CFK Weekly—October 2, 2000

We encourage distribution of this information! If reprinting in whole or part, please attribute it to Connect for Kids (www.connectforkids.org).

NEW ON CONNECT FOR KIDS
**Teens Teaching Seniors: the Digital Divide on a Local Level
**Presidential Debates: Why Watch?
**Resources for Kids in the Digital Age
**The Democracy Project

CONNECT TODAY
**Cast Your Ballot for Kids

ELECTION 2000
**Where is Welfare Reform Heading?
**"Why My Vote Counts" Contest
**Your Vote Does Count

CALL TO ACTION TO IMPROVE MATH LEARNING
**Before It's Too Late

POVERTY, HEALTH INSURANCE, HOUSING -- BY THE NUMBERS
**Incomes Up, Poverty Down, but Children Still at the Bottom
**Health Insurance Coverage Improves
**Out of Reach: The Growing Gap Between Wages and Housing Costs

ONE WORLD
**Eradication of Polio by 2005
**Children, Torture and Power
**Protecting Children from Economic Exploitation
**The State of the World's Population 2000

WASHINGTON WATCH
**Budget Blues in Congress
**Fight Hunger
**Children's Health Bill 2000 Passes
**BIPA Includes Children's Health Measures

PERILS OF EARLY ADOLESCENCE
**Nicotine and Tobacco Research
**The Impact of Peer Substance Abuse on Middle School Performance
**New Inhalant Research

U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE REPORTS
**Barriers to Dental Services in Low-Income Populations
**Update on Title I Preschool
**Children and Pesticides: New Approach to Considering Risk

RESOURCES FOR COMMUNITY BUILDERS
**The Web of Support Guidebook
**Smart Growth, Better Neighborhoods: Communities Leading the Way
**Youth Organizing RFP
**After-School Programs that Promote Child and Adolescent Development
**Youth Gang Programs and Strategies

FOCUS ON THE STATES
**Holding States Accountable
**State Poverty Rates from 1980-1999
**State by State News

NEW ON CONNECT FOR KIDS http://www.connectforkids.org

**Teens Teaching Seniors: the Digital Divide on a Local Level
by Angie Groh
Money, access and training are some of the factors in the ?Digital Divide? -- the wedge between those who get the benefits of technology and those who don't. Angie Groh, 16, recognized a growing gap in her community and bridged the generations by helping teens teach computer skills to seniors.
http://www.connectforkids.org

**Presidential Debates: Why Watch?
by Susan Phillips
Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush are entering what could be a determining stage of their close race for the U.S. presidency. The series of three presidential debates that is now starting are the public's best chance to fill in the outlines of these two men's characters and policy proposals. Voters who care about families and kids, take notice!
http://www.connectforkids.org

**Resources for Kids in the Digital Age
Learn the basics about who's wired and who's not, and what state and federal governments are doing to help give all kids and families access to the Internet and the skills they need to use technology effectively in Connect for Kids' Technology topic page.
http://www.connectforkids.org

**The Democracy Project
Want to make more informed political decisions? Get the details on your candidates, share your thoughts on the issues and learn about politics close to home through this PBS-sponsored Web site.
http://www.connectforkids.org

CONNECT TODAY

**Cast Your Ballot for Kids
Wondering which local politicians are really working with kids in mind? Judy Haxton has an idea that you can use right in your community: "Keep a score card on each elected official. Whenever any children's issue come up for a vote, record those votes." An experienced activist, she's got more advice. Get more info and share your own ideas in our "Cast Your Ballot for Kids" discussion.
http://www.connectforkids.org/thread_msg2032/thread_msg_show.htm?message_id=23819

ELECTION 2000

**Where is Welfare Reform Heading?
When Congress passed the welfare reform legislation of 1996, there was little clarity or consensus about what welfare reform should accomplish beyond calling for an end to a ?culture of dependency.? The Urban Institute's Alan Weil challenges this year's candidates to define their notion of success for welfare reform, arguing that the newly elected Congress and president will have to make difficult decisions in setting a welfare policy that can work for families through good and bad economic times.
http://www.sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/09/22/ED110862.DTL

**"Why My Vote Counts" Contest
American female college students aged 18 to 24 are eligible to compete in the Women Count essay contest, with a winning prize of $5,000 for college expenses.
http://womencount.org/m4essay2.shtml

**Your Vote Does Count
Michele Strasz, Connect for Kids' partner in Michigan, reminds us that just a handful of votes can determine a close election: ?The Year is 1960. JFK wins the election because he receives one more vote per precinct in Illinois (8,858 votes), three more votes per precinct in Missouri (9,880 votes), and three more votes per precinct in New Jersey (22,091 votes). Without those 40,829 votes, the election goes to Nixon.?

