More prospective college students getting deferral letters

25 Feb

Many parents and students spend the junior and senior years of the child’s high school education preparing for the child’s entrance into hopefully, the college of their choice. Kristina Dell has a great article at the Daily Beast, 10 College Admission Trends about the difficulties students will encounter when applying to college. So, students and families applying to colleges will have to apply to more schools. College.Com has some great suggestions for a good campus tour For many families, the expense of a college tour is very difficult considering they are having a difficult time even affording college. Kiplinger has some good suggestions about how to keep costs in check in the article Make The Most of A Campus Tour Many families cannot afford the costs of going to college out of their area, so they will be considering community colleges and colleges close to their home. See, College Tour Checklist, What to Look For

The College Board has a checklist for the college bound:

The Application

Parents and students can meet all the deadlines, complete all the forms, and provide all the supporting documentation required and still not be admitted to the college of their choice. Increasingly, students are being put on deferral lists.

Eli Clarke, Associate Director of counseling, private high school, Washington DC wrote the article, What Does it Mean to be Waitlisted or Deferred?

Being deferred can mean a wide variety of things. In most cases, the college has not completed its review of your file and is “deferring” their decision to a later date. Deferrals typically fall into two categories:

You applied under the Early Action or Early Decision plan and have been pushed back into the regular pool. This may be frustrating, but also has an advantage. If you are accepted into the college/university under regular decision, you are not obligated to attend as you would have been if you were accepted under an Early Decision plan (Early Action is non-binding to begin with). You may feel free to consider offers from other schools.

You have applied under a regular decision or rolling admission and the college/university would like to have more information in order to make a decision about your application. In almost every case, a college or university would like to see more grades from the senior year or new test scores. If a school receives the information they want, they could admit you earlier.

Being waitlisted is unlike being deferred; the college has finished reviewing your file and made a decision to put you on a waiting list for admission.

Being on a waitlist typically means that you are placed within a “holding pattern” of sorts. The admissions committee may or may not admit students from the waitlist. And unlike a deferral situation, new information does not usually change a waitlist decision.

If you are placed on a waitlist, you can usually find out if the school has gone to their wait list in the past and if so, how many students they admitted from the waitlist. In some cases, your chances of eventually getting in are very good; at other colleges, waitlisted applicants are almost never admitted.

It is always wise to deposit to another institution and ensure that you have a place somewhere. Do not pin your hopes on a waitlisted college; this is the time to make plans with one of your backup schools.

Whether you are deferred or waitlisted, avoid the temptation to begin a flood of recommendation letters and phone calls to the admissions department. In almost every case, this can have an adverse affect on your chances for admission. Some institutions even state in the letters that they do not take any additional letters of recommendation or phone calls on the student’s behalf. If the admissions office does need more materials, they are generally interested in concrete information (test scores, grades, etc.) rather than personal testimony or recommendations.

http://www.collegesofdistinction.com/component/k2/item/158-what-does-it-mean-to-be-waitlisted-or-deferred?.html

A deferral letter is not a “no” and it may provide the opportunity to look at other options for college.

In Like Me.Com has excellent advice which was posted in the article, How to Handle a College Admissions Deferral:

Here are some things deferred applicants should do to enhance the likelihood of admission and maximize college options:

1 – Carefully follow directions from the admissions department. You may be asked to submit mid-year grades, additional test scores or other information.

2- Review your college list and apply to other schools. For many students a deferral is a wake up call! Make sure you are applying to the right mix of schools including a sufficient number of colleges where there is a good or better likelihood that you will be offered admission.

3- Share updated information, and new accomplishments, with the admissions staff. While the admissions team is not likely to appreciate a barrage of disparate information promoting your candidacy, a well-written update letter and other carefully selected correspondence may be well received. Often the admissions staff will provide advice on desirable opportunities to strengthen your application.

4- Touch base with your interviewer and let the person know you were deferred.
Your interviewer may offer some worthwhile suggestions, or may even send a letter or email to the admissions office further recommending you.

5- Keep your grades up. Many colleges give strong consideration to first semester grades from senior year!

6- Consider submitting no more than a few letters of recommendation from people who can provide objective input regarding your abilities, character, strengths, etc. Check with the college first to see if these types of letters are welcome before pursuing additional recommendations.

7- Stay involved. Continue to be active in clubs, sports and other activities. Some colleges and universities are randomly auditing applications to promote honesty.

Finally, don’t panic or give up hope. Maintain a positive outlook as you pursue other colleges, complete applications and communicate with people from the college that deferred you.

http://www.inlikeme.com/advice/how-handle-college-admissions-deferral.html

Resources:

Colleges deferring more students http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-02-21/college-university-defer-more-students/53193738/1#.T0iIuEB39Bo.email

?emc=eta1

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: College Admission, College Board, College Tour, Deferral, Early Action, Early Decision, Waitlist, What Does it Mean to be Waitlisted or Deferred?

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Categories Dr Wilda

Good or bad? Charter schools and segregation

23 Feb

If one wants to make people’s heads explode, then mention Black conservative, Thomas Sowell. Better yet, quote him. Is the sound moi hears little explosions all over the blogosphere? Sowell has written an interesting piece, The Education of Minority Children^©

