The Affordable Care Act (ACA) will reduce health insurance costs for small businesses and increase coverage beginning this year, according to two reports released today.

Both a Commonwealth Fund report and an analysis by the RAND Corporation concluded that the new health reform law will help small business owners offer insurance because of tax credits and lower administrative costs of coverage available through a new insurance marketplace, the Exchange.

“The ACA will provide both immediate and long-term relief for millions of small businesses that have long struggled to provide health insurance to their workers and who are now coping with a severely weakened economy,” the Commonwealth Fund report concluded.

Small businesses often face difficulties in securing affordable coverage for their employees as the result of higher administrative costs and insufficient bargaining power as compared to larger companies. The RAND Corporation found that the new health reform law will increase the number of small businesses offering health insurance coverage “by aggregating employees of small firms into a single risk pool, exchanges will reduce year-to-year variance in premiums and may increase bargaining power and reduce administrative spending per enrollee.”

RAND estimates that that the percentage of workers receiving insurance through their job will increase from 84.6 percent to 94.6 percent once reform is fully implemented. The largest factor in this expansion is from more small businesses being able to offer coverage – rising from 60 percent to nearly 86 percent after reform.

According to the Commonwealth Fund, small businesses spend up to 18 percent more in premiums than larger firms do for the same insurance policy. In addition, when workers in small business have to shop for coverage themselves, nearly 70 percent of these workers give up because they found it difficult or impossible to navigate the individual market. More than 16 million employees work in small businesses will be eligible for a tax credit to provide health coverage over up to 2014 as the result of health reform law.

The Affordable Care Act provides specific benefits to assist small businesses and their workers to secure quality and affordable health insurance coverage. Beginning this year, many small businesses will be eligible for a tax credit for providing health coverage to their employees. When health reform comes into full effect in 2014, small businesses and their employees will be able to benefit from the creation of the health insurance exchange, a new marketplace that will help to drive down high administrative costs and end the worst insurance industry practices.

On Friday, the Department of Education authorized $1.2 billion for California as part of the recently passed Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act. That money should help return an estimated 16,500 teachers to their jobs in California.

One school district is already putting that money to good use. With their share, the Vallejo school district has the money to pay the teachers they hired back earlier this month in order to bring K-3 classes back down to 28 students.

District spokeswoman Tish Busselle said:

"The jobs bill has become a great relief because we still don't have a state budget," she said.

In early August, State Administrator Richard Damelio agreed to give 20 laid-off Vallejo teachers their jobs back as a way to prevent K-3 classes from increasing to 31 students.

All told, some 38 teachers were brought back recently, though the unresolved state budget casts uncertainty on school district funding levels.

The teachers were laid off in anticipation of state funding cuts, but were hired back just prior to the start of the new school year.

With students returning to college across the nation, many of them are facing rising costs of tuition and books. The Daily Collegian of Penn State reports today on changes to federal students loans that make higher education more accessible and affordable for students.

Katrina Wehr writes:

The law, which was included in the health care reconciliation bill passed in March, simplifies the student loan process, therefore preventing students from accumulating unmanageable debt after graduation, Miller said.

"No one should have to mortgage their future to go to college," Miller said. "That's just unacceptable."

In an effort to meet President Barack Obama's goal of producing the most college graduates in the nation's history by the year 2020, SAFRA introduced an increase in funding for Pell Grants -- as the Consumer Price Index's cost of living increases, so will the monetary value of the grants.

He said the law also lowers caps on monthly loan repayments.

Beginning in 2014, borrowers who qualify for income-based repayment on their loans will be able to cap their payments at 10 percent of their monthly income, Miller said. Prior to the switch, the cap was 15 percent, Miller said.

Vicki B. Escarra, President and CEO of Feeding America, has a post at Huffington Post about why the House Child Nutrition Bill is Better for Children.

She said:

The House Education and Labor Committee approved a strong bill in July, the Improving Nutrition for America's Children Act of 2010 (H.R.5504). This bill includes many of the same improvements to nutritional quality as the Senate bill but does far more to invest in increased program access. The House bill would significantly increase access to food at breakfast, after-school, on weekends, and during the summer. Children need access to food every day, before, during, and after school, and the House provides much-needed improvements to address these gap periods.

The Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act of 2010 pays particular attention to increasing access because hunger doesn't take a summer vacation or stop at the end of the school day.

• Increasing the number of eligible children enrolled in the school lunch programs by using Medicaid/SCHIP data to directly certify children who meet income requirements without requiring individual applications and requiring states to establish and execute a plan to increase rates of direct certification.
• Providing enhanced universal meal access for eligible children in high poverty communities by eliminating paper applications and using census data to determine school wide income eligibility.
• Increasing children’s access to healthy school breakfasts by providing competitive grants to school districts to start up or improve their program.

• Ensuring fewer children go hungry year round by providing meals for over 225,000 children through seamless meal service for children in school based and community based summer and after-school programs, and in low income rural areas. 
• Improving access for children in home-based child care by reducing administrative costs for sponsors of child care meal programs.

As schools return from their summer break, many students will again have their only chance at a healthy meal all day. And those meals are key according to a new report by Georgetown University Assistant Professor of Public Policy Peter Hinrichs. 

According to the Associated Press, Mr. Hinrichs said:

"The research found that the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) has not had a dramatic effect on health into adulthood, but it has had a significant effect on educational attainment," Hinrichs said. "The NSLP today is still broad in its reach, but it targets poorer children. There are higher standards for eligibility and also special funding for poorer schools. Had these elements been in place at the inception of the program, there may have been a more detectable effect on health in its early years."

That is why under H.R. 5504, the Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act of 2010, the program increases the number of eligible children enrolled in the school lunch programs by using Medicaid/SCHIP data to directly certify children who meet income requirements without requiring individual applications and requiring states to establish and execute a plan to increase rates of direct certification. It also provides enhanced universal meal access for eligible children in high poverty communities by eliminating paper applications and using census data to determine school wide income eligibility. The more eligible students who are having a regular, nutritious lunch the more students will be performing in the classroom.

The bill passed out of committee and is awaiting a vote on the House floor. 

Learn more about H.R. 5504, the Improving Nutrition for America's Children Act of 2010.

Later today, the House will vote on H.R. 1586, the Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act. It provides $10 billion for additional support to local school districts to prevent imminent layoffs. The latest estimates from the Department of Education are that this fund will help keep 161,000 educators employed this coming school year. It pays for these additional funds by closing loopholes that encourage corporations to ship jobs overseas.

Last week, the Washington Post editorial board didn't think it was important to save teacher jobs. In Chairman Miller's letter to the editor  today, he sets them straight about the importance of saving teacher jobs:

It is disappointing that The Post's editorial board, which consistently supports school reform, opposes efforts to keep teachers in the classroom by way of a $10 billion education jobs package ["Throwing money at education," editorial, Aug. 6]. Across the country, damaging budget cuts have forced school districts to lay off hundreds of thousands of employees, shorten school years and increase class sizes -- to the detriment of students. All of these decisions were based on decreased revenue, largely due to the financial crisis that was no fault of any principal, teacher or student. 

This emergency investment in our schools will save teacher jobs and keep students in their classrooms, learning, growing and succeeding. If we were to take the path suggested by The Post, we would let our schools suffer, stifle our students' futures and reverse the progress made in schools under the Obama administration. Congress won't let that happen.

