The Huffington Post – Carol Emig
“Today, one in five children in the United States is poor, a proportion that hasn’t changed much in the last several years. More than half of three- and four-year-olds still do not attend preschool, even though enrollment has increased in recent years. And despite improvements in high school graduation rates, in 2015 there were still 1,000 “drop-out factories”–high schools that graduate 60 percent or fewer of their students. Much of the work to improve these conditions falls to state and local officials who design, deliver, or oversee most children’s services within complex parameters set by federal and state laws, regulations, and funding. To complicate things further, there’s never just one problem. Many of the risks facing vulnerable children and youth feed on each other. Poor children, for example, are less likely to attend high-quality child care and preschool, more likely to attend struggling schools, less likely to benefit from after-school and summer programs, and more likely to live in dangerous neighborhoods. Where should a public official begin?.”(more)