As the article below indicates, our nation’s recession is pressing schools to include personal finance in their curriculum. The aim is to help students learn valuable lessons about finance and credit before they get into debt. According to the Richmond Credit Abuse Resistant Education Program, the number of 18- to 24-year- olds who declare bankruptcy has increased 96 percent over the past decade. Seventy percent of employers look at the credit histories of job candidates. In some fields, like law enforcement, bad credit means you cannot get a job.
Making the Transition to Middle School: Tips for Students and Parents
The transition to middle school can be a tough one for both parents and students. As I have often noted, US students can go toe to toe with their counterparts in the other developed nations until they get to 6th grade. Once students are in middle school, their scores start to slip and by the time students are in high school, U.S. students perform near the bottom in math, science, reading and other academic measurements.
Given these harsh facts, how can parents ensure that the transition to middle school is smooth? According to the article below, it’s not what you would think. By the time students hit middle school, many parents are used to the “involvement” model of participating in their children’s education: volunteering in class, helping with homework, getting to know teachers, etc. However, once middle school hits, this model is often turned on its head: parents are encouraged to let students experience school on their own.  Now that parents have stepped away from the classroom, how can they best help their students?
The answer is simple, and one LifeBound has been promoting for years through our work, Stop Parenting and Start Coaching. Parents must become an advocate and a sounding board for their child’s education, encouraging their teenagers to set goals, value learning and hold themselves accountable for their decisions. Equally important is that both parents and students understand the unique academic and social challenges that come with the transition to middle school. The sooner that students build a solid understanding of how to face the new challenges that middle school presents, the better they will do during this difficult time.
To find out more about how to help your student make a successful transition to middle school, visit www.successinmiddleschool.com
How Parents Can Best Help Middle-Schoolers
By Sue Shellenbarger
Associated Press
I volunteered often in my children’s elementary school, serving as a classroom tutor and becoming close to many of their teachers. Sara has posted on how volunteering is a good way to say thanks to teachers and to be more than a “phantom presence†in school.
But I was at a loss to figure out a new role for myself when my kids entered one of the big public junior high schools in our town, which was six times the size of their elementary school. Overnight, it seemed, I was unwelcome in my kids’ much larger classrooms, and expected to communicate with teachers only through my student. That, actually, is exactly what should happen when a kid hits 12 or 13 years of age. But it took me a while to figure out what parents should be doing at that level to remain involved and support their students.
A new research survey on parental involvement in middle school nails down an answer: The best way to promote achievement in middle school isn’t to help student with their homework, or even to volunteer for school fundraisers. Instead, middle-school students posted the best results in school when their parents stepped back a bit and moved into more of a “coaching role,†teaching them to value education, relate it to daily life and set high goals for themselves, says the study, published recently in the journal Developmental Psychology.
Duke University researchers Nancy E. Hill and Diana F. Tyson came to that conclusion by surveying 50 studies of parental involvement. They divided parents’ roles into three categories: One was home involvement, included helping children with homework, taking them to museums or libraries, or making books and educational materials available. School-based involvement included attending parent meetings, volunteering for school activities or communicating with school officials.
A third kind of involvement, labeled “academic socialization†by the researchers, included communicating your values and expectations about education; pointing out connections between schoolwork and current events; encouraging children to set goals and follow their dreams; discussing learning strategies, and preparing and making plans for the future. Basically, it means helping your kid make good decisions about school, with an understanding of what those decisions will mean to him or her, and linking class work with students’ interests and goals.
Students whose parents played this coaching role posted the strongest academic gains, after controlling for other factors. School-based involvement was only moderately helpful. So were most kinds of home-based involvement, with one startling exception: Parental help with middle schoolers’ homework was actually linked to poorer school performance. This could be because parents tend to get involved with middle-school homework only after a kid is already in academic trouble. Also, middle schoolers may feel pressured or smothered by parents’ help at this stage.
Readers, what has been your experience trying to stay involved in your middle schoolers’ academic lives? What has worked for you? What about your younger or older kids?
