Franklin Schargel’s Blog

According to a report from Child Trends: “Parents Behind Bars: What Happens to Their Children?” (October, 2015 by David Murphey and P. Mae Cooper), there are more than five million U.S. children who have had at least one parent in prison at one time or another””about three times higher than earlier estimates that included only children with a parent currently incarcerated. The report uses the National Survey of Children’s Health to examine both the prevalence of parental incarceration and child outcomes associated with it. Based on their analyses, they found that more than five million children, representing seven percent of all U.S. children, have ever had a parent who lived with them go to jail or prison. These figures should not come as a surprise, when we consider that, in 2013, there were 1.6 million people held in prisons in the United States. U.S. incarceration rates, although they have been declining recently, exceed those of any other reporting country. This proportion is higher among black, Hispanic, poor, and rural children. Their figure of more than five million is almost certainly an underestimate, since it does not include children with a non-residential parent who was incarcerated. This is important new information. In 2007, the most recent point- in-time estimate, 1.7 million children, or just over 2 percent, had a parent (including non-residential parents) currently in prison.

Who experiences parental incarceration? One in 14 U.S. children. According to their parents, nearly seven percent of children in the United States have lived with a parent who was incarcerated at some time after the child’s birth. Among children younger than 6, the rate is 5 percent. Among those ages 6 to 11, and 12 to 17, the rate is 8 percent each.

Recently, leaders across the political spectrum have begun to re-examine the policies that led to the massive growth in incarceration over the last generation. Incarceration is costly, the evidence for its deterrence value is mixed, and it has disproportionately affected people who are poor and black, exacerbating existing social inequities.

There is also increased attention being paid to the negative effects of incarceration on already-disadvantaged communities. For example, some researchers have argued that by reducing neighborhood human capital, high incarceration rates (as well as poorer employment prospects after release) contribute to community unemployment, as well as to a decline in prospects for marriage or other committed adult relationships.5

In many communities in the United States today, considerable numbers of children may experience a residential parent going to jail or prison. The great majority of incarcerated parents (99 percent) are fathers. However, the number of women in prison and their percentage of the incarcerated population have both been growing. Maternal incarceration can be especially hard on a child, because mothers are more likely to have been the primary caregiver. For the large subset of prisoners who are parents, incarceration poses unique challenges. There are the obvious difficulties in maintaining parent-child relationships during the period of incarceration, but there are other problems as well, both during imprisonment and following release. These affect the incarcerated parent, their children, and the caregivers of those children. Incarceration can mean the loss of that parent’s income; it strains marital relationships and frequently contributes to divorce.

Among the countries included in this analysis are the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, Germany, and Australia. Data are as reported to the International Centre for Prison Studies.

Research indicates a higher number of other major, potentially traumatic life events””stressors that are most damaging when they are cumulative; more emotional difficulties, low school engagement, and more problems in school, among children ages 6 to 11; and a greater likelihood of problems in school among older youth (12 to 17), as well as less parental monitoring.

Reducing the stigma these children experience … may alleviate some of the negative effects of this separation?which include asthma, depression, and anxiety; acting-out behavior; grade retention; stigma; and, in adulthood, an increased likelihood of poor mental or physical health and dropping out of school.

In some cases there can be positive effects when a parent is incarcerated, namely, when the parent is abusive or otherwise poses a danger to the child (through substance abuse, for example). Nonetheless, most research finds negative outcomes associated with incarceration.

Incarceration is expensive not just in economic terms, but also in its emotional and psychological impact on children. Previous research has found connections between parental incarceration and childhood health problems, behavior problems, and grade retention. It has also been linked to poor mental and physical health in adulthood. While the best long-term solution may be to reduce reliance on imprisonment as a sanction for some categories of criminal behavior, there may also be ways to mitigate the harm of parental imprisonment for children. Research on interventions for children with incarcerated parents is limited, but work so far suggests that reducing the trauma and stigma these children experience, improving communications between the child and the incarcerated parent, and making visits with the incarcerated parent more child-friendly may alleviate some of the negative effects of this separation.

