On the Path to Becoming a C Student

How do Wisconsin's schools compare to those in other states? A new Wisconsin Budget Project analysis asks this question, and finds that Wisconsin, once a national leader in educational performance, now ranks close to the national average in many measures of support for education.

Here's an excerpt from the analysis:

Wisconsin schools have long been an engine of our state’s economic growth. We have depended on a well-educated workforce, grounded in high quality public schools supported by state dollars, to lay the foundation for our state’s economy. But that may all be changing.

Over the last few years in Wisconsin, growth in support for classroom learning has not kept up with the national average, state support for schools has declined, and student/teacher ratios have increased. The massive cuts to schools in the 2011-13 budget will likely exacerbate these troubling trends.

For more about trends in state support for schools and student/teacher ratios, see the analysis here.

Tamarine Cornelius

What Would Walt Disney Think of Beyond Scared Straight?

Just read a very interesting and provocative letter from Leonard Witt of the Center for Sustainable Journalism to the CEO of Disney related to the inconsistency between the Disney vision and the latest season of Beyond Scared Straight showing on the A&E Network, owned in large part (one-third) by Disney. 

In his letter, Mr. Witt points out that the gut-wrenching, verbally abusive, and harassing behavior shown in the most recent Beyond Scared Straight airings is in direct contrast to the stated “Three core principles that guide our daily decisions and actions” at Disney as well as being contrary to all evidence about what works effectively for at-risk and delinquent youth. 

What a tragedy that Beyond Scared Straight is again even showing – and although it seems to make for decent ratings, perhaps it’s time those that can make a difference step up to the plate and do so.  So, to the Disney Corporation – make a difference! Thanks Mr. Witt.

Jim Moeser         

Public Employees Take Pay Hit Starting Today

The paychecks that public employees get today will be quite a bit smaller than the ones they’ve gotten in the past. That’s because this is the first paycheck that takes into account a provision in the budget repair bill that requires public employees to pay more for their fringe benefits.

Beginning teachers, janitors, workers in school, and other working-class public employees could lose thousands of dollars per year, the equivalent of as much as six months of grocery costs.

Most people nonplussed about changing demographics

Census Bureau data on population trends indicates that by midcentury, people of color will be in the majority.  Interestingly, a new opinion survey by Colorlines.com, finds that most people are ambivalent about this demographic shift.  However, the research by the Applied Research Center (Colorline’s publisher) did find that among those concerned about the change, political ideology, race, education and age were factors in their opinion.  See the Colorlines article on the survey and all its findings. A People of Color Majority? Meh, So What?

New DCF Ops Memo Outlines Switch to Attendance-Based Payment for Wisconsin Shares

The Department of Children and Families just released an operations memo dated 8/11/11 on the subject "Authorizations to Licensed Family Providers to be Attendance Based Only". "Attendance Based" means payment is based solely on hours attended, unlike private child care, Head Start, and public and choice schools, where everything is enrollment based--i.e. payment is for a slot. Under their new authority granted by the 2011-13 Budget, DCF has decided to implement this cost cutting (or cost shifting) measure that amounts to a substantial financial hit to family child care providers who are part of Wisconsin Shares. This comes on top of inadequate reimbursement rates that remain frozen at 2005 levels and have already negatively impacted the quality and availability of care for Wisconsin's low-income working families.

There are several problems with this policy change:

• Attendance based only payments unfairly punish family providers who care for Shares children with an immediate 7-8% compensation cut (based on average attendance figures).
• In licensed child care, payments should mirror the market, where payments are made based on child enrollment, not on hours attended.
• If the payment system does not provide fair, reasonable reimbursement to providers, many providers will choose not to serve low-income families.
• DCF is exercising their authority unilaterally, with no input from legislators, consumers, providers, or experts in the field.
• It is extremely unfair to only apply this policy to family providers (this is bad public policy for ALL providers).
• The WI Shares program is actually UNDER budget, so there should be no immediate need for cost saving measures.

ACA – Helping Us to Actually Understand What’s in Our Private Health Insurance Plan

Many of us have frustratingly tried to decide which insurance plan to choose – and it’s like comparing apples to bananas to oranges, all in a foreign language. Thankfully, a preliminary federal rule announced on August 17 by the Department of Health and Human Services – implementing part of the health care reform law – will ensure that all consumers of private insurance are provided clear, consistent, and comparable information about their health plan benefits and coverage.

The proposed regulations clarify the implementation of the ACA provision ensuring that consumers have access to two forms to help them understand and evaluate health care choices, specifically:

• An easy to understand summary of benefits and coverage; and
• A uniform glossary of terms commonly used in health insurance coverage such as “deductible” and “co-pay”.

“BadgerCare Plus: Who’s Eligible, for What, and at What Price?”

Back by Popular Demand

Shortly after BadgerCare Plus began in 2008, I wrote a paper providing a detailed description of the income eligibility criteria, what people are eligible for, and how to calculate the premiums for families of different sizes and incomes. We recently got a couple of requests for an updated version of that report, and this seemed like a good time to make it current – before DHS unveils its proposal for how to change premiums and/or various other aspects of BadgerCare Plus.

