 |
|
2016 Strong Start for Children | January 2016
|
|
Actions taken the first month of 2016
will benefit children and youth across our nation. President Barack Obama’s
recent Executive Actions will make our children and communities safer by promoting gun
violence prevention and banning solitary confinement for juveniles in federal
prisons. The U.S. Supreme Court decision just this week gave the hope of parole
to all who have been sentenced to mandatory life in prison for crimes committed as juveniles.
The Children’s Defense Fund is also grateful to
the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and Acting U.S. Secretary of
Education for issuing new guidelines and a toolkit making the strong connection
between healthy children and student success. We were proud to see our
important school outreach and enrollment work highlighted as a best practice in
the toolkit. Here is the Month-in-Review.
President Barack Obama's New Executive Actions on Gun Safety
“Every single year, more
than 30,000 Americans have their lives cut short by guns—30,000. Suicides.
Domestic violence. Gang shootouts. Accidents. Hundreds of thousands of
Americans have lost brothers and sisters, or buried their own children.” –
President Barack Obama
Early this month CDF
applauded President Obama’s announcement of new executive actions to reduce gun violence. These executive
actions were designed to keep guns out of the wrong hands by clarifying the background check requirement; expanding enforcement of existing gun laws to make our
communities safer; increasing mental health treatment and reporting to the
background check system; and shaping
the future of gun safety technology. By clarifying that a person does not need
to sell guns in a traditional storefront to be “engaged in the business” of
selling guns and requiring they be licensed and conduct background checks, the
executive action would reach more of those who are selling guns online or at
gun shows.
Read Marian Wright
Edelman’s Child Watch® column, Guns Lethalize Anger and Despair, on how we must protect children, not guns.
|
|
Promoting State Accountability so Every Student Succeeds
The U.S. Department of Education
acted immediately after passage of the new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to
solicit comments on what it should include in regulations and guidance for
Title I of the new law. CDF emphasized the need for the Department to encourage
states to promote both student outcomes and improved school climate, consistent
with their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Resource equity and
engagement of parents, students and community leaders in promoting student accountability
must also be emphasized. CDF urged immediate action to clarify for state and
local education agencies their new obligations to implement protections for
students in foster care. Read CDF Policy Director MaryLee Allen’s
comments on important steps in each of
these areas. CDF worked with other national and state organizations to submit more
detailed recommendations for regulations and guidelines on key civil rights
protections, and implementation of the new protections for students in foster
care and for those in or exiting from the juvenile justice system. For more
information on the Every Student Succeeds Act, read Marian Wright Edelman’s
Child Watch® Column The Education Inequality Struggle.
|
|
|
Hungry Children in Rich America
Today, Children’s Defense Fund-Ohio released a new
report with an urgent call to action on Early Childhood Hunger. There is no
excuse for any child to go hungry in our country, and this brief, The Early Childhood Hunger Imperative
finds thousands of Ohio’s youngest children are being stunted by hunger every
day. Can you imagine your 6-year-old
digging through the trash at school to find food for his 3-year-old younger
sister? That is exactly what CDF-Ohio discovered and unfortunately there are
numerous children just like them. Please read and share this important new
report and demand that political leaders at all levels do something about
it. Here are a few of the key findings
from the brief. Food Insecurity in young children increases the odds of
negative health outcomes:
Once
they reach kindergarten they are more likely to be behind in social skills and
reading performance. As Renuka Mayadev,
Executive Director of CDF-Ohio says, “While the school-age food supports of
free and reduced price breakfast and lunch are critically important, waiting
until hungry children are in school is too late.” Act now.
|
|
New Guidelines: Connecting Child Health to Academic Success
On
January 15 Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Sylvia
Burwell and Acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education John King
issued a joint
guidance letter and a toolkit of
promising practices to spur action in school districts and health care systems
across the country. The Secretaries urged state and local health and education
entities to collaborate around five action items:
-
Helping
eligible students and family members enroll in health insurance;
-
Providing
and expanding Medicaid reimbursable health services in schools, including
immunizations, health screenings and others;
-
Providing
or expanding services that support at-risk students, including through
Medicaid-funded case management;
-
Promoting
healthy school practices through nutrition, physical activity, and health
education; and
-
Building
local partnerships and participating in hospital community needs
assessments.
