We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we’ve always had kind of a private notion of children: Your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of these are our children. So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities. Once it’s everybody’s responsibility, and not just the household’s, then we start making better investments.

As an advocate for children, I appreciate her last point that, in this country, we do a poor job of making the needed investments in education, early childhood, child health, and child nutrition to ensure better outcomes for our nation’s children. For example, less than 8 percent of the federal budget is now invested in children and the sequestration cuts another $4.2 billion out of children’s programs.

As if to underscore the point, Congress moved into high gear to pass by overwhelming margins emergency legislation to put an end to airport delays caused by the sequestration while ignoring all the cuts to children’s programs. As House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer said about the fast-tracked legislation addressing airline delays while leaving in place the cuts to programs of importance to children, “Seventy thousand children will be kicked out of Head Start. Nothing in this bill deals with them.”

President George W. Bush’s former chief strategist Matthew Dowd was also struck by how quickly Congress acted to protect air travelers, including themselves, while ignoring issues of importance to children. As he said on ABC’s This Week, “The only way they’re bipartisan is to do something for themselves. It’s amazing the speed at which they did that.” In contrast, he added, “We have this horrible shooting where all these children die in Connecticut, [yet] we can’t pass gun control legislation.”

As a society, we keep failing our children and there are real consequences. Among other things, a recent report by UNICEF has found that the United States has the second highest share of children living under the relative poverty line. And, as columnist Charles M. Blow of The New York Times noted, “The United States ranked 25th out of 29 in the percentage of people 15- to 19-years-old who were enrolled in schools and colleges and 23rd in the percentage of people in that cohort not participating in either education, employment or training.”

This data should ring loud and clear to all Americans — liberal, moderate, or conservative — that we can and must do better as a society. Other countries are clearly more successful.

Sadly, rather than beginning the debate over what is the best response to improving the lives and well-being of children in America, Fox News attacked MCNBC’s Harris-Perry repeatedly for expressing the notion that “kids belong to whole communities” rather than simply to their parents. According to a tweet by former Governor Sarah Palin on the matter, “Apparently MSNBC doesn’t think your children belong to you. Unflippingbelievable.”

But, the governor undoubtedly understands something every parent knows: caring for and being responsible for the life and well-being of a child is life-altering, overwhelming, and ever-changing. When children develop and reach various milestones and touchpoints, parents are never able to truly become experts at any stage and are always hopeful rookies learning on the fly from their family, friends, and (dare I say!) communities and schools. In fact, a frequent and common refrain from parents is that “just as you think you have finally learned how to deal with one stage of a child’s life, they change.”

The reality is also that, regardless of whether you are a hockey mom, an employee at Wal-Mart, parents going out to dinner on a Friday evening, or a mother running for vice president of the United States of America, there are dozens of other people — including family, friends, educators, health professionals, and other caregivers — who are often also entrusted with the responsibility of providing for the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development for one’s children. The fact is that both parents and the community, as partners, are critical to their success or failure of children.

But, it goes beyond that because government also plays an important role. As Mary Elizabeth Williams said:

It’s about understanding the obligation that all of us share to all of our kids. It’s about making sure they are educated and cared for, protected by our laws but also loved and tended to by a wider, richer circle of friends, family and neighbors. The idea that we need to work together for the general good of all — including and most significantly for the benefit of our offspring…

As she understands, laws and the public policy choices that our elected officials make at every level of government — school board, city council, state legislature, and Congress — also have profound impact on our nation’s children and our future. For example, Congress voted to take action and imposed across the board cuts to various programs to reduce the federal deficit, including $4.2 billion in cuts to children’s programs. In response to complaints and worries that their own flights would be delayed, Congress voted to provide a fix to address airport delays while choosing inaction in protecting the 70,000 children losing Head Start. In short, public policy decisions, including the policy choice of inaction, matter greatly.

Therefore, rather than a debate about whether child rearing should be focused on either parents, the community, or government, the most important questions we need to be answering are how we can improve the lives and outcomes of our nation’s children — at the family, community, and political levels.

