Wiki Law School

Hawaii bracing for US Ed Dept. reviewThe Republic:State officials are bracing for a federal review of Hawaiis publicschoolsystem early next year that could determine whether the state continues to receive millions in competitiveeducationgrants.

School Spending Under MicroscopeWSJ: The New York City lawyer who helped win a landmark court ruling in 2006 that ordered billions of dollars more spent on schools has been quietly building a new case to show that even after more than a decade of litigation, the state still may be failing its most impoverished students.

Company rewards teachers for school tripsSignOnSanDiego: AOne of the companies that provides the trips in San Diego offers lucrative rewards for teachers based on the number of students and fellow teachers they can recruit to go on the trips.

The Touchy-Feely Future Of Technology NPR: With the gift-giving season winding down, All Things Considered takes some time to look at a technology that likely played a part in many of this years offerings — touch screens.

In Face of Holiday Sales, Colorado Students Begin to Learn Financial Discipline PBS: A Colorado law that went into effect this fall requires schools to teach public school students about financial responsibility — from drawing coins and bills to deducting purchases from their classroom bank accounts.

IQ isnt fixed at birth, can increase with education USA Today: Children who have more schooling may see their IQ improve, Norwegian researchers have found.

With A Job, Life Improves For 9th Grade DropoutNPR:Nearly three decades ago, Kenny Buchanan decided to drop out of school. Over the last 26 years, hes jumped from job to job and unemployment. He now has a full-time job and for the first time in years, he and his family have health insurance and can enjoy a few luxuries.

The company has already shut down 1,400 websites attempting frauds on student loans this year

The Student Loans Company is contacting some of its customers by telephone amid fears of a fraud attack.

The company says it is calling those customers whom it has “identified as being at risk of having their details compromised”.

The student loan system is facing sustained “phishing” attacks, with 1,400 websites shut down this year.

Customers are being told to be “vigilant with their personal details”.

The company says it cannot confirm whether or not any private details of customers have been hacked – arguing that it does not want to supply any further information which could be useful to fraudsters.

‘Ongoing enquiry’

It also declines to say how many customers are involved as “this is an ongoing enquiry”.

But it says the calls to specific customers are being made as a “preventative measure”.

The Student Loans Company has four million customers – administering loans to current students and repayments from former students.

But in response to what is believed to be a phishing-style attack – where fraudsters attempt to obtain information such as by email – the company has been directly calling some of its customers.

“We are currently contacting a number of students by telephone who we have identified as being at risk of having their details compromised, to advise them of the necessary security steps they should follow to ensure their details are protected,” said Heather Laing, fraud prevention and detection manager for the Student Loans Company.

“We would advise all students to be vigilant with their personal details. Student Finance England or the Student Loans Company will never ask you to verify your personal or bank details by email.”

The student loan system has become a target for fraudsters, with the police pursuing extensive phishing operations.

The company has warned of a significant increase in attempted fraud incidents, such as emails dishonestly seeking personal information such as bank details.

The Student Loans Company has also published advice to prevent fraud, telling students and former students to be wary of contacts seeking personal and financial details.

It says that such scams are common at the three main instalment payment dates in September, January and April.

Problems with the Education Department’s online system for managing student debt have cost taxpayers millions of dollars and left thousands of borrowers in financial limbo, unable to put their defaults behind them.

The department acknowledges the problems and says it’s working to fix them.

Under federal law, defaulted borrowers who make nine on-time repayments on their student loans can have their loans restored to good standing and their credit histories cleared. Borrowers with such “rehabilitated” loans are eligible for deferments, forbearances, and income-based repayment rates, and can also receive new federal student aid.

The new debt-management system, which tracks and manages more than $33-billion in defaulted student loans owed by more than three million people, is supposed to rehabilitate borrowers each month. It has not done so since August, and some frustrated debtors have stopped making payments on their loans, risking a second default.

Lori Wagner is among them. She took on a second job to cover the $1,350 monthly payment on her defaulted loan and made her ninth payment in October. But her collection agency told her she has to keep paying until the department issues her a new loan, and it can’t tell her when that will be.

Ms. Wagner says can’t keep working 60 hours a week—it has left her sick and overtired, she says, and it’s jeopardizing her full-time job. At this point, she says, she’s prepared to default again and let the government garnish her wages. At least, she says, the monthly payment would be lower. “I kept my end of the agreement,” she wrote to the National Consumer Law Center. “I am tired, sick, uncaring, and done with this student-loan crap … just simply done with the whole farce of rehabilitation.”

The rehabilitation delay is one of several problems plaguing the department’s new debt-collection and management system, which went live in early October. Industry sources report lags in the posting of payments to borrowers’ accounts and a lapse in the awarding of defaulted loans to collection agencies.

The department normally distributes defaulted loans twice a quarter, based in large part on how much money each agency recovered in the previous quarter. The latest batch was scheduled to go out in October, but the new system was unable to send them. When the accounts were finally awarded, shortly before Thanksgiving, they contained errors and had to be recalled. The department sent the corrected files last week, but they still included some borrowers who had died, were in bankruptcy, or had received a disability discharge.

Wage-garnishment orders, which are typically sent to employers monthly, aren’t going out, either. The orders, which direct employers to deduct up to 15 percent of a defaulted borrower’s disposable pay to cover his or her debt, are a tool of last resort for the government.

The system’s failure to award new accounts and issue wage-garnishment orders is costing taxpayers millions of dollars in recoveries. Last October, the department recovered $26.7-million through wage garnishment; this past October, it collected only $2.1-million. Treasury offsets, which include money withheld from tax refunds, Social Security, and payments to federal contractors, fell from $14.4-million to zero during that time period, according to data provided by the department. It says the October offsets will appear in the statistics for November.

