All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

Cynthia Bowers is a CBS News correspondent based in Chicago.

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For months now Illinois state senator and pastor James Meeks has fought for more funding for Chicago Public Schools. With several hundred thousand students the district is the nation’s third largest. The graduation rate for black and Latino students is generally less than 50 percent and in many schools there aren’t enough textbooks to give one to every student.

Over the years we’ve done stories about CPS, focusing primarily on failure and frustration. But when Rev. Meeks announced his intent to bus a bunch of kids from Chicago to a public school district just to the north, New Trier High School, the story became personal. I have two kids at New Trier this year. The school consists of two campuses, one strictly for freshman, the other for sophomores, juniors, and seniors. There is a football field, track, tennis courts, soccer field, and swimming pool used for PE and for athletics. Helping my kids decided what to take each year is like revisiting my college years. The courses offered include zoology, marine biology, advanced automotives, Hebrew, Chinese, sports and entertainment marketing, sequential art and animation. You get the idea.

What Rev. Meeks wanted to do ...

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Cynthia Bowers is a CBS News correspondent based in Chicago.

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If you’re like me, you’ll be shocked to hear that there are thousands of high-paying jobs out there – and no one qualified to fill them. Even more surprising: They are in the manufacturing sector! America’s manufacturers are screaming to anyone who will listen that their obituary was written too soon.

While it’s true nearly 5 million manufacturing jobs have been lost over the past three decades – nearly 3 million just since 2001 – the economic devastation caused by those jobs losses is huge; at the same time the higher paying high skill manufacturing sector has grown 37 percent. Seven million of these workers are nearing retirement, and amazingly, 90 percent of America’s manufacturers say they are short qualified workers.

How can this be?

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Cynthia Bowers is a CBS News correspondent based in Chicago.

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Midwest Teen Sex Show is meant to shock — and I was shocked by the blunt, breezy talk about teenage sex.

The podcast takes a subject most parents aren't real comfortable with and makes it "just another" part of growing up.

The three-to-five minute show tackles masturbation, homosexuality, and even changing in the locker room.

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Cynthia Bowers is a CBS News correspondent based in Chicago.

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The statistics are pretty horrifying, 17% of Americans overweight or obese. And that’s just the kids. Back in the 1960’s it was only 4%. And since 80% of overweight kids grow up to be overweight adults, those kids’ chances of ever being slim are, well, slim.

Forty years ago Dr. Kenneth Cooper introduced America to the idea of aerobics. Today the 79-year-old is banking his future reputation on saving America’s kids. He just helped convince lawmakers in the 12th fattest state, Texas, to adopt his plan, which is called the Fitnessgram. It involves a series of tests to determine a kid’s level of fitness, then calls for an exercise program to be put in place.

The call to introduce the Fitnessgram to Texas schools was backed by Senator Jane Nelson. The former school teacher says she was horrified by statistics that suggest 48% of Texans will be overweight by 2025. Her research found that Texas businesses are already shelling out $3.3 billion a year on obesity-related illness.

Starting this spring, four million Texas 3rd thru 9th graders will take a series of tests that will show how they stack up physically with other kids their age. They will be tested on aerobic capacity, flexibility, and strength, among other things. Parents will be offered a chance to look at the results and go over them with their kids. Then the kids begin daily PE classes that must include moderate to vigorous activity. Dr. Cooper believes all that separates obese kids from simply being overweight is 12 minutes of exercise a day. Doesn’t seem like much does it?

We traveled to El Paso to meet a little girl who says she is looking forward to the new PE program. She admits the idea of being tested worries her, even though she recently lost 15 pounds! Valerie wants to lose more weight so she won’t be embarrassed to change into her gym clothes in public. Valerie told us she believes there is a thin girl inside this big one, and she wants everyone to see ‘that’ girl.

I asked her parents Adam and Martha how they let their daughter get so overweight to begin with...

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Cynthia Bowers is a CBS News correspondent based in Chicago.

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The Canadian dollar with its funny nickname, the loonie, used to seem like such an earnest currency -- trying hard but never able to muster much of a threat to the mighty U.S. dollar. And when the U.S. dollar was worth a dollar-forty Canadian, trips across the border were fun and a bargain. I came home with books, make-up, and clothes.

