[Kagan:] The markets have been open almost an hour. The Dow moving up rather nicely for this time of day. It's up 51 points. The Nasdaq, though, moving the other direction. You can see it is down 11. To Detroit, Michigan, now where a lot of teachers decided not to come to school today. Fredricka Whitfield in the newsroom to tell us more about that. Fred.
[Fredricka Whitfield, Cnn Correspondent:] That's right, Daryn. And, in fact, that sick-out has led to now four elementary schools closing. Why did these teachers decide to stay home? Well in part, they say, they're upset about the fact that they've had to give up five days of pay in exchange for helping to balance the school district's budget, all while principals and administrators receive a pay raise. We're talking about 10,000 school teachers overall, 1,500 of them decided to stay home to help fill the gaps. Some administrators and even substitute teachers are now reporting for duty. Daryn.
[Kagan:] They can. Thank you, Fred. Just a few weeks from now, millions of college graduates will embark on their new professions. And then the real test comes how do you make the right choices with all the new financial challenges. Joining us with a cheat sheet of information is our Personal Finance Editor Gerri Willis. Hi, Ger.
[Willis:] Hey, Daryn. Good to see you. I love that cheat sheet. That's a good word for it.
[Kagan:] Or Cliff Notes.
[Willis:] Absolutely.
[Kagan:] Do they still have Cliff Notes or that's just back in the day when we went?
[Willis:] I think they do. I think they do. I think have Cliff Notes for your entire four-year career, not just the highlights.
[Kagan:] They helped me, I can tell you that.
[Willis:] Yes, there you go. Well, guess what, the job market is going to be a ton better this year. The best, in fact, since 2001. Employers are saying they're going to hire 15 percent more college graduates than they did last year and they're going do pay them more money, something else we like to hear. So if you're in a handful of careers that have high demand like finance, salaries are going to go up. And finance salaries will go up 11 percent. Civil engineering, over 4 percent. This is all good news for people out there who are looking for a new job, getting into the job market for the very first time.
[Kagan:] So how do you make this work to your benefit?
[Willis:] Well, let me tell you, there are bonuses being handed out there. If you're in high-demand fields, as much as $5,000 according to one headhunter we talked to. And there are other benefits to be gained. If you really want to work at home one day a week, this is the year that you might be able to negotiate that if you're in the job market. You may get tuition reimbursement. But let me tell you, Daryn, if you're in the job market, you're really trying to land something, don't put all your demands on the table first. Wait until you get that offer, then work your leverage. They need you.
[Kagan:] When is it time to start thinking about retirement?
[Willis:] Well, I've got to tell you, interesting studies out there, Daryn, about young workers being too conservative when it comes to saving for retirement. Typically they're putting a lot of money into bonds. And they're so young, they really need to be aggressive, make their money right in stocks and not be I mean their parents are more liberal in their spending than the younger workers are. The younger workers are much more conservative when it comes to saving. So you've got to make sure you get that 401 [k], open it up, put some money in and then really get a nice balance of stocks and bonds.
[Kagan:] But one part of getting out of school means those student loans come due.
[Willis:] That's right. Well, you know, and the big deal here, the interest rate on student loans going up and up dramatically. The Stafford Loan, for example, which is what a lot of people have out there, right now the interest rate, 4.7 percent. It's going to 6.8 percent July 1st. So you've got to make the change if you have a lot of debt because that difference in interest rate will mean very much to your monthly budget.
[Kagan:] And how do you build toward that dream of owning your own home?
[Willis:] You know, the median home in this country, the price tag now over $200,000. That's a lot of money. That means if you're putting down 20 percent, you've got some saving to do. Start early so that you can eventually hit that goal. A great place to save right now, CDs. Old-fashioned, your grandma's CD, offering 5 percent. You can get started saving for that dream house.
[Kagan:] Gerri Willis. Oh, Gerri, before I let you go, there's a question on this kind of has to do with your "Top Five Tips" earlier this week about sleazy accountants. Word that the IRS might soon allow our tax preparers to sell our private information. How can this be?
[Willis:] Well, it's just a proposal right now, so don't freak out. It can still be stopped. But the proposal would allow you, as the consumer, to sign away your right to the privacy of your information. You basically would have to sign it away saying, I am willing to have my tax preparer give my information, sell my information away to a third party, a marketer or whoever. Now the problem with this, of course, is that you know how it is, if you have a tax preparer at tax time, you just sign everything they give you, right? You're not thinking about, what does this mean necessarily or is this something good I should sign. So bottom line for consumers, it's not the law yet, but, boy, let me tell you, when you're signing those tax documents, you need to read them closely and make sure that you're not giving up any privacy rights.
