From the Dispatch

Paid Sick Days Legislation has Overwhelming Support, Polling Shows

Tim Judson — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 12:56:56 -0400

86% of the public favors legislation that would mandate seven paid sick days per year for all employers, according to study sponsored by the Public Welfare Fund in collaboration with the National Partnership of Women and Families (full results here). Even when the public is asked about mandating nine paid sick days per year, 71% still support the proposed legislation. The study found that paid sick days legislation enjoys deep public support across all demographics and political leanings, including large majorities of Republicans as well as Democrats.

In response to the statement, “Paid sick days is a basic worker right, just like being paid a decent wage,” not only did 75% of public agree, but on a scale of 1 to 10 signifying agreement, 43% rated the statement a 10 and 64% agreed strongly (rating it an 8 or higher).

The issue strongly colors how voters view elected officials, with 47% saying they would favor a candidate who supports paid sick days, while only 14% said they would not support that candidate.

Job Losses Suffered Due to Need for Sick Days Drives Opinion: Driving the poll numbers is the reality that too many workers have lost a job or been threatened with losing a job because they needed to take a sick day for themselves or to care for a family member. One out of every six people (16%) has lost their job for missing work due to illness, and one in four (25%) has been told they would either lose their job or be suspended or punished. And while 64% of workers are “eligible” for paid sick leave, the real picture is much more dire:

Less than half of the workforce (47%) can take a paid sick day to care for a sick child or family member, meaning most parents either have to risk their job to care for their children or send them to school sick.
Most workers (58%) whose employers offer only generic “paid time off” get a total of 10 days or less per year to cover vacation, personal, and sick leave.
55% of people without paid sick days have had to go to work sick, compared to 37% of workers who can take a paid sick day.
24% of those without paid sick days have had to send a sick child to school because they couldn't get the day off, while only 14% of those with paid sick days had to do so.

Public Does Not Believe Paid Sick Days Hurts Business Bottom Line: While paid sick days legislation has faced vigorous opposition from some in the business community, in most of the 23 states where it has been introduced, the public overwhelmingly rejects the typical arguments that paid sick days will harm jobs or individual businesses. The research indicates that their messages are not persuasive to voters:

54% of those polled find "very convincing" the argument that "Requiring paid sick days doesn't hurt employers' bottom line" because paid sick days increases worker productivity.
By contrast, only 26% of those polled found the opposition argument "very convincing" that "Given the economic downturn we are now in, businesses can't afford to add new benefits like paid sick leave."

In fact, while almost all of the arguments in favor of paid sick days were viewed by majorities as "very convincing," no arguments by opponents were considered "very convincing" and only four of seven opposing arguments were seen as even "somewhat convincing" by more than half of those surveyed.

Reinforcing the polling numbers is the reality that where paid sick days have actually been implemented, such as the City of San Francisco, even original opponents of the policy, are now applauding its success. In a recent Business Week article, the such as the Golden Gate Restaurant Association stated that paid sick days has been “the best public policy for the least cost" since the policy was enacted.

Resources
Public Welfare Fund - Paid Sick Days: Attitudes and Experiences

Workplace Standards for Domestic Workers: Breakthrough NY Legislation Approved

Tim Judson — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:59:00 -0400

On June 1, the New York Senate put the state in position to be first in the nation to enact a Domestic Workers' Rights law (S2311) by a vote of 33-28. The New York Assembly led the way in June 2009 when it passed its own version of the bill (A1470). This groundbreaking legislation will extend core labor rights, from fair labor standards to paid sick days, to creating a framework for collective bargaining, to domestic workers. This will include those employed to work in a private home to perform housekeeping and/or to care for children, the infirm, or the elderly.

The two versions of the law must be reconciled, as the Senate bill goes much farther in extending basic labor standards, but Gov. David Paterson pledged last year that he would sign the bill. A campaign to pass similar domestic workers legislation is also active in California.

Justice Seventy Years Delayed: Seventy years after passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), domestic workers like agricultural workers are still denied many basic labor protections under federal law such as overtime pay and the ability to join a union. That omission was an extension of the country's entrenched history of discrimination, particularly in the pre-Civil Rights Act era: both farm and domestic workforces had long been dominated by African Americans.

In the 21^st Century, domestic workers remain one of the most exploited segments of the workforce, being comprised almost entirely of immigrant women: according to Domestic Workers' United, 99% are foreign born, 95% are people of color, and 93% are women. Until 1974, when the FLSA was amended to extend minimum wage coverage to them, domestic workers were not protected by any major federal labor law.

As California showed by passing the Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, states can play a leading role in providing basic labor standards for workers abandoned by federal labor law. Just as the United Farm Workers elevated the plight of farmworkers to national attention beginning in the 1960s - and which resulted in passage of the California law - groups such as Domestic Workers United and the National Domestic Workers Alliance have just begun in the last decade to bring similar attention to promoting state and federal reforms on behalf of domestic workers.

Precedent-Setting Standards: Because of the challenging employer-employee relationship involved in domestic employment, the Senate law seeks to create a standard contract for all domestic workers specifying benefits that they are owed. The New York Assembly version has more limited but important benefits - guaranteeing a minimum wage law, prohibiting mandatory overtime, overtime pay, guaranteeing one day of rest per week, and directing the state's Labor Department to investigate a framework for providing employer-provided healthcare and collective bargaining - while the Senate version also provides for:

Paid time off, including six paid holidays, five vacation days, and seven paid sick days (with provision for holiday pay and increased overtime rate on holidays)
Two-weeks, written notice of termination, with violations subject to back-pay
Criminal penalties for violations, including misdemeanor penalties of up to $20,000 and one year in prison for first violations, and similar felony penalties for subsequent offenses
Enforcement either through civil action or prosecution by the Labor Department or Attorney General, with willful violations subject to fines equal to 25% of unpaid wages

A National Breakthrough on Paid Sick Days: Should the paid time off provisions of the Senate bill be included in the final version of the law, New York will be the first state in the country to establish paid time off as a basic labor standard, not just for domestic workers, but for any private-sector employees -- advancing basic labor standards that are common throughout the rest of the world but sorely lacking in the United States. The new law is especially significant for the movement to enact paid sick leave legislation, since it would also be the first time an entire industrial sector has acquired the right to take paid sick time off from work. The Domestic Workers' Rights bill has not met with organized opposition thus far, primarily because of the informal nature of domestic employment.

New State Laws Limit Reproductive Rights

Fabiola Carrion — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 12:17:41 -0400

Recent laws in Nebraska and Oklahoma highlight how a number of right-wing state leaders are attacking women's reproductive freedom. These bills range from replacing the viability standard established by the U.S. Supreme Court, to forcing women to watch an ultrasound as their doctors explain the status of the fetus, to precluding women from suing their doctors if the latter misinforms women of the well-being of their fetuses.

Nebraska's Unconstitutional "Fetal Pain" Law: Earlier this month, Nebraska enacted LB 1103, which changed existing law to define viability at 20 weeks on the unfounded theory that a fetus, by that stage in pregnancy, has the capacity to feel pain. Nebraska’s law is the first in the nation to restrict abortions on this basis. Exceptions to this law only occur in the event of a medical emergency, the pregnant woman’s imminent death, or a serious risk of "substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function": a provision experts interpret as an effort to exclude an exception based on a woman’s mental health.

