We will look locally at BALTIMORE AND MARYLAND education policy MOVING FORWARD 2020----with the goal of US 99% WE THE PEOPLE black, white, and brown being RE-EDUCATED/REHABILITATED -------by making college loans something citizens are made scared to take----SCARE/FEARFUL. Baby boomers took out these loans with NO FEAR--NOT SCARED because we knew we had a thriving US economy which would hire college grads who would pay any college debt very quickly.
CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA used media to say-----YOU HAVE TO HAVE GRADUATE DEGREES-----subprimed student loans to anyone with a pulse-----then, today this debt has been made a MORAL HAZARD----SHAME ON YOU says global banking 1%----having just sacked and looted, raped and pillages our US FEDERAL EDUCATION AGENCY making a few people BILLIONAIRES.
What do ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY tied to INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION HUMAN RESOURCES do? They round up all that MORAL HAZARD to squeeze the cheapest labor to maximize GLOBAL CORPORATE profits.
'in Organizational Psychology and a Master's degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology'
'Education Program to Relieve Student Debt Proves UnforgivingA federal system to erase loans for public-service jobs is in disarray; ‘It feels like a broken promise’
The US FEDERAL STUDENT LOAN PROGRAM subprimed and looted taxpayer money is followed by criminal and corrupt------DEBT FORGIVENESS PROGRAM.
This STUDENT DEBT FORGIVENESS took many avenues so our US 99% WE THE STUDENTS could be USED ------taken as free labor/cheap labor across all industries. They must pay for their FOOLISH DREAMS OF COLLEGE says global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS-----KNIGHTS OF MALTA---TRIBE OF JUDAH.
MARYLAND, as in your neck of the woods created all kinds of ways to USE our US students for daring to think of THE AMERICAN DREAM-----
NO JOBS THAT PAY------VOLUNTEER AWAY-----
So, Maryland Assembly these several years pass EDUCATION POLICY geared towards using those students and re-educate our US citizens as to what GOOD PAYING JOBS seguing into ROAD TO SERFDOM ----looks like. Lot's of volunteering ---lots of low wage ------lots of revolving categories of VISTA/AMERICORP/TEACH AMERICA student loan forgiveness. Students get used to REVOLVING DOOR JOBS----get used to TEMPORARY/PART-TIME employment----get used to seeming to never finish PAYING OFF THAT STUDENT LOAN.
Most education public policy is now geared towards using student debt to provide CHEAP/FREE LABOR.
TEACHER OF YEAR grant awards to teachers MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE ONLINE GLOBAL CORPORATE pre-K to career.
The Student Loan Debt Relief Tax Credits for tax year ... - MHEC
mhec.maryland.gov/preparing/Pages/StudentLoan...
Upon receiving the Student Loan Debt Relief Tax Credit, each recipient must use the credit within two years to pay down the balance of the student loan debt. Failure to do so will result in recapture of credit back to the State.
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Teacher gets a rich reward - Baltimore Sun
www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2003-10-17...
With the ceremony and secrecy typical of Hollywood's flashy red-carpet awards programs, state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick surprised a veteran Carroll County science teacher yesterday ...
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'Teach for America: $12K in student loans erased | finder.com
www.finder.com/teach-for-america-loan-forgiveness
Nov 27, 2019 · While Teach for America doesn’t directly offer student loan forgiveness, its partner AmeriCorps does. Through the AmeriCorps Award, you could receive up to $6,195 per year — or the equivalent to the maximum value of the Federal Pell Grant — to put toward your student loan repayments'.
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How to Repay Your Student Loans by Volunteering
www.savingforcollege.com/article/how-to-repay...
VISTA volunteers are eligible for 15% forgiveness of any Perkins Loans for each of the first two years of service, and 20% cancellation of Perkins Loans for the next two years of service, for a total of 70%. As with other AmeriCorps Programs, participants should enroll in an income-driven repayment plan for their period of service.
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Earn Thousands of Dollars for Student Loans With AmeriCorps Jobs
studentloanhero.com/featured/americorps-jobs...
Dec 21, 2016 · 4 This informational repayment example uses typical loan terms for a refi borrower with a Full Principal & Interest Repayment and a 10-year repayment term, has a $40,000 loan and a 5.5% Annual Percentage Rate (“APR”): 120 monthly payments of $434.11 while in the repayment period, for a total amount of payments of $52,092.61. Loans will never have a full principal and interest monthly payment of less than $50.
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Jun 25, 2019, 07:37am
The Moral Hazard Of Student Loan Forgiveness
Robert Farrington Senior Contributor
Personal Finance
I write about personal finance, college and student loan debt.
On top of that, some are quick to remind everyone that we already have income-driven repayment plans that let low earners pay a percentage of their discretionary for 20-25 years before having their remaining balances wiped away. And most people don't realize there are over 80 ways to get student loan forgiveness today!
Then there are politicians like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who say that existing student loan debt should be forgiven — at least for some of us — and that college should be “free.”
Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., flanked by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.,... [+]
Unfortunately, those of us who have been around for a while know just how “expensive” free stuff can be. Even Elizabeth Warren admits her plans would cost $1.2 trillion over ten years — a tab taxpayers are expected to handle on top of everything else.
Of course, there’s a plan to tax “those other folks” to pay for all of this — a “2% annual tax on the 75,000 families with $50 million or more in wealth,” according to Warren’s own details.
PROMOTED
Those who have been paying attention already know how that’s going to work out. The original plan is to tax other people for giant entitlement programs and new initiatives, but everything costs more than people think, and those costs trickle down to hit everyone if you give them enough time.
But costs and rising tax bills are only two problems that will plague student loan forgiveness on such a broad scale. There are much more egregious moral hazards to be aware of — hazards that could lead to a whirlwind of consequences for pretty much everyone involved, and especially taxpayers.
Problem #1: Blanket Loan Forgiveness Rewards People Who Overpaid For Their Degrees
One of the biggest moral hazards of Warren’s plan is that it punishes people who put their college degrees to good use — as in, to earn a lot of money.
With Warren’s plan, households with an income under $100,000 would have up to $50,000 in student loan debt forgiven, but forgiveness would be phased out for households who earn between $100,000 and $250,000. Finally, households with incomes higher than $250,000 will have no loans forgiven.
Due to the way this plan is set up, a family with two doctors and top tier earnings would be left to fend for themselves. This is despite the fact they probably spent 8+ years in school so they could learn to save people’s lives.
On the flip side, someone who borrowed $150,000 for a bachelor’s degree in general studies and works only part-time would likely see some of their loans forgiven. How fair is that?
Problem #2: You’re Asking Taxpayers To Pay For Individual Decisions
According to financial attorney Leslie Tayne of Tayne Law, it really boils down to the fact that you’re asking taxpayers to cover individual decisions regardless of how good or bad they are. And the fact the plan only involves additional taxes for “the rich” right now is a sign of higher costs for all of us down the road.
As we’ve seen, the rich have a way of working to minimize tax consequences, and the middle class is often hit the worst, said Tayne.
She believes this plan is being sold similarly to the mortgage modification and loan forgiveness program the government offered just a few years ago.
“So many fell through the cracks, and things were often made worse for the mortgagee,” says Tayne. “The banks and government-backed loans had options to manage, so the debts were not written off.”
Problem #3: Student Loan Debt Holders Are Already Privileged
Another problem — student loans are held by consumers who hopefully got a college degree out of the deal. This means they have a better shot at finding higher-paying employment than someone with only a high school diploma. If we’re going to help someone with our tax dollars, shouldn’t it be the people who need it the most?
“Those who are pursuing higher education are already generally better off financially,” says Tayne. “Therefore, forgiving student loan debt could be considered already helping a privileged group rather than spending government funding to help those in poverty.”
Problem #4: Nobody Has Skin In The Game
Assistant Professor of Finance and financial planner Brandon Renfro points out another glaring problem — pretty much nobody is on the hook for the growing costs of higher education in a post-forgiveness and free college world.
“Blanket student loan forgiveness could create moral hazard on the part of schools," he says. "Knowing that the students they take in have easy access to money that they will likely not have to repay could motivate schools to accept more students, or offer more programs, even in the absence of value."
“A point here is that schools aren’t strictly accountable for the debts of their students,” he says. “If students also aren’t responsible for their debt, then neither party to the transaction is responsible for the cost.”
While schools are currently motivated by competitive forces to offer quality programs and admit students who can succeed, Renfro suggests this may be somewhat mitigated by broad-stroke debt forgiveness. This is because, like it or not, students are less likely to hold schools accountable to provide a quality education if they don’t have to repay the money.
Problem #5: Blanket Forgiveness Doesn’t Address Rising Costs
Finally, let’s not forget that broad student loan forgiveness and “free college” plans do nothing to address the growing problem of rising college costs.
According to Senior Financial Analyst Riley Adams, who also blogs at Young and the Invested, moving ahead with full loan forgiveness solely as a means for resolving the growing student loan debt crisis will lead to unintended consequences with perverse incentives for students and society.
By awarding blanket student loan forgiveness, students may have no incentive to head into desired majors or fields of study which would be more in line with the needs of our economy, he says. Plus, without appropriate cost controls in place, many will try to go to college “just because,” even if they’re not a good candidate for college to begin with.
Not everyone needs to go to college from a societal perspective, says Riley. Many crucial roles also do not require a college education to begin with.
