While President Barack Obama said recently that he would be skeptical that more guns would be an answer to school safety, his administration is considering paying to add police officers to secure public schools, in part because it may be an area of agreement among lawmakers of all stripes.

SIGN THE K12NN PETITION TO DROP THIS VERY BAD IDEA NOW.

In that same EdWeek article, my own Senator, Barbara Boxer (D-CA), presented such a plan to Vice President Joe Biden:

California Sen. Barbara Boxer, a Democrat, told the Washington Post she presented the plan to Vice President Joe Biden and he was “very, very interested” and may include it policy recommendations he makes to President Obama.

“If a school district wants to have a community policing presence, I think it’s very important they have it,” Boxer said in an interview Thursday. “If they want uniformed officers, they can do it. If they want plainclothed officers, they can do it.”

…

Boxer’s initiative would provide federal dollars to schools that want to hire police officers and install surveillance equipment. It wouldn’t go as far as the National Rifle Association’s proposal to provide armed guards at every public school.

Here’s what damaging about Senator Boxer’s well-meaning plan: it’s not a good solution to the Kern County shooting that happened in California during Vice President Joe Biden’s press conference on changing gun laws. It falsely uses the urgency of the situation to make more guns at schools a priority and a solution in search of a problem.

And more importantly, Senator Boxer’s plan creates a federal funding stream for increased police presence on school campuses, which is too closely aligned with the NRA’s goal of a militia in every school. Funding creates demand. School districts that never would’ve launched the initiative to do this will now apply for funds to enable them to do this. Let local decisions stay local. We don’t need federal solutions firehosed from on high.

In Texas, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst calls for teachers to be trained in gun use:

Dewhurst said school districts would nominate who they wanted to carry weapons on campus. The training would be more extensive than what is currently required for Texas concealed handgun license and include how to react technically and emotionally in an active shooter situation on a school campus.

President Obama, Senator Boxer (!), Lt. Governor Dewhurst — are you INSANE? Have you lost your mind?

Do I need to surgically implant a spine in your back?

Let’s keep our eye on the ball and stay focused on gun violence prevention that works: closing private gun sale loopholes, better public safety laws that strengthen mental health and criminal checks for gun owners, limiting military-grade high-capacity magazines, and so on.

SIGN THE K12NN PETITION TO DROP THIS VERY BAD IDEA NOW.

For shame, I never would’ve thought my own “liberal” Senator would cave to the gun sales pitches of the NRA masquerading as policy. We do not need guns on campus. NCLB provides for expulsion of students who bring weapons, including guns, on campus. Then would we invite adults to bring guns on campus in the name of “safety”? Do as we say, not as we do? Kids see right through that.

A final thought: the PTA has over 5 million members, one million more than the NRA. What if we had proportional clout? Use your voice on this issue.

SIGN THE K12NN PETITION TO DROP THIS VERY BAD IDEA NOW.

With one in three children overweight or obese, kids’ entertainment companies should not be exploiting the love that children have for their characters nor parents’ trust that they support children’s best interests  by promoting unhealthy foods to their young fans.  Yet, your child’s favorite Nickelodeon characters, SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer, are used to make unhealthy foods like imitation fruit snacks, Popsicles, PEZ candy, Cheese Nips crackers, and Kraft Macaroni & Cheese more attractive to children.  Nickelodeon and NickToons routinely advertise unhealthy foods like Cocoa Puffs, Air Heads candies, Chuck E. Cheese’s, and Fruit Roll-Ups. And Viacom’s children’s websites, including Nick.com and Neopets.com, have more unhealthy food advertising than any other children’s entertainment sites. Even Nick Jr. and NickJr.com accept advertising to preschoolers.

There’s an abundance of research that shows that food advertising affects children’s food choices, food purchase requests, diets, and health.  According to the American Psychological Association, companies should not advertise to children under 8 years old because they are unable to understand the persuasive intent of advertisements. And advertising on the internet is more difficult to defend against. Even many 12-year-olds do not recognize advertising in the form of entertaining games and videos on their favorite websites. Nickelodeon is preying on the vulnerability of our children and pushing products that make them sick and set them up for a lifetime of unhealthy eating habits.

