Tag Archives: science

The 06/11/13 Joy Jar

11 Jun

 

Moi went to a NASA exhibit at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle which looked at the history and importance of the space station and space exploration. A major reason some support space exploration is that they want to plant humans as a species all over the universe. That got moi thinking about whether there is something unique about being human. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the quality of being human.

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.
George Orwell

“There is some kind of a sweet innocence in being human- in not having to be just happy or just sad- in the nature of being able to be both broken and whole, at the same time.”
C. JoyBell C.

“The world was made up of people putting one foot in front of the other; and a life might appear ordinary simple because the person living it had been doing so for a long time. Harold could no longer pass a stranger without acknowledging the truth that everyone was the same, and also unique; and that this was the dilemma of being human.”
Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

“This is good, life must continue, we are fighting barbarians, but we must remain human.”
David Benioff, City of Thieves

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

I am not a human being; I am a human becoming.

Unknown

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The 06/10/13 Joy Jar

10 Jun

 

Moi had the great honor and the pleasure to preview the NASA exhibit, Destination: Station at Pacific Science Center in Seattle. The exhibit is totally awesome and does a good job of explaining the role of the Space Station in exploration. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is space exploration.

“Science cuts two ways, of course; its products can be used for both good and evil. But there’s no turning back from science. The early warnings about technological dangers also come from science.”
Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

“We hold the future still timidly, but perceive it for the first time as a function of our own action.”
J.D. Bernal, The world, the flesh & the devil;: An enquiry into the future of the three enemies of the rational soul

Ever since there have been people, there have been explorers, looking in places where other hadn’t been before. Not everyone does it, but we are part of a species where some members of the species do—to the benefit of us all.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Reaching For the Stars: America’s Choice,
Natural History Magazine, April 2003

I have no doubt that Christians can support the exploration and use of space. The so-called “science commission” in Genesis 1:28 certainly seems to apply to any part of the material creation which God places within man’s reach.

Rev. Paul A. Bartz, Communications Director, Bible-Science Newsletter, October 1990

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‘Public Access ‘to research

9 Jun

A huge issue in research is open access or public access. Peter Suber proposes one definition in Open Access Overview:

Many OA initiatives focus on publicly-funded research.

  • The argument for public access to publicly funded research is strong, and a growing number of countries require OA to publicly-funded research.

  • The campaign for OA to publicly-funded research usually recognizes exceptions for (1) classified, military research, (2) research resulting in patentable discoveries, and (3) research that authors publish in some royalty-producing form, such as books. Recognizing these exceptions is at least pragmatic, and helps avoid needless battles while working for OA to the largest, easiest subset of publicly-funded research.

  • The lowest of the low-hanging fruit is research that is both royalty-free and publicly-funded. The policy of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a good example.

  • But the OA movement is not limited to publicly-funded research, and seeks OA to research that is unfunded or funded by private foundations (like the Wellcome Trust or Howard Hughes Medical Institute).

http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm

A consortium of groups is looking at open access for research in the U.S.

Jennifer Howard writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education article, Universities and Libraries Envision a ‘Federated System’ for Public Access to Research about public access to research:

This week, the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, and the Association of Research Libraries are offering a plan they call the Shared Access Research Ecosystem, or Share.

Share would expand on systems that universities and libraries have long been building to support the sharing and preservation of research. The groups behind Share have been circulating a document, dated June 7, that lays out the basics behind the idea.

Academic institutions have invested heavily in “the infrastructure, tools, and services necessary to provide effective and efficient access to their research and scholarship,” the document says. “Share envisions that universities will collaborate with the federal government and others to host cross-institutional digital repositories of public-access research publications.”

Under Share, each university or research institute that gets federal research money would designate an existing digital repository “as the site where its articles will be deposited for public access and long-term preservation,” meeting the requirements of the Obama administration’s policy. Many universities already have digital repositories up and running. Those that do not could piggyback on the repositories of other institutions. A smaller institution could designate one of its state’s public universities as its deposit site, for instance.

The document also emphasizes elements that would be essential to make Share a viable way to comply with the new public-access policy. For example, principal investigators would need identifiers such as Orcid numbers to track their research activity, and every publication would need to have copyright-license terms embedded in its metadata so that repository systems would know how to handle it.

With those protocols in place, Share would be “a federated system of university repositories,” John C. Vaughn, the Association of American Universities’ executive vice president, said in an interview. “Potentially there’s a way to connect the whole corpus of U.S. higher-education institutions that receive federal research funding.”http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/universities-and-libraries-envision-a-federated-system-for-public-access-to-research/44147?cid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en

Here is the statement of the National Research Council, NAS Forum:

Statement on Expanded Public Access to Publications

May 14, 2013

National Research Council, NAS Forum

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Memorandum, “Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research,” provides new opportunities for a productive partnership between research universities and Federal research funding agencies. Enhanced access to the results of federally funded research accelerates the pace of scientific discovery, promotes innovation, and enriches education.

Research institutions are mission-driven, and common to their individual missions is a shared commitment to create and build upon new knowledge, make accessible the results of their research, and preserve information for future generations. The member universities of the Association of American Universities and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities conduct nearly two-thirds of federally funded research, and their members generate a significant percentage of the peer-reviewed scholarly publications covered by the OSTP memorandum. Research libraries, with others in their institutions, supply much of the infrastructure in support of this research and in many cases also provide access to the final peer-reviewed scholarly publications and digital data produced by institutional researchers. Research institutions also have a long history of and experience with collaboration.

It will be important that the policies federal agencies develop minimize the cost and complexity of compliance with grant requirements for both principal investigators and their institutions. University budgets are stretched thin with few discretionary resources. Federal research funding is under considerable pressure, and there is understandable concern within the university research community that implementation of a broad national public access policy should proceed, but in a manner that respectfully balances the rewards that will come from making research results more widely available with any sacrifices to current research progress the effort may entail.

The OSTP memorandum wisely provides agencies with latitude in developing and maintaining the public access repositories called for, stipulating that such repositories could be maintained by the agency funding the research, another federal agency, or through a public/private partnership with external parties. We believe that the most important issue at this time, however, is not who builds and operates the repository but the functionality of that public access resource.

Functional Properties of Public Access Repositories

Our three university and library associations believe that the following functionality considerations will be key to achieving the public access goals of the OSTP policy directive:

1. Copyright or IP rights should not be assigned to final peer-reviewed scholarly publications in an exclusive manner that would prohibit preservation, discovery, sharing, and machine-based services such as text mining. Similarly, federal policies can stimulate the development of new tools and services (human and machine), and licensing arrangements should ensure that no one single entity or group secures exclusive rights.

2. In order for the broad goals of the OSTP plan to be achieved, agency compliance requirements should be transparent, and deposit requirements should be easy for the researcher – or institution or publisher depositing on behalf of the researcher — to accomplish. In addition, agencies should develop effective grant tracking tools in advance of public access policy implementation that will enable universities to better manage compliance with agency regulations. To the extent possible, agency requirements should be comparable across agencies to minimize the burden on universities of mandated compliance requirements.

3. Final peer-reviewed scholarly publications should be linked openly to their source data to the extent possible to allow for reuse and replication of results, and such links should be established in a generalizable, sustainable manner.

4. Open standards are necessary to ensure interoperability in repository system design for search and discovery, and the metadata describing publications should be based on open standards to ensure that the public can read, download, and perform text mining on the publications.

5. Agencies should require the use of persistent, unique identifiers for grants, publications, data, and authors to foster reuse of content and development of new services by individuals and machines.

6. A variety of forms of metrics and identifiers should be supported to provide information on access, use, and impact of final peer-reviewed scholarly publications.

7. Final peer-reviewed scholarly publications from publically funded research should be accessible to persons with disabilities consistent with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

8. Bulk downloads of the corpus of scholarly publications for research purposes should be allowed under specified terms and conditions developed by agencies in consultation their external constituencies.

The Role of University Repositories

The experience of many research university institutional repositories demonstrates that they can operate effectively with the functional properties noted above. Members of the higher education community are initiating a study of the feasibility of federating existing institutional repositories and other campus-based infrastructure into a virtual repository which, in cooperation with federal funding agency repositories and others, could serve as a distributed system in support of the goals of the OSTP Public Access Policy. Such an approach would build on extensive, existing cyberinfrastructure already in place. This feasibility study will build on earlier work already conducted, in particular, a recent NSF report, A Feasibility Study for a National Science Foundation Open-Access Publication Repository. Should this current study demonstrate that such a federated system could be integrated into and extend current capabilities and capacities in an efficient and effective manner, we suggest that OSTP, federal agencies and other pertinent partners carefully consider joining with research universities in its creation and use as one component of the requirements of the OSTP article repository. The feasibility study will have to address a realistic timeline for implementation and the sustainability of the institutional repository model, including stability and adequacy of the business/financing plan. The study also will need to address the development of common standards and capacities to support comparable functionality across institutional repositories and the incorporation of universities and organizations not included in the AAU/APLU/ARL memberships.