For example, just a few weeks ago, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer hosted Governor Palin at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, to raise awareness against child abuse. Their “communitarian” action highlighted the importance of addressing child abuse and neglect by all of us — family, community, and policymakers.

But, it is one thing to speak out on an issue and quite another to create a policy solution that properly supports and addresses the needs of children and families. For example, Governor Brewer declared in November 2011, “There can be no higher priority than the safety of children under state supervision.” And yet, the Arizona Republic reported over a year later that:

A record number of children are in foster care. Caseworker turnover remains high, with thousands of abuse reports waiting to be investigated and caseloads that are double or triple official state standards. The conditions blamed for stressing already troubled families haven’t changed and, in some cases, have deteriorated, as state budget cuts lengthened waiting lists for subsidized child care, domestic-violence shelters, substance-abuse programs and health care.

The newspaper added:

The children whose brutal deaths captured public attention last year were replaced with new names in 2012: Za’Naya Flores, Vanessa Martinez, Patrick Smith.

Beyond words, our nation must, individually and collectively, do better and make progress toward protecting and improving the lives of all our children.

As KJ Dell’Antonia of The New York Times writes about this debate:

Most Americans, most politicians, most pundits would surely agree that if America is going to invest in anything, it should be our children and their future. Few would suggest that children aren’t a part of our communities, or don’t merit our support. It’s how to provide that support and investment that we disagree on, and that disagreement needs airing and discussion for there to be any change.

But when even the suggestion that we could make better collective investments in our youth can become a flashpoint for the rhetoric of division, the conversation about how we can better support families and care for our children becomes one we’re even less likely to have.

In fact, it is the lack of real debate and action in support of children that is both outrageous and, to use Governor Palin’s term, “unflippingbelieveable.”

Citing significant concerns about long lines at airports and flight delays caused by the furlough of air-traffic controllers, Congress is allowing the Federal Aviation Administration to override strict sequestration rules and re-direct funds within its budget. And they did so with lightning speed.

With their big fuss over aviation punctuality, lawmakers make it clear that they’re not feeling the pain felt by the majority of Americans. Their message: In the United States it’s fine to wait — and face a steep climb — for housing, health care, cancer treatment, a pre-school slot, domestic violence intervention services, federal work study, or job retraining. But our planes? They better take off on time.

Thanks to sequestration’s across-the-board cuts that began two months ago, the FAA had to cut $637 million from its budget between March 1 and September 30, 2013. It planned to achieve one-third of this cost savings by furloughing 14,000 air-traffic controllers, obligated at present to incorporate one unpaid day off for every ten days worked.

Congress is falling prey to what The New York Times calls the “special-interest demands for exceptions” — first meat inspectors, now air-traffic controllers. Next up, the Pentagon.

Even though the majority of sequester-driven cuts fall on programs that serve families, workers, and low-income Americans, the gasp emerging from local communities is barely audible in the media or on Capitol Hill.

That’s because the majority of folks enduring the across-the-board cuts — program beneficiaries and the workers who serve them — are fighting to survive. They don’t have huge sums at their disposal to pay lobbyists or publicists.

Our lawmakers’ struggle to ease the pain of weary travelers is doing nothing to soften sequestration’s overall blow. More than a piecemeal approach is required.

Congress must cast off its confounding allegiance to zero-sum budgeting where one person’s win is another person’s loss and stop side-stepping questions about the role of government. With all their constituents in mind, not just a powerful few, lawmakers must forge comprehensive legislation that tackles the way our nation makes our revenue and the way we set federal spending priorities.

There are significant, un-tapped resources available. If only Congress will muster the political and moral will.

Any member of Congress unwilling to engage in this task should locate the exit closest to them. There’s no room on this flight for useless baggage.

We’ve previously highlighted the ways the Ryan budget would harm women, like dismantling Medicaid and repealing the ACA; deeply cutting funding for programs like child care, Head Start, education and job training; and providing lavish tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations.

