Archive | 2012

University of Illinois Chicago study: Laws reducing availability of snacks are decreasing childhood obesity

13 Aug

In Government is trying to control the vending machine choices of children, moi wrote:

The goal of this society should be to raise healthy and happy children who will grow into concerned and involved adults who care about their fellow citizens and environment. In order to accomplish this goal, all children must receive a good basic education and in order to achieve that goal, children must arrive at school, ready to learn. Ron Nixon reports in the New York Times article, New Guidelines Planned on School Vending Machines about the attempt to legislate healthier eating habits. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/us/politics/new-rules-planned-on-school-vending-machines.html?_r=1&hpw

There have been studies about the effect of vending machine snacking and childhood obesity.

Katy Waldman wrote the Slate article, Do Vending Machines Affect Student Obesity?

Despite all the recent handwringing (even pearl clutching) over junk food in schools, a study out this month in the quarterly Sociology of Education found no link between student obesity rates and the school-wide sale of candy, chips, or sugary soda. The finding undermines efforts by policy makers to trim kids’ waistlines by banning snacks from the classroom. And it must taste odd to the many doctors and scientists who see vending machines as accessories in the childhood obesity epidemic.  

The study followed 19,450 fifth graders of both sexes for four years. At the beginning, 59 percent of the students went to schools that sold “competitive foods”—that is, non-cafeteria fare not reimbursable through federal meal programs. CFs tend to have higher sugar or fat content and lower nutritional value (think the indulgences at the top of the food pyramid, like Coke and Oreos). By the time the students reached eighth grade, 86 percent of them attended schools that sold competitive foods. The researchers, led by Pennsylvania State University’s Jennifer Van Hook, then compared body mass indexes from the 19,450 students, including those who’d spent all four years in junk food-free environments, those who’d left such schools for vending machine-friendly ones, those who’d transferred from vending machine-friendly schools to junk food-free schools, and those who enjoyed access to vending machines for all four years. Regardless of which data sets they contrasted, the researchers were unable to find any sort of connection between obesity and the availability of “unhealthy” snacks in school. In other words, children who could theoretically grab a Snickers bar after class every day for four years were, on average, no heavier than those who couldn’t.

While Van Hook speculated to the New York Times that the findings reflect our tendency to “establish food preferences… early in life,” she also noted in her paper that middle schoolers’ regimented schedules could prevent them from doing much unsupervised eating. (I guess that means that the students didn’t have time to utilize the junk food options they had, which is an issue for another day). In any case, the takeaway is clear. You can’t solve childhood obesity by outlawing vending machines. The obesity epidemic (if it is one) depends on a complex interplay of genetic, environmental, and behavioral factors. Maybe a full-court press of school regulations plus zoning laws that encourage supermarkets to come to poor neighborhoods plus government subsidies for fruits and veggies plus crackdowns on fast food advertising plus fifty other adjustments would begin to make a dent in the problem. (Maybe a saner cultural attitude towards food, weight, and looks in general would also help). http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/01/24/junk_food_in_school_do_vending_machines_make_kids_fat_.html

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/government-is-trying-to-control-the-vending-machine-choices-of-children/

See, Rising Childhood Obesity and Vending Machines http://www.medicaladvices.net/Child_Health/rising-childhood-obesity-and-vending-machines-a14.html

Sabrina Tavernise reports in the New York Times article, Study Links Healthier Weight in Children With Strict Laws on School Snacks:

Adolescents in states with strict laws regulating the sale of snacks and sugary drinks in public schools gained less weight over a three-year period than those living in states with no such laws, a new study has found.

The study, published Monday in Pediatrics, found a strong association between healthier weight and tough state laws regulating food in vending machines, snack bars and other venues that were not part of the regular school meal programs. Such snacks and drinks are known as competitive foods, because they compete with school breakfasts and lunches.

The conclusions are likely to further stoke the debate over what will help reduce obesity rates, which have been rising drastically in the United States since the 1980s. So far, very little has proved effective and rates have remained stubbornly high. About a fifth of American children are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Public health experts have urged local and state governments to remove competitive foods from schools, and in recent years states have started to pass laws that restrict their sale, either banning them outright or setting limits on the amount of sugar, fat or calories they contain.

The study tracked weight changes for 6,300 students in 40 states between 2004 and 2007, following them from fifth to eighth grade. They used the results to compare weight change over time in states with no laws regulating such food against those in states with strong laws and those with weak laws.

Researchers used a legal database to analyze state laws. Strong laws were defined as those that set out detailed nutrition standards. Laws were weak if they merely offered recommendations about foods for sale, for example, saying they should be healthy but not providing specific guidelines.

The study stopped short of saying the stronger laws were directly responsible for the better outcomes. It concluded only that such outcomes tended to happen in states with stronger laws, but that the outcomes were not necessarily the result of those laws. However, researchers added that they controlled for a number of factors that would have influenced outcomes. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/13/health/research/study-links-healthy-weight-in-children-with-tough-snack-and-sugary-drinks-laws.html?adxnnl=1&hpw=&adxnnlx=1344831513-RqrlFbpz6Af4MAlHom/MHA

Here is the press release about the University of Illinois Chicago study:

Strong State Laws on School Snacks, Drinks May Help Prevent Weight Gain, New Study Finds

Date

08/13/2012

Children and teens in states with strong laws restricting the sale of unhealthy snack foods and beverages in school gained less weight over a three-year period than those living in states with no such policies, according to a study published by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Additionally, students who were overweight or obese in fifth grade were less likely to remain so by the time they reached eighth grade if they lived in a state with a strong law than if they lived in a state with no such law.

The study will be published in the September 2012 issue of the journal Pediatrics. [LINK TO ABSTRACT]

To conduct the study, researchers examined state laws regarding what snack foods and beverages could be sold in schools outside of the federal school meals program. State laws requiring schools to only sell snacks that met specific nutrition standards were classified as “strong” policies. Policies were classified as “weak” if they merely recommended that schools make changes, or if they did not create specific nutritional guidelines, relying instead on general language about “healthy” foods.

Students exposed to strong snack food and beverage laws throughout the three years of the study had the smallest increases in body mass index (BMI), a ratio of height to weight. Those who were exposed to weaker laws over time saw the same change in their BMIs as did students living in states with no policies at all.

“Specific, consistent requirements about what types of snack foods and drinks can be sold at school seemed to have a direct impact on student weight,” said Daniel Taber, a researcher at the UIC Institute for Health Research and Policy and lead author of the study. “This study definitely suggests that states can have an impact on student health when they enact effective school health policies.”

Taber conducted this research as a co-investigator with Bridging the Gap, a research project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).

Many schools sell snacks and drinks in vending machines, school stores or cafeteria à la carte lines. These items are sometimes called “competitive foods” because they compete with school meals for students’ spending. In recent years, states have begun to pass laws that prohibit schools from selling certain foods or drinks, or those that set limits for the fat, salt, sugar or calorie content of items. For instance, schools have begun to replace unhealthy items, such as sodas and candy, with healthier choices, such as low-fat milks and fruit.

Despite state action, today there is only a very limited national standard for snack foods and beverages in schools. Passed in 1979, the standard prohibits schools from selling things like candy or gum in the cafeteria during lunch. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 enabled the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to update the standard so that it aligns with the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, but the USDA has yet to do so.

This is the first longitudinal study to examine the impact of snack and drink policies on student weight using completely objective data. Similar past studies have used either self-reported height and weight, or interviews with school principals about policies, either of which could result in weaker evidence.

Taber and his colleagues at Bridging the Gap and the National Cancer Institute used several databases of state laws to analyze the strength of school snack policies. They scored each based on how specific it was and whether it required action from schools or merely made recommendations. To calculate student BMI, they used objective height and weight measurements from 6,300 students in 40 states. The measurements were done in the spring of 2004, when students were in fifth grade, and again in the spring of 2007, when they were in eighth grade.

Students exposed to strong laws in fifth grade gained an average of 0.25 fewer BMI units over three years than did students in states with no policies at all. That equates to roughly 1.25 fewer pounds for a child who was 5 feet tall and weighed 100 pounds. Students who lived in states with strong laws throughout the entire three-year period gained an average of 0.44 fewer BMI units than those in states with no policies, or roughly 2.25 fewer pounds for a 5-foot-tall, 100-pound child.

“It’s encouraging to see that strong state laws can help students maintain healthier weights,” said C. Tracy Orleans, PhD, senior scientist at RWJF. “However, because not all students live in states with effective policies, we need to make sure that we get a strong national policy in place.”

Taber and his colleagues note that the laws that were most effective were those that set strong standards at both the elementary- and middle-school levels. Currently, many states have stronger laws at the elementary level than at middle school. Ensuring that students have healthy school environments as they age is likely to be effective in helping them stay healthy, the authors concluded.

Read the abstract of the study, “Weight Status Among Adolescents in States That Govern Competitive Food Nutrition Content.”

The study was conducted as part of Bridging the Gap, a nationally recognized research program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and dedicated to improving the understanding of how policies and environmental factors affect diet, physical activity and obesity among youth, as well as youth tobacco use. It is a joint project of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Institute for Health Research and Policy and the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. Learn more about Bridging the Gap research at www.bridgingthegapresearch.org.

This news release, written by Patty Hall [phall@rwjf.org], was adapted with permission of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Princeton, N.J. For more information about the foundation, visit www.rwjf.org.

The issue of childhood obesity is complicated and there are probably many factors. If a child’s family does not model healthy eating habits, it probably will be difficult to change the food preferences of the child. Our goal as a society should be:

A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©

Related:

Study: Fitter kids get better grades                         https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/08/04/study-fitter-kids-get-better-grades/

Report: Obesity is a public health issue https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/report-obesity-is-a-public-health-issue/

The Healthy Schools Coalition fights for school-based efforts to combat obesity                                                   https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/the-healthy-schools-coalition-fights-for-school-based-efforts-to-combat-obesity/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Are open-source textbooks becoming a viable alternative to traditional texts?