Harvard Law has Notes on the Federal Research Public Access Act:

This page is part of the Harvard Open Access Project (HOAP).

 

The bill itself

  • The Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) requires “free online public access” to a very large swath of publicly-funded research in the United States. It strengthens the open access (OA) mandate at the NIH by reducing the maximum embargo period from 12 months to six months, and extends the strengthened policy to all the major agencies of the federal government.
  • It doesn’t merely reduce the maximum embargo to six months, it requires OA “as soon as practicable” after publication (Section 4.b.4), but no later than six months after publication.
  • It asks agencies to come up with their own policies within the general guidelines laid down in the bill. It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution and agencies are free to differ on the details. They will have one year from the bill’s passage to develop their policies (4.a).
  • The FRPAA guidelines require agencies to mandate “free online public access” for agency-funded research. The guidelines do not define “free online public access” (4.b.4). Nor do they stipulate the timing of deposits, only the timing of OA. For researchers employed and not merely funded by the federal government, FRPAA allows no embargo at all (4.c.2).
  • Like the NIH policy, FRPAA applies to the authors’ peer-reviewed manuscripts (4.b.2), not to the published editions of their articles. Like the NIH policy, it allows consenting publishers to replace the peer-reviewed manuscripts with the published editions (4.b.3). It does not apply to classified research or royalty-producing work such as books (4.d.3). It also exempts patentable discoveries, but only “to the extent necessary to protect a…patent” (4.d.3).
  • Unlike the NIH policy, FRPAA doesn’t specify the OA repository in which authors must deposit their manuscripts, the way the NIH specifies PubMed Central. FRPAA leaves this decision up to the individual agencies. They could host their own repositories or make use of existing repositories, including the institutional repositories of their researchers. FRPAA only requires that the repositories meet certain conditions of OA, interoperability, and long-term preservation (4.b.6).
  • FRPAA and the NIH policy differ slightly in how they secure permission for the mandated OA. The NIH requires grantees to retain the non-exclusive right to authorize OA through PubMed Central. If a given publisher is not willing to allow OA on the NIH’s terms, then grantees must look for another publisher. FRPAA requires agencies to “make effective use of any law or guidance relating to the creation and reservation of a Government license that provides for the reproduction, publication, release, or other uses of a final manuscript for Federal purposes” (4.c.3). The FRPAA approach gives agencies more flexibility. Agencies may use the battle-tested NIH method if they wish. They may use a federal-purpose license such as that codified in 2 CFR 215.36(a) (January 2005) if they wish. Or they may make use of “any [other] law or guidance” that would be “effective” in steering clear of infringement.
  • FRPAA does not amend copyright or patent law (4.e).
  • FRPAA applies to all unclassified research funded in whole or part (4.b.1) by agencies whose budgets for extramural research are $100 million/year or more (4.a). This includes the Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation.
  • FRPAA mandates OA for more research literature than any other policy ever adopted or ever proposed.

Contents

Every issue has both pros and cons.

The pros and cons of open access detailed in the Nature article,Open Access by Kate Warlock:

Supporters of Open Access to scientific literature often portray it as the definitive and inevitable model for scientific publishing, but it is far from being the last word on new modes of access. In reality, stakeholders in scientific publishing are in the midst of adjusting to the revolutionary new possibilities offered by the Web and the online journal article for scholarly communication.

In this Nature forum, a range of stakeholders in scientific publishing have made their cases at length, and often persuasively. Agreement in the industry on the best route forward remains distant, however, and the level of emotion behind the debate has served in some cases to obfuscate discussion. This article aims to provide an independent assessment of the key arguments, and to flag up areas where questions remain unanswered.

Proponents of a move to open access argue that this will benefit science and society in general. A report published last April by the UK Wellcome Trust1 assumes that “the benefits of research are derived principally from access to research results”, and therefore that “society as a whole is made worse off if access to scientific research results is restricted”.

Part of the remit of not-for-profit organisations such as the Wellcome Trust which fund research may be the full dissemination of results. But even where research is publicly-funded, taxes are generally not paid so that taxpayers can access research results, but rather so that society can benefit from the results of that research; in the form of new medical treatments, for example. Publishers claim that 90% of potential readers can access 90% of all available content through national or research libraries, and while this may not be as easy as accessing an article online directly it is certainly possible.

Funding for scientific research also comes from a variety of sources – in some countries such as Australia and New Zealand around 80% of R&D funding comes from the public purse, while in Japan and Switzerland only about 10% is government-funded1. It is therefore not necessarily the case that taxpayers fund most scientific research.

Another criticism of open access is that payment for publication could create conflicts of interest and have a negative impact on the perceived neutrality of peer review, as there would be a financial incentive for journals to publish more articles. The importance of the role of peer review does not diminish under an Open Access model, and structures need to be in place to ensure that peer reviewers are not unduly influenced by the needs of their publishers.

In some ways though this argument can apply as much to the current subscription-based system as publishers often justify price increases on the grounds of an increase in the number of journal articles published. This suggests that there are financial advantages for both Open Access and subscription-based publishers in publishing more articles. http://www.nature.com/nature/focus/accessdebate/34.html

Research can be impacted if a system to share knowledge is not devised.

Resources:

Overview: The NIH Public Access Policy

http://publicaccess.nih.gov/

Expanding Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research                                                                           http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/02/22/expanding-public-access-results-federally-funded-research

Where information leads to Hope. ©  Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                           http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                                http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

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Too many children of color skip advanced IB and AP courses

5 Jun

Moi wrote about “advanced placement” or AP courses in Who should take AP classes?

AP courses tend to attract students who are preparing for college and are very goal oriented. So, what if a student either doesn’t want to go to college or may want a career, should they take AP courses? Since the average person, according to Career Information Online will have three to five careers over the course of a life time, the best advice to everyone is prepare for any eventuality. Even if students don’t attend college after high school, they may attend later as part of a career change. Many former automobile workers are now getting college degrees in nursing and other fields, for example.

Huffington Post is reported in the article, AP Exams: Most Students Who Should Be Taking The Tests Aren’t:

More than 60 percent of students considered to have AP potential didn’t take the exam last year, even though their PSAT scores showed they could perform well on one, according to a College Board report released last week. Overall, black, Latino and Native American students were less likely to take AP exams than their white and Asian counterparts.

“AP potential” as defined by the College Board is a 70 percent or greater likelihood that a student will score a 3 (out of 5) or higher on an AP exam. The “potential” is calculated based on more than 2 million public school PSAT/NMSQT takers in the class of 2011.

Of those, nearly 771,000 graduates were classified as having AP potential, but nearly 478,000 — about 62 percent — did not take a recommended AP subject. The study points out that underserved minorities were disproportionately impacted: 74 percent of Native American students, 80 percent of black students and 70 percent of Hispanic students did not take recommended AP subject tests. A majority of Asian students with AP potential took the exams — 42 percent did not — and 62 percent of white students with AP potential didn’t take the exams.

This year’s report echoes findings from last year’s, as the College Board report last February revealed that while the number of minority students taking the exam has increased, it is still disproportionately low. To add to that, those groups are also still struggling to excel in performance: Of the half million students who passed an AP exam in 2010, just 14.6 percent were Hispanic or Latino. Only 3.9 percent of passing students were black….

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/13/ap-exams-most-students-wh_n_1273980.html?ref=email_share

The question is not only should a particular student should take AP courses, but whether the choice should be between AP courses or an International Baccalaureate. https://drwilda.com/2012/02/14/who-should-take-ap-classes/

Caralee Adams reported in the Education Week article, Racial and Income Gaps Persist in AP and IB Enrollment:

Each year, about 640,000 low-income students and students of color are “missing” from AP and IB participation—students who could benefit if they merely enrolled at the same rate as other students in their schools, the report says.

It is not just a matter access. About 1 million students do not attend schools that offer AP, and the authors note that only a small percentage of the gaps by race or family income can be accounted for by which schools do and do not offer the classes.

In many cases, students from disadvantaged backgrounds are not enrolling in existing programs.

Overall, about 11.7 percent of high school students attending schools with AP classes participate. Middle- and high-income students at these schools are three times as likely to enroll in an AP course as are low-income students. Black and American Indian students participate at about half the rate of the national average, while about 9 percent of Hispanic students sign up. This translates into about 614,000 students missing out on the opportunity.

The IB program offered in high schools to 11th and 12th graders is smaller than AP, but the Education Trust also identifies areas for growth among disadvantaged students. Looking at about 570 schools in 2010, the researchers found about one in 19 students participate in IB. White and upper-income students were more likely to enroll, leaving about 33,000 students of color and those from low-income families “missing” from the IB rolls.

The Education Trust report highlights schools that have managed to level the playing field, as evidence that these gaps can be closed. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/college_bound/2013/06/racial_and_income_gaps_persist_in_ap_and_ib_enrollment.html

Education Trust released this information about Finding America’s Missing AP and IB Students

New Analysis Finds Too Many Students Missing From AP and IB Programs

Programs like Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) are designed to provide high school students with challenging academic course work and a head start on a college education. But despite aggressive efforts — by federal and state lawmakers, private philanthropy, and districts and schools — to expand participation, there remain significant differences in the rates at which students from different racial and economic groups gain access. 

