Recently, Longfellow Middle School has asked Kate Dunn to leave school for up to a month because she "scares people" when she faints. If this claim was true, we would have no protest. But, nobody minds in the slightest and we all think it is very unfair to not let her come to school for something that is totally out of her control, nothing should get in the way of a person wanting to learn.

The Federal Department of Education requires students up to the age of 24 (unless they are married or veterans) to involve thier parents in the financing of their higher education. It is nearly impossible to get declared "independent" and the student has to either get a co-signer for a student loan or their parent has to take out a "Parent Plus" loan. Many of us are unable to do this for our children as we are the generation who waited to have them until we were in our late 30s and are therefore saving as much as possible for our upcoming retirements. Personally I have had to tell my children no to either a Parent Plus loan or co-signing a loan due to the impact these would have on my credit worthiness. This has made it nearly impossible for them to attend college. This must be stopped! We are not responsible for our children after they become adults at 18. They can vote, own property, join the military etc. Therefore they should be responsible enough to pay for thier own educations. Please sign this petition to lower this arbitrary age limit to 18 and ask the Dept of Education to change these loand to "Undergraduate Plus" loans, taken out by the student, not their parents.

Teacher working conditions are student learning conditions. Adjuncts teaching college students have more than doubled since 1970. Today, contingent faculty teaches 75% of classes nationwide, yet we are paid shamefully little in comparison to our tenured or tenure track counterparts. According to the Coalition on the Academic Workforce (http://www.academicworkforce.org/CAW_portrait_2012.pdf), on average, we are paid $2700 per course with no benefits. Multiply this by a full load of courses per year, and what do we get? Of course, we usually have limits on courses too. So as you can see, we do not get a living wage! We have almost no chance for advancement, we have insecure continuity with our semester-to-semester schedule, and we have relatively little say on anything pertaining to our university or college. Moreover, because we are compensated so unequally, we need to hold several teaching positions in order to support ourselves, making our workload unfeasible. How can we survive? If you want a better education for students, then you must demand better pay and status for the majority of faculty teaching in today's institutions of higher education across the country. Demand better salaries for the underpaid and undervalued adjuncts, the contingency labor force that teaches most of the imperative core classes students need in order to succeed in today's competitive academic climate.

Florida Governor, Rick Scott, has proposed to eliminate funding for prevention programs like the Prodigy Cultural Arts Program and push towards education. Prodigy is a research based prevention, intervention and diversion program that educates youth ages 7-17 in developing life skills like communication, anger management and problem-solving through cultural and performing arts all of which are researched to increase academic performance in the classroom. With the legislative session starting this month, we have the opportunity to share the educational impact of the Prodigy program and continue to serve thousands of youth across the state of Florida.

We are getting to that time of year, where teachers and administrators are being told about the possibility that their positions will be eliminated the following year due to budget. Class sizes will increase, schools will close, students achievement will decrease if education funding will continue in its current form!

This petition is about student loans that go into default. As a divorced mother of three who has lost her job, home and car during the economic crisis over the past few years, sadly my student loans went into default. Not having a home makes it difficult to be stable, as you have no center to work from. Making matters worse, loss of job is loss of income, loss of income means loss of car, and other basics. The current gov't attitude towards loans in default is to garnish your income based on a percentage of the interest accrued on your loans. This means, if you have 56,000 dollars in student loans and your interest rate has become a 16,000 dollar amount, that your payment to take your loans out of default will be over 400 dollars. Finally, after four years of absolute chaos, I have managed to secure a permanent address, and a foot in the door as an adjunct professor at a local college (with help from my partner for basic needs acquisition making it possible to dress appropriately, get to work, and daily living). Now, the income for an adjunct is $1565 per semester, a semester being 15 weeks. New adjuncts usually get one class. I got one class to teach. This is my first employment since being transitional or dislocated. After the loans went into default, collection calls began. In order to get my loans out of default, on the percentage of interest is a monthly payment that exceeds my monthly income. There is no "plan" offered to me otherwise. After speaking to the credit collection company twice, at length on my situation, they claim there is no other option to begin repayment. With a Masters degree & a half of second Masters degree, one would think me to be highly employable. However, in the current climate, no one wants or probably can afford, to pay me what I would need to in order to begin loan repayment on all my student loans. My county is on a highering freeze, and places are highering less educated people a whole lot cheaper. Even if they cannot do the same job that a qualified person with the proper education can. Student loans even if having gone into default, should not be able to make repayment plans that exceed your income through a collection company or not. Income-based repayment plans should be available even if loans have gone into default. How else will anyone ever be able to live and work & repay? The current practice means that I would have to work teaching, for absolutely no bring home monies after each paycheck. In fact, the only repayment option available makes it so that I would have no income after, and the fact is I still wouldn't make enough to pay the proposed amount. Making matters worse, the credit collection place calls the college that highered me, even though they have my direct number to harass me to call them repeatedly (not only making me look derelict, but illuding that I have not spoke to them specifically on this matter when I have). Furthermore, if the secretary and the college has repeated calls for an adjunct who has only taught one class, who has no office, and no promise for a second semester teaching yet, how does that look to them as an employer?!) I have specifically told them of my circumstance, and been told by atleast four different people, that for me there is no other options available, and when I asked them not to call the college because they are going to make the college not want to higher me back, they would not just use my home number. Please help me to stop these companies from being able to harass, and garnish wages at a rate exceeding income when student loans go into default in an economic climate such as this! No agency, collection company, organization, or guarantor should be able or capable of garnishing 100% of an income! Slavery is not a viable response to this economic crisis & employment crisis! Please help me to stop this from happening!

