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University of Wisconsin–Madison
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty

Day: December 13, 2011

Charter Schools

  • How some states rein in charter school abuses, By Kathleen McGrory and Scott Hiaasen, December 10, 2011, Miami Herald: “Florida’s charter school law, which makes it easy to open charter schools and difficult to monitor them, has spurred a multimillion dollar industry and a school boom – all while leading to chronic governance problems and a higher-than-average rate of school failure. Nationally, about 12 percent of all charter schools that have opened in the past two decades have shut down, according to the National Resource Center on Charter School Finance & Governance. In Florida, the failure rate is double, state records show…”
  • Florida charter schools: big money, little oversight, By Scott Hiaasen and Kathleen McGrory, December 10, 2011, Miami Herald: “Preparing for her daughter’s graduation in the spring, Tuli Chediak received a blunt message from her daughter’s charter high school: Pay us $600 or your daughter won’t graduate. She also received a harsh lesson about charter schools: Sometimes they play by their own rules. During the past 15 years, Florida has embarked on a dramatic shift in public education, steering billions in taxpayer dollars from traditional school districts to independently run charter schools. What started as an educational movement has turned into one of the region’s fastest-growing industries, backed by real-estate developers and promoted by politicians. But while charter schools have grown into a $400-million-a-year business in South Florida, receiving about $6,000 in taxpayer dollars for every student enrolled, they continue to operate with little public oversight. Even when charter schools have been caught violating state laws, school districts have few tools to demand compliance…”
  • Profits and questions at online charter schools, By Stephanie Saul, December 12, 2011, New York Times: “By almost every educational measure, the Agora Cyber Charter School is failing. Nearly 60 percent of its students are behind grade level in math. Nearly 50 percent trail in reading. A third do not graduate on time. And hundreds of children, from kindergartners to seniors, withdraw within months after they enroll. By Wall Street standards, though, Agora is a remarkable success that has helped enrich K12 Inc., the publicly traded company that manages the school. And the entire enterprise is paid for by taxpayers. Agora is one of the largest in a portfolio of similar public schools across the country run by K12. Eight other for-profit companies also run online public elementary and high schools, enrolling a large chunk of the more than 200,000 full-time cyberpupils in the United States…”
  • New Mexico legislators look to curb charter school costs, By Ben Wieder, December 12, 2011, Stateline.org: “One of Albuquerque’s charter schools, Academia de Lengua Y Cultura, offers a dual-language middle-school curriculum, with teachers in some classes giving lessons in English and Spanish on alternating days. Across town, the Cottonwood Classical Preparatory School, which takes students from sixth grade through high school, emphasizes seminar discussions and offers advanced international diplomas. The Southwest Secondary Learning Center, meanwhile, reinforces math, science and engineering lessons by allowing students to maintain and fly real airplanes. They represent three of New Mexico’s more than 80 charter schools. While some of those schools look and act like private institutions – their leaders have freedom to run them as they see fit as long as students meet state standards – they are part of the public school system, charge no tuition and receive nearly all of their funding from state monies. But unlike other states, where average per-student funding for charters is typically lower than it is for other public schools, a legislative report released last month found that charters in New Mexico receive an average of 26 percent more funding per student than traditional public schools. The report suggested that lawmakers change how schools are funded to address that…”
  • Number of charter school students soars to 2 million as states pass laws encouraging expansion, Associated Press, December 7, 2011, Washington Post: “The number of students attending charter schools has soared to more than 2 million as states pass laws lifting caps and encouraging their expansion, according to figures released Wednesday. The growth represents the largest increase in enrollment over a single year since charter schools were founded nearly two decades ago. In all, more than 500 new charter schools were opened in the 2011-12 school year. And about 200,000 more students are enrolled now than a year before, an increase of 13 percent nationwide…”
  • More whites drawn to charter schools, By Jennifer Smith Richards, December 12, 2011, Columbus Dispatch: “Charter schools statewide and in Franklin County have become much more racially diverse over the past decade, state enrollment data show. In the 2000-01 school year, when charters still were new in Ohio, 87 percent of the 748 Franklin County charter students were members of minorities. In the 2010-11 school year, roughly 33,000 students attended local charters, and 63 percent were nonwhite. The local shift mirrors one statewide, where the total percentage of black, Latino, Asian, American Indian and multiracial students has dropped from 86 percent to about 60 percent in the past 10 years. The reason for the shift, experts say, is twofold: Parents now have more charter schools from which to choose, which makes the option attractive to a wider range of parents. And many schools now are marketing to suburban families instead of focusing on students from urban districts such as Columbus…”

