CNN Student News Transcript: September 16, 2008

September 16, 2008

Quick Guide

Wall Street Woes - Discover the events that led a financial giant to declare bankruptcy.

Ike's Aftermath - Learn about rescue efforts taking place in Texas following Hurricane Ike.

Paying Parents - Examine a program that pays parents to get involved in students' education.

Transcript

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: Welcome to your Tuesday, September 16th edition of CNN Student News! From the CNN Center, I'm Carl Azuz.

First Up: Wall Street Woes

AZUZ: First up today, it is the biggest going-out-of-business story in U.S. history. Lehman Brothers, a 158-year-old investment bank, filed for bankruptcy yesterday. This company had been up for sale. It was falling apart because it had invested a lot of money in real estate, and as you know, the real estate market is in bad shape. When no one bought Lehman, it was game over. Another investment bank, Merrill Lynch, was also in trouble. However, Bank of America decided to buy that company, saving it from the same fate as Lehman. What does all this mean? Well, for now, and for Wall Street, bad news. Stocks dropped hard and fast yesterday, the worst hit Wall Street's taken since the September 11th terrorist attacks seven years ago. This could indicate that the economic crisis we're in is far from over. Now, experts do predict that the economy will stabilize down the road. But for now, investors are hurting. Richard Roth brings us the word on Wall Street.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD ROTH, CNN REPORTER: It was a Monday morning like none other in the 158-year history of financial giant Lehman Brothers. The company went bankrupt.

YURY KORSKY, LEHMAN EMPLOYEE: The most shocking part is that I don't think anyone really expected a bank as big as Lehman to, you know, be in a position that it's in now.

ROTH: Some employees rushed in Sunday night to gather personal items. The Monday morning headlines screamed to New York City what Lehman employees already felt.

PERSON ON THE STREET: Fear. Uncertainty.

ROTH: One senior executive told me inside Lehman it was "dead men walking." You usually don't see a media frenzy outside the New York offices of an investment bank. Some employees blamed their leaders for not looking for a rescue earlier. Others said, "life happens."

ELI, LEHMAN WORKER: If the government would have bailed us out, I would have stood to benefit tremendously. Yet, you know what, that's not the right thing to do for the economy.

ROTH: Liz has been operating the newsstand now in front of Lehman for 40 years.

LIZ, NEWSSTAND WORKER: I feel very sad about it. You know, I have a lot of friends over there, a lot of customers. People losing their jobs now, it's very hard. That's what I worry about.

ROTH: Lehman Brothers headquarters is now another New York tourist attraction.

PERSON ON THE STREET: We're just in America, and we just thought this was part of the history of New York. It's just sort of, I guess being Australians, interested in what sort of impact it might even have in Australia, just a collapse of a major bank of this nature, yeah.

ROTH: The meltdown affects other firms in the canyons of American capitalism.

PERSON ON THE STREET: It's a terrible day for the U.S. at the moment.

ROTH: It's time to wake up and smell the coffee, Tony says. Businessmen were ordering earlier than usual.

TONY: It affects these people, it affects me too.

ROTH: So, as the U.S. Women's Olympic soccer team kicked off trading, even they were concerned.

KATE MARKGARA, U.S. WOMEN'S SOCCER TEAM: It's like a reckoning basically of Wall Street for everything that has happened with all the financial companies.

ROTH: Something Lehman workers are painfully aware of.

ELI: I'm hoping that this failure was the amputation necessary to stop the country from entering depression.

ROTH: There's blood in the streets, and no one knows when the bleeding stops. Richard Roth, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Word to the Wise

ERIC GERSHON, CNN STUDENT NEWS: A Word to the Wise...

bankruptcy (noun) a legal declaration that a person or company is impoverished or financially ruined

source: www.m-w.com

Ike's Aftermath

AZUZ: "Sometimes, the aftermath of the storm is worse than the storm itself." That is what the mayor of Galveston, Texas said this week, as she urged residents who didn't leave before Hurricane Ike to do so now. Beyond the physical damage, many homes and businesses in the region don't have electricity; they don't have clean drinking water. The mayor called the island unhealthy and unsafe. The clean-up could take months. But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says the first priority is saving lives. Ed Lavandera reports on the rescue efforts taking place in Texas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN REPORTER: Flying over the destruction and looking for survivors isn't easy, especially when one of them, like this man, is floating on mangled debris only wearing a life vest. An Air Force rescue team pulled him to safety from Crystal Beach, Texas, a small coastal town decimated by Hurricane Ike.

STEVE MCCRAW, TEXAS HOMELAND SECURITY: This is the largest search-and-rescue effort that Texas has ever taken. Starting east and going all the way west, house by house, block by block, search and rescue.

