At-Risk

It isn’t just parents who should worry about kids who waste their time thumbing video games and text messages instead of doing their homework. America’s position as a world leader is at stake.

Only about one in four students in many of the public schools’ top tech programs is a girl, a statistic that mirrors women’s participation in tech jobs nationwide. As a result, city educators are trying to introduce more girls to STEM, but many say there’s more to it than just getting the word out.

As Rethinking Schools began to explore the school-to-prison pipeline, we searched for a construct that would help us understand how the criminalization of youth fits into the larger social picture.

School officials across the country responded to a surge in juvenile crime during the 1980s and the Columbine High School shootings a decade later by tightening disciplinary policies and increasing the number of police patrolling public schools. But these policies have not made schools safer, and we need to chart a new course in school discipline.

There are urban neighborhoods with short life expectancies and high rates of diabetes, obesity and heart disease. And there are affluent areas where preventive care and insurance are within reach.

For 35 years, Preservation New Jersey has monitored the toll of time on historic buildings throughout the region, compiling annual lists of the most endangered. This year’s roundup includes the Valley Road School in Princeton, a graceful building echoing the architecture of Princeton University’s collegiate Gothic style. Nearing its 100th anniversary, the three-story facility on Witherspoon Street deftly illustrates parts of Princeton’s past.

On the one hand, it’s good news that doomsday predictions for computer-less children have been exaggerated. However, giving out computers was one of the easier solutions to closing the poverty educational outcome gap, and now we have to go back to the drawing board.