LATEST NEWS | January 27, 2009

On Feb. 2, 2009, the Women's Foundation will publicly release ON THE ROAD TO EQUALITY: Statewide Findings & Policy Recommendations, a companion report to our research, Status of Girls in Minnesota (April 2008).

Women's Foundation leadership met recently with Star Tribune editorial columnist, Lori Sturdevant, to preview and share the new Policy report and discuss its relevancy to the state's $4.8 billion deficit and deep budget cuts Gov. Pawlenty has proposed to the Legislature, a majority from health and human services.

Sturdevant's column, "Consider girls' needs, despite tough times," is a call to legislators to remember girls as they consider the short- and long-term impacts of final cuts to the state budget.

The column is featured below, online at the Star Tribune, and posted on our Facebook page. Please let your friends know by posting it on your own Facebook page!

STAR TRIBUNE OPINION | Consider girls' needs, despite tough times

By Lori Sturdevant, editorial columnist - January 26, 2009

A week in which the news will be dominated proposals for deep state budget cuts doesn't seem propitious for the release of recommendations for more societal spending to improve the lot of girls in Minnesota. Then again, by reporting this week its conclusions from more than a year of study and discussion, the Women's Foundation of Minnesota is reminding lawmakers that the spending decisions they make have lasting, real-life consequences.

Last year, in conjunction with the Institute for Women's Policy Research, the Women's Foundation compiled evidence that girls in Minnesota are slightly more likely than boys to be raised in poverty, and those who are poor are more likely to stay poor into adulthood. Girls are more likely than boys to experience physical or sexual abuse, and to report low self-esteem. While girls report spending more time than boys do studying and helping at home, girls also were found less prepared for college than boys. Only 28 percent of girls compared with 36 percent of boys in Minnesota fully met college readiness benchmarks on ACT tests, the report said.

The foundation took its report last summer to 18 Minnesota cities for discussion with community leaders, then distilled the work into a dozen broad recommendations. Top of the list: "Fix the broken child care system," said Lee Roper-Batker, the Women's Foundation's president/CEO. Some 14,000 families are on county waiting lists for child care subsidies, she said. Inadequate, unaffordable child care means that too many girls are left to care for younger siblings. Too many unattended girls are vulnerable to abuse or engage in risky behavior after school. And both boys and girls suffer when they are denied the preschool experiences that prepare them adequately for kindergarten.

That finding should fall hard on the consciences of lawmakers who voted in 2003 for a state budget that made major cuts in the state's child care subsidies for low-income families and in after-school programs. Those cuts led to the closure of dozens of child care centers in poor neighborhoods, and thousands of children missing out on the benefits of preschool, summer care or after-school programs.

Other recommendations also appear to call for more state spending. For example, the foundation says, the Minnesota Family Investment Program should support higher education opportunities for single-headed households. Schools should implement mandatory sex education programs. Every girl should have health insurance and access to reproductive health services.

But Roper-Batker said that no state spending cost analysis is attached to the report because its recommendations are not necessarily directed at state government and taxpayers. "We're asking, how does this inform our grantmaking? How can we bring other philanthropic resources to bear on these problems? How can we all ensure that this is a state in which all people can thrive?" In this economy, those are good questions to ask.

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