Child Welfare
Ana Valdes at the Palm Beach Post reports on Florida child welfare director David Wilkins’ plan to fix what he called a “total systemic failure” that led to the death of a young girl, allegedly at the hands of her adoptive parents. Diana Moskovitz and Carol Marbin Miller of the Miami Herald also report on Wilkins’ plan.
Education/Jobs
Helene Cooper of the New York Times covers President Obama imploring Congress to overhaul the No Child Left Behind Act in time for the next school year.
Forbes’ Jamie Farrell argues in defense of for-profit college model, opining that it is the state universities that could stand to learn from the successful for-profit online education courses.
Concurrent enrollment programs in Colorado are allowing an increasing number of high school students to smooth the process to college by enrolling in college courses while completing their high school degree, but the Denver Post’s Yesenia Robles reports the program is mostly impacting students who would be going to college anyways.
Maureen Kelleher of Education Week reports on the battle by some advocates to prevent cuts in federal funding to Head Start, a popular program whose impact was drawn into question by a 2010 evaluation by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Juvenile Justice
The New Jersey Assembly unanimously passed a bill that would divert teens charged with sexting into an educational program, reports Megan DeMarco of NJ.com.
The purchase of 30 ankle bracelets, monitored by police officers, has helped Savannah safely manage its juvenile population, reports Arek Sarkissian of Chatham County Connection.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Kilmartin will propose legislation that puts the state into compliance with the Adam Walsh Act by July, reports Tracy Breton of the Providence Journal. Kilmartin believes the cost to do so will be lower than $650,000, which is the amount of federal money Rhode Island could possibly forfeit if it did not comply.
Miscellaneous
Sandra Rodriguez of Asheville, N.C.’s Citizen-Times reports on the local impact if the House proposal to eliminate AmeriCorps actually happens.
In upstate New York, a prominent AmeriCorps leader is resigning after 20 years, reports Charlie Specht of the Buffalo News. Western New York AmeriCorps CEO Mark Lazzara was a significant player in the fight to save AmeriCorps in 2003, the last time the program faced major cuts in Washington.
Jenna Buzzacco-Foerster of Florida’s Naples Daily News reports on an action that many other locales might read about this year: elimination of summer camps and after-school programs.