 

 

 

Federal authorities and parents are scrutinizing a popular teen messaging app following the murder of a Virginia teen that may have met her killer via the anonymous chat system.

Police arrested two Virginia Tech students in connection with the death of Nicole Lovell, 13, whose body was found three days after she snuck out of her home Jan. 27.

Authorities declined to discuss how the college students met the teen. Lovell’s mother said her daughter likely connected with the suspects online. Supposedly Lovell share her KIK user name or at least one online teen dating site and friends told the Associated Press she was using the app to chat with an 18-year-old man. Kik may be the latest app but is not the only one. Kik, was founded in 2009 by Canadian college students, says 40% of its 240 million users are U.S. teens.

Kik is popular with kids because it offers almost no effective parental monitoring and lacks controls to prevent children from using it. The messages cannot be automatically duplicated or “mirrored” to another device and only the authorized user has access. That means there’s no way for a parent to see the message exchanges without getting the password from their kid.

While Kik says it’s limited to anyone 13 or older, there’s no age verification process: users only need an email address and can pick whatever birthdate they want to use. The company said it uses “typical” industry standards for age verification and will delete accounts of anyone younger than 13 if it finds them, or it a parent requests it.

Unlike many phone-based messaging apps, Kik doesn’t require a phone number, just a user-selected name. That means it can be used on non-phone devices such as Kindles, iPads or iPod Touches, making it harder to monitor. That means that a predator of any age can pretend to be a 15-year-old-kid,

How can parents protect their kids?

A new guide for parents posted on the KIK’s website explains how the app works and offers suggestions for monitoring its use. Among the recommendations: Parents should ask their children for the password, review recent messages and block anyone sending inappropriate messages.

Taking away a child’s cellphone is like taking away one of their arms. Kids love using the Internet because they receive attention they might not be getting elsewhere. In those cases, parents need to be extra careful to ensure the conversations are appropriate, and to teach kids that unsupervised meetings with strangers they’ve found online is “a recipe for disaster.” Children want to be loved and want to have friends and don’t see the dangers we might see as adults.

 Parents need to ensure they’re monitoring kids’ Internet use and regularly talk about what’s appropriate. It’s not about teaching kids not to use a specific app. It’s about teaching them not to give this kind of information out.

 

 

This study just out:
One in four kindergarteners come from low-income families and enter school not fully ready to learn, a report from the Pritzker Children’s Initiative of the J.B. and M.K. Pritzker Family Foundationand the Bridgespan Group finds.
“Achieving Kindergarten Readiness for All Our Children: A Funder’s Guide to Early Childhood Development from Birth to Five” (67 pages, PDF)

The report, estimates that nearly half the twelve million low-income children under the age of 5 nationwide are at risk of not being fully ready for kindergarten when they enter and of falling behind from the start. According to the study, children who start kindergarten ready for school have an 82 percent chance of mastering basic skills by the age of 11, compared with 45 percent for kindergarteners who are not school-ready. Targeted preventive investments in high-quality early childhood programs can help bolster kindergarten readiness and build the cognitive and character skills that children need to do well in school and in life, the report argues, in turn reducing the need for costly remediation. However, the United States vastly underinvests in early childhood education, especially in the critical period from pregnancy to age 3.

I am indebted to Laurel Wycoff, Education and Outreach Manager of New Mexico PBS of making me aware of this article and sharing it with me.

Teaching about sex in schools is often a taboo subject.  Accurate and specific sex education classes can reduce pregnancy teen pregnancy, which makes girls more likely to dropout of school. In addition, nearly 20 million new sexually transmitted infections are reported each year, almost half are diagnosed in teens and young people.

The Centers for Disease Control and prevention have issued a new report on the teaching of sex education in schools.

• 94 percent of high schools taught students the benefits of abstaining from sex
• 88 percent explained that few sexual partners is better than more
• 92 percent discussed how friends and school cultures influence sexual behavior
• 92 percent explained to 9-12 students how sexually transmitted diseases are are spread
• 85 percent taught schools how to get products and services to protect them STDs and pregnancy
• 70 percent explained how to use condoms
• 60 percent  told students how to get condoms
• 54 percent  demonstrated how to use them correctly

The report states, “young people who have multiple sex partners, don’t use condoms, and use drugs or alcohol before sex are at higher risk for HIV, AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections”.