12 Aug

Moi discussed textbooks in The changing world of textbooks:

As the cost of a college education rises, everyone is looking at ways to reduce cost so that more students are not priced out of a college education. Allen Grove has a good article at About.Com which gives some reasons for Why College Books Cost So Much?There are ways to cut down the cost associated with college text books. If possible, one can buy used texts. Another way to cut costs is to rent texts. Rhiana Jones’ article Top Three Online Sites to Rent College Texts At a Discount compares three text rental sites. Paul Michael has some tips for going online to find discounted texts at How to Find the Cheapest College Textbooks https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/24/the-changing-world-of-textbooks/

In Could ‘open source’ textbooks be cheaper than traditional textbooks? Moi said:

Open-source textbooks are another option in the calculation of the most cost effective option for obtaining needed textbooks. Information Age Education has a lot of information about the “open source” movement:

Of course, we have to think more carefully about the meaning of “free.” You know, of course, that someone has to pay to have free public libraries. Similarly, the Internet is not free. However, the Internet is paid for by a very large number of organizations and institutions, so the cost is widely distributed.

In addition, it costs to access the Internet. However, there are many places (such as public libraries, schools, many restaurants, and so on) where this cost is not directly charged to the people using the service. We are seeing a trend toward entire cities providing free WiFi access.

Finally, there is the cost of the devices people use to access the Internet. These have declined in price so that it is now feasible to provide them free to every student. How rapidly this is occurring or will occur varies considerably from country to country. In the United States, the cost of public education (in 2011) is approximately $10,000 per student per year. It does not take a very large stretch of the imagination to believe that two or three percent of this amount might be used to put a mobile computing device in the hands of every student. http://iae-pedia.org/Open_Source_Textbooks

The question is whether “free” is really “free.”

Education News is reporting in the article, Teacher-Written Digital Textbooks: A Cheaper Alternative?

Tired of constantly replacing their outdated — and expensive — statistics textbooks, officials in the Anoka Hennepin School District have let their teachers write their own digital textbooks instead, writes Abigail Wood at the Heartlander.

“The teachers thought we could do a better job writing our own book that fit our state standards and the needs of our students,” said high school math teacher Michael Engelhaupt, who helped write the digital textbook.

Three teachers were asked to create the book and were paid $10,000 each. The whole project saved a total of about $175,000….

Digital textbooks are becoming more refined, incorporating better note-taking, application, and interactive tools, yet 75 percent of students, according to a 2010 survey, would rather use print than digital. Maybe believe that’s because digital textbooks can be perceived as boring, but that’s about to change….http://www.educationnews.org/technology/teacher-written-digital-textbooks-a-cheaper-alternative/

The push for “open source” textbooks has been around for a couple of years. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/could-open-source-textbooks-be-cheaper-than-traditional-textbooks/

Victor Lukerson has written the informative Time article, Free Textbooks Shaking Up Higher Education:

“There’s a crisis of access in this country,” says Richard Baraniuk, a computer and electrical engineering professor at Rice University. He’s talking about the rapidly increasing cost of college education, which includes not only tuition, but also room and board, class fees and, yes, textbooks. Estimates of how much students spend on textbooks in a given year vary widely, but most colleges’ financial aid websites peg the cost at about $1,000.

Baraniuk thinks that cost should be reduced to zero. He’s been part of the open-source educational movement since 1999, when he grew frustrated with the book he was using in his electrical engineering class. He considered writing a book himself but had an epiphany as he learned more about the open-source operating system Linux. “I realized that we could take the same ideas–namely, modularity…and open-sourcedness, making it free and remixable–and apply that not just to software but to textbooks.”

Now he’s the director of OpenStax College, a nonprofit organization that is working to develop 25 college textbooks for introductory-level courses. With the backing of Rice University, OpenStax is bringing a big-name pedigree to the textbook market.  “There are a lot of open, free textbook projects out there, but the quality has been uneven,” Baraniuk says. “What college instructors need is the whole package. They need the textbook, the homework system, the PowerPoint slides, the test bank.”

OpenStax promises to offer this “whole package” in every subject from Spanish to microbiology. Two of its books, College Physics and Introduction to Sociology, have already been published and will be used by a few thousand students this semester. Anyone can access an online version of the texts, or download them in PDF and ebook formats for mobile devices. Students can also order a color print edition, with prices ranging from $30 to $50.

OpenStax is not alone in this emerging textbook market. Flat World Knowledge has been publishing open textbooks since 2007, and will be serving around 200,000 students this fall with dozens of textbook offerings. Both companies have all their books peer reviewed, as is standard with traditionally published textbooks.

Unlike with traditional textbooks, however, professors have the ability to remove chapters and insert new materials as they please. Those educators that have jumped into the open-source waters say there are great benefits for the students and for themselves.http://business.time.com/2012/08/10/free-textbooks-shaking-up-higher-education/

Whether the “open source” movement will evolve into the way that textbooks are sourced remains to be seen.

Resources:

California Open Source Textbook Project                                     http://www.opensourcetext.org/

Open-Source Textbooks a Mixed Bag in California http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=open-source-textbooks-mixed-bag-california

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Center for American Progress report: Performance-based funding in higher education

12 Aug

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education Article, State Budget Cuts for Research Universities Imperil Competitiveness, Report Says by Emma Roller:

States have cut funds for public research universities by 20 percent in constant dollars from 2002 to 2010, according to a report issued on Tuesday by the National Science Foundation.

The report, “Science and Engineering Indicators 2012,” is a compendium almost 600 pages long of scientific trends in the United States and around the world. The agency releases such data every two years.

The findings in this year’s report demonstrate a continuing trend in scientific innovation. While countries like China and India have increased their spending on technology and education, the United States has found itself hamstrung by a weakened economy since 2008.

Adjusted for inflation, the drop in state funds for the top 101 public research universities in the United States from 2002 to 2010 was 10 percent, with nearly three-quarters of the universities losing some state support.

Despite those drops in state financing, enrollment at research institutions continued to grow. State funds per enrolled student dropped from $10,195 in 2002 to $8,157 in 2010, in constant dollars. http://chronicle.com/article/State-Budget-Cuts-for-Research/130369/

As colleges see funding sources reduced and even be eliminated, “performance-based funding” is an attractive strategy for some.

In the 2011 American Association of State Colleges and Universities policy brief, Performance-Based Funding: A Re-Emerging Strategy in Public Higher Education Financing, policy analyst, Thomas L. Harnisch describes the strategy:

PBF Theory and Components

PBF is an incentive-based policy instrument predicated on resource dependency theory.9 This theory posits that changes in resource availability will threaten organizations and encourage adaptation for continued existence.10 In this case, because the leaders of public colleges and universities are significantly dependent on state appropriations, the theory postulates that they will take the measures necessary to retain or enhance their institutions’ funding. This may involve encouraging more efficient resource allocation, improving program performance and generating degrees that reflect state workforce needs.

This approach to higher education finance has three main components: goals, measurements and incentives. For the system to be effective, these components must be aligned and complimentary. The goals generally consist of state or institutional priorities, such as increasing the number of college graduates and improving outcomes for low-income students.

The measurement component tracks campus outputs and progress towards these goals. Measurements typically reflect state priorities and campus mission. The U.S. Department of Education’s College Completion Tool Kit categorizes these measurements as:

• General outcome indicators (graduation rates, certificates conferred, etc.)

• Subgroup outcome indicators (Pell Grant recipients, nontraditional students, etc.)

• High-need subject outcome indicators (STEM fields, nursing, etc.)

• Progress indicators (course completion, transfer, credit milestones, etc.)

The incentives, which can be financial or regulatory, are rewards given to spur urgency and action on improving measurements to meet state goals. Often these incentives are in the form of state appropriations, but they can also consist of changes in campus autonomy, such as greater tuition-setting authority.

PBF Delivery Models

Three PBF models that directly link state funding and campus outcomes are output-based funding, performance contracts and performance set-asides.11 Within these models are a number of programmatic arrangements, which can encapsulate the entire state higher education budget or only a small share of funding.

Output-based systems (or payment for results) are funding formulas linking state funding and outputs, such as the number of students meeting credit milestones and completing college. The formula can be weighted according to campus mission, with preferences given for low-income and at-risk students. This approach incentivizes campuses to seek better performance on key metrics in order to generate additional state funding.

Performance contracts are negotiated agreements between states and institutions to achieve results. The contracts are regulatory documents representing customized, campus-centric approaches to improving performance. In exchange for a funding allocation, institutions come to an agreement with the state regarding benchmarks and goals.

Performance set-asides are a separate portion of state funding designed to improve campus performance. This may be a “bonus” fund or a separate portion of a regular state appropriation. Campuses compete in order to receive money from this account.

Harnish also describes the disadvantages:

Key disadvantages may include:

• A limited portrait of university performance. PBF systems hold universities accountable for a series of measurements of student and institutional success. It offers few “shades of gray” in a multifaceted, complex environment. Rewarding a few campus outcomes is a difficult exercise that can lead to contentious discussions both within and among state universities.

• Mission distortion/student access. PBF may lead some institutional leaders to abandon, distort or manipulate the university’s core mission and responsibilities in order to inflate performance metrics. Some systems encourage administrators to change inputs instead of outcomes. This could include limiting access to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Some changes may even go unnoticed, such as reducing outreach efforts to low-income students.

• Quality reduction. The PBF approach may not capture gains in student learning or skills acquired.32 And because it may stress efficiency over quality, some believe academic quality might suffer.33 If the incentives are substantial, it is possible that some may act to reduce program rigor to achieve better outcomes. Institutions could also attempt to alter academic programs to improve performance scores (such as completion rates), while ultimately diluting the value of the student’s degree.

• Lack of program support. PBF may not be popular among some groups in academia, including faculty members. Some may object to market principles being integrated into academic operations, believing that evaluating performance based on a few metrics is antithetical to academic freedom and campus autonomy.

• Increased inequality and instability. Some believe PBF hurts institutions that need the most help, especially those serving disadvantaged populations. In some cases, the lack of resources, not university efforts, may be the driver behind poor performance.34 Some PBF approaches could also lead to large swings in funding and institutional instability….

http://www.congressweb.com/aascu/docfiles/Performance_Funding_AASCU_June2011.pdf

The Center for American Progress has published the report, Performance-Based Funding of Higher Education A Detailed Look at Best Practices in 6 States by Kysie Miao.