While there are examples of schools where this happens in our own time– both public and private, secular and religious– we can also go back nearly a hundred years and find the same phenomenon. Back in 1899, in Washington, D. C., there were four academic public high schools– one black and three white.¹ In standardized tests given that year, students in the black high school averaged higher test scores than students in two of the three white high schools.²
This was not a fluke. It so happens that I have followed 85 years of the history of this black high school– from 1870 to 1955 –and found it repeatedly equalling or exceeding national norms on standardized tests.³ In the 1890s, it was called The M Street School and after 1916 it was renamed Dunbar High School but its academic performances on standardized tests remained good on into the mid-1950s.
When I first published this information in 1974, those few educators who responded at all dismissed the relevance of these findings by saying that these were “middle class” children and therefore their experience was not “relevant” to the education of low-income minority children. Those who said this had no factual data on the incomes or occupations of the parents of these children– and I did.
The problem, however, was not that these dismissive educators did not have evidence. The more fundamental problem was that they saw no need for evidence. According to their dogmas, children who did well on standardized tests were middle class. These children did well on such tests, therefore they were middle class.
Lack of evidence is not the problem. There was evidence on the occupations of the parents of the children at this school as far back in the early 1890s. As of academic year 1892-93, there were 83 known occupations of the parents of the children attending The M Street School. Of these occupations, 51 were laborers and one was a doctor.⁴ That doesn’t sound very middle class to me.
Over the years, a significant black middle class did develop in Washington and no doubt most of them sent their children to the M Street School or to Dunbar High School, as it was later called. But that is wholly different from saying that most of the children at that school came from middle-class homes.
During the later period, for which I collected data, there were far more children whose mothers were maids than there were whose fathers were doctors. For many years, there was only one academic high school for blacks in the District of Columbia and, as late as 1948, one-third of all black youngsters attending high school in Washington attended Dunbar High School. So this was not a “selective” school in the sense in which we normally use that term– there were no tests to take to get in, for example– even though there was undoubtedly self-selection in the sense that students who were serious went to Dunbar and those who were not had other places where they could while away their time, without having to meet high academic standards. (A vocational high school for blacks was opened in Washington in 1902).⁵
A spot check of attendance records and tardiness records showed that The M Street School at the turn of the century and Dunbar High School at mid-century had less absenteeism and less tardiness than the white high schools in the District of Columbia at those times. The school had a tradition of being serious, going back to its founders and early principals.
Among these early principals was the first black woman to receive a college degree in the United States– Mary Jane Patterson from Oberlin College, class of 1862. At that time, Oberlin had different academic curriculum requirements for women and men. Latin, Greek and mathematics were required in “the gentlemen’s course,” as it was called, but not in the curriculum for ladies. Miss Patterson, however, insisted on taking Latin, Greek, and mathematics anyway. Not surprisingly, in her later 12 years as principal of the black high school in Washington during its formative years, she was noted for “a strong, forceful personality,” for “thoroughness,’ and for being “an indefatigable worker.” Having this kind of person shaping the standards and traditions of the school in its early years undoubtedly had something to do with its later success.
Other early principals included the first black man to graduate from Harvard, class of 1870. Four of the school’s first eight principals graduated from Oberlin and two from Harvard. Because of restricted academic opportunities for blacks, Dunbar had three Ph.Ds among its teachers in the 1920s.
One of the other educational dogmas of our times is the notion that standardized tests do not predict future performances for minority children, either in academic institutions or in life. Innumerable scholarly studies have devastated this claim intellectually,⁶ though it still survives and flourishes politically.
But the history of this black high school in Washington likewise shows a pay-off for solid academic preparation and the test scores that result from it. Over the entire 85-year history of academic success of this school, from 1870 to 1955, most of its 12,000 graduates went on to higher education.⁷ This was very unusual for either black or white high-school graduates during this era. Because these were low-income students, most went to a local free teachers college but significant numbers won scholarships to leading colleges and universities elsewhere.⁸
Some M Street School graduates began going to Harvard and other academically elite colleges in the early twentieth century. As of 1916, there were nine black students, from the entire country, attending Amherst College. Six were from the M Street School. During the period from 1918 to 1923, graduates of this school went on to earn 25 degrees from Ivy League colleges, Amherst, Williams, and Wesleyan. Over the period from 1892 to 1954, Amherst admitted 34 graduates of the M Street School and Dunbar. Of these, 74 percent graduated and more than one-fourth of these graduates were Phi Beta Kappas.⁹
No systematic study has been made of the later careers of the graduates of this school. However, when the late black educator Horace Mann Bond studied the backgrounds of blacks with Ph.D.s, he discovered that more of them had graduated from M Street-Dunbar than from any other black high school in the country.
The first blacks to graduate from West Point and Annapolis also came from this school. So did the first black full professor at a major university (Allison Davis at the University of Chicago). So did the first black federal judge, the first black general, the first black Cabinet member, the first black elected to the United States Senate since Reconstruction, and the discoverer of a method for storing blood plasma. During World War II, when black military officers were rare, there were more than two dozen graduates of M Street or Dunbar High School holding ranks ranging from major to brigadier general.¹⁰
All this contradicts another widely-believed notion– that schools do not make much difference in children’s academic or career success because income and family background are much larger influences. If the schools themselves do not differ very much from one another, then of course it will not make much difference which one a child attends. But, when they differ dramatically, the results can also differ dramatically.
This was not the only school to achieve success with minority children. But, before turning to some other examples, it may be useful to consider why and how this 85-year history of unusual success was abruptly turned into typical failure, almost overnight, by the politics of education.
As we all know, 1954 was the year of the famous racial desegregation case of Brown v. Board of Education. Those of us old enough to remember those days also know of the strong resistance to school desegregation in many white communities, including Washington, D. C. Ultimately a political compromise was worked out. In order to comply with the law, without having a massive shift of students, the District’s school officials decided to turn all public schools in Washington into neighborhood schools.

http://www.tsowell.com/speducat.html

Sowell ends his article with the following thoughts:

Put bluntly, failure attracts more money than success. Politically, failure becomes a reason to demand more money, smaller classes, and more trendy courses and programs, ranging from “black English” to bilingualism and “self-esteem.” Politicians who want to look compassionate and concerned know that voting money for such projects accomplishes that purpose for them and voting against such programs risks charges of mean-spiritedness, if not implications of racism.
We cannot recapture the past and there is much in the past that we should not want to recapture. But neither is it irrelevant. If nothing else, history shows what can be achieved, even in the face of adversity. We have no excuse for achieving less in an era of greater material abundance and greater social opportunities.

The discussion has come full circle because the discussion centers on segregation and charter schools.

Joy Resmovits writes in the Huffington Post article, Charter School Segregation Target Of New Report:

Charter schools often promise to bring greater equity to education, but a new brief starts with the assumption that they fall short in delivery — and provides recommendations to fix the alleged injustice.

“Charter schools tend to be more racially segregated than traditional public schools,” said author and Penn State law professor Preston Green III, who sat on a board that considered charter-school applications in Pennsylvania. “What we tried to do is write ways to enable charter schools to promote desegregation rather exacerbate segregation.”

The brief, “Chartering Equity: Using Charter School Legislation and Policy to Advance Educational Opportunity,” from the University of Colorado’s National Education Policy Center features recommendations from both Green and University of Wisconsin, Madison education professor Julie Mead on how states and school districts can ensure that charters are integrated and helpful to disadvantaged populations. It also includes statutes that states can use to help reach those goals.

Charter schools are publicly funded, but can be privately run, and often admit students via lottery. Charter schools advocates argue that educational opportunity should not depend on zip code, and that charter schools allow for educational innovation that eventually can trickle back into the traditional system.

Detractors, however, often assert that charters siphon resources from traditional public schools without equal compensation and that they don’t serve specific populations, such as special-education students, in proportion with their existence.

Either way, charter schools, championed by both the Obama administration and free-market entrepreneurs, are growing: This year, as they edge into their third decade of existence, charter schools serve a total of 5 percent of American public school students — an increase of 200,000, or 13 percent, from the year before.

According to research released in 2010 by professor Gary Orfield of the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, 70 percent of black charter school students attend a school where the bulk of their peers are also minorities — compared to 40 percent in traditional public schools.Orfield’s brother, Myron Orfield, a professor at the University of Minnesota who directs the Institute on Race & Poverty, studies charter segregation at a local level.

“I think that charters are an engine of racial segregation. They are more segregated than public schools and cause public schools to be more segregated than they otherwise would be,” he said. According to a report he plans to release Friday, from 2010-2011 almost 90 percent of black charter-school students in the Twin Cities are in segregated schools — a number that actually increased by 8 percentage points over the last decade.

