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Ryan Forum Will Preview Poverty Agenda

Ryan Forum Will Preview Poverty Agenda

By Alan K. Ota, CQ-Roll Call (TNS)

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin is opening the door to new initiatives aimed at helping low-income families as he prepares to discuss poverty in a forum showcasing GOP presidential candidates in Columbia, S.C., on Saturday.

The top Republican plans to make the case — with seven GOP presidential aspirants — for a conservative approach to shrinking poverty’s footprint. Both parties have shown a willingness to develop bipartisan initiatives to help 46.7 million Americans living in poverty, even as they vie on the campaign trial over competing economic plans and ideologies.

Robert Doar, a fellow in poverty studies at the American Enterprise Institute, predicted participants would “show the GOP has more to offer than tax cuts and greater growth.”  AEI is one of the sponsors of the gathering.

Ryan plans to join Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., to moderate three panels of presidential candidates and to outline his own thoughts in a speech and panel discussion. The event sponsored by the Jack Kemp Foundation could serve as a bellwether of prospects for items that could move as stand-alone bills or as add-ons to broader legislation such as a possible international tax overhaul.

Scott said in an interview there would be openings to move modest proposals aimed at promoting private and charter schools and helping the jobless, including his own plan (S 574) to create a $1,000 business tax credit for employers that hire an apprentice younger than 25 years old.

“We hope that we will see more traction for apprenticeship programs and school choice opportunities,” Scott said.  He said other bigger items such as proposals to broaden eligibility for the earned income tax credit for childless workers likely would be an issue “in 2017 for the next Congress.”

Robert Greenstein, president of the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, said he hoped Ryan and President Barack Obama could work out differences on proposals to broaden eligibility for the earned income tax credit, or EITC, to low-income workers without minor children but called it “rather doubtful because it’s hard to see the vehicle on which it would move.”

Doar said Ryan likely would focus on ensuring that federal programs do not serve as “poverty traps.”

“He’s open to ideas that can make programs work more effectively and target assistance where people have the greatest need,” Doar said.

Ryan demonstrated his willingness to give ground in the recent $680 billion permanent tax break accord (PL 114-113), which included long-term extensions of the expanded EITC and the additional child tax credit.

Despite the recent tax deal, the two parties disagree over the best way to reduce the nation’s 14.8 percent poverty rate. While Republicans argue for tax cuts and for streamlining aid programs, Democrats advocate worker incentives and raising the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

Democratic Goals Democrats are looking for ways to shoehorn their own priorities into the floor agenda.

Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., said he and other Democrats planned to work with Ryan on efforts to target funding in a range of federal programs to more than 400 rural counties that have the highest persistent poverty rates. For example, one proposal by Assistant Minority Leader James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., would designate a 10-percent share of funds for rural development and other programs to counties with poverty rates of 20 percent or more for the last 30 years.

Aid targeting could face hurdles with conservatives that seek deeper cuts. But Butterfield predicted wide support for putting more existing funds “into poverty counties.” He said he believed “Ryan is ready to deal in a bipartisan way on issues that are important to low-income families.”

Butterfield said he and other Democrats would oppose any effort by conservatives to shrink aid programs such as temporary assistance for needy families, known as TANF. “We would never tolerate any decrease in TANF. We want an increase in TANF funding,” Butterfield said.

And for now, both parties disagree over a GOP push to reshape TANF to ensure enforcement of work requirements while providing more flexibility for beneficiaries to get job training and education. Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., R-La., said he had handed off responsibility for TANF legislation to Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., as part of the reshuffling of subcommittee gavels, when Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, replaced Ryan as the top tax writer.

©2016 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: Newly-elected U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) holds his first news conference at Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington November 3, 2015. REUTERS/Gary Cameron

Californians Strongly Support Common Core

Californians Strongly Support Common Core

By Sharon Noguchi, San Jose Mercury News

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Unlike the political uproar and division elsewhere in the country over revamping public-school curriculum, Californians across party lines overwhelmingly support the new standards for education, a survey released Wednesday revealed.

The educational standards known as Common Core — adopted by nearly every state — revise what and how children should learn and focus less on memorization and more on deeper learning, critical thinking and hands-on experience.

A statewide poll taken this month shows that 72 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of Republicans favor the new standards.

Similarly, 70 percent of the 1,702 people polled support Gov. Jerry Brown’s overhaul — known as the Local Control Funding Formula — of how the majority of school districts are funded, with more money going to help low-income and English-learning children.

