Illinois school test scores: Income-based gap proves hard to close, By Tara Malone and Darnell Little, October 30, 2009, Chicago Tribune: “Surrounded by sports fields and suburban lawns, Hadley Junior High School could be the envy of the state. Nine of every 10 students at the Glen Ellyn school passed state exams in reading and math, according to the 2009 Illinois School Report Card made public Friday. But average scores belie a widespread problem the federal government has spent billions trying to fix nationwide: While at least 95 percent of Hadley’s well-off students passed the eighth-grade reading and math tests, about half of their low-income classmates met the same goals, revealing an achievement gap that is as persistent as it is pernicious. Seven years after the federal No Child Left Behind Law ambitiously pledged to eliminate such disparities and invested nearly $6.2 billion in Illinois schools alone, the progress has been modest and isolated. While the performance gap between advantaged and disadvantaged grade school children narrowed in Illinois since 2002 — in math, the margin shrunk by at least 13 percentage points in third, fifth and eighth grades — the divide among high school juniors actually widened slightly in math and reading…”
Monthly Archives: October 2009
Report: State Academic Standards and Proficiency Measures
- Student ‘proficiency’: What is your state’s definition?, By Amanda Paulson, October 29, 2009, Christian Science Monitor: “How advanced a student is may have more to do with where he lives than how much he knows. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, states are under pressure to bring more students up to ‘proficiency’ every year. But each state can define what proficiency means differently. A new report shows just how widely these definitions vary. ‘A proficient reader in State A may be very different from a proficient reader in State B – even though those students may have the same academic skill,’ says Peggy Carr, associate commissioner for assessment at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which released the study Thursday…”
- Federal researchers find lower standards in schools, By Sam Dillon, October 29, 2009, New York Times: “A new federal study shows that nearly a third of the states lowered their academic proficiency standards in recent years, a step that helps schools stay ahead of sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law. But lowering standards also confuses parents about how children’s achievement compares with those in other states and countries. The study, released Thursday, was the first by the federal Department of Education’s research arm to use a statistical comparison between federal and state tests to analyze whether states had changed their testing standards. It found that 15 states lowered their proficiency standards in fourth- or eighth-grade reading or math from 2005 to 2007. Three states, Maine, Oklahoma and Wyoming, lowered standards in both subjects at both grade levels, the study said…”
- Report: States set low bar for student achievement, By Libby Quaid (AP), October 29, 2009, Idaho Statesman: “Many states declare students to have grade-level mastery of reading and math when they do not, the Education Department reported Thursday. The agency compared state achievement standards to the more challenging standards behind the federally funded National Assessment of Educational Progress. State standards were lower, and there were big differences in where each state set the bar…”
States and Unemployment Benefits
- Adjusted state unemployment rate hits 17.2%, By Howard Fischer, October 27, 2009, East Valley Tribune: “Arizonans have been told for months now that the state jobless rate is hovering in the low 9 percent range. But it turns out that’s pretty much only half the story – literally. New federal figures show Arizona’s real unemployment situation is already in double digits – 17.2 percent – when also accounting for people who are “underemployed” because they can’t find full-time work and discouraged Arizonans who have given up their job search…”
- State snafu stiffs unemployed, By Edward Mason, October 30, 2009, Boston Herald: “Thousands of desperate jobless Bay Staters – at the end of their ropes and unemployment benefits – thought the state had tossed them a lifeline when new checks arrived in the mail, only to learn it was all a big mistake and now they have to give the money back. The state Division of Unemployment Assistance mistakenly sent checks totaling $3.4 million to 4,159 out-of-work residents who’d exhausted their benefits, thanks to a glitch in the office’s archaic computer system, the Herald has learned…”
- Poor Unemployment Insurance planning adds extra burden to Conn., South Dakota employers, By Olga Pierce, October 26, 2009, ProPublica: “Employers in Connecticut and South Dakota face hefty tax increases in the midst of a recession because their states’ unemployment insurance trust funds ran dry last week. The two states, like many others, have solvency taxes — a special tax increase that kicks in when their trust fund balance goes below a set amount…”