“By granting loan forgiveness to anyone, it can make college the default choice when it does not necessarily need to be.”
Final Thoughts
While we do need bold action to help those who are struggling with student loan debt, total student loan forgiveness is not the solution and will only create a moral hazard problem for current borrowers and future students.
Alternatives like reforming public service loan forgiveness, student loan borrowing caps, addressing "return on investment" of educational costs, and helping borrowers who may have been victims of unscrupulous schools are likely better solutions to the situation.
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'who say that existing student loan debt should be forgiven — at least for some of us —'
Indeed Sanders and Warren did manage debt forgiveness---for grads from global banking 1% hedge fund IVY LEAGUE schools. Everyone else is toiling away------with CHINESE SOCIAL CREDIT SCORE----STANFORD TOTAL PRISON MODEL on their backs.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, a 2007 initiative that started accepted applications in 2017, has allowed loan forgiveness for 518 borrowers applications out of the 73,554'.
While a small percentage did benefit from this SANDERS/WARREN student loan debt forgiveness------99.9% of students are trapped in a cycle of MORAL HAZARD CHINESE SOCIAL CREDIT SCORE------with global banking 1% using crime and corruption to keep these young adults tied to AMERI-CORP----VISTA-------TEACH FOR AMERICA.
'A federal program allows teachers and certain government and non-profit workers to wipe away their student-loan debts if they fit the right criteria — most importantly, 10 years of repayment -- but the lawsuit filed Thursday by a powerful teacher’s union and several borrowers alleges DeVos’ Education Department is engaging in “gross mismanagement.”
These student loan debt programs are being sold as the SUBPRIME MORTGAGE FRAUDS ---people are deliberately being TRAPPED----and TARGETED so global banking 1% can have CHEAP/FREE LABOR.
'GROSS MISMANAGEMENT'---
I speak about my case of STUDENT LOAN DEBT and trying to satisfy what started as a small few thousands of dollars debt----which ballooned into over ten thousand with me never being able to shed this debt. I paid $5,000 on about $3,000 and yet somehow I still owed too much money.
THIS IS WHAT THE ABOVE STATEMENT means------the lawsuit was filed because of these kinds of experience.
Devos got to be a BILLIONAIRE because of all that GROSS MISMANAGEMENT ---AKA massive US Federal Department of Education funding FRAUD.
DeVos is a walking MORAL HAZARD who needs some CHINESE SOCIAL CREDIT SCORE----STANFORD TOTAL PRISON MODEL.
Lawsuit alleges ‘gross mismanagement’ of student-loan forgiveness by the Department of Education
Published: July 11, 2019 2:03 p.m. ET
This is the latest case to say borrowers are not getting the debt-relief they deserve
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
A new lawsuit alleges Betsy DeVos’s Department of Education has contributed to unnecessary financial problems of students and former students.
By
AndrewKeshner Reporter
Too many student-loan borrowers are missing their chance to get the debt relief they deserve because Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her staff have botched the administration of a loan-forgiveness program, a new lawsuit charges.
A federal program allows teachers and certain government and non-profit workers to wipe away their student-loan debts if they fit the right criteria — most importantly, 10 years of repayment — but the lawsuit filed Thursday by a powerful teacher’s union and several borrowers alleges DeVos’ Education Department is engaging in “gross mismanagement.”
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, a 2007 initiative that started accepted applications in 2017, has allowed loan forgiveness for 518 borrowers applications out of the 73,554.The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, a 2007 initiative that started accepted applications in 2017, has allowed loan forgiveness for a mere 518 borrowers applications out of the 73,554 applications it has received as of late March, according to Education Department data.
The American Federation of Teachers’ lawsuit attributes the less than 1% success rate to the department’s alleged failure to correctly review the loan-forgiveness applications. The department is also disregarding how student-loan servicers are misrepresenting eligibility rules to borrowers, according to the lawsuit filed in Washington D.C. federal court.
Millions of workers are relying on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, but the Department of Education -- “the very agency that is supposedly the champion of our nation’s education system — has failed to live up to its role in administering this program,” the suit said. As a result, the department “has eviscerated the statutory promise of loan forgiveness for those who have spent a decade or more in public service dutifully repaying their loans.”
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program has been drawing fire for its complicated set of rules and, what borrower advocates say, is a lack of communication about those rules — even alleged misdirection in some cases.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program has been drawing fire for its complicated set of rules and, what borrower advocates say, is a lack of communication about those rules.
One of the lucky few applicants who did have her debts wiped away previously told MarketWatch that getting her loans forgiven turned into a personal “crusade.” The process was filed with dozens of calls and a folder that became stuffed with documents as the process wore on, Tamar-Mattis, a Sonoma County, Calif.-based attorney
The Department of Education has discharged $30.6 million in debts as of March, according to department data on the program. That’s a fraction of what student loan borrowers owe.
Student loans accounted for $1.49 trillion of the nearly $14 trillion in American household debt as of 2019’s first quarter, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Within all those household debts, student loans can pack a particularly nasty punch, some say. Student loans can squelch career and life plans for young workers just finding their way in the workplace, according to critics. JP Morgan Chase JPM, +0.57%
CEO Jamie Dimon recently called the student loan system “a disgrace, and it’s hurting America, we see it hurting household formation, mortgages etcetera.”
Randi Weingarten, AFT’s president and one of the case’s plaintiffs, said federal lawmakers created the forgiveness program to provide relief for people who made public service their career. “It shouldn’t be a crapshoot. But under Betsy DeVos that’s what it has become,” Weingarten told reporters. “DeVos has hurt them. She has betrayed them. She has ignored the laws and out and out sabotaged them,” she later added.
Two other plaintiffs, Kelly Finlaw, a New York City middle school art teacher, and Gloria Nolan, a family engagement liaison in the St. Louis, Mo. school system, told reporters they endured years of getting the run-around and mixed messages when applying for forgiveness.
Nolan said a college degree was pitched to her as a way she could pull herself up by the bootstraps and achieve the American Dream. “For me, this process is setting those boots in cement,” she said.
The $500 monthly debt payments Nolan still makes “without any end in sight” are sucking up money that would otherwise go to her young kids’ college savings accounts.
Finlaw, coping with $88,000 in student loan debt, said the bills are blocking her from buying an apartment. A realtor told Finlaw there was “no way” she could afford the mortgage, the teacher said.
The Education Department “doesn’t comment on pending litigation,” spokeswoman Liz Hill said, “but I would point out, that the Department is faithfully administering the complex program Congress passed.”
JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon recently called the student loan system ‘a disgrace, and it’s hurting America, we see it hurting household formation, mortgages etcetera.’The new lawsuit is the latest set of allegations to claim borrowers are getting turned away from the debt relief to which they are entitled.
In another lawsuit linked to the AFT, several teachers last year said the loan servicer Navient gave them bad information about how to successfully apply to the loan forgiveness program.
Earlier this week, a Manhattan federal judge tossed many of the teachers’ claims but said they could proceed with the argument Navient was violating New York’s law against deceptive practices.
Navient argued the lawsuit was defective from the start because federal laws overrode state consumer protection laws. Southern District of New York Judge Denise Cote called the argument “unavailing.”
Last month, a federal appeals court revived a similar class-action case against another loan servicer accused of offering questionable advice about the best payment plan for debtors with tight budgets. Like Navient, Great Lakes Educational Loan Services also argued that federal laws prevented state law claims. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals said federal laws didn’t protect the servicer from allegedly going out of its way to misrepresent repayment options.
In both cases, the companies said a 2018 memo from DeVos bolstered their cases. The memo said state laws were basically null and void when it came to student loan servicers, because only federal laws applied to the servicers.
In both cases, the courts said they weren’t persuaded by the memo’s reasoning.
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Below we see REAL MORAL HAZARD-----here is a HOSTING SERVER BARBER SURGEON needing some CHINESE SOCIAL CREDIT SCORE STANFORD TOTAL PRISON MODEL-----yet, all he gets is a license revoked in NEW YORK so he can go to MARYLAND and get another license.
This is taking our US STRONG PUBLIC HEALTH CARE to strong MORAL HAZARD-----SEXUAL PREDATORY ----GOES PHYSICAL ASSAULT.
'Donation to Cy Vance Jr. during sex assault case raises "yet ...
www.cbsnews.com/news/cy-vance-jr-donation-during...
Oct 20, 2017 · One woman told prosecutors that when she was 30 weeks pregnant Dr. Robert Hadden pulled her to him, and forcefully pulled her pants and underwear down. "He then grabbed her buttocks, while ...'
MEDICAL BOARD RECORD—184487 DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS—none listed as of 02/24/2016 New York gynecologist who admits he sexually abused pregnant patients will lose his medical license but avoids jail time Dr Robert Hadden had been charged with attacks of six pregnant women Admitted to performing oral ..'
Back when OBAMA era banker bailout ended with $25 billion in civil payments for trillions of dollars in subprime mortgage frauds----
We were shouting-------complete student debt forgiveness because that massive global banking 1% frauds----the sacking and looting--raping and pillaging led to mass unemployment and steady loss of future employment opportunities for those new student graduates----
That was the MASTER PLAN of REAGAN/CLINTON-----FLIPPING THE EARTH'S ECONOMIC AXIS FROM WESTERN HEMISPHERE TO EASTERN HEMISPHERE.
