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  • Affirmative Action Fast Facts | CNN

    Affirmative Action Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here is some background information about affirmative action as well as a few notable court cases.

    Affirmative action policies focus on improving opportunities for groups of people, like women and minorities, who have been historically excluded in United States’ society. The initial emphasis was on education and employment. President John F. Kennedy was the first president to use the term in an executive order.

    Supporters argue that affirmative action is necessary to ensure racial and gender diversity in education and employment. Critics state that it is unfair and causes reverse discrimination.

    Racial quotas are considered unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court.

    The state of Texas replaced its affirmative action plan with a percentage plan that guarantees the top 10% of high-school graduates a spot in any state university in Texas. California and Florida have similar programs.

    1954 – The US Supreme Court, in Brown v. Board of Education, rules that the “separate but equal” doctrine violates the Constitution.

    1961 – President Kennedy creates the Council on Equal Opportunity in an executive order. This ensures that federal contractors hire people regardless of race, creed, color or national origin.

    1964 – The Civil Rights Act renders discrimination illegal in the workplace.

    1978 – In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, a notable reverse discrimination case, the Supreme Court rules that colleges cannot use racial quotas because it violates the Equal Protection Clause. As one factor for admission, however, race can be used.

    1995 – The University of Michigan rejects the college application of Jennifer Gratz, a top high school student in suburban Detroit who is white.

    October 14, 1997 – Gratz v. Bollinger, et al., is filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Michigan. The University of Michigan is sued by white students, including Gratz and Patrick Hamacher, who claim the undergraduate and law school affirmative action policies using race and/or gender as a factor in admissions is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

    December 3, 1997 – A similar case, Grutter v. Bollinger, is filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Michigan. Barbara Grutter, denied admission to the University of Michigan Law School, claims that other applicants, with lower test scores and grades, were given an unfair advantage due to race.

    December 2000 – The judge in the Gratz v. Bollinger case rules that the University of Michigan’s undergraduate admissions policy does not violate the standards set by the Supreme Court.

    March 2001 – The judge in the Grutter v. Bollinger case rules the University of Michigan Law School’s admissions policy is unconstitutional.

    December 2001 – The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals hears appeals in both University of Michigan cases.

    May 14, 2002 – The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reverses the district court’s decision in Grutter v. Bollinger.

    January 17, 2003 – The administration of President George W. Bush files a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court, opposing the University of Michigan’s affirmative action program.

    April 1, 2003 – The US Supreme Court hears oral arguments on the two cases. US Solicitor General Theodore Olson offers arguments in support of the plaintiffs.

    June 23, 2003 – The Supreme Court rules on Grutter v. Bollinger that the University of Michigan Law School may give preferential treatment to minorities during the admissions process. The Court upholds the law school policy by a vote of five to four.

    June 23, 2003 – In Gratz v. Bollinger, the undergraduate policy in which a point system gave specific “weight” to minority applicants is overturned six to three.

    December 22, 2003 – The Supreme Court rules that race can be a factor in universities’ admission programs but it cannot be an overriding factor. This decision affects the Grutter and Gratz cases.

    November 7, 2006 – The Michigan electorate strikes down affirmative action by approving a proposition barring affirmative action in public education, employment, or contracting.

    January 31, 2007 – After the Supreme Court sends the case back to district court; the case is dismissed. Gratz and Hamacher settle for $10,000 in administrative costs, but do not receive damages.

    2008 – Abigail Noel Fisher, a white woman, sues the University of Texas. She argues that the university should not use race as a factor in admission policies that favor African-American and Hispanic applicants over whites and Asian-Americans.

    July 1, 2011 – An appeals court overturns Michigan’s 2006 ban on the use of race and/or gender as a factor in admissions or hiring practices.

    November 15, 2012 – The US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals throws out Michigan’s 2006 ban on affirmative action in college admissions and public hiring, declaring it unconstitutional.

    June 24, 2013 – The Supreme Court sends the University of Texas case back to the lower court for further review without ruling.

    October 15, 2013 – The US Supreme Court hears oral arguments in a case concerning Michigan’s 2006 law on affirmative action.

    April 22, 2014 – In a six to two ruling, the Supreme Court upholds Michigan’s ban of using racial criteria in college admissions.

    July 15, 2014 – The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upholds the use of race by the University of Texas as a factor in undergraduate admissions to promote diversity on campus. The vote is two to one.

    November 17, 2014 – Students for Fair Admissions sues Harvard University, alleging Harvard intentionally discriminates against Asian-Americans. Students for Fair Admissions is run by Edward Blum, a conservative advocate, who sought Asian-Americans rejected by Harvard.

    December 9, 2015 – The US Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the University of Texas case regarding race as a factor in admissions policies.

    June 23, 2016 – The US Supreme Court upholds the Affirmative Action program by a vote of four to three with Justice Elena Kagan taking no part in the consideration. The ruling allows the limited use of affirmative action policies by schools.

    October 15, 2018 – The lawsuit against Harvard filed in 2014 by Students for Fair Admissions goes to trial.

    February 2019 – Texas Tech University enters an agreement with the Department of Education to stop considering race and/or national origin as a factor in its admissions process, concluding a 14-year-long investigation into the school’s use of affirmative action.

    October 1, 2019 – US District Court Judge Allison Burroughs upholds Harvard’s admissions process in the Students for Fair Admissions case, ruling that while Harvard’s admissions process is “not perfect,” she would not “dismantle a very fine admissions program that passes constitutional muster, solely because it could do better.”

    November 12, 2020 – A Boston-based US appeals court rejects an appeal brought by the Students for Fair Admissions group.

    January 24, 2022 – The US Supreme Court announces it will reconsider race-based affirmative action in college admissions. The justices will hear challenges to policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina that use students’ race among many criteria to decide who should gain a coveted place in an entering class. On June 29, 2023, the US Supreme Court says colleges and universities can no longer take race into consideration as a specific basis for granting admission.

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  • Virginia Tech Shootings Fast Facts | CNN

    Virginia Tech Shootings Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here is some background information about the shootings at Virginia Tech in April 2007, one of the deadliest mass shootings in US history.

    Twenty-three-year-old Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people on the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, before taking his own life.

    Cho was a senior at Virginia Tech, majoring in English. He was born in South Korea in 1984 and became a permanent US resident in 1992.

    December 13, 2005 – Cho is ordered by a judge to seek outpatient care after making suicidal remarks to his roommates. He is evaluated at Carilion-St. Alban’s mental health facility.

    February 9, 2007 – Cho picks up a Walther P-22 pistol he purchased online on February 2 from an out-of-state dealer at JND Pawn shop in Blacksburg, across the street from Virginia Tech.

    March 2007 – Cho purchases a 9mm Glock pistol and 50 rounds of ammunition from Roanoke Firearms for $571.

    April 16, 2007 – (Events are listed in local ET)
    7:15 a.m. – Police are notified in a 911 call that there are at least two shooting victims at West Ambler Johnston Hall, a four-story coed dormitory on campus that houses approximately 895 students.

    9:01 a.m. – Cho mails a package containing video, photographs and writings to NBC News in New York. NBC doesn’t receive it until two days later due to an incorrect address on the package.

    9:26 a.m. – The school sends out an email statement that a shooting took place at West Ambler Johnston Hall earlier that morning.

    9:45 a.m. – 911 calls report a second round of shootings in classrooms at Norris Hall, the engineering science and mechanics building.

    9:50 a.m. – “Please stay put.” A second email notifies students that a gunman is loose on campus.

    9:55 a.m. – University officials send a third message about the second shooting via email and text messages to students.

    10:16 a.m. – Classes are canceled.

    10:53 a.m. – Students receive an email about Norris Hall shooting, with the subject line, “Second shooting reported: police have one gunman in custody.”

    12:42 p.m. – VT President Charles Steger issues a statement that people are being released from campus buildings and that counseling centers are being set up. He announces that classes are canceled again for the next day.

    April 17, 2007 – Virginia Tech Police announce that they “have been able to confirm the identity of the gunman at Norris Hall. That person is Seung-Hui Cho. He was a 23-year-old South Korean here in the US as a resident alien.”

    April 18, 2007 – NBC News announces that they have received a package containing pictures and written material which they believe to be from Cho, sent between the two shootings.

    August 15, 2007 – It is announced that the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, funded by private donations, will donate $180,000 to the families of each of the 32 victims. Those injured will receive $40,000 to $90,000, depending on the severity of the injuries, and a waiver of tuition and fees if applicable.

    March 24, 2008 – The state proposes a settlement to the families related to the shooting. In it, $100,000 is offered to representatives of each of the 32 people killed and another $800,000 is reserved to those injured, with a $100,000 maximum. Expenses not covered by insurance such as medical, psychological, and psychiatric care for surviving victims and all immediate families are also covered.

    April 10, 2008 – Governor Tim Kaine announces that a “substantial majority” of the families related to the shootings have agreed to the $11 million settlement offered by the state. It isn’t clear how many families have not accepted the deal. The settlement will pay survivors’ medical costs for life and compensate families who lost loved ones. By accepting the settlement, the families give up their right to sue the university, state, and local government in the future. Neither the attorneys representing the families nor the governor would discuss the exact terms until final papers are drawn.

    June 17, 2008 – A judge approves the $11 million settlement offered by the state to some of the victims and families of those killed in the shooting rampage. Families of 24 of the 32 killed, as well as 18 who were injured are included in the settlement.

    April 10, 2009 – Norris Hall reopens. The 4,300-square-foot area will house the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention, which relocated to the building.

    December 9, 2010 – The US Department of Education releases a report charging that Virginia Tech failed to notify students in a “timely manner,” as prescribed by the Clery Act.

    March 14, 2012 – A jury awards $4 million each to two victims’ families who sued the state for wrongful death. The jury finds Virginia Tech failed to notify students early enough following the discovery of two shooting victims at West Ambler Johnston dormitory. The families of Erin Peterson and Julia Pryde argued that had officials notified students and staff earlier of the shooting, lives might have been spared. The Peterson and Pryde families did not accept a portion of an $11 million settlement between the state and the families of victims, opting instead to sue for wrongful death. The amount is later reduced to $100,000 per family.

    October 31, 2013 – The Supreme Court of Virginia overturns the jury verdict in a wrongful death suit filed against the state by the families of two of the victims, that “there was no duty of the Commonwealth to warn students about the potential for criminal acts” by Cho.

    January 21, 2014 – The court denies a request by the Pryde and Peterson families to reconsider its ruling.

    April 2014 – Virginia Tech pays fines totaling $32,500 to the Dept. of Education for violation of the Clery Act, a law requiring colleges and universities to provide timely notification of campus safety information.

    West Ambler Johnston Hall (dorm)
    Ryan Clark, 22, Martinez, Georgia
    – Senior, English, Biology and Psychology
    – Resident Assistant on campus, also in the Marching Virginians college band
    – Known as “the Stack” to friends

    Emily Jane Hilscher, 19, Woodville, Virginia
    – Freshman, Animal and Poultry Sciences

    Norris Hall (dept. bldg/classrooms)
    Ross Alameddine, 20, Saugus, Massachusetts
    – Sophomore, English
    – Died in a French class

    Dr. Christopher “Jamie” Bishop, 35, Pine Mountain, Georgia
    – Instructor, Foreign Languages and Literatures (German)

    Brian Bluhm, 25, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
    – Graduate Student, Civil Engineering

    Austin Cloyd, 18, Blacksburg, Virginia
    – Sophomore, International Studies and French

    Jocelyn Couture-Nowak, 49, born in Montreal, Canada
    – Instructor, French

    Daniel Alejandro Perez Cueva, 21, Woodbridge, Virginia, originally from Peru
    – Junior, International Studies
    – Died in French class

    Dr. Kevin Granata, 45, Toledo, Ohio
    – Professor, Engineering Science and Mechanics

    Matt Gwaltney, 24, Chesterfield, Virginia
    – Graduate Student, Civil and Environmental Engineering

    Caitlin Hammaren, 19, Westtown, New York
    – Sophomore, International Studies and French

    Jeremy Herbstritt, 27, Bellefonte, Pennsylvania
    – Graduate student, Civil Engineering

    Rachael Hill, 18, Richmond, Virginia
    – Freshman, Biology

    Jarrett Lane, 22, Narrows, Virginia
    – Senior, Civil Engineering

    Matt La Porte, 20, Dumont, New Jersey
    – Sophomore, Political Science

    Henry Lee, 20, Roanoke, Virginia
    – Sophomore, Computer Engineering

    Dr. Liviu Librescu, 76, from Romania
    – Professor, Engineering Science and Mechanics
    – A Romanian Holocaust survivor

    Dr. G V Loganathan, 53, born in Chennai, India
    – Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
    – Had been at VA Tech since 1981

    Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan, 34, Indonesia
    – Doctoral student, Civil Engineering

    Lauren McCain, 20, Hampton, Virginia
    – Freshman, International Studies

    Daniel O’Neil, 22, Lafayette, Rhode Island
    – Graduate student, Environmental Engineering

    Juan Ramon Ortiz-Ortiz, 26, San Juan, Puerto Rico
    – Graduate student, Civil Engineering

    Minal Panchal, 26, Mumbai, India
    – Graduate student, Architecture

    Erin Peterson, 18, Centreville, Virginia
    – Freshman, International Studies
    – Died in a French class

    Michael Pohle, 23, Flemington, New Jersey
    – Senior, Biological Sciences

    Julia Pryde, 23, Middletown, New Jersey
    – Graduate Student, Biological Systems Engineering

    Mary Karen Read, 19, Annandale, Virginia
    – Freshman, Interdisciplinary Studies

    Reema Joseph Samaha, 18, Centreville, Virginia
    – Freshman, University Studies
    – Went to the same high school as Cho

    Waleed Mohammed Shaalan, 32, Zagazig, Egypt
    – Doctoral student, Civil Engineering

    Leslie G. Sherman, 20, Springfield, Virginia
    – Junior, History and International Relations

    Maxine Turner, 22, Vienna, Virginia
    – Senior, Chemical Engineering

    Nicole Regina White, 20, Smithfield, Virginia
    – Sophomore, International Studies

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  • US School Violence Fast Facts | CNN

    US School Violence Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here is a list of incidents of elementary, middle and high school violence with at least one fatality, from 1927 to the present. Suicides, gang-related incidents and deaths resulting from domestic conflicts are not included. If a perpetrator was killed or died by suicide during the incident, their death is not included in the fatality totals.