Joblessness and Unemployment

  • Dave Camp: Bill would reduce federal unemployment benefits, crackdown on welfare fraud and abuse, and create jobs, By Barrie Barber, December 12, 2011, Saginaw News: “U.S. Rep. Dave Camp has introduced broad legislation to reduce the maximum number of weeks of federal unemployment compensation, extend a payroll tax holiday, reform some Medicare provisions and extend a welfare program set to expire at the end of the year. Camp, R-Midland, said the provisions, among other changes, would encourage employers to hire new employees, and crackdown on fraud and abuse in welfare and tax credit programs…”
  • Unemployment benefits remain hot topic in Michigan, By Tim Martin (AP), Detroit Free Press: “In Michigan, where the unemployment rate has soared above the national average for years, any proposal with the potential to affect jobless benefits stirs emotions at the state Capitol. That’s certainly the case with Republican-sponsored legislation recently approved by the Senate and awaiting a vote in the House. The bills would help stabilize Michigan’s sagging unemployment trust fund, which because of the high jobless rate has shelled out more money in benefits than it has collected in payments from employers financing the system. Michigan has borrowed money from the federal government to help make jobless benefit payments, racking up a $3 billion debt…”
  • Unemployment benefits on the chopping block in D.C., By Daniel Malloy and Dan Chapman, December 12, 2011, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Laid off from her temp job in Virginia last March, Lynette Green moved with her two kids to Atlanta in June in search of a job. She ran through her state unemployment payments and got a federal extension. ‘The benefits are very important; they help me pay my bills,’ said Green, 32, who lives in Atlanta’s West End and finally found work three weeks ago. ‘I used the money mainly for my kids, for their transportation and clothing when they started school.’ Extended federal unemployment benefits, which can last up to 73 weeks, expire Dec. 31. The U.S. House will vote Tuesday on continuing to pay the benefits through January 2013. Supporters of the extension say it’s needed in the toughest job market in generations. Those who want to reduce the benefits, mainly Republicans, say payments that can run nearly two years are disincentives to work…”
  • The state of the long-term unemployed, By John Ydstie, December 12, 2011, National Public Radio: “Millions of Americans wake up each morning without a job, even though they desperately want to work. It’s one of the depressing legacies of the financial crisis and Great Recession. NPR and the Kaiser Family Foundation conducted a poll of people who had been unemployed or with an insufficient level of work for more than a year. The results document the financial, emotional and physical effects of long-term unemployment and underemployment. The federal government currently counts 5.7 million Americans as long-term unemployed, which it defines as people out of work for 27 weeks or more. The NPR/Kaiser poll used a slightly different measure, surveying people out of work for a year or more…”

US Teen Birthrate

Why the US teen birthrate hit a record low in 2010, By Jennifer Skalka Tulumello, December 12, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “Increased use of birth control, and, some say, other wide-ranging variables such as abstinence-only education and a poor economy, are playing key roles in driving the US teen birthrate to a record low, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics reported in November that the rate declined 9 percent from 2009 to 2010, with 34.3 births per 1,000 teens ages 15 to 19. That marks the largest single-year drop since 1946-47 – and the lowest level ever reported in the United States. Teenage birthrates have tracked a relatively steady downward trend since 1991, when the rate was 61.8 births per 1,000 teens. (The rates were 52.2 in 1981, 64.5 in 1971, and 88.6 in 1961.)…”