A culture of neglect and, at some age levels, outright social ostracism, is derailing a generation of students, especially girls, deemed the very best in mathematics, according to a new study.

In a report published Oct. 10 in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, a comprehensive analysis of decades of data on students identified as having profound ability in math describes a culturally constricted pipeline that puts American leadership in the mathematical sciences and related fields at risk.

According to the report, many girls with extremely high aptitude for math exist, but they are rarely identified in the U.S. because they veer from a career trajectory in the mathematical sciences due to the low respect American culture places on math, systemic flaws in the U.S. public school education system, and a lack of role models.

"The U.S. culture that is discouraging girls is also discouraging boys," says Janet Mertz, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of oncology and the senior author of the study. "The situation is becoming urgent. The data show that a majority of the top young mathematicians in this country were not born here."

Joseph A. Gallian, a co-author of the report, a professor of mathematics at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and current president of the Mathematical Association of America, says, "Just as there is concern about the U.S. relying on foreign countries for our oil and manufactured goods, we should also be concerned about relying on others to fill our needs for mathematicians, engineers and scientists."

Mertz and Gallian conducted the analysis with Jonathan Kane, a professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater involved with math competitions, and Titu Andreescu, a professor of mathematics education at the University of Texas at Dallas. Andreescu is a former leader of the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad team and director of AwesomeMath, a summer program for mathematically gifted children.

The new study draws on decades of data from extremely difficult mathematics competitions aimed at the most elite student math performers, including the collegiate William Lowell Putnam Mathematics Competition and the pre-collegiate International and U.S.A. Mathematical Olympiads.

Mining the data, Mertz and her colleagues found:

Contrary to the myth that females lack the intrinsic aptitude needed to excel in mathematics at the highest level, an idea proffered most famously by former Harvard University President Lawrence Summers, many girls exist with truly exceptional talent for mathematics.

Girls as well as boys with such talent are frequently identified and nurtured in some countries where this ability is highly valued; in the U.S., such talent is routinely overlooked or ignored, with many American boys and girls feeling they are actively discouraged from excelling in math.

American children of immigrants from countries where math talent is highly valued — notably Eastern Europeans and Asians — are much more likely to be identified as possessing extraordinary mathematical ability.

The pipeline for nurturing top math talent in the U.S. is badly broken beginning at the middle school level. Eighty percent of female and 60 percent of male faculty hired in recent years by the very top U.S. research university mathematics departments were born in other countries.

"We show," the group reports, "that many girls exist who possess extremely high aptitude for mathematical problem solving. The frequency with which they are identified is due, at least in part, to a variety of socio-cultural, educational or other environmental factors that differ significantly among countries and ethnic groups and can change over time."

When raised in some environments, girls were found to be 11-24 percent of the children identified as having profound mathematical ability; when raised in others, girls, including U.S.-born white ones, were 30-fold or more underrepresented. Andreescu believes that, "Innate math aptitude is probably fairly evenly distributed throughout the world, regardless of race or gender. The huge differences observed in achievement levels are most likely due to socio-cultural attributes specific to each country."

"We are wasting this valuable resource," says Mertz. "Girls can excel in math at the very highest level. There are some truly phenomenal women mathematicians out there."

In elementary school, girls do as well as or better in math than boys. In middle school, Mertz and her colleagues suggest, girls with an inclination for math begin to lose interest and fall behind, mostly due to peer pressure and societal expectations. Throughout middle and high school, social stigma and lack of appropriately challenging educational opportunities for the mathematically precocious becomes a hard reality in most American schools. Consequently, gifted girls, even more so than boys, often camouflage their mathematical talent to fit in well with their peers.

In the future "flat world," the U.S. may no longer be able to depend upon hiring foreign workers to fill its jobs in the mathematical sciences and related fields. The report suggests that the economic well-being of the U.S. is at risk, and that it is crucial that steps be taken now to correct this problem. A good start, say Mertz and her colleagues, would include implementing the recommendations of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel and fully funding the America COMPETES, "10,000 Teachers, 10 Million Minds" and Sowing the Seeds through Science and Engineering Research Acts already passed by the U.S. Congress.

New Study Shows the Unintended Consequences of Moving More Pupils Into Eighth Grade Algebra and Other Advanced Math Classes

Approximately 120,000 Unprepared Students are Now Struggling

A new report from the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution finds that the nation’s push to challenge more students by placing them in advanced math classes in eighth grade has had unintended and damaging consequences, as some 120,000 middle-schoolers are now struggling in advanced classes for which they are woefully unprepared.

“The ‘democratization of algebra’ sounds like a worthy goal – it certainly stems from good intentions,” says Tom Loveless, the Brown Center’s director and author of the new study, which is being released as an advance excerpt of the 2008 Brown Center Report on American Education. But, he adds, “when a large number of students who don’t even know basic arithmetic are placed in classes with students several grade levels ahead of them, the result is false democratization. That’s bad for the misplaced students, and it’s bad for their well-prepared classmates too.”

Algebra in eighth grade was once reserved for mathematically gifted students. But a campaign to extend algebra to many more eighth graders, which began in the 1990s on the grounds that greater equity and future opportunities require broader access to algebra, has had considerable success: The proportion of eighth graders taking algebra nearly doubled from 1990 to 2007, reaching 31 percent, and today more U.S. eighth graders take algebra than any other math course. Until now, however, no empirical evidence has existed to demonstrate whether the push for universal eighth-grade algebra is a good idea, particularly for students who have weak math skills.

The new Brown Center study tackles this question by examining rarely used research data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Unlike most NAEP data, these restricted-use files allow investigators who have obtained a license to drill down and examine student-level information on a nationally representative sample of 160,000 eighth graders.

The results are sobering. Between 2000 and 2005, as enrollment in advanced math classes rose among eighth-graders and enrollment in basic math declined, there was a significant jump in the percentage of very low scoring students in advanced courses. Among students in the bottom 10 percent nationally on the NAEP math test, enrollment in advanced math classes rose from 8.0 percent in 2000 to 28.6 percent in 2005. The percentage of low achievers enrolled in basic courses fell from 73.7 to 46.3 percent.

During the same period, students in the 10^thpercentile and below more than doubled as a proportion of those in advanced classes, the study finds, rising from 3 percent in 2000 to 7.8 percent in 2005. That might at first glance seem to be a trivial percentage, but it adds up to a significant number of students – about 120,000 nationwide.

Indeed, Loveless, himself a former public school teacher, notes that having even two children performing significantly below grade level in a class poses problems for classroom instructors, who may water down instruction as a result. That can be bad news for the well-prepared classmates of misplaced students. “Well prepared students need a real algebra class, not a fake one teaching elementary school mathematics,” the report says.

The Brown Center study illustrates just how far “misplaced” students lag behind their peers in advanced math classes. Despite being enrolled in Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II, misplaced eighth graders have NAEP scores well below average for fourth graders. In fact, they know about as much math as a typical second grader. The report reproduces several sample NAEP items to show the gaps in knowledge among these low-scoring students on key pre-algebra concepts such as percentages, decimals, and fractions.

The study also gives detailed information about the characteristics of these misplaced students, their families, and their schools. It finds that they are disproportionately black and Hispanic; have parents whose own education is below the national average; come from low-income households; attend large urban schools with predominantly low socioeconomic status populations; and have math teachers with less experience and mathematics training than the typical teacher of advanced math students in eighth grade.

“No element of this story is educationally sound,” the report says. “No social benefit can be produced by placing students in classes for which they are unprepared.” It also notes that hundreds of thousands of well-prepared students – “also predominantly black, Hispanic, or poor” – are sitting in the same classrooms as misplaced students and are “equally deserving of a good education.”

The study makes a variety of reform recommendations that would create a more realistic algebra policy, from early intervention and teaching of basic skills to new research that tests the effectiveness of different approaches to math remediation. As things stand, however, the report concludes, the push for universal eighth grade algebra “is creating more problems than it solves.”

“This is not a call to lower expectations for what students can learn,” Loveless emphasizes. “Instead we have to give more students the preparation they need to succeed in algebra. That won’t be achieved by designating an arbitrary grade in which all students are swept into an algebra course, then turning a blind eye to the troubling results.”