The 2000 election is expected to be as tight as 1960. Where will you be November 7? Get ready to cast your vote by getting the information and links you need from the Connect for Kids' Moms Vote feature, including questions for candidates and analyses of key candidates' positions on education, child care and other family issues.
http://www.connectforkids.org/content1550/content.htm

Read Strasz' Connect for Kids article, ?Families Voting: Bringing Democracy Home.?
http://www.connectforkids.org/benton_topics1544/benton_topics_show.htm?doc_id=33483

CALL TO ACTION TO IMPROVE MATH LEARNING

**Before It's Too Late
Concerns about lackluster math scores for American children on the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, the National Assessment of Educational Progress and other standardized tests have prompted a variety of proposals for improving student math and science performance. In ?Before It's Too Late? the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century calls for a comprehensive action plan, with an annual price tag of about $5 billion, to concentrate resources on those efforts, especially improving the quality of math and science teaching.
http://ed.gov/americacounts/glenn/toc.html

You'll find educational data gathered in the ?Reports and Data? section of Connect for Kids' feature on Kids and Learning. ?The Three R's? offers resources for improving reading and math learning.
http://www.connectforkids.org/content1556/content.htm

POVERTY, HEALTH INSURANCE, HOUSING -- BY THE NUMBERS

**Income Up, Poverty Down, but Children Still at the Bottom
Despite good news in income and poverty, it is still true that the younger you are in America, the more likely you are to be poor. Despite the lowest child poverty rate since 1979, children still constitute the largest segment of the population living below the federal poverty line (16.9 percent), compared with an elderly poverty rate of 9.7 percent.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/povty99.html

**Health Insurance Coverage Improves
The Census Bureau reports that the number and proportion of uninsured children (0 to 18 years) declined from 11.1 million (15.4 percent) in 1998 to 10.0 million (13.9 percent) in 1999, mirroring the positive changes in the population overall. http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthins.html

The 1998 and 1999 national children's insurance statistics are charted at the Census Web site. http://www.census.gov/hhes/hlthins/hlthin99/fig02.gif

Did your state beat the national average in children's health insurance, or fall short? Check the Reports and Data section of your Connect for Kids State Page.
http://www.connectforkids.org/homepage1576/index.htm

**Out of Reach: The Growing Gap Between Wages and Housing Costs
In its annual report on the gap between wages and housing costs in every state and county, the National Low Income Housing documents the widening gap between the income from full-time low-wage work and the average cost of housing units where low-wage renters live and work.
http://www.Nlihc.org/oor2000/index.htm

ONE WORLD

**Eradication of Polio by 2005
The United Nations' World Without Polio Summit on Sept. 27, 2000 reminds us that intensified efforts and additional resources are needed to finally wipe out the last traces of Polio, a deadly disease that still exists due to war and inadequate health care.
http://www.unicef.org/polio/

**Children, Torture and Power
An orphaned street child or a child in the power of the state's justice system is especially vulnerable to serious abuses, from violent treatment and torture to lack of the civil protections taken for granted by adults. Two working groups of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child offered recommendations to focus international attention on the widespread mistreatment of children by state authorities and to improve protections for children in the care of the state. http://www.unhchr.ch/huricane/huricane.nsf/FramePage/PressRoom?OpenDocument

**Protecting Children from Economic Exploitation
An article in the September issue of the American Humane Association's ?Protecting Children? looks at the progress and steps yet needed to protect the world's children from exploitation and to preserve childhood as a time for healthy development and learning.
http://www.americanhumane.org/children/prof/art_0900.htm

**The State of the World's Population 2000
This year's report from the United Nations Population Fund highlights the burdens of violence and deprivation borne by the world's women and girls. As discrimination and violence against women remains rooted in cultures around the world, it is not just females that pay the price.
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2000/english/press_kit/

WASHINGTON WATCH

**Budget Blues in Congress
Congress is in the ?endgame? phase of passing the FY 2001 federal budget. OMB Watch has a good overall analysis of why Congress is having such a difficult time in passing all 13 appropriations bills this year. Although many children's services are financed throughout the budget, the appropriations bill with the most at stake for children is the Labor-HHS-Education bill. According to OMB Watch, the fight here is between the Republicans who want to block grant money to the states and the Democrats who want specific earmarks for class size, teacher numbers and school modernization.
http://www.ombwatch.org/ombwatcher/current.html#eab

**Fight Hunger
RESULTS, the grass roots anti-hunger organization, is calling for a final push to help Congress pass pending anti-hunger legislation. For specific, concrete steps you can take, e-mail Meredith Dodson dodson@action.org and ask for the RESULTS Domestic Update for Sept. 26, 2000.

