All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

It's the first day of school for millions of kids around the country, and the fall semester began with a lesson in politics.

Last week the White House took some heat for a proposed speech to children, and an accompanying lesson plan for teachers. The plan called for kids to write a letter stating how they could help President Obama.

Critics said that sounded a bit too "Chairman Mao," so the Department of Education changed it to a letter about personal goals.

But the controversy spread like the H1N1 virus, and lots of parents and pundits washed their hands of the speech and dismissed the entire effort.

In the end, the President's message today was uplifting and completely nonpartisan. He told kids to stay in school, work hard and to keep a positive attitude.

To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a speech is just a speech and with a 30 percent dropout rate in this country education should be on everyone's political agenda.

That's a page from my notebook.

I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.

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Katie Couric is off today.

It's that time of year again as millions of children enjoy their last few days of freedom before heading back to school.

By Labor Day weekend, the drug store stationary aisles usually look ransacked as kids and parents alike grab all the notebooks, protractors and pencil sharpeners they can cram into a cart.

But that's not the case this year.

The tough economic times have people cutting back on school supplies. A USA Today poll found that 65 percent of families are buying only the bare essentials, and the majority of parents are hunting discount stores for the best bargains.

Some families can't afford school supplies at all.

So, if you're fortunate enough to have a few dollars to spare this season, consider donating extra supplies and backpacks to a local children's charity.

The first day of school is exciting for kids, and it's even better when they have all the tools they need to succeed.

I'm Maggie Rodriguez, CBS News.

>Don Teague is a CBS News Correspondent in the Dallas bureau.

There are three words that bring joy to the hearts of parents, and dread to their children. Three words that feel like freedom for grownups, and prison for kids. Three words, that seem to get more expensive every year:

Back to School

I have to admit, that even 25 plus years after graduating high school, I still get a little nervous adrenaline rush on the first day of a school year. I guess most of us never completely recover from high school.

In Texas, about 4.8 million public school students went back to school this morning after the long summer break, my two teenaged daughters among them. They joined millions of other kids around the country who are now trying to figure out if they got the hard history teacher or the easy one, a good locker location or a bad one, if this will finally be the year they keep that pledge to do their homework early.

I, on the other hand, am joining the millions of parents doing serious checkbook math today, trying to figure where all the money went.

I actually know where it went. I just can’t quite believe it.

I visited the camp for our "Children of the Recession" story which airs tonight on We wanted to explore whether the recession has prompted more parents and teachers to start teaching kids Finance 101.

At least 50 eight and nine year olds were seated on the floor in front of me and I asked them questions such as: why is it important to save, what's a credit card, etc. but then I wondered if any of them actually knew someone who lost a job so I asked.

I never expected such a huge response.

Easily, three-quarters of them raised their hands.

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One of the most striking things to me about the new national survey of students focusing on cheating by cell phone or using the Internet, which we are reporting for Thursday’s The Early Show, is how many kids don’t necessarily think it’s cheating at all.

Almost one in four middle and high school students surveyed said they didn’t think storing notes on a cell phone or texting during an exam constituted cheating. What? Cheating by any other name is still cheating, right?

Kyle Cohen, a senior at Ridgewood High School in New Jersey, tried to explain the conundrum to me this way: "I think just because you are not making the person to person contact (it's easier) to convince yourself that you are not doing something wrong."

Katherine Griffith, another Ridgewood High School senior, said she thinks kids think of it more as "helping each other out as opposed to I'm going to cheat on my test and look at someone else’s paper."

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I wasn’t bullied as a kid but I did come across at least one bully during my career. No names need to be mentioned. They know who they are! There were many days when I’d shed a few tears wondering why this was happening to me and in those moments, the bully was definitely winning. As hard as it was, I always tried to remind myself the bully was the one with the big problem, not me.