These differences have been documented repeatedly and over time. What is less clear is why they persist. This new report from The Education Trust and Equal Opportunity Schools, “Finding America’s Missing AP and IB Students,” tackles the question head on. Do we simply need to expand the programs to more schools, especially those serving low-income students and students of color, or does the problem lie elsewhere? If we can identify and remedy where and why these inequities exist, these courses can be a powerful means of disrupting the high-end achievement gap, documented in the first report in this series.

Co-authors Christina Theokas, director of research at The Education Trust, and Reid Saaris, executive director of Equal Opportunity Schools, examined spring 2010 test-taking data from the College Board, which administers AP, and The International Baccalaureate and found that nationally, low-income students are one-third as likely to enroll in AP as their middle and high-income peers, while black and American Indian students participate at a rate about half that of white students. IB programs are both fewer and smaller, but similar national participation gaps exist. All in all, the authors found over 640,000 low-income students and students of color “missing” from existing AP and IB programs — that is, the additional numbers who would be participating if such students participated at the same rate as other students. 

The report shows that 71 percent of traditional public high schools in the United States have AP programs. These schools serve about 91 percent of the high school student population. And, as a whole, “AP schools” enroll students who are reasonably representative of the full economic and racial diversity of all high schools, with the exception of American Indian students. Those schools without an AP program tend to be small, higher poverty, and rural. These deficiencies need to be remedied, but only a small part of the national participation gaps can be accounted for by which schools offer AP and which do not.

The real advanced course opportunity gap exists not between schools but within schools. Although the vast majority of students in every racial and economic group attend a school with an AP program, this is not well reflected in who is actually enrolled in AP courses.

The co-authors conducted a school-by-school analysis and examined whether various student groups within schools participated at similar rates. Unfortunately, within-school participation rates in many schools weren’t even close to parity, correlating with significant numbers of black, Latino, and low-income students missing from AP courses. Indeed, if all schools worked hard to find and enroll their “missing students,” the black and Hispanic national participation gaps would be entirely closed, and the low-income student gap would nearly close (90 percent).

Certainly, preparation prior to high school is part of the problem, and the nation’s schools need to work hard on that. But a recent analysis of PSAT scores by the College Board suggests there are far more students who have the potential to be successful, but are not enrolling. The College Board found that 72 percent of black students and 66 percent of Hispanic students whose PSAT scores suggested they had the potential to be successful in an AP math course, as well as 69 percent of black students and 65 percent of Hispanic students whose scores suggested they had the potential to be successful in an AP science course, were left out of the program.

Equal Opportunity Schools was created in 2008 to work with districts and schools on finding their “missing” students. Saaris and his team find that a focus on matching students with challenging high school learning opportunities results in immediate gains on the achievement gap and college readiness, while catalyzing a higher sense of what’s possible in our schools. Again and again, they discover that there are many low-income students and students of color literally sitting across the hall from the very high-level courses in which they are ready to succeed.

“We don’t need to re-invent the wheel here. At the vast majority of our high schools, we’re already using AP or IB classes to prepare students for the academic rigors of college. And yet most any educator will tell you that additional students could be benefiting from them right away,” said Saaris. “Some schools are making breakthroughs by studying the issue and quickly deploying innovative solutions to transition all their missing students up to AP or IB course participation and success.”

Lessons emerging from schools and districts already taking on these challenges can provide information for others working toward disrupting current patterns:

  • As one of the first school districts in the country to make college readiness a goal for all its students, the San Jose Unified School District began more than a decade ago requiring students to take the full sequence of courses needed for admission to the University of California system. More recently, district leaders began looking at gaps at the top: in AP participation. Staff at each school analyzed their own data and generated appropriate solutions. And, over time, participation rates for under-represented student subgroups doubled.

  • In the Federal Way Public Schools in Washington state, district leaders spotted the gaps in their data and knew that many of their students would be underprepared for college as a result. They started with a policy offering “open access” to AP/IB courses. But when that produced insufficient progress, they decided to automatically enroll students who scored proficient or better on the state exam. That approach has now been endorsed by the state Legislature, with other schools encouraged to follow a similar path.

“As states across the country implement college- and career-ready standards, we must take immediate action to close the devastating participation gaps that currently exist in our most rigorous courses,” said Christina Theokas. “Educators are the backbone of these efforts, and should be encouraged to take steps to examine enrollment patterns at their school, audit entry requirements, examine what students and teachers know about accessing a school’s AP or IB program, and work together as a team encouraging and supporting students in these classes. By following the example of schools and districts that have already found success with these steps and others, educators will be better prepared to close the gap in high-end achievement.”

There is also more work to be done by federal and state policymakers. The report recommends that policymakers make sure that all high school students have access to AP or IB programs, require all high schools to offer a minimum number of advanced courses, and — to help close the large within-school gaps in participation — require schools to report school-level participation and success rates for all groups of students.

Furthering the research in this area is a new report by The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, “The Road to Equity: Expanding AP Access and Success for African-American Students,”  which examines successful strategies used by school systems that have not only maintained their level of AP participation by African-American students, but have also been able to increase AP test passing. Released today, the report provides case studies of six districts that provide even more examples for other educators, schools, and districts to follow.

—May 5, 2013

www.edtrust.org/sites/edtrust.org/files/Missing_Students.pdf

Moi wrote in Race, class, and education in America:

Many educators have long recognized that the impact of social class affects both education achievement and life chances after completion of education. There are two impacts from diversity, one is to broaden the life experience of the privileged and to raise the expectations of the disadvantaged. Social class matters in not only other societies, but this one as well.

A few years back, the New York Times did a series about social class in America. That series is still relevant. Janny Scott and David Leonhardt’s overview, Shadowy Lines That Still Divide describes the challenges faced by schools trying to overcome the disparity in education. The complete series can be found at Social Class

https://drwilda.com/2011/11/07/race-class-and-education-in-america/

https://drwilda.com/2012/12/22/the-role-economic-class-plays-in-college-success/

Related:

Stanford University report: Advanced placement may not be the cure for education ills                                                                            https://drwilda.com/2013/04/30/stanford-university-report-advanced-placement-may-not-be-the-cure-for-education-ills/

An interesting critique of the College Board’s AP test report https://drwilda.com/2013/03/10/an-interesting-critique-of-the-college-boards-ap-test-report/

The International Baccalaureate program as a way to save struggling schools                                                                          https://drwilda.com/2012/04/30/international-baccalaureate/

Where information leads to Hope. ©  Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                           http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                                http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                      https://drwilda.com/

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The 05/31/13 Joy Jar

31 May

Moi had a fun day as she spent time at the pacific Science Center in Seattle to preview the new Imaginate Exhibit. It was very hands-on. That got moi thinking about creativity and innovation. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is innovation.

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.
Steve Jobs

It would be a terrific innovation if you could get your mind to stretch a little further than the next wisecrack.
Katharine Hepburn

Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.
Peter Drucker

You have all the reason in the world to achieve your grandest dreams. Imagination plus innovation equals realization.
Denis Waitley

“Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.”
Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary

“Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn’t work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.”
Roger Von Oech

“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old”
Peter F. Drucker

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Study: Teenagers take risks to earn peer approval

29 May

 

In No one is perfect: People sometimes fail, moi said:

 

There are no perfect people, no one has a perfect life and everyone makes mistakes. Unfortunately, children do not come with instruction manuals, which give specific instructions about how to relate to that particular child. Further, for many situations there is no one and only way to resolve a problem. What people can do is learn from their mistakes and the mistakes of others. Craig Playstead has assembled a top ten list of mistakes made by parents and they should be used as a starting point in thinking about your parenting style and your family’s dynamic.

 

1)            Spoiling kids 

 

2)            Inadequate discipline

 

3)            Failing to get involved at school

 

4)            Praising mediocrity

 

5)            Not giving kids enough responsibility

 

6)            Not being a good spouse

 

7)            Setting unreal expectations

 

8)            Not teaching kids to fend for themselves

 

9)            Pushing trends on kids

 

10)           Not following through

 

Playstead also has some comments about stage parents.

 

Let kids be kids. Parents shouldn’t push their trends or adult outlook on life on their kids. Just because it was your life’s dream to marry a rich guy doesn’t mean we need to see your 4-year-old daughter in a “Future Trophy Wife” t-shirt. The same goes for the double ear piercing—that’s what you want, not them. Teaching kids about your passions is great, but let them grow up to be who they are. And yes, this goes for you pathetic stage parents as well. It’s hard enough for kids to figure out who they are in the world without you trying to turn them into what you couldn’t be.

