ParentDish

Vocational Education At Risk Because of Focus on College

Tom Henderson — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: In The News, Education: Teens

Obama's budget calls for cuts in vocational education. Credit: Getty Images

A lot of kids will never get a college degree -- at least one in four won't even make it through high school in the usual four years.

Despite that, the Boston Globe reports funding for vocational education in the United States is in serious peril.

Saying he wants America to produce the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020, President Barack Obama is focused on raising overall academic standards and college graduation rates. However, the Globe reports, that comes at the expense of vocational education.

The administration proposes cutting federal vocational training grants to public high schools and community colleges. Overall, according to the newspaper, Obama proposes a 20 percent reduction in his fiscal 2012 budget for career and technical education (to a little more than $1 billion) even as he seeks to increase overall education funding by 11 percent.

The Globe reports the only alternative to public schools for vocational education is profit-making colleges and trade schools. However, they're often criticized for sending students deeply into debt without improving their job prospects.

Despite the president's high hopes, fewer than a third of all 25- to 29-year-olds in the United States earned a bachelor's degree or higher last year.

The value of vocational training for young people who do not attend college should not be overlooked, William Symonds, director of the Pathways to Prosperity Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, tells the Globe.

Vocational education "can prepare you for jobs in which you're going to earn a very solid middle-class income," he says.

"That's not to say that you're going to be a hedge fund manager making millions a year, but you will prepare for jobs that will pay more than a living wage," he adds.

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California Textbooks to Acknowledge Existence of Gay People

Tom Henderson — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: In The News, Education: Teens

Law requires textbooks to recognize contributions of gay Americans. Credit: Getty Images

Imagine a history of the FBI not mention J. Edgar Hoover because he was reportedly, well, ya know, homosexual.

So was Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Francis Bacon and a lot of other historical figures. Oscar Wilde, Walt Whitman, Gertrude Stein, Cole Porter and others were a lot more than "reportedly" ya know.

Now California textbooks can legally recognize the existence of Cole Porter and Walt Whitman. The California Assembly passed a bill to add the historical contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans to the state's public school textbooks.

USA Today reports this makes California the only state to require including LGBT people in textbooks.

The bills adds LGBT Americans as well as people with disabilities to a list of groups (such as African American, Asian Americans and Native Americans) who debunk the theory that John Wayne and Chuck Norris built the country on their own.

Speaking of white heterosexual action heroes, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar bill in 2006. A spokesman for current Gov. Jerry Brown tells USA Today the governor has no comment on what action he will take on the bill.

State Sen. Mark Leno, the San Francisco Democrat who introduced the bill, tells USA Today excluding LGBT Americans or other groups from textbooks amounts to "selectively censoring history."

The paper reports many people supported the bill as a way provide role models for LGBT students who are bullied for the sexual orientation.

Opponents says legislators ought to stay out of the classroom. "I don't think this helps the teaching of history," Chris Norby, a Republican assemblyman from Orange County, tells USA Today. "I think it's a distraction."

There's no reason to get too worked up either way. USA Today reports state textbooks will not be updated until 2015 -- if then -- because of budget cuts.

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College Cost Comparisons: From $2,000 to $50,000

Associated Press — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 09:30:00 EST

Filed under: In The News, Education: Teens

Watch: How to Save for College

The federal agency released its College Affordability and Transparency lists on Thursday to fulfill a reporting requirement passed into law in 2008. Credit: AP

Looking for a college bargain? Try any of nine University of Puerto Rico campuses, where annual tuition hovers at or below $2,000.

Counting pennies? Avoid Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, a private school where tuition, fees and room and board exceeds $50,000, making it one of the five most expensive schools on a new U.S. Department of Education guide to college costs.

The federal agency released its College Affordability and Transparency lists on Thursday to fulfill a reporting requirement passed into law in 2008. The online lists track tuition costs among the top and bottom 5 percent of four-year and two-year schools. The measures include public, private and for-profit colleges and universities.

Separate lists show the most and least affordable schools when scholarships and other financial factors are considered. The Education Department says those "sticker prices" better reflect out-of-pocket attendance costs. Two other lists track the rate of tuition increases as well as the rate of increase in the average net price. And career college users interested in a specific track can search by their area of interest, such as cosmetology or automotive repair.

"Given the energy and commitment that families make to the process ... this information is very useful," said David Bergeron, the Education Department's deputy assistant secretary for policy, planning and innovation.

Education officials also acknowledged the data's limitations. For instance, the attendance costs that elevated Bates and four other East Coast liberal arts schools to the top of the private school heap include fees other than tuition that their peer institutions calculate separately.

And while the new lists highlight schools at the very top and bottom, they don't account for the other 90 percent of institutions - though individual costs and other details can still be found using links on the department's College Navigator website.

"This is really a tool that allows students and families to see the highs and lows," Bergeron said. "You really don't see the large middle."

Among four-year public schools, the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio ranks at the top for highest net price, with annual costs of $24,192 in 2008-09. The University of Guam is second-highest, $290 below the Texas medical school.

Sitting Bull College in North Dakota, which has campuses in Fort Yates and McLaughlin, tops the list of most affordable four-year schools, with a net price of just $938. That's compared to a national average of $10,747.

On tuition costs alone, Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan., tops the list of four-year public schools, charging just $430 a year, compared to the national average of $6,397. That data comes from the 2009-10 school year, one year more current than the net price data.

But both of those schools are tribal colleges where attendance is generally limited to those of Native American ancestry - a caveat not readily found on the Department of Education site.

The new reporting standard requires schools with the highest costs or largest increases to justify the reasons behind the rising costs, and offer plans to address the increases. The specific reporting requirements are still being developed.

Some schools anticipated the data's release and offered their own explanations.

At Sewanee: The University of the South, a small private school in Sewanee, Tenn., the 2010-11 tuition costs of just below $36,000 kept the school out of the list of the top 5 percent most expensive. But Sewanee used Thursday's announcement to tout its plans to reduce tuition and fees by 10 percent next year - and to hail the effort to provide consumers with more accurate information about college costs.

"The economic climate has changed in recent years, and higher education's approach to how families pay for their children's educations must change with it," Sewanee vice chancellor John McCardell Jr. said in a written statement. "For years, private higher education has operated on a model of having high tuitions and high discounts. Over the past generation the most selective schools in the country got into the habit of listing a high sticker price and then discounting that price as needed in order to fill a class. This model is becoming financially unsustainable."

Starting Friday, new rules also require career and vocational colleges to disclose more details about their programs, including graduation rates, typical loan debts and job placement rates. Such for-profit schools must describe that information on promotional material as well as online.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. This article was written by ALAN SCHER ZAGIER, Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

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Worst of Detroit Schools to Be Moved to New System

Associated Press — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 09:30:00 EST

Filed under: In The News, Education: Big Kids, Education: Tweens, Education: Teens

Roy Roberts, left, the emergency manager of the Detroit school district and Gov. Rick Snyder shake hands at a news conference in Detroit. Credit: AP

DETROIT (AP) - The worst of Detroit's schools will be pulled out of the district - which the nation's top education official calls the "bottom of the barrel" - and placed in a new system that gives principals and staff more control over spending, hiring and improvement efforts, state officials announced Monday.

