Issue Editor Janet Currie, the Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Public Affairs and director of the Center for Health and Wellbeing at Princeton University, highlighted the major themes from the volume including the documented increase in disabilities; the recent shift in disabilities from physical to mental health disorders; the significant costs associated with disabilities for individuals and families; the fragmentation of services; and the possibilities for improving the wellbeing of children with disabilities with the medical home model, new technologies, and prevention efforts.
Researchers' efforts to track trends in disability and understand the causes and implications of the recent increase in diagnoses have been seriously complicated by changes over time in how disability is defined, which criteria should be used for screening, which services should be made available, and to what extent particular conditions are actually considered disabling.
These fundamental challenges of definition and measurement over time became more important as the discussion continued to the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) cash assistance program for children with disabilities. Ron Haskins, Co-Director of the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution, asked a panel including keynote speaker Kenneth Apfel of the University of Maryland and former commissioner of the Social Security Administration, who presented on the history of the program, if it was time to change SSI.
The panel, which also included Marty Ford, Chief Public Policy Officer for the Arc of the United States, Matt Weidinger, Majority Staff Director of the Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives, Jonathan Stein, General Counsel at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, and Michael Wiseman of the Office of Retirement and Disability Policy, emphasized the need to create a new vision for SSI. They contend that SSI should maintain the income stability it provides for severely disabled children (and there was debate as to how this should be done). It should also look more carefully at reviewing SSI recipients over time to better understand their differing disability levels, and to support them, particularly as they transition to adulthood.
Eventually, the conversation turned to the inevitable: budget constraints. As Ron Haskins and Matt Weidinger noted, Congress is going to cut funding, possibly looking even to means-tested programs such as SSI.
Given that, what is realistic? "And, what are the outcomes that show that SSI is working?" Weidinger asked.
Janet Currie's response brought the conversation back to one of the volume's key findings: without a consistent definition of disability and data that tracks children over time, it is difficult to discuss research-based outcomes of SSI. This is not because the program does not work, but because the data simply does not exist. But the credibility of the program should not be discounted simply because of a lack of evidence.
In the meantime, as the volume notes, "researchers must pay attention to how disability is defined and develop workable definitions that can be implemented in national surveys and maintained over time. Only in this way can they learn whether the increasing numbers of children with disabilities represent an exploding epidemic or an emerging, more nuanced understanding of what it means to be disabled... policy makers should be mindful that whether or not the number of special needs children is growing, large numbers of children must live with a diagnosed disability and these children merit attention."
To listen to the panel's recommendations for improving the SSI program, click here.
To read the Children with Disabilities volume, click here.
This week, demographers from around the world are gathering in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America (PAA), to discuss their research findings on issues related to migration, health, and population wellbeing. Princeton University's Center for Research on Child Wellbeing is presenting three main initiatives at the conference: The Future of Children, The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, and the Princeton Global Network and Child Migration. The Future of Children published a volume on Fragile Families in fall 2010 and researchers continue to build on these findings using the Fragile Families Study data. One example of such work being presented at PAA is the investigation of the role of genes in explaining child behavior outcomes.
In the Future of Children volume on Fragile Families, Jane Waldfogel, Terry-Ann Craigie, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn suggest that several factors play important roles in explaining why children in families with unmarried parents may have poorer outcomes than those of two married parents. These likely include parental resources, parent relationship quality, parenting quality, parental mental health, and father involvement. Another key element that should be considered is family instability, which refers to whether children grow up with the same parent(s) that were present at birth and tends to be higher among unmarried parents. It is assumed that children will have more positive behavioral outcomes when there are fewer disruptions or new partners entering and exiting the household, but researchers continue to investigate this hypothesis.
One element that has recently gained attention regarding its influence on family stability and child outcomes is genes. To examine the role of genes in child behavior and wellbeing, the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, an ongoing birth cohort study of about 5,000 children and their parents, the majority of whom are unmarried, collected DNA samples from the children and their mothers around the time of the child's ninth birthday. These genetic data, which will made available through a contract process this fall, are being analyzed with respect to their role in the relationship between family stability and child behavioral outcomes. Early analyses find evidence that genes moderate the relationship between family instability and children's prosocial behavior. As presented at the Population Association of America, authors Colter Mitchell, Sara McLanahan, Daniel Notterman, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn find evidence that for some genotypes, larger increases in prosocial behavior occur among cases in which a non-resident biological father enters the household and larger decreases in prosocial behavior in cases in which the biological father exits the household.
