Academic achievement gap persists for Hispanic students, By Martha Mendoza, December 22, 2013, Los Angeles Daily News: “As Hispanics surpass white Californians in population next year, the state becomes a potential model for the rest of the country, which is going through a slower but similar demographic shift. But when it comes to how California is educating students of color, many say the state serves as a model of what not to do. In California, 52 percent of the state’s 6 million school children are Hispanic, just 26 percent are white…”
D.C. high school graduation rate ticks up, but wide achievement gaps remain, By Emma Brown, December 20, 2013, Washington Post: “The District’s high school graduation rate ticked up to 64 percent in 2013, a three-point gain over the previous year, according to data that city officials quietly released last week. But the city average — long among the lowest in the country — masks wide gaps between different groups of students and different schools, with charter schools and the school system’s selective high schools posting higher rates than traditional neighborhood schools…”
Rapid rehousing: A new way to head off homelessness, By Brigid Schulte, August 18, 2013, Washington Post: “At a little after 7 on an August morning, Contessa Allen-Starks puts on her beige scrubs, pours coffee into a plastic foam cup, locks the door to her apartment and hurries to the A4 bus stop on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SW for an hour-long commute to her job in Dupont Circle…”
To be self-sufficient, first you have to find an affordable apartment, By Brigid Schulte, August 18, 2013, Washington Post: “After nine months of being homeless, all Yolanda Pharr can think about is how much she misses a stove. She’s been living in a Days Inn motel room off New York Avenue with her six boys – four boys to one double bed, she and two boys to another — because DC General is full. She longs for the ordinary grace of cooking dinner…”
Homeless believe remaining in shelter will net them permanent subsidies, By Brigid Schulte, August 18, 2013, Washington Post: “Jordan Love Smith is convinced Rapid Rehousing won’t work for her. She stands outside DC General on a hot summer day, under a cement awning that provides the only shade on the sweltering day. Some residents sit in lawn chairs, eating, doing each other’s hair, yelling ‘Get over here! Now!’ at the children playing on the steaming sidewalk when they get too close to the curb…”
Legislature advances push for higher child care subsidies, By Martha Stoddard, May 23, 2013, Omaha World-Herald: “Nebraska ranks among the top states in number of working parents but dead last when it comes to helping those parents pay for child care. The state would climb to No. 44 under a bill that won second-round approval Wednesday in the Legislature. Legislative Bill 507 would allow Nebraska parents to qualify for child care subsidies at incomes up to 130 percent of the federal poverty level…”
In D.C., parents miss work, lose jobs trying to get child-care subsidy, By Brigid Schulte, May 15, 2013, Washington Post: “At 6:30 a.m. on a Wednesday early this month, Andria Swanson, dressed in a bright-pink terry cloth jumpsuit, joined a line that was already snaking down South Capitol Street in Congress Heights. She nervously counted the people ahead of her. ‘I’m number 19,’ she said. ‘That means I’ll get in today.’ At number 20, she said, caseworkers close the doors and tell you to come back another day…”
Grandparents urge state to reconsider cuts to child care assistance programs, By Beth Musgrave, May 21, 2013, Lexington Herald-Leader: “Grandparents pleaded with state officials Tuesday to reverse a freeze on new applications for a program that provides $300 in monthly assistance to relatives who take custody of abused and neglected children. Among those testifying at a public hearing Tuesday was Sandra Flynn of Lexington, who has been caring for five grandchildren — including a set of twins who were born addicted to drugs — for two years. Flynn said she relies on the $300 check per child and a little less than $300 in food stamps to provide for her family of seven…”
