Youth & Education

• “This report shows that a strong relationship exists between children’s well-being and state policies that drive investments in children,” the report says. “The gap between public opinion and public investments in children remains large.”
• The Kids Aren’t All Right

 Greg Emerson, Main Street

Oh, children. When will they learn? Never, it turns out, if they happen to live in one of the states in the U.S. with a poor record of quality of life for kids. In the Foundation for Child Development’s latest Child and Youth Well-Being Index<>, the group looked at 28 indicators (most focusing on children under 18 but some including young adults in their 20s) in seven categories to calculate its state-by-state index. The seven areas include family economic well-being, health, safe/risky behavior, educational attainment, community engagement, social relationships and emotional/spiritual well-being, which were given specific weights to calculate the index, on a scale of -1 to 1.

“This report shows that a strong relationship exists between children’s well-being and state policies that drive investments in children,” the report says. “The gap between public opinion and public investments in children remains large.”

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12 New Items including:

• As Attacks on Planned Parenthood Aim for Sex-Ed Funding, Let's Remember How Bad Religious-Backed Abstinence Only Programs Are
• Charlie Brown and the Lost Art of the Runt
• Forced Military Testing in America's Schools
• Mitt Romney's Rationale On For-Profit Colleges At Odds With Reality
• Insider's View of For-Profit Colleges, Race, Class and Education Justice
• Why Abstinence-Only Sex Ed Makes Kids Into Bullies
• Anti-gay parents' league presents demands to Anoka-Hennepin schools
• Universities Gone Wild: Big Money, Big Sports and Scandalous Abuse at Penn State
• Coaches assail dangerous youth hockey hits
• Bill Conlin Child Abuse: Philadelphia Baseball Writer Retires Amid Molestation Accusations
• Nativity
• Dutch Catholic sexual abuse revealed in report

David Culver, Ed., Evergreene Digest

Matt Davies

As Attacks on Planned Parenthood Aim for Sex-Ed Funding, Let's Remember How Bad Religious-Backed Abstinence Only Programs Are, Andy Kopsa,  AlterNet

• Live Action and Lila Rose want to replace Planned Parenthood's sex-ed funding with false information and religious fundamentalist preaching.
• In 2012 Bishops Join Fight to Repackage Discrimination as ‘Religious Freedom’

Mitt Romney's Rationale On For-Profit Colleges At Odds With Reality, Chris Kirkham, Huffington Post

• Romney's free-market views on higher education collide with reality.
• Insider's View of For-Profit Colleges, Race, Class and Education Justice

Insider's View of For-Profit Colleges, Race, Class and Education Justice, Tressie McMillan Cottom, Huffington Post

• Kaplan's assertion that students' fears and pain should be used to motivate them insinuates what many of us suspect to be true of the people who end up at for-profit colleges: they are lazy and stupid. But the students I worked with were not lazy, unmotivated, or stupid.
• Forced Military Testing in America's Schools

Forced Military Testing in America's Schools, Pat Elder, Common Dreams
There is great reluctance in American society to stand up to the U.S. military, particularly concerning the way it runs a dozen programs in the nation's schools. Calls for transparency are met with silence and indignation, a terrible lesson for American high school students.

Why Abstinence-Only Sex Ed Makes Kids Into Bullies, Soraya Chemaly, RH Reality Check

• Abstinence-only programs, with their emphasis on purity, marriage, and heterosexuality, create hostile environments.
• Rick Perry Struggles To Answer Question About Sex Ed: 'Abstinence Works'
• Anti-gay parents' league presents demands to Anoka-Hennepin schools

Anti-gay parents' league presents demands to Anoka-Hennepin schools, Maria Elena Baca, Minneapolis (MN) Star Tribune
The group wants Anoka-Hennepin (MN) school district) to assist students of "moral conviction" and to offer information on overcoming "sexual disorders."

Universities Gone Wild: Big Money, Big Sports and Scandalous Abuse at Penn State, Henry A. Giroux and Susan Searls Giroux, Truthout

• If university administrators cannot defend the university as a public good, but instead, as in the case of Penn State, align themselves with big money, big sports and the instrumental values of finance capital, they will not be able to mobilize the support of the broader public and will have no way to defend themselves against the neoliberal and conservative attempts by state governments to continually defund higher education.
• Special Report | The Shame of College Sports: December 18, 2011

Coaches assail dangerous youth hockey hits, Jereemy Olson, Minneapolis (MN) Star Tribune
As physicians seek a clearer prognosis, Benilde-St. Margaret's (MN) sophomore Jack Jablonski, injured Friday (Dec 30), awaits spinal surgery.