“Given all the dramatic changes taking place in both curriculum and funding of our schools, it was surprising to find such strong support,” said Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California, which conducted the poll. The results reflect Californians’ dissatisfaction with the status quo, he said, and the hope that changes will address educational concerns.

The poll showed that support for the Common Core State Standards varied by ethnicity, with 88 percent of Asians, 77 percent of Latinos, 71 percent of blacks and 57 percent of whites favoring them. Regionally, 76 percent of respondents in the Bay Area express support.

Anne Campbell, superintendent of the San Mateo County Office of Education, found the support encouraging. “These standards more accurately reflect the knowledge and skills students will need for success in their future,” she said.

Nearly half of respondents believe the new standards will make the United States more competitive globally, and nearly two-thirds felt confident they would boost critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

However, support for these broad changes in state public education is tempered by worry. Three-quarters of the respondents, and four-fifths of parents, are concerned that teachers are unprepared to implement Common Core, perhaps reflecting the variation in how schools have handled the change. “It’s uneven across school districts how communication and outreach are happening,” said Colleen You of Belmont, president of the California State PTA.

What’s important, she said, is getting teachers on board and trained. “When teachers are informed and excited about the standards, students and parents feel comfortable and confident.”

Underlying the support for change was worry about the current state of education.

Overwhelmingly, respondents expressed concern over state financing, which 81 percent called a problem. The poll also showed concern about low-income students’ lack of preparedness for college, and English language-learners’ low test scores.

To solve the funding problem, 46 percent said the state should increase education funding and use funds more wisely; 41 percent said only that funds should be used more wisely.

Respondents were less willing to increase local taxes for schools. Among likely voters, 48 percent would vote yes on a local parcel tax — far short of the two-thirds majority required to pass a tax hike. Only 39 percent of likely voters approved of lowering that required threshold from 66.67 percent to 55 percent — the same threshold set for passing local bond measures for facilities.

While 81 percent called school quality a problem, respondents viewed their local schools favorably.

About one-half would award their schools an A or a B. Among public-school parents, 12 percent rated their schools excellent, 45 percent good, and 38 percent “not so good” or poor, in preparing students for college.

And while people generally knew that California fares poorly in national education comparisons, less than one in seven correctly answered where the state ranks in per pupil spending for K-12 public schools and on student test scores: in both cases, near the very bottom.

The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

While acknowledging that Common Core is a step in improving teaching and that the new funding formula could increase equity among schools, PTA leader Erwin Morton called them incremental changes.

“Let’s be clear: None of our students have enough resources when we’re 49th, 50th or 51st in every category and at every level — the largest class sizes, the fewest counselors, the least of everything,” said Morton of the PTA district that covers Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. “The shift in the distribution of funds unfortunately doesn’t change that.”

Photo of Department of Education via Wikimedia Commons

Lower-Income Teens Aren’t Getting Enough Sleep, Researchers Say

Lower-Income Teens Aren’t Getting Enough Sleep, Researchers Say

By Mary MacVean, Los Angeles Times

African-American high school students and boys in low- to middle-income families reported short, fragmented sleep, and that could play a role in their health risks, researchers reported Monday.

Anyone who has ever lived with a teenager knows they often don’t get the eight to nine hours of sleep the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends. Researchers writing in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics looked at one group of young people — those in a lower socioeconomic community.

A sample of 250 students from western Pennsylvania, ages 14 to 19, took part in the study over a week. Based on a diary and a monitor worn by the students, most of the students slept around six hours a night during the week. They reported more time, about 6.8 hours, in their diaries, but the researchers said that included time they tried to go to sleep.

The study evidence “suggests that black male adolescents may be the demographic subgroup most vulnerable to the negative consequences of inadequate sleep,” the study said.

Less sleep, the researchers said, “is associated with more negative cognitive, behavioral and functional measures among adolescents.”

Teenagers have a biological tendency to stay up late and sleep late in the mornings, when they can, the researchers wrote. But school schedules don’t generally accommodate that.

They wrote that “a more optimistic view of adolescent sleep was recently published” from a nationally representative sample using diaries and showing that 14- to-18-year-olds slept around nine hours a day. “No gender or racial or ethnic differences were observed,” they wrote.

But the researchers in the current study noted that teenagers in “disadvantaged communities or who are disadvantaged by virtue of their minority status are faced with challenges that may result in different sleep patterns.”

They called it “premature” to conclude that adolescents are getting enough sleep.

Photo via Flickr; Timothy Krause