Moving Texas Forward

An Economy that Works

raffarin — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:30:29 +0000

This economy doesn’t work for working people. Instead of creating good jobs to compete in the global economy, we’ve given free rein to corporations, cut taxes on the wealthy and reduced protections for workers. Americans are working harder and getting less for it. Wages are stagnant. Costs for housing, health care and home heating oil have skyrocketed. Millions of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck and are only a serious illness or personal crisis away from poverty. While CEOs pocket tax cuts, bonuses and stock options, working Americans worry about credit card payments and the price of a tank of gas.

We need to change course. Conservatives say everyone is on their own, but that’s never been true about America. We’re all in this together, and we all do better when the benefits of prosperity are widely shared. We need new policies that put people first. We need to make sure work pays a living wage and that children aren’t forgotten when both parents are out of the house. We need to invest in areas vital to the future and reclaim the manufacturing prowess that made us the strongest economy in the world. Workers need real enforcement of labor laws so they can organize on the job and get a fair share of the profits they help generate. In an economy of unceasing change, we must ensure that health care and retirement plans are secure and cannot be lost because of a change in jobs. And we have to develop a trade strategy that works for the nation not just for the multinationals.

We’ve seen this before. When the new industrial economy was created at the turn of the last century, robber barons profited amidst the desperation of factory workers denied decent wages. Americans came together and created new rules—the forty-hour week, the right to organize, a minimum wage and worker health and safety provisions—that helped build the broad middle class that is the triumph of America. Now that middle class is being squeezed in the new global economy. We must come together again and create the rules and policies needed to empower people once more, and ensure the existence of the middle class glue that holds America together.

Reforming Teacher Certification

raffarin — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 00:35:20 +0000

Any parent knows that having good teachers is critical to a child’s learning. But too many teachers in America’s public schools lack content knowledge in their subject or are not suited to the classroom. As schools struggle to meet the No Child Left Behind Act’s requirement to ensure all teachers are “highly qualified,” state policymakers need to take a hard look at their teacher preparation and licensure systems. The current approach to training and licensing teachers deters and disqualifies many people interested in teaching, yet still does not adequately guarantee the quality of teachers who are licensed. The problem is that our current approach creates “paper barriers” instead of connecting would-be teachers with opportunities to get the skills they need to begin teaching and helping them develop a professional career path.

To attract more talented and qualified people to the teaching profession, policymakers are experimenting with an array of innovations. One approach is to eliminate the barriers that often deter talented students and professionals from pursuing teaching jobs. Instead of mandating that teaching applicants have a degree in education, this approach requires potential teachers to have: 1) a bachelor of arts or sciences degree from an accredited university; 2) a passing grade on a competency test in the subject they seek to teach; and 3) a clean criminal record. The premise of this approach is to allow any applicant who meets these criteria to be considered for the job, whether or not they are prepared to start teaching.

Instead of focusing on barriers to teaching, policymakers should emphasize induction and training activities for the teachers. While research finds that traditional education courses do not impact student achievement, emphasizing quality, ongoing professional development shows much more promise. Meaningful recruitment and induction programs can include mentoring projects with fellow teachers, additional coursework, and professional collaboration. Policymakers can also fuel excellence by allowing schools of education, community colleges, nonprofit organizations, and other providers to compete for these new, expanded opportunities to train teachers.Depending on their needs and values, states and cities will take different approaches to eliminating statutory and financial barriers to applying for teaching jobs, but all states and the District of Columbia now offer some type of alternative certification. These alternative routes vary significantly state-to-state both in quality and in the degree to which they make teaching accessible to talented applicants.The National Center for Alternative Certification, at www.teach-now.org, was established in 2003 to serve as a one-stop comprehensive source of information about alternate routes to teaching for aspiring educators and interested policymakers. Dr. C. Emily Feistritzer, president and CEO of the Center, estimates that 50,000 teachers per year are now coming through alternative routes. They compose one-third of all new teacher hires in America.Before teacher shortages reach crisis proportions, policymakers ought to draw from one another’s innovations to break down paper barriers to certification and make successful alternatives the norm.

Expanding Learning Time in Schools

raffarin — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 00:34:21 +0000

Because our society is growing increasingly complex and our economy ever more global, young people need a wide range of knowledge in the core academic subjects, including reading, math, science, and social studies, while developing an unprecedented array of skills in computers and technology, problem-solving and critical thinking, written and oral communication, and teamwork. Yet in many schools, we continue to prepare our children for the challenges of the 21st century with a 19th-century approach to education. While it is true that most states have now adopted higher standards of learning, the basic structure of schools has not changed: schools are forced to squeeze an expanded curriculum into just 180 six-hour days, leaving teachers little time to help students explore, experience, and master material. On the flip side, the focus on standards and tests, along with funding limitations, have also meant that many of the activities that can engage children in learning and broaden their skills (e.g. arts, music, sports) have been reduced or eliminated. As the National Commission on Time and Learning declared eloquently in 1994, “Learning in America is a prisoner of time…. The boundaries of student growth are defined by schedules for bells, buses and vacations instead of standards for students and learning.”But now, several urban school districts around the nation, as well as one state, are finding ways to break free from this “prison of time” and provide schools significantly more time to broaden and deepen teaching and learning. What makes these innovations different from the more traditional approach to extending learning time (e.g., remedial tutoring or summer school) is that the additional time is for all students in the schools, thus allowing a more comprehensive redesign to take place. Taking a page from charter schools, where a significant majority operate on a longer day and/or year schedule, leaders of these schools and districts are becoming more realistic about what it takes to enable all students to reach high standards. Such efforts require incentives for teachers and school leaders; a willingness to act boldly, but reasonably, within an institution that often resists change; and a commitment from policymakers to stick with this innovation, as school reforms often take several years to bear fruit.

