This Week's News:Youth in Transition

Education
New Tack Helps At-Risk Students: College
Washington Post
7 November 2006
Early college high schools look to offer college-credit programs tailored to disadvantaged students, including those who might drop out. The goal is to give students more challenging, career-oriented classes, with support when needed, in an effort to keep them in school.

Secretary Spellings Announces $42 Million for 16 Grants to Reward Effective Teaching and Leadership
U.S. Department of Education
8 November 2006
U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings today announced the award of $42 million for 16 grants that will reward educators who take on tough jobs and show result in high-need schools. The grants will be used to provide financial incentives to teachers and principals who improve student achievement in high-poverty schools and to recruit effective teachers to those schools. The grants are projected to be funded for five years for a total of some $240.6 million.

The Facts on Federal Education Spending
EdNews
10 November 2006
Sweeping victories in the midterm elections have put Democrats in charge of the 110th Congress. After twelve years out of power, what will Democrats seek to accomplish in federal education policy? Actually, federal education spending has grown dramatically over the past six years under President Bush and the Republican Congress. But more importantly, whether it's Republican or Democrats increasing federal funding, more federal dollars have not improved American education in recent decades.

Juvenile Justice
Colleges work with Juvenile Justice to help troubled girls
The State.Com
5 November 2006
Two colleges have teamed with the state Juvenile Justice Department to improve the lives of troubled teenage girls. The Clemson Center for Girls Advocacy will act as a resource and research hub to tackle issues such as teen pregnancy and high school dropout rates and poor self esteem. There are specific differences between adolescent men and women that need to be taken into account as we develop educational opportunities for them.

Baltimore juvenile center criticized
The Washington Times
12 November 2006
The Baltimore Juvenile Justice Center is run in an unconstitutional manner, causing youth to "suffer significant harm and risk of harm" because of a lack of staff and inadequate behavior management and treatment plans, the U.S. Department of Justice has found. A report obtained by the Baltimore Sun concluded that the state-run center failed to adequately protect children, citing youth-on-youth assault rates 47 percent higher than the national average for such facilities. It also found that youths are not adequately protected against suicide and that the center fails to provide adequate mental health treatment and other services.

Foster Care
State program stalls, difficult-to-place foster children wait for homes
The Star-Ledger
12 November 2006
A $2.7 million state effort to locate foster families willing to accept the hardest-to-place kids has fallen far short of its goal, prompting child welfare officials to seek sweeping changes. There are 11,200 children in foster care because the Division of Youth and Family Services suspects or has substantiated that their parents or guardians have harmed them. About 9,000 of these children live in 4,200 traditional foster homes; the rest live in group homes and residential centers.

Cross Cutting
Defining the Term "At Risk"
9 November 2006
Child Trends has published this Research-to-Results Brief which aims to define this term, used frequently, but with no consistent definition. This brief highlights some of the issues surrounding the concept. Who is at risk? What are they at risk of? What can the information on risk be used for? Is a quantitative measure of "at-risk" desired? And what about protective factors?