Students Paying for Unpaid Internships: Carol’s Take
Searching for a job. Handing out resumes. Setting up informational interviews. Writing thank you notes. We’ve all been there – the challenging (and occasionally exhilarating!) world of the job search. Given all of the frustration and hard work involved in searching for a job, would you pay to have someone else take care of it for you? For your kids?
Today’s article discusses the growing number of students paying thousands of dollars for unpaid summer internships at prestigious companies. While companies like the “University of Dreams” laud their efforts to “facilitate” students’ internship searches and match them with the right companies, I believe they are doing students a huge disservice.
Now, if you’re like most parents, you’re probably saying, “My job is to protect my kid and provide them with the best life possible. If I can prevent them from going through the misery of a job search and secure them a great career opportunity at the same time, why not?”
Here’s why:
While we all complain about searching for a job from time to time, the process of doing so teaches important skills: Persistence. Resume writing. The ability to deal with rejection. Accountability. Networking skills. Resourcefulness. Maintaining a positive attitude. Interview skills. ALL of these skills are important and can benefit students in their future career, and ALL of these skills are rendered unnecessary by expensive internship placement services.
What is more, internship placement services foster a dangerous sense of entitlement in students. When parents pay for these services, students are simply “handed” a job at a prestigious firm without having to do any work – a job based not on their merits, but on the fact that their family can afford this costly service.
My advice? As your students move ever closer to entering the job world, don’t “buy” an internship to ease their transition - let them dive into the job search on their own two feet. Of course, you can prepare them in a very different way: let them know you’re behind them all the way, and make sure they have the emotional intelligence, persistence and humility to succeed.
Unpaid Work, but They Pay for Privilege
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Students attending a panel discussion at New York University about internships and the companies that assist in obtaining them.
With paying jobs so hard to get in this weak market, a lot of college graduates would gladly settle for a nonpaying internship. But even then, they are competing with laid-off employees with far more experience.
So growing numbers of new graduates — or, more often, their parents — are paying thousands of dollars to services that help them land internships.
Call these unpaid internships that you pay for.
“It’s kind of crazy,†said David Gaston, director of the University of Kansas career center. “The demand for internships in the past 5, 10 years has opened up this huge market. At this point, all we can do is teach students to understand that they’re paying and to ask the right questions.â€
Not that the parents are complaining. Andrew Topel’s parents paid $8,000 this year to a service that helped their son, a junior at the University of Tampa, get a summer job as an assistant at Ford Models, a top agency in New York.
“It would’ve been awfully difficult†to get a job like that, said Andrew’s father, Avrim Topel, “without having a friend or knowing somebody with a personal contact.†Andrew completed the eight-week internship in July and was invited to return for another summer or to interview for a job after graduation.
Andrew’s parents used a company called the University of Dreams, the largest and most visible player in an industry that has boomed in recent years as internship experience has become a near-necessity on any competitive entry-level résumé.
The company says it saw a spike in interest this year due to the downturn, as the number of applicants surged above 9,000, 30 percent higher than in 2008. And unlike prior years, the company says, a significant number of its clients were recent graduates, rather than the usual college juniors.
The program advertises a guaranteed internship placement, eight weeks of summer housing, five meals a week, seminars and tours around New York City for $7,999. It has a full-time staff of 45, and says it placed 1,600 student interns in 13 cities around the world this year, charging up to $9,450 for a program in London and as little as $5,499 in Costa Rica.
The money goes to the University of Dreams and the other middlemen like it. Officials at the company say they are able to wrangle hard-to-get internships for their clients because they have developed extensive working relationships with a variety of employers. They also have an aggressive staff who know who to call where. Their network of contacts, they say, is often as crucial as hard work in professional advancement.
Cash for AP Test Scores: Is This Really the Best Option?
Today’s article from the New York Times focuses on a controversial topic: paying students to excel on tests. The New York-based “Reach” program has had moderate success, with increased numbers of students taking Advanced Placement exams as well as greater numbers of students achieving “4” or “5” scores. Â While it is admirable to encourage students to do well academically and prepare for college, the concept of paying students for their scores on AP exams has several serious shortcomings.
Money talks – but what does it say?
The concept of the Reach program is simple: it connects people who have money (the program’s founders) with people who want money (the students). But is handing cash over to teenagers really the best alternative? No.
