For the first time in a long time, state lawmakers will be in Springfield Oct. 20 and could address changes to a child care subsidy which has made many of its participants ineligible.

The Child Care Assistance Program, or C-CAP, has gotten a lot of attention at the Capitol this year, because of a seemingly endless parade of rallies and hearings intended to let Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration know what the effects are of the cuts.

They say it’s ironic that a program designed to help lower-income parents get schooling and/or work to lift them out of poverty would end for those very people, thus pushing them farther into poverty.

The House and Senate are back in session today.
In other state news, the idea of incarceration is not only to punish someone and remove him or her from society for a while, but also to rehabilitate that person. Getting a GED can be part of that, and technology developed at Western Illinois University is part of a “distance learning” curriculum.

Not only is the Center for the Application of Information Technologies at WIU running i-Pathways in state prisons, but it’s expanded the offering to the McDonough County Jail.

Chamberlain says the pass rate on the GED is 88 percent among Illinois prison inmates; 60 percent nationally.