Earlier this month than 80 health groups, doctors, and nutritionists sent a letter urging Nickelodeon and its parent company, Viacom, to adopt stricter standards for its marketing to children.  The letter, coordinated by the Food Marketing Workgroup and addressed to Viacom’s president and CEO Philippe Dauman and Nickelodeon’s president Cyma Zarghami, acknowledges that Nickelodeon has taken some steps to limit food marketing to children but that it’s not enough.

“We appreciate Nickelodeon’s efforts to promote healthy lifestyles to children,” stated the letter. “However, such efforts are insufficient given the magnitude of the problem. Your public service announcements, philanthropic activities and partnerships with children’s groups do not counterbalance the effect of Nickelodeon’s core business and children’s exposure to food marketing. The mix of Nickelodeon’s marketing remains out of balance, doing more to promote unhealthy than healthy eating.”

Another leading children’s entertainment company, the Walt Disney Company, recently implemented standards aimed to reduce junk food marketing to kids so why can’t Nickelodeon do the same?

As parents, we do have power. Here’s our opportunity to put pressure on Nickelodeon to make change. I really like what Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, said in her blog,  Food Politics,  “Short of regulation, public pressure might be just what’s needed to encourage Nickelodeon—and food companies—to stop marketing junk foods to kids.  We can make a difference – we just need to take action.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest has organized a letter-writing campaign to pressure Nickelodeon to adopt nutrition standards when it comes to food marketing.  I urge you to take part in it.  We owe it to our children. Together we can make a difference!

If lawmakers don’t do something quick, on January 1st we’re all going to turn into Thelma and Louise and go over a cliff. But this time it won’t be the Grand Canyon. It’s something called the fiscal cliff. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? And most of all, who gets pushed over first? According to Dr. Heidi Hartmann, President of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research in Washington, it’s likely to be women and kids. Here’s what she had to say when I interviewed her for my radio show Equal Time With Martha Burk.

MB: If the sequester actually is implemented, it will cause a lot of pain, and some people, including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernake, say it will bring another recession.

HH: If it went through and all of it actually happened in 2013, then yes, it would. But remember the whole idea was to keep that from happening — to make it so obnoxious [the Congress] would do something different. This whole trigger is simply because Congress voted for it. Congress could vote today to eliminate the trigger, and then we would just be keeping the budget that already passed.

MB: In the 2011 Budget Control Act, which mandated the looming sequester, there are big cuts to discretionary spending. What programs will suffer the most, particularly affecting women?

HH: There are many, many things. The Maternal and Child Health block grant, Title X Family Planning, the Child Care and Development block grant that supports Head Start, child support enforcement. Food stamps are cut to some extent, and other food supplements like school breakfast and lunch programs. There’s unemployment insurance, Pell education grants, housing assistance, home energy assistance. We could go on and on.

MB: What about cuts that were made in 2011? Are they ever going to be restored?

HH: Those cuts, which were already agreed to by the Democrats, are the main reason that some Democrats are saying that all of the solution to the problem should now be on the revenue side.

MB: The Bush tax cuts are due to expire at the end of the year, along with the payroll tax cut, and some unemployment benefits will be lost. But some economists are saying the so-called fiscal cliff is more like a fiscal slope. So can we afford to wait on a new Congress and just let all this happen?

HH: I do think we can afford to wait. The danger of waiting is uncertainty for individuals and the markets. But I agree it’s more of a slope. You have a lot of people on the left saying “let it happen.” Once the tax cuts go away, the Republicans are given a free hand to give a tax cut to the middle class and the poor. They just don’t have to give it to the rich.

MB: What about passing some kind of stopgap? Would that do any good?

HH: A stopgap would make it official that we’re not doing anything right away — the Congress is giving itself more time. But it would give people more confidence that nothing drastic will happen on January 1st.

MB: The payroll tax cut was put in at the height of the recession, and it was temporary. If it expires, how is that going to affect women specifically?

HH: It’s a 2 percent reduction from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent . That’s $400 in savings to a woman making $20,000 a year, and it can be significant — several weeks of groceries, a couple of car repairs, half a month’s rent. Lower income workers [mostly women] spent that money on bills, food, and transportation. That payroll tax cut is worth $120 billion to families and to stimulate the economy.

MB: What’s going to happen?

HH: I believe the Congress realizes that as much as we want to cut the debt in the long term, we don’t want to do it while the economy is still tender. Most people agree that making the higher rate go into effect for those making over $250 thousand a year will not negatively affect the economy. We need to continue to stimulate the economy, so I hope something will be done to extend that payroll tax cut or substitute another tax cut for the poor and middle class.

