The encouraging details are here.
I was, in addition, struck by these passages:
What by all accounts had been a dysfunctional system in Alabama, scarring too many children by sending them to foster-care oblivion while ignoring others in danger, has over the last 14 years become a widely studied model. But it has not been cheap, and in some ways Alabama has had to be dragged onto its pedestal because of political and philosophical resistance to the reforms and in spite of the state's endemic poverty. (Emphasis added.)
Child-welfare spending that totaled $71 million in 1990, including $47 million in federal money, rose to $285 million in 2004, $179 million of it from the federal government. Some of that came from Medicaid money the state had not previously tapped.
The state hired hundreds of new social workers and thinned caseloads. Workers could now spend more than 10 hours a week in some homes.
When "philosophical resistance" (i.e., traditional conservatism) is overcome and the resources are found, good things can happen. There's a lesson for the whole country here.
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