That’s the message the American Academy of Pediatrics wants doctors, teachers and parents to send to kids. The numbers are alarming – almost 30 percent of all kids say they’ve either been bullied or are doing the bullying. Three out of 10! And the rest have likely witnessed bullying or know someone who has been bullied or who is a bully.

In our piece tonight on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, you’ll meet 13-year-old Daniel Warburton, an 8th grader who has been bullied relentlessly since the 4th grade. He said it started as name calling, with kids calling him names like “faggot,” and turned physical on the football field last year when seven of his so-called teammates tackled him to the point of unconsciousness. A teammate who stood up for Daniel ended up being bullied himself and then sucker-punched Daniel as a way of regaining favor with the bullies.

“I know this happens every day and a lot of kids are going through this and me being one of them, it’s just really upsetting,” he told me.

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This was one of those stories that evolved while we were shooting. Our assignment was to look at the psychological impact of the recession on young people for our network-wide series, "Children of the Recession.” As we conducted background research we chatted with psychologists who spoke to the idea that in the early stages of development any changes can be disruptive to young people. We decided to focus our piece on teenagers for whom "fitting in" is particularly important.

We set out to profile one teenage girl, Kristen Beltran, who lives in Montclair, Calif. When we visited her school, Montclair High School, we saw how schools are becoming the first line of defense for many students when their parents are no longer able to provide as much at home. Our story started to shifted focus a bit to reflect some of the stories we heard at Montclair High.

CBS Evening News Producer Karen Raffensperger had identified Kristen as a person to profile after she came across her blog entries. Kristen vented her frustrations about the impact of the recession on her own life. Her dad (a welder) is not working as much these days and that has strained the family's finances. At 15 years old, she'd love to get a job to help her parents pay some of their bills, but her parents will not let her because they want her to focus on schoolwork.


CBS Evening News Producer Karen Raffensperger had identified Kristen as a person to profile after she came across her blog entries. Kristen vented her frustrations about the impact of the recession on her own life. Her dad (a welder) is not working as much these days and that has strained the family's finances. At 15 years old, she'd love to get a job to help her parents pay some of their bills, but her parents will not let her because they want her to focus on schoolwork.



On the front stoop of their home, Kristen's dad admitted to me that tension is growing within the family. Kristen's mother Betty explained, as we sat around a table in the back yard, that it's "our job as parents to protect our children." For Betty and her husband "protecting the kids" means keeping some of the specifics about family finances between themselves. However, Kristen says that can be counter-productive as she's aware of what is going on and only feels more helpless.

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In 1901, a man named T. Robinson sent a letter to The New York Times. His complaint? There were too many school holidays. "Enforced idleness," he called it.

More than a century later, the debate continues.

American children spend far less time in school than kids do in China or India -- and a full month less than the kids in South Korea. In Japan, the school year lasts 250 days. Here, it's just 185.

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We are all tightening our belts these days, but some of the places being squeezed the most are our children's schools.

Districts from coast to coast are making very tough decisions. Boston would have to cram more kids into every class under a plan to lay off six percent of its teachers. St. Louis may close a third of its schools.

Student athletes across New York State will play fewer games beginning next fall, while a suburban Cleveland district may eliminate sports all together. Other schools are closing science labs or dropping art and music programs.

The schools say they have no choice because the money just isn't there and they can't cut reading and math. But art, music and sports are also important parts of a child's development. By not teaching them now, students may never have the chance to blossom.

Instead, right now they're getting a hard lesson in real-world economics.

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Michelle Miller is a CBS News correspondent based in New York.

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From the outside, it looks like any other three-story pre-war brick building, the kind that harkens back to the little red school house where simplicity is the order of the day.

But walk in and what you feel is community, middle school girls who really get one another.

They have a lot in common, most are children of immigrants, most are from families struggling to earn a living, and most admit if not for the Esperanza Academy, they're not sure where they'd be.

They've gotten in by chance – there are just 80 slots, each won by lottery for the opportunity to attend class 11 hours a day, 11 months a year.

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