At the State LevelIn Massachusetts, a unique partnership between legislative leaders, a nonprofit education organization, Massachusetts 2020, and the State Department of Education had led to an ambitious initiative to significantly expand learning time for all students in a subset of schools. The “School Redesign: Expanded Learning Time to Support Student Success” Initiative began in 2005-2006 as 16 districts underwent a planning process to explore if and how they could convert existing schools to a schedule that was 30 percent longer for all students. Five districts, covering 10 schools, were able to successfully navigate this planning process and craft new provisions in the teachers’ contract to fairly compensate teachers for the additional hours. (The funding to pay for the higher teacher salaries, as well as other costs associated with the expanded hours, come entirely from the state at $1,300 per student.) But more than just adding time, this initiative required schools to undertake a wholesale redesign of their educational program. At base, the ELT initiative forced educators to ask the question: “What should we be doing to best educate our students?” As a result, many of the schools significantly expanded class time for math, reading, and science, allowing for a more consistent integration of project-based learning and a deeper exploration of curriculum. In addition, schools offer a choice of enrichment classes to every student, and designated periods for individualized instruction.Led by Democratic legislators, including Senate President Robert Travaglini, House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, and Senator Robert Antonioni and Representative Patricia Haddad, co-chairs of the Joint Committee on Education, the Massachusetts Legislature allocated $6.5 million to the initiative in FY 2007, enabling all 10 schools — serving a total of 4,700 students — to become the first cohort of this statewide initiative to expand learning time. In the fall of 2006, another 84 schools across 29 districts were awarded a planning grant for the purpose of opening ELT schools in September 2007 and/or September 2008. Massachusetts 2020, which helped to drive the design and implementation of this policy, has provided and will continue to provide technical assistance to the districts and schools undergoing the conversion to a longer school day. In addition, a national evaluation firm has been contracted by the Massachusetts Department of Education to track the impact of the initiative.

At the School District Level

One key local authority innovator is Miami/Dade, Fla., the fourth largest school district in the country. Serving over 350,000 students across nearly 370 schools, this district, like most urban districts, struggles to ensure that all children receive a quality education and achieve high standards. When Superintendent Rudy Crew, renowned for his reform efforts in New York City, came to the district in Summer 2004, he decided to focus his most intense attention on chronically underperforming schools. To enable their improvement, Crew actually created a mini school district of 39 schools (20 elementary, 11 middle, and eight high schools) where the schools would be given “intensive care” to help lift student achievement. Dubbed the “School Improvement Zone,” one of the core structural changes was to lengthen the school day by an hour and the school year by 10 days. This extra time is used to integrate intensive reading tutoring and test prep for struggling students. For working more hours and to help encourage teacher retention, teachers are paid 20 percent more and given intensive professional development.

The new superintendent of the Pittsburgh Public Schools, Mark Roosevelt, has developed a similar program in his district. Starting this school year, eight Accelerated Learning Academies (ALA) have implemented “an innovative enhanced school model that has a proven record of success.” Again, one of the core changes to these schools has been lengthening the day for at least 45 minutes to allow for more instruction time in literacy, math, and science and to add 10 days to the school year. All told, students attending an ALA school for grades K5 will experience 1.2 more years of school than peers attending a conventional Pittsburgh school.

Helping Rural Industries Become More Competitive

raffarin — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 00:33:12 +0000

By encouraging innovative state-industry partnerships, legislators can help corporations leverage their own investments in workforce education and cutting-edge R&D, making them players in the New Economy. During the boom of the 1990s, when many cities showed signs of economic comeback, much of rural America continued to stagnate or decline. Some decline of rural industry is the inevitable result of technological progress, as, for example, new approaches rapidly cut the number of people needed to sustain agriculture. But some rural decline stemmed from the opposite: a failure to bring technological innovations to rural enterprise.

To remedy this, policymakers from different rural areas of the country are innovating with a range of policies reflecting local needs and campaigning on the prospect of bringing much needed innovation to those rural parts of each state that are lagging. The most promising of these are predicated on facilitating inter-industry cooperation in utilizing new technologies and techniques or increasing access to the high-speed Internet.

Perhaps the most ambitious of these new and innovative approaches to develop rural areas has been the initiative to widen the circle of those with access to cutting edge technology. Broadband Internet access, the high-speed data transmission that allows computers to send vast amounts of information to one another in an instant, is key to the production of a successful rural industry in the New Economy. Satellite technology, available anywhere that can see the sky, is too slow for many industry applications.Since May 2004, New Hampshire’s Rural Development Council (NHRDC) has been engaged in a large-scale project to develop a plan for substantially increasing technological access in rural areas in the state. The NHRDC will take a “community-needs-based” perspective, remaining “vendor-neutral,” as well as “technology neutral.” The NHRDC began by assessing the capabilities, needs, and wants of certain types of entitities in the community such as schools, entrepreneurs, municipal buildings, etc. The NHRDC will next meet with vested partners to develop the structure that can make the technology fit the community.