Listen to Dr. Heidi Hartmann’s full interview here:

This interview originally published on Huffington Post.

Tell Nickelodeon to dump the junk: bit.ly/dump-the-junk

Studies show that food marketing causes children to want more and eat more of the foods marketed to them.  There is a ton of marketing aimed at kids—about $2 billion worth a year.  The problem is virtually all the foods marketed to kids are unhealthy.  If companies were marketing apples and carrots, there wouldn’t be a problem.  But instead, companies mostly market sugary cereals, fast food, snack foods, and sugar-sweetened drinks.

Our kids live in a media saturated environment, where their desire for unhealthy food is cultivated through television, radio, Internet, magazines, product placement in movies and video games, schools, product packages, toys, clothing, and almost anywhere a logo or product image can be shown.  Unfortunately, this crush of advertising has a very negative impact on our children’s health.

Research shows that food marketing is an important factor contributing to children’s poor diets and obesity.  The National Academies’ Institute of Medicine (IOM) conducted a thorough review of the science and concluded that food advertising affects children’s food choices, food purchase requests, diets, and health.  Since the majority of foods marketed to children are of poor nutritional quality, the IOM concluded that marketing puts children’s health at risk.

This country has almost exclusively relied on self-regulation to address food marketing to children.  Those efforts have been stepped up since 2006, as 16 food companies have pledged to scale back their marketing of unhealthy foods to children through the Council of Better Business Bureaus’ Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI).

While there has been some progress, that progress is modest—and insufficient—given the high rates of childhood obesity.  For example, in a study of Nickelodeon, the most popular children’s television station, ads for foods of poor nutritional quality decreased slightly, from about 90% to 80% of food ads from before self-regulation was in place to after the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative was implemented.

Key reasons why self-regulation is not working are that the nutrition standards are not nutritious enough, many food and beverage companies are not covering all their child-directed media, and the entertainment industry has been largely absent from the self-regulatory effort.

Only about a quarter of entertainment companies address food marketing to children, including Disney and Ion Media (Qubo).  Earlier this year the Walt Disney Company announced plans to apply nutrition standards to advertisements through child-directed television, radio, and its websites, and update its nutrition standards for foods that can be advertised to children.

Notably, Nickelodeon lags behind those efforts.  As the number one entertainment company for children, Nickelodeon has enormous influence over children’s food choices—and their lifelong habits and health.  Unfortunately, Nickelodeon’s marketing remains out of balance, doing much more to promote unhealthy than healthy eating.  A recent study by the Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity found that Nickelodeon accounts for almost a quarter of all food, beverage, and restaurant advertisements seen on TV by children ages 2 to 11.

Although Nickelodeon has taken some steps to limit the use of its characters for marketing some food products, promotes PSAs and partners with children’s groups, these efforts are far outweighed by the negative effects of Nickelodeon’s core marketing and advertising of unhealthy foods.

Nickelodeon marketing

Disney marketing

Today over 100 health organizations and experts sent Nickelodeon a letter urging the company to implement strong nutrition standards for all of the company’s food advertising and marketing to children, including all television advertising on Nickelodeon channels (including Nickelodeon, NickToons, TeenNick, and Nick, Jr.), company Internet sites, mobile platforms, and other places Nickelodeon reaches children.

If you believe that Nickelodeon has a responsibility to do right by our kids and stop advertising unhealthy food to them, please join our campaign and write to Nickelodeon urging it to adopt strong nutrition standards for advertisements and marketing through all its child-directed media.

Tell Nickelodeon to dump the junk! bit.ly/dump-the-junk

It’s time for Nickelodeon to take responsibility and dump the junk.

It was a nailbiter. I advised everyone to hedge their bets with a Yes on 30-38-39 vote (as did State Superintendent of Instruction Tom Torlakson on Election Day). Luckily, a combination of voters who are parents, union members, public school supporters, and alumni as well as current college students came together to affirm Proposition 30, and even voted Yes on 39 to close a corporate loophole and put an additional $500 million in the general fund that pays for public education. We realized as a state that we cannot cut our way to excellence.

