- Academic achievement gap is narrowing, new national data show, By Lyndsey Layton, June 27, 2013, Washington Post: “The nation’s 9-year-olds and 13-year-olds are posting better scores in math and reading tests than their counterparts did 40 years ago, and the achievement gap between white students and those of color still persists but is narrowing, according to new federal government data released Thursday. The scores, collected regularly since the 1970s from federal tests administered to public and private school students age 9, 13, and 17, paint a picture of steady student achievement that contradicts the popular notion that U.S. educational progress has stalled…”
- Achievement gap narrows on long-term NAEP, By Erik W. Robelen, June 27, 2013, Education Week: “Achievement gaps for black and Hispanic youths have declined by substantial margins in reading and math since the early 1970s, according to new federal data issued Thursday. The gaps with their white peers, while still in evidence, have narrowed across all three age levels tested as part of a national assessment of long-term trends that offers a look at test data spanning some 40 years…”
Month: June 2013
Unemployment Benefits – North Carolina
With changes to its unemployment law, NC becomes 1st state to drop federal jobless funds, Associated Press, June 28, 2013, Washington Post: “With changes to its unemployment law taking effect this weekend, North Carolina not only is cutting benefits for those who file new claims, it will become the first state disqualified from a federal compensation program for the long-term jobless. State officials adopted the package of benefit cuts and increased taxes for businesses in February, a plan designed to accelerate repayment of a $2.5 billion federal debt. Like many states, North Carolina had racked up the debt by borrowing from Washington after its unemployment fund was drained by jobless benefits during the Great Recession…”
States and Medicaid Expansion
- Working poor losing Obamacare as states resist Medicaid, By Alex Wayne and David Mildenberg, June 24, 2013, Bloomberg: “Rose Ruiz collects $8 an hour cooking, cleaning, checking the oxygen tanks and changing the diapers for a 67-year-old diabetic confined to a studio apartment on the south side of Austin, Texas. Ruiz, a home health aide to Medicaid patients, has no medical insurance herself. Her best shot at getting access to doctors and medicines for her own needs was through President Barack Obama’s expansion of the federal-state Medicaid programs. That hope was scuttled for Ruiz and thousands of other health-care workers across Texas when the state opted out of the Medicaid expansion earlier this month. Texas has the highest rate of uninsured people in the U.S…”
- Pence team not working on Medicaid expansion alternative, By Dan Carden, June 25, 2013, Times of Northwest Indiana: “With just three months until millions of low-income Americans start signing up for an expanded Medicaid program, the Pence administration revealed Tuesday it has yet to begin talking with the federal government about creating an Indiana alternative. Debra Minott, Indiana’s secretary of the Family and Social Services Administration, told the General Assembly’s Health Finance Commission the governor believes preserving the Healthy Indiana Plan, which covers 37,316 participants, is a higher priority than negotiating a Medicaid alternative, which would cover some 400,000 Hoosiers…”
- Despite rejection of Medicaid expansion, next steps in Obamacare set to begin in Wisconsin, By David Wahlberg, June 24, 2013, Wisconsin State Journal: “Though the Legislature last week approved Gov. Scott Walker’s rejection of an optional Medicaid expansion under federal health care reform, the next steps in carrying out the rest of the law are expected to unfold this summer. ‘Navigators’ will be hired to help people enroll in coverage for next year, and details of the private insurance plans to be offered will be released. Outreach campaigns will pick up, including a ‘Get Covered America’ effort launched last week by former campaign staffers for President Barack Obama and ‘Time for Affordability,’ organized by America’s Health Insurance Plans…”