Help The Middle ClassNews and Information For The Heart Of America
How Alzheimer’s Disease Alters Lives (USA Today)
How an Alzheimer’s caretaker’s life and challenges may evolve as their loved one’s disease progresses:
Early stage
•May notice patient is more anxious, forgets friends’ names and telephone numbers, places everyday items in the wrong storage locations, leaves projects (laundry, meals) unfinished, has trouble making change and balancing a checkbook.
* May need to take over some household [...]
HEALTH ALERT: Breast-Feeding Could Save Babies Live & Billions of Dollars (Yahoo! News)
The lives of nearly 900 babies would be saved each year, along with billions of dollars, if 90 percent of U.S. women breast-fed their babies for the first six months of life, a cost analysis says.
Those startling results, published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics, are only an estimate. But several experts who reviewed the [...]
15 Money Rules Your Children Should Know (The Wall Street Journal)
It’s a simple calculus, kids and money: From birth until college graduation, children consume dollars like they’re chicken nuggets.
For those of us who aren’t independently wealthy, that puts unrelenting pressure on the family pocketbook. The financial demands of raising a child require that money you otherwise might use to prepare for retirement, or to save [...]
Obama Signs Student Loan Reform Program (Huffington Post)
Finalizing two major pieces of his agenda, President Barack Obama on Tuesday sealed his health care overhaul and made the government the primary lender to students by cutting banks out of the process.
Both domestic priorities came in one bill, pushed through by Democrats in the House and Senate and signed into law by a beaming [...]
Is The Education Department Equipped To Handle Student Loans Solo? (NPR)
In addition to the health care bill, congressional Democrats passed another sweeping proposal from the Obama administration — one that ends the government’s partnership with private lenders and makes the U.S. Education Department solely responsible for issuing government-backed student loans.
“We’ll see how that goes,” laughs Melissa Gregory, director of financial aid at Montgomery College in [...]
National Reading Scores For Students Stagnant (Washingtonpost.com)
The nation’s students are mired at a basic level of reading in fourth and eighth grades, their achievement in recent years largely stagnant, according to a federal report Wednesday that suggests a dwindling academic payoff from the landmark No Child Left Behind law.
But reading performance has climbed in D.C. elementary schools, a significant counterpoint to [...]
Dems Try To Out Maneuver GOP By Pairing Health-Care And Student Loan Bills (Wall Street Journal)
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday that health-care legislation, which House Democrats hope to pass by the end of next week, would also include a proposal to overhaul the nation’s student-loan program.
Tying the student-loan and health-care legislation “has always been part of the plan,” Ms. Pelosi (D., Calif.) said.
House Democrats are readying a two-part strategy [...]
How to Cut College Costs Before Freshman Year (Mainstreet)
It’s bad enough that tuition for a four-year college can cost north of $100,000 – but that’s all the more reason parents should take a hard look at not just college costs, but also at the cost of preparing for college. With SAT tests, study guides, tutoring and advanced placement exams, not to mention fees [...]
Building a Better Teacher (New York Times)
ON A WINTER DAY five years ago, Doug Lemov realized he had a problem. After a successful career as a teacher, a principal and a charter-school founder, he was working as a consultant, hired by troubled schools eager — desperate, in some cases — for Lemov to tell them what to do to get better. [...]
Online Education Scholarships Help Parents Return to School (US News and World Report)
For many parents who split their time between 40-hour workweeks and taking care of their kids, the idea of continuing their education seems almost impossible. An online learning site called eLearners.com has helped parents overcome the three main barriers to returning to school: time, money, and lack of confidence, says Helen MacDermott, content director for [...]
