The following aired on KCBS.

By: Malachi Segers

Facebook says you've got to be atleast 13 to sign-up, yet there are millions of underage users, giving  away their personal information without a second thought. And social media is just the tip of the iceberg. 

I think teenagers should not only watch what they post, but also pay attention to who's looking at what they post. Some students have reportedly lost their scholarships for offensive tweets. And dozens of teens have even been arrested for posting threats on Facebook. 

In my family, our policy is to be as private as possible. I take the value seriously--even my closest friends don't know most details about my life. They don't even know that i'm doing this--right now-- on the raido. I want strangers to know even less. 

I know that in 2013 you need a web presence to be successful or even considered normal. Most jobs and colleges these days will check to see what klind of person you are. If your online profile is too private, they'll have no idea who you are, and may be less likely to select you. 

There is no clear formula, but I say, think twice, click once. 

By Sayre Quevedo

Young people in Chicago who have been through the criminal justice system face plenty of obstacles when they get out, but educational attainment might be the biggest one. According to a new report by the American Sociological Association, “Among Chicago adolescents...73 percent of those arrested later dropped out of high school compared with 51 percent of those not arrested." That’s a 22 percent difference.

The report looks at laws and school policies that are intended to deal with ex-offenders in schools and how, intentionally or not, they’re decreasing the likelihood of graduation for these students.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act calls for for better learning environments in schools that are “persistently” unsafe. On the surface this seems like a good thing: safer schools, safer children, more learning. But schools in Chicago have begun to push out ex-offenders in order to comply with the law. The report states, ”Indeed, Mayer (2005) reported, on the basis of interviews with expert informants in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), that the primary reason principals work to exclude criminally involved students from school is accountability.”

This piece was originally published on Voicewaves.

By Adalhi montes

Hundreds of students and parents showed up in support for the launch of the “Every Student Matters” (ESM) campaign this past weekend at Cesar Chavez Park.
The campaign, led by the Building Healthy Communities Long Beach Youth Committee, began with the collection of over 1,700 surveys from Long Beach high school and middle school students around school climate.

The results of the survey helped the youth identify key goals to achieve in partnership with LBUSD:

▪ Piloting Restorative Justice practices and other alternatives to exclusionary, punitive discipline, especially in middle schools and high schools. Restorative Justice practices use dialogue in circles as both a proactive practice to prevent conflict as well as to respond to conflict and disciplinary matters.
▪ Developing a consistent discipline policy and framework for all LBUSD schools that provide overall guidance for school discipline practices with flexibility for school-site decision-making.
▪ Reducing the disproportionate suspension and expulsion of students of color, especially African American students.
▪ Reducing suspensions at schools where more than 10 percent of students have received suspensions by promoting alternatives that keep students in the classroom and schools.
Read more...

Today on the Youth Radio podcast, we talk to a mental health advocacy organization for teens suffering with mental illness about whether there is a link between gun violence and mental illness. Also, a former Youth Radio reporter reflects on her experience as a teenage manic depressant.

Thirty five educators in Atlanta, Georgia and retired Superintendent Beverly Hall, were indicted last week on 65 accounts, including falsifying students’ standardized test scores. They are currently reporting to Fulton County Jail, according to CBS Atlanta.

Under Hall’s leadership, the Atlanta school district saw steady increases in test scores, for which she was commended. That is, until cheating was discovered.

Reactions to the Atlanta indictments showcase the ongoing debate about the role of standardized tests in education. And it seems like everyone wants to blame someone.

Some blame the No Child Left Behind Act for creating an environment where high test scores count more than ever, and low test scores mean a teacher's job could be at risk. Others blame teachers for lacking moral integrity. And still others throw it back at the students. Check out some of the responses left on CBS’s website:

JOHN92021:
I find it interesting that everyone thinks the kids would be smarter if the teachers hadn't changed the tests. They would be just as stupid but with lower scores.

ZMONKEE:
I don't think people feel that the kids would be smarter-- but the teachers obviously didn't try to teach them anything, knowing they were going to cheat anyway-- so the kids got cheated-

The following aired on KCBS.

By: Joy White

"Not all of us can be anorexic like you, Joy." While you might think this sounds like a compliment, it's the complete opposite.

Freshman year, a woman came into my sex education class to talk about body image. She spoke about eating disorders, and showed us pictures of models in magazines. She preached that these women were too skinny. I looked down, embarrassed because I was just as skinny as them. 

My entire life I've been tall and thin. I'm the thinnest of my cousins and the only one of my friends who hasn't ever been on a diet. And I never really think twice about my weight until people remind me -- "Joy, you're a stick."

I've always felt like I was the wrong size. Until one day my friend told me she thought she was fat, which was surprising. I thought she was the perfect size.

