UConn Study: Look-alike ‘Smart Snacks’ Confuse Students, Parents

Unhealthy snack food brands such as Cheetos, Fruit-by-the-Foot and Froot Loops have reformulated their products to meet new USDA Smart Snacks nutrition standards so they can be sold to kids in schools. But these products often come in packages that look similar to the unhealthy versions of the brands that are still sold in stores and advertised widely to youth. Selling these look-alike Smart Snacks in schools confuses students and parents, provides companies a way to market their brands to kids in schools, and may hurt schools’ credibility, according to a new study by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut, published in the journal Childhood Obesity and reported by UConn Today.

It is the first to examine how selling look-alike Smart Snacks in schools affects attitudes about the brands and perceptions of schools selling these products.

“Kids think the healthier Smart Snacks they can buy in school are the same products that are sold in stores,” says Jennifer Harris, lead author of the study and director of marketing initiatives for the UConn Rudd Center. “It’s confusing because the packaging for these look-alike Smart Snacks looks so much like the less nutritious versions that kids see advertised on TV and in the stores.

“This is a great marketing tool,” she adds. “The snack makers get to sell their products in schools and at the same time market their unhealthy brands to kids every school day.”

The study involved an online experiment with 659 students 13 to 17 years old, and 859 parents of children 10 to 13 years old.  The participants viewed information about a hypothetical school that sold either look-alike Smart Snacks, regular versions of the same brands sold in stores, Smart Snacks in redesigned packages, or only brands whose regular products met Smart Snacks standards.

Specific findings of the study include:

• Students and parents rated the healthier look-alike Smart Snacks similarly in taste, healthfulness, and purchase intent as the store versions, while considering Smart Snacks in different packages to be healthier but less tasty.
• Most participants inaccurately believed they had seen look-alike Smart Snacks for sale in stores.
• Participants also rated schools offering the look-alike Smart Snacks and the store versions of the brands as less concerned about students’ health and well-being.

“The practice of selling look-alike Smart Snacks in schools likely benefits the brands,” says Harris, “but may not improve children’s overall diet, and undermines schools’ ability to teach and model good nutrition.”

The Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity relocated to UConn in 2015 after 10 years at Yale.  The Center is a distinguished multi-disciplinary policy research center dedicated to promoting solutions to childhood obesity, poor diet, and weight bias through research and policy. The Rudd Center is a leader in building broad-based consensus to change diet and activity patterns by conducting research and educating policy makers and the public.

The research was funded by a grant from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.

Childcare Costs Continue to Outpace Inflation, Low Income Families Hit Hardest; CT 6th Most Expensive

One of the more notable aspects of the latest data on consumer prices provided this month by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is the striking increase in childcare and nursery school prices.  That data, along with statistics that reflect the impact of those increasing costs on families ability to afford such care, highlight the struggles and disparities that continue to exist, in Connecticut and nationwide. Over the past 25 years, childcare and nursery school costs have risen 177 percent, while prices more generally have risen just 77 percent.  Childcare and nursery school costs have been outpacing general inflation for at least 25 years (the data do not go back any further than 1991);  this is putting a significant strain on the budgets of low-income families.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research points to an August 2014 study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that found a two-parent, middle-income family (those making between $62,000 and $107,000 per year) will spend an average of $245,000 (in 2013 dollars) on their kids between the ages of zero and 17.

Significantly, due to rising income inequality, poor families are finding it harder to give their children the same opportunities afforded to rich children, the study points out. At present, families in the top fifth of the income distribution spend seven times as much on their children as families in the bottom fifth.

“This inequality can also be observed for paid leave: about 23 percent of workers in the top tenth of the wage distribution have access to paid family leave, compared to just four percent of workers in the bottom tenth,” the findings show.

Child care in Connecticut, the Economic Policy Institute points out, “is expensive.” Connecticut is ranked 6th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia for most expensive infant care.

• The average annual cost of infant care in Connecticut is $13,880—that’s $1,157 per month.
• Child care for a 4-year-old costs $11,502, or $959 each month.

Childcare is also “unaffordable” for a large percentage of Connecticut famiies.  The Economic Policy Institute indicates that infant care for one child would take up 16 percent of a typical family’s income in Connecticut, noting that according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), child care is affordable if it costs no more than 10% of a family’s income. By this standard, only 28.1% of Connecticut families can afford infant care.

A minimum-wage worker in Connecticut would need to work full time for 36 weeks, or from January to September, just to pay for child care for one infant. And a typical child care worker in Connecticut would have to spend 63.6% of her earnings to put her own child in infant care, according to the data.