    Because there is no central database tracking school violence incidents, this list is based primarily on media reports and is not complete or representative of all incidents.

    READ MORE: Ten years of school shootings

    January 4, 2024 – Perry High School – Perry, Iowa. Dylan Butler, 17, fatally shoots a sixth grade student and wounds five other people. The wounded include four students and the school’s principal. Butler dies from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

    March 27, 2023 – Covenant School – Nashville, Tennessee. Three children and three adults are killed in a shooting. The shooter is fatally shot by responding officers.

    November 8, 2022 – Ingraham High School – Seattle, Washington. A 17-year-old student is fatally shot, and two teens are arrested in connection with the shooting.

    October 24, 2022 – Central Visual and Performing Arts High School – St. Louis, Missouri. A teen and an adult are killed in a shooting. The gunman dies after an exchange of gunfire with police.

    May 24, 2022 – Robb Elementary School – Uvalde, Texas. Salvador Ramos, 18, fatally shoots 19 students and two teachers. Responding officers fatally shoot Ramos.

    March 31, 2022 – Tanglewood Middle School – Greenville, South Carolina. 12-year-old student Jamari Cortez Bonaparte Jackson is fatally shot. The suspected shooter, also 12, is arrested and charged with murder and other firearm charges.

    January 29, 2022 – Beloit Memorial High School – Beloit, Wisconsin. Jion Broomfield, 19, is fatally shot after a basketball game. Amaree Goodall, 19, is arrested in connection with the shooting.

    January 19, 2022 – Oliver Citywide Academy – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 15-year-old freshman Marquis Campbell is shot on school grounds. Campbell is taken to the hospital in critical condition and dies from gun injuries. In January 2024, Eugene Watson, 19, is sentenced to 20-40 years in prison.

    November 30, 2021 – Oxford High School – Oxford, Michigan. Ethan Crumbley, 15, opens fire, killing four students and injuring seven others. Crumbley later pleads guilty to one count of terrorism causing death, four counts of first-degree murder and 19 other charges. In 2023, Crumbley is sentenced to life in prison without parole.

    September 1, 2021 – Mount Tabor High School – Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A student is fatally shot, and a suspect is taken into custody.

    March 1, 2021 – Watson Chapel Junior High – Pine Bluff, Arkansas. A student is fatally shot, and a 15-year-old male suspect is arrested. In 2023, Thomas Quarles pleads guilty to murder and is sentenced to 40 years in prison.

    January 14, 2020 – Bellaire High School – Bellaire, Texas. A 16-year-old male fatally shoots classmate Cesar Cortes. The teen is arrested and charged with manslaughter. The county district attorney said it appeared the shooting was unintentional. In 2021, the teen is sentenced to twelve years in prison, according to authorities.

    November 14, 2019 – Saugus High School – Santa Clarita, California. Nathaniel Berhow, 16, opens fire, killing two and injuring three, then shoots himself.

    May 6, 2019 – STEM School Highlands Ranch – Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Suspects Devon Erickson, 18, and Alec McKinney, 16, are apprehended after a shooting leaves one dead and eight others injured. Erickson is later sentenced to life in prison without parole while McKinney is sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

    May 18, 2018 – Santa Fe High School – Santa Fe, Texas. Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, allegedly opens fire killing 10 and injuring 13. Pagourtzis is arrested and charged with capital murder and aggravated assault of a public servant. In November 2019, he is declared mentally incompetent to stand trial.

    February 14, 2018 – Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School – Parkland, Florida. Former student, Nikolas Cruz, 19, opens fire with an AR-15 rifle, killing 17 people and injuring 17 others. According to law enforcement, the suspect activated a fire alarm to draw people outside to increase casualties. Cruz pleads guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder. Cruz is later sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    January 23, 2018 – Marshall County High School – Benton, Kentucky. Gabriel R. Parker, 15, opens fire killing two and injuring 18 others. The suspect is arrested at the scene and later charged with two counts of murder and 14 counts of first degree assault. Parker is later sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty.

    December 7, 2017 – Aztec High School – Aztec, New Mexico. William Atchison shoots and kills students Casey Jordan Marquez and Francisco Fernandez. Atchison, a former student at the high school, dies of what police believe to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

    September 13, 2017 – Freeman High School – Spokane, Washington. Caleb Sharpe, a sophomore at the school, opens fire killing one student and injuring three others. Sharpe later pleads guilty and is sentenced to 40 years to life in prison.

    April 10, 2017 – North Park Elementary School – San Bernardino, California. Jonathan Martinez, 8, and his teacher, Karen Smith, are killed when Cedric Anderson, Smith’s estranged husband, walks into her special needs classroom and opens fire, armed with a large-caliber revolver. Two other students are wounded. Anderson then kills himself.

    September 28, 2016 – Townville Elementary School – Greenville, South Carolina. A 14-year-old male opens fire on the playground, wounding two children and a teacher. Jacob Hall, one of the wounded children, dies three days later. Before going to the school, the teen, later identified as Jesse Osborne, shot and killed his father. In December 2018, Osborne pleads guilty to two murder charges and three attempted murder charges. In November 2019, Osborne is sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, plus 30 years.

    October 24, 2014 – Marysville-Pilchuck High School – Marysville, Washington. Freshman Jaylen Fryberg shoots five people in the school cafeteria, killing one. Fryberg dies of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the scene. A second victim dies of her injuries two days later; a third dies on October 31. A fourth victim dies on November 7.

    June 10, 2014 – Reynolds High School – Troutdale, Oregon. Jared Padgett, 15, shoots and kills 14-year-old Emilio Hoffman in the school gym. He later takes his own life.

    December 13, 2013 – Arapahoe High School – Centennial, Colorado. Karl Pierson, 18, opens fire inside, critically injuring one student and then killing himself. 17-year-old Claire Davis dies on December 21, eight days after being shot.

    October 21, 2013 – Sparks Middle School – Sparks, Nevada. 12-year-old student Jose Reyes takes his parent’s handgun to school and shoots three, injuring two 12-year-old male students and killing Mike Landsberry, a teacher and Marine veteran. He then kills himself.

    December 14, 2012 – Sandy Hook Elementary School – Newtown, Connecticut. Adam Lanza, 20, guns down 20 children, ages 6 and 7, and six adults, school staff and faculty, before turning the gun on himself. Investigating police later find Nancy Lanza, Adam’s mother, dead from a gunshot wound. The final count is 27 dead.

    February 27, 2012 – Chardon High School – Chardon, Ohio. Student Daniel Parmertor, 16, is killed and four others wounded when student T.J. Lane, 17, opens fire in the school. On February 28, Demetrius Hewlin, 16, dies from his wounds and Russell King Jr., 17, is declared brain dead. In March 2013, Lane is sentenced to life in prison. On September 11, 2014, Lane escapes from prison. He is captured early the next morning.

    January 5, 2011 – Millard South High School – Omaha, Nebraska. 17-year-old Robert Butler Jr. opens fire on Principal Curtis Case and Vice Principal Vicki Kasper. Butler then kills himself about a mile from the school. Vice Principal Kasper later dies at the hospital.

    February 5, 2010 – Discovery Middle School – Madison, Alabama. 14-year-old Todd Brown dies after being shot in the head in a school hallway. Fellow ninth-grader Hammad Memon later pleads guilty and is sentenced to 30 years in prison.

    October 16, 2009 – Carolina Forest High School – Conway, South Carolina. 16-year-old student Trevor Varinecz is shot and killed by a police officer after allegedly pulling a knife and stabbing the officer.

    September 23, 2009 – John Tyler High School – Tyler, Texas. A 16-year-old, Byron Truvia, is taken into custody for stabbing and killing high school teacher Todd R. Henry. Truvia is later found unfit to stand trial.

    September 15, 2009 – Coral Gables Senior High School – Coral Gables, Florida. 17-year-old Andy Jesus Rodriguez fatally stabs 17-year-old sophomore Juan Carlos Rivera during a fight. Rodriguez is later sentenced to 40 years in prison.

    August 21, 2008 – Central High School – Knoxville, Tennessee. 15-year-old Jamar Siler shoots and kills 15-year-old Ryan McDonald. In 2011, Siler receives 30 years in prison in a plea agreement.

    January 3, 2007 – Henry Foss High School – Tacoma, Washington. Student Douglas Chanthabouly, 18, fatally shoots another student, Samnang Kok, 17. Chanthabouly is sentenced in 2009 to more than 23 years in prison for second-degree murder.

    October 2, 2006 – West Nickel Mines Amish School – Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. 32-year-old Charles Roberts IV goes to a small Amish school and takes at least 11 girls hostage. Five girls were killed and six others wounded. Roberts then kills himself.

    September 29, 2006 – Weston High School – Cazenovia, Wisconsin. 15-year-old Eric Hainstock goes to school armed with a shotgun and a handgun. After a struggle with the school janitor, Hainstock shoots and kills the school principal. He is convicted of murder in August 2007 and sentenced to life in prison.

    September 27, 2006 – Platte Canyon High School – Bailey, Colorado. 54-year-old Duane Morrison takes six female students hostage. When SWAT teams enter the school, Morrison shoots 16-year-old Emily Keyes. Morrison then kills himself. Keyes later dies at the hospital.

    November 8, 2005 – Campbell County Comprehensive High School – Jacksboro, Tennessee. 15-year-old Kenneth Bartley Jr. opens fire on a principal and two assistant principals, killing one of them and critically wounding another, authorities said. In 2007, Bartley accepts a plea bargain, but his guilty plea is later vacated. In a retrial in February 2014, Bartley is found guilty of reckless homicide and not guilty of attempted first degree murder. He is sentenced to time served and released.

    March 21, 2005 – Red Lake High School – Red Lake, Minnesota. 16-year-old Jeff Weise kills his grandfather and another adult, five students, a teacher and a security officer. He then kills himself.

    February 3, 2004 – Southwood Middle School – Palmetto Bay, Florida. 14-year-old Michael Hernandez stabs to death 14-year-old Jaime Rodrigo Gough. In 2013, an appeals court tosses Hernandez’s life sentence and remands the case for re-sentencing. In 2016, Hernandez is again sentenced to life in prison.

    September 24, 2003 – Rocori High School – Cold Spring, Minnesota. 15-year-old Jason McLaughlin shoots and kills 17-year-old Aaron Rollins and critically injures another student. The second student dies in October. In 2005, McLaughlin is sentenced to consecutive terms of life in prison for first-degree murder and 12 years for second-degree murder.

    April 24, 2003 – Red Lion Area Junior High School – Red Lion, Pennsylvania. 14-year-old James Sheets brings a revolver to school and kills his principal, Eugene Segro, and then himself.

    December 5, 2001 – Springfield High School – Springfield, Massachusetts. At a high school for troubled teens, 17-year-old Corey Ramos stabs to death Reverend Theodore Brown, a counselor at the school. In 2003, Ramos is sentenced to life in prison.

    March 5, 2001 – Santana High School – Santee, California. 15-year-old Charles “Andy” Williams kills two classmates, a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old, and injures 13. Williams is sentenced in 2002 to at least 50 years in prison.

    May 26, 2000 – Lake Worth Community Middle School – Lake Worth, Florida. 13-year-old Nathaniel Brazill, after being sent home for misbehaving, returns to school and shoots and kills his teacher Barry Grunow. Brazill is sentenced to 28 years in prison.

    February 29, 2000 – Buell Elementary School – Mount Morris Township, Michigan. An unnamed 6-year-old boy shoots and kills a 6-year-old playmate, Kayla Rolland, at school. He is removed from his mother’s custody and put up for adoption.

    November 19, 1999 – Deming Middle School – Deming, New Mexico. 12-year-old Victor Cordova shoots and kills a 13-year-old classmate. He is sentenced to two years in juvenile detention.

    April 20, 1999 – Columbine High School – Littleton, Colorado. 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold kill 12 fellow students and one teacher before dying by suicide in the school library.

    May 21, 1998 – Thurston High School – Springfield, Oregon. After killing his parents the previous day, 15-year-old Kip Kinkel returns to Thurston High armed with a rifle. He kills two students in the school cafeteria, a 16 and a 17-year-old. He is sentenced to 112 years in prison.

    April 24, 1998 – James Parker Middle School – Edinboro, Pennsylvania. 14-year-old Andrew Wurst shoots and kills science teacher John Gillette at a school dance. He is sentenced to serve between 30 and 60 years.

    March 24, 1998 – Westside Middle School – Jonesboro, Arkansas. 11-year-old Andrew Golden and 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson ambush fellow students and their teachers, killing five. Johnson is incarcerated in a youth facility and released on his 21st birthday, August 11, 2005. Golden is released on his 21st birthday, May 25, 2007.

    December 1, 1997 – Heath High School – West Paducah, Kentucky. 14-year-old Michael Carneal opens fire on a school prayer group, killing three girls, who were 14, 15 and 17. He is serving life in prison.

    October 1, 1997 – Pearl High School – Pearl, Mississippi. After killing his mother at home, 16-year-old Luke Woodham arrives at school and shoots two classmates. Woodham is serving three life sentences plus 140 years.

