Children's Defense Fund
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Our Voice for Children
October 2021
Recruiting, Engaging, and Sustaining Black Educators
We know that Black students and all students benefit from having a Black teacher, but only seven percent of teachers in U.S. public schools are Black. This month, we announced an exciting partnership with Teach for America that aims to attract Black educators to the teaching profession and to ensure that they have the support and professional development needed to sustain and advance their careers. This initiative will bring the powerful pedagogy of the best-in-class CDF Freedom Schools® program to ten TFA Black Educators Promise (BEP) fellows from the American south during a year-long program. Read our full announcement to learn more.
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Our Advocacy for Children
As Congress continued to debate the budget this month, a once-in-a-generation chance to truly invest in America's most marginalized children and families hung in the balance. We fought hard to ensure lawmakers put our children's needs above the bottom line, in Congress and elsewhere. Here are some of the ways we advocated for children and their families this month:
- Our Children's Future: We implored Congress not to weaken the Build Back Better package by cutting any of the supports and programs that could be truly life-changing for children and families. Learn more: [link removed]
- Child Poverty: We pushed back on the idea of tying the Child Tax Credit (CTC) to racist and arcane work requirements and called on Congress to pass a Build Back Better package that strengthens the CTC, rather than undermining and weakening it. Learn more: [link removed]
- Housing: We urge Congress to prioritize robust investments in housing vouchers, public housing, and the national Housing Trust Fund (HTF) in the Build Back Better Act to address the housing affordability crisis and its devastating impact on children. Learn more: [link removed]
- Youth Justice: We recognized Youth Justice Action Month by calling attention to the over-criminalization and adultification of Black children and other children of color that pushes them into a system proven to cause long-lasting harm.
- We called for the end of school policing and exclusionary discipline that fuels the cradle-to-prison pipeline. Learn more: [link removed]
- We urged Congress to pass legislation to treat children like children, rather than push them into a punitive system that was not designed with their needs in mind. Learn more: [link removed]
- We highlighted CDF-NY's work to seal criminal records and ensure criminal convictions do not create life-long barriers to employment, housing, and education. Learn more: [link removed]
- We shared the harms of institutional placements in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems and called for a shift of funding from these harmful placements to support for children and families. Learn more: [link removed]
Revisit Our 30th Annual Children's Sabbaths Celebration
On Sunday, October 17, our President and CEO, the Reverend Dr. Starsky Wilson, was welcomed into the pulpit of the historic Riverside Church in NYC to share a Children's Sabbaths sermon. In his sermon, entitled Seen & Not Heard: Raising a Nation by Listening to Children, Dr. Wilson called into question the perceived "secondary status" of children in our country--the idea that they should be silent, even when in pain. Instead, he implored us all to elevate our country's 74 million children to a place of authority and prominence, so that we can truly build solutions that work for our country's kids. View the recording of Dr. Wilson's Children's Sabbaths sermon here.
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Create Your Living Legacy
Did you know that last week was National Estate Planning Awareness Week? We know that estate planning -- like writing a will or trust -- can seem scary or expensive. But it doesn't have to be. If you haven't completed this important task, we invite you to plan for the future with FreeWill's resources, which make it free and easy to get peace of mind. Get started.
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Child Watch Roundup
In a Child Watch column published this month, Marian Wright Edelman urged Congress to truly invest in our nation's children as they negotiate a budget reconciliation package and warned that we cannot sacrifice the needs of children to protect rich individuals and corporations. Read the column: [link removed]
Catch up on the rest of Marian Wright Edelman's recent Child Watch columns:
- Still Reconstructing: [link removed]
- Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune: Honoring a Great Role Model: [link removed]
- A New Chance for Child Care: [link removed]
Be sure to sign up to receive Marian Wright Edelman's Child Watch
column directly to your inbox every Friday
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