FORBES global banking 1% media is still telling us ----forgiving trillions of dollars in banking frauds is OK----but for 99% WE THE PEOPLE----it is MORAL HAZARD.
KNOWING THERE WOULD BE A COLLAPSE IN US EMPLOYMENT----WHILE BUSH SHOUTED EVERYONE WILL NEED A GRADUATE DEGREE TO GET A JOB IN FUTURE.
DR ROBERT HADDEN --he will soon be a HOSTING SERVER BARBER SURGEON NOSY NEIGHBOR with a GANG.
The major issue is this: the SCS goes well beyond just rating ones ability to manage debt; in essence, it puts a number on a citizen rating their worth as a human being — and it forces others to respect that rating.
Future Society
China’s “Social Credit System” Will Rate How Valuable You Are as a Human
What people can and can't do will depend on how high their "citizen score" is.
Dom GaleonDecember 2nd 2017
A Citizen Score in China
In a contentious world first, China plans to implement a social credit system (officially referred to as a Social Credit Score or SCS) by 2020.
The idea first appeared in a document from the State Council of China published in June 2014. It is a technological advancement so shocking to modern-minded paradigms that many can do little but sit back in defeatist chagrin as science fiction shows us its darker side.
The SCS seems relatively simple. Every citizen in China, which now has numbers swelling to well over 1.3 billion, would be given a score that, as a matter of public record, is available for all to see. This citizen score comes from monitoring an individual’s social behavior — from their spending habits and how regularly they pay bills, to their social interactions — and it’ll become the basis of that person’s trustworthiness, which would also be publicly ranked.
This actually sounds worse than an Orwellian nightmare.
A citizen’s score affects their eligibility for a number of services, including the kinds of jobs or mortgages they can get, and it also impacts what schools their children qualify for. In this respect, the SCS resembles one of the most chilling episodes from Black Mirror’s third season. Incidentally, the show isn’t really known as a “feel-good” flick. It presents various dystopian views of society, but China’s SCS proves reality is darker than fiction.
This “service” isn’t slated to go full-swing until 2020, but China has already started a voluntary implementation of the SCS by partnering with a number of private companies in order to iron out the algorithmic details needed for such a large-scale, data-driven system.
The companies that are working in this respect include China Rapid Finance, which is a partner of social network giant Tencent, and Sesame Credit, a subsidiary of Alibaba affiliate company Ant Financial Services Group (AFSG). Both Rapid Finance and Sesame Credit have access to intimidating quantities of data, the former through its WeChat messaging app (at present with 850 million active users) and the latter through its AliPay payment service.
According to local media, Tencent’s SCS comes with its QQ chat app, where an individual’s score comes in a range between 300 and 850 and is broken down into five sub-categories: social connections, consumption behavior, security, wealth, and compliance.
Positive (and Negative) Reinforcement
Proponents of the SCS see this as an opportunity to improve on some of the state’s services. Some argue that this would give Chinese citizens much-needed access to financial services. The government also says that this will “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step,” according to The Wall Street Journal. In some situations, this could prove workable. Afterall, finance and loan organizations already detail debtors’ credit eligibility if they happen to be in default, preventing them from taking on more debt that they may be unable to pay back.
The utopic goal of managing citizen finances via structural checks and balances feels like an elegant solution to assuage public debt, and will certainly encourage all involved to improve their debt activity. But structural management of personal finances on this all-pervasive level crosses several boundaries.
The major issue is this: the SCS goes well beyond just rating ones ability to manage debt; in essence, it puts a number on a citizen rating their worth as a human being — and it forces others to respect that rating.
“China’s proposed social score is an absolute reaffirmation of China continuing to push forward to be a complete police state,” said Anurag Lal, former Director of the U.S. National Broadband Task Force for the FCC under the Obama administration and president and CEO of mobility solutions firm Infinite Convergence, in an email to Futurism. “They take it a step further by becoming not only an establishment of a totalitarian police state that monitors its people but one that completely evades users’ privacy.
All forms of activity and interactions, online or otherwise, will be rated, available to view and stored as data.”
It seems that the infamous Great Firewall is only the most well-known feature of China’s worsening socio-political plight.
Big Data for Good Behavior
More than working as a social enabler, such a system could end up becoming highly restrictive. Speaking to WIRED, Sesame Credit’s Technology Director, Li Yingyun, admitted as much, saying that under an SCS system, a person could be judged by his purchases. “Someone who plays video games for ten hours a day, for example, would be considered an idle person,” Li said. “Someone who frequently buys diapers would be considered as probably a parent, who on balance is more likely to have a sense of responsibility.”
Some see these as positive developments, by virtue of which a person is encouraged to take greater responsibility for their living and spending habits in order to earn a positive citizen score — i.e. become “trustworthy.” Chinese blogger Rasul Majid told WIRED that he actually thinks it’s a better way of keeping tabs on how the government monitors his data. If one knows how one is surveilled, one knows when and where to clean up one’s act.
Lal, however, disagrees: “How do you define people’s behaviors on a day-to-day basis?
People do so many different things for so many different reasons, and if the context is not appreciated it can be misconstrued,” he said. The words ring true. One does not need to think hard to uncover why it may be problematic to say that people who have children are, in essence, people you should trust. What does this mean for the infertile? What does it mean for same-sex couples?
What does it mean for people who simply do not wish to have children?
Probably nothing good.
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Maryland Assembly like most US states are so busy re-writing what was BAD EDUCATION POLICY from CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA into something WORSE------we don't see policy geared towards actual classroom public K-12 education.
Below we see bill to strengthen THIS GROUP as workers----THAT GROUP as union people-----
'Allowing certain retirees of the Teachers' Pension System to elect a change in an optional form of allowance';
THAT revision on GRANT to one person or another
GRANTS to build for THIS special corporate school or THAT special corporate school outsourced to private property management.
'Requiring or authorizing, under certain circumstances, the Maryland Stadium Authority to contract for, manage, and oversee certain public school facility projects';
SPORTS as now a CORPORATION tied to schools----get lots of attention....it is not PUBLIC EDUCATION.
Why does a public community college have a trustee board filled with politicians---what happened to our professors and students as governing entities?
'Board of Trustees - Community College of Baltimore County
www.ccbcmd.edu/.../Our-Leadership/Board-of-Trustees.aspx
Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees at CCBC is comprised of fifteen members – one at-large and two from each of the county’s seven councilman districts. Members are appointed by the governor of Maryland. The Board maintains general oversight over CCBC'.
What we have as a beginning for MARYLAND ASSEMBLY are bills not dealing with our K--university classrooms. Governing structures moving away from teachers/students=====selected people as winners rather than equity in employment and wages.
Status
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 21-0)
Status: Introduced on January 16 2020 - 25% progression
Action: 2020-01-16 - First Reading Appropriations
Pending: House Appropriations Committee
Summary
Granting collective bargaining rights to graduate assistants within the University of Maryland system, Morgan State University, and St. Mary's College of Maryland; and defining "graduate assistant" as a graduate student at a certain institution who is a teaching, administrative, or research assistant, or in a comparable position, a fellow, or a postdoctoral intern.
Sponsors
Del. Marc Korman [D]
Del. Gabriel Acevero [D]
Del. Regina Boyce [D]
Del. Lorig Charkoudian [D]
Del. Bonnie Cullison [D]
Del. Anne Healey [D]
Del. Shelly Hettleman [D]
Del. Jay Jalisi [D]
Del. Ariana Kelly [D]
Del. Robbyn Lewis [D]
Del. Sara Love [D]
Del. David Moon [D]
Del. Julie Palakovich Carr [D]
Del. Joseline Pena-Melnyk [D]
Del. Shane Pendergrass [D]
Del. Kirill Reznik [D]
Del. Emily Shetty [D]
Del. Jared Solomon [D]
Del. Vaughn Stewart [D]
Del. Jen Terrasa [D]
Del. Kriselda Valderrama [D]
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Maryland House Bill 186
Status
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 4-0)
Status: Introduced on January 16 2020 - 25% progression
Action: 2020-01-16 - First Reading Appropriations
Pending: House Appropriations Committee
Summary
Altering the eligibility criteria for a teacher to receive a grant under the Nancy Grasmick Teacher Award, to include a public school teacher in a school that had Title 1 status during the 2018-2019 school year, lost Title 1 status after the 2018-2019 school year, and participates in the United States Department of Agriculture Community Eligibility Provision.
Sponsors
Del. Samuel Rosenberg [D]
Del. Luke Clippinger [D]
Del. Robbyn Lewis [D]
Del. Brooke Lierman [D]
Maryland House Bill 127
MD State Legislature page for HB127
________________________________________
Status
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 7-0)
Status: Introduced on January 15 2020 - 25% progression
Action: 2020-01-15 - Hearing 1/23 at 1:00 p.m.
Pending: House Appropriations Committee
Hearing: Jan 23 @ 1:00 pm House Appropriations Hearing
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]
Summary
Establishing the Maryland Arts and Culture Capital Grant Program to provide grants for the expansion of, the renovation of, or major repairs to a facility operated by a certain eligible organization; requiring the Governor, in fiscal years 2022 through 2027, to include $10,000,000 for the Program in the budget; requiring the establishment of a competitive application process and a quantitative system to evaluate each application; limiting to no more than $1,000,000 a grant to any organization for a single project; etc.