Integrated Curriculum Enhances Academics

National Wildlife Federation's program boosts student math scores

"Integrated" or "interdisciplinary" education evolved in the United States from the progressive education movement of the early 20th century. Integrated education features a student-centered approach to teaching that engages students and teachers as co-planners of learning experiences.

In the early 21st century, American educators are being challenged to incorporate integrated curriculum strategies into primary and secondary schools while satisfying ever-stricter national and state educational standards. Controversies in many American school systems now focus on access to meaningful learning experiences to help students keep up with academic standards and perform well on exams, the primary form of standardized measurement.

Environmental education, defined as any educational activity that had a goal of producing citizens who had knowledge of the environment and its problems, as well as a motivation to solve those problems, is rooted in integrated education. It has become a popular and relevant addition to K-12 classrooms throughout the world. One example of an integrated environmental curriculum used in K-12 schools is the National Wildlife Federation's (NWF) Schoolyard Habitat Program (SYHP). The SYHP grew out of an already existing NWF program called the Backyard Wildlife Habitat program that fostered the creation of backyard wildlife habitats by private landowners. In the SYHP, backyard wildlife habitats must also be used as an educational teaching resource.

The ultimate purpose of the SYHP was to connect students, teachers, schools, community, wildlife, and the local environment. SYHP gave teachers opportunities to offer powerful learning tools to improve students' environmental and ecological literacy in addition to the basic principles of core academic subjects. The goal of the SYHP was to create a cross-curricular learning environment while teaching about wildlife habitat and conservation.

To address concerns that using an interdisciplinary and integrated approach to curricula detracts from students' abilities to perform on standardized tests, P.E. Danforth, T.M. Waliczek, S.M. Macey, and J.M. Zajicek recently undertook a study of fourth grade students in Houston, Texas. The objective of the study was to determine if participation in the National Wildlife Federation's Schoolyard Habitat Program (SYHP) had an effect on standardized test scores of fourth-grade students.

Study results showed that students who participated in SYHP had significantly increased math scores when compared with peers from schools that used a more traditional curriculum. Interestingly, few differences were found in comparisons of reading scores of those students taught with SYHP and those taught using a more traditional curriculum. These findings support related studies of students' academic achievement when an interdisciplinary or integrated curriculum, particularly one with an environmental slant, was imposed.

Addressing difference in ethnic group participation, the study authors stated: "This study showed that, although the Caucasian sample of students outperformed others on the standardized tests, the most significant improvement of overall test scores was from improved scores for Hispanic students. However, although there was a statistically significant improvement in math scores between control and treatment schools, the improvement attributable to the SYHP was only evident in the predominantly Caucasian sample school pair, indicating that students in predominantly minority schools do not gain the same level of benefit from this program."

Psychologists Show Experience May Be The Best Teacher For Infants

There's a lot of truth in the old proverb "experience is the best teacher," and apparently it even applies to 10-month-old infants.

Researchers have found that infants who had an opportunity to use a plastic cane to get an out-of-reach toy were better able to understand the goal of another person's use of a similar tool than were infants who had previously only watched an adult use a cane to retrieve a toy.

"Acting on the world is one way infants learn about the world, and only recently have there been studies showing that active, hands-on experience is a more effective way of learning than watching. This study indicates that there is a benefit to actual hands-on experience early in human development," said, Jessica Sommerville, a University of Washington assistant professor of psychology and lead author of a study published in the current issue of the journal Developmental Psychology.

In earlier work, Sommerville, who is affiliated with the UW's Institute of Learning and Brain Sciences, has shown that 10-month-old infants rarely use a tool such as a cane spontaneously. To see if active, hands-on training provided greater understanding of another person's goals when using a tool, the UW researchers divided 51 infants – 26 boys and 25 girls – into three groups for the new study.

Those in one group, the training group, had an opportunity to use a red-striped and a green-striped cane to pull a rubber toy (such as a yellow duck and a purple hippopotamus) toward them on a table. Then the infants were trained in how to use the crook of a cane to retrieve a toy. Finally, they were given two trials to see if they could pull the toy to them all by themselves.

A second group of infants, the observational group, went through the same procedure with one major difference. Instead of using the tools, the infants watched an adult mimic the babies in the first group learning how to use the cane to get a toy.

Finally the infants in those two groups, as well as those in the third, or baseline, group individually watched training trials in which a researcher seated behind a table used one cane to retrieve a toy and then picked up the toy. Then, out of sight of the babies, the location of the toy was switched in four test trials. In two of the trials, the crook of the same cane she had previously used was placed around a new toy In the other two trials, crook of a new cane was placed around the same toy as in the training trials. All of the babies were filmed during the test trials to see how long they watched each trial.

Sommerville said the experiment was designed to see if the infants would play attention to a change in the experimenter's goal of getting a new toy rather than using a different tool. Infants in the observational and baseline groups spent equal amounts of time looking at the new cane and toys trials. But the trained group spent more time looking at the new toy trials, suggesting they understood that the adult was using the cane as a tool.

Even more striking was the fact that infants in the training group who were the most proficient at retrieving a toy – looking at the toy, purposefully pulling the cane to bring the toy to them and then quickly grasping the toy – were more likely to look at the new toy trials for a longer time.

"We speculate that for infants to really understand the tool use event, and, in particular, for them to anticipate upcoming actions and action outcomes while watching the event, they need to be able to perform the tool use sequence themselves," said Sommerville. "Merely watching another person perform the sequence does not appear to be enough for them to understand it.

"We think first-person experience may be particularly important for infants' understanding of an action because we need to anticipate upcoming actions and outcomes to become skillful at producing those actions. It is similar to a good tennis player, who learns to anticipate where the ball will go to on the court before it gets there. We think that once infants become skilled at performing a particular action, they apply their anticipatory skills, gained from that action, to watching similar actions performed by others."

MSU study: Girls Have Harder Time Than Boys Adjusting in Language-Learning Environment

Girls who don’t share a common language may have more difficulty adjusting socially than boys, according to surprising new Michigan State University research looking at language acquisition among young children.

A study of 3- to 6-year-olds attending an international school in Beijing found that in general, girls had more social adjustment problems than boys. The students, representing 16 nationalities, were immersed in both Chinese and English, meaning each child was learning at least one new language.

“In early childhood, we know from previous research that girls are more verbal and more social than boys, generally speaking, but what we found in this study is that girls had a tougher time with social adjustment in the classroom,” said Anne Soderman, MSU professor emeritus of family and child ecology and lead researcher on the project.

The study, published in the latest issue of European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, found that girls who did not understand teachers or classmates at the 3e International School tended to act out or withdraw more than their male peers. Students at the “dual immersion” school are taught in Mandarin during the morning and English in the afternoon.

Soderman, a consultant at the school, studied preschoolers and kindergartners last school year using more than 100 two- to three-hour observations in the classroom and teachers’ perceptions of the children’s social adjustment on the Social Competence Behavior Evaluation scale.

The study, which continues this year, also found that young children overall have a more difficult time learning a second language than many people believe, Soderman said.

“There’s a wide-held perception that if children are very young, learning language is extremely easy for them – that they are like sponges – and that is just not true,” she said. “Their motivations for doing so are very different from those of older children or adults.”

Soderman said it’s important teachers are properly trained to teach a second language and that they make the children comfortable as they go through the often stressful process. A child who acts out may be doing so because of the language barrier, she noted.

“While teachers may see these students as oppositional or significantly withdrawn, sometimes it’s just due to the fact that they really don’t understand what someone wants them to do. They also become frustrated when they aren’t able to communicate their needs and wants to peers and adults,” Soderman said.

By observing the students in a unique language-acquisition environment, she added, researchers are also able to identify valuable teaching strategies for children who differ by gender, culture, age, language ability and experience.

