CAROL’S SUMMARY:

Below is Education Week’s 14th edition of Quality Counts with analysis from the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center on state education policies. Each state is graded on four policy and performance categories: the Chance-for-Success Index; the teaching profession; standards, assessments, and accountability; and school finance. Here is a summary of the major findings and how LifeBound’s programs and materials can help the U.S.’s education system achieve a 4.0:

1) The Chance-for-Success Index – Provides insight on the role education plays in promoting successful outcomes in each of the following stages of a person’s life: “the early-childhood years, participation and performance in formal K-12 education, and adult educational attainment and workforce outcomes.” The states collectively earned a C-plus with Massachusetts earning the only A and Mississippi, Nevada, and New Mexico receiving D-pluses. LifeBound can help with the “participation and performance in K-12” stage by increasing performance, giving students motivation to participate, and giving students the skills they need to enhance their future education and career goals.

2) The Teaching Profession – Focuses on three critical aspects of state teacher policy: “accountability for quality; incentives and allocation; and efforts to build and support the capacity of the teaching workforce.” The states collectively earned a C with South Carolina earning the only A and Alaska and Oregon both receiving an F. LifeBound offers training programs that help teachers become more effective through coaching skills and powerful question asking techniques. Our curriculum is also a turnkey option to help teachers augment traditional classroom content with key life skills.

3) Standards, Assessments, and Accountability – When examining these policies, the states collectively earn a B with eleven states awarded A’s (West Virginia receiving a near-perfect score) and Montana and Nebraska receiving D’s. With the national movement towards educational standards, it is important to note that each of LifeBound’s high school books include 21st Century skills and that all of LifeBound’s books correspond with the American School Counselor Association’s guidelines. Both skill sets prepare students for school, career and life success in tomorrow’s global marketplace.

4) School Finance – State spending pattern are graded by evaluating “educational expenditures against some relevant criterion or benchmark, such as regional differences in costs, the national average for per-pupil expenditures, or the total size of a state’s budget.” The states collectively earned a C with Wyoming awarded the highest grade, an A-minus, and Idaho, Mississippi, Nevada, Tennessee, and Utah received D. Schools should look at their spending as an investment: what “ripple effects” will an expenditure have on teacher quality, student success and potential for future school funding? With LifeBound, we conduct pre- and post-assessments to help schools measure the success of our programs in concrete ways. Our books are substantially discounted compared to our competition because we believe in our mission of helping students develop academic, emotional and social success. If the purchase of one set of books, curriculum and training can have substantial future effects on all areas of a school’s effectiveness it is a smart expenditure.

For more information on LifeBound visit www.lifebound.com or email contact@lifebound.com.

ARTICLE:

Education Week
January 14, 2010
State of the States: Holding All States to High Standards
Fifty-State Report Card Finds Progress, Challenges
By Amy M. Hightower

The 14th edition of Education Week’s Quality Counts continues the report’s tradition of tracking key education indicators and grading the states on their policy efforts and outcomes. This edition features new analysis from the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center on state policies related to the teaching profession as well as standards, assessments, and accountability. It also highlights the state of the states in two performance-focused areas: the Chance-for-Success Index and school finance.

This year’s special focus on state efforts to develop common standards and assessments, featured elsewhere in the report, also draws on original data and analysis from the research center.

In the print edition of Quality Counts 2010, readers will find separate state grades for each of the four policy and performance categories updated for this year’s report: the Chance-for-Success Index; the teaching profession; standards, assessments, and accountability; and school finance.

The 88 indicators on which these grades are based were drawn primarily from original survey data and analysis by the EPE Research Center, and supplemented by information from a number of outside organizations. Summative state grades that incorporate additional indicator categories that were not updated this year appear online.

To view this entire article visit www.edweek.org

Dr. Jean Twenge, a San Diego State University psychology professor, announced this week that five times as many high school and college students are experiencing anxiety and other mental health issues as youth of the same age did who were studied in the Great Depression era. Researchers at five universities collected and analyzed 77,576 responses from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or MMPI. The specific results are scheduled to be released later this year in the Clinical Psychology Review.

