kids nutrition

Budget Cuts Could Leave 22 Million Children Without Food Stamps

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Some 22 million children who depend on the federal nutrition assistance program that replaced food stamps could lose their benefits under a 2013 budget resolution recently approved by the House Agricultural Committee. The budget, approved in April, would cut more than $33 billion over the next 10 years from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Approximately one third of the proposed cuts are directed at “categorical eligibility” restrictions that could leave as many as two million people per year ineligible for SNAP benefits. The proposed bill would also eliminate more than 250,000 children from automatic enrollment in the Free School Lunch and Breakfast Program. Their benefits could vanish as early as this year if the budget is passed.

lgbt homeless youth

NYC’S Homeless Teens at Risk Due to Budget Cuts, Says LGBT Advocate

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New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recently released executive budget could cut $7 million in funding to the city’s Runaway and Homeless Youth Services, effectively eliminating 160 beds from youth shelters across the city. According to a representative from the Ali Forney Center  - the city’s largest LGBT youth shelter - the need for shelter beds has increased dramatically in recent years, with the waiting list for the Center growing by 40 percent last year. The Ali Forney Center claims that there are only 250 shelter beds available in New York - despite an estimated homeless youth population of almost 4,000. Carl Siciliano, the Center’s executive director, told The Advocate he considered Bloomberg’s budget cuts to be “cruel, reckless and contemptible.”

“These cuts create an even bigger crisis for the LGBT teens who are thrown out of their homes and forced to endure homelessness on the streets of our city,” he said. “The Ali Forney Center and all those who work with and care about LGBT homeless youth will not be silent in the face of this decision, which offends us as a community and needlessly puts our young people in harm’s way.”

A New York City Independent Budget Office report from March predicted (on page 35) homeless shelter budget cuts, with the investigation identifying an increase in average shelter stay durations as well as the cessation of subsidy programs, such as Advantage, as the primary factors for budget shortfalls.

Senate Bill to Extend Current Student Loan Interest Rates Defeated

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Tuesday, Republicans in the U.S. Senate blocked a bill backed by Democrats that would have kept interest rates for certain federal student loans from doubling this July. By a 52-45 majority, GOP senators effectively killed the proposal – entitled the Stop the Student Loan Interest Rate Hike Act of 2012, it marking this Congress’ 21st successful filibuster of a Democratic-sponsored bill, according to The New York Times. If an extension of current federally-subsidized student loan rates does not occur, loan rates for undergraduate students are expected to jump from 3.4 percent to 6.8 later this summer. According to recent reports, American students took out almost twice the value of student loans in 2011 - estimated at about $112 billion – than they did a decade ago. In 2010, student loan debt totaled approximately $1 trillion, eclipsing credit card debt as the nation’s second largest form of debt behind mortgages, USA Today reported.

birth control

More Teens Using Contraceptives, Says CDC

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Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) unveiled new data suggesting more teen girls are using birth control. Part of the “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report,” the data was compiled from several National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) cycles. According to the report, approximately 60 percent of sexually active teens reported using contraceptive methods considered “highly effective” by the CDC, such as hormonal treatments or intrauterine devices - an increase from 47 percent in 1995. Additionally, the CDC report estimated that 57 percent of females ages 15 to 19 reported they’d never had sex, up from 49 percent in 1995. The new report analyzed NFSG data collected from three different intervals - 1995, 2002, and a five-year survey encompassing findings from 2006 to 2010.

Prudential Spirit Community Awrds

U.S. Secretary of Education and Super Bowl MVP Honor Youth Volunteers in Washington

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This weekend, more than 100 youth volunteers - the top two from each state and the District of Columbia - were celebrated at the 2012 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards. The event featured several prominent keynote speakers, including New York Giants quarterback and two-time Super Bowl winner Eli Manning, as well as “Glee” actor Harry Shum, Jr.

In addition to the 102 honorees from the United States - all of whom received an award of $1,000 - several youth volunteers from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Ireland and India were also honored at the National Museum of Natural History Sunday evening. Monday, the state honorees will visit the Walker-Jones Education Campus, where they will present books and hold reading sessions for local elementary school students. At the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Corporation for National and Community Service CEO Wendy Spencer will announce the country’s top ten youth volunteers for 2012, who will be rewarded with $10,000 in cash awards and grants from the Prudential Foundation. Photo by Prudential 

Jewish summer camp

Non-profits in Pennsylvania Could Lose Tax-Exempt Status

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Last month, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided that a Pike County Jewish summer camp was no longer eligible for tax-exempt status in a ruling that could affect non-profit organizations throughout the state. In a narrow 4-3 decision, the state's Supreme Court ruled the summer camp, operated by Mesivtah Eitz Chaim of Bobov, Inc., did not meet the HUP Test, a series of qualifications, established in the court's previous ruling in Hospital Utilization Project v. Commonwealth 1985, used to determine if an organization is a “purely public charity.” Only organizations meeting the standard are given tax-exempt status by the state. The state's Supreme Court ruled the summer camp did not meet one part of the HUP Test, “relieving the government of some of its burden.”

