Credit Union Offers Teachers Personal Loans for Classroom Supplies

How badly do you really need those erasers?Screenshot/SSSCU

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Evidently, the $1.6 billion that K-12 teachers already spend out of pocket on school supplies just isn’t cutting it. Thankfully, the Silver State Schools Credit Union of Las Vegas, Nevada, now offers loans specifically for K-12 teachers who are struggling to scrape together the classroom essentials on their hemorrhaging budgets, Sociological Images reported.

“If you’re a K-12 teacher in the state of Nevada, you know that keeping the classroom supply cabinet fully-stocked can be costly,” reads the email SSSCU sent to its members. “To help you purchase the materials you need beyond what the school’s budget may provide we’ve created a low-interest Classroom Supply Loan especially for you.”

How thoughtful!

Across the nation, states are providing schools with less funding on a per-student-basis than they did before the recession. And, inevitably, teachers are feeling the squeeze. Ironically, Nevada is one of the few states where adjusted spending per student is higher in Fiscal Year 2014 than FY 2008.

SSSCU isn’t the only company to offer teacher-targeted school supply loans. But Silver State charges 1.99 percent APR whereas others generally offer 0.0 percent APR, at least in the beginning. As of Wednesday evening, you can still find this most generous offering on SSSCU’s webpage.

Predatory lenders have gone after soldiers and students. Now, credit unions have underpaid K-12 teachers in their sights. You stay classy, America.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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