 

Paul Tough has written a very thoughtful New York Times piece about the importance of failure in developing character, not characters. In What If the Secret to Success Is Failure? Tough talks about facing up to failure, but he is not talking about per se risky behavior.    https://drwilda.com/2011/12/06/no-one-is-perfect-people-sometimes-fail/

 

Sarah D. Sparks writes in the Education Week article, Teenagers Are Wired for Peer Approval, Study Says:

 

 

In an ongoing series of studies, Temple University researchers Laurence Steinberg and Jason M. Chein and their colleagues have found that teenagers take more risks and are more sensitive to potential rewards when they think peers are watching them—even if they consciously believe they aren’t affected by peer pressure.

 

“Although it’s very, very tempting to assign consciousness to teenagers’ motivations and behavior—to say they are doing something because ‘they don’t understand the consequences,’ ‘they think they are invincible,’ ‘they want to impress their friends’—what we think we’re finding is [risk-taking] has a much more biological basis to it,” said Mr. Chein, the director of Temple University’s Neurocognition Lab.

 

In studies discussed in the April special issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science on “the teenage brain,” the Temple researchers found 14- to 16-year-olds take significantly more risks, and are more responsive to potential rewards, when other teenagers are around than when they are by themselves.

 

“In the same way a young child is developing in the context of her family environment, a middle schooler and high schooler is developing in the context of peers,” said Kevin M. King, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle, who was not part of the Temple research.

 

“There are huge changes in the social environment,” he said. “[Adolescents] are going from one classroom to many, from parents’ making all the early friendship choices to making [their] own.”

 

Focused on Rewards

 

And that new freedom to make their own choices comes just when students start taking more risks in the company of peers.

 

Mr. Steinberg, a psychology professor at Temple, and Mr. Chein presented study participants with a game in which a player was shown a card labeled with a number between one and nine, and had to guess whether the next card would be higher or lower, with players told before some rounds that they would receive a reward or no reward for a correct guess.

 

The game was rigged: A computer randomly ensured each player guessed right exactly half the time. The participants played under functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, which measures electrical activity in the brain, allowing the researchers to gauge how much players were responding to the possibility of rewards.

 

Both adults and adolescents had more brain activity for a potential reward than for none, but teenagers showed significantly higher response to potential rewards when they were told (untruthfully) that another teenager was watching from another room. Adults, by contrast, showed no change when told of being watched.

 

The findings build on a 2009 study by Mr. Steinberg that found, among 14- to 16-year-olds, younger teenagers took twice as many risks in a timed driving simulation when with peers than when tested alone. Older teenagers took 50 percent more risks when doing the simulation course with friends than alone.

 

Channeling Peer Power

 

In a study of binge drinking, Mr. King found adolescents who are deciding to drink weigh negative effects such as having a hangover or getting in a fight less than they weigh perceived social benefits, such as increased confidence and the ability to speak with others.

 

Both the Temple and University of Washington researchers are separately exploring interventions to help teenagers take a step back mentally in social situations, turning an emotional decision into a more rational one….

 

Related Stories

 

 

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/05/22/32peers.h32.html?tkn=PTVFBCFZch6sOyARMfoB9mGdbVai%2F1DepwoM&cmp=clp-edweek

 

 

Citation:

 

The Teenage Brain Peer Influences on Adolescent Decision Making

 

  1. Dustin Albert1,2,3

  2. Jason Chein4

  3. Laurence Steinberg4

 

  1. 1Center for Child and Family Policy, Duke University
  2. 2Social Science Research Institute, Duke University
  3. 3Center for Developmental Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  4. 4Department of Psychology, Temple University

 

  1. Laurence Steinberg, Temple University, Weiss Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19122 E-mail: lds@temple.edu

 

Abstract

Research efforts to account for elevated risk behavior among adolescents have arrived at an exciting new stage. Moving beyond laboratory studies of age differences in risk perception and reasoning, new approaches have shifted their focus to the influence of social and emotional factors on adolescent decision making. We review recent research suggesting that adolescent risk-taking propensity derives in part from a maturational gap between early adolescent remodeling of the brain’s socioemotional reward system and a gradual, prolonged strengthening of the cognitive-control system. Research has suggested that in adolescence, a time when individuals spend an increasing amount of time with their peers, peer-related stimuli may sensitize the reward system to respond to the reward value of risky behavior. As the cognitive-control system gradually matures over the course of the teenage years, adolescents grow in their capacity to coordinate affect and cognition and to exercise self-regulation, even in emotionally arousing situations. These capacities are reflected in gradual growth in the capacity to resist peer influence.

 

Many parents want tips about how to talk with their kids about risky behaviors and whether they should spy on their children.

 

Perhaps the best advice comes from Carleton Kendrick in the Family Education article, Spying on Kids

 

Staying connected

 

So how do you make sure your teens are on the straight and narrow? You can’t. And don’t think you can forbid them to experiment with risky behavior. That’s what they’re good at during this stage, along with testing your limits. You can help them stay healthy, safe, and secure by doing the following:

 

  • Keep communicating with your teens, even if they don’t seem to be listening. Talk about topics that interest them.

  • Respect and ask their opinions.

  • Give them privacy. That doesn’t mean you can’t knock on their door when you want to talk.

  • Set limits on their behavior based on your values and principles. They will grudgingly respect you for this.

  • Continually tell them and show them you believe in who they are rather than what they accomplish.

  • Seek professional help if your teen’s abnormal behaviors last more than three weeks.

 

A 1997 landmark adolescent health study, which interviewed over 12,000 teenagers, concluded that the single greatest protection against high-risk teenage behavior, like substance abuse and suicide, is a strong emotional connection to a parent. Tough as it may be, you should always try to connect with them. And leave the spying to James Bond. It will only drive away the children you wish to bring closer.

 

In truth, a close relationship with your child will probably be more effective than spying. Put down that Blackberry, iPhone, and Droid and try connecting with your child. You should not only know who your children’s friends are, but you should know the parents of your children’s friends. Many parents have the house where all the kids hang out because they want to know what is going on with their kids. Often parents volunteer to chauffeur kids because that gives them the opportunity to listen to what kids are talking about. It is important to know the values of the families of your kid’s friends. Do they furnish liquor to underage kids, for example?  How do they feel about teen sex and is their house the place where kids meet for sex?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

 

So, in answer to the question should you spy on your Kids? Depends on the child. Some children are more susceptible to peer pressure and impulsive behavior than others. They will require more and possibly more intrusive direction. Others really are free range children and have the resources and judgment to make good decisions in a variety of circumstances. Even within a family there will be different needs and abilities. The difficulty for parents is to make the appropriate judgments and still give each child the feeling that they have been treated fairly. Still, for some kids, it is not out of line for parents to be snoops, they just might save the child and themselves a lot of heartache.

 

Related:

 

What parents need to know about ‘texting’                  https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/what-parents-need-to-know-about-texting/

 

Children and swearing                                                https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/children-and-swearing/

 

Does what is worn in school matter?                             https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/does-what-is-worn-in-school-matter/

 

Teen dating violence on the rise                                   https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/teen-dating-violence-on-the-rise/

 

 

Where information leads to Hope. ©  Dr. Wilda.com

 

Dr. Wilda says this about that ©

 

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

 

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                           http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

 

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                                http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

 

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                      https://drwilda.com/

 

 

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For many college women binge drinking is the norm

26 May

 

For many college students, college brings more freedom and fewer restrictions than they may have been accustomed to during their high school years. Many college students are naive about the consequences that can arise from certain social situations.

 

The Crisis Connection reports the following statistcs about rape on campus

 

60% of male college students “indicated some likelihood of raping or using force in certain circumstances.”

 

Men in fraternities appear to engage in more non-physical coercion and use of drugs and alcohol as a sexual strategy than do independents.

Every 21 hours there is another rape on an American college campus.

90% of all campus rapes occur under the influence of alcohol.

Men are more likely than women to assume that a woman who drinks alcohol on a date is a willing sex partner. 40% of men who think this way also believe it is acceptable to force sex on an intoxicated woman.

Alcohol use at the time of the attack was found to be one of the four strongest predictors of a college woman being raped.

43% of college men admit using coercive behavior to have sex, including ignoring a woman’s protest; using physical aggression; and forcing intercourse; 15% acknowledged they had committed acquaintance rape; 11% acknowledged using physical restraint to force a woman to have sex.

College rape victims receive external physical injuries in over 47% of all rapes.

Of the college woman who are raped, only 25% describe it as rape.

Of the college women who are raped, only 10% report the rape.

College women are most vulnerable to rape during the first few weeks of the freshman and sophomore years.

One in twelve college-age men admit having fulfilled the prevailing definition of rape or attempted rape, yet virtually none of these men identify themselves as rapists.

34% of completed rapes and 45% of attempted rapes take place on campus. Almost 60% of the completed campus rapes that take place on campus occur in the victim’s residence, 31% occur in another residence, and 10% occur in a fraternity.

3/4 of off-campus rapes and 7/8 of on-campus rapes involved perpetrators who were known to the victims.

78% of the men identified (as rapists) were an acquaintance, friend or boyfriend of the victims.

Most rapes occur on the weekend.

 

A key factor in many college rapes and sexual assaults is the involvement of alcohol and the fact that the victim may be intoxicated or possibly drugged.