No, cuts to K-12 ever since Proposition 13 passed in 1978 have slowly whittled the Golden State down to 46th, 47th, and yes, even 50th in certain important measures of public school quality. And we’re among the 37 states that are still experiencing the lingering effects of the Great Recession. Our state budget, like the nation’s, still suffers from long-term structural deficits. It isn’t in the black yet. Significantly, however, we are on the road back.

So with this success freshly behind us, I’m slightly more hopeful about the fiscal showdown than some might be. January, 21013 could still hold some not-so-pleasant surprises if we don’t get vocal. It’s different from the California example in key ways but I think certain principles hold true regardless.

JOIN US: Twitter Party, Thursday, November 15, 2012, 10 – 11 am Pacific Time. Use the hashtag #kidsnotcuts. Lily Eskelsen (@NEAToday), Vice President of the National Education Association, will be taking your questions about education funding and policy. Let us know you’ll be attending in the comments below!

UPDATED TO ADD: If you missed the Twitter Party, here are highlights!

Here’s why the GOP in Congress, the folks who are responsible for gridlock since 2010, are at a disadvantage.

1. November 6, 2012 was a shellacking, a definitive win of the popular vote and the electoral college and a decisive rejection of the Republican party’s values.
2. With rejection of Romney-Ryan, we also rejected their ideas about tax giveaways for the rich. (I have a video about the “moocher” 47% of America I’d like to show you in case you forgot.)
3. If nothing happens, $1.2 Trillion in domestic and defense spending will automatically be cut from the federal budget starting January 2, 2013. That’s both good and bad. See number 4.
4. If nothing happens, about $5.5 billion dollars could be cut from education, and more from other important domestic programs. People generally want to fund education.
   
5. If nothing happens, the Bush tax giveaways to the rich — artificially low income tax rates — will automatically rise to 39.6% from the current paltry rate of 36%. (Yes, that’s what all the squealing like a stuck pig was about. A 3% increase on millionaires and billionaires.)
6. If nothing happens, cuts to the Pentagon are scheduled to take place.
7. We must remind the President to hold the line on cuts to Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and education. We cannot and will not cut investments in the future or benefits paid in for those who need them. Those soaring election night speeches, Mr. President? Voters who waited in long lines to vote to give the president a landslide popular vote win and the electoral college win are ready to make those ideals a reality with you.

Let’s look a little more closely at #4 and #5.

Planned Cuts to Education: Kids Are “Too Small to Fail”

With the proposed cuts for federal education spending, here’s what we need to be vigilant about. Federal education funding watchdog groups like the New American Foundation’s Ed Money Blog have identified programs that could be cut that shouldn’t. These would include Title I programs that help pay for tutors and supplemental help in schools in high-poverty areas, special ed programs covered under IDEA, funding that helps English Language Learners, or Head Start. Information at the link given just prior shows potential cuts by school district. The cuts would hurt kids both at big city schools and rural schools, where sometimes there’s only one sixth grade teacher or one special ed teacher for a whole school.

In a HuffPo piece by education journalist Joy Resmovits, she writes:

Three federal programs critical to education — Title I funds for poor students, state grants for special education and the Head Start public pre-school program — would lose $2.7 billion over 10 years, predicted a Senate report based on the Congressional Budget Office projection that sequestration would slash spending by 7.8 percent. As many as 15,000 teachers and aides may lose their jobs, and 10,000 special education workers may be laid off.

Deborah Rigsby, the National School Boards Association’s legislative director, put it in stark terms. “For every $1 million in federal aid that a school district receives, sequestration would cut $82,000, or more than one teacher,” Rigsby said. “These cuts to our schools would be devastating and of course would impact student achievement.”

The loss of funding to Head Start would be particularly egregious, as Julie Pippert notes. Estimates on efficient use of social spending are that for every $1 spent on a child in Head Start, $7 – $9 dollars are repaid when that child flourishes in school and becomes a productive, well-socialized adult.

In a short podcast interview with Lily Eskelsen, Vice President of the National Education Association, her associate Mary Kusler, Director of Governmental Relations, and a special ed teacher, Mike Hoffman, we learn how kids who are from the most vulnerable groups are the ones most likely to lose out.

Education advocate and parent Leonie Haimson takes a slightly different approach, seeing the potential cuts to education as an opportunity to clear out harmful, evidence-less, unproven policies that have been favorites of the Obama administration, such as Race to the Top, or the merit-pay pushing Teacher Incentive Fund. With these programs no longer funded, the money can be better spent in those tried and true programs like Title I support to low-income children, or guaranteeing that Head Start will be there for every child who needs it.

