National
Study of Youth and Religion: Portraits of Protestant Teens: A Report on Teenagers
in Major U.S. Denominations
The National Study of Youth
and Religion is funded by Lilly Endowment. The purpose of the project is
to research the shape and influence of religion and spirituality in the lives
of U.S. adolescents; to identify effective practices in the religious, moral,
and social formation of the lives of youth; to describe the extent to which
youth participate in and benefit from the programs and opportunities that
religious communities are offering to their youth; and to foster an informed
national discussion about the influence of religion in youth's lives, in order
to encourage sustained reflection about and rethinking of our cultural and
institutional practices with regard to youth and religion.
PDF: http://www.youthandreligion.org/publications/docs/PortraitsProtTeens.pdf
HHS Awards $80.5 Million
in Healthy Start Grants to Reduce Infant Mortality
The Department of Health
and Human Services announced 77 grants worth more than $80.5 million to improve
health care for pregnant women and reduce higher-than-average infant mortality
rates in targeted communities as part of the Healthy Start, Eliminating Disparities
in Perinatal Health program. Poor access to prenatal care for pregnant women
often results in higher infant mortality rates among certain U.S. minority
groups.
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2005pres/20050622.html
**Community Development
HUD Introduces Homeownership
Basics Online
The U. S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development introduced five, 20-minute computer-based modules
designed to help potential homeowners understand the home buying process.
The modules were unveiled at HUD's "Owning Your Future", a nationwide
outreach effort to showcase the tools and resources families need to gain
self-sufficiency and homeownership. HUD's homeownership modules not only
explain the basics of buying a home, but they also guide the user in understanding
what is expected of a buyer and what they should expect from others in the
home buying process.
http://www.hud.gov/news/release.cfm?content=pr05-084.cfm
Public Housing Transformation
and the "Hard to House"
According to The
Urban Institute public housing transformation has largely failed to address
the more complex needs of "hard-to-house" residents who have relied
on public housing as a source of stable, if less than ideal, housing. The
hard-to-house include a range of high-need households, such as grandparents
caring for grandchildren, families with disabled members, very large households,
and multiple-barrier families coping with an array of difficult problems.
For these vulnerable families, the same public housing transformation that
may offer better housing and new opportunities for other tenants can be just
one more blow
http://www.urban.org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&NavMenuID=3&Template=/TaggedContent/ViewPublication.cfm&PublicationID=9294
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Get more information on
these issues at http://www.ecommunityissues.com.
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Implementing Financial
Work Incentives in Public Housing
This report from MDRC examines
how public housing authorities in six cities implemented one of the most innovative
features of the Jobs-Plus demonstration: using incentives plans to keep rents
lower than they would have been under existing rules as a way to encourage
and reward work among public housing residents.
http://www.mdrc.org/publications/392/overview.html
**Economic Security
Designing a Work-Friendly
Tax System: Options and Trade-Offs
The federal tax system often
imposes its highest effective marginal tax rates on low- and moderate-income
individuals. This paper suggests several ways to reduce those high effective
marginal rates but illuminates the large trade-offs involved. A more comprehensive
approach would integrate the individual income and Social Security tax systems
into a single tax system.
http://www.urban.org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&NavMenuID=3&Template=/TaggedContent/ViewPublication.cfm&PublicationID=9296
Jobless at Retirement
According to the Economic
Policy Institute some policy makers have suggested that raising the retirement
age would address the projected long-term gap in Social Security finances
by inducing Americans to work long and postpone claiming their benefits. This
recommendation, however, ignores the fact that a large number of workers lose
employment before they reach Social Security.
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_20050615
**Education
A Poor Child May be Left
Behind
The federal No Child Left
Behind Act mandates standardized testing of students in public schools. A
study published in the latest issue of Psychological Science is one of the
first and only to use a model of scientifically grounded research to test
and show that students' poverty level and location do affect their performance
on these high-stakes achievement tests, as it limits their access to qualified
instructors.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-06/bpl-apc061405.php
How Have High School Exit Exams Changed Our Schools: Some
Perspectives from Virginia
and Maryland
"How have High School
Exit Exams changed our Schools? Perspectives from Virginia and Maryland" is a new report by the Center on Education Policy adding
to its work in tracking the local implementation of state high school exit
exams. With exams now required for graduation in 19 states, the report reveals
a first look at how the tests are changing behavior of students, teachers
and administrators in America's high
schools.
Press Release: PDF - http://www.ctredpol.org/highschoolexit/change/PressRelease9June.pdf
Report: PDF
- http://www.ctredpol.org/highschoolexit/change/CEP_HS_EE_9June2005.pdf
LISC Stakes New Ground
in Charter Schools
The Educational Facilities
Financing Center (EFFC) of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)
joined with other partners to announce the creation of two funds worth $56
million to finance public charter school facilities in Los Angeles County and Indianapolis. The EFFC is also releasing its special
report, “The Charter School Facility Finance Landscape,” the first national
survey of private and public providers of funding and financing for charter
school facilities.
http://www.lisc.org/whatsnew/press/releases/2005.06.20.0.shtml
Student Community Service,
Volunteerism Highlighted by Monthly TV Show, Webcast
The U.S. Department of Education's
monthly TV show and Webcast "Education News Parents Can Use," profiles
the emerging strategy of service-learning, considered to be a powerful way
to instill in students the principles of citizenship, compassion and service
while they apply their academic skills, knowledge and interests to benefit
their communities.
http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2005/06/06202005a.html
Building Learning Communities
An analysis from MDRC
of Opening Doors Learning Communities illustrates how the program serving
mostly low-income freshmen at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, NY, improved course and test pass rates, particularly
in English.
http://www.mdrc.org/publications/410/overview.html
Senior Citizen Support
for School Spending is Growing
According to a Penn State study, local school districts can take heart from trends in
senior citizen attitudes toward school spending since each succeeding bloc
of senior voters attaches increased value to public school education. Senior
citizens who oppose school taxes do so not because they are retirees on fixed
incomes but because they came of age when funding education was less a public
priority.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-06/ps-scs061505.php
**Health
Maryland's Poor, African-American Communities
Suffer Disproportionate Cancer Risk from Air Pollution
New research from the Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that Maryland communities that are poor and predominantly
African-American incur a disproportionate cancer risk from ambient exposure
to airborne toxins. Further, the researchers were able to identify the sources
underlying the inequities.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-06/jhub-mpa061505.php
Public Hospitals Provide
Quality Diabetes Care, but Disparities Persist
A new report from the Commonwealth
Fund finds that safety net hospitals provide high-quality care to patients
with diabetes, with outcomes on par or better than national averages. Disparities
in outcomes remain, however, for minority and uninsured patients.
http://www.cmwf.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=281960
Medicare Drug Benefit
Resources
The Medicare Prescription
Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 was signed into law on December
8, 2003. The Kaiser
Family Foundation has compiled some resources to reflect the latest information,
as well as background materials on various parts of the law.
http://www.kff.org/medicare/rxdrugdebate.cfm
Medicare's Investment
in Quality Improvement May Not be Paying Off
Medicare's quality improvement
organizations are charged with improving the medical care of Medicare beneficiaries.
A new study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health reports that hospitals that actively participate with these quality
improvement organizations do not consistently show any greater improvement
than hospitals that do not.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-06/jhub-mii061305.php
**Substance Abuse
Tobacco Policy Change
Awards
Groups advocating for policy
changes to promote effective tobacco prevention and cessation strategies may
apply for grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
http://www.jointogether.org/saredirect/?Object_ID=577283&ID=saFunding
