In the last 10 years of his 94-year life, Friedman and his wife, Rose, dedicated themselves to school choice. They viewed school choice as a companion to economic freedom. Through the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation they enthusiastically promoted school choice as a means of liberating the poor from failing government schools. Failing schools produced failing students, they reasoned, depriving children of the tools they would need to attain economic independence. Friedman first proposed school vouchers in 1955, but it wasn’t until 1996 that he and Rose started their foundation to take advantage of the growing interest in school choice…

The Friedman Foundation’s Web site answers virtually every objection to school choice. First, it really is a choice. Universal vouchers would allow all parents to direct funds set aside by the government for education to the school they believe will best serve their child, whether the school is public or private, religious or secular. This separates the government operation of schools from the government financing of them.

Source: Townhall.com
http://tinyurl.com/2sqo3z

Parents’ obsession with their children’s self-esteem plus profit-driven diagnoses create a dangerous prescription…

I’ve come to this opinion after evaluating and treating over 2,500 children for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, the condition that has become the explanation for virtually all children’s underperformance and misbehavior at school…

These parents weren’t after perfect “trophy” children. They loved their kids but were worried about them. It occurred to me that it was their worry over their children’s feelings, especially their self-image and self-esteem, that was driving this epidemic of psychiatric drug use…

Still, we want our children to feel good, right? But what if that means taking them to the doctor, getting a diagnosis that may have lifelong implications and taking a medication potentially for years? Does that make sense? Is it the best thing for our children? …

Our discipline practices have changed. We put forth much more effort in talking to our kids about bad behavior before we take action (a style poorly suited for the hyperactive mind).

Money also plays an important role. Insurance companies reward doctors more for brief “med checks” than longer talking sessions. The doctors make more money by prescribing and the drug companies make money, too..

Also, there are a number of simple actions we could take to help our kids that don’t involve using a psychiatric medicine at all…

Father’s involvement is critical. He often has a different perspective than the mom (he generally sees less of a problem because he’s around less and also stereotypically is more effective with discipline). His participation with any behavior plan (or medication treatment for that matter) makes its success far more likely than without him.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/19/INGT9MCJHF1.DTL

Woodward’s decision was based on research that suggests the brains of girls and boys develop differently. Girls tend to learn better in environments that are more quiet and orderly. Boys tend to learn better when they’re freer to roam about. Test results from the first year of Woodward’s experiment showed significant gains for pupils in the single-gender classes. In some grades, those pupils continue to outperform their counterparts in traditional classrooms…

The key here is choice. Parents can choose which model works best for their child. Research shows that some children may benefit from single-gender education in part because of the differences in brain development between boys and girls. For example, the area of the brain that governs fine motor skills develops earlier in girls. The part of the brain that governs spatial relationships develops earlier in boys.

A teaching strategy that takes these differences into account can help some children learn better. For instance, girls in all-girl classes are more likely to enroll and excel in science and math courses.

Source: Chicago Tribune
http://tinyurl.com/yul6jo

“There are definitely some things we are talking about that we don’t want (parents) to see. I’ve used POS (parent over shoulder).” No surprise there. We, too, actively hid what we could from our parents, using pointed slang and signals only friends understood. Our children are following in our footsteps…

“The danger lies in a different place from what we tried to hide from our parents,” she says. “When we were doing this, we weren’t on the Internet. (The) Internet has exposed us to all kinds of people all over the world.” The potential exposure of personal information and the associated risks that come with such exposure make it more important than before to understand what the kids are saying to their friends, even if they don’t want us to…

”Like anything in parenting, we need to be involved in kids’ lives now, because so much revolves around texting, IM-ing, social networking. They want it that way. And you won’t be able to see or track, but you can be involved…

OnGuardOnline.gov, a federal site that offers tips to help protect against Internet fraud, identity theft, phishing, spam scams and sexual predators, says: “If (your kids) use social networking sites, tell them why it’s important to keep information like their name, Social Security number, address, phone number and family financial information — like bank or credit card account numbers — to themselves. Remind them that they should not share that information about other people in their family or about their friends, either.”

Source: News & Observer
http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/511327.html

“Kids who have good, positive relationships with their dads do better in school, have more success in school, and have lower rates of teen pregnancy and drug use,” said Ben Ambrosino, who coordinates the fatherhood program at Mountain Area Child and Family Center in Asheville. “There’s a lot of research on the different ways men parent than females, and children benefit from that.” …

“A lot of fathers today grew up without fathers themselves,” Ambrosino said. “There aren’t a lot of positive images of fathers in the media. If there is a dad on a TV show, he’s usually the Homer Simpson-type bumbling idiot. There aren’t a lot of portrayals of a competent, involved dad.”

While girls miss out when dads aren’t involved in their lives, boys are affected more…

Society may contribute to the alienation of fathers by socialization. “Society prepares women to be moms at an early age by role-playing with dolls, while boys are discouraged from any type of nurturing play, Ambrosino said. “A lot of the ways you learn to be a parent just aren’t available for men.”

Source: Citizen-Times
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200661115015

Regular family rituals can protect the health and emotional wellbeing of children; and their parents.

