Developing World Class Schools and Graduates
WalletHub.com compared the quality of education in the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia by analyzing 13 key metrics that range from student-teacher ratios, through dropout rates.
According to the study the 2015 States with the:
Best School Systems
The 5 worst state school systems are:
On November 3, 2016, the New York Times reported that it is now just as likely for middle school students to die from suicide as from traffic accidents. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available, the suicide rate for children ages 10 to 14 had caught up to their death rate for traffic accidents. Death is a rare event for adolescents. But the unprecedented rise in suicide among children at such young ages, however small the number, was troubling. In all, 425 children ages 10 to 14 killed themselves in 2014. In contrast, 384 children of that age died in car accidents. In 1999, the death rate for children ages 10 to 14 from traffic accidents “” about 4.5 deaths per 100,000 “” was quadruple the rate for suicide. But by 2014, the death rate from car crashes had been cut in half. The suicide rate, however, had nearly doubled, with most of the increase happening since 2007. In 2014, the suicide death rate was 2.1 per 100,000.
Far more boys than girls killed themselves in 2014 “” 275 boys to 150 girls “” in line with adults in the general population. American men kill themselves at far higher rates than women. But the increase for girls was much sharper “” a tripling, compared with a rise of about a third for boys.
The reasons for suicide are complex. No single factor causes it. But social media tends to exacerbate the challenges and insecurities girls are already wrestling with at that age, possibly heightening risks, adolescent health experts said. Social media is, in part, responsible.
Statistically, girls dominate visual platforms like Facebook and Instagram where they receive instant validation from their peers, she said. It also is a way to quantify popularity, and take things that used to be private and intangible and make them public and tangible. It used to be that you didn’t know how many friends someone had, or what they were doing after school
Social media assigns numbers to those things. For the most vulnerable girls, that can be very destabilizing.”
The public aspect can be particularly painful. Social media exponentially amplifies humiliation, and an unformed, vulnerable child who is humiliated is at much higher risk of suicide than she would otherwise have been.
Another profound change has been that girls are going through puberty at earlier ages. Today girls get their first period at age 12 and a half on average. That means girls are becoming young women at an age when they are less equipped to deal with the issues that raises “” sex and gender identity, peer relationships, more independence from family. Girls experience depression at twice the rate of boys in adolescence. Depression is being diagnosed more often these days, and adolescents are taking more medication than ever before, but Dr. Levy-Warren cautioned that it was not clear whether that is because more people are actually depressed, or because it is simply being identified more than before.
According to the Centers for Disease Control reported by Child Trends, in 2015, fewer than six in ten high school students who were sexually active reported using condoms at their most recent sexual intercourse. Condom use among this group increased from 46 percent in 1991, to 63 percent in 2003, but has since declined, reaching 57 percent in 2015. Sexually transmitted infections (STIs, including HIV/AIDS) and unintended pregnancy are major health issues that can be consequences of unprotected sexual activity. In 2011, there were more than 552,000 pregnancies to teenage girls ages 15-19 in the United States, three-quarters of which were unintended. Nearly half a million adolescents were diagnosed with chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis in 2014.Condoms, if used correctly, can greatly reduce (though not eliminate) the risk of both STIs and unintended pregnancies. Although the majority of adolescents believe that “sex without a condom is not worth the risk,” many teens are misinformed about the protection that condoms provide against STIs and HIV/AIDS.
Several factors are associated with lower likelihood of condom use among teens, including a large age difference between partners, having experienced sexual abuse, and substance abuse Conversely, factors associated with increased condom use in sexual relationships include higher parental education, more parental communication about contraception, having attended a sexual education course that discusses contraception, and believing that condoms are effective at preventing pregnancy and STIs. In 2011-2013, 97 percent of sexually experienced female teens had used a condom at least once.
Trends
Condom use at the most recent sexual intercourse, as reported by sexually active high school students, increased from 46 percent in 1991, to a high of 63 percent in 2003. Since then, there has been a small but steady decrease, to 57 percent in 2015.
Differences by Gender
Reported condom use differs by gender. In 2015, 62 percent of sexually active male high school students reported that they or their partner used a condom at their most recent sexual intercourse, compared with 52 percent of females. Black males were 27 percentage points more likely than black females to report condom use at last sexual intercourse, Hispanic males were 14 percentage points, and white males were 2 percentage points more likely than their female counterparts to report using a condom.
Differences by Race and Hispanic Origin
Black male students were more likely than white male students to report condom use (74 and 58 percent, respectively) in 2015. No other race/ethnicity differences were statistically significant.
Definition
Students were asked the following question: “The last time you had sexual intercourse, did you or your partner use a condom?” Estimates here are limited to those who are currently sexually active (i.e., had sexual intercourse within the last three months). Note that students may also use other methods of contraception instead of, or in addition to, condoms.
