Righting the Literacy Teacher Education Debt: A Matter of Justice

The literacies of Black and other communities of Color have long been narrated pathologically in literacy teacher education. Literacy teacher educators have been complicit in upholding linguistic injustice and enacting linguistic violence in and through their practices, devaluing the practices, marginalizing the experiences, and interrogating the humanity of Black and other teachers of Color. In this article, extending Ladson-Billings's concept of the education debt, I assess the literacy teacher education debt, unveiling how white English and whiteness in general have been (over)valued and positioned as currency in literacy teacher education. After (re)examining and (re)assessing offenses and harms inflicted by literacy teacher education across historical, economic, sociopolitical, and moral realms, composing the literacy teacher education debt, I take a restorative justice approach and offer an invitation to right literacy teacher education by addressing obligations and committing to healing as a matter of justice.

Doing More With Less: A Survey of Economic Precarity, Financial Strain, Burnout, and Secondary Traumatic Stress in Philadelphia’s Public Mental Health System

Background: Efforts to increase the implementation of evidence-based interventions come at a time of rising inequality and cuts to public mental health funding. Clinicians in publicly funded mental health clinics face increased demands, work long hours, experience financial stress, and treat clinically severe, under-resourced patients. A detailed understanding of clinicians' economic precarity, financial strain, and job-related stressors, and an understanding of how these factors relate to treatment delivery, is needed. Methods: In July 2020, we surveyed 49 clinicians working in Philadelphia’s public mental health system who participated in a large-scale trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) training initiative. Respondents reported on professional burnout, economic precarity, financial strain, secondary traumatic stress, and self-reported use of TF-CBT. We examined associations between clinicians’ economic precarity, job-related stressors, and their TF-CBT use with mixed models. We used content coding to organize open-ended responses into themes.Results: Economic precarity, financial strain, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress among respondents was high. Thirty-seven percent of clinicians were independent contractors, and of those, 44% reported desiring a salaried position. Most clinicians (76%) had outstanding education loans, and of those, 38% reported over $100,000 in education debt. In the last year, 29% of clinicians went without personal mental healthcare due to cost. Most clinicians (73%) endorsed at least one symptom of secondary traumatic stress, with 22% scoring above the clinical cutoff. Education debt was negatively associated with TF-CBT use (p<0.001). Secondary traumatic stress, measured continuously and categorically, was associated with burnout (ps<0.05).Discussion: Clinicians in Philadelphia’s public mental health system experience burnout, economic precarity, financial strain, and secondary traumatic stress, which were associated with TF-CBT use. The economic strain and stress of providing care in under-resourced clinical settings may interfere with ongoing efforts to integrate scientific evidence into mental health services. Financial investment in the mental health workforce is essential.

Analysis of the level of financial education, debt, and the use and knowledge of credit cards in a multiple banking branch in the city of Navojoa, Sonora

This research shows an analysis of financial education, debt, and use and knowledge of credit cards. This research was a case of study and the object of study were costumers of a multiple banking branch in the city of Navojoa, Sonora, a questionnaire was applied to a probabilistic sample of type subjects, resulting in 201 surveys, the Rivera instrument and Bernal (2018) is divided into three categories: a) financial education, b) indebtedness and c) use and knowledge of credit cards, the level of financial education, indebtedness and use and knowledge of credit cards of bank users was determined Furthermore, ANOVA tables were made to analyze the level of significance of sociodemographic variables with the categories analyzed.

Game of Loans: The Relationship Between Education Debt, Social Responsibility Concerns, and Making a Career Choice in the Public, Private, and Nonprofit Sectors

The public and nonprofit sectors generally pay less than the private sector, and individuals are willing to forgo higher salaries in exchange for greater intrinsic satisfaction derived from making a contribution to society. However, personal financial considerations, such as education debt, may discourage individuals from pursuing careers in lower paying sectors even if they are predisposed to public service motivation (PSM). We surveyed a sample of graduating students to investigate if (a) education debt discourages students from pursuing lower paying public or nonprofit careers and (b) whether PSM overrides the considerations students might make about entering lower paying sectors as their education debt rises. First, we find that education debt has a marginal effect on initially selecting private over public and nonprofit careers. Rising education debt may discourage students from public sector careers after controlling for PSM. We also find that rising education debt may discourage students from nonprofit careers even with high levels of PSM. The present study enhances our understanding of how financial considerations, in the form of education debt, may influence a student’s initial choice in pursuing public, private, and nonprofit careers.

US education debt and cost debate will rise pre-2020

Subject The debate around US college fees and debt reduction. Significance The Democratic Party’s nominee for US president will be picked in 2020, but pre-campaigning by the current 22 contenders for the nomination is well underway. Two issues of inter-generational importance that all candidates are starting to talk about in hustings and public appearances is university tuition and student debt. Reducing student debt levels and tertiary education fees will form part of the 2020 election campaign. Impacts The Trump administration’s 2020 budget measures to alleviate education costs could fall prey to inter-party fighting. If universities are to lower charges, they will likely reduce services to plug the gap, potentially hitting education provision. Lowering university costs would also see universities seeking more outside investment, which could affect strategy decisions. Reducing student costs would help students avoid taking on new debt post-college: fees are not waived due to bankruptcy. Some candidates suggest fixed student loan repayment rates, which would reduce lenders’ profits.

Predatory Inclusion and Education Debt: Rethinking the Racial Wealth Gap

Analyses of the recent surge in racial wealth inequality have tended to focus on changes in asset holdings. Debt patterns, by contrast, have remained relatively unexplored. Using 2001-2013 data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), we show that after peaking in 2007, debt levels for most debt types had returned to pre-financial crisis levels for blacks and whites by 2013. The primary exception to this is education debt, on which this paper focuses. We show that educational debt has increased substantially for blacks relative to whites in the past decade. We also show that this increase in debt is not attributable to differences in educational attainment across racial groups. These trends, we argue, reflect a process of predatory inclusion, where lenders and financial actors offer needed services to black households, but on exploitative terms that limit or eliminate their long-term benefits. Predatory inclusion, we propose, is one of the mechanisms behind the persistence of racial inequality in contemporary markets.