Kelly (Mochamomma) Wickham is an assistant principal at a midwestern intermediate school, so when she writes about budget cuts that have marked her 19 year career in public education, she brings a lot of personal history and career perspective on the chronic inability to fully fund schools. As the wealth gap between low/middle income families and high-flying “1%ers” has increased, so have the extremes in likelihood of children to succeed. Children who enter school ready and well-nourished, with no medical or other issues are increasingly likely to have a chance at elite colleges and career paths. Children who come from more modest backgrounds have a steeper hill to climb to escape poverty, homelessness, illness, poor nutrition, an environment lacking books or support for learning, and more. This is a “wealth gap” that widens and worsens “outcome gaps.” Mochamomma suggests that with the sunsetting of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, we have a great opportunity to create revenue that would finally invest in ALL children so each one can succeed.

A Way Out: Urge President Obama To Take Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich’s Advice

In Robert Reich’s recent column, “The President’s Opening Bid On A Grand Bargain: Aim High,” he urges newly re-elected President Obama to come out strong in favor of deficit reduction through raising revenue. Personally, I love it. Here are highlights of how we can raise that revenue, in keeping with the Buffett Rule:

Why not go back sixty years when Americans earning over $1 million in today’s dollars paid 55.2 percent of it in income taxes, after taking all deductions and credits? If they were taxed at that rate now, they’d pay at least $80 billion more annually — which would reduce the budget deficit by about $1 trillion over the next decade. That’s a quarter of the $4 trillion in deficit reduction right there.

A 2% surtax on the wealth of the richest one-half of 1 percent would bring in another $750 billion over the decade. A one-half of 1 percent tax on financial transactions would bring in an additional $250 billion.

…

Raise the capital gains rate to match the rate on ordinary income and cap the mortgage interest deduction at $12,000 a year, and that’s another $1 trillion over ten years. So now we’re up to $3 trillion in additional revenue.

Eliminate special tax preferences for oil and gas, price supports for big agriculture, tax breaks and research subsidies for Big Pharma, unnecessary weapons systems for military contractors, and indirect subsidies to the biggest banks on Wall Street, and we’re nearly there.

End the Bush tax cuts on incomes between $250,000 and $1 million, and — bingo — we made it: $4 trillion over 10 years.

We’re reducing the deficit by slowly drawing down from Iraq and Afghanistan. Have we forgotten what a peacetime economy looks like or how it works?

In California, I got tired of hearing boosterism about how we’re the 9th largest economy in the world if we were a nation unto ourselves. Yet how could we starve our schools?

I’ll bet when we look around and see the wealth in America alongside the grinding poverty, many of us come to the same conclusion.

It’s time we started investing heavily in Americans at home, and most importantly, in the youngest Americans who’ll be our future. If we stick with our newly re-elected president and the values we just re-affirmed of fairness, hard work, and equal opportunity, I’m hoping that like California, we can avoid any “cliffs” or “showdowns,” and just keep working on getting what we need.

JOIN US: Twitter Party, Thursday, November 15, 2012, 10 – 11 am Pacific Time. Use the hashtag #kidsnotcuts. Lily Eskelsen (@NEAToday), Vice President of the National Education Association, will be taking your questions about education funding and policy. Let us know you’ll be attending in the comments below!

UPDATED TO ADD: If you missed the Twitter Party, here are highlights!

Yikes!  The good news is, unlike in the show, 90 percent of parents have talked to their children about topics related to sex, according to a Planned Parenthood nationally representative poll of more than 2,000 parents and teens.  The survey also found that parents want help from schools getting these important messages across to young people, and that teens would also like some more guidance in learning about sex.  The vast majority of parents (94 percent) and teens (88 percent) said it’s important that sex education be taught in middle schools, and of 96 percent of parents and 93 percent of teens reported that it’s important that high schools teach sex education.

Parents also want sex education that covers a broad range of topics, including sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), healthy relationships, abstinence, birth control, and sexual orientation.

Despite this tremendous desire for comprehensive sex education, if you watch the news or pay attention to a small, but vocal, group of opponents, you might get the impression that few parents support it and that they believe school-based sex education undermines their work at home.  In truth, however, most parents think comprehensive sex education supports their efforts to make sure their teens have the information they need to establish healthy relationships and avoid STDs and unintended pregnancy.