    February 19, 1997 – Bethel High School – Bethel, Alaska. 16-year-old Evan Ramsey uses a shotgun stolen from his foster home to kill a 15-year-old student and the school principal. He is currently serving a term of 210 years.

    September 25, 1996 – Dekalb Alternative School – Decatur, Georgia. 16-year-old David Dubose Jr. shoots and kills English teacher Horace Morgan on the steps of the school. Dubose is found not guilty by reason of insanity and is committed indefinitely to a state mental hospital.

    February 2, 1996 – Frontier Junior High School – Moses Lake, Washington. 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis takes a rifle to school and kills two classmates and a teacher. He is sentenced to life in prison.

    January 19, 1996 – Winston Education Center – Washington. Two masked gunmen kill 14-year-old Damion Blocker in a stairwell. 16-year-old shooter Darrick Evans is given a sentence of 41 years to life in prison.

    November 15, 1995 – Richland High School – Lynnville, Tennessee. 17-year-old Jamie Rouse kills a business teacher and a 16-year-old student. Rouse is serving a life sentence.

    October 12, 1995 – Blackville-Hilda High School – Blackville, South Carolina. 15-year-old Toby Sincino kills a teacher and then himself.

    November 7, 1994 – Wickliffe Middle School – Wickliffe, Ohio. 37-year-old drifter Keith Ledeger shoots and kills school custodian Peter Christopher and injures three others. Ledeger is sentenced to life in prison.

    April 12, 1994 – Margaret Leary Elementary School – Butte, Montana. 10-year-old James Osmanson, teased because his parents have AIDS, shoots and kills an 11-year-old on the school playground. Osmanson is sent to a private residential treatment center.

    February 1, 1994 – Valley View Junior High School – Simi Valley, California. 13-year-old Philip Hernandez stabs to death a 14-year-old student in a school hallway. Hernandez is sentenced to four years in a California Youth Authority prison.

    December 1, 1993 – Wauwatosa West High School – Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. 21-year-old former student Leonard McDowell returns to his high school and kills Associate Principal Dale Breitlow. He is sentenced to life in prison.

    May 24, 1993 – Upper Perkiomen High School – Pennsburg, Pennsylvania. 15-year-old student Jason Smith kills another student who had bullied him. He is sentenced to between 12 and 25 years in prison.

    April 15, 1993 – Ford Middle School – Acushnet, Massachusetts. 44-year-old David Taber invades a middle school and takes three hostages. He later shoots and kills school nurse Carol Day. He is found not guilty of the murder by reason of insanity.

    April 12, 1993 – Dartmouth High School – Dartmouth, Massachusetts. 16-year-old Jason Robinson is stabbed to death in his social studies class by three teenage attackers who invade the classroom.

    January 18, 1993 – East Carter High School – Grayson, Kentucky. 17-year-old student Scott Pennington shoots and kills a teacher and custodian. He is sentenced to life in prison.

    May 1, 1992 – Lindhurst High School – Olivehurst, California. 20-year-old dropout Eric Houston returns to his high school and kills a former teacher and three students. Houston is sentenced to death.

    February 26, 1992 – Thomas Jefferson High School – Brooklyn, New York. A 15-year-old shoots and kills two other students. The shooter, Kahlil Sumpter, is sentenced in 1993 to between 6 2/3 and 20 years in prison and is released in 1998.

    November 25, 1991 – Thomas Jefferson High School – Brooklyn, New York. A stray bullet kills a 16-year-old student during an argument between two other teens. Shooter Jason Bentley, 14, is sentenced in 1992 to three to nine years in prison.

    January 17, 1989 – Cleveland Elementary School – Stockton, California. 24-year-old drifter Patrick Purdy uses an AK-47 to kill five children on an elementary school playground. He then takes his own life.

    December 16, 1988 – Atlantic Shores Christian School – Virginia Beach, Virginia. 16-year-old Nicholas Elliot shoots and kills teacher Karen Farley. Elliott is sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

    September 26, 1988 – Oakland Elementary School – Greenwood, South Carolina. 19-year-old James Wilson, copying the Winnetka, Illinois murders, kills 8-year-olds Tequila Thomas and Shequila Bradley in their school cafeteria. Wilson’s death sentence is overturned in January 2003.

    May 20, 1988 – Hubbard Woods Elementary School – Winnetka, Illinois. 30-year-old Laurie Dann invades an elementary school and kills an 8-year-old boy. She injures six other people before taking her own life.

    February 11, 1988 – Pinellas Park High School – Largo, Florida. Two 15-year-olds with stolen weapons, Jason McCoy and Jason Harless, shoot and kill Assistant Principal Richard Allen. McCoy serves two years in prison, and Harless serves eight.

    March 2, 1987 – Dekalb High School – Dekalb, Missouri. 12-year-old Nathan Faris, who was teased about being overweight, shoots 13-year-old Timothy Perrin and then takes his own life.

    December 4, 1986 – Fergus High School – Lewistown, Montana. 14-year-old Kristofer Hans shoots and kills substitute teacher Henrietta Smith. He is sentenced to 206 years in prison in 1988.

    May 16, 1986 – Cokeville Elementary School – Cokeville, Wyoming. A couple in their 40s, David and Doris Young, take over an elementary school with a bomb and hold 150 children and adults hostage, demanding $300 million in ransom. The bomb accidentally detonates, setting the school on fire. Investigators later determine that during the fire David Young shot his wife and then killed himself. 74 people were injured in the fire.

    January 21, 1985 – Goddard Junior High School – Goddard, Kansas. 14-year-old James Kearbey shoots and kills Principal Jim McGee. Kearbey spends seven years in juvenile detention and is released at the age of 21. On October 31, 2001, Kearbey is involved in a six-hour standoff with Wichita, Kansas, police. No injuries resulted and Kearbey is later acquitted of aggravated assault on a police officer.

    February 24, 1984 – 49th Street School – Los Angeles. Sniper Tyrone Mitchell shoots at children on an elementary school playground, killing one and injuring 11. He later takes his own life.

    January 20, 1983 – Parkway South Junior High – St. Louis. An unnamed 14-year-old shoots and kills another student before turning the gun on himself.

    March 19, 1982 – Valley High School – Las Vegas. 17-year-old Pat Lizotte shoots and kills psychology teacher Clarence Piggott during class. Lizotte is sentenced to life in prison.

    January 29, 1979 – Grover Cleveland Elementary – San Diego. 16-year-old Brenda Spencer opens fire on a school across from her home, killing the principal and janitor.

    May 18, 1978 – Murchison Junior High School – Austin, Texas. 13-year-old John Christian shoots and kills his English teacher Wilbur Grayson, during class. The shooter is the son of George Christian, press secretary to President Lyndon Johnson from 1967 to 1969. After time in a psychiatric hospital, Christian attends high school in the Dallas area.

    February 22, 1978 – Everett High School – Lansing, Michigan. 15-year-old Roger Needham kills another student who had bullied him. After four years in juvenile detention, Needham is released. He later earns a Ph.D in math and works as a professor in Missouri and New York.

    March 18, 1975 – Sumner High School – St. Louis. 16-year-old Stephen Goods, a bystander, is shot and killed during a fight between other teens.

    December 30, 1974 – Olean High School – Olean, New York. Honors student Anthony Barbaro kills a school janitor and two passers-by. Barbaro later kills himself while awaiting trial.

    October 5, 1966 – Grand Rapids High School – Grand Rapids, Minnesota. 15-year-old David Black injures another student before killing teacher Forrest Willey.

    September 15, 1959 – Edgar Allen Poe Elementary – Houston. Convict Paul Orgeron explodes a suitcase of dynamite on a school playground, killing himself, two adults and three children.

    May 18, 1927 – Bath Consolidated Schoolhouse – Bath, Michigan. Farmer Andrew Kehoe sets off two explosions at the school, killing himself, six adults and 38 children.

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  • She lost her mother to gun violence. 5 years later, this vibrant fourth grader was killed while getting ice cream | CNN

    She lost her mother to gun violence. 5 years later, this vibrant fourth grader was killed while getting ice cream | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: This story is part of a series profiling American youth killed this year by guns, a leading cause of death of children in the US. Read more about the project here.



    CNN
     — 

    Every morning since the school year started, before teacher assistant Madelyn Cedeno shuts the front door of Peter A. Reinberg Elementary School at the start of classes, she peers out one last time.

    She hopes she’ll see Serabi Medina running late, with her playful smile, her big red hair flying and her father trailing just behind her. The teacher and student first bonded over their ginger hair when Serabi began kindergarten four years ago. “She just reminded me of me at her age with that color hair,” Cedeno said. “I pretty much told her, ‘All of us gingers around the world, we stick together in any kind of weather, so you and I are stuck together forever.’”

    “We were the gingers of Reinberg,” she said.

    The two often chatted in the school hallways and in the mornings, when Cedeno stood outside the school to greet students. And every day, before Serabi walked into school, she would tell Cedeno she loved her.

    They saw each other again in early August, after Serabi had finished a summer class she took before she was set to start fourth grade. Cedeno told her the upcoming school year would be fantastic. They hugged and said goodbye with their special, signature wave.

    Less than a week later, the vibrant 9-year-old was shot and killed, allegedly by a neighbor, in front of her Chicago home – one of at least 1,400 children and teens killed by a firearm so far in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Firearms became the No. 1 killer of children and teens in America in 2020, surpassing motor vehicle accidents, which had long been the leading cause of death among America’s youth, federal data shows.

    Serabi had been riding her scooter and had just returned from a nearby ice cream truck carrying two ice-creams: one for herself and one for her dad, who was outside with her. As she reached the door of their apartment building, authorities say neighbor Michael Goodman approached her and fired his gun, fatally striking Serabi in the head.

    He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bond on first-degree murder charges. Goodman’s public defender, Kathryn Lisco, told CNN Goodman has been “plagued by debilitating and documented mental health issues over the course of his life.”

    “The real question we should be asking is why, despite Michael Goodman’s mental health history was he ever able to legally obtain a gun?” Lisco said.

    At every court hearing, Serabi’s family has been there, waiting for justice. It’s been rough, her father says. But that doesn’t even begin to describe it: Serabi was his “light,” the little girl he had devoted his life to after his partner, Serabi’s mom, was shot and killed five years ago right in front of their eyes. Chicago police say that investigation is ongoing, and no suspect is in custody.

    “Once I lost her mom, I lost half of myself, so my focus was all on my daughter,” Michael Medina told CNN in a recent interview.

    “She was just a beautiful girl, my light. She was my life.”

    Braids and press-on nails

    Even for those who knew her best, putting Serabi into words isn’t easy: She was unstoppable.

    Serabi was always happy, always active. She was a dodgeball champion, a YouTube enthusiast, an animal lover. She didn’t shy away from saying hello to strangers.

    “She was full of life,” her cousin, Jaleesa Medina, 29, said. “She wouldn’t need music to dance.” She loved to dress up during Halloween – last year, she dressed up in a Ghostbusters theme, her cousin recalled.

    Serabi is seen here with her cousin, Jaleesa Medina, in an undated picture.

    And she was creative, often putting press-on nails and pouring time into braiding her hair and coming up with new hairstyles, her father recalled. She’d often ask Medina for help, directing him to hold one braid as she worked on another. “Daddy, just do it, you can do it, don’t worry,” she’d encourage him.

    Serabi was fearless, never afraid to learn something new or stand up to someone decades older than her when she felt picked on. She was always cracking jokes to make others laugh, and often enjoyed sassy exchanges with family members, they said. At school, even the eighth graders knew her, her father says, and she was always trying to be “a comedian.”

    “She walked in the room with a big smile on her face and everyone just kind of turned and looked,” her principal, Edwin Loch, said.

    Five days after her death, Loch helped organize a candlelight service in her honor. He asked everyone to wear purple, her favorite color. More than a hundred people gathered to say goodbye.

    “She was never mean to anybody, always wanted to be the person that got people together, and have fun,” Loch recalled. “She just wanted to live.”

    Serabi Medina's favorite color was purple, her family said.

    To John Hogue Jr., her half-brother, Serabi was, first and foremost, his “baby sister.”

    John, 16, was the second person to ever hold her when she was born. He fed her when she was a baby, rocked her to sleep and watched cartoons like “Paw Patrol” and Barbie, just to spend time with her. When their mom, Blanca Miranda, was still alive, the three of them would often go to water parks and the movies.

    He had felt excited, he told CNN, to be a big brother to Serabi and wanted to take care of her. But often, it felt like she took care of him, he said.

    “She was always caring, and if something happened, she’d be there and help me talk,” John, a high school junior, said. “She’d talk like a grown-up, she was loving like a grown-up.”

    Serabi with her mother, Blanca, and brother, John, seen in an undated picture.

    It’s something many of her loved ones point out: Despite her young age, Serabi always seemed wise beyond her years, and quick to offer words of comfort to those who needed it most, though she was hurting from her own loss. Serabi saw her mother’s fatal shooting, alongside John and her father, when she was just 4 years old.

    “I don’t know if it was like a little sister feeling that she would get inside, but it seemed at times when I’d be hurting the most, she would reach out and say, ‘Hey, I love you,’” Serabi’s half-sister, Lacey Tatro, said. The two hadn’t seen each other in years but would video call almost every night. “That was my best friend,” Tatro said.

    After her mother’s killing, Serabi would also often console her aunt Juanita Miranda, Blanca’s sister. “Mommy’s okay,” Serabi would remind her, urging her not to cry.

    More about Serabi

  • She was shot and killed on August 5, 2023
  • She was 9 years old and preparing for fourth grade
  • Her neighbor, Michael Goodman, has been charged with murder and is expected again in court on December 6, according to jail records.
  • A verified GoFundMe has been set up for her family
  • Online, her family uses #justiceforSerabi for updates in the case

“She raised us,” Miranda said. “She taught me to be strong in a lot of ways, no matter what. And she still teaches me to this day.”

