Elena Sokolow

As the school year ends and summer now honestly feels like it is upon us, I can't help but think of a few things that I have always associated with the season. As a twenty-something, for me this means weekend trips with friends, outdoor festivals and hopefully some time for a little rest and relaxation. For many teens, however, the summer is not just school vacation, but a time to gain critical employment skills through a summer job. Accoridng to New York Times article I read a few weeks ago, however, finding that job opportunity is not as easy as one might think.  read more »

Last week the news media seemed unable to stop talking about America’s dropout crisis. So what is this all about, and why all the sudden attention?

Well last week the Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center with support from the America’s Promise Alliance and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, released a report called Cities in Crisis, which explored the dropout issue with a specific focus on the graduation rates of America’s 50 largest cities. The study found that overall, graduation rates are significantly lower in the largest US cities, and further, that large disparities exist in some of our country’s largest metro areas, where students in a suburban school system may be twice as likely as their urban counterparts to graduate from high school. When EPE employed its own method of calculating the dropout rate, they found that only 52% of students from the largest districts in the 50 largest cities complete high school with a diploma, a rate well below the national graduation rate of 70%. How does this play out in the Commonwealth?  read more »

Who inspired you?

This question bounced around my brain all day last Tuesday, as I was one of over 600 people who attended United Way's Inspire 4 Life Conference, a full day of workshops that focused on issues impacting youth in our community and a variety of approaches to address those issues. It was a day filled with learning on a wide variety of topics ranging from the practical, such as engaging families, engaging youth in career exploration, bridging the divide between schools and after-school programs to the more theoretical and technical such as applying brain science to adolescent development. It was this last session that seemed to leave one of the biggest impressions.  read more »

A recent Boston Globe Article reflected upon something which seems to be rarely discussed in the media: how youth who are not directly involved in a violent incident are significantly affected, and often traumatized by it...  read more »