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<p>I couldn't make something like this up so I'll just present it as filed. Nine Democratic senators have filed a bill that would remove from state law any references to school kids that are considered negative.</p> <p>Instead, all such references – such as at-risk, in-poverty and disadvantaged – would be replaced with the phrase "kids at-hope." Prime sponsor is Sen. Rosa Franklin of Tacoma. Joining her are Claudia Kauffman of Kent, Rosemary McAuliffe of Seattle, Joe McDermott of Seattle, Debbie Regala of Tacoma, Karen Fraser of Olympia, Karen Keiser of Kent, Brian Hatfield of Raymond and Derek Kilmer of Gig Harbor.</p>

BLACK MALE DROPOUTS LEAD NATION IN INCARCERATION, ACCORDING TO NEW REPORT, WEEK OF OCTOBER 22-28, 2009The Wilmington Journal Originally posted 10/22/2009 SPECIAL TO THE NNPA FROM THE LOUISIANA WEEKLY (NNPA)--On any given day, nearly 23 percent of all young Black men ages 16 to 24 who have dropped out of high school are in jail, prison, or a juvenile justice institution in America, according to a disturbing new national report on the dire economic and social consequences of not graduating from high school. Dropouts become incarcerated at a shocking rate: 23 of every 100 young Black male dropouts were in...

DETROIT – Like the rundown houses and shuttered storefronts in his Detroit neighborhood, bleakness abounds in LeRoy Taylor's future. He is among tens of thousands reaching adulthood in a city where the American Dream appears just outside their reach. Taylor, 20, spends empty hours on basketball courts, zoned out in front of a television or aimlessly pedaling through streets he desperately wants to leave, but doesn't have the work skills, education or money to do so. "I fill out applications. No one will call me back," said Taylor, stopping his bike long enough to hustle change for cigarettes near a...

Derrius Quarles leans back in his seat and methodically analyzes Aristotle's theory of truth during freshman honors English class at Morehouse College. He strides across campus in a navy blue tailored suit and a bold red sweater handing out business cards that boast "Student/Entrepreneur/Leader." But behind the 19-year-old's dauntless appearance is a past that few on campus know. When Quarles was 5, the state took him away from his mother. He spent his childhood bouncing from home to home before ending up on his own at 17 in an apartment on Chicago's South Side. His arrival at a prestigious, historically...

It was the middle of the night. I was asleep. My mom came in and started punching me. She said I didn't fold my clothes right. I threw her off of me. She was real drunk. She started on me again. The police came. She said: 'What? I'm just kicking my son's ass.' Just another night. -- Carlos, 17 :: The little school in South Los Angeles is the end of the road, reserved for those who have bombed out of the rest of the system. The mildest cases were merely kicked out of their last school. The toughest are...

There are, however, other reasons why minorities seem to be more at risk of swine flu. Low-income parents have a harder time keeping their sick children home from school. "For some parents in lower-wage jobs, if they don't show up at work, they don't get paid, and people may already be on the economic margins," Barry says. "So parents were desperate to get some of these children back in school." As a result, there were many sick, contagious kids in Boston classrooms this spring. Because of the economic pressures and demographics of the Boston school system, most of them turned...

AMES, Iowa -- As a new mother herself, Brenda Lohman admits to being shocked by the results of a new study she co-authored. It found that among nearly 1,000 low-income families in three major cities, one in four children between the ages of 11 and 16 reported having sex, with their first sexual intercourse experience occurring at the average age of 12.77. "So if 12 years was the average age here, that meant that some kids were starting at 10 or younger," said Lohman, an Iowa State University associate professor of human development and family studies (HDFS). "A handful of...

AUGUST 10, 2009 Unemployment Among Teenagers Remains Stubbornly High ERICA ALINI Economists don't see much relief for unemployed teenagers in a recession that has trimmed hires and pulled many adults into the scramble for jobs typically held by teens. Unemployment of people ages 16 to 19 was a seasonally adjusted 23.8% in July after hitting a quarter-century high of 24% in June, the government said last week. That compared with last year's summer peak of 20.5%. Caleb Cross, 16 years old, waits to apply for a summer job funded by stimulus money in Fort Worth, Texas, in June. Traditional teenage...

Reclaiming High School Dropouts by: Emily Kanyi, July 29, 2009 Early evaluation results from a study of the National Guard Youth Challenge Program (NGYCP) released by Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC) indicate that over 90,000 teenagers have graduated from the program designed to mentor high school dropouts and give them educational opportunities. The sixteen-year-old program targets youth between sixteen and eighteen years of age. NGYCP currently operates thirty-three programs in twenty-seven states and Puerto Rico. According to the initial report, more than seventy-four percent of the beneficiaries have gone on to earn their high school diploma or equivalent, thirty percent...