CEPR points out that other costs for raising children have increased as well, also outpacing the inflation rate. For instance, elementary and high school tuition and fees have risen 3.2 percent over the past year (four times the overall inflation rate of 0.8 percent); college tuition and fees are up 2.7 percent. At the same time, infant care in Connecticut costs $3,752 (37.1%) more per year than in-state tuition for 4-year public college, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), public expenditure on pre-primary education and childcare is just 0.4 percent of GDP in the United States; this is far lower than the rates of spending in Denmark (2.0 percent of GDP) or Iceland and Sweden (1.6 percent). By this measure, the U.S. comes in 33rd out of the 36 countries surveyed by the OECD, according to the CEPR report.

Public expenditure on pre-primary education spending is 0.3 percent of GDP in the U.S. but averages 0.5 percent in the other OECD countries; even more shockingly, public expenditure on childcare is just 0.06 percent of GDP, well short of the 0.4 percent average from the rest of the OECD. Nor do differences in GDP make up for the latter gap.  In 2011, public expenditure on childcare was $794 per child in the U.S., less than one-third of the OECD average. By contrast, public spending on childcare is $7,100 per child in Finland, $6,400 in Norway and Denmark, $5,900 in Sweden, and $5,700 in Iceland — despite the fact that the U.S. is substantially richer than all those countries except Norway.

In a separate survey, the OECD found that just 14 percent of all public spending on children in the U.S. went to children age five and under — dead last among the 32 OECD countries in the sample. In the United States, 14 percent of all public spending on children goes to children ages zero to five; 41 percent goes to children ages six to 11; and 45 percent goes to children ages 12 to 17. For the other 31 countries (data were not available for Canada and Turkey), 26 percent of all public spending on children went to children ages zero to five; 35 percent went to children ages six to 11; and 39 percent went to children ages 12 to 17, the Center for Economic and Policy Research explained.

E-Cigarettes Remain Controversial as New Federal Law, Yale Academic Study Weigh In

Even as new federal rules restricting the sale of e-cigarettes take effect, advocates in Connecticut continue to urge state lawmakers to impose tougher restrictions on electronic cigarettes and vapor products when they reconvene next year.  They warn that a growing number of young people are using these electronic delivery systems to "smoke" what could be harmful and addictive substances. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced rules earlier this year that will forbid e-cigarette shops nationwide from selling the products to people younger than 18 and will require staff to ask for identification that proves customers are old enough to buy.  The rules – which take effect this month - would also extend long-standing restrictions on traditional cigarettes to a host of other products, including e-cigarettes, hookah, pipe tobacco and nicotine gels. Minors would be banned from buying the products.

Teens who initially tried e-cigarettes because of their low cost had significantly stepped up their use of e-cigarettes by the time researchers checked in six months later, according to a study that senior researcher Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin, a professor of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, told WebMD in an article published last week.  The low cost of the devices and the promise they can help teens quit smoking tobacco are the two strong predictors of continued use, she said.

In addition, teens who tried e-cigarettes to quit smoking were more than 14 times more likely to keep using e-cigarettes than those who did not consider this a reason to try the devices, the findings showed.  However, e-cigarettes didn't seem to help the kids quit. Four out of five teens who tried e-cigarettes to quit smoking were still puffing regular cigarettes six months later, the investigators found.

"Even though they said they were using e-cigarettes to quit smoking, it doesn't appear to have necessarily helped them," Krishnan-Sarin said.

Jennifer DeWitt, executive director of the Central Naugatuck Valley Regional Action Council, told members of the General Assembly's Public Health Committee this spring that every principal in the 12-town region her organization covers "has a desk drawer of these items that were confiscated from teens this year," including some retrofitted to smoke marijuana, the Associated Press reported.

"Tobacco is a success story for us in the overall picture of prevention. However, we will take a back-slide if electronic nicotine delivery devices continue to be available in the ways that they are currently," DeWitt said.  She said 7.2 percent of Connecticut high school students are e-cigarette users, marking a higher usage rate than all tobacco products combined.

According to the CDC, nationally, 7 out of 10 middle and high school students who currently use tobacco have used a flavored product. In addition:

• 63% of students who currently use e-cigarettes have used flavored e-cigarettes (1.6 million)
• 61% of students who currently use hookah have used flavored hookah (1 million)
• 64% of students who currently use cigars have used flavored cigars (910,000)

Beginning this month, retailers are prohibited from selling the tobacco products to those under 18, placing them in vending machines or distributing free samples, under the new FDA rules. While nearly all states already ban sales of e-cigarettes to minors, federal officials said they will be able to impose stiffer penalties and deploy more resources to enforce the law. The FDA action comes five years after the agency first announced its intent to regulate e-cigarettes and more than two years after it floated its initial proposal, according to published reports.

“Millions of kids are being introduced to nicotine every year, a new generation hooked on a highly addictive chemical” Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell said. “We cannot let the enormous progress we’ve made toward a tobacco-free generation be undermined by products that impact our health and economy in this way.”

The CDC indicated that in 2013, more than a quarter million middle and high school students who had never smoked regular cigarettes had used e-cigarettes, a number that had grown three-fold in just two years. A high proportion of middle and high school students saw e-cigarette advertisements (in 2014) from one or more of the following four sources: retail, Internet, TV/movies, and Magazines/newspapers. Overall, 66% of Middle School Students and 71% of High School Student.

