“I can’t read.” Imagine the dropped jaws and stunned silence around the office conference table if a co-worker made that admission. Yet no one would blanch if that same co-worker announced, “I can’t do long division.”

While literacy is considered a requisite in most workplaces, basic math skills and science knowledge are considered a specialty, vital to the folks in IT and accounting but not for the rest of the staff. That kind of attitude — found in classrooms, lunchrooms and living rooms across the country — threatens to cripple the United States in global competition.

“There are consequences to a weakening of American independence and leadership in mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering,” warns a recent report to President Bush from the National Mathematics Advisory Panel. “We risk our ability to adapt to change. We risk technological surprise to our economic viability and to the foundations of our country’s security. … Sound education in mathematics across the population is a national interest.”

In the 2007 results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a standardized test given in schools across the country, 30 percent of U.S. eighth-graders scored below the basic level in math. The failure rate was higher in Georgia, where 36 percent scored below basic.

“Whether filling white-collar or blue-collar positions, employers today want workers with pocket-protector skills — creative problem solvers with strong math and science backgrounds,” says U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.

At a meeting earlier this month of the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education, a researcher explained to school leaders from around the state that the problem wasn’t that the U.S. was losing ground in its math achievement. The rest of the world was simply improving faster.

“Other countries are zipping past us,” said Daria Hall, a policy analyst at the Education Trust.

National standards for science and math education are part of the answer. Surely the principles of algebra remain the same whether taught in Boston or Ball Ground, and the chemical properties of water don’t vary across state lines. National standards — backed by testing — would also make it quite clear which states and school districts were failing their students.

But a strong national curriculum would be only half the battle; the other challenge is creating a teaching force capable of teaching to those higher standards. Like many other states, Georgia suffers from a serious shortage of teachers qualified as math and science instructors.

Only 8 percent of students in Georgia public colleges are majoring in engineering, technology or the natural sciences. Within the teaching profession, the numbers are even more stark. A new report by the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement notes that Georgia public colleges produced 3,822 new teachers in 2007. Of that number, only 3.4 percent were trained in math and 2.5 percent were trained in science.

That helps explain why the state graduated only three new high school physics teachers in 2006, up from one in 2005. And that lack of qualified teachers — not just in Georgia, but around the country — in turn helps to explain why only about 15 percent of American high school students earn math or science credit in rigorous Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate programs.

That represents a lot of missed opportunity in a country that adds 100,000 new computer-related jobs a year. As Bill Gates pointed out in his March testimony before the House Committee on Science and Technology, “Only 15,000 students earned bachelor’s degrees in computer science and engineering in 2006, and that number continues to drop.”

As Gates knows better than anyone, the jobs are waiting. It’s up to the education system to make sure the students are ready. And to get more teachers into the classroom qualified to teach those students, Georgia and other states ought to use every tool at their disposal — including scholarships, college loan forgiveness and higher pay for math and science teachers — to persuade more bright students

Source: Atlanta Journal Constitution, USA
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2008/05/16/mathed_0518.html

“Boring” sums up Josh Bullock’s entire high school experience. The 17-year-old got in trouble and recalls spending time in in-school suspension, a practice he said confined him to a small room with no windows where he was supposed to do his schoolwork without any interaction.

He eventually dropped out.

“I’m intelligent,” he said, leaning forward then slumping back again, tapping his foot and moving his hand. He can’t sit still.

Neither can state officials who want to find a way to keep kids in school.

Mississippi’s dropout rate is 24.1 percent - similar to the rest of the nation. On average, only 70 percent of American students will graduate from high school. In Mississippi, only 63 percent will. State officials are determined to reduce the rate by 50 percent in five years.

Gov. Haley Barbour and State Superintendent of Education Hank Bounds agree that high school dropouts pose an economic development hurdle for Mississippi.

“They are not going to have the same opportunities,” Bounds said. “They are more likely to get engaged with illegal activity. Dropouts are more likely to have children who will drop out.”

The economic reality of an undereducated class is staggering.

# Dropouts from the Class of 2007 will cost Mississippi almost $3.9 billion in lost wages and taxes over their lifetime, according to the Alliance for Excellent Education, a national policy and advocacy organization based in Washington.

# Dropouts cost Mississippi $458 million each year, Bounds said. The number comes from money spent on social services, including medical care and prison. It also figures in lost revenue in taxes based on what all those dropouts might have made in income had they completed high school.