Here is a portion of the Executive Summary of Performance-Based Funding of Higher Education A Detailed Look at Best Practices in 6 States:

Though many new performance-based funding policies have yet to produce meaningful data, several best practices have emerged in the policy discussion. Many education leaders involved in performance-based funding have made the following recommendations:

  • Gain the support and involvement of key stakeholders early on in the process.
  • Ensure that enough money is apportioned for performance to create incentives that are sufficiently strong to change institutional behavior.
  • Develop different funding formulas for community colleges and universities or use the same formula but weight it differently depending on the type of institution and characteristics of the student population.
  • Integrate all metrics and provisions into the state higher-education-funding formula, as this makes it more durable when states are faced with budget cuts.
  • Use indicators that measure both progress (course completion, momentum, credit attainment) and completion (degrees conferred, program completion), with an emphasis on progress.
  • Incorporate stop-loss provisions that prevent institutions from losing more than a certain level of funding each year.
  • Implement a year of learning during the first year that the policy is in effect, a period in which state spending does not change but colleges receive reports detailing how their funding would have been impacted under the new measures; and/or gradually phase in over a multiyear period the percentage of total funding allocated based on performance.
  • Subject the system to frequent evaluation and make adjustments where needed.

As higher education spending continues to decline, states face growing pressure to demonstrate that they are fully invested in the long-term success of their students. Going forward, it is imperative that states and the federal government continue to explore performance-based funding options, particularly in the context of a series of outcomes-focused higher education reforms.

The following issue brief will summarize the history of performance-based funding in higher education at the state level, outline in further detail a subset of state experiences, and recommend that states continue to explore performance-based funding options in their higher education systems.

A brief history of performance-based funding

Between 1979 and 2007, 26 states experimented with measures that attempted to incor- porate institutional performance as a determinant of higher education funding. During this period 14 states that had enacted performance-based funding programs eventually discontinued them, although two of the discontinuing states later re-established new programs. The states’ dissatisfaction stemmed from the fact that these early funding models were plagued by a number of fatal design flaws. In particular, many programs were inflexible to institutional differences, resulting in rigid and seemingly arbitrary requirements that focused too heavily on degree completion and failed to reward intermediate progress. Furthermore, many models failed to allocate enough funding to create genuine incentives for colleges to improve.

After that initial wave of ineffective models, performance-based funding has once again begun to gain popularity. Careful to avoid the mistakes of the past, proponents of “performance-based funding 2.0” tend to emphasize the need to reward progress over completion, to recognize the differences that exist between community colleges and universities, and to partition off larger percentages of base funding in order to incentivize transformative change.

Download this issue brief (pdf)

Read the brief in your web browser (Scribd)

See, Performance–Based. Funding in Higher. Education. A case study of three states. By Matthew Crellin, Darrell Aaron, David Mabe, Courtney Wilk. March 2011 http://www.nebhe.org/info/pdf/PerformanceFunding_NEBHE.pdf

An interesting 2004 article by Ben Jongbloed makes some interesting observations about “performance-based’ funding:

1. Introduction

In January this year, the Economist ran a couple of articles on the sorry state of higher education. One of the articles was called “Pay or Decay” (Economist, 2004). It painted a very bleak picture of universities in Britain and elsewhere in continental Europe. The message of the article was twofold: (1) students should bear more of the costs of bringing them to a university degree, (2) universities should be freed from the burden of state planning and regulation. The model propagated by the magazine to fulfill both goals at the same time was one in which universities would be free to decide on the level of the tuition fees and the number of students admitted to their programs. This message was put across very firmly, even aggressively, and some will disagree with part of the evidence used to underpin it. However, one can not deny that there is a lot of truth in the observations that most

graduates earn significantly more than non-graduates and most students are from families that may be regarded as more advantaged than others. It is also very true that while most European universities are overcrowded and underfunded, they cannot expect to get any substantial financial relief from the state. Private funding then will have to increase because governments face increasing claims on their purse from sectors like health care, security, and care for the elderly.

So private money is needed urgently, but in this paper it is argued that one cannot neglect the mechanisms through which public subsidies are being allocated to the universities. One cannot expect the solution for higher education’s problems to come only from increased student (or graduate) contributions. The mechanisms for public funding contain important incentives to achieve higher education’s three main goals, viz. quality, efficiency and equity.

Bringing these incentives more closely in line with incentives to generate increased private resources for higher education would seem to be the goal to be achieved. So, the message of this paper is: it is not just the level of (public and private) funding, but it is just as much the basis and criteria according to which public funds are made available that can improve the quality and accessibility of higher education.

Citation:

Funding higher education: options, trade-offs and dilemmas

Ben Jongbloed (CHEPS, University of Twente, the Netherlands)

Email: b.w.a.jongbloed@utwente.nl

Paper for Fulbright Brainstorms 2004 – New Trends in Higher Education

http://doc.utwente.nl/56075/1/engpap04fundinghe.pdf

Of course, just about every institution can look for ways to be more efficient and to consistently improve efficiency. Still, the bottom line is public universities need consistent and stable sources of funding.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Johns Hopkins University study: Advertising affects alcohol use by children

11 Aug

Moi discussed alcohol use among teens in Seattle Children’s Institute study: Supportive middle school teachers affect a kid’s alcohol use:

Substance abuse is a serious problem for many young people. The Centers for Disease Control provide statistics about underage drinking in the Fact Sheet: Underage Drinking:

Underage Drinking

Alcohol use by persons under age 21 years is a major public health problem.1 Alcohol is the most commonly used and abused drug among youth in the United States, more than tobacco and illicit drugs. Although drinking by persons under the age of 21 is illegal, people aged 12 to 20 years drink 11% of all alcohol consumed in the United States.2 More than 90% of this alcohol is consumed in the form of binge drinks.2 On average, underage drinkers consume more drinks per drinking occasion than adult drinkers.3 In 2008, there were approximately 190,000 emergency rooms visits by persons under age 21 for injuries and other conditions linked to alcohol.4

Drinking Levels among Youth

The 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Survey5 found that among high school students, during the past 30 days

  • 42% drank some amount of alcohol.

  • 24% binge drank.

  • 10% drove after drinking alcohol.

  • 28% rode with a driver who had been drinking alcohol.

Other national surveys indicate

  • In 2008 the National Survey on Drug Use and HealthExternal Web Site Icon reported that 28% of youth aged 12 to 20 years drink alcohol and 19% reported binge drinking.6

  • In 2009, the Monitoring the Future SurveyExternal Web Site Icon reported that 37% of 8th graders and 72% of 12th graders had tried alcohol, and 15% of 8th graders and 44% of 12th graders drank during the past month.7

Consequences of Underage Drinking

Youth who drink alcohol1, 3, 8 are more likely to experience

  • School problems, such as higher absence and poor or failing grades.

  • Social problems, such as fighting and lack of participation in youth activities.

  • Legal problems, such as arrest for driving or physically hurting someone while drunk.

  • Physical problems, such as hangovers or illnesses.

  • Unwanted, unplanned, and unprotected sexual activity.

  • Disruption of normal growth and sexual development.

  • Physical and sexual assault.

  • Higher risk for suicide and homicide.

  • Alcohol-related car crashes and other unintentional injuries, such as burns, falls, and drowning.

  • Memory problems.

  • Abuse of other drugs.

  • Changes in brain development that may have life-long effects.

  • Death from alcohol poisoning.

In general, the risk of youth experiencing these problems is greater for those who binge drink than for those who do not binge drink.8

Youth who start drinking before age 15 years are five times more likely to develop alcohol dependence or abuse later in life than those who begin drinking at or after age 21 years.9, 10 http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/underage-drinking.htm

See, Alcohol Use Among Adolescents and Young  Adults http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh27-1/79-86.htm

https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/seattle-childrens-institute-study-supportive-middle-school-teachers-affect-a-kids-alcohol-use/

A 2006 policy statement in Pediatrics discusses the issues involved in advertising to children.

The American Academy of Pediatrics outlines its policy in Children, Adolescents, and Advertising. Here is an excerpt from the policy:

Abstract

Advertising is a pervasive influence on children and adolescents. Young people view more than 40 000 ads per year on television alone and increasingly are being exposed to advertising on the Internet, in magazines, and in schools. This exposure may contribute significantly to childhood and adolescent obesity, poor nutrition, and cigarette and alcohol use. Media education has been shown to be effective in mitigating some of the negative effects of advertising on children and adolescents. INTRODUCTION
Several European countries forbid or severely curtail advertising to children; in the United States, on the other hand, selling to children is simply “business as usual.”1 The average young person views more than 3000 ads per day on television (TV), on the Internet, on billboards, and in magazines.2 Increasingly, advertisers are targeting younger and younger children in an effort to establish “brand-name preference” at as early an age as possible.3 This targeting occurs because advertising is a $250 billion/year industry with 900 000 brands to sell,2 and children and adolescents are attractive consumers: teenagers spend $155 billion/year, children younger than 12 years spend another $25 billion, and both groups influence perhaps another $200 billion of their parents’ spending per year.4,5 Increasingly, advertisers are seeking to find new and creative ways of targeting young consumers via the Internet, in schools, and even in bathroom stalls.1THE EFFECTS OF ADVERTISING ON CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS
Research has shown that young children—younger than 8 years—are cognitively and psychologically defenseless against advertising.6–9 They do not understand the notion of intent to sell and frequently accept advertising claims at face value.10 In fact, in the late 1970s, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) held hearings, reviewed the existing research, and came to the conclusion that it was unfair and deceptive to advertise to children younger than 6 years.11 What kept the FTC from banning such ads was that it was thought to be impractical to implement such a ban.11 However, some Western countries have done exactly that: Sweden and Norway forbid all advertising directed at children younger than 12 years, Greece bans toy advertising until after 10 pm, and Denmark and Belgium severely restrict advertising aimed at children.12                                     http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/118/6/2563.full

Citation:

Pediatrics Vol. 118 No. 6 December 1, 2006
pp. 2563 -2569
(doi: 10.1542/peds.2006-2698)

  1. AbstractFree

  2. » Full TextFree

  3. Full Text (PDF)Free

Jeanette Mulvey, Business News Daily Managing Editor at LiveScience.com is reporting in the article, How Alcohol Ads Target Kids:

Parents might do their best to shield their kids from advertising related to alcohol, but alcohol marketers are doing their best to reach them anyway. That’s the finding of new research that discovered that the content of alcohol ads placed in magazines is more likely to violate industry guidelines if the ad appears in a magazine with sizable youth readership.

