California School Districts Begin Funding Construction Projects with High-Interest Bonds

Posted on August 27, 2012

You might call it “kicking the can down the road.” But one Philadelphia investment advisor went even further in describing California school districts, like the one in Poway, that are funding construction projects with high-interest bonds that don’t have to be paid off for a generation.

“It’s not so much kicking the can down the road as it is burying a drum of toxic waste in the back of the school,” Jonathan Fiebach, a partner at Grant Williams LP, a Philadelphia investment advisory firm, told Bloomberg News for a story this week. Bloomberg said 55 school districts in California are paying for construction projects with bonds that don’t mature for at least 25 years.

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Overhauling the State’s Tenure System for Public School Teachers

Posted on August 9, 2012

Gov. Chris Christie, the New Jersey Republican, has signed a bill overhauling the state’s tenure system for public school teachers.

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College Scholarship Tips For Graduating High School Students

Posted on July 25, 2012

As a rising high school senior, you may see the summer before your final year of high school as one filled with as much fun as possible. You’re likely having your senior photo taken for the high school yearbook, and you may be working one of your very first jobs. You certainly want to hang out with your friends as much as possible. However, not using the time to do some planning for your college career would be a serious mistake.

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Federal Support for Education Continues to Decline

Posted on July 14, 2012

“For the federal government to pump extra tuition money into the system, in the form of low-cost loans, in order to spread opportunity more widely, and to allow more schools to provide more than skills instruction, seems like a small price to pay for the kind of society it buys.”

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Congress Voted to Prevent Federal Student Loan Rates From Doubling

Posted on July 13, 2012

As expected, Congress voted to prevent federal student loan rates from doubling on July 1. It was hard to imagine even this gridlocked, highly-partisan group of lawmakers letting student loan rates double in an election year. There was posturing on both sides, but the deal was reached just under the wire. And both parties are claiming credit for avoiding a sharp hike in interest rates for an estimated 7.4 million students.

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What if Students Went to School Year-Round?

Posted on July 5, 2012

July 4 is an important benchmark. And I don’t mean historically. (I love the Declaration of Independence as much as the next guy, but that’s not what this is about) July 4 means another summer has reached its peak. In all that barbecue smoke and exhaust fumes on the highway, you can almost feel summer cresting a large hill and heading over the other side. Another week and the MLB All-Star game will have come and gone. And with that, the slow, steady march toward Labor Day will have commenced again.

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Sitka Students Gain From Learning How to Make Things

Posted on July 2, 2012

Sitka High teacher Stephanie Ask wasn’t quite sure where to get a chandelier. Ask is directing the SHS production of “Cyrano,” which opens later this month, and had run into issues with the play’s first scene, which calls for a chandelier to be lowered from the rafters.

“It was going to be kind of a challenge,” she said. “I was assuming we would have to find a chandelier and rig it in a safe way. I didn’t quite know how we were going to do it.”

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