**Children's Health Bill 2000 Passes
A comprehensive children's health bill re-authorizing an array of children's health programs, with a particular focus on injury prevention, has passed the House and Senate and is awaiting the President's signature. The Children's Health Bill 2000 includes new grants for pediatric research, including childhood diabetes and research on the impact on children who witness domestic or community violence.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:h.r.04365:

**BIPA Includes Children's Health Measures
The House Commerce Committee also approved measures to the Beneficiary Improvements & Protection Act (BIPA) to give states a two-year extension on 60 percent of their Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) federal funding. BIPA also includes measures to expand CHIP coverage to legal immigrant children and pregnant women, to allow states to enroll families immediately in CHIP or Medicaid when they qualify for school lunch or child care assistance and to increase funding for hospitals serving a disproportionate share of Medicaid or uninsured patients. E-mail Bruce Lesley Bruce.Lesley@mail.house.gov for details.

PERILS OF EARLY ADOLESCENCE

**Nicotine and Tobacco Research
Adolescence may be a time of particular vulnerability to becoming nicotine-dependent, even with occasional use, according to this analysis of data from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.
http://www.drugabuse.gov/MedAdv/00/NR9-25.html

**Impact of Peer Substance Abuse on Middle School Performance
A new report from Washington state suggests that even limited alcohol or substance use in a student's middle school peer group may be a powerful factor correlated with that student's poor academic performance on reading and math tests. The report also found that a powerful predictor of early substance use is the early onset of antisocial behaviors (by age 10), a finding that might help communities, parents and schools target those at highest risk.
http://www.hspc.org/wkc/press/peer_sub_091200.html

**New Inhalant Research
About one in five eighth-graders report having abused inhalants, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Experimentation with such substances should not be taken lightly because even a single session of repeated inhalant abuse can disrupt heart rhythms and cause cardiac arrest.
http://www.drugabuse.gov/ResearchReports/Inhalants/Inhalants.html

Learn more from Connect for Kids' Teen Years feature. Get comprehensive information in the Connect for Kids' Reference Room.
http://www.connectforkids.org/homepage1543/index.htm

U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE REPORTS

**Barriers to Dental Services in Low-Income Populations
A major barrier that low-income families face to good oral health is finding a dentist who will treat them, according to this U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) report. Dentists cite problems with low payment rates in Medicaid, administrative problems and patient difficulties like ?no-shows? to explain limited accessibility.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/he00149.pdf

**Update on Title I Preschool
Title I is second only to Head Start in the level of preschool educational funding, even though only 17 percent of the school districts receiving Title I funding used these federal funds for preschool services. General Accounting Office was asked to assess the extent to which Title I federal funds for supporting the education of disadvantaged children from birth to age 21 are being used for preschool learning, and how effective these programs are.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/he00171.pdf

**Children and Pesticides: New Approach to Considering Risk
GAO examines the Food and Drug Administration's progress in implementing new safety provisions for children passed as part of the 1996 Food Quality and Protection Act.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/he00175.pdf

RESOURCES FOR COMMUNITY BUILDERS

**The Web of Support Guidebook
Save the Children's guidebook for providing safe, nurturing, learning environments during out-of-school time is now available online. Community activists that want to ?do a lot with a little? will find bulleted lists, sample forms, sample stories and resources to make the most of community resources. http://www.savethechildren.org/wosokit/index.html

**Smart Growth, Better Neighborhoods: Communities Leading the Way
This National Neighborhood Coalition report summarizes the ill effects of unchecked growth and gives examples of how grass roots organizations are improving transportation, housing, education, planning and land use decisions. Case studies come from New Schools Better Neighborhoods in Los Angeles and the Citizens' Planning and Housing Association in Baltimore, along with other community efforts in Arkansas, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas. Cost: $25. http://www.neighborhoodcoalition.org/report%20form.htm

**Youth Organizing RFP
The Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing is accepting proposals from new and established community-based organizations that engage youth, especially low-income youth, in social change work. The Collaborative is projected to award a total of about 25 grants in the range of $15,000-$30,000, targeting organizations with a significant history of youth organizing and budgets under $1 million.
http://www.fdncenter.org/pnd/rfp/youth.html

