Sunday, June 29, 2008

This Week's News: Youth in Transition

Education

Report: Racial gap narrows, but what did No Child law do?
USA Today – June 29, 2008
Math and reading test scores are up in most states since the No Child Left Behind law took effect in 2002, but it’s impossible to know how much credit the law deserves, a new report says. In an exhaustive study released Tuesday, the Center on Education Policy also concluded that the historically wide achievement gap between black and white children has generally narrowed in many states – exactly what NCLB supporters said they wanted to achieve when President Bush signed the law. But the law’s contributions are hard to measure because a number of states already were taking steps to boost reading math, the study’s authors say. And because every public school falls under the law, there is no group of students to use for comparison, they said. What the law clearly has done – the change some identify as its most notable benefit – is give researchers and parents the data to track student progress. By requiring testing in math and reading every year from third eighth grade and once in high school, the law provides a wealth of information about a school’s performance over time, broken down by such factors as race, income and disability.

Alternative schools gain popularity
StatesmanJournal.com – June 29, 2008
The Salem-Keizer School District is offering more alternative high school programs than ever this year, and one reason is to give students more options to find the right fit. With a build-it-and-they-will-come mentality, enrollment in alternative programs grew by nearly one-third last year after they were restructured and more were added. The district restructured its offerings from one degree-earning high school into two: Roberts and Early College high schools. New and expanded programs, combined with district staff dedicated to re-enrolling drop-outs, helped enrollment at alternative programs grow by 30 percent in a year, school officials say. Nearly 100 more students completed their high school degree through the two schools this year, administrator Dave Cook said. About 250 high school degrees were granted so far this year, compared to 160 degrees in 2006-07. Figures do not include GED completion, students who took alternative classes but graduated with their traditional high school class, or those that will finish in summer school this year.

Report: Class of ’08 dropouts lose state $11B over lifetime
Daily Chronicle – June 28, 2008
If every Illinois student who entered high school in 2004 had earned a diploma this yea, the state’s economy could have benefited from an additional $11 billion in the long run. That money would have come in the form of wager, taxes and productivity during these students’ lifetimes, according to a study released this money by the Alliance For Excellent Education, an organization that advocates for at-risk middle and high school students by promoting education funding and reform to ensure graduation. About 1.2 million students in the U.S. dropped out of the Class of 2008, states the study. The average annual income of a high school dropout in 2005 was about $10,000 less than a high school graduate’s according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The more students that graduate, the higher the earning potential, which leads to increased purchasing power and higher tax receipts, according to the alliance’s report, titled “The High Cost of High School Dropouts: What the Nation Pays for Inadequate High Schools.”

Juvenile Justice

House sets standards for juvenile boot camps
The Morning Call – June 25, 2008
The House approved national standards on juvenile boot camps and other and private programs intended to help troubled youth. Lawmakers acted Wednesday following reports of abuse and deaths involving young people with behavioral, emotional or mental problems. The legislation, which passed 318-103, would bar excessive “tough love” practices such as denying essential water, food, clothing, shelter or medical care. Physical restraint would be allowed only when the safety of the child or others is at issue. Also, children would have to have reasonable access to a telephone. The White House expressed opposition and the Senate has yet to consider the measure.

Foster Care

Ex-foster kids no longer alone
The Daily News – June 25, 2008
It was bad enough that Rene Howard had to hopscotch through eight foster homes in one year. What has worked out, however, is that Howard has joined a growing number of Los Angeles County foster children able to pursue lifelong dreams. Thanks to support from the Los Angeles County Education Coordinating Council, other advocates and coaches, Howard has won a conditional football scholarship next year to the University of Miami. On Wednesday, the council hosted its first Countywide Resource Fair in which an estimated 800 foster kids and probationers joined advocates and agencies downtown to help find landing a job or getting into college. “Howard is a success,” said Councilman Jose Huizar, chairman of the Education Coordinating Council, formed four years ago to help close the widening education gap of foster kids and young probationers. “These kids are talented and smart. We just have to develop their talents so they can reach their God-given potential.” Among the report’s recommendation: County departments should work together to offer foster children better mentoring, vocational, on-the-job and educational opportunities.

