Child Welfare
Indiana has spent the past few years moving away from residential placements and toward foster families, report Kathleen Quilligan and Marisa Kwiatkowski of the Northwest Indiana Times, and the plan is challenging the ability of some residential providers to stay in business.
Education/Jobs
Says author Michael Ellsburg in an op-ed for the New York Times: “If start-up activity is the true engine of job creation in America, one thing is clear, our current educational system is acting as the brakes.” He argues that higher education does not prepare students to be entrepreneurs, only to work for them.
Social epidemiologist Abdulrahman El-Sayed, writing in the Huffington Post, called Ellsburg’s points in the column “reckless.”
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), who is running for president, wants to end federal student loan programs because they are inflating the costs of college, reports the Associated Press.
When it comes to retail sales at Goodwill, one Wisconsin leader says Halloween is “our Christmas,” reports Nathan Vine of the Wausau Daily Herald.
Juvenile Justice
Complying with the Adam Walsh Act made Michigan’s sex offender registry more reasonable for juvenile sex offenders, one county judge tells Kelly Dame of the Midland Daily News.
Star-Tribune reporter Tom Morton reports on the new juvenile detention center in Natrona County, Wyo., which is far from homey but even farther from the downtrodden facility it replaced.
In Kane County, Indiana, reports Matt Brennan of the Courier-News, county leadership expects a new state mandate to take every measure possible to rehabilitate juveniles before sentencing them to push more financial burden on courts.
Miscellaneous
Lindsay Fiori of Wisconsin’s Journal Times reports on the Racine Unified School District’s after-school program, which has strived to keep itself attractive to the city by being cheaper than most after-school programs and just as effective.
Emily Lane of the Natchez Democrat reports on the Boys & Girls Club of Miss-Lou, which is struggling to reach a “new normal” in terms of operational capacity. The club used to get between $150,000 and $200,000 in federal money each year, which dried up when Congress started to fund clubs only for mentoring projects.