The challenge for rural legislators has been that dispersed demand could not justify a service provider’s deployment cost. To wire rural New Hampshire, the NHRDC will aggregate demand for broadband, thereby making it an attractive investment. By making the state’s rural broadband competitive with prices in major cities, the NHRDC’s model helps rural industries overcome the first major hurdle of New Economy competitiveness, high-speed Internet access.

Broadband will not in itself spur competitive rural industry. For rural Americans to reach their economic potential, policymakers must also invest in developing new products and production processes. The public-private partnership approach that is crucial to aggregating broadband demand is also a good model for investing in R&D. By pooling diffuse public and private resources into development clusters, partnerships effectively target the resources to ag-industrial R&D, technical education for small farmers, “co-marketing” between small agricultural businesses, and giving participating manufacturers access to a large research team.

A particularly good model of this approach is the San Joaquin Valley’s New Valley Connexions program, which coordinates technology development, infrastructure deployment, workforce education, marketing research, and industry cooperation among eight counties in California. The accomplishments of the Connexions program have spurred many other initiatives including the California Geographic Information System, a tool that takes economic, demographic, and social data from throughout the state and helps to identify strategically prioritized locations for development.

Another example of a program that has helped develop activities to add value to regional agricultural products can be found in Vermont in the form of Cabot Cheese, a co-operative of dairy farmers who use the milk they produce to make cheese and other dairy products in the region.

Other strategies for developing rural economic potential include South Dakota’s Value-Added Agriculture fund, which supports feasibility and marketing research for agricultural processing projects. Established in 1999, the South Dakota program provides companies with an initial 50 percent grant to study the feasibility of proposed innovative agricultural projects, which is eventually paid back if the projects evolve into successful enterprises. Thus far, more than $16 million dollars has been outlaid for 25 different projects, including two multi-state ventures, the results of which are expected soon.

An altogether different type of approach currently being employed can be found in Virginia, where former Gov. Mark Warner helped boost entrepreneurial, growth-oriented business located in the rural areas of his state. Before he was governor, he helped set up seed capital funds to promote such entrepreneurship in parts of Virginia such as Roanoke, Charlottesville, and Hampton Roads. Similarly fashioned initiatives can also be found in Minnesota’s Technical Corporation Investment Fund, Iowa’s Product Development Corporation, Kentucky’s Rural Innovation Fund, and the Small Enterprise Growth Fund of Maine.

Initiatives need not necessarily focus directly on agri-business development to be beneficial. Oregon, for example, has set up a public-private partnership called the Oregon Wood Products Corporation. The organization has targeted and helped encourage industry clusters, which can be exceedingly beneficial to those inhabitants and companies in the same vicinity.

Clearly, there are many ways to help rural industries become more competitive. But increasing access to the Internet and facilitating inter-industry cooperation in developing and utilizing new technologies and techniques show the greatest promise for helping rural Americans benefit from New Economy innovations and reach their economic potential.

R&D Tax Credit

raffarin — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 00:32:08 +0000

Technological innovation is the major factor driving economic growth (and, even more importantly, personal income growth) in the New Economy. That is why one of the best policy tools to stimulate innovation is the research and development tax credit — commonly known as the R&D tax credit.

Because companies seldom retain all of the benefits of their research, particularly riskier- and earlier-stage research, economists find that companies systematically under-invest in R&D. A principal economic rationale for establishing an R&D tax credit, therefore, is to reduce the difference between the private and actual rates of return by lowering the costs of privately financed research.

Currently, the federal government offers companies a 20 percent tax credit on year-to-year increases in R&D. At least 35 states have their own versions of the R&D credit, with many states offering a “piggyback” credit on the amount of a firm’s research expenditures that qualify for the federal credit.Research shows that the R&D tax credit has been a cost-effective policy tool. For example, the former Congressional Office of Technology Assessment concluded: “For every dollar lost in tax revenue, the R&D tax credit produces a dollar increase in reported R&D spending, on the margin.” Other studies have found even greater benefits, with the economic benefit-to-tax cost ratio between 1.3 and 2.0.

At the state level, R&D tax credits have the added benefit of boosting the business climate for high-tech investment, and since high-tech jobs pay more than 75 percent more than non-high-tech jobs, this is a good investment. Some, however, have criticized state R&D tax credits as corporate welfare. In comparison to the vast majority of the more than $45 billion in corporate tax breaks states provide each year that simply reward companies for what they already would do, the R&D credit has the advantage of providing a vital economic stimulus.

State credits vary significantly. Rhode Island has a credit of 22.5 percent for the first $111,000 of qualifying expenditures and 16.9 percent for investment above $111,000. At 20 percent, Hawaii’s credit matches the federal tax credit, is refundable, and is also among the highest R&D tax credits in the nation. Hawaii’s credit can be used against not only income tax, but insurance premiums and franchise taxes.