The event, held by Representatives Donna F. Edwards (D-MD), Doris Matsui (D-CA), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Gwen Moore (D-WI), and Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM), addressed these harmful policy proposals in another way – by showing the human cost of these cuts.

The press conference featured the stories of two amazing women. Joyce Milford, a sophomore from Howard University who has relied on federal education funding including Pell Grants – funding the Ryan budget would cut – to succeed in high school and go to college. Emily Townsend, a mother with a daughter living with disabilities who relied on Medicaid to help care for her child – a support that enabled her to obtain a Ph.D. in physics while caring for her daughter.

Another story that particularly touched me was Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s story. Rep. Lujan Grisham spoke about growing up with a sister with disabilities and the critical importance of Medicaid to help her family pay for costly caregiving expenses and medical treatments. The Ryan Budget drastically cuts Medicaid by over $750 billion and puts coverage for vulnerable women at risk. This story hit home for me because, as I have written about before, my husband’s sister, Mandy – a constituent of Rep. Lujan Grisham’s– is also a young woman with severe disabilities who relies on Medicaid to help assist my in-laws with the cost of her care. Chairman Ryan’s proposals to cut Medicaid and repeal the ACA would be disastrous for people like Mandy.

These stories show that these budget cuts are not just numbers on a page – they are cuts to programs that will directly and severely impact the lives of millions of people all over the country – mostly low-income women and children. They are simply unconscionable.

That was the day I joined the Paul Ryan Fan Club.  While I don’t agree with him on policy issues, any elected official who can laugh with a former staffer is more than OK in my book. My encounter with him continues to remind me that good people can disagree on policy, and they can advocate for different ideas and policy proposals but still respect and laugh with each other. Now that Chairman Ryan is a star in his party – he was a Vice-Presidential nominee after all – it is even more important for me to remember that encounter. Because the truth is, while I do like him, I don’t like his latest proposals very much.

Last week, Representative Ryan released his budget plan for Fiscal Year 2014. In my position here at the YWCA, focused on economic issues that impact women and families, I have spent a lot of time reviewing these kinds of plans from both sides of the aisle. In many ways, Ryan’s plan is the same one we have seen from him for the past few years, dusted off and with a few minor changes: tax cuts that benefit the economically well-off, and structural changes to Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP/food stamps, which will hurt women and children who rely on them the most.

Here is a brief summary of what the Ryan Budget does:

• It turns SNAP/food stamps into a block grant, a fixed amount of funding administered by states, instead of a safety net program support by the federal government; places time limits on the benefits; and requires recipients to work in order to receive benefits.
• It offers subsidies for Medicare, so middle-aged people would eventually get a coupon to afford a certain type of healthcare coverage, or opt to pay more for a different plan.
• It turns Medicaid into a block grant, cutting its funding, and repeals the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which means that women and girls would lose the preventative benefits with no co-pays and that insurance companies would be able to rescind coverage based on pre-existing conditions, like domestic violence or cesarean sections.
• It protects defense spending from sequestration cuts.
• It cuts the top tax rate for individuals from 39.6% to 25%, even though, in poll after poll, the public supports ending tax cuts for the highest earners in our nation to help pay for our nation’s debt. Yet, the Ryan budget would cut taxes for households with annual incomes over $200,000 by about $34,500, and cut taxes for households with annual incomes of more than $1 million by about $330,000, on average.  To fully finance these tax breaks for high earners, women and families whose incomes are under $200,000 would see their taxes go up by more than $3,000, on average.
• It locks in the sequester for years to come, with 5% across-the-board cuts  to federally-funded programs in 2013, and includes additional cuts on top of it – resulting in significant cuts to human needs programs like those run by the YWCA. And, the Ryan budget shifts cuts that were allocated to defense programs over to programs that help women and children, like housing and job-training programs, childcare and Head Start programs, and domestic violence and sexual assault services and programs.
• It freezes the maximum Pell Grant award for 10 years, leaving millions of female students with less money to pursue education and job training.