This morning Chairman Miller appeared on MSNBC to explain why the House is returning from its 6-week district work period to vote on this important piece of legislation. Watch him after the jump:

Based on analysis from the Council of Economic Advisors of projected State budget shortfalls for FY 2011, we estimated that as many as 100,000 to 300,000 education jobs could be at risk across the country in the upcoming school year.

We know States and districts are working hard to find ways to minimize job losses and keep cuts away from classrooms, but some are making cuts that we know will have an impact on kids. Furlough days, cutting after school programs, and cutting or reducing summer school are some of the tough choices being made when we know we need to be expanding learning time.

We also know these job losses would ripple through the wider economy and undercut ongoing efforts to create jobs.

That is why the House will take a rare August vote to pass this legislation and send it to President Obama for his signature prior to the start of the new school year.

Being overweight or obese is the leading medical reason why young Americans cannot join the military. Over the last 30 years, child obesity rates have tripled. One study found that 80 percent of children who were overweight at ages 10-15 were obese at age 25.

Here in Maine, 41.2 percent of youths from ages 18 to 24 are overweight or obese. In addition to hindering our military preparedness, obesity also costs the American people billions in medical expenses every year.

From the mid-1990s to 2000, the state of Maine spent $375 million per year on obesity-related medical expenses. This data is 10 years old -- Maine's current expenditures are surely much higher today.

What can we do to address the problem? One way is to improve the quality of food and beverages served in our schools. The school environment is critical for shaping the eating and exercise habits of our youth.

...

The White House has proposed additional resources for a robust child nutrition reauthorization package that would reduce child obesity and improve the diets of children. Current proposals in the House and Senate include provisions that will raise the quality of all foods and beverages served in schools by requiring the secretary of agriculture to establish new nutrition standards that are consistent with the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

"Mission: Readiness" strongly supports these provisions and urges Congress to enact reauthorization legislation immediately.

By applying increased nutritional standards to all foods sold on school grounds, expanding access to healthier meals, and supporting schools in implementing proven programs that educate children and their families about healthy eating and exercise, we can get junk food and high-calorie beverages out of schools and out of our children's daily diets.

Recent research provides strong evidence that receiving school meals can help low-income children maintain a healthy weight.

UPDATE: The breakfast has concluded. Visit their website for the archive of the event.

Join Chairman Miller, Randi Weingarten, Tim Daly, Lisa Guernsey and Carmel Martin for a lively discussion about education and education policy in America.

The National Journal's website says: 

There is consensus in the education sector that the American school system must transition from one designed around an agrarian and industrial society to one that meets the demands of the knowledge economy. The Obama administration has poured an unprecedented amount of money—upwards of $100 billion—toward accomplishing that goal. How far have we come and how much further do we need to go? As a means of addressing this question, we will take stock of the administration's key education initiatives as well as state-led efforts and ultimately, how the weakened economy has affected these programs. Race to the Top, reauthorization of No Child Left Behind and Common Core, among other topics, will be examined.

The Wall Street Journal writes today about the new rules for student loans. 

Some parents and students may also see lower interest rates on new loans. Now that all Parent PLUS loans are under the Direct Loan Program, the fixed rate for new Parent PLUS loans is 7.9%. Some lenders had charged 8.5%.

And the fixed rate has dropped, to 4.5% from 5.6%, for new subsidized Stafford loans for undergraduates. With subsidized loans, the federal government pays the interest on a loan while the student is in school, during the grace period after graduation or if the loan is in deferment, which is when borrowers are temporarily allowed to stop making payments.

The Department of Education also has increased the maximum Federal Pell Grant award to $5,550 for the 2010-2011 academic year, from $5,350 for the 2009-2010 school year.

As Investopedia pointed out, the reforms eliminate the middleman, enlarge Pell Grants, increase funding for minority-serving institutions, lower income-based payments, and offer more forgiveness opportunities.

Learn more about how reforms to federal student loans help students, families and taxpayers.

Yesterday's hearing on H.R. 5663, Miner Safety and Health Act of 2010 came to one conclusion:

"This bill will save lives."

Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health Joe Main told members of the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee as much during a hearing on the Miner Safety and Health Act of 2010 Tuesday afternoon on Capitol Hill.

"The bill is true to the principles that mine operators are responsible for the health and safety of our most precious resource, the miner," Main said. "It promotes a culture of safety and will give MSHA effective new tools to hold to account operators who fail or refuse to meet their obligations."

The West Virginia Metro News also reported that: 

Altogether, the legislation is designed to do the following:

• Make mines with serious and repeated violations safe.
• Hold irresponsible mine operators accountable.
• Give MSHA better enforcement tools.
• Ensure miners' right to blow the whistle on unsafe conditions.
• Update mine safety standards to prevent explosions.
• Increase MSHA's accountability.
• Promote worker health and safety in all workplaces.

This afternoon, House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller holds a hearing on mine safety. Congress has been working on legislation to update health and safety laws, and to put some teeth in the regulatory process. All in response to the April tragedy at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia, where an explosion killed 29 men.

MILLER: Clearly some mine operators have decided that to run an unsafe mine and to pay the fines is just the cost of doing business. And they’re willing to pay the small fines. And some of the fines have not been adjusted for over 40 years.

But before you even think about a private loan, make sure you have maxed out on your federal student loans. Federal student loans have fixed interest rates and more flexible repayment terms than private loans. If you have trouble making payments after you graduate, the federal government offers several programs that provide relief (more on this later). Private lenders aren't required to do anything to help troubled borrowers.

All PLUS loans (Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students) are now issued through the Direct Loan program. Like Stafford loans, these loans were previously offered by private lenders, as well as through the Direct Loan program. The rate for Direct PLUS Loans is 7.9% vs. 8.5% for FFEL PLUS Loans. Parents can use PLUS loans to pay for any college costs that aren't covered through Stafford loans and financial aid. Graduate students are also eligible to borrow through the PLUS program.

Rates for subsidized Stafford loans, which are available to borrowers who demonstrate economic need, fell to 4.5% from 5.6%. This new rate will apply only to subsidized Stafford loans issued between July 1, 2010, and June 30, 2011, says Robert Murray, spokesman for USA Funds, a non-profit company that services loans. Rates on subsidized loans issued before July 1 won't change, he says. The rate for unsubsidized Stafford loans, which are available to all students, remains at 6.8%.

Origination fees for Direct Stafford loans dropped to 1% from 1.5% on July 1. Because the cost of the fee is deducted from the proceeds of the loan, the reduction will increase the amount of money available to pay your college costs, Murray says.

Other changes that took effect July 1 could provide relief for graduates who aren't making enough money to afford their loan payments.

The income-based repayment program allows federal student loan borrowers to have their loan payments reduced, based on income and family size. For most eligible borrowers, loan payments will be less than 10% of their income. Two updates to the program could lower payments even more for some borrowers:

Married couples will no longer be penalized. Previously, when couples filed a joint tax return, the program assumed that both spouses could use 100% of their combined income to make loan payments. In cases in which both spouses had student loans, the minimum payments were much higher than the minimum for unmarried borrowers with the same debt and income, says Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access and Success. The new formula will take into account married couples' combined income and their combined debt to calculate minimum payments, Asher says.

Eligibility for income-based repayment will be based on the balance when the loan went into repayment or the current loan amount, whichever is greater. This will primarily benefit borrowers who have gone into forbearance or deferment, Asher says. These programs allow borrowers to temporarily suspend payments, but if interest accrues during the period, they end up with a larger loan balance.

Hungry children looking for a free meal this summer may not be able to find one.