Disparities found in child welfare
Seattle Times - June 26, 2008
Whether children of color are overrepresented in the child-welfare system is a topic that’s long been discussed in certain circles. An extensive report released Wednesday answers the question of racial disproportionality definitively. The study, which was required by a 007 law, began by looking at 58,000 calls to state Child Protective Services (CPS) in 2004 that reported suspected abuse or neglect. The study group, which included experts and representatives from the community, then tracked those cases through the process to see whether children of color fared differently from white children. Were the calls accepted for investigation? Were children removed from the home? Did they remain in care for more than two years? Overall, the study indicated that African-American and Native American children are more likely than white children to enter the child-welfare system and to be removed from their homes for long periods. Asian-American children, on the other hand, were no more likely to be removed, and they were less likely to remain in long-term care than white children. Hispanic children fared somewhere in the middle, faring worse than whites but better than African and Native Americans. The study reveals that much of the disparity stems from the very beginning of the process – the initial complaint to CPS.

Waits Plague Transfers of Children to Relatives’ Care
The New York Times – June 27, 2008
Minimizing moves and placing children with a qualified parent or relative are bedrock principles of child welfare. But transferring custody between states, even if, as in this case, it is short drive across the District of Columbia line, requires a cumbersome legal procedure that lacks the urgency and appeals process accorded placements within a state, and it is under growing attack from specialists in children’s law and welfare. Each year, thousands of children taken from troubled homes are eventually placed with a parent or close relative in another state, often for eventual adoption. Most of the transfers take months and some take more than a year because of what experts say are outmoded rules. Such transfers are governed by the little-known Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children. The pact, adopted decades ago as law by every state, was designed to protect foster children from unsafe placements, but it is being challenged by many experts as inflicting unnecessary emotional harm on children, and for not requiring the court oversight that is normal in other custody cases.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

This Week's News: Youth in Transition

Education

Report Finds Little Gain From Vouchers
The Washington Post – June 17, 2008
Students in the D.C. school voucher program, the first federal initiative to spend taxpayer dollars on private school tuition, generally did not better on reading and math tests after two years than public school peers, a U.S. Education Department report said yesterday. The findings mirror those in previous studies of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, passed by a Republican-led Congress in 2004 to place the District at the leading edge of the private school choice movement. It has awarded scholarships to 1, 903 children from low-income families, granting up to $7,500 a year for tuition and other fees at participating schools. The congressional mandated study, conducted through the Institute of Education Sciences, the department’s research arm, compared the performance and attitudes of students who had scholarships with those of peers who sought scholarships but weren’t chosen in the lottery. This afternoon, a House Appropriations subcommittee will consider President Bush’s request for $18 million to continue the program.

Personal approach helps lower dropout rate
Hattiesburg American.com – June 22, 2008
The Petal School District saw a 10 percent decrease in high school dropouts from 2006 to 2007, and officials are pointing to personal meetings with parents with parents and students as the cause. The dropout rate in the Petal district was at 1u.7 percent in 2006 but dropped considerably to 7.3 percent in 2007. Jack Linton, the assistant superintendent for Petal schools, said the district took a much more serious approach to speaking with parents and students face to face and working out alternative plans to keep students in school. “We have to put a face with a name and that’s what makes a difference,” Linton said. He said a movement by multiple members in the district to meet personally with families has helped the dropout rate. “Out counselors and principals have been calling and getting parents and students to come in to talk about why they need to stay in school,” Linton said. “Sometimes they stay and sometimes they go with an alternative option.” “One of the things we’re doing is an exit interview where we meet with the parent and ask the student about six or seven questions about their experience in high school to find out what we can do better.”

