Friday, June 23, 2006

This Week's News: 23 June, 2006

Education

Zobel Invited to D.C. Summit
The Shelbyville News, IN – June 17, 2006
Traditional molds of education must be broken in order to help students succeed, according to federal officials hosting a Department of Labor program on Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Shelbyville High School Principal Tom Zobel will travel to Department of Labor employment and training “listening session,” which will discuss alternative ways to approach education.

Drop-Out Rate — Value of Education Must be Prioritized
Bluefield Daily Telegraph, WV – June 20, 2006
School systems in West Virginia and Virginia must step up to the plate and increase emphasis on the value and importance of a high school diploma to students. More than a quarter of the Mountain State’s high school students do not graduate ...

Drop Outs May Have Hard Road Ahead
WALB-TV, GA - June 21, 2006
Not enough Georgia students are graduating from high school. That's the message of an Education Weekly report published this week. When students drop out of school, finding a good job becomes more difficult. Especially with the number of job-seekers on the rise.

Another Failing Grade for Detroit Schools
The Detroit News, MI - June 22, 2006
Detroit school officials are taking great offense at a new national report that pegs the 2003 high school graduation rate at just 21.7 percent. And that number, Detroit insists, is now much closer to 63 percent, when those who have abandoned the city schools for suburban, private and charter schools are counted. Even if Detroit's numbers are right, that's not really good news. The district is still losing a third of its students to drop-outs and roughly another third to alternative classroom settings.

High School Dropout Rate a Threat to State’s Future
Asheville Citizen-Times, NC – June 23, 2006
…But far too many of the students who started school with them don’t have much to celebrate in this season of mortar boards and tassels. Somewhere through the years, they fell by the wayside. They gave up on earning a diploma at the end of four years of high school and departed for — what? A job at a fast-food restaurant? Hanging out on the streets? Selling drugs?

Drop-In Bucks Grop-Out Trend
Press & Sun-Bulletin, NY – June 23, 2006
...What Sabo-Humphries did -- drop back into high school after dropping out -- is rare but not unheard of, said Mary Kay Karsko, a team leader for Broome-Tioga Board of Cooperative Educational Services' GED programs. Three of the 67 16- and 17-year-olds enrolled in a BOCES GED program this year planned to return to school.

Dropping the Dropout Rate: Freshmen-only schools working
Detroit Free Press, MI – June 18, 2006
Last week, 386 Detroit freshmen completed Southeastern High School’s Ninth Grade Success Academy, in a separate building on campus where ninth-graders have classes. Even if little more than half of the ninth-graders “graduated,” this is Southeastern’s biggest incoming 10th-grade class in recent years. While a 56 percent success rate might not seem much, last year only 41 percent here moved on to 10th grade. And only a handful of students were really considered dropouts this year, the rest failed classes officials hope will be made up later. Other districts around the state are eying that success, as well as the idea of all-freshmen schools.

Editorial Accurate Figures Essential to Fight Dropout Problem
San Antonio Express-News, TX – June 18, 2006
In the near future, Texas may finally produce state high school graduation and dropout statistics we can trust. Starting with the just-completed school year, the Texas Education Agency began computing dropout rates according to methods used by the National Center for Education Statistics, a research arm of the U.S. Department of Education.


Foster Care

Foster Care Youth Set on Their Own to Survive at 18 to Find Housing at New Tenderloin Community Center
San Francisco Sentinel, CA - June 22, 2006
Community leaders broke ground for a projected world class Tenderloin community center yesterday. Set to open in July, 2008, the center draws funding through a $53 million gift from the Joan B. Kroc estate, wife of the McDonald's fast food chain founder Ray Kroc.

Throwaway Kids
Pasadena Weekly, CA – June 22, 2006
…Like thousands of former Los Angeles County foster youth who have left state care homeless, penniless, ready-made targets for drug dealers and sexual predators, Chytka lives wild on the streets. Anonymous victims of broken homes and of tragic neglect as wards of our overtaxed and impersonal foster care bureaucracy, they have become LA’s throwaway kids.

