Do low-income college students who receive public benefits stay in school longer and complete their studies faster? A new initiative that will launch in the 2012 summer at select community colleges will test this notion and work to provide models that other community colleges can implement and sustain.

The three-year $4.84 million initiative, Benefits Access for College Completion (BACC), is led by the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) and the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) with funding from the Ford Foundation, Kresge Foundation, Lumina Foundation, and the Open Society Foundations. The Annie E. Casey Foundation is also contributing to the initiative.

“We are committed to student completion and appreciate the major investment these foundations are making,” AACC President Walter G. Bumphus said. “Their collaborative vision will help community colleges identify the best ways for students to access the benefits and services they need to finish what they start.”

LaGuardia Community College President Gail Mellow said the initiative is a “huge opportunity” to help “financially troubled students get the benefits they are eligible to receive” and to help “shape the policy environment.”

Of the close to 8 million credit students annually attending community colleges, 46% currently receive some form of financial aid (state, federal, or institutional). The additional benefits the students might access through BACC include a range of federal programs, such as those that provide health insurance, food, and child care. Such support services are especially critical for community college students, many of whom juggle work, studies, and family responsibilities.

Colleges selected for the BACC planning phase are: Cuyahoga Community College (OH), Gateway Community and Technical College and Owensboro Community and Technical College (KY), LaGuardia Community College (NY), Northampton Community College (PA), and Skyline College (CA).  Macomb Community College and Lake Michigan Community College also will participate and share perspectives from similar work in Michigan.

During the initiative, participating colleges will become social innovators that integrate access to federal and state supports and other existing public resources into college operations, in some ways redefining the concept of financial aid and student supports. It is the hope that by working directly with local and state benefits administrators to eliminate policy barriers and align services, community colleges will help students finish their programs of study faster and move to economic self-sufficiency.

At the end of the initiative, the BACC team hopes to use lessons learned to expand what works across the nation’s more than 1,200 community colleges.

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Ohio’s four voucher programs which benefit children in  low-income families  and students with special needs are now serving more than 24,000 children, according to the School Choice Yearbook 2011-12—the annual award-winning publication offering the most comprehensive data on the nation’s 27 private school choice programs—released by the Alliance for School Choice.

The school choice landscape in the Buckeye State saw significant expansion in 2011, after the state’s flagship Educational Choice Scholarship Program quadrupled its enrollment cap, the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program raised its voucher amounts, and the legislature passed a plan creating the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship Program, which is slated to begin next year. Ohio is also home to a fourth program, the Autism Scholarship Program.

Across the nation, more than 210,000 children have benefitted from publicly funded private school choice programs – a growth of nearly 25 percent since 2007. Last year’s expansions also mean that Ohio joins Arizona as one of only two states in the nation with four school choice programs. All four of Ohio’s programs provide vouchers to disadvantaged children to attend the school of their parents’ choice.

The Alliance’s annual Yearbook is a collection of the nation’s most accurate data on private school choice programs across the country.  The release of the 2011-12 edition, which chronicles both new programs and expansion nationwide, recaps what The Wall Street Journal dubbed “The Year of School Choice.”

In addition to an analysis of trends and information regarding school choice, the Yearbook offers a directory of the accountability provisions and requirements for each of the 27 private school choice programs and a chronicle of the events from the past year.

“Ohio has for nearly two decades been at the forefront of education reform, and 2011 was no different,” said Yearbook co author Malcom Glenn, the national communications director at the Alliance. “With a new program on the horizon this year, even more families will finally be given a much-needed choice in their child’s education.”

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Ending the federal budgeting process recently, Congress dealt a devastating blow to the fight against childhood lead poisoning. The Omnibus Appropriations Bill cut funding for the CDC’s Healthy Homes Lead Poisoning Prevention Program to $2 million—a 94% reduction from FY11.

Lead poisoning still remains a significant environmental public health threat that affects over 30 million homes and nearly a half-million children annually. Today, parents of lead poisoned children can rely on their state or local health departments for help. A nurse or trained professional will come to their house and find the source of lead poisoning.

The program may connect parents to resources to remove hazards and can compel rental property owners to fix hazards. The program also prevents the disease through policies, community education, and outreach. ”Congress gave our children a lump of lead this holiday season,” said Rebecca Morley, Executive Director of the National Center for Healthy Housing.

“Studies show that educating a child with lead poisoning costs an extra $38,000. If even half of the children with lead poisoning incur these costs, that’s a $10 billion price tag,” continued Morley. “The cost of eliminating this program is staggering.”

The decision will result in the near-elimination of the program and massive job loss at the state and local levels. The move follows an advisory committee’s recommendation to CDC to lower the threshold for when a child is considered to have enough lead in his or her blood that follow-up action is needed. This change in the “action level” will more than double the caseload of poisoned kids that need the health department’s help.

“The burden on the most vulnerable families just got heavier. Too many children with lead poisoning already go undiagnosed. Without this program, we will return to the era of children being hospitalized for lead. Why is Congress treating our children like canaries in a coal mine?” said Liz Colon, parent and organizer for the Childhood Lead Action Project in Rhode Island.

The impact of these proposed cuts will also fall directly on the backs of low-income families and communities of color that are disproportionately impacted by environmental health hazards. Nationally, African American children are three times more likely to suffer from lead poisoning.

In some locales, African American and Latino children are eight to nine times more likely to enter school with a history of lead poisoning. Children poisoned by lead are seven times more likely to drop out of school and six times more likely to end up in the juvenile justice system.

“Lead poisoning is preventable. We are taking a huge step back in protecting our children’s health, safety, and future by eliminating the resources communities need to prevent and address lead exposures,” said Nsedu Witherspoon, Executive Director of the Children’s Environmental Health Network.

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