More Kalamazoo Public Schools students enrolling in Advanced Placement courses offering college credit

How can one measure the performance of students in a given district?

For Kalamazoo Public Schools, enrollment in Advance Placement courses is being used as a key measurement to determine student success. Since 2007-08, the number of students who have taken AP courses has more than doubled from 359 to 983 students in 2010-11. The number of low-income students has jumped from 63 in 2007-08 to 259 in 2010-11.

In January 2009, Rice and the school board set the goal of doubling the district’s AP enrollment and the number of students who earned college credit through the program by 2014, using the 2007-08 numbers as a base. Rice said that both goals have been achieved already.

“This is a tremendous, tremendous accomplishment — by teachers, by students, by school administrators, by counselors,” Rice said before Thursday’s board meeting.

AP courses are one of the many ways to prepare high-school students for college courses. Where many Kalamazoo Promise students struggle transitioning to college, this may be one way to improve their success rate.

Read the full article: http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2010/10/more_kalamazoo_public_schools.html

Lions Club volunteers have helped nearly 500 children with vision screenings

For those without medical care, vision screenings are not always the top concern compared to other personal and medical needs. The Lions Club in Kalamazoo has made it a priority to prevent blindness in children.

A vision screening program helps identify vision problems for children from 1 to 5 years old. At the upcoming Project Connect event in November, vision screenings will be open to all members of the community.

From 2007 to 2010, the program has helped screen 495 children. They are still looking to improve parts of the program, including the wait time to hear results.

“The way we do it now, it could take up to a month for a child’s parents to hear back about the photo screening, and we would like to shorten that wait time and get results to them faster,” McFarland said.

Currently, the children are screened by local Lions Club volunteers and the pictures are then processed and taken to an ophthalmologist at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan for evaluation. If a problem is suspected, the child’s family is notified and referred to an eye doctor in the area.

“The earlier a youngster’s eyesight problems are detected, the more successful treatment can be,” Kowalski said.

The screenings can help identify: Strabismus (improperly aligned eyes); abnormal refractive error of the eye, which results in nearsightedness, farsightedness or astigmatism; or cataracts.

Often times, children are not screened before starting school — by then treatment might not be as effective or affordable, Kowalski said. “That’s why we try to get the kids screened when they are young,” he said.

For more information on Project Kidsight, including how to set up a screening, or to find out ways to help the project, contact Bill Kowalski at 269-323-0106 or Pat McFarland at 269-434-6356.

For free vision screenings, consider attending Project Connect on November 17th, from 1pm to 6pm.

Read the full article: http://www.mlive.com/living/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2010/10/lions_club_hopes_to_improve_vi.html

Education Awareness Day is Saturday in Kalamazoo: Event tailored partly to Hispanic families

This Saturday, an educational awareness day will provide students in grades 6 to 12, their families and other young adults with resources from food assistance to help with federal financial aid to information on scholarships. Specifically, Hispanic families and their children are being targeted to take advantage of the opportunities provided by higher education. The free event will run from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Hispanic American Council, 930 Lake St. in Kalamazoo.

Challenges faced by Hispanic students include "lack of awareness of assistance programs and having to work extra hours to keep resources flowing into the family, which can detract from spending time with children on their school work and planning for college."

“We want to be able to get the resources to the community in an environment that is safe territory for kids and their parents and where language barriers can be dealt with,” Lori Mercedes, interim director of the Hispanic American Council said of the event. “We’re always talking about making The Kalamazoo Promise a reality, but there are so many barriers to overcome. Our goal is to get these kids to the university.”

To learn more about the Hispanic American Council, visit http://www.hispanicamericancouncil.org/.

The full article: http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2010/10/education_awareness_day_is_sat.html

Indiana Ends Food Aid For Developmentally Disabled Adults

Indiana has quietly ended a state grocery benefit paid to hundreds of developmentally disabled people who advocates say have no money of their own to buy food.

The state Family and Social Services Administration withdrew the grocery benefit just weeks after it announced it would no longer reduce the benefit for those who receive food stamps, which a lawsuit claimed was a violation of federal law that prohibits food stamps from being counted against other benefits.

