A recent publication by The Pew Charitable Trusts sheds light on the underrepresented disparities facing American Indian women across the United States. American Indians and Alaskan Natives make up just 2 percent of the US population, yet these communities face disproportionate levels of poverty, violence, and school dropouts. Here are...
A Summary of Recent Legislative Action on Taxes and the Budget Process
After the completion of the 2015-17 biennial budget bill, legislators continued to propose a wide variety of changes relating to tax policy.
Equity Starts Early According to State Education Leaders
A new report, Equity Starts Early: How Chiefs Will Build High-Quality Early Education, has just been released by state education leaders promoting the importance of high-quality early education, especially for children from low-income families. Here’s a quote from the report: “High-quality early education programs can improve outcomes,...
A Summary of Recent Legislative Action on Higher Education
Lawmakers passed several minor bills to expand opportunity for college students, but did not address the issue of helping students who graduate with a large amount of student loan debt.
All Things Being Equal – It’s Not!: Race, Class, and Incarceration
There’s plenty of evidence that race and class can affect the wellbeing of children and adults in many ways. However, it’s hard to know exactly how these connections work, especially because race and class often overlap. A recent study, described by The Washington Post, attempted to detangle the two by comparing incarceration rates by...
A Summary of Recent Legislative Action on Criminal Justice
Legislators passed several bills that affect public safety and the state’s corrections system, and they also missed several opportunities to make major improvements to those systems.
Modest Progress this Session on a Few Health Care Issues
One of the positive developments in the Wisconsin legislature over the last several years has been the bipartisan work in a few areas of health care policy, such as behavioral health and dementia. Yet despite broad support for a number of bills in those two areas, the 2015-16 session ended with considerably less progress on those issues...
A Summary of Recent Legislative Action on Health Care
After enactment of the budget bill last summer, most of the legislative action on health care focused on three issue areas: behavioral health, dementia, and family planning.
Sizing up the Achievements of the Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) turns six this Wednesday, March 23. The young health care reform law has achieved some impressive accomplishments, especially since a couple of key parts of the law took effect in 2014. Nevertheless, public opinion about the law is divided, and many Republican politicians are intent upon repealing the ACA....
It Just Isn’t Right!!: Part II – Suspensions and Expulsions by Race and Ethnicity in Wisconsin
In Part 1 of this blog, we described the data on suspensions and expulsion by race/ethnicity in the United States. But, what about Wisconsin? Unfortunately, rates of suspensions and expulsions in Wisconsin are more disparate than they are nationally. According to 2013-14 data from the Department of Public Instruction: Only about 4% of...
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