# More than 13,000 students drop out every year in Mississippi, according to the Mississippi Department of Education.

# The dropout rate for black and Hispanic students is close to 50 percent nationwide, according to the America’s Promise Alliance, a Washington-based nonprofit collaborative chaired by Alma Powell and founded by her husband, Gen.Colin Powell. In Mississippi, about 57 percent of blacks graduate compared to 71 percent of whites.

# Dropouts earn about $9,200 less per year than high school graduates.

‘Moral obligation’

The state’s new focus has not come about because things are suddenly worse in Mississippi.

“The graduation rate is probably better than it’s ever been,” Bounds said.

And it’s not that Mississippi is worse than any other state. Nationwide, dropout rates are similar to the state’s numbers.

The problem is more complicated than dropping out of high school, though. High school itself just isn’t enough anymore to make it in a global economy based on high technology and ever-evolving transformations.

“Now that we are really understanding this issue, we can understand and see what the real problem looks like,” Bounds said. “I just think I have a moral obligation to make this a focus of the state, to wage this war.”

While politicians, educators, pundits and other adults debate how to solve the dropout crisis, the kids are angry.

“Teachers actually say ‘They don’t pay me enough to do this.’ They don’t want to be there,” said Adam Dearman, 17, who dropped out of Seminary High School earlier this year.

Cameron Clark, 16, wanted to move on with her life. She wants to be an embalmer and plans to attend junior college to meet that goal. Forrest County Agricultural High School already taught her everything it could, she said, and she left school this year.

“I don’t count myself as a dropout. I withdrew from school - I didn’t drop out.”

But Mississippi does count her as a dropout.

High school obsolete

A Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded study that explored why kids drop out found 47 percent of dropouts said classes were not interesting and 69 percent said they were not motivated.

Gates got the shocked attention of the nation’s governors in 2005 when he told a gathering of them that high school was obsolete.

Students are not learning what they need to learn to work for international companies immersed in high technology, he said. The problem goes beyond secondary school - more Americans need to finish college and engage in intellectual challenges to propel the nation into the future.

But before that need can be addressed, more kids must finish 12th grade, experts say. To keep them engaged and make them marketable, a major overhaul is needed. American high schools need updating - call it High School 2.0.

Mississippi is in the middle of a high school redesign. Bounds said it is a move that will make high school relevant.

“There will be lots of strands that look alike - what we do with technology, what we teach teachers to counsel students and explain opportunities,” Bounds said.

Some things will vary for each school district. Schools are different sizes and different regions in the state have their own needs. For example, Lamar County schools are incorporating economics into the curriculum at every level to help students make better choices.

The experts

Part of the redesign has to include more guidance for students, even building it into the required curriculum, national experts say.

Effective comprehensive guidance has three components, said Norman Gysbers, an expert in the field and a professor at the University of Missouri.

First, the curriculum should include knowledge about career opportunities. Second, the school should work with each student and his parents to develop a personal plan of study in middle school. Third, the school should provide special help when it’s needed on a short-term basis.

“The focus is on a living plan initiated in high school,” Gysbers said.

An example is Navigation 101, a program in the state of Washington that has had great success. A program of comprehensive guidance should be an ongoing quest, not a one-time determination, Gysbers said.

“Plans change,” he said. Guidance should never lock students into only one option they can’t escape. Kids have to feel as if school matters in their life and actually makes a difference, Gysbers said.

“If students feel connected to school, they are going to do better,” he said.

Different programs and curricula are available based on the research of Gysbers and others who have examined the need for decades. An example is the extensive yet intuitive Career Choices course used in many schools across the nation, but not in Mississippi because strict state guidelines don’t leave room for a new subject. Career Choices incorporates English and math skills with “life planning.” That program promotes the idea of a 10-year plan starting around eighth grade with dreams and visions and morphing into a strategy for the next phase of learning after high school. By contrast, many existing programs just concentrate on getting through the four years of high school.

The challenge is getting comprehensive guidance implemented into the curriculum.

“If we have to concentrate on basics, how do we get extras in?” Gysbers asked. He said that is a common concern of school administrators already loaded with heavy state and federal requirements.

Ideally, the developmental process begins in elementary school.

“It’s really too late by high school,” Gysbers said. “That kind of effort takes a lot of time and resources.”