It is important to consider the ultimate goal here: preparing students for college and career. If Reach is trying to encourage students to go to college, why not use the $1,000 to create a scholarship or educational savings account? What about a laptop that students could use in their college classes? Instead, young students are given the freedom to spend the money as they see fit – and in all likelihood, the money isn’t going straight into a college savings fund.
By handing cash over to students when they meet the expectations set by the AP board, what message is the Reach program sending? In my mind, the message is simple and risky: You will be rewarded for meeting expectations. In their future careers, students won’t be handed bonuses, promotions or praise for simply meeting expectations. Quite the opposite: students need to be taught to exceed expectations consistently – even if they think no one is watching or no reward is expected.  In fact, if future employers perceive these students as “all about the money”, they will be less likely to invest in mentoring and promoting them.
In Program Giving Cash, More Pass AP Tests
A program that offers students up to $1,000 for passing Advanced Placement exams has shown some success, with more students at 31 city high schools earning passing scores, according to officials in charge of the effort.
The program, called Reach, or Rewarding Achievement, involves students at 26 public and 5 Catholic schools with large minority enrollments. The number of students passing A.P. exams at those schools rose this year to 1,240 from 1,161.
The number of tests taken at those schools — many students take tests in multiple subjects — increased by more than 800, to 5,436, and the number of passing grades by 302, to 1,774. The passing rate edged up slightly, to 33 percent from 32.
The program is one of several local and national experiments using financial incentives to raise student achievement. Another New York City program that pays students for doing well on standardized tests has been underway for two years, but the city has not announced any results.
Although such programs have proliferated in recent years, there has been little evidence of their effectiveness. The results of the privately funded $2 million Reach program are scheduled to be announced Wednesday, and organizers say they are confident the results will help them secure more money.
College Students Turning Down Jobs During Recession: Optimistic or Foolhardy?
This recent New York Times article features an array of students who turned down job offers after graduation despite the current economic conditions. While some may argue that this is a savvy move for students not yet tied down by families or mortgages, do the benefits of holding out for that “dream” job really outweigh the costs?
Not in this economy. In the past, I have encouraged friends and former interns to turn down jobs that weren’t a good fit for them either personally or professionally. With a healthy economy and jobs readily available, there was always a back-up plan. If that “stretch” job didn’t come through, you could always take another temporary job to get by. These days, however, recent graduates are competing with highly qualified workers affected by layoffs, bankruptcy and the like. Without the safety net of these jobs, the future looks a lot scarier for unemployed graduates.
Furthermore, this article neglects to mention an important fact – the graduates who blithely turned their “starter” jobs often move back in with Mom and Dad. With 401(k) accounts dwindling, pensions disappearing and layoffs looming, is it really fair for these students to count on their parents for support?
In the end, my advice for the students mentioned in this article is simple: just jump in. Like UConn President Michael Hogan says in this article: Say yes. Continue to say yes – to professional development, stretching beyond your comfort zone and learning to live on a budget. Even if your job offer isn’t perfect or the pay is low, future employers will be much more impressed by the skills and tenacity you demonstrated in your new position than they will be by a year of “blank space” on your next resume.
In Recession, Optimistic College Graduates Turn Down Jobs
It has been two months since Diana Parsons graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a liberal arts degree that cost about $100,000, and she has still not found a full-time job. She has returned to Milwaukee, where she is living with her parents and occasionally waiting tables at a restaurant owned by a friend of her mother.
Another hard-luck case in a miserable economy? Not exactly. Ms. Parsons, 21, is jobless by choice. She turned down one $23,000-a-year offer to become a research assistant at a magazine because she did not want to move to Chicago and another because she did not want to work nights.
“I’m not really worried,†she said. “When the right thing comes along, I’ll know it.â€
Ms. Parsons is far from the only member of the class of 2009 who is picky when it comes to employers. Job recruiters may be bypassing university campuses in droves and the unemployment rate may be at its highest point in decades, but college career advisers are noticing that many recent graduates do not seem to comprehend the challenging economic world they have just entered.