 

Nina Bahadur writes in the Huffington Post article, College Women Exceed Drinking Guidlines More Often Than College Men, Study Finds:

 

College women are drinking more alcohol than is good for them — and they are doing it more often than their male counterparts are.

 

A study forthcoming in the October 2013 issue of “Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research” explored how often college men and women drank. A team led by medical researcher Bettina Hoeppner recruited 992 incoming students (average age of 18.4) at three New England universities and colleges.

 

Participating students were asked to complete an online survey about their alcohol consumption every two weeks throughout the academic year, where they indicated their daily alcohol consumption in the 7 previous days.

 

In 1990, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) issued guidelines that define low-risk drinking on a daily and weekly level. For men, 5 drinks a day and 14 drinks a week are considered low-risk. For women, 4 drinks a day and 7 drinks a week are considered low-risk.

 

Researchers found that, among students who drank alcohol, 85.4 percent exceeded an NIAAA drinking guideline at least once during their first week of college. More men than women exceeded the daily limit, and more women than men exceeded the weekly limit.

 

In January 2013, researchers at the University of Vigo found that female college students were more likely to binge drink than male college students. According to a CDC report, binge drinking in women and high school girls contributes to an estimated 23,000 deaths annually in the US. The same report found that white, college-educated woman aged 18-24 with $75,000 or more annual household income were more likely to binge drink than women of other races, ages, and socioeconomic categories. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/21/college-women-binge-drinking-more-likely_n_3312967.html?utm_hp_ref=email_share

 

Citation:

 

Sex Differences in College Student Adherence to NIAAA Drinking Guidelines

 

  1. Bettina B. Hoeppner1,*,

  2. Anna L. Paskausky2,

  3. Kristina M. Jackson3,

  4. Nancy P. Barnett3

Article first published online: 17 MAY 2013

DOI: 10.1111/acer.12159

Copyright © 2013 by the Research Society on Alcoholism

Additional Information(Show All)

 

View Full Article (HTML) Get PDF (186K)

Background

Exceeding nationally recommended drinking limits puts individuals at increased risk of experiencing harmful effects due to alcohol consumption. Both weekly and daily limits exist to prevent harm due to toxicity and intoxication, respectively. It remains unclear how well college students adhere to recommended limits, and whether their drinking is sensitive to the wider sex difference in weekly versus daily drinking limits.

Methods

This study used a daily-level, academic-year-long, multisite sample to describe adherence to NIAAA daily (no more than 4 drinks per day for men, 3 drinks per day for women) and weekly (no more than 14 drinks per week for men, 7 drinks per week for women) drinking guidelines, and to test for sex differences and time effects. College students (n = 992; 58% female) reported daily drinking on a biweekly basis using web-based surveys throughout their first year of college.

Results

Women exceeded weekly limits more frequently (15% of weeks [14 to 17%]) than men (12% [10 to 14%]). Women and men exceeded daily drinking limits similarly often (25 and 27%, respectively). In a generalized estimating equations analysis across all 18 biweekly assessments, adjusted for covariates and a linear trend over time, women were more likely to exceed weekly guidelines compared to men. Sex differences in exceeding daily limits were not significant. Over time, rates of exceeding limits declined for daily limits but only for men for weekly limits.

Conclusions

Female college students are more likely to exceed weekly alcohol intake limits than men. Furthermore, trends over time suggest that college students may be maturing out of heavy episodic drinking, but women may not mature out of harmful levels of weekly drinking. The observed disparity in risk for long-term health consequences may represent a missed opportunity for education and intervention.

View Full Article (HTML) Get PDF (186K)

 

 

So parents when you are preparing to drop your children off at college, in addition to what type of frig or microwave to buy for the dorm room you need to have the following conversations:

 

1. Another candid conversation about sex, this conversation should be ongoing from when they were age appropriate children

 

2. Sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy

 

3. Binge drinking and substance abuse

 

4. Personal safety issues such as always letting at least one person know where they are going

 

5. The college’s code of conduct

 

Related:

 

Critical thinking skills for kids are crucial: The lure of Superbowl alcohol ads https://drwilda.com/2013/02/02/critical-thinking-skills-for-kids-are-crucial-the-lure-of-superbowl-alcohol-ads/

 

Where information leads to Hope. ©                               Dr. Wilda.com

 

Dr. Wilda says this about that

 

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

 

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                      http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

 

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                             http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

 

Dr. Wilda ©                                                                                                https://drwilda.com/

 

 

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Education Department changes the format of Education Digest: The Condition of Education

25 May

This blog post deals with The National Center on Education Statistics annual education data digest, the Condition of Education 2013.

Sarah D. Sparks writes in the Education Week article, Education Department Launches Overhauled Education Digest:

The National Center on Education Statistics this morning releases its annual education data digest, the Condition of Education 2013.

It finds a steady increase in the concentration of poverty in American schools. One in five public schools in 2011 had 75 percent or more of their students qualify for free- or reduced-price meals, up from only one in eight schools a decade ago.

And in the wake of the economic downturn, Americans who don’t attain higher education are the most likely to be unemployed: Among adults ages 25-34 who started but did not complete a high school degree, 30 percent were unemployed, making them only slightly better off than those with just a high school diploma, a group with a 32 percent unemployment rate. However, high school dropouts still lag far behind, with unemployment among this group at 44 percent.

On a brighter note, the Condition also finds higher enrollment in preschool—more than 60 percent of children ages 3-5 now attend, a majority of them in full-day classes&mdashand 15 states now require kindergarten for all students.

New Report Format

This year marks the start of a new format for the Condition of Education, according to NCES Commissioner Sean P. “Jack” Buckley. Only a handful of print issues of the report will be published going forward, but the website has been overhauled to make the data easier to use. NCES also—for those extreme edu-data junkies out there—is rolling out Condition of Education apps for smartphones and tablets.

The report itself, which has historically been a digest of all manner of education data released in a given year, has been pared down to 42 indicators that will be gauged annually, in the areas of population characteristics, participation in education, elementary and secondary education, and postsecondary education. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2013/05/education_department_launches_overhauled_education_digest.html?intc=es

Citation:

The Condition of Education

Population CharacteristicsPopulation Characteristics

Participation in EducationParticipation in Education

Elementary and Secondary EducationElementary and Secondary Education

Postsecondary EducationPostsecondary Education

SpotlightsSpotlights

Reference TablesReference Tables

Reference MaterialsReference Materials

Letter from the CommissionerLetter From the Commissioner

This website has the key indicators of the condition of education in the United States. These indicators summarize important developments and trends using the latest statistics and are updated every year or every other year. A Congressionally mandated annual report on these indicators is provided to the White House and Congress each year.

In addition, this website has Spotlights on issues of current policy interest. These Spotlights take a more in-depth look at the issues through text, graphics and short videos.

Spotlights2013 Spotlights

Chapter 1:

Trends in Employment Rates by Educational Attainment
Chapter 2:

Kindergarten Entry Status: On-Time, Delayed-Entry, and Repeating Kindergartners
Chapter 3:

The Status of Rural Education
Chapter 4:

Financing Postsecondary Education in the United States

Download ReportDownload the 2013 Report

View the Mobile SiteView the Mobile Site

YouTubeWatch Videos on YouTube

TwitterShare Via Twitter

Here is the Readers Guide from the National Center for Education Statistics:

Reader’s Guide

The Condition of Education is available in three forms: a print volume for 2013; on the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) website as a full pdf, as individual pdfs, and in html; and on our mobile website. All reference tables are hyperlinked within the pdf and html versions, as are the sources for each of the graphics. The reference tables can be found in other NCES publications—primarily the Digest of Education Statistics. A pdf that contains all of the reference tables used in The Condition of Education 2013 is available on the NCES website.

Data Sources and Estimates

The data in these indicators were obtained from many different sources—including students and teachers, state education agencies, local elementary and secondary schools, and colleges and universities—using surveys and compilations of administrative records. Users should be cautious when comparing data from different sources. Differences in aspects such as procedures, timing, question phrasing, and interviewer training can affect the comparability of results across data sources.

Most indicators summarize data from surveys conducted by NCES or by the Census Bureau with support from NCES. Brief explanations of the major NCES surveys used in these indicators can be found in the Guide to Sources. More detailed explanations can be obtained on the NCES website under “Surveys and Programs.”

The Guide to Sources also includes information on non-NCES sources used to compile indicators, such as the American Community Survey (ACS) and the Current Population Survey (CPS). These are Census Bureau surveys used extensively in the indicators. For further details on the ACS, see http://www.census.gov/acs/www/. For further details on the CPS, see http://www.census.gov/cps/.

Data for indicators are obtained primarily from two types of surveys: universe surveys and sample surveys. In universe surveys, information is collected from every member of the population. For example, in a survey regarding certain expenditures of public elementary and secondary schools, data would be obtained from each school district in the United States. When data from an entire population are available, estimates of the total population or a subpopulation are made by simply summing the units in the population or subpopulation. As a result, there is no sampling error, and observed differences are reported as true.

