Linking research and advocacy to improve the well-being of Iowa kids
What's New
APRIL 10, 2012
Iowa child-care providers report major losses from accepting state subsidies
Iowa child-care providers who participate in the state's child-care assistance program are increasingly making difficult choices to compensate for state reimbursement rates far below current market rates. That's the finding of a recent survey of providers by Every Child Counts, CFPC's advocacy initiative.
To balance their books, Iowa providers report limiting the number of children on CCA, dropping the program altogether, or cutting back on the investments needed to assure quality care.
Families with incomes up to 145 percent of poverty are eligible for assistance while working or attending school. Those with incomes above 100 percent of poverty pay part of the cost of care, based on a sliding scale.
A provision of a Iowa Senate Health and Human Services bill would narrow the gap by boosting child-care assistance reimbursement rates paid to licensed or registered providers by 4 percent. Its future in the Iowa House remains unclear.
Learn more
Read the reimbursement rate fact sheet.
Read CFPC's five-year plan for improving child care in Iowa.
FEBRUARY 23, 2012
More Iowa children living in high-poverty communities
The number of Iowa children living in high-poverty areas more than doubled over the last decade—a much faster pace than in the U.S. as a whole. Iowa saw a 145 percent increase, compared with a 25 percent increase nationwide, according to a new KIDS COUNT® Data Snapshot from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
“The increase in the number of children living in high-poverty neighborhoods in Iowa is alarming," said Michael Crawford, director of CFPC’s Iowa Kids Count initiative. The 27,000 children living in those communities represent 4 percent of the Iowa child population.
The report, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest American Community Survey (ACS), found that, nationally, 7.9 million children—11 percent—are growing up in areas where at least 30 percent of residents live below the federal poverty level, about $22,000 per year for a family of four. These are places that often lack access to resources critical to healthy growth and development, including quality education, medical care and safe outdoor spaces.
“Kids in these high-poverty areas are at risk for health and developmental challenges in almost every aspect of their lives, from education to their chances for economic success as adults,” said Laura Speer, associate director for policy reform and data at the Casey Foundation. “Transforming disadvantaged communities into better places to raise children is vital to ensuring the next generation and their families realize their potential.”
There are things we can do to reverse this trend in Iowa, said Crawford. “We need the help of the business community in placing businesses in these neighborhoods, which would not only improve their stability, but also provide more employment opportunities. In addition, we need to increase access to affordable housing.”
Read the report.
FEBRUARY 8, 2012
Raise the EITC, Bruner tells state lawmakers
Iowa’s treatment of low-income working families with children is the most unfair part of the state tax code, CFPC executive director Charles Bruner testified last week at the Iowa Senate Ways and Means Committee.
Bruner called on lawmakers to raise Iowa’s earned income tax credit (EITC) from 7 percent of the federal EITC to 20 percent. Such an increase would help low-income workers across Iowa, who often struggle to meet their families’ basic needs.
Many of these families—families with incomes so low they owe no federal income tax—nonetheless owe state income tax. In fact, Iowa is one of only a handful of states that impose income taxes on working families with incomes below the poverty level, Bruner said.
He gave an example of a married Iowa couple with two kids. The federal government does not begin taxing this family until its paychecks exceed $45,400. But Iowa begins taxing this family when its paychecks reach $19,100—well below the poverty line.
By comparison, a retired Iowa couple with Social Security and pension income owes no state income tax until their income reaches $60,000.
Increasing the EITC would reduce such disparities in tax treatment and offer a noticeable break for families trying to get ahead—a boost they are in turn able to spend in their local community.
Learn more
View Bruner’s EITC presentation.
Read the Iowa Human Needs Advocates’ EITC position paper.
Read Rehka Basu’s Des Moines Register column on how the EITC helps one Iowa family.
FEBRUARY 7, 2012
Advocates back plan for improving child care in Iowa
Iowa can substantially improve its child-care system by focusing on affordability, availability and quality. That's according to a five-year improvement plan released last week by the Child and Family Policy Center.
"Child care is fundamental to the well-being of Iowa's children and to the stability of our workforce," said Sheila Hansen, director of Every Child Counts, the advocacy initiative of CFPC.
Hansen testified last week before the joint Health and Human Services budget subcommittee that the major focus of improvements is three-fold: boosting the eligibility level for child-care assistance, raising the rates paid to child-care providers under the child-care assistance program and strengthening quality initiatives, including expanded health and safety monitoring and a boost to the state's Quality Ratings System.
The five-year plan reflects the input of focus groups of child-care providers and parents across Iowa and a planning committee of representatives from nonprofit organizations involved with child care. In addition to CFPC, the plan was endorsed by the Iowa Association for the Education of Young Children, Iowa Head Start Association, Iowa Community Action Association, Iowa Commission on the Status of Women, Iowa Policy Project, Mid-Sioux Opportunity, Inc., United Ways of Iowa and Visiting Nurse Services of Iowa.