Title
Maryland Arts and Culture Capital Grant Program
Sponsors
Del. Brooke Lierman [D]
Del. Regina Boyce [D]
Del. Catherine Forbes [D]
Del. Shelly Hettleman [D]
Del. Robbyn Lewis [D]
Del. Maggie McIntosh [D]
Del. Samuel Rosenberg [D]
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Maryland House Bill 115
Status
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: Introduced on January 13 2020 - 25% progression
Action: 2020-01-14 - Hearing 1/23 at 1:00 p.m.
Pending: House Appropriations Committee
Hearing: Jan 23 @ 1:00 pm House Appropriations Hearing
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]
Summary
Allowing certain retirees of the Teachers' Pension System to elect a change in an optional form of allowance; specifying the manner in which an election to change a certain optional form of allowance shall be made; specifying the manner in which a retiree's allowance shall be calculated and paid under a change to an optional form of allowance made in accordance with the Act; and providing for the termination of the Act on June 30, 2021.
Title
Teachers' Pension System - Option Election
Sponsors
Del. Dereck Davis [D]
Dereck E. Davis - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dereck_E._Davis
Delegate Davis was born in Washington, D.C., on June 6, 1967. He attended Central High School, Capitol Heights, Maryland and graduated from the University of Maryland with a B.A. in political science in 1989. He earned a master's degree in public policy in 1999. Davis has been an administrator with the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission ...
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Maryland House Bill 1
Status
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 4-0)
Status: Introduced on January 8 2020 - 25% progression
Action: 2020-01-08 - First Reading Appropriations
Pending: House Appropriations Committee
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]
Summary
Requiring or authorizing, under certain circumstances, the Maryland Stadium Authority to contract for, manage, and oversee certain public school facility projects; authorizing the Prince George's County government and Board of Education to enter into a certain public-private partnership to enhance the delivery of public school construction projects in the county; requiring the Governor, beginning in fiscal year 2020, to include in the annual budget certain supplemental funding to be used for certain educational purposes; etc.
Title
Built to Learn Act of 2020
Sponsors
Del. Adrienne Jones [D]
Del. Maggie McIntosh [D]
Del. Kathleen Dumais [D]
Del. Michael Jackson [D]
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Maryland Senate Bill 27
Status
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: Introduced on January 8 2020 - 25% progression
Action: 2020-01-08 - Hearing 1/22 at 1:00 p.m.
Pending: Senate Education Health and Environmental Affairs Committee
Hearing: Jan 22 @ 1:00 pm Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Hearing
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]
Summary
Establishing the short title "Jordan McNair Act" for Subtitle 16 of Title 11 of the Education Article.
Title
Higher Education - Policy on Student Concerns About Athletic Programs and Activities - Short Title
Sponsors
Sen. Antonio Hayes [D]
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MD SB31 | 2020 | Regular Session
Maryland Senate Bill 31
MD State Legislature page for SB31
Status
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: Introduced on January 8 2020 - 25% progression
Action: 2020-01-08 - Hearing 1/22 at 1:00 p.m.
Pending: Senate Education Health and Environmental Affairs Committee
Hearing: Jan 22 @ 1:00 pm Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Hearing
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]
Summary
Requiring the members of the Board of Community College Trustees for Anne Arundel County to reside in Anne Arundel County; establishing a 4-year term for nonstudent members; and limiting nonstudent members to three consecutive full terms.
Title
Anne Arundel County - Board of Community College Trustees
Sponsors
Sen. Pamela Beidle [D]
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Maryland Senate Bill 196
Status
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 1-0)
Status: Introduced on January 15 2020 - 25% progression
Action: 2020-01-15 - First Reading Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs
Pending: Senate Education Health and Environmental Affairs Committee
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]
Summary
Requiring the affirmative vote of at least six, rather than five, members of the Anne Arundel County Board of Education for the approval of any action by the county board; etc.
Title
Sen. Bryan Simonaire [R]
Anne Arundel County - Board of Education - Voting
Sponsors
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Maryland Senate Bill 19
Status
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: Introduced on January 8 2020 - 25% progression
Action: 2020-01-15 - Hearing canceled
Pending: Senate Education Health and Environmental Affairs Committee
Hearing: Jan 23 @ 1:00 pm Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Hearing
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]
Summary
Requiring the University of Maryland Extension to provide a dedicated extension agent to assist individuals with the adoption of management-intensive farming and grazing practices; requiring the Governor to provide at least $500,000 each year to support the Department of Agriculture's activities related to management-intensive farming and grazing, beginning in fiscal year 2022; authorizing the Department of Agriculture to use its allocation from the Bay Restoration Fund to fund management-intensive grazing activities; etc.
Title
Agriculture - Management-Intensive Farming and Grazing
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'He postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa'.
'The New Yorker:
Mikhail Gromov, the Russian geometer, said that he understood Perelman’s logic: “To do great work, you have to have a pure mind. You can think only about the mathematics. Everything else is human weakness. Accepting prizes is showing weakness.” Others might view Perelman’s refusal to accept a Fields as arrogant, Gromov said, but his principles are admirable. “The ideal scientist does science and cares about nothing else,” he said. “He wants to live this ideal. Now, I don’t think he really lives on this ideal plane. But he wants to.”'
MEANWHILE, our US PUBLIC K-12 is becoming VIRTUAL REALITY-----where children don't need even to learn to READ, WRITE, OR DO ARITHMETIC. This is the goal of ONE WORLD ONLINE VOCATIONAL TRAINING for all.
Reading in Virtual Reality: The Good And Not-So-Good
Zachary Littrell 03-10-18
Last year, Book Riot took a look at some of the ways virtual reality and books can be combined. Well, after reading that article, I wanted to take a personal look myself and try out first hand the benefits (and drawbacks) of reading in Virtual Reality. So I booted up an HTC Vive, got a book, and got cracking!
Let’s all move past that screen name that I thought was funny in middle school.
To actually start reading in virtual reality, I used Bigscreen, which lets you use your desktop in a VR environment. The big benefit of this is I can use any book app I’d normally use on a computer, whether its Kindle, Kobo, etc, and then tilt and stretch the screen to my personal comfort.
The (Very) Good: Atmosphere
If you like playing music while you read to set the mood — this is the ultimate next step. Bigscreen lets you set the background to numerous different environments. So, I huddled up in my hammock, put on the headset, and found myself sitting by a cozy campfire at night, reading Stephen King’s “The Boogeyman” from Night Shift.
And it was amazing.
With the crackle of the campfire in the background, I surprised myself how easily I was drawn into the story. While the boogeyman slithered and tortured the poor narrator’s children, I found myself occasionally peeking at the shadows and dark lit trees; I really felt alone and lost in the woods, and it was wonderful. I’ve read the horror story before, but now it felt new, fresh…and personal.
(And best of all, I got to go camping without the hassle of going outside. Huzzah!)
The good: (almost) distraction free
I doubt I’m the only one that is astoundingly easy to distract. As much as I love reading, my fidgety eyes will, without fail, drift around my apartment looking to bother something. Some of my best quality piano practice has come from abandoning a boring book just for a second, I promise.
Well, muscling through Walt Whitman’s beautiful but…let’s be frank…tedious masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, was a lot easier when doing it in Outer Space! Certainly nothing to bother me here.
Plus, it just feels right. I’d like to think Whitman would be tickled by the idea of a bookworm curled up in the cosmos.
The Not-So-Good: You can totally still distract yourself
Getting the Vive all setup, there is the mighty temptation to just go ahead and use it for…you know…virtual reality games instead.
And since Bigscreen gives me access to all of my desktop apps, there is the equally mighty temptation to switch over to a theater environment and watch Youtube or a movie on Netflix…just for a second, I promise.
Hey, it’s still reading if I have subtitles on!
The not-so-good: that book is a headset on your face
Tinkering with the settings, the text quality was actually pretty good for my eyes. But it’s still definitely not as crisp as a real book, obviously. And lack of eye-tracking is also problematic. As a test, I tried out reading Emil Ferris’s graphic novel My Favorite Thing Is Monsters.
For the most part, reading in virtual reality worked out better than I thought, occasionally needing to move and stretch the screen or play with the fonts so it was all in focus and readable (without giving me a headache). But for a lot of people, it’s a 1000% easier just to read the physical comic.
And while, for the most part, you don’t even notice the headset after a while, it is always there. And kind of like when you think too hard about the fact your tongue is always in your mouth, your entire reading experience can be derailed when you remember that you have a computer screen strapped to your face.
The not-so-good: Practicality
If you don’t have your VR device setup already, it’s a bit of a technical hassle getting everything hooked in just to read a book versus…you know…picking up a book and opening it up, or turning on your ebook reader. And if you don’t own a VR device, it is a thunderously expensive way to experience a book in a nifty way.
If you’re the sort that prefers a real physical book over ebooks, this is definitely not for you…yet. There are efforts like Vivepaper to bridge that gap between tactile reading and virtual reality.
Conclusion
Yes, VR is not perfect yet, and reading in VR is definitely in its infancy. Nevertheless, I’m really excited about the future for virtual reality bookworms. Just an hour or two in another world made reading feel genuinely magical again. And that to me is worth all the hassle in the world, just for those small moments of being entirely lost, mentally and physically, in a book.
