Youth & Education
Subsidies for Big Banks or College for Kids: WIll Senate Blow This?
Tue, 03/09/2010 - 16:29 — Dave Culver- Direct lending to college students (that saves $90 billion in excess subsidies to big banks and uses it to pay for college grants for poor kids and tax breaks for working families to help pay for tuition) in trouble in the Senate.
- The banks, bailed out by taxpayers, are spending millions on big-time Democratic lobbyists to kill the reform.
Robert Borosage, Campaign for America's Future
The president rightly calls it a "no brainer." Direct lending to college students that saves $90 billion in excess subsidies to big banks and uses it to pay for college grants for poor kids and tax breaks for working families to help pay for tuition. This isn't complicated. The House passed it overwhelmingly last year.
But according to the New York Times it may be in trouble in the Senate. The banks, bailed out by taxpayers, are spending millions on big-time Democratic lobbyists to kill the reform.
Teacher quit corporate job to make difference
Tue, 03/09/2010 - 10:43 — Mike SteigerwaldOn Sept. 12, 2001, Andre Mountain submitted his resignation and booked a flight home.
The terrorist attacks a day earlier jarred him, and he no longer wanted to sit in a cubicle of a Merrill Lynch office in New Jersey, performing the tedious task of verifying a long list of stock prices before a sale could be finalized.
The attacks reminded him how short life is, he said, and he wanted to serve the interests of the community rather than those of a corporation.
"Teaching was always nagging at me in the back of my mind," Mr. Mountain said.
Ethnic Special Needs Children Face Longer Wait for Health Care
Wed, 03/03/2010 - 17:47 — Dave Culver- Children with special health care needs (CSHCN) are those who have, or are at increased risk for, a chronic physical, developmental, behavioral or emotional condition.
- They require health and related services of a type or amount beyond that required by children generally.
- CSHCN are those with conditions that include Down syndrome, autism, developmental delay, and other mental and physical disabilities.
Vivian Po, New America Media
Last week(Feb 21-27), Deborah Dalton, a 50-year-old African American mother, was ecstatic to receive the oxygen concentrator that finally arrived at her San Francisco residence. Her son suffers from Down syndrome and severe sleeping apnea, and he needed it desperately.
The oxygen concentrator, a device connected to a breathing machine to ensure unobstructed breathing during sleep, Dalton said, was supposed to arrive last November. She and her son had waited for four months to get it, despite frequent phone calls.
In fact, Dalton was not the only one who had to wait for medical assistance. Many parents with children with special health care needs also find themselves standing in longer lines, no matter whether it’s for medical devices or for getting an appointment with pediatric specialists.
Former 'No Child Left Behind' Advocate Turns Critic
Wed, 03/03/2010 - 17:22 — Dave Culver- Diane Ravitch has written a book about what she sees as the failure of No Child Left Behind called The Death and Life of the Great American School System. She says one of her biggest concerns is the way the law requires school districts to use standardized testing.
- Obama Looks To Overhaul 'No Child Left Behind'
Steve Inskeep, Morning Edition, National Public Radio
Diane Ravitch, once a staunch advocate of No Child Left Behind, speaks out against the law in her book, Death and Life of the Great American School System. Courtesy of Basic Books
In 2005, former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch wrote, "We should thank President George W. Bush and Congress for passing the No Child Left Behind Act ... All this attention and focus is paying off for younger students, who are reading and solving mathematics problems better than their parents' generation."
Four years later, Ravitch has changed her mind.
"I was known as a conservative advocate of many of these policies," Ravitch says. "But I've looked at the evidence and I've concluded they're wrong. They've put us on the wrong track. I feel passionately about the improvement of public education and I don't think any of this is going to improve public education."