National advocacy organizations such as the Center for Reproductive Rights have vociferously expressed their opposition to the Nebraska law, which will likely set off a constitutional challenge before the United States Supreme Court, since the standards set in LB 1103 are based on the assertion that fetuses feel pain, not on the ability of a fetus to survive outside of the womb, the legal standard established by the U.S. Supreme Court. Experts like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have noted that the question of pain felt by a fetus is an intense and unresolved debate among researchers and advocates on both sides of the abortion question.

In a letter to Republican Gov. Dave Heineman urging him to veto the bill, the Center for Reproductive Rights declared that LB 1103 was unconstitutionally vague, could prevent women from accessing essential reproductive health care, and threatens a woman’s constitutional right to choose to terminate her pregnancy. It would also require doctors to violate medical ethics and standards of care.

If LB 1103 did not cause enough harm to women’s health, another Nebraska law, LB 594, requires health care providers to screen women for at least one hour for possible physical or mental risk before they get an abortion. Another bill that is the first of its kind in the United States, LB 594, further restricts a woman’s constitutional right to get an abortion before viability.

Oklahoma: Just yesterday, Oklahoma's conservative Legislature voted to override Gov. Brad Henry's vetoes of two anti-reproductive health measures, even after the governor signed two other anti-choice bills.

Mandatory Ultrasounds: The first, HB 2780, will require women seeking to terminate a pregnancy to undergo a mandatory ultrasound as well as hear a detailed description of the development of the fetus. No exceptions are made for rape and incest victims. Although laws in other states require ultrasounds before an abortion, Oklahoma's new mandate becomes the strictest policy because the doctor would also have to describe the status of the fetus as the woman views the ultrasound image.
Allowing Doctors to Mislead Patients: A second law, HB 2656, prevents women who have a disabled baby from suing a doctor for withholding information about birth defects while the child was in the womb. This law will protect doctors who purposely mislead a woman to keep her from choosing an abortion.
Other Bills to Discourage Abortion: In addition, one law (HB 3075) was signed to require clinics to post signs stating that a woman cannot be forced to have an abortion, and another (HB 1595) makes it illegal to have an abortion because of the sex of a child. Two additional bills are working their way through the Oklahoma legislature: one would force women to fill out a lengthy questionnaire about their reasons for seeking an abortion and another restricts insurance coverage for abortion procedures. As Anita Fream, the chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma elaborates, "These laws all have the same goal, and that's to discourage women from seeking abortions in the first place." With so many restrictions in place, Oklahoma is taking a shameful lead position in violating women's constitutional right to make choices about their reproductive health.

It is even more unfortunate that Nebraska and Oklahoma are not the only places that are seeking to limit women’s reproductive rights. A dozen other states are passing or debating new restrictions. Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute, a research group focused on reproductive health and rights, observes, “This year, particularly in the past couple of weeks, it’s really turned into a free-for-all on trying to restrict abortions.” The Institute argues, "these measures are widely viewed as an attempt to provoke a legal challenge to Roe."

Rising Clash of Anti-Abortion Versus Pro-Choice State Policies: While the Guttmacher Institute details that 20 states have laws that could be used to restrict the legal status of abortion, they also identify seventeen states, including some of the largest like California, Illinois, and New York, which broadly fund abortions for women on Medicaid, reflecting the wide range of state approaches on the abortion issue. The fact that some states like Oklahoma and Nebraska are pushing such egregiously bad bills is a signal that other state leaders need to step up to protect and expand upon their own pro-choice approaches.

Resources:
The New York Times - Nebraska Law Sets Limits on Abortion
The Guttmacher Institute - State Policies in Brief:Abortion Policy in the Absence of Roe and An Overview of Abortion Laws
The Center for Reproductive Rights - The Center Responds to Nebraska’s Extreme Anti-Abortion Laws
Kaiser Health News - States Move To Require Ultrasounds Before Abortions
Pro-Choice of Oklahoma

Paid Sick Days: Healthier Workers, Healthier Families

PSN — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:24:41 -0500

With the H1N1 virus affecting communities across the nation, public health officials are highlighting the problem of Americans who lack paid sick days to take care of themselves or stay home with sick children sent home from school. More than 59 million workers do not have any paid sick days and more than 86 million do not have paid sick days to care for other members of their family who are ill.

As part of our multi-state shared agenda, the Progressive States Network is working with its partners and leading experts to promote paid sick days reforms in states across the country. These reforms will allow parents to take care of sick children and workers to be more productive, while protecting the overall public health and preventing transmission of diseases within the workplace. Fully 86% of the public in polling by the Public Welfare Foundation in 2008 supported enacting laws that guarantee paid sick days for all workers.

With a concerted effort throughout the states, it is a policy that brings together public health advocates, unions, faith-based organizations, low-wage worker advocates, and women’s rights groups. Such a campaign also forces conservatives to either live up to their rhetoric of “family values” and help enact the policy or choose the interests of bad employers over the interests of families.

Table of Contents:

- Summary of Paid Sick Days Policy and Why It Matters

- Messaging on Paid Sick Days

- Building Paid Sick Days Campaigns

- PSN Support in Your States

Summary of Paid Sick Days Policy and Why It Matters

State policy should require employers to allow workers to accumulate paid sick days based on the number of hours or weeks they have worked and allow those paid sick days to be used to take care of their own illness, that of a family member, or to deal with an abusive relationship. While many states provide certain public employees with paid sick leave, workers in the private sector generally lack specific time off for illness.

Why It Matters: Paid sick days allow workers to be more productive, improve the general public health, and allow employees to take care of medical needs without fearing employer retaliation or losing incomes. Although many Americans believe that they are entitled to paid sick leave for themselves or for family members, more than 22 million working women lack paid sick days, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. The burden on working parents is especially strong when children fall ill, since 70% of workers do not have the right to paid sick days that can be used to care for a sick child. 16% of workers report in polling that they or a family member have been fired, suspended, or otherwise punished or that they would be fired if they missed work due to illness.

Fortunately, cities such as San Francisco, CA, Washington, DC, and Milwaukee, WI have successfully passed mandatory paid sick days, while multiple states have introduced variations on the bill. All states already provide paid sick days to their own employees. Eight states— California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin— allow workers who already have paid sick days to use them to care for certain family members. So moving towards paid sick days for all workers is the next step towards assuring that all families have options when they or family members fall ill.

Summary of Policy Details: The National Partnership for Women & Families and A Better Balance, with technical assistance from the San Francisco Office of Labor Standards and Enforcement, have drafted model legislation for local advocates considering launching a paid sick days campaign.

Bill Summaries Paid Sick Days and Safe Time Main Points Paid Sick Days and Safe Days Model, Explained Section by Section	Model Legislation Model Paid Sick Day and Safe Time Bill

Key provisions include:

Accrual of Days: Under paid sick days policy, workers would accrue one hour of paid sick and safe time for every 30 hours worked (or other block of time chosen by policymakers) with some maximum amount earned each year.
Uses of Sick and Safe Days: Paid sick and safe time should be available to care for a worker's own illness, to care for a family member and to address issues arising from domestic violence or sexual assault.
Anti-Retaliation: One key provision in any paid sick days law must be tough anti-retaliation language to assure that employees taking advantage of their rights are not punished directly or indirectly for doing so.
Treatment of Small Businesses: Policymakers may want to create a different amount of paid sick days that can be accrued for small businesses and decide how long an employee must work for a business before using paid sick and safe time. However, while polling shows some support for requiring smaller employers to provide a smaller number of days off than larger employers, only 15% of the public thinks small business should be exempted from paid sick days requirements altogether.