Read the plan.
View the printer-friendly version.
JANUARY 10, 2012
2010 Iowa Kids Count report: Economic slide continues for Iowa families
Iowa’s families and children continued to experience tough economic times during 2010, according to a new report released by the Child and Family Policy Center. The report, Iowa Kids Count 2010: Trends in the Well-Being of Iowa Children, included findings that showed the economic situation for families, particularly moderate- and low-income families, has shown no improvement from the previous few years.
The unemployment rate and the percentage of people receiving food assistance (nationally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) both more than doubled from 2000 to 2010. In addition, the child poverty rate and the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches saw substantial increases during the past decade.
JANUARY 8, 2012
Every Child Counts releases 2012 legislative priorities
Every Child Counts, CFPC's advocacy division, has released its 2012 legislative priorities. View them here.
DECEMBER 15, 1011
Forum stresses need for better literacy outcomes
There's growing consensus that Iowa must do more to assure that all children read proficiently by the end of third grade.
The stakes are high, according to Ralph Smith, vice president at the Annie E. Casey Foundation and co-chair of the Campaign for Grade Level Reading. Smith spoke at a Dec. 15 forum on third grade reading, cosponsored by CFPC, the Iowa Afterschool Alliance, United Way of Central Iowa and the Business/Education Alliance of Greater Des Moines.
"Kids who read at grade level by the end of third grade graduate from high school. Kids who don't read at grade level by the end of third grade, don't," Smith told the approximately 100 forum participants, including state and local policymakers, advocates and educators.
Other speakers included Nell Duke, professor and co-director of the LiteracyAchievementResearchCenter at MichiganStateUniversity and Heather Weiss, director of the Harvard Family Research Project. Local responders included state lawmakers, representatives of the governor's office, business leaders, educators, administrators and school board members.
The day's topics included a review of the current research base and best practices around early elementary reading, as well as ways to ensure linkages between 0-5 and 5-8 systems, how to build effective out-of-school programs and how and whether to limit social advancement based on reading proficiency.
Photo: Ralph Smith, right, challenges forum attendees to take on third-grade reading. Event sponsors, seated from left to right, include Michelle Rich of the Iowa Afterschool Alliance, Charles Bruner of CFPC and Elisabeth Buck of United Way of Central Iowa.
Learn more:
View the speakers' presentations and review forum materials here.
DECEMBER 7, 2011
Report: Presidential candidates debate "the future" but ignore children and issues affecting them
Despite representing a quarter of the country’s population and 100 percent of its future, children’s issues commanded scarcely two percent of the attention in the first 10 presidential candidate debates to date and less of that in total discussion and debate time. That’s according to a new report released by the Child and Family Policy Center in Iowa, Moving America’s Children Into the Spotlight: The Presidential Election As An Opportunity for Dialogue About America’s Future.
CFPC conducted a content analysis of the transcripts from the first 10 Republican presidential debates, beginning with the Greenville, South Carolina debate on May 5 and concluding with the Spartanburg, South Carolina debate on Nov. 12, with other debates occurring in California, Florida (2), Iowa, Michigan, Nevada and New Hampshire (2). In addition to debate analysis, CFPC also reviewed the candidates’ position statements and ways they presented their policy views on their websites. The report found that little debate time and website content has involved children’s issues.
Download the complete report: Moving America’s Children Into the Spotlight: The Presidential Election As An Opportunity for Dialogue About America’s Future
Download Press Release here
AUGUST 31, 2011
Iowa Kids Count documents changing face of Iowa
Iowa’s most striking population changes are taking place among its children and in communities of color. That’s the message of an Iowa Kids Count report released this week by the Child and Family Policy Center. “And Children Lead the Way” analyzes and maps redistricting data from the 2010 U.S. Census and corresponding data from 2000. It tallies population shifts by age and race for the United States, Iowa and Iowa’s 99 counties, and for five major Iowa cities and their surrounding areas.
Read the press release
Read the report: And children lead the way: Diversity and population change in Iowa
AUGUST 17, 2011
Iowa Ranks 8th in latest Kids Count child well-being report
Iowa ranks 8th nationally in the 2011 Kids Count report on child well-being, a drop of two places from last year’s report. The 22nd annual KIDS COUNT Data Book, released August 17 by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, compares and ranks the 50 states on ten indicators of child well-being.
Iowa ranks second in the nation on two indicators: the percent of children without secure parental employment (22 percent) and the percent of teens not attending school and not working (6 percent). Iowa has shown improvement since 2000 on three other indicators: the teen death rate, infant mortality rate and child death rate, which decreased 27 percent, 15 percent and 14 percent, respectively.