The New Haven Register reported that Dr. Roy Herbst, chief of medical oncology at the Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital, said state and federal policy-makers should do more to rein in the spread of the devices.

“It didn’t go as far as we would’ve liked but it’s a good step in the positive direction and allows for more research,” Herbst said of the new federal rule. “I think now that we finally have this regulation, it will begin to stem the rapid use of e-cigarette use that is running rampant in the United States and around the world.”

CCMC Study Brings Attention to Dramatic Increase in Trampoline Injuries Nationwide

As trampoline parks are becoming more common in Connecticut and across the United States, so are emergency department visits for injuries that occur at these facilities, a new national study led by physician researchers at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center (CCMC), has found. The study published this month in the journal Pediatrics, co-authored by CCMC emergency physicians Steven Rogers, MD, and Jesse Sturm, MD, and pediatric emergency medicine fellow Kathryn Kasmire, MD, came about after the physicians began noticing a sharp increase in trampoline injuries, including some that were serious.

For the study, the CCMC physicians analyzed emergency room reports from a national database to estimate the total number of trampoline-related injuries both from parks and trampolines at home. From 2010 to 2014, the average annual number of Emergency Department visits for trampoline injuries was close to 92,000.

The vast majority happened at home - but injuries at trampoline parks surged more than 10-fold during the study period. The study found that emergency room visits related to injuries at trampoline parks grew from 581 in 2010 to 6,932 in 2014, which was the latest year represented in the study. Patients injured at trampoline parks were more likely to be males, with an average age of 13.

The study concluded that “trampoline park injury patterns differed significantly from home trampoline injuries. Trampoline park injuries are an emerging concern; additional investigation and strategies are needed to prevent injury at trampoline parks.”

The number of trampoline parks in the United States also increased during that time frame from around 40 in 2011 to 280 in 2014. It is now estimated that nationwide, five to six new parks open each month. Over the last year alone, it is estimated that more than 50 million people visited trampoline parks in North America, according to the International Association of Trampoline Parks.

In Connecticut, trampoline parks are up and running in communities including Hartford, New Britain, Trumbull, Bethel, Stamford, Norwalk, Manchester, Milford, Danbury, New Milford, Ridgefield, Brookfield, Wallingford.  Another is expected soon in East Haven.

The state’s official tourism website, www.ctvisit.com, includes six trampoline parks among the places highlighted for “safe, family-friendly indoor recreation.”  The “Connecticut – Still Revolutionary” site features information about, and links to, Launch Trampoline Park in Hartford, Sky Zone in Bethel and Norwalk, Chelsea Piers in Stamford, Rockin’ Jump Trampoline Park in Trumbull and Flight Trampoline Park in New Britain.

The study found that the majority of trampoline-related accidents occur at home — rather than at a park — and these accidents did not increase significantly from 2010 to 2014, nor did overall trampoline injuries.

The International Association of Trampoline Parks (IATP) said the rise in injuries should be expected because of more parks in recent years. "We believe that the positives of youth recreational sports far outweigh the negatives, and we are actively engaged in programs aimed at promoting the safety and well-being of jumpers who visit our member parks," the organization said following publication of the study.

"I don't think trampoline park injuries are increasing because they are especially dangerous compared to home trampolines, but rather because of their growing popularity and the increasing number/availability of these facilities," said Kasmire, indicating that 1 in 11 children or young adults who went to the emergency room for park injuries was admitted to the hospital.

Most of the injuries were leg injuries, including strains and fractures. Children injured at trampoline parks were less likely to have head injuries than those injured on trampolines at home, but the severity of park-related injuries was concerning, the authors said.

In a published report, Kasmire said that parks generally have done a good job of ensuring that youngsters do not fall off trampolines, reducing the likelihood of head injuries, because the floors are covered with a bouncy surface. This floor, though, can increase the risk of other injuries if a person lands between two trampolines, she said.

The American Academy of Pediatrics advises against trampoline use for all children but says if children do use them, they should not do flips or have more than one jumper at a time on a trampoline. The academy said adult supervision is needed and that trampolines should also have proper padding.

The IATP indicated that the organization “welcomes studies like the one published” because they “provide a deeper understanding of safety issues and provide data on our sport allowing us to better educate parents, jumpers and parks so all can fully enjoy indoor trampoline park facilities.”

The trade organization also noted that “if the study reported Trampoline Park Injuries (TPIs) as a percentage, rather than a total, a more accurate industry picture would develop. As a point of reference, high school football players experience injuries at a rate of 3.87 per 1,000 exposures. The rate of reportable injury at a typical trampoline park is less than one per 10,000 jumpers.  Therefore, the rate at which injuries occur is a much more meaningful statistic than total number of injuries.”