Messaging on Paid Sick Days

Enacting paid sick days legislation is one of the most popular possible initiatives with the public, according to opinion surveys. As mentioned above, 86% of the public (including 75% of Republicans) favor a basic labor standard that would guarantee all workers a minimum number of paid sick days. This translates politically into 46% of the public saying that a politician supporting such legislation would make them more likely to vote for them, with only 10% saying it would make them less likely to support them at election time. State polling in California, Connecticut, Maine, Ohio and North Carolina have all shown similar levels of support for paid sick days legislation.

Make Paid Sick Days a Values Issue: Proponents of paid sick days legislation should make the issue a key part of a values debate in the states. If the issue becomes one of values, this will force conservative opponents of the legislation into the position of being seen as anti-family and not caring about public health. Politically, it can also drive a rift between grassroots “family values” conservative voters and elected officials who choose the interests of bad employers over the interests of families. In polls, 77% of the public found the following statement a convincing values argument for paid sick days:

In America, you shouldn't have to risk your job to take care of your family, and you shouldn't have to put your family at risk just to do your job... Our nation needs new labor standards to accommodate the needs of today's working families. If we believe in family values, it's time to value families.

Win or lose, paid sick days campaigns are a chance to put "family values" conservatives on the record so that voters can see whether their rhetoric extends to helping parents when they need to stay home with a sick child.

Public Policy Arguments in favor of Paid Sick Days Legislation: To cement public support for paid sick days, state leaders can emphasize a few key policy points:

Paid Sick Days Promote Public Health: When people work sick or have to send their children to school sick, this undermines both family health and the health of the rest of our communities. Yet, one poll in Ohio found that half the respondents had gone to work sick to avoid losing pay. For, example, nearly half of stomach “flu”-related outbreaks caused by the norovirus are linked to ill food-service workers. Viruses spread more quickly when adults and children don't stay home, while children infecting playmates and those playmates infecting their parents in turn. All children recover faster when parents care for them and it reduces health care costs. Paid sick days would help those with chronic illness seek preventive care that would save billions, since 78% of health care dollars are spent on those with chronic conditions.
Paid Sick Days Helps Parents Balance Work and Family: More than 94 million working people do not have a paid sick day to care for a sick child, yet most child-care facilities have policies requiring sick children to stay home. Working parents with paid sick time or paid vacation days are five times more likely to stay home to care for their sick children than those without paid time off.
Paid Sick Days Provides Economic Security for Individuals in Recession: With over ten percent of American workers unemployed, employees without legal paid sick days are even less likely to risk their jobs asking for a day off when sick. And with many families facing at least one member without a job or with reduced hours, most workers cannot afford to take an unpaid day off even when needed.
Paid Sick Days Helps Victims of Domestic Violence: With "safe days," victims of domestic violence can gain the opportunity to take the steps needed to separate from an abusive partner. Between 25 and 50 percent of victims report losing a job, at least in part, due to dealing with domestic violence.

Dealing with Potential Business Opposition: While some businesses are reluctant to individually offer days off, the cumulative effect of illness spreading across the country due to people and their children not staying home when sick hurts the overall economy. It is estimated that people working while sick costs the national economy as much as $180 billion per year in lost work and productivity. Add in the costs of children sent to school because their parents couldn't afford to stay home with them, thereby spreading illness to additional families, and the economic costs to businesses just mount higher.

While many of the established business lobbies defer to their worst employer members in opposing paid sick days legislation, there are employers who recognize that we all lose out economically when pandemics are allowed to spread because people work sick and parents can't stay home with their sick kids. See this CLASP primer on outreach to local businesses to build business support for the policy.

And the public does not believe that paid sick days legislation will hurt businesses or their profits. In fact, 82% of the public agrees with the following statement (and 57% find this statement "very convincing"):

Requiring paid sick days doesn't hurt employers' bottom line. Sick employees who show up at work are less productive and they remain sick and less productive longer when they work while sick. Also, they infect other workers and this further reduces productivity and hurts profits.

If these public concerns are continually highlighted in legislative debates, there will be little public support for the business opponents of paid sick days policy arguing it will somehow undermine the economy or individual businesses. Instead, they will recognize that paid sick days is ultimately a benefit to the economy and to individual businesses thinking about long-term productivity.

Building Paid Sick Days Campaigns

Progressive States Network is working with a range of allied organizations so state leaders can tap resources from those groups to help them in their legislative work. We will be working with those allies to strengthen communication between legislators and organizational allies across the states working on paid sick days, while providing other technical support as needed during policy campaigns.

National groups working on paid sick days include the National Partnership for Women & Families, CLASP, ACORN, MomsRising, National Association of Working Women (9to5), and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

A number of state-based alliances currently supporting paid sick days are organized under the umbrella of the Family Values @ Work Consortium and the National Partnership tracks state campaigns on their website as well.

Some Key Resources: A number of organizations provide research and other tools to support paid sick day campaigns in the states, including:

Polling: The National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago has prepared this document, Paid Sick Days: A Basic Labor Standard for the 21st Century, analyzing public support for and messaging that works on paid sick days policy.
Fact Sheets: The National Partnership archives a range of fact sheets, including Paid Sick Days Improve Public Health, Working Women Need Paid Sick Days, Paid Sick Days Make Good Business Sense and Workers Caring for Older Relatives Need Paid Sick Days.
See Research Studies by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and CLASP, as well as an studies by a range of organizations archived by the National Partnership
Researching Out to Business Allies: CLASP has a primer on Paid Sick Days: Reaching Out to Businesses to Say YES to a Level Playing Field to help state and local advocates recruit business leaders, owners, and trade groups in support and an Advocates' Answers to Businesses' Frequently Asked Questions document to provides an overview of the paid sick days legislation aimed at dispelling any myths about the policy.
Calculating How a Paid Sick Days Initiative will Benefit Workers in a Particular State: The Institute for Women’s Policy Research has a set of tools using Labor Department data to calculate the number of workers by industry who have, or don't have, paid sick days.
Video: 1000 Voices Archive has a film archive of storytelling tools developed by Creative Counsel.

PSN Support in Your States

PSN has already begun working with legislators and advocates to provide support for them as they introduce paid sick days legislation around the country. We'd like to work with many more!

Our policy staff are also available to answer questions and supply information not on the website. Legislators and advocates can contact us about supporting Paid Sick Days campaigns through our website or by emailing paidsickdays@progressivestates.org.

As bills are introduced and sessions begin, PSN will provide ongoing resources and updates on paid sick days legislation, as well as help coordinate strategy and information sharing with our partners among sponsors and advocates.