The Vineyard: Creating a Constant Sense of Place for Former Foster Youth
EPA.net, CA – June 23, 2006
The Vineyard Emancipated Youth Housing is a collaborative project of EPACAN DO and Faith Missionary Baptist Church of East Palo Alto. The two came together to help former foster children achieve residential stability and a productive lifestyle. The Vineyard is committed to supporting young adults in their transition into adulthood through the provision of permanent housing and social services.

N.C. Taking Foster Kids’ Social Security Money
The Charlotte Observer, NC – June 16, 2006
Child welfare agencies in the Carolinas have joined others across the nation in diverting to themselves more than $100 million in Social Security money the federal government pays to foster children with deceased or disabled parents. The agencies say the money helps pay for care of the children, but some child advocates say the government is effectively making parentless children reimburse the cost of care that should be free to them.


Juvenile Justice

Juvenile Justice Conference at MAC
Park Hills Daily Journal, MO - Jun 18, 2006
“Putting the Pieces Together” is the subject of a workshop in juvenile justice to be available through the Telecommunications Conference Resource Center at Mineral Area College on June 28. The workshop will be televised from Central Methodist State University in Warrensburg from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. with a break for lunch. Nationally recognized experts will provide up-to-date and practical information. Participants will gain greater understanding of prevailing issues with the goal of improving service delivery and outcomes for Missouri's children, youth and families.

Suit Backs Juvenile Offenders' Rights
The Sacramento Bee, CA – June 22, 2006
State officials who run California's juvenile justice system are unconstitutionally denying prompt hearings and lawyers to youthful offenders arrested on alleged parole violations, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Sacramento federal court. The suit charges that juvenile parolees often do not learn why they were arrested until they have been in custody for weeks or even months.

For Students, Cost of Protest Can Be High
The Christian Science Monitor – June 19, 2006
Across the country, when masses of high school students walked out last March to demonstrate against harsh immigration legislation, educators punished protesters with detention, suspension and even canceled their extracurricular activities. But some school districts got the police involved.

Tribal Colleges Filling Growing Need
The Houston Chronicle, TX – June 20, 2006
... Tribal colleges - schools owned and run by Indian tribes that are often located on reservations - are growing, stemming in part from economic clout spurred in some cases by Indian gaming and a desire by tribes to validate their sovereign status.

U.S. High School Dropout Rate: High, but how high?
The Christian Science Monitor – June 21, 2006
The national dropout rate is notoriously hard to pin down, and the latest effort to do so - showing alarmingly low graduation rates in some parts of America - is likely to intensify the statistics wars. Nearly 1 in 3 high school students in the Class of 2006 will not graduate this year, the Editorial Projects in Education (EDE) Research Center reported Tuesday.

After Court Ruling, Where Will Troubled Kids Go Now?
The Seattle Times, WA – June 21, 2006
After years of seeking treatment for her increasingly aggressive mentally ill son, Karla Nelson went before a juvenile-court judge who thought she knew how to get the family help. In February, Judge Patricia Clark followed an established court practice and ordered state child-welfare authorities to take the 13-year-old boy into their care, in the hope that he would get psychiatric treatment. But a Court of Appeals decision Monday put a stop to the move, ruling that the normal steps to put a child in foster care hadn’t been followed.

Access to Textbooks, Pencils Restricted in Detention Centers
Belleville News Democrat, IL – June 17, 2006
When the hundreds of minors locked up in Cook County's temporary juvenile detention center end their school days, there's one bit of contraband they must leave behind in the classroom: their textbooks. Policies prohibiting the unsupervised use of hardcover books and other basic school supplies like pencils are common at U.S. juvenile detention centers, where security concerns must be balanced with the children's need for access to educational materials.

Juvenile Crime: Robbery Trend Causes Alarm
The Washington Post, DC – June 22, 2006
The percentage of robberies by juveniles in the District has jumped significantly in the past two years, and city officials are looking for solutions. About 42 percent of the people arrested and charged with robbery in the District this year have been 17 years old and younger, D.C. police said yesterday.

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