Report: Facing Grim Economy, Most State Legislatures Continue to Prioritize Pre-K

In spite of worsening economic conditions across the country, the majority of states stood firm in their commitment to investing in pre-kindergarten programs, according to "Votes Count: Legislative Action on Pre-K Fiscal Year 2009," a state-by-state analysis of pre-k funding released today by Pre-K Now with support from The Pew Charitable Trusts. This year's "Votes Count" also unveils a new list of the places families would have the best and worst chances of enrolling their children in a high-quality, state-funded pre-k program; ten states make the notable lists.

The report sheds new light on the impact of America's economic downturn and the role of business leaders in legislative support for pre-k funding increases. Motivated by concerns about workforce development and dismal high-school graduation rates, business leaders – along with a growing number of parents, educators and school administrators – are helping Republicans and Democrats join forces to advance pre-k as a prudent, evidence-based economic and education reform strategy. In places as far-flung and politically diverse as Alabama, Michigan, Kansas and Virginia, pre-k support is crossing political aisles.

Additional report highlights:

· Net state investments in pre-k will increase by more than $309 million nationally, to $5.2 billion in the next fiscal year, providing an estimated 46,000 families with new access to state-funded pre-k.

· The District of Columbia and Louisiana join an elite group of seven states already providing or phasing in pre-k for all children: Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, New York, Oklahoma and West Virginia.

· Two states attempted to divert funds earmarked for early childhood programs: Kentucky and Arizona.

· Nine states anticipate increases for pre-k programs funded through their school funding formulas, the most stable source a state can provide.

· For the second year in a row, Iowa had the highest percent increase in pre-k support at 73%.

Two of the dozen states in the "Pre-K Wilderness" (those without a state-funded pre-k program) took important first steps toward establishing quality programs: Hawaii and Rhode Island.

Full report:

http://www.preknow.org/documents/LegislativeReport_Sept2008.pdf

Study Finds Young Children Can Develop Full-Blown OCD

Similar OCD symptoms, characteristics seen in both younger and older children

A new study by researchers at the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center has found that children as young as four can develop full-blown obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and often exhibit many of the same OCD characteristics typically seen in older kids.

The study, published online by the Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, is the largest sample of young children with OCD published to date.

"There have been very few studies focusing on early childhood OCD, even though we know that OCD, if left untreated, can significantly disrupt a child's growth and development and can worsen as the child gets older," says lead author Abbe Garcia, PhD, director of the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center (BHCRC) Pediatric Anxiety Research Clinic. "That's why we need to understand more about OCD in very young children, since early diagnosis and intervention are critical to reducing the severity of symptoms and improving quality of life."

OCD is an anxiety disorder characterized by recurrent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and/or repetitive behaviors (compulsions). Repetitive behaviors such as handwashing, counting, checking, or cleaning are often performed with the hope of preventing obsessive thoughts or making them go away. Performing these so-called "rituals," however, provides only temporary relief, and not performing them markedly increases anxiety. According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, as many as 1 in 200 children and adolescents struggle with OCD.

Garcia and colleagues studied 58 children with OCD between the ages of four and eight, including 23 boys and 35 girls. All children underwent a series of clinical psychological assessments. Approximately 19 percent had been previously treated with medication and 24 percent had received some form of previous psychotherapy for OCD. Twenty percent reported a first-degree family history of OCD. Nearly 22 percent of children had an additional diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and about 20 percent were also diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).

Common obsessions among children in the study included fear of contamination and aggressive/catastrophic fears (involving death or harm to themselves or loved ones), and three-quarters reported having multiple obsessions. Nearly all of the children suffered from multiple compulsive behaviors, with an average of four compulsions per child. Washing, checking and repeating were the most commonly reported compulsions.

A data analysis revealed a number of parallels between young children with OCD and reported samples of their older peers in terms of symptoms and severity. For example, both groups appear to have similar types of obsessions and compulsions, multiple psychiatric diagnoses, and high rates of OCD family history.

"These similarities suggest this is a study sample involving full-blown OCD, as opposed to children who are either in the beginning phases of the illness or only have a partial OCD diagnosis," says Garcia, who is also an assistant professor of psychiatry (research) at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

However, Garcia says they also discovered some important differences between younger and older children with OCD. Although anxiety disorders seem to be a common comorbid diagnosis in both groups, younger children were less likely to have depression, compared to older children. Also, while many experts believe boys are more likely to present with juvenile OCD, the findings from the current study actually indicate a lower boy to girl ratio.

Immigrant Children From Poor Countries Academically Out-Perform Those From Developed Countries

Sociological research also shows that children from small immigrant communities and children of politically motivated immigrants are at educational disadvantage

Immigrants who seek a better life in Western countries may not be able to escape the influence of their home country when it comes to their children's academic performance, according to findings from the October issue of the American Sociological Review.

Sociologists Mark Levels, Jaap Dronkers and Gerbert Kraaykamp find that large-scale influences such as country of origin, destination country and immigrant community play a role in educational outcomes for immigrant children in their host country.

The research, which looked at the mathematical literacy scores of thousands of 15-year-old immigrants to 13 Western nations from 35 different native countries, indicates that economic development and political conditions in an immigrant's home country impact the child's academic success in his or her destination country. Counter-intuitively, immigrant children from countries with lower levels of economic development have better scholastic performance than comparable children who emigrate from countries with higher levels of economic development.

Children of immigrants from politically unstable countries have poorer scholastic performance compared to other immigrant children. "Adult political immigrants are known to face serious negative consequences that can be related to the political situations in their origin countries," said sociologist Mark Levels, junior researcher in the Department of Sociology at Radboud University, Nijmegen, in the Netherlands. "We found that these consequences carry across generations to affect their children's educational chances as well. Our findings therefore have urgent implications in countries that receive a large number of these immigrants."

"Specific educational programs designed to counter the negative effects of political migration may be essential to ensure that the children of politically motivated immigrants achieve their full potential," Levels said.

The study authors also analyzed the impact of policies and political conditions in destination countries. In traditional immigrant-receiving countries such as Australia and New Zealand, they found that immigrant children academically outperformed their counterparts in other Western nations. The authors theorize that this finding is likely the result of restrictive immigration policies that ensure that better qualified adults emigrate (e.g., those with employment and high levels of education), rather than a receptive climate toward immigrants or education policies designed to meet their needs.

The size and socioeconomic characteristics of immigrant communities also played a role in the academic performance of their children. Children from immigrant communities with higher socioeconomic status relative to the native population had higher scholastic performance than those from other immigrant communities. Likewise, children from large immigrant communities were more likely to perform better academically than children from smaller immigrant communities.

Data for this study came from the 2003 wave of the Project for International Student Assessment (PISA) from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the first large cross-national OECD dataset to contain information on the origin of first- and second-generation migrants. The sample was comprised of 7,403 15-year-old immigrant children from 35 different native countries living in 13 destination/host countries. Scholastic performance was based on PISA measurement of mathematical literacy scores.

Science Lessons Learned

The Florida Department of Education has released FCAT Science Lessons Learned: 2003–2006 Data Analyses and Instructional Implications. The publication provides educators with detailed trend analyses of student performance on FCAT Science in Grades 5, 8, and 11. It includes summaries, observations, and statistical trends that provide a comprehensive study of student performance by grade.

“The Lessons Learned publications provide educators with a wealth of knowledge about the past performance of students in a variety of subjects,” said Education Commissioner Dr. Eric J. Smith. “This volume of the publication focuses specifically on science achievement, and offers valuable insight for improving classroom education in this critical subject area.”

In 2007, the Department convened a task force of science curriculum supervisors and specialists, resource teachers, school administrators, and Florida educators to examine and review student performance in the subject of science. The task force used these insights to draft observations and instructional implications to improve science instruction in the classroom.

This is the fourth volume in the Department’s Lessons Learned series. In 2007, the Department published two volumes that analyzed reading and mathematics data for 2001–2005. The first publication was released in 2002 and contained data results in reading and mathematics from 1998–2000 and writing from 1993–2000. The next volume in the set will be FCAT Writing Lessons Learned.

To view the publication, visit http://fcat.fldoe.org/lessonslearned.asp; for more information on the FCAT, please visit http://fcat.fldoe.org/.