- Benefit checks are on the way, By Yvonne Wenger, October 29, 2009, Charleston Post and Courier: “It’s official: the state Legislature fixed an oversight Wednesday that will send tens of millions of dollars to unemployed workers. Gov. Mark Sanford will sign the bill today and residents could receive a check within a week. The Legislature returned in special session this week to change wording in a law that will allow federal stimulus funds to provide an additional five months of unemployment benefits to out-of-work residents…”
Drought and Food Aid – Ethiopia
- Ethiopia appeals for international aid 25 years on, By Tom Pettifor, October 23, 2009, The Mirror: “It’s been a quarter of a century since the Ethiopian famine which shocked the world – and history could be about to repeat itself. The government of Ethiopia, a country in the grip of a five-year drought, yesterday asked the international community for emergency aid to feed 6.2 million. The request came at a meeting of donors to discuss the impact of the drought, affecting parts of East Africa. The UN’s World Food Programme said £173million will be needed in the next six months and some aid officials say the numbers of hungry could rise. But an Oxfam report to mark the 25th anniversary of the 1984 famine – Band Aids and Beyond – warns that drought will be the norm there for the next 25 years. And it called for a new approach to tackling the risk of disaster in the country…”
- Is U.S. food aid contributing to Africa’s hunger?, By Dana Hughes, October 29, 2009, ABC News: “Drought-stricken Ethiopia is pleading for food aid again to stave off starvation, but some critics are complaining that the policies of the country’s most generous donor, the United States, is exacerbating the cycle of starvation. A hungry Ethiopia gets 70 percent of its aid from the U.S., but according to a new report by the aid organization Oxfam International, that help comes at a cost. U.S. law requires that food aid money be spent on food grown in the U.S., at least half of it must be packed in the U.S. and most of it must be transported in U.S. ships. The Oxfam report, ‘Band Aids and Beyond,’ claims that is far more expensive and time consuming than buying food in the region…”
- Oxfam says Band-Aids insufficient, By Peter Goodspeed, October 23, 2009, National Post: “Twenty-five years after Ethiopia suffered a staggering famine that killed more than one million people, the world has done little to prevent a recurrence of the tragedy. A new report by the international aid group Oxfam claims ‘the humanitarian response to drought and other disasters is still dominated by ‘Band-Aids,’ ‘ instead of finding ways to reduce the risks of recurring crisis…”
Food Stamp Program and Large Retailers
More and more warehouse clubs accept food stamps, By Sarah Skidmore and Dan Sewell (AP), October 28, 2009, Idado Statesman: “With many families suddenly struggling to feed themselves, the big warehouse clubs known for king-size packages of steak and jumbo boxes of Cheerios are increasingly competing with grocery stores for the 36 million Americans now on food stamps. Costco Wholesale Corp. said Wednesday that it would start accepting food stamps at its warehouse clubs nationwide after testing them at stores in New York. That is a big about-face for a chain that has catered to the bargain-hunting affluent with its gourmet foods, and a reflection of the fact food-stamp use has hit new highs. Costco joins warehouse-club competitor BJ’s Wholesale Corp., which started taking food stamps last April, and Sam’s Club, which began accepting them in the fall of 2008. Up until recently, some wholesale clubs were skeptical poor people would be willing to pay the $50-a-year membership fee or would be interested in buying food in the bulk quantities for which the stores are famous…”
State Medicaid Programs – Louisiana, Missouri
- Medicaid plan draws fire, By Marsha Shuler, Baton Rouge Advocate: “A state health agency proposal to scale back rates paid to Medicaid providers drew opposition Monday from nursing home and hospital interests. State Department of Health and Hospitals Undersecretary Charles Castille said reducing the rates to the levels they were three years ago would lower spending by $232 million. The program grew $1 billion in one year and now costs more than $6 billion. State Treasurer John Kennedy, the chairman of a Commission on Streamlining Government advisory group, said cutting the budget across the board, such as this one, is not the way to go. Kennedy asked DHH officials to instead consider prioritizing spending for Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor…”
