Whether it’s improving the health care system or divvying up the federal budget, kids are a huge part of the story. Connect for Kids is committed to helping our colleagues in the media and advocacy organizations provide the public with comprehensive coverage of issues related to children and families, especially those in most need.
A selective look from the CFK Weekly at some of the latest news and research on issues important to children.
Updated July 31
Work-Plus: Boosting the Bottom Line for Low-Wage Working Parents [2]
The 1996 welfare reform bill was designed to move public assistance participants from welfare to work, often quickly and without adequate supports to help families truly rise out of poverty. This policy brief from the National Assembly’s Family Strengthening Policy Center looks at “work-plus” strategies (as apposed to work-first approaches) that offer work supports like child care assistance, transportation help, tax assistance, etc. in addition to employment services. The brief includes recommendations for policymakers, businesses, and community organizations.
Finding Resources to Support Workforce Development Services for Youth [3]
Workforce programs targeting youth (often after-school programs or vocational alternatives to education) can help the more than 5 million young people who are out of work and school get job skills, preparation for college and vocational training, and other critical supports. This report, originally published in April and now online, looks at challenges for youth workforce programs, and offers best practices and ideas for innovation. It also highlights four funding strategies.
“Just for the Kids” Best Practice Studies and Institutes: High-Performing Schools [4]
What makes a school work well? Turns out, the top-performing schools in 20 participating states share similar characteristics including rigorous curriculums, higher expectations for all students, collaboration between administrators and teachers in developing and support curriculum, “break out” (differentiated) instruction for individual learners within a classroom, and a strong focus on writing and journaling. In addition, successful schools monitor progress and use the data to tweak their programs. This series of reports from National Center for Educational Accountability document a three-year study of nearly 200 high-performing schools in 20 states.
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Recent Field Reports
CFK Reports From: Senate Subcommittee Hears Testimony About SCHIP Reauthorization The Senate Finance Subcommittee on Healthcare met to discuss the future reauthorization of the State Child Health Insurance program (SCHIP). CFK Reports From: The Economic Promise of Investing in High-Quality Preschool: Using Early Education to Improve Economic Growth and the Fiscal Sustainability of States and the Nation Believing that early childhood education does more than prepare kids for kindergarten, an organization of business leaders, the Committee for Economic Development (CED), made the economic case for publicly funded high-quality universal preschool for all kids through their report, The Economic Promise of Investing in High-Quality Preschool. |