The research, which was done by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, found that ads in magazines with a substantial youth readership (15 percent or more) frequently showed alcohol being consumed in an irresponsible manner. Examples include showing alcohol consumption near or on bodies of water, encouraging overconsumption, and providing messages supportive of alcohol addiction. In addition, nearly one in five ad occurrences contained sexual connotations or sexual objectification.

“The bottom line here is that youth are getting hit repeatedly by ads for spirits and beer in magazines geared towards their age demographic,” said CAMY director and study co-author David Jernigan. “As at least 14 studies have found that the more young people are exposed to alcohol advertising and marketing, the more likely they are to drink, or if already drinking, to drink more, this report should serve as a wake-up call to parents and everyone else concerned about the health of young people.”http://news.yahoo.com/alcohol-ads-target-kids-125635247.html?_esi=1

Here is the press release from the Bloomberg School of Health:

For Immediate Release:                                                                                Contact: Tim Parsons
August 8, 2012                                                                                                410-955-6878 or tmparson@jhsph.edu

                  Alcohol Advertising Standards Violations Most Common in Magazines with Youthful Audiences

                              First study to examine the relationship of risky content in alcohol ads to youth exposure

The content of alcohol ads placed in magazines is more likely to be in violation of industry guidelines if the ad appears in a magazine with sizeable youth readership, according to a new study from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, the study is the first to measure the relationship of problematic content to youth exposure, and the first to examine risky behaviors depicted in alcohol advertising in the past decade.

     The researchers examined 1,261 ads for alcopops, beer, spirits or wine that appeared over 2,500 times in 11 different magazines that have or are likely to have disproportionately youthful readerships – that is, youth readerships equaling or exceeding 15 percent. Ads were analyzed for different risk codes: injury content, overconsumption content, addiction content, sex-related content and violation of industry guidelines. This latter category refers to the voluntary codes of good marketing practice administered by alcohol industry trade associations. Examples of code violations include ads appearing to target a primarily underage audience, highlighting the high alcohol content of a product, or portraying alcohol consumption in conjunction with activities requiring a high degree of alertness or coordination such as swimming.

     “The finding that violations of the alcohol industry’s advertising standards were most common in magazines with the most youthful audiences tells us self-regulated voluntary codes are failing,” said CAMY Director and study co-author David Jernigan, PhD. “It’s time to seriously consider stronger limits on youth exposure to alcohol advertising.”

     Specific examples the researchers identified in the sample included advertising showing alcohol consumption near or on bodies of water, encouraging overconsumption, and providing messages supportive of alcohol addiction. In addition, nearly one in five ad occurrences contained sexual connotations or sexual objectification. Results also show ads were concentrated across type of alcohol, brand and outlet, with spirits representing about two-thirds of the sample, followed by ads for beer, which comprised almost another 30 percent. The ten most advertised brands, a list comprised solely of spirits and beer brands, accounted for 30 percent of the sample, and seven brands were responsible for more than half of the violations of industry marketing guidelines.

     “The bottom line here is that youth are getting hit repeatedly by ads for spirits and beer in magazines geared towards their age demographic,” said Jernigan. “As at least 14 studies have found the more young people are exposed to alcohol advertising and marketing, the more likely they are to drink, or if already drinking, to drink more, this report should serve as a wake-up call to parents and everyone else concerned about the health of young people.”

     Alcohol is responsible for 4,700 deaths per year among young people under the age of 21, and is associated with the three leading causes of death among youth: motor vehicle crashes, homicide and suicide.

     The research was funded by grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy.

    The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth monitors the marketing practices of the alcohol industry to focus attention and action on industry practices that jeopardize the health and safety of America’s youth. The Center was founded in 2002 at Georgetown University with funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Center moved to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2008 and is currently funded by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For more information, visit http://www.camy.org.

###

Additional media contact: Alicia Samuels, MPH, Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY), 914-720-4635 or alsamuel@jhsph.edu.

Assuming you are not one of those ill-advised parents who supply their child with alcohol or drugs like marijuana in an attempt to be hip or cool, suspicions that your child may have a substance abuse problem are a concern. Confirmation that your child has a substance abuse problem can be heartbreaking. Even children whose parents have seemingly done everything right can become involved with drugs. The best defense is knowledge about your child, your child’s friends, and your child’s activities. You need to be aware of what is influencing your child.

Our goal should be:

A Healthy Child In A Healthy Family Who Attends A Healthy School In A Healthy Neighborhood. ©

Related:

More school districts facing a financial crunch are considering school ads https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/more-school-districts-facing-a-financial-crunch-are-considering-school-ads/

Should there be advertising in schools? https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/should-there-be-advertising-in-schools/

Talking to your teen about risky behaviors https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/talking-to-your-teen-about-risky-behaviors/

Television cannot substitute for quality childcare https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/television-cannot-substitute-for-quality-childcare/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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More children now on antipsychotics drugs

10 Aug

Duff Wilson chronicles one family’s harrowing ordeal as they sought first, an accurate diagnosis and then appropriate treatment for their child. In the New York Times article, Child’s Ordeal Shows the Risk of Psychosis Drugs For The Young Wilson reports about the Warren family. Judy Lightfoot has a very informative article at Crosscut, We’re Doing Experiments On Poor Children whose are prescribed antipsychotic drugs more often. Pamela Paul has a fascinating article in the New York Times about preschoolers and depression. In the article, Can Preschoolers Be Depressed? Paul reports:

Kiran didn’t seem like the type of kid parents should worry about. “He was the easy one,” his father, Raghu, a physician, says. “He always wanted to please.” Unlike other children in his suburban St. Louis preschool, Kiran (a nickname his parents asked me to use to protect his identity) rarely disobeyed or acted out. If he dawdled or didn’t listen, Raghu (also a nickname) had only to count to five before Kiran hastened to tie his shoes or put the toys away. He was kind to other children; if a classmate cried, Kiran immediately approached. “Our little empath!” his parents proudly called him.

But there were worrisome signs. For one thing, unlike your typical joyful and carefree 4-year-old, Kiran didn’t have a lot of fun. “He wasn’t running around, bouncing about, battling to get to the top of the slide like other kids,” Raghu notes. Kiran’s mother, Elizabeth (her middle name), an engineer, recalls constant refrains of “Nothing is fun; I’m bored.” When Raghu and Elizabeth reminded a downbeat Kiran of their coming trip to Disney World, Kiran responded: “Mickey lies. Dreams don’t come true….”

Paul does a great job of describing what depression looks like in small children and reporting about nascent research efforts by various universities.

How Common Is Depression In Children?      

According to Mary H. Sarafolean, PhD in the article, Depression in School Age Children and Adolescents

In general, depression affects a person’s physical,  cognitive, emotional/affective, and motivational well-being, no matter  their age. For example, a child with depression between the ages of 6 and 12 may exhibit fatigue, difficulty with schoolwork, apathy and/or a lack of motivation. An adolescent or teen may be oversleeping, socially isolated, acting out in
self-destructive ways and/or have a sense of hopelessness. (See table 1.)

Prevalence and Risk Factors

While only 2 percent of pre-teen school-age children and 3-5 percent of teenagers have clinical depression, it is the most common diagnosis of children in a clinical setting (40-50 percent of diagnoses). The lifetime risk  of depression in females is 10-25 percent and in males, 5-12 percent. Children and teens who are considered at high risk for depression disorders include:

* children referred to a mental health provider for school problems
* children with medical problems
* gay and lesbian adolescents
* rural vs. urban adolescents
* incarcerated adolescents
* pregnant adolescents
* children with a family history of depression

If you or your child has one or more of the risk factors and your child is exhibiting symptoms of prolonged sadness, it might be wise to have your child evaluated for depression.

How to Recognize Depression In Your Child?      

MedNet has an excellent article about Depression in Children and how to recognize signs of depression in your child.

 The symptoms of depression in children vary. It is often undiagnosed  and untreated because they are passed off as normal emotional and  psychological changes that occur during growth. Early medical studies  focused on “masked” depression, where a child’s depressed mood was  evidenced by acting out or angry behavior. While this does occur,  particularly in younger children, many children display sadness or low  mood similar to adults who are depressed. The primary symptoms of  depression revolve around sadness, a feeling of
hopelessness, and mood  changes.

Signs and symptoms of depression in children include:

* Irritability or anger
* Continuous feelings of sadness, hopelessness
* Social withdrawal
* Increased sensitivity to rejection
* Changes in appetite — either increased or decreased
* Changes in sleep — sleeplessness or excessive sleep
* Vocal outbursts or crying
* Difficulty concentrating
* Fatigue and low energy
* Physical complaints (such as stomachaches, headaches) that do not respond to
treatment
* Reduced  ability to function during events and activities at home or with friends, in school, extracurricular activities, and in other hobbies or  interests

* Feelings of worthlessness or guilt
* Impaired thinking or concentration
* Thoughts of death or suicide

Not all children have all of these symptoms. In fact, most will  display different symptoms at different times and in different settings.  Although some children may continue to function reasonably well in  structured environments, most kids with significant depression will  suffer a noticeable change in social activities, loss of interest in  school and poor academic performance, or a change in appearance.  Children may also begin using drugs or alcohol,
especially if they are  over the age of 12.

The best defense for parents is a good awareness of what is going on with their child. As a parent you need to know what is going on in your child’s world. Catherine Pearson has a truly scary article at Huffington Post.

In Antipsychotics Prescribed To Treat ADHD In More Children And Teens, New Study Finds, Pearson reports:

The number of children and teens taking antipsychotic medications has skyrocketed in recent years, with psychiatrists prescribing the drugs in nearly one-in-three visits with youth, a new study found.