Supporting Literacy Across The Sunshine State : A Study of Florida Middle School Reading Coaches

While the literacy skills needed to engage in the economy and public life have grown, the literacy skills of many adolescents remain low—in 2007, only 31 percent of eighth grade students performed at or above the proficient level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a national assessment that informs the public about the academic achievement of elementary and secondary students in the United States.

One popular approach to improving student literacy is using school-based reading coaches—specially trained master teachers who provide leadership for the school’s literacy program and offer on-site and ongoing support for teachers so they can improve the literacy skills of their students. While reading coaches are prevalent in many schools across the nation, there is little empirical evidence regarding the nature of coaching and its effectiveness in changing teacher practice and practically no evidence related to coaching effects on student achievement, particularly at the secondary level.

Given the increasing popularity of coaching and its significant cost—in terms of financial and human resources—there is a critical need for research in this area. In 2006–2007, RAND sought to address this research gap by studying a statewide reading coach program in Florida that is situated within a broader state-led literacy policy, the Just Read, Florida! (JRF) initiative. Established in 2001, the JRF initiative’s goal is that all students read at or above grade level by 2012. One key component of this effort has been the allocation of funds to districts to hire full-time, sitebased reading coaches.

To understand Florida’s reading coach program and its implementation and effects at the middle school level, our study examined the following research questions:

1 How is the reading coach program being implemented by the state, districts, schools, and coaches?

2. What has been the impact of coaching on teachers’ practice, students’ achievement in reading and mathematics, and other outcomes?

3. What features of models and practices for reading coaches are associated with better outcomes?

Full report:

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG762.pdf

Children's Gardening Programs Grow Environmental Stewards

Hands-on experiences encourage future environmentalists

A new generation has come of age since the first celebration of Earth Day in 1970. For this and future generations, environmental awareness is an important and burgeoning point of reference.

Today's urban children live in environments that offer little chance for direct contact with natural ecosystems, and often have to depend on sources such as television and educators for information about ecology and nature. Many children grow up without the valuable personal experiences in nature that are essential to developing a true understanding of environmental issues.

Educators are being challenged to create learning experiences that mold subsequent generations of environmental stewards: young people who are capable of making knowledgeable and conscientious decisions regarding the environment. But classroom teachers who make environmental education experiences a priority often lack resources, funding, time, and ideas about ways to integrate environmental education into classroom learning. Getting children involved in hands-on activities is critical, and gardening just may be the answer.

Youth gardening programs are becoming popular experiential vehicles to help children get "down to earth" and promote environmental awareness in communities and schools. Previous studies have indicated that children who participate in formal gardening programs have shown improvements in science achievement, nutritional choices, self-esteem, and patience. Recently, researchers studied the effect of gardening programs on the development of students' environmental consciousness.

O.M. Aguilar, a graduate assistant in the Department of Horticultural Sciences at Texas A&M University and lead author of the study, explained; "The objectives of the study were to examine an interdisciplinary and experiential approach to environmental education by use of a youth gardening program for third through fifth grade students. In addition, this study evaluated the gardening program's effectiveness on promoting positive environmental attitudes and a high environmental locus of control with children."

More than 80% of children who participated in the study had been previously involved in gardening, either through school programs or informal experiences at home. Test results indicated that children that had any type of experience with gardening had more positive attitudes toward the environment when compared with students that had not gardened. The study showed that hands-on gardening activities are important to the development of environmentally concerned citizens, and that children's involvement in informal gardening experiences has as much impact on their environmental outlook as involvement in formal school-based programs.

Results from the study also found that there were gender and ethnicity differences among children, with girls and Caucasians appearing to benefit more from the gardening curriculum. Researchers suggested that future research should focus on the development of gardening curricula that target the needs and interests of boys and minority children.

Report Shows Need To Expand Physical Activity In Schools

With childhood obesity expanding to epidemic proportions in the United States, educators, researchers and health practitioners are actively seeking to identify effective means of addressing this public-health crisis.

Among the solutions proposed by teachers, researchers and others who met during a roundtable discussion of the issues at a major international conference at the University of Illinois, is the integration of physical activity programming throughout the curriculum in the nation’s schools. In other words, the group recommended that physical activity no longer be confined to the domain of the physical education classes.

“There are a number of steps that can be taken to accomplish this,” said U. of I. kinesiology and community health professor Weimo (pronounced WE-moh) Zhu, the lead organizer of the “Walking for Health” conference. For example, “science teachers can teach the science behind physical activity – theories about energy transfer. Or teachers can combine graphics and arts, going on a walk to look at different parts of the city.”

A summary of the group’s findings and recommendations was compiled in a recently published consensus report titled “We Move the Kids.” The report – along with 10 others by conference participants – was published this past summer in a supplemental volume of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise (Vol. 40, No. 7), the journal of the American College of Sports Medicine. The ACSM was a co-sponsor of the 2005 walking conference with the U. of I.

Zhu called the supplement “the most comprehensive collection of the current literature on walking.”

The “We Move the Kids” roundtable discussion and follow-up report focused on strategies for promoting physical activity, integrating physical activity with other health behaviors in school curricula, and potential barriers to accomplishing these goals.

“There was a general recommendation to go beyond what happens in the P.E. class, and to try to create a healthy environment for the children during school and after school across the curriculum,” said Wojtek Chodzko-Zajko (VOY-tek HODGE-koh-zye-koh), the head of the kinesiology and community health department and a co-author of the roundtable report.

Chodzko-Zajko said the concept of integrating topics across the curriculum is not necessarily a new pedagogical idea.

“It’s very common, especially at the elementary level. So, if there’s a major theme occurring – elections, or some big national event – it’s not unusual for elementary schools to integrate that across the curriculum, in math, geography, social sciences. The idea here is that concepts not only in physical activity, but concepts in wellness, need to be integrated.

“If you talk to the pedagogy people, they say two things: Kids need physical education, where they learn motor skills and activities that are going to set them up to develop the competencies they need to be physically active. But they also need to know how to be regularly physically active.

“So there’s a double mission. The school has a responsibility to educate them in motor skills but also provide students with an opportunity to be active.”

And, Chodzko-Zajko said, “many schools are failing in both regards, without question.”

He noted that while schools are federally mandated to have wellness plans, many – including those within walking distance of the site of the 2005 walking conference – don’t employ teachers trained specifically in physical education.

“That’s amazing, really, when you think of it,” he said.

On a more positive note, U. of I. kinesiology professor Amelia Woods, another co-author of the “We Move the Kids” report who has worked one on one with teachers in Champaign, Ill., elementary schools, said “there are some really innovative physical educators in this community.”

Woods, who is the author of the book “Interdisciplinary Teaching Through Physical Education,” pointed to Wendy Huckstadt at Bottenfield School and Wendy Starwalt at Carrie Busey, both in Champaign. Among the strategies they employ in the classroom are ones recommended in the roundtable report, such as using pedometers and other motivational devices; offering rewards and incentives; and setting individual and group goals.

“Wendy Huckstadt organized a program called the Mileage Club, where students can cover a quarter-mile track before and after school, at recess and sometimes during physical education to earn little plastic foot charms,” Woods said. “Once they cover five miles, they earn a charm. The charms are put on necklaces. Teachers and students all wear them.”

Woods said after school, parents come to pick up their children, and it’s not unusual to see students, parents and teachers all walking around the track after school.

“It’s really awesome,” she said.

Starwalt has done many innovative things as well. “She also incorporates the foot charms in her program, and has introduced ‘Fitness Fridays,’ to try to emphasize the benefits of physical activity,” Woods said.

Chodzko-Zajko noted that one of the major hurdles he and his colleagues face is getting society to abandon old notions of physical education in the schools.

“The challenge, I think, is that people have come to think that children should get their physical activity in P.E. class, and they’re lucky if they have one class a week,” he said. “So, we need to help the kids track their activity using pedometers. But they can’t be expected to get that activity (only) during P.E. class.”

In addition to encouraging the systemic inclusion of physical activity and wellness in the classroom, recommendations in the “We Move the Kids” report include strategies for educators, school administrators, and even parents and communities.

