Excerpted from the New York Times, The Cost of Letting Young People Drift, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/opinion/the-cost-of-letting-young-people-drift.html

A new study of nearly 100 American cities by Measure of America, a policy group at the Social Science Research Council, finds that more than 5.5 million people ages 16 to 24 are neither working nor in school, a significantly larger group than before the recession.

The crisis, in a nutshell, is the isolation of millions of young black and Latino men, who are disengaged from school, work and mainstream institutions generally. But the country as a whole seems largely unaware that a large number of young people exist wholly apart from the mainstream, a situation that is enormously damaging to them and to the rest of society. The study finds that more than 5.5 million people ages 16 to 24 are neither working nor in school, a significantly larger group than before the recession.

At a time when the economy is requiring workers to have higher levels of skills, one in seven of America’s young adults can’t even get started. And even if they find jobs, they are likely to earn significantly less than their peers, be more dependent on public assistance programs and end up worse off physically and mentally than their more fortunate peers.

The depth of this disengagement varies by race and place. Nationally, 21.6 percent of black youths are neither working nor in school, compared with 20.3 percent of Native Americans, 16.3 percent of Latinos, 11.3 percent of whites and 7.9 percent of Asians.

Whatever the racial and regional differences, there are several constants that define this depressingly large group of alienated young people. They are nearly three times as likely as their employed or in-school counterparts to have left high school without a diploma and are half as likely to obtain a bachelor’s degree. And girls and young women in this group are more than three times as likely to have a child as their more socially integrated counterparts.

Neighborhoods where these young people tend to live also display common characteristics, including high poverty, high unemployment rates and housing segregation. Researchers found that the more segregated the metropolitan area, the higher the likelihood that minorities trapped there will be out of school and out of work.

The country obviously needs more public investment in better elementary and secondary education, as well as in mentoring, apprenticeships and training programs that could help give young people a foothold in life. The goal should be to break the pattern of disengagement as swiftly as possible for as many young adults as possible.

Has anyone looked into what it would it cost to educate and/or train these young people so that they become tax-paying productive citizens?

Original Source:Childtrends.org

On April 21, 2015 Montana Governor Steve Bullock signed an anti-bullying law which made his state the 50^th state to have an anti-bullying law. The law, is nothing more than a statement that bullying is not allowed, ends a push that started before Columbine in 1999 to establish laws and policies on bullying across the United States. With every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the other territories now possessing a bullying law, what’s next for the fight against bullying?

It is first critical to ask, what is the purpose of these laws to begin with? The vast majority of the laws, have but one major requirement ““ that all schools adopt a bullying prevention policy. Without any mechanism to ensure schools and districts actually follow through with their obligations, these anti-bullying laws do essentially nothing to help prevent bullying. In fact, there has been no improvement in the rates of bullying between 2005 and 2011, a period in which a significant number of new or revised state bullying laws were enacted. The goal of state anti-bullying laws was not and is not to actually prevent bullying. Instead, as Education Secretary Arne Duncan wrote in a 2010 memo to Governors and School State School Officers, anti-bullying laws and policies serve to “send a message that all incidents of bullying must be addressed immediately and effectively, and such behavior will not be tolerated.” In other words, the purpose of anti-bullying laws is to demonstrate that the legislature recognizes bullying as something that must be addressed, but the laws do not and cannot serve as the mechanism by which to actually address the behavior. Instead, as Secretary Duncan wrote, “when responding to bullying incidents, schools and districts should remember that maintenance of a safe and equitable learning environment for all students, including both victims and perpetrators of bullying, often requires a more comprehensive approach.”

Some states have sought to overcome this limitation by expanding the scopes of their anti-bullying laws to not only require schools to have a policy, but also to criminalize bullying for those who engage in the behavior. Criminalizing bullying can have serious, negative consequences for all involved, from further restricting reporting of the behavior to exacerbating the school-to-prison pipeline. Criminalization of bullying behaviors is not an effective solution, in part, because we still disagree about the definition of bullying. In fact, no two definitions contained in the fifty-four state and territory laws now enacted are exactly the same. Just as now all states have differing laws addressing bullying, in 1973, so too did all states have differing laws addressing child abuse. It seems as though the stage is primed for Congress to provide a federal definition of bullying, much as it did in 1973 for child abuse. Passing a law is not enough; resources must be provided to help schools understand both the letter of the law (what they’re required to do) as well as the spirit of the law (what they need to do to actually prevent bullying). Senators must consider if their goal in adding bullying to the ESEA is to simply “send a message that bullying must be addressed” or if their goal is to actually see reductions in bullying.

Thanks to Deborah Temkin, Program Area Director, Education Research

 

School-based bullying for kids ages 12 to 18 appears to have dropped in recent years. Twenty-two percent of teens reported having been bullied in 2013, the lowest number since the federal government began collecting data on the subject in 2005.

In 2005, 2009 and 2011, 28 percent of students reported having been bullied at school. This included verbal, physical and social abuse, as well as cyberbullying. In 2007, 32 percent of students reported the same, according to a blog from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.

The data comes from the School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey, a nationally representative survey of teens.

About 7 percent of students said they were cyberbullied. Female students reported being bullied more often than males. Students in the Midwest reported being bullied more often than in any other region, at 22.4 percent.