As indicated in the Future of Children, there are several observable factors that likely explain why children with unmarried parents often fare worse than those of two-parent families, and the link between family instability and genes is only one component of this complex issue. Future research should provide further insight into the role of these and other elements. More literature on the impact of family structure and instability can be found in the Future of Children volumes on Fragile Families and Marriage and Child Wellbeing. Visit the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing website or email ffdata@princeton.edu for information on the Study and updates on the new genetic data. Also, check out www.futureofchildren.org for more publications on child wellbeing.
]]>At an April 25th forum at the Ford Foundation, coordinated by the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP), researchers discussed the benefits of paid leave for children and parents' wellbeing, particularly for low-income families.
"In 2012, the United States remains the only industrialized nation without a national paid family leave program that supports workers who need time off to attend to important family needs, such as caring for a new baby or sick child," said Curtis Skinner, PhD, director of family economic security at NCCP.
"The status quo, whereby the lowest-paid workers are least likely to have paid sick leave or other leave that enables them to take care of family responsibilities, forces working parents to choose between not taking care of their family or losing their wages (or losing their job altogether)," observed Work and Family issue editor Jane Waldfogel, who presented at the forum. And many low-income workers cannot afford to take the unpaid leave provided under the Family and Medical Leave Act, even if they are eligible.
Forcing parents to choose between family and work not only strains families but also costs employers in terms of diminished employee productivity, engagement, and retention. Even in the lowest paying jobs, it costs more to train a new worker than to provide current workers paid leave options.
U.S. businesses are often resistant to discussing paid leave options - assuming that the costs of paid leave will fall to them. However, as Waldfogel explained at the forum, this is not necessarily the case. Paid leave can be provided by a social insurance fund, such as the one provided in New Jersey. New research on the impact of such policies on children and families in the United States will be critical to larger scale implementations of family leave policies in the U.S.
For more on Work and Family, go to www.futureofchildren.org. Building a Competitive Future Right from the Start: A Paid Family Leave Forum was coordinated by NCCP with the help of the New York State Paid Leave Coalition and A Better Balance, with support from the Ford, Annie E. Casey, and Hagedorn foundations.
]]>Lee Hirsch's new documentary "Bully," portrays the difficulties children often experience when they are tormented by school peers. With the widespread use of social media, that bullying often includes cyberbullying.
The
Kaiser Foundation reports
that media are among the most influential forces in the lives of young people
today, who spend more time with it - 7.5 hours a day, 7 days a week - than with
most other activities. In the Future of
Children volume Children
and Electronic Media, researchers highlight the findings of a 2007
web-based survey of
1,454 adolescents, which found that seventy-two percent of respondents in the
study experienced at least one incident of cyberbullying in the previous year.
In their chapter "Online Communication and Adolescent Relationships" Future of Children authors Kaveri Subrahmanyam and Patricia Greenfield summarize other research findings regarding cyberbullying, showing that youth aged 10 to 17 with symptoms of depression are more likely to report having been a victim of online harassment. Those that cyberbully are more likely to report delinquency, substance abuse, and poor parent-child relationships. The authors note that more research is needed to determine the causality of these relationships.
The Children and Electronic Media volume indicates three areas of intervention for regulating and promoting positive social media use for children and youth: families, education, and government. In terms of the family, Subrahmanyam and Greenfield indicate that while more research is needed to determine how much parents know about their children's use of electronic media, both adolescents and parents agree that youth know more about the internet than their parents do. The authors suggest that parents may be able to influence their children's media use by monitoring through internet filters and by limiting their time and activity online.
Initiating change through education and government intervention is more complicated. Schools have begun to monitor or restrict access to social media but this is controversial because it may compromise the educational benefits of social media. And although some states such as Arizona and California have taken steps to introduce legislation that aims to reduce cyberbullying, as the Children and Electronic Media volume notes, "First AmendÂment considerations and the increasing reality that many media forms are exempt from government oversight makes broad regulation of content close to impossible."