Now that the loonie has caught up with the U.S. dollar, everything has changed. The traffic that used to be travelling from the U.S. to Canada for bargains is now travelling to the U.S. from Canada. It’s a proud moment for the even Greater White North, and a bruising moment for America’s ego. In the last five years the dollar has fallen 37% against the Canadian looney, 23% against the British pound, and 30% against the upstart Euro.

The blame goes primarily to America’s $580 billion trade deficit. Economist Martin Eichbaum of Northwestern University says that for years the US has been buying “real cool stuff” from other countries and paying for it with “pieces of paper with pictures of dead presidents.” There is so much of our ‘paper’ out there it’s becoming less desirable and therefore less valuable. The world markets want America to sell less and buy more. And lowering the value of the dollar against other currencies will do. Already foreign tourists are enjoying bargains at American malls and vacation resorts. This winter and next summer many American families will opt to vacation here at home.

Over time, experts say, the cost of imported products such as TVs and foreign cars will go up-- and we’ll buy fewer of them. And with our dollar worth less on the world market our stuff- everything from tractors to planes to automobiles- will be easier to sell overseas. That’s good news for beleaguered American manufacturers. The battering of the once almighty dollar might hurt our pride and feel like punishment but it will help our pocketbooks.

Cynthia Bowers is a CBS News correspondent based in Chicago.

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Sure I’d heard about Hannah Montana, what parent of a ‘tween or even teenage girl hasn’t? Her show is on TV and my teenage daughter watches, just like all her friends.

The phenomenon wasn’t something I gave much thought to until my daughter came to me last week and told me tickets for the December Hannah Montana show were going for more than a thousand dollars on Stub Hub. She was hoping I had some pull to help find cheaper tickets. What? Tickets to a concert featuring a TV character?

I told my daughter that I don’t have that kind of pull—and even if I did, I wouldn’t/couldn’t use it. Secondly, I wondered, isn’t she a little old for Hannah Montana? Apparently not. She and her friends are fifteen - which is definitely the upper edge of the fan spectrum. Most of the gaga girls are between eight and 13. All but the very youngest know the real name of the singer - a term I use loosely - is Miley Cyrus; that she is 14-years-old and the real life daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus. Remember "Achy Breaky Heart"? But the girls still insist on calling her Hannah Montana; which is probably why Cyrus is singing part of her show as Hannah, the other part as Miley Cyrus.

All of the sudden I started noticing all the merchandise being sold with Hannah Montana’s picture on it. There are t-shirts, purses, jeans, and PJs. Every year American tweens, there are 20 million of them, spend about 40 billion dollars. And help their families decide how to spend 110 billion more. This economic engine is bigger than most countries. Today’s kids, perhaps more than any other generation, are the target audience. If you can hook a kid young, you can keep him for life. I may only buy a couple of dozen more pair of jeans. My daughter on the other hand will likely buy hundreds over the course of her life.

So, is it any wonder that big corporations want to tap into the "wealth" of little kids? I understand that, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to buy my daughter tickets to Hannah Montana.

Cynthia Bowers is a CBS News correspondent based in Chicago.

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For months now financial experts have been warning us that the hot housing market was a critical component of the American economy, and we’re finding out the hard way they were right.

A little over a year ago I was living in the house of my dreams. We borrowed 90% of the money needed to buy the house; 80% was a 10-year adjustable rate (ARM), and the remaining 10% was an adjustable rate that could go up at any time. For a while we were okay.

Then that Fed rate started going up, and so did our ARM. Over a five-month period it increased the cost of our monthly mortgage by nearly 40%! In retrospect we were lucky that we got in trouble making a monthly note back then and were able to get out without any permanent damage.

We rented a house while we sorted out our finances, and found a smaller house a bit further away from Lake Michigan, and we will try again. We still believe in the American dream -- but we realized that scaling back our dream makes it much easier to sleep at night.

Cynthia Bowers is a CBS News correspondent based in Chicago.

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When I was growing up they were called “weekend warriors.” And one weekend a month I would see the National Guard tanks and trucks travel up and down the Alabama highway. The troops waved and I waved back.

