Young people must establish work ethic early in life

Young people need to learn to work. Their parents must not let them be idle all year for, as they say, idle hands are the devil's workshop.

When I was growing up, it was early to bed, early to rise. My family worked hard, every one of us, starting even before the sun rose. Sure, I wanted to rest many times, but my parents wouldn't let me until our work was done. They needed a rest more than anybody. They taught by example and instilled in us a strong work ethic.

Today, many parents fail to provide that example. Now, I am not saying that young children should be put to work. We do not want a return to a time before child labor laws went into effect. Little children need and deserve their playtime. We should not take away their childhood. 

But once they reach a certain age, they must realize that it is time to accept a certain degree of maturity and responsibility, part of which involves going to work. Whether it is flipping burgers at McDonald's, delivering newspapers, washing cars, cutting lawns, or walking dogs, as long as they are working, they stay out of trouble, they learn better how to interact with adults.

Plus, they get to make a little money. The trouble is, many young people today want something for nothing. They don't want to have to work for anything. They expect to be handed everything, and many parents often give in to their demands. 

What those parents should do instead is to force their sons and daughters to see the value of hard work. Being handed everything diminishes the value of everything. The rewards are much greater when you have to work for them. When you work for something you feel a real sense of worth, both in yourself and in the object or goal you are trying to reach.

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Fact Sheet President Obama’s Plan for Early Education for all Americans

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

“In states that make it a priority to educate our youngest children…studies show students grow up more likely to read and do math at grade level, graduate high school, hold a job, form more stable families of their own.  We know this works.  So let’s do what works and make sure none of our children start the race of life already behind.”
President Barack Obama
State of the Union, February 12, 2013

The beginning years of a child’s life are critical for building the early foundation needed for success later in school and in life.  Leading economists agree that high-quality early learning programs can help level the playing field for children from lower-income families on vocabulary, social and emotional development, while helping students to stay on track and stay engaged in the early elementary grades.  Children who attend these programs are more likely to do well in school, find good jobs, and succeed in their careers than those who don’t.  And research has shown that taxpayers receive a high average return on investments in high-quality early childhood education, with savings in areas like improved educational outcomes, increased labor productivity, and a reduction in crime. 

In his State of the Union address, President Obama called on Congress to expand access to high-quality preschool to every child in America.  As part of that effort, the President will propose a series of new investments that will establish a continuum of high-quality early learning for a child – beginning at birth and continuing to age 5.  By doing so, the President would invest critical resources where we know the return on our dollar is the highest: in our youngest children.

• Providing High-Quality Preschool for Every Child:  The President is proposing a new federal-state partnership to provide all low- and moderate-income four-year old children with high-quality preschool, while also expanding these programs to reach additional children from middle class families and incentivizing full-day kindergarten policies. This investment – financed through a cost-sharing model with states – will help close America’s school readiness gap and ensure that children have the chance to enter kindergarten ready for success.

• Growing the Supply of Effective Early Learning Opportunities for Young Children: To expand high-quality early learning opportunities in the years before preschool, the President will call for a significant investment in a new Early Head Start-Child Care partnership.  Competitive grants will support communities that expand the availability of Early Head Start and child care providers that can meet the highest standards of quality for infants and toddlers, serving children from birth through age 3. 

• Extending and Expanding Evidence-Based, Voluntary Home Visiting: Voluntary home visiting programs enable nurses, social workers, and other professionals to connect families to services and educational support that will improve a child’s health, development, and ability to learn.   President Obama has already committed $1.5 billion to expand home visitation to hundreds of thousands of America’s most vulnerable children and families across all 50 states.  The President will pursue substantial investments to expand these important programs to reach additional families in need.

The President’s Commitment to Early Education

A zip code should never predetermine the quality of any child’s educational opportunities.  Yet studies show that children from low-income families are less likely to have access to high-quality early education, and less likely to enter school prepared for success.  By third grade, children from low-income families who are not reading at grade level are six times less likely to graduate from high school than students who are proficient.  Often, the high costs of private preschool and lack of public programs also narrow options for middle-class families.

High-quality early childhood education provides the foundation for all children’s success in school and helps to reduce achievement gaps.  Despite the individual and economic benefits of early education, our nation has lagged in its commitment to ensuring the provision of high quality public preschool in our children’s earliest years. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates that the United States ranks 28th out of 38 countries for the share of four-year olds enrolled in early childhood education.  And fewer than 3 in 10 four-year olds are enrolled in high-quality programs. 