**After-School Programs that Promote Child and Adolescent Development
A workshop of multidisciplinary experts convened by the Board on Children, Youth and Families looked at issues of quantity and quality regarding after-school programs -- how to expand the number of after-school programs to meet current needs and how to make sure programs serve the specific developmental needs of kids and young teens.
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/9944.html

**Youth Gang Programs and Strategies
This Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention overview draws on more than a half-century of program evaluations and assessments to summarize lessons learned about how communities can reduce gang activities. The report concludes there is no easy answer, but the most effective strategies combine prevention, intervention and suppression efforts in a coordinated approach supported by an adequate information management system and validated by evaluation research.
http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/pubs/gang.html#171154

You'll find more tools, manuals and guidebooks in our community on the ?Community Building? topic page in the Connect for Kids Reference Room.
http://www.connectforkids.org/homepage1543/index.htm

FOCUS ON THE STATES

**Holding States Accountable
When the Ohio state legislature passed legislation streamlining the process for charter school applications, few people realized how easy it would be to find a way to use public school funding for special schools. That is, until a couple of Akron Beacon Journal education reporters did some investigating and shined a spotlight on the process and some of the outcomes, according to the Pew Center on Civic Journalism. http://www.pewcenter.org/doingcj/spotlight/index.php3

**State Poverty Rates from 1980-1999
The U.S. Census Bureau released its income and poverty data for 1999 on September 26, 2000. To see how poverty rates in your state have shifted over the last two decades, check out the ?moving? chart of state poverty rates from 1980 to 1999.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/povanim/povmap.html

**State by State News
Check out news about kids and the upcoming elections in your state in the ?state by state? section of the Connect for Kids Web site.
http://www.connectforkids.org/homepage1576/index.htm

Here's a sample of this week's additions to our state pages.

Arizona.
New state legislation should help communities improve substance abuse treatment options for families involved with Child Protective Services or receiving Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.
http://www.connectforkids.org/homepage1667/index.htm?state_id=379

District of Columbia.
The "Child In Need of Protection" bill will be the subject of a public hearing on Thursday, November 2, 2000 at 10:00 in the D.C. Council Chamber. http://www.connectforkids.org/homepage1667/index.htm?state_id=385

Illinois.
Voices for Illinois Children is hosting three forums in October where voters can talk with their elected officials and candidates about children's issues.
http://www.connectforkids.org/homepage1667/index.htm?state_id=390

Michigan.
A new report analyzes the Urban Institute's 1997 National Survey of America's Families data on numerous indicators related to child care.
http://www.connectforkids.org/homepage1667/index.htm?state_id=399

Nevada.
Nevada's county by county Kids Count profiles are now available, charting each county on specific outcome measures of children's well-being.
 http://www.connectforkids.org/homepage1667/index.htm?state_id=405

North Carolina.
The Covenant with North Carolina's Children is offering seminars across the state on state budget and tax policy issues, the fiscal outlook for next year, the state of child advocacy and how you can get involved..
http://www.connectforkids.org/homepage1667/index.htm?state_id=410

Oregon.
Tenth grade math scores declined, but reading was up, according to the results of last year's tests.
http://www.connectforkids.org/homepage1667/index.htm?state_id=414

Rhode Island.
A report chronicles lessons learned from Rhode Island's public/private efforts to put together comprehensive child care and health care programs for young children and their families, coordinated by
Rhode Island KIDS COUNT. http://www.connectforkids.org/homepage1667/index.htm?state_id=417

Texas.
In ?Every Child Equal: What Texas Parents Want from Children's Medicaid,? low-income parents talk about what they encountered in trying to get coverage and care for their children through Medicaid in Texas.
http://www.connectforkids.org/homepage1667/index.htm?state_id=421

Washington.
?Emotional and Behavioral Problems Among Washington's Children? finds high numbers of Washington children suffer from emotional problems, and adolescent boys living in low-income or single-parent families are most at risk.
http://www.connectforkids.org/homepage1667/index.htm?state_id=425

Wisconsin.
?Barely Getting By: Wisconsin's Working Poor Families? documents the surge in poverty-wage jobs in Wisconsin over the past 20 years, and its impact on workers and their families. http://www.connectforkids.org/homepage1667/index.htm?state_id=427

Remember to tune into the Presidential Debates, everyone!

Jan Richter, Outreach Specialist and the Connect for Kids team
Jan@benton.org