The study in Pediatrics notes “adult supervision has been proposed to reduce trampoline injuries in children, although trampoline injuries often occur despite adult supervision.”  The study also states that “although only a fraction of trampoline-related injuries occurred at trampoline parks (11% in 2014), the trend is alarming.”

CT Has 3rd Lowest Teen Birth Rate in U.S.

Connecticut has the third lowest teen birth rate in the nation, and ranks among the states with the lowest incidence of low birthweight babies, preterm birth rate and percent of births to unmarried mothers, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The data, reflecting statistics from calendar year 2014, indicate that Connecticut ranked  32^nd in Percent of Births to Unmarried Mothers, 30th among the states in Low Birthweight Rate, and 28^th in Preterm Birth Rate.  The state ranked 48^th in Teen Birth Rate, third lowest in the U.S.

The NCHS data also ranked Connecticut 12^th in the Cesarean Delivery Rate.

The Teen Birth Rate, determined by the number of births per 1,000 females age 15-19, was 24.2 nationally.  In Connecticut, it was 11.5.  The only states with a lower rate were Massachusetts at 10.6 and New Hampshire at 11.0.  Among the other states with low teen birth rates, well below the national average, were New Jersey, Vermont, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New York, Maine and Maryland.

The highest rates were in Arkansas (39.5), Oklahoma (38.5), Mississippi (38.), Texas (37.8) and New Mexico (37.8).

Regarding the percentage of babies born to unmarried mothers, a statistic long tracked by federal health officials, three states saw more than half the children born in that category.  The highest percentages were in Mississippi (54.0%), Louisiana (52.7) and New Mexico (51.3%).

Connecticut ranked 32^nd, at 37.1 percent, slightly lower than the national average of 40.2 percent.  The state with the lowest rate was Utah, at 18.6 percent, followed by Colorado (22.4%), Idaho (27.8%), Washington (32.1%) and Minnesota (32.3%).

Pay to Play Worsens Widening Economic Gap Evident in America's Schools, Putnam Says in Hartford

The growing number of public schools that require students to pay a fee to participate in after school activities, such as sports or music, is exacerbating the economic class disparities in America’s schools, and diminishing opportunities for students from families of limited financial means. “Play to play must end,” said social scientist Robert Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard University, and author of the best-selling book Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, appearing in Hartford in a special event sponsored by the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.

Putnam, who rose to cultural prominence in 2000 with his book “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of the American Community,” mixed riveting stories of the vastly different life experiences of the nation’s children, depending upon the financial wherewithal of their parents, and the dangers to every aspect of society - rich and poor - of permitting the growing disparities to continue unchecked.

According to his data, 86 percent of students from the highest-income families participate in extracurricular activities — slightly higher than during the 1970s — but participation among the lowest-income families is down about 15 percentage points, to 65 percent.

“No one talked (50 years ago) about soft skills, but voters and school administrators understood that football, chorus, and the debate club taught valuable lessons that should be open to all kids, regardless of their family background,” Putnam writes in the book.

Pay to play policies have been evident in Connecticut, as elsewhere across the country, for some time, as reflected in data compiled by the state Office of Legislative Research (OLR) in 2012.  The OLR report included information from 116 school districts. Of these, “44 charged a participation fee for high school athletics. The fees range from $25 per sport to $1,450 for ice hockey. Twenty nine school districts include a maximum amount that a student, family, or both can be charged during a single school year. Schools without a cap are generally those that charge the lowest fees.”

Following that report, legislation that would have prohibited local and regional boards of education from charging any student activity fees to students who are unable to pay such fees was considered in 2013 but not approved by the state legislature.

Last month, education officials in Norwalk proposed requiring student athletes to pay $100 each to participate athletic programs. Published reports indicated that students who participate in high school musicals in the city pay about $200 as a participation fee.

Putnam noted that although many school districts that charge such fees provide for waivers for financial need, those tend not to be used because students would rather drop a sport than be stigmatized as  poor and needy.  And he emphasized that dropping out of participation in after school activities worsens development and lessens chances to break away from a life of diminished opportunities.  The absence of such extra-curricular participation adversely impacts both future circumstances and physiological developmental, Putnam said.

The OLR data indicated that in Trumbull, for example, a family could pay as much as $750 (or $900 including hockey) for students’ participation in sports; in South Windsor the payment was capped at $500 per family, or $800 including hockey.  In Region 10, which includes the towns of Burlington and Harwinton, there was a maximum of $450 per family for participation in sports.

The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Handbook for 2016-17 includes reference to the organization’s “strong opposition to the local board of education policies which establish a fee system for students who wish to participate in co-curricular or extra-curricular activities, athletic and/or non-athletic.”

Among the organizational policy positions included in the handbook, the Administrators of Health and Physical Education “feel a direct assessment on the individual families of athletes is contrary to the educational philosophy so deeply rooted in our nation, and is wrong because it places an undue tax on selected members of the community.”