The volume continues, however, saying "although the government's ability to regulate content may be weak, its ability to promote positive programming and media research is not. Government at all levels should fund the creation and evaluation of positive media initiatives such as public service campaigns to reduce risky behaviors and studies about educational programs that explore innovative uses of media."
The
message? When it comes to social media, content matters.
Although it may be difficult to combat cyberbullying through regulation, social media can be used as a tool to promote positive youth behavior. As the Children and Electronic Media volume reveals, media content designed to promote pro-social behavior increases social capacities such as altruism, cooperation, and tolerance of others - a powerful positive tool in efforts to reduce bullying of any kind.
Read more on this topic in the online Future of Children volume Children and Electronic Media. Join the conversation by commenting on this and similar blog posts.
]]>
"Though it may seem counterintuitive, providing paid family and medical leave when people cannot work due to caregiving responsibilities helps keep people employed. In the short term it keeps people away from work, but in the long term it reduces the number of people who have to quit their jobs when they need time off to care for a seriously ill family member or when they have a new child. Paid medical leave serves this same purpose for workers who have short-term but serious illnesses that prevent them from working" write Heather Boushey and Sarah Jane Glynn in a report released yesterday by the Center for American Progress.
At a time when the majority of American women are employed outside the home, many single mothers and fathers are heading families on their own, and older Americans increasingly need care from younger relatives, the challenges of meeting family responsibilities and holding down a job are more difficult than ever. As the Future of Children's Work and Family volume documents, when U.S. families need care for children or elderly relatives, they rely primarily not on government policies and programs but on themselves and their employers. Employer supports, however, are inequitably distributed, with the best packages of benefits going to the highest-paid workers. As a result, employees who may most need employer assistance in meeting family needs may be least likely to receive it.
As Boushey and Glynn show, providing paid family and medical leave would most likely have positive effects on employment and lifetime income, with the largest impact among less-educated and lower-income families - those who currently have the least access to any form of leave.
Workers who have a new child, experience a personal medical emergency or have an ailing family member often either have to quit their jobs to provide short-term intensive care or lose their jobs because they are unable to take job-protected leave. As Boushey, an author in the Future of Children's Work and Family volume noted at its fall release at the Brookings Institution, "we did all that work on welfare reform in the 1990's that encouraged low income individuals, especially women, to work... and so [workplace flexibility, leave policies] must be the next step. We want that single Mom in the workplace, but we have to make sure that she can stay in the workplace, that she can hold on to her job while taking care of her children."
Yet, as Jane Waldfogel and Sara McLanahan note in Work and Family, providing additional paid leave could be difficult for many U.S. small businesses, particularly as the nation continues to struggle with the aftereffects of the recession. Waldfogel and McLanahan suggest that it is reasonable to ask all employers to provide a minimal amount of paid sick leave and other leave time to all employees. But longer leaves, where required for parents of newborns or for caregivers of those with serious longer-term health conditions, would probably be better provided through some other mechanism, such as a social insurance fund like the one that undergirds Social Security retirement and disability programs. Boushey and Glynn describe what such a fund might look like in their recent report.
For more research-based information on work and family in the United States, go to the Future of Children's fall 2011 volume Work and Family.
]]>In their chapter Vulnerable Populations and the Transition to Adulthood, D. Wayne Osgood, E. Michael Foster, and Mark E. Courtney explain that while the transition from adolescence to adulthood is a rocky road for working-class non-college-bound youth, it is even more uncertain for vulnerable populations, such as those involved with the juvenile or criminal justice systems. For these youth, activities are more restricted, making it harder to obtain a college education or develop stable relationships that could increase their chances of success as adults. Among fathers, incarceration has been linked to lower earnings and education, homelessness and material hardship, as well as poorer relationship skills, according to findings from the Fragile Families Study. Effective programs and policies are needed to help protect against these hardships and provide a less troubled transition to adulthood.