This is the sort of miracle I dreamed about as a little kid, and it’s extraordinary to me that I’m now getting to live it. Have you tried reading in virtual reality?
CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA used media to say-----YOU HAVE TO HAVE GRADUATE DEGREES-----subprimed student loans to anyone with a pulse-----then, today this debt has been made a MORAL HAZARD----SHAME ON YOU says global banking 1%----having just sacked and looted, raped and pillages our US FEDERAL EDUCATION AGENCY making a few people BILLIONAIRES.
What do ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY tied to INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION HUMAN RESOURCES do? They round up all that MORAL HAZARD to squeeze the cheapest labor to maximize GLOBAL CORPORATE profits.
'in Organizational Psychology and a Master's degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology'
'Education Program to Relieve Student Debt Proves UnforgivingA federal system to erase loans for public-service jobs is in disarray; ‘It feels like a broken promise’
The US FEDERAL STUDENT LOAN PROGRAM subprimed and looted taxpayer money is followed by criminal and corrupt------DEBT FORGIVENESS PROGRAM.
This STUDENT DEBT FORGIVENESS took many avenues so our US 99% WE THE STUDENTS could be USED ------taken as free labor/cheap labor across all industries. They must pay for their FOOLISH DREAMS OF COLLEGE says global banking 1% OLD WORLD KINGS-----KNIGHTS OF MALTA---TRIBE OF JUDAH.
MARYLAND, as in your neck of the woods created all kinds of ways to USE our US students for daring to think of THE AMERICAN DREAM-----
NO JOBS THAT PAY------VOLUNTEER AWAY-----
So, Maryland Assembly these several years pass EDUCATION POLICY geared towards using those students and re-educate our US citizens as to what GOOD PAYING JOBS seguing into ROAD TO SERFDOM ----looks like. Lot's of volunteering ---lots of low wage ------lots of revolving categories of VISTA/AMERICORP/TEACH AMERICA student loan forgiveness. Students get used to REVOLVING DOOR JOBS----get used to TEMPORARY/PART-TIME employment----get used to seeming to never finish PAYING OFF THAT STUDENT LOAN.
Most education public policy is now geared towards using student debt to provide CHEAP/FREE LABOR.
TEACHER OF YEAR grant awards to teachers MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE ONLINE GLOBAL CORPORATE pre-K to career.
The Student Loan Debt Relief Tax Credits for tax year ... - MHEC
mhec.maryland.gov/preparing/Pages/StudentLoan...
Upon receiving the Student Loan Debt Relief Tax Credit, each recipient must use the credit within two years to pay down the balance of the student loan debt. Failure to do so will result in recapture of credit back to the State.
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Teacher gets a rich reward - Baltimore Sun
www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2003-10-17...
With the ceremony and secrecy typical of Hollywood's flashy red-carpet awards programs, state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick surprised a veteran Carroll County science teacher yesterday ...
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'Teach for America: $12K in student loans erased | finder.com
www.finder.com/teach-for-america-loan-forgiveness
Nov 27, 2019 · While Teach for America doesn’t directly offer student loan forgiveness, its partner AmeriCorps does. Through the AmeriCorps Award, you could receive up to $6,195 per year — or the equivalent to the maximum value of the Federal Pell Grant — to put toward your student loan repayments'.
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How to Repay Your Student Loans by Volunteering
www.savingforcollege.com/article/how-to-repay...
VISTA volunteers are eligible for 15% forgiveness of any Perkins Loans for each of the first two years of service, and 20% cancellation of Perkins Loans for the next two years of service, for a total of 70%. As with other AmeriCorps Programs, participants should enroll in an income-driven repayment plan for their period of service.
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Earn Thousands of Dollars for Student Loans With AmeriCorps Jobs
studentloanhero.com/featured/americorps-jobs...
Dec 21, 2016 · 4 This informational repayment example uses typical loan terms for a refi borrower with a Full Principal & Interest Repayment and a 10-year repayment term, has a $40,000 loan and a 5.5% Annual Percentage Rate (“APR”): 120 monthly payments of $434.11 while in the repayment period, for a total amount of payments of $52,092.61. Loans will never have a full principal and interest monthly payment of less than $50.
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Jun 25, 2019, 07:37am
The Moral Hazard Of Student Loan Forgiveness
Robert Farrington Senior Contributor
Personal Finance
I write about personal finance, college and student loan debt.
On top of that, some are quick to remind everyone that we already have income-driven repayment plans that let low earners pay a percentage of their discretionary for 20-25 years before having their remaining balances wiped away. And most people don't realize there are over 80 ways to get student loan forgiveness today!
Then there are politicians like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who say that existing student loan debt should be forgiven — at least for some of us — and that college should be “free.”
Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., flanked by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.,... [+]
Unfortunately, those of us who have been around for a while know just how “expensive” free stuff can be. Even Elizabeth Warren admits her plans would cost $1.2 trillion over ten years — a tab taxpayers are expected to handle on top of everything else.
Of course, there’s a plan to tax “those other folks” to pay for all of this — a “2% annual tax on the 75,000 families with $50 million or more in wealth,” according to Warren’s own details.
PROMOTED
Those who have been paying attention already know how that’s going to work out. The original plan is to tax other people for giant entitlement programs and new initiatives, but everything costs more than people think, and those costs trickle down to hit everyone if you give them enough time.
But costs and rising tax bills are only two problems that will plague student loan forgiveness on such a broad scale. There are much more egregious moral hazards to be aware of — hazards that could lead to a whirlwind of consequences for pretty much everyone involved, and especially taxpayers.
Problem #1: Blanket Loan Forgiveness Rewards People Who Overpaid For Their Degrees
One of the biggest moral hazards of Warren’s plan is that it punishes people who put their college degrees to good use — as in, to earn a lot of money.
With Warren’s plan, households with an income under $100,000 would have up to $50,000 in student loan debt forgiven, but forgiveness would be phased out for households who earn between $100,000 and $250,000. Finally, households with incomes higher than $250,000 will have no loans forgiven.
Due to the way this plan is set up, a family with two doctors and top tier earnings would be left to fend for themselves. This is despite the fact they probably spent 8+ years in school so they could learn to save people’s lives.
On the flip side, someone who borrowed $150,000 for a bachelor’s degree in general studies and works only part-time would likely see some of their loans forgiven. How fair is that?
Problem #2: You’re Asking Taxpayers To Pay For Individual Decisions
According to financial attorney Leslie Tayne of Tayne Law, it really boils down to the fact that you’re asking taxpayers to cover individual decisions regardless of how good or bad they are. And the fact the plan only involves additional taxes for “the rich” right now is a sign of higher costs for all of us down the road.
As we’ve seen, the rich have a way of working to minimize tax consequences, and the middle class is often hit the worst, said Tayne.
She believes this plan is being sold similarly to the mortgage modification and loan forgiveness program the government offered just a few years ago.
“So many fell through the cracks, and things were often made worse for the mortgagee,” says Tayne. “The banks and government-backed loans had options to manage, so the debts were not written off.”
Problem #3: Student Loan Debt Holders Are Already Privileged
Another problem — student loans are held by consumers who hopefully got a college degree out of the deal. This means they have a better shot at finding higher-paying employment than someone with only a high school diploma. If we’re going to help someone with our tax dollars, shouldn’t it be the people who need it the most?
“Those who are pursuing higher education are already generally better off financially,” says Tayne. “Therefore, forgiving student loan debt could be considered already helping a privileged group rather than spending government funding to help those in poverty.”
Problem #4: Nobody Has Skin In The Game
Assistant Professor of Finance and financial planner Brandon Renfro points out another glaring problem — pretty much nobody is on the hook for the growing costs of higher education in a post-forgiveness and free college world.
“Blanket student loan forgiveness could create moral hazard on the part of schools," he says. "Knowing that the students they take in have easy access to money that they will likely not have to repay could motivate schools to accept more students, or offer more programs, even in the absence of value."
“A point here is that schools aren’t strictly accountable for the debts of their students,” he says. “If students also aren’t responsible for their debt, then neither party to the transaction is responsible for the cost.”
While schools are currently motivated by competitive forces to offer quality programs and admit students who can succeed, Renfro suggests this may be somewhat mitigated by broad-stroke debt forgiveness. This is because, like it or not, students are less likely to hold schools accountable to provide a quality education if they don’t have to repay the money.
Problem #5: Blanket Forgiveness Doesn’t Address Rising Costs
Finally, let’s not forget that broad student loan forgiveness and “free college” plans do nothing to address the growing problem of rising college costs.
According to Senior Financial Analyst Riley Adams, who also blogs at Young and the Invested, moving ahead with full loan forgiveness solely as a means for resolving the growing student loan debt crisis will lead to unintended consequences with perverse incentives for students and society.
By awarding blanket student loan forgiveness, students may have no incentive to head into desired majors or fields of study which would be more in line with the needs of our economy, he says. Plus, without appropriate cost controls in place, many will try to go to college “just because,” even if they’re not a good candidate for college to begin with.
Not everyone needs to go to college from a societal perspective, says Riley. Many crucial roles also do not require a college education to begin with.
“By granting loan forgiveness to anyone, it can make college the default choice when it does not necessarily need to be.”
Final Thoughts
While we do need bold action to help those who are struggling with student loan debt, total student loan forgiveness is not the solution and will only create a moral hazard problem for current borrowers and future students.
