- Eligible families in need fall through the cracks, By Mary Spicuzza, April 13, 2010, Wisconsin State Journal: “Just two days before she was due to have a baby, a young mother said she was discouraged from applying for the state’s welfare-to-work program after being told her fiance – who’d struggled to find work – should go out and get a job. Another woman said she’d spent months looking for work but complained of rude job center employees who never mentioned the program, Wisconsin Works (W-2) to her. And a mother who has been living on nothing but food stamps said she dropped out of the W-2 program after less than a year, partly because the schedule for required job training and classes was so demanding. They were among the dozens of people who told the Wisconsin State Journal that despite living in deep poverty – many of them with no income other than food stamps – they still aren’t receiving cash payments or other benefits they could be eligible for under W-2…”
- DFL legislator says welfare policy penalizes women who have a miscarriage, By Madeleine Baran, April 13, 2010, Minnesota Public Radio: “A key DFL lawmaker has asked the state to change a policy that limits welfare benefits for mothers who suffer a miscarriage. State Sen. Linda Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis, proposed an amendment on Tuesday that would remove what she calls an unintended and obscure barrier to welfare benefits. Under current law, in many cases welfare officials can deny cash grants for children who are born to a mother who suffered a previous miscarriage while on welfare. ‘It’s pretty rare, but it is sad when it does happen,’ said Jessica Webster, a policy advocate with Legal Aid. The agency has represented clients who have challenged the welfare policy. Webster said that the denials are the result of a complicated and often confusing welfare system…”
Day: April 14, 2010
Global Maternal Deaths
- Maternal deaths decline sharply across the globe, By Denise Grady, April 13, 2010, New York Times: “For the first time in decades, researchers are reporting a significant drop worldwide in the number of women dying each year from pregnancy and childbirth, to about 342,900 in 2008 from 526,300 in 1980. The findings, published in the medical journal The Lancet, challenge the prevailing view of maternal mortality as an intractable problem that has defied every effort to solve it…”
- Fewer women dying in childbirth, study says, By David Brown, April 13, 2010, Washington Post: “The rate at which women die in childbirth or soon after delivery has fallen by about 40 percent since 1980, with dramatic reductions in the populous nations of India, China, Brazil and Egypt. Maternal mortality is a key gauge of a population’s health and wealth, as well as of women’s status. The rate differs greatly between countries and regions, with the best- and worst-performing nations differing by a factor of about 400, according to a study in the Lancet, a European medical journal…”
Race to the Top Funding- Tennessee
Poorer TN schools will get most Race to the Top aid, By Chas Sisk, April 14, 2010, The Tennessean: “Tennessee schools are set to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid through the Race to the Top program, but districts can expect to get vastly different amounts from the effort to raise the state’s education standards. School districts will get half of Tennessee’s $500 million award from the federal government, with the other half remaining under the control of the state government. How much each district gets will be tied to poverty measures, meaning that urban and poor rural districts will get many times more money per pupil from the program than their suburban counterparts. About 40 percent of the $250 million earmarked for school districts through the Race to the Top program is expected to go to two school districts – Metro Nashville and Memphis…”