When the Bravo Company of the Minnesota National Guard touched down at the Volk Field at Wisconsin’s Fort McCoy, I got tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat. This group of a 150 or so, that included students, teachers, local cops, and even a chiropractor, were coming home after 22 months of active duty. That’s a long way from being a weekend warrior.

Waiting on the tarmac for them was one of their own, Sgt. John Kriesel. He stood determinedly on two artificial legs; his own were blown off in December when an IED hit his armored humvee outside Fallujah. Kriesel lost two buddies that day, 20-year-old Corey Rystad and 22-year-old Bryan McDonough, but he didn’t lose his spirit. He came all the way from Walter Reed to greet his buddies and as each one walked by, they stopped to grip him. In so many ways he represents the heart and soul of each -and all- of the 2,600 Minnesota guardsmen who left so long ago, back in fall of 2005.

They expected to put in six months training at Mississippi’s Camp Shelby, then do 12 months in Iraq, but they had no way of knowing the troop surge would keep them in Iraq an extra four months -- for a total of 16 months. And they had no way of knowing Bravo Company would be assigned to fight side by side with the Marines on the desperate, dangerous streets of Fallujah.


After 12 months of actively seeking out insurgents and helping make peace there, the marine in charge, Sgt. Major WN O’Connell Jr, was quoted as saying Bravo Company was the “best bunch he’d ever seen.” A quick check of this guy’s bio tells you he’s the real deal. But then praise for members of the 1st Brigade Combat team is nothing new. It served with distinction in the Civil War, Spanish-American War, and both World Wars. The Minnesota National Guard’s public affairs officer, Lt. Colonel Kevin Olson adds this tour “added to the rich history of the Minnesota National Guard’s lineage.”

But after all the heroism and hoopla, now comes the really hard part---coming back to the sometimes mundane lives we lead here, to jobs that may not seem as exciting as before, and to families that have been soldiering on without them...

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Cynthia Bowers is a CBS News correspondent based in Chicago.

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For the last year or so, I’ve become particularly attune to stories about teenagers killed in traffic accidents. Maybe it was because I have a teenage daughter or maybe it was because, for a while here in Chicago, it seemed every weekend there was another deadly crash. One accident that really got to me involved four high school boys who had sneaked out for a joy-ride. The four were spending the night together and borrowed the family car without the parents’ knowledge. Police believe they were speeding when they hit a concrete light pole killing two of them. The parents had no way of knowing the teens had even left the house—until police showed up on their doorstep.

And that December night in 2005, 17-year-old Dan Noble and 16-year-old Robert Oakes became two of the 5,288 teenagers to die that year in car crashes. According to the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety the risk of motor vehicle crashes is higher among 16-to-19-year-olds than any other group. Per mile driving, teen drivers ages 16-to-19 are four times more likely than older drivers to crash (IIHS 2006). Risk is highest at age 16. In fact, the crash rate per mile driven is twice as high for 16-year-olds as it is for 18-19-year-olds.

In one of life’s grand coincidences I was asked to put together this piece on teenage driving on the very day my own teenage daughter began drivers’ ed classes...

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Cynthia Bowers is a CBS News correspondent based in Chicago.

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I went back to the Chicago suburb of North Lawndale today to do my “on camera,” for tonight’s story. All our equipment caught the eye of two young boys, soon to be 7th graders. One was shy, but curious. The other was openly eager to see what we were doing, how we did it, but mostly when would it come on TV. I kept hearing the words I was saying to the camera through the ears of these kids. About “how in this community of 45,000, 1 in 4 is unemployed, 6 in 10 people have had run-ins with the law.” Many of those have served time and end up right back in North Lawndale and unemployable, which often leads to more crime and the cycle continues. And I wondered what effect does that have on impressionable 12- and 13-year-olds growing up here.

When Brenda Palms-Barber came to head the North Lawndale Employment Network seven years ago she wanted to break the cycle. She needed to find a way to give men and women coming out of jail a job history. But it wasn’t easy. It’s hard enough to find work in a depressed neighborhood, but especially for people “with a past,” and no real job skills.

Her first few ideas didn’t fly. One plan called for getting ex-cons jobs as delivery men, but she then realized no one would want these guys coming to their door. Then, over lunch one day, a friend of hers mentioned beekeeping as a hobby, and a light bulb went off in Brenda’s head...

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