CFK Weekly - January 24, 2005
Connect for Kids.org: Better Policies for Kids
January 24, 2005
Table of Contents. Click on heading to jump to that section.
NEW ON CONNECTFORKIDS.ORG
**Social Security Reform: Remember the Kids
**Notice Anything New About the Weekly?
**Getting to Know You: Bush II
KIDS & POLITICS
**A Look at Proposed Education Secretary Margaret Spellings
**TANF Spending in 2003 by Mark Greenberg and Hedieh Rahmanou
**HHS Redistributes $643 Million in Unspent Federal SCHIP Funds
**State Lawmakers Ask Congress Not to Cut Food Stamps, Medicaid
A DECADE OF STRIKING CHANGE FOR AMERICAN INDIANS
**American Indians on Reservations: A Data Book
FAMILIES IN THE OWNERSHIP SOCIETY
**State of the Dream 2005: Disowned in the Ownership Society
**Report on Youth Employment Rates
**Fair Leave Practices for Working Parents
TV GUIDE: KIDS AND THE MEDIA IN ‘05
**The Revised FCC Children’s Television Rules
**Children Now says FCC Chairperson Should Make Protection of Children a Top
Priority
EDUCATION – ENCOURAGING ACHIEVEMENT
**Education Department's Public Relations Activities Scrutinized
**Ed Terms Defined
**Meaning of 'Proficient' Varies for Schools Across Country
**Spreading the "Gospel of Achievement"
**More than Just a Pretty Picture: Art and Education
**Women Senators Urge President to Increase Federal Afterschool Funding
HOW EFFECTIVE ARE CHARTER SCHOOLS?
**Feds Say More Data Needed to Assess Charter Schools
**Assessing Charter Schools
**Lessons in Limits
TRAINING TEACHERS
**Training Teachers to Boost Ed Tech Effectiveness
**Keeping Veteran Teachers Up-to-Date
MONEY MATTERS FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS
**No Small Change: Targeting Money to Student Performance
**Online Chat Transcript: The State of School Financing
WHAT WORKS, WHAT’S HAPPENING IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS
**ECS Databases Online
FOCUS ON HIGHER ED
**Web Tool Lets Users Scrutinize University Graduation Rates
**Universities Team Up with Urban Districts to Run Local Schools
HEALTH NEWS
**Parental Notification and Teen Sexual Health Service Use
**HHS Shifts Oversight of Sexual-Abstinence Grants
**Weighing Choices
CHILDREN’S MENTAL HEALTH
**Improving Care of Adolescents with Depression
**Youth Radio: Me and My Depression
**Recognizing and Treating Bipolor Disorder in Preschool
FOCUS ON THE STATES
**State Spending Strategies: New Data on Colorado’s TABOR
**State of the States
**Billion-dollar Deficits Greet Several States
**State-by-State News
**Social Security Reform: Remember the Kids
Millions of children rely on Social Security payments. What might reform of
the system mean for them? Robert Capriccioso reports.
http://www.connectforkids.org/resources3139/resources_show.htm?doc_id=257208
**Notice Anything New About the Weekly?
The Connect for Kids Weekly has been landing in your Inboxes for almost eight
years now, thanks to the tireless efforts of Jan Richter, our Advocacy Director.
This month, Caitlin Johnson takes over as editor of the Weekly so Jan can
devote herself to advocacy projects. Caitlin's fine writing and eye for a
story have been demonstrated in the many feature articles she's written for
us. Now they'll be reflected in the Weekly as well.
http://www.connectforkids.org/newsletter-url1571/newsletter-url.htm
**Getting to Know You: Bush II
President George W. Bush's second Inauguration last week marked the official
start of another four years of Republican control of the White House and
Congress. Connect for Kids Advocacy Director Jan Richter profiles some of
the new faces that will matter when it comes to shaping children's policies.
http://www.connectforkids.org/resources3139/resources_show.htm?doc_id=257209
**A Look at Proposed Education Secretary Margaret Spellings
Margaret Spellings, President Bush's nominee for secretary of education, has
won strong votes of confidence from both sides of the political aisle, as
well as from national education groups. Still, at least some educators have
questions -- and potential misgivings -- about her background.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/01/19/19spellings.h24.html
**TANF Spending in 2003 by Mark Greenberg and Hedieh Rahmanou
In its analysis of newly released 2003 data on federal and state funding for
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Center for Law and Social
Policy reports that for the third straight year states are spending more
than their annual federal block grant. Funding for child care and job training
were essentially flat. Large categories that are hard to track most likely
include spending on benefits and services related to child welfare and juvenile
justice. The report also provides state-by-state comparisons of TANF spending
and definitions of terms.
http://www.clasp.org/publications/fy2003_tanf_spending.pdf
**HHS Redistributes $643 Million in Unspent Federal SCHIP Funds
After a drawn-out debate, the US Department of Health and Human Resources will
redistribute $643 million in unspent State Children's Health Insurance Program
(SCHIP) funds, helping 28 states avoid funding shortfalls in 2005.
