Notepad

NEA Today, Feb 2006

Wal-Mart Shenanigans

Can't lift heavy boxes or spend hours wrangling shopping carts? Then you're not fit for a job at the country's largest retailer. According to an anonymous copy of a draft memo to the Wal-Mart board, which was sent late last year to the non-profit group Wal-Mart Watch, the company has a new strategy to cut health care costs. After crunching the numbers, it seems it comes down to weeding out the associates likely to drive up health care costs and eat profits. Hiring young, healthy workers, decreasing the number of "expensive" full-time workers, and adjusting 401(k) programs will help them in their everlasting quest for higher profits.

-DESIREE MILLER

The Burden of Proof

If there's a question about adequate services for children with disabilities, it's parents who have to prove that their children have inadequate individualized education programs, according to a Supreme Court ruling late last year. It's not the school districts' responsibility to prove that the child's needs have been met. The ruling could create a change in policy in many states, and make it more difficult for parents with few resources to mount challenges.

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