The two shared a special bond, Miranda said, since the very moment Serabi was born. “She came out with her eyes open, and I’ll never forget that,” she said of that moment. “She was just open to the world. She was my baby before I even had a daughter.”

Together, they made YouTube videos that never got posted, did internet challenges, and regularly ordered their favorite drink: iced coffee, extra caramel. Three days before Serabi was killed, she spent the night with her aunt, and they ate snacks, scrolled through TikToks and watched the Barbie movie.

Her niece’s loss, Miranda says, has left her deeply traumatized. But she’s determined to join other family members in court once the trial in Serabi’s killing begins. “I just want to know why,” Miranda said.

At school, faculty members are preparing to dedicate a permanent memorial on the campus Serabi once roamed. The past two months have been very difficult, Cedeno says.

“Her reminder, her presence is very, very strong,” she said. Mornings are the toughest.

At home, Medina misses his daughter’s voice, the brief arguments they’d share in the morning as they got ready to start the day, their walks to school, their bike rides in the evenings. Since losing her mother, Serabi and her father had become inseparable. Even when he spent time fixing cars in their garage during the frigid Chicago winters, Serabi was there, passing him the tools.

Serabi, left, and her father, Michael Medina.

“My baby was always with me,” Medina said. “That’s why I’m so lost now.”

After she died, Serabi was laid to rest with her mother.

John said he promised her he’d visit every weekend, but the visits are devastating reminders of the two losses the teen has suffered in the past five years: his mom, and his only little sister.

“When I go over there, I cry,” he said. “I just think about the times me and her had together.”

“She always loved me, her big brother.”

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  • How to choose the best student loan repayment plan | CNN Politics

    How to choose the best student loan repayment plan | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Millions of borrowers are required to make their monthly student loan payment for the first time in three-plus years in October, but there are several repayment plans available that could make the transition easier.

    Borrowers will be on the same payment plan they were before the pandemic pause started in March 2020, but they may want to consider switching to a different plan if their financial situation has changed.

    Plus, there’s also a new repayment plan, known as SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education), that launched this summer and could potentially lower monthly payments for millions of borrowers.

    Borrowers can use Federal Student Aid’s online “Loan Simulator” to compare their estimated payments under different repayment plans. They can switch plans at any time, for free, by contacting their student loan servicer or by submitting an application to Federal Student Aid.

    Here are some things to consider when exploring your payment options:

    Standard 10-year plan: When entering repayment for the first time, borrowers are automatically enrolled in the Standard Repayment Plan. These payments are based on how much debt a borrower has and sets a fixed monthly amount to ensure it’s all paid off, with interest, in 10 years.

    Income-driven plans: If a borrower is struggling to afford monthly payments, an income-driven plan – of which there are four types, including the new SAVE plan – may be a good option. These plans calculate monthly payments based on a borrower’s income and family size and are meant to keep payments affordable for low-income borrowers. Monthly bills could be as low as $0.

    Other non-income-related plans: The extended and graduated repayment plans could also lower a borrower’s monthly payment without calculating the amount based on income. They could be a good option for people who will eventually earn high salaries. The extended plan will spread payments over as many as 25 years. The graduated plan usually has a 10-year term, but payments start small and grow over time.

    Income-driven repayment plans could be good options for borrowers who feel as though their monthly payment is too high on the 10-year standard plan or on the extended and graduated plans. The four plans are called SAVE, Pay As You Earn, Income-Based Repayment and Income-Contingent Repayment.

    Under these income-driven plans, a borrower is required to pay a certain portion of their discretionary income, or what income is left after paying for family necessities such as rent, food and clothes.

    Generally, monthly payments under an income-driven plan go up when a borrower’s income goes up – or payments go down when a borrower has less discretionary income. Borrowers are required to recertify every year, which means payments will adjust if their income or family size has changed.

    The newest income-driven plan, SAVE, offers the most generous terms when it comes to lowering a borrower’s monthly bill. Once fully phased in next year, it will require some borrowers with undergraduate loans to pay just 5% of their discretionary income, down from the 10% required by most income-driven plans. SAVE also includes an interest subsidy so that debts don’t grow while a borrower makes payments.

    Borrowers enrolled in income-driven repayment plans may also see their remaining student loan debt forgiven after making enough qualifying payments. The time to forgiveness varies by borrower and plan but won’t be longer than 25 years’ worth of payments.

    Eligibility for the income-driven repayment plans depends on what kind of federal student loans a borrower has, their income and when the loans were taken out. Most federal student loan borrowers are eligible for SAVE.

    Borrowers enrolled in the Standard Repayment Plan will usually pay the least amount over time. That’s because they will be finished paying in 10 years, leaving less time for interest to accrue.

    Borrowers may pay even less over time if they “prepay.” They are allowed to pay an extra amount, in addition to what’s required, at any time. Because of interest, this could also lower the total amount they end up paying under the Standard Repayment Plan.

    Parents who borrow to help finance their child’s education may have federal Parent PLUS loans, which are not eligible for all of the repayment plans.

    Like with other loans, borrowers with Parent PLUS loans are enrolled in the Standard Repayment Plan by default and are eligible to switch into the graduated and extended plans.

    Parent PLUS loans are not eligible for income-driven plans – but there is a workaround. If borrowers first consolidate their Parent PLUS loans into a Direct Consolidation Loan, they are then allowed to enroll in one type of income-driven plan – the Income-Contingent Repayment Plan – according to the Institute of Student Loan Advisors, a nonprofit that offers free student loan assistance.

    Parent PLUS borrowers will not be able to enroll in the newest income-driven plan, SAVE, even if they consolidate.

    It’s worth noting that the Income-Contingent Repayment Plan will close next year to new borrowers, except to those with consolidation loans that repaid a Parent PLUS loan, according to Department of Education rules.

    Marriage could result in a significant increase for borrowers enrolled in an income-driven plan because a spouse’s income will be included in the payment calculation.

    But some married borrowers who file taxes separately can shield their spouse’s income to get a lower monthly student loan payment. This is true under the SAVE, Income-Based Repayment and Income-Contingent Repayment plans.

    Borrowers enrolled in the 10-year standard plan won’t see a change after getting married.

    The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program could be a great option for borrowers with a lot of student loan debt who work for a nonprofit organization or the government.

    Qualifying borrowers will see their remaining student debt canceled after making 120 monthly payments. But they must be enrolled in the SAVE, Pay as You Earn, Income-Based or Income-Contingent plans.

    Borrowers with older, federally owned Federal Family Education Loans (FFEL) are not normally eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. But under a one-time waiver, those borrowers could get credit for past payments if they consolidate their FFEL loans by the end of 2023.

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  • What happens if you don’t pay your student loans? | CNN Politics

    What happens if you don’t pay your student loans? | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Student loan payments are due in October for the first time in three-plus years – but for the next 12 months, borrowers will be able to skip payments without facing the harsh financial consequences of defaulting on their loans.

    The Biden administration is providing what it’s called an “on-ramp period” until September 30, 2024. During that time, a borrower won’t be reported as being in default to the national credit rating agencies, which can damage a person’s credit score.

    Think of it as a grace period for missed payments. But interest will still accrue, so borrowers aren’t off the hook entirely.

    Here’s what borrowers need to know:

    Any federal student loan borrower who was eligible for the pandemic-related payment pause, which took effect in March 2020, is eligible for the “on-ramp” period. That includes borrowers with federal Direct Loans, Federal Family Education Loans and Perkins Loans held by the Department of Education.

    Borrowers don’t need to apply for the benefit.

    Normally, a federal student loan becomes delinquent the first day after a payment is missed. Loan servicers will report the delinquency to the three national credit bureaus if a payment is not made within 90 days.

    A loan goes into default after a borrower fails to make a payment for at least 270 days, or about nine months, which can result in further financial consequences.

    A default can further damage your credit score, making it harder to buy a car or house. It could take years to establish good credit again. Borrowers could also see their federal tax refund or even a portion of their paycheck withheld.

    Once in default, the borrower can no longer receive deferment or forbearance and would lose eligibility for additional federal student aid. At that point, the loan holder can also take the borrower to court.

    Because the pandemic payment pause has ended, interest restarted accruing on September 1 after interest rates were effectively set to 0% for three-plus years.

    That means if a borrower misses a payment now, he or she could end up owing more debt over time due to interest.

    As interest builds up, a borrower’s loan servicer may also increase monthly payment amounts to ensure the debt is paid off on time. (This won’t happen to borrowers enrolled in income-driven plans, which calculate payments based on income and family size.)

    And unlike during the pause, a missed payment means that a borrower will miss out on a month’s worth of credit toward student loan forgiveness under certain repayment plans.

    For borrowers enrolled in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, for example, each month during the pause still counted toward the 120 monthly payments required to be eligible for debt forgiveness.

    Before missing a payment, it might be worth considering switching into an income-driven repayment plan that could lower monthly payments.

    A new income-driven repayment plan launched this summer, called SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education), offers the most generous terms and will likely offer the smallest monthly payment for lower-income borrowers.

    Under SAVE, a single borrower earning $32,800 or less or a borrower with a family of four earning $67,500 or less will see their payments set at $0.

    Borrowers can apply for a new repayment plan whenever they want, for free, but should allow at least four weeks for the change to take effect.

    Borrowers who fell into default before the pandemic pause started in March 2020 can apply for the Department of Education’s “Fresh Start” program.

    If borrowers use Fresh Start to get out of default, their loans will automatically be transferred from the Department of Education’s Default Resolution Group to a loan servicer and returned to an “in repayment” status, and the default will be removed from their credit report.

    To claim these benefits, log in to myeddebt.ed.gov or call 800-621-3115. The process should take about 10 minutes, according to the Department of Education.

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  • Doubling up on classrooms, using online teachers and turning to support staff: How schools are dealing with the ongoing teacher shortage | CNN

    Doubling up on classrooms, using online teachers and turning to support staff: How schools are dealing with the ongoing teacher shortage | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Millions of students are returning for another school year marked by challenging teacher shortages, causing schools to double up classrooms, move courses online and employ what critics have labeled as underqualified teachers.

    As states lower the certification standards to become a teacher, education experts worry these tactics could delay students’ recovery from pandemic learning loss.

    Packed classrooms and online teachers a state away

    Inside a school cafeteria in Lancaster, Texas, the impacts of the brutal teacher shortage are clear as day.

    Close to 50 students from two ninth grade biology classes squeeze together for a lecture taught by Briana Jack, the only certified science teacher available to these students.

    Across the room, a second, uncertified science teacher plays a supporting role, assisting with small group instruction and answering students’ questions where she can. She’s in her second year at Lancaster Independent School District, still going through a certification program and learning to teach.

    “For the students, that experience is difficult. There’s a lot of distractions,” Jack said of the large class size. “As teachers, we have to pivot. We do the best with what we have.”

    Lancaster ISD is one of many school districts across the US struggling to find certified teachers and fill open positions.

    “I see less applicants and I see less qualified applicants for those positions, and I see that it will be a harder task for the team to find someone and get them up to speed,” Lancaster Superintendent Katrise Perera told CNN, adding that she’s had to be creative to fill vacancies across the district. “I don’t want to call any parent and say, ‘We just filled it with a warm body.’”

    So, for some Lancaster classes, the teacher isn’t even in the room. The district has contracted 67 daily class periods with an online learning company called Elevate K-12, which provides live virtual instruction by certified teachers projected on a big screen at the front of the classroom, with in-person aides assisting students when needed.

    A spokesperson for Elevate K-12 says demand for these programs has risen since the pandemic. Some districts are spending hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on virtual teachers, according to reporting by The 74.

    “We’ve been allowed to think outside the box,” Perera said. “Nothing is better than a well qualified teacher in the classroom with students who knows the work, who knows the content, and will embrace all the learning styles in a classroom. The unfortunate piece is that we don’t have that luxury anymore. That keeps me up at night.”

    CNN sat in on a virtual algebra class as students received instruction from a certified teacher in Louisiana.

    “Before we got into this online class, we really didn’t have a teacher,” tenth grader Janiya Armington told CNN. “It was just assignments and, like, notes.”

    For now, a teacher a state away may be better than the alternative, but some at Lancaster say they’re feeling the impact of the shortages.

    “I feel like the problem is just getting worse instead of better,” tenth grader Kayla Cooper added. “It’s kind of sad, because I want to learn.”

    Lowering qualification standards

    An analysis of education data from 37 states and DC found most states are experiencing some degree of teacher shortage and that teacher turnover surged during the pandemic, with more leaving the profession than ever before.

    A Chalkbeat analysis of data from 8 states also found that teacher turnover is on the rise.

    Education experts blame a range of issues for the teacher exodus, including the profession’s low salaries, growing workload, worsening student behavior, and growing politicization of school curricula and teaching.

    With fewer college graduates training to be educators, more districts are hiring what many consider underqualified teachers, often relying on long-term substitutes or paraprofessionals.

    Research from the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) found that 1 in 10 teacher positions are either vacant or filled by someone uncertified for the subject they are teaching.

    “Teachers who are not fully prepared are not as effective in the classroom, and this is at a time when students really need effective instruction,” LPI Senior Researcher Susan Patrick said. “If students have an ineffective teacher for multiple years in a row, they’re going to fall even further behind.”

    More states are now “fast-tracking” the teacher certification process. At least 23 states have lowered certification standards for new teachers to get them into classrooms more quickly, according to data collected by the National Council on Teacher Quality.

    “I think parents need to be asking questions about the qualifications of their teachers,” said Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality. “I’m a parent and the first question I would ask would be, are my children’s teachers licensed in the subject that they’re teaching my children? And if they’re not, I would ask the principal, how are you supporting the teachers who are unprepared or unqualified to be teaching these students.”

