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Catch up with State of Opportunity this weekend

Stew Dean
/
Flickr

There's a lot happening in the courts, education, popular culture, and technology  impacting Michigan's kids. Here's what we're talking about on the State of Opportunity website

The impact of the challenge to Michigan's constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage will extend to definitions of family. The federal court will hear arguments related to adoption, parenting, and family formations that will add another contour to how the legal landscape approaches same-sex marriage. 

On Thursday, Gov. Rick Snyder issued a report calling for changes in how agencies are paid for foster care services, Michigan Radio's Jake Neher reports. This week we took a look at how kids in foster care, and their adult caregivers, are depicted in film by reviewingShort Term 12Check out the film this weekend with Gov. Snyder's plansin mind. Would a performance-based model be the best solution for the kids in this film and, importantly, in real life? 

We're never too far from the topic of education. The State of Opportunity feature this week looks at teacher evaluations. How can the process of evaluating teachers be improved to give educators the feedback they need to better serve students? Our Outtakes pick up on this theme with a researcher interview about why videos provide the best feedbackto teachers.

On the student side, today's technology and opportunity takes a step back from the rush to get tablet computers into students' hands and follows KQED's reporting on mindfulness in California classroomsin California. "Oh, of course, California kids meditating in classrooms. No surprise there," you might think. But then you read about the results schools are having with reducing classroom disruptions and suspensions by introducing mindfulness mediation. You might be surprised after all.