The lawsuit was filed in July by the American Civil Liberties Union and Indianapolis attorney Steven Dick on behalf of Dick's 26-year-old autistic son. Dick said he believed the state ultimately decided to end the grocery benefit altogether because it could no longer factor in food stamps.

www.southbendtribune.com/article/20101022/News01/10220315/0/news

West Michigan Food Pantries See Drop in Demand

"The good news is that after being overwhelmed with requests, area food pantries are reporting a leveling off in demand.

Pantry providers point to a record 1.88 million people now receiving state food assistance as a major factor.

"Last fall, we were at capacity and concerned about being able to respond to such increases," said Marsha DeHollander, program director of ACCESS of West Michigan, which oversees a network of 100 pantries in the area. "We are still serving a lot of people -- more than 20,000 are coming to food pantries a month."

But DeHollander said usage is down 13 percent from their exceptionally high levels. She said they are serving around 6,700 people per month now, compared to 7,700 per month in 2009."

www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/10/west_michigan_food_pantries_se.html

Niles Salvation Army Accepting Applications for Christmas Assistance Program

The Salvation Army Christmas Assistance Program of Niles is accepting applications during the following dates:

• This week, Thursday and Friday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

• Monday, Nov. 8 and Friday, Nov. 12 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

• Monday, Nov. 15 through Friday, Nov. 19 from 4 to 7 p.m

www.nilesstar.com/2010/10/20/niles-salvation-army-accepting-applications-for-assistance-program-2/

Webinars offer information about claiming tax credits for working families

The National Women’s Law Center is offering two free online trainings to give taxpayers the information and tools they need to claim tax credits for which they are eligible. Register today at http://action.nwlc.org/taxcreditstraining. Both webinars are free, but registration is required.

Part I – Tax Credits: What Working Families Need to Know

Thursday, Oct. 21 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern (1 hour)

Get the facts about how federal and state tax credits can give working families a leg up, and get access to resources that will help you to get that information in the hands of families in your community.

Part II – Tax Credits Outreach: Tips and Tools for Service Providers and Advocates

Wednesday, Nov. 10 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern (1 hour)

You can make a big difference for families by making sure families get the information they need. Learn about simple outreach activities that can make a major impact for working families. This webinar will help you get free outreach materials, connect with local coalitions, find free tax preparation services in your community, and learn some successful techniques for spreading the word about tax credits.

For more information and to register for the trainings, go to: http://action.nwlc.org/taxcreditstraining

Michigan cities fare poorly in index of 2010 best-performing cities

As if it weren't obvious enough, new research by the Milken Institute shows Michigan cities fairing poorly in 2010 compared to other US cities. On this year's list, the Detroit-Livonia -Dearborn metro area ranked dead last at No. 200 on the list, the Holland-Grand Haven metro area came in 199 and the Warren-Troy-Farmington metro area ranked No.198. The Lansing-East Lansing metro area had the highest ranking of Michigan metro areas on the list at No. 157. Ann Arbor was ranked No. 161, Kalamazoo-Portage was No. 170 and Flint was No. 184.

The Lansing-East lansing area benefits from a high amount of government jobs and a massive university to supply it's success. However, if you actually go into the city neighborhoods of Lansing outside of the MSU and the capital area, you will find high pockets of poverty much similar to other Michigan cities.

Most of the reason for the low ranking was heavy job losses in the manufacturing centers of Michigan. This emphasizes even further how important an education is to participating in the future our state.

In order to reduce poverty in our region, we need to fix address the economic issues that underline our state. We also need to prepare our citizens to take the steps necessary to get a education and provide themselves with better opportunities for employment.

Read the full article: http://www.mlive.com/michigan-job-search/index.ssf/2010/10/michigan_cities_fare_poorly_in_index_of.html

Stats underscore infant health risk in B.C.

According to the Battle Creek Enquirer, the city of Battle Creek remains at a comparatively high risk for maternal and infant health.

Right Start in Michigan 2010-The Other Half compared 69 communities in Michigan with populations of at least 25,000 on eight indicators of maternal and infant health. It placed Battle Creek 10th among the 13 highest-risk communities.

