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07.21.17 RMFF Staff

Is it better to allocate state resources to Pre-K, K-12 or both?

Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. Early childhood investments like state-funded Pre-K targeting low-income students have received a lot of attention in Indiana lately. At the same time, state and local leaders continue to grapple with how to improve test scores and graduation rates in K-12 schools. Some have questioned the benefits of investing in Pre-K. These people wonder: Won’t the impacts of early childhood investments be dim…
Education

07.14.17 RMFF Staff

Indiana’s Shockingly Low Math Scores Should Serve as a Call to Action

Claire Fiddian-Green is the President & CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. On June 30, 2017, the Indiana Department of Education released the first draft of Indiana’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan for public comment. ESSA is the federal law for K-12 schools enacted in 2015 that replaced the federal law No Child Left Behind. It requires states to create student academic achievement goals – based on outcomes like test scores and graduation rates – as well as a detai…
Education

07.06.17 RMFF Staff

Do Needle Exchanges Lead to Higher Rates of Drug Abuse?

Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. Opioid addiction inflicts damage on Hoosiers in a number of ways. Abuse of prescription opioids and heroin use can lead to deaths by overdose, and they can cause neonatal abstinence syndrome in children of mothers who misuse opioids. When injected, they can also spread HIV and Hepatitis C through needle-sharing. The recent HIV outbreak in Scott County, Indiana, where the number of new HIV infection…
Health