Children's Defense Fund
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Children's Defense Fund
The Children's Defense Fund (CDF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that focuses on child advocacy and research. It was founded in 1973 by Marian Wright Edelman. History The CDF was founded in 1973, citing inspiration from the Civil Rights Movement, with the goal of improving federal policies concerning child welfare and public education systems. CDF is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and has offices in several states around the country: California, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. CDF programs operate in 28 states. Activities Since its founding, the CDF has lobbied for passing legislation related to its goals including the Education for All Handicapped Children Act in 1975 (now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) and the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act in 1980. Its legislative interests have also included Head Start, Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance P ...
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Marian Wright Edelman
Marian Wright Edelman (born June 6, 1939) is an American activist for civil rights and children's rights. She is the founder and president emerita of the Children's Defense Fund. She influenced leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Hillary Clinton. Early years Marian Wright was born June 6, 1939, in Bennettsville, South Carolina. Her father was Arthur Jerome Wright, a Baptist minister, and her mother was Maggie Leola Bowen. Marian's father encouraged her education before he died, after a heart attack in 1953, when she was 14. Education She went to Marlboro Training High School in Bennettsville, where she graduated in 1956, going on to Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. Due to her academic achievement, she was awarded a Merrill scholarship which allowed her to travel and study abroad. She studied French civilization at the Sorbonne University and at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. For two months during her second semester abroad she studied in the Soviet Un ...
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Education For All Handicapped Children Act
The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (sometimes referred to using the acronyms EAHCA or EHA, or Public Law (PL) 94-142 was enacted by the United States Congress in 1975. This act required all public schools accepting federal funds to provide equal access to education and one free meal a day for children with physical and mental disabilities. Public schools were required to evaluate children with disabilities and create an educational plan with parent input that would emulate as closely as possible the educational experience of non-disabled students. The act was an amendment to Part B of the Education of the Handicapped Act enacted in 1966. The act also required that school districts provide administrative procedures so that parents of disabled children could dispute decisions made about their children's education. Once the administrative efforts were exhausted, parents were then authorized to seek judicial review of the administration's decision. Prior to the enact ...
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Organizations Established In 1973
An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from the Greek word ''organon'', which means tool or instrument, musical instrument, and organ. Types There are a variety of legal types of organizations, including corporations, governments, non-governmental organizations, political organizations, international organizations, armed forces, charities, not-for-profit corporations, partnerships, cooperatives, and educational institutions, etc. A hybrid organization is a body that operates in both the public sector and the private sector simultaneously, fulfilling public duties and developing commercial market activities. A voluntary association is an organization consisting of volunteers. Such organizations may be able to operate without legal formalities, depending on jurisdiction, includin ...
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Children's Rights Organizations In The United States
A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority. Children generally have fewer rights and responsibilities than adults. They are classed as unable to make serious decisions. ''Child'' may also describe a relationship with a parent (such as sons and daughters of any age) or, metaphorically, an authority figure, or signify group membership in a clan, tribe, or religion; it can also signify being strongly affected by a specific time, place, or circumstance, as in "a child of nature" or "a child of the Sixties." Biological, legal and social definitions In the biological sciences, a child is usually defined as a person between birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. Legally, the term ''child'' may refer to anyone below th ...
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Reese Witherspoon
Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon (born March 22, 1976) is an American actress and producer. The recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards, she has consistently ranked among the world's highest-paid actresses. ''Time'' magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2006 and 2015, and ''Forbes'' listed her among the World's 100 Most Powerful Women in 2019 and 2021. In 2021, ''Forbes'' named her the world's richest actress with an estimated net worth of $400 million. Witherspoon began her career as a teenager, making her screen debut in '' The Man in the Moon'' (1991). Her breakthrough came in 1999 with a supporting role in '' Cruel Intentions'', and for her portrayal of Tracy Flick in the black comedy ''Election''. She gained wider recognition for playing Elle Woods in the comedy ''Legally Blonde'' (2001) and its 2003 sequel, and for starring in the ...
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Idol Gives Back
''Idol Gives Back'' was the name of a charitable campaign that spanned two episodes of ''American Idol'' during its sixth season. A second ''Idol Gives Back'' concert and fundraiser occurred on April 9, 2008, during the seventh season of the show. ''Idol Gives Back'' was not held in 2009 due to the economic crisis and recession. The executive producer released a statement saying that it was not the time to be asking for money from the American public. However, the fundraiser returned on April 21, 2010 during the top 7 results show of season 9. It did not return in future seasons. Details ''Idol Gives Back'' was the result of a collaboration between American Idol creator Simon Fuller and the British writer and founder of the British Comic Relief telethons, Richard Curtis. On the March 8, 2007 ''American Idol'' results show, Ryan Seacrest announced an initiative to give back to people in poverty in both Africa and the United States (including those affected by Hurricane Katrina ...