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2005pres/20050119a.html
More information about the SCHIP program can be found on the HHS SCHIP site.
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/schip
**State Lawmakers Ask Congress Not to Cut Food Stamps, Medicaid
The bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) has issued
an open letter to the U.S. Senate and House Budget Committee urging Congress
to continue the federal government’s commitment for Food Stamp and
other social programs and avoid shifting the consequences of the federal
deficit to the states through unfunded mandates and other cost shifts.
http://www.ncsl.org/programs/press/2005/pr050113.htm
A DECADE OF STRIKING CHANGE FOR AMERICAN INDIANS
**American Indians on Reservations: A Data Book
Identified for decades as the poorest group in the United States, American
Indians living on reservations have experienced a decade of “striking” economic
and social change since the 1990s, according to the Harvard Project on American
Indian Economic Development. Census data on 15 key socioeconomic indicators
-- including income and poverty, unemployment, education, and housing conditions
-- indicate that, “despite substantial gaps between American Indians
and the rest of U.S. society, rapid economic and social development is taking
place among gaming and non-gaming tribes alike.”
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/hpaied/pubs/cabazon.htm
FAMILIES IN THE OWNERSHIP SOCIETY
**State of the Dream 2005: Disowned in the Ownership Society
When President Bush described his vision of an “ownership society” in
his inaugural address last week, many African Americans, Latinos and other
families of color may have been wondering which society, exactly, he was talking
about. These Americans have been losing ground in recent years, after steady
economic gains in the 1990s, according to United for a Fair Economy's new report.
The report argues that America needs progressive taxes and a national wealth-building
initiative on the scale of the post-WWII GI Bill, but wider in its reach to
all races.
http://www.faireconomy.org/press/2005/StateoftheDream2005pr.html
**Report on Youth Employment Rates
A Congressional Budget Office analysis of youth labor market trends won’t
be news to any teen who’s tried to find a summer job in the past couple
of years. In the labor market downturn between 2000 and 2003, young males have
had a harder time getting a job than females, and pressure from low-wage adults
is squeezing teens out of workforce. The report examines factors that may account
for the trends, such as an increase in school enrollment rates, and presents
information on the percentage of youth who are neither enrolled in school nor
employed.
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=6017&sequence=0
**Fair Leave Practices for Working Parents
The Center for Law and Social Policy has published two briefs—one on
paid parental leave and the other on paid sick days—in its new series
focusing on the work-life balance. The reports catalogue lessons learned from
policies in place in New Zealand. Despite drastic differences in labor force
size, the United States and New Zealand face many of the same labor-force challenges,
including growing numbers of working mothers and an aging workforce with fewer
workers to support an increasing number of older citizens. Among the recommendations:
making businesses aware that parental leave is a relatively rare occurrence,
increasing public-private partnerships to encourage business participation
in parental leave policy debates, and general-revenue financing of parental
leave.
http://www.clasp.org/publications/janfeb05_update.pdf
TV GUIDE: KIDS AND THE MEDIA IN ‘05
**The Revised FCC Children’s Television Rules
In exchange for use of the public airwaves, the Children's Television Act of
1990 required that each television licensee offer programming to serve the "educational
and informational needs" of children. In the years since, the FCC has
clarified and added rules. The November 2004 revisions include changes to
the “three-hour rule” that requires stations to air three hours
of specifically designed educational and informational programming for kids
each week. The legal department of the National Association of Broadcasters
offers a summary of the FCC's newly adopted children's television rules.
http://www.nab.org/membersonly/nabsays/legal/kid-vid2004.htm
**Children Now says FCC Chairperson Should Make Protection of Children a Top
Priority
In the wake of Michael Powell’s resignation, Children Now of California
is calling on President Bush to appoint a new Federal Communications Committee
(FCC) chairperson who will make protecting children's interests a top priority.