Ore. Students set to get choice of graduation test
Associated Press – June 21, 2008
When Oregon education officials set out to devise a graduation testing requirement for high school students, they looked to other states for inspiration – on what not to do. “We didn’t think any one test should determine whether someone gets a diploma,” said Duncan Wyse, vice-chairman of the Oregon Board of Education. So board members chose a different route. This week, they approved a plan that lets students pick from three options: a national test, state assessment or a local version, such as a student portfolio, to show colleges and employers they have mastered reading, writing, applied math and speaking skills. Passage on any one of the three, along with fulfilling course requirements, would guarantee a diploma. The plan makes Oregon one of several states moving past the “one-size-fits-all” high-stakes testing that became commonplace in many U.S. high schools in the 1990s. In Pennsylvania, the Board of Education is considering a three-pronged approach similar to Oregon’s plan, while in Maryland, students who can’t pass the state tests could be allowed to do a senior project instead. But some say such choices allow some students – and states – to take the easy way out.

Juvenile Justice

Juveniles entitled to jury trials, Kansas court says
The Kansas City Star – June 21, 2008
In a decision affecting every juvenile criminal case in Kansas, the state Supreme Court has guaranteed juvenile defendants the right to trial before a jury. The court ruled Friday that young defendants should be afforded the protections of a jury because the distinctions between juvenile and adult justice have eroded over the past 20 years as lawmakers cracked down on juvenile crime. The decision sent a shock wave through the juvenile justice community. Prosecutors and judges said the likely results in more juries, longer trials and higher expenses. But Journey, a criminal defense attorney, said that ruling is justified. “You cannot impose adult penalties on little children without giving them adult due process,” he said. Previously in Kansas, it was up to judges to decide whether to grant a juvenile defendant’s request for a jury trial. Most states, including Missouri, do not offer the option in juvenile cases.

Juvenile justice conference slated for July
The Capital-Journal – June 22, 2008
Manhattan – The ninth annual Governor’s Conference on Juvenile Justice: Partners in Progress will be July 20-22 at the Capitol Plaza Hotel in Topeka. The conference, facilitated by Kansas State University, is designed for lawyers, caseworkers, parents, counselors, social workers or anyone interested in juvenile justice, crime reduction and crime prevention. It focuses on legal issues, facilities, prevention, mental health issues, community programs and services.

Foster Care

Schooling Issue a Complication for Foster Care
Education Week – June 9, 2008
Policymakers from Congress to the state and local levels are sharpening their focus on the educational needs of children in foster care, a population that can exceed 700,000 nationally in the course of a year and which has doubled in the past two decades. In many cases, their strategies coincide with recommendations outlined in a recent report on California’s massive foster-care system: access to preschool for foster children, specialized training for teachers, and making sure child-welfare agencies have educational liaisons. “A focus on school readiness and school success may not heal all the damage already inflicted early in the lives of foster children, but it can give these children – and many of their peers – the fighting chance they need and deserve to thrive as adults,” says the report, released last month by the Center for Future of Teaching and Learning in Santa Cruz, Calif., and Mental Health Advocacy Services Inc.

Monday, June 16, 2008

This Week's News: Youth in Transition

Education

Oregon’s small-school experiment slow to see results
The Oregonian – June 8, 2008
Oregon’s highly touted small high schools are graduating their first class of students who spent all four years in intimate academies intended to revolutionize the big American high school. Armed with $25 million from billionaire Bill Gates and other education reformers, backer of small schools heralded the academies as the best way to curb high dropout rates, forge connections to keep teenagers on track and prepare every graduate for college. Four years into that effort, however, Oregon’s small schools have yet to deliver those promises. Instead, their statistics look a lot like result from lumbering, impersonal high schools they are supposed to replace. Lots of students quit, and most of the graduates aren’t ready for the rigors of college. Oregon’s small-schools initiative was launched in 2004 with grants from the Bill and Meyer Memorial Trust. Nationally, the Gates Foundation has donated more than $1 billion to create and support small academies.

Charter Schools’ Big Experiment
The Washington Post – June 9, 2008
The storm that swamped this city three years ago also effectively swept away a public school system with a dismal record and faint prospects of getting better. Before Hurricane Katrina, educator John Alford said, he toured schools and found “kids just watching movies” in classes where “low expectations were the norm.” Now Alford is one of many new principals leading an unparalleled education experiment, with possible lessons for troubled urban schools in the District and elsewhere. New Orleans, in a post-Katrina flash, has become the first major city in which more than half of all school students attend charter schools. For these new schools with taxpayer funding and independent management, old rules and habits are out. No more standard hours, seniority, union contracts, shared curriculum or common textbooks. In are a crowd of newcomers – critics call them opportunists – seeking to life standards and achievement. They compete for space, steal each other’s top teachers and wonder how it is all going to work.