The drugs are not only being prescribed for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but also for the commonly diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Many mental health experts say that the powerful medications come with serious potential side effects and that their effectiveness has not been proven in treating the disorders for which they’re increasingly prescribed.

“The growth in antipsychotic treatment of children — roughly eight-fold in 17 years — is especially impressive,” said study author Dr. Mark Olfson, a professor of clinical psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University.

“Practice has overstepped research,” he said. “These rapidly rising rates of antipsychotic treatment in young people should give physicians pause.”               http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/09/antipsychotics-adhd-study_n_1760602.html?utm_hp_ref=email_share

Here is the citation to the study:

National Trends in the Office-Based Treatment of Children, Adolescents, and Adults With Antipsychotics FREE ONLINE FIRST

Mark Olfson, MD, MPH; Carlos Blanco, MD, PhD; Shang-Min Liu, MS; Shuai Wang, PhD; Christoph U. Correll, MD

[+] Author Affiliations

Arch Gen Psychiatry. Published online August 06, 2012. doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2012.647

Text Size: AAA

Published online August 2012

Article

Tables

References

Comments

ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT | METHODS | RESULTS | COMMENT | AUTHOR INFORMATION | REFERENCES

Context  Although antipsychotic treatment has recently increased, little is known about how this development has differentially affected the office-based care of adults and young people in the United States.

Objective  To compare national trends and patterns in antipsychotic treatment of adults and youths in office-based medical practice.

Design  Trends between 1993 and 2009 in visits with antipsychotics for children (0-13 years), adolescents (14-20 years), and adults (≥21 years) are described on a per population basis and as a proportion of total medical office visits. Background and clinical characteristics of recent (2005-2009) antipsychotic visits are also compared by patient age.

Setting  Outpatient visits to physicians in office-based practice.

Participants  Visits from the 1993-2009 National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys (N = 484 889).

Main Outcome Measures  Visits with a prescription of antipsychotic medications.

Results  Between 1993-1998 and 2005-2009, visits with a prescription of antipsychotic medications per 100 persons increased from 0.24 to 1.83 for children, 0.78 to 3.76 for adolescents, and 3.25 to 6.18 for adults. The proportion of total visits that included a prescription of antipsychotics increased during this period from 0.16% to 1.07% for youths and from 0.88% to 1.73% for adults. From 2005 to 2009, disruptive behavior disorders were the most common diagnoses in child and adolescent antipsychotic visits, accounting for 63.0% and 33.7%, respectively, while depression (21.2%) and bipolar disorder (20.2%) were the 2 most common diagnoses in adult antipsychotic visits. Psychiatrists provided a larger proportion of the antipsychotic visits for children (67.7%) and adolescents (71.6%) than to adults (50.3%) (P < .001). From 2005 to 2009, antipsychotics were included in 28.8% of adult visits and 31.1% of youth visits to psychiatrists.

Conclusions  On a population basis, adults make considerably more medical visits with a prescription of antipsychotics than do adolescents or children. Yet antipsychotic treatment has increased especially rapidly among young people, and recently antipsychotics have been prescribed in approximately the same proportion of youth and adult visits to psychiatrists.

Over the past several years, an increasing number of adults and children in the United States have been treated with antipsychotic medications.1 – 2 Antipsychotics are now among the most commonly prescribed and costly classes of medications.3 In adults, antipsychotic medications have demonstrated efficacy and have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a primary treatment for schizophrenia4 – 5 and bipolar disorder6 – 7 and as an adjunctive treatment for major depressive disorder.8 In children and adolescents, antipsychotics are indicated for irritability associated with autistic disorder (5-16 years), tics and vocal utterances of Tourette syndrome and bipolar mania (10-17 years), and schizophrenia (13-17 years).9

With increasing use of antipsychotic drugs, the range of mental disorders treated with these medications in practice has broadened.10 – 15 As a result, the proportion of second-generation antipsychotic medications prescribed to treat schizophrenia has decreased from 51% (1995-1996) to 24% (2007-2008),2 while antipsychotic treatment of anxiety disorders in adults and youths has roughly doubled.12 In young people, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and other disruptive disorders account for a substantial proportion (37.8%) of antipsychotic use.11

The metabolic safety concerns of antipsychotic medications16 – 17 focus our attention on antipsychotic prescribing practices in the community, especially on the extent to which antipsychotics are used to treat disorders for which there is limited empirical evidence of efficacy.15 ,18 Young people may be especially sensitive to the adverse metabolic effects of second-generation antipsychotics. As compared with adults, children may be more vulnerable to antipsychotic-induced weight gain19 and perhaps even to antipsychotic-associated diabetes.20 – 21

Young people and adults vary in several important clinical respects22 that might influence trends in antipsychotic use. Disruptive behavioral disorders, which are more commonly diagnosed in boys than in girls23 and in nonwhite youths than in white youths,24 – 25 occur in a substantial proportion of young people receiving outpatient mental health care.26 Increasing clinical acceptance of antipsychotics for problematic aggression in disruptive behavior disorders27 may have increased the number of children and adolescents (especially male youths and ethnic/racial minorities) being prescribed antipsychotics. The increase in the number of clinical diagnoses of bipolar disorder28 and autistic spectrum disorders29 among children and adolescents may have further increased antipsychotic use by youths, particularly by boys. With respect to adults, acceptance of antipsychotics as adjuvant treatment of major depressive disorder, even in the absence of psychotic features,30 might have increased antipsychotic use. Because depressive disorders are significantly more common in women than in men,31 such a trend might preferentially increase antipsychotic use among adult women. Increasing use of antipsychotics in adult anxiety disorders may have a similar effect.12

A comparison is presented of nationally representative survey data from adult and youth visits to office-based physicians. The analyses focus on trends and patterns of antipsychotic treatment. Prior to conducting these analyses, we predicted that the increase in the proportion of physician visits with a prescription of antipsychotic medications would be more pronounced for youths than for adults.    http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1263977

Parents must be advocates for their children. If the first medical opinion does not seem right, get a second or even a third opinion. The New York Times article about the ordeal of the Wilson family is truly frightening.

Related:

Schools have to deal with depressed and troubled children                                       https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/schools-have-to-deal-with-depressed-and-troubled-children/

School psychologists are needed to treat troubled children                                             https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/school-psychologists-are-needed-to-treat-troubled-children/

Battling teen addiction: ‘Recovery high schools’                                                          https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/battling-teen-addiction-recovery-high-schools/

Resources:

1. About.Com’s Depression In Young Children

2. Psych Central’s Depression In Young Children

3. Psychiatric News’ Study Helps Pinpoint Children With Depression

4. Family Doctor’s What Is Depression?

5. WebMD’s Depression In Children

6. Healthline’s Is Your Child Depressed?

7. Medicine.Net’s Depression In Children

Dr. Wilda may be contacted at drwildasays@yahoo.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Oregon State University study: Ability to pay attention in preschool may predict college success

8 Aug

In Early learning standards and the K-12 continuum, moi said:

Preschool is a portal to the continuum of life long learning. A good preschool stimulates the learning process and prompts the child into asking questions about their world and environment. Baby Center offers advice about how to find a good preschool and general advice to expectant parents. At the core of why education is important is the goal of equipping every child with the knowledge and skills to pursue THEIR dream, whatever that dream is. Christine Armario and Dorie Turner are reporting in the AP article, AP News Break: Nearly 1 in 4 Fails Military Exam which appeared in the Seattle Times:

Nearly one-fourth of the students who try to join the U.S. Army fail its entrance exam, painting a grim picture of an education system that produces graduates who can’t answer basic math, science and reading questions, according to a new study released Tuesday.

Many children begin their first day of school behind their more advantaged peers. Early childhood learning is an important tool is bridging the education deficit. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/early-learning-standards-and-the-k-12-contiuum/

Julie Rasicot summarizes the results of an Oregon State University study in the Education Week article, Ability to Pay Attention May Predict College Success, Study Says:

The researchers discovered that “children who were rated higher by their parents on attention span and persistence at age 4 had nearly 50 percent greater odds of getting a bachelor’s degree by age 25,” a university news release said.

“Our study shows that the biggest predictor of college completion wasn’t math or reading skills, but whether or not” kids were “able to pay attention and finish tasks at age 4,” early child development researcher and lead study author Megan McClelland said in the release.

The researchers stress that the good news is that these behavioral skills can be taught, so parents have another way to help their kids be successful in school. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/early_years/2012/08/could_learning_how_to_pay.html?intc=es

Here is the press release from the Oregon State study, Preschool children who can pay attention more likely to finish college:

Preschool children who can pay attention more likely to finish college                                                                                          8-6-12

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Young children who are able to pay attention and persist with a task have a 50 percent greater chance of completing college, according to a new study at Oregon State University.

Tracking a group of 430 preschool-age children, the study gives compelling evidence that social and behavioral skills, such as paying attention, following directions and completing a task may be even more crucial than academic abilities.

And the good news for parents and educators, the researchers said, is that attention and persistence skills are malleable and can be taught.

The results were just published online in Early Childhood Research Quarterly.

“There is a big push now to teach children early academic skills at the preschool level,” said Megan McClelland, an OSU early child development researcher and lead author of the study. “Our study shows that the biggest predictor of college completion wasn’t math or reading skills, but whether or not they were able to pay attention and finish tasks at age 4.”

Parents of preschool children were asked to rate their children on items such as “plays with a single toy for long periods of time” or “child gives up easily when difficulties are encountered.” Reading and math skills were assessed at age 7 using standardized assessments. At age 21, the same group was tested again for reading and math skills.

Surprisingly, achievement in reading and math did not significantly predict whether or not the students completed college. Instead, researchers found that children who were rated higher by their parents on attention span and persistence at age 4 had nearly 50 percent greater odds of getting a bachelor’s degree by age 25.

McClelland, who is a nationally-recognized expert in child development, said college completion has been shown in numerous studies to lead to higher wages and better job stability. She said the earlier that educators and parents can intervene, the more likely a child can succeed academically.

“We didn’t look at how well they did in college or at grade point average,” McClelland said. “The important factor was being able to focus and persist. Someone can be brilliant, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they can focus when they need to and finish a task or job.”

