|
Vote 4 Children Tomorrow | October 2016
|
Do Your Part: #ImpactTheVote
“This election is one more opportunity for
our nation to choose leaders who share our hope for our children’s futures and
model the behavior we want our young to learn. To do that we must do the work
and get out and vote — every time. Every vote is precious and a responsibility
of being a good citizen steward. Children cannot vote, but we can.” – Marian Wright Edelman,
President, Children’s Defense Fund
Don’t let anybody or anything stop you from voting
tomorrow. This election will determine
our children’s and nation’s future. The Children’s Defense Fund is working hard
to get out the vote. Last month CDF’s National Observance of Children’s
Sabbaths celebrations united thousands of faith communities across the country
to do their part to impact the vote and ensure children concerns and futures
are central to this election. CDF
President, Marian Wright Edelman, took our message to Ohio for a get out the
vote tour. In Cincinnati, Columbus and
Cleveland she inspired millennials, women’s groups and congregations to do
their part. And we are working in southern states of North Carolina, Georgia
and Florida. Please watch and share this message from Marian Wright Edelman
today.
As Mrs. Edelman says, “Democracy is not a spectator sport.
Staying home and failing to vote is a knife in the heart of our democracy.” Remember
to take your children with you so they can see democracy in action.
|
|
CDF President in the News
How
Politics Killed Universal Child Care in the 1970s – NPR October 13
In this radio interview, Marian Wright Edelman shares the heartbreak of the
missed opportunity to provide poor children and their families with child care
during the 1970s. Struggling parents today
certainly know a lot about the high cost of child care and the presidential
candidates have been talking about it.
But do you know there was a moment when Congress united to make high
quality child care accessible and affordable in America? Listen now, and then join us to advocate for
it now.
Monticello
Summit Offers Somber View of Slavery Legacy – Diverse Education October 5
CDF President Marian Wright Edelman joined historians for a robust discussion
on America’s founding and how slavery continues to impact our country. Other
speakers included Dr. Edward Ayers, president emeritus of the University of
Richmond; Annette Gordon-Reed, a professor at Harvard Law School; and Dr.
Deborah McDowell, the Alice Griffin Professor of Literary Studies and director
of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at
the University of Virginia.
|
|
Strategies for School-Based Health Enrollment Outreach Webinar a Success
|
In October, the
Children’s Defense Fund, in partnership with the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities and AASA, The School Superintendents Association hosted the
“Successful Strategies for School-Based Outreach to Increase Health Coverage
Enrollment” webinar. Local experts from Edinburg Consolidated School District
(Texas) and the Partnership for Healthy Kids (Virginia) highlighted strategies
that proved successful and pointed to two new resources — Happy, Healthy and Ready to Learn!
#Insure All Children and the Guide
to School-Based Outreach for Health Coverage Enrollment. Today the number of uninsured children is at a
historic low, however nearly 3.9 million U.S. children still remain uninsured,
many of whom are eligible for Medicaid or CHIP but need help enrolling. We must
double down on our commitment to ensure all children have access to
health coverage so they do better in school, are more likely to graduate, and
are healthier and earn more as adults, ensuring the nation a stronger economy
tomorrow. Share the CDF and
AASA school-based health enrollment outreach toolkit and help
#InsureAllChildren in your community.
|
|
A Look at Discipline in Long Beach Children’s Defense Fund-California (CDF-CA) and Public
Counsel released Untold
Stories Behind One of America’s Best Urban School Districts on October 25,
2016, a report about educational equity and racial justice in the Long
Beach, California schools. The report is a bold vision for the Long Beach
Unified School District (LBUSD) to build and foster positive learning
environments for all students. Since 2012, California school districts have
issued fewer suspensions. But concerns
about persistent racial/ethnic disproportionality, school-based policing, and
other forms of school pushout remain at some schools including at LBUSD. The
report’s findings include:
-
Black students in Long Beach are almost 14 times
more likely to be suspended than their White peers; Latinos and Pacific
Islanders are four times more likely to be suspended than White students.