The overhaul is meant to help address problems in a debt-plagued district where nearly one in five students drops out. While the Detroit Public Schools has had a state-appointed emergency financial manager for two years, the current one said there's only so much that can be done without more radical change.

"The system is broke and I can't fix it, and you can't fix it," Roy Roberts said at a news conference where he and the governor announced the plan.

As many as 45 schools could be moved to the new system in the fall of 2012. Principals will be in charge of hiring teachers, and they and their staffs will handle day-to-day operations.

The new system won't have a central administration, and after the Detroit school board gave Roberts' predecessor problems, it won't have one of those either. Instead, oversight will come from a public-private authority with an executive committee chaired by Roberts. With layers of management cut out, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder said he expects more money to flow directly into the schools.

Eastern Michigan University is partnering with Detroit on the plan and will train teachers hired at the new system's schools.

If the plan works, it could be expanded to other troubled districts in Michigan. It is partly modeled on New Orleans, where most public schools were taken over by the state after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city in 2005. Louisiana, in turn, handed many of the schools over to independent charter organizations. Standardized test scores released last month showed modest improvements in the number of New Orleans students with the skills needed to move to the next grade. For example, 64 percent of the restructured schools' fourth-graders were ready for promotion this year, compared to 58 percent last year.

Detroit students consistently score well below state averages on standardized tests, and thousands have fled to suburban schools and charters inside and outside the city. The district's enrollment has dropped from 104,000 in 2007 to 74,000 this year and is projected to bottom out at 56,000. And, with a $327 million budget deficit, improvement has been slow.

"By any measure, Detroit is at the bottom of the barrel as far as education," U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said via webcast during the news conference.

"We're not trying just to save children and the public school system, we're trying to save the city of Detroit," he continued. "The city has no viable future if the status quo is allowed to stand."

Keith Johnson, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, said he spoke with Roberts about the new plan Sunday, and it appears Roberts and Snyder are willing to work with the union to get this done.

"The concept we can't argue with," he said. "We have to accept the fact that we have to narrow the achievement gap."

Schools in the new system will have longer school days and longer academic years. The plan's promise of stepped up academics and stronger teachers should appeal to parents, said Sharlonda Buckman, executive director of the Detroit Parent Network, which works with Detroit schools to improve parent involvement.

"We've seen many plans before," Buckman said. "What makes the school is not necessarily the system. It is the high-quality teachers. It is the high-quality leaders, and it is highly involved parents across the city to take ownership of their children - and maybe even a few more - that makes great schools."

Meanwhile, more than 20 of Detroit's 141 public schools are slated to close in the next two years to save money as enrollment drops. Roberts said he hopes to sell bonds to reduce much of the district's current debt and then pay those off over time.

Snyder also announced Monday the creation of a program to raise money to help Detroit students attend college. It would be modeled after the anonymously funded Kalamazoo Promise program, which provides scholarships for that city's residents to attend state universities and community colleges.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. This article was written by Corey Williams, Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

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How Education is Viewed Differently by Generations from Marlo Thomas

the editors at MarloThomas.com — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Education: Teens, Celeb News & Interviews

Marlo Thomas and her niece Kate and talk about the topic of education, and how it is viewed differently by their respective generations.

Don't miss from Marlo Thomas:

The Iron Chrone
I love a challenge, so loved this story about a woman who took on a formidable physical challenge at - 58!

Your Turn: Taking a Risk for Your Dream
Sometimes you have to take a risk to accomplish your dreams. Have you ever gone out on a limb so you could get closer to reaching your goal?

Optimism as an Anti-Aging Strategy
Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I've always seen the glass as half full. Phil is just the opposite. He sees the clouds forming while I'm still sunbathing! I asked Dr. Dale Atkins if there's any advantage in being one way or the other. You'll be fascinated by what she said!

My Weekly Newsletter
Sign up to receive my email newsletter each week - It will keep you up-to-date on upcoming articles, Mondays with Marlo guests, videos, and more!

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How to Help Summer Learning Go On

the editors at Common Sense Media — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Education: Big Kids, Activities: Big Kids, Education: Tweens, Activities: Tweens, Education: Teens, Activities: Teens

Click here for a sneak peek of one of our favorite documentaries, "Spellbound."

Carefully chosen books, movies and games can get your kids learning. Credit: Getty Images

How do you prevent kids' brains from turning to mush over the summer? Well-chosen books, movies, games, websites, apps and TV shows that slip in some lessons along with the entertainment.

Here's what our editors love for summer learning.

TO WATCH

On TV

Best Educational TV Shows
Shhh! Don't tell them it's educational -- just let them learn while they watch.

"The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That"
Everyone's favorite feline makes natural science fun for kids.

"Word Girl"
Fighting the bad guys with a silver-tongue -- now that's smart!

On DVD

Best Documentaries
Few stories are as affecting and inspirational as the true ones that take place in the world every day.

"Under the Sea 3D"
Next time they go to the beach, your kids will certainly have lots to say about what's below the surface of the ocean.

"Young Mr. Lincoln"
Rather than a bloated, boring biopic, this is a thoroughly engaging glimpse into the iconic president's early years.

TO READ

Best Educational Books
During the summer, kids can take their time exploring subjects like math, science and history at their own pace.

"Of Thee I Sing"
A diverse selection of American heroes profiled by Barack Obama offers kids a wide range of inspirational stories.

"Goddess Girls: Athena the Wise"
Let your kids disappear in Ancient Greece with this updated version of the Greek myth.

TO PLAY

Free Educational Games
From word problems to weather to world hunger, these free games offer lots to learn.

Starfall
This outstanding learn-to-read site is sure to engage little ones.

Ansel & Clair's Adventures in Africa
This educational adventure app introduces kids to the three major regions of Africa.

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Sorry, Middle Class Kids, No School for You: British Education Reform Would Favor the Poor

Tom Henderson — Fri, 27 May 2011 14:30:00 EST

Filed under: In The News, Education: Big Kids, Education: Tweens, Education: Teens

A proposal for sweeping national education reform includes a provision to allow hundreds of academies and free schools to pick and choose pupils based on family income. Credit: Getty Images

It's like a scene out of "Oliver Twist." Sort of.

"Please, sir," replied Oliver. "I want some more."

The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle, pinioned him in his arm and shrieked aloud for the beadle. "This upper middle class child wants more! Well, there's no extra gruel for the likes of 'im!"

Welcome to London in 2011. The Daily Telegraph reports on a strange reversal of fortune among the haves and have nots, where poor kids could get an education and free school lunches while the children of middle class families are turned away at the door.

Times are tough in Britain. With limited resources, the Telegraph reports, leaders feel it is important to give first priority to the poor and hope the more affluent can fend for themselves.

A proposal for sweeping national education reform includes a provision to allow hundreds of academies and free schools to pick and choose pupils based on family income.