- Analysis: Missouri finally produces Medicaid report, By David A. Lieb (AP), St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “After claiming for more than a year that it could not do so, the Missouri Department of Social Services finally has obeyed a state law and published a list of employers whose workers get government-funded Medicaid health care coverage. Yet compliance with the Medicaid reporting law may be only an experiment. Although the list is supposed to be published quarterly, the department says there’s no telling when it will produce the report again. As lawmakers in Washington, D.C., debate a national health-care overhaul, Missouri’s experience shows how slow and difficult it can be for bureaucracies to implement even incremental changes in the health care system. Missouri was one of several states to mandate employer-Medicaid reports in recent years as a way to gauge the extent to which government was picking up the slack for businesses that either didn’t offer their employees affordable health insurance or paid them so little that they qualified for Medicaid…”
Unemployment and Child Support Payments – Rhode Island
R.I.’s hard times hit child support, By W. Zachary Malinowski, October 26, 2009, Providence Journal: “One-by-one, day-after-day, the men sheepishly walk to the lectern in Family Court and answer questions about why they can’t possibly make their child-support payments. On a recent morning, Kervin Candelier fumbled through his pants pockets and pulled out a wrinkled receipt from Western Union that suggested he had paid $1,000 in June. Candelier owed $6,900 in child support payments, and his former girlfriend, the mother of their two children, claimed that he only gave her $500 to pay for school clothes and supplies. He said that he’s doing his best, but he’s a barber and only makes about $230 a week. ‘Every business is slow right now because of the economy,’ he said. Magistrate George N. DiMuro, acting on a recommendation from the state Office of Child Support Services, ordered the father to immediately pay a lump sum of $300 and begin paying her $70 a week through the court system. DiMuro tells him to make sure the payments are made through the court, so it’s recorded – not directly to the mother. ‘Otherwise, you’re going to get yourself in a world of trouble here,’ DiMuro warned. There’s no better place to get an understanding of the state’s poor economy than Family Court – the place where divorce, custody, child support and other domestic crises are settled. According to the latest national economic data, Rhode Island’s unemployment rate of 13 percent is the third highest in the nation, trailing only Michigan and Nevada…”
TANF and Immigrants – Nevada
More welfare going to parents here illegally, By Timothy Pratt, October 27, 2009, Las Vegas Sun: “Jose Silva had just obtained an appointment in three weeks to see whether his family would be eligible for monthly welfare benefits. ‘Now I just have to not eat until then,’ he joked, standing with his wife on the sidewalk outside the state office on Flamingo Road. Silva has been without a steady job for a year, one of tens of thousands of workers still reeling from the bottom dropping out of the Las Vegas Valley’s construction industry, the region’s second-largest employer after tourism. If approved for assistance, the Silvas will belong to the fastest-growing category of families in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Bearing the confusing government label of ‘non-qualified non-citizens,’ this category refers to families with parents who are not U.S. citizens and children who are. Since the recession began in late 2007, the average monthly caseload of these families has grown 96 percent, according to state records. About 4,250 of these families of mixed immigration status were on the program’s rolls in September, making it the second-largest category in TANF, after single-parent households…”
Emergency Housing Aid Programs – Minnesota
Housing aid: End of a lifeline, By Kevin Duchschere, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “With two emergency housing aid programs slated to end this week, officials are worried that homelessness figures, especially among single adults, will rise. By his own count, Victor Gomez has lived in 28 states since leaving his native Indiana. He’s been homeless for the better part of 20 years. He worked odd jobs in construction before damaging his wrist in a drunken leap off a bridge in downtown Minneapolis four years ago. ‘I don’t know what got into me,’ he says about the jump, although he knows why he used to drink so much: ‘I didn’t feel no cold.’ For the past three months Gomez, 44, and his wife, Linda, have shared a two-bedroom apartment in south Minneapolis. St. Stephen’s Human Services found the place for them, and Minnesota’s Emergency General Assistance (EGA) program got them in the door — it provided the funding for Hennepin County to cover the Gomezes’ $939 damage deposit…”
Public Defender System – Missouri
- Missouri public defender system faces ‘caseload crisis,’ study says, By Mark Morris, October 25, 3009, Kansas City Star: “Missouri’s public defender system is facing ‘an overwhelming caseload crisis’ that has pushed the state’s criminal justice system ‘to the brink of collapse,’ a new study reports. The study, released Friday, underscores a similar 2005 report and notes that little has improved. The public defender system represents poor defendants charged with more than 80 percent of the felonies filed in Missouri. Offices throughout the state regularly report that their lawyers are working well above 100 percent of their recommended maximum workloads. Earlier this year, Laura Denvir Stith, then chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court, warned legislators that the state’s courts could be forced to release ‘vast numbers’ of inmates from jail because their public defenders could not get them to trial quick enough. She also warned that the state was vulnerable to lawsuits challenging the adequacy of its public defender system…”
