Massachusetts is the national leader in providing health insurance coverage to its residents, thanks to health reform measures adopted a decade ago. The state’s health insurance coverage rate in 2015 was 97 percent, up about half a point from 2014. The gap between Massachusetts’ “nearly-universal” health care coverage and fully “universal” health care coverage gets smaller every year.
The 2016 KIDS COUNT Data Book provides a detailed picture of how children are faring in the United States. In addition to ranking states on overall child well-being, the Data Book ranks states in four domains: Economic Well-Being, Education, Health, and Family and Community.
This brief describes a number of solutions that would improve the effectiveness of the direct certification system and its ability to accurately identify low-income students.
This chart pack examines services that help children and families in the child welfare system. Funding for some of these services has recently increased, but even with increases, funding may not be sufficient to meet the needs of these vulnerable children. These services are also scattered across different agencies, pointing out both the need for and challenges of collaboration.
Children in Massachusetts lead the nation in educational achievement, and are at or near the top in a number of measures of health, but one in six children live in poverty and an increasing number of our children are growing up in very high poverty neighborhoods. These findings and detailed data on a wide array of measures of child well-being are presented in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2015 KIDS COUNT Data Book.
Children have a better chance to succeed in school when they receive individualized support and attention. Smaller class sizes are one way to help our teachers meet the needs of each child. This paper examines the evidence on how class size reductions can improve outcomes and expand opportunity for all of our children, particularly those who face the greatest obstacles.
This report provides an overview of what the state has and has not been doing to provide the support low income parents need to succeed in the workforce. While Massachusetts increased some investments after the welfare reforms of the mid-1990s, there have been deep cuts and chronic underfunding since then.
The number of children living in poverty in Massachusetts would be twice as high as it is if low income families did not receive help from effective anti-poverty programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly called food stamps), WIC nutrition programs, and the Child Tax Credit.
For an overview of what’s working, what’s holding back progress, and how to fix what’s broken, check out this infographic.
Increased learning time can be an effective tool for providing more of our young people with improved, more well-rounded education – but only if it’s done right. This paper examines which strategies have proven most effective in implementing longer school days, quality after school services, and summer learning opportunities. The report also estimates what it costs to provide a few model programs.