Submitted by Elaine Magliaro
EDUCATION NEWS
Obama Administration To Reward Student Loan Company Accused Of Cheating Troops (Huffington Post)
Consumer Group Criticizes Education Department’s Debt Collectors (Huffington Post)
Seniors Forced Into Poverty As Education Department Demands Payment (Huffington Post)
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Cuts Schools, Pensions While Preserving Fund For Corporate Subsidies (International Business Times)
School Reform Should Focus On the Quality Of Principals (Valley News)
Biglaw’s Big Dumb Teacher Tenure Lawsuits (Above the Law)
IN WASHINTON, D.C. & ACROSS THE NATION
Chevron’s Lobbyist Now Runs the Congressional Science Committee (The Nation)
Texas Journalists Urge National Press To Take Perry Case More Seriously (Media Matters)
Cops: Gun Range Claimed Uzi Release Forms ‘Were Blown Away By The Wind’ (Talking Points Memo)
Colorado Gubernatorial Candidate Promises To Seize And Sell America’s National Parks, Forests And Public Lands (ThinkProgress)
Georgia State Senator Complains That Voting Is Too Convenient For Black People (Updated) (ThinkProgress)
GOPer Doubles Down On Excessive Black Voting Complaint: I Prefer ‘Educated Voters’ (Talking Points Memo)
OTHER NEWS
Contractors Ready to Cash In On ISIS War (The Daily Beast)
Here’s the Data That Shows Cops Kill Black People at a Higher Rate Than White People
Plus: the crazy way the FBI classifies all police shooting victims as criminals. (Mother Jones)
The New Racism: First you deny racism exists. (Chicago Tribune)
Scalia’s utter moral failure: How he destroys any claim to a superior system of justice
He doesn’t think executing an innocent man matters. How on earth can such a depraved human be on our Supreme Court? (Salon)
The End Of Net Neutrality Would Be ‘Clusterfuck Worse Than Comcast Customer Service’ (Huffington Post)
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
Elaine, Great post. Reading all of this will keep me out of mischief for awhile. I’m familiar with some of these stories, but far from all of them.
re: Seniors having the SS checks garnished. I think one of the reasons there are so many unpaid student loans is because people didn’t understand that their SS would be affected. They got away with not paying for years. An improved repayment rate would undoubtedly be the result if the SS repayment plan had greater visibility while people had the income to make the payments.
I had a loan that I repaid rather quickly by living on whatever was left after making my loan payment (and also saving 10% of my net). This meant no car for awhile and then a well-used new-to-me car. This was at a time when I saw others my age taking on more debt in the form of new cars, and then living in nice apartments and taking trips. One co-worker bought a new coat that cost a week’s wages. Nice coat but also a lot more than a student loan payment. Fiscal responsibility is less fun.
re: focus on principals. I totally agree. The principal sets the tone, good or bad. Morale and teaching quality follows.
Perhaps true, however beware – -The owl telling the sparrow that it has a big head.