Monday, November 7, 2011

 STEAL THIS BLOG PLEASE!
I, Praetorian


Published Online: November 7, 2011
Published in Print: November 9, 2011, as Justice Dept. Pressures Ala. Districts for Data

Federal department of Justice Pressures Alabama Schools for Attendance Data

  • As litigation over Alabama's tough new immigration law continues, federal civil rights authorities have ramped up pressure on the state's public schools to show they are not violating federal law by denying students access to schooling because of their immigration status.
  • Saying Alabama's immigration law "may chill or discourage student participation" in public education, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez—who is the head of the civil rights division for the U.S. Department of Justice—last week ordered 39 school districts in the state to submit detailed enrollment data to his office, including information about students who have withdrawn from school since the current academic year began. Those districts were targeted because they have a "considerable number of Hispanic students," said Xochitl Hinojosa, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department.
  • But Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange told school superintendents late last week to hold off on providing the data until the Justice Department cites what legal authority it has for requesting the information. In a Nov. 2  letter Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to Mr. Perez, Mr. Strange wrote that he is "perplexed and troubled" by the demand for student-enrollment data and questioned the Justice Department's standing to ask for it.
  • In a Nov. 4 letter to the Alabama attorney general, Mr. Perez wrote that the Justice Department has requested the information to review compliance under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the federal Equal Educational Opportunities Act. The letter also said the request for information is similar to statewide student enrollment data released to the press by Alabama last week. District leaders got no further clarity after Mr. Strange wrote back to Mr. Perez Nov. 4 asserting that the federal official had failed to cite legal authority to compel school districts to provide the enrollment data.

  • Caught in the Middle

  • The Obama administration has sued Alabama over its tough, new immigration lawRequires Adobe Acrobat Reader, which took effect Sept. 29. The law includes a provision requiring school districts to ask new students to show proof of citizenship or lawful immigration status when they enroll and report that information to the state department of education.
  • School districts across the state have reported widespread absences and withdrawals of Latino students this school year, especially in the days after Sept. 28 when a U.S. District Court judge in Birmingham upheld that provision. That part of the law has since been put on hold by a federal appeals court in Atlanta, and some districts have since seen an uptick in Hispanic students returning to school. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, in Atlanta will likely hear full arguments in the case later this year.

  • In the meantime, school district leaders around the state have become increasingly frustrated as they try to abide by both state and federal law while the dispute over the immigration law plays out, said Eric Mackey, the executive director of the School Superintendents of Alabama, a Montgomery-based group that represents local school chiefs. The data request from the Justice Department that the state attorney general is now challenging is just the latest example, he said.
  • "Our educators need to make sure that teaching and learning is happening every day in their schools, but they keep getting sidetracked by these legal issues and things that seem to be changing on a daily basis," said Mr. Mackey.

  • The Justice Department letter to superintendents specifically requests that school districts report information about students' race, national origin, and status as English-language learners. Besides asking for information about students who have withdrawn, the Justice Department is seeking data on students who have had even one "unexplained" absence this year. School districts have until Nov. 14 to respond. Additionally, Mr. Perez asks the districts to provide monthly reports on withdrawals and unexplained absences on an indefinite basis.
  • 'Troubling' Implications
  • Local school officials who received the Justice Department letter said they are disturbed by its implications.

  • "That they would assume that there's been some movement to discourage students from coming to school is very troubling to us," said Tom Salter, a spokesman for the 32,000-student school system in Montgomery, the state capital. "We've been trying our best to contact families and assure them that they are welcome in our schools. It doesn't matter what color they are, or where they are from, or if they have documentation."

  • Mr. Salter said Montgomery schools have not experienced a mass exodus of Hispanic students, whose current enrollment is about 1,250, but noted that roughly 40 Hispanic families have withdrawn their children and not returned.


  • In Birmingham's 25,000-student system—where district officials also received the Justice Department letter—about 72 Latino students have withdrawn and not returned since the beginning of the school year, said spokeswoman Michaelle Chapman. The district enrolls about 500 Hispanic students, and most of them are English-language learners, she said.