Other experts agree. It takes parents as well as teachers and schools that care about the individual kid.

“When you connect a student to an adult, it builds relationships, it helps him build goals,” said Gene Bottoms of Atlanta, senior vice president of Southern Regional Education Board and founding director of High Schools That Work.

Any dropout prevention plan has to be more than about holding more students in school, but at the same time that is one of the obstacles.

“You can’t do much to get them engaged if they aren’t in school,” Bottoms said.

“We have a very high failure rate in grade nine,” he said, adding that part of this is because of a high student-to-teacher ratio and part of it is because it’s often teachers with the least experience who teach freshmen high school classes.

The more experienced teachers often teach Advanced Placement classes to smaller classes in higher grades. Bottoms wants to turn the whole system around.

He thinks one reason for the dropout rate and the ninth-grade failures is because current high school requirements load up on academics in the ninth grade. Some students have to take two math classes, for example. One is remedial if their math scores are too low and one is required for them not to get left behind.

Keeping boys interested is another large problem, Bottoms said.

“We’re losing male students at a higher rate than young ladies,” he said.

Schools need to change the experience for teenagers. In the ninth grade, there should a practical class with hands-on applications, either in fine arts or technology that allows kids to get up out of their seats and interact as they put academic skills to work. That’s one idea.

Another idea Bottoms has is to offer catch-up classes so students have another opportunity to pick up a required class without becoming so hopelessly behind they don’t choose to stay.

Hattiesburg High is considering something along these lines with online courses that could meet the need.

“We have got to redesign the curriculum in ninth grade,” Bottoms said. “Do less tracking and sorting. Enroll more kids in AP classes. Don’t wait until 11th grade to start tech classes. Improving the high school completion rate is as much about changing adult behavior as it is about changing student behavior.”

Bottoms describes a high school in San Antonio, Texas, that had bullet holes in the walls and looked and felt like a prison. The school administrators eventually turned to Boys Town, a Nebraska-based nonprofit organization, for help.

“They did a 180-degree turnaround,” Bottoms said. The difference? Treating the students as individuals.

“They don’t sense adults respect them,” Bottoms said.

Schools that want to change need a district that supports them. Mississippi’s dropout prevention program is a step in the right direction, Bottoms said.

“Hank (Bounds) has a handle on things. Accountability has to give as much importance to completion as to achievement.”

Where are parents?

A lack of parental involvement is at the root of many dropout stories.

“Parents do not get involved,” Bottoms said. “And there’s not very good mechanisms for poor parents to get involved. Better-off parents who are educated know how to work the system.”

It’s not only one thing that needs fixing. It’s many things. Bottoms suggests leadership training for principals and teachers to start.

“This will cost some money,” Bottoms said. “Look at your prison costs. You are either going to make your investment now or pay for it later.”

Josh Bullock, meanwhile, is still angry but not unmotivated. The former Oak Grove student is getting his GED, looking for a part-time job and planning to attend junior college to study computer science, maybe something in game design.

School just got in the way of his plans.

Source: Hattiesburg American, MS
http://tinyurl.com/6mot7g

There’s no ignoring that China, with a population exceeding 1 billion people as well as burgeoning economic capabilities, is a force to be reckoned with. Throw in the fact their kids too often score better in math and science than students in the United States and what does not make sense about getting Minnesota and Chinese educators together?

Forty-nine principals from all over China made a cross-global trek to meet last week with Minnesota educators in the first-ever U.S.-China Principals’ Summit hosted by the University of Minnesota’s China Center and the Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals, among others.

The four-day event, also sponsored by the Beijing-based China-American Education Foundation, was a conversation about the commonalities and differences in each nation’s system of schooling their children.

Education is “their number one priority and their number one fiscal commitment. They are intentionally focusing on becoming a world leader in first-rate education. We need to collaborate with China and we need to keep them a close educational partner,” explained Joann Knuth, executive director of the principals’ group.

There is also Chinese students’ widely recognized academic reputation, said Youngwei Zhang, director of the center. “They outscore their counterparts in many countries in math and science. These are things we need to know about so our students can do better,” he said.

For instance, MinnPost reported last December on recent Program for International Student Assessment, a.k.a. PISA, scores where students in Hong Kong and Singapore outperformed American high school students.