A common problem, Green said, is that charter schools often do not comply with federal civil-rights statutes. According to Orfield, they are legally responsible to do so, but are rarely challenged. For example, previous Supreme Court cases found “single-race schools were intentional segregation,” Orfield said. “But charter schools haven’t been challenged in this way, because people don’t have a picture of how big a part of urban education they are.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/22/charter-school-education-segregation-equity-race-legislation_n_1295043.html?ref=education

Here is the citation to the article:

Chartering Equity: Using Charter School Legislation and Policy to Advance Educational Opportunity

National Education Policy Center

School of Education, University of Colorado Boulder

Boulder, CO 80309-0249

Telephone: (802) 383-0058

Email: NEPC@colorado.edu

http://nepc.colorado.edu

Julie F. Mead

Preston C. Green III

February 2012

http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/PB-CharterEquity.pdf

According to the report, Chartering Equity: Using Charter School Legislation and Policy to Advance Educational Opportunity, the following recommendations are made to various stakeholders:

The recommendations detailed in Part II of this brief are as follows:

For Charter School Authorizers

Establish a clear set of principles that will guide the exercise of the authority to grant, oversee, renew, and revoke charters.

Require that charter school applicants make clear how the school will broaden, not replicate, existing opportunities for struggling populations of students in the community or communities intended to be served by the school.

Require charter school applicants to attend explicitly to local contextual factors, particularly identified achievement disparities, graduation rate concerns, suspension and expulsion issues.

Require evidence that the proposed school’s curricular philosophy, methodological approaches, or both are likely to achieve positive results.

http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/chartering-equity ii of iii

Require charter school applicants to detail disciplinary codes and procedures and require a focus on positive interventions and supports.

Require detailed teacher recruitment, retention, and staff development plans so that the school’s teachers have sufficient capacity to deliver equal educational opportunity.

Consider publishing a request for proposals (RFP) for charter schools to address particular persistent problems related to equitable outcomes as identified by local data analysis.

Require detailed recruitment plans to ensure that the school targets and attracts a diverse student applicant pool representative of the broader community in terms of race, socio-economic status, disability status, gender, and limited English proficiency.

Ensure that the charter contract includes provisions that hold charter schools to a standard of equal educational opportunity in terms of educational inputs, practices, and outcomes.

Set clear revocation and renewal standards that reflect a commitment to equal educational opportunity.

For State Legislatures

Adopt declarations establishing that one primary goal of charter school legislation is to enhance equitable educational outcomes for all students, particularly those who have historically struggled.

State explicitly that charter schools must comply with all federal laws and any desegregation decrees.

Require charter school applications to attend explicitly to the local context, particularly identified achievement disparities, graduation rates, and suspension and expulsion issues.

Require that charter school applicants explain how the school will broaden, not replicate, existing opportunities in the community or communities intended to be served by the school.

Require evidence that the proposed school’s curricular philosophy, methodological approaches, or both are likely to achieve positive results.

Require detailed recruitment plans to ensure that the school targets and attracts a broad applicant pool in terms of race, socio-economic status, disability status, gender, and limited English proficiency.

As part of the standards for granting charter approval and renewal, create a set of rebuttable legal presumptions tied directly to equal educational opportunity.

Grant state educational agencies the authority to revoke and non-renew charters of schools that do not meet basic standards, whenever charter authorizers fail to act.

http://nepc.colorado.edu/files/PB-CharterEquity.pdf

A couple of thoughts:

Would these same students be attending segregated schools if the schools were public, because most cities have segregated housing patterns?

Does it matter that children attend segregated elementary schools if they receive a good basic education and are qualified to attend the college of their choice or vocational school of their choice because they graduated from high school with good basic skills?

Is there anything inherently wrong with a segregated school if it is not the result of a legal mandate which requires segregation?

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: Charter School Segregation Target Of New Report, Charter Schools, Charter Schools Law, Chartering Equity: Using Charter School Legislation and Policy to Advance Educational Opportunity, Segregation, The Education of Minority Children©, Thomas Sowell

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Yale research: Why some adolescents are more easily addicted to cocaine?

22 Feb

Yale researchers examined why cocaine affects some adolescents more profoundly than others. Bill Hathaway writes in the Yale News article, Cocaine and the teen brain: Yale research offers insights into addiction:

When first exposed to cocaine, the adolescent brain launches a strong defensive reaction designed to minimize the drug’s effects, Yale and other scientists have found. Now two new studies by a Yale team identify key genes that regulate this response and show that interfering with this reaction dramatically increases a mouse’s sensitivity to cocaine.

The findings may help explain why risk of drug abuse and addiction increase so dramatically when cocaine use begins during teenage years.

The results were published in the Feb. 14 and Feb. 21 issues of the Journal of Neuroscience.

Researchers including those at Yale have shown that vulnerability to cocaine is much higher in adolescence, when the brain is shifting from an explosive and plastic growth phase to more settled and refined neural connections characteristic of adults. Past studies at Yale have shown that the neurons and their synaptic connections in adolescence change shape when first exposed to cocaine through molecular pathway regulated by the gene integrin beta1, which is crucial to the development of the nervous system of vertebrates.

“This suggests that these structural changes observed are probably protective of the neurocircuitry, an effort of the neuron to protect itself when first exposed to cocaine,” said Anthony Koleske, professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry and of neurobiology and senior author of both papers.

In the latest study, Yale researchers report when they knocked out this pathway, mice needed approximately three times less cocaine to induce behavioral changes than mice with an intact pathway.

The research suggests that the relative strength of the integrin beta1 pathway among individuals may explain why some cocaine users end up addicted to the drug while others escape its worst effects, Koleske theorized.

“If you were to become totally desensitized to cocaine, there is no reason to seek the drug,” he said.

Koleske and Jane R. Taylor, professor of psychiatry and psychology and an author of the Feb. 14 paper, are teaming up with other Yale researchers to look for other genes that may play a role in protecting the brain from effects of cocaine and other drugs of abuse.

http://news.yale.edu/2012/02/21/cocaine-and-teen-brain-yale-research-offers-insights-addiction

For the true policy wonks, here is the citation:

Journal of Neuroscience

Integrin β1 Signals through Arg to Regulate Postnatal Dendritic Arborization, Synapse Density, and Behavior

M. Sloan Warren

William D. Bradley

Shannon L. Gourley

Yu-Chih Lin

Mark A. Simpson

Louis F. Reichardt

Charles A. Greer

Jane R. Taylor

Anthony J. Koleske

Abstract

Full Text

Full Text (PDF)

Often children who evidence signs of a substance abuse problem come from homes where there is a substance abuse problem. That problem may be generational. eMedicineHealth lists some of the causes of substance abuse

Substance Abuse Causes

Use and abuse of substances such as cigarettes, alcohol, and illegal drugs may begin in childhood or the teen years. Certain risk factors may increase someone’s likelihood to abuse substances.

· Factors within a family that influence a child’s early development have been shown to be related to increased risk of drug abuse.

o Chaotic home environment

o Ineffective parenting

o Lack of nurturing and parental attachment

· Factors related to a child’s socialization outside the family may also increase risk of drug abuse.

o Inappropriately aggressive or shy behavior in the classroom

o Poor social coping skills

o Poor school performance

o Association with a deviant peer group

o Perception of approval of drug use behavior

Substance abuse is often a manifestation of other problems that child has either at home or poor social relations including low self esteem. Dr. Alan Leshner summarizes the reasons children use drugs in why do Sally and Johnny use drugs?

How Can You Recognize the Signs of Substance Abuse?

