How Creating a Healthy, Educated Workforce Will Strengthen Our Future

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How Creating a Healthy, Educated Workforce Will
Strengthen Our Future

• May 1, 2009

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The Challenge

• The Cradle to Prison Pipeline crisis is a
  growing epidemic that threatens the health and
  prosperity of all Texans.

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Lifetime risk of boy born in 2001 going to prison

• Black boy 1 in 3 chance
• Latino boy 1 in 6 chance
• White boy 1 in 17 chance

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Lifetime risk of girl born in 2001 going to prison

• Black girl 1 in 17 chance
• Latina girl 1 in 45 chance
• White girl 1 in 111 chance

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Girls in the Pipeline

• In 2006, almost 14,000 girls were incarcerated
• 1 in every 7 juveniles in residential placement.

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One thing is clear

• The only thing our nation will guarantee every
  child is a detention or prison cell after they
  get into trouble.

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What fuels the Pipeline?
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For just one year

• The average annual cost of a mentoring program
  ................1,000.
• The annual cost of a high quality after-school
  program.....2,700.
• The cost of providing youth employment training
  ...3,448.
• The average annual per child cost for Head Start
  ......7,326.
• The cost per pupil for a year of public education
  in Texas.....7,246.
• The cost of incarcerating a child inthe Texas
  Youth Commission..67,890.

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How to Dismantle the Pipeline

• Put children first and invest taxpayer dollars
  wisely by prioritizing the following steps
• Work to end child poverty
• Ensure access to affordable health coverage for
  every Texas child
• Provide affordable mental health services for
  Texas children
• Provide high quality early childhood development
  programs
• Guarantee quality education through high school
  graduation
• Protect Texas children from abuse and neglect
• Stop the criminalization of children invest in
  prevention and early intervention

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End child poverty

• The problem In Texas, one in every four
  children is poor, the majority living in working
  families, with family incomes of less than
  18,310 a year for a family of three.
•  Why it matters Poor children are less
  healthy, trail in emotional and intellectual
  development and do not perform well in school.

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End child poverty

• How do you expect a child to be on the honor
  roll when they go home to a house with no lights,
  no food, they cant go to the doctor when they
  get sick, and there is not even anyone to take
  care of them?
• - Youth Advisory Committee

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The Cost

• Child poverty in Texas costs more than 50
  billion in lost productivity, higher crime, and
  poorer health every year. 

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What Must Be Done

• Invest in high quality education for every child.
• Provide livable wages for families.
• Invest in the Earned Income and Child Tax Credits
  to lift children out of poverty.
• Provide job training, job creation and work
  supports like child care and health coverage.

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Ensure access to affordable health coverage

• The problem Texas has the highest rate of
  uninsured children in the nation, with one in
  every five lacking coverage.

Kyla Hebert, 4 years old, from Pasadena. A 3
cost of living increase put her family above the
CHIP income limit by 20.
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Why It Matters

• Children without health coverage are more likely
  to receive care for chronic conditions in local
  emergency rooms at a staggering cost to local
  taxpayers.

For Example It costs about 100 to treat a
childs mild asthma attack in a doctors office.
If a child cannot get early treatment and is
hospitalized for a serious asthma attack for
three days (the average length of stay), the cost
is 7,300.
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The Cost

• Texas receives 2.52 in federal funds for every
  state dollar invested in CHIP and 1.47 for every
  state dollar invested in Medicaid.
• As a result of cuts to the CHIP program, Texas
  has lost more than 900 million in federal
  matching funds.

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What Must Be Done

• Texas must provide 12 months coverage for
  Childrens Medicaid so that children do not have
  to reapply twice a year to keep their health
  coverage.
• Texas must also create a buy-in program for
  families above the CHIP income limit (44,100 a
  year for a family of four) so that parents can
  purchase coverage for their children on a sliding
  scale based on their income.

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Provide affordable mental health services

• The problem
• There is a chronic lack of access to affordable
  mental health services for Texas children.
• An estimated 700,000 Texas children have mental
  illness.
• But the priority population to receive services
  by local Mental Health Authorities is 159,118.
• In Fiscal Year 2008, only 28,445 children
  received services.

