Jim Langford, born and raised in the small town of Calhoun, is a faithful son of Georgia. After earning an MBA from the Harvard Business School, Jim went on to create a $2.5 billion technology company with a team of fellow alums. Then he turned his efforts to public service and began his tireless work for a better Georgia by writing the legislation to preserve Georgia’s Native American archaeological sites threatened by looters and development. Later, as head of Georgia’s Trust for Public Lands, Langford spearheaded the development of the Atlanta BeltLine, a series of multiuse paths and parks running in a rough loop around the city’s center.

Charter schools and school choice are no longer experiments. Nationwide, they have become important components of public education. Since this blog began a discussion of educational improvement almost two years ago, we have heard from countless educators, administrators, and social workers both pro and con on school choice and the advantages and disadvantages of charter schools. Today we would like to catalogue the input we have received to give you an overview of what education professionals are saying about this all-important public policy issue.

When we’re very busy taking care of other people, it’s easy to overlook the need to take care of ourselves. But self-care is vitally important for making sure you’re up to the challenges of being a caregiver. In order to be there for your loved ones and handle all your responsibilities, you need to keep up your health and energy levels. Here are some tips for making time for yourself in your everyday life.

 

Guns in the United States

• In 2016, firearms were responsible for more than 38,000 deaths and over 116,000 nonfatal gunshot wounds in the United States.
• The United States owns approximately 250 million guns, nearly one for each citizen, and grows about 7 million each year.
• Each year, the United States has a bit over 8,000 murders with firearms.
• According to data from the Gun Violence Archive, a total of 346 mass shootings (5 or more victims) occurred in the U.S. in 2017.
• As of May 17th 2018, 101 mass shootings have already occurred this year.  

Social Work Today magazine has just published the top ten list of social workers who were nominated by their peers for outstanding performance in the past year. We are proud to reprint these inspirational comments from the finalists in their own words.

Twenty years-ago it seemed like every family in the country was struggling with a teenager suffering from an “eating disorder”. In recent years this serious social, mental health, psychological, and medical problem seems to be garnering a lot less attention. Did we lick it, or have we just stopped talking about it?

A colleague recently wrote us and noted that we rarely cover the American Indian community in this blog. She was correct. We confess that our oversight is probably a reflection of a broader cultural blindness to Native American social issues in general. Perhaps this numbed sensitivity comes from the fact that Native Americans do not make as much noise as other underprivileged minorities. It seems to be part of their native dignity to suffer in silence without complaint and, unfortunately, in American social justice “the squeaky wheel gets the oil”.

Teacher strikes are spreading across the country. In states where they are still woefully underpaid like Oklahoma and Arizona it is amazing that teachers can afford to go to work at all. But teachers in California and New York, on the other hand, are not striking strictly for pay increases. They are demanding more funding for education in general and are striking on behalf of their students who, they say, are being under-served in aging buildings without up-to-date technology, proper textbooks, or fundamental teaching aides. In other words, teachers are revolting against a perennial lack of proper funding for education across the country. How can the wealthiest country in the world fail to prioritize the education of its youth, when it is that very educational system that made it the wealthiest country in the world?

The Jewish Federations of North America brings together a network of 148 local federations which collectively raise and allocate more than $3 billion annually for social welfare, social services, and educational needs. The JFNA has spent three decades in an effort to create an ongoing mechanism that would productively connect local federations to a group of national Jewish organizations. Its mission was “to bring together seven national Jewish agencies and the Jewish federation network into a common space, promoting deeper relationships and creating synergy among them.”

The Family First Act has become law! This is a very big deal for our caseworker colleagues who work in teen pregnancy and parenting. It represents the biggest change to the structure of federal child welfare finance since the establishment of the Title IV-E entitlement in 1980.