Parents provides general signs of substance abuse and also gives specific signs of alcohol abuse, and several different drugs, narcotics, and inhalants. The general warning signs are:

· Changes in friends

· Negative changes in schoolwork, missing school, or declining grades

· Increased secrecy about possessions or activities

· Use of incense, room deodorant, or perfume to hide smoke or chemical odors

· Subtle changes in conversations with friends, e.g. more secretive, using “coded” language

· Change in clothing choices: new fascination with clothes that highlight drug use

· Increase in borrowing money

· Evidence of drug paraphernalia such as pipes, rolling papers, etc.

· Evidence of use of inhalant products (such as hairspray, nail polish, correction fluid, common household products); Rags and paper bags are sometimes used as accessories

· Bottles of eye drops, which may be used to mask bloodshot eyes or dilated pupils

· New use of mouthwash or breath mints to cover up the smell of alcohol

· Missing prescription drugs—especially narcotics and mood stabilizers

Remember, these are very general signs, specific drugs, narcotics, and other substances may have different signs, it is important to read the specific signs.

What Steps Should a Parent Take?

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has a series of questions parents should ask If you suspect that your child has a substance abuse problem, you will have to seek help of some type. You will need a plan of action. The Partnership for a Drug Free America lists 7 Steps toTake and each step is explained at the site.

Parents, grandparents and other family members often feel tempted to wait things out and see if they get better. Sometimes they confront the child only to be accused of being distrustful or they hear angry denial, leaving them more confused than before.

It is important to remember that you don’t have to do it alone. Following are crucial steps that will ease getting help for you and your child.

1. Involve a professional to help determine what to do next….

2. Document as much evidence as you can.

§ Use checklists to record all the behaviors that concern you. Carefully record every behavior that concerns you during this period. Documenting your observations is important because your child will work hard to convince you that things didn’t happen the way you remember.

§ Some parents search their child’s room looking for evidence of drugs or paraphernalia. You should expect that your child will be offended at your invasion of privacy. If you do find contraband, oftentimes your child will claim that it belongs to someone else…..

3. Prepare what you want to say to your child….

4. Plan to talk with your child at a time in a setting where you can have uninterrupted discussion. Strengthen your interaction by using the following talking points:

§ Describe specific behaviors you and others have observed and when they occurred. The more specific you are, especially if you have written your observations down, the harder it will be for your child to deny, disagree, or argue.

§ Express your love and concern and your desire to help your child.

§ Emphasize your firm, non-negotiable position that you will not tolerate drug use and that you intend to determine if these behaviors are indications of drug use.

§ It is not useful simply to ask if your child if he or she is using drugs. Almost always, children will deny using. But it’s not a bad idea to voice your suspicions at some point.

§ If you haven’t observed very many warning signs and believe that your child has just begun using, emphasize that any use of alcohol or other drugs at all is unacceptable. Describe the consequences for further behaviors that concern you. Use strong leverage; consequences might include no driver’s license, no use of the family car, an earlier curfew. ….

5. Make an appointment for a drug assessment for your child.

§ A drug assessment is the surest way to determine the extent of your child’s problem with alcohol and other drugs. When you make the appointment, make sure that the agency understands that the evaluation is for an adolescent; also that the evaluation includes a drug test. Don’t alert your child that a drug test will be part of the assessment…..

6. Keep the appointment no matter what.

7. Don’t give up if things don’t go the way you want — go the distance.

§ If ignored, alcohol-other-drug use will progress. Your efforts to this point have been an effective intervention. Hopefully, it will work early on. Often, parents have to continue to discuss the situation with the child, document evidence and work with other significant adults in the child’s life to turn things around. This difficult intervention may take more time than you want. Persevere.

§ Get help for yourself. Parent support groups such as Families Anonymous, Tough Love, and Alanon can provide effective help as you strive to provide effective help to your child.

If your child has a substance abuse problem, both you and your child will need help. “One day at a time” is a famous recovery affirmation which you and your child will live the meaning. The road to recovery may be long or short, it will have twists and turns with one step forward and two steps back. In order to reach the goal of recovery, both parent and child must persevere.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: and Behavior, Cocaine Addiction, Cocaine and the teen brain: Yale research offers insights into addiction:, Drug Addiction, Integrin β1 Signals through Arg to Regulate Postnatal Dendritic Arborization, Substance Abuse, Synapse Density, Teen Substance Abuse

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Categories Dr Wilda

Update:The GED as a door to the future

21 Feb

In The GED as a door to the future https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/the-ged-as-a-door-to-the-future/ , moi looked at question of whether a GED might open employment doors for some who have failed to complete their high school education. There are a variety of reasons why people fail to complete high school and fail complete their high school education, According to theJuly 24, 2011 NPR report, School Dropout Rates Add To Fiscal Burden by Claudio Sanchez and Linda Wertheimer, “Nearly 1 million kids who start high school every year don’t make it to graduation.” http://www.npr.org/2011/07/24/138653393/school-dropout-rates-adds-to-fiscal-burden See, More Than Half Of Older High School Dropouts Not Employed Today http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/21/high-school-dropouts-unemployment_n_1291210.html?ref=education&ir=Education

The American Council on Education (ACE) is the official site for the General Educational Development Tests (GED). According to ACE:

What are the GED Tests?

The Tests of General Educational Development (GED Tests) are designed to measure the skills and knowledge equivalent to a high school course of study. The five subject area tests which comprise the GED test battery are Mathematics; Language Arts, Reading; Language Arts, Writing (including essay); Science; and Social Studies.

Watch the video: What is the GED Test?http://www.acenet.edu/Content/NavigationMenu/ged/faq/index.htm#GED_stand_for

The question is whether employers and education or training institutions view the GED as equivalent to the high school diploma.

Claudio Sanchez of NPR asks the question, In Today’s Economy, How Far Can A GED Take You?

“The GED is a credential. Is it adequate for gainful employment and a living wage in the United States of America today? I do not think so,” says Los Angeles Schools Superintendent John Deasy. His top lieutenant in charge of adult and career education, Ed Morris, is even more blunt.

“If I were prepared today with a GED, and that’s what I had as an 18-year-old, I’d be scared to death of the future,” he says.

Morris says employers require so much more than what the GED delivers, which is why some students question its value.

“Truth is,” says 18-year-old Juan Valera, “I don’t want a GED.”

Unlike older dropouts at the Friedman center, Valera can still earn a high school diploma by retaking the courses he failed in high school.

He wants to pursue a degree in criminal justice and eventually join the FBI. But right now, he says, a GED wouldn’t even get him in the door at Burger King.

“Every day when I leave here and I go home, I stop by [Burger King] and ask, ‘Are you trying to hire?’ ” he says. “I bother them.”

Let’s say they interview two people for the same job, says Valera. “But one has a GED, one has a high school diploma — someone is far more likely to hire someone who has a high school diploma.”

‘Not As Good As A Diploma’

Valera’s experience has been the same everywhere he has applied — Costco, Walmart, Sears and Best Buy. Companies want a credential that says, “I have the knowledge and skills to handle a job.”

And that’s where the GED falls short, says Russell Rumberger, author of the book Dropping Out.

“If you look at employer surveys,” he says, “the things that employers generally most look for or think are important, especially at lower-end jobs, are the things like perseverance and tenacity, and those kinds of qualities that are not measured by the GED.”