“I don’t think the students understand, I really don’t, but come September, October, when they still don’t have jobs, they’re going to be panicky,†said Clarice Wilsey, a career counselor at the University of Oregon, where just 55 employers came to a recent job fair, down from nearly 90 the year before.
Study Examines How Students’ Financial Behavior Is Formed, and How It Affects Their Future
CAROL’S SUMMARY
In the article below from today’s Chronicle, researchers at the University of Arizona are exploring financial patterns in college and long term success in college, career and life. To do this, they are looking at students’ spending patterns in high school and the role that parents and schools may or may not play in financial education.
Three things are clear: One, if students get exposure in high school or before to managing money, delaying gratification, controlling their spending influences and planning ahead, they are likely to apply the same strategies to other areas of their life like being smart about not having sex or using birth control or delaying the impulse to insult someone or incite an argument.
They are also are more likely to apply the same critical thinking skills they use for managing their finances to other areas of their lives like planning for college and career success, which requires a great degree of self-knowledge and discipline.
Two, if students are in a home where smart money decisions are modeled, including living within your means, saving and staying out of credit card debt, they are more likely to form those patterns as adults. If students see a pattern of debt and heavy spending with their parents, they are likely to adopt those same behaviors. So, schools would do well to help parents with financial literacy and college planning beginning when their students are freshmen in high school.
Three, some students will not have a model at home of anything positive to follow financially or otherwise. These students will need to rely on this material being part of their student success course in the freshmen year of high school and other stair-step success classes throughout their high school career. If students realize and master these skills early in life, it can mean the difference between living in the housing projects and living successfully in a Habitat Home. It can mean the difference between not being hired for a minimum wage job and starting in a minimum wage job, then moving up the ranks to manager with a company who will pay for your college. It can mean the difference between a workforce that can solve problems creatively and one that doesn’t see problems in the first place. It can mean the difference between graduates and workers who have strong thinking and leadership skills and people who are waiting around wondering why opportunities don’t approach them. Let’s change that dynamic.
ARTICLE
by Beckie Supiano
For most traditional-age students, beginning college marks a new level of financial independence. It’s a time when key financial habits are formed, but relatively little is known about how that happens or what impact those habits have on a student’s future. A new longitudinal study aims to find out.
To view entire article visit
http://bit.ly/g5x9I
Texting May Be Taking a Toll
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
Yesterday and today, we worked with a school district, training teachers and administrators from elementary through high school. When we asked them what characterizes some of their challenges working with today’s students, they cited texting and cell phone use as a huge problem. The article below is right on with their concerns.Â
Too much texting at school, out of school and in class has caused major problems in focusing and being attentive, teachers say.   If students are continually distracted by responding to everyone who texts them ( American teenagers sent an average of over 2,000 text messages a month) then they aren’t able to set and maintain boundaries which can allow them to concentrate and follow-through when they need to do that.
Parents and teachers need to work with students on critically analyzing the pros and cons of technology—especially texting which is the most prevalent  means of communication among young people.  Many teens say they would rather text than make a phone call or have an in-person conversation. Not only is too much texting an issue of attention, it can also be addicting for students, sucking them into texting all the time at the expense of their own mental and emotional health.  Texting has also fostered an unabashed language of sexual innuendos and trash talk which hamper personal and interpersonal self-respect.
If we really want to help young teens develop their emotional intelligence, as parents and educators, we need to model more attentive interaction ourselves, engage in honest discussions about pros and cons of technology and the basics of how to manage oneself with increasingly complex choices. If we are honest about this problem, we can give students the tools to listen to themselves, be brave enough to turn off distractions when needed and say “no†at the right time.
ARTICLE:
Top 10 Strategies for Bolstering Students’ Mental Resilience
In the article below by Sally Spencer-Thomas, there are many good tips to
help students weather the current economic climate. Chief among them is
managing mental, physical and emotional health. When stress is high, many
students forget to get centered and often issues of emotional and mental
health are the last things students or families might consider. During this
time, parents and teachers can model perspective, resilience and
perseverance so that students have patterns around them of courage in the
face of challenge.