Today, the House will vote on Representative Ryan’s plan. It will pass the House. It will most likely not pass in the Senate. But for advocates concerned about the well-being of YWCA clients, women and children, the Ryan budget is one that we cannot support. Conversations in Washington about how to address our nation’s debt and deficit are ongoing; elected officials on both sides of the aisle, including the President, want to come to an agreement on a broad debt deal – one that would cut over a trillion dollars from the federal budget, and could include changes to the sequester, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other programs. Representative Ryan’s budget is important, because it is the starting point with which he and his fellow House Republicans, will approach these conversations about the debt. This is their framework.

Now is the time for advocates to speak up and reject this budget and this approach. You can start by asking your members of Congress to stop the sequester. Trust me when I say that Representative Ryan is a great guy. He’s also tough. He can take people disagreeing with his ideas. Because this isn’t personal; we just don’t agree on the policy.

Want to learn more about the Ryan Budget and how you can get involved? Join a webinar with the Coalition on Human Needs this Thursday.  

- See more at: http://www.ywcablog.com/2013/03/19/why-i-like-paul-ryan-but-not-his-budget/#sthash.6j6kPm99.u63qniOr.dpuf

I’m a single mother with two kids under 3, a full-time student, and working, so I don’t have much time to write.

But I have to tell whoever is willing to listen that the daycare subsidy I receive has saved my life. I’m able to go back to school to get the kind of job that will help me afford to support the three of us on my own and I’m secure in the knowledge that my children are well-cared for and developmentally stimulated while I can’t be with them.

They will be ready for school right when I finish and together I see us accomplishing great things. None of this would be possible without that subsidy. It is our lifeline and I thank God for it every day.

Please don’t take that away. Signed, Nan Mooney

This is real.

And it’s important. The 2014 national budget that Representative Paul Ryan just proposed, which the U.S. House is expected to vote on this week, is all cuts and no revenues. That’s not sound fiscal policy. And it’s certainly not a balanced approach to creating a healthy national economy.

To be blunt, the proposed Ryan budget is so bad for women and families that it seems like the plot of a horror movie or a very bad joke.

Tell Congress: Our national economy is nothing to joke around with! Vote “NO” on the Ryan budget, and instead move forward a smart, balanced approach for our economy.

Here’s some of the bad news to start: 66 percent of the cuts in the proposed Ryan budget come from programs targeted at low- or moderate-income people, most of whom are women, in a time when a quarter of young families are already living in poverty. Increasing poverty is no way to get our economy, which is based on consumer spending, back on track. In fact, when people don’t have funds to spend then businesses and our whole economy suffer.

The news doesn’t get any better: Ryan’s proposed budget also repeals the Affordable Care Act, which would leave millions of women uninsured, allow insurance companies to keep discriminating against women, and increase the cost of important healthcare services like mammograms, pap smears, colonoscopies, and contraception.

Further, Medicaid, which 1 out of 3 kids rely on for their healthcare, is also cut by $756 billion (yes that’s with a “b”) in the proposed Ryan budget — and Medicare also takes a big hit.

Food stamps, access to child care and college, and more are all on Ryan’s chopping block.

It’s ridiculous. And it’s what many are calling a “Reverse Robin-Hood” budget, taking from the poor to give to the rich. In fact, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes that: “Estimates from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center show the tax cuts in the proposed Ryan budget would cost the federal government nearly $6 trillion (yes that’s with a “t”) over the next decade, which exceeds the Ryan budget’s total spending cuts, exclusive of its interest savings. These tax cuts would provide extremely large new tax cuts to wealthy Americans, even as Chairman Ryan’s spending cuts would fall disproportionately on the most vulnerable individuals and families.”

Which is a long way of saying the proposed Ryan budget virtually grabs fistfuls of money from the public coffers, money needed for the services millions of families rely on to get by, in order to shower it on the wealthy.

Tell Congress: Vote “NO” on the Ryan budget, and instead move forward a smart, balanced approach for our economy.

And please also take a moment to use those social media sharing buttons and share this petition with friends and family so everyone can weigh in and tell their member of Congress to vote NO and to get back on track with fixing our national economy in a constructive way.