From a letter to the editor in the Albuquerque Journal, June 30, 2015 by Susan McGrath:

“Let’s pretend you are a doctor.  You have been given 28 patients all with varying degrees of health problems from the common cold to cancer.  You are told you must treat all with the same medicine. How good a doctor you are will be determined based on how many recover?

It doesn’t matter that some of them also suffer from things you have no control over, i.e. food, shelter, environmental stress and mental capabilities.  It doesn’t matter that some doctors have a majority of patients with the common cold and others have a majority of patients with severe disease. Your worth is based only on a percentage of recovery.

Is that fair? Absolutely not. But it’s exactly what happens to a teacher every year. She is given a group of student with varying needs and abilities .  He must feed them all the same curriculum.  Her worth is determined  by how many students raise their test scores.

A gifted student goes from 95 percent to the 97th percent. Oops, sorry, only a 2 percent gain – the teacher is ineffective. A child in special education is reading three grade levels below his age, but must take the same test all other students  take when the teacher knows his percentages will not be up to par.

The two weeks spent taking the test could be better spent actually teaching the child.  The teacher already knows  he is not up to the grade level or he wouldn’t be in special education.

No teacher objects to a fair evaluation, but having one’s worth as a teacher based so heavily on test scores is just not accurate or fair.

I could not have said it better.  Thank you Susan.

 

I received this from Open Colleges in Australia. Open Colleges is Australia’s leading online educator. Study nationally accredited courses at your own pace. Flexible, affordable, online.

The infographic provides helpful tips on how to stay safe and secure online.

https://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/cyber-safety/

I am grateful that they have given me permission to republish it.

I am a firm believer that students should go to college if they possess the desire and the capability.  But college is not for everyone.  There are many jobs which offer employment and high salaries which do not require a college degree.

According to Skills USA

There is a major threat of America’s Skills Gap to the nation’s workforce. Everyone is talking about it: Forbes, Harvard Business Review, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, The Manufacturing Institute, CNBC. The reports are alarming:

• 4.5 million job openings, including 600,000 manufacturing jobs, are unfilled due to the skills gap
• 82 percent of companies don’t have enough people to fill the workforce pipeline
• 10 million new skilled workers will be needed by 2020

According to the School Safety Advocacy Council:
School Resource Officers at three Montgomery County public high schools have started wearing body cameras while working in the schools. The three Montgomery County police officers assigned to Walt Whitman, Northwest and Seneca Valley high schools began participating in the county police department’s body camera pilot program last week, according to MCPS.

Police who respond to incidents at schools may also be equipped with the cameras. In a note to parents MCPS said school officials worked with the Montgomery County Police Department to resolve issues such as student privacy before the cameras were used in schools.

During a committee meeting earlier this month, County Council members expressed concern to police officials over the possibility that camera footage, including that of students who may not be involved in an incident, would be accessible to the public through a Maryland Public Information Act request.
Council member Craig Rice noted that students in almost every public high school are recorded daily on the school system’s surveillance cameras, which record video, but not audio. However, those videos aren’t accessible to the public under federal guidelines, according to Robert Hellmuth, director of security for Montgomery County Public Schools.

Acken said providing the videos to parents can help resolve cases. He added that the department heavily redacts videos and juvenile records before releasing them so that the juvenile involved cannot be identified.

Acken also said the department would blur the faces of bystanders who are irrelevant to an incident recorded by a body camera in order to protect the privacy of students not involved.

Earlier this month, Chief Tom Manger released a memo describing the department’s policies for using the cameras in schools. Officers are instructed to turn their cameras on only when they are responding to an incident and to turn them off after their involvement in an incident has ended. They’ve also been trained to use discretion when interviewing witnesses, particularly potential sex offense victims, and to not use the cameras in private areas like locker rooms or restrooms.