If you are working with students who have suffered disappointment, ask them
what other options they have and what they might learn from this setback. If
you are working with students who feel hopeless, ask them to document the
things in their life for which they feel grateful so that they can focus
more closely on what they do have, not what they don’t have. If you are
working with a student who doesn’t know who they are or what they want out
of life, refer them to a campus advisor or the career center where someone
skilled can walk them through questions which will allow them to see their
gifts and talents. If you are working with a student who has suffered a
family loss to death, encourage them to get help from a mental health
professional. The ability to get help–from friends or professionals– in
times of great challenge is the mark of a very mature and thoughtful person.
If we can all work together to show students how to cope, they will come
through this time with a creative, indomitable and strong spirit on which
they can draw for their rest of their lives.
ARTICLE:
By SALLY SPENCER-THOMAS
May 15, 2009
As a faculty adviser at Regis University, I have seen countless students who feel under stress and wonder if they are up for the challenge of college life. That stress has only been compounded by the financial difficulties that many more students and their families are now facing. But the good news is that those of us who work on campuses can encourage mental resilience among students, even — perhaps especially — during these tough economic times, if we:
Scan the environment. We should open our minds as if we were anthropologists 50 years from now, returning to our campuses to understand students’ stress in 2009. What are the messages in the campus media? How does the institution’s ebb and flow during the year contribute positively or negatively to a thriving community? Who are the heroes? What are the rituals? How do professors and administrators talk about coping? What are other cultural cues that might be sending explicit or implicit messages?
Serve as models of emotional intelligence and mental wellness. We can forget that, at times, we feel as overwhelmed as our students do. I recently attended a conference where the presenter asked a room full of student-life professionals if within the past year they had ever felt so overwhelmed that it was difficult to function. Every person’s hand went up.
I certainly struggle with that every day. As a parent balancing family responsibilities with a full-time job and part-time nonprofit work, I am committed to making mental wellness a priority. While I am far from perfect, working at Regis reminds me to strive for the Jesuit ideal of cura personals, or care for the whole person.
To view this entire article you must subscribe to www.chronicle.com
Invoking the Sputnik Era, Obama Vows Record Outlays for Research
CAROL’S SUMMARY: Obama made a huge commitment to science funding from grade school through corporate American, as stated in the article below. Innovation,  strides in science, health and industry will not only help solve some of the world’s leading problems, it will also help us to create jobs and industries which can sustain our economy and the global economy for years to come.   Currently, at the high school level America is number 27 in science compared to other developed nations. This focus and funding will help to turn around waning scores in science and math as we prepare students for the suite of competitive skills they will need as adults.
ARTICLE
New York Times
By Andrew C. Revkin
In a speech on Monday at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, President Obama presented a vision of a new era in research financing comparable to the Sputnik-period space race, in which intensified scientific inquiry, and development of the intellectual capacity to pursue it, are a top national priority.
To view the entire article visit
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/science/earth/28speech.html?_r=1&ref=education
Large Urban-Suburban Gap Seen in Graduation Rates
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
A report by America’s Promise finds that one in four students in the U.S. drop out of high school, but some large cities are bucking the trend and improving their dropout rates. The report also found that some districts such as Philadelphia’s have graduated more students by focusing on ninth-grade achievement, creating smaller freshman classes and easing teens’ transition into high school. These schools show what is possible for all schools in the U.S—urban or rural—when clear programs are set forth and measured in the areas of academic, emotional and social intelligence, teachers are mission-driven to make this happen, and parents and community members participate with schools to buttress these efforts around smaller, focused communities of learning.
LifeBound offers books, trainings and services which can coalesce a school and schools within a district to set new standards for student learning, awareness, ambitions, achievement and readiness for the rigors of college and the world of work. Working with ninth graders is just the beginning and it is crucial, but the real opportunity is in better preparing students starting in elementary school and working with them in each of these areas as they progress to graduate from high school.
ARTICLE
New York Times
By SAM DILLON
It is no surprise that more students drop out of high school in big cities than elsewhere. Now, however, a nationwide study shows the magnitude of the gap: the average high school graduation rate in the nation’s 50 largest cities was 53 percent, compared with 71 percent in the suburbs.
To view the entire article visit
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/education/22dropout.html