On January 27, 2015, the Children's Defense Fund released a groundbreaking report, End Child Poverty Now, using analysis by the Urban Institute which is highly informed by the Community Advocates Public Policy Institute's policy package created by our Pathways to Ending Poverty Project.

 For the first time, the report details how to end 60 percent of child poverty in America right now. By investing an additional 2 percent of the federal budget to expand existing programs and policies that increase employment, make work pay, and ensure children's basic needs are met, 97 percent of poor children would benefit and 60 percent of them could escape poverty immediately. Read the full report here.

COA's 2014 Rising Star recipient has released a new original song and music video in partnership with Kiran Vee of Fresh Cut Collective. With this video it was Dayzhane & Kiran's goal to "out-do our past work and achieve the next level in terms of lyrics, storytelling, composition, and production quality."

Through a federal grant created to help communities respond to gun violence at schools, eight regional behavioral health providers and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee are working to strengthen trauma and substance abuse counseling services for youth.

For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families, according to a new analysis of 2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications for the nation.

The Southern Education Foundation reports that 51 percent of students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in the 2012-2013 school year were eligible for the federal program that provides free and reduced-price lunches. The lunch program is a rough proxy for poverty, but the explosion in the number of needy children in the nation's public classrooms is a recent phenomenon that has been gaining attention among educators, public officials and researchers.

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