The Telegraph reports poor kids have sometimes been edged out of these institutions because richer families buy property in the neighborhood to secure a place in the school. Members of Britain's Labour Party say these reforms will close the gap between rich and poor (poor being defined as families who make less than $26,000 a year).

Under the proposal, schools would get $700 for every poor child enrolled. The proposal would also:

o. Require all schools to give preference to children from military families, meaning primary schools must admit them to infant classes even when they exceed the current legal limit of 30 pupils.
o. Ban local councils from imposing area-wide "lotteries" to distribute places to overcrowded schools. However, individual schools will still be allowed to hold lotteries.

And what would happen to middle class Oliver under this system?

"The parish authorities magnanimously and humanely resolved that Oliver should be 'farmed,' or in other words, that he should be dispatched to a branch-workhouse some three miles off where 20 or 30 other juvenile offenders against the poor law rolled about the floor all day without the inconvenience of too much food."

The Dickens you say!

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Facebook, PayPal Entrepeneur Pays Kids to Drop Out of College

Tom Henderson — Fri, 27 May 2011 13:45:00 EST

Filed under: In The News, Education: Teens

A 43-year-old billionaire has set aside $2 million to get kids younger than 20 to drop out of college. Credit: Getty Images

Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking attended Oxford and Cambridge universities and eventually changed the way we look at the universe.

He would probably tout the advantage of a college education.

Yeah, but Peter Thiel was one of the guys who invented PayPal. And not only does he want you to drop out of college, but he's willing to pay you to do it.

Who are you going to listen to?

"Learning is good. Credentialing and debt is very bad," Thiel tells ABC News. "College gives people learning and also takes away future opportunities by loading the next generation down with debt."

So, the 43-year-old billionaire has set aside $2 million to get kids younger than 20 to drop out of college. He gives kids $100,000 each to bag school in favor of starting a business.

Good idea, right? Some half of new businesses fail, but how could that possibly happen to a spunky teenager armed with a high school diploma?

Thiel says, believe it or not, the idea is working.

"We ended up picking 24 people to try to get them to work on very specific projects that would push the frontiers of science and tech in areas ranging from biomedicine to computers to robotics," he tells ABC.

Pushing the frontiers of biomedicine, computers and robotics? With a high school education?

Thiel has a law degree from Stanford University -- maybe he should have bought a Porsche instead. He tells ABC he doubts the value of a college education. And his doubts are spreading.

Editors of New York magazine recently rated the worthlessness of a college degree as "one of the year's most fashionable ideas." Then again, what do you expect? Most of them were probably journalism majors.

Thiel tells ABC young people need to strike while the iron is hot.

"Facebook was started in 2004," he points out. "That was the right time to start that company. If all the people had finished their college education and waited till 2006, it would have been too late."

Thiel's initial $500,000 investment in Facebook, by the way, is now worth some $2 billion.

Among the young buying what Thiel is selling is Eden Full, who dropped out of Princeton to pursue an idea for new solar panels.

"These panels are so unique," she tells ABC. "I need to get them out there now."

Some 65 percent of Americans have student loan debt, and the typical college student leaves school $24,000 in the hole, according to ABC. By the end the year, the network estimates, student loan debt will surpass credit card debt in the United States.

"The price of education on a college level has gone up by a factor of more than 10 since 1980," Thiel tells ABC. "Adjusted for inflation, it's gone up by about 300 percent -- more than housing and tech stocks did in the '90s or housing in the 2000s. It's quite possible for a person to go to a top-tier private school and end up with a quarter million in debt."

But even if young people can have more money and less debt by not going to college, what about the intrinsic value of a college education? What about the importance of having an educated population able to make intelligent decisions in a free and self-governing society?

And what about the need for young people understand the world so they can make it a better place?

Thiel tells ABC his ideas have already made the world a better place. PayPal enables people to buy stuff on eBay without having to get a money order. And next up? Thiel is working with people who want to create colonies in the middle of earth's oceans.

Take that, Dr. Hawking.

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State Laws Punishing Parents for the Sins of the Children

Tom Henderson — Mon, 23 May 2011 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: In The News, Education: Big Kids, Education: Tweens, Education: Teens

"Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin." -- Deuteronomy 24:16

Maybe, but don't go pulling that Deuteronomy stuff in Alaska, California or Florida. Your kid messes up in those states, and you're gonna fry!

The New York Times reports lawmakers in Alaska and California have new laws on the books to visit the price of tardiness, absenteeism and other sins of the child upon the parent. The Florida Legislature is considering cracking down on parents, as well.

Just take a look at standardized test scores and graduation rates. What do all the "best" schools have in common? They have involved parents.

Ah, but how do you motivate parents to get involved, you ask? There are a lot of complicated answers to that question, but the easiest one is to borrow a page from Sister Mary Dominatra over at Our Lady of Perpetual Discipline and take a few rulers to the right knuckles.

Or, perhaps the sting of fines, parenting classes and other acts of penance.

Hear that fiendish chortling in the distance? The Times reports it could be coming from teachers, happy to see the bony finger of judgment point in another direction for a change.

They're feeling a mite persecuted lately, The Times reports, with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker declaring open warfare on his state's teachers' union and politicians across the land slamming teachers for underachieving students.

Now, The Times reports, politicians are turning their hairy eyeballs on parents.

"Any kind of problem in an academic setting, and people blame the teachers," Indiana state Rep. Linda Lawson tells the newspaper. "They say things like 'If teachers were more responsive, didn't have the summers off, worked an eight-hour day.' But no one looks at the parents."

Well, they're looking now.

Lawson introduced a bill requiring parents to spend three hours each semester volunteering either in the school building or at a school-related function. She framed it as an anti-bullying measure, even though it would apply to all parents, not just the parents of bullies.

She tells The Times she wants to increase parent-teacher interaction.

"Teachers were telling us: 'We can only do so much in the classroom. We have no control over what happens with these kids at home,' " Florida state Rep. Kelli Stargel tells The Times.

Her remedy? Grade parents on their involvement in their kids' education, then post their grades on the kids' report cards. Uh-oh. Looks like someone may get his Xbox taken away. Sorry, Dad. Sucks being you.

Grading parents. Yeah, that ought to boost teachers' popularity.

"We don't feel that the teacher having to grade the parent is really going to improve that relationship," Cindy Gerhardt, the president of the Florida Parent-Teacher Association, tells The Times.

Alaska doesn't bother with grading parents. It hits them where they live -- right in the wallet. Parents get fined when their kids are habitually tardy or absent. And parents in California can face misdemeanor criminal charges for similar offenses.

Americans love to punish people, Diane Ravitch, an education historian and the author of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System," tells The Times.

"If we could just find the right person to punish," she says. "Punish the teachers. Punish the parents. It's Dickensian. What we should be doing instead is giving a helping hand."

Jesus might agree with that. From John 9:1-3:

"As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him: 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' Jesus answered, 'It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.' "

Modern translation: "Geez, why do you people always have to have someone to blame?"

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My Teen's Grades are Dropping and College is Around the Corner!

