Child Welfare
Carole Mattessich of Shore News Today had a great story yesterday on a group of New Jersey community college students who assembled last week in front of the Cape May court house to protest the practice of child welfare agencies permitting anonymous phone tips about alleged abuse and neglect. The students had to decide upon an issue to protest, and two of the students in the class said they had anonymous tipsters involve them in child welfare for nefarious reasons.
Education/Jobs
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick announced that the state will fund 3,000 summer jobs using $4 million in state money and $2 million out of a U.S. Justice Department grant, reports Brian Ballou of Boston Globe. That is down from $10 million for 6,400 summer jobs.
Radhika Singh Miller, a program manager for the Educational Debt Relief and Outreach program at Equal Justice Works, covers the dangers of student credit card use and gives advice to students on avoiding particularly dangerous situations in this column for U.S. News.
Sean Roach, reporting for the Tarrytown-Sleepy Hollow Patch in New York, does a great job reporting the back-and-forth of a town meeting filled with parents angry over the cancellation of a popular town-run after-school program in Sleepy Hollow.
Michella Asha Cooper, writing for Forbes.com, discusses what she believes to be the five biggest myths about student loan delinquency.
Juvenile Justice
Chandra Thomas of the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange breaks down Georgia’s new Good Behavior Bill, signed by Gov. Nathan Deal yesterday, which allows judges to change the length of sentences for juveniles incarcerated in Department of Juvenile Justice facilities.
San Francisco will no longer report first-time juvenile felons to U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, according to this article from the Associated Press. The policy shift was decided upon by the mayor, and longtime chief juvenile probation officer William Sifferman told AP he didn’t think the change would jeopardize public safety.
Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire will sign a law today that bans private reporting agencies from including the criminal records of juveniles in background information sold to clients, reports Elizabeth Coplan, writing for the Spokesman Review.