Since a universe survey is often expensive and time consuming, many surveys collect data from a sample of the population of interest (sample survey). For example, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assesses a representative sample of students rather than the entire population of students. When a sample survey is used, statistical uncertainty is introduced, because the data come from only a portion of the entire population. This statistical uncertainty must be considered when reporting estimates and making comparisons.

Various types of statistics derived from universe and sample surveys are reported in the indicators. Many indicators report the size of a population or a subpopulation, and often the size of a subpopulation is expressed as a percentage of the total population. In addition, the average (or mean) value of some characteristic of the population or subpopulation may be reported. The average is obtained by summing the values for all members of the population and dividing the sum by the size of the population. An example is the annual average salaries of full-time instructional faculty at degree-granting postsecondary institutions. Another measure that is sometimes used is the median. The median is the midpoint value of a characteristic at or above which 50 percent of the population is estimated to fall, and at or below which 50 percent of the population is estimated to fall. An example is the median annual earnings of young adults who are full-time, full-year wage and salary workers.

Standard Errors

Using estimates calculated from data based on a sample of the population requires consideration of several factors before the estimates become meaningful. When using data from a sample, some margin of error will always be present in estimations of characteristics of the total population or subpopulation because the data are available from only a portion of the total population. Consequently, data from samples can provide only an approximation of the true or actual value. The margin of error of an estimate, or the range of potential true or actual values, depends on several factors such as the amount of variation in the responses, the size and representativeness of the sample, and the size of the subgroup for which the estimate is computed. The magnitude of this margin of error is measured by what statisticians call the “standard error” of an estimate.

When data from sample surveys are reported, the standard error is calculated for each estimate. The standard errors for all estimated totals, means, medians, or percentages are reported in the reference tables.

In order to caution the reader when interpreting findings in the indicators, estimates from sample surveys are flagged with a “!” when the standard error is between 30 and 50 percent of the estimate, and suppressed with a “‡” when the standard error is 50 percent of the estimate or greater.

Data Analysis and Interpretation

When estimates are from a sample, caution is warranted when drawing conclusions about one estimate in comparison to another, or about whether a time series of estimates is increasing, decreasing, or staying the same. Although one estimate may appear to be larger than another, a statistical test may find that the apparent difference between them is not reliably measurable due to the uncertainty around the estimates. In this case, the estimates will be described as having no measurable difference, meaning that the difference between them is not statistically significant.

Whether differences in means or percentages are statistically significant can be determined using the standard errors of the estimates. In these indicators and other reports produced by NCES, when differences are statistically significant, the probability that the difference occurred by chance is less than 5 percent, according to NCES standards.

Data presented in the indicators do not investigate more complex hypotheses, account for interrelationships among variables, or support causal inferences. We encourage readers who are interested in more complex questions and in-depth analysis to explore other NCES resources, including publications, online data tools, and public- and restricted-use datasets at http://nces.ed.gov.

For all indicators that report estimates based on samples, differences between estimates (including increases and decreases) are stated only when they are statistically significant. To determine whether differences reported are statistically significant, two-tailed t tests at the .05 level are typically used. The t test formula for determining statistical significance is adjusted when the samples being compared are dependent. The t test formula is not adjusted for multiple comparisons, with the exception of statistical tests conducted using the NAEP Data Explorer. When the variables to be tested are postulated to form a trend, the relationship may be tested using linear regression, logistic regression, or ANOVA trend analysis instead of a series of t tests. These alternate methods of analysis test for specific relationships (e.g., linear, quadratic, or cubic) among variables. For more information on data analysis, please see the NCES Statistical Standards, Standard 5-1, available at http://nces.ed.gov/statprog/2002/std5_1.asp.

A number of considerations influence the ultimate selection of the data years to feature in the indicators. To make analyses as timely as possible, the latest year of available data is shown. The choice of comparison years is often also based on the need to show the earliest available survey year, as in the case of the NAEP and the international assessment surveys. In the case of surveys with long time frames, such as surveys measuring enrollment, the decade’s beginning year (e.g., 1980 or 1990) often starts the trend line. In the figures and tables of the indicators, intervening years are selected in increments in order to show the general trend. The narrative for the indicators typically compares the most current year’s data with those from the initial year and then with those from a more recent period. Where applicable, the narrative may also note years in which the data begin to diverge from previous trends.

Rounding and Other Considerations

All calculations within the indicators are based on unrounded estimates. Therefore, the reader may find that a calculation, such as a difference or a percentage change, cited in the text or figure may not be identical to the calculation obtained by using the rounded values shown in the accompanying tables. Although values reported in the supplemental tables are generally rounded to one decimal place (e.g., 76.5 percent), values reported in each indicator are generally rounded to whole numbers (with any value of 0.50 or above rounded to the next highest whole number). Due to rounding, cumulative percentages may sometimes equal 99 or 101 percent rather than 100 percent.

Race and Ethnicity

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is responsible for the standards that govern the categories used to collect and present federal data on race and ethnicity. The OMB revised the guidelines on racial/ ethnic categories used by the federal government in October 1997, with a January 2003 deadline for implementation (Office of Management and Budget 1997). The revised standards require a minimum of these five categories for data on race: American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and White. The standards also require the collection of data on the ethnicity categories Hispanic or Latino and Not Hispanic or Latino. It is important to note that Hispanic origin is an ethnicity rather than a race, and therefore persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race. Origin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the person’s parents or ancestors before their arrival in the United States. The race categories White, Black, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and American Indian or Alaska Native, as presented in these indicators, exclude persons of Hispanic origin unless noted otherwise.

The categories are defined as follows:

  • American Indian or Alaska Native: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and maintaining tribal affiliation or community attachment.

  • Asian: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam.

  • Black or African American: A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa.

  • Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands.

  • White: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.

  • Hispanic or Latino: A person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race.

Within these indicators, some of the category labels have been shortened in the indicator text, tables, and figures. American Indian or Alaska Native is denoted as American Indian/Alaska Native (except when separate estimates are available for American Indians alone or Alaska Natives alone); Black or African American is shortened to Black; and Hispanic or Latino is shortened to Hispanic. When discussed separately from Asian estimates, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander is shortened to Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander.

The indicators draw from a number of different sources. Many are federal surveys that collect data using the OMB standards for racial/ethnic classification described above; however, some sources have not fully adopted the standards, and some indicators include data collected prior to the adoption of the OMB standards. This report focuses on the six categories that are the most common among the various data sources used: White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and American Indian/Alaska Native. Asians and Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders are combined into one category in indicators for which the data were not collected separately for the two groups.

Some of the surveys from which data are presented in these indicators give respondents the option of selecting either an “other” race category, a “Two or more races” or “multiracial” category, or both. Where possible, indicators present data on the “Two or more races” category; however, in some cases this category may not be separately shown because the information was not collected or due to other data issues. The “other” category is not separately shown. Any comparisons made between persons of one racial/ethnic group to “all other racial/ ethnic groups” include only the racial/ethnic groups shown in the indicator. In some surveys, respondents are not given the option to select more than one race. In these surveys, respondents of two or more races must select a single race category. Any comparisons between data from surveys that give the option to select more than one race and surveys that do not offer such an option should take into account the fact that there is a potential for bias if members of one racial group are more likely than members of the others to identify themselves as “Two or more races.”1 For postsecondary data, foreign students are counted separately and are therefore not included in any racial/ethnic category.

The American Community Survey (ACS), conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, collects information regarding specific racial/ethnic ancestry. Selected indicators include Hispanic ancestry subgroups (such as Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Salvadoran, Other Central American, and South American) and Asian ancestry subgroups (such as Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese). In addition, selected indicators include “Two or more races” subgroups (such as White and Black, White and Asian, and White and American Indian/Alaska Native).

For more information on the ACS, see the Guide to Sources. For more information on race/ ethnicity, see the Glossary.

Limitations of the Data

The relatively small sizes of the American Indian/Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander populations pose many measurement difficulties when conducting statistical analysis. Even in larger surveys, the numbers of American Indians/Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians/ Pacific Islanders included in a sample are often small. Researchers studying data on these two populations often face small sample sizes that reduce the reliability of results. Survey data for American Indians/Alaska Natives often have somewhat higher standard errors than data for other racial/ethnic groups. Due to large standard errors, differences that seem substantial are often not statistically significant and, therefore, not cited in the text.

Data on American Indians/Alaska Natives are often subject to inaccuracies that can result from respondents self-identifying their race/ethnicity. Research on the collection of race/ethnicity data suggests that the categorization of American Indian and Alaska Native is the least stable self-identification (U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS] 1995). The racial/ ethnic categories presented to a respondent, and the way in which the question is asked, can influence the response, especially for individuals who consider themselves of mixed race or ethnicity. These data limitations should be kept in mind when reading this report.

