CFK Weekly - September 13, 2004
Connect for Kids.org: Better Policies for Kids
September 13, 2004
Please send any comments or suggestions to jan@connectforkids.org.
Table of Contents. Click on heading to jump to that section.
NEW ON CONNECTFORKIDS.ORG
**Judy Woodruff: A Personal Path to Advocacy
**Support Connect for Kids
**Eating Smart in L.A.
KIDS AND POLITICS
**Select Group Sets Reading Policy
**FCC Rules Seen a Big Win on Children’s TV
**Bush: More High School Tests
**Education Proposals in the 2004 Presidential Campaign
**Assault Weapon Ban Expires
**Crime Rate Holds Steady at 30-Year Low
ECONOMY RECOVERING -- BUT FOR WHOM?
**The State of Working America
**An Uneven Recovery
**How Low Can You Go?
**Anna Quindlen: Leadership Needed for Today’s Working Poor Families
**Rewarding “Unskilled” Workers
**Rates of and Services for Low-Income Children Vary Widely by State
CONTROVERSY OVER DRUG TEST RESULTS
**FDA Urged Drug Companies to Withhold Data on Antidepressants
**Medical Journals Encourage Companies to Register their Studies
INFORMATION FOR PARENTS
**New Treatment for Head Lice: Suffocation
**Getting Ready for School Begins at Birth
**A Family’s Guide to the Child Welfare System
**Información y Recursos en Español r
FINDING FUNDING FOR NONPROFITS
**Developing Quality Grant Proposals
**Justice Grants
**TalkTime Live! Finding Funding for Nonprofits
PRE-SCHOOL AND HIGHER ED: KEYS TO PROGRESS
**Pre-school for California’s Children: Promising Benefits, Unequal Access
**Pre-kindergarten Expansion in Four Selected States
**The College Track: America’s Sorting Machine
**Ending “Culture of Detachment” in Schools
HEALTH CARE AND SPECIAL NEEDS
**Prevalence and Characteristics of Children with Special Health Care Needs
**The State of Health Care Spending on Children
**School-Based Mental Health Services
FOCUS ON THE STATES
**State-by-State News
NEW ON CONNECT FOR KIDS
**Judy Woodruff: A Personal Path to Advocacy
CNN anchor Judy Woodruff has a big job covering national politics, and another big job parenting three children. She has also taken on an active role advocating on behalf of children with spina bifida. In this interview, Woodruff shares the personal reasons behind her advocacy with Connect for Kids' Robert Capriccioso.
http://www.connectforkids.org/resources3139/resources_show.htm?doc_id=238717
**Support Connect for Kids
**Eating Smart in L.A.
It took three years of grass-roots activism, but schoolchildren in Los Angeles are eating healthier this year. This story from the July-August 2004 issue of the Children's Advocate explains.
http://www.connectforkids.org/resources3139/resources_show.htm?doc_id=238718
**Select Group Sets Reading Policy
The reading wars are heating up again, and the emerging dominance of a phonics-based approach is affecting classrooms across the country. Education Week reports on the growing controversy over a Bush administration-backed effort to establish skills-based, phonics instruction as the only gold standard for reading research and instruction.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=02Nichid.h24
**FCC Rules Seen a Big Win on Children’s TV
The Federal Communications Commission unanimously adopted new rules that require broadcasters to air three hours of children's programming on their core digital channel, as well as another three hours for every free digital multi-cast channel they decide to program.
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-251972A1.doc
**Bush: More High School Tests
President George W. Bush’s re-election campaign includes a promise of $250 million to help state develop and administer new achievement tests for high school juniors. Opponents say the proposal might impose an extra demand on states already struggling with extra costs and testing required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act -- and on students already subject to standardized tests in 10th grade and before graduation.
http://www.stateline.org/stateline/?pa=story&sa=showStoryInfo&id=397772
**Education Proposals in the 2004 Presidential Campaign
The rhetoric may sound the same, but there are major differences in the education policies offered by the Bush and Kerry campaigns -- from pre-school on through higher education. The Brookings Institution working paper uses the candidates’ speeches and records to detail their approaches.