States and cities have cut funding for summer meal programs as need has skyrocketed, according to a new report from an anti-hunger group that tracked the program in 2009. Budget woes that have left many families hungry are also affecting local governments that find themselves without the needed dollars to feed children while they are out of school.

"Low-income children across the country clearly bore the brunt of budget cuts," said Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, which compiled the report to be released Tuesday.

Summer nutrition programs aim to feed children who get most of their nutrition — or sometimes their only real meal of the day — at school. The food research group measures the effectiveness of those summer programs by comparing the number of low-income children receiving meals during the summer with those receiving free and reduced-price school meals during the school year.

Schools these days are confronted with complex questions on whether and how to deal with cyberbullying, an imprecise label for online activities ranging from barrages of teasing texts to sexually harassing group sites. The extent of the phenomenon is hard to quantify. But one 2010 study by the Cyberbullying Research Center, an organization founded by two criminologists who defined bullying as "willful and repeated harm” inflicted through phones and computers, said one in five middle-school students had been affected.

Affronted by cyberspace’s escalation of adolescent viciousness, many parents are looking to schools for justice, protection, even revenge. But many educators feel unprepared or unwilling to be prosecutors and judges.

Often, school district discipline codes say little about educators’ authority over student cellphones, home computers and off-campus speech. Reluctant to assert an authority they are not sure they have, educators can appear indifferent to parents frantic with worry, alarmed by recent adolescent suicides linked to bullying.

Whether resolving such conflicts should be the responsibility of the family, the police or the schools remains an open question, evolving along with definitions of cyberbullying itself.

Nonetheless, administrators who decide they should help their cornered students often face daunting pragmatic and legal constraints.

Thousands of Contra Costa County children are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches during the school year. But come summer vacation, many of them no longer have access to regular meals.

"During the summer, they don't have that program and the resources of families are stretched," said Barbara Jellison, food services director for the West Contra Costa Unified School District. "I don't think they get the nutrition that they need."

The nonprofit foundation, which is separate from health insurer Kaiser Permanente, said recent premium hikes for individual coverage averaged 20%. Some customers were able to switch plans and pay less so people paying on their own actually wound up paying 13% more on average.

That hike tops last year's average 5% annual increase for employer-sponsored family coverage and almost unchanged premiums for employer-sponsored single coverage, though foundation Vice President Gary Claxton said the comparisons come with qualifications.

The Affordable Care Act will help address this problem and strengthen the health insurance system for everyone. The law starts by helping to prevent unreasonable premium increases by requiring insurance companies to publicly justify unreasonable increases. Companies will also have to spend more of your premium dollars on medical claims, not salaries and overhead. If insurance companies raise rates too high between now and 2014, they could be excluded from the new health insurance exchanges and lose access to millions of new customers. And we are encouraging states to crack down on premium hikes and providing states with $250 million in grants to do so.

• Invest the bill’s savings to make college affordable and help more Americans graduate
• Provide reliable, affordable, high-quality Federal student loans for all families
• Meet Pay-As-You-Go fiscally responsible principles and reduce the deficit

Tonight, in a little strip-mall office next to the local Safeway, a teenage student from Alameda, California will spend the evening dialing up strangers to make an earnest request: please save my school.

The budget ax is about to fall on this Bay Area city. Seven million dollars in K-12 education cuts are planned this year, nearly $10 million will be lopped off next year, and a massive $17 million cut looms in 2012. A few weeks ago, Alameda's Board of Education handed out pink slips to 130 teachers, administrators and staff.

"This is the worst yet," said Superintendent Kirsten Vital, a 20-year veteran of California's education system. "I've never seen anything like it."

Across the country, mass layoffs of teachers, counselors and other staff members — caused in part by the drying up of federal stimulus dollars — are leading to larger classes and reductions in everything that is not a core subject, including music, art, clubs, sports and other after-school activities.

Educators and others worry the cuts could lead to higher dropout rates and lower college attendance as students receive less guidance and become less engaged in school. They fear a generation of young people could be left behind.

...

"Literally tens of millions of students will experience these budget cuts in one way or another," said Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who is urging Congress to provide another round of emergency funding for schools. "If we do not help avert this state and local budget crisis, we could impede reform and fail another generation of children."

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has introduced legislation that would create a $23 billion fund to help schools retain teachers, principals and other staff members. The fate of the bill is uncertain.

The American Association of School Administrators estimates that 275,000 education jobs will be cut in the coming school year, based on an April survey. Other AASA surveys found that 52 percent of administrators plan to cut extracurricular activities, and 51 percent are reducing elective courses not required for graduation.

A recent clinical study by the Children's National Medical Center in Washington found that more than 80% of student athletes who experienced concussions reported a significant worsening of symptoms over the first four weeks after attempting to return to school academics.

"The typical concentration and memory requirements of school place significant demands on the brain's biological software," Gerard Gioia, chief of pediatric neuropsychology at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, says in testimony prepared for a Thursday hearing before the House Education and Labor Committee. "When these cognitive demands are placed on a brain in an impaired state, the result is an increase in post-concussion symptoms."

By preserving and creating jobs in communities around the country, the Local Jobs for America bill would lead to higher income and payroll tax receipts and reduce spending for safety net programs, ultimately offsetting an estimated $39 billion of the bill's $75 billion in outlays.

And it’s why, through our recovery efforts, we’ve provided emergency aid that saved the jobs of more than 400,000 teachers and other education jobs -– and why I believe these efforts must continue. I believe these efforts must continue as states face severe budget shortfalls that put hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk. We need and our children need our teachers in the classroom. We need your passion and your patience, your skill and experience, your determination to reach every single child.

Last year’s $100 billion education stimulus plan insulated the public schools from the worst of the recession and saved an estimated 300,000 jobs. With the economy still lagging and states forced to slash their budgets, Congress must act again to prevent a wave of teacher layoffs that could damage the fragile recovery and hobble the school reform effort for years to come.

In March, Representative George Miller, a Democrat of California, introduced a jobs bill that included a $23 billion school rescue plan. Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat of Iowa, has since introduced a similar plan fashioned as an emergency spending bill. The House version is the better of the two.

The need for a second school stimulus plan was underscored on Monday by a new analysis from the American Association of School Administrators, which reported that cash-strapped districts were prepared to cut as many 275,000 jobs in the 2010-2011 school year.

The loss of that many paychecks — and the resulting decline in consumer spending — could kill off still more jobs in the communities where teachers and other school employees live.

The worst recession since the 1930s is clobbering the nation's schools.

In Indiana and Arizona, the legislatures have eliminated free all-day kindergarten. In Kansas, some school districts have gone to four-day weeks. In New Jersey, 60 percent of school districts are reducing their course offerings. In Albuquerque, the number of school district employees is down 10 percent. In the D.C. suburbs, Maryland's Prince George's and Virginia's Prince William counties have increased their class sizes.

CNN reports that more than 80% of school districts to cut jobs. According to the article, "a total of 275,000 education jobs are expected to be cut in 2011." The Local Jobs for America Act contains $23 billion this year to help states support 250,000 education jobs. It also contains $75 billion over two years to local communities to hire vital staff, funding for 50,000 on-the-job private-sector training positions, $1.18 billion to put 5,500 law enforcement officers on the beat and $500 million to retain, rehire, and hire firefighters, plus many other benefits.

Read the entire article at CNNMoney.com or after the jump.

UPDATED: The American Association of School Administrators have posted their report. According to the press release, "Cutting 275,000 education jobs would deal a devastating blow to public education and will have a negative effect on economic recovery. Dr. Lawrence Mishel of the Economic Policy Institute told AASA, ‘Every 100,000 education jobs lost will be roughly 30,000 jobs lost in other sectors due to the lost spending by schools and those laid off.’"

