ONE SIMPLE FIX FOR LA’S FOSTER CARE SYSTEM THAT CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED IMMEDIATELY SEZ BLUE RIBBON COMMISSION—IF THERE WAS THE WILL TO DO IT
This LA Times editorial runs it down and says what stands in our way. Here’s a clip:
Los Angeles County fails to protect children from abuse and neglect because no single person or entity in county government takes responsibility for the problem or has the power to prevent it.
But how can that be? There is a Department of Children and Family Services specifically charged with child protection, and there are dozens of other agencies, programs and policies intended to further the goal.
A divided and frustrated Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors formed a Blue Ribbon Commission on Child Protection this year in the wake of the May death of 8-year-old Gabriel Fernandez of Palmdale to try to figure out why the county keeps failing in its mission. To its credit, the panel made clear from the outset that it would focus on why the puzzle is never completed. It sent the board an interim report Monday.
[SNIP]
But all of those departments, programs and policies too often operate in bureaucratic isolation, with poor communication and coordination. It’s as if several dozen people, each given a piece of a puzzle, went off on their own to ponder what the whole picture might look like if they ever got together. No one sits them down at a table and starts putting the pieces together…..
WHY GOOD AND SKILLFUL TEACHERS OF COLOR OFTEN QUIT TEACHING
Amanda Machado at the Atlantic Monthly writes a thought provoking essay about how the painfully personal knowledge of what is at stake for students in today’s public education can drive black and Latino teachers to leave the profession at higher rates than their white peers because of the stress they place on themselves to be perfect in order to make sure kids succeed.
Here’s a clip:
…Because our backgrounds often parallel those of our students, the issues in our classrooms hit us more personally. This ultimately places an extreme amount of pressure on us to be good teachers immediately, since we know or have experienced ourselves the consequences of an insufficient education. A Latino Teach for America alum in Miami told me: “While teaching, I was acutely conscious of the fact that I wouldn’t have obtained the same level of success if my own teachers had not given everything they had to push me to where I needed to be. This intensified the pressure I already felt to do well.
I knew what happened when our kids failed at school—many of my relatives and friends had failed, and some never recovered. Relatives and friends who had dropped out of school now lived in poverty, became alcoholics, or spiraled into depression. With these pictures in my mind, the job became almost a matter of life and death. With every lesson I planned, I had this big-picture anxiety: I worried that if I did not teach this lesson impeccably, in a way that compelled my students to stay committed to their education in the long-term, my students would inherit the same fates of so many people I knew. I worried that my failure would ultimately become theirs….
WHEN WILL YOUR CHILD BE ELIGIBLE FOR PAROLE? HANK COXE TALKS AT TEDX
Celebrated trial lawyer Hank Coxe gives" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen> a must watch TEDX talk about how out-of-whack our juvenile justice system has become.
A CONTROVERSIAL OFFICER INVOLVED SHOOTING IN SANTA BARBARA BRINGS THE FILING OF A $10 MILLION LAWSUIT
Reporting for Mission & State, Sam Slovic follows-up on his story from last month about the fatal shooting of a mentally ill man named Brian Tacadena who was welding a knife on a public sidewalk, and who may or may not have tried to die. Now members of Tacadena’s family have filed a big bucks lawsuit, saying that the legal action is their only way to find out if Tacadena’s sad death could have been avoided.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ll have more on the LASD news we missed later in the week.