Rumberger, a professor of education at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says a high school diploma means you went to school for four years, did the work, passed the classes and didn’t quit. A GED, on the other hand, is a shortcut.

“The GED is better than no credential for a dropout,” he says, “but it’s not as good as a diploma. It doesn’t replace a diploma, in terms of labor market outcomes.”

The research also shows that only 1 in 10 GED recipients earns a college degree. Today, this is perhaps the GED’s biggest challenge.

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/18/147015513/in-todays-economy-how-far-can-a-ged-take-you?ft=1&f=1013

Moi ended The GED as a door to the future with the following paragraph:

Unless, children are given a meaningful education which provides them with basic skills to adapt to a changing environment, the education system is producing a permanent underclass which will not be able to participate in the next “new, new thing.”

The real issue is reducing the number of high school dropouts.

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: American Council on Education, GED, High School Dropouts, High School Graduation Rates, How Far Can A GED Take You?, In Today's Economy, School Dropout Rates Add To Fiscal Burden

Comments 1 Comment
Categories Dr Wilda

Government is trying to control the vending machine choices of children

20 Feb

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:

The government’s attempt to reduce childhood obesity is moving from the school cafeteria to the vending machines.

The Obama administration is working on setting nutritional standards for foods that children can buy outside the cafeteria. With students eating 19 percent to 50 percent of their daily food at school, the administration says it wants to ensure that what they eat contributes to good health and smaller waistlines. The proposed rules are expected within the next few weeks.

Efforts to restrict the food that schoolchildren eat outside the lunchroom have long been controversial.

Representatives of the food and beverage industries argue that many of their products contribute to good nutrition and should not be banned. Schools say that overly restrictive rules, which could include banning the candy sold for school fund-raisers, risk the loss of substantial revenue that helps pay for sports, music and arts programs. A study by the National Academy of Sciences estimates that about $2.3 billion worth of snack foods and beverages are sold annually in schools nationwide.

Nutritionists say that school vending machines stocked with potato chips, cookies and sugary soft drinks contribute to childhood obesity, which has more than tripled in the past 30 years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that about one in every five children are obese.

No details of the proposed guidelines have been released, but health advocates and snack food and soft drink industry representatives predict that the rules will be similar to those for the government’s school lunch program, which reduced amounts of sugar, salt and fat…..

But a study in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine released this month shows that despite industry efforts and those of others, snacking behavior among children remains largely unchanged. One reason is that healthier snacks were being offered alongside less nutritious offerings.

Between 2006 and 2010, the study found, about half of the schools had vending machines, stores and cafeterias that offered unhealthy foods.

The availability of high-fat foods in schools followed regional patterns. In the South, where rates of childhood obesity are the highest, less nutritious food was more prevalent. In the West, where childhood obesity rates are lower, high-fat food was not as common, the study found.

Health advocates say the study points to the need for national standards.

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

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

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 ©

New emphasis on obesity: Possible unintended consequences, eating disorders https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/new-emphasis-on-obesity-possible-unintended-consequences-eating-disorders/

Childhood obesity: Recess is being cut in low-income schools https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/childhood-obesity-recess-is-being-cut-in-low-income-schools/

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: Childhood Obesity, Do Vending Machines Affect Student Obesity?, Healthy School Luches, New Guidelines Planned on School Vending Machines:, Nutrition, School Lunch Program, Vending Machines

Comments 4 Comments
Categories Dr Wilda

Will ‘Common Core Standards’ increase education achievement?

19 Feb

There will continue to be battles between those who favor a more traditional education and those who are open to the latest education fad. These battles will be fought out in school board meetings, PTSAs, and the courts.

There is one way to, as Susan Powder says, “Stop the Insanity.” Genuine school choice allows parents or guardians to select the best educational setting for their child. 2012 Brown Center report from Brookings Insitution, How Well Are American Students Learning? raises questions about what effect, if any, the Common Core Standards will have on education achievement:

Discussion

What effect will the Common Core have on national achievement? The analysis presented here suggests very little impact. The quality of the Common Core standards is currently being hotly debated, but the quality of past curriculum standards has been unrelated to achievement. The rigor of performance standards—how high the bar is set for proficiency—has also been unrelated to achievement. Only a change in performance levels has been related to an increase in achievement, and that could just as easily be due to test score changes driving changes in policy, not the other way around.

The Common Core may reduce variation in achievement between states, but as a source of achievement disparities, that is not where the action is. Within-state variation is four to five times greater. The sources of variation in educational outcomes are not only of statistical importance but also bear on the question of how much state policy can be expected to change schools. Whatever reduction in variation between, say, Naperville and Chicago that can be ameliorated by common standards has already been accomplished by Illinois’s

state efforts. State standards have already had a crack at it. Other states provide even more deeply rooted historical examples.

California has had state curriculum frame-The Common Core may reduce variation in achievement between states, but as a source of achievement disparities, that is not where the action is.

http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2012/0216_brown_education_loveless/0216_brown_education_loveless.pdf

See, Common Core won’t likely boost student achievement, analysis says http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/common-core-wont-likely-boost-student-achievement-analysis-says/2012/02/16/gIQAOfZuJR_blog.html The Common Core State Standards Initiative has some excellent information about the standards.

In Frequently Asked Questions, which is a section much too long to excerpt on a blog, The Common Core Standards Initiative provides the following answers:

Frequently Asked Questions

What are educational standards?

Educational standards help teachers ensure their students have the skills and knowledge they need to be successful by providing clear goals for student learning.

Why do we need educational standards?

We need standards to ensure that all students, no matter where they live, are prepared for success in postsecondary education and the workforce. Common standards will help ensure that students are receiving a high quality education consistently, from school to school and state to state. Common standards will provide a greater opportunity to share experiences and best practices within and across states that will improve our ability to best serve the needs of students.

Standards do not tell teachers how to teach, but they do help teachers figure out the knowledge and skills their students should have so that teachers can build the best lessons and environments for their classrooms. Standards also help students and parents by setting clear and realistic goals for success. Standards are a first step – a key building block – in providing our young people with a high-quality education that will prepare them for success in college and work. Of course, standards are not the only thing that is needed for our children’s success, but they provide an accessible roadmap for our teachers, parents, and students.

How are educational standards determined now?

Each state has its own process for developing, adopting, and implementing standards. As a result, what students are expected to learn can vary widely from state to state.

Is having common standards the first step toward nationalizing education?

No. The Common Core State Standards are part of a state-led effort to give all students the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. The federal government was not involved in the development of the standards. Individual states choose whether or not to adopt these standards.

What is the Common Core State Standards Initiative?

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a state-led effort to establish a shared set of clear educational standards for English language arts and mathematics that states can voluntarily adopt. The standards have been informed by the best available evidence and the highest state standards across the country and globe and designed by a diverse group of teachers, experts, parents, and school administrators, so they reflect both our aspirations for our children and the realities of the classroom. These standards are designed to ensure that students graduating from high school are prepared to go to college or enter the workforce and that parents, teachers, and students have a clear understanding of what is expected of them. The standards are benchmarked to international standards to guarantee that our students are competitive in the emerging global marketplace.