“Athletics as an extra-curricular activity is unique in that it provides a possible predictor of student success in later life; and affords adolescent boys and girls an opportunity to establish a physical and social identity along with the intellectual identity they develop while in the classroom,” the Administrators of Health and Physical Education policy statement says.

The handbook section on “pay to play” continues, indicating that “In support of that notion is a pair of studies conducted by the American Testing Service and College Entrance Examining Board. The former completed a study comparing four factors thought to be possible predictors of student success: achievement in extracurricular activities, high grades in high school, and high grades in college as well as high scores on the SAT. It was found that the only factor which could be validly used to predict success in later life was achievement in extra-curricular activities.”

Adds the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents: “Free public education includes the student’s right to participate in activities offered by a school district. The student should not be denied participation because of lack of funds or the refusal to pay a fee.”

Putnam, speaking at the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts to a nearly filled Belding Theater audience, recalled attending Yale University in Connecticut, and speaking in Hartford 16 years ago, when Bowling Alone was published.  He stressed that there are fewer mixed-income neighborhoods than there were 50 years ago, and as a result children are less likely to go to school with people of a different social class.  

The top third of US society – whether defined by education or income – are investing more in family life, community networks and civic activities than their parents, while the bottom third are in retreat, as families fracture and both adults and children disengage from mainstream society, he pointed out. That is evident in a range of statistics,  he said, proceeding to share a series of graphs and charts that underscored his thesis.

Putnam identified causes of the widening opportunity gap for the current generation of young people as the collapse of the working class family, a substantial increase in single-parent homes among the poor, economic insecurity among growing cadre of working class people, and a cultural change of people no longer looking out for other people’s kids in a way that happened in the past.  The definition of “our kids,” he said, has narrowed for a community’s children, to the biological children of individual families.

This gap amounts, Putnam emphasizes, is a “crisis” for the American dream of equal opportunity. Advantages pile up for the kids born to the right parents, all but guaranteeing their own success in life – in stark contrast to the fates of those struggling at the bottom.

Among the statistics of concern raised by Putnam: affluent children with low high-school test scores are as likely to get a college degree (30%) as high-scoring kids from poor families (29%).  And he called for a focus less on the costs of community college and more on helping students unfamiliar with the bureaucracy and processes of college work their way through it.  “We need navigators to help these students navigate the process,” he said, making a comparison to health care, where newly diagnosed cancer patients, unfamiliar with the world they have just entered, increasingly have “health care navigators” assigned to them as guides to deal with the uncertainty they face.

Despite the preponderance of evidence showing stark disparities, Putnam says he is optimistic that the trends can be reversed.  “American did it once before, after the turn of the last century,” he explains, and can do so again.  He suggests that the remedy will more likely be driven from the grassroots, in individual communities, than from policies adopted by the federal government.

Early Childhood Education Earns Strong Support in Both Political Parties, Poll Finds

As the national political conventions get underway, advocates of early childhood education are pointing to the results of a new national poll to underscore widespread support that transcends political party. In the midst of a polarizing election cycle, 90 percent of voters – including 78 percent of Trump supporters and 97 percent of Clinton supporters – agree that Congress and the next president must make quality early childhood education more accessible and affordable to low- and middle-income families, according to the national survey.

The survey, conducted for the advocacy organization First Five Years, found that by a three-to-one margin, voters prefer the next president be someone who focuses on solutions to the country’s problems, and they’ve identified investment in early childhood education as an important solution.

Key voter groups want the federal government to help states and local communities improve access to quality early childhood education – incuding 85 percent of Hispanics, 79 percent of suburban women, 65 percent of moderate/liberal Republicans, and 58 percent of Republican women, according to the poll released by First Five Years Fund (FFYF).

“Early childhood education isn’t a partisan issue, and the poll demonstrates that Americans of all political stripes are united in their demands to make quality early childhood education more accessible and affordable,” said Kris Perry, Executive Director of the First Five Years Fund. “Candidates looking to connect with voters should be hearing loud and clear that Americans see a need for quality early learning, ranking it a top priority alongside education broadly and good-paying jobs.”

At Connecticut Voices for Children, a highly regarded research and advocacy organization in Connecticut, officials agreed that “early childhood is an issue where Democrats and Republicans can find common ground, where all candidates must devote time and attention, and ultimately where they should invest in the health and well-being of young children, families and the economy.”

In the national poll, over two-thirds of respondents believe children do not start kindergarten with the knowledge and skills they need, driven in part by a lack of affordable and successful early childhood education programs. Americans also want to rethink our education priorities, with the majority calling for more or equal investment in early education over college.

The poll also found that voters want America’s leaders to prioritize early education: 72 percent say that ages one to five are the most important for learning. In addition, a majority of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents want to invest in multiple education opportunities, including home visiting, early learning programs, and preschool services.