Since Mr. Trump’s election, the Southern Poverty Law Center has received more than 430 reports of bullying, harassment and racist displays around the country. “We haven’t seen this volume in the United States in decades, with the exception of the wave of anti-Muslim incidents that followed 9/11,” said Ryan Lenz, a spokesman for the center. They include real and painful episodes at secondary schools and colleges. While I do not wish to blame the president-elect, his rhetoric during the debates and during the campaign have unleashed some crazies and gives others license to do the same.
Social media and the television networks are spreading the hate. In Minnesota where racist graffiti has appeared in a high school or Pennsylvania where white students were filmed walking through a school with a Trump sign yelling, “White Power”, this behavior is unacceptable. Muslim students have been attacked. At the University of Michigan, a man told a student that if she did not take off her hijab he would he would set her on fire with a lighter.
Children are the most fragile of our society. Who gets bullied? Those who are poor, or rich or members of the LGBTQ community or religious or ethnic minorities or those who are fat or those who are skinny, are targeted. But the largest groups who are targeted are those with disabilities or are gay. In other words, Everyone.
President-elect Trump was asked about this on “60 Minutes” Mr. Trump the perpetrators should stop. But he also played down the damage, “I think it’s a very small amount.” Any amount of racist hate is too much. The incoming first lady, Melania Trump on November 13, 2016 promised to be an “advocate for women and for children”. Now is the time for Mr. Trump and Mrs. Trump and other political leaders (governors, Senators, and Representatives) to rise to the occasion and condemn this hatred. Parents and students also need to take a vigorous stand condemning these words and these racist actions.
America is watching.
I will be delivering workshops in Albuquerque, Dallas, South Carolina and Georgia about what schools, parents and children can do to stop bullying. Visit my website, www.schargel.com for more details.
According to the latest US Census Bureau Report, the child poverty rate for 2015 was 19.7 percent. Can you imagine, in the richest country in the world almost one fifth of our children are growing up in households where they are living paycheck to paycheck? What is this doing to their bodies, to their minds, to their ability to learn?
The poverty rate for children’s the highest of all age groups.
What is wrong with this picture?
According to a report in Pediatrics, Attention Deficit Disorder (A.D.D.) is the most common cause of suicide under the age of 12. Few children aged 5 to 11 take their own lives. The new study, which included deaths in 17 states from 2003 to 2012, compared 87 children aged 5 to 11 who committed suicide with 606 adolescents aged 12 to 14 who did, to see how they differed.
About a third of the children of each group had a known mental health problem. By contrast, nearly two-thirds of early adolescents who took their lives struggled with depression.
Suicide prevention has focused on identifying children struggling with depression; the new study provides an early hint that this strategy may not help the youngest suicide victims. Other experts cautioned that it was hard to draw definitive conclusions from such a small population. Researchers used a database with detailed suicide reports from coroners and medical examiners. It was unclear whether mental health professionals had diagnosed attention deficit problems in each case.
Last year, researchers from Nationwide Children’s Hospital, among others, reported that the suicide rate among black 5- to 11-year-olds had almost doubled since 1993, while the rate for their white peers had declined. The new report found that about 37 percent of elementary school-aged children who committed suicide were black, compared with just 12 percent of adolescents who did so.
The children most commonly had fought with a relative or peer before committing suicide. About a third of the children and adolescents had experienced a problem at school. A similar percentage had gone through a recent crisis. About 30 percent of the nearly 700 children studied in the new research had told someone of their suicidal intentions.
Not only is it important to take seriously a declaration of suicidal intent, no matter the child’s age, but it is also crucial for pediatricians, parents and school personnel to broach the topic with children if the adults are concerned.
Black and Hispanic students have cut their high school dropout rates and increased their rates of college attendance, according to a new study conducted by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
In 2013, 12 percent of Hispanic students aged 16 to 24 were not in school and hadn’t earned a diploma (also known as the status dropout rate) “”down from 32 percent in 1990, according to the report. Over the same period, the dropout rate among black students was cut nearly in half””from 13 percent in 1990 to 7 percent in 2013. The status dropout rate also fell among whites over that period, from 9 to 5 percent.
With increased high school completion for Hispanic and black students has come increases in college enrollment. Hispanic students represented 17 percent of undergraduates in 2013, compared to 6 percent a decade earlier. The African-American share of enrollment during this period grew from 10 to 15 percent.
The report also covers trends in enrollment, school discipline and safety, dropout rates, achievement and outcomes of education. Among the highlights:
Educational reformers, Mr. Trump, venture capitalists, business people, and for profit school people insist that the public schools are broken. What happens if all of them are wrong? What happens if all of them are wrong?
There is no denying that there are many things wrong with schools ““ teachers who are low paid, outdated resources (classrooms, text books, technology) and underfunded facilities. School models are still based on an agrarian model closing the schools to allow children to plant and harvest in the Spring, Fall and Summer. In the middle and high schools, we use a factory model passing children from subject to subject failing to acknowledge that subjects are interrelated.
Yet with all of the problems the reality is that today’s schools are producing the results they were designed to produce ““ low performing schools in minority communities in the inner cities. Schools in the suburbs are still producing higher performing students.
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