Americans are already starting to see the benefits of health care reform. The new law requires health insurance companies — starting in September — to end their most indefensible practice: rescinding coverage after a policyholder gets sick. In recent days insurers and their trade association have rushed to announce that they will end rescissions immediately.

That is very good news for the thousands of people who each year pay their premiums but lose their coverage just when they are likely to run up big medical bills.

...

The insurers were wise to short-circuit the criticisms and end rescissions now. This follows a recent agreement by many companies to start letting dependents stay on their parents’ policies until age 26, which isn’t required until September. Under pressure from the White House, the industry has also agreed to cover children with pre-existing medical conditions as soon as new rules are issued.

Many of the other major provisions of reform don’t kick in until 2014, but it is already changing the behavior of insurers. That means more security for many Americans who might otherwise find insurance unaffordable or unavailable.

WellPoint Inc. said it would revise its request for steep rate hikes in California's individual market, after a state regulator said it found flaws in the company's application.

The proposed premium increases by the company's Anthem Blue Cross unit would have affected more than 700,000 consumers, who would have seen their rates go up by as much as 39%.

"This was not a decision I made lightly," [Valisha Cooks] said. "Filing for bankruptcy was expensive and, most of all, humiliating. I was raised to work hard, pay my bills and be responsible." About $10,000 in other debt was erased. But not her student loans.

"Now, even though I have a good job, I can't afford to pay all my bills in any one month," Cooks told the [House Judiciary] subcommittee. "I go to food banks to feed my son, and I will never be able to afford a house." Like child support and tax debt, student loans are nearly impossible to eliminate in bankruptcy. You have to prove "undue hardship." That's a high hurdle to jump.

Before, the only loans that couldn't be canceled by filing for bankruptcy were federally backed student loans, as well as loans where nearly all the funds came from a nonprofit institution, according the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. In the case of the federal loans, this made sense. The government backs the loans, and defaults are a direct hit to the federal budget, meaning we all pay for those who can't.

But in 2005, during a major overhaul of the bankruptcy code, private student loans were given an elevated status and thus couldn't be discharged. This didn't make sense. If we are going to have a fair bankruptcy system, private education loans should be treated the same as other private consumer debt. That's the risk lenders take, similar to the risk borne by providers of loans for cars, homes or other consumer purchases.

Lenders and opponents of this legislation argue that if people can erase their education debt, private loans for college will be tougher to qualify for and harder to get. There's a concern that people will get an education and immediately run to bankruptcy court to shed their loan obligations before they make big money.

I covered bankruptcy for years, and seldom did I see bankruptcy petitioners gleefully sitting in the corridors of a courthouse eagerly waiting to shirk their financial responsibility. People usually seek bankruptcy protection as a last resort. Besides, there is a test in place to prevent people from scamming the system.

Cities — while facing increased demands for services — have seen their tax revenues continue to decline because of persistent high unemployment, home foreclosures and reduced state aid.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has proposed as many as 750 layoffs — on top of 105 pink slips this year — to help make up for a projected $485-million shortfall. San Jose is looking at reducing its municipal workforce to its lowest level in two decades.

"We're now beginning to see cities cut fire and police services," Loveridge said. "The pain is real."

...

Concerned that a wave of municipal layoffs could set back the nation's economic recovery, congressional Democrats are pushing a $100-billion bill that would provide $75 billion in federal aid to help cities and counties preserve jobs.

The bill, which has gained 151 cosponsors in the House, also provides an additional $23 billion to help preserve teachers' jobs. Most of the remainder would go to aid police and fire departments.

"Without help, an ongoing local government fiscal crisis could well undercut the nation's recovery," Riverside Mayor Ronald O. Loveridge, president of the National League of Cities, told a congressional committee recently.

"Teacher layoffs threaten our economic recovery and long-term stability at every level. This is a serious problem in my district and in the districts of my colleagues and it deserves serious attention," he stated in a press release. "Our teachers can't afford to lose their jobs, our children can't afford to lose a year of learning and our nation can't afford to stall the progress we've made to get our economy and our children's education back on track."

Miller has proposed directing $23 billion in federal dollars to local schools to help make up for state and local budget shortfalls.

The "Education Jobs" funding would be directed to California and then passed on to local school districts across the state using already established state funding formulas. This is the same infrastructure as the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, established under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Miller noted.

School districts around the country, forced to resort to drastic money-saving measures, are warning hundreds of thousands of teachers that their jobs may be eliminated in June.

The districts have no choice, they say, because their usual sources of revenue — state money and local property taxes — have been hit hard by the recession.

This month, the American Association of School Administrators reported that two-thirds of members surveyed cut positions this school year and 90 percent expect to do so in the coming year. The survey of 453 administrators also found that 62 percent anticipated raising class size, 34 percent were considering cancellation of summer school and 13 percent were weighing the possibility of a four-day school week.

The National Education Association, a teachers union with 3.2 million members, counts 26,000 teachers in jeopardy of layoffs in California, 20,000 in Illinois, 13,000 in New York, 8,000 in Michigan and 6,000 in New Jersey.

Even when jobs are saved there is a steep price. Los Angeles officials decided to avert about 2,000 layoffs by cutting five days from the academic calendar. But the city's school workforce is hemorrhaging nonetheless.

More than 300 local, state and national groups from 43 states are urging House Democratic leaders to consider legislation introduced last month by House Education and Labor Chairman George Miller that would provide about $100 billion in aid to state and local governments to help prevent layoffs.

"We support quick passage of the Local Jobs for America Act to immediately put Americans back to work, in addition to meeting pressing needs in our communities," the letter said. "We need bold congressional action in order to put Americans back to work and prevent more layoffs and cuts in crucial services. [The Miller bill] will not only provide employment for hundreds of thousands of jobless workers, it will create and save jobs for workers who are providing services that our communities badly need."

Signatories to the letter include the American Federation of Government Employees; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; the American Federation of Teachers, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. It was dated Friday, but released Monday.

The measure would provide $75 billion over two years that would go directly to eligible communities and nonprofit community organizations. The funds would also be used for salaries for 50,000 on-the-job private-sector training positions, "so local business can put people back to work in the local economies," Miller said upon introducing the bill.

The legislation would also provide $23 billion this year to help states support 250,000 education jobs, another $1.18 billion to put 5,500 law enforcement officers on the beat and an additional $500 million to retain, rehire and hire firefighters.

The Upper Big Branch mine, where the explosion occurred, is a case in point. According to a 2007 agency letter to the Massey Energy Company, the mine’s owner, Upper Big Branch had incurred 204 safety violations just in the previous two years. Disturbingly, the agency soon pronounced itself satisfied that Massey had addressed the problems. But in the past two years, the mine has been cited repeatedly for safety violations, many of them serious, and some involving improper ventilation.

These alarming numbers should have given the agency sufficient ammunition to prove a “pattern” of violations, a necessary precondition for shutting the operation. But the agency’s procedures prevent it from taking decisive action until the appeals process runs its course, and industry has become remarkably adept at prolonging legal challenges for months or years.

Federal officials say the backlog has been holding up strong enforcement action — including shutdowns — against 48 mines, one of which is the Massey mine.

Strengthening the agency means strengthening the Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977. Regulators lack subpoena power, a basic investigatory tool. Violations of safety standards that lead to deaths are mere misdemeanors. The agency also needs more inspectors and administrative judges to deal with the appeals backlog.