Alternatives like reforming public service loan forgiveness, student loan borrowing caps, addressing "return on investment" of educational costs, and helping borrowers who may have been victims of unscrupulous schools are likely better solutions to the situation.
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'who say that existing student loan debt should be forgiven — at least for some of us —'
Indeed Sanders and Warren did manage debt forgiveness---for grads from global banking 1% hedge fund IVY LEAGUE schools. Everyone else is toiling away------with CHINESE SOCIAL CREDIT SCORE----STANFORD TOTAL PRISON MODEL on their backs.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, a 2007 initiative that started accepted applications in 2017, has allowed loan forgiveness for 518 borrowers applications out of the 73,554'.
While a small percentage did benefit from this SANDERS/WARREN student loan debt forgiveness------99.9% of students are trapped in a cycle of MORAL HAZARD CHINESE SOCIAL CREDIT SCORE------with global banking 1% using crime and corruption to keep these young adults tied to AMERI-CORP----VISTA-------TEACH FOR AMERICA.
'A federal program allows teachers and certain government and non-profit workers to wipe away their student-loan debts if they fit the right criteria — most importantly, 10 years of repayment -- but the lawsuit filed Thursday by a powerful teacher’s union and several borrowers alleges DeVos’ Education Department is engaging in “gross mismanagement.”
These student loan debt programs are being sold as the SUBPRIME MORTGAGE FRAUDS ---people are deliberately being TRAPPED----and TARGETED so global banking 1% can have CHEAP/FREE LABOR.
'GROSS MISMANAGEMENT'---
I speak about my case of STUDENT LOAN DEBT and trying to satisfy what started as a small few thousands of dollars debt----which ballooned into over ten thousand with me never being able to shed this debt. I paid $5,000 on about $3,000 and yet somehow I still owed too much money.
THIS IS WHAT THE ABOVE STATEMENT means------the lawsuit was filed because of these kinds of experience.
Devos got to be a BILLIONAIRE because of all that GROSS MISMANAGEMENT ---AKA massive US Federal Department of Education funding FRAUD.
DeVos is a walking MORAL HAZARD who needs some CHINESE SOCIAL CREDIT SCORE----STANFORD TOTAL PRISON MODEL.
Lawsuit alleges ‘gross mismanagement’ of student-loan forgiveness by the Department of Education
Published: July 11, 2019 2:03 p.m. ET
This is the latest case to say borrowers are not getting the debt-relief they deserve
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
A new lawsuit alleges Betsy DeVos’s Department of Education has contributed to unnecessary financial problems of students and former students.
By
AndrewKeshner Reporter
Too many student-loan borrowers are missing their chance to get the debt relief they deserve because Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her staff have botched the administration of a loan-forgiveness program, a new lawsuit charges.
A federal program allows teachers and certain government and non-profit workers to wipe away their student-loan debts if they fit the right criteria — most importantly, 10 years of repayment — but the lawsuit filed Thursday by a powerful teacher’s union and several borrowers alleges DeVos’ Education Department is engaging in “gross mismanagement.”
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, a 2007 initiative that started accepted applications in 2017, has allowed loan forgiveness for 518 borrowers applications out of the 73,554.The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, a 2007 initiative that started accepted applications in 2017, has allowed loan forgiveness for a mere 518 borrowers applications out of the 73,554 applications it has received as of late March, according to Education Department data.
The American Federation of Teachers’ lawsuit attributes the less than 1% success rate to the department’s alleged failure to correctly review the loan-forgiveness applications. The department is also disregarding how student-loan servicers are misrepresenting eligibility rules to borrowers, according to the lawsuit filed in Washington D.C. federal court.
Millions of workers are relying on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, but the Department of Education -- “the very agency that is supposedly the champion of our nation’s education system — has failed to live up to its role in administering this program,” the suit said. As a result, the department “has eviscerated the statutory promise of loan forgiveness for those who have spent a decade or more in public service dutifully repaying their loans.”
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program has been drawing fire for its complicated set of rules and, what borrower advocates say, is a lack of communication about those rules — even alleged misdirection in some cases.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program has been drawing fire for its complicated set of rules and, what borrower advocates say, is a lack of communication about those rules.
One of the lucky few applicants who did have her debts wiped away previously told MarketWatch that getting her loans forgiven turned into a personal “crusade.” The process was filed with dozens of calls and a folder that became stuffed with documents as the process wore on, Tamar-Mattis, a Sonoma County, Calif.-based attorney
The Department of Education has discharged $30.6 million in debts as of March, according to department data on the program. That’s a fraction of what student loan borrowers owe.
Student loans accounted for $1.49 trillion of the nearly $14 trillion in American household debt as of 2019’s first quarter, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Within all those household debts, student loans can pack a particularly nasty punch, some say. Student loans can squelch career and life plans for young workers just finding their way in the workplace, according to critics. JP Morgan Chase JPM, +0.57%
CEO Jamie Dimon recently called the student loan system “a disgrace, and it’s hurting America, we see it hurting household formation, mortgages etcetera.”
Randi Weingarten, AFT’s president and one of the case’s plaintiffs, said federal lawmakers created the forgiveness program to provide relief for people who made public service their career. “It shouldn’t be a crapshoot. But under Betsy DeVos that’s what it has become,” Weingarten told reporters. “DeVos has hurt them. She has betrayed them. She has ignored the laws and out and out sabotaged them,” she later added.
Two other plaintiffs, Kelly Finlaw, a New York City middle school art teacher, and Gloria Nolan, a family engagement liaison in the St. Louis, Mo. school system, told reporters they endured years of getting the run-around and mixed messages when applying for forgiveness.
Nolan said a college degree was pitched to her as a way she could pull herself up by the bootstraps and achieve the American Dream. “For me, this process is setting those boots in cement,” she said.
The $500 monthly debt payments Nolan still makes “without any end in sight” are sucking up money that would otherwise go to her young kids’ college savings accounts.
Finlaw, coping with $88,000 in student loan debt, said the bills are blocking her from buying an apartment. A realtor told Finlaw there was “no way” she could afford the mortgage, the teacher said.
The Education Department “doesn’t comment on pending litigation,” spokeswoman Liz Hill said, “but I would point out, that the Department is faithfully administering the complex program Congress passed.”
JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon recently called the student loan system ‘a disgrace, and it’s hurting America, we see it hurting household formation, mortgages etcetera.’The new lawsuit is the latest set of allegations to claim borrowers are getting turned away from the debt relief to which they are entitled.
In another lawsuit linked to the AFT, several teachers last year said the loan servicer Navient gave them bad information about how to successfully apply to the loan forgiveness program.
Earlier this week, a Manhattan federal judge tossed many of the teachers’ claims but said they could proceed with the argument Navient was violating New York’s law against deceptive practices.
Navient argued the lawsuit was defective from the start because federal laws overrode state consumer protection laws. Southern District of New York Judge Denise Cote called the argument “unavailing.”
Last month, a federal appeals court revived a similar class-action case against another loan servicer accused of offering questionable advice about the best payment plan for debtors with tight budgets. Like Navient, Great Lakes Educational Loan Services also argued that federal laws prevented state law claims. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals said federal laws didn’t protect the servicer from allegedly going out of its way to misrepresent repayment options.
In both cases, the companies said a 2018 memo from DeVos bolstered their cases. The memo said state laws were basically null and void when it came to student loan servicers, because only federal laws applied to the servicers.
In both cases, the courts said they weren’t persuaded by the memo’s reasoning.
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Below we see REAL MORAL HAZARD-----here is a HOSTING SERVER BARBER SURGEON needing some CHINESE SOCIAL CREDIT SCORE STANFORD TOTAL PRISON MODEL-----yet, all he gets is a license revoked in NEW YORK so he can go to MARYLAND and get another license.
This is taking our US STRONG PUBLIC HEALTH CARE to strong MORAL HAZARD-----SEXUAL PREDATORY ----GOES PHYSICAL ASSAULT.
'Donation to Cy Vance Jr. during sex assault case raises "yet ...
www.cbsnews.com/news/cy-vance-jr-donation-during...
Oct 20, 2017 · One woman told prosecutors that when she was 30 weeks pregnant Dr. Robert Hadden pulled her to him, and forcefully pulled her pants and underwear down. "He then grabbed her buttocks, while ...'
MEDICAL BOARD RECORD—184487 DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS—none listed as of 02/24/2016 New York gynecologist who admits he sexually abused pregnant patients will lose his medical license but avoids jail time Dr Robert Hadden had been charged with attacks of six pregnant women Admitted to performing oral ..'
Back when OBAMA era banker bailout ended with $25 billion in civil payments for trillions of dollars in subprime mortgage frauds----
We were shouting-------complete student debt forgiveness because that massive global banking 1% frauds----the sacking and looting--raping and pillaging led to mass unemployment and steady loss of future employment opportunities for those new student graduates----
That was the MASTER PLAN of REAGAN/CLINTON-----FLIPPING THE EARTH'S ECONOMIC AXIS FROM WESTERN HEMISPHERE TO EASTERN HEMISPHERE.
FORBES global banking 1% media is still telling us ----forgiving trillions of dollars in banking frauds is OK----but for 99% WE THE PEOPLE----it is MORAL HAZARD.