  • Like Montgomery schools, Birmingham has made a concerted effort to communicate directly with parents of Hispanic students and assure them that sending their children to school won't jeopardize their families.

  • "We want all children to be in school and to take advantage of the educational opportunities we offer," Ms. Chapman said.
  • Mr. Mackey said superintendents initially interpreted the letter as a 



  • warning that their districts might be targeted for legal action.
  • But Justice Department officials have since spoken to a few superintendents and reassured them that is not the case, he said.

  • "They were told that they had done nothing wrong and that the Justice Department is simply collecting data [related to the litigation]," Mr. Mackey said.

  • Ms. Hinojosa declined to comment on the specific purpose of the data request, other than to say that the Justice Department is responsible for enforcing federal laws that guarantee equal access to public education.

  • Still, Mr. Mackey said the data request itself will be a difficult undertaking for school systems, should it proceed. Some of the information the Justice Department is seeking, such as national origin of students and reasons for unexplained absences, is not collected at all by schools. And the request to submit enrollment reports on a monthly basis for an indefinite period of time is "egregious," he said.

  • Immigration advocates welcomed the Justice Department's request for student data.

  • "We are very appreciative of the Justice Department's presence here," said Isabel Rubio, the executive director of the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama, an immigrant advocacy group based in Birmingham. "And we appreciate the level of detail they are asking for because one of the best ways we are going to be able to fully understand the impact of this law is how it has impacted students coming to school."



Sunday, November 6, 2011

"YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH"




Study Warns of Limited Savings from Closing Schools
Edited by I, Praetorian

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Closing schools doesn’t save air academic progress. And it says school districts can help generate some acceptance for a downsizing plan by involving the community early and establishing clear reasons for why certain schools must close.

The report, released Oct. 19, was written by the Philadelphia Research Initiative to foreshadow what the 154,000-student Philadelphia district can expect over the next few years as it plans to close a number of schools because of declining enrollments. The district currently has 70,000 empty seats, according to the report. School administrators have not decided which schools to close and how many, but internal school documents published in June by the website Philadelphia Public School Notebook listed 26 schools that could be shut down.

The report looks at school closings in Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Mo., Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and the District of Columbia. Each of those districts has closed at least 20 schools in the past decade, and most of the buildings have been shuttered in the recent past.
For example, Pittsburgh, with around 25,300 students, went through a “right-sizing” effort that closed 22 schools in 2006. The district is now discussing closing seven more schools. The 17,400-student Kansas City district closed 29 schools—nearly half of its school buildings—in 2010.
A Matter of Context
Closing schools does save money, but in districts whose budgets add up to hundreds of millions of dollars or more, the final savings are relatively small, said Larry Eichel, the program director for the Philadelphia Research Initiative, which is a project of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Philadelphia’s current annual budget, for example, is $2.8 billion.
Six Cities Shuttering Buildings
To inform deliberations over plans to close schools in Philadelphia, researchers conducted case studies of recent school closings in six other urban districts.
Chicago
Closure Period: 2001-2009
Number Closed: 44
Buildings in Use: 602
Detroit
Closure Period: 2009-2010
Number Closed: 59
Buildings in Use: 130
Kansas City, Mo.
Closure Period: 2009-2010
Number Closed: 29
Buildings in Use: 29
Milwaukee
Closure Period: 2005-2010
Number Closed: 20
Buildings in Use: 137
Pittsburgh
Closure Period: 2006
Number Closed: 22
Buildings in Use: 64
District of Columbia
Closure Period: 2008
Number Closed: 23
Buildings in Use: 11
*As of 2011.
Source: The Philadelphia Research Initiative

“The savings are under a million dollars per school,” Mr. Eichel said. “That’s real money, but not money that changes anything fundamentally.”
The biggest chunk of district money is spent on teachers, and those staff members typically are still needed, just at different locations.

A district also has to pay for some maintenance on shuttered buildings so they don’t become neighborhood eye sores.