At least some of the money will be recovered once the system’s problems are fixed. But the delay in awarding new accounts could have long-term consequences. The longer a loan languishes in default, the harder it becomes to collect.

A lot of strange things have happened since August. Texas AM, after making some hints over the summer, left the Big 12 for the SEC. Over the last 24 hours, the university has dismissed its football coach and its athletic director; Bill Byrne followed Mike Sherman out the door this afternoon. Pittsburgh and Syracuse are heading to the A.C.C., West Virginia to the Big 12, eventually. The Big East will soon feature teams from Texas, if not San Diego. Two SEC teams two that met in the regular season will meet for the national title.

A quarterback from Baylor might win the Heisman Trophy. Michigan beat Ohio State. Boise State lost at home. The two best teams in the Sun Belt might be Arkansas State and Louisiana-Lafayette. Yeah, its been strange. With all that, this might be the strangest thing thats happened all season:

Happy 30th Birthday Britney! Fri Dec 02 19:07:18 via webLane Kiffin
Lane_Kiffin

Thats Lane Kiffin, the newly-minted king of U.S.C., sending out 30th birthday wishes to Britney Spears yeah, shes 30. Feel old. Yesterday, after it surfaced that he had sent Urban Meyer a note of congratulations on being hired at Ohio State, Kiffin told The Sporting News Steve Greenberg that he was growing up.

Today, Kiffin is sending birthday wishes to a former pop star. Hey, its Los Angeles. And Kiffin is decidedly being Kiffin, meaning just when you think youve figured him out, he peels back a whole new layer of the onion.

And you know what? The only difference between Kiffin and his predecessor, Pete Carroll, is the choice of celebrity: Carroll went with Snoopp Dogg and Will Ferrell, while Kiffin leans towards celebrities closer to his age range.

Just be happy Kiffin didnt send a birthday message to one of the following celebrities: Hanson, Justin Bieber, the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Billy Ray Cyrus, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian or Lindsay Lohan.

And you know what else? As long as Kiffin wins 10 games and takes home the Pac-12 South in the regular season, he can send birthday messages to whomever he likes. If you can remember, no one had a problem with Carroll making U.S.C.s practice field an audition hall for Hollywoods elite when he was ruling college football with an iron fist.

Former Sheldon High School basketball star Darius Nelson, one of the area’s most prolific scorers, has decided to transfer from UTEP, where he was a freshman.

The 6-foot-6 Nelson, The Bee’s 2010-11 Player of the Year, arrived at the El Paso campus this fall with much fanfare and high expectations. But after scoring 19 points, grabbing six rebounds and finishing with four assists in a team scrimmage, Nelson decided coach Tim Floyd‘s program wasn’t a fit.

Nelson is no longer on the team and will officially transfer following this semester, one in which he has compiled a 3.4 grade-point average.

If he transfers to play at another four-year school, he will have to sit out a year, per NCAA rules.

“People are hammering my son, and they need to know that he isn’t leaving due to disciplinary issues or anything like that,” Ron Nelson said Friday. “Darius is extremely disappointed, but it just wasn’t what he wanted or was promised there, and in a matter of weeks, he’ll know exactly where he’s going to wind up.”

As a senior at Sheldon, Nelson averaged team highs of 24 points and 11 rebounds per game.

Chasing success

Chase Tapley and Xavier Thames met up with an old friend this week when San Diego State downed then-No. 23-ranked Arizona 61-57.

Tapley, a guard from Sacramento High, scored 17 points in Tucson to end Arizona’s 22-game home winning streak and beat former Dragons teammate Josiah Turner in their first head-to-head meeting.

Turner, a guard, scored 10 for the Wildcats.

Thames (Pleasant Grove), a starting guard with Tapley, beat USC 56-54 on Nov. 17 with a last-second layup.

Seawell in the running

One of the feel-good stories this fall was Garrett Seawell, a sophomore cross country runner at American River College.

The former Woodcreek standout overcame injuries so debilitating early in his career he wondered if his running days were over. He was second in a half-dozen big races this fall before winning at the state Community College Cross Country Championships last Saturday in Fresno, where ARC’s men won a team title.

Appreciating Summerhays

Great move by Del Campo High to honor Gary Summerhays for his 40 years of teaching and coaching during an alumni basketball game Wednesday.

Summerhays guided teams to championships in girls and boys soccer, volleyball, basketball and golf.

Ivy League impact

Harvard sophomore defensive back Jaron Wilson of Del Campo had a fumble recovery and interception in a 45-7 victory over rival Yale in “The Game.”

Wilson is studying evolutionary human biology with goals of being an orthopedic surgeon.

On Yale’s side of the field, Jordan Haynes of Jesuit earned first-team All-Ivy League football honors for the second consecutive season. Haynes led the Bulldogs with 95 tackles.

Shaq to Arizona State?

Shaq Thompson, Grant’s versatile standout, returned from a football recruiting trip to Arizona State and said he could see himself playing safety for coach Dennis Erickson.

Then again, this is recruiting.

Thompson was wowed by his trip to Washington and Oregon, but not so much at Notre Dame, which he said wasn’t an ideal fit.

Darvin for the defense

City College of San Francisco defensive back Darvin McCauley, a former Grant star, has earned All-NorCal Conference honors.

McCauley and his nationally No. 3-ranked team will play Fresno City today to decide which team plays in the state title bowl game.

CCSF has won 11 NorCal titles and six state and mythical national championships. The best community college football in the country is played in California.