About the Issues
For the 2007-2008 school year, in grades 7-12, over 7000 girls dropped out of school. The Women's Foundation of Colorado has funded two research reports that looks specifically at the dropout out problem for girls in Colorado.
By Laurie Bennett (National Center for School Engagement) and Martha McIver (The Center for Social Organization of Schools - Johns Hopkins University)
By Dora Lodwick, The REFT Institute
Two Steps Forward and Three Steps Back
“The Cliff Effect”—Colorado’s Curious Penalty for Increased Earnings—A quantitative analysis of work supports in seven Colorado counties.
In Colorado, as in other states, a full-time job at low wages is not enough to make ends meet. Federal and state “work supports” assist low-wage workers and their families with benefits such as earned income tax credits, childcare subsidies, health care coverage and food stamps. These benefits are means-tested, so as earnings increase—particularly as they rise above the official poverty level—families begin to lose eligibility even though they are not yet self-sufficient. The result is that parents can work and earn more without their families moving closer to financial security. The cause of this situation lies in the current structure of work support programs, including rapid “phase-out” rates, which lead to what is known as “cliff effects.”
Download the full report | Download the Executive Summary
Overlooked and Undercounted: Struggling to Make Ends Meet in Colorado
One in five Colorado households do not have enough income to make ends meet. View the Self Sufficiency Standard Demographic Study, prepared by Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute, funded by Denver Foundation, the Chambers Family Fund, Mile High United Way and The Women's Foundation of Colorado.
Download the full report | Download the Executive Summary
WK Kellogg Foundation and WFCO Partnership 2008-2010 for Research on low-income Childcare Assistance.
The Women’s Foundation of Colorado was awarded $200,000 from the Kellogg Foundation for the “Colorado Childcare Solutions Initiative.”
The following are the activities performed under this grant:
The Women’s Philanthropy and Poverty Cluster through the Kellogg Foundation:
The Women’s Philanthropy and Poverty Cluster is a geographically diverse cross section of 12 women’s funds representing annual combined grantmaking of approximately $13 million. Kellogg’s goal for the Cluster is to build “the long-term economic security and well-being of low-income single women and their children by leveraging the assets, networks, and expertise of women’s foundations to address issues that perpetuate poverty.” The work of women’s funds to improve the lives of women, girls, and their families closely aligns with Kellogg’s newly defined mission and strategic framework.
Cliff Effect and The Colorado Childcare Assistance Program
For the past three years, the Foundation has been working with several nonprofit organizations to focus on “The Cliff Effect” research study, policy work that helps to mitigate the “cliff” and education campaigns to disseminate the knowledge of the “cliff effect”. Our partnership with Kellogg allowed the Foundation to update the Cliff Effect data sets and delve deeper into the CCCAP cliff.
Kellogg Funding was used for the “Colorado Childcare Solutions Initiative.”
The two-year, $200,000 grant was used for the following:
Research: Columbia University School of Public Health for a statistical analysis of the Cliff Effect for childcare. This is essentially a Phase 2 of the Cliff Effect Study which will delve deeper into just one of the biggest cliffs. Click here for the full 2009 Cliff Effect/CCCAP Report:
Research: Project Wise and Denver University executed a study that analyzes how families of various backgrounds cope with the childcare cliff around the State.
Click here for the Executive Study of this research: Click here for the full report:
Policy: Convening of childcare and low-income experts to work on any policy reform.
Girls Dropout Research
- The WFCO is compiles county-specific reports to complement the 12 years of research conducted. These reports focus on the economic, employment and education status of women and girls in each county throughout the state. In addition to Federal Census information, the WFCO utilizes IWPR reports as resource's.
For the 2007-2008 school year, in grades 7-12, over 7000 girls dropped out of school. The Women's Foundation of Colorado has funded two research reports that looks specifically at the dropout out problem for girls in Colorado.