Fresno Unified gets new trustee + Are student loans hurting Central Valley residents?
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Good morning! It’s Monday, May 2. This is Ashleigh, the higher education reporter at The Fresno Bee’s Education Lab.
We’ve been hearing a lot about student loan debt lately, and President Joe Biden faces increasing pressure to #CancelStudentDebt. Supporters include many civil rights, consumer and student advocate organizations. Biden signaled last week that he is open again to the topic of loan forgiveness, but did not say how that could look.
The idea of loan cancellation has also drawn criticism from people who don’t believe unilaterally forgiving debt is the right answer.
Some believe setting interest rates to 0% would be better, and, as one student loan-ower wrote in The Atlantic, “…so much energy has been spent on a policy proposal that would affect just 13 percent of the population, and that would send the most dollars to high-income earners and those with graduate degrees.”
Others believe repaying a debt is the responsible thing to do after agreeing to take it on.
It turns out the average student loan borrower in Fresno County owes $32,996 in student loan debt and pays $202 a month, according to data from Student Loan Hero. However, borrowers have not had to repay any federally-held loans for the past two years due to the pandemic. Payments are set to resume in August if Biden doesn’t make a move by then.
With that said, I want to know: If you have student debt, how has the moratorium on payments impacted you? How would loan cancellation help you? One person who responded to our new survey said they were using the money to instead save up for a house, but a high debt-to-income ratio was still making it hard to buy.
Now it’s your turn – if you have student debt, please take our survey and help us understand how student loan debt affects residents in the central San Joaquin Valley.
Fresno Unified’s newly-elected trustee sworn-in this week
Andy Levine will be sworn-in Wednesday as the newest trustee on the Fresno Unified school board.
Levine, a 38-year-old Fresno State instructor and community organizer who cruised to victory in the April 12 special election, fills the Fresno High-area seat left vacant by the late Carol Mills.
The official results, posted Friday by the Fresno County Clerk’s Office, show Levine captured more than 57% of the vote in a runaway victory over three other candidates.
Daniel Renteria, a retired California parole administrator, was second with just over 21%. Ex-firefighter Andrew Fabela finished third with about 10.8%, and retired teacher Russ Allen was fourth with about 10.6%.
Here’s the latest from The Bee’s Education Lab
Sanger school dropping charter status. Hallmark School will drop its charter status to merge with the independent study program, Taft Academy to fight declining enrollment. But there are questions about whether nearly half of the Sanger school’s students understand they’ll have to re-apply to stay in the school.
Special night for longtime Fresno Christian teacher. Greg Stobbe, the longtime adviser of the student’s digital newspaper, the Feather Online, won one of journalism’s top honors for teachers from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. But how Stobbe learned of the award was probably as special as the accolade itself.
Fresno’s Central Unified schools close in on naming new superintendent. The Central Unified school board approved a 15-person panel that will interview candidates on May 6 and 7 before offering a recommendation to the board.
Chancellor picks Fresno City College’s next president. State Center Community College Chancellor Carole Goldsmith makes her recommendation to fill her old job.
Should California cut remedial classes for community college students? hundreds of students in the central San Joaquin Valley remain stuck in remedial English and math classes.
Fresno-area education news and notes
Fresno State announces Undergraduate Deans’ Medalists for 2022. The nine student finalists were selected “based on academic excellence, community involvement and other achievements.” One of the medalists will be awarded the President’s Medalist, Fresno State’s top academic honor for an undergraduate student in mid-May. Learn more about the medalists here.
Fresno State professor wins Fulbright award. Dr. Melanie H. Ram won a prestigious Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award to study in Europe. “Fulbright alumni include 60 Nobel Prize laureates, 88 Pulitzer Prize recipients and 39 who have served as a head of state or government,” university official said in a statement. Read more about Dr. Ram and her upcoming study here.
Clovis Community College President Lori Bennett retires. The departure leaves another open position at State Center Community College following the retirement of Chancellor Paul Parnell in 2021. Read the latest from The Bee’s Ed Lab here.
Clovis Community College recognized for equitable course placement. The Campaign for College Opportunity award the Clovis college its Excellence in Placement: Honoring Community Colleges Excelling in Equitable Course Placement for Students.
“Clovis Community College successfully supported 100% of students, 100% of Latinx students, and 100% of Black students to enroll directly into transfer level English coursework,” the group’s president, Michele Siqueiros, wrote in an April 15 letter to the school.
In-person graduation ceremonies scheduled for May 20. Clovis Community College will hold a commencement ceremony for Fall 2021, Spring 2022, and Summer 2022 graduates at 6 p.m. Friday, May 20, 2022, outdoors on campus.
Want more education news? Here’s what we’re reading
The COVID-19 pandemic wiped out a decade of progress for public pre-kindergarten programs, according to a new report from the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Education. You can read more about the report here and you can read this story from the Washington Post.
The Rutgers’ study touches on a major fear for parents and teachers. A recent survey from the Public Policy Institute of California reported four in 10 Californians think the quality of a public school education has gotten worse in recent years.
“Almost half of parents say they would send their child to a private school or a religious school if cost and location were not an issue,” the researchers reported.
You can find the PPIC survey report here.
Thousands of California students will start school a little later in the day, thanks to a new law that goes into effect in July. Last week, Merced Union High School District officials settled on 8:30 a.m. for the new start time. | Merced Sun-Star
Many Fresno-area schools have also announced new start times for the coming school year. The Ed Lab wrote about some of those changes late last year.
Letter grades on way out? “Inside some University of California academic departments and colleges, an atypical idea is gaining steam: De-emphasize or even ditch the A-F grading system and rethink how to assess student learning.” | EdSource
Debt-free college? “Roughly 360,000 UC and Cal State students may soon receive about $1,000 to $3,000 to fund their educations this fall as part of California’s effort to make college debt-free. Another form of aid to help more community college students has a less clear path.” | CalMatters
No, seriously, please take this survey from The Fresno Bee’s Ed Lab
The story from CalMatters’ Mikhail Zinshteyn brings us back to the top of this letter. If you have student debts, please take our survey to help us learn more about carrying that debt load affects residents in the central San Joaquin Valley. And please encourage others to take it as well!
This story was originally published May 2, 2022 at 7:38 AM.