Together, we’re a powerful force for women and families. Thank you!

The new governor had been moving through his appointments since taking office in January, but had not yet announced who would lead the cabinet-level early learning agency. On Tuesday, he tapped Hyde, who oversaw key stages of the construction of the state’s new early learning system and led a successful Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge application during her first four years on the job.

Over the next four years, one of Hyde’s biggest challenges will be to ensure that central early education reforms — a quality rating and improvement system (Early Achievers), kindergarten transition program (WaKIDS) and professional development efforts — take root, especially after large federal grants run dry.
Over the last couple of years, Washington state won an impressive set of federal grants, including two competitive, multi-year awards totaling nearly $27 million for the Home Visiting Services Account and a $60 million Race the Top Early Learning Challenge grant.
“I think the biggest opportunity we have is to wisely invest this federal influx of money that we have,” Hyde said in an interview. “We are not ever going to get this chance again.”
One of the reasons Washington won the Race to the Top grant was because its application was based on expanding and improving existing programs, which should make it easier to sustain that work once the grant ends.

In an era of tight state budgets, though, Hyde will also have to decide how to balance investments between improving quality and expanding access in early education. In addition, she will have to continue defining what quality means in child care, preschool and pre-kindergarten.
“I think our opportunities are to really continue to drive the quality message around early learning,” said Gail Joseph, co-director of the University of Washington’s National Center on Quality Teaching and Learning. “And to really help people re-conceptualize (that) quality means positive outcomes for children and families.”
The federal grants enhanced the state’s ongoing push to create a leading early learning system supported and often led by Gov. Inslee’s predecessor, Gov. Christine Gregoire. Now, Hyde’s reappointment is a good sign that Washington’s new governor, who will play a key role in keeping the efforts moving forward, supports the work.

“Quality early learning is, without question, one of the best investments we can make for our children and our state,” Gov. Inslee said in a statement. “This is one of my top priorities.”

During the next four years, Hyde will also focus on continuing to build Washington’s home visiting programs. Thrive by Five Washington is one of the leaders of home visiting work in Washington. The agency’s Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP) is also slated to expand over the next five years, and policymakers may support increased spending on ECEAP.
“Our state-funded preschool program is ranked among the top in the nation, and the Legislature and Governor are considering making serious additional investments in it for the upcoming biennium,” Hyde wrote in a message to DEL staff about her reappointment.
Advocates are hopeful that policymakers will increase funding for the ECEAP program.

Cross posted from Thrive by Five Washington.

I have been following the deluge of blog posts, tweets, etc., which followed the publication of Anne-Marie Slaughter’s Atlantic article on “Having it All”. I gave my own response on “Having a life” in my blog, and also tweeted my take, which led her to quote me in her response.

The overall consensus seems to be that there is no such thing as “having it all” — neither men nor women really have the time to do all that they want to do. However, for those in privileged positions, life can be about choices. For those less privileged, there often aren’t many options. There are always responsibilities that can’t be ignored.

Those of us who have the means also have a responsibility, not just to wait for our turn in power, but to push for change in direct, and hopefully, effective ways.

As a first-generation college-goer, I always felt that I had to give something back for everything that I had managed to achieve. I started my career after college in the non-profit sector, then decided to go back to graduate school. Since then, I have been very successful, but I have always kept my eye on what needs to be done — this is one area where I truly know that I can’t do it all.

As someone who lives a rather privileged life, I do my best to give back to the community, both through my work with organizations like the YWCA, Mayor’s Health and Fitness Council, KLRU, Planned Parenthood and my own company Take Back the Trail.

I have chosen to focus on a few areas like health, fitness, mental health, and public affairs where I can contribute. I push for women’s rights and policies that help women and minorities in academia and the public sphere. Getting to change takes all of us who have the means to look at what we can do from the bottom up, as well as the top down, but as in almost all areas of life, there has to be balance.