Among them:

• positioning physical-education teachers as role models not just for students, but other teachers as well.

• supporting student participation in sports clubs and other physical-activity opportunities.

• opening gyms, pools, playgrounds and other school facilities to students and community members before and after school hours.

• providing administrators with information about health benefits of physical activity and information about childhood obesity and inactivity.

• offering in-service training to educate non-P.E. teachers on ways to build activity into their curricula.

• creating collaborative partnerships involving teachers, parents, businesses and professional associations that advocate the benefits of physical activity.

• organizing annual health fairs or physical-activity events that emphasize the importance of physically active lifestyles for people of all ages.

'Hurried Child' a Myth; Busy Children Thrive, Says Researcher

Contrary to popular belief, a heavy load of scheduled activities does not increase childrens' levels of stress, says a research team led by the University of Maryland. Instead, the researchers find that very active children thrive emotionally. The study is the first to examine how many children actually lead lives crammed with extracurricular activities.

"The 'Hurried' Child: Myth vs. Reality," a chapter in a forthcoming book, analyzes data collected in a previous nationally representative survey of children and their families and a qualitative study conducted in two medium-sized communities in the American Midwest. The subjects were elementary school-aged children and their families.

"The notion that we're raising a generation of young children stressed-out by overscheduled lives doesn't appear to square with the facts," says University of Maryland sociologist and principal investigator Sandra Hofferth, who directs the Maryland Population Research Center. She conducted the research with a team from Central Michigan University and Oakland Community College. http://www.sph.umd.edu/fmsc/people/fac/shoffreth.html

"Even a high level of structured activities does not appear to be emotionally stressful for children," Hofferth adds. "Highly active children don't differ from children with a more balanced set of activities. Contrary to popular belief, children who are most at risk of being depressed, anxious, alienated, and fearful are those with no activities."

Previous researchers have raised the specter of the "hurried child syndrome," but little has been known about the proportion of children whose extra-curricular activities might be excessive and whether these were associated with child anxiety, alienation, depression, fearfulness and reduced self-esteem, Hofferth said.

FINDINGS

* Only one-quarter of children met the criteria of "hurried" - three or more activities or more than four hours devoted to activities within a two day period; 58 percent were "balanced," pursuing one or two activities, and 17 percent reported no activities. * Children of mothers with more education and higher family incomes were busier. * Compared with children in the balanced group, children with higher activity levels did not have higher levels of stress or lower self-esteem. * Children with no activities were the most withdrawn, socially immature, and had the lowest self-esteem.

The study is available online:

http://www.popcenter.umd.edu/people/hofferth_sandra/papers/Lifebalancech.pdf

Back-To-School Belly-Aches May Be More Than Just Nerves

As students settle back into their desks for another school year, parents, school nurses and pediatricians respond to increased complaints of stomach pain. Many of these seasonal belly-aches are dismissed as nothing more than a case of the back-to-school blues. However, in many instances the pain kids feel is the result of a complicated and often misdiagnosed medical condition that researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital now believe could be helped with the use of medications typically used to treat depression.

“Functional abdominal pain is one of the most common reasons children are referred to our gastrointestinal clinic,” said Carlo Di Lorenzo, MD, chief of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and a faculty member at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. “Each year, when students return to class, we see an increase in the number of patients complaining of abdominal pain.”

Functional abdominal pain is stomach pain that is not associated with any evidence of a physical disease or tissue damage. The condition is estimated to affect as many as 10 percent of children, many of whom also have a history of depression, anxiety, migraine headaches and/or fatigue. The pain also tends to occur more frequently during times of stress and anxiety, including during school, sports and other activities. Although the cause of the pain isn’t clear, the pain itself is very real.

“It really does hurt, and these kids really do suffer. Their parents suffer too, because they are often terribly worried that something very serious may be wrong and they see how the symptoms can interfere with the child’s life,” said John Campo, MD, chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and a pediatrician at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. “We know that as a group, these kids miss more school than unaffected kids. They don’t do as well in school, either.”

Dr. Campo, Dr. Di Lorenzo and investigators at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital are now looking into ways to give kids some relief from the chronic pain. Currently, patients are taught coping techniques, such as relaxation training and guided imagery, to help manage the pain. Now researchers believe the use of medications, traditionally used as antidepressants, may help lessen the pain, or prevent it altogether.

Clinical trials are underway at Nationwide Children’s Hospital to test the effectiveness of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in the treatment of functional abdominal pain. SSRIs affect the handling of serotonin in the body.

“People have thought about serotonin as being important in anxiety and depression,” said Dr. Campo, also a member of the faculty at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. “While that’s true, what’s really interesting is that 95 percent of our body’s serotonin is in our intestinal track.”

Serotonin transmits messages of pain to the brain and the local nervous system in the stomach. Researchers hope that changing the way the body handles serotonin may help ease functional abdominal pain. So far, a type of SSRI, known as citalopram, has shown promise. In a preliminary study of the medication, citalopram appeared to ease abdominal pain in approximately 80 percent of cases, but Dr. Campo stresses that more research is needed.

Doctors recommend that children with recurrent or persistent abdominal pain be checked out by a doctor. Medical treatment should be sought immediately if a child experiences blood in vomit or bowel movements, fevers, weight loss or persistent vomiting.

Although functional abdominal pain tends to be more common in girls (especially after puberty), it affects both boys and girls. It often develops during two peak times in a child’s development: between 4 and 6 years of age or later in life, during late childhood or early adolescence.

Behavioral Programs Help Obese Children Manage Their Weight

Obese school-age kids and teens can lose weight or prevent further weight gain if they participate in medium- to high-intensity behavioral management programs, according to a new report released today by HHS’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Children in the medium- to high-intensity behavioral management programs studied met for more than 25 hours, usually once or twice a week, for 6 months to 12 months. Effective programs included techniques to improve dietary and physical activity habits, with some featuring strategies such as goal setting, problem solving and relapse prevention.

Researchers found that after completing weight management programs, obese children would weigh between 3 pounds and 23 pounds less, on average, than obese children not involved in such programs. Among those enrolled, the weight difference would be greatest among heavier children as well as in those enrolled in more intensive programs. Researchers also found that weight improvements could be maintained for up to a year after the program ended.

“Effective prevention is the best way to stem the childhood obesity epidemic, but we also have to find effective and healthy ways of helping our children and teens who already are obese get to a healthier weight,” said AHRQ Director Carolyn M. Clancy, M.D. “AHRQ’s new evidence report helps identify possible solutions.”

About 17 percent of U.S. children and teenagers are obese, meaning they have a body mass index (a measure of weight adjusted for the height, age and sex of a child) at or above the 95th percentile for their age and sex. For example, a 16-year-old girl who is 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 168 pounds or more is considered obese. Obese children and adolescents are at higher risk for asthma, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, sleep apnea and other weight-related medical problems. They may also suffer psychological harm from being stigmatized because of their appearance.

“Obese children and their families may be discouraged about their weight, but our review found there are programs out there that can help kids to either gain weight more slowly as they grow or, where appropriate, lose weight,” said Evelyn Whitlock, M.D., M.P.H., Associate Director of the AHRQ-supported Oregon Evidence-based Practice Center at Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Health Research in Portland that produced the report.

In a study of one high-intensity, 12-month program reviewed by the researchers, obese children 8 to 16 years old gained less than 1 pound on average, compared with obese kids the same age who gained nearly 17 pounds during the same time period. AHRQ’s report found that intensive, health care-based programs generally had greater effects than school-based programs. For example, the report found that obese 12-year-olds in a medium- to high-intensity health care program would weigh 17 to 18 pounds less than their obese peers. In contrast, children enrolled in school-based programs would end up weighing only 4 pounds less than their obese peers.

The report also showed that adding prescription drugs to a behavioral weight management program helped extremely obese adolescents lose weight. However, no studies evaluated maintenance of weight loss after drug treatment ended.

The two primary drugs reviewed were sibutramine (Meridia), which is an appetite suppressant, and orlistat (Xenical), which helps block fat absorption. In one 12-month study, adolescents taking sibutramine as part of a weight management program lost an average of 14 pounds, compared with a 4.2-pound weight gain among those who took a placebo. In another trial, adolescents who took orlistat as part of their weight management program gained an average of 1.2 pounds, compared with their peers who took a placebo and gained nearly 7 pounds.