http://www.brookings.edu/dybdocroot/views/papers/sawhill/20040623.pdf
**Assault Weapon Ban Expires
A 10-year-old ban on certain assault weapons was allowed to expire in Congress Monday, September 13, 2004. The proportion of banned assault weapons traced to crimes has dropped by 65.8% from 1994-2003, according to the Department of Justice -- but the ban’s actual impact on violence and crime remains controversial, as loopholes allowed many weapons to remain on the shelves. The Fraternal Order of Police and other law enforcement groups support re-instating the ban, according to this USA Today article.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-09-12-weapons-ban_x.htm
**Crime Rate Holds Steady at 30-Year Low
The U.S. Justice Department says that violent crime in America – as measured by victim surveys -- has fallen by 55 in the past decade (murder is not counted), and property crime dropped 49 percent. In a separate report using preliminary police data, the FBI found a 1.3 percent increase in murders between 2002 and 2003.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2792062
ECONOMY RECOVERING -- BUT FOR WHOM?
**The State of Working America
This economy is tough on families, especially young families and low-wage parents, according to a comprehensive report from the Economic Policy Institute. Productivity has increased, but today’s working families are experiencing a slower rise in living standards than previous generations. In fact, 2002 set the record for the slowest increase in nominal income growth for the average (median) family since 1954.
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/books_swa2004
**An Uneven Recovery
The current economic recovery has been weak for wage-earners, while corporate profits have enjoyed unusually large gains, according to a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis of official data. The share of real income growth that has gone to wages and salaries (that is, the total increase in wage and salary income) has been smaller -- and the share of real income growth going to corporate profits larger -- than during all other post-World War II recoveries.
http://www.cbpp.org/9-3-04ui.htm
**How Low Can You Go?
Debates are raging about the state of the economy -- but Harry Holzer, of the liberal Center for American Progress, says one fact is clear: the economic recovery is not reaching young black men. In fact, during good times and bad, jobless rates among young black men remain disturbing. The economic growth, welfare reform and new child care benefits of the 1990s boosted employment rates for young black women, but not for young black men. Holzer calls for school reforms to improve basic skills, learning opportunities with links to job market skills, and more effective job training programs for out-of-school youth. In addition, he suggests extending the earned income tax credit to low-wage fathers paying child support.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/19803
**Anna Quindlen: Leadership Needed for Today’s Working Poor Families
In her column in this week’s Newsweek, Anna Quindlen describes America’s forgotten third—the families who work, sometimes two and three jobs, but can’t provide for their children. Noting that President Johnson’s “War on Poverty” made progress, Quindlen says instead of calling the war on poverty a failure, today’s political leaders could do a lot more to make work pay for all.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5972917/site/newsweek/
**Rewarding “Unskilled” Workers
There’s nothing “bad” about jobs like health aide, child care provider, poultry processor -- except the pay and lack of benefits, says Beth Shulman, author of The Betrayal of Work. Just as union organizing and government policies helped transform sweatshop jobs into good manufacturing jobs, raising the minimum wage, rewarding businesses that provide benefits, and invigorating unions can transform today’s “poor” service jobs into better-paying jobs with benefits. Shulman points out that as middle-class jobs begin to look more like low-wage jobs -- with lower pay and fewer benefits -- making sure every job is a good job makes sense.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64622-2004Sep5.html
**Rates of and Services for Low-Income Children Vary Widely by State
Across the country, 41 percent of children under age 6 live in low-income families -- but rates vary dramatically by state, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty. For example, low-income rates are higher in the Southwest, where parent education levels are low, and in the Southeast, where the rate of single-parent families is high.
http://www.nccp.org/pub_svf04a.html
Families’ access to government programs also varies by state. For example, just 27 percent of children in low-income families receive public health insurance in Colorado and Nevada while more than twice as many (64 percent) receive it in Vermont.