What will these common core state standards mean for students?

The standards will provide more clarity about and consistency in what is expected of student learning across the country. Until now, every state has had its own set of academic standards, meaning public education students at the same grade level in different states have been expected to achieve at different levels. This initiative will allow states to share information effectively and help provide all students with an equal opportunity for an education that will prepare them to go to college or enter the workforce, regardless of where they live. Common standards will not prevent different levels of achievement among students. Rather, they will ensure more consistent exposure to materials and learning experiences through curriculum, instruction, and teacher preparation among other supports for student learning. In a global economy, students must be prepared to compete with not only their American peers in the next state, but with students from around the world. These standards will help prepare students with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in college and careers.

Who will manage (or own) the Common Core State Standards Initiative in the future?

The Common Core State Standards Initiative was and will remain a state-led effort. In addition to supporting effective implementation of the Common Core, NGA and CCSSO are committed to developing a long-term governance structure with leadership from governors, chief state school officers, and other state policymakers.

http://www.corestandards.org/frequently-asked-questions

The standards battle is really the war between those who favor a traditional approach to education with control that is local and those who don’t.

Resources:

Parents’ Guide to Student Success

http://www.pta.org/4446.htm

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Tags: analysis says, Brookings Institution, Brown Center, Common Core Standards, Common Core won’t likely boost student achievement, How Well Are American Students Learning?, See, The Common Core Standards Initiative

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Categories Dr Wilda

Should we pay children to go to school?

17 Feb

Education is a partnership between the student, the teacher(s) and parent(s). All parties in the partnership must share the load. The student has to arrive at school ready to learn. The parent has to set boundaries, encourage, and provide support. Teachers must be knowledgeable in their subject area and proficient in transmitting that knowledge to students. All must participate and fulfill their role in the education process. See, School Absenteeism: Absent from the classroom leads to absence from participation in this society https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/school-absenteeism-absent-from-the-classroom-leads-to-absence-from-participation-in-this-society/ Jennifer Aniston got into a flap about her opinion regarding single motherhood. As reported by the Celebitchy blog in the post, Bill O’Reilly Takes On Jennifer Aniston’s Pro-Single Mother Comments Aniston said:

“Women are realizing it more and more knowing that they don’t have to settle with a man just to have that child. Times have changed and that is also what is amazing… that we do have so many options these days, as opposed to our parents’ days when you can’t have children because you have waited too long. The point of the movie is what is it that defines family? It isn’t necessarily the traditional mother, father, two children and a dog named Spot. Love is love and family is what is around you and who is in your immediate sphere. That is what I love about this movie. It is saying it is not the traditional sort of stereotype of what we have been taught as a society of what family is.”

Why does the culture think that the opinion of any celebrity should be valued above common sense? Celebrities will often repeat the mantra that they are not role models and really want to work on their art or their craft. But, many young people look up to these babbling heads as if they are an example of the best way to live.

Joy Moses, Jacquelyn Boggess, Jill Groblewski have an interesting new report which discusses the importance of fathers in the lives of low-income children. In “Sisters Are Doin’ For Themselves,” But Could Use Some Help Moses, Boggess, and Groblewski report:

In our paper, we argue that supporting responsible fatherhood and related programs and services helps low-income mothers (single, married, or cohabitating alike) with the following:

• Economic stability. Fathers with more access to effective employment assistance have an increased ability to help mothers with the costs of child rearing. Those fathers involved in the lives of their children are more likely to directly contribute to household income, pay child support, and provide noncash support, minimizing financial burdens on families.

• Child care. Low-income mothers struggle to ensure safe and stable child care arrangements for their children. Fathers can help in providing care.

• Work-life balance. As mothers struggle to balance the demands of work and family, the contributions of fathers can determine the degree to which family obligations result in some available “me time” for mothers to rest and also to get ahead.

• Domestic violence. Programs can help identify and serve mothers and fathers involved in violent situations.

• Reproductive health. It is unfair for all the responsibilities associated with family planning and preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases to fall on the shoulders of women. Fatherhood programs can work with men on doing their part

• Providing more relationship and family choices. Poverty often limits women’s and men’s choices about forming and maintaining relationships and families. Properly designed government family support programs can provide women with more choices regarding the future of their families.

• Positive childhood outcomes. Research suggests that fathers can have a positive impact on the academic achievement and behavior of children. Mothers who want to do what they can to ensure positive outcomes for their children may be supportive of fatherhood programs, even participating in some of the services.

This report is particularly relevant given Jason De Parle and Sabrina Tavernese’s New York Times article.

In Young Mothers Describe Marriage’s Fading Allure De Parle and Tavernese report about the increase in the number of unmarried mothers:

Once largely limited to poor women and minorities, motherhood without marriage has settled deeply into middle America. The fastest growth in the last two decades has occurred among white women in their 20s who have some college education but no four-year degree, according to Child Trends, a Washington research group that analyzed government data.

Among mothers of all ages, a majority — 59 percent in 2009 — are married when they have children. But the surge of births outside marriage among younger women — nearly two-thirds of children in the United States are born to mothers under 30 — is both a symbol of the transforming family and a hint of coming generational change.

One group still largely resists the trend: college graduates, who overwhelmingly marry before having children. That is turning family structure into a new class divide, with the economic and social rewards of marriage increasingly reserved for people with the most education.

“Marriage has become a luxury good,” said Frank Furstenberg, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania.

The shift is affecting children’s lives. Researchers have consistently found that children born outside marriage face elevated risks of falling into poverty, failing in school or suffering emotional and behavioral problems.

The forces rearranging the family are as diverse as globalization and the pill. Liberal analysts argue that shrinking paychecks have thinned the ranks of marriageable men, while conservatives often say that the sexual revolution reduced the incentive to wed and that safety net programs discourage marriage. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/us/for-women-under-30-most-births-occur-outside-marriage.html?ref=us

See also: Young Mothers Describe Marriages Fading Allure

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/us/young-mothers-describe-marriages-fading-allure.html

The disintegration of the family has profound implications for the education success of children.

Huffington Post is reporting in the article, Ohio High School Paying Students To Show Up, Behave In Class:

A Cincinnati high school is paying its students to go to school.

The Dohn Community High School, a charter school in Ohio, started a program this week that would pay seniors $25 weekly and underclassmen $10 weekly in Visa gift cards for showing up to class every day, being on time and behaving in school. The move aims to encourage students to stay in school and graduate from the school where 90 percent of its students live in poverty. Fewer than 20 percent are in two-parent households.

“Money is important to them,” school Chief Administrative Officer Ken Furrier told CBS Cleveland. “We can’t teach them if they’re not here.”

Every week a student is paid, an additional $5 goes into a savings account, payable upon graduation. The program is being funded by $40,000 from several areas, including private donors and federal Workforce Investment Act dollars funneled through the Easter Seals, a community-based health agency, KMSP-TV reports.

“The target is graduation,” Furrier told Reuters. “We do almost everything we can to get the kids to there.”

Critics say the school is rewarding students for basic things students should be doing already, but at Dohn, “they’re not doing it,” Principal Ramone Davenport told KMSP-TV. “We’ve tried everything else.”

