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OOHH! WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK
OF THE CHILDREN?!
According to a book recently released by First Focus, during the
past five years, children have lost significant ground in the
federal budget. While overall spending on children's issues
increased by about 1.4 percent, in real terms, total federal
non-defense spending grew at nearly 10 times that rate. As a result,
the children's share of the federal non-defense budget declined from
11 percent (in 2004 to 10 percent in 2008. This drop continues a
trend in which the budget share allocated to children has declined
23 percent since 1960. In fact, spending for children's education,
welfare and youth training has been particularly hard hit during the
last half decade, with total spending declining by 9.9, 11.5 and
14.9 percent in each area, respectively. Unfortunately, President
Bush's fiscal year 2009 budget proposal continues this trend. For
example, spending on children's health programs would increase by
2.2 percent, but discretionary spending in this area would drop by
12 percent from 2008 levels. And as many Americans file their tax
extensions, it is good to know that of every dollar the American
taxpayer pays, 42 cents goes to the military, with only 4.4 cents
going toward education, training, and social services costs (link
below).
Also:
http://money.aol.com/tax/where-your-tax-dollars-go?icid=100214839x1200074005x1200003362
THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP WIDENS FASTEST
FOR HIGH ACHIEVERS
New research into the black-white achievement gap suggests that
students who lose the most ground academically in United States
public schools may be the brightest African American children,
reports Debbie Viadero for Education Week. As African American
students move through school, two new studies show that test-score
gaps between them and their better-performing white counterparts
grow fastest among the most able students. The analysis, conducted
by Sean Reardon, a Stanford University professor of sociology and
education, showed that from kindergarten to fifth grade, achievement
gaps grew twice as fast among students who started out performing
above the mean than they did among low-performers. This implies
that, if the gaps continue to grow, "even kids who enter school with
high levels of readiness are going to end up falling below where
they started," said Reardon. The other study, conducted by
economists Steven Rivkin and Eric Hanushek, found that the higher
the initial achievement score, the more scores diverged over time
between African American and white students.
GO FIGURE: A COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP
RESULTS IN REMARKABLE SUCCESS
Hamilton County (Tenn.) is home to one of the nation's most widely
touted school-reform success stories. Beginning in 2001, eight
low-performing elementary schools began to show remarkable
improvement after the Benwood Foundation and the Public Education
Foundation formed a partnership with Hamilton County Schools. At the
outset of what is known as the Benwood Initiative, district
officials reconstituted the faculties of participating schools by
requiring teachers to reapply for their jobs and hiring replacements
for those that didn't make the cut. In addition, community officials
established incentives (free graduate school tuition, mortgage loans
and performance bonuses) to attract new talent. However, most of the
teachers who reapplied for their jobs were hired back and less than
20 of the 300 teachers received bonuses in the first year of the
incentive plan. When investigating the reasons for the startling
successes, Education Sector found that the initiative focused on the
ever more important reform strategy of helping teachers improve
instruction. Education Sector's analysis of "value-added" teacher
effectiveness data suggests that during the course of six years,
existing teachers improved steadily. This made the initiative about
way more than flashy incentives and reconstitution. For more
information on the innovative partnership between a foundation, a
local education fund and a school district that resulted in a true
turnaround, check out the backgrounder on the Benwood Initiative
(link below).
Also:
http://www.pefchattanooga.org/tabid/64/Default.aspx
IF YOU PLAY RIGHT, YOU'LL DEVELOP
RIGHT TOO
A new article from the Alliance for Childhood discusses the benefits
of play, as children really do need to run, jump and allow their
active imaginations to run wild. Decades of research demonstrates
that play is more than just fun and games because it boosts healthy
development across a broad spectrum of critical areas (intellectual,
social, emotional and physical). Yet in spite of this, more and more
children are not engaging in the right sort of play. This doesn't
seem to be the case in Germany, as each weekday, rain or shine, a
group of children, ages three to six, walk into a forest outside
Frankfurt to sing songs, build fires and roll around in the mud. To
relax, they kick back on a giant "sofa" made of tree stumps and
twigs, reports Mike Esterl for the Wall Street Journal (link below). Germany has about 700 "Waldkindergarten," or ‘forest
kindergartens,' in which children spend their days outdoors no
matter the weather or what the calendar says. The schools are a
throwback to the ideas of Friedrich Frobel, who opened the fist
kindergarten more than 150 years ago. Frobel counseled that young
children should play in nature, and be cordoned off from too many
numbers and letters. Academic studies of the impact of these schools
are still in their infancy, but some researchers believe
Waldkindergarten kids exercise their imaginations more and are
better at concentrating and communicating. However other studies
indicate their writing skills are less developed and they are less
adept at distinguishing colors, forms and sizes. Still, even though
they mess around in the muck and the mud, the children appear to be
sick less often.
