WASHINGTON - Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa is working to educate fellow members of Congress and the public about the needs of youth in foster care, with a special focus on the 29,000 young people who "age out" of foster care each year without permanent families.  May is National Foster Care Month.

"Children in foster care don't have highly paid 'K' street lobbyists advancing their cause," Grassley said.  "To move forward with legislation, Congress needs to hear ideas and opinions directly from the community.  Information sessions and panel discussions offer us the opportunity to learn what we need to do to move forward so that no child is ever without a permanent and loving home, and that foster youth have a smooth transition out of the system."

Grassley is founder and co-chairman of the Senate Caucus on Foster Youth.  This week, he and his co-chairman, Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, hosted a policy briefing covering recommendations in areas such as employment, housing, financial security, education, mentoring and permanency to improve the experiences and outcomes of youth in foster care. The panelists included researchers, child welfare experts, and alumni of the foster care system.

In coordination with the briefing on older foster youth, Grassley joined in introducing a Senate resolution on National Foster Care Month. The measure, which was introduced with bipartisan support, encourages Congress to implement sound policy to improve the lives of the almost 500,000 children in the foster care system.  For the text of the resolution, please click here.

And on Monday, Grassley will co-host an event that will feature excerpts from an upcoming Porch Productions documentary "From Place to Place", which follows six young people as they age out of the foster care system, followed by a roundtable discussion among two of the subjects of the film, leading child welfare researchers, advocates, young people from foster care, and policy makers.  The documentary preview and roundtable discussion, "When Foster Care Becomes Home: What Can Be Done to Improve Options for Youth in Foster Care?", will be held on Monday, May 17, 2010, from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. EST in Senate Dirksen Building, Room G-50, Washington, D.C.

Grassley said a forthcoming legislative vehicle to help foster youth is the reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act.  Grassley has urged the Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, which earlier this year began holding hearings on the reauthorization of the act, to consider the direct experiences of foster youth in the nation's educational system and their suggestions for reform. Reforms could include better record-keeping, more of an effort to keep students in the same school when their foster home changes, and better coordination between school personnel and child welfare agencies in developing strategies to help these youths.  Last month, a committee hearing including testimony from a foster youth, as Grassley encouraged.  The teen-ager described her difficulties staying in a school throughout homelessness and then foster care.

"The older kids in foster care and the young adults who have just 'aged out' and don't have the support and stability of a permanent family face special challenges," Grassley said.  "The issues challenging these young people - school attendance and performance, substance abuse, financial literacy, teen pregnancy, homelessness, and juvenile delinquency - have come to my attention through my efforts on foster care and adoption over the last 13 years."

In 2008, Congress passed and the President signed legislation Grassley initiated to make major updates to foster care laws and dramatically increase adoption into permanent, loving homes.  The law - Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoption Act of 2008 -- also broke new ground by establishing opportunities for states to extend care and help "aged out" kids with education and vocational training.  Monitoring implementation of this law is another focus of the Senate caucus.

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It's no wonder public opinion towards the federal government is sinking to historic lows. Consider the disingenuous public relations strategy undertaken by General Motors (GM) and the Treasury Department. With great fanfare, the U.S. automaker boasted that it was paying back billions of tax dollars to Uncle Sam thanks to an upswing in car sales.

Upon closer review, however, the repayment announcement is overshadowed by the fact that the Treasury Department allowed GM to dip into another taxpayer-financed pot of money to repay $7 billion of its taxpayer-backed government loan.

It's obvious why the car company and Treasury Department would be eager to claim tax dollars were being paid back "in full" and earlier than scheduled.  However, it's regrettable the very public announcement essentially misled the American public by glossing over very relevant details.

Taxpayers still own 61 percent (paid for with $41 billion tax dollars) of General Motors' common stock. It's highly likely the taxpaying public won't rejoice in an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. It says taxpayers stand to lose around $30 billion on the General Motors bailout when it's all said and done.

The idea that Washington can solve every problem with a government program is rooted in a misguided borrow-and-spend mentality.