When my personal life has become overwhelming I back off, and I hope that as things settle down I will be able to do more. Sometimes family responsibilities that aren’t expected, like dealing with long-term illness and death, have a major impact on my ability to function, let alone do my usual juggling act. I have also learned to choose my battles — there’s no use banging my head against the wall when change isn’t likely to come.

I hope this discussion continues and that we bring men and people of all backgrounds into the debate. I’m not sure what will lead to change in the way we approach work, life, and family for all, but I hope to do my small part that will help lead to the kinds of support systems we all need.

I’m skeptical, since we seem to be moving away from providing support structures in an era of cuts to basic programs, but we need to fight this, too. Government needs to play its role in developing those structures (e.g., childcare, equal pay) that would allow more women to have the means to play important roles in our democracy. And we all need to do our part to help make it happen.

If we were truly equal, the fuss over Marissa Mayers’ no-telecommuting directive at Yahoo! would have been focused on the protests of ALL affected employees, instead of just the mothers. And Sheryl Sandberg would not have needed to advise young women to “Lean In” to get ahead in the workplace.

The website for Sandberg’s new Lean In community states that they are “committed to offering women the ongoing inspiration and support to help them achieve their goals” and that “if we talk openly about the challenges women face and work together, we can change the trajectory of women and create a better world for everyone.”

I see nothing wrong with that and I applaud Sandberg for whipping up support to solve a problem. But I also understand why there’s been so much criticism of the effort as one that isn’t going to help the majority of women in the workforce — because most of us are not or will ever be on the executive track. We just need to support our families.

The way I see it, our unequal state in society is too big a problem to be tackled by just one initiative. The glass ceiling is real, as is the perception that some successful women don’t do much to help the younger women who follow. Sandberg’s book and support group may help put that issue to rest.

But that is just one tiny part of a huge problem that is somewhat invisible, even to women ourselves — until we give birth to our first child. That’s when we discover how widely our national policies veer away from our political rhetoric. It seems like the more lawmakers talk about “family values,” the less likely they are to vote for policies that support the families they supposedly care about. Women need support climbing the corporate ladder. Women and families also need equal pay, options for flexible and/or part time work, affordable universal daycare, universal healthcare, paid parental leave, and a path back into the workforce once time has been taken to raise a family.

Does this sound like a fantasy? Only in America. Many of these ideas are actual policy in other industrialized nations.

I had hoped to convince my supervisors to allow me to officially work from home a couple of days per week after my daughter was born, but that was not to be. After three frustrating years, I ended up walking away from that job and became a full-time, stay at home mom. At the time, I thought I would be able to find some part time work that made sense, but soon discovered that (a) no one was willing to pay me even close to what I was earning full-time on an hourly basis, (b) once I factored in the cost of child-care (which I would still need), clothing and transportation I would be LOSING money and (c ) staying home with a sick child would likely mean getting fired.

The question of how to break through glass ceiling is useless to women who never moved beyond the pink collar — or who, like me, were forced to decide between work and family and really had no other choice than to stay home and raise the kid. I worked for 20 years and worked at home for 16. And now, I cannot even break back into the kind of entry level office job I had as a new college graduate.

My job search has resulted in little more than an endless stream of emails from employment agencies who never allow me to make it through to an interview. Nonetheless, I am subjected to a daily stream of emails with job leads that are purportedly tailored to my experience.

Most of them are for nanny positions. Because once you’ve spent several years caring for children, I guess that’s all you are good for any longer.

“The employers I work with don’t want people who have been out of work longer than two years,” one agency told me when cancelling the interview I had set up over the Internet. And that seems to be a national trend. Re-entering the workforce after taking time off to raise a family has always been a challenge. It’s even harder now.

I know a lot of women who gave up careers to raise their families, women who will face this same issue when their kids have grown. We are an underutilized national resource. We can make a solid contribution. But as of now, there are no COOs writing books and starting support networks for us.

Sandberg advises women to stop trying to have it all, and that’s where I see red. No one questions whether or not men can have a successful career and a family. Fifty years after the second wave of the women’s movement, why is this still an issue for us?