And districts should not expect a windfall from selling their old buildings. Those facilities are undesirable to businesses for some of the same reasons that districts decided to close them: The buildings are often located in areas that are losing population. Also, they tend to be in poor condition, and it may be hard to convert them to other purposes, Mr. Eichel said.
The study found examples of repurposing, however. In Milwaukee, a former middle school was bought last year for $600,000 to be converted into senior housing. In Chicago, several closed schools have been converted to charter schools.
Impact on Learning

In examining the academic performance of students in schools slated to be closed, the report focused on a studyDescription: Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader by the Consortium on Chicago School Research that looked at students whose schools were closed between 2001 and 2006. That study found that student performance fell at schools that were slated to be shut down and remained low for the rest of the school year. A year later, though, the academic performance of those displaced students had rebounded to preclosure levels.
The Pew report also cites a studyDescription: Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader led by researchers from the RAND Corp. that examined achievement from students from closed schools in a “midsized urban district in the Northeast.” Though the district was not named, the paper noted that the district closed 22 schools in the 2005-06 school year, which corresponds with Pittsburgh’s experience.
That paper said students in the district whose schools were closed did see a drop in their reading and math scores, but researchers found the effect could be mitigated or eliminated if the students were moved to schools that were higher-performing than the ones they left behind.

The Pew report offers several tools that districts can use to reduce the pain of closing schools. For example, it suggests that outside experts can bring a level of objectivity to the proceedings. Seeking community support early is also essential, the report notes.
It says that the 45,000-student District of Columbia school system committed a misstep by moving too quickly to close schools in the face of a 30 percent decline in enrollment. Under the leadership of then-Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, the school system announced that closures were coming in September 2007, and the final vote to close 23 schools came, after much controversy, four months later.

Mary Filardo, the executive director of the Washington-based 21st Century School Fund, studies school facilities issues and agrees that the system in Washington moved too quickly to shut down schools. Too many school districts distrust the public when it comes to closure decisions, she said.
Taking It to the Public

“The reason you involve the community is not to make [closings] palatable,” she said. “The reason you involve the community is because you want to make better decisions.”
She added that people whose children attend school in such urban areas often “are working-class or low-income. They know about making tough decisions and struggling” and can understand the necessity for some closings.

As District of Columbia school officials learned, making a misstep in school closings can cause political fallout. The community uproar over the closings in Washington was one of the ingredients that led last year to the primary-election defeat of then-Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who had selected Ms. Rhee, and to the chancellor’s departure.
And after community members in Chicago protested that school- closure decisions were being made in secret, the Illinois legislature passed a law in August that governs how that 409,000-student system can make facilities decisions.

“The political fallout is from not having a trusting relationship with your public,” Ms. Filardo said.
Being Transparent
But involving the public can be a delicate balancing act, said Nancy R. Kodman, the executive director for academic and operations integration for Pittsburgh schools. Just introducing the problem to the community, she said, leads to people saying, “You don’t have any solutions? You don’t have any ideas?” But a full plan is criticized for being drawn up in secret.

“You lessen that by being as transparent as you can,” Ms. Kodman said.
When Pittsburgh closed more than 20 schools, she said, the district talked with the public about what it was hoping to achieve. Academic improvement was put forward as the top goal, and to eliminate some political horse-trading, the closures were considered as a group, in a single up-or-down vote by the school board.

While many urban districts are struggling with how to handle excess space, Ms. Filardo noted that Seattle is dealing with overcrowded classrooms, thanks to unexpected population growth. The Seattle Times reported in October that in one school, a 4th grade class is meeting in a hallway, and many classes are meeting in portables. An infusion of about 1,500 more students than expected is prompting the district to reopen some schools that it had closed, over community objection, in the past few years.

This is the fight of our professional careers. Are You In or Out?

What's taking so long? This is the fight of our professional careers. Are You In or Out? "Hell has a special level for those who sit by idly during times of great crisis."
Robert Kennedy

The Art of SETTING LIMITS, Its not as easy as it looks.

Art of Setting Limits Setting limits is one of the most powerful tools that professionals have to promote positive behavior change for their clients, students, residents, patients, etc. Knowing there are limits on their behavior helps the individuals in your charge to feel safe. It also helps them learn to make appropriate choices.


