Interest on student loans only deductible first 5 years of repayment as of 2012.

The Tax Relief Act of 2010 (“TRA 2010″) carried over the ability to continue to deduct interest without regards to
date the loan was taken out. But, like many of those “extender provisions” passed last year, it is not permanent. After 2012, the tax law will revert back to the pre-EGTRRA rules and interest on a student loan will only be deductible for the first five years of repayment.

Student loans in Australia and United Kingdom not same as USA, Congress should not pass student loan payroll deduction bill

There is a discussion underway in Congress to deduct student loans from payroll deductions alleged to be similar to the United Kingdom and Australia, but the U.S.A. Congressional sponsors of the bill are disingenuous and spreading misinformation about how it works in these  two countries.
There is an income threshold in both countries students have to meet to start paying back the loans. In  the UK its over  21,000 pounds that converts to over $32,000 in USD.
Does Australia Have the Answer? - Brainstorm - The Chronicle of Higher Education
In Australia "Currently, that threshold income is around $45,000 per year and as soon as the borrower meets that threshold, whether it is while the student is still in school or even years after graduation, repayments begin. The monthly payment amount is not based on the size or term of the loan, but instead on the borrower’s level of income, with students at the threshold level paying 4-percent of their earnings in loan payments and those earning higher wages paying no more than 8 percent of their earnings. Unlike in our Income Based Repayment program, interest does not capitalize and the total amount due does not increase just because a longer repayment term is in order (unless the economy is so strong that CPI increases dramatically over that period of time, in which case one would assume that wages would maintain a similar rate of growth). Perhaps most importantly, there are no defaults in the Australian student-loan program. It is the Australian Tax Authority that collects student loan payments, not the Department of Education, and the borrower has the option of either making payments through routine payroll deductions (similar to the way in which Americans pay their FICA and other taxes) or through annual tax assessment." https://www.gov.uk/student-finance/repayments

Hispanic graduation rates increased

Hispanic graduation rates 71% a 10 points increase, the highest from other ethnic groups in NCES most recent figures.
Graduation rates improved for every race and ethnicity in 2010, but gaps among racial groups persist. Asian students had the highest graduation rate, with 93 percent of students finishing high school on time. White students followed with an 83 percent graduation rate, American Indians and Alaska Natives with 69.1 percent and African Americans with 66.1 percent.
National high school graduation rate reaches a four-decade high : http://wapo.st/VWyNNQ

Crisis in DC schools school closures push more students into charter schools

How to privatize a public school system? Hire DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson.
D.C. Council members fear schools near tipping point as students flee : http://wapo.st/Um1xhX

Teacher evaluation plans are in so are the charlatans...!

The APPR plans are in as the result of the muscle flexing from both the Commissioner John B. King, Jr. and Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Interestingly, many folks wonder how those inflicting unreasonable educational policies for others to follow moved up the educational hierarchy with questionable qualification themselves. The rhetoric of saying highly qualifed, highly effective or world-class educator and leader in every classroom comes from those that have not achieved highly qualified experiences themselves. NYS Commissioner of Education, Dr. John B. King has been critized for lacking professional experiences as an educator having only taught two years in a charter school before going on to develop one. And he was appointed Commissioner after serving a few years as a managing director of a charter school organization before his appointment as deputy chancellor by former disgraced Chancellor David Steiner. The other "expert" is U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. He only has an undergraduate degree in sociology from Harvard, an ex Australian league basketball player. There are many in the education community wonder if he would know the difference between a highly effective teacher, an effective teacher, a developing teacher or ineffective teacher if asked to observe a few classrooms. He doesn't have a graduate degree so he said it wasn't important no evidence it improves student achievement so teachers shouldn't be rewarded for one. Yet he wants a highly qualified administrator and teacher in the classroom. Now we have an ex-banker heading, the New NY Education Reform Commission Gov. Cuomo established last year to revamp public education. What's the NYS Board of Regents suppose to do while this group is trying to figure out what to do with the public education system in New York State? Oh, whatever happened to Cathie Black, the former Chancellor of the NYS School System? She never taught in a school or had any educational credentials except an undergraduate degree she obtained about 45 years ago. And, there is Mayor Michael Bloomberg the phantom Chancellor of the NYC public schools whose solution to closing the achievement gap is to close schools in the NYC boroughs with high enrollments of poor Latino and African-American students.

California Gov. Jerry Brown criticized state and federal education policy

"We seem to think that education is a thing—like a vaccine—that can be designed from afar and simply injected into our children. But as the Irish poet, William Butler Yeats said, “Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.” California Gov. Jerry Brown State of the State Address, January 14, 2013

New student loan bill automatic payroll deductions

Congress will consider overhauling debt collection in the $100 billion-a-year U.S. student loan program, replacing it with automatic withdrawals from borrowers’ paychecks tied to their income -- a system used in the U.K. Legislation that Wisconsin Republican Representative Tom Petri plans to introduce as soon as this week would require employers to withhold payments from wages in the same way they do taxes. Payments would be capped at 15 percent of borrowers’ income after basic living expenses.

Prince George County students miss morning classes

Prince George’s County continues to struggle with late school buses : http://wapo.st/W9k8yu 

Should NYC teachers be penalized for Mayor Bloomberg's ignorance of the process...

In analyzing the breakdown, both sides said a major cause was disagreement over how long a plan should be in place before it sunsets, or has to be renewed. City officials said their vision was for any deal to never sunset. City officials criticized the union for seeking such a clause for 2015, just before any potential dismissal process could get under way. They called that bad public policy that they would not enact even if money was to be lost. But Michael Mulgrew, the president of the union, said the process for dismissing a wayward teacher could continue even if the tenets of an evaluation plan subject to collective bargaining were in need of renewal, a position echoed by Mr. King. More than 90 percent of districts whose evaluation plans won state approval had plans that included provisions to sunset after a year. Henry L. Grishman, the superintendent of the Jericho School

NYT: More Money at Risk Over Teache

State Ed still waiting on NYC to comply with submitting teacher evaluation plan.

On Friday, in a letter to Dennis M. Walcott, the city's schools chancellor, Mr. King said he would have no choice but to withhold or redirect federal money unless the city submitted plans by Feb. 15 showing it was working toward putting a new teacher evaluation system in place. Specifically, Mr. King said, the city should focus on training teachers and school leaders in carrying out any new plan - something he said had not been done yet.

Trying to shed the student loan debt, WSJ, 5/2012

However, making federal loans easier to discharge through bankruptcy would be politically thorny, given that taxpayers would pick up the tab if those debts were shed." - You picked up for your American Corporate Greed debts; but you do not want to pick up for your children??
Comment

Lo and behold....student loans, , what a scam!!!

Guest Post: A Bankrupt Policy | New America Blogs

Student loans again, sue the goverment for fraud....?

Just about every student has legal standing for suing the US government for negligence, and for violating the RICO statutes. Participating in a known fraud, is a criminal act, and the US government is accessory to it all, because they allowed it, in fact, they made it happen.

Lo and behold it's that student loan debt again!

"If I had been one of the crooks who diverted funds out of a savings-and-loan bank in the 1980s, loans insured by the Feds, I would no longer have any obligation to pay those debts by now --- the statute of limitations would have tolled. Indeed, I could have bankrupted on them at any time. But I borrowed a student loan and have no option until the day I die. Fortunately, inasmuch as I am aging and in poor health, neither the Government nor their collection goons is going to be able to get much out of me. It is a pity that the olnly alternative to debt-slavery is death!"