[Kagan:] Gerri Willis, as always, great tips. Thank you.
[Willis:] You're welcome.
[Kagan:] Now to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Two buddies were playing an afternoon basketball game. They asked to stay and play just a little bit longer. But what happened to them next? That is the big mystery in Milwaukee this morning. Police need your help in finding these boys. That's Quadrevion Henning on the left. He's 12. His friend Purvis Parker, an 11-year-old aspiring artist. Family members say both are good students and well-behaved boys and they are not the type to run away. Police are knocking on doors in the neighborhood. They're also searching the homes of registered sex offenders in that area, but no sign of the boys. And also, no sign of foul play.
[Quentin Henning, Father:] If for any reason someone took them, I would like to say please return them. Sometimes can you make mistakes, but it's never too late to correct those mistakes. And you're dealing with not just two children, but a whole family.
[Angela Virginia, Mother:] Please, boys, if you out there, if you think this is an attention thing that you guys are doing, you have our attention. We have flyers up. Parents, if you see something, if you know something, please check your homes. Let our boys come home. I miss my son so much, it's this third day, I don't know if I can go any other day.
[Kagan:] And with more on the search for these two boys, we have on the phone with us Annie Schwartz with the Milwaukee Police Department. Annie, thanks for being here with us.
[Annie Schwartz, Milwaukee Police Department:] Well, thank you very much. I wish it was under better circumstances.
[Kagan:] Any update on the search you can tell us about?
[Schwartz:] I got to tell you, we have a real mystery on our hands. We have we do not know what happened to these boys. We have an exhaustive search going on. I can tell you that we have looked in vacant houses, vacant vehicles. We've covered all the transportation outlets. We've gone to the houses of registered sex offenders, done consent searches. We're finding every relative that we can of these boys, trying to find out if they might have made contact. Hospitals. Classmates. We have officers out on foot, in squads, on bicycles, on horseback. We're going to have divers out today in trying to eliminate locations in different parks near the home where these boys were last seen. We really have a mystery. We don't have any sightings. Typically, when children are missing, someone will call and say, oh, I saw them at a party, I saw them at this house, we heard they were with these guys. We have nothing. We are asking for help from the community since Sunday night, when they first went missing. And we're just getting no reports that they've even been seen anywhere, which is so unusual.
[Kagan:] And by all accounts, these are good boys, not the type to run away?
[Schwartz:] Oh, not at all. They have no history of running away. In fact, one of the boys, Quadrevion Henning, got a certificate from his school for perfect attendance. So these are not the kind of kids that run away. And there doesn't seem to be any kind of precipitating factors that would have, you know, caused them to run away. So we really don't know what has happened to them. But we have an exhaustive search going on throughout city of Milwaukee, and our search area is ever-increasing today.
[Kagan:] What about the weather? What's it been like in the days since Sunday?
[Schwartz:] Our weather has been pretty mild. It hasn't for us. The temperature right now is about 40 degrees. It's very sunny out today. So if, you know, we have an opportunity to get maybe more people to get out and look in parks and look in yards. But we need to find them. And this is a very long time. In the majority of our missing person cases, when it comes to missing juveniles, we recover those children within the first 24 or at the very most, 48 hours. This is the last time they were seen was at 3:30 in the afternoon Sunday. This is a long time for them to be gone.
[Kagan:] Well, and what we tend to see with missing children cases, once they're gone past 24 or 48 hours, it becomes even more alarming.
[Schwartz:] We are very concerned and we're asking for, you know, for prayers from the community. We're asking for people to get out there with their eyes and ears and just keep a watch out for these children.
[Kagan:] We wish you well with the search and send our best to the family.
[Schwartz:] Thank you very much, and thank you for bringing some attention to this. We don't know where they might have gone, but you never know who might be out there, you know, in your audience who may know something. We're asking them to call us with that information.
[Kagan:] We will be following the story. Annie Schwartz with Milwaukee Police Department, thank you. Coming up on CNN LIVE TODAY, you saw the pictures, and you also heard the heartbreaking tales of pets left to fend for themselves after Hurricane Katrina. Now some say the pet issue has come back to bite a key presidential nominee. We'll explain, just ahead.