Susan Stiffelman, MFT — Mon, 16 May 2011 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Education: Teens, Expert Advice: Teens

Dear AdviceMama,

My teenage son's grades have been going downhill all year. His last report card was all Ds, a few Cs and one A. The main reason seems to be that he doesn't study enough and has been missing assignments. If I say anything to him he tells me that he's trying and I need to get off his back. He's actually a very smart kid and he's really hurting himself because he does want to go to college. Can you give me some advice?

Signed,
Dragging Uphill

Dear Dragging Uphill,

I have seen this situation many times in my private practice, and watched parents debate whether to intervene when a teen stops making effort in school, or leave him to suffer the consequences of his actions.

It is my belief that many teens lack the ability to envision a long-term picture of their lives that would allow them to make a connection between not turning in homework today, and the resulting impact on their ability to get into college in a year or two.

When parents stop encouraging their teens to see the value in working hard in school, they are not serving them. I've spoken with many discouraged young adults whose parents gave up on helping them buckle down with their schoolwork -- resulting in diminished academic or job opportunities.

So, don't turn a blind eye to your son's poor academic performance. Instead, help him know that you're on his side. Acknowledge that you understand that he doesn't enjoy doing his homework, and that you can relate to how difficult it can be to put aside things that are immediately gratifying in order to work on school assignments that aren't much fun.

Help him better experience the payoff for doing his work. One reason kids start sliding downhill academically is that they don't see any immediate benefit. In other words, while there is a carrot at the end of the stick -- college -- the stick is so long that for all practical purposes, your son can't see the carrot!

Take him to one or two college campuses and let him walk around, visit the student union or sit in on classes to make college real, and make a connection between the effort he makes on schoolwork today, and a tangible reward in the near future. Buy something at the bookstore with his favorite school's logo that he can display in his room as a reminder of where he's headed.

I would also suggest you rule out any learning challenges that might be making it difficult for him to handle the workload. Many times, a teen appears to be unmotivated when, in fact, he's drowning academically but doesn't want to ask for help.

Is his reading up to par? He could have 20/20 vision, but still need a workup with a developmental optometrist to make sure his eyes are tracking together. Does he have focusing and attention problems? It may be that he needs strategies for getting started on assignments to "kick start" his brain when the subject matter is inherently uninteresting to him.

You might also consider reducing Internet, video games and television time, so that your son has fewer things to distract him from doing his work. Some kids need more structure than others, and it may be that you'll have to limit the diversions available to your son that are causing him to avoid tackling his schoolwork.

It may be helpful to hire a college kid to work with your teen for a few hours a week. While your son may be resistant to your help with homework, he may benefit from the influence of a serious college student who can help fire up his motivation, and mentor him toward better study habits.

When you come at an adolescent with unwanted advice, there's a very good chance that it will not be acted upon. Kids are hard-wired to resist our input, especially when it's delivered with judgment, shaming or long lectures.

Come alongside your son with support, and help him onto a better track by following these tips. He'll thank you when he's a little further down the road, if all goes well!

Yours in parenting support,
AdviceMama

AdviceMama, Susan Stiffelman, is a licensed and practicing psychotherapist and marriage and family therapist. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in developmental psychology and a Master of Arts in clinical psychology. Her book, Parenting Without Power Struggles, is available on Amazon. Sign up to get Susan's free parenting newsletter.

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Why Do So Many Boys Not Care About School?

PBSParents.org — Mon, 09 May 2011 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: Education: Big Kids, Education: Tweens, Education: Teens

Over the last 40 years, the United States has seen a remarkable change in the academic success of boys and girls. In 1970, 58 percent of college graduates were young men; now close to 60 percent of college graduates are women, and this gender gap continues to grow.

There will always be boys who will thrive in school, but more and more, it's girls who do well academically and boys who are losing ground.

Two-thirds of the D's and F's given out in school go to boys. Boys are one-third more likely to drop out before finishing high school. Eighth grade girls score higher in both reading and especially in writing than boys do, and, by 12th grade,that gap has widened. The average 11th grade boy in the United States writes at the level of the average eighth grade girl.

A few years ago, medical schools in the United States began accepting more young women than young men; soon medicine will be a female-dominated profession. I could go on and on with these statistics, but you get the point: On average, girls outperform boys in elementary school, middle school, high school, college and graduate school.

Why is that? Experts disagree on the reasons. If you read Christina Hoff Sommers' "The War Against Boys," you'll blame feminism for feminizing schools; if you read Leonard Sax's "Why Gender Matters" or Michael Gurian's "The Minds of Boys," you'll think it's the brain differences between boys and girls that educators don't take into account.

If you read Peg Tyre's "The Trouble with Boys," you'll conclude that classrooms are unfriendly places for boys, and that teachers' techniques don't work for them. If you read other experts, they'll tell you that the "boy crisis" is overblown.

What we do know is that this is happening not just in the United States, but in Western Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Once parents and educators removed the psychological barriers to higher education that used to exist for girls, that is, once we leveled the playing field, girls outstripped boys in school.

How can you motivate your son to do better in school? You may be asking yourself one of the questions so many parents ask me: "My 7-year-old son hates school. It's a fight to get him to school every morning." "How do I motivate my 15-year-old son to care about school?" "My son is bright, but he's just cruising through school. He never makes an effort to do his best work."

I think you have to start by figuring out why your son hates school or doesn't think it's important. In my opinion, there are five types of boys who aren't doing well in school.

1. The Struggling Boy. The vast majority of boys who get poor grades in school are not "underachieving." They are making their best effort and are struggling academically because they are of below average intelligence and the work is extremely hard for them, or they are of average intelligence in a very hard-driving school district.

It is humiliating to know you struggle with academics other boys find easy; it's frustrating and makes you want to run away. These struggling students need teachers who can make learning fun, and require the ongoing respect of teachers and their parents in order to stay motivated. These boys need to hear the old saying, "As long as you're trying your hardest."

2. The Learning Disabled Boy. Priscilla Vail, an expert in learning disabilities, used to say one-third of boys have "funny brains." We know boys have more variable brains than girls do, and that this affects their school performance. Two-thirds of children in special education are boys. Many of these boys have real learning disabilities. (Some are there for emotional or disciplinary reasons.)

We used to call boys with learning disabilities "stupid" or "lazy." Now, we're able to focus on the areas of their brains that do not work as well as others. However, we do not have a cure for learning disabilities; they do not go away, and they are demoralizing for any boy.

3. The Cruising (or Good-Enough) Boy Student. These boys often feel that school is hard, and pretty boring, and that they do enough homework, and that there are other things to be interested in: girls, sports, a part-time job, cars, etc. It's not that a boy like this has a particular passion, it's just that -- well, he doesn't like school all that much and doesn't see how it is related to his future.

The only ways to motivate a "cruising/good-enough" boy: 1) Continue to hold high expectations for him, and express your ideals and some sense of disappointment, or 2) Use incentives to induce him to change his priorities. (Getting a car? He must maintain a B average to drive it). Some parents react negatively to the idea of "bribes," but I call them incentives; they work in business, they work for kids.

