December 30, 2009
No matter what version of the new national health care plan finally emerges from Congress, Florida will find itself required to pay more of its scarce tax dollars to expand a federal program — Medicaid. St. Johns County School Board member Beverly Slough said Tuesday that health care already commands the largest portion of the […]
December 28, 2009
Philadelphia needs $1 billion more a year, or nearly $5,000 addit ional per pupil, in order to educate all students to academic proficiency, according to a report released November 14 by the State Board of Education. The long-awaited “costing-out” study concluded that Pennsylvania as a whole needs to spend $4.8 billion more than it does […]
December 28, 2009
SEBRING – Only about four years ago, the state’s school districts were adding portable classrooms, building new schools and classroom wings and struggling to find enough teachers to fill all those new classrooms. Now, a faltering economy and declining student enrollment has led to big funding cuts; districts are laying off teachers and some are […]
December 26, 2009
The first few years after their twin boys were diagnosed with autism,David and Ann MacLaren had little time to think about long-term financial planning. When Mark and Matt reached high school last year, the MacLarens began to consider how their children would support themselves as adults. Even though the twins, now 15, are on the […]
December 26, 2009
Enticed by the prize of $4.35 billion in federal money for schools, Illinois and other states are polishing their academic credentials, legislating away obstacles to reform and turning on the charm. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan cautions that the unprecedented competition, called Race to the Top, will have "winners and losers," with perhaps 10 to […]
December 26, 2009
Gov. Haley Barbour is recommending a 68 percent cut to gifted, special and vo-tech education programs – a move that would result in a loss of $176 million in federal funds. State Superintendent of Education Tom Burnham said such a cut would take the special ed and vo-tech programs below the minimum funding amounts required […]
December 25, 2009
Gov. Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg are showing a unified public front on the Senate health care bill, but they’re in a heated backstage battle. The governor is steamed that the city pushed language into the Senate bill forcing the state to give it more cash – while the mayor says Paterson is cheating the city. […]
December 24, 2009
Paterson said a suit filed by education groups to stop him was a waste of time because the state intends to pay the money back in January. "The payments are not cut, they are not [an] impoundment, they’re not to balance the budget," Paterson said. "They are because we have no money. When the revenues […]
December 24, 2009
With Senate Democrats poised to pass a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s healthcare system today, Republicans sought to frame the bill as a tarnished product of backroom deals, with some going so far as to declare it illegal. With final approval of the bill all but certain, Republicans on Wednesday focused on diminishing it in […]
December 24, 2009
Cuts to some health benefits for middle class families with severely disabled children has advocates worried. They fear that 30 years of progress which has stopped parents from placing kids in foster homes to qualify for costly specialized care is being chipped away. The cuts to Michigan’s Children’s Special Health Care Services eliminated $2.2 million […]