As mentioned above, Asians and Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders are combined into one category in indicators for which the data were not collected separately for the two groups. The combined category can sometimes mask significant differences between subgroups. For example, prior to 2011, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) collected data that did not allow for separate reporting of estimates for Asians and Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders. Information from the Digest of Education Statistics, 2011 (table 21), based on the Census Bureau Current Population Reports, indicates that 96 percent of all Asian/Pacific Islander 5- to 24-year-olds are Asian. This combined category for Asians/Pacific Islanders is more representative of Asians than Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders.

Symbols

In accordance with the NCES Statistical Standards, many tables in this volume use a series of symbols to alert the reader to special statistical notes. These symbols, and their meanings, are as follows:
— Not available.
† Not applicable.
# Rounds to zero.
! Interpret data with caution. The coefficient of variation (CV) for this estimate is between 30 and 50 percent.
‡ Reporting standards not met. Either there are too few cases for a reliable estimate or the coefficient of variation (CV) for this estimate is 50 percent or greater.
* p < .05 Significance level.

1 Such bias was found by a National Center for Health Statistics study that examined race/ethnicity responses to the 2000 Census. This study found, for example, that as the percentage of multiple-race respondents in a county increased, the likelihood of respondents stating Black as their primary race increased among Black/White respondents but decreased among American Indian or Alaska Native/Black respondents. See Parker, J. et al. (2004). Bridging Between Two Standards for Collecting Information on Race and Ethnicity: An Application to Census 2000 and Vital Rates. Public Health Reports, 119(2): 192–205. Available through http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1497618.

For those who are interested in education, this report is a goldmine.

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Oregon school finds success with the ‘Fit to Live and Learn’ physical education program

22 May

 

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.There is an epidemic of childhood obesity and obesity is often prevalent among poor children. The American Heart Associationhas some great information about Physical Activity and Children http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/Physical-Activity-and-Children_UCM_304053_Article.jsp#.TummU1bfW-c

 

An Oregon school has had success with a physical education program called “Fit to Live and Learn” which is based on the book the book “Spark” by Dr. John J. Ratey.

 

Portland Public School News reported about the success Benson school has had with the “Fit to Live and Learn” program in the article, New Benson PE/Health curriculum is fat-burning success:

 

 

Benson teachers have redesigned their PE/Health curriculum with pound-shedding and academic-performance-enhancing results for students.

 

PE/Health teachers Katie Meyer and Linda McLellan began talking last year about re-designing their curriculum. After reading the book “Spark” by Dr. John J. Ratey, they decided to blend PE and Health into one course taught daily for a block period. Fit to Live and Learn was born.

 

The book presents a strong argument for the connection between brain function and physical activity. Benson’s Fit to Live & Learn program provides physical activity for freshmen everyday as well as lessons on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Students set physical and academic goals and track their progress.

 

Benson has a full time Health Corps staff member, Amy Barras, who has also been instrumental in the design of the program and has assisted in forging community partnerships and writing grants. Nike has contributed $20,000 and a Nike fuel band for every freshman to use the second semester to track their exercise. Approximately 30 staff members are also participating in the fuel band activity.

 

Decisive results

 

The results in the first three months of the program have been compelling:

 

  • 240 freshmen lost a total of 868 pounds – 3.6 pounds per student on average – with one student losing 39 pounds.

  • Endurance has improved with 300 total minutes cut from the mile run time, an average improvement of 1.3 minutes per student.

 

In addition, compared to last year’s freshmen, there is preliminary data that shows an increase in the number of students who successfully earned credit the first semester and a decrease in freshman referrals for disciplinary reasons compared to last year.

 

“Health Corps is very interested in the design of the program and will potentially use it as a model for other high schools,” said Principal Carol Campbell. “The teachers are using the data as part of their professional development this year in the form of action research. Congratulations to Katie Meyer, Linda McLellan and Amy Barras for their collaboration and hard work, thanks to Nike for being such a great partner and way to go Benson freshmen!”

 

Benson students “weigh in” on experience:

 

“It helps me stay fit and also teaches me that if I don’t exercise in the future, a lot of health issues could come up.”

“I have become very responsible since I started this class.”

“I love the fact that I have good sleep, I feel stronger and it releases my stress….”

“It really does help my mental strength and endurance. Even if I really hate exercising sometimes, I get through it and improve.”

“I actually want to exercise now.”

“Because of this class, my work ethic, my attitude and how careful I am about my health has changed.”

 

See the class featured on KGW Feb. 25. http://www.pps.k12.or.us/news/8381.htm

 

Here is information about the physical education program on which the Benson program is based,Exercise before and fitness activities interspersed with lectures lead to a state of heightened awareness and improved academic performance:

 

Discover how Sparking Life can help your students achieve their maximum potential

 

While Naperville’s model of scheduling PE before academic classes (Math, Science, English) and achieving robust levels of exercise has increased focus and boosted cognitive abilities for those students, other programs have found success by incorporating movement during lessons or frequent breaks.

 

What model is right for your school?

 

Consider the outlines below and then call us at Sparking Life: We’ll help you develop programs tailored to the needs of your school and your students. Join our fitness movement by calling 857-221-1839 or click athornton@sparkinglife.org.

 

1) Naperville P.E. Model

 

  • Mr. Phil Lawler pioneered this model at Naperville, IL

  • Moves P.E. class away from a “sports-driven” model to an “individual student fitness” model

  • Skill development no longer the primary goal of P.E.; rather, focus shifts to facilitating each student in raising heart rate at his/her own individual ideal pace

  • Elements of student autonomy in both the selection of daily activities and the maximum heart rate achieved (duration and intensity)

  • • Primary focus in P.E. class involves high-intensity interval training two days per week, and motor development and recreation/play the other three days

  • Use of heart rate monitors by every student to enable and ensure participation at each individual’s personal optimum peak activity level

  • Use of heart monitors by students to assign grades for P.E. class (i.e., student needs to raise heart rate to a zone between 145–185 bpm for twenty minutes to receive an A grade for that day – based on individual student heart rate target levels)

  • Use of heart monitors by P.E. teacher to direct individual exercise programs and for overall class evaluation

  • By scheduling P.E. before academic classes (Math, Science, English) and achieving robust levels of exercise, program increased focus and boosted cognitive abilities (specifically in the hour immediately following P.E.)

  • Represents an excellent first step along an evolution that fully incorporates exercise’s benefits throughout the school day

 

      Subsequent adaptation at Naperville: Zero Hour P.E. Model

 

  • Students voluntarily participate in high intensity exercise BEFORE the school day begins

  • Model initiated for lower-performing students in order to create optimal brain chemistry BEFORE school starts

  • P.E. Teacher coordinates activities and exercises for students, performed on their own time with no grades attached

  • Grew out of awareness that P.E. before the toughest classes of the day was as useful as Naperville’s New P.E.

  • Guidance counselors suggest to students that they should schedule P.E. before toughest classes

  • School administration had known about the academic power post exercise

  • Not just for lagging/poor but also high achieving student

 

Naperville’s latest exercise innovation Learning: Readiness P.E. Model (L.R.P.E.)

 

  • Classroom for reading class, as well as its curriculum and class rules, designed to allow students to choose the physical manner of their daily participation in class (i.e., sitting at a conventional desk, standing, balancing on a ‘bo-so’ ball, ‘kick-boards’, balancing on an exercise ball, or riding a stationary bike either slow or fast)

  • Voluntary program that targets students in grades nine and ten who are underperforming in reading

  • New P.E. scheduled immediately prior to an L.R.P.E. reading class

  • Optimum heart rate zone raised to between 160–190

  • Hybrid of the Saskatoon Model and the Naperville P.E. model in combination with advanced teaching techniques that encourage movement during classroom content instruction

 

2) Saskatoon “In-Class” P.E. Model

 

  • Model adopted in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan school system

  • During teacher instruction, students have ability to choose to sit, stand, walk, run, or cycle while listening and doing their work

  • Allows use of treadmills and stationary cardiovascular equipment within the classroom during instruction time

  • Incorporates weight training two days per week

 

3) Finnish P.E. Model

 

  • Allows students and teachers time to exercise or play between every class for twenty minutes, with encouragement and support

  • Enables exercise’s benefits on the brain to be sustained throughout the school day

 

4) Proposed Concept P.E. Model

 

  • Promote physical fitness as a central and underlying school theme

  • Co-curricular learning involving interdisciplinary synergy of P.E., science, and mathematics departments

  • Re-design curriculum to maximize benefits of physical activity on brain function and learning throughout the school day, encouraging genuine school-wide subscription and universal participation

  • P.E. focuses on principles of personal physical fitness and its impact on cognition and well-being, as well as student mastery of personal activity data collection (electronic or manual heart rate diagnoses)

  • Science class touches on Krebs cycle, brain composition, and cardiovascular components

  • Mathematics class curriculum includes understanding, review, and analysis of empirical evidence, tables, equations, and statistics

  • Increasing heart rate does not have to be an expensive proposition, funding demands can be minimal; while heart rate monitors are seen as beneficial and desirable, they’re certainly not essential

 

Re-design curriculum to maximize benefits of physical activity on brain function and learning throughout the school day, encouraging genuine school-wide subscription and universal participation  

http://sparkinglife.org/page/successful-school-fitness-models 

http://www.sparkinglife.org/

 

Physically fit children are not only healthier, but are better able to perform in school.