Defeating Ultrasound Requirements to Protect Women's Health Access

Julie Bero — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:22:15 -0400

In a significant decision last month, an Oklahoma County District Court ruled that a 2008 anti-choice law violated the state constitution. The law in question (SB 1878) was more burdensome than any prior bill regulating pre-abortion ultrasounds passed in the country, requiring women to undergo an ultrasound and listen to a doctor describe fetal characteristics before consenting to the procedure. Opponents argued that the law invades a woman's right to privacy and violates doctors' freedom of speech. As Stephanie Toti, the lead attorney on the case from the Center on Reproductive Rights said, “[the law] demeans women’s capacity to make decisions and threatens abortion providers with arbitrary criminal sanctions.”

Opponents Mobilize Against Ultrasound Bills: The decision highlights the introduction across the country of similar bills. In 2009 sessions, legislators rejected ultrasound bills in 18 of the 22 states where they were introduced. While some bills required doctors to offer an ultrasound to women seeking an abortion, others mandated that women receive information detailing where they could undergo an ultrasound and abortion counseling. Such requirements invade a woman's right to medical privacy, intimidate health providers, and distrust women to make personal health choices.

Progressives beat back right-wing bills that could have been damaging to women's health access. Doctors and health services providers agree that pre-procedural ultrasounds are medically unnecessary, an argument that worked to defeat some ultrasound bills. Legislators worked with medical experts and members of local choice organizations in Wyoming to convince House committee members that the state should not require a woman to view an ultrasound before consenting to an abortion. Wyoming legislators voted down HB 151 after personal testimony from Rep. Sue Wallis, who said that "[t]o have the state impose this obligation on them to go through with this unnecessary procedure is an insult to me as a woman, and an insult to me as a United States citizen." Advocate groups experienced similar successes in defeating ultrasound legislation in Virginia and Kentucky. After a pro-choice lobby day organized by Planned Parenthood of Virginia that attracted hundreds of activists, legislators rejected HB 2579, and coordination by the ACLU of Kentucky pushed legislators to defeat SB 79 (HB 191).

The Harm to Women in States Passing Ultrasound Laws: Although many ultrasound bills were defeated in 2009, legislation was enacted in Kansas (LB 238), Nebraska (LB 675), and North Dakota (HB 1371) and passed in at least one chamber in five other states. All of the bills directed health providers to offer a woman an ultrasound prior to an abortion, but variations included requirements for a 24-hour waiting period after the viewing and listening to the fetal heartbeat if heart monitoring equipment is used. By law, North Dakota providers must additionally report the number of women who agree or decline the ultrasound and decide to have an abortion after viewing the images. The Guttmacher Institute, which tracks and supports efforts to increase access to reproductive health services across the country, asserts that ultimately, "the requirements appear to be a veiled attempt to personify the fetus and dissuade a woman from obtaining an abortion."

Ultimately, ultrasound and waiting period requirements are not only an invasion of privacy, but also an excessive fiscal burden. The Center for Reproductive Rights reports that young, low-income, and rural women are particularly affected by such laws because they often have fewer financial and transportation resources and can have difficulty finding childcare or taking a day off from work. South Carolina legislators voted down SB 437 after members of the Friends of Planned Parenthood of the Lowcountry sent over 100 letters to state legislators, detailing how the law placed an undue burden on women, particularly those in rural or low-income communities. Working together, pro-choice legislators and advocates can continue to beat back regressive bills and ensure that women from all communities have equal access to necessary care.

Resources:
The Center on Reproductive Rights - Defending Human Rights: Abortion Providers Facing Threats, Restrictions, and Harassment
The Center on Reproductive Rights - Engaging Policymakers in the States
The Guttmacher Institute - State Center: Ultrasound Requirements
The Guttmacher Institute - State Policy: Requirements for Ultrasound
Planned Parenthood of Virginia - Reproductive Rights Report for the Virginia General Assembly

Promoting Less Costly, Safer Births

Nathan Newman — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:32:43 -0400

Here's one way states can lower health care costs: reduce the most commonly performed surgery, namely Cesarean sections, or C-sections, to deliver babies -- roughly half of which are performed unnecessarily.

To encourage more natural childbirths, the state of Washington will begin this month to pay hospitals the same amount for an uncomplicated C-section as for a complicated vaginal birth under its Medicaid reimbursement rules. With half of all births in Washington paid for by Medicaid, this will likely have a significant impact in reducing unneeded C-sections in the state, saving money and potentially lives.

The Alarming Rise in C-Sections: As the Washington State Department of Social & Health Services described in adopting new reimbursement rules to encourage more natural births, the problem of unneeded C-sections had been rising dangerously in recent years:

Nationally, the U.S. has seen a 50% increase in C-sections since 1996.
Washington state’s C-section rates have jumped 60% in low-risk mothers.
Paralleling national trends, Washington State is approaching a 30% surgical birth rate.
Highlighting the arbitrary rise of the procedure, this rate varies between 15% and 48% at different hospitals.

Nationwide, the C-section rate is almost 32%, more than double what both the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control say is necessary. When the rate of C-sections rises above 10% to 15%, both the WHO and CDC find that the harm outweighs the benefits to mothers and babies. So at least half of the approximately 22,000 C-sections performed each year in Washington are not only unnecessary, but also harmful.

Changing Incentives: The new rules adopted will cut Medicaid reimbursements for uncomplicated C-sections from about $3,600 to around $1,000. Hospitals with high C-section rates will ideally be encouraged to change practices that have been unnecessarily driving up C-section rates. Assuming no changes in C-section rates, the change in reimbursement rates will save the state close to $2 million and the federal government another $2 million. But if the incentives decrease the total number of C-sections, the savings will be even larger. And if adopted nationally, one analysis notes:

"With C-sections accounting for 45 percent of the $86 billion the U.S. spends on childbirth each year, lowering the C-section rate could go a ways toward paying for President Obama’s goal of getting health coverage to everyone in the country."

Notably, developed countries with lower C-section rates (12% in the Netherlands and 18% in France) tend to have both lower infant mortality rates and spend less of their GDP on health care.

These proposals are just part of how Washington state is taking the lead on childbirth reimbursement reforms. By paying for home births attended by a licensed midwife, Washington has a rate of out-of-hospital birth that is double the national average, which a 2008 Department of Health cost-benefit analysis found resulted in good outcomes for mothers and babies and yielded a net savings to the government of about $250,000 per year from the reduced numbers of C-sections. Again, it's worth considering that in Europe, midwives assist at more than 70% of normal vaginal births, compared to midwives delivering just 7% of American babies in 2003 -- again with lower costs and lower infant mortality in Europe compared to results in the United States.

Resources:

Washington State Department of Social & Health Services - 2009 Fact Sheet: Hospital cost controls
Crosscut.com - Take away the incentives for too many c-sections
Childbirth Connection - Why Does the National U.S. Cesarean Section Rate Keep Going Up?
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - Maternal, Infant, and Child Health
World Health Organization - Identifying barriers and facilitators towards implementing guidelines to reduce caesarean section rates

Paid Sick Days Passes in Connecticut House

Adam Thompson — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:53:11 -0400

Last week, the Connecticut House approved legislation to guarantee paid sick days off for employees in any business with fifty or more employees. While the Senate adjourned the regular session without voting on the bill, a special budget session to be convened might have a chance to enact the bill.