2 New Coalitions Seek Influence on Campaigns
Education Week – June 10, 2008
Should schools be held primarily responsible for improving student achievement, or do they need help from health and social programs to ensure their students’ success? Two sets of prominent educators and policy leaders released statements last week emphasizing different answers to that question. But both groups acted with the same purpose: to inform and highlight the debate over education in the 2008 presidential campaign and to influence the future of the No Child Left Behind Act and other policies of the next president. The Education Equality Project, formally launched last week by New York City Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein and the Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights activist, plans to organize events at the Democratic and Republican national conventions to promote its message that “public education today remains mired in the status quo” and “shows little prospect of meaningful improvement” without significant changes in the ways schools are structured, its statement said.

Juvenile Justice

Dakota County re-examines who belongs in juvenile lockup
TwinCities.com – June 7, 2008
When kids commit petty crimes, maybe “juvenile jail” isn’t always the best fit. Hoping to open up bed space and avoid costly building additions, dozens of corrections agencies are studying options like placing low-risk offenders in shelters or foster care or back at home under the supervision of a probation officer or an electronic monitoring bracelet. They’re re-examining their “risk assessment” tools, trying to ferret out the otherwise harmless children who slipped up by swiping candy from a store or spray-painting a sidewalk from violent offenders who pose a danger to public safety. For those on the front lines of law enforcement, the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative represents a sea change in thinking. Across the country, the Baltimore-based foundation has worked with corrections staff to create four “model” alternative detention programs in Santa Cruz, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; Albuquerque, N.M.; and Chicago, some of which have been in place for 12 years or more, with high success rates. Dakota County hopes to join that list. In May, the county unveiled its own version of the multipronged JDAI.

ACLU sues state juvenile prison system
Houston Chronicle – June 12, 2008
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the Texas Youth Commission on Thursday, accusing it of subjecting its female offenders to unwarranted solitary confinement, routine strip searches and brutal physical force. According to the brief, incarcerated girls are “frequently subjected to punitive solitary confinement in oppressively cold, concrete and cinderblock cells.” The ACLU filed its class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Texas on behalf of five girls currently incarcerated at the Ron Jackson State Juvenile facility in Brownwood.

Foster Care

As Teenagers Leave Group Homes, a Challenge Placing Those Who Remain
The New York Times – June 8, 2008
Eight months into New York City’s bold experiment of moving hundreds of troubled teenagers out of group homes and into foster care, the system is stretched so thin that many involved say they are having trouble making thoughtful matches between foster parents and their charges. Some child-welfare experts are worried they may soon be unable to recruit enough qualified foster parents, while others say the city has moved too slowly in putting support systems in place to help these older children flourish in private homes. New York – which has long had a higher proportion of teenagers institutional settings than other large cities, according to John B. Mattingly, commissioner of the Administration for Children’s Services – is among several places nationwide prioritizing a push toward private homes. National studies show that in general, children in private homes have fewer problems as adults than those in group homes.

Monday, June 09, 2008

This Week's News: Youth in Transition

Education

Public support key to success
The Leaf Chronicle – June 6, 2008
High school graduation drives public education across the nation, and Clarksville-Montgomery County is no different. A new initiative, 100% Graduation Is Clarksville’s Business, is a collective community approach to encourage and support students to stay in school and receive their diplomas. The federal No Child Left Behind law requires school districts to achieve 100 percent high school graduation by the 2013-14 school year. The 100% Graduation Is Clarksville’s Business initiative is another tool to widen the graduation emphasis into the workplace and the home. “This project is about making people aware of the importance of education and understanding the role each of us plays in making Clarksville a better community. Too often we forget that we have a number of resources we under-utilize.” The local school district has several support programs in place to help students experience academic success and graduate. The first set of programs are the Transition programs – Bridges and Pathways. Bridges is designed for students transitioning from middle school to high school, and Pathways is designed for students transitioning from elementary to middle school. Additional programs include READ 180 and Language!, reading intervention programs for middle school and high school students not reading on grade level. Credit Recovery and Grade Recovery programs allow students to recover credits failed during the school year, rather than waiting for summer school.