KNOWING THERE WOULD BE A COLLAPSE IN US EMPLOYMENT----WHILE BUSH SHOUTED EVERYONE WILL NEED A GRADUATE DEGREE TO GET A JOB IN FUTURE.
DR ROBERT HADDEN --he will soon be a HOSTING SERVER BARBER SURGEON NOSY NEIGHBOR with a GANG.
The major issue is this: the SCS goes well beyond just rating ones ability to manage debt; in essence, it puts a number on a citizen rating their worth as a human being — and it forces others to respect that rating.
Future Society
China’s “Social Credit System” Will Rate How Valuable You Are as a Human
What people can and can't do will depend on how high their "citizen score" is.
Dom GaleonDecember 2nd 2017
A Citizen Score in China
In a contentious world first, China plans to implement a social credit system (officially referred to as a Social Credit Score or SCS) by 2020.
The idea first appeared in a document from the State Council of China published in June 2014. It is a technological advancement so shocking to modern-minded paradigms that many can do little but sit back in defeatist chagrin as science fiction shows us its darker side.
The SCS seems relatively simple. Every citizen in China, which now has numbers swelling to well over 1.3 billion, would be given a score that, as a matter of public record, is available for all to see. This citizen score comes from monitoring an individual’s social behavior — from their spending habits and how regularly they pay bills, to their social interactions — and it’ll become the basis of that person’s trustworthiness, which would also be publicly ranked.
This actually sounds worse than an Orwellian nightmare.
A citizen’s score affects their eligibility for a number of services, including the kinds of jobs or mortgages they can get, and it also impacts what schools their children qualify for. In this respect, the SCS resembles one of the most chilling episodes from Black Mirror’s third season. Incidentally, the show isn’t really known as a “feel-good” flick. It presents various dystopian views of society, but China’s SCS proves reality is darker than fiction.
This “service” isn’t slated to go full-swing until 2020, but China has already started a voluntary implementation of the SCS by partnering with a number of private companies in order to iron out the algorithmic details needed for such a large-scale, data-driven system.
The companies that are working in this respect include China Rapid Finance, which is a partner of social network giant Tencent, and Sesame Credit, a subsidiary of Alibaba affiliate company Ant Financial Services Group (AFSG). Both Rapid Finance and Sesame Credit have access to intimidating quantities of data, the former through its WeChat messaging app (at present with 850 million active users) and the latter through its AliPay payment service.
According to local media, Tencent’s SCS comes with its QQ chat app, where an individual’s score comes in a range between 300 and 850 and is broken down into five sub-categories: social connections, consumption behavior, security, wealth, and compliance.
Positive (and Negative) Reinforcement
Proponents of the SCS see this as an opportunity to improve on some of the state’s services. Some argue that this would give Chinese citizens much-needed access to financial services. The government also says that this will “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step,” according to The Wall Street Journal. In some situations, this could prove workable. Afterall, finance and loan organizations already detail debtors’ credit eligibility if they happen to be in default, preventing them from taking on more debt that they may be unable to pay back.
The utopic goal of managing citizen finances via structural checks and balances feels like an elegant solution to assuage public debt, and will certainly encourage all involved to improve their debt activity. But structural management of personal finances on this all-pervasive level crosses several boundaries.
The major issue is this: the SCS goes well beyond just rating ones ability to manage debt; in essence, it puts a number on a citizen rating their worth as a human being — and it forces others to respect that rating.
“China’s proposed social score is an absolute reaffirmation of China continuing to push forward to be a complete police state,” said Anurag Lal, former Director of the U.S. National Broadband Task Force for the FCC under the Obama administration and president and CEO of mobility solutions firm Infinite Convergence, in an email to Futurism. “They take it a step further by becoming not only an establishment of a totalitarian police state that monitors its people but one that completely evades users’ privacy.
All forms of activity and interactions, online or otherwise, will be rated, available to view and stored as data.”
It seems that the infamous Great Firewall is only the most well-known feature of China’s worsening socio-political plight.
Big Data for Good Behavior
More than working as a social enabler, such a system could end up becoming highly restrictive. Speaking to WIRED, Sesame Credit’s Technology Director, Li Yingyun, admitted as much, saying that under an SCS system, a person could be judged by his purchases. “Someone who plays video games for ten hours a day, for example, would be considered an idle person,” Li said. “Someone who frequently buys diapers would be considered as probably a parent, who on balance is more likely to have a sense of responsibility.”
Some see these as positive developments, by virtue of which a person is encouraged to take greater responsibility for their living and spending habits in order to earn a positive citizen score — i.e. become “trustworthy.” Chinese blogger Rasul Majid told WIRED that he actually thinks it’s a better way of keeping tabs on how the government monitors his data. If one knows how one is surveilled, one knows when and where to clean up one’s act.
Lal, however, disagrees: “How do you define people’s behaviors on a day-to-day basis?
People do so many different things for so many different reasons, and if the context is not appreciated it can be misconstrued,” he said. The words ring true. One does not need to think hard to uncover why it may be problematic to say that people who have children are, in essence, people you should trust. What does this mean for the infertile? What does it mean for same-sex couples?
What does it mean for people who simply do not wish to have children?
Probably nothing good.
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Maryland Assembly like most US states are so busy re-writing what was BAD EDUCATION POLICY from CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA into something WORSE------we don't see policy geared towards actual classroom public K-12 education.
Below we see bill to strengthen THIS GROUP as workers----THAT GROUP as union people-----
'Allowing certain retirees of the Teachers' Pension System to elect a change in an optional form of allowance';
THAT revision on GRANT to one person or another
GRANTS to build for THIS special corporate school or THAT special corporate school outsourced to private property management.
'Requiring or authorizing, under certain circumstances, the Maryland Stadium Authority to contract for, manage, and oversee certain public school facility projects';
SPORTS as now a CORPORATION tied to schools----get lots of attention....it is not PUBLIC EDUCATION.
Why does a public community college have a trustee board filled with politicians---what happened to our professors and students as governing entities?
'Board of Trustees - Community College of Baltimore County
www.ccbcmd.edu/.../Our-Leadership/Board-of-Trustees.aspx
Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees at CCBC is comprised of fifteen members – one at-large and two from each of the county’s seven councilman districts. Members are appointed by the governor of Maryland. The Board maintains general oversight over CCBC'.
What we have as a beginning for MARYLAND ASSEMBLY are bills not dealing with our K--university classrooms. Governing structures moving away from teachers/students=====selected people as winners rather than equity in employment and wages.
Status
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 21-0)
Status: Introduced on January 16 2020 - 25% progression
Action: 2020-01-16 - First Reading Appropriations
Pending: House Appropriations Committee
Summary
Granting collective bargaining rights to graduate assistants within the University of Maryland system, Morgan State University, and St. Mary's College of Maryland; and defining "graduate assistant" as a graduate student at a certain institution who is a teaching, administrative, or research assistant, or in a comparable position, a fellow, or a postdoctoral intern.
Sponsors
Del. Marc Korman [D]
Del. Gabriel Acevero [D]
Del. Regina Boyce [D]
Del. Lorig Charkoudian [D]
Del. Bonnie Cullison [D]
Del. Anne Healey [D]
Del. Shelly Hettleman [D]
Del. Jay Jalisi [D]
Del. Ariana Kelly [D]
Del. Robbyn Lewis [D]
Del. Sara Love [D]
Del. David Moon [D]
Del. Julie Palakovich Carr [D]
Del. Joseline Pena-Melnyk [D]
Del. Shane Pendergrass [D]
Del. Kirill Reznik [D]
Del. Emily Shetty [D]
Del. Jared Solomon [D]
Del. Vaughn Stewart [D]
Del. Jen Terrasa [D]
Del. Kriselda Valderrama [D]
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Maryland House Bill 186
Status
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 4-0)
Status: Introduced on January 16 2020 - 25% progression
Action: 2020-01-16 - First Reading Appropriations
Pending: House Appropriations Committee
Summary
Altering the eligibility criteria for a teacher to receive a grant under the Nancy Grasmick Teacher Award, to include a public school teacher in a school that had Title 1 status during the 2018-2019 school year, lost Title 1 status after the 2018-2019 school year, and participates in the United States Department of Agriculture Community Eligibility Provision.
Sponsors
Del. Samuel Rosenberg [D]
Del. Luke Clippinger [D]
Del. Robbyn Lewis [D]
Del. Brooke Lierman [D]
Maryland House Bill 127
MD State Legislature page for HB127
________________________________________
Status
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 7-0)
Status: Introduced on January 15 2020 - 25% progression
Action: 2020-01-15 - Hearing 1/23 at 1:00 p.m.
Pending: House Appropriations Committee
Hearing: Jan 23 @ 1:00 pm House Appropriations Hearing
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]
Summary
Establishing the Maryland Arts and Culture Capital Grant Program to provide grants for the expansion of, the renovation of, or major repairs to a facility operated by a certain eligible organization; requiring the Governor, in fiscal years 2022 through 2027, to include $10,000,000 for the Program in the budget; requiring the establishment of a competitive application process and a quantitative system to evaluate each application; limiting to no more than $1,000,000 a grant to any organization for a single project; etc.
