Exclusive: Ed Department To Erase Debts Of Teachers, Fix Troubled Grant Program
For public school teacher Kaitlyn McCollum, even simple acts like washing dishes or taking a shower can fill her with dread.
"It will just hit me like a ton of bricks," McCollum says. " 'Oh my God, I owe all of that money.' And it's, like, a knee-buckling moment of panic all over again."
She and her family recently moved to a much smaller, older house. One big reason for the downsizing: a $24,000 loan that McCollum has been unfairly saddled with because of a paperwork debacle at the U.S. Department of Education.
But for McCollum and many public school teachers, it appears the nightmare is nearly over.
The Education Department is releasing a plan Sunday to help these teachers who have been wrongly hit with debts, sometimes totaling tens of thousands of dollars, because of a troubled federal grant program.
The move comes after an almost year-long NPR investigation that brought pressure on the department. In May, the Education Department launched a top-to-bottom reviewof the program. Amid continued reporting, 19 U.S. senators sent a letter, citing NPR, saying the problems should be fixed.
When NPR breaks the news to McCollum that the Department of Education is going to fix this, she is astonished.
"Are you serious?" McCollum says quietly. The teacher from Columbia, Tenn., is in her new home, where the walls are bare but there's a Christmas tree that she and her husband, A.J., have just put up. The floor is littered with pine needles as her 19-month-old son, Louther, plays in the next room.
Her eyes well up. She lifts a hand to her mouth and laughs. And then she cries. "That is CONTINUE READING: Exclusive: Ed Department To Erase Debts Of Teachers, Fix Troubled Grant Program : NPR