The study looked at data from 1998 to 2008 and found that communities with high concentrations of low-income women were most likely to have children who had health problems and who were unprepared for school.The opportunity gap that begins in childhood often extends into adulthood, said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, director of Kids Count in Michigan, a project of the Michigan League for Human Services.

The opportunity gap that begins in childhood often extends into adulthood, said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, director of Kids Count in Michigan, a project of the Michigan League for Human Services.

Michigan could be hard-pressed to find highly educated workers in the coming generation if more interventions are not provided early on, she said.

"If we do not address these disparities at the very outset of life, we are not going to get where we want to be," she said. "And we are actually moving in the wrong direction."

Statewide, black mothers and their babies were at the highest risk, followed by Hispanics, though poverty was a better predictor of poor infant outcomes overall, according to the report. Minority babies were more than twice as likely to be born to a teen parent as white babies.

Read the full article: http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20101012/NEWS01/10120311/Stats-underscore-infant-health-risk-in-B-C-

Food Pantry: Cash Man Rap

Something fun from the Cash Man as he raps about the positive impact that cash donations, versus donations of canned good, have for food pantries.

(I am not sure you could dance to this rap, but it may bring a smile to your face with a worthwhile message as well):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7QMqqq6m3E

Educated, Working, But Homeless

The following CNN Money video report highlights one woman in Connecticut who is in a homeless shelter with her children, even though she continues to work. The mother discusses her employment, her desire to improve her opportunities by studying nursing, and her children.

money.cnn.com/video/news/2010/08/03/n_working_homeless_shelter.cnnmoney/index.html

Fresh Start Program Attempts to Break the Cycle of Incarceration & Substance Abuse

"A Berrien County program aimed at curbing recidivism for female jail inmates is catching the national eye.

The Fresh Start Prevention Program, started in 2009 by Abundant Life Ministries in Benton Harbor and partly funded by the county, has shown successful gains in its first year and a half, officials said.

Marletta Seats, Berrien County commissioner for District 3 and the catalyst for Fresh Start, said about 263 women and 53 men have participated in the program, with 40 people graduating from the eight- to 10-week course.

The program's key goal is to help the inmates overcome drug addictions through counseling."

www.southbendtribune.com/article/20101010/News01/10100395/1052/News01

Berrien County Task Force Looks to Reduce Health Care Gap

"Being healthy has a lot to do with a paycheck.

"Good jobs are the best thing you can do for public health," said Duane McBride, chairman of the Berrien County Board of Health, during a discussion this week with health department employees on the connections between employment and personal well-being.

Theresa Green, director of community health planning for the department, on Wednesday screened a portion of a documentary, "Unnatural Causes" (subtitled "Not Just a Paycheck"), which chronicled the impact of industrial layoffs on the west Michigan town of Greenville. In 2006, refrigerator manufacturer Electrolux, based in Sweden, moved 3,000 jobs from Greenville to Mexico.

In the year after the plant closed, the number of reported cases of depression, attempted suicide and domestic violence in Greenville reportedly tripled.

Board of health members noted the similar loss of high-paying manufacturing jobs in Berrien County.

Ultimately, wealth is the most reliable predictor of health, said Green, who in August formed the Health Equity Task Force through a $15,000 grant from the Michigan Department of Community Health. The task force seeks to reduce health disparities between the poor and other residents of Berrien County.

Children who live in poverty are seven times more likely to be in poor health than those in higher-income households..."

www.heraldpalladium.com/articles/2010/10/09/local_news/2101983.txt

Is increasing minimum wage the answer? A decade ago in Kalamazoo, we said "no"

A new poll released yesterday by the Public Religion Research Institute, shows that two-thirds of Americans (67 percent) support an increase in the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to at least $10 an hour.

One could say that the easiest way to reduce poverty is by offering more jobs that pay higher salaries so that everyone has the opportunity to succeed. But would those who live now in poverty really have a chance at these opportunities? Would they be competing with more educated, training and skilled workers? Would a minimum wage hike hurt small businesses?

These are all challenging questions that must be addressed when speaking about this topic. In Kalamazoo in 2001, the community decided that a living wage was not the best way to address the high percentage of poverty in the area. A few years later, the Kalamazoo County Poverty Reduction Initiative was formed to address the problem. Soon afterward, Kalamazoo leaders unveiled the Kalamazoo Promise as a way to support children and families living in poverty.