4. The "Otherwise Engaged" Boy. There are boys who develop interests outside of school that are so compelling that school can no longer hold their interest. The satisfaction -- not to mention the applause -- that talented, athletic boys receive playing football, for example, or the sense of usefulness that other boys get from paying jobs, editing the school newspaper, being part of a band, or -- gulp -- computer games (or online businesses) are far greater than anything mere grades can offer them. Though it's exciting when a boy discovers a passion he wants to pursue, it can present many challenges to their parents.

5. The Allergic-to-School Boy. In my book, "The Pressured Child," I talk about children who seem to be allergic to the school environment. There are some boys for whom the physical experience of being in a class all day, the psychological experience of having a teacher controlling everything, the frustrations of having to sit still, the humiliation of grades -- or any one of a thousand annoying things about the school environment -- are simply intolerable.

If your boy is allergic to school in this way, it is going to be a struggle to keep him going until he finishes. He'll need teachers who understand and can work with boys who hate school without taking it personally. They have to be willing to modify homework demands and try to see the school environment through a boy's eyes -- if he will let them.

Does your boy fit into one of the categories above? I welcome any ideas or questions you have about motivating boys in school.

This article originally appeared on PBSParents and was written by Michael Thompson, Ph.D. Michael is a consultant, author and psychologist specializing in children and families. He is Senior Advisor to the PBS Parents Guide to Raising Boys and the host of the PBS documentary Raising Cain

He and his coauthor, Dan Kindlon, wrote the New York Times bestseller, Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, in 1999. Most recently, he has published a comprehensive guide for raising boys entitled, It's a Boy! Your Son's Development from Birth to Eighteen (Ballantine, 2008). Michael Thompson has appeared on The Today Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, 20/20, 60 Minutes, The Early Show and Good Morning America. He is the clinical consultant to The Belmont Hill School and has worked in more than two hundred fifty schools across the United States, as well as in international schools in Central America, Europe and Asia. He is the father of Joanna, 24, and Will, 19.

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Crazy U, or, Getting Your Kid Into College: Author Q&A

Julie Z. Rosenberg — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Amazing Parents, Books for Parents, Education: Teens

Crazy U. Credit: Andrew Ferguson

Add this to the laundry list of things that were simpler when you were a kid: Applying to college.

Back then you selected your reach and safety schools, filled out the applications, wrote an essay, dropped it in the mail and hoped for the best. Today it's like trying out for the Olympics -- after so diligently researching and preparing, let alone being in possession of excellent credentials, even the cream of the crop seems to get rejected.

ParentDish spoke with Andrew Ferguson, author of "Crazy U: One Dad's Crash Course on Getting His Kid Into College," about the 18-month process that nearly put him over the edge. Following is an edited version of that conversation.

ParentDish: What is the college application process like today?
Andrew Ferguson: You get pulled in five or six different directions at once. It's sort of like if you're trying to buy a luxury good that you can't really afford, where there are so many different kinds on offer and everybody is trying to pretend that theirs is completely unique, and by implication the other guy's luxury goods aren't as good as theirs.

PD: Ugh.
AF: I discovered this iron law of nature called the Principle of Constant Contradiction where if you're seeking advice about college admissions, for every piece of advice you get, within a week you will get a totally opposite piece that cancels it out.

PD: Sounds exasperating.
AF: It's especially bad on the Web. Somebody on College Confidential or [similar] bulletin boards will write, "You know, you really ought to give flowers to your counselor who writes your recommendation," and then someone writes, "No! That would be a bribe!" Meanwhile they're all people who have Internet names like PuppyWuppy and LoveSavage69. So you, as a parent, are thinking, "OK. Which is the crank? Is PuppyWuppy crazier than LoveSavage69?"

PD: Everything seems so arbitrary. How can a parent stay sane?
AF: That's why I wrote the book the way I did, which is as a story rather than as a long series of tips. The thing that really gets you through, and this sounds slightly sentimental, is your bond with your kid. In a way, you're both doing this for each other.

PD: How long did it take you to figure that one out?
AF: The ultimate piece of advice I give people, which sounds so banal is, "Relax. Believe it or not, just relax." There's nothing more infuriating than telling someone who's nervous to "relax." It could really send you around the bend. If I had a dime for every time somebody told me to relax in this process I could afford my son's tuition bill.

Author Andrew Ferguson; Credit: Jack Shafer

PD: Ha!
AF: The vast majority of kids end up going to one of the top three schools that they wanted to go to. And any type of heartbreak that they endure is certainly going to be temporary. They end up in a place where they're happy and if they're meant to be happy and lead happy and fulfilling lives, they will, regardless of where they went to school.

PD: It sounds like you were very hands-on. Is this high level of parental involvement a fairly new phenomenon?
AF: I'd say at the intensity it is now, yes. It was about the early '90s where there was a tremendous increase in the amount of marketing and the pressure and this sense that kids had to go college to succeed. Something happened in the past 15 years to convince people that you cannot be happy in life unless you've got a college education. I think that is sort of disgraceful, in a way. And it becomes a self-fulfilling thing.

PD: How do the admissions officers handle this intense process?
AF: My impression is that these admissions officers are really tortured people. On the one hand, they know that they have to distance themselves from all this craziness and kind of tut-tut and say, "Oh, isn't it awful that it is this way," while on the other hand they're in a professional situation that demands they perpetuate the system they're supposedly finding so annoying.

PD: What do you know now that you wish you had known then?
AF: I wish I had been more selective in what I read, where I took advice. The Internet bulletin boards like College Confidential, I found to just be worthless precisely because there was no principle of selectivity. You simply couldn't figure out what was true and what wasn't. There are really good Web resources like the Department of Education's College Navigator. I wish I had known about that because that is fantastic data that they have. It's all very current, it's all been fact-checked and it's indispensable.

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Obama Prods Congress on Education Law Renewal

Associated Press — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 17:00:00 EST

Filed under: In The News, Education: Big Kids, Education: Tweens, Education: Teens

President Barack Obama speaks at Kenmore Middle School in Arlington, Va., Monday, March 14, 2011.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama asked Congress on Monday to rewrite the nation's main education law before the new school year starts in September, setting an ambitious timetable for lawmakers whose primary focus now is on budget cuts and the deficit.

He also issued his most detailed outline yet for changes to the No Child Left Behind law.

Obama said the law, enacted in 2002 under George W. Bush, got some things right but that it also got some things wrong.

"The goals of NCLB were the right goals," Obama said, mentioning the law's promises of putting quality teachers in every classroom, establishing higher standards for learning, requiring accountability and highlighting achievement gaps among students.

"That's the right thing to do," he said at an Arlington, Va., middle school. "But what hasn't worked is denying teachers, schools and states what they need to meet these goals."

That's why the law needs to be rewritten, he said.

"In the 21st century, it's not enough to leave no child behind. We need to help every child get ahead," Obama said.