Preschool for All

• The President’s proposal will improve quality and expand access to preschool, through a cost sharing partnership with all 50 states, to extend federal funds to expand high-quality public preschool to reach all low- and moderate-income four-year olds from families at or below 200% of poverty.  The U.S. Department of Education will allocate dollars to states based their share of four-year olds from low- and moderate-income families and funds would be distributed to local school districts and other partner providers to implement the program.  The proposal would include an incentive for states to broaden participation in their public preschool program for additional middle-class families, which states may choose to reach and serve in a variety of ways, such as a sliding-scale arrangement.

• Funds will support states as they ensure that children are enrolled in high-quality programs.   In order to access federal funding, states would be required to meet quality benchmarks that are linked to better outcomes for children, which include:

o State-level standards for early learning;
o Qualified teachers for all preschool classrooms; and
o A plan to implement comprehensive data and assessment systems.

Preschool programs across the states would meet common and consistent standards for quality across all programs, including:
o Well-trained teachers, who are paid comparably to K-12 staff;
o Small class sizes and low adult to child ratios;
o A rigorous curriculum;
o Comprehensive health and related services; and
o Effective evaluation and review of programs.

• The proposal also encourages states to expand the availability of full-day kindergarten.  Only 6 out of 10 of America’s kindergarten students have access to a full day of learning.  In order to ensure that our kindergartners spend the time they need in school to reach rigorous benchmarks and standards, funds under this program may also be used to expand full-day kindergarten once states have provided preschool education to low- and moderate-income four year-olds.

• Under the President’s proposal, investment in the federal Head Start program will continue to grow.  The President’s plan will maintain and build on current Head Start investments, to support a greater share of infants, toddlers, and three-year olds in America’s Head Start centers, while state preschool settings will serve a greater share of four-year olds. 

Quality Early Learning for Our Youngest Children

• The President will also launch a new Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership program, to support states and communities that expand the availability of Early Head Start and child care providers that can meet the highest standards of quality for infants and toddlers, serving children from birth through age 3.  Funds will be awarded through Early Head Start on a competitive basis to enhance and support early learning settings; provide new, full-day, comprehensive services that meet the needs of working families; and prepare children for the transition into preschool.  This strategy – combined with an expansion of publicly funded preschool education for four-year olds – will ensure a cohesive and well-aligned system of early learning for children from birth to age five. 

• The President is proposing to expand the Administration’s evidence-based home visiting initiative, through which states are implementing voluntary programs that provide nurses, social workers, and other professionals to meet with at-risk families in their homes and connect them to assistance that impacts a child’s health, development, and ability to learn. These programs have been critical in improving maternal and child health outcomes in the early years, leaving long-lasting, positive impacts on parenting skills; children’s cognitive, language, and social-emotional development; and school readiness. This will help ensure that our most vulnerable Americans are on track from birth, and that later educational investments rest upon a strong foundation. 

Building on Success

President Obama has committed to a comprehensive early learning agenda for America’s children that begins at birth and provides the support and services needed to set them on a path of success in school and in life:

• Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge: The Early Learning Challenge has rewarded 14 states that have agreed to raise the bar on the quality of their early childhood education programs, establish higher standards across programs and provide critical links with health, nutrition, mental health, and family support for our neediest children.

• Head Start and Early Head Start: President Obama has made historic investments in the Head Start and Early Head Start programs to reach an additional 61,000 children.  Under the President’s leadership, enrollment in Early Head Start in particular has nearly doubled.  The Obama Administration has also implemented needed reform in the Head Start program by identifying lower-performing grantees and ensuring that those failing to meet new, rigorous benchmarks face new competition for continued federal funding. 

• Supporting our Federal Child Care System: The President has proposed new investments to expand access and quality in the Child Care and Development Block Grant.

The two leaders discussed the world economy and President Obama's plan to pursue a U.S.-European Union free trade agreement, which was mentioned in his State of the Union address earlier this week.

Here’s a quick glimpse at what happened this week on WhiteHouse.gov.

Cecilia Muñoz, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, answers questions from the public about immigration reform and President Obama's State of the Union Address in an “Open for Questions” session moderated by Elianne Ramos from LATISM.

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Rick Scott’s Secretary Of State Says Florida Should Restore Early Voting

Florida Secretary of State Rick Detzner

Because Gov. Rick Scott (R) and his legislative allies spent much of 2011-2012 filling up the November ballot with complicated and unnecessary ballot questions and pushing through measures aimed at suppressing voter turnout, Florida voters had to wait in lines for up to six hours. Now, Scott’s handpicked Secretary of State has released a report recommending that Florida expand early voting and limit the length of future ballot questions.