Davenport tells the Associated Press that the program is already working and attendance is up. Dohn was designated by the Ohio Department of Education as an “academic emergency” last year, with just a 14 percent graduation rate during the 2010-2011 academic year. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/15/ohio-high-school-paying-s_n_1280227.html?ref=email_share

This school is dealing with the reality of certain education settings because they have not absorbed from their upbringing the thought that education is crucial to later success in life. Further, these children often face emotional and economic challenges because of their family circumstance.

In answer to whether children should be paid to come to school and achieve – for some children, this may be an option.

Hard truths: The failure of the family https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/hard-truths-the-failure-of-the-family/

Tags: " But Could Use Some Help, Behave In Class:, Children and Families, Education Achievement, Ohio High School Paying Students To Show Up, School Absenteeism, School Attendance, Sisters Are Doin' For Themselves, Unwed Mothers, Young Mothers Describe Marriage’s Fading Allure

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Categories Dr Wilda

Underage drinking costs society big-time

16 Feb

KING5 News reported in the story Teens Who Use Social Media Most Likely to Drink and Use Drugs, Study says

A new study finds teenagers who use social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter, are most likely to drink and use drugs compared to teens who avoid the social networks.

About 70 percent of teens say they use social networking sites every day. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University surveys teens every year in an attempt to track drugs, alcohol and tobacco use. This year, questions about social media were added.

The study states that teens that use social networking sites are twice as likely to use marijuana, three times as likely to drink alcohol, and five times as likely to use tobacco.

Some experts say kids see images of teens drinking and using drugs online, which takes the shock value out of bad behavior and leads some to think it’s what everyone is doing.

There are signs which may indicate that your child has a substance abuse problem.

How Can You Recognize the Signs of Substance Abuse?

Parents provides general signs of substance abuse and also gives specific signs of alcohol abuse, and several different drugs, narcotics, and inhalants. The general warning signs are:

·         Changes in friends

·         Negative changes in schoolwork, missing school, or declining grades

·         Increased secrecy about possessions or activities

·         Use of incense, room deodorant, or perfume to hide smoke or chemical odors

·         Subtle changes in conversations with friends, e.g. more secretive, using “coded” language

·         Change in clothing choices: new fascination with clothes that highlight drug use

·         Increase in borrowing money

·         Evidence of drug paraphernalia such as pipes, rolling papers, etc.

·         Evidence of use of inhalant products (such as hairspray, nail polish, correction fluid, common household products); Rags and paper bags are sometimes used as accessories

·         Bottles of eye drops, which may be used to mask bloodshot eyes or dilated pupils

·         New use of mouthwash or breath mints to cover up the smell of alcohol

·         Missing prescription drugs—especially narcotics and mood stabilizers

Remember, these are very general signs, specific drugs, narcotics, and other substances may have different signs, it is important to read the specific signs. Lisa Frederiksen has written the excellent article, 10 Tips for Talking to Teens About Sex,Drugs & Alcohol which was posted at the Partnership for A Drug-Free America

Huffington Post reports in the article,

It’s no surprise that underage drinking is common in the U.S. In a 2009 study by the Centers for Disease Control And Prevention, 42 percent of high school students reported having consumed alcohol in the previous month. But what some might find shocking is the high cost of drinking-related hospitalizations.

Underage drinking takes a toll not only on teens’ health and wellness, but also on treatment facilities. A Mayo Clinic study published today found that the total cost of hospitalizations for underage drinking is an estimated $755 million per year.

According to researchers, of the 40,000 young people aged 15-20 hospitalized in 2008, 79 percent were intoxicated when they arrived at the hospital.

The average age of alcohol-related hospitalizations was 18, and 61 percent of young people hospitalized for drinking were male. The highest number of incidences occurred in the Northeast and Midwest, while the lowest frequency was in the South.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/15/underage-drinking-on-the-_n_1279336.html?ref=email_share

Here is the citation for the Mayo Clinic study:

Journal of Adolescent Health

Hospitalization for Underage Drinkers in the United States

Jason Y. Kim,

Sumeet K. Asrani, M.D.,

Nilay D. Shah, Ph.D.,

W. Ray Kim, M.D.,

Terry D. Schneekloth, M.D.

Received 28 April 2011; accepted 21 October 2011. published online 15 February 2012.
Corrected Proof

Hazelton.Org has some good reasons parents should not provide alcohol to children and the reasons can be summed up with the thought, someone has to be the adult.

Parents are poor role models if they reinforce the idea that alcohol and other drug use is a necessary and accepted way to entertain at parties. Kids need to know how to have fun without alcohol. Parents need to talk with their children about alcohol before hosting a party. They can be responsible hosts by setting a no-alcohol rule. Provine suggested that parents greet kids at the door, make certain that no uninvited guests are allowed in, check in on the party frequently, and not allow guests to come and go. Parents should never leave the party unattended….

The situation that most frequently results in problems is when parties are held while parents are away for the weekend, said Johnson. The word travels fast about such parties, and before you know it the party is out of control, with hundreds of uninvited guests.

Rules and expectations need to be clearly spelled out with young people before drinking opportunities present themselves. Young people need to be prepared to say no to alcohol in advance of drinking opportunities. Parents need to help them choose parties where there will be no alcohol. Parents need to deliver a clear message: Alcohol and other drug use of any kind is not acceptable.

The fact that a parent has to assume the role of their child’s friend says a lot about their lack of maturity and judgment. Unfortunately, for some children, mom and dad are growing up right along side them.

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

Tags: 10 Tips for Talking to Teens About Sex, Drugs & Alcohol, Study says, Substance Abuse, Teens Who Use Social Media Most Likely to Drink and Use Drugs, Underage Drinking, Underage Drinking On The Rise, With Hospitalization Costs Up To $755 Million Per Year:

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Categories Dr Wilda

Is holding kids back a grade the answer to some learning problems?

15 Feb

In Reading is a key component of learning https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/reading-is-a-key-component-of-learning/ moi said:

The goal of parents, teachers, students, and society should be that all children succeed in obtaining a good basic education. In order to achieve this goal, children must come to school ready to learn. See, Illiteracy in America https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/illiteracy-in-america/

The University of Michigan Health Center explains why reading is important in the article, Reading, Literacy and Your Child:

What is literacy?

Literacy means being able to read and write.

Why is reading important?

A child’s reading skills are important to their success in school and work. In addition, reading can be a fun and imaginative activity for children, which opens doors to all kinds of new worlds for them. Reading and writing are important ways we use language to communicate.

How do reading and language skills develop?

For an answer to this question, check out the following link:

Language and Literacy Development from birth to three years—this helpful brochure tells you what to expect and how to help.

Research has identified five early reading skills that are all essential. They are [1]:

Phonemic awareness—Being able to hear, identify, and play with individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words.
Phonics—Being able to connect the letters of written language with the sounds of spoken language.
Vocabulary—The words kids need to know to communicate effectively.
Reading comprehension—Being able to understand and get meaning from what has been read.
Fluency (oral reading)—Being able to read text accurately and quickly.

