Opinion Archives | Page 74 of 83

Statistical Bigotry

From the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last month abolishing capital punishment for juveniles, to the latest media crusade to banish 16-year-old drivers,...

Put Every Child Ahead

In recent weeks, children and youth advocates from across the country have joined forces with anti-poverty activists to oppose President Bush’s proposed...

Professional Development: Investing in Futures

The field of youth development faces major challenges in creating and sustaining our work force. Long treated as a component of our...

Raiding Our Staff at Nonprofits

A while back, one of my best staffers came to me with the kind of news that is too commonly heard by...

It’s Time to Rethink Youth Programs

America has too many youth programs. We have after-school programs, prevention programs, skill-building programs and character education programs. And we have built...

The Future is Here

America would be radically different if young people ran it. The Edison/Mitofsky National Election Poll of 76,000 voters throughout the nation found...

Shutting the College Doors on Poor Youth

Google Alerts is a wonderful, free, personalized online clipping service. At the top of my clips for the New Year was this...

Emergency Relief

Many young people need financial help to become employable. Yet financial assistance – real money carefully targeted toward removing barriers to employment,...

Youth Involvement Helps Adults

“The adults got more out of having the students speak at the conference than the kids themselves.” So said veteran community organizer...

Underserved – And Undeserved?

My computer’s spell-check function automatically changes “underserved” to “undeserved.” I learned this the hard way, when I had to send a publication...

Perfect Marriage, 21st Century Style

While the recent presidential election generated much heated discussion about the institution of marriage, the youth work field has quietly harnessed energy...

Stop Feeding the Beast

I have decided that from this moment on, I am going to stop feeding the beast. Whenever and wherever I speak about...

Why Are We So Eager to Fear Youth?

How far can you get in the kid-fixing biz by just making things up? All the way to institutional accolades, congressionally recognized...

Good for Business, Bad for Kids?

The Washington Post, Sept. 30: Mayor Anthony Williams gleefully announces that Washington has won the competition to be the new home of...

Do Youth Services Reduce Social Unrest?

What do Kenya, Liberia, Congo, Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Algeria, Iran, the Palestinian Territory and Saudi Arabia have in common?...

Evaluation: Risk Or Responsibility?

The July/August issue of Youth Today featured not one, but two lengthy stories on evaluation. The first, sharing the front page...

Risky Business

The recent report entitled “Reading at Risk” revealed that, for the first time in modern history, less than half of the adult...

Transforming America’s Juvenile Justice System

Over the past five years, public scandals about the way young people are treated in America’s juvenile justice facilities have erupted in...

Phony ‘Youth Risks’ Are a Risk to Youth

When Food and Drug Administration official Steven Galson recently blocked over-the-counter “Plan B” emergency contraception because he worried that 11- to...