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Spotlight on Poverty’s Weekly Roundup

Posted on by The Spotlight and Opportunity Team

The latest news, analysis and opinion on the state of low-income women and their families from Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity. For the week ending 4/29/2011: The U.S. has the highest percentage in the developed world of children being raised by a single person, typically a woman.  A woman is charged with stealing $16,000 worth of education for her son after enrolling him in the wrong school district.

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, a national foundation-led initiative, is excited to collaborate with The Women’s Foundation to bring you the latest news and analysis on women and poverty. Spotlight is the go-to site for news and ideas about fighting poverty.

Here’s this week’s news:

•    The New York Times reports that Tanya McDowell, who is homeless, pled “not guilty” to stealing $16,000 worth of education for her son by enrolling him in her babysitter’s school district in a court case that has enraged many public advocates and stands as a reminder of educational inequalities in the U.S.

•    A recently released OECD survey finds that the United States has the highest percentage of children in the developed world who are raised by a single parent, usually a single mom, increasing the likelihood that these children will grow up in poverty, according to the Boston Globe.

•    In an op-ed piece in the Indianapolis Star, Dan Carpenter rebukes the state legislature for cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood-provided “medical services to poor women in the service of religious ideology,” stating that taxpayer money does not go toward abortions.

•   Gov. Haley Barbour signed House Bill 999 into law, which requires local school boards to implement abstinence-only education into its local school district’s curriculum; a move that Mississippi hopes will lower its high teen pregnancy and STD rates, attributed by the CDC to poverty and lack of access to health education, as reported in the Clarion-Ledger.

•   The Associated Press announces state health officials’ findings that maternal mortality is on the rise in California, with African-American, low-income, and less educated women being the most likely to experience deadly complications from childbirth.

To learn more about Spotlight visit www.spotlightonpoverty.org

To sign up for our weekly updates with the latest news, opinion and research from around the country, click here.

The Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity team

The Daily Rundown — The Latest News Affecting Women & Girls in Our Region

Posted on by Mariah Craven

In today’s rundown: Women’s real losses are masked by the mancession. | Mapping local food deserts. | D.C. is the second most expensive “state” for renters in the nation.

— In “‘Mancession’ Focus Masks Women’s Real Losses,” Women’s e-news says the “persistent myth about men suffering worse job-loss woes in this recession cries out for a few additional facts, along with Carrie Lukas’ whopper in the Wall Street Journal about the end of the gender wage gap.”

— DCentric takes a look at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s online food desert locator and discusses which low-income areas in the District have the worst access to grocery stores.

— D.C. is second only to Hawaii in the price of rental housing, reports Washington City Paper. Numbers released by the National Low Income Housing Coalition show that a resident in D.C. needs to earn $28.10 an hour to pay no more than 30 percent of their income on a fair market rental.

The Daily Rundown — The Latest News Affecting Women & Girls in Our Region

Posted on by Mariah Craven

In today’s rundown: High school students talk about sexual violence with the Department of Justice. | Why financial literacy matters for women and girls.

— Students at DC’s Banneker High School had a frank and open discussion with members of the U.S. Department of Justice about sexual violence, reports TBD.com. The sexual violence “town hall” was part of the DOJ’s commemoration of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

— On the White House blog, Valerie Jarrett writes about why financial literacy matters for women and girls: “President Obama believes that for America’s women, economic security is a key component of economic opportunity.”

Finding Happiness by Helping Others

Posted on by Tiffany Parker

I recently heard a quote that I would like to share: “It was a time when I believed the most valuable asset I could have was information, but now what I realize is that ‘Time’ is actually the most valuable asset anyone can ever possess. You can never buy more of it, and you can never go back and replace it, once it’s gone it gone.”

This statement made me pause in my tracks, because the truth of the matter is “time” really is the most valuable and important thing any one person has.  When I decided that becoming Ms. Maryland was something that I wanted to do, I realized that this would be a serious sacrifice of my resources, those resources being money, sleep (lol), energy and of course my time.

Recently, I volunteered at the Annual African American Family Celebration at the Washington Nation Zoo.  I was jumping in the hay with the kids as they searched for eggs and helping hand out prizes as they finished.  What was amazing to me is how happy and excited they were to be doing the simplest things; I realized children don’t require much to be content and happy.  It kind of makes me wonder how much different the world would be if we all took that same approach that children do, using our time to do more of what we found true peace and happiness in, instead of mundane things that often leave us empty.