The outbreak of H1N1 flu was cited in the debate as a recent example of why families need sick days to stay home for their own health as well as that of co-workers. The bill would provide for one hour of leave for every 40 hours that an employee works and can be used to care for a sick child or to seek treatment because of domestic violence or sexual assault. The law applies only to hourly workers.

Polling across the country shows overwhelming support for paid sick days legislation: 89% of the public supports a basic labor standard guaranteeing all workers a minimum number of paid sick days.

And by preventing illness being spread in the workplace and helping more working parents stay in the workforce, the economy will be strengthened. In Milwaukee, which enacted paid sick days last year, one study on the likely effects of the Milwaukee ordinance found it would actually save businesses $38 million a year in reduced employee turnover and gains to public health.

Fifteen states introduced paid sick days legislation this year, reflecting the rising concern over the issue across the country.

Resources:
Everybody benefits - Connecticut's Campaign for Paid sick days
Paid Sick Days- National partnership for women and families
Progressive States Network - New Polling: Paid Sick Days and Family Leave Overwhelming Political Winners
Progresive States Network - Paid Sick Days Victory in Milwaukee- But Business Lobby is Going to Court

Early Education Investments: Economic Importance and Policy Implementation

PSN — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:45:54 -0400

Early Education Investments: Economic Importance and Policy Implementation

With record numbers of parents in the workforce, helping parents with child care has become critical for long-term economic growth, strengthening families, and creating equality for women. As the child care and early education needs of families continue to increase dramatically, the cost or unavailability of high-quality child care and early education programs often place parents in an impossible position -- they need to work but they also need to know that their kids are taken care of in order to work.

The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA) dedicated tens of billions of dollars to providing families access to affordable quality child care and pre-kindergarten programs. Recognizing that any true effort to invest in the long-term strength of our economy must not just initiate "shovel-ready" transit projects, but also ensure that our future workforce has the educational foundation it needs to be globally competitive.

States have been expanding early education programs in recent years by strengthening funding for child care tax credits and subsidies for child care. Additionally, in FY08 33 of the 38 states that have a state-funded pre-k program expanded enrollment. Given the present fiscal crisis, some states have felt pressure to cut pre-k spending, however, others have taken advantage of the federal recovery funds to expand investments in the next generation. For example, Pennsylvania's Governor is proposing to expand the number of kids in pre-k by 8.5%, and the Minnesota House recently voted for a modest early education funding increase.

As this Dispatch will discuss, despite the tough fiscal times, funding from the federal recovery plan can help offset the costs of maintaining and even expanding early education programs. ThisDispatch will also highlight the economic and educational benefits of supporting early education programs, as well as the different methods that state governments are employing to help reduce the cost of and promote the expansion of quality early child care and state pre-k programs.

Resources:

Families and Work Institute
National Women's Law Center
National Institute for Early Education Research
Pre[k]Now

Center for Law and Social Policy: Child Care and Early Education

How the Recovery Plan Supports Child Care and Early Education Programs

The ARRA provides numerous resources to help states fund early childhood education programs. The goal is to capitalize on economic benefits in both the short-term -- by making it easier for parents with young children to afford child care and rejoin the workforce -- and the long-term -- by investing in children's education to ensure that we have a competitive work force. Early childhood education funds will be spent over a two year period and move through current formulas unless it is stated otherwise. In addition, the Act implements standards to increase transparency and accountability.

Specifically, the ARRA extends funding support to early-childhood programs, primarily through Child Care and Development Block Grants (CCDBG), Head Start and Early Head Start.

$2 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant. $255.2 million of these funds are to be reserved for initiatives aimed at improving quality.
$2.1 billion will go to Head Start (including $1.1 for Early Head Start, to be awarded on a competitive basis and $1 billion for Head Start).

Beyond these specific funding sources, the joint statement by House-Senate conferees includes language for tens of billions of other education funding in the ARRA. Specifically, “the conferees expect States to use some of the funding provided for early childhood programs and activities.” Title I funds of $13 billion for low-income school districts will provide an especially fruitful source of support for early childhood education programs.

Resources:

Pre[k]Now - Recovery Round-Up
National Women's Law Center - Making Use of Economic Recovery Funds: Child Care Policy Options for States (March 9, 2009), Child Care is Essential to Economic Recovery
National Governor's Association - State Opportunities under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: Early Childhood Programs
Pre[k]Now - American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: Provision Pertaining to Early Childhood Education
New America Foundation

Department of Education

Why Early Education is so Critical to Economic Growth and Equity

Early childhood education and care programs provide both immediate and long-term benefits for children, parents and communities. Specifically, they provide both an immediate and long term stimulus to the economy, while also achieving greater equity in the educational system.

An Immediate Stimulus Creating Jobs: Spending on child care is one of the most effective ways to create new jobs and stimulate economic recovery. A recent Cornell University study found that funds spent in the early education sector have more stimulative effect on the economy than most other spending. The study stated, "[c]ompared to other economic sectors, child care purchases more of its inputs locally, and expenditures on child care circulate longer in the state economy." In fact, as an earlier study found, the early education sector is far larger and more critical to local economies than most people understand. For example, in New York State, one of the largest American tourist destination, early education has more employees than the hotels and transportation.

Helping Parents Stay at Work: Early education programs also helping parents to take advantage of opportunities to participate in the workforce. In fact, nearly 85% of the workforce consists of parents, and currently about 64% of women with children under age 6 are part of the workforce.

Knowing that their children are in a safe and healthy environment allows parents to be more focused on their jobs. It has been shown that providing child care improves parents' productivity at work, lowers their absenteeism rate, reduces turnover rates and can increase a companies' value. Further, public early education and childcare programs ease the financial burden on parents, which in turn provides two benefits. First, it ensures that working families are not forced to put their kids in substandard and potentially unsafe care situations out of financial desperation. Second, families who are not burdened with paying high child care cost have more discretionary income, which they can spend to purchase goods and services and thus stimulate the economy.

Long-term Economic Returns: As numerous studies indicate, increasing the accessibility of quality and affordable early education and child care programs leads to improved communities, economically and socially. It has been shown that single mothers with young children receiving child care assistance were 39%, and former welfare recipients were 82%, more likely to still be employed after two years than those who did not receive any help paying for child care.

Ensuring that children have the basic skills to be successful can decrease the drain on taxpayers down the road. Research has continually shown that early education is important in maximizing children’s learning potential and creating an equal foundation for educational success. Some of the demonstrated benefits of early education and child care programs include reduced drop-out rates and need for special education, and increased college attendance, as well as less criminal activity and reduced dependence on welfare. All of these benefits combat costly issues that drain national resources. Two studies have attempted to aggregate the specific financial savings to tax payers. The Economic Promise of Investing in High Quality Preschool, released by the business-backed Committee for Economic Development, estimated that for every dollar invested in preschool, there was an expected return of $2 to $4 in future societal benefits, including savings to states from less crime and lower remedial educational costs. Another study, "The Economics of Investing in Universal Preschool Education in California," found that every $1 invested in high-quality pre-k saves taxpayers up to $7.

