student loan debt. All the “rights” remain in the hands of the government, the banks and hedge funds.
To add insult to injury, the centerpiece of the memorandum is the promise of a web site system—in a distant 15 months—from an administration who has not recovered from the political debacle of the Affordable Care Act web site.
Meanwhile Obama’s new budget calls for further cuts to students on the Income Based Repayment (IBR) and Public Service Loan forgiveness programs. These cuts will reduce government write-offs and drive up student loan volumes.
The “Student Loan Bill of Rights” is, however, something of an admission of guilt. The Department of Education has been on the hot seat for some time over its cozy relationships with debt collectors using unscrupulous and outright illegal methods and the fact that the federal government is directly profiting from student loans, to the tune of about $10 billion per year.
Earlier this month, the Department of Education said that it would terminate its lucrative contracts with five debt collection agencies that systematically lied to or misled student borrowers. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau provided evidence that student loan collectors told students that they would face legal action when that wasn’t true, and further misled students as to their options and rights.
Despite the terminations, two of the debt collection companies, Coast Professional and National Recoveries, were awarded new contracts in 2014 which may still be valid, according Inside Higher Ed. Such contracts amount to tens of millions of dollars annually. Three of the debt collection agencies, known for their clout on Capitol Hill, have filed suit against the DOE over the contracts.
Separately the Navient-owned Pioneer Credit Recovery (formerly Sallie Mae) has filed a formal protest, one step down from litigation, over the contract termination.
Navient, one of the more notorious violators, paid $97 million in a settlement last year for illegally maximizing late fees on the student loans of military personnel. Over 60,000 loans were affected by the violation of the 6 percent interest rate cap which is afforded to active duty service members. Navient’s contracts amount to $130 million annually, and Obama has come under fire from the American Legion for the administration’s failure to hold Navient liable.
On the other hand, there is worry among the powers-that-be that they are sitting on a political and economic time bomb. Nearly 7 in 10 graduating seniors in 2013, 69 percent of the total, left school with student loan debt, with an average debt of $28,400.
An extraordinary meeting was held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on March 4, where the bank’s president William Dudley spoke at length on the macroeconomic consequences of student loans. His remarks make the real purpose of the Obama web site clear: to be an early warning system for a crash of the student loan system.
Dudley pointed to the government’s inadequate knowledge of the student loan crisis and a “data gap.” He also cited statistics that put loan repayment rates at a catastrophically low level.
“New York Fed economists have shown that for the 2009 cohort of graduates, only 17 percent of their original debt had been paid down after five years,” said Dudley. “More than 20 percent of high-balance student borrowers owe more now than when they graduated in 2009. For the 2005 cohort of graduates, only 38 percent of their original student debt had been paid down, on average, nearly ten years after graduation.”
With student loan debt surpassing credit card debt and the only form of debt that continued to grow between 2008 and 2013, the effect on overall financial stability of growing defaults and slow repayments is a concern to the Federal Reserve.
These considerations put into context the policies of a section of the Democratic Party who posture as defenders of indebted students, but are loyal advocates for the financial industry.
The most outspoken of this group is Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who reintroduced last year’s stillborn bill, the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act, last week. Such legislation seeks to rein in the most rapacious aspects of student loans in the hopes of increasing repayment rates and averting a collapse of the $1 trillion loan bubble.
Like Obama’s call for free community college, however, there is little chance the proposal will advance, as the Republican majority is advocating increased student loan interest rates, pegged annually. Even were students to be allowed to refinance their loans at modestly lower rates, as Warren advocates, the substantial spread between the Federal Reserve rate and the student loan rates will still net large profits for the government and banks.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), one of the most strident defenders of Wall Street, also announced new legislation last week, “Andrew’s Law,” which would require private student loan companies to forgive outstanding debt if a borrower dies. Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), and senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Richard Blumenthal (D-CN), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), among others have joined with Warren questioning the bailout of Corinthian Colleges by the DOE and requested clear guidelines on DOE policies for loan discharges. Waters has supported a debt strike by some Corinthian students.
Obama himself floated the idea of allowing private loans (10-15 percent of the student market) to be discharged under personal bankruptcies. The Fairness for Struggling Students Act of 2015, also sponsored by a group of Democratic senators including Warren and Richard Durbin of Illinois, has also been introduced in Congress.
The administration’s nod to the bill, interestingly, was greeted with approval on Wall Street. “Obama’s proposition may encourage Americans to take on more student loan debt,” noted Zack’s, an equity research firm. “This will indeed be a boon for post-secondary education providers like DeVry Education Group Inc., Strayer Education Inc, Apollo Education Group, Inc [Phoenix Universities], Capella Education Co, Universal Technical Institute, Inc. and many more. Share prices of most of these education companies have risen following the announcement.”
This group of for-profit colleges applauded the proposal on private loans, adding the hope that the Obama measures might reverse falling college enrollments and the “decline in student demand due to hesitancy over taking a loan.”
Far from a “Bill of Rights” Obama continues to deliver a fraudulent bill of goods. At every point, his administration has protected the financial industry in looting an entire generation of students, preventing millions of young people from either attaining the education they desire or making them pay through the nose for the rest of their lives.
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