Daily Lumina News 011620

Apprenticeship programs in prisons are still relatively rare, but they may be instrumental in helping incarcerated individuals leave prison as better citizens, not better criminals.
Kentucky’s Justice to Journeyman apprenticeship program, based in seven of Kentucky’s correctional facilities, aims to do just that. Inmates in the program take classes and begin job training while they are still behind bars; they then graduate to on-the-job apprenticeships with employers. Participants also receive one-on-one counseling and help in finding housing and transportation.

At one point during the four-and-a-half years Jen Tarwater studied to become a teacher and completed two minors, she juggled four jobs—among them, serving as a student employee at her school’s Hispanic multicultural center and working as an entertainer on the Polar Express with the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Train.
It wasn’t so much a matter of survival for the Fort Lewis College graduate, but rather a proactive measure to create a cushion for the months she needed to devote to student teaching.

A new report and video from The Education Trust say it isn’t enough to just believe that racial inequality is a problem; what policymakers, advocates, and citizens do about it matters most.
The study offers 10 race-conscious policy recommendations addressing college admissions and degree attainment, higher education funding, student debt relief, and campus climate.

A Texas nonprofit has created a report card to score the state's public institutions on how well they serve first-generation, low-income students.
Dallas-based ScholarShot rates the colleges using metrics like graduate outcomes, academic engagement, financial management and interventions. The group says the report card is intended to push state legislators to change how they distribute funds, encourage universities to improve supports for these students, and inform parents and academic advisors in the state.