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April 24, 2006
Youth Leadership in Government
Young people are making waves at City Hall:
Policymaking is starting at puberty these days. Berkeley and other cities are drawing teenagers into government in a bid to create politically active -- rather than apathetic -- adults. Although no one tracks the numbers, nine government agencies from San Francisco to Santa Cruz are making room for teenagers on boards and commissions, along with cities across the country.
The phenomenon is called "youth civic engagement,'' and it is being driven in part by celebrity endorsements of political and social causes, moral issue campaigns by religious groups and the growing sophistication of teens who are informing themselves through the Internet.
Youth Movement at City Halls Across the Nation
community and housing development, education
April 18, 2006
Award for Kid-Healthy Communities
The American Public Health Assocation recognized five communities that are designed with the health of children in mind:
- Riverside County,CA
- Highlands' Garden Village in Denver, Colorado
- Centennial Place in Atlanta, Georgia
- Delaware County, Ohio
- Winchester Greens in Richmond, Virginia
American Public Health Association Blue Ribbon Case Studies
April 14, 2006
Omaha Formalizes School Segregation
Omaha has passed legilsation to divide the public school district into new districts based on race. This regressive move won't take effect till 2008. Even if law suits manage to halt the splitting of the district, the current system does not integrate through busing, but forces students to attend already segregated neighborhood schools.
Omaha school district to split along racial lines
Photos: 2006 Y-PLAN Tour
KIPP Keeps Growing - Now at Stanford
KIPP is clustering schools with the goal of providing a pre-K-12 education. They are also relocating the Fisher Fellows summer training to Stanford, and hoping to double their 46 schools in the next five years. This EdWeek article mostly addresses the challenges in maintianing the quality of the schools as they expand and criticisms of creaming. Even at full build out, KIPP will still only reach some 20,000 or so, hardly a drop in the bucket in terms of national education reform...
KIPP Schools Shift Strategy for Scaling Up
April 13, 2006
Landscape Carpet
A walkway at Sacramento's International Airport is home to an overhead view of the Sacramento River...
via Pruned
Article: NY Rethinks its Remaking of the Schools
Joel I. Klein has taken on yet another restructuring of NYC's public schools, distributing more localized power to principals, bringing on a range of consultants like Chris Cerf of Edison, and developing new performance and accountability systems.
New York Rethinks its Remaking of the Schools