Corey Turner

They are not designed to compete.

They're designed to serve every child.

And in that way, I think school choice really pushes and pulls at a fundamental American value that every child deserves a quality education.

regardless of race or disability or income, whether they have one parent or two or none, whether they live in a big city or the tiniest town.

Our loose local networks of free public schools grew imperfectly out of that value to serve the common good.

Now, it is possible that some version of school choice can also serve the common good, but I think it is really important

When politicians and communities ask themselves, is this working?

That they're not leaving the most vulnerable children behind.

GAO found the U.S.

Department of Education stopped two key pieces of oversight under President Trump.

One, staff used to listen back to recordings of phone calls between borrowers and call center workers to make sure they were getting accurate information.

And two, department staff would do special data accuracy checks because loan servicer records can be pretty unreliable.

Before these reviews stopped, GAO found that four of the five servicers failed that data check.

The Trump administration says these reviews do not meaningfully measure servicer performance.

But department officials told GAO the problem was staff capacity.

The reviews stopped early last year as the administration began cutting the student loan office by nearly half.

Corey Turner, NPR News.

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GAO found the U.S.