Research from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for the same period of time reports no decline in bullying

 

In the United States, teens and young women experience the highest rates of relationship violence. In fact, 1 in 10 female high schoolers say a dating partner in the past year has physically abused them.

If you haven’t dated much, it can be hard to know when a relationship is unhealthy. Some signs of teen dating abuse include:

It is never okay for someone to hit you or be cruel to you. You may think alcohol or drugs make a partner abusive. Those things may increase the chances of abuse, but they never make it right.

You also may think it is your fault that your partner has hurt you. But you don’t control how your partner acts, and you can’t make someone mistreat you.

Keep in mind that if you sometimes hit your partner first, you can get help learning how to stop. Talk to a mental health professional, like a school counselor, or a doctor or nurse.

• Constantly texting or sending instant messages (IMs) to monitor you
• Insisting on getting serious very quickly
• Acting very jealous or bossy
• Pressuring you to do sexual things
• Posting sexual photos of you online without permission
• Threatening to hurt you or themselves if you break up
• Blaming you for the abuse

Teenage girls in physically abusive relationships are much more likely than other girls to become pregnant. Abuse can get worse during pregnancy, and it can harm the baby growing inside you. Never get pregnant hoping that it will stop the abuse. You can ask your doctor about types of birth control that your partner doesn’t have to know you are using.

If you are under 18, your partner could get arrested for having sex with you, even if you agreed to have sex. Laws covering this are different in each state. You can learn more about the laws in your state.

 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that in 2012, 98.5 percent of children between the ages of 12 and 15 watched television every day.  The researchers also found a correlation between weight and time spent in from of TV and computer screens. Sixty-nine percent of children who were average weight or underweight pent more than two hours a day in front of the television compared with 77 percent of children who were overweight and 80 percent of children who were obese.

Children who spend time in front of TV or computer screens are not exercising or socializing.  What are the implications of this regarding the future health of our nation?

The American Institutes for Research estimates the cost of college dropouts, measured in lost earnings and taxes, at $4.5 billion. American students are enrolling in college in record numbers, but they’re also dropping out as quickly. Barely half of those who start four-year colleges, and only a third of community college students, graduate. That’s one of the worst records among developed nations, and it’s a substantial drain on the economy.

If colleges supply help, graduation rates more than double, according to several evaluations of an innovative program at the City University of New York’s community colleges. CUNY’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) has garnered accolades in the media for its package of comprehensive financial resources, student support systems and impressive graduation rates.

Nearly 90 percent of students who attend a top-ranked university earn a bachelor’s degree in four years. While these undergraduates may well be among the best and brightest, they also get kid-gloves treatment. If they run into trouble, an army of helpmates stands at the ready. “From moving day as a freshman through graduation and beyond,” Harvard assures its students, “our advisers are here to help and support you at every step.”

The situation is entirely different for most undergraduates, especially poor and minority students who frequently need the most help. All too often they’re steered to schools where they receive little if any support in mastering tough courses, decoding requirements for a major, sorting out life problems or navigating the maze of institutional requirements. Graduation rates at these so-called dropout factories, especially those in urban areas that largely serve low-income, underprepared minority populations, are as abysmal as 5 percent.

Where a student goes makes all the difference. Consider a Chicago public high school graduate with a grade-point average of 3.5. If she enrolls at Chicago State University, the odds against her finishing are high “” the school’s six-year graduation rate hovers at 20 percent. Her chances measurably improve if she attends the University of Illinois at Chicago, where the completion rate is 57 percent. And if she goes to Northwestern, just a few miles away, 93 percent of her classmates will graduate.

Six years ago, CUNY decided to confront the high dropout rate at its community colleges with the ASAP initiative. The results are stunning: 56 percent of the first two cohorts of more than 1,500 students have graduated, compared with just 23 percent of a comparable group that didn’t have the same experience. What’s more, most of those graduates are currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree.

While the added dollars make a big difference, students consistently report in individual profiles found on the CUNY ASAP website, that biweekly seminars and one-on-one advising “” is crucial.

These results have persuaded CUNY to triple the size of the community college program to 4,000 students by fall 2014, and the system is considering expanding ASAP to its other schools. But this strategy merits a nationwide rollout, for it promises a significant increase in the number of educated workers that the nation badly needs.

 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified binge drinking among women and girls, especially high school girls and young women, whites and Hispanics, and adult women with household incomes of $75,000 or more -as a serious but under-recognized problem.

In a report issued by Educational Research entitled, Meeting The Challenges of Generational Change in the Teaching Profession: Towards a European Model For Intergenerational Teacher Collaboration indicate that Europe is facing a similar problem as the United States, with the aging of their teaching professional staff.

Reports indicate that one-third of all teachers in Europe are older than 50 and that many senior teachers contemplate retiring asearly as possible (European Commission, 2009). At the same time, asignificant number of junior teachers leave the profession a few years after starting (ETUCE, 2008). European schools face a shortage of trained educational staff and the resultant degraded educational quality, so it is necessary to support junior teachers at the early stages of their careers and encourage senior teachers to remain intheir profession and continue their professional development. The number of teachers expected to retire in the next few years is especially high (European Commission, 2008), and these senior teachers take their expertise and knowledge about the schools’ micro culture with them.