Representative George Miller, the California Democrat who leads the House Education and Labor Committee, is eager to begin addressing these deficiencies, as is his Senate counterpart, Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat. Both are scheduled to hold hearings.

1. Elimination of the Middleman
2. Larger Pell Grants
3. Increased Funding for Minority-Serving Institutions
4. Lower Income-Based Payments
5. More Forgiveness Opportunities

The Bottom Line
While cash-strapped college students (and their parents) will likely welcome anything that helps them manage those hefty tuition payments, many critics say these measures don't go far enough, especially considering several elements don't go into effect for several years. However, when coupled with recent changes to simply the FAFSA (the form students may complete to apply for federal aid) and the expansion of college-related tax credits, the new legislation may at least provide a little bit of a helping hand to families struggling to afford the overwhelming cost of higher education.

The new law also aims eventually to improve health insurance for everyone. By now you have probably read or heard about big changes like the rules that will require insurers to cover everyone who applies, regardless of health status, and forbid them from dropping people when they get sick.

You may not yet be aware, though, of another notable improvement to insurance, a change that could save a consumer or family hundreds of dollars a year. Under the new law, insurers must offer preventive services — like immunizations, cancer screenings and checkups — to consumers as part of the insurance policy, at no additional out-of-pocket charge.

The idea is that healthy Americans will be less costly Americans.

“This is transformative,” says Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health, a nonprofit organization for large employers. “We’re moving from an insurance model that was based on treating illness and injury, to a model that’s focused on improving an individual’s health and identifying risk factors.”

The trend toward offering free preventive care has been gaining steam for a decade among large companies that provide employee health benefits. “Employers recognize that if they want to control costs, they have to persuade their workers to be healthier, including their children,” Ms. Darling said.

Three out of four large companies now offer free preventive health services to their workers, according to a 2009 survey by Mercer, a benefits consulting firm. Smaller employers, though, and individual health plans have been less likely to offer free care of any type.

Rescue workers began the precarious task Tuesday of removing explosive methane gas from the coal mine where at least 25 miners died the day before. The mine owner’s dismal safety record, along with several recent evacuations of the mine, left federal officials and miners suggesting that Monday’s explosion might have been preventable.

In the past two months, miners had been evacuated three times from the Upper Big Branch because of dangerously high methane levels, according to two miners who asked for anonymity for fear of losing their jobs. Representative Nick J. Rahall II, a Democrat whose district includes the mine, said he had received similar reports from miners about recent evacuations at the mine, which as recently as last month was fined at least three times for ventilation problems, according to federal records.

The Labor Department said employers added 162,000 jobs in March, the most since the recession began but below analysts' expectations of 190,000. The total includes 48,000 temporary workers hired for the U.S. Census, also fewer than many economists forecast.

Private employers added 123,000 jobs, the most since May 2007.

There are 15 million Americans out of work. More Americans entered the work force last month, which prevented the increase in jobs from reducing the unemployment rate.

Manufacturers added 17,000 jobs, the third straight month of gains. Temporary help services added 40,000, while health care added 37,000. Leisure and hospitality added 22,000.

Even the beleaguered construction industry added 15,000 positions, though that likely reflects a rebound from February, when major snowstorms may have kept many construction workers off payrolls.

The average work week increased to 34 hours from 33.9, a positive sign. Most employers are likely to work current employees longer before they hire new workers.

The department also revised January's job total to show a gain of 14,000, up from a previously reported loss of 26,000. February's job numbers were also revised higher by 22,000 to show a loss of 14,000. The economy has now added jobs in three months since the recession began in December 2007.

The federal Pell Grant program will get a badly needed financial boost. The Obama administration says the new law pumps more than $40 billion into this program, which provides need-based grants to low-income undergraduates and certain graduate students.

Starting in 2013, the award will be scaled to the consumer price index, adding on a cost-of-living increase. That will raise the maximum from $5,550 to $5,975, according to CBO estimates.

Here's what really excites me. There will be additional funds for community colleges, historically black colleges and other institutions that serve minorities.

Community colleges are expected to get $2 billion over four years. Minority and historically black colleges and universities will get $2.55 billion.

It's about time community colleges got some attention and needed funds. Maybe now, these institutions will shed the reputation that they exist for the academically challenged. Maybe now they won't be seen as the "13th grade," as some people say in discouraging students from this road to higher education.

...

At least if you're stuck with the debt, provisions in the health-care law will lower the cap on monthly payments for some.

Beginning in 2014, student-loan payments under the income-based repayment plan will be capped at no more than 10 percent of a borrower's discretionary income -- the amount of a person's adjusted gross income that exceeds 150 percent of the poverty line for the family size. Payments are capped at 15 percent.

If people keep up their payments, any borrowed amount not paid after 20 years will be forgiven (down from the current 25 years). For public service workers -- teachers, nurses and those in military service -- the debt is forgiven after 10 years.

In many respects, it was quite appropriate to fold higher education provisions into the health-care reform legislation. The financial health of a lot of people has been hurt by the amount of debt they use to get an education.

President Barack Obama signed into law the last piece of his mammoth plan to overhaul health care Tuesday and, with the same pen strokes, achieved a far-reaching change in the way most Americas help pay the cost of a college education.

Both the health care provisions and revamping the loan program for college students were sandwiched into a single piece of legislation — the budget-reconciliation bill approved last week by the House and Senate.

President Obama signed important and welcome changes to the nation's campus loan program. The reforms should save the country billions and give more students a crack at a college degree.

Why it took so long is a minor scandal. Since the 1970s, federal money was doled out to banks to lend to students. In practice, though, the banks collected a healthy fee and fobbed off the bad loans to the government. It was a no-lose deal for these lenders.

But it endured, largely through fierce lobbying from lenders such as Sallie Mae. This year, the dam broke. The Senate and House voted to put Washington in charge of the loans, a shift estimated to save $68 billion over 10 years. That will allow loan limits to rise slightly, expand Pell Grants to defray tuition bills for needy students and invest $2 billion in community colleges.

But the changes didn't come easily, despite the sustained and gallant efforts of Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez.

Pelosi vigorously clapped back at the crowd as camera flashes popped. When Obama later singled Pelosi out, calling her "amazing," the crowd jumped to its feet again. (Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) got a standing ovation, too).

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the legislation will reduce bank subsidies by $61 billion between 2010 and 2019. A large share of these savings will then be used to boost financial aid for low- and middle-income borrowers.

For example, the legislation increases funding for Pell Grants by $36 billion over the next 10 years. Pell Grants are scholarships to help low- and moderate-income students pay their college costs. Sixty-two percent of dependent Pell Grant recipients come from families with incomes below $30,000 per year. Pell Grants are therefore extremely well-targeted to individuals who will rely on them to increase their spending (for textbooks, tuition, and other expenses) rather than to increase their savings.

Similar to food stamps and unemployment insurance, this spending creates demand for goods and services in local communities, and this in turn helps to create jobs. The key reason for persistently high unemployment in the United States is the lack of demand for goods and services; spending that spurs demand thus creates jobs.

The job-creating effects of the education provisions of the reconciliation legislation will likely outweigh any job loss that could result from eliminating the middlemen in the student loan programs. These reforms are clearly a win-win-win for American workers, students, and taxpayers.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they favor a proposal to increase the amount of money available for college loans by allowing the government to provide those loans directly to students, according to a new poll.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday indicates that 64 percent of respondents favor the proposal and 34 percent opposed it.

...