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School To Prison Pipeline
In the United States, the school-to-prison pipeline (SPP), also known as the school-to-prison link, school–prison nexus, or schoolhouse-to-jailhouse track, is the disproportionate tendency of minors and young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds to become incarcerated because of increasingly harsh school and municipal policies. Additionally, this is due to educational inequality in the US. Many experts have credited factors such as school disturbance laws, zero-tolerance policies and practices, and an increase in police in schools in creating the "pipeline". This has become a hot topic of debate in discussions surrounding educational disciplinary policies as media coverage of youth violence and mass incarceration has grown during the early 21st century. In recent years, many have started using the term ''school–prison nexus'' in place of ''school-to-prison pipeline'' to challenge the idea of a unidirectional pipeline that begins in schools in order to show that schools wor ...
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Freedom Schools
Freedom Schools were temporary, alternative, and free schools for African Americans mostly in the South. They were originally part of a nationwide effort during the Civil Rights Movement to organize African Americans to achieve social, political and economic equality in the United States. The most prominent example of Freedom Schools was in Mississippi during the summer of 1964. Origins Despite the Supreme Court's ruling of 1954 in the '' Brown v. Board of Education'' case striking down segregated school systems, in the mid-1960s Mississippi still maintained separate and unequal white and "colored" school systems. On average, the state spent $81.66 to educate a white student compared to only $21.77 for a black student. Mississippi was one of only two states in the union that did not have a mandatory education law and many children in rural areas were sent to work in the fields and received little education at all. Even the curriculum was different for white and black. As a typical ...
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Gun Violence
Gun-related violence is violence committed with the use of a firearm. Gun-related violence may or may not be considered criminal. Criminal violence includes homicide (except when and where ruled justifiable), assault with a deadly weapon, and suicide, or attempted suicide, depending on jurisdiction. Non-criminal violence includes accidental or unintentional injury and death (except perhaps in cases of criminal negligence). Also generally included in gun violence statistics are military or para-military activities. According to GunPolicy.org, 75 percent of the world's 875 million guns are civilian controlled. Roughly half of these guns (48 percent) are in the United States, which has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world. Globally, millions are wounded or killed by the use of guns. Assault by firearm resulted in 180,000 deaths in 2013 up from 128,000 deaths in 1990. There were additionally 47,000 unintentional firearm-related deaths in 2013. Levels of gun-related v ...
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Medicaid
Medicaid in the United States is a federal and state program that helps with healthcare costs for some people with limited income and resources. Medicaid also offers benefits not normally covered by Medicare, including nursing home care and personal care services. The main difference between the two programs is that Medicaid covers healthcare costs for people with low incomes while Medicare provides health coverage for the elderly. There are also dual health plans for people who have both Medicaid and Medicare. The Health Insurance Association of America describes Medicaid as "a government insurance program for persons of all ages whose income and resources are insufficient to pay for health care." Medicaid is the largest source of funding for medical and health-related services for people with low income in the United States, providing free health insurance to 74 million low-income and disabled people (23% of Americans) as of 2017, as well as paying for half of all U.S. births i ...
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Head Start Program
Head Start is a program of the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provides comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and families. The program's services and resources are designed to foster stable family relationships, enhance children's physical and emotional well-being, and establish an environment to develop strong cognitive skills. The transition from preschool to elementary school imposes diverse developmental challenges that include requiring the children to engage successfully with their peers outside the family network, adjust to the space of a classroom, and meet the expectations the school setting provides. Launched in 1965 by its creator and first director Jule Sugarman anBernice H. Fleiss Head Start was originally conceived as a catch-up summer school program that would teach low-income children in a few weeks what they needed to know to start elementary school. The H ...
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Individuals With Disabilities Education Act
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a piece of American legislation that ensures students with a disability are provided with a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) that is tailored to their individual needs. IDEA was previously known as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA) from 1975 to 1990. In 1990, the United States Congress reauthorized EHA and changed the title to IDEA. Overall, the goal of IDEA is to provide children with disabilities the same opportunity for education as those students who do not have a disability. IDEA is composed of four parts, the main two being part A and part B. Part A covers the general provisions of the law; Part B covers assistance for education of all children with disabilities; Part C covers infants and toddlers with disabilities, including children from birth to age three; and Part D consists of the national support programs administered at the federal level. Each part of the law has remained largely t ...
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