Sarah Alvarez

Chana Joffe-Walt's recent piece on This American Life about how disability payments are the new welfare has a lot of people pretty mad. Media Matters put out a scathing response to the piece, c

Almost 14,000 kids in Michigan have been taken out of their own homes by the state because of an abuse or neglect allegation.

Those kids then rely upon the state's Department of Human Services (DHS) to keep them safe and put them in an environment where they have a chance to thrive. Most of those kids end up in foster care.

Six years ago the state was sued by the advocacy group Children's Rights over treatment of kids in its care.

The state was back in court today to see where things stand. Everyone agrees things have gotten better since the lawsuit started six years ago, but the court appointed monitor said too many kids are still unsafe.

The busy analysts at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities have been looking at Paul Ryan’s latest budget proposal (spoiler alert: it’s a lot like his last budget).

  The census pushed a report yesterday called "The Decline in Private School Enrollment."

It's unclear just how many  kids are opting out of private schools for a cheaper option nationally, but it looks like the number has fallen from about half a million to 900,000  since 2002 (it is the census, so as good as the numbers and analysis will be, it's always a few years behind-the most recent numbers are for 2010). In Michigan private school enrollment went down by 20,000 between 2008 and 2010.

The report says a couple of things have led to the drop. Catholic schools have taken quite a hit because of sex abuse and subsequent cover-ups. And, because Catholic populations have been suburbanizing, where there are less Catholic schools or maybe they are less needed.

Check out this new animation by Dalton Conley. I wish there were more things like this out there! (If you know of any send them our way.)

The reason I like this is because it's giving me information I didn't have, that when resources are scarce even families tend to pick winners and losers. Then, it's helping me understand why that's true. There's no hard data in this little snippet, but it's given me a lot to think about and more questions. And, it took less than two minutes! To us in radio, that is quite a feat. 

Popping up on my facebook feed and elsewhere the last few weeks has been an urban legend in the making. It's a claim people on government benefits actually have more income than those making the median income for the country. 

This claim is courtesy of Senator Jeff Sessions. It's a loaded accusation that seems perfectly tailored to build class resentment and perpetuate myths about poverty in the "welfare queen" vein.

And, it's not true.

The folks at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities have done the hard work of proving why and are happy to call out the fuzzy math. From the CPBB, via the Census.

 In 2011, the typical person in a family whose income was below the poverty line before means-tested benefits are counted remained 12 percent below the poverty line after counting the non-health means-tested benefits (including SNAP, housing assistance, SSI, cash welfare assistance, and the EITC, among others).  Moreover, these benefits left this low-income individual 57 percent below the living standard of the typical middle-income American.

After President Obama threw his cards on the table and said he wanted preschool to be available for everyone in his State of the Union address, preschool moved squarely into the political realm.

The first time I met Bruce Brown, he had to excuse himself when three middle-schoolers came into his office to ask if he could jump a father’s car with a dead battery out in the parking lot. He was happy to do it. I should mention Brown is the superintendent of the school system, but he has a small-town accessibility. When a family is moving into the district, their realtor is likely to connect them directly to Brown, who will personally show them around.