Fewer students are using drugs and alcohol, but more feel harassed and bullied, a new health survey found. The California Healthy Kids Survey, done every two years since 1985, asked more than 36,000 middle and high school students across the state about campus safety, substance use, mental health and other issues. The California Department of Education and the California Department of Health Care Services coordinated the report, which takes a random sample of seventh-, ninth- and 11th-grade...

Every young life starts out with promise, and the adults who love a child yearn for that child to have a bright future. But what if a simple barrier at an early age sets a child up for failure? Difficulty in reading is such a barrier. Poor reading skill is a predictor of, among other things, involvement in the juvenile justice system. “The literature shows a clear correlation between a grade-level reading problem and, later on, incarceration in the juvenile justice system,” said Ralph Smith,...

California Essentials for Childhood has just released its fifth newsletter. The full newsletter can be found attached. Check it out!

By the time a low-income child enters kindergarten in America, they’re already woefully lagging their more advantaged peers — 11 months behind in math and 13 months behind in reading, according to a recent report from the Center for American Progress. (Chart: Center for American Progress) The figure at left, from the CAP report—“How Much Can High-Quality Universal Pre-K Reduce Achievement Gaps?”—illustrates the gulf between both low- and high-income children and minority and white children.

In the U.S., the debate around the minimum wage does not lack controversy, but it does lack up-to-date research. Academic studies on the effects of raising hourly pay—especially to $15, which has become something of a magic number for progressive cities and states—have not kept pace with the whirlwind movement . And relatively little research has focused on the non-economic impacts of such significant wage bumps: for example, how they affect the health of infants. This is no arbitrary...

There's a hot pink suitcase on the floor of Shariah Vroman-Nagy's bedroom. The 18-year-old is packing for a trip to Disneyland, one of several she takes with her family every year. "Let's see, I need a hairbrush," she says, moving past the collection of Mickey Mouse ears on her dresser and glancing at the inspirational quotes from Marilyn Monroe on the wall. The lyrics to a song called " Smile " hang in a frame over her bed. "My mom made me that when I was struggling," says Vroman-Nagy,...

The lives of children improved by some measures during recent years, but their opportunities still are constrained by persistent family and neighborhood poverty, says the 2016 Kids Count Data Book . The annual report by The Annie E. Casey Foundation looks at measures of child well-being at the state and national level in four categories. Broadly, this year’s findings show gains in education and health — but some setbacks in measures of economic well-being and family and community, according...

In the past several decades, advances in brain science have suggested that the learning that occurs in the first few years of a child’s life lays the groundwork for a productive adulthood. The expansion of preschool is one of the few topics where both Republicans and Democrats in Congress find common ground; while lawmakers don’t always agree on how programs should be funded or structured, the belief that good early-childhood education can help prevent later gaps in test scores and...

Efforts in California and other states to raise the quality of child care and preschool programs are being undermined by the low wages that workers earn in jobs that now require more skills and education, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Education released Tuesday. In California, preschool teachers were paid an average salary of $31,720 in 2015, about half of what California kindergarten teachers earned that year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the report said.

Yesterday I mistakenly posted in this group, an event that has passed; I quickly deleted it, but the post lives on in your email inbox. Please delete/ignore the post titled "Coming in September: Alliance for Boys and Men of Color In-Person Health Policy Workgroup Meeting". This event occurred in the past; you can't get there without a time machine! My apologies for the confusion.

Latest research from a national sample of almost 10,000 U.S. adolescents found psychological trauma, especially abuse and domestic violence before age 11, can increase the likelihood of experimentation with drugs in adolescence, independent of a history of mental illness. Results of the study conducted at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health are published online in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. This is the first study to document...

[Photo Credit: Karsten Moran for The New York Times] The New York Times published an op-ed piece yesterday on investing in early childhood that is worth the read: The biggest obstacles and greatest inequality often have roots early in life: If we want to get more kids in universities, we should invest in preschools. Actually, preschool may be a bit late. Brain research in the last dozen years underscores that the time of life that may shape adult outcomes the most is pregnancy through age 2...