The decade-long collaboration between the Children’s
Defense Fund — and AASA (The School Superintendents Association) on a school-based child health outreach and
enrollment model is now in the spotlight as a best practice to
increase enrollment in health coverage for students and their families. Learn more about CDF’s work to expand child health coverage in Marian Wright
Edelman’s Child Watch® Column, Keeping Children in School, Healthy and
Learning.
|
|
|
A Winning Partnership for Children's Health
CDF
and AASA have partnered with school districts first in Texas, then California,
Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi serving elementary through high schools and
hundreds of thousands of Black, Latino, Asian and White students. As a
result, many uninsured children have gotten health coverage. “In Texas we have
seen the tremendous difference for child outcomes when there is a strong
connection and support for children and families for access to health coverage
through school districts. Superintendents, teachers and parents see the
vital difference health care makes to keeping children in school and learning,”
said Patrick Bresette, Executive Director of Children’s Defense Fund-Texas who
participated in the joint Education and Health and Human Services announcement. Read the statement
from CDF on these new guidelines.
|
|
Improving Academic Success for California's Children
A California
law passed last fall requires schools to inform parents about health coverage
and contributes added support for our school-based outreach and enrollment
activities. The Mountain View School District in El Monte, like all CDF and
AASA partner school districts, has added a question about children’s health
coverage to the enrollment forms and taken additional steps. If families
indicate their child is uninsured, the district follows up. Now more than 1,200
uninsured students in the district have been referred to insurance enrollment
assistance. Students who have health insurance and dental insurance miss fewer
days of school and are more likely to finish high school, graduate from college
and earn more money than those who are uninsured, according to research cited in
the Education and Health and Human Services guidance letter, including this 2014 paper
from the National Bureau of Economic Research that tracked how children
enrolled in Medicaid fared over time.
|
|
|
Progress for Juvenile Justice Reforms
This Monday, January 25, the U.
S. Supreme Court gave new hope to offenders sentenced to mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole for
crimes committed as juveniles. In this new 6 – 3 decision written by Justice
Anthony Kennedy, the court requires its major 2012 decision to ban almost all
life without parole sentences for juveniles to be applied retroactively. This
means the possibility of parole for thousands who have been serving time behind
bars, sometimes for decades.
That same evening, President
Barack Obama announced new executive actions banning the use of solitary
confinement for juveniles in federal prisons and severely curtailing its use
for older prisoners. The announcement came in the President’s powerful OpEd in
the Washington Post.
Earlier in January, New York Governor Cuomo released
his 2016 budget and announced his legislative priorities for the year: Raising
the Age of Criminal Responsibility in New York State was in both. CDF-NY’s relentless
efforts with coalition partners to prevent children 16 and 17 from being
automatically charged as adults will not stop until the New York legislature passes
comprehensive Raise the Age legislation. New York needs to join the majority of states that treat children
as children, an action that has been proven to reduce recidivism and improve
public safety. Watch CDF-NY Acting
Executive Director Samantha Levine discuss the Governor’s 2016 budget and
legislative priorities.
|
|
Celebrate Five Amazing Beat the Odds® Scholars
CDF President Marian Wright
Edelman and CDF-NY invite you to celebrate five extraordinary high school
students in New York who have overcome tremendous obstacles, shown academic
excellence, community leadership and desire to go to college. On February 29th
at The Pierre in New York City we will celebrate the CDF-NY Beat the Odds® scholarship
and leadership development winners and honor Roger Ferguson, LaTanya Richardson
Jackson and Samuel L. Jackson for their commitment to CDF’s Leave No Child
Behind® mission. Honorary chairs include Malaak
Compton-Rock, Tonya Lewis Lee, Spike Lee, and Marva Smalls. Gala Co-chairs
include Paulina Porizkova and Ric Okasek. Learn more about this year’s
celebration here.
RSVP today for the 2016 CDF-NY Beat the Odds celebration. Unable to
attend? You can still support the CDF-NY Beat the Odds scholarship and leadership development program by giving as generously as you can.
|
|
Thank you for your continued support of the Children's Defense Fund's Leave No Child Behind® mission. Your generosity helps CDF staff continue our work to improve the lives of all children in America.
Please share our message and mission with your networks. Encourage your family, friends and neighbors to support our work or join our mailing list.
|
|
|
|
|
