Coverage of the 2016 legislative session focused on a small number of high profile issues, but all the while here at South Carolina Appleseed we were working on several lesser known but very important bills which were enacted into law. These laws are not only great public policy; they will also help the communities we…
Read MoreSouth Carolina’s scores on standardized mathematics tests of elementary and middle-school students over the past 10 years have declined, making the state one of the nation’s poorest performers in that regard. The National Center for Education Statistics recently released its state-by-state scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests in math and reading…
Read More(Charleston, S.C.) — South Carolina officials and attorneys for plaintiff children advocating for foster care reform agreed to a plan that will require targeted changes to a system that for years has been troubled by a drastic shortage of foster homes, excessive caseworker caseloads and a failure to provide basic health care to kids. The…
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This post originally appeared at TalkPoverty. This Saturday, conservative leaders will gather in South Carolina for the “Kemp Forum on Expanding Opportunity” co-hosted by Speaker Paul Ryan and Senator Tim Scott. With an overall poverty rate of 18 percent in 2014, South Carolina ranks among the ten poorest states in the country and has one of…
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On December 10, 2015 , the Center for American Progress (CAP) released a report entitled “Removing Barriers to Opportunity for Parents With Criminal Records and Their Children, A Two-Generation Approach.” This report is the first to focus on the lifelong impact a parent’s criminal record has on their children. According to the CAP Report, nearly…
Read MoreIt’s that time of year again when those of us with children, or those of us who are children at heart, are starting to think about the State Fair. Some of us are thinking about fried Oreos but the youngest at heart are thinking about the rides. Watching a child at the fair is a…
Read MoreSouth Carolina had 14.1% percent of people living in households that were considered to be food insecure in 2011-2013, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) annual report released today. Close to 1 in 5 households lived in poverty during that same time. Each year, the Census Bureau measures food insecurity through a series of…
Read MoreThe KIDS COUNT Data Book, a major initiative of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, was first published in 1990 and provides each state with a ranking, percentage, and itemized summary based on four criteria to assess overall child well-being and shows us a picture of children at risk based on these criteria: education; health; economic…
Read MoreThe school-to-prison pipeline is the result of zero-tolerance policies and practices that push children out of school and into the juvenile or criminal justice system. Zero-tolerance policies are rooted in the belief that removing students from schools when they when they misbehave makes schools safer. These policies forget we are talking about children and fail…
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