The poll was commissioned by the First Five Years Fund in conjunction with a bipartisan polling team of Public Opinion Strategies (R) and Hart Research (D). The sample was distributed proportionately throughout the country and is demographically representative of the electorate. 

According to First Five Years, “Early childhood education for low-income children is one of the best ways to promote upward mobility that pays off for individuals and society. Every child needs effective early childhood education and development from birth to age five; research shows that low-income children are the least likely to get it. Those who experience quality early care and learning have better education, health, social and economic outcomes in life-increasing their productivity and reducing the need for spending later on.”

Connecticut Voices for Children Executive Director Ellen Shemitz said the poll results indicate that there are potentially great rewards for leaders to work on this issue, and not many penalties.  In addition, the results show the public’s willingness to devote money to this issue, and that people are looking to their elected leaders to make these investments, Shemitz pointed out.

Regarding Connecticut’s efforts to encourage and support early childhood education, officials at Connecticut Voices point out that “while we do invest in early childhood care and education more than many states, there is room for improvement to ensure both program quality and program access for children and families who need high-quality programming.”

The Connecticut Office of Early Childhood, established in 2014, recently urged public schools to focus on the attendance of kindergarten students, citing the importance of early childhood education for later academic success.

The Office’s website indicated that “study after study confirms the value of high-quality early childhood education for developing the cognitive, social and emotional skills that children need to succeed in kindergarten. But unless children attend these programs on a regular basis, they are not likely to benefit fully.”

The site pointed out that “unless we pay attention to attendance even among young children, we are missing the opportunity to use early educational experiences to build an essential skill: showing up on time, every day to school. A growing body of research and practitioner experience shows that paying attention to attendance for our youngest children is essential.

According to the Early Childhood website, “studies have found that children who are chronically absent in preschool are five times more likely to miss more days of kindergarten. For the 2014-15 school year, 12 percent of CT’s kindergarteners were chronically absent, that is almost 550 kindergarteners who were regularly not in school. Additionally, children who are chronically absent in kindergarten and first grade are likely to have poor attendance 5 years later.”

Last month, Connecticut Early Childhood Commissioner Dr. Myra Jones-Taylor testified before the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, urging Congress to allocate additional federal dollars to states for implementing key policy changes, first approved in 2014, to child care programs.

The Commissioner testified that the focus on quality, continuity of care, and basic health and safety are long overdue – and that focus should be celebrated. She pointed out, however, that the challenge for Connecticut and many other states is that the changes significantly increase the annual cost of care per child.

Former UConn QB Cochran Says Football Puts Players in Harm’s Way, Urges End to "Cycle of Silence"

Former UConn quarterback Casey Cochran, who retired from the sport at age 20 after suffering his 13^th concussion, said this week that “There are problems with the game that need to be addressed. As it is played right now, tackle football — with its pads and helmets — puts players in harm’s way, all of the time, regardless of age and ability.” Cochran, writing a first-person story about his experiences with football and concussions in The Players’ Tribune, an online site founded by Derek Jeter, issued an alert to others who’ve journeyed through the sport, or continue to compete:

“I want to say to all former, current and future athletes who have or will suffer a concussion: Do not hide it. Tell your coaches, medical staff, parents, friends and teammates. Get treatment. The cycle of silence hurts more and more people each year.”

Cochran, from Monroe, explained that in the 18 months since his decision, after suffering a concussion on the last play of the first game of UConn’s 2014 season, against Brigham Young University, “I still feel the lingering effects from my many concussions. Life is a balancing act now. Some days it’s hard to wake up before noon. Sometimes I don’t want to leave my bed at all. In high school, I had a 3.9 GPA. Now I have trouble focusing and performing well in my graduate-school classes.”

He warned that “Those who play football, particularly those who begin in their youth, are given a glamorized version of the sport – one where camaraderie, discipline, toughness and leadership are highlighted and the wretchedness is ignored and swept under the rug. As a result, we fall in love with and value the good and push aside the bad.”

Cochran recalled that “I probably should have stopped playing football in eighth grade after my third concussion, but I was afraid to speak up. Afraid of disappointing people who had invested in my career. Afraid of who was I was without football. I wish I hadn’t hid the three concussions I had in one week during my junior year of high school, but I was afraid that college recruiters would find out.”

Even with increasing awareness of the risks of concussions, Cochran said the near and long-term effects haven’t led to enough changes.  “The only word I know to describe the first few moments after a concussion is limbo — there are a few moments between the world that you were just a part of and your new brain-injured reality,” Cochran explained.  “My head was seized with tremendous pressure, and that same awful, familiar depression from previous head injuries came over me — like a dark, heavy blanket, swallowing me up.”

With it all, he retains optimism: “There is life outside of the white lines. A lot of life. Stepping away from football was one of the scariest things I’ve ever had to do. I felt lost for a long time. For a little over a year, I felt like I was somewhere, deep in the ocean, being pulled by the currents. But what pulled me back from the depths was hope. Hope that things would get better.”