Secretary of State Rick Detzner, who in the days after the November elections said he had no regrets about the Scott administration’s handling of the election, acknowledged in the report that there was widespread frustration with “the length of lines at polling places, which were believed to have been caused by the record number of voters, a shortened early voting schedule, inadequate voting locations and a long ballot.” He makes no mention of the reasons for those factors — Scott’s unwillingness to extend early voting hours, a Scott-signed law shortening early voting, and an effort by the Republican legislature to load the ballot up with complicated ballot measures sure to slow down voters at the polls.

But, he encourages Scott and his fellow Republicans not to repeat the same mistakes in future elections, recommending Florida:

Extend the early voting schedule from a minimum of 8 days to a maximum of 14 days, while also allowing supervisors of elections the flexibility to offer early voting on the Sunday immediately prior to Election Day.Expand the allowable locations of early voting sites at government owned, managed or occupied facilities to include the main or branch office of a supervisor of elections, a city
hall, courthouse, county commission building, public library, civic center, convention center, fairgrounds or stadium.Set a word limit for proposed legislative amendments.Repeal statutes allowing the full text (stricken or underlined) of a constitutional amendment or revision to be placed on a ballot.Allow mail ballot elections for candidates in certain elections.

While the 14-day period would be an improvement over the eight days currently provided by Florida law, it would represent a return to where things were before Scott took office.

It remains to be seen whether Florida acts on these recommendations. In November, Gov. Scott defended his suppression tactics as having done “the right thing” and a month later blamed the legislature for the early voting limits he himself signed into law. But last month, he endorsed re-expanding the early voting he limited.

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Amgen Gives Early Payday to the Bulls

Amgen, which was down slightly when the trades occurred, closed the session up 1.47 percent to $83.29. The stock fell on Jan. 8 after the company had cut its guidance because of a tax credit, but management remained sanguine over the longer term. That could be leading some investors to expect a positive report this afternoon.

Total option volume in the name was almost nine times greater than average in the session.

—By CNBC Contributor David Russell

Additional News: Top Biotech Trades

Additional Views: CBS Bulls Are Poised for Big Gains: Russell

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Options Trading School:

___________________________
Disclosures:

David Russell is a reporter and writer for OptionMonster. Russell has no positions in AMGN.

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.Disclaimer

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Florida Governor Now Wants To Expand The Early Voting Days He Cut

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) became one of the most notorious figures of the 2012 election after he slashed the period for early voting and enacted a number of other vote suppressing election laws. As a result of these laws, Florida voters were forced to wait in lines for up to 6 hours and as late as 1 am. After the election, several top Republicans admitted these election laws were designed to keep Democrats and minority voters away from the polls.

As his public image sinks, the governor has tried to distance himself from his own laws, blaming the Legislature and even denying to a group of black lawmakers Tuesday that the early voting law was his. On Thursday, Scott went even further and endorsed major election reforms–including a reversal of his early voting restrictions.

Scott now supports increasing the number of early voting days, reducing ballot length, and widening the range of polling places:

The proposal calls for extending early voting once again to a maximum of 14 days from 8, including adding back the Sunday before Election Day, a popular day among black voters; increasing voting hours to 168 hours from 96; allowing votes to be cast at locations beyond election offices, city halls and libraries; and making sure that ballots are kept short. Any change in the law must be approved by the Legislature, which convenes for its one-month session in March.

Mr. Scott’s endorsement comes on the same day as the release of a new report concluding that black and Latino voters were most affected by the 2011 changes. Of the more than 1.17 million ballots cast by black voters, nearly half were during early voting.

If early voting days are restored, the state could avoid a repeat of the 2012 fiasco, in which thousands of Floridians were disenfranchised.

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Statement by the President on EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's Announcement that She Will Leave the Administration Early Next Year

 

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

Over the last four years, Lisa Jackson has shown an unwavering commitment to the health of our families and our children. Under her leadership, the EPA has taken sensible and important steps to protect the air we breathe and the water we drink, including implementing the first national standard for harmful mercury pollution, taking important action to combat climate change under the Clean Air Act, and playing a key role in establishing historic fuel economy standards that will save the average American family thousands of dollars at the pump, while also slashing carbon pollution. Lisa has been an important part of my team, and I want to thank her for her service in my Administration and her tireless efforts to benefit the American people. I wish her all the best wherever her future takes her.

December 27, 2012 12:54 PM EST

As 2012 comes to a close, we’re looking back at some of the year’s policy milestones, including legislation President Obama signed this summer that stopped student loan interest rates from doubling for more than 7 million students.

A look at the most popular blog posts of 2012 offers a good snapshot of a busy year at the White House.

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