And it’s not just parents who believe in the importance of sex education in schools.  More than 140 organizations support comprehensive sex education, including the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Academy of Pediatrics, both of which recommend that schools implement comprehensive, developmentally appropriate sexuality education programs.

Approximately 750,000 teenagers in the United States will become pregnant this year, and half of the 19 million cases of new sexually transmitted diseases that occur each year happen among 15- to 24-year-olds.  As a nation, we have a lot of work to do to give young people the tools they need to protect themselves and make good decisions about sex.  School-based sex education can help.  In fact, a CDC report shows that the teen birthrate is lower in states where students receive comprehensive, evidence-based sex education.   And hundreds of studies have shown that comprehensive sex education programs are more likely than programs that teach abstinence alone to help young people wait to have sex, use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, and limit the number of partners they have.

As parents, there’s a lot we can do to ensure our teens receive effective sex education in school.  We can get involved in the PTA, work as advocates in our communities, or join local school health education committees or the school board to ensure that young people are receiving the important, accurate information they need.

One parent in Utah, the mother of two teenage girls, attended committee meetings and supported her daughter when she testified against an abstinence-only bill that would have made all sex education classes “opt-in” instead of “opt-out” and prohibited any discussions of contraception or homosexuality.  Tens of thousands of Utah parents also signed a petition that was delivered to the governor.  Thanks to these parents, the governor eventually vetoed this harmful bill.

Parents and schools can and should work together to teach our kids about sex and sexuality.  We owe it to our teens to ensure they have enough information and resources to make informed decisions and stay healthy.

—————————————————————————————————————————-

We’ve seen such fantastic coverage of Let’s Talk Month — thank you to everyone who is having these conversations, online and off.  Here’s a blog round-up of Let’s Talk entries from the month:

MomsRising: Let’s Talk!

Family Circle: Momster: Actress Alfre Woodard on Talking to Her Kids About Sex

MyBrownBaby: Stakes Is High: Talking To My Teen About Sex Just Got Real—And I Can’t Be A Punk About It

Mommyish: It’s Awkward As Balls To Discuss Sex With Kids, Do It Anyway

The Mamafesto: Let’s Talk

Country Fried Choice:  Let’s Talk About Sex: Getting the Conversation Started for Parents and Teens

Planned Parenthood Votes: October is Let’s Talk Month

Child Mind Institute: In October, ‘Let’s Talk’ About Sex

Family Circle: Momster: One Mom Talks to Her Teenage Daughter About Sex

Family Circle: Momster: 5 Common Parental Concerns About Talking To Your Kids About Sex

And check out the rest of the Momster blog entries HERE.

————————————————————————————————————————————-
Leslie Kantor is the vice president of education at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. You can find her on Twitter at @LeslieKantor.

Yes. you read that right. Tammy Cooper was arrested last week and thrown into jail because her two kids, ages 6 and 9, were playing outside. The youngsters weren’t vandalizing, or causing any kind of trouble. They were riding their scooters around the neighborhood. Bad idea.

It’s not the first time. Earlier this year, a community in Florida decided to prohibit anyone under age 18 from going outside unsupervised by an adult. If you’re a kid at Ole Village in Lely Resort, Collier County, Florida, that means no bike riding, no walking to the bus stop, no being outside at all, without an adult.

As the author of a book on the importance of kids getting out, I am outraged, as all moms should be. I speak to so many parents who remember the days when they could play outside, maybe leaving home on a summer morning and not returning except for meals until bedtime. And they wish their kids could enjoy the same freedom.

Ironically, Tammy Cooper is a stay-at-home mom who moved to her Texas home precisely because she thought the cul-de-sac provided a safe neighborhood for her children to play in.

But Cooper’s next-door neighbor in LaPorte, Texas, saw two kids playing on the front lawn and decided to call the cops because she thought the kids shouldn’t be playing outside unsupervised. In fact, mom was sitting outside in a lawn chair but when the police arrived they didn’t believe her story. For whatever reason, they believed the neighbor instead, and they hauled Tammy Cooper into the police car and into a jail cell where she spent 18 hours overnight.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Orange jump suit, in a cell, slammed the door, for 18 hours,” Cooper told KPRC-TV.