According to the Associated Press news release below: “Overall, an average of five times as many students in 2007 surpassed thresholds in one or more mental health categories, compared with those who did so in 1938. A few individual categories increased at an even greater rate — with six times as many scoring high in two areas”:

• “hypomania,” a measure of anxiety and unrealistic optimism (from 5 percent of students in 1938 to 31 percent in 2007); and
•depression (from 1 percent to 6 percent).”

Twenge suggests that the above data may not even be a true barometer of students’ emotional well-being since some participants take antidepressants and anti-psychotic drugs which curtail the very symptoms the survey questions them about. Twenge and other experts believe American youth culture—with its emphasis on external attributes such as appearance and status—“has contributed to the uptick in mental health issues” and that “well-meaning overprotective parents have left their children with few real-world coping skills, whether that means doing their own budget or confronting professors on their own.”

Such data underscores the need for student success programs that help youth develop effective coping skills to anxiety and stress. LifeBound’s People Smarts for Teenagers is specifically designed to help teens become emotionally intelligent by developing skills like self-awareness and empathy. We also have a parenting book and offer parenting classes on coaching skills so that parents keep the lines of communication open with their teens, which proves crucial to a young person’s sense of security and well-being.

• How can schools more effectively teach emotional intelligence, which is every bit as crucial for school, career and life success as academics?
• How can educators create a shift in youth culture that promotes the skills that will help students develop their gifts and talents and succeed in the global marketplace?
• How can we better train counselors and students as peer leaders to address some of the common issues students grapple with during their adolescent years?

ARTICLE:

Associated Press
Study: Youth now have more mental health issues
By MARTHA IRVINE, AP National Writer Martha Irvine,
Mon Jan 11, 8:14 am ET

CHICAGO – A new study has found that five times as many high school and college students are dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues as youth of the same age who were studied in the Great Depression era.

The findings, culled from responses to a popular psychological questionnaire used as far back as 1938, confirm what counselors on campuses nationwide have long suspected as more students struggle with the stresses of school and life in general.

“It’s another piece of the puzzle — that yes, this does seem to be a problem, that there are more young people who report anxiety and depression,” says Jean Twenge, a San Diego State University psychology professor and the study’s lead author. “The next question is: What do we do about it?”

To view this entire article visit www.news.yahoo.com

CAROL’S SUMMARY:

As cited in the New York Times article below, the accelerated pace of advances in technology may be creating what one prominent researcher calls “mini-generation gaps,” reflecting the influence technology has on students during their formative years. Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, says, “People two, three or four years apart are having completely different experiences with technology. College students scratch their heads at what their high school siblings are doing, and they scratch their heads at their younger siblings. It has sped up generational differences.”

These differences are most notable in each generation’s choices of communication and entertainment. According to a survey last year by Pew:

• 68% of teenagers are likely to send instant messages while only 59% of slightly older 20-somethings are.
• 78% of teenagers are likely to play online games while only 50% of slightly older 20-somethings are.

Larry Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, has discovered in his studies another gap within generations. Dr. Rosen’s studies show that 16- to 18-year-olds perform, on average, seven tasks during their free time. People in their 20s typically can handle only six, while those in their 30s handle about five and a half. Some educators predict that multitasking may become a greater issue for these younger generations in a negative way. Vicky Rideout, a vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, states, “I worry that young people won’t be able to summon the capacity to focus and concentrate when they need to.”

What can teachers, schools, districts and parents do to help prepare students to develop critical and creative thinking skills for the 21st century, which demand focus and follow-through?

How can the U.S. education system integrate the younger generations’ affinity for new technologies to create compelling and engaging curricula?

ARTICLE:

The New York Times
January 9, 2010
The Children of Cyberspace: Old Fogies by Their 20s
By BRAD STONE

My 2-year-old daughter surprised me recently with two words: “Daddy’s book.” She was holding my Kindle electronic reader.

