According to US News and World Report, 2021 math scores of 13-year-olds declined dramatically, the first major drop since the National Assessment of Educational Progress began tracking in the 1970s.
“These results are concerning, but the math results were particularly daunting, particularly for 13 year-olds,” said Peggy Carr, the associate commissioner in the assessment division of the National Center for Education Statistics, which oversees the administration of the testing and the analysis of results. “I asked them to go back and check because I wanted to make sure [the results were accurate]. I’ve been reporting these results for years – for decades – and I’ve never reported a slide like that.” The starkest drop in achievement occurred among Black and Hispanic 13-year-olds, whose scores fell by eight points and four points, respectively.
“These data show that student progress declined or was stalled even before the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Beverly Perdue, chairwoman of the National Assessment Governing Board.
In the meantime, house Republicans are calling on the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to provide information on how it “miscalculated” the costs of the federal student loan program associated with the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act. Signed into law in 2010 by President Obama, the measure, which included a federally backed student loan program, was estimated to save $40 to $62 billion from 2010 to 2020. Alas, the CBO issued a new projection that instead cost taxpayers $31.5 billion over ten years. House Republicans requested CBO Director Phillip Swager provide the formulas the agency used that led to the miscalculation of more than $400 billion.
“Transparency is necessary to ensure accuracy and confidence in CBO’s reports,” said Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio. “Due to CBO’s miscalculation, taxpayers are on the hook for an unexpected $435 billion. Biden’s call to cancel student loan debt and appease the radical left only shifts more cost onto hardworking Americans. Congress needs an accurate analysis so that we can fix the federal student loan program going forward.”
An internal analysis conducted by the Department of Education in 2020 which evaluated $1.37 trillion in student loans held by the federal government. The department concluded loan borrowers would pay back $935 billion worth of those loans, leaving taxpayer dollars to fund the remaining $435 billion.
Yet still, with America getting behind Ukraine’s fight, the White House initially asked for $6.4 billion on Feb. 25 which grew with pressure from congress to a $10 billion request on March 3. After lawmakers met with Zelensky, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the aid would exceed $12 billion.
“We are all deeply moved — we can’t stay away from the TV and watching what is happening in Ukraine,” House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said. “This bill responds to Russia’s unprovoked ... invasion of Ukraine with $13.6 billion in emergency assistance to support the people of Ukraine and their neighbors.”
The next day, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., praised Schumer for “working in good faith to accommodate my request that the funding bill significantly increase the security assistance drawdown fund available to the president and to backfill our DoD stockpiles that are helping our friends in harm’s way.” Now up to $53 billion so far, more than the entire federal worker pension plan in a year.
Defense spending in the omnibus bill would rise by $42 billion over $782 billion last year. Republicans made sure the Ukraine package did not take away from the Pentagon’s share of the omnibus.
No surprise usdebtclock.org shows -$30,400,000,000,000 and counting.
Here at home, Sound Transit now projects it will lose about $1.3 billion over the next 30 years, transportation specialist Chris “Sully” Sullivan told the Dori Monson Show. But they allow up to 70% of passengers to ride for free. Aren’t you excited to pay that SnoCo sales tax increase and WA state capital gains tax knowing how our representative’s math skills are at a 7th grade level?