 

Related:

 

Louisiana study: Fit children score higher on standardized tests    https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/louisiana-study-fit-children-score-higher-on-standardized-tests/

 

School dinner programs: Trying to reduce the number of hungry children https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/school-dinner-programs-trying-to-reduce-the-number-of-hungry-children/

 

Children, body image, bullying, and eating disorders                https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/children-body-image-bullying-and-eating-disorders/

 

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/

 

Seattle Research Institute study about outside play https://drwilda.wordpress.com/tag/childrens-physical-activity/

 

 

Where information leads to Hope. ©                               Dr. Wilda.com

 

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Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

 

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House politics attempt to intervene in school lunch program

21 May

Moi wrote about the school lunch program in School dinner programs: Trying to reduce the number of hungry children:

There are some very good reasons why meals are provided at schools. Education Bug has a history of the school lunch program

President Harry S. Truman began the national school lunch program in 1946 as a measure of national security. He did so after reading a study that revealed many young men had been rejected from the World War II draft due to medical conditions caused by childhood malnutrition. Since that time more than 180 million lunches have been served to American children who attend either a public school or a non-profit private school.

In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson extended the program by offering breakfast to school children. It began as a two years pilot program for children in rural areas and those living in poorer neighborhoods. It was believed that these children would have to skip breakfast in order to catch the bus for the long ride to school. There were also concerns that the poorer families could not always afford to feed their children breakfast. Johnson believed, like many of us today, that children would do better in school if they had a good breakfast to start their day. The pilot was such a success that it was decided the program should continue. By 1975, breakfast was being offered to all children in public or non-profit private school. This change was made because educators felt that more children were skipping breakfast due to both parent being in the workforce.

In 1968, a summer meals program was offered to low income children. Breakfast, lunch and afternoon snacks are still available to students each year, during the summer break. Any child in need can apply for the program at the end of the school year. Parents that are interested in the summer meals program should contact their local school administration.

Since its inception, the school lunch/meals programs have become available in more than 98,800 schools….

Hungry children have more difficulty in focusing and paying attention, their ability to learn is impacted. President Truman saw feeding hungry children as a key part of the national defense. https://drwilda.com/2012/01/28/school-dinner-programs-trying-to-reduce-the-number-of-hungry-children/

Nirvi Shah reports in the Education Week article, U.S. House Offers Not-So-Fresh Version of Fruit and Vegetable Program:

For at least the second time, a U.S. House of Representatives committee is offering a version of the massive farm bill that would dramatically change a snack program that is intended to develop a taste for fresh produce in children from low-income families.

In the version of the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act marked up by the House Agriculture Committee this week, the word “fresh” is stricken from language about the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program.

The program, created 11 years ago, provides snack-sized servings of fresh fruits and vegetables to children in high-poverty schools, children who are the least likely to be exposed to these items outside of school. (Fresh produce can cost far more than dried, canned, or frozen versions, and more than fried, salty, and sugary snacks.) The theory is that, by introducing the items to children, they will develop a taste for them, making them lifelong consumers of items like kale, carrots, and cantaloupe.

One recent study showed that kids at schools with the program actually do eat more fruits and vegetables.

“This is targeted at children most likely not to have access to fresh items,” said Kristy Anderson, the government relations manager for the American Heart Association. Her organization supports serving children other forms of fruits and vegetables—canned, frozen, and dried—at school meals, but it wants to see the integrity of this program remain intact.

“This could open doors to a whole cadre of things that aren’t even fruits and vegetables,” Anderson told me.

She said it would only take the creativity of food engineers to change the program completely. Sugary fruit snacks, high-calorie trail mix, and even fruit-based candy could end up in the program if it’s changed. “I’m sure somebody out there could figure that out.”

Why change the program? It’s worth about $150 million per year—a lot of money over the five-year life span of the farm bill—and could open up a new market for frozen, canned, and dried fruit and vegetable companies, and possibly others in the food industry.

I talked to some schools about the possibility of this change when it came up last year, and they didn’t like it.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rulesforengagement/2013/05/us_house_serves_up_not-so-fresh_fruit_vegetable_program.html

Moi wrote about the politics of the school lunch program in The government that money buys: School lunch cave in by Congress:

There is the saying that “we have the best government that money could buy. We don’t. We have the government that money interests will allow. Moi recently discussed the political wrangling about school lunches in the post, School lunches: The political hot potato https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/school-lunches-the-political-hot-potato/ The World Hunger Education Service describes why nutritious school food is so important in the article, Hunger in America: 2011 United States Hunger and Poverty Facts:

Hunger

Fifty-five percent of  food-insecure households participated in one or more of the three largest Federal food and nutrition assistance programs ( USDA 2008, p. iv.) The programs are the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the new name for the food stamp program (Wikipedia 2010), the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) (Wikipedia 2010), and the National School Lunch Program (Wikipedia 2010).

SNAP/Food stamps  The Food Stamp Program, the nation’s most important anti-hunger program, helps roughly 40 million low-income Americans to afford a nutritionally adequate diet. More than 75 percent of all food stamp participants are in families with children; nearly one-third of participants are elderly people or people with disabilities.  Unlike most means-tested benefit programs, which are restricted to particular categories of low-income individuals, the Food Stamp Program is broadly available to almost all households with low incomes. Under federal rules, to qualify for food stamps, a household must meet three criteria (some states have raised these limits)….

National School Lunch Program The National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted meal program that provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to children from low income families, reaching 30.5 million children in 2008.  Children from families with incomes at or below 130 percent of the poverty level are eligible for free meals. Those with incomes between 130 percent and 185 percent of the poverty level are eligible for reduced-price meals, for which students can be charged no more than 40 cents. (For the period July 1, 2009, through June 30, 2010, 130 percent of the poverty level is $28,665 for a family of four; 185 percent is $40,793.) Children from families with incomes over 185 percent of poverty pay a full price, though their meals are still subsidized to some extent by the program. Program cost was $9.3 billion in 2008. (USDASchool Lunch Program)

http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/us_hunger_facts.htm

Ron Nixon reports on the weasels in Congress who backed down on new rules which would provide more nutritious meals for school children. Many of these children rely on school breakfasts and/or lunches as their primary source of nutrition for the day. In the New York Times article, Congress Blocks New Rules on School Lunches, Nixon reports:

A slice of pizza still counts as a vegetable.

In a victory for the makers of frozen pizzas, tomato paste and French fries, Congress on Monday blocked rules proposed by the Agriculture Department that would have overhauled the nation’s school lunch program.

The proposed changes — the first in 15 years to the $11 billion school lunch program — were meant to reduce childhood obesity by adding more fruits and green vegetables to lunch menus, Agriculture Department officials said. 

The rules, proposed last January, would have cut the amount of potatoes served and would have changed the way schools received credit for serving vegetables by continuing to count tomato paste on a slice of pizza only if more than a quarter-cup of it was used. The rules would have also halved the amount of sodium in school meals over the next 10 years.

But late Monday, lawmakers drafting a House and Senate compromise for the agriculture spending bill blocked the department from using money to carry out any of the proposed rules.

In a statement, the Agriculture Department expressed its disappointment with the decision.

“While it is unfortunate that some in Congress chose to bow to special interests, U.S.D.A. remains committed to practical, science-based standards for school meals that improve the health of our children,” the department said in the statement.

Food companies including ConAgra, Coca-Cola, Del Monte Foods and makers of frozen pizza like Schwan argued that the proposed rules would raise the cost of meals and require food that many children would throw away.

The companies called the Congressional response reasonable, adding that the Agriculture Department went too far in trying to improve nutrition in school lunches.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/us/politics/congress-blocks-new-rules-on-school-lunches.html?hpw

Unfortunately, the lobbyists won this battle against the interests of children.

For an incisive analysis of the school lunch lobby read  The School Lunch Lobby  by Ron Haskins  which was published in Education Next http://educationnext.org/the-school-lunch-lobby/

https://drwilda.com/2011/11/16/the-government-that-money-buys-school-lunch-cave-in-by-congress/

Related:

School dinner programs: Trying to reduce the number of hungry children                                                      https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/school-dinner-programs-trying-to-reduce-the-number-of-hungry-children/

School lunches: The political hot potato                       https://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/school-lunches-the-political-hot-potato/

The government that money buys: School lunch cave in by Congresshttps://drwilda.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/the-government-that-money-buys-school-lunch-cave-in-by-congress/

Do kids get enough time to eat lunch?                                     https://drwilda.com/2012/08/28/do-kids-get-enough-time-to-eat-lunch/

Where information leads to Hope. ©                               Dr. Wilda.com

Dr. Wilda says this about that

Blogs by Dr. Wilda:

COMMENTS FROM AN OLD FART©                      http://drwildaoldfart.wordpress.com/

Dr. Wilda Reviews ©                                             http://drwildareviews.wordpress.com/

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