AACF Applauds SC Ruling on Juvenile Sentencing, Says State Can Do More This morning, the Supreme Court struck down mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles. The decision will reverse an Arkansas court ruling in the case of...
Any discussion of Arkansas’s future is incomplete without understanding the challenges faced by children in immigrant families. They account for the majority of growth in Arkansas’ child population in the last decade. This new population, mostly Hispanic and almost...
AACF Applauds the President’s Immigration Policy, Calls For State-Level Dream Act President Obama’s announcement today of a new federal policy to stop deportations of law-abiding undocumented young people is welcome news in Arkansas, where activists have long fought for a...
When Adults Hurt Children in the Name of Political Gain Politics can be frustrating. I think most of us agree that the tone of our political discourse sinks lower every year. This is a Presidential election year, which means...
Get in the Game How often have you said, “You know, what they should do is …” about some sort of public policy issue? In the privacy of our own homes and offices, solving the world’s problems seems so...
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires states to have a health insurance “Exchange” that will provide high-value and affordable coverage for consumers, including individuals and small businesses, in place by 2014. The Exchange will be a...
Making Sure the Health Insurance Exchange Works For Arkansas Families The Arkansas Insurance Department is quickly moving forward with its efforts to build a health insurance Exchange by January 2014. Though Arkansas will have a federally-facilitated Exchange, stakeholders are...
Don’t Cut the Kids Governor Mike Huckabee and the state General Assembly established the ARKids First program in 1997 (with the help of then-Senator Mike Beebe who was the lead sponsor of the legislation). Since then, ARKids First has...
A Level Playing Field? NPR’s Morning Edition had a great, thought-provoking story this morning. It’s a story about Juan Carlos Reyes, a poor Dominican kid from the Bronx who was able to excel academically despite circumstances that might have...
Research continues to confirm the importance of high-quality early childhood education as a strategy for improving the social, emotional, and intellectual development of children as well as increasing the likelihood of their future academic and economic success. A 2008...