McClelland, who is also a core director in OSU’s Hallie E. Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families, said interventions aimed at increasing young children’s self-control abilities have repeatedly shown to help boost “self-regulation,” or a child’s ability to listen, pay attention, follow through on a task and remember instructions.

In a past study, McClelland found that simple, active classroom games such as Simon Says and Red Light/Green Light have been effective tools for increasing both literacy and self-regulation skills.

“Academic ability carries you a long way, but these other skills are also important,” McClelland said. “Increasingly, we see that the ability to listen, pay attention, and complete important tasks is crucial for success later in life.”

OSU’s Alan Acock, along with Andrea Piccinin of the University of Victoria and Sally Ann Rhea and Michael Stallings of the University of Colorado, contributed to this study, which was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and a Colorado Adoption Project grant.

About the OSU College of Public Health and Human Sciences: The College creates connections in teaching, research and community outreach while advancing knowledge, policies and practices that improve population health in communities across Oregon and beyond.

Jonathan Cohn’s study about the value of early learning is described in Jonathan Cohn’s ‘The Two Year Window’:

Jonathan Cohn reports about an unprecedented experiment which occurred in Romanian orphanages in the New Republic article, The Two Year Window. There are very few experiments involving humans because of ethical considerations.

Nelson had traveled to Romania to take part in a cutting-edge experiment. It was ten years after the fall of the Communist dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu, whose scheme for increasing the country’s population through bans on birth control and abortion had filled state-run institutions with children their parents couldn’t support. Images from the orphanages had prompted an outpouring of international aid and a rush from parents around the world to adopt the children. But ten years later, the new government remained convinced that the institutions were a good idea—and was still warehousing at least 60,000 kids, some of them born after the old regime’s fall, in facilities where many received almost no meaningful human interaction. With backing from the MacArthur Foundation, and help from a sympathetic Romanian official, Nelson and colleagues from Harvard, Tulane, and the University of Maryland prevailed upon the government to allow them to remove some of the children from the orphanages and place them with foster families. Then, the researchers would observe how they fared over time in comparison with the children still in the orphanages. They would also track a third set of children, who were with their original parents, as a control group.

In the field of child development, this study—now known as the Bucharest Early Intervention Project—was nearly unprecedented. Most such research is performed on animals, because it would be unethical to expose human subjects to neglect or abuse. But here the investigators were taking a group of children out of danger. The orphanages, moreover, provided a sufficiently large sample of kids, all from the same place and all raised in the same miserable conditions. The only variable would be the removal from the institutions, allowing researchers to isolate the effects of neglect on the brain….

Drury, Nelson, and their collaborators are still learning about the orphans. But one upshot of their work is already clear. Childhood adversity can damage the brain as surely as inhaling toxic substances or absorbing a blow to the head can. And after the age of two, much of that damage can be difficult to repair, even for children who go on to receive the nurturing they were denied in their early years. This is a revelation with profound implication—and not just for the Romanian orphans.

APPROXIMATELY SEVEN MILLION American infants, toddlers, and preschoolers get care from somebody other than a relative, whether through organized day care centers or more informal arrangements, according to the Census Bureau. And much of that care is not very good. One widely cited study of child care in four states, by researchers in Colorado, found that only 8 percent of infant care centers were of “good” or “excellent” quality, while 40 percent were “poor.” The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has found that three in four infant caregivers provide only minimal cognitive and language stimulation—and that more than half of young children in non-maternal care receive “only some” or “hardly any” positive caregiving. http://www.tnr.com/article/economy/magazine/97268/the-two-year-window?page=0,0&passthru=YzBlNDJmMmRkZTliNDgwZDY4MDhhYmIwMjYyYzhlMjg

Because the ranks of poor children are growing in the U.S., this study portends some grave challenges not only for particular children, but this society and this country. Adequate early learning opportunities and adequate early parenting is essential for proper development in children. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/jonathan-cohns-the-two-year-window/

Related:

The state of preschool education is dire https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/the-state-of-preschool-education-is-dire/

Pre-kindergarten programs help at-risk students prepare for school                                                                 https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/pre-kindergarten-programs-help-at-risk-students-prepare-for-school/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Report: Black students more likely to be suspended

7 Aug

 

In Who says Black children can’t learn? Some schools get it, moi said:

 

People want an education for a variety of reasons. Some have a love of learning. Others want to attend a good college or vocational school. Still others, see an education as a ticket to a good job. Increasingly for schools, the goal is to prepare kids with the skills to attend and succeed at college. In order to give children the skills to succeed, schools need teachers who are effective at educating their population of kids. There are many themes in the attempt to answer the question, what will prepare kids for what comes after high school. What will prepare kids for what comes after high school is a good basic education. The schools that provide a good basic education are relentless about the basics. https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/who-says-black-children-cant-learn-some-schools-gets-it/

 

Many African American students are suspended or expelled before they complete their education.

 

Nirvi Shah and Lesli A. Maxwell are reporting in the Education Week article, Researchers Sound Alarm Over Black Student Suspensions:

 

This latest collection of civil rights data was the most expansive to date, including information that accounts for 85 percent of all public school students in the country.

 

Florida and Hawaii were excluded because of errors in the reported data. The study also does not provide suspension estimates for New York state because New York City’s data on suspensions are being reviewed by the office for civil rights.

 

This report provides the first large-scale analysis of suspension rates in public schools across all states. Previous research has flagged individual states’ records on suspension and expulsion.

 

The rates of suspension look starkest at the district level.

 

Of the nearly 6,800 districts studied by the Civil Rights Project researchers, 839 suspended at least 10 percent of their students at least once. In some districts, including Chicago; Memphis, Tenn.; Columbus, Ohio; and Henrico County, Va., 18 percent or more of the students enrolled spent time out of school as a punishment. Some 200 districts sent more than 20 percent of students away at one point or another during the school year….

 

A report last year from the Council of State Governments Justice Center in Bethesda, Md., and the Public Policy Research Institute at Texas A&M University found that more than half of students in Texas were suspended or expelled at least once between 7th and 12th grades.

 

Of the students tracked by the Texas study’s researchers from 7th grade through one year past when they were scheduled to be seniors, 75 percent of black students were expelled or suspended, compared with 50 percent of white students. In addition, 75 percent of students with disabilities were suspended or expelled, compared with 55 percent of students without a disability.

 

The problem with suspensions is simple, yet devastating, the authors say: The students—many of them already at risk for low performance or dropping out—are not in class, which leads to a litany of negative consequences.

 

“Suspensions matter because they are among the leading indicators of whether a child will drop out of school and because out-of-school suspension increases a child’s risk for future incarceration,” they write.

 

The study from the Civil Rights Project at UCLA recommends that states and districts be required to report suspension data, by race, each year, and that suspension rates be used to measure states’ and districts’ education performance.

 

The authors also want more federal enforcement of civil rights laws to address the disparities in discipline they and others have found. And federal efforts should invest more in systemic improvements to approaches to school discipline and teacher training in classroom management, they argue.

 

Some may hypothesize that students of color are more likely to exhibit inappropriate behavior in the classroom, said Russell Skiba, a professor at the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy at Indiana University, in Bloomington, but research doesn’t support that.

 

But there is evidence that African-American students are punished more severely than other students for minor infractions….

 

The Southern Poverty Law Center has filed civil rights complaints with the federal Education Department against five Florida districts for what it says have been discriminatory disciplinary practices against black students, compared with their white peers….

 

Aware of a growing chorus of voices criticizing the disproportionate rates of punishment, some states are also taking steps to change their policies. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/08/07/01zerotolerance.h32.html?tkn=TSXFDaT6vLNrcbe4GPapqynJmQgDztb66cfJ&intc=es

 

Here is the press release for the report:

 

Millions of Children Find the Schoolhouse Door Locked

 

Date Published: August 07, 2012

 

UCLA Center for Civil Rights Remedies Finds Shocking Suspension Rates in thousands of districts across the nation.

 

Related Documents

 

 

For Immediate Release

Contact  Jamal Simmons, Broderick Johnson (202) 466-8585

(Los Angeles, CA) Today, the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles issued “Opportunities Suspended:  The Disparate Impact of Disciplinary Exclusion From School,” a nationwide report based on an analysis of Federal government suspension-related data from the 2009-10 school year for grades K-12.  This first-ever breakdown of nearly 7,000 districts found that 17% of African American students nationwide received an out-of-school suspension compared to about 5% of White students.  The comparable rate for Latinos was 7%.  The data analyzed covered about 85% of the nation’s public school students.  The suspension rates were equally striking for students with disabilities and revealed that an estimated 13% of all students with disabilities were suspended nationally, approximately twice the rate of their non-disabled peers. 

The real disturbing story, however, is at the district level. This review covers school districts across the country, from every state, and it found that in nearly 200 districts, 20% or more of the total enrolled students in K-12 were suspended out of school at least once.  The numbers are more shocking when broken down by race and disability.  For all students with disabilities, regardless of race, over 400 districts suspended 25% or more of these students.  Black students with disabilities were most at risk for out-of-school suspension with an alarming 25% national average for all districts in the sample. 

The report breaks down suspension rates by state and race, and provides links to in-depth profiles of the suspension rates for every district in the sample. The alarmingly high suspension figures highlighted in the report are in stark contrast to the thousands of other districts in the report that suspended 3% or less of each subgroup.  The data show that numerous school districts are not suspending large numbers of children from any racial group.

“The frequent use of out-of-school suspension results in increased dropout rates and heightened risk of youth winding up in the juvenile justice system,” stated the study’s lead author Daniel J. Losen. “We know that schools can support teachers and improve learning environments for children without forcing so many students to lose valuable days of instruction. The data also show that numerous school districts are not suspending large numbers of children from any racial group. In contrast, the incredibly high numbers of students barred from school, often for the most minor infractions, defies common sense and reveals patterns of school exclusion along the lines of race and disability status that must be rejected by all members of the public school community.”

The report also reviews what research tells us about alternatives to out-of-school suspension and discusses numerous ways to respond to misbehavior that would keep children both safe and in school.
Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project, continued, “This important study confirms an unfortunate reality – minority students face the brunt of school-based discipline.  This has to end, and the report provides thoughtful guidance to help us reach that goal.”  

