Youth Policy

House weighs expanded access to child care assistance

By Sarah Lemagie, Session Weekly/Session Daily

House members on Tuesday considered two bills that would take similar steps to expand access to child care assistance for low-income families.

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Educators argue for statewide all-day kindergarten

By Sarah Lemagie, Session Weekly/Session Daily

Educators made their case Thursday in the House for funding all-day kindergarten statewide.

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Proposed bill provides a way for some parents to reunite with kids

By Sarah Lemagie, Session Weekly/Session Daily

Gina Evans got addicted to methamphetamine as a teenager. She collected a dozen felony convictions, did prison time, and lost her legal rights as a parent before she finally turned her life around. But even after she entered recovery, got a job and made a stable home for herself, she found that she couldn’t get her children back.

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FREE SPEECH ZONE | Minnesota should pass the Dream Act II in 2013

By Juventino Meza, Free Speech Zone

Young people are hungry for hope and opportunity

After I graduated from Arlington High School, I realized that most of the students I started school with in the ELL program did not graduate. Many dropped out because they had to help their families here in the US and other countries. Many would say, "Why should I graduate from high school if I can't go to college?" Immigration status for many of us defined our opportunities.

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Minnesota's Parent Aware pre-school ratings: Questions of accuracy and fairness

By Sheila Regan, TC Daily Planet

Photo by cafemama, published under Creative Commons license. 

Minnesota's Parent Aware rating system for early childhood care and education is supposed to help parents choose quality programs for their children. But a closer look at the rating system reveals some disturbing details:
• Nearly all of the programs rated get high ratings.
• Ratings don't really correlate with how well kids progress in program.
• Hmong providers may be consistently ranked too low, raising questions of cultural competence in the rating system.

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Youth advocates take aim at homelessness, ask House committee to create fund for Homeless Youth Act

By Sarah Lemagie, Session Weekly/Session Daily

Deaundre Dent (Photo by Andrew VonBank)

Deaundre Dent was 14 when he became homeless. He and his mom didn’t see eye to eye because of what he described as his own questionable decision-making, and he was kicked out of his home, he told state lawmakers.

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Proposed bill seeks to close more juvenile court records to the public

By Sarah Lemagie, Session Weekly/Session Daily

When should juvenile court proceedings be open to the public?

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Do early childhood programs for poor kids work?

By Cynthia Boyd, MinnPost

Lately, we’re hearing a lot about the benefits of early childhood education — especially for poor kids.

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Letter from Liberia: Sexual assault of children one major problem among many in post-conflict era

By Amy Bergquist, The Advocates for Human Rights

Life can be a heavy load in post-conflict Liberia, a country torn apart by a 14-year civil war. What happened to a little girl, Olivia, evidences the toll of human rights abuses in that country, as reported to The Advocates’ “Team Liberia” while we were in Liberia in January conducting needs assessments with that country’s human rights organizations.

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The Advocates for Human Rights

Childcare: Fertile ground for healthy young eaters

By JoAnne Berkenkamp and Erin McKee VanSlooten, Think Forward

When a four year old in our project was asked recently where carrots come from, he pretty well nailed it: “The ground, and farmers water them and pick them and give them to people and bunnies too, and stores.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

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Think Forward
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