Iowa, however, saw significant increases in the share of children living in poverty and in single-parent families, 23 percent and 16 percent, respectively, since 2000. The share of babies born at low birthweight increased 8 percent in that period, while the remaining two indicators – teen birth rate and percent of teens not in school and not high-school graduates – remained unchanged.
For more information:
2011 Iowa Profile Sheet
2011 National Kids Count Data book
JULY 17, 2011
Op-ed: Iowa must restore education as a priority
By Arne Honkamp and Charlie Bruner
(published in Telegraph Herald July 17, 2011)
The Iowa General Assembly completed its most divided session in recent history -- funding state government for next year but leaving key decisions for later.
Although there was a substantial state surplus and Iowa revenues have been increasing, most state appropriations were frozen or cut back, including a one-year freeze on allowable growth in K-12 state aid, the largest part of the general fund budget, and a reduction in overall funding for preschool and early childhood programs.
The inability of Republicans and Democrats to agree upon large tax-cut measures that would have impacted state budgets for years to come has been cited as evidence of gridlock, but it could be a benefit for Iowa's future.
Gov. Branstad and the General Assembly did achieve a very significant goal: balancing the state budget and putting the state in a much more tenable and balanced position for future years.
Their work on the 2012 budget largely stopped the practice of using finite money in trust funds to finance ongoing programs and enabled Iowa to manage the loss of federal stimulus funds. The result is that next year lawmakers will not face a large structural budget shortfall like those they have in recent years.
This permits strategic choices of where and how Iowa should make new investments and reform its tax system. In particular, it offers the opportunity to determine how to make Iowa No. 1 in the nation in education.
Gov. Branstad's Educational Summit on July 25-26 in Des Moines can start this process. The governor has made clear that there has been an unacceptable stagnation in Iowa student performance over the past two decades. His summit calls for Iowans to set sights very high -- to create world-class schools through education reforms. The Report Card produced for the summit should be required reading for all those involved in state budgeting and policy.
While test scores are only one measure of student achievement, the report shows that Iowa's reading and mathematics scores have declined from leader to average among states (and below average when considering white, non-Hispanic students). It also shows that Iowa needs to respond to demographic changes as we revitalize our educational system.
The emphasis of the summit itself -- to establish standards of excellence, accountability for performance and involvement of teachers and parents and communities in the process of producing excellence -- speaks to education reforms that go well beyond incremental increases or adjustments to the school-aid formula.
Achieving success also requires attention to the critical earliest learning years, going beyond the debate this session over Iowa's voluntary preschool program and toward developing overall strategies that ensure children start school healthy and ready for success.
Half of all learning problems faced in school are evident at the time children start school. Iowa has an opportunity to be a leader in developing comprehensive educational reforms that extend beyond K-12 education to improving children's readiness for school.
Iowans place great value on education, and the legislative interim offers the opportunity to engage business leaders, child advocates, teachers, parents and economists in the serious task of developing a 21st century Iowa education system that produces a 21st century, world-class work force.
This task is simply too important to be confined to politics during the legislative session. Lawmakers govern best when they can respond to proposals that have been developed through a much broader process.
The summit can start pulling together and continuously involving Iowa leaders inside and outside of government to develop and secure public consensus behind a blueprint for educational reform and Iowa's future prosperity.
Honkamp, co-manager of Honkamp, Krueger & Co., is a former board member of Early Childhood Iowa. His email address is ahonkamp@honkamp.com. Bruner is executive director of the Child and Family Policy Center, a Des Moines-based research and advocacy organization committed to linking research and policy on issues vital to children and families. His email address is cbruner@cfpciowa.org.
JULY 13, 2011
Central Iowa organizations receive AmerCorps Health Project members to improve child well-being
Two central Iowa organizations – Visiting Nurse Services of Iowa and the Child and Family Policy Center – have secured AmeriCorps members for child health wellness projects. Through an Iowa Public Health Association AmeriCorps Health Project grant, AmeriCorps members will begin work September 1, 2011 and will develop innovative approaches to improving child well-being and reducing the incidence of obesity.
Children develop nutrition and exercise habits very early in life, and the best way to ensure healthy child development is to educate and support families and communities in ensuring that infants, toddlers, pre-schoolers, and elementary students have healthy eating and exercise patterns.
Visiting Nurse Services of Iowa is a not-for-profit community-based agency that provides a continuum of health and human services ranging from pre-natal and maternal child health to home care and senior corps volunteer services. The AmeriCorps member placed at VNS of Iowa will provide public education on wellness and nutrition through informational meetings as well as foster relationships with local community service organizations, pregnancy centers, schools, faith based organizations, businesses and medical/dental providers.