At least one state, Massachusetts, provides a more generous credit for company research expenditures at universities. It provides a 10 percent credit for company expenditures, but a 15 percent credit for company expenditures on basic research at universities in the state.

Technological innovation is driving the New Economy, and state economic development policies need to be modernized accordingly. Incentives for research and innovation, like establishing or raising R&D tax credits, are important and farsighted steps in the right direction.

Universal High-Speed Broadband Access

raffarin — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 00:31:02 +0000

Today, the economy is increasingly coordinated and reliant on high quality broadband Internet access for everyday operation. But the uneven distribution of broadband access across the country has made it impossible for many individuals and businesses to take advantage of new opportunities and succeed in today’s global economy. The transition to broadband faces a difficult initial hurdle. Since broadband costs roughly twice what dial-up Internet costs, many customers are unwilling to make the transition unless there is enough broadband-only content and applications to make it worth the increased cost. Only approximately 24 percent of households that could have broadband access actually subscribe. Internet providers, on the other hand, are unlikely to invest the money in broadband specific content unless there are enough subscribers to make the investment worthwhile. Broadband deployment is a particular challenge in rural areas, where distances between homes are greater and costs are higher. Some Internet service providers simply do not see the profitability in installing broadband Internet access where infrastructure development is expensive, and only one quarter of users will pay extra for the service.

Whether citizens and businesses have access to affordable high-speed broadband is one factor in determining whether America will remain competitive in today’s global economy. More and more applications that are now being used by small and large businesses require broadband access, including videoconferencing, video on demand, and VoIP, as will most new applications currently in development. During the 1990s the United States was a leader in broadband adoption, but since 2001, when we ranked 4th in broadband adoption rates, we have dropped significantly to 12th. And no matter what study you look at, the United States continues to fall in worldwide broadband rankings.

In addition, the current broadband access in the United States tends to be slower and less capable than in many other industrialized nations. According to estimates by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the U.S. price-per-megabit of connection speed is more than 10 times as high in the United States as in Japan.During the 2004 campaign, President Bush set a goal of universal broadband access in America by 2007, but there has been little follow through at the federal level since the election. The United States is currently the only industrialized nation without a national policy for promoting broadband. In the face of federal inaction, however, state and local governments are stepping up to the plate to resolve this dilemma and allow their communities to succeed in the flat world economy. Once this hurdle has been cleared, businesses can more reliably provide telecommuting opportunities to employees, expand content they provide, and more effectively partner with companies around the country and around the world.

In 2003, under the leadership of then Gov. Mark Warner, the Commonwealth of Virginia formed the Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative (MBC) – a not-for-profit cooperative, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration, the Virginia Tobacco Commission, and others from the private sector, government, and the non-profit community – in an effort to revitalize the economy of Southside Virginia. Funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Virginia Tobacco Commission, the MBC’s mission was to build more than 700 miles of new fiber optic infrastructure to connect five cities, 20 counties, and 56 industrial parks in the region. This fiber build out was completed in late 2006 and is estimated to provide high speed Internet access to nearly 700,000 Virginians and more than 19,000 businesses who do not already have such access. This initiative is also estimated to create 1,560 new jobs, $70.2 million in new wages, and $143 million in projected new investments. Furthermore, these new technology-based jobs are estimated to carry wages 54 percent higher than the average wage rate in Southside Virginia.

Gov. Tim Kaine has expanded on Warners work by setting a goal of having broadband access to all businesses by 2010. In order to achieve this goal, he worked with Delegate James Scott and the legislature to create the Office of Telework Promotion and Broadband Assistance, which will help facilitate construction of the so-called last milebroadband technologies throughout the state.

In Tennessee, a state that ranks 37th in broadband access, Gov. Phil Bredesen worked with the State Legislature in 2005 to create the Tennessee Broadband Task Force. Chaired by Sen. Roy Herron (D) and Rep. Mark Maddox (D), the task force released its final report in early 2007. Recognizing how critical broadband is to the states economic development, health care, and education, they called for a public-private partnership to develop a statewide plan to promote more access and usage of broadband services across the state, with particular attention to rural areas.

In 2006, Gov. John Baldacci and the Maine Legislature created the ConnectME Authority to expand broadband and wireless services throughout the state. Under the legislation, tax reimbursements will be available for infrastructure investments made in areas that are presently unserved; the Connect ME Authority will receive $500,000 from the Universal Service Fund to assist Maine people in expanding broadband services; the Authority will obtain USDA rural development money to advance broadband deployment in Maine; and it will track investments made in Maine and continually assess the availability of services in the state.

In New York, newly elected Gov. Eliot Spitzer has launched a Universal Broadband Initiative that will ensure cities and rural areas in upstate New York have access to affordable, high-speed Internet service. Spitzer plans to study the current state of access across the state, and then begin contracting with companies in the private sector to provide high-speed service at affordable rates. Finally, in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has appointed 21 technology leaders to a Broadband Task Force to help remove barriers to high-speed cable and wireless, and will soon make $460 million available for this project, much of which comes from education bonds approved by the voters in 2006.

