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JCCF NEWS SUMMARY
March 21, 2012
 
Photo by Michael Falco 
 
Enter the 18th annual Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism competition, which recognizes exemplary reporting on children and families. 

 

First-place winners receive $1,000 and will be honored at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. 

 

Casey Medalists will also be considered for the America's Promise Journalism Awards for Awareness and Action, and the new Grad Nation Award for excellence in education reporting. Alliance winners receive $5,000 and will be announced at the Medals ceremony.  

 

Nearly 5,000 journalists have competed for Casey Medals since 1994. You can find the medalists and their winning content by clicking on the Awards tab on the JCCF homepage.

  

 
Jump to:
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Building a Grad Nation: An Annual Report

 


The national high school graduation rate increased modestly to 75.5 percent in 2009, according to a March 2012 report by the Alliance for Excellent Education, America's Promise Alliance, Civic Enterprises, and the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University.

 

The authors of the report offered strategies to address the nation's dropout rate, such as getting all students to read at grade level and raising the mandatory school attendance age to 18.

 

The research was presented at the 2012 Grad Nation summit, organized by America's Promise Alliance.

 

 
JCCF Director Julie Drizin attended the summit in Washington, DC. Click below to follow her twitter coverage. 
  
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Talk to Us - We are Listening

 
SurveyPic Photo by 2009 Casey Runner-Up Kathleen Galligan, Detroit Free Press

 

The Journalism Center on Children and Families (JCCF) wants to know more about you. What do you do? What do you need from us? Please take a couple of minutes to fill out this very short survey which will help guide and inform our work in the months ahead.

 

Have more to say? Connect with us on Facebook. 

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headlinesCHILDREN AND FAMILIES HEADLINES

 

To Receive Welfare, Should Drug Test Be Required?

PBS NewsHour (Video), Ray Suarez | March 20, 2012

Since the recession hit, welfare applications have soared across the country. One emerging trend to help tighten welfare eligibility: requiring recipients to pass a drug test. 

 

Shortcomings of US Schools Pose National Security Threat

The Christian Science Monitor, Howard LaFranchi | March 20, 2012

America's failure to prepare children for a globalized world is now so grave that threatens national security, says a report by former secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and former New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.

 

Cities a Test Kitchen for Fighting Childhood Obesity

NJ Spotlight, Beth Fitzgerald | March 20, 2012

Nearly half of the kids in Trenton, N.J. are overweight or obese. A initiative in five cities hopes to bring meals using locally grown produce to school cafeterias.

 

My 12-year Old Son Knows He Could Be Trayvon (Opinion)

CNN, In America Blog, Christy Oglesby | March 20, 2012

In the wake of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, the mother of a pre-teen African American boy explains the different set of rules she has taught her son to live by: no running in a neighborhood; disobedience is dangerous.

 

Make the Punishment Fit the Cyber-Crime (Opinion)

The New York Times, Emily Bazelon | March 19, 2012

The nation is on high alert over bullying-especially when kids' cruelty intersects with the internet. Emily Bazelon writes that civil rights statutes are being stretched to go after teens who acted meanly, but not violently.

 

14-Year-Old Murderers: Is Life Without Parole Constitutional?

ABC News, Ariane de Vogue | March 19, 2012

The Supreme Court will decide whether juveniles charged with murder should receive sentences of life without parole.

 

Opinion: Another Child Dies in a Hot Car - Why Was This a Crime?

Washington Post, Gene Weingarten | March 15, 2012

Besides grief and sadness, what is the appropriate public response to accidental deaths of kids strapped into car seats on a hot day? Should parents be punished?

 

High Teen Unemployment Could Hurt Future Job Growth

U.S. News and World Report, Danielle Kurtzleben | March 15, 2012

Nearly a quarter of American teenagers are jobless, with higher rates of unemployment for African Americans and Latinos. Economists debate the impact of minimum wage.

 

The Challenge for Kids' Health Insurance - Keeping Them Enrolled

New America Media, Viji Sundaram | March 14, 2012

In California, at least 400 thousand children in low income families are not registered for public health care programs they are eligible to receive. Advocates say fear, myths and confusion are to blame.
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EventsEVENTS      
  
March 23, 9:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. ET
Arizona State University, New America Foundation, Slate
Washington, DC
The wide-ranging conference will address what it means to be resilient, whether we're talking about our bodies, our minds, our communities, our institutions or our natural environment. Speakers include FEMA Chief of Staff Jason McNamara, former acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger and Sheri Fink, winner of the 2010 Pulitzer prize for investigative reporting on Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans.
 
March 26, 10 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. ET
Center for American Progress
Washington, DC
The Obama administration's Race to the Top competitive grant program promised to help school districts close achievement gaps and help more students become college and career ready. An expert panel will examine the progress in states and provide a sense of early successes and failures. 
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FellowshipsFELLOWSHIPS AND SCHOLARSHIPS

 

The Dart Center Academic Fellowship Program

Deadline: March 28
Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma
Fellowship sessions provide in-depth training to journalism educators who are seeking to learn skills and develop curricula that will better educate students on newsgathering, storytelling and self-care when reporting on human tragedy. 
 
Deadline: March 31  
The Society for Features Journalism
Diversity fellows will learn what's happening in features departments nationwide while networking with outstanding journalists specializing in lifestyle coverage.

 

Deadline: April 16
USC Annenberg 
This all-expenses-paid mini fellowship on community health issues comes with grants of $2,000-$10,000 to underwrite reporting on a substantive health topic. Journalists will explore the role that race, ethnicity, pollution, violence, and transportation and land-use policy play in prospects for good health. For more information, email Martha Shirk at Cahealth@usc.edu. 

 

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ABOUT THE JCCF NEWS SUMMARY

Mina Dixon, Editor 

The Journalism Center on Children & Families, a program of the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism, is a national nonprofit organization committed to supporting media coverage of children, youth and families, particularly the disadvantaged. The JCCF News Summary helps journalists and others keep in touch with the latest news, policy analysis and research reports on critical social issues that impact families and communities. We encourage redistribution of this material with credit given to the Journalism Center on Children & Families.

Journalists are encouraged to submit their stories for consideration for publication in the JCCF News Summary and on our website. Please send story links to: info@journalismcenter.org. Stories should be archived and free of access charges for at least seven days.
 
JCCF thanks The Annie E. Casey Foundation for its generous support of our work.
 
www.journalismcenter.org
 

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