The report makes several recommendations to correct this disturbing trend.  These recommendations are directed to:

  • Parents:  Bring large racial, gender, and disability disparities to the attention of local and state school boards;
  • Federal and state governments:  Provide greater support for research on evidence-based and promising interventions that will reduce the use of suspensions and other harsh disciplinary measures; 
  • Educators:  Use disaggregated discipline data to guide and evaluate reform efforts; and
  • Media:  Question the justification and research basis behind discipline policies that keep large numbers of children out of school. 

To view a copy of “Opportunities Suspended:  The Disparate Impact of Disciplinary Exclusion From School,” by Daniel Losen and Jon Gillespie, please click here. 

About the Civil Rights Project at UCLA

Founded in 1996 by former Harvard professors Gary Orfield and Christopher Edley Jr., the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles is now co-directed by Orfield and Patricia Gándara, professors at UCLA.  Its mission is to create a new generation of research in social science and law on the critical issues of civil rights and equal opportunity for racial and ethnic groups in the United States.  It has commissioned more than 400 studies, published 13 books and issued numerous reports from authors at universities and research centers across the country. This research, conducted by the CRP’s Center for Civil Rights Remedies, was made possible with the support of Atlantic Philanthropies. The Center is dedicated to improving educational opportunities and outcomes for children from subgroups who have been discriminated against historically due to their race/ethnicity, and who are frequently subjected to exclusionary practices such as disciplinary removal, over-representation in special education, and reduced access to a college-bound curriculum.

 

 

The focus at this point should be how best to address the behavior issues that resulted in the disciplinary action. It is important for the districts to provide resources to assist students in overcoming their challenges. Many children have behavior problems because they are not in the correct education placement. Often, moving the child to a different education setting is the beginning of dealing with the challenges they face. Many children face challenges in their living situations and districts may need comprehensive social assistance to help children with living situation challenges.

 

See:

 

Education Law Center

 

Discipline In Schools: What Works and What Doesn’t?

 

Justice for Children and Youth has a pamphlet I’m being expelled from school – what are my rights?

 

Related:

 

 

A strategy to reduce school suspensions: ‘School Wide Positive Behavior Support’                                                          https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/a-strategy-to-reduce-school-suspensions-school-wide-positive-behavior-support/

 

 

Single-sex classrooms should be allowed in public schools https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/22/single-sex-classrooms-should-be-allowed-in-public-schools/

 

 

Boys of color: Resources from the Boys Initiative https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/boys-of-color-resources-from-the-boys-initiative/

 

U.S. Education Dept. Civil Rights Office releases report on racial disparity in school retention                   https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/u-s-education-dept-civil-rights-office-releases-report-on-racial-disparity-in-school-retention/

 

Inappropriate discipline: The first step on the road to education failure                                                     https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/inappropriate-discipline-the-first-step-on-the-road-to-education-failure/

 

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

 

 

 

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Paper: Cyberbullying may be overrated

6 Aug

Technology can be used for information gathering and to keep people connected. Some people use social media to torment others. Children can be devastated by thoughtless, mean, and unkind comments posted at social media sites. Some of the comments may be based upon rumor and may even be untrue. The effect on a particular child can be devastating. Because of the potential for harm, many parents worry about cyberbullying on social media sites.

Nirvi Shah is reporting in the Education Week article, Researchers: Cyberbullying Not as Widespread, Common as Believed:

While parents may spend more time worrying about their kids being terrorized by text, tweet, Facebook, or Formspring, new research suggests that cyberbullying “is a low-prevalence phenomenon, which has not increased over time and has not created many ‘new’ victims and bullies, that is, children and youth who are not also involved in some form of traditional bullying.”

The research, presented here this week at the American Psychological Association convention, involved 450,490 students in 1,349 American schools surveyed between 2007 and 2010 and another 9,000 Norwegian students at 41 schools. It was intended to dispel some of the myths and misconceptions about cyberbullying.

The study, by longtime bullying researcher Dan Olweus of the University of Bergen, Norway, found that while, on average, 18 percent of American students said they had been verbally bullied; those who said they had been cyberbullied was about 4.5 percent. About 11 percent of Norwegian students said they had been verbally bullied, compared to about 3.4 percent who said they had been bullied in some electronic format. The study was published online in May in the European Journal of Developmental Psychology….

The research also shows “there has been no systematic increase in cyberbullying,” Olweus said, despite an increase in the number of youths with cell phones and on social networking sites. (Facebook is considering expanding access to younger people, which has concerned some educators.)

Of the American students who had been exposed to cyberbullying, 88 percent had been bullied in at least one other way.

“To be cyberbullied or to cyberbully other students seems to a large extent to be part of a general pattern of bullying where use of the electronic media is only one possible form, and, in
addition, a form with a quite low prevalence,” the study says…. “T

The study notes that “bullying implies a form of relationship with certain characteristics and the term should not be used as a blanket term for any form of negative or aggressive act.”

While electronic bullying can have the same effects of traditional bullying—depression, poor self-esteem, anxiety, thoughts of suicide, headaches, and effects on sleep—it is
difficult to tell whether or to what extent these problems are a result of electronic bullying since the majority of cyberbullied children and youth are also harassed in other ways.

(Some states have amended existing bullying laws or passed new ones just to address cyberbullying. And lawsuits over bullying online or other electronic methods are increasing in number.)

Olweus writes that because traditional bullying is far more common than cyberbullying and that the great majority of cyberbullied students are also bullied in more typical ways, “it is natural to recommend schools to direct most of their efforts to counteracting traditional bullying,” ideally using an evidence-based approach. His research has found that levels of electronic bullying decline along with traditional bullying in these schools. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2012/08/orlando_while_parents_may_spen.html

Citation:

Invited expert discussion paper

Cyberbullying: An overrated phenomenon?

Dan Olweus

RKBU Vest, Uni Research, Bergen, Norway

The paper argues that several claims about cyberbullying made in the media and elsewhere are greatly exaggerated and have little empirical scientific support. Contradicting these claims, it turns out that cyberbullying, when studied in proper context, is a low-prevalence phenomenon, which has not

increased over time and has not created many ‘‘new’’ victims and bullies, that is, children and youth who are not also involved in some form of traditional bullying. These conclusions are based on two quite large samples of students, one from the USA and one from Norway, both of which have time series data

for periods of four or five years. It is further argued that the issue of possible negative effects of cyberbullying has not received much serious research attention and a couple of strategies for such research are suggested together with some methodological recommendations. Finally, it is generally recommended that schools direct most of their anti-bullying efforts to counteracting traditional bullying, combined with an important system-level strategy that is likely to reduce the already low prevalence of cyberbullying. Keywords: Cyberbullying; Victims; Bullying.

Correspondence should be addressed to Dan Olweus, RKBU Vest, Uni Research,

Krinkelkroken 1, PO Box 7800, NO-5020 Bergen, Norway. E-mail: Olweus@uni.no

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

2012, 1–19, iFirst article

 2012 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business

http://www.psypress.com/edp

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/Cyberbullying%2C%20Olweus.pdf

Two articles describe the effects of social networking on teen relationships. In the first article, Antisocial Networking?, Hillary Stout writes in the New York Times about toxic social networking sites and their effect on teens.

Hans Villarica has an excellent article in Time, Dealing With Cyberbullying: 5 Essential Parenting Tips

Make sure your kids know cyberbullying is wrong. Many kids don’t understand that when they write down and disseminate feelings of frustration, jealousy or anger toward others online, it can quickly escalate into problems in the real world. They also tend to think that what happens digitally “doesn’t count” and that digital abuse doesn’t hurt, especially since parents usually focus on their kids’ behavior in person…. (More on Time.com: Lessons on Cyberbullying: Is Rebecca Black a Victim? Experts Weigh In)

Take an interest in your kids’ online behavior. Kids tend to think their parents don’t know or care about their online lives. They fear that their parents, in not understanding, will simply take away their cell phone or computer if anything goes wrong….. (More on Time.com: The Tricky Politics of Tween Bullying)

Check school policies on cyberbullying. Contact your child’s teacher or a school social worker or administrator and find out whether there is an official policy on cyberbullying. If there is one, read it and discuss it with your kids.

If there isn’t a written policy in place, ask about how cyberbullying is handled and whether there are any plans to create an official policy. Better yet, step up and join — or push to create — a committee to set the standards…. (More on Time.com: Cyberbullying? Homophobia? Tyler Clementi’s Death Highlights Online Lawlessness)

Set guidelines about cell-phone use. Many parents give their kids cell phones, so they can stay in closer contact with them. But that’s typically not the reason kids want cell phones. Rather, kids use them to surf the Web, send text messages to friends, update their social-networking status, and share pictures and videos.

Review with your children the laws that could affect their cell phone use, including limitations on where and when they can legally take photos or videos, and how you expect them to handle text messaging or Internet use. If you choose to monitor what’s on your kids’ phones, be aware that more than 70% of kids delete messages or photos before giving their parents their phones for checks, according to research from the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center. (More on Time.com: A Glimmer of Hope in a Bad-News Survey About Bullying)

Help your children respond appropriately if they are cyberbullied. First, talk with your children about what happened and how they feel about it. Be supportive. Remember that your kids feel that they are under attack. Second, report the abuse to the website on which it occurred. This can often be done via an “abuse” or “report” button or link on the site. Lastly, report the bullying to school administrators and ask them to look after your children.

Parents must monitor their children’s use of technology.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

 

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More schools trying longer school years

6 Aug

In Good schools are relentless about basics: School day length, moi said:

Rosalind Rossi, education reporter for the Chicago Sun Times is reporting in the article, 2011 Illinois school report cards: Top schools have longer days.

The 10 highest-ranking suburban neighborhood elementary schools all have longer days for kids than the typical Chicago public school — but shorter ones than those advocated by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and city public school officials.

Chicago’s current typical 5-hour and 45-minute elementary school day — usually without a regular recess — looks paltry compared to a top-scoring 2011 suburban average of just under 6½ hours that includes daily recess, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis indicates.