The president has met several times in recent weeks with a bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers leading efforts to rewrite the bill. In Monday's remarks, he set the start of the new school year as a deadline for Congress to send him a bill.

"I want every child in this country to head back to school in the fall knowing that their education is America's priority," Obama said.

Both Republicans and Democrats agree that the law needs to be rewritten; they disagree on the federal government's role in education as well as on how best to turn around failing schools.

The bipartisan group, led in the Senate led by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Education and Labor Committee, is working to draft a comprehensive bill. Harkin has said he hopes to have the bill ready by Easter. House Speaker John Boehner, who chaired the House Education and Workforce Committee when Congress passed the law, has not indicated whether he'll make the issue a priority this year. A new group of freshman lawmakers also is skeptical of any federal role in education.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said last week that the percentage of schools labeled as "failing" under the law and not meeting yearly targets for student proficiency in math and reading could skyrocket dramatically this year, jumping from 37 percent to 82 percent as states raise standards to try to satisfy the law's mandates, according to Department of Education estimates.

The law requires states to aim to have all students proficient in math and science by 2014, a standard now viewed as unrealistic.

Schools that do not meet yearly targets over time are labeled as in need of improvement. Many parents consider the label an unfair stigma. Schools labeled as such are often described as failing although the law itself does not use that term. Obama suggested it did, however, by repeatedly saying schools are labeled as "failing" under the law.

In his remarks at Kenmore Middle School, Obama said he wants an updated education law to empower principals and teachers, support innovation at the state and local levels, and target resources to schools with consistent records of poor performance.

Instead of labeling more and more schools as "failing" under the law, he wants a more flexible system that focuses on preparing graduating students for college and career and he wants better assessments to understand whether kids are meeting that goal. Proficiency in math and science will continue to be emphasized, Obama said, but he added that skills such as critical thinking and creativity are also important.

Obama also said he wants to see a better effort at preparing and supporting teachers, holding them accountable for student progress and not making excuses for the occasional bad teachers.

"These are the steps we're going to have to take to fix" No Child Left Behind, he said.

Fighting with Congress over how deeply to cut domestic spending, Obama has promoted elements of his education agenda during visits this month to schools in Miami, Boston and Arlington, Va.

On Monday, he reiterated that education spending is an area where he is unwilling to cut, arguing anew that an educated and highly skilled work force will attract jobs.

"Let me make it plain: We cannot cut education. We can't cut the things that will make America more competitive," Obama said.

Education is one of the president's better issues, according to AP-GfK polling that found nearly two-thirds of the public, or 64 percent, approve of his handling while 34 percent registered disapproval.

Most of the public also views the current education law unfavorably.

In an AP-Stanford poll last fall, 37 percent said the law has had "no real impact," 29 percent said it made schools worse while 25 percent said it had made things better.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, rewritten, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

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Number of Depressed College Students On the Rise, Study Says

Mary Beth Sammons — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Behavior: Teens, Nutrition: Teens, Education: Teens

A breeding ground for depressed students. Credit: AP

Parents hear a lot of buzz about the stress college students face today, regardless of whether or not their coed is exaggerating when she says she is homesick. New research suggests parents should pay attention to these cues because they may have something serious to worry about: depression.

A recent study of college students suggests that their declining emotional condition is a critical situation schools have failed to fully address, according to The Chicago Tribune.

The results are discouraging, says Michael Fleming, one of the study's lead authors and a professor at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.

"I think the stress of academic performance has helped cause an increase in the rate of depression among students," Fleming tells the Tribune. "That's why it's important to take the opportunity to screen at every visit."

If colleges boost their depression screening efforts for all students, that would be the first step toward better emotional health, Fleming tells the Tribune. About 25 percent of all students who visited on-campus health centers were diagnosed as depressed, according to the report published in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry.

The researchers recommend that university health centers should conduct comprehensive screenings of all student visitors to more accurately assess how many may be at risk of depression.

Researchers spent two years surveying more than 1,600 college students who visited health centers on the campuses of the University of British Columbia, the University of Washington and the University of Wisconsin.

The study, "Depression and Suicide Ideation among Students Accessing Campus Healthcare," was the first of its kind to screen for depression among a large pool of students who were visiting a campus health center to seek treatment for ailment or injury, according to the report.

By screening more students, Fleming says, the research team found the rates of depression and suicidal thoughts were nearly twice as high as those found in previous studies. Those studies were based on students' answers on general college surveys and data collected from those who visited counseling centers, he tells the Tribune.

"Depression screening is easy to do," Fleming says. "We know it works, and it can save lives."

A growing number of studies are focusing on the rising number of college students diagnosed with depression and other emotional conditions.

According to the International Association of Counseling Services' 2010 National Survey of Counseling Center Directors, 91 percent of the more than 300 counseling center directors surveyed reported seeing an increase in numbers of students with psychological problems over the past year, reports the Tribune.

Another recently published study that surveyed incoming college freshmen found the number of students who ranked their emotional health as "below average" was the highest in more than 20 years.

"It's really hard to know why our numbers are going up," Dianna Stencel, a licensed clinical social worker at Loyola University Chicago's campus health center, tells the Tribune. "Some speculate that our medications are so much better now that people who traditionally wouldn't have been able to go to school away from home are able to do that now."

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Northwestern University To Investigate Class' Sex Toy Demo

Associated Press — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 09:19:00 EST

Filed under: In The News, Sex, Education: Teens

CHICAGO (AP) - Northwestern University found itself at the center of a furor Thursday after a sexuality professor known for racy lessons allowed students to stay after a lecture to witness a couple using a mechanized sex toy.

The school's president promised an investigation after news of the demonstration appeared in local media reports and set off a blizzard of comments on social networking sites.

"I am troubled and disappointed by what occurred," President Morton Schapiro said. "I feel it represented extremely poor judgment on the part of our faculty member."

The demonstration took place on Feb. 21 after professor John Michael Bailey's human sexuality class, which focused that day on kinky sex. Bailey, a popular professor who teachers what some students say is one of the university's most popular classes, often ends sessions with an invitation for students to stay after regularly scheduled lectures to hear from sex therapists, swingers, transgender women and others.

According to students and one of the participants, Bailey had invited a guest lecturer named Ken Melvoin-Berg, the co-owner of a group called Weird Chicago Tours, to discuss bondage and sexual fetishes.

Also there to answer questions were a man named Jim Marcus and his fiancée, Faith Kroll, who, according to student Justin Smith, was introduced as an exhibitionist "turned on by the thought of sex acts in the nude in front of large groups of people."

Students were warned repeatedly that they were about to witness explicit material and that they could leave. Smith and another student, 22-year-old Nicholas Wilson, said most of the students left to get to their other classes. Those who stayed saw a movie, and the couple, concerned that the film contained misinformation, asked if they could give a live demonstration with a mechanical device.

"The main guy (Melvoin-Berg) said, 'Are you ready for a sex show?'" said Smith. He said the professor repeated to students that if they were uncomfortable, they should leave. Most of the roughly 100 students didn't go anywhere.