Among the issues the new chair will face are determining whether digital broadcasters
will be allowed to target children with interactive advertisements and collect
personal information for marketing purposes.
http://www.childrennow.org/newsroom/news-05/pr-01-21-05.cfm
Children Now’s media section outlines the issues and explains what’s
at stake in protecting children’s interests.
http://www.childrennow.org/media/index.html
EDUCATION – ENCOURAGING ACHIEVEMENT
**Education Department's Public Relations Activities Scrutinized
Education Week reports that recent revelations about the U.S. Department of
Education's efforts to sway the public in favor of the No Child Left Behind
Act could have negative repercussions for the agency and the Act.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/01/19/19promote.h24.html
**Ed Terms Defined
Uncertain exactly what “zero tolerance” entails? Or how “authentic
learning” happens? The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development's
Web site features a lexicon that provides definitions of educational terms
in everyday language.
http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd/menuitem.4247f922ca8c9ecc8c2a9410d3108a0c/
**Meaning of 'Proficient' Varies for Schools Across Country
What do tests show if the same student can do well on state tests and poorly
on national tests? Judged solely by recent statewide tests, fourth graders
in Mississippi and Colorado would appear to be the best young readers in
the nation. In both states, 87% of 4th graders passed their exams. But on
the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only 18% of Mississippi's
4th graders achieved proficiency. Colorado's proficiency rate fell to 37%
on the national test. The No Child Left Behind Act requires that all students
reach proficiency on state reading and math tests by 2014, but the definition
and measure of proficient varies widely from state to state.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/19/education/19scores.html
**Spreading the "Gospel of Achievement"
If the culture of achievement is to take hold and endure, families, children
and organizations must embrace it fully, writes Hugh Price. Youngsters will
respond affirmatively to the message that "achievement matters," if
it is conveyed with imagination and persistence.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/01/19/19price.h24.html
**More than Just a Pretty Picture: Art and Education
School funding cuts often hit arts particularly hard -- but a new book warns
that arts are not just a luxury to jettison when times get tough. Putting
the Arts in the Picture finds that integrating arts into mainstream curriculum
has quantifiable cognitive and academic benefits. A study of 23 arts-integrated
schools in Chicago showed test scores rising up to two times faster there
than in demographically comparable schools.
http://artspolicy.colum.edu/
**Women Senators Urge President to Increase Federal Afterschool Funding
Women in the Senate aren’t waiting to see the President’s budget
plans to begin protecting funding for after-school programs. The Afterschool
Alliance reports that all 14 female senators sent a letter to President Bush
urging him to increase funding for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers
(21st CCLC) afterschool initiative in his budget proposal. The 21st CCLC initiative
is the principal federal funding mechanism for afterschool programs. It has
been flat-funded for four years, despite increases authorized by the No Child
Left Behind Act.
http://www.afterschoolalliance.org/policy_news.cfm
HOW EFFECTIVE ARE CHARTER SCHOOLS?
**Feds Say More Data Needed to Assess Charter Schools
The General Accountability Offices says more data is needed at the charter-school
level to enhance federal monitoring and research on the effectiveness of
charter schools.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-5
The Department of Education’s final report on the Evaluation of the
Public Charter Schools Program, issued in November 2004, is also available.
http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/choice/pcsp-final/execsum.html
**Assessing Charter Schools
How do charter schools fare compared to conventional public schools -- do children
learn more? Education Week says the question’s a good one, but the
answer remains elusive.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/01/12/18hill.h24.html
**Lessons in Limits
Amy Stuart Wells, professor at Teachers College of Columbia University, cautions
against interpreting the recent reports on charter schools as an indictment
of individual charter schools. Instead, the findings highlight the hazards
of building an educational reform movement on top of untested rhetoric about
market forces and public schools.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32611-2004Dec28.html
**Training Teachers to Boost Ed Tech Effectiveness
Virtually all U.S. schools are connected to the Internet, with about one computer
for every five students, according to the Department of Education. At least
15 states provide some form of individualized online instruction. But too
many teachers still lack the skills needed to make the most of new technologies.
The Department’s recently released National Education Technology Plan
describes the state of ed tech and recommends improvements -- including tapping
students’ own technological abilities in classrooms.
http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2005/01/01072005.html
**Keeping Veteran Teachers Up-to-Date
States may be setting high standards for newly certified teachers, but they're
doing a poor job of requiring veteran teachers to get the training necessary
to meet the "highly qualified" provisions of the No Child Left
Behind Act, according to a new assessment of states' progress by the National
Council on Teacher Quality.
http://www.edweek.org/agentk-12/articles/2005/01/05/16teach.h24.html
**No Small Change: Targeting Money to Student Performance
An Education Week study examining efforts to link funding to educational outcomes
found that 31 states are considering major changes in the way they pay for
education or allot money to school districts.
http://www.edweek.org/qc05
For a summary, see, “The Bottom Line.”