Cooper was arrested for child endangerment and she is disputing the charges.

According to Yahoo News:
Cooper is suing the La Porte Police Department, the officer, and the neighbor who made the call. In a statement, the police department said it was “confident of the known actions of the officers on the scene that evening.” The neighbor had no comment.

When one in three children in this country is overweight or obese, and the average child spends almost nine hours a day staring at electronic devices, isn’t it more dangerous to stay inside than to step outside?

Today’s child is “The Hurried Child,” as David Elkind famously wrote: burdened with after-school classes, soccer practice, special tutors and no time to just be a kid.

Tammy Cooper was being a “hummingbird” parent: watching her kids, but not so closely as to stifle them. Kids need some protection and they need some independence. That’s what being a good parent is all about.

What do you think? Should the cop have used some common sense and not arrested the mom despite the neighbor’s call? And what about that neighbor?

You can watch Tammy Cooper here:

by Judy Molland

Turn your neighborhood into a place for play!

“When I was young my friends and I played all over our neighborhood. It was our world, and it gave us the security to go out later and explore the wider world around us. Life is different now. You can drive through the safest neighborhoods and they look like ghost towns. Not a single child is outside playing. I am so grateful to Mike Lanza for reminding us that play begins at home and in our neighborhoods. It takes so little to make it happen there – just awareness, passion, and commitment. This book helps to feed all of those.”    — from a review of Playborhood by Mike Lanza

Want to know how Jen’s 1st Playborhood Party went? Check it out!

Candy Crowley. Image via Wikipedia.

Great news yesterday!  FINALLY, after decades without a female moderator, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced that a woman, Candy Crowley of CNN, would moderate one of the three nationally televised Presidential debates.  [1]

Woot!

*Click here to congratulate Candy Crowley on being the first woman in decades to moderate a televised presidential debate – AND while you’re at it, submit a question for consideration for inclusion in the presidential debates.  Show politicians and pundits that it’s time to take the issues of American moms and families seriously. 

http://action.momsrising.org/sign/candycrowley/

(Need ideas for debate questions to submit? Scroll down to get some sample questions.)

It’s shocking to us that a woman hasn’t moderated a presidential debate in over twenty years – and we’re very excited that this “dry spell” is over.  However, the fact that a woman is moderating a presidential debate is far from a guarantee that the top issues for moms and families across the nation will be included in the debate discussions. And further, the lack of racial and ethnic diversity in the lineup of presidential debate moderators is woefully inadequate because all of our perspectives are needed to keep America moving forward.  [2]

Our voices are needed.  Why?  Because while there’s a lot of talk by pundits and politicians about how critical the “mom vote” is this election cycle, too often our priorities are ignored or trivialized on the center stage of politics.  For example, a Politico Pro story about the presidential campaigns’ newest advertising tactics reported yesterday about increased political TV ad buys targeting moms. While it’s great to be recognized as critical voters, being the target for ads means little if candidates don’t speak to the central issues that matter to all moms and families.  Millions of moms are interested in core economic issues that are based on facts like:

• Childcare now costs more than college in many states,
• A quarter of families with young children are living in poverty,
• We remain one of the only nations in the world without paid family leave after a new child arrives,
• Our toxic chemical laws are decades old,
• Our health care is continually under threat of being rolled back,
• We still don’t get equal pay for equal work, and more.

Women and families are facing unique and critical challenges now and in the years ahead.  We need to send a loud and clear message that women’s votes can’t be captured just by targeting us through ad buys during an election season [2] – and our priority issues shouldn’t be compartmentalized in separate silos away from the main political conversation. Instead, we expect thorough and thoughtful consideration of the top issues that impact us, so we can make educated decisions this election.

After all, “women’s issues” are everyone’s issues, and are critical to our nation’s economic success.

*Congratulate Candy Crowley on being named a moderator of a presidential debate by signing on to our card for her– AND, if you have a moment, help broaden the discussion in our nation by submitting your question to the Presidential debate TODAY so the questions of mothers and families are included in the upcoming presidential debates. Forward this email now to friends and friend’s friends so they can help broaden the discussion too.

http://action.momsrising.org/sign/candycrowley/

Our voices are too important to be left out of the debates.  Over 80% of American women have children by the time they are forty-four years old, and women make up more than half the electorate.   Three-quarters of moms are now in the labor force; with more than half serving as primary breadwinners for their families.