While there were no reported harms from behavioral intervention alone, there were side effects from prescription drugs. These included mild increases in heart rate or blood pressure from the use of sibutramine. Among those taking orlistat, up to one-third reported abdominal pain, oily spotting or fecal urgency; 9 percent reported fecal incontinence.

The researchers also reviewed the effectiveness of weight-reduction surgery on morbidly obese adolescents who had a BMI of 41 or greater. Although the evidence is limited, results suggest moderate to substantial weight loss. The surgery can resolve weight-related medical problems such as sleep apnea and asthma. However, greater short-term risks are associated with surgery, and few cases have been followed more than 1 year.

The new report, Effectiveness of Weight Management Programs in Children and Adolescents, is available at http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/tp/chwghttp.htm.

Independent Audit Gives GA Tests High Marks

An independent audit of the Georgia's grade 3-8 science and mathematics tests shows that the exams were well-aligned with state's curriculum.

The study was conducted by edCount, LLC in order to determine how well the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests in science and mathematics, grades 3-8, were aligned to the state's new curriculum, the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS).

"The findings for the GPS and the Georgia statewide assessments in Mathematics and Science in grades 3 through 8 can be described as excellent and indicate that the state has established clear expectations for its assessments via its Content Descriptions, blueprints, and item-writing specifications," reads the report, authored by Dr. Ellen Forte and Dr. Pamela Paek.

Validation that assessments are aligned to the state curriculum is required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The State Board of Education approved a $62,075 contract with edCount LLC in June.

Full report:

http://public.doe.k12.ga.us/DMGetDocument.aspx/GA_alignment%20report.pdf?p=6CC6799F8C1371F6E4C7B8C1D37CB694E9991FF868A9814298885AE29E5904AF&Type=D

DataLab

DataLab, a new website from the Institute of Education Sciences' National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), puts a wide range of survey data collected by NCES at your fingertips. Whether you want a quick number or an in-depth look at education data, the tools in the DataLab are designed to do both.

QuickStats, available now, is a guided table generator that allows users to produce a table with ease. Designed for those who are new to NCES data, or those who wish to answer basic questions -- what percent of college students are from low-income families? what percent of adults are taking coursework outside of the traditional college setting? what are the teaching challenges most often cited by public school teachers? -- QuickStats provides easy access to frequently used variables in many NCES studies of students, teachers, schools, and postsecondary institutions.

PowerStats, available in the spring of 2009, will permit users to produce complex tables and to run regressions, and to draw upon thousands of variables from many NCES studies. Like its predecessor the NCES DAS, Powerstats will allow for many kinds of regression analyses, including weighted least squares and logistic regression.

To view the site, please visit:

http://nces.ed.gov/datalab/

“Daylight saving time cause brain damage”

Jeff Sagarin, a Bloomington math wizard who also does computer sports rankings for USA Today, and John Gaski, a marketing professor at the University of Notre Dame, examined 10 years of data from Indiana high schools from 1996 to 2006, before daylight saving time was adopted statewide.

Their study, expected to released later this month, compared schools in counties that then observed daylight saving time with those that did not, and -- after taking into account socioeconomic factors that can affect scores -- Sagarin and Gaski found SAT scores were about 16 points lower in areas that switched time.

"These results can be considered substantively significant, even startling and provocative," Sagarin and Gaski wrote.

They attribute the reduced scores to such things as sleep disruption and interruptions in the body's natural "circadian rhythm," as students begin school in the dark.

"Starkly expressed, DST appears to cause brain damage," they boldly assert.

A spokeswoman for the Indiana Department of Education said it would not comment on a study it had yet to see.

School Vending Machines Dole Out Excess Calories, Fat

Despite efforts to include more healthy choices at schools, standard offerings from vending machines – including fruit juices – are giving students more calories than they need.

Recent figures from the HEALTHY Study, a nationwide effort led by Temple University to curb obesity and type 2 diabetes in middle school students, found vending machines beverages had added sugars, high calorie 100 percent fruit juices, and snacks over 200 hundred calories.

The data will be presented at The Obesity Society's annual meeting in early October.

"Contrary to common belief, fruit juice is not a healthy snack, if drunk in excess. It should be limited to about 6 ounces per day, but it's common to see more than one serving in a bottle," said Amy Virus, RD, LDN, senior health services coordinator for the HEALTHY Study from the Center for Obesity Research and Education at Temple University.

"Changes made to the vending machines in schools will help reduce excess calories taken in by school kids," she said

Data from 42 schools from seven cities showed 75 percent of them had vending machines. Of those machines, 83 percent sold beverages only and 17 percent sold snack foods only.

The most prevalent beverages available in vending machines were added sugar beverages (39 percent) and 100 percent fruit juice (23 percent). The most prevalent snacks available were reduced fat chips (22 percent), regular baked goods (16 percent), cereal bars (14 percent) and low fat ice cream (14 percent). Nutritional content was also collected for all of the items.

Overall, the energy content of beverages ranged from 0 calories for water and 325 calories for added sugar drinks, and snacks were between 25 calories for low fat ice cream item to 480 calories for baked goods.

"The program's goal is to ultimately remove all juice and sugar added beverages, offer water instead and eliminate candy from vending machines," said Virus, who is also president of the Pennsylvania Dietetic Association.

As a starting point, the HEALTHY study has set a limit of 200 calories for vending machine snacks for its participating schools. In addition, the program also plans to improve the total food environment, including cafeteria meals, a la carte, vending machines and student stores. The study also includes physical education and health classes.

Duke Researchers Show Reading Can Help Obese Kids Lose Weight

It's no secret that reading is beneficial. But can it help kids lose weight? In the first study to look at the impact of literature on obese adolescents, researchers at Duke Children's Hospital discovered that reading the right type of novel may make a difference.

The Duke researchers asked obese females ages 9 to 13 who were already in a comprehensive weight loss program to read an age-appropriate novel called Lake Rescue (Beacon Street Press). It was carefully crafted with the help of pediatric experts to include specific healthy lifestyle and weight management guidance, as well as positive messages and strong role models.

Six months later, the Duke researchers found the 31 girls who read Lake Rescue experienced a significant decrease in their BMI scores (-.71%) when compared to a control group of 14 girls who hadn't (+.05%), explained Alexandra C. Russell, MD, a fourth-year medical student at Duke who led the study and presented the findings at the Obesity Society's annual scientific meeting.

"As a pediatrician, I can't count the number of times I tell parents to buy a book that might provide useful advice, yet I've never been able to point to research to back up my recommendations," says Sarah Armstrong, MD, director of Duke's Healthy Lifestyles Program where the research took place. "This is the first prospective interventional study that found literature can have a positive impact on healthy lifestyle changes in young girls."

Obesity is becoming more prevalent in children, according to the CDC, which reports that 16 percent of children ages 6 to 19 are overweight or obese, a number that has tripled since 1980. Researchers are looking at a variety of ways to help kids stay healthy, lose weight and be more active, but Armstrong says, "most don't work very well. The weight loss options that are effective typically involve taking powerful medications with side effects, or require permanent surgical procedures."

While the BMI decrease attributed to the book is small, Armstrong says any decrease in BMI is encouraging because BMI typically increases in children as they grow and develop. That's okay as long as it follows a normal, progressing curve. In overweight kids, however, BMI usually increases more rapidly. "If their BMI percentile goes down, it means they are they are either losing weight or getting tall and not gaining weight. Both are seen as positive indicators in kids who are trying to lose weight," she explains.

The idea that a book can positively influence weight loss and decrease BMI is "encouraging because it's fairly easy to implement," she added. "And it's a welcome addition to a world where there aren't a lot of alternatives."

National Study Evaluates Playground Equipment-Related Injuries

Schools have opened their doors this fall and the sounds of children echo from surrounding playgrounds. While children’s activities on playgrounds can benefit their psychosocial and physical development as well as combat problems such as childhood obesity, these activities are not risk-free.