Bill Conlin Child Abuse: Philadelphia Baseball Writer Retires Amid Molestation Accusations, Huffington Post

• According to Nancy Phillips' story at Philly.com, four people -- three women and a man -- have come forward and alleged that Philadelphia baseball writer Bill Conlin abused them as children during the 1970s. Among the alleged victims is Conlin's niece, Kelley Blanchet, who is now a prosecutor in Atlantic City, N.J.
• Special Report | The Shame of College Sports

Nativity, Reverend Kevin D. Annett, Guest, Duty to Warn
Duty to Warn Editor's Note: Reverend Kevin Annett was fired, without cause, from his successfully rejuvenated United Church of Canada (UCC) parish in Port Alberni, British Columbia (the United Church of Canada has no connection to the United Church of Christ [UCC] in the United States) when he refused to stop his probing into his church’s role in the abusive Residential Schools for Aboriginal children in Canada, where as many as 50,000 children died. (The Residential School system in Canada was essentially the same as the racist church-operated Mission School system for American Indian children in the US).

• Rev Annett’s persistence in this investigative work has resulted in two books and an award-winning documentary (entitled “Unrepentant”) about the sobering history of the Canadian government’s and the Canadian Christian church’s genocidal activities against First nation’s children. A feature film depicting Rev Annett’s powerful story has been produced but has yet to obtain a distributor.
• Duty to Warn: Modern day Genocide in Canada

Charlie Brown and the Lost Art of the Runt, Melissa Carter, Huffington Post
I don't believe bullies should be ignored and do think mean kids should learn to take responsibility for their actions. But I also believe in making sure every kid is equipped to handle any tough situation that comes their way.

Dutch Catholic sexual abuse revealed in report, Mike Corder, Associated Press / Guardian
Thousands of children abused in Dutch Catholic institutions, says independent commission
UK court: Catholic Church liable for priest wrongs
Bishops Are Behind the 'Let Women Die' Act and the Push Against Birth Control--Even As They're Under Fire for Sex Abuse Scandals
 

• Kaplan's assertion that students' fears and pain should be used to motivate them insinuates what many of us suspect to be true of the people who end up at for-profit colleges: they are lazy and stupid. But the students I worked with were not lazy, unmotivated, or stupid.
• Mitt Romney's Rationale On For-Profit Colleges At Odds With Reality
• Forced Military Testing in America's Schools

Tressie McMillan Cottom, Huffington Post

If you like reading this article, consider contributing a cuppa jove to Evergreene Digest--using the donation button above—so we can bring you more just like it.

I was not at all shocked by Kaplan University defending its practice of reminding people of their "pain and fears" to motivate them to make "urgent change." The practice is common in the for-profit college business model. As an admissions and financial aid counselor at two for-profit colleges, including one of the largest -- ITT Technical Institute -- I saw that sentiment expressed both verbally and structurally. Of the two, it is the latter that should concern us most of all.

In the first half of my for-profit college career, I helped mostly young, working class women enroll in an expensive cosmetology program. At almost $14,000 it was an expensive 9-month credential, but it was a credential with a clear occupational outcome. I watched young women go on to become self-sufficient in ways that rippled out to their children, families, and communities. Giving a woman a flat iron can change a child's life expectancy and educational trajectory, a grandparent's end-of-life care, and end an abusive relationship. I am proud of the work I did with those women.

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Related:

Mitt Romney's Rationale On For-Profit Colleges At Odds With Reality, Chris Kirkham, Huffington Post

• Romney's free-market views on higher education collide with reality.
• Insider's View of For-Profit Colleges, Race, Class and Education Justice

Forced Military Testing in America's Schools, Pat Elder, Common Dreams
There is great reluctance in American society to stand up to the U.S. military, particularly concerning the way it runs a dozen programs in the nation's schools. Calls for transparency are met with silence and indignation, a terrible lesson for American high school students.