Assuring Long-Term Economic Equity: Providing access to quality and affordable early education and child care programs also creates more equity in education which in turn provides more equal employment opportunities. Research has shown that oftentimes children from low-income households are already trailing their wealthier peers at the start of kindergarten. Pre-k programs are one way that states have attempted to address the readiness gap. Studies have shown that early education and child care programs improve language and math skills, and increases literacy rates. These initial skill improvements in school age children translate into better standardized test scores, fewer instances of grade repetition and higher high school graduation rates. In the long run, attending quality early education and child care programs lead to greater employment opportunities and higher wages.

The Challenge: The cost of quality child care is continuously rising. According to the National Women's Law Center, in 2007, "the average fee for full-time, center-based child care ranged from over $3,800 to $14,600 annually," varying based on factor such as a family's geographic location and childrens' ages. However, despite the rising cost of early education and child care programs the necessity of and demand for such programs continues to increase. In order to help families afford quality early education and child care, states must adopt a comprehensive set of policies and extend access to state-funded programs to all those in need.

Resources:

Cornell University Linking Economic Development and Child Care Project-

The National League of Cities' Institute for Youth, Education and Families - The American and Reinvestment Act of 2009: Expanding Access to Early Care and Education
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis - Early Childhood Development: Economic Development with a High Public Return
Rand - Preschool Delivers - documents the benefits of increased lifetime earnings, improved K-12 schools, and significant reductions in violent juvenile offenses and costs of incarceration.
NIEER - The Effects of State Prekindergarten Programs on Young Children’s School Readiness in Five States. A study of pre-k programs in five states finding that children in those states had clear gains in early language, literacy, and mathematical development.

State Efforts to Evaluate the Effects of pre-kindergarten pre-k helps children do better on standardized tests and reduces grade repetition

Georgetown University - The Effects of Universal pre-k on Cognitive Development. Study of the Oklahoma pre-k program which found across-the board gains from preschool for all socio-economic groups.
National Women's Law Center - The Reality of the Workforce: Mothers Are Working Outside the Home
U.S. Health and Human Services - The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey. Found children at Head Start pre-k centers had more advanced skills, allowing teachers to spend more time working directly with children and less on classroom management.

Chicago Longitudinal Study found that Chicago children who attended a pre-k program were 29 percent more likely to graduate from high school and 41% less likely to require special education services.

State Policies to Support Early Child Care

The child care sector allows parents to earn more than $100 billion annually by providing a service that enables them to be members of the workforce. Not only does access to quality child care help our nation by helping build a stronger workforce, it also helps prepare our workforce of tomorrow. Unfortunately, for many households, and not just those who are considered low-income, high-quality child care is just not an affordable option. However, by providing well structured tax credits and subsidies, among other options, states can help make child care a more accessible.

Child Care Tax Credits: Many states provide a tax credit for working families linked to the value of the federal government's Child and Dependent Care Credit for tax payers with children. According to the National Women's Law Center, 28 states (including the District of Columbia) have their own, additional, child and dependent care (CADC) tax provision and in recent years, the value of these provisions has increased in most of these states. The federal credit is not available to many working families with children who do not make enough to pay income taxes. Additionally, a 2006 study by the National Women's Law Center found that 17 states provide a tax credit that is a percent of the federal tax credit, 4 states provide a tax deduction for expenses eligible for federal credit and 4 states provide a tax credit whose amount is a percent of expenses eligible for the federal credit.

Many of the state tax credits improve upon the federal credit, such as by having their credits be refundable or by establishing a more generous income test for receipt of the state benefits. For example, thirteen states (Arkansas, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Vermont) provide either a fully refundable (nine states) or partially refundable (four states) credit for child care expenses. A refundable credit is important because it means a family gets a check back from the state if the family’s credit exceeds the tax owed. The maximum value in any state for a CADC tax provision is New York's, which extends a credit of $2,310 for families. However, in Louisiana, an eligible family may claim both a child care tax credit and a household expense tax credit, for a maximum combined value of $3,150. Aside from providing the aforementioned figures, The National Women's Law Center lays out a comprehensive list of best policies states should consider when developing or reformatting their state CADC.

Direct Child Care Subsidies: Instead of families needing to wait until they file a tax return to receive child care tax credits, some states provide direct subsidies for child care up front for low-income families. However, these subsidies are often so restricted that families lose help once they get a job that pays even a bit more than a poverty wage. Further, since federal block grants, including the Child Care Development Fund and TANF have not been keeping pace with inflation states have cut direct child care subsidies in recent years and limited eligibility.

While federal law limits eligibility for child care subsidies to those earning less than 85% of a state’s median income, states set their own policies for child care generally based on family income as it relates to the poverty line or the state's median income. According to a report by the National Women's Law Center, across different states income eligibility for a family of three can range from $20,604 (38% of the state's media income) in Nebraska to $47,124 (71% of the state's median income) in Hawaii. In seventeen states even families that are eligible for child care subsidies face long waiting lists, with nine of those states lists increasing between 2007 and 2008. For example, from the beginning of 2008 to October, the waiting list in Pennsylvania grew from 8,424 children to over 13,000 children.

All of this can leave many lower-income families too poor to benefit from income tax credits, but with too much income to qualify for direct child care subsidies or just stuck on waiting lists. In addition, to the issues mentioned above, it is important that states consider the economic impact of required copayments on parents receiving child care asistance and/or reimbursement rates.

Resources:

National Women's Law Center -

Urban Institute - State Tax Credits for Child Care

Striving for Universal Access to Pre-K

In order to ensure that all children's early education needs are met states need to implement a comprehensive multi-faceted approach, which includes funding for low-income as well as middle-income households. Policy experts, educators and state leaders have acknowledged the benefits of pre-kindergarten, sparking an acceleration of state pre-k expansion.

Expanding Pre-k Programs: According to the State of Preschool 2008 report by the National Institute for Early Education Research, in FY08, "40 states and the District of Columbia fund some type of state pre-k program or provide additional state funding for Head Start." Specifically, the report found that:

In 33 of the 38 states that have state-funded pre-k programs, enrollment climbed in recent years. In fact, today pre-k program now serve more children nationally than Head Start.
During the 2007-2008 school year, states increased spending for pre-kindergarten, enough to support both increases in enrollment and improvements in quality standards.
State funding for preschool rose to almost $4.6 billion and funding from all reported sources exceeded $5.2 billion, an increase of nearly 23 percent over the previous year.
The increase in spending helped raise the enrollment of 3- and 4-year-old's in state-funded preschool, including pre-k and state-funded Head Start, by more than 108,000 to 1.1 million children, 973,178 at age 4 alone.

Unfortunately, while pre-kindergarten programs expanded during the 2007-08 school year the gains may be short-lived. Securing adequate funding for pre-k will be more challenging as the states are forced to slash budgets in order to cope with the worst economic downturn in a generation. According to the New York Times, thus far at least nine states, (including California, Florida,New York, and North Carolina) have announced plans to cut pre-k spending. While other states may have yet to announce specific cuts to pre-k there are some that are considering enrollment cuts, reductions in program standards, and postponing plans for expansion.

Despite Recent Growth State Funded pre-k Remains a Program Primarily for Low-Income Children: A 2008 report on the cost of child care by the National Association of Child Care and Referral Agencies, stated that child care for a four-year-old can account for up to 14% of the median income of a two-parent family; if a household has two young children, the added cost of care can raise the burden to as much as 32% of the state median income. For many families, child care ends up using a large portion of discretionary income, costing families more than food, health care and for some more than in-state college tuition.