The survey also indicates, to a degree, some rare bipartisan support, with a vast majority of Democrats, a solid majority of Independents, and a slight majority of Republicans favoring the proposal.

College students swarmed Capitol Hill on Tuesday to plead for more financial aid as private lenders made a last push to preserve their endangered role in making federal student loans.

The dueling messages sought to influence potential Senate action this week on a proposal to expand direct government lending by cutting funding for private firms that make federally guaranteed loans. Tens of billions of dollars in projected savings would flow to grants for needy students.

...

The measure would save an estimated $61 billion over 10 years by cutting out subsidies for private lenders, which the Obama administration describes as needless go-betweens, and by expanding direct government lending. It would provide $36 billion in Pell grants for students from low- and moderate-income families, including $13.5 billion to plug a shortfall this year because rising numbers of students are eligible for aid.

The United States Student Association rallied hundreds of members on Capitol Hill for the bill. They waved signs -- "Students NOT Banks!" and "$ Now!" -- and chanted slogans that underscored the fiscal straits universities face as they raise tuition. "They say, 'Cut back!' " students yelled. "We say, 'Fight back!' "

"I'm an independent student," said Sabrina Ford, 19, of Ypsilanti, Mich., a financial aid recipient in her first year at Eastern Michigan University. "If the Pell grants are cut, I have no idea how I would pay for education. Right now, I rely on myself and the government to assist me."

Lots of Democrats can point to lots of different moments when they think the health care bill was brought back from the brink of collapse.

But for a number of senior House Democrats, the crucial turning point was a meeting the night of March 9 in the offices of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It was supposed to be a strategy session with Senate Democratic leaders about the budget reconciliation procedure that Democrats were planning to use to make final changes to the health care bill and push them through the Senate on a simple majority vote.

Instead, the session focused entirely on the question of whether to include another of President Obama’s top legislative priorities — a sweeping overhaul of federal student loan programs — in the reconciliation package.

The budget resolution approved by Congress last spring provided for completing both major health care legislation and major education legislation through reconciliation, which adjusts federal policy to meet specific goals for reducing the deficit.

A trio of House leaders — Representatives James E. Clyburn, the Democratic whip; George Miller, the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee; and Xavier Becerra of California, the vice chairman of the Democratic caucus — argued strenuously in favor of including the education proposal.

...

Although overshadowed by the larger health care fight, the inclusion of the education bill may have been a decisive factor, especially at a time when House Democrats were exceedingly distrustful of their Senate colleagues and were essentially being forced against their better judgment to approve the Senate’s health care bill as the base law to which they would later make changes.

The student loan overhaul was very popular in the House. And because it would save tens of billions of taxpayer dollars by ending subsidies to private commercial banks, it offered a purely populist message at a time when public anger at Wall Street is running high and many liberals were disappointed that the health care bill would not include a public option, or government-run insurance plan.

Mr. Clyburn, who as the whip is the party’s main vote-counter, argued forcefully that the student loan measure would help generate support for the health care package.

...

For some Democrats, the student loan plan is the hidden triumph in the health care fight, and the late-night meeting earlier this month was the crucial moment. “It was an fascinating conversation about what the Democratic Party represented,” one Democrat said.

“Members of Congress have a clear choice,” Mr. Miller said in a floor speech on Sunday night. We can side with the American people by making health insurance and college more affordable and accessible, while creating millions of jobs and reducing the deficit. Or we can side with the insurance companies and the banks. That’s it. That’s the choice. I’m siding with the American people.”

Because of the recession and continued high jobless rates, a surge of prospective students are heading to college to gain a competitive advantage in the job market, and an unexpectedly large number of them are applying and qualifying for Pell grant money to help pay for their classes. The U.S. Department of Education says 2.6 million more people have already applied and qualified for Pell grants for fall 2010, compared with academic years before the recession began. Specifically, between fiscal year 2008 and fiscal year 2011, the number of qualified applicants has risen from 6.1 million to 8.7 million.

During a conference call with reporters late Thursday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan stressed that if the direct-student-loan bill fails to pass, there will be no way to span the gap between the money already allocated for Pell grants this fall and the increased demand for financing. The result would be that many qualified applicants would not get the maximum of $5,150 but a whittled-down check averaging $2,150.

The savings from the bill, Duncan said, could help the country “educate our way to a better economy. The downside, if we do nothing, is that as many as 8 million students will see their aid cut by as much as 50 percent. This is a huge, huge opportunity.”

If Congress makes the right call this week, students and taxpayers will win out.

In the coming days, the House and Senate will take a critical up or down vote on historic health insurance reforms. Tied to them will be the most significant reform of our federal student loan program in a generation. It will make federal aid more effective and cost-efficient for students, families, and taxpayers, without increasing the deficit.

Congress should support both measures.

Our bill is good for taxpayers. It would eliminate these needless subsidies and instead have the government initiate student loans, as it does today, and private banks service them. Consider that the government now funds 88 percent of all federal student loan volume. There's simply no reason to keep giving banks a handout.

Our bill is good for students. The federal government has already proved to be a more reliable lender for students in the midst of economic instability. All of the savings generated from switching to direct lending will go to help students pay for college and reduce our deficit.

Our bill is good for jobs. It would preserve private-sector jobs by allowing banks to compete for loan servicing contracts - and could even bring overseas jobs back home. Unlike loans made by banks, direct government loans must be serviced by U.S. workers.

Students overwhelmingly support the proposal. During the 2009 National Student Congress, student aid reform was unanimously passed as a top legislative priority for the United States Student Association, which represents over 4.5 million college students. Hundreds of student governments have subsequently adopted resolutions supporting the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, and hundreds of thousands of students have contributed to a national “wall of student debt” with paper “bricks” exhibiting their personal and financial struggles to pay for college.

First, it's no government takeover. Opponents would make it appear as though Democrats want bureaucrats to destroy a functioning private market for federally backed student loans. In fact, the only reason any private company is in the business of originating such loans is because of government support, and propping up that artificial market is expensive. In the end, it's a better deal for taxpayers to have the government lend money directly to students. Private lenders, who want to preserve some role for themselves in the loan origination business, counter that they provide better services to students. But the government plans to farm out loan servicing to them through a process of competitive contracting.

Second, reconciliation, which removes the filibuster as an option and allows legislation to pass with a simple majority, has been on the record as an option for student loan reform for months. Since there can be only one reconciliation bill per budget year, the Democrats' move to add the education measure to health-care reconciliation should be no surprise. If there is a proposal tailor-made for reconciliation -- a procedure originally intended to help Congress rationalize the budget -- it is this plan to end a wasteful program of subsidies for private lenders.

Democratic Congressional leaders struck a tentative agreement on Thursday that breathes new life into President Obama’s proposed overhaul of federal student loan programs.

The deal would bundle the bill into an expedited budget package along with the Democratic health care legislation, which would allow for both measures to be passed by the Senate on a simple majority vote. Without the deal, the student loan bill would have been unlikely to pass because it lacked the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.

The bill would end government payments to private, commercial student lenders, leaving the government to lend directly to students. It would also redirect billions of dollars to expand the Pell grant program for low-income students, and to pay for other education initiatives.

State and local governments are collectively the nation's biggest source of jobs, together employing almost 15 times as many Americans as Wal-Mart.

They added 2 million jobs over the past decade and helped to cushion the shock of the Great Recession by holding employment steady since the end of 2007, a time when the private sector was hemorrhaging 8.5 million jobs.

But another ugly state budget season is coming up, which will mean more belt-tightening for local governments -- and another source of pressure for an already anemic jobs market recovery.