Group helps thousands graduate
News 14 Carolina – June 6, 2008
Charlotte – As thousands of high school students prepare for graduation, some of them may not have made it if it wasn’t for one local organization. Right Moves for Youth has been helping students stay in school and on task for years. Last year, 12 students from Myers Park High School graduated from the program, earned a diploma and all went on to a four-year college. The program helps motivate students, encouraging them to stay in school and one day earn a high school diploma. Right Moves for Youth says 82 percent of its students graduate high school and go on to post-secondary institutions.

Education Week reports grim news on high school graduation rates
The Plain Dealer – June 5, 2008
It’s likely that most of the estimated 1.2 million students nationwide who will not graduate with their peers this spring will never get a diploma. While experts agree that post-secondary training is crucial in the modern job market, almost 30 percent of the class of 2008 will not graduate, according to a report released Wednesday by the trade publication Education Week. The report, called “Diplomas Count,” found that nationwide, just 71 percent of ninth-graders made it to graduation four years later. By some estimates, the problem will cost the nation more than $300 billion in lost wages, taxes and productivity over the course of a lifetime. The news was worse for minority students. Data shows that only 55 percent of black students graduate from high school in four years, and only 58 percent of Latino students.

Juvenile Justice

Young parolees given basic rights
Mercury News – June 5, 2008
A significant legal settlement announced Wednesday grants thousands of juvenile parolees fundamental due process rights for the first time in California history. Under the agreement reached in a Sacramento federal court between youth advocates and state officials, offenders who violate parole will soon be afforded basic constitutional rights granted to adult parolees. In hearings to decide whether they should be locked up again, juvenile parolees will be granted legal counsel, the opportunity to present evidence and witnesses, and protection from lengthy pre-hearing detention and the arbitrary lengthening of sentences. Changes under the settlement seem basic for most courts of law but will be novel in the juvenile parole system. Defendants will have the right to a well-defined route of appeal. There will be strict rules on pre-hearing detention and on the time parole board members can add to sentences, with a maximum of one year. Violators will no longer automatically be shackled during hearings, and the parole board must now consider alternatives to incarceration, such as community treatment programs.

Foster Care

Successful plan needs mentors
Knoxnews.com – June 7, 2008
Last year, Gov. Phil Bredesen called for 250 volunteers to mentor older foster children in the state’s child welfare system. Many of these teenagers have spent years in the system and will face leaving custody without being adopted or reunited with their birth families. Studies show that support, guidance and one-on-one attention from mentors increase the chances that at-risk teens will make successful transitions to the adult world. In its first year, the initiative – a program of the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet operated by Youth Villages in a partnership with the Department of Children’s Services – has exceeded all expectations. Across the state, 300 mentors have been paired with foster children exceeding the initial goal by 20 percent. Even with this significant progress, Bredesen and DCS Commissioner Viola Miller need help to care for the thousands of children who remain in state custody.

Children Grow Up Healthier in Enriched Foster Care
NPR – June 6, 2008
There are big, long-term health payoffs in mental and physical well-being when foster-care services to children are enhanced, a new study suggests. A new study, published in the latest edition of the Archives of General Psychiatry, looked at whether more enriched and supportive foster care can help mitigate some of the long-term problems foster kids face. The social and economic backgrounds of the two groups were similar, but one group had been placed in the states’ public foster-care systems. The other group had been put in a private foster-care program – which had more services for children and their foster parents. The extra services included mental health screening, tutoring, summer camps and job training for kids, as well as increased financial assistance and parenting training for foster parents. Of the 479 people who took part in the study, he found that those who had been given the enhanced foster care had dramatically few medical problems, such as heart disease, hypertension, ulcers and diabetes. They also had much lower rates of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse.