Remember last December when the Senate voted 51 to 50 (with VP Cheney casting the tie-breaking vote) to cut $12.7 billion out of the student loan programs? Remember how that was the largest cut to student aid in history? Well, good news debt-lovers, it’s almost finalized!
This is just great news for me since I’m already paying 12% of my income to student loan companies, and still have 11 more classes left after this quarter, which equates to about $11,000 I still have to come up with. I do have money from serving 2 years in AmeriCorps, but while I will praise and vouch for AmeriCorps any day, the truth is that the $4,725 Education Award does not go as far as you’d think.
According to nationalpriorities.org, instead of using the over $232 billion we’ve already spent fighting an unjustified war in Iraq, the gov’t. could have provided 11,295,094 students with 4-year scholarships to public universities.
But what kind of government wants a highly educated populace? That’s just silly. You don’t need to be learned at college anyway, so long as you can read “My Pet Goat” the Oval Office could be yours! (click ‘read the rest of this entry’) Plus they know the smarter we get, the less they’d get away with, and that would never work.
So once again, books lose to bombs:
Here’s the article from the Columbus Dispatch.
Continue reading ‘Congress likely to increase interest rates on Stafford student loans’
http://www.dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/01/05/20060105-C1-03.html
Second Avenue School to close - Columbus board OKs panel’s suggestion
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Bill Bush & Jonathan Quilter for The Columbus Dispatch
Deciding that a citizens’ task force was correct after all, the Columbus Board of Education abruptly voted yesterday to close an Italian Village elementary school, bringing to 12 the number of buildings that will close this summer.
The board approved the other 11 closings at a meeting on Dec. 21, but held off on whether Second Avenue Elementary should stay open in favor of closing Hubbard Elementary in Victorian Village instead.
The board had not been scheduled to take up the issue until Jan. 17, but after Superintendent Gene Harris again recommended that Second Avenue close, six members of the board voted to do so.
Board member W. Carlton Weddington, serving at his first meeting since being elected in November, was the only “no” vote. He said neither school should close.
Continue reading ‘The latest Dispatch article on the closing of 2nd Avenue Elementary’
From The Columbus Dispatch
The Columbus school board has finalized which schools will close this spring, and Second Avenue Elementary made the list.
The board decided on 11 of the 12 schools to close last month, following the recommendations of a community task force that spent more than two months evaluating different criteria and possibilities. But the board balked on the final decision, saying they wanted to evaluate whether to close Second Avenue, which is in Italian Village, or Hubbard, which is in Victorian Village.Today, the board chose Second Avenue. The district is closing schools because of enrollment declines prompted in large part because of competition from charter schools.
Though both Second Ave. and Hubbard schools are City Year Service Partners, since i served at Second Avenue, i am far more attached to them and that’s the one i fought for. (here’s the article i wrote on Dec. 5th about the school closings for Columbus IndyMedia.)
i guess there’s nothing else to do but wait for january to come and hope the school board realizes the important differences between the schools. there’s more than what’s typed out on a piece of paper. simple logic is all that’s needed. maybe that’s why i’m still so worried…
ridiculous. to save the school system how much money?? probably a fraction of a fraction of a percent of what the federal gov’t. spends each day in Iraq. i guess they have their priorities. doesn’t mean i have to accept them though.
From The Columbus Dispatch:
Columbus board OKs 11 school closures– Hubbard Elementary might be 12th instead of Second Avenue