There are many ways to go about setting limits, but staff members who use these techniques must keep three things in mind:
Setting a limit is not the same as issuing an ultimatum.
Limits aren’t threats—If you don’t attend group, your weekend privileges will be suspended.

Limits offer choices with consequences—If you attend group and follow the other steps in your plan, you’ll be able to attend all of the special activities this weekend. If you don’t attend group, then you’ll have to stay behind. It’s your decision.
The purpose of limits is to teach, not to punish.
Through limits, people begin to understand that their actions, positive or negative, result in predictable consequences. By giving such choices and consequences, staff members provide a structure for good decision making.
Setting limits is more about listening than talking.
Taking the time to really listen to those in your charge will help you better understand their thoughts and feelings. By listening, you will learn more about what’s important to them, and that will help you set more meaningful limits.
Download The Art of Setting Limits

SYSTEMATIC USE OF CHILD LABOR


CHILD DOMESTIC HELP
by Amanda Kloer

Published February 21, 2010 @ 09:00AM PT
category: Child Labor
Wanted: Domestic worker. Must be willing to cook, clean, work with garbage, and do all other chores as assigned. No contract available, payment based on employer's mood or current financial situation. No days off. Violence, rape, and sexual harassment may be part of the job.

Would you take that job? No way. But for thousands of child domestic workers in Indonesia, this ad doesn't just describe their job, it describes their life.

A recent CARE International survey of over 200 child domestic workers in Indonesia found that 90% of them didn't have a contract with their employer, and thus no way to legally guarantee them a fair wage (or any wage at all) for their work. 65% of them had never had a day off in their whole employment, and 12% had experienced violence. Child domestic workers remain one of the most vulnerable populations to human trafficking and exploitation. And while work and life may look a little grim for the kids who answered CARE's survey, it's likely that the most abused and exploited domestic workers didn't even have the opportunity to take the survey.

In part, child domestic workers have it so much harder than adults because the people who hire children are more likely looking for someone easy to exploit. Think about it -- if you wanted to hire a domestic worker, wouldn't you choose an adult with a stronger body and more life experience to lift and haul and cook than a kid? If you could get them both for the same price, of course you would. But what if the kid was cheaper, free even, because you knew she wouldn't try and leave if you stopped paying her. Or even if you threatened her with death.



Congress Aims to Improve Laws for Runaway, Prostituted Kids

by Amanda Kloer

categories: Child Prostitution, Pimping

Published February 20, 2010 @ 09:00AM PT

The prospects for healthcare reform may be chillier than DC weather, but Democrats in the House and Senate are turning their attention to another warmer but still significant national issue: the increasing number of runaway and throwaway youth who are being forced into prostitution. In response to the growing concerns that desperate, runaway teens will be forced into prostitution in a sluggish economy, Congress is pushing several bills to improve how runaway kids are tracked by the police, fund crucial social services, and prevent teens from being caught in sex trafficking. Here's the gist of what the new legislation is trying to accomplish:

Shelter: Lack of shelter is one of the biggest vulnerabilities of runaway and homeless youth. Pimps will often use an offer of shelter as an entree to a relationship with a child or a straight up trade for sex. In the past couple years, at least 10 states have made legislative efforts to increase the number of shelters, extend shelter options, and change state reporting requirements so that youth shelters have enough time to win trust and provide services before they need to report the runaways to the police. Much of the new federal legislation would make similar increases in the availability and flexibility of shelter options.

Police Reporting: Right now, police are supposed to enter all missing persons into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database within two hours of receiving the case. In reality, that reporting doesn't always get done, making it almost impossible for law enforcement to search for missing kids across districts. This hole is a big problem in finding child prostitution victims and their pimps, since pimps will often transport girls from state to state. The new bill would strengthen reporting requirements, as well as facilitate communication between the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the National Runaway Switchboard

We Must Never Forget These Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen and Women

We Must Never Forget These Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen and Women
Nor the Fool Politicians that used so many American GIs' lives as fodder for the fight over an english noun - "Communism"