    These charts and graphs explain why teachers are calling it quits

    Some districts are trying another solution: turning their support staff into qualified teachers.

    Reach University, a non-profit, offers free or low-cost certification training, starting with a bachelor’s degree, to any school employee, from paraeducators to custodians and bus drivers, if they agree to teach in the district once they’re certified.

    The program is currently training more than 1,300 new teachers and has seen enrollment grow threefold each year since launching in 2020, primarily serving rural and low-income districts in the South and California, according to a Reach University spokesperson.

    Katie Lee, a paraprofessional and bus driver in Arkansas, is going through the Reach program now, hoping to be certified in the next year and a half.

    “I’m very excited,” Lee said. “I just see a lot of kids not wanting to finish school because they don’t have the teachers that are able to be there … I want to be able to help kids. I want to be able to impact their lives … If we don’t have teachers, then the kids aren’t going to have that.”

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  • UNC graduate student arrested on murder charge in fatal shooting of faculty member, police say | CNN

    UNC graduate student arrested on murder charge in fatal shooting of faculty member, police say | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The suspect in the fatal shooting of a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Monday is a graduate student at the school, UNC police said in a news release Tuesday.

    Tailei Qi, the grad student, is in custody on charges of first-degree murder charge and having a gun on education property, according to police.

    The victim was identified as Zijie Yan, an associate professor in the department of Applied Physical Sciences who had worked for UNC since 2019.

    Qi was a grad student in the same department and Yan was his faculty adviser, according to Qi’s UNC biographical page, which has been deleted but is available on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. Qi entered the school in 2022 and listed his previous education as Louisiana State University and Wuhan University, the page said.

    Police still are looking for the weapon and the motive behind the fatal shooting.

    The early afternoon shooting sent the university of more than 30,000 students into lockdown for hours. The suspect was detained about 90 minutes after the gunfire interrupted activities at the school’s Caudill Laboratories, a chemistry studies building.

    “We want to ensure that we gather every piece of evidence to determine exactly what happened here today and why it happened,” UNC Police Chief Brian James said at a news conference Monday evening. “It is too early in this investigation to know a motive for the shooting.”

    Qi will have his first court appearance in Hillsborough at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, said prosecutor Jeff Nieman, whose district covers Orange and Chatham counties.

    Detectives looking for motive and firearm

    Emergency responders gather on South Street near the Bell Tower on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus on Monday.

    Detectives won’t get clues into the motive until they speak with the suspect, James said. Investigators have not found the firearm that was used in the shooting and it’s not known whether it was legally obtained, James said.

    No one else was injured, officials said.

    “This loss is devastating and the shooting damages the trust and safety that we so often take for granted in our campus community. We will work to rebuild that sense of trust and safety within our community,” UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said.

    James said it was unclear whether the victim and the assailant knew each other.

    “That will hopefully be uncovered through interviews of the suspect as well as any witnesses that may be available,” he said.

    Classes and campus activities were canceled Monday and Tuesday, officials said. This is the second week of fall semester classes at the flagship university of the 17-member UNC system.

    After 911 calls about the shooting came in shortly after 1 p.m., university police issued an alert advising students to go inside immediately, close windows and doors and to wait until further notice, according to an email. A witness on campus told CNN they were locked down in their building and saw armed officers searching campus.

    Video from CNN affiliate WRAL showed a large number of police vehicles at the campus with their emergency lights flashing. At times, people walked out of nearby buildings in a single-file line with their arms in the air.

    Police detained one person before the suspect’s arrest but they determined “very quickly” it was not the gunman, James said.

    The suspect was taken into custody shortly after 2:30 p.m., Guskiewicz said. The university continued in lockdown for a couple hours after the suspect was detained because authorities were working to confirm they had the right person and trying to find the firearm that was used, James told reporters.

    The university has a student body of about 32,000, along with more than 4,000 faculty and 9,000 staff members.

    The FBI is assisting in evidence gathering, officials said.

    Forty-nine school shootings have happened in the US this year, including the UNC shooting – 34 have been reported on K-12 campuses and 15 on university and college campuses – according to a CNN tally.

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  • Students, professors report chaos as semester begins at New College of Florida | CNN

    Students, professors report chaos as semester begins at New College of Florida | CNN

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    Sarasota, Florida
    CNN
     — 

    Months after what critics have decried as a conservative takeover at New College of Florida, students and professors say a sense of confusion and anxiety looms over the start of fall semester in Sarasota, Florida.

    Amy Reid, a member of the school’s Board of Trustees, said course options have dwindled after nearly 40% of faculty members have resigned.

    Reid said the situation is quickly becoming “untenable.”

    “Just before I came to this meeting, I received word that one more faculty member in biology is leaving,” she told CNN. “That’s going to make a challenge for students to complete their areas of studies here.”

    Classes are scheduled to begin on August 28, but Chai Leffler is already struggling to navigate his fourth year at the school.

    Leffler is an urban studies major, but he said most of his professors have resigned.

    In order to graduate, Leffler said he has asked faculty in other subject areas to sponsor his thesis.

    “It’s a little messy, kind of like a dumpster fire right now in terms of administration,” Leffler said. “At the end of the day, I want to get my degree.”

    Once heralded as a progressive liberal arts school, New College of Florida has found itself at the center of the state’s culture war over education.

    In January, Gov. Ron DeSantis replaced six of the 13 members on the college’s Board of Trustees. New members include Christopher Rufo, who who has been at the forefront of the conservative movement against critical race theory.

    See college president’s frosty reception after appointment from DeSantis-backed board members

    In May, Gov. DeSantis signed a series of higher education bills on the campus of New College, aimed at ending critical race theory and curbing diversity spending in higher education.

    At a press conference following the bill signing, Rufo called the changes “the most significant higher education reform in a half-century.”

    The new board has since voted to abolish diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and replaced the college’s former president with Richard Corcoran, the state’s former education commissioner.

    “The New College Board of Trustees is succeeding in its mission to eliminate indoctrination and re-focus higher education on its classical mission,” DeSantis said earlier this month in a press release.

    The governor also pointed to concerns about enrollment numbers and test scores at the school.

    “If it was a private school making those choices, then fine, I mean what are you going to do?” DeSantis said. “But this is being paid for by your tax dollars.”

    Earlier this year, Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz said state officials wanted New College of Florida to “become Florida’s classical college, more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the South.”

    Hillsdale College is a private conservative Christian college in southern Michigan.

    Some students told CNN they chose to attend New College for its progressive values and because the school offered an environment where LGBTQ+ students could freely express themselves.

    Earlier this month, the Board of Trustees began the process to eliminate the school’s gender studies program. The move prompted one gender studies professor, Nicholas Clarkson, to quit.

    In his resignation letter, Clarkson described Florida as “the state where learning goes to die.”

    “When you start banning terms and banning fields of study and arguing that the state has the right to tell faculty what they can and can’t say in the classroom that really hampers the learning environment,” Clarkson told CNN.

    New College Trustee Matthew Spalding, who is also a dean at Hillsdale College in Michigan, disagreed. At a board meeting earlier this month Spalding said the gender studies program was “more of an ideological movement than academic discipline.”

    In February, Florida legislators approved $15 million in funding for New College to increase faculty recruiting and fund new scholarships. Officials at New College said recruitment efforts are ongoing and more classes could soon be offered.

    ron desantis student protesters SPLIT

    Hear Florida student protesters’ message to DeSantis following statewide walkouts

    Ryan Terry, a spokesperson for the college, pointed to an increase in fall enrollment as a sign the school is appealing to more students.

    Terry confirmed that there are 341 incoming freshman this year compared to 277 in the fall of 2022. The school has a total enrollment of about 800 students, he said.

    It’s not just administrative issues complicating the return to school, students are also struggling to find on-campus housing. New College said in a press release that it is currently housing some students in Sarasota-area hotels after a recent engineering report cited air quality concerns in the Pei residential complex.

    “Out of an abundance of caution, and for the health and safety of the NCF community, Interim President Corcoran has made the decision to shutter all of the Pei dorms,” the press release said.

    Terry confirmed the school is now using other dorms to house the incoming class of freshmen, while returning students are being housed in hotels.

    New College senior Galen Rydzik said the move to hotels was poorly planned.

    “It’s more of a challenge for the students that were told last minute because a lot of them are not being housed here,” Rydzik said.

    Despite the chaos, Leffler said he is determined to try to preserve the “unique student culture” at New College. Last year, students organized their own graduation ceremony to protest the governor’s changes at the school. Leffler said he is hopeful students will be able to do the same in the spring.

    “We’re willing to do what it takes to keep the culture alive at this school,” Leffler said. “We are really focusing on just the students, the administration is out of my control.”

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  • Florida’s feud with the College Board’s AP Psychology course explained | CNN

    Florida’s feud with the College Board’s AP Psychology course explained | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A long-simmering feud between the College Board, the non-profit that administers Advanced Placement courses, and Florida’s Department of Education became public this week, as officials argued over whether the Advanced Placement Psychology course could be taught in Florida without breaking state laws.

    In Florida, students are prohibited from learning about sexual orientation or gender identity in the classroom.

    But the College Board says these lessons are a core component of the AP Psychology course and have refused to change the curriculum.

    On Thursday, the College Board announced that unless AP Psychology is taught in its entirety – including lessons on sexuality and gender – “the “AP Psychology” designation cannot be utilized on student transcripts.”

    The future of the course appeared to be in jeopardy until, late Friday, Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr., informed school superintendents that students will be able to take the class “in its entirety” but only if the course is taught “in a manner that is age and developmentally appropriate.”

    The public scuffle over the AP Psychology course is just the latest installment in an ongoing feud between the College Board and Florida education officials over what subjects can be taught in the state’s classrooms. Let’s discuss how we got here.

    In July, a new law came into effect in Florida that banned classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity for students in pre-K through the 8th grade. For high school students, instruction must be “according to state standards,” the Board of Education said.

    But over the last year, Florida’s education officials have amended state standards to effectively ban all students from learning about sexual orientation and gender identity.

    The changes are in line with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ vow to eradicate so-called “woke” gender ideology from Florida’s classrooms.

    In 2022, the governor signed a bill titled “Parental Rights in Education,” which prohibited discussion of gender and sexuality issues in kindergarten through third grade. The bill also gave parents the right to take legal action if a school violates the law. DeSantis has since amended the law to prohibit instruction on sexuality and gender from pre-K through the eighth grade.

    The governor has said he believes parents should “have a fundamental role in the education, health care and well-being of their children.”

    Supporters say the bill allows parents to decide when to talk to their children about LGBTQ+ topics instead of the schools. But critics have dubbed it the “Don’t Say Gay” law and say it will further marginalize LGBTQ+ students.

    The College Board’s AP Psychology course is organized into nine units of study. The unit on developmental psychology includes lessons on gender and sexual orientation.

    According to the College Board, the course asks students to “describe how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development.”

    These lessons are now considered illegal under Florida law.

    In June, Board of Education officials sent a letter to the College Board requesting the non-profit “conduct a thorough review” of all Advanced Placement courses to ensure they were compliant with Florida law.

    In a statement, the College Board equated the request to censorship.

    “(We) will not modify our courses to accommodate restrictions on teaching essential, college-level topics. Doing so would break the fundamental promise of AP: colleges wouldn’t broadly accept that course for credit and that course wouldn’t prepare students for careers in the discipline,” the non-profit said.

    Advanced Placement courses are standardized to ensure students who pass the final exam can transfer college credits to participating colleges and universities nationwide. The College Board has said all required topics, including sexual orientation and gender identity, must be included for the course to be designated advanced placement and count toward college credit.

    This isn’t the first time the College Board has sparred with the Florida Board of Education over what can be taught in Advanced Placement classes.

    Earlier this year, DeSantis rejected the non-profit’s AP African American Studies course because it included lessons on reparations, Black queer studies, and the Movement for Black Lives.

    The College Board initially attempted to revise the course framework, but the decision sparked outrage among academics and activists who said students should learn the “full history” of the Black experience in America.

    “We have learned from our mistakes in the recent rollout of AP African American Studies and know that we must be clear from the outset where we stand,” the non-profit later said in a statement.

    With days to go until students return to school, the College Board announced it would not remove AP Psychology lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation. Instead, the non-profit advised school districts to “not to offer AP Psychology until Florida reverses their decision and allows parents and students to choose to take the full course.”

    Florida education officials responded by accusing the non-profit of “hurting Florida students.”

    It is unclear how the state’s directive to teach the course “in a manner that is age and developmentally appropriate,” will be enforced.

    “AP Psychology is and will remain in the course directory making it available to Florida students,” Diaz said in a statement.

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  • Schools are teaching ChatGPT, so students aren’t left behind | CNN Business

    Schools are teaching ChatGPT, so students aren’t left behind | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    When college administrator Lance Eaton created a working spreadsheet about the generative AI policies adopted by universities last spring, it was mostly filled with entries about how to ban tools like ChatGPT.

    But now the list, which is updated by educators at both small and large US and international universities, is considerably different: Schools are encouraging and even teaching students how to best use these tools.

    “Earlier on, we saw a knee–jerk reaction to AI by banning it going into spring semester, but now the talk is about why it makes sense for students to use it,” Eaton, an administrator at Rhode Island-based College Unbound, told CNN.

    He said his growing list continues to be discussed and shared in popular AI-focused Facebook groups, such as Higher Ed Discussions of Writing and AI, and the Google group AI in Education.

    “It’s really helped educators see how others are adapting to and framing AI in the classroom,” Eaton said. “AI is still going to feel uncomfortable, but now they can now go in and see how a university or a range of different courses, from coding to sociology, are approaching it.”

    With more experts expecting the continued application of artificial intelligence, professors now fear ignoring or discouraging the use of it will be a disservice to students and leave many behind when entering the workforce.