"If you stay, don't complain later," Smith said Bailey told the class.

Within seconds, Kroll had taken off all of her clothes except a bra, climbed on stage and lay down on a towel as Marcus operated the motorized device.

Students said they could not see very much because the couple was fairly far back on the stage and Marcus was in the way.

But, said Wilson, "A fair number of people tried to get a better view."

Marcus, an acquaintance of Melvoin-Berg, said he was surprised that the demonstration had created such a stir, though he added that the outcry illustrates a larger point.

"People say it's not necessary to demonstrate sex acts," he said. "That's one of the things that's kept research in some of these areas hobbled, there is a squeamishness about this conversation."

Human sexuality classes often include the showing of graphic and explicit films, and are offered at several universities. Bailey did not respond to an e-mail message asking him to comment, and his voice mail box at the school was full Thursday afternoon.

But in a message that was posted by the university's newspaper, The Daily Northwestern, he defended his decision to allow the demonstration, saying it was relevant to the day's discussion of kinky sex.

"The demonstration, which included a woman who enjoyed providing a sexually explicit demonstration using a machine, surely counts as kinky, and hence is relevant," he wrote.

But he also seemed to recognize that he might have gotten himself into some trouble.

He wrote that as he watched the demonstration, "I was worried that there could be repercussions that would threaten the valuable speaker series that I have built over the years."

Schapiro, NU's president, said that many members of the Northwestern community were disturbed by the incident. And university officials said they had received many emails from upset parents and alumni.

"I simply do not believe this was appropriate, necessary or in keeping with Northwestern University's academic mission," Schapiro said.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, rewritten, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. This article was written by DON BABWIN, AP Writer. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

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What Would You Do if Your Child's School Closed for Good?

Brett Singer — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 10:36:00 EST

Filed under: Education: Big Kids, Education: Tweens, Education: Teens

Education is under fire in many states. Credit: Peter Prengaman, AP

Imagine you send your child to the public school in your neighborhood. You're happy. They're happy. Even if everyone isn't in a state of constant bliss, at least you know where your children are going every day.

Now imagine that the school your child is attending is closed. Not for a snow day. For good.

This might happen in Pennsylvania, where "the Mifflinburg Area School District is considering closing one of its elementary schools," according to WNEP.com.

With budgets being slashed across the nation, even education is on the chopping block. Yesterday we asked about states cutting teachers. But what if they start to close schools as well? This isn't a trend yet, but times are tough.

What would you do if your child's school closed for good?

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Celebrity Role Models and Your Kids

the editors at Common Sense Media — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Media, Education: Tweens, Education: Teens

The media's constant coverage of celebrity scandals further normalizes this type of activity and can influence the way young people make decisions about their own behavior. Credit: AP

Kids have always looked to celebrities as role models. Now that kids are immersed in the 24/7 media world at younger and younger ages, these role models play an even bigger role. Everywhere kids turn, they see images and hear reports about their idols. And now social sites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube allow celebrities a no-holds-barred way to communicate directly with their fans. Kids are often left alone to make sense of it all -- or they turn to their peers to figure out what's happening. The results aren't pretty.

Media is one gigantic super-peer

By the time our kids are in middle school, they start to look to their peers for a sense of what's socially acceptable or desirable. Parents may remain the primary influence in their kids' lives, but the competition starts to get fierce at this age. This separation is entirely age appropriate, but when the media comes into play, all sorts of things can go awry. Studies repeatedly show a direct link between role models and advertising, and the effects they have on kids' behavior. Take smoking, for example. Studies show that exposure to pro-tobacco marketing and smoking in the media more than doubles the odds that kids will start smoking. And half of the kids who start smoking say they do so because they saw someone they looked up to smoking in the movies.

What do celebrities mean to kids?

By the time our kids are in middle school, they start to look to their peers for a sense of what's socially acceptable or desirable.
Kids choose public personas as role models, but there are no guarantees that a star will stick to a lifestyle that kids can look up to -- or that parents will approve of.
Studies show a direct link between role models, advertising, and the effects that both have on our kids' behavior.
Celebrities use the Internet to communicate directly with their fans.

Underestimating celebrity influence

We already know how advertising impacts teens, so why should we underestimate the influence of today's young celebrities? Thanks to celebrity blogs and gossip sites, scandalous pictures are leaked online, commented on, updated, and archived -- and available to kids of all ages. The media's constant coverage of celebrity scandals further normalizes this type of activity and can influence the way young people make decisions about their own behavior. For example, 22% of teen girls now say that they've sent sexually revealing pictures of themselves through their mobile phones or over the Internet.

Tips for parents of all kids

Grab the headlines, and make them teachable moments. If you see teens drinking on a TV show -- or you see pictures on the Internet of celebs smoking pot or getting arrested for drunk driving -- check in with your kids. For young kids, see how much they understand. Grade schoolers get a lot of confusing information from their peers, so set the facts straight. For preteens, turn celebrity misbehavior into a teachable moment by letting them know what you think about the behavior. And for teens, ask questions. For example, if a celebrity they like is in trouble with alcohol, ask whether their peers are using alcohol or whether they have any anxieties or questions about drinking. Take time to share your opinions -- and expectations -- about the issues.
Use the power of consequences. Point out when a celebrity is suspended or loses endorsements as the result of questionable behavior. Establish consequences for what would happen in your own home if your child behaved just like their favorite star. Tell your teens the facts: not all consequences involve being grounded. Explain that poor decisions now can lead to a reputation that can hurt them later.
Watch your messages. Be a good role model for your kids. Make sure you don't glamorize alcohol or drugs by sharing stories about "wild days" in your past. If teens ask about your personal experiences, answer their questions honestly, but don't say more than you need to. They may act as if they don't listen to you (after all, their rooms are still a mess), but they do.
Have a media literacy moment. Point out that the media uses stars' misbehavior to make money. The more people turn to websites and TV networks for pictures and gossip, the more money the companies behind the sites and channels make. Ask your kids why they think these stars get so much attention and whether they believe the stories they hear about their favorite stars.
Impart your values. Yes, it may sound old fashioned. But our kids need us to tell them what matters to us and why. That's the essence of parenting. Face it: They spend more time with media than with you or in school. Equal the playing field. Speak up -- often.
Look out for endorsements. Lots of celebrities cash in on their fame to endorse products in their Twitter feed or Facebook profile. Help kids detect the difference between ads and legitimate content.

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Get more information for parents on media and technology by checking out Common Sense Media.

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Should Letter Grades Be Eliminated?

Brett Singer — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:54:00 EST

Filed under: In The News, Education: Big Kids, Education: Tweens, Education: Teens

One Iowa school might ditch letter grades in favor of "standards-based reporting." Credit: Corbis

The Des Moines Register reports that some parents are less than thrilled with a proposal from the Waukee, Iowa, school board to eliminate letter grades in middle school and replace them with "standards-based reporting." This means that students "would be rated 'beginning,' 'developing,' 'secure' or 'exceeds' in 10 to 12 objectives -- or standards -- per subject," according to the Register.