The forum benefits University officials as well, Zhang said, since the University has the largest population of students from China of any U.S. campus. Currently, about 2.5 percent of the University’s student body is international students, and the intent is to double that number. He estimates the U received about 800 student applications from China.

Though international differences in education approaches are difficult to swallow in one big gulp, I asked two educators, Knuth, and Chin Yi (Chin is his family name), to share their initial reactions to the summit.

Chin, who is director of international programs from the Middle School attached to Hunan Normal University, and spoke in English, had this to say.

He praised the American educational system’s “creativity.” “One of the first things that attract me is the creative spirits I found in the American high school teachers and students. We often found that American high school students are very creative, although the Chinese kids have a solid academic foundation, they lack the creative spirit,” he said.

The American system seems more open to new ideas and innovation, he said, with China having a “unified curriculum.”

In addition, China attaches great importance to academics, Chin said, claiming more than 95 percent of its students graduate from high school – much exceeding U.S. rates.

“Also, I like to point out China is attaching great significance to education by the parents. You say the involvement. In China there is no problem in parent’s involvement,” he said.

Knuth, who also represents Minnesota at the National Association of Secondary school Principals in Washington, D.C., shared these thoughts:

“I was very intrigued by China’s commitment to education. Education is their number one priority.” For instance, they talked about a 10- year education reform program where they expect to establish 110 key universities and how they are investing $2 billion in poly-technical colleges, what Americans call technical or vocational schools, she said.

“This is an extraordinary commitment. When you think about their population and the impact it will have on global education, it’s amazing.”

However, China recognizes the need to reform some cultural aspects of their kindergarten through 12th-grade system, she said. “Right now it’s very intense.” She talked to a Carleton College student from China at the conference who told her Chinese students regularly spend 10 to 12 hours a day in “intensive study.”

What the Chinese are looking to infuse into their education system from the American system is innovation. “[Chinese] students are very good at rote learning, but the idea is to learn concepts and then be able to think about, analyze and create new. That is not the cultural pattern in their schools,” Knuth said.

It was 1972 when Richard Nixon became the first U.S. president to visit the People’s Republic of China, thus opening the door to normal relations with the Communist nation. The U’s China Center has worked since 1979 to encourage understanding and cooperation between the U.S. and Chinese people and cultures.

Source: MinnPost.com, MN
http://tinyurl.com/4xte2v

Nearly 8,000 arrive on campus a year early · Increase linked to new laws against age bias

The number of under-18s studying at English universities has gone up by over 50% in the past six years, according to figures that suggest that ambitious teenagers are taking advantage of new anti-discrimination laws to demand an early place.

There are nearly 8,000 under-18s at university - up from less than 5,000 in 2002, figures obtained from the Higher Education Statistics Agency by the Guardian show. The overwhelming majority started only a year early, at 17, but official documents suggest there are up to 100 university students under 16.

Universities have been forced to examine child protection laws that are usually the preserve of schools. Many universities have preferred to resist approaches from children under 18 for fear of the “in loco parentis” role they have to take. But a change to the age discrimination laws in 2006 now means they have to consider all applicants, regardless of age.

Margaret Morrisey, chair of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, said: “The danger is that while a child may be bright and need stimulation, universities can’t provide for the needs of a child. To push them prematurely into an adult world might not be responsible.”

Universities UK, which represents all higher education institutions (HEIs), last month hosted a conference, Safeguarding Children: Issues for HEIs dealing with under-18s, supported by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.

Guidance at the event warned universities to run criminal record checks on staff working closely with under-18s. “The breadth of contact between HEIs and young people under 18 years of age is considerable and growing,” it says.

Julie Walkling, director of student services at London Metropolitan University and chair of Amosshe, the student support organisation which organised the conference, said: “Quite possibly young people are getting more ambitious.” She said that younger students were high achievers, and tended to apply to Russell Group colleges such as Oxford and Cambridge. “In general it’s Russell Group universities which get applications, because we’re talking about prodigies really. The trend will continue - age regulations have shifted how people think about the age at which people can go to university.”

Sufiah Yusof fled Oxford University in 2000, aged 15, after her third-year exams. She was found after a police search, and blamed her parents for too much pressure; she never finished her course and became an administrative assistant for a construction firm. Her younger siblings, Aisha and Iskander, attended Warwick University together at the ages of 17 and 12, graduating in 2002.