I currently work for a company that has made a commitment to donate 5% of their net profit earning to non-profit organizations throughout the world.  I am not yet in a position to give 5% of my net earnings away, but what I can do is dedicate the resources that I have the most control over — my time and energy — to helping causes within my community.  Thus, what I have found is that there truly is more happiness in giving then receiving; a cliché, I know, but in my case true.

I suppose one of my biggest fears in life is to one day reflect back on my life and regret having not spent my time more wisely and perhaps wasted it on chasing selfish pursuits  instead of pursuing endeavors that helped  others in my community, and thus helped myself. Maybe it’s time that we all challenged ourselves to spend more of our most valuable asset on the things that really matter… helping others.

Tiffany Parker is Ms. Maryland 2011.  She has partnered with Washington Area Women’s Foundation to raise awareness of the issues faced by women and girls during her reigning year.

The Daily Rundown — The Latest News Affecting Women & Girls in Our Region

Posted on by Mariah Craven

In today’s rundown: The economy keeps the local homeless population on the rise. | Workers’ advocates say the indiscriminate use of background checks by employers is making it difficult for millions of Americans to find work.

— “High rates of unemployment among minorities, foreclosures, the rising cost of rent, utilities and fuel and extreme budget cuts are being a rise in the area’s homeless population,” the Afro American reports.

— The New York Times highlights “redemption research” — studies that show that ex-offenders are less likely to be arrested again over time.  The article features the story of a woman who is struggling to find employment after being convicted of robbery in 1997.

Spotlight on Poverty’s Weekly Roundup

Posted on by The Spotlight and Opportunity Team

The latest news, analysis and opinion on the state of low-income women and their families from Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity. For the week ending 4/22/2011: How women’s opportunities to escape from poverty are stifled.  Why budget cuts will compound the effects of the recession.

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, a national foundation-led initiative, is excited to collaborate with The Women’s Foundation to bring you the latest news and analysis on women and poverty. Spotlight is the go-to site for news and ideas about fighting poverty.

Here’s this week’s news:

•    New York Times op-ed contributor Jill Lepore, a Harvard history professor, laments that state and federal cuts in public education and family planning services will stifle women’s opportunities to escape from poverty.

•    A Politico op-ed piece argues that the budget cuts in education, social programs, and women’s health funding proposed by Congress will only compound the devastating effects of the Great Recession on the American middle class.

•    The Indianapolis Star reports that the Indiana State Senate voted to cut off support to Planned Parenthood as part of an anti-abortion bill; about $3 million in taxpayer money goes to Planned Parenthood of Indiana annually to pay for services such as birth control, cancer screenings, and tests for sexually transmitted diseases.

•   Betty Cockrum, president of Planned Parenthood of Indiana, tells the Indianapolis Star that the end of state funding could seriously jeopardize eight health centers that serve low-income Hoosiers across the state and would also keep Medicaid clients from visiting any of Planned Parenthood’s 28 Indiana locations.

To learn more about Spotlight visit www.spotlightonpoverty.org

To sign up for our weekly updates with the latest news, opinion and research from around the country, click here.

The Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity team

The Daily Rundown — The Latest News Affecting Women & Girls in Our Region

Posted on by Mariah Craven

In today’s rundown: Education and family size often determine a woman’s ability to escape from poverty. | A special election is being held in D.C. tomorrow. | Human trafficking is one of the U.S.’s biggest human rights problems.

— In an op-ed entitled “Poor Jane’s Almanac” in The New York Times, Jill Lepore tells the story of Benjamin Franklin’s sister Jane.  Poorly educated and hard-working, Jane lived in poverty and buried her husband and 11 of her 12 children.  Lepore writes that Jane’s story “is a reminder that, especially for women, escaping poverty has always depended on the opportunity for an education and the ability to control the size of their families.”

— The Washington Post previews tomorrow’s special election for the at-large seat on the D.C. Council.  Polls close at 8 p.m.

— “From johns to judges, Americans often suffer from a profound misunderstanding of how teenage prostitution actually works — and fail to appreciate that it’s one of our country’s biggest human rights problems,” writes Nicholas Kristof in a New York Times op-ed about human trafficking in the U.S.

A Solid Foundation: Addressing the Needs of Our Region's Youngest Girls During "Month of the Young Child"

Posted on by Mariah Craven

classroom mediumApril is Month of the Young Child – a time to recognize the needs and rights of young children and their families.  According to the CDC: “the early years of a child’s life are crucial for cognitive, social and emotional development.  Therefore, it is important that we take every step necessary to ensure that children grow up in environments where their social, emotional and educational needs are met.”