Holding the federal government accountable, tracking tax dollars and keeping the people's business open and accessible to public scrutiny are central to my congressional oversight.  As Chairman or Ranking Member of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, I've led efforts to shut down offshore corporate tax loopholes; investigate the eligibility and compliance of non-profit organizations relative to their tax-exempt status; disclose financial relationships between the pharmaceutical industry and researchers who provide expertise that influences health decisions; and, most recently, scrutinize the trillions of tax dollars that Washington has pumped into the private sector.

As Congress debates financial regulatory reform, I worked to advance bipartisan legislation that would bring more transparency and accountability to the Federal Reserve. The Fed controls the supply of money in the U.S. economy. Last year the Federal Reserve took unprecedented action to stabilize banks at risk of failing. The American public has a right to know who has taken the money and how it has been spent. Allowing the independent investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accountability Office, to audit the Federal Reserve's emergency lending program would give lawmakers and taxpayers another tool to protect tax dollars.  I also cosponsored legislation to reform the way credit-rating agency evaluations are handled in order to help bring about the independent assessment investors deserve.  It's a matter of market integrity.

In these times of economic uncertainty, the American public is facing an even bigger burden of public debt. Washington is marching towards an all-time-high spending benchmark, reaching 25 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. Now, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, said health care reform will cost $115 billion more than projected.  That makes the deficit reduction that was promised impossible.  Despite the President's promise that health care reform would not add one dime to the deficit, when costs for Social Security and the new long-term care CLASS Act program in the bill are factored in, the real result is that the bill signed into law adds $90 billion to the deficit.

A bigger government has a bigger appetite for more and more taxes. Without a major shift, the current path of reckless deficit spending and unsustainable public entitlements will keep future generations of Americans working longer than ever before just to fulfill their tax obligations let alone maintain a certain standard of living.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Much attention has been given in recent years to reinvigorating history education in our nation's schools - updating curriculum, exploring effective teaching strategies, and increasing training and professional development for our history teachers.  The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), publishers of The Nation's Report Card, report America's twelfth and eighth graders know more U.S. history now than in the past, with performance improving on the most recent assessment (2006) compared to 2001.  Still, only 43% of twelfth grade students performed at or above the Basic achievement level (as defined by NAEP), with 11% at or above Proficient and only 1% at Advanced.

National History Day is one program aimed at addressing this issue - making history come alive by engaging youth in hands-on discovery of the experiences of the past.  Students conduct primary and secondary research on their selected topic, then present their work at local, state, and national levels.  National History Day inspires students through exciting competitions while teaching essential historical literacy.  The 2010 National Contest will take place June 13th -17th at the University of Maryland and feature 24 Iowa students!  Among those representing Iowa will be the teams of Christopher & Christine Mbakwe and Meghana Pagadala & Joann Weeks from Rivermont Collegiate in Bettendorf.  2010 is a national year for the NAEP U.S. history assessment, meaning it was administered country-wide in select schools between January and March, with results to be released in 2011.  With programs like National History Day in place, it is expected performance will continue to improve!

The community is invited to attend a fundraising history-themed Trivia Night on Friday, May 21st in support of Rivermont students' trip to the national competition!  Trivia Night is open to the community - adults and students (grades 6 and up).  Pizza will be served at 5:30 p.m. and competition will get underway at 6:00 p.m.  Cost for adults is $10 and for students is $5.  Participants may register a whole team (6-8 people) or just themselves and they will be assigned to a team (and make some new friends!).  Participants are asked to register by Wednesday, May 19th.  The competition will take place in the auditorium on the Rivermont campus, located directly off 18th Street behind K&K Hardware in Bettendorf.  For additional information on Trivia Night and to register, contact Leigh Ann Schroeder at schroeder@rvmt.org or (563) 359-1366 ext. 343.

For additional information on National History Day, visit www.nationalhistoryday.org

For additional information on The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and The Nation's Report Card, visit http://nationsreportcard.gov

For additional information on Rivermont Collegiate, contact Cindy Murray at (563) 359-1366 ext. 302 or murray@rvmt.org

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