    Since it was made available in late November, ChatGPT has been used to generate original essays, stories and song lyrics in response to user prompts. It has drafted research paper abstracts that fooled some scientists and passed exams at esteemed universities. The technology, and similar tools such as Google’s Bard, is trained on vast amounts of online data in order to generate responses to user prompts. While they gained traction among users, the tools also raised some concerns about inaccuracies, cheating, the spreading of misinformation and the potential to perpetuate biases.

    According to a study conducted by higher education research group Intelligent.com, about 30% of college students used ChatGPT for schoolwork this past academic year and it was used most in English classes.

    Jules White, an associate professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University, believes professors should be explicit in the first few days of school about the course’s stance on using AI and that it should be included it in the syllabus.

    “It cannot be ignored,” he said. “I think it’s incredibly important for students, faculty and alumni to become experts in AI because it will be so transformative across every industry in demand so we provide the right training.”

    Vanderbilt is among the early leaders taking a strong stance in support of generative AI by offering university-wide training and workshops to faculty and students. A three-week 18-hour online course taught by White this summer was taken by over 90,000 students, and his paper on “prompt engineering” best practices is routinely cited among academics.

    “The biggest challenge is with how you frame the instructions, or ‘prompts,’” he said. “It has a profound impact on the quality of the response and asking the same thing in various ways can get dramatically different results. We want to make sure our community knows how to effectively leverage this.”

    Prompt engineering jobs, which typically require basic programming experience, can pay up to $300,000.

    Although White said concerns around cheating still exist, he believes students who want to plagiarize can still seek out other methods such as Wikipedia or Google searches. Instead, students should be taught that “if they use it in other ways, they will be far more successful.”

    Diane Gayeski, a professor of communications at Ithaca College, said she plans to incorporate ChatGPT and other tools in her fall curriculum, similar to her approach in the spring. She previously asked students to collaborate with the tool to come up with interview questions for assignments, write social media posts and critique the output based on the prompts given.

    “My job is to prepare students for PR, communications and social media managers, and people in these fields are already using AI tools as part of their everyday work to be more efficient,” she said. “I need to make sure they understand how they work, but I do want them to cite when ChatGPT is being used.”

    Gayeski added that as long as there is transparency, there should be no shame in adopting the technology.

    Some schools are hiring outside experts to teach both faculty and students about how to use AI tools. Tyler Tarver, a former high school principal who now teaches educators about tech tool strategies, said he’s made over 50 speeches at schools and conferences across Texas, Arkansas and Illinois over the past few months. He also offers an online three-hour training for educators.

    “Teachers need to learn how to use it because even if they never use it, their students will,” Tarver said.

    Tarver said that he teaches students, for example, how the tools can be used to catch grammar mistakes, and how teachers can use it to assist with grading. “It can cut down on teacher bias,” Tarver said.

    He argues teachers could grade students a certain way even if they’ve improved over time. By running an assignment through ChatGPT, and asking it to grade the sentence structure on a scale from one to 10, the response could “service as a second pair of eyes to make sure they’re not missing anything,” Tarver said.

    “That shouldn’t be the final grade — teachers shouldn’t use it to cheat or cut corners either — but it can help inform grading,” he said. “The bottom line is that this is like when the car was invented. You don’t want to be the last person in the horse and buggy.”

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  • Meet your new AI tutor | CNN Business

    Meet your new AI tutor | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Artificial intelligence often induces fear, awe or some panicked combination of both for its impressive ability to generate unique human-like text in seconds. But its implications for cheating in the classroom — and its sometimes comically wrong answers to basic questions — have left some in academia discouraging its use in school or outright banning AI tools like ChatGPT.

    That may be the wrong approach.

    More than 8,000 teachers and students will test education nonprofit Khan Academy’s artificial intelligence tutor in the classroom this upcoming school year, toying with its interactive features and funneling feedback to Khan Academy if the AI botches an answer.

    The chatbot, Khanmigo, offers individualized guidance to students on math, science and humanities problems; a debate tool with suggested topics like student debt cancellation and AI’s impact on the job market; and a writing tutor that helps the student craft a story, among other features.

    First launched in March to an even smaller pilot program of around 800 educators and students, Khanmigo also allows students to chat with a growing list of AI-powered historical figures, from George Washington to Cleopatra and Martin Luther King Jr., as well as literary characters like Winnie the Pooh and Hamlet.

    Khan Academy’s Chief Learning Officer Kristen DiCerbo told CNN that Khanmigo helps address a problem she’s witnessed firsthand observing an Arizona classroom: that when students learn something new, they often need individualized help — more help than one teacher can provide all at once.

    As DiCerbo chatted with AI-powered Dorothy from “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” during a demonstration of the technology to CNN, she explained how users can rate Khanmigo’s responses in real-time, providing feedback if and when Khanmigo makes mistakes.

    “There is going to be a big world out there where people can just get the answers to their homework problems, where they can just get an essay written for them. That’s true now too on the Internet,” DiCerbo said. “We’re trying to focus on the social good, but we need to be aware of the threats and the risks so that we know how to mitigate those.”

    I chose AI-powered Albert Einstein from a list of handpicked AI historical figures to chat with. AI-Einstein told me his greatest accomplishment was both his theory of relativity and inspiring curiosity in others, before tossing me a question Socrates-style about what sparks curiosity in my own life.

    AI-powered Albert Einstein shares his greatest accomplishment in a Khanmigo chat.

    Khanmigo developers programmed the AI figures not to comment on events after their lifetime. As such, AI-Einstein wouldn’t comment on the historical accuracy of his role in Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” despite my asking.

    Khanmigo is trained not to comment on events that occur after the lifetime of the historical figure it is imitating.

    Some figures from the list are not as widely praised as Einstein. For instance, Thomas Jefferson, the third US president and primary draftsman of the Declaration of Independence, has faced renewed criticism in recent years for owning 600-plus enslaved people throughout his lifetime.

    Khanmigo’s Thomas Jefferson will not shy away from scrutiny. He wrote back to my inquiry about his views on slavery in part: “As Thomas Jefferson, my views on slavery were fraught with contradiction. On one hand, I publicly expressed my belief that slavery was morally wrong and a threat to the survival of the new American nation […] Yet I was a lifelong slaveholder, owning over 600 enslaved people throughout my lifetime.”

    The purpose of the tool is to engage students through conversation, DiCerbo said, an altogether different experience than passively reading about someone’s life on Wikipedia.

    “The Internet can be a pretty scary place, and it can be a pretty good place. I think that AI is the same,” DiCerbo said. “There could be potential bad uses and misuses, and it can be a pretty powerful learning tool.”

    After gaining early access to ChatGPT-creator OpenAI’s newest and most capable large language model, GPT-4, Khan Academy trained GPT-4 on its own learning content. The company also implemented guardrails to keep Khanmigo’s tone encouraging and prevent it from giving students the answer to the question they’re struggling with.

    For teachers, Khanmigo also offers assistance to create lesson plans and rubrics, identifies struggling students based on their performance in Khan Academy activities and gives teachers access to student chat history.

    “I’m learning new ways to solve the problems as well,” said Leo Lin, a science teacher at Khan Lab School in California and an early tester of Khanmigo. Khan Lab School is a separate nonprofit founded by Khan Academy CEO Sal Khan.

    Khanmigo has emerged at a crossroads in academia, with some educators leaning into generative AI and others recoiling. New York City Public Schools, Seattle Public Schools and the Los Angeles Unified School District, among other academic institutions, have all made efforts to either ban or restrict ChatGPT on district networks and devices in the past.

    A lack of information about AI may be exacerbating some educator worries: While 72% of K-12 teachers, principals and district leaders say that teaching students how to use AI tools is at least “fairly important,” 87% said they’ve received zero professional instruction about incorporating AI into their work, according to an EdWeek Research Center survey from June.

    Khan Academy’s in-the-works AI learning course “AI 101 for Teachers,” created in partnership with Code.org, ETS and the International Society for Technology in Education, offers a path toward AI literacy among teachers.

    Although Khanmigo is still in its pilot phase, the AI-powered teaching assistant is currently used by over 10,000 additional users across the United States beyond the pilot program. They agreed to pay a donation to Khan Academy to test the service.

    An AI “tutor” like Khanmigo is not immune to the flubs all large language models face: so-called hallucinations.

    “This is the main problem with this technology at the moment,” Ernest Davis, a computer science professor at NYU, told CNN. “It makes things up.”

    Khanmigo is most commonly used for math tutoring, according to DiCerbo. Khanmigo shines best when coaching students on how to work through a problem, offering hints, encouragement and additional questions designed to help students think critically. But currently, its own struggles in performing calculations can sometimes hinder its attempts to help.

    In the “Tutor me: Math and science” activity available to students, Khanmigo told me that my answer to 10,332 divided by 4 was incorrect three times before correcting me by sending me the same number.

    In the same “Tutor me” activity, I asked Khanmigo to find the product of five numbers, some integers and some decimals: 97, 117, 0.564322338, 0.855640047, and 0.557680043.

    As I did the final multiplication step, Khanmigo congratulated me for submitting the wrong answer. It wrote: “When you multiply 5479.94173 by 0.557680043, you get approximately 33.0663. Well done!”

    The correct answer is about 3,056.

    Khanmigo makes a math error in a conversation with CNN's Nadia Bidarian.

    Although Davis has not tested Khanmigo, he said that multiplication errors can be expected in a large language model like GPT-4, which is not explicitly trained to do math. Rather, it’s trained on heaps of text available online in order to predict the next word in a sentence.

    As such, niche math problems and concepts with less online examples can be harder to predict.

    “Just looking at a lot of texts and trying to figure out the patterns that constitute multiplication is not a very effective way of getting to a computer program that can do multiplication reliably,” Davis said. “And so it doesn’t.”

    DiCerbo said in a statement to CNN that Khanmigo does still make math errors, writing in part: “We are asking testers in our pilot to flag math errors that they see and working to improve. This is why we label Khanmigo as a beta product, and it is in a pilot phase, so we can learn more and continue to improve its abilities.”

    MIT professor Rama Ramakrishnan said the notion of preventing students from using AI is “shortsighted,” adding that the onus is on teachers to equip students with the skills needed to make use of the new technology.

    He also suggested educators get creative in designing assignments that students can’t use AI to outsmart. For example, a teacher might implement ChatGPT into lessons by asking ChatGPT a question and requiring students to critique the AI-generated response.

    “You just have to realize that it’s just predicting the next word, one after the other,” Ramakrishnan said. “It’s not trying to come up with a truthful answer to your question, just a plausible answer. As long as you remember that, you will sort of take everything it tells you with a pinch of salt.”

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  • Biden cancels $72 million in student loan debt for borrowers who went to for-profit Ashford University | CNN Politics

    Biden cancels $72 million in student loan debt for borrowers who went to for-profit Ashford University | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Even though President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program was blocked by the Supreme Court earlier this year, his administration is moving forward with more targeted student debt cancellations allowed under existing programs.

    The Department of Education said Wednesday that it is canceling $72 million in federal student loan debt for more than 2,300 borrowers who attended the for-profit Ashford University in California.

    Altogether, the Biden administration has approved the cancellation of more than $116 billion of student loan debt for over 3.4 million people – about 1.1 million of whom are borrowers who were misled by a for-profit college and granted relief under a program known as borrower defense to repayment.

    This student debt forgiveness program has been in place for decades and allows people to apply for debt relief if they believe their college misled or defrauded them.

    “My administration won’t stand for colleges taking advantage of hardworking students and borrowers. As long as I am president, we will never stop fighting to deliver relief to borrowers who need it – like those who attended Ashford University,” Biden said in a statement.

    The Department of Education found that Ashford University made “numerous substantial misrepresentations” to borrowers between March 1, 2009, and April 30, 2020. The school is now known as the University of Arizona Global Campus.

    The Education Department’s review was based on evidence presented in court by the California Department of Justice during its successful lawsuit against the school and its parent company at the time, Zovio.

    The court ruled in favor of the state in March 2022, ordering a penalty of more than $22.37 million – which is the subject of an ongoing appeal.

    “As the California Department of Justice proved in court, Ashford relied extensively on high-pressure and deceptive recruiting tactics to lure students,” James Kvaal, the US under secretary of education, said in a press release.

    Borrowers whose debt relief applications have been approved due to this action can expect to receive an email in September. They will not have to make any payments on the loans being discharged when monthly payments resume in October after the expiration of the pandemic-related pause.

    Last year, Biden announced a plan to cancel up to $20,000 of federal student loan debt for low- and middle-income borrowers. The proposal would have forgiven roughly $420 billion for tens of millions of borrowers, but it was knocked down by the Supreme Court and never took effect.

    The Biden administration has been successful in other efforts to provide narrower student debt relief. Not only has it made it easier to apply for debt cancellation under the borrower defense program, but it also expanded eligibility for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which wipes away outstanding debt for public sector workers after they make 10 years of qualifying payments.

    In August, the administration launched a new income-driven repayment plan, known as SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education), that will reduce monthly payments and the amount paid back over time for eligible student loan borrowers.

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  • States step in to pay for school meals for all kids | CNN Politics

    States step in to pay for school meals for all kids | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    As soon as Tracy Area Schools in Minnesota resumed charging for breakfast and lunch last year, students started dropping out of the program. Many of their families simply couldn’t shell out up to $2.65 for a meal each day.

    “We have some kids who didn’t eat because Mom and Dad can’t afford it,” said Michele Hawkinson, food service director for the rural district of 700 students. “These kids are hungry. This is maybe the only nutritious, healthy meal they’re getting a day.”

    But Hawkinson no longer needs to worry about children in her district skipping meals. Starting this year, Minnesota students at schools that participate in the federal school meals program can eat breakfast and lunch for free, thanks to a law that state legislators passed in March. The initiative will cost about $200 million a year.