No, letter grades is not a new thing, at least for younger students. I didn't get them in elementary school, which wasn't that long ago. This particular method sounds more confusing than what I remember getting, which was something along the lines of "Good," "Satisfactory," "Needs Improvement," etc. If I'm understanding the concept behind "standards-based reporting" correctly, it sounds like a lot more work for teachers.

The Waukee school board proposal is not final yet; more hearings are scheduled and the board doesn't vote until March 8. But what do you think of the idea of eliminating letter grades in middle school? Good idea or bad idea?

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Moms Tries to Embarrass Her Son to Better Grades as the World Watches

Tom Henderson — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 13:15:00 EST

Filed under: In The News, Weird But True, Teen Culture, Education: Teens

Bad grades land teen on street corner: MyFoxTAMPABAY.com

You make your child stand on a public street corner holding a sign telling passersby that his grades stink.

Will this help him get better grades? Or is this an abusive, embarrassing, humiliating and degrading experience that will haunt for him for the rest of his life?

These are the questions journalists are asking as they spread the story of 15-year-old James Mond III of Tampa, Fla., across the globe. Hopefully, he will just hit the books a little harder next semester, because he found this whole incident embarrassing before ... whoa Nellie!

Here come the media.

The story started in the St. Petersburg Times in Florida and has been picked up by everyone from the New York Daily News to the London Daily Mail and United Press International, as well as the folks at Fox. Can Bill O'Reilly be far behind?

And yeah, ParentDish has it, too.

The St. Petersburg Times reports it all started Feb. 16 because Ronda Holder was frustrated that her son just didn't seem to take his education seriously. She tells the paper she was afraid he would wind up on the streets.

"I don't want any of my kids to stand by the side of the road asking for change," she says. She apparently would sooner see them standing by the side of the road announcing that their grades suck.

So she made Mond a sign that read, "I did 4 questions on my FCAT [Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test] and said I wasn't going to do it ... GPA 1.22 ... honk if I need education," and made him hold it at the corner of E. Hillsborough Avenue and N. 22nd Street.

Can you imagine being a teenager forced to hold such a sign? How embarrassing, how humiliating, how ... irresistible. Quick! Get a camera crew!

By Thursday afternoon, the Times reports, the incident took on a life of its own. TV crews were on Mond's punishment like Jerry Springer on a cheating boyfriend, and representatives from the Florida Department of Children and Families wanted his mother to answer a lot more than four questions.

Department spokesman Terry Field tells the Times that the punishment might legally be considered an illegal form of maltreatment.

After all, as numerous news agencies are reporting, being made a public spectacle could be emotionally scarring.

Cue the experts.

"It definitely would fall within the category of emotional abuse. It's shame, embarrassment and humiliation. This will be a lifelong memory for him," Arlinda Amos, a licensed clinical psychologist and ombudsman for the Hillsborough Children's Board in Florida, tells the Times.

"It's such an unfortunate strategy, and of course, it's ineffective," Dr. Peter Gorski, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician at the Hillsborough Children's Board and the University of South Florida, tells the Times. "The key to motivating children is to balance responsibility with support, and balance is the important part."

As for Mond, he tells the Times he understands what his mother is trying to do. "She was trying to teach me a lesson," he tells the paper. "I should have been working harder than I was in school."

Nonetheless, he adds, he hasn't enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame. "I felt crazy," he tells the paper. "It's embarrassing."

Holder tells the paper she's angry at whoever it was among the multitude of television viewers, newspaper readers, pedestrians or passing motorists who ratted her out to state authorities.

This is not child abuse, she tells the Times.

"You can't resort to spanking," she adds. "I want my child to have an education and have his children be able to look at him and say I can get an education, too. This is one child who won't be lost to the streets."

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Big Brother Is Watching You, so Get Your Butt to Class

Tom Henderson — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Education: Tweens, Education: Teens

Any kid who has more than six unexcused absences has to carry a Global Positioning System device about the size of a cell phone. Credit: Getty Images

Welcome to George Orwell Junior High.

Big Brother is not the only one watching you. All sorts of adults can track your every movement, thanks to GPS technology. So don't try any funny business, kid.

The Orange County Register reports officials at the Anaheim Union School District thought it would be cool to track seventh and eighth graders like rogue bears on "Wild Kingdom."

That way, they could keep the little sneaks from cutting class.

Any kid who has more than six unexcused absences has to carry a Global Positioning System device about the size of a cell phone. Yes, it would be more fun to strap it on their ankles or clamp it on their ears, but some people say that's just not nice.

One of them is Miller Sylvan, the regional director of AIM Truancy Solutions, the firm helping with the GPS program. "We don't want to criminalize the kids or have them wear any bracelet or something around their ankle that would stigmatize them," he tells the Orange County Register.

Whatever. The important thing is that the kids can be monitored while adults drum their fingers and murmur, "Eeexcellent."

The whole thing is very science fiction-y. Every school day starts with a call from a computer (let's call him "Hal") who reminds the student to get to school on time.

Then, five times a day, the student must enter a code that allows adults to monitor him. He must enter a code when he leaves for school, arrives at school, eats lunch and goes home as well as a final check in at 8 p.m.

Failure to check in results in him being captured by a giant bubble and returned to the Village. Just kidding. That's another science fiction reference. School officials have not gone that far. Yet.

Students do get someone to watch over them, however. They get assigned an adult overlord (or "coach") who calls them three times a week to reportedly see how they're doing and help them find effective ways to get to class on time.

While there are no bubbles involved, the disobedient do risk a trip to juvie.

Hopefully, Sylvan tells the Register, it never comes to that. "The idea is for this not to feel like a punishment, but an intervention to help them develop better habits and get to school."

The GPS devices cost between $300 and $400 each. The Register reports the program is part of a six-week pilot program that costs the the district, overall, about $18,000. A state grant foots the bill.

Police tell the paper if tracking kids by GPS seems a little extreme, people should remember kids face extreme risks. Kids who cut class are prime candidates for joining street gangs, police say.

And schools lose about $35 per day every time student fails to show up.

Miller tells the Register similar programs in San Antonio and Baltimore resulted in school attendance by chronically absent kids jumping an average of 77 percent to 95 percent because of GPS tracking.

Some students were back to their old tricks after the devices were taken away, Miller tells the paper, but many learned new habits -- especially with the coaches continuing to talk with them for a year.

"This is their last chance at an intervention," Kristen Levitin, principal at Dale Junior High in Anaheim, tells the Register. "Anything that can help these kids get to class is a good thing."

Not all parents agree.

"I feel like they come at us too hard, and making kids carry around something that tracks them seems extreme," Raphael Garcia, the father of a sixth grader who has six unexcused absences, tells the paper.

"This makes us seem like common criminals," she adds.

Not really, police investigator Armando Pardo tells the paper. Parents are not being charged with a crime. However, they could be. Letting kids skip school without a valid reason is a crime, he says.

The kids could be sent to juvenile hall, and their parents could be slapped with a fine up to $2,000.

So here's looking at you, kid.

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