Also:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120813155330311577.html?mod=hpp_us_personal_journal
FROM ROE TO FINGERLINGS, STUDENTS
LEARN ECOLOGY, MATH AND CHEMISTRY
They arrived in a cooler and looked like tiny orange glass beads
with 350 pairs of eyes, reports Marion Callahan for the Associated
Press. Since the eggs of the striped trout arrived at Nazareth (Pa.)
Area Middle School, the project has drawn the interest of students
and teachers alike. Even the school's technology department became
enthralled and set up a web camera to provide an online feed of the
trouts' activities. The fish, raised from roe to fingerlings,
provide the latest subject of study that allows for a mix of
engaging lessons. When students monitor temperatures, check ammonia
levels and derive formula for feeding, they learn ecology, chemistry
and math simultaneously.
HOW TO KEEP IMMIGRANT CHILDREN IN
SCHOOL AND LEARNING
Canadian schools can do more to help troubled immigrant students by
changing how they teach in regular classrooms, reports Louise Brown
for the Toronto Star. To help these struggling students, teachers
should provide almost twice as much help in English and be trained
in how to work with complex learners. According to a survey of
research, crystal-clear lessons delivered in smaller chunks along
with almost minute-to-minute checks to see if children understand
paired with immediate re-teaching if they do not will help all
children at risk. The proper plan is to go into each class and
reorganize the way every student is taught instead of restructuring
the whole school to satisfy pockets of struggling learners.
PERFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUG USERS ADD
NEW GROUPS TO THEIR RANKS
Most of the 1,400 respondents to an informal, non-scientific, online
survey reported taking drugs to improve their concentration, reports
John Bonifield for CNN. The drug of choice for the responders, the
majority of whom work in biology, physics, medicine or education,
was Ritalin. Stimulants like Ritalin or Adderall are approved to
treat attention-deficient disorder, but scientists say they would
have a noticeable effect on almost anyone. Busy professionals are
not alone, as other surveys have found that one in four college
students have taken prescription stimulants, with or without a
doctor's orders. Meanwhile half the responders to this survey
reported unpleasant side effects (headaches, anxiety and sleeping
troubles), but 69 percent said the boost was worth the risk. In
addition, a third of responders bought their drugs on the Internet,
while the majority got them from a pharmacist, family member or
friend. In all, this makes up "America's uncontrolled experiment in
pharmacology," said Martha Farah, director of the Center for
Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania.
CHECKS & BALANCES PROVIDE ROAD BLOCK TO
UNIVERSAL VOUCHER PLANS
In 1992, Sweden, a social democracy, enacted a universal voucher
program. Paradoxically, the United States, a decentralized liberal
democracy, has only implemented small-scale voucher programs
targeted toward disadvantaged students primarily through local
legislation. A new paper from Michael Klitgaard, a professor at the
University of Southern Denmark, addressed this interesting puzzle.
In his analysis, Klitgaard found that the varying success of the two
shifting governments in introducing voucher systems is highly
correlated with the different institutional rules for political
decision-making existing in each nation. The centralized nature of
the Swedish government, which contains fewer veto points, coupled
with public dissatisfaction with an expanding bureaucracy, led to
the passage of that country's universal voucher program. Meanwhile,
the decentralized institutional structure of U.S. policymaking
stymied the passage of anything resembling a universal voucher plan.
Politically, a separation of powers creates multiple instances for
possible veto points that do not exist in Sweden. Furthermore,
states and localities account for about 90 percent of total
education spending, thereby creating an extra hurdle in the passage
and implementation of universal voucher policies.