He now finds purpose in being an advocate for player safety, speaking to audiences, doing interviews and writing a book about his experiences.  To those going through what he did, during his 14 years of playing football, he says “If you feel alone, you aren’t. Chances are, there are a lot of people out there who have some idea of what you’re going through. Just keep looking. Reach out.”

Added Cochran: “Sometimes it’s nice to admit that things aren’t O.K.: ‘Hello, my name is Casey, and I have anxiety and depression.’ It may be permanent. It may be just the beginning. I don’t know what the future has in store for me and it will be some time before the medical field can paint a clearer picture for me. I may have CTE right now. I might have dementia at 50. My entire future is uncertain.”

Add a Teen Driver to Policy? Rates Double in CT, 8th Highest Increase in Nation

Adding a teen driver to the family automobile insurance policy drives up rates.  That’s true everywhere across the United States, and in Connecticut the increase is among the highest in the nation, almost doubling the policy's premium. A new survey reveals that the average premium increase in Connecticut when adding a teen driver to an existing policy is 96.3 percent, which is the 8^th highest increase in the U.S.  The only states with higher jumps in premiums are New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Arizona, Wyoming, Ohio, Oregon and Maine.

The study, by insuranceQuotes, found that the average increase in premiums across the country when a teen driver is added to an existing policy is 79 percent.  That is a slight improvement from a few years ago, when the increase nationwide averaged 84 percent.

The study also found that it costs more to add a young male driver than a female driver to an existing policy - adding a male teen to a married couple's policy results in a national average premium increase of 91 percent, compared to an increase of 67 percent for a female.  The difference is wider the younger the driver.  For 16 year old male driver is added, for example, the premium cost more than doubles on an existing policy.

Connecticut has consistently been ranked in the top ten, with among the highest increases when a teenage driver is added to an existing policy.  A year ago, Connecticut was ranked 7^th, with a 98.3 percent increase in insurance rates after adding a teen driver.  The previous year, Connecticut ranked 5^th in the annual survey, with an increase of 102.4 percent in the policy cost when a teen driver was added.

According to the data, the largest increases in Connecticut were in New Haven County, more than 11 percent higher than the statewide average.  Tolland, Windham, Middlesex and New London counties were slightly lower than the statewide average; Hartford and Fairfield counties slightly higher.

Laura Adams, senior insurance analyst at insuranceQuotes stressed that states differ considerably when it comes to the cost of insuring a teenage driver – noting that a teen added to a married adult's auto policy in New Hampshire results in an average annual premium increase of 125 percent, while in Hawaii the average increase is just 17 percent.  New Hampshire had the highest increase in each of the past three years.

"Insurance companies have pretty wide lattitude in many states in the reasons for raising rates, and in some states adding a teen really moves the needle," Adams told CT by the Numbers.  As for Connecticut, Adams said she doesn't see any reprieve anytime soon.  "Teen drivers are among the riskiest, and companies take advantage of the opportunity to raise rates."

Perhaps the most significant underlying factor is that each state regulates insurance differently, and those regulatory differences account for some of the variations in the study’s findings, according to insuranceQuotes.  For instance, Hawaii is the only state that doesn't allow insurance providers to consider age, gender or length of driving experience when determining premiums. That means that the cost for teens doesn't differ much from the cost for adults buying auto insurance.  This may also account for lower increases in states such as New York, Michigan and North Carolina, where insurance is regulated more strictly and rating factors are more stringent, insuranceQuotes points out.   The increases in those states when adding a teen to an existing policy were all below 60 percent, among the lowest increases in the nation.

Adams noted that people often notice the difference in rates when they move to another state.  "You are penalized for where you live.  States handle this very differently."

She added that "regardless of the costs to insure your teen driver, safety is the No. 1 priority. We suggest parents educate teens on the dangers of driving, especially when it comes to texting while driving, or driving under the influence.”

Kathy Bernstein, senior manager of the National Safety Council's Teen Driving Initiatives, told insuranceQuotes that the riskiness of teens behind the wheel may be "leveling off."  For instance, in 1978 there were nearly 10,000 teen driver deaths, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). That number has dropped every year since then. In 2014, the number of teen driver deaths was about 2,600.  The percentage of teens on the road has steadily declined as well. According to a recent study from the University of Michigan, 69 percent of 17-year-old Americans had a license 30 years ago. Now, less than half have a license - 45 percent.

Adams indicated that as teen drivers get older and gain driving experience, rates tend to come down, unless, of course, they happen to have an accident in which they are at fault.  In those instances, "very high rates" result.

For the annual study, insuranceQuotes and Quadrant Information Services examined the economic impact of adding a driver between the ages of 16 and 19 to a family's existing car insurance policy.  The insuranceQuotes website provides consumers with a free, easy way to compare insurance quotes online for auto, home, health, life and business policies.