Raising the minimum wage would certainly have a positive impact on persons who currently make the amount. However, it could potential devastate an economy still struggling to improve. Small businesses could flounder and more jobs could be cut.

Is increasing the living wage the long-term answer? What supports for businesses would we have to include to make it affordable?

Read the Full Article: http://www.mlive.com/michigan-job-search/index.ssf/2010/10/poll_two-thirds_of_americans_support_min.html

NPR Reports on the 'Disintegration' Of America's Black Neighborhoods

A new book written by Eugene Robinson details the splintering of African-American communities and neighborhoods. His new book is called Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America. Robinson grew up in a segregated world in Orangeburg, S.C., which had a black side of town and a white side of town. It also had a black high school and a white high school; and "two separate and unequal school systems."

But as segregation faded, pockets of inequality grew even stronger. The story explains:

"People who had the means and had the education started moving out of what had been the historic black neighborhoods," Robinson explains.

He cites Washington, D.C.'s Shaw neighborhood as a prime example of this because of how Shaw was home to a vibrant black community and a thriving entertainment scene in the 1930s through the 1950s. By the '70s, Shaw had become a desolate, drug-ridden area.

"In city after city, African-American neighborhoods, that …once had been vibrant and in a sense whole — disintegrated," Robinson says.

He attributes that change to African-Americans taking advantage of new opportunities, resulting in a more economically segregated community.

"There have always been class distinctions in the black community," Robinson says, "but what I believe we've seen is an increasing distance between two large groups, which I identify as the Mainstream and the Abandoned."

Robinson says that while a "fairly slim majority" of African-Americans entered the middle class, a large portion of the community never climbed the ladder. It's getting harder and harder to catch up, he says, "because so many rungs of that ladder are now missing."

So as formerly segregated neighborhoods begin to gentrify; rents increase and longtime residents get pushed out.

"What happens to this group that I call the Abandoned is that they get shoved around — increasingly out into the inner suburbs — and end up almost out of sight, out of mind," Robinson says.

Read or listen to the full story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130333806&sc=fb&cc=fp

The Political Candidates Don't Come Here (Where the Poor Are) Often

"The political candidates don’t come here very often. Not to Veronica Almaguer’s office.

Not to the place where all those issues — such as unemployment and health care and education and hunger — collide into a single look of desperation from the other side of her desk.

If the candidates came here, she says, maybe it wouldn’t take so long to find a solution to the state’s high unemployment, falling incomes and rising poverty.

“We’re seeing a significant increase in the number of people who need help,” she says. “We have people who are unemployed for the time. They lost their jobs and their medical insurance. And many people have never had to ask for help before.”

Almaguer is the prescription assistance coordinator at Cristo Rey Community Center, a charity on Lansing’s High Street that offers a range of services, including a free medical clinic and food bank."

www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20101003/NEWS01/310030004/1001/NEWS

ABC News Report on the Increase in Poor and Near Poor in America

Walmart Sales Spike Last Day of the Month When Benefits Checks Come In

Take a trip to one of those 24-hour Walmarts on the last day of every month, and you'll get a glimpse into the lives of low-income families trying to get by. At one location in Fredericksburg, Va., at around 11 p.m., families start to load up on necessities like diapers and groceries.

People like Tracy and Martin Young live nearby, and for the pair in their early 30s, it's a chance to shop quietly without their five children, two of whom are teenagers. Each is pushing a shopping cart overflowing with food. There's mac and cheese, bags of cereal and cans of evaporated milk. Most of this has to last for the whole month.

www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130272928

Homeless Men Sent to Prison While Ring Leader Evades the Law

Staying at a Grand Rapids homeless shelter, Guy Robert Clawson was offered a cash "job" that covered his beer or liquor for the day.

For years, he worked odd jobs for cash. This seemed no different.

The offer came from a guy named Malik. Clawson and other homeless people could earn $15 to $20 a day buying cold tablets that contained pseudoephedrine, a restricted product that was used to make methamphetamine, authorities said.

Malik drove to stores throughout West Michigan, and supplied cash for the pills. The buyers got $2.50 a box.

www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/10/homeless_men_sent_to_prison_wh.html