One effort to provide support to youth in the criminal justice system is to provide GED and other educational opportunities in correctional facilities. An example of this effort is Princeton University's Prison Teaching Initiative, which operates in conjunction with the New Jersey Department of Corrections and Mercer County Community College (MCCC) to provide access to MCCC accredited college courses at New Jersey correctional facilities. Faculty, staff, graduate students, and other Princeton affiliates with advanced degrees volunteer to teach courses in several disciplines. Another example is the Petey Greene Prisoner Assistance Program, a volunteer-based program in Princeton that recruits and trains students and community members to tutor and teach in nearby correctional facilities.
Osgood, Foster, and Courtney indicate that a major problem adolescents and young adults in vulnerable populations face is that access to services often ends abruptly as they reach adulthood, despite persisting needs. Without continued support, many youth who have been involved with the juvenile or criminal justice systems may return to crime. Thomas Grisso, author of Adolescent Offenders with Mental Disorders, indicates that many youth who have had contact with the juvenile justice system need ongoing mental health treatment, with community and family support. Laurie Chassin, in her chapter, Juvenile Justice and Substance Use points out that among youth who have been successfully treated for substance use disorders, there is a high relapse rate, suggesting a need for aftercare services. While independence is the ultimate goal, the chances of success may be increased with continued support.
While researchers and advocates point to many educational and treatment programs for youth and young adults, more research needs to determine which programs are best for ensuring a successful transition to adulthood and better life outcomes. Join the conversation on offender education and re-entry by commenting on this or other related blog posts. Also, check out the Future of Children website and follow the journal on Facebook and Twitter.
]]>"New estimates show that 1 in 88 American children have been identified as having autism spectrum disorder, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said [yesterday], marking an increase of more than 20 percent since the last time such data were collected." (Education Week, March 29, 2012)
Recently, an article in Pediatrics highlighted the employment and earnings challenges for families with children with autism. In their research, Cidav, Marcus, and Mandell found that mothers of children with autism earn 35% less than the mothers of children with another health limitation and 56% less than the mothers of children with no health limitation. They are 6% less likely to be employed and work 7 hours less per week, on average, than mothers of children with no health limitation. These families face a significant economic burden. (See Pediatrics , 129(4), April 2012)
An upcoming volume of the Future of Children, "Children with Disabilities" (out at the end of April 2012), shows that over the past several decades, predominant childhood disabilities have shifted away from physical disorders toward mental health disorders. Moreover, research shows mental health disorders in childhood to have larger impacts than childhood physical health problems, on average, in terms of adult health, years of schooling, participation in the labor force, marital status, and family income.
In terms of economic costs, the volume's chapter, "The Economic Costs of Childhood Disability" states, "Childhood disabilities entail a range of immediate and long-term economic costs that have important implications for the well-being of the child, the family, and society." When looking at direct, out-of-pocket costs incurred as a result of a child's disability; indirect costs, often involving employment, incurred by the family; and long-term costs associated with the child's future economic performance, the negative effects appear to be much greater, on average, for children with mental health problems than for those with physical disabilities.
A key goal for society today is to devote resources to preventing, diagnosing, and managing mental health conditions in children to improve their functioning and trajectories. In fact, as the volume shows, the costs of not doing so may be greater than the costs of many interventions to prevent and reduce childhood disability.
Public discussion of childhood disability, by the media, parents, scholars, and advocates alike, tends to emphasize particular causes of disability, such as autism, asthma, cystic fibrosis, or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. In the upcoming volume of the Future of Children, "Children with Disabilities," we focus not on individual disabilities, but rather on cross-cutting themes that apply more broadly to the issue of children with disabilities.
The volume will be published at the end of April. Please watch our website for this informative volume. You can also join our listserv if you would like to be notified by email when the journal becomes available.
An earlier Future of Children blog post underscored a shift in the juvenile justice system toward more moderate policies, including greater emphasis on treatment programs as opposed to incarceration. Another sign of the policy transition, as indicated by Laurence Steinberg in the Future of Children volume on Juvenile Justice, is the 2005 Supreme Court opinion to eliminate capital punishment for juveniles. In 2010 the court also brought an end to life sentences without parole for juveniles not guilty of homicide.