Connecticut Students Know Much About History; Stand Out in National Contest

Hamilton.  Say the name these days, and people almost reflexively think of the hit Broadway show.  But for Connecticut students Juliana Rodrigues, Max Bueno, Samantha Gilbert, Emily Strickland, and Joseph Zarif from Memorial Middle School in Middlebury, Hamilton brings to mind more recent history. The students won two Special Awards for their project, Alexander Hamilton Explores a Financial System for the New Nation of America, at the National History Day Competition for middle school and high school students, held this month in Maryland.  They middle-schoolers won the U.S.  Constitution Award and the Special Award in History in the Federal Government.

Connecticut History Day is a program for students in grades 6-12 that encourages exploration of local, state, national, and world history.  After selecting a historical topic that relates to an annual theme, students conduct extensive research using libraries, archives, museums, and oral history interviews. Students analyze and interpret their findings, draw conclusions about their topic's significance in history, and create final projects that demonstrate their work.

Connecticut History Day is one of 57 affiliate programs of the highly regarded National History Day program. Student projects developed by students in Connecticut are entered into a series of competitions, from the local to the national level, where professional historians and educators evaluate them.

The students from Middlebury were not the only Connecticut students to shine on the national stage this year.

• Mia Porcello, a middle school student from St. Timothy School in West Hartford, captured a national title by winning First Place in the Junior Individual Exhibit Category for her entry Florence Wald: Exploring Medical Boundaries, Exchanging Hospitals to Hospice.
• Shay Pezzulo, a high school student from Classical Magnet School in Hartford, captured CHD’s second national title of the year by winning First Place in the Senior Individual Website Category for her entry Duel and Duality: New Journalism, New York. Pezzulo also attended "Breakfast on the Hill" with members of Congress during her trip to the NHD Contest - an event sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
• The Outstanding Connecticut Entry Award from the Senior Division was awarded to Nicole Wood, Juliana Salamone, Katherine Hurst and Flora Dievenich for their group project, Women Airforce Service Pilots and the Flight for Equality. They are students at Greenwich High School and were also finalists in the Senior Group Performance Category.
• The Outstanding Connecticut Entry Award from the Junior Division was awarded to Hunter Dale and Noah Vasington for their group project, Branch Rickey: Branching Off to New Ideas. They are students at Mansfield Middle School in Storrs and were also finalists in the Junior Group Exhibit Category.
• Rosie the Riveter, an exhibit created by Claire Graham, Hana Previte, Isabel Saltzman, and Lauren White was one of only 57 projects featured at the National Museum of American History’s "National History Night" on Wednesday, June 15. They are students at Wilton High School.

The students, who helped Connecticut stand-out at the national competition, range from first-time program participants to history day veterans and from AP students to students who are struggling in school, according to officials.  The national competition was held June 12-16 at the University of Maryland.

In recent years, the Connecticut program, coordinated by Connecticut’s Old State House with support from Connecticut Humanities, has grow in numbers and in the quality of the students’ work, organizers point out. This year, Connecticut History Day had 10,600 points of contact with Connecticut students, teachers, parents and history professionals, including workshops for 4,500 students—twice last year’s number.

"Good strategic thinking by our History Day team has increased the number of students who learn and grow through this program," said Sally Whipple, Executive Director of Connecticut's Old State House. "Old State House workshops, resources and coaching have helped students develop high quality projects based on sound research. We serve thousands of students through this program, but more important than the number served, is the quality of that service. Students develop critical thinking, writing and research skills, along with increased confidence, curiosity and the ability to ask and find answers to compelling questions. The Old State House staff strives to do this every day through all of its programs. It's great to see student work that we've helped nurture receive the highest National History Day honors possible."

This is the fifth consecutive year that Connecticut students have placed at the national contest and appears to be the first time that Connecticut students have won two first place awards. The initiative in Connecticut is in line with the state’s relatively new Social Studies Framework and helps students build confidence, as well – as does the recognition, both in state and at the national level. 

Earlier this year, state contest winners were determined at a day-long event hosted at Central Connecticut State University.  That followed regional contests held in Torrington, New Haven, Fairfield, Mansfield, Manchester and Hartford. Among the statewide category winners, at the high school level,  were students from Hartford, Farmington, Manchester, Norwich, Weston, Wilton, Westport, Southbury, Woodbury, Greenwich, Ellington, New Haven and Wallingford.  Topics ranged from the Panama Canal to Pequot Ware, Immigration Policy to Women Airforce Pilots, 20^th Century Psychiatry to War of the Worlds, Cheney Brothers to Langston Hughes.

The road to National History Day (NHD) begins in Connecticut’s classrooms and home schools where well over 2,000 students choose topics reflecting an annual NHD theme, conduct research and analysis and create an exhibit, performance, website, paper or documentary that shares their findings. Of these, more than 1,250 students competed in this year’s regional contests, with over 400 of the winners going on to the State Contest, which sends first and second-place winners on to Nationals.

https://youtu.be/6pt2R_5cXQs