“Routines provide predictability and order, which make it easier to stick with different regimens that affect health, such as eating, sleeping and exercise,” Fiese says. “And the strong emotional bonds forged during rituals lead to a sense of belonging.” …

Fiese’s review of 50 years of research, published in the Journal of Family Psychology, found that in families with predictable routines, children slept better, had fewer respiratory illnesses and better overall health, and performed better at primary school. Parents also felt more satisfied and competent in their parenting role…

“Families that sit around a table and eat meals together tend to have a better nutritional intake, communicate more and feel more connected,” Collins says…

It’s not only children who thrive on routine. Parents do, too. “Routines make life simpler,” Collins says. “They save time and energy, reducing the number of times a parent has to say ‘no’ to children, to instruct them or agonise over deciding what to do next.”

Fiese’s research found that while routines had benefits in terms of physical wellbeing, rituals (such as birthdays, Christmas or special dinners) had a greater effect on emotional health. Teenagers in families with strong rituals reported a well-developed sense of self, couples reported happier marriages and family members reported a stronger sense of belonging and group membership.

Source: The Age
http://tinyurl.com/286yum

Researchers have previously noted that many of the advantages children receive from preschool experiences begin to wane as they continue through school. A study by James Heckman, a Nobel-Prize winning economist shows for the first time that systematic interventions throughout childhood and adolescence could sustain the early gains and build on them…

Because programs for young people now focus on one period in a child’s life, such as preschool, or high-school, little research has been done studying a group of students receiving continued interventions systematically…

Heckman and Cunha’s work shows that the benefits of increased investments in young people come from improving both cognitive and noncognitive skills. Although preschool can have an impact on improving cognitive skills, interventions later on can improve noncognitive skills such as perseverance and self-control, they wrote.

Source: Newswise
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/525229/

Some of the same qualities that have made Hong Kong’s economy one of the top performers in the world also have produced a world-class education system. America would be well-served to take an open-minded look at Hong Kong’s approach…

Education reform ideas that are the subject of bitter division in the U.S. are not only considered noncontroversial in Hong Kong, they’re credited with producing one of the world’s most successful school systems — a system whose students consistently outperform American students…

So what is Hong Kong’s formula for creating top-performing schools? Basically, the same factors that help produce winning businesses: choice and competition…

Competitive environment. Since schools must compete for students in order to receive the financing that follows the students, they have an incentive to perform at the highest possible level. In Hong Kong, students are consumers, and they and their parents can vote with their feet…

Better use of resources. Most urban school systems in the U.S. have layer upon layer of bureaucracy: a superintendent, numerous deputy superintendents, special offices for “special education,” lawyers to negotiate with the teacher unions, centralized purchasing, facilities and maintenance offices, and on and on. Hong Kong’s system of autonomous schools eliminates most of this, freeing up more resources for teaching. As a result, the student-teacher ratio in Hong Kong’s primary schools is 18.5 to 1.

Strong curriculum. While apologists for the U.S. education system attribute the success of many Asian children to cultural factors, that’s only a part of the story. What the children are expected to learn is far more important…

Hong Kong’s education system is now producing class after class of graduates well-positioned for the needs of the future global economy. They are multilingual, diligent, disciplined, worldly, excel in the basics, and have a realistic sense of competition on a global scale.

Source: HispanicBusiness.com
http://tinyurl.com/ywoycv

The changes are being driven by students’ lagging performance on international tests and mathematicians’ warnings that more than a decade of so-called reform math — critics call it fuzzy math — has crippled students with its de-emphasizing of basic drills and memorization in favor of allowing children to find their own ways to solve problems…

It was a report from this same group in 1989 that influenced a generation of teachers to let children explore their own solutions to problems, write and draw pictures about math, and use tools like the calculator at the same time they learn algorithms.
But this fall, the group changed course, recommending a tighter focus on basic math skills and an end to “mile wide, inch deep” state standards that force schools to teach dozens of math topics in each grade. In fourth grade, for example, the report recommends that the curriculum should center on the “quick recall” of multiplication and division, the area of two-dimensional shapes and an understanding of decimals…

The frenzy has been prompted in part by the growing awareness that, at a time of increasing globalization, the math skills of children in the United States simply do not measure up: American eighth-graders lag far behind those from Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and elsewhere on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, an international test…

The battle here has left many parents frustrated, confused and not sure if they should trust their children’s schools to give them the skills they need. Many have already voted with their feet, enrolling their children in math tutoring…

Kumon, which has a global clientele of more than four million children in 43 countries, focuses on drilling children on basics. Students work their way through hundreds of assignments that move in incremental steps from tracing numerals all the way through differential calculus.

Source: New York Times
http://tinyurl.com/25cyop

The harder they work now, the more they can learn later

Education implies change, yet I think most adults assume that today’s classrooms operate in much the same way they did when we were in school. Nothing could be further from the truth…

Through the efforts of researchers from the Institute for Learning at the University of Pittsburgh, it has now become clear that the amount of effort put forth by an individual can increase their IQ. In other words, the actual process of rigorous thinking and learning not only makes us smarter, but it also stretches our ability to learn more.

The implications of this startling research for today’s educators, as well as for parents, is that we must start asking and, indeed, expecting more from our children. For if we accept mediocre performance, we will be, in effect, limiting their long-range potential to learn more and to experience meaningful success…

Source: Dallas Morning News
http://tinyurl.com/2aera6