The Child and Family Policy Center (CFPC) is a not-for-profit research and advocacy organization in Des Moines that does extensive community outreach and networking with families in low-income neighborhoods to inform public policy. CFPC has a particular focus upon supporting families in strengthening their communities and bringing their perspectives to state policymakers. The AmeriCorps member placed at CFPC will network with community-based organizations and facilitate meetings with parents of young children to provide public education on wellness and nutrition and to identify and respond to needs and opportunities in the community to address child health needs.
JUNE 29, 2011
CFPC and Every Child Counts launch child advocacy fund development drive in Story County
Nearly two dozen child advocates gathered at the launch of CFPC/Every Child Counts’ Child Advocacy Fund Development Drive at the Youth and Shelter Services in Ames on June 29, 2011. CFPC Director Charles Bruner presented “Child Advocacy and Iowa’s Future”, which highlighted the successful advocacy efforts of CFPC’s advocacy arm Every Child Counts. Specific successes included securing health coverage for 58,000 Iowa children, increasing the earned income tax credit for 220,000 working Iowa families, and sustaining and expanding investments in early childhood services to ensure children start school ready for success.
Bruner also stressed that while Iowa has made important advances in securing its future, much more needs to be done which will require the activation of more champions for children. “For the first time in our country’s history, children face the prospect of being less healthy, less able to compete in the world economy and living shorter lives than their parents”, Bruner said. “Unless we act.”
The launch was co-hosted by Ames residents George Bellitsos, Jan and Cornelia Flora, Cal and Jane Halliburton, Johnie Hammond, Mary Richards, and Ralph and Teresa Rosenberg.
“This was an excellent opportunity to gather with like-minded child advocates, who support ECC’s efforts in making the health, safety and education of Iowa’s children a central priority at the state capitol,” said George Belitsos, Director of the Youth and Shelter Services.
MAY 18, 2011
Early-childhood data systems: Linking school readiness and third-grade reading
On May 17, 240 people representing 36 states and the District of Columbia participated in a webinar on early-childhood data systems and the relationship between birth-to-five policy agendas and early-elementary reform efforts. Charles Bruner, research and evaluation director for the BUILD Initiative, presented his analysis of the state of the field in developing birth-to-eight data systems to inform policy, and Ralph Smith, executive vice-president of the Annie E. Casey Foundation presented an overview of the national work on third-grade reading, its relationship to systems-building efforts and the critical role that information systems can play in fostering linkages.
Click here to view/hear the webinar and here to see background materials and resources
MAY 18, 2011
A Mother's Day Message to Congress
Mothers are usually happy with flowers or a hand-drawn card from their children on Mother's Day. But this year on the day before Mother's Day, four mothers (and some fathers) had a very important request for Congress: “Be responsible to families and children.”
On Saturday, May 7, 2011, Iowa mothers, joined by their children, husbands, their children's grandparents, and dedicated early childhood advocates, gathered together at the Des Moines Botanical Center to send the following message to Congress – don't decimate federal funding that provides the following supports needed by parents and grandparents to make a better life for their children:
• reliable, high-quality child care
• accessible and affordable health care
• high-quality education and college
• quality preschool
• fair-paying jobs that will be available to their children in the future
The event, cosponsored by the Child and Family Policy Center and Every Child Matters coincided with a similar one which took place in New Hampshire – two states which share home to the first presidential caucuses and primaries. Both states want to remind candidates and current elected officials that their actions and decisions on these vital issues are being monitored closely.
Click on the link below for an 8-page pdf story book on the event:
A Mother's Day Message to Congress
Click here to view a slideshow of the event.
APRIL 6, 2011
Social determinants shape children's health outcomes
Child-health practitioners in Iowa must find better ways to address family, neighborhood and economic factors that shape children's health and well being, according to CFPC executive director Charles Bruner and Debra Waldron, director and chief medical officer of the Child Health Specialty Clinics at the University of Iowa. They presented at the Iowa Governor's Conference on Public Health in Ames on April 5.
View their presentation: Healthy Child Development: An Integrated Policy Approach
Webinar: ABCs of Iowa's Corporate Income Tax
Just a few months into Gov. Branstad’s administration, Iowans are getting a look at proposed corporate income tax policies. Current proposals include: retroactive bonus depreciation, a flat 6% corporate tax rate, and more. For the average Iowan, these terms can be overwhelming and confusing.
To help you get a better understanding of the tax rhetoric, the Iowa Fiscal Partnership produced a webinar to walk you through the “ABCs of Iowa Corporate Income Tax” in a simple 20-minute webinar. Learn exactly what the proposed tax credits are, what they will cost Iowans, and their impact on future state budgets if adopted.
The live webinar was hosted by the Coalition for a Better Iowa, a broad range of Iowans concerned about protecting vital services and investing in Iowa’s future. For more information about the Coalition, visit www.BetterIowa.org.
Webinar: ABCs of Iowa's Corporate Income Tax
Phone: 515-280-9027 • Fax: 515-244-8997 • E-mail: info@cfpciowa.org