A Department of Education (ED) program meant to benefit teachers who work in under-served areas went haywire and converted a great many educational grants into loans, in many cases throwing underpaid public educators suddenly into crushing debt.
NPR investigated, and after it published a story on the glitch the ED announced it would right the program's wrongs -- at least sort of.
This is good news for those teachers, and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has said it's "urgent that these mistakes are fixed." But don't give the Education Department too much credit. They don't deserve applause for fixing their own confusing, unfair system that resulted in a massive screw-up. That is the most basic of obligations.
Instead, the ED should go a step further and make sure that all people affected by these loans are made whole -- and double down on their commitment to public education.
According to NPR, here's what happened: Since 2008, the ED has had a program, Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) that offers college or graduate school grants for teachers who agree to teach in-demand subjects in under-served schools for four years. The teachers who receive these grants have to file paperwork each summer to certify that they are holding up their end of the bargain.
But the paperwork is confusing, is often sent to old addresses, and requires a principal's participation during a season when principals are often away on vacation. If there is any minor flaw in the paperwork -- a missing signature or an incorrect date, or if the papers are received even one day after the deadline -- the grant is converted into a loan, with interest.
For many teachers, this amounts to tens of thousands of dollars that they are suddenly required to pay back. Some 10,000 who didn't have problems with their paperwork also saw their grants erroneously converted into loans.
As a result, at least some teachers understandably left their jobs in schools that serve children from low-income families and migrated to better-paying jobs. But the grant program requires that the four years spent in low-income schools occur within an eight-year window.
Even though the ED has pledged to turn loans back into grants for teachers who filed their paperwork, they have not amended the eight-year requirement. Because of that, a teacher who left a low-income school for a better-paying job to pay back a loan that was suddenly thrust on her may have a very short window to now quit that job and get a new one at an in-need school, again throwing her family's finances and potentially even their location into disarray.
If the Department of Education wants to make this right, they should expand the eight-year window for teachers who were impacted. They should also use their own resources to figure out who suffered from these mistakes.
The current plan requires teachers to reach out to the government, which may not happen if those same teachers already spent months and years trying to fix the issue and eventually gave up. Fixing a screw-up this massive should fall on the institution that screwed up, not on the people who were hurt because of it.
If the Department of Education really does want to make amends -- or just do the right thing -- it should also renew its commitment to the spirit of this program: a great public education for every child, regardless of the family or neighborhood they were born into. Our current ED is run by a woman who has repeatedly undermined education as a public good. This is shameful.
The United States is one of the most prosperous nations on earth, and in many wealthy neighborhoods our public schools are excellent and well-resourced. In many struggling neighborhoods, dedicated teachers, staff and parents are working to make their schools great as well, with far fewer resources and in the face of hostility or indifference from the powers that be. There is no excuse for this.
Righting the wrongs done by this program is a crucial step. But it doesn't move anything forward -- it just resets to zero. The Department of Education should take proactive steps to make sure that all public school teachers are fairly compensated, professionally secure and have the resources they need to make sure that every kid attends a school that is a safe and productive place to learn.
This isn't a pie-in-the-sky vision. It's one of the most basic requirements of a functional society. It's also a promise that, for too many children and teachers in the US, remains unmet.
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