-
Black and Latino students account for 86 percent
of LBUSD’s student-police contact, despite accounting for 69 percent of LBUSD’s
enrollment.
-
The district has spent over $35 million on
policing students between the 2011-12 and 2014-15 school years, compared to
only $117,112 during the same time period to support its prevention-focused
school climate program.
Recommendations call for engaging students, parents and
community members in a collective vision for racial justice, equity and
positive school climate, using data and a model code of conduct to help create
positive learning environments across the district.
|
|
Superintendents #RethinkDiscipline at Discipline Reform Symposium
Twenty nine
Superintendents and district leaders representing 1.5 million students, joined
CDF and AASA, The School Superintendents Association, for a Superintendent
Discipline Reform Symposium on October 28-29 in Chicago. The spotlight was on successful
superintendent-led strategies and the challenges they face as they seek to help
all children achieve. Discussions centered on reducing suspensions and
expulsions and their disproportionate impact on children of color, promoting
positive school climate, confronting race and implicit and
explicit bias, and using the new Every Child Succeeds Act to promote positive
school climate and address exclusionary discipline. Special attention was
given to engaging teachers, students, parents and other community leaders and
organizations to help improve school climate and help students succeed.
|
|
People of Faith Unite to Improve the Lives All Children
|
From the Philadelphia Tribune: The Keystone Boys’ Choir and state Girls’ Choir at Children’s Sabbaths worship service at the Congregation of Rodeph Shalom Synagogue
Photo Courtesy of PCCY
|
Thousands
of faith-based child advocates and congregations across the nation united in a
common concern last month to end child poverty and close opportunity gaps that
often leave children of color behind for the 25th annual
National Observance of Children’s Sabbaths® Celebration, “Children of Promise:
Closing Opportunity Gaps.” We promise our children a free and equal
education, but millions of children are consigned to failing schools bereft of
adequate resources, and a majority of Black
and Latino children receive a separate and
unequal education. Even if your place of worship was unable to
participate, we encourage you to use the 2016
Children’s Sabbaths resources all year. We are inspired by the
celebrations that have taken place from Chicago to Washington, D.C., North
Carolina to North Dakota, Pennsylvania to Ohio, Texas and beyond.
The most important way that each and every place of worship can
continue their Children's Sabbath commitment to ending child poverty and
closing opportunity gaps now is to encourage adults to vote tomorrow and to take children with
them to the polls to
understand the importance of this building block of our democracy and
commitment to justice.
|
Calling All CDF Alumni
CDF
is building a network of alumni who are former Children’s Defense Fund
staff members, interns, CDF Freedom Schools® students, servant leader interns,
Ella Baker Trainers, or partners, or participants in a CDF leadership
development network such as Beat the Odds. This will be a community of leaders who
share a common past and association with the Children’s Defense Fund, and a continuing
commitment to CDF’s mission. Activists, advocates,
teachers, lawyers, business owners, even a presidential nominee — all are
#CDFAlumni. There is no better time than
now to reengage with CDF. We want your expertise and thoughts and good work to ensure
at every child in
America has a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to
adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. Please join the CDF Alumni
Network so you can participate in activities and connect with other alumni.
|
|
|
Double Your Impact This #GivingTuesday
Are you ready to
double the impact of your gift this #GivingTuesday? Any amount you give will be matched by a
generous donor up to $250,000! Please make sure to include CDF in your
#GivingTuesday plans and help us meet our goal. Your support helps further the
Children’s Defense Fund Leave No Child Behind® mission.
|
|
Thank you for your continued support and dedication toward improving the lives of vulnerable children across the country.
Please share our message and mission with your networks, and encourage everyone you know to #ImpactTheVote November 8 and to help #InsureAllChildren in communities across the country. Please support our work by making a tax-deductible donation.
|
|
|
|
|
|