However, Chicago’s proposed 7½-hour day would keep city elementary kids in school an hour more than their top-scoring suburban counterparts. Such a day is appealing even to some suburban parents.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/8452309-418/2011-illinois-school-report-cards-top-schools-have-longer-days.html

The Mid Continent Research for Education and Learning (McRel) has great information posted at its site about school day length.

According to McRel in the article, Extended School Days and School Years:

Does more time in school matter?

Several scholars have argued that simply extending school time in and of itself will not produce the desired results. Larry Cuban, a Stanford University professor of education, has argued for example that what matters most is not the quantity but the quality of time students and teachers spend together in the classroom (2008).

In our 2000 meta-analysis of the impact of school, teacher, and student-level variables on achievement, McREL concluded that student achievement can be strongly affected if schools optimize their use of instructional time.

In 1998 WestEd researchers Aronson et al. examined the research on time and learning and arrived at three conclusions:

  • There is little or no relationship between student achievement and the total number of days or hours students are required to attend school.

  • There is some relationship between achievement and engaged time, that subset of instructional time when students are participating in learning activities.

  • The strongest relationship exists between academic learning time and achievement.

However, in recent years some notable extended time initiatives have produced gains in test scores, graduation rates, and college attendance, including the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), which increases the amount of time students spend in school by nearly 60%, and Massachusetts 2020. Conversely, a $100 million effort in Miami to extend school days by one hour and add 10 days to the calendar produced no significant benefits.

http://www.mcrel.org/newsroom/hottopicExtendedTime.asp

The key seems to be longer time spent in instructional activities.                https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/good-schools-are-relentless-about-basics-school-day-length/

Motoko Rich has a great article in the New York Times, To Increase Learning Time, Some Schools Add Days to Academic Year:

Griffith, one of five schools in the Balsz Elementary School District here, is one of a handful of public schools across the country that has lengthened the school year in an effort to increase learning time.

A typical public school calendar is 180 days, but the Balsz district, where 90 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch, is in session for 200 days, adding about a month to the academic year.

According to the National Center on Time and Learning, a nonprofit research group in Boston, about 170 schools — more than 140 of them charter schools — across the country have extended their calendars in recent years to 190 days or longer. ..

Education advocates have been calling for more school time at least since the 1983 “Nation at Risk” report presented an apocalyptic vision of American education.

Teachers’ unions, parents who want to preserve summers for family vacations and those who worry that children already come under too much academic stress argue that extended school time is not the answer. Research on longer school days or years also shows mixed results.

But studies also show that during the summer break, students — particularly those from low-income families — tend to forget what they learned in the school year. Getting back to school early, supporters of a longer calendar say, is one of the best ways to narrow an achievement gap between rich and poor students.

Many charter schools, including those in the academically successful KIPP network, attribute their achievement in part to longer days and calendars. President Obama has repeatedly promoted expanded school time, even inspiring “Saturday Night Live” to poke fun, with Seth Meyers saying in his Weekend Update segment that only “Catherine, the fifth grader nobody likes,” would support such a proposal.

Within the last two years, both the Ford Foundation and the Wallace Foundation have made multimillion dollar commitments to help nonprofit groups work with school districts to restructure the school day and year.

Advocates of longer school years say that the 180-day school year is an outdated artifact….

Critics say that with so many schools already failing, giving them more time would do little to help students.

“It is true that we have an unfair society, and it is true that kids who are coming from the poorer backgrounds and whose parents don’t do a lot of reading are losing reading skills over the summer,” said Peter Gray, research professor of psychology at Boston College. “But let’s look at other solutions.” He added, “Whatever job we give to the school system, they ruin it….”

“Better is as important as the more,” said Jeannie Oakes, director of educational opportunity and scholarship programs at the Ford Foundation. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/education/some-schools-adopting-longer-years-to-improve-learning.html?emc=eta1

See, Should summer break be shorter for some children? https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/should-summer-break-be-shorter-for-some-children/

There should not be a one-size-fits-all approach to education. For children who need a longer school year, that extra time should be available.

Resources:

Dave E. Marcotte and Benjamin Hansen , Time for School?Education Next, Winter 2010 / Vol. 10, No. 1                                                                                     http://educationnext.org/time-for-school/

Education Secretary Arne Duncan on School Day’s Length video … http://video.answers.com/education-secretary-arne-duncan-on-school-days-length-516897086

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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Gifted students in rural areas

5 Aug

In Rural schools, moi said:

A significant number of children attend rural schools. According to The Rural Assistance Center, the definition of a rural school is:

Question: What is the definition of a rural and/or small school?

Answer: According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the definition of rural schools was revised in 2006 after working with the Census Bureau to create a new locale classification system to capitalize on improved geocoding technology and the 2000 Office of Management and Budget definitions of metro areas that rely less on population size and county boundaries than proximity of an address to an urbanized area. Small schools do not necessarily mean rural, and rural does not mean small. A small school could be an urban school with a decreasing population. Rural schools can be large due to the center school concept where students are bused in to one school to save on costs. Some schools are considered small when compared to the mega-schools of several thousand that are common in some districts. A small school could be one designed to accommodate a specific population of students and their unique needs or a private school. Rural and/or small schools have similar needs and concerns.

According to The Condition of Education in Rural Schools (U.S. Department of Education, 1994), ‘few issues bedevil analysts and planners concerned with rural education more than the question of what actually constitutes “rural”.’ In the Federal Register published December 27, 2000, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced the Standards for Defining Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas. These new standards replace and supersede the 1990 standards for defining Metropolitan Areas. OMB announced definitions of areas based on the new standards and Census 2000 data in June 2003. The lack of a clear, accepted definition of “rural” has impeded research in the field of rural education. When defining the term rural, population and remoteness are important considerations as these factors influence school organization, availability of resources, and economic and social conditions.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, the definition of “small rural schools” are those schools eligible to participate in the Small Rural School Achievement (SRSA) program. SRSA includes districts with average daily attendance of fewer than 600 students, or districts in which all schools are located in counties with a population density of fewer than 10 persons per square mile, AND all schools served by the districts are located in a rural area with a school locale code of 7 or 8.

http://www.raconline.org/topics/schools/schoolsfaq.php

Rural schools face unique challenges.                                                     https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/rural-schools/

Donald L. Kordosky has written the School Administrator article, Attending to the Gifted in Rural Schools:

Rural school districts nationwide have a difficult time meeting the needs of their gifted students.

The evidence has become obvious during my career as a teacher, building administrator and superintendent of a 600-student district in the central Cascade Mountains of Oregon, an hour from the closest urban area.

The last point shouldn’t be overlooked. It’s not just limited funding that hampers rural schools from serving gifted students; it’s also the distance to supplemental learning resources that educators in cities and suburbs can easily access.

Assuming 2.5 percent of our students in K-12 education qualify as talented and gifted, my calculations suggest 378,000 gifted students attend rural schools nationwide. Most do not receive an education aligned with their unique abilities and learning readiness, spending most or all of their time in traditional heterogeneous classrooms with nongifted peers. The gifted student often is simply provided with more of the same work as the average student or is expected to function as a “classroom helper” for students of lower ability.

Research by Marcia Gentry, Mary Rizza and Robert Gable, appearing in the spring 2001 issue of Gifted Child Quarterly, shows rural gifted students enjoy school more than their urban and suburban talented and gifted peers. This is partially due to the adult and peer relationships that are fostered in rural settings that are much less common in urban settings. Yet gifted students suffer greater rates of depression, discipline issues, suicide attempts, dropping out and self-destructive behavior, including alcoholism, drug abuse and sexual promiscuity.

The federal government spends almost nothing on gifted education. While most states mandate gifted education programs, they do not provide any additional funding for gifted education….

The federal government spends almost nothing on gifted education. While most states mandate gifted education programs, they do not provide any additional funding for gifted education.

Clarifying Procedures
There are strategies a district administrator can pursue that will result in improved services for gifted students without substantial cost increases.

Make gifted education programs a focus of improvement in your district….

Clarify identification and exiting procedures. Develop and implement clear ways for students to be identified for talented and gifted programming and to leave a program….

Attend to the heterogeneous classroom. Most services for gifted students in rural areas are going to occur in the heterogeneous classroom, so the most effective place to address this issue is there. The use of differentiated teaching strategies to provide instruction for all students is paramount. You can make this a priority for your teachers….

Create individualized education plans for gifted students. This could mirror the mandated individualized education plans for students in special education. Annual gifted team meetings include a building administrator, the school’s coordinator for talented and gifted, the student’s parents and teacher(s) and the student. These meetings serve as the cornerstone for constructing a strong districtwide gifted program. Every student identified as talented or gifted in Oakridge participates in two TAGEP (talented and gifted education plan) meetings each school year where individualized education plans are designed and performance outcomes are monitored. http://www.aasa.org/SchoolAdministratorArticle.aspx?id=20066

There are things that parents of gifted children can do to help their child succeed.

Joan D. Lewis, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Nebraska at Kearney and the Director of Gifted Education for the University of Nebraska campuses and Cherry Hafer, in her 27th year in rural schools have written The Challenges of Being Gifted in a Rural Community about what parents can do to help their children.

Specific Things Parents Can Do

Since schools have limited resources and educators wear so many hats, particularly in rural schools, support from well-informed parents is needed more than ever. Parents must be knowledgeable about gifted education and need to understand their community’s abilities to meet the educational needs of gifted students.
Parents in rural areas can use their individual skills and advocacy efforts to:

Potential mentors need to be screened carefully, and students should be supervised during mentoring sessions to ensure safety.

  • work with teachers to find resources and materials that are needed for accelerated and enriched learning experiences in class and outside of school. Look for materials on school subjects, vocational, and avocational interests via Internet search engines (Google.com, Ask.com, Search.Yahoo.com, or the Web index site bubl.ac.uk); books and media in public, college, and university libraries; and books for parents of gifted learners (see the resources listed in the sidebar).
  • access and share information about educational opportunities for gifted and talented students provided by university talent searches and other programs run by universities, colleges, and other organizations. http://www.tip.duke.edu/node/842

All children have a right to a good basic education

Related:

Rural schools and the digital divide                      https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/rural-schools-and-the-digital-divide/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

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