The benefits of universal affordable broadband access are tremendous. A 2001 report by the Brookings Institution estimated that widespread adoption of broadband could add $500 million to the national economy and create 1.2 million jobs per year. In addition, cities can benefit from telecommuting by reduced traffic congestion. Rural areas can benefit from both tele-medicine and tele-education, which can provide top-notch services to underserved areas. Tele-medicine, which can be administered from a local clinic, or eventually from home, can give patients access to a specialist who can review medical information provided from the local clinic with the information provided through a secure online connection. Tele-education can allow rural high schools to receive specialized training without the need to consolidate. Students can receive college credit from public and private institutions by participating in class lectures online. State and local government investment in broadband Internet access can also improve the way citizens interact with all levels of government by increasing the accessibility and efficiency of government services. The more access people have to affordable, high-speed Internet, the more governments can move their resources efficiently by providing convenient government services online, and allowing forms, parking tickets, and taxes to be filed electronically. Police and other safety officials can upload large reports and provide streaming video of safety notices or warnings online.

The question in the end is not whether this country will eventually have widespread access to broadband. That is virtually certain. The issue is how soon fuller broadband access will be available, and who will catalyze it. A wait-and-see approach means America will lag behind its global competitors. If state and local governments step up and take action, our economy, our government, and our citizens will be the winners.

Paid Family Medical Leave and At-Home Infant Care

raffarin — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 00:29:51 +0000

One of the most successful initiatives of the Clinton administration was enactment of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) guaranteeing most workers the right to unpaid leave to care for new children, or for their own or their families’ medical needs. Naysayers argued that family and medical leave would place the entire U.S. economy at a competitive disadvantage. The ensuing seven years, however, represented the longest period of sustained economic growth in the history of the country, and most employers found that family and medical leave turned out to be a pro-business policy.Building on the success of a national family and medical leave policy, in 2002, then-Calif. Gov. Gray Davis and the state legislature passed a law implementing paid family and medical leave. By taking into account both the high costs workers face to support a family and the market competition that business owners face, California policymakers crafted an employee-financed system that makes family leave a more viable option for middle- and lower-income workers. California’s pro-family, pro-business law establishes the Family Temporary Disability Insurance (FTDI) system, which uses the state’s current disability insurance system to expand paid coverage to California workers who need to take time off from work to care for newborns or sick family members. Through the new system, most employees will receive about 55 percent of their salary for six weeks of leave.

While employees pay into their own fund, employers still bear the costs associated with a worker on temporary leave. However, judging by the federal FMLA, many employers may save money in the long run. A Families and Work Institute study conducted five years after the federal law went into effect found that despite concerns that it would burden companies with administrative expenses, 84 percent of employers concluded that the benefits of providing family and medical leave offset or outweighed the costs. In fact, many businesses noted reduced employee turnover, enhanced productivity, and improved morale. And nine out of 10 employers agree that the law is easy to administer.Californians from all walks of life support the state’s progress on family and medical leave. Caregivers welcome the new insurance system because it is an approach that reflects the 21st century reality of two-worker families, with men and women sharing caregiving responsibility for children and sick or disabled family members. Parents especially welcome paid family and medical leave because it allows them to establish the bond between newborns and parents that researchers agree is critical to healthy human development. California business owners welcome employee-financed paid leave as a new incentive to attract more highly trained workers to the state and reduce expensive turnover among lower skilled workers. Overall, paid family and medical leave promises to enhance the quality of family and work life for all Californians.

This year, Washington became the second state to enact paid family leave legislation when Governor Chris Gregoire signed legislation that created a state-wide family leave insurance program slated to begin in October 2009. This particular program offers new parents up to 5 weeks of leave time per year in order to bond with a their child — either newborn or adopted. Individuals who work 35 hours per week or more will receive a weekly benefit of $250 during their leave time. Those who work less will receive a prorated benefit.

While California and Washington have taken the most significant strides on family and medical leave, several other states have key provisions that states should consider. Minnesota’s Family and Medical Leave law allows an employee to use their personal sick leave benefits to attend to a child for a reasonable amount of time. In addition, Minnesota requires all public employers and private employers with 21 or more employees to grant an employee leave of up to a total of 16 hours each year to attend school conferences or school-related activities of their children. Both of these provisions give parents the ability to balance two critical roles in their lives and succeed as both parents and employees.

Some states have decided to target their family leave policy to the critical first year of a child’s life. At-Home Infant Care programs (AHIC) provide partial wage replacement to low-income, working parents who choose to have one parent stay home for the first year of a child’s life. At least three states, Minnesota, Montana, and New Mexico, have experimented with AHIC programs. Three others, Vermont, Missouri, and Iowa, have all considered, but not passed, AHIC legislation. In 2003, the Montana legislature approved an AHIC program, but did not specify a funding source, so no recipients have yet taken advantage of the program.

These AHIC programs are typically limited to employed parents, making AHIC less like the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program and more like paid family and medical leave. For example, in Montana, TANF recipients are not eligible for the AHIC program and program recipients must have been in the workforce. Minnesota’s program has similar requirements, and the intent of the program — to encourage both work and parenting — is reflected by the majority of participants who use the program for less than one year and return to work. In addition, the programs have time limits, generally between 12 and 24 months during the lifetime of the recipient. But AHIC programs also differ from dependent care subsidies or tax credits that encourage parents to opt for paid child care rather than at-home care in the first year, which experts increasingly recognize is helpful to healthy child development.