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Why It Matters

• 9 to 13 of the general youth population is
  estimated to have a mental health disorder.
• But 50 to 75 of youth in the juvenile justice
  system have a mental health disorder.
• Access to mental health treatment would divert
  many children from involvement in the costly
  juvenile justice and child welfare systems.

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The Cost

• A coordinated mental health service delivery
  system would save Texas as much as 35.7 million
  by reducing psychiatric hospitalizations of
  children.

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What Must Be Done

• Develop an automated, statewide mental health
  assessment tool for all youth entering the
  juvenile justice system.
• Expand public funding for childrens mental
  health services, with support for a continuity of
  care from prevention through intervention.
• Identify promising local best practices and take
  them to scale.

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Provide quality early childhood programs

• The problem
• Nationally, only 3 percent of eligible infants
  and young children (0 3) are enrolled in Early
  Head Start and only about half to two-thirds of
  children eligible for Head Start are enrolled.
• Why it matters
• Children enrolled in high quality early
  childhood programs are more likely to complete
  higher levels of education, have higher earnings,
  be in better health and be in stable
  relationships, and are less likely to commit a
  crime or be incarcerated.

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Human Brain Development
Slide from Houston Collaborative for Children
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Disparities in Early Vocabulary Growth
Slide from Houston Collaborative for Children
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Pre-Service Training Requirements
Child Care Worker 8 hours Hairdresser 1,500
hours
Source Texas Association for the Education of
Young Children (TECEC)
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Child Care Standards
Slide from Houston Collaborative for Children
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Public Expenditures on Children 0 18 Compared
to Early Brain Development
of Brain growth per year, 0 18 years
Cumulative Percent of Public Spending on Children
0 - 18
Source Brain development Figure 2.4 in D.
Purves, Body and Brain, Harvard University Press,
1988, adapted from D.W. Thompson, On Growth and
Form, Cambridge University Press, 1961. Public
spending on children Derived from Table 1 in R.
Haveman and B. Wolfe, The Determinants of
Childrens Attainments A review of Methods and
Findings, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol.
33, December 1995, pp. 1829-1878.
Slide from Houston Collaborative for Children
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Rates of Return to Human Capital Investment at
Different Ages Return to an Extra Dollar at
Various Ages
Rate of return to investment in human capital
Programs targeted towards the earliest years
Preschool programs
Schooling
Job training
0-3
4-5
Post-school
School
Preschool
0
Age

• 10/16/07
• Dr. James Heckman, University of Chicago

Slide from Houston Collaborative for Children
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The Cost

• According to the Bush School of Government
  Public Service at Texas AM University
• Every 1.00 invested in high quality pre-k
  yields at least 3.50 to Texas communities
  through
• savings to the public school system due to
  reduced special education and remedial costs
• savings to the criminal justice system due to
  reduced adult crime rates
• savings to the child welfare system due to early
  intervention and reduced cases of child abuse /
  neglect and
• increased lifetime earnings for mothers.

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What Must Be Done

• Ensure access to quality, affordable early
  childhood development programs.
• Support full-day high-quality pre-k programs with
  an emphasis on local, integrated community-based
  partnerships.
• Increase reimbursement rates paid to childcare
  providers.
• Increase pre-service training hours for child
  care providers with funding attached.

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Guarantee quality education through high school

• In Texas,
• 83 of Black
• 79 of Latino
• 56 of White
• 52 of Asian fourth graders
• Cannot read at grade level

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Why It Matters

• A high school diploma is the single most
  effective preventive strategy against adult
  poverty.
• Yet the United States has the sixth lowest high
  school graduation rate among the 30
  industrialized market economies.

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The Cost

• A high school dropout earns about 260,000 less
  over his or her lifetime than a high school
  graduate, and pays about 60,000 less in taxes.
  
• The U.S. loses 192 billion (1.6 percent of its
  current GDP in combined income and tax-revenue
  losses) with each group of 18-year-olds who never
  complete high school.

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What Must Be Done

• Provide schools with adequate resources to
  provide high quality education to every child.