Peter Dunn, head of communications at Warwick, said: “We’ve been there we’ve done that, we’re loath to do it again because we want to make sure students have all the opportunities uni can offer. They were challenging circumstances we’d not want to repeat. They did fine, they came out with fine degrees but we’re not sure we’d rush to do it again. At the end of the day university is about the life experience as well as education alone.

“Rather than pushing children into uni too early, the University of Warwick now supports talented children in schools until they are old enough for university.” The university cannot bar under-18s because of anti-age discrimination laws.

This year’s Cambridge university prospectus says: “There is no age requirement for admission … although the vast majority of undergraduates are 18 years or older when they come into residence. All applicants will need to demonstrate that they have the maturity and personal skills to cope with university level study.”

The number of under-18s who accept an offer of a place at the university is between 2- 2.5% of acceptances, a spokesman said. Of those, 71% are 17-year-olds who would turn 18 by January 1 of their first year.

Oxford University said it has 14 students under 18: one is aged 16 and the others are 17.

Degrees of success: young high flyers

Ruth Lawrence graduated from Oxford University aged 13 in 1985, with first-class honours in maths. She was home schooled, and her father rarely left her side at Oxford. She became a professor at 19, but fell out with her dad. Now teaches in Israel and has vowed never to hothouse her own children.

Wang Yinan was 12 when he arrived in the UK from China and within two years was fluent in English. He won a place at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, to study material science two years later in 2005. He had already scored 98% in an Open University maths degree which he took “for fun”.

Adam Spencer found Cambridge University was reluctant to offer him a place when he was aged 13, in 2003, partly because of the expense in screening staff to check that they were safe to work with children. Adam was desperate to study biochemistry and had a clutch of good A-levels, but struggled to find a university place. His parents considered sending him to a college abroad.

Dante Minghella, 12, already has an IQ of 170 (the adult national average is approx 100). Dante last year switched from a state primary, having won a scholarship to a private school and was judged to be “supremely gifted”. He has weekly meetings with an Oxford lecturer who shares his passion for neuroscience and alien life.

Source: Guardian, UK
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2269492,00.html

Children and youth, whose parents actively support learning at home, do better in many ways. They get better grades, have higher graduation rates, and are more likely to go to college, said an American educationist.

Delivering the keynote speech at the Supreme Education Council’s (SEC) annual symposium on “Parents: Partners in Education”, Dr Heather Weiss said: “You need great schools and hardworking teachers. But you also need strong parental involvement for the best academic performance of children.”

The children are hardly spending 18 percent of their whole day in the schools. Rest of the time is being spent with the parents and family members. This underpins the need for parents’ active involvement in their educational affairs, she said.

“All parents must know what is important for their children and they must develop the skill to support their children. On the other hand, the education supporters must also reach out to the parents,” she said.

Dr Weiss, founder and director of Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP), said parent involvement is a major component of American education reform efforts.

“The US research on parent involvement suggests that there are three particularly important aspects of parent involvement for children’s development and academic success. The first aspect is parenting – the attitudes, values, and interactions about learning that parents demonstrate as they raise their children. The second is parent involvement in home-school relationships – the formal and informal connections, communications, and partnerships with the child’s school and teachers. The third aspect is a sense of shard responsibility for learning outcomes-parents as well as the school take responsibility for the child’s learning and education“, she said.

On the early learning, Dr Weiss said, children’s vocabularies increases rapidly, and they acquire the ability to remember experiences, sustain attention, count and recognize letters. Through interactions with adults and peers, they develop self-concepts and self-esteem, improve emotional self-regulation. In this stage of a child’s life, nurturing, warm and responsive parent-child relationships and parental participation in child-centered activities.

Children who live in a stimulating home environment with books and educational materials, parent-child discussions and other learning experiences develop curiosity and stronger academic skills, and demonstrate higher achievement. When parents limit television watching, children have better academic outcomes, she said.

Significantly, parent involvement in the middle and high school education shows that involvement tends to decrease due to teenagers’ desire for self-reliance and less outreach for parent involvement from schools. (…)

Source: Peninsula On-line, Qatar
http://tinyurl.com/yoepfx

A recent Kansas City Star editorial noted that one in four college freshmen require at least one remedial course in college.

Poor math skills are a particular problem at the college level. While high schools can address this issue by offering a more rigorous curriculum, parents must do their part by encouraging their children to take four years of college prep math in high school.

