Stand-in parents sought as youth services face foster shortage
Editorial notes that warmer weather and newer juvenile justice laws drive a 25 percent rise in cases at Aunt Martha's Youth Services, which contracts to aid minors in several Cook and Will County townships. The agency seeks short term foster care volunteers to help runaways and other noncriminal youths, with contacts Janelle Carson or Vernola Baskin at (312) 747-2701.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Aunt Martha’s
Aldo DeAngelis
Olympia Fields
Park Forest
Bremen
Bloom
Rich
Thornton
Cook County
Crete
Monee
Washington
Will
Peotone
Green Garden
Frankfort
New Lenox
Will County
Janelle Carson
Vernola Baskin
Rewriting history bill targets criminal records expungement
Illinois Senate passed a bill modeled on totalitarian regimes to wipe records of Class 4 felonies and misdemeanors. Opponents argue existing Human Rights act already prohibits job discrimination and that expungement risks incomplete records by other agencies, harming due process and truth.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Illinois Senate
Senate
House
Judiciary Committee
Illinois
Illinois rape law overhaul aims to end victim blame
Springfield moves to rewrite sex crime statutes to require freely given consent, curb plea bargaining, and broaden who can be a victim. The plan categories offenses more severely for family members and vulnerable groups, and allows probation for some cases involving relatives. It also prohibits treating a wife's consent as irrevocable and recognizes male victims.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Springfield
Illinois
Winds of change sweep education reform across Illinois schools
Education columnist Mike Walsh blasts decades of mediocrity driven by overregulation and flawed schooling trends. He cites 1960s social programs, phonics shifts, lax college admissions, and “write your own degree” results, urging rigorous curriculums, merit pay, tougher admissions, longer school years, and higher taxes to restore academic excellence at Governors State University and beyond.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Mike Walsh
National Commission On Excellence In Education
Chicago
Governors State University
Illinois
GSU
National Commission
Letters Take Nazi Camp Idea as Educational Boost
A columnist urges school reform by criticizing teacher unions and proposing concentration camps for recalcitrant students. He contrasts osmosis pedagogy with coercive punishment, mocking unions, gender segregation, and harsh labor as a supposed education enhancement. The letter advocates punitive isolation and surveillance, implying police and courts would follow.
Auto drivers unfairly bear proposed gas tax hike
In a clash over highway tax increases in Illinois the House backed a plan that would saddle motorists with nearly 62 percent of the burden. Registered fees for larger cars rise 60 percent and smaller cars 67 percent while trucks climb only 20 percent except heavy models. The AAA-Chicago Motor Club argues for a weight-distance tax to charge heavy trucks for road wear, contending motorists subsidize trucking and bear an unfair share of highway damage costs.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Illinois General Assembly
House
Senate
Illinois Department of Transportation
IDOT
Aaa-Chicago Motor Club
Also Mentioned on This Page
National Newspaper Association Suburban Newspapers of America
Northern Illinois Newspaper Association
Cook County Suburban Publishers Association
Illinois Press Association
Mike Lawrence
Lyndon Johnson
Governors State
Park Forest South
Robert M. Healey
Illinois Federation of Teachers
Healey
Motourists
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