Secretary of Education Unveils Blueprint to Reform Nation’s Vocational Education System

By |

During a national press call on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced an outline for the reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006; a proposal entitled Investing in America’s Future: A Blueprint for Transforming Career and Technical Education. Joining Duncan for the teleconference was Brenda Dann-Messier, the Department’s assistant secretary for the Office of Vocational and Adult Education and Stanley Litow, vice president of corporate citizenship and corporate affairs and president of the IBM International Foundation. The Investing in America’s Future proposal zeroes in on a number of educational reform issues, primarily as it pertains to two-year colleges and technical education programs. According to Dann-Messier, the proposal aims to increase the nation’s skilled labor force – primarily in the fields of computer science and healthcare – through a series of career and technical education (CTE) program reforms.

Dann-Messier noted the Obama administration’s fiscal year 2013 budget included a number of investments in the nation’s community colleges and technical schools, including $1 billion proposed for carrying out the four “key areas” of the newly unveiled blueprint, which seek to increase the nation’s number of community and technical college graduates through “alignment, collaboration, accountability and innovation.”

According to an official Department of Education press release, the proposal would also incentivize “secondary schools, institutions of higher education, employers and industry partners to work together to ensure that all CTE program offer students high-quality learning opportunities.”

During the press call, Litow said the needs of private industry may necessitate a complete overhaul of the American education system. A proponent of Pathways in Technology Early College High schools (P-TECH), Litow said he would like to see more institutions adopt the educational model, which merges high school with a post-secondary technical track into a six-year program. Litow said that the key to “rebuilding” the nation’s economy was not through job creation, but through increasing the percentages of Americans with technical or career educations.

Kindergartner Placed in Handcuffs, Arrested After Tantrum in Class

By |

A 6-year-old kindergartner in Milledgeville, Ga. was placed handcuffed and arrested last week after a tantrum in class. According to police reports, Salecia Johnson was misbehaving, ripping items off walls and tossing furniture across her classroom. She was sent to the principal’s office, where she allegedly continued the tantrum, jumping on office equipment while attempting to shatter a glass frame on the wall. The report also said that Salecia knocked over a shelf, which slightly injured her principal.

New Online Service Allows College Students to Compare Financial Aid Data Across Country

By |

This week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) launched a beta version of the Financial Aid Comparison Shopper, an online service designed to help prospective and current college students make financial plans for their post-secondary schooling. The new service allows users to access financial aid information as it pertains to more than 7,500 colleges and universities across the United States. Using data collected by official government statistical agencies, the Financial Aid Comparison Shopper evaluates a wide range of financial information, from estimated student loan payment totals to college-specific data such as graduation and retention rates, as well as federal student loan default percentages. Additionally, the new service includes a “Military Benefit Calculator” that allows service members and veterans to estimate military tuition assistance and GI Bill aid. Last fall, the CFPB launched the “Know Before You Owe” student loan project, unveiling a Financial Aid Shopping Sheet draft that served as a precursor to the Financial Aid Comparison Shopper service.

New Smartphone App Aims to Prevent Date Rape

By |

A recently released iPhone app may help teenagers and college students take a stand against sexual violence, according to Nancy Schwatzman founder and executive director of the app's developer, The Line Campaign, Inc. The app, called Circle of 6, uses GPS and text messaging to alert friends to your location if a date goes bad, or worse. “It is clear that there is a real need, and excitement about how young people can harness the technology they are already using,” said Schwartzman in a recent press release for the new iPhone app. More than 19,000 users have downloaded the app since its release last month. Schwartzman said that by the end of the year, she hopes that the application will be downloaded by an additional 10,000 teens and college students. The Circle of 6 application uses a number of pre-installed short message service (SMS) notifications, which are mapped to six friends or family members on a user's smartphone. Using the phone's GPS friends and family can locate the user.

Teen using cell phone. Photo by Clay Duda for JJIE.org

For Growing Number of Teens Cell Phones Aren’t for Talking, Study Says

By |

The average American teen is sending more text messages than ever before, quickly becoming their primary means of daily communication according to a report published last month by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The report, entitled “Teens, Smartphones & Texting,” was penned by Amanda Lenhart, and notes several major statistical changes regarding teenager cell phone use in just over a two-year period. According to the report, a typical teen ages 12 to 17 was sending approximately 60 texts per day in 2011, up from 50 in 2009. Additionally, the report finds that older teens, boys and African-Americans are texting in greater numbers than in 2009. The research indicates that kids ages 14 to 17 are sending a median of 100 texts per day, almost doubling the median number of texts the same age group was sending in 2009.

Arkansas Juvenile Justice Reform: A Blueprint for National Success?

