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Education and Student Debt
Why Teacher Pay Has Fallen Behind Other College Graduates Teachers earn far less than other college graduates with similar schooling, and the gap has widened for decades. The argument that the pay penalty, not a lack of passion, drives shortages. Abbott v. Burke and the New Jersey Courts That Ordered School Money For four decades New Jersey's highest court ordered the state to fund its poorest city schools. How Abbott v. Burke worked, what it won, and what it cost politically. Carson v. Makin and Public Money for Religious Schools A Maine tuition program for towns without high schools became the case that requires states to fund religious schools when they fund private ones. Then came Oklahoma's charter test. Charter Schools Since Minnesota's 1991 Law: Results and Arguments Charter schools began as a teachers' union leader's idea and a Minnesota law in 1991. Three decades of research show big differences between kinds of charters, and the fight is about more than scores. How Public Schools Are Funded and Why ZIP Codes Decide So Much A plain guide to where school money comes from: local property taxes, state formulas and a small federal share, and why a 1973 Supreme Court case left the gaps in place. No Child Left Behind and the Testing Era It Started How a 2002 law signed in a small Ohio gym made annual testing national, exposed gaps schools had hidden, and squeezed out much of what a school day used to hold. Ocean Hill-Brownsville and the 1968 Teachers' Strikes Over Community Control In 1968 a Brooklyn school board tried to remove nineteen educators and set off strikes that shut New York's schools for weeks, splitting labor from the civil rights movement it had marched beside. School Vouchers From Milton Friedman to Arizona's Universal Plan The voucher idea began as one economist's thought experiment in 1955; seventy years later Arizona opened public education money to every family, and the bill came due. The Department of Education From Carter's 1979 Bill to the 2025 Cuts The Education Department was born in a tight 1979 fight and has been a target ever since. What it actually does, and what the 2025 layoffs and transfers changed for students. The Every Student Succeeds Act and What States Control Now The 2015 law that replaced No Child Left Behind kept the yearly tests but moved most decisions about rating and fixing schools to states, which is where parents now have leverage. The Federal School Choice Tax Credit in the 2025 Budget Law The 2025 budget law created the first federal tax credit for private school scholarships. Here is how the dollar-for-dollar credit works and why each governor's opt-in decision matters. The Freedmen's Bureau Schools and the Rush to Learn After Emancipation After the Civil War, freed people, aid societies and a new federal bureau built schools across the South. How that rush to learn seeded public schools and Black colleges.