This Week's News: Youth in Transition

Education

Women In Charge gives high school dropouts emotional and academic support
St. Louis Today, Missouri - April 18, 2012
Desiree King started having trouble in school in seventh grade.  She had just transferred and wasn't fitting in. Her self-esteem plummeted and so did her grades. After her sophomore year of high school, she left to get home- schooled. But her mom, who was suffering with depression, never taught her.

LAUSD considers lowering the bar for graduation
Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, CA – April 18, 2012
Eight years ago, the Los Angeles Board of Education adopted an ambitious plan to have all students take college-prep classes to raise academic standards in the nation's second-largest school district.

NM teachers discuss high school dropout crisis in PBS special
KOB 4, New Mexico – April 18, 2012
Teachers from across New Mexico came together to talk about the state's high school drop out crisis.  Right now the state has a graduation rate of about 67 percent.  Wednesday night was a chance for teachers to sound off and think of solutions.

Juvenile Justice

McDowell to get its first youth drug court
The Charleston Gazette, Charleston, WV – April 16, 2012
Year after year, educators in McDowell County have seen the same tragic story unfold in their schools: Students pop pills, snort drugs, start skipping class and eventually abandon school altogether.  On Monday, the state Supreme Court announced it would create a juvenile drug court in the southern coalfield region to try to tackle one part of McDowell's devastating youth drug problem.

Ramsey County: Locking up fewer kids, and so far, less crime
Pioneer Press, Ramsey County, MN – April 21, 2012
You can hear the superintendent's words echo from the white walls of his empty cellblock.  "Many days, you'd walk around here, in a pod designed to handle 12 kids, we had 16, 17 kids in there," said Steve Poynter, the head of Ramsey County's juvenile detention center. "A lot of kids were being double-bunked, put in rooms together....You put two high-risk kids together, and nothing good's going to happen.

Foster Care

New Program Could Give Young Homeless People a Hand Up
1011 Now, Central Nebraska – April 20, 2012
It is a reality for hundreds of young adults in Central Nebraska: aged out of foster care and no where to go.  They're the invisible population of Hastings.  "I didn't have a house and I thought after school, what am I going to do? So, it was scary," one formally homeless teenager said. She asked to remain anonymous for privacy reasons.  There are many like this young woman, and a new program could give them a place to call home.  "It's safe place where these young people could go and they could be taught some independent living skills, get some of life's answers," CASA Executive Director RuAnn Root said.

Partners for Forever Families helps bring foster children's plight to stage
The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, OH – April 22, 2012
Playwright Michael Oatman created an all-too real play about the Cuyahoga County foster care system.  Oatman talked to some of the 1,900 teens in the system and some who have turned 18 and were forced out of it, a situation that he used as a basis for his play.

Mother and daughter show adoption is good at any age
The Baltimore Sun, Maryland – April 22, 2012
The mother and daughter relax on a cushy sofa, laughing quietly as they speak of their unusual yet utterly normal life together.  "Sometimes I get a little frustrated [with you], don't I, Talynn?" the mom asks.  "Yes, but we always work it out," the 9-year-old replies, leaping onto Traci Lucien and applying a huge hug.

Teen Pregnancy

Surprisingly sharp decline in teen birthrates worth cheering
Star Tribune, Minnesota – April 18, 2012
Recent news about teen birthrates had one staff member at Teenwise Minnesota going back to check her calculations. "That can't be right," she thought.  But it was right.

Teen Pregnancy Rates Hit All-Time Low in the U.S.
BET – April 19, 2012
Teen pregnancy rates have hit an all-time low says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). According to the recent report, teen pregnancy rates decreased by nine percent from 2009 to 2010. That indicates 34.3 births per 1,000 were to a teenage mother ages 15 to 19, which is a 44 percent drop from 1991 to 2010.  The CDC also found a decrease among all races and ethnicities, but disparities still remain.  Latino, Native American and Alaskan teenage birth rates dropped by 12 percent, while African-American and white rates dropped by nine percent.