As policymakers in many other states consider similar legislation, they would be wise to analyze California’s fair and fiscally responsible model for providing workers the tools they need to excel as workers and family caregivers.

Promoting Financial Literacy

raffarin — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 00:29:06 +0000

One of the most important trends of the 1990s was the rapid increase in the number of Americans with capital investments — some through individual stock purchases, some through employer-sponsored mutual funds, and still others through tax-deferred savings vehicles, such as IRAs, 401(k)s, and college accounts. By the end of the decade, nearly one-half of all American households contained stockholders.

The rise of this “investor society” was the result of several factors, including federal laws that facilitated individual savings through tax incentives, such as IRAs, and encouraged employers to shift away from traditional pension plans and toward employee-controlled defined contribution plans, such as 401(k)s. The advent of Internet trading, which helped to democratize access to Wall Street, and the general prosperity of the 1990s were also critical to attracting millions of new investors into the market.

But with these opportunities come risks. While workers now enjoy broader access to new means for wealth creation, they also shoulder a greater burden of financial responsibility. Moreover, financial decisionmaking has never been more complex, as investors face a continually growing array of investment options. Without basic financial literacy about these options and their complicated rules, people frequently make bad investment choices or are deterred from investing at all. Either way, lack of financial savvy can doom a person’s prospects for long-term wealth creation and retirement security.New Democrats in several states are now working to ensure that workers have access to what may be the most critical tool they need to prosper in the New Economy: financial literacy.

One of the undisputed leaders in this effort is Delaware State Treasurer Jack Markell, who has been a pioneer in improving financial literacy since the late 1990s. Soon after becoming treasurer, Markell set up seminars entitled “Everywoman’s Money,” aimed at giving women, especially those recently divorced or widowed, basic training in financial management and investment. Working with Delaware’s higher education institutions and K-12 schools, Markell also helped develop a school curriculum, “Bank At School,” that sought to provide children with a fundamental understanding of money matters and personal financial responsibility by actually bringing a bank to school and giving them the opportunity to engage in basic banking activities. This model has been duplicated in Chicago, Illinois, New Jersey, California, and West Virginia. Markell has also paved the way for the development of the “Summer Institute for Teachers,” a one-week educational conference worth two credit hours, as well as “Money Talks,” a newspaper for K-8 teachers. Both of these tools for teachers serve to arm them with the necessary knowledge to teach financial lessons to their students. Markell also developed an Annual State Treasurer’s Summit for High School Students, where high school juniors from Delaware go each year to brush up on their saving and investing skills.

Another initiative for youth financial education is underway in Chicago. Ariel Capital Management has teamed up with John Nuveen & Company to run an innovative program raising awareness among young African-Americans about their private investment options. The program is simple: The first grade class at Ariel Academy is given $20,000 from the Ariel Nuveen Investment Fund to invest as a class throughout their primary and secondary education. Parents also receive information about their children’s investments and lessons in savings and economics, which serve to reinforce the classroom experience at home. Upon graduation, the seniors will return the initial investment amount to the school for another first grade class to invest. The profits are then used for college scholarships for class members, initiatives to improve the academy, and various philanthropic programs in the community.

In 1999, Markell launched the groundbreaking “Money School,” which provides free, convenient, and comprehensive financial education to Delaware residents. Topics covered by the Money School curriculum are widely varied, including debt management, homeownership, day-to-day budgeting, and retirement planning. The very popular school offers more than 500 classes statewide, ranging from workplace programs to “lunch and learns,” responsible renting classes to breakfast sessions, all of which are taught by volunteer analysts, financial planners, and other financial experts. One recent Money School initiative brought financial education in both English and Spanish to the residents of a low-income apartment complex.

In 2001, Markell sought private funding to create the nonprofit Delaware Financial Literacy Institute to manage the Money School and provide financial education for Delawareans. In 2004, Delaware created Purses to Portfolios: Delaware Women Take Charge of Their Money, a comprehensive program that offers women encouragement and incentives to pursue ongoing financial education.

Another program created by a consortium of organizations, and led by the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE), looks to increase student knowledge of investing and financial planning. While this program is geared solely toward high school students and does not include classroom investing with real money, NEFE has been able to introduce its curriculum in a much larger and more diverse environment and has, in fact, now reached more than 2 million students across the country during the past 19 years. Offered free to all public and private high schools nationwide, the program prepares students with hands-on learning techniques to develop good budgeting practices, create sound financial and savings plans, protect their assets, and fully comprehend the cost of borrowing money.

Beyond these innovative examples of what is working, there are many other models for policymakers to draw on in developing ways to improve people’s financial literacy. Approaches will vary according to diverse needs of particular communities; the important thing is that policymakers act quickly to ensure that people develop the financial literacy they need to invest effectively, and build wealth for a financially secure future.

Preventing Teen Pregnancy

raffarin — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 00:28:27 +0000

Since the landmark welfare reform act of 1996, the nation has witnessed remarkable progress in promoting work and reducing dependency. While caseloads dropped by more than one-half, work rates increased to record levels and more recipients than ever found both the dignity of a job and the prospect of self-sufficiency within their reach.

