In this, the first edition of the Media Digest on No Kidding!, you will find news stories from November, including news about the state budget, coverage of how Washington's rising hunger rate afffects kids, a hard-hitting report about Child Protective Services, and news on the early learning front.

Learning for Life: Children's Alliance helping parents advocate for early education | KING 5 TV | 11-17-2009

Early childhood education is important to many parents, but do you know how to communicate that to your local l

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The Washington State Budget & Policy Center has put together a slideshow about our economic problems and what they mean for the state budget. At 12 minutes, the slideshow is not for the faint-of-heart or short-of-attention-span. But if you really want to know why revenues are down by billions of dollars and all the core programs we'd have to eliminate if we used only cuts to get out of this mess, invest the time.

Half of US kids will be on food stamps during their childhood, according to a new report by Washington University in St. Louis. That’s half the kids on the school bus, half the kids at the park, half the kids out trick or treating last weekend. And in some communities that experience a higher burden of poverty, the numbers are far higher. 90% of African American kids will be on food stamps at some point during childhood.

"This is a real danger sign that we as a society need to do a lot more to protect children," states lead author of the study, Pr