The recent school shootings in Ohio and subsequent media discourse regarding whether 17 year-old suspect TJ Lane should be tried as an adult have renewed public discussion about appropriate sentencing for juveniles. In some states, life in prison without the possibility of parole is a mandatory sentence for juveniles convicted of homicide, meaning the youth's background and age are not even taken into account. However, many believe that context is crucial to a fair sentence, especially for young offenders. National Public Radio reports that the Supreme Court hears arguments this week regarding whether it is unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to life in prison without parole, even for homicide.
In their chapter Adolescent Development and the Regulation of Youth Crime, Elizabeth S. Scott and Laurence Steinberg explain that before the shift toward more moderate policy today, there had been a steady increase in homicide rates among juveniles, sparking a "moral panic" catalyzed by the media, which led to reform movements and harsher sentencing. "Through a variety of initiatives, the boundary of childhood has shifted dramatically in a relatively short time, so that youths who are legal minors for every other purpose, are adults when it comes to their criminal conduct." Today many politicians and the public realize the high economic costs and ineffectiveness of such initiatives. Context, more than punishment, is becoming a more frequented topic in policy discussion.
Drawing on evidence in developmental psychology, Scott and Steinberg argue that adolescents differ from adults in several ways. Teens may be less able than adults to use their capacities for cognitive reasoning because of a lack of experience and less efficiency in processing information. They may be less culpable than adults because they are more vulnerable to external pressures and coercion from peers. Finally, they contend that adolescent character may be relatively unformed.
To add your voice to the discussion on juvenile justice policy, comment on this or other related blog posts. For discussion on policies related to other adolescent behavior, see the Future of Children volumes on the Transition to Adulthood and America's High Schools. Also, check out the Future of Children website and follow the journal on Facebook and Twitter.
]]>A recent report by Civic Enterprises, the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University, America's Promise Alliance, and the Alliance for Excellent Education shows that the national graduation rate increased 3.5 percentage points from 72 percent in 2001 to 75.5 percent in 2009. At the same time, the report notes, the number of "dropout factories" -- high schools where at least 60 percent of students do not graduate on time -- fell 23 percent, from 2,007 in 2002 to 1,550 in 2010.
National progress in graduation rates was driven by significant gains made by a dozen states: New York, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, South Carolina, Missouri, Alabama, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Kentucky. The South and the suburbs saw the largest declines in dropout factory schools.
So what interventions work?
The report features multiple case studies that include intervention strategies such as increased mentoring of at-risk students, summer and evening high school expansions, changes in curriculum, and programs focused on special populations such as teen parents. The Washington Post highlights one such program in Washington County, Md., which increased its high school graduation rate from 78 percent in 2000 to 92 percent in 2010 using a combination of these interventions.
The Future of Children's America's High School volume analyzes a number of programs aimed at dropout prevention and suggests that successful programs generally have some or most of five elements in common:
1.) Close mentoring and monitoring of students, particularly at-risk students;
2.) Case management of individual students;
3.) Family outreach;
4.) Curricular reforms that focus either on a career-oriented or experiential approach or an emphasis on gaining proficiency in English, or both; and
5.) Attention to a student's out-of-school problems that can affect attendance, behavior, and performance.
Authors in America's High Schools take stock of the challenges facing U.S. high schools and consider what researchers and policymakers know about high school reform - what works and what does not. The volume focuses in particular on low-performing schools whose limited capacity often places a large number of students at high risk of failure.
]]>In the Future of Children volume on Juvenile Justice, author Laurence Steinberg explains that juvenile justice policy is in a transition phase. Downward trends in crime rates have led to an easing up on the "get tough" reform policies of the 1990s and early 2000s. Policymakers and the public are realizing the enormous cost and ineffectiveness of harsh sentencing for adolescents, and as a result, many state and local authorities have shifted toward more moderate policies by increasing funding for treatment programs as opposed to institutional placement.
In his chapter "Prevention and Intervention Programs for Juvenile Offenders," Peter Greenwood asserts that for every dollar invested in effective delinquency-prevention programs as opposed to juvenile prisons, taxpayers save about seven to ten dollars. Among the most successful evidence-based programs are home-visiting programs, in which specially trained nurses visit first-time mothers to provide them with training in childcare and social skills. Such programs have been shown to reduce child abuse, neglect, and arrest rates for children and mothers. In addition, some school-based dropout prevention programs have been linked to less delinquency and drug use and greater academic success.