HB 5000 proposes to establish a commission to study the governance structure of state universities in Michigan. The bill will not change any law or the constitution but will simply gather information on various governance models from other states and what problems the current governance system may be fostering. Current governing boards for UM, MSU and WSU are elected but nominations occur at party conventions without primaries. Thus, boards are often filled by political favors and special interests. When combined with the autonomy granted by the State constitution this is a recipe for state universities to become unresponsive to the needs of the citizens of Michigan. A study of the problems and alternatives of the current governing model is called for.

Beecher Hills Elementary School is listed to be closed based on a demographic study initiated by APS school board. Beecher Hills is a historically high performing school, meeting AYP consecutively, and is due to meet AYP this year. BH is an authorized International Baccalaureate school, one of two in the South side of Atlanta. As an IB school, Beecher Hills follows a rigorous set of standards and practices that ensures that all including Administrative, Teachers, and Parents must meet.

Last year alone, police made over 16,000 arrests of students in Florida Public Schools. The vast majority of these arrests were for minor misbehavior that could have been dealt with (at a much lower cost) by school officials. Students as young as 5 years old are being carted away in handcuffs, instead of being led to the principal or guidance counselor's office. Local school districts have failed to make significant changes to stop this trend, and it is time for the state legislature to act!

In recent years, New York State has expanded the use of high-stakes standardized testing. We are concerned about the ever-increasing over-reliance on results from standardized tests to measure student learning. We are calling on Governor Cuomo, the State Education Department, the New York State Board of Regents, and New York's legislative leaders to develop and implement a process by which parents/guardians concerned about the impacts of testing on student learning can voluntarily opt their children out of standardized testing.

The loss of thousands of North Carolina teachers is hurting our kids and our economy.

Although inequity continues, Oakland’s flatland schools have made historic improvements in student achievement. In 1999, only five Oakland schools had API scores above 800. Today OUSD is the most improved urban school district in California – and has been for the past 7 years. We both acknowledge this achievement and understand the work that must be done to bring these gains to all Oakland’s schools. • Today 28 Oakland schools have API scores above 800 – a 460% increase – many of them in the flatlands. • On average, low-achieving Oakland schools have increased their API scores by 255 points – gains that are 60% higher than in neighboring school districts. These schools have experienced gains in student achievement because the people closest to our kids are empowered to make the academic decisions necessary for success, at the school site level. Parents, students, teachers, school staff and principals have first-hand knowledge of what constitutes effective learning at their schools, and we need to maximize the resources allocated to school sites to put their vision into action. Empowering our neighborhood schools to make decisions governing their children’s education – with authority over their school site’s educational instruction, budget, staffing and schedule – is a local control and governance model that has proven enormously successful in Oakland. But this work is unfinished. Many of Oakland’s schools, families, and neighborhoods still do not have access to this site based decision-making model and have not been able to participate in its educational success. In particular, we must improve African-American student achievement and reduce unacceptably high drop-out rates. Oakland is one of the most diverse cities in the country, and all our communities must be a part of successful schools. The painful, divisive debate over school closures only demonstrates that parents, teachers, staff and students must be engaged in a more meaningful, formal manner in decision-making beginning at the neighborhood school site level, and within the District’s decision-making processes. We call on the Board of Education to take bold action on behalf of kids. We ask that they adopt policies to create conditions that provide equity and opportunity for our kids and give school site communities clearly defined, local decision-making authority in the following four areas: • Educational Programs: Local decision-making authority to develop and implement curriculum and instruction tailored to student needs. • School Site Budgets: Local decision-making authority to allocate site resources to best meet student needs. • Staffing: Local decision-making authority around hiring, support and retention of staff based on student needs. • School Schedules: Local decision-making authority to create school schedules - which could include additional time in the day and/or school year – to best respond to student needs. Through the empowerment of our families, students, teachers, staff and principals at every neighborhood school, we can ensure all Oakland students have access to customized, quality education and the opportunity for success. Make our voices count!