The camp’s organizers, however, argued Act 55, a 1997 state law that includes a broader definition of a public charity, took precedence over the earlier HUP Test. But the Court dismissed this, ruling the state’s General Assembly could not interpret the Constitution and redefine the meaning of a “purely public charity.”

Stuart L. Knade, chief counsel for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette he supported the court’s decision. “People who are students of this area of the law are going to continue to enforce a higher bar to tax exemption,” he said.

alcohol ad teens

States Failing to Reduce Youth Exposure to Alcohol Marketing

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A new study finds that states are failing to do much if anything to keep young people from being exposed to advertisements promoting alcoholic beverages. The report, issued by the Center on Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health notes eight methods, referred to as best practices, for states to limit and reduce youth exposure to such advertisements. And according to the new research findings, only 11 states implement more than one “best practice” policy – with 22 implementing none at all. In State Laws to Reduce the Impact of Alcohol Marketing on Youth: Current Status and Model Policies, CAMY researchers conclude that most states are doing inadequate jobs of keeping children from being exposed to alcohol ads in both traditional and untraditional media formats. The report found the legislative and regulatory steps taken by most states to be both “disappointing” and “inactive.”

The report assessed states on their utilization of best practices established by CAMY guidelines, including measures which prohibit alcohol advertising targeting minors, restrict outdoor alcohol ads in places children may frequent and establish jurisdictions over in-state television and radio advertising.

college success

Performance-Based Scholarships May Improve Academic Progress of College Students

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A new policy brief states that performance-based scholarships – financial aid incentives allotted to students based upon one’s ability to achieve certain academic benchmarks – may serve as a catalyst for both improved grades and greater odds of finishing college, especially for low-income students. The brief, Performance-Based Scholarships: Emerging Findings from a National Demonstration issued by the Manpower Demonstration Research Center (MDRC) was published earlier this month. The policy brief examines the effects of performance-based scholarships on students in select colleges in, among other states, New York, California and Florida, with the authors saying that their findings seem to indicate a slight, yet positive impact on the academic progress of students enrolled in such financial assistance programs.

In 2009, an MDRC report on Louisiana’s Opening Doors program exhibited improved grades, higher credit accumulation levels and greater likelihoods of retention for several college students that were enrolled in the performance-based scholarship program. A year earlier, MDRC began a six-state study, the Performance-Based Scholarship Demonstration, to gauge the overall effectiveness of scholarship programs contingent upon ongoing student academic progress. Although the authors say that the preliminary findings for the six states surveyed for the brief were not as pronounced as the Louisiana data, they still noted that performance-based scholarship programs resulted in several statistically-significant influences for students, including an increase in credits earned and an increase in students’ abilities to meet end-of-term benchmarks during program terms.

MDRC research on the impact of performance-based scholarships will continue until December 2014.

May 3 Webinar Tackles Media Depictions of African-American Men and Boys

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Last October, The Opportunity Agenda, a New York-based advocacy group, released a new report about the influence of media in regards to national perceptions of African-American men. The report, "Opportunity for Black Men and Boys: Public Opinion, Media Depictions, and Media Consumption," covered a decade’s worth of research, concluding that depictions of black males were frequently distorted and unrealistically presented in media compared to national data sets and statistics. The Opportunity Agenda Executive Director, Alan Jenkins, will join Dori J. Maynard, president of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, for a webinar presentation next month to discuss the report’s findings. The one-hour web broadcast, scheduled for May 3 at 3 p.m., will examine how Americans’ attitudes towards African-American males are potentially shaped by media portrayals, including the depictions of black youth in news reports, advertising and entertainment. Additionally, Jenkins and Maynard are expected to discuss ways in which media outlets can change the way they present depictions of African-American youth.

Laws Sending Kids to Adult Court at Issue in New Jersey High Court

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Tuesday, the New Jersey Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of the state’s so-called juvenile waiver laws – a series of rulings that effectively allow county persecutors, and not state judges, to determine whether juvenile cases should be moved to adult courts. Currently, minors as young as 16 accused of a violent offense, such as homicide or aggravated assault, can be transferred to adult court under the state’s waiver laws, according to New Jersey’s The Record. More than 20 local and national organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the state’s Public Defender’s Office, have challenged New Jersey’s juvenile waiver laws, with many arguing that the regulations – which give judges limited ability to deny prosecutor requests for moving cases to adult courts – are unconstitutional. As the laws are written today, unless a defense attorney can demonstrate a prosecutor’s request that a juvenile be transferred to an adult court is a “patent abuse of discretion,” the presiding juvenile court judge is bound by law to grant the request, The Record reports. Tuesday’s hearing centers on a 2009 Middlesex County mugging involving several juveniles – a case in which the trial judge challenged the prosecuting attorney’s request to move the case to adult court.