Community-based programs have also been shown to effectively reduce delinquency. The most successful of these emphasize family relationships. Participants at a recent forum on the connection between child welfare, foster care, and juvenile justice in New York City note that past programs have often taken at-risk teens far from their families and communities, making care and counseling more difficult. In contrast, community-based programs that move the focus from the individual to the family can provide skills to adults who are already in the best position to influence the adolescent. One evidence-based example is Functional Family Therapy. Targeted toward youth involved in delinquency, substance abuse, and violence, the program focuses on strengthening the family unit, aiming to improve family interactions, problem solving skills, and parenting.
For more discussion on juvenile justice policy, check out related Future of Children blogs. For research highlights on evidence-based programs for improving outcomes among adolescents and young adults, see the Future of Children volumes Transition to Adulthood and America's High Schools. Also see the Future of Children website: http://www.princeton.edu/futureofchildren/ ]]>
Christina
Paxson, dean of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs and senior editor of the Future of Children, has been selected to serve as the next
president of Brown University. The Corporation of Brown University voted on her
appointment in a special session on March 2, 2012.
Paxson
began her academic career at Princeton University in 1986, becoming assistant
professor of economics and public affairs in 1987. She became a full professor
in 1997 and was named the Hughes-Rogers Professor of Economics and Public
Affairs in 2007. In 2009, she was appointed dean of the Woodrow Wilson School.
Initially
working on international economic problems of labor supply, mobility, savings,
inequality, and aging, Paxson focused increasingly on the relationship of
economic factors to health and welfare over the life course, particularly on
the health and welfare of children. In 2000, she founded the Center for Health
and Wellbeing, an interdisciplinary research center in the Woodrow Wilson
School. The center established multidisciplinary graduate and undergraduate
certificate programs in health and health policy. She served as the center's
director until 2009.
In
addition, Chris Paxson has been a senior editor at the Future of Children since the journal came from the Packard
Foundation to Princeton University and the Brookings Institution in 2004. Paxson
has made substantial contributions to the journal as a senior editor and as an
issue editor for volumes on Childhood
Obesity and Preventing
Child Maltreatment.
The idea to bring the Future of Children from Packard to Princeton arose when Paxson and
other leaders at Princeton wanted to begin a discussion about community health,
which they felt had been hampered by Princeton's lack of a medical school, said
Cecilia Rouse, professor of economic and public affairs at Princeton and senior
editor of the Future of Children. (http://www.browndailyherald.com/mobile/paxson-s-economics-cover-broad-range-of-disciplines-1.2711218)
Ron Haskins, senior fellow in economic
studies at the Brookings Institution and Future of Children senior editor, said that Princeton/Brookings won the
national competition to work on the Future
of Children largely due to Paxson, who wrote an excellent proposal. In the
crowded field of economics, Paxson has often stood out for her strong interest
in issues of children's health, Haskins added.
Sara McLanahan, a Princeton professor of
sociology and public affairs and Editor-in-Chief of the Future of Children said Paxson's research elucidates the long-term
negative effects of poor childhood health and the way health disparities at
early stages continue to widen. She added that Paxson's determination and
humility made her an effective collaborator.
As McLanahan notes in the Providence
Journal, Paxson has the ability to "persuade people to go along with her
because they trust her. They know she's really trying to promote the common
good as opposed to herself... [She] has a rare combination of great intelligence
and humility." (www.providencejournal.com)
"She's just so
smart, talented -- a
calm leader with vision," Cecilia Rouse adds. "It was just a matter of time
until someone saw that, and she moved on."
To read Future of Children volumes Childhood
Obesity and Preventing Child Maltreatment, both of which were edited by
Christina Paxson, go to: http://www.futureofchildren.org/futureofchildren/publications/journals/.
The Wall Street Journal recently released some staggering statistics: less than 40% of Americans over age 25 with less than a high school diploma are employed, and those who are employed make about $23,400 on average. Another report by the National Center for Family and Marriage Research indicates that about a third of young men with less than a high school degree have had contact with the criminal justice system. While there is often controversy as to how dropout rates should be measured, the Future of Children volume America's High Schools points out that even the most optimistic figures suggest that too many students are leaving school early.