A new study from researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio found that more than 213,000 children under 18 years of age are treated each year in hospital emergency departments in the United States for playground-related injuries. The number of injuries remained consistent across the 10-year study period. The study is now available in the electronic issue of Clinical Pediatrics.

“Although playground guidelines and standards exist, the consistently high numbers of injuries we are seeing in our emergency departments show that unsafe playground conditions remain and pose risk for severe injury,” said study co-author Gary Smith, MD, DrPH, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and an associate professor of pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. “Our study findings underscore the importance of strengthening current standards and increasing our efforts to prevent these injuries.”

Other key findings in the study include: -Injuries occurred most frequently on climbers (36 percent), followed by swings (30 percent) and slides (20 percent).

-The majority of injuries occurred to children between 5 and 12 years of age and injuries occurred equally among boys and girls.

-The most commonly injured body parts were the upper extremities – which included the upper and lower arm, shoulder, elbow, wrist, hand and fingers (45 percent), followed by the head (15 percent) and face (13 percent).

-The most common types of injuries included fractures (35 percent), bruises (20 percent), cuts (20 percent) and sprains and strains (11 percent) with more than three-fourths of these injuries occurring as the result of a fall.

-Compared with other mechanisms of injury, falls were significantly associated with fractures, and fractures accounted for over 90 percent of the injuries among children who needed to be admitted to the hospital as the result of a playground equipment-related injury.

The Center for Injury Research and Policy is CDC’s newest Injury Control Research Center (ICRC) and it is working to better understand pediatric and adolescent injuries.

“When science and the community come together, we can help our children play safely whether they are at school or in sports areas or around the home,” said Dr. Ileana Arias, director of CDC's Injury Center. “We want our children to exercise to stay healthy, and it’s a good idea if parents check the play area for safety hazards before their children start to play.”

The Center for Injury Research and Policy recommends the following: -Make sure there is a shock-absorbing surface under and around the play equipment.

Remove or close open “S” hooks that could cause an injury.

-Check for spaces where children can get their head caught.

-Make sure platforms and ramps have guardrails for barriers.

-Remove any trip hazards.

-Never attach ropes, jump ropes, clotheslines, or pet leashes to playground equipment.

-Have children remove their bike helmets before entering the playground. Strangulation can occur if either the straps or the helmet gets caught on playground equipment while the child is wearing the helmet.

Predictors of Level of Voice in Adolescent Girls: Ethnicity, Attachment and Gender Role Socialization

published online in October in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence (http://www.springerlink.com/content/t3748131453p7133/),

This study looks at an ethnically diverse group of 108 14-year-old girls to find out what gives some young women the strength to be open and honest - and why others keep their thoughts and feelings to themselves, resulting in lower "levels of voice."

"Lower level of voice means someone speaks with a less authentic voice," said Theran. "In interactions with others, they may not say, 'Look, we have a problem,' since they are worried about threatening a relationship. Actually negotiating a conflict indicates a higher level of voice."

Some researchers have said lack of voice is a feminine characteristic. But the results from Theran's participants, who rated themselves on scales of highly feminine and highly masculine traits, was not consistent with that theory.

"Being more feminine is not a predictor of lower levels of voice," Theran said. "Being feminine doesn't mean you are not able to speak your mind."

Girls like those in Theran's study, just entering puberty, face a challenging set of circumstances. Research shows they are at risk for lower self-esteem, depression and poor body image. At the same time, they are maturing cognitively and discovering new opportunities to grow and express themselves. The struggle between fitting in and finding oneself can be difficult to manage. So how can you remain authentic in relationships? The solution, Theran said, is bringing these issues out into the open.

"You socialize girls from an early age to talk about their feelings openly and honestly, and you continue to do that," she said. "For example, you can find a nice way to say, 'You hurt my feelings,' rather than to allow a problem to fester."

Interestingly, two-thirds of Theran's subjects were from ethnic minorities, allowing her to focus on traditionally less-studied groups. She found that in a school setting, for example, African-American girls had a higher level of voice than Caucasian girls. Moreover, being part of the ethnic majority also contributes to a higher level of voice.

Level of voice, Theran found, is also affected by the attachment quality of a girl's relationship with her parents. A girl feels freer to express herself with authority figures when she has a solid relationship with mom and dad.

It's important for girls to value themselves, Theran said, and to feel free to express themselves honestly.

"Otherwise, their relationships become less authentic, and everyone suffers because the relationship suffers," she said.

The study is published online in October in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence (http://www.springerlink.com/content/t3748131453p7133/),

About College Admission Tests

To address increasing public concern about standardized admission tests and their greater importance in undergraduate admission over the past decade, the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) convened a Commission on the Use of Standardized Tests in Undergraduate Admission, which issued its report after a year-long study.

Among the principal findings:

· Despite their prevalence in American high school culture, college admission exams—such as the SAT and ACT—may not be critical to making good admission decisions at many of the colleges and universities that use them. While the exams, used by a large majority of four-year colleges and universities to make admission decisions, provide useful information, colleges and universities may be better served by admission exams more closely linked to high school curriculum. There are tests that, at many institutions, are more predictive of first-year and overall grades in college and more closely linked to the high school curriculum, including the College Board’s AP exams and Subject Tests as well as the International Baccalaureate examinations.

· What these tests have in common is that they—to a much greater extent than the SAT and ACT—measure knowledge of subject matter covered in high school courses; that there is currently very little expensive private test preparation associated with them, partly because high school class curricula are meant to prepare students for them; and that they are much less widely required by colleges than are the SAT and ACT.

· A possible future direction for college admission tests is the development of curriculum-based achievement tests designed in consultation with colleges, secondary schools, and state and federal agencies. Such achievement tests have a number of attractive qualities. Their use in college admissions sends a message to students that studying their course material in high school, not taking extracurricular test prep courses that tend to focus on test-taking skills, is the way to do well on admission tests and succeed in a rigorous college curriculum.

· Regularly question and re-assess the foundations and implications of standardized test requirements and establish a NACAC Knowledge Center to share the results of research on the validity of tests.

· Understand test preparation and take into account disparities among students with differential access to information about admission testing and preparation; inform the public of all research about test prep and the current consensus that it produces only a 20-30 point gain (on the old 1600 point scale), not the 100 points or more that is conventional wisdom.

· Draw attention to possible misuses of admission test scores at such institutions as the National Merit Scholarship Program, U.S. News & World Report, and bond ratings agencies.

· Establish opportunities for colleges and secondary schools to educate themselves and their staff about the appropriate uses of standardized tests by instituting a NACAC training program for admission counseling professionals

· Understand differences in test scores among different groups of people and continually assess the use of standardized test scores relative to the broader social goals of higher education.

Full report:

http://www.nacacnet.org/NR/rdonlyres/FE4E1899-653F-4D92-8629-86986D42BF5C/0/TestingComissionReport.pdf

Continued Increase in Applications Characterizes College Admission in 2008

As the number of high school graduates grows, so, too, does the number of applications they are submitting to the nation’s four-year colleges and universities, according to the 2008 State of College Admission report by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC).

While the number of students and applications reached another all-time high, the average (mean) acceptance rate for four-year colleges and universities is much the same as it was when such statistics were first measured nationally in the 1980s. The increasing number of applications students submit may contribute to a more complicated admission environment, including increased uncertainty for colleges about who will attend if accepted, more admission strategies aimed at identifying students likely to attend, and greater attention to factors like a student’s interest in attending a college in the admission decision.

NACAC President Kimberly Johnston, Senior Associate Director of Admission at the University of Maine, stated, “College admission has changed a great deal over the past two decades, as uncertainty about whether and where students will get admitted seem to pervade the application process for many students. However, the good news is that there is room for everyone who wants to attend a four-year college in the United States.”

Other trends and information noted in the 2008 report include:

· Continued Increase in Number of High School Graduates: In 2007–08, an estimated 3.3 million students graduated from high school in the United States. The number of high school graduates is expected to peak with a graduating class of 3.33 million in 2008–09, but is not expected to fall below 3.2 million through 2016–17. However, there are wide variations by state and region, and some states are experiencing substantial declines in high school graduates.