Create district wide social and emotional
learning programs that are incorporated into the
curriculum and taught by every teacher. Change
our perceptions of youth and regard all children,
no matter what culture, socio-economic class, or
visual appearance, as hidden jewels with
unlimited potential.
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Protect children from abuse and neglect

• The problem
• Some 278,303 children in Texas were reported as
  alleged abuse and neglect victims in 2007.
• 71,344 children were confirmed child abuse and
  neglect victims. 233 Texas children died from
  abuse and neglect.
• Every week, 4 children die from child abuse or
  neglect.
• Every day, 195 children are confirmed abused.
• Every hour, 8 children are abused or neglected.
• 4 in 10 of the children who are abused or
  neglected get no help after the initial
  investigation.

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Why It Matters

• Child abuse and neglect has been identified as a
  public health crisis by the Center for Disease
  Control and the U.S. Department of Health and
  Human Services. Abused children are
• More than twice as likely to attempt suicide.
• 50 percent more likely to abuse alcohol or drugs.
• 59 percent more likely to be arrested as a
  juvenile.
• 28 percent more likely to be arrested as an adult.

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Why It Matters

• If 20 million people were infected by a virus
  that caused anxiety, impulsivity, aggression,
  sleep problems, depression, respiratory and heart
  problems, vulnerability to substance abuse,
  antisocial and criminal behavior, retardation and
  school failure, we would consider it an urgent
  public health crisis. Yet, in the United States
  alone, there are more than 20 million abused,
  neglected and traumatized children vulnerable to
  these problems. Our society has yet to recognize
  this epidemic, let alone develop an immunization
  strategy. 
• - Dr. Bruce Perry

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The Cost

• The annual total direct and indirect costs of
  child maltreatment are estimated to be nearly
  104 billion.
• Child abuse costs Texas 2.35 billion annually
  (34,815 per victimized child multiplied by
  67,737 confirmed victims for 2006).
• Less than 1 of the Texas Department of Family
  and Protective Services budget is dedicated to
  child abuse prevention.

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What Must Be Done

• Expand cost-effective prevention programs,
  especially in-home visitation programs, and
  specialized treatment services for children and
  their parents.
• Connect children to caring permanent families.
• Improve the quality of the child welfare
  workforce and increase accountability for results
  for children.

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Stop the criminalization of children

• The problem
• A Black boy born in 2001 has a 1 in 3 chance,a
  Latino boy a 1 in 6 chance, anda White boy a 1
  in 17 chance of going to prison in his
  lifetime. In 2003, almost 15,000 girls were
  incarcerated 1 in every 7 juveniles in
  residential placement.

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Zero Tolerance Policies

• Would you call the police if .
• A 10-year old elementary school student took a
  pair of scissors out of her backpack during
  class?
• A 7-year old boy threw a backpack at a
  classmate?
• A 6-year old child had a temper tantrum?
• A 5-year old boy was misbehaving in school?
• Two 4-year olds refused to take their nap?

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Children Criminalized
A 5-year old Florida girl handcuffed, arrested
after tantrum in kindergarten
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Why It Matters
The epidemic of incarceration is disrupting
communities and eroding our future workforce.
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A punishment focused justice system

• In 2006, the United States inmate population
  of 2,312,414 exceeded Chinas, the total
  population of which is four times as large.

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The Cost

• The cost of incarcerating a child for one year in
  the Texas Youth Commission is 67,890, while
  the cost of one year of public education is
  7,246 per pupil.

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What Must Be Done

• Reduce detention and incarceration by increasing
  investment in prevention and early intervention
  strategies.
• Transition to small, regionalized county and
  state juvenile justice facilities that promote
  rehabilitation in a non-violent environment.
• Improve juvenile justice interventions at the
  county and state level by using wrap-around
  services and community-based treatments that have
  a positive effect on youth before and after
  system involvement.
• Dismantle the school to prison pipeline and
  decrease public school practices and zero
  tolerance policies that funnel students into the
  juvenile justice system.

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What Can You Do?

• Join the movement to end the Cradle to Prison
  Pipeline!
• Educate community leaders about the crisis
• Document What Works in dismantling the pipeline
• Advocate for investment in prevention rather than
  costly incarceration
• Mentor a child
• Talk and actively listen to children show
  affection, love and respect

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Contact Information

• Barbara Best
• Texas Executive Director
• Childrens Defense Fund
• 4500 Bissonnet, Suite 260
• Bellaire, Texas 77401
• Phone [phone]
• Email bbest_at_childrensdefense.org
• Web www.cdftexas.org