- Missouri Supreme Court must stanch public defender meltdown, Editorial, October 27, 2009, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “A new study of Missouri’s public defender system – which provides lawyers for indigent defendants in criminal cases – says the system’s lawyers are so underpaid, overworked and badly supervised that they’re like the pilots of the commuter plane that crashed into a Buffalo, N.Y., suburb in February. As a result, says the Spangenberg Group, a judicial consulting firm, and George Mason University’s Center for Justice, Law and Society, Missouri’s criminal justice system ‘is heading for disaster, one which is both predictable and preventable.’ Missouri’s public defender system ‘stands at the bottom of its sister states in terms of resources,’ the report concludes, and ‘has reached a point where what it provides is often nothing more than the illusion of a lawyer.’ None of this is news, at least not to anyone familiar with the state’s criminal justice system. The Missouri Bar commissioned a similar study four years ago, and it reached similar conclusions…”
Payments to Foster Parents – Oregon
State gives most foster parents a raise; but some see cuts, By Michelle Cole, October 26, 2009, The Oregonian: “Most Oregon foster parents are getting a big raise from the state, part of a compensation overhaul that officials hope will encourage more adults to become foster parents. But the change hasn’t been good for everybody. Some foster parents who care for some of the sickest children are facing deep cuts and are threatening to quit. Nobody was more thrilled than Jeany Stangl when the state raised the basic amount it reimburses foster parents. On Sept. 1, the rate for caring for a child age younger than 5 went up to $639 a month — a $240 increase…”
Youth Runaways and Homelessness
- Recession drives surge in youth runaways, By Ian Urbina, October 25, 2009, New York Times: “Dressed in soaked green pajamas, Betty Snyder, 14, huddled under a cold drizzle at the city park as several older boys decided what to do with her. Betty said she had run away from home a week earlier after a violent argument with her mother. Shivering and sullen-faced, she vowed that she was not going to sleep by herself again behind the hedges downtown, where older homeless men and methamphetamine addicts might find her. The boys were also runaways. But unlike them, Betty said, she had been reported missing to the police. That meant that if the boys let her stay overnight in their hidden tent encampment by the freeway, they risked being arrested for harboring a fugitive…”
- For runaways, sex buys survival, By Ian Urbina, October 26, 2009, New York Times: “She ran away from her group home in Medford, Ore., and spent weeks sleeping in parks and under bridges. Finally, Nicole Clark, 14 years old, grew so desperate that she accepted a young man’s offer of a place to stay. The price would come later. They had sex, and he soon became her boyfriend. Then one day he threatened to kick her out if she did not have sex with several of his friends in exchange for money. She agreed, fearing she had no choice. ‘Where was I going to go?’ said Nicole, now 17 and living here, just down the Interstate from Medford. That first exchange of money for sex led to a downward spiral of prostitution that lasted for 14 months, until she escaped last year from a pimp who she said often locked her in his garage apartment for months. ‘I didn’t know the town, and the police would just send me back to the group home,’ Nicole said, explaining why she did not cut off the relationship once her first boyfriend became a pimp and why she did not flee prostitution when she had the chance. ‘I’d also fallen for the guy. I felt trapped in a way I can’t really explain.’ Most of the estimated 1.6 million children who run away each year return home within a week. But for those who do not, the desperate struggle to survive often means selling their bodies…”
Extreme Recruitment Foster Care Program
The foster child thought she had nobody left to love her. She was wrong., By Nancy Cambria, October 25, 2009, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “The search begins inside a sparse office in a corner of the St. Louis family court. Carlos Lopez, a 6-foot private investigator with a disarming smile, and his partner Sheila Suderwalla sit at a computer side by side, scouring court records, police files, motor vehicle records, occupancy permits and mug shots – any clue that would lead them to a woman named Karen. Karen is not a wanted criminal. And the partners are not looking to solve a crime. Suderwalla, a petite social worker with a driven passion for the underdog, and Lopez are on the trail of something far more elusive: a lost relative with a heart big enough and bloodlines strong enough to change the life of a 15-year-old foster child. Her name is Lisa, and she feels as if she has nobody. Lisa doesn’t know it yet, but she is at the center of a groundbreaking $2 million federally funded St. Louis program called Extreme Recruitment, one of the first programs in the nation that partners social workers with private investigators in a gumshoe effort to reunite foster children with long-lost family members…”