MY CARBON FOOTPRINT IS BETTER THAN YOUR
CARBON FOOTPRINT
National Environmental Education Week (April 13 - 19) has become the
largest organized environmental education event in the United
States. The week aims to increase the educational impact of Earth
Day by providing environmentally-themed lessons and activities in
K-12 classrooms, nature centers, zoos, museums and aquariums. In
2007, the combined efforts of nearly 1,450 schools and other
educational institutions impacted over 3.5 million students. In
celebration of the Carbon Footprints theme, the 2008 week has
designed the Zerofootprint carbon calculator for students. The
calculator encourages students, classrooms and entire schools to
measure and manage their own carbon footprints while developing
creative ways to curb their output and slow climate change.
Footprints can be compared with those of students in other schools
and boys versus girls.
BULLYING'S ROOTS TRACED TO PERSONAL
RELATIONSHIPS, HOME
A new study conducted by scientists at York University and Queens
University finds that students who bully tend to have difficulties
with other relationships, such as those with friends and parents.
Consequently, targeting these relationships may offer ideas for
intervention and prevention. The study, which was published in the
March/April edition of Child Development, notes that children who
bullied tended to be aggressive and lacked a moral compass. Bullies
also typically experience a lot of conflict in their relationships
with parents and friends. The findings indicate that bullying is a
relationship problem that requires relationship solutions, i.e., the
key is in a focus on a particular bully's strained interactions with
parents and risky associations with peers.
DYSLEXIA AFFECTS ENGLISH- AND
CHINESE-READING CHILDREN DIFFERENTLY
Dyslexia affects different parts of children's brains, depending on
whether they are raised reading English or Chinese, reports Randolph
Scmid for the Associated Press. This means that therapists may need
to use different methods when assisting dyslexic children from
different cultures. Millions of children are affected by dyslexia,
which is a language-based learning disability that includes problems
with reading, spelling, writing and pronouncing words. The
divergence in children raised in diverse cultures might be due to a
different in reading styles. Reading an alphabetical language, like
English, requires different skills than reading Chinese, as it
relies on sound representation (achieved by using symbols, not
letters, to indicate words). Past research has suggested that the
brain may use different networks of neurons in different languages,
but this is the first research study to suggest a difference in the
structural parts of the brain involved.
A DIFFERENT KIND OF HOME SCHOOLING
The son of poor laborers in rural Mexico, Ocario Gonzalez doesn't
remember his parents helping him with schoolwork. After struggling
for a few years, he left school at 12. Now, at age 42, he is trying
to break the cycle with his daughter, reports Sam Quinones for the
Los Angeles Times. His six-year-old daughter first entered
elementary school ill-prepared because she understood little about
letters, numbers, shapes and colors. She often cried before school,
begging not to go. So Gonzalez and his wife, Maria Arellano,
attended a workshop at the school designed specifically for
immigrant parents. There, kindergarten teachers taught parents
simple ways to help their children and reinforce what they were
learning in class. Gonzalez and Arellano say their daughter is now
excited about what she learns, even going so far as pestering them
to read to her and help her with ABCs. Also, while riding in the
family car, they practice reading billboards and street signs.
THE OVER-SCHEDULING MYTH EXPLAINED
Contrary to popular belief, recent research contradicts the notion
that most or even many youth are over-scheduled and are suffering as
a result. In fact, according to new research from Child Trends, less
than 1 in 10 youths can be described as over-scheduled. Moreover,
only 6 in 10 children and youth participate in organized
out-of-school activities at any given time, even though involvement
in extracurricular activities is linked to positive social,
behavioral and psychological outcomes. A new Child Trends brief
suggests how best to focus not on the few children and youth who are
over-scheduled, but rather on those who do not participate at all.
SHAKESPEARE, ALIVE AND WELL IN ARKANSAS
It had all the atmosphere of a nightclub, with patrons applauding a
soulful delivery of a torch song, reports Tom Parsons for the
Associated Press. Only thing is that the performer was a
13-year-old, and the audience was made up of students cheering
wildly about William Shakespeare. Adeeja Anderson performed her
rendition of Shakespeare's Sonnet 43 by singing it to music of her
own composition. The scene vividly portrayed the fact that the words
of a playwright dead nearly 400 years can still resonate. As
students get over their fear of Shakespeare and Elizabethan English,
they find they can easily relate to his plays -- it remains a
universal truth that youths love drama. So brush up your
Shakespeare.
