News

Poverty Gap Widens as Racial Gap Closes

article by Jillian Blacksmith-Reed | February 15, 2012

New research out of Stanford University shows that while efforts to close the achievement gap between white students and minority students has been slowly working, the achievement gap between wealthier and poorer students is widening. According to the study the gap between rich students and poor students is now twice as large as the gap between black and white students.

"We have moved from a society in the 1950s and 1960s, in which race was more consequential than family income, to one today in which family income appears more determinative of educational success than race," Sean F. Reardon, a sociologist and Stanford University professor who authored the research said to The New York Times.

In the study, the researchers examined standardized test scores from 12 data sets from 1960 to 2007. Reardon compared scores from those in the top 10th percentile of income to those in the bottom 10th percentile. By 2007, the gap had grown by 40 percent.

Reardon explained that there are often many factors that contribute to this, some of which are the fact that the rich and the poor have also become increasingly more segregated and social programs have been increasingly cut over the past few decades.

The President's Budget: Continuing the Slow Climb Upward
Deborah Weinstein, Executive Director, Coalition on Human Needs

Posted: 02/14/2012 2:32 pm

The president's budget proposal for FY 2013 recognizes some basic truths: we cannot speed up economic recovery without investments that create jobs and increase workers' readiness to do those jobs. And we must protect people from destitution when they are not able to work, both to reduce hardship and to prevent the economic damage that comes when millions of people are unable to pay for housing, food, and all the other things they need.

The budget sets up pivotal choices. The Obama administration calls for investments aimed at helping those with low or moderate incomes, paid for in large part by asking more of upper-income people, who are now being taxed at historically low levels. His opponents would preserve or increase tax breaks for people and corporations at the top, and would cut spending on services that help others lower down. Each claims that its approach will spur economic growth. Which approach is right?

We do have the evidence of 2000-2008 -- the years of the Bush II presidency. There were massive tax cuts that overwhelmingly favored upper income people. There was economic growth until the crash of 2008. But the rate of growth was the slowest since World War II. And it was not shared. In fact, median real wages declined from 1998 - 2007. In the 1990s, when top tax rates were higher and government policies were designed to expand opportunities, economic growth was five times the rate of the Bush years.

President Obama will free 10 states from the strict and sweeping requirements of the No Child Left Behind laws on education standards.

By BEN FELLER, KIMBERLY HEFLING

updated 2/9/2012 7:02:09 AM ET

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Thursday will free 10 states from the strict and sweeping requirements of the No Child Left Behind law, giving leeway to states that promise to improve how they prepare and evaluate students, The Associated Press has learned.

The first 10 states to receive the waivers are Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee. NBC News confirmed the report.

The only state that applied for the flexibility and did not get it, New Mexico, is working with the administration to get approval, a White House official told the AP.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the states had not yet been announced.

A total of 28 other states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have signaled that they, too, plan to seek waivers — a sign of just how vast the law's burdens have become as a big deadline nears.

 Alarmingly High Rates of Child Abuse in U.S. from Poverty?
By Kathleen Blanchard RN on February 7, 2012 - 10:32am for eMaxHealth

Child Health and Safety Current News

This Yale School of Medicine researchers report alarming rates of child abuse in the United States. According to the new study, the numbers are higher than the rate of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). For Medicaid covered children, the rates were 6 times higher than children not on Medicaid.

The investigation, led by John M. Leventhal, M.D., professor of pediatrics and medical director of the Child Abuse and Child Abuse Prevention Programs at Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital tracked hospital admissions from the 2006 Kids' Inpatient Database (KID) to find the severity of the problem in the U.S.

Thousands of U.S. Kids Hospitalized for Abuse
Infants, poor children most vulnerable, study suggests

By Denise MannHealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Feb. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Close to 4,600 kids in the United States were hospitalized as a result of child abuse in one recent year, and 300 of them died, a new study shows.

Researchers from Yale University analyzed information from the 2006 Kids' Inpatient Database to determine the rate of hospitalizations due to serious physical abuse among children under the age of 18.

Infants aged 1 year or younger were at highest risk for child abuse-related hospitalization. The rate of hospitalization for 1-year-olds was about 58 per 100,000 children, a rate that is higher than that of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

The hospitalization numbers are likely just "the tip of the iceberg," because many abused children don't end up in hospitals, said Karel Amaranth, executive director of the Butler Child Advocacy Center at The Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York City.

The second annual Building a Grad Nation Summit will take place March 18-21, 2012 in Washington, D.C. The event is co-hosted by America's Promise Alliance, the Alliance for Excellent Education, Civic Enterprises, and the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University to inspire a national movement to reach our goal of a 90 percent national graduation rate by 2020.

 Find out more.

The 2012 Annual Conference of the Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs (AMCHP) will take place February 11-14, 2012, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. The conference theme is Improving Maternal and Child Health Across the Life Span: Acting Today for Healthy Tomorrows. Visit the conference page to learn more.

February 26 - 29, 2012  Washington, DC

Join us in Washington, DC for our national conference, Making Children a Priority: Leading Change, to learn the latest innovations in child welfare, share best practices, and network with your peer.

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Georgetown University Report Finds Children's Health Law Has Worked Well

Washington, DC (PRWEB) February 02, 2012

Georgetown University Health Policy Institute's Center for Children and Families released a progress report on the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA), which was signed into law three years ago. Since its enactment, the law has helped drive the number of uninsured children down by one million.

The new law, which was enacted on February 4, 2009, affirmed state flexibility to expand eligibility for health care coverage, introduced new opportunities to reduce paperwork and improve connections to coverage for kids, created incentives for states to streamline application and renewal procedures, and launched initiatives to assess and assure the quality of health care for children. Every state has benefited from one or more of opportunities created by the law to advance coverage for children, with some going much further than others.

Education: States Should Do More To Reach Students

POSTED: 7:48 am CST February 1, 2012

MIAMI (AP) -- In its initial review of No Child Left Behind waiver requests, the U.S. Education Department highlighted a similar weakness in nearly every application: States did not do enough to ensure schools would be held accountable for the performance of all students.

The Obama administration praised the states for their high academic standards. But nearly every application was criticized for being loose about setting high goals and, when necessary, interventions for all student groups - including minorities, the disabled and low-income - or for failing to create sufficient incentives to close the achievement gap.

Under No Child Left Behind, schools where even one group of students falls behind are considered out of compliance and subject to interventions. The law has been championed for helping shed light on education inequalities, but most now agree it is due for change.