...

Layoffs aren't the first choice of governments seeking to balance their budgets. A survey conducted late last year by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence found two-thirds of respondents had stopped hiring and almost as many had put a freeze on raises. Less than half had resorted to job cuts, however.

But the size of budget shortfalls is making cuts inevitable. A thousand state workers in South Carolina could lose their jobs if the legislature enacts a pending budget proposal, the Columbia State reported. Cutbacks are pending in Virginia, Georgia and many other states.

The op-ed has plenty of scaremongering about Washington takeovers and long lines for student loans, but it doesn’t acknowledge the simple fact that the government already makes millions of loans every year, in a process that does not look anything like waiting in line at the DMV. In fact, under SAFRA, student loan companies will still service and administer the loans, they just won’t take federal money and originate them. That money, instead of going to the compensation, advertising, and overhead of private companies, will be reinvested in Pell Grants and other education initiatives.

In reality, getting a student loan through the Federal Direct Loan Program isn’t going be any different than it is for the millions of students who are already getting loans through the Federal Direct Loan Program, which involves filling out the same forms you use to get loans under the “give-banks-billions-of-free-taxpayer-dollars” program that Alexander is defending.

Alexander also alleges that the administration has been less than forthcoming about what’s really going on here:

Here is what they haven’t told us: The Education Department will borrow money at 2.8 percent from the Treasury, lend it to you at 6.8 percent and spend the difference on new programs. So you’ll work longer to pay off your student loan to help pay for someone else’s education — and to help your U.S. representative’s reelection.

It’s not a secret that the government will be lending money for more than that money costs. All lending programs work this way. The difference is that currently the money left over after paying people to administer the program is used to line the pockets of bank shareholders and executives whereas under Obama’s plan it will be used for Pell grants that benefit low-income students. Alexander’s contention that “you’ll work longer to pay off your student loan to help pay for someone else’s education” ignores the fact that many borrowers also receive Pell grants. Or attend the colleges that will receive grants to improve graduation rates, or have small children who will benefit from new investments in early childhood education. Alexander concedes that most people think such programs are a good idea. Otherwise, they wouldn’t help U.S. representatives get re-elected! He suggests that instead of subsidizing Pell grants, the federal government should use its unique ability to borrow cheaply to lend at extremely low rates, thus undercutting the private market for loans from companies that can’t raise money by issuing Treasury bonds. This, of course, would immediately be denounced as “socialism.”

If reform is defeated, it seems likely that most of the proposed experiments designed to cut costs — first within Medicare and then throughout the rest of the health care system — will die as well. The legislation needs to be passed to establish a structure to force continuing improvement over the years. That is the best chance of restraining soaring medical costs that threaten the solvency of families, businesses and the federal government.

Any change as big as this is bound to cause anxiety. Republicans have happily fanned those fears with talk of “dangerous experiments” on the “best health care system in the world.” The fact is that the health care system is broken for far too many Americans. And the country cannot afford the status quo.

The Keeping All Students Safe Act in the House would implement minimum federal safety standards for public schools similar to those that exist for hospitals and other community facilities. There is no current federal regulation on how seclusion and restraint can be used in schools, both private and public.

The bipartisan effort is led by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., and was prompted by a report last year that said two decades of torture-like tactics, mostly on special needs kids, went unregulated on the federal level.

Mine operators have tripled their appeals of safety citations and fines in an effort to block tougher enforcement actions for repeat violations, members of a congressional hearing were told Tuesday.

Companies formally challenged about 9,200 citations or fines issued by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration in 2009, up from 2,400 new appeals in 2005, according to testimony at a hearing of the House Education and Labor Committee.

Coal operators in Kentucky, Indiana and other states are challenging so many citations that the resulting backlog is allowing repeat violators to endanger the safety of miners, Main told the House Education and Labor Committee.

The committee chairman, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., held up a stack of 16,000 backlogged cases at the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission. Just four years ago, the backlog was about 2,700 cases.

“This staggering caseload will render federal efforts to hold bad mine operators accountable meaningless,” Miller said. “It is unacceptable.”

Bruce Watzman, of the National Mining Association, emphasized that there have been great strides in safety since 2006, when 12 miners died in an explosion at Sago. Sago, combined with deaths at the Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine in West Virginia and at the Darby Mine in Kentucky, focused national attention on the issue.

In 2009, 34 U.S. miners died on the job, an all-time low.

MSHA chief, Joe Main says he is also looking at the option to hold conferences between operators and MSHA officials before the owners can file an appeal. He also said he would encourage accuracy at the mines during inspections.

"We also must diminish the incentives for operators who appear to be developing a pattern of significant substantial safety violations to contest simply to delay enforcement," he said.

The meeting wrapped up with suggestions from Miller to take a closer look at operators appealing the majority of citations issued as well as a need from Congress to help with resources.

President Obama will seek to raise academic standards across the country by requiring states to certify that their benchmarks for reading and mathematics put students on track for college or a career, administration officials said Sunday.

The proposal, part of Obama's evolving blueprint for a revision of the No Child Left Behind law, was expected to be released Monday as the president meets with governors in Washington. It will give a further boost to a state-led movement toward common standards, a groundbreaking development for a public education system in which current expectations for students vary widely from coast to coast.

We won’t be able to build the world-class education system our economy needs and our children deserve unless all students are taught to internationally-benchmarked standards that prepare them for college and good jobs and to compete in a 21st century global economy.

The purpose of insurance is to spread risk as widely as possible, at the lowest cost for everyone in the insurance pool. That's exactly what health bills currently stalled in Congress would do by requiring everyone to buy coverage, and helping lower-income people afford the premiums. Costs would be stabilized; everyone would be protected.

In exchange for millions of new customers, insurance companies agreed to quit doing many of the things that make people hate them, such as refusing to cover people with pre-existing conditions and limiting coverage in ways that can bankrupt people when they become seriously ill. Having a larger, more stable group of customers would also reduce the need for abrupt and massive premium hikes.

Health reform legislation would also set up online exchanges where individuals and small businesses could buy policies. The medical insurance market would become more competitive: Companies couldn't turn applicants down, so it would be easier to jump to a different insurer if one hiked rates exorbitantly.

Further, the measures would require insurers to spend at least 80% of their premium income on paying claims, instead of on administrative and marketing costs. California's requirement is now 70%.

“Industry Lobbying Imperils Obama Overhaul of Student Loans” (front page, Feb. 5) didn’t tell the whole story. In truth, lenders are fighting to save a system that allows them to reap billions in profits at the expense of students.

President Obama’s proposal would save taxpayers $87 billion — and redirect those funds to students instead of banks. It would make college more affordable without costing taxpayers a dime.

Lenders’ claims about job losses have proved overblown. This legislation would allow lenders to continue servicing all federal loans — ensuring high-quality customer services for borrowers and preserving jobs.

Lenders would compete for these contracts based on the quality of service they offer, including default prevention. In fact, two of the five performance criteria for current direct loan servicers — including Sallie Mae — are tied to default prevention.

It’s not news that lenders don’t like this bill, but college students overwhelmingly do. We can’t let their voices, or the points above, get drowned out by well-heeled lobbyists.

George Miller Washington, Feb. 8, 2010

The writer, a California Democrat, is the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee and the author of the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act.

Anthem's official explanation for the hikes is that rapid increases in the cost of treatments and greater demand for healthcare services are driving up expenses at an "unprecedented" rate. It also asserts that the recession has prompted many healthy people to give up their insurance, leaving fewer policyholders to cover the cost of caring for a sicklier group. Those are valid complaints, but they don't automatically justify jacking rates up to the roof. In fact, Anthem's rate increases are contributing to the problem by pricing younger, healthier people out of the market for individual policies.