http://www.nccp.org/pub_svf04b.html
CONTROVERSY OVER DRUG TEST RESULTS
**FDA Urged Drug Companies to Withhold Data on Antidepressants
During the September 9 Congressional hearing, the House Energy and Commerce Committee heard evidence that the Food and Drug Administration urged antidepressant manufacturers not to disclose to physicians and the public that some clinical trials of antidepressant medications in children found the drugs were no better than sugar pills.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9802-2004Sep9.html
In a joint meeting this week, the Food and Drug Administration’s Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee and the Pediatric Advisory Committee will discuss reports of the occurrence of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in clinical trials for various antidepressant drugs in pediatric patients with major depressive disorder and other psychiatric disorders.
http://www.fda.gov/oc/advisory/accalendar/2004/cder12544dd09131404.html
Another congressional hearing on FDA's Review of Safety & Efficacy Concerns in Anti-Depressant Use by Children is scheduled for September 23.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/action.htm
**Medical Journals Encourage Companies to Register their Studies
In a major policy shift, leading medical journals say they will not publish research from drug companies' clinical trials unless the studies are part of a national registry accessible to the public at no charge. (See, “Twelve Medical Journal Editors Announce Policy to Open Access to Research.”)
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=25673
**New Treatment for Head Lice: Suffocation
Want a new way to kill head lice without neurotoxins? Try shrink wrapping them! A new lotion applied wet and then dried with a hair dryer kills head lice by encasing them and suffocating them, researchers report.
http://www.healthinschools.org/2004/sept09_alert.asp
**Getting Ready for School Begins at Birth
Because a baby’s brain is not fully formed at birth, early experiences and relationships with parents and caregivers can literally affect the brain’s development. In this online brochure, Zero to Three describes how parents can use everyday activities to lay the foundation for lifelong learning in four key areas: language and literacy, thinking skills, self-control, and self-confidence.
http://www.zerotothree.org/schoolreadiness/
**A Family’s Guide to the Child Welfare System
This Child Welfare League resource answers many of the questions families face when they become involved with the child welfare system.
http://www.cwla.org/childwelfare/familyguide.htm
**Información y Recursos en Español
The Education Trust offers information and resources for parents in Spanish.
http://www2.edtrust.org/EdTrust/spanish.htm
____________________________________________________
FINDING FUNDING FOR NONPROFITS
**Developing Quality Grant Proposals
Considering applying for a federal grant? This PowerPoint document makes a useful first step. In easy-to-read language, it outlines the basics of a quality proposal.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/quality_proposal.pdf
**Justice Grants
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has a funding site and a list of state contacts for funding opportunities http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/statecontacts/resourcelist.asp
http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/funding/funding.html
**TalkTime Live! Finding Funding for Nonprofits
Connect for Kids hosted an online chat, “Finding Funding for Nonprofits” earlier this year that provides lots of useful information for kid-focused money seekers.
http://www.connectforkids.org/usr_doc/OnlineChat_FindingFundingForNonprofits.html
PRE-SCHOOL AND HIGHER ED: KEYS TO PROGRESS
**Pre-school for California’s Children: Promising Benefits, Unequal Access
The achievement gap begins early -- with young children from low-income families much less proficient in basic cognitive and school-readiness skills than their upper middle-class peers. Pre-school can help, according to research from Berkeley. Children who attend center-based programs for 15 to 23 hours per week before the age 4 show higher cognitive and school-readiness gains. (Another finding: low-income Latino and Asian American children are significantly less likely to attend center-based care.) Young children who spend longer hours a week in center-based care show slightly higher levels of aggression and immature social behavior, findings similar to those reported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
http://pace.berkeley.edu/PACE%20LMRI%20Brief%209_1_04.pdf
**Pre-kindergarten Expansion in Four Selected States
Since 1980, the number of states with preschool programs --- most targeting children at risk of school failure -- has grown dramatically The Government Accountability Office reports on expanded pre-kindergarten programs in Georgia, Oklahoma, New York, and New Jersey. All programs were offered at no direct cost to parents, regardless of family income, and each state collaborated with community-based providers like Head Start and large child care facilities. States differed in funding per child, funding methods, full or part-day programs, teacher qualifications, and the balance between statewide access and geographic targeting.
http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d04852high.pdf
**The College Track: America’s Sorting Machine
What would happen if high schools assumed all students could be college-bound, and treated them that way? A PBS documentary series airing this month looks at schools taking this approach. It’s about time, says Jeannie Oakes, Director of UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education & Access. In an Atlanta Journal Constitution op-ed, Oakes says we’ve proven ourselves pretty lousy at predicting who can and can’t achieve. Instead of functioning as sorting machines funneling resources to students deemed college-bound, high schools should start preparing all students for post-secondary success.
