Based on the New York Times article below (also distributed by the ASCD Smart Brief), a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that children ages 8 to 18 spend more than seven and a half hours per day using a smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device. Additionally, because many of them are multitasking, some children are actually cramming almost 11 hours on average of media content into those seven and a half hours.
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CAROL’S SUMMARY:

CAT, City Arts and Technology High School, a charter school in San Francisco, California, adheres to the four R’s (rigor, relevance, relationships and results) to listen to each student and strengthen their voice with “basic skills and motivating ideals.” And it seems to be working for them. According to the article below, “Three-fifths of CAT students come from poor homes, but about half score at proficient or advanced levels on state tests. A remarkable four-fifths of all seniors enter a four-year college.”

In an article for www.education.com by Raymond J. McNulty of the American Association of Administrators, he cites a five-year study involving 75 high schools in 10 states. The initiative, known as “Models, Networks and Policies to Support and Sustain Rigor and Relevance for All Students,” is led by the International Center for Leadership in Education, which has enlisted the expertise of the Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations. McNulty writes:

“While we have heard for some time the call for rigor and relevance, now education leaders are adding the third R for relationships. Schools across the country are realizing that rigor and relevance develop most naturally when they are cultivated on firm grounding in relationships. Relationships do not become a new standard or replace rigor and relevance. They are a way to improve learning. The recent work of the International Center has examined some of the most successful high schools in the country — schools that have the challenges of poverty, mobility and diversity but still have high rates of student success. In these schools, relationships among students and staff are deliberately nurtured and a key reason for student success. Students believe the staff genuinely cares about them and encourages them to achieve at high levels. If there is not a high level of positive relationships, students will not respond to higher expectations.” Findings from this study showed that “close to 20 percent [of students] surveyed give up when they encounter difficult schoolwork. Only 60 percent reported they try their best in school, and the same percentage said teachers recognize them when they try their best. The gap between wanting to achieve and persevering to meet that goal must be examined, as must the role teachers play in recognizing effort and perseverance.”
Source: http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Rigor_Relevance/

Education’s goal must be rigor, relevance and relationships if we want to prepare students for college, work and life in the 21st century. Realizing this requires school staff to work collaboratively toward common goals through analyzing data, adopting best practices, taking risks and embracing change. Each of LifeBound’s student success books has a corresponding curriculum which incorporates the “Four Rs” based on The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s educational framework. Assessments are administered at the start and end of class to show results. To view curriculum samples, visit www.lifebound.com or call the LifeBound office toll free at 1.877.737.8510 to request that we mail these to you.

How can we help students do a reality check which closes the gap between wanting to achieve and persevering to meet these goals?

How can we as educators also close what McNulty calls, “the participation gap,” which is characterized by students who feel unwelcome, disconnected and lost in our schools?

How can we help students believe in their ability to meet high academic standards?

ARTICLE:

The San Francisco Chronicle
The four ‘R’s’ – a charter school that works
Bruce Fuller
Sunday, January 17, 2010

“Good audience skills are imperative,” Danielle Johnson reminds her restless 10th-graders as one, Raquel, nervously fiddles with her laptop before holding forth on her project portfolio at City Arts and Technology High School (known as CAT), a charter school of 365 students on a green knoll above the blue-collar southern reaches of Mission Street in San Francisco.

“I decided to use the story of my mom getting to this country as an immigrant,” Raquel says, moving into her personal-memoir segment, sniffing back tears as a blurry photo of her mother at age 18 appears on the screen. “I had never asked my mother about how she got here.”

CAT exemplifies President Obama’s push to seed innovative schools that demand much from all students, echoed by Sacramento’s $700 million reform plan that goes to Washington this week. How to bottle the magic of CAT teachers like Johnson – listening carefully to each teen, strengthening each voice with basic skills and motivating ideals – is the challenge facing would-be reformers.

To view this entire article visit www.sfgate.com

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