[The bills] would bar insurance companies from cherry-picking customers and denying coverage for preexisting conditions, enabling people to switch insurers easily. The bills also would promote competition and clarity in pricing through a new marketplace for individual policies.

Inside Higher Ed has an article today on the report by the State Higher Education Executive Officers. The report looks at funding levels for universities. It says:

In the 2009 fiscal year, state support for higher education fell by $2.8 billion to $77.9 billion, but an infusion of $2.4 billion in federal funds largely offset those losses.
...
Just as states were seeing revenues decline, the enrollment boom hit a record high of 10.8 million students at public institutions – an uptick of 3.4 percent between 2008 and 2009. In a predictable pattern for a recession, those students have been carrying a greater share of the cost of their education. Indeed, 37.3 percent of education revenue came from tuition in 2009 -- an increase of 2.6 percentage points in five years, the report notes.

Thanks to the backstop in federal funds, universities all over America were able to keep teaching, even with a higher enrollment.

Learn how the American Recovery and Reinvestment helped backstop education funding gaps at local and state levels allowing teachers to stay in the classrooms and students to learn.

Although today's hearing with the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, had to be postponed due to a blizzard in the Washington, DC area, that hasn't stopped him from making a persuasive case for passing the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act.

In the Washington Post:

Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Tuesday urged the Senate to overhaul student lending, asserting that the banking industry has had "a free ride from taxpayers for too long" and that executives with lending giant Sallie Mae have enriched themselves as borrowers rack up college debt.

"Working Americans pay while bankers get rich," Duncan said in a prepared statement. "Sallie Mae executives have paid themselves hundreds of millions of dollars in the last decade while teachers, nurses, and scientists -- the backbone of the new economy -- face crushing debt because of runaway college tuition costs."

In an interview with Huffington Post:

Duncan called the administration's plans to overhaul the student loan program by ending government subsidies for private lenders "a once-in a generation, maybe once-in-a lifetime" opportunity that Congress would be foolish to let slip away.

and in that same article, Chairman Miller said:

"I haven't found one [argument from Sallie Mae's lobbyists] that made sense yet," said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chair of the House Education Committee. "We are now providing 88 percent of all the capital and over the next ten years we can save 85 billion dollars doing it a different way. And that money can be used to enhance the educational opportunities of millions of students in this country. It is a no brainer."

The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (H.R. 3221) passed the House with a bipartisan vote of 253 to 171 on September 17, 2009 and is waiting in the Senate.

The House version phases out the wasteful part of the federal college lending program that pays private lenders a rich subsidy to make risk-free loans that are guaranteed by the government. The bill also expands another, more reliable and less expensive federal loan program that permits students to borrow directly from the government through their colleges.

The arguments for moving in this direction are irrefutable. The subsidized program, for example, was supposed to keep loans flowing during recessions. But the loans dried up in the last credit crunch, forcing the government to rescue the program. The direct program, by contrast, suffered no such disruption. In addition to being more reliable, the direct program costs less. The Congressional Budget Office estimated last year that the country could save about $80 billion over the next decade by ending the private system and moving to the direct one.

Outmaneuvered on the merits, the lending industry has resorted to scare tactics and distortions. The claim that the direct system would amount to a government takeover of the system is absurd.

• SAFRA will not lead to significant job losses. While this legislation will trim the profits of CEOs and big banks, it will not lead to significant job losses. By maintaining a servicing role for both large and smaller lenders, this bill will preserve jobs and, unlike in the FFELP program, keep them from being shipped overseas.
  

• The current lending system is broken. The Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) now depends on taxpayer dollars not just for subsidies that reimburse lenders when borrowers default on loans, but also for the capital to finance their lending activity altogether. Taxpayers now fund 6 of every 10 dollars in federal student lending activity. They absorb all the risk. There’s simply no reason to keep pumping taxpayer dollars into a broken system when the federal government can provide the same low-cost federal loans more reliably for students and at a lower cost for taxpayers. Under this bill, this federal program will continue to be a federal program, as it always has been, and private industry will continue to have a role, but one that is more effective and cost-efficient for families and taxpayers.
  

• There would actually be fewer student loan defaults under SAFRA. Recent preliminary data released by the U.S. Department of Education shows that in 2007, default rates were lower in the Direct Loan program than in FFELP. By allowing private lenders to service these loans through a competitive process, which will include default prevention strategies, this bill will ensure that more borrowers can receive service from lenders that have been effective in keeping default rates low.

• Sallie Mae's alternative saves less and puts more money in lenders' pockets, instead of helping students.  Sallie Mae's modified student loan proposal would slash more than $8 billion off of student aid to give lenders a bonus. “You can dress this up 100 different ways and put a Santa Hat on it, but this is still the same budget gimmick lenders have been pushing for months to line their own pockets with billions of dollars that should be used to help students,” said Chairman Miller. “The House saw this proposal for what it was and soundly rejected it, instead choosing to pass the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which invests all of its savings in students, families and taxpayers. Americans are sick and tired of CEOs and banks taking them for a ride and are ready for policies that will reduce waste and excess and do what’s best for Main Street – not Wall Street.”
  

• Students themselves are clamoring for SAFRA.  Most recently, Baylor University's college newspaper The Lariat published a story supportive of SAFRA. 
  

• Colleges are finding it easier than anticipated to switch to the Direct Loan program.  A survey conducted by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators shows that colleges that switched from the federally-guaranteed student loan program to the Direct Loan program in the past year generally found it much easier than they expected. In fact, 96% of student loan volume is ready for direct loans, already
  

Sallie Mae, a publicly traded company that is the nation’s biggest student lender with $22 billion in loans originated last year, led the field in spending $3.48 million in federal lobbying in 2009, an increase from $3.2 million in 2008, and other lenders spent millions of dollars more, according to an analysis prepared for The New York Times by the Center for Responsive Politics.

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“We anticipated this,” Arne Duncan, the education secretary, said of the lending industry’s lobbying efforts. “They’ve had a sweet deal. They’ve had this phenomenal deal that taxpayers have subsidized, and that’s a hard thing to give up.”

Private lenders get a cut of the federally backed loans that they originate and service, with little risk of their own.

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“If people want to lose $80 billion on the taxpayer’s dime for the very narrow interests of Sallie Mae, I guess they can decide that, but it makes no economic sense to me,” [Chairman George Miller] said. “They had a great ride for years.”

Curtis Decker, the executive director of the National Disability Rights Network (NDRN), remembers when he first heard about children being secluded and restrained in schools. The parents of an American Indian girl with Down syndrome found out their daughter was being tied to her chair at school when they went to pick her up one day.

That was six or seven years ago, Decker recalled, and he and his staff discussed it in a meeting as an isolated case.

Then they started hearing other, similar stories. School employees sat on a girl in Wisconsin as a punishment for blowing bubbles in her milk. A child in Michigan had an epileptic seizure on the first day of school and died after school officials sat on him. A school in Tennessee had metal-door-enclosed seclusion rooms that looked like “prison cells from World War II,” NDRN senior staff attorney Jane Hudson said.

Hudson wrote a report on seclusion and restraint in schools, and a year ago, the organization took its findings to House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.).

“The types of abuse these kids are suffering are so disturbing, you’d think these were stories about torture tactics used at prison camps,” Miller said in an e-mail.