This Week's News: 25 August 2006

JUVENILE JUSTICE

Grants reward problem-tacklers
July 20, 2006 - Mercury News
Two directors of South Bay social programs are among the inaugural winners of the James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award, an unrestricted $125,000 grant designed to recognize and support the most innovative community work in the state.

Eric Weaver, 42, founder of Lenders for Community Development, and James Bell, 52, of the W. Haywood Burns Institute, were among seven winners chosen from more than 475 nominees statewide.

A Former Jail Guard Helps Ex-Prisoners Move Back Into Society
August 3, 2006 issue – The Chronicle of Philanthropy
It is just before 4 on a Monday morning, and the 2700 block of Baltimore's East Madison Street is dark and forbidding, dotted with boarded-up houses. Homes that remain occupied sport "no loitering" signs, adding to the scene's desolation. But in a matter of minutes, the street teems with life: Some 15 men recently released from prison pour out of two buildings and head across the street to the God Is in Reach Transitional House.
http://philanthropy.com/free/articles/v18/i20/20003601.htm


Lacking Detention Center, Suffolk Ships Out Juveniles
August 22, 2006 - The New York Times
When the Suffolk County judge orders a 14-year-old runaway held until her next hearing, three days hence, she is sent to the juvenile detention center in neighboring Nassau County -- becoming another one of the hundreds of Long Island youths shipped out of Suffolk every year to detention centers in Nassau, the Bronx and as far away as Syracuse and Buffalo. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/22/nyregion/22suffolk.html


FOSTER CARE

Young Adults Must Find Way After Foster Care
August 20, 2006 - (Cleveland, Ohio) The Plain Dealer
Every year, about 20,000 youngsters across the country "age out" of foster care, the surrogate system that looks after children removed from their families, usually because of abuse or neglect.


EDUCATION

College Uncertain for Kids Here Illegally: Voters to decide if in-state tuition will apply
August 19, 2006 - Tucson (Ariz.) Citizen
Whose responsibility are they? Children who were brought into the United States illegally, grew up in Tucson, graduated from public schools and aspire to attend college would no longer qualify for in-state tuition at Arizona’s colleges and universities if Proposition 300 passes in November. http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/23250.php

Program targets those at risk of not finishing school in 4 years
August 18, 2006 - Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press
Just a week into his new job as Dade High School’s graduation coach, Byron Ballard got a visit from a girl who hadn’t managed to earn a single credit during her first year of high school.


IN FOCUS: KATRINA

New Year, New School Concepts in New Orleans
August 26, 2006 edition - The Christian Science Monitor
Katrina's devastation created an opportunity to reconceive a poor system. Charter schools, student input, hope – and controversy – are hallmarks of the one that's emerging.http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0824/p15s01-legn.html