Despite the high cost of pre-k, Pre[k]Now reports that as of 2008 only "eight states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation to extend eligibility for pre-k to all children whose families want to enroll them." Of the other "38 states currently funding pre-k programs, 20 use family income as determining eligibility criteria." Therefore, in most of these states families are not eligible for state funded programs if they earn more than 200% of the federal poverty line ($42,400 for a family of four in 2008). These extremely low thresholds for eligibility render many working families who cannot afford quality child care ineligible for state funded pre-k. Even more troublesome than states with high income eligibility requirements are that 12 states provide no state pre-k programs. The only publicly funded early education program is Head Start -- in order to be eligible for Head State, a family's income must be no higher than the federal poverty level ($22,050 for a family of four).

Growing Disparities Between State Universal pre-k Efforts: The State of Preschool 2008 also highlighted that access to state pre-k programs grew during the 2007-08 year due to the "development of new initiatives in three states (Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Ohio) and increased capacity in 30 other states." Despite an overall growing trend in states to expand pre-k programs, major discrepancies exist in terms of how close each state is to achieving universal access to pre-k, including who is eligible for pre-k and the quality of programs. Since a study of the Oklahoma program indicated that lower-income children gained more benefits when programs included middle-income children, this creates a strong argument for more universal preschool programs that bring children together from all communities.

Pre-k at Age 4: States Making Positive Progress and Those Falling Behind: The Oklahoma Preschool Program is the longest standing state pre-k program and approximately 72 percent of the 4-year-olds in Oklahoma enroll in state funded pre-k. The link above highlights key statutory provisions on defining eligibility, the responsibility of local school boards, and the creation of both curriculum and teacher certification standards for the pre-k program. According to NIEER's the State of Preschool 2008 report, Florida, Georgia and Vermont have more than 50 percent of 4 years olds enrolled in state pre-k. Click here for a list of the top ten states serving 4-year-olds who attend a public preschool program of some kind.

In severe contrast, 12 states, (Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming) have "no regular state preschool education program." In eight states, fewer than "20% of children four years of age are enrolled in a public preschool program, even when including preschool special education and Head Start figures."

Pre-k at age 3 is much more limited than pre-k enrollment for 4-year-olds, despite the fact that for many children the effects of inadequate educational opportunities are clearly evident by age 3. While enrollment in private programs is very similar at ages 3 and 4, nationally only 4% of 3-year-olds in this country attend a state-funded pre-k program, compared to 24% of 4 year olds. This discrepancy in 3 and 4-year-old enrollment in pre-k programs is mainly because state provisions for pre-k for 3 years old are less expansive.

Even the leaders in pre-k for three-year-olds are far from providing universal access. Illinois is the only state committed to serving all 3-year-olds and during 2007-08 close to 20% of 3 year olds were enrolled. Arkansas, Vermont, and New Jersey are the only other states to serve more than 15% of 3-year-olds in state pre-k programs, and Kentucky and Massachusetts were the only states to serve more than 10 percent of their 3-year-olds outside of preschool special education. The State of Preschool 2008 found that most states, outside of special education programs and Head Start, only provide education for about 1 or 2% of their 3-year-olds; and only a handful of states make substantial efforts to serve 3-year-olds without disabilities.

Resources:

NIEER - The State of Preschool 2008: The Preschool Yearbook

Pre[k]Now - Funding the Future: States’ Approaches to pre-k Finance 2008 Update
Pre[k]Now - State Profiles
The Center for Public Education - pre-k: What the research shows
Georgetown University - The Effects of Universal pre-k on Cognitive Development. Study of the Oklahoma pre-k program which found across-the board gains from preschool for all socio-economic groups.

Assuring Quality in Early Education Programs- Design and Workplace Standards

In addition to providing universal access to pre-k it is also important that states are running or supporting quality programs. High-quality pre-k can not only improve children's educational success and thus reduce dropout rates and crime, but it has also been found to provide economic, social, and health benefits. One way to measure quality has been set forth by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) which tracks 10 benchmarks that all high-quality pre-k programs should meet.

A NIEER's study the State of Preschool 2008 found that In 2007-08 state "pre-k spending per child rose to $4,061" nationally, but across states ranged from zero to more than $10,000 per child. Despite the increase in state pre-k spending, the level of funding per child still seems not to be enough to meet all 10 quality benchmarks. In fact, the NIEER study found that while most states meet a majority of the benchmarks for program quality standards, 5 states meet less than half. Highlights of the report include:

North Carolina and Alabama remain the only two states to meet all 10 benchmarks.
Louisiana NSECD, Maryland’s prekindergarten program, and Minnesota Head Start increased their quality standards and met nine out of 10 benchmarks for the first time.
Seven other states continued to fund programs that met nine out of 10 benchmarks—Arkansas, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee, andWashington.
Five states that meet less than half of the quality pre-k benchmarks are Arizona,California, Florida, Ohio (ECE) and Texas.

Training: The success of a state's pre-kindergarten system depends not just on the accessibility or affordability of the system, but also on the quality of teachers. It has been shown that properly trained teachers promote language and early literacy skills and the social development needed for later academic and professional success. However, currently, training and certification requirements for pre-k teachers vary by state. As a compliment to expanded early education and child care programs it is important that states institute policies to ensure that the teachers being hired meet certain standards. Pre[k]Now sets forth policies that can help states to expand their base of qualified pre-k teachers, such as: requiring a bachelor's degree for pre-k teachers; a certification for assistant teachers and some form of specialized training for both; providing on-going professional development opportunities; and expanding access to teacher training and evaluating and monitoring of teachers in the classroom. Some specific state programs policies and programs highlighted by Pre[k]Now include:

Bachelor's Degrees and Specialized Training for Pre-k Teachers: As research demonstrates the positive impact of properly trained teachers in the classroom, more states are instituting policies to ensure that pre-k teachers have special certifications or a bachelor's degree. "A comprehensive education reform effort in 2004 in Kentucky led to the passage of a bill requiring that all new pre-k teachers have a BA degree and an early childhood certificate." On the other hand, there are some critics who argue that bachelor degrees are not needed for early education and child care teachers.
Assistant Teacher Requirements: Pre-k students benefit not only from having a qualified teacher, but also a qualified teaching assistant. Therefore, many states mandate specific training for assistant teachers. One way for states to increase their number of qualified pre-k educators is the "TEACH early childhood program (Teacher Education And Compensation Helps) which provides funding for child care professionals to attend classes at a participating college or university, and earn credits toward a CDA or an associate or bachelor's degree in early childhood education."
Require Ongoing Professional Development: An on-going investment in professional development is key to maintaining quality a pre-k program and retaining highly qualified teachers. "CIRCLE, the professional development component of the Texas Early Education Model project (TEEM), offers teachers training that includes sessions on best practices, language development, reading and writing." In 2004, Louisiana's Non-public Schools Early Childhood Development Program added a "requirement of "18 hours of in-service per year" for all pre-k teachers as well as a mandatory, two-day training workshop.

Wage Standards for Early Education Workers: The documented benefits of quality early education and care for children, parents and communities are clear and studies have shown that employee compensation is often linked to the care and education children receive. Yet, despite the important role child education and child care providers play in shaping our country's future, they are among the lowest paid workers and are often forced to take on second jobs or forgo health insurance. A direct result of low wages is high turnover in the industry.

A report by the National Women’s Law Center finds a growing trend to "give home-based child care providers the freedom to form unions is proving to be a promising strategy for securing increased public investment in child care and improving working conditions for providers."

For example, in 2006, the Washington State legislature approved HB 2353 which "allows family child-care providers to collectively bargain rate subsidies and reimbursements, as well as health benefits, training and grievance procedures."
Illinois issued an executive order in 2005 permitting child-care providers to bargain with the state through a union. Six months after the order, the Illinois state legislature approved a bill that made subsidized child-care providers public employees of the state in regards to collective bargaining rights.
New York, issued an Executive Order in 2007, "opening the door for the unionization of 60,000 home-based day-care providers paid in whole or in part by state funds," to provide for the children of working parents. New York was the eighth state to permit the unionizing of home-based child care providers.

According to the National Women's Law Center as of 2007, the legislatures or governors in at least eleven states have taken action to authorize collective bargaining for home-based child care providers. At least seven states in total (Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Oregon,Washington, and Wisconsin) have "authorized union representation for providers." In four states (California, Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island) bills passed by the legislature authorizing child care providers to unionize were vetoed by the governor. In states where child care educators have signed contracts with unions, educators have seen "improvements in compensation, training and treatment for home-based providers." In addition, educators have used their unified voices to encourage the governors of these states to request additional funding for the home-based providers as well as other child care centers as well. For more details regarding the states contracts click here.

Resources:

NIEER - pre-k What the Research Shows
Pre[k]Now - Model Professional Development Policy
National Women's Law Center - Fact Sheet - Child Care Providers: Increasing Compensation Raises Women's Wages and Improves Child Care Quality
Equal Opportunity Institute - Early Childhood Education Career and Wage Ladder
WA HB 2353 - Washington State law giving child care workers collective bargaining rights
IL Executive Order on Collective Negotiation by Day Care Home Providers
SEIU Child Care and Head Start Workers
AFSCME Child Care Providers Together

United Federation of Teachers Family Child Care Providers

Conclusion

Support for quality affordable early education and child care is a core part of valuing families and growing the economy. Investments in quality early education and child care do not just offer immediate economic gains, but also offer long-term economic and societal benefits. States, especially in tough economic times, need to commit to providing quality and affordable early education and child care for all.

Reforming Sex Education to Prevent Sexually-Transmitted Diseases

Adam Thompson — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:26:20 -0400

Even as Planned Parenthood, MTV and the Kaiser Family Foundation team up in a campaign to prevent sexually transmitted diseases (STD), state legislatures are acting to ensure students' access to comprehensive sex education and are rejecting federal funding for failed abstinence-only programs. Half of all sexually active people will have an STD by the age of 25 with 19 million new STD cases occurring each year. These statistics highlight the need for improving youth sex education.

While the previous Administration pursued a failed abstinence-only policy over the last 8 years, 25 states rejected federal funding for abstinence-only sex education and funded comprehensive sex education. A look at 2009 legislation shows that states continue to view comprehensive sex education as a priority. As Planned Parenthood reported in an e-mail, so far in 2009, 22 states (AZ, FL. HI, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, NY, OH, OK, OR, RI, TX, UT, VA, and WA) have introduced 53 proactive sex education measures designed to expand students’ access to comprehensive sex education, including:

Requiring Medical Accuracy: Many of these states are requiring that if sex education is being taught then it must be comprehensive and medically accurate such as HI SB 777.
Options for Teaching Healthy Living: Others, like NC HB 88 would allow all parents the option of having life-saving information on preventing unintended pregnancy and STD's taught to their teen through the healthy living curriculum.
Sex Education Grant Programs: Others such as NY HB1806 would establish an age-appropriate sex education grant program within their state health departments to be appropriated to school districts, school-based health centers, and community-based organizations to assist them in conducting a thorough and comprehensive education program aimed at preventing unintended pregnancies and occurrences of sexually transmitted diseases among youth.

"Get Yourself Tested", a nationwide campaign using youth-oriented entertainment and media to raise awareness of the prevalence of STD's, the importance and ease of getting tested and to encourage parents to talk to their children about sexually transmitted infections.

Potential Federal Funding for State Programs: The prevalence of STD's has resulted in federal legislation, the Responsible Education About Life Act, or REAL Act (S. 611), which would fund "comprehensive, medically accurate, age-appropriate sex education" in America's schools. As Planned Parenthood pointed out in a press release praising the REAL Act, there is currently no federal funding stream dedicated to supporting comprehensive sex education. Conversely, the Bush Administration funneled $1.5 billion over the past 8 years to abstinence-only sex education programs despite numerous scientific studies showing that such programs do not prevent sexual activity and leave America's youth woefully uneducated about how to protect their sexual health.

Public Support for comprehensive sex ed is strong. A poll commissioned by the National Women's Law Center and Planned Parenthood found that 76 percent of voters support comprehensive sex education in public schools.

Resources:
Progressive States Network - States Promoting Contraception to Reduce Unwanted Pregnancies and Abortion Rates
Planned Parenthood - Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Safer Sex
Guttmacher Institute - State Policies in Brief: Insurance Coverage of Contraceptives
National Women's Law Center - Reproductive Choices Five Years of Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Education: Assessing the Impact and Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs

Paid Sick Days Bills Moving Across Country

Caroline Fan — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 09:40:48 -0500

Fifteen states have introduced paid sick days legislation to ensure that workers are able to regain their health without losing pay, or even worse, their jobs. These are based on model policies that have already passed in San Francisco, CA, Milwaukee, WI and Washington, DC.

During fragile economic times, workers are too often forced to choose between their health, or the health of their kids, and maintaining a paycheck. Paid sick days legislation helps families avoid that tradeoff, while increasing workplace productivity by ensuring that workers don’t have to work while sick, thereby decreasing the spread of disease to coworkers. Many bills under debate protect parents’ ability to take care of their children and other immediate family members, and time off to deal with domestic abuse. A number of bills have especially promising campaigns:

North Carolina’s HB 177 has been introduced and is supported by more than 30 organizations, including the AARP and ACORN.
Connecticut’s HB 6187 passed out of committee and is closer to becoming law.
Minnesota's HF 612 / SF 461 is scheduled for a committee hearing on March 6th.
Massachusetts’s HD 1726 / SD 624 is being promoted as creating an equal playing field for all businesses, since the majority of workers in Massachusetts already have some form of paid sick days, and as a way to contain health care costs in the state. A report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that paid sick days legislation would save $1.5 million annually in health care expenditures just from lower flu contagion at work.

Advocates promote paid sick days as both a moral issue but also smart, common sense policy that can hold down health care costs while increasing productivity and decreasing turnover.

Resources

Everybody benefits - Connecticut's Campaign for Paid sick days
National partnership for women and families
Valuing Good Health in Massachusetts - Institute for women's policy research.
Paid Sick Days on Ballot in Milwaukee - Progressive States Network