· Applications Increase Again: For the third year in a row, approximately three-quarters of four-year colleges and universities reported an increase in the number of applications from the previous year. The number of applications that individual students submit also has continued to increase. Nineteen percent of freshman had submitted seven or more applications for admission.

· Colleges Accept 68 Percent of Applicants: The average selectivity rate—percentage of applicants who are offered admission—at four-year colleges and universities in the United States was 68 percent for Fall 2006. The average institutional yield rate—percentage of admitted students who enroll—was 46 percent.

· Admission Offices Identify Grades, High School Curriculum and Test Scores as Top Factors: The top factors in the admission decision were (in order): grades in college preparatory courses, strength of curriculum, standardized admission test scores, and overall high school grade point average. The application essay and class rank placed fifth and sixth, followed closely by student’s demonstrated interest in attending, counselor recommendations and teacher recommendations.

· Students’ Demonstrated Interest in Attending: Over the past five years, an increasing proportion of colleges and universities have rated a student’s demonstrated interest in attending an institution as a “considerably important” factor in the admission decision. The percentage increased from seven in 2003 (the first year it was included on NACAC’s Admission Trends Survey) to 22 percent in 2007.

· Online Applications Increase: Colleges received 68 percent of all applications for Fall 2007 admission online, up from 58 percent in the Fall 2006 admission cycle.

· Student to Counselor Ratio: According to data from the U.S. Department of Education, in 2004–05, the national public school student-to-counselor ratio was 474:1, including K–12 schools. NACAC survey data indicated an average secondary school student-to-counselor ratio, including part-time staff, of 247:1.

· Why Colleges Revoke Admission Offers: More than one-third (35 percent) of colleges reported that they had revoked and offer of admission during the Fall 2007 admission cycle. A decline in final grades was the most common reason for these retractions, followed by falsification of application information and disciplinary issues. When asked to indicate how likely various disciplinary issues were to result in the retraction of an admission offer, violence was by far the most likely, followed by cheating, drug-related offenses and theft.

· Disclosure of Student Disciplinary Information to Colleges: Nearly three-quarters (74 percent) of secondary schools do not have written policies related to disclosure of disciplinary information to colleges. As general practice, 23 percent of secondary schools reported that they disclose student disciplinary information to colleges, and an additional 39 percent disclose in some cases.

Topics addressed in the full report include high school graduation and college enrollment, applications to college, admission strategies used by colleges and universities, budgets and functions of admission offices, and high school counselor workloads and duties

Full report:

http://www.nacacnet.org/NR/rdonlyres/707611FA-C95D-4025-A8E3-F2CA29A5642F/0/08soca.pdf

Breathing Second Life Into Language Teaching

An international team has developed a wireless virtual reality environment that can help promote language learning and let students practice. The researchers have demonstrated their Collaborative Virtual Reality Environment with Mexican engineering students carrying out listening comprehension practice in English as a foreign language.

Miguel Garcia-Ruiz, Arthur Edwards, and Raul Aquino-Santos of the College of Telematics, at the University of Colima, Mexico, working with Samir El-Seoud of the Princess Sumaya University for Technology, in Amman, Jordan describe their work in detail in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organization.

Virtual Reality is a computer-generated three-dimensional space that is multisensorial, interactive and engaging. Online virtual reality systems such as Second Life have created a parallel world for entertainment, gaming, learning and even commerce. Garcia-Ruiz and colleagues point out that virtual reality could be useful in learning a new language. "Virtual reality is today one of the new frontiers in computer-assisted language learning," they explain, "offering a stimuli-rich environment for language students."

There are various collaborative virtual reality software applications. Of particular interest to educators is the open source Distributed Interactive Virtual Environments (DIVE). This system was developed by the Swedish Institute of Computer Science in the 1990s and can be run on a variety of operating systems, including Linux and Microsoft Windows. DIVE allows users to share a virtual environment over a network, whether that is a local network or the internet.

The system has a three-dimensional graphical interface and users can communicate using voice of internet or text chat with each user represented by a representation of themselves, an "avatar" in the three-dimensional space. Previously, DIVE has been used at the University of Colima to teach medical students about various injuries.

The researchers have created Realtown, a virtual reality environment within a DIVE installation. Realtown has a virtual supermarket, schools, a pharmacy, a bank, etc and background sounds can be enabled to increase the realism. Sounds include traffic noise, children playing, emergency vehicle sirens, and other common environmental noises. "What makes Realtown interesting is that students simultaneously perceive and interpret three different stimuli to help them incorporate their knowledge: visual, auditory and physical," the researchers explain.

Preliminary usability studies have offered positive results for engineering students at Colima practicing their English language comprehension and more detailed assessments are currently underway, the researchers say.

"The potential for the growth of Realtown is substantial," the team concludes, "At present, users only navigate the streets to get from one place to another, as the objective of Realtown is to provide listening comprehension practice and a collaborative platform where users can 'negotiate meaning'. In future, users will be able to enter any of the 40 buildings and interact with intelligent agents, which will provide greater opportunities to actually produce language."

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network has released the most comprehensive report ever on the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students, the 2007 National School Climate Survey. The report is being released in conjunction with the announcement that GLSEN will partner with the Ad Council on a multiyear national public education campaign targeting anti-LGBT language among teenagers.

The survey of 6,209 middle and high school students found that nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT students (86.2%) experienced harassment at school in the past year, three-fifths (60.8%) felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation and about a third (32.7%) skipped a day of school in the past month because of feeling unsafe.

Key Findings of the 2007 National School Climate Survey include:

A Hostile School Climate and the Effects on Academic Achievement:

86.2% of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed, 44.1% reported being physically harassed and 22.1% reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation.

73.6% heard derogatory remarks such as “faggot” or “dyke” frequently or often at school.

More than half (60.8%) of students reported that they felt unsafe in school because of their sexual orientation, and more than a third (38.4%) felt unsafe because of their gender expression.

31.7% of LGBT students missed a class and 32.7% missed a day of school in the past month because of feeling unsafe, compared to only 5.5% and 4.5%, respectively, of a national sample of secondary school students.

The reported grade point average of students who were more frequently harassed because of their sexual orientation or gender expression was almost half a grade lower than for students who were less often harassed (2.8 versus 2.4).

Positive Interventions and Support:

Students in schools with a Gay-Straight Alliance reported hearing fewer homophobic remarks, experienced less harassment and assault because of their sexual orientation and gender expression, were more likely to report incidents of harassment and assault to school staff, were less likely to feel unsafe because of their sexual orientation or gender expression, were less likely to miss school because of safety concerns and reported a greater sense of belonging to their school community.

The presence of supportive staff contributed to a range of positive indicators including fewer reports of missing school, greater academic achievement, higher educational aspirations and a greater sense of belonging to their school community.

Students from a school with a safe school policy that included protections based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression heard fewer homophobic remarks, experienced lower levels of victimization related to their sexual orientation, were more likely to report that staff intervened when hearing homophobic remarks and were more likely to report incidents of harassment and assault to school staff.

Despite the positive benefits of these interventions, only about a third of students (36.3%) reported having a Gay-Straight Alliance at school. The same number of students (36.3%) could identify six or more supportive educators and only a fifth (18.7%) attended a school that had a comprehensive safe school policy.

The percentage of states with comprehensive safe school laws is also low. Only 11 states and the District of Columbia protect students from bullying and harassment based on sexual orientation, and only seven states and DC protect students on the basis of gender identity/expression. The report found that having a generic law that did not include specific categories was essentially as effective for LGBT students as having no law at all.

GLSEN's biennial National School Climate Survey is the only national survey to document the experiences of students who identify as LGBT in America's secondary schools. The 2007 survey includes responses from 6,209 LGBT students between the ages of 13 and 21 from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Data collection was conducted through community-based groups, online outreach, and targeted advertising on the social networking site MySpace.

Full report:

http://www.glsen.org/binary-data/GLSEN_ATTACHMENTS/file/000/001/1290-1.pdf