A new version of “BadgerCare Plus: Who’s Eligible, for What, and at What Price?” has been completed, and can be found on the WCCF website.   Appendix 1 provides a table comparing the benefits available in the Standard Plan and the Benchmark Plan.  Appendix 2 provides a number of examples of how to apply the tables for determining eligibility and the premiums, and how those hypothetical families might be affected if the state raises cost-sharing for low-income enrollees to 5 percent of family income.

Jon Peacock

Real Deficit Reduction Will Take Real Health Care Reform

Raging debates about reducing the federal deficit, as well as state spending, have reiterated a common point – health care costs are too high. Medicare and Medicaid make up about 23 percent of federal spending, and their costs are growing faster than the overall economy. Because of this, the new "super committee" will likely be looking at health spending as part of deficit reduction. However, real deficit reduction will take real, systemic health care reform.

On this note, recent news of success in the Medicare shared savings demonstration project at Marshfield Clinic shows a glimmer of hope. Ten physician groups from across the country, including Marshfield, recently completed a five-year demonstration project with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and signed on for another two years. The goal of the project was to improve quality of care and reduce costs in order to achieve shared savings – central to this was paying for quality of care, not for quantity. Already, Marshfield Clinic has earned $56.2 million in shared savings payments from the project. This was 80% of the savings; the other 20% was kept by Medicare. Guy Boulton wrote about the pairing of savings and quality in the Journal Sentinel, and Jake Miller in the Wausau Daily Herald shared that, “Marshfield Clinic Impresses with Savings Success.”

New Affordable Care Act Rules Get Mixed Reviews

Three new sets of proposed federal regulations relating to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) were issued today by the Department  of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Treasury Department. I haven’t reviewed them carefully, but I was pleased to read that Tricia Brooks at the Center for Children and Families (CCF) at Georgetown University said the proposed rules “take a number of positive steps forward to remove administrative barriers to coverage and reduce churning.”

In a CCF blog post, Brooks explained that the draft rules incorporate lessons learned from the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) about the importance of streamlining eligibility, coordinating enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP, and improving retention. She said that, “the ACA's vision for seamless, coordinated coverage is reflected in the details of the regulation,” which she said answers “a number of questions states have as they move forward in building the important IT systems that will support these goals.”

Although Brooks’ comments are heartening, child advocates also have a significant concern about the Treasury Department proposal because they think it interprets the law in a way that will significantly reduce the number of families eligible to purchase subsidized insurance through the new health insurance exchanges, thereby increasing the number of people who remain uninsured.

“Will Wisconsin’s Scott Walker Implement Health-Care Reform?”

Seems Likely He’ll Implement a Heritage Foundation Supported Exchange

This morning, the Washington Post’s article, “Will Wisconsin’s Scott Walker Implement Health-Care Reform?”, noted that of the seven early innovator state grantees, Wisconsin is the only state with a GOP Governor holding onto the money. Oklahoma returned its grant in April, and just this week Kansas Governor Sam Brownback returned $31 million. These early innovator grants are intended to help states develop the Health Insurance Exchanges, a key element of the health care law.

Some conservatives speak dismissively of Exchanges as part of “Obamacare,” and much of the recent discussions of Exchanges seems to have forgotten their original proponents, which included the conservative Heritage Foundation. As a PolitiFact article noted, “On numerous occasions, Heritage scholars wrote approvingly of the exchange system in Massachusetts, known as the Connector.”

States Struggling to Comply with Federal Law on Sex Offender Registration - the Adam Walsh Act

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act was signed into law on July 27th, 2006 by President George W. Bush with the intention of keeping tabs on sexual offenders. The Adam Walsh Act organizes offenders into 3 tiers. Tier 3, the most serious tier, mandates that offenders update their whereabouts every 3 months, with lifetime registration requirements. Tier 2 offenders must update their whereabouts every 6 months, with 25 years of registrations. Tier 1 offenders must update there whereabouts every year for 15 years. Failure to register and update information is a felony under law.

States had until last week to be submit a compliance plan, in order to avoid receiving a 10% decrease in federal justice assistance funding. Most states have found it be difficult to be in strict compliance with the law, but the process does include that being “substantially compliant” may be sufficient.

The ultimate focus for any law should be directed towards preventing more victims by reducing recidivism among offenders, which the Adam Walsh Act doesn’t really provide. There continues to be a tension between the good intentions of the Act to better inform community members of potential dangers vs. the reality of whether these kinds of notification have a long-term benefit. On one hand, it would be nice as a parent to know where the offenders are living, but on the other hand does it ensure community safety? This tension has been most evident when planning for how to comply with the Act as it relates to youthful offenders.

Effective School Discipline Practices – Some Parameters for Good Practice

The National Juvenile Justice Network has just released a policy platform on Safe and Effective School Disciplinary Policies and Practices. 

Sparked by concerns about school safety, in the 1990’s and into the last decade, schools implemented a variety of “get tough” policies and practices that led to a steady rise in the number of school suspensions and expulsions of youth – too often reinforcing or putting them on a downhill track toward further delinquency and ultimately jail or prison.  Some of these policies created a “zero tolerance” approach that scooped in youth who could benefit by more creative, informed, and productive efforts to successfully reengage them in school. 