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0904/07oakes.html
**Ending “Culture of Detachment” in Schools
Research shows that 40 to 60 percent of all U.S. students are chronically disengaged from school -- and these figures don’t include those who’ve already dropped out. Research indicates that feeling connected, especially to caring adults, coupled with high academic standards and consistent policies can help keep teens on track and out of danger. In the September issue of the Journal of School Health, leaders in education and public health policy call for schools to strengthen connections to students.
http://www.jhsph.edu/wingspread
**Prevalence and Characteristics of Children with Special Health Care Needs
According to research reported in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, one in five families reported their child's special health care needs caused financial problems, and almost 30 percent reported cutting back or quitting work because of their child's condition, especially among low-income and uninsured children. In 2001, an estimated 12.8 percent of American kids experienced a special health care need, with prevalence highest among boys, school-age children, and children in lower-income families,
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/158/9/884
**The State of Health Care Spending on Children
The United States government spends eight times more money on health care for the elderly than for children, yet proposals are on the table to end coverage for children as an entitlement under Medicaid. Rather than pit the generations against one another, children’s advocates are working to match the success of advocates for the elderly in increasing coverage rates. Read about it in the September/October issue of Health Affairs, which will be posted on September 14.
http://www.healthaffairs.org/
**School-Based Mental Health Services
School-based mental health services vary -- many include prevention activities for healthy school environments, selective interventions with students whose circumstances place them at higher risk for emotional or behavioral health problems, and diagnosis and treatment of individual students with specific health needs. Learn more from the newly updated Center for Health and Health Care in Schools website.
http://www.healthinschools.org/sbhcs/biblio_mental.asp
**State-by-State News
Arkansas
According to the nation’s first statewide, school-by-school body mass index (BMI) analysis, 38 percent of Arkansan students are either overweight or at risk of being overweight. Governor Huckabee says he will place public health advisors to help schools improve nutrition and physical activity policies.
http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2004/09/08/News/284649.html
Hawaii
Governor Lingle has signed into law legislation (SB 17) providing junior kindergarten for children who turn 5 after August 1 and are too young to begin regular kindergarten. The law enables children to go from junior kindergarten into regular kindergarten or directly to 1st grade, depending on their progress.
http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/sessioncurrent/bills/sb17_cd2_.htm
Illinois
Illinois Voices for Children’s 2003 Annual Report reviews recent victories for Illinois children and their families and lists the ways that Voices was able to increase awareness of advocates across the state.
http://www.voices4kids.org/annual_rep_frame.htm
Kansas
Advocates are pushing for state-funded preschools as Kansas trails the country in support for early education.
http://ljworld.com/section/stateregional/story/180672
Texas
Before last year’s drastic cuts in the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Texas CHIP program was among the most successful in the nation, with more than 500,000 children enrolled. But the Houston Chronicle reports the results of the budget cuts are drastic: CHIP enrollment has dropped by more than 147,000 Texas children in the last year, and all children still enrolled have lost dental, vision and hospice benefits. Over two years, these cuts will cost Texas $500 million in federal matching funds that will be redirected to other states. (See, “Life after CHIP: Listen to Those who Lost Health
Care.”)
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/2783240
West Virginia
After the 1996 passage of welfare reform, many parents on the rolls were forced out of college and into jobs – often low-wage work. West Virginia passed a bill requiring that the state count college toward work activity requirements. But confusion persists, and many parents may not know they can stay in school, build employment skills, and still qualify for welfare. (See, “Welfare to College -- It Works,” free registration required.)
http://www.wvgazette.com/section/Columns/2004090318
Keep in touch, everyone!
Jan
Jan Richter, Advocacy Director, and the Connect for Kids team
jan@connectforkids.org
connect
|
|
|
|
|
|