Addressing Disparities

Posted on July 31, 2009

This report, a product of The National Council of La Raza and the Campaign for Youth Justice, examines recent information about Latino youth in the justice system with a specific focus on youth tried as adults. In addition to providing a detailed overview of racial disparities and structural racism in the justice system, this report looks at a variety of national initiatives that have been successful at reducing racial inequities in detention facilities among Latino youth.

Posted on July 31, 2009

The Closing the Achievement Gap series explores Casey’s education investments in detail
and presents stories, results, and lessons learned. This particular publication describes Casey’s
efforts to develop a flexible but rigorous results measurement system that enables the
Foundation and its grantees to reflect on practice and then course-correct as necessary to
achieve the desired result. It also presents a list of selected aggregate results to show the
Foundation’s own progress in the area of education results measurement.

Posted on July 31, 2009

A detailed analysis of state-provided data has found racial disparities in health care among the three million New Yorkers in the state’s public insurance programs.

Posted on July 30, 2009

Historically, residential segregation constrained where minorities could live, contributing to disparities in education, employment, and wealth. Researchers interested in the well-being and future prospects of low-income working families have not yet explored how their residential patterns may vary across racial and ethnic lines or considered the implications of these patterns. Therefore, this paper explores differences in neighborhood characteristics among white, black, and Hispanic low-income working families. The findings suggest that policies aimed at reducing the persistent disadvantages facing minority low-income working families need to address the ways the neighborhoods in which minorities live may be compounding these disadvantages.

Posted on July 28, 2009

New Yorkers are living with the effects of poverty in every part of New York City, but the
experience of poverty remains closely tied to place. Half of the city’s 1.4 million poor
people live in neighborhoods where the poverty rate is at least 24.8 percent (compared
to a citywide rate of 19.2 percent), and one-quarter live in neighborhoods where the rate
is at least 34.1 percent. The maps reveal that there is more to the geography of poverty in New York
City than is revealed by a glance. Poverty interacts in important ways with other factors,
such as immigration, which are distributed in a different way than poverty itself. And
the effects of poverty can be modified or mitigated by resources, such as subsidized
housing, that also have their own geographic patterns.

Posted on July 20, 2009

A new study finds disparities between poor, at-risk children and more advantaged children as early as 9 months of age - extending prior research that primarily focuses on disparities at kindergarten entry and beyond. It identifies low income and low maternal education as the factors most strongly associated with poorer cognitive, social-emotional, and health outcomes among very young children.

Posted on July 20, 2009

A June 23, 2009 New York Times editorial put a human face on the struggles of students arriving in America as children and graduating high school only to face huge barriers imposed by their undocumented status. The editorial argued that the DREAM Act could open doors for these young people and should not be held hostage to larger immigration reform dreams.

Posted on February 16, 2009

The Annie E. Casey Foundation has issued policy recommendations for reforming juvenile justice, reducing poverty, rebuilding the child welfare system and improving data. On juvenile justice, the Foundation says the federal Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act should be reauthorized with enhanced provisions to reduce racial disparities, strengthen core protections against confining status offenders and mingling juveniles with adult offenders.

Posted on February 12, 2009

Oklahoma's universal pre-K program has shown dramatic benefits for Hispanic students who participate in high-quality preschool programs. These children, especially those from Spanish-speaking homes, improve their English and cognitive development skills and are more likely to be prepared for kindergarten than those not enrolled.

Posted on February 7, 2009

This Harvard Civil Rights Project report outlines serious challenges to the dream of equal opportunity for all students. Recent court decisions have made it more difficult to fight pressures for re-segregation -- blacks and Latino students are segregated more now than in the last four decades. The failure to address the challenges of growing student diversity is leading to a two-tiered educational system that isolates white students and disadvantages students of color.

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