Here is a child only beginning to talk, revealing that the seeds of the next generation gap have already been planted. She has identified the Kindle as a substitute for words printed on physical pages. I own the device and am still not completely sold on the idea.

My daughter’s worldview and life will be shaped in very deliberate ways by technologies like the Kindle and the new magical high-tech gadgets coming out this year — Google’s Nexus One phone and Apple’s impending tablet among them. She’ll know nothing other than a world with digital books, Skype video chats with faraway relatives, and toddler-friendly video games on the iPhone. She’ll see the world a lot differently from her parents.

But these are also technology tools that children even 10 years older did not grow up with, and I’ve begun to think that my daughter’s generation will also be utterly unlike those that preceded it.

To view this entire article visit www.nytimes.com

CAROL’S SUMMARY:

In today’s ASCD podcast titled, “Meeting Students Where They Are: Preparing Them for What’s Next,” author Eric Jensen and the new director of ASCD’s Healthy School Communities Initiative, Sean Slade, share their insights on how to change the assumption of many that teachers are simply messengers and that it is up to the student to be interested and master the material. Among their advice and expertise, Jensen and Slade talked about the responsibility of teachers to personalize learning and integrate the whole child in order to affect cognition. Dr. Rita Smilkstein in her book, Born to Learn, cites that all learning is connected to emotion. When someone’s internal motivation is activated, their passion and purpose is tapped. Each student brings their own personality, emotions, learning style and situations at home to the classroom. Positive relationships between students and teachers make learning more meaningful to students and engages everyone in active learning.

LifeBound’s stair-step program for grades 5-12 promotes academic, social and emotional success across disciplines. Our program consists of:

• student books,
• curriculum,
• faculty training and
• data assessments.

Slade states that there is a phenomenal amount of knowledge students today are expected to know in order to graduate high school, to get accepted to college and even to live in society. With so much expected of today’s students, it’s up to teachers, principals, districts and parents to do help as much as possible to ensure academic, career and life success.

To listen to the ASCD podcast visit www.wholechildeducation.org

CAROL’S SUMMARY:

On Wednesday, President Obama revealed a new plan to improve instruction in mathematics and science. The partnership is part of the Obama administration’s “Educate to Innovate” campaign, a program announced in November that seeks to join government agencies, businesses, and universities in efforts to improve math and science education. The $250 million campaign aims to help the nation compete within the global marketplace in key STEM fields by training new math and science teachers and marshalling agencies such as NASA, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Education Department to accomplish this objective. According to the article below in the Washington Post:

“Business and government leaders have sounded alarms over science and math education in recent years as concern has mounted that the United States may be losing the technological edge that fueled its economy in the 20th century. The nation’s universities are still known as world leaders, but the performance of its K-12 schools has come under scrutiny.” An international math test in the year 2007 revealed that:

• U.S. fourth-graders trailed their counterparts in some areas of Europe and Asia.
• U.S. eighth-graders lagged behind those from a handful of Asian powers.
• Similar results were found in science.

In a related article from yesterday’s New York Times, “the leaders of 121 public universities have pledged to increase the total number of science and math teachers they prepare every year to 10,000 by 2015, up from the 7,500 teachers who graduate annually now.” Secretary Arne Duncan says, “If we’re going to be economically competitive and continue to innovate and create jobs, we have to get much, much better in STEM education. There’s a huge sense of urgency.”

How can we do a more effective job of counseling high school students and families about the potential benefits of a career in math or science?

Many college freshmen fail or drop out of the introductory biology, chemistry, and calculus courses that are the foundations of those studies. How can this new campaign support universities and increase tutoring and mentoring to help incoming students better prepare for these fields?

How can we incorporate technology into curricula across the disciplines so that all students become 21st century learners?