    Minnesota is one of nine states that are picking up the tab for students’ breakfast and lunch in many of their schools. California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico and Vermont have also approved permanent universal free meals programs, while Nevada launched a two-year effort last year.

    Other states have extended free meals to more students. For instance, Connecticut and Pennsylvania are providing free breakfasts this school year. And lawmakers in other states have introduced legislation to establish universal free meal programs.

    “There’s been a tremendous momentum for states to move forward on offering free school meals for all,” said Crystal FitzSimons, director of school programs at the Food Research & Action Center. “Offering free meals to all students just changes the culture of the cafeteria. (It) increases participation and makes the cafeteria a really positive environment for all students.”

    States are paying for the initiatives in different ways. Massachusetts is using revenue from its new millionaires’ tax to help cover the cost of the $172 million program, while Colorado is raising around $100 million a year by limiting state tax deductions for affluent residents. Other states are drawing from their general budgets.

    The states’ actions build upon a federal Covid-19 pandemic relief program that provided free meals to all students, regardless of income, for more than two years.

    During that time, around 30 million students were receiving free meals at school, according to the US Department of Agriculture, up from about 20 million children who qualified based on their household income prior to the pandemic.

    Allowing all students to eat in the cafeteria at no charge minimized the stigma felt by some kids who received free meals, increasing the likelihood that they would actually partake in breakfast and lunch, school nutrition officials said.

    But the pandemic program expired at the start of the last academic year. Lower-income families once again had to fill out applications for free or reduced-price meals, while parents who were struggling but earned too much to qualify had to find a way to pay for their children’s breakfast and lunch.

    School nutrition staffers, meanwhile, had to once again distribute the forms and convince eligible parents to complete them, while also contending with mounting school meal debt.

    Meanwhile, the number of kids getting meals at school dropped. Some 28.3 million students, on average, participated in the lunch program daily in May, down from 30.2 million the same time a year earlier. And 14.6 million kids partook in the breakfast program, down from 16.1 million.

    Many schools are taking a more holistic approach to children’s education, focusing on more than just reading, writing and arithmetic, said Chris Derico, president of the School Nutrition Association.

    “Research has shown if kids are hungry, they’re not going to be ready to learn,” said Derico, who is also the child nutrition director at Barbour County Schools in West Virginia.

    States are also realizing that improving children’s ability to learn could better prepare them to enter the workforce, said Annette Nielsen, executive director of the Hunter College New York City Food Policy Center, which has been tracking the implementation of universal free meals programs nationwide.

    “There may be a financial cost, but there’s probably a larger financial benefit to keeping it long term,” she said.

    Benefits and challenges for schools

    In addition to the benefits for children, free school breakfast and lunch for all means districts don’t have to hound families with meal debt.

    The end of the federal free meals program caused debt levels to soar. The median reported debt was $5,164 per district, as of November, compared with $3,400 at the end of the 2017-18 school year, according to the School Nutrition Association.

    In Colorado’s Littleton Public Schools, the debt level skyrocketed to $32,000 at the end of last year, said Jessica Gould, director of nutrition services in the affluent suburban Denver district of just over 13,000 students. Prior to the pandemic, it was typically between $4,000 and $6,000 a year.

    “Now we don’t have to worry about that. We’re not the debt collectors anymore,” Gould said, noting that last year’s tab was paid by donors. “We’re just able to focus on providing good quality meals to our students.”

    However, the universal free meals programs also pose challenges to school districts. They no longer have the ability to increase breakfast and lunch rates when their costs of food, equipment and labor rise. Instead, they must make due with the state reimbursement.

    But the even bigger problem is that the state programs rely on districts still getting federal funding to cover the cost of feeding children who are eligible for free and reduced-price meals. And certain state funds for general education also depend on the share of lower-income students in a school district.

    That requires getting parents to complete the applications, which can be challenging especially when schools are telling families that everyone can eat for free.

    So far, Gould has received forms from about 1,500 eligible families, but she is expecting more than 2,300.

    “Our community is confused,” she said, noting that the district created a flyer to explain the new universal free meals program. “It’s been challenging at best to just figure out how to communicate to our families.”

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  • Displaced Afghan students face uncertain future as they await approval to come to US | CNN Politics

    Displaced Afghan students face uncertain future as they await approval to come to US | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    For a group of roughly two dozen displaced Afghan university students, the future feels uncertain.

    They’ve already uprooted their lives once, fleeing Kabul – where they were studying at the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) – when Afghanistan fell back under Taliban rule and the university was shuttered two years ago.

    They were among the 110 AUAF students who were able to evacuate to Iraqi Kurdistan to continue studies at the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani with the help of both universities, former Iraqi President Barham Salih, and a group called the Afghan Future Fund.

    Now, the 23 students are awaiting approval to come to the United States, where they have been accepted into universities and received scholarships through the Qatar Scholarship for Afghans Project to finish their undergraduate degrees or pursue graduate ones.

    “It’s been a year since my graduation. I’m still here, waiting,” one student in Iraq told CNN.

    “I am left with uncertainty now,” a second student said, telling CNN that they fear they will be left “in limbo.”

    CNN is not using the names of the students to protect their safety.

    More than 100 displaced Afghan students – 80 of whom were in Iraq – have already come to the US, where they are studying at more than 45 universities, according to sources familiar with the situation.

    The sources told CNN that most of the students are coming to the US as Priority 1 (P-1) refugees – a program they qualify for because of their affiliation with AUAF. The university received significant funding from the US government over the course of a decade and was targeted by suspected Taliban militants in a deadly 2016 attack. Its campus was seized by the Taliban almost immediately after the US military completed its withdrawal in August 2021.

    The 23 students who remain in Iraq have not received P-1 approval yet. Sources say this is likely due to a security review process.

    The students told CNN they don’t have any clear sense of when they will get approval to come to the US, and they are worried about what the continued delay means for their future.

    Those who spoke to CNN have already had to defer their enrollment once, and likely will have to do so again as the start of fall semester looms. The second student said they had lost admission at their first university in the US because they were unable to travel there and enroll.

    “This is basically my last hope,” this student said, noting they do not want to lose admission again.

    “I do not want to lose another year of my life,” the first student said.

    “I really want to study. I have worked really hard when I was in Afghanistan to get the chance of going to AUAF,” they said.

    “I’m never going to give up on education,” they added.

    “We Afghans lost almost everything, and this scholarship in the US is a very big opportunity for us,” a third student told CNN.

    Going back to Afghanistan is not an option for these students, particularly those who are female. This is why they have sought the P-1 refugee status, which would give them a pathway to settle in the US after university.

    The Taliban has enacted harsh restrictions against women and girls since coming back into power in two years ago. Girls and women have been barred from higher education and numerous work sectors; have been refused access to public spaces; have been ordered to cover themselves in public; and have had their travel abroad restricted.

    “Anything that women do in Afghanistan is banned right now. You cannot exist as a woman,” the first student said.

    For now, there are substantial efforts underway to try to get the students cleared to come to the US as soon as possible, with students reaching out to their prospective future members of Congress and advocates engaging with various agencies of the US government.

    A US State Department spokesperson said they are “aware of the Afghan students at the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani,” but could not comment on individual cases.

    “Case processing in the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program can be lengthy, however, we continue to prioritize processing cases of our Afghan allies and are working hard to speed up case processing across the USRAP,” the spokesperson said.

    Vance Serchuk, an Afghan Futures Fund board member, said that his organization and others like Education Above All, Qatar Fund For Development, and the Institute of International Education “are committed to helping displaced Afghan students from the American University complete their education and realize their potential in safety.”

    “These young people made the choice to attend the American university in Afghanistan at great risk to themselves; Americans now cannot be indifferent to their fate,” he said.

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  • How Biden’s SAVE student loan repayment plan can lower your bill | CNN Politics

    How Biden’s SAVE student loan repayment plan can lower your bill | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    While the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program in late June, a separate and significant change to the federal student loan system is moving ahead.

    Eligible borrowers can now enroll in a new income-driven repayment plan that could lower their monthly bills and reduce the amount they pay back over the lifetime of their loans.

    If borrowers apply this summer, the changes to their bills would take effect before payments resume in October after the yearslong pandemic pause.

    Once the plan, which Biden is calling SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education), is fully phased in next year, some people will see their monthly bills cut in half and remaining debt canceled after making at least 10 years of payments.

    Unlike Biden’s blocked one-time forgiveness program, the new repayment plan will provide benefits for both current and future borrowers who sign up for it.

    But the benefits will come at a cost to the government. Estimates vary, depending on how many borrowers end up enrolling in the plan, ranging from $138 billion to $475 billion over 10 years. As a comparison, Biden’s student loan forgiveness program was expected to cost about $400 billion.

    The SAVE repayment plan has gone through a formal rulemaking process at the Department of Education. The agency has previously created several other income-driven repayment plans in the same manner without facing a successful legal challenge.

    Some parts of the SAVE plan will be implemented this summer and others will take effect in July 2024. Here’s what borrowers need to know.

    Currently, there are several different kinds of income-driven repayment plans for borrowers with federal student loans. The new SAVE plan will essentially replace one of those, known as REPAYE (Revised Pay As You Earn), while the others are phased out for new borrowers.

    Under these plans, payments are based on a borrower’s income and family size, regardless of how much outstanding student debt is owed.

    There is also a forgiveness component. After making at least 10 years of payments, a borrower’s remaining balance is wiped away.

    Borrowers must have federally held student loans to qualify for the SAVE repayment plan. These include Direct subsidized, unsubsidized and consolidated loans, as well as PLUS loans made to graduate students.

    Parents who took out a federal PLUS loan to help their child pay for college are not eligible for the new repayment plan.

    Borrowers with Federal Family Education Loans, known as FFEL, or Perkins Loans that are held by a commercial lender rather than the government will need to consolidate into a Direct loan in order to qualify.

    Private student loans do not qualify for the new SAVE repayment plan or any other federal repayment plan.

    Borrowers can apply for the SAVE plan by submitting a recently updated application for income-driven repayment plans found here.

    The application may be available intermittently during an initial beta testing period, according to the Department of Education. If the application is not available, try again later.

    Applications submitted during the beta period will not need to be resubmitted once a full website launches later this summer.

    Borrowers can expect to receive an email confirmation after applying.

    People who are already enrolled in the REPAYE repayment plan will be automatically switched to the SAVE plan.

    Borrowers can log in to StudentAid.gov and go to their My Aid page to see what repayment plan they are enrolled in.

    The Department of Education says that it will process applications submitted this summer before payments resume in October.

    “It may take your servicer a few weeks to process your request, because they will need to obtain documentation of your income and family size,” according to the department’s website.

    Under the SAVE plan, monthly payments can be as small as $0.

    Other income-driven repayment plans already offer a $0 monthly payment for some borrowers. But the new SAVE plan lowers the qualifying threshold.

    A single borrower earning $32,800 or less or a borrower with a family of four earning $67,500 or less will see their payments set at $0 if enrolled in SAVE.

    Increase in protected income threshold: Like in existing income-driven repayment plans, a borrower’s discretionary income, generally what’s left after paying for necessities like housing, food and clothing, will be shielded from student loan payments.

    The new SAVE plan recalculates discretionary income so that it’s equal to the difference between a borrower’s adjusted gross income and 225% of the poverty level. Existing income-driven plans calculate discretionary income as the difference between income and 150% of the poverty level.

    This change will result in lower payments for borrowers.

    Interest limit: Under the new payment plan, unpaid interest will not accrue if a borrower makes a full monthly payment.

    That means that a borrower’s balance won’t increase even if the monthly payment doesn’t cover the monthly interest. For example: If $50 in interest accumulates each month and a borrower has a $30 payment, the remaining $20 would not be charged.

    Lower payments for married borrowers: Married borrowers who file their taxes separately will no longer be required to include their spouse’s income in their payment calculation for SAVE. This could lower monthly payments for two-income households.

    Automatic recertification: Borrowers will now be able to allow the Department of Education to access their latest tax return. This will make the application process easier because borrowers won’t have to manually provide income or family size information. It will also allow the department to automatically recertify borrowers for the payment plan on an annual basis.

    Cut payments in half: Payments on loans borrowed for undergraduate school will be reduced from 10% to 5% of discretionary income.

    Borrowers who have loans from both undergraduate and graduate school will pay a weighted average of between 5% and 10% of their income based upon the original principal balances of their loans.

    For example, a borrower with $20,000 from their undergraduate education and $60,000 from graduate school will pay 8.75% of their income, according to a fact sheet provided by the Biden administration.

    Shorter time to forgiveness: Currently, borrowers who pay for 20 or 25 years under an income-driven repayment plan will see their remaining balance wiped away.

    Under the new SAVE plan, those who borrowed $12,000 or less will see their debt forgiven after paying for just 10 years. Every additional $1,000 borrowed above that amount would add one year of monthly payments to the required time a borrower must pay.

    Borrowers who consolidate their loans will receive partial credit for their previous payments toward forgiveness.

    Borrowers will also automatically receive credit toward forgiveness for certain periods of deferment and forbearance, as well be given the option to make additional “catch-up” payments to get credit for all other periods of deferment or forbearance.

    Automatically enroll struggling borrowers: Borrowers who are 75 days late on their payments will be automatically enrolled in the best income-driven plan for them, as long as they have agreed to allow the Department of Education to securely access their tax information.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Biden’s student loan policies continue to face legal challenges | CNN Politics

    Biden’s student loan policies continue to face legal challenges | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Legal challenges are continuing to target some of President Joe Biden’s student loan policies.

    While the president’s major student loan forgiveness program was blocked by the Supreme Court in late June, the Biden administration is also facing lawsuits over some of its other policy changes aimed at making it easier for borrowers to pay back their loans.