Ensuring that young children have a strong social, emotional and intellectual foundation to succeed in school has been the focus of Washington Area Women’s Foundation’s Early Care and Education Funders Collaborative. The Collaborative supports quality early care and education programs that are working to successfully close a “preparation gap” that exists among children entering school.

Research has shown that a particularly wide preparation gap exists between lower- and higher-income children, even before they enter kindergarten.  And when they start behind, they stay behind.  A child who can’t recognize letters when they enter kindergarten has lower reading skills in the first grade.  And 88% of poor readers in first grade will still be poor readers in the fourth grade.

According to The Pew Charitable Trusts, “children who attend high-quality programs are less likely to be held back a grade, less likely to need special education, and more likely to graduate from high school.  They also have higher earnings as adults and are less likely to become dependent on welfare or involved with law enforcement.”

The Women’s Foundation’s recent report, 2010 Portrait of Women & Girls in the Washington Metropolitan Area (Portrait Project 2010), took a look at the achievements and needs of all women and girls in our community and shows that cost and availability are major deterrents in our area to providing young children with high-quality early care and education.

The high costs of child care are a major challenge for working mothers, a problem that’s especially acute for single women, according to Portrait Project 2010.  In the District, the average annual cost of full-time, center-based infant care is 52 percent of the median annual income of a single mother.  The cost is more than one-third of the average annual income of a single mother in Maryland and Virginia.

There is federal assistance available, primarily through the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), but recent reductions have resulted in long waiting lists for subsidized slots.  Portrait Project 2010 found that there are more than 13,000 children on waiting lists for subsidized child care in D.C.  There are 3,800 on the wait list in Fairfax County.

The subsidies are so important because childcare in our region is expensive.  One high-quality center in Fairfax County charges $360 per week.  In spite of the high cost, child care centers still struggle to meet their expenses, and child care workers often do not make a living wage.  The median annual earnings of child care workers in our region ranged from $19,270 in Virginia to $24,900 in D.C.  “The fact that child care providers earn so much less than public school teachers in our region underscores the need to increase the status and earnings of these important professionals who care for our youngest children,” according to Portrait Project 2010.

Washington Area Women’s Foundation works with Grantee Partners across the region to increase the capacity and institutional stability of early care and education programs, enable these entities to develop and manage their resources more effectively, and improve these programs through grantmaking, training and technical assistance.  In order to accomplish these goals, the Foundation recently made grants to CentroNia, DC Appleseed, Empower DC, Fairfax Futures and Voices for Virginia’s Children.

Click here to learn more about the Early Care and Education Funders Collaborative. And click here to read Portrait Project 2010.

Photo credit: Michael Colella Photography

The Daily Rundown — The Latest News Affecting Women & Girls in Our Region

Posted on by Mariah Craven

DC FlagIn today’s rundown: How DC’s sexual assault and domestic violence services will be affected by a budget shortfall. | Why Congress should pass the Paycheck Fairness Act. | Women’s role in Passover.

— Amanda Hess at TBD.com takes a look at how sexual assault and domestic violence services will be affected by a budget shortfall in D.C.  Hess quotes executive directors from Women Empowered Against Violence and My Sister’s Place, two Women’s Foundation Grantee Partners.

— “Fair pay is a bread-and-butter issue,” writes AAUW’s Lisa Maatz in The Hill. Maatz writes about how passing the Paycheck Fairness Act would go a long way in ensuring pay equity.

— In honor of Passover, the Citrus County Chronicle‘s Judi Siegal takes a look at five women associated with the Passover story.

The Daily Rundown — The Latest News Affecting Women & Girls in Our Region

Posted on by Mariah Craven

In today’s rundown: A funding freeze for some Virginia nonprofits. | And a Grantee Partner discusses the best ways to determine how much money workers need to find economic security.

— State funding for some Virginia charities has been frozen in recent months, reports The Washington Post. “The January ruling from Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) that the state constitution bars grants to private charities threatens funding for a number of groups that have long relied in part on state money to fight child abuse, help AIDS patients and counsel low-income pregnant women.” (Hat tip to Washington Grantmakers Daily.)

— “‘We’re … interested in people moving up the ladder so that they are at a place where they can meet their basic expenses and they can save a little bit to prevent them from ever falling back into poverty,'” Shawn McMahon tells NPR. McMahon is the research director for Wider Opportunities for Women, a Women’s Foundation Grantee Partner.  WOW just released its Basic Economic Security Tables index, which shows how much workers need to attain economic security.