Yet many of the issues that we face each day are still missing from the national debate, issues like how we’re going to pay for escalating childcare that can cost more than college, how we can take care of our kids when we (or they) get sick, and what’s going to happen when we make less for the same job as a man and still need to pay the same mortgage or rent.

Issues like these are also top of mind for the majority of people in our nation, so please connect with friends today to give them this link so they can submit their questions too.

Together, we are a powerful force.  Women are active an engaged unlike ever before: With over 90% of women online, and more than 36 million women active either writing or reading blogs, moms are paying attention. [3] If the candidates are going to target moms with advertising, let’s hope they do more than just buy time on the right shows.  Let’s hope they talk about the issues that matter.

*Here’s that link again for you to share with friends so they can thank Candy Crowley and even submit a question for consideration at the debate too: http://action.momsrising.org/sign/candycrowley/

With a quarter of families who have young children living in poverty, and an economic crunch, these issues must be in the spotlight with all the rest.

Need debate question ideas? Here are some sample questions you may want to cut & paste into our debate question form.

* Right now, the birth of a child is a top cause of a “poverty spell” in America, and 1/4 of families with young children are living in poverty. Do you support a policy to provide paid family and medical leave to parents following birth or adoption of a new child?

* Nearly 1/2 of all full-time, private sector workers in the U.S. have no paid sick days. Do you support a policy to provide paid sick days for workers to use when they or their children get sick?

* In most American families, both parents work outside the home–and in some states childcare costs more than college.  Please tell us what your administration would do to help parents secure excellent, affordable childcare?

* Studies show that moms are paid 73 cents and single moms are paid about 60 cents to the dollar for doing the exact same job as men. Do you support the Paycheck Fairness Act?

[1] http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/13/cnns-crowley-to-be-first-woman-in-two-decades-to-moderate-presidential-debate/

[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/14/presidential-debate-moderators-white-diversity_n_1775147.html

[3] http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/101449/

This month there’s been a lot of focus on the topic of HIV/AIDS.  July marked the inaugural observance of National HIV Awareness Month, and this week, Washington, DC, played host to the 19^th International AIDS Conference, which draws healthcare providers, researchers, and activists from across the globe to share new findings and strategize about the best way to prevent new infections and provide effective treatment to people with HIV.  While much progress has been made, 50,000 people in the U.S. are still infected with HIV every year despite the fact that we know what kind of prevention education people need to help them avoid infection.

The most common way that adults and teens in the U.S. contract HIV is through sex.  That fact may come as little surprise, but when you consider that one-third of high-school-age teens are sexually active, it brings into sharp focus the serious risk that uninformed teens face for contracting HIV.  Anyone who’s not convinced of the urgent need to address those risks should consider this: A new CDC report shows that while 15- to 29-year-olds account for only 21 percent of the population, they represent 39 percent of all new HIV infections. 

The report also shared some good news — condom use among African-American youth has increased substantially.  Unfortunately, we’ve stopped making progress towards reducing HIV risk behaviors among other groups of teens. The best way for a sexually active person to avoid contracting HIV is by using condoms.  Still, only 60 percent of sexually active high school students nationwide used a condom the last time they had sexual intercourse.  

Currently, 90 percent of parents believe that high school sex ed programs should cover HIV/AIDS, including talking about condoms.  Frankly, I can’t remember the last time in our increasingly divisive culture that 90 percent of people in the U.S. agreed on any topic!  But despite parents’ wishes, just 33 states and the District of Columbia currently mandate HIV education, and of those, only 12 require that it be medically accurate!  As parents, voters, and taxpayers we should demand that our lawmakers and schools allocate resources for effective HIV education and prevention.

There’s also work we can do at home to better arm our kids with the information they need to stay healthy.  Parents are a critical influence on our teens’ sexual health.  Research shows that teens who report having strong relationships with their parents are more likely to delay sex, have fewer partners, and are more likely to use condoms when they do have sex.  But it means that we also have to be willing to have the hard conversations with our kids — particularly as they move toward high school age when most young people will initiate sexual activity. 

Having the conversations we need to have with our teens may not always be comfortable.  It’s not easy to talk about things like using condoms.  But if we don’t, who will?

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Leslie Kantor is the vice president of education at Planned Parenthood Federation of America.