Title
Maryland Arts and Culture Capital Grant Program
Sponsors
Del. Brooke Lierman [D]
Del. Regina Boyce [D]
Del. Catherine Forbes [D]
Del. Shelly Hettleman [D]
Del. Robbyn Lewis [D]
Del. Maggie McIntosh [D]
Del. Samuel Rosenberg [D]
**********************************************
Maryland House Bill 115
Status
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: Introduced on January 13 2020 - 25% progression
Action: 2020-01-14 - Hearing 1/23 at 1:00 p.m.
Pending: House Appropriations Committee
Hearing: Jan 23 @ 1:00 pm House Appropriations Hearing
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]
Summary
Allowing certain retirees of the Teachers' Pension System to elect a change in an optional form of allowance; specifying the manner in which an election to change a certain optional form of allowance shall be made; specifying the manner in which a retiree's allowance shall be calculated and paid under a change to an optional form of allowance made in accordance with the Act; and providing for the termination of the Act on June 30, 2021.
Title
Teachers' Pension System - Option Election
Sponsors
Del. Dereck Davis [D]
Dereck E. Davis - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dereck_E._Davis
Delegate Davis was born in Washington, D.C., on June 6, 1967. He attended Central High School, Capitol Heights, Maryland and graduated from the University of Maryland with a B.A. in political science in 1989. He earned a master's degree in public policy in 1999. Davis has been an administrator with the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission ...
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Maryland House Bill 1
Status
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 4-0)
Status: Introduced on January 8 2020 - 25% progression
Action: 2020-01-08 - First Reading Appropriations
Pending: House Appropriations Committee
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]
Summary
Requiring or authorizing, under certain circumstances, the Maryland Stadium Authority to contract for, manage, and oversee certain public school facility projects; authorizing the Prince George's County government and Board of Education to enter into a certain public-private partnership to enhance the delivery of public school construction projects in the county; requiring the Governor, beginning in fiscal year 2020, to include in the annual budget certain supplemental funding to be used for certain educational purposes; etc.
Title
Built to Learn Act of 2020
Sponsors
Del. Adrienne Jones [D]
Del. Maggie McIntosh [D]
Del. Kathleen Dumais [D]
Del. Michael Jackson [D]
___________________________________________
Maryland Senate Bill 27
Status
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: Introduced on January 8 2020 - 25% progression
Action: 2020-01-08 - Hearing 1/22 at 1:00 p.m.
Pending: Senate Education Health and Environmental Affairs Committee
Hearing: Jan 22 @ 1:00 pm Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Hearing
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]
Summary
Establishing the short title "Jordan McNair Act" for Subtitle 16 of Title 11 of the Education Article.
Title
Higher Education - Policy on Student Concerns About Athletic Programs and Activities - Short Title
Sponsors
Sen. Antonio Hayes [D]
*************************************************
MD SB31 | 2020 | Regular Session
Maryland Senate Bill 31
MD State Legislature page for SB31
Status
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: Introduced on January 8 2020 - 25% progression
Action: 2020-01-08 - Hearing 1/22 at 1:00 p.m.
Pending: Senate Education Health and Environmental Affairs Committee
Hearing: Jan 22 @ 1:00 pm Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Hearing
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]
Summary
Requiring the members of the Board of Community College Trustees for Anne Arundel County to reside in Anne Arundel County; establishing a 4-year term for nonstudent members; and limiting nonstudent members to three consecutive full terms.
Title
Anne Arundel County - Board of Community College Trustees
Sponsors
Sen. Pamela Beidle [D]
*************************************************************
Maryland Senate Bill 196
Status
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 1-0)
Status: Introduced on January 15 2020 - 25% progression
Action: 2020-01-15 - First Reading Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs
Pending: Senate Education Health and Environmental Affairs Committee
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]
Summary
Requiring the affirmative vote of at least six, rather than five, members of the Anne Arundel County Board of Education for the approval of any action by the county board; etc.
Title
Sen. Bryan Simonaire [R]
Anne Arundel County - Board of Education - Voting
Sponsors
*************************************************
Maryland Senate Bill 19
Status
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: Introduced on January 8 2020 - 25% progression
Action: 2020-01-15 - Hearing canceled
Pending: Senate Education Health and Environmental Affairs Committee
Hearing: Jan 23 @ 1:00 pm Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Hearing
Text: Latest bill text (Introduced) [PDF]
Summary
Requiring the University of Maryland Extension to provide a dedicated extension agent to assist individuals with the adoption of management-intensive farming and grazing practices; requiring the Governor to provide at least $500,000 each year to support the Department of Agriculture's activities related to management-intensive farming and grazing, beginning in fiscal year 2022; authorizing the Department of Agriculture to use its allocation from the Bay Restoration Fund to fund management-intensive grazing activities; etc.
Title
Agriculture - Management-Intensive Farming and Grazing
*****************************************************************
'He postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa'.
'The New Yorker:
Mikhail Gromov, the Russian geometer, said that he understood Perelman’s logic: “To do great work, you have to have a pure mind. You can think only about the mathematics. Everything else is human weakness. Accepting prizes is showing weakness.” Others might view Perelman’s refusal to accept a Fields as arrogant, Gromov said, but his principles are admirable. “The ideal scientist does science and cares about nothing else,” he said. “He wants to live this ideal. Now, I don’t think he really lives on this ideal plane. But he wants to.”'
MEANWHILE, our US PUBLIC K-12 is becoming VIRTUAL REALITY-----where children don't need even to learn to READ, WRITE, OR DO ARITHMETIC. This is the goal of ONE WORLD ONLINE VOCATIONAL TRAINING for all.
Reading in Virtual Reality: The Good And Not-So-Good
Zachary Littrell 03-10-18
Last year, Book Riot took a look at some of the ways virtual reality and books can be combined. Well, after reading that article, I wanted to take a personal look myself and try out first hand the benefits (and drawbacks) of reading in Virtual Reality. So I booted up an HTC Vive, got a book, and got cracking!
Let’s all move past that screen name that I thought was funny in middle school.
To actually start reading in virtual reality, I used Bigscreen, which lets you use your desktop in a VR environment. The big benefit of this is I can use any book app I’d normally use on a computer, whether its Kindle, Kobo, etc, and then tilt and stretch the screen to my personal comfort.
The (Very) Good: Atmosphere
If you like playing music while you read to set the mood — this is the ultimate next step. Bigscreen lets you set the background to numerous different environments. So, I huddled up in my hammock, put on the headset, and found myself sitting by a cozy campfire at night, reading Stephen King’s “The Boogeyman” from Night Shift.
And it was amazing.
With the crackle of the campfire in the background, I surprised myself how easily I was drawn into the story. While the boogeyman slithered and tortured the poor narrator’s children, I found myself occasionally peeking at the shadows and dark lit trees; I really felt alone and lost in the woods, and it was wonderful. I’ve read the horror story before, but now it felt new, fresh…and personal.
(And best of all, I got to go camping without the hassle of going outside. Huzzah!)
The good: (almost) distraction free
I doubt I’m the only one that is astoundingly easy to distract. As much as I love reading, my fidgety eyes will, without fail, drift around my apartment looking to bother something. Some of my best quality piano practice has come from abandoning a boring book just for a second, I promise.
Well, muscling through Walt Whitman’s beautiful but…let’s be frank…tedious masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, was a lot easier when doing it in Outer Space! Certainly nothing to bother me here.
Plus, it just feels right. I’d like to think Whitman would be tickled by the idea of a bookworm curled up in the cosmos.
The Not-So-Good: You can totally still distract yourself
Getting the Vive all setup, there is the mighty temptation to just go ahead and use it for…you know…virtual reality games instead.
And since Bigscreen gives me access to all of my desktop apps, there is the equally mighty temptation to switch over to a theater environment and watch Youtube or a movie on Netflix…just for a second, I promise.
Hey, it’s still reading if I have subtitles on!
The not-so-good: that book is a headset on your face
Tinkering with the settings, the text quality was actually pretty good for my eyes. But it’s still definitely not as crisp as a real book, obviously. And lack of eye-tracking is also problematic. As a test, I tried out reading Emil Ferris’s graphic novel My Favorite Thing Is Monsters.
For the most part, reading in virtual reality worked out better than I thought, occasionally needing to move and stretch the screen or play with the fonts so it was all in focus and readable (without giving me a headache). But for a lot of people, it’s a 1000% easier just to read the physical comic.
And while, for the most part, you don’t even notice the headset after a while, it is always there. And kind of like when you think too hard about the fact your tongue is always in your mouth, your entire reading experience can be derailed when you remember that you have a computer screen strapped to your face.
The not-so-good: Practicality
If you don’t have your VR device setup already, it’s a bit of a technical hassle getting everything hooked in just to read a book versus…you know…picking up a book and opening it up, or turning on your ebook reader. And if you don’t own a VR device, it is a thunderously expensive way to experience a book in a nifty way.
If you’re the sort that prefers a real physical book over ebooks, this is definitely not for you…yet. There are efforts like Vivepaper to bridge that gap between tactile reading and virtual reality.
Conclusion
Yes, VR is not perfect yet, and reading in VR is definitely in its infancy. Nevertheless, I’m really excited about the future for virtual reality bookworms. Just an hour or two in another world made reading feel genuinely magical again. And that to me is worth all the hassle in the world, just for those small moments of being entirely lost, mentally and physically, in a book.
This is the sort of miracle I dreamed about as a little kid, and it’s extraordinary to me that I’m now getting to live it. Have you tried reading in virtual reality?
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