This policy platform recognizes the need for safety in our schools but more strongly urges that districts avoid a “one size fits all” approach – instead working to prevent school-based problems and then, when the do occur, intervene effectively so that troubled youth have the opportunity to become successful.  Wisconsin schools, large and small, can struggle with how best to approach the needed balance, and this platform provides some guidance on what advocates should expect in terms of discipline policy and practice.                          

Jim Moeser

World Breastfeeding Week: Good News As Well As Challenges

Part way through World Breastfeeding Week (this week), child advocates have seen a major victory as well as a challenge. On Monday the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released guidelines on preventative services to be available to women with no additional co-pay under the Affordable Care Act. These eight requirements, recommended by the Institute of Medicine, include comprehensive lactation support and counseling and the costs of renting breastfeeding equipment. The necessity of those particular provisions was quickly re-affirmed when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a new study Wednesday, showing that most hospitals do not adequately encourage breastfeeding.

DHS Declines to Seek $9 Million of Potential Health Care Grants (though WI Ranks 47th in Public Health Spending)

A Journal Sentinel article posted late Wednesday afternoon reports that Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services (DHS) “has declined to make or back applications for federal public health grants that could have totaled more than $9 million over the next five years.” Most of that total represents two grants for combating alcohol and drug abuse, which could have amounted to up to $8.6 million over 5 years.

In addition to the potential health care funding, the article by Jason Stein notes that DHS decided not to apply for a grant of about $9 million “to update the system for providing food assistance benefits to pregnant women, infants and children through the WIC program from a voucher coupon to an electronic debit card.”

WCCF Issues Year-End Review of Juvenile Detention Data

WCCF has just posted a 2010 Report on the use of Juvenile Detention that indicates a slowing but continued decline in the number of youth held in temporary juvenile detention centers – from as many as 14,000 admitted in 2007 to approximately 9,600 youth admitted in 2010. Highlights of interest include:

• Consistent with earlier years, there is a continuing decrease in average daily population with juveniles being held in detention. In the beginning of 2009, there were 224 juveniles being held in detention on an average day and by the end of 2010 there were 214. This is not a huge decrease but a dramatic decrease from the beginning of 2008 when there were over 300 juveniles being held in detention on an average day.
• The disproportionality of youth being admitted and held in detention is still a problem. 79% percent of Wisconsin’s juvenile populations (aged 10-16) are White, but Whites only represent 47% of the juvenile detention population. While Black juveniles are only 9% of the juvenile population they make up 40% of detention admissions.
• There is a wide gap in the average length of stay across the 17 juvenile detention facilities in Wisconsin. It ranged from as short as 4 days in Lacrosse to almost 13 days at Racine.
• Girls were 22% of all 2010 admissions, consistent with the 2009 report.
• State and Federal laws discourage holding juvenile status offenders in secure detention facilities. Facilities admitting status offenders range from over 8% of their admissions at Marathon to 0% at Dane.

To check out more data on juvenile detention in 2010 and prior years check out the reports here.


By Allan Goetsch

Extended Jobless Benefits Approved; Repeal of UI Waiting Period Rejected

The state Senate wrapped up work today on a bill enabling Wisconsin to use an estimated $88 million of federal funding to extend unemployment insurance (UI) benefits for up to 13 weeks for the long-term unemployed. The bill, SB 147, could benefit as many as 40,000 Wisconsinites between now and the end of the year. Once the bill is signed, Wisconsin will no longer be one of the small handful of states who are eligible for the extended benefits but choose not to implement the federally-funded extension. 

Today’s vote ended an impasse between the Senate and Assembly over the issue of whether newly laid-off workers must wait a week before they become eligible for UI benefits. The Senate voted about two weeks ago for an amendment to SB 147 to repeal the one-week wait that was created by the state budget bill. However, the Assembly rejected that amendment, and today the Republican Senators all decided to side with the Assembly, thereby completing work on SB 147 and allowing it to be sent to the Governor for his signature. (We examined the waiting period issue in a recent blog post in our “31 Ways” series.)

Read more about the vote today in a new WI Budget Project Blog post.

Jon Peacock

31 Ways in 31 Days – Way #31 Some Other Things That Will Have a Significant Impact But Didn’t Quite Make the List

For the past month, we’ve been using this series of blog posts, “31 Ways in 31 Days,” to draw attention to some of the ways the recently passed 2011-13 biennial state budget stands to affect children and families in Wisconsin.

But let’s be clear: 31 is a rather arbitrary number we picked simply because it coincides conveniently with the number of days in the first month of the new fiscal year. The state budget’s impact on kids and families goes far beyond what we have outlined in this series.

In this final installment, we will take a very brief look at a handful of ways the budget affects kids and families that didn’t quite make the final cut for inclusion in the series—not because they are insignificant, but simply because we had to draw the line somewhere. Think of this segment as sort of an “honorable (or dishonorable, as the case may be) mention” category of ways the budget affects children and families.