To get a bachelor’s degree in any discipline, your child will need to complete at least college algebra with a grade of C or better.

College advisers, however, routinely work with students whose last math course was completed sophomore or junior year in high school. These students say they intend to get a four-year college degree. They are surprised and irritated to find out they have to take the math in college they chose not to take in high school.

The fact is there is no way your child will be ready to succeed in college algebra with two or three years of high school math, especially if that math is consumer math or algebra prep.

Students with only two years of high school math will be required to take at least one remedial math courses to build up to a course that will count as an elective toward a four-year degree. College algebra is after that. (…)

Source: Kansas City Star, MO
http://www.kansascity.com/business/story/501472.html

(…) The success of students from Asian backgrounds in academic performance has been the subject of several recent cross-cultural studies both in Australia and in the United States.

A recurring theme of many of these cross-cultural studies is that children from Confucian heritage cultures (especially, China, Korea and Japan) academically out-perform their Western counterparts.

This conclusion is also supported by research from the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). It recently reported that university entrance rankings for Anglo-Australian students averages 70/100 while for Australian students of Asian background it is 79/100.

A survey of 2600 Year 11 students in state and public schools in Sydney was conducted by Paar and Mok (1995) who reported that children born of Asian families residing in Australia were more likely to gain a university place than people born in Anglo-Australian families.

This survey also showed that the parents of Asian-Australian children placed a greater importance on their children going to university than did their Anglo-Australian counterparts.

My teacher friend suggests their parents back up the efforts of teachers to encourage their children to do well at school.

The influence of parents on a child’s education is well documented. A fascinating result was found by a study of South Australian final-year primary school students in 2000, comparing Asian-Australians to their Anglo-Australian peers.

The study, by academics Justine Dandy and Ted Nettelbeck, confirmed the popular belief that Asian-Australian school students do more homework than Anglo-Australians.

The study showed that the Asian-Australian students spent an average of 12 hours a week in home study, compared with about five hours for Anglo-Australians.

There are other indications from the many cross-cultural studies that ethnic differences in tertiary entrance performance are associated with higher parental expectations.

A study by Paul Ayres of the University of Western Sydney (1994) reported that the work ethic is the premier factor for Asian-Australian student success, especially in mathematics and science.

In the US over the past two decades, the academic achievements of Asian-American children have been recognised not only by classroom teachers, school counsellors and administrators, but also by the general public through the mass media.

Their high academic achievement is reflected in the numbers who receive scholarships from leading universities. This success has attracted the attention of many educators and sociologists who are focusing on the potential variables contributing to these accomplishments.

The cross-cultural factors identified in the US studies probably apply in Australia as well: Asian parents traditionally feel obligated to assist their children in any way they can. Asian parents show strong feelings concerning the value of education for their children’s success. Asian parents are willing to commit all their resources to ensure the best education is available for their offspring. Asian parents still preserve the traditional attitude that parents play a major role in their children’s education and career choice. Asian parents try very hard to assert their opinions and to exert an influence on their children’s future occupation.

Anglo-Australian parents on the other hand adopt different cultural factors: Individualism is highly marked and personal choice is generally well respected. A student’s weekend activities are less rigid and task-orientated than for Australia-Asian families. Team sports and other group-oriented ventures are pursued rather than individualised pursuits such as music or language lessons. Anglo-Australian students are more likely to have part-time jobs. (…)

Source: Courier Mail, Australia
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23067479-27197,00.html

Helicopter parents - who hover over every aspect of their child’s education - have now risen as far as the graduate job market, says Paul Redmond

(…) The impact of the helicopter parent extends well beyond the lives of their children. In higher education, helicopter parents are rapidly transforming the relationship between universities and students. Parents are more vocal than their children; they also tend to be far more confident in making demands. Typically, these start before their sons and daughters arrive on campus. (…)

According to one recent study, 20% of all new students now live at home (in 1996 it was 12%). During the same period, the proportion of students living in university halls fallen from 35% to 27%.

Not that living in halls means an end to helicopter parenting. Thanks to the invention of the mobile phone, surely the longest umbilical chord in history, parents can now speak to their children on a daily, even hourly basis. And they do. (…)

Helicopter parents - the five most common kinds

The Agent

Operates like a footballer’s agent: fixing deals, arranging contracts, smoothing out local difficulties. It’s the Agent’s job to represent his or her client at events which, for whatever reason, the client feels are simply too tedious to attend. Having an Agent helicopter parent is like having Max Clifford working for you round the clock. For free.