Unemployment and Underemployment – California
Underemployed compound state’s jobless troubles, By Tom Abate, October 26, 2009, San Francisco Chronicle: “San Francisco resident Elena Duran represents an unfortunate job trend that isn’t reflected in the unemployment rate. For years, Duran has been a full-time server at a downtown hotel. But the recession has cut so deeply into business that her hours were cut to half time in July. ‘It’s better than a layoff, but it still requires a lot of sacrifices,’ said Duran, who, along with her working husband, supports three sons. Because she works, Duran doesn’t count in California’s 12.2 percent unemployment rate. But her situation is captured by a broader measure, the underemployment rate, which, in addition to the jobless, includes people who could get only part-time work as well as those who want jobs but were too discouraged to look…”
Report: Child Poverty – South Dakota
Needs grow for children amid creeping poverty, By Josh Verges, October 25, 2009, Sioux Falls Argus Leader: “Wendy Klinsing used to volunteer serving food to the needy. But with her husband’s bartending income slashed by a poor economy, she now holds down expenses by eating a weekly meal at The Banquet. ‘We might start going twice a week for Christmas,’ Klinsing said Thursday as her 6-year-old daughter complained about the lasagna. ‘They don’t know about the economy. They still want presents.’ Child poverty indicators in Sioux Falls are at historic highs. And while state government faces a serious budget squeeze, some advocates are hopeful the recession will bring heightened awareness to the plight of the poor – and with it changes in policy to help more struggling families. After years of slow growth, the percentage of public elementary schoolchildren signed up for free and reduced-price lunches hit 41.5 at the end of May, a 2.9-point increase from the previous year. Meanwhile, the local waiting list for Head Start, the federally funded preschool program for children in poverty, reached a record 301 in a September count. School officials say there are 330 more students on the list who are considered below the self-sufficiency marker of 200 percent of the federal poverty line…”
Alternative Measures of Poverty in the US
- Poverty study receives praise, By Amanda McElfresh, October 26, 2009, Daily Advertiser: “Local researchers who study poverty and its effects across the state say they are encouraged by the U.S. Census Bureau’s decision to release revised estimates of how many Americans are living in poverty. The new formula, developed in part by the National Academy of Science, shows that about 47.4 million Americans lived in poverty last year, about seven million more than originally estimated. In addition, almost 18 percent of children lived in poverty, a slight decrease from the number found using the traditional formula…”
- 3.6M older Americans living in poverty, By Saul Friedman, October 23, 2009, Newsday: ” We cannot take much comfort in the latest census figures on poverty among older Americans. It is true that the 2008 poverty rate, 9.7 percent among people 65 and older, was unchanged from 2007. But that 9.7 percent, according to the census tables, represents about 3.6 million people who are living on $10,326 a year, or $14,051 for a couple. That probably means Social Security is their only income; indeed, for half the population over 65, Social Security is the primary source of income. Yet, those figures don’t take into full account of the effects of the prolonged and deepening recession on older people…”
- U.S. needs better way measure poverty, By Terry Haven, October 23, 2009, Salt Lake Tribune: “On Oct. 19, the Census Bureau released alternate poverty rates based on recommendations from a National Academy of Sciences panel on measuring poverty. No state data were given in the report, but new figures show a national poverty rate of 15.8 percent rather than the 13.2 percent poverty rate released just weeks ago using the traditional formula. The poverty rate for the Western Region rose from 13.5 percent to 19 percent. There is increasing agreement among policymakers and advocates that the current federal poverty measure is broken and outdated. The advent of these poverty figures is a good time to reflect on the inadequacies of our poverty measure and the crucial need to update this outdated statistic…”
Welfare-to-Work Program and Work Requirements – North Carolina