Authors John H. Tyler and Magnus Lofstrom in their chapter on "Finishing High School: Alternative Pathways and Dropout Recovery" point out that while much is known about the characteristics of students who do not complete high school, much less is known about the reasons why. A student's decision to drop out of school, say the authors, is affected by a number of complex factors including student characteristics such as poor school performance and engagement, school characteristics related to school resources and student-teacher ratios, and family characteristics such as parent socioeconomic status and family structure.
Due to the wide range of factors associated with dropout rates, some communities are pushing for a more comprehensive prevention approach. PBS NewsHour reports that in Washington, D.C., individual success stories will be advertised at bus stops and on radio commercials - efforts by a truancy task force created by health and family services and law enforcement agencies. In disciplining students who skip school many communities are placing greater emphasis on counseling, parenting classes, and community service and less exposure to the criminal justice system. Evaluating the effectiveness of these and other prevention efforts is important. As the Future of Children volume America's High Schools indicates, although hundreds of dropout prevention programs exist, very little evidence has been collected regarding their effectiveness.
To combat the dropout problem, in his State of the Union President Obama urged states to require all students to stay in school until they graduate or turn 18. In response to President Obama's call, Senior Editor of the Future of Children Cecilia Rouse coauthored a New York Times piece suggesting that while President Obama's efforts are a step in the right direction, the most effective solutions should begin much earlier. "Rigorous evidence gathered over decades suggests that some of the most promising approaches need to start (early); preschool for 3- and 4- year-olds, who are fed and taught in small groups, followed up with home visits by teachers and with group meetings of parents; reducing class size in the early grades; and increasing teacher salaries from kindergarten through 12th grade."
Read more about programs for improving outcomes among adolescents and young adults in the Future of Children volumes School Readiness, Transition to Adulthood and Juvenile Justice.
]]>The first difficult and very important work and family decision a parent makes is who will care for the child while the parent is working. Choosing childcare is one of the largest stressors that a parent faces when returning to work.
A new study in the journal Child Development finds that high-quality early child care can have a significant impact on children's wellbeing, and is important for mothers as well. High-quality child care is not about drilling children in educational facts, but more about low student to teacher ratio, age appropriate books and toys, and teachers who are attentive to the children and their developmental needs.
"Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin looked at data from more than 1,300 children whose care settings were evaluated at various intervals from the time they were a month old until they turned 4 ½. Their mothers were interviewed too. Those moms whose kids were cared for early on in "high-quality non-parental care" settings--either in day care centers or in others' homes--were more likely than mothers who cared for their kids themselves or sent them to low-quality day care to be involved in their children's schools starting in kindergarten... Robert Crosnoe, a professor of sociology in the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin who led the study, notes that "children make a smoother transition to school when families and schools are strongly connected."
(Time Healthland- February 15, 2012)
As noted in the Future of Children's Work and Family volume, formal (center- or school-based) early childhood education and care received immediately before kindergarten appears to promote school readiness. Children, particularly those who are disadvantaged, who attend prekindergarten in the year before formal schooling begin that formal schooling with better math and reading skills, although some of these gains may be transitory or offset by later compensatory education that targets less-prepared children. Head Start participation is also associated with better dental care and overall health as well as with reductions in obesity.
Despite these positive findings, however, the volume is careful to note that, when taken together, research findings related to early childhood care and education are ambiguous, due in part to the high variability in services provided and the difficulty of determining which outcomes are of key interest (for example, cognitive test scores at school entry versus long-term educational and developmental outcomes.)
The one finding that remains certain from the current research base is that quality of care matters. High-quality care mitigates any negative consequences of early childhood care and education and enhances its benefits.
For more on this issue, go to the Future of Children Work and Family chapter on "Policies to Assist Parents with Young Children."
In The Next Generation of Antipoverty Policies, the Future of Children author Richard J. Murnane explains that the American ideal of equal educational opportunity for all children is not often the reality. According to the America's Youngest Outcasts 2010 report, one group for whom this may be especially true is the 1.6 million children and youth (1 in 45) who experience homelessness each year.