THE AIR FORCE AND A WEBSITE MAKE
MATH FUN
The Air Force Brain Booster Book is a collection of 52 activities
loosely placed into three categories: puzzles, patterns or curios.
The book focuses on problems that can be explored or solved using
skills learned in grades K-12. Since humans seek to find patterns in
the world, the book offers both students and teachers the chance to
casually explore selected numerical or visual relationships. The
Harvey Mudd College mathematics department has created a site
(link below) with ideas and puzzles designed to change the way
students think about math. It includes things like the math behind
card shuffling, poker, fractals and music, and memorizing the first
few digits in p using sentence mnemonics. The site was designed as a
resource for enriching math courses and nurturing interest and
talent in mathematics.
Also:
http://www.math.hmc.edu/funfacts/
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"World of Children 2008 Founder's Award
for Youth"
World of Children 2008 Founder's Award for Youth recognizes youth
that are making extraordinary contributions to the lives of other
children. Maximum Award: $25,000. Eligibility: Nominees must be
under the age of 21 and have an existing non-profit organization in
good standing that can receive grant funds if awarded. Deadline:
April 30, 2008.
"CAPCO Aerosol Adventure for Grades 4-9"
The CAPCO Aerosol Adventure is a classroom contest that encourages
students and teachers to learn about the Earth's protective upper
ozone layer, Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and the environment by using
the provided activities or their own creative methods. Maximum
Award: $200. Eligibility: teachers in grades four to nine. Deadline:
May 2, 2008.
"2008 Student/Newspaper Partnership"
The Newspaper Association of America Foundation 2008
Student/Newspaper Partnership encourages middle and high schools to
partner with professional newspapers in their communities and seek
funding to start, re-launch or revitalize student newspapers,
whether online or in print. Maximum Award: $5,000. Eligibility:
public and private schools serving grades seven through 12 and
working in partnership with daily or non-daily professional
newspapers. Deadline: May 16, 2008.
"The Philip B. Swain Scholarship"
The Philip B. Swain Scholarship awards $1,000 (which is renewable
for three additional years) to a graduating senior in a Seattle
public school. The student must: be a graduating senior from any
Seattle Public high school; have a 2.50 cumulative GPA; anticipate
enrollment for fall 2008 and be enrolled at least one-half time at
an accredited institution of higher education; maintain a cumulative
GPA of 2.50 or above in his/her chosen institution of higher
education; and demonstrate financial need. Application deadline: May
23, 2008.
"NEA Grants for Learning in the Arts for
Children and Youth"
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Grants for Learning in the
Arts for Children and Youth are given to advance arts education for
children and youth in school-based or community-based settings. The
program supports in-depth, curriculum-based arts education
experiences that occur over an extended period. Projects must
provide participatory learning and engage students with skilled
artists, teachers, and excellent art. Maximum Award: varies.
Eligibility: 501(c)(3) organizations that administer school-based
projects for children and youth between kindergarten and grade 12,
are directly connected to the school curriculum and instructional
program and ensure the application of national or state arts
education standard; or community-based projects for children and
youth between ages five and 18. Deadline: June 9, 2008.
"Grants for Research Pre-K through 3rd Grade"
The Foundation for Child Development announces a small grant for
researchers proposing to use one or more datasets from the PK-3 Data
Resource Center: The First Six Years of Schooling and Beyond. All
funds are to be used over a period from one to two years. Maximum
Award: $50,000. Eligibility: United States citizens, legal permanent
residents or those who have employment authorization from the Bureau
of Citizenship and Immigration Services for the duration of the
grant who have earned a Ph.D. or its equivalent in one of the
behavioral and social sciences or in an allied professional field
(e.g., public policy, public health, education, social work,
nursing, medicine). Deadline: July 15, 2008.
"Five-Day
Math and Science Camp for Teachers"
The Mickelson ExxonMobil 2009 Teachers Academy offers a five-day
program, with camps in New Jersey, Texas and Louisiana, designed to
provide third- through fifth-grade teachers with the knowledge and
skills necessary to motivate students to pursue careers in science
and math. Maximum Award: all expenses paid five-day program in July
2009. Eligibility: third- through fifth-grade teachers from all over
the United States. Deadline: October 31, 2008.
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