Aid program will demand more, By Lynn Bonner, October 23, 2009, News and Observer: “The state’s 15-year-old welfare program, Work First, will begin living up to its name this year by requiring adult recipients to work, go to school, or job hunt before they get their monthly benefits checks. A handful of counties already have a “pay after performance” rule. The state Department of Health and Human Services made the pay rule a statewide policy this month, though it sent out payments as usual a few weeks ago to give the 8,900 households that have to live by the new policy a month to adapt to the change. Adults in this group have agreements with their counties that say they will work, look for work or attend classes for a set amount of time each month. In the past, recipients got their money whether or not they stuck to the plan. In November, payments won’t be automatic anymore, and social workers will expect recipients to show that they’ve complied, or have a good reason for not following through, before they get their money. The state made the change because it falls short of federal goals for getting welfare recipients working or on a steady path toward getting jobs…”
Pre-Kindergarten and Low-income Students
Research shows value of preschool for poor, By Joe Smydo, October 23, 2009, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “Research released yesterday should end the debate over whether pre-kindergarten classes help level the playing field for the state’s most vulnerable children, researchers and study sponsors said. The three-year study of 10,000 children showed the state’s Pre-K Counts program helped the students improve math, literacy and social skills; helped put them on track for kindergarten; and reduced their need for special-education services…”
Report: Child Abuse and Neglect in the US
- Congress pressed to act to curb child-abuse deaths, By David Crary (AP), October 21, 2009, Washington Post: “Armed with grim statistics, experts and activists are mobilizing this week to demand expanded federal efforts – including more money and tougher oversight – to reverse a recent rise in the number of children dying from abuse and neglect. Child-welfare advocates gathering for a rally and conference in Washington say America should be embarrassed to have a child-abuse death rate far higher than other wealthy democracies. They cite the latest federal figures showing that an estimated 1,760 U.S. children died from abuse and neglect in 2007 – up 35 percent from 2001…”
- Abuse report: 10,440 children died 2001-07, By Wendy Koch, October 20, 2009, USA Today: “More than 10,000 children died from abuse or neglect in the United States from 2001 through 2007, a report released today says. The U.S. death rate is more than double the rate in France, Canada, Japan, Germany, Great Britain and Italy, countries that have less teen pregnancy, violent crime and poverty, according to the report by the Every Child Matters Education Fund, a non-partisan advocacy group…”
- R.I. spends most in U.S. on child-abuse prevention, By Karen Lee Ziner, October 21, 2009, Providence Journal: ” According to a new report that shows a sharp rise in child-abuse and neglect deaths between 2001 and 2007, Rhode Island spends more per capita – $181 – than any other state on child-welfare services aimed at preventing such deaths. South Carolina spends the least: $15 per capita. The report released Wednesday by the nonprofit Every Child Matters Education Fund, cites Rhode Island as one of only two states that reported no child-abuse deaths in 2007. Within the six-year time frame, Rhode Island reported 15 child-abuse deaths…”
2009 Commitment to Development Index
- Sweden does most to help world’s poor: study, By David Landes, October 22, 2009, The Local: “Sweden has the best foreign aid policies among the world’s wealthy countries, according to a new ranking. Sweden edged out Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway to claim the top spot in the 2009 Commitment to Development Index (CDI), an annual ranking compiled by the Center for Global Development (CGD), a Washington, DC-based think tank…”
- Ireland ranked sixth in helping poor countries, By Kitty Holland, October 23, 2009, Irish Times: “Ireland has been ranked sixth out of 22 rich countries for its record on helping poor and developing countries by a Washington-based think-tank. The Irish State was, however, criticised by the Centre for Global Development (CGD) for the barriers it puts up to trade in agricultural products from poor countries and its record on investment in technological creation…”
- Canada 11th of 22 in battling poverty, By Olivia Ward, October 23, 2009, Toronto Star: “When it comes to battling world poverty, some of the wealthiest countries, including Canada, are punching below their weight, says a new report from an international think-tank. In the Commitment to Development Index released this week by the Center for Global Development, Canada rates 11th of the 22 richest countries. But the Washington-based organization found that ‘among the G7 countries – those that matter most by dint of their economic power – only Canada squeezes into the top half.’ The index is an important reality check, the group says, because it tallies a wide range of policies that affect the daily lives of poor people in developing countries, going beyond handouts of money or goods…”