The InformED Report for April 10, 2017 began with a question most education systems leave in the background: who is responsible for teaching young people who are locked up? California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office had proposed moving that duty from county offices of education to local school districts. The edition also offered parents practical advice for parent-teacher conferences, and closed with a pilot from the Charles Schwab Corporation and DonorsChoose.org to fund financial literacy projects in public school classrooms.
In this edition
- California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office proposed shifting education for about 8,000 incarcerated youth from county offices of education to school districts.
- A Huffington Post contributor offered three steps for a productive parent-teacher conference: plan, ask to see the work, and set goals for home.
- Schwab and DonorsChoose.org piloted matching donations for pre-K to 12 classroom projects that teach personal finance.
Who teaches kids in prison?
KPCC’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez reported on a review of California’s 58 county offices of education by the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the nonpartisan office that advises the state Legislature. The state had budgeted $140 million that year to educate about 8,000 young people in juvenile halls and jails, and the money went directly to county offices. The analysts found that county offices spent anywhere from $6,000 to $36,000 per student, and argued that they did not provide high enough quality services and operated without adequate transparency.
Their proposal was to give the responsibility, and the funding, to students’ home school districts. Natasha Collins, a senior fiscal and policy analyst at the office, explained the reasoning: “So districts have a bigger stake in how their students are doing when they’re incarcerated.” County leaders disagreed. Peter Birdsall of the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association said the change would create real confusion without improving accountability, and pointed out that county offices already submitted accountability plans for state review. Youth advocates welcomed the recommendation. The proposal would require a change in state law and had been sent to legislators for review.
For district leaders, the debate raised a question that applied well beyond California. Young people in juvenile halls and jails are, for the most part, students who came from a district and may return to one, bringing their credits and records with them. Whatever the Legislature decided, districts had reasons to know where their detained students were being taught, what courses they were taking and how those credits would transfer, rather than treating that time as outside their responsibility.
Three tips for productive parent-teacher conferences
In The Huffington Post, Nina Parrish wrote about the rush to her daughter’s first preschool conference, with a reworked family schedule and a strong wish not to be late, and drew three pieces of advice from it. The first was to make a plan before the conference: review grades and papers, ask the child how school is going, and write questions down. The second was to ask to see examples of the student’s work and assessments, along with attendance and grade data, and to ask what success looks like at the child’s grade level. The third was to ask what the family can do at home and to set goals together, agreeing with the teacher on how and when to follow up.
The advice was written for parents, but it also describes what a well-run conference looks like from the school’s side. Schools that send families a short list of questions in advance, bring real student work to the table and end each meeting with one or two agreed goals make the fifteen minutes count for everyone.
InformED Report spotlight: Schwab and DonorsChoose.org fund financial literacy
The spotlight went to personal finance in the classroom. The Charles Schwab Corporation announced through Business Wire that it would pilot a program matching individual donations to classroom projects, from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, that build students’ financial literacy. The matches would run through DonorsChoose.org, and any public or charter school teacher in the United States could apply for funding for a personal finance project through the DonorsChoose.org website.
The announcement cited the Council for Economic Education’s finding that fewer than half of schools across the country required a course in personal finance, while Americans struggled with student loans, credit card debt and saving for retirement. A matching program cannot fill that gap on its own, since it depends on teachers who already want to teach the subject. It did give those teachers a practical way to pay for materials, and gave school leaders a low-cost way to test how financial lessons fit into existing courses.
Sources
- Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, “Proposal: School districts should handle education for incarcerated youth,” KPCC, February 9, 2017.
- Nina Parrish, “Three Tips for Productive Parent-Teacher Conferences,” The Huffington Post, February 7, 2017.
- The Charles Schwab Corporation, “Schwab Teams up with DonorsChoose.org to Fund Matching Donations for Financial Literacy Projects in Public Schools,” Business Wire, February 8, 2017.
About the InformED Report
The InformED Report is edCircuit’s short news program on education. This edition first ran on April 10, 2017. In 2026, edCircuit re-presented it with a new anchor and this full written account. Both report the stories as they stood on that date and link the original reporting, so readers can see exactly where each claim came from.
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