California's Kids Fall Deeper into Poverty, Homelessness
By Viji SundaramNew America Media
The indicators are coming in thick and fast:
• One in four California students lives in poverty, compared to one in six before the recession began.
• Students’ health, psychological and social service needs have increased with the recession.
• An epidemic of hunger grips many counties – a lot of students don’t eat at all when they go home.
• Homelessness among students is growing.
These are some of the grim findings from a recent statewide poll of a representative sample of 87 principals conducted by UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education and Access (IDEA) and the University of California All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity (ACCORD).
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The Political Effect of California's Changing Demographics
By Robert CruickshankThe Brookings Institution is out with an important new study, The State of Metropolitan America, which illustrates that many of the changes I described yesterday are already under way. California is part of the great shift away from suburban living toward urban, dense living. But because California's "institutional sclerosis" is so deeply rooted in the suburbs, and in a foolish and nonsensical desire to preserve the political and economic primacy of the suburbs, the Golden State risks failing to embrace this shift and falling behind the rest of a reurbanizing country.
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