LAVANDERA: Caring and moving the elderly is proving to be a challenge once again. An elderly man had to be rescued from his car after driving into high water along Interstate 10. And state officials say they're looking into how and why nearly 300 people were abandoned at a nursing home. And at another nursing home in Houston, the elderly had to be moved out because of damage to the building.

JOE BOTT, NURSING HOME RESIDENT: Well, we had part of the roof tear off, and water coming in the roof. But the parking lot, we were waist deep, chest high in water. It was just, the winds were howling.

LAVANDERA: But across the region, there are miles and miles of damaged homes that need to be inspected, an exhaustive search to make sure there aren't more victims trapped in the rubble. On Sunday, several thousand people had to be evacuated and moved to shelters in San Antonio and Austin, a sign that life here will take weeks, if not months, to return to normal. Ed Lavandera, CNN, Houston.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Spoken Word

U.S. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The energy situation is one that's of concern. Our drivers, our folks at the pump are going to have to expect some upward pressure on price because the storm disrupted the supply of gasoline. So, there's going to be a pinch. I wish it wasn't the case, but it is.

Ike Spikes Gas Prices

AZUZ: A painful pinch for anyone filling up at the gas pump these last few days. AAA says gas costs have jumped nearly 17 cents since Saturday, when Hurricane Ike slammed into Texas. Prices went up about five cents yesterday, making the national average for a gallon of regular around $3.84. That's more than a dollar more expensive than it was a year ago. On Sunday, fuel costs climbed 6.2 cents, and that is the biggest one-day spike since Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.

Paying Parents

AZUZ: Changing gears now, last school year, we reported on a controversial program in Georgia that paid students to study. You guys had a lot to say about this on our blog. And now, there's a similar effort taking place in Iowa, except this one pays the parents! Deborah Feyerick explains how the program works and talks with some of the people involved.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN REPORTER: Fed up watching kids fail in school, activist Paulette Wiley came up with a plan: She called a meeting and gave parents $25 just for showing up.

PAULETTE WILEY: Ten dollars isn't dignified. Thirty, that's too much. But 25, that sounded real good. Real good.

FEYERICK: Strange as it may sound, schools across the country in New York and Texas and Arizona are now paying students to take tests and get good grades. Wiley, who lives in Des Moines, Iowa, decided to target parents throughout the largely African-American school district.

WILEY: Our parents are disconnected. They're disconnected from a system that doesn't respect them. They're disconnected from a system that they didn't have a positive relationship with. So, we've got to reconnect our parents.

FEYERICK: Wiley's program, the Education Brain Trust, runs day-long seminars that show parents how to work with teachers, help with homework and support their kids. LaConda Obie, whose girls are in fifth and tenth grade, went to the seminar to learn her rights as a parent.

LACONDA OBIE, PARENT: I get a stipend, but at the same time I get knowledge as well.

FEYERICK: But critics say paying parents, and students for that matter, cheapens the learning process.

ALFIE KOHN, AUTHOR, "PUNISHED BY REWARDS": When are educators going to work with children and their parents to create the kinds of learning environments that will be naturally engaging to kids, instead of doing things to them to make them jump through hoops for a prize?

FEYERICK: Nearly 60% of African-American fourth graders in Des Moines cannot read at grade level. Superintendent Nancy Sebring says if turning that around means paying parents every time they go, she's for it.

SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT NANCY SEBRING: From my experience, the lack of parental involvement is not about parents not caring. They may be working two jobs, they may not have transportation to and from school, they may not speak English.

FEYERICK: Three hundred parents have attended the program, paid for by a $20,000 county grant and co-sponsored by the ASK Family Resource Center. Now that she knows what the classes are about, LaConda Obie says she would go even if there were no money.

FEYERICK: What kind of future would you want for her?

OBIE: Just basically put her best foot forward and get her education.

FEYERICK: Statistics in Iowa show the state not only suspends and expels a high percentage of African-Americans, it incarcerates a disproportionate number as well. Wiley's hope is the more parents get involved, the better the chances the kids will be put on the right path. Deborah Feyerick, CNN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Constitution Day Promo

AZUZ: Coming up tomorrow: Constitution Day! We'll have special coverage on our show and free curriculum materials on our Web site. In fact, our Learning Activity is already up at CNNStudentNews.com!

Before We Go

AZUZ: Before we go today, a 9-1-1 call you just don't hear every day.

9-1-1 OPERATOR: 9-1-1. What is your emergency?

CALLER: Bark bark bark!

AZUZ: This heroic hound saved his owner's life when he dialed the emergency number, and it's not the first time. The protective pooch is trained to pick up the phone when his master suffers a seizure, and every button is pre-programmed to call 9-1-1. Good planning by owner; great barking by dog.

Goodbye

AZUZ: If you're expecting a pun here, you're barking up the right tree. You guys have a great day. We will see you tomorrow.