ARTICLE:

$250 million initiative for science, math teachers planned
By Nick Anderson
Washington Post
Wednesday, January 6, 2010

President Obama will announce a $250 million public-private effort Wednesday to improve science and mathematics instruction, aiming to help the nation compete in key fields with global economic rivals.

With funding from high-tech businesses, universities and foundations, the initiative seeks to prepare more than 10,000 new math and science schoolteachers over five years and provide on-the-job training for an additional 100,000 in science, technology, engineering and math.

It effectively doubles, to more than $500 million, a philanthropic campaign for STEM education that Obama launched in November. Separately, the government spends about $700 million a year on elementary and secondary education in the STEM fields through agencies such as NASA, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Education Department. But it’s unclear how much federal spending can grow in a time of rising budget deficits.

“There is a recognition we can’t do everything,” said John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “We really need all hands on deck from the private sector and the philanthropic sector because the government can’t foot the whole bill for this.”

To view this entire article visit www.washingtonpost.com

CAROL’S SUMMARY: New Decade of Jobs

Workforce relevance, something deeply missing among college students and graduates compared to other developed nations, is forcing more accountability among colleges and universities, as the article below iterates. Students (and their parents) are increasingly focused on education being relevant to the job market, and the response to that demand is changing higher education. With the high cost of college and the economic lull in the U.S. and around the world, more families are demanding that colleges and universities prepare students to land jobs upon graduation, not just degrees. For example, Thomas College, a liberal arts school in Maine, advertises itself as “Home of the Guaranteed Job!” Students who can’t find work in their fields within six months of graduation can come back to take classes free, or have the college pay their student loans for a year. The shift in attitudes is reflected in a shifting curriculum. Nationally, business has been the most popular major for the last 15 years. Campuses also report a boom in public health fields, and many institutions are building up environmental science and just about anything prefixed with “bio.” Reflecting the new economic and global realities, they are adding or expanding majors in Chinese and Arabic. The University of Michigan has seen a 38 percent increase in students enrolling in Asian language courses since 2002, while French has dropped by 5 percent.

In today’s story from National Public Radio (1/4/10) cited at the link below, producers list 10 occupations that the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects will be the most in demand over the next decade:

1. Registered nurses
2. Home health aids
3. Customer service representatives
4. Food preparation and serving workers
5. Personal and home care aides
6. Retail salespersons
7. Office clerks
8. Accountants
9. Nursing aides, orderlies and attendants
10. Postsecondary teachers

According to the BLS, six of the top seven fastest-growing occupations are low-skill, low-wage jobs. Harvard University labor economist Lawrence Katz says the challenge is to professionalize these jobs by focusing on skills. Better education and/or training leads to higher wages.

I often present at education conferences on college and career success emphasizing a global perspective and a mission to improve low performance in this country at the college level and in K-12. Here are questions prospective students and parents can ask when they are investigating a college, university or vocational training program:

What are your placement rates, internship/apprenticeship opportunities and alumni involvement with current students?

What jobs could this degree lead me to? When somebody asks, “How are you going to use that English degree?” students need to be able to clearly articulate what they are able to do. If they don’t know, employers probably won’t either.

How can individuals and companies improve skills in an affordable and accessible manner?

How can people who start in low wage jobs increase their knowledge and skills to prepare for better, more sustainable future work?

ARTICLE:

Where The Jobs Will Be This Decade
by John Ydstie
January 4, 2010
NPR

This month we begin a new decade with a big economic question: Where are the jobs?

The first decade of this century ended as a disaster for employment. Since the recession began two years ago, the U.S. has lost more than 7 million jobs.

Just to regain the jobs we’ve lost will be a huge challenge, says Harvard University labor economist Lawrence Katz. “We would need well over 300,000 [jobs] a month for four years in a row just to make up what we’ve lost in the last couple of years,” Katz says.

He says there are very few periods in U.S. history when job growth has been that strong.

“So we’re in a very deep hole,” Katz says. “A normal recovery will not get us there for a very long time.”

To view this entire article visit www.npr.org