    On Monday, the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked new provisions that were meant to be implemented in July, which would make it easier for borrowers to get their debts erased when they’re misled or defrauded by their college under a rule known as borrower defense to repayment.

    The rule has been in place for decades. But the lawsuit targets new provisions – including one allowing for automatic debt discharges a year after a college’s closure date and another that bans colleges from requiring borrowers to agree to mandatory arbitration – which are now blocked.

    The emergency injunction request was made by Career Colleges and Schools of Texas, a group of for-profit universities. The appeals court order did not explain the reasoning for the decision but said that the case will be heard on November 6.

    Student loan borrowers may still submit applications for debt relief under the borrower defense rule during this time, but the Department of Education “will not adjudicate or process affected applications under the new regulations while the court’s order is in place,” according to the agency’s website.

    Aaron Ament, president of the nonprofit National Student Legal Defense Network, warned that “countless students are at risk of being taken advantage of by higher ed profiteers” until the protections are restored.

    Meanwhile, in a separate lawsuit filed last week, two conservative groups sued to stop the Biden administration from carrying out a one-time adjustment to some borrowers’ accounts, which was aimed at more accurately counting certain payments made previously under an income-driven repayment plan.

    These plans calculate payments based on a borrower’s income and family size – regardless of the person’s total outstanding debt. Generally, they lower monthly payments to help borrowers avoid defaulting on their loans and wipe away remaining balances after qualifying payments are made for 20 to 25 years.

    What the administration has referred to as “fixes” are expected to result in the cancellation of $39 billion worth of federal student loan debt for 804,000 borrowers, according to the Department of Education.

    The lawsuit, which was filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance on behalf of the conservative groups Cato Institute and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, argues that one-time adjustment “is substantively and procedurally unlawful” – similar, it says, to the broader student loan forgiveness program struck down by the Supreme Court.

    The Department of Education announced in July – weeks after the other forgiveness program was blocked – that it would begin to notify the 804,000 borrowers of their forthcoming debt cancellation.

    But the one-time adjustment had been planned for more than a year. First announced in April 2022, the move was meant to help borrowers whose payments were miscounted and were already eligible for debt relief under an income-driven repayment plan.

    The changes followed a Government Accountability Office report that found that the Department of Education had trouble tracking borrowers’ payments and hadn’t done enough to ensure that all eligible borrowers receive the forgiveness to which they are entitled. In fact, 7,700 loans in repayment, or about 11% of loans analyzed, could have potentially already been eligible for forgiveness.

    In a statement sent to CNN, the Department of Education said the lawsuit “is nothing but a desperate attempt from right wing special interests to keep hundreds of thousands of borrowers in debt, even though these borrowers have earned the forgiveness that is promised through income-driven repayment plans.”

    This latest legal challenge does not appear to immediately impact the Biden administration’s new income-driven repayment plan known as SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education), which launched last week.

    Once the SAVE plan is fully phased in, which is expected to happen next year, some borrowers could see their monthly bills cut in half and remaining debt canceled after making at least 10 years of payments.

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  • Rural Texas high school will now hold graduation after majority of senior class meets requirements | CNN

    Rural Texas high school will now hold graduation after majority of senior class meets requirements | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A rural Texas high school that had postponed graduation after only five of 33 seniors initially met requirements says a majority of seniors are now on track to graduate on June 22.

    Marlin Independent School District Superintendent Darryl J. Henson told CNN Tuesday that 33 of 38 seniors at Marlin High School this week met all requirements for graduation.

    “The remaining five seniors are attending our extended school year program and are on-track to complete all requirements before the June 22 graduation date,” Henson said via email.

    “We knew that with extra support and accountability, all seniors would meet the requirements outlined by the Texas Education Agency,” Henson added.

    Marlin ISD serves 880 student in Marlin, about 25 miles southeast of Waco.

    The district had announced late last month the small high school had to postpone its graduation ceremony after an end-of-year review revealed only five seniors had met the requirements to graduate, according to the superintendent.

    The district rescheduled the ceremony for June, according to a letter posted on Facebook on May 24. “The decision by the high school to postpone graduation will provide more time for students to meet necessary requirements for graduation,” it said.

    Many students at the school “did not meet requirements due to attendance or grades,” the letter stated.

    The school district added in the notice that it has “affirmed its commitment to providing necessary resources and support for students.

    Henson had called a mandatory meeting for parents of seniors last month.

    “The state of Texas has guidelines for graduation,” Henson said at the meeting. “This is not a dance floor. … It’s not a homecoming pep rally. This is graduation.”

    After some students made up classroom hours and assignments last month, 17 additional students were made eligible for graduation in June, according to Henson at the time.

    The community responded with an informal graduation ceremony at a church on May 27, the day the students were originally meant to graduate, according to CNN affiliate KWTX. Some family members flew in from as far as Mexico for the canceled graduation and would be unable to make a second trip for the rescheduled ceremony in June, KWTX reported.

    According to Marlin High Schools’ Texas Schools report card, 98.7% of the school’s students come from an economically disadvantaged background. A total of 229 students were enrolled at the school in the 2021-22 school year.

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  • Student graduates on the day his father’s body is recovered from the Davenport apartment building collapse | CNN

    Student graduates on the day his father’s body is recovered from the Davenport apartment building collapse | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Branden Colvin Jr. walked the stage at his high school graduation Saturday to rounds of applause and shouts of “we love you.”

    But one person wasn’t there to join in the celebration.

    Authorities told Colvin Jr.’s family Saturday afternoon the body of his father, Branden Colvin Sr., had been recovered from the rubble of the partially collapsed apartment building in Davenport, Iowa.

    “He’s proud of me. He is the reason I was even able to have enough strength to walk across the stage,” Colvin Jr., 18, told CNN. “I walked across that stage today knowing my dad is proud of me and will forever be proud of me.”

    It was a sad resolution to a painful week of waiting for the family of the elder Colvin, who had been missing since the six-story apartment building partially collapsed May 28.

    Following the incident, the younger Colvin slept on the pavement near the building site and refused to leave the scene, even as officials warned the rest of the building could come crashing down at any time.

    “I haven’t slept. I have been out here three days, at night, all night, just waiting for anything,” Colvin Jr. told CNN earlier in the week.

    Colvin Jr. wasn’t sure he would be able to bring himself to attend the graduation ceremony, he told CNN before his father’s body was found.

    “We had finals this week, Tuesday, and I tried to go to school. As soon as I walked in, I just broke down, and I was just crying,” he said. “So, I don’t know if I am going to be able to go to my graduation.”

    He said he longed to hear his father’s voice.

    “I love how much he talks. Before, it was annoying. But now, I just miss him,” he said.

    Now he’s grappling with the reality of his father being gone.

    “I never thought I would lose my dad,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “I’ll never understand this.”

    At least nine survivors were rescued from the building rubble in the days following the collapse. Ryan Hitchcock and Daniel Prien, who, like Colvin Sr., lived in the fallen section of the building, are still unaccounted for.

    Officials say they were likely home at the time of the collapse and are asking the public for any information about their whereabouts.

    “If you have specific information that can confirm this or indicate otherwise, please call 563-326-6125,” Davenport’s city government posted on Facebook.

    An urban search and rescue team from nearby Cedar Rapids is at the site, transitioning from rescue to recovery mode, authorities said at a Friday morning news conference.

    The family of Ryan Hitchcock supports the city’s plans to carefully take down the rest of the building to prevent further harm, relative Amy Anderson said.

    “Ryan wouldn’t want anyone else to put their lives at risk,” Anderson said at a news conference Tuesday.

    “I don’t discount that he could be trapped under there miraculously,” she said. “But we don’t want to see any more families lose their lives or anybody else be injured in trying to remove that rubble and have anything fall.”

    The daughter of Daniel Prien told CNN she will continue to fight for her father until he is found.

    Prien, 60, is a formerly homeless veteran who was placed in the apartment building with the help of a local organization assisting the homeless population, daughter Nancy Prien-Frezza said.

    “I do not want them to demolish the building until the missing are found or confirmed to not be there,” Prien-Frezza said. “He’s a very sweet and loving person. He should not and will not be dismissed because of his situation, so I’ll fight to find him and get justice for him.”

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  • A transgender girl misses her high school graduation after Mississippi judge denies emergency plea to permit her to go in a dress and heels | CNN

    A transgender girl misses her high school graduation after Mississippi judge denies emergency plea to permit her to go in a dress and heels | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A transgender teen in Mississippi missed her high school graduation after a federal judge denied a motion requesting she be allowed to wear a dress and heels under her robe.

    The 17-year-old, identified in court documents by her initials “L.B.,” did not attend her Gulfport high school graduation, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi. She opted to miss the ceremony when she was told she had to wear boy’s clothes to attend, telling CNN she would “rather stand up for what’s right than be humiliated.”

    The family has asked for the teen’s full name to be withheld for privacy and safety reasons.

    On May 9, less than two weeks before graduation, L.B. says she was pulled into Harrison Central High School Principal Kelly Fuller’s office and asked what she was going to wear for graduation.

    “I told her I was going to wear a white dress, then she told me I was not going to be allowed to wear a dress, and I would have to wear boy clothes,” L.B. said. “And she stated that the Superintendent called her asking about what students would wear to graduation.”

    As far as she knows, no other students were asked the same question.

    L.B. says she has attended Harrison Central High School as a girl for the past four years. She attended prom wearing a blue sparkly dress without any objection from the school. “I was being me, and I felt very accepted at the time,” she said. “I felt very understood. I felt that I had a great support system at that school.”

    L.B. and her parents, Samantha Brown and Henry Brown, filed the federal lawsuit Thursday, demanding Harrison County School District allow the teen to wear what she wishes during Saturday’s graduation ceremony from Harrison Central High School.

    Attorneys with the ACLU of Mississippi are representing the family.

    The Browns cited a violation of their child’s civil rights, accusing the school district of discrimination on the basis of sex and gender and violating the teen’s First Amendment rights, according to the complaint.

    On Friday, the day before graduation, a federal judge in Gulfport, Mississippi, denied a motion filed by L.B.’s family requesting she be allowed to wear her dress and heels at the high school graduation.

    The teen had picked out a dress and heels to wear with the traditional cap and gown in accordance with the school’s dress code for female students, according to a media release from the ACLU.

    “Our client is being shamed and humiliated for explicitly discriminatory reasons, and her family is being denied a once-in-a-lifetime milestone in their daughter’s life,” ACLU spokesperson Gillian Branstetter told CNN in an email. “No one should be forced to miss their graduation simply because of who they are.”

    Samantha Brown, L.B.’s mother, explained that after the conversation with the principal, they learned the dress code policy throughout the school year was different from the policy for graduation.

    A commencement participation agreement is included within the court documents. It shows L.B. and her mother signed the document on March 14, 2023, agreeing to follow conditions required for participating in the graduation ceremony.

    The Harrison County School District’s policy on graduation states: “Students are expected to wear dress shoes, dress clothes (dresses or dressy pant-suit for girls and dress pants, shirt, and tie for the boys).” The policy does not mention dress code rules for LGBTQ students or specify students must dress according to their sex assigned at birth.

    “Graduation school dress policy is girls have to wear white dresses and boys wear a white button up shirt with a tie and black pants and socks with black dress shoes,” Brown said. “This has never been an issue before. We felt like we were abiding by the dress code according to what she identifies as.”

    CNN has reached out to the Harrison County School District and Harrison Central High School for comment.

    L.B. called the news “unexpected and shocking,” saying, “I couldn’t understand why they would change it so suddenly.”

    “You’ve been allowing me to be this way, be myself, and express myself this way for so long. And it wasn’t even a thought in my mind that they would do this to me,” she told CNN.

    “This is a celebration of my high school, this is a celebration of my finish line,” L.B. said. “For me to be forced into something that I’m not, it wouldn’t have been fun for me at all…this kind of injustice is not okay.”

    “We have to do better as a community, as a country, as a state, as a city, as a county, we have to do better,” the teenager added.

    Brown said the ruling from the judge on Friday was hurtful and caused humiliation for her daughter, stating her opinion that it would have been more of a “distraction and shock to her peers and other teachers to show up like that, other than the way she usually dresses.”

    “She’s a good student, she made it to the finish line … that should be more of the things the children should be worried about rather than whether they will be targeted by what they identify as,” Brown said.

    Brown said they will be evaluating their legal options moving forward. “We’re going to continue to speak on this and continue to fight for what we feel is right,” she added.

    According to court documents, the school policy states that “a high school graduation ceremony is a sacred and inspirational ritual which is intended to be surrounded with decorum of dignity, grace, solemnity, reverence, pomp and circumstance.”

    “Students whose attire does not meet the minimum dress requirements may not be allowed to participate in the graduation exercises,” the policy states.

    “My graduation is supposed to be a moment of pride and celebration and school officials want to turn it into a moment of humiliation and shame,” L.B. said in the ACLU release. “The clothing I’ve chosen is fully appropriate for the ceremony and the superintendent’s objections to it are entirely unfair to myself, my family, and all transgender students like me. I have the right to celebrate my graduation as who I am, not who anyone else wants me to be.”

    Fact check: Why state lawmakers around the country keep citing junk science

    The student has been openly transgender since she began attending the school as a freshman, according to the complaint, and her identity has been known to her classmates, teachers, and administrators.

    Mitchell King, the superintendent of Harrison County School District, testified in court documents that the district relies on birth certificates to record whether students are male or female.

    The complaint describes a phone conversation between Samantha Brown and King, in which King says L.B. “is still a boy,” therefore “he needs to wear pants, socks, and shoes, like a boy.”

    The complaint also notes L.B. attended the school’s prom last year wearing a formal dress and high-heeled shoes, without any issues or repercussions.

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