Homelessness and other forms of housing instability such as doubling up and frequent moving can be traumatic experiences for children. Families are often forced to split up or move into shelters with chaotic and unsafe environments. For the 42% of homeless children who are age six or under, these early experiences may have negative effects on development and school readiness. The barriers young children in disadvantaged circumstances face, as well as policy recommendations for improving school readiness are discussed in the Future of Children volume School Readiness.
For homeless children already enrolled in school, a review of the literature reveals lower levels of school attendance and achievement when compared to other low-income children. They are also more likely to be placed in special education classes, score lower on standardized tests, and be asked to repeat a grade. Moreover, 75% of homeless or runaway youth have dropped out or will drop out of school. The Future of Children volumes America's High Schools and The Next Generation of Antipoverty Policies discuss ways to prevent dropout and improve the education of children living in poverty.
In 2002, the federal government reauthorized the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act in an effort to remediate educational barriers for homeless children. The Act allows children and youth who do not have a fixed, adequate, and regular nighttime residence to immediately enroll in school and to receive services such as free transportation to either their school of origin or local school, immediate special education, and free school meals without an application.
While
the McKinney-Vento Act is definitely a huge step toward equal educational
opportunity, it is not enough to bring down many of the barriers homeless
children face. During the recession years, the number of families at risk of
experiencing homelessness increased, putting greater pressure on this issue. At
this year's National Conference for the Institute for
Children, Poverty, & Homelessness, researchers and practitioners met to
exchange ideas for educating homeless students and improving the circumstances
of their families. A common theme at the conference was the importance of
collaboration and community partnerships.
"A
society with economic opportunity is one in which all children have a good
chance of success regardless of the economic status of the family into which
they are born. The United States has long been viewed as such a society--a place
where with hard work most people can succeed, whatever their family background.
With the rewards for economic success becoming bigger, as they have in recent
decades, ensuring that competition is fair and open becomes even more
important.
Relatively strong economic
growth through much of U.S. history has meant that each generation could do
better than the previous one, even if children remained in the same relative
economic position as their parents. However, in recent decades family income
growth has slowed." (Future of Children, Opportunity in
America, Executive Summary)
According to the US Census Bureau, in 2010, 15 percent of Americans lived below the poverty level, the highest number since 1993. That means a household income of $22,113 for a family of four. These levels of poverty are especially concerning when understood within the context of diminishing mobility in the United States.
As FOC senior editor Belle
Sawhill writes in the New
York Times:
"A growing body of evidence suggests that
the United States, far from being the land of opportunity celebrated in our
history and our literature, is instead a country where class matters after all,
where upward mobility is constrained, especially among those born into the
bottom ranks.
What could be done to improve the upward mobility chances of less advantaged
children?
First, it would help if more parents were ready to take on the most important
responsibility any adult normally assumes, which is the decision to have a
child. Unfortunately, for far too many teens and young adults, this is not a
carefully planned decision. Half of all children born to women under the age of
30 are born outside of marriage, and 70 percent of all pregnancies to single
women in this age group are unplanned. Research shows that access to more
effective (but expensive and hard-to-get) forms of contraception could help
here.
Second, low-income children enter school far behind their more advantaged peers
in vocabulary and learning-related behaviors such as the ability to sit still
or follow directions. High-quality early-education programs can compensate for
some of these deficits, but too few children are enrolled and too few programs
are high quality. These children tend to fall further behind as they progress
through school. Large numbers drop out of high school, enter the criminal
justice system, or end up unemployed or earning very low wages. These
trajectories can be changed in part by putting better teachers in the
classroom, setting higher standards and expecting students and parents to be
full partners in this effort.
Third, no one should graduate from school without the specific skills needed by
today's employers. Not everyone is going to benefit from a traditional
four-year college degree. But more career and technical education, on-the-job
training or community college programs could produce a more highly skilled work
force.
These investments have the potential to increase opportunity, economic growth,
and our competitiveness with other countries. Will we make the needed changes?"
For more on opportunity in America, go to
the Future of Children volume on the
topic.