. http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/reading.htm

Regan Mc Mahon of Common Sense Media has written the article, How to Raise a Reader which gives advice about how to raise a child who loves to read. http://www.commonsensemedia.org/new/how-raise-reader?utm_source=newsletter01.12.12&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=feature1

Education is a partnership between the student, parent(s) or guardian(s), the teacher(s), and the school. All parts of the partnership must be active and involved. Parents are an important part because they enforce lessons learned at school by reading to their children and taking their children for regular library time. Children who do not arrive at school ready to learn will not only face learning challenges, but in some states may face the prospect of being held back in the third grade.

Stephanie Banchero is reporting in the Wall Street Journal article, Bills Prod Schools to Hold Back Third-Graders:

Lawmakers in at least four states are considering legislation that would make students repeat third grade if they can’t pass state reading exams, reviving debates about whether retaining students boosts achievement or increases their odds of dropping out…

“The goal is not to retain students, but to get parents, teachers and students all working collaboratively to address the literacy problems when they first show up,” said Colorado state Sen. Mike Johnston, a Democrat who is a sponsor of the bill. Iowa, New Mexico and Tennessee also are considering bills on the issue.

All the bills, as well as similar ones that passed recently in Oklahoma, Arizona and Indiana, aim to address literacy deficiencies that exist nationwide. Only one-third of U.S. schoolchildren had proficient scores on the most recent national reading exam, and scores have barely budged in two decades. That comes as children have made steady gains in math.

A recent report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that children who don’t read proficiently by third grade are four times as likely to drop out of school. Third grade is seen as so important for reading because many other subjects begin in earnest the following school year. Also, third grade is the year that federal law mandates all states must begin testing reading and math.

The country has spent billions on failed reading strategies. Now, states are taking a different tack: push individualized reading instruction in the early grades and hold back kids who don’t pass muster by third grade.

But the evidence is mixed on whether retention helps or hurts kids. Chicago made national headlines in the late 1990s by holding back tens of thousands of students who were deficient in math and reading. But a series of studies by the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago found that, in general, retained students did no better in later years than students who had nearly identical academic achievement but were promoted. Retained students also were more likely to have dropped out.

“These children would have been just as well off if they had not been retained. It didn’t solve anything,” said Jenny Nagaoka, associate director at the consortium, who did some of the research. Chicago has quietly relaxed the promotion rules, making it easier for low-performing students to move ahead.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970203920204577197341228039310-lMyQjAxMTAyMDEwNDExNDQyWj.html?mod=wsj_share_email

There is no guarantee that holding students back in the third grade is the answer.

Emily Richmond writes in the Atlantic article, Third Grade Again: The Trouble With Holding Students Back:

But, as the Wall Street Journal’s Stephanie Banchero points out, the findings on whether retention is good for students is more of a mixed bag. Florida implemented a third-grade retention initiative in 2002, and saw its fourth-grade reading scores soar. But reading scores for the state’s eighth grader have flatlined.

Arizona, along with Indiana and Oklahoma, recently passed legislation to hold back third graders who are not reading at grade level. When asked where he stood on his state’s initiative to hold back third graders, educational psychologist David Berliner — the Regents Professor of Education at Arizona State University — was blunt in his assessment.

“It seems like legislators are absolutely ignorant of the research, and the research is amazingly consistent that holding kids back is detrimental,” Berliner said. “Everybody supports the idea that if a student isn’t reading well in third grade that it’s a signal that the child needs help. If you hold them back, you’re going to spend roughly another $10,000 per child for an extra year of schooling. If you spread out that $10,000 over the fourth and fifth grades for extra tutoring, in the long run you’re going to get a better outcome.”
Retention rates vary widely from state to state, and recent national statistics are hard to come by. Researchers have estimated that 15 percent of the nation’s K-12 students are retained each year. (The National Association of School Psychologists put the figure at 2 million in 2004.)

Research has shown that minority students attending inner-city campuses are more likely to be held back a grade than their white peers at more affluent neighborhood schools. Boys are also more likely to be retained than girls.

Berliner believes that for the overwhelming majority of students who are held back, it was the wrong decision.
“There are stories where it was clearly the right thing, and the student moves up to the next grade more confident — I don’t want to negate that,” Berliner said. “But it’s the wrong move for the vast majority of students. And since we don’t know in advance which kids won’t benefit, it’s simply the wrong policy decision.”

There’s plenty of evidence that the nation’s students are struggling with literacy. On the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, often referred to as “The Nation’s Report Card,” reading scores had stagnated….

While lawmakers wrangle over whether to hold back struggling students, the Campaign For Grade-Level Reading is focusing on three key factors aimed directly at improving the next set of NAEP scores — readiness, attendance, and summer learning. The overarching goal is to have students arrive at school with the fundamental reading readiness skills they need to be successful from the outset.

Many younger students miss too many days of class and never develop what Smith called “a culture and habit” of regular attendance. Investments in early childhood education and literacy programs have long-term benefits for society as a whole, Smith said, and not just individual students. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/third-grade-again-the-trouble-with-holding-students-back/253065/

One of the mantras of this blog is there should not be a one-size-fits- all approach to education and that there should be a variety of options to achieve the goal of a good basic education for all children. One of the themes that has run through education is the “bandwagon effect” which means that an idea or study result gains traction and that the idea or procedure is replicated and promoted as “the answer.”

Sarah D. Sparks reports about an OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) study in the Education Week article, OECD: Holding Back, Expelling Students Weakens Ed. Systems:

Countries in which schools frequently hold back or kick out students with low academic performance tend to have weaker, more expensive, and more socially inequitable education systems overall according to a new analysis by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In comparing the results of the Program for International Student Assessment in 65 member and partner countries, OECD researchers found that differences among countries’ grade-retention trends could explain as much as 15 percent of the difference among their average scores on the 2009 PISA.

While fewer than 3 percent of students in 13 countries—including Japan, Norway, and the United Kingdom—reported ever repeating a grade, more than 25 percent of students repeated at least once in France, Spain, Brazil, and a dozen others studied. The United States reported more than one in 10 students repeating a grade, higher than the OECD average, while the top-performing countries, Finland and Korea, do not allow grade retention.

Researchers also found lower PISA scores for countries in which more schools reported they would transfer a student out of the school for low grades, special needs, or behavior problems. Ten of the countries studied reported about two of every five students attended a school “very likely” to transfer based on academics, while another 10 reported fewer than 3 percent of students attend schools that transfer for those reasons.

The OECD found that both high rates of grade retention and transfer happened in countries in which a child’s socioeconomic status was more likely to predict that child’s academic performance.

“This suggests that transferring students tends to be associated with socioeconomic segregation in school systems, where students from advantaged backgrounds end up in better-performing schools while students from disadvantaged backgrounds end up in poorer performing schools,” the report noted.

The OECD analysis comes as a number of states are debating whether and when to hold back a student who has not met grade-level proficiency standards. Chicago and North Carolina recently ended bans on social promotion, while Arizona and Florida have required schools to retain students who cannot meet 3rd grade reading benchmarks. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2011/07/holding_back_kicking_out_stude.html?intc=es

Tags: Bills Prod Schools to Hold Back Third-Graders:, Expelling Students Weakens Ed. Systems:, How to Raise a Reader, Literacy and Your Child, OECD: Holding Back, Reading, Third Grade Again: The Trouble With Holding Students Back:

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