Education

High-quality and equitable education opportunities, ranging across early childhood, K-12, technical education, higher education and apprenticeships, are pivotal for the economic prospects of working people and their children.  Disparities in education funding and the resulting inequities in the programs and services provided to children and adults of different incomes and races can determine the earning potential for someone’s entire life.  EARN groups analyze how state and local school taxes are raised and how education funding is parceled out, showing the impact of current education policies and suggesting reforms that can improve educational outcomes and economic conditions for working families.

Publications

Utah Economic Benchmarking Project 2017

The goal of the Working Families Benchmarking Project is to identify economic and related issues affecting Utah families and examine them through a comparative lens, evaluating Utah using a peer state as a benchmark. Many existing economic comparison studies and rankings look at the economy as a whole or at its impact on specific sectors or employers. This project seeks to augment those very useful comparisons by focusing on how the economy is experienced by moderate- and lower-income families. It is these families whose children are most at risk of not achieving their potential in school and later in the workplace. Thus, how they experience the economy is of particular interest to Voices for Utah Children.

Publication

A New Jersey That Works for Working People

New Jersey’s economy has not recovered from the recession like it could – and should – have. Economic difficulties that began with losses in manufacturing jobs throughout the 1980s have persisted. Despite a diverse population and a shift in land use from sprawling suburban growth to more infill development, job numbers and GDP are growing too slowly. And what growth there is, isn’t distributed equally. New Jersey struggles with extreme racial and economic disparities that distribute the benefits of the economy not as shared prosperity, but to the wealthy.

Unequal Opportunities: Fewer Resources, Worse Outcomes for Students in Schools with Concentrated Poverty

Persistent gaps in test scores and college enrollment between students from low income families and other more financially secure students are well documented, as are the challenges schools face in trying to improve student outcomes. Too often, these disparities are seen as inevitable and the challenges insurmountable. Increased investments are characterized as wasteful, rather than necessary. Yet, there are concrete and measurable deficiencies in the educational opportunities available to students in high poverty schools.

The Economic Benefits of High-Quality Early Care

All children should have the opportunity to reach their full potential. At the same time, parents should be able to go to work with the comfort that their children are safe, nurtured, and learning. For many families, child care is a crucial component of this vision.

Early care and education programs have proven to be the most effective policies for improving the lifelong outcomes for children. Attending high-quality early care programs leads to higher educational achievement in later years while reducing expensive social ills, like chronic health problems or crime. These improved outcomes translate to a direct positive impact on the economy as a whole in the form of increased wages and productivity, and lower spending on social services.