By |

In 1991, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette published an article on the state’s juvenile justice system bearing the ominous headline “Stacked in centers, youths in trouble fall through the cracks.” The story also featured comments from a consultant, who said  –  two years prior  –  “too many youths who could better be served in community-based treatment were being inappropriately and unnecessarily held in state confinement.”

Over the next seven years, matters only worsened for the state’s juvenile justice system. In 1998, The Democrat-Gazette published a five-part series entitled “Juvenile Justice: The War Within” detailing the failings of the state’s juvenile incarceration sites. Three years after the series was published, two juveniles at the Alexander Youth Services Center – the state’s largest juvenile incarceration facility – committed suicide within a span of six months. A year later, the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice conducted an investigation of the facility, determining that the conditions at Alexander were so substandard that the constitutional rights of detained youth were being violated. By 2007, state officials decided it was time to completely overhaul Arkansas’ juvenile justice system, culminating with the enactment of state Senate Resolution 31, which authorized a comprehensive study with the intent of reducing “reliance on large juvenile correctional facilities” within the state.

Autism Spectrum Disorder Rates Increasing, CDC Report Finds

By |

According to new Centers for Disease Control data, the prevalence rates for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in children has increased, with an estimated one in 88 eight-year-olds in the United States currently diagnosed with an ASD such as autism or Asperger’s syndrome. In a Surveillance Summary published last week in the Morbidity and Mortality Report, the CDC notes a 23 percent jump in autism spectrum disorder diagnoses from 2006 to 2008, with an estimated 78 percent increase in cases from 2002 to 2008. According to the findings, the diagnosis rates between black and Hispanic children and whites are closing, with African-American children being diagnosed at a rate of 10.2 cases per 1,000 compared to 12 cases per 1,000 for Caucasian children. The new data reports that 7.9 in 1,000 Hispanic children may be affected by disorders such as autism, Asperger’s syndrome or Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS ). According to the findings, boys are five times more likely than girls to be diagnosed with autism or Asperger’s syndrome.

Georgia Governor Signs Law Making Synthetic Marijuana Illegal in State

By |

Last week, Georgia’s Governor, Republican Nathan Deal, signed into law a new bill that makes all forms of synthetic marijuana illegal within the state, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Under the new law, synthetic marijuana substances, commonly referred to as Spice orK2, are considered Schedule I drugs, making their possession and sale a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Deal said he applauds the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) and the Georgia General Assembly for quickly putting the legislation together, calling the passage of the law “a pressing need” for the state. “These synthetic substances pose an enormous risk to our public safety,” Deal said shortly after signing the law. "As the usage has dramatically increased, instances of violence, bodily harm and even death have risen with it.”

Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Vernon Keenan told reporters the GBI is currently instructing law enforcement officials to notify local retailers that synthetic marijuana substances are illegal, urging them to destroy the products under officer supervision.

Kentucky Officials Suspend Nude Inspections For Youth Entering Detention Centers

By |

This week, Kentucky’s Department of Juvenile Justice officially announced that it would be suspending its controversial policy of nude “body identification and health inspection” screenings for youth entering the state’s juvenile detention centers. Last December, the state’s sitting juvenile justice commissioner, J. Ronald Haws, issued a directive that ceased the “visual inspection of youth without clothing” upon entry into one of the state’s eight sites designated as juvenile detention facilities. Haws’ directive came one day after U.S. Senior Judge Karl Forester declared “body ID processing” at Breathitt Regional Juvenile Detention Center unconstitutional in a court document, which pertained to a suit filed by the parents of two Perry County teenagers who underwent nude screenings at the facility in 2009. Stacy Floden, director of program services for Kentucky’s Department of Juvenile Justice, told Kentucky.com that the screenings were not the same as strip searches. “The purpose of the body identification/health assessment screening is to screen for, document and treat, if necessary, signs of injury, illness, abuse and/or neglect,” Floden told Kentucky.com.

Child Advocacy Groups Criticize Proposed Reform Measures in Nebraska

By |

This legislative session, Nebraska lawmakers are expected to sign a child welfare reform package that would ease caseloads for the state’s social workers as well as end privatized services in almost all of the state’s counties. However, in an Associated Press story this week the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform said that the reform measures fall short. The advocacy group says they do not address the fact that Nebraska places children in foster care services at a rate double that of the national average, in addition to maintaining the nation’s highest proportion of children in foster care homes. Richard Wexler, executive director of the coalition, told the AP that Nebraska’s child welfare system promotes a “take-the-child-and-run mentality,” which ultimately creates less safe environments for the state’s children. “Not only does Nebraska’s obscene rate of removal do enormous harm to the children needlessly taken,” he said, “it also overloads caseworkers so they have even less time to find children in real danger.”

A recent National Coalition for Child Protection Reform report notes that in 2010, approximately 8 out of 1,000 children were placed in foster care within the state.