While these successes deserve praise, the job of welfare reform will not be complete unless policymakers can stem the root causes of poverty and dependency. And the most significant root cause, perhaps, is unwed childbearing. Research shows that progress the nation makes on reducing teen pregnancy contributes directly to the reduction of child poverty and the number of children living with single mothers (see http://www.teenpregnancy.org/whycare/whatif.asp).

Unwed childbearing, and in particular teen pregnancy, can devastate a young woman’s economic prospects, not to mention the economic, educational, and health prospects of her children. The child of an unwed teen high school dropout is nine times more likely than the child of a wed adult high school graduate to live in poverty, according to researchers Nick Zill and Kevin O’Donnell. Moreover, only one in three teen moms finishes high school, and nearly four out of five end up on public assistance, costing federal, state, and local taxpayers at least $9.1 billion annually.Teen birth rates have declined by 33 percent since 1991, in all states and among all ethnic and racial groups. Still, the United States has higher teen pregnancy and teen birth rates than any other highly industrialized country in the world. In fact, one in three teenage girls in the United States will be pregnant at least once before the age of 20.

The good news, however, is that teen pregnancy prevention programs can and do work, and a growing body of research has begun to isolate the most effective program models that policymakers should replicate. Among these proven approaches:

Sex education programs. Polling has shown that adults and children agree that school students should be strongly encouraged to delay sex. Three-quarters of adults also agree that young people should be provided with information about contraception. Public opinion, in this case, happens to be aligned with best practice, since it is the abstinence-plus-contraception educational programs that have demonstrated success at reducing teen pregnancy. Although many schools provide abstinence-only sex education programs, mounting research indicates that “abstinence-first” programs — programs that place strong emphasis on abstinence but also discuss contraception — are most effective in reducing teen pregnancy. Take, for example, the Aban Aya Youth Project curriculum, which was first implemented in Chicago. Aban Aya, a program targeted to African-American boys, addresses issues of violence, drugs, as well as sex through an “abstinence-first” curriculum. Compared to a control group, participating boys reported less sexual activity and higher contraceptive use than their non-participating peers. Ten to fifteen percent more participating boys were using condoms by the end of the program than boys who did not go through the program at all.

Youth development. Perhaps the most successful teen pregnancy prevention programs evaluated to date are those that combine sex education with a focus on youth development. The seminal program based on this model is the Children’s Aid Society-Carrera Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, first begun in New York and now in a number of states across the country.The Carrera program offers pre-teens and teens a full range of services besides basic education, including help with school, employment assistance, sports and other recreational activities, and access to mental health, medical, and dental services. Participants are enrolled at the age of 11 or 12, and stay with the program until they graduate from high school. Research has found that Carrera participants are less likely to become pregnant, more likely to delay intercourse, and more likely to use contraception than non-participating teens. Moreover, the benefits of the program extend beyond teen pregnancy prevention: Carrera participants also perform better in school.

Service learning. There is also strong evidence that service learning programs have a powerful impact on reducing teen pregnancy among youth who serve. They include a combination of voluntary or unpaid service in the community and structured time for the youth to prepare and reflect on the experience before, during, and after service. One particular service learning model is the “Teen Outreach Program” (TOP) which has had especially impressive results. One study of TOP found that participating students had an 11 percent lower rate of course failure, an 11 percent lower rate of suspension, a 60 percent reduced drop-out rate, and a 33 percent lower rate of teen pregnancy — all regardless of race, socioeconomic status, or grade level. There are currently 13,000 young people participating in 176 sites where TOP operates, including New York City, New Orleans, St. Louis, and in cities across California and Florida.

Media campaigns. A critical aspect of teen pregnancy prevention is countering the glamorization of teenage sex and single parenthood by popular culture and the entertainment industry. One innovative effort to “fight fire with fire” is the combination of public service announcements and education used by the “Not Me, Not Now” campaign in seven states and more than two-dozen localities. Pioneered by Monroe County, N.Y., policymakers and nonprofit leaders, the initiative primarily targets pre-teens and teens between nine and 14 years old. The campaign relies on posters in schools, ads in movie theaters, and an especially promising education program called “Bright Futures,” in which high school students are trained to teach younger students about how to resist peer pressure to have sex. A recent evaluation of the program included a survey of middle-school students, and found that the program had dramatically affected students’ awareness and their attitudes and behavior toward early sex and teen pregnancy. The campaign relies on posters displayed in schools and recreation centers, and offers fun promotional items to reinforce the media messages. The campaign also includes “Making Smart Choices About Sex,” a three-session abstinence curriculum that teaches adolescents that postponing sex is a positive, life-enhancing decision. Topics covered: reasons for postponing sex, setting goals, making healthy choices and effective communication. The curriculum comes with interactive CDs, homework packets, and pre- and post-tests. The curriculum is written for grades 7 and 8 (or younger).