CHICAGO (CBS) ― "At Myra Bradwell Elementary School, 44 out of 77 students did not pass the eighth grade. A startling number of children are falling through the cracks at one Chicago Public School. More than half of the kids didn't even pass the eighth grade. As CBS 2's Jim Williams reports there is fierce debate about who's to blame. It is a debate that has gone on for years in poor communities: do you blame the schools for the students' poor performance or do you blame their parents?"......

A startling number of children are falling through the cracks at one Chicago Public School. More than half of the kids didn't even pass the eighth grade. As CBS 2's Jim Williams reports there is fierce debate about who's to blame. It is a debate that gone on for years in poor communities: do you blame the schools for the students' poor performance or do you blame their parents? The mother of a one student who failed eighth grade says she got no warning her son was struggling. The school says she was notified, and other parents insist she did...

Claims of bias against women in academic science have been greatly exaggerated. Meanwhile, men are becoming the second sex in American higher education.In 2006 the National Academy of Sciences released Beyond Bias And Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering, which found “pervasive unexamined gender bias” against women in academic science. Donna Shalala, a former Clinton administration cabinet secretary, chaired the committee that wrote the report. When she spoke at a congressional hearing in October 2007, she warned that strong measures would be needed to improve the “hostile climate” women face in university science. This “crisis,”...

Whoa … this isn’t a study that paints teachers in a positive light, but it doesn’t paint minority students in one either. We’re faced with some tough questions here. Do teachers prefer non-black students, or are black students more difficult for teachers on average? It should be noted that even black teachers are relocating, and it doesn’t completely focus on just black students. Other minorities are discussed as well as economic class.

Criminal offenders, teen moms, dropouts, runaways and other wayward youths will score summer jobs with federal stimulus cash as most Bay State kids desperately scramble to land coveted seasonal gigs in a tight economy. Requirements for summer jobs: • Lacking basic skills. • Pregnant or parenting. • School dropout. • Homeless or runaway. • Court-involved or an “offender.” • An English as a Second Language learner or an immigrant.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009 One in five students dropped out of a California high school last year - about the same as the year before, state Superintendent Jack O'Connell announced Tuesday. The graduation rate also held at about 68 percent. The news that little had changed - despite O'Connell's calls for improvement and years of pointing to the moral imperative of helping failing students - prompted a round of criticism among advocates and critics of public education and from at least one candidate for the top school job. "We don't need another report to tell us that we are failing...

The Oakland school board has voted to change the name of a small school to Barack Obama Academy, reportedly the first middle school in the country to adopt the name of the nation's 44th president. While Obama has been in office fewer than 100 days, the 35 students at the former Alternative Learning Community public school persuaded the board Tuesday to make what they said was a historic change. -snip- The school, which opened in 2007, enrolls primarily African American and low-income students. Many of the students have had poor grades, lax attendance and suspensions in the past.

Ethnic minority pupils race ahead of poor white classmates in schools Immigrant pupils are overtaking many white children at school because their families place more value on education, a key Government adviser has said. By Julie Henry, Education Correspondent 01 Mar 2009 Ethnic minority pupils race ahead of poor white classmates in schools Rapid progress was being made by children from Chinese, Bengali and Indian backgrounds, while white working-class boys, in particular, were struggling, according to Sir Mike Tomlinson, the former head of Ofsted. In controversial comments which will raise questions about the focus of Government funding, Sir Mike said...

All work and no play may be a hazard for some U.S. school children. Researchers reported on Monday that a growing trend of curbing free time at school may lead to unruly classrooms and rob youngsters of needed exercise and an important chance to socialize. A look at more than 10,000 children aged 8 and 9 found better classroom behavior among those who had at least a 15-minute break during the school day compared to those who did not, Dr. Romina Barros and colleagues at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York reported. The behavior assessments were general...

The murder rate among black teenagers has climbed since 2000 even as murders by young whites have scarcely grown or declined in some places, according to a new report. The celebrated reduction in murder rates nationally has concealed a “worrisome divergence,” said James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University who wrote the report, to be released Monday, with Marc L. Swatt. And there are signs, they said, that the racial gap will grow without countermeasures like restoring police officers in the streets and creating social programs for poor youths. The main racial difference involves juveniles ages 14...

A head teacher who suspended the equivalent of a quarter her pupils in one year has seen exam pass rates increase by 65 per cent. Caroline Haynes, 49, adopted a zero tolerance disciplinary approach to her secondary school pupils, convinced that by allowing disruptive students to remain in class was jeopardising the chances of others. She has handed out 478 suspensions in one year at a school with 1,880 pupils and seen GCSE pass rates shoot up. Mrs Hayes criticised the Government's policy of encouraging schools to reduce exclusions, which then reflects better on their Ofsted rating. She said: "Statistics...