The Banker

Accessible online, face to face or via personal hotline, the Banker is unique in the world of financial services for charging no APR, asking few if any questions, expecting no collateral, and being psychologically inclined to say ‘yes’ no matter how illogical or poorly articulated the request. The Banker is also resigned to never seeing loans repaid.

The White Knight

Imbued with an almost semi-mythical status, the White Knight parent appears at little to no notice to resolve awkward situations. Once resolved, the White Knight will fade anonymously into the background. Intervention is accomplished silently and with minimum fuss.

The Bodyguard

The primary function of the Bodyguard is to protect the client from a range of embarrassing social situations - such as cancelling appointments and soaking up complaints on behalf of their client. Particularly skilled in constructing elaborate excuses. When not protecting life, limb and reputation, doubles up as a chauffeur and personal assistant.

The Black Hawk

Named after the military helicopter, and dreaded by teachers and educational administrators, the Black Hawk is unique among helicopter parents due to their willingness to go to any lengths - legal or illegal - to give their offspring a positional advantage over any competition. Particularly lethal when elected to parent-teacher associations. (…)

Source: Guardian Unlimited, UK
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2234183,00.html

Not long ago the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published a report that contained the following “shocking” information: Annual spending per high school student in Israel is $6,066 compared with an international average of $7,276. Spending on preschool and elementary school students is also lower. And yes, Israeli classrooms are among the most crowded in the world - with an average of 27 students versus 22 in other developed countries. The crowding in middle schools is even worse, and given the forecast for construction, there is no chance of improvement in the near future.

Israel’s teachers do their best to function in this wretched reality, while earning lower pay than their colleagues in other countries. Now it has been confirmed; even those who didn’t know, who insisted on not knowing, can no longer plead ignorance. And when we say “lower,” we mean significantly lower: $25,131 for the Israeli teacher at the highest level of promotion, compared with an average of $45,666 in the OECD countries.

The disseminators of the lies will never apologize, never right their wrongs, never ask forgiveness, never support the teachers in their unavoidable strike. They’re not about to be distracted by any findings.

Nor will the lie stop at higher education. Members of the Shochat Committee spoke about a growing trend around the world to raise tuition at universities and colleges, and their recommendations fit this trend. They didn’t bother to say that in most of the countries surveyed, tuition has not yet risen, and certainly hasn’t doubled as they tried to argue. In the Czech Republic, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Germany and other countries, university students don’t pay any tuition. In Belgium and France they pay $500, in Italy $1,100, in New Zealand and Holland $1,500, in England $1,800 and in Israel $3,000 - before the tuition hike…

Source: Ha’aretz, Israel
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/914855.html

A new report commissioned as part of an initiative to improve Math, Science and Technology (MST) education throughout the Kansas City area suggests that on the whole, parents, students, and local communities nationwide are complacent about or even resisting efforts to strengthen MST education, failing to realize the opportunities that knowledge of such subjects can bring in the 21st century…

With lawmakers and school leaders alike stressing the importance of math, science, and technology (MST) education in preparing students for 21st-century jobs and careers, one might assume that parents and students would agree these subjects are crucial to their future success. But a new report challenges this assumption.

According to the report, titled “Important, But Not for Me: Parents and Students in Kansas and Missouri Talk About Math, Science, and Technology Education,” parents and students say they understand the importance of MST skills in general–but they don’t see these as important for themselves…

“The dilemma is really twofold,” says Jean Johnson, executive vice president of Public Agenda. “One is that parents, students, and local communities may be complacent about or even resist efforts to strengthen math and science education. Right now, most just don’t share leaders’ sense of urgency. The second is that many young people and their families may not recognize the vast and interesting opportunities available to students with strong math and science backgrounds. They just may not have absorbed how much the economy and future jobs are changing.” …

… While parents and students believe that having basic math skills is “absolutely essential,” many say understanding higher levels of math, such as calculus, is not essential. Ninety-two percent of parents and 83 percent of students value basic skills, while only 23 percent of parents and 26 percent of students value higher-level skills…

Source: eSchool News, MD
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=7380