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/01/06/17adequacy.h24.html
**Online Chat Transcript: The State of School Financing
Even if you missed the conversation, you can view the entire transcript of
Education Week’s Jan. 12, 2005, chat on school finance.
http://www.edweek.org/chat/transcript_01-12-2005.html
WHAT WORKS, WHAT’S HAPPENING IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS
**ECS Databases Online
The Education Commission of the States (ECS) has updated several comprehensive
databases with information on approaches to school improvement, state policy
developments, and attendance and graduation rates. (See the links below,
or the left column of the ECS Web site.
http://www.ecs.org
A new ECS booklet provides a snapshot of five different approaches to school
improvement developed by the National Forum on Accountability. The five accountability
models are based on principles that support teaching and learning at all levels
of the education system -- state, district, school and classroom.
http://www.ecs.org/00CN2325
See a summary of state policy developments that ECS has tracked over the past
month or the current calendar year:
http://www.ecs.org/ecs/ecscat.nsf/Web2003All?OpenView&Count=-1%0d%0a
The No Child Left Behind Act requires states to establish goals for and track
year-to-year improvements in attendance and graduation rates, but measurements
and accountability measures vary widely. This new ECS StateNote allows you
to review and compare variations in states’ targets, and in the way they
calculate attendance and graduation rates.
http://www.ecs.org/00CN2324
FOCUS ON HIGHER ED
**Web Tool Lets Users Scrutinize University Graduation Rates
Boosting college enrollments among low-income students is an important goal;
making sure those who enroll make it to graduation is getting more attention
among policymakers. Many advocates have proposed tying government funding
for colleges to graduation rates. The new e-tool College Results Online,
created by the Education Trust, allows users to compare graduation rates – overall,
and by race, ethnicity and gender -- among similar public and private universities.
http://www.collegeresults.org
**Universities Team Up with Urban Districts to Run Local Schools
For most universities, running a public school is as foreign an enterprise
as operating a gas station. But in a growing number of cities, universities
are venturing out of their ivory towers and into the messy real world of
public schools.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/01/19/19university.h24.html
**Parental Notification and Teen Sexual Health Service Use
Most adolescent girls (60 percent) seeking family planning services say that
their parents are aware of their use of services, according to a new study
in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medial Association. Still,
the study found that laws requiring teens to notify mom or dad are likely to
increase risky or unsafe sexual behavior, leading to more teen pregnancies
or sexually transmitted diseases.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/
**HHS Shifts Oversight of Sexual-Abstinence Grants
Education Week reports that two federal education grant programs promoting
sexual abstinence have been shifted to an agency now led by a strong supporter
of abstinence education.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/01/19/19abstain.h24.html
**Weighing Choices
A new private school aims to help overweight boys and girls make better decisions
about how much to eat and how often to exercise.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/01/19/19obesity.h24.html
**Promising Program for Children with Asthma
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that a community-based
New York City program for children with asthma is showing promising results.
Through improved surveillance, personalized health-care, help with improving
housing conditions and health-care service delivery for children with asthma,
the Harlem Children's Zone Asthma Initiative has led to a drop in school
absences, dramatically fewer emergency visits for treatment of asthma and
reduced overnight hospital stays.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5401a5.htm
**Improving Care of Adolescents with Depression
One out of every five teenagers experiences depression by age 18, and 6 percent
of all teens face major depression. Primary care physicians typically see
teens more than other doctors, but even when they suspect depression, they
often lack the diagnostic tools to confirm it. A new randomized trial found
that using “care managers” – therapists and nurses trained
in teen depression – to work with doctors and families to facilitate
diagnosis and to select appropriate treatment led to statistically significant
improvements. After six months, teens in the study reported fewer depressive
symptoms and an improved quality of life, and had greater access to mental
health care than usual care patients.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/293/3/311
**Youth Radio: Me and My Depression
Youth Radio reporter Belia Mayeno reflects on her experience as a teenager
living with bouts of severe manic depression – and keeping it secret
from those she loved most.
http://www.youthradio.org/health/npr050119_mind.shtml
**Recognizing and Treating Bipolor Disorder in Preschool
Bipolar disorder -- one of the fastest growing diagnoses among American children
-- typically responds well to appropriate interventions. But few public schools
are properly equipped to identify and support students with the disorder,
and to do so without labeling or isolating students. In a recent news report,
National Public Radio examined the issue and asked, who’s advocating
for kids? (Listen live online, or order transcripts).
