Child Welfare
Parents at the school attended by a 10-year-old found dead in the back of her father’s pickup truck had worried about her failing health, before her own parents withdrew her from school. Now parents at the school want to help raise money to give Nubia Barahona a proper burial, but may not be able to, Carol Marbin Miller reports in the Miami Herald. Child protection officials have been criticized for failing to investigate completely allegations that the girl and her twin brother were being abused, the Associated Press reports.
Education/Jobs
Kelly Metz of the Morning Journal (Ohio) reports on President Barack Obama’s visit to Cleveland yesterday, which included an announcement that Lorain County Community College’s partnership with local businesses will be used as a national model for community colleges to build entrepreneurship.
Elizabeth Crisp of the Clarion Ledger (Miss.) looks at the growing trend of Mississippi college students defaulting on federal student loans and what these colleges are doing to avoid potential government penalties for these loan default rates.
Seattle news site Crosscut features a column from Washington state workforce board director Eleni Papadakis, who presents her board’s measurement of job placement results as a model practice for other boards. Papadakis also points out this stands in stark contrast to the overall trend found in a recent GAO report that most job training programs do a poor job measuring their own effectiveness.
Juvenile Justice
The former Texas juvenile justice official accused of molesting youths at the West Texas State School in Pyote was found not guilty on all counts after two weeks of testimony and just six hours of deliberation by a jury in Lubbock. The accusations against John Paul Hernandez were part of a sexual scandal that led to the school’s closing. The former assistant superintendent of the school, Ray Brookins, was convicted of sexual abuse and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Christie Post of KCBD.com writes about the verdict.
