As the new year rapidly approaches, there has been considerable discussion and confusion about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) provision requiring most Americans to either have health insurance beginning in 2014 or face a penalty (often called the “Individual Mandate”). A significant part of that confusion concerns the state and federal timelines and deadlines for obtaining coverage.
The Wisconsin Council on Children and Families has just completed a policy brief, YoungStar in Wisconsin: Analysis of Data as of July 2013. The YoungStar child care quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) is a breakthrough policy initiative that has great promise to transform child care in Wisconsin by helping parents make good...
It’s been a dizzying flurry in Washington- some good, some not so good. I thought this brief article from NIEER Online News might help: “Sequestration cutting early education slots. A prolonged federal government shutdown closing Head Start center doors and hurting families. A “state of emergency” in state-funded pre-K as enrollment...
This report is the fourth in a series of WCCF reports tracking the progress of
Wisconsin’s YoungStar program, a quality rating and improvement system
(QRIS) launched in 2011 to improve the quality of Wisconsin child care
programs. YoungStar focuses on children of low-income working families
receiving assistance from the Wisconsin Shares child care subsidy programs.
YoungStar rates the quality of child care programs on a 5-Star scale and is
administered in 6 regions of the state. The analysis in this report is based on
data as of the end of July 2013.
I asked Andrew Turner, Wisconsin’s Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTTT-ELC) Grant Manager, to provide a summary of progress on early learning system building so far in the 4-year grant. Here is a what he provided. Enhancing Early Learning Systems Public private: Working in consultation with early childhood coalitions and...
Childhood poverty is increasing in Wisconsin faster than the national rate. Milwaukee has the fourth-highest level of concentrated poverty of any large city in America, and we have huge racial disparities in child poverty rates.
There were at least a couple of positive news items relating to health care reform today. At the top of that list, I would put a new study released today by The Milbank Quarterly, which found significant improvements in health status in Massachusetts following health care reform implementation. The Massachusetts experience illustrates...
The Joint Finance Committee (JFC) voted today for the Special Session bill that delays all the BadgerCare changes until April 1, 2014, and also extends the state’s high risk plan (HIRSP) until that date. The bill was approved by a vote of 11 to 2, with two Democrats voting against the proposal because of the delay in coverage for...
For the past few months, Governor Walker has been talking with pride about the fact that the biennial budget bill ensures that Wisconsin’s health insurance system won’t have a gap in coverage for adults below the poverty level. For the first several months of 2014, that won’t be the case if the legislature approves the Governor’s...
New WCCF Analysis Examines the Recent Cuts and Pending Proposals for Deeper CutsAs we are enjoying Thanksgiving this weekend, millions of people across our bountiful country will be struggling to feed their families and find reasons to be thankful. Many Americans, including almost 900,000 Wisconsinites, recently took a financial hit...
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