Suddebnly it occured to me that I wanted to be her size, and she wanted to be mine. I realized how pointless it is to strive for a body not your own. So instead of complaining about my weight, I told my friend she was perfect. Then I told myself the same thing.

Reporting by Chantell Williams

Mental health advocates want the link between violence and people who are mentally ill to disappear.

After the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza, killed 20 children and six staff, lawmakers scrambled to respond to the public’s fear that schools aren’t safe enough. Some states and policymakers began proposing policy changes that addressed people who suffer from mental illness, because an investigation into the Lanza’s mental health history revealed that he had been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and Sensory Integration Disorder (SID).

The Atlantic reports:

“Soon after the shootings, it was reported that Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's, and many wondered if that was the whole story. Asperger's, after all, is not typically linked to violent behavior, certainly not the level of violence that Lanza unleashed on Sandy Hook Elementary School, so many wondered if there was something else going on. Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, psychosis — something must've tripped a wire in his brain and made him snap.”

But according to the American Psychiatric Institute, only four to five percent of violent crimes are committed by people with mental illness. 

Nevertheless, New York signed a law in January of this year, requiring mental health practitioners to alert the authorities of any patients who appear to be potentially dangerous. And a commentary in Education Week says teachers should do the same thing with their students -- identifying any who appear potentially dangerous, in an effort to keep the school community safe.

However, young mental health advocates say this is a problematic strategy. Members of Youth In Mind, a statewide mental health advocacy organization, sat down with Youth Radio reporter Chantell Williams to explain their perspective. They said being profiled or labelled mentally ill does not always lead to more support for students.

“I had a Language Arts teacher who was reading a lot of my poetry, and got very concerned,” said Susan Manzi, the President of Youth In Mind. Manzi said she wrote suicidal poetry in English class as a result of living with a sexually and physically abusive family.

High-achieving students from poor, rural areas could succeed at highly selective colleges... but they don't apply, and aren't recruited.

Many high-achieving students from these areas apply to schools based on their income and what they think they can afford, instead of applying based on their achievement.

A new study from the Brookings Institute shows that high-achieving, low-income students from rural areas would do very well at selective colleges -- and would receive ample financial aid, compared to attending two-year for-profit institutions where they end up paying much more.

The study highlights the fact that high-achieving students who live in rural areas, do not encounter teachers who went to selective colleges, and are not surrounded by other high-achievers. These factors may contribute to the low-application rate. However, high-achieving students from poor, rural areas who do apply to selective colleges and attend, succeed and progress towards degree attainment at the same rate as high-income students do.

In addition, the charts below from the Brookings report, show that simply being an underrepresented minority, does not mean that your family is low-income. The report explains, “If admissions staff do most of their outreach to low-income students by visiting schools that are largely Hispanic and black, the staff should realize that this strategy is likely to lead to a student body that is not income-diverse.”

By Patrick Moreno, VoiceWaves

(Watch video below.)

For two months last year, 17-year-old Polytechnic High School Senior Amanda Em was sick and didn’t seek treatment. She missed school often because of her health issues, and her lack of focus on her schoolwork caused her to not pass any classes her junior year.
“I had nowhere to turn, I felt like I was going crazy,” Em said.

Em’s story echoes roughly one third of Long Beach high school students who are uninsured and go without basic medical treatment. In the video above she shares her testimony at a student health and wellness forum hosted by Khmer Girls in Action (KGA) last week.
In response to stories like Em’s, many students, teachers and community members are calling for better physical and mental health services for Long Beach students through the use of School Based Health Centers (SBHC).

Essentially, a health center in the school building would provide comprehensive health care services to students. Through a partnership between a school district and a healthcare clinic or hospital, the center can work with parents’ healthcare providers in caring for the student, or provide low-cost services to students and their parents.

The Following aired on KQED-FM.

By. Joshua Clayton

In elementary school and junior high, I was a bad little boy. You could find me in the principal’s office almost every day.

I remember my fourth grade teacher telling me, “Joshua if you don't do your work, I will flunk you.” I didn't even know the meaning of the word flunk, until the next year when I showed up at a 5th grade class and they told me I was still in the 4th grade. I think that was the moment I stopped caring.

After that, no matter how hard I worked, it felt like I would never catch up. By the time I got to middle school, I flunked two more grades.

People told me to step my game up, that high school was when it really mattered. So, in the 10th grade I started to get serious about school. For the next three years I did all my work and I got better grades. I had dreams of being an artist for Pixar, creating animated movies. But at the end of my senior year, my family started falling apart. I was just four credits away from a diploma when my mom sent me out of state to live with my grandma. I never graduated.