Child Welfare
Forbes.com blogger Bob Cook writes that the Penn State scandal is a lesson in the fact that “rules designed to protect kids do something else — protect the organization, and the people in it, subject to those regulations.”
The presiding judge of Los Angeles County’s Juvenile Court is preparing to open child dependency proceedings to the public, reports Garrett Therolf of the Los Angeles Times, in an effort to improve accountability and transparency in child abuse, neglect and foster care placement cases.
The sweeping changes the Connecticut Department of Children and Families has made in recent months are drawing the ire of the agency’s advisory panel, reports Jacqueline Rabe Thomas of the Connecticut Mirror, whose members – as parents, community providers, child lawyers and foster parents – are seeing first-hand the ramifications.
Education/Jobs
Maggie Severns of Early Ed Watch reports on the new Head Start rules promulgated by the Obama administration, which will tie guarantees of funding to performance on a classroom assessment metric.
Abby Rogers of Business Insider reports on a study that show as of January 2011, 43 percent of all college undergraduates were in community college.
Juvenile Justice
Following the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to consider two cases challenging the constitutionality of juvenile life without parole sentences, the Los Angeles Times editorial board said juvenile LWOP sentences are “too cruel.”
