I went to a state-wide meeting in Annapolis earlier this week to hear what’s happening with the Clinton campaign, and picked up a few position papers regarding Hillary’s record. They’re more detailed than the information up on her website. It’s a lot of work, but I’m going to try to re-type everything so you can get an idea as to just how hard Hillary’s been working on our behalf over the last 35 years. We talk about her vast experience as a public servant, and I think these position papers will give you an idea as to just how MUCH experience this lady has.
Governor O’Malley was introduced by a wonderful woman named Leecia Eve – who’s worked with Hillary for years and is coordinating the efforts in Maryland. To illustrate Hillary’s experience, she told about a debate briefing book that details Hillary’s accomplishments – that book is 312 pages (double-sided, single-spaced in 10 point font!) long! She also told us that Hillary was ranked as one of the most prolific freshman Senators ever – recognition of the amount of work she’s done to get good legislation on the books.
So make the jump with me for a look at Hillary’s record as a champion for our children…
A CHAMPION FOR CHILDREN
Being a parent is the toughest job there is, and Hillary has been a fierce advocate of parents and children for over 35 years. From her first job out of law school at the Children’s Defense Fund, to her time as First Lady of Arkansas and then the United States, to her service in the Senate, helping children has been at the center of Hillary’s public life. As president, she will continue her lifelong work to create a world where every child is cherished, loved, and able to fulfill his or her potential.
Hillary’s Record
Senator Clinton has spent much of her career advocating for children, especially those who are disadvantaged.
Promoting High Quality Early Childhood Education and Parent Support
As First Lady of Arkansas, Hillary helped bring the HIPPY program (Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters) to Arkansas. This program provides new parents with support and guidance in caring for their children.
As First Lady, she helped create Early Head Start, a national program that provides comprehensive services to impoverished young children and their families; dramatically expanded access to Head Start; and doubled our federal investment in child care.
Also as First Lady, Hillary hosted the first White House conference on early childhood brain development, which highlighted groundbreaking research about the profound impact the early years have on children’s development.
In the Senate, Hillary championed the Education Begins at Home Act to provide resources for programs that support new parents. One such program is the Nurse Home Visiting program, which has been shown to dramatically reduce child abuse and neglect while increasing the number of parents who are employed.
Hillary also fought for the Family and Medical Leave Act to enable new parents to take time off without losing their jobs. Nearly 50 million Americans have benefited from the law. In the Senate, she has supported legislation to make paid leave available and to expand FMLA to cover more workers.
Advocating for At-Risk Children
As a young lawyer, Hillary represented children in foster care. She also worked at Yale Child Study Center, advising doctors as they ascertained whether a child’s injuries were the result of abuse, and if so, whether the child should be put into the child welfare system.
In Arkansas, she co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, a not for profit, non-partisan, child advocacy organization.
As First Lady, Hillary successfully advocated for an overhaul of our federal children welfare system – the Adoption and Safe Families Act. The legislation streamlined the system, enabling children to reunite with their families or be adopted more quickly. The legislation also created strong incentives for adoption. As a result, adoptions out of foster care more than doubled in the five years after the bill was enacted. She also championed the Chafee Independent Living program to assist young people who age out of foster care. These young people are among the most vulnerable in our society – they are much more likely to drop out of high school, become teen parents, and to rely on public assistance than others.
As Senator, Hillary co-sponsored a reauthorization of the Adoption Incentives program, which provided additional incentives to adopt older children and those with special needs. She also wrote legislation to enable foster children to keep their medical and school records electronically – an important issue for children who move frequently – and to create avenues for children who age out of foster care to participate in AmeriCorps programs. Hillary has also hired several children who aged out of foster care as interns in her office.
Hillary also introduced legislation to provide meaningful support to households where grandparents and other relatives are raising children (“kinship care” families).
Fighting for Children with Special Needs
Early in her career, Hillary spearheaded a project for the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) in New Bedford, MA to reconcile the discrepancies between the number of school-aged children and school enrollment figures. She found that children with special need – those with physical disabilities like blindness and those in wheelchairs – were being denied schooling. She submitted the results of the survey to Congress and two years later, at the urging of the CDF, Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, which mandated that all children with physical, emotional and learning disabilities be educated in the public school system.
As Senator, Hillary helped improve the education of children with special needs buy working to reauthorize the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA). She championed provisions to provide targeted help for children with behavioral and emotional disorders, to increase the pool of special education teachers, and to provide those teachers with additional professional development opportunites.
Hillary has consistently called for full funding of IDEA. In 2005, she offered an amendment to increase funding by $4 billion.
Protecting Children Against Harmful Media Content
As First Lady, Hillary hosted the Children’s Television Summit, which brought together key representatives from the entertainment industry to develop a strategy that would give parents more control in limiting the violent and sexual images to which their children were exposed. As a result, the Clinton Administration worked with Congress to require the VChip be installed in every television set 13 inches or larger; establishing a content-based rating system for all shows; and mandating that television stations show at least three hours of education and informational broadcasting per week.
In the Senate, Hillary wrote legislation to evaluate the impact of electronic media on children’s cognitive, social and physical development and to limit the sales of violent video games to underage children.
Improving Education
Since the mid-80s, Hillary has fought to raise educational standards and expand the pool of outstanding teachers in Arkansas, New York and across the country. She chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee, which put standards in place for all Arkansas students.
As First Lady, she worked to increase funding for afterschool programs from $1 million to close to $1 billion; to provide vital funding for school construction and renovation; and to continue to raise education standards.
Since 2002, she has spoken out about the need to reform No Child Left Behind. The bill hasn’t been funded properly, administered correctly, or implemented appropriately. Hillary has been a vocal champion of reforming the law to make it work better for children.
Also, as Senator,Hillary created the Transition to Teaching Program, which has provided more than $200 million to help recruit, train, and support outstanding teachers. She also created the School Leadership Program to support school districts as they provide additional training and support to school principals.
One note here from the mother of a special needs child…
My son was born with a condition that has yet to be identified. At just 2 months of age our pediatrician referred us to a former colleague of hers at the Genetics Clinic at NIH for evaluation. My son had low muscle tone and other features that led us to believe there might be something going on. She was right. We’re ruled out all kinds of syndromes since then and he’ll soon be starting his third year of special ed preschool. With a little more help, he may well catch up to his peers by the time he starts Kindergarten or first grade.
There was a time when children like my sweet boy would have been written off – he never would have gotten an education or any sort of help. But thanks to Hillary’s work in the mid-70s in getting the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, and her continued support for the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, he’s been able to attend the Infants & Toddlers, and later the PEP program in our county.
If anyone from Hillary’s campaign ever sees this, I hope you’ll thank Hillary for her hard work on behalf of the thousands (if not millions) of families like ours. Thanks to her, our children will grow up with the opportunity to live a full and productive life surrounded by people who love them – instead of being shut up in some state-sponsored institution.
Hillary – you have my deepest gratitude. I was an active supporter before but after reading this position paper, I’m even more committed to getting you elected as our next president!
THANK YOU!
By the way…
I forgot to mention that we’ve started a new group on the campaign’s web-site called “BLOGGERS FOR HILLARY”. Register with the campaign and sign in – and then go to the group at THIS LINK.
Join the group and help spread the word!
Cross-posted at DailyKos & MyDD
