New York DWI Lawyers

Advocates Seek Greater Focus on New York's Children As DWI  Rate Increases

ALBANY, NY "The Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy (SCAA) a longtime campaigner for New York State's children and families -- is taking on the role of children's watchdog for state public policy.

The Albany-based policy analysis and advocacy organization is underscoring its longtime focus on children by launching the SCAA Children's Policy Agenda.

"While our state has many strong and clear voices for children's issues, we believe that it is essential that we seek to build a coordinated and comprehensive alliance on issues of common interest," said James Lytle, chairperson of SCAA's Board of Trustees. "That's where the SCAA Children's Policy Agenda comes in. We've created this initiative because New York's children need both a strong voice and a united front on the issues that face them."

In supporting the case for SCAA's Children's Policy Agenda, SCAA President Karen Schimke said the following points are illustrative of the unmet needs of young people in New York State:

Under current funding, only one-fourth of the state's 4-year-olds are able to attend state-funded universal prekindergarten. With funding for UPK stalled for the past five years, New York can serve only a small portion of the children who need it and whose parents want it.

 New York's statewide high school dropout rate jumped about 50 percent from 1993 to 2002.

 And while rates of violent juvenile crime have fallen, the rate of youth drug arrests nearly doubled from 1992 to 2001. DWI arrests for teens are also on the rise.

"These disturbing realities, and many others, are not acceptable to us, nor should they be to the people of New York State," Schimke said.

In recent years, countless programs serving children suffered funding cuts and funding restoration vetoes. "In 2004's budget alone, nearly half of the funding restoration vetoes cut programs for children -- this during a time when one in five children in the state lives in poverty," said Schimke.

STATE LAGS NATION

Schimke also noted that over the past 15 years, New York State has gone from children's policy innovator to maintainer and even laggard.

While New York passed groundbreaking child welfare, child protection and child care legislation in the 1980s and 1990s, it no longer leads the pack. Ohio has a children's budget that tells citizens not only how it spends money but also, more importantly, toward what outcomes. Connecticut has an effective Commission on Children providing leadership on the critical issue of coordinating all the branches of government serving children. And Indiana is carrying out a groundbreaking prekindergarten through college plan.

"What these states have in common is a universal, uniform and coordinated perspective of government's services to children and their families," Schimke said. "We at SCAA believe New York has the same opportunity to turn intersections into integration in public policy, ensuring that more children grow up leading healthy, successful lives."

Through both informational campaigns and coalition building, SCAA will speak for the children of New York State on public policy formation, programs and services oversight, and the linkage of public, private and nonprofit children's initiatives.

In this, its first year, the SCAA Children's Policy Agenda will focus on the legislative cycle, seeking both to restore critical budget cuts and revise outdated policy. To this end, it has already developed the SCAA Children's Policy Agenda Legislative and Budget Recommendations, 

Also, SCAA's February 2005 edition of on-line Reports provides a survey of the Governor's Executive Budget and its impact on children and families. For more information on the Children's Policy Agenda,

Founded in 1872, the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy (SCAA) is a statewide, nonprofit policy analysis and advocacy organization. SCAA works to shape policies that improve the economic security and health status of low and moderate income New Yorkers, and help all children become capable adults.

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