Parental Involvement. In addition to curriculum-based programs, policymakers must also reach out to the parents of teens and pre-teens. American parents must be given the tools and support that will enable them to talk competently to their children about sex. Governor Jennifer Granholm of Michigan has piloted a program in her state called Talk Early and Talk Often, which provides parents training sessions, town hall meetings, and web resources with the information they need to comfortably discuss premarital sex with their children.In addition to drawing ideas from these programs, state and local policymakers should review the New Democrat initiatives developed at the federal level, particularly those proposed in the Strengthening Families Act of 2003 (S. 657). Sponsored by Sens. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), the bill sets a national goal of reducing teen pregnancy by 33 percent during the next decade. Additionally, the bill underscores the importance of learning from one another by calling for a national resource center for best practices. Similar provisions were also included in S. 1443, the “Building on Welfare Success Act of 2003″ introduced by Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), along with co-sponsors Sens. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Susan Collins (R-ME). This resource center was later offered as an amendment by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and included in the welfare reform reauthorization bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee in March 2005. For a complete list of pending legislation related to teen pregnancy, visit:
http://www.teenpregnancy.org/policy/legislation.asp.There are clearly many initiatives state and local policymakers can draw from to reduce teen pregnancy, and ultimately, poverty and dependency. It is time for leaders at every level of government to draw from past successes and implement ambitious and effective prevention programs.

Community-Based Crime Fighting

raffarin — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 00:27:32 +0000

In a decade of astonishing progress on a series of previously intractable social problems, the radical reductions in crime rates during the 1990s still stand out in sharp relief. And while a variety of measures contributed to this success, including tougher sentencing standards for violent crimes, the single most important factor was a renaissance in crime-fighting strategies for police, prosecutors, and other key players in the criminal justice system. The “community policing” movement, strongly supported by the Clinton administration and materially aided by Clinton’s 100,000 cops initiative, led to a nationwide reconsideration of the rapid-response model of police work that often ignored broad, community-based crime patterns and options for crime prevention. At the same time, city and county police departments in many parts of the country began linking data on neighborhood crime patterns to a system of accountability for results. The Bush administration and Republican-controlled Congress have foolishly abandoned their predecessors’ commitment to helping communities improve police work, feeding a “cop crunch” in many major cities, even as crime rates have begun to rise and police departments face tough new homeland security responsibilities. But even in the absence of national leadership, many local elected officials continue to make progress on community-based crime-fighting strategies.

In Stamford, Conn., Mayor Dan Malloy has made a systematic commitment to community policing a top priority of his administration. One especially noteworthy Malloy initiative has extended the neighborhood-based community policing model into schools. Police officers are assigned to work with specific schools throughout the school year and act not only in the traditional role of peace keeper but run peer mediation programs and visit homes of at-risk children in the evenings. In addition, the city, in conjunction with a variety of community groups and businesses, operates a free summer camp for all middle-school students in which cops serve as coaches and mentors.In Los Angeles, one of the pioneers of the community policing and police accountability movement, former New York police commissioner Bill Bratton, now runs the LAPD, for many years a bastion of the old rapid-response policing model plagued by poor community and race relations. Taking charge in the midst of a red-hot crisis over gang-related murders, Bratton quickly adapted many of the initiatives he used so successfully in New York, including the ComStat system of computerized crime mapping, the key to NYPD’s accountability initiative. Murders in L.A. dropped 20 percent in the first year and one-half since Bratton’s arrival. This trend continued, as violent crime fell 38 percent and propery crimes fell 17 percent from 2003 to 2005. And in the first six months of 2006, murders dropped another 24 percent over last year, and gang-related murders went down by 32 percent.

But Bratton’s not the only community-based crime fighter in Los Angeles. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo has been a strong proponent of “community prosecution” techniques, which involve redeploying prosecutors by geographical areas rather than case specialties.

Like community police, community prosecutors work with citizens, community groups, and other elements of the criminal justice system with the aim of producing broad-based reductions in crime, not just clearing dockets and closing cases.

Under Delgadillo, the City Attorneys Office has also set up a Safe Neighborhoods Division to house community-based crime-fighting efforts.

Thanks to Bratton and Delgadillo, Los Angeles is taking the next steps in community crime fighting: an overhaul of the entire criminal justice system to focus on crime patterns, conditions that create crime, and crime prevention strategies, in part through teamwork between police and the community. Bratton has deployed two innovative community-based techniques for crime fighting: “e-policing” and the Crime Maps program. E-policing allows Los Angeles citizens to receive important crime updates and newsletters from senior police officials, allowing for better communication and connection between the police department and community. Crime Maps allow citizens to view up-to-the-minute crime statistics for their neighborhood, which has been proven to be a valuable tool in reducing and preventing crime.

These are the kind of results that a systematic commitment to community-based crime fighting can produce: not only lower crime rates and better community relations, but an overall enhancement of business development opportunities and quality of life.

Now, since 9/11, state and local law enforcement agencies have been asked to take on new responsibilities, protecting the homeland, preparing to act as first responders, and gathering intelligence. Those with fully integrated community policing efforts are best equipped to collect information, interpret it, and apply it as effectively as possible. Ultimately, all law enforcement agencies no matter what their size or location should have a stake in and be able to contribute to a global intelligence community. Communtiy-based crime fighting is necessarily rooted in a very local foundation, but its potential impact is boundless.