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4457271
**State Spending Strategies: New Data on Colorado’s TABOR
Twelve years ago, Colorado amended its constitution to impose a strict formula-based
limit on state spending (called TABOR). Other states are considering adopting
similar constitutional limits on spending based on population growth and
changes in consumer prices. Children’s advocates warn that these formulas
could sharply reduce public services and hinder state and local governments'
ability to respond to changing circumstances. The data may support this concern:
two new analyses show that Colorado's economy and public services are faring
poorly under TABOR.
http://www.cbpp.org/
**State of the States
The Kaiser Daily Health Policy report has a round up of the governors' state-of-the-state
speeches.
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=27673
**Billion-dollar Deficits Greet Several States
Times are better for states than the past four years. State revenues are up
-- but states are far from in the black. In fact, legislators in nearly a
dozen states face billion-dollar deficits as they write their upcoming budgets.
California sports the most red ink, with an estimated $9 billion budget shortfall,
followed by New York and New Jersey with a looming deficit of $4 billion
each. Stateline reports.
http://www.stateline.org/stateline/?pa=story&sa=showStoryInfo&id=425063
**State-by-State News
Alabama
Alabama Family Resource Simulator is now available. Designed for advocates
and policymakers, the simulator illustrates how policies to assist low-income
parents create incentives or, inadvertently, disincentives to work. Users can
track the point at which increased earnings fail to provide a family with additional
resources
because they lose eligibility for assistance.
http://nccp.org/sps/go.cgi?c=FAQJbZE6VdnxzZDuEBEz
Arizona
Arizona education officials have approved free tutoring for 868 high school
juniors in 11 districts and charter schools (paid for by a new $10 million
fund dedicated to helping members of the Class of 2006 pass the Arizona's
Instrument to Measure Standards, or AIMS, test). The class is the first in
Arizona who must pass the reading, writing and math test to get a diploma.
After two attempts, 37,000 juniors, or 57%, have not yet passed AIMS. The
next opportunity to pass the high school AIMS is in February.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0121aimstutor21.html
Colorado
The state's top political leaders are unveiling a new program that some expect
will send many more Colorado high school students to college. “College
in Colorado” is a $15 million public-private partnership aimed at marketing
available resources to help students go to college. The money will pay to promote
new and existing scholarships and grants for low-income students, and fund
a grassroots and media campaign.
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0%2C1413%2C36~53~2659078%2C00.html
Florida
Children's Trust invites organizations to submit a proposal for community-based
services
for youth in transition to adulthood.
http://www.thechildrenstrust.org/RFPDetailsDownloads.asp
Indiana
A high school diploma could be out of reach for more Indiana students this
year after education leaders recommended tougher passing scores on the state's
mandatory graduation test. About 50,000 sophomores took the tests in math
and English in September; based on the new standards, about one-third of
them would fail. That likely means fewer students will graduate and more
schools will fail to meet No Child Left Behind benchmarks for improvement.
The Indianapolis Star-Tribune reports.
http://www.indystar.com/articles/7/210628-3337-009.html
Massachusetts
Students whose first language is not English in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire
will soon take a new standardized test to measure whether their understanding
of English is improving. The new test has five levels, and a student must
eventually pass all five to be considered proficient. http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2005/01/19/schools_to_test_students_who_have_english_as_second_language/?rss_id=Boston.com+/+News
Oregon
The Oregon uninsured rate has surpassed the national rate for the first time
in ten years.
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=27717
Texas
The Bush administration has invested heavily in abstinence-only sex education
and it is officially supported in Texas schools, but new research may bolster
critics who say those programs are not effective in delaying teens' sexual
activity and reducing unintended pregnancies. During a news briefing presented
by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, researchers and a public policy expert
said research shows that comprehensive sexuality education — abstinence-plus
instead of abstinence-only — is best.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA012105.5B.teen_sex.2a983445.html
A Texas lawmaker has proposed requiring schools to record students' body
mass index on the report cards they send home. The plan is modeled after
similar
legislation that took effect last year in Arkansas. That state gives parents
their child's BMI in a separate health report, not in their report card.
More than a third of school-age children in Texas are overweight or obese.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3000604
Virginia
The Virginia Board of Education voted to request exemptions from parts of
No Child Left Behind to give the state more flexibility in improving student
performance.
Republicans in the General Assembly have introduced bills that would direct
the board to request such exemptions -- including asking for greater flexibility
in the testing of special education students and children with limited English
skills. They would also like to be released from the law's requirement that
only a student's first attempt at a test be counted when assessing a school's
annual progress. The Washington Post has